„Записки от подземието“: съзнанието като болест
Notes from the Underground: Consciousness as an Illness

Summary/Abstract: The article presents a philosophical reconstruction of the views regarding consciousness expressed by the main character of Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground. The man from the underground is found to be an innovative creation when compared with Julien Sorel, the main character in Stendhal’s The Red and the Black. The original idea that consciousness is an illness is theoretically elaborated through a close analysis of the text; the article also draws on philosophical fragments found in Dostoyevsky’s manuscript. The article stresses that this concept is in contradiction with the spirit and letter of the Cartesian tradition; the hypothesis is advanced that this is due to the radically different principle of philosophizing applied here: Cogito ergo sum is replaced by Credo, ergo est. The article present a number of oppositions: consciousness vs. human nature; consciousness vs. image; consciousness vs. living life; the thesis put forward is that the image is a basic instrument of consciousness in Dostoyevsky’s world. Finally, the article raises the problem as to the novel as a philosophical genre and highlights the role of the writer as the founder of this genre.

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