Covert polemics can be found both in personal assessments of Immanuel Kant's ideas and in artistic works in the works of Maxim Gorky. In «The Story of a Novel» and some other texts, there is an ideological rejection of some aspects of Kant's philosophy. Differences with the thinker in how he viewed man, his place in the world and society had a great influence on the writer's work, shaping the direction of the works.