Philosophical polylogue

The image and reality of Russia in the civilizational geopolitics by V.L. Tsymbursky

Mariya L. Burova — 2024-12-03

The article deals with Vadim L. Tsymbursky's criticism of geopolitics as a field of knowledge, analyzes his attempt to justify a model of civilizational geopolitics which would take into account geographical, historical, and dynamical peculiarities of the development of Russian civilization as an open system. Tsymbursky's views are systematized and analyzed through the articulation of such concepts as matter (the totality of ethnic groups and territory), form (spirituality and sociality), movement and purpose of civilization. From his point of view, Russia is a geopolitical embodiment of civilization, small and rather late, with the Russian populational core, and the pattern "island of Russia" emphasizes the integrity, complexity and systematic nature of the reflected historical and geographic reality as a unity of matter and form. It is shown that Tsymbursky describes the double oscillating movements of civilization matter in the system "Europe–Russia", explaining the inclusion of Russia in the long military cycles and in the cycles of high cultures. According to Tsymbursky, civilization is a vertical and hierarchically organized entity. He claims that the purpose of civilization is to be the Basic Humanity on the Basic Earth. The interaction of Russia as an open changing system with a dynamic external environment, or with the changing Great Limitrophe, allows him to reach the level of the system "Russia–Eurasia". Tsymbursky believes that civilization paradigm should include a special kind of cultural studies and be a scientific research program. It is concluded that the model of Russia-civilization proposed by Tsymbursky is of great theoretical importance, since it corresponds to the historical and cultural reality, performs explanatory and prognostic functions.

On A.I. Vvedensky’s logicism

Igor Е. Pris — 2024-12-03

The article substantiates the thesis that the philosophical work of Aleksandr I. Vvedensky may and should be considered in the context of neo-Kantianism. The author argues that Vvedensky was not only the first Russian neo-Kantian thinker, but also one of the first (and in Russia the first) analytical philosophers, since the logicism he developed contains essential elements of pragmatism, analytical philosophy and conceptual (therapeutic) analysis, as well as allows overcoming Kantian transcendentalism. It is noted that as a philosophical system, Vvedensky's logicism was developed by him as he tried to clarify and criticize the logic of the use of such metaphysical concepts as “thing-in-itself,” “phenomenon,” “experience,” “knowledge,” “faith,” “something given,” “law of nature,” “matter,” “meaning,” “meaning of life,” etc., as a result of which the structure of epistemic rationality was also clarified. It is shown in the article that Vvedensky believed that knowledge and metaphysics complement each other. He maintained that all knowledge is based on conscious, or morally grounded, faith, which is irrefutable, though unprovable. The paper argues that this notion is similar to Ludwig Wittgenstein's notion of loop belief. In particular, the author shows that conscious belief in the existence of things-in-themselves can be interpreted as the looping belief (proposition) “Objects exist.” Then the notion of the thing-in-itself as a limit operated by Vvedensky coincides with the notion of the object as a principle of identification. It is concluded that the Russian philosopher came close to understanding the structure of epistemic rationality as a rationality local and presupposing the existence of logical certainties, i.e. loop beliefs (propositions, commitments). As to Vvedensky's religious position, it is characterized in the article as quasi-fideism.

The Russian Neo-Kantian philosophy of law: a unique development of Kant's ideas or a dead-end project?

Nikolai A. Shaveko — 2024-12-03

The article examines the reception of neo-Kantian philosophy of law in pre-revolutionary Russia in order to show the significance of neo-Kantianism for the modern stage of development of philosophy of law. The article focuses on the problem of the legal ideal, which is particularly relevant now, when the state is attempting to legally protect traditional moral values and develop a consolidating national identity. It is noted that in the early twentieth century Russian jurisprudence was strongly influenced by the ideas of Rudolf Stammler, which led to the “revival” of the concept of natural law, while in the West it happened later, after the Second World War, and resulted from the influence of the ideas of another neo-Kantian thinker, Gustav Radbruch. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that a number of key provisions of the neo-Kantian philosophy of law, especially with regard to the problem of legal ideal, retain their persuasiveness in our time. Firstly, it is the idea of distinguishing between the real and the proper, secondly, the understanding of the legal ideal as a regulative idea, i.e. as a formal principle by means of which all the existing legal norms are evaluated, and, thirdly, some left-liberal ideas. Thus, the author claims, the teachings of Russian neo-Kantianism can be regarded as an independent milestone in the history of political and legal thought – a milestone on which we can now rely without mindlessly opposing ourselves to the West.

