People feel they understand complex phenomena with far greater precision, coherence, and depth than they really do; they are subject to an illusion—an illusion of explanatory depth. The illusion is far stronger for explanatory knowledge than many other kinds of knowledge, such as that for facts, procedures or narratives. The illusion for explanatory knowledge is most robust where the environment supports real‐time explanations with visible mechanisms. We demonstrate the illusion of depth with explanatory knowledge in Studies 1–6. Then we show (...) differences in overconfidence about knowledge across different knowledge domains in Studies 7–10. Finally, we explore the mechanisms behind the initial confidence and behind overconfidence in Studies 11 and 12, and discuss the implications of our findings for the roles of intuitive theories in concepts and cognition. (shrink)

The present monograph considers some macrohistorical trends along with the aspects of globalization. Macrohistory is history on the large scale that tells the story of the entire world or of some major dimensions of historical process. For the present study three aspects of macrohistory have been chosen. These are technological and political aspects, as well as the one of historical personality. Taken together they give a definite picture of unfolding historical process which is described from the beginning of human society (...) formation to the present day and near future. The combination in the monograph title of the two terms – macrohistory and globalization – is in no way artificial. On the contrary, the connection of these terms is organic at least as the real goal of macrohistory is to find mean-ing in the past so as to create new possibilities of meaning for the future. The analysis of globalization also includes three aspects: political, economic and futurological as today the world may well be regarded as being at the start of a new global reconfiguration. The author presents his ideas of the world prospective political and in some respects social-economic development basing on the analysis of macrohistory and contemporary globalization processes. The monograph also considers some global scenarios of the World System's near future. (shrink)

In ancient tradition, Pythagoras emerges as a wise teacher, an outstanding mathematician, an influential politician, and as a religious and ethical reformer. This volume offers a comprehensive study of Pythagoras, Pythagoreanism, and the early Pythagoreans through an analysis of the many representations of the individual and his followers.

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

This article analyzes some important aspects of socioeconomic and political development of the world in the near future. The future always stems from the present. The first part of the article is devoted to the study of some crucial events of the present, which could be regarded as precursors of forthcoming fundamental changes. In particular, it is shown that the turbulent events of late 2010 and 2011 in the Arab World may well be regarded as a start of the global (...) reconfiguration. The article also offers an analysis of some aspects of the global financial system that, according to the authors, notwithstanding all its negative points, performs certain important positive functions including the ?insurance? of social guaranties at the global scale. The second part of the article considers some global scenarios of the World System's new future and describes a few characteristics of the forthcoming ?Epoch of New Coalitions.? The article attempts to answer such questions as the following: What are the implications of the economic weakening of the United States as the World System center? Will the future World System have a leader? Will it experience a global governance deficit? Will the world fragmentation increase? (shrink)

The article offers forecasts of the geopolitical and geo-economic development of the world in the forthcoming decades. One of the main accusations directed toward globalization is that it deepens the gap between the developed and developing countries dooming them to eternal backwardness. The article demonstrates that the actual situation is very different. It is shown that this is due to the globalization that the developing countries are generally growing much faster than the developed states, the World System core starts weakening (...) and its periphery begins to strengthen. At the same time there is a continuing divergence between the main bulk of developing countries and the group of the poorest developing states. The article also explains why the globalization was bound to lead to the explosive rise of many developing countries and the relative weakening of the developed economies. In the forthcoming decades this trend is likely to continue. It is a.. (shrink)

This article presents possible answers, and their respective probabilities, to the question, ‘What are the consequences of the present global crisis in the proximate future of the World System?’ It also attempts to describe the basic characteristics of the forthcoming ‘Epoch of New Coalitions’ and to forecast certain future conditions. Among the problems analyzed in this paper are the following: What does the weakening of the economic role of the USA as the World System centre mean? Will there be a (...) leader in the future World System? Will the deficit of global governance and world fragmentation continue to worsen? How can national sovereignty be transformed? (shrink)

Henri JM Claessen Was the State Inevitable? ● Leonid E. Grinin The Early State and Its Analogues: A Comparative Analysis ...

