This third edition of Moral Constraints on War offers a principle by principle presentation of the ethics of war as is found in the age-old tradition of the Just War. Parts one and two trace the evolution of Just War Theory, analyzing the principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello: the principles that determine the conditions under which it is just to start a war and then conduct military operations. Each chapter provides a historical background of the principle under discussion and an in-depth analysis of its meaning. More so than in the previous editions, there is a special focus on the transcultural nature of the principles. Besides theoretical clarifications, each of the principles is also put to the test with numerous historical and contemporary examples. In Part three, Just War Theory is applied in three specific case studies: the use of the atomic bomb against Japan in World War II, the Korean War (1950-53), and the use of armed drones in the "war on terror." Bringing together an international coterie of philosophers and political scientists, this accessible and practical guide offers both students of military ethics and of international relations rich, up-to-date insights into the pluralistic character of Just War Theory.

This groundbreaking volume reassess the philosophical trajectory of German Idealism and its aftermath from a political-theological perspective. Over the course of the volume, German Idealism emerges as a crucial phase in the genealogy of political theology and an important point of reference for the ongoing reassessment of modernity and secularity.

The book focuses most of all on women's and partly on men's agency, to discuss variant ways in which women and men actively use their scopes of action - through political activism, protest, movements, in the military. The book is aiming to dicuss variant perspectives on these issues in different contexts witin Eastern Europe.  How do these in change affect conservative societies and the concepts of masculinity?

The volume is structured in four parts:

I) Floating concepts of Femininities and Masculinities

    (essentially this is a discussion on the role of feminism in the transformation period in Eastern Europe)

II) Political Activism

    (this part deals with political participation of women - also within conservative parties - and of variant forms of protest)

III) Nationalism and Militarization of societies

 (also papers on violence)

IV) Social Roles and Concepts of Women and Men

Reflects on comedy's multilayered cultural, social and political character Takes an interdisciplinary approach with contributions from various fields including performance studies, philosophy, film studies and psychoanalysis

Liberalism in Russia is one of the most complex, multifaced and, indeed, controversial phenomena in the history of political thought. Values and practices traditionally associated with Western liberalism—such as individual freedom, property rights, or the rule of law—have often emerged ambiguously in the Russian historical experience through different dimensions and combinations. Economic and political liberalism have often appeared disjointed, and liberal projects have been shaped by local circumstances, evolved in response to secular challenges and developed within often rapidly-changing institutional and international settings. This third volume of the Reset DOC “Russia Workshop” collects a selection of the Dimensions and Challenges of Russian Liberalism conference proceedings, providing a broad set of insights into the Russian liberal experience through a dialogue between past and present, and intellectual and empirical contextualization, involving historians, jurists, political scientists and theorists. The first part focuses on the Imperial period, analyzing the political philosophy and peculiarities of pre-revolutionary Russian liberalism, its relations with the rule of law (Pravovoe Gosudarstvo), and its institutionalization within the Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets). The second part focuses on Soviet times, when liberal undercurrents emerged under the surface of the official Marxist-Leninist ideology. After Stalin’s death, the “thaw intelligentsia” of Soviet dissidents and human rights defenders represented a new liberal dimension in late Soviet history, while the reforms of Gorbachev’s “New Thinking” became a substitute for liberalism in the final decade of the USSR.  The third part focuses on the “time of troubles” under the Yeltsin presidency, and assesses the impact of liberal values and ethics, the bureaucratic difficulties in adapting to change, and the paradoxes of liberal reforms during the transition to post-Soviet Russia. Despite Russian liberals having begun to draw lessons from previous failures, their project was severely challenged by the rise of Vladimir Putin. Hence, the fourth part focuses on the 2000s, when the liberal alternative in Russian politics confronted the ascendance of Putin, surviving in parts of Russian culture and in the mindset of technocrats and “system liberals”. Today, however, the Russian liberal project faces the limits of reform cycles of public administration, suffers from a lack of federalist attitude in politics and is externally challenged from an illiberal world order. All this asks us to consider: what is the likelihood of a “reboot” of Russian liberalism?

