First published in English in 1935, this is a vital and stimulating critical appraisal of contemporary thought in the post-World War One era. Written by a selection of leading Marxist thinkers including Nikolai Bukharin, who would later become one of the most famous victims of Stalin's show trials, this work offers a Marxist critique of contemporary thought relating to philosophy, science and history. The authors all lean towards the view that the general tendency of modern thought is to abandon the (...) historical method and to deny progress, with the conclusion that Marxism was the only historical and progressive outlook in science, philosophy and history in the period following the First World War and the Communist revolution in Russia. A fascinating document of great historical and political interest which offers an invaluable insight into contemporary thought in the Soviet Union of the 1930s. (shrink)

The spiritual geography of Russian cosmism. General characteristics ; Recent definitions of cosmism -- Forerunners of Russian cosmism. Vasily Nazarovich Karazin (1773-1842) ; Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev (1749-1802) ; Poets: Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, (1711-1765) and Gavriila Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816) ; Prince Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky (1803-1869) ; Aleksander Vasilyevich Sukhovo-Kobylin (1817-1903) -- The Russian philosophical context. Philosophy as a passion ; The destiny of Russia ; Thought as a call for action ; The totalitarian cast of mind -- The religious and spiritual (...) context. The kingdom of god on earth ; Hesychasm: two great Russian saints ; The Third Rome ; Pre-Christian antecedents -- The Russian esoteric context. Early searches for "deep wisdom" ; Popular magic ; Higher magic in the time of Peter the Great ; Esotericism after Peter the Great ; Theosophy and anthroposophy -- Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov (1829-1903), the philosopher of the common task ; The one idea ; The unacknowledged prince ; The village teacher ; First disciple: Dostoevsky and Tolstoy ; The Moscow librarian ; Last years: Askhabad: the only portrait -- The "common task" ; Esoteric dimensions of the "common task" ; Fedorov's legacy: projectivism, delo, regulation -- The religious cosmists. Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov (1853-1900) ; Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (1871-1944) ; Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky (1882-1937) ; Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948) -- The scientific cosmists. Konstantin Edouardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) ; Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863-1945) ; Alexander Leonidovich Chizhevsky (1897-1964) ; Vasily Feofilovich Kuprevich (1897-1969) -- Promethean theurgy. Life-creation ; Cultural immortalism ; God-building ; Re-aiming the arrows of Eros ; Technological utopianism ; Occultism -- Fedorov's twentieth century followers. Nikolai Pavlovich Peterson (1844-1919) and Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kozhevnikov (1852-1917) ; Svyatogor and the biocosmists ; New wine and the universal task ; Alexander Konstantinovich Gorsky (1886-1943) and Nikolai Alexandrovich Setnitsky (1888-1937) ; Valerian Nikolaevich Muravyov (1885-1932) ; Vasily Nikolaevich Chekrygin (1897-1922) -- Cosmism and its offshoots today. The N.F. Fedorov museum-library ; The Tsiolkovsky museum and Chizhevsky center ; ISRICA - Institute for Scientific Research in Cosmic Anthropoecology ; Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev (1912-1992) and neo-eurasianism ; The hyperboreans ; Scientific immortalism: Igor Vishev, Danila Medvedev ; Conclusions about the Russian cosmists. (shrink)

The phenomenon of nationalism, which emerged as a result of modernization and industrialization in Western Europe, soon began to threaten the multi-lingual multinational feudal state structure of the Tsarist administration. Tsarist Russia, which wanted to preserve its borders and the existing state structure that expanded to the Caucasus and Turkestan, followed the assimilation and missionary policies towards the middle of the 19th century to Russify and Christianize non-Russian (Nerusky) and non-Christian (Inoverets) ethnic groups. At the beginning of this cultural nationalist (...) policy, which was carried out by Nikolai Ivanovich Ilminsky, who worked on theology and Turkish dialects in Kazan Spiritual Academy, in order to have Russian as a language of education and communication within the Tsarist borders. The education method of Ilminsky, supported by Tsar Alexander II, enabled the Russian language and Christianity to become widespread and more systematically applied as a reflection of the rising Russian nationalism. In line with this training method, it was aimed to carry out missionary activities, to teach Russian and Cyrillic alphabet alongside local languages, to divide these languages with accents and dialects and to make Russian a common language within Tsarist borders. Thus, the religious and ethnically different groups were wanted to be assimilated within the Russian and Orthodox Christian identities. This study examines the process of cultural assimilation policy carried out by the Russian nationalism through the education system of Ilminsky, the factors affecting this process, the structure and applications of this education system. Although the education system of Ilminsky did not reach its target within the boundaries of the empire, it was seen to be quite effective in Christianization of Tatar Turks, in spreading Russian among other ethnic groups and in terms of laying the ground for the subsequent Russification policies. The Ilminsky education system, which caused the start of a new phase in Russian nationalism, led to the emergence of nationalist ideas and intelligentsia among the ethnic groups exposed to this system The nationalist ideas spread among the ethnic groups exposed to the policy of Russification have enabled the establishment of new educational systems and the emergence of national liberation movements. (shrink)

