Vasechko Vyacheslav
The article focuses on the specifics of philosophical consideration and comprehension of books that acquire the status of sacred within a certain sociocultural space. Both in contemporary philosophical discourse and in the discourse of many past eras, there is usually a distancing of professional philosophers from direct engagement with such texts. As a result, the sacred books end up being almost exclusive handled by intellectuals, who either ignore specifically philosophical research methods, or arbitrarily apply them to their opportunistic, pragmatic goals, or limit themselves to the traditional technique of interpreting and commenting on the Holy Scripture. However, for serious thinkers, many sacred books, examined from a specific perspective, turn out, to be very valuable material for testing the strength of their theoretical and methodological tools and the moral and ethical principles they adhere to, despite all possible and even inevitable risks. The article analyzes this problem on the example of Immanuel Kant’s interpretation of the Bible, which played the role of a fundamental culture-forming text in his era.It is shown how the philosopher opposes the rational-critical and doctrinal-theological approaches to reading the Bible, while leaving the reader the right of free choice. The main attention is paid to three small works by Kant, which make up a kind of philosophical trilogy. In the first of them – the “Conjectural Beginning of Human History” – the German thinker, based on the Book of Genesis, gives his own version of the reasons for mankind’s emergence from the state of nature and its transformation into a sovereign subject of historical action. In the second one – “On the Failure of All Attempted Philosophical Theodicies” – Kant, relying on the Book of Job, solves the problem of God’s goodness/non-goodness in the light of the evidence of evil and suffering as an ontological datum. The third work – “The End of All Things” – deals with the Book of Revelation and treats from a philosophical point of view one of the most important religious topics – the apocalyptic destruction of humanity (the Last Judgment, the end of the world, the cessation of historical time). The article demonstrates the heuristic potential of Kant’s rational-critical methodology, which has not lost its significance even today.
Keywords: Kant, the Bible, rational-critical methodology, the Book of Genesis, the beginning of history, the Book of Job, theodicy, the Book of Revelation, the end of history
Likhter Pavel
The article considers some ideal categories as foundations of legal reality. Taking into account the diverse potential prerequisites of law, the author focuses on three modifications of the good highlighted by Plato in the dialogue “Philebus”: the beautiful, the proportionate, and the true. The article argues the utility of employing such a concept of analytical philosophy as supervenience, which describes the determinacy of sets of properties in two complex systems, to explain the interplay between these prerequisites and legal phenomena. While traditionally used to describe the dependence of mental phenomena on physical grounds, supervenience also has a methodological relevance within legal science. Three modifications of the good as delineated in “Philebus” and their contributions to the formation of legal institutions are considered. For this purpose, several levels of aesthetics are distinguished, which not only encompass stylistic beauty, but also the substantive content of legal constructs. Special attention is paid to reader-response criticism, which studies the experience of perception of legal institutions by a subject of legal relations. According to this perspective,legal phenomena have to possess aesthetic appeal and justification in order to be accepted by recipients. This is especially important when consolidating constitutional values: the legitimization of fictitious axiological elements creates risks of legal anomie. The article further underscores the significance of the correspondence theory of truth for the ontology of law, justifying the priority of rational cognition of universals over empiricism. To solve research problems, legal-historical, logical, structural-functional, normative, dialectical, prognostic and comparative methods and approaches are used. Based on the findings of the study, the author concludes about the independent ontological status of legal phenomena that have a sign of reality as intelligible elements within the objective mental being of participants in legal relations.
Keywords: legal reality, prerequisites of law, aesthetics, proportionality, truth, supervenience, objective idealism, ontology of law, reader-response criticism, Plato
Fishman Leonid
The article focuses on the role of catastrophes, trauma and victims in the formation of national identity. Their importance in European and Russian culture cannot be exaggerated: the birth of a nation, like the birth of an individual, is almost always a trauma. In other words, a catastrophe accompanied by sacrifice, martyrdom, and suffering plays a huge role in the formation of new communities or the transformation of existing ones. However, the role of a victim as a subject suffering, offended, and oppressed has always been balanced by the role of a subject struggling, casting off fetters, and making heroic sacrifices for the sake of future triumph. According to the author, in the era of European post-nationalism, the role of victims is still exceptional, although the emphasis is often placed on the undergoing rather than the heroic aspect of sacrifice. The situation of catastrophe, which offers a chance to revise and renew national identity (or its counterpart), is often associated with war. The national community gains the opportunity to adjust the existing identity to a more contemporary one. Giving clear meaning to the sacrifices, sufferings, and exploits is a key to the renewal of identity, since they do not automatically entail either the support of an existing identity or the formation of a new one. The cases of Germany and Russia as countries that have experienced or are experiencing recurring catastrophes show what problems and ambiguities arise along the way. In Russia, the collapse of the USSR has not yet been fully understood as a catastrophe requiring an identity adjustment. Russian memory politics has so far sought to mask the fractures in domestic history of the 20th and 21st centuries by asserting “continuity” between its periods. The author believes that the current historical situation offers our country a second chance to form a more “appropriate” national identity based on the realities of today.
