Sense positing and plurality of reason

Abstract

The article addresses the following question: what is sense (smysl) as such, not to be confused with the sense of something. The sense as such sets the absolute limit for human conscious­ness, since we can be conscious only of that which makes sense, and, vice versa, what makes sense is part of our consciousness. Sense is devoid of semiotic nature, for sense as such cannot be conceptualized as something opposed to meaning or related otherwise to it or to anything denoted. Sense is a tselostnost’ (integrity). Three basic axes for sense development are dis­cussed, that is, opposition-and-integration, unity-and-multiplicity, continuity-and-discreteness. The development of tselostnost’ (integrity) as the “what-and-such” svyaznost’ (linkage and coherence) may vary depending on the initial intuition of tselostnost’, laying down the basis for variations in pure reason. The author delineates a contour of the four types of pure reason developed by the four big cultures (European, Arab-Muslim, Indian and Chinese). This typol­ogy finds a sound parallel in the civilizational typology of reason proposed by A.V. Paribok.