The characteristics of moral consciousness are usually examined jointly with normative and value factors. O. G. Drobnitskii justly considers the leading criterion of moral consciousness to be the normative quality of moral judgments, the distinctive characteristic of which consists, in turn, of the impersonal nature of such judgments, and also of the fact that moral consciousness "does not associate its judgments directly to whatever facts may be at hand" . Without entering into a polemic against these assertions, we should like (...) to proceed to deal with a different aspect of the same question. (shrink)

В монографии рассматривается влияние философии Платона на русскую философию и культуру в целом. Для студентов, аспирантов, преподавателей гуманитарного направления, специалистов в области истории русской философии, философии культуры, педагогики.

В монографии рассматриваются различные аспекты проявления философии Платона в русской культуре. Существенное значение имеет уточнение в названии монографии - это очерки русской философской мысли. Для тех, кому небезразлична судьба истории русской философии.

The need for discussion of the question of the structure of ethics, its interrelation with other disciplines, methods of ethics research and, finally, ways of achieving a connection between ethical theory and practice has undoubtedly become urgent.

Good and evil are the most general ethical categories from which we can get our bearings in the fundamental philosophical and normative problems of ethics. In the contemporary scholarly literature the interpretation of the good is multifunctional. Good is regarded as a model of morality, as the most general moral requirement or most general moral evaluation, and finally as a practical norm, i.e., a requirement embodied in moral experience, as a unity of the objective and subjective in moral actions. The (...) history of ethical thought was bound to reach this broad, all-embracing conception of the good, indeed, that was the way it went, mastering the content of the category of the good, bit by bit, focusing attention now on one, now on another of its aspects. Hence the most general explanation of the good as a synonym for morality has not at all been the same throughout the different stages in the history of ethical thought. Good, like evil, and like all other ethical categories, had a different compass and different sets of attributes in diverse ethical systems. One must also consider that until modern times, there had never existed a single categorial term to designate morality as a whole. As O. G. Drobnitskii noted, the words "good and evil," "justice," "virtue," and "manners" were often preferred to the concept "morals"; and moreover, each of these words was used to designate not only the particular phenomena within moral philosophy but the entire domain of morals in general. (shrink)

The proper development of Marxist-Leninist ethics demands thorough analysis of its categories, and clarification of their nature and interconnections. These questions are still inadequately treated in our philosophical literature. The problem of the essence of ethical categories is actually bypassed, yet it is precisely here that one finds many disputes and much that is not clear. This problem requires the solution of questions such as the relationship between existing morality and ethical theory, between actual moral feelings, views and principles on (...) the one hand, and ethical categories on the other. In this article let us focus attention on these questions. (shrink)

Recalling the banishment of Russian philosophers in 1921, Boris Zaitsev remarked "only Shpet is forgotten." But Gustav Gustavovich Shpet was not "forgotten" and he was not the only one who succeeded in avoiding expulsion at that time. Among the humanists of prerevolutionary-stamp who continued to work in Soviet Russia after 1922, we can list P.P. Blonskii, A. A. Bogdanov, A.N. Giliarov, S.A. Zhebelev , A.F. Losev, V.N. Ivanovskii, R.V. Ivanov-Razumnik, N.I. Kareev, A.O. Makovel'skii, V.N. Murav'ev, E.L. Radlov, B.G. Stolpner, P.A. (...) Florenskii, B.A. Fokht, G.I. Chelpanov, PS. Iushkevich: almost all of them were philosophers. (shrink)

