The author clarifies the attitudes of Herzen as a Westernizer of a special kind, a consistent liberal and democrat, and a defender of the historical role of the peasant commune.

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 discusses Vladimir Vasil’evich Veidle, a philosopher and scholar of cultural study of the Silver Age and a brilliant expert on Alexander Pushkin’s works. The focus is on th...

This article discusses the evolution of the cultural-civilizational self-identification of Russia’s greatest twentieth-century poet, Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, the 1958 Nobel Prize la...

This article examines the problem of cultural–civilizational self-identification in the early philosophical–poetic works of Osip Emil’evich Mandelstam. The author argues that Mandelstam...

This book review discusses the new research of the Russian philosopher and cultural study scholar Olga A. Zhukova. What is special about the Russian intellectual movement Russian Europeanism? Zhukova reconstructs the ideas of Russian Europeanism, and she evaluates the approaches of Russian thinkers to national cultural history. The author manages to introduce the reader to current discussions about the specifics of the Russian cultural and philosophical “project” and to propose new approaches for the interpretation of the intellectual and literary heritage (...) of Russia. In addition to offering a critical analysis of Zhukova’s volume, the book review presents this thought provoking monograph as a great piece of scholarly work. (shrink)

Based on considerable factual material, the author establishes Berdyaev's Moscow addresses and shows how Berdyaev's Moscow environment related to different stages of his philosophical work and public life.

The article examines the views of the prominent Russian politician and publicist Vasily Vitalyevich Shulgin, whom the author considers to be the largest ideologist of the “chieftain” political subculture in Russian political culture. Following Shulgin, the author distinguishes two fundamentally different models of power: “monarchical” type of power and “chieftain” type of power. V.V. Shulgin was one of the first Russian thinkers who, after Alexander Pushkin and Sergei Solovyov, considered the “golden age” of the Russian society to be under the (...) rule of “leaders-heroes”. Shulgin explained many of the problems of Russian statehood revealed in the early 20th century by the degradation of the Russian ruling class and specifically the Romanov dynasty. Under these conditions, the national leader P.A. Stolypin, able to bring the country out of crisis by evolution, had appeared “next to the monarch,” but he has not been appreciated by Russian society and it has caused a national catastrophe. The First World War has accelerated the degradation of the Russian government. The “democratic forces” that came to power in Russia for a short time could not nominate a new “leader” from their ranks. Shulgin foresaw that “intermediate figures” like the White generals or the Red diarchy of Lenin and Trotsky would eventually give way to the autocratic rule of an all-Russian “Chief,” who would combine the ideology of the Whites and the will of the Reds. (shrink)

This article examines the siginifcant role that Romeplayed in the life of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. The author researches the “Roman” preferences of young Turgenev, who specialized in ancient literature and philosophy in Moscow, St. Petersburgand Berlin. Special attention is paid to the circumstances of 21-years-old Turgenev’s stay in the Eternal City in February–April 1840 and his relationship with members of Khovrins’ salon in Rome, espesially with the eldest daughter of Khovrin, Alexandra Nikolaevna, in marriage Bakhmeteva, whо became later a wellknown (...) writer on religious and philosophical topics. The author substantiates the version that it was young “Sashenka” Khovrina who became the prototype of Lisa Kalitina in the novel Home of the Gentry, started in Rome at the end of 1857. The author studies the “Italian traces” in the literary work of Turgenev: in early romantic poem Steno, poem Venus of Medicis, novel On the Eve, etc. The author notes that the “civilizational” contrasts between the “North” and the “South”, abundantly scattered in the works of young Turgenev, suggest that in his work has found a kind of continuation of the tradition of the “Russian Northernship,” deriving in Russian literature from G.R. Derzhavin, N.M. Karamzin, Prince P.A. Vyazemsky. (shrink)

