Ideas and Ideals

The author analyzes five aspects of ontological teachings of Leibniz and Spinoza and identifies commonalities and differences in the positions of these two philosophers. The first aspect is adherence to rationalism. The god is an essentially rational being, and so is the world. However for Leibniz the god is outside of the rational world he created, but for Spinoza the rational god is the world itself. The second aspect is acceptance by both philosophers of predeterminism of everything in the world. For Leibniz this is the result of the god’s choice to create the best out of the many possible worlds, but for Spinoza the world is not the result of the god’s choice. The third aspect is the answer to the question about the freedom of the god. They both accept this freedom, but for Leibniz this is freedom of the god as a subject making a conscious choice out of many possible choices, while for Spinoza freedom is self-determination of activity of impersonal substance. The fourth aspect is acceptance by both philosophers of objective necessity. For Spinoza the god and necessity is the same thing. For Leibniz absolute necessity is mightier than the god. The fifth aspect is acceptance by both philosophers of multiple components of the universe and their mutual isolation and consistency of elements at the same time. The god is the source and reason of this consistency for both philosophers, but for Leibniz the god is outside of the world of multiple monads, while for Spinoza it is the unity of multiple attributes of the god itself.

The author analyzes the Leibniz’s idea of “uniqueness of objects”, i.e. his conclusion that every possible object is present in one and only one possible world. The article reveals the role of the principle of indistinguishability of identity in this conclusion, referring to the discussions in modern philosophy, which are generated by similar conclusions. Leibniz treats any possible world as a holistic system. This places his reasoning in the context of disputes about the validity of various holistic approaches. Leibniz accepts the “Holistic Assumption”, according to which all objects of one possible world are determined through each other. The article also shows how Leibniz’s “uniqueness of objects” logically connects his teaching with certain statement of the problem of intentional identity, as well as with ongoing discussions about mental holism. The author demonstrates that Leibniz did something more than the developing of the theory of metaphysical possible worlds – which, thanks to the works of S. Kripke, became the “canonical” semantics for modal logic. In addition, Leibniz stood at the beginning of understanding the possible worlds as corresponding to the subject of cognition’s perceptions. Thus, Leibniz also made a step towards the development of the semantics of epistemic logic that was proposed by J. Hintikka. The interpretation of the problem of intentional identity in E. Saarinen’s works is based on the accepting of the “uniqueness of objects” for many worlds, which are open to certain subject, and not for one and only one possible world, as in Leibniz’s works. The author concludes that the ways of generating the problem of intentional identity for Leibniz’s semantics and the ones for Saarinen’s semantics are similar. All this shows that the problems stated by Leibniz’s possible worlds semantics have been still discussed.

The problem of moral principles in the life of an individual and society has become rather acute in the context of the global spread of consumerism as the installation of modern civilized behavior of the individual. Traditionally, moral foundations are investigated as moral principles of individual behavior. The article draws attention to the problem of moral foundations of social life, which was first identified by the Russian philosopher V. Solovyov. The author considers two issues. The first one is the problem of moral foundations: whether morality has a religious origin or its roots are hidden in sociogenesis, in establishing principles of behavior in cultural communities. The second problem concerns the existence of issues of morality in public life and its impact on social relations. The article shows that the moral principles express solidarity relations among people. They arise in the course of new programs formation of symbolic behavior in communities following the way of active sociogenesis. New behavior, which is programmed by culture, requires establishing solidarity relations among members of the society, because deprived of such relationships, socio genetic development becomes impossible. Cooperation, based on the feeling of inner unity, is essential to the society. For this reason, moral foundations turn out to be the system principles of social organization, including economic life and economic relations in the society. Moral progress in the history of society is manifested in the development of solidarity principles up to the level of universal human morality, which defines the principles of behavior for societies and individuals.

What is Marxist philosophy? About thirty or forty years ago the answer could be found in any textbook of philosophy. Philosophy is "the science of universal laws of motion and evolution in nature, human society and thought." The inseparable connection between philosophy and "various branches of positive science" was postulated as well as its status as a universal method of all sciences, and so on. But here is the casus – there are no works of Marx himself, where his philosophy of Marxism as such would be stated. Kant has three of his "Critiques", Hegel has "The Science of Logic." So N. Mikhailovsky once asked: "In what work did Marx expound his materialistic understanding of history? ... Where is such work of Marx? – There isn’t any." Lenin, at the beginning of his revolutionary career, sarcastically giggling, replied to Mikhailovsky that the philosophy of Marx is "dissolved" in his numerous works on economics, politics, history, etc., and it is, so to say, their "dry residue". Indeed there is little reason to fully trust the quality of the analysis of the leader of the world proletariat and his conclusions.

The aim of the study is to introduce the essential anthroposocial foundations (identified and analysed in the article) of the professional knowledge sharing in the space of collective work culture of the Russian firm. Interrelated anthropic origin and microsocial order are given as such foundations. The main theme of the article is the anthroposocial foundations in the system of socio-cultural labour relations regarding the professional knowledge sharing in the firm. The study is a theoretical analysis of the socio-economic nature of professional knowledge sharing at the microlevel. The contribution of the author is an introduction of the concept of “anthroposociality of knowledge sharing” into scientific use. Anthroposociality of knowledge sharing is defined as a complex socio-cultural and socio-economic phenomenon, the origin, the centre and the result of which is a human-employee (anthropic foundation) who shares personal knowledge with the other members of the intra-firm professional community in the process of joint work in accordance with microsocial order (social foundation). From a scientific perspective such an understanding will give the economists the opportunity to take into account the personality of an employee in relation to the microsocial order established in the firm in the development of proposals to improve knowledge sharing efficiency. In practice, it will allow to minimize the problems associated with the reluctance of employees to share personal knowledge.

