In the context of a symposium on enmity, this article—the product of extensive research done by a group of colleagues in St. Petersburg—concerns characteristic types of friendship in Russia. The author distinguishes in particular between instrumental political friendship, which Russians tend to scorn, and the intensely emotional and intimate sort of friendship, usually shared in a group rather than a dyad, that Russians consider uniquely their own. Both types, however, have long histories in Russia, which this article undertakes to trace. (...) Intimate friendship appears to be an overlay of attitudes and characteristics, originating in the age of sensibility, onto medieval notions about friendship in Christ. An argument is made for a more general acceptance by Russians of instrumental friendship, since even friendship in Christ can be shown to depend extensively on things held in common. The essay argues too, however, for bringing some of the peculiarities, especially the linguistic peculiarities, of intimate friendship to Russian political friendship, in both domestic and international contexts. (shrink)

The concepts of nature and nation are both rooted in the notion of birth. Thus both can be conceived anew if the underlying vision of natality is conceptualized, following Hannah Arendt, not as a set of inexorable biological processes, but as the fundamental human capacity for political action. This reconceptualization of natality allows proposing an alternative to the prevalent commonsensical ethno-nationalist definitions of nation-hood, and also allows a view of the realm of nature itself as inherently political. Arendt's theory finds (...) an interesting referential point in modern developments in biotechnology that threaten to undermine the `naturalness' of existing notions of ethnically conceived nations. Similarly, nature might be revealed to have a polis working at the very heart of what seemed to be a set of inexorable processes, independent from human beings. (shrink)

What allows us to talk about the state as an active agent when we understand that only individuals act? This article draws comparisons between Quentin Skinner's exposition of the history of the concept of the state in major European languages and the history of its equivalent Russian term gosudarstvo in order to provide some general hypotheses on the development of the phenomenon of the state, and on the origins of this baffling usage. First, summing up a vast number of historical (...) and lexicographical works, it attempts a detailed reconstruction of the conceptual development of the term in the Russian language. Second, a peculiarity of the Russian case is discussed, in which absolutist thinkers stressed the difference between the person of the ruler and the state. Third, political interests in introducing such novel usage are discussed, together with the role of this usage in the formation of the state. This allows us to see better the origins of current faith in the existence of the state as a more or less clearly designated and independent actor, predicated on the mechanism of what Pierre Bourdieu described as "mysterious delegation.". (shrink)

While most scholars took Cicero's Stoicism to be reflected in the content of his theories, this article tries to examine the 'how' rather than the 'what' of his statements. The article starts with the privileging of the verb in what the Stoics termed lekta, then considers how the term res publica fared in full lekta, pronounced by Cicero and his republican contemporaries (first and second sections). Then a Stoic theory of definition is analysed to elucidate an incorporeal quality of the (...) res publica and stresses the particularity of Cicero's theoretical achievement (third and fourth sections). Section V compares the uses to which the term res publica was put in the speech acts of republican and imperial days, while Section VI evaluates the implications of the findings for our contemporary theory of the state. (shrink)

It is often argued that a shared culture, or at least shared cultural references or practices, can help to foster peace and prevent war. This essay examines in detail and criticizes one such argument, made by Patrick Leigh Fermor, in the context of his discussing an incident during World War II, when he and a captured German general found a form of agreement, a ground for peace between them, in their both knowing Horace's ode I.9 by heart in Latin. By (...) way of introducing the sixth and final installment of the Common Knowledge symposium “Peace by Other Means,” this essay proposes that Leigh Fermor's narrative be understood in terms of commerce, rather than consensus. It concludes by examining Ezra Pound's use of the word commerce in his poem “A Pact” to define his relationship with his “detested” and “pig-headed” poetic “father,” Walt Whitman. (shrink)

