Bili smo svega trojica / There Were Only Three of Us

Koliko i hommage jednoj osobi, ovaj tekst posveta je nagovoru na mišljenje i filozofiju. Namjerno aludiram na Aristotela i na njegov Protreptikos, jer sam tada, u ljetnom semestru 2019., shvatio riječi iz Metafizike koje Hegel stavlja na kraj svoje Enciklopedije: “Spekulacija je ono najugodnije i najbolje”.

U ljetnom semestru 2019. bio sam pri samom kraju preddiplomskog studija filozofije. Studij je protekao veoma zadovoljavajuće. Kao što je uobičajeno, student razvije tematske preference, pa bira pohađati kolegije kod onih profesora koji odgovaraju njegovim nazorima. Tako se i kod mene isprofiliralo nekoliko nastavnika čije sam kolegije rado pohađao.

Među njima je bio i Borislav Mikulić, tada voditelj Katedre za teoriju spoznaje i stručnjak u brojnim poljima: klasičnom njemačkom idealizmu, psihoanalizi i semiotici prije svega, ali vrstan poznavatelj antičke i indijske filozofije, marksizma i drugih područja. Dogodilo se tako da sam na svome studiju posljednje kod njega slušao dva kolegija - “Seminar iz semiologije i filozofije jezika” i “Dijalektiku i historizam: Hegel, Marx i problem metode”. Oba su bila, što je i obično bio slučaj s Mikulićem, veoma kvalitetna, no ono po čemu je “Dijalektika i historizam” ostao trajnije od drugih sa mnom jest činjenica da su ga, uključujući mene, pohađala samo trojica studenata. Ono što je, međutim, bitnije od samog broja, koji je, ponavljam, po sebi znakovit, jest to što sam u toj konstelaciji spoznao bit studija, kolikogod to zvučalo otrcano, i što sam shvatio kakva je moć znanja.

Da se nakratko vratim na malen interes među studentima za ovu temu koja bi trebala biti par excellence tema za Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu i na malen interes za Mikulićeve kolegije. Jedno s drugim jest povezano, iako je, doduše, na njegovim drugim kolegijima interes bio veći. Mikulić je među studentima imao renome strogog, zahtjevnog i direktnog profesora. Istovremeno, ako se student mogao nositi s tim očekivanjima, nudio je zauzvrat mnogo. Ukratko, mogli ste očekivati sramoćenje ako ne biste ispoštovali kriterije. To je, dakle, jedan od razloga zašto ga je većina studenata izbjegavala. No, s obzirom na temu, moglo se pretpostaviti da će na kolegij “Dijalektika i historizam”, posvećen Hegelu i Marxu, studenti navaliti, želeći produbiti i razviti svoje ljevičarske, marksističke i revolucionarne pobude. To se nije desilo, pa smo pretresanju dijalektike kod Hegela i Marxa, s temeljitim osvrtima na prethodnike kao što su Platon i Aristotel, bili prepušteni kolege Filip, Ivan i ja.

Seminarske sesije kretale su se između Hegela, Marxa, Engelsa, Feuerbacha, Schellinga, Platona i Aristotela, i znale su potrajati onkraj predviđenog vremena. Svako toliko osjetio bi se žar dok smo prolazili dijelove iz Teeteta, Fenomenologije duha ili Grundrissea, naboj koji se može poistovjetiti s poletom i mišlju da ovaj svijet možemo i trebamo promijeniti.

Jedna od temeljnih niti čitavog seminara bila je suprotstavljenost Hegela i Marxa u čuvenom Marxovom ‘preokretanju Hegela s glave na noge’: Hegelovu dijalektiku, opterećenu pretjeranim logicizmom, govorio je Marx, treba skroz-naskroz obrnuti i usmjeriti je prema objektivnom, realnom svijetu. Umjesto napretka u slobodi duha, potreban je, posredstvom proletarijata, napredak u slobodi čovječanstva.

Točno pamtim moment kada sam doživio, ako to nije pretjerano reći, prosvjetljenje i osjetio ono ‘najugodnije i najbolje’ od spekulacije. Dok je Mikulić iznosio Marxove kritike Hegela, s kojima smo svi bili prilično suglasni, i dok je govorio da je možda i najteži filozofski ili spekulativni zadatak spojiti ono najbolje kod Hegela i Marxa promatrano iz perspektive dijalektike, pitao sam ga postoji li mislilac koji je to uspio, odnosno je li itko na zadovoljavajući način uspio upregnuti hegelovski napor mišljenja s težnjom da se potlačeni slojevi društva emancipiraju. Nakon moje male strepnje zbog postavljenog pitanja, Mikulić je sa smiješkom odgovorio: “Da, upravo Marx”.

