The stumps of Academus' garden In Krytyka, No. 4 (78), 2004, p. 28.

The article examines Vitalii Ponomariov's polemic with contributors to the journal Krytyka, in particular with Oleg Khoma and Viktor Malakhov, in the context of the discussion on the phenomenon of the Kyiv worldview and anthropological school. The author critically examines the appropriateness of conceptualizing a group of Soviet-era philosophers as a “philosophical school”, based on Vasyl Lisovyi's criteria for defining a “scientific school”.

Ponomariov emphasizes the methodological incorrectness of retrospectively constructing intellectual traditions in an environment where they had no real preconditions for formation. In conclusion, the author calls for recognition of the decline of Ukrainian philosophy in the 1960s–1980s and warns against attempts to find philosophy where its existence was historically impossible.