Mikhail Petrov's 'Historical Anthropocentrism' and the Project-Anthropological Logic of the European History

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Abstract: This work is an analytical commentary on the book by M. K. Petrov "Language. Sign. Culture". Petrov belongs to the generation of Soviet philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. The central idea of his philosophy is the 'scientizing' of the society. When implementing this program, Petrov, on the one hand, introduces the idea of the structural subject of different cultural worlds - the social code. Based on this concept he distinguishes European culture from non-European culture. On the other hand, he introduces the idea of the "disciplinary structure" of science that expresses the structural anthropological subject of the European world demonstrated in the concept of "social code". The European social code views an individual person as an innovative-universal being, i.e. having the right to innovation and participation in the world construction in general. Combining the genesis of the European world with the disciplinary structure of modern science, Petrov achieves the two tasks. The first task is to descibe the genesis of European culture as a transition from "traditional" culture to the European social code. The second task is to construct the transition from the disciplinary structure of philosophy over theology to science. Implementation of the second task of Petrov is the main object of criticism in this work. The author emphasizes that the manner in which Petrov goes to the disciplinary structure of science and the understanding of this structure deproblematize the anthropological logic of European history. Instead of talking about European history as the history of the production and critics of the world projects ( first of all, projects of man), Petrov explores the logic of "disciplinary continuity" of philosophy, theology and science. As a result, the logic of the fault of European history between the middle ages and the modern period is pushed aside. Although it is, in the author's opinion, should be placed at the centre of attention when defining the essence of the fundamental structures of modern European world in general and science in particular. Exploring the logic of this fault, it is also possible to significantly complicate the notion of science, to put it in connection with the new European anthropological projects and come to understand the position of Petrov as one of the actualization of this project in the context of the struggle with the "closeness" of the totalitarian-authoritarian system.