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.

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.

This is a translation from Russian to English of Nikolai Onufriyevich Lossky’s “Tpaнcцeндeнтaльнo-фeнoмeнoлoгичecкiй идeaлизмъ Гyccepля”, published in the émigré journal Пyть in 1939. In this article, Lossky presents and criticizes Husserl’s transcendental idealism. Like many successors of Husserl’s “Göttingen School,” Lossky interprets Husserl’s transcendental idealism as a Neo-Kantian idealism and he criticizes it on the ground that it leads to a form of solipsism. In light of his own epistemology and his metaphysical system, he also claims that, although Husserl is (...) more radical than Descartes in his methodological doubt, he is not radical enough, because his abstention from existential judgment with regard to the external world is itself an existential judgment. In this regard, Lossky affirms that his own critically-informed defense of naive realism is in fact more radical than Husserl’s transcendental idealism. (shrink)

Müslümanlar Kur’ân’ın ilk emri olan okumayı sadece yüzeysel bir okuma değil varlığın özüne inmek ve dünyayı anlamak olarak değerlendirmişlerdir. Bu doğrultuda ilk zamanlardan itibaren etraflarında gelişen tüm olayları ibret nazarıyla incelemişler ve ilmî çalışmalarına konu etmişlerdir. İlim öğrenmenin kadın veya erkek fark etmeksizin tüm Müslümanlar için gerekli görülmesi de onlar için önemli bir motivasyon kaynağı olmuştur. Hızlı ve emin adımlarla yükselen İslam medeniyetinin öne çıkan yönlerinden birisi Müslümanların dini ilimlere gösterdikleri ilgidir. Sadece dini ilimlerle sınırlı kalmayan Müslümanlar sonraki dönemlerde astronomi, (...) matematik, geometri, fizik ve kimya gibi pozitif bilimlere de ilgi göstermişlerdir. Müslümanların bu alana gösterdiği ilginin farklı sebeplerinden birisi Kur'an'da gök cisimleri ve yaratılış gibi hususların yer almasıdır. Ayrıca rutin ibadetlerin vakitlerinin tayininde ay, güneş vb. gök cisimlerinin hareketlerinin esas alınması gibi hususlar Müslümanlarda büyük ilgi ve merak uyandırmıştır. Diğer taraftan fetihlerle birlikte çok geniş bir coğrafyaya yayılan Müslümanlar buralarda farklı etnik, dini ve kültürel unsurlarla karşılaşmışlardır. Kendileri için önemli bir aşama teşkil eden ve bu unsurların sağlayacağı muhtemel faydaları görmezden gelmeyen Müslümanlar, insanlık mirası olarak değerlendirdikleri bilimsel çalışmaları kendi dillerine tercüme etmeye başlamışlardır. Bu faaliyetlerin devlet yetkilileri tarafından da desteklenmesi ile birlikte çalışmaların daha da arttığı görülmektedir. Çalışmamızın temel amaçlarından biri İslam dünyasının fetihlerle birlikte siyasî ve askerî gelişmelerden sonra ilmî çalışmalarda elde ettiği başarısının sebeplerine dair bir değerlendirme yapmaktır. İslam toplumu ilk dönemlerden itibaren öncelikle dini konuların öğrenilmesine ağırlık vermiş, sonrasında ise karşılaştığı diğer medeniyetlerden de etkilenerek pozitif bilimlerle meşgul olmaya başlamıştır. Bu alanlarla ilgili genellikle herhangi bir sınırlamaya bağlı kalmamışlardır. İslâm’ın ilk yıllarında pozitif bilimlere hasredilmiş çalışmalar olmadığı görülse de ilk hicrî yüzyılın sonlarına doğru bu anlamda önemli çalışmalar ortaya çıkmıştır. Müslümanlar öncelikle dinlerini daha iyi anlamaya çalışmışlar, bu konuda belli bir birikim elde ettikten sonra özellikle Abbâsîler (750-1258) döneminde pozitif bilimlere ilgi duymuşlar ve 4/10. yüzyıla gelindiğinde bu alanlarda büyük eserler vermeye başlamışlardır. Çalışmamızda öncelikle Müslümanların yaptığı çalışmalara ilişkin güncel ve klasik kaynaklarda yer alan bilgiler bir araya getirilerek yüzyıllar içerisinde yaşanan değişim ele alınacaktır. Esasında bugün Müslümanların içerisinde bulunduğu durumun çözümü de kısmen bu dönemin daha iyi anlaşılmasında gizlidir. Tarihleri boyunca Müslümanların yaşadıkları bu yükseliş serüvenini anlamak günümüze de önemli ölçüde ışık tutacaktır. (shrink)

