The future of history of philosophy (an editorial)

Philosophy "The Future of the History of Philosophy" (Thematic issue)

Abstract

This paper presents the key theses summarizing the main points of the articles written for the thematic issue «The Future of History of Philosophy». The authors of the articles are representatives of the Ural School of History of Philosophy —V.B. Kulikov, A.V. Pertsev, and E.S. Cherepanova, who were students of K.N. Lyubutin, and also the well-known expert on Plato’s works from St. Petersburg R.V. Svetlov. Each of these authors finds their own way to pose the question of the future of the history of philosophy in the context of unprecedented dynamism of sociocultural systems. For example, R.V. Svetlov explores the situation of ʽrediscoveringʼ of the history of philosophy within the framework of analytic philosophy, which has become a philosophical tradition. On the other hand, the history of philosophy itself could not remain unchanged under such impacts. Critical rethinking of established ideas is commonplace of contemporary research in the area of history of philosophy. R.V. Svetlov challenges the well-established view that Platonism is based on the idea of the dominance of reason in human nature. On the contrary, Plato’s conception appears to be an account of the fundamental incompleteness and uncertainty of man’s position in being. A.V. Pertsev demonstrates the value of attempts to reconstruct the holistic world of famous philosophers on the basis of the whole set of documents recording the circumstances of their life using the example of Friedrich Nietzsche. Such research is an effective means of restoring the integral human in our atomized contemporaries. E.S. Cherepanova explores the philosophical aspects of the work of Austrian writer G. Broch. She shows the inhumanity and anti-intellectualism of the positivist alternative to bourgeois society. The ʽbusinesslikeʼ nature of its individuals saves them neither from economic upheaval nor from the horrors of another world war. V.B. Kulikov points to the potential of dialogical perception of Buber’s philosophical anthropology in periods of human ʽhomelessnessʼ, when a person realizes the homelessness of this world and becomes problematic, becomes a question for himself. The question each of us has to answer.