Ideas and Ideals

The subject of the study is the structuring of the spatiotemporal (chronotopological) relationship that characterizes human being. The article considers the totality of time and space (a chronotope) as a dynamic dialectical organization, immanent to all that existence (especially human), developing together with it and being an integral part and a way of its evolution. The theoretical and methodological basis of the work is the original concept of the chronotope of the Russian philosophers of the first half of the twentieth century (A.A. Ukhtomsky and M.M. Bakhtin), as well as the approaches to chronotopological research that have been developed to date in modern science, such as the Samara Philosophical and Cultural school, the Ekaterinburg Sociological and Philosophical school and the Saransk Philological and Cultural school. The study develops the model of basic structural elements of chronotope, which includes principles, modes and forms (levels), that are introduced to deepen and further develop the idea of the structuring of the chronotopology of the world and a human. The principles of the chronotopological structure are fundamental dialectical and logical schemes that define the basic foundations of its functioning and development, setting the general vector of its evolution. Chronotopological forms are steadily formed levels of the spatiotemporal structure that arise and function in the process of its formation and development. The modes of chronotopological organization are the ways of its functioning and progress that are specifically historically and individually determined for each person. The paper suggests the presence in the chronotopological organization of a secondary number of structural elements, which are in addition to the basic integral forms. There are infra, ultra and meta levels, which complement and complicate basic chronotopological forms. The infra level of the spatiotemporal structure consists of such temporal and topological phenomena as the material bodily bottom, alienated unsettled social space and alienated historical time. The ultra level is represented by the personal world and the microchronotope of consciousness, equipped with public and private space and existentially authentic time. The meta level of time and space is the final generalization of the evolutionary path of the chronotopological structure, from the life of a particular person to the historical path of culture, society and civilization.

The English empiricist philosopher David Hume (1711–1776) formulated the logical problem of the interaction of essence and deontic: moral imperatives, norms, laws, values, goals, policies, etc. are not derived from facts. The existence quantor does not apply to statements with ‘should’, ‘must’. Similarly, artificial intelligence can operate with temporal, epistemic, and even aletic modalities, but cannot analyze deontic and axiological operators, etc. Hume’s guillotine forces a distinction between the normative and the descriptive and the deductive.

Law is the most normative and precise human science, where the present and the ideal are correlated. The desire to define its essence gives rise to fundamental questions about its location. Is it worthwhile to equate norm and being? Is it possible to derive law from social rationing? Can we see it in the psychological need for order and stability, in the subjective experience of duty? How can we bring together the being and the proper in the contradictory category of ‘law’, which means both the objective and the present, and, on the other hand, the valuable and the concrete. The social avatar of the dilemma of the ontic and the deontic is the gap between normative and sociological jurisprudence. The methodological purity of normativism collides with a fluid social reality. Special-legal means and procedures can create a police regime, but they cannot create a system of social justice. Law from the point of view of the proper is the recognition of the dependence of the legal on the social, the political, the economic. Without the proper, however, law loses its instrumentalism. Therefore, the state is like a mangrove biome, uniting heterogeneous environments of the essential and the proper. This article develops models of legal metatheory, or such a descriptor of law, which would explain the forms of the union of the existent and the deontic.

The article examines the current situation related to the prospects for further development of philosophical knowledge. It is pointed out that in the interpretation of a number of authors, philosophy is now actually reduced to the history of philosophy, turning into a purely historical discipline. Philosophical thought boils down to the analysis and systematization of what was created before, but not to the free search and creation directed to the future.

The current situation has been created due to the practice in which every thought does not arise by itself, but is necessarily based on previously expressed thoughts. Philosophy deals mainly not with the actual, but with the previously described and interpreted reality. Therefore, it is almost impossible for modern philosophers to create on virgin soil. In addition, the amount of philosophical knowledge has reached such a volume that it is almost impossible to keep it within individual human memory. A significant part of philosophical research at present is actually aimed at studying the history of philosophy, while such works sometimes do not contain their own thoughts at all. This situation is considered in philosophy as a systemic inversion: the service, subordinate element of the system acquires a dominant meaning in it.

Of course, the role of the history of philosophy in this discipline itself cannot be disputed. Philosophy is a kind of cumulative knowledge in which the past is inseparable from the present and the future. However, it is impossible to identify the history of philosophy with philosophy itself, because this approach closes any path leading to the future for philosophical thought. It is implied that philosophers from now on should be engaged exclusively in rethinking what was created earlier. The further development of philosophical thought with this approach is actually denied. However, Aristotle pointed out that even the complete denial of philosophy implies the use of philosophical argumentation, and therefore, willingly or unwittingly forces one to accept the existence of a philosophical discipline.

The most important point is that philosophy is a discipline of interest not only for philosophers themselves. Philosophy is not a ‘toy for philosophers’, it is a cognitive tool that is in demand in all other areas of human knowledge. And since science and practice as a whole continue to develop, philosophy will remain in demand precisely as a living, developing discipline, and not as a frozen collection of accumulated thoughts.

