Who am I, a Philosopher-Millennial, and Who can I Become?

Abstract

The article attempts to fi nd the specifi cs of the generation of philosophers-millennials through the analysis of the features of the historical location — historical baggage and challenges that the modern stage of the development of knowledge and human society, rich in opportunities and risks, poses to the philosopher. Working with generational themes, the author draws on the classical works in this fi eld by K. Mannheim and J. Ortega y Gasset, the Russian sociological tradition represented by T. Shanin, Yu. Levada, etc., modern studies of the millennials, in particular, the so-called Generation Me (J. Twenge). In addition, the author, belonging to the appropriate age cohort, analyzes personal experience, acting as a representative both of the millennials and of the generation of philosophers-millennials. The main emphasis is on considering how the choice of profession took place, what events determined it, what was the motivation in the 2000s go to study at the Department of Philosophy, then write a dissertation for the Ph.D. (degree of candidate of philosophical sciences) and, finally, to build a career as a professional philosopher. At the same time, the author is critical of the fact of her own belonging to the millennials, honestly designating and explaining some distance from peers and emotional rootedness in the experience of previous generations, primarily the Sixtiers and the Seventiers. Specifying the facts of her own biography that can influence the assessment of the socio-cultural and professional significance of the generation of philosophers-millennials, the author offers her vision of the main features that distinguish millennials as a philosophical generation. One of the main theses substantiated in the article is the statement about the fundamental openness of the fate of the millennials in philosophy, whose history not only hasn’t yet been written, but isn’t strictly predetermined by the past and present, being dependent on the rapidly changing images of the near and more distant future.