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This article analyses the fluidity of a human condition in terms of ethical boundaries. Recent technological developments have made the ethical framework of the notion of a human volatile and prone to revaluation. This revaluation requires established practices of conduct and interpretation of an ethical expertise. The article describes such new forms and ways to make them part of the repertoire of established institutions. In addition, the article differentiates the specifics of an ethical expertise and a humanitarian one. The former is focused on protecting the human condition from technologically-borne distortions and on making such protection a part of political and social institutions. The latter, in turn, is designed for the purposes of social engineering. It is supposed to help in the development of new social contexts, including ones that merge humanity with the results of high-tech endeavours. An ethical expertise is more focused on preserving the status quo. A humanitarian expertise is proactive and based on non-linear social foresights. The authors believe the reactionary nature of an ethical expertise to be the result of widespread shifts in the established definition of a human. This can be easily illustrated in such fields as biomedicine and gene research. Namely gene editing and major organ transplants can blur the line between human and non-human entities. The article points out an ongoing deficiency, on a methodological and conceptual level, when it comes to a humanitarian expertise. Furthermore, the article contains the groundwork for articulation of a humanitarian expertise. This form of expertise is unique due to its institutional nature and inclusion of the role of "researcher-participant," which an expert is supposed to play. While elaborating on the differences between a humanitarian and an ethical expertise, it is noted that an ethical expertise aims at preserving the existing norms and boundaries of the notion of a human, outlined in treatise and conventions, while a humanitarian expertise strives to recreate the norm of a human in accordance with its new state — as a fluid and dynamic category.

The present article is a part of the study of the hagiographical dossier of St Anastasia, where the authors focus on three major problems: 1) the earliest Roman legends containing the name of Anastasia and other names occurring in her dossier; 2) the cult of the historical martyr in Sirmium that was lately transformed into the cult of St Anastasia; and 3) the place of the Anastasia church in the pre-Byzantine stational liturgy in Rome. The latter point involves a study of the original place, in the fifth-century stational liturgy of Rome, of the basilica Santa Maria Maggiore.

Introduction. The emerging paradigm of socio- cultural development of the Russian Federation's local communities is conditioned by the trans- formation of production and economic practices based on the concept of a multi-layered economy and multifunctionality emerging under the pressure of globalization on the development of localities. The desire to preserve and maintain socio-cultural traditions, customs, and values is an axiological guideline for developing local communities. The growing social vulnerability of communities creates certain conditions for losing identity, ability for self-identification, and leads to the destruction of socio-cultural identity. The purpose of the study. The article analyzes the problem of socio-cultural evolution when modern- izing production and economic activity generating factors causing the transformation of culture and sociality of local communities, thus determining the processes of integration and disintegration of socioculture. Methods. Sociocultural analysis provides an op- portunity to reveal the main directions of sociocul- tural development of local communities, to explain the essence of interaction, mutual influence and unification of local communities into an interactive socio-cultural space with compatible formations and components. Scientific novelty of the research. The author dis- plays the models of culture and sociality transfor- mation reflecting the processes of modification of the local communities' lifestyle that determine the transition from the paradigm of sustainable tradi- tional socio-cultural development to the paradigm of innovative transformations. Results. The problem of sociocultural integration and disintegration is associated with globalization processes that generate contradictions of globality and locality. The processes of integration/disin- tegration of the local communities' sociocultural development are conditioned by the culture and sociality evolution of the constructing model of socio-cultural behavior. The pressure of globaliza- tion plunges the socio-cultural space into a state of diffusion, instability. Historically established traditions, norms, values are transformed into intermediate forms that help to adapt to new living conditions, neutralize the negative consequences of modernization. Territorial sociocultural formations are being formed, within the framework of which attempts are being made to preserve the tradition- al socio-cultural environment. Conclusions. The dynamics of sociocultural pro- cesses determines the emergence of multidirec- tional poles of sociocultural life: from the desire to preserve the traditional socio-cultural environment, to the full acceptance of the meaningful qualities of liberal socio-culture, which destroys the sociocul- tural identity of local communities.

