Ideas and Ideals

The article deals with the phenomenon of multilingualism and its most common case – bilingualism – from both the linguistics and philosophical points of view. More than a half of the global population at present are multilingual, i.e. they use two or more languages in their daily lives. The related changes in culture and ways of thinking require scientific research and philosophic reflection. The article briefly covers approaches applied by researchers of language and language ability to defining the nature of bilingualism.  Linguists and psychologists choose different criteria in order to determine the level of language fluency that allows to characterize someone as bilingual. Some scientists believe that even a minimum competence in listening, speaking, reading, or writing means that an individual is bilingual, while others consider a native-like fluency in two languages to be a necessary condition.  Using as a basis mainly the ideas of the 20th century’s analytic philosophers, the author attempts to offer a philosophical explanation to the mechanism that enables bilinguals to switch between their languages. The key philosophic idea that helps to explain the phenomenon is the concept of a language as a means of expressing thoughts and the only possible form for the existence of thoughts. The main language structure in which a thought can be expressed is a sentence, because it allows to establish relations between any objects of the world. The main criterion of bilingualism is not the ability to speak another language, but the ability to think in that language, whereas the criterion of the ability to think in a language is a skill to build sentences in that language.

This article analyzes the possible chance of overcoming the limited capacity of the existing theories of modernity to the explanation of the newest tendencies of transformation of society. Asked about the need to update existing concepts, because all of them, according to the author, reflect already leaving the next stage of the post-industrial development. The author believes that the prospect of explaining the rapidly changing social world and his prediction tool could become a concept of informational resonance in social structures. The author draws attention to the crucial role of information increase the transformation of all parties social life. But its role remains underestimated in constructing adequate models of the contemporarily, and especially in predicting consequences for social life rapidly developing information technology. Analysis and forecasting of social and anthropological implications of the next phase of the information-computer and the sixth industrial revolutions did not follow the intensity of technological innovations and for studies of the dynamics and forms technical-technological change. The author introduces the notion of "information resonance in social structures" and analyzes the possibility of building a concept of this process. In doing so, it relies on the expertise of multidisciplinary research using the concept of resonance, wave and synergetic processes. Describes typical manifestations of resonant wave processes in social structures and their effects. The author suggests and formulates arguments proving that the "information explosion" and information overload are transforming social structures, affecting primarily the basic system of society is social interaction. The article argues that with "the cage" social system processes similar to the studied mutations in cytogenetic. According to the author, the similarity of these processes allows for the social structure and the structure of social interaction to build explanatory model by analogy, turning on an interdisciplinary level, then the transdisciplinary approach and synthesis of notional apparatus. At this level, build a new theoretical objects - "mutation the cells of the social system", and citosociology which are offered as a concept in the context of the prospects for the development of transdisciplinary methodologies.

The article analyzes a number of stages of the formation of a generic and non-specific vocabulary in the period from 9-8 to 5-4 centuries BC in Ancient Greece. Cosmogonies of the period of ordering mythological representations in Egyptian, Phoenician and Greek cultures are taken as a source material. The article considers the interaction of basic metaphors that allow this ordering to be carried out-metaphors of genealogical (birth and change of generations) and metaphors of artisan-demiurge. The formation of the legislative space is investigated, yet namely this space allows to outline the first reflective steps in relation to mythological thinking. These steps are initially carried out within the limits of traditional mythological images. The most important stage of the movement towards general words in the process of the emergence of artificial concepts in the early philosophical systems – "apeiron", "ontos", "logos", "physis", which begin to be ordered through interaction with each other. In parallel with the personified mythological concepts the abstract concepts are gradually lining up and organizing systematically. From a beginning  they allow to integrate mythological ideas and present them in the abstract form. In the next phase, a fundamental role is played by the activity of sophists, whose attention is focused on the game with the general concepts, yet the content of these concepts starts to lose the reference to the outside world. At the same time, the language is discovered as an independent system. This is the content of the third stage of reflective activity. The attempt of Socrates to escape from sophistic relativism and return the contents to the general concepts leads to the overturning of the relations of names and reality, when it turns out that the general concepts are enclosed in the soul, and they are preset the understanding of the world. Plato and Aristotle are implementing this setting and transform this work with concepts into a separate sphere of activity, creating dialectics and logic that underlie the methodology of reasoning and research in different spheres of intellectual activity.