This book examines the function and development of the cult of saints in Coptic Egypt, focusing primarily on the material provided by the texts forming the Coptic hagiographical tradition of the early Christian martyr Philotheus of Antioch, and more specifically, the Martyrdom of St Philotheus of Antioch (Pierpont Morgan M583). This Martyrdom is a reflection of a once flourishing cult which is attested in Egypt by rich textual and material evidence. This text enjoyed great popularity not only in Egypt, but also in other countries of the Christian East, since his dossier includes texts in Coptic, Georgian, Ethiopic, and Arabic.

This book consists of previously unpublished manuscripts by Vygotsky found in the first systematic study of Vygotsky’s family archive. The notebooks and scientific diaries gathered in this volume represent all periods of Vygotsky’s scientific life, beginning with the earliest manuscript, entitled The tragicomedy of strivings (1912), and ending with his last note, entitled Pro domo sua (1934), written shortly before his death. The notes reveal unknown aspects of the eminent psychologist’s personality, show his aspirations and interests, and allow us to gain insights into the development of his thinking and its internal dynamics. Several texts reflect the plans that Vygotsky was unable to realize during his lifetime, such as the creation of a theory of emotions and a theory of consciousness, others reveal Vygotsky’s involvement in activities that were previously unknown, and still others provide outlines of papers and lectures. The notes are presented in chronological order, preceded by brief introductions and accompanied by an extensive set of notes. The result is a book that allows us to obtain a much deeper understanding of Vygotsky’s innovative ideas. 

The Working Paper focuses on possible impacts of related technologies, such as machine learning and autonomous vehicles, on international relations and society. The authors also examine the ethical and legal aspects of the use of AI technologies. The present Working Paper of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) includes analytical materials prepared by experts in the field of artificial intelligence, machine learning and autonomous system, as well as by lawyers and sociologists. The materials presented here are intended to contribute to the public dialogue on issues of artificial intelligence and the possible consequences of using this technology.

The concept of sacred insanity is widespread among many religions of the world and through many ages and cultures. The present volume collects the contributions of the symposium Holy Fools and Divine Madmen, held in Munich in 2015. Employing interdisciplinary approaches, these studies cover a wide geographical and cultural range, from Byzantium westward to Italy and Ireland, and eastward to Islamic Iran, and to India and Tibet

What is it to be a work of art? Renowned author and critic Arthur C. Danto addresses this fundamental, complex question. Part philosophical monograph and part memoiristic meditation, What Art Is challenges the popular interpretation that art is an indefinable concept, instead bringing to light the properties that constitute universal meaning. Danto argues that despite varied approaches, a work of art is always defined by two essential criteria: meaning and embodiment, as well as one additional criterion contributed by the viewer: interpretation. Danto crafts his argument in an accessible manner that engages with both philosophy and art across genres and eras, beginning with Plato’s definition of art in The Republic, and continuing through the progress of art as a series of discoveries, including such innovations as perspective, chiaroscuro, and physiognomy. Danto concludes with a fascinating discussion of Andy Warhol’s famous shipping cartons, which are visually indistinguishable from the everyday objects they represent.

Unity and Aspect has been short-listed as a finalist for the 2019 Prix Mercier.

What is first philosophy today? In Unity and Aspect, the questioning begins with a new (old) approach to metaphysics: being is implied; it is implied in everything that is; it is an implication. But then, the history of philosophy must be rethought completely – for being implies unity, and time, and the other of time, namely, aspect. The effect on the self and on self-understanding is radical: we can no longer be thought as human beings; rather, reaching back to the ancient Greek name for us (phos), Haas seeks to rearticulate us as illuminating, as illuminating ourselves and others, and as implicated in our illuminations. Unity and Aspect then provokes us to problematize words and deeds, thoughts and things – and this means reconsidering our assumptions about history and survival, meaning and universality, sensibility and intimacy, knowledge and intentionality, action and improvisation, language and truth. And if Haas suspends the privilege enjoyed by our traditional philosophical concepts, this has implications for fields as diverse as ontology and phenomenology, ethics and aesthetics, education and linguistics, law and politics. 

