“Continuous Creation”: Two Perspectives in the Cartesian Horizon

Abstract

The article argues that V. Podoroga and M. Mamardashvili's understanding of the concept of “continuous creation” is noticeably different in a number of aspects. Descartes breathed new life into the old idea of creatio continua, which thus fell into the Modern times arsenal of ideas; Mamardashvili and Podoroga, in turn, gave it today's reading, in which there are both areas of intersection and characteristic differences. V. Podoroga questions the Cartesian connection between freedom and duration in Mamardashvili's version. In the interpretation of Cartesian freedom, he believes, Mamardashvili follows Sartre: in this case, man takes on the function of God and becomes a necessary condition for his own existence. However, an analysis of classical texts shows that Mamardashvili's interpretation is quite correct: Descartes (and Mamardashvili) proceed from the discreteness of the moments in time, which require special efforts to assemble. The effort of God maintains the existence of the world; the effort of the cogito maintains the being of thought. Mamardashvili draws attention, as Descartes advises, precisely to the causes of being (secundum esse) and to the intuition of discreteness of moments of time, which is important for Descartes. It is also clear that the one who performs the act of cogito does not at all assume the function of God: on the contrary, he discovers in himself dependence on the higher being, which gives the power of creation. The roll-overs and dissonances of these interpretations show that Podoroga's thesis about the absence of "new" in Mamardashvili's ideas, replaced by the creative energy of his "Voice" in the act of thought, needs correction and clarification. It can be said that the transfer of a number of functions from the Logos to the Voice, carried out by V. Podoroga, led to a certain preponderance of corporality in understanding the peculiar method of Mamardashvili. But still, this does not depreciate the significance of the deciphering of the phenomenon of Mamardashvili, which is unique in its versatility, undertaken by him.