Filosofska Dumka

Editorial

2026-09-17T14:57:47+03:00

Editorial

ECHOES OF CHORNOBYL On the 40th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster

2026-09-17T15:06:39+03:00

The review summarizes the roundtable's work dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the Chornobyl catastrophe, reinterpreted in the context of the current Russian war against Ukraine (also known as the Russo-Ukrainian war). Participants discussed the causes and consequences of the Chornobyl disaster, its environmental, historical, humanitarian, and existential aspects, as well as its connection to the USSR's colonial practices and the Russian Federation's postcolonial policies, in an interdisciplinary manner. It was emphasized that the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war poses a challenge to environmental safety and humanity's nuclear security. This calls for responsibility to prevent a new catastrophe and for actions to stop Russian aggression as soon as possible.

Russia's aggressors aim to destroy our homes and land. Ukraine's resistance continues the national liberation struggle that has persisted for more than three hundred years to defend our socio-cultural oikos (A. Yermolenko).

The modern world underscores the inseparable link between consciousness and action, suggesting that everyone must act as an ecologist in the broad sense—as a representative of their national community (Ye. Bystrytskyi). From a historical perspective, the Chornobyl disaster is not a finished event but an ongoing process, and its documentation is likewise ongoing. The full-scale Russian invasion has created new challenges that we must address promptly (N. Zaletok). Military actions violate natural and man-made barriers that localize radioactive contamination in the Chornobyl zone and also catalyze adverse changes in radioactive processes. As a result, a new type of radiological risk emerges, requiring a reassessment of existing criteria for the stability of the Chornobyl zone's natural and man-made system as a whole (D. Hryhorenko). S. Hrabovsky highlighted the symbolic aspects of Chornobyl history, the circumstances surrounding the Chornobyl NPP's construction, and the consequences of the nuclear catastrophe. The following main stages can be distinguished in the artistic interpretation of the Chornobyl disaster: official Soviet art since April 1986; art by disaster-relief workers, displaced persons, and those who lived near the exclusion zone; folk artists or representatives of traditional art; contemporary Ukrainian art and art after the full-scale Russian invasion. At the same time, many topics for artistic development remain, and they should be grounded in historical context and archival sources (O. Semenik). The Chornobyl accident is not only a man-made disaster but also a moral and ethical catastrophe that endures to this day (N. Boichenko). S. Balinchenko provided a comparative analysis of the situations of displaced persons after the Chornobyl accident and of people who had to leave their homes since the Russian invasion in Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.

At the same time, the roundtable participants highlighted that the Chornobyl disaster, with its ecocidal consequences, was not only a tragedy and trauma for the Ukrainian people but also a catalyst for the revival of national identity. It became a factor in the formation of civil society and the restoration of Ukraine's independence, a struggle that continues today (R. Samchuk, W. Wolkowskyi).

The round table became not only a tribute to the memory of the Chornobyl disaster but also an important contribution to understanding its causes and aftermath in light of modern realities, given that nuclear terrorism, blackmail, and the exploitation of fear of radioactive contamination are integral to the policy and criminal practice of Russia and Russian aggressors.

SPEECH OF WELCOME

2026-09-17T15:13:55+03:00

SPEECH OF WELCOME

GLOBAL ECOLOGY IN THE NATIONAL WORLD

2026-09-17T15:18:01+03:00

This article examines the multi-level interconnection between global environmental threats and national ecological problems. Starting from the destruction of the natural environment caused by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the author traces the relationship between the global and the local as the “logos and oikos,” a disposition originally embedded in the concept of ecology proposed by Haeckel. Using examples such as the Paris Climate Agreement under the UN and international civil movements striving for its effective implementation at the national level, the article notes that the local dimension remains overshadowed by global ecology. This contradiction draws the author’s attention, first, to ongoing debates covering various dimensions of ecology—from its etymological roots to its interdisciplinary nature amid international and national environmental policies—highlighting the need for a holistic understanding that integrates global and local perspectives. Second, it creates a premise to focus on existing trends in ecological literature that emphasize the local—cultural and national—level of ecological issues, a return to the “earthly,” the local. The author explores these trends by referring to prominent figures in ecological thought and environmental protection (Latour, Klein, Haraway, among others). Accordingly, the article attempts to clarify the internal logic behind the ecological turn toward natural environment issues at the local level, related to threats to the life of national communities. This leads to an analysis of the significance of the natural environment for nation making and national identity within the framework of biopolitics (Agamben, Esposito), particularly the understanding of life’s agency (bios), in view of strategic dependence of humans and society on the state of the environment. The article also points to the boundary that both separates and connects the scientific-strategic human relationship to the natural environment and philosophical inquiries into human life “in” this environment. Methodologically, this results in considering the “logos and oikos” disposition in terms of “deep ecology” (Taylor) and through the metaphor of “returning home” (Sloterdijk). The author develops the philosophy of this thinking in emage based on the concept of tenderness, found in the artistic-political work of Vynnychenko, characterizing the mass motivation of the Ukrainian community’s turn toward national independence. The article attempts to clarify the existential meaning of tenderness as the experience of unity between the national community and its closest natural surroundings in Heidegger’s works devoted to the hermeneutics of images of returning to the land, to home, as expressed by the German poet Hölderlin. The notion of tenderness is also critically examined in the context of Kantian ethics concerning the relation to living beings. Finally, Sloterdijk's proposal to update Kant's categorical imperative in the context of solving environmental problems by adding the requirement to "act immediately" is considered. The author suggests adding to this ecological reformulation of the imperative a requirement that human action be compatible with the continued existence of national communities on earth.

