Ideas and Ideals

A characteristic feature of the consumer society is the cult of the body, which has replaced the cult of the soul. (J. Baudrillard). The author, wondering about the reasons for such a transformation, sees the explanation in the Hesychast controversies of the 14th century, the core of which was the famous theological controversy between Gregory Palama and Varlaam the Calabrian, the starting point for such a fi nale. The essence of this controversy was the question of the possibility of God’s Knowledge and its ways. The position of Varlaam the Calabrian was reduced to the impossibility of Knowledge of God due to Its absolute transcendence, while Gregory Palama, without denying this, in fact, defended the real possibility of living, direct communication with God, unthinkable for the Calabrian monk. To substantiate his position, G. Palama, based on the thoughts of previous fathers and teachers of the Church, as well as appealing to the experience of the Athonite hesychasts, wrote a number of works, primarily “Triads in Defense of the Sacred Silent” and “The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters”, which are the subject of analysis in this article. The theological discussion, having raised deep philosophical problems related to man’s place in the world, his destiny, and his relationship with God, revealed serious disagreements between the opponents. During the discussion, G. Palama turns to Orthodox anthropology, which goes back to the biblical understanding of man, whose purpose is theosis or restoring his original integrity. Varlaam the Calabrian, being a fan of ancient philosophy, adhered to the dualistic concept of man, which contrasted soul and body, in fact, reducing man to a rational principle. At the same time, both the dogmas of faith and the conclusions of ancient philosophers are equally authoritative and equally legitimate for him. V. the Calabrian, becoming one of the fathers of the Western Renaissance, thus opened the way to a secular New Age. The cult of the human mind and the autonomy of the human personality have brought the desacralization of the soul to its logical conclusion: replacing the cult of the soul with the cult of the body.

This article introduces and analyzes the “thanatological argument” in order to reveal and analyze the mechanisms that make it possible for a person to justify
his or her own fi nitude. The thanatological argument is understood as a philosophical justifi cation of the conditions under which a person is able to come to the conclusion about his or her own mortality. The author seeks to identify
how knowledge of death is included in the structure of human experience and to demonstrate that the introduction of this argument serves as a heuristically signifi cant conceptual optics that allows us to determine the various bases for
the formation of knowledge about death, both in the intersubjective dimension (through the experience of another, loss, empathy) and at the level of a priori structures of individual consciousness. The purpose of this article is the introduction and philosophical development of the “thanatological argument” within the framework of the analysis of epistemological and ontological ways of justifying
human fi nitude. Methodologically, the article combines philosophical interpretation with elements of conceptual analysis, which allows us to reconstruct the logic of how various authors justify the fi nitude of human existence.
The research is based on two mutually exclusive trajectories: the a priori and the inductive. Proponents of the a priori approach (M. Scheler, G. Simmel, M. Heidegger, M. Conche, E. Fink) identify knowledge of death as intrinsically
inherent to human existence, not requiring external experience of the death of another. Advocates of the inductive approach (J. Derrida, G. Marcel, J.-P. Sartre,
P.-L. Landsberg) argue that a clear recognition of one’s own fi nitude arises only through the perception of the death of the other, where the “gift of death” of the other becomes a necessary condition for the justifi cation of one’s own
fi nite existence. As a result of the conducted study, the author concludes that the introduction of the “thanatological argument” highlights its heuristic value as a
concept potentially useful not only for the development of philosophical thanatology, but also for interdisciplinary research in the fi elds of anthropology, psychoanalysis,
cultural studies, and other disciplines in which the theme of death occupies a central place.tology, but also for interdisciplinary research in the fi elds of anthropology, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, and other disciplines in which the theme of death occupies a central place. 

