Natalia Artemenko

The present publication offers the second part of the lecture notes by Nelly Vasilievna Motroshilova (1934–2021), a distinguished Russian philosopher, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, and Chief Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. For more than twenty-five years, Motroshilova headed the Department of the History of Philosophy and was a recognized expert in the field of phenomenology. This publication continues the work, begun during her lifetime, of systematizing and digitizing lecture materials from her Riga period (1980s). Of particular significance is the fact that Nelly Vasilyevna herself carefully edited and commented on the manuscripts. The fragments presented here focus on Edmund Husserl's late works, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology and First Philosophy (not yet translated into Russian). Special attention is given to Husserl's reflections on the "crisis of Europe" as a spiritual form, its roots in the processes of technization and positivization of knowledge, and the possible ways of overcoming this crisis. The notes of N.V. Motroshilova reflect a distinctive scholarly style that combines rigorous textual analysis with original interpretative perspectives and carefully considered proposals for the translation of selected passages from Husserl's works. The central themes include the crisis of science and philosophy, the place of phenomenology in the history of European thought, and the teleological understanding of the development of reason and humanity.

Over the past several decades, the figure of Gustav Špet (1879-1937) has grown unceasingly in prominence, and the significance of his work in contemporary philosophy has increased accordingly. Alongside this process has been another, just as relentless — that of the elaboration and enrichment of our conceptions of the philosopher’s creative character, as well as of nature and essence of his philosophy. Špet’s phenomenon was to become yet another of the major individual projects on the synthesis of the humanities that emerged during his time in the first half of the 20th century. From the point of view of historical fact, Špet’s involvement with the phenomenological movement is limited to him being Husserl’s student in Göttingen from 1912-1913, and to their subsequent written correspondence. Appearance and Sense, the monograph devoted to the problems of phenomenology, was published in 1914. The interweaving of phenomenology and hermeneutics that occurred in Appearance and Sense allowed Špet to reveal the very essence of phenomenology, the exact essence which, according to his words, Husserl was unable to unveil. And here he referred to hermeneutics in order to present phenomenology in a basic and essential way. In this text, hermeneutics and phenomenology are bound tightly together, and they intersect constantly. Following on from A. Savin, we endeavour to justify the thesis that hermeneutics, for Špet himself most likely a detailed commentary of his phenomenological research with no independent significance of its own, gained meaning only within the scope of his phenomenological program.

Over the past several decades, the figure of Gustav Špet (1879–1937) has grown unceasingly in prominence, and the significance of his work in contemporary philosophy has increased accordingly. Alongside this process has been another, equally relentless one—that of the elaboration and enrichment of our conceptions of this philosopher’s creative character, as well as of the nature and essence of his philosophy. Špet is set to become yet another major figure in the synthesis of the humanities that emerged during the first half of the twentieth century. From the point of view of historical fact, Špet’s involvement with the phenomenological movement is limited to him being Husserl’s student in Göttingen from 1912–1913, and to their subsequent written correspondence. Appearance and Sense, his monograph devoted to the problems of phenomenology, was published in 1914. The interweaving of phenomenology and hermeneutics that occurred in Appearance and Sense allowed Špet to reveal the very essence of phenomenology, the exact essence which, according to him, Husserl was unable to unveil. Here he relied on hermeneutics to present phenomenology in a fundamental way. In this text, hermeneutics and phenomenology are bound tightly together, and they intersect constantly. Following A. Savin, we endeavour to justify the thesis that hermeneutics only gained meaning within the scope of his phenomenological program, and as such for Špet himself hermeneutics most likely served to provide a detailed commentary of his phenomenological research with no independent significance of its own.

