Filosofska Dumka

Over the many years that have passed since John Rawls published “A Theory of Justice” (1971), researchers have considered Rawls’s theory to be a new stage in the development of the liberal tradition of Locke and Kant. However, after Rawls’s papers were opened at the Harvard University Archive, it became clear that this established idea is not entirely accurate. Studying Rawls’s early works, most of which are still unpublished, allowed to see more comprehensively both the stages and the features of the formation of his theory and, in general, to look at the history of the development of political philosophy in the twentieth century in a new way. The focus of this paper is on the works of Rawls, written in the 40s and the first half of the 50s. They are still poorly studied. Moreover, since we are talking about works written before Rawls’s trip to Oxford, when his “Wittgensteinian turn” (P. Mackenzie Bock) was completed, we can consider them a separate stage in the development of his thought. They are undoubtedly of interest to researchers. An analysis of early works by Rawls makes it possible to see that he was beginning to form the basic concepts of the Rawlsian theory of justice even before his trip to Oxford. In these works, Rawls has not yet studied the topic of justice itself; nevertheless, they lay the foundations for the concepts of a “well-ordered society” and the “original position”, the interpretation of the circumstances of justice that we find in “A Theory of Justice”. And, although after the war Rawls renounces religion, resulting in his search for basic ethical principles of fair cooperation that can be rationally justified, he nevertheless retains in his further works a general orientation towards the social ideal, which he formed in the 40s within the tradition of neo-orthodox Protestant theology.

The paper offers a critical examination of the term ‘reasonable comprehensive doctrines’, which is a key term in Rawls’s Political Liberalism. It is argued that this term is not accurate anymore to catch the current shape of religious and secular worldviews and the nature of their truth claims, because it focuses too much on the doctrinal character of religious truth, which plays a central role in Christianity but not in many other religions and secular worldviews. However, sociologists of religion and philosopher Charles Taylor have pointed out that a shift in people’s attitude towards religion has been taking place since the last decades of the twentieth century, resulting in a more existential and less doctrinal approach to religious truth. This focus on ‘lived religion’, inspiring the faithful to put their lives in the sign of (the truth of) these doctrines, explains why Rawls’s doctrinal approach falls short of expectations in finding a response to the challenge of religious pluralism. Yet, in the conclusion of this paper it is shown that Rawls also values witnessing as an alternative, more existential approach to religious truth, although it plays a rather marginal role in his work.

When John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice was published in 1971, it brought a strong, inspiring, and refreshing creative impetus in Anglo-Saxon philosophy. Since then, Rawls’ work has been criticized on several grounds, mainly related to its Kantian formalism. However, ideas and theories are not born and do not exist in a social and political vacuum. Read in different historical contexts they can reveal new meanings and deliver specific messages, which are tailored to specific audiences and political cultures. I argue in my paper that, reflecting this reality and my own life experience, Rawls’ conception of justice and of a well-ordered society always remains actual. An important part of this actuality is revealed in the manner in which the theory inspired Romanian society in its post-communist search for models of citizenship. It is also revealed by the message it delivers to today’s divided and polarized societies, where solidarity has been corroded by neoliberalism and where the citizens' sense of fairness and reasonableness have been weakened by an increasingly noxious agonistic spirit.

The article is focused on the overlapping consensus model in the space of public morality and possibilities of its practical realization for the development of public consent. In his search for reliable arrangement of public unity John Rawls defines comprehensive moral doctrines and political doctrines as beliefs within private and public spheres, respectively. Overlapping consensus provides public consent in the public space (concerning political doctrines), beyond beliefs of private sphere (comprehensive moral doctrines). Moral values of overlapping consensus form the sphere of public morality, effective in definite historic democratic society. Rawls called it a well-ordered society. Definite historic character of a well-ordered society is predetermined by corresponding background culture. The latter can be implied as the experience of citizenship, conditioned by peculiarities of social institutions of Modernity. It is immediate immanent axiological accompaniment of the public life, background one concerning explicit ethical normative programs and strategies of acting by individuals in public life, directed on optimization of public interaction. Moral values within overlapping consensus are minimalistic (because of their set able to unite all members of a society is the basic one for all of them, irrespectively to their comprehensive mo ral doctrines, i.e. poor in content, laconic one), contextual (module/ flexible, relevant to public spiritual requests, transforming during the search for integrity minimum) and universal in their imperative power. Overlapping consensus makes impossible transformation of any comprehensive moral doctrine into the regulative idea of public life and set formal horizontal social interaction, which is corrected in real time mode.

