Philosophy in today's Russia: contemplating the perspectives
In: Studies in East European thought, Volume 66, Issue 3-4, p. 321-330
ISSN: 1573-0948
23 results
Sort by:
In: Studies in East European thought, Volume 66, Issue 3-4, p. 321-330
ISSN: 1573-0948
In: Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta: Vestnik of Saint-Petersburg University. Filosofija i konfliktologija = Philosophy and conflict studies, Volume 35, Issue 1, p. 83-91
ISSN: 2541-9382
In: Social epistemology: a journal of knowledge, culture and policy, Volume 31, Issue 1, p. 16-24
ISSN: 1464-5297
In: Voprosy filosofii: naučno-teoretičeskij žurnal, p. 86-92
Modern civilized society is in a state that could quite accurately be designated by the term "crisis" (in both its semantic shades – catastrophic and dynamic-transitional). The scientific literature describes in detail the reasons that involve modern civilization in this state: the increasing use of the environment due to technological progress and, as a result, its perilous change. And accordingly, by pointing to this kind of reasons, a circle of problems has already been outlined. The options for technological solutions outline the way out of the crisis. The purpose of this article is to expand this problem circle. According to the author, what aggravates and distinguishes the current crisis situation, is that modern technologies, among other things, open up the possibility of radically changing the fundamental species characteristics of the person himself. And what is essential in this case, the possibility of such transformations becomes available to the individual: he, at his discretion, is able to transform not only his spiritual but also physical parameters, and therefore, vary the forms of his (equally specific) social being. But to answer the question: "What consequences can this kind of transformation of Homo sapiens lead to?" neither the individual nor the society, at least today, are capable. Meanwhile, in this situation, a person turns into a human problem in himself, i.e., loses himself as an anthropos [Averintsev 2006]. The processes that deform modern civilization acquire the features of an existential "anthropological crisis". And above all, in this capacity, modern philosophy should comprehend them.
In: Voprosy Filosofii, Issue 9, p. 67-75
The article is devoted to understanding the cultural and historical aspects of the original concept of constructive ("activity") realism, which is being developed by Academician Vladislav Alexandrovich Lektorsky (we celebrate his 90th birthday this year). The author suggests that the concept of the hero of the day (as well as the basis of the cultural and historical epistemology on which the author of the article relies) is based on the interpretation of a holistic person who actively transforms reality in cultural and historical communication with other people. Realizing this cultural and historical foundation of knowledge, and its general humanistic problems, V.A. Lektorsky focuses on the cognitive and technical aspects of modern epistemological issues, and cultural-historical epistemology emphasizes the specifics of communication within advanced interdisciplinary research programs (megascience). In multidisciplinary scientific communications, a special layer of interaction-collaboration has been defined, which implies understanding of each other by scientists at the sign-symbolic level. Phenomenological issues in this context becomes the center of the scientist's methodological guidelines, since it allows interpreting the "historical" and "cultural" not so much as changeable and relative, but as dynamically balanced, allowing one to think of scientific modernity as historically successive. At the same time, both concepts are based on the traditions of the domestic intellectual culture of the twentieth century, which includes the ideas of G.G. Shpet and M.M. Bakhtin, S.L. Rubinstein and V.P. Zinchenko, E.V. Ilyenkov and G.P. Shchedrovitsky.
In: Voprosy filosofii: naučno-teoretičeskij žurnal, Issue 10, p. 18-28
One of the most advanced areas of modern science is polydisciplinary research, which is based on experimental practices with special technical parameters. From the point of view of the philosophy of science, their specificity is directly related to the problem of results' reproducibility because the cooperating disciplines have different levels of sensitivity to technical details and side effects. Moreover, the details and accuracy of the actual reproducibility are discussed in various languages. Epistemologists focus on, first of all, the question of whether it is possible to replicate (i.e., absolutely exact repetition) the experiment results in a polydisciplinary space. And if not, then what is considered essential in the process of such experimentation with a particular subject field, and what is secondary, what treat as a background, and what is a reproducibility result? In addition, the methodological understanding of the reproducibility acquires unique heuristic significance in connection with the analysis of "deviations" arising from its replication. This means that the actual repetition of an experiment can be considered a normative criterion for its results' scientific status and as a cognitive tool that opens up new research prospects. As a tool for expanding research horizons, the requirement of reproducibility in polydisciplinary experimental practices is at the center of attention of modern philosophical and methodological reflection on science.
In: Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta: Vestnik of Saint-Petersburg University. Filosofija i konfliktologija = Philosophy and conflict studies, Volume 37, Issue 3, p. 393-402
ISSN: 2541-9382
The article examines the epistemological parameters of the phenomenon of expert examination as well as the social and cognitive features of using scientific knowledge to substantiate the objectivity of expert evaluations. Today, the scope of expert activities has significantly expanded. Accordingly, the number of studies, including philosophical ones, considering this phenomenon, in particular, has increased primarily in connection with the growth of its role in assessing the social-humanitarian risks associated with the introduction of scientific-technical advances. At the same time, attention is directed to the fact that it is precisely due to the significant expansion of the scope of expert activity that the nature of the expert examination itself is distorted — its dependence on social contexts is increasing, but its objectivity is lost. The article aims to clarify the reasons for the growth of this dependence in connection with the specificity of the epistemological parameters of knowledge, which is used as a scientific basis for expert evaluations. This aspect of expert examination, as a rule, falls out of sight of both its researchers and the experts themselves. Modern philosophers and methodologists of science state the direct dependence of expert examination on applied (i. e., limited to practical requests) developments, while, in the author's opinion, the condition for the objectivity of expert opinions is the obligatory appeal of experts to fundamental science, motivated by the commitment to expand the sphere of holistic knowledge concerning the world. This condition is highlighted due to the epistemological perspective of comprehending expert evaluations, which makes it possible to include additional criteria for their objectivity in the sphere of the expert's self-awareness. The actualization of such criteria, according to the author, is now becoming a prerequisite for an effective expert examination that maintains a high social status.
