Merab Mamardashvili: Text Creation As An Existential And Ontological Act

Abstract

The research subject is those methods of reading a literary or philosophical text that Mamardashvili proposes. When we perceive the content of some fragments of the readable text as something to our own depth, we enter the path of interpretations, at the same time turning from a simple consumer of literature into its co-author. Then the book transforms into a kind of spiritual instrument, using which we can "unwind" impressions incomprehensible at first glance, and this, in turn, allows us to get out of the darkness of our perceptions, our life and own "I", makes it possible to reveal our true " I ", "to reunite," as Mamardashvili says, "with the non-verbal root of our irreplaceable personal vision, through which only we grow into real being and unity with other people." The basic methodological principle of the paper is to follow the path of creating a text that Mamardashvili speaks of, and which we have tried to present in the research. Scientific novelty includes an attempt to determine the place and role of the textological concept of Mamardashvili in the problem field of Russian philosophy of the 19-20th centuries. Passing through the points of inner freedom achieved when interpreting at first glance unclear impressions, and connecting them, the authors of great works seem to draw the path of their life, or the line of their individual history.

Keywords: Impression, literary fetishism, symbolism, text, way of life, word

Introduction

Mamardashvili says, "Literature is often seen as just an external addition to life, a kind of decoration and entertainment provided by "artistic" play and taken out of the normal life process. This is a kind of "art for art." Thus, literature is designed to entertain us, as if to take us away from reality, to carry us away to the fabulous, imaginary world of invention and "aesthetic" pleasures. It is nothing more than an external "spud" to reality (Mamardashvili, 2017).

Another way of attitude is when a literary text is perceived as a ready-made teaching and intervention from the outside, deliberately implemented by such "soul-experts", keepers and bearers of truth. It turns out that literature initially has social, moral and ideological guidelines; it should teach us and participate in public life. In this case, the book is intended to give us a path in life already known to someone, and we should only be passive consumers of given "truths" and "wisdom" including ways of reorganizing the world, ourselves, etc. (Mamardashvili, 2017).

Both of these cases are united by the fact that here the works, like the authors themselves, are already something ready-made. This approach makes us think that, for example, Dostoevsky teaches us something, leads us somewhere, takes someone's side, protects, having a certain teaching, and being a "master of thoughts." Or probably, on the contrary, he confuses, lures, rejects into the fold of false views and reactions. According to Mamardashvili (2017), the creation of such a cliché, like "pure artistry", is literary fetishism and idolatry.

The highlighting of a literary fact or literary effect does not occur in both cases. "But a work," says Mamardashvili, "is not just a thing or an object with special "qualities", but its author who is not a ready bearer of universal human values, just like not a representative of the world of imagination." Dostoevsky deals with himself, searches for a path, being, straightens them out according to experimental realizations in verbal reality and does not set out any teaching (Mamardashvili, 2017).

If we "perceive Dostoevsky’s works as something "teaching", then only because we cannot make the path of a person close to ourselves, who, in the existing conditions of culture, rejecting its stereotypes and prejudices, established problems, stopping spontaneously produced mental shifts and states, marveled the real meaning of its existence and the fact that it testifies to the environment in person" (Mamardashvili, 2017). So what is this path and why do we need to walk it?

Problem Statement

According to Mamardashvili, symbolism, especially French, was one of the first glimpses of serious art at the turn of the last two centuries. It is not by chance that he left such a deep mark in literature. Having emerged in the 80s of the 19^th century as one of the currents of literary France, symbolism eventually turns into a multifaceted artistic and philosophical movement. The basic creative principle of this movement was clearly expressed by Baudelaire, and then developed by Mallarmé, and in the simplest formulation it sounds like this: "Change the life" (Mamardashvili, 2017).

However, this change did not mean external interventions and social reforms. The Symbolists treated art and the creation of texts as an element and instrument of such an act of life that allows one to live a real life and truly realize himself for the one who writes a poem or novel, creates a symphony or painting. Symbolism found adherents in many European countries, and in the 90s the first wave of Russian Symbolism joined this pan-European movement with a powerful stream.

Mamardashvili draws our attention to the following detail. The French lived, says the philosopher, fully experiencing all areas of human existence: social, political, etc. Russians, on the other hand, have always been distinguished by a completely special attitude to the word: until the word is said, until it is born, nothing happens" (Mamardashvili, 2017). Solovyov at his time developed the doctrine of the divine Sophia and he associated it with Russia; she was to give birth to a "new Word" (new Christ), being fertilized by free Western thought.

