The authors deal with the classic paradox of ethical theories, “Hume’s guillotine,” based on the contradiction in morality between what is and what should be. At the same time, the theological justification of moral principles is beyond this criticism, because the sacred commandments “by definition” combine what is and what should be, overcoming the “secular” gap between being and duty, and thus “the problem of transition from description to evaluation is removed.” Modern ways of removing this contradiction, revealed by Hume, are considered from several points of view. Special attention is paid to the analogy between the development of ethical and mathematical theories, a synergistic approach to the formation of ethics, as well as to the ethical choice associated with the development of digital reality, which humanity will face soon. A synergistic approach can be viewed as a bridge “over the abyss of two cultures - natural science and humanities.” Now it has become clear that there can be many logics, geometries, versions of analysis of infinitely small, etc. Ethics can also be constructed and then put into practice. A classic example is the ethical code of King Lycurgus. Separate ethical systems are not able to ensure the survival of humanity under extreme conditions. Existence of general ethical rules in global crises allows many to survive. Without them, everyone would die. True amazement is the fact that the eight Dyakonov phase transitions in human history completely coincide with the crises periodicity presented in the text of the Apocalypse, where crises are figuratively called “beasts.” Then a vivid picture is given, a picture of the civilization transformation into a post-singular state, which goes beyond the horizon of scientific forecast.

In the 21^st century, there is a turn of thinking toward its reorientation first of all to the human as an author of thought and not to the nature, existing independently of us and of the process of scientific knowledge obtaining. It is possible to see the difference of these two types of thinking (classical and non-classical) in the context of dialogue between W. Whewell’s philosophy and the scientific investigations after the scientific revolution in the beginning of the 20^th century. In the philosophy of 21^st century, man is a social being and this is the basis of social philosophy (social epistemology). The artificial world around us is created by a human, it has its foundation in the laws of thinking but not the laws of nature. The foundations of both systems are quite different. In what way can we achieve mutual understanding between them? From both sides some aspects can be put forward, for instance, the concept of a mediator (carrier) of a thought. This concept is studied actively by W. Whewell and by philosophers of our time, and this leads in both cases to some unexpected interpretation of the basic question of philosophy: the border between thing and thought is becoming less noticeable. We can come to the same result, going by different ways. Whewell finds common qualities for some group of things. Social philosophers are interested in what makes things different. Not one of these idealizations corresponds completely to the reality. Always something is not taken into consideration. A thinker chooses out of real world some of its characteristics that become a basis of a thought system, which explains everything but in its own way. The paper demonstrates the way of possible creation of a new type of thinking.

The article is dedicated to the problem of “sacred time” and analyzes the variable relations between the sacred, time and history. Starting from the controversy with Mircea Eliade’s popular idea that sacred time represents the archetypal eternity opposed to profane duration, the author underlines extremely peculiar character of this idea and considers several others in order to show that this problem could be solved differently. In Durkheim’s theory the place of sacred time is occupied by collective “total time” as a social cycle that suppresses and incorporates all the individual cycles. In the theory of Hubert and Mauss the sacred reproduces itself in the ritual, which is based on natural cycles, i.e. revolution of the seasons. Bataille’s views on the temporal and historical dimensions of the sacred were constantly changing, so in the late 1930s he appealed to the time of “eternal recurrence” and then in his later works he consistently contrasted the sacred timelessness to the profane duration, which takes shape in the positioning of the instrument of labor and the distance between the goals and the means. Caillois equated the meanings of the archaic holiday and modern war, pointing to the evolution of the sacred in the recent history, and Girard regarded the sacred time as a kind of cyclic “loops” appearing in the ordinary time and believed that the Christian revelation deprives the sacred of its power and moves the history to apocalypse. All this allows the author to draw a conclusion about the relativity of sacred time as a concept and relativize it as a research tool.

Multi-agent systems (MAS) is a technology based on distributed computing, designed to emulate the complex emergent behavior of multiple agents on the basis of various feedback mechanisms. Philosophical interest therein is caused, firstly, by the cognitive properties of individual agents and of the system as a whole; secondly, with the possible modeling of complex social behavior and, possibly, by the perspective of a progress in social understanding. The main problem is the extent to which multi-agent models correspond to the simulated reality. Since they are computing systems, it is necessary to consider the general theory of computations and their ontological status; to determine how the computational processes form rule-like systems consisting of multiple cognitively enabled agents; to make plausible assumptions about the regularities of the evolution of such systems under natural and artificial conditions. Particular attention is paid to the hypothesis of the limited rationality of agents or, what is the same, to their cognitive limitations, which demands the application of epistemic logic formalism to MAS functioning. The obtained results give additional arguments in favor of the well-known philosophical thesis: the higher cognitive capabilities are determined and explained by the complex social organization of their bearers.