THE ETHICS OF RESPONSIBILITY AFTER CHORNOBYL: STIGMATIZATION, TRAUMA AND THE SEARCH FOR JUSTICE

2026-09-17T15:21:31+03:00

The article reveals the essential connection between the mechanisms of social stigmatization, the specific nature of traumatic experience, and the problem of justice for those affected by the Chornobyl disaster and the subsequent generations who inherited its consequences.

The author analyzes the philosophical foundations of Chornobyl-related stigma through Martin Buber's distinction between “I–Thou” and “I–It” relations, Alfred Schützʼs structure of concentric circles of social proximity, and Erving Goffmanʼs concepts of invisible threat and Mary Douglasʼs notion of symbolic pollution.

The mechanism of epistemic injustice (Miranda Fricker) is analyzed, through which the testimonies of affected persons were systematically devalued by state institutions. It is shown that Chornobyl trauma does not conform to the standard model of post-traumatic stress disorder, as it is open-ended, lacking clear temporal boundaries, and conditioned by epistemic uncertainty, which corresponds to Ulrich Beckʼs thesis on “risk society”.

It is substantiated that the mechanism of “biological citizenship” (Adriana Petryna), intended to ensure recognition and compensation for harm, simultaneously reproduces the victimization of those affected and is passed down to subsequent generations. Drawing on John Rawlsʼs principle of justice and Judith Shklarʼs concept of passive injustice, it is argued that the system of benefits and compensations constructed after the disaster is capable of reproducing the very injustice it was meant to eliminate. It is noted that the ethics of responsibility after Chornobyl requires recognizing the affected as subjects and bearers of dignity, regardless of their ability to prove their own suffering to bureaucratic institutions.

In conclusion, the author emphasizes that the Chernobyl disaster caused not only physical destruction, but also a much deeper and longer-lasting moral trauma. Therefore, Chernobyl remains today a marker indicating the limits of our ability to admit guilt, bear responsibility to our descendants, and care for the most vulnerable citizens.

CHORNOBYL AS THE REAL AND CHORNOBYL AS THE MYSTICAL. ESSAY

2026-09-17T15:28:06+03:00

The essay is devoted to the tragic page of Ukrainian history of the last decades of the 20th century – the Chornobyl nuclear disaster, its perception and refraction in culture. The author turns to historical events related to the city of Chornobyl, whose name was given to the nearby nuclear power plant, to Chornobyl`s legends and stories, to the rational and non-rational dimensions of the disaster. The essay format, common in European and Ukrainian philosophical thought, allows us to organically include historical facts, literary texts, scientific folklore and personal authorial observations related to the Chornobyl topic in the text of the article. In general, Chornobyl – as a landmark event, as a conceptual metaphor, as a symbol of a certain era – became a planetary phenomenon, significantly influencing modern civilization.

Round Table Discussion by “Philosophical Thought”

2026-09-17T15:35:55+03:00

Changing of values configuration under conditions of war and peace (Lyakh, V. (moderator), Yermolenko, A., Proleiev, S., Yosypenko, S., Boychenko, M., Balinchenko, S., Crepon, M., Mulyarchuk, Ye., Gomilko, O., Liubyvyi, Ya., Zavhorodniy, Yu., Kikhno, O., Sekundant, S., Strelkova, A.)

PORTRAIT Of A Universalist – “A Free Man Among His People”

2026-09-17T16:17:51+03:00

PORTRAIT Of A Universalist – “A Free Man Among His People”

THE TRIAL ВY PEACE. Essay (tr. by Yosypenko, O.)

