THE RESEARCH ADVISOR’S REVIEW OF THE BACHELOR’S THESES OF ANNA M. SIMAKOVA, STUDENT OF SAINT PETERSURG STATE UNIVERSITY, DEVOTED TO THE TOPIC "THE EXISTENTIAL DOOM FOR SENCE: A DIALECTIC OF THE INTRINSIC ANDF THE NON-INTRINSIC" 


As it follows from the title of the paper, it is focused on the problem of existential sense. At the same time, this problem is specified here through inscribing it into the context of the problem of the relationship between authenticity and inauthenticity of existential being. The main materials of the study are the works of V. Frankl and K. Jaspers. The works of E. Husserl, S. Kierkegaard, G. Marcel, M. Heidegger, S.L. Frank and others, however, play a background role in this investigation. Criticism of the T. Adorno’s “jargon of authenticity” was, for principial reasons, left aside. Structurally, the work consists of an introduction, four chapters, each of which is divided into two subsections, a conclusion and a list of references. The goals and aims of the study, its materials, and its main results are formulated in the introduction clear enough.
Anna succeeded to point out the metaphysical background as well as the actual philosophical content of the Frankl’s psychological doctrine. Worthy of mention is the fact that the author of the theses managed to distance herself to a large extent from Frankl’s position, carrying out not only its unbiased assessment, but also balanced criticism. The most significant, in my opinion, in this regard is that this paper presents the analysis of the metaphysical meaning of the difference “between when a person is in search of sense as an ‘absolute value’ and when a person is in search of sense as ‘authenticity’” (p. 22). Although Anna Simakova’s interpretations of some aspects of philosophy of Karl Jaspers seem debatable, his conceptions are also very clearly reconstructed in her work. Here, too, the researcher succeeds in the analysis of specific philosophical significance of Jaspers’s doctrine, demonstrating once again that the legacy of the leading representative of German existential philosophy still remains significant both in theoretical and applied respects. However, the most attractive side of the writing is still Simakova’s independent reflections about the sense and authenticity, an example of which they themselves are. The analysis of the heritage of great thinkers is, rather, a starting point, a motivating motive for her own reasonings. In those places in the work where the latest are presented, the presentation itself, however, often becomes less confident, but this only emphasizes its honesty.
The work is not free from shortcomings, for example, in terms of the choice of material, in the balance of parts of whole composition. The list of references could be more detailed as well, including by attracting more commentary literature. Nevertheless, I am sure that the bachelor’s theses of Anna Mikhailovna Simakova, a student of St. Petersburg State University, devoted the topic "The Existential Doom for Sense: A Dialectic of the Intrinsic and the Non-Intrinsic"  could be evaluated  by magna cum laude.

Candidate of Sciences in Philosophy, 
Associate Professor,
Department of Philosophy of Science and Technology of
St. Petersburg State University

Andrei B. Patkul