Subject of social memory and the transmission of historicity

Abstract

In the context of the fragmentation of historical perception and the deformation of subjectivity, issues concerning the integrity of historical experience, the transmission of collective identity, and the prognostic functions of historical imagination become particularly relevant. The study subject is the semantic, categorical, and functional aspects of the imaginary as an epistemological phenomenon within historical knowledge, its connection to social memory, subjectivity, and the dialogical structure of the historical process. The study object is the epistemology of history as a distinct field of philosophical inquiry, within which interrelations between historical imagination, social forms of memory, symbolic structures of culture, and the subject of historical action are explored. The study aims to analyse and provide a philosophical and epistemological justification for the role of the imaginary and social memory in shaping a coherent historical consciousness and in the reproduction of historical subjectivity. To achieve the aim and address the set objectives, the study employs a range of scholarly methods, including the hermeneutic method, phenomenological analysis, the epistemological approach, cultural-historical analysis, the comparative-historical method, and the method of critical reflection. The study draws on the works of European, American, and Russian scholars in philosophy. The author examines the interrelations between epistemological discourse and historical subjectivity, identifies the place and role of social memory in this process, and demonstrates that social memory serves as a means of forming the social organism and educational processes. An attempt is made to comprehend the unity of the past, present, and future within a unifying concept of the logical and procedural organisation of history.