The paradox of knowability, derived from a proof by Frederic Fitch in 1963, is one of the deepest paradoxes concerning the nature of truth. Jonathan Kvanvig argues that the depth of the paradox has not been adequately appreciated. It has long been known that the paradox threatens antirealist conceptions of truth according to which truth is epistemic. If truth is epistemic, what better way to express that idea than to maintain that all truths are knowable? In the face of the (...) paradox, however, such a characterization threatens to undermine antirealism. If Fitch's proof is valid, then one can be an antirealist of this sort only by endorsing the conclusion of the proof that all truths are known.Realists about truth have tended to stand on the sidelines and cheer the difficulties faced by their opponents from Fitch's proof. Kvanvig argues that this perspective is wholly unwarranted. He argues that there are two problems raised by the paradox, one that threatens antirealism about truth and the other that threatens everybody's view about truth, realist or antirealist. The problem facing antirealism has had a number of proposed solutions over the past 40 years, and the results have not been especially promising with regard to the first problem. The second problem has not even been acknowledged, however, and the proposals regarding the first problem are irrelevant to the second problem. This book thus provides a thorough investigation of the literature on the paradox, and also proposes a solution to the deeper of the two problems raised by Fitch's proof. It provides a complete picture of the paradoxicality that results from Fitch's proof, and presents a solution to the paradox that claims to address both problems raised by the original proof. (shrink)

In recent years, the pages of our journal have carried a number of discussion articles dealing primarily with one question: the essence of the concept of "ethical category" and the concrete place that each ethical category should occupy in the socio-cultural complex denoted by the terms: morality, morals, ethics. The need for discussion of such questions in our scholarly literature on ethics has long been present. The immediate impetus for opening the discussion was publication of L. M. Arkhangel'skii's interesting and (...) significant monograph, The Categories of Marxist-Leninist Ethics [Kategorii marksistsko-leninskoi etiki], and his article "The Essence of Ethical Categories" [Sushchnost' eticheskikh kategorii], in Filosofskie nauki, 1961, No. 3. These writings indisputably represent a step forward in the study of a number of specific ethical categories. However, both in Arkhangel'skii's definition of the concept of "ethical category" and in his interpretation of that definition, there are, in the opinion of a number of participants in the discussion, spots that are weak both in terms of science and of logic. Arkhangel'skii understands ethical categories as "the principal key concepts of ehtical theory, reflecting the fundamental characteristics of morality in general , constituting social reflection of objectively operative concrete historical criteria of moral evaluation , as well as of requirements presented with respect to moral obligations , moral responsibility , dignity , and moral satisfaction , the content of which is determined by the principles of a given morality". (shrink)

while william james's research in mental healing, psychical research, and religious experience are all well-documented, his foray into phrenology remains unexplored and undeveloped. This paper begins with Ralph Barton Perry's narrative, which portrays James as a believer in the truth of phrenology and as someone who thinks it should be valued as an art. While this depiction of James has not made its way into the recent biographies, there are a few individuals who, in fact, perpetuate this idea within the (...) secondary literature. In response, this paper offers a critical assessment of Perry's account by demonstrating that there is sufficient reason to be suspicious of his assertions. The... (shrink)

The medieval fascination with the mysterious language of Dionysius the Areopagite is nowhere more evident than in the thirteenth-century textbook edition of his treatise on liturgical rites. Dionysius employed unfamiliar Greek to describe people, actions, and texts that would have been perfectly familiar to his readers. The Latin translation used in the thirteenth-century textbook strives to preserve this unfamiliarity, but commentaries are introduced between its lines and paragraphs, disrupting its ability to bewilder and surprise. These commentaries make the Dionysian text (...) less mysterious, while also slightly altering its meaning. In the hands of the commentators, Dionysius becomes less interested in the aesthetic mystery of the liturgy, and more interested in credal orthodoxy. To read text and commentary together is to confront seven hundred years of competing voices speaking on the nature and purpose of the Christian church. (shrink)

Virgil's fourth Eclogue is one of the most quoted, adapted and discussed works of classical literature. This study traces the fortunes of Eclogue 4 in the literature and art of the Italian Renaissance. It sheds new light on some of the most canonical works of Western art and literature, as well as introducing a large number of other, lesser-known items, some of which have not appeared in print since their original publication, while others are extant only in manuscript. Individual chapters (...) are devoted to the uses made of the fourth Eclogue in the political panegyric of Medici Florence, the Venetian Republic and the Renaissance papacy, and to religious appropriations of the Virgilian text in the genres of epic and pastoral poetry. The book also investigates the appearance of quotations from the poem in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century fresco cycles representing the prophetic Sibyls in Italian churches. (shrink)

