Ideas and Ideals

The article examines the paradoxical nature of G. W. F. Hegel’s biography and philosophical ideology. The essence of paradoxicality is substantiated by several factors – biographical, historical-philosophical, hermeneutical, and concrete-historical. The purpose of the work is to identify insufficiently known aspects of the personality and philosophical ideology of the thinker. Methodologically, the study is constructed using dialectical and historical-logical methods. The results of the study are to reveal the voluminous inconsistency of Hegel’s biography and thought; to clarify both the positive and negative aspects of his philosophical ideology.

The author shows a number of paradoxes of Hegel’s philosophy: first, the understanding of development as a ‘hard’ war against itself and inattention to the multifactorial and non-linear nature of many processes; secondly, focusing on a logical idea belittles or denies the value of everything else, including living and human beings; thirdly, the desire to raise a person to ‘the highest’ position and at the same time enslave him as a universal creature and a state citizen; fourth, Hegel’s essentialism is frankly anti-existential and merciless to everything private and subjective; fifth, Hegel’s seemingly flawless scientific system suffers from inattention to the complexity and unpredictability of reality; sixth, the Lutheran religiosity of the philosopher turns out to be almost anti-Christian – with the non-recognition of the Most Holy Trinity, without the desire to become a ‘servant’ of another, etc.; seventh, Hegel’s decency and philistine ‘kindness’ are radically different from his pejorative attitude towards the female sex, other peoples, races, and civilizations. Colonialism is justified. Hence, it was quite natural for the German Nazis to turn to Hegel’s ideas. Eighth, the great dialectic has too much belittled the reality of static things, unambiguity and invariance.

The novelty of the research lies in the recognition of the true causes and tasks of the thinker’s life and work; in the explanation of his main values, including his understanding of Christianity; in the clarification of the Hegel-German and Hegel-citizen positions.

The conclusions of the study are related to the antithetical comparison of the ideology and philosophy of Hegel and Hesse, Hegel and Shestov. The author highlights anti-existential and racial-nationalist motives of the philosopher’s work.

The purpose of this paper is to show how the thought and speech of people holding and defending directly opposite positions affect the change in the thought and speech of people of their own and subsequent generations, with different life orientations, and to find ways of this influence. The author describes the situation that arose at the end of the sixties of the twentieth century, known as the ideological dispersal of philosophical, historical and sociological trends that ran counter to the policy of the CPSU, which became especially fierce in the fight against opponents after the USSR’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in August, 1968. One of the results of such an ideological battle was the defeat of the sector of the methodology of history of the Institute of General History of the USSR Academy of Sciences, headed by M. Ya. Gefter, who published a series of books in which the so-called laws of historical development (formational approach) were questioned and the fundamental provisions of the classics of Marxism-Leninism were criticized.  The subject of analysis is Gefter’s article “A Page from the History of Marxism in the Early 20th Century”, published in the book “Historical Science and Some Problems of the Modernity”, dedicated to the analysis of Lenin’s tactics and strategy development which changed the views of many, especially young, historians on the historical process, and most importantly - on the methods of seeking and expressing the truth. The differences were expressed primarily in the fact that the proponents and defenders of the Soviet regime, which was based on their own established norms of Marxism-Leninism, fearlessly used all means of pressure on unwanted opponents. Professionals, however, who tried to understand the true sense of the historical process, the sense of judgments about it, especially the sense of the revolutionary struggle against the autocracy, unfolding at the beginning of the twentieth century, were forced to use the Aesopian language, which also provoked a distortion of this sense in many ways: due to the nebulous and veiled expressions, which give the impression of theoretical blackmail, causing such consequences as speech irresponsibility.