In 1900, the Sophian circle arose under the leadership of Solovyov (brother of the philosopher), who developed the ideas of Solovyov about Sophia. However, this was only the beginning, other meetings in which the search for Sophia - the Wisdom of God - arose very soon. Bulgakov, Berdyaev, Kartashev, Merezhkovsky, Filosofov, Remezov, Bely and others were their participants. Both in St. Petersburg and in Moscow, these circles united people of various trends and shades, from the Sophian Christians to those who were far from Christianity, such as Sologub and Blok.

The Religious-Philosophical Society, which united representatives of the most diverse currents of Sophian religious-philosophical thought, arose on the basis of these searches and revelations. After the revolution, in 1918, the leaders of the Society opened the Free Academy of Spiritual Culture in Moscow. In addition to the aforementioned figures, Professors Frank, Karsavin, Vysheslavtsev, and others joined it. Sophian professors, expelled in 22nd from Soviet Russia, opened the Religious-Philosophical Academy in Berlin, which was then transferred to Paris.

Eschatological ideas and aspirations, hopes for the spiritual revival of mankind of the so-called "younger" Symbolists - Andrei Bely, Alexander Blok, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Innokenty Annensky, Sergei Solovyov, Maximilian Voloshin and others ascended to the philosophy and poetry of Vladimir Solovyov. The "Young Symbolists" did not accept their extreme subjectivism, self-contained aestheticism and pessimism, opposing themselves to the first wave. Yes, the previous culture had exhausted itself, but this was not a foreshadowing of the chaos triumph.

The end of the world history cycle is a symbol of the upcoming world transformation, a new Epiphany, the threshold of a new life in Eternity. A. Bely wrote that the former Symbolists-decadents felt "over the failure of culture without the possibility of jumping over." The "Young Symbolists" - "Solovievites", in contrast to them, incapable of flying over the abyss, put forward a program of active social creativity, transforming the world and reality in an artistic act. The highest goal of symbolism is the creation of a new man.

Thus, for the younger generation Symbolists, an artist is not only a creator of images, but also a demiurge that creates worlds. The new art is basically religious, it is theurgy, magic, with the help of which one can change the course of events, "curse chaos", subjugate it with words. The poet is transformed, picking a fight with this "chaos" for the transformation of the world and personality. In this sense, it is symbolic that from January 1, 1901, Boris Bugaev came up with the pseudonym of "Andrei Bely", for this was associated with the entry into a new era in his mind.

However, the famous Russian philosopher and theologian Florovsky gave the following assessment of these searches. "There is something artistic in our soul," he writes, "too much play: the soul is a sort of doubling and snaking in its affections". Russian soul too often fell ill with mystical impermanence. The logical conscience wakes up in it later on, often the category of responsibility simply drops out. "And here," the philosopher believes, "is the beginning of the Russian tragedy of culture. This is a Christian tragedy, a tragedy of free sin, of blinded freedom."

Russian intellectuals love to repeat and often accept without proof that Russia is "the same Wife clothed with the sun, to which the gaze rises." But speaking of the "new word" that Russia brings to the world, they do not know this word and are not able to pronounce it. We can recall the heroes of Gogol's works, where "thoughts do not continue, impressions are not connected" (Mukhtasarova, 2020), or "there is something strangely indefinite, cold, uncertain even in our gaze,” which makes his expression "dumb" in P. Ya. Chaadaev’s philosophical letters (Mukhtasarova & Safin, 2020a).

"We are distinguished by the desire to transform the images revealed in intuition into the ghostly lace of seductive dreams, where small truth is combined with great self-deception," continues Florovsky (Mukhtasarova & Safin, 2020b). The danger of the game of one's inflamed mind to be mistaken for the deep reality of historical being arises here, for the acceptance of not even life at all, but of its "meaning", of some embodied content, occurs. Reality is only an accidental vestment of something completely over-temporal, an idea that is embodied and realized.

