Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy

Metaphysics of personality is seen as a complete and viable process of development of philosophical thought in Russia, intensified by interferences, polemic, and discussions. It is demonstrated that the reception of the major principles of European personalist tradition was accompanied by the development of original Russian concepts and the search for new foundations of the metaphysics of personality within the framework of neo-Kantianism (S. Hessen), personalistic philosophy of education (S. Hessen and V. Zenkovsky), metaphysics of all-unity (Vl. Solovyov, S. Frank, and L. Karsavin), G. Fedotov’s philosophy of culture, and N. Berdyaev’s existentialist personalism. It is revealed that each of the analyzed Russian thinkers has attempted to solve the problem of the metaphysical “justification” of man’s personal dignity in his own way. The existentialist trend in Russian personalism, which is a characteristic feature of Russian metaphysics of the epoch in question, has been revealed. The research which includes comparing historical and philosophical positions of the representatives of the national metaphysics gives sufficient reason to regard their work as an important and integral part of the history of European personalist philosophy of the 20th century.

An understanding of the approaches to the problem of causality, as they are represented in Leo Lopatin’s and Vassilii Zenkovsky’s works, is important for the history of philosophy and methodology of science. As we think, L. Lopatin discovered the creative nature of causality (“The positive tasks of philosophy”, Vol. 2, 1891) and came to a new philosophical outlook based on a variable quantity (the creative causality), whereas traditional philosophical doctrines were based on some different constant quantities. L. Lopatin states that his theory of causality is necessary to prove that both metaphysics and a non-positivist world view are possible. As V. Zenkovsky proves, psychical causality is always the causality of some active “substance” (a human soul). This “live substance” expands its inner creative forces autonomously and teleologically, implementing its pre-laid individuality. The psychical causality is creative by its nature (“The problem of the psychical causality”, 1914). V. Zenkovsky’s analysis of causality is his first methodological step to his further philosophical and pedagogical studies. The two theories of causality have some common ontological premises and represent a tendency in the Russian philosophy that might result in a new theory of causality.

Dorpat personalism school starts its metaphysical inquary with the question of existence and analyzes the concept of subject through immediate self-consciousness as the basis of existence. As representatives of a school of critically-oriented thinkers, personalists develop new insights based on critical evaluation of preceding philosophical systems, emphasizing the importance of the history of philosophy. Therefore, to determine what is understood by the immediate self-consciousness as the basis of personality in metaphysics of personalism, this paper will describe personalist criticism of Leibniz’s doctrine of monads. In the introduction, I briefly outline personalism tendencies in philosophy and describe the Dorpat personalism school. The first part of the paper describes personalism philosophy and Leibniz’s metaphysics, emphasizing the importance of immediate self-consciousness. The second part describes the distinction of the types of existence in personalism and consistency that follows, relating them to immediate self-consciousness. In the third part the basics of personalism ethics will be outlined.

In this paper I will single out and analyze the main personalistic and liberal ideas offered in Chicherin’s social philosophy; his findings about the problems of the organizational, economic and political structure of society and some general conclusions related to the range of philosophical and historical problems. My opinion is that there is a cultural constructive potential, significant for modern society, in the ideas related to Chicherin’s version of the phenomena of personality, freedom, property, law, family, civil society, church and state. It is also related to the way the philosopher solves problems of the interaction between personality, society, state and the interpretation of such important problems of historical development as the reform and the social ideal.

