Felix Trofimovich Mikhailov’s Search into The Riddle of the Self

Abstract

On April 16th and 17th, 2021, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education (MSUPE), Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education (RAE), the Philosophical Society Dialectic and Culture together with the ANO Institute of Problem Educational Policies Eureka and informational support of the journals Cultural-Historical Psychology and Voprosy Filosofii held an international scientific conference The Riddle of the Self. The scientific conference took place in MSUPE in connection with the 90th anniversary of Felix Trofimivich Mikhailov (1930-2006), Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, Academician of the RAE and the author of the book under the same title. The Riddle of the Self was originally published in 1964 and advocated for a general study of human nature based on the study of cognition, consciousness, and language. This lapidary book was reprinted in 1976 and determined a whole new paradigm of multidisciplinary knowledge of person and personality across various research fields. The focus of the Self of F. T. Mikhailov came into being through his idea of appeal (obrashchenie). This concept is vivid in his works and multi-author books Public Consciousness and Individual Self-consciousness (1990), Self-Consciousness: Mine and Ours (1997), Human as Object and Subject of Medicine (1999), Selected Works (2001), Self-determination of Culture. Philosophical Search (2003), and in multiple scientific articles in the journals Voprosy Filosofii, Philosophical Sciences etc. F. T. Mikhailov viewed appeal as a mechanism of creation, development and transformation of culture, as well as the mechanism of its appropriation in ontogenesis and phylogenesis. According to F. T. Mikhailov, culture is nothing less than an antecedent, process and result of people’s creation of their appeals to each other and themselves, appeals that are essential to their very life. Culture as intersubjectivity of human collectivity is deeply rooted in the fabric of education and determines the appeals of the participants of the educational process. F. T. Mikhailov considered education a meeting point of generations, where different age groups face each other and appeal to each other in a way that generates, reconstitutes and conserves culture. The key to the above-mentioned riddle can be found in the domain of human freedom of thought, feeling and action. And every person can advance the emergence of a free and creative Self, both personal and universal. The conference comprised multiple lines of research into philosophy, culture, communication, psychology and education and made it clear that we are still students of F. T. Mikhailov.