Ideas and Ideals

Modern philosophy of mind focuses on such aspects of consciousness as perception, information processing, and qualia (also occurring in perception). At the same time, insuffi cient attention is paid to such conscious actions of the subject as decision-making and action. However, action requires no less consciousness than perception. It is not so much the philosophy of mind that deals with action as the philosophy of subject. This article makes a connection between the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of subject through the concepts of freedom and selfrelationship. The subject is essentially free because he makes decisions. Even if his decisions are determined by his biological arrangement or his history, he transforms past determinations into future ones, and still the decision-making occurs, so that some freedom is required. As for mind, it is also related to freedom because its light is lit in the same decision-making situations. There is a special group of decisions concerning subject’s relations. The subject’s relations to the world, to the Self, to the Others, to transcendence are considered. In relation to the world, the subject can manifest his freedom through self-restraint, renunciation of power, based on Heidegger’s maxim of “letting being be.” He can build his attitude towards Others in an ethical paradigm, for example, according to the teachings of Levinas. Transcendence can be given in the form of looking at oneself from the outside. A special group of actions of the subject is distinguished: self-attitude and self-action. In the fi eld of mind it is self-consciousness. The subject can modify his own attitudes based on the transcendent point that he himself posits. This also has implications for the choice of values. The religious relation to one’s own soul and Heidegger’s doctrine of transcendence are considered. Self-existence is a supremely free action of the subject through which he constructs himself.

The article examines the genesis of the Eurasian ideology of the 1920–1930s from the point of view of discourse analysis. Discourse is defi ned as a set of statements refl ecting different points of view on the same issue. In accordance with this defi nition, the author isolates the Eurasian discourse from two adjacent ones - the pre-revolutionary imperial and religious-philosophical. The problematics of pre-revolutionary imperial discourse were focused on justifying the right of Russian tsars to own lands and peoples within the existing borders of the empire, as well as the right to expand these borders. The religious and philosophical discourse about Russia was built around the question of its divine purpose in the history of mankind. In contrast, Eurasian discourse focuses on ethnocultural synthesis within the boundaries of a special geographical area, most of which is located within the Russian state. But before the revolution of 1917, this problem was not considered at all in this formulation. The predecessors of Eurasianism include only a few authors who recognized and positively assessed the Turkic-Mongol infl uence on the Russian mentality and statehood. However, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the prevailing tendency was to downplay or deny this infl uence altogether. The turn to the Eurasian issues is associated with the work of symbolist poets A. Blok and A. Bely. Being infl uenced by the religious and mystical prophecy of the philosopher V. Solovyov, they accepted the revolutionary upheavals of the early twentieth century, as the awakening of the “inner East” in the Russian people. Together with other representatives of the Russian intelligentsia, they were the creators of the Eurasian myth, born in the elements of revolution and civil war. The founders of the Eurasian movement rationalized this myth, reducing it to political ideology. This was a version of the new imperial ideology, which explained and justifi ed the preservation of a united and indivisible Russia within its former borders.

The ancient separation of the world into the domains of ideas and things created the ground for questioning about true existence. Thus, reality could be attributed to ideas, or it could be attributed to things. Given the tension between Platonic and Aristotelian ontologies, the problem of the status of general notions was embodied in medieval philosophical discussion, often clothed in theological form. The article reconstructs the controversy around the ontological status of universals within several scholastic doctrines. The essence of this dispute, from a perspective that is of ontological and gnoseological interest, comes down to clarifying the categorical grid, within which it is possible to make statements concerning reality. There are at least three main positions that refl ect the views of scholastic thinkers on the ontological nature of universals: realism, nominalism and conceptualism. The basic difference between them is determined by confl icting opinions regarding the issues of autonomy of the existence of universals, their dependence on the mind and things, and also about their materiality. This study reproduces the crucial moves of the scholastic thought of realists (A. Canterbury), nominalists (W. Occam), conceptualists (P. Abelard) and moderate realists (F. Aquinas), around which the conceptual background of the conversation about reality is formed. At the same time, it became obvious that the concept of realism (which was not yet in the philosophical vocabulary during the period of scholasticism) acquires its features in the intersections and contradictions between positions in the range from strong realism to extreme nominalism. Besides, it has been demonstrated in actual analysis that a set of alternative solutions to the problem of universals was refl ected in the broad philosophical problems of Modern (along the epistemological teachings of rationalism and empiricism) and contemporary thought (in projects of speculative realism, fl at ontologies, as well as in the fi eld of philosophy of mind). At the same time, it must be recognized, as a result, that the later development of the concept of realism and the problems of cognition associated with it had a retrospective impact on the correlation of scholastic positions with each other.

