Artamoshkina, L.E. Biography as a Cultural Text: From Philosophy of the Act to Social Ontology

Abstract: The article is devoted to conceptual grounds of biography as a cultural text. The author of the article analyzes provisions of E. Levinas’ social ontology, the latter being an essential method of research of biography as a cultural text. Levinas’ methodology allows to conduct phenomenological assessment of sociality based on the attitude to the Other. The author of the article also analyzes such terms as ‘event’, ‘act’ and ‘acting/participating thinking’ offered by Mikhail Bakhtin in his theory of subjectivity. The author of the present article proves that it is possible to view the above mentioned problem from the point of view of the concept of the Other and philosophy of the act. The concept of ‘existence and co-existence’ offered by Mikhail Bakhtin as a method of viewing biography from the point of view of the ethic beginning. The author also concludes that Bakhtin’s philosophy of the act and Levinas’ social ontology as the main methods of analysis of biography as a cultural text. Addressing to Bakhtin’s and Levinas’ methods provide grounds for defining principles of mutual complementarity of the phenomenology of individual memory and sociology of collective memory. The author of the article also offers a strategy for analyzing biography as a cultural text.

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