Modern Ukraine is a post-colonial, post-totalitarian state in which decolonization, decommunization, and de-Russification have not yet been fully implemented. This article sets itself the goal of reviewing the agenda of the processes of civilizational transit of Ukraine and developing theoretically grounded vectors of the said process. The important fact that the current stage of development of the “worldview gravity” of Ukrainian society is characterized by an eclectic system of stereotypes is also of significant importance: here coexist both old stereotypes of (...) consciousness and behavior, which have largely ceased to fulfill their functions, and new ones that are unstable and ambiguous. The series of ideas regarding the Ukrainian civilizational choice was already discovered in a monograph, “Civilizational crossroads of modern society,” and presented for Ukrainian readers a few years ago. The current article offers a revision of the previously presented ideas for the international audience of the journal readers, taking into account the current Ukrainian sociocultural situation, at the center of which are the challenges produced by the military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. The policy of new realism can become an effective tool for social modernization. The given word combination is not accidental: the realism of this type of politics insists on the need for the adequate perception of reality in all its essential aspects, and the novelty emphasizes the need to operate not with the laws and features of the socio-political status quo “in general,” but taking into account the latest dynamics, trends, threats, and problematic challenges. The people and the country need not only (and sometimes not so much) a thorough understanding of their cultural-civilizational, geopolitical, and economic-economic prospects but an indomitable character that guarantees the realization of their potential in spite of anything and against anything. On the difficult path of establishing a civilizational choice, Ukrainians will need not only the awareness of the incomplete state of political modernization, the limited, post-totalitarian (post-colonial, etc.) status, but also to work at the individual level to accelerate evolutionary processes. These processes can catalyze political decisions, not at the declarative level but at the practical level, to fill the steps for the approval of the civilizational choice with content. Step-by-step changes in favor of a new worldview horizon will require significant changes at the personal level through the rejection of destructive post-colonial (post-totalitarian, etc.) narratives in social practice in favor of the development of Ukrainian national identity, which will be preceded by the rational assimilation of the perspectives of civilizational choice, which is a fruitful combination of the European civilizational project and heritage of Ukrainian culture. (shrink)

У статті висвітлюються та досліджуються процеси становлення й розвитку законодавства про створення й діяльність політичних партій у сучасній Україні. Автор аналізує чинне законодавство України та формулює необхідність його вдосконалення, зауважуючи, що головною запорукою успіху законотворчої діяльності держави в царині розбудови законодавства щодо політичних партій є активна участь громадян у суспільно-політичному житті країни, залучення громадськості до обговорення стану й перспектив розвитку законодавства, принаймні того, що безпосередньо регулює реалізацію громадянських прав і свобод.

Statistical physics cannot explain why a thermodynamic arrow of time exists, unless one postulates very special and unnatural initial conditions. Yet, we argue that statistical physics can explain why the thermodynamic arrow of time is universal, i.e., why the arrow points in the same direction everywhere. Namely, if two subsystems have opposite arrow-directions at a particular time, the interaction between them makes the configuration statistically unstable and causes a decay towards a system with a universal direction of the arrow of (...) time. We present general qualitative arguments for that claim and support them by a detailed analysis of a toy model based on the baker’s map. (shrink)

In many films, story is presented in an order different from chronological. Deviations from the chronological order in a narrative are called anachronies. Narratological theory and the evidence from psychological experiments indicate that anachronies allow stories to be more interesting, as the non-chronological order evokes curiosity in viewers. In this paper we investigate the historical dynamics in the use of anachronies in film. Particularly, we follow the cultural attraction theory that suggests that, given certain conditions, cultural evolution should conform to (...) our cognitive preferences. We study this on a corpus of 80 most popular mystery films released in 1970–2009. We observe that anachronies have become used more frequently, and in a greater proportion of films. We also find that films that made substantial use of anachronies, on average, distributed the anachronies evenly along film length, while the films that made little use of anachronies placed them near the beginning and end. We argue that this can reflect a functional difference between these two types of using anachronies. The paper adds further support to the argument that popular culture may be influenced to a significant degree by our cognitive biases. (shrink)

Filtration combustion is described by Laplacian growth without surface tension. These equations have elegant analytical solutions that replace the complex integro-differential motion equations by simple differential equations of pole motion in a complex plane. The main problem with such a solution is the existence of finite time singularities. To prevent such singularities, nonzero surface tension is usually used. However, nonzero surface tension does not exist in filtration combustion, and this destroys the analytical solutions. However, a more elegant approach exists for (...) solving the problem. First, we can introduce a small amount of pole noise to the system. Second, for regularisation of the problem, we throw out all new poles that can produce a finite time singularity. It can be strictly proved that the asymptotic solution for such a system is a single finger. Moreover, the qualitative consideration demonstrates that a finger with 1 2 of the channel width is statistically stable. Therefore, all properties of such a solution are exactly the same as those of the solution with nonzero surface tension under numerical noise. The solution of the ST problem without surface tension is similar to the solution for the equation of cellular flames in the case of the combustion of gas mixtures. (shrink)

