Archive

Abstract: The article deals with an approach to health as social phenomenon. In this context, the notion of “symbolic capital” is explored. Outside the clinical practice, the concept of health is actually presented in everyday social life and used as a designation (symbolization) of the quality and style of life. In the field of social interaction, the individual experience of health and related physical or spiritual practices becomes an interactive phenomenon, where an investment in health as a symbolic capital and exchange of symbolic resources with other types of resources is simultaneously carried out. Health as a symbolic capital is constructed and consumed in dialogue with different agents of the social world. The article analyzes the strategies of capitalization of health as a symbolic resource. The direction and amount of investment in health is defined by fields of symbolic power that claims the value of health and healthy living as self-evident
and self-valuable. Two most important fields of symbolic control in the sphere of health in the modern world – academic medicine and religious and philosophical systems – are described. Symbolic capitalization in these fields takes place through the construction of an individual image of “healthy person”, or “person following healthy lifestyle”, or “spiritual person”. In this context, health designates itself as the external form of social and individual life. Such form of constructing the “image of health” becomes the point of generation, replication and multiplication of symbolic capital at the individual and group level.
Keywords: individual and public health; symbolic capital; healthy lifestyle; selfpresentation; construction of image of health; capitalization; exchange; symbolic power.

Abstract: The article is dedicated to the rethinking of the moral justification of property. Moral justification of property is the subject of European philosophy, which now receives additional relevance in connection with the new forms of post-industrial economy. The article proposes the analysis of the classical approach to the question of the moral justification of property, and provides an alternative solution. Classical approach is based on two assumptions: firstly, it is a presumption of nobody's world, which allows discussion about the moment of dividing common world into separate parts. Secondly, it is consideration of the property or ownership as something given for granted, which does not require analysis. The author proposes an alternative interpretation of property as the individual's ability to change the world. Thus, the concept of property obtains the ontological substantiation and does not require additional moral reasoning or justification.
Keywords: property, moral, capture, change, ownership, public good.

Abstract: The author explores origins of the tradition of positivism in the Russian military-philosophical thought. The subjects of comparative analysis are some elements of A. Comte’s philosophy and theoretical assumptions of G.A. Leer’s theory of strategy as a type of positive social science of war. The author pays attention to the historical method as the basis of the methodology of social sciences and the science of war in particular, to the role of research in theoretical constructions of laws and principles, and to the relationship between science and art, knowledge and activity. The author concludes about the impact of ideas of classical positivism over the formation of G.A. Leer’s theory of strategy. In addition, the article identifies the main shortcomings of G.A. Leer’s theory of war, such as the inclusion of the subject area and the content of the science of war into the subject area of the theory of strategy, i.e., reduction of the first to the status of the philosophy of martial arts, as well as the incompleteness of truly positive social science of war due to the lack of the necessary scientific sociological basis in the late XIX century. The author defines subsequent direction of the study of positivism in the domestic military-philosophical thought in the works of Russian emigrant thinkers, Soviet military theorists and philosophers.
Keywords: Positivism, philosophy of war; science of war; G.A. Leer; theory of strategy; laws of war; principles of military art.

Abstract: The methodology is a key of understanding of philosophical teaching. The improvement of methodological technique is a fundament for the development of human thought. However, the study of the development of the methods of human thinking is still in embryonic state. Hegel and Feuerbach tried to describe the development of philosophy from the point of view of its internal laws but failed. Hegel subordinated history of philosophy to teleology. Feuerbach just started to criticize the teleological approach from anthropological point of view. The problem of method is very important for the Marxist tradition. The dialectical method is crucial for the understanding of Marxist thought. The article analyzes Marxist classics statements about method, as well as Soviet Marxists’ statements. The authors underline incompleteness and metaphoric character of Marx’ judgments on dialectics, as well as contradictions of Engels’ statements. The authors show the insufficiency of Soviet studies of dialectics and conclude that dialectics remains unsolved problem in Marxism. The particular part of the problem is the attitude of Marx's method to Hegelian method, and to materialistic and idealistic worldview. Philosophical trends, which dominate in post-Soviet period, do not eliminate this confusion. Today, certain revival of the interest towards dialectics is observed only in the Marxists tradition, yet contemporary Marxists do not see any problem in Marxist approach towards dialectics. They still just repeat in different ways what already have been argued by Engels and Lenin or, at the best, by Il’ienkov or Zinoviev. Nothing new has been investigated about dialectical method even nowadays, although it is assumed that philosophy is free from ideological control. Consequently, if the Engels’ dictum that “Marx’s worldview (Auffassungsweise) is not a doctrine, it is a method” is correct, we still know very little about this worldview, or, to be more precise, about its research potential. The reconstruction of the philosophy of classical Marxism is the only solution of the problem.

