The theme "Dostoevsky and Nietzsche" is one of the most important for understanding the meaning of the abrupt changes that took place in European philosophy and culture at the turn of the nineteenth century. This epoch is still a puzzle: it was a flourishing period for the creative powers of European humanity and at the same time the beginning of the tragic "breakdown" of history that gave birth to two world wars and unprecedented calamities, the consequences of which Europe has (...) been unable to overcome, as shown by the uninterrupted decline of traditional culture, which began at the end of World War II and still continues today. In this epoch, as in the eighteenth century, which culminated in the Great French Revolution, philosophy came out of the study onto the street and became a practical force that steadily undermines the existing order of things; in a certain sense it was precisely philosophy that called forth the catastrophic events of the first half of the twentieth century, which had as never before a metaphysical subtext. At the center of the upheaval that engulfed absolutely all forms of European civilization and culminated, at the beginning of the twentieth century, with the rise of nonclassical science, "nonclassical" art, and "nonclassical" philosophy, was the problem of man, his essence, the meaning of his existence, and the problem of man's relations with society, the world, and the Absolute. It is no coincidence that M. Scheler used the term "anthropological turn" to describe the changes that occurred in philosophy in this epoch; what had long been implicit in philosophy and art and in paradoxical fashion had become apparent even in the new scientific theories, was now made clear: man is not a tiny "atom" in boundless and alien being, but the starting point for all suppositions, the primary field of meanings from which any philosophical or scientific "questioning" must depart. (shrink)

The problem of death and immortality is one of the most intriguing and poignant themes in Russian culture. It is worth looking through this problem at the essence of "the Russian idea," which expresses the distinctive metaphysical foundations of our life and worldview rather than Russia's unique historical path. All Russian thinkers in one way or another touched upon this problem, but the deepest treatment of the conception of death and immortality, which became one of the main accomplishments of Russian (...) philosophy, is found in Dostoevsky. (shrink)

In the article the basic principles of L. Tolstoy’s teaching are singled out, which according to his critics testify to its “non-Christian” character. Among these principles, there are emphasis on personal religious experience; emphasis on the importance of reason as the main ability of man in his relationship with God; the understanding of God as an impersonal absolute embracing all that exists. The main principle of Tolstoy’s teaching is the possibility of a person’s merging with God, this leads to the (...) loss of the personality of man; on the other hand, after merging person with God evil, suffering and death become inessential: a religious person must come to an understanding of life as a blessing and realize his own eternity – uncreatedness and indestructibility. Jesus Christ is understood by Tolstoy as a great teacher, and not as a Savior: Christ brought the doctrine of how to make a life good and perfect. Tolstoy denies the idea of a personal bodily resurrection, considering it to be characteristic of Judaism; in the teaching of Tolstoy man is eternal, and death refers only to the empirical level of our existence. It is shown that Tolstoy’s teaching in all these principles coincides with the teaching of Gnostic Christianity. If the hypothesis that the Gnostic apocrypha express the most ancient layer of Christian ideas is true, Tolstoy’s teaching can be recognized as the exact expression of the true, original Christianity. (shrink)

The article discusses how the meaning of the principle of “non-resistance to evil by violence” was changing in L.N. Tolstoy's religious and philosophical teachings and how this principle was evaluated in Russian religious philosophy of the late XIX - early XX century. In the first version of Tolstoy’s teachings, set forth in the book “What is my faith?”, the principle of non-resistance was understood in a moral sense, as the norm for all people; its execution should lead to the perfection (...) of earthly life. This idea of L. Tolstoy was sharply criticised by his contemporaries, who noted that there was no truly religious content in Tolstoy’s teachings, it was turning into a utilitarian doctrine of the earthly progress of mankind. Given this criticism, Tolstoy in his later works changed his understanding of the principle of non-resistance. Drawing a distinction between two levels of human life - “animal” and divine, Tolstoy recognised the principle of non-resistance to the law as the divine life of a man. As a result, the principle of non-resistance has acquired a religious rather than moral meaning, since the transition of a man to a divine life means a mystical transformation of his being. He is aware of his super-spatial and super-temporary unity with all people and with all being, and therefore can evaluate the consequences of his actions not only in the limited sphere of his life, but also in all infinite being. In this regard, a person realizes the absolute superiority of good deeds over evil, even if the latter are committed to confront evil. It is shown that some critics of Tolstoy came to a similar understanding of the religious meaning of the principle of non-resistance at the end of their lives. (shrink)

