Lobovikov Vladimir
In this article, the history of philosophy is examined from the perspective of empirical criminology and the philosophy of crime. The biographies of notable philosophers reveal surprising insights. A criminological analysis of the history of philosophy shows that many respected philosophers faced suspicion, investigation, and prosecution; some were arrested, deprived of their freedom, imprisoned, or sent to exile. Some great philosophers were sentenced to capital punishment; others escaped from jail and emigrated. While some prominent philosophers managed to avoid these fates, many operated covertly, using pseudonyms and providing misinformation concerning their publishers and publishing locations. Nevertheless, some were ultimately detected and classified as “wanted” by law enforcement and secret church services. This article gathers, condenses, and connects these facts for the first time in academic literature, linking them to an abstract theoretical discussion on the metaphysics of crime. A philosophical perspective on crime is developed, suggesting that legal norms represent the stability of society, while crime embodies its mutability. The conditions of future life are not predetermined; thus, for long-term survival, society should maintain a limited subsystem of potential criminals at every stage of its development. Such a subsystem is essential for adequate adaptation to uncertain future conditions. However, in addition to this subsystem representing change (i.e., development through adaptation to new life conditions), society must also have a subsystem embodying non-change (stability) and self-preservation. These subsystems are mutually restrictive and complement the oppositional dynamics that characterize a developing society This article also introduces a discrete mathematical model that represents the formal axiological aspect of crime for the first time in the global academic discourse on criminology. According to this model, crime, empirical knowledge, and other phenomena are conceptualized as evaluation functions determined by two evaluative variables within the framework of algebra of formal axiology.
Keywords: criminology; history-of-philosophy; crime; value; discrete mathematical model; formal axiology; criminal activity
Obolkina Svetlana
The article analyzes several concepts of marginality in socio-psychological and cultural dimensions. These days, two opposing epistemological tendencies have emerged regarding the understanding of marginality. The first tendency views marginality positively, equating it with creative renewal. Conversely, the second tendency emphasizes the destructive implications of marginality for both individuals and society. These two divergent perspectives primarily arise from a problematic conflation, and sometimes even an identification, of two concepts: liminality and marginality; lumpen and marginal. Therefore, the scope of the marginal concept is so expansive, and often includes phenomena with opposing social functions, leading many researchers to question its scientific validity. The aim of this article is to engage in a philosophical reflection on the cognitive paradigms that have shaped contemporary understandings of marginality. The goal is to identify a semantic constant amid the equally significant yet contradictory semantic vectors related to this concept. A key element of the meta-language concerning marginality is prehension of the concept, which makes possible to discuss specifics surrounding the convergence of meanings and explore the ontological prerequisites that underlie their identification. Furthermore, the article analyzes modern interpretations of social marginality in the context of its original meaning: “marginalia”, referring to notes made in the margins of a page. This perspective facilitates a reconsideration of the fundamental metaphor that serves as a cognitive framework for studying the processes of marginalization. The author examines this issue within the framework of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social fields, alongside the philosophy of the Other. The examination of the mythologeme of “own/alien” and the homo sacer formula provides insight into the semantic constant of marginality, suggesting that marginality is intrinsically linked to the category of social norm, which itself is apophatically determined by the phenomenon of marginality.
Keywords: marginal; marginality; liminality; lumpen; prehension of the concept; doxa; social norm
Vershinin Sergei
This article attempts to overcome a traditionally negative perception of social distrust by examining this phenomenon in different perspectives and identifying its primary sources and functions through a socio-cultural lens. To achieve this, it analyzes three dimensions of distrust: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral, defining this phenomenon as encompassing knowledge, suspicion, and caution. The article specifically focuses on social dimensions of distrust, rather than its psychological aspects. Four analytical paradigms of distrust are discussed: economic, which is based on Francis Fukuyama works; psychological, which includes Erik Erikson and Vladimir P. Zinchenko among others; sociological that features contributions by Georg Simmel, Nicklas Luhmann, Anthony Giddens, among others; and philosophical, with references to Karl Jaspers, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud. The findings of the research suggest that distrust can be considered at least neutrally only within the sociological and philosophical paradigms. The article further explores social sources of distrust, including mechanisms of social group formation, processes of socialization, and epistemological sources such as skepticism and ideology. It demonstrates the dynamic nature of distrust boundaries in modern societies, as well as the varying standards of trust and distrust between traditional and contemporary contexts. In addition to that the article identifies four primary functions of distrust: historical, cognitive-reductionist, controlling, and integrative. The article highlights the pivotal role of distrust during periods of societal crisis and examines the unique characteristics of trust and distrust within Soviet society, and it questions the role of distrust in contemporary Russian society.
