The article refutes the widespread view that Dostoevsky's Christian beliefs were strictly Orthodox. It is proved that Dostoevsky's religious and philosophical searches' central tendency is the criticism of historical, ecclesiastical Christianity as a false, distorted form of the teaching of Jesus Christ and the desire to restore this teaching in its original purity. Modern researchers of the history of early Christianity find more and more arguments in favor of the fact that the actual teaching of Jesus Christ is contained in (...) that religious movement, which the church called the Gnostic heresy. The exact philosophical expression of the teaching of Christ was received in the later works of J.G. Fichte, whose ideas had a strong influence on the Russian writer. Like Fichte, Dostoevsky understands Christ as the first person who showed the possibility of revealing God in himself and gaining divine omnipotence and eternal life directly in earthly reality. In this sense, every person can become like Christ. Dostoevsky's main characters walk the path of Christ and show how difficult this path is. The article shows that Dostoevsky used in his work not only the philosophical version of true Christianity developed by German philosophy, but also the key motives of the Gnostic myth, primarily the idea that our world, filled with evil and suffering, is created not by the supreme, good God-Father, but by the evil Demiurge, the Devil. (shrink)

This article examines the classification of political doctrines proposed by Boris N. Chicherin in his major work on the history of political thought. Chicherin uses two forms of systematization for...

This article examines the criticisms that Chicherin directed at the classical Western liberalism that emerged from the works of John Locke, Claude-Adrien Helvétius, Baron d’Holbach, and Jean-Jacque...

The articles analyzes the original concept of immortality, presented by F.M. Dostoevsky in a handwritten sketch written on April 16, 1864, the day after the death of the writer’s first wife. The authors argue that this concept was created under the influence of the ideas of German romantic natural philosophy, in particular G.T. Fechner’s work of The Book of Life After Death (1836). According to the pantheistic ideas of Dostoevsky and Fechner, every person after death continues to exist in the (...) earthly world. Having lost a limited biological body in death, a person can get a more extensive “cosmic” body, covering significant areas of the material universe. His personal spirit continues to exist in mankind, and the degree of his influence depends on what kind of spiritual success he achieved during his lifetime. In the concept of Fechner and Dostoevsky, posthumous life can be very different: great personalities (Goethe, Shakespeare, Napoleon, etc.) acquire an even more significant being than during life, and they continue to influence humankind, which, developing in history, strives for an absolute “synthesis” -the merger of all people into an organic whole and at the same time the merger with the universe. Individuals who, during their lifetime, confined themselves to their selfish interests can even disappear. In this concept, God is defined as “universal Synthesis,” i.e., the goal of the world process and the final merging of everything with everything. Jesus Christ is understood as an absolute, perfect man who, after death, does not resurrect in his previous bodily form, but completely dissolves in humankind and acts as a force guiding it toward unity and synthesis with the material world. (shrink)

The article analyzes the original concept of the development of ancient religions and the emergence of Christianity set out in the six-volume work of F.F. Zelinski History of Ancient Religions. Zelnski refutes the well-established idea of the origin of Christianity from Judaism and proves that it was based on the Hellenistic-Roman religion of the early Roman Empire. In this religion, a idea of monotheistic and pantheistic God was formed, which is the basis of all world processes and human actions, at (...) the same time the idea arose of the possibility of a "particle" of God entering a separate human personality. According to Zelinski, it was these ideas that became the basis of Christianity, which radically rethought them, but nevertheless left them close to the beliefs of the majority of the citizens of the Roman Empire; that is why early Christianity quickly spread throughout the empire. The article suggests that Zelinski's flight from Bolshevik Russia in the 1920s and his life in the Polish Catholic environment led to the fact that he refused to develop his ideas to their natural outcome, which could conflict with Catholic teaching. The article reconstructs the result that Zelnski should have come to with the consistent implementation of his ideas: he would have to admit that the teachings of Jesus Christ and early Christianity which arose from the Roman religion and not from Judaism coincides with that religious tradition which the Catholic Church has persecuted in a story called the Gnostic heresy. (shrink)

