Ideas and Ideals

The Christian worldview of the late Middle Ages was quite diverse, but at the same time extremely contradictory. Northern France, Flanders, and the German towns in the Rhine Valley were fi lled with various spiritual movements and beliefs that largely determined the spiritual climate of medieval Europe. One such spiritual current was the Beguine movement, which was condemned by the Catholic Church, as were many other religious sects during this period of European history. Nevertheless, the reasons for the persecution of the representatives of female semi-monastic communities are still not clear enough for us. On the one hand, we know that the condemnation of the Beguine’s is directly related to their social activities, because they created serious competition to the Catholic Church. But on the other hand, limiting ourselves exclusively to social reasons, we miss the fact that the Beguine movement was largely mystical and many representatives of women’s communities experienced extremely intense extraordinary experiences. Therefore, turning to the problem of the condemnation of the female mystics, we fi nd that the root of these persecutions lay in their reinterpretation of religious ecstasy, rather than their social activities. To substantiate this position, we examine in detail the representation of love-mystical cognition in two of the most infl uential beguines, Hadewijch of Brabant and Mechthild of Magdeburg. We observe that they not only express their extraordinary experience, but they also theorize it. The mystics abandon the notion of love-mystical cognition as a passive process of perceiving God. Instead, they turn to an active kind of love and justify a form of vita activa. This allows them to bridge the gulf between God and man, and to move independently beyond their own female bodies, burdened by medieval patriarchal norms. The female mystics, as we show, change the very relationship between woman and the world, thereby endowing her with greater autonomy in relation to medieval society and divine reality.

Philosophical anthropology, which arose each time in a specifi c historical reality, sought to create a universal image of man, calling this process the revelation of his essence. This problem was solved by Russian philosophy, which developed the Orthodox Christian tradition within certain historical boundaries. Modern philosophy, solving this problem, cannot ignore the basic philosophical and anthropological ideas of different civilizations, primarily Eastern, Western and Russian philosophy. The space for their comparison and synthesis can be the semantic conceptual fi eld of sociogenesis, which opens up a universal approach to the formation of a human being as a global cultural and biological species. The sociogenetic approach reveals the opportunity to compare two main essential models of man, which are represented by the version of the self-suffi cient individual, which developed in the European Enlightenment, and the version of the conciliar (communal) man, the discussion of which began in Russian philosophy of the 19th century. In the context of sociogenesis, the basis for distinguishing anthropological versions is the opposition of individualistic and communal (conciliar) principles of behavior. A specifi c synthesis of these principles in one or another cultural-historical model appears as a solution to the contradiction between the individual and species model of behavior within the cultural-biological species “human being”. In the natural world, the coordination of individual and species behavior is resolved through the genetic inheritance of species behavior, eliminating the confl ict between species and individual. The sociogenetic evolution of a human being has posed the task of searching for species-specifi c universal principles of behavior, which has complicated the solution of the problem of harmonizing species and individual behavior. The complexity of the situation is that human behavior is directed by cultural programs in the context of a sociogenetic search for a species program capable of ensuring the global consolidation of the human species. In this context, philosophical anthropology requires a sociogenetic support, and the appeal to it can be called the “sociogenetic turn” in philosophical anthropology.

The relevance of the topic is due to the formulation of issues related to the state of modern social reality, the presence of risk in it as one of the essential characteristics. Abandoning the past mechanism of development – tradition as a stable foundation, modern society has acquired the specifi city of the absence of a non-stop movement – a transition that does not correlate with the movement from one stage to another, more stable, but represents the continuity of the process. This is a fundamentally new ontology of reality, in which the constancy of its movement, instability create a situation where, as U. Beck says, in the rapidity of change, there is a “collapse of scientifi c, technical and legal rationality” [3, p. 167], traditionally used as a method of organizing public order.

The article updates the Platonic category of metaxy (“Timaeus”) as a characteristic of the dynamics of being, its constant ‘intermediacy’ between the ‘past’ and the ‘future’ while eliminating the stable ‘present’. Modern social reality is a meta–reality, a transition in its infi nity of realization, the consequence of which is the risk and fear of falling into the abyss of baselessness. Risk is a specifi c characteristic of a social movement in the continuity of transition, when the stability of the present is lost, and the horizon of the future is not visible in traditional logic, which causes existential fear that constantly accompanies a person.

