Merab Mamardashvili Russian-speaking philosopher of Georgian origin. Date of Birth: 15.09.1930 Country: Georgia

Biography of Merab Mardashvili

Merab Konstantinovich Mardashvili was a Russian-speaking philosopher of Georgian descent. He was born in Georgia into a military family, with his mother being a descendant of Georgian Throne teachers. In 1954, he graduated from the Philosophical Faculty of Moscow University, and in 1970, he defended his doctoral dissertation in Tbilisi.

Mardashvili worked at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he lectured on Descartes, Kant, and the philosophy of science at Moscow State University. In 1980, he moved to Georgia, where he continued his work at the Institute of Philosophy and lectured on Proust and phenomenology at Tbilisi University. Due to his lecturing talent and emphasis on speech over writing, he was often referred to as the "Russian Socrates."

He wrote only one book, "Treatise on the Development of Knowledge," while the rest of his works consist of collections of his conversations, speeches, and interviews. The main subject of his study was the relationship between language and consciousness. According to Mardashvili, consciousness is not a natural ability of humans or acquired from the surrounding world, but emerges as a response to the demands of the physical world. "Philosophy is thinking aloud," says Mardashvili. Thus, consciousness is the metaphysical space of linguistic and social events of people.

Mardashvili believed that consciousness is an act of human existence. In his work "The Arrow of Knowledge," he states, "The act of thinking relates to Being as a transcendental level of human existence." Philosophy, therefore, is not simply a series of conclusions but a question about being. "As I understand philosophy," he says, "it has always asked one question: how can we think what is unimaginable?" Therefore, the purpose of philosophy is the philosophical act, which is a pause necessary for stitching together the past, present, and future, replenishing being and giving birth to meaning.

Mardashvili connects the birth of meaning with the loss of familiar forms of existence, with a pause in being.