3/2014
PHILOSOPHY: IN SEARCH FOR KNOWLEDGE AND WAYS OF LIFE
EDITORIALS
PHILOSOPHY: IN SEARCH FOR KNOWLEDGE AND WAYS OF LIFE (1)
Recently social reality in the almost global scale is shaped not only by vulgar practicality, but also by—what goes with such practicality hand in hand—hostility and disrespect to authentic, so free and deep intellectual life, and to those intellectual values which are not useful according to pragmatic cultural standards.
The importance and pertinence of Max Horkheimer’s diagnosis presented in The Critique of Instrumental Reason still grow. By various means, more and more cruelly, reason is set an instrument subordinated to economical-political systems infiltrating the whole human world. Intellectuals are enslaved, inter alia by administrative and financial regulations in academic life, and by media which with paralyzing intensity favour and promote anti-intellectual values, man’s needs, styles of life etc. Those intellectuals, who are not temporarily and superficially useful, are barely tolerated, and relegated to secondarily important social niches. Scholars are no longer free thinkers, but to a great extent hired labourers in academic industry. Subordination and even concealed slavery destroy intellectual creativity kill human autonomous rational spiritual life.
Alarmingly large social groups, keeping abreast of the time, contest the importance of the humanities. Especially, the very sense of philosophy is discredited. What even more appalling, some philosophers proclaim—as a normative postulate to be realized—the death of philosophy. The most celebrated glorifiers of this view are Richard Rorty, an American neo-pragmatist, and postmodernists. Likewise the currently spread tendencies to naturalize philosophy are self-destructive, aiming to transform it into a secondary non-autonomous field.
The present situation of philosophy, at least in Europe, is a result of that anti-intellectual attitude. Philosophy existed non-threatened for 28 centuries. It has offered the majority of intellectual ideas, constituted foundations for various human activities. It gave rise for special sciences, and forever takes part in inspiring them. From antiquity till now philosophy has been the crown of the intellectual apprehension of reality—universalizing, fundamental, revealing depths and fields not imagined in commonsense nor in science. It teaches thinking which everlastingly transcends its own limits in approaching essential truths. In spite of all its attainments, philosophy must now defend itself, demonstrate its importance and necessity. Not only to save itself, but also to protect humanity against mental self-degradation, against vanishing rational, non-religious spirituality.
Nowadays, when philosophy is scattered into numerous philosophical schools, thematic threads, and positions, its general range and importance is, paradoxically, hidden, and eventually lost for collective consciousness. The essence of philosophy and its prominence can be adequately seen from a far perspective in which all the differences between schools and positions disappear. Then philosophy reveals itself as a realm breaking on through the doors of the mind to the side where all the reality appears as it is not seen outside it—in deeper a way, cleansed of contingencies, in its very fundamentals. Philosophy is just an amazing pursuit of intellectual, universalizing apprehending the very foundations of reality. It seems to be one of the highest means of forming and enriching pure humankind’s spiritual sphere. At the same time, trials to define its scope or its methods result in limiting it. As regards its problems and methods philosophy is an open project.
By their intended thematic plurality the papers included in this Dialogue and Universalism issue entitled PHILOSOPHY: IN SEARCH FOR KNOWLEDGE AND WAYS OF LIFE show the indispensability, potential, as well as the today’s vastness of philosophers’ activity. They also demonstrate that the primary philosophical task is to set and freely solve problems, and not to hang onto on a chosen philosophical school; at least the programs of schools should not be treated as rigid barriers of thinking.
The title of the issue defines the scope of philosophy by its two basic pursuits: the pursuit of knowledge and the pursuit of disclosing foundations of men’s life. The title should not be treated as indicating two disjunctive paths of understanding and doing philosophy. Knowledge and ways of life are conditioning each other. Cognition arises from human life which is its constituting basis. The ways of aware human life are grounded on and shaped by what the man knows about himself and reality.
