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Purpose. The article highlights, on the one hand, the impact of the potential of a developed reflective identity on the processes of civilizational transformations, and on the other hand, the role of the transformational processes of a civilizational scale in the formation of a new type of reflective identity. Acute crisis processes in social development, which humanity has faced so far, in particular after 24.02.2022, indicate the beginning of a radical civilizational transformation. Therefore, in the article, it is necessary to find out with the help of which mental, organizational and personal resources humanity can move to a more developed level of civilization without much loss. It is also necessary to show the importance of the philosophical understanding of reality in the formation of reflective identity because reflection has been the basic method of philosophy since its appearance. Theoretical basis. There is an understanding of the inextricable connection between the level of development of civilization and the level of reflective development of the individual fixed in a certain type of identity: a more historically developed stage of civilization corresponds to a more complex type of identity with multi-level reflection. At the same time, achieving a higher level of civilizational development is possible only under the condition of constructing a more complex and multi-level reflexive identity. Originality. It consists in establishing that the mental-cognitive mechanisms of reflection during the development of civilization passed through the stages of 1) reflexive forms of "the Axial Age", fixed in the corresponding forms of moral, logical, theological, political, etc. culture since the era of Ancient society; 2) reflexive forms of the Modern era with an emphasis on the inner world of man, the emergence of the reflective division into subject and object of knowledge as an essential feature of epistemology, as well as the formation of a modern type of identity; 3) the dual reflection of the post-industrial society and the Second Modern era, the mechanisms of which contribute to the formation of an active and self-sufficient network society and network crowdfunding economy. In this regard, at various stages of the development of civilization, in accordance with certain reflexive mechanisms, the corresponding types of identity are formed: 1) the basic identity of a person determined by his primary socialization; 2) reflective identity which is associated with the acquired cultural potential of a person and the opportunity to consciously choose special features of one's own identity, and 3) identity which is associated with the existence in a given social culture of a mechanism of double reflection, which allows not only to make a valuable choice of the trajectory of development own identity but also to construct it. Conclusions. The aggravation of the identity problem in the modern world is the result of a civilizational crisis associated with the transformation of modern civilization, the technological basis of which is the introduction of renewable energy and artificial intelligence, as well as the development of network relationships in society. The hierarchical structure of modern identity is conditioned by the gradual historical and civilizational layering of the process of evolution of the reflexive component of identity. In each specific modern society, progressive civilizational transformations take place when an innovative type of identity coexisting with basic and modern types is activated and takes a leadership position. The growing role of network relations in society overcomes the identity crisis due to the reduction of social opposition and the harmonization of different aspects of the identity itself. Perceptible climatic changes and the destruction of the established security system in the world after 24.02.2022 made it obvious to the global thinking public that the world community is at the bifurcation point of a radical civilizational transformation.

The social sciences are intimately linked to understanding the societies in which we live. This is why the question of the historical and political anchoring of this knowledge arises. As postcolonial studies have shown, the social sciences have produced theories, concepts, and paradigms in Southern societies conveying a discourse on "modernity." According to Edward Saïd, scientific knowledge is a form of power that confers authority on the person who produces it. However, knowledge is largely controlled and produced by the West, which therefore has the power to name, represent, and theorise (Saïd 1995). By entering into the field of these theories, indigenous researchers impose on themselves a representation of themselves and the other that endorses these power relationships. In order to finally break with this type of domination, indigenous societies are encouraged to move away from the Western ethnocentrism carried by the social sciences, and their particular vision of modernity, in order to construct their own narratives. Issues of domination are therefore at the heart of the social sciences, and in China as elsewhere, in the modern and contemporary period, these issues have not ceased to be taken into account, discussed, and thwarted. Historically, the birth of the human and social sciences in China at the turn of the twentieth century is closely linked to the desire of intellectuals to contribute to the emergence of a "powerful and prosperous" China (fuqiang 富强) following its traumatic encounter with the Western powers during the Opium Wars. As an integral part of the "self-reinforcing movement" (yangwu yundong 洋务运动), which consisted of learning from the West in order to better counter it, the human and social sciences, in China as in other non-Western societies, from the start engaged the relationship to the Other (the West) and to the Self. Trained for the most part abroad and especially in Japan, a country through which Western concepts first passed, Chinese researchers quickly strove to situate themselves in relation to this Western knowledge. As early as the 1930s, in the wake of the sociologist and anthropologist Fei Xiaotong in particular, many sought to "indigenise" the social sciences, in order to better understand the issues specific to their country and to move in the direction of a specifically Chinese modernity. The same dynamic is