Freedom as a being-personal experiment in the philosophy of M. K. Mamardashvili

Annotation

The relevance of the article is determined by the need to rethink freedom – a universal characteristic of human existence in the conditions of modernity, which offer mythologemes as surrogates for authentic human life. The aim of the article is to reconstruct M. K. Mamardashvili's philosophical concept of being-personal experiment and to substantiate the way in which it prevents or promotes the achievement by the individual of this or that modus of freedom. Objectives of the article: to formulate the sign features of the existential-personal experiment and outline the scope of its realisation, to clarify its significance in the process of personality formation, to determine the importance of the dichotomy between existential choice and metaphysical decision in the context of the concept under discussion. The interpretation of M. K. Mamardashvili's philosophical concept is carried out through the application of hermeneutic reflection as the key methodological approach in the research. The sources of the study were the materials of the thinker's lecture courses, such as “Psychological Topology of the Way”, “Lectures on Ancient Philosophy”, as well as his published works (“The Arrow of Knowledge”, “Classical and Nonclassical Ideals of Rationality”). The article has a six-part structure. The first part reveals the phenomenon of being-personal experiment, reveals the peculiarities of its ‘carrying out’. In the second, third and fourth parts, M. K. Mamardashvili's ideas about freedom of being, freedom in thought and freedom of the full ‘I’, which condition each other and are interrelated, are presented in sequence. The fifth part of the article is devoted to the personality formed within the framework of ‘conducting’ the being-personal experiment, its distinctive features and specific characteristics. As a result of such an experiment, a new type of personality is formed, called by M. K. Mamardashvili, a person possessing a ‘heroic consciousness’ and a ‘classical soul’, the hallmarks of which are also presented in the fifth and final part of the article. The sixth part of the article discusses the significance of existential choice and metaphysical decision in the issue of human self-determination oriented towards the discovery of true freedom of one's own existence.

Keywords

• being-personal experiment
• being
• personality
• consciousness
• cogitative consciousness
• freedom
• self
• existential choice
• metaphysical decision
• self-existential thing
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References

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2. Mamardashvili, M. K. Vechnoe nastoyashhee [Eternal Present]. Moscow: Merab Mamardashvili Foundation; 2025, 320 p.

3. Mamardashvili, M. K. Kak ya ponimayu filosofiyu [How I Understand Philosophy]. Moscow: Progress, Culture; 1992, 411 p.

4. Mamardashvili, M. K. Klassicheskiy i neklassicheskiy idealy ratsionalnosti [Classical and non-classical ideals of rationality]. Moscow: Labyrinth, M. K. Mamardashvili Foundation for Philosophical and Interdisciplinary Research; 1994, 90 p.

5. Mamardashvili, M. K. Lektsii o Pruste (Psikhologicheskaya topologiya puti) [Lectures on Proust (Psychological Topology of the Way)]. Moscow: Ad Marginem; 1995, 549 p.

6. Mamardashvili, M. K. Lektsii po antichnoy filosofii [Lectures on Ancient Philosophy]. Moscow: Merab Mamardashvili Foundation; 2011, 187 p.

7. Mamardashvili, M. K. Moy opyt netipichen [My experience is atypical]. Saint Petersburg: Azbuka; 2000, 400 p.

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9. Mamardashvili, M. K. Simvol i soznanie. Metafizicheskie rassuzhdeniya o soznanii, simvolike i yazyke [Symbol and consciousness. Metaphysical reasoning about consciousness, symbolism and language]. Moscow: Languages of Russian Culture; 1997, 224 p.

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