The issue PHILOSOPHY: IN SEARCH FOR KNOWLEDGE AND WAYS OF LIFE is determined by its national and hence thematic specificity. The majority of the authors are Russian scholars. The papers are shorter than those normally put out in Dialogue and Universalism. It is so because we have tended—along with other tasks of the issue, and in agreement with the guest-editor Emilyia Tajsina—to present a representative panorama of main directions in the recent Russian philosophical researches. A relatively large part of the content of the issue is devoted to the problems of the human spiritual sphere, in its mixed individual–social (collective) dimension. It may be cautiously claimed that their extended presence is characteristics of the current Russian philosophizing.
The Dialogue and Universalism Editors are grateful to the guest-editor Professor Emilyia Tajsina for preparing this issue—so manifold, so informative. We also thank Dr. Shane Ryan for his assistance in copyediting the issue.
The last part of this Dialogue and Universalism issue contains two texts concerning the International Society for Universal Dialogue (ISUD). The first one discusses the ISUD founding ideas, and announces the ISUD intention (being already realized) of the return to its intellectual roots. The second paper is a review of the ISUD World Congress in Craiova (Romania).
PHILOSOPHY: IN SEARCH FOR KNOWLEDGE AND WAYS OF LIFE (2)
Philosophers of the world are still discussing the most important philosophical event that was held in August 2013, in Athens, the birthplace of all European culture and wisdom: the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy. The World Congresses of Philosophy occur only every five years.
In preparing for this truly historic event, as a prelude to the Congress, the Kazan Branch of the Russian Philosophical Society (Kazan is the capital of Tatarstan Republic, Russia) held in April 26–27, 2013, the International Conference “Towards the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Philosophy as Inquiry and Way of Life.” The hosting institution was the Department of Philosophy of the Kazan State Power Engineering University. The conference was attended by over 170 scholars, mainly Russians.
This Dialogue and Universalism issue contains materials, sometimes modified, selected from those presented at the Kazan Conference, and also some papers whose authors did not participate personally, but which suit well the theme.
The conference program included presentations by scholars from all over Russia, from Yakutsk to Makhachkala (North – South) and from Tver to Khabarovsk (West – East). Kazan welcomed Russian and foreign guests, especially the key-note speakers Marc Lucht, Panos Eliopoulos, and Vladimir Przhilenskiy.
Numerous countries and cities participated in the conference: besides Bulgaria (Sofia), Greece (Athens, Tripoli), and USA (Blacksburg) those were Azerbaijan (Baku, Nakhchivan), Belarus (Minsk), Uzbekistan (Tashkent, Navoi), Kazakhstan (Kostanay), Ukraine (Kiev, Kharkiv, Mariupol), and of course Russia. Big cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, Krasnoyarsk, Samara, Yaroslavl, Barnaul, Voronezh, Krasnodar, Kursk, Tyumen, Chelyabinsk and Omsk sent their scholarly emissaries. Likewise, representatives of smaller ones as Balashikha, Yelabuga, Izhevsk, Yoshkar-Ola, Naberezhnye Chelny, Yakutsk, Nerungri, Nizhnekamsk; Grozny, the capital of Chechnya; Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan; Nukus (Karakalpakstan) participated in the Conference.
I am deeply convinced that philosophy had always been and still remains a teaching about the means of creating worldviews in accordance with laws of nature, society, and cognition, in a systematic, mainly scientific way, thus shaping ways of living. The organization of the conference sessions has followed this idea:
— Section 1. Ontology, theory of knowledge, epistemology. Activity in these most sophisticated theoretical areas of philosophy is a key feature of the Kazan academic life, where two philosophical schools engaged in ontological and gnoseological researches function.
— Section 2. Social and political philosophy. Social philosophy is one of the most actively developed philosophical fields in today’s Russia.
— Section 3. Ethics, aesthetics, axiology.
Since, in my view, philosophy is not based only on scientific results but involves also religious views
— Section 4 was dedicated to dialogue between philosophy, science and religion.
This panorama reflects the situation in contemporary Russian philosophy. Looking back today, we can ascertain that the Kazan Conference Towards the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Philosophy as Inquiry and Way of Life. was a valuable contribution to the universal task of attaining philosophical knowledge in order to find and elaborate ways of better human life in the world we dwell.
This Dialogue and Universalism issue has been organized according to those ideas which lie in the foundation of the Conference. However, we decided to set a different division of its contents in order to highlight the leading ideas as clearly as possible. Thus, two parts of the collection correspond to two main philosophy’s tasks and at the same time two areas of philosophical activity signalized both in the title of the conference and in the title of the Dialogue and Universalism issue.
