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Contemporary Russian Philosophy explores a variety of perspectives in and on philosophy as it is currently being practiced in Russia. Co-sponsored by the Center for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and by the Russian Philosophical Society, this special series features collaborative works between Russian and Western scholars on topics of philosophical importance. The series also publishes monographs and collections of essays by Russian philosophers, as well as studies by all scholars on topics related to contemporary Russian philosophy. All volumes are published in English.
Prior to 2021, the volumes in Contemporary Russian Philosophy were published as a subseries of the Value Inquiry Book Series. Please visit the Contemporary Russian Philosophy, subseries of the Value Inquiry Book Series page to view previous publications.
Abstract
Georgian-born director Dmitry Mamuliya studied at Tbilisi State University during the final years of Mamardashvili’s life, when the philosopher was living and lecturing in Tbilisi. This chapter engages Mamuliya’s experimental approach to sound and the absence of voice in his first two feature films, Another Sky (2010) and The Criminal Man (2019), with Mamardashvili’s work from the 1980s on the crisis of consciousness in late Soviet society, in particular the problem of language. This is a continuation of an exercise I have been conducting for several years in the philosophy of film, whereby I have sought to engage the work of filmmakers influenced by Mamardashvili with the content of Mamardashvili’s philosophical ideas. By analyzing Russian cinema in its direct intellectual context, I hope to shed new light on the ways in which films can express philosophical ideas on their own terms. Where Mamardashvili and Mamuliya are concerned, their work shares a deep concern that society—at their respective historical moments—is moving towards a sickness of consciousness that risks damaging the social fabric and integrity of the human mind.