Abstract: The author views stupidity as a social phenomenon. He analyzes gnoseological, social and psychological sources of this phenomenon. He also underlines that stupidity is difficult to be recognized because stupidity accompanies the mind and the mind always finds an excuse for stupidity using rather unexpected arguments. Meanwhile stupidity has many faces and is quite dangerous. The author of the article provides an insight into how stupidity has been viewed in the cultural history and analyzes Erasmus Roterodamus’ work The Praise of Folly and Kant’s thoughts regarding this phenomenon. In his research the author uses historical and phenomenological methods of viewing the problem. He also carries out the comparative analysis of interpretations of stupidity at different epochs and discusses the relation between these interpretations and events in modern life. The novelty of the present approach is in the fact that the relation between stupidity and absurdity is being discussed for the first time in philosophical and psychological literature and that the author draws our attention to the existential interpretation of social and cultural absurdities. The author offers a classification of different variants of stupidity and nonsense: historical (exemplary) stupidity, foreign (stereotypical) stupidity, ordinary (unlimited) stupidity, mystical (exclusive) stupidity, national (authentic) stupidity.

Keywords: philosophy, psychology, absurdity, stupidity, reason, history, rationalism, mind, polysexuality, intellect.

Abstract: The study of social integration as a structure and history making process starts with the discovering the elementary structural unit of social being. The author of the present article view individuals as minimal units of the system that are capable of rather independent performance of certain functions and social groups of different degrees of generality as elements and subsystems that constitute up-tending ‘horizontal’ levels of society. The levels of social organization are vertically ‘penetrated’ with all encompassing spheres of social life such as economy, politics, culture and others. Mutually overlapping ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ decompositions create the structure of the social system. Methodological base of the research is presented by the systems approach which does not contradict but completes and specifies the materialist dialectics. Structural features of the social system are also described as the dynamic structuring of social systems, and social evolution is described as the constant structuring of social systems from the level of elementary interactions to formation of the global integrity and movement from disconnected and indefinite similarity to definite and coherent diversity of elements. The criterion for the progress of the social system is the richness and plasticity of internal and external structural connections being formed during the dual integration and differentiation process. The universal mechanism of structural development of the social system is the organizational selection from which positions we can consider both qualitative (social aromorphoses) and quantitative (not evolutionary) changes. Transformation processes take place at all stages of the system’s development including the stages of creation, formation, maturity and transformation. Under the conditions of continuous changes, maintenance of a stable society happens prognostically but not reactively due to its capacity for management, in particular, state management, and self-organization (self-management) that is ongoing mostly in the society. The change of a governing authority presenting the entire set of communications and relations the social system means that all its structure underwent essential transformation, too, and the society proceeded to a new level of the structure. Weakening or elimination of the management impact on the society as well as its excessive abundance of management connections are equally harmful. This dictates the need for search of the best balance between management and self-organization that is considerably defined by the structural type of integration — rigid centralization or dynamic structure that is based on at the action of feedback connections between the managing and managed elements.

Keywords: social integration, social structure, arrangement of society, social system, social evolution, global social integrity, social aromorphoses, non-evolutionary changes, structural levels, social relations.

Abstract: The subject under review is the ideology of the Grand Inquisitor, the main character of The Great Inquisitor story told by Ivan Karamazov. In this story the elderly Jesuit criticizes Jesus’ self-sacrifice for the sake of the freedom of humanity and offers the only alternative to the concept of state power and violence that came after Christ’s teaching. This alternative, in fact, deifies the three powers: authority, miracle and mystery. The approach chosen by the author of the article allows to specify peculiarities of Dostoevsky’s fundamental concept of the image of the Grand Inquisitor that involves meta-demonization of the Grand Inquisitor’s image. The research method used by the author integrates a few types of analysis including ethical and philosophical analysis, psychological analysis, literary analysis and comparative analysis. Combination of these methods allows to recode the demoniac symbols in the image of the Catholic power. The scientific novelty of the research is in the author’s philosopheme according to which the Grand Inquisitor, on one hand, is like a devil hunting for human souls but, on the other hand, he differs from the devil because in his dreams about the unlimited power he without any remorse sees a global ‘happy’ society where Jesus Christ was not needed. This is the cynicism of the universal level and this is why the Jesuit is even more dangerous than the devil because the former represent the all-destroying Ahrimanic power. As a result of his research, the author concludes that the Grand Inquisitor represent the phenomenon of catastrophism because for an Orthodox person religion without Christ is a nonsense and absurdity. For Russia the image of God has always been the measure of spirituality and moral purity.