Freedom of will is fundamental to morality, intuition of self, and normal functioning of society. However, science does not provide a clear logical foundation for this idea. This paper considers the fundamental argument against free will, so called reductionism, and why the choice for dualism against monism, follows logically. Then, the paper summarizes unexpected conclusions from recent discoveries in cognitive science. Classical logic turns out not to be a fundamental mechanism of the mind. It is replaced by dynamic logic. Mathematical (...) and experimental evidence are considered conceptually. Dynamic logic counters logical arguments for reductionism. Contemporary science of mind is not reducible; free will can be scientifically accepted along with scientific monism. (shrink)

The question of the secularity of society still remains open, since scientists have proposed only cautious speculative answers, while every scientist understands that in the social sciences it is a sad experience of predictions, that history is random and therefore unpredictable and the future always remains fundamentally open. The process of transformation of postmodern society, the development of which is actively influenced by the current pandemy of COVID-19, entailed the revival of religious values ​​and the formation of a qualitatively new (...) religious consciousness. In connection with the rise in the social status of religious consciousness and the widespread dissemination of religious ideas, primarily at the everyday level, the analysis of individual religious consciousness as one of the ways to comprehend the world is of particular importance. The social nature of religious consciousness is manifested not only in the fact that religious values ​​are perceived as a kind of khanism of social regulation, but also in the fact that they serve as epistemological guidelines and often compete with scientific values. This determines the growing philosophical interest in the analysis of the epistemological functions of religion and secular reality, as well as the cognitive capabilities of religious consciousness, which is impossible without a consistent study of the methodological basis of religious knowledge. (shrink)

The article presents a verbal and mathematical model of medium-term business cycles (with a characteristic period of 7–11 years) known as Juglar cycles. The model takes into account a number of approaches to the analysis of such cycles; in the meantime it also takes into account some of the authors' own generalizations and additions that are important for understanding the internal logic of the cycle, its variability and its peculiarities in the present-time conditions. The authors argue that the most important (...) cause of cyclical crises stems from strong structural disproportions that develop during economic booms. These are not only disproportions between different economic sectors, but also disproportions between different societal subsystems; at present these are also disproportions within the World System as a whole. The proposed model of business cycle is based on its subdivision into four phases: – recovery phase (which could be subdivided into the start sub-phase and the acceleration sub-phase); – upswing/prosperity/expansion phase (which could be subdivided into the growth sub-phase and the boom/overheating sub-phase); – recession phase (within which one may single out the crash/bust/acute crisis subphase and the downswing sub-phase); – depression/stagnation phase (which we could subdivide into the stabilization subphase and the breakthrough sub-phase). The article provides a detailed qualitative description of macroeconomic dynamics at all the phases; it specifies driving forces of cyclical dynamics and the causes of transition from one phase to another (including psychological causes); a special attention is paid to the turning point from the peak of overheating to the acute crisis, as well as to the turning point from the downswing to recovery. The proposed mathematical model of Juglar cycle takes into account the following effects that are typical for the market economy: • positive feedbacks between various economic processes; • presence of a certain inertia, time lags in reactions of the economic subsystem to the change in conditions; • amplification by the financial subsystem of positive feedbacks and time lags in the economic subsystem; • excessive reaction to changing conditions during the acute crisis sub-phase. The authors suggest that the current crisis turns out to be rather similar to classical Juglar crises; however, there is also a significant difference, as the current crisis occurs at a truly global scale. Yet, due to this truly global scale of the current crisis, the possibilities of regulation with the national state's measures have turned out to be ineffective,whereas the suprastate regulation of financial processes hardly exists. It is shown that all these have led to the reproduction of the current crisis according to a classical Juglar scenario. (shrink)

Издание содержит: модельно-конструктивное мышление в логике и математике; модельно-конструктивное мышление в политэкономике; особенности модельно-конструктивного мышления и идеологии.

Spatial semiosis differs from temporal one by its structural and functional peculiarities. Meaningful relations between units of spatial texts are not ordered along of temporal axe and do not need time in their form of expression. However time remains an important factor for both: being of the spatial semiosis in the external time and being of time in the spatial texts as object of representation. In the contrast to temporal communication, where acts receiving of texts must be synchronized with the (...) acts of their (re)production, spatial semiosis is built as a diachronic process, dividing in time from two separate acts: creating and perceiving. This structural peculiarity allows to connect people from different temporal periods and gives to spatial semiosis the function of irreplaceable means for cultural memory. Excluding time from the semiotic form of their plane of expression, spatial texts have some rules of presentation in time and semiotic means for representation of temporal order and duration in their plane of contents. There are different means of representation of time in the spatial forms: the projection of temporal structures on the spatial ones, concentration of different moments in one state, etc. (shrink)

The article reveals the use of postmodernism as a style of thinking and a special view of contemporaneity as an interpretive basis for understanding present-day university education and understanding the prospects for its development in new conditions. The emphasis is based on three characteristics of the postmodern paradigm: change in the status of knowledge in society; non-structural, non-linear way of organizing integrity, excluding rigid centralization, orderliness and symmetry; a special model of contemporaneity, which does not allow the imposition of life (...) guidelines and values on a person. It is shown that the situation of postmodernism has led to new phenomena in university education, which have changed the traditional status and mission of the university. There was a tendency towards the mass character of university education, which, by expanding accessibility, contributed to a decrease in its quality. The change in the status of knowledge in society has led to the commercialization of education, which puts on threat the academic freedom and autonomy of the university, which becomes dependent on the “order” for educational services. Teaching strategies and educational strategies of students are changing; the level of their interconnection and interdependence is decreasing. It is noted that the modernization of higher education determines the formation of a new university – the university at risk and actualizes the task of predicting systematically emerging risks and dangers and developing measures to level or limit their negative impacts. (shrink)