This article is dedicated to Nikolai O. Lossky’s intuitivism and personalism and their significance in the context of Russian philosophy. The author demonstrates how Lossky’s study of Russian philosophy influenced his work and allowed him to take a second look at a number of philosophical issues, indicating ways to develop them further. As a result of his research, Lossky discovered ideas close to his own in the works of various other Russian philosophers. Lossky became especially interested in two authors, Vladimir (...) S. Solovyov and Fyodor M. Dostoevsky. He created interpretations that examined Solovyov’s philosophy and Dostoevsky’s works from the positions of intuitivism and personalism. The study of Russian thought Lossky undertook in his book History of Russian Philosophy gave him a strong impetus for developing his own philosophical views, which were aimed at bringing philosophy and religion into closer proximity. (shrink)

The Crimea Conference is by all means an extremely complex historical event. Any attempt to estimate its role and significance without analyzing its ethical components would unavoidably result in unduly simplifying the historical reality of the time, as well as in forming erroneous assumptions that would necessarily be used in the analysis of the causes of Cold War. A thorough examination will show that as far as the ‘ethical’ issues are concerned, there are significant developments with regard to general methodology, (...) as well as its application to the sources. Generations of historians who have addressed the issue of Yalta Conference, although they have not been able to form a scientific, distinct ‘ethical’ tradition so far, have developed all the necessary prerequisites for its establishment. This is evident in the possibility of segmenting the issue in two parts on the one hand, and on the other in the availability of sufficient sources, structured databases, and selected outstanding works. Still, there are no studies about the Yalta Conference so far that address exclusively ethical issues concerning ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ ‘morality,’ ‘duty,’ and ‘honor.’ Although historiographical approaches are to a large extent dependent upon ethical viewpoints, in the case of Yalta agreements so far there have been no techniques available, so as to connect historical accounts with ideology, and historical facts with their philosophical background. In a sense, the situation is quite the same as it is with the study of prehistory: although there is an abundance of data and facts that can be primarily processed, there are no methodological guidelines, nor any devices to classify and explain them. This is also typical for any question raised about the ethics of the Yalta agreements in February 1945. (shrink)

This article addresses the famous 1910 debate between Vladimir F. Ern and Semyon L. Frank centered around the problem of identifying the distinguishing features of Russian philosophy. The debate was a continuation of Ern’s debates with Russian philosophers associated with the international journal Logos (Sergei I. Hessen, Fyodor A. Stepun, Boris V. Yakovenko, and others). The author shows that Ern’s understanding of an original Russian philosophy is organically related to his overall philosophical doctrine. As for Frank, his views during the (...) 1910s on the distinguishing features of Russian philosophy were different in nature. It is worth noting that in the 1920s articles written during his émigré period, Frank’s views on the distinguishing features of Russian philosophy undergo a decisive change. Frank’s new ideas about Russian philosophy turn out to be extremely close to those of his late opponent, both on the whole and in the details. At the same time, Frank’s overall philosophical views do not undergo as dramatic a change and develop in a fully evolutionary mode. The author attempts to identify the reason for these changes. (shrink)

This article presents a study of coping behavior regarding Orthodox religious students in Russia. The paper analyzes the investigation results concerning psychological features of modern Orthodox students from two universities in Russia. The data collection methods are: Folkman and Lazarus’s coping-test, Smirnov’s psychometric techniques "Questionnaire of religious activity" and Shcherbatykh’s "Test for revealing of the level of individual religiosity". The study suggests that coping behavior is connected with the level of religiosity.