Rethinking “philosophy” to-day, it is necessary to think first of all about ontological foundations of the modern scientific universe description and rethink them on the ground of modern scientific knowledge, because until now there is no any precise scientific conception of the structure of the universe, of reasons and movingforces of its permanent evolution. All of it create basis to propose various unscientific ideas of creationism. Until now most of philosophers associate the motion of Matter on the whole only with (...) its motion in space and in time, mixing philosophical and physical aspects of these two principle categories. Generally speaking, the present-day ontological model of understanding the World, the Universe is constructed purely on the basis of only these two fundamental categories. However, a more deep reflection of the essence of Being, if to realize it on the basis of only these two global categories, brings us to the disappointing conclusion, that in this case we have nothing more except a mechanical motion, i.e. spatial displacement of a material point (or a system of points) relatively some point of counting off. To make it normal and logic we should add to the ontological model one more essential part – the motion in quality. So, in order to create the full and complete picture of the formation and evolution of the material World it is necessary to observe the motion of material forming in the three equivalentphilosophical categories: in space time quality. The ideas of the new conception of ontological model become actual supplementation of really scientific philosophical knowledge on the way of a more objective ontological comprehension of our Being, of the law of development of the human civilization and the Universe as a whole. This knowledge can be successfully used for the description of the realistic paradigm of Being, in explanations of the meaning of Life. (shrink)

This paper considers the philosophical and political views of B. N. Chicherin. Chicherin was one of Hegel's better known followers in Russian philosophy. Chicherin transformed Hegel's ideas to such an extent that the main concept of his philosophy became the concept of the person, and the main problem was the description of the person's connection to the Absolute. Chicherin was also known as a representative of the liberal tradition in Russia. However, he criticized classical western liberalism for belittling the value (...) of the state. Chicherin's liberal theory was under construction in a dialectical combination of two principles: recognition of the absolute value of the person and its freedom and recognition of the necessity of a strong state for the solution of some general problems in the absence of which it will be impossible to realize the principle of freedom in all its completeness. (shrink)

This is a broad and ambitious study of the entire history of humanity which takes as its point of departure Marx's theory of social evolution. However, Professor Diakonoff's theory of world history differs from Marx's in a number of ways. Firstly he has expanded Marx's five stages of development to eight. Secondly he denies that social evolution necessarily implies progress and shows how 'each progress is simultaneously a regress', and thirdly he demonstrates that the transition from one stage to another (...) is not necessarily marked by social conflict and that sometimes this is achieved peacefully and gracefully. As the book moves through these various stages, the reader is drawn into a remarkable and thought-provoking study of the process of the history of the human race which focuses on the wide range of factors (economic, social, military-technological, and socio-pyschological) which have influenced our development from palaeolithic times to the present day. (shrink)

David E. Over is a leading cognitive scientist and, with his firm grounding in philosophical logic, he also exerts a powerful influence on the psychology of reasoning. He is responsible for not only a large body of empirical work and accompanying theory, but for advancing a major shift in thinking about reasoning, commonly known as the ‘new paradigm’ in the psychology of human reasoning. -/- Over’s signature mix of philosophical logic and experimental psychology has inspired generations of researchers, psychologists, and (...) philosophers alike over more than a quarter of a century. The chapters in this volume, written by a leading group of contributors including a number who helped shape the psychology of reasoning as we know it today, each take their starting point from the key themes of Over’s ground-breaking work. The essays in this collection explore a wide range of central topics—such as rationality, bias, dual processes, and dual systems—as well as contemporary psychological and philosophical theories of conditionals. It concludes with an engaging new chapter, authored by David E. Over himself, which details and analyses the new paradigm psychology of reasoning. -/- This book is therefore important reading for scholars, researchers, and advanced students in psychology, philosophy, and the cognitive sciences, including those who are not familiar with Over’s thought already. (shrink)

The purpose of the research is to develop a new methodological basis for identifying, analyzing and solving problems of international corporations export-import activities and to ground the directions for ensuring their business excellence. The approach originality provides introduction of a conceptual model that aims to eliminate the negative symptoms of international corporations export-import activities based on the results of comprehensive market research, effectiveness of export-import activities and calculation of the integrated indicator of business excellence. The leading corporations of Slovakia and (...) India in the production of bi-axially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) films were the primary basis for this study. The results of the research showed the need to implement a system of managerial innovation for reasoning the directions of ensuring international corporations business excellence. This is achieved because of using logically formalized methods and provides the improvement of organizational and structural interaction of management entities in the process of solving export-import activity problems. Important factors for ensuring business excellence are also the optimization of export and import costs, as well as an increase in export revenue for Slovak companies, and an increase in market share and cost optimization for Indian companies. The practical value of the obtained results is to develop a set of managerial innovations that can improve the efficiency of export-import activities and improve international corporations business. (shrink)

Hegselmann and Krause have developed a simple yet powerful computational model for studying the opinion dynamics in societies of epistemically interacting truth-seeking agents. We present various extensions of this model and show their relevance to the investigation of socio-epistemic questions, with an emphasis on normative questions.

