Philosophical problems of the symbol and the meaning of the concept of emblem in Andrey Bely's philosophy of culture

The paper draws attention to one feature of Andrey Bely’s philosophy. In his works, along with the concept of symbol, he uses the concept of emblem as a philosophical term, which seems unusual. The author of the paper emphasizes that in Bely’s philosophical system priority is given to the philosophy of culture, and the most fundamental problem is the existential gap between unity and plurality, between God and the world, between the internal requirement of significance, value and perfection of the results of human creation and the visible meaninglessness, unsystematic and chaotic nature of civilization. The Russian thinker seeks to build an ontological “world between”, a connecting structure, the role of which should be played by a symbol. But as a result of Bely’s attempts to combine R. Steiner’s esoteric philosophy with the logic of neo-Kantianism, it turns out that the symbol in his constructions became incomprehensible and imperceptible. So there is a need for an additional element, which becomes the emblem, acting as the external surface of the symbol. The emblem in Bely’s philosophy is a form of present existence, through which cultural reality is created, constructed and cognized.