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Russian Journal of Philosophical Sciences

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Vol 63, No 5 (2020)
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THE FUTURE OF THE CIVILIZATION. STRATEGY OF PHILOSOPHICAL COMPREHENSION. New Technological Order: Social and Cultural Foundations

7-27
Abstract

The article discusses the transformations of the world order in the context of the development of socio-economic relations and scientific and technological progress. It is shown that in the course of scientific and technological development, which is the main factor of global transformations, there are the changes of social and economic relations, forms of statehood, and management systems. It is noted that since the beginning of the New Age, the philosophical basis of the world order began to be determined by market relations, which stimulated intensive scientific and technological progress and the development of the financial and credit system. Capital itself was originally seen as a service. As capitalism evolves, the function of money changes fundamentally, turning from a resource into a mean of management. This led to an increase in the differentiation of the socio-economic development of countries as well as to the stratification of society. An attempt to build a unipolar world as a result of economic globalization gave the opposite result. Exhaustion of the possibilities of capitalism models to provide socio-economic development in spite of scientific and technological progress, led to a cascade of economic, political, and military crises. The observed trends prove Daniel Bell’s forecast about the transition to a postindustrial society, that is, to a society where the priority is to improve the quality of life based on new technologies. Therefore, defining the contours of a new world order is on the agenda. The new (post-industrial) world’s way of life will be formed as a result of the humanitarian and technological revolution, the essence of which is the synchronous development of science, technology, and culture, focused on meeting human needs. The basis of the post-industrial technological paradigm will be convergent technologies. Moreover, the directions and trajectory of human development will be determined by the level of interaction between society, business, and government. However, as historical experience shows, there are currently no mechanisms for effective control of government and business by society. Therefore, it is concluded that at this stage, a consensus is needed, which at least will ensure a balance and global security, and ideally will give a new impetus to the development of mankind.

28-52
Abstract

The article analyzes the issues of the philosophy and ideology of the future from the point of view of the theory of self-organization, or synergetics. This interdisciplinary approach allows researchers to focus their efforts on the key problems of the development of civilization and, in particular, on designing the future. In the theory of valuable information developed by D.S. Chernavsky, it is shown that there is a number of knowledge, skills, and abilities that increase the probability of their holders to survive and convey essential information to the future generations. In the 21st century, civilizational choice and ideology will be such knowledge. Several “brief histories of the future” are currently popular, from S. Lem and A. Toffler to J. Attali and S.P. Huntington. All of them focus on the projection onto society of achieved or promising industrial technical changes. D. Bell’s theory of post-industrial development as well as the theory of the humanitarian and technological revolution, which is actively developing at the present time, show that this is not correct. The key factor will be the image of the desired future, which underlies the ideology adopted by the elites and public consciousness. The article shows that now a choice is being made between the society that adopts a new leftist ideology or the New Middle Ages. The current socio-economic and military-political instability in the world, which was clearly demonstrated by the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, shows that without it the world will be dependent on the establishment and other centers of power pursuing their own, far from common, interests.

INTELLECTUAL HERITAGE. THE PHILOSOPHY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE. Prose as Philosophy: Andrei Platonov

