ISSN 2227-7242 (Print), ISSN 2304-9685 (Online)
Антропологічні виміри філософських досліджень, 2022, Вип. 22
Anthropological Measurements of Philosophical Research, 2022, NO 22
TOPICAL
ISSUES OF PHILOSOPHICAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
1*Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Kyiv, Ukraine), е-mail boychenko_m@univ.net.ua, ORCID 0000-0003-1404-180X
Self-Unfolding of the Phenomenon of Hryhorii Skovoroda
Purpose. This article provides a morphological study of the life of Hryhorii Skovoroda as a philosopher’s self-construction – compared to the lives of such philosophers as Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger and Henry Thoreau. Theoretical basis. The study is based on the use of a monadological approach to history in combination with the biographical method. The ideas of the classical philosophical systems of Gottfried Leibniz and Oswald Spengler are applied taking into account their rethinking by Ukrainian philosophers Ivan Boichenko and Vadym Menzhulin. Thanks to this, the life of the Ukrainian philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda is considered as a monad that constantly carries out its own semantic self-unfolding. Originality. The thorough paradoxical nature of Hryhorii Skovoroda’s philosophy, which is attributed to him based on other philosophical systems, is completely removed by the performative sequence of his life as a philosopher, which is shown by systematic comparisons of the main characteristics of his life with the lives of other prominent philosophers who subordinated their actions to their philosophical concept. Conclusions. Hryhorii Skovoroda’s philosophy is a monad, that is, such a primary phenomenon that cannot be explained from other phenomena: comparison with other monads is only a pretext for identifying the characteristics of the monad under study, which are gradually revealed as a manifestation of its originality and uniqueness. The originality of the philosophical conceptualization of Skovoroda’s life should be carried out in a step-by-step comparison with the conscious life of other philosophers, and such a comparison needs to be continued, constantly carried out. The peculiarity of this study is an attempt to provide a methodological justification for such a comparative morphological-biographical philosophical research.
Keywords: phenomenon of Hryhorii Skovoroda; self-unfolding; monad; philosopher’s life; morphological-biographical philosophical study
Introduction
The philosophy of Hryhorii Savych Skovoroda is an organic part of his life. If some philosophers, such as Seneca, are criticized for the fact that their lives contradicted the philosophy they proclaimed, Skovoroda’s life is seen as a typical example of the harmony between the philosopher’s doctrine and his life.
Who knows what it cost Skovoroda himself this apparent lightness and ease, which he advertises repeatedly in his works: "Nature made the necessary easy, and the hard unnecessary". Only God knows how difficult it was for Skovoroda to give up the comforts and luxuries of life that he had experienced in his youth. It is easy to refuse a certain good for someone who has not tasted it. But Orthodox philosophy teaches to go through life, experiencing its benefits, but at the same time to go through these "ordeals" with dignity. The fresco at the entrance to the Long Caves of the Pechersk Lavra depicts the ordeals of the soul: a person is always sinful, always tries pleasures and temptations, but can he properly accept them and move on, not getting stuck in them, but paying the due "duty" to life? Evidently, Skovoroda passed most instances of this "customs of life" too early and did not want to return to this customs. If most people renounce the main material goods of life already preparing their souls to meet God on their deathbed, Skovoroda met his God in his youth and spent his life as a conversation with God, which was witnessed by everyone who watched Skovoroda and who is still becoming acquainted with his works.
Skovoroda realized early what the essence of human life is, and he spent much of his youth and all of his adult life in leisurely consideration of this truth, in savouring the best aspects of human destiny. Throughout his life, Skovoroda consciously and creatively built his own image, and his written philosophy is only a part of Skovoroda’s philosophy of life. With this life, Skovoroda gave the key not only to his philosophy, but also to the understanding of the philosophy of other prominent philosophers of our time, who also subordinated their lives to the principles of their philosophy, thereby making themselves a living embodiment of their philosophical anthropology.
A comparative analysis of the life philosophy of Hryhorii Skovoroda with the life philosophies of other prominent thinkers leads to the appeal to the monadological method of comprehending history proposed by Ivan Boichenko (2000). In particular, this involves the application of the ideas of monadology by Gottfried Leibniz (2013), the morphological approach to the knowledge of history by Oswald Spengler (Engels, 2021), the biographical method in philosophy, represented in Ukraine by the elaborations of Vadym Menzhulin (2020).
