The educational doctrine of The Great Didactic as one of the “grand narratives” (J.-F. Lyotard) suffered its complete setback as a result of events that took place in Paris in 1968. Students stopped believing in the correctness of the entrenched education system with its goals and ideals, and from the inside they “blew up” the “walls” of universities, which continued to follow the traditional teaching methods and content of the learning process. According to the author of this study, the ideological explosion inside the society in the form of a revolutionary riot of students of the Parisian universities in May 1968, who protested against the existing education system as a whole and against the current structure of the relationship between the actors of the educational process, served as a symbolic and actual end of the didactic era of John Amos Comenius and as a beginning of a new poststructuralist didactics. It is important to note that the destruction of the boundaries of the traditional educational space, which led to the emergence of a new type of university, was precisely due to the forces within the classroom curriculum. Today pedagogy is unable autonomously, through its own theories and scientific instruments to determine whom to teach because the student from the subject turns into a subject+, virtually migrating in the cyber-educational space through all sorts of gadgets, which form the prosthetic skeleton of the modern learners - schoolchildren, students. The trajectory of child’s education should not be rigidly determined by curricula and programmes. Teaching in the school should be organized by a teacher on the principle of “ad hoc.”

The article considers the problem of rationality on the basis of two key texts by the prominent proponents of the new cartography for philosophy. These include A Manifesto for Re:emergent Philosophy by Jonardon Ganery (2016) and Comparative Philosophy without Borders edited by Arindam Chakrabarti and Ralf Weber (2016). The both mentioned texts are imbued with the fervor of the movement for liberation from colonial intellectual servitude and epistemological injustice that does not recognize a plurality of ways of thinking. They call for redefinition of the distinctive models of understanding as well as for justification of their rights to be acknowledged. A new cartography of philosophy presupposes a new atlas of rationality. The Manifesto by J. Ganery is compared with The Manifesto for Philosophy by A. Badiou. Both are calling for support for their global projects - “rebuilding of philosophy’s edifice” (Badiou) and “re:emergence of philosophy” (Ganeri). Badiou implies “an approach to the Philosophy” or “a return to the philosophy” by recognition of the four sources of the truth, which he regards as politics, love, art and science. Ganery speaks about “the plurality of ways of thinking”, about the movement for liberation from colonial intellectual dependence by applying the intercultural approach. The two philosophers acknowledge the plurality of cultural worlds. Badiou means “the philosophy of events,” while Ganery - “philosophy of a new cartography.” Badiou discovers different logics in disparate worlds that every time are submitted in specific forms, and thus he comes to the conclusion that single universal logic is impossible. Ganery is consistent and does not contradict himself by claiming plurality of rationalities, of logical systems, and thus advocates the promotion of the project for a new cartography of philosophy.

In the article the authors put and discuss the problem of rationality in the culture of Old Russia in the context of contemporary discussions on the prob- lems of rationality. Enlighteners of Peter's time adhered to the view of the total absence of intellectual life in Old Russia. Authors distinguish various areas of intellectual activity: the study of nature, mathematical and chronological works, the use of logical tools in apologetics and polemics, medical practices, political strategies, translation activity, understanding of the inner nature of man. The evolution of Old Russian language passed along the line of transformations of concrete-figurative thinking into conceptual, abstract thinking. In the processes of mastering philosophical concepts, the formation of an analytical system of language on a logico-verbal basis takes place. In the formation of a verbal-ordered language, the key role was played by symbols-concrete things, verbal and abstract. Fundamental philosophical concepts stem from symbols. Specific-proprietary and conceptual languages have different expressive and cognitive capabilities. Allegory, analogy, thought experiment (design), isolation of an abstract trait, visualization are typical techniques of figurative thinking. Modern Russian language absorbed the features of both figurative and logical construction. The digital era opens up new possibilities for visual methods of encoding information.

