Issue materials

The subject of the article is the reconstruction of the death event of Socrates, as well as the hermeneutics of his last words spoken shortly before his death. Based on ancient Greek texts and a subsequent tradition, the author identifies three key interpretations of these words. According to the first interpretation, the death of Socrates is a kind of a cure for life (Plato, Xenophon, F. Nietzsche). Within the framework of the second one it is understood as an act of parrhesias or a form of philosophical verdict of the truth (J. Dumézil, M. Foucault). The third interpretation aims to deconstruct the “heroic” pathos of this event. Based on historical sources, a hypothesis is put forward according to which Socrates is considered as a political criminal, an enemy of Athenian democracy. Based on this thesis, his death is revealed as a religious practice of the scapegoat ritual. From this perspective this expression of Socrates (“We owe a rooster to Asclepius”) is perceived as irony and grotesque and does not, in fact, seriously affect the general context of his philosophical practice. In our opinion, each of three interpretations presented forms its original horizon in understanding philosophy as the therapy of a soul. So in the first case we are talking about a comforting conversation format as caring about ourselves. In the second case, we are talking about the consideration of the figure of a philosopher as a “philosopher on barricades” (caring for others) – about a tradition that finds its continuation in Plato's “trips” to Syracuse to visit Dionysius as well as in the revolutionary actions of May 1968. Finally, the third format of philosophical therapy reconstructs the mechanism of ancient social practice in front of us during which the image of the sage and his philosophical practice are considered by society as poison which threatens with its fundamental foundations. The latter problematizes the figure of a philosopher and his role in the context of a political, religious and social life of a community. If the first two forms of understanding philosophy as a social therapy represent its discourse as the means of “healing”, which arises in order to cure society from internal ailments, then the latter, on the contrary, symbolically depicts a philosopher's public condemnation and his death itself as the only medicine that can save society from a disease called philosophy.

Keywords: Socrates; last words of Socrates; parrhesia; scapegoat ritual; pharmacon; social therapy.

This article focuses on the discussion of the Gettier problem, which has remained an unresolved epistemological puzzle for more than half a century. Counterexamples proposed by E. Gettier highlight the need for auditing the classical triple definition of knowledge aimed at eliminating the ambiguity of the interpretation of the truth using this definition. It shows the fallacy of the most ways to solve the problem, which only narrow the “gap” between the “objective” truth and the “truth of the subject” in the definition, without saving it from new, more sophisticated counterexamples. The correct solution path is substantiated, which consists in freeing the classical definition from the requirement of knowledge intersubjectivity, the implementation of which is impossible in real cognitive practices. A new solution is proposed in this direction, the basis of which is the author’s concept of rational skepticism, combining the following aspects of scientific knowledge: 1) universal skepticism of the thesis “I know that I know nothing”; 2) local skepticism, limited by accepted premises and overcome in effective scientific research; 3) universal scientific method that normalizes each scientific research as a sequence of stages of posing a question, putting forward hypotheses, testing hypotheses and synthesizing answer, skeptical reflection on the answer. The proposed solution defines knowledge as a justified belief of the cognizing subject, which is not true in the intersubjective sense, but is accepted as true only by the given subject, who is also convinced of the truth of the justification and its prerequisites. Due to this, rational cognitive practices legalize the revision of knowledge by various subjects, which allows one to explain Gettier's paradoxes, having discovered under the guise of “objective” truth, refuting anyone’s justified beliefs as knowledge, nothing but the truth of the subject who revises them. The effectiveness of the proposed solution is illustrated for amateur scientific knowledge on such well-known examples as “a cow in the meadow”, “Smith getting a job”, “Deceiving a girl upon meeting”. The theoretical and practical significance of the problem is revealed.

Keywords: Gettier's problem; knowledge; truth; revision; rational skepticism; scientific method.

