Ideas and Ideals

The article suggests a critical overview of the most prominent discussion among the European and American researchers about the dogma problem in Sextus Empiricus teaching: whether the Pyrrhonian sceptic can have a dogma. Due to his philosophy’s features labelled by Sextus as a non-dogmatic one, scholars have divided into two groups. On the one hand there are supporters of an «urban» interpretation (M. Frede, G. Fine, C. Perin) who argue that the sceptic can have some beliefs – namely impressions passively acquired by the sceptic during his life. On the other hand there are the supporters of a «rustic» interpretation (J. Burnyeat, J. Barnes) who refute the former view and take the opposite one: sceptics can have no belief, for belief is defined as a proposition about the world taken to be true by an agent who expresses it. In that case the sceptic’s ataraxia, based on suspension of judgement, wouldn’t come to life. After the analysis of arguments a critical rethinking of the grounds of the discussion is presented. G. Striker argued that the results of a discussion would depend on belief’s notion. K. Vogt suggested to apply the ancient notion of belief as an assent to an impression and came to the conclusion, that the sceptic cannot have beliefs. His beliefs would be pathos, which just push him to act. In addition an idea of K. Vogt is presented that one should distinguish doxa and dogma, for the latter notion was thought as a body of teaching, not as a singular statement. The conclusion contains the main results of the discussion to this moment.

The paper presents the evolution of pragmatism, with an emphasis on its third stage which is called neo-pragmatism. The paper considers the specific features of this stage in the light of the philosophy of Joseph Margolis. The paper demonstrates that Margolis takes part in all relevant discussions of this philosophical movement, first of all, about the relationship of realism and relativism and about the nature of the truth. The question about the nature of the truth related to the problem of incommensurability and alethic relativism, and Margolis offers his own version of this kind of relativism – the robust relativism. The article discusses these issues in general. A more detailed analysis the authors provide for the Margolis’s solution of the problem of the realism and relativism compatibility. On the one hand, Margolis firmly stays on relativistic positions. On the other hand, he argues that it is possible to defend realism against relativistic attacks but only if to reconcile these two trends. Margolis offers two strategies for doing this. He implements the first strategy through the clarification of the nature of skepticism. He formulates the form of realism which could resist to skepticism, it ought to satisfy the main statements of neopragmatism. Such a kind of realism Margolis calls minimal realism. The second strategy appeals to practices and activities and it is implemented through the actual survival and viability of the human species that is closely related to the historicity of human existence. For the last strategy Margolis offers two ways as well, the pragmatic and epistemic ones. The epistemic way allows to legitimize realism through an appeal to the technology, the existence and the use of which indicates human cognitive competence about external world. The pragmatic way legitimizes realism through the successful interventions of collective human knowledge in different structures of the world. Summarizing the authors draw a conclusion, that Margolis tries to occupy a middle position between two poles – absolutism (foundationalism) and relativism, which are presented most clearly in the pragmatists dispute between Putnam and Rorty, and thereby he tries to eliminate the differences between these two tendencies in contemporary philosophy.

The subject of this issue is a question on a substance of every being, its specific features and conditions of its cognition and existence. This is an attempt to systematize Aristotle's point of view about this problem, presented in different fragments of his treatises "Physics", "Metaphysics", "Categories", "On the Soul". Aristotle pointed out the fallacy of identifying the substance and any beings. He explained, that not any being can be considered as a substance, though sometimes it's rather difficult to distinguish them. Aristotle offered different classifications of kinds of substance and examined their main features and conditions of their being. Two approaches about comprehension of substances are compared in this article. Socrates and Plato’s position is based on the principle of the direct speculative comprehension. Aristotle offered the system of categories as the universal way for description and cognition of the essence of any substance. To be means to be as a definite "what" in a completeness of its "whatness". Everything can exist only as a definite something. Instead, a problem of possibility of changes and movement of substances is discussed in a comparison of positions of Aristotle and Plato. After all we can see the being of substances not to be a simple static presence of empty pure forms, no having any material substratum. They presented a unity of the intention to achieve its entelecheia and achievement of one, i.e. a unity of the goal, process and result.

The article is devoted to the problem of an alliance of a man and a machine. We find this motive in the texts by such theorists as Gilbert Simondon, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, Manuel DeLanda and others. To clarify the idea of machine enslavement and the modeled way of emancipation by constituting the transindividual collectives or technical exodus, we appeal to Robert M. Pirsig’s novel “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” which content appears to be close to the mentioned theorists’ ideas. Pirsig, as well as James Graham Ballard, the author of a brilliant novel "Crash," where an original model of perverse machine sexuality was presented, denies a suspicious glance at the techniques and rethinks the relationship between a man and a machine. In this sense, his work can refer to anti-Heideggerian trend. Gilbert Simondon is a bright representative of this trend in philosophy. The ideas of the authors, whose concepts are considered in this paper, urge us to take into account a relatively simple idea: not the technical objects are a source of human alienation at all; a lot depends on the approach to the car.