The article examines the conquest of the New World in the focus of interaction of different types of thinking in the clash and conflict of two civilizations, which develop in different ways and which are at different levels of social and economic development. The result of this clash was the destruction of the material, spiritual and intellectual traditions of indigenous cultures that existed on the American continent. The conquest of America is one of the most revealing examples of the clash of civilizations, analyzing which, with particular clarity, one can observe contradictions between different types of world perception. The answer to questions about what kind of knowledge Nahua-speaking people possessed, what role knowledge played in their society, who was the creator, carrier and translator of knowledge about the world, reveals one of the main reasons that led to a rapid and irretrievable destruction of culture of “metaphors and numbers.” The author reveals the role of Catholic monks in preserving the spiritual, scientific and philosophical heritage of the Mexican culture, thanks to which we have the opportunity to touch the thought of the Nahua people, existing not in the form of traditional texts but in the form of an oral tradition, which accompanied visual images of graphic semantic writing. It shows how important the system of education and upbringing in the society of pre-Columbian Mexico was, how it solved the tasks of preparing young people for the performance of social functions. The destruction, as a result of the con- quest, of the system that regulated the daily life of each person and determined the ultimate destiny of the people in the shortest possible time led to the death of the entire civilization.

The article touches upon the problem of concept “Indian tradition of rationality”. The author recalls a genetic link of the concept with Western philosophy. She notices the complexity of its application to Indian material, gives some examples in which the use of Western concepts of “reason”, “methods of cognition”, etc., leads to a distortion of the text’s meaning, and when an application of the criteria of Western logic to analysis of Indian philosophical discourse gives the readers an impression of its absurdity. However, according to the author’s mind, the difficulties with the applying of Western concepts are not the sufficient grounds to abandon them. This conclusion follows from the presence of comparative studies by researchers belonging to both traditions (for example, B.K. Matilal, J. Mohanty, A. Chakrabarti, etc.), who compare successfully Western and Indian kinds of logico-epistemological type of rationality. The difficulties just bring up the questions about new instrumental concepts and methods of comparative studies more adequate to Indian culture. There are two possible directions for the studies of Indian tradition of rationality in connection with the revision of contents of the concepts in Western post- modern philosophy. In the first of them the concept of rationality can not to be used at all, then the phenomenology of practices of Indian discourse becomes the subject of research, i.e. the discourse images in different contexts (religious, philosophical, scientific), its explicit and implicit foundations and aims, which aren’t coincide with Western ones. In the second case Indian rationality can be analyzed in accordance with the criteria of transversal reason and transversal rationality.

The article is devoted to the study of electronic culture as a new phenomenon of the information age, as a special sphere of human activity associated with the creation of digital objects, the simulations of objects of “living” culture, virtual spaces and processes. The concept of “electronic culture” is explained in comparison with relative (but not identical) to it terms, such as cyber culture, Internet culture, online culture, digital culture, etc. The purpose of this study is to identify the internal structure of electronic culture as a system of various information phenomena and processes, to examine the relations between them and their general characteristics as part of a single whole. The electronic culture is reviewed as a system of elements which are in different ways described by researchers in the modern social sciences and humanities. The author systematizes the main methodological approaches to the study of electronic culture and reveals meanings and connotations of the concept of electronic culture in various scientific discourses. The novelty of the study is associated with the modeling the structure of electronic culture from the perspective of existential-axiological analysis, with the identification of its key elements and the relations between them. A new typology of electronic culture objects of various nature is proposed: anthropological, ontological, social, communicative, existential, etc. The research describes various phenomena of information space as a general system, defines the basic concepts of electronic culture, developing in recent decades in the social sciences and humanities.

Modern digital technologies create new living conditions, but they themselves depend on the socio-cultural context of their development and use. In this regard, it seems important and necessary to talk about socio-cultural engineering (SCI) - the systematization of knowledge, practices of development, examination and implementation of projects related to the transformation of social reality and the socialization of the individual. SCI is able to create a new situation as a framework for integration, convergence and comprehension of these plans. In this case, digitalization can not only generate problems, but can also provide a platform for solving these problems. The topical task is the systematization of the study, interpretation and positioning of the interdisciplinary complex of SCI. The solution of this task includes substantiation of the methodology and positioning of interdisciplinary studies, as well as the substantiation of the methodology and the institutionalization of a complex humanitarian expertise.