The article is devoted to a special attitude to the word as a corpuscle of a cultural event which not only forms the ancient Eastern traditions, but is also one of the mechanisms of the system of non-local connections that create a philosophical understanding of a particular text, event and culture in general. The paper discusses the problem of interpretation and understanding of texts which is inextricably linked with the reach of the fundamental principles of the Eastern philosophy, focuses on the attitude to the word in Taoist and various directions of Buddhist cultures, and also describes the differences in the comprehension and perception of ancient Eastern philosophy between European researchers and Buddhist scholars.

The author notes that the discrepancy in the meanings of understanding Buddhist texts lies much deeper and comes not only from the difference in mentalities, since the semantic load of a philosophical treatise correlates with the concept of ‘spiritual integrity’, but is also significantly related to differences in understanding and comprehension of the alphabetic and hieroglyphic writing systems. The question is raised that a holistic perception of the text for a European researcher will inevitably slip away, since he/she tries to reveal the meaning of the canon only by the categories of rational presentation. The influence of the Taoist terminological apparatus in the translation of Buddhist canonical texts into Chinese is shown. It is emphasized that the main principle of the translation of the early texts of the Mahayana is the selection of a Taoist term that is suitable in meaning. In this context, attention is focused on the fact that the relationship between the semantic and stylistic content of Buddhist and Taoist canonical texts is one of the basic elements necessary for a deep understanding of the primary sources of ancient Eastern philosophy.

The text pays special attention to the teachings of the Madhyamika, notes its role in the history of Buddhism as well as the certain mechanisms of deprofanation of the word developed by this philosophical school are considered that they contribute to a high ‘inclusion’ in the natural world and are based on the Mahayana postulate of the primacy of personal spiritual experience over all other epistemological strategies. Attention is paid to the fact that focusing on nature itself is basic among Buddhist ideas that came from China in the philosophy of Zen Buddhism in Japan.

As a result of the study, the author notes that the obvious semantic load of the word led the Buddhist and Taoist cultures not only to the formation of a strong immunity to the profaning of the word itself, but also to the practice of limiting the written and verbal activity of representatives of these cultures.

Among the ancient Greek philosophers Empedocles is the one who attempted to create a complete picture of the world, taking into account the knowledge of the thinkers who preceded him. It is an entire philosophical system that explores eternal and true principles and seeks to discover the causes of the being of all things and at the same time to explain their empirical becoming. It is a theory of the cosmic cycle, an eternal alternation in which the four elements that are the roots of all things--earth, air, water and fire--interact with the opposing forces of Love and Enmity, both in macrocosmic and microcosmic perspective. Empedocles does not give preference to any of the four elements, as had been done before him, but gives each of them their proper place. He introduces acting forces, by means of which he explains the reasons for the appearance and destruction of the world, and, moreover, in his views one can see the foundations of future conceptions of an impersonal law. Because of the fragmentary nature of the poem’s text, however, it is still not easy for us to grasp Empedocles’ thought consistently. Based on his own observations and taking into account the knowledge accumulated by previous generations of scholars, the author tries to offer his own reconstruction of the cosmogonic process presented in Empedocles’ poem. The reconstruction is carried out taking into account new fragments from the Strasbourg papyrus, thanks to which we have at our disposal a rather long and coherent piece of text, which makes a significant contribution to understanding the philosopher’s thought. The emphasis of the article is on the physical exposition of the poem with the application of philological methods and the subsequent interpretation of Empedocles’ verses. The physics of unity and multiplicity within the interaction of the forces of Love and Enmity and the four roots is reconstructed. The article also considers the didactic component of the poem, showing that Empedocles does not think of himself as separate from sensual nature, and that he and his disciple Pausanias are aware of their full involvement in the universal cosmogonic process.

The article is devoted to the traditional theme – self-determination of philosophy. The author reveals the specifics of philosophy in comparison with other areas of spiritual culture – religion, art and science. The single basis for comparison is their ability to overcome human suffering. The named areas differ in that very ability, each of them helps to overcome suffering in its own special way. For science, the main means of solving life’s problems is knowledge, for religion – faith, for art – imagination, and for philosophy – understanding.

Understanding in this article is considered as a movement towards clear knowledge, towards meaning, and at the same time as the result of such a movement as the achieved meaning. Knowledge clothed in certain, culturally given forms, seems understandable to us. We draw the basic models of understanding from our natural languages. Forms of judgments, cultural universals, and basic theories also give us forms of understanding. Among many forms of understanding, an important role is played by those forms and models that crystallize in the main philosophical categories, such as ‘essence’, ‘whole’, ‘general’, ‘cause’, ‘purpose’, etc.

The peculiarity of philosophical thinking is that understanding in it does not act as a means for further application, but as a direct action, practice. The achieved understanding in itself eliminates suffering and resolves life’s difficulties. In this sense, philosophy as a whole is not a theory, but a practical exercise aimed at making human life happier.

