This article examines the unique role of Russian intellectual and émigré Lev Platonovich Karsavin (1882–1952) in understanding “Russian communism” as a phenomenon deeply religious in nature. Trained as a historian, specializing in the history of European religiosity, medieval sects, and heresies, the young Karsavin studied the manifold ways in which religious and politics were interwoven. His experience with concrete historical–cultural research helped Karsavin, who became an active figure in Russian Orthodoxy during the First World War, to (...) analyze the origins of the Russian Revolution and Bolshevism. Finding himself in exile in 1922, Karsavin continued actively developing the theme of the “religious” nature of Russian Bolshevism, believing that this was the only path to overcoming it in the future from an Orthodox Christian standpoint. (shrink)

This article examines the metaphysics of Lev Platonovich Karsavin, which absorbed the specific features of the life of this Russian theologian, philosopher, scholar, and poet and his lo...

This article attempts to analyze Karsavin’s theory of revolution in the broader context of a Russian metaphysics of revolution in order to determine the place of Karsavin’s phenomenology of revolution both in his work and within Eurasianist ideology. His article “Phenomenology of Revolution” ontologically links two key concepts within Karsavin’s understanding: the “symphonic person” and the “ruling stratum.” The meaning of revolution consists in leading the symphonic person to a realization of its main tasks, which require the (...) utmost exertion and are related to the very existence of its historical form. This crisis can result in the person’s death, but in the death of the old person is born a new individuation of a higher order of personhood for whom that revolution has been a rebirth. If the symphonic person succeeds in “being revived through death or recovery,” then this will also be the birth of a new ruling stratum and a new government, that is, its new being as a state. Karsavin thus clarifies the historical functions both of the symphonic person and of the ruling stratum. The latter turns out to be a kind of entelechy of the symphonic person, providing its own personal content to the generic concept. The concept of the ruling stratum is explained in the metaphysical context of the symphonic-person theory. In light of the symphonic person’s mission, the ruling stratum is an organic connection among individuals of the active sociocultural segment of the population that has resonated with the spirit of history and the people. In this case, the stratum “rules” along with parties and institutions, eventually passing judgment on them. The main results of Karsavin’s work are (1) modeling a developmental phase of revolution and (2) the concept of the ruling stratum, which allows us to avoid formal sociological understanding of the active elite and direct our attention to the connection between personal activity and the “silent” but by no means “sleeping” substrate of the nation that manifests itself in critical epochs. (shrink)

In this article dedicated to Lev P. Karsavin’s creative path, I focus mainly on the evolution of the thinker’s religious–philosophical ideas. I consider the reasons that prompted the professional historian to choose the path of a free philosopher, defending an argument about the interrelation of Karsavin’s historiosophical ideas and the key provisions of his metaphysics. The article assesses the philosopher’s legacy in the context of the problem of Russian religious metaphysics as an independent and significant intellectual tradition that (...) has shaped Russian cultural history among other spiritual–intellectual practices. In denoting the perspective of Karsavin’s activity, the author suggests key tasks in studying the philosopher’s work. These include, on the one hand, revising the corpus of Karsavin studies, and on the other hand, polemicizing with already existing interpretations of his work in Karsavin studies both in Russia and abroad. This strategy allows the author to conduct reinterpretations of Karsavin’s personological, onto-epistemological, and cultural–historical understandings that constitute the theoretical core of his religious metaphysics. (shrink)

This article examines the evolution of Lev P. Karsavin, the connection between the philosopher’s historical perspective and his ontological constructions, his postulation of the personhood principle of being’s organization, and the common mindsets of the philosophy of all-unity. The author of this article distinguishes between reflections on the future found in Karsavin’s pre-emigration work and the image of the future he creates within the framework of the Eurasianist paradigm. This article presents three variants of representation of the future: (...) the universal, the national-cultural, and the state. The author analyzes the image of the future associated with the coming-to-be of the All-One Humanity, its transformation into a truly symphonic person, and show how this image turns into a concept of the future that affirms the self-development of national culture. The prospect of developing Russia-Eurasia as an ideocratic and statist state that acts as a form of manifestation of the national culture represents the final stage of this evolution. (shrink)

This article introduces the theological and philosophical thoughts of Lev Karsavin, who was one of the most creative representatives of Russian religious philosophy in the early 20th century. His conception was historically the last amongst the great systems of Russian metaphysics of all-unity. This conception gave an opportunity for developing an understanding of the relations between God and the world, and the act of creation as gift of God.

