The paper presents the author's view on the Rousseau's style of philosophizing. According to the author the actuality of Rousseau for to-day philosophy is due to his existential and artistic attitude. The Rousseau's poetics is close to the existentialist literature's manner. In this connection the comparison between Rousseau and Montaigne demonstrates this tradition of the French thought.

Today's design-network civilization involves the consolidation of society based on social trust and civic identity. The solution to this problem is a civilizational challenge to Russian society and its political elite.

The paper describes psychological mechanisms that make the problem of personal identity so hot in today’s world, and analyses the diffculties of person’s self-identifcation in multiple social contexts of one’s life activity.

In the article an attempt is made to bind the meaning shift in the identity interpretation which is presented in the contemporary discussions with the change of the self-distinction mode belonging to subjectivity. Problem of subjectivity and self-distinction is discussed in connection with the ambiguity of identity noted by Paul Ricoeur. As the article argument it is possible to say that self-distinction and the formation of subjectivity take place in the early stages of human becoming (ontogenetic and historical), despite there is no cultural means of subjective control of the mind activity yet. The metaphor conception supposed by Paul Ricoeur seems to serve as a tool for the interpretation of identity becoming, as well subjectivity formation and diffculties of the contemporary interpretation of identity.

The article deals with self-identifcation and traces its development in the history of culture. The article’s central questions are how identity emerges in culture and whether playing with identities changes the nature of a man. Consideration is given to the role of individual dwelling and its social dynamics. Special attention is paid to the functions of the TV and the PC, their infuence on private life and identifcation process.

The «Identity: civilizational dimension» round table aims to contribute to the study of the notion of «identity». This notion has long been drifting the pages of scientifc researches, but is now increasingly used in view of the rising pace of worldwide modernization and globalization and breakup of historically formed identities. However its uncertainty and excessive polysemy make the discussion of the meaning of both civilization and identity problematic, creating chaos in science. The foundation or dimension that could be the basis for specifcation of the identity’s explanatory potential under changing conditions is called civilizational. The identifed concepts are: 1) the civilizational dimension’s components: «civil society» and «multipolarity»; 2) the society’s «clique» structure, «cliquocracy», which prevents civil identity from forming; 3) personal refective modality, aimed at formation of civil identity; 4) multipolarity opposing the historically formed duality of tradition and innovation and creating intermediate cultural forms.

This article analyses nonreductive approaches to the mind-body problem by three most infuential philosophers of mind, Colin McGinn, Thomas Nagel, and David Chalmers. The author tries to trace the most recent trends in their philosophy, to reveal their fundamental ontological assumptions, interconnections, judge the approaches to the mind-body problem and uncover theoretical diffculties, related to their theories.

Since the 1980s, American cognitive science has witnessed increasing interest in the questions of embodiment. Supporters of the embodied approach to cognition accentuate the problems of traditional concepts and argument from the latest achievements in science and technology. The author presents the approach through a review of books and articles devoted to it.