Time, Moment, Eternity: Hieroglyphs and Meditations in Yakov Druskin’s Philosophy

Abstract

In this article, the author explores the interest of the interwar intellectuals in “time, death, God”. This focus on temporality as an existential problem engendered some major philosophical projects, which aimed at complete revision of how philosophy should be done, including Henri Bergson, Edmund Husserl, Franz Rosenzweig. The main part outlines a philosophical project of Yakov Druskin who addressed the problem of temporality in a highly original manner. Druskin combined philosophical reflection on time in its existential meaning with the search for intellectual methods and linguistic techniques to transcend our ordinary reality. Among these methods, in Druskin’s works at least two major modes—meditation and “hieroglyphs”—can be identified. Both methods, however, aim at “transforming rather than informing” and at enabling us to linger in a “certain equilibrium with a minor error”.