The article discusses Husserl’s phenomenological method in the aspect of the ambivalent attitude to skepticism: explicit criticism and implicit convergence with the position of skepticism.

The main thesis of the article is that skepticism as overcoming doubts and neutralizing the positive and negative is Husserl’s main methodological guideline, and the term “epoch” is a designation of a position that combines the theoretical-cognitive principle of the equivalence of givenness in relation to the existence or non-existence of an object with an attempt to present the refusal to engage in any kind of concrete experience as a distinctive experience. At the same time, a distinction is made between the philosophical and the common understanding of skepticism. The author reveals the general presupposition of skepticism: to assume identity as an experience rather than an artificial procedure.

He also analyzes the method of introduction and the status of Husserl’s basic terms “meaning” and “sense” in the context of the “pure logic” project. It is shown that the source of the terms “meaning intention” and “fulfilment of meaning” is the sphere of emotions and feelings. Brentano’s and Husserl’s opposing positions concerning the analogy between judgments and emotions are stated. A consideration is given to Husserl’s assessment of the role of subjectivism and skepticism in overcoming the natural attitude. Contrary to Husserl, who brought together subjectivism and skepticism to the point of identification, an essential difference is made between them. The article criticizes the way of Husserl’s differentiation between the meaning and the object with the help of the assumption of the self-identity of the object with different meanings. In this regard, the well-known Husserl’s examples with Napoleon, the triangle, and the horses which should have served as confirmation of the validity of this difference, are subjected to critical analysis. Two key points of phenomenological skepticism are highlighted: the neutrality of meaning, or sense, in relation to the reality of the object, and the neutrality of the object in relation to its existence or non-existence.

The article deals with the question of the mundane motivation and affective character of phenomenological epoche. An attempt is made to show that, despite the fact that the epoche is interpreted by Husserl as a methodical operation, suspending engagement with the world – the affective engagement with the world as well as the one, constituted by the naive belief in the existence of the world – the phenomenological epoche, like the skeptical one, is inextricably linked to the pursuance of the certain affective state, namely the state of placidity, and is motivated by the mundane interests, which it, at the same time, sublates retroactively. Thereby, the epoche turns out to be the radical affective engagement with the world as such. The first section of the article shows that in the classical description of the epoche in § 31–32 of Ideas I the reasons Husserls gives for the epoche are not the theoretical, but the existential-practical ones. The epoche should enable those who practice it achieve total freedom towards the world. The author demonstrates that the freedom is nothing but the placidity in the phenomenological sense or the ataraxy. The second section explicates the way the epoche is tied to the natural engagement with the world. The epoche motivation cannot be reduced to the freedom, since the epoche, according to Husserl, can be performed only in relation to something that can undergo modalization, that is, to be given as that which is dubious, nonexistent, possible etc. Thus, the epoche is also motivated by the fact, that the world can undergo modalization. But the modalization presupposes the initial engagement with the word the epoche just suspends. Through the epoche the engagement is disclosed as the one which cannot be realized. Therefore, the affective nature of the epoche consists not only in the placidity, but also in the despair, which is forgoing the hope of realizing the mundane interests and sublates them in hindsight. In contrast to the natural experience the epoche as placidity and despair is true affective engagement with the world as world.

The article considers M. Heidegger’s deconstruction of the metaphysical foundations for the moral philosophy of modern times. Heidegger’s interpretation of Aristotle (together with an analysis of early Christianity) offers an original version of ontology combined with ethics. In such optics, Being and Time, like Nicomachean Ethics, is an ethical treatise: it is also based on an understanding of human ethos (from the Greek ἦθος, “temper, character, nest”) and reveals the characteristics of life structured by “proper”. During the Age of Enlightenment (17th–19th centuries), a paradigm shift occurred in the field of practical philosophy, associated with the transition from ethics (that is, ethos as a form of life with its practical and normative dimensions) to moral concepts based on individualism and the distinction between facts and values. The split between ontology and the teachings of morality made impossible any rational substantiation or justification of ethics. Unlike modernist theories of morality, which attempt to express impartial and value-free principles of individual behavior, Heidegger explores the conditions for the possibility of changing lifestyles. His understanding of ethics can be interpreted in an Aristotelian context, in which life in society (that is, being in a “shared world”) determines the ontological conditions that make ethical action possible. The philosopher reveals the existence of Dasein in the context of a certain perfectionist understanding: two modes are found in it, one of which is obviously more valuable (or perfect) than the other – at least due to a wider perspective and deep self-understanding. The fulfillment of “ethics” means revealing an individualizing (“owned”) way of disclosing the world, what implies sensitivity to the call of Being and a readiness in the midst of the world to transform one’s finiteness in order to become a “genuine” member of the historical community. In the ontological structure of Dasein, such way of being is fulfilled in special revealing “moods” (πάθη), which are not reducible either to empirical sensibility or to cognitive functions.