The author examines the history of pragmatism and maintains that a thematic continuity runs through the classical pragmatists, neopragmatists and contemporary pragmatists. This continuity can be vaguely characterized as an integration of theory and practice, but experience gives theory its content such that action is always guiding the formation of knowledge. There are four implications of this continuity. Pragmatists are centrally concerned with the human relationship to a process-oriented and evolving conception of nature. For pragmatists, our beliefs are regarded not as propositions that map onto a separate and fixed reality, but instead their truth emerges out of the habits beliefs generate. Pragmatism emphasizes an openness to possibility since our access to the world of experience is mediated by a variety of selective interests, intellectual histories, varying linguistic and discursive practices. Pragmatists are deeply concerned with the social and political problems that confront us on a daily basis. The author also examines the manner in which James understands the term “metaphysics” given that pragmatism is a method for settling “metaphysical disputes.” Jamesian existential pluralism implies to maximize all possibilities that can satisfy everyone as much as possible without impeding and harming another's capacity to experience a rich and novel world. The author analyzes Todd May’s approach to the analytic-continental divide and concludes that if settlement embraces James’s thick conception of experience, then the resulting ontological pluralism is the best settlement possible, and this commitment to pluralism requires dissolving the exclusionary practices the analytic-continental divide suggests philosophically.

Social philosophy is knowledge that is called to answer the question about the goals of human existence and human historical life. In this sense, it is a valuative philosophy. This determines the specificity and boundaries of its object. It includes: 1) society as self-organizing system of sociality reproduction, 2) historical process in its relation with value meanings and constants of human existence, and 3) social epistemology, exploring the possibilities and ways of adequately social reality comprehension. Social philosophy conceptually crosses theoretical sociology and the philosophy of history within the boundaries of its problem field. The main theme of social philosophy is a theme of human, focusing research interest on the question “Who are we and where are we going?” Today boundaries of social philosophy are blurring under the postmodern influence on the humanities. Philosophical vision of social reality is replaced by the description of narratives designed by communicative practice that cannot be represented as a whole and do not obey to general analytical logic. This actualizes an appeal to social philosophy as a way of explanation of socio-cultural realities and, in this connection, to the problematics specifying the existing ideas about its object.

The article discusses the question of what social philosophy is and how it is constructed. On the one hand, this is an area of philosophy that focuses on a set of social problems and attributes through the lens of the naturalistic research program, which considers these attributes as similar to some type of “things.” On the other hand, cultural-centric program solves the question of how and when philosophy itself became social: starting with modernity and its processional characteristics, i.e. - in the first, in the second and the third modernity, in the processes of globalization and other social transformations, in processionality of identity, ethnicity, etc. Both modes of research are outlined, and emphasis is placed on the advantages of the cultural-centrist research program. The philosophy of the first - liberal modernity of the 19 th century, the second - organized modernity of the 20th century, the processes of the 21 st century, opening up a new type of modernity - new Modernity for non-Western countries, is the social philosophy of processes, paying special attention not to the aspectual, quasi-concrete interpretation of the summable features of social reality but to processes.

The present article considers the problematical nature of social philosophy’s interdisciplinary character. The author considers that we can discover its specification as an independent area of the humanities, with exarticulation of adjacent to social philosophy disciplines like political philosophy, historic sociology and social theory. If it will be done, we will be able as the scientists to prove that social philosophy, which if often considering as the synonymous of social theory, has right to exist. The author comes to conclusion that the most part of social theory supporters try to ignore valuative dimension in “theories” of thinkers they research (Georg Simmel, Hanna Arendt, Juergen Habermas, Zygmunt Bauman). In fact it is а duty of social philosophy which nature is valuative. In author’s point of view, such a trend in theoretical sociology as “cultural sociology,” which use not only explanatory and descriptive methods but also interpretations, reflects the differences between social theory and social philosophy because it emphasizes the cultural dimension of social processes. For example, cultural sociology deals with issues that are more relevant to philosophy than to sociology, in particular, it concerns the problem of evil.

In this article we reveal the common conditions of modern social philosphy (poststructuralism, neo-Marxism, analytical philosophy of history), which theoretical discourse is subordinated to critical discourse, as distinguished from the canonical I. Kant’s, G. Hegel’s, M. Heidegger’s, M. Sheller’s J.-P. Sartre’s philosophical theories, which are bonded with the development of positivist epistemological, historical, ontological or anthropological presuppositions. We will talk about tree main conditions: 1) decline of theological definition of subject, 2) mechanism of repetition, 3) interdisciplinarity. In the first case, we will discuss transition from subject definition through the God to his definition through the figure of Other, which allows philosophers as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche or Sheller expose metaphysics with consistent methodological criticism. In the second case, we will talk about forming of critical discourse establishing itself as the extended analog of psychoanalytical revealing of unconsciousness content. In the third case, we will examine interdisciplinary approach, assuming combination of different methods possible to increase this criticism and put empirical borders of its theoretical presuppositions.

