Culture, Contexts, and Directions in Russian Post-Soviet Philosophy

Abstract

The author examines, historically and theoretically, issues related to the state and current tendencies of post-Soviet Russian philosophy. The accent falls on the meta-philosophical question, ‘what is philosophy?’, or as the Russians often say, ‘what is philosophizing?’. In the Russian case, this question has presently to be handled in a cultural context ridden with a sense of discontinuity following the Soviet collapse. The author sketches some concepts intended to shed light on the nature of the relation between a “philosophical culture” and the wider socio-cultural context in which it is embedded. The model is applied to the case of post-Soviet philosophy in order to see if and to what extent the ‘logic’ of Soviet philosophizing and its place in the Soviet socio-cultural order has affected current philosophical tendencies in Russia, above all at the meta-philosophical level. The author concludes with a summary and commentary of the views of A.S. Akhiezer.