Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series IVA, Eastern and Central Europe, Volume 41 General Editor George F. McLean Dialogue among Civilizations Russian Philosophical Studies, IV Edited by Nur Kirabaev Yuriy Pochta The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Copyright © 2010 by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Box 261 Cardinal Station Washington, D.C. 20064 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Dialogue among civilizations / edited by Nur Kirabaev, Yuriy Pochta. p. cm. -- (Cultural heritage and contemporary change. Series IVA, Eastern and Central Europe ; v. 41) (Russian philosophical studies ; 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Philosophy, Russian. 2. Civilization, Modern. I. Kirabaev, N. S. II. Pochta, IU. M. (IUrii Mikhailovich) B4201.D48 2010 2010036886 197--dc22 CIP ISBN 978-1-56518-265-3 (pbk.) TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Part I. Rethinking the Philosophical and Political Foundations in post-Soviet Russia Chapter I. Philosophy at the Dawn of the New Millennium 9 Nur Kirabaev, Anatoly Semushkin and Valery Gubin Chapter II. Contemporaneity: Socio-Historical Being 15 Pyotr Grechko Chapter III. Culture and Global Communication 35 Vladimir Mironov Chapter IV. Ideological Trends in Contemporary World Politics 45 Dmitry Baryshnikov Chapter V. “War on Terror”, Postcommunist Transformation and Globalization 63 Piotr Dutkiewicz Chapter VI. Political Culture and Political Power in 71 the Epoch of Globalization Vladimir Gutorov Part II. Russian Philosophy: Diversity in Unity Chapter VII. Rethinking Russia 87 Mikhail Maslin Chapter VIII. “The Russian Idea”: In Search of National Identity 103 Viacheslav Serbinenko Chapter IX. Florovsky as a Philosopher of Eurasian Spirituality 117 Sergei Nizhnikov Chapter X. Limits of Eurasian Metaphysics 125 Аnatoly Semoushkin Chapter XI. Eurasianist Movement and Philosophy 135 Vasiliy Vanchougov iv Table of Contents Chapter XII. Imperial Difference and Russia as a Subaltern 153 Empire of Modernity Madina Tlostanova Chapter XIII. “Orientalization” of Marxism in Revolutionary Russia 171 Yuriy Pochta Part III. Myth and Logos in Various Civilizational Contexts Chapter XIV. Mystery as a Form of Culture 189 Viacheslav Naydysh Chapter XV. The Quest for the Original Logos: 211 the Latin American Perspective Natalia Petyaksheva Chapter XVI. Islam as an Issue in Cross-cultural 225 Interaction between East and West Nur Kirabaev Chapter XVII. Oswald Spengler’s Political Grounds for the 239 Mystification of Islam and Christianity Yuriy Pochta Contributors 249 Index 251 INTRODUCTION This work is dedicated to the most fruitful and effective cooperation with the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (RVP). This began in 1997, when we first the Council at an international scholarly conference in Lviv (Ukraine). The conference was arranged by the RVP with the support of the Soros Foundation and devoted to the problem of building civil societies in East European countries. During the conference it became clear that the approach of the RVP to certain problems of history of philosophy and interaction between cultures in the contemporary world had many parallels in our own approach. We had been working on the problematic of the “Dialogue of Civilizations: East–West” and had arranged three international conferences (1992, 1995, 1997) connected with these issues. The Council enthusiastically joined our projects and took an active part in the four succeeding conferences, held in Moscow (1999, 2001, 2003, 2005) as Co-Chair of the Organizing Committee and member of the Scholarly Committee. In addition, a few research projects were carried out with the active participation of the RVP. Our scholars joined in a number of extended 10-week seminars and two monographs were published in English in the U.S.A., namely: - Islamic and Christian Cultures: Conflict or Dialogue; Bulgarian Philosophical Studies, III. Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change, v.21.–Washington, D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2001; and - Values of Islamic Culture and the Experience of History; Russian Philosophical Studies, 1. Edited by Nur Kirabaev and Yuriy Pochta.