According to the well–known argument, the traditional conception of existence and predication leads to the infamous paradox of non-existence. For instance, the sentence ‘Pegasus does not exist’ commits us to accept that there is something that does not exist. The easy way out is to analyze existence as a second–order concept expressing that there is at least one instance of some first–order concept. In this article, I argue that the traditional conception of existence and predication does not lead to the (...) paradox of non-existence. Negative existentials are not subject-predicate sentences that select existing beings only to deny them the property of existence. Aristotle’s insistence that being is not a genus, i.e. that being is not a predicate of some subject, is pivotal. Furthermore, Aristotle does not have a uniform conception of existence and predication. According to Aristotle, to be is to be an item in the categorical scheme, and consequently, every predication of some being should be analysable as one of the most general types of predication according to the categorical scheme. However, in the conceptual framework of Aristotle’s philosophy, a different problem of non-existence arises. For instance, ‘Pegasus is thought-about’ might commits us to the claim that Pegasus is a being of some kind. I reconstruct Aristotle’s solution as being satisfactory in the light of his understanding of predication and existence. Moreover, I suggest that a similar puzzle leads many contemporary philosophers to an abandonment of the Quinean concept of existence and predication in favour of a more traditional approach. (shrink)

This article addresses the role of auditory-related verbs in the work of Jean-Luc Nancy and Pierre Schaeffer in order to shed light on a broader tendency in French thought. Through a comparative reading of the ways in which Nancy, in Listening, and Schaeffer, in Treatise on Musical Objects, mobilize verbs such as écouter and entendre, I connect the issue of language to debates about descriptive and prescriptive approaches towards listening. Drawing on the Dictionary of Untranslatables, I argue that Nancy's and (...) Schaeffer's engagements with listening can be mapped onto historical modes of framing politics and ethics, which are also characterized by descriptive and prescriptive approaches. By showing how theories of listening connect to political and ethical debates, this study discusses the ideological instrumentalization of listening as opposed to more descriptive and exploratory forms of engagement in the auditory and the faculty of the ear. (shrink)

This article inquiries into the concept of res in the Cartesian metaphsyics. It argues, on the one hand, that res should not be interpreted in line with the traditional scholastic concept of substratum, and on the other hand, that it is nevertheless a technical notion. In particular, the determination of the ego as res cogitans in Descartes' Second Meditation (AT VII 27) must be interpreted in the light of the ontology of the verœ naturœ of the Fifth Meditation. The subsistence (...) of the ego is indeed grounded on the criterion of identification of the true natures, that is on the inseparability of concepts. The ontology of the verœ naturœ is therefore already at work both in the Second and in the Third Meditation before becoming explicit in the Fifth Meditation. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the relationship between place and self can be accounted for by recent theoretical work on autobiographical memory. The link between place and self is conceptualized as a transitory mental representation that emerges as a “place of mine” (personal autobiographical experience) from a “place” (declarative knowledge). The function of “place of mine” is to guide personal memory and self-knowing consciousness of periods of our lives. I combine inquiries of memory, self, and place in a triadic (...) relationship, a synthesis, suggesting a conceptual model for the phenomenon of place-related self as a sub-system of the self. This is formed by a causal progression from a physical place across time via emotional and cognitive bonds, components of the autobiographical information grounding the self, apportioned across declarative memory. Finally, using the methods of factor analysis and structural equation modeling, I show that the proposed model accounts for previous and new data on place-related identity. (shrink)

