Methodological Analysis of the Anthropological Problems of H. Skovoroda’s Philosophy in the Modern Context

The hostilities that have been taking place in Ukraine since 2014 have made socio-political transformations related to the fateful issues of the future of the Ukrainian people and nation and their state-building processes particularly acute. In such circumstances, classical socio-philosophical issues come to the fore, as they allow us to comprehensively understand human social activity, its potential, and internal and external forces, and to assess the importance of the individual as a cultural and creative being. This issue is closely related to the anthropological one in the training of philosophers since future specialists must realize that man is the center of social and socio-political processes, that he is a microcosm in which the entire macrocosm is concentrated, as H. Skovoroda argued. The philosophical symbolism of the thinker’s work is directly related to wisdom, akin to work, seeing the great in the small, revealing the mystery through the symbolic world. This is the way to a happy life. To be a human being is to be a philosopher, says Hryhorii Savych and the fate of each person is inseparable from the fate of the nation, and this unity lies in the world of freedom, which many do not understand, because it requires fighting the whole world on the principles of love, not hatred. This is the classical Ukrainian philosophy founded by H. Skovoroda. Its task is to awaken the main slogans of the Enlightenment (honor and dignity, freedom, justice, solidarity, morality) and to practically direct them to achieve both one’s freedom and the freedom of an open society. The development of such a society in Ukraine is the goal of the modern national state-building process, and the realization of the value principles is the goal of philosophical education. Future philosophers, studying H. Skovoroda’s creative heritage, can trace the evolution of the human spirit: internally devastated, without certain life guidelines, a person gradually adapts to life in society; overcomes contradictions between the individual and the general, finds a compromise in relations with the environment. Of course, not everyone will be able to successfully go through the path of their spiritual formation, since this process requires a significant strain of internal and external forces, unity and struggle of mind and feelings, worldly wisdom, and a desire to join in finding out the causes of human cruelty and arbitrariness, identifying the sources of humanity in man and society.