The concept of body and the problem of demarcation in new European metaphysics: from Descartes to Kant
The origin of science and the demarcation between science and metaphysics are the main features of early modern period. This demarcation faces a particular problem with conceptualisation of body, which can be considered both as just physical body and as closely bound up with spirit. Different ways of explaining the interaction between mind and body form the complex tradition, which significantly influenced Kant’s precritical writings. Limitation of the crucial distinction between these two substances...
On the role of religion in N. N. Alekseev’s axiological model of law
This paper is devoted to investigation of destination of religion in the process of forming of the concept of law in determined cultural circumstances. This study is actualizes the essential link between comprehension of content of domain of law and concept of subjectivity. Nikolay Alexeev overcomes concept of subjectivity represented in philosophy of early modern period of European history, (primarily in the rationalistic tradition of Rene Descartes). The crucial significant in his concept of law...
The notion of necessity in the German philosophy of the¬ Enlighten¬ment
Necessity is a key philosophical notion, which is used in different disciplines from logic to ontology. In the German philosophy of the Enlightenment, this concept was centralto the work of many thinkers. For them, necessity is related not only to logic but rather to the disciplines of general and special metaphysics. It is explained by that the principle of sufficient reason introduced by Leibniz is closely linked to the notion underconsideration. The recognition of this principle as one of the...
Immaturity and the objective of a true reform in ways of thinking. Part II
The originality of Kant’s answer to the question of the Enlightenment in a 1784 article consisted not in addressing the words of Horace, but in linking it to the revised legal notion of immaturity, which is now interpreted from the philosophical and theological perspective and has become one of key philosophical notions. However, Kant’s view is fraught with certain complications: firstly, it is dominated by negative characteristics; secondly, unlimited use of one’s understanding can lead to logical...
The concept of body and the problem of demarcation in new European metaphysics: from Descartes to Kant
The formation of science and its separation from metaphysics are among the key characteristics of the early modern period. This separation faces a particular problem with conceptualization of body, which, while being a physical body, is closely bound up with spirit. Different ways of explaining the interaction between mind and body form a complex tradition, which has significantly influenced Kant’s pre-Critical writings. Reducing that crucial distinction between two substances to the empirical sphere...
“The Forgotten stories” by Hans Christian Andersen in the context of his creative evolution
The article analyzes H. Ch. Andersen’s works, published in Russian in 2016 under the title “The Forgotten Stories of Hans Christian Andersen”. Their content and poetics are considered at the background of the writer’s creative evolution. The authors studies the reasons that determined the incompleteness of a number of works, and the circumstances that prompted the author to refuse to publish completed texts. “The Forgotten Stories” become the source for analyzing the writer’s creative manner and...
Social Christianity in F. A. Stepun’s philosophy of history
This article analyses Fedor Stepun’s idea of social Christianity. The au¬thor identifies the axiological context of the Baden School of Neo-Kantian thought in Stepun’s interpretation of Christian God. The significance of Christian politics in the philosopher’s assessment of socio-political processes is stressed.
1. Степун Ф. А. Борьба либеральной и тоталитарной демократии вокруг понятия истины // Степун Ф. А. Соч. М., 2000. С. 557—564.
2. Степун Ф. А. Бывшее и несбывшееся. СПб., 1994.
3. Степун...
The “illegal” branch of the Russian national patriotic opposition in the USSR: the case of the All-Russian Social-Christian Union for the Liberation of the People
This article is devoted to the activities of the Russian patriotic anti-Soviet organization All-Russian Social-Christian Union for the Liberation of the People, which operated in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. The author examines the ideological basis, program, composition, and structure of the Union and describes the role of the organization in Russian national-patriotic opposition in the USSR.
1. ВСХСОН : программа. Суд. В тюрьмах и лагерях. Париж, 1975.
2. ВСХСОН : материалы суда и программа...
Existential dimension of fear in Anton Chekhov’s short story “Fear”
The article examines the antinomic nature of the existence of fear in Anton Chekhov’s works, with particular attention to the short story “Fear”. The methodological framework combines the principles of New Criticism — treating the literary text as a self-sufficient structure featuring an unreliable narrator — with approaches drawn from cognitive ontology. In addition, the analysis engages philosophical conceptions of fear developed by S?ren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre,...
