An Ontology of Power as an Ontology of History: An Appraisal of Vladimir Bibikhin’s Political Philosophy

Abstract

The paper deals with the phenomenological, ontological, and existential grounds of the political philosophy and the philosophy of history as proposed by Vladimir Bibikhin in a course of lectures called (It’s) Time (Time-Being). Following the crucial ideas of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, Bibikhin introduces the concepts of “early” and “late” disciplines, illustrated by the rules of Sophia Alekseyevna and Peter the Great, accordingly. These concepts are introduced to indicate two different ontological structures of historical and political action. An ‘early’ discipline stands for an ontological basis for democracy, whereas a ‘late’ one refers to autocracy and despotism. Drawing on multiple Bibikhin’s works dedicated to Russia, such as Introduction to the Philosophy of Law, The Power of Russia, and Our Place in the Word, the author argues that Bibikhin further elaborates the political and ontological aspects of the above-mentioned concept of the ‘late’ discipline in these texts. In contrast, the book New Renaissance is considered as an illustration of an ‘early’ discipline which is prevalent in the West, according to Bibikhin. Finally, the author proposes a critical evaluation of Bibikhin’s political philosophy in regards to its close link with an ideology and outlines the possible perspectives of implementing some of Bibikhin’s ideas in contemporary debates about the political.