The article deals with the motion from philosophy of consciousness to philosophy of language, which caused the paradigmal changes in philosophy and favored affirmation of post-metaphysical thought, actualized the ancient understanding of language as a special form of knowledge existence and thinking method. The author traces the cognitive and normative principles of Jürgen Habermas ethical of discourse, Michel Foucault discourse of life and epistemological problems of modern discourse practices that create new possibilities for the conceptualization of life. Epistemologic analysis of the notion of discourse exceeds the bounds of language, specifying simultaneously our ideas of cognition as activities with language.
