Sergei Hessen, Neo-Kantian Dedicated to Professor Andrzej Walicki

Abstract

This paper commemorates thepresentation of the honorary doctorate, in May2001 by the University of Łódź, toProfessor Andrzej Walicki. On this occasion,the Honorary Graduate delivered a lecturedevoted to his first philosophy teacher –Sergej Iosifovich Hessen, a prominent RussianNeo-Kantian philosopher and a liberal inmatters social and political. I try to analyzethe main features of Hessen's philosophicalneo-Kantianism, in particular the inevitabilityof a choice between the absolute and therelative both in epistemology and in ethics inthe context of contemporary philosophy.