This paper is devoted to the analysis and to the comparison of concepts on theodicy and on the nature of evil that was developed by two medieval Jewish philosophers. They are Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides or Ralbag, 1288-1344) and Hasdai Crescas (1340-1410/12). The sources of the analysis are the third chapter of the fourth book of the “Wars of the Lord” (1329) by Gersonides and the second chapter of the second book of the “Light of the Lord” (1410) by Crescas. Both philosophers assert that evil essentially cannot come from God. The causes of evil are the sinfulness of human beings, or the celestial bodies, or the breaking of the connection between human and God. The problem of evil and injustice in this world are closely related for Gersonides and Crescas to other problems, such as divine knowledge of future events, free will, reasons for reward and punishment. Gersonides and Crescas differ considerably on these issues. Gersonides demonstrates that God is not an essential source of evil. He proceeded to build on this statement with the fallacy of the opinion that divine providence extends to individuals. After all, said Gersonides, retribution would make God a source of evil. And in this case, righteous men would always be rewarded, and sinners would always be punished for their sins. But obviously this is not the case. Crescas, in contrast to Gersonides, claims that God knows individuals. This does not prevent him from agreeing with Ralbagh that God is not the source of evil. According to Сresсas, any punishment or suffering (even for the righteous) always leads to good. It is obvious therefore that Crescas adheres to a more traditional position, trying, inter alia, to bring his thoughts as close as possible to the ideas expressed in the Torah. Gersonides adheres to a position close to the ideas of Maimonides. Gersonides, in the author’s opinion, created a philosophical concept that is more consistent in comparison with Crescas’ conception, however more distant from the Jewish teaching.

The article is devoted to the consideration of two interrelated topics: the opposition of two foundations of social action, one of which is called the ‘design mind’ by the author, and the other is known as ‘nature’, and the path of evolution, in which three types of realities arose sequentially - cosmic, vital (biological) and social. The discourse of the design mind is formed in ancient culture in the works of Plato, and the concept of nature in the works of Aristotle. The first is characterized by the predominance of ideas and patterns, as well as a belief in the possibility of their implementation. The second is characterized by considering the prevailing reality (nature) and mediating social action by knowledge of the processes of nature. The new European understanding of nature is a hybrid; it combines the Aristotelian and Platonic approaches. Nature is both actions in nature and design creation. The second difference is that the new European nature was understood as “written in the language of mathematics” and passed through experimentation. However, since the 19th century, the natural-scientific understanding of nature has been criticized and differentiated: a demarcation is made between the first and second nature, different types of realities, nature and technology. Within the framework of this process, in the course of explaining the origin of life, man and society, a diagram of the evolution of three types of realities is outlined: first, there is only cosmic reality, understood as the first nature, then comes vital reality, and then social (second nature). An assumption is introduced that the next type of reality in evolution appears as a new formation, on the one hand, as a result of development and complication, and on the other, as a number of random processes. The conditions of interaction of processes belonging to different types of reality are discussed; in this regard, the concepts of “renegade areas” and “maternal reality” are introduced. On the basis of the outlined distinctions and relationships, an explanation of the pandemic and the modern transition process from modernity to post-culture is proposed.

The purpose of this opening article is to give a brief overview of key foreign works, mainly monographs, concerning the account of matter in the treatise Contra Proclum John Philoponus, and thus to make evident the corresponding research situation to the Russian reader. John Philoponus is one of the last Greek commentators on Aristotle, both a neoplatonist and a Christian. In his work Contra Proclum (c. 529 AD) John Philoponus redefines the classical concept of matter, rejecting the universal qualityless prime matter of the Neoplatonists. At the beginning of the article, a brief historical introduction is given, which is necessary for the formulation of the problem. The author analyses several works relevant to the topic: an article by a Russian researcher M. N. Varlamova (2017) and foreign (German, English, Dutch, French) monographs by Michael Wolff (1971), Richard Sorabji (1988), Christian Wildberg (1988), Jeanne de Groot (1991), Frans de Haas (1997), Pantelis Golitzis (2008) and Pascal Mueller-Jourdan (2011). The overview covers the entire research history of John Philoponus’ account of matter. The author pays special attention to a detailed description of the current scientific discussions related to this issue: the positions of researchers, their approaches and perspectives. At the same time, the problem of Philoponic matter is also presented in close connection with many related research topics of the history of late-antique philosophy: the ontological status of species differences, the reception of the Aristotelian doctrine of categories, the separation of the Alexandrian and Athenian Neoplatonic traditions, etc. In conclusion, the article gives a general summary, identifying the most important discussions related to the topic of Philoponus’ matter, and finally proposes an author’s assessment of their current state.

