Philosophical Community Research Articles

The Revenge of the Refugee: the Expulsion of Scholars in the Late Classical Period and the Power of their Reactions in Literature and Politics

Numerous processes of large-scale human mobility (colonization, forced mass migrations) drastically altered the sociopolitical landscape of the Ancient Greek world. Small-scale migration, including the development of scholarly courts and philosophical communities, gathered intellectuals together from around the Mediterranean. While the courts of the Syracusan tyrants attracted many influential scholars, many of these men were expelled due to the jealousy or suspicion of the tyrants. Although they became political refugees and exiles who suffered rupture, fear, and shame, their elite status and access to personal networks changed the power dynamic with these rulers. This chapter will analyze the experiences of four scholars (Timaeus, Philoxenus, Plato, and Dion) to determine how this traumatic event affected both their literary works and/or political views. Their responses and ability to influence contemporary literature and politics thus transform their identity from a powerless refugee to a powerful actor who used their mobility to enact changes that questioned the authority of the tyrant.

Doing the write thing: Teaching public relations writing through philosophy of communication and media ecology

This article approaches the reflection on excellence in writing both philosophically and practically, through philosophy of communication and media ecology. It argues that the way to excellence in writing is through, first, learning and acquiring knowledge about the art and forms of good writing and appropriate media. The next stage is to perform the act of writing using appropriate forms and channels of dissemination. If done wisely, with care and reflection, the understanding and use of theoria and praxis can result in producing excellence in writing, or poiesis. Philosophical reflection on theoria, praxis, and poiesis, thus, enables one to understand a deeper sense of the why and how of the art and craft of writing. The specific form of writing considered in this article is public relations writing in a classroom setting; however, understanding the philosophical and media ecological underpinnings of rhetoric can also be useful in other forms of writing and communication.

TRUST IN PUBLIC AUTHORITIES AS AN ETHICAL ISSUE

This paper is an attempt to consider trust in terms of contemporary communicative ethics and its socio-philosophical context. Trust in state power is analyzed according to the theoretical principles of communicative philosophy (J. Habermas and K.-O. Apel). It is suggested that trust in state power is a prerequisite for a harmonious development of society. Trust is seen as a determinant contributing to the formation and disclosure of meaningful components of the dialogue between government and civil society institutions, which takes place on the basis of compliance with social norms such as responsibility, justice, tolerance, mutual understanding, equality and respect. It is argued that trust in the government is the most important factor in socio-political relations, the role of which has become increasingly important in recent years. As globalization develops, trust in power becomes more in demand, as its interests effectively co-ordinate the interests of world policy actors. Trust not only reduces transaction costs and strengthens international cooperation, but also builds new quality of relationships.

The Spanish Disquiet: The Biblical Natural Philosophy of Benito Arias Montano

The Spanish Disquiet: The Biblical Natural Philosophy of Benito Arias Montano

Peculiarities of using of the Moodle test tools in philosophy teaching

The paper considers the role of philosophy and philosophical disciplines as the means of forming general cultural competences, in particular, in the development of critical thinking. The article emphasizes that the process of forming over-subject and soft skills, which, as a rule, include also critical thinking, gets much more complicated under the conditions of the reduction in the volume of philosophical courses. The paper grounds that one of the ways to “return” philosophy to educational programmes can be the implementation of training, using the e-learning environment, especially Moodle. In addition, authors point to the expediency of using this system and, in general, e-learning as an instrument for collaborating students to the world’s educational community and for developing their lifelong learning skills. The article specifies the features of providing electronic support in philosophy teaching, to which the following belongs: the difficulty of parametrizing the learning outcomes; plurality of approaches; communicative philosophy. The paper highlights the types of activities that can be implemented by tools of Moodle. The use of the following Moodle test tasks is considered as an example: test control in the flipped class, control of work with primary sources, control of self-study, test implementation of interim thematic control. The authors conclude that the Moodle system can be used as a tools of online support for the philosophy course, but it is impossible to transfer to the virtual space all the study of this discipline, because it has a significant worldview load. Forms of training, directly related to communication, are integral part of the methodology of teaching philosophy as philosophy itself is discursive, dialogical, communicative and pluralistic. Nevertheless, taking into account features of the discipline, it is possible to provide not only the evaluation function of the test control, but also to realize a number of educational functions: updating the basic knowledge, memorization, activating the cognitive interest, developing the ability to reason and the simpler ones but not less important, – the skill of getting information and familiarization with it.