"However, this is," says Florovsky, "daring speculation, not supported by anything: even if these ideas are guessed and correct, their specific face is not guessed at all. This is not a living Russia, but a personified "idea". In this regard, we involuntarily recall passages from the critical articles of Rozanov about Gogol: "He did not reflect reality in his works at all, but only drew a number of caricatures of it with amazing skill." Or: "Gogol looked at life with a dead gaze, and he saw only dead souls in it."

"This is why they are remembered in the way that no living images can be remembered," continues Rozanov (Mukhtasarova & Safin, 2018). Indeed, these "impressions do not close; do not overgrow, because there is nothing to overgrow. This is a dead tissue that has been introduced into the soul of the reader and will remain in it forever". Probably, that is why Chaadaev made such an indelible impression on all subsequent philosophy in Russia. Nevertheless, both Chaadaev and Gogol in their works vividly reflected a problem that was serious for Russian culture.

This is the problem of formulating a word, a living discourse, capable of coping with all the tasks that Russian thought has assigned to it. According to Mamardashvili, the very formulation of the question "whether Tolstoy or Dostoevsky loved Russia" is absurd, because they were Russia themselves and tried to "give birth" to its body from themselves. Generally, their head tried to perform an unnatural act - to give birth to their body. "And the last sketch of this "head story was," says Mamardashvili, "V. Khlebnikov’s numerical verbal utopia which should have given birth to an entire country." (Luyckx, 1999).

It seems to us that philosophical silence has become the "flip side" of these verbal attempts. "The 20^th century includes decades of silence in Russian thought," writes Bibikhin, "and a new thought cannot begin without listening attentively to this silence." The message has stopped for a while for the people of the information age, and it should turn on again with the elimination of the interference. From this point of view, philosophical silence is a lacuna that must be filled, for example, by publishing unprinted texts by Russian thinkers, and by agreeing for the silent people of what they apparently did not have time to say (Coates, 2013).

"And yet the word remains behind the thought," continues Bibikhin, "and this should warn us against new activism. Again we are in a hurry to fill in the gaps, solve problems, develop themes, and take over the space by speaking... For some reason, we hope that this time our words will gather into the Word, with which we will make the story speak. But instead of fussy haste and nervous hopes, it would be better to be content with simple knowledge that the expected Word will ultimately be said only by thought... It is significant not to rush to speak, but to prepare to hear..." (Mukhtasarova et al., 2020)

Research Questions

Perhaps, the worst of the activism forms mentioned above, which Schopenhauer once rebuffed sharply, are some contemporary attempts to expound the teachings of the great minds of the past. “What solid research can be expected from these people, distracted by the constant lectures, official duties, vacations and entertainment that come up with the stories of philosophy…? Besides, they want ... to comprehend and show the need for the emergence and change of systems," writes the philosopher (Paranikolaou, 2011).

"Moreover," Schopenhauer continues, "they also discuss, correct and criticize the serious true philosophers of the past. And if something settles in their minds from the ideas of these thinkers, it is clothed in the jargon of the day and is accompanied by judgments of home-grown wisdom. In this regard, we can recall the well-known tirade of Proust regarding the works of some modern writers who are socially engaged to him: "Then we do not understand anything in life if our profession is the creation of books of such level" (Mamardashvili, 2017).

According to Proust, these works are an example of how sometimes we, with an inflamed empty head - not understanding ourselves - go to other people in order to teach them how they should live. Such authors, instead of delving into the topic and discovering something for themselves and for us, put their "I" in the foreground - everyday, ordinary, and in this everyday life, egoistic, with all its "knowledge", prejudices, norms, and skills (Yusupov, 2017; Yusupov & Mukhtasarova, 2016). They say some ready-made phrases instead of peering at their impressions, and these are either exclamations or indignation (Mamardashvili, 2017).

"We," echoes Mamardashvili to Proust, "are not obliged to speak, let alone speak publicly about those texts that, for one reason or another, were not in tune with our hearts." Our perception is arranged in such a way that something sinks into it, but something does not; while not sunk can sink into the soul of others. Thus, we usually read in the text what is close to our spiritual experience. Some fragments may be closed to us simply because they do not coincide with our life path (Mamardashvili, 2017).

"If we do not recognize ourselves in the content of what we have read," Mamardashvili continues, "then it is empty for us. And then, perhaps, we should not present the score in terms of criticism." For instance, literary criticism, like any other criticism, cannot exist in relation to something that is alien to the critic himself, did not touch his soul, but something that coincided with the content of our life test can hurt. Otherwise, we will not be able to explicate anything in the text so that it expands our experience, the experience of the book and its readers (Mamardashvili, 2017).