This article looks at Lev P. Karsavin’s experience with the heritage of early Christian Gnosticism, from his attempts at stylization based on his study of genuine Gnostic texts and his systematic presentation of Gnostic systems in art almanacs published in the Soviet Union, to his perception of Gnosticism as a kind of “other principle” in his original religious–philosophical texts. We show that, following Silver-Age traditions, Karsavin uses myth as a form of philosophical thinking. He teeters on the edge (...) of Gnosticism, applying certain Gnostic concepts, but he generally turns to Gnostic thought only to distinguish it from his own, which he presents as authentic to the Christian tradition. He criticizes both ontological and anthropological postulates of Gnosticism: the hierarchization of intradivine life, the introduction of the cosmic feminine into the bosom of the Divine, the interpretation of the Fall as the kenosis of God in time, and the explanation of the perfect God from the imperfect world, as well as the type of religious personhood that leads to a rupture in theory and personal faith. We examine Karsavin’s reception of Gnosticism against the background of interest in Gnosticism in post-revolutionary Russia, as expressed by Kropotkinite anarchists, A. Karelin, V. Murav’ev, Yu. Danzas, and M. Kuzmin. (shrink)

В монографии на основе архивных источников и воспоминаний современников комплексно исследуются творческая биография, научные воззрения, основные труды Льва Карсавина.

This article examines the concept of the perfect, a key idea in Lev P. Karsavin’s metaphysics that largely determines his understanding of personhood and its ontological status. The associated concept of the perfect person develops throughout the entire philosophical period of the thinker’s work, from his Philosophy of History to his treatise “On Perfection,” written in the last year of his life in the Abez’ camps. In this article, I argue that the concept of perfection is the main structural (...) element in Karsavin’s religious–philosophical system, making it ontologically full and complete. I believe the Christian idea of the perfection of man in God, philosophical variations of which Karsavin finds in Nicholas of Cusa’s system of total unity and Vladimir Solovyov’s idea of Godmanhood, is both the initial intellectual intuition and the ontological premise of the thinker’s metaphysical constructions. His religious–philosophical work has a continuity with Russian culture’s spiritual tradition, where patristic thought of man considers the ideal to be the spiritual transcendence of the person in his striving toward the Perfect God. This evangelic idea turns out to be the central binding element both of Karsavin’s Christian personology and of his metaphysics of history, which is resolved in a metaphysical vein. (shrink)

The subject of this paper is a specific form of cosmogony—the conception of cosmogonic objectivation, interpreted as a tragedy or cosmogonic fall. This conception is examined on the basis of the evidence furnished by two sets of materials: firstly, the original texts and paraphrases of the Valentinian Gnostics of the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, and secondly, the writings of the Russian philosophers Vladimir Solovyov, Lev Karsavin and Nikolay Berdyaev. The research reveals a series of specific features common to (...) both of these: in particular, the conception of cosmogonic objectivation appears to be connected with the doctrine of the absolute person’s fall, and with the motive of self-alienation. (shrink)

At last, Russia has begun to speak in a truly original voice." So said Anatoly Vaneev, a Soviet dissident who became Karsavin's disciple in the Siberian gulag where the philosopher spent his last two years. The book traces the unusual trajectory of this inspiring voice: Karsavin started his career as Russia's brightest historian of Catholic mysticism; however, his radical methods - which were far ahead of their time - shocked his conservative colleagues. The shock continued when Karsavin (...) turned to philosophy, writing flamboyant and dense essays in a polyphonic style, which both Marxists and religious traditionalists found provocative. There was no let-up after he was expelled by Lenin from Soviet Russia: in exile, he became a leading theorist in the Eurasian political movement, combining Orthodox theology with a left-wing political orientation. (shrink)

Prominent thinkers such as Jurgen Habermas and Michael Sandel are warning that biomedical enhancements will undermine fundamental political values. Yet whether biomedical enhancements will undermine such values depends on how biomedical enhancements will function, how they will be administered and to whom. Since only few enhancements are obtainable, it is difficult to tell whether these predictions are sound. Nevertheless, such warnings are extremely valuable. As a society we must, at the very least, be aware of developments that could have harmful (...) consequences. Indeed, if important values were to be jeopardized, we should take appropriate measures to protect them. This paper focuses on four central values: solidarity, personal responsibility, equality and autonomy. It delineates the conditions under which biomedical enhancements would undermine these values. It also details the circumstances under which these values would be unaffected by enhancements as well as those under which they would be promoted. Specifying these conditions is valuable; it would enable society to prepare appropriate ethical guidelines and policy responses in advance. (shrink)

