Abstract

This paper considers the specificity of the genre of philosophical biography as a special kind of philosophical work and brings to light its conceptual grounds. Philosophical biography is defined as an understanding of human life which has received not only a literary but also a philosophical expression. The most important features of philosophical biography are as follows: the demand of spiritual affinity as a condition of understanding; the focus on comprehension of life-drama, in which the contradictions of worldview are on the front plan, thoughts and senses act as personal events; the creation of the spiritual image as the main task of biography and the dependence of the unity of biographical content on the author’s philosophical worldview. It is significant that the idea of plasticity of man can’t be schematized or lined up. It can be conveyed by meanings such as the plastic philosophical narrative.