В монографии в широком историческом контексте охарактеризован процесс возникновения и развития сущностного наполнения принципа природосообразности в истории филисофско-педагогической мысли от античного периода по Новое время.

The doctrine of idols is one of the most famous aspects of Bacon's thought. Yet his claim that the idols lead to madness has gone almost entirely unnoticed. This paper argues that Bacon's theory of idols underlies his diagnosis of the contemporary condition as one of ‘universal madness’. In contrast to interpretations that locate his doctrine of error and recovery within the biblical narrative of the Fall, the present analysis focuses on the material and cultural sources of the mind's tendency (...) towards error. It explains the idols in terms of Bacon's materialist psychology and his exposé of the debilitating effects of language and traditional learning. In so doing, it highlights the truly radical nature of the idols. For Bacon, the first step towards sanity was to alert people to the prevailing madness. The doctrine of idols was intended as a wake-up call, preparing the way for a remedy in the form of his new method of inquiry. The paper concludes by indicating how Bacon's method aimed to treat ‘universal madness’, and it suggests that his diagnosis influenced John Locke. (shrink)

Kant’s dissertation for the Master’s degree Succinct Exposition of Some Meditations on Fire was written in Latin in 1755 as a sample (specimen) preceding a Master’s exam, but its first printing did not appear until 1838. What is the relevance of this Master’s dissertation for historical and philosophical studies? To answer this question I analyse the structure and give a brief summary of the dissertation, look at the history of its writing and try to identify the place of this work (...) among Kant’s other papers on natural philosophy. I then demonstrate that Kant’s concept of ether as an elastic matter of fire, heat and light containing the forces of attraction and repulsion originates in the dissertation On Fire. I identify the provisions in Kant’s early works which he later develops in the Master’s dissertation and establish continuity between the text of On Fire and the so-called Physical Monadology, draw parallels between the ideas enunciated by Kant in his first dissertation and the interpretation of ether in the printed works that followed. Finally, I put forward the hypothesis of the heuristic potential of the On Fire treatise for the analysis of Kant’s manuscript legacy. Perhaps this dissertation will enable researchers to clear up some tangled propositions in Kant’s Opus Postumum. However, a series of further studies is needed to verify the hypothesis. (shrink)

In his two volumes on Intuitive Thought Professor Edouard Le Roy continues his idealistic interpretation of spiritual creativity, and turns from its ‘products’ manifested in biological and human evolution to consider its most intimate character, as it is ‘lived through’ or directly experienced in intuitive and inventive thinking. The whole plan and its execution are determined by two characteristic themes of Bergsonism—intuition and the dynamical schema—though these are repensès in a quite original way. “Intuitive thought” and “metaphysical thought,” M. Le (...) Roy affirms in the preface, are “one and the same”; the latter is condemned only by those who misconceive the former. So by correcting misunderstandings he seeks to. (shrink)

The separable hidden variables theory (Bhave [1986]) of Aspect's [1982] four single channel polarizers is developed further to consider possible modified Aspect's experiment with four double channel polarizers. It is shown that Aspect's commutator is not a truly stochastic commutator, and that until such a truly stochastic commutator is devised, experiments based on Bell's inequalities (like those of Aspect's) cannot be adequate experimental tests of quantum nonseparability.

The reasonable human nature appears in the Enlightenment’s philosophy as a reduction of the human being and its manifestations to a complex of natural impulses when all former norms of perception, reflections, inclinations, actions and the moral principles, which lie in their basis, are canceled in the free human self-experimenting. The monarchy idea depreciates when its citizens turn in the public good’s proponents on the basis of a blind republican consent about the egoism’s limitation (Robespierre) and a prosopo-peia of freedom (...) that gives to a nation the self-government illusion. The reconsideration of the revolutionary moment as a self-affirmation of romantic spirit is connected for Tolstoy with the “world will” novel poetics opening evolutionary moment in the affective and reflexive dynamics of the hero’s consciousness, the limiting witness of the narrator and the author’s horizon of progressive movement to the historical process’s purpose that creates the belief in the need of coexistence with other participating consciousnesses. The revolutionary and evolutionary reflection of Tolstoy is related to the monoteis-tic prosopopoeia of divine kenosis. From an artistic representation of signifying articulations of the evolutionary world the teacher’s reflection of Tolstoy is born. For Tolstoy revolution is the moment of the senseless violence aiming to eliminate the common evil of the world. The conceptual basis of literary culture as an art and ideological formatting of reactive consciousnesses for Tolstoy is an infinite aspiration to the human self-limitation. (shrink)

