Abstract.There is ample evidence that humans (and other primates) possess a knowledge instinct—a biologically driven impulse to make coherent sense of the world at the highest level possible. Yet behavioral decision‐making data suggest a contrary biological drive to minimize cognitive effort by solving problems using simplifying heuristics. Individuals differ, and the same person varies over time, in the strength of the knowledge instinct. Neuroimaging studies suggest which brain regions might mediate the balance between knowledge expansion and heuristic simplification. One region (...) implicated in primary emotional experience is more activated in individuals who use primitive heuristics, whereas two areas of the cortex are more activated in individuals with a strong knowledge drive: one region implicated in detecting risk or conflict and another implicated in generating creative ideas. Knowledge maximization and effort minimization are both evolutionary adaptations, and both are valuable in different contexts. Effort minimization helps us make minor and routine decisions efficiently, whereas knowledge maximization connects us to the beautiful, to the sublime, and to our highest aspirations. We relate the opposition between the knowledge instinct and heuristics to the biblical story of the fall, and argue that the causal scientific worldview is mathematically equivalent to teleological arguments from final causes. Elements of a scientific program are formulated to address unresolved issues. (shrink)

There is ample evidence that humans (and other primates) possess a knowledge instinct—a biologically driven impulse to make coherent sense of the world at the highest level possible. Yet behavioral decision-making data suggest a contrary biological drive to minimize cognitive effort by solving problems using simplifying heuristics. Individuals differ, and the same person varies over time, in the strength of the knowledge instinct. Neuroimaging studies suggest which brain regions might mediate the balance between knowledge expansion and heuristic simplification. One region (...) implicated in primary emotional experience is more activated in individuals who use primitive heuristics, whereas two areas of the cortex are more activated in individuals with a strong knowledge drive: one region implicated in detecting risk or conflict and another implicated in generating creative ideas. Knowledge maximization and effort minimization are both evolutionary adaptations, and both are valuable in different contexts. Effort minimization helps us make minor and routine decisions efficiently, whereas knowledge maximization connects us to the beautiful, to the sublime, and to our highest aspirations. We relate the opposition between the knowledge instinct and heuristics to the biblical story of the fall, and argue that the causal scientific worldview is mathematically equivalent to teleological arguments from final causes. Elements of a scientific program are formulated to address unresolved issues. (shrink)

This work describes a mathematical concept of modelling field theory and its applications to a variety of problems, while offering a view of the relationships among mathematics, computational concepts in neural networks, semiotics, and concepts of mind in psychology and philosophy.

Interview of Vlada Davidenko, Ryenat Shvets, Sofia Bryl with Leonid Finberg.

В прил.: Простые математические модели динамики коллективной деятельности / Л. Е. Попов, М. И. Слободской. Мозг и обучение / Б. И. Вершинин.

This paper discusses continuity between ancient Pythagoreanism and the pseudo-Pythagorean writings, which began to appear after the end of the Pythagorean school ca. 350 BC. Relying on a combination of temporal, formal and substantial criteria, I divide Pseudopythagorica into three categories: 1) early Hellenistic writings ascribed to Pythagoras and his family members; 2) philosophical treatises written mostly, yet not exclusively, in pseudo-Doric from the turn of the first century BC under the names of real or fictional Pythagoreans; 3) writings attributed (...) to Pythagoras and his relatives that continued to appear in the late Hellenistic and Imperial periods. I will argue that all three categories of pseudepigrapha contain astonishingly little that is authentically Pythagorean. (shrink)