Primatological and archaeological evidence along with anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies indicate that lethal between-group violence may have been sufficiently frequent during our ancestral past to have shaped our evolved behavioral repertoire. Two simulations explore the possibility that heroism (risking one's life fighting for the group) evolved as a specialized form of altruism in response to war. We show that war selects strongly for heroism but only weakly for a domain-general altruistic propensity that promotes both heroism and other privately costly, (...) group-benefiting behaviors. A complementary analytical model shows that domain-specific heroism should evolve more readily when groups are small and mortality in defeated groups is high, features that are plausibly characteristic of our collective ancestral past. (shrink)

This study is devoted to examining the introduction of the Content and Language Integrated Learning classes that combine the history of religion philosophy and English language education within the Ph.D. programme. New global challenges and the BRICS development require the implementation of the CLIL programmes for organizing and improving intercultural cooperation, to give it a more profound value-grounded character. In this regard, it is necessary not only to introduce the teaching of the English language but also to improve the discursive (...) possibilities of postgraduate students, in order to promote their discussions skills. This article, written under the supervision of practicing CLIL educators, is based on the best practices of these programs and describes an example of one session in English. (shrink)

The paper consists of brief literature review of fundamentals and ways of the Russian approach to the studying of the doctrine of love in Latin Patristic IV-V centuries. This topic is peripheral theme for the Russian science; however, it has some development. The literature review describes the most popular ideas and the reasons for their choice.

The relevance of the research reflects the unity of the requirements of the Beijing Philosophical Congress "Learning to be a man" and the anniversary report of the "Rome Club" "Come On! Capitalism, myopia, population and destruction of the planet", which the transformation processes of the socio-sphere are revealed from the standpoint the need for a radical breakdown of the spiritual and moral world of man and his worldview. The foundation of these transformations is the transition in education, as the hippocrine (...) of our knowledge, the source that quenches thirst in them to the "new Enlightenment" as a decisive factor in the learning of a person to be him. This determined the purpose and objectives of the article. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the natural and necessary character of the formation of the "new Enlightenment", to reveal the architectonics of its content. Research objectives : in the context of the goal to uncover the factors that determine the need for a transition in education to the "new Enlightenment", its qualitative difference from the Enlightenment of the 17th-18th centuries; to characterize the new content of "connectedness" in education based on the use of new information technologies; analyze the process of formation of a new spiritual and moral outlook of a specialist on the universal values of humanity; focus the learner’s attention on focusing knowledge of sustainable development as a determining factor of the global problems of mankind through the interrelation of academic disciplines; an important component presents the demand for the formation of a new integral thinking, innovative in its essence and qualitatively different from the analytical one. It is noted that the transition to the path of integral thinking contributes to the connection, coordination and organization into a single whole of the fragments of the object under study. Such thinking is characterized by stability, reliability, variability; it is original in its connections with science and education, and methodological influence on individual and social consciousness. Integral thinking reflects a qualitatively new level of intelligence. Research methods: to achieve the stated goal and constructive solution of the tasks, the article used the method of abduction, analysis and synthesis, historical and logical, synergistic approach. The results of the research: a new paradigm of education is represented – the noospheric-information one corresponding to the factuality of the “new Enlightenment”, as its ability to reproduce itself on a changing scale. The change in the scale of the socio-sphere is due to its globalization processes. The content of the “new Enlightenment” is explicated as a qualitatively new level of formation of students' sustainable knowledge based on the integral innovative type of thinking based on the information resources of society, the use of modern educational technologies, as well as on the values of society, as the quintessence of its wisdom and public intelligence. Conclusions. Thus, the formation of a "new Enlightenment" is natural and necessary. This follows from the requirements of the “learn to be human” program, as well as from the development of an internally ordered education process. “New Enlightenment” also has an attribute of uniqueness, since it does not have anything to compare with, identify; it is an objective, essential, unique phenomenon; it is single, relative, determined by the previous development of education. It is based on the processes of intellectualization, innovation, informational content, humanism and is capable of solving constructively the tasks facing society. (shrink)

Shramko [. Truth, falsehood, information and beyond: The American plan generalized. In K. Bimbo, J. Michael Dunn on information based logics, outstanding contributions to logic...