ABSTRACTS
Mustafa I. Bilalov
ETHNIC SPECIFICATION OF TRUTH INTERPRETATION
The article examines the idea of constructing a truth theory that is ethnic and cognitive culture specific. To this task I use the hypothesis of ethnic and scientific mind. The substance and specifications of different ethnic minds and cognitive cultures are here described. According to the proposed conception, standard theories of truth are revised: correspondence, coherent, pragmatic, etc.
Keywords: ethnic character; cognitive culture; theories of truth.
Affiliation: Dagestan State University, Gadjiyev str., 43А, Makhachkala, Republic of Dagestan, Russia.
Email: mibil@mail.ru
Elena N. Bolotnikova
PHILOSOPHY AS SELF-CARE
This article states that the search for the meaning of life is possible only through an address to non-existence, and it is a sign of genuine human self-care. Religion and philosophy are considered as incarnation of the space of care. Philosophy here is understood in a broad sense, not as a rigorous science, but as search for wisdom. Based on the structure of self-care, given in Michel Foucault’s works, here are revealed peculiarities of the search for the meaning of life in respective fields. This also implies different lifestyles. The author believes that genuine self-care is available to everyone, in spite of the nature of modern mass culture.
Keywords: the meaning of life; discursive/non-discursive mode of knowledge; self-care; telos; ascetic practices; ethical substance; mode of subjection.
Affiliation: Samara State Technical University, 443100, Molodogvardeyskaya str., 244, Samara, Russia
Email: vlad_lena@mail.ru
Evgeniy Bubnov
TRUTH IN RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND POSTMODERNISM
In this paper different approaches to the concept of truth are compared. Many changes in the concept of truth result in making it a zero notion. Similar processes are described in Max Müller’s conception of the genesis of religion. In this respect we suggest that postmodern philosophy should be treated as a new mythology.
Keywords: truth; Baudrillard; postmodernism.
Affiliation: Omsk State University, 644060, Gurtyev str., 1, lit. B, Omsk, Russia
Email: knizniycherv@mail.ru
Shamil N. Burnaev
CONCEPTS OF IDENTITY, SPIRITUALITY AND SPIRITUAL ENVIRONMENT
In different social and human sciences researchers apply different concepts of personality, spirituality and the spiritual environment. In this paper I propose new definitions of them.
Keywords: individual; social individual; person; personality; spirituality; forms of social consciousness; social environment; community psychology; spiritual environment.
Affiliation: Tashkent Pharmaceutical Institute, 100015, Oybek str., 45, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Email: burnaev_63@mail.ru
Olga N. Dyachenko
RELIGIOUS FAITH IN THE CONTEXT OF PERSONALITY SELF-DETERMINATION
The spread of Christianity reveals a new interpretation of human existence. In it temporality is regarded as a universal characteristic of the human race. The interpretation of God’s word is based on a medieval understanding of being, as the Word. In the theocentric perspective Jesus Christ’s personality is a unique form of human self-consciousness. Christian thought unveils within it the dialogue between a faithful mind and a personal God, the relationship of “You” versus “Me”. Dialogic activity of a human agent is kept up by the constant renewal of religious communication contexts that arises from the process of spiritual contemplation. Theocentric thinking explains the self-sufficiency of human existence through the infinity of the knowledge of God that gives a person the opportunities of self-improvement and self-fulfillment. Faith is equal to finding one’s inner self; that is why it always considers a person as a personality containing unlimited perspectives for personal self-determination.
Keywords: faith; self-determination; Aurelius Augustine; God; human being.
