Dostoevsky: Foreshadowing of Philosophical Anthropology, Hermeneutics and Phenomenology

In: Idei i idealy: naučnyj žurnal = Ideas & ideals : a journal of the humanities and economics, Band 14, Heft 3-1, S. 25-39

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to substantiate the hypothetically expressed proposition that Dostoevsky in his work proposed for comprehension and understanding of the problem of man and consciousness such ideas that (and this is the performative potential of his philosophy) received theoretical conceptualization only in the XX-XXI centuries. We are talking primarily about his foreshadowing of philosophical anthropology, hermeneutics and phenomenology. The realization of this goal, framed in the article through the substantiation of the concept of 'mystery' as a category of philosophical anthropology, and the comprehension of Dostoevsky's work in the context of the ideas of modern philosophy, are the novelty of the article. We argue that Dostoevsky supplemented the categorical apparatus of philosophy with the concept of mystery, foreseeing the specifics of the language of description, which became relevant to the specifics of modern philosophical and anthropological discoveries and socio-ontological constructions. The research methods of the designated topic are dictated by the target setting. With the help of the comparative method, we demonstrate the relationship between the provisions of these modern philosophical trends with the provisions expressed in the literary and philosophical form by Dostoevsky. The comparison shows the historical cultivation of anthropological content in the hermeneutic-phenomenological direction of the study of consciousness, which in Dostoevsky's works manifested itself in all the complexity of its own structure, not reduced only to reason and intellect. In addition, we reveal the phenomenon of unhappy consciousness found in 'Notes from the Underground' and make an assumption about intersubjective (pluralistic) idealism, which justifies the uniqueness of a person and the 'non-fusion' of his consciousness, which is not amenable to generalizations of logic and does not fit into the laws of nature. Pluralistic idealism is an original metaphysical concept, which Dostoevsky substantiates with his work and within which he finds the definition of man as a mystery. On the way to the development of 'new horizons', the article supplements the categorical apparatus of phenomenology, when in the categorical series ('intentionality', 'epoché', 'natural attitude', 'phenomenological reduction') a concept appears, expressed in an artistic and figurative form, – 'mystery'.