The article examines the views of the prominent Russian politician and publicist Vasily Vitalyevich Shulgin (1878–1976), whom the author considers to be the largest ideologist of the “chieftain” political subculture in Russian political culture. Following Shulgin, the author distinguishes two fundamentally different models of power: “monarchical” (traditional) type of power and “chieftain” (or “charismatic”) type of power. V.V. Shulgin was one of the first Russian thinkers who, after Alexander Pushkin and Sergei Solovyov, considered the “golden age” of the Russian society to be under the rule of “leaders-heroes” (for example, Peter the Great). Shulgin explained many of the problems of Russian statehood revealed in the early 20th century by the degradation of the Russian ruling class and specifically the Romanov dynasty. Under these conditions, the national leader P.A. Stolypin (similar to Bismarck in Germany or Mussolini in Italy), able to bring the country out of crisis by evolution, had appeared “next to the monarch,” but he has not been appreciated by Russian society and it has caused a national catastrophe. The First World War has accelerated the degradation of the Russian government. The “democratic forces” that came to power in Russia for a short time could not nominate a new “leader” from their ranks (Shulgin treats Alexander Kerensky rather ironically). Shulgin foresaw that “intermediate figures” like the White generals or the Red diarchy of Lenin and Trotsky would eventually give way to the autocratic rule of an all-Russian “Chief,” who would combine the ideology of the Whites and the will of the Reds.

In this article, the author analyzes the concept of religious foundations of culture and power as a problem of Russian political consciousness. The paper reveals the patterns of interaction between the religious and political traditions of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. The author provides Bargradsky project case as a unique example of such influence, identifying its mean in the later Russian Empire’s political history. Philosophical-political case that is analyzed in the article makes it possible to trace the inner links between religious attitudes and political imagination of Russian monarchical circles and to identify the peculiarities of religious and political self-awareness of Russian power, its mechanisms for the selecting the ideas, symbols, images of the national political, religious and artistic culture in the last period of the Russian Empire. From our point of view, it would be most effective to combine the cultural-historical and the philosophical and historical approaches both in the reconstruction of Bargradsky project and in studies of Russian political culture. The article examines both the political conditions of activities and spiritual-cultural goals of Bargradsky Committee on Bargradsky project in Italian Bari as well as in Saint Petersburg in the 1910s. The author discusses the religious concept of Russian political culture, applying philosophical-historical method for the analyses Bargradsky Committee activity and its attempt to slow down the degradation of the Russian autocracy. The major emphasis is placed on the political and philosophical way of analysis as well as on the possibility of introducing the results of philosophical-historical research into current debates on the issue of alternatives to Russian history.

The paper discusses the philosophical and historical doctrine of the Russian philosopher and historian George Petrovich Fedotov. The author focuses on the analysis of imperial issues in the works of G.P. Fedotov, especially of his views on the cultural history of the Russian empire and the essence of imperial project in Russia. Fedotov reconsiders the historical experience and revolutionary catastrophe of Russia and searches for the foundations of the social and cultural processes determining the events of Russian history. Fedotov’s works offer a variety of interpretations of the political and cultural phenomenon of empire. This reflects his evolution as a philosopher of history: the focus of his vision shifts from the Medieval Rus to the Empire of Peter the Great, then to the collapsed empire of Nicholas II and finally to the USSR (the latter was also an empire according to him). Fedotov’s concept of Empire evolves into a timeless cultural-philosophical phenomenon but originates from the historical description of the centralization of power in the feudal monarchy of Ivan the Terrible. The evolution of the philosophical and historical views of Fedotov is influenced by the changes of his attitude to the historical conception of Klyuchevsky. In the 1940s Fedotov considers the empire as a universal idea. The concept of empire proposed by Fedotov gives an understanding of the Russian historical development, especially the causes of the decline and fall of the Russian Empire. Fedotov associates the cause of the salvation of Russia with the study of ancient Russian culture, in which he founds a moral and political ideal of the “Republic of Saint Sophia.” The paper shows heuristic potential of Fedotov’s cultural and philosophical ideas on the vocation of spiritual elite and the creative role of personality in the process of nation-building.