Keywords: dialectics, classical Marxism, materialism, idealism, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Plekhanov, Soviet version of Marxism, Il’ienkov, Zinoviev, methodology of social science, historical materialism, dialectical materialism.

The article argues that the productive discussion of the nature of democracy is impossible without defining the concept of power. The author states that the power is a set of possibilities, which allows to determine its own destiny. All types of power elites are primarily the power over their own destiny, which includes the power over the destiny of others. The power of elite in the sense of “power over their own destiny” always includes power over other social groups and individuals, and finally over the “people”. Therefore, the power of elites, especially in traditional societies includes a clear element of what is called the “dominance”, i.e. the relationship, in which the power of one affect the interests of others, limiting the ability of the latter to conduct a truly human life. In addition, “people’s power” – is not the people’s power over there selves, but is a power over their own destiny, which implies constant challenging the right of the elites to determine the destiny “of the masses”. “Demos” has to fight for power over its destiny with those who believe by default that they should have power over the destiny of the people with lower origin or social status. This struggle takes place in a broad scale – from the constant resistance towards “cultural hegemony” of the elites (the struggle for the mental independence) up to open ideological and armed confrontation. Therefore, the struggle for democracy is always a struggle for the recognition of one more group for not formal but real equality, i.e. for possessing the complex of possibilities, which provide power in a broadest sense. This is a fight for the denial of the power in one’s favor by those who include the right over one’s destiny in their understanding of power. Thus, democracy is created not by the elite (for which such result is unexpected and unintentional), or, at least, not only by the elite, but by the elite together with the citizens when all parties pursue different goals.
Keywords: democracy, elite, mass, dominance, common destiny.

Abstract: In the article, the attempt is made to substantiate Lenin’s status as a political thinker. In doing so, the author seeks for Lenin’s philosophical concept, which could be regarded as essential to his political thought. Consecutively analyzing his ideas of party, socialism, and communism, as well as their place in his theory, the author concludes that the meaning of the political in Lenin’s theory as Marxist thinker is completely different from its meaning in traditional political philosophy. However, it does not mean that Lenin is not a political thinker. It is argued that Lenin’s political theory is characterized by the combination of the political and the economic, which becomes indistinguishable. The elimination of the opposition of the political and the economic in Lenin’s theory is fully embodied in his concept of revolution, which is therefore considered as the very core of Lenin’s political thought. Here, revolution is described as a unity of the event and the process where individual events and crises become the components of an immense historical dialectics, which is invisible and absent for the empirical perception in each of its moments, but whose overall movement alone gives them meaning. Underlining that revolution is the lengthy and contradictory process of systemic transformation that can ends at any moment, the author concludes that the true significance of Lenin is connected with his legacy to keep the revolution alive as a possibility before it takes place; to keep it alive as a process when it is threatened by defeat, routinization, compromise or forgetfulness. In this sense, according to the author, the idea that “Lenin is still alive” is identical to the appeal to keep alive the very idea of revolution, which today becomes particularly important.
Keywords: Lenin, Marxism, political, economic, party, revolution, Lacan.

