Issue materials

Abstract. The subject of this article is the specificity of socio-cultural situation in which the individual professionally engaging in natural sciences and mathematics does act in politary society ancient Egypt, ancient India and China, medieval Arab-Muslim world, etc.). It focuses on the complex and contentious relationship between scientists seeking to acquire increasingly precise and adequate knowledge of the structure and development of the material world, and on methods of acquiring such knowledge, and bureaucratic apparatus, whose tip led by an autocratic Monarch (labeled as “Caesar”, or “politarch”) is interested in the maximum control of the process and the results of any serious theoretical and empirical studies. Intense conflicts between these cognitive trends affect the general nature and characteristics of the deployment of epistemic discourse in politary societies. As concepts, through which this conflict is interpreted, are elected category of “regularity” (as characteristic of any variety of politary management) and “spontaneity” (as an attribute of free, creative and administrative unregulated scientific search).

Keywords: epistemological discourse; politary society; politarch; bureaucracy; regularity; spontaneity.

Abstract. When it comes to principles of law, most often these issues in the legal consciousness of ordinary people are misunderstood and they are perceived solely as theoretical matter, as something completely out of touch with the real life on the ground and something without any practical importance. In this material, the author proves the opposite, namely, he shows on concrete cases when constitutional principles directly affect the nature of the actions of all subjects of freedom of peaceful assembly in Russia and Germany. The main attention is focused on the written principles of freedom of peaceful assembly, which are stipulated in the constitutional legislation of the two countries, namely, the author studies the content of two main constitutional principles of the freedom of assembly: principles of peacefulness and unarmed assembly. In addition, the article systematically reviews the existing unwritten principles of freedom of peaceful assembly, which originate in the provisions of international treaties, including the provisions of the “soft law”, which forms as a specific source of international law. Based on comparative research the author provides recommendations to amend the current federal law by introducing a separate chapter which would describe the freedom of peaceful assembly as the most important constitutional legal value and which would also consolidate the set of fundamental principles of this constitutional freedom: the presumption in favour of holding peaceful assemblies; the state’s positive obligation to facilitate and protect peaceful assembly; proportionality and on-discrimination of any restrictions imposed on freedom of assembly; the principle of good administration and transparency of the decision-making process, as well as the liability of the regulatory authority for the violation of the constitutional principles of freedom of peaceful assembly. The author ended with the conclusion that it is necessary to enshrine explicitly in the Russian legislation the positive obligation of state and municipal authorities to monitor the freedom of peaceful assembly, namely the obligation to collect, systematize and publish official statistical information on the number and types of public events heldin settlements of the Russian Federation, as well as the information about the number and reasons for ban of the public event during the notification procedure.

Keywords: constitutional principles; assemblies; meetings; demonstrations; marches; pickets; freedom of peaceful assembly; public assembly law; presumption in favour of holding peaceful assemblies; soft law; OSCE; United Nations; Germany; Russia; Federal Republic of Germany; Russian Federation; German Democratic Republic.

Abstract. The article presents results of the empirical study of symbolic aspects of perception of international relations by Russian mass consciousness. Attention is paid to the consideration of symbolic images of international relations as an integral part of symbolic map of the world. The results of qualitative study allow us to consider the ideas of Russians about the subjects, structure, principles of international relations, as well as about the likely, desirable and undesirable trends in the transformation of international relations. The study of symbolic representations of international relations is based on political and psychological approach. The study of images takes into account both rationalized assessments and unconscious aspects of the perception of the political map of the world. For this purpose, the author used projective techniques as part of the polls. The article identifies factors of symbolic representations of international relations in mass political consciousness. The results of study makes it possible to assert that the symbolic perception of international relations is Russian-centered, fragmented and situational in nature, which is to a large extent determines the dependence of the process of forming political map of the world on the specifics of communication. As a result of the study, several models of the political perception of world maps are identified: a model of an alarming type, a positive-optimistic type, a pragmatic-rational type, and a fragmented-indefinite type. The revealed tendencies in the perception of political map of the world include some incongruence of symbolic images of the world map in case of pragmatic type of perception; anxiety at the level of mass political consciousness; blurry images of «friends» and «strangers» in international relations. The ambiguity of Russians' ideas about the place of Russia in the world and its possible strategies for behavior in international politics makes the perception of political map of the world hypersensitive and dependent, first of all, on stereotypes, clichés and media’s information agenda.