N.A. Berdyaev – Russian mystical philosopher

Viktoriya V. Kravchenko — 2024-12-03

In spite of the fact that Nikolai A. Berdyaev is often characterized as a “Russian existentialist”, “personalist”, and “religious philosopher”, the author of the article classifies him as a representative of the tradition of Russian mystical philosophy, trying to present all the above-mentioned characteristics in a new perspective. It is stressed that Berdyaev was unusual even among the mystical Russian philosophers, and not only because he vividly and comprehensively discussed the problem of mysticism as a mystery, the basis of spiritual and religious life, the starting point in the formation of various religious and mystical trends, but also because in his own philosophical intuitions and conceptions he refused from the understanding of mysticism proposed by Vladimir S. Solovyov, the founder of Russian mystical philosophy. The article offers an unbiased analysis of Berdyaev’s most significant works from the point of view of the “mystical worldview” he developed. The main object of the study is the work Self-Knowledge, which is now presented in several “variants”, from the first Parisian edition (1949) to the edition compiled and prepared by A.V. Vadimov (1991). These editions do not always “overlap”, they rather complement each other, so references in the article are given to both editions. The fact that there are a lot of extensive quotations from Berdyaev’s writings in the article is explained by pointing out that since the theme of mysticism in Russian philosophy still causes controversial discussions and ambiguous assessments, then it is necessary to remind (or inform) the modern reader about Berdyaev’s emphasized interest in mysticism, about his specific developments of mystical problems, and also about the fact that it is various mystical teachings that paid the fundamental and direct influence on the philosophical work of the Russian thinker.

From the history of St. Petersburg Slavophilism: N.Ya. Danilevsky and V.I. Lamansky

Аleksey V. Malinov — 2024-12-03

The article analyzes the views of the representatives of late Slavophilism N.Ya. Danilevsky and V.I. Lamansky, notes their commonality and attempts to trace possible lines of mutual influence. It is suggested that Danilevsky began work on the book Russia and Europe after his acquaintance and conversations with Lamansky in late 1864 or early 1865. The general provisions found in the works of Danilevsky and Lamansky are traced. The analysis of Lamansky's publications of 1865–1867, in which he expressed ideas that were reflected in Russia and Europe, gives grounds to recognize a certain influence of Lamansky on the formation of Danilevsky's views. In these publications Lamansky described the two conditions necessary for the development of an original culture: political independence and a developed literary language; Danilevsky also wrote about this, formulating the first two laws of cultural-historical types. Both thinkers wrote about the difference in the historical age of the two civilizations: Romano-Germanic and Greco-Slavic. The similarity of their ideas is also noted in their later works. However, Danilevsky's and Lamansky's ideas about the political organization of Slavic civilization did not coincide completely: while the former wrote about an all-Slavic union, the latter proposed to postpone the solution of the question of the political form of the new cultural-historical type until the cultural rapprochement between the Slavic peoples took place. It was believed that this could only be achieved in case all Slavs agreed to use Russian as a common literary, scientific and diplomatic language. The author concludes that there was the mutual influence of the two thinkers on each other, as a result of which the theory of local civilizations was created.

“Favourite and dear friend...”: Letters of N.Ya. Danilevsky to I.P. Köler

Olga N. Danilevskaya — 2024-12-03

The article precedes the publication of letters of Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky (1822–1885) to the Estonian painter Johan Köler-Viljandi (1826–1899). The established scientific tradition of studying Danilevsky's work is analyzed. It is noted that Danilevsky, who considered himself a botanist and ichthyologist, is now known as a Slavophile philosopher. The letters of Danilevsky to Köhler published here cover the period from 1874 to 1882 and can be divided into three groups: pre-war (before 1877), written in the period of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), and post-war letters. Köhler first visited Danilevsky's Mshatka estate in the Crimea in 1872 and from then on came there almost annually. Danilevsky and Köhler had warm friendly relations, as evidenced by the published letters. The letters contain numerous everyday details that reveal the circumstances of the Danilevsky family's life in the Crimea. In the letters relating to the period of the Russo-Turkish War, the issues of liberation of Bulgaria are touched upon. As an illustration of Danilevsky's views on the outcome of the Russo-Turkish War, his reasoning from the article Woe to the victors! (1879) is reproduced (1879). Danilevsky believed that the results of the Berlin Congress exposed all the lies of the foreign policy pursued by Russia during the 19^th century, which led it to a diplomatic defeat, despite the victory in the war. Danilevsky stressed that the victory was to open everyone's eyes to the true attitude of Europe to Russia and to draw the attention of the Russian government and intellectuals to the need to protect national interests. The postwar letters reveal the circumstances of Danilevsky's active participation in the fight against phylloxera in the Crimea. The article reproduces a previously unknown photograph of Danilevsky and a portrait of the scholar painted by Köler.