Affiliation: Kursk Institute of Continuous Professional Education, 305004, Sadovaya str., 31, Kursk, Russia
Email: dyachenkoolga13@yandex.ru
Panos Eliopoulos
THE STOIC COSMOPOLITANISM AS A WAY OF LIFE
The word cosmopolitanism is derived from “cosmos” (universe) and “polites” (citizen). The cosmopolite is a citizen of the world. The Stoics elaborate on the theme, using the ideas of oikeiosis and sympathy as its basis, thus drawing from their physics. Particularly, Epictetus defends cosmopolitanism on the assumption that man is akin to God, whereas Marcus Aurelius highlights the common possession of mind (νοῦς) and that man is by nature able for communal life. For the Stoics man is a social being who can be perfected only within the society of other human beings. The brotherhood of men is grounded on the indubitable axiom that the human soul is the source of the unique good, which is virtue. The distinctive parameter for creating a community is virtue, which is an objective for everyone but also an inherent and ecumenical capacity.
Keywords: Stoicism; cosmopolitanism; politics; ethics; wisdom; friendship.
Affiliation: Department of Philology in the University of Peloponnese, Anatoliko Kentro – Palaio Stratopedo, Kalamata, 24100, Greece
Email: ksatriya@tri.forthnet.gr
Aleksey N. Fatenkov
REALISTIC STRATEGY IN COMPREHENDING BEING
The article deals with the category of sense. It examines the meaningfulness of the absurd and takes realism to be a basic strategy in comprehending being. This strategy is compared with constructivism and reflection, or correspondence (copy), theory.
Keywords: being; understanding; conceptualization; sense; thinking; meaning; absurdness; realism; constructivism; correspondence theory.
Affiliation: Faculty of Social Sciences at Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, 603950, Gagarin prosp., 23, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Email: ksf@fsn.unn.ru
Igor Gasparov
SPIRITUAL EXERCISES AS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF PHILOSOPHICAL LIFE
In my paper I will argue for the thesis that spiritual exercises are an essential part of every philosophical life. My arguments are partly historical, partly conceptual in their nature. First, I show that philosophy at each stage of its history was accompanied by spiritual exercises. Next, I provide a definition of spiritual exercises as genuinely philosophical activity. Then I show that the philosophical life cannot be complete if it does not include spiritual exercises.
Keywords: spiritual exercises; philosophy; philosophical way of life; good life.
Affiliation: Voronezh State Medical Academy, 394036, Studencheskaya str., 10, Voronezh, Russia
Email: gasparov@mail.ru
Rovshan S. Hajiyev
ON GLOBALIZATION AND GLOBALISM
In this paper an attempt is made to comprehend the global historical process. The paper claims that the revolutionary progress in information and communication technologies, integrative tendencies in economic and cultural spheres, problems on safe-guarding, security and peace are not factors of globalization. They are rather social manifestations, which sustain its development. According to author’s position, there is a spiritual factor underlying globalization. The two similar processes/concepts—globalism and globalization—are substantially different from each other.
Keywords: globalization; globalism; intellectual evolution of mankind; immanent development; unified consciousness of mankind.
Affiliation: Azerbaijan National Academy of Science, Institute of Philosophy, Sociology and Law. AZ1001, Istiglaliyat, 10, Baku, Azerbaijan
Email: vinodelrovshan1@rambler.ru
Adel Ivanova, Valentin Pukhlikov
THE HEURISTIC AND METHODOLOGICAL POTENTIAL OF THE CONCEPT “SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION”
The concept of revolution in science is widely used in philosophy of science. We believe that the concept of revolution was borrowed from social-political literature and without any philosophical analysis was transferred to history of science. For this reason, attempts to transform that concept into an efficient instrument of building a theory of the development of scientific knowledge cannot be successful. This concept is nothing more than a metaphor for emphasizing empirical and theoretical discoveries of great significance in the history of science.
Keywords: revolution; scientific revolution; paradigm; philosophical foundation of science; theoretical and empirical discoveries; metaphor.
Affiliation: Adel А. Ivanova — Lomonosov Moscow University of Fine Chemical Technology (MITHT). 119571, Vernadskiy prosp., 86, Moscow, Russia
Email: ivanova_adel@mail.ru
Affiliation: Valentin K. Pukhlikov — Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy, 119991, Volkhonka, 14, lit. 5, Moscow, Russia.
Email: vpukh@bk.ru
Artur Karimov
ANALYTICITY AND MODALITY
In this paper I defend the concept of metaphysical analyticity, and argue for the notion of analyticity as truth in virtue of the reference determiner, introduced by Gillian K. Russell. Contrary to Russell, I try to show that necessary a posteriori statements are analytic under this notion. Also, I maintain that contingent a priori statements cannot be properly called analytic.
