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)

Rethinking “philosophy” to-day, it is necessary to think first of all about ontological foundations of the modern scientific universe description and rethink them on the ground of modern scientific knowledge, because until now there is no any precise scientific conception of the structure of the universe, of reasons and movingforces of its permanent evolution. All of it create basis to propose various unscientific ideas of creationism. Until now most of philosophers associate the motion of Matter on the whole only with (...) its motion in space and in time, mixing philosophical and physical aspects of these two principle categories. Generally speaking, the present-day ontological model of understanding the World, the Universe is constructed purely on the basis of only these two fundamental categories. However, a more deep reflection of the essence of Being, if to realize it on the basis of only these two global categories, brings us to the disappointing conclusion, that in this case we have nothing more except a mechanical motion, i.e. spatial displacement of a material point (or a system of points) relatively some point of counting off. To make it normal and logic we should add to the ontological model one more essential part – the motion in quality. So, in order to create the full and complete picture of the formation and evolution of the material World it is necessary to observe the motion of material forming in the three equivalentphilosophical categories: in space time quality. The ideas of the new conception of ontological model become actual supplementation of really scientific philosophical knowledge on the way of a more objective ontological comprehension of our Being, of the law of development of the human civilization and the Universe as a whole. This knowledge can be successfully used for the description of the realistic paradigm of Being, in explanations of the meaning of Life. (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)

The purpose of the research is to develop a new methodological basis for identifying, analyzing and solving problems of international corporations export-import activities and to ground the directions for ensuring their business excellence. The approach originality provides introduction of a conceptual model that aims to eliminate the negative symptoms of international corporations export-import activities based on the results of comprehensive market research, effectiveness of export-import activities and calculation of the integrated indicator of business excellence. The leading corporations of Slovakia and (...) India in the production of bi-axially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) films were the primary basis for this study. The results of the research showed the need to implement a system of managerial innovation for reasoning the directions of ensuring international corporations business excellence. This is achieved because of using logically formalized methods and provides the improvement of organizational and structural interaction of management entities in the process of solving export-import activity problems. Important factors for ensuring business excellence are also the optimization of export and import costs, as well as an increase in export revenue for Slovak companies, and an increase in market share and cost optimization for Indian companies. The practical value of the obtained results is to develop a set of managerial innovations that can improve the efficiency of export-import activities and improve international corporations business. (shrink)

David E. Over is a leading cognitive scientist and, with his firm grounding in philosophical logic, he also exerts a powerful influence on the psychology of reasoning. He is responsible for not only a large body of empirical work and accompanying theory, but for advancing a major shift in thinking about reasoning, commonly known as the ‘new paradigm’ in the psychology of human reasoning. -/- Over’s signature mix of philosophical logic and experimental psychology has inspired generations of researchers, psychologists, and (...) philosophers alike over more than a quarter of a century. The chapters in this volume, written by a leading group of contributors including a number who helped shape the psychology of reasoning as we know it today, each take their starting point from the key themes of Over’s ground-breaking work. The essays in this collection explore a wide range of central topics—such as rationality, bias, dual processes, and dual systems—as well as contemporary psychological and philosophical theories of conditionals. It concludes with an engaging new chapter, authored by David E. Over himself, which details and analyses the new paradigm psychology of reasoning. -/- This book is therefore important reading for scholars, researchers, and advanced students in psychology, philosophy, and the cognitive sciences, including those who are not familiar with Over’s thought already. (shrink)

This is a broad and ambitious study of the entire history of humanity which takes as its point of departure Marx's theory of social evolution. However, Professor Diakonoff's theory of world history differs from Marx's in a number of ways. Firstly he has expanded Marx's five stages of development to eight. Secondly he denies that social evolution necessarily implies progress and shows how 'each progress is simultaneously a regress', and thirdly he demonstrates that the transition from one stage to another (...) is not necessarily marked by social conflict and that sometimes this is achieved peacefully and gracefully. As the book moves through these various stages, the reader is drawn into a remarkable and thought-provoking study of the process of the history of the human race which focuses on the wide range of factors (economic, social, military-technological, and socio-pyschological) which have influenced our development from palaeolithic times to the present day. (shrink)

This article discusses adult conversion in the Russian Baptist community as the unlearning of old sinful ways of living. Russian Baptists see conversion as an act of repentance, surrendering to Christ, and becoming born again, and as a life-long process of growing in faith. Based on an ethnographic study of the Baptist community in north-western and central Russia, the article discusses the glocal nature of the Russian Baptist community that attracts the kind of people that convert to this faith and (...) the circumstances of their conversion. Russian Baptist conversion is viewed as an act and a process, and conversion is seen as an ethical choice and an unlearning of the old ways of living. (shrink)

