Philosophical feast

The Day’s journalists will always remember their visit to the Hryhorii Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy, to an award ceremony held for Ukrainian philosophers. On that day we mingled, without exaggeration, with Ukraine’s richest people. The atmosphere was incredible. The wisdom and manners (of course, if you mean a scale of values, where reason is in esteem), and splendid music played by the antique instruments ensemble Silva Rerum, created an inimitable aura of philosophic nobility. On that day, to quote Yevhen Holovakha, a prominent scholar and one of those who proposed instituting a prize dedicated to the 90th birth anniversary of his mother Maria Zlotina, “professionals honored professionals.” The Maria Zlotina Prize for best philosophical monograph in the past decade was awarded to Stepan Kosharny (posthumously) for Phenomenological Concept of Edmund Husserl: A Critical Analysis and to Andrii Braumeister for The Philosophy of Law.

The Serhii Krymsky Prize for the most innovative philosophical concept expounded in a scholarly publication went to Viktor Malakhov for the book Vulnerability of Love. Incidentally, Den/The Day’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna presented Malakhov with two volumes of Extract +200 which comprises some of Krymsky’s best works. The newspaper Den once ran a column under the title “A Philosopher’s Bookshop,” which was a virtual forum for intellectuals. The ceremony also honored the memory of the outstanding Ukrainian philosophers Yurii Pryliuk and Vitalii Tabachkovsky. The Yurii Pryliuk Prize for the best philosophy-themed publication went to the European Dictionary of Philosophy. A Lexicon of Untranslatables. Vol.1, while the Vitalii Tabachkovsky Prize for the best printed work by a young researcher (up to 35) in philosophy went to Mykola Symchych for Philosophia Rationalis in Kyiv-Mohyla Academy: a Comparative Analysis of Logic Courses in the Late 17th-First Half of the 18th Century.

A special Ukrainian Philosophical Foundation award for outstanding achievement in philosophy was conferred on Oleh Khoma, the author of a scholarly commentary on Blaise Pascal’s Pensees. This half-forgotten genre is reviving thanks to people like Khoma. In his words, the comeback of commentaries is the comeback of a historical and philosophical culture that our society badly needs.

Our society needs philosophers, and such events that bring philosophers together and reward their best achievements. As Ivshyna noted, “[the ceremony] is a true island of intellect in a world of high-tech barbarity.” The fact that the Institute of Philosophy remains off the national TV channels’ cameras today shows that our society has a defect that must be corrected. What interest can the ancient, mysterious and eternal science of Socrates, Kant, and Skovoroda arouse in an ordinary Ukrainian? It may seem that he or she does not care about philosophy (and vice versa), especially today, when people are more preoccupied with surviving, eating, and making money. And who will dare cast blame on a person who has to tackle the daily and bitter problem of keeping his family well-fed, and having no time, possibility or desire to read Seneca, Hegel, or Sartre?

But the point is that, no matter how strange it may seem, philosophy is also a science about our daily lives. The difference is that, when scrutinizing those problems, it uses “bird’s view methods” rather than the microscope. It synthesizes opinions, phenomena, facts, and events and comes to general conclusions which, however, are not abstractions but bear a direct relation to such fundamental categories of social life as freedom, democracy, liberalism, individualism, collectivism, revolution, reform, progress, and, finally, economic prosperity. And did such thinkers as Montesquieu, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, David Hume, Georg Hegel, Karl Marx, and Max Weber not contribute to the foundation of classical democracy which the Old Continent is so proud of? Moreover, who else but true philosophers (by mind and soul, not formal degrees) can prove that there is a close link between freedom and culture, freedom and civilization (in the right, humanistic, meaning of the word)?

The aforesaid also fully applies to the Ukrainian philosophical tradition — from Hryhorii Skovoroda to Pavlo Kopnin, from Pamfil Yurkevych to Serhii Krymsky… This is why the philosophical readings “Philosophy and So­cie­ty: The Past and the Present,” on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of Maria Zlotina, one of the founders of the Kyiv philosophical school, allowed Ukraine’s leading liberal arts academics to “synchronize their intellectual clocks” and exchange ideas. The event has effectively consolidated our liberal arts community.

