Who am I, a Millennial Philosopher, and what Can I Become?

The article attempts to find the specifics of the generation of millennial philosophers through an analysis of the features of the historical location - the historical baggage and challenges that the modern stage of development of knowledge and human society, rich in opportunities and risks, poses to the philosopher. Working with generational topics, the author relies on classic works in this area by K. Mannheim and J. Ortega y Gasset, the domestic sociological tradition represented by T. Shanin, Yu. Levada and others, modern studies of the millennial generation, in particular the so-called Generation I (J. Twenge). In addition, the author, belonging to the corresponding age cohort, analyzes personal experience, speaking as a representative of the millennial generation in general and the generation of millennial philosophers in particular. The main emphasis is on considering how the choice of profession occurred, what events determined it, what was the motivation in the 2000s - first to go to study at the Faculty of Philosophy, then to write a dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Philosophy and, finally, to build a career as a professional philosopher. At the same time, the author is critical of the fact that he belongs to the millennial generation, honestly identifying and explaining some distance from peers and emotional rootedness in the experience of previous generations, primarily the sixties and seventies. Stating the facts of his own biography that can influence the assessment of the sociocultural and professional significance of the generation of millennial philosophers, the author offers his vision of the main features that distinguish millennials as a philosophical generation. One of the main theses substantiated in the article is the statement about the fundamental openness of the fate of the millennial generation in philosophy, whose history is not only unwritten, but not strictly predetermined by the past and present, being dependent on the rapidly changing images of the nearest and more distant future.