Language, Individual & Society, Volume 14, 2020

Abstract: The paper presents a critical analysis of the relationship between the ideas of philosophy (philosophical language) and the figure of the father (spiritual, institutional, divine). The philosophical discourse reverses the natural attitude of man towards the world and introduces the idea of spiritual fatherhood (Apollonian religion, figure of the divine father and relationship based on logos, non-corporeal filiation of man), constitutes a new form of humanity that transcends the natural relationship with existence (needs, consumption, work). Philosophy shifts man from the world of apparent appearances into the world of life in truth and also makes displacement in man himself - corporeality, affection and desire are subordinated to reason. Philosophy - if its basic discursive formula is the question about the sense of being as a whole and the sense of humanity - is associated with the loss of being in the world, its intelligibility, and at the same time opens the sphere of freedom, history and shaping humanity. Thus, philosophy goes beyond phenomenal and symbolic obviousness, showing its incoherence and inhuman character, opens the world as a sphere of free and rational human activity, at the same time transforming the world of everyday life, orienting it on life in truth and goodness. The research method rely on the analysis and interpretation of the philosophical, linguistic, psychological, religiological and sociological conceptions. Particular issues are thus highlighted through confronting them with the analyses and works of Plato, Nietzsche, Schelling, Bachofen, Heidegger, Patočka, Lacan, Eliade, Legendre, Bauman, Sennett, Maffesoli, Lakoff. As a consequence, the figure of the father – placed, on the one hand, in the context of the question about the genesis of European culture and metaphysics, on the other hand, utilising diagnostic models of their current state, appear to be the basic hermeneutic tool of postmodernism crisis of value and identity.