The article was written as a response to a previously published (Ideas and Ideals, 2018, No. 3) article by S. Yu. Kolomiytsev “About Unfalsifiable Scientific Statements and Ideas”. The author, agreeing with a number of positions of this article, discusses some of its ideas. Primarily, the criticism concerns the thesis that the criterion of falsifiability unjustifiably narrows the scope of knowledge identified with its help as scientific, and that there is such a type of knowledge that does not meet the criterion of falsifiability but it has a scientific status. According to the author of this article, for applying of the criterion of falsifiability, we must take into account some conditions. First, the required falsifiability of knowledge is potential, i.e. falsification does not have to be available just at this stage of the development of science. Secondly, this criterion is intended to solve the problem of demarcation of science and knowledge that lies outside of it, and may be less effective in other, even close cognitive situations. Thirdly, the qualification of a theory as non-scientific does not mean that it is certainly unacceptable or erroneous. From the point of view of the modern epistemological paradigm, not only the science but also other types of cognition may give reliable and useful knowledge. The article discusses the thesis of S. Yu. Kolomiytsev that some fundamental ideas (for example, the idea of ​​the atom) originally were not falsified but were already scientific. The author justifies an alternative assessment: these ideas were initially true, since they corresponded to the objective reality, but at the same time they were not scientific, since they could not be developed by means of scientific knowledge. The reality of some object does not mean that all judgments about it automatically fall into the category of scientific; after all, metaphysics is also a doctrine of reality, although, as a rule, deeper than directly observable reality. Thus, arguments aimed at limiting the criterion of falsifiability actually refer to attempts to expand it to a range of problems that it is not intended to solve. One of the normative directions for the application of the criterion of falsifiability is the demarcation of science and pseudo-scientific theories; pseudo-scientific knowledge often has a “built-in” protection against falsification. The article describes some techniques of such protection.

The article analyzes the pragmatic concept of truth in analytical philosophy. Attention is focused on its main ideas – generality of thoughts, practical use. The paper presents the main ideas of representatives of the pragmatic concept of truth: J. Austin, H. P. Grice, P. Strawson. The pragmatic concept of truth is one of the main concepts in the analytical philosophy of language. This concept is characterized by the ideas of practicality and demand of knowledge, the definability of truth by a person. According to this concept, the true idea is the one that solves certain issues, and the false idea is an almost impossible idea.

The paper proves the hypothesis that it is the pragmatic concept of true meaning formation that is most acceptable for its understanding and development, rather than the corresponding one aimed at matching the concept to the object. It is also stated that the desire for unity of thoughts and their practical applicability are the main and popular ideas in the process of forming, understanding and using meaning.

The author presents the idea that the pragmatic concept of true knowledge is aimed at solving issues of communication, speech communication, and establishing a dialogue between interlocutors. In contrast to this concept, the corresponding and coherent concepts of truth are characterized by a strict correspondence of the concept to the subject, as well as a clear relationship between the concepts in the sentence.

The paper proves that it is the pragmatic concept that makes it possible to form, interpret and implement meanings in communication, thus providing an individual opportunity to use their own ideas and aspirations. Here it should be noted that the corresponding or coherent concepts represent a model in which a sample of the description and characteristics of the material world is expressed. Thus, the model of an ideal language, expressing a strict scheme of perception, interpretation and understanding of reality, restricts a person’s ability to individually understand and implement the formulated ideas.

The article presents a version of the failure of the corresponding, coherent concepts of truth, since they do not provide a person with the opportunity for reasoning, for the independent search for truth by each of us and the development of speech communication. It is also argued that it is the ideas of the pragmatic concept of truth - the community of ideas, the desire to transfer knowledge to each other, the realizability of ideas that are the basis of communication and are the main ones in the development of speech communication.

The subject of the article is the pragmatic concept of truth, its main ideas and representatives in analytical philosophy.

Methods used in the research: hermeneutical, analytical and pragmatic.

