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The paper proposes an idea that moral philosophy and ethical theory are congruent with each other in their subject, but differ in their methods: the first one grasps a human act from the inside in its primary moral genesis, while the second one studies morality in its outward objectified forms. The author bases this view on his own interpretation of Mikhail Bakhtin's moral philosophy, presented in his early works «Toward a Philosophy of the Act and Author» and «Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity». The opposite sides of an act, which is rooted in a living individual with one side and in culture with another one, acquire the inner character and entirety through personal moral responsibility

A discussion of what is meant by a dialogue of civilizations points out that civilization is an ideal that emerges from the acts of a large number of people. Civilizations never meet face to face or become involved in the communication process. The people who belong to different civilizations meet to address problems; however, no individual or group has the uncontested right to represent a specific civilization & the notion that certain terrorist Islamic movements represent the Islamic world is untrue. These groups have no greater right to speak for the Islamic world than European neo-fascists have to speak for European states. Public behavior is growing more individual than was true in traditional societies based on strict rules. The dialogue of civilizations (or cultures) "cannot be understood as a localized & observable sum-total of purposefully controlled actions." Therefore, cultural specifics & distinctions cannot justify violence in any form; confrontational comparisons should be excluded from public discourse; & claims that one culture is more adequate than another should be off limits in any dialogue. J. Lindroth

The article is devoted to the general approach and main accents of A.A. Zinoviev in understanding ideology, which is a cross-cutting theme of his sociological and literary work and is specially studied in the monographic works Communism as Reality, The West, The Ideology of the Party of the Future, The Understanding Factor, in journalistic articles On Marxism, Straw for the Drowners, etc. The author shows that Zinoviev reveals the specifics and essence of ideology in its correla­tion with science and opposition to it. Unlike science, which is aimed at knowing reality as it is objectively, in fact, ideology teaches people to look at the world and themselves subjectively, biasedly, its social function is to organize public consciousness, control people through bringing them to some established stan­dard. Ideology should be considered in unity with people, organizations, means that are intended for its production and distribution and together with it consti­tute the ideosphere of society. The ideosphere can include a variety of ideologi­cal differences and, nevertheless, remain a common and integral structural com­ponent of modern society, just as, for example, a state policy can be unified in the presence of different parties.

The article was written in connection with the centenary of our outstanding con­temporary Russian philosopher Alexander Zinoviev. The author, relying on the en­tire corpus of Zinoviev's own works, considered with special emphasis on their autobiographical content, on studies of his life and work, and also partly using his personal memories, aims to understand the phenomenon of Zinoviev. The life for­mula expressed by his hero himself is taken as a basis: "I am a sovereign state of one person". The article shows that the accentuated individualism of this state­ment is in fact an expression of personal sociality and a deep connection with the life of one's country and era. This is not about the originality of Zinoviev's per­sonality, but about its uniqueness, which expresses and at the same time affirms the uniqueness of the society, country and era that fell to his lot. Parallels are also drawn between Zinoviev's sociology and his psychology and ethics.