Frame analysis, which examines the biased nature of our ways of using signs in communicative processes and which is relevant to the modern synergetic picture
of the world, continues the long-standing traditions of hermeneutics and medieval exegesis. In acts of communication, frames of perception and presentation
are permanently converted: response presentations are formed on the basis of received and understood messages. Conversion processes generate an abundance of connotations with which the original meanings are overgrown. Sometimes they are destructive, often banal. But it is the competition of connotations that serves as a source of development. Perceptual frames are always
based on hidden premises (prejudices). The cultural and personal codes of thi bias are invisible to its bearers. In the lexicon of frame analysis, these initial dispositions
of perceptions can be presented as expectation frames. The clash of expectation frames with reality awakens emotions, with which the comprehension of the world begins. The possible cultural shocks in this connection constitute
the empirical material for identifying and criticizing the hidden prerequisites of perception, the features of its “optics”.
After Wittgenstein, researchers prefer the concept of a “door” to the frame of a dispassionate “mirror” as a generally accepted metaphor of cognitive relations in the New Age. It is set in motion by acts of doubt, but the lower door hinge, with its immobility, symbolizes bias as the absence of any doubts regarding preconceived contents, that is, frames of expectations. Now the world behind the looking glass is of interest, the door to which still needs to be discovered.
In connection with the modern emphasis on pragmatic aspirations, presentation frames have been better studied. Brands are of particular interest: they noisily claim the generally signifi cant value of presentations and are effective for manipulative purposes. Meanwhile, the lexicon of frame analysis should be introduced with a whisper of expectation frames. Lively games of frames of perceptions
and presentations constitute the main communicative body, while brands only close the lexicon from the side opposite to the original preconceived expectations.

The relationship between the unconscious and narrative identity remains unresolved within Russian philosophy. This study seeks to rectify this situation. The work’s scientifi c novelty is also determined by its interdisciplinary approach,
which integrates the traditions of phenomenology (E. Husserl), psychoanalysis (S. Freud), and philosophical hermeneutics (P. Ricoeur). This article conceptualizes
the unconscious as a noumenal source of subjectivity, inaccessible to direct signifi cation but manifesting itself through symptoms and affects. As a noumenon, the unconscious is inaccessible to direct reference, precedes symbolization, and serves as a space for the accumulation of “pre-refl ective” experience A hypothesis is advanced and substantiated regarding the dual function of the
unconscious in the structure of narrative identity: on the one hand, it serves as a “reservoir” for the formation of counternarratives that challenge established
self-narratives, while on the other, it constitutes the foundation of pre-reflective experience, ensuring the continuity of the pre-refl ective and the affective content
of implicit memory. It is demonstrated that the process of constructing narrative identity is linked not only to the symbolic horizon but also to affective experience
rooted in pre-refl ective experience, opening new perspectives for understanding the dynamics of personal identity construction.

The paper examines Aristotle’s place in one of the most signifi cant public education projects in late 19th to early 20th century Russia – the “Home Reading Programs” (1894–1914), published by the Moscow Commission for Self-Education.
The University Extension movement emerged as an attempt to overcome the class, geographic, and fi nancial barriers that prevented broad segments of the population from accessing systematic university knowledge. The “Programs”
offered readers structured courses in core academic disciplines, accompanied by recommended literature, methodological materials, and a system for assessing comprehension. Contrary to the widespread view that Aristotelian philosophy had weak reception in Russia, within the “Programs,” Aristotle’s philosophy occupies a central position in logic, psychology, political theory, law, history, literature, and aesthetics. Logic essentially in its Aristotelian version is treated as
the foundation of philosophical and scientifi c thinking. His political treatises are
used in the study of history and law, providing criteria for analyzing contemporary
political developments, patterns of political evolution, causes of coup-d’etat,
and actual governmental mechanisms. The Poetics serves as a basis for analyzing
literary forms and aesthetic theories. In the context of the “Programs,” Aristotle
appears not merely as an ancient author but as a relevant source of theoretical
models used to analyze both classical and modern sociocultural experience.
The “Programs” shaped an image of Aristotle as a universal thinker, a systematizer
of knowledge, the founder of scientifi c rationality, and the creator of
a scholarly tradition that retains methodological signifi cance for modernity.
Plato’s role is far more modest – he is portrayed as a mere philosopher of the past,
a dreamy author of idealistic doctrines that align philosophy with religion, and
of utopian political models. His philosophy is inferior to Aristotle’s in terms of
maturity and analytical rigor. The paper’s results demonstrate the signifi cance
of Aristotle’s philosophy in promoting models of intellectual culture through
the popularization and democratization of university education. They also offer
a new perspective on the scale and nature of the reception of Aristotelianism in
Russian culture within the context of educational initiatives of the time, and contribute
to a deeper understanding of the history of national education.