found in the aftermath of the Maoist period, marked by the isolation of China and the ban on social sciences. The"feverish" re-introduction of Western theories to fill the three-decade gap, which marked the 1980s, was followed by a movement of critical re-appropriation of these theories (Merle and Zhang 2007). The lecture given by Xi Jinping in May 2016, during which the President of the PRC called on Chinese researchers to "accelerate the construction of a philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics" (jiakuai goujian Zhongguo tese zhexue shehui kexue 加快构建中国特色哲学社会科学), raises the question of the extent to which national characteristics are linked to the social sciences of each country and to question the validity of epistemological relativism. Is the assertion of a national specificity of the disciplines compatible with the aim of the human and social sciences, and to what extent can a scientific discourse or approach have cultural or national characteristics? Xi Jinping's speech also calls for an update on the longstanding opposition between Western and Chinese social sciences, inherited from postcolonial studies, which this discourse seems to mirror. What is the significance of such an injunction today in China, and how do Chinese researchers respond to it? Ultimately, this special issue aims to question the relationship between knowledge and power, science and ideology in the light of the Chinese case. (China Perspect/GIGA)

Book Reviews in This Article Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization. By Alice H. Amsden. (New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989, pp Food Aid and Industrialisation: The Development of the South Korean Economy. By John Cathie. (Aldershot, Avebury, 1989, pp Demand, Prices and the Refining Industry: A Case‐Study of the European Oil Products Market. By Robert Bacon, Margaret Chadwick, Joyce Dargay, David Long and Robert Mabro. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1990, pp Current Issues in Monetary Economics. Edited by Taradas Bandyopadhyay and Subrata Ghatak. (Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990, pp The New Competition: Institutions of Industrial Restructuring. By Michael H. Best. (Oxford, Polity Press, 1990, pp Economic Theories, True or False? Essays in the History and Methodology of Economics. By Mark Blaug. (Aldershot, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1990, pp Exchange Rates and International Finance. By Laurence S. Copeland. (Wokingham, Addison‐Wesley Publishers Limited, 1989, pp The Limits of Econometrics. By Adrian C. Darnell and J. Lynne Evans. (Aldershot, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1990, pp Regulation and Banks' Behaviour Towards Risk. By Daniela Di Cagno. (Aldershot, Dartmouth Publishing Company, 1990, pp Keynes's Third Alternative? The Neo‐Ricardian Keynesians and the Post Keynesians. By Amitava Krishna Dutt and Edward J. Amadeo. (Aldershot, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1990, pp The New Palgrave: Econometrics. Edited by John Eatwell, Murray Milgate and Peter Newman. (Basingstoke, Macmillan Press, 1990, pp The New Palgrave: Utility and Probability. Edited by John Eatwell, Murray Milgate and Peter Newman. (Basingstoke, Macmillan Press, 1990, pp The Nonprofit Sector in International Perspective. Edited by Estelle James. (New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989, pp Perspectives on Trade and Development. By Anne O. Krueger. (Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990, pp Taking Money Seriously and Other Essays. By David Laidler. (Hemel Hempstead, Philip Allan, 1990, pp The Collected Essays of Harvey Leibenstein. Volume 1: Population, Development and Welfare. Volume 2: X‐Efficiency and Micro‐Micro Theory. Edited by Kenneth Button. (Aldershot, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited/1989, pp Exchange Rates and Open Economy Macroeconomics. Edited by Ronald MacDonald and Mark P. Taylor. (Oxford, Basil Black well, 1989, pp Continuous‐Time Finance. By Robert C. Merton. (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1990, pp Perspectives on the History of Economic Thought. Volume IV: Keynes, Macroeconomics and Method. Edited by D. E. Moggridge. (Aldershot, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1990, pp Alvey: Britain's Strategic Computing Initiative. By Brian Oakley and Kenneth Owen. (Cambridge, Mass, and London, The MIT Press, 1990, pp Sustainable Development: Economics and Environment in the Third World. By David Pearce, Edward Barbier and Anil Markandya. (Aldershot, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1990, pp Optimal Decisions in Markets and Planned Economies. Edited by Richard E. Quandt and Dušan Tiaska. (Oxford, West view Press, 1990, pp The Political Economy of James Buchanan. By David Reisman. (College Station, Texas, Texas A&M University Press, 1990, pp Philosophy of Economics: On the Scope of Reason in Economic Inquiry. By Subroto Roy. (London, Routledge, 1989, pp Open Economy Macroeconomics: Theory, Policy and Evidence. By Ronald Shone. (Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990, pp Intra‐Industry Trade: Theory, Evidence and Extensions. Edited by P. K. M. Tharakan and Jacob Kol. (Basingstoke, Macmillan Press, 1989, pp Hayek and the Market. By Jim Tomlinson. (London, Pluto Press, 1990, pp Concentration and Price. Edited by Leonard W. Weiss. (Cambridge, Mass, and London, The MIT Press, 1990, pp Adam Smith and Modern Economics: From Market Behaviour to Public Choice. By Edwin G. West. (Aldershot, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1990, pp

The Silk Route Between Past and Present. A Paradigm Beyond Space and Time. On the threshold of the third millennium, in an atmosphere of anachronisms and contradictions, dominated and conditioned by scientific and technological discoveries, new ideas seem to take flight whilst regional barriers and territorial boundaries are collapsing to give way to a new form of comprehensiveness. Sharing ideas and intellectual stimuli, amalgamating cultural elements circulating along its intertwining branches, the Silk Route has more than once given life to new scientific forms, cultural and intellectual systems and, amongst these, artistic shapes and religious syncretism. The "Silk Route", which, with its articulated network of twisting routes and sub-routes, even now well represents the challenging paradigm of a new age yet standing at its threshold.
