Memory Studies in the Horizon of Interdisciplinary Expansion and Their Development in the History of Philosophy

The article analyzes the problem of the expansion of memory studies into various areas of the humanities, in particular, their turn from social anthropology to historical sciences. The question on features of memory studies theory, which contribute to its entry into the interdisciplinary field, is raised. The author emphasises that the appeal to social and then cultural memory, the transition from history to mnemohistory allow re-actualising discussions on the methodology of the humanities. The discourse of memory turns out to be a problematic field where the posing of methodological questions is understandable for specialists in different disciplines. The article aims to demonstrate the productivity of the interaction between the history of philosophy and memory studies, and to specify the main features of the development of the discourse of memory in the history of philosophy. The work is based on the analysis and interpretation of both classical works in the field of memory studies and modern critical studies in this area. The author also analyses works on philosophy and the history of philosophy. Three problematic issues of memory studies in the history of philosophy stand out: the representation of the past in the present; the status of movements, ideas, and figures of the past as values and mental guidelines in the present; memory as a path to the self-consciousness of modern philosophy. The first issue is the question of the specifics of memory (as opposed to history) in the modern history of philosophy; the second is related to the concept “place of memory”; the third involves the problem of national tradition and the peculiarities of the “invention of tradition” in the history of philosophy. The history of philosophy of the 20th century recognizes the artificial nature of the past; it is evaluated not as history, but as memory. The contradiction “history / memory” and the difficulties of transition from the practice of memory of social groups to the practice of memory of thought, as well as the importance of the “memory-history” link, are accentuated. The question of “places of memory” is transformed into the question of the “mythogenicity” of historical and philosophical figures and events, movements, which seems to be a stage in the problematisation of the self-identification of modern philosophy. The historical and philosophical process is associated with the process of globalization (in the polarity of global and local cultures), with its own peculiarities of the development of national cultures and local socio-cultural characteristics that affect the nature of historical and philosophical practice. The author concludes that in the history of philosophy the discourse of memory appears in a de-politicised and de-socialised form: with the transition from a connection with a social group and a group in general to a wide social context. Mental practices of philosophy are contextualised like the social practices of classical memory studies.

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