Keywords: analyticity; modality; necessity; aprioricity; meaning.
Affiliation: Kazan (Volga) Federal University, 420000, Kremlyovskaya str., 18, Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia
Email: aquium@yandex.ru
Timur N. Khalitov
SOPHISTICS AND ITS MODERN READING
Whatever the theory of knowledge may be—classical, non-classical, or post-non-classical, idealistic or materialistic, dialectical or metaphysical—its core is always the question: “Is there absolute truth?” (which I doubt)—because I am (absolutely) convinced that there is relative truth, for it is obvious. In the last few decades post-non-classical views on truth, namely, relativistic have triumphed. Nowadays we witness a renaissance of theoretical paradoxes of sophistry that can lead, and often do lead to real social misfortunes. To avoid them, one has to consider how it all began in the times of classical ancient Greek philosophy. Such exploration is the aim of the present paper.
Keywords: sophistics; paradoxes of sophistry; social misfortunes; be just.
Affiliation: Kazan (Volga) Federal University, 420000, Kremlyovskaya str., 18, Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia
Email: TNHalitov@mail.ru
Roman S. Kljujkov, Sergey F. Kljujkov
PLATO’S PHILOSOPHY OF COGNITION BY MATHEMATICAL MODELLING
By the end of his life Plato had rearranged the theory of ideas into his teaching about ideal numbers, but no written records have been left. The Ideal mathematics of Plato is present in all his dialogues. It can be clearly grasped in relation to the effective use of mathematical modelling. Many problems of mathematical modelling were laid in the foundation of the method by cutting the three-level idealism of Plato to the single-level “ideism” of Aristotle. For a long time, the real, ideal numbers of Plato’s Ideal mathematics eliminates many mathematical problems, extends the capabilities of modelling, and improves mathematics.
Keywords: modelling; theory of ideas; eidetic numbers; Ideal mathematics.
Affiliation: Pryazovskyi State Technical University, 87500, Metallurgov prosp., 54, Mariupol, Ukraine
Email: sklujkov@gail.com
Tatyana G. Leshkevich
MAJOR DIRECTIONS OF THE ANALYSIS OF EPISTEMOLOGICAL INSTRUMENTS
The article examines the research of the innovative-oriented scenarios in modern methodology. The innovative-oriented epistemological instruments indicate an opposition between determinism and sociocultural constructivism. Methodology is understood in the context of the technology of activity which is projected onto the innovation sphere in the context of their genesis, adaptability, spread and consumption. The article conceptually analyses epistemological instruments; it considers positive and negative tendencies relating to NIBC (nano-, bio-, info-, cognitive) technologies. The author claims that the modern image of the world includes the sum of technologies which determine the world; the image of the possible future can be called “post-human”.
Keywords: epistemology; modern methodology; innovative methodological tools; virtualization; paradigm of constructivism; innovative process; emergence; complexity; uncertainty; chaos.
Affiliation: Southern Federal University, 344006, B. Sadovaya, 105/42, Rostov-on-Don, Russia
Email: leshkevicht@mail.ru
Marc Lucht
PHILOSOPHY AS A WAY OF LIVING
Oriented by the philosophical work of Kant and Heidegger, this paper reflects upon some of the ways in which philosophy can inform every day living. First briefly sketching some of the connections between philosophical practice and the cultivation of autonomy, critical rationality, personal responsibility, and attitudes conducive of peace, this paper then turns to the capacity for philosophical contemplation to enrich a life by cultivating sensitivity and attentiveness to meaning and inherent worth.
Keywords: way of living; ethics; definition of philosophy.
Affiliation: College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Virginia Polytechnical Institute and State University, Blackburg VA, 24061–0002, USA
Email: mlucht@vt.edu
German V. Melikhov
ON THE UNRESTRAINT IN BELIEFS
This article studies the unrestraint in beliefs associated with the overemphasizing of our beliefs. The author argues that the intolerance for other points of view appears (among other factors) because of a naively-objectivist understanding of philosophy, one which is based on two assumptions: first, philosophy is considered only as a theory and not an individual practice, not an experience, and second, the truth is considered as identical to a certain ideal-objective content that can be in one’s possession.