The ideas of later Rawls (after 1993) and particularly his early period of work (before the 70s of the 20th century), rarely become the subject of serious attention. In the author’s view, this situation establishes stereotypical and one-sided interpretations. However, objective attention to Rawls’ ideas of the early period (the project of naturalist ethics based on the protestant basis, objective morality, which constitutes itself through the fact of perception of others as human beings, robust definition of human nature) and later («political conception», «background culture», «public reason») period of work let us substantively enrich the field of interpretation in contemporary political philosophy. The aim of this article is triple: to prove (1) that Martha Nussbaum’s critique of later John Rawls, proposed within capabilities approach, is not exhaustive; (2) that this critique will arise as more fruitful if it will use several early ideas of Rawls, which he later stopped using; (3) that such an overlap of arguments creates a new version of political liberalism, more consistent than later Rawls’ version and Nussbaum’s. The author proposes to name this version with the term «expansive (the one, which can expand) political liberalism» (hereafter EPL). The important components of EPL are the idea of Henry Richardson about the complementarity of «good» and «right», a thesis about the necessity of civic education, and also the interpretation of capabilities approach within «reasonable comprehensive doctrines». Based on these components, the author describes the mechanism of impact on the «background culture», from which the «public reason» emerges, which will define Rawls’ «political conception». Accordingly, the «political conception» can expand within EPL. Because of the complementarity of «good» and «right», it gains the ability to respond better to the political challenges, while maintaining the inviolability of fundamental political principles of society.

The article raises a question of what turns out to be the event, if we take human existence in its ethical dimension. The author explores the levels of actualization by a person of that, which is considered by he or she as morally significant, as well as possibilities of accepting this actualization by other members of the moral community. To the author’s opinion, this task demands a special attention to the ethic dimension of human existence, where a possibility appears to diagnose and analyze changes, which bring about an ethical shift of one’s moral set. Changes of such a level are conceptualized in the article as moral event (and not just a moral assessment of an event, which can leave a man untouched). The author sets apart the two levels of moral eventness: the first is moral self-actualization, which entails no more than event-for-itself to be merely recognized by other members of the community, and the second — when aforementioned self-actualization is accepted by others to become the moral Event as such. Starting out from the notion of “recognition” worked out by Charles Taylor, author claims that this notion is insufficient for thorough understanding of a “fully-fledged” acceptance of the moral event by others. The concept of “acceptance by Others”, introduced in the article, makes it possible to grasp such hardly defined components of the moral event as alterations in inner emotional, intellectual and faith-focused dispositions of a human being. Additionally, author grounds the idea of exploring the moral event through its inner space and time as forms of eventness. Inner space of the moral event is defined as the presence, while inner time as its dramaturgy.

У статті обговорюються критичні аргументи Сола Крипке стосовно теорії референції загальних назв, яку він називав дескриптивізмом, та міркування, запропоновані ним на користь своєї есенціалістської кавзально-історичної теорії референції природно-видових термінів. Докладно пояснено альтернатуву концептуалізму та есенціалізму стосовно референції загальних термінів. Обґрунтовано думку, що більшість інтуїцій, на які спираються аргументи Крипке, є дуже контроверсійними, а головні приклади, які він використовував для підтримки й пояснення своїх поглядів, (такі, як приклади з китами й рибою, водою та H20, золотом та піритом заліза, тиграми та єдинорогами) не демонструють переваг есенціалізму над концептуалізмом. Більше того, ці приклади можливо модифікувати так, що у перспективі цих модифікацій крипкеанське есенціалістське тлумачення виявиться неприродним та неправдоподібним, тоді як певна форма концептуалізму (кластерна теорія референції) виглядатиме цілком прийнятною.

The concept of "philosophy of science" is undeniably the part of modern philosophical discourse. There are different interpretations of the philosophy of science in philosophical and scientific circles. In fact, science is traditionally considered a social institution created to acquire and apply knowledge about natural and artificial realities. At the same time, the introduction of the concept of "philosophy of science" would be trivial if we reduce its scope to the intersection of the concepts of "science" and "philosophy". The transition from the interpretation of science in general to its understanding as a set of specific sciences with special subject areas causes the separation from the general philosophy of science group-centered philosophies of science such as philosophy of biology, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of technical sciences, philosophy of medicine, philosophy of social sciences, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of philosophy, etc. The article highlights the varieties of modern philosophies of mathematical and natural sciences. Specific features of those sciences are analyzed on the basis of graph classifications of the respective philosophies. The importance of reconstructions of practical theories is emphasized for all kinds of philosophies of science used by them. The first part outlines the purpose of the article and considers subject and theoretical, the second — evaluative, nominal, theoretical- reconstructive and linguistic-reconstructive classifications of philosophies of science. As a result, the conclusions are made about the problematic application of these classifications to the philosophies of social sciences and humanities.

The article emphasizes the cultural and educational importance of H. Skovoroda Institute of Phi losophy for the spiritual development of the Ukrainian society, especially in the direction of democracy and establishment of the worldview culture as a requirement for the culture of freedom. From the position of the included observer the author of the article describes some episodes of relationship in the scientist’s communities which can be defined as justice and solidary community. On the basis of the Heidegerian scheme, some dangers are analyzed as demands addressed to philosophical thinking. This scheme is used by structuring of the article. The metaphoric of these dangers indicates the contextual problems which are important for producing of philosophical ideas. The experience of the Institute of Philosophy gained by solving of problems is very remarkable for the fulfillment of philosophical studies and educational practices especially by mentoring of the postgraduate students. The fact of naming the Institute after H. Skovoroda is regarded as a symbolic act with a great creative potential and energy which can be used for reviving of national traditions of philosophical thinking. The role of lyric in activating of philosophical ideas is showed. The symbiotic coexisting of the poetry, art, journalism and philosophy is one of the original features of the Skovorodian tradition caring by the well-known representatives of the Institute. All these characteristics joined with the civic culture, which was demonstrated by all generations of the Institute, allow defining it as a metaphysical place with the ability both to follow on the road of the way of light and to represent it on the landscapes of philosophical science and education. The history of the Institute, especially, in the period of its post-totalitarian transformations, gives the opportunity of taking comparison with the Institute for Social Research Frankfurt. The civic courage of the Ukrainian intellectual elites was always initiated, supported and generated by philosophers gathering in Institute of Philosophy.

