Everything you always wanted to know about philosophy, but were afraid to ask…

Since 1990 Michail Ryklin is one of the most outstanding personalities making western European contemporary philosophy known in Russia. Ryklin’s conversations with some of the most prominent figures of the scene offer a continuously shifting perspective and reveal a multi-facetted viewpoint on matters. He thus not only directs the unacquainted reader but also his speaking partner towards new horizons.

Ryklin’s approach combines the attempt to understand (a) philosophy from the outside with the reflection of his own experiences as an intellectual in Sovjet society. Genuine philosophical reading and truly radical questioning emerge in discussion and actively inhibit the lingering danger of talk to turn into a monologue: he impedes the point of no return by dissolving the quest for an ultimate aim and a definite interpretation.












Michail Ryklin, writer, essayist and philosopher, is one of the outstanding personalities of Russia‘s intelligentsia. He was born in Leningrad in 1948, studied at the Moscow State University (B.A. in Philosophy and Aesthetics) and at the Institute of Philosophy, Academy of Sciences (Ph.D. in History of Philosophy) in Moscow. Presently he works as senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, Academy of Sciences in Moscow and has had several appointments as visiting professor in the U.S. (Cornell University), Great Britain (Bristol University), Canada, Germany and France. He is Moscow correspondent to the German issue of "Lettre International". Ryklin published numerous volumes on contemporary Russian art and literature and is specialised in the newest trends in philosophy. In Russia he stands for an intensive philosophical dialogue with Western Europe. He is editor and translator of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Theodor W. Adorno. In 1977 he published the first Russian edition of the "Moscow Diary" by Walter Benjamin.

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