The contemporary epoch has confronted our country with the problem of choosing its path of development and at the same time has placed the problem of liberalism at the center of political discussions. But at first glance there would not seem to be a problem here: since liberal principles played a decisive role in the genesis of Western society and form the basis of the modern world order, it would seem that we should accept these principles, which have passed the (...) fundamental test of history, without any reflection. However, such a straightforward answer leaves out of account two essential factors. The first of these is the specific nature of the Russian "mentality," the Russian public mind or, put more broadly, the specific nature of the whole of Russian social life. The fact that the idea of a "special way" for Russia is being actively exploited by various political movements with an overtly expressed nationalist shading should not blind us to the need for a profound and sober interpretation of what this idea really means. It is no accident that the assertion that Russia's historical development has a special character has been a commonplace in all currents of Russian social life. Even the ideologues of an extremely "Westernizing" bent accompanied their acceptance of the necessity of Russia's adopting a system of values traditional for Europe with a sharp criticism of Western European civilization itself . It turned out that, after adopting these values, Russia was to demonstrate to the West itself the true path of development, the true purport of the latter's intellectual achievements, which had been discredited by the realities of Western civilization. The difference between the "Westernizers" and the Slavophiles in this regard lay merely in their disparate understanding of the essence of Russia's "uniqueness" and in the disparate criteria they had chosen for assessing it; but neither current called into question this "uniqueness" itself. (shrink)

The article refutes the widespread view that Dostoevsky's Christian beliefs were strictly Orthodox. It is proved that Dostoevsky's religious and philosophical searches' central tendency is the criticism of historical, ecclesiastical Christianity as a false, distorted form of the teaching of Jesus Christ and the desire to restore this teaching in its original purity. Modern researchers of the history of early Christianity find more and more arguments in favor of the fact that the actual teaching of Jesus Christ is contained in (...) that religious movement, which the church called the Gnostic heresy. The exact philosophical expression of the teaching of Christ was received in the later works of J.G. Fichte, whose ideas had a strong influence on the Russian writer. Like Fichte, Dostoevsky understands Christ as the first person who showed the possibility of revealing God in himself and gaining divine omnipotence and eternal life directly in earthly reality. In this sense, every person can become like Christ. Dostoevsky's main characters walk the path of Christ and show how difficult this path is. The article shows that Dostoevsky used in his work not only the philosophical version of true Christianity developed by German philosophy, but also the key motives of the Gnostic myth, primarily the idea that our world, filled with evil and suffering, is created not by the supreme, good God-Father, but by the evil Demiurge, the Devil. (shrink)

This article examines the classification of political doctrines proposed by Boris N. Chicherin in his major work on the history of political thought. Chicherin uses two forms of systematization for...

This article examines the criticisms that Chicherin directed at the classical Western liberalism that emerged from the works of John Locke, Claude-Adrien Helvétius, Baron d’Holbach, and Jean-Jacque...

The article analyzes the original concept of the development of ancient religions and the emergence of Christianity set out in the six-volume work of F.F. Zelinski History of Ancient Religions. Zelnski refutes the well-established idea of the origin of Christianity from Judaism and proves that it was based on the Hellenistic-Roman religion of the early Roman Empire. In this religion, a idea of monotheistic and pantheistic God was formed, which is the basis of all world processes and human actions, at (...) the same time the idea arose of the possibility of a "particle" of God entering a separate human personality. According to Zelinski, it was these ideas that became the basis of Christianity, which radically rethought them, but nevertheless left them close to the beliefs of the majority of the citizens of the Roman Empire; that is why early Christianity quickly spread throughout the empire. The article suggests that Zelinski's flight from Bolshevik Russia in the 1920s and his life in the Polish Catholic environment led to the fact that he refused to develop his ideas to their natural outcome, which could conflict with Catholic teaching. The article reconstructs the result that Zelnski should have come to with the consistent implementation of his ideas: he would have to admit that the teachings of Jesus Christ and early Christianity which arose from the Roman religion and not from Judaism coincides with that religious tradition which the Catholic Church has persecuted in a story called the Gnostic heresy. (shrink)

In this article I show that Dostoevskij criticized traditional Christianity, and that for him the authentic teaching of Christianity concerned the unity of man and God, the existence in man of a divine “dimension,” the opening of which allows man to become an absolute being. In the context of this understanding of man and God the concept of “joy” is an important one. This concept includes, on the one hand, the fullness of earthly human life and, on the other hand, (...) the transformation of man and of all earthly being into an absolute and divine state. Dostoevskij’s philosophical outlook appears to be a development of a well known philosophical tradition, mystical pantheism. (shrink)

