Ideas and Ideals

The article presents a philosophical and psychological analysis of the psychodynamics of deceit, as a specific phenomenon determined by personal qualities. The results of the study are presented on the basis of a questionnaire developed by the authors to self-evaluate the admissibility of a lie. Students of both sexes participated (156 people between the age of 17-25). Three groups of subjects were identified, 30 people in each: group 1, with a negative attitude to lies; group 2: people who admit to lying in some cases, and group 3: people who admit to lying in all its manifestations. Personality factors in these groups were compared using the Kattel 16 PF questionnaire. People with different permissibility of lying and falsehood have different psychotypes. People who categorically deny and do not tolerate lies and deceit have high self-control of their behavior, severity and rigidity, while they are internally timid, aloof, tense, overly careful, avoid stress, and have a narrow life perspective. A person who admits falsehood in some cases and situations is conformal, dependent, not always confident in himself, often preoccupied with problems, emotionally unstable, often tense. There is a struggle between conscientiousness and falsehood; provoked by emotional instability and the lack of a “moral core” that does not allow the expression of one’s own opinion. Respondents representing the openly deceitful type reveal emotional balance, flexible intelligence, sociability, good memory and variable creative thinking. In the selected groups, there are different ways of resisting stress. It is shown that the adaptability of people from group 3 is higher than that of people from 1 and 2. The permissibility of lying is positively correlated with resilience to stress, and the inadmissibility of lying is associated with low stress tolerance. It follows from this that falsehood is embedded in the structure of the personality as an adaptive strategy. The authors state that falsehood is an adaptive phenomenon that facilitates survival in society.

This paper is devoted to the analysis and to the comparison of concepts on theodicy and on the nature of evil that was developed by two medieval Jewish philosophers. They are Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides or Ralbag, 1288-1344) and Hasdai Crescas (1340-1410/12). The sources of the analysis are the third chapter of the fourth book of the “Wars of the Lord” (1329) by Gersonides and the second chapter of the second book of the “Light of the Lord” (1410) by Crescas. Both philosophers assert that evil essentially cannot come from God. The causes of evil are the sinfulness of human beings, or the celestial bodies, or the breaking of the connection between human and God. The problem of evil and injustice in this world are closely related for Gersonides and Crescas to other problems, such as divine knowledge of future events, free will, reasons for reward and punishment. Gersonides and Crescas differ considerably on these issues. Gersonides demonstrates that God is not an essential source of evil. He proceeded to build on this statement with the fallacy of the opinion that divine providence extends to individuals. After all, said Gersonides, retribution would make God a source of evil. And in this case, righteous men would always be rewarded, and sinners would always be punished for their sins. But obviously this is not the case. Crescas, in contrast to Gersonides, claims that God knows individuals. This does not prevent him from agreeing with Ralbagh that God is not the source of evil. According to Сresсas, any punishment or suffering (even for the righteous) always leads to good. It is obvious therefore that Crescas adheres to a more traditional position, trying, inter alia, to bring his thoughts as close as possible to the ideas expressed in the Torah. Gersonides adheres to a position close to the ideas of Maimonides. Gersonides, in the author’s opinion, created a philosophical concept that is more consistent in comparison with Crescas’ conception, however more distant from the Jewish teaching.

