The Dialectics of Philosophical Meanings in The Foundation Pit

The article discusses Andrei Platonov’s novel The Foundation Pit from the viewpoint of the dialectics of philosophical meanings. Proceeding from Gustav Shpet’s methodology of “coherent cognition,” the author undertakes an attempt to understand the philosophical meaning of the novel, which should be considered in the framework of Platonov’s philosophical worldview. From the one hand, The Foundation Pit is analyzed as a unique work that is representative for understanding the philosophical motives of the writer. From the other hand, the article applies to the philosophical optics of Marxism, which formed the intellectual background of Platonov’s work. As a result, the author proposes to consider three types of philosophical meanings: the dialectics of utopian thinking, the dialectics of alienation, the dialectics of happiness. On the material of the analyses of the utopian thinking, it is shown that The Foundation Pit could be understood as a negative stage of utopian thinking, which extracts the novel from the literary context and provides it with more contemporary meaning. The dialectical sense of alienation is demonstrated on the opposition of the material and spiritual. As an outstanding and philosophical writer, Platonov provides clues for the search of the approaches to solve the problem of senselessness of the material and groundlessness of the spiritual in the modern world. In the conclusion, the author shows that it is necessary to think about the happiness through the question of universal justice and it is possible to dream in seemingly awful world.

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