Ideas and Ideals

The paper studies the transformation of the conceptual apparatus of modern social sciences, characterized by a shift from a socially-problematic to a risk-prognostic analysis. The author shows that these conceptual and theoretical changes are conditioned by the internal logic of sociology development, which has gradually transferred in the analysis of social phenomena from the study of unfavorable effects of social changes and symptoms of social deviations to the reasons that cause socially problematic situations. An approach based on the personal responsibility of “problem” individuals and social groups for their exclusion from normal social life was formed within the framework of social psychology and it is defined by a medical-criminological model that affirms the existence of “universal criteria for normality” and, accordingly, standards of behavior. In the framework of this approach, which was clearly manifested in social Darwinism, the main focus of problem-oriented studies is focused on the external symptoms of social ailments and the “deviant behavior” of individuals and social groups, or factors of their unsuccessful socialization, interpreted as a source of social problems. Theoretical and practical analysis shows consistency of the modern turn in understanding social problems, which is characterized by shifting the focus of research to an institutional-systemic level that generates conditions for the reproduction of social deviations and deprivations. According to the author, the analysis of risks in a sociological perspective takes over the baton of the development of problem-oriented research in social sciences. Modern sociology of risks was formed within the framework of critical reflection on the ideas of U. Beck (who understands risk as a rational strategy for transformation of uncertainty into certainty) and it is represented by sociocultural, constructivist, neo-institutional, administrative approaches. What unites these approaches is that risks are treated as products of social interactions that are deeply embedded in social structures, dependent on the external context and the conditions for the formation of subjective perceptions of risks, and the degree of vulnerability of different social groups, determined by their place in the social hierarchy of society. The critical direction in risk theory focused on the problem of risks interconnection and a system-institutional arrangement of society, emphasizes disproportionate vulnerability to the risks of various social groups, based on socio-structural inequalities, as well as imperfection of organizational structures created to minimize risks due to their greater fitness to the established institutional design, than to the challenges that they face due to their specific activities.

The article deals with the phenomenon of multilingualism and its most common case – bilingualism – from both the linguistics and philosophical points of view. More than a half of the global population at present are multilingual, i.e. they use two or more languages in their daily lives. The related changes in culture and ways of thinking require scientific research and philosophic reflection. The article briefly covers approaches applied by researchers of language and language ability to defining the nature of bilingualism.  Linguists and psychologists choose different criteria in order to determine the level of language fluency that allows to characterize someone as bilingual. Some scientists believe that even a minimum competence in listening, speaking, reading, or writing means that an individual is bilingual, while others consider a native-like fluency in two languages to be a necessary condition.  Using as a basis mainly the ideas of the 20th century’s analytic philosophers, the author attempts to offer a philosophical explanation to the mechanism that enables bilinguals to switch between their languages. The key philosophic idea that helps to explain the phenomenon is the concept of a language as a means of expressing thoughts and the only possible form for the existence of thoughts. The main language structure in which a thought can be expressed is a sentence, because it allows to establish relations between any objects of the world. The main criterion of bilingualism is not the ability to speak another language, but the ability to think in that language, whereas the criterion of the ability to think in a language is a skill to build sentences in that language.

This article analyzes the possible chance of overcoming the limited capacity of the existing theories of modernity to the explanation of the newest tendencies of transformation of society. Asked about the need to update existing concepts, because all of them, according to the author, reflect already leaving the next stage of the post-industrial development. The author believes that the prospect of explaining the rapidly changing social world and his prediction tool could become a concept of informational resonance in social structures. The author draws attention to the crucial role of information increase the transformation of all parties social life. But its role remains underestimated in constructing adequate models of the contemporarily, and especially in predicting consequences for social life rapidly developing information technology. Analysis and forecasting of social and anthropological implications of the next phase of the information-computer and the sixth industrial revolutions did not follow the intensity of technological innovations and for studies of the dynamics and forms technical-technological change. The author introduces the notion of "information resonance in social structures" and analyzes the possibility of building a concept of this process. In doing so, it relies on the expertise of multidisciplinary research using the concept of resonance, wave and synergetic processes. Describes typical manifestations of resonant wave processes in social structures and their effects. The author suggests and formulates arguments proving that the "information explosion" and information overload are transforming social structures, affecting primarily the basic system of society is social interaction. The article argues that with "the cage" social system processes similar to the studied mutations in cytogenetic. According to the author, the similarity of these processes allows for the social structure and the structure of social interaction to build explanatory model by analogy, turning on an interdisciplinary level, then the transdisciplinary approach and synthesis of notional apparatus. At this level, build a new theoretical objects - "mutation the cells of the social system", and citosociology which are offered as a concept in the context of the prospects for the development of transdisciplinary methodologies.

