Abstract
Mamardashvili always engaged in a dialogue with thinkers of the past, particularly with those philosophers whom he considered to have founded the phenomenological analysis of consciousness. He had a particular fascination for Kant. Not only did Mamardashvili devote to him a series of lectures, but he referenced Kantian themes throughout the entirety of his work. This article focuses on two of those themes. The first is transcendental consciousness, considered as that which makes experience possible without being itself reducible to experience. Consciousness is at the basis of all the different “forms” that make possible our experience of the world. Thinking is possible only in the context of cultural tradition, which is embedded in language. The second is individual moral responsibility. Everyone everywhere takes a stance at all times, here and now, thereby assuming the whole responsibility for their action. Mamardashvili’s dialogue with Kant leads us to consider some of the ethical problems of human civilization.
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Notes
About Mamardashvili’s very serious interest in Kant’s personality, cf. Motroshilova 2007, 89–93.
Cf. 2002, 505–816. Regardless of his predilection for philosophy that can be developed in oral discourse (cf. Vernant 1996, 601), during the perestroika years, Mamardashvili matured the idea of publishing both series of lectures. According to Yuri Senokosov’s testimony, a first attempt to publish the text on Kant was made as early as 1986, when Mamardashvili turned to the vice-president of the Academy of Science of the USSR with a request of support for his publication at the publishing house “Nauka,” which was associated with the Academy itself. The response was initially positive, but the manuscript went through a series of critical filters that suggested essential revisions and its publication stalled (cf. Senokosov 1997). The publishing project was finally realized only 10 years later (Mamardashvili 1997a).
For the reference to Plato cf. Phaedo, 99a–102a.
This example appears many times in Mamardashvili, for instance in 2012b, 69–70.
On Mamardashvili confrontation with Kant about action, consciousness, and freedom, cf. Regnier 2006.
In this matter, he directly referenced “a great political scientist, I think one of the French contemporary philosophers,” according to whom “it is as if a fourth Kantian critic existed: his socio-political theory” (Mamardashvili 2004, 152).
Mamardashvili makes numerous references to this passage by Kant (Kant AA VIII, 13): “but [we do not take into consideration] that which we could and should do by ourselves as authors. From this the roughest fanaticism must spring, which would get rid of every influence of healthy reason” (for example, 1997a, 110).
English original text was published in The Civic Arts Review, 1989 (2), 3, available at https://updocs.net/download/merab-mamardashvili-interview-a5b35e1578837c (last visit October 19 2018).
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Steila, D. Merab Mamardashvili and Immanuel Kant: a dialogue on transcendental consciousness and moral responsibility. Stud East Eur Thought 71, 229–240 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-019-09331-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-019-09331-8