The author proposes to distinguish between two phases of postcolonial studies in the field of academic research (on the example of Indology or Indian Studies): “anti-orientalism”, when Edward Said’s approach formulated in his book “Orientalism” (1978), was applied to different areas of Asian studies in a rather dogmatic and uncritical way, and “post-orientalism”, when, after a critical reassessment of the “anti-orientalism”, the researcher of foreign cultural traditions arrived at a new level of hermeneutical self-reflection. The first part of the article deals with some methodological issues and hermeneutical problems created by Said’s book as quite appealing for Indologists. The second part is devoted to intercultural philosophy as a project pertaining to postcolonial and post-Orientalist era and its basic difference from comparative philosophy as the 20^th century project. The author refers to the works of famous Russian Indologist and Buddhologist Th.I. Stcherbatsky (1866-1942), in which, in author’s opinion, the elements of both - comparative philosophy as well as intercultural philosophy are exemplified.

The article considers the forming of the Henri Bergson’s philosophical conception expressed in his book «Creative evolution» and shows that its basic principles can be found in the treatises and diary notes by Tolstoy dated from 1880-1890s. In his work «About life» Tolstoy argues that there is priority of life as absolute basis for human being which appears to be inaccessible to the science. Tolstoy considers life spiritual substance possessing such features as unity and temporal development; naming life «God», Tolstoy understands the «God» immanent assembly of human persons. These ideas are very close to those of Bergson who understands life as the non-classic and enduring Absolute expressed in the assembly of human persons. The affinity of Tolstoy’s ethics and ethical conception of Bergson expressed in the book «The two sources of morality and religion» is also demonstrated. Both ethical conceptions suggest the men’s striving for the absolute completeness through the examples of completeness showed by separate outstanding individuals (religious prophets) as the highest aim of life. The hypothesis about possible influence of Tolstoy’s ideas on the forming of Bergson’s «philosophy of life» is formulated.

Philosophy is commonly viewed as the opposite of science; however, science has its roots in philosophy as mental consideration of things. This article presents an analysis of Plato’s role in the formation of scientific thought. It is shown how his desire to establish a stable world of ideal forms determined Plato’s attitude toward oral speech as well as to the transfer and storage of knowledge in a written form. The article pays special attention to Plato’s views on dialectics as a living movement of thought. In this regard, the article notes Plato’s critical attitude toward rhetoric, which can not be viewed as a method because it represents not a search for the truth but merely a process of persuading the majority of people. It is pointed out that in the divisions made by Plato, such as, for example, phenomenon/reality, opinion/knowledge, body/mind, rhetoric/ dialectics, etc., one element of each opposition is marked, indicating his true preferences. It is noted that Plato’s conceptualization of science has in the end a philosophic-moral nature. It is argued that Plato laid the foundations of scientific thought whose aim is to find truth so that life can be illuminated by the light of knowledge.

The article is devoted to the research of two approaches of the truth, presented in the history of European philosophy. The author considers the Plato’s conception of truth as the basis for formation of these tendencies, because Plato gave to the truth not only contemplative, but also the active character, believing, that its achievement assumes participation of not only pure intelligence, but also of certain strong-willed efforts. This duality generates subsequently two dispersing lines of development, first of which focuses attention on intellectual, and the second - on strong-willed making Plato’s concepts. Representatives of the first (rational) direction give the truth mainly objective character whereas representatives of second (strong-willed) aspire to include the subjective moments in its maintenance. The coexistence of these two concepts is traced throughout practically all history of philosophy of Europe. During long time the rational concept reaching to the maximum expressiveness in philosophy of Hegel had prevailing influence. The voluntaristic philosophy of Schopenhauer, later developed by Nietzsche becomes a reaction to hyper-rationalism of Hegel’s concepts. During ХХ century influence of the voluntaristic approach gradually accrues, being shown in existential-phenomenological philosophy. However strengthening of influence of voluntaristic tendencies leads to increase in treatment of truth of subjective tendencies. The increase of subjectivity, in its turn, causes promotion on the foreground of a problem which during the classical period had minor, peripheral character, and it is a problem of mutual understanding, communications.

The purpose of Plato’s “thought magics” culture is to transform the effects of affective discharges on the perception of things into reproducible sensegenerating impression complexes, which are identified with the thing’s essence, and to show our transcendental cognitive capacity of knowing the unmovable in the movable, and the sphere, where impressions turn into ideas. Plato’s theoretical prosopopoeia follows the magic of pure thought, where the thinkable cannot but belong to the thinkable, and neutralizes both the organic automatism of polytheism, blindly harmonizing the affective stimuli of desire with cognitive behavioral reactions, and the reflective automatism of the consciousness in the time, when the polytheistic prosopopoeia was breaking down, the consciousness that never stops looking for intellectual justification of its affective movements and their reflections in the inner sense.