The aim of the article is to reveal the roots of intrapersonal conflicts, the sources of which are the contradictions in the process of self-actualization of a person. Immature "self-concept" and incomplete image of personality hinder the inclusion of the individual in social relations as a subject who is capable of making decisions, forecasting and planning social processes, evaluating his/her actions in the social environment. As a result the structure of personal values is destroyed, the contradictions of values appear; a person demonstrates doubts towards the internalized values and rejects their externalization in social life. All these lead to social apathy, indifference to social changes, disappointment in self-importance and social environment as well, alienation from the institutional environment. The stability of reproduction of social order is broken. The author defines the opportunities of overcoming the contradictions of values with the help of deep interiorization of absolute values. The article introduces methods of social guidance of values in order to create the conditions to restore the structural unity of the values system of a person and to deeply internalize absolute values that will lead to the successful integration of a person into important social processes. The author identifies the possibilities of the socio-cultural environment organization, which enables the integration of the personal activities into the process of constructing social reality.

The starting point for writing this article was a wide circulation of ideas about the identity of such notions as sobornost and collectivism not only at the level of mass consciousness, but also in the research literature. The purpose of the article is to show the fallacy of such beliefs. The original author's position is that sobornost and collectivism constitute two different traditions - if sobornost, being of a religious origin, is related to the Orthodox spiritual experience, collectivism originated from social and political experience. The author draws attention to the fact that this erroneous assertion is based on misunderstanding that sobornost refers to the metaphysical reality, not the social one. The article outlines the key points of the concept ‘sobornost’ in the interpretation of A. Khomyakov, and the development of this idea in the writings of S. L. Frank. If collectivism, absolutizing unity, makes a personality ‘smaller’, thereby destroying it, sobornost, on the contrary, makes a personality “bigger’, allowing him/her to fully develop. It is sobornost that helps self-actualizing of a person. It is emphasized that moving towards sobornost as the highest stage of human development is performed through strengthening of individuality. The author draws a conclusion that such a radical convergence of two concepts: sobornost and collectivism entails various scenarios for Russia's future.

The development of society is presented as a type of its complicacy. The complicacy is shown to have two major quality parameters – the direction and nature – unified by the concept of cognature. The direction of development is determined by the hierarchy of the problems society chooses and gradates, and the nature of development is given by the methods of problem solving typical for the society. The problems, in turn, are created by the needs of a subject (an actor) and the typical methods of problem solving by its dispositions. This theory is shown to be related to classical theories of Karl Marx, Max Weber and synergetic paradigms as well. The relevance of the theory is stipulated by the growing complexity of the global situation and the multiplicity of factors influencing it. The basic problematic level of the social cognitive science is identified. It consists of relations between cognitive constructs and social phenomena. The main task of clarifying how the interaction of made decisions created by cognature of a society assembles the social reality is worded. Practical application of social cognitive science is the methodology elaboration of appraisals of the decisions to be made, the projects to be implemented at all levels, starting with the individual level up to the global one taking into account the complicacy change. The fundamental principal underlying such appraisals is not diminishing the complicacy; every decision should be both adequate to reality and not diminish its complicacy because there are reasons to suppose that simplifying reality decisions work only till the definite point, after which entropy starts growing and it ends in catastrophe.

The article proves the thesis that the philosophy of company is one of the forms of existence of practical philosophy. The author considers the existing ways to formulate the philosophy of company and to define the main components in its composition, with examples from the practice of operating companies. The article argues the thesis about the existence of philosophical knowledge at different levels, determines the place of practical philosophy in the system of philosophical knowledge and reveals its main characteristics. It is shown that practical philosophy performs the basic function of philosophy and can exist as an individual philosophy, a philosophy of the collective subject and macro-groups. The fundamental needs of person and society, which necessitate the existence of practical philosophy, are identified; and the philosophy of company is described as the way to meet these needs at the level of the collective subject. The author concludes that the form and content of the company's philosophy as a whole exactly correspond to the format of the practical philosophy. On the basis of general philosophical ideas about the nature and methods of the philosophical knowledge (recourse to the ultimate ground of being, systematization, unity of different topics, appeal to the due) recommendations to the construction of the company's philosophy are offered.

In this work the approach interpreting money circulation as a kind of social interaction is presented. The prominent features of social interaction in their relation to money circulation are considered. It is shown that money functionality is provided with direct or indirect convention. The origin of convention is connected to the ingrained exchange practice and social communication. Money circulation is realized due to the collective intentionality acts, defined in the objects of money. At the same time, currency circulation can happen without material money usage. It is possible only in the case if the function of money obtains objectless existence in the form of a pure symbol. Money degenerates in its function being formed as the satisfaction of household and political needs, that is to say functionally, at the same time passing the step of its objective certainty. In such a way, the evolution of money circulation demonstrates the tendency of social interactions symbolization. This tendency raises a question concerning general process of social life from the real interaction to the reality simulation. Social interactions in such society acquire speculative character and they are directed to the support of themselves. Money circulation is a private case of symbolic content of social interaction. It is aimed not to the economic good, but to the social image of financial success maintenance.