Alexandra Kulik

Ideas concerning chaos that were expressed by the philosophers of the Enlightenment are singled out and systematized. Particularly, it is shown that there were philosophers of the Enlightenment who first got the idea that chaos plays an important role in human culture, having appeared in the mythology of many nations, and not only in Ancient Greek’s one. It is proven that philosophers of the Enlightenment came to the conclusion that person’s acknowledgement of world’s chaotic nature engenders complex feelings that could do with serious changes of motivations in ethical sphere. It is pointed out that philosophers of the Enlightenment (Paul­Henri d’Holbach and tienne Bonnot de Condillac) did a lot for studying chaos in view of problematic of epistemology, laying foundation to a number of promising researches. It is grounded that the philosopher and enlightener Johann Gottfried von Herder advanced an idea of objectivity of process of transformation chaos into order. It is shown that idea of «The law of nature» existing as for ordering chaos opened far­reaching prospects for researches of interaction with chaos.

Modern philosophical researches pay attention to various aspects of self-knowledge investigation. For instance, there are works on historical concepts of self-knowledge (e.g. ones by C. Moore), or articles about the place of self-knowledge in the phenomenon of rationality (e.g. ones by J. Roessler), or articles about epistemological lacks of self-knowledge (e.g. ones by J. Fernández). However, our paper is about the aspect that is not in the researchers’ centre of attention. Our study shows that practicing of book reading can be a source of information not only about the content of the books, but also about their readers. We investigate a phenomenon of incompatible interpretations, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ideas about understanding his texts, Merab Mamardashvili’s concept of ‘novel as a machine’, Ludwig Feuerbach’s theory of specifics of human cognition, and Philosophical Hermeneutics thinkers’ concepts about problems of understanding. The purpose of our paper is to describe possibilities of getting self-knowledge by analyzing the information about the results of philosophical texts reading. The research holds that these results give information about the content of the text as well as a reader’s ideas. A reader can use word forms from the texts to express his own implicit thoughts. Philosophical texts are the most effective tool for doing that because their content and ways of text organization stimulate such an activity. We illustrate these statements by examples from history of philosophy. For instance, we investigate the creation of the theory on the genealogy of morality by Friedrich Nietzsche. Analyzing phrases, which were important for him in the text, a person can estimate his own ideas. If one uses this theoretical model for getting self-knowledge he takes a new source of information about his own implicit ideas. The interpretation of this information will be effective. As a result of analyzing of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Martin Heidegger’s theories we state that the interpretation of somebody’s own ideas does not make big problems with taking into account factors that have influenced the process of thoughts formation and context of creating ideas. We show how this approach to interpretation of reading philosophical text diverges from the other ones. Moreover, we argue that there is a relation of our theoretical model to Socratic maieutics, although we describe differences between them too.

Two philosophical strategies of chaos ordering that were offered by Renaissance philosophers are analyzed: Ordering by means of mind and ordering by means of love. It is reasoned that both of these studies dates back to Antique philosophers’ ideas. Such supporters of ordering by mind doctrine as Coluccio Salutati, Giannozzo Manetti are pointed out. These thinkers believed that a person is able to cope with disorder of reality efficiently when he follows his mind. Among supporters of ordering by love idea such philosophers as Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola are singled out. These thinkers treated love as one of cosmogonical basis. They wrote that love is brought to birth by chaos as its inner striving to self­organization, to transformation into harmony. It is also claimed that in Renaissance the strategy of scientific comprehension of chaos appears. It is grounded that this strategy is not identical to philosophical strategies of chaos ordering, though it is close to them. Among representatives of this approach to studying chaos such thinkers as Paracelsus, Leonardo da Vinci are pointed out.

