Between Humanism and Antihumanism: Mamardashvili on Becoming Human
Julia Sushytska, Ph.D.
Independent Scholar
Our epoch has been marked by a debate of the end: the end of history, of narrative, of metaphysics, and also the end of the human being. Michel Foucault’s 1973 The Order of Things concluded with a claim that “man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end.” It would seem that the only alternative to such anti-humanism is a position that presupposes something like human essence.
In stark contrast to either of these two possibilities, Merab Mamardashvili (1930-1990), a prominent philosopher from Soviet Georgia, proposed an altogether different path for thinking. He elaborated the notion of the human being as a being that “is always in a state of self-creation, and all of history can be defined as the history of this effort to become human.” “A human being,” Mamardashvili insisted, “does not exist, but becomes.”
Sushytska will explore Mamardashvili’s notion of the human being, and then connect it to some of the recent events in Ukraine.
Julia Sushytska (Ph.D., Philosophy, Stony Brook University) specializes in Ancient Greek and 20th century Continental philosophy. Her research focuses on convergences between ideas of Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Plato, and the work of 20th century thinkers, especially Gilles Deleuze, Alain Badiou, Julia Kristeva, and Merab Mamardashvili. She published scholarly articles in major peer-reviewed journals (Mosaic, Angelaki, Philosophy Today, Journal of Aesthetic Education), as well as in edited volumes. Among them is an essay on the philosophical notion of Eastern Europe that was reprinted by Routledge in Philosophy, Society and the Cunning of History in Eastern Europe. She co-edited a volume, Gilles Deleuze and Metaphysics (Lexington Books, 2014), and is currently finishing a manuscript entitled Internal Strangers, in which she argues that metics, or resident aliens, are indispensable for the existence of political, cultural, and philosophical places.
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