The aspiration to understanding cosmos and man in it, has been an important element of philosophical research in different historical epochs, beginning from the times of Ancient East and West, up to the present time. But the problem of revealing the principle underlying Being which gives an opportunity to see the whole of the world as a single, organizing itself integrity as well as man’s place and meaning in it, remains actual. From the angle of cognizing such a principle of cosmic thinking and developing research methodology based on it, the holistic approach underlying the original Russian philosophy is in our point of view of considerable interest. Having an indissoluble connection with the world philosophical thought but shaped historically on the basis of the Russian spiritual culture, it found its most consistent and logical expression in the ‘Teaching Living Ethics’. Its specific character consists in the fact that it serves not only for forming a synthetic way of understanding the world, but, directing man to spiritual improvement or Transfiguration, contributes to a harmonious way of life and further cosmic evolution. To implement this methodology theoretically and practically it is important to cognize the algorithm of the dynamics of manifested Being springing from the Three-Hypostases Being of the Absolute.

Critique des idées de Descartes est un chapitre distinct, assez importante de l’histoire de la philosophie russe. Dans sa thèse «La crise de la philosophie occidentale» (1874) Soloviev affirme que le penseur français par son interprétation mathématique de la réalité physique élimine du monde naturel «toute force vivante», réduit le contenu spirituel à «l’activité formelle de la pensée». Dans ses trois articles sur «la philosophie théorique» (1897-1899) Soloviev affirme qu`une connaissance directe de la substantialité du sujet n’existe pas, que Descartes se mêle illégalement les notions du sujet empirique et du pur sujet pensant. Toutefois, la critique de Soloviev, apparemment n’atteint pas son but. Au contraire, il convient de noter la proximité de la position des deux penseurs sur un certain nombre de questions fondamentales. Tous les deux prennent comme un point de départ de la philosophie théorique la pensée; reconnaissent la possibilité de trouver la vérité ultime; insistent sur l`absence des présupposés dogmatiques dans la théorie de la connaissance; déclarent la certitude immédiate de faits mentaux; proclament la nécessité d’utiliser le doute méthodique. Tous les deux vont au-delà des phénomènes psychologiques à l’existence ontologique. Par conséquent Soloviev est l’héritier des idées de Descartes plutôt que son adversaire intransigeant.

The paper studies the philosophy of Russian diaspora of the twentieth century. We consider the works, which attempt to interpret the foundations and cultural unity of the European Christian civilization. V.V. Zenkovsky (1881-1962) in an untitled manuscript, written between 1920 and 1925, and published in 2011, analyses the history of European civilization, and searches for ways out of the large-scale European crisis. Zenkovsky assumed that it is possible to overcome the crisis through the construction of a harmonious, integral culture. Thus, he tried to develop systematically the fundamental principles of Christian civilization. We compare Zenkovsky’s manuscript with the work of other thinkers of Russian diaspora devoted to the principles of Christian civilization. Semyon L. Frank (1877-1950) in his book The Spiritual Foundations of Society (1930) and Ivan A. Ilyin (1883-1954) in his Foundations of Christian Culture (1937) examine the problems of Christian civilization in the context of social philosophy and philosophy of culture. The Russian philosophers try to interpret the spiritual crisis of European civilization and find ways to overcome its contradictions. Their ideas remain relevant and can still stimulate the philosophical discussions of our time.

At the turn of the 20th-21st centuries, we observe a communitarian turn in the political and legal consciousness both in Western society and in Russia. From methodological point of view, this turn is characterized as postmodern discourse of philosophy of law. Communitarianism is a kind of expression of justice and the rise of the question not only of freedom, but also of the welfare. The spread of communitarian discourse in Russia is particularly noticeable. Communitarian discourse is explicit in the political culture of traditional type, represented in the Russian philosophical and legal thought. Despite the difference in the historical paths (including historical time) between Russia and Europe, there appear general laws of development of the philosophical and legal thought.

The problem of philosophical understanding of the status of society and the role of philosophy and intellectuals in it in the era of the empires’ collapses arose with special acuteness. The most vivid interpretations, not having its continuation, criticized by its contemporaries, recur in the history of the similar socio-political situation, having reproduced not only the model of philosophical argumentation, but also of its own social helplessness. An example in the history of philosophy can be Vekhi (“Landmarks” or “Signposts”) – Russian intellectual movement organized around the collection of seven essays published in 1909 and the so-called “new philosophy” in France and repeating them respectively in the new Russia, and now – in France, after the elections of 2012.

