The article considers the criteria for assessment of the quality of education services provided by Russian universities. It suggests that the standard level of education service quality can be measured through the assessment of university graduates as the product of professional education. The article also explains the mechanism for efficient regulation of the needs of the principal educational service consumers.

This paper continues the discussion upon the status of philosophy of science same as upon the main approaches towards the subject of this discipline. In addition to gnoseological and logic-epistemological approaches, the integral one, generalising historical criticism, sociology and theories of culture, is put forward, and this is social and philosophical approach. The advantages of this generalization are evident: neither postmodern historical criticism in itself, nor sociology or theory of culture do reach philosophical level of thinking. From the point of view of existential materialism, science has to be regarded in a way that semiotics suggests: i.e., in confluence of natively-objective (denotative) aspect; syntactic-designative aspect; and sense-bearing (pragmatic) aspect. We might also speak of sigmatic aspect dealing with «the things themselves».

The article deals with time flow in the context of subjective reality and analyses its speed. It points to the close connection between the peculiarities of time flow and the characteristics of brain process. The concept of cognitive frames is used as a conceptual base of the approach to the problems of time flow speed, which is proposed in the article. The term quasi-«now» is introduced, which implies the system of events that fit into the present time. The definition of the notion time flow speed is given and its unit of measure is presented.

Russian thought of the nineteenth century, when all the main meanings of the Russian mentality were being formed, knows two equal geniuses Konstantin Leontiev and Vladimir Solovyov. Each tried to develop a historiosophical project destined to change the course of history. Each chose a different path, but in the end both came to the same conclusions: the end of world history is near and the most important thing for every person is to find his own place in the imminent eschatological crisis.

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the structure of existential anxiety, as it appears in the works of Leon Shestov. With this end in view, the author turns to terminology and analytics, developed by the German and American philosopher Paul Tillich.

The time of the short-lived Weimar Republic (1919 1933) was one of the most fruitful periods for the German philosophy. Prominent thinkers of the prewar epoch continued their work, and new important schools of thought emerged. The main interest of philosophical inquiry was shifting from epistemology to ontology and anthropology. Although the intellectual life was rather politicised, the content of philosophical discussions cannot be reduced to political struggle between the left and the right. But the end of this productive period came with political changes: with the rise of the Nazi regime philosophical debates and investigations lost their significance for the German social and intellectual life.

This paper is dedicated to the comparative analysis of existential ontological concepts of M. Heidegger and H. Plessner from the perspective of philosophical anthropology. Unlike Heidegger, whose doctrine of human existence required the analysis of a priori structures of existence to precede the disclosure of the sense of being, Plessner refutes the existential ontological substantiation of the whole world-view in the pre-empirical anthropology as in the doctrine of «being-consciousness». According to Plessner, the philosophy of man is impossible without the philosophy of nature, as far as the human mode of existence can be perceived only as a mode of being of a natural entity. Therefore the subject of philosophy should not be the theoretical, but the «living», or natural, existence.

The article is concerned with the notions of technology in the essays of Ernst and Friedrich Georg Jünger. The special problem of the connection between technology and freedom is discussed in the broader context of the criticism of culture and technocracy discussion in the German intellectual history of the first half of the 20^th century.

The paper claims lack of agreement in the public consciousness on the constitutional and legal bases of the Russian state. It shows the predominant popular opinions on the nature and ways of state reformation. The issues discussed include the Russian state system matrix, succession of concrete historical forms of state, efficiency of imperial, and empire-like state systems in the past and present.

The article examines the principal problems of the contemporary Russian state, society, education, and science. Furthermore, the author analyses the prognoses for the development of the country and the sphere of education and science, and proposes his own strategy of the public policy relating to science.

The main subject of the article is the prospects of Russia in the context of macro-historical dynamics. The article relates the experience of cultural analysis of the current state and historical perspectives of the Russian civilisation. It identifies the persistently replicating structural universals of the Russian cultural system (the Russian matrix), such as imperialism, autocracy, and denial of the personal. The author attempts to correlate their manifestations with the modern cultural context and to model the possible scenarios of historical dynamics in the foreseeable future. Considering the macro-historical interactions between Russia as heir to the Byzantine civilisation and the West he outlines the causes of the current systemic crisis of the Western world.

The article concerns human reason and faith, the principles of rationality and the sphere of the unproven and unprovable. The author reflects on the different ways to search for the truth and on the factors, which influence this search. He emphasizes the role of organisations in cognition and the unavoidable influence of political power. Understanding cognition as sense-making, he then tries to outline the humanitarian specifics of this process.