Universe of Platonic Thought 2025

33rd International Conference “The Universe of Platonic Thought: Platonism and Literary Forms of Philosophy” (Russian Christian Academy for the Humanities, St Petersburg)

Olga Stavtseva, CSc in Philosophy, Associate Professor; Leningrad State University named after A. S. Pushkin (Saint Petersburg, Russia), Associate Professor

Literary form of philosophy and the purpose of philosophical writing

The report analyzes the diversity of literary forms of philosophical texts against the background of the modern monotony of philosophical texts, which are mainly presented in the form of scientific articles and monographs. Based on the appeal to the literary form of philosophical texts of Plato, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, the specificity of philosophical writing is described, which uses literary forms of expression - metaphors, images, complex structures of the text device, pseudonyms, characters. The noted literariness is associated with the main task of philosophy - the awakening of human thinking, maieutics, leading to the event of thinking. The popularity and prevalence of the analytical philosophical tradition, linking the task of philosophical thinking with the methodology of science, is revealed as one of the reasons for the modern monotony of philosophical texts. It is concluded that scientific language is insufficient for posing a philosophical question about being, about the whole and for initiating human philosophical thinking.

Keywords: diversity of genres of philosophical writing, Plato, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, thinking, maieutics, analytical philosophy.

Looking back at the philosophical heritage, one notices the diversity of philosophical writing, the richness of the philosophical tradition. These are poems, essays, dialogues, articles, treatises, aphorisms, dramas, novels, works using mathematical forms, myths, metaphors, allegories, images. Today in academic philosophy we observe some monotony of writing - the article and monograph as an extended version of the article dominate.

If we turn to the philosophy of Plato, S. Kierkegaard, we see a variety of forms of expression of thought. Is a special form of writing or literary form of a philosophical work connected with the philosophical content or even the purpose of philosophy? In other words, is it possible to speak of the unity of philosophical theory and the literary form in which philosophy is expressed?

In our opinion, these answers must be affirmative. Justifying this answer will require us to define philosophical thinking and its purpose, as well as to indicate how man and language are understood.

M. Heidegger defines philosophy as questioning, which asks about being, about the whole, in this question the questioner himself puts himself into question. An attempt to put oneself in a situation of openness to the world, the Real (Lacan), requires the courage to discard habitual beliefs and deal with ignorance. This position itself and what opens or closes in this questioning cannot be unambiguously, clearly and distinctly described in language. According to L. Wittgenstein, language cannot describe the world as a whole, but only facts, what happens, what takes place. According to J. Lacan, language is a symbolic structure that cannot reflect the Real. Discursive language is always insufficient, but indirect ways of speaking about the world come to the rescue, which use myths, metaphors, images, irony, allegories, a special structure of the text, characters, contradictions, etc. Plato was a special master of such texts, who became the founder of the European philosophical tradition. Plato's philosophical style is imitated by S. Kierkegaard, using almost the same artistic devices, developing a specially thought-out system of characters. All these artistic devices, i.e. literary style, are aimed at expressing what cannot be expressed using a scientific method and verifiable description.

What is the point of doing this, i.e. in other words, what is the purpose of philosophical texts? It can be assumed that philosophy is a special kind of practice that encourages a person to think for himself, therefore philosophical texts initiate thinking. Plato does not simply describe Socrates, and Kierkegaard does not simply describe Abraham, their texts address the reader - how will you do it? Philosophical texts do not convey information, but lead to the beginning of thinking. To teach a person to think, to lead to it is the main task of philosophy. The special structure of texts is associated precisely with the fulfillment of this task, which is of a maieutical nature, i.e. does not provide the truth in a ready-made form, but with the help of questions and statements helps a person to come to it. This may be associated with possible disappointment in philosophical texts, which is usually expressed by the phrase "I didn't understand anything", i.e. I didn't start thinking myself, the event of thinking did not take place. In this regard, Heidegger can also be attributed to the mentioned authors who developed maieutics in philosophical texts - Plato, Kierkegaard. According to the memoirs of his student H. Arendt, Heidegger's lectures had a "magical" character, the rhythm and repetition of some phrases turned the lecture into a performance, an event. This is evident in the lecture "What is Metaphysics?", in which Heidegger leads the listener to feel the horror of Nothing. It is no coincidence that R. Carnap cited phrases from this lecture as an example in his work "Overcoming Metaphysics by Logical Analysis of Language". It is obvious that Carnap, like other representatives of analytical philosophy, understand the purpose of philosophical thinking differently, reducing philosophy only to the doctrine of the scientific method.

A modern researcher of Kierkegaard's philosophy, Stewart J., gives three reasons for the monotony of modern philosophical writing: 1) the desire of philosophy to become the methodology of natural sciences and the imitation of philosophy by natural sciences; 2) the growth of professionalization in philosophy; 3) the understanding of language and meaning in the Anglo-American tradition (Carnap, Ayer). (Stewart Jon, The Unity of Content and Form in Philosophical Writing. The Perils of Conformity. Bloomsbury, 2013, P. 2). The monotony noted by Stewart is associated with the popularity of analytical philosophy in modern philosophical discourse, which somehow connects philosophy with science. But this is certainly not the end of philosophical tasks; the purpose of philosophy is connected with teaching a person to think, bringing a person to a situation where it is necessary to think.