“BARBARISM” AND “STATE OF NATURE”: IN SEARCH OF SEMANTIC PARALLELS

Abstract

Introduction. Despite the long and arduous efforts of mankind aimed at humanizing social and political relations, they do not become more stable and free from violence. In conditions of unstable and risky modernity, the concepts of “barbarism” and state of nature” reveal their relevance and acquire new meanings. These concepts serve as significant means of analyzing socio-political reality. The purpose of the article is to disclose the semantic analogy between the concepts of “state of nature” and “barbarism”, established or outlined in the works of political philosophy classics and modern authors, as well as to explicate the ways of semantic rapprochement of these concepts. Methods. The author uses methodological principles and guidelines of hermeneutic and comparative analysis, which made it possible to carry out a comparative study of conceptual tools belonging to different layers of philosophical discourse. Through the elements of social constructivism and discourse analysis the philosophical and political foundations of the concepts studied in the article are identified. In addition, the methodological tools of intellectual history and R. Koselleck’s history of concepts are used. Scientific novelty of the study lies in formulating the problem of convergence of discourses on barbarism and state of nature, explicating the reasons for this convergence, as well as the resulting prospects for developing political philosophy. Two ways of converging the concepts of “barbarism” and “state of nature” are explicated. The first of them is based on the concept of “barbarism” losing its ethno- and Eurocentric meanings. The second way involves giving both concepts the status of tools for studying empirically reliable socio-political realities. Results. The theoretical and empirical asymmetry of the concepts of “barbarism” and “state of nature”, understood in their genetic aspect, is revealed. The first of them initially served as a means of designating empirically reliable social realities, while the second was constructed as an abstract philosophical tool necessary for the study and apology of the political one. The article shows the ways of transforming the semantic content of the concept of “barbarism”, which, while generally retaining a critical meaning, becomes increasingly abstract and loses its narrow ethnocentric meaning. It is shown that a number of authors (Ph. Manow, P. Purtschert, O. Eberl) are trying to deconstruct the colonial meanings of the “state of nature”. Linking this concept to historical specifics allows us to interpret it as a theoretical heritage of “barbarism”, which entails a number of consequences for political philosophy. Conclusions. The concepts of “barbarism” and “state of nature” still remain significant for describing modern socio-political realities. Their semantic convergence occurs in a situation of crisis, covering various aspects of social life, and testifies to the close interpenetration of the social and the political. At the same time, each of these concepts is capable of functioning in its own semantic field, being incorporated into modern philosophical discourse.