In the French Personalism of Jean Lacroix and Emmanuel Mounier and in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant

The article is devoted to the study of the doctrine of society and the social ideal in the French personalism of Jean Lacroix and Emmanuel Mounier and in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The research is carried out through a comparative analysis of the socio-philosophical, ethical, as well as religious-philosophical foundations of French personalism and Kantian philosophy. The socio-philosophical concept underlying both the personalist and Kantian teachings on society is an integral synthesis of two ideas. First of all, this is the idea of the value of human personality itself. Secondly, this is the idea of the relationship between the personality form of human existence and his social format of existence. Based on this concept, personalist philosophers proclaim the principle of ‘immersiveness’ as an effective way of social development, which consists in improving forms of interpersonal communication based on cultivating the ideals of active love (‘involvement’), social solidarity and mutual responsibility of all members of society. In Kant’s philosophy, the antagonistic principle of ‘unsociable sociability’ is proclaimed as the main way of social development, based on the idea of the creative role of social contradictions and efforts to overcome them. Both the personalists and Kant have two ideological principles at the heart of the doctrine of the social ideal. First of all, this is the principle of the direct influence of the moral improvement of each personality on the level of social development of society as a whole. Secondly, it is the principle of reliance on the religious and philosophical foundations of social progress. The idea of the moral development of members of society is enriched by the religious and philosophical foundations of social progress and acquires the necessary semantic depth in this combination. However, if the personalists choose spiritual communion with the personal divine being of the Holy Trinity as the religious and philosophical basis of social progress, then for Kant the religious and philosophical basis of social progress is the concept of moral religion developed by him, based on the principles of autonomous ethics.