A paradigm beyond time and space. The following paper aims at focusing on the Silk Route's Religious-Cultural dimension in the middle-inner Asia of the 13th-15th Centuries, when, whatever may have happened regarding local realms and rulers, it played the role of junction and meeting point of different worlds and their civilisations. Even now we are confronted with a political trend that is at once and the same time a cultural current; emanating from the past, it is re-linking Europe and Asia and, re-uniting territories with their individual and traditional cultural forms, is shaping a renewed kaleidoscopic framework. We are confronted with new forces deeply rooted in the past, which, emanating from the far eastern fringes of Asia, by the second decade of the 21st century have reached the far western fringes of Europe, dynamics that are not only 'economics' and 'scientific technologies' but also thought, religion, and other intellectual values. These forces are heir of past times, nevertheless they endure in the present and are the active lively projection of a future time…though still largely to be understood and matured. A vision of life and universe where speculative and religious values coexist with astounding technological and scientific discoveries in a global dimension without space and time.
At the verge of this millennium, the Information and Communication Revolution has given life with its advanced technologies to a new space conditioned and dominated by no-distances. And this space with its always-evolving scientific discoveries today involves the society in its entirety (what is commonly named as "global space" actually symbolised by the Silk Route), endeavours to amalgamate it creating new links between civil and political society and positioning them in a new military dimension. New forms and structures that are rapidly evolving in search of some balance between technological development and preservation of ancient traditions, which might make possible social and economic justice, yet an utopia more than a reality. However, both (social and economic justice) form the ideological basis of order and stability, anxiously pursued by the young generation in search of an economic and speculative order where stability, security (hard and soft security) and religious structures should in their turn become the platform of new political-institutional structures.
Be that as it may, this is not a new phenomenon. Technological advancements are astoundingly new, but not the process and its aims. We are confronted with a phenomenon that has already occurred in more than one historic phase. Epochal phases. That is the human search for economic and social justice, and their framing into new conceptual schemes. And within this ratio, it would be unrealistic to ignore an additional key-factor. It would be unrealistic to deny that Religion has always been a major player. It has been at the basis of more than one revolution, it has represented the culturalpolitical response to foreign challenges, it has legitimised military action, it has given life to new spaces and political systems, it has filled with its pathos cultural and political voids. It has given to Mankind and Universe a new centrality, creating a new space within which Man and Mankind, History and Philosophy, Cosmos and Universe with their laws meet and merge in new systems and structural orders. The World and its Destiny, core of lively debates, conditioned by the eternal dialectic between economics and society, between society and religion, between science and technology on the one hand, and religion on the other, between formal ratio and ideologies or myths, which underline with their voice the eternal antithesis between cultures and civilisations.
At the verge of the third millennium, the intellectual world is facing a new historiographical debate, into which the Religious Factor has also entered. Knowledge and the vision of the world and its new order/disorder are translated into a new philosophy of culture and history, of society and religion. Rationality, historicity of scientific knowledge, nature and experience, nature and human 'ratio', science and ethics, science and its language, science and its new aims and objectives are amongst some of the major themes of this debate. But not only this: which aims, which objectives? And within which new order that might ensure security and stability, social and economic justice? Thence, revolution and power are coming to the fore with another factor: Force and its use…a stage that, however, does not disregard dialogue and tolerance, or, as recently stated by Francesco Bergoglio, more than tolerance, "reciprocal respect". These are only 'some' amongst the main issues discussed and heard of also in the traditional culture of ordinary people.
Undoubtedly, the end of the Cold War and the well-known "global village" dealt with by Samuel Huntington, the global village with its technological revolutions, have induced to re-think our own speculative parameters, traditional paradigms and models of society and power, mankind and statehood. And once again we have been confronted with elements that might bring to new forms of sharp opposition and a global disorder. However, beyond and behind the Huntingtonian cliché of the "clash of civilizations", a new cultural current seems to take flight spurring from the roots of a traditional past, which however has not yet disappeared. The Silk Route stems out emanating from the far-eastern lands of Asia as the conceptual image, the paradigm of a conceivable new order. By merging the material, scientific-technological and economic dimension of life with a new cultural (or neo-cultural) vocation it seeks (and seems to be able) to give life to a new social body and new systemic-structural answers, a comprehensive order capable of tackling the challenges opened by the collapse of the traditional cultural parameters and the dramatic backdrop of a mere clash of civilisations.
