SYMBOL AS A MEANS OF COGNITION OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE WORKS BY M. K. MAMARDASHVILI S.A. Nizhnikov History of Philosophy Chair Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia Miklukho-Maklay str., 10a, Moscow, Russia, 117198 The article reveals the specificity of understanding the symbol as a means of cognition of consciousness in the works by M.K. Mamardashvili. <...> It demonstrates the difference between his interpretation and the analogues existing in neo-Kantianism and Russian Silver Age metaphysics (P.A. Florensky, A.F. Losev, etc). <...> The symbol of consciousness is seen as an “empty shape”, a transcendental issue, through which transcendence generating man as a spiritual and moral being becomes possible Mamardashvili’s criticism of the naturalized theory of ideas (“Platonism”) is analyzed. <...> The idea itself is seen as a symbol of consciousness, a unit of its description. <...> The entire history of philosophy is considered from the same point of view. <...> Merab Konstantinovich Mamardashvili (1930—1990) is often referred to as the “democratic aristocrat” and the “Russian Socrates of Georgian descent” [1. <...> V.P. Vizgin mentions in his memoirs that he was famous for his “conversation-like speech”, and he was an “artist in philosophy”. <...> According to Mamardashvili, symbolism has a very special meaning different from the generally accepted Cassirer’s and Jung’s interpretations. <...> It is also different from what was described by P. Florensky and other “symbolist” representatives of the Silver Age in Russia, including A.F. Losev. <...> Mamardashvili interprets symbolism as a property of consciousness, through which conscious, spiritual, and moral life is possible. <...> It is not a mere property (which can be found in traditional symbolism), it is a structure, or a matrix that produces meanings. <...> In this case, the thinker means not the content of symbolism, 15 Вестник РУДН, серия Философия, 2014, № 1 or merely its role in culture, but the symbol from the point of view of functioning of the human consciousness, its special regime and its condition, “Symbols are tools of our conscious life. <...> Mamardashvili, unlike his predecessors from the Silver Age, implements an abstract or formal analysis of the symbol. <...> He is interested not in its specific content, but in its form, within which, the “content of consciousness” is constituted and structured” [6. <...> In his work Symbol <...>