The article analyzes the anthropological paradigms of the mainstream approaches to AI development. The article concludes that the principle of computability (quantifiability) first introduced in the early stages of AI development (namely by A.Turing) is still paramount. The article showcases the way this principle is rooted in what Heidegger described as treating humans and the state of being itself as a consumable and ultimately destructible commodity. One tries to quantify the state of being in order to consume it. As a consequence, humanity approaches the creation of a "thinking machine" as an exercise in self-imitation. The article highlights the deficiencies of creating AI via copying human patterns. The article also suggests a viable alternative — a mediatory method, developed by culturally-historical psychology. The latter perceives the thought process not as a brain activity but as a objective act, mediated through sings and speech. This way of thinking leads to a new strategy of AI development — as a smart helping hand for humans. This, however, requires an overhaul in medical, educational, governmental and many other social practices. The author concludes that any AI development is bound to start with a social engineering process, renovating the principles, governing day to day lives. This is why the development of AI is not a purely technological task. Is affects a deeper level of human existence, unfit to be interpreted in numerical terms.

Sections from 1 to 4 of Part Two of our study, which is dedicated to the western legends of Anastasia, are focused on an investigation of the Aquileian legend and, then, going in the reverse chronological order, on the early Roman legend before its reception in Aquileia. The plot line dedicated to Chrysogonus is an Aquileian addition lacking from the earlier Roman legend. The pious mother of Anastasia called Fausta belongs to the same plot line, whereas the mother of the "original" Anastasia was pagan.

The recent data related to the legend of St Anastasia in Byzantium require a fresh analysis of the mutually connected cults of Anastasia and Febronia in both the Christian East and West. Part One of the present study is focused on the East, whereas Part Two will be focused on the Latin West. In Part One, the cult of Anastasia is discussed especially in Constantinople from the mid-fifth to the fourteenth centuries, with special attention to the epoch when the Imperial Church was Monothelite (seventh century). In this epoch, a new avatar of St Anastasia was created, the Roman Virgin, whose Passio was written on the basis of Syriac hagiographic documents. The cult of this second Anastasia was backed by Monothelite Syrians, whereas the fifth-century cult of Anastasia in Constantinople was backed by the Goths. Transformations of Anastasia cults in the era of state Monothelitism were interwoven with a new Syriac cult of Febronia of Nisibis that appeared in the capital shortly after its creation in Syria in a Severian "Monophysite" milieu.

The paper is dedicated to the earliest formative stages of Annunciation imagery. Although it was widely spread in the Middle Ages, only a few examples of the scene survive from the early Christian period. Judging by the existing material evidence, it can be argued that the image of the Annunciation acquired recognizable and fully-fledged form only in the fifth century. Early examples reveal distinct formative stages of the iconography and the gradual introduction of additional features, enriching the content and visual rendering of this highly significant visual theme. This paper analyzes the influence of Apocrypha, as well as of the early theological tradition, on the development of the Annunciation scene and reveals the importance of this material to the study of the cult of the Mother of God.

This paper considers modern approaches to the study of social dynamics of modern societies, which have found conceptual expression in the theories of 'quality of life' and 'social quality'. The gradual merging of these two theories is a trend that reflects both modern ideas about the specifics of the development processes in post-industrial societies and the idea of a 'progressive' type of social interaction between individuals and social groups, which is formed on the basis of new theoretical and methodological models. The authors show how these theories attempt to link 'traditional' economic statistics data and indicators that reflect integrative relationships within communities (such as social cohesion and social inclusion). The paper identifies the main research areas in the framework of the theory of social quality: economic security, social cohesion, social inclusion, powers and opportunities. Despite the fact that each of these areas includes its own group of indicators, they are interdependent, interrelated and should be examined in complex. Thus, within the framework of modern methodologies, society appears as the result of integration and interaction of fundamentally different-level systems, social (the level of individuals and interpersonal relationships) and systemic (the level of institutions). It is concluded that the combination of fundamentally different groups of indicators allows us to conceptualize and identify the relationship between social and economic processes at the collective and individual levels. The authors describe the scope of application of the socio-qualitative approach and its set of social development indicators in European and Russian politics. An attempt to assess the effectiveness of these theoretical and methodological approaches is carried out in the context of the analysis of such a social problem in the Russian society as the increased level of emigration outflow from the country in recent years.