SPACE: MULTI DIMENSION, ANTHROPOCENTRISM, SOCIO-CULTURALISM, THE CHALLENGES OF ITS IDENTITY

At the present stage of history, which is full of hard overcoming threats and risks, mankind is dealing with a relatively new destructive phenomenon called by the scientific community as “provoking of the space”, ignoring which could be the result of loss (maybe forever) established social psychological balance in the earth’s order.Its ominous symptoms are already there. The search for an adequate way out of the crisis is the task and civic duty of the world scientific, including philosophical community. With this in mind, the purpose of the article under discussion is, on the basis of advanced philosophical research, to share the author’s conviction that Man and Space are merged indistinctly; fitted, spiritualized each other in order to stay alive, to preserve Life by definition; to prove the fact that neglect of space is fraught with serious destructive consequences for the world.To achieve this goal, along with well-known tools of philosophical search, guided by such a creative research as situational analysis, the ratio of existing and potential can “bring” the thought process to new the horizons of search with respect to the essence of space - this fundamental constant of being. The main results of the study were a more reasoned justification of the universality, “pre-assignment” of the co-evolution of Man and Space as a meta-historical program and the inadmissibility of breaking this unique harmony.It is assumed that the indicated parameters of the subject of research in the manner in which they are outlined and studied can cause interest both for those who are directly involved in the space problem and those who are intellectually involved in issues related to the condition of the world order in general

(I can’t get no) antisatisfaction

Substructural approaches to paradoxes have attracted much attention from the philosophical community in the last decade. In this paper we focus on two substructural logics, named $${\mathsf {ST}}$$ and $${\mathsf {TS}}$$, along with two structural cousins, $${\mathsf {LP}}$$ and $${\mathsf {K3}}$$. It is well known that $${\mathsf {LP}}$$ and $${\mathsf {K3}}$$ are duals in the sense that an inference is valid in one logic just in case the contrapositive is valid in the other logic. As a consequence of this duality, theories based on either logic are tightly connected since many of the arguments for and objections against one theory reappear in the other theory in dual form. The target of the paper is making explicit in exactly what way, if any, $${\mathsf {ST}}$$ and $${\mathsf {TS}}$$ are dual to one another. The connection will allow us to gain a more fine-grained understanding of these logics and of the theories based on them. In particular, we will obtain new insights on two questions concerning $${\mathsf {ST}}$$ which are being intensively discussed in the current literature: whether $${\mathsf {ST}}$$ preserves classical logic and whether it is $${\mathsf {LP}}$$ in sheep’s clothing. Explaining in what way $${\mathsf {ST}}$$ and $${\mathsf {TS}}$$ are duals requires comparing these logics at a metainferential level. We provide to this end a uniform proof theory to decide on valid metainferences for each of the four logics. This proof procedure allows us to show in a very simple way how different properties of inferences (unsatisfiability, supersatisfiability and antivalidity) that behave in very different ways for each logic can be captured in terms of the validity of a metainference.

A Modal Free Lunch

The meaning and truth conditions for claims about physical modality and causation have been considered problematic since Hume’s empiricist critique. But the underlying semantic commitments that follow from Hume’s empiricism about ideas have long been abandoned by the philosophical community. Once the consequences of that abandonment are properly appreciated, the problems of physical modality and causal locutions fall away, and can be painlessly solved.

Problematization of Modern Philosophical Anthropology and Prospects of its Development

Introduction. The paper is devoted to the problematization, updating and analysis of the development prospects of modern philosophical anthropology. The author seeks to clearly define the concept, status and position of philosophical anthropology among philosophical disciplines, identifying problems in this area, including those associated with the concept of "death of man". Methodology and sources. The condition, the complex and ambiguous path of development of philosophical and anthropological knowledge throughout the XX century is examined in detail. For the further productive development of philosophical anthropology, the need for its critical problematization is recognized. Special attention is devoted to the relationship between the philosophical anthropology of Max Scheler and the fundamental ontology of Martin Heidegger. Results and discussion. Multiple methods of understanding philosophical anthropology and determining its semantic horizon are distinguished, which complicates the meaningful concretization of this discipline in the 20th century. The author of the paper emphasizes that philosophical anthropology, if it wants to be philosophia prima, should not abandon the ontological context, but strive to create a new, personalized oriented ontology, actualizing the person's personal understanding. For this, it is necessary to critically take into account the experience of the Orthodox understanding of personality in Byzantine patristics, Russian religious philosophy, phenomenology, the philosophy of Scheler and Heidegger, and even the works of French philosophers of the second half of the 20th century, primarily M. Foucault, who developed the chain of "death of man", but in his later works he approached a new, productive understanding of man. Conclusion. Modern philosophical anthropology should critically rethink the history of its development and open up to the urgent problems of modernity, for example, intersubjectivity, the philosophy of communication, and especially visuality, presented in the form of a productive aesthetics of the human image. The author expresses a cautious hope that philosophical anthropology can become a locomotive for the development of all modern philosophy.