53-66
Abstract

The article identifies the main features of the Russian writer Andrei Platonov’s (1899-1951) comprehension of the anthropological consequences of the radical social transformation during the years of the “Great Turn,” or “Great Break” (i.e., the years of Stalin’s reforms that started in 1929). Platonov’s evaluation is unique in its scale and depth. He was among the first authors to draw attention to the typological commonness of Soviet and German totalitarianisms. Their similarities are not only rooted in the design of the respective regimes. Vice versa, the design itself is generated by the possibilities of inhuman rationalistic activism in mass society. Platonov’s texts written in 1929-1934 were devoted, rather than to mass collectivism or political and socio-cultural reorganization, to anthropology and the possibility of reorganizing man, together with his cosmos. The main idea of these literary works is search for a universal way of human existence in general, including the living and the dead. In these texts, Platonov deeply conceived and felt the complete emptiness and inhumanity of doctrinaire rationalistic activism, when it is accepted as a practical maxim for the universal human will. This body of texts does not represent a dystopian view of a possible future, yet it relates the shock of an encounter with an unexpectedly ambiguous future and the author’s longing and suffering in his attempts tounderstand it. Such attempts lead to the need for a new anthropodicy as a justification for a human existence, notwithstanding man’s limitations and finiteness. In this respect, the results of Platonov’s reflections are extremely relevant in relation to the analysis of humanitarian factors and the consequences of currently ongoing digitalization of practically all spheres of life, as well as in terms of searching for new foundations of human life under these conditions. Platonov’s works turn out to be more relevant than the alarmism of the philosophers of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory and than the contemporary demonization by the conceptions of digital posthumanity and transhumanism. Platonov’s relevance is due to the depth of the topics and problems he raised, and their meaning is just beginning to be revealed today.

67-86
Abstract

The article discusses Andrei Platonov’s novel The Foundation Pit from the viewpoint of the dialectics of philosophical meanings. Proceeding from Gustav Shpet’s methodology of “coherent cognition,” the author undertakes an attempt to understand the philosophical meaning of the novel, which should be considered in the framework of Platonov’s philosophical worldview. From the one hand, The Foundation Pit is analyzed as a unique work that is representative for understanding the philosophical motives of the writer. From the other hand, the article applies to the philosophical optics of Marxism, which formed the intellectual background of Platonov’s work. As a result, the author proposes to consider three types of philosophical meanings: the dialectics of utopian thinking, the dialectics of alienation, the dialectics of happiness. On the material of the analyses of the utopian thinking, it is shown that The Foundation Pit could be understood as a negative stage of utopian thinking, which extracts the novel from the literary context and provides it with more contemporary meaning. The dialectical sense of alienation is demonstrated on the opposition of the material and spiritual. As an outstanding and philosophical writer, Platonov provides clues for the search of the approaches to solve the problem of senselessness of the material and groundlessness of the spiritual in the modern world. In the conclusion, the author shows that it is necessary to think about the happiness through the question of universal justice and it is possible to dream in seemingly awful world.

RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORICAL DYNAMICS. Historical and Philosophical Excursion

87-106
Abstract

The articles analyzes the original concept of immortality, presented by F.M. Dostoevsky in a handwritten sketch written on April 16, 1864, the day after the death of the writer’s first wife. The authors argue that this concept was created under the influence of the ideas of German romantic natural philosophy, in particular G.T. Fechner’s work of The Book of Life After Death (1836). According to the pantheistic ideas of Dostoevsky and Fechner, every person after death continues to exist in the earthly world. Having lost a limited biological body in death, a person can get a more extensive “cosmic” body, covering significant areas of the material universe. His personal spirit continues to exist in mankind, and the degree of his influence depends on what kind of spiritual success he achieved during his lifetime. In the concept of Fechner and Dostoevsky, posthumous life can be very different: great personalities (Goethe, Shakespeare, Napoleon, etc.) acquire an even more significant being than during life, and they continue to influence humankind, which, developing in history, strives for an absolute “synthesis” -the merger of all people into an organic whole and at the same time the merger with the universe. Individuals who, during their lifetime, confined themselves to their selfish interests can even disappear. In this concept, God is defined as “universal Synthesis,” i.e., the goal of the world process and the final merging of everything with everything. Jesus Christ is understood as an absolute, perfect man who, after death, does not resurrect in his previous bodily form, but completely dissolves in humankind and acts as a force guiding it toward unity and synthesis with the material world.