The concept of liberalism is extremely unpopular in modern Russia. Modern hopes about the solution of Russian problems cling to conservatism based on traditional values which are defined by Orthodoxy to a great extent. In other words, Orthodoxy and liberalism in modern Russian political discourse are treated as contradictory to each other. It is noteworthy that historical liberalism in its conservative variant was rooted in Russian ground and closely connected to Orthodox tradition. But with generally Christian sources of liberalism being widely accepted, the liberal potential of Eastern Christianity is being questioned. It is universally believed that Orthodoxy seemingly “belittles” personality and discourages the development of independence and freedom. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the inaccuracy of such views. Drawing from patristic heritage and the methodology developed by the classical Orthodox theologian V. Lossky and modern Orthodox philosophers (Ch. Yannaras, S. Khoruzhiy) the author elucidates the Orthodox understanding of personality (hypostasis) encoded in the Doctrine of Trinity. It was Orthodoxy that preserved and developed the concept of a human personality absolute value and uniqueness introduced by Christianity, this concept being later undermined by Western Christianity with “amending” the Trinity Doctrine by double procession of the Holy Spirit. Analyzing patristic attitude to a human the author comes to the conclusion that Orthodoxy is the religion of freedom. Its philosophy is pervaded with the pathos of freedom and hymn to the elevated predestination of a human who is able of becoming a co-Creator. The proposition is supported by the Orthodox ideal of deification and the theory of synergism, i.e. concordant action of Divine and human energies suggesting free and conscious efforts of a person. Of course, we are talking about inner freedom: the freedom "to" and not freedom "from", without which the realization of external freedom is problematic

Wolfgang Sassin’s article "Images of the World: Ideas of Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood and Their Transformation" (“Ideas and Ideals”, No. 4, 2017) forms the first part of his big article (part 2 is published in this volume of the journal). The ideas expressed in the article have evoked great interest of Russian researchers, yet some of his statements have raised serious questions and objections. The author presents a critical analysis of these controversial statements. The goal of this discussion is not just to express objection and the opposite point of view, but to deeper understand extremely important and interesting issues raised by W. Sassin. The idea of the primary atomicity of individuals and the deriving from it the original individual freedom seem to be quite controversial. W. Sassin tries to find the grounds for the key social concepts in the Bible, however he takes the ideas which are not essential for the Bible itself, but have been widely disseminated during the age of Enlightenment that took place under the slogan of struggle against Christianity. This refers to such slogans as "conquer nature" and "liberty, equality, and fraternity". The author's persuasion that the faith in One God makes all people equal before Him, would be fair only if the equality would be understood by him only in a personal sense, but the author imparts it with social meaning. The inference of these values not only from Christianity but also from monotheism in general looks unjustified.

The author considers the opportunity of management activities optimization, which has been the subject of numerous scientific studies during a long period time. Today this area is still of the utmost importance. The structure of management activities is complex and it is built on multilevel psychological, socio-psychological and other phenomena. This article presents the data of modern studies aimed to support its distinctive features in perception, information processing, cognitive, emotional-volitional sphere of the right- and leftlateral respondents. This article is devoted to the study of individual styles of management activities of the executive educational team (school principals, head teachers). The study (n=140) proves that an individual management style is predefined by the peculiarities of lateralization of prefrontal lobes hemispheres of the brain. The significant differences are defined between individual management style of school principals and head teachers with different lateral organization of the brain. The study uses psychological tests (n=6) and statistical methods of data processing. It is proved that superintendents with left lateral and right lateral organization of the brain use different management tools. For example, in the activities of the left hemisphere superintendents stronger organizational skills are expressed, the authoritarian management style is used more often and motivation for success is expressed greater than motivation to avoid failures. The right hemisphere superintendents express stronger communication skills at a lower intensity of managerial skills, the democratic style of management is used more frequently, this type of individuals often focuses on avoiding failure than on achieving success. The main methodological principle laid down in the program of the study is the system approach. This study is in the "mainstream" of theories of individual differences that are explained by the features of braking force of regulatory unit in expression of the general properties of the CNS. This article contains recommendations that provide an opportunity to optimize managerial activities of individuals engaged in educational supervision. These recommendations are aimed at expansion of the components of management style.

