GUSTAV SHPET AND THE FORMATION OF RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS

The authors proceed from the thesis that we can still identify neither the history of the Russian philosophy, nor its most prominent representatives, nor ourselves in philosophy as such and within the «world philosophy». We are enchained by old or new ideological patterns of interpretation and understanding of Russian philosophy and culture. For example, we try to deduce a «specific feature» of Russian philosophy, which is found in its «theocentricity», in «ethical centricity», in «literature centricity», or in some special «Russian problems» (the search for «Russian idea» or «a different way of Russia», as if the German philosophy at the time did not look for the same peculiarity of Germany). Yet every true philosophy is substantially universal and differs not so much in content (all philosophical themes and problems are «eternal» and universal), but in form. And the form has mainly linguistic and stylistic difference associated with self-understanding and understanding of other cultures and philosophies; it means that any established national philosophy is initially hermeneutical as a being in the word.