The articles examines the methodological inconsistency of the current approaches to teaching literature and moral education in schools. Teacher’s professional skill, ultimately, is to overcome the contradictions and to combine the strict observance of the requirements of the school program with the awakening of the interest of students for literary fiction. The comprehension of literature as a formative factor that can affect students emotionally determines its inclusion in the content of school education. At the same time, the subject which is taught to the school and called “fine literature” at best is a primitive set of linguistic knowledge, which is not related to the literature itself. Fiction cannot be considered literary if it does not generate love, compassion, active emotional rejection or, conversely, a desire to support, does not disclose the implicit complexity of social and interpersonal relations, does not prepare child’s soul for countless life choices that no one can evade. The contradiction between the declared goals and officially defined ways of their actual implementation should be comprehended as a social phenomenon. That is philosophy which is called upon to become the original methodological foundation that determines the requirements which are not only imposed on academic subjects but also on the formation of a special dialectical culture that excludes the standardized simplicity. Philosophy is able to contribute to the process of training of future teachers by revealing the conditions under which the “literature” as a school subject can really affect the moral and spiritual education of our children.

The article shows that in the context of global instability, the problem of choosing a development strategy is acute for Russia. As is known, for the development of the “Medium-Term Program for the Social-Economic Development of the Russian Federation until 2025” two strategies were discussed at the Economic Council under the President of the Russian Federation. The first is reflected in the report of A.L. Kudrin, the second - in the report of the Stolypin’s club. S. Glazyev developed a strategy for advanced economic development. The domestic economy has real growth opportunities, which means that there are all the prerequisites for the advanced economic, scientific-technical development of the country and achievement of a high standard of living for the population. However, the implementation of the national strategy for the development of Russia is impossible without a well-thought-out state social-economic policy, correct use of the available scientific and technical potential in the country, as well as resolving the most acute internal problems that pose a threat to economic and national security. The article concludes that in the current aggravation of military-political tensions in the world, connected with the change of technological and world economic structures, the growing aggressiveness of the United States and NATO countries and the tightening of Western sanctions, the sovereignty, the very existence and the future of Russia depends from the choice of the national development strategy.

The paper presents the author’s methodological position that the risk is al- ways connected with the person and the decisions which this person makes. Risk is an integral indicator combining assessments of both the probabili- ties of implementing a solution and the quantitative characteristics of its consequences. Integration of these assessments is carried out by the person that choses the alternatives that most fully correspond to the person’s goals, other assessments and value system. The paper considers the famous results made by A. Tversky and D. Kahneman that show how the objective limitations of human cognitive capabilities, random access memory, speed of perception and processing of information, etc., influence, and often determine human behavior, and how they became the basis for errors, contradictions, illogicalities in decision-making processes. The rational conclusion that can be drawn from the study of real decision-making practices under the risk conditions is that it is necessary to take into account the irrationality of a person when analyzing these processes. Each individual has his own set of values and reacts to the situation of risk in accordance with his preferences, so the real behavior of a person in such conditions is often far from the “ideal” one. We think that the decision-making under the risk conditions should be a conscious choice based on rational grounds. At the same time, normative models of decision-making serve as guidelines and methodologi- cal basis for actions for a person facing a difficult choice problem.

The article deals with some aspects of qualitative system changes, manifested in global instability, inadequacy of existing management systems, permanent rapid development of crisis states with unpredictable consequences, loss of moral basis of a society, deformation of value orientations and traditions, erosion of ideals, changing of the moral pattern of heroes, light aspirations and thoughts, in part - to the loss of faith. The power confrontation has reached a high level. The West loses its attractiveness in its development, sees no prospects and does not know what to offer to the other world. It is impossible not to learn from our own history: to preserve continuity in state building; purpose, in the form of an idea, theory, and meaning, a moral pattern should unite the majority of the people; it is unacceptable to falsify the past, to destroy the post-war balance in the world; it is not possible that the military force has become the main regulator, the world judge on a global scale again.

The article is devoted to a book of a Spanish philosopher, Antonio Millán-Puelles. The book is called “The structure of Subjectivity” and pertain to the philosophical psychology domain. General approach of Millán to the theme and his mode of presenting it correspond to the basic trend of philosophy in Spain under Franco. More precisely, that philoso- phy, firstly, uses conceptual and terminological resourсe of scholasticism and, secondly, applies the method of phenomenological description with the goal to gain access to ontological foundations of reality. According to Millán-Puelles, subjectivity is a specific kind of being, that is, a living being which is the subject of its own acts. Treating the functioning of living things in the perspective of Aristotelian and scolastic distinction “potency / act”, Millán-Puelles affirms necessary complexity of subjectivity, its structural constitution. The main themes of Millán’s book are as follows: 1) the basic structure of subjectivity is formed as a union of the body and consciousness: subjectivity is not reducible to a pure consciousness; 2) subjectivity cannot be entirely transparent for itself; 3) subjectivity is radically appealed to the intentional transcending to another being; 4) but in the transcending to another being it simultaneously realizes and connotes itself.

