Ideas and Ideals

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.

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.

Justice as a theme and a subject of research is, in fact, a cluster of concepts, which organize a specific multi-actant historical process. It deals with certain forms of human self-understanding and methods of turning less equitable social relations into more equitable ones. One of the basic problems here is to clarify and to explicate existing forms of understanding of Justice, and then to organize a communicative space for an ongoing process of discussions on the national and even transnational level. While doing so the social life might have been reorganized in the mode of strengthening respect to the competing ideas of Justice, which are revealed as the result of those discussions. On the other hand, Truth within social sciences could be understood as a matrix of openness of the world-as-a-whole, i.e. as a sort of collective optics which allows to identify things as things, facts as facts, events as events, and, therefore, generates collective forms of in-the-world orientation, common for a given nation, or a given historical moment, etc. But altogether this produces deep conflicts between scientific knowledge and “folk” estimates of social and historical reality because historical and social “facts” themselves are still not defined.

The article discusses what the technology is and how one can build a humanitarian technology. It is shown that the technology is introduced as a new reality, which describes the industrial activities in the language of operations, their conditions, division of labor and management; at the same time, technology is characterized by the quality of installation, cost savings, standardization, rational description of the production processes, optimizing them for the training of new professionals – technologists. The author characterizes the features of the humanitarian approach and cognition. Though it is impossible to introduce a unique personality, which is characteristic of the humanitarian approach, into the technology, it is quite possible to provide a functional place for it. And it is better to consider not "a unique personality", the behavior of which, is difficult to foretell, but “a common personality", which is characterized by certain behaviors, because such a person always acts in the way, defined by the set rules predetermined by social conditions. In order to construct a realistic, humanitarian technology with a practical application, it is necessary to organize two activities: training and institutional support as well as the organizational one. The author illustrates these statements with the example of constructing a humanitarian technology and discusses the conditions for its implementation.

The article is devoted to the role of the initial empirical data in the process of scientific knowledge and scientific prognostication, autonomy of these data to a certain extent in relation to theory. The author gives a scheme of the relationship of the initial data, creative intuition, scientific theories, reduction rules and the empirical consequences of the theory in the process of scientific knowledge. This scheme is valid to a certain extent and for a process development research prognosis and for making decision on the basis of this prognosis.The author of the article systematically analyses Popper's scheme of growth of scientific knowledge and shows that this scheme is broken, if we accept Popper's assertion that the so-called data and facts are theoretical interpretations. Specific examples proved that our senses and their testimony are to a certain extent autonomous in relation to the theories and myths. With the help of a concrete example it is shown that the perceptual component must be present in every empirical fact and that factual language is a complex phenomenon: its concepts are developed under the influence of this theory, other theories, practical activities, sensory experience and everyday experience.

The existence of the fictitious and hidden competences in the structure of educational standards is the problem of the Higher Education Reform implementation. The object of research is reconstruction of a number of the competences which are absent in the regulating documents, but they are important for subjects in professional socialization and they are really incorporated into it. During methodological study of the project of reconstruction of the young specialist model we assumed that the existence of the hidden competences is not a secret for students; and also – that many competences, declared in educational programs, have a fictitious character for them. This assumption became a basic hypothesis for the empirical research "Professional Socialization in the Conditions of Competence-Based Reconstruction". Readiness to use official position for personal enrichment, ability to join false conventions, to manipulate interlocutors, to strike up useful acquaintances and to derive benefit from them (in P. Bourdieu's terminology – to create and use social capital), ability and readiness to use gaps and contradictions in the legislation are referred to the hidden competences. The research has revealed that these competences are real and pressing for all levels and social subjects comprising the system of higher education.

This article examines the dynamics of the process of geographical perception of Siberia, in the aspect of the forming of the idea of Siberia as geographical and cultural unity. There are presented, in particular, quite legendary testimonies of foreign travelers who almost up to the end of the 17th century were getting pretty random information from Russian merchants; some data from the proper Siberian Chronicles is also given. Taking into account the idea of empire as a political structure that prevailed in the last 2,500 years of human history, author deals with the cultural and political factors which has determined the integrity of the idea of Siberia as a specific megaregion. Particularly the question of the nature of the development of Siberia in terms of the corresponding type of colonization is examined. It is concluded that the population of Siberia, despite the fact that it was used and even became in the first place famous as a region of exile, the consciousness of Siberians is not typical for colonial territory. Since the end of the 18th century the representation of a Siberian as a special group of the Russian population is firmly established.

In the interview Prof. Shadrikov speaks about the recent educational reform in the Russian Federation. Its shortcomings are discussed, and the problem how it should be organized. The modern pre-school, school and higher education should be tailored to age and take into account the uncertainty of the cultural characteristics of different social groups and individuals. The difficulties of developing the contents of education and training are also under analysis, which is a very serious challenge in the new informational environment. The need is emphasized to get away from the fiscal targets and not setting the task to save, but rather to achieve high quality education. The situation with the standards is also touched, especially in the area of higher education, and the important conclusion is given that the standard is proposed in the terms of competencies yet the results are checked in terms of knowledge, and this situation determines the discrepancy between the opportunities provided by well-developed standards, and the real possibility to implement them. The situation in higher education connected with the realization of Bologna process, from which in recent time only two-level educational system is borrowed, yet everything else, basically the spirit of the Bologna process, is thrown away and forgotten, including the good financing and development of national education systems.