‘Risk Society’ (U. Beck) demanded a new rational ‘arrangement’ (A. Giddens) and a relevant methodology for its construction. The article is devoted to the problem of searching for this methodology. As such, the rationality of the emerging new trend in philosophy – ecosophy - is proposed, which actualizes a holistic view of the world, building on the category of ‘life’ in the unity of its manifestations in nature and culture. The problem is solved by contradiction: on the one hand, the risk is associated with the growth of science, which has historically had a humanistic connotation, on the other hand, its embodiments, being realized today in high technologies, turned out to be turning against man. Contradiction initiates risk. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the rationality of the ecosophical content as a methodology for the study of modern risky social ontology caused by scientifi c technologies, to argue their impact on human health and to show the possibilities of medicine in solving this problem.

The analytical review examines the most signifi cant publications of Russian researchers devoted to Śaṁkara (VII–VIII centuries), issued since 2000. The review is divided into parts devoted to individual authors, and their works are evaluated according to their contribution to Russian Śaṁkara studies, the criterion of which is the author’s translations of Śaṁkara’s texts from Sanskrit into Russian, and their conceptual interpretations.

The “calling card” of V.K. Shokhin’s works is the inclusion of Śaṁkara’s discourse within the discussion of topical issues of philosophical Indology, theoretical philosophy and religious studies. The review examines the monograph “Stratifi cation of Reality in the Ontology of Advaita-Vedānta” and a number of articles; it explicates the methods by which Śaṁkara “fi ts” into the history of world philosophy.

In S.L. Burmistrov’s publications, Śaṁkaraa’s texts are also used not only to solve special historical and philosophical problems, but also to solve topical problems of philosophy. The article “The Concept of Consciousness in the Philosophy of Śaṁkara” makes a completely reasonable conclusion on the decisive role of Śaṁkara in the formation of the Vedāntist concept of consciousness. In the article “Religious Consciousness in Classical Advaita-Vedānta”, Śaṁkara’s interpretations of Ātman are placed in the context of modern discussions on the forms of religious consciousness.

N.V. Isaeva’s publication “The Teachings of Śaṁkara – Brahman as a Look and a Tail ...” contains interesting material that contributes to Śaṁkara’s understanding of Brahman as “full of bliss” (ānandamaya), and an assessment of the importance of the philosopher’s ideas in the development of Vedānta concepts.

In V.G. Lysenko’s article “Sleep and Dreaming as States of Consciousness...”, structured as a “slow reading of the text”, two versions of Śaṁkara’s topology of consciousness are considered. The researcher reveals ambiguity of Vedāntist terminology, leading to different models of consciousness.

Y.V. Predtechenskaya in her article “Defi nitions of Brahman in the Upaniṣads: Apophatic and Cataphatic Approaches ...” quite productively draws Śaṁkara’s comment to the solution of the religious problem of contrasting apophatic and cataphatic approaches to the defi nition of the Absolute.

The book by R.V. Pshu “Vedārthasaṁgraha by Rāmānuja and the Formation of Viśiṣṭā-dvaita-vedānta” brings some new information of the infl uence of Śaṁkara’s ideas on t he Vedānta movement. The author notes that the Vedāntists lived after Śaṁkara did not consider his ideas as fundamental to them, and they did not develop them, but Śaṁkara’s teachings provoked their criticism, and they formulated their conceptions as antitheses to Śaṁkara’s ideas. There in the book, the reader can also fi nd  useful information on the history of world Śaṁkara Studies.