The casual philosopher (on some motifs in “The Philosopher and the Artist”)

Sergei L. Fokin — 2024-12-03

The article considers a number of motifs of the book The Philosopher and the Artist, which contains reflections of the philosopher Valery V. Savchuk on the work of the artist Vladimir Komelfo (Vladimir M. Fomichev) and reproductions of works by the famous St. Petersburg master. It is emphasized that this book can be regarded as the story of more than thirty years of competition between a critic-thinker and a painter-experimenter: in reality, it is about the confrontation of two types of perception, thinking, and expression. In this confrontation, the author shows, the competitors adopt each other's techniques: philosophy begins to paint and painting begins to philosophize. The very contest between the philosopher and the painter, the chronicle of which is presented in The Philosopher and the Painter, is nothing less than the difficult experience of such a friendship, in which a friend finds an unintentional opportunity to change himself in favor of the other without changing himself. Indeed, the reproductions of paintings and drawings used in the book by V.V. Savchuk, reflected in the philosopher's reasoning, can say much more than at the artist's personal exhibitions. And the experiments of art criticism, undertaken by the philosopher “on occasion”, contain more or less explicit attempts at true philosophical word-making, which is a distinctive feature of any original philosophy. It is emphasized that the practice of New Archaic philosophical thinking is relevant, the thinking which, supported by a graphic or pictorial arguments, does not appear as a plunge into the depths of being-language in order to grasp and discover the hidden absolute truth in it; rather, it appears as a kind of glide across the surface of what exists here and now, as an invitation to travel along the windings of the visible.

Valery Savchuk – computer games researcher

Konstantin A. Ocheretyany — 2024-12-03

The article is aimed at analyzing the possibility of using the key concepts elaborated by Valery V. Savchuk for the philosophical understanding of computer games. It is noted that V.V. Savchuk was the editor of the first Russian collective monograph on the philosophy of computer games, and his further work opened new perspectives in this field. It is argued that the experience of technology is more fundamental for modern man than the experience of his corporeality: man's bodily configuration is always given to him in the mirror of technology. All of V.V. Savchuk's work is concentrated on the comprehension of the problems of environment, communication of images, corporeality; in this sense, his studies provide answers to the key questions of modernity: about the modus operandi of corporeal inclusion in the digital, about living the digital as an environment from within the body techniques available to it, about the transformation of subject matter in the digital; in other words, they make it possible to highlight the contours of digital integration. And if the most important thing in a thinker's work is the unspoken, computer games are what pulls thought down to the point of a new beginning, which should be proposed to authors writing about computer games as a starting point for new strategies of thought. In the context of the visual ecology and body-centred topology of computer games, this article explores the possibilities of such a new assemblage of already classic concepts, and suggests options for gameanalysts and game designers. It is concluded that computer games in Valery Savchuk's philosophical work become key biopolitical and biosemiotic platforms that ground non-game interfaces, i.e. define actual modes of digital presence.

Dialogue between a philosopher and an architect in the presence of an observer

Aleksey E. Levchuk — 2024-12-03

In the history of humanitarian knowledge there are many examples of intellectual conversations between philosophers and architects: Le Corbusier and Jane Jacobs, Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman, Jean Baudrillard and Jean Nouvel, etc. All these dialogues were attempts to reflect new challenges of time, important events and actual ideas, i.e. they were conducted not with the aim of developing a universal theory, but in order to solve specific problems of the current moment. As a result, on the one hand, some questions of both philosophy of architecture and theory of architecture were partially clarified, and on the other hand, these discussions contributed to raising new, more complicated questions. In the 1980s, P. Eisenman and J. Derrida created the project “Chora L Works”, which included literary and architectural discourses sounding like “voices”, with Derrida acting as a designer and Eisenman as a writer. The result was a multi-voiced “architecture-polylogue.” This project has faded into oblivion, but it has left a sense of understatement, a “fold” of plissé, in the dust of which, in a Deleuzian way, the whole logarithm of a great epoch can be contained. The article presents a dialogue between the St. Petersburg philosopher Valery Savchuk and the St. Petersburg architect Aleksey Levchuk, conducted with the help of the art historian Zhanna Nikolaeva. This dialogue is a kind of continuation of the established intellectual tradition.

