At the turn of the 20th century Russian philosophical thought acquired new vitality through a polemical encounter with German neo-Kantianism. The central issue of the polemic concerned the nature of philosophy. The group of Russian thinkers gathered around Puf publishing house developed a new realist approach, while con testing the reduction of philosophy to methodology actually effected by German neo-Kantians. Confronting philosophy's reduction to methodology, Russian thinkers maintained that knowledge has an ontological and metaphysical basis. Puf 's thinkers, different as they were, unanimously maintained that a gradual reduction of philosoph ical ontology to methodology resulted from Kant's emancipation of epistemology from metaphysics. The Russian argument with Kant and neo-Kantians at first took the form of a polemic between the religio-philosophical publishing house Puf (1910-1917) and the neo-Kantian journal Logos (191