The article discusses the position expressed by Peter Engelmeyer, the fi rst Russian philosopher of technology, that signs, language and thinking can be subsumed under the concept of technology. The author shows that there is indeed a problem here, to solve the problem it is necessary to understand and distinguish between the concept of technology and non-technology, represented by signs, language and thinking. Based on his studies of the nature and genesis of technology, he characterizes the latter as a cultural and historical formation, a solution to unsolvable problems and tasks, as an artifact that allows solving such problems and creating new natural processes that were previously unobservable and even non-existent, and fi nally, as a conceptualization of technology. Characterizing signs, the author shows that the meaning and the sign as a whole, as a concept, in contrast to the artifact, as a product of activity, relate to the inner, to the life world of a man. For a better understanding of this thesis, a case is considered – a story told by K. Jung in his last book, on the material of which the concept of the life world and the scheme explaining Jung’s act are introduced. Regarding language and thinking, two cases are distinguished: in one they are not technology, in the other, if rules and methodology are used, they can be considered as intellectual technology. The last part of the article discusses hybrid types of technology, specifi cally neural computers. The author shows that in a neurocomputer, due to technical imitation of the neural network and training, a model is created that allows, at the request of a person, to take information from the Internet, construct written speech according to the rules of language and reason according to the rules of logic. At the same time, this model does not replace natural intelligence, which lives and unfolds in people and in social communications. Since people are constantly improving computer technology and trying to replace natural intelligence with artifi cial intelligence, the neurocomputer as a model becomes more and more perfect in terms of the product (the results of linguistic communication and thinking).

In the 20th century, philosophy saw a number of rediscoveries of the idea of culture and, accordingly, the formation of approaches to its study. Given the extremely “confused and ambiguous social history” (T. Eagleton) of this idea, the article reveals its presence in the thoughts of different generations of Russian philosophers. The article is based on the materials of the book “Philosophical Generations” (Moscow, 2022), which contains a collection of autobiographical narratives of Russian philosophers of the mid-20th – early 21st centuries. Based on the memoirs and thoughts of philosophers about their time, the development of the concept of “culture”, its semantic emphases and fl uctuations in the second half of the 20th century are studied. The rich material presented in this “chronicle of the Moscow philosophical community” allows us to trace the specifi cs of philosophical solutions to the “problem of culture” and the reverse impact of structural transformations of culture, art, and aesthetics on philosophy. The search for a relevant philosophical language to describe cultural dynamics in an era of constant and multiple crises deserves special attention. The author of the article suggests looking for ways to place the problem of culture in a philosophical context associated with tradition, modernity and new methodologies in the humanities.

In search of the specifi cs of the domestic approach to the phenomenon of culture, the author turns to the analysis of discussions around the ‘philosophy of culture’, ‘cultural studies’, ‘cultural research’, ‘dialogue of cultures’. Particular attention is paid to the humanitarian discussions of the 1980-1990s, in particular, the discussion around the relevance of the Silver Age, the ‘cult’ of which fell precisely on these years, is reconstructed. The conducted research made it possible to identify, on the one hand, the generational specifi city of the theoretical positions and formulations of the issue of culture presented in the book (fi xing points of misunderstanding and breaks), and on the other, to catch traces of their interactions.