Middle-Inner Asia of the 13th -15th Centuries: the Silk Route and its Reflection on Painting and Architectonic Forms. As just pointed out, nothing is new in the course of History. Professor Axel Berkowsky has authoritatively lingered on the Silk Route – or better "the New Silk Route" – with specific regard on practical aspects of these last decades. In the following text, I wish to linger on a past historic period, particularly fertile when confronted with the collapse of traditional values and the challenges posed by new fearful forces and their dynamics: the Mongols with their hordes (ulus) and, some later, Tamerlane with his terrible Army. Sons of the steppe and its culture, these people suddenly appeared on the stage, raced it from Mesopotamia to the north-eastern corner of Asia with their hordes and their allied tribal groups, shattered previous civilisations and imposed a new dominion, a new political-military order and new models of life. But, with their Military superiority, they also brought the codes and the ancient traditional knowledge of the nomadic world. It is misleading to watch to this epochal phase only as a phase of devastation and horrors. With their codes, Mongols and Timurids brought with them the Chinese algebraic, mathematical and scientific knowledge, and fused it with Mesopotamian mathematical and medical sciences reaching peaks of astronomical, arithmetical, numerical, geometric, algebraic theoretical and practical knowledge. They also brought with them from vital centres of religious scholarship and life a large number of theologians, pirs, traditionists and legal religious scholars with their individual religious features and systems. Shamanism, Buddhism, Muslim forms, Nestorianism and other cults vigorously practised in the mobile world of the steppe gave life to an important phase of religious culture and multifarious practices largely imbued with mystic feelings and traditional emotional states.
Then, and once again, within the global space created by the military conquests of the new-comers, the Silk Route – or more precisely, the Silk and its Routes – reorganised and revitalised trades and business, gave life to close diplomatic connections and matrimonial allegiances reinforced by a vigorous traditional chancery and official correspondence, that tightly linked Asia with Europe. Within this new global order, the Silk and its routes played the crucial role, shaped new political, institutional, scientific and intellectual formulae, gave life to new conceptual forms that – at their core – had Man and Mankind as centre of the entire Universe. We are confronted with a cultural development begun at a time when the sons of the steppe were taking over lands of the classical Arabic civilisation (like Syria, Iraq and al-Jazīra), at a time when the Iranian world was still centre of intellectual life and its social norms were still spreading over large spaces of Inner Asian territories. Visual Arts wonderfully mirror this phenomenon.
We witness a process that renovated itself 'from within' in the course of three centuries and did not stop even when the arrival of the European Powers on the Asian markets seemed to sign, with the decay and end of the traditional market economy, also the closing of the cultural interactions created by the Silk Routes of the time. Once again, Visual Arts wonderfully mirror this phenomenon: a dramatic transitional, fluid period, marked by a distinctive timeless reality, which had no longer territories well delimited by frontiers to conquer or defend.
Herewith I have dealt, as an example, with the reflection of the new conceptions of Life and Universe on visual Fine Arts in the 13th-15th centuries, specifically painting and architectonic forms. Ideological values that aimed to forge new relationships among different peoples and their individual human values, religious thinking, moral codes…and economic, scientific, technological achievements.
'Fine Arts'. Visual fine arts, in my case painting and architecture, are the mirror of feelings shared by the Lords of the time, registered by painters and architects in plastic forms, the signal of these stances to an often confused Humanity. Here, I linger on two pictorial themes: Nature and Landscape on the one hand, and Religion with its very images on the other. With regard to architectonic forms, these reflect the same conceptual paradigm shaped through technical features. By those ages, Nature and Landscape were perceived by contemporary painters and architects with formal, stylistic and technical characteristics which strongly reflected the impact with a world which lived its life in close, intimate contact with nature, a world and a culture which observed Nature and the Cosmos, and perceived them in every detail over the slow rhythmical march of days and nights, of seasons and the lunar cycles. These artistic features depict a precise image, that of a world which lives its life often at odds with nature for its very survival, a world which conditions nature or is conditioned in its turn. At that time, it was a world and a cosmic order which were often perceived by the artist in their tension with uncertainty and the blind recklessness of modern-contemporary times. However, to a closer analysis, these same artistic forms shape a celestial order which was at one and the same time a culture and a religion.
In the vast borderless space of the Euro-Asiatic steppes, cut by great rivers, broken by steep rocky mountainous chains and inhospitable desert fig.aux, the Silk succeeded in building and organising its own network of twisting routes and sub-routes, along which transited (albeit, yet still transit) caravans with their goods…but also cultural elements and their conceptual-philosophical forms. Of these latter and their syncretic imageries and dreams, the fine arts have left evocative pictures and architectonic images, which depicted a world that is the projection of a precise social and political reality and its underlying factors, such as the restlessness of a nomadic pattern of life and the culture of the Town and its urban life. Little is changed today despite the collapse of the Soviet empire and its order. Features and forms change, but in both cases they announce a different world with its order built on a robust syncretism, which is at the same time science, knowledge, harmony and religion (divine or human, or both). A world that is the projection of a precise political, social and economic reality. A reality that, at one and the same time, is the silent voice of a humanity often disregarded by contemporary writers, an 'underground world' that echoes traditional forms and their dynamics, and a no less authoritative de facto power that politically, economically and militarily conditions and dominates its times. A reality that finds an authoritative voice through the Silk Route.