The article is devoted to the research of definition and the comparative analysis of characteristics of a number of concepts, such as “radicalism”, “radical” “radical ideology” and the term “radicalization”, derivative of them, in modern foreign literature. The study method is a comparative review of the most common approaches reflected in foreign literature. The author considers the history of the emergence and the process of evolution of the studied concepts, their original and modern meaning, reflected in foreign scientific literature. The ambiguity of the boundaries of these concepts has been demonstrated, while highlighting the common approaches of various researchers to determining their essence, which allows us to talk about their “relative nature”. The signs of such a phenomenon as “radicalization” are highlighted, as well as the features of such varieties of “radicalization” identified in the scientific literature as “violent radicalization”, “terrorist radicalization” and “non-violent radicalization”. The relationship of the concept of “radicalization” with such terms as “extremism”, “violent extremism”, “non-violent extremism” is clearly shown. At the same time, attention is also focused on their fundamental differences allocated in the works under study, as well as on the attitude to political violence. The duality and ambiguity of existing approaches, fundamental differences in the views of different researchers regarding the definition of the characteristics of the “radicalization” process are shown. The conclusion was made about the limitation of the approach, which characterizes the concept of “radicalization” exclusively as a process of “transformation into a terrorist”. It was emphasized that “radicalization” is far from always part of the so-called “Conveyor Belt to Terrorism”, and such an approach is too narrow and lopsided. The importance of returning to the traditional understanding of the essence of the concept of “radicalization”, which considered this phenomenon, is outlined primarily as a process of disseminating radical ideas, regardless of their relationship to violence as a means of achieving goals. The levels and trajectories of the “radicalization” process that can be used in the analysis of this phenomenon are identified, which can be considered as a new contribution to the study of this phenomenon.

 Keywords: radicalization, extremism, terrorism, research, criticism, new approaches, foreign literature.

 The study was funded by RFBR and EISR under research project № 20-011-31642.

The following article is about the main trends of understanding of law in the former Soviet Union. These trends are the so-called “classical” and “non-classical” (“post-classical”) understanding of law; both find itself in the mutual debates between one another. At the same time, non-classical legal philosophy in the former Soviet Union doesn’t take the ideas from the Western thought uncritically, but tries to elaborate its own view on the legal field. The specificity of that view may be characterized by the concept of “dynamic understanding of law”. The similar concept is the common title for the wide range of the doctrines, which were elaborated in Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia on the edge of the centuries. These are, for example, phenomenological-communicative approach of A. V. Polyakov, doctrine of the legal dialogue of I. L. Chestnov, temporal-ontological philosophy of law (A. V. Stovba), the conception of legal reality (S. I. Maksymov) and so on. It’s worth to stress that all the abovementioned legal doctrines are independent from one another and original. But at the same time, they have common features, which allow us to significate it under the common title “dynamic understanding of law”. The similar features are the following: negative position towards the reification of law; towards the attempts to consider law in the frame of subject-object relations; towards the representation of law as the static, continual “Ought”, which regulates its object – “Is” – from the “secure” transcendental distance. Instead, the abovementioned legal philosophers propose to consider law as dynamic (discrete and reproduced) in its core, which originally has social roots and character. At the same time, despite the originality of the similar views to the law, we can find its historical parallels in the national legal discourse, as well in the foreign legal philosophy. The conclusion is made that the dynamic understanding of law is the adequate conceptual approach to the general reasoning of the legal essence.

Keywords: classic understanding of law, non-classic understamding of law, dynamic understanding of law, legal being, reproduction of law. 

The article provides a comprehensive study of the organization of the work of the Donbass militia operational units in the fight against malicious defaulters of alimony in 1940–50s. Based on the analysis of the research sources, as well as regulatory legal acts and archival materials, an unambiguous conclusion was made that the period under study was a peak in the formation of that direction of investigative work. The author made an attempt to cover in more detail the issues of bringing to justice persons who evade paying alimony for the maintenance of children, in accordance with the legislation in force at that time in terms of the social and legal status of the father in the Soviet family, taking into account the position of Soviet paternity through the prism of the family policy of the state and the party. Particular attention is paid to the organization of management in the Internal Affairs Directorate of the implementation of law enforcement activities in terms of the local and federal search for malicious alimony. In addition, the article reflects the importance of considering the history of the organization of that work for the present.

Keywords: alimony; evasion of payment; malicious defaulter; search; operational units; police; Donbass

The establishment and management of protected areas receives increasing attention worldwide. The article presents an analysis of the regulating practice of protected areas. Summarizing the experience of European countries and the United States, the author identifies the features of the legal regulation of protected areas in Russia, as well as trends in the formation and reproduction of these territories, which characterizes the current stage of development, and formulates problems arising within the framework of these trends. In addition, he identifies the basic functions of protected areas – compensatory  and recreational – and concludes that currently these functions are unbalanced in the practice of regulating the system of protected areas. Considering the development of protected areas as one of the ways to enhance the role of ecological tourism in Russia, the author demonstrates a disbalance of budgetary support between natural complexes with a compensatory function, on the one hand, and recreational, on the other. The article emphasizes that a sharp increase in funding for the improvement processes by budget line item of national project can have negative affect over the reproductive mechanisms of the development of the natural environment. The article attempts to apply the techniques of modelling into the management of protected areas in the cities.

 Keywords: protected areas; ecological capacity of the territory; anthropogenic pressure; improvement of public areas; landscaping; ecological tourism.