The article discusses the problem of the possibility of knowing the future, especially the future of social phenomena compared with the future of natural ones. This problem is formulated as a dilemma: the future can be explored or can be only constructed. The idea of constructive character of knowledge of the future is viewed in two possible interpretations.The first one is a special case of the constructivist interpretation of knowledge, according to which different pictures of the future are arbitrarily constructed on the basis of information about the past and current state. The second interpretaion can be presented in the form of a praxeological question: what should be an action in relation to the future, first and foremost to the future of social phenomena - cognitive or creative. It is shown that, in the first case, there is an ability to interpret knowledge of the future from the point of view of epistemological realism, in the second case, both cognitive and creative types of activity as a pragmatic position in relation to the future are necessary and cognitive activity cannot be reduced to creative one. It is also shown that forecaster’s dilemma reflects the problematic nature of forecasting under the conditions of transformation of scientific rationality and point of view of common sense, which is observed in recent decades.

The reasonable human nature appears in the Enlightenment’s philosophy as a reduction of the human being and its manifestations to a complex of natural impulses when all former norms of perception, reflections, inclinations, actions and the moral principles, which lie in their basis, are canceled in the free human self-experimenting. The monarchy idea depreciates when its citizens turn in the public good’s proponents on the basis of a blind republican consent about the egoism’s limitation (Robespierre) and a prosopo-peia of freedom that gives to a nation the self-government illusion. The reconsideration of the revolutionary moment as a self-affirmation of romantic spirit is connected for Tolstoy with the “world will” novel poetics opening evolutionary moment in the affective and reflexive dynamics of the hero’s consciousness, the limiting witness of the narrator and the author’s horizon of progressive movement to the historical process’s purpose that creates the belief in the need of coexistence with other participating consciousnesses. The revolutionary and evolutionary reflection of Tolstoy is related to the monoteis-tic prosopopoeia of divine kenosis. From an artistic representation of signifying articulations of the evolutionary world the teacher’s reflection of Tolstoy is born. For Tolstoy revolution is the moment of the senseless violence aiming to eliminate the common evil of the world. The conceptual basis of literary culture as an art and ideological formatting of reactive consciousnesses for Tolstoy is an infinite aspiration to the human self-limitation.

In the mid-1970s it became clear for conservative intellectuals in Britain that conservatism is in need of renewal, as its ideological counterparts, namely liberalism and leftism, had already provided for themselves their independent credentials, while conservatism tended to be confused with liberalism and, unlike leftism, had little if no appeal in academia. Roger Scruton was one of those intellectuals who has set out to overcome the conservative distaste to ideology and aversion to theorizing, attempting to reformulate the conservative dogma. The main difficulty for his endeavor is that dogma literary understood would necessarily contain ideas widely regarded as being out of day. So what is needed for conservatism today is not only a set of fixed ideas but first and foremost a kind of attitude toward reality which could awake sympathy in us for ways of life that are not and could not be ours. This view of things involves а version of “as if” philosophy, the mainstay of which is the concept of imagination. This concept is of special importance for those who analyze the limits of conservative persuasion today. The author contends that dealing with these limits Scruton makes use of the distinction between fancy and imagination in a way that makes possible for his unusual “work of dogmatics” to fit into the conservative tradition.

André Comte-Sponville is a French philosopher-essayist, pondering the problems of morality and life wisdom. He develops the conception of ego-philosophy that is the theory based on the analysis of the subjective existential human experience. As an initial evidence of consciousness and a point of support for philosophical reasoning, he cites feelings of anxiety, despair and suffering. Ego possesses being, it is a subjective reality that is revealed to a man as a result of free and creative perception of the world. This knowledge is always unique, situational, not amenable to formalization and unification, because it is a result of a personal relation of man to the absolute. Ego-philosophy is not a traditional scientific discipline, summarizing specific facts and formulating theories. Ego-philosophy expresses itself in a generally accessible language and appeals to all mankind. This is an art of life wisdom, indicating to the individual a path to true ideals, allowing one to gain dignity and happiness, to free oneself from temptations and passions. Comte-Sponville substantiates the ethical theory that, under the conditions of the crisis of traditional ideas about moral norms, a person must strive to fill the emptiness of the world with his own creative energy, give meaning to life, affirm positive values. The philosopher creates a theory of virtues in which he takes the leading role in sublime love (agape) as the apotheosis of generosity and mercy. In the area of politics, Comte-Sponville adheres to the position of socio-liberalism. Recognizing the economic efficiency of market relations and the principle of freedom action, the philosopher believes that the logic of economic activity does not coincide with socially important tasks and ethical values. In order for society to develop harmoniously, it is necessary to create a welfare state and reliable political institutions that ensure the observance of the principles of humanism, high culture and justice.