THE VALUE OF THE INDIVIDUALITY (NOTES ON THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF M. WEBER IN THE LAST BOOK OF ARON Y. GUREVICH)

Abstract

The article presents the main results of the study of methodological settings and solutions to the problem of individuality developed by A.Ya. Gurevich. Attention to M. Weber's phenomenological or “understanding” sociology as an epistemological key to research of the problem of individuality is acted in almost all the historical analyzes and writings of A. Ya. Gurevich; the article clarifies the main contexts and epistemological semantics of the research perception and interpretation of Gurevich's Weberian cognitive attitudes. It is proved that the cognitive capabilities of Weberian epistemology provide the historian with freedom within his chosen space of theoretical assumptions and primary categorizations; hence, the problem of individuality solved by Gurevich is rather the problem of personality or existential choice of the practicing historian himself to consolidate the historicity of his own thinking, not reducible to external assessments, making himself felt through attribution to values, ready for being in the personality of another, or discretion and actual reconstruction of the “alien” individuality in a lot of historiographic practices. The article outlines the prospects for the study of methodological settings A.Ya. Gurevich (in relation to the individual problem) in their connection with the current state of historical anthropology and some theoretical paradigms of historical knowledge.