The Kantian legacy has had a key impact on the landscape of theoretical philosophy in the first half of the twentieth century. Philosophers both in Germany and in Russia saw Immanuel Kant’s ideas as seminal for their philosophical research. The main schools of that era were formed in discussions of the problems and the solutions which were proposed by Kant. The methodological legacy of the critical philosophy effectively became the main benchmark of the thinking of a whole generation of intellectuals. (...) Research into the unity of “form” in the structure of human cognition was also in many ways mediated by the Kantian tradition. To prove this thesis I first look at the philosophy of Gustav Shpet who creatively interpreted the German tradition and proposed an original project of his own, and then I examine the theory of Ernst Cassirer, an outstanding representative of Neo-Kantianism who in the later period of his work proposed considering the phenomena of the humanities to be symbolic forms closest to the spontaneity of the biological. The common feature of the approaches of the two philosophers is their attempt to preserve the integrity of cognition which is destroyed by mathematisation of the common denominator (ultimate categorisation) and hierarchisation of the phenomena of human life. The alternative is the metaphor of mutational change, through which the concept of “form” acquires a new meaning. In conclusion I show that the analysis of the projects of Shpet and Cassirer has heuristic value for the historical-philosophical understanding of the fate of the Kantian philosophy and for modern philosophical culture. (shrink)

The aim of the research is to determine the meaning of metaphor for identifying the metaphysical foundations of aesthetics, to analyze how the ways of this definition are drawn in the philosophy of Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, Derrida, Mamardashvili. Their works help to understand how a metaphysical metaphor is constructed, its aesthetic matrix. Since ancient times, aesthetic thought has considered the concept of the language of metaphor with its double ambiguity, various metaphorical figures as structures internally connected with categorical reflection on (...) the system of art, and the metaphor itself was conceived as a form of semantic perception and the creation of an artistic landscape. Revealing the place of aesthetics in the structure of metaphysics, the author examines the aesthetic role of the metaphorical within metaphysics, the complexity of the relationship between the concept of metaphor and the fundamental metaphysical category of being In the world scientific literature, there is an infinite number of works in which metaphor is considered as a rhetorical figure. But studies of metaphysical metaphor are rare. For the first time in the Russian-language literature, the article outlines approaches to the aesthetic understanding of metaphysical metaphor, as they developed mainly in the philosophy of Heidegger and Derrida. In their concepts, the intuition of the metaphor itself as metaphysics is revealed, the idea of the metaphysical metaphor of light is revealed, the understanding of the transcendental ego as a metaphor is revealed, and the concept of the substance of the metaphor itself is clarified. Special attention is paid to the aesthetic and metaphysical interpretations of metaphor in modern Russian philosophy.--. (shrink)

The article includes a critique of the arguments by Linda Zagzebski who tries to derive following to moral and religious authorities from the principles of recognition of the state and from epistemic authority. The author shows that the automatic transition from recognition of somebody’s descriptive judgments to recognition of imperatives emanating from the same author­ity is not correct. He shows the way for a valid transition from recognition of epistemic authority of science to recognition of moral and religious authorities. He (...) also claims that there is no justification for subjecting their instructions concerning all liv­ing arrangement. As an alternative, he suggests the principle of value consciousness according to which every modern indi­vidual (that usually enters a variety of communities with differ­ent values) freely accepts values to follow. At the same time the “thin layer” of universal values retains and nobody can violate them. The author argues that philosophy differs both from the sphere of science and the spheres of morality and religion, be­cause philosophy is always looking for its own reasons. That is why philosophy is the best antidote against any attempt to bring the liberal principles under the subordination to moral and reli­gious authorities, who, among other things, can be anti-liberal and anti-human. (shrink)

In setting out their normative account of the truth-belief relationship, Nishi Shah and David Velleman make two claims about a feature of doxastic deliberation they call transparency. Firstly, transparency is a feature only of doxastic deliberation. Secondly, teleological theories of the truth-belief relationship cannot account for both transparency and the non-evidential factors present in instances of motivated belief. Therefore, they argue, we should abandon teleological accounts in favour of a normative one, which is able to make sense of both descriptive (...) features of belief. I argue that if their first claim about transparency is correct, then their second is a non sequitur: if transparency is a feature only of doxastic deliberation, then it is described and explained in terms of action rather than of belief. Since theories of belief do not have to account for features of action, teleological accounts cannot be undermined by their inability to explain transparency. (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 purpose of the study is to reveal the factors and features that increase the efficiency of the educational process in universities in modern conditions of digitalization. The article consistently analyzes the features of the processes occurring in the modern digital economy, shows their impact on the effectiveness of the educational environment of the university, and also considers the specific features of digitalization in modern socio-economic conditions. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the theoretical analysis of the ways (...) and means of increasing the efficiency of educational work in the university. Based on the theoretical data of the research, it is possible to create practical and theoretical programs and make possible changes in the educational policy of universities in order to better use digitalization in the educational process. As a result, the article reveals the features of the influence of informatization on the educational environment of the university and ways to improve its efficiency. (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.