The typical approach to decoding speech from the brain (using brain-machine interfaces) is to decode low-level linguistic units (e.g. phonemes, syllables) from motor articulation areas (e.g. Premotor cortex) with the aim of assembling these low-level units into higher-level discourse. We propose that brain-to-speech decoding may benefit from adopting a functional view of language, which conceives of language as an instrumental tool for interacting with others' intentions in order to fulfil one's own intentions. This functional view of language motivates adopting usability (...) (i.e. the decoder's usefulness as a tool for achieving goals), in addition to decoding accuracy, as a criterion for assessing decoder performance. Decoders may achieve gains in usability by incorporating data about communicative situations and speaker intentions in order to generate and fill in speech act templates. We suggest that this intention-oriented, template-based, and functionally inspired view of brain-to-speech decoding may facilitate efforts to achieve naturalistic speech decoding. (shrink)

The study of ethical categories is a key problem, now posed anew in the context of education for communism. Among recent writings on this subject, much interest attaches to L.M. Arkhangel'skii's article, "The Essence of Ethical Categories" [Sushchnosf eticheskikh kategorii], Filosofskie nauki, 1961, No. 3.* This article discusses the essence of the categories of ethics, their relations with one another and with the principles of morality, and the class content of categories. Particularly valuable, in our opinion, is the author's attempt (...) to analyze categories as concepts expressing universal moral forms, for without this kind of analysis it is impossible to make a rigorously scientific study of the content of categories in concrete historical circumstances. However, certain of the positions taken in his article give cause for objection. (shrink)

Many people believe the global economy is unjust, but they don't know what to do about it. What responsibilities do American consumers have to workers in China making their iPhones? Should they still buy clothes made in Bangladesh's sweatshops? Offering an overview of how neoliberalism orients us to the world, Benjamin L. McKean shows the practical shortcomings of neoliberal approaches to the world and develops an alternative way of thinking and acting guided by a compelling new account of freedom. Disorienting (...) Neoliberalism offers a framework for understanding the politics of the global economy and shows how we can act in solidarity to promote justice. (shrink)

Hegel attempts both to give evil its metaphysical due and to give it intelligibility within a processive idealistic system. To accomplish these ends, he consistently employs the contrast between the natural and the free act of the subject and the contrast between the particular and the universal. He places these contrasts within the situation of an original and presupposed unity of spirit that itself is the ground of the mediation required for thinking freedom, for evil, and for ultimate reconciliation. He (...) argues for evil’s ultimate intelligibility in terms of its necessity as a consequent moment in the development of spirit from its ground; he resolves problems of evil’s penultimate irrationality in terms of its unstable contradictory elements in spirit’s history which is not yet fully concrete, a simultaneity of “ought to be” and “ought not to be” in the sense that the instability must be surpassed but not that it should never have been. The aims of this paper will be to summarize and evaluate Hegel’s efforts to give evil both significance and intelligibility within his system and to estimate if a system of progressive idealism contributes a philosophically new dimension to the problem of evil in a universe. (shrink)

The debate over the temporal arrow is a debate over what fundamental ontology is needed for the temporal asymmetry of the universe, which determines the fact that time seems to be oriented or directed from earlier to later. This temporal asymmetry underlies (or, as some might argue, is the same as) the asymmetrical fact that the past is fixed while the future is open, as well as the global asymmetries of counterfactual, causal and agential direction. I explore the metaphysics of (...) the temporal direction within the context of empirical work in psychology and cognitive science. I argue that, in our debate over the metaphysics of the temporal arrow, we need to explore some of the deep connections between our cognitive response to the world and our metaphysical theory of the temporal direction. (shrink)