Analysis of the quotations from Leo Tolstoy’s «What I Believe», that Nietzsche copied out and worked on in late 1887-early 1888, shows that after reading this book Nietzsche significantly changed his attitude toward Christianity. Before that he did not see any difference between the teachings of Jesus Christ and historic Christianity, but from that moment on, following Tolstoy, he draws a sharp opposition between them. Still persisting in a very negative assessment of historical Christianity, he acknowledges the teaching of Christ (...) as positive insofar as it contributes to the unfolding of the internal capabilities of the human being. (shrink)

In Barnett and Block (J Bus Ethics 88(4):711–716, 2009a), the present authors claim that borrowing short and lending long is fraudulent, and thus ought to be prohibited on legal grounds. Bagus and Howden (J Bus Ethics 90(3):399, 2009) take issue with our ethical analysis. The present paper is our response to these authors; it is an attempt to defend Barnett and Block (J Bus Ethics 88(4):711–716, 2009a) against the very interesting and important, although we believe, erroneous, criticisms of Bagus and (...) Howden (J Bus Ethics 90(3):399, 2009). (shrink)

We stipulate, arguendo, that fractional-reserve-demand deposit banking is per se fraudulent. We ask whether or not time deposit banking can also be illicit, and answer in the positive, if there is a mismatch between the time dimensions of deposits and loans. To wit, if an intermediary borrows short and lends long.

Whereas previous studies have criticized low-quality products for inadequate safety, this paper considers only safe products, and it examines the ethics of designing and selling low-quality products. Product quality is defined as suitability to a general purpose. The duty that companies owe to consumers is summarized in the Consumer-Oriented Process principle: “to place an increase in the consumer’s quality of life as the primary goal for producing products.” This principle is applied in analyzing the primary ethical justifications for low-quality products: (...) availability and applicability. Finally, a low-quality product should be designed afresh, not by altering an existing high-quality product. (shrink)

El objetivo de nuestro trabajo está en exponer el punto final de la argumentación de Foucault acerca del cuidado de si cristiano ( epimeleia ton allon ), demostrando que la epimeleia ton allon cristiana está muy relacionada a la modalidad de gobierno de las almas y de los cuerpos que Foucault denomina de pastorado cristiano. Intentaremos demonstrar como la recusa de Foucault en aceptar una auténtica epimeleia heautou cristiana resulta en un inevitable vínculo de ésta con el nacimiento de la (...) biopolítica moderna. Estamos dispuestos a evidenciar que era inevitable, para Foucault, hacer dichas consideraciones y llegar a esta conclusión, uniendo en una misma línea epimeleia ton allon cristiana, gobierno pastoral y biopolítica moderna. En el trascurso de nuestro texto, utilizaremos los argumentos de Agamben, expuestos principalmente en su obra El reino y la gloria , en la cual él trata del cruce de dos paradigmas: teología política y economía política. (shrink)