Keywords: social distrust; trust; research paradigm; sources of distrust; functions of distrust
Filimonov Kirill
, Topychkanov Andrey
Modern universities frequently become a topic of discussion in the public sphere, with issues such relevance of university programs, funding for research, and the state of higher education being examined. These discussions prompt political theorists to reflect repeatedly on the idea of university. This idea is often tied to values, expectations, and beliefs, which are manifested in normative representations grounded in either pragmatism – defining the university as a functional component of the state system, and necessitating it to meet the economic demands of a society – or idealism, which positions the university as an “ivory tower”. These perspectives tend to exaggerate certain capabilities of the university to the detriment of others, thereby distorting not only the lens through which research is viewed but also the social beliefs that shape the development of state systems and universities. Drawing upon an institutional approach, the authors of this article propose a theoretical framework that captures contemporary pragmatics of the university community, the market, and the state concerning the development of universities and their contributions to societal organization. According to this framework, the university should be regarded as an intermediary institution endowed with public subjectivity. It functions as an organizational form of the university community and an agent of societal relations, engaging in communicative exchanges with the external environment, represented by societies, states, and markets. The university creates conditions for the interaction of various agents within societal relations, including fostering its own space through formalized, rational public discussions. Ultimately, it produces knowledge that influences the organization of societal order. Together, these attributes allow us to consider the university as a mediator. This role enables the university to effectively undertake its mediating function both within the university corporation and beyond, balancing diverse social expectations and maintaining its position as one of the most stable and adaptive organizational forms that comprise the societal order.
Keywords: the university; the idea of university; étatisme; managerialism; mediation; intermediary institution; societal order
Startsev Yaroslav
The article presents a typology of modalities of thinking based on data from experimental psychology and comparative anthropology, followed by an application of this typology to the problem of diverse interpretations of political phenomena and the resulting forms of political action. A comparative characterization of five modalities of thinking – rational, magical, aesthetic, ethical, and instrumental – is provided, identifying the structuring rules that govern the perception of reality, the formation of judgment, and the acquisition of new knowledge. Each set of such rules is analyzed as an independent logic, with political thinking and associated political action being interpreted as a consecutive realization of these logics, contingent upon the chosen modality. Typical strategies of political behavior linked to each modality are identified, along with the psychological triggers that stimulate the activation of rational, magical, ethical, aesthetic, or instrumental thinking and behavior.
Keywords: political thinking; political action; political theory; typology of thinking; irrationality in politics
Fishman Leonid
The article considers the following question: in the course of human and social evolution, does public morality2 increasingly tend to give way to private morality combined with legal norms serving as social regulators? It is shown that such a tendency would be a consequence of the dominant (neo)liberal paradigm, which, since oriented towards the implicit idea of the “end of history”, excludes the possibility of social change outside of capitalism and liberalism.
Keywords: public morality; private morality; liberalism; capitalism; social change; political struggle
Martyanov Victor
The article proceeds from the thesis that current transformations affecting the capitalist world system will require a correction of the mechanisms used to maintain the political order of contemporary societies. The exhaustion of the market model of development, which remains oriented towards continuous growth, reveals the contours of a future society without economic growth. Due to technological automation and robotisation, such a society will find itself replete with “surplus population”, at the same time becoming transformed into a society without mass labour, but with increasingly dangerous classes (precariat, unemployed, diverse minorities). The emergence of resource limits affecting free markets leads to an increase in protectionism and nationalism, resulting in the tendency to replace market competition mechanisms with the forceful politically-led redistribution of markets and resource flows. However, this coincides with a crisis of the welfare state, under which conditions a depletion of the resource base is accompanied by the growth of rent-dependent groups. In the resultant rentier political order, market communications give way to hierarchical distributive exchange models in which, due to the progressive structuring not by market-led class formation, but rather by the access of citizens and social groups to resources distributed in the form of rents; as a result, rent-seeking behaviour becomes dominant. In this context, social behaviour associated with the search for rents having a guaranteed status starts to become a more advantageous strategy than risky entrepreneurial activity or the pursuit of advantageous positions within a shrinking labour market. The drift towards the rentier democracy model can be attributed to increasing willingness of states to bypass the market and participate in the direct redistribution of resources. The chief feature of this development lies in the fact that the classes competing for access to resources are no longer primarily economic but statist; in other words, the distribution of resources is increasingly shifting from the market to the state. In this context, competition becomes primarily structured not according to the criterion of market value, but in terms of its utility to the state. According to the emerging rentier democracy model, a social group achieves success by elevating its status in the hierarchy as a means of increasing its access to resources. However, in resolving the accumulated structural contradictions to form new influential social groups, the transformation into a rentier society creates burgeoning antagonisms between the new rentier-estate social core and increasingly peripheralised market-oriented groups, which continue to be focused on progress.
