Ideas and Ideals

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.

The idea of reorganizing a German university was revealed in the correspondence of the young Martin Heidegger and his friend Karl Jaspers. Prominent thinkers critically analyze the contribution of contemporaries and representatives of the previous generation of scientists and philosophers. Ambitious and confident in their abilities, they hatched a plan, as it seemed to them, for the most important mission: the revival of the spirit of genuine philosophy within the walls of German universities. Repeatedly emphasized in their correspondence in the 1920s - such a high goal will require the reduction of professors of philosophy and "cleansing" of universities from the prospering mediocrity. Despite spiritual aspirations, these philosophers were aware of the need for career growth. Without a proper position, it was impossible to, at least, make any changes in the current system of higher German education and academic philosophy. The author of this article believes that the same thoughts of Heidegger lay at the basis of the ideas expressed in correspondence with Jaspers and in the decision to accept the post of the rector of the University of Freiburg, which played a fatal role in his biography. The period of the duties of the rector Martin Heidegger is covered by the so-called «Black Notebooks». The author of the article departs from the widely used biographical approach in favor of a historical and philosophical analysis of passages of that creation time. The main objective of this work is to identify the basic categories of the being-historical concept of M. Heidegger, manifested in criticism of the academic university philosophy of German universities at the beginning of the 20th century. The philosophy of being history is first touched upon in the aforementioned Black Notebooks. In the volumes of the collected works “Beiträge zur Philosophie”, “Das Ereignis”, “Die Geschichte des Seyns”, addressed by the author of the article, the main part of the being-historical concept is revealed. The leading research method is historical philosophical, which determines the relationship between the fundamental ontological intuitions of the German master and his analysis of factuality, in particular, criticism of German university philosophy. In the framework of this article, the historical philosophical method includes the hermeneutical method, which is necessary when working with the specific language of Heidegger's works, which requires a thorough interpretation.

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.

Transhumanism is an actively developing form of the modern worldview, which regards the overcoming of the biological conditionality of a human being and the achievement of individual immortality as the main task facing humanity. The main disadvantage of transhumanism is not its ethical unacceptability, but rather its philosophical naivety - which is manifested in the uncritical acceptance of the naturalistic model of man as the only possible one and discarding without any sufficient justification and consideration of all the others, including alternative (non-natural) concepts, and religious - philosophical concepts of human nature. The article shows that naturalistic understanding of a person is confronted with very significant, essentially insurmountable problems concerning the nature of “the self” and the solution of the psychophysical problem, which makes it necessary to evaluate naturalism as a false model of understanding human nature. Next, the problems of transhumanism and immortality are viewed through the prism of the plot-game paradigm, the main feature of which is the proposal to add a third parameter to the space-time model of the world - an individual who in each instant perceives the first two aspects in his own way - space and time. In general, this gives a plot perception of reality to each creature at a given moment in a given place, while their perceptions and actions are somehow coordinated with all others, mutually complementing, “balancing” within the framework of a holistic Cosmic Game. From this point of view, each “the Self” is, first of all - the scenario according to which his body and a set of ready-made reactions to typical events are formed, and then a collection of the stories of his life from birth to the current moment is constantly rewritten. Thus, it makes no sense to make plans to achieve the immortality of the “the Self”, without having a clear answer to the question, what the “the Self” is. Only by studying what death really is we can decide if it is the enemy to us or the door to other worlds, behind which there are enormous opportunities for our spiritual evolution.

The article suggests the author's concept of Christian reflection of religious liberty through a number of stable paradigms. The author considers briefly the following paradigms: the paradigm of apologists, the paradigm of Augustine, Evangelical paradigm, the paradigm of Christian modernism and the Second Vatican Council. The author considers the paradigms proposed in the article to be suitable for the description of the complex phenomenon of freedom of religion, as it excludes the existence of a single model of reflection within the Christian confessional worldview. Each paradigm has its own unique set of principles that distinguish one paradigm from the others. The paradigm of apologists is connected with the New Testament biblical tradition, based on the “defensive” tactics of the church, excluding coercion in religious affairs. At the same time there is an idea of the church as a community separated from the world and the separate coexistence of the two kingdoms: the secular and the church. It later formed the basis of the doctrine of separation between church and state. At the heart of the paradigm of Augustine or the paradigm of the dominant church was the doctrine of Aurelius Augustine on the close relationship of state and church. It had various historical forms: Byzantine, papal, Synodal, Anglican, etc., which used various degrees of violence in matters of faith. In contrast to the previous one, there appeared an Evangelical paradigm that provided mutual independence of the church and the state. In its development, it destroyed the framework of previous forms of state-confessional relations, relying not on the authority of tradition, but on the principle of free interpretation of the Bible. Within its framework, the concept of a Free Church as an autonomous religious organization independent of the state was formulated. The paradigm of Christian modernism was formed under the influence of philosophy and liberal approach to the Bible. It was expressed in the high ethical pathos and primacy of Christian ethics over dogma, the perception of the Christian church in itself outside the confessional framework and the acceptance of universal Christianity, the primacy of each personal experience over the tradition of the church, the denial of the framework of knowledge of God. The paradigm of the Second Vatican Council is an example of renewal and modernization within a large and authoritative confession. After the Council, the Catholic Church made Christian humanism its official ideology, proclaimed a tolerant approach to representatives of other Christian and non-Christian religions, and took a step towards a more open understanding of Christian values and ideas.