Keywords: God, Christ, church, Catholicism, the Grand Inquisitor, human, devil, temptation, freedom, religion and moral, authority, mystery, power and violence.

Abstract: The author of the article views and analyzes the main approaches to the definition of the term ‘value’. The author describes the structure, hierarchy and methods of classification of values as well as problems and methods of their diagnostics in the historical retrospective. The system of values is a rather flexible structure in constant development and transformations of this structure is closely connected with the processes happening in the society. Methods for diagnostics of explorable values and elements of the value structure are chosen based on the nature of the above mentioned transformations. A particular representation of individual’s value orientations can be created with the help of a test or a method of deliberate influence and registration of results of such influence. Diagnostics of a supraindividual element include analysis of an individual element, selection of a particular research period and diagnostics of group values. In conclusion the author states that life values are the common element in all diagnostic methods that have been viewed and reflect peculiarities of value researches in the historical retrospective.

Keywords: history, culture, philosophy, life values, diagnostics of values, methods used for diagnostics of values, value structure, stages of social development, succession of values, historical retrospective.

Abstract: The author of the present research article analyzes Nikolay Karamzin’s attitude to philosophy. In the academic community and for general readers Nikolay Karamzin is well known as a historian, a writer and a journalist. He is not so well known as a philosopher. Meanwhile, Karamzin had a very serious education in philosophy. He dealt with philosophy in Schaden’s boarding school and Friendly Academic Community and also studied it himself. He traveled around Europe and met many famous philosophers while traveling. He used his knowledge in philosophy to develop his own world view, to describe principles of cogitation and to study the historical process. Describing Karamzin’s philosophy, the author of the present article draws our attention to the historical environment at the turn of the XIXth and the XXth centuries in Russia and in the West as well as the influence of the Enlightenment and Enlightened Absolutism on the philosophical community of that time. Philosophy is an essential element of Karamzin’s creative work. It is impossible to understand his contribution without taking into account his philosophical views. Russian philosophy has certain peculiarities. One of these peculiarities is its openness and interaction with other spheres such as literature, literary criticism, natural sciences and history. According to the author, Karamzin should be necessarily viewed as a philosophizing historian.

Keywords: Karamzin, Enlightenment, philosophy, world view, principles of cognition, social issues, revolution, sovereignty, Western Europe, Russia.

Abstract: The author of the article studies the problem of definition of the term ‘art’ in social philosophy. She analyzes the social and humanizing meaning of art and views factors of mutual interaction between art and society. According to the author, art is a special social world of sensual images created by using a particular form and material. This world can socialize and humanize, i.e. form a socially important personality. In art the world is felt through a dialogue and co-existence. Noteworthy that art is perceived as one’s experience and part of Self but not only the external image. Art directly influences our feelings and mind but this is not the only effect of art. Art influences one’s inner world through feelings, ‘gates of art’. Conclusions are made based on both theoretical sources and modern media technologies (the researcher carried out the survey on the Internet asking ‘Was the spiritual crisis of the society caused by art?’). From the point of view of the social and philosophical paradigm, art is a mean of interpersonal communication and the ‘personality-personality’ (subject-subject) coordinate system. It is the ‘dialogue of understanding’ being developed against the background of the historical development of the society. Social functions of art are in the fact that art is the dialogue between Self and You and co-existence of two personalities. This dialogue between an artist and the audience is the door to understanding, however, such understanding is not ‘complete’. It is an interpretation, experience of feelings and what an artist leaves for ‘co-creation’ or some kind of a ‘sensual area for interpretation’. Art is a personified intellectual social emotion, social ‘feeling of the thought’ and the ‘sixth sense’.

Keywords: social philosophy, art, social, ‘feeling of the thought’, socialization, humanization, society, personality, dialogue, culture.