Der Wechsel der philosophischen Auffassung des λόγος von Platon über Aristoteles bis zu den Stoikern hat die Entstehung der philosophischen Grammatik bedingt. Aus dieser philosophischen Grammatik entwickelt sich die hellenistische Grammatik, die von da an die Verfassung und den Gebrauch der europäischen Sprachen bestimmt. Sie stützt sich vor allem auf die aristotelische und stoische Logik und Grammatik. Indem sie sich aber von ihren philosophischen Wurzeln entfernt, legt sie den Grund für die weitere Entwicklung der nichtphilosophischen Grammatik bei den Römern. Mit (...) dem Auftritt der hellenistisch-römischen Grammatik gelangt die Vergessenheit des Wesens des λόγος und zugleich des Wesens des Sprechens zu ihrem ersten geschichtlichen Höhepunkt. Die geschichtliche Erinnerung an die griechische philosophische Herkunft der Grammatik und besonders an die frühgriechische vor-grammatische Erfahrung des λόγος, in welchem das Wesen des Sprechens selbst zum Wort kommt, hat die Aufgabe, das Gehör für das sprechende Sagen zu wecken, das sich der Herrschaft der Grammatik zu entziehen vermag. (shrink)

The paper, as a continuation of the paper Hanzel , provides a methodological generalization of Newton’s method of theory construction as applied in Book I and Book III of his Principia. It reconstructs also the method of measures applied in those books. Finally, it shows how the term “harmonic law” changes its meaning in the Principia.

The sequent system LDJ is formulated using the same connectives as Gentzen's intuitionistic sequent system LJ, but is dual in the following sense: (i) whereas LJ is singular in the consequent, LDJ is singular in the antecedent; (ii) whereas LJ has the same sentential counter-theorems as classical LK but not the same theorems, LDJ has the same sentential theorems as LK but not the same counter-theorems. In particular, LDJ does not reject all contradictions and is accordingly paraconsistent. To obtain a (...) more precise mapping, both LJ and LDJ are extended by adding a "pseudo-difference" operator which is the dual of intuitionistic implication. Cut-elimination and decidability are proved for the extended systems and , and a simply consistent but -inconsistent Set Theory with Unrestricted Comprehension Schema based on LDJ is sketched. (shrink)

Ifeel that Iam apartof, but separatefrom an 'out there' world. 2. Ifeel that my perception of the world mingles with feelings of past experience. 3. My experienceof the world is selective and purposeful. 4. I am thinking ahead allthe timeintrying ...

Radical “Westernizing” transformations in extra-European countries, from Peter I’s Russia to Meiji Japan, are traditionally presented as a response to pressures from the more militarily and technologically advanced European powers. This corresponds to the general tendency to view war as the driving force behind early modern state-building. However, the question remains: how exactly did such transformations happen, and what explains their timing? Why did some countries, such as Russia, embark on radical institutional restructuring that threatened large sections of the traditional (...) military classes in the absence of any obvious existential threat, while in others even clear and immediate dangers failed to ignite a full-scale “Westernization”? This article seeks to complicate the “bellicist” narrative of “Westernizing” transformations and to generalize about the role of elite conflict in propelling “self-strengthening” reforms. It argues that “Westernizations” in extra-European polities were enabled by breakdown of domestic political balance and driven by “challengers” emerging in the course of these conflicts, as they strove to maximize their power. Factional struggles accompanying “Westernizations” are interpreted here not as a conservative reaction against reforms, but as a process that preceded and enabled institutional restructuring. (shrink)