The concept of liberalism is extremely unpopular in modern Russia. Modern hopes about the solution of Russian problems cling to conservatism based on traditional values which are defined by Orthodoxy to a great extent. In other words, Orthodoxy and liberalism in modern Russian political discourse are treated as contradictory to each other. It is noteworthy that historical liberalism in its conservative variant was rooted in Russian ground and closely connected to Orthodox tradition. But with generally Christian sources of liberalism being widely accepted, the liberal potential of Eastern Christianity is being questioned. It is universally believed that Orthodoxy seemingly “belittles” personality and discourages the development of independence and freedom. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the inaccuracy of such views. Drawing from patristic heritage and the methodology developed by the classical Orthodox theologian V. Lossky and modern Orthodox philosophers (Ch. Yannaras, S. Khoruzhiy) the author elucidates the Orthodox understanding of personality (hypostasis) encoded in the Doctrine of Trinity. It was Orthodoxy that preserved and developed the concept of a human personality absolute value and uniqueness introduced by Christianity, this concept being later undermined by Western Christianity with “amending” the Trinity Doctrine by double procession of the Holy Spirit. Analyzing patristic attitude to a human the author comes to the conclusion that Orthodoxy is the religion of freedom. Its philosophy is pervaded with the pathos of freedom and hymn to the elevated predestination of a human who is able of becoming a co-Creator. The proposition is supported by the Orthodox ideal of deification and the theory of synergism, i.e. concordant action of Divine and human energies suggesting free and conscious efforts of a person. Of course, we are talking about inner freedom: the freedom "to" and not freedom "from", without which the realization of external freedom is problematic

Wolfgang Sassin’s article "Images of the World: Ideas of Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood and Their Transformation" (“Ideas and Ideals”, No. 4, 2017) forms the first part of his big article (part 2 is published in this volume of the journal). The ideas expressed in the article have evoked great interest of Russian researchers, yet some of his statements have raised serious questions and objections. The author presents a critical analysis of these controversial statements. The goal of this discussion is not just to express objection and the opposite point of view, but to deeper understand extremely important and interesting issues raised by W. Sassin. The idea of the primary atomicity of individuals and the deriving from it the original individual freedom seem to be quite controversial. W. Sassin tries to find the grounds for the key social concepts in the Bible, however he takes the ideas which are not essential for the Bible itself, but have been widely disseminated during the age of Enlightenment that took place under the slogan of struggle against Christianity. This refers to such slogans as "conquer nature" and "liberty, equality, and fraternity". The author's persuasion that the faith in One God makes all people equal before Him, would be fair only if the equality would be understood by him only in a personal sense, but the author imparts it with social meaning. The inference of these values not only from Christianity but also from monotheism in general looks unjustified.

The article is devoted to the theoretical understanding of the social group "young people" in the context of public administration theory. The authors consider the approaches to the definition of youth in domestic and foreign legislation, sociology and public administration theory. They also study the impact of different factors on socio-demographic groups differentiation and the content of youth policy. The article analyzes different approaches to the youth policy development taking into consideration all parties concerned. The authors suggest their own understanding of the "youth" and "youth policy" concepts in the context of Russia innovative development. Referring to the new trends in public life and the formation of a generational paradigm, the authors refuse to set a lower age-related limit. The period of youth policy development and its implementation exceeds the duration of individual stages of a human life cycle ("childhood", "adolescence" and "youth"). It is also known, that at these bifurcation points the variety of development directions of a person, both positive and negative, sharply increases. Thus, special attention must be paid to the public management of transitional periods. The authors have developed principles of the youth policy formation on the basis of a matrix approach. The approach suggests that the solution of specific problems of youth need to be supplemented by the integration of the components of the youth policy into all policies, programs and projects at all hierarchical levels of government. The authors suggest interpreting of the youth policy as a priority activity aimed at preserving the life and health of youth, reproduction of the population, improving the quality of young people life and developing its potential for the benefit of society and future generations. The subjects of the policy are state authorities and local authorities, youth and other parties concerned.