A popular and pervasive historical narrative links the Renaissance development of linear perspective with Europe’s transition from a pre-modern to an early modern society. Erwin Panofsky gave this narrative its definitive form early in the twentieth century and William Ivins boiled it down to a simple idea that served as the title of his most famous book. According to Ivins, single-point perspective, the artistic technique championed by Alberti and perfected in the paintings of Masaccio and Piero della Francesca, allowed for (...) “the rationalization of sight.” In other words, it provided a mathematically and geometrically grounded method for accurately representing the external world. It is a powerful and seductive claim, one that has shaped generations of scholarly work. It is also, Stuart Clark contends in this important new book, patently wrong. Far from exhibiting a renewed or reinvigorated confidence in the accuracy and reliability of vision, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century philosophers, artists, theologians, and doctors worried that sight was susceptible, perhaps permanently so, to all sorts of debilitating derangements, displacements, and delusions.Rather than relate a history of progress, Clark offers a history of exhaustion, failure, and, ultimately, of rejection. Early modern intellectuals inherited a comprehensive theory of vision and cognition from their medieval predecessors known as perspectivist. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Vagaries and Vicissitudes of WarRichard W Sams III remember standing in the kitchen of our home on Camp Pendleton—a United States Marine Corps base in Southern California—listening to National Public Radio (NPR) and doing dishes in the fall of 2002. President Bush announced to the world that he was considering a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq on the pretext of Saddam Hussein harboring weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Three (...) months later, as a Navy Family Physician, I deployed with a surgical company in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Reflecting on the situation with a like-minded close friend, I was not sure— would this be a just war? A necessary war? In my mind, it did not rise to the level of conscientious objection, yet the rightness of invading another country with all the anticipated death and destruction was not clear.En route to Kuwait, we laid over in Spain. While fixed to a TV in a holding area, I watched the Secretary of State make a case to the United Nations (UN) and the world that removing Hussein from power would protect us from mobile anthrax labs that could kill tens of thousands. I thought to myself, Either he is absolutely right, and we are protecting our country and the rest of the free world, or he is terribly mistaken and we are embarking on a disaster.As we trained, prepared, and waited in our tents to invade, we listened to the news on “Voice of America” with a hand crank radio. Thousands of citizens from nations around the world protested. Pope John Paul II, a man well acquainted with the tragedy of war, even spoke out about the planned invasion. “War is not inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity.” He admonished our leaders that war needed to be the very last option. As a man of faith, I was troubled by his resolute, thoughtful opposition to the crusade I was embarking on. As the day of the invasion approached, scud missiles flew over our camp and we scurried into bunkers, day and night, with our gas masks donned to protect us from possible WMD attacks. In March, with the announcement of a “shock and awe” missile attack on Hussein’s palace, the invasion commenced.Within a day of flying by helicopter into enemy territory to set up a surgical company, the fog of war set in. A series of mass casualties streamed in from nearby Nasiriya. We received dozens of injured enemy combatants and American soldiers. Most troubling were the civilians. An entire extended family fleeing for their lives stumbled into an Iraqi minefield meant for us: a mother dead, the men with shrapnel wounds, and an aunt lost both of her legs. Then there was the little boy. By doctrine, our leaders reassured us we would not care for children. Yet, out of instinct, the field corpsmen scooped up all injured, including children, and [End Page 170] brought them to us. The five-year-old’s legs were blown to bits. We had no pediatric supplies. The anesthesiologist heroically intubated the child’s tiny airway with a urinary catheter and placed an adult IV. The surgeons corrected the wounds the best they could. Hours later, in futility, we performed chest compressions on his tiny mangled body.A day later, the worst sandstorm in a decade struck the area. We struggled to keep the patient-filled tents erect. A Marine appeared on the scene out of the darkness (you could not see beyond your nose in the storm) exclaiming we were going to condition one—lock and load our weapons due to an imminent threat. As healthcare professionals, Geneva Conventions dictated we were to use weapons only in self-defense. We chambered our 9-millimeter pistols to defend our patients and ourselves while Marines formed a defensive perimeter. I thought to myself, Great I’m gonna be shot up and die during a freaking sandstorm in Iraq. Hours later, we were told to stand down. The threat was not from approaching enemy combatants but from shepherds running from the crossfire. I had a small nervous breakdown, sleep deprived and under duress... (shrink)

Lawyers and the legal system have been much criticized in recent years. Despite popular perceptions, the legal system contains numerous mechanisms and rules designed to ensure fair results. This paper shows how the legal system tries to implement, in commercial transactions, the ethical principles of truthfulness and fairness. The Anglo-American development of Equity Courts is reviewed briefly. Several examples of the Law's enforcement of ethical principles are presented, in four different legal areas: Contracts, Securities, Goods, and Real Estate. The intent (...) here is to present an overview of the problem, with area-specific illustrations, rather than a comprehenisve examination of the cases in just one area. (shrink)

The paper interprets Nietzsche’s description of authentic human person.Based on the works of Nietzsche, commentaries and philosophical interpretationsof various authors, authentic human person evolves into a superman by usingthe principles of discipline and mastery of oneself. His authenticity, however,requires persistence, courage and strength to endure many forms of sufferingsand to overcome alienation brought about by his environment. Otherwise,man would become slave of his desires or alien to his own powers, talents andcapacities. Thus, Nietzsche’s thought of superman is an invitation to (...) overcomeoneself, the self that is influenced by the non-self or factors outside one self. Itis only possible by using the will to power. The will to power of man overcomesthe influences of the world’s modernization and industrialization that alienateshim to his true self, and this true self is best expressed by his will to power. Onthis note, the author suggests that the readers must use their potentials to face up to challenges of this new era. Keywords: Philosophy, language and literature, emergence, authentic human person,philosophy of the superman, authenticity, alienation, morality, descriptivedesign, Philippines. (shrink)