Mamardashvili focuses our attention on one act, and this is probably the most crucial moment when reading. It is about the act of meeting, recognizing yourself in what you are experiencing, what impression of the text you read tells you. That being said, the closeness to our experience can be astounding. In this sense, the book becomes a spiritual instrument. That is, if we really read a book, then only to the extent that it is a mirror placed in front of the path of our life, which is straightened by reflections in this mirror and, therefore, depends on soul content (Mamardashvili, 2017).

Thus, the very act of reading becomes an act of life, existence, but that is not all. The point is, the impression must be really and completely experienced, it must be understood, or, as Mamardashvili expresses it, "untwisted", and this requires our entry into ourselves. This kind of knowledge cannot be borrowed only from the outside, from any external sources including books. We must stop the world that surrounds us and moves by inertia, and here, at the point of the "ray" of impression, work, deepening into ourselves and expanding our consciousness (Mamardashvili, 2017).

Only in this way could one get out of the darkness of his or her impressions, life and own "I", which makes it possible to reveal veritable "I", "to reunite," as Mamardashvili says, "with the non-verbal root of your irreplaceable personal vision, through which only we grow into real being and unity with other people." In this sense, the whole life consists of full comprehension of what is happening to us and what we are really experiencing. And this, as it turns out, is not easy at all (Mamardashvili, 2017).

However, the more the darkness dissipates, the more clearly the pointing arrow of our unique personal experience begins to shine. Moving in this direction, we can observe how the initial "ray" of impression gradually expands into an even and long sun, which moves, surrounded by a world full of passions, and which rises and shines over this inner and unknown country, as Mamardashvili (2017) says, "unknown Motherland," introducing us to the secret ways of order and the bright joys of impossible thought.

"Being, including that which has received existence by the power of the literary text," says Mamardashvili, "never fits into the existing." Great works differ in that they contain a voice, a latent text, as opposed to explicit content. Revealing this inner voice of the work requires the engagement of the reader. Therefore, the assumption that some ready and complete teaching takes place in any composition means a fetishization of the book, ideas, and words (Mamardashvili, 2017).

However, Mamardashvili emphasizes that both the reader and the writer can in a sense be equal in relation to the text, namely: initially, the writer may also “not understand” his text, and must also decipher and interpret it, just like the reader. "Proust," says the philosopher, "argued that only when he writes he realizes what he has thought and what he has experienced." And here Mamardashvili refers to the well-known aphorism of Mallarmé: "poems are not written with ideas, poems are written with words" (Mamardashvili, 2017).

"For example," says Mamardashvili, "we often assume that Dostoevsky's novels contain a special teaching or even a system, a certain message to Russia or to the human soul, which is either rejected or accepted." However, the specific effect of literature and the work of the word with its consequences and the actions performed in the circuit and accepted by life, do not stand out with such an attitude as in ourselves. After all, truth does not pre-exist in a finished form, it cannot be inspired by learning, and the way of its existence is the art of verbal (Yusupov, 2017).

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the paper is to determine the place and role of the textological concept of M.K. Mamardashvili in the problem field of Russian philosophy of the 19-20^th centuries;

Research Methods

The basic methodological principle of the paper is to follow the way of creating a text, which Mamardashvili speaks about, and which we have tried to present in this research. One and the same work can be read many times, evoking more and more new associations. At the same time, the details in the text seemed to fall out of the field of our perception earlier. However, these are precisely the details that indicate this seemingly familiar composition for a long time has produced some new effect on us.

These fresh impressions, clothed in the form suggested by the author, are combined into a harmonious, grammatically verified discourse, which is no longer the author's text, but his creative interpretation. Ultimately, any real reading is an interpretation or reconstruction of the author's text, when we become, as it were, co-authors of the work. Only in this way could the text teach us something, become a tool for deciphering those life situations in which we find ourselves. And the author gains immortality in this way.

Findings

The main idea of Mamardashvili on this topic can be briefly and metaphorically expressed as follows: there are certain special moments called impressions that are available to us, or can be heard, and these impressions are a "rustle" of the fabric of the actual structure of life. He writes: "Such impressions are scattered here and there, throughout life, pieces of the foundation of real existence," or, according to Proust, that indestructible ground that serves as the basis for all the verbal constructions erected by him (Mamardashvili, 2016).

