The Ways of Investigating Latent Western Discourse in the Soviet Philosophy

Abstract

The article deals with the ways of investigating Soviet philosophy. It is noted that this phenomenon, in addition to the ideological plots, contains latent Western discourses. Therefore, we emphasize the need to search for “non-traditional” historical and philosophical methods and tools for studying Soviet philosophy. The situation with the research of the Soviet philosophy is quite dubious. On the one hand, there are a large number of historical and philosophical studies devoted to this period. However, on the other hand, these studies are partly unsystematic. Sometimes they strongly resemble memoirs, which makes them uninformative. This can be explained in many ways, primarily – through the repression of such traumatic experience and the reluctance to set the record straight. Due to this, the Soviet period in the history of Ukrainian philosophy is not sufficiently researched. Instead, it is obscure and mythologized. The available investigations indicate either the lack of philosophizing as such in the Soviet period, or the presence of latent Western discourse in the official ideological philosophy. The first group of studies is erroneous when eliminates the phenomenon of “Soviet philosophy” from the historical and philosophical research. The second group represents a mistake trying to detect this Western discourse using traditional historical and philosophical methods and with the help of customary means. Instead, confirmation of this thesis requires both the use of more precise philosophical optics and alternative historical and philosophical methods.An appeal to the Soviet philosophical sources without special preliminary training would rather conceal their meaning than reveal it. Researching various kinds of archives, notes, and memoirs constitutes a much more interesting pursuit. Moreover, it has broader prospects for further application. For example, it can trace the origins of concepts, as well as the way of their concealment in the traditional Soviet mythology and plots.