Le temps de «la Renaissance russe religieuse» (F. F. Zelinsky) ressemble à l’époque de l’Antiquit tardive marquee par le syncrétisme alexandrin, ou le savoir philosophiques se melangeait avec des diverses pratiques religieuses et mystiques. Après Vladimir Soloviev la culture russe est marquée par le rejaillissement de l’intérêt vers au gnosticisme des premiers siècles du christianisme et la gnose néo-européenne, donc les éléments sont largement intégrés aux systèmes philosophiques (surtout du caractère non particulièrement académique – N. Berdyaev, S. Boulgakov, L. Karsavin, V. Mouraviev etc.), ainsi que sont utilisés par des poètes (A. Blok, A. Belyj, M. Kouzmin, V. Bryussov, M. Voloshin etc.). C’est non seulement la doctrine de la chute du Plérome du Principe féminin (Sofia), mais aussi l’intérêt vers des formes de la connaissance non-rationelles, l’idéalisme (l’ idée est comprise comme le principe vivant qui se deploye dans la pensée et dans l’ art), la doctrine de l’ascension, l’apophase, l’élitisme. Le gnosticisme (donc la patrie est Alexandrie) est perçu dans la pensee russe comme la partie de l’héritage antique, contrairement à ce que Plotin reprochait aux gnostiques l’audace imprudente et opposait leur philosophie a la sienne. H. Jonas marquait la ressemblance de la conception du monde gnostique et la philosophie de l’existentialisme avec sa sensation de l’abandon de la personne au monde et son ahgoisse de l’être. Probablement, la complexité accroissante et l’imprévisibilité du monde rend le gnosticisme antique populaire à l’époque des guerres et les révolutions. On ne peut pas retrancher cependant du compte l’inspiration intellectuelle de la gnose, acquise lors de l’histoire européenne. La gnose attire des philosophes et des poètes par le potentiеl heuristique de mythe et de la métaphore.

Grigory Skovoroda (1722–1794) occupies a totally special place in Russian cultural consciousness. Realizing its own specifics, Russian philosophy of XIX-XX centuries was searching for its fundamentals, origin, source, and «seed». Such origin for Russian philosophical consciousness became the personality of wandering thinker Grigory Skovoroda, whose outstanding qualities, like Socrates, were organic unity of inquiry and life. Many generations of Russian intellectuals, from Mikhail Kovalinsky to Alexey Losev, saw this Ukrainian poet, pedagogue and religious thinker as a «first Russian philosopher», forerunner of original Russian philosophy; philosophy, which takes the concepts of «integrity», reconciliation of philosophical theory and practice of life as priority.

The concept of the individual, as a rule, is examined in connection with the liberal tradition of Russian philosophy. In the conservative model it is rarely studied and frequently even the very presence of a study about the personality is denied, since attention is entirely accentuated on society. But for the Russian conservatives of the end of XIX and the beginning of XX centuries, the search for an alternative to the propagation of the mass person, which is turned havoc against the background of the modernization of Russian culture becomes urgent. To chief ideologist of Russian conservatism K.P. Pobedonostsev, the democratization of the public and cultural sphere is seen by way of the degradation of elite, and people culture. He attempted to connect the traditions of Russian orthodoxy with the philosophical searches of the slavophiles of the middle XIX of century, the romantic idealization of medieval culture and the criticism of bourgeois society. It is one of the first, who critically comprehended action on the personality of mass culture. Ideal “organic” society is based on the principles of hierarchical quality and paternalism. The turn of K.P. Pobedonostsev to “the soil”, as a unique orthodox-monarchist “people’s movement”, is consonant with views F.M. Dostoyevsky and N.Y. Danilevskiy, and the ideas of the leading part of cultural elite, unexpectedly draw together with it, also, N. A. Berdyaev.