Big attention to various theoretical aspects of allegories’ use in philosophical texts was paid by Friedrich Schelling, Friedrich Schleiermacher and Johann Goethe. Some modern researchers gained considerable results in interpreting the allegories of different authors into philosophy. For example, Seth Lerer explored allegories in the texts of Boethius, Jerrold Seigel, which were engaged in the interpretation of the allegories in texts of the Italian humanists. E. Titar explored allegories in G. Skovoroda’s writings. Also there are studies in which their authors have raised questions about functioning of allegories in the philosophical text. We mean the researches by I. McCaffrey, E. Akishina and other authors. At the same time, we have not met studies that would try to give a holistic view of the role of allegory in philosophical texts. The purpose of the paper is to scrutinize the role of allegories in philosophical texts. It has been showed that allegories have important place in texts of some notable philosophers. Friedrich Schelling’s ideas about essence of allegories have been analyzed, Friedrich Schleiermacher’s concepts about peculiarity of philosophical allegories, Arthur Schopenhauer’s thoughts about content of allegories have been described. In the process of analyzing six characteristic features of philosophical allegories’ use have been emphasized. First, the use of allegories enables a philosopher to give his theories by expressing his general ideas through particular specimens. Second, authors use allegories not only for the literal interpretation by a reader. Allegories have only figurative meaning. Third, allegories in the philosophy are used to express concepts. That is, philosophical allegories do not lead their reader to the sphere of artistic images. They lead to philosophical concepts. Consequently, fourth, allegories occupy a completely legitimate place in the toolbox of a philosopher, whose idea, in fact, is to work with the concepts. Fifth, allegories are an appropriate way to express such difficult philosophical notions as ‘absolute’, etc. Sixth, allegories enable the philosopher to express his concepts brightly as allegories evoke in the reader not only intellectual reasoning but also some esthetic reaction. These characteristic features of using philosophical allegories in texts of Boethius, Giambattista Vico and Denis Diderot have been checked by the author. Moreover, the issue of needlessness of allegories has been discussed. John Locke’s criticism concerning allegories’ use in philosophical texts and Ernest Nagel’s ideas about importance of philosophical allegories has been compared.

Concepts in which Friedrich Nietzsche declares his ideas about person’s proper attitude to chaos are singled out and systematized. It is shown that Friedrich Nietzsche interprets chaos not as a goal, but as a condition of person’s fulfilling his goals. In this aspect F. Nietzsche’s doctrine is close to Friedrich Schlegel’s chaos interpretation. The specificity of Friedrich Nietzsche’s stance is that he firmly sets a person a task of chaos transfiguration by his own attempts. It is argued that F. Nietzsche criticizes the idea of transcendent chaos ordering. This is its difference from chaos ordering ideas offered by such philosophers as Plato and St. Augustine. It is shown that Friedrich Nietzsche nevertheless isn’t against any ordering idea. F. Nietzsche’s belief concerning the necessity of chaos ordering is exemplified with German philosopher’s doctrine about the Apollonian and Dionysian. It is reasoned that F. Nietzsche encourages a person to order chaos by experiencing his own true needs. Keywords: Chaos; Friedrich Nietzsche; Chaos ordering; History of Philosophy; Chaos transfiguration; Friedrich Schlegel; Order.

Philosophical strategy of dealing with chaos developed by Friedrich Schlegel are analyzed. Namely the strategy of transfiguration of chaos into harmony. The purpose of this paper is the articulation of the theoretical legacy of Friedrich Schlegel, his philosophical ideas about the strategy of interaction with the chaos, and their ordering. Schlegel sees chaos as a productive start. For him - this is the substrate, lush and abundant energy material which are necessary for creation of harmony. L. Johnson is justified states: “Schlegel argued that the chaos preceded order”. According to Schlegel, the chaos is not something destructive. Rampage of the manifestations of chaos by human efforts will lead to harmony. Revealing aspect of the strategy of interaction with the chaos that is offered by Schlegel, is the fact that, in his opinion, to transform chaos into harmony capable of not only human actions in the area of the irrational, but actions based on human reason. The fact that Schlegel speaks of the presence of chaos in the world, does not mean that chaos Schlegel said the only possible or desired state of the universe. Schlegel said the chaotic state of the various spheres of being an important component of the implementation process of the world, but that the importance of the philosopher sees first of all that chaos evolves in harmony. Chaos is important because it is based on the possible creation of harmony. Friedrich Schlegel offers a philosophical transformation strategy of chaos. In his view, the transformation of chaos as possible by means of rational human activity, and as a result of irrational human manifestations. Schlegel does not offer us strive to eliminate the chaos of human life. According to him, the chaos - a necessary substrate for the creation of harmony, and as chaos has a certain value. So, the further study of the philosophical strategies for engaging with the chaos, in particular, the study of evolution of the idea of the transformation of chaos, is productive.