“The world of life which is comprised of the lithosphere, the hydrosphere and the atmosphere”: this definition of the biosphere is not complete since it does not express the determining influence of living organisms on its composition, on its structure and on the processes of its continuing evolution. The part of living matter in the biosphere is relatively small (about 0.25%), but this part has a considerable influence on its structure.The biosphere should be considered as the universal source of all (...) food products without exception. Mankind's ability to feed itself depends on the productivity of this biosphere in the first place. Moreover, its condition determines not only the quantity but also the quality of nourishment. The problem is a critical one today because of the increasing pollution of the biosphere by products poured into it by various human activities. (shrink)

Life has semiotic nature; and as life forms differ in their complexity, functionality, and adaptability, we assume that forms of semiosis also vary accordingly. Here we propose a criterion to distinguish between the primitive kind of semiosis, which we call “protosemiosis” from the advanced kind of semiosis, or “eusemiosis”. In protosemiosis, agents associate signs directly with actions without considering objects, whereas in eusemiosis, agents associate signs with objects and only then possibly with actions. Protosemiosis started from the origin of life, (...) and eusemiosis started when evolving agents acquired the ability to track and classify objects. Eusemiosis is qualitatively different from protosemiosis because it can not be reduced to a small number of specific signaling pathways. Proto-signs can be classified into proto-icons that signal via single specific interaction, proto-indexes that combine several functions, and proto-symbols that are processed by a universal subagent equipped with a set of heritable adapters. Prefix “proto” is used here to characterize signs at the protosemiotic level. Although objects are not recognized by protosemiotic agents, they can be reliably reconstructed by human observers. In summary, protosemiosis is a primitive kind of semiosis that supports “know-how” without “know-what”. Without studying protosemiosis, the biosemiotics theory would be incomplete. (shrink)

Biological evolution is often viewed narrowly as a change of morphology or allele frequency in a sequence of generations. Here I pursue an alternative informational concept of evolution, as preservation, advance, and emergence of functional information in natural agents. Functional information is a network of signs that are used by agents to preserve and regulate their functions. Functional information is preserved in evolution via complex interplay of copying and construction processes: the digital components are copied, whereas interpreting subagents together with (...) scaffolds, tools, and resources, are constructed. Some of these processes are simple and invariant, whereas others are complex and contextual. Advance of functional information includes improvement and modification of already existing functions. Although the genome information may change passively and randomly, the interpretation is active and guided by the logic of agent behavior and embryonic development. Emergence of new functions is based on the reinterpretation of already existing information, when old tools, resources, and control algorithms are adopted for novel functions. Evolution of functional information progressed from protosemiosis, where signs correspond directly to actions, to eusemiosis, where agents associate signs with objects. Language is the most advanced form of eusemiosis, where the knowledge of objects and models is communicated between agents. (shrink)

In contrast to the traditional relational semiotics, biosemiotics decisively deviates towards dynamical aspects of signs at the evolutionary and developmental time scales. The analysis of sign dynamics requires constructivism to explain how new components such as subagents, sensors, effectors, and interpretation networks are produced by developing and evolving organisms. Semiotic networks that include signs, tools, and subagents are multilevel, and this feature supports the plasticity, robustness, and evolvability of organisms. The origin of life is described here as the emergence of (...) simple self-constructing semiotic networks that progressively increased the diversity of their components and relations. Primitive organisms have no capacity to classify and track objects; thus, we need to admit the existence of proto-signs that directly regulate activities of agents without being associated with objects. However, object recognition and handling became possible in eukaryotic species with the development of extensive rewritable epigenetic memory as well as sensorial and effector capacities. Semiotic networks are based on sequential and recursive construction, where each step produces components that are needed for the following steps of construction. Construction is not limited to repair and reproduction of what already exists or is unambiguously encoded, it also includes production of new components and behaviors via learning and evolution. A special case is the emergence of new levels of organization known as metasystem transition. Multilevel semiotic networks reshape the phenotype of organisms by combining a mosaic of features developed via learning and evolution of cooperating and/or conflicting subagents. (shrink)

