The Philosophical and Religious Idea of Fear and Flutter in Russian Language Consciousness

This article was dedicated to the study of concepts of “fear†and “flutter†in ethical-philosophy and ethnic-linguistic exposure. Here, traced stages of “fear†development and important shifts in semantic content of this concept related to the impact of Christian worldview are noted. The highest manifestation of fear - “fear of God†- emerges namely due to expansion of orthodox Christianity; this, in its term, leads to its special form - flutter. These concepts have different semantics in routine and philosophic discourses. Use of cognitive interpretation method, accounting of language semantics and national concept-sphere interaction also allowed the transition from contents of meaning to contents of concepts in the course of study. Studying methods for representation of “fear†and “flutter†concepts in contexts of works of known Russian Philosophers - Berdyayev, Solovyov, and Shestov - gives an opportunity to most complete characterization of their conceptual essence. In this article, different forms of fear manifestation were detected and described via complying to standard (pathological fear, anxiety), duration (scare, phobia, cowardice), and degree of intensity (panic, horror). The fact that in Russian consciousness, fear is clearly delineated in routine and religious senses was related to main conclusions. Fear was also associated with the present and it performed adaptive and social functions. Within philosophic understanding, Flutter was a derivative of fear, but it was more related to the future, since it was directed at achievement of piety and inspiration. The result so f this work could make contribution to the elaboration of the issues of ethnic-linguistic, linguoculturological, and cognitive science.