Tolsteneva U.L. Existence: Activity and Meaning

Abstract: The article deals with a correlation between the concepts «activity» and «meaning» in existentialism. The category of «activity» is infrequent in the works of existentialists. Reviewing the basic postulates of pre-existential philosophy, prominent representatives of this philosophical school could not but criticize the enthusiasm of transformative activity, characteristic of traditional philosophizing. Interpreting the main vector of human being as aspiration to internal fittedness, spiritual comprehension of human depths, existential philosophers criticized the civilizational passion to transform the world. But in this context, they encountered a contradiction: ardent castigation of activity as creation could lead to social apathy, indifference, to defeatism and escapism. The existentialists turned to the theme of human activity, to the problem of a responsible action.The research method is related first of all to historical-philosophical analysis. Nowadays existentialism has been ousted by other forms of philosophical comprehension of reality. Therefore, a researcher of this problem has to preserve the thread of a comparativist development of philosophical reflection.The novelty of the approach is that the theme of «activity» as a phenomenon with regard to existentialism is examined for the first time in Russian literature. It can be found in such concepts as «activity», «act», «action», «creativity». The article shows that affirmation of meaning, project, goal is an inseparable quality of any activity in existentialism. Therefore, heterogeneous concepts display internal coherence, entireness.

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