I proceed from the hypothesis that the difficulties in Kant’s presentation of his plan and, accordingly, the implicit reason for the critical attitude to this plan on the part of many contemporary philosophers stem from the fact that he had no theoretical link at his disposal which would offer a more solid scientific grounding for his entire system. I believe that Darwinism is such a link which bolsters the central but ungrounded thesis of the Critique of Pure Reason on the (...) existence of a priori synthetic judgments. The synthesis of Darwinism and critical philosophy dictates, however, a substantial restructuring of the latter since some of its key elements prove to be weak in the light of modern studies and need to be revised or even reversed. The first reversal explored in this article determines the origin of the categories which are now revealed not “from the top down” where Kant sought them, i. e. not in logical functions in accordance with metaphysical deduction and not in self-consciousness as transcendental deduction claims, but “from the bottom up” if one considers things in the evolutionary dimension, i. e. in the instincts. The second reversal shifts the freedom of will which Kant placed in the same ontological basket with things in themselves at “the top,” to another level of the pyramid of ontologies, by changing dualism to pluralism because dualism is too narrow to accommodate all the autonomous components of critical philosophy. Thus spirit and freedom find a new place separate from the sphere of physical nature; the category of adaptation explains how different ontologies can coexist; while the problem of two interpretations of transcendental idealism finds a solution through their reconciliation. (shrink)

This article opposes a view widely accepted in studies concerning the history of modal logic, according to which (i) the approach of C. I. Lewis towards constructing modern modal logic was purely syntactical (i.e. limited to the construction of axiomatic systems S1-S5 of propositional modal logic), and (ii) the notion of a possible world was incorporated into modern logic and philosophy mainly by authors such as Rudolf Carnap and Saul Kripke. The article presents Lewis' definition of a possible world, and (...) his formulation of the truth-conditions of statements containing strict implication as their main connective in terms of possible worlds. The main question of the article is whether it is possible to consider Lewis' work in this area as an early stage of the development of possible world semantics, and if so, in what sense? The article concludes by answering affirmatively, due to soundness and completeness proofs with respect to S5 using Lewis' semantics. (shrink)

According to the well–known argument, the traditional conception of existence and predication leads to the infamous paradox of non-existence. For instance, the sentence ‘Pegasus does not exist’ commits us to accept that there is something that does not exist. The easy way out is to analyze existence as a second–order concept expressing that there is at least one instance of some first–order concept. In this article, I argue that the traditional conception of existence and predication does not lead to the (...) paradox of non-existence. Negative existentials are not subject-predicate sentences that select existing beings only to deny them the property of existence. Aristotle’s insistence that being is not a genus, i.e. that being is not a predicate of some subject, is pivotal. Furthermore, Aristotle does not have a uniform conception of existence and predication. According to Aristotle, to be is to be an item in the categorical scheme, and consequently, every predication of some being should be analysable as one of the most general types of predication according to the categorical scheme. However, in the conceptual framework of Aristotle’s philosophy, a different problem of non-existence arises. For instance, ‘Pegasus is thought-about’ might commits us to the claim that Pegasus is a being of some kind. I reconstruct Aristotle’s solution as being satisfactory in the light of his understanding of predication and existence. Moreover, I suggest that a similar puzzle leads many contemporary philosophers to an abandonment of the Quinean concept of existence and predication in favour of a more traditional approach. (shrink)

This paper relates to a formal statement of the mechanisms that are thought minimally necessary to underpin consciousness. This is expressed in the form of axioms. We deem this to be useful if there is ever to be clarity in answering questions about whether this or the other organism is or is not conscious. As usual, axioms are ways of making formal statements of intuitive beliefs and looking, again formally, at the consequences of such beliefs. The use of this style (...) of exposition does not entail a claim to provide a mathematically rigorous formal deductive system. Conventional mathematical notation is used to achieve clarity, although this is elaborated with natural language in an attempt to reduce terseness. In our view, making the approach axiomatic is synonymous with building clear usable tests for consciousness and is therefore a central feature of the paper. The extended scope of this approach is to lay down some essential properties that should be considered when designing machines that could be said to be conscious. In the broader discussion about the nature of consciousness and its neurological mechanisms, it may seem to some that axiomatisation is premature and continues to beg many questions. However, the approach is meant to be open- ended so that others can build further axiomatic clarifications that address the very large number of questions which, in the search for a formal basis for consciousness, still remain to be answered. Of course, in discussions about consciousness many will also argue that the subject is not one that may ever be formally addressed by means of axioms. The view taken in this paper is 'let's try to do it and see how far it gets'. (shrink)

This article examines the philosophy of law of the eminent twentieth-century Russian philosopher of law, Pavel I. Novgorodtsev. I demonstrate that his viewpoints express a dialectic between the nat...