Toward a Research Agenda on Political Misinformation and Corrective Information

Truth and falsehood are central subjects in philosophical, political science and mass communication scholarship as an informed citizenry is regarded as a necessity for a well-functioning democracy....

Философский конгресс как тип неформального общения, или О проблеме воспроизводимости знания

The author defends the thesis that the essential aspect of communication within the philosophical community (whether global or local) is the opportunity to dis­cuss with colleagues incompletely meaningful and, accordingly, insufficiently clearly formulated ideas. Moreover, the discussion of ideas that cannot yet claim the status of philosophical knowledge, but nevertheless express the vector of in­tellectual searches, is most effectively carried out in individual communication (in various forms: from correspondence and personal meetings to joint work of local communities). This aspect of communication, characteristic of any intellec­tual community, is an essential component of collective cognitive activity. But in science, he is simply “overshadowed” by a rigorous methodological approach to exhaustive reproducibility of results by members of various research groups. So the preliminary stage of individual communication, during which knowledge is actually formed, is at best considered only as a background of scientific knowledge as something methodologically secondary. Meanwhile, the author be­lieves informal communication is a necessary aspect of scientific knowledge, en­suring its dynamics, and as such, today requires a particular methodological un­derstanding. This is the case in science. In the philosophical community, this type of communication is presented more thoroughly, which is very clearly demonstrated in the activities of congresses.

Інтуїтивізм Анрі Бергсона як каталізатор інтерпретаційних процесів

The article analyses the process of intuitionism's "entry" into European philosophical – aesthetical and studying of art area from 1913 – the year of publishing the first English speaking interpretation of the French thinker. It is shown as the line of thesis of his philosophical conception transformed into the sphere of artistic creation and influenced on the art of the XX century. The examples of intuitionism's interpretation which are represented in modern Ukrainian human science have been accented. It is underlined that the first experience of English – language interpretation of Henri Bergson's ideas, whose works were very popular in European cultural area, is connected with the name of Gerbert Wildom Karr (1859 – 1931), who proposed popular account of the French theorists views in the work The philosophy of Bergson. The accent is made on the fact that G.W. Karr's interpretational model uses the principle of systematization of "the problem field" which H. Bergson formed during the first decade of the XX century. Special attention is paid to"intuitionalism" – composed part of "bergsonism" in the context of which a special theoretic loading lies on the factors "memory" and "time". Examining "time" H. Bergson proposes to take into consideration its "reversibility" and "non-reversibility". It is shown that factors "memory" and "time" were actively used in avant-garde art and in "logic – alogic" of the building of literary works of the school of "new novel" and in European cinematograph of the 70 – 80 years of the ХХ century. As a good example of aesthetic-artistic embodiment of the modifications of "memory" and "time" the creation of famous Spanish producer Karlos Sauro has been considered. It is emphasized that a special load in the general system of views of H. Bergson is "intuitionism", which in the European cultural space was highly appreciated by both the philosophical community and artists. It is emphasized that such factors of "intuitionism" as intelligence, instinct, intuition, time, memory, are still relevant in the research field.