The article presents a refl ection on the conceptualization of the ideas of the migrant’s “home” and “homeland”. Rethinking the experience of conceptuali-zing these concepts seems appropriate due to its heterogeneity, which is due to the formation of the phenomenon of transnationalism at the end of the 20th century, refl ecting the emergence of transnational migration. Home and homeland are considered in the structure of transnational identity as its identifi ers. The theoretical framework of the analysis was the concept of the domestic researcher Z.L. Levin, which allows interpreting home and homeland as social, i. e. acquired identifi cations. The consequence of the reconstruction of the semantic fullness of the concepts of home and homeland is the transformation of identity and/or the formation of a trans-identity, involving a combination of elements of cultures, both the country of origin and the recipient country.

The beginning of the discourse about the home of the modern migrant falls on the 80s of the XX century when the issue of its loss to migrants was being considered. In the early 1990s, an anti-centrist line of research was formed, which is, in general, a complex of nomadic studies based on the concepts of globalization, transnationalism and cross-borderism. The idea of transforming the house is being formed. The house ceases to be a “fi xed structure” and loses the function of a geographical center, it becomes mobile, its topography expanding. At the same time, there is a group of scientists who deny the generalization of ideas about home and homeland. In general, when defi ning ‘home’, representatives of global discourse adhere to a number of its unifi ed indicators, the most signifi cant of which are terrain, sense of security, space, social relations of family and neighborhood. The analysis of the results of the modern conceptualization of home has shown the expansion of the semantic load of this concept and the identifi cation of new properties of home – mobility and plurality. If before the start of transnational migration, the concepts of ‘home’ and homeland were linked together by the formulation native home, then in the conditions of fl uid modernity, forming a plastic transnational identity of a migrant, these concepts began to exist separately. The concept of homeland, unlike home, has an ideological connotation. In the context of the mosaic of modern social processes and their political coloring, its conceptualization is in the process of development.

This article systematizes practical tasks that can be attributed to the implementation of the ideas of posthumanism. The reader’s attention is drawn to the erosion process on the external boundaries of human society. There are many lawsuits that recognize animal rights. There are several aspects to this process. The fi rst is the recognition of the rights of wild animals and partial bans on their keeping in captivity and the introduction into legal circulation of the category ‘non-human person’. The second is to reduce the number of laboratory animals subjected to lethal experiments in order to obtain new drugs and develop new methods of treating people. Previously, this activity was considered morally justifi ed. Currently, it is under the close attention of animal rights activists and is controlled in the legal sphere. The third aspect of the problem is the emergence of ways to take into account the rights of pets. If previously pets were equated with things, now there is a shift towards external control over the relationship between pets and their owners. Many countries have laws protecting the rights of pets. The fourth aspect of the problem is that new relationships between human society and the world of microorganisms have formed. If previously this world was predominantly interpreted as hostile and predominantly pathogenic microorganisms were studied, in recent decades microorganisms that have a benefi cial effect on human health have begun to attract signifi cantly more attention. Finally, the fi fth aspect is the emergence and solution of new problems on the external border of humanity and the virtual world created by people. Previously, this world existed in the form of fantasies, religious concepts, art, folklore, etc. But the boundary between this world and real people was not fully realized. In recent years, artifi cial intelligence, intelligently operating mechanisms and much more have appeared in this virtual world, which makes this world equal to the human one.

The development of technology has changed the position of animals in the modern world in various aspects. However, only the achievements of artifi cial intelligence in the fi eld of natural languages indicated the possibility of reaching a new level of understanding and relationship with animals. Modern technologies have made it possible to isolate and fi x animal sounds and collect a huge array of audio and video data, and the experience of translation, even in the absence of parallel texts, has indicated the potential for using artifi cial intelligence to analyze animal sounds. Despite numerous diffi culties, including those associated with the difference in the worldview of animals and humans, there are already precedents for translation from the language of animals. The article analyzes the possibilities of using artifi cial intelligence in conditions of limited data and its current use in the fi eld of animal communication. If for domestic and farm animals, researchers rely on the interpretation of meanings or emotions, then for wild animals, scientists compare sounds and behavior, and rely on the potential of artifi cial intelligence in solving unstructured problems. Although a number of recent studies report high reliability of “translation” from the language of animals, the very possibility of testing the effectiveness is diffi cult. Nevertheless, the accelerating emergence of new solutions that facilitate the recognition of the voices of specifi c animals, the classifi cation of sounds and actions of different animals, etc., indicate the possibility of a qualitative leap in the understanding of animals in the near future. Success in the fi eld of interpretation of animal sounds can lead not only to progress in a large number of areas related to the animal world, but also to a change in the status and position of the animal. At the same time, the achievements raise ethical questions related to the possibility of using new technologies to the detriment of animals and people.