In the article, the author tends to outline the main contours of the American political philosopher Fredric Jameson. His key concept of postmodernism as the cultural logic of late capitalism, as well as the genesis of his political and philosophical views, is analyzed. The author argues that Jameson adopts some principles and categories of postmodernist theories of society and culture such as “schizophrenic subject” (G. Deleuze, J. Lacan) and “simulacrum” (J. Baudrillard) and conceptualizes the culture of contemporary society as postmodernist (which distinguishes him from the postmodern theorists who positively or neutrally judge the new trends in the development of contemporary society). Nevertheless, his attitude towards these trends is decidedly critical. In this regard, the author claims that typical Russian political science’s characterization of Jameson’s political philosophy as “Neo-Marxist postmodernism” is incorrect. She insists that it should rather be characterized as “postmodernist Neo-Marxism”, because Marxism is the overall methodological framework for the whole Jameson’s political-philosophical project, whereas postmodernism is just the thematic nucleus of his political philosophy. Thus, to various degrees, most of his political-philosophical conceptions are aimed on the critique of postmodernism and late capitalism, or designed to find a way out the postmodern situation.
Keywords: Fredric Jameson, postmodernist Neo-Marxism, Marxism, postmodernism, late capitalism, cultural logic of late capitalism.

Abstract: Legal pluralism became the subject of study in European and American science since late 1960s – early 1970s. Russian jurisprudence began studying it in the 1990s. As a rule, the theory of legal pluralism is criticized from the positivistic point of view. Discourse of legal pluralism is often viewed by the orthodox jurisprudence as “anti-etatist”. The author disputes this opinion, proving that legal pluralism opposes not the state as such, but its particular model, namely, the nation-state of modern and contemporary period. Taken from broader historical perspective, non-state law not so much competes with the state as it supplements and supports the state responding to the same social demands. By the example of Latin American countries’ law systems, the author demonstrates that the principle of legal pluralism has transferred from the sphere of academic discussions to the scope of positive law. Latin American constitutions adopted in last three decades recognize indigenous peoples’ right to live in accordance with their customs, traditions, and forms of social organization, to maintain, apply and practice their custom law. Thus, along with the legal order established by the state another one emerges, being autonomous to the former. The author concludes that “strong” legal pluralism is established in the Constitution of Bolivia of 2009; the “weak” variant is implemented in Guatemala, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. Hence, legal pluralism has turned from theoretical concept into ruling principle of positive law. In concluding remarks, the author hypothesizes about relationship between the “transformative neo-constitutionalism” and globalization process, as well as about further nation-state transformation.

Keywords: legal anthropology, legal pluralism, Latin America, nation-state, custom law, constitutional law, neo-constitutionalism, community justice.

Abstract: The article discusses challenges, which face modern constitutional justice in connection with the reform of the judicial system required by changes in the Constitution of the Russian Federation and constitutional law. Based on the analysis of the results of judicial reform of the nineteenth century, the author concludes that the implementation of the main directions of judicial reform in contemporary Russia will contribute to socioeconomic growth of the state. The development and wide dissemination of the regional bodies of the constitutional justice is able to unload other judicial bodies, to improve the accessibility and efficiency of justice in a whole, and to improve the social and legal protection of citizens.

Keywords: judicial reform; Constitution, court; Constitutional (Charter) justice; right of citizen; consumer interest.

Abstract: The paper represents an attempt of systematic description of the natural law concept of international law. The essence of natural law principles of the international legal order is analyzed. The author's vision of the modern theory of natural law and its application to international law is presented. The meaning of natural law as one of the main determinants of positive international law directly and indirectly governs its functioning and development is revealed. The author concludes that natural law exists objectively, and the critic of natural law is ungrounded. The classification of natural legal values is proposed. The primary value of natural law due to natural settings of human being and social need is the maintenance of the existence and development of the humankind. Values of the second level are immutable, unconditional basis of society. They are worked out by the society and are not based on the natural environment. They include principles of peace and security. From the historical perspective, the third level is less stable, and, in contrast to other two levels, may vary in the process of social development. The groups of international legal rules, which have genetic link with natural law such as principles of international law, jus cogens norms, and general principles of law recognized by civilized nations are determined.

Keywords: international law; philosophy of international law; natural law; legal determinant; source of lawmaking; positive law.