Pragmatic Project of Siberian Philosophy: Pro et Contra
Grigory Illarionov, Vyacheslav Kudashov
The article is a response to the policy statement of Professor N. Rozov, proposing ways of developing Siberian philosophy with the potential to overcome its ‘provincialism’ and ‘indigeneity’ and turn it into a ‘metropolitan’ science. Designating Rozov’s project as pragmatic, the authors highlight the advantages of the formation of the philosophical network of Siberia and searching for scientific ‘underlying difficulties’ and discussing them in close contact with ‘metropolitan’ science. This philosophical network is based on the creation of a thematic unity, a common field of philosophy and “entry points” into it. Being implemented, the project is able to increase the intellectual resource of Siberian philosophy and intensify the exchange with other philosophical networks. Problems of the Rozov’s project include the use of the imposed, value-loaded concepts of ‘provincial’ and ‘indigenous’ science, which depreciate the philosophical work of Siberian authors on the basis of their thematic independence from scientific ‘metropolis’ and disinterest of the ‘metropolis’ in the dialogue on ‘non-metropolitan’ topics. The methodological basis of the project as a whole is characterized by ‘sociological reductionism’, the reduction of philosophical activity to the social relations of status, stratification, philosophical infrastructure. The disadvantage of this approach is that, taken as a maxim of behavior, it absorbs the internal factors of the development of philosophy - the freedom to choose a research topic and focus on obtaining knowledge rather than social recognition. The authors’ version of the ‘third way’ of Siberian philosophy, which is not reducible to ‘provincialism’ and ‘indigeneity’, is to strengthen the emphasis on the personal aspect of philosophical creativity. At the same time, recognition and intellectual resources are seen not as a goal and means, but as an important but optional result of the dialogue of the philosophers of Siberia with each other and with the ‘metropolis’, based on joint intellectual service of the inner need for knowledge. The third way is seen as the creation of a philosophical network that serves the ‘love of wisdom’, not reducible to one or another social relationship that accompanies philosophy.