The main focus of the book is the presentation of the 'inertial' view of population growth. This view provides a rather simple model for complex population dynamics, and is achieved at the level of the single species without invoking species interactions. An important part of this account is the maternal effect. Investment of mothers in the quality of their daughters makes the rate of reproduction of the current generation depend not only on the current environment, but also on the environment (...) experienced by the previous generation. (shrink)

To ascertain the context of Il’enkov’s philosophy, the author delves into the history of philosophy since the Sophists and Plato. For Il’enkov, philosophy is not an abstract science “about everything, ” but a study of ideas – forms which are identical for thinking and being. These objective and universal forms of thought are explained as products and schemes of human activity creating the world of culture and reified in its “smart” things.

To ascertain the context of Il'enkov's philosophy, the author delves into the history of philosophy since the Sophists and Plato. For Il'enkov, philosophy is not an abstract science "about everything," but a study of ideas -- forms which are identical for thinking and being. These objective and universal forms of thought are explained as products and schemes of human activity creating the world of culture and reified in its "smart" things.

Analyzes principal forces that determined the direction of Camus' thought on ethics and political values.

The Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) is an approach to quantum mechanics according to which, in addition to the world we are aware of directly, there are many other similar worlds which exist in parallel at the same space and time. The existence of the other worlds makes it possible to remove randomness and action at a distance from quantum theory and thus from all physics.

I begin my eulogy to folly not in jest as did the illustrious Erasmus of Rotterdam in the old days, but in all sincerity and from all my heart. In this task Berdiaev's new book will be of great assistance to me. Had he wished to do so, he could have titled it, following his long-deceased colleague's example, In Praise of Folly, because its purpose is to challenge common sense. True, the book is a collection of articles written in the (...) last six years, hence, properly speaking, it does not and cannot serve some one purpose. Six years is a long time: not only a writer like Berdiaev, but any writer will change to some extent during so long a period. The book opens with an article written long ago, "The Struggle for Idealism" [Bor'ba za idealizm], in which the author still maintains a strictly Kantian viewpoint that admits, as we know, common sense and all its accompanying virtues. Then the author gradually evolves and, by the end of the book, he openly declares war on common sense, but what he opposes to common sense is not Folly, as is usually done, but Great Reason. Of course, one can express oneself in this way, calling Folly Great Reason, and, if you like, this has a deep meaning or, more precisely, a deep sting, for what can be more insulting and humiliating to common sense than to confer the honorific title of Great Reason on Folly? Until now common sense has been accepted as the father and closest friend of all minds, great and small. Now, Berdiaev, scorning genealogy and historically shaped heraldry, elevates "opposition to common sense," that is, Folly to the order of Great Reason. No doubt, this is very audacious, but Berdiaev is a writer who above all is daring and, in my opinion, this is his greatest strength. I would say that his gift, his philosophical and literary talent, lies in his audacity. As soon as it abandons him, the source of his inspiration evaporates, he has nothing to say, and he ceases to be himself. But I have run too far ahead. Let us return to his evolution or, rather, to the evolution of his idea. (shrink)

This is a philosophical paper in favor of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory. The necessity of introducing many worlds is explained by analyzing a neutron interference experiment. The concept of the “measure of existence of a world” is introduced and some difficulties with the issue of probability in the framework of the MWI are resolved.

This article discusses development of the content of the concept “Philosophy Steamer,” which refers to the 1922 expulsion from Russia of a group of intelligentsia who sharply criticized the authorities. The author shows that the group of exiled philosophers was united both by their previous philosophical and social activity and by their joint activity as émigrés. She analyzes the concepts of “historical collective individuality,” “collective person,” and “communal person” introduced by Lev P. Karsavin in order to determine the holistic (...) nature of this exiled social group and its characteristic self-consciousness, behavior, aspirations, and feelings (moods). Examining the event known as the “Philosophy Steamer” through the concepts listed above allows the author to cognize the historical, social, and cultural reality more broadly and productively. The article demonstrates that the concept of a collective person can also be applied to other social groups, thereby extending the methodology of human-studies cognition beyond the study of facts and statistical data. (shrink)