The paper presents the analysis of the historical development of ideas of tolerance, freedom of conscience and speech in Early Modern times. These concepts were introduced to the ideological & philosophical discourse by Reformation and Counterreformation movements. An initial point of their development was linked to the strife of competing parties and thus got a strong instrumentalist bias. Mainstream theorists of the Reformation (e.g. T. Beza, Peter Martyr Vermigli, T. Goodwin) regarded tolerance & freedom of conscience as a means for propagation of a true faith (i.e. Protestantism) and a guarantee against its suppression by the powerful governments of the unfaithful. Mainstream theorists of the Counterreformation (e.g. F. Suarez, M. Becanus) followed this pattern as well. While mainstream theorists stressed a collectivist and clerically-conservative perspective of the freedom of conscience, their adversaries proposed an individualist and politically radical vision. S. Castellion, R. Brown and R. Williams argued that freedom of conscience was a universal right of a person of any confessional identity; a true Reformation, ought to be a “Reformation Without Tarying for Anie”, not just a reformed papal tyranny. Disputations between the proponents of the conservative and the radical perspective culminated in the writings of J. Milton and T. Hobbes. Despite the sharp confl ict of parties they belonged to Milton and Hobbes stood on a common ground of a secular & individualist vision of the freedom of conscience. Their analysis of the practices of freedom of thought & speech and of the tensions between the citizen and the state set an initial point of the religious thought in the Enlightenment epoch.

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 brief essay on the analysis of three key concepts in the philosophy of Georges Bataille – heterology as the logic of exclusion, (a-)theology as an atheistic understanding of the death of God and the concept of ‘negative’ or ‘sacrificial’ Sovereignty. It seems that the key to understanding the various and heterogeneous philosophical, literary-poetic, cultural-anthropo­logical and socio-economic concepts of the French thinker is the prism of the heterological logic of exclusion, which opposes the internalization of the domi­nant ontological discourse. The heterology or ‘logic of exclusion’ used by Georg­es Bataille, is not so much a negative version of the traditional logic of ‘inclu­sion’, but is a logic of alternative extremes. It is precisely by striving to overcome the dominant metaphysical universalism of the general order of being (embod­ied, according to Bataille, in the concept of ‘being’ / ‘die Existenz’ in the philos­ophy of Martin Heidegger). In an effort to overcome the dominant metaphysical universalism of the general order of being, Bataille turns to various kinds of ‘de­nials’ and extremes – the left sacred or the sanctity of ‘foulness’, the metaphori­cal of the disgusting, erotic and violent forms of transgression, the cultivation ofthe experience of inner abandonment and ultimate despair, and, also, to his own concept of ‘sacrifice’, serving as a guide to the world of sovereign domination.

Thus, developing his concept of metaphysical ‘sovereignty’, Bataille turns not only to the existential, but also to the political sphere, largely contrasting his ‘metaphysics of sacrifice’ with the concept of ‘metaphysical domination’ ofthe German political and legal theorist Carl Schmitt. The nihilistic energy drawn from Friedrich Nietzsche and the ‘metaphysical negation’ taken from Hegel’s dia­lectic through the interpretation of Alexander Kozhev is used by Bataille for the purposes of his own ‘heterological’ logic of exclusion, desubjectivization and dissolution. However, negation for Bataille is not a target for itself, but a meth­odological tool on the way to the ‘Other’ excluded from any ontosemantic order.

With the prevailing ideas of humanism in the public consciousness, many boundaries were created that divide people into categories. At the same time, on one side of the border there are those who are more deserving of the title ‘hu­man’ in comparison with those who are on the other side. Over the course ofhistory, these borders have been actively rebuilt, and the pace of their changes has become increasingly rapid in recent years.

The article examines changes at five such boundaries: between men and women, according to belonging to different religious denominations, to differ­ent nationalities and races, between healthy people and disabled people (includ­ing between the mentally healthy and the crazy), as well as changes in attitudes over time to the homeless and tramps. The author considers the consequenc­es of changes that have already occurred or are planned at each of these five boundaries.

The author believes that a mandatory factor in global economic development has always been the “friendly-alien” division. With the help of such division in economic activity, trust is generated, which is the most important institution nec­essary for the existence and development of the economy and social organiza­tion. Trust facilitates the interaction of economic agents and facilitates the func­tioning of monetary mechanisms.

Large-scale attempts to erase boundaries between people are being made through coups and revolutions, but they lead to the replacement of previous­ly existing boundaries between people with new ones. An attempt to eliminate classes leads to the creation of a new system of boundaries - property inequality. An attempt to eliminate property inequality and the exploitation of man by man leads to the creation of a new system of boundaries – by the place in the vertical of power, by membership in the ruling party, and others.

For this reason, with any reforms and radical transformations, it is advisable to anticipate the formation of new borders, and also to evaluate if they are muchbetter than the previous ones in terms of social justice and economic efficiency.