The factual enactment of ethical values is expressed in resoluteness, steadfast adherence to the chosen historical heritage, sensitivity to all aspects of the existential situation. These characteristics of revealing “moods” form a list of metacultural virtues that are the basis for mutual understanding and dialogue between representatives of various “ethoses” of a fragmented society.

The article compares employees with higher education and those without, firstly, by the prevalence of attributes of instable, precarious employment, accompanied by low social and legal security, vulnerability; secondly, by the nature of the relationship between the employment instability and subjective well-being, interpreted in a broad sense as a set of diverse assessments of life in general, the situation in the field of work.

Based on the analysis of the data from the All-Russian survey of the working population, it was found that employees with higher education are less involved in precarious forms of labor relations, they are less likely to encounter such attributes of the employment instability as the absence of a termless employment contract, paid sick leave and vacation, unofficial salaries, frequent job changes.

With an increase in the employment instability, life satisfaction decreases equally for workers with and without higher education, whereas job satisfaction is more significant for the latter. The relationship between precarization and job satisfaction is mediated by the presence of higher education, which slightly compensates and smoothes out the negative effects of the employment instability, but at the same time does not help to completely avoid the attributions of precarization and their consequences for subjective well-being.

The article analyzes the free time and leisure practices of workers, in the face of growing instability of working conditions, non-standard employment, violations of the social and labor rights of workers. Despite the predictions of researchers about a significant increase in free time and conscious leisure of workers in the future, associated with the technological and social changes, at the present time, one can observe an obvious devaluation of the value of free time as a time of the recreation, self-development, rest and idleness. An analysis of the data obtained in the course of the all-Russian research “Precariat-2018” and “Precariat-2022”, conducted by the Sociological Faculty of the Russian State Humanitarian University in 2018 and 2022, showed that a significant part of the working population is experiencing a constant lack of free time, they are constantly overworking, they can afford passive leisure, which does not require significant material and emotional costs, and leisure practices reinforce social differentiation in society, and do not contribute to overcoming it. The blurring of the boundary between free and working time exacerbates the position of workers, and, accordingly, there is virtually no time left for meaningful, active and developing leisure practices.

The article deals with the methodical issues of the formation of classification characteristics for a typological analysis of young people in terms of health-saving behavior. Methodical solutions are proposed for introducing a set of mutually independent indicators – classification characteristics – based on the concept of a four-component model for measurement of health-saving behavior. That model has become widespread in Russian and foreign studies, its constituent elements relate to smoking/smoking cessation, to the use of alcoholic beverages, to the nature of nutrition and physical activity. The classification characteristics that describe such a basis for the typology are formed in the form of indices, constructed on the basis of a secondary conceptualization of the primary data from the Russian Monitoring of the Economic Situation and Health of the Population of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (RLMS HSE) (2017).

The article focuses on the analysis of the friendship, avoiding conflicts in conflict, as well as teaching children the practices of lying as some formats of practices of social interaction in childhood, laying the foundations of social order in society. The focus is on current research on: 1) the impact of family migration on children’s friendship, 2) conceptualization of friendship between primary school children in ethnically diverse communities, 3) understanding the specifics of friendship in family and school among refugee girls, 4) the “effects” of neighborhood, the negative consequences of growing up in a poor neighborhood, 5) the sabotage practices in the conflict between sibling children, 6) how parents teach their children to tell lies and 7) the eventfulness of the childhood of modern boys and girls. The considered practices are mainly mastered earlier by boys and children from wealthy families, and later by girls and children from poor families. It is concluded that friendship, avoiding conflicts and lying denote features of social interaction practices in childhood but bring up to relevance the issue of the need to continue their research in the context of the conditions of Russian childhood.

