The Pursuit of Truth Does Not Preclude Reflection Over The Sociality of Philosophical Creativity
Nikolai Rozov
My critics made the most serious remarks on the following issues: 1) the (in)significance of geography and social environment for philosophical creativity, 2) rejection of intellectual hierarchies, 3) whether a high desire for truth excludes reflection on the social aspects of philosophical creativity. An analysis of each example of "independence" of philosophy from geographical location (B. Spinoza, L. von Wittgenstein, M. Bakhtin, M. Heidegger) shows the paramount importance of the social environment of each thinker both in the formative period for his work, and in the mature period for high lifetime and/or posthumous intellectual reputation. The social environment itself (inclusion in a certain intellectual network) is largely, and in the past centuries, almost completely determined by geographical location with a specific cultural and intellectual background. The next question concerns the real contradiction between the ideal of equality in the "republic of scientists" and the reality of hierarchies of intellectual prestige between individual thinkers, between nodes and parts of intellectual networks. This contradiction is prevailed as an imperative to overcome the “illegal” hierarchy which means achieving such creative results and such an intellectual position that excludes the possibility of ignoring or arrogant neglect from “capital” positions. The most difficult question concerns the correlation of “importance” (intellectual significance, validity, proximity to the truth) and “audibility” (recognition of the results by contemporaries, if they even notice them). A model of five-part cognitive relation in philosophy is presented, on the basis of which it is shown that the “pursuit of truth in itself” does not prohibit reflection on the social nature of one’s own creativity, but allows one to more accurately express one’s thoughts. From this perspective, the collective strategy of integration of efforts within the framework of Siberian philosophy is justified as a proven way to achieve the long-term significance of ideas by the famous regional philosophical schools of the past.