The article is centered at the main approaches to the definition of the concept of a child within the framework of the philosophy of childhood. The position of child in the contemporary society is ambiguous: on the one hand, the life of a child is often placed above the life of an adult, or at least is valued higher than his expected contribution; on the other hand, the interests and desires of children are not really significant for adults and are not taken into account in the process of making decisions, even when they touch the children's essential needs. One of the main modern approaches in the field of the philosophy of childhood, which is an attempt to explain this fact, suggests that a child is a future adult, first of all. Despite the obvious advantages of this approach 'child as a little adult', this concept does not fully meet the requirements of the contemporary digital age; it is rather evident when analyzing the interaction between a child and an adult, since this approach is not able to adequately meet needs and values of the modern digital society. Quite contrary to this, we suggest to consider the concept of childhood within the framework of the cultural-historical ideas by Vygotsky and his followers, which suggests that the central concept in this theory is the idea of development, not limited to growing up as a way to shape an adult from a child, but considered as an unconditional right and a biological norm, as well as an integral part of childhood. This will help to improve interaction with a child, increase the standard of living of a certain child, as well as the flexibility and integrity of the individual, especially under the uncertainty of the expected transformational processes of the contemporary digital age.

The article is devoted to the scientific expertise of human development projects in the North in the late Soviet and early post-Soviet periods of the institutional transformation of Russian society. Despite the fact that its official goal was the further development of the Soviet project among the peoples of the North, in essence, the researchers, in alliance with the authorities, searched for a balance between the mobilization (planned) and market strategies for the development of the Arctic and the North. The purpose of the article is to introduce into wide scientific circulation the results of research in the circumpolar zone of the RSFSR, carried out by ethnosociologists of the Novosibirsk Scientific Center (NSC) from 1982 to 1991 and later. The relevance of this work is brought to life by the desire of the state that emerged in 2010 to use market institutions in the implementation of plans for the development of the polar zone of the Russian Federation. This paper presents materials on the activities of the Regional Interdepartmental Commission for the Coordination of Comprehensive Socio-Economic, Medical, Biological and Linguistic Research on the Problems of the Development of the Peoples of the North, established in 1981 on the basis of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The tasks and functions of the Commission are described in detail. Among the key issues of its activities were the problems of labor and employment of the peoples of Siberia, the preservation of the traditional economy and native language, mass education and access to social benefits, the development of transport infrastructure and quality housing. Although the focus of the Commission's work remained the study of the situation of the indigenous peoples of the North and Siberia, these problems were considered in a wide range of issues of developing the national economy, gaining access to the social benefits of late socialism in the paradigm of 'the flourishing and rapprochement of nations'. With the liquidation of the Commission in the early post-Soviet period, researchers focused on studying the consequences of radical market reforms in the interethnic communities of the North of Siberia: the archaization of everyday practices, the decline in the living standards of the population, and the revitalization of ethnic self-organization structures. It is concluded that in future 'northern' projects, it is necessary to combine the mobilization and market strategies for the development of the Arctic.

Philosophy of love as a subfield of moral philosophy and history of philosophy questions the very foundations of how people love each other. Within the philosophical debate, not only the sources of love but forms and types are questioned. Does the source of love correspond to a concrete form of love? What is the difference between parental love and friendship love? What is the main difference between romantic love and the abovementioned? A philosopher from Chicago, Raja Halwani made a methodological and pithy impact in the debate. On the one hand, his main achievement in the recent debates is the distinction between two kinds of love: romantic love 1 and romantic love 2. Halwani notes that the main disagreement among philosophers stems from the fact that philosophers usually don't see this difference. And if philosophers would keep this difference in mind, it would clarify our debates. On the other hand, professor Halwani doesn't propose a conceptual novelty but interestingly refines the current debates on love's aspects. These debates are debates concerning the main characteristics of love and how we can defend these characteristics. Halwani clarifies the central concepts of romantic love such as "constancy", "exclusivity", "uniqueness", "irreplaceability". The philosopher devoted special attention to reflections upon how exactly we can apply existing moral theories to love. At the end of the article, an attempt is made to compound many of Halwani's statements about RL1 and RL2 in a unified table.

This article revises the views about Empedocles of Akragas. Even contemporaries of the thinker were confronted with the question of whether he was a great sage or a charlatan. The combination of "scientific" and prophetic knowledge embarrassed more than one generation of researchers, making them accuse Empedocles of superficial eclecticism or see him as an inconsistent representative of antique mechanical philosophy. With no intention to give a final answer to this question, the article suggests looking at this problem from a different angle by focusing more on the lifestyle of Empedocles and less on his theoretical provisions of philosophy. The first part of the article provides a brief outline of the history of the concept of "charlatanism" and considers the image of Empedocles as a Greek alazon. The internal motives of the political and public activity of Akragas accompanied by provocative behavior and claims to divine status are considered. It is suggested that the personality conflict of Empedocles, the discrepancy of external appearance and acts, is primarily due to pedagogical purposes and desire to deliver saving truths to his contemporaries who were mired in vices. The second part of the article deals with a hypothesis about breathing exercises of Empedocles. The main attention is paid to the 129 B (DK) and 100 B (DK) fragments, with an attempt to reconstruct the breathing practice of Empedocles as a thought technique aimed at gaining access to higher knowledge.