– Washington, D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2002. The articles included in the present volume, Dialogue among Civilizations, Russian Philosophical Studies, IV, also stemmed from the cooperation between the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy and the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia. Part I, “Rethinking the Philosophical and Political Foundations in post-Soviet Russia,” deals with the general problematic of contemporary Russian philosophy; Part 2 deals with Russian philosophy and its influence on the “Russian idea” and the Eurasian doctrine; Part 3 concentrates on myth and logos in various civilizational contexts. Chapter I, “Philosophy at the Dawn of the New Millennium,” by Nur Kirabaev, Anatoly Semushkin and Valery Gubin, offers an evaluation of the present status of philosophy, identifies the symptoms and the main characteristics of losing its disciplinary borders, and underscores the preconditions and reasons leading to a devaluation of traditional 2 Introduction philosophical values. The authors suggest possible ways for rehabilitating the status and prestige of philosophy along with the restoration of its spiritual and professional identity. Chapter II by Pyotr Grechko, “Contemporaneity: Socio-Historical Being,” claims that the deeply historical nature of all social life is self- evident, while historicity primarily means changes and differences. Therefore it is important to identify differences, or determine a time-scale in which they occur. Most likely it will be necessary to start from contemporaneity which stands at the top of these differences and which alone can provide the full, panoramic and dynamic outlook of history. The context of contemporaneity always sets the “pre-conceptions” of nature, society and human being. As the author of the article insists, it is necessary to emphasize that by contemporaneity here we mean not only living in the present, but also existing at the advanced level of producing progress, keeping pace with the present age and being on the cutting edge of historical time. Chapter III, “Culture and Global Communication,” by Vladimir Mironov, attempts to analyze the most powerful and all-embracing phenomenon of contemporary culture regulating its structural and directional components in the sense of function and essence, namely the phenomenon of global communication. The author also reflects on the possible standards for creative work and the integrative processes within the communicative space of modern society, and analyzes the consequences of global communication in terms of gains and losses. Chapter IV, by Dmitry N. Baryshnikov, “Ideological Trends in Contemporary World Politics,” shows how ideology did not end with the fall of either fascism or communism. Rather it lives on in the neo- conservative dynamics in Washington as well as in Russia, but now begins to take on a new set of postmodern characteristics such as weakness in theoretical bases and an anti-globalist rhetoric combined with new strengths in communications. Chapter V, “’War on Terror,’ Postcommunist Transformation and Globalization,” by Piotr Dutkiewicz, moves the discussion to terrorism in the conviction that the modern era and unilateral policies are already past and that it is increasingly recognized that a new policy is needed. Chapter VI, by Vladimir A. Gutorov, “Political Culture and Political Power in the Epoch of Globalization,” focuses on two issues: the effect of the transformation of political power on political theory and whether such theory requires an ethical component. Part II. “Russian Philosophy: Diversity in Unity”. Chapter VII, by Mikhail Maslin, “Rethinking Russia,” addresses the main trends and problems in the development of historico-philosophical studies on Russia – particularly in the post-Soviet period. He presents a concise historico-philosophical outline of the religious philosophy at the Introduction 3 basis of the “Russian idea” from its origins in the mid eleventh century to the twentieth century. Chapter VIII, “’The Russian Idea’: In Search of National Identity,” by Viacheslav Serbinenko, demonstrates how the numerous reflections on the destiny of Russia, which occupied an important place in nineteenth- century Russian thought, were essentially philosophical in nature. The decisive question was not focused on the specific historical fate of Russia and the West, nor on the relations between the two. The “slavophiles” and the “westernisers” debated the reality of the Christian path in history, arguing over how far the European peoples and Russia were going down this road, and whether it was at all attainable. V. Soloviev and F. Dostoevsky posed an undoubtedly metaphysical but nevertheless concrete question to Russia and to the West. Could nations and states that have declared themselves Christian disregard such declared religious and moral principles in their historical actions. Even more with nationalist ideologies that are absolutely incompatible with the Christian faith can they justify politics that can lead to the ‘international destruction of humanity’? Having developed their own metaphysics of the ‘Russian idea’, our thinkers consider national unity to be unattainable without profound understanding and respect for other traditions and psychological experiences.