Vasiliev’s ‘Consciousness and Things’: A Project for a Phenomenological Ontology
Beavitt T.A. Vasiliev’s ‘Consciousness and Things’: A Project for a Phenomenological Ontology // Orbis Idearum.– 2023.– Vol. 11. Iss. 2.– P. 51-67.
In his influential 2014 book Consciousness and Things, Vadim Vasiliev, Professor of History of Foreign Philosophy at Moscow State University, establishes a significant new direction in contemporary philosophy. Since a published English translation of this book is absent, a detailed review of its main ideas is presented here to an international audience for the first time. Proceeding according to the conceptual analysis method developed in analytic philosophy, Vasiliev’s project for a phenomenological ontology assumes the necessity of our causal belief (that nothing happens in the world without a reason) and existential belief (that we expect from all things given in the senses that they will not disappear merely due to the cessation of our perception of them). The “local interactionist” position articulated in the conclusion appears to have relevance in fields beyond “consciousness studies” and philosophy of mind.
