Working paper
FAST FOOD AS AN ACTUAL FORM OF MODERN GASTRONOMIC CULTURE
Gastronomic consumption practices are one of the main ways of forming the corporeal human identity, a marker of his/her cultural and social status. Specificity of food as a material medium of symbols and signs, which are assimilate d at the level of the most direct corporeal experience, determines its consumption as a complex system of communication links. Today, the practice of food consumption in the form of fast food is especially relevant and registers new forms and ways of communication, not only gastronomic, but also reflecting power and new gender relations. It can be argued that it is in the form of fast food (Mac-food) the symbolic content of food overcame and absorbed its physical and technical aspects.
In March 2011 scholars met in Prague at the conference Interculturalism, Meaning and Identity. This event revitalised this important theme related to Diversity and Recognition. The terms 'interculturalism' and 'integration' are experiencing a renaissance. As the extent of human movement between nations increases attempts are made to balance cultural difference and social cohesion. In some contexts immigration and settlement policies are becoming more draconian in response. Because of this, interculturalism can take on many meanings. However, pivotal to the way interculturalism is understood is identification. As the relationship between nation, ethnicity and language becomes more complex so too do the ways in which people represent them selves. The cultural resources drawn on and the processes used to form identities are examined in this truly international collection. So too are the implications of these developments for how we theorise culture, meaning and identity.
The paper treats the issue of identity of the ego, which constitutes the central problem of personology. The skeptical approach to this problem, which sees it as not being subject to be resolved by means of science, began with D. Hume's work. Contemporary personologists (P. Ricoeur and others) approach this problem through study of culture, which imparts the ego with «narrative identity». Cultural historic psychology is a «Bridge of interpretations», upon which philosophy of culture meets psychology, and psychological data associated with «personality» are interpreted on the basis of some specific cultural philosophic theory. The «conflict of interpretations» plays and essential role in personology, which participates in the processes of emergence and overcoming of the cultural crisis. Philosophical and methodological problems that define the near term perspective development of personology are formulated: whether there are any «ego invariants» that remain regardless of any possible cultural determination; whether the ego possesses any rigidity in relation to cultural determination and, if it does, what is the nature of this rigidity; whether ego identity is destroyed when cultural determination diminishes or ceases, etc.
This paper investigates the language situation in Moscow schools with an ethnocultural component – a new form of national schools. The analysis is based on interviews which were recorded in 2007, in two Moscow schools, one of them with Armenian ethno-cultural component, and the other, with Azeri. The sample included ten students from each school (five boys and five girls).
In the paper the process of linguistic integration of Azeri and Armenian children into modern Russian society is analyzed. The comparison between these two groups is particularly appealing, because the effects of Soviet Russification, and the language situations in general, were different in Armenia and in Azerbaijan. I show that this difference influences the use of language by Azeri and Armenian children.
This chapter proposes an unfolding view of the EU as a sort of post-modern neo-medieval empire, in which narratives of othering towards Central and Eastern Europe preserve their salience.
In this paper we introduce distinction between “ontologically non-fregean” logics and “pragmatically non-fregean” ones; by means of such distinction a classification of non-fregean logics is presented as well. We believe that NFL must be considered as a many-leveled structure; each level taken separately may vary in different way – from classical to non-classical. It is not these levels themselves that we should call “fregean” or “non-fregean”, but the ways they are stuck together within the whole system. The more levels a system has, the more kinds of “fregean” and “non-fregean” we can find in it.
The article considers the Views of L. N. Tolstoy not only as a representative, but also as a accomplisher of the Enlightenment. A comparison of his philosophy with the ideas of Spinoza and Diderot made it possible to clarify some aspects of the transition to the unique Tolstoy’s religious and philosophical doctrine. The comparison of General and specific features of the three philosophers was subjected to a special analysis. Special attention is paid to the way of thinking, the relation to science and the specifics of the worldview by Tolstoy and Diderot. An important aspect is researched the contradiction between the way of thinking and the way of life of the three philosophers.
Tolstoy's transition from rational perception of life to its religious and existential bases is shown. Tolstoy gradually moves away from the idea of a natural man to the idea of a man, who living the commandments of Christ. Starting from the educational worldview, Tolstoy ended by creation of religious and philosophical doctrine, which were relevant for the 20th century.
This important new book offers the first full-length interpretation of the thought of Martin Heidegger with respect to irony. In a radical reading of Heidegger's major works (from Being and Time through the ‘Rector's Address' and the ‘Letter on Humanism' to ‘The Origin of the Work of Art' and the Spiegel interview), Andrew Haas does not claim that Heidegger is simply being ironic. Rather he argues that Heidegger's writings make such an interpretation possible - perhaps even necessary.
Heidegger begins Being and Time with a quote from Plato, a thinker famous for his insistence upon Socratic irony. The Irony of Heidegger takes seriously the apparently curious decision to introduce the threat of irony even as philosophy begins in earnest to raise the question of the meaning of being. Through a detailed and thorough reading of Heidegger's major texts and the fundamental questions they raise, Haas reveals that one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century can be read with as much irony as earnestness. The Irony of Heidegger attempts to show that the essence of this irony lies in uncertainty, and that the entire project of onto-heno-chrono-phenomenology, therefore needs to be called into question.
The article is concerned with the notions of technology in essays of Ernst and Friedrich Georg Jünger. The special problem of the connection between technology and freedom is discussed in the broader context of the criticism of culture and technocracy discussion in the German intellectual history of the first half of the 20th century.