Review of Unity and Aspect by Mark Tanzer:

“Haas’ book is unique...his own foray into metaphysics...an original metaphysics written in a way that is designed to afford a unique angle on the problems of metaphysics, specifically in their ineluctably problematic character”.

Alongside the Arab Spring, the 'Occupy' anti-capitalist movements in the West, and the events on the Maidan in Kiev, Russia has had its own protest movements, notably the political protests of 2011–12. As elsewhere in the world, these protests had unlikely origins, in Russia’s case spearheaded by the 'creative class'. This book examines the protest movements in Russia. It discusses the artistic traditions from which the movements arose; explores the media, including the internet, film, novels, and fashion, through which the protesters have expressed themselves; and considers the outcome of the movements, including the new forms of nationalism, intellectualism, and feminism put forward. Overall, the book shows how the Russian protest movements have suggested new directions for Russian – and global – politics.

The book considers how to make the methodology of business ethics more scientific, especially its normative branch. Storchevoy explores the attempts of economic theory to contribute to the scientific normative analysis of economic behavior, particularly the welfare economics of 1910-1950 and methodological discussions of economics and ethics from 1980-2015. He then examines the development of the methodological structure of business ethics in general since the 1980s and the scientific validity of normative business ethics, including stakeholder theory, the separation thesis, integral social contract theory, corporate social responsibility, virtue ethics and other frameworks. He concludes by suggesting an additional step to make business ethics a more systematic discipline by developing a typology of moral issues and dilemmas. Business Ethics as a Science will be a thought-provoking resource for students and practitioners of business ethics and economists alike.

This book suggests that normative ethics should be developed as a social science, and that this will improve its reputation in business and society. Storchevoy defines four criteria of a good scientific method (clear definitions, correct logic, empirical verification, accurate measurement) and demonstrates how normative ethics can make use of them. He provides a historical review of the methodological evolution of normative ethics and outlines how it was moving in a nonlinear way towards this scientific development by the 16th century. A Scientific Approach to Ethics challenges the reputation of ethics among many within business and business schools as unscientific and argues that it can come to be seen as a scientific discipline able to reveal universal moral truth.

This book examines how Russia, the world’s most complicated country, is governed. As it resumes its place at the centre of global affairs, the book explores Russia’s overarching strategies, and how it organizes itself (or not) in policy areas ranging from foreign policy and national security to health care, education, immigration, science, sport, agriculture, the environment and criminal justice. The book also discusses the structures and institutions on which Russia relies in order to deliver its goals in these areas of national life, as well as what’s to be done, in policy terms, to improve the country’s performance in its first post-Soviet century. Edited by Irvin Studin, the book includes contributions from a tremendous list of Russia’s leading thinkers and specialists, including Alexei Kudrin, Vladimir Mau, Alexander Auzan, Simon Kordonsky, Fyodor Lukyanov, Natalia Zubarevich and Andrey Melville.

Philosophy has never been an obvious life choice, especially in the absence of apparent practical usefulness. The intellectual effort and moral discipline it exacts appeared uninviting “from the outside.” However, the philosophical ideals of theoretical precision and living virtuously are what has shaped the cultural landscape of the West since Antiquity. This paradox arose because the ancients never confined their philosophy to the systematic exposition of doctrine. Orations, treatises, dialogues and letters aimed at persuading people to become lovers of wisdom, not metaphorically, but truly and passionately. Rhetorical feats, logical intricacies, or mystical experience served to recruit adherents, to promote and defend philosophy, to support adherents and guide them towards their goal. Protreptic (from the Greek, “to exhort,” “to convert”) was the literary form that served all these functions. Content and mode of expression varied considerably when targeting classical Greek aristocracy, Hellenistic schoolrooms or members of the early Church where the tradition of protreptic was soon appropriated. This volume seeks to illuminate both the diversity and the continuity of protreptic in the work of a wide range of authors, from Parmenides to Augustine. The persistence of the literary form bears witness to a continued fascination with the call of wisdom.  

Big History is a new field that has been gaining ground rapidly around the world. It deals with the universe's grand narrative of 13.8 billion years and attempts to provide a connection between our past, present and future. Appearing in three volumes, this is the first international anthology of Big History. The  first volume, Our Place in the Universe: An Introduction to Big History, provides an overview and notes trends in Big History today. The second volume, Education and Understanding: Big History around the World, considers humanity's search for meaning and expression.