Symbolism of loyalty to the power of Teutonic order among the Old Prussians in the 13—14th centuries
Formation of the State of Teutonic Order in Prussia in the XIIIth—XIVth centuries based beside military oppression on the relations with local population supported by the incorporation of them in the system of condition landholding. These relations implied, from the one hand, the representation by the Order its own status as a collective ruler, and from the other hand, symbolic expression of the loyalty of Old Prussians in various spheres of social communication: language, onomastic, objects of material...
Christmas and Easter archetypes in A. Varlamov’s story “The Little Star”: to the plot and character typology problem
.... The Easter archetype is also embodied through the author’s referring to the hagiographic tradition, such as hagiographic topics, motifs of trial and temptation, a smart heart, in the correlation between the main female character and the image of Christ, which is manifested by the meek bearing of reproach. The Christmas archetype is presented through a multi-level star symbol, which becomes a prototype of Paradise and eternal life. The symbolism of the image of the star becomes more complicated,...
Kant and the New Enlightenment: On the Balance between Duty and Utilitarian Ends
The relation between Kant’s philosophy and the “philosophy of balance” as it is described in the report Come on! Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet, delivered to the Club of Rome in 2018, requires some analysis. The authors of the report consider Kant to be a philosopher of European Enlightenment which laid the foundations of the modern world, but also proved to be the source of global problems. The report characterises the philosophy of the Enlightenment as lop-sided...
Kant’s Concept of Enlightenment and Its Alternatives
The modern popularity of the Kantian definition of enlightenment often leads to a distorted notion that his understanding of enlightenment was dominant already during his lifetime, expressing the quintessence of all-European Enlightenment. This turns our attention away from entire layers of philosophical thought, since the Kantian definition of enlightenment in the late eighteenth century was neither the only one nor the preeminent one. The study of alternatives represented in the German philosophy...
Angiolini vs Kant: Philosophical Endeavour at the Polotsk Jesuit Academy
The movement for the revival of the Scholastic tradition (Neo-Scholasticism) was a reaction to devastating criticism by the representatives of Enlightenment which led to the destruction of traditional metaphysics and of epistemological optimism, the two pillars of European religious philosophy. Reception of Kantian ideas in Neo-Scholasticism varied from total rejection to its use in renewing the philosophical foundation of religious philosophy. In this regard the legacy of the Polotsk Jesuit Academy...
Semyon Frank and the German Neo-Kantianism: Aspects of Debate
The widespread assessment of the early period of Semyon L. Frank’s work as being influenced by German Neo-Kantianism is in need of a critical scrutiny. There are several reasons why the Russian philosopher’s interest in Neo-Kantianism merits a closer look. First, two systemic theories belonging to different trends exerted a decisive influence on Russian philosophy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: German Neo-Kantianism and Vladimir Solovyov’s school of all-unity. Second, Frank...
Apology of Human Existence vs “Ideal Homicide”: S.L. Frank’s Anthropological Project.
... de départ de la métaphysique : en 5 volumes. Paris: Alcan et al.
Natorp, P., 1912. Kant und die Marburger Schule. Kant-Studien, 17(3), pp. 193-221.
Nazarova, O., 2017. Das Problem der Wiedergeburt und Neubegründung der Metaphysik am Beispiel der christlichen philosophischen Traditionen: der russischen religiösen Philosophie (Simon L. Frank) und der deutschsprachigen neuscholastischen Philosophie (Emerich Coreth). München: UTZ.
Windelband, W., 1903. Präludien. Aufsätze und Reden zur Einleitung ...
From Kant to Frank: The Ethic of Duty and the Problem of Resistance to Evil in Russian Thought
One of the key ethical debates in Russian religious thought, initiated by Leo Tolstoy, concerned the question of nonresistance to evil by force. The purpose of this article is to assess the influence of Kant’s ethics and philosophy of religion on the course of this debate and to determine the place and significance of the arguments and considerations expressed on this issue by Semyon Frank in the early and late periods (1908 and 1940s) of his work. To this end I reconstruct the general course of...
