From the Editors:Such was the topic considered by members of a new discussion club, "The Free Word" [Svobodnoe slovo], along with specialists from the Institute of Philosophy, USSR Academy of Sciences.

From the Editors:Such was the topic considered by members of a new discussion club, "The Free Word" [Svobodnoe slovo] , along with specialists from the Institute of Philosophy, USSR Academy of Sciences.

A study of the relationship of trends towards specialization and universalization of scientific knowledge is most fruitful when sociological and epistemological methods are compared. Sociological methods describe the growth of scientific knowledge quantitatively as an increase in volume, whereas epistemological methods do it qualitatively in terms of an increase in the level of generalization. The sociological explanation of the specialization of researchers is based on the limited resources of the study time, the epistemological explanation of the differentiation of disciplines is (...) in the ontological differences of the objects of research. On the contrary, epistemological universalization – the formulation of generalizing theories is conditioned by the social need to ensure the connectivity of the network of technical practices. The history of the development of natural sciences shows a tendency towards absorption of the less developed paradigms by more developed ones. In other words, scientific knowledge increases cumulatively both in quantitative and qualitative terms. (shrink)

As it happened, I became acquainted with E.V. Il'enkov quite late, in the mid- or even the late 1960s. It was only a bit more than ten years before his death that I began to feel at home in his house, was able to visit without calling ahead, and was able to call him by his first name and the familiar "you"—that is, like many, many of not only his true friends but also like-minded thinkers, who became his close acquaintances, (...) most of whom justly considered themselves his pupils … The door would open wide, and Olia, Professor K.I. Salimova, Eval'd's wife and most devoted friend, not at all surprised by the unexpected guest and seemingly even quite happy at his arrival , would try first to draw him into the kitchen and feed him … which she more often than not succeeded in doing. I am not talking about myself: there were always many guests, and this is precisely how they arrived at the Il'enkovs' apartment. Recently, a critic in Literaturnaia gazeta recalled those whom he met in Eval'd's apartment in the 1960s: "This was a tight circle of like-minded thinkers," wrote the critic. "But some of them are no longer with us, while most are far away, beyond our borders." Obviously, he had not been in the house often or had forgotten things over the distance of years. There was no "circle," nor could there have been one—not with this host, not with his lifestyle and way of relating to people. I met a good hundred fine and various people in Eval'd's home: I.N. Korzhavin, V. Davydov, A. Meshcheriakov, S. Vinogradova, N. Dubinin, V. Zinchenko, A. Zinov'ev, Iu. Kamiakin, and … indeed, five pages would not be enough to list the quite famous and the not-quite-so-famous, simply ordinary people with no claim to fame. Nazym Khikmet, A.N. Leont'ev, and B.M. Kedrov were friends of the house … Ever new faces, figures, and words come to mind. I cannot forgive myself: once Eval'd Vasil'evich wanted to take me along to Iurii Liubimov's to read his play Neither God nor Tsar nor Hero … [Ni bog, ni tsar' i ni geroi], but I had some other business, something so important that I do not even remember now what it was, and it is probably not worth remembering. But most likely I was too timid to appear uninvited at the house of a person burning with creativity. The same thing happened with Galich … Eval'd liked especially his song about Zoshchenko. He did not sing it; he narrated it, but in such a way that tears always came to one's eyes. (shrink)

The paper is dedicated to particular cases of interaction and mutual impact of philosophy and cognitive science. Thus, philosophical preconditions in the middle of the 20th century shaped the newly born cognitive science as mainly based on conceptual and propositional representations and syntactical inference. Further developments towards neural networks and statistical representations did not change the prejudice much: many still believe that network models must be complemented with some extra tools that would account for proper human cognitive traits. I address (...) some real implemented connectionist models that show how ‘new associationism ’ of the neural network approach may not only surpass Humean limitations, but, as well, realistically explain abstraction, inference and prediction. Then I stay on Predictive Processing theories in a little more detail to demonstrate that sophisticated statistical tools applied to a biologically realist ontology may not only provide solutions to scientific problems or integrate different cognitive paradigms but propose some philosophical insights either. To conclude, I touch on a certain parallelism of Predictive Processing and philosophical inferentialism as presented by Robert Brandom. (shrink)

Discussions on the alleged methodological specificity of social knowledge are fueled to not the least extent by a kind of retarded position of the latter against technological advancements of natural and information science based on exact methods and formal or quantitative languages. It is more or less obvious that applicability of exact scientific methods to social disciplines is highly dependent on a chosen conception of social reality, i. e., on social ontology. In the article, the author critically approaches the ontological (...) views of Tony Lawson and proposes a computational view on social ontology that is supposed to eliminate some internal contradictions of Lawson's realist conception. (shrink)

Collection of the papers on language and globalization.

Studies man in view of what he may become. Describes how a man must work simultaneously on his knowledge and his being to find inner unity.

ch. 1. Filosofii︠a︡ russkikh revoli︠u︡t︠s︡ionnykh demokratov i estestvoispytateleĭ.

В серии очерков представлены не только русские философы, но и ученые, писатели, композиторы, политики, оказавшие большое влияние на развитие русской мысли. По своим философским предпочтениям одни из них были идеалистами, другие - материалистами.