Keywords: national identity, catastrophe, victim, Russia, Germany
Belkovich Rodion
, Bystrov Andrey
, Vinogradov Sergey
The article attempts to interpret the little-known anti-statist conception of the early 20th century – anarcho-humanism of Alexey A. Borovoy. The introduction of the research paper justifies the relevance of studying “secondary” figures in the anarchist tradition, both for a better understanding of Anarchism itself in a broader context of intellectual history, and for the advancement of contemporary political theory. The first part of the article outlines the issues raised in Russian academic literature regarding anarcho-humanism, provides a brief historical overview of its evolution, identifies the main stages in the formation of Borovoy’s views, and delineates the influence on him of key ideological currents and authors (Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Mikhail Bakunin, Henri Bergson, etc.). The main body of the study is devoted to a detailed analysis of the philosophical foundations of Borovoy’s social and political doctrine. It examines the conceptual grounds of anarcho-humanism, reconstructs the crucial philosophical principles, and elucidates the political and legal perspectives of the theorist. The authors argue that the core philosophical features of Borovoy’s anarcho-humanism include dynamism (apology for the perpetual movement of life), anti-rationalism (rejection of rigid intellectual frameworks), and individualism (apology for personal emancipation and development). The central problem shaping the development of Borovoy’s theory is interpreted as the antinomy between the individual and society, an irreconcilable antagonism between the two poles of human existence. It is emphasized that for Borovoy, an individual holds primacy in this conflict, and is engaged in an eternal struggle for emancipation, yet unable to achieve complete liberation from society and collective interests. The authors reveal Borovoy’s critique of determinism and mechanistic reductionism as a characteristic trait of his thought. The research outcome is a detailed conceptualization of the philosophical foundations of anarcho-humanism, providing insight into the political and legal views of one of the most ingenious libertarian theorists of the early 20th century.
Keywords: Alexey A. Borovoy, anarchism, anarcho-humanism, freedom, individualism, dialectics, anti-rationalism, dynamism, individual
Lyutova Olga
The current stage of development of Russian law is closely connected with the processes of digitalization, which significantly change the landscape of legal regulation inmany spheres of public relations. The digitalera,in particular, implies the gradual development of tax law, with each stage differing in the type of digital technologies used by subjects involved in tax legal relations. These ongoing changes affect both the overall legal framework of taxation and specific institutions within tax law, most notably, the concept of tax obligations, which plays a key role in the tax system. The article analyzes theoretical approaches to the periodization of the development of legal regulation of tax relations in general, as well as the institution of tax obligations. Emphasis is placed on the direct correlation between periodization and the gradual integration of digital technologies in the field of taxation. A three-stage model of digital development of the institution of tax obligations is proposed, which is currently being formed and includes automation, digitalization and robotization. The first stage entails the automation of tax obligations – the use of online services by subjects involved in tax legal relations, the introduction and development of an electronic document management system, and other IT projects of the Federal Tax Service of Russia. This, in turn, leads to optimization of the process of fulfilling tax obligations. At the second stage, blockchain and other digital technologies are being introduced, which entails a qualitative transformation of tax administration and involves new participants in tax legal relations. The robotization of tax obligations through the introduction of artificial intelligence is still in its early stages of development. The article analyzes the potential opportunities and risks associated with implementing a tax on artificial intelligence, as well as probable changes in the insurance premium calculation due to the replacement of certain professions and categories of employees by robots.
Keywords:digitalera, digital technologies, tax obligations, automation, digitalization, blockchain, robotization, artificial intelligence