There are true ideas and proper words. If we learn these ideas, we will definitely seize the truth. The author opposes this understanding the notion of philosophy which is based on the experience of the encounter and upon reflexive comprehension of this experience. It is possible to minimize unrestraint in beliefs if we assume that all the points of view including our own are considered as belonging to the incomprehensible Absolute.
Keywords: unrestraint in beliefs; beliefs; encounter; reflection; reverence.
Affiliation: Kazan (Volga) Federal University, 420000, Kremlyovskaya str., 18, Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia
Email: meac@bk.ru
Mikhail I. Mikhailov
THE AESTHETIC MEANING OF CATHOLICISM AND ORTHODOXY
The article considers the aesthetic meaning of Catholic and Orthodox cultural phenomena. According to the author, Catholicism is closely related to the notion of the tragic, which is manifested in the contrast between the Heavenly (spirit) and the Earthly (body). Therefore Catholicism, generating an important aesthetic notion, gave rise to Romanticism. The author regards Orthodoxy as the foundation of the Russian Symbolism (i.e. neo-Romanticism). Its essence is the proclamation of the Beauty of the man, which is revealed in the synergy of the Spiritual (i.e. heavenly) and the Earthly (i.e. bodily). In the aesthetic aspect Catholicism and Orthodoxy rather complement than oppose each other.
Keywords: Catholicism; Orthodoxy; the tragic; the beauty of man; art; Romanticism; Russian Symbolism
Affiliation: Nizhny Novgorod State Pedagogical University, 603950, Ulyanov str., 1, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Email: gigara@mail.ru
Grigori V. Paramonov
LANGUAGE AND PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION
The modern Russian linguistics still accepts V.V. Ivanov’s idea that there cannot be a unified (“uniform”) language for everybody. This view has a direct bearing on problems of education, especially mass education. Peculiarities of language for our contemporaries arise; the main features of their “language behavior” are determined not only by the education system. It is not necessarily school. The centuries-old language experience of family life, cultural traditions outside families, and, in addition, the quality of “near” and “distant” socio-cultural interaction influence people. Therefore, trying to adjust the language consciousness of pupils to the adopted system of education, the “nominative” Etalon, teacher often gains the opposite effect—strengthening of the forms of language (active, ergative or multi-structured), which he is striving to prohibit. But a multi-systemic multicultural society does not require each person to be the bearer of all possible forms. This requires a philosophy of education based on the modern philosophy of language that supports unprofane training and education and provides safety for the person.
Keywords: education; interaction; language consciousness; active; ergative; multi-structure.
Affiliation: Yaroslavl State Pedagogic University, Respublikanskaya str., 108, Yaroslavl, Russia
Email: paramanovgv@yandex.ru
Vladimir Przhilenskiy
SUSPICION AND METHOD: TOWARDS THE POST-THEORETICAL LIFEWORLD
The article analyzes the historical and philosophical roots of the art of suspicion and its role in the development of modern philosophy and its method. Particular attention is paid to the issues of the comparison of philosophical suspicion and conspiracy theories as a special state of mass consciousness. The article also specifies the dependence of the art of suspicion on the sociology of knowledge and post-theoretical thinking.
Keywords: suspicion; doubt; philoiponia; sociology of knowledge; post-theoretical lifeworld.
Affiliation: Kutafin Moscow State Law University, Sadovo-Kudrinskaya str., 9, Moscow, Russia
Email: vladprnow@mail.ru
Shane Ryan
THE VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE
In this paper I make the case that we should reject an argument that even knowledge of pointless truths has pro tanto final value. The argument draws on Greco’s virtue epistemological account of knowledge, according to which knowledge is an achievement and achievements have final value in virtue of being constitutive of the good life. I argue for my position by drawing on a case of knowledge of a pointless truth unlike previous cases of pointless truths discussed in the literature. This is a case in which knowledge of a pointless truth is very cheaply gained, and so it is a case in which the disvalue of the cost of gaining the knowledge cannot plausibly outweigh the supposed pro tanto final value of knowledge.
