Ideas and Ideals

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 monograph is devoted to the research of an international order problem as the most exigent for the theory and practice of international relations. The work has been performed at the intersection of subject fields of International Relations Theory, International Law and World Politics. The authors consider this range of problems conventional for all international relations schools - from classical political realism and political idealism to liberal institutionalism and neo-Marxism. The paper studied the ideas of T. Hobbes and I. Kant about the world order in detail. It has been shown that they formulated the classical approaches to the understanding of international security, which are also relevant to the contemporary political theory. The choice of the world political discourse predetermined an integrated approach to the study of this subject: the world order is studied in its relation to the evolution of the modern system of international relations and in connection with the main basis of foreign policy planning – security dilemma. The authors propose a classification of the world order, aimed at both the theoretical study of international relations and the understanding of the dynamics of the modern system of international cooperation after the Cold War.

The reciprocity between religion and culture is the key theme of the book by I. N. Morozova "Religion and Culture: the Cognitions of Acceptance and Reciprocity". In modern socio-humanitarian discourse there is an urgent need in elucidation of the logical-conceptual, thematic and content subject areas, where theology and a secular worldview can be the participants of the dialogue (keeping the distinction in their original spiritually-aimed orientations). The ideals and values of classical culture form one of the foundations for Christianity and secular culture. The origins of tensions are in the relations between religious and secular components in modern Russian education, the eclecticism of their combination. The author also introduces into the scientific circulation the original texts of foreign scientists-naturalists, who are speculating on cultural dimensions of the sacred; famous sociologists; religious scholars (S. Kaufman, H. Casanova, L. Woodhead, etc.), and theologians. The author considers post-secular culture at the stage of its denial of the rhetoric of confrontation with religion. The author collected and summarized the significant scientific and publicistic material, revealing the uncertain picture of the Russian society ̓ s searching for the necessary consensus in the relationship of religion and culture after Perestroika.

The specific images of man stand for any canon of values and for any behavioral code. They determine not only the desire to achieve certain public goals. In the end, any change in these images leads to revolutions, radically influencing the development of entire countries. The article highlights some of the linkages and concealed contradictions hidden behind the Ten commandments of the Old Testament, the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus Christ, the American Declaration of Independence of 1776, and related French Constitution of 1791, and finally, of the UN Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The image of free and rightful man with innate dignity stands in glaring contradiction with the reality of modern humankind, which will reach the ten billion mark quite soon. The limited capacity of finite resources of planet Earth decidedly demands the change of our traditional ideas about man. The lives of our grandchildren will be determined by the new image of man and the way of when and how it will be developed.

The article considers the problem of de-socialization and alienation of an individual in the social space. The aim of the article is to conduct a socio - philosophical analysis of the conditions of the emergence and development stages of these forms and identification of types and forms of personal alienation in society. The article analyzes the complex of objective and subjective social conditions which lead to de-socialization of an individual. The buffer zone of alienation is examined in the article as a reflection of social exclusion processes. De-socialization of the individual is the result of social exclusion process which leads to alienation and its acculturation.

The article considers the fundamental role of language in communication from the axiological aspect of communication theory. The aim is to show that speech, as the embodiment of the language, is a real value or a product of activities of generations of a certain culture in their phylogenesis as well as of an individual in ontogenesis. Language is a system of signs, which serves as a means of human communication and mental activity; the way of expressing self-consciousness; a means for storing and transmitting social information. Linguistic behavior is connected with the history of mankind, its culture, and the actual existence of the society. The process of individual and group speaking is embodied into the actions of people, modes of behavior, and phenomena of consciousness into the forms of thinking. Speech, undoubtedly, has value. To become an educated man, an interesting interlocutor, a partner worthy of love, a respectable friend, a professional – all of these is great work. To have a talent means to work, to be a genius means to work again and again. This is an axiological law: the dignity of a human personality is defined by joint efforts, made by a community and an individual him/herself, who have formed identity of a person and helped to self-actualize his/her accumulated spiritual wealth. The inner world of a person is only slightly expressed externally: in facial expressions, in the eyes as a mirror of soul, in clothes and demeanor. Mainly, a soul is revealed in the dialogue.

  The article is devoted to the problematic character of the relations of Christianity with other cultures as one of the brightest features of European civilization. Attempts to understand it were made throughout the History of Christianity. It is necessary to consider continuous penetration into Europe of the most diverse cultures from the other continents which entered into the existential conflict with this religion. At the same time it is necessary to consider the problem relations of Christianity with the European mental and cultural arrangements. They naturally came into conflict with Christianity which had been created outside the continent. It is especially vividly seen in the period of early Christianity when Christianity was more presented by a set of ideas, than the sum of artifacts. Besides, Christianity was formed not due to the evolution of a certain initial paradigm, but as a result of synthesis of elements of almost all known at that time cultures. The author gives a general characteristic of the history of interaction between Christianity and the European cultural streams, and also he considers some forms and methods of fight, which Christianity used against those cultural streams. The Church played a special role in this fight, and сhristianization might be presented as the movement of the Church, not a religion. At the same time сhristianization is an information gain of new space. Simultaneously, it is necessary to highlight the role of this religion in preservation of the European information unity and also in the fight against cultural interventions from the outside.

The article is devoted to the search of the hidden meaning of the Bible, and to the birth of the tradition of patristic hermeneutics and exegesis in the history of the early Christian Church. Actually, in the works of early Christian apologists, the five main methods of exegesis of the Holy Scripture were already used, including: literally-historical, moral, theoretical, typological, and allegorical. The author examines the influence of Philo of Alexandria, who identified two stages in the study of God – knowledge of God from the “created things”, and the ascent of mind to the understanding of the transcendence of deity. Clement of Alexandria, unlike his predecessor, didn’t try to turn the biblical text into a philosophical treatise, but sought to transform the philosophical ideas into the Christian ones, and with the help of the typological method he succeeded in it. The purpose of this study is to reveal the mechanism of interaction between two theoretical and methodological traditions: the tradition of the apology of the truths of Divine Revelation and the tradition of interpreting the text of the Scripture, which was systematized in the Alexandrian philosophical-theological school.

The round table participants discussed a number of interrelated questions: how can we evaluate the relationship between the Church and society in Russia at the present stage? What is causing the obstacles for the dialogue between the Church and other social groups in modern Russia? Is there a possibility for such a dialogue in modern Russian society? What is the actual and possible role of intelligentsia in the formation of a neutral space for such a dialogue? The participants discussed different aspects of the problem: the history of the church and society relations, the problems of these relations at the present stage, the role of the church in the life of modern Russian society, the problem of the dialogue between the Church and atheists. The participants also discussed the burning problems of the Church's participation in the formation and education of youth, issues of influence of the church on the processes of cultural development, the acute problems of the fight between the Orthodox church and religious extremism, the danger of which influence, especially on young people, is often underestimated. In the final analysis, there is a multi-dimensional picture of the relationship between the institution of the Church and civil society represented by different social groups.