Maja Soboleva

Metaphysics, understood as the first philosophy, that is, the science of the ultimate foundations and principles of being, has long been declared an anachronism in the postmodern period.1 The pluralistic character of being, the heterogeneity of types of philosophical discourse and their mutual irreducibility, the spatiotemporal discreteness of various ontologies and epistemologies, the understanding of tradition as a given that needs to be overcome rather than continued—all these indicators point to the paradigm of new thinking within which flows the mainstream of twentieth-century philosophical thought. Outside this stream stands the figure of K.-O. Apel, who is devoted to the idea of a single philosophy and continues to uphold it in the face of criticism from all sides. Apel's quixotic unwillingness to relinquish his stance is demonstrated by his new book, published in 1998, in which he continues to develop his ideas, which constitute a complete conception of transcendental pragmatism.2 Inasmuch as a theory that had apparently been relegated to books on the history of philosophy has become topical again, my task is to return to its sources and to reconstruct3 and analyze its basic propositions.

Im Zentrum der Abhandlung steht die dialogische Bedeutungstheorie Bachtins. Es wird gezeigt, wie die grundlegenden Begriffe der Phänomenologie durch den dialogischen und sprechhandlungstheoretischen Ansatz modifiziert wurden. Folgende Aspekte werden herausgearbeitet: Konstitution des Gegenstandes im Dialog, doppelte Intentionalität des sprachlichen Bewusstseins, Phänomenologie der Relation von Frage und Antwort, produktive Hermeneutik der Sinnkonstruktion. Abschließend wird auf die Bachtinsche Neuformulierung des Subjekts auf dialogischer Grundlage eingegangen

The issue of the nature of cognitive experience has been a subject of lively debate in recent works on epistemology, and the philosophy of mind. During this debate, the relevance of Kant to contemporary theories of cognition has been re-discovered. However, participants in this debate disagree whether Kant was a conceptualist or a non-conceptualist, with regard to the character of intuitions. The central point of controversy concerns whether or not Kant’s sensible intuitions involve understanding and have a conceptual content. In this paper, I show that, despite their disagreements, both sides share a number of common presuppositions, which have determined a biased framework for the reading of Kant. My principal aim in this article is to reconcile the case for conceptualism with those interpretations which argue that intentionality and conceptuality can be separated. To achieve it, I present my own reconstruction of Kant’s theory of cognition, relying essentially on Kantian considerations found in the B-version of the Transcendental Deduction, and offer a new interpretation of Kantian conceptualism.

The question in the background of this article is what kind of epistemology can emerge on the basis of the philosophy of life. To answer this question, the theories of Georg Misch and Josef König have been analysed. Both authors differentiate between the analytic discourse of theoretical approaches to the world and the synthetic discourse of non-theoretical objectifications of life which create a human semantic environment. For Misch, the former is constituted with “discursive” and the later with “evocative” utterances. For König as developed in his work “Sein und Denken”, “determining” and “modifying” predicates oppose each other as cardinally different cognitive and epistemological entities. The article focuses on König′s analysis of the genesis and logics of “determining” and “modifying” predication following the strategy of his book. In conclusion some controversies between Misch′s and König′s conceptions of a language constitution of the world are represented and discussed

The article focuses on a phenomenological study of political action. The analysis includes three directions: the concept of action, paradigms that determine political actions, and the purpose of action. In the analysis of action, I first use the distinction between the concepts of “act” and “operate.” “To act” means a conscious, deliberate, rational action. In contrast, “operate” means to behave unconsciously, mechanically or automatically, passively or instinctively. The political implications of the distinction between an “acting” and “operating” person can be formulated in the terms “freedom of action” and “coercion to operate,” and the latter can be used as a criterion for determining the type of social system, as well as for evaluating the correlated psychological state of society. As the next step, I analyse the action as a process and a result. I argue that in the social sphere, action appears as the sum of these moments, and the social sphere is a derivate of action. The last aspect of the analysis of action is responsibility. I claim that responsibility can be interpreted as the awareness and recognition by the individual of her role in history. The second part of the work is the study of paradigms and rules of political action in so-called open and closed societies. I claim that political action within the framework of an open society is limited only by legislation. In a closed society, political action is practically impossible: citizens do not act, but “operate” since there are no conditions for actions. After that, I analyse the role of social myths as a factor affecting people’s political activities. In the last part, I analyse the ultimate goal of political action. Traditionally, political philosophy assumes that the goals of politics are exhausted by the problems of relationship between the state and the individual. However, based on the theory of Hannah Arendt, it is possible to formulate the task of political action as the achievement of humanism in a human being, taken not in her relation to the state but in relation to herself. I argue that the minimal political action that can be qualified as humanism consists of the ability and courage to use one’s own mind.