In conditions of crisis of public life, systems of extra confessional mysticism esoterics, eschatological motives receive wide distribution in para-intellectual circles. But even in philosophy mystical motives are inherent even in especially rational directions. All mystical doctrines express themselves not so much in a language of concepts, as in a language of symbols. The mysticism subject within Russian Baden neo-Kantianism is represented as quite pertinent if we are to take into consideration that the ‘istoriosofiya’ differs from history philosophy in that it applies to secret knowledge of history, mysticism being in its plan, and demands, along with learning, experience of history as the personal spiritual destiny. The Russian symbolism inherited the main western, line however, having corrected it a little. Symbolism, as the world outlook direction, as reaction to materialism, positivism and realism in the European culture, covered the widest circles of intellectual elite of society. Russian neo-kantianist Feodor Stepun considers mysticism as the fundamental moment of Russian outlook. Sergey Gessen supports this point of view and argues that mysticism – the type of metaphysics arising on border, philosophy separating area and culture from the sphere of irrational experience.

Стремление к осмыслению космоса и человека в нем – важный элемент философских исканий в разные исторические эпохи, начиная со времен Древнего Востока и Запада до наших дней. Актуальной здесь остается проблема выявления принципа, лежащего в Основании Бытия, открывающего возможность системно-целостного видения мира как единой самоорганизующейся целостности, а также места и значения человека в ней. С точки зрения осмысления подобного принципа космического мышления и разработки основанной на нем исследовательской методологии, на наш взгляд, представляет значительный интерес целостный подход, лежащий в основе самобытной русской философии. Имея неразрывную связь с мировой философской мыслью, но, исторически произрастая на почве русской духовной культуры, он нашел свое наиболее последовательное и логичное выражение в Учении Живой Этики. Его особенностью является то, что он служит не только формированию синтетического способа осмысления мира, но, устремляя человека к духовному преображению, способствует гармоничному образу жизни и дальнейшей космической эволюции. Для теоретической и практической реализации этой методологии важно осмысление алгоритма динамики проявленного Бытия, проистекающего из принципа Триипостасности Основ Абсолюта.

The author considers the key aspects of Nikolay Gogol’s philosophical attitude, mainly represented in the works of the last period of his life (Selected Passages from the Correspondence with his Friends, The Author’s Confession), and basic literary works (the first and the second volumes of the poem Dead Souls). The fact that Gogol was a pioneer in many themes of contemporary art such as avant-garde, theatre of the absurd, surrealism, “the dehumanization of art” is well-known as well as his influence on existential philosophy. There is a necessity to overcome an asymmetry between literary and philosophical developing of Gogol’s creative work. The author distinguishes a number of philosophical issues in the writer’s creative work: individual soul (consciousness); connection of metaphysics with sociality; original understanding of phenomenon of entrepreneurship and management in Christian transfiguration of life; adaptation of Christianity to social relations, etc. The key idea of Gogol’s metaphysics may be defined as a statement of “problem of soul” which is a particular variant of the problem of consciousness. Artificial search of so called “philosophical grounds” of the writer’s “creative work” is not as significant as comprehension of the fact that Gogol as distinctive thinker went independently beyond literary bounds, overcoming literature.

In the given article we consider peculiarities of historical cognition under the conditions of globalization, of which one of the most important characteristics is a forceful interpretation of history. Here, we prove that it is performed in the interest of the subjects of globalization, i.e. leading western countries on the account of the countries of «the Second and the Third World», and that is why the ideologists of globalization are not interested in objective study of the historical Past. They use history in its euro-centric variant, in which basis there are mondialistic tendencies, justifying aggressive ambitions of globalization initiators, and the result of it becomes the menace that separate societies can lose their socio-cultural essences. In the given situation, consideration of axiological peculiarities of Russia becomes of special importance and substantiates its place in the globalized world society upon the basis of its own historical traditions.