The purpose of this paper is to show how the thought and speech of people holding and defending directly opposite positions affect the change in the thought and speech of people of their own and subsequent generations, with different life orientations, and to find ways of this influence. The author describes the situation that arose at the end of the sixties of the twentieth century, known as the ideological dispersal of philosophical, historical and sociological trends that ran counter to the policy of the CPSU, which became especially fierce in the fight against opponents after the USSR’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in August, 1968. One of the results of such an ideological battle was the defeat of the sector of the methodology of history of the Institute of General History of the USSR Academy of Sciences, headed by M. Ya. Gefter, who published a series of books in which the so-called laws of historical development (formational approach) were questioned and the fundamental provisions of the classics of Marxism-Leninism were criticized.  The subject of analysis is Gefter’s article “A Page from the History of Marxism in the Early 20th Century”, published in the book “Historical Science and Some Problems of the Modernity”, dedicated to the analysis of Lenin’s tactics and strategy development which changed the views of many, especially young, historians on the historical process, and most importantly - on the methods of seeking and expressing the truth. The differences were expressed primarily in the fact that the proponents and defenders of the Soviet regime, which was based on their own established norms of Marxism-Leninism, fearlessly used all means of pressure on unwanted opponents. Professionals, however, who tried to understand the true sense of the historical process, the sense of judgments about it, especially the sense of the revolutionary struggle against the autocracy, unfolding at the beginning of the twentieth century, were forced to use the Aesopian language, which also provoked a distortion of this sense in many ways: due to the nebulous and veiled expressions, which give the impression of theoretical blackmail, causing such consequences as speech irresponsibility.

Scientists and teachers have been discussing the peculiarities of dissemination of postmodernism in different areas of society, usually ignoring universities and scientific organizations. During the dominance period of the rationally-oriented intellectual culture, the communication methods among specialists have been developed, assisting to describe any phenomena. Postmodernism, factually revolutionizing communication and discourses, radically changes the communities producing them. Without understanding the essence of these changes, it becomes almost impossible to comprehend what, how and why they are engaged in universities and scientific organizations, and what is happening in economy and in politics? The mentioned transformations have been identified in the article as a phenomenon of the onset of narcissistic culture. Accepting the concept of high culture and a multitude of local cultures, it is reasonable to note the increasing processes of the cultural patterns, which transfer between different areas of private and public life, which more and more complicate being of an individual in culture, when, in particular, the expansion of human freedom is accompanied by enhancing the control over him. Imagine a carnival unfolding in a space arranged like a rhizome (fractal). In this way, from the deconstruction of concepts we move on to the deconstruction of slogans, which, presumably, served as a source for a new type of public perturbation from the end of the 80s of the 20^th century till the present time. In modern universities, research institutes, entrepreneurship, politics along with liberal values a large-scale dissemination of narcissistic culture took place. The slogan Science Must Serve the People is being deconstructed. Thus, narcissistic culture unfolds beyond the boundaries of this slogan. At the same time, the carriers of narcissistic culture belonging to different generations, educational and academic statuses become not only carriers of new patterns of behavior, but pose themselves in a very special way in society. Individualization beats the standards, including professional ones. Recognizing that culture is an external factor to subjects, mainly predetermining collective memory, as well as collective thinking and imagination (expectations), and the transition from mass to narcissistic culture changes the social roles and transforms the society. Even in elite universities professionalism is squeezed out in order to achieve the needs for convenience and comfort. The loss of the importance of professionalism in the environment causes a response - self-isolation (absenteeism) of specialists. In the field of entrepreneurship, replacing mass culture with a narcissistic one required new artistic models, a change in behavior style, and legitimization of hedonism and egocentrism. Perhaps this is the reason for the decline in the world economic growth rates. Under the prevailing conditions a healthy lifestyle becomes a necessary setting for meeting certain social and political indicators. There has been a dramatic cultural shift in electoral democracy. It is no longer important to ‘enrapture the hearts and souls’, but to be in admiration of yourself and your close environment. Absenteeism is an immanent feature of narcissistic culture, leading the individual to alienation from the political life of the society. Narcissistic culture has always existed, but postmodernism served as a unique medium for its dissemination. Despite numerous criticisms of narcissistic culture, it brings a high diversity to all areas where it penetrates, and this diversity can act as a trigger mechanism to the beginning of a new round for the development of mankind. Narcissistic culture in the 20^th century is an external factor changing the flow of all social processes, including economic, political, and social ones. A project ignoring the peculiarities of cultural narcissism discussed above is doomed to failure.