The author considers the opportunity of management activities optimization, which has been the subject of numerous scientific studies during a long period time. Today this area is still of the utmost importance. The structure of management activities is complex and it is built on multilevel psychological, socio-psychological and other phenomena. This article presents the data of modern studies aimed to support its distinctive features in perception, information processing, cognitive, emotional-volitional sphere of the right- and leftlateral respondents. This article is devoted to the study of individual styles of management activities of the executive educational team (school principals, head teachers). The study (n=140) proves that an individual management style is predefined by the peculiarities of lateralization of prefrontal lobes hemispheres of the brain. The significant differences are defined between individual management style of school principals and head teachers with different lateral organization of the brain. The study uses psychological tests (n=6) and statistical methods of data processing. It is proved that superintendents with left lateral and right lateral organization of the brain use different management tools. For example, in the activities of the left hemisphere superintendents stronger organizational skills are expressed, the authoritarian management style is used more often and motivation for success is expressed greater than motivation to avoid failures. The right hemisphere superintendents express stronger communication skills at a lower intensity of managerial skills, the democratic style of management is used more frequently, this type of individuals often focuses on avoiding failure than on achieving success. The main methodological principle laid down in the program of the study is the system approach. This study is in the "mainstream" of theories of individual differences that are explained by the features of braking force of regulatory unit in expression of the general properties of the CNS. This article contains recommendations that provide an opportunity to optimize managerial activities of individuals engaged in educational supervision. These recommendations are aimed at expansion of the components of management style.

The article deals with the problems of the essence of consciousness manipulation in the process of self-preservation of a social group by holding holidays. One of the most complex and unambiguously interpreted scientific problems at the present time is the problem of determining the place and various functions of the sacral in the everyday life of society. Of course, the traditional understanding of a holiday as a ritual action that transcends the transcendental nature of being has been preserved to some extent to this day, however, with the development of different social arrangements in the context of life, not only collective, but also individual, has somewhat changed its character. Strictly speaking, the development of philosophical thought with respect to this problem was extremely diverse, but at the same time it had certain homogeneity, manifested in the traditional understanding of a particular area of this aspect. The original understanding of the holiday as sacralization of being, which really exists here and now, was extremely important in the development of the history of the existence of an individual and his relationship with the objectively surrounding world. Of course, the birth of manipulation should not be directly proportional to the existential aspect of life as such. On the contrary, life, according to its dual nature, can not but perform various kinds of manipulation to determine the essence of its existence. The concept of dualism of being has acquired completely different features with the development of a philosophical view of the problems of this kind in the process of historical and philosophical consideration. The initial perception of this phenomenon was absolutely authentic, for it found responses in the determination of the One as the Absolute in its individual kind through the disintegration into plurality, revealing certain regularities in terms of transcendental being. Manipulation of consciousness in the process of research actually appears as a kind of technology of domination of the sacral over everyday life. Holiday as a ritual allows us to manifest the essence of sacralization, determining the place of man in the process of his own being through manipulative character in the context of interaction with the objective world.

A systematic approach makes it possible to discover new ways of investigating the question of family-marriage problems. Through systematic approach the family is considered not from the point of individual elements’ qualities, but from the point of system’s qualities, which appear as a result of elements’ interaction. Once appeared, these qualities obtain the influence on other elements. In this way, system’s elements’ interaction becomes the key determinant parameter for system’s qualities. The three family systems: traditional, nuclear and individual- are considered within the scope of the systematic approach. Each of the mentioned types is defined by the presence of an over-systematic system-forming principle and orientation on existing cultural models or by their absence. Traditional and nuclear family types have certain patterns of interactions, worked out during the evolution. The third marked out type of family organization is still going through its establishment and development stages. The systematic approach within family-marriage range of problems, on the one hand, is based on epistemology of modern time, and, on the other hand, follows traditional philosophic intuitions in this field. This view allows us to prevent evaluation in description of system’s elements, shifting the attention on the dynamic constituent. This broadens the opportunities of finding modern viable family organization models.