We propose that a top priority of the cerebral cortex must be the discovery and explicit representation of the environmental variables that contribute as major factors to environmental regularities. Any neural representation in which such variables are represented only implicitly (thus requiring extra computing to use them) will make the regularities more complex and therefore more difficult, if not impossible, to learn. The task of discovering such important environmental variables is not an easy one, since their existence is only indirectly (...) suggested by the sensory input patterns the cortex receives – these variables are “hidden.” We present a candidate computational strategy for (1) discovering regularity-simplifying environmental variables, (2) learning the regularities, and (3) using regularities in perceptual and decision-making tasks. The SINBAD computational model discovers useful environmental variables through a search for different, but nevertheless highly correlated functions of any kind over non-overlapping subsets of the known variables, this being indicative of some important environmental variable that is responsible for the correlation. We suggest that such a search is performed in the neocortex by the dendritic trees of individual pyramidal cells. According to the SINBAD model, the basic function of each pyramidal cell is (1) to discover and represent one of the regularity-simplifying environmental variables, and (2) to learn to infer the state of its variable from the states of other variables, represented by other pyramidal cells. A network of such cells – each cell just attending to representation of its variable – can function as a sophisticated and useful inferential model of the outside world. (shrink)

The research is devoted to the morphology that V.N. Ilyin developed in the work Static and Dynamics of Pure Form and other archival texts. Morphology is central to the philosophy of V.N. Ilyin, but it remains an unexplored subject. The article’s author explores the morphology of the philosopher from a historical and philosophical point of view. In addition to apparent influences (G.W. Leibniz, E. Husserl, N. Lossky), the article’s author revealed the connection of V.N. Ilyin’s ideas with the history of (...) Western European philosophy and his attitude to medieval thinkers. The author considered how V.N. Ilyin understood and assessed his modern philosophy and its results by the middle of the twentieth century. V.N. Ilyin especially paid attention to phenomenology and its connection with morphology, analyzing phenomenology's influence on existential philosophy. In addition to phenomenology, V.N. Ilyin highly appreciated the intuitism of H. Bergson and N. Lossky. The third main philosophical direction in the twentieth century for V.N. Ilyin was religious philosophy (Neo-Thomists and followers of H. Bergson), which aimed at creating axiology, a new system of values. V.N. Ilyin sought to combine various philosophical ideas in the project of morphology based on logic and scientific methodology. He stated the need to reform formal logic and create “metalogic” that would be more consistent with the philosophical tasks of the twentieth century. The morphology of V.N. Ilyin is based on the idea of synthesis and focuses on creating universal science. The comparison of various philosophical ideas of the twentieth century with morphology makes it possible to understand better his philosophical worldview, the course of his reflections, and the meaning of the morphological project. (shrink)

The article defines the nature of the Russian war against Ukraine in the context of social and state transformations of the 20th — 21st centuries. It is emphasized that this is a war of different worlds, mentalities, worldviews, ways of life, values, etc., which has been going on for many centuries in various forms (direct and mediated, open and veiled, hot and cold). The role of the religious-legal factor in the Russian war against Ukraine at various stages of Ukrainian state (...) formation (periods of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Soviet, modern) is revealed. It is emphasized that it was during the time of the Ukrainian People’s Republic that the legal basis for the organization of the Ukrainian Local Orthodox Church, confessional differentiation and the establishment of freedom of conscience and interconfessional tolerance in Ukrainian society was created. Emphasized attention is paid to the fact that in the Soviet period, the Russian war against Ukraine continued in a new, veiled, hidden, invisible (at first glance) form with the active use of the religious factor. The results of this period have been determined, namely: rampant militant/ scientific atheism, radical extermination, Russification of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, liquidation of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, etc. Special attention is paid to the Soviet secular/political religion (Marxism-Leninism) as a key basis for the implementation of an aggressive policy regarding the historical memory and cultural identity of the Ukrainian people and a manipulative tool for the destruction of Ukrainian history, culture, worldview, nation, state and law in the information, hybrid, total, full-scale and other Russia’s wars against Ukraine. The article substantiates that improved legislation with an effective legal mechanism for its implementation, a strong civil society with developed institutions, including the institution of religion (church), adequate guarantees of religious rights and freedoms are important factors in ensuring state, national, religious security and victory of Ukraine (at the current stage) in the war waged against it by the Russian Federation. (shrink)