Purpose of this article is to study the phenomenon of desire in Ancient Chinese and ancient Indian society, to reveal a material basis for the appearance and formation of the specific ethical attitude towards desire in the philosophical reflection of ancient thinkers. To fulfil this purpose, we should study and analyse methodology of desire studies in philosophical and psychological literature, analyse the ethical attitude towards desire in religious and philosophical texts of Chinese and Indian thinkers, understand social and economic basis (...) of such an ethical attitude, that is to establish material basis of desire as the specific form of psychic activity and to recreate the logic of its development. Theoretical basis. Culturological and economic studies of orientalists and dialectical logic. Originality. The paper presents the analysis of the perspectives and drawbacks of different approaches in desire studies. Research of ethical attitude towards the desire in Ancient China and India allowed us to recreate the logic of social relations and the level of productive forces in that society. The ideological foundation of conservation and recreation of power and property relations was found in the religious doctrine of suppression of individual desires. The connection between desire formation and division of labour and its preservation in the religious, political and legal forms of social consciousness was shown. Methodological perspectives of dialectical logic were defined in the study of logical and historical coincidence in the further development of the phenomenon and the notion of desire. Conclusions. Analysis of modern philosophical and psychological literature has revealed methodological drawbacks in desire studies, as they are focused on studying desire’s notion, its representation or separate aspects of desire in individual psyche disregarding its inner logic and material basis of its becoming. Studies of the ethical attitude towards desire in Eastern culture have shown the consensus in desire suppression of individuals and similarities between Ancient Chinese and Indian cultures. There is shown significance and material basis of the transcendental law suppressing the desires even of the higher classes of the oriental society. The methodological approach stated in this article can be applied for further desire studies of Ancient Greece culture, Christian ethics and modern society. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to reveal philosophical ideas in the mythology and folklore of the indigenous peoples of North America. An important question: "Can we assume that the spiritual culture of the American Indians contained philosophical knowledge?" remains relevant today. For example, European philosophy is defined by appeals to philosophers of the past, their texts. The philosophical tradition is characterized by rational argumentation and formulation of philosophical questions that differ from the questions of ordinary language. However, the problem (...) lies in the term "philosophy", which belongs to the so-called "philosophical untranslatability" and has many definitions. The question of whether philosophy is exclusively a phenomenon of European culture is still controversial. In the article, the concept of philosophy is used in a broad sense, which allows the analysis of the intellectual heritage of the culture of the indigenous people of North America for philosophical ideas. Theoretical basis of the study consists of primary sources, which are limited due to the "documentary horizon". It contains myths about the Twins, ritual rhetoric, examples of dream interpretation practices and the practical wisdom of tribal chiefs. The Chronicle of "Vallamolum", or "the Red List", testifies to the special idea of the Indians about history and their own historicity. Analysis of cosmogonical and cosmological ideas reveals the special features of the anthropological ideas of the North American Indians. Combined with the philosophical ideas of the Puritan philosophy of the settlers of New England, this analysis allows us to explore in more detail the processes of acculturation. The study uses critical literature from scholars and leading researchers of the wisdom and philosophy of Native Americans, such as Michael Yellow Bird, J. Baird Callicott, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dennis H. McPherson, Lewis Henri Morgan, Thomas M. Norton-Smith, J. Douglas Rabb, Paul Radin, Jon Ewbank Manchip White. The views of early American philosophers: R. Williams, W. Penn, R. W. Emerson, on the problem of the relationship between the culture of settlers and the indigenous people of North America are noteworthy. Originality lies in the application of historical and philosophical methodology, identifying the features of philosophizing in the spiritual culture and worldview of the indigenous people of North America. Conclusions. In the conclusions, the obtained results complement the history of the origin and development of philosophical thought of the early American philosophy. (shrink)

The specificity of tantric soteriology consists of a combination of three basic principles - unity, salvation, and bliss. This article explores the principle of salvation. Spiritual liberation implies the final overcoming of obstacles hindering the new worldview. Unlike the principle of unity, the principle of salvation focuses on difference, not on identity, drawing a sharp line between the desired state of liberation and the present state of dependence. The main obstacles to spiritual liberation are expressed in the well-known triad “avidyā (...) - karma - saṃsāra”. The principle of salvation appears in Tantrism in two interrelated forms, the ascetic and śaktic ones. Both of them agree with each other in rejection of spiritual ignorance. Spiritual ignorance is the main “negative goal”; without deliverance from it there is no freedom. The state of ignorance is existential one and endowed with powerful protective “forces”. The principle of salvation implies the deliverance not only from everything that is usually considered negative, but also of “positive” things. In the śaktic mode of the principle of salvation, it is assumed that an incorrect view of reality is eliminated by a correct view of it. Due to the fact that, according to the tantric adepts, the energies of the divine Śakti act in the world, the understanding of this fact leads the adept to stop perceiving himself as a dependent being even in the midst of an infinite variety of processes and events of the world. Life is then perceived as an unconditioned, spontaneous “divine play”, a stream of divine pleasure. Ascetic form can be reduced to an ontological interpretation of the principle of salvation, and śaktic form to a cognitive one. (shrink)