Introduction. The influence of virtual reality on the processes of deanthropologization becomes an obvious fact of the development of numerical rela- tions that determine philosophical concepts in the direction of posthumanistic discourse. In this type of discourse, a person is reduced to a numerical operation, an intermediate procedural link in the network structure of a numerical relationship with other objects of the digital network. The purpose of the article is to identify the rela- tionship between virtuality and imagination, the (...) distinction between a virtual person and a vividly imagining one. Methods. The author uses the methods of decon- struction, which identifiy new philosophical meanings of established understand- ings of virtuality and related anthropological types, and the phenomenological method of studying the issues of virtuality and anthropological reality, forming new perspectives for studying the phenom- enon of virtuality through an appeal to the constitu- tive role of consciousness. Scientific novelty of the research. The scientific novelty of the study is represented by the discovery of a new anthropological distinction between homo imaginabundus and homo virtualis, implying on- tological differences of these types in their appeal to the subjective and objective constitutive role of consciousness. Results. If the anthropological type homo imagi- nabundus is vividly imaginative and is associated with the phenomena of authentic virtuality and sub- jectivity, then homo virtualis refers to inauthentic virtuality only as one of its possible variants without connection with the self—affecting component as such. Conclusions. Anthropological reality is in a state of bifurcation, from which it can emerge in several ways, the most likely of which will be the ways of deanthropologization in algorithmic flows and codes of the digital environment, or the way of preserving the phenomena of self-action, vivid im- agination associated with subjectivity and the field of authentic virtuality. (shrink)

Introduction. The technocratization that a person faces in the current reality, along with increased life comfort, has also brought with it a clear threat to changing the status of a person in the world irrevocably. In the discourse of modern posthumanistic philosophy, attempts are being made not to annul the privileges of a person, but to extend them to the whole world, that is, to make suffering, the ability to question, subjectivity and other characteristics of a person belong to everyone. (...) The Russian philosophical tradition of questioning about man throughout its existence denied and continues to deny the deanthropologization of the world and seeks to conduct a discourse about man as one who is ontologically not equal to the world and cannot be forced out of the privileged position he occupies. -/- The purpose of the article is to touch upon the most interesting, in the author’s opinion, works existing in the world research field concerning the philosophical understanding of the “Legend of the Grand Inquisitor”, as well as to develop her own idea, which is based on an attempt to philosophically and anthropologically refract the “Legend” and to show that it bears the features of precisely Russian philosophical thought and radically denies the deanthropological tendencies of Western thought, arising from its internal logic and naturally leading it to nullify the privileged position of man in the world, and to demonstrate the possibilities that the Russian philosophical tradition provides for overcoming the anthropological catastrophe, which is so widely discussed today. -/- Methods. The main method of the research is a comparative philosophical and literary analysis of the works of F. M. Dostoevsky, V. V. Rozanov, N. A. Berdyaev, S. L. Frank, A. Camus, Z. Freud, I. Neifeld, G. Hesse, as well as a point reference to the works of K. N. Leontiev, S. N. Bulgakov, N. O. Lossky and V. S. Solovyov. These types of analysis are aimed at identifying connotations and discrepancies in the philosophical systems of the studied thinkers, both at the level of textual analysis of their works, and at the level of studying their concepts. Textual analysis is used as an additional method. The author of the article gives a conscious preference to the comparative method, as such, which serves to achieve the purpose of the article. -/- Scientific novelty of the research. The paper focuses on comparing attempts to conceptualize a person in the discourse of Russian and European thought. As exemplified by a number of representatives of the Russian and Western intellectual traditions, as well as a comparative analysis of their concepts. The article attempts to reflect the deep difference between the two anthropologies. In addition, the author makes an attempt to find in the philosophy of F. M. Dostoevsky those deep anthropological problems that are of a universal nature, and have found their understanding, both in the Russian and in the European philosophical tradition. -/- Results. The author explores the anthropological configurations of the philosophies of the chosen thinkers. The article analyzes both Russian and European attempts to ask about a person, focusing their attention on interpreting the “Legend of the Grand Inquisitor”, which is part of the last novel by the Russian writer and thinker F. M. Dostoevsky. -/- Conclusions. Russian philosophical thought, which is rooted in the Gospel tradition of comprehending man, is characterized by attempts to see person as finite, which contains the infinite. Russian philosophy in its ideas continues to defend man, his existential uniqueness and subjectivity, guaranteed by God. At the same time, European philosophy is on the path of development, in the process of which a person risks losing the privileges of existence, a posthuman, a superhuman is conceptualized, and a tendency is outlined to blur the border between a human and non-human entities. (shrink)

