authors: Alla Kravchenko, Andrii Morozov
Urgency of the research. The danger of restricting the freedom of the individual is a threat to humanity, the prevention of which requires constant spiritual work on moral self-improvement.
Target setting. Totalitarianism at its core presupposes a situation of totality - the domination of the universal and the general over the singular and the special. But when does this totality of grand narratives transform into totalitarianism?
Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. The literature on totalitarianism should be divided into three blocks. First, they are apologists for totalitarian thinking: Plato, G. F. Hegel, K. Marx, F. Nietzsche, T. Carlaile, H. Chamberlain. Secondly, these are the thinkers who laid the fundamental foundations for the study of the phenomenon of totalitarianism - H. Arendt, K. Popper, E. Fromm, T. Ador-no, Z. Bauman and others. Third, these are scientists who raise the question of the totalitarian potential of Western culture: H. Ortega, M. Berdyaev, Y. Habermas, P. Gaidenko, E. Sarkisyants.
The research objectives. The aim of the article is to comprehend the instrumental rationality in order to reveal the totalitarian and nihilistic potential in it.
The statement of basic material. The article analyzes the phenomenon of instrumental rationality, which underlies the processes of dehumanization, anonymity, irresponsibility, conformism. It is noted that Enlightenment nihilism as a distorted understanding of freedom, denying the cordocentric spiritual tradition, leads to the disintegration of the substantive unity of reason, giving rise to the relativization of morality and the aestheticization of evil. The positivist program, which deals with value-neutral scientific "facts", takes its meaning and supreme values beyond the logical structure of the world. Purified from morality, the "Euclidean mind" becomes a soulless and heartless technique of selection and calculation of optimal means to solve goals "beyond good and evil", and "engineering" approach to the study of nature and society in combination with the subject-object oriented "strategic action" and "technical thinking" creates the preconditions for the emergence of a specific situation of Totality, in which everything individual and individual is impossible.
Conclusions. The antihumanist potential of the values of instrumental ("technical", "economic") rationality can be "removed" or at least compensated in the space of dialogic subject-subject "communicative action" (Yu. Habermas), in which on the basis of equality and tolerance to Other, all participants in the discourse will be given the right to vote and the opportunity to be heard.
Key words: nihilism, liberty, responsibility, instrumental rationality, Holocaust, totalitarianism.
References:
1. Adorno, T 2003. Negativnaya dialektika (Negative dialectic), per. na russk. EL Petrenko, Moskva. Dostupno: <https://gtmarket.ru/library/basis/5512>. [23 Berezen 2021].
2. Arendt, H 2005. Dzherela totalitarizmu (Sources of totalitarianism), per. z angl. V. Verloki, Dm Gorchakova, Kiyiv, Duh i Litera, 584 s.
3. Arendt, H 2013. Banalnist zla. Sud nad Ajhmanom v Yerusalimi (The banality of evil. The trial of Eichmann in Jerusalem), per. z angl. A Kotenka, Kiyiv, Duh i Litera, 367 s.
4. Bauman, Z 2010. Aktualnost Holokosta (Relevance of the Holocaust), Moskva: Evropa, 316 s.
5. Berdyaev, N 1933. ‘Chelovek i mashina. Problemy sociologii i metafiziki tehniki (Man and machine. Problems of sociology and metaphysics of technology)’, Put, № 38, s. 3–37.
6. Vitgenshtejn, L 1995. Tractatus logico-filosoficus. Filosofski doslidzhennya (Tractatus logico-filosoficus. Philosophical research), Kiyiv: Osnovi, 145 s.
7. Gajdenko, PP 2003. Nauchnaya racionalnost i filosofskij razum (Scientific rationality and philosophical reason), Moskva: Progress-Tradiciya, 528 s.
8. Golovin, E 2002. ‘Radi triumfa lozhnogo ideala roz (For the sake of the triumph of the false ideal of roses)’, Volshebnaya gora. Almanah, Vyp. 8, s. 24–26.
9. Gusejnov, A 2000. ‘Etika dobroj voli (Ethics of Goodwill)’, v kn. Kant I. Lekcii po etike, Moskva: Izd-vo MGU, s. 5–36.
10. Dostoevskij, FM 1982. Besy (Demons), Moskva: Pravda, Biblioteka Ogonek, sobr. soch.v 12 t., T. 9.
11. Levinas, E 2000. Izbrannoe: totalnost i beskonechnoe (Favorites: Totality and Infinite), SPb: Universitetskaya kniga, 416 s.
12. Losev, AF 1993. Ocherki antichnogo simvolizma i mifologii (Essays on ancient symbolism and mythology), Moskva: Mysl, 650 s.
13. Popper, K 1994. Vidkrite suspilstvo ta jogo vorogi (View the Suspension of That Yogo Victory), per. z angl. O. Kovalenko & K. Popper, Kiyiv: Osnovi, 444 s.
14. Radzinskij, E 2015. Beregites, bogi zhazhdut (Beware, the gods are thirsty), Moskva: AST, 315 s.
15. Sarkisyanc, Manuel 2003. Anglijskie korni nemeckogo fashizma: ot britanskoj k avstro-bavarskoj “rase gospod” (The English Roots of German Fascism: From the British to the Austro-Bavarian “Master Race”), per. s nem, Manuel Sarkisyanc, SPb.: Akademicheskij proekt, 600 s.
16. Tillih, P 1995. ‘Muzhestvo byt (Courage to be)’, v kn. Izbrannoe, Moskva: Yurist, s. 7-131.
17. Fromm, E 2019. Vtecha vid svobodi (Escape from freedom), Kiyiv: Knizhkovij klub “Klub simejnogo dozvillya”, 288 s.
18. Habermas, Yu 2000. Moralnoe soznanie i kommunikativnoe dejstvie (Moral awareness and communicative action), SPb: Universitetskaya kniga, 410 s.