Maksim Miroshnichenko

This article reconstructs the theory of the Soviet-American psychologist Vladimir Lefebvre as part of the neocybernetic movement. In particular, I propose to explore such elements of his research of the 1970s—1990s as systemic vision; reflexive analysis; a search for holistic configuration and Janus cosmology; and the realization of neocybernetics. An interest in the reflexive structures of cognition and action led Lefebvre to an understanding of the limited nature of the world’s scientific picture. The conflicting objects he studied proved too complex for behavioral modeling and forecasting. Lefebvre therefore expanded the boundaries of the application of his formal theory of intelligence, relying on functionalist positions, which led him to the science-fiction narrative of “The Big Correction.” I contend that Lefebvre’s works not only propose an original Soviet version of the neocybernetics the 1970s but develop their own model of inhumanism long before it appeared on the scene of modern philosophy. Lefebvre’s formal theory, reinforced by thermodynamics and elements of Russian cosmism, builds cognitive behavior into the teleology of the Big Correction, which involves the idea of overcoming the heat death of the universe. The activity of cosmic intelligence, which Lefebvre equates with magnetic-plasma structures in the finished areas of the universe, is aimed at cooperation and prolonging the existence of life and the intellect.

The article considers the major approaches towards the integration of philosophical and scientific perspectives on the nature and functioning of subjective consciousness. The project of naturalization of phenomenology is considered as an account of methodological unification of cognitive science and philosophy based on first-person perspective. This alliance is generally thought as an attempt to incorporate the explanatory models of phenomenology into the natural scientific worldview. The proponents of this approach, such as F. Varela, confirm that it can overcome the explanatory gap between the subjective first-person qualitative phenomenological data and third-person neurophysiological data, or at least it can contribute to the project of scientifically informed philosophy of mind, as in S. Gallagher’s front load phenomenology. But is it really possible to build a scientific theory of consciousness? It seems that the project of naturalization contains the inevitable shortcomings which render it impossible to take the first person approaches in cognitive science “seriously”. Hence, the first-person approach to consciousness cannot become the foundation of natural scientific theory of mind as part of nature. Phenomenological approaches to consciousness in the works of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty reject the primacy of the scientific objectivist world picture, claiming that the transcendental consciousness being the condition of possibility of truth and objectivity cannot be viewed from the objective point of view. Scientific worldview gives the incomplete picture of consciousness, eliminating its transcendental dimension. However, as I try to show, transcendentalism and naturalism as world projects can contribute into each other, retaining the circular relations between them. Phenomenology can integrate both world projects into holistic picture through phenomenologization, or denaturalization of natural science.

The author reconstructs the theory of F. Varela with relevance to the hard problem of consciousness. This problem was touched by Varela in relatively late period of his work. However, the implications for dissolution of this problem can be found in his earlier works with H. Maturana. Theory of autopoietic systems ties life and cognition together, resulting in natural historical comprehension of consciousness and its functioning. Autopoiesis, understood as network of processes of production of components used as resources for maintaining these processes, sets organizational invariances, distinguishing living system from its milieu. The main criterion of living system is an ability to maintain autopoietic organization while undergoing structural transformations with environment. Structural plasticity leads to multiple realizability of autopoietic organizations, which, in turn, leads to radical conclusion on nature of knowledge. One can distinguish the knower and the known only contingently, as the structure of knowledge reflects cognitive structure of the knower. This intertwinement permits Varela to introduce the enactivist program, which presupposes not simply reform in the scientific research of consciousness but also rethinking the implications of scientific knowledge itself. Cognition is a sensorimotor constitution of the world. Therefore, consciousness is not an object of material nature among other objects but provides our cognitive access to nature. Varela intended to abandon the theoretical approach to the problem of consciousness. His aim was not to provide a new argument. This is a consequence of the enactivist position which, according to theory of autopoiesis, must be applicable to the knower himself.

The paper is dedicated to the reconstruction of Alexander Piatigorsky’s observational philosophy within the context of the confrontation between two versions of the transcendental project of man-in-the-world. The first project accentuates the invariant functional organization of cognitive systems by abstracting from bodily, affective and phenomenological realization of this organization. On the contrary, the second project emphasizes the phenomenological perspective of the experience of givenness, always already dependent on whose experience this is and how the cognitive system living this experience is organized. The first project can be called functionalist, and the second – phenomenological. Ontological and epistemological positions of these projects are specified in the problem of the observer, its status in the world and cognitive practice. The observational philosophy possesses an intermediate position between these two programs since, aiming to disclose the invariant structure of observation, it proceeds from the factual experience of the embodied subject placed into the situation of self-observation and observation of the other subject. It is concluded that Piatigorsky’s philosophy borrows from the functionalist project the commitment to self-objectivation and rejection from the spatiotemporal localization of cognitive activity. With the phenomenological project of enactivism Piatigorsky shares the aspiration to disclose the invariant cognitive structures during the empirical observation of the real enactment of cognitive agency, abandonment of substantialization of the self as well as the refusal from theoretical formulation of the problem of consciousness.

The review analyzes the book The Conscience’s Double by Georgy Chernavin. I focus on the concepts of false twins of conscience, guilt, and duty in the extended context of philosophical and artistic discourse. The problem of the difference between conscience and its ersatz forms, which give rise to a distorted ethical consciousness, is considered. The main emphasis is opportunistic conscience, neurotic guilt, and false debt. The review suggests that Chernavin’s book studies the “sad theory” of moral disorientation and requires the supplementation with a hypothetical “cringe theory.” In this case, the “sad theory” makes it possible to expand the phenomenological discourse by including a discussion of conscience, illustrating the uncertainty of the boundaries between the phenomenological and the symbolic, and highlighting the subject’s dependence on what they are not. In this work, there is a potential for developing an original ontology of the relationship between conscience and its evil counterpart, especially between a “spiritually sighted” and a “blindly corporeal” person. The scrutinized guilt for the lost absence of guilt is an experience that, although not lived, is important for the subject’s self-constitution. This experience, like the inner side of the subject, determines its conscious functioning and forms something like a Mobius strip. An Evil Genius makes this bond, and I am trying to conceptualize their “weakened” being.

The publication is dedicated to the interdisciplinary foundations of doctor-patient interaction and examines the doctor-patient relationship from the point of view of psychology, the sciences of culture, semiotics, linguistics, and phenomenology. It is based on the idea of the doctor and the patient as living communicating agents having a biosocial nature and being in the context of culture. The main task of the course of lectures is to identify the fundamental principles underlying clinical interaction: intra- and interpersonal, cultural, and philosophical. Despite the rather abstract implications, the book is focused on practice, since it designates the fundamental properties of the doctor-patient relationship, thereby giving almost universal recipes for constructive communication and prevention of burnout and conflicts.

In this essay, I delineate the relationship between movement, thought, and the ability to speak. In neurology, the biomedical view constructs the image of the subaltern, a muted lifeform devoid of personality and whose life is not congruent with the concepts of autonomy and capacity. I propose to name these human beings “biomedical others.” An anomaly, this subaltern, is an underside of the philosophical totalization of subjectivity. In the biomedical framework, others are devoid of speech. Medicine, its institutes, and agents in the healthcare system speak to them. However, the lives of biomedical others are based on gestures, facial expressions, and body commands that are enacted as micro-gestures. The urgency to give voice to the biomedical others is the ethical task of this essay. They are namely voiceless and powerless, evoking a different kind of ethics: fragility, minority, and silence.