PROCEEDINGS OF THE LATVIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Orpheus in the underworld: obscuring of mind and society without the world

Keywords: obscuring of mind, society without the world, J. G. Hamann, Romanticism, S. Kierkegaard, F. V. J. Shelling, M. Heidegger
Language: In Latvian

The aim of the article is to describe and interpret the way of 19th and 20th century European philosophy as a process of “obscuring of mind” where mind loses the status of evidently clear self-givenness. “Obscuring of mind” is a reaction to such relations with reality which began to develop since the late 18th century, i.e. coinciding with the beginning of modernity. Thinkers like J. G. Hamann, F. V. J. Shelling, S. Kierkegaard and F. Nietzsche turned against such relations. They surmise and outline the framework of the modern society which secludes itself self-differentially losing the link with the “world”. This modern society can be called also “society without the world”. The article focuses on the fact that the thinkers of “obscuring of mind” are simultaneously critics of “society without the world”.