107-125
Abstract

The article discusses the position and meaning of the “I-subject” in the lifeworld. The existence of the “I-subject” as a medium of free will and the value of culture as well as the existence of the value of culture itself are questioned in modern discourse. The answer to such a challenge may be the justification of the existence of a “I-subject” who realizes his rootedness in culture and the rootedness of culture in being. The aim of the article is to interpret S.L. Frank’s philosophy as a consistent way of the “ontologization” of the “consciousness and culture” antinomy. On the example of S.L. Frank’s philosophy, it is shown the possibility of “consciousness ontologi-zation,” which means the acquisition by consciousness of its true “Self” as well as the imbedding of the “consciousness and culture” antinomy in the “being and God” antinomy. According to S.L. Frank, the “ontologization of consciousness” takes place in parallel with the “ontologization of culture.” To substantiate that, S.L. Frank proves the metalogical unity of the “transcendent and immanent” antinomy. God is simultaneously transcendent and immanent to consciousness. In order to reveal Him to consciousness, it is necessary to change the object of an intentional act, directing consciousness to oneself. The means of “consciousness and culture ontologization” is the method of “antinomistic monodualism.” Consciousness, directing its gaze to itselft, meets God, and it makes “ideal being” available to oneself. In a dialogue with Him, consciousness gains its “true Self,” and the “ontologization of consciousness” evolves. “Ontologized consciousness” becomes a life force that, having realized its rootedness in being, creates culture, which is the ontologization of the visible part of being. It is concluded that, in S.L. Frank’s philosophy, consciousness is a potentiality that seeks its actualization, a form that seeks to obtain its content. The true path of its actualization and content acquisition is identical to ontologization.

126-148
Abstract

The article examines a topical issue in the history of Soviet philosophy -the philosophy of mind in the 1950s-1970s. The problems of the philosophy of mind are presented from the point of view of the ideas of freedom and non-freedom, discussions around the problem of the ideal, the specifics of individual and social consciousness, the opposition of philosophical and scientific discourses. An important part of the study is the reconstruction of some of the interpersonal collisions of that time. The article contains an interview with the chief research fellow of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences D.I. Dubrovsky (who started his philosophical career in the 1950s), revealing the personal and theoretical aspects of his life and work. Using biographical method, the author demonstrates that, behind the heterogeneity of views and ideas of Soviet philosophers, there is a single intellectual and life-value orientation of the generation of the 1960s. In historical retrospective, the author shows the features of Soviet philosophy and the way of life of the Soviet philosopher in that period. The article describes the processes of institutionalization of philosophical consciousness in the 1960s, shows the advanced nature of such institutions as the Institute of Philosophy and the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences (INION) of the USSR Academy of Sciences, in which worked philosophers who not only had an original vision of the problems of philosophy but also were mediators between national and world thought. In Soviet philosophy of the 1950s-1970s, there were many bright, capable individuals, for whom the truth and the strive for it were more important than political correctness and general indifference. The author reveals the advanced nature of the Soviet philosophy of mind in the 1950s-1970s, in spite of the established stereotypes and uncritical mixing of different stages in the history of Soviet philosophy into one whole. The article is aimed at overcoming ideological and mythological stereotypes around the “Soviet” phenomenon in general and the Soviet philosophy of mind in particular..

SCIENTIFIC LIFE. Conferences, Seminars, Round Tables

149-159
Abstract

On September 24, 2019, the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences held the XVI Conference “Problems of Russian Self-Consciousness: ‘People Can Live, but It Is Forbidden,’ Dedicated to the 120th Birth Anniversary of Andrei Platonov.” The presentation of reports by the participants was built as a discussion about the book Philosophical Anthropology of Andrei Platonov by S.S. Neretina, S.A. Nickolsky, V.N. Porus (2019). After the reports of the book’s author, other scholars from various Russian universities and research institutes made presentations. The main topics of the reports were: the relationship between philosophy and artistic creation, the writer’s response to the historical and cultural context of his epoch, the formation of a special language for describing the reality perceived by the author, the need for interpretation and study of human nature in the culture of the 20th century. During the discussion, a special interest was paid to the motives of utopia in Platonov’s work, to the themes of the realization of abstract ideas, the correlation of a general idea and a particular thing, the motives of dehumanization and humanism, the literary motive of “duality” and alienated and impartial observation and witnessing, the existential problem of borderline states that transform a person and society.



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ISSN 0235-1188 (Print)
ISSN 2618-8961 (Online)