Evert van der Zweerde, “Philosophy in the Act: The Socio-Political
Relevance of Mamardašvili’s Philosophizing,” /Studies in East European
Thought/ (2006) 58: 179–203.
‘. . . Loneliness is my profession . . .’
— Merab Konstantinovic( Mamardašvili (1930–1990)
‘Loneliness is my profession,’ is the title of an interview the
Latvian philosopher Uldis Tirons conducted with Mamardas?vili in
1990. 35 In this interview, Mamardašvili pointed out that his
loneliness was of a personal character – ‘‘I am a chronic specialist
in loneliness since early childhood’’ – as well as of a professional
nature: ‘‘And then, loneliness is my profession ... (OMP, p. 69)’’36
Leaving the first form to biographers, we can, I think, distinguish
two senses of this professional loneliness of the philosopher, one
structural, the other contextual. In the first sense, intended by
Mamardas?vili himself, philosophy is a ‘lonely activity’ in any
case, as some of his definitions of philosophy make clear:
‘‘Philosophy is just a fragment of the smashed mirror of universal
harmony that has fallen into an eye or a soul (OMP, p. 64).’’ And:
‘‘... philosophy is a reaction of the dignity of life in the face of
anti-life. That’s it. And if there is a pathos of life, then man
cannot be a non-philosopher (OMP, p. 67).’’
In a second sense, his was a lonely position because, unlike most of
his colleagues, he did not actively deal with the problem of
Marxist–Leninist dogmatics or with Marxism as the official ideology
in the Soviet Union.
Mamardašvili declared that he was not a Marxist, but he also said he was
not an anti-Marxist either. Van der Zwerde endeavors to explain the
unique position of this philosopher within Soviet philosophical culture.
Van der Zwerde is the author of an important study, /Soviet
Historiography of Philosophy: Istoriko-filosofskaja Nauka
<http://www.wkap.nl/prod/b/0-7923-4832-X>/ (Boston: Kluwer Academic
Publishers, 1997 [Sovietica; v. 57]), which I reviewed in 2003:
Soviet Historiography of Philosophy: Review Essay
http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/sovphilhist.html
I wrote more about Soviet philosophical culture in my diary of December
2003 - January 2004:
http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/diary0401a.html#soviet
Van der Zwerde sets out to explain two things: the philosophical culture
in which M. was active, and his central concepts--form, thought, and
culture. First, he demystifies Western presuppositions about Soviet
philosophy, and he provides a biographical summary of M., who indeed
became a hero of Soviet intellectuals seeking autonomy and integrity. M.
himself commented on the changing role of the intelligentsia, drawing on
Gramsci, while rejecting the conceit of the intelligentsia as arbiters
of enlightenment. M. also selectively engaged Marx, in a non-trivial
fashion. For M., the role of the intellectual in society was to was to
claim a presence for /thought /in culture and society. There must be
conditions for thought to be able to take place--a public space.
M. criticized Russian culture for a neglect of form, for example of the
formal character of legal systems and of democracy, though his position
did not devolve into a pure formalism. M.'s second preoccupation is the
process of thinking--when thinking becomes alive and a presence in the
world, not just closed up in itself. Engaging the past of philosophy is
to make its thoughts come alive again, not that past philosophies are
absolutes in themselves, but that they create spaces in which thinking
beings 'reconstitutes' itself.
Descartes is a prime example. Russian philosophy has systematically
degraded Descartes and Kant. (190-1). But, taking a cue from Hegel, M..
rejected "Robinsonades".
M.'s third central concept is 'culture', and here the cosmopolitan
notion of 'transculture' (not 'multiculturalism'!) becomes important.
In the 1980s M. took on the issue of 'civil society', which became a big
theme in late Soviet society. M., criticically discussing Hegel in 1968,
had already broached this subject. Once again, M. is concerned with the
live act of thought and its conditions of possibility.
In his conclusion Van der Zweerde cautions against romanticizing
dissenting heroes or demonizing the philosophical culture of the Soviet
system, given that any social system tends toward rigidity and requires
independent criticism. M. has been characterized as the Georgian
Socrates, interestingly, since M. in his youth was lucky enough to
circumvent the proscription of Socrates demonized at the hands of Stalinism.
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