In order to delimit the realm of social phenomena, sociologists refer implicitly or explicitly to a distinction between living human beings and other entities, that is, sociologists equate the social world with the world of living humans. This consensus has been questioned by only a few authors, such as Luckmann, and some scholars of science studies. According to these approaches, it would be ethnocentric to treat as self-evident the premise that only living human beings can be social actors. The methodological (...) consequence of such critique is a radical deanthropologization of sociological research. It must be considered an open question whether or not only living human can be social actors. The paper starts with a discussion of the methodological problems posed by such an analysis of the borders of the social world, and presents the results of an empirical analysis of these borders in the fields of intensive care and neurological rehabilitation. Within these fields it must be determined whether a body is a living human body or a symbol using human body. The analysis of these elementary border phenomena challenges basic sociological concepts. The relevant contemporary sociological theories refer to a dyadic constellation as the systematic starting point of their concept of sociality. The complex relationship between at least two entities is understood as the basis of the development of a novel order that functions as a mediating structure between the involved parties. Based upon empirical data, I argue that it is necessary to change this foundational assumption. Not the dyad but the triad must be understood as the foundational constellation. This implies a new understanding of the third actor, which is distinct from the concepts developed by Simmel and Berger and Luckmann. (shrink)

This article explores the changing parameters of sensibility in the context of a postan­thropocentric paradigm in art. In particular, we address the mechanism of the construc­tion of affects building on the idea of their external autonomy in art. The fundamental disconnectedness of the realm of sensuality is described in the context of object ontolo­gies, via the modes of connectedness and conditionality that exist beyond the limits of individual experience. A generalized description of the procedures of the postanthro­pocentric paradigm of distributed (...) aesthetics is provided. The article discusses the shift in the understanding of the function and autonomy of art associated with the emergence of object forms of art. The current situation in object art, in particular in total installa­tions, suggests a different paradigm of aesthetics. The specific workings of such a para­digm are clarified on the basis of the distinction between affect and emotion proposed by Brian Massumi in his conception of the autonomy of affect. The authors conclude that in deanthropologized environments sensuality operates as a chain of distributed af­fects associated with the effects of increasing intensity and inhibition of intensity through forms of appropriation of affect into a chain of successive instances of sensual­ity. The article’s general theoretical task is to describe the operation of affect structures under conditions of object deanthropologization. The applied task of the article is to de­scribe the mechanisms of understanding and perception of object forms of art, in partic­ular such a form as total installation. (shrink)

Thanks to the development of modern technologies, there is a feeling that the machine can do anything: write a pseudoscientific article, perform household chores, and remind us of important things. Questions arise: what can't the machine do? What does it mean to be human today? The article examines the versions of how the border between the human and non-human in a person is interpreted in fiction. Such variations of "artificial man" as golem, robot, and artificial intelligence are studied. Created from (...) different materials and animated by different methods, these creatures reflect different ideas about who a person is. We propose two approaches to the idea of creating a "man — artificial man" — mythological and natural science, supported by posthumanist philosophy. The deanthropologizing tendency in literary works anticipates the logic of transhumanism. A person is reduced either to a biological datum (a set of genes, a game of hormones, neural connections), or to intelligence, competing with artificial intelligence and inevitably suffering defeat. The anthropological approach in works of art continues the mythological tradition. Man is thought of as a being endowed with consciousness, which is not reducible to the world. "Artificial man" is a double, an antipode, another, that is, absolutely different, in relation to which a person can establish his own identity. (shrink)