This work has four aims: (i) to provide an overview of the current debate about the semantics of knowledge attributions, i.e. sentences of the form ⌜S knows that Φ⌝; (ii) to ground the debate in a single semantic-pragmatic framework; (iii) to identify a methodology for describing the semantics of knowledge attributions; (iv) to go some way towards describing the semantics of knowledge attributions in light of this methodology, and in particular to defend moderate invariantist semantics against its main current rivals. (...) Aims (i) and (ii) are largely clarificatory; in §1 I set out a single semantic-pragmatic framework and over the course of this work show that it can be modified to explain and distinguish the various theories of the semantics of knowledge attributions currently on offer. Aim (iii) is also met in §1. I argue that a theory of the semantics of knowledge attributions T must be able to account for at least some ordinary speakers’ intuitions about the felicity or infelicity of utterances of the sentence ⌜S knows that Φ⌝ (felicity intuitions) purely in terms of its semantics. I also identify a number of theoretical considerations about knowledge and argue that if T conflicts with any one of these considerations, we should presume that T is false. Aim (iv) is met over the course of this work. According to moderate invariantism ⌜S knows that Φ⌝ is true if and only if S confidently believes the proposition expressed by Φ, this proposition is true and S’s epistemic position with respect to this proposition meets a moderately high epistemic standard. In §§2 – 5 I argue that the main current rivals to moderate invariantism – attributor contextualism, contrastivism, subject-sensitive invariantism and assessor relativism – conflict with at least one of the theoretical considerations identified in §1. In §6 I argue that moderate invariantism accounts for some ordinary speakers’ felicity intuitions purely in terms of the semantics of ⌜S knows that Φ⌝; I also argue that it is consistent with all of the theoretical considerations identified in §1. Moreover, in §§2 – 6 I argue that no theory is capable of accounting for all felicity intuitions purely in terms of the semantics of ⌜S knows that Φ⌝, and that only moderate invariantism can successfully explain why speakers have all of these intuitions. In §7 I conclude that moderate invariantism correctly describes of the semantics of knowledge attributions, or at least does so better than its main current rivals. (shrink)

B a c k g r o u nd. The article focuses on the study of modern adaptations and modifications of Marxist principles in the context of the practice of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Focusing on the process of modernization, the article explores how Marxism developed and adapted to China's unique socio-political and economic landscape. Through an in-depth analysis of the CCP's policy and ideological changes, the article sheds light on the distinctive features characterizing the modernization of Marxism in (...) the Chinese context. The study covers not only theoretical aspects but also practical aspects, providing a refined understanding of the specifics of the relationship between Marxist ideology and the dynamic realities of Chinese governance. M e t h o d s. The article uses an in-depth analysis of the politics, ideological changes, and practical aspects of the CCP. The research is based on an analysis of primary sources, including official documents, political speeches and ideological narratives. R e s u l t s. The authors found that the ideology of the CCP is based on Marxism, but adapted to the unique historical context of China, often framed in the concept of "socialism with Chinese characteristics". This adaptation reflects the CCP's recognition of China's special conditions, cultural heritage, and development needs. At its core, Marxism provides the theoretical foundation for the ideology of the CCP, emphasizing class struggle, historical materialism, and the ultimate goal of achieving a classless communist society. However, the CCP recognizes that the application of Marxist principles must take into account the specific realities of China, distinguishing its path from the classical Marxist trajectory. C o n c l u s i o n s. The study highlights that the CCP recognizes the importance of adapting Marxist principles to the specific conditions of China. Acceptance of the concept of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" defines a pragmatic approach to the integration of Marxist ideology with the conditions of the country, taking into account its path of economic development and modernization. (shrink)

O dvizhenii istorii v budushchee -- Strannai︠a︡ "ti︠u︡rʹma" istoricheskoĭ neobkhodimosti -- Istoricheskai︠a︡ novizna poni︠a︡tiĭ "individualʹnostʹ" i "lichnostʹ" -- Ob avtobiografizme -- Statʹ Evropoĭ.

There is a long-standing view in epistemology that perception is a way of knowing. There is a less long-standing but increasingly popular view that knowledge attributions have a relativist semantics. I discuss three things here. First, I show that it is a consequence of the logic of RKA that WOK and RKA are incompatible. Second, I argue that, even if WOK is incompatible with the main rivals to RKA, this is not a consequence of the logics of these views. RKA (...) comes with a hitherto unobserved philosophical consequence that its main rivals do not come with. Third, I consider some responses to the effect that it does not matter that RKA comes with this consequence, and argue that they are all unsatisfactory as they stand. I conclude that, at the very least, the onus is placed on relativists to engage with more epistemology than they currently do to show that we do not need to worry about the incompatibility of WOK and RKA. I conclude with some suggestions about the broader relevance and implications of this paper. (shrink)

Moderate invariantism is the orthodox semantics for knowledge attributions. In recent years it has fallen out of favour, in large part because it fails to explain why ordinary speakers have the intuition that some utterances of knowledge attributions are felicitous and others infelicitous in several types of cases. To address this issue moderate invariantists have developed a variety of what I call non-semantic theories which they claim account for the relevant felicity intuitions independently of moderate invariantist semantics. Some critics have (...) responded by arguing that these non-semantic theories are implausible for one or more of the following reasons: they do not have a basis in empirical data or established theory; they do not account for all of the relevant felicity intuitions; they are ad hoc; or they in fact explain too many felicity intuitions and thus undermine the... (shrink)

