European Journal of Philosophical Research

11-17

Authors: Sergei N. Nikitin

The biographical essay is dedicated to the 140th anniversary of the Russian philosopher, thinker, writer, lawyer and publicist Ivan Aleksandrovich Il'in (1883–1954). The philosophical works of Ilyin himself and biographical research about him are used as materials. The methodological complex of the research includes the content analysis method, the biographical method and the synthesis method. Ivan Aleksandrovich Il'in, being a nobleman with Russian-German roots by birth, could not accept the socialist revolution of 1917 and had to emigrate. Il'in was distinguished by exceptional creative activity, having published more than a thousand articles and over fifty monographs. His very categorical theses did not quite correctly give him the reputation of a “Russian fascist”. Russian nationalism or fascism is not traced in Il'in's “Russian idea” (as applied to the ethnic group), but the patriotic idea of a stable Russian statehood based on a common mentality, culture, economic ties, etc. Il'in was an irreconcilable and unyielding thinker, for whom there were no “friends” and “strangers”; for him, expressing thoughts was more important than negative consequences for himself. As for the philosopher's patriotism towards Russia, we are personally convinced of this; however, hatred of socialist ideology, the Soviet regime and unwillingness to join the socialist-built state system forced Il'in to emigrate.

18-36

Authors: Marianna Napolitano

Ivan Lukyanovich Solonevich (1891−1963) entered the history of Russian socio-political thought as a theorist of monarchism. Solonevich believed that the decisive factor in state-building is people’soul. In his opinion, the people's monarchy (as opposed to the monarchy of the upper class) is Russia’s ideal state structure. It existed before the reforms of Peter I and was characterized by a combination of autocracy and self-government. After its overthrow by the Bolsheviks it should become the most effective form of government in Russia. The concept of “sobornaya monarchiya” proposed by Solonevich meant “an absolutely concrete historical phenomenon, tested by the experience of centuries and giving truly brilliant results [...]” (Solonevich, Narodnaya Monarchiya, 2010). Solonevich's reasoning in The People's Monarchy is an important source of inspiration for modern monarchists. The purpose of this article is to trace the historical and ideological origins of Solonevich's thought and to show that it may help to better understand the recent convergence of Russian state and church’s views on the question of identity and of the Orthodox civilization’s value. In fact, in order to understand Solonevich's philosophy and its usefulness in grasping contemporary Russian reality, it is important to reflect on the meaning of the uniqueness of Russia and of Russian history, on the monarchy and empire’s role, and on the concept of supra-idea. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union there have been discussions about how to fill the ideological void left by communism and how to formulate a new “Russian idea”. In this discussion, Orthodoxy and Russian Orthodox Church’s roles have been very important, because the Orthodox world was presented not only as a church and cultural project, but also as a political project, the basis of which laid precisely in the need to overcome political institutions’ crisis of legitimization followed to the end of communism.

14-21

Authors: Natalya N. Rostova

The article examines the philosophical foundations of the key ideas of transhumanism. According to the author, transhumanism is based on a fundamental misconception that is found in the thesis about overcoming a human and expanding his abilities. As shown in the article, this thesis involves the use of a subject language to describe a human. Resorting to it, transhumanism deals with the non-human in human, which determines the whole variety of his private initiatives. The article proposes to identify three basic ideas that this diversity is reduced to, namely: the ideas of emotional isolation, increasing degrees of freedom and liberation of a person from the body. The study is conditionally divided into three parts, each of which is devoted to a detailed analysis of the designated ideas. Turning to the strategy of emotional isolation, the author comes to the conclusion that transhumanism claims to eliminate the possibilities of establishing direct emotional connections in our world, which are the basis of any action that we call human. The tools of such isolation are technologies, legislative acts, but, mainly, a change in the mode of our perception of ourselves, when we agree to outsource what is the essence of human. Analyzing the idea of increasing degrees of freedom put forward by transhumanism, the author shows that it is based on the rejection of the anthropological grounds by which a person keeps himself in consciousness. Exploring projects aimed at freeing a human from the limitations of the body, the author shows that they are based on a reductionist understanding of consciousness, thinking and communication. A human is reduced to algorithmized information.

12-19

Authors: Yury D. Granin

The article is devoted to the discussion of one of the key problems of civilizational discourse: are social modernizations and revolutions factors of civilizational dynamics? The great Fernand Braudel answered this question in the negative. In his opinion, even socio-economic and political upheavals and cataclysms, the change of ruling classes do not fundamentally change the nature of the ongoing development of the "country-civilization", immersed in a"long duration". But Sh. Eisenstadt proved the opposite. In his legacy, "modernization" and "revolution" are considered as immanent characteristics of civilizational development, significant factors in the evolution of civilizational states. In this context, he put forward and justified the hypothesis that it is unproductive to understand modernization only as modernity – a Western European type of socio-economic and political development. But this innovation of Eisenstadt for a number of reasons was underestimated in the civilizational discourse of the 20th century. And in particular – in the works of S. Huntington. It did not contain any theoretical innovations in the field of comparative study of civilizations, but was an attempt to revive the Western-centric scheme of world dynamics, to translate the Cold War model to the problems of the history of civilizations.

