Tradition as an experience of time: the intersection of phenomenological and narratological perspectives ; Tradicija kaip laiko patirtis. Fenomenologinės ir naratologinės perspektyvų sankirta
In recent years, philosophy of history has somewhat outgrown the two fields of interests often prescribed to that branch of philosophy: historiosophy and historics. Ordinarily, this outgrowth is inspired by efforts to reflect new forms of historiography (such as microhistory or history of daily life). However, such a move is also employed in attempting to explain non-professional, pre-theoretical or even pre-thematic relation to historical past. A daily historical consciousness – a notion that has became possible only in the latest philosophy of history – is investigated here as a phenomenon of tradition. As is the case with all concepts, sense of the concept of tradition is flexible, given its history, development and future tendencies. In view of the usage of the word "tradition" in contemporary practical and theoretical contexts, it is clear that this concept enjoys few open means of further development. It can be radicalized, i.e., made into a fetish or almost into a slogan; on the contrary, it can be demonized. It can also be seen as the name of a phenomenon experienced in all lives, irrespective of the time and culture in which they are lived. Of course, levels and intensities of these experiences are different. In all senses, the term tradition denotes a human way to understand a social dimension of time, and to act in that time. From the philosophical point of view, tradition is an aspect of the intersubjectivity of consciousness, and as such possesses its own dynamics. Philosophical observations of the phenomenon of tradition are possible in several branches of philosophy: philosophy of history, social philosophy, philosophy of culture, and ethics. Social philosophy and sociology seem to be the scientific areas, in which the term "tradition" is used more often than anywhere else. It is exactly in these contexts that the typical use of this term is established: tradition is understood as the background of various processes of modernity. The opposition between tradition and modernity fully correlates with the more abstract opposition between statics and dynamics. This situation is a result of the long development of several notions, which is observed in the first part of the dissertation. At the moment, it is necessary to emphasize that the concept of tradition does not belong solely to social philosophy. The phenomenon of tradition can hardly be researched by means of one branch or even one discipline. Phenomenology and narratology may be called interdisciplinary methods for investigating questions about the human mind. Both of these methodological orientations reach the same topic of tradition from quite different perspectives. Phenomenologists analyze the dynamics of tradition as a subject conterminous to such topics as intersubjective time experiences, an order of life-world, and formations and reformations of communities. Narratology deals with the topic of tradition as following from discussions about dynamics of narrative, narration as a social act, and the specifics of a narrative (traditional) type of knowledge. Phenomenological and narratological perspectives sustain one another in observations of such problems as the experience of historical time, collective memory, the formation of narrative identity, etc. Tradition as a time experience can therefore be observed most consistently in the intersection of these two perspectives From the start, one relationship between narrative theory and philosophy of history is very evident: historical research results most commonly in narrative texts. But this evidence can sometimes be misleading; it would be wrong to judge that narratology can be useful for the philosophy of history solely as a basis of textological analysis. The concept of narrative refers to a broader notional field than a mere written articulation of some speeches. In the widest sense, narrative means a peculiar structure of understanding of processes, and (at the same time) a structure of processual understanding of reality. In short, narratological analysis is the most evident alternative for a theory of knowledge based on a concept of representation. Narrative theory quarrels with a static theory of narration and reception of narratives. It disagrees primarily with such a view of narration, which presents this act as the creation of representations of reality, as well as with such a view of the reception of a narrative, which explains the understanding of narratives as a recreation of some representatives of reality. Resisting a simplification of the dynamics of narrative structure, the narrative theory offers some possibilities for the discussion of the temporality of sense-building, in which three modes of a time experience can be linked together: flow (change), permanence, and repetition. Such understanding of a temporality has much in common with phenomenological explanations of the reception of an ideal sense (as in theory of E. Husserl), or with a theory of the reception of an artwork (given, for example, by R. Ingarden), or with a phenomenological investigation of a sociality of the mind (as in A. Schutz). The narrative way of sense building, in which static and dynamic states of mind are equally relevant and interconnected, is a product of community; conversely, a community is always a product of such means of narrative activity. So narrative is a mode of cognition and communication, rather than an order of fixated compositions of written or spoken texts. Narrative, as an intersubjective way to give sense to a life-world, may serve as a model for investigations of the dynamics of tradition. Strictly speaking, when we look at the process of narrative as an interconnection of senses, and when we see this process in the largest scale, we can call it a tradition. The intersection of narrative theory and the theory of intersubjectivity are therefore especially suitable to reflect some questions about tradition as an experience of time. Initially, it would be a question about pre-theoretical forms and orders in relation to the historical (public and personal) past. The following research areass are related to the topic: tradition as a source of identity, the role of tradition in various social confrontations, the relation between tradition(s) and community, conscious formations and transformations of traditions and communities, political and social manipulations on the topic of tradition, and logics of renovation or rejection of traditions. This dissertation is not able to embrace all of the above-mentioned questions. Philosophical observations of that phenomenon have their methodic borders. Accordingly, the dissertation is directed to give the most abstract ground for the conceptualization of tradition.