Research

Summary

The Philosophical Ideas in “Dioptra or, the Mirror of Human Living in the World” and the Language of the Scientific Discourse in the 17th –18th Centuries

The article is devoted to the analysis of the collection of sermons, Dioptra (1612), written by Vitalij. The author of the article views the collection as part of the Ukrainian philosophical tradition of the 17th century. The use of either Church Slavonic language or the so called “prosta mova” variant (i. e. plain Ukrainian speech used in books) in different types of scientific texts was determined by socio-cultural factors. The graphic and orthographic features of the collection of sermons "Dioptra" show that the book was written using the Ukrainian version of the Church Slavonic language, which was influenced by both the "prosta mova" and the languages spoken in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Most of these features are reflexes of prehistoric East Slavic changes, preserved in some archaic northern Ukrainian and southern Belarusian dialects, for instance, dispalatalization of hissing consonants, the change *ę>е and other features. The author of the article examines concepts of self-awareness and the internal spiritual man which were typical of the philosophical discourse of the time. The relevance of the philosophical reflections of Vitalyj's work is confirmed by the fact that this work was published more than once, and the ideas presented in it formed the basis for the perception of European Protestantism until the 18th century.