The metaphysics of a social reality assumes definition ontology various plans of its realization as sorts of attitude to kinds. The last ones represent phenomena of a social reality - as classical and nonclassical. The economy, morals, religion, the right concern to classical kinds of a social reality. Attributes of a sociality of the given kinds: activity, attitudes, forms of social consciousness. A nonclassical kinds given attributes yet "do not possess" to the full. Their metaphysics is defined through parity with (...) classical kinds of society. The structure of a social reality is mobile that is why "updating" of the list of classical kinds of a social reality is not soproblematic that is why the urgency of an explication ontology and metaphysics of a sort of a reality social and numerous kinds is undoubtedly rather productive and duly. (shrink)

One of the main accusations directed toward globalization is that it deepens the gap between the developed and developing countries dooming them to eternal backwardness. The article demonstrates that the actual situation is very different. It is shown that this is due to globalization that the developing countries are generally growing much faster than the developed states. The World System core starts weakening while its periphery gains strength. At the same time there is a continuing divergence between the main bulk (...) of developing countries and the group of the poorest developing states. The article also explains why globalization was bound to lead to an explosive rise of many developing countries and relative weakening of the developed economies. In the forthcoming decades this trend is likely to continue. It is also demonstrated that this convergence constitutes a necessary condition for the ongoing and forthcoming change of political and power balance in the World System. We also show how and why it manifests itself in the US current and possible future policy. (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)

Статтю присвячено проблемі розуміння істини в різні історичні періоди. Розглянуто прояви переходу від архаїчного світорозуміння до діяльнісного світогляду на прикладі вчення Платона. Проаналізовані особливості трьох підходів до істини, що викладені в платонівській притчі про печеру. Висвітлено вплив ідеї Блага на відмову від традиційного уявлення про істину. Розкрито своєрідність пізнавальних стратегій античної людини. Продемонстровано зв'язок між еволюцією в розумінні істини та переосмисленням проблеми буття в координатах діяльнісної парадигми.

Apart from his teachings, wonders and scientific discoveries, Pythagoras was also known for his wide-ranging journeys. Ancient authors alleged that he visited many countries and nations from Egypt to India, stayed with the Phoenicians and the Ethiopians and talked to the Persian Magi and Gallic Druids. However, he never went to the North. If, nevertheless, he was eventually associated with the northern inhabitants, it is only because they themselves came into close contact with him. The first of them was Zalmoxis, (...) a deity of a Thracian tribe, the Getae, who guaranteed them immortality after death. Having described a blood ritual that the Getae practised to become immortal, Herodotus relates a story he heard from the Hellespontine and Pontic Greeks. It goes that Zalmoxis was not adaimōnbut a former slave of Pythagoras on Samos and, having adopted the doctrine of immortality from him, he returned to Thrace and converted his tribesmen to it with a cunning trick. He invited the most prominent of them to a men's hall for entertainment and told them that neither he nor they or their descendants would die, but would live eternally. Then, having constructed a secret underground chamber, he suddenly disappeared from the eyes of the Getae and hid in his shelter for three full years, being lamented as dead. Then he showed himself again to the Getae, thus persuading them of the truth of his promises. (shrink)

Instead of the usual asymptotic passage from quantum mechanics to classical mechanics when a parameter tended to infinity, a sharp boundary is obtained for the domain of existence of classical reality. The last is treated as separable empirical reality following d'Espagnat, described by a mathematical superstructure over quantum dynamics for the universal wave function. Being empirical, this reality is constructed in terms of both fundamental notions and characteristics of observers. It is presupposed that considered observers perceive the world as a (...) system of collective degrees of freedom that are inherently dissipative because of interaction with thermal degrees of freedom. Relevant problems of foundation of statistical physics are considered. A feasible example is given of a macroscopic system not admitting such classical reality.The article contains a concise survey of some relevant domains: quantum and classical Bell-type inequalities; universal wave function; approaches to quantum description of macroscopic world, with emphasis on dissipation; spontaneous reduction models; experimental tests of the universal validity of the quantum theory. (shrink)