Along with competing legal concepts of positivism and gnoseologism in the second half of the 19th century, a direction of legal psychology was formed, within which the psychological theory of law by the Russian and Polish lawyer L.I. Petrazhitsky takes a prominent place. L.I. Petrazhitsky's legal theory interprets the law as a mental phenomenon in a person's mind. The mental life forms the internal and external legal behavior. Studying the law becomes possible only by analyzing the subject's particular kind of (...) emotional life - legal experience. Our focus on the individual's emotional world gives us reason to think of the theory as individualistic, i.e., close to the subject's mental life. At the same time, the Russian lawyer's psychological doctrine also gains explanatory potential for scrutinizing social life. It contains ideas that reveal such mechanisms of social functioning as the affirmation of the ideal of love as the ultimate goal of law-making, the priority of unofficial law in the life of society, and a specific interpretation of public and private law. The system of legal emotions is carried out on the social niveau and establishes such values as love and social order. The article reconstructs the main provisions of Petrazhitsky's psychological theory of law from the point of view of the interaction of its individual and social sides. The social potential of the Russian lawyer's theory appears capable of supplementing and explaining the ideas of socialism and sobornost discussed widely at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Petrazhitsky's individualistic doctrine appears as a flexible concept, capable of fitting organically into various philosophical and sociological contexts. (shrink)

John Greco has recently raised two worries for epistemic contextualism, viz it deprives epistemology of its subject matter and renders objective knowledge impossible. He argues that these problems are not restricted to contextualism, but apply to rival theories, like subject sensitive invariantism, and that they are overstated. I develop Greco's worries, which show that contextualism suggests either that there is no such thing as knowledge, or a weird view of knowledge: as disparately varied and undisciplined, individual-dependent and arbitrary. I then (...) argue that these issues are not overstated and that they can be avoided if one opts for moderate insensitive invariantism. (shrink)

We are now, after some delay, beginning actively to discuss a theme—or is it still a problem?—that has become traditional for Western sociology and political science—namely, totalitarianism. If we start from the firmly established view that construes totalitarianism as a social structure in which the state devours and exercises maximum control over all spheres of the social life of individuals, i.e., a structure based on maximum coercion , we can, it would seem, simply make concrete extrapolations of the existing theoretical (...) model to the countries and regions we have chosen to study. But it seems to me that there are still a number of not fully worked out aspects in the methodology employed to study totalitarianism, and in applied studies this leads either to a pan-totalitarian view of history or to the localization of totalitarianism in a few countries . I think that this situation cannot be "harmonized" in the traditional manner by distinguishing between a "broad" and a "narrow" meaning of the term ‘totalitarianism.’ Hence, rather than trying to "not notice" the methodological problem, I propose dealing with it in all theoretical seriousness. (shrink)

This paper describes some results of a multi‐decade study of the drums of Altai shamans, begun in 1922 with the active cooperation of shamans from several ethnic groups and in several regions of the Altai mountains. These studies were a part of broad scale research of Altai culture. Knowledge of the customs and language of these people, along with my sincere interest, was the principal reason the Altai shamans developed significant trust in me, and this feeling of trust by the (...) Altai people led to my adoption as a member of the Mundus clan. The adoption was confirmed with a shaman's prayer ceremony, followed by a horse sacrifice.The 1920s were a period of renaissance of shamanism in the Altai, which undoubtedly favored my research. I was able to study and photograph drums, to ask about their construction and ornamentation, and to discuss in detail their designs. This renaissance of shamanism developed as a result of Bolshevik pressure on the Russian Orthodox church after 1917, the Church having been the primary opponent of shamanism in the Altai region. Spiritual missions and churches were closed by the government, but shamanistic cults were not interfered with. The Communists were fighting all religions, but did not regard shamanism as a religion, considering it instead as a survival of the local clan system. My work in the Altai at this time was particularly productive thanks to exactly this fortunate coincidence of circumstance. (shrink)

Following the design of the author, reforms of the UN would consist of four rules. The first rule: Payments from the global community should correspond with the services provided by the UN. - For this purpose it is necessary to develop a system of compensation in which payment would be made only for the completion of a concrete service. Such a system would in effect serve as a continuous audit and guarantor of quality service at all times visible to the (...) entire public. The second rule: Servantura not dictatorship - The author has created a word "servantura" and has given it the following meaning: the performance of administrative service, guided by (1) ethical conduct, (2) democratic norms, (3) the newest scientific knowledge, (5) safe technology, (6) justice, (7) equality of people and (8) the priority of human life. On an idea of the author, servantura is a global managerial philosophy with a system of global service in which each decision should be in accordance with the wishes and the will of the entire global community, not of a separate group of nations, or a single nation, or person. The third rule: Noncommercial services. Commercialization of the UN should be considered a crime. Further commercial use of the UN should be stopped, as it will lead to aglobal catastrophe. The fourth rule: Without enemies or competitors, Full transparency and a strict prohibition of secrecy and privacy in the UN must be established. i.e. openness, publicity and a strict international prohibition on any secret structures or secret activities within the UN. (shrink)