Ukrainian philosopher Ivan Boichenko notes:
The multidimensionality of the monad as a certain phenomenon gives grounds for considering it with equal right to be a subject of theoretical-philosophical reflection, and at the same time a subject of experience (of course, in its higher, philosophical hypostasis). The theoretical philosophical mind perceives the initial monad as an idea, but for experience it appears as a real primary phenomenon. (transl. by M. B.) (Boichenko, 2000, p. 327)
Let us try to consider the life of Hryhorii Skovoroda as such a primary phenomenon. For this, we will use the morphological version of Spengler’s monadological approach, who saw in each historical monad an invariant form that took on special incarnations. In this form, we will consider the philosophical concept of life, created by philosophers for themselves.
Purpose
The purpose of this article will be to make a morphological study of the philosophical life of Hryhorii Skovoroda as a philosopher’s self-construction – compared to the lives of such philosophers as Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger and Henry Thoreau.
Statement of basic materials
The phenomenon of freedom: Skovoroda and Kant
Skovoroda managed to rise above the material circumstances of his life – he lived the way he wanted, and not the way he was forced or seduced by the society of his time. In this, Skovoroda’s life can be an example of the embodiment of Immanuel Kant’s (2020) philosophical concept of freedom: to act based on faith in God, and not under the pressure of material reasons.
It is worth noting that Kant’s way of life also depended significantly on his volitional decisions. According to the testimony of biographers, it was the strict daily routine, diet and basic activities that led to Kant’s long and fruitful life, which would never have been the case if the frail and sickly young man had not taken the issue of his health into his own hands.
German biographer of Kant Manfred Geier notes:
After all, from the very beginning, when everything was only felt, but not yet comprehended, when there was only a vague and disorderly plenitude of sensations, and no clear and distinct experience, Kant assumed that he was already in the middle of the fundamental opposition that determined and permeated the entire work of his life, namely, that the idea of human freedom is in such opposition to the actual dependencies that it cannot be resolved. (transl. by M. B.) (Geier, 2007, p. 14)
At first glance, this perception is quite identical to the vision of Skovoroda, who also quite radically opposed the perishable, slavish and imperishable, free principles in man. But if for Kant it is "impossible to unbind" the adhesion of these two principles in man, if Kant sees the possibility for the transcendental moral ideal only in a regulatory manner, that is, despite the prevailing circumstances, to influence man so that he could at least sporadically act freely, then for Skovoroda such liberation from the shackles of the necessity of this world is not outside the world, but in it – it is "natural work", the key to which is faith in God. "Natural work" makes it possible to constantly be truly free – to choose among the material the things that do not contradict the spiritual. And such material things enlightened by the spirit are always present in the world – after all, the world was created by God, who put a part of His Spirit into it.
In Kant’s philosophy, the opposition of material and spiritual, world and man becomes more antinomian. Although, according to the Ukrainian philosopher V. Kozlovsky (2008), Kant built his anthropology on a dialectical opposition, in which he rejected the extremes of both naturalism (materialism) and idealism and skepticism: "Kant saw the mission of anthropology in a completely different way – to show a person in the scope of his world, to find out how each individual is both the subject of his own action and the object of influence of common forms of life – habits, traditions, culture" (transl. by M. B.) (p. 64).
However, Kant still recognized this external influence as dominant in human social life, while Skovoroda elegantly avoided this dominance. Skovoroda found such a combination of chains of external and internal necessity, which in the integral result opened a corridor for free action, free in the world itself and for this world. Such a corridor of possibilities is available to every person here and now, while for Kant, the realization of reasonable, just and good, such as "eternal peace", is possible only in a distant and fundamentally incomplete perspective of the future. For Kant, the actions of an individual cannot change the general unkind, insufficiently reasonable and largely unjust reality of the world. While Skovoroda showed the way for everyone to make this world more comfortable, kind and truly God’s world right now.
Thus, in the matter of building one’s own life as an embodiment of freedom, Skovoroda proved to be more convincing than Kant, although he was not, like the latter, already formally recognized during his lifetime. Kant was both rector and had numerous multi-print publications, while Skovoroda’s recognition followed the paths of human souls.
