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PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE DETECTIVE GENRE
Abstract
The aim of this study is to analyze the phenomenon of detective story and its evolution in the context of modern development. It is regarded by us as a complex multilevel system, the fundamental principles of which permeate the entire fabric of European culture, generating, in particular, such a phenomenon as a detective story. Hermeneutical and comparative analysis of different types of detective is designed to deepen and expand the existing understanding of modernity, the features of its development and the nature of its crisis engulfed. The chosen research perspective allows us to discover new dimensions of mass culture, which entertaining character does not exclude the existence of non-obvious philosophical layers. Based on the classification of V. Rudnev, highlighting the analytical, existential and pragmatic varieties of the detective genre, we identify four levels of detective story (ontological, epistemological, anthropological and ethic-normative), each of which is in close dependence on the prevailing culture philosophical paradigm. From this point of view, the classic or analytical detective appears as a phenomenon that could arise only in the context of modernity. The reality it describes is proportional to the human mind: the riddle must and can be solved (ontological level), the investigation appears as a strict, rational, methodical analysis (epistemological level), the detective appears in the guise of "private thinker", distanced from society and from the crime itself (anthropological level), and the crime acts as a deviation that violates the harmony of the rational order (ethical and normative level). In this sense, the classic detective story is nothing more than the reflection of the meta-narration of modernity aimed at building a complete system with no contradictions. This is the system in which the existence of “the Other” is impossible in any possible sense: existential, political, etc. Accordingly, the crisis of the foundations of modernity, generated by the process of globalization, leads to metamorphosis of the detective genre. In existential and pragmatic detectives reality is no longer rational, it is filled with contradictions, the boundaries between the norm and deviation are blurred, and even the detective himself may be a murderer. This situation can be described as frustration in the narrative, it points to the inability of modern culture to adequately perform its fundamental functions. “The Other” takes root in the cultural space, but this space is not organized, it exists on the principle of postmodern anarchy.
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