vyp. 1. O filosofīi v Rossīi, o mistit︠s︡izmi︠e︡ i kritit︠s︡izmi︠e︡ V.S. Solovʹeva, o svobodi︠e︡ voli, o smysli︠e︡ zhizni, ob otnoshenīi︠a︡kh vi︠e︡ry k znanīi︠u︡.

Note by editors of Voprosy filosofii: March 2, 1979, marked 85 years since the birth of the distinguished Soviet biochemist Academician Aleksandr Ivanovich Oparin. This splendidanniversary coincides with another remarkable event. Fifty-five years ago, in 1924, A. I. Oparin offered an original solution to a problem that had excited the human mind for centuries — the problem of the origin of life on earth. Oparin's tiny book, published in 1924 by the "Moskovskii rabochii" Press, had tremendous importance for (...) science and world view. Inthe years that followed, Oparin developed its content and won worldwide recognition, helping to establish the fame of Soviet science. (shrink)

The keynote idea of the theses is contained in the author’s assumption that modern philosophy doesn’t meet its claiming pretensions: to be universal form of knowledge. First of all philosophy is connected not with knowledge but with ideas and secondly being authentic it “exists only in everyday life”.1 In orderthat philosophy could realize its innate essence corresponding conditions of social being should exist but they are still absent and therefore philosophy is absent as well. Its place is occupied by metaphysics (...) which is free movement of thinking that has no definiteness as the condition of being of any form of thought. That iswhy we watch crisis state of “philosophy” which becomes apparent in vagueness of its subject: “philosophy is not only one, there are many of them”. The author supposes that philosophy as the highest relation of mankind to objective reality is the only one. Philosophy lowered down from the heaven (Platon, Ciceron) in the field of human being must raise people not only to purity of thought, but mainly to purity of their activity both with each other and with nature. Then real interaction of men and nature will take place. This will be the beginning of spiritualization of the Universe. It may exist only under the conditions of social uniformity as historical form of Weltanschauung (world outlook) that removes religious form. Realization of its being supposes fundamental change of social life. It is necessary that private property should be replaced with social property in the sphere of social production. Only under these conditions philosophy may appear and exist as historical form of Weltanschauung. (shrink)

In the article, the author shows how the government and the opposition interact in the political process. Actors representing opposition constantly produce political texts illustrating their alternative views. The existence of the opposition subject in a critical state in regards to the existing institutions of power is historically predetermined, which proves an active reflection from prominent theorists of political thought. A free dialogue of the government and the opposition is hardly possible in every single political system. In the case of (...) totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, this dialogue may be difficult. The consequences of free will for the subject of opposition can be quite severe. The author analyzes the political discourse of opposition as exemplified by the Soviet culture. The author is interested in the metaphors of opposition and their political context, which seems to be an inevitable condition and framework limiting creativity of one or another intellectual. The author studies a number of texts of the Soviet culture representatives, who used metaphors of opposition, and had a reputation of troublemakers. Such position of an intellectual generates sanctions of the repressive machine and predetermines very specific forms of presenting texts of opposition and apophasis. For convincing his own arguments, the author constantly turns to the heritage of the USSR representatives of unofficial culture in. (shrink)

We are old birds, we know which obligations can be accepted and which cannot. Hence the strategy of sustainable development has been assiduously purged of all commitments that might make us look bad not only in two or three years but even in thirty years.

ABSTRACTIn his Lectures on Aesthetics, Hegel reasons that comedy responds to the fact that democratic ideals become a subject for a joke when enacted: progressive values such as free speech enable...

Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science are devoted to symposia, con gresses, colloquia, monographs and collected papers on the philosophical foundations of the sciences. It is now our pleasure to include A. A. Zi nov'ev's treatise on complex logic among these volumes. Zinov'ev is one of the most creative of modern Soviet logicians, and at the same time an innovative worker on the methodological foundations of science. More over, Zinov'ev, although still a developing scholar, has exerted a sub stantial (...) and stimulating influence upon his colleagues and students in Moscow and within other philosophical and logical circles of the Soviet Union. Hence it may be helpful, in bringing this present work to an English-reading audience, to review briefly some contemporary Soviet investigations into scientific methodology. During the 1950's, a vigorous new research program in logic was under taken, and the initial published work -characteristic of most Soviet pub lications in the logic and methodology of the sciences - was a collection of essays, Logical Investigations (Moscow, 1959). Among the authors, in addition to Zinov'ev himself, were the philosophers A. Kol'man and P. V. Tavanec, and the mathematicians and linguists, S. A. Janovskaja, A. S. Esenin-Vol'pin, S. K. Saumjan, G. N. Povarov. (shrink)