Keywords: Knowledge; epistemic value; pointless truths; achievements; Greco.
Affiliation: Soochow University, 70 Linhsi Road, Shihling, Taipei, 111 R.O.C, Taiwan
Email: shaneryan27@hotmail.com
Athena Salappa-Eliopoulou
MUSIC EDUCATION AND KALOKAGATHIA IN THE GREEK ANTIQUITY
Kalokagathia (καλοκαγαθία in ancient Greek) is the derived noun from the adjectives kalos k’agathos (καλός = beautiful, κἀγαθός = good or virtuous). The word was used by the ancient Greek writers and philosophers to describe the ideal of a person who combines physical strength and beauty along with a virtuous and noble character. It is the ideal of the personality that harmoniously pairs mind and body abilities and virtues, both in battle and in the activities of the everyday life. Its use is attested in many Greek writings (among them those of Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle), while the notion of kalokagathia imbued the moral thought in antiquity.
Keywords: Kalokagathia; ancient Greek music; virtue; education.
Affiliation: National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, School of Philosophy, Panepistmiolis 15784, Ilissia, Greece
Email: aeliop@outlook.com.gr
Antonina N. Samokhvalova
PHILOSOPHY OF THE EARLY STOICS: THE RELATED AS A TENTATIVE CONSTITUENT OF THE SCOPE
OF THE INCORPOREAL
The article considers the scope of the early Stoics’ notion of “incorporeal” and the ontological concept of the incorporeal as being incapable of interacting with bodies. First, an interpretation is proposed that the incorporeal is an important part of the concept of meaningful conduct of Homo sapiens, as one can trace its direct relationship with his assents, desires and expectations as the elements preceding action. Second, a reconstitution has been suggested, one showing that in the scope of the incorporeal the Stoic system has a concurrent “as is said” type of predicate, or lekton.
Keywords: antique philosophy; stoicism; incorporeal; bodies; predicates; sayable; lekton; related.
Affiliation: Novosibirsk State University, Department of Philosophy, 630090, Pirogov str., 2, Novosibirsk, Russia
Email: samokhvalova-an@yandex.ru
Mikhail D. Schelkunov
GLAMOROUS EDUCATION AS A PHENOMENON
The glamorous culture affecting education gives rise to the phenomenon of glamorous education (glam-education). The main features of glam-education, concerning its substantial, communicative, valuable, organizational components, are discussed in this article. Glam-education is proved to be a demonstration of the personality’s existential crisis in the postmodern society. A brilliant package of glam-education camouflages the death of original thinking, the necrosis of genuine emotions and the lack of a productive imagination of a person.
Keywords: brand; consumption; education; glamour; glam-culture; hedonism; play; simulacrum; symbol; value; show.
Affiliation: Kazan (Volga) Federal University, 420000, Kremlyovskaya str., 18, Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia
Email: mikhail.schelkunov@rambler.ru
Tatiana M. Shatunova
AESTHETICS AS METAPHYSICS AND PASSION
Philosophy is an inquiry and way of life. Is it possible to apply this formula to aesthetics? There is no doubt that aesthetics is always an investigation, a questioning. However, is it possible to speak about aesthetics as a way of life, too? To answer this question, it is necessary to understand what happens in aesthetic theory today, or rather, what is contemporary aesthetics of today.
Keywords: aesthetics; beauty; metaphysics; catharsis; passion
Affiliation: Kazan (Volga) Federal University, 420000, Kremlyovskaya str., 18, Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia
Email: shatunovat@mail.ru
Hülya Şimga
JUDITH BUTLER AND AN ETHICS OF HUMANIZATION
This paper argues that the question of the human is a major concern in Judith Butler’s philosophy. I believe that although this concern is more visible in her relatively recent works on ethics and politics, in her earlier works it is always in the background. I read Butler as a deep thinker on the nature of the human, and argue that her thoughts on ethics and politics should be read as a (non-utopic) yearning for a human condition where a collectively inhabitable world becomes possible. This paper will explore the question of the human as Butler discusses this in its relation to intelligibility, critique, and the opacity of the subject not only to understand the terms of dehumanization but also to offer ways of conceptualizing a more humane world.
Keywords: Judith Butler; human; humanization; dehumanization.