The method of “oral history” is quite widely used today, despite the fact that it came into being not so long ago. The origins of the method of oral history should be sought for in the studies related to interviewing, and with reference to related disciplines, i.e. sociology, ethnology, political science and, partly, linguistics. Quite soon, the disputes over the relation of oral history and historical memory became common for critical literature. The interview method is a very complex way, which requires quite an effort, as well as the awareness of researcher’s subjectivity of a high degree, therefore, some historians sees oral history as a highly unreliable source. Yet, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the method of oral history is in high demand in cases of no other sources except for the evidence of human memory being left. Oral history enables us to study not so much the facts of the past as the very human consciousness and its alteration, transformation, enables us to pose a question on the memory practices from a new perspective. Memory and remembering practices are closely related to oblivion, which, in its turn, indicates the need to eliminate the information that ravages the human psyche and the structure of public consciousness. Oblivion could be entitled “memory trauma” which should be understood as the events, destructive both to personal and social identity. Consequently the memory starts to be associated with the concept of trauma. The article delves into the relation between oral history and human memory, the problem of “accessing” the traumatic experience, special aspects of narrative in the traumatic experience.

“Heidegger and Ethics” remains a controversial topic among Heidegger scholars. What appears particularly troublesome is the conjunction itself, [which hints on a link between] Heidegger and ethics. Heidegger proposes to consider ethics in its original source, distinguishing it from morality and from “ethics” as a “philosophical discipline,” which often concerns with social or political issues. Heidegger distinguishes ἔuο6 from ἦ?uο6, preferring to discuss “ethos” instead of “ethics.” Heidegger's main “hero” here is Aristotle. When referring to Aristotelian texts, Heidegger attempts nothing less but to rethink the “first” part of first philosophy. The leading question in interpretation of Aristotle is the question of the objectness of Being, in which both Being of human and Being of life are interpreted. Heidegger asks himself what the phenomenological foundation for explicating the [meaning] of man is, and what categories evolve from this foundation. This article focuses on the same question. It begins wi...

What could be meant by «trauma»? Trauma can be regarded as a single event which has actually occurred and has fundamentally changed life of society, has shifted self-perception people had and greatly changed the potential future for these people. Trauma can also stand for some process which started to unfold after a catastrophic event and remains ongoing. Assuming a fact that that trauma can be regarded in various ways, it can also stand for some situation of deprivation, when people realize that they were deprived of something, trying to find or regain what was lost through the present. At the same time, trauma can be regarded as a story line, when we realize that something has happened and try to tell about it in different ways in various genres, using the same or very similar images. By trauma we can also mean something which is called a unifying event, i.e. that something which creates us. Trauma is not something naturally existing, but on the contrary it is constructed by the society; individual and social traumas are very different. There is also a gap between the event and its representation: this gap is the trauma process. All of us, regardless of specifics of history of the nation we belong to, exist in a post-catastrophic time and bear the burden of responsibility for past but not fully comprehended horrors. Deep experiencing of a catastrophic event, a collapse of all usual human relationships, prearranges a transition to cataleptic consciousness, practicing oblivion and forming a particular subject, i.e. a post-traumatic subject, a subject of time-after, who gets crucified between the ever-lasting pain, i.e. something that never ceases to generate pain, something which remains in memory, and a power of oblivion, functioning as a defense mechanism. The relation between memory and trauma represents a very central focus in the memory and trauma studies and has been analyzed by several scholars.

The aim of our “discussion remark” is not to present a critical review on the book written by S. Geniusas, a brilliant study notable by its extreme painstakingness, historical sensitivity and terminological accuracy, but rather to delve deeply into the origins of phenomenological understanding of productive imagination, i.e., to turn “back to Kant”, given in Saulius Geniusas’ book (the first chapter) for introductory reason. We proceed from S. Geniusas remark that productive imagination establishes a relation between different abilities, reconciles the antagonism between them and, in this respect, exercises a pro-creative function. We reveal that it is this pro-creative element of productive imagination that brings it closer to time (as indicated by Viktor Molchanov, a prominent Russian phenomenologist, in his study of 1988) and serves as the basis for gaining new knowledge. Imagination acts as a limit for reflection, however, it gets revealed only through reflecting, and, thus, it proves to be connected with a fundamental layer of consciousness, which appears both as an object and as a means of describing reflection, i.e., as time. The convergence, or rather, identification, of time with imagination lies in the very fact that both of them exercise an objective function: time – as a possibility for semantic definition of objectivity, imagination – as a basis for a possibility of any knowledge. Moreover, imagination turns out to be a source of a paradox and, ultimately, the only thing that explains self-cognition.