Abstract: The subject under review of the present article is the power as a management resource and its modernistic and post-modernistic definitions. The author of the article views the power not as itself or a category of its own but rather as a certain resource which is used to govern the state and which we try to view from the point of view of methodology used in researches of power and its being part of the management processes. The author also views the efficient use of power firstly as a rational process during which cause-and-effect connections and relations are predicted and traced and secondly as a process where a resource (power in our case) is used to the best advantage according to the ‘contribution-return’ criterion. The research is based on Jacques Derrida’s approach stating that the dynamics between centralization and decentralization of power are also binary and cyclic. The main conclusion made by the researcher is that the general solutions made regarding the ‘optimal’ balance between centralization and autonomy as well as the term ‘optimality’ in the state management will be only theoretical while practical solutions should be considered only temporary.

Keywords: Machiavelli, treatise, Derrida, power, government, efficiency, optimality, politics, modernism, post-modernism.

Abstract: The article is devoted to the role and place of modern ethnic social studies in wide-ranging studies of ethnonational issues touching upon a wide circle of social relations and related to the cultural development. The author of the article underlines the ‘situation’ faced by ethnic social studies due to interdisciplinary interaction between different social and humanitarian sciences and branches of social studies. The author emphasizes the issues of modern ethnic social studies as a branch of general social studies because ethnic issues have been growing more important in different countries of the world and affect practically everybody. The main methodological approach used by the author is the interdisciplinary approach that allows to present issues of ethnic social studies in terms of modern social and humanitarian sciences. The scientific novelty of the research is in the substantiation of the need for studying not only various social relations but also socio-cultural issues within the framework of ethic social research. The author also shows the heuristic opportunities of ethnic social studies when analyzing such socio-cultural factors as ethnicity and mentality as well as their influence on the development of a wide circle of social phenomena.

Keywords: culture, society, ethnic social studies, ethnicity, polyethnicity, social studies, social relations, ethno-national peculiarities, polyethnic, society, mentality.

Abstract: The author of the article describes one of the most important concepts in German culture, the concept of Heim (Hearth and Home). The author provides a definition of the concept and describes its etymology and traditional use in German culture. The author also describes the main features of this concept from the point of view of the German national mentality including emotional fullness and the feeling of protection, safety and psychological comfort. Moreover, the author compares this German concept with associated terms in other languages and cultures. The author underlines that the concept of Heim (Hearth and Home) satisfies one of the main human needs in privacy and personal (safe) space and protects humans from feeling homelessness as well as experiencing the existential fear (Angst). For a German person, his own tidy and cozy home is the place where the order and safety reign and where he can feel protected from anxieties and threats and chaos of the outside world.

Keywords: cultural research, cultural concept, German culture, national mentality, home (Heim), hearth, existential fear (Angst), existential homelessness, feeling of safety, privacy.

Abstract: The author of the present article views the feeling and experience of pleasure as a tool for reconstruction of human’s essential nature by using a special construct called ‘hedonistic human’. The feeling of pleasure acts as an essential element participating in the genesis of the origin of human, his consciousness and culture. The phenomenon of pleasure goes beyond the scope of direct psychological and ethnic interpretations and acts as the central feature of human being, social and cultural processes and axiological field of a modern society. The author of the article also analyzes cultural values related to the feeling and experience of pleasure as well as consequences of actualization of hedonistic artifacts in the society and forms of their transmission and interpretation. The methodological base of the research is presented by works and researches carried out in the spheres of phenomenology, philosophical anthropology and philosophy of culture. The author also describes psychoanalytical, phenomenological and post-modernistic approaches to and interpretations of the phenomenon of pleasure. The author also describes how the hedonistic axiology applies to Russian reality. The construct of ‘hedonistic human’ is introduced by the author similarly with other definitions of human reflecting human’s essential nature such as homo sapiens (‘reasonable human’), working human, playing human, laughing human, ashamed human and so on.

Keywords: consumer society, essential definitions of human, Russian value consciousness, emotions, origin of human, phenomenology of consciousness, sexuality, pleasure, hedonistic values, cultural values.

