Daemonology of conscience: from Socratic ideas to their historical-philosophical reading in the views of H. Hegel, H. Skovoroda and P. Yurkevich

Abstract

The article examines through the prism of the historical-philosophical worldview of G. Hegel the problem of the phenomenon of conscience on the material of classical ancient philosophy and its continuation in the Ukrainian philosophical tradition, embodied in the views of G. S. Skovoroda and P. D. Yurkevich. Different forms of posing the question of the essence of existence of such a phenomenon as conscience are given, and in what its difference and identity with morality, as a universal law. The goal was to trace a holistic line in the philosophical solution of this question and revolutionary and reactionary moments in the formation of the concept of conscience in different historical conditions. It is precisely the reconstruction by G. Hegel of the stage of formation of conscience in the ancient world that gives us a holistic understanding of the dialecticity of existence of conscience at different historical stages. For G. Hegel, the distinction between morality and moralism is obvious in the context of the problematics of conscience, which is an external and internal law (ideal) for a person. Therefore, a more specific formation and separation of the concepts of morality and moralism, opposition of tradition and conscience, as well as separation of social and personal ideal, will be the central lines of this article. This is a contradiction in the development of the ideal between the social and the individual, which is expressed in such a sensual phenomenon as conscience, which is vividly represented by the representatives of Ukrainian philosophy, such as G. Skovoroda and P. Yurkevich. Despite the common religious form of thinking about the universal, the ideal and the conscience, they solve this question of conscience in opposite ways: if for the first one it is an inner need, then for the second one - rather an external given law.