Ne znam koliko ova epizoda zvuči banalno, ali upravo sam otada postao ukorijenjen u Hegelu, Marxu i dijalektici. Očekivano, ova je epizoda bila jedan od vrhunaca mog studija, ako ne i sam vrhunac. Otkrio sam koliki užitak pružaju kretanje kroz mišljenje, povezivanje i strukturiranje teza, urezivanje teza u realnost i snaga koja proizlazi iz misli. U mom se umu tada definitivno formirao sistem (pri čemu sam spreman suočiti se sa svim kritikama s kojima se zagovaranje sistema može susresti).

S Mikulićem sam se nastavio sastajati dalje tijekom studija i kasnije u profesionalnom životu, uvijek jednako inspiriran moći misli i znanja koju mi je prenio.

Autor: Matej Čolig

Foto: Pixabay

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As much as it is a homage to one person, this text is also a dedication to an exhortation toward thought and philosophy. I deliberately allude to Aristotle and his Protrepticus, because it was then, in the summer semester of 2019, that I understood the words from the Metaphysics which Hegel places at the end of his Encyclopaedia: “Speculation is what is most pleasurable and best.”

In the summer semester of 2019, I was nearing the very end of my undergraduate studies in philosophy. The course of study had been highly satisfactory. As is customary, a student develops thematic preferences and thus chooses to attend courses taught by those professors whose views align with his own. In this way, several instructors emerged for me whose courses I attended with particular enthusiasm.

Among them was Borislav Mikulić, then head of the Chair of Epistemology and an expert in numerous fields: above all, classical German idealism, psychoanalysis, and semiotics, but also an outstanding connoisseur of ancient and Indian philosophy, Marxism, and other areas. It so happened that, toward the end of my studies, I attended my final two courses with him — “Seminar in Semiology and the Philosophy of Language” and “Dialectics and Historicism: Hegel, Marx, and the Problem of Method.” Both were, as was usually the case with Mikulić, of very high quality. What made “Dialectics and Historicism” remain with me more enduringly than the others, however, was the fact that only three students attended it, myself included. More important than the number itself — which, I repeat, is significant in its own right — was that in this constellation I grasped the essence of study, however trite that may sound, and understood the power of knowledge.

Let me briefly return to the low level of student interest in this topic, which ought to be a par excellence topic for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, and to the low interest in Mikulić’s courses. The two are connected, although interest in his other courses was admittedly greater. Among students, Mikulić had a reputation as a strict, demanding, and direct professor. At the same time, if a student could meet those expectations, he offered a great deal in return. In short, one could expect public embarrassment if one failed to meet the criteria. This, then, was one of the reasons most students avoided him. Yet given the subject matter, one might have expected students to flock to the course “Dialectics and Historicism,” devoted to Hegel and Marx, eager to deepen and develop their leftist, Marxist, and revolutionary motivations. This did not happen, and so the examination of dialectics in Hegel and Marx — with thorough references to predecessors such as Plato and Aristotle — was left to my colleagues Filip, Ivan, and myself.

The seminar sessions moved among Hegel, Marx, Engels, Feuerbach, Schelling, Plato, and Aristotle, and often lasted beyond the scheduled time. From time to time, a certain fervor could be felt as we worked through passages from the Theaetetus, the Phenomenology of Spirit, or the Grundrisse — an intensity that could be identified with the enthusiasm and the thought that this world can and should be changed.

One of the central threads of the entire seminar was the opposition between Hegel and Marx in Marx’s famous “turning Hegel upside down.” Hegel’s dialectic, burdened by excessive logicism, Marx argued, must be thoroughly inverted and directed toward the objective, real world. Instead of progress in the freedom of spirit, what is needed, through the mediation of the proletariat, is progress in the freedom of humanity.

I remember precisely the moment when I experienced — if it is not too much to say — an enlightenment, and felt that “most pleasurable and best” aspect of speculation. While Mikulić was presenting Marx’s critiques of Hegel, with which we all pretty much agreed, and while he was saying that perhaps the most difficult philosophical or speculative task is to unite what is best in Hegel and Marx when viewed from the perspective of dialectics, I asked him whether there existed a thinker who had succeeded in this — that is, whether anyone had managed in a satisfactory way to harness the Hegelian effort of thought together with the aspiration to emancipate the oppressed strata of society. After my brief anxiety at having posed the question, Mikulić replied with a smile: “Yes, precisely Marx.”

I do not know how banal this episode may sound, but it was from that point on that I became rooted in Hegel, Marx, and dialectics. As expected, this episode was one of the highlights of my studies, if not the very highlight. I discovered how much pleasure is afforded by movement through thought, by the connecting and structuring of theses, by inscribing theses into reality, and by the power that arises from thought. It was then that a system definitively took shape in my mind (and I am prepared to face all the criticisms that advocacy of a system may encounter).

I continued to meet with Mikulić throughout the rest of my studies and later in my professional life, always equally inspired by the power of thought and knowledge that he conveyed to me.

Author: Matej Čolig Photo: Pixabay