This article compares the sections on the qualities desirable in a wife in Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn and Bar Hebraeus’s Ethicon, which the West Syrian writer modeled on al-Ghazālī’s work. The article first establishes that al-Ghazālī based his profile of the ideal wife on a jurisprudential discussion of the topic by his teacher, Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī, expanding it, however, by adding anecdotes from Sufi literature and reasoned arguments on how “the good wife” will best facilitate her husband’s devotion (...) to God. The article then moves to consider how Bar Hebraeus appropriates, reconfigures, and reframes as Christian teaching al-Ghazālī’s discussion. Finally, the article argues that the similarity between the two texts demonstrates that both carve out a particular notion of male piety intelligible and resonant in their different religious traditions and in the broader monotheistic culture of the premodern Middle East. (shrink)

Progressions of iterated reflection principles can be used as a tool for the ordinal analysis of formal systems. We discuss various notions of proof-theoretic ordinals and compare the information obtained by means of the reflection principles with the results obtained by the more usual proof-theoretic techniques. In some cases we obtain sharper results, e.g., we define proof-theoretic ordinals relevant to logical complexity Π1 0 and, similarly, for any class Π n 0 . We provide a more general version of the (...) fine structure relationships for iterated reflection principles (due to U. Schmerl [25]). This allows us, in a uniform manner, to analyze main fragments of arithmetic axiomatized by restricted forms of induction, including IΣ n , IΣ n − , IΠ n − and their combinations. We also obtain new conservation results relating the hierarchies of uniform and local reflection principles. In particular, we show that (for a sufficiently broad class of theories T) the uniform Σ1-reflection principle for T is Σ2-conservative over the corresponding local reflection principle. This bears some corollaries on the hierarchies of restricted induction schemata in arithmetic and provides a key tool for our generalization of Schmerl's theorem. (shrink)

Recently, the variety of the financial frauds have increased, while the number of victims became difficult to estimate. The purpose of this paper is to present the main profiles of financial frauds’ victims using a reviewing method. The analysis captures the main theoretical and empirical background regarding the motives and circumstances of becoming a victim, the dynamics of several social and demographical characteristics of this type of victims, as well as a sample of relevant case studies from some developing countries. (...) The main finding is that, in literature, most of the victims are male people of different ages, employed, married or single, regardless the level of education. For developing countries such as China, India and Nigeria, the majority of victims act out of naivety and desire to escape from poverty, while some victims from Latin America, China and Nigeria are influenced by greed and lack of empathy, without thinking of further consequences for their families and friends involved. Moreover, most of the victims are convinced to invest in financial schemes by family members, friends, or acquaintances. (shrink)

A well-known result states that, over basic Kalmar elementary arithmetic EA, the induction schema for ∑n formulas is equivalent to the uniform reflection principle for ∑n + 1 formulas . We show that fragments of arithmetic axiomatized by various forms of induction rules admit a precise axiomatization in terms of reflection principles as well. Thus, the closure of EA under the induction rule for ∑n formulas is equivalent to ω times iterated ∑n reflection principle. Moreover, for k < ω, k (...) times iterated ∑n reflection principle over EA precisely corresponds to the extension of EA by k nested applications of ∑n induction rule.The above relationship holds in greater generality than just stated. In fact, we give general formulas characterizing in terms of iterated reflection principles the extension of any given theory by k nested applications of ∑n or Πn induction rules. In particular, the closure of a theory T under just one application of ∑1 induction rule is equivalent to T together with ∑1 reflection principle for each finite Π2 axiomatized subtheory of T.These results have closely parallel ones in the theory of subrecursive function classes. The rules under study correspond, in a canonical way, to natural closure operators on the classes of provably recursive functions. Thus, ∑1 induction rule precisely corresponds to the primitive recursive closure operator, and ∑1 collection rule, introduced below, corresponds to the elementary closure operator. (shrink)

Provability logic GLP is well-known to be incomplete w.r.t. Kripke semantics. A natural topological semantics of GLP interprets modalities as derivative operators of a polytopological space. Such spaces are called GLP-spaces whenever they satisfy all the axioms of GLP. We develop some constructions to build nontrivial GLP-spaces and show that GLP is complete w.r.t. the class of all GLP-spaces.

We suggest an algebraic approach to proof-theoretic analysis based on the notion of graded provability algebra, that is, Lindenbaum boolean algebra of a theory enriched by additional operators which allow for the structure to capture proof-theoretic information. We use this method to analyze Peano arithmetic and show how an ordinal notation system up to 0 can be recovered from the corresponding algebra in a canonical way. This method also establishes links between proof-theoretic ordinal analysis and the work which has been (...) done in the last two decades on provability logic and reflection principles. Because of its abstract algebraic nature, we hope that it will also be of interest for non-prooftheorists. (shrink)

It is argued that the many-worlds interpretation is by far the best interpretation of quantum mechanics. The key points of this view are viewing the wave functions of worlds in three dimensions and understanding probability through self-locating uncertainty.

