Vіncent Descombes' conception of political rationality is subjected to analysis and critical revision in the paper. Four methodological restrictions of Descombes' position have been distinguished: 1) subjectivization of political judgment; 2) reduction of political discourse to judgment format; 3) unaccount of supra-political nature of great social utopias (nazism, communism, liberalism); 4) idea of homogeneity of political discourse. As an antithesis, the author proposes and upholds the conception of heterogeneity of political discourse, in which he distinguishes three essentially different sense formations: theoretical, practical, and event discourses. He also point out their basic forms which are the theory, program, and cluster, respectively. ; ***
The legacy of the 20th century — the results of the newest aggressive paganism, combined paradoxically with acquisitions of emancipated intellect which is not constrained with morals — worries to death even in the 19th century. This, in particular, is witnessed by the newest Russian imperialism which has absorbed the mythology of the "coming boor", traditions of nihilism and anomy, political culture of the Moscow khanate, fed by propagandistic machine of the Kremlin. That is why the leading scientific subjects of the book The Red Century by Myroslav Popovich have gained the acute urgency; the book is a certain encyclopedia of phobias, drawbacks, divergences and latent threats proceeding from that social, political and cultural commonness of the 20th century which resulted in the greatest victims in the history of mankind. The round-table meeting dedicated to this book had the aim to plunge the most urgent narratives of The Red Century in the present notional context. Such a task foresaw the use of interdisciplinary methodological optics with participation of well-known philosophers, philologists, historians with the aim to find the ways of healing from thephobias, drawbacks, and divergences of the century which has passed. The round-table meeting participants discussed the broad range of questions: historical and cultural preconditions of geopolitical events of the 20th century (M. Popovich); lessons that we have to learn proceeding from these events (V. Skurativskyi); content of the present geopolitical situation (S. Proleev); contradictions of modernization and destruction of the moral and political universalism in the context of totalitarianism (A. Yermolenko); doubtful role of ressentiment as the motive force of history (V. Kozlovskyi); problems of identity in formation of the nation-state (O.Bilyi); prospects of the national state system in the 21st century (O. Maiboroda); Ukrainian context of the Second World war (Yu. Shaoval); a phenomenon of stateless subjectness of the Ukrainian nation in the historical context (S. Hrabovskyi). ; ***
Essential changes in the public space of philosophical discourse make the basic subject of the round table. In particular, the thought is emphasized that social networks, being a virtual phenomenon of simulacrum distribution, do not turn into the factor of democratization but only become a tool of communication strategies. Hence the question arises about democracy institutionalization. The contemporary European institutions function on the basis of consensus of regulations and dis-sensus of peoples, contradiction between political behavior and civil participation. Poor formulation of problems, excessive specialization, taboo for negative, conditions of excessive intellectual consumption and representation crisis — all that arises as a sum of epiphenomena and as a threat to modern democracy. ; ***
To comprehend the Maidan phenomenon the Editorial Board of "Filosofska dumka" has invited for discussion the participants of the Revolution of Dignity — philosophers, historians, journalists. Can this phenomenon be comprehended with the use of the steady social and ideological definitions, and does it require the change of the political vocabulary? Had the Maidan an ideology / ideologies and had it influence on popularity of certain ideologies? Maidan and political radicalism: the right-wing and left-wing participants in the Maidan — phantoms or real forces? The Maidan and the state — opposition or complementarity? How did the Maidan realize itself? Which were the principles of self-organization and activities of the Maidan? What was the religion role in the Maidan? Has the Maidan gone or does it continue? The participants of the round-table meeting tried to find answers to these questions. ; ***
The round table subject was prompted by the proceeding of political transformations in Ukraine. The question is first of all in the phenomena connected with the processes of de-institutionalization with raising the status and prestige of political institutions, compromising of parliamentarism, with dangerous tendencies in forming the post-Soviet law system. That is why such problems as formation of cultural-historical and philosophicallegal preconditions of political legitimation, correlation of state governing and political recognition, violence and the nature of legitimation, democratic competition and compulsion proved to be in the centre of attention of the round table participants. Special attention was given to discussion of the role of manipulative technologies in the process of political legitimation, as well as the role of the shadow (informal) institutions as those inherent in authoritarian governing. In the course of the discussion there arose a distinct intention to find out to what extent and how can the objection to superficial character of the political principle concerning the private sphere of an individual, depreciation of values of institutional experience of democracy, compromising of the political one can cause the mass expansion of anomy as the principle of the novel forms of autocracy. ; ***
