V. N. Ilyin: from unpublished lectures on the history of medieval philosophy

Philosopher, theologian and literary critic Vladimir Nikolaevich Ilyin (1890–1974) taught in 1925–1940 the history of medieval philosophy at St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. Later, based on lectures, he prepared for publication the book «The History of Medieval Philosophy in Connection with General History of Culture, Science and Theology», which remained unpublished, but was preserved in the archival fund of V.N. Ilyin (Archive of Alexander Solzhenitsyn House of Russia Abroad. F. 31). This publication contains one of the lectures by V.N. Ilyin entitled «Problems, origins and ways of medieval philosophy». It gives an idea of the general approach of V.N. Ilyin to medieval philosophy, about his main concept. According to Ilyin, medieval thought of Western Europe was determined by the antinomy between dogma and dialectics. Ilyin divided the history of medieval philosophy into two periods: until the XIII century, the era of the struggle of ideas and active development, and after the XIII century, when scholasticism won, and then fell into decay. V.N. Ilyin considers that two thinkers Thomas Aquinas (around 1225–1274) and Bonaventure (around 1217–1274), their ideological confrontation, are of great importance for understanding the philosophy of the XIII century. Thomas Aquinas won and determined the further development of Western philosophy, but Bonaventure’s ideas about the union of theology and philosophy did not disappear and develop in new philosophical teachings (Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, Henri Bergson, Gabriel Marcel and others). In Ilyin’s opinion, in order to overcome scholasticism and rationalism, which prevailed in Western philosophy, it will necessary to return to the fathers of Church, to Plato and Aristotle. V.N. Ilyin proposed his program, based on the main thesis «Return to the Fathers of the Church as a source of true philosophy», expressed solidarity with V. Gioberty and I.V. Kireevsky.