The target article by Denis Noble is an excellent overview of the illusions of the Modern Synthesis that still remains in textbooks despite of the recent criticism. Overcoming these illusions shows the active role of organisms in the evolutionary process and accounts for additional mechanisms such as plasticity of embryo development, epigenetic heredity, multilevel selection, Baldwin effect, and niche construction, which are components of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. Adding these mechanisms is certainly an important step forward, but I argue that (...) it is not sufficient for building a new theory of evolution. What is missing is a clear understanding of such notions as agency, autonomy, semiosis, interpretation, and goal-directedness, which so far belong to the humanities and have not been applied seriously in science. Organisms are autonomous and goal-directed semiotic agents capable of interpreting hereditary signs and making meaningful models of their environment. Evolutionary biology needs a semiotic vocabulary to talk about higher level functions in organisms, where specific molecules and mechanisms are only means for integrating functions over the life cycle and adapting to the environment without compromising organism integrity and identity. Such a vocabulary is being developed in biosemiotics; thus, I expect the emergence of a biosemiotic theory of evolution. (shrink)

Why do the two sexes have different lifespans and rates of aging? Two hypotheses based on asymmetric inheritance of sex chromosomes (“unguarded X”) or mitochondrial genomes (“mother's curse”) explain sex differences in lifespan as sex‐specific maladaptation leading to increased mortality in the shorter‐lived sex. While asymmetric inheritance hypotheses equate long life with high fitness, considerable empirical evidence suggests that sexes resolve the fundamental tradeoff between reproduction and survival differently resulting in sex‐specific optima for lifespan. However, selection for sex‐specific values in (...) life‐history traits is constrained by intersexual genetic correlations resulting in intra‐locus sexual conflict over optimal lifespan. The available data suggest that the evolution of sexual dimorphism only partially resolves these conflicts. Sexual conflict over optimal trait values, which has been demonstrated in model organisms and in humans, is likely to play a key role in shaping the evolution of lifespan, as well as in maintaining genetic variation for sex‐specific diseases. (shrink)

Principles of constructivism are used here to explore how organisms develop tools, subagents, scaffolds, signs, and adaptations. Here I discuss reasons why organisms have composite nature and include diverse subagents that interact in partially cooperating and partially conflicting ways. Such modularity is necessary for efficient and robust functionality, including mutual construction and adaptability at various time scales. Subagents interact via material and semiotic relations, some of which force or prescribe actions of partners. Other interactions, which I call “guiding”, do not (...) have immediate effects and do not disrupt the evolution and learning capacity of partner agents. However, they modify the extent of learning and evolutionary possibilities of partners via establishment of scaffolds and constraints. As a result, subagents construct reciprocal scaffolding for each other to rebalance their communal evolution and learning. As an example, I discuss guiding interactions between the body and mind of animals, where the pain system adjusts mind-based learning to the physical and physiological constraints of the body. Reciprocal effects of mind and behaviors on the development and evolution of the body includes the effects of Lamarck and Baldwin. (shrink)

The Bell inequalities of the metric form are introduced. The quantum-mechanical correlations of the particles with s=1/2 and photons are described using the relative measure of probability on the concave surfaces. The relation of the proposed scheme with the Bayes theorem about conditional information entropy and J. von Neumann's postulates is discussed.

Functional information means an encoded network of functions in living organisms from molecular signaling pathways to an organism’s behavior. It is represented by two components: code and an interpretation system, which together form a self-sustaining semantic closure. Semantic closure allows some freedom between components because small variations of the code are still interpretable. The interpretation system consists of inference rules that control the correspondence between the code and the function (phenotype) and determines the shape of the fitness landscape. The utility (...) factor operates at multiple time scales: short-term selection drives evolution towards higher survival and reproduction rate within a given fitness landscape, and long-term selection favors those fitness landscapes that support adaptability and lead to evolutionary expansion of certain lineages. Inference rules make short-term selection possible by shaping the fitness landscape and defining possible directions of evolution, but they are under control of the long-term selection of lineages. Communication normally occurs within a set of agents with compatible interpretation systems, which I call communication system. Functional information cannot be directly transferred between communication systems with incompatible inference rules. Each biological species is a genetic communication system that carries unique functional information together with inference rules that determine evolutionary directions and constraints. This view of the relation between utility and inference can resolve the conflict between realism/positivism and pragmatism. Realism overemphasizes the role of inference in evolution of human knowledge because it assumes that logic is embedded in reality. Pragmatism substitutes usefulness for truth and therefore ignores the advantage of inference. The proposed concept of evolutionary pragmatism rejects the idea that logic is embedded in reality; instead, inference rules are constructed within each communication system to represent reality, and they evolve towards higher adaptability on a long time scale. (shrink)