The phenomenon of a person of natural gifts: Skovoroda and Nietzsche
It is impossible to understand Skovoroda as a person, and therefore to understand his philosophy, based on external criteria and external philosophical systems – the philosophy of life and life philosophy of Skovoroda is a single inseparable phenomenon that can be understood only from himself. It is constitutive that Skovorod became a self-sufficient phenomenon quite consciously – he created himself as such a phenomenon. He created himself and his philosophy, including himself as a part of his philosophy. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, like Skovoroda, is a person of natural gifts – it is only to a lesser extent possible to explain their phenomenon by the social and cultural environment in which they were brought up and educated. To a greater extent, the reason for what Nietzsche and Skovoroda became was their natural talent and work on self-assertion rather in spite of their social and cultural environment.
It is hardly appropriate to analogize Skovoroda’s philosophy with the concept of lust for power in Nietzsche’s (2021) philosophy, but clearly, both Nietzsche and Skovoroda created themselves – this is a phenomenon that opened up from within and changed everything around them. In Skovoroda, this phenomenon was revealed easily – in contrast to how difficult it was for Skovoroda himself to interact with the powers that be. Unlike Nietzsche, Skovoroda, with Christian all-forgiveness, did not point a finger at the resentment around him, although he obviously had much more reason to do so in imperial Russia than Nietzsche did in imperial Germany.
However, there is also much in common – Skovoroda, as later Nietzsche, did not have a marriage with an academic career. At the same time, like Skovoroda, Nietzsche was also convinced that he achieves academic goals much better by means that at that time, and sometimes even today, are not associated with academic style. However, by analogy with what the German philosopher Hegel (2022) once said in the spirit that so much the worse for the facts if they contradict my theory, both Skovoroda and Nietzsche considered their style to be more academic in essence, if not in design, and therefore "so much the worse for such a style" that does not allow the academic essence to be properly unfolded.
Like Skovoroda, Nietzsche was well versed in philology, dead languages and music. The style of Nietzsche and Skovoroda is very rhetorical, although Nietzsche writes for the same type of readers, and Skovoroda clearly has different target audiences for his various works – from fables and songs for the people, to dialogues and diatribes for a deeply educated and well-educated reader.
Attention to rhetoric and style brings to the fore the priority of the performative nature of the works of both these authors. The self-disclosure of Skovoroda’s phenomenon occurs to the greatest extent through the performative nature of Skovoroda’s phenomenon: not only the meanings, not only the ideas of Skovoroda’s philosophy, but also the way they are presented, including how they are presented by Skovoroda himself and how they are presented by his interpreters, are important. To an even greater extent, the same can be said about Nietzsche. However, if Nietzsche often "overplays" his position in such performativity, hypertrophies, sometimes even to the point of caricature, Skovoroda’s style is always restrained, elegant and refined. The difference is that Nietzsche sought to prove to everyone that he was an unrecognized prophet, while Skovoroda already felt that he was often perceived as a prophet, but he deliberately avoided the glory of Savonarola.
In its performativity, Skovoroda’s philosophy creates his phenomenon – and this phenomenon continues its unfolding even after Skovoroda’s death – in numerous interpretations of his work and biography, none of which can claim to be complete and exhaustive, but none of which can be completely rejected. In this Skovoroda is still quite close to Nietzsche.
The phenomenon of the mystery of being: Skovoroda and Heidegger
Skovoroda’s philosophy does not allow for an unambiguous interpretation: it is worth noting the fundamental multidimensionality, multilayeredness of Hryhorii Skovoroda’s texts. As soon as we grasp a conceptual line, a semantic plane, we immediately discover others that are not reducible to them. Such an effect is not the result of insufficient attention or bias of the researchers, nor is it a game of chance – Skovoroda himself gave his works a flair of mysticism. In this, he was close to another admirer of philosophical mystery – the German philosopher Martin Heidegger.
It should be admitted that both of them were fond of researching the etymology of words, language games and language creation. The philosophical linguistic creativity of Skovoroda, the musicality and melodiousness of Skovoroda’s work, the rhythm and poetics of his language are indisputable: in particular, he borrowed foreign words for his works, created new words, gave a new meanings, "defamiliarization" to seemingly long-known and worn out in their traditional semantic use words. This is evidenced by Leonid Ushkalov (2017) and Dmytro Horbachov (2020).
But both Skovoroda and Heidegger considered language not just as a perfect tool of rhetoric, but also as a self-sufficient work of art: they developed language for its own sake, or rather, they saw in language itself a certain original inalienable philosophy. Both could explain the most complex things in very simple words (Heidegger, 2012), and in other situations created almost insurmountable linguistic puzzles. Both had a very thorough theological education, but were hostile to the dogmatism and arrogance of the clergy.
