Philosophy of memory and crisis of collective identity

The article is devoted to revealing the connection between the philosophical reflection of the collective memory phenomenon and the large-scale cultural crises. Collective memory is the environment for the formation of identity in the aspect of the individual's belonging to the social whole through association with collective symbols. One of the “machines” for producing such symbols is philosophy. On the example of the crisis of the ancient polis and the philosophy of Plato's memory, the author analyzes the problem of intellectual compensation by the philosopher of the “lack of identity” of his contemporaries and concludes that the platonic philosophy of memory is historically the first philosophical concept of memory management (in modern literature it is customary to use the term “politics of memory”). It arises as a response to the challenge of fate, thrown to the ancient Greek political team by the history of the evolution of this form of state structure. Plato is concerned about the type of identity that is formed by a democratic device. He analyzes all possible contexts of this problem: from the psychological to the cosmic one. Plato thinks both metaphysically and practically: he tries to find the essence of the polis as a sociocultural whole and influence the conceptual marking of the consciousness of the members of the policy. In this regard, he solves the difficult task of creating a philosophical influential text. Therefore, negatively referring to the mythological consciousness, he, for example, uses the myth in his dialogues. However, it was impossible to stop the disintegration of the policy: neither the rulers nor the masses were able to realize what Plato was trying to make intelligible. Theories in general are powerless to prevent crises: they are always late, because they turn out to be not understood by contemporaries engaged in adapting to the new time; the philosopher can be heard by the next generations, who began to reflect on the consequences of the crisis.