Although topics in social and political philosophy might not be the first to associate with Mamardašvili, it is argued in this paper that key concepts in his thought, viz. the concepts of form, thought, and culture come together, in the 1980s in particular, in a notion of civil society that goes deeper than that of many of his contemporaries. The relevance of his philosophy at this point is intensified by the specific nature of Soviet philosophical culture, but, it is argued, (...) extends well beyond that, fully justifying his honorary title of “Georgian Socrates”. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss and analyze three instances of exchange and interaction between Russian (incl. Soviet) and (West) European philosophical culture: the correspondence between Merab Mamardašvili and Louis Althusser, Jacques Derrida’s visit to Moscow in 1990, and a joint Russian–German publication by Nikolaj Plotnikov and Alexander Haardt. The focus is on the implicit mutual perception of philosophical cultures and on the ‘micro-politics’ of discourse that is at stake in their interaction. Also, it is shown how different contexts—labelled ‘philosophical culture’, (...) though not in any deterministic sense—are at work in the mutual perception between individual thinkers. Even if philosophical thinking tends to transcend the parameters of ‘glocal’ situations, this involves a job that needs to be done, individually and collectively, by the philosophers involved. Consequently, this dimension has to be taken into account when analysing such instances of encounter. (shrink)