The logical structure of the second part of Asanga’s “Compendium of Abhidharma” (Abhidharma-samuccaya) correspond with the organization of Buddhist practice leading to the attainment of the highest goal of Buddhism – enlightenment (nirvāṇa). The first chapter of this part expounds the essence of Four Noble Truths being the basis of the Buddha’s teaching that is to be comprehended by disciple. The first Noble Truth, or the truth of suffering (duḥkha-satya) proclaims essential improperness of any existence in the wheel of rebirth (saṃsāra) determined by universal changeability. The second Noble Truth, or the truth of the cause of suffering (duḥkha-samudāya-satya) demonstrates universal yearning for existence (tṛṣṇā) inherent in any sentient being and caused by afflictions (kleśa) that are contained in any saṃsāric consciousness. The third Noble Truth, or the truth of the destruction of suffering (duḥkha-nirodha-satya) shows the possibility to find way out of saṃsāra. The fourth Noble truth, or the truth of the way to destruction of suffering (duḥkha-nirodha-mārga-satya) explains methods of overcoming the saṃsāric existence; the essence of these methods is the uprooting of afflictions present in an unenlightened consciousness from beginningless times and causing saṃsāra. The topic of this part of the “Compendium of Abhidharma” is Buddhist religious anthropology including the conception of unenlightened person and of persons practicing the Buddhist religious ideals. The theme of the second chapter is the types of texts presenting the teaching of the Buddha. The third chapter presents the Buddhist theory of personality types and the results that are to be attained by disciple in the course of practice. The topic of this chapter is the aspects of disciplinary and meditative practices in association with Buddhist religious anthropology. The fourth chapter explains the principles of argumentation and methods of propagation of the Buddhist teaching. The logic of the structure of the second part of “Compendium of Abhidharma” is based on the following principle: from the truths that are to be comprehended by a disciple to the analysis of his personality and persons of those whom he addresses his sermons and to the contents of the results that they will attain in the Buddhist practices and from this – to the principles of argumentation.

The focus of the following essay is one of the most known ancient myths about Daedalus and Icarus. This myth will be considered through a prism of the universal metaphysical problem of a boundary in correlation with the problem of human essence. The aim of this article is to present dialectical unity of two models of relationship of the world and a human, and two models of achievement of human self-identity in the process of establishment of actual borders and attempts of their surpassing. A person equally needs to establish and label his/her limits and overcome them for being him/herself. Moreover, he/she is able to discover his/her own borders only during the moment of their intersection. Thus, existence is always connected with transcendental acts, with the process of establishment and deconstruction of the borders. Both the establishment of boundaries and their destruction correspond to the nature of a human and his/her basic existential needs. The death of Icarus establishes (finds out) actual boundaries of a man, which he ignored before. The inventions of Daedalus establish (pave) new boundaries, overcoming the former ones.

Initiation is the most ancient and fundamental basis of the civilization existence. The forms of initiation have been changing over time, but its purpose has remained the same. The most ancient form of initiation we can find in shamanism. Later one can observe its hybridization in interaction with more complex and organized religions. Modern civilization has lost the original meaning of initiation rituals. Its symbols, themes have moved into poetry and literature. In this regard, the author considers the ideas of M. Eliade. The aim of the study was to show the underlying causes of transformation of traditional civilization into the anthropogenic one. This phenomenon is considered to be degradation according to the One Tradition. R. Guénon finds the cause of the degradation of Western civilization in the narrowing of the intellectual horizon. A sharp decline in the intellectual level, rationalism and materialism in philosophy, the reduction of everything to the quantity are characteristic of Western philosophy. And that had a negative impact on the civilizations of the East. The degradation of initiation is also related to this. Anti-traditional society has given rise to forms of fictitious initiation. One cannot, however, deny the existence of a genuine but secret initiation. R. Guénon believes that true initiation is a connection with the Supreme principle of being, the metaphysical source of all things. In our study we have tried to show the groundlessness and injustice of prejudice against the doctrine of the One Tradition, to reveal the spiritual meaning of the ancient forms of initiation; to show that the One Tradition is not ensured by the continuity of cultural forms; but these forms are only a symbolic expression of Tradition. The Tradition itself, as well as initiations, surpasses the conditions of human existence.

The tradition of studying John Locke's philosophy in Russia is more than 200 years old, but the religious component of his system has often fallen out of the interests of domestic researchers. Locke's main theological works are still not translated into Russian, while in Western tradition J. Locke is considered one of the key thinkers of Protestantism. John Locke's theological treatise “The Reasonableness of Christianity” led to Protestant discussions. Locke reconsiders the bases of theological systems according to his own experience of understanding the Bible. J. Locke supposed that theological systems of different denominations were not satisfactory. J. Locke believed that in order to bring the opinions of the various churches and communities to agreement, it was necessary to highlight the only necessary doctrine stating that Jesus is the Messiah. The book was published anonymously by J. Locke in 1695. J. Locke was accused of sympathy for deism, socinianism and atheism after publication of the book. The treatise defined the direction of discussions in the XVII – XVIII centuries. J. Locke proposed the authentic method for studying the Bible derived from the epistemological bases set forth in “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”. Offering a sensualistic way of interpreting the Holy Scripture, Locke goes beyond ecclesiastical orthodoxy.