The image of the modern and future school in perception of high school students is examined in the context of understanding the system of their values and life views. Empirically the paper is based on the results of the fi eld research undertaken by the author in September-October 2021 among the 9–11 grade students of St. Petersburg schools, followed by further investigation among the same target audience in January-February 2023. New questioning of the students was accompanied by the questioning of teachers, which allows us now not only to analyze the data in dynamics, but also to compare the views of students and teachers. Theoretical background of the research is based on the current sociological and psychological academic discussion about the concepts of happiness and meaningful life.

We argue, that during the recent year and a half the image of modern and future school has signifi cantly changed and this change bears the value-oriented character. First, the move from the values of life stability and comfort towards the values of personal and professional growth and achievements has been identifi ed, i.e. from the consumer values to the values of development. Second, high school students demonstrate almost entire indifference towards the values of common good. And, third, the teachers’ perception of the teenagers’ values is signifi cantly different from the reality in two important aspects: fi rstly, according to the teachers the students are much more oriented on consumer values, than it takes place in fact. And secondly, in the teachers’ perception students prioritize successful learning of curriculum disciplines much less than they actually do. According to teachers’ opinion friendship and communication are much more important to students than studies as such. This in fact may mean the attribution to the students the system of values, spread among the teachers, which causes major diffi culties in identifying the optimal combination of teaching and upbringing.

There are two points of view on the systemic approach and its use: according to the fi rst, this approach is conceived as universal, suitable for any disciplines and practices, according to the second, it includes a specifi c objectivity, should grasp the features of a certain fi eld of knowledge. In order to choose one of them, the author analyzes on the basis of two cases (“The Critique of Pure Reason” by I. Kant and the works of G.P. Shchedrovitsky) the formation and features of the systemic approach, showing that it is the design of an object of study in a special epistemic situation. Its feature is, on the one hand, the presence of several objects that describe the proposed object, on the other hand, the belief in the existence of an ontology and laws in accordance with which this object can be designed. The systemic approach in this version (as the confi guration of various objects and the design of an object based on this process) is compared with humanitarian and socio-humanitarian research and development (A.S. Pushkin’s personality research and the successful Donor project), which make it possible to do without systemic ideas and thinking. They are replaced by methodology and research in the subject. The author draws attention to the fact that the ideas of identifying and searching for the integrity, nature and boundaries of the phenomenon under consideration, taking into account connections and infl uences, the correlation of synthesis and analysis, and a number of others that are today referred to as a systemic approach, were developed meaningfully (in other non-systemic concepts and languages) throughout the entire history of the development of philosophy, methodology and science. As a result, it turns out that it is necessary to distinguish between the methodology of a systemic approach and other methodologies that allow systemic problems and tasks to be solved, so to speak, non-systemically.

Scientifi c natural science, which had been established in European culture since the mid-17th century, began to transmit samples of scientifi c knowledge into the fi eld of studying social reality. Until the 19th century, the only mental form of refl ecting this reality was “primary history,” as Hegel defi ned it, i.e. tradition of historiography coming from Herodotus. This tradition received its design, oriented towards the fi eld of scientifi c rationality, from the German historian Leopold von Ranke: to show “how it really was” (wie es eigentlich gewesen). Its social function is the formation of national historical memory. But methodological refl ection at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries revealed, as it seemed to it, two radical differences between “primary history” and other “sciences of culture” from natural science. In this regard, the categories of “values” and “understanding” were emphasized. The presence of these categories in the foundations of any science determines its specifi cation as a humanitarian science. The fi rst attempts to transfer certain aspects of the disciplinary matrices of natural science to the sphere of social science are associated with the names of Kant and Marx. Both attempts were unsuccessful. But, unlike Kant’s, the “materialist understanding of history” found its supporters and successors. Its main error is the unlawful direct transfer of the semantic content of the category “matter”, as it developed in natural science (the relationships of things), to the relationships between people endowed with consciousness. The addressee of social sciences are cultural forms, the existence of which has an objective status of existence, but relative to the individual consciousness of acting people. These are, for example, social institutions. The humanities deal with meanings, the existence of which is determined by systems of social communications.

