“The Time of My Ideas is Ahead”: The Significance of V.I. Vernadsky’s Axiological Principles for the Methodological Searches of Modern Historical Studies.

Abstract

The article highlights the importance of the following problems: man and the universe, progress and regress, absolute and eternal, reversibility and irreversibility of time, values and meanings, thus turning the reader to V.I. Vernadsky’s historical and philosophical reflections. These categories are an integral part of the methodological apparatus of historical research. Appealing to them, the historian realizes certain principles of historical research. For example, the application of the principle of historicism inevitably implies the involvement of the researcher in the social and cultural context of the studied epoch, which in turn entails a number of problems such as objectivity and subjectivity, spatial and temporal analysis, historical memory, continuity of history, “catching up” and “advancing” historical development, Eurocentrism and so on. Therefore, V.I. Vernadsky’s approaches concerning, first of all, the value-sense understanding of history, the role of man in the surrounding reality, and the prospects for the development of science are not only important for the modern researcher, but can be widely implemented in the methodological practice of modern historical science. The study is based on the sources of epistolary genre enabling to define V.I. Vernadsky’s life and research position, as well as the works of the scientist revealing the process of his scientific search and methodological reflections, including those related to the substantiation of the moral ideal.