Pavel Khristoforovich Kananov as a Philosopher: Phenomenology of the World of Values

Abstract

2023 marked 140 years since the birth of Pavel Khristoforovich Kananov (1883–1967) – a Russian scholar known today primarily in academic and humanitarian circles as a library scientist and bibliographer. As an employee of the Lenin State Library (now the Russian State Library), he contributed greatly to the organiza­tion and development of librarianship in Russia. Most modern research focuses specifically on this aspect of his scholarly and practical work. Numerous texts of his speeches, reports, notes, instructions, and articles have been preserved in archives – ranging from materials prepared for publication to scattered drafts. Particularly noteworthy among these is the manuscript Typology of the Book, which contains original and still-relevant ideas about books as mediators be­tween author and reader. At the same time, his academic interests extended far beyond library science and bibliography. Throughout his life, he focused on the philosophical problem of values as the fundamental basis of human existence. His theoretical reflections are original, as he approaches the analysis of axiologi­cal issues – Neo-Kantian in content – through a phenomenological methodology. The author of this article suggests that the report The Value of Movement (1922) preserved in Kananov’s archive is one of the foundational texts for the cultural-historical grounding of the philosophical-psychological theory of activity, which significantly influenced the development of both Russian and global psychology in the 20th century. Also of unquestionable interest is his sphere of conversa­tion – his epistolary correspondence with such prominent 20th-century philoso­phers and psychologists as P. Natorp, M. Geiger, E. Husserl, G.I. Chelpanov, A. Vvedensky, T.I. Rainov, P.P. Gaidenko, and many others.