One of the major problems in contemporary philosophy of mind is the dualism of first-person and third-person perspectives — the question of whether conscious experience is public and epistemically accessible or private and qualitative. Recognising the relevance of the arguments of both sides, naturalists and anti-naturalists, I attempt to resolve this dichotomy using Bruno Latour’s methodology on the theories of Immanuel Kant and Moritz Schlick. To do so, I propose not to reduce the theory of consciousness to one interpretation, but (...) to consider conscious experience as a “boundary object” between the spheres of the private and the public, the accessible and the qualitative, the unique and the reproducible. Through the “practice of translation” I demonstrate the failure of ontologies of conscious experience proposed by both naturalism and anti-naturalism, and propose an “intersectional theory” as an alternative theory of conscious experience that affirms, on the one hand, the uniqueness of the individual’s epistemic position and, on the other hand, its reproducibility and communicability. I introduce the term “intersectional locality” to denote the ontological status of conscious experience. In the next step, I return to the necessary (according to Latour) “practice of purification” of those epistemic zones whose fusion was outlined earlier, which allows me to recognise the intuition behind the dichotomy of the two perspectives as legitimate and requiring conceptualisation. The mediation of Schlick’s positivist theory and Kant’s transcendentalist theory allows us to present first-person and third-person perspectives as two epistemic registers, subordinated to the position of a historically specific conscious subject. I treat the first-person perspective as a reflective power of judgment, and the third-person perspective as a determinative power of judgment; doing so, I establish the connection between the qualitative interpretation of phenomenal experience and the aesthetic principle of the reflective power of judgment. I conclude that conscious experience as a subject matter of research is a hybrid object, and only the project of “nonmodern” science will make it possible to create a relevant theory of consciousness that does not resort to reduction. (shrink)

The subject of the research in this article are certain aspects of the "philosophy of culture" of the prominent thinker, theologian, historian of Russian thought Georgy Vasilyevich Florovsky, which influenced the evolution of his worldview. Special attention is paid to the facts of the "European" period of his biography, the analysis of his "Eurasian" works, as well as his assessments of the philosophical concepts of some Russian thinkers and calls for the conversion of the process of cultural creativity to spiritual (...) principles. Particular attention is paid to the content of the discussion that unfolded between G.V. Florovsky, N.S. Trubetskoy and (in absentia) N.Ya. Danilevsky on the problem of the status of "universal culture" and the mutual influences of cultures. The study reveals the philosophical nuances of the evolution of G. Florovsky's views as a "Eurasian" author based on his own works and the assessments contained therein. Scientific literature often emphasizes the influence of Eurasian ideology on G. Florovsky, expressed, in particular, in his ideas about culture and cultural creativity. However, based on the analysis of the material presented in the article, the author comes to the conclusion that G.V. Florovsky, although he was a member of the Eurasian circle, on some significant issues differed from the main direction of development of the Eurasian ideology presented by E. Trubetskoy. (shrink)

The article is devoted to Berdyaev's first Italian journey, which had a "tremendous influence" both on his creative destiny and on the development of his aesthetic views. It is significant that one of the defining motives for visiting Italy was his desire to "return to his homeland impressed by the greatest beauty"! Since the first journey of the philosopher was connected with Florence, it seemed appropriate to pay due attention to the achievements of this city and its decisive contribution to (...) the formation and development of the culture of the Renaissance. The formation of revivalist principles in Florentine literature and fine arts is shown; the formation of theory (Alberti) and the history of art (Vasari), as well as a number of cultural phenomena accompanying these processes, which ultimately determined the artistic and aesthetic appearance of Florence and turned it into the capital of the Italian Renaissance. As a result, this makes it possible to fully understand and appreciate Berdyaev’s choice of this particular city, especially since Florence not only made “the strongest impression” on him, but also became the “key” to understanding both Florentine art proper and artistic-aesthetic culture Italian Renaissance. This is the first attempt in Russian literature to consider and analyze Berdyaev's Florentine journey as one of the sources of his creative heritage, which has not yet become the subject of special study. The relevance of topic is also determined by the existing confusion on this issue, which the article is aimed at overcoming. (shrink)