Der Beitrag untersucht vor dem Hintergrund des Eingangs der Frauenbewegungen in das kulturelle Gedächtnis die Arbeit von feministischen Archiven am Beispiel des Frauenarchivs ausZeiten in Bochum. Ausgangspunkt der Überlegungen ist der politische Anspruch des Archivs, das sowohl als Gedächtnis-Aktivistin das kulturelle Gedächtnis der Gesellschaft formt als auch als Reaktualisiererin historischer Inhalte an der Aneignung historischen Wissens mitwirkt. Die theoretische Grundlage bilden die Theorie des kulturellen Gedächtnisses nach Assmann und Assmann sowie die Überlegungen Carol Glucks zum Gedächtnis-Aktivismus. Durch die Einbeziehung von Forschungen zum Movement-Memory Nexus wird die Arbeit von ausZeiten als Arbeit am Bewegungsgedächtnis beschrieben. Darauf aufbauend wird der Eingang sozialer Bewegungen, im vorliegenden Fall der Zweiten Frauenbewegung(en), in das kulturelle Gedächtnis diskutiert.

Den Debatten über Aufgabenstellung, Funktion und Leistungsfähigkeit der DDR-Soziologie, die seit 1989 durch Schlagworte wie 'staatsdienende Wissenschaft', 'ideologisch ausgerichtete Wissenschaft', 'Legitimierungsinstrument des Systems', etc. gekennzeichnet sind, stehen Aussagen der Soziologen gegenüber, die seit den 50/60er Jahren die DDR-Soziologie mitbestimmt haben. Diese bewerteten die DDR-Soziologie eher als entmündigte und der ständigen strikten Kontrolle und Zensur durch Instanzen des Partei- und Staatsapparates ausgesetzte Wissenschaft. Auf dieser Grundlage versucht der Beitrag, diese grundsätzlich verschiedenen, jedoch wahren Bewertungen der soziologischen Forschung in der DDR zu diskutieren. In diesem Zusammenhang interessiert besonders die Frage, ob aus dieser Erörterung der osteuropäischen Soziologiegeschichte Anregungen für eine Diskussion des Zusammenhangs von Ethik und Wissenschaft zu gewinnen sind. Basis für die Überlegungen sind unveröffentlichte Qualifizierungsarbeiten und 'Schubladenmanuskripte' aus der DDR und die Entwicklung der sowjetischen Soziologie in der Zeit von Perestroika und Glasnost. In der neuen Situation des vereinten Deutschlands und mit dem rasanten Umbau der DDR-Gesellschaft stellt sich nun das Problem der zu schnellen Adaption der DDR-Soziologie an gängige theoretische Bezugsrahmen ohne kritische Überprüfung. (ICH)

In the course of the levelling of modern distinction, society loses central categories of monitoring and evaluation. The supposedly modern thinking manifests itself as mere transitional semantic. These semantics do not show which peace-ethical aspects are compliant with a fully developed functional pattern of differentiation. Augustinus determines peace (as tranquility of order) in its significance for a hierarchical society as well as Kant with his idea of legal concord outlines the time of transition from hierarchic to functional differentiation. These peace concepts clearly show us what is missing today: a peace ethics that is corresponding to a functional differentiated world society. Since preferable ethics cannot base itself on a definition of peace that stands for a democratically legitimated power, pacifism as a peace movement has become obsolete. In conclusion, pacifism as countervailing power is suspended, but as ethics it is pioneering. (S+F/Pll)

The article deals with the 1938 treatise History of the All- Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), abbreviated AUCP(b) - an official treatise from the Stalin era of the USSR which was published on a mass scale. The author puts his reflections in two contexts: 1. the internal Marxist dispute over "orthodoxy", which Stalin resolved by publishing (and co-authoring) this "canonical book", and 2. the myth-forming context, which shows how totalitarian regimes present themselves with their "canonical books". He considers publications preceding the analyzed book, which after Lenin's death included texts by Grigory Zinoviev, Nikolai Bukharin and Leon Trotsky. Then he considers the actual book, focusing in more detail on the absence of two topics and concepts - the state and culture. He pays particular attention to the chapter on dialectic and historical materialism written by Stalin, which completes the simplistic interpretations in the so-called Stalinist Marxism. Like L. Kolakowski, he concludes that the entire Stalinist concept is naturalistic (meaning the naive naturalism of the late 19th century: Marxism guarantees a "scientific world view") and naively nomothetic (all fundamental claims have the form of unquestionable laws).