The theme «Heidegger and ethics» remains controversial among the researchers of Heidegger. Somehow it turns to talk about Heidegger and do not raise issues of ethics and, by contrast, the talks about ethics often directly concern the figure of Heidegger. Our task is not to justify the possibility of «Heidegger‘s ethics». The question of ethics in Heidegger‘s philosophy should be shown as quite competent as well as the demonstration an ethical perspective in his thinking at different stages. However, the very first difficulty that we face, setting themselves above the problem is that Heidegger quite rare and very specific — for the most part even negative — spoke about ethics. The second problem — quite obvious here — Heidegger did not leave us any systematic work devoted to ethics. In this article we try to trace the path of Heidegger‘s thinking in order to understand where there is any possibility of the ethical dimension in Heidegger‘s philosophy which is seen by different researchers in the different manners. Heidegger proposes to consider ethics in its original source, distinguishing it from morality as well as from «ethics» as a «philosophical discipline» closed to the social or political issues. Heidegger distinguishes ἔθος and ἦθος, preferring to talk about «ethos» and not about «ethics». The main «hero» for Heidegger is Aristotle. Heidegger was not so much influenced by Aristotle as he helped to bring Aristotle to some entirely new and unexpected interpretation which is differ from the traditional interpretation. We must say that Heidegger from the outset challenged the established and entrenched in the European metaphysics the primacy of practical over the theoretical. To rethink the «first» of the first philosophy — that's what Heidegger attempts, referring to the Aristotelian texts. The leading question in regard to the interpretation of Aristotle is the question about existential objectness, in which and through which human existence and the existence of life being interpreted. Heidegger asks himself what is a phenomenal base of the explication of Dasein and what categories occur here. We are following this question in the article, beginning with the project of the hermeneutic phenomenology and ending with the existentiall-historical thinking as significant milestones of Heidegger's path of thinking.

The problem of passive constitution in Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology is worthy of particular attention, since it is passive constitution, rather than active conscious constitution, which can be considered to be one of the focal points of 20th century philosophy. Thematisation of the sphere of passivity is related to resolving the problem of intersubjectivity. The elaboration of the problem of intersubjectivity is not so much a response to an externally cast reproach ‘in solipsism’ as an internal theme of phenomenology itself. Husserl aspired to establish phenomenological science as being of universal significance to everybody, but in order to make this discipline significant, i.e. in order to make it necessary for everyone else, it was primarily necessary to prove the existence of these other Selves or of the transcendental subjects. I will elaborate on the history of the consideration which Husserl gave to the problem of intersubjectivity, in order to clarify how his attempts to resolve the problem of intersubjectivity, based on the activity of the Self, led to an egocentric model, and in turn how the need to overcome this model led to the thematisation of the genesis of subjectivity, and the detection of passivity as the very basis of such genesis. According to my working hypothesis, it was largely the demand for thematisation of the genesis of the sense of ‘the Other’ which influenced the modification of the phenomenological method. Finally, I will turn to the concept of primary subjectivity, or Ur-Ich, in order to bring into focus the methodological significance of distinguishing the proto-Self for the substantiation of intersubjectivity, since only in its ‘context’ does the ultimate level of the foundation of the individual Self appear to be not merely a deeper level of consciousness, or the history of a universal subject, but the absolute subjectivity, as a field of intersubjective interaction in which the individual subject is awakened (individualized) to self-constitution in the world. Only then can we reconsider the constitution of the individual Self as being primarily passive, as being permeated by the primordial passive, independent from the Self, aiming for the co-constitution of the intersubjective world.