The article discusses the affinity of the ideas of two prominent Russian scholars N.N. Moiseev and V.S. Stepin. This affinity of their ideas is above all expressed in the global scale of their thinking, in their orientation toward the search for the ways of mankind development. Both thinkers sought a way out of the limitations and crisis of technological civilization through the promotion of basic values of harmony in the evolution of society and the biosphere. They made an enormous contribution to the development of both humanitarian and natural sciences areas of knowledge related to social management and development, techonology, economics, law, medicine, ecology, education, etc. They worked in an interdisciplinary areas and were successful integrators of natural science and humanities. Simultaneously with the scientific work, Moiseev and Stepin were excellent teachers and mentors of both young and mature researchers. They have created successful scientific schools that include many dozens of outstanding scientists. They devoted much attention and much time to social work, primarily in various structures of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The affinity of Moiseev’s and Stepin’s ideas is shown in four areas of their activities: overcoming the crisis of technological civilization and the limitations of the concept of sustainable development, research into socio-humanitarian cybernetics, development of advanced education models, implementation of successful scientific diplomacy projects. The author of this article participated in joint research projects with Moiseev and Stepin, the personal communication with them and their ideas significantly influenced author’s life path, interests and research results.

The articles discusses the philosophical foundations and the traditions of the theory of the humanitarian and technological revolution (HTR). The subject-matter of HTR theory is the description and forecast of the transition from the industrial to the post-industrial phase of civilization development as well as the strategy and the most effective methods of management of various socio-economic systems. This theory, actively developing in recent years, focuses on goal setting and on determining priorities and development criteria in the field of technology, science and education. The current revolution largely justifies the forecast of D. Bell, an author of the theory of post-industrial development, about the transition from the world of technology to the world of people. The human is the main subject and object of the changes. In this regard, we review an interdisciplinary program on human research, initiated in the 1980s by I.T. Frolov. The ongoing scientific revolution in genetics and the transition to autoevolution make these ideas even more relevant. The concept of universal evolutionism proposed by N.N. Moiseev is fundamental. This concept originates from philosophical and methodological generalizations based on the vast experience of computer modeling of “human-dimensional” systems. The principles of co-evolution of man and biosphere, the strategies for finding compromises are very close to the ecology of technologies, developed by the theory of HTR. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the interdisciplinary concept of self-organization for many scientific fields and, in particular, for the theory of HTR.  In our days, proposed by an outstanding mathematician, methodologist and thinker S.P. Kurdyumov, the interpretation of synergetics as a bridge between humanities and natural science, as a common language of natural scientists, mathematicians, scholars has become generally accepted. Kurdyumov predicted that many concepts and ideas of synergetics, through their philosophical understanding, would change the outlook and become an element of scientific culture. We show that this forecast turns into reality and in the process of HTR the ideas of synergetics begin to change our world. We pay special attention to the concept of self-developing systems, the theory of global scientific revolutions and the types of scientific rationality proposed by V.S. Stepin. In this regard, we can say that the HTR brings even more large-scale changes, covering not only science but also technology, society, the inner world of man. Identifying the philosophical foundations of HTR, we contribute to the development of methodology of this approach, enhance intra-scientific reflection and make possible to formulate unsolved problems more accurately.

The article is devoted to the memory of Vyacheslav Semenovich Stepin and Nikita Nikolaevich Moiseev, whose multifaceted work was integrally focused on philosophical, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research of the key ideas and principles of universal human-dimensional evolutionism. Other remarkable Russian scientists V.I. Vernadsky, S.P. Kurdyumov, S.P. Kapitsa, D.S. Chernavsky worked in the same tradition of universal evolutionism. While V.I. Vernadsky and N.N. Moiseev had been the originators of that scientific approach, V.S. Stepin provided philosophical foundations for the ideas of those remarkable scientists and thinkers. The scientific legacy of V.S. Stepin and N.N. Moiseev maintained the formation of a new quality of research into the philosophy of science and technology as well as into the philosophy of culture. This new quality is multidimensional and it is difficult to define unambiguously, but we presume the formation of those areas of philosophical knowledge as constructively oriented languages of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary co-participation of philosophy in the convergent-evolutionary development of scientific knowledge in general. In this regard, attention is paid to V.S. Stepin’s affirmations about non-classical nature of modern social and humanitarian knowledge. Quantum mechanics teaches us that the reality revealed through it is a hybrid construct, or symbiosis, of both mean and object of cognition. Therefore, the very act of cognitive observation constructs quantum reality. Thus, it is very close to the process of cognition in modern sociology and psychology. V.S. Stepin insisted that these principles are applicable to all complex selfdeveloping systems, and such are all “human-dimensional” objects of modern humanities. In all the phases of homeostasis changes, or crises, there is necessarily a share of chaos, instability, uncertainty in the selection process of future development scenarios, which is ineliminably affected by our observation. Therefore, a cognitive observer in the humanities should be considered as a concept of post-non-classical rationality, that is as an observer of complexity.

