Suchergebnisse

In order to improve the conceptual apparatus of epistemology, it is important not only to accumulate variations in thought experiments, to use them for clarifying the key points of reference theory and the degree of ontological assumptions made together with the language usage, but also to question the appeal of explanatory properties of empirical methods for the development of knowledge about the mental states of the "other Self". This article is divided into two parts: the first one is a theoretical substantiation of the change in the focus of understanding religious experience problem; the second one centres around an example that demonstrates the need to address thought experiments at the stage of identification of human experiences, called religious, since only these experiences grant the opportunity to "expand our own reflexive understanding of the features of our own conceptual scheme" (Stroson, 2009: 97)

The main purpose of the article is to reveal the socio-historical context of the emergence of the concept of "scientific atheism", designed to solve ideological and political problems in the USSR in 1954–1964. The article shows how the concept of "scientific atheism" turns into a conceptual category, is filled with new content, forms an appropriate discourse and becomes a tool that produces socially significant meanings used in the practice of ideological production during the period of building socialism in the USSR.The author demonstrates how the understanding of atheism that existed in previous Marxist literature as a philosophical criticism of religion, based on the natural sciences and philosophical materialism and connected with the study of the historical forms of religion and its modern features, was rejected. Such an understanding of atheism did not satisfy the current political demand associated with the new tasks of communist construction. The article shows that a special role in the construction of the ideological component of the concept of "scientific atheism" in the early 1960s was played by I.D.Pantskhava, head of the Department of History and Theory of Atheism at Moscow State University, and also the secretary of the Central Committee L.F.Ilyichev, who headed the Ideological Commission of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which, in the wake of a new anti-religious campaign, initiated the development of practical recommendations in the field of atheistic upbringing of the population, among which the need to form the theoretical content of scientific atheism as an independent philosophical discipline aimed at solving urgent political problems stood out. The article introduces previously unknown archival materials into academic circulation, shedding light on the 1964 discussion about the features of Marxist atheism and the subject of "scientific atheism".

This article examines the history of the opening of the Institute of Scientific Atheism of the Academy of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the CPSU in the context of the transformation of Soviet religious studies in the mid 20th century. The author relies on a wide range of archival materials published and not previously introduced into scientific circulation. The author analyses the reasons for the emergence of the institution, examines the organisational units on the basis of which a new institution emerged. Close attention is paid to the reconstruction of the internal structure of the Institute of Scientific Atheism and its staff. Within the framework of the first of the named plots, the author studies both the evolution of problem groups of the institute and the peculiarities of the organisation of its regional branches, represented by support points and branches. Analysing the personnel structure of the Institute of Scientific Atheism, the author notes that its main feature is the active involvement of former party workers in the work of this center, who gradually acquired the necessary qualifications (in particular, candidate and doctoral dissertations). And although in the 1970–80s all employees of this center met the formal requirements for Soviet social scientists, the memory of the scientific community retained the names of only a few figures recognised as classics of Russian religious studies. Having reconstructed the main directions of research activities of the Institute of Scientific Atheism, the author comes to the conclusion that his employees were guided by the study of the most relevant and practically significant topics related to atheistic education or the religious situation in the modern world. That is why it was the activities of the Institute of Scientific Atheism that provided a significant narrowing of the research field of Soviet religious studies, which since the mid 1960s began to develop in the space of Soviet philosophy.

The End of the Soul: Scientific Modernity, Atheism, and Anthropology in France. Jennifer Michael Hecht. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 402 pp.

This dissertation is a study of Soviet atheist education and socialist life-cycle rituals in the postwar period. The narrative follows two distinct, yet overlapping, life-cycles: that of Marxist-Leninist scientific atheism, as it attempted to transform religiosity and fill the space that had been occupied by religion with a distinctly Soviet spiritual content, and that of Soviet citizens, whose lives were ordered and made meaningful by Soviet beliefs and rituals. By analyzing the efforts of the Soviet Party-State to fulfill the administrative, psychological, and philosophical functions inherited from religious institutions, I examine the resurgence of interest in atheism and rituals and analyze why, despite its totalizing ideological agenda, the Soviet Union did not introduce socialist rites on a mass scale until the Khrushchev era. I argue that ideologists became ever more aware of the contradictions that revealed themselves when they attempted to transform ideological beliefs and rituals into everyday convictions and practices. As a result, renewed attention to the spiritual lives of the revolution's "human material" became central to interpretations of Marxism-Leninism, as well as to the fate of the Soviet political experiment. On a broader scale, my work investigates the significance and functions of private rituals in modern society, and evaluates the state's ability to direct this aspect of individual and social life.