12-21

Authors: Evgeny Ya. Dugin

The article analyzes the changes in the scientific approaches to the study of media communications brought by the digital revolution. With the advent of digital technology and digitalization the sphere of epistemology in the scientific community is increasingly spreading judgments about the inevitable change of methods and consequences of paradigm about the need for new theories and concepts. The author believes that traditional methods of cognition will retain their importance in terms of digitalization of all aspects of society, but at the same time, it is possible and necessary to transform the conceptual methodological constructs of the analysis of new problems arising in the process of transition to digital formats of media communications.

40-53

Authors: Yury D. Granin

The article deals with the analysis the problem of civilization ownership of Russia. It is solved on the basis of use of the author's (institutional) version of civilization approach. According to it, the history Russia had three civilization embodiments: "an orthodox civilization", "a hybrid civilization moderny like" Romanov' empires and the "Soviet civilization" representing special type of industrial development. The paper analyzes the objective and subjective prerequisites of formation in the Soviet Russia "administrative – command" ("party – state") models of socialism, the reason of its support by most of party members and considerable part of the people. Such is specifics of transition to socialism of all societies of agrarian and agrarian-industrial type, with undeveloped democratic traditions and institutes, economy and low cultural level of most of workers inherent in them. Modern Russia, certainly inherits it. But it doesn’t has political and religious metaideology uniting the people, and in contrast to the United States, it doesn’t claim on global domination. More likely, it represents civilization to a pseudomorphosis, fancifully combining elements of antiquity, the Soviet past and the preset.

64-70

Authors: Sergey A. Lebedev, Anna V. Koloskova

The article describes the specific features of the structure and the methods of technical sciences in comparison with other sciences, the direct conditionality of their contents, functioning and development by three groups of factors: 1) practical, technical and social problems; 2) level of the development technical knowledge and natural sciences and mathematics; 3) basic picture of the universe. Is shown existence of four scientific knowledge levels in the structure of technical science: 1) sensual, 2) empirical, 3) theoretical, 4) metatheoretical. Is described the specific methods of developing and justifying of technical theories.

77-93

Authors: Yury M. Reznik

Social state appears in the conditions of capitalism in order to smooth class contradictions and support the poor. The aim of the study is to substantiate the cognitive and design capabilities of the reflexive – critical approach to the understanding of the state as an ideal and reality. The author argues that social is not only the state that protects the interests of people in difficult situations, but also that seeks to maintain a balance between different groups, working towards national harmony and creating equitable conditions for the free development of each person, regardless of his social affiliation. The article gives the substantiation of the critical theory as a tool for the analysis of the social state. It is presented by the author as a form of theoretical self-reflection, a kind of revolutionary practice, research activities (analytical modeling) and design. The last two forms are associated with the construction of different "critical models" of the social state, differing orientation to the past/present or future. Depending on the nature of the problems to be solved, the author identifies three main types of social statehood: the minimalist state, the state with a developed system of social protection (or the welfare state), the state of personal well-being. Each of them has its own critical model, focused either on the past/present or the future. In this case, the specified time coordinates are supplemented by the categories of perfect and imperfect, expressing different (respectively – high and low) degree of human emancipation. The author presents the criticism of the really functioning social state by the leading social theorists in two analytical versions: the anti-system criticism of the Social state, which reveals the systemic contradictions of capitalism, its social and existential critique of the life of the world, and the meaning of its life-oriented interests. Further, the author, relying on the critical analysis of the social state, and a number of variants of its critical modeling in the conditions of the Russian reality, offers Two options: a critical analysis of the imperfect present (the minimalist state, which has developed in modern Russia), and the system of restrictions (the orientation of the living state, and the critical model of the imperfect future (the protecting state). In the first case, the author uses the experience of anti-system and existential criticism, and in the second – his vision of the state with a developed system of social protection as a project of imperfect future, which will inevitably be replaced by a better future (the state of personal well-being). However, "old" diseases stand in the way of further development of the social state in Russia (bureaucratic arbitrariness, disregard of constitutional principles and norms, non-observance and curtailment of social rights of the majority of citizens, growth of social and economic inequality, value conflict between the main groups, etc.). The Russian project of the social state is based on the critical model of imperfect future (protecting state), which has become imperfect present and even past for many developed countries. In conclusion, the author offers a specific list of steps that are designed to accelerate the transition to a new model of social statehood through a breakthrough in the sphere of transcendent ("higher" meanings of life) and the establishment of a harmonious social world that replaces class compromises and games of anonymous social forces.