In the context of research into the relationship between secularism and multiculturalism in contemporary India, this paper points to their specific interrelatedness and the distinctive Indian approach to secularism through the idea of a principled distance as a way to adjust to religious pluralism that has a close affinity with multiculturalism. Contrary to opinions that secularism is alien to the Indian civilisation, by a selection of instances through Indian history, the paper illustrates the broader meaning of "Indian" religious and secular thinking and also points to the significance of interaction among various religious cultures and subcultures, particularly between Hinduism and Islam/Sufism. However, the paper focuses on the analysis of Indian constitutional secularism and legally warranted multiculturalism. Debates on multiculturalism follow two distinct directions: the first examines multiculturalism as a state policy in the form of federalisation of its political system, whereas the second is concerned with the meaning of multiculturalism and its implications for the issues of individual and group rights, culture, religion, and secularism. It also touches upon the influence of the British colonial rule on the shaping of interreligious relations in independent India. The last section questions the ascendancy of Hindu nationalism, particularly in view of the rise to power of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014, its appropriation of the new "idea" of India, especially the Hindu nationalist narrative, which endangers India's official ideology of secularism, as well as the position of the minorities, in particular of the Muslim minority. The article is divided into seven sections. The Introduction outlines, in general, the main distinction between secularism and multiculturalism and their relationship, referring to the two principal approaches to secularism: (1) neutrality between different religions, and (2) prohibition of religious associations in state activities. Indian secularism tends to emphasise neutrality in particular rather than prohibition in general. The second section, Traces of the Indian Secular Thought through History, examines the view, particularly pervasive among Hindutva supporters, that secularism is alien to the Indian civilisation from the perspectives of history and philosophy, which both provide evidence that "the constituents of secularism which make up the concept are not alien to Indian thought" (Thapar, 2013: 4). In this context, the most evoked name in connection with religious tolerance is that of Ashoka Maurya, who in his edicts called not only for the co-existence of all religious sects but also for equal respect for those who represented them. Many centuries later, Moghul Emperor Akbar supported dialogue across adherents of different religions, including atheists. He laid the formal foundations of a secular legal structure and religious neutrality of the state. The paper here also points to the significance of interaction among various religious cultures and subcultures, the more so between Hinduism and Islam/Sufism. It focuses on extending the meaning of "Indian" religion in the sense that it includes multiple religions, such as Brahmanism, Buddhism, Jainism, Bhakti, Shakta, Islam/ Sufism, Guru-Pir tradition, which, but for Brahmanism, challenge orthodoxy by giving greater weight to social ethics rather than to prescriptive religious texts. The third section, Multiculturalism in Indian Context, refers to the Indian legally warranted multiculturalism and relating debates followed by two distinct directions. The first examines multiculturalism as a state policy in the form of federalisation of its political system; a process which involves the political accommodation of ethnic identities, which remains the most effective method of management and resolution of conflicts. The second direction is concerned with the meaning of multiculturalism and its implications for the issues of individual and group rights, culture, religion, secularism. According to Rajeev Bhargava (1999: 35, 2007), cultural particularity might undermine the "common foundation for a viable society", and might also lessen individual freedom, thus invalidating the values of liberal democracy. From there follows the question of constitutional protection of personal laws of religious communities, which is, in a way, in collision with the primary secular identity, that of a citizen (Thapar, 2010, 2013). The fourth section, Characteristics of Indian Secularism, analyses in some detail the Articles of the Indian Constitution concerned with the basic understanding of secularism, i.e., that religion must be separated from the state "for the sake of religious liberty and equality of citizenship." The analysis indicates that, while some Articles (Indian Constitution, Articles 25–26) depart from the mainstream western secularism, others are close to the Western liberal leanings, like those stipulating that the state will have no official religion (constitutional amendment 42) or that no religious instruction will be allowed in educational institutions maintained wholly out of state funds, as well as that no person attending any educational institution receiving financial aid from state funds shall be required to take part in compulsory attendance at religious instruction or worship (Articles 27–28/1/). But, more specifically, the idea of a principled distance from religious pluralism points to India's highly contextual, thus distinctively Indian, version of secularism. The fifth section, The Question of Indian Identity, argues that, with the inauguration of democracy in India, multiculturalism was adopted as a policy of recognising and respecting diversity, guaranteeing the protection and rights of minorities and positive discrimination for the historically marginalised, and emphasising intergroup equality, while leaving the issue of intragroup equality somewhat aside. In the last section, Challenges of Hindu Nationalistic Ideology, the author points to some manifestations of the current ascendency of Hindu nationalism, particularly resulting from the Bharatiya Janata Party coming to power in 2014, such as the increasing identification of state leaders with Hindu cultural symbols and, at the same time, decreasing official support for the public festivals of minorities, Mus lims and Christians in the first place. According to Hindu nationalists, most Muslims and Christians are converts from Hinduism and should therefore recognise the precedence of the Hindu culture in India. Anti-Muslim prejudice in India stems not from the ideas of their racial or cultural differences but, above all, from questioning their loyalty to India. Here emerges the question of the "secular nationalism" of the Congress Party as opposed to the "Hindu nationalism" of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which insists on Hinduism as the essential token of the Indian national identity, implying cultural and political pre-eminence of Hindus in India. The Conclusion summarises some of the main points regarding the relationship between secularism and multiculturalism in the Indian context, indicating that despite the present challenges that Hindu nationalism poses to both, "…the Indian experience suggests that some form of moderate secularism will continue to remain necessary as a state framework to check the advance of religious majoritarianism" (Bajpai, 2017: 224). The author assumes that the article offers some constructive avenues for future studies on secularism and multiculturalism, which should not only provide further insights into the Indian case but also enhance the understanding of the varieties of secular trajectories worldwide, as well as their implications for democracy.

