In Exile from the ‘House of Certainty’: On the Need for Abandoning the ‘Completed Thought’; The Perspective of Lev Shestov’s Philosophy
Natalia STENCEL
Department of the Philosophy of Cognition, The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Cracow, ul. Kanonicza 9/203, 31-002 Cracow, Poland , PolandAbstract
The article offers an interpretation of Lev Shestov’s philosophy. On the one hand, the context of the considerations is provided by the intellectual currents seeking philosophical certainty, those preceding Shestov’s ideas as well as the ones contemporary to him. On the other hand, though, Shestov’s reflection is juxtaposed with postmodernist philosophy.
The special focus is the problem of the so-called ‘completed thought.’ Shestov is described as a philosopher who, unlike Descartes or Kant, consciously and thoroughly abandoned the idea of philosophy ever being completed. His ideas radically differ also from those proposed by postmodernists and deconstructionists, for instance Derrida, Barthes, Foucault, or Guattari and Deleuze, who—as the author of the paper demonstrates—only apparently pursue ‘open philosophy,’ having actually focused on a closed discourse.
Keywords:
Lev Shestov, certainty, deconstruction, postmodernism, Russian philosophyDepartment of the Philosophy of Cognition, The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Cracow, ul. Kanonicza 9/203, 31-002 Cracow, Poland