The article examines philosophical and theoretical origins of biohermeneutics. It shows that an analysis of problems of human ecology (what is life, what are the natural conditions of the life support and the development of man etc.) leads to the necessity of philosophical comprehension of the essential characteristics of human being, his mind, cognition and understanding. An orientation of cognition on «nature understanding» extends the limits of problems according to that the term «nature» is polysemantic - its meaning is changing subject of the context of application, and with the context a conceptual meaning of the term itself is changing too. The author gives historical and philosophical excursus into such problems. She considers the grounds on which W. Dilthey distinguishes natural sciences and humanities, then discerning three types of science: physicochemical ones which are based on mathematical knowledge and studying quantitative relations, humanities which are based on hermeneutical knowledge of the structure of psychic life, and biological sciences which are based on the knowledge of purposeful nexus. These ideas get a new meaning in the works of Helmut Plessner who formulates an apriorisric «theory of essential attributes of organic» where the main category is the concept of the boundary (Outer boundary separating one living creature from another and Internal, corporal). In his «philosophy of nature» or biophilosophy he traces the grounds for implementation of hermeneutic approach to life studies. The author of article also considers a substantiation by Anton Markos an issue of hermeneutical understanding of sign processes in living systems, starting from H.-G. Gadamer and his existential hermeneutics, that leads to the rise of «biohermeneutical school» within modern biosemiotics.

The article analyzes problems of human ecology arising in the modern information society. The information environment is becoming a major habitat of modern man. Changes introduced to our life by artificially created environment of information and communication technologies affect all its aspects: our minds and our world view, work and education, family and interpersonal, the economy and production. An information ecology can help us understand the need to optimize the relationship of a person with a changing information environment and to develop mechanisms for this optimization. Within the framework of information ecology, the information environment can be viewed as an anthropo-ecosystem, i.e. an ecosystem, the center and the main transforming force of which is a man. Information ecology links together two of the most acute problems of our time - the impact on a person by the information revolution and the ecological crisis. The task of this emerging science is the development of methods for regulating the interaction of man and society with information processes. In the conditions of information explosion and information revolution, this task can be considered as one of the most important for optimizing the life activity of mankind. Consequently, the further development of information ecology, clear definition of its tasks, methods and problem field is today a very topical direction.

Analysis of the state of society is the main task of sociology. Today this task acquires a special urgency - the country enters the eve of the 25th anniversary of reforms that created the political and economic foundation of modern Russian society, on the basis of which the rest of its spheres were formed. The transition from a directive-planned economy to a free market was carried out by all socialist countries - this was an objective historical process, but the forms and methods of this transition were determined by the reformers. The current state of Russia is the result of their activities. The subjective factor of the process of the Russian Reformation and its results form the subject of the monograph by Zh.Toschenko Phantoms of Modern Russia. For the first time in our scientific literature, the research is aimed at identifying and classifying social types that arose as a result of the cardinal social transformations of the 1990s. The problem raised in the monograph opens a new direction in the study of the social structure of postSoviet Russia - from abstract schemes to socio-psychological analysis of clusters that constitute the social phenomenon emerged in the 1990s, the post-Soviet nomenclature. In the context of a monographic study of the subjective factor in Russia’s social development, the article discusses the genesis of the post-Soviet nomenclature, new trends in its attitudes and orientations, the need to expand the semantic field of terms, and the use of metaphorical methodology for describing social phenomena that have arisen as a result of reformers’ activities.

The article is dedicated to the life and work of academician Theodor Oizerman (1914-2017). It provides milestones and individual episodes of his biography, considers the problem of choosing his creative destination first as a writer, then as a philosopher. The author points out some of his published stories. She characterizes his professional activities at the Moscow State University and at the Institute of philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences and other institutions. In 1941 T. Oizerman defended his thesis «Marxist-Leninist doctrine on the transformation of necessity into freedom». The article discusses his way on the fronts of war from a senior instructor of political divisions to a participant of the fight on the Dniester, Visla, Oder, to contusions, and post-war work in Baden. He has military awards, as well as awards for his professional activities. In 1966 he was elected a correspondent member, and in 1981 he was elected an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The article indicates T. Oizerman’s achievements in the field of domestic and world philosophy in the context of the halfcentury development of Russian philosophy and public life, and provides the names of his large-scale works written in the period from 2003 to 2011.

In an interview with S.N. Korsakov (1992) academician Theodor Ilyich Oizerman talks about the dramatic events of the history of Soviet philosophy. We are talking about philosophical faculty of Moscow University in 1950-ies. The philosophical struggle here has become acute. Its initiator was professor Z.Ya. Beletsky, who believed that classical German philosophy is a theoretical source of Nazism, and that the objective world is the objective truth. Beletsky used a political defense of his views - he wrote letters to Stalin. As a result, the philosophical faculty of Moscow University was a field of sharp struggle views. T.I. Oizerman talks about his teacher, the academician G.F. Aleksandrov. He explains the reasons why G.F. Aleksandrov could not realize himself as a philosopher. T.I. Oizerman puts forward his version of events connected with the expultion of E.V. Ilyenkov from the faculty of philosophy in 1955. There are very interesting memories of T.I. Oizerman on the time of E.V. Ilyenkov in the graduate school. T. I. Oizerman talks about the character and work of his colleagues in the Department of the history of philosophy of philosophical faculty of Moscow University. We are talking about V.F. Asmus, M.A. Dynnik, B.E. Bykhovsky.