The purpose of the article is look into historical features and to determine the formation stages and the current state of the library specialists' education system and its level in Latin American countries.
The methodology. There were used historical-genetic and systemic-structural approaches. It made it possible to establish the main stages periodization of the higher education levels in Library Studies' origin and development in the leading countries of Latin America. The study proved the influence of North American and European traditions on the development of the training of highly qualified library personnel system in the founding countries of graduate library education on the continent. A comparative and content analysis of the bachelor's, master's and Doctoral Degrees' educational programs in the specialty "Library and Information Sciences" provided by leading universities in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, made it possible to determine the general and specific aspects of the specialists training for the information industry, to establish the peculiarities of cognitive and institutional components of bachelor's and master's educational programs, justify the objective necessity of strengthening their interdisciplinarity and flexibility.
The results. It has been established that Argentina was the first among Latin American countries to establish a training school for librarians in the structure of the Philosophy and Literature Faculty of the University of Buenos Aires back in 1922. In the 1940s and 1950s, universities opened Library Studies (Schools) in Panama (1941), Brazil (1942), Peru (1943), Uruguay (1943), Mexico (1945, 1956), Chile (1949), Costa Rica (1950) and Colombia (1956). The system of post-graduate library education began to take shape in the 1970s, when in 1972 the first post-graduate program in the field of "Library and Information Science" was opened in Brazil at the School of Communication and Arts of the University of São Paulo, and in 1980 — the doctoral program as well. Currently, in the countries of Latin America, only the leading metropolitan universities have educational programs of master's and Doctoral levels. It is due to the low scientific qualification of graduate departments and the insufficient number of professors who can carry out qualified supervision of master's and Doctoral thesis research.
The current state of the library and information education system development on the Latin American continent is demonstrated by the following statistics: Brazil has 47 universities with their structure including schools or departments for the library specialists training, Argentina has 16 of such universities, Mexico — 13, Colombia — 6, Chile — 4, Cuba — 3, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Peru, Venezuela — 2 universities each, Bolivia, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay, Jamaica — 1 university each.
The scientific topicality. The formation of the higher library education levels system on the Latin American continent took place in several stages: the genesis stage (1920–1930s), the stage of active development (1940–1960s), the stage of starting post-graduate training of library specialists at the postgraduate level, and later — master's and Doctoral studies (1970–1990s); the stage of strengthening the interdisciplinary integration of educational program profiles (2000 — present). The results of the educational programs (EPs) content analysis of various levels of training in the specialty "Library and Information Sciences" made it possible to establish a certain conservatism of their profiling, to determine that the promising directions for their modernization are interdisciplinary and strengthening of the digital and information and communication components with, for example, such relevant EPs as "Communication, organization, management of information and knowledge", "Sociocultural, political and economic configurations of information".
The practical significance. The research results can be used by Ukrainian institutions of higher education in the process of improving master's and Doctoral educational programs in the specialty 029 "Information, Library and Archival Affairs". The introduction of the best foreign training practices of library specialists will improve their quality and competitiveness at the global information market.

The present crisis in sociology: a way beyond spurious pluralism?

At the end of the 20th century the state of sociology gives cause for serious con¬cern. The main reasons for this concern can be stated in three features of contem¬porary sociology: First, there is a manifest lack of integration of research and theory. This is a long-standing difficulty, but what makes it worse today than pre¬viously is, that it is now less often seen as a serious problem. Second, there is an evident collective failure among sociolo¬gists to decide just what kind of discip¬line sociology is or ought to be. For some sociology should aim to be a social scien¬ce and to have therefore well-defined links with other social sciences, such as economics and political science, and al¬so human sciences. For others such aspi¬rations represent an outmoded "posi¬tivsm". If sociology is to be thought of as a social science at all then it must be one of a distinctive kind; and the crucial inter¬disciplinary links should be with cer¬tains kinds of philosophy and with cul¬tural studies. Third and finally, there is disagreement about how the disagree¬ments on the nature of sociology should itself be viewed.
Despite the state of intellectual disar¬ray today´s sociology has some signifi¬cant achievements which can be charac¬terised as success stories and two are mentioned in the article. The first suc¬cess story is about the quantitative soci¬al research: more specifically, research that involves both data collection and da¬ta analysis that are based on statistical methods and on the theory of probability. Through statistical modelling know¬ledge about important social regularities has been established and these social re¬gularities are of major theoretical signi¬ficance. The modelling has typically ena¬bled sociologists to separate out more clearly than before what are the probabi¬litic regularities inherent in complex da¬ta-sets.