The proof of this is the themes of the scholarly reports read out on February 15 at the Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Philosophy. (Institute director Myroslav Popovych delivered an introductory speech.) In particular, Dr. Serhii Proleiev, editor-in-chief of the magazine Filosofska dumka, delivered a report that focused on an unexpected at first glance but, taking into account the present-day chaos and dehumanization, quite a natural question: “Does philosophy have the right to exist in today’s context?” The report was a detailed and in-depth look into the scholarly legacy of Maria Zlotina, Kyiv school philosopher, expert in dialectic philosophy, teacher of Popovych and Krymsky, and a scholar who orchestrated the transition from classical philosophy of the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries to the present day. She was also a World War II veteran (and gravely wounded in action).

The report “Legitimization and

Vio­lence. A Crisis of Democracy in the World of Today,” by Doctor of Sciences (Philosophy) Oleh Bily also drew attention. Paraphrasing the leader of the 1917 October Revolution, Bily said that “the crisis of democracy,” of which the Bolsheviks and others spoke, has at last occurred. To ride out this crisis, we must solve the key problem of the legi­timization of democracy. Moreover, the legitimization in question is not a formal one based on the force and effectiveness of government, but an essential one based on values. Bily noted that the leading narrative (and a major problem) of Western democracies is the establishment of legitimate checks against violent actions: this is closely linked with mental standardization of indivi­duals, i.e. recognition of another individual as a free and equal subject. He went on to say that there is a lively debate on the law and legal technologies (in both Ukraine and Europe), and there is also such thing as the right of a people to rise up, which Rousseau defended.

In the speaker’s view, the problem is that simulation practices of the stagnation period (when almost everything was simulated – freedom, effectiveness, popular support) are being reproduced on a mass scale in the post-Soviet period, too. This may be countered by means of new civic institutions that will exert direct or indirect pressure on the authorities. Incidentally, Mr. Bily was rather critical (referring to the historical experience of Germany in the 1930s) of what he called “such a simplified form of democracy as referendum.” Conversely, a more promising concept is collective autonomy as the groundwork of a civil society — a good example of this in Europe may be an opposition of medieval guilds and craftsmen to absolute feudal power.

The report “Philosophy for Every Day: Dialectics as Culture of Thinking” by the young academic Yurii Melkov was also interesting. The latter noted that dialectics is the art of seeing a fragment of the truth even in the opinion of someone you disagree with. It is thinking in the process of development. Particularly, dialectics calls for differentiating between values and ends. It is by no means the same: according to Kant, values are a “regulative idea,” they cannot be subordinated to ends or expedience, for Mahatma Gandhi used to say: “Let us take care of the values, and the ends will take care of themselves.” Thus, philosophy is a look at the world and mankind “from the viewpoint of love.” This is a difficult and exalted art.

Summing up the discussion, Myroslav Popovych (Ph.D.) expressed two extremely important ideas. First, even different answers do not divide us as deeply as does a complete failure to understand what the subject matter of a study or debate is. Second, our practice is, above all, our interaction with (or participation in) culture, no matter whether or not we are aware of this. And one of the speakers noted wittingly: when a philosopher does not speak to an individual, the latter is easy prey to soothsayers, horoscopes, and… politicians.

Myroslav POPOVYCH, Director, Hryhorii Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy; full member, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine:

“The readings and the award ceremony are one of the ways to form a ci­vil society. Naturally, it would be better if the public itself nominated the people who they think deserve the prizes, but… These prizes are, in my opinion, a very successful self-organization attempt. I don’t know where the musicians came from, but they made for a very gracious accompaniment. I would like this event to continue to be gracious. As for the selection of winners, you can see that they are not the ‘top brass.’ Who and what received the prizes? For example, Viktor Malakhov did it for a study of love. Who else needs this love today? We recalled Maria Zlotina. Who else recalled her? Nevertheless, these prizes open up great prospects. We had a free discussion, people could ask questions and get answers, and sometimes passions ran high. This is all very nice but not sufficient. We should perhaps organize such events at universities all over Ukraine.