Fenomen russkogo kosmizma -- Nikolaĭ Fedorovich Fedorov -- Konstantin Ėduardovich T︠S︡iolkovskiĭ -- Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadskiĭ -- Aleksandr Leonidovich Chizhevskiĭ.

Darwin in Russian Thought represents the first comprehensive and systematic study of Charles Darwin's influence on Russian thought from the early 1860s to the October Revolution. While concentrating on the role of Darwin's theory in the development of Russian science and philosophy, Vucinich also explores the dominant ideological and sociological interpretations of evolutionary thought, providing a deft analysis of the views held by the leaders of Russian nihilism, populism, anarchism, and marxism. Darwin's thinking profoundly influenced intellectual discourse in Russia: it (...) effected the emergence of "theoretical theology," a modern effort to provide theological responses to the revolutionary changes in the natural sciences, contributed to the evolution of a modern scientific community, and spurred the rapidly growing concern with the epistemological and ethical foundations of science in general. Scholarly battles were waged among the critics of Darwin--Karl von Baer, Nikolai Iakovlevich Danilevskii and Sergei Ivanovich Korzhinskii, and others--and the defenders of the faith. Vucinich is able to delineate the distinctive national characteristics of Russian Darwinism: the strong influence of Lamarckian thought, the delayed recognition of the contributions of genetics, the near-universal rejection of Social Darwinism, the early anticipation of the triumph of "evolutionary synthesis," and the heavy concentration on the social and moral aspects of evolutionary thought. Vividly argued and rich in detail, Darwin in Russian Thought provides a unique glimpse into the Russian psyche. Darwin in Russian Thought represents the first comprehensive and systematic study of Charles Darwin's influence on Russian thought from the early 1860s to the October Revolution. While concentrating on the role of Darwin's theory in the development of Russian science and philosophy, Vucinich also explores the dominant ideological and sociological interpretations of evolutionary thought, providing a deft analysis of the views held by the leaders of Russian nihilism, populism, anarchism, and marxism. Darwin's thinking profoundly influenced intellectual discourse in Russia: it effected the emergence of "theoretical theology," a modern effort to provide theological responses to the revolutionary changes in the natural sciences, contributed to the evolution of a modern scientific community, and spurred the rapidly growing concern with the epistemological and ethical foundations of science in general. Scholarly battles were waged among the critics of Darwin--Karl von Baer, Nikolai Iakovlevich Danilevskii and Sergei Ivanovich Korzhinskii, and others--and the defenders of the faith. Vucinich is able to delineate the distinctive national characteristics of Russian Darwinism: the strong influence of Lamarckian thought, the delayed recognition of the contributions of genetics, the near-universal rejection of Social Darwinism, the early anticipation of the triumph of "evolutionary synthesis," and the heavy concentration on the social and moral aspects of evolutionary thought. Vividly argued and rich in detail, Darwin in Russian Thought provides a unique glimpse into the Russian psyche. (shrink)

The Nikolais/Louis Dance Technique provides the definite resource for understanding and practicing the influential dance technique developed by two pioneers of modern dance, Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis. The Nikolais/Louis technique is presented in a week-to-week classroom manual, providing an indispensable tool for teachers and students of this widely studied movement practice. Theoretical background for further reading is set off from the manual for those interested in deeper study. Their philosophy and methodology span a broad readership and offer an important (...) addition to dance literature and American cultural history. (shrink)

Nikolai Zhinkin’s review of Ernst Cassirer is so far the earliest document of the discussion in Russia about Cassirer’s conception of myth and his theory of symbolic forms. The text is published from Zhinkin’s archive. Zhinkin here notes a reorientation of Neo-Kantianism that reveals its hidden relativism and stands as a symptom of its downfall.