This article outlines an approach to social philosophy as empirical philosophy. Each philosophical act is localized and performed by a particular author in a particular context and agenda. Based on ideas of Kant, Heidegger, Foucault, it is suggested to understand this fact through double structure of finitude. On the one hand, social scientist within his finite existence is produced by the complex of instances, each bearing particular existence and historicity, such as language, social patterns, gender, etc. The fact that he is always-already produced by the world and entangled in it implies that his thinking is potentially contaminated by meanings imposed by these instances. On the other hand, his knowledge is finite that means inherent divide between social reality and discourse about it. This position of a social scientist implies the feautures of social philosophy approach, such as instrumentalization of concepts, separation of method from ontology, empiricism, plasticity of borders of the social and its historicity. In conclusion several examples of the approach are provided.

The article considers the transformation of social philosophy object in the context of modern social development challenges. The author proves the actual idea that contemporary social philosophy, retaining its traditional object scope, is transformed due to fast social changes. According to the author, it is caused by following challenges: change of person problem status in social philosophy object field, theoretical sociological knowledge influence, knowledge structures evolution, new methodological approaches, including social constructivism, and geopolitical and modern civilization development challenges. Contemporary social philosophy, describing the picture of social transformations, underlines the transition from the interpretation of historical process as a change of external world to its interpretation as a process of human self-development, his self-change and self-realization. That is why contemporary post-industrial society, orientated on an innovation development, actualizes problematic of human potential and human capital development. The author concludes that the object of social philosophy undergoes substantial changes, and its problems are considered from a new perspective.

The article examines the main meanings of the concept of “social philosophy” and reveals three such meanings. First, social philosophy presents the views of a particular thinker (from antiquity to the present day) on society and its nature. Second, social philosophy is the study of the most general laws of development of nature and society (scientific philosophy). Third, social philosophy is a value- worldview analysis of the most urgent and complex problems of social development, including philosophical (worldview) criticism of the prevailing ideas in this society and the search for constructive value alternatives. The author adheres to the third approach to understanding the meaning of social philosophy and gives two examples of socio-philosophical work: 1) analysis of the problem of labor in Russia in the context of the dominance of the theory of ‘catching up’ modernization; 2) analysis of the problem of democracy in the context of prevailing ideas about the inevitability of political authoritarianism as the main path of development of Russian civilization.

The article is devoted to the problem of the demarcation of social sciences from social philosophy. The author proposes to model the relations between these two disciplines as a continuum instead of binary opposition - a continuum in which certain authors and concepts are located depending on the nature of their statements (descriptive or prescriptive/evaluative) and the amount of empirical data involved. To illustrate a number of this continuum’s positions and features, the concept of the sacred is brought: emerging in Modern history as a cultural idea, in the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in the works of French sociologists it becomes an empirical model that describes both the effect of social solidarity and the particular forms of religious existence. However, later, in the College of Sociology and in the works of such thinkers as G. Bataille, R. Caillois, etc., the concept acquires value meanings and becomes socio-philosophical. The absence of a clear boundary between the two statement formats, it makes possible both the “drifting” from one to another over time (M. Eliade) and the ambiguity of any critics of social science from social philosophy’s position and vice versa. At the same time, the historical “load” of the concept could be discarded in order to use it within the framework of “pure” social science or philosophy.

Social philosophy as a discipline has a number of standard research topics at its disposal, such as the search for the best form of government, the elucidation of the laws of the development of society, the problem of free will and will to power, etc., while the study of the phenomenon of fear is knocked out of this series and is not prerogative of social philosophy. However, upon closer examination, the problem of fear is extremely urgent for social philosophy, and some of its aspects can be correctly interpreted only when using optics and the methodology of this field of scientific knowledge. In this article, we are talking about the peculiarities of the phenomenon of fear, which has an impact on a specific individual in particular and on society as a whole. The author strives to isolate those features that distinguish fear from the total number of problems of modern societies and to present fear as a phenomenon that can not be analyzed only with the help of the means of the natural sciences. Having these features determined, we will understand the need to examine the phenomenon of fear in studying the state of modern societies as well as social philosophy will possess the necessary tools for this analysis.