Университет и конгресс как междисциплинарная коммуникативная среда (опыт философского сопоставления)

The article actualizes the problem of the university community as a key meaning-forming scientific environment and the congress as a form of scientific communication. The perspectives of interdisciplinary communication in the university environment and also the experience of Russian philosophical congresses, which have become an important factor in the scientific consolidation of the Russian philosophical community, are considered as material for this kind of comparison, designed to demonstrate the substantial similarity of the problems arising in scientific communities. The author notes the similarity of the problems arising in the formation process of the disciplinary diversity (specialization) of the university environment and the similarity between the functioning of the classical within a modern university (on the example of Belgorod State University) and the problems that are solved at philosophical congresses. Philosophical congresses help to overcome a period of disciplinary fragmentation, which philosophy is now also going through. At the same time, the author notes the importance of the experience gained within the framework of philosophical congresses for solving the problems of university education, in which philosophy traditionally plays an important role in ensuring interdisciplinary communication between faculties. It explains the need for consistent and various attention to philosophical congresses on the part of Russian national universities, which are going through the time of searching for historically well-timed forms of scientific and educational activity. Due to the practical development of personal worldview and methodological beginnings of cognitive activity of high educational level, the author proposes for discussion at the upcoming philosophical congresses (Russian and international) topics related to the question of prospects of philosophical communities in universities. According to the author, it can be the subject of a broad discussion at the next Russian philosophical congress.

Философские конгрессы:понимание и субъект-свидетель

The article considers philosophical congresses as phenomena of scientific and cultural life. The experience of holding international philosophical conferences “Russian Logos – 1. Horizons of Comprehension” and “Russian Logos – 2. Modern – Borders of Control” was illustrated illustratively, where a comprehen­sive diagnosis of research related to understanding the Russian logos was pre­sented. This revelation of unity in plurality is an actual strategy of acquiring meaning, which is extremely indicative in a situation where uncertainty appears as a challenge in science, philosophy, and culture. In terms of perspectives and benchmarks, it is precisely the reflection of uncertainty that characterizes the sit­uation (post) of modernity, acting as one of the intellectual gestures for overcom­ing the postmodern relativism. In conducting philosophical congresses, the eco­nomics of philosophical production in its reflexive and personal content is essential. It can be said that a topological strategy of sense genesis is being im­plemented with varying degrees of success. This is very important for the forma­tion of a possible philosophical community in Russia, which is quite hetero­geneous and controversial in a number of positions. In this context, there is an acute problem of creating a new philosophical “poem of affirmation”, which, for all the features of cultural differences, has similarities and kinship in the mul­tiplicity of projections. The leading role of topological reflection and subjectivity in their correlation with the landscape of life and cultural tradition is indicated. Particular attention is paid to the importance of ethical and aesthetic knowledge in the philosophical reflection of post-modernity. The figure of the subject-wit­ness is presented as an actual configuration of subjectivity in philosophical cre­ativity and socialization processes.

Философская энциклопедия 1960‒1970 гг. Беседа И.О. Щедриной с В.А. Лекторским

Conversation of editor of the journal Voprosy Filosofii I.O. Shchedrina with Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor, Main Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy RAS, V.A. Lektorsky on the history of the creation of the Philosophical Encyclopedia (1960‒1970), on the formation of a profes­sional philosophical community in Russia, on the features of encyclopedic texts on philosophy, and a new project of the electronic Philosophical Encyclopedia.

At the origins of the Leningrad philosophy of culture. Elmar V. Sokolov. The justification of morality in philosophical practice

The article retrospectively analyzes the stage of the origin of philosophy of culture as a discipline in Leningrad at the end of the 20 th century on the example of the prominent professor Elmar Sokolov, who brought a community of interested philosophers together. The problem of spirituality substantiation through involvement in the philosophical culture can be called a key and consolidating effort of thinkers with different political orientations. At the same time, a characteristic feature of the era was the idea of the unity of a philosophical culture that does not scatter into a multitude of diverse practices. At the opposite pole from official Marxism the dividing line passed between the religious type of spirituality and the secular cultural practice of philosophy, and, accordingly, between religious morality and “moral culture” as individual free aspiration. The concept of “moral culture” in various interpretations was developed by Professor Sokolov. The basis of morality for him is freedom, and the value is a productive “freedom for”, which implies the participation of the individual in the whole (family, society, and culture). Philosophical “self-care” leads to the desire for fullness of spiritual life, and freedom is supplemented by the “dictatorship of conscience”, which is not given rationally, logically, or socially, but is rooted in the love of goodness.

