Alexander Dobrokhotov

Alexander Dobrokhotov is a Russian philosopher, historian of philosophy, historian of culture, and university professor. He specialises in the history of Russian culture, history of philosophy, metaphysics, Russian philosophy, ancient and medieval philosophy, Kant and German Idealism, and philosophy of culture. Alexander Dobrokhotov is a leading Russian philosopher of culture and one of the founders of the Russian discipline within the humanities called ‘culturology’ (kulturologia).

From 1967 to 1972, Alexander Dobrokhotov was an undergraduate student in philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy, Moscow State University. From 1972 to 1975, he was a graduate student in philosophy at the Department of Western Philosophy History, Faculty of Philosophy, at Moscow State University. In 1978, he defended his PhD dissertation (‘kandidatskaya’) titled 'Parmenides' Teachings on Being’. In 1990, he defended his second dissertation (‘doktorskaya’) titled 'The Category of Being in Ancient Philosophy of the Classical Period’.

Alexander Dobrokhotov started his academic career as a historian of Ancient Greek Philosophy and as an interpreter of Parmenides' and Heraclitus’ theories of being. His studies resulted in several books, one of which, ‘The Category of Being in Classical West-European Philosophy’ (1986), summarises his main ideas.

From 1988 to 1995, Dobrokhotov was the chair of the Department of Cultural History of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. From 1995 to 2009, Alexander Dobrokhotov was the chair of History and Theory of World Culture of the Faculty of Philosophy, Moscow State University. The chair was created in 1990. Many prominent Soviet and Russian scholars like Viacheslav Ivanov, Sergei Averintsev, Aron Gurevich, Mikhail Gasparov, Georgii Knabe, Eleazar Miletinskii, Vladimir Romanov, Tatiana Vasilieva, Nina Braginskaia, Vladimir Bibikhin have worked there. From 1995 to 2015, Alexander Dobrokhotov taught at the Graduate School of European Cultures (VSHEK) which is an international training and research centre at Russian State University for the Humanities (VSHEK was established in April 2007 and replaced the Institute of European Cultures). From 2009 until today, Alexander Dobrokhotov is also a professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), at the School of Cultural Studies. He teaches various courses on philosophy, philosophy of culture, metaphysics and theology, history of Russian culture. In 2010, he became a tenured professor at HSE. Currently, Alexander Dobrokhotov is a member of the editorial board of Arbor Mundi, Transcultural Studies, and Studies in East European Thought.

Today, Alexander Dobrokhotov is a leading Russian philosopher of culture and prominent scholar in culturology. He often appears on television and has taught a massive online course on Coursera.

In late 1980s and early 1990s, the academic disciplinary landscape on the territory of the former Soviet Union underwent significant changes. Some disciplines based on Marxism–Leninism ceased to exist, and a number of new disciplines in the humanities and social sciences appeared. Among the new fields there was an approach towards culture within the Russian humanities which came to be known as ‘culturology’ (kulturologia). There have been many versions of this discipline, and Alexander Dobrokhotov became the founder of his own original version of culturology, based on the Kantian and Hegelian philosophical traditions and on the Russian philosophy on the Silver Age. He regards studies of culture as a combination of theoretical philosophy of culture on one hand, and empirical studies on the other hand.

In his works on philosophy of culture, he argues that ‘Culture’ can be regarded as an independent regional of being, alongside ‘Nature’ and ‘Spirit’. He defines Culture as the universe of artefacts. The artefact is the result of an objectification of Spirit and an anthropomorphization of Nature. In this respect, culture mediates Nature and Spirit. Culture makes obsolete the ontological conflict between Nature and Spirit. In their place, two other ontological conflicts appear: the conflict between Nature and Culture, and between Culture and Spirit. Alexander Dobrokhotov further argues that Culture is not a mechanism of human adaptation to the natural environment, but is rather an ontological wholeness, with its own aim setting, or, in his terms, ‘teleologism’. Pure or transcendental forms set aims for culture. This idea stems from works by Plato, Leibniz, Kant, and Husserl. Each artefact of Culture is created in order to take its place within the ontological wholeness, and thus, alongside its concrete meaning or function, it also contains a latent interpretation of the wholeness. ‘How should the world look like so that I could be a part of it?’ — this is the question which each artefact answers.

From this follows an empirical method which forms the foundation of the empirical discipline of culturology. This method involves reconstructing the ontological wholeness from the individual artefact. In other words, the method involves answering the question of how the world should look like so that the artefact could be a part of it. Furthermore, if the wholeness is the same for all its artefacts, an isomorphism of heterogeneous artefacts can be discovered. Hence, the main question of the empirical study of culture is ‘How can we reconcile the heterogeneity and isomorphism of cultural artefacts?’

In his numerous empirical studies of culture, Alexander Dobrokhotov demonstrates how his theory and method work. He reveals the underlying isomorphism in works by Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Pablo Picasso; in quantum mechanics and avant-garde in art; in the 18th-century philosophy of mind and the novel; in theology and Alfred Hitchcock’s films.