Floor and underground as objects of topological reflection

Konstantin V. Azarov — 2024-12-03

The article presents an analysis of the phenomena of floor and underground in Russian culture with the help of topological reflexion as it was elaborated in the philosophical works of Valery Savchuk. The author shows that after the research published in the book Fence as a Balance of Power by the St. Petersburg philosopher, the problems of floor and underground have become relevant and require their philosophical investigation. It is emphasized that floor and fence are differentiated where space begins to perform the function of differentiation, that is to contain and delimit. The author claims that it is not without reason that in the Russian language the words “floor” and “half” are semantically linked, with the latter implying separation. In the process of topological reflection of the floor, the author of the article, on the one hand, discovers another basis of culture, which is revealed not through a cut, but with the help of the Chinese analog of the concept “culture” – wen (文), denoting a natural pattern that became writing. Being also the result of a wound, culture as wen is born out of gazing at the cracks-defiles and patterns on turtle shells. On the other hand, the phenomenon of the floor is interpreted in the article in an extremely expansive way: it is the earthen or clay floor of ancient dwellings, the open-air bed, the path in the forest, the bottom of the river, etc., since the floor as a foundation (fundamentum) refers to its root – fundus (bottom). Finally, the analysis of the “torn” consciousness of modern man forced the author to turn to to the study of the underground, and here the novels of F.M. Dostoevsky are of great importance, which surprisingly echo the ideological searches of twentieth-century subcultures – from Jack Kerouac's anti-consumerism to gadget-enthusiasts and cyberfreaks.

The voice of topos. Reflecting on Roald Mandelstam's poetry

Andrei B. Patkul — 2024-12-03

Starting from Valery Savchuk's interpretation of the concept of place in Aristotle's physical and argumentative contexts, according to which there is a certain juxtaposition between them, the author of the article raises the question about the conditions of the possibility of this juxtaposition. This is rather problematic, in his view, because in the case of argumentation, place presupposes generality, whereas in the case of nature it presupposes the individuality of the body that is enclosed by this place. Obviously, place is absolutely individual, or unique. It can be regarded as a principle of individuation as such. Individuality is something that cannot be adequately reproduced by the means of reasoning logic or rhetoric. They are subject to the law of the inverse relation between the scope and content of a concept. Thus, to adequately express the uniqueness of an individual topos, they would need to enumerate an infinite number of its distinctive features. It is claimed that the speech that could really express the uniqueness of a place can only be poetic speech. In order to illustrate this thesis, the author of the article analyzes the poetic manner and some poems of the Russian poet Roald Mandelstam (1932–1961). The results of the analysis show that this poet, using singular, often fantastic signs, abstract analogies and arbitrary historical and literary associations, nevertheless makes it possible for certain locations of St. Petersburg to be recognized by the reader. It is concluded that such recognition has the form of a synthesis of identifications and, phenomenologically speaking, adequately fills the reader's intention without a comprehensive visual representation in the word of the depicted topos. Therefore, any specific toponymic indications in Roald Mandelstam's poetry appear redundant.

The poetic landscape of Arkady Dragomoschenko

Aleksandr A. Samoilov — 2024-12-03

The article is devoted to the consideration of the culturological problems touched upon in the creative and cultural activities of the St. Petersburg poet Arkady Dragomoshchenko. The key features of the author's poetics and the main directions of their interpretation in the discovered corpus of reflexive texts devoted to Dragomoshchenko's biography and creative method are identified. The author of the article analyzes the facts of the poet's biography, regarding which there is a research consensus, and proposes a hypothesis about the key role of transcultural communication in the development of Dragomoshchenko's ideas about poetry and the method of writing itself. The main provisions of Dragomoshchenko's cultural reflection are emphasized, as well as the field and forms of interaction of his creative method with the national cultural tradition, primarily in the aspect of comprehension of poetry. It is shown that the specificity of Dragomoshchenko's poetics lies in the problematization of the traditional lyrical subject, the destruction of the attitude to visuality or emotional content, which finds its expression in the key motifs of “indirectness”, “peeling off” as a refusal of “appropriation”, as well as in the methodological requirement not to reduce the symbolism of a text to a particular meaning. It is emphasized that such a poetic method was the result of poststructuralist philosophy, which can be regarded as the foundation of Dragomoshchenko's work as a whole. The analysis of the poet's journalistic texts leads to discovering the topology of the collision between the author's writing practice and the evaluation given from within the conventional cultural attitudes he reflects. Comparing critical and poetic texts, the author of the article concludes that reference to philosophical context and cultural reflection are an integral part of Dragomoshchenko's creative method.