Ангажированный акт как условие (философского) сообщества

The text presented is the beginning of a project of a group based in Belgrade at the Institute of Philosophy and Social Theory for Engagement Studies. We are interested in how the French word engagement behaves in Russian. A prelimi­nary definition of our position and the main hypothesis consists of several provi­sions: first, we are interested in the acts or actions, as a result of which some­thing happens, and not the facts, objects, consequences or results of these acts. It is important for us to know how a society is built or how individuals come to­gether and hold together. We believe that there are acts, or groups of acts that work or do not work. Second, we are trying to highlight the acts that result in in­stitutions, and not just groups, societies or communities. We believe that without the participation of the so-called “biased acts”, whose definition we want to give in our text, there are no institutions as such or strong and stable institutions. En­gaged acts give institutions legal status and strengthen them. And the third, in the case of philosophical communities, we are faced with the problematic na­ture of biased acts and greater operability of institutional acts, which determines some specifics of philosophical communities.

Дружба как метафизический опыт

The author focuses on a philosophical tradition born from a friendly dialogue. To understand the development and specificity of philosophical concepts, it is important to study the interpersonal, existential communication of authors within small philosophical communities and groups. The author considers friendly com­munication among the most essential interpersonal existential communications for the philosophical tradition. The trajectory of understanding friendship as the basic structure of human existence was set for centuries by Aristotle and Ci­cero. Since Montaigne, friendly communication has been seen as the source of philosophizing. Transcending the anthropological approach, Heidegger linked the phenomenon of friendship with the question of being. The article presents the phenomenon of friendship as an experience of voluntary freedom that makes a person. Friendship is understood as filia – love that gives a person integrity, making him/her what the person cannot be without his/her circle of friends. Phi­losophy as the “voice of a friend” was considered by La Boétie, Nietzsche, Flo­rensky, Heidegger, and Fédier. Montaigne put debt of such friendship above civil duty and love passion, Lessing thought it possible to sacrifice truth for the sake of such friendship, Hannah Arendt gave preference to such friendship over brotherhood and comradeship. The article shows that the art of philosophizing is largely determined by intellectual generosity, talent for friendly communication. Being engaged in philosophy implies listening, discussion, argument, mutual ex­change of intuitions, reasoned expression of disagreement.

Ценностно-смысловые доминанты философского конгресса (поправки эпохи COVID-19)

The article is a revised version of a report prepared and read at the international scientific conference “What is a community? Social hermeneutics, power and media” (Belgorod, 2019). Changes’ took place that significantly clarify the very idea of the congress, its substantive content and historical relevance during the preparation for the publication of the following report materials within a few months (!). Communication as a living sense-forming beginning of the congress has been tested by the idea of social distance as some completely stable form of self-organization of the philosophical community. The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the emergence of new conditions for its possibility: the personal turned out to be in some involuntary, “digital” identity with the public. It was impossible not to take these changes into account in the final edition of the text of the report, which included some additional semantic accents and historical in­formation. The presented material specifies the historical semantics of the idea of a philosophical congress, its substantive content and relevance. The article substantiates the understanding of the congress as a special, value-rich form of cognitive activism. The ethical and communicative meanings of the international philosophical congress are as a special or formative dialogic constellation of pro­fessional community, which does not require renouncing the individuality of each of the participants. It is thus important to suggest the moral prospects of the next VII Russian Philosophical Congress in probably an intensive connection with the renewal of value-epistemological attitudes and traditional technologies of philosophical education as an indispensable condition for the moral health of a philosophizing people.

SOCIOCULTURAL ANALYSIS IN CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

The contemporary analysis of science is impossible without taking into account sociocultural characteristics. Philosophy of science suggests the comprehensive analysis according to three main directions: a methodological direction, a sociological direction, and a socio-cultural direction. Two last directions allow to take into consideration influence socio-cultural factors have on scientific knowledge. The sociocultural aspect of researching science contains studying it as a social phenomenon, as a collective and social process first of all. Realizing a social need in sociocultural researches of science was caused by a necessity to describe the most important social functions of science in a separate independent shape. This approach allows to distinguish a number of typical phenomena and science categories which enable an adequate opportunity to explain its social qualities. The comprehending of results of a sociocultural approach contains also using a culturological analysis of science. It is worth noting that such approach had been formed in Kant’s philosophy and in philosophy of Schiller who was a Kant follower in terms of developing philosophical ideas but it had been disregarded by a philosophical community till the middle of the 20th century. In a number of modern philosophical conceptions, the sociocultural is defined even more broadly and is corresponded to the actual concept. The presented research will also help to designate the feature of the articulation of “knowledge/society” in the modern philosophical and culturology conceptions. Peculiarities of producing scientific knowledge are caused by corresponding characteristics of a science object.