The article deals with the problem of co-existential intercourse and the problem of nothingness. Co-existential intercourse is defined as the universal mode of subjects’ coexistence in their fundamental opportunity. The main problem of the study can be defined as follows: is it possible to express irrational content of co-existential experience using rational concepts? The author suggests the solution to this problem: on the one hand, the unique content of co-existential experience is expressed using the logical concepts, but on the other hand, there is an opposition between "existential" thinking and validity of rational concepts. The author deliberately goes beyond the scientific discourse with the aim of a deeper penetration into the existential logic "of discussing" ancestral forms and methods of co-existence. Thus, the existential method is used in order to reproduce a unique content experience of co-existence in thinking in the aspects available to rationalization. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the role and meaning of “nothingness” in close connection with subjects’ freedom. Nothingness becomes the principal condition of subjects’ freedom and choice. The main attribute of nothingness is the negation of unique coexistential experience. Besides, nothingness is defined as the ultimate meaning of negation of coexistential experience. The global meaning of nothingness becomes evident through a great variety of “private negations” which tend to be its concrete and finite forms. A solitary coexistential act may be considered as the act of negation of nothingness. Moreover, due to nothingness existential intercourse as the primary mode of communication may transform into unique co-existential experience.

The article displays globalization’s influence onto philosophy’s transformation. The traditional philosophy systems reflect local or regional humanity’s experience. The modern global society demands of creation such philosophy that would reflect global experience – philosophy of the civilization’s survival. It has to create principals of solving of global processes. The forms of civilization experience, that made possible to solve the problems of survival in local and regional scales, will have to become the base of philosophy of survival.

The article analyses social, anthropological, cognitive and psychological causes and consequences of information explosion. The transformation of communications mechanisms under the influence of information overload is explored. Information as the essence of modern society is defined. Splitting phenomenon of social action into the actual and virtual is fixed. A theoretical sociological explanation of growing confrontation between social reality and social actuality is provided. The increase of contradictions between the private and the public as a consequence of the widening digital tension in a zone of social communications is examined. The author substantiates the claim that information explosion puts the destruction of the foundations of the existence of social – his systemic, up to a limit of exacerbating the conflict between the individual and the collective. It has been found that communication practices increasingly dominate the exchange and the use of information. Consequently, the structures of everyday life acquire the character of individuals’ absorption into the space of social alternatives constructed by communications. The author thinks that "individualized society" according to the one of the scenarios in the “Forsyte” genre has already become a reality and it has acquired the appearance of "quantified social reality". In this regard, the article describes the possibility of applying quantum paradigm approach in the version of “relativity states" by H. Everett in order to explain and understand what happened in the society with the growth of discreteness and its consequences. The author draws attention to development of the idea of the existence of many social worlds. "Quanta of information" are interpreted as "shadow particles” of social actions.

Conceptualization problem of gender differences in Plato's philosophy (based on “Pir”, “State” and “Laws” dialogues) is considered in the article. In research literature there is a widespread unilateral interpretation according to which Plato's standpoint is reduced to “intellectual misogyny” (following Sergey Zherebkin terminology). The author of the article insists on a wider interpretation of gender concept in Plato's philosophy. Plato revealed an essential discrepancy of sexes concerning their social destination. On the one hand, Plato's philosophy includes the idea of female deficiency or weakness; on the other hand it discloses historical and social sources for gender asymmetry, suggesting the plan of its overcoming. A new look at the Plato's gender concept highlights the eternal exigency of his classic philosophy.

The article presents a comparative analysis of theoretical positions of F. Tönnies and E. Durkheim on the problems of the relationship and the historical development of the social system, individuality and freedom. The author highlights the differences between substantial grounds (liberty vs activities), the correlation of the part and the whole, internal and external ("own" and "alien") applied to the relationship of an individual and society, the significance of personal and impersonal phenomena in different types of sociality. In the F. Tönnies`s concept of Gemeinschaft (community) creating the image of collective personality social system is evaluated as a factor of alienation, lack of freedom and moral degradation. According to the theory of Emile Durkheim individualization and personal development emerge as a result of objective processes of differentiation and complexity of systematically executed activities. The logic of an impersonal system development with its imperatives of efficiency and functionality expands the social space of personal self-determination to ensure the autonomy of the individual. The author argues for the thesis about the continuity of today`s alternative interpretations and evaluations of traditional and modern types of society in relation to the ideas of F. Tönnies and E. Durkheim.

In the article on the material of reconstruction of Z. Bauman’s book "The Relevance of the Holocaust" and the analysis of other studies the understanding of complex sciences, which are based on interdisciplinary research and focused in terms of practical applications in engineering and technology in the broadest sense, is introduced. First, the criteria of distinguishing between legal and illegal modernization of philosophical and scientific works are discussed. Special features of interdisciplinary research are characterized in every detail: partial implementation of methodological strategies and ideals of science, balancing and configuration of monodisciplinary discourses, which are included into interdisciplinary research, epistemic knowledge requirements obtained in these studies.