German philosophers of the 18th–19th centuries about Russia and Europe

Hartwig Frank — 2024-12-03

The article analyzes the historical and philosophical context of the evolution of ideas about Russia and Russian culture in Germany. The author investigates the positions of such German philosophers of the 18^th and 19^th centuries as Gottfried Leibniz, Johann Herder, Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche and Bruno Bauer. Two different perspectives in the interpretation of Russia's significance for Western Europe are highlighted, and it is emphasized that common to both perspectives is the recognition of mutual influence and mutual belonging of European and Russian cultures. It is concluded that Russia used to be in the field of attention of German philosophers only insofar as it was considered as a part of the European cultural space, although it was emphasized that Russia occupies a special place in it due to its geopolitical Asian integration. If for Leibniz Russia was a tabula rasa, subject to cultural cultivation for rapprochement with Europe, and Herder's enlightenment impulse was aimed at awakening the historical and cultural consciousness of Russia for the purpose of national self-determination of the Russian people (this position was generally shared by Kant and Hegel, who characterized Russia as a country that was in the preparatory phase of its cultural blossoming and had not yet entered the European system), then Bauer and Nietzsche, on the contrary, claimed that Russia was a salvation for Europe, because against the background of the crisis of European statehood and culture, the ever-increasing “will to power” of the Russian people gave hope that Europe would also develop a will for unity and would be able to survive in the face of the upcoming global challenges.

On political art

Valery V. Savchuk — 2024-12-03

The article deals with the crisis of contemporary political art. It is shown that this crisis results from the hypertrophy of the political function of art in the 20^th and early 21^st centuries. The author states that today political art is characterized by obsessive straightforwardness and simplicity of solutions to ambiguous social and political processes: all sorts of dousing paintings with paint, protest gluing, chaining, nailing, nudging, etc. cause indifference nowadays of mass consumers of works of art, growing into boredom. The phenomenon of boredom in the history of art was first described by the architect Adolf Göller, who claimed that boredom was the cause of a change of the dominant style in architecture, and then Ernst Jünger, who linked the emergence of boredom with “pain dissolved in time”. In this perspective, Jean-Luc Godard's words might be better understood: “One should make films politically, not make political films”. Once we realize this, we can conclude that the political function does not disappear at all, but dissolves in all genres and in all gestures of artists. We cannot ignore the political content of works of art, but at the same time we cannot help but oppose this political content being expressed openly and intrusively (political films and other political gestures by artists). To create means to overcome the dictatorship of dominant images and to destroy the old construction of the perspective, thereby testifying to the crisis of existing forms of representation. On the one hand, we have accepted as dogma that the world, losing its center, is decentralizing, each topos speaks its own language; on the other, the fame and price of an artist's work require universal criteria, a global market. An artist can find, strengthen and preserve his authorial style both in opposition to the state (German Expressionism, the Peredvizhniki) and ideologically sharing its fundamental goals (the Soviet avant-garde, Pop Art).

The homestead as a pattern of worldview: the “lost” world of N.K. Roerich

Svetlana N. Korobkova — 2024-12-03

The article draws attention to the museum-estate of N.K. Roerich in the village of Izvara, Leningrad Region. Although the work of the Roerich family is widely known throughout the world, their cultural, philosophical and scientific achievements have been indiscriminately forgotten in their homeland, Russia, particularly the legacy of Nicholas Roerich. The article emphasizes the global, cosmic scale of N.K. Roerich's thoughts and deeds, which is proved by the fact that there exist a number of centers for preservation and study of his heritage from the USA (New York) to India (a valley in the Himalayas). It is argued that the key moment (pattern) in the formation of Roerich's cosmic worldview was his country estate. The author of the article shows that a country estate is a special way of life, a natural and cultural landscape, a peculiar rhythm of life. An analogy is drawn between the natural and historical origins of a place, as well as the origins of everyday human life and the origins of the worldview. It is concluded that in the pattern of a country estate lies the phenomena of true unity, integrity and identity. This is important for the transmission of the cultural code in modern society. It is emphasized that in order for the country estate to live both in history and in reality, it is not enough to approve the state program for the preservation of cultural heritage, but requires real practice of contact with the estate. The country estate is a direct transmission of family values through artifacts, events, everyday life and organization of space. From the educational point of view, it is an insight into the fate of an individual; from the educational point of view, it is an experience of real “here and now” of the history of a place and country; from the scientific point of view, it is the embodiment of a syncretic approach to cognition of the world.

On mathematical thinking and the notion of actual form

Leonid E. Gabrilovich — 2024-12-03