The problem of rationality today means the problem of the inner unreasonableness of reasonableness in the sense of its inner limit. Even the humanistic revolution of the Renaissance gradually led to the replacement of the power of omnipotent faith by faith in the omnipotence of power. It is this general orientation towards power and the cult of power, this new belief in power, that revealed itself more and more sharply in the course of European history and eventually led to extreme forms of expression in the world wars and catastrophes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The activity of free reasonableness has resulted in a host of unreasonable consequences: we have reason to suggest that reasonableness perhaps contains its own negation. Most philosophers of the twentieth century supposed that today it is impossible to think as in former times; it is already impossible to imagine reality as the structure which alone has a basis. The modern pluralistic world cannot be interpreted in a single rationalistic way as the only possible way, which would lead to the world’s being be united on a single principle for the sake of final truth. The philosophical world of the twentieth century “shivers” because of the fluctuation its own foundation, which was recently the symbol of its firmness and absoluteness. The article offers an analysis of a foundation of this kind, viz. evidence. The tradition of this concept leads us to Descartes and back to the three main versions of transcendentalism: Kant’s, Husserl’s and Heidegger’s. The author finally comes to the conclusion that the appearance of overcoming the metaphysical approach in the twentieth century is replaced by a transcendental and dialectical “game” around metaphysical concepts.

The article dwells upon the issue of a subject intrinsic to the art of the 70s and 80s of the 20th century, it elicits the reasons determining the problematization of “the Self” category inherent in the aesthetic program of the Moscow Conceptualism, preeminently with regards to the works of Dmitry Prigov. “The crisis of the language describing ‘the Self’” has been considered as discrediting the dominant discursive models, disabling the possibility of individual expressing. Within the first part of the article we problematize “the Self” category inherent in the aesthetic program of the Moscow Conceptualism, examine the dominant discursive models and denote the crisis of the language describing “the Self.” The second part is devoted to the issue of “the personal consciousness” coming into being within the aesthetic program of Moscow Conceptualism. The Self is considered as a “category of categories” in dichotomy between “the collective” and “individual” ones. Finally, the third part represents the analysis of a subject of the aesthetic activity. “An imaginary personality” intrinsic to the works of Dmitry Prigov is considered as a subject of “a gnoseological game.”

The article puts forward a research agenda for the new field of phenomenology that I call “the phenomenology of post-risk society.” The goal of the latter is to establish the boundaries and indicate the essential linguistic markers of the research field which allows us to raise the question of modernity of a new type, that provokes shifting from “the risk society” (Ulrich Beck) to “the post-risk society,” which no longer lets us be contemporaries with ourselves. At a certain point we turn into outcasts, unrequired not only by our society, but also by ourselves (“those who left” vs. “those who stayed,” as in the case of Russia in 2022–2025). Provided that we are no longer contemporaries with ourselves, what are the risks of such an existence for us and how can we find a way out of it, that will enable the possibility of finding a new “caring Self” under conditions of “linguistic erosion” when we speak a borrowed language and use the vocabulary of “hate speech?” The article is imbued with essential experiencing of the split world of modernity—experiencing of time corrosion. We think that modern society has gone through a change in the nature of the temporal organizing of experience, characterised by the phenomenon of “the frozen present”—by the time that is incapable of saving us, “the present without end,” which is “impossible as a present” (Maurice Blanchot). The new society of “post-risk” holds the increasing danger of the temporal dissolution of identity. The uncomfortableness of the absent present forces humans to group together, to unite with each other based on the principle of “us vs. them.” Being put under pressure of the risks of a new order, society proves incapable of cross-border consolidating which could have empowered it to resist new epidemics and wars in an efficient and democratic way. Destruction of cosmopolitan ties, which “the risk society” could still rely upon, leads to reproduction of semiotic models which do not reflect the new challenges of the global world order. We will trace new temporal configurations of the society of post-risk: the phenomenon of the absent present, the phenomenon of “the lost future” (the future is put “on credit”), and the phenomenon of “the time of loss” as the time to accept suffering.