12 червня 2021 року Кантівське товариство в Україні зорганізувало і провело online черговий семінар, цього разу присвячений настільки ж давній і контроверсійній, наскільки ж і досі дис- кусійній темі «Кант і метафізика». У заході взяли участь науковці, незалежні дослідники, а також викладачі та студенти провідних вищих навчальних закладів України — Інституту філософії імені Г.С. Сковороди НАН України, Національного університету «Києво-Моги лян- ська академія», Київського національного університету імені Тараса Шевченка, Львівського національного університету імені Івана Франка та Одеського національного університету імені І.І. Мечникова. Доброю нагодою для цьогорічного семінару стала 240 річниця публікації «Критики чистого розуму» (1781) — тексту, який виявився парадигматичним для всієї філо- софії епохи модерну. Звісно, всі учасники заходу — як у доповідях, так і при обговоренні — не могли обійти мовчанням задум Кантової «Критики» як критики традиційної метафізики. Утім, не менш цікавими виявилися також інші теми: і еволюція Канта як метафізичного мислителя, і фундаментальна проблема співвідношення метафізичного і наукового знання, і місце метафізичної проблематики в контексті третьої «Критики». Окремо було відзначено інтерпретацію першої «Критики» Канта в сучасному американському кантіанстві. Нижче публікуємо доповіді тих учасників, які дали згоду на оприлюднення своїх матеріалів.

У цьому числі «Філософської думки» ми публікуємо матеріали семінару «Лабораторії науко- вого перекладу», які відображають обговорення українського перекладу твору Франца Боаса «Розум первісної людини». Семінар відбувся 22 грудня 2021 року в Українському центрі між- народного ПЕН-клубу за підтримки громадської організації «Лабораторія законодавчих іні- ціатив», Міжнародного фонду «Відродження», видавництва «Темпора» в партнерстві з Ук- раїнським центром міжнародного ПЕН-клубу. Текст українського перекладу представив перекладач твору Єгор Буцикін. Експертами були Лесь Белей та Юлія Буйських. Модерував семінар Вахтанґ Кебуладзе

The article is devoted to the historical and philosophical analysis of the unique and paradigmatic role of the H.S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in the philosophical life of Ukraine for 75 years since its foundation. The authors outline its role in the process of institutionalizing philosophy in Ukraine from the time of the domination of the dogmas of Soviet Marxism to the introduction of current research traditions in modern Ukrainian philosophy. The continuity and peculiarities of the change of generations of researchers in the field of philosophy and the involvement of Ukrainian philosophical thought in the world intellectual discourse are studied. The article's authors reveal the gradual formation of the Kyiv philosophical tradition, the role of the Institute's leadership in the style and nature of scientific research of certain periods. Particular attention is paid to the institutionalization of new research areas at the Institute, such as political philosophy, philosophy of language and speech, which belong to the leading paradigm of modern philosophy. Attention is paid to the cooperation of the Institute with domestic scientific and educational institutions, its international relations. The status of the leading professional publications, which became significant both in Soviet times and during independence, is highlighted. Finally, the article notes the role and tasks of the Institute in modern social discourse, focuses on the values, the preservation of which is taken care of by representatives of the Institute.

The article raises the topic of the specifics of the process of institutionalization of scientific achievements of the H. S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the NAS of Ukraine, especially the ones of the «Kyiv School of Philosophy» of the second half of the XX century and early XXI century, in the contemporary educational practices of Ukrainian universities on the example of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. The celebration in 2021 of the 75th anniversary of the institute, which, together with the university, became the main centre of the Kyiv School of Philosophy, once again highlights the latter's role as a leading subject of institutionalization of the Ukrainian national philosophical tradition of late modern times. One of the most famous innovative academic, humanitarian projects and the first prototypes of an open society in the Ukrainian SSR, this institute was a major domestic participant in world philosophical life during the Cold War and became a centre of growth of the philosophical community in the independent Ukraine. An illustrative example of the introduction of new educational practices in classical universities of Ukraine in the context of digitalization of domestic higher education during the emergence of a global network society is an activity of philosophical societies and startups of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and the H. S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the NAS of Ukraine. It unites their common high scientific and educational potential. The Student Society of Oral History of Philosophy of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv is one of the most famous. At the centre of its studies is initiated in T. Chaika’s “The Philosopher’s Oral Histories” project reconstruction of scientific biographies of the Kyiv School of Philosophy creators in the context of developing an oral history of philosophy as an alternative historical and philosophical approach/source/genre.