In: Voprosy filosofii: naučno-teoretičeskij žurnal, Issue 10, p. 99-103
In: Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta: Vestnik of Saint-Petersburg University. Filosofija i konfliktologija = Philosophy and conflict studies, Volume 36, Issue 3, p. 473-483
ISSN: 2541-9382
The article, as a result of the analysis of the philosophical and methodological content of the new knowledge and dynamics of science concepts, substantiates the thesis about the necessity to radically shift the research priorities of the modern philosophy of science. The author critically evaluates the current methodological potential of the philosophy of science, which has developed on the basis of postpositivist concepts of scientific knowledge, and he attempts to outline the philosophical-methodological problems associated with modern scientific trends. According to the author, attention on the philosophy of science should be focused today, first of all, on interdisciplinary research programs that are implemented in the most popular and advanced areas of scientific knowledge. Within these programs, it is not the theoretical constructions (and their relationships), but the disciplinary structures of knowledge that act as the main cognitive unit of the organization of knowledge. Thus, to the fore of the philosophical-methodological approaches come the tasks related to the search and the analysis of methodological guidelines that provide cognitively effective communication (mutual understanding) of scientists within collaborations, i. e. interdisciplinary scientific teams. The author believes that the epistemological perspectives of comprehension and methodological development of such guidelines open up when referring to the cultural-historical dimensions of scientific knowledge. It is the cultural-historical epistemology that takes into account the existential, motivational attitudes of the scientist, which at the same time assume methodologically significant parameters of scientific research (the style of scientific thinking, the dignity of knowledge, and the historical continuity of science as a cultural phenomenon). As a result, the cultural-historical epistemology opens up the possibility of an effective methodological orientation of the most important areas in modern science.
In: Voprosy Filosofii, Issue 1, p. 84-93
Both in domestic and foreign literature on the philosophy of science, references to the works of Thomas Kuhn are quite common, as well as to his other postpositivist contemporaries – I. Lakatos, St. Toulmin, N.R. Hanson, P. Feyerabend and others. However, at the same time, the conceptual content of their ideas and the methodologically significant details of their models of knowledge dynamics are applied more than rarely and very selectively. The conceptual potential of postpositivism is used today mainly in the general explanatory background discourse about science: cognitive activity is socially conditioned, while science is historically changeable both in the forms of its organization and in its results. As for the actual Kuhnian model of the dynamics of science, the Lakatosian program for the development of science, and other postpositivist constructions, their conceptual content is resorted to rather in the context of general reasoning about the contours of scientific knowledge rather than as an epistemologically significant creative component of the philosophical and methodological understanding of modern scientific practices. The article attempts to show that the circumstance noted above indicates not so much that the views of postpositivists now belong to an honorable past, but not directly related to the development of modern problems, but how much about distancing the modern philosophy of science from the real methodological problems that modern science needs to solve.
In: Voprosy filosofii: naučno-teoretičeskij žurnal, Issue 7, p. 91-104
The reason for writing this article was a letter from Nikolai Ivanovich Zhinkin to Pavel Sergeevich Popov (has been reproduced hereafter), which discusses the essential logical-epistemological problem of the relationship between consciousness and language. The authors immerse the ideas expressed by N.I. Zhinkin in the late – psychological – period of creativity, in the field of his early – philosophical – interests, motivated by the conceptual constructions of his teacher G.G. Shpet (first of all, by his phenomenologically oriented studies of the inner form of the word). The concept of inner form, the European sources of its origin, the trajectory of its historical movement in Russia from philosophy (G.G. Shpet) to linguistics (R.O. Yakobson) and psychology (N.I. Zhinkin) is central for the authors of the article, as well as the semantic transformations that occur with him during the transfer from the sphere of philosophy to specific scientific areas of knowledge. At the same time, the historical continuity of Russian pre-revolutionary philosophy and scientific and humanitarian thought of the Soviet period is demonstrated. In methodological terms, the authors focus on the features of philosophical ideas' application in their projection onto the emerging positive scientific research itself. When a positive (albeit humanitarian) science assimilates any approach initiated by philosophy, it accentuates aspects of its conceptual content relevant to a given subject area under study, thereby determining its ideological and conceptual potential. Such a semantic limitation of philosophical ideas and concepts, arising in the course of their projection onto positive scientific research, stops their dynamics, which is inevitable retribution for their specific cognitive effectiveness.
In: Voprosy filosofii: naučno-teoretičeskij žurnal, Issue 7, p. 5-14
In: Voprosy filosofii: naučno-teoretičeskij žurnal, Issue 5, p. 98-102
In: Voprosy filosofii: naučno-teoretičeskij žurnal, Issue 7, p. 15-19
In: Voprosy filosofii: naučno-teoretičeskij žurnal, Issue 1, p. 18-26