Keywords: contemporaneity; market; rent-seeking behaviour; rentier society; democracy; social structure; stratification; estates; centre-periphery; global future
Rudenko Victor
The article analyses forms of citizen participation in public decision-making that are alternative to traditional institutions of citizen participation (public discussions of draft laws by citizens, public hearings, citizen participation in the work of public councils formed by government bodies, etc.). The author argues that the main drawback of traditional forms of civil participation consists in a lack of mechanisms for ensuring independent and competent public discussion of the most significant public problems. Therefore, in his opinion, such institutions tend to be more aligned with the politics of special interests, i.e., expressing the aspirations of elite groups, rather than civil society as a whole. The presented argument is structured according to the theory of deliberative democracy and the related concept of aleatory democracy. Potential forms of civil participation in the exercise of public power based on the institution of drawing lots (various forms of mini-publics) are explored. It is shown that the modelling of these forms is closely related to the evolution of jury trials – and in particular to the introduction in the United States during the late 1960s of the ideal of a fair cross-section of society in the formation of jury composition. The latest forms of aleatory democracy are considered. The advantages and disadvantages of these forms are considered together with the experience of their practical implementation. Forms of aleatory democracy are shown to have potential in terms of contributing to rational communication between civil society and the state, as well as local government bodies. The future development of these forms may thus contribute to overcoming the crisis of modern liberal democracy.
Keywords: aleatory democracy; deliberative democracy; jury trial; mini-publics; planning cells; citizens’ juries; consensus conferences; deliberative polls; citizens’ assemblies; citizen’s core jury; citizens’ parliament; cross-sectional ideal; cross-sectional jury
Davydov Dmitry
The article critically evaluates theories and concepts related to the decline of capitalism and emergence of post-capitalist social relations. The prevalent assumption that capitalism is experiencing a deep crisis raises the question concerning what kind of socioeconomic system might replace it. For this reason, it becomes necessary to critique the various attempts of theorists to keep capitalism alive by ascribing new “modifications” (late, too late, techno, hyper, glam, digital, communicative, “cool”, surveillance, platform, etc.) to it. The rise of the immaterial economy implies a radical transformation of production relations structured according to the principles of accumulation and appropriation. As creativity, which cannot be mechanically controlled or accounted for, comes to replace labour, individual and exceptional goods take over from mass production; meanwhile, private ownership of material goods is challenged by the social nature of knowledge, artistic values, and new engineering ideas. At the same time, social theory appears to be increasingly acknowledging the futility of idealising the new economy or considering it as “ripening fruits” of a communist future. In joining the debate on this issue, the author notes a number of fundamental obstacles that call the prospect of a non-antagonistic society into question. In the first place, this concerns the limitation of two centrally important non-material economy resources: attention and individual personality. The growing roles played by creativity and attention in the non-material economy entail an increasingly intense competitive struggle for influence and self-realisation. At the same time, there are no obvious means by which to eradicate asymmetrical power relations and individualism, which have deeper historical roots than capitalism. As in earlier times, there is no single locus for the concentration of power, exploitation and appropriation. Here we refer not so much to Internet platforms or mass media as individual people, who increasingly become super-rich and super-influential thanks to their nontrivial personal qualities, prodigious
Keywords: capitalism; postcapitalism; platform capitalism; communism; socialism; creative economy; attention economy; Marxism; postmarxism; neofeudalism; class struggle; class antagonism; socioeconomic inequality