The third volume, The Ways that Big History Works: Cosmos, Life, Society and our Future, reflects on how Big History helps us understand the nature of our existence and consider the pathways to our future. This volume will challenge and excite your vision of your own life as well as focus on the new discoveries happening around us. Together with the authors, who come from all the inhabited continents of our planet, you will embark on a fascinating trip into the depths of time and space, and—we hope—will join us in coming to an understanding of our origins and our future. 

The book prepared for the purposes of The 2nd World Congress on Logic and Religion, organised by the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Warsaw. 

The book contains the final version of the abstracts submitted by majority of speakers.

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 (observation of thinking is always the observation of the other thinking) and rejection from the spatiotemporal localization of cognitive activity (thinking is always “none’s” and does not belong to any kind of individual). 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 (the organization of cognitive systems is the same while its structural realizations are multiple), abandonment of substantialization of the self (“none’s” thinking is considered as the emergent effect of interaction among two or several observers – the autopoietic systems) as well as the refusal from theoretical formulation of the problem of consciousness (observational philosophy develops metatheoretical prolegomena to theory of consciousness, which in turn is considered as lived and essentially practical in phenomenology).

Based on the distinction between three approaches to loneliness, and the

development of the phenomenological and existential framework of loneliness

studies, this article explores Russia’s discourse of national loneliness on three

levels: a) the level of the official discourse of the Russian government; b) the level

of political and philosophical concepts; and c) the level of popular media and cinema

(with a specific focus on a case-study of the post-Soviet Russian blockbuster film

Brother  and its sequel, Brother 2 ). In this article I concentrate on the particular

experiences of loneliness and their interpretations in Russia after the fall of

the USSR. The case of the fall of the USSR has shown that social and political

exploitations of different forms of national loneliness can become the flip side of

the doctrine of autonomy, equal individual rights and freedom from authoritarian

rule. This should be considered and never disregarded within our analysis of the

contours and new transformations of emerging hegemonic discourses, including the

different forms of nationalism in Russia, and in a wider cross-cultural perspective.

The author in this manuscript tries to show that the latent intellectual and spiritual basis of some schools of Western philosophy was Christianity, and Western philosophy is often correlated to it in one way or another (sometimes paradoxically) - be it religious, atheistic or non-theistic. That is true for Jean-Paul Sartre's metaphysics. The concepts of subjectivity and personality are inseparably connected with the Western culture and philosophy, which were (among other) intrinsically generated by the intentions of religions of the "Bible root" - Christianity, in this case. As the "core" of existential philosophy in general are the problems of personality ("being-to-death", "the border situation", human freedom, moral choice, guiltiness, responsibility, alienation etc.) - so, its ideas are at the uttermost correlated to Christian anthropology. Nevertheless parallels of Sartre's texts with Christian mystical and ascetic practices ewre not clearly demonstrated in any research yet. The author also demonstrates that contrary to his heralded "atheism" Sartre's existentialism latently implies the ontological "melancholy for God" and that the "absence of God" was the cardinal principle for the composition of the whole Sartre's metaphysics and his concepts of being, subjectivity and consciousness.    

An Interview with Professor Teresa Obolevitch, Chair of Russian and Byzantine Philosophy at the Pontifical University of Joun Paul II in Krakow

Some biologists and philosophers of biology claim selection can "create" novel traits. Others claim creativity is to be found only in development. I here endorse the former claim, but take seriously and address the concerns that underlie the latter. My discussion of these issues is informed by recent work that champions the "return of the organism" to mainstream evolutionary biology, and I suggest how population and organismal perspectives on trait origins can be reconciled.  