Since a number of years, popular and scientific interest in resilience is rapidly increasing. More recently, also neuroscientific research in resilience and the associated neurobiological findings is gaining more attention. Some of these neuroscientific findings might open up new measures to foster personal resilience, ranging from magnetic stimulation to pharmaceutical interventions and awareness-based techniques. Therefore, bioethics should also take a closer look at resilience and resilience research, which are today philosophically under-theorized. In this paper, we analyze different conceptualizations of resilience (...) and argue that especially one-sided understandings of resilience which dismiss social and cultural contexts of personal resilience do pose social and ethical problems. On a social level such unbalanced views on resilience could hide and thereby stabilize structural social injustices, and on an individual level it might even lead to an aggravation of stress-related mental health problems by overexerting the individual. Furthermore, some forms of fostering resilience could be a latent form of human enhancement and trigger similar criticisms. (shrink)

The subject of this study is the problem of the failure of attempts by the scientific community to come to a common understanding of what exactly information can be as something encoded into material structures and moved along with them. At the same time, the following aspects of this problem are considered in detail: what is the immediate cause of the information problem; what are the objective and subjective prerequisites for its appearance; why the unresolved nature of this problem does (...) not interfere with the creation and development of communication systems, control and other "smart" devices; is there any general guideline for finding solutions to such problems, and what is it; what role did the philosophy of information play in turning the problem of information from a private scientific problem into a problem of the ideological level. The main results of the conducted research are as follows: the immediate cause of the information problem has been identified and a comprehensively substantiated solution to this problem has been given; it has been revealed that the incompleteness of the materialistic theory of cognition has become a fertile ground for the appearance of this problem; the circumstances that prevented its completion have been identified; the natural mechanism of control and cognition has been revealed, as a result of which the materialistic theory of cognition has been further developed the source of the ideal in the material world is revealed; it is shown that the mechanistic idea of information coding made the concept of information incompatible with the presence of any objective content; it is revealed what is actually hidden behind the words about information coding and its measurement; the nature of signals and signs is revealed; a kind of bias of the philosophy of information and a general error is revealed all known concepts of information. (shrink)

The Russian philosopher Nikolai Onufrievich Lossky considered himself a Leibnizian of sorts. He accepted parts of Leibniz’s doctrine of monads, although he preferred to call them ‘substantival agents’ and rejected the thesis that they have neither doors nor windows. In Lossky’s own doctrine, monads have existed since the beginning of time, they are immortal, and can evolve or devolve depending on the goodness or badness of their behavior. Such evolution requires the possibility for monads to reincarnate into the bodies of (...) creatures of a higher level on the scala perfectionis. According to this theory, a monad can evolve by being progressively reincarnated multiple times through a sort of process of metamorphosis from the level of the most elementary particles all the way up to the level of human beings or even higher. Lossky argues that the works of Leibniz contain scattered elements of such a systematic doctrine of reincarnation. He attempts to reconstitute this doctrine in an article that appeared both in Russian and German in 1931. The Russian version, ‘Ученiе Лейбница о перевоплощенiи какъ метаморфозѣ’, was published in the Сборникъ Русскаго института въ Прагѣ, vol. 2, 1931, pp. 77–88. The German version appeared under the title ‘Leibniz’ Lehre von der Reinkarnation als Metamorphose,’ in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 40, n. 2, 1931, pp. 214–226. The content of the Russian and German versions is roughly the same, except for the omission, in the German version, of a mention of David Hume in the second sentence and of one paragraph and a half at the end of the article. The following is a translation of this article. I translated the text from the Russian version, which was in all appearances written first, but I also took the German version into account. The original pagination is added in angle brackets. Angle brackets are used wherever the additions are mine. — Frédéric Tremblay. (shrink)