The article discusses the problems of the professional ethos of science genesis and its transformation in the context of modern realities. There is a brief description of the classical norms of the scientific ethos (universalism, communalism, disinterestedness and organized skepticism), formulated by R. Merton in the late 1930s and early 1940s, in response to the sharp exacerbation of the problem of science’s autonomy in the conditions of totalitarian regimes. The key idea of ​​Merton is especially emphasized: compliance with the norms is aimed primarily at optimizing the process of scientific production and, thereby, the most effective solution to the main goal of science – the increasing of certified knowledge volume. The concept of the ethical imperatives of a scientific profession was almost immediately criticized for being ‘idealistic’ and ‘disconnected from real life’, and by the end of the 1960s it intensified many times over. You can find the examples of critical attitude to the concept of Merton, also we described the alternative versions of the norms of scientific ethos (in the interpretation of Mitroff and Fuller). It has been established that under the conditions of academic capitalism, which implies the incorporation of market culture into the system of scientific research, a negative deformation of classical norms occurs, in practice creating barriers to the production of knowledge and disrupting the practice of communication within the scientific community. The result of this deformation is the system of relationships between scientists, described by Ziman in the framework of the concept of ‘post-academic science’. Evidence is presented that the process of degradation of norms is further intensified in the conditions of cognitive capitalism and neoliberal science. Using the example of modern Russian science, the author shows that the result of such degradation is, for example, the exacerbation of the problem of plagiarism. Methods of counteracting such practice are briefly described using the example of modern Russian science, such as the creation of a Dissernet community or a special commission to counteract falsification of scientific research within the framework of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In a theoretical sense, in the context of the philosophy and sociology of science, the concept of ‘two ethics’ proposed by B. Pruzhinin, looks productive. B. Pruzhinin singles out the specific ethos of fundamental and applied science.

The article examines the paradoxical nature of G. W. F. Hegel’s biography and philosophical ideology. The essence of paradoxicality is substantiated by several factors – biographical, historical-philosophical, hermeneutical, and concrete-historical. The purpose of the work is to identify insufficiently known aspects of the personality and philosophical ideology of the thinker. Methodologically, the study is constructed using dialectical and historical-logical methods. The results of the study are to reveal the voluminous inconsistency of Hegel’s biography and thought; to clarify both the positive and negative aspects of his philosophical ideology.

The author shows a number of paradoxes of Hegel’s philosophy: first, the understanding of development as a ‘hard’ war against itself and inattention to the multifactorial and non-linear nature of many processes; secondly, focusing on a logical idea belittles or denies the value of everything else, including living and human beings; thirdly, the desire to raise a person to ‘the highest’ position and at the same time enslave him as a universal creature and a state citizen; fourth, Hegel’s essentialism is frankly anti-existential and merciless to everything private and subjective; fifth, Hegel’s seemingly flawless scientific system suffers from inattention to the complexity and unpredictability of reality; sixth, the Lutheran religiosity of the philosopher turns out to be almost anti-Christian – with the non-recognition of the Most Holy Trinity, without the desire to become a ‘servant’ of another, etc.; seventh, Hegel’s decency and philistine ‘kindness’ are radically different from his pejorative attitude towards the female sex, other peoples, races, and civilizations. Colonialism is justified. Hence, it was quite natural for the German Nazis to turn to Hegel’s ideas. Eighth, the great dialectic has too much belittled the reality of static things, unambiguity and invariance.

The novelty of the research lies in the recognition of the true causes and tasks of the thinker’s life and work; in the explanation of his main values, including his understanding of Christianity; in the clarification of the Hegel-German and Hegel-citizen positions.

The conclusions of the study are related to the antithetical comparison of the ideology and philosophy of Hegel and Hesse, Hegel and Shestov. The author highlights anti-existential and racial-nationalist motives of the philosopher’s work.