The article provides an analysis of the transformation in the film image of a nurse in the Soviet and post-Soviet times. The nursing staff is the most numerous in the entire hierarchy of physicians. Increasing the number of young people entering medical schools will greatly reduce the shortage of personnel in the industry, but it requires an increase in the status of a medical worker.

Cinema serves as a reliable tool for shaping public opinion, constructing it purposefully and systematically. The article shows that over the past decades, there has been a change in moral and ideological principles, attitudes of the professional group as well as the artistic image of the hero, his characteristic features are changing, and as a result, public opinion is also being transformed, following the cultural narrative in the form of cinema.

The author refers to the Soviet cinematographyin which heroes with high ideals and landmarks came to the fore. Over the next three decades, the image of the hero (medical worker) in the new Russia changed. The author gives a description of the storylines and characters of especially significant and popular films in order to understand how the audience sees the characters - nurses, and how, because of that public opinion can be influenced.

The article considers general approaches to the perception of Russian artwork by foreigners in medieval Russia from the end of the 15th to the 17th century. The establishment of a unified Russian state made ways for establishing various contacts with European countries. Representatives of different countries who came from Europe to Russia on various missions formed their own idea of the unfamiliar state, including its artistic culture. Artwork rarely came to the attention of travelers, who, due to the difference of religion, were usually not allowed into Orthodox churches. As a result, stable stereotypes were formed about the low artistic quality of icons and about the attitude of Russians to them as objects of pagan worship. Only a few of travelers, who got direct access to the best works and relevant explanations, could appreciate the artistic merits of icons as works of art. Along with icons, according to the testimony of foreign authors, since the end of the 15th century, portrait images also began to come into use. Despite the different foundations and traditions of ancient Russian and European art, the close interaction of the countries inevitably led to a common understanding of the tasks and forms of artistic work.

In 2001 Meldibekov created the work called Pastan – a video-performance in which the author is being methodically beaten and insulted in the process. Pastan is the first in the series that show four different scenarios involving a humiliated and suffering subject. That character represents regression to some kind of a primary state, assimilation with other living creatures and even inanimate objects. This anthropological and psychological ascesis is in line with the formal treatment of the video-performances, going back to the neo-avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s. The main medium here is also the body of the artist, almost free of any trappings of sociocultural identity. However, unlike the “classics”, Meldibekov is interested not so much in the boundaries of art as in the boundaries of humanity. In general, his works form a visual anthropology based on two poles. On the one hand, one can see monumental and triumphant forms in which political power is expressing itself, using esthetic mechanisms to rise vainly above the perishable human nature. But ironically, it is these monuments that Meldibekov sees as a symbol of the ephemeral. On the opposite pole one can see something over which power rises, but which inevitably forms its substrate, its perishable flesh, the expendable of history. The character in those video-performances is an antipode to the hero of a monument: he is miserable and unmonumental. But he is much sturdier; he persistently faces the strikes of destiny and is not so easy to break.

The topic of the emergence of art criticism in France in the second half of the 17th and the first half of the 18th century, being rather widely covered in foreign academic literature, is still underdeveloped in Russian art history. Nevertheless, that issue is extremely important for understanding the processes that took place in the French and more widely in the European artistic milieu.

The article aims to highlight the process of the criticism formation not only as a literary genre but primarily as a phenomenon of cultural life. Based on original written sources and foreign academic literature, the author traces how the appearance of fine art in the light of publicity was prepared in the Parisian artistic milieu.

The author addresses the important questions that arose during the formative and legitimizing phase of criticism, such as its distinction from pre-existing art theory, as well as the distinction between the critic and the theorist or fine art historian. The artwork must now satisfy not only the master and the customer and a small circle of connoisseurs, society also becomes an active participant in artistic life, and the viewer enshrines the right to judge the art.

The author shows how criticism is gradually becoming more diverse and polyphonic. Works written on behalf of a wide variety of characters are appearing, writers are adapting various literary genres that already exist: epistolary, diary, plays, poems, dialogues. For many years, criticism becomes an active channel of communication linking all participants in artistic life.