Bulgakov on the Neo-Kantian folly of splitting apart practical and theoretical reason

“In reality, neither one exists independently, and there is only a living unity of theoretical-practical reason. In the meantime they have something like two ‘‘desks,’’ and each deals with specific ‘‘files’’: the ‘‘theoretical reason file’’ and the ‘‘practical reason file.’’ Further, what turns out to be irresolvable on the desk of theoretical reason is simply conveyed to the desk of practical reason, and what could not beverified at the first desk is verified at the second. This is the crux of contemporary neo-Kantian scholasticism, generated by Kant with his ‘‘Copernican act,’’ which consisted in the murder of the living, active I and the dissection of its corpse into two parts—with the aim of later assembling a whole body from the two dead halves. Kant’s pure reason belongs not to the living I incarnated in the body, and connected through the body with the entire universe, but to an anatomical concoction of cognitive forms, a skeleton composed of bones and tendons. Practical reason knows nothing of what theoretical reason is doing; it is theoretically deaf and blind, but only because of this can it be practical reason.”