According to the author, the described four ways of overcoming suffering are ‘ideal types’ (M. Weber). On the one hand, science, religion, art and philosophy in their historical practices can be characterized by this or that degree of syncretism. On the other hand, there are cases when the ‘official rubric’ of a particular sphere of culture and its content do not coincide: for example, philosophy is practiced under the name ‘religion’, scientific research is carried out under the name ‘philosophy’, and art is created under the name ‘science’.

The article analyzes the ancient concept of ‘metanoia’ in the religious and philosophical tradition, carries out a historical and philosophical reconstruction of the term. The author considers the concept of ‘metanoia’ in the context of the problem of the relationship between mind and body. Tracing the transformation of the concept, coming from Aristotle, the author of the article shows that the Eastern religious tradition understands repentance as the integration of the divine mind, which exists separately, into the human body and the beginning of its existence according to new laws. Western scholasticism, following Aristotle, separates the active divine and passive human minds, but denies their union in the body, endowing repentance with a supra-individual meaning, interpreting it as a kind of turn towards the Divine light that occurs outside the physical body and is not the result of a genuine experience of union with Christ. The author considers understanding of the concept of ‘metanoia’ by such theologians as Gregory Palamas, Clement of Alexandria, Thomas Aquinas. It is concluded that the problem of the bodily localization of the mind, the essence of the mind, is closely related to the problem of repentance and the historical transformation of the concept of ‘metanoia’.

This article is devoted to the critical arguments against orientalism put forward by the French mystic Réne Guénon (1886–1951) in his three books: A General Introduction to the Study of Hindu Teachings (1921), East and West (1924), Man and His Realization according to Vedanta (1925), and in the paper Eastern Metaphysics (1925). These arguments have rarely attracted the attention of researchers, and yet they occupy an important place in the methodology of Génon's justification of his “true metaphysics” which is one more attempt to return to man his proper human existence, broken in the modern world into different forms – Eastern and Western civilizations. The two types of civilizations are in a state of ruinous confrontation all the time. In the introduction of the article, Guénon’s anti-orientalist ideas are correlated with the criticism of orientalism by E. Said (1935–2003), which had a great influence on Oriental studies of the second half of the twentieth century. The main part touches on the cultural context of the esotericist’s ideological search, and it marks the source of his metaphysics in the idea of contrasting Modernity and Tradition.

Guénon criticizes the widespread belittling of traditional Eastern cultures by the Western people, and the “dogmas” of civilization, progress and the existence of only one type of humanity moving along the steps of the only possible progress based on reason and rational sciences. For the thinker, the understanding of culture as the progress is flawed, and Western civilization is not a model for the other civilizations, but it is an anomaly of development. As long as the Westerners in general, and the Orientalist scientists, in particular, who study the East with prejudice, without the desire to reach a genuine understanding of the meanings of Tradition as a form of integral metaphysical knowledge, do not get rid of their “dogmas”, the confrontation between East and West will persist. Guénon often finds his critical arguments in the works of professional orientalists (Eugène Burnouf, Max Müller) and philosophers (G.W. Leibniz). He demonstrates the mistakes they made which destroy the foundations of the orientalist approach.

In this article we first, using the example of Eleusis, briefly examine the question of the origin of ancient mystery practices, and we also touch upon the problem of the evolution of Greek religious beliefs from Archaic times to the Classical period. Often the presence or absence of an extraordinary experience is regarded as a criterion which allows to classify a specific ancient cult as a “mystery” cult. Another criterion, of course, is the closed, initiatory nature of these cults. We discuss this type of cults in the paper, beginning with the historically most ancient ones. The main part of the article is devoted to the detailed study of the Samothracian Mysteries and the sacred rites of Kabeiroi, first of all, in Thebes and on the island of Lemnos. The literary and epigraphic data in the article are considered in the light of archaeological findings. We see that the ancient cult of the Kabeiroi, as well as the ideas about the Great Gods of Samothrace, underwent significant changes over time, first of all, it seems, under the influence of Eleusis. Were the myths of the Samothrace and of the Kabeiroi of a ‘salvific’ nature, and not only in the sense of rescue at sea or from enemies by means of miraculous weapons or foreign magic? Obviously, since about the time of Plato, and perhaps somewhat earlier, the mystery cults, above all the Eleusinian and Orphic ones, are accompanied by certain eschatology and are conceptualized in a philosophical way. This does not mean, of course, that people stop turning to the gods with “ordinary” requests for help and, passing through initiation into the mysteries, necessarily aspire to acquire only a special “mystic” experience or secure for themselves a privileged place in the other world, the picture of which just at this time is significantly transformed. This is briefly the content of the first part of the work, published in this issue of the journal. In the second part of the study we will continue with an account of the “minor mysteries” of antiquity, such as the secret rituals of the Korybantes, the Andanian mysteries in Messenia, and the cult of Artemis in Ephesus, in order to move in the third part to late antique practices such as the mysteries of Isis and Mithras, which we hope will bring us closer to a theoretical synthesis that treats the nature and meaning of the ancient mystery cults.