2026-09-17T15:44:29+03:00

THE TRIAL ВY PEACE. Essay (tr. by Yosypenko, O.)

ALEXANDRE CHOULGUINE’S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. ARTICLE 2: "HISTORY AND LIFE"

2026-09-17T15:48:58+03:00

The article is the second part of a study devoted to the philosophy of history of Alexandre Choulguine (1889–1960), a Ukrainian statesman, diplomat, and scholar. The article focuses on his “major work” on the philosophy of history, L’Histoire et la vie. Les lois. Le hasard. La volonté humaine (1957), written within the French academic context as a kind of sum total of the author’s political and scholarly activity. The article demonstrates that A. Choulguine’s reflections on the laws of history and the role of human will in history cannot be separated from the context of the Ukrainian national liberation movement: in his view, it is the laws of history that determine the limits and possibilities of human action, whereas human will determines the direction of history, in particular, the achievement of the ideals of this movement. In his book, A. Choulguine employs the approaches of historical synthesis and comparative history to determine the scientific status of the laws of history and to substantiate his central conviction: human existence and activity are impossible without the operation of certain historical laws, while the latter are impossible without the participation of human will; consequently, an understanding of the mechanisms of history and social life gives people the opportunity to make history consciously.

Choulguine presents his book as a contribution to a scientific philosophy of history, which, following Henri Berr, he contrasts with a “speculative” philosophy of history; at the same time, he maintains that the philosophy of history should not merely describe historical processes but also judge them. Distinguishing himself from social quietism, he introduces the distinction between “will-as-duty” and “will-as-desire” and emphasizes that, in the modern era, the principal subjects and makers of history are not individual outstanding personalities but peoples and nations, whose collective will — both will-as-duty, that is, the will to self-preservation, and will-as-desire, that is, the aspiration toward certain ideals —becomes the most important of all historical factors at critical moments in history.

MEMORIAL TURN: CHALLENGES FOR THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

2026-09-17T15:55:08+03:00

The article identifies and analyzes three challenges to the philosophy of history that arose due to the so-called memorial turn that occurred at the end of the 20th century. The first is the loss of the monopoly of academic historiography on historical truth and a defining attitude towards the past. The second is the insufficiency of the concept of “linear time” to explain the diversity of historical experience in different cultures and in different historical periods. The third is the problematization of the horizon of the future due to increased attention to the past. The challenges described determine the transformation of the philosophy of history from the theory of historiography to the philosophy of historical culture, historicity and the future, forming a new subject field that significantly distinguishes it from both the classical and postmodern stages.

Postmodern criticism of historical knowledge shifted the emphasis from epistemology to the analysis of the ways of representing the past in historical narrative, which resulted in the devaluation of the problematic of truth. The memorial turn, the main concept of which was memory, emphatically returns the importance of the question of truth to the philosophy of history but carries out this return outside the framework of academic historiography. Historical politics, which gives memory the status of an obligation, becomes another factor in determining the truth of the past. Therefore, the memorial turn visualizes the triad of historiography-memory-historical politics, each component of which claims its own truth of the past and the relationship between which is proposed to be defined as "historical culture".

The phenomenon of memory as the co-presence of the past in the present calls into question the objectivist "linear" understanding of time, which was the basis of modern historicism. At the same time, the problematic of the historicity of time itself and its connection with the historical nature of human experience is revealed. Cultural constructivism and hermeneutics constitute a range of modern approaches within which time is studied as “multilayered”, “heterogeneous”, “polychronic”, “plurihistorical”, etc. The consequence of this is the relativization of the phenomenon of time and the pluralization of historicities, the analysis of which is increasingly focused on by modern philosophy of history.

The deficit of the future, evidenced by the memorial turn, only illustrates the actual rejection of the philosophy of history from utopian thinking. However, the plurality of historicities inevitably relativizes the time of the memorial turn itself as a predominantly European and “Western” historicity. Post-humanist and retrotopic historicities reopen the horizon of the future, returning the philosophy of history to considerations about the future as a source of historical eventfulness and any historicity in general.

