Philosophy as an imaginary mountain ascent

Abstract

In connection with the discussion initiated in Russia by Professor N. S. Kirabaev about the role of philosophy as a worldview and its significance for education, the author of the article proposes to consider philosophy as a worldview in the light of modernity. It comes from philological roots, which interpret “worldview” as an expression of a view of the world from outside and from above. Analyzing today’s worldview processes in Western society, the author points to a turn in which broadcasting on behalf of the Present is replaced by something else, fundamentally different. In the 17th –19th centuries, Western philosophy firmly put forward a reliable idea of the Present and, on this basis, expressed reliable judgments about the Future of mankind. At the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries, contempt for the Present and confusion before the Future are imposed on Western society. This can be overcome only by returning to the Past, however, in such a way that this return turns into, as it were, a second beginning. The first beginning led to a dead end, because it was based solely on technical ideas. But it is precisely the Middle Ages, with its reliable moral guidelines, that is called upon to take over — as the theology of modernity — in the place of a rational interpretation of the world. The article deals with the ideas of Bede the Venerable, the theological ideas of Francesco Petrarca, Dante Alighieri — in the interpretation of G. Lebon, M. Heidegger, R. Guardini, P. Sloterdijk.