The problem of religious experience in pragmatism and Christian phenomenology: W. James and I.A. Ilyin

The article presents a comparative historical and philosophical analysis of the concepts of the religious experience of W. James and I.A. Ilyin. The author reveals the philosophical and methodological limitations of the interpretation of religious experience within the framework of James' philosophy of pragmatism, which abstractly denied the universal, ontological nature of religion, its reduction to the phenomena of subjective psychological being of man. The article shows that, unlike the American philosopher, the Russian thinker I.A. Ilyin sought to reveal the full concreteness of the concept of religious experience as a deeply existential act of interaction between God and Man.