The concept of “Heimat” has recently become a subject of lively debate in society and science. In the course of this debate it has become clear that this concept has been endowed with very different, even controversial meanings, the consequences being methodological and political confusion on the issue. The aim of this paper is to clarify the concept using linguistic-hermeneutic analysis. Two terms borrowed from Georg Misch, “discursive” and “evocative” language, allow for the differentiation of two forms of discourse on “Heimat”. In the first case, the word “Heimat” is used as a description and appears to be an objective reality with distinct temporal and spatial qualities. This understanding dominates recent social discourse on the topic. In the second case, “Heimat” has a function of pure meaning and serves as a myth. The hermeneutics of the myth of “Heimat” and its role in human life is the primary focus of this paper.

This paper seeks to reconstruct philosopher Aleksandr Bogdanov’s approach to the philosophy of Spinoza in the context of the debate against Plekhanov. I demonstrate that the Soviet interest in Spinoza’s theory has never been purely historical, but rather, it served an important function in developing the theoretical foundations for Marxist philosophy. However, Bogdanov was one of only a very few who objected strongly to Plekhanov’s attempt to relate Spinoza’s philosophy to Marxism in a direct way. Two principles underlie Bogdanov’s critique: one being methodological, the other—systematic. The methodological principle has a hermeneutical character, since it demands that we treat historical concepts by taking into account their context and their changes during the time. According to Bogdanov, failing to fulfil this principle results in the dogmatization and instrumentalization of philosophy, and transforms it into political doctrine. The systematic principle concerns Bogdanov’s radical rethinking of the relationship between extension and thought. I argue that by rethinking Spinoza’s concepts in the framework of “ideo-empirical parallelism”, Bogdanov develops his own theory of cognition, which he called “empiriomonism”. When considered in historical context, I argue that these debates can serve as a window into the foundational role the Spinoza’s philosophy has played in the formation of different versions of Russian Marxism, as well as in the development of Russian Marxism in general.

The article analyzes the metaphor “Copernican revolution,” used by Kant to highlight the core idea of his philosophy. The author argues that Kant uses the analogies with mathematics and natural science for establishing criteria of scientific character of knowledge. These criteria include the hypothetic-deductive or a priorimethod of thinking, which determines the apodictic, i.e. necessary and objective, character of the basic laws of nature, as well as the verification of laws a priorithrough experiments.The author focuses on Kant’s idea of the possibility of scientific metaphysics based on these criteria. She claims that the structure of scientific metaphysics and the epistemological status of its statements depend on what kind of objects it deals with: with phenomena given to us by sensuality, with only conceivable “things in themselves” or with supersensitive “objects of an idea.” In the last part, the author interprets the meaning of the metaphor “Copernican turn” as the upgrading of logic, the idea of “transcendental idealism” and discusses the possibility of using the metaphor “Ptolemaic system” to characterize the practical philosophy of Kant.

Die Frage nach dem Wesen des Denkens gehört nicht nur zum Bestand der klassischen philosophischen Fragestellungen, sondern stellt auch ein wiederkehrendes Thema in aktuellen Diskussionen dar. Dieses Überblickswerk versammelt differenzierte Darstellungen des Denkens aus einer systematisch-historischen Perspektive. Die Beiträge untersuchen die Verhältnisse von Denken und Sprechen, Denken und Handeln, Denken und Wahrnehmen, Denken und Fühlen und beleuchten so die zentralen Aspekte des Begriffs »Denken« in vielfältiger Weise.

The bibliography of works discussing Russian Marxism is huge, making it very difficult to give an original interpretation of this phenomenon. To distinguish myself from the interpretative mainstream, I do not focus on persons and chronology, but rather investigate the question whether there was a specific logic in the unfolding of Russian Marxism which led to its consolidation into a specific doctrine, focusing on dialectical and historical materialism, during the Soviet period, and transformed it from a pluralistic philosophy into the monolithic official ideology of the Russian Communist Party. I concentrate on some theoretical and epistemological problems discussed by Russian Marxists, such as whether dialectical materialism is a theory or a methodology, whether dialectics is a logical or ontological category, what the term “dialectical materialism” exactly means, and what the materialistic understanding of cognition and the core assumption of historical materialism are. Accordingly, my approach has a reconstructive character: I focus on some fundamental propositions of Soviet Marxism which are recorded in textbooks on philosophy and try to recover their philosophical genesis. Thus my scope is restricted to a selection of relevant discussion points, allowing me to keep the philosophical discussions separate from political controversies.

The paper focuses on the rediscovery of Misch’s A History of Autobiography and its relevance to the problem of self-knowledge and self-esteem. Misch’s work is used to reconstruct a new aspect of self-esteem and to demonstrate that self-esteem can be interpreted as an early historical form of self-knowledge. In particular, self-esteem is characterized as a kind of self-knowledge in the category of the Other, that is, self-esteem appears to be self-knowledge derived from the social perspective regarding the individual.

