On the phenomenological implications of Semyon Frank's psychological philosophy of the living soul

Alexander Kozin

pp. 75-91

in: Witold Płotka, Patrick Eldridge (eds), Early phenomenology in Central and Eastern Europe, Berlin, Springer, 2020

Abstract

In this chapter, I introduce the philosophy of Semyon Frank. Specifically, I would like to focus on his work that deals with the life of the soul. In comparison to the earlier and later periods of his work, which examines the objective world and the outside of being, respectively, Frank's study of the soul falls into the middle period of his philosophical career, when he actively developed what I consider an analogue of phenomenological psychology. His method, inclusive of some basic phenomenological tenets, is not only so unique as to warrant a study of itself but is also highly suitable for the examination of the soul as a phenomenon grounded in experience. As a result of his examination, Frank presents the soul as an immaterial absolute whole. As such, it governs the subject's "ego" and at the same time is shaped by the subject as an extension of the material world. With this, the living soul is simultaneously constitutive and constituted by the subject, while remaining an independent whole.

Cited authors

Frank Semyon