Abstract: This article is an extended version of the speech made at the seminar ‘History of Philosophy: Heritage and Project’ (arranged by the division of History of Western Philosophy at Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences on April 22, 2014). The speech was associated with the fact that the speaker celebrated his 80th jubilee and therefore was based on the analysis of the speaker’s creative experience. In this article the author tells about the evolution of Russian historical and philosophical journalism at the last third of the XXth century. The author also emphasizes the multiple meanings o the term ‘modern age’, discusses the problem of topical historical analogies and explains the paradox ‘the past interprets us’. In his research article the author uses general scientific methods. He discusses and uses methods of biographical analysis, psychological creativity and theatrical hermeneutics. He also views the factor of the decisiveness of historical and philosophical journalism and its conceptual dramatic theory describing the role of logical formula of rhetoric. For the first time in scientific literature the author introduces and analyzes the term ‘reconstructive improvisation’ as a special type of investigative behavior. The author describes the similarity between certain types of historical and philosophical research with interpretations of theatrical script writers and stage directors.

Keywords: history of philosophy, journalism, teaching, deceit, visibility, allegory, metaphor, allusion, popular culture, existentialism.

Abstract: The article is devoted to the main ideas of the ethics of non-violence offered by a famous modern philosopher Abdusalam Huseynov. Ethics of non-violence are being viewed in terms of the issue of social justice. The author of the present article views the terms ‘violence’ and ‘non-violence’ in comparison with the term ‘justice’. Ethics of nonviolence are viewed as an attempt to implement the principles of justice in the life of the modern society. Definition of justice as it usually appears in the ethics of non-violence is also analyzed. According to the author, ethics of non-violence are the reflection of modern realities. Therefore the author tries to underline the main ideas of ethics of non-violence that can be used when implementing the principles of justice in the modern society. The author studies ethics of non-violence in terms of the problems of social justice and from the point of view of the unity of all spheres of social life as well as interconnection and interdependence of social needs, interests and values. Abdusalam Huseynov’s ethics of non-violence are quite an interesting and original concept that reflects views and desires of particular social layers and groups. Non-violence is seen as a post-violence stage in the fight for social justice. According to the author, it is necessary to carry out a better research and analysis of the main provisions of ethics of non-violence with reference to today’s and future social realities.

Keywords: justice, freedom, equality, violence, non-violence, morals, ethics, good, evil.

Abstract: The author of the present research article raises a question about the concurrence or nonoccurrence of historical development and cultural development. The author shows that history is a natural and rather spontaneous process of human development while culture is an associated type of being. Creating his own species, human eliminates spontaneity and naturality in his own development, creates the visibility of being and therefore turns history into culture. Human is not always satisfied with the culture because he does not have so much power to change the culture. In the article the author uses general scientific methods, in particular, hypothetical-deductive, analytical and comparative analysis methods. The author shares his own views on culture as something created by a subject. Creating his own species, human eliminates spontaneity and naturality in his own development, creates the visibility of being and therefore turns history into culture. Human is not always satisfied with the culture because he does not have so much power to change the culture. The author also shows that history is a natural and rather spontaneous process of human development while culture is an associated type of being.

Keywords: history, culture, being, knowledge, freedom, form, visibility, philosophy of history, philosophy of culture, totality.

Abstract: The article is devoted to peculiarities of the development of architecture in Finland during the first third of the XXth century as illustrated by creative works of a famous architect and one of the founders of the Finnish school of architecture Lars Sonck (1870–1956). The purpose of the research is to study creative works created by Lars Sonck during the transition period from Art Nouveau to Modernism (Functionalism in architecture). The significance research of Lars Sonck is conditioned with the fact that the process of the development of Art Nouveau, Neo-Classicism and Modernism in the architecture of Finland is not studied enough. The object of research is the evolution of Lars Sonck’s creativity during the above mentioned period. The subject of research is the architectural concepts that had been presented in the architecture of Finland since the end of the XXth century to the first third of the XXth century and their practical implementation in Lars Sonck’s creativity. Research methods include methods that are usually used in historical architectural, art history and comparative stylistic analysis. As a result of research, the author concludes that the Finish architect combined axial symmetry and monochromatic facade finish with certain elements of National Romanticism of the turn of the century. Lars Sonck’s Neo-Classicism of the 1910th was an intermediate stage between National Romanticism and Modernism that was already dominating in the architecture of Finland at the beginning of the 1930th which is clearly illustrated by the three famous buildings designed by of Lars Sonck.

Keywords: Lars Sonck, Finnish architecture, Art Nouveau, Neo-Classicism, Modernism, culture, St. Michael’s Church, Kallio Church, Mikael Agricola Church, Church Council in Helsinki.