Starting from the Age of Enlightenment, a person’s ability of self-improvement, or perfectibility, is usually seen as a fundamental human feature. However, this term, introduced into the philosophical vocabulary by J.-J. Rousseau, gradually acquired additional meaning – largely due to the works of N. de Condorcet, T. Malthus and C. Darwin. Owing to perfectibility, human beings are not only able to work on themselves: by improving their abilities, they are also able to change their environment (both social and natural) and create favorable conditions for their existence. It is no coincidence that perfectibility became the key concept of the idea of social progress proposed by French thinkers in the Age of Enlightenment, despite the fact that later it was criticized, above all, by English authors, who justified its organic and biological nature and gave a different evolutionary interpretation to this concept, without excluding perfectibility from the philosophical vocabulary. In this article, we address the opposition and mutual counterarguments of these two positions. Beyond that, we draw a parallel with some of the ideas of S. Kapitsa, who proved to be not only a critic of Malthusianism but also a direct disciple of Condorcet. In the modern age, the ideas of human self-improvement caused the development of transhumanist movement. Condorcet is more relevant than ever, and today his theory of the progress of the human mind, which influenced the genesis of modern historical science, needs a re-thinking in the newest perspective of improving the mental and physical human nature with the help of modern technologies.

The article discusses the modern philosophical concepts of transhumanism and posthumanism. The central issue of these concepts is “What is the posthuman?” The 21st century is marked by a contradictory understanding of the role and status of the human. On the one hand, there comes the realization of human hegemony over the whole world around: in the 20th century mankind not only began to conquer outer space, invented nuclear weapons, made many amazing discoveries but also shifted its attention to itself or rather to the modification of itself. Transhumanist projects aim to strengthen human influence by transforming human beings into other, more powerful and viable forms of being. Such projects continues the project of human “deification.” On the other hand, acknowledging the onset of the new geological epoch of the Anthropocene, there comes the rejection of classical interpretations of the human. The categories of historicity, sociality and subjectivity are no longer so anthropocentric. In the opinion of the posthumanists, the project of the Vitruvian man has proven to be untenable in the present-day environment and is increasingly criticized. The reflection on the phenomenon of the human and his future refers to the concepts that explore not only human but also non-human. Very often we can find a synonymous understanding of transhumanism and posthumanism. Although these movements work with the same modern constructs and concepts but interpret them in a fundamentally different way. The discourse of transhumanism refers to the Cartesian opposition of the body and the mind. Despite the sacralization of technology and the desire to purify the posthuman from such seemingly permanent attributes of the living as aging and death, transhumanism in many ways continues the ideas of the Enlightenment. For posthumanists, the subject is nomadic and a kind of assembly of human, animal, digital, chimerical. Thus, in posthumanism the main maxim of humanism about the human as the highest value is rejected – the human ceases to be “the measure of all things.”

Conference summary. This summary discusses the main issues of the proceedings of the IV International Scientific Conference “Creativity as the National Environment: Media and Social Activity,” which was held from July 2 to July 4, 2018 in Saint Petersburg. The conference was organized by the Department of Philosophy of the Humanities Faculty of the Saint Petersburg State Economic University, the Russian Philosophical Society, the Society of Russian Philosophy at the Ukrainian Philosophical Foundation, and the Department of Philosophy of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). Being united by interest in the research on social activity in the media space and the national environment of creativity, 63 scholars from Russia, Ukraine, Slovakia and Hungary took part in the conference. The summary considers the ideas discussed at two plenary sessions and at the following sections of the conference: “Metaphysical foundations of the creative process,” “Semantic element of artistic and aesthetic creativity,” “Creativity of a social subject in the field of media space.” The proceedings of the conference contain the results of research carried out in the field of the philosophy of creativity and related research areas, including social philosophy, sociology, cultural studies, political science, journalism, linguistics.