The question standing in the backgrounds of this paper is what kind of hermeneutics can emerge on basis of philosophy of life. To answer it, the theories of German philosophers Georg Misch and Josef Koenig have been analyzed. The first developed hermeneutical logics, which is based on identification the notions ‘life’ and ‘articulation’ ). Three aspects –life as logical category, life as hermeneutical category, and the discoursive forms of self-representation of life- extracted from Misch’s theory seem to be relevant for further development of hermeneutics. Koenig carries forward this research program, but focuses on the linguistic structures of human perception experience and drafts a kind of analytical hermeneutics. The remarkable part of both conceptions is that they pose it logical heterogenity of theoretical and practical discourses. These differences are relevant for rethinking of such epistemological phenomenon, such as ‘meaning’, ‘concept’, ‘truth’ and ‘knowledge’. According to these positions, hermeneutics can be a homogenous theory of interpretation or understanding, but on the contrary the different logical areas of hermeneutics must be constituted. Thus, hermeneutics can be interpreted as an alternative to the traditional, i.e., epistemological approach, to the theory of knowledge, on the one hand, and to analytical philosophy of language on the other.

This paper focuses on the theoretical philosophy of Bukharin as developed in his book Filosofskie arabeski. I analyze three concepts—perception, being, and dialectics—and show that and how they deviate from the meaning that they commonly have among other Russian Marxists. In this work, Bukharin drafts a theory that can be interpreted as a “relational ontology,” since it focuses on the relations between entities and since these relations are considered to be more fundamental than the entities themselves and provide epistemic access to reality. My examination of Bukharin’s theoretical views shows that he continues Lenin’s tradition of materialist and dialectical thought. That is why, in spite of his innovative approach to some key problems of theoretical philosophy, Bukharin did not go far enough in his studies. His theoretical position appears to be an integral part of his political engagement.

The study offers an overview of philosophical currents formed under the influence of Kant’s critical philosophy. Such directions of Kantianism as German Idealism represented by F. Jacobi, Neo-Kantianism represented by E. Cassirer and A. Riehl, ontological interpretation of Kant’s theory by M. Heidegger and analytical tradition of Neo-Kantianism represented by J. McDowell are considered in detail. These examples demonstrate different approaches to understanding Kant which have been developed throughout history. Among them, one can identify the epistemological approach that views Kant’s theoretical philosophy as a theory of knowledge and, above all, as a theory of experience. It can be contrasted with various metaphysical approaches developed against the background of an idealistic reading of the Critique of Pure Reason. From time to time, realistic interpretations of Kant’s theory of experience that try to avoid ontological dualism concerning the relation between “appearance” and “thing in itself” have arisen, which seem adequate to its spirit and letter. Within the analytic Kantian paradigm, a whole spectrum of interpretations of Kant’s concept of experience has emerged, for which the stumbling blocks are, above all, Kant’s theory on the cognitive faculties - sensibility and understanding, the deduction of categories and the transcendental unity of apperception. In the first case, the main issue is the question of the cooperation of cognitive faculties in the process of experience formation, which still causes difficulties for researchers; in the second case, the question of the role of non-discursive and discursive concepts in this process; in the third case, the question of the relationship of apperception, consciousness and self-consciousness and their functions in cognition. The study shows that all these questions still await their final resolution. The study is in fact an introduction to the block devoted to the reception of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason in connection with the approaching anniversary of the philosopher.

The subject of the work's analysis is the phrase Time, forward!. It seems that, on the one hand, this statement can be given a sociological interpretation. In this case, its content is the idea of acceleration and purposefulness of the big, collective time, which dominates the individual and determines his life. On the other hand, referring to Hegel, one can identify the project of Enlightenment behind this phrase. It involves the movement of the spirit from a state of alienation from itself in the object's idea to itself through the achievement of autonomy in the belief of concepts tested by its reflection alone. The socially significant meaning of such a speculative thinking project is to get rid of the despotism of dominant opinions on the path of critical, dialectical, and speculative thinking.

Metaphysics, understood as the first philosophy, that is, the science of the ultimate foundations and principles of being, has long been declared an anachronism in the postmodern period.1 The pluralistic character of being, the heterogeneity of types of philosophical discourse and their mutual irreducibility, the spatiotemporal discreteness of various ontologies and epistemologies, the understanding of tradition as a given that needs to be overcome rather than continued—all these indicators point to the paradigm of new thinking within which flows the mainstream of twentieth-century philosophical thought. Outside this stream stands the figure of K.-O. Apel, who is devoted to the idea of a single philosophy and continues to uphold it in the face of criticism from all sides. Apel's quixotic unwillingness to relinquish his stance is demonstrated by his new book, published in 1998, in which he continues to develop his ideas, which constitute a complete conception of transcendental pragmatism.2 Inasmuch as a theory that had apparently been relegated to books on the history of philosophy has become topical again, my task is to return to its sources and to reconstruct3 and analyze its basic propositions

Die Frage nach dem Wesen des Denkens gehört nicht nur zum Bestand der klassischen philosophischen Fragestellungen, sondern stellt auch ein wiederkehrendes Thema in aktuellen Diskussionen dar. Dieses Überblickswerk versammelt differenzierte Darstellungen des Denkens aus einer systematisch-historischen Perspektive. Die Beiträge untersuchen die Verhältnisse von Denken und Sprechen, Denken und Handeln, Denken und Wahrnehmen, Denken und Fühlen und beleuchten so die zentralen Aspekte des Begriffs »Denken« in vielfältiger Weise.