Ideas and Ideals

The paper deals with the practical and theoretical implications that justice becomes a real factor in achieving solidarity in the social life of social actors. The different conceptions of justice, revealed their intrinsic and structural differences. The authors conclude that the outcome of the discussions around the theme of justice, continuing the last thirty years, has become a significant semantic shift in the understanding of justice that resulted, in turn, the emergence of new forms and methods of achieving it. It is noted that justice has properties which do not have the truth, and that helps her to stay in the field of philosophy and social sciences, despite the failure of attempts to give her a satisfactory explanation. This property is a special sensitivity towards her by individuals, as well as social and cultural groups. Levels of justice, it was found that the social structure is the foundation of justice. The authors criticize emotivism asserting the impossibility of rational justification of social values, and contrast it justice concept fleksibelnoy methodological basis of which is the idea of transversal reason.

This article continues explanation of the anthropological approach to development of the world philosophy. Its basic scheme is based on relations between pre-philosophy (naive philosophizing) and professional philosophy, formed and organized in intellectual networks. Two factors drive a person with innate interest to philosophizing (which was defined by Kant as “metaphysica naturalis”) into the intellectual networks: strive for emotional energy and the possibility to intensify philosophizing by putting oneself into a stricter framework of professional communication. “Autonomy of philosophy” is considered as the ideal mode of professional philosophy. It is juxtaposed to the idea of “philosophical life”. The article finishes with a sketch of civilizational factors that force this period in history of the world philosophy, defined as «institutional period», to end.

In this article the problem of moral and ethic norms in accounting and auditing professions is discussed on the background of historical cases, described in the Treatise about damage of customs in Russia and publications on Panama swindle. Appealing to the Roman Pope’s Francis I conscription the conclusion on the necessity for fulfillment of the requirements of the Accountant Ethics Code is made.

In the article the author analyzes the concept and stages of economic development, as well as the process of economic technologizing on the material of three cases - Sumerian ideas about the price of the goods, Aristotle's views on wealth and the peculiarities of tea trade in Victorian England. There are two ways of representing the economy: maintaining the life of the social organism and as a special type of technology, providing the development of the economy, which at the same time acts as a source of economic and social crises. The author discusses the conditionality of the economy in the conceptual, cultural, psychological and social relations. The conclusion is that the economy develops, along with ensuring its social and cultural conditions that involve conscious participation of economic and cultural subjects in this process.

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 identifies the social-philosophical roots of neoliberal ideology, which as a project is in a very strong position in today's globalizing world. Classic authors of the neo-liberal approach are Western scholars Karl Popper and Friedrich Hayek, who developed the concept of "open society" ("extended order"), where the reference methodological designs are hard anthropocentrism, evolutionism and market relations. According to theorists of neoliberalism, the meaning of the historical process as a movement from "closed society", support for which was made by the collectivist structure, to the "open society", where relations of exchange based on individual aspirations and initiative are at the forefront. From this follows the introduction of a number of concepts, turning into a neo-liberal ideology – individual freedom, a market. The article shows the limited explanatory possibilities of the theory of Karl Popper and Friedrich Hayek, as well as the abstractness of the mentioned ideologies that often forces neo-liberal leaders to resort to double standards in the course of political practice. However, the strength of neoliberal tenets are not in scientific, but in their class nature that makes them useful as expressions of the interests of leading social groups.

The monograph was prepared by the author in the English version [The Information Resonance in Social System: Monograph / V.I. Ignatyev - Novosibirsk: NSTU Publisher, 2016. - 287 pp.] by the order of the Novosibirsk State Technical University with the aim of expanding overseas readership of NSTU Publishing.   The reason which inspired the author to present his view on the role of information in the modern world was a premonition of a new revolution in social theory, the desire to acquaint the reader with ideas, which stimulated the author in recent years to publish articles on the effects of information taking place in the social structure. The author believes that the fundamental social theories potential of the last half of the past century, is largely exhausted. The transformation of information into the substance of the society requires a revision of the ontological foundations of the modern social theories. The author proposes to discuss a new social ontology - the information ontology.

In various epochs, the peculiarities of human language were described in comparison with sounds made by animals. Such recourse to animals deserves special analysis, since, in essence, it is directed at a better understanding of man and human language. All the thoughts expressed in connection with this are equally important, as landmarks in the history of ideas, irrespective of the fact whether they had followers or remained as author’s original concepts. The man-animal paradigm, studied in the context of language, undergoes significant changes with the passage of time. In antiquity and in the Middle Ages a hierarchical attitude with the prior role of the man was established. In the modern era, alongside with the traditional interpretation, a version of correlation emerges: the talking bird and the man are placed on the same rank in the story about a cognitive parrot mentioned by Locke. In the beginning of the 20^th century Vossler goes even further. Creative ability serves as an evaluation criterion for him; proceeding from this he observes in man features characteristic of the parrot. However, in the structure of man conceived this way, the hierarchy of antique-medieval model is observed again.

The author considers the degradation of peasant labour culture in the Soviet kolkhozes, which still affects the modern village. Peasantry is presented as the community of rural inhabitants occupied with crop growing and cattle breeding who possess socio-cultural legacy of ancestors. The author highlights the idea, that traditional culture of peasant labour in Russia was very high. To prove the fact, the examples from the research work of classical writers of the Russian history, ethnographers’, foreigners’ evidence about Russia and the Russian folklore are given in the article. According to the author the policy of collectivization led to the socio-cultural degradation of the traditional labour culture of peasants. The absence of private property, material and moral interests as well as super-exploitation of peasants by the state, low-paid work, cultural revolution and "equal rights" for everybody were the main factors, which led to degradation. And as the result, such phenomena as low productivity of labour, economic indifference, imitation of labour were formed and all the previously mentioned factors led to moral degradation. The author supports the formulated conclusions with the testimonies of former peasants which have been collected in the new scientific genre "oral history". In the opinion of eyewitnesses of collectivization and the author of the article for the modern village recovery it is necessary to give peasants private property and freedom of creativity.

The paper analyses how the set of images and events in the poem “Dionysiaca” by Nonnus of Panopolis reflects the ancient notion of time. The immortal gods of Olympus abide in eternity; however they have to reckon with the earth time and the order of things. Nevertheless, the time of the gods and the time of human beings are represented by different gods: Chronos and Aion, respectively. The original ancient gods, Phanes, Chaos, Chronos, can claim to be fully independent of the time of the mortal, and they abide in a sort of “timelessness” rather than eternity. Thus, there are three positions in relation to time: timelessness – complete independence from time of ancient gods, immortality, and eternity. At the same time, there is Olympic gods’ involvement in the earth time and complete subordination to the laws of the earth time on the part of the mortal. Dionysus is characterized by a spiral pattern of time. Zagreus, Dionysus, Iovakh are both a single whole and different. They are the past, the present and the future. Events in their lives are repeated, but not precisely. The above corresponds to the Platonic interpretation of time, and substantial similarity can be noticed.