“The Great Rationalist”: Alexey Vvedensky on Kant in the Context of Russian Kantiana
In 1904, the last January issue of the newspaper “Moskoskiye vedomosti” carried an article by Alexey I. Vvedensky, philosopher and theologian, Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy, entitled “The Great Rationalist. On the Centenary of Kant’s Death”. Although the publication could hardly be called unique for its time, as many Russian philosophers and journalists commented on this date, the article merits attention because of the way it represents Kant, and the fact that it sheds light on Vvedensky’s...
“Philosophers Will Always Admire Kant…”
The topics of this issue, devoted to the tercentenary of Immanuel Kant’s birth, focus on his practical philosophy, most notably on the problems of free will in the light of the debates at the end of the eighteenth century; on the concept of human dignity and its reflection in daily life and in the main legal documents of the Russian Federation; on the possibility of deriving positive duties from the categorical imperative; and on the relevance of Kantian ethics to modern-day realities. The issue...
Russian Political Kant after Liberalism: Sergey Hessen on 1924 Kant Jubilee
Using the Kant jubilee in 1924 as a pretext, Sergey Hessen, a Russian émigré neoKantian, draws no direct political conclusions but sets forth a view of the great philosopher’s legacy from the position of a “legal socialist”, selecting from his heritage those parts of German socialist doctrines that to his mind experienced a departure from a recent flowering of Kantian ideas in NeoKantianism and the collapse of traditional liberalism in the wake of the First World War. The fact that the text was...
Nikolay Fyodorov’s Attempt to Link Aristotelian and Kantian Natural Teleology to the Project of Nature Regulation
The key thesis of natural teleology is that the products of nature should be judged by the goal of their existence or they should be explained as if such a goal existed. The prevailing view in the literature is that there are two main stages in the development of teleology in the framework of philosophical knowledge: the classicaland the nonclassical. The isolation of these stages is based on the conviction that at a certain period of time finalism is supplanted by the notion of the goal engendered...
Peculiarities of Kant’s Interpretation of the Term ‘Consequence’
Modern formal logic, which is based on Kant’s logical project, interprets logical consequence as formal, which leads to substantive paradoxes that combine any thoughts at all and so to the loss of consequence as such. Beginning with A. Tarski, modern history of logic brings the problem of logical consequence into the realmof search for the relation of consequence, or grounding. In his doctoral dissertation on the nature of logical formality J. MacFarlane claims that the paradoxes of formal theories...
Die Bibel als moralisches Bilderbuch? Kants ‚doktrinale Hermeneutik‘ und ihr Nutzen für die moralische Kultur des Menschen
This research aims to present a coherent analysis of so-called “doctrinal hermeneutics” by examining notable passages from Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason and the Critique of the Power of Judgment. It is first shown that doctrinal hermeneutics essentially relies on symbolic hypotyposis, which can be understood as thinking by analogy supplemented with a reference to intuition. Here, both an historical and a contemporary interpretation inform the reconstruction of what Kant understands by...
‘People in Black’: Semantization of the concepts ‘sectant’ and ‘baptist’ in the anti-religious campaign of 1958—1964
In the post-revolutionary era, the population's adoption of a new political vocabulary demanded the Soviet authorities to play the role of the interpretant. They engaged in the process of assigning meanings to new concepts through mass media and fiction. Simultaneously, established concepts had to undergo reshaping to align with the new worldview of the 'Soviet citizen’. The transformation of the semantic structure of religious vocabulary, ideologically marked, reflected the shift in the fundamental...
Where and how meanings emerge
The discussion aims to identify the interpretive mechanisms that provide an interface between text and context (between language and the world, language and culture, language and society). It is a multi-level system of interfaces connected by inversion and recursion relations and operations. We identify this system as a pragmasemantics. It also acts as an interface platform for correlation/transformation of intra-system semantic units and extralinguistic objects within a set of possible worlds....
Fichte’s Ideas in the Philosophical Doctrines of Russian Neo-Kantians
Fichte’s doctrine played a significant role in the emergence of Neo-Kantian philosophical projects both in Germany and in Russia. This paper proceeds from the works of Boris Vysheslavtsev, Boris Yakovenko and Henry Lanz and tries to reconstruct the influences exerted by Fichte’s ideas on the philosophical ideas of Russian Neo-Kantians. The historical-philosophical works of Russian Neo-Kantians constitute an integral body which provides an interpretative context of Fichte’s philosophy and forms an...