The article deals with the analysis of the Soviet national policy from a historical perspective with a focus on investigating into conditions of the loyalty of national elites towards the central government in the last period of the USSR existence. The indicators of the low level loyalty are as follows: supporting the ideas of national sovereignty and independence, participating in the national movement by ruling cadres, influential intellectuals and population. The author shows low sympathy of both groups of representatives: elites and broad population to nationalist ideas. The analysis is based on comparing contrastive cases – the Soviet elites of the Baltic republics (Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia) and Belorussia in their interactions with the central government as well as local population in the period from 1945 to 1991. These republics, their population and elites were similar regarding some important aspects such as historical and cultural as well as demographic characteristics in the case of Belorussia and Lithuania; some important features of the industry (big export-oriented enterprises) regarding Estonia, Latvia and Belorussia. At the same time, these cases showed a different level of the loyalty towards the Union center, namely, relatively high among the Belorussian Soviet ruling cadres and population and relatively low in the Baltic republics by the end of 1980s.

The important aspect of the Soviet national policy was establishing new national elites, educational and cultural institutions preserving their native languages as well as the promotion of native cadres into the positions of power in the regional administration. In some respects, this policy was similar to the “indirect rule” implemented in the imperial period of Russian history and consisted in the cooperation between the central government and local elites as the main approach to administrating a multinational state. However, in comparison with the previous practice tending to include national elites in the imperial nobility, the post revolutionary approach considered the creation of national elites through promoting local cultural and educational institutions that offer quite prestigious but specific positions occupied mostly by representatives of the respective ethnic group.

Creating local elites reduced the competition for “universal” positions since socialization and career of “national staff” were oriented towards national institutes. However, increasing numbers of “national staff” with limited positions for them had negative social consequences (elite overproduction). Intra-elite tension increased due to the migration from other regions (in the case of Latvia and Estonia). The other reason of this phenomenon was pursuing socialization strategies oriented to the places of origin (in the case of Lithuania). The attractiveness of the Baltic republics both for local population and migrants from other regions of the USSR was caused by a relatively high level of living standards in these union republics.

Location of big export-oriented enterprises in the territory of Belorussia created conditions for preferring socialization strategies oriented towards integration with the Soviet Union economy and, therefore, enhanced loyalty towards the USSR center from both elites and population. Besides, the administrative apparatus of the Soviet Belorussia was recruited extensively among participants of the Soviet partisan movement 1941–1944 what explains the devotion of the Belorussian elite to the Soviet symbols and values. At the same time, the base of the legitimization of the Soviet Lithuanian elite was its ability to control the anti-Soviet (nationalist) movement as well supporting national culture and language.

Is there a universal human mind? The Western European philosophizing paradigm with well-developed methodological tools provides an affirmative answer to this question. It is generally accepted that rationality is the same, and scientific and technological progress that transformed the planet is the fruit of Western European culture. It would be very strange to talk about the “atlas of rationality,” or “the geography of rationality”, about European, Arab, Chinese, or African rationality within the framework of the Western European conceptual philosophizing system. However, with the entry into the socio-political and economic arena of non-Western civilizations, and, accordingly, worldviews and traditions of philosophizing, the question arose of alternative understandings of rationality. The eternal philosophical problem of the universal and the concrete-unique has received a new sound in the context of globalization and the growing complex interaction of cultures. A new planetary world order is being created along with a rethinking of the fundamental problem of nature and the possibilities of the human mind.

Is there a universal human mind in general?

The demands of life and the future world order brought to life the project of the Round Table “Geography of Rationality”, which is annually held at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Project Manager – Director of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician A.V. Smirnov. Moderators: Professor I.A. Gerasimova (Institute of Philosophy, RAS), Professor A.A. Krushinskiy (Institute of the Far East, RAS). You can get acquainted with the heated discussions through the videos of March 20, 2018, April 25 and June 13, 2019.