Keywords: political and psychological approach; symbolic space; political perception;political map of the world; country image; image of international relations; symbolic representations; factors of political perception.

Abstract. The research is dedicated to literary reception of Martin Heidegger, one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. His life and his work still produce the keen interest both coming from the community of professionals and from the most unbiased audience. After the publication of the “Black Notebooks”, Heidegger’s cooperation with the Nazi authorities in 1933 no longer seems an unfortunate episode, which can be attributed to political short-sightedness. The dependence of Heidegger’s views on collective and social prejudices falls into the space of literature long before becoming the subject of a philosophical judgement. In a variety of literary works, the philosopher persona has been developed in quite a surprising way. On the one hand, the familiar concept of fundamental ontology gets looked at, critically and uniquely, through a lens of fiction. On the other hand, Heidegger’s biography itself perfectly fits into literary self-reflexivity, which was never designed to differentiate one’s actions from one’s theories. Represented by this paper, the first part of the work has several objectives: 1) to justify the legality of writers and poets to make judgments about complex philosophical constructions – on the material of the texts, where there are reminiscences of famous Heidegger themes (works of S. Lem, S. Bellow, J. Améry, J.-P. Sartre, O. Paz, G. Benn, R. Queneau, B. Hrabal, T. Różewicz are attracted); 2) to reproduce a biographical component of Heidegger’s philosophy through the prism of various literary experiences (C. Magris, A. Skidan, J. Semprún, D. Barthelme), chronologically covering the period of his life from birth to regular professor at the University of Freiburg; 3) to demonstrate the epistemological resource of fiction: it combines mental, verbal, temporal, as well as intersubjective and political dimensions in its narrative, and thus gives not only a multifaceted portrait of the thinker in the cultural and historical decorations of his time, but also an idea of changes in the general spiritual climate caused by social transformation in the postwar world.

Keywords: Heidegger; literary character; fiction; philosophy; narrative; intertext.

Abstract. The article is a transcendental phenomenological research for the phenomenon of life that shows how from the point of view of theory of knowledge it is possible to explain the consciousness of the difference between animate and inanimate objects, as well as changes in the understanding of this difference in the development of West European thought. The analysis of Kant's conception of a “natural purpose” and Husserl's conception of the “lived body” shows that the living being differs from the inanimate object by the special character of causality. However, Kant's apriorism can’t explain the existence of various types of objects, such as the animate and the inanimate, in conscious experience that subjects to general a priory forms. Kant is forced to admit that it is impossible to cognize a priori the special causality of the living beings – causality, which is not reduced to the “efficient cause” that determines the objective order of phenomena. Husserl fails to show that the phenomenon of life is rooted in subjectivity, i.e. he fails to understand the phenomenon within the framework of the phenomenological project of understanding consciousness as the single field of sense-giving. Moreover, the late reflections of the philosopher demonstrate the impossibility of constituting the animate object within passivity – the deepest layer of sense accomplishments that precedes ego’s synthetic activity. S. L. Frank’s studies show that the basis of the spiritual unity is the unity that goes beyond the sphere of consciousness. It allows Frank to prove that there is an inseparable connection between life and knowledge, but his understanding of life as absolute being cannot be considered as proved. Clarifying the relationship between the concepts of “life” and “knowledge”, the author shows how the change of cognitive attitudes brings a new understanding of the place and role of life in the human-conscious world. First, there is a change from the identification of truth and life, from the recognition of the world as an alive world to the assertion of the existence of not only animate but also inanimate things, then, there is a reduction of life to the organism – the subject of biology, and finally – the gradual disappearance of life from consciousness, erasing the semantic boundary between a living being and a machine. 

Keywords: transcendental philosophy; phenomenology; subjectivity; constitution; transcendence; lifeworld; lived body; passive synthesis; all-unity; alive knowledge; living being; inanimate object; the conscious; the before-conscious.