The article examines the place of graphic design in modern post-industrial society, extending beyond purely applied art and aspiring to play the role of an expert in the interiors of human existence, determining the social and cultural status of an individual. It is argued that graphic design, organically integrating into contexts and actively responding to the challenges of such a social-decorative phenomenon as fashion, plays a significant role in shaping taste culture. This attests to the multiplicity of ambivalent cultural manifestations (...) of graphic design. Special attention is given to identifying the functional potential of graphic design in creating cross-cutting trends that, through non-verbal means of communication, can form and maintain social and cultural unity. In connection with this, an analysis of graphic design is carried out through the prism of philosophical communication, allowing the identification of graphic design as the most effective practice of nonverbal communication and information visualization in post-industrial society. It is determined that graphic design is capable not only of generating new meanings but also of creating communicative gaps. Given this specificity, the article particularly focuses on identifying the educational and upbringing potential of graphic design. It is demonstrated that the process of creating visual images and their subsequent interpretation by consumers of graphic information depends not only on the aesthetic taste, ethical beliefs, and humanistic orientation of the designer (visualizer) but also on their educational and upbringing potential. The necessity of strengthening humanistic orientations in modern Ukrainian design and art education is emphasized. (shrink)

In the paper we analyse the problem of axiomatizing the minimal variant of discussive logic denoted as $$ {\textsf {D}}_{\textsf {0}}$$ D 0. Our aim is to give its axiomatization that would correspond to a known axiomatization of the original discussive logic $$ {\textsf {D}}_{\textsf {2}}$$ D 2. The considered system is minimal in a class of discussive logics. It is defined similarly, as Jaśkowski’s logic $$ {\textsf {D}}_{\textsf {2}}$$ D 2 but with the help of the deontic normal logic (...) $$\textbf{D}$$ D. Although we focus on the smallest discussive logic and its correspondence to $$ {\textsf {D}}_{\textsf {2}}$$ D 2, we analyse to some extent also its formal aspects, in particular its behaviour with respect to rules that hold for classical logic. In the paper we propose a deductive system for the above recalled discussive logic. While formulating this system, we apply a method of Newton da Costa and Lech Dubikajtis—a modified version of Jerzy Kotas’s method used to axiomatize $$ {\textsf {D}}_{\textsf {2}}$$ D 2. Basically the difference manifests in the result—in the case of da Costa and Dubikajtis, the resulting axiomatization is pure modus ponens-style. In the case of $$ {\textsf {D}}_{\textsf {0}}$$ D 0, we have to use some rules, but they are mostly needed to express some aspects of positive logic. $$ {\textsf {D}}_{\textsf {0}}$$ D 0 understood as a set of theses is contained in $$ {\textsf {D}}_{\textsf {2}}$$ D 2. Additionally, any non-trivial discussive logic expressed by means of Jaśkowski’s model of discussion, applied to any regular modal logic of discussion, contains $$ {\textsf {D}}_{\textsf {0}}$$ D 0. (shrink)

The article discusses the current topic of international interuniversity exchanges in the field of theater education. The subject of the study is the interaction of theater schools in Russia and China within the framework of the experimental Russian–Chinese theater and educational project of the Central Academy of Drama and the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts. The project has been implemented since 2015. According to the terms of the project, Russian and Chinese teachers of acting and special disciplines work together (...) in St. Petersburg and Beijing. Upon graduation, students receive diplomas from two universities recognized in both countries. The author, a direct participant of the project, analyzes the results of this experiment from the position of compliance with the principles and requirements of the dialogue of cultures.  The novelty of the research lies in the substantiation of the cultural value, the prospects of the modern version of the interaction of theater schools in Russia and China. The results of the study were the following conclusions: in the implementation of the Russian-Chinese theater and educational project, all the basic conditions are present and fulfilled, which make it possible to determine the events, events and their results that took place within the framework of the project as a full-fledged dialogue of cultures. Today, as never before, there are points of contact and mutual enrichment of the cultures of Russia and China. There are mutually significant cultural ties, dialogue and interaction of cultures. This variant of intercultural interaction is also productive from the point of view of innovation, creating a unique field of cross-cultural experiments. (shrink)