title: An unknown soldier: Philosophical apology of war and its origins
metadata.name: dc.contributor.author
metadata.value: Brodsky, Alexander I.
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.accessioned
metadata.value: 2020-02-06T11:15:13Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.available
metadata.value: 2020-02-06T11:15:13Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.issued
metadata.value: 2019-12
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.citation
metadata.value: Brodsky A. I. An unknown soldier: Philosophical apology of war and its origins. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies, 2019, vol. 35, issue 3, pp. 551–562.
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.identifier.other
metadata.value: https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu17.2019.402
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.uri
metadata.value: http://hdl.handle.net/11701/17008
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.description.abstract
metadata.value: More often than in the case of any other sphere of culture, we face an apology of war while
  dealing with the history of philosophy. A lot of ancient and modern thinkers praised the phenomenon
  of war: among them are Heraclitus, Aristotle, Fichte, Hegel, Nietzsche, Vladimir Soloviev,
  Berdyaev, Sergey Bulgakov, etc. The author of the article attempts to reveal the causes of
  this phenomenon. In his opinion, some features similar to the mental prerequisites of wars are
  intrinsic to the very nature of philosophical discourse. Firstly, both philosophy and war share
  the cult of universal phenomena and the repulsion for everything private and individual. Secondly,
  both philosophical discourse and military practice employ a kind of “apophatic logic,”
  when unity is defined through the negation of independence and particularity. Thirdly, both
  philosophy and war are characterized by anti-utilitarianism, which clashes pragmatic interest
  against allegiance to the highest non-utilitarian values. These similarities between philosophy
  and war can be explained by their common function: both should defend the basic concepts of
  a particular community. Concepts lay the foundations for any religion and tradition, and are
  usually accepted without further consideration (while always being questioned by other communities).
  Therefore, war is an inevitable cultural phenomenon. Philosophy arises as a kind of
  compensation when a tradition is for some reason compromised by the members of the corresponding
  community. Philosophy exists either as a means of substantiation for a tradition or
  as a means for replacement. It strives for the revision of the basic set of concepts, but it is impossible
  to substantiate concepts by means of formal logic. And if a community stops accepting
  the basic meanings “automatically,” the only means of substantiation is violence (and war
  is its most radical form). Thus, for philosophy, war is a kind of substitute for argumentation. It
  is only natural that the majority of adherents to the idea of “eternal peace” ― from Henri de
  Saint-Simon to Vladimir I. Vernadsky — believed that such a peace is possible only if philosophical
  thinking will be substituted by scientific thinking (and this is, of course, a utopia).
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.description.sponsorship
metadata.value: This article was prepared for the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), project No. 18-
  011-00673 “Theory of Cultural Trauma: individual traumatic experience end experience of historical
  catastrophes”.
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.language.iso
metadata.value: ru
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.publisher
metadata.value: St Petersburg State University
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.relation.ispartofseries
metadata.value: Vestnik of St Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies;Volume 35; Issue 4
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: war
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: philosophy
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: ideology
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: concepts
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: values
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: cultural trauma
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.title
metadata.value: An unknown soldier: Philosophical apology of war and its origins
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.type
metadata.value: Article
metadata.lang: en_GB
resources.filename: 551-562.pdf
resources.url: https://dspace.spbu.ru/bitstream/11701/17008/1/551-562.pdf
resources.format: Adobe PDF
resources.size: 664,67 kB