The article is devoted to the consideration of the problem of the relationship between M. Heidegger’s ‘anti-metaphysical’ project and the so-called ‘indictment’, which, with the assistance of a signifi cant part of representatives of modern Western philosophy, seeks to present his philosophy as a metapolitical project of affi rming the priority signifi cance of German ‘soil’, ‘blood’, ‘destiny’, ‘spirit’ for the world history. Appeals to the meaning of M. Heidegger’s philosophy of the event as a refl ection on the historicity of the accomplishment of the truth of Being itself, which has nothing in common with the will to power, which is the apogee of the metaphysical style of thinking, are rejected by these representatives as false and bewitching concepts designed to obscure and hide the ‘true’ intentions of the philosopher. The author of the article presents the thesis that the ‘anti-metaphysical’ project is a marker of the fact that accusations of the national-socialist character of M. Heidegger’s philosophical thinking are groundless and may relate only to his personal views, which had a more or less longterm nature. The development of this thesis is based on the consideration of the criticism of the fundamental ontology of M. Heidegger by the French phenomenologists J. -L. Marion and M. Henry. In analyzing the views of the abovementioned authors, the fi rst part of the article presents a historical-philosophical view of M. Heidegger’s ontology of intentionality as an ecstatic sphere of the being of the beings, or ‘Logos’, which acts as a main element in the structure of the fundamental ontology and metaphysics of fi nitude “Being-Logos-Beings”.

The article attempts to determine the specifi cs of the semiotic hierarchy of neo-Protestantism and to identify its structure. The object of the research is the dogmatic and praxeological complexes of neo–Protestantism, and the subject is the structure of their semiotic hierarchy. Semiotic methodology is used as a basic methodology in the study. The terminology used in the hierarchy is defi ned and explained.  The concept of hierophany is studied as the basic one in religious semiosis. The author gives its confessional concepts (Orthodoxy, Catholicism). The historical biblical facts of hierophany are considered. Their semiotic structure is investigated. There is a genetic similarity between the facts of the biblical science of hierophany and the concept of hierophany in neo-Protestantism. The consistency and complementarity of all three semiotic concepts are emphasized. The work also lays the prerequisites for the study of semiotic transformation – semiotic drift. The result of the study was the identifi cation of specifi c features of the semiotics of neo-Protestantism, which allows it to go beyond value judgments from the standpoint of religious semiotics and overcome its theological and social marginalization.

The article is devoted to the traditional philosophical problem of the essence of man, but an approach to its solution through the reconstruction of the origin of the main distinctive features is chosen. The attention is focused not on the boundary, which somewhere and once hominins from the genus Homo (protosapiens) crossed in their evolution, becoming full-fl edged Homo sapiens. This boundary is called the “Rubicon of sapientation”, and sapientation here is understood as approaching the essential human features associated with “reasonableness”: conscious behavior, speech communication, special sociality, cultural accumulation and openness to subsequent evolution. The thesis that this “Rubicon” was crossed not in the known achievements of the Upper Paleolithic of western Eurasia (c. 50–40 thousand years BP), but several tens of thousands of years earlier in Africa is substantiated. On the basis of generalization of various indirect data the main processes and macroevents of this epoch are reconstructed. The reasons for the formation of intergroup alliances are shown, as well as the cardinal role of abilities necessary for such fundamentally new interactions and relations. The acquisition of essential human traits in this concept is understood as a consequence of the development of special “magic wands” – fl exible polyfunctional structures with high possibilities of modifi cation and synthesis. These include rituals, syntax and “withdrawal communication”, supersituational thinking, arbitrary normativity and institutionality. All of them, on the one hand, are connected in a special way with the ability to create intergroup alliances, and on the other hand, they constitute necessary and suffi cient ingredients for the essential qualities of “rationality”.