From Charles Secretan’s Сorrespondence with Felix Ravaisson. Secretan to Ravaisson

Preface, translation and commentaries

Abstract

The article is dedicated to an unexplored subject in the history of spiritualism in the 19th century and considers two of its prominent representatives – the famous French spiritualist Felix Ravais­son (1813–1900) and the Swiss thinker Charles Secrétan (1815–1895). The author uses not only biographical material, but also such unstudied documents as Secretan’s article on the philosophy of Ravaisson and his letter to him, accidentally discovered by Ch. Devivaise in Ch. Renouvier’s archive. The author shows that the dependence of both philosophers on Schelling was not so much the direct influence of the German philosopher on their thought as an internal relationship with his thought. The article shows that Ravaisson’s emphasis on the aesthetic component of understanding the world as the self-development of the spirit contrasts with the moral optics of Secrétan’s meta­physics. In addition, the philosophy of Ravaisson was formed on the basis of the Christianly rethought metaphysics of Aristotle, while the philosophy of Secrétan has as its starting point the moral and religious thought of Kant. However, the pathos of the universal striving for the best, the highest, the excellent on the path of sacrificial service and self-giving indissolubly unites these spiritualist philosophers. In the Appendix to the article, the author gives a translation of the men­tioned letter of Secrétan to Ravaisson.