I reconstruct Aristotle’s analytical procedure in Prior Analytics I.45 and its metalogical implications. Aristotle’s analysis unfolds three groups of syllogisms: symmetrically analysable, asymmetrically analysable, and non-analysable syllogisms. From the first and the third group could be extracted 27 combinations of the two mutually non-derivable deductive rules. Aristotle’s reduced deductive system in APr. I.7 with the two moods in the first figure (traditionally called Barbara and Celarent) follows this pattern. I demonstrate that the deductive system with Barbara and Celarent is just (...) one of 27 possible complete deductive systems with the two mutually non-derivable syllogistic rules. On top of that, given the fact that there are two combinations of mutually non-derivable conversion rules, I conclude that Prior Analytics hides in itself 54 complete deductive systems with a minimal number of mutually non-derivable rules. Finally, it is commented what might be the role of analysis; to what extent Aristotle could be aware of possibilities presented here; why he still prefers only one deductive system to many others with the same deductive power. (shrink)

Every scientific theory is a simulacrum of reality, every written story a simulacrum of the canon, and every conceptualization of a subjective perspective a simulacrum of the consciousness behind it—but is there a shared essence to these simulacra? The pursuit of answering seemingly disparate fundamental questions across different disciplines may ultimately converge into a single solution: a single ontological answer underlying grand unified theory, hard problem of consciousness, and the foundation of mathematics. I provide a hypothesis, a speculative approximation, supported (...) by a comprehensive overview of scientific evidence and philosophical literature, of a unified epistemic and phenomenological model and, in doing so, propose a parsimonious solution to the hard problem of consciousness. -/- The proposition of the hypothesis bears important implications for cross-disciplinary study between linguistics, mathematics, physics, and computer science, and offers new epistemic, ontological, and ethical propositions about the nature of AI consciousness, as well as existential risk mitigation. (shrink)

Jürgen Habermas’s recent engagement with Marx in Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie has mostly gone unnoticed by commentators. Habermas is among the few representatives of the Frankfurt School who has consistently stressed the importance of the “Marxian heritage” for a rigorous understanding of critical theory. In this essay, I critically examine two guiding threads in Habermas’s ongoing reconstruction of historical materialism: the relationship between labor and interaction, as well as the emancipatory potential unleashed by the democratic constitutional state. I argue (...) that Habermas’s reconstruction of historical materialism points to several lacunae in Marx’s work, but that it also reveals valuable insights into the latter’s oeuvre that have yet to be adequately addressed by Habermas. I conclude that it is time for Habermas to consciously reclaim the “Marxian heritage.”. (shrink)

Ifeel that Iam apartof, but separatefrom an 'out there' world. 2. Ifeel that my perception of the world mingles with feelings of past experience. 3. My experienceof the world is selective and purposeful. 4. I am thinking ahead allthe timeintrying ...

Justice is usually represented as a feminine figure holding a pair of scales and a sword. The history of that image is relatively recent and has attracted a great deal of attention. However, a different appreciation of it may come from a “nocturnal” jurisprudence seeking to foreground its presence and effects in the transmission of modern culture and so also of law. In this essay, I take my cue from Aby Warburg and the Pathosformeln that, he suggested, can be glimpsed (...) through certain material objects inherited from the past—specifically, Dürer’s The Death of Orpheus and other related visual art. I then consider what Giorgio Agamben calls ‘the image of the image’ emphasising the timely quality of those images and I ask, with Georges Didi-Huberman, whether it might not be high time to “return” that which those images ostensibly show. The associations established in this essay between those different insights may help to recognise the extent to which the innumerable images to do with justice found at the four corners of the world can make the cognitive and emotional experience of those encountering them a rather more complex and potentially problematic affair than it may be at first supposed. What, on closer inspection, can those images give us to see? Are the ancient configurations they sometimes transmit not made up of crystals of historical memory carrying dormant energies that could be suddenly reignited in unpredictable ways? Should the task ahead not be, in some cases, one of restitution—the inapparent gift that turns the “blotted-out” into something striking that can be then handed over and known? These, I argue, are some of the questions a “nocturnal” jurisprudence of the image can be about. (shrink)

Natural language provides motivation for studying modal backwards-looking operators such as “now”, “then” and “actually” that evaluate their argument formula at some previously considered point instead of the current one. This paper investigates the expressive power over models of both propositional and first-order basic modal language enriched with such operators. Having defined an appropriate notion of bisimulation for first-order modal logic, I show that backwards-looking operators increase its expressive power quite mildly, contrary to beliefs widespread among philosophers of language and (...) formal semanticists. That in turn presents a strong argument for the use of operator-based systems in the semantics of natural language, instead of systems with explicit quantification over worlds and times that have become a de-facto standard for such applications. The popularity of such explicit-quantification systems is shown to be based on the misinterpretation of a claim by Cresswell, which led many philosophers and linguists to assume that introducing “now” and “then” is expressively equivalent to explicitly quantifying over worlds and times. (shrink)