Consciousness and Conscience: Mamardašvili on the Common Point of Departure for Epistemological and Moral Reflection

Abstract

Mamardašvili did not develop a systematic philosophy that treats separately the various traditional disciplines of philosophy such as epistemology, logic, ethics, aesthetics etc. On the contrary, isolated from the direct influences of other currents of thought that might otherwise have given his own a different direction, Mamardašvili concentrated his attention on the very act of thought, the vitality of which had been undermined in philosophical understandings, including both Hegelian-Marxist attempts to situate the subject in history and re-appropriations of the Cartesian cogito. In this paper I will outline the most pertinent elements of Mamardašvili’s attempt to find a unified subject of knowledge and action and attempt to show how in his view consciousness and conscience are indissoluble.