Spiritual continuity of the ideas of Abai and Blaise Pascal (Abai «Words of Edification», B. Pascal «Thoughts»)

Abstract

The relevance of the study is derived from the phenomenon of Abai as a people’s prophet, a deep-rooted spirit, a national focus, and a humanistic and educational orientation of his creativity, which is particularly acute both for a modern independent Kazakhstan, and other young countries whose cultures, languages, customs, and moral guidelines have been threatened by economic and sociocultural globalization. In the «Words of Edification» Abai offers a complex of revolutionary strategies for his time, based on the national religious tradition, the elimination of conflict between rational cognitive and spiritual principles of an individual, which makes it possible to establish a strategy of dialogue among cultures in order to strengthen the Kazakh national identity. In this connection, the purpose of the article is to identify the similarity of Abai’s and B. Pascal's views regarding the categorical apparatus, key ideas, and specifics of the presentation. In the course of the study of this question, the historical-philosophical approach was chosen because of the need to study the core works in the context of the world history of thought. Hermeneutic was chosen to be the main method, which allows the free analysis and interpretation of texts, revealing their content from the perspective of non-classical forms of rationality. The eclectic method, together with general scientific analysis, synthesis, comparison, and generalization in a complex allows to draw parallels easily between directly unrelated sources and concepts. In the article the belonging of the philosophy of Abai and Б. Паскаль  to cordocentrism is determined, the categories of «heart», «reason», «will», «faith», «science» and their interconnection are revealed, the scope of genre affiliation of thinkers is expanded. The material of the article is of practical value for understanding the place of Kazakh philosophy in the world’s philosophical tradition, the nature of categories of Abai’s philosophy, and their interaction to build a strategy of effective cultural exchange, preservation of identity, as well as spiritual and moral ideals of the Kazakh people.