THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF RUSSIAN RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

The basic epistemological principles of the Russian religious and philosophical thought - the principle of the unity of faith and knowledge, and the principle of symbolic realism as the unity of apophatic and the cataphatic knowledge of God - contributed to the enrichment of philosophy by the elements of contemplation becoming a methodological framework that assisted in the solution of the problems concerning the possibility of mystical experience, the reality of conscious communication with the absolute, human final destiny, and the possibility of theosis. Overcoming the antinomian dissociation of faith and knowledge, symbol and reality Russian philosophers moved towards their optimal combination.