The study is devoted to the philosophical understanding of the problem of the cultural origins of Russian philosophy. In the author’s opinion, the source of diversity of modern approaches to the phenomenon of Russian Philosophy is, first of all, the absence of a unified methodological approach. The diversity of research on the phenomenon of the Russian philosophy origins is also a consequence of research susceptibility to certain methodological influences. The paper aims to identify a number of philosophical, historical, literary approaches to the problem of the genesis of the eighteenth century Russian Enlightenment. It is necessary to clarify the mechanisms and procedures for the reception of Western European ideas and concepts by Russian Enlightenment during the eighteenth century. On the basis of adaptation of natural law terms, the author considers certain trends in the theory of reconstruction of the Enlightenment phenomenon in Russia. He reveals a number of significant features of the process of reconstruction of the Enlightenment ideology formation on Russian soil, including the idea that European concepts and theories are assimilated by the domestic semiosphere in the form in which they existed in the culture of the West. The author highlights the idea, that researchers were convinced that Russia of the XVIII century already had a national philosophy. The paper also draws attention to the lack of analytical interest in the problems of transformation of the language of expression of political phenomena. In the same row, there is also the idea that the process of reception of the enlightenment heritage of the West had a revolutionary, not an evolutionary, specificity, and was devoid of cultural prerequisites.

Basing on the material of historical and historical-philosophical studies, the author considers the possibilities of constructing a methodologically integral reconstruction, chronologically covering the entire period of the XVIII century. The research methodology is based on the approach that includes an analytical description of the problems of the thematic fields of discourse, concepts and theories of the Enlightenment on the Russian soil. The result of the analysis is the systematization of contradictions in the process of analyzing the phenomena of the Russian Enlightenment in the XVIII century.

This article raises the problem of the constancy of philosophy, science, art, religion, and politics as forms of worldview that characterize the state of post-mythological consciousness. In this regard, two tasks are solved. First, we trace the genesis of worldview forms in German classical thought in the context of substantiating the idea of the historicity of the absolute (G. Hegel and F. Schelling). Second, the question is raised about the specifics of philosophy as a form of thinking. The authors compare classical and nonclassical approaches (A. Badiou) to solving problems, the conclusions, they have made, are the following. In modern theories, there is a blurring and loss of objectivity of philosophical knowledge. Despite this, philosophy is invariably given the role of a way of thinking about its time. The classical claims of philosophy to the universal content of truth are canceled. Based on the analysis of the concept of A. Badiou, the specificity of philosophy is revealed in the ability to quickly arrange science, art, religion and politics – as a way to create an ideal space in which access to the event of truth is provided. In this connection, it is proposed to define this concept as “operational” in relation to the nature of philosophical knowledge. Philosophy as a reflexive ability uses the operative time of our consciousness, which constitutes subjectivity. Destroying the mytho-ritual scheme of the unity of consciousness, philosophy sets the spiritual topos in which a person lives after leaving the myth.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the content of Plotinus’s apophatic theology. The problem of the limit of human cognition has always been topical in the history of the human thought. The absolute reality acted as such a limit in Platonism. The apophatic aspect was the final step of its cognition. The founder of Neoplatonism systematized the Plato’s teaching about hypostases of the being and by doing so he transferred the center of the philosophical speculations in the sphere of the Unity of Oneness. Thus, his apophatics is more consequent than the Plato’s one. Narrating about the Unity of Oneness, Plotinus is sort of synthesizing certain peculiarities of the apophatic theology of his two great predecessors: Aristotle and Plato. One can say, Plotinus’s apophatic theology “vanished” in the description of the mystical blending to the Unity of Oneness of the first cause of being. However for a philosopher intuitive aspects of its cognition are as important in a certain context as logical ones. Plotinus’s philosophy is the way of antinomies, the way of upper-and-non-predicative apophatic darings. The first Unity of Oneness in his philosophy is uncertain and formless because the Unity of Oneness causes all things but doesn’t need them. The latter ones are incidental to It. In their incidental nature is the lack of Good what one can’t say about the Unity of Oneness Itself. It is neither anything qualitative nor quantitative, neither in the rest nor in the movement, neither in any place nor in any time. It is neither Intelligence nor Soul. Thus, the Unity of Oneness according to Plotinus is the energy without essence. Because it creates being transcendental to all things in existence. At the same time Plotinus has in the first place the proper experience of the ecstatic ascents to the exorbitant limit of all things in existence. Staying in It is for a thinker a happiness of the Soul, life of the gods and of the godlike happy people, “escape of the unity to the Unity of Oneness”. As a matter of fact apophatic for Plotinus is the first step taking aside from that experience to a random thought. However in the teaching of the founder of Neoplatonism the thought  and the mystical life are so connected to each other that it is practically impossible to separate them—they are the unified whole of existence.