"However," notes Mamardashvili (2016), "we, usually applying the word "impression", mean only a certain mental content, and, therefore, its semi-physical sensual shade is lost." The philosopher, in this case, by impression, means what has been chased or imprinted (for example, on wax). He gives examples of such impressions, taken from the works of M. Proust, and, at first glance, absolutely ordinary things may be the reason: the Madeleine cake, a hawthorn bush or the face of a beloved woman.

The peculiarity of these impressions is that they seem incomprehensible at first. "For some reason, the hawthorn bush excited us. There is no reason to worry - it is not different from a thousand of other bushes of the same kind ... It is beyond reasons", or, more correctly, it is not reduced to reasons already known to us, and that is why, in order to "unwind" the true state of affairs, it requires our entry inside us - otherwise, this information cannot be borrowed from some external sources. External experience does not also teach this, but only our "presence" brought into it (Mamardashvili, 2017).

But if this vital act took place, unique, like a painfully remembered person, "suspended" in front of us outside the causes and not resolved by their content, if there was a discrete ray of impression, facing the depth and resonating in it, then there would be a direct contact with the truth, with reality as it really is, as opposed to our expectations or logical possibilities. The certainty of these absolute and non-relative impressions contains the opportunity of form, and their intensity - the opportunity of consciousness (Mamardashvili, 2017).

Therefore, thought can develop from these impressions, but our work is required. If we do not, as Mamardashvili (2016) says, "wiggle" in the gap with lightning, for the opened for one second harmony, if we miss this second and do not expand this opened interval with work, then nothing will happen, because everything is irreversible. If we do not do it now, we will never do it again. Only you are here, and only you can realize what "shines" to you. And if you rely on someone else, you will only miss part of the world into complete oblivion.

It means allowing a part of oneself to go into non-being, to lose a part of one's soul, to die in relation to oneself, for non-being is death. "The law of mental life is that we are alive only by keeping others alive," says Mamardashvili (2016), "and we are resurrected solely by resurrecting others." To withdraw, not to recognize the impression, means to deny the deceased. The hawthorn bush does not contain anything, but the impression created by it appeals to us, begging us to release the shell in which it is located from the "quagmire".

"It is clear," notes Mamardashvili (2017), "that such impressions mean the reunification of one part of our soul with another part." However, it is necessary to pass through a point that opens the circle of interactions, or determinations of the world around us, for such a "resurrection from the dead" to occur. An impression is basically a free feeling but the condition for the fullness of this freedom is the understanding or decoding of this impression, in which a book or text plays the role of a spiritual instrument.

Conclusion

At first glance, it may seem that the book is a mirror capable of reflecting impressions from the outside world in our minds. However, after careful reading of Mamardashvili's words, it becomes clear that the text of the book causes certain states in the reader, creates specific impressions, while helping to decipher them. It is in this capacity that the work plays the role of a spiritual instrument allowing us to recognize the "voices" of external objects and being able to bring us back to life.

"Tolstoy's text," says Mamardashvili (2017), "is a text that continuously gives birth, and only in this capacity could we say that it is being read." The same can be said for the writings of Dostoevsky, Proust, and other great writers. Passing through the points of inner freedom, which has been discussed above, and connecting them, they seem to draw the path of their life, or the line of their individual history. And then the compositions that have come out from their pen are movements of unraveling not only their life experience; they, as Gadamer expresses, contain the voice of the Existence itself (Yusupov & Mukhtasarova, 2016).

"A. Bely," writes L. Sugai, "called his worldview "a ball thrown into the hands of the next generations," and if A. Blok’s poetry is a bridge connecting the 19^th and 20^th centuries, then Bely’s work can be compared with a desperate jump over an abyss thrown to future generations by the "ideological ball". In this regard, we consider it appropriate to quote the lines of the poem by R.M. Rilke, a prominent representative of symbolism. The very lines that Gadamer took as an epigraph to his most famous composition:

While we throw something away from ourselves,

Profit and skill return to us.

But if we suddenly catch that ball

That the Eternity Player has cleverly sent,

Swinging skillfully and exactly in the mediastinum -

This is how God builds bridges - destiny

We carry out not only ours, but the world’s… (Rilke, 1922)

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