However, the main similarity lies in something else: both of them perceived society to a greater extent as not a real existence, and sought true existence in the depths of human nature. Just as Heidegger addressed the existential concerns and anxiety caused by being abandoned in a meaningless existence, Skovoroda searched for the path to truth in his heart. However, Heidegger remained a trickster for everyone, while Skovoroda did not seek to make fools of anyone (people make fools of themselves much more effectively), instead he sincerely offered everyone to follow the path he discovered for himself – to accept faith in the heart and clarify the problems of the mind with the heart. Obviously, such a simple and unambiguous faith was not enough for Heidegger to comprehend the mystery of being as it is – in accepting one’s vocation, whatever it may be. Heidegger always left his own life position undisclosed behind all his texts – he seemed to distance himself from his own Da-Sein when he wrote about the situation of human Da-Sein. It is as if Heidegger was afraid to look into himself, and even more afraid to show the real him to people – as evidenced by his "Black Notebooks", his secret intellectual confession, which he bequeathed to be published four decades after his death, but in which, obviously, he also revealed far from everything (Gander & Striet, 2017). Heidegger hid his identity from himself, and even more so – from others. Whereas Skovoroda seemed to play a game with people, gave numerous hints, intrigued, enticed – so that in Skovoroda’s knowledge people would find what he himself once found – the way to God.
Thus, Skovoroda and Heidegger are talking about the secret of being, but the first joyfully discovered it and encouraged others to do so, while the second worriedly hid it from himself and arrogantly convinced others of their inability to discover it.
The open book phenomenon: Skovoroda and Thoreau
Skovoroda is often considered a supporter of nature and everything natural: he lived mostly in villages, avoided secular society, openly admired the simplicity of everyday life. In this, Skovoroda is very close to the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau. But many features of Thoreau’s life and philosophy are often not quite fairly attributed to Skovoroda, while there are significant differences between them.
First of all, a common instruction catches the eye – to live in philosophy, and not to live on philosophy, that is, not to profit from it. This is how Thoreau (2020) states it directly: "There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live" (p. 67).
But if for Thoreau it is the result of an existential choice, then for Skovoroda it is a modus vivendi: he simply cannot physically live otherwise. If for Thoreau "life in the woods" is an aesthetic position to a greater extent than an ethical one, then for Skovoroda, life as a philosophy is a fate that he accepted, that found him and that he did not betray.
Yet, for both, nature is an open book that gives a lot of lessons for man. In Thoreau, we find many references to the life of birds – loons, roosters, etc. – as a role model for humans (Menzhulin, 2020; Thoreau, 2020), and in Skovoroda (2016) we meet many animals that personify certain human qualities in his fables: out of 30 fables, 22 have animals as their main characters (pp. 154-199).
But if for Thoreau the symbolism of nature is something more than symbols – it is literal life technologies, then for Skovoroda the whole world is permeated with symbols, and animals are just one of the most convenient and handy examples. Skovoroda’s philosophy is characterized by fundamental symbolism: Skovoroda picks up several traditions of using symbolic explanation of philosophical truths – official Christian, mystical, literary, philosophical ancient, folk symbolism. And this is not an exhaustive list.
Not so much nature as Skovoroda himself and his philosophy appear as a book of books and intertext. To understand this phenomenon, it is worth referring to Hans Blumenberg’s (2005) study "The Readability of the World". The world, as well as Skovoroda himself and his philosophy, can be endlessly reread – like the same book from new angles – and then it will not be just a new reading of what is already known, it will instead be a new reading as a new creation of a book. To some extent, this way of searching for oneself is captured by Jorge Luis Borges (1941) in his story "Pierre Menard, Author of Quixote". Subsequently, Julia Kristeva (2005) even more radically raises the question of the connection of all texts with all other texts, that is, as a total interconnectedness, the mutual permeability of various elements of culture as peculiar texts in each other. This approach is as close as possible to Skovoroda’s worldview. That is, Skovoroda makes no division into the world of nature as a real world, and society and civilization as a delusional world – the whole world, as it is, Skovoroda recognizes and accepts as a creation of God. Accordingly, the Ukrainian philosopher seeks and finds connections between all creations, including the natural in the social, the spiritual in the material, the imperishable in the perishable: here he sees signs that point to hidden meanings.