This is a translation from the Russian of Nikolai Lossky’s review of Henri Bergson, Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion (1932). The review was published in the Parisian émigré journal Новый Град (Cité nouvelle) in 1932. In this review, Lossky criticizes Bergson for leaving some key problems of the philosophy of religion unresolved, namely that of God’s relation to the world (theism vs. pantheism), that of immortality, as well as that of evil. He also criticizes Bergson’s (...) “extreme biologism” in his explanation of morality, which, in his view, subjectivizes the objects of religion. For Lossky, the symbolic images of the Christian religion are not subjective “fabulations,” but real symbols through which God reveals himself to us. Likewise, according to Lossky, true morality cannot be explained in terms of biological adaptation, but must rely on the foundation of an objective, i.e., Platonic, axiological sphere. (Frédéric Tremblay). (shrink)

This is a translation from the Russian of Nikolai Lossky’s “Heдocтaтки гнoceoлoгiи Бepгcoнa и влiянie иxъ нa eгo мeтaфизикy” (The Defects of Bergson’s Epistemology and Their Consequences on His Metaphysics), which was published in the journal Boпpocы филocoфiи и пcиxoлoгiи (Questions of Philosophy and Psychology) in 1913. In this article, Lossky criticizes Bergson’s epistemological dualism, which completely separates intuition from reason, and which rejects reason in favor of intuition. For Bergson, reality is continuous, indivisible, fluid, etc., and reason distorts it (...) through its acts of division, abstraction, extraction, and so on. Lossky argues that this conclusion does not follow. Reason does not distort the living flow of reality; it rather provides a window unto aspects of the otherwise undivided seamless flowing organic whole. In fact, reason is itself a species of intuition in its own right, namely an intellectual intuition, the object of which is the atemporal facet of the world (the Platonic ideal realm), which is necessary for the existence of its temporal facet. Lossky thus challenges Bergson’s one-sided and self-defeating reduction of being to a flux of changes devoid of changing things. (Frédéric Tremblay). (shrink)

Thomas Mann’s famous novella “Death in Venice” is more than social critics or metaphor of artistic search for means. Its ambiguous poetry of forbidden longing offers a game we play ever since, a drama of strange, dreamlike romance unfolding itself in a highly troublesome atmosphere of ordinary life succumbing to the oncoming devastation and catastrophe of the outer world that inexplicably links with the wishes of a soul. This plot became a focus of ideas, a web of meanings covering more (...) and more areas of mentality and imagination while living on. One of the latter writers rarely compared to Mann, a popular American author Stephen King, master of macabre fantasy, suddenly shows some extraordinary level of coincidence of his works’ throughout motives/invariants with those of the European classic. The answers both of them are chasing after lie in the mysterious character of the Whole of the world denying any isolate and solid sense, medium lands of affection and connection, Gordian knots of disastrous dialectics interweaving will and passivity, creation and destruction. Why dark fantasy (that King embodies) constantly insists on destroying, erasing the entire world for the sake of some bittersweet heroic pathos upon its ruin, as before Mann unleashes the epidemics to his story’s bourgeois backgrounds to celebrate the phantom love of his characters? Why does Beauty transgress the borders of subjectivity very much like Death does the borders of physicality, and they both lead us to the same revelation of some great apophatic quasi-Platonian chora at the core of our being where everything is born and we are all one? (shrink)

Kniga 1. Prolegomeny -- kniga 2. Prichiny, dinamika i smysl revoli︠u︡t︠s︡iĭ.

“The Crisis of representation” – a discussion that was hold from the middle of 1980 to the middle of 1990 s in social sciences, when the legitimation of the big social theories was questioned as well as the deconstruction of scientific texts and the process of knowing, based on positivistic principles, were done. In this article the author offers the analysis of intellectual context of the development of social sciences (sociology and anthropology) in the crisis. The latter are analyzed in (...) three aspects. Firstly, the crisis concerned the process of knowing, based on principle of the unity of methods and concepts: some authors argued the influential role of language in the construction of reality. Other authors referred to implicit moral and political dimensions while the third provided deconstruction of the scholar figure and the notion of reality. In a similar vein, the crisis was articulated in the critics of scientific texts where implicit meanings and rhetorical devices were found. To the author’s view, the need of reconstruction of the crisis of representation can be explained by the want of more reflexive approach to the practices of social sciences today. (shrink)