Philosophy: Theory and Practice

Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Philosophy Philosophy: Theory and Practice Moscow 2013 УДК 100 ББК 87 Р 57 Editors V. Sharova, E. Trufanova, A. Yakovleva Р 57 Philosophy: Theory and Practice / Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy; Ed.: V. Sharova, E. Trufanova, A. Yakovleva. – М. : ИФ РАН, 2013. – 268 p. ; 20 см. – 500 экз. – ISBN 978-5-9540-0258-4. This book is a collection of papers presented at the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy (4–10 August, 2013, Athens, Greece) by research fellows and affiliated students and postgraduates of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The papers represent a broad variety of philosophical subjects lying within such disciplines as epistemology, history of philosophy, philosophy of science, ethics, social and political philosophy, logic etc. ISBN 978-5-9540-0258-4 © Athors, 2013 © Institute of Philosophy RAS, 2013 CONTENTS Guseynov A. Philosophy as an Ethical Project .............................................................. 5 I. Epistemology and Logic Lektorskiy V. Rationality in Contemporary Culture .................................................... 22 Avtonomova N. Roman Jakobson’s Life in Language and the Epistemological Potential of His Idea of Structure ........................................ 28 Beskova I. Human Embodiment as a Complex Phenomenon ..................................... 32 Kanaev I. Awareness of the Body as a Form of Self-Consciousness .......................... 37 Kasavin I. Underdetermination of Knowledge by Context: A Challenge for Social Epistemology ......................................................................... 43 Kasavin I. What Kind of Realism Does Social Epistemology Assume? .................... 49 Morkina J. Philosophical Concepts in Consciousness: Transcendental in Dynamics ....................................................................................... 63 Pavlov S. Extension of Definitional Domain for Truth and Falsehood Operators ...... 69 Pruzhinin B. Russian Philosophical Tradition as European: Epistemological Style of Intellectual Culture ............................................................. 76 Smirnova N. Naturalistic Challenge to Contemporary Epistemology ........................ 81 Trufanova E. Personal Identity in the Age of Mass Communication ........................ 87 II. Philosophy of Science Stepin V. The Historic Types of Scientific Rationality ................................................ 91 Gorokhov V. Galileo Galilei as Philosopher of Technology and Technology Assessment Expert .......................................................................... 102 Liseev I. Life Sciences in Building of the World’s Modern Scientific Picture ...................................................................................................... 110 Mamchur E. Metaphysics and the Progress of Science ............................................ 115 III. Ethics Apressyan R. Two Paradigms in Philosophy of Love ............................................... 120 Apressyan R. Towards a Core Understanding of Morality........................................ 126 Artemyeva O. What Morality is About? .................................................................... 131 Kravchenko A. The Interpretations of Violence and Lie in European Philosophical Tradition: Immanuel Kant ................................ 138 Zubets O. Morality as Subjectness ............................................................................ 142 IV. Anthropology Kasavina N. The Basic Character of Existential Experience .................................... 148 Korolev A. What Hinders Development of Modern Man ......................................... 153 Pronin M. Virtualistics as a Philosophical and Anthropological Turn in the Human Sciences .............................................................................................. 158 Yudin B. Boundaries of Individual Human Existence as Zones of Engineering Interventions ..................................................................................... 166 V. Social and Political Philosophy Chumakov A. Globalization: Perspectives and Realities of Global Development ............................................................................................. 169 Fedotova V. Globalization as Megatrend and Local Modernization Trends ............. 175 Sharova V. Gender Aspects of the Modern Left-Wing Politics: the Specifics of Russia .............................................................................................. 179 Shchedrovitsky P. The Problem of the Division of Labour in the Context of Philosophy of Activity/Tätigkeit ................................................... 185 Shevchenko V. The Revolution of Spirit as a Category of Philosophy of History .... 195 Yakovleva A. Intellectual Work in the Context of Freedom and Alienation .............. 201 VI. History of Philosophy Dolgov K. The Philosopher and Philosophy in Plato’s View .................................... 207 Gadzhikurbanova P. Kathēkon and Katorthōma in the Early Stoic Ethics .............. 215 Lebedev A. Idealism in Early Greek Philosophy: the Case of Pythagoreans and Eleatics ...................................................................... 220 Stepanyants M. Reflections on Metaphysics of Russian Culture .............................. 231 VII. Students’ Papers Shchedrina I. The Problem of the “Self” in the European Tradition: Casus of Malebranche ............................................................................................... 244 Sabancheev R. The Annales School in the Context of European Philosophical-Methodological Traditions ................................................................. 250 Shushkina A. Rationalistic Doubt of Descartes and Montaigne’s Skepticism as the Basis of Horkheimer’s Criticism.................................................. 255 VIII. History of World Congresses of Philosophy Shchedrina T. Philosophical Congress as a Phenomenon of Cultural-Historical Communication ..................................................................... 260 Athors ........................................................................................................................ 266 A. A. Guseynov PHILOSOPHY AS AN ETHICAL PROJECT Philosophy is often understood in terms of public benefit as being syn- onymous with its application to other domains of public life such as politics, economics, education etc. The question I would like to raise is of an altogether different nature – namely, it is the question of whether philosophy can be seen as having any public or social value per se, be- fore there is any further thought of application or usage. In particular, it is the question of whether it contains anything universally significant – something that could make it of interest to anyone as seen in the context of one’s personal evolution. And in order to answer that question, first we have to find out what philosophy is to the philosophers themselves and how it benefits them. * * * Ethics has traditionally been considered one of the main outlets of philosophy in public and social life. Philosophical ethics is also referred to as practical philosophy – as opposed to theoretical philosophy. It is also a major factor that makes philosophy interesting to the general public. Some try to distinguish between philosophy, which is perceived as theoretical philosophy per se, in the strictest sense of the word, and ethics as its mere application, or practical aspect. This distinction is obviously erroneous. 5 The division of philosophy into the domains of logic, physics and ethics has been known since antiquity. They remain the three cornerstones of philosophy to this day, even though the process of differentiation has continued throughout the entire history of philosophy, represented by dozens of specialised disciplines today – and indeed well-represented in our congress programme. This understanding of the subject of philosophy provides a full scope of approaches to human existence, which is viewed in one of its three main aspects, namely, the intellectual, the natural and the moral. Philosophy thus assumes the responsibility for the human world – not in the aspect of universal knowledge, but rather in that of establishing its cohesiveness and comprehending the internal affinity between the ability to cogitate, the necessity of nature and the freedom of action. Thus, when the question of the purpose of philosophy is answered by someone who points out its ability to teach an individual some rules that apply to cogitation, perception of the world and right behaviour, the answer is only partially correct, because it does not reflect the unique nature of philosophy. Its uniqueness and the special nature of its purpose are as follows: philosophy attempts to address human existence as a whole, bringing into view the unity of all of its three canons: the canon of thought (logic), the canon of knowledge (physics) and the canon of action (ethics). There is another important aspect re- lated to the above. The ancients did not merely introduce the division of philosophy into three spheres – they also discovered the internal relatedness between them, one that places ethics in the focal point. According to the imagery found in the works of Sextus Empiricus, if we liken philosophy to an egg, logic is the shell, physics is the white and ethics is the yolk. Should the metaphor involve a garden, logic is the fence, physics is the trees and ethics is

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