The Question of Normativity in Emil Lask’s Philosophy of Right
Before Emil Lask wrote The Logic of Philosophy (1911) he outlined the main theses of his future philosophical project in The Philosophy of Right (1905): critique of the “two worlds theory”, the problem of pre-reflective cognition, the emphasis on the role of “pre-scientific” pre-theoretical reality. But how, according to Lask, does the transition from “pre-legal” to “legal” reality take place? The Philosophy of Right criticises the “two worlds theory”, interpreted in the spirit of Platonism, as a...
Self-Ownership and the Categorical Imperative
This article examines the attempts of many libertarian philosophers to justify the self-ownership principle using the second formulation of the categorical imperative. It begins by reconstructing the self-ownership principle, according to which each person has a natural property right over her body and person. There are many versions of this principle, each recognizing a different set of such property rights; but what all formulations have in common is their radical anti-paternalism and, consequently...
Functional specificity of explanation in expository texts: a pragmatic model and elaboration principles
The article provides a functional interpretation of explanation. It is based on the principles of Linguistic Pragmatics and Functional Linguistics. Explanation is analysed from two perspectives: as a communicative act and as a two-part discursive structure. The communicative act of explanation is characterised by a perlocutionary goal of making the reader understand the properties of an entity. This understanding focuses on the properties that are unclear or not obvious to the reader. The perlocutionary...
Innovative meaning-generating structures in the early formation of a literary tradition: the case of Kosta Khetagurov
The article examines the conditions and mechanisms leading at an early stage of the formation of a literary tradition to the dependence of the innovative meaning of the word and its context. The translation of the title of Kosta Khetagurov‘s program verse “Nystwan”, which opens his poetic collection “Iron fændyr” (“Ossetian Lyre”), shows the fundamental differences between the semantics of this word in the ethnographic era and its modern interpretation. Further on, following Buslaev‘s fundamental...
Prison topos as an anti-home in V.G. Korolenko’s short story Yashka
The relevance of the problem addressed lies in the importance of studying the category of home, which actualizes essential spiritual and moral meanings, and its variant, the anti-home. Analyzing the spatial organization of V. G. Korolenko’s story Yashka reveals that the vertical and horizontal arrangement of prison cells forms the traditional oppositions of “top — bottom” and “right — left” characteristic of Slavic mythology. A corresponding character system is constructed: the protagonist, Yakov...
Visual text of medieval Vladimir: the analysis of the dominant image of cathedral exteriors
The article attempts to determine the conceptual foundations for analyzing the influence of the artistic design of the temples of medieval Vladimir on the formation of the urban sacred space. The study aims to use the example of Vladimir during the reign of Andrei Bogolyubsky and Vsevolod III to substantiate the city-forming significance of exterior sculptural programs as a visual text that encodes the key parameters of the semantic organisation of urban environment. Hermeneutic presuppositions and...
Feodosia as a city and a visual text (Aivazovsky Project)
The article describes the personality of Ivan K. Aivazovsky, a man of 'frontiers' who lived in a polyphonic city where Russian, Armenian and Turkic were spoken. The message of the article is the following: Aivazovsky was not only a gifted artist but also a diplomat, a responsible and upstanding citizen who appreciated the values of the city and was concerned about its problems, Armenian community and people. Aivazovsky changed the social space of the city, the (infra)structure and the image of Feodosia...
Translation Historiography
The article offers an overview of the development of translation history during the past decade. It focuses on recent debates, research areas and methodological avenues in translation history with special emphasis on interdisciplinarity. Driven by a move away from a Euro-centric view of translation, researchers have become interested in producing connected and comparative histories of translation. The dialogue with the general field of history has led to the adoption of new methods and forms of analysis...
On fate and/or providence in Pushkin’s short story ‘The blizzard’
It has been repeatedly noted that there are similarities between Pushkin’s short story ‘The blizzard’, Zhukovsky's ballad ‘Svetlana’, from which Pushkin borrowed the epigraph, and Burger's ‘Lenora’, which was twice used by Zhukovsky in different contexts. Differences in the functioning of the traditional plot are considered against the background of the interrelation and interdependence between fate, chance, and free will. In a Christian reading, the attitudes of the main characters of the three...