The article investigates the peculiarities of Durer's aesthetic views in the context of Renaissance philosophy and the theory of cognition of Modern times. Its provisions are compared with fragments of texts by L.-B. Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael. The semantic interrelationships of Durer's positions with mysticism, pantheism, natural philosophy and empiricism of Modern Times are emphasized. The interrelation of the problem of knowledge with the theme of freedom and beauty is considered in detail. The authors analyze various opinions and ways (...) of comprehending the beautiful, presented in the philosophical constructions of Durer, his concept of "rational knowledge", "scientific ignorance". Special attention is paid to the boundaries of freedom in Durer's representation. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the presented concept of the evolution of A. Durer's aesthetic views helps to comprehend those contradictory trends that existed in the Renaissance itself. Thus, Durer believed that freedom conditioned by knowledge ends where attempts to transcend nature begin. A necessary condition for freedom is the understanding that the beautiful is relative. From the understanding of the relativity of the beautiful, from the concrete utopian program of its achievement, an imperative grows, meaning denial, the completion of the aesthetics of Rebirth. According to him, the artist should not limit himself to one type, but should be knowledgeable in various ways of depicting all kinds of types. In order to make such an image as is required of him. Thus, the professionalism of the artist, his experience, knowledge, recognition of the power of knowledge and, at the same time, understanding of its relativity – all this, as an achievement of the Renaissance theory of art, loses its meaning. All this is sacrificed to the tastes of employers. (shrink)

In their update to Intentionality All-Stars, Hutto and Satne claim that there is currently no satisfactory account for a naturalised conception of content. From this the pair suggest that we need to consider whether content is present in all aspects of intelligence, that is, whether it is content all the way down. Yet if we do not have an acceptable theory of content such a question seems out of place. It seems more appropriate to question whether content itself is the (...) problematic assumption. This paper will explore this question, with the analysis hinging on whether those trying to naturalise content are facing a tough challenge as Haugeland has suggested, or whether it is a genuine dilemma as Hutto has suggested elsewhere. If those attempting to naturalise content are facing a genuine dilemma, a dilemma in which the non-existence of content is one of the horns, then it would seem that the issue is not at what stage you posit content, but whether you should posit content at all. This also has the added benefit of shifting the debate to a more global discussion, that is, the best way to explain intelligence, period. (shrink)

The Lagrangian and Hamiltonian properties of classical electrodynamics models and their associated Dirac quantizations are studied. Using the vacuum field theory approach developed in (Prykarpatsky et al. Theor. Math. Phys. 160(2): 1079–1095, 2009 and The field structure of a vacuum, Maxwell equations and relativity theory aspects. Preprint ICTP) consistent canonical Hamiltonian reformulations of some alternative classical electrodynamics models are devised, and these formulations include the Lorentz condition in a natural way. The Dirac quantization procedure corresponding to the Hamiltonian formulations is (...) developed. The crucial importance of the rest reference systems, with respect to which the dynamics of charged point particles is framed, is explained and emphasized. A concise expression for the Lorentz force is derived by suitably taking into account the duality of electromagnetic field and charged particle interactions. Finally, a physical explanation of the vacuum field medium and its relativistic properties fitting the mathematical framework developed is formulated and discussed. (shrink)

This study examined the relation of altered states of consciousness to neuroticization, spiritual experience, and divergent thinking in a sample of women at late pregnancy and post-delivery. The results suggest that stress associated with imminent childbirth is linked to higher levels of ASCs and that neuroticization and spirituality seem to be implicated in the induction of ASCs.

The following result is an approximation to the answer of the question of Kokorin about decidability of a quantifier-free theory of field of rational numbers. Let Q0 be a subset of the set of all rational numbers which contains integers 1 and −1. Let be a set containing Q0 and closed by the functions of addition, subtraction and multiplication. For example coincides with Q0 if Q0 is the set of all binary rational numbers or the set of all decimal rational (...) numbers. It is clear that , where Z is the set of all integers and Q is the set of all rational numbers. A negationless theory uses only conjunction and disjunction as logical connectives. Let T be a quantifier-free negationless elementary theory of signature , where Pol is the list of all polynomials with rational coefficients from Q0 in which exponent of the polynomials and rational coefficients are written in binary number system. Theorem 1. Theory T is NP-hard and if is everywhere dense then the theory T is decidable by an algorithm which belongs to EXPTIME. The set of all rational numbers or the set of all binary rational numbers may be taken instead of . The quantifier-free negationless theory of the field of rational numbers may be regarded as a base of constructive mathematics. (shrink)