This paper describes two quotation strategies employed by speakers of Nanti, one involving grammaticalized quotatives and another involving complement-taking verbs of saying, and examines the consequences of the pragmatic differences between these strategies for two key questions in the study of evidentiality: first, the importance of degree of grammaticalization in delimiting ‘evidentials’; and second, the importance of the analytical distinction between epistemic modal and ‘source of information’ evidential meanings. Nanti use of the two quotation strategies is specifically analyzed in the (...) context of self-quotation practices in order to isolate specific aspects of their pragmatics. This analysis shows that the lexical quotative strategy expresses that the quoted party is not only the source of the content of the utterance, but is also an ‘illocutionary source’, who is committed to the interactional force of the utterance, while the grammaticalized quotative strategy does not indicate such a commitment. The functional difference between lexical and grammatical quotative strategies in Nanti is compared with differences between lexical and grammaticalized quotative and reportive strategies found in other languages, and the Nanti results are found to be consistent with cross-linguistic tendencies towards functional differentiation of lexical quotative and reportives, on the one hand, and their grammaticalized counterparts, on the other. These facts, it is argued, motivate a distinction on functional grounds between grammaticalized reportives and quotatives and their lexical counterparts, supporting the use of grammaticalization as a criterion for distinguishing evidentials proper from evidential strategies. The commitment-augmenting function of the lexical quotative construction in Nanti self-quotation is then examined in light of the commitment-diminishing function commonly attributed to quotatives and reportives. It is argued that both types of commitment-modulating effects emerge as implicatures from the basic information and illocutionary source semantics of Nanti lexical quotatives, and from pragmatic reasoning based on whether the quoted party is first person or third person. The fact that both commitment-modulating functions of Nanti lexical quotatives are derived from semantics of lexical quotatives elements is argued to show that the distinction between information source and epistemic modal meanings, often taken to be a pivotal notional distinction in defining evidentiality as a grammatical category, is also essential to the proper analysis of the pragmatics of evidential strategies in discourse. (shrink)

Le messianisme fait à la fois partie des principaux articles de foi du Judaïsme et appelle en même temps son renversement lorsqu’il se réalise de manière effective. Le messianisme s’exprime alors à travers une critique de la loi comme impératif catégorique, étatique et particulariste exercée par une instance transcendante. Saint-Paul incarne très certainement le fer de lance de cette révolution messianique au fondement de l’universalisme. Cette inauguration d’une loi immanente au sujet destinée à supplanter la loi transcendante du Judaïsme se (...) prolonge à travers un certain nombre de figures de la modernité, notamment celles de Spinoza et Freud. Le messianisme n’est pas à entendre ici comme pure et simple trahison de la loi juive mais au contraire comme révélation d’une fracture qui lui appartient originellement. (shrink)

1. Bog i tvarnyi mīr -- 2-3. Bog i mīr, v Bogochelovi︠e︡ki︠e︡ vi︠e︡chnyĭ ad pobi︠e︡zhdai︠u︡shchīĭ.

---- t. 6. O nachalakh : opyt khristīanskoĭ metafiziki. [no.] 1. Bog i tvarnyi mīr. [no.] 2-3. Bog i mīr, v Bogochelovi︠e︡ki︠e︡ vi︠e︡chnyĭ ad pobi︠e︡zhdai︠u︡shchīĭ.

A well-known polymodal provability logic inlMMLBox due to Japaridze is complete w.r.t. the arithmetical semantics where modalities correspond to reflection principles of restricted logical complexity in arithmetic. This system plays an important role in some recent applications of provability algebras in proof theory. However, an obstacle in the study of inlMMLBox is that it is incomplete w.r.t. any class of Kripke frames. In this paper we provide a complete Kripke semantics for inlMMLBox . First, we isolate a certain subsystem inlMMLBox (...) of inlMMLBox that is sound and complete w.r.t. a nice class of finite frames. Second, appropriate models for inlMMLBox are defined as the limits of chains of finite expansions of models for inlMMLBox . The techniques involves unions of n -elementary chains and inverse limits of Kripke models. All the results are obtained by purely modal-logical methods formalizable in elementary arithmetic. (shrink)