ABSTRACT
The form and content of materialism in Western thought, depending on the epoch and the personalities of its proponents, and on the historical and cultural circumstances, vary considerably. In the long and varied history of Western materialism from the ancient Greeks to the present, the so-called Dark Ages and on up to the Renaissance is a period of relative hiatus. The early Slavophils were deeply concerned about German idealism and materialism, which they viewed as they did Western culture in general, from their unshakable base of Slavophil Orthodoxy. In their works they refer to the relationship between Hegelianism and the presumed end of modern rationalism, and in this they were somewhat in agreement with Feuerbach, who saw Hegelianism as the ultimate stage in the evolution of modern rationalism. Rationalism, empiricism, materialism, and science in the Western tradition are all of pre-Christian origin, and are the product of man’s faculties thus is alien to Christian revelation.