Summary This essay offers an overview of the three distinct periods in the development of Russian eugenics: Imperial (1900–1917), Bolshevik (1917–1929), and Stalinist (1930–1939). Began during the Imperial era as a particular discourse on the issues of human heredity, diversity, and evolution, in the early years of the Bolshevik rule eugenics was quickly institutionalized as a scientific discipline—complete with societies, research establishments, and periodicals—that aspired an extensive grassroots following, generated lively public debates, and exerted considerable influence on a range of (...) medical, public health, and social policies. In the late 1920s, in the wake of Joseph Stalin's ‘Great Break’, eugenics came under intense critique as a ‘bourgeois’ science and its proponents quickly reconstituted their enterprise as ‘medical genetics’. Yet, after a brief period of rapid growth during the early 1930s, medical genetics was dismantled as a ‘fascist science’ towards the end of the decade. Based on published and original research, this essay examines the factors that account for such an unusual—as compared to the development of eugenics in other locales during the same period—historical trajectory of Russian eugenics. (shrink)

Gorky’s story “Man,” as the title already makes evident, is a hymn of praise to man as the driving force of history, its main character, the source of all its meanings. However, man is...

In der Reihe werden herausragende monographische Untersuchungen und Sammelbände zu allen Aspekten der Philosophie Kants veröffentlicht, ebenso zum systematischen Verhältnis seiner Philosophie zu anderen philosophischen Ansätzen in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Veröffentlicht werden Studien, die einen innovativen Charakter haben und ausdrückliche Desiderate der Forschung erfüllen. Die Publikationen repräsentieren den aktuellsten Stand der Forschung.

There is a view in the literature around beliefs that evidence responsiveness is a necessary feature of beliefs. The reasoning is that because beliefs are governed by truth they must be evidence responsive. A mental state that fails to be evidence responsive, therefore, could not be a belief as it could not be governed by truth. The implication is that even those evidence-resistant mental states that appear to be beliefs are in fact something else. I argue that evidence resistance is (...) a feature of at least some beliefs, so evidence responsiveness cannot be a necessary feature of belief. (shrink)

Despite its short historical moment in the sun, behaviorism has become something akin to a theoria non grata, a position that dare not be explicitly endorsed. The reasons for this are complex, of course, and they include sociological factors which we cannot consider here, but to put it briefly: many have doubted the ambition to establish law-like relationships between mental states and behavior that dispense with any sort of mentalistic or intentional idiom, judging that explanations of intelligent behavior require reference (...) to qualia and/or mental events. Today, when behaviorism is discussed at all, it is usually in a negative manner, either as an attempt to discredit an opponent’s view via a reductio, or by enabling a position to distinguish its identity and positive claims by reference to what it is (allegedly) not. In this paper, however, we argue that the ghost of behaviorism is present in influential, contemporary work in the field of embodied and enactive cognition, and even in aspects of the phenomenological tradition that these theorists draw on. Rather than take this to be a problem for these views as some have, we argue that once the behaviorist dimensions are clarified and distinguished from the straw-man version of the view, it is in fact an asset, one which will help with task of setting forth a scientifically reputable version of enactivism and/or philosophical behaviorism that is nonetheless not brain-centric but behavior-centric. While this is a bit like “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” strategy, as Shaun Gallagher notes (2019), with the shared enemy of behaviorism and enactivism being classical Cartesian views and/or orthodox cognitivism in its various guises, the task of this paper is to render this alliance philosophically plausible. Doi: 10.1007/s11229-019-02432-1. (shrink)

Of all the world thinkers on whom the author of The Philosophy of the Common Task [Filosofiia obshchego dela] reflected, the one to whom he devoted the most attention, thought, and passion was perhaps a contemporary of his who, though fifteen years his junior, had already thrown some "impossible" works in the face of a fascinated, flabbergasted, and shocked public and had lived for almost ten years outside the world of culture and history, in a state of complete insanity. I (...) speak, of course, of Friedrich Nietzsche. He burst into Russia as a deafening European intellectual novelty, which intoxicated and swept away quite a few young people and even some experienced wise heads with the audacity of his "transvaluation of all values," his prophetic eruptions of new ideas and life principles, his exciting style of free philosophizing, and, finally, his existential tragedy. Fedorov could not but have been sensitive to and, I would say, personally affected by this phenomenon-Nietzsche and Nietzscheanism and the fashion for them. (shrink)