In 1919, three Ugandan Anglicans converted to Orthodox Christianity, as they became sure that this was Christianity’s original and only true form. In 1946, Ugandan Orthodox Christians aligned with the Eastern Orthodox Church of Alexandria. Since the 1990s, new trends in conversion to Orthodox Christianity in Uganda can be observed: one is some growth in the number of new converts to the canonical Orthodox Church, while another is the appearance of new Orthodox Churches, including parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and the Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church. The questions we raise in this article are: Why did some Ugandans switch from other religions to Orthodox Christianity in the first half of the 20th century and in more recent years? Were there common reasons for these two developments? We argue that both processes should be understood as attempts by some Ugandans to find their own way in the modern world. Trying to escape spiritually from the impact of colonialism, post-coloniality, and globalization, they viewed Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Islam as part of the legacy they rejected. These people did not turn to African traditional beliefs either. They already firmly saw their own tradition as Christian, but were (and are) seeking its “true”, “original” form. We emphasize that by rejecting post-colonial globalist modernity and embracing Orthodox Christianity as the basis of their own “alternative” modernity, these Ugandans themselves turn out to be modern products, and this speaks volumes about the nature of conversion in contemporary Africa. The article is based on field evidence collected in 2017–2019 as well as on print sources.

We comment on the article by Zagaria et al., which explicates the ““soft” nature of psychology: a minor consensus in its “core”” (Zagaria et al., p. 1), manifested by the discordant character of definitions of psychological “core-constructs”. Zagaria et al. build on the assumption that psychological science should reside in the status of a paradigm, meanwhile the real state of things they consider as pre-paradigmatic, imperfect and unhealthy, from which a transition to a paradigm is necessary.We cannot agree with this provision. We argue that not internal coherence and consistency, but the ability to reflect multifaceted reality, to answer its innovative manifestations in various dimensions and solve tasks that life poses to humanity with an adequate set of different tools not reducible to a single approach, is what makes the value of science. Psychology originally developed as poly paradigmatic science, because its subject has a most complex nature, holistic, yet incorporating many aspects different in their essence and, therefore, requiring different versions of the methodology. Considering epistemology of psychological science from the philosophical perspective implying special focus on the ontological issues, we argue that poly paradigmatic structure of psychology is a virtue, not weakness. Thanks to such a structure, modular, like a Swiss knife, our science may offer the most effective solutions for a variety of problems. Multiplicity of relative approaches is best fit for life and innovation, even though we have to sacrifice rigor and concordance of definitions in introductory textbooks.

Late Imperial Russia’s multifaceted presence in Persia retains many fascinating life-stories of its actors, who often exerted crucial influence on the course of the history of Russian-Iranian relations of the time. Drawing on international scholarship about the Russian-Iranian relationships at the turn of the twentieth century, but mostly on documents from Russian and Georgian archives and the diaries of his contemporaries as well as his own private notes, this article examines the activities of Seraia Shapshal (1873-1961), focusing on his embeddedness both in the Qajar court and in Late Imperial Russia’s policy towards Iran during the period 1900 to 1908. The paper for the first time in Iranian studies sheds light in sufficient detail upon how Shapshal found himself in Persia and what enabled him to reach the highest levels of power at the Qajar court. In so doing, it also identifies his leading role in the June 1908 anti-constitution coup.

Academic Bibliography of Syriac and Christian Arabic Studies in Russian published in 2019.

The article examines views of A.I. Herzen on emotions and their role in politics. Herzen’s position on the issue of emotions traced back to the early socialist and romantic influences and interpreted in terms of “sentimentalist emotional regime” (W. Reddy). Two discussions that involved Herzen are scrutinized. The first one was a debate of the 1840s around rationality and morals in family life where Herzen advocated middle position between unrestricted capricious emotionality and moralistic rationalism represented by Hegelian T. Rötscher. It is argued that this debate noticeably influenced Herzen’s later conceptions of politics and the public sphere that came to prominence during the reforms of Alexander II. The article shows that Herzen repeated some of his previous arguments against excessive rationalism and emotional restrictions attacking Russian Hegelian B.N. Chicherin. Herzen backed sincerity in the expression of one’s emotions both in private life and in politics, challenging prevalent notions of rationality. Chicherin, on the contrary, was a strong proponent of the neutral and rationalized political sphere since he thought emotions would lead to disturbances and revolutions Concluding remarks concern ambiguous heritage of Herzen’s views on emotions that seem to be closer to his opponents than may be immediately apparent.