The article is devoted to the consideration of the theory of social action in the context of criticism of the theory of action by analytical philosophy. Firstly, the article describes the basic concepts of social action by M. Weber, E. Durkheim, and T. Parsons. Despite some disagreements between these sociologists, they agree that social action is purposeful and intentional, as well as focused on other people, due to which it receives a social characteristic. Then the author turns to analytical philosophy, in which the concept of "intention" was subjected to skeptical analysis. For example, in the philosophy of late Wittgenstein, action receives its meaning not from the intentions of the actor, but from the context of its implementation, just as words get their meaning from the conditions in which they are used. His ideas were developed by E. Anscombe, who rejected introspection as a method of comprehending the intentions of the subject of action. An obvious consequence of the refusal of psychologizing intent was an appeal to the context of the action being performed and to its social conditions as well. Having considered examples of the application of the theories of social action, the author concludes that sociologists in most of their studies use the model of a rational subject of action, the distinguishing feature of which is awareness of one's own intentions and goals. Although some researchers have attempted to make this model weaker in order to approximate it to real participants of social interaction, these changes did not affect the awareness of the subject of action of his own goals and intentions. Therefore, the author of the article concludes that one of the urgent tasks of sociology is to develop a new model of the subject of action, which will organically combine the subject's orientation to the external context and limited awareness of the grounds for his own actions.

The article analyzes the dynamics of the development of medical models of treatment of deviations from the health norm, discusses the issue of changing ideas about the human health in medicine. It is shown that as a result of changes in the conceptual understanding of health and the process of its restoration, the principle of achieving a commercially profitable, fast and controlled result is introduced into modern medicine, as a result of that the process of medical treatment is standardized and regulated. But the preservation of object optics of views in the medical industry, as shown in the article, becomes ineffective, moreover, risky in a situation of moving boundaries of the human health norm. To overcome the existing risks, new institutes and practices of ethical examination of health standards are being introduced into medicine. It is shown that the accepted deliberative practices of ethical expertise only introduce a procedure for taking into account the patient's position regarding the boundaries of their health standards and the limits of medical intervention. At the same time, the patient's position is considered as something ready, initially given, in other words, the classic "human project" continues to be defended in medicine.

The article is devoted to the analysis of imagination as a philosophical and sociological concept that played a significant role in the development of social theory in the middle of the 20th century. Exploring the premises of the contradictory relationship between science and society, it is easy to find a connection between the development of science and social change. Currently, it is generally accepted that scientific, including social theories, through the transfer of ideas, transform the social order and, on the contrary, social practices transform knowledge about the world. The article proves that imagination plays a key role in this process. An excursion into the theory of ideas reveals the connection between imagination and irrational and experiential knowledge. The author of the article refers to the works of P. Berger and T. Luckmann, C. Castoriadis and C. Taylor, who showed a direct connection between theoretical ideas and the world of "social imaginary", collective imaginary and social changes. For the first time in the history of mankind, thanks to imagination, society does not see the social order as something immutable. Methodological cases are presented that illustrate the specific role of the concept of imagination as a source of the formation of new research strategies that allow for a new look at the problem of nationalism (social constructivism) and the study of public expectations from the implementation of technological innovations (STS). For decades, Benedict Anderson's work "Imagined Communities" predetermined the interest of researchers of nationalism in social imagination and the collective ideas based on it about the national identity of modern societies, their history and geography. The research of Sheila Jasanoff and Sang-Hyun Kim has formed a new track for the study of science as a collective product of public expectations of an imaginary social order, embodied in technological projects. The conclusion is made about the contradictory nature of social expectations based on collective imagination: on the one hand, they strengthen the authority of science in society, on the other hand, they provoke the growth of negative expectations from the introduction of scientific discoveries. The article substantiates the opinion that imagination is an effective tool for assessing the risks of introducing innovations.