The article deals with the Heidegger’s interpretation of the nature of metaphysics as “the onto-theological structure of metaphysics”. It marks out the key characteristic of metaphysics – oblivion of the ontological difference, and demonstrates mutual belonging in the ontological and theological groundings of metaphysics. The radicalization of Heidegger’s destruction of metaphysics in theological hermeneutics is specially considered. It is argued that in the project of overcoming metaphysics the radical hermeneutics accentuates an attempt to return to facticity life and an attention to the particular, individual and singular, that is not absorbed by the universalist knowledge system.

The paper compares N. Lossky’s and M. Scheler’s positions regarding an issue of understanding the psychic life of others. Two presuppositions unite them, albeit formally. The first is the another’s self reality, the second is the possibility of direct knowledge of someone else’s psychic life. There are three their significant substantive differences: 1. The rank of issues: for Lossky, knowledge about someone else’s psychic life is a special case of knowledge about the external world; for Scheler, on the contrary, a knowledge of someone else’s ego is the primary and deepest one. 2. For Lossky, observation gives access to the reality of someone else’s Ego; For Scheler, observation is not a phenomenological experience at all. 3. Lossky proceeds from the difference of experience and observation, and also from the difference in self and others’ psychic life; Scheler proceeds from the metaphysical hypothesis of the flow of experiences that is indifferent to the I-YoU.

The article traces the origins of “other minds” issue, its connection to the issue of self-awareness, its solving, which was called the argument from analogy. The criticism of the argument by analogy is considered, as well as the attempt of its improvement by Russian philosopher S.A. Askoldov.

The article concerns Russian philosopher Vladimir Franzevich Ern (1882–1917), for whom the theme of Logos was the central. Ern interpreted Russian religious philosophy as the philosophy of Logos, which is opposed to the new European philosophy of ratio. Author analyzes the main components of Ern’s philosophical doctrine, whose main work is called the fight for Logos.

The article is dedicated to the centenary of the Russian revolution and the analysis of its origins, causes and consequences in the works of Russian philosophers of the Silver Age. All the philosophers presented below were, in a certain sense, victims of the revolution. They either died, or were expelled from the country, or were forced to be silenced for many years. But for all of their lives they were spiritually connected to Russia, they analyzed causes for the defeat of emerging democracy, predicted the inevitable defeat of communism, mourned the death of national culture and sought the ways of its revival. one must say that the further development of our country has confirmed the correctness of their analysis and prophecies.

The article analyzes o. Mandelstam poetics, according to which the revolution leads to the disappearance of the meaning of culture. Mandelstam prose is considered as the philosophical one. The unity of the event existential experience and the theoretical movement of thought, which allows the poet to transform metaphors into concepts, attesting to the event of demand for the poetry of philosophy that declares mass culture era advent.

This article represents an attempt of creating the modern historiosophy by means of philosophy of culture. It reveals the cultural development mechanisms of historical process unfold in its different – constructive and destructive – forms.

The article is devoted to the place and role of the memory in traditional and mass culture. An ordinary person is, as a rule, a being deprived of memory. or, it’s better to say, an individual with a poorly developed individual memory and a highly developed ancestral memory. The predominant contents of such memory are myths. Anti-individual nature of people’s memory is expressed in its inability to retain historical events and persons in the collective memory. It can be done only by turning them into archetypes, that is, canceling all their “historical” and “personal” features. Authoritarian government is committed to the creation of a man not burdened with the past, having a “memory” which is created by the efforts of ideologues and is being systematically embedded in the consciousness of the masses through books and mass media. This cultivated memory is designed to suppress the memory of an individual, to make it a pale shadow against the background of great deeds and heroes. In fact, it is the cultivation of national amnesia.

The article identifies the effect of personalization of politics: its definition is given, the determinants and possible consequences are considered. That effect is illustrated by some features in the Asian and European style of modern political leadership.

The paper discusses a publicistic L.N. Tolstoy text which was first published by V.G. Chertkov in London in 1897. In Russia it was first published only in 1917 (as a booklet) and republished in 1954 and 1984 (in Tolstoy’s Collected Works). In the English speaking world this text is known as “A Letter to (Russian) Liberals”. In 1919, M.K. Gandhi included it in the list of the obligatory reading for his followers, along with Plato’s “Apology of Socrates” and Henry Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience”. In the USSR that text has been published only as Tolstoy’s private letter to A.M. Kalmykova (1849/50 – 1926). But this private letter is one of Tolstoy’s most articulate and passionate anti-state utterances.

The article studies basic biopolitics concepts of M. Foucault, G. Agamben and A. Negri. Foucault defines the biopolitics as the result of ruling model change from disciplinary to biopolitical as a form of population ruling. Agamben believes that any political regime today is biopolitical, its main subject is a person of homo sacer who can be killed with impunity by introducing a state of emergency on the localized territory – the camp. Negri treats biopolitics as a modern form of economic management with internal resistance processes against the authority by individuals, that means the processes of subjectification resulting the profits increase. 

In article draws attention to that fact that now mass sociological polls are used as the main method for collection of sociological information what it is not always correct. It is noted that interdisciplinary techniques could be used in sociological researches more widely, and the data got with their help would allow raising reliability of the data obtained by means of inquiries and covering the studied problems more deeply. Social and mental mapping is considered in the context of new opportunities connected to the information technology development, creation of the interactive maps, formation of the scale databases containing both social, and factual information and “bound” to certain territories.

The article is devoted to a range of issues related to the phenomenon of the crisis of European culture, including one of the major points of romanticism – the case of the individual in his conflict with the surrounding world. In the context of the socio-cultural crisis of the turn of the 19–20th centuries this theme acquires a special sound in both: philosophy and literature. G. Ibsen, D. Galsworthy, R. Musil and others reflected the crisis essence of the era – the conflict of the outgoing ideals of spirituality and the emerging priorities of mass society. In the novel “Doctor Faustus” T. Mann presented his view on the crisis era: the crisis of culture and anthropological crisis intersect in the musician fate.

This article is an attempt to perform a search of a synthesis of the education, religion and science in the Russian Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. The article text is divided into two parts. The first part shows an impact of the secularization and state control of education and science, as well as the phenomenon of “scientification” of Russian Enlightenment. The second part (in the next issue of the Vestnik) includes the hidden trajectory, upon which the scientific and religious discourses of the Russian age of Enlightenment were gradually rebuilt.

The question how to teach philosophy is strongly connected with the question about the subject of philosophy. There are a lot of different approaches to defining the subject matter of learning in the educational course of philosophy. The article claims that the most important pedagogical task is considering the variety of thinking practices. Students should be oriented to research the heuristic strategies of such practices as well as to be able of analyzing the potential of their applicability to different classes of issues. According to that general thesis, it is necessary to change the whole design of the educational course “Philosophy” for the bachelor students of non-philosophical educational programs.

The article deals with the issues of choice faced by the modern Russian university. It considers the positive and negative aspects of introducing market approaches to education in Russia and abroad. The author seeks to answer the questions: is the identity of the Russian university lost in the context of its following the world trends and what tactics and strategies are necessary in order to survive in competition and not lose the face?