In this article, we attempt to trace the semantic changes two key concepts of the Modern period - fundamental law and constitution underwent at the 18th century and investigates how these European concepts were adapted and used in the Russian political language. The concept of the constitution and fundamental laws in eighteenth-century political discourse had differing connotations: while the constitution was used mainly to describe the form of government, the concept of fundamental laws referred to historically developing legal traditions which have been adopted as norms of political law. The most radical vision of constitution in the 18th century went further than identify it with the fundamental law, demanding that the latter should enshrine the principles of civil rights and liberties of the Nation, and the legal guarantees thereof. However, this radical view, arising at the end of the century, was far from universal, and the discussion around various understandings of this concept was still to continue for many years.  

This article in the form of "reflections" is devoted mainly to the reception of Heidegger in Russia as a thinker of being, a conservative critic of late modernity and a "post"-philosopher. On the one hand, due to French postmodernism influence on late Soviet and post-Soviet philosophy Russia has developed a special interest in Heidegger's deconstruction theory. On the other hand, the reception of Heidegger's criticism of European nihilism, totalitarianism and machine technology as the manifestations of modernity has shaped significantly the account of the "political". The current discussion about recently published "Black notebooks" shows the fact of existence of a separate language of description and analysis in Russian philosophical field.

The movement of the so-called philosophiсal physicians was formed at the Prussian University of Halle in the middle of the 18th century as a medico-philosophical approach outside of the structure of university genres both in medicine and in philosophy. Being professional physicians, they read metaphysical texts relating to the status of body, to the living or to the relations between soul and body and introduce the elements of new philosophical discourses such as Wolffianism into the field of medical theory outside of academic discourse. In this context, the objective of the paper is to identify and describe the argumentative features of E. A. Nicolai’s “An essay on the beauty of human body”. Nikolai builds his reasoning more geometrico, referring directly to the works of Christian Wolff and Alexander Baumgarten. However, Nicolai’s use of Wolffian terminology and form of reasoning is systematically ambiguous; for instance, he comes to anthropological conclusions which seem quite consistent with a theory of physical influx totally denied by Wolff discussing the soul-body problem. Moreover, the style of many passages of “An essay on the beauty of human body”, saturated with philosophical terminology, is obviously ironic. Departing from Nikolai’s medico-philosophical approach, I lead to a reflection on the configuration of the disciplinary textual spaces and on the borders of academic medicine in the social dimension of the 18th century.

The paper discusses constructing various versions of Muslim identity by politically opposite actors, the government and Muslim activists, involved in ‘placing’ Muslims in modernizing late-imperial Russia. The problem is approached through the extreme case of M.-B. Hadjetlaché (ca 1870-1929), a baptized Jew reinventing himself as Circassian and Muslim and as such working as a State agent against Muslim opposition and vice versa. His strategies of deceit and reasons to trust him in different cultural and political milieus reveal reciprocal and often shared Orientalisms of the ‘regimes of truth’ defining the processes under study.

This study aims to present that A.V. Mikhailov’s historical method is systematic. Special attention is given to historical-anthropological dimension of the A. V. Mikhailov's theory of baroque. The article shows that Mikhailov's historical anthropology should be viewed as a constitutive part of his “Kulturwissenschaft”, opposed both to the literary science and to the positivist historiography by means of commitment to historize human sciences (the notion of «new historiсism»).

In the course of the Middle Ages, the Copts experienced a variety of drastic changes in the attitude of Muslim rulers towards them, from confidence to disgrace. The latter included not only the increasingly rigorous tax policies, but also social and domestic constraints, which can be surely defined as religious discrimination. Though the Copts managed to regain the trust of the authorities by their profound skills in administrative and courtly functions and, of course, compromise in terms of religion, which allowed them to enjoy high ranks and other benefits of their proximity to the Egyptian court. This, in its turn, made them an outstanding social group and can be considered “positive discrimination” in contrast with the definitely negative discrimination based on confessional conditions. The question of the balance between positive and negative discrimination as an instrument of regulating intrastate social cooperation can be crucial for understanding the specific of these relationships during the described period. So, the main goal of this work is to trace historical precedents which can be considered either negative or positive discrimination, and their suppositional influence on the Copts’ turning into a minority.

