Apophatical Metaphysics of a Subject :: Philosophy Philosophical Essays

Apophatical Metaphysics of a Subject ABSTRACT: In this paper, the inevitability of the metaphysics of a subject for the philosophical understanding of a person’s being in the world is established, and the apophatic character of this type of metaphysics is discussed. Analysis of the categories of being and non-being which allow the interpretation of a subject as transcendent and as transcendental being that is characterized by uniformity, spontaneity and irreversibility is also mentioned. The suggested interpretation of a subject discloses both the rational sense of the classical points of view on the absolute, unconditional, timeless and spaceless character of the subject of knowledge, and the compatibility of the notions of the absolute character of a subject and the ontological condition of a human being in society and culture. The main idea of the suggested conception of a subject is the fact that the subject’s being cannot be "housed" into the world, nor can it be characterized as impossible existence for the world. The world can be understood only from the point of view of being impossible (symbolic) existence. The discussion of the problem of identification of a subject shows that the presumption of a subject as one of the existing structures of the world leads to paradoxes and contradictions in the interpretation of the processes taking place in the world. To understand the process of education, it is necessary to bear in mind that it is not only cognitive, but also moral: education is the process of the formation of a subject of knowledge through identification with transcendental symbolic existence, which fact demands making efforts to be on the part of the thinking person. I. Introduction Some schools of modern philosophy buried the notion of a subject in oblivion. Criticism of the classical reason that began in the second half of the XIX century has come to an end in postmodemism of the XX century with the declaration of the principles of pluralism, relativism, contextuality and decentration. These principles are incompatible with the classical view on a subject, an object, truth and objectivity of cognition. The characteristic feature of the classical conceptions criticism of the 1-conceptions was the fact that it was aimed at opposing the consequences of the classical conceptions. These consequences include theories of the ideological forms of consciousness, theory of social progress, scientism, understanding of truth as a function of power, violence, etc. We must not understand this criticism of consequences as sufficient ground to reject the notion of subject.