There is no doubt that periodization is a rather effective method of data ordering and analysis, but it deals with exceptionally complex types of processual and temporal phenomena and thus it simplifies historical reality. Many scholars emphasize the great importance of periodization for the study of history. In fact, any periodization suffers from one-sidedness and certain deviations from reality. However, the number and significance of such deviations can be radically diminished as the effectiveness of periodization is directly connected with its (...) author's understanding of the rules and peculiarities of this methodological procedure. In this paper we would like to suggest a model of periodization of history based on our theory of historical process. We shall also demonstrate some possibilities of mathematical modeling for the problems concerning the macroperiodization of the world historical process. This analysis identifies a number of cycles within this process and suggests its generally hyperexponential shape, which makes it possible to propose a number of forecasts concerning the forthcoming decades. (shrink)

The extremely pernicious and paganly immoral principles stated by the Florentine secretary run counter to all national thought and have incontestably exercised a corrupting influence on it.F. SchlegelWe must be grateful to Machiavelli and other writers who like him have openly and without dissimulation shown not how men ought to act, but how they do normally act.F. BaconThe interpretation of Machiavelli's philosophy of history encounters specific difficulties. His contribution to the history of thought is unique and yet rooted in the (...) culture that was typical of the Renaissance; it constitutes—something rarely found among the creative spirits of the High Renaissance—the logical-historical limit of that culture, the critical point at which the contradictions that characterize it tragically come to light. (shrink)

The comparison between biological and social macroevolution is a very important (though insufficiently studied) subject whose analysis renders new significant possibilities to comprehend the processes, trends, mechanisms, and peculiarities of each of the two types of macroevolution. Of course, there are a few rather important (and very understandable) differences between them; however, it appears possible to identify a number of fundamental similarities. One may single out at least three fundamental sets of factors determining those similarities. First of all, those similarities (...) stem from the fact that in both cases we are dealing with very complex non-equilibrium (but rather stable) systems whose principles of functioning and evolution are described by the General Systems' Theory, as well as by a number of cybernetic principles and laws. -/- Secondly, in both cases we do not deal with isolated systems; in both cases we deal with a complex interaction between systems of organic systems and external environment, whereas the reaction of systems to external challenges can be described in terms of certain general principles (that, however, express themselves rather differently within the biological reality, on the one hand, and within the social reality, on the other). -/- Thirdly, it is necessary to mention a direct ‘genetic’ link between the two types of macroevolution and their mutual influence. -/- It is important to emphasize that the very similarity of the principles and regularities of the two types of macroevolution does not imply their identity. Rather significant similarities are frequently accompanied by enormous differences. For example, genomes of the chimpanzees and the humans are very similar – with differences constituting just a few per cent; however, there are enormous differences with respect to intellectual and social differences of the chimpanzees and the humans hidden behind the apparently ‘insignificant’ difference between the two genomes. Thus, in certain respects it appears reasonable to consider the biological and social macroevolution as a single macroevolutionary process. This implies the necessity to comprehend the general laws and regularities that describe this process, though their manifestations may display significant variations depending on properties of a concrete evolving entity (biological, or social one). An important notion that may contribute to the improvement of the operationalization level as regards the comparison between the two types of macroevolution is the one that we suggested some time ago – the social aromorphosis (that was developed as a counterpart to the notion of biological aromorphosis well established within Russian evolutionary biology). We regard social aromorphosis as a rare qualitative macrochange that increases in a very significant way complexity, adaptability, and mutual influence of the social systems, that opens new possibilities for social macrodevelopment. In our paper we discuss a number of regularities that describe biological and social macroevolution and that employ the notions of social and biological aromorphosis such as ones of the module evolution (or the evolutionary ‘block assemblage’), ‘payment for arogenic progress’ etc. (shrink)

Lotman’s conception of semiosphere opens the way to development of spatial semiotics as a special branch of sign theory. There are a lot of peculiarities in the spatial semiosis, which distinguish it from the temporal ones. These distinctions are connected with some special features of semiotized space, and they touch both upon the spatial texts and upon the spatial codes. The spatial syntax has its own specific structures, which can be reversed, non-linear and continual, created without discrete signs. The differentiation (...) relates also to semantics of spatial signs and texts, which are mainly motivated by their denotates due to similarity or contiguity. There are some pragmatic peculiarities of the spatial semiosis: the greater connection with the praxis, on the one hand, and the greater ability for the preservation of the cultural memory, on the other hand. The mainly visual character of spatial texts in plane of expression can be also considered as its specific pragmatic property. These peculiarities give some special possibilities for the spatial semiosis and make necessary its participation in the various spheres of the culture, where diverse spatial codes interact in different ways between each other and with temporal codes as well. (shrink)

The problem of the correlation between universalism and nationalism has long been the subject of scholarly debate and social harassment by conflicting social groups. To some extent, this is understandable, since a practical conflict between the universal and the national has always existed in any world religion. "This contradiction is historical," L. Filipovich emphasizes, "it emerges with their appearance. Traditionally, the universal and the cosmopolitan in religion have been opposed to the local and ethnic, which is connected with the origin (...) of these phenomena.". (shrink)