PHILOSOPHY OF PRESENCE: SKOVORODA AND HUMBRECHT (ENLIGHTENMENT AND POSTMODERNITY). DESCRIPTION OF THE CONDITIONS AND POSSIBILITIES OF THE EVENT OF THOUGHT TO INFLUENCE THE CONTEXTS

Abstract

The current research presents a phenomenological description of the experience of thought as an experience of free self-determination of a philosopher through a combination of his professional activity, life circumstances and texts as projects of self-actualization of a philosopher in his attempts to find himself and to declare his presence in the world. Through sophisticated overlaps and intersections of Work, Speech, and Life as appropriated by a philosophizing person, this stands as an act of perceiving himself, the past and present without mediation; to reveal his presence in this world against depriving himself of a chance to carry out his own philosophical act. Philosophical description is reckoned a description of the cognitive situation, where a philosophizing person finds himself. Here description coincides with self-description, the existential tension of the thinking process in the experience of self-realization. A philosophical text conveys a state experienced by its creator, things that happened to him (Merab Mamardashvili); it testifies to his presence in the world and for the world. Phenomenology, as its founder Edmund Husserl claims, must be “descriptive psychology” in the first place, thus bringing us to “things themselves”, and only subsequently to transcendental phenomenology. The personalities picked to illustrate this claim are not accidental, as they prove a possibility to bridge receptions of Western philosophy and national icons, even across time and space, becoming symbols of this connection. Skovoroda and Humbrecht are representatives of the culture of presence. Their thoughts and statements, suggest describing things as they are. In such a situation, an important factor is the way of communicating information about oneself, about culture and time by a philosopher present in the world, proving his ability to invent the structures of narration about himself and his presence, to manifest the image of «narrative identity» (Paul Ricoeur), necessary for the self-formation of a person. The philosophy of presence refers to yet another story: how philosophy defines its attitude to the world via its presence in the world, determining its role in the relations with the world, which it is forced to enter. At the moment of text creation, the non-empirical Self of a philosopher becomes a matter (text), in this sense, a philosophical work is performative, aimed at the implementation of thought, which revealed itself for that purpose, namely to influence the contexts (society, history, and culture). The emphasis is placed on the formation of the philosophical logic of modern culture and the principles on which it is formed, which enables a broader understanding of logic and of contemporary rationality.