Two classic theories maintain that aging evolves either because of alleles whose deleterious effects are confined to late life or because of alleles with broad pleiotropic effects that increase early‐life fitness at the expense of late‐life fitness. However, empirical studies often reveal positive pleiotropy for fitness across age classes, and recent evidence suggests that selection on early‐life fitness can decelerate aging and increase lifespan, thereby casting doubt on the current consensus. Here, we briefly review these data and promote the simple (...) argument that aging can evolve under positive pleiotropy between early‐ and late‐life fitness when the deleterious effect of mutations increases with age. We argue that this hypothesis makes testable predictions and is supported by existing evidence. (shrink)

Pragmatics, i.e., a system of values (or goals) in agent behavior, marks the boundary between physics and semiotics. Agents are defined as systems that are able to control their behavior in order to increase their values. The freedom of actions in agents is based on the distinction between macrocharacters that describe the state or stage, and micro-characters that are interpreted as memory. Signs are arbitrarily established relations between micro- and macro-characters that are anticipated to be useful for agents. Three kinds (...) of elementary signs (action, perception, and association) have been developed in agents via evolution and learning to support useful and flexible behaviors. The behavior of agents can be explained, predicted, and modified using the optimality principle, according to which agents select those actions that are expected to increase their value. However, agents may select actions based on their own model of the world, which have to be reconstructed in order to predict their behavior. Pragmatics in agents can be induced, learned from individual experience or natural selection, or adopted. (shrink)

The article discusses the main features of the Russian philosophy of war that developed in the first third of the 20th century. The author shows that in Russia, the philosophy of war did not develop as a separate broad line of research but limited itself to only a few meaningful, but rather brief, experiments. Nevertheless, many Russian philosophers left deep, well-founded reasoning about war, which can be reconstructed as a consistent system of views. One of its features is the shift (...) in the focus of considering armed violence from the sociological and political to the anthropological and ethical; the focus is not on war as a social phenomenon, but on the human’s position in war. In this regard, the attitude to war in Russian philosophy is paradoxical. On the one hand, war brings a lot of evil in the form of death of many people and destruction, but, on the other hand, it promotes to the manifestation of the best moral qualities in people, up to selflessness and heroism. Armed violence seems to be a tragedy of the Christian conscience, and each participant must independently find a justification for his participation in the war. Based on the conditions of a difficult moral choice, personal, existential justification may come from the idea that people cannot commit violence with a clear conscience. In this case, the person choosing to participate in a war perceives the battle as his own guilt that should be expiated. (shrink)

The major merit of Rose's book is the elaboration of the idea of multilevel causation in different explanatory languages. Yet Rose's critique of “ultra-Darwinism” is not convincing. Rose argues that activity and self-replication are properties of organisms rather than genes, which contradicts his idea of multilevel causation. Also, Rose fails to develop the concept of multilevel selection.

Book Commentary:A.Yu. Korobov-Latyntsev. Philosopher and War. On Russian Military Philosophy. Moscow: Russkaya filosofiya, 2020.

Classical verse work, expounding the early Vedantic approach in Hindu philosophy; Sanskrit text with Hindi translation and exhaustive introduction.

Treatise on the monistic (Advaita) Hindu Vedanta philosophy.