The author of the article considers the problem of actual infi nity to be the meta-basis of the genesis of New European science. The author shows the advantages of this approach to identify the internal logic of the genesis of science of the XVII century, as well as to clarify the prospects of modern science, experiencing a crisis of its foundations. The author shows that Nikolai Kuzansky’s ontological project reveals the conditions necessary for the mathematization of nature for the transformation of the fi nite into the actually infi nite, which overcomes the hopelessness of Zeno’s similar attempts. Zeno showed that there is no transition from the fi nite to the actually infi nite. To transform the fi nite into the actually infi nite, the latter must already be given. This kind of presence is revealed by Kuzansky in the apophatic idea of the divine minimum coinciding with the maximum. But at the same time, Kuzansky speaks only about the imaginary, and not the real possibility of transforming nature on the basis of actual infi nity. And in order to turn ‘scientifi c ignorance’ into ‘scientifi c knowledge’, it was necessary to present, outside the theological context, the possibility of transforming nature on the basis of actual infi nity, discovered by Kuzansky. This task was set by the founders of the New European science. The author of the article analyzes and compares the attempts of Galileo and Descartes to ‘tame’ the actual infi nity. The author shows that the difference in their positions on the question of the achievability of reliable knowledge, which laid important milestones in the history of the genesis of New European science (the transition from the scholastic tradition to probabilistic epistemology), is due to the awareness of the complexity of the problem of actual infi nity. As a result, the author shows that neither the theoretical speculations of the founders of science, nor the attraction of modern additional resources unknown to antiquity or the Middle Ages (experiment, pinhole camera) were unable to change anything in the ratio of the fi nite and the infi nite.

In this, the penultimate article of our Pythagorean cycle, we turn to the metaphysical or natural-philosophical heritage of those great men who are referred to as founders or pioneers of physics. The choice of specifi c fi gures in this kind of research is surely arguable to some extent. Our choice is limited by the length of the paper, the availability of relevant texts, and yes, a certain subjectivity of our evaluations.

After a brief Introduction, we give an overview of the tension between the paradigm of physical reductionism and the intuition of free will. We show how the author of the fi rst universal physical theory, Isaac Newton, resolved this contradiction, and how he held the belief in the authenticity of free will while sacrifi cing not only mechanistic reductionism but also belief in the omniscience of God. These philosophical problems are then discussed in the light of the modifi cations to physical conceptions of the universe that twentieth-century physics has made.

Turning to James Clerk Maxwell, the author of the equations of electrodynamics, we note his philosophical primacy in pointing out the important feature of physical laws that ensures their discoverability: the correlation of their mathematical complexity with the diffi culty of observing the corresponding layer of reality.

Speaking of Albert Einstein’s philosophical views, we note in them a combination of a deep understanding of the mystical basis of physics with the naivety of moral philosophy. Like Einstein, Max Planck was a deistic idealist who did not believe in a “personal God,” but, aware of the enormous moral signifi cance of Christianity, only shortly before his death he publicly declared this unbelief as a long-held conviction.

Refl ections on Niels Bohr lead us to conclude that he was an apophatic mystic, combining the complementary qualities of a passionate desire for theoretical clarity and an anticipation of its impossibility.

Erwin Schrödinger, to whose views we next draw attention, expressed them in terms of Vedanta idealism. It seems to us that the same views can be expressed within a European context, albeit unorthodox.

Turning to Werner Heisenberg, who in his youth read Plato in the original, we show not only his Platonism, but also his understanding that the connection with God is the moral foundation, the loss of which is ruinous. The drama of being, according to the author of the uncertainty relation, has to do with the fact that the divine will is essentially embodied through human freedom, through the indeterminacy of conscious choice.

In the section on Wolfgang Pauli, we note his amazement at the profound harmony of the mental and the material spheres, which reveals itself with particular power in the mathematical discoverability of the material world. Hence began his search for a possible reason for this agreement, the search accompanied by many years of conversations with Carl Gustav Jung.

The concluding section of the article is devoted to Paul Dirac, who, unique among the great physicists, went from Marxist atheism to preaching about Godmathematics, and then to regular prayers in church.