The Philosophy of Generation of 1960s as a Social Phenomenon

Abstract

In its main part, the article is devoted to the Soviet philosophy of generation of the 1960s. It begins with a preface, which regards belonging to a generation as a sign of fate, and ends with an afterword, according to which the past is not judged. Belonging to a generation is the seal of time on individual destinies. The author belongs to the generation of Soviet philosophers who directly followed the sixties and got lost in their shadow. It shows how they are seen from this close distance. They personified the renewal of philosophy in the Soviet Union in the second half of the 20th century. It is shown that it began at the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow University in the form of opposition of young researchers to the dogmatically minded professors, that its origins were two outstanding thinkers – Evald Ilyenkov and Alexander Zinoviev, who set the speculative-dialectical and scientific-analytical lines of development of philosophical research with their work. The philosophy of the sixties was humanistically oriented and emerged as a decisive break with the philosophical dogmatism of the 1930s and 1940s; it was the theoretical justification for the process of de-Stalinization that had begun in the country. It was represented by many original theories of thought and action, inspired by the ideas of the sovereignty of the human mind and the individually responsible existence of the individual. The philosophy of the generation of the 1960s remained loyal to the teachings of Marx and the socialist ideal, existed, as it were, in parallel with official orthodoxy, with its internal rejection.