Gurevich, P. S. The Future of the World in the Philosophical Dialogue (On the Books Published by ‘Canon +’)

Abstract: As it has been already noted in previous reviews, the books published by Canon + provide us a great insight into the current historical and philosophical process. This time the author has selected the two books out of the variety of new books published. These two books are devoted to the logic of historical and philosophical reflection and try to answer the question about the framework of categories used in researches as well as the unacceptability of modernization of philosophical categories when analyzing ancient texts and old philosophical ideas. This, first of all, refers to the challenge contained in V. K. Shokhin’s book ‘Agatology’. V. Shokhin suggests that we should return to the term that is related to the morals and appeared before the term ‘axiology’. However, it is not only the terminology V. Shokhin talks about. In his book V. Shokhin raises many questions needed to be discussed as soon as possible. The same goal is supported by the materials of the Russian scientific conference ‘History of Philosophy: Challenges of the XXIth century’. A lot of famous philosophical historians, both Russian and foreign ones, participated in that conference. The general attribute of the conference was the discussion. There were many views expressed by philosophers but all of those viewed only expanded the horizons of the philosophical framework. All kinds of analysis methods were used. The principle of historicism was not only the principle of formulating questions but also the subject of long and detailed discussions. At the same time, philosophical historians demonstrated that the cultural and sociological analysis could actually apply to studying the historical materials. Very different methods of interpreting the world were used and a special role of inter-disciplinary researches was underlined. The novelty of these publications is in their authors’ attempts to overcome the challenge of modern historical and philosophical process. The relation between history of philosophy and philosophy in general was also thoroughly studied and discussed. The methodological criticism of modern Eurocentrism is also discussed as an obstacle in many modern researches in the sphere of history of philosophy. It is stressed out that many particular philosophical researches in India, China and Arabian West are included in the discussion of global and overall civilization problems. The question about overcoming stereotypes in teaching history of philosophy is raised and particular grounds for creating a branch of philosophy called ‘agatology’ are provided.

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