HOW TO STUDY NIETZSCHE'S INFLUENCE IN UKRAINE? Periodization as a characterization of the historical conditions of reception and orientations for its study

2026-09-17T15:58:51+03:00

This article was prepared as a part of the project “Nietzsche and Ukrainian Identity” at the Friedrich Nietzsche College (Klassik Stiftung Weimar) and constitutes the second part of its methodological foundation. For the first part of the methodological study devoted to the reception of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy, see: Mudrakov, V. (2026). How to study Nietzsche’s influence in Ukraine? Periodization as a structural framework for the study of reception: Philosophical Thought, 2, 92–105 (https://doi.org/10.15407/fd2026.02.092)

This article is the second part of a methodological study devoted to the reception of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy in Ukraine. Its aim is to characterize the historical conditions under which this reception became possible and assumed specific forms in different periods. The study proceeds from the assumption that changes in political, cultural, institutional, and epistemic conditions transform the very space of possibilities for reception. Accordingly, its periodization should be based not merely on chronological divisions but on structural transformations of these conditions.

On this basis, three major periods are distinguished: the imperial, the Soviet, and the period of Ukrainian independence. The imperial period was marked by the limited cultural agency of Ukrainians and by heterogeneous political, linguistic, and institutional regimes within the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires, which created different possibilities for Nietzsche’s early reception. The Soviet period fundamentally transformed these conditions through the ideological monopolization of the humanities, censorship, and the regulation of legitimate modes of interpretation. At the same time, Nietzsche’s reception under state socialism cannot be reduced to official ideological positions alone. The period of independence brought the demonopolization of philosophical discourse, methodological pluralism, the revision of inherited Soviet and imperial interpretive schemes, and the gradual internationalization of Ukrainian humanities. Nietzsche’s reception thus moved from a regime structured by ideological permission and prohibition toward a plurality of research interests, institutional practices, and intellectual strategies.

Alongside the reconstruction of these historical conditions, the article identifies a set of critical research orientations drawn from major works of international Nietzsche scholarship. They are selected not to provide a general panorama of contemporary Nietzsche studies, but for their methodological relevance to the analysis of Nietzsche’s reception in Ukraine under the specific conditions of each historical period. For the early period, these orientations make it possible to identify heterogeneous traces, appropriations, transformations, and competing images of Nietzsche beyond explicit philosophical commentary. For the Soviet period, they help to distinguish official ideological judgments from Nietzsche’s broader intellectual and cultural presence and to recognize disciplinary differences and indirect forms of circulation. For the period of independence, the methodological focus shifts toward the conditions under which free reception can develop into specialized Nietzsche scholarship: historically and philologically grounded reading, attention to textual genesis and context, resistance to retrospective systematization, expansion of the relevant source corpus, as well as recognition of artistic and visual forms of appropriation. These orientations thus serve as methodological tools for the subsequent analysis of Ukrainian material, while their relevance and application depend on the particular forms and historical conditions of reception under investigation.

The proposed periodization therefore functions as more than a chronological division of material. It provides a methodological structure in which the reconstruction of historically specific conditions of reception is combined with research tools for identifying and interpreting the forms that reception could assume under those conditions. In this sense, the article develops the methodological basis for the subsequent systematic analysis of the forms and functions of Nietzsche’s reception in Ukraine.

YOUNG SCIENTIST'S PAGE

2026-09-17T16:03:46+03:00

YOUNG SCIENTIST'S PAGE

THEATRICAL SPACE AS A DISPLACEMENT OF PLACE (ORTSVERSCHIEBUNG): A PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF BERNHARD WALDENFELS

2026-09-17T16:05:40+03:00

The article provides a phenomenological analysis of theatrical space through Bernhard Waldenfels’ concept of displacement of place (Ortsverschiebung). The author traces the transformation of the understanding of space in the philosophical tradition: from the classical model of space as a “container” to the phenomenological interpretation of space as a dynamic structure constituted through bodily presence. Husserl’s distinction between the physical body (Körper) and the lived body (Leib) and Merleau-Ponty’s concept of the body as the zero point of spatial orientation provide the theoretical foundation. Waldenfels’ responsive phenomenology extends this line by shifting the focus from the constitutive power of the subject to the event-dimension of experience, where space emerges not as a product of bodily intentionality but in the event of address and response to the challenge of the Alien. Drawing on Waldenfels` triad of topos, atopos, and heterotopia, in dialogue with Michel Foucault`s notion of heterotopic spaces, the article shows that theatrical space is best understood not as a fixed “other place” but as a site where the tension between the topical and the atopical acquires a temporary spatial articulation without resolving the underlying disjunction. Theatrical space is defined as a heterotopic structure operating through a constant displacement of the threshold (Schwelle) between the Self and the Alien. Drawing on the example of Jerzy Grotowski’s poor theatre, the study demonstrates that the theatrical event emerges as a “third space” of bodily resonance, where the positions of the actor and the spectator are not fixed but constituted through mutual bodily response, understood through the actor`s sensus communis and the spectator`s bodily co-presence. The threshold is treated not as a boundary that separates but as the very place of response to the Other`s address, in which neither side achieves full understanding, only an ongoing openness. The author concludes that theater functions as an anti-model of digital all-proximity (Allnähe), legitimizing the inaccessibility of the Other and restoring the primary openness of the human being. The article outlines two directions for further research: how concrete spatial configurations of contemporary performative practice, from immersive performance to site-specific projects, realize the structure of displacement of place, and whether the experience of Ortsverschiebung retains its effectiveness in virtual environments, where bodily presence is replaced by technical mediation.

