A Man after Auschwitz and Gulag, or How is it Possible to Inquire about a Human

Abstract

The article focuses on possibility and problematicity of modern interrogation about a human being. Problematicity emerges as a man is put in a situation called «after Auschwitz», which is described with the categories of irreducibility (irreducibility of experience, means of self-determination). It is shown that the cultural form of representing such ultimate experience is testimony, which problematizes itself after Auschwitz. Precedents of such testimonies are described with examples of the works by Primo Levi and Varlam Shalamov. An attempt is made to substantiate that the modern experience of philosophizing about a human being - the modern anthropology - has to reject traditional efforts to determine a human being as «thing existent» or find some determinant essence. It is due to the situation «after Auschwitz» that questions all previous methods of human thinking. Moreover, a modern person increasingly chooses the so-called withdrawal scenario for a human being, rejection of actual social life in favor of imitating life and generating simulacrums, withdrawal to the virtual reality. In response to this withdrawal trend the author proposes a different scenario: an anthropological alternative in the form of anthropological practices of self-determination and testimonies about such anthropological practices.