Jürgen Habermas and Russian Philosophers-Theologians: Dialogue through the Century

Russian philosophers-theologians criticized the criterial foundations of the sociology of religion in the era of the emergence of sociology as a science. They opposed the idea of socialism. Their counter-arguments turned out to be prophetic and the scenario of the development of the socialist society, which they predicted, was fully realized. However, their thoughts were not heard by European and by Soviet scientists especially. Platform of scientific atheism won, and it formed the methodological atheism of the sociology of religion.

A century has passed and Jürgen Habermas had to address again the analysis of the two worldview positions of secular and religious societies in his works. Authors are not going to find out the reasons prompting Jürgen Habermas to return to this analysis. In this presentation, the authors will try to compare the opinion of Russian scientists of the early of the 20th century and the modern scholar of the early of the 21st century Jürgen Habermas’ approach, who is recognized as the world leader in this field of research. The purpose of such a comparative analysis is to understand how the views of the 21st century correlate with the theological platform of the vision of social reality proposed by Russian philosophers-theologians in the early of the 20th century.