Abstract

The paper considers the relationship between self-knowledge and education on the material of Skovoroda’s and Fichte’s philosophical and educational explorations. Verification of the methodological statement of the unity of theory and biography is carried out, which finds its confirmation in the cases of both Skovoroda and Fichte. These two figures, despite their opposing positions on religion, embody the contradictory nature of the Enlightenment and the expectations associated with it. First of all, that affects the perspective of the emancipation of human and society both in secular versions and in the projects of renewed religion, with the framework prerequisites for the transformation of the latter proposed by Skovoroda and Fichte. The paper compares approaches by Skovoroda and Fichte to solving the problem of humanizing human nature through self-discovery, carried out on the basis of the improvement of worldview education necessary for the assertion of rational freedom; the complementarity of the concepts of “naturalness” (Skovoroda) and “vocation” (Fichte) is substantiated. The paper reveals the heuristic potential of Skovoroda’s anatomical metaphors as a visualization of the transition from the optics of the visible to the invisible in the formation of a “new person”. The distinction between the visible and the invisible and Christian ethics, according to Skovoroda, form the basic foundations of the educational process, and the Bible is the main textbook and teacher, – while Fichte, on the other hand, proclaims the scholar to be the educator and teacher of humanity. In his views on human, Fichte possesses a position opposite to Skovoroda, rejecting arguments in the spirit of Neoplatonism. His philosophical and educational explorations are focused on the improvement of the human race, which after the Napoleonic wars is reduced to the German nation, whose salvation under the situation of political dependence is proclaimed to be national education based on German culture and language.