The period between the late 1910s and early 1920s saw the emergence of onto-epistemological philosophical projects in Russia that was determined by criticism and attempts to overcome the domination of epistemology in philosophy which was the result of the intensive development of Neo-Kantianism and the influence of Husserl’s phenomenology. Attempts to turn towards ontology were made both by Russian religious philosophers and by Russian Neo-Kantians. I look at the little-studied philosophical projects of the Russian Neo-Kantians Lev Salagov and Nikolai Boldyrev. (...) Their philosophical concepts share the tendency to transpose epistemological problems to ontology, and to identify and bring closer together epistemology and ontology. Russian philosophers ontologise the theory of cognition through the analysis of subjectivity, the complete elimination of psychological motives and the separation of transcendentalism from transcendentism. These principles enable Salagov to ground a three-part structure of cognition and to assert that the main task of genuine epistemology is exclusively the study of the cognitive relationship, committing to consciousness. They enable Boldyrev, proceeding from the separation of reflection and sensibility, to build a doctrine on the self-unfolding of being. Similar tendencies — a turn towards ontology — were observed in the same period in West European philosophy, including German Neo-Kantianism. However, the concepts of Russian Neo-Kantians, which imply a new orientation towards ontology, are fairly independent, and not only on account of the original interpretation of Kantian critical philosophy and Neo-Kantian epistemology, but also on account of internal discussion with the Russian philosophers belonging to other movements. The analysis of the onto-epistemological projects of Russian Neo-Kantians makes important additions to the picture of the reception of Neo-Kantianism in Russia. (shrink)

Semantic relativism is the view that the truth-value of some types of statements can vary depending on factors besides possible worlds and times, without any change in their propositional content. It has grown increasingly popular as a semantic theory of several types of statements, including statements that attribute knowledge of a proposition to a subject (knowledge attributions). The ways of knowing claim is the view that perception logically implies knowledge. In my “Semantic Relativism and Ways of Knowing” (2019) I argued (...) that a relativist semantics for knowledge attributions is incompatible with the ways of knowing claim. I suggested that this incompatibility depends on some basic features of the logic of relativist semantics, and therefore can be shown to generalise beyond the discussion of knowledge attributions to semantic relativism more broadly. Here I make this generalisation. I demonstrate that for any proposition p expressed by a statement that does not have a relativist semantics, and for any proposition q expressed by a statement that does have a relativist semantics, p fails to logically imply q. I explain why this happens, discuss some of its philosophical consequences, and consider a way to modify relativist semantics to avoid it. I conclude that semantic relativism raises interesting philosophical questions that have gone largely unnoticed in discussions of this view until now. (shrink)

Neo-Kantianism is traditionally seen as a philosophy that was formed to develop and actualise Kant’s philosophy and Kantian transcendental methodology. However, Kant was the determining, but by no means the only, influence on the emergence of the neo-Kantian tradition. Neo-Kantianism was strongly influenced by the entire German post-Kantian philosophy, especially by Fichte and Hegel, although neo-Kantians have repeatedly tried to dissociate themselves from the great idealists. In many ways neo-Kantianism was cultivated by the Fichtean reading of Kant, which enabled succeeding (...) philosophers, notably H.-G. Gadamer, to consider neo-Kantianism to be “hidden neo-Fichteanism”. The main goal of this study is a historical-philosophical reconstruction of the image of Fichtean philosophy formed within German neo-Kantianism. To achieve this aim I have analysed the key projects of the German neo-Kantians in which the influence of Fichte’s philosophy, in particular his interpretation of the Kantian doctrine of the primacy of practical reason, is most clearly manifested. I show that the theory of values of the Southwest neo-Kantians and the ethics of pure will of the Marburg neo-Kantians are associated with the Fichtean revision of Kant’s doctrine of the primacy of practical reason. The following, in my opinion, are the main features of the image of Fichte’s philosophy: it is close to neo-Kantians precisely because it strives to combine theoretical and practical reason; it is in ethics that Fiche’s ideas are most manifest in neo-Kantianism; neo-Kantian original theories contain the ideas of self-consciousness “in the spirit” of Fichte. The conclusion is drawn that the growth of the metaphysical component in neo-Kantian doctrines may be connected with the influence of Fichte’s philosophy. (shrink)