«Nomen est omen»: the role of names in the novel Parade by Nikolay Kononov
The author analyses the role of the main characters’ names — Lev, Lyuda and Arkady — in the novel Parade by N. Kononov. The multilanguage anagrammatic code is chosen as a research technique: anagramming (in some cases with a transition from one language to another) allows the author to identify hidden meanings consciously or subconsciously used by the writer. N. Kononov resorts to language game throughout his novel and shows the connection between the name Lev and the semantics of physicality and...
A philosophical framework for presenting novelty in a poetic text
Texts of different eras relate to varying degrees to the question of generating and presenting novelty. Recent poetry has been undergoing visible changes in poets’ attitudes to demonstrating linguistic novelty in texts. Young poets write texts that do not use the established algorithms of presenting and perceiving the new but disguise or surreptitiously reveal apparent novelty. One must explore the current practices of hedging against the new in the light of the philosophy of the text and in the...
Meaning in life and meaning in the text (roundtable proceedings)
The roundtable discussed the key problems of meaning formation in narrative and performative practices. In free discussion, experts analysed various factors and parameters determining the meaningfulness of action and examined mechanisms for their interpretation. These mechanisms can be considered as manifestations of various modally different types of textualisation. Interpretation and textualisation make it possible to identify and describe the interaction between some causal and functional relations...
Lexical explicators of the modality of necessity in the Old and New Testament (the Synodal translation into Russian)
In this article, I explore one of the elements of situational modality, namely, the microfield of the modality of necessity. I consider the use of lexical modifiers of the modality of necessity in the Old and New Testament. The aims of this study are to identify similarities and differences in the use of lexemes explicating the microfield in the biblical texts and to produce a comparative analysis of modal meanings of objective-subjective and objective necessity expressed through relevant lexemes...
V. The hagiographic topic in I. S. Shmelev’s novel The Inexhaustible Chalice
In this article, we discuss the hagiographic topics in I. S. Shmelev’s novel The Inexhaustible Chalice, which are expressed through different components of the novel’s literary structure — ranging from the individual traits of the main character, Ilya Sharonov, to twists of the plot and the milestones of his biography. We maintain that in terms of the genre this novel resembles both the lives of the righteous and the lives of the venerable. The novel conforms to the canons of hagiographic texts because...
Linguocultural Transfer: Memplexes in the Anglo-Saxon Tradition
This article considers information transfer in time and space. Following the scientific ideas of the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, the author draws a parallel between ideas and the evolution of genes. Such a parallel is represented by a cultural replicator — the meme, which affects the preservation of an individual’s ideas. The process of copying and transferring non-genetic information in time and space is never perfect. Mutations occur in replicator populations. The imperfect linguocultural...
The Name of Prophet Abraham in the Old Russian Literature of XI—XIII centuries
... reading). In: O. V. Tvorogov, ed. Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoi literatury [Works of the Department of Old Russian Literature]. Vol. 56. St. Petersbourg. pp. 428—452 (in Russ.).
About the Law, through Moses given, and about Grace and Truth through Jesus Christ revealed, and as the Law departed, but Grace and Truth filled the whole earth, and faith in all nations spread, and reached our Russian people. And praise our prince Vladimir, whom we were baptized. And prayer to God from all our land, 1997. In: ...
Events as a semantic framework for the construction of reality: the prospects of a transition to a dynamic ontology
Events are the main element in the formation and presentation of a worldview across all the research disciplines in the humanities and other sciences. Cognising and understanding reality requires the consideration and construction of data, descriptions, correlations, and narratives, to all of which concrete events are the key. In this article, we analyse the connection between an event and reality, with a special focus on social events in the context of management. Such an approach does not confine...
The Soteriological Aspect of the Murals in the Kaliningrad Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
The article explores the main principles behind modern church paintings. The author examines the key factors affecting the structure of mural paintings and pays special attention to their semantic content. The main objective of the analysis is to identify means of expressive visualisation of the Divine Oeconomy, which is the semantic fundamental of the murals’ iconography. The author employs the methods of iconographic and iconological analysis correlating with the objectives of the study. It is...