The philosophy of professional ethics in works by Mykhailo Maksymovych

Анотація

 In this article the author discusses how young Mykhailo Macsymovych incorporated the philosophical concepts and ideas of Hryhorii Skovoroda and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling into his principles of professional ethics, which later helped him become a distinguished professional and contribute immensely to a wide range of fields in the life sciences. To support this idea, Natalia Yarmolenko analyzes the chapter “About a Flower” in Maksymovyche’s work “Plants’ Life” with respect to some major aspects of his single initiation philosophy. Previously, these philosophical ideas were expressed in works by Skovoroda and Shelling. Philosophical views of young Maksymovych were holistic just like Skovoroda’s; he believed that everything in the world should be seen in the three philosophical ‘worlds’ at the same time: macrocosm (nature, surrounding), microcosm (human), and a symbolic world (the world of Bible). At the same time Mykhailo Maksymovych supported Shelling’s concept that initially, that everything materialistic around us is a product of subconscious creativity of a spirit or idea, the consequent stage of its development. Maksymovych was trying to precisely describe every stage of development of nature or a human being, as well as to present those stages strictly in chronological order. As a result, Mykhailo Maksymovych came up with the concept of natural selection long before it has been described in Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”. His basic philosophical principles and holistic approach remained fundamental in all his areas of research, including history, linguistics, folklore and ethnography