Introduction. The 2020 viral pandemic put humanity in a forced isolation environment. This crisis situation provoked the total inclusion of technology in the modern dialogue at different levels of connections and relationships. This phenomenon does not only demonstrate the enormous importance of technology in the modern world, but also raises the question of the essence of such a “mandatory” dialogue partner. The aim of the study is to raise a question about ontological essence of technology, formulating a hypothesis about the (...) involvement of the “technical” in the symbolic world. The authors use the phenomenological approach that makes it possible to see behind an array of diverse human experience interacting with the “technical” — the anonymity of the essence of technology. The usual attitude to engineering and technology as a tool that performs certain initially laid down tasks is unsatisfactory, since the importance of technology in modern civilization is much wider. In addition, the authors use the analytical approach that makes it possible to see behind scientific theories and facts a certain “logic of behavior” of science and technology aimed at overcoming the nature of things. Symbolic technology passes all natural and cultural boundaries. (shrink)

The work is devoted to the philosophy of mastery presented in the tales of the Ural writer Pavel Petrovich Bazhov. The basis of the phenomenon of mastery is the classical philosophy of Plato in its Socratic version. The authors of the article see it as their goal to prove the close relationship between the practical handicraft Ural art, represented in the mythology and literature of P.P. Bazhov, and the classical metaphysical attitudes of European philosophy. The personality of the master becomes (...) a cementing link between the natural world and the world of culture. Mastery in its philosophical and practical form acts as a support for the natural attitude towards nature, art, and towards man in general. The authors decipher the phenomenon of mastery in the tales of P.P. Bazhov, analyze his modes and the specifics of manifestation. Ural tales of P.P. Bazhov in describing the phenomena of mastery and genuine creative attitude to nature repeat the structure of the classical attitude to the world and logically correspond to the structure of the creative attitude of the master poet to the object he creates. The specificity of the Ural artcraftsmanship lies in the fact that the personality of the master is embodied not in an ideologist, not in a religious preacher, not in an intellectual, but in a master who interacts with the elements of nature as concretely and closely as possible. The work immerses P.P. Bazhov’s legends, written during the Soviet period of Russian history, in the global context of research into the nature of genuine living creativity, and also emphasizes the regional and very special specific aspect in the Ural mastery. (shrink)

This article starts with a brief analysis of the causes of state collapse as states undergo the process of political evolution. Next, I describe and analyze the mechanisms of social-political crises arising in the process of modernization. Such crises are a consequence of the inability of many traditional institutions and ideologies to keep up with changes in technology, communication, system of education, medical sphere, and with the demographic change. This analysis suggests that an accelerated development can cause a system crisis (...) with potentially serious consequences to the society. It is important to take this aspect into consideration because some scholars insist that the economic reconstruction and development are necessary for nation-building. This actually implies a rapid economic advancement (otherwise, the economy could not be reconstructed and developed). However, one should not ignore the possibility that very rapidly developing countries may run the danger of falling into the trap of fast transformation. The present article describes several mechanisms that can contribute to sociopolitical instability, including social tensions arising from rapid urbanization, youth bulges, and ‘resource curses’. (shrink)

The article analyzes the technological shifts which took place in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries and forecasts the main shifts in the next half a century. On the basis of the analysis of the latest achievements in inno-vative technological directions and also on the basis of the opportunities pro-vided by the theory of production revolutions the authors present a detailed analysis of the latest production revolution which is denoted as ‘Сybernetic’. The authors give some forecasts (...) about its development in the nearest five decades and up to the end of the 21st century. It is shown that the development of various self-regulating systems will be the main trend of this revolution. The authors argue that at first the transition to the beginning of the final phase of the Cybernetic Revolution will start in the field of medicine (in its some innovative directions). In future we will deal with the start of convergence of innovative technologies which will form the system of MBNRIC-technologies (i.e. the technological paradigm based on medicine, bio- and nanotechnologies, robotics, IT and cognitive technologies). The article gives a detailed analysis of the future breakthroughs in medicine, bio- and nanotechnologies as well as some other technologies in terms of the development of self-regulating systems with their growing ability to select optimum modes of functioning as well as of other characteristics of the Cybernetic Revolution (resources and energy saving, miniaturization, individualization, etc.). (shrink)