Affiliation: Philosophy Department at Koç University, Istanbul,Turkey
Email: hsigma@ku.edu.tr
Nathan M. Solodukho
SITUATIONALITY OF BEING: PRINCIPLES
In this paper, the author-developed conception of the “situationality of being,” i.e. the extension of the theory of the “philosophy of nonbeing,” is presented; the generalized definition of the notion “situation” is formulated; and the essence of the “situationality of being” is explained. The conception of the “situationality of being” makes it possible to develop the situational pattern of the world; in accordance with this conception, “the world is the situation of situations”. The world appears before us in the form of one gigantic situation due to the interaction of various situational factors of different level and different qualities, which lead in the long run to a certain situative dynamic balance (the so-called existent world).
Keywords: situation; situational approach; situationality of being; situational pattern of the world; system; being; nonbeing.
Affiliation: Tupolev Kazan National Research Technical University, 420000, Karl Marx str., 10, Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia
Email: natsolod@land.ru; natsolod@rambler.ru
Irina V. Solovey
DISCOURSE STRATEGIES OF INDIVIDUALS IN BIOPOLITICS STRUCTURES
The article deals with the analysis of political strategies of individuals, emerging on the border of social subjectivity in the sphere of biopolitics. “The Politics of Silence” and its manifestation are considered forms of political activity of “excluded” individuals, confronting actions of biopower.
Keywords: biopolitics; biopower; homo sacer; “silence” politics; manifestation; protest; social subjectivity; political discourse; thinking and being.
Affiliation: Institute of Social Communications, Udmurt State University, Udmurtskaya str., 230, Russia
Email: soloveyiv1@mail.ru
Emiliya A. Tajsina
AN ADVANCE TO A NEW THEORY OF COGNITION
The theory suggested in the article is revealed in terms of existential materialism finding its source in Aristotle’s maxim that philosophy is a study of the essential unity of the grounds of being and consciousness. This theory still makes use of the old principle of reflection postulating the subject/object dyad. The here-proposed theory points out that there is not really a dyad, but a triad of a cognitive relationship: subject–language-object. To cope with the main epistemological problem of truth, we postulate that not only the paradigmatic, but also the syntagmatic axis be considered. The basic syntagma of gnoseology is contemplation on the absolute and relative in true knowledge, but not in a Hegelian way.
Keywords: existential materialism; Dabewuβtsein; the main triad of the cognitive relationship; the basic syntagma of gnoseology.
Affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Kazan, State Power Engineering University, 420066, Krasnoselskaya str., 51, Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia
Email: emily_tajsin@inbox.ru
Alsu F. Valeeva
A LINGUISTIC PARADIGM OF ETHNORELIGIOUS TRADITIONS
This article deals with the most significant versions of the confessional factor, acting in modern Russian society as a cultural resource of international consent. Analyzing the problem of confessional tolerance, the author traces the reflection of supporting religious values in communicative-speech space of the renewed society.
Keywords: linguistic behavior; religious scriptures; semantic orientations; descriptive function; ethnic and religious paradigms; confessional management; spiritual property.
Affiliation: Kazan (Volga) Federal University, 420000, Kremlyovskaya str., 18, Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia
Email: alsval@mail.ru
Marina Zajchenko, Elena Yakovleva
CHARACTERISTICS OF RECURSIVE STRUCTURES OF MODERNITY
The focus of the authors’ interest is recursion, serving as one of the principles of design and existence of hierarchical systems. Its features are among others the infinite self-transformation associated with the return and playback based on the algorithm of its own unfolding, by analogy, which ensures the movement inward, on the basis of which complication of the system takes place. This method is quite common in cultural space, giving rise to a situation of multiplicity of values and interpretations.
Keywords: recursion; mirror; mise en abime; Droste effect; interpretation; text.
Affiliation, Marina A. Zajchenko: Institute of Economics, Management, and Law, 420021, Moskovskaya str., 42, Kazan, Russia
Email: rose2001@mail.ru
Affiliation, Elena L. Yakovleva: Institute of Economics, Management and Law, 420021, Moskovskaya str., 42, Kazan, Russia
Email: mifoigra@ail.ru