The meeting of East and West at the Round Table was an attempt to expand the dialogue to professional interdisciplinary cooperation. The discussion was attended, on the one hand, by experts with knowledge of oriental languages ​​and philosophical teachings: Indologists, Arabists, Sinologists, Japanese historians, researchers of the Persian language and culture of Iran. The ancient Russian rational culture, as well as the first geopolitical situation that arose when Europeans appeared in the New World, were not forgotten. The “Westerners” were represented by epistemologists, methodologists of science, logicians, cognitive scientists, and synergetics. With each regular meeting, new specialists join the dialogue.

If at the first meeting the question of the “geography of rationality” arose in general terms, then in the subsequent meetings more specific problems were discussed. Each culture is unique, the system of thinking is directly linked to the realities of the language. There was and remains the problem of the adequacy of translation from one language to another language, and, accordingly, the problem of the transfer of meaning and understanding. At the same time, the exchange of knowledge and practices between cultures has always existed. Historically, people have found opportunities to understand the Other and learn from valuable experience. European philosophy in all its many directions and doctrines has developed a filigree language for discussing the diversity of the problems of cognition of nature, society and man. But the meeting of East and West showed that not everything is embraced by a positively directed philosophical thought. There can be disparate pictures of the world, different linguistic pictures of the world, diametrically opposite value orientations.

How to learn to understand each other? In western and domestic universities, philosophy courses are taught in the Western European paradigm and within the framework of the Western European conceptual system. The attitude to conceptual Eurocentrism is twofold: on the one hand, we understand something in our native language, which is constantly evolving, incorporating the concepts of a different system, and on the other hand, the orientation exclusively on conceptual Eurocentrism often simplifies and distorts real situations. Apparently, mutual understanding of cultures can only be achieved through joint efforts.

Turning to a specifically different one not only leads to a deeper understanding of one's own culture, but also conceals new possibilities of creativity, expanding the horizons of thought. For example, the problem of the procedural ontology of the Arabic language has exacerbated the question of ontologies of Indo-European languages ​​and models of logic that are “supportive” for Western European rationality (Round table from June 13, 2019).

The fourth Round Table “Geography of Rationality” was held in the context of the coronovirus pandemic, but this did not become an obstacle for the project participants. The remote access discussion focused around A.A. Krushinskiy “Subject, space, time: how to read the ancient Chinese text” (Round table on March 31, 2020). If philosophical systems based on Indo-European languages ​​can be considered on the principle of family similarity, then the situation with the Chinese language and mentality is more complicated. Translations of classical ancient texts from Chinese into Russian vary to such an extent that one can doubt the professional qualifications of specialists. But what then should the philosophical community do? How to avoid profanity when introducing eastern philosophies into the general philosophical space? The controversy between the Sinologists touched upon problems that went beyond exclusively historical and philosophical research: the relationship between historical and philosophical studies and philosophical methodologies (S.Yu. Rykov); polysemy of languages, including the Chinese language (M.V. Rubets), the problem of protosubject in the Chinese text (N.V. Pushkarskaya), the question of multilevel meaning generation and specific trajectories of cognitive evolution in the "atlas of rationality" (I.A. Gerasimova), about the values ​​of old texts in the context of modern realities on the example of a pandemic (M.R. Burget Ayala). Through centuries, the dialogue on behalf of Kant, Hegel, and the Sufi sages was conducted in a dispute on the problem of time by two orientalists – R.V. Pskhu and A.V. Paribok whose preferences have diverged.

Philosophical discussions are traditionally famous for posing questions and unexpected coverage of problems. The participants in the discussions on the project “Geography of Rationality” hope for the fruitfulness of their undertakings. The concept of the journal “Ideas and Ideals” contains a call for the development of broad public philosophical discussions on pressing problems of modern life and the future world order. The participants in the discussions of the Round table “The Geography of Rationality” hope for mutual understanding and active participation of readers of the journal “Ideas and Ideals”. The unity of the cultural centers of Moscow and Novosibirsk can be regarded as a landmark event.