Povijest je u Hölderlina prije svega mišljena kao povijest iskona. Iskon bitka u Hölderlina jest o sebi vječno, sebe u sebi samom razlučujuće jedno, koje se nužno u vremenu razvija u slijedu svojih stanja ili doba. Povijest je ono doba iskona koje slijedi nakon pretpovijesnog, a prethodi budućem dobu koje ima doći s dovršenjem povijesti. No povijest je ujedno i povijest svijeta ukoliko je povijest prisutnosti i odsutnosti iskona u svijetu. U svom pretpovijesnom dobu iskon se pojavljuje kao prirodno jedinstvo (...) ili jedinstvo prirode koja u sebi obuhvaća nerazvijeno umijeće. To se iskonsko jedinstvo zatim gubi u povijesnom razdvajanju umijeća i prirode, da bi se na koncu povijesti uspostavilo ponovno jedinstvo koje, međutim, nije istovjetno prvotnom jedinstvu onih suprotnih, već je jedinstvo njihova jedinstva i razdvajanja. U tom se savršenom sjedinjenju pomiruju vječnost i vrijeme, tj. ono o sebi vječno jedno ozbiljuje se kao iskonski svijet.Povijesno udvajanje iskonskog jedinstva na prirodu i umijeće Hölderlin također promatra pod vidom suprotstavljenosti dvaju temeljnih suprotnih »životnih težnji« i njima pripadajućih suprotnih ugođaja – strastvenosti i trezvenosti. Hölderlin objašnjava kako se te suprotstavljene težnje života ili temeljni ugođaji povijesno očituju i na temelju toga međusobno uspoređuje grčku i hesperijsku umjetnost. Povijest obrazuje slijed razdoblja, koji je određen smjenom sklada i suprotstavljenosti temeljnih ugođaja.Tijekom povijesti, iskonsko je sjedinjenje prirode i umijeća moguće samo na način tragedije. U onom tragičkom iskon više ne djeluje samo posredno u razvoju svojih odvojenih dijelova nego se objavljuje neposredno. Ali tragičko je sjedinjenje nesavršeno i privremeno. Povijest je tako određena nizom tragičkih sjedinjenja, iz kojih nužno proizlazi novi oblik razdvajanja. Kao što je tragedija u sredini između starog i novog perioda svijeta, tako je i povijest u cjelini tragička sredina između dvaju doba iskona u kojima je on sjedinjen.Die Geschichte ist bei Hölderlin vor allem als die Geschichte des Ursprungs gedacht. DerUrsprung des Seins bei Hölderlin ist das an sich ewige, sich in sich selbst unterscheidendeEine, das sich notwendig in der Zeit im Verlauf seiner Zustände oder Perioden entwickelt. DieGeschichte ist diejenige Periode des Ursprungs, die nach der vorgeschichtlichen Periode folgtund einer künftigen Periode vorausgeht, die mit der Vollendung der Geschichte zu kommenhat. Die Geschichte ist aber zugleich die Geschichte der Welt, insofern sie die Geschichte derAnwesenheit und Abwesenheit des Ursprungs in der Welt ist. In seiner vorgeschichtlichen Pe­riode erscheint der Ursprung als die natürliche Einheit oder die Einheit der Natur, welche dieunentwickelte Kunst in sich umfasst. Diese ursprüngliche Einheit geht dann in der geschicht­lichen Trennung der Kunst und der Natur verloren, damit am Ende der Geschichte die Einheitwiederhergestellt wird, welche aber nicht mit der anfänglichen Einheit des Gegensätzlichengleichzusetzen ist, sondern die Einheit ihrer Einheit und Trennung ist. In dieser vollkommenenVereinigung werden die Ewigkeit und die Zeit versöhnt, d.h. das an sich ewige Eine wird als dieursprüngliche Welt verwirklicht.Die geschichtliche Entzweiung der ursprünglichen Einheit in Natur und Kunst wird von Hölder­lin auch unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Entgegensetzung von zwei „Grundtendenzen des Lebens”und ihnen zugehörenden Stimmungen – Leidenschaft und Nüchternheit, betrachtet. Hölderlin erklärt wie diese Grundstimmungen sich geschichtlich manifestieren und im Zusammenhangdamit vergleicht miteinander die griechische und hesperische Kunst. Die Geschichte bildet dieFolge der Perioden, die durch den Wechsel der Harmonie und der Entgegensetzung der Grund­stimmungen bestimmt ist.Im Laufe der Geschichte ist die ursprüngliche Vereinigung der Natur und Kunst nur als Tragö­die möglich. Im Tragischen wirkt der Ursprung nicht nur mittelbar, in der Entwicklung seinerentgegengesetzten Teile, sondern offenbart sich unmittelbar. Aber die tragische Vereinigung istunvollkommen und temporär. Die Geschichte ist so durch eine Reihe von tragischen Vereinigungenbestimmt,aus denen eine neue Gestalt der Trennung notwendig hervorgeht. So wie dieTragödie in der Mitte zwischen der alten und neuen Weltperiode steht, ebenso ist auch die Ge­schichte im Ganzen die tragische Mitte zwischen zwei Perioden des vereinigten Ursprungs. (shrink)