The second success story of sociology is that of the theory of social action. Today, if we want to have an effective kind of sociological theory then it will be a theory of social action of some kind or other. Two developments lead to this conclu¬sion. The first is the evident collapse of functionalist theory over the last two to three decades. For functionalism to have explanatory power it is necessary that the systems which are taken as the units of analysis should exists in a selective environment; i. e. there must be the possi¬bility that the systems will in some sense fail to survive. Then it becomes possible to explain their constituent feature by re¬ference to their "survival value". This ap¬proach underlines the need for sociologi¬cal explannation to have a "micro-foun¬dation": i.e. to comprise not only "macro¬-to-micro" link but a "micro-to-macro" link as well. We need to return to the in¬dividualistic tradition in sociology. The second argument goes as following: Wi¬thin the individualistic tradition, theory based on the concept of action has in fact shown much greater promise than the main alternative has: i. e. theory based on the concept of behaviour. The attempts to revitalise the individualistic tradition via the theory of social action has proved rewarding and it seems to be around rational action theory that we may best try to build up a more general theory of social action.
Through the statistical modelling ba¬sed on data collection and the theory of probability on the one hand and through developing a theory of rational social ac¬tion within the individualistic tradition on the other hand we might be able to overcome the present difficulties of socio¬logy as a science.

Introduction : Cinq ans après les révolutions sociales, des thèmes inscrits dans la longue durée / Réda Benkirane, Riccardo Bocco, Catherine Germond 5-11. - PREMIERE PARTIE : PERSPECTIVES JURIDIQUES, HISTORIQUES ET SOCIOLOGIQUES. - La question de la charia et de l'État au XXIe siècle / Abdullahi An-Na'Im 13-19. - Contre le déterminisme historique, en islam comme ailleurs / Baudouin Dupret 21-29. - Les révolutions arabes et leur devenir. Les cas paradigmatiques de l'Égypte et de la Tunisie / Farhad Khosrokhavar 31-45. - Entre État et Religion : repenser la société civile et l'État civil depuis les révoltes arabes / Benoît Challand 47-59. - Islam et politique dans la Libye contemporaine / Younes Abouyoub 61-72. - Évolutions récentes de la lai͏̈cité en Turquie / Bayram Balci 73-87. - DEUXIEME PARTIE : PERSPECTIVES PHILOSOPHIQUES ET THEOLOGIQUES. - Réflexions sur la sécularisation aux premiers siècles de l'Islam / Makram Abbes 89-104. - Philosophie d'un islam post-fondamentaliste / Hassan Hanafi 105-112. - La religion et le pouvoir / Mohammad Shahrour 113-126. - Le Coran est essentiellement guidance / Jamal Al-Banna 127-131. - Une lecture non-herméneutique du Coran : l'Analyse littérale / Moreno Al Ajamî 133-142

"Dieser Beitrag gibt zunächst einen kurzen Überblick über Jürgen Habermas' Buch 'Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit', das erstmals 1962 erschienen ist. In der Monographie wird die historische Entstehung der öffentlichen Sphäre als intellektueller Raum beschrieben, welcher durch die lesende und diskutierende Öffentlichkeit seit dem frühen 17. Jahrhundert geschaffen wurde. Zugleich rekonstruiert 'Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit' aber auch eine Idealversion der öffentlichen Sphäre, vor deren Hintergrund die folgende Geschichte der Öffentlichkeit beurteilt werden kann. Der Verlauf der weiteren Geschichte der Öffentlichkeit, die mit der strukturellen Transformation der öffentlichen Sphäre im 20. Jahrhundert ihren Höhepunkt erlebte, wird von Habermas anhand dieser Folie als eine Geschichte des Niedergangs interpretiert. Ich werde mich mit dieser Darstellung auseinandersetzen und zu der ursprünglichen Frage von Habermas nach der Entstehung der Öffentlichkeit im Rahmen einer heutigen – postmodernen – Perspektive zurückkehren. Anhand zweier Beispiele (den Benettonanzeigen von Toscani und der Internetbuchhandlung Amazon.com), schlage ich vor, dass die öffentliche Sphäre weder durch den Staat noch durch den Markt zum Verschwinden gebracht wird, sondern dass sie immer wieder in traditionellen als auch in überraschend neuen Erscheinungsformen entsteht. Im zweiten Abschnitt kritisiere ich Habermas' Rationalitätsansprüche, da sie ungewöhnliche oder randständige Rationalitätsformen wie z.B. das Geschlecht ausschließen. Diese Kritik wird seit zwei Jahrzehnten gegenüber Habermas erhoben und verweist ganz allgemein auf einen Mangel in seiner Theorie einer liberalen Demokratie. Der dritte und letzte Abschnitt betrachtet die Frage nach dem Ursprung der öffentlichen Sphäre aus einer Perspektive, die sich von der Habermasschen unterscheidet. Hierbei geht es um die philosophische Frage nach der Freiheit, bevor diese in idealisierten Voraussetzungen, Kategorien des Vernünftigen oder Unvernünftigen oder im Verfahren des rationalen Diskurses institutionalisiert wurde. In dieser Perspektive bringt sich die Freiheit selbst in Erscheinung. Das traditionelle Konzept der Toleranz, welches ich eine Politik der Toleranz genannt habe, schließt an diese Vorstellung von Freiheit an. Diese Auffassung des Politischen unterscheidet sich sowohl von der Habermasschen Konzeption des Politischen als Versöhnung als auch von einer postmodernen Politik der Differenz, ohne diese beiden jedoch auszugrenzen." (Autorenreferat)