The Ethics of Limited Understanding: On the Metatheoretical Thought of M.L. Gasparov

Abstract

The article offers an analysis of the meta-theoretical reflection of the outstanding philologist M.L. Gasparov. By metatheoretical reflection we mean problematization not of theory, but of the scholar’s own position in relation to the Other. Its main problem is the «professional subjectivity» of the scholar in his interaction with subjectivity of the Other, as well as the extra-­professional grounds and consequences of his position.
Gasparov radically questions the presumption of understanding the text along with understanding of the author of the text. Such understanding is viewed as egocentric violence. Gasparov proposes that understanding should be achieved by special practices of the researcher’s ascetic self-restraint, accompanied by translation and reconstruction of the text under study. Such an understanding is relevant only within rigidly defined boundaries. Consequently, humanitarian research comes to the limit of its possibilities by reconstructing the actions of a limited and historically finite subjectivity determined by the selection of the possibilities available to it. These possibilities might be enumerated in a thesaurus.
Gasparov introduces the idea of a closed list of significant factors that create a translation field. It allows to determine the correlation of places in a common coordinate system. But the existence of this coordinate system is confirmed for the researcher by the experience of the ultimate vulnerability and receptivity of a personal existence. The text turns out to be a that emerges under pressure of primary force of negativity produced by a personal being but overcomes this negativity. The question remains to what extent the existence of the text is limited by its historical genealogy.