War experience and its subjectivity through the lens of leading contemporary philosophical approaches

The article is devoted to determining which modern philosophical approaches are most relevant for describing people’s experiences during the war. In this regard, the question of who the war’s subject is is critical. The author proceeds from the fact that in the modern philosophical discourse of war, the approach formed within the framework of the analytical philosophical tradition prevails. However, as the article shows, the tools available in the arsenal of the latter lack methods for describing direct human experience. War is understood as a continuation of politics; only those who decide to wage war have subjectivity. Representatives of discourse ethics offer a slightly different approach. However, the article’s analysis of the seminal works of Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas and their reactions to military conflicts demonstrates that this approach also lacks an experiential dimension. Overcoming this limitation can be found in the works of representatives of phenomenology and poststructuralism. In particular, as shown in the article, in the works of Emanuel Levinas and Jan Patochka, one can find alternative definitions of war and the appropriate tools for describing the experience of being at the front. Thus, in E. Levinas, war appears as the basis of politics; in J. Patochka – it is a basis for modern political “peace”. The author draws parallels between these definitions and the views of Michel Foucault, who defined politics as a continuation of war. Like E. Levinas and J. Patochka, M. Foucault asserted that subjectivity belongs to the one at war. In addition, the author analyzed the views of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, who described war as a phenomenon designed to destroy politics as such, as a result of which the military became the subject of war in their approach. Based on the analysis of these approaches, the author concludes that post-structuralist and phenomenological approaches can return subjectivity to people experiencing wars. This makes these approaches more consistent with reality and the latest trends in understanding the phenomenon of war in various fields related to philosophy.