“Are intellectuals needed? They always ‘stand in somebody’s way’ — even when they write about such purely intellectual things as life and death, love and hatred… It is very important that all events in society should not be assessed from one side only, like a ‘cow milk yield per square meter.’ Of course, I am fully aware of the vital importance of this, but if everything is reduced to this kind of calculations, then why did we win independence and speak of reforms? A human being lives by feelings. The material side is only a fuel that supplies energy. Even what you saw today is beautiful. People are not working for money alone (it is, naturally, important that they should have it, too), which means that Ukraine has a great potential in this respect.

“To care is the main thing. People should not feel lonely — this is the most terrible thing.

“Of course, we are not dreaming about the size of Shevchenko prizes, but it would be better if our prize money were bigger than it is now. The state should be interested in this. One must think of what there will be 100 years later. There will be no problems for me in 100 years’ time because my problems end with my granddaughter. But the state looks forward not 100 but 500, or even 1,000, years. To think strategically means to engage intellectual forces. This may be a fantasy or poetry, but one must think about the future.”

Kostiantyn SIHOV, director, journal Dukh i litera, winner of the Yurii Pryliuk Prize for the best philosophy-themed publication for European Dictionary of Philosophy. A Lexicon of Untranslatables. Vol. 1 (Kyiv, Dukh i litera, 2009):

“I am much moved. This award belongs to the entire team that took part in making this dictionary. I hope that in the next few years this project (awarding prizes) will allow Ukraine’s liberal arts community to see again the feast we were invited to visit today. This atmosphere of a celebration is absolutely typical of Yurii Pryliuk, Serhii Krymsky, Maria Zlotina, and Vitalii Ta­bach­kov­sky. I would like to remind you that the first issue of the journal Dukh i litera in 1997 was dedicated to the memory of Yurii Pryliuk. All those who took part in the making of our publishing house accumulated experience, to a large extent, thanks to the magazines Filosofska dumka and Ukraininsky ohlia­dach. This day is extremely important for me. The impression is that our philosophical community has at last succeeded in stopping, at least for a moment, the river of oblivion named Lethe. All of a sudden all those people walked out of that river, and we came running to meet them. At least I got this feeling today within these walls and at the time when I came to do a graduate course under the guidance of Krymsky. Then I defended my dissertation in this room and went, right from this place, to France. Serhii Krymsky has been in everybody’s memory, since the heroic 1980s and 1990s and up until now. The main thing is that both happy and tragic events should come out of the oblivion which too often prevails over the greatest achievements. Our victory over this oblivion is a guarantee that we will be able to do not only small but also great things in the future.”

Yevhen HOLOVAKHA, Ph.D. (Philosophy); Deputy Director, Institute of Sociology, National Academy of Sciences, Ukraine:

“The best and internationally recognized way to honor is to award prizes named after those who have made great contributions to science. For example, the US Sociological Association awards dozens of prizes. We and our colleagues from the Hryhorii Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy have agreed that this will be the honoring of the memory of not only Maria Zlotina but also of other prominent philosophers — Serhii Krymsky, Yurii Pryliuk, and Vitalii Tabach­kovsky. This gives a certain stimulus to young people and shows that their efforts are not futile. There are many excellent academics that have retreated into their own scholarly shell. But there are also some who care about the deve­lopment of the scholarly community as a whole, not just in the field they work. For some, like my mother, pupils are everything. She came to Kyiv in the terrible Stalinist times and, nevertheless, founded a culture of thinking and set up the horizons of a free thought. It was very difficult to do so at the time. Others, like Pryliuk, would organize institutions, such as publishing houses, ma­ga­zi­nes, and newspapers, for philosophers to make public appearances. Some, like Tabachkovsky, continuously cared about the development of the Kyiv school of philosophy. Others, like Krymsky, were the very embodiment of the philosophic thought. He was a person who lived and breathed philosophy. I am pleased that my mother’s name now brings people together. It is the hono­ring of professionals by professionals.”