The article deals with the problems of the essence of consciousness manipulation in the process of self-preservation of a social group by holding holidays. One of the most complex and unambiguously interpreted scientific problems at the present time is the problem of determining the place and various functions of the sacral in the everyday life of society. Of course, the traditional understanding of a holiday as a ritual action that transcends the transcendental nature of being has been preserved to some extent to this day, however, with the development of different social arrangements in the context of life, not only collective, but also individual, has somewhat changed its character. Strictly speaking, the development of philosophical thought with respect to this problem was extremely diverse, but at the same time it had certain homogeneity, manifested in the traditional understanding of a particular area of this aspect. The original understanding of the holiday as sacralization of being, which really exists here and now, was extremely important in the development of the history of the existence of an individual and his relationship with the objectively surrounding world. Of course, the birth of manipulation should not be directly proportional to the existential aspect of life as such. On the contrary, life, according to its dual nature, can not but perform various kinds of manipulation to determine the essence of its existence. The concept of dualism of being has acquired completely different features with the development of a philosophical view of the problems of this kind in the process of historical and philosophical consideration. The initial perception of this phenomenon was absolutely authentic, for it found responses in the determination of the One as the Absolute in its individual kind through the disintegration into plurality, revealing certain regularities in terms of transcendental being. Manipulation of consciousness in the process of research actually appears as a kind of technology of domination of the sacral over everyday life. Holiday as a ritual allows us to manifest the essence of sacralization, determining the place of man in the process of his own being through manipulative character in the context of interaction with the objective world.

A systematic approach makes it possible to discover new ways of investigating the question of family-marriage problems. Through systematic approach the family is considered not from the point of individual elements’ qualities, but from the point of system’s qualities, which appear as a result of elements’ interaction. Once appeared, these qualities obtain the influence on other elements. In this way, system’s elements’ interaction becomes the key determinant parameter for system’s qualities. The three family systems: traditional, nuclear and individual- are considered within the scope of the systematic approach. Each of the mentioned types is defined by the presence of an over-systematic system-forming principle and orientation on existing cultural models or by their absence. Traditional and nuclear family types have certain patterns of interactions, worked out during the evolution. The third marked out type of family organization is still going through its establishment and development stages. The systematic approach within family-marriage range of problems, on the one hand, is based on epistemology of modern time, and, on the other hand, follows traditional philosophic intuitions in this field. This view allows us to prevent evaluation in description of system’s elements, shifting the attention on the dynamic constituent. This broadens the opportunities of finding modern viable family organization models.

The paper deals with the relationship between dialogue and intersubjectivity. The idea of the subordinate nature of these relations is noted, a number of fundamental differences between concepts are revealed. Intersubjectivity and dialogue are correlated as possibility and reality, as space and action in this space, as timelessness and temporality, as whole and part. The space of intersubjectivity as three-layered is fixed: the existential-phenomenological, cultural-symbolic and institutional levels of intersubjectivity are unfolding each in its logic: the logic of the victim, the logic of the gift and the logic of exchange, respectively. The peculiarity of the dialogue is seen in the fact that it is accentuated on the second - cultural-symbolic - level of intersubjectivity. The existential-phenomenological and institutional levels remain outside the zone of dialogue. The first is due to the lack of attention to such an essential tool as speech. The second is due to the absence of the subject to whom this speech is addressed. Relations at the normative or institutional level of intersubjectivity are close to the subject-object relationship. At the same time, the layers of intersubjectivity are not homogeneous, the analysis reveals a fractal principle of their composition. Each level of intersubjectivity is similar to all intersubjectivity in general. So, in a dialogue, three logics are combined: the existential logic of expression, the symbolic logic of understanding and the institutional logic of positioning, which are correlative to the logic of sacrifice, gift and exchange. Moments, when the dialogue overlaps the whole space of intersubjectivity, are rather exceptions to the rules, but it is at such moments that it realizes itself completely.

  The article considers social and socio-psychological prerequisites of Eurasianism coming on the stage. Eurasianism emerged in the early twenties of the last century as an ideology and a political movement. But its social origin dates back to the earlier period. Eurasianism is a consequence of the world war and the revolutionary situation. The active participation of Caucasian and Asian peoples of the Russian Empire as well as some features of the revolutionary everyday routine formed a part of the Russian intelligentsia`s perception of the revolution as the Eurasian matter. This was facilitated by the complex nature of the Russian identity which comprised two hearts of the Russian peoples – European and Asian. The specificity of the Eurasian perception of the revolution was the reassessment of the European and Asian components of the Russian identity. In the Russian public consciousness of the nineteenth century the Asian component was perceived negatively, but the European one - positively. A group of writers and poets, who in 1917 and 1918 called themselves “The Scythians”, under the influence of Nietzsche and Vladimir Solovyev and under the influence of tragic experience of the First World War, re-evaluated the two components of the Russian identity. The result of this re-evaluation was the birth of a Eurasian myth as an artistic reflection of the experience of the world war and the revolution. This myth was used as the basis for the creation of Eurasian ideology by a group of Russian emigrant scholars.