ORDER INVARIANT AS AN ECHO OF WAR: THE GENESIS OF THE TERM ΤΑΞΙΣ IN ANCIENT GREEK CULTURE (PART 1)

2026-09-17T16:08:44+03:00

The article analyzes the genesis of the term τάξις (taxis) within the framework of H.G. Gadamer’s hermeneutic approach, drawing on the historical and cultural specificities of Ancient Greece in order to identify the mechanisms of transformation of the term itself and its contemporary interpretation. The article traces the semantic and conceptual transformation of the term τάξις in the ancient Greek intellectual tradition from the Archaic to the Classical period. Special attention is paid to the functional usage of τάξις in ancient Greek texts, as well as to the reconstruction of the development of its meaning based on materials from early and classical poetry and philosophy. It is established that the primary meaning of the term, attested in its military sense, forms the foundation for its further rationalized conceptualization of the experience of war. Furthermore, the analysis shows that war (in ancient Greek thought: πόλεμος (polemos), ἔρις (eris)) is a critical factor that constitutes a fundamental precondition for the formation of new forms of sociocultural order and contributes to the further organization of society. Ultimately, the findings suggest that the term τάξις undergoes significant semantic changes through an interconnected process of historical and cultural development, eventually evolving into a universal category of order. Initially, the close association between organization and κόσμος within its religious (mythological) context is weakened, while τάξις emerges as a term denoting the purely practical dimension of arrangement, detached from its earlier religious associations. Subsequently, the meaning of τάξις gradually shifts toward the process or operation of ordering itself. Poetry further expands the figurative potential of the term, thereby creating the conditions for its subsequent conceptual transformation. Building on τάξις as a term already established within the Greek cultural tradition, Plato abstracts its essential meaning from its particular domains of application, especially its military usage, conceptualizing the term as an independent invariant of the general idea of order. Aristotle, in turn, shifts the emphasis from order as a general state to order as the internal organization of a whole.

TRAGIC AUTONOMY: THE QUEST FOR THE ONTOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN NATURE IN THE LEGACY OF LEO STRAUSS

2026-09-17T16:12:33+03:00

The article examines the reception of Leo Strauss’s political philosophy as a critical theoretical overcoming of Thomas Hobbes’s modern political project. The foundational conflict of the study is articulated through the sharp opposition between the classical Telos, understood as the immanent logic of the good life, and the Hobbesian Archē, which is reductively rooted in the primary psychological fear of violent death. Human nature is systematically conceptualized merely as a fixed biological mechanism, but as a dynamic "betweenness" (metaxy) sustained by the perpetual tension between rational contemplation (Logos) and the non-reducible volitional impulses of Thymos and Eros. Special attention is devoted to the structural antagonism between radical philosophical inquiry and the necessary civic legal order (Nomos), which actualizes the tragic tension between the relative virtue of a good citizen and the absolute, unchanging virtue of a good human being. This inherent friction inevitably necessitates esoteric pedagogy, Socratic irony, and the strategic concealment of philosophical truth to protect the vulnerable thinker within the hostile political community (Polis), while the fundamental dual root of Western civilization concerning Athens and Jerusalem remains the ultimate secret of its historical vitality. Furthermore, the genealogy of nihilism, traced meticulously through Strauss’s analytical framework of the "three waves of modernity," exposes the internal destructive logic governing the collapse of classical ontological norms, the eradication of the distinction between facts and values, and the subsequent rise of historicism. This comprehensive theoretical trajectory provides the necessary foundation for the concluding concept of the individual's "tragic autonomy" within an indifferent, post-cosmological universe, where modern scientific rationalism strips the cosmos of any inherent teleological meaning. Ultimately, natural right is reinterpreted as a volitional, heroic act of resisting ontological chaos through the creative deployment of the "noble lie" and the persistent preservation of human dignity under an empty sky.