Originality
Skovoroda’s philosophy of life is characterized by pervasive paradoxicality, which upon deeper study turns out to be Hryhorii Skovoroda’s way of drawing attention to his special philosophy. Systematic comparisons of the main characteristics of Skovoroda’s life reveal not only certain similarities with the lives of other prominent philosophers who subordinated their actions to their philosophical concept, but also certain features peculiar only to the philosophy and life of Hryhorii Skovoroda. A champion of radical freedom, like Kant, Skovoroda found the possibility of its full realization in this life, and not in a transcendent ideal. Skovoroda was a prophet for his people, like Nietzsche, but he did not seek glory, he fled from it. Like Heidegger, Skovoroda addressed the mystery of being, yet not to hide it, but to show its accessibility to all. Like Thoreau, Skovoroda appealed to the wisdom of nature, but he was able to see nature in the whole world, and not in opposition to civilization. Skovoroda consciously lived as a philosopher – not to promote philosophy, not to gain profit, power, fame or anything else at the expense of philosophy, but in order to be closer to the truth that spiritual freedom gives, and to enjoy this truth.
Conclusions
Hryhorii Skovoroda’s philosophy is a monad, that is, such a primary phenomenon that cannot be explained from other phenomena. However, in order to highlight this primary phenomenon, it should be compared with other primary phenomena: monads exist only in a pluralistic set of mutual complementation. A distinctive feature of a monad is the continuity of its self-unfolding: comparison with other monads is only a pretext for identifying the characteristics of the monad under study, which are gradually revealed as a manifestation of its originality and uniqueness. Skovoroda’s life had many external similarities – both to the lives of his contemporaries and compatriots, and to the lives of other philosophers in other times and in other countries. However, to identify the form of life that gives it integrity and meaningfulness, one should consistently look for the essential characteristics of the philosopher’s life, his conceptualization of his own life. Therefore, the originality of the philosophical conceptualization of Skovoroda’s life should be compared with the conscious life of other philosophers. And this study is not the end of such a comparison, but only another contribution to its endless implementation. The peculiarity of this study is an attempt to provide a methodological justification for such a comparative morphological-biographical philosophical research.
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М. І. БОЙЧЕНКО1*
1*Київський національний університет імені Тараса Шевченка (Київ, Україна), ел. пошта boychenko_m@univ.net.ua, ORCID 0000-0003-1404-180X
Саморозгортання феномену Григорія Сковороди
Мета. У цій статті передбачено провести морфологічне дослідження життя Григорія Сковороди як самоконструювання філософа порівняно з життям таких філософів, як Іммануїл Кант, Фрідріх Ніцше, Мартін Гайдеґґер і Генрі Торо. Теоретичний базис. В основі дослідження лежить застосування монадологічного підходу до історії у сполученні з біографічним методом. Ідеї класичних філософських систем Ґотфріда Ляйбніца та Освальда Шпенглера застосовано з урахуванням їхнього переосмислення українськими філософами Іваном Бойченком та Вадимом Менжуліним. Завдяки цьому життя українського філософа Григорія Сковороди розглянуто як монаду, яка невпинно здійснює власне смислове саморозгортання. Наукова новизна. Наскрізну парадоксальність філософії Григорія Сковороди, яку приписують йому, виходячи з інших філософських систем, повністю знімає перформативна послідовність його життя як філософа, що показують системні порівняння основних характеристик його життя з життям інших видатних філософів, які підпорядкували свої дії своїй філософській концепції. Висновки. Філософія Григорія Сковороди є монадою, тобто таким першофеноменом, який неможливо пояснити з інших феноменів: порівняння з іншими монадами є лише приводом для виявлення власних характеристик досліджуваної монади, які поступово розкриваються як прояв її самобутності й неповторності. Оригінальність філософської концептуалізації життя Сковороди варто здійснювати в поетапному порівнянні зі свідомим життям інших філософів, і таке порівняння потребує продовження, постійного здійснення. Особливістю цього дослідження є спроба надати методологічне обґрунтування такому компаративному морфологічно-біографічному філософському дослідженню.
Ключові слова: феномен Григорія Сковороди; саморозгортання; монада; життя філософа; морфологічно-біографічне філософське дослідження
Received: 15.06.2022
Accepted: 07.12.2022
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
doi:
https://doi.org/10.15802/ampr.v0i22.271302
© M. I. Boichenko, 2022