Water has always been an important resource for Central Asian states and peoples. Different rulers at different times used water, and access to it, as an instrument of political and even military influence. When the Russian Empire expanded into Central Asia, seizing substantial parts of three central Asian khanates (Bukhara, Khiva and Khoqand) and established its own protectorate over these states, its also found that water was one of the most effective means to control the rulers and peoples of Central Asia. The use of water and irrigation policy as an instrument of rule was effectively used by the Russian Empire in its relations with the Central Asian khanates and this has already been the subject of investigation. This paper analyses the legal regulation of water use and the irrigation policy of the Russian Empire in Turkestan in order to influence the Bukharan Emirate and the Khivan Khanate during the epoch of the Russian protectorate (1870s–1910s). The paper demonstrates how the internal “water law” was a starting point in Russian policy towards Bukhara and Khiva, and shows that each subsequent stage was closely connected to the evolution of the “water law” in the Russian Turkestan. The sources are official documents (including legal acts) of the Russian Empire, correspondence of Russian and Central Asian statesmen, memoirs of contemporaries and the notes of Russian visitors to khanates (diplomats, engineers, etc.) who participated in the realization of Russian water policy in Bukhara and Khiva and could estimate its effectiveness.

The paper introduces a metaphor "digital porosity" aiming to grasp the nonuniformity, limitations and gaps of digital connectivity (technological, material, spatial, social, etc.) in urban spaces. Being used as a research guidance, the metaphor raises the questions what digital porosity is? how is it produced? how is it changing? Based on the research of internet connectedness and practices of Internet use in the subways of Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, the paper states that the extension of the Internet zone and the inclusion of new urban spaces do not automatically increase the connectivity of the city, since the latter depends not only on the availability or the quality of internet communication, but also on the intentions and skills of the internet users and their ideas about the comfort and the possibility of internet connection, the role of the subway ride in the broader planning horizons.

The article deals with the problem of time in the context of several theories of modern physics. This fundamental concept inevitably arises in physical theories, but so far there is no adequate description of it in the philosophy of science. In the theory of relativity, quantum field theory, Standard Model of particle physics, theory of loop quantum gravity, superstring theory and other most recent theories the idea of time is shown explicitly or not.  Sometimes, such as in the special theory of relativity, it plays a significant role and sometimes it does not. But anyway it exists and is implied by the content of the theory, which in some cases directly includes its mathematical tools. Fundamental difference of space-time processes in microcosm and macrocosm is of particular importance for solving the problem. In this regard, a need to understand the time in the way it appears in modern physics, to describe it in the language of philosophy arises (satisfactory for time description mathematical tools also do not exist).  This will give an opportunity to get closer to the answer on question of time characteristics. And even if we do not obtain the exact answer, we will still be able to formulate the right question about its nature. For this purpose, the present research carries out analysis of the key theories of modern physics with regard to historical and scientific, historical and philosophical perspectives. In some cases, this gives an opportunity to detect the succession of the associated with time perception ideas, their development, as well as the origination of fundamentally new ones. During the analysis, the correct characteristics of time are formulated from the point of view of physical theory and the attempt to state the nature of time is made. On the ground of conducted research, the conclusions about current state of the problem and its future solution perspectives are drawn.

We study abstract versions of G\"odel's second incompleteness theorem and formulate generalizations of L\"ob's derivability conditions that work for logics weaker than the classical one. We isolate the role of contraction rule in G\"odel's theorem and give a (toy) example of a system based on modal logic without contraction invalidating G\"odel's argument.

Brian Orend, one of the leading just war theorists, is best known today for elaborating jus post bellum principles while his works contain another distinctive component, concept of “minimally just” political community. This article explores Briand Orend’s conception of “minimally just” political community, especially the meaning of this concept for Orend’s version of just war theory. Orend uses Kantian political and moral philosophy in order to prove there are two key functions of state: protection of human rights and establishing order. Since human rights are universal, a state should assist in protection of human rights of every person, not only its citizen’s rights. This leads to situation when states avoid of