The article proceeds from the point of view in the history of philosophy that is constantly looking for the context of great names and concepts usually associated with them. Thus anyone studying the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl should not ignore the fact that before “Logical Investigations” phenomenology was practiced by Munich psychologists, most notably Theodor Lipps, and the “Phenomenology of Willing”, a work by his apprentice Alexander Pfänder, may be considered the first work in phenomenology. Just to pose the question of whether this phenomenology meets the criteria of the philosophical discipline developed by Husserl is to take the path to a fuller historical picture. What makes Pfänder relevant today is the following distinctive feature of his philosophy. He tries to avoid traditional terminology and, based on ordinary language, builds his terminology in the process of writing. This affinity to the philosophy of ordinary language may be key to understanding the phenomenological movement as a whole. Philosophy was being pushed out of the psychological domain by new empirical methods and started looking for means of expression understandable to every man, be it an academic guru or an engineer. In this context phenomenology may well be a philosophical science in search of a new language to solve philosophy’s old tasks, sometimes by avoiding such sharp traditional oppositions as the ideal and the real, the mind and the body, etc. Pfänder’s approach had a profound influence on the Munich phenomenology and phenomenology in general, and his analysis of willing and motivation is unparalleled even now and may be helpful to anyone who still wonders about the subjective side of action.

The article is devoted to the history of pragmatism. It maintains that a thematic continuity runs through the classical pragmatists, neopragmatitsts, and contemporary pragmatists. This continuity can be vaguely characterized as an integration of theory and practice, but experience gives theory its content such that action is always guiding the formation of knowledge. There are four implications of this continuity. Pragmatists are centrally concerned with the human relationship to a process-oriented and evolving conception of nature. For pragmatists, our beliefs are regarded not as propositions that map onto a separate and fixed reality, but instead their truth emerges out of the habits beliefs generate. Pragmatism emphasizes an openness to possibility since our access to the world of experience is mediated by a variety of selective interests, intellectual histories, varying linguistic and discursive practices. Pragmatists are deeply concerned with the social and political problems that confront us on a daily basis. The author also examines the manner in which James understands the term “metaphysics” given that pragmatism is a method for settling “metaphysical disputes.” Jamesian existential pluralism implies to maximize all possibilities that can satisfy everyone as much as possible without impeding and harming another’s capacity to experience a rich and novel world. The author analyzes Todd May’s approach to the analytic-continental divide and concludes that if settlement embraces James’s thick conception of experience, then the resulting ontological pluralism is the best settlement possible, and this commitment to pluralism requires dissolving the exclusionary practices the analytic-continental divide suggests philosophically.

The article deals with the critical analysis of the genesis of patristic thought during the period of the First Seven Ecumenical Councils, when the basic, trinitarian, christological and mariological dogmas were formulated. The author shows that, in spite of the terminology borrowed from Hellenic wisdom, Church Fathers could not move «from myth to logos», confining themselves only to liturgical formulations necessary for liturgical practice and the organization of the church. The wealth of opportunities for personalistic discourse that was provided by the Christian «Good News» was never revealed, largely because Christianity became a state ideology, not a living personalistic thought. Moreover, at the time of the formation of the church with the monarchical ecclesiastical hierarchy, there was a direct rollback from personalistic discourse towards the religion of law, the classical example of which was proto-Judaism. So Christ was crucified again.

The paper analyzes milestones in the development of psychological reflexion of religion, that took place in Russian religious thought. The author means that psychological approach to analysis of religion appeared in Russian thought under the influence of German idealism with its attention to the problem of consciousness as well as Romanticism, which implemented a rehabilitation of religion and at the same moment put it to the sphere of emotions. The author analyzes three steps in this process. First, the pre-history as represented by Chaadaev and Slavophiles. Such concepts as “work of consciousness”, “faith”, “personal revelation” are introduced here. Second, Solovyov, his disciples and other thinkers from various philosophical movements, who worked mainly in the last quarter of the 19th century. One can see here detailed descriptions of historical-religious process, made in psychological terms. Third period encompasses early 20th century, with widening influence of such schools in foreign thought as neo-Kantianism, Lebensphilosophie, phenomenology etc., as well as “psychological prose” in Russian literature. The psychological interpretation of religious life of individual in the form of literary or art criticism grows up here. The paper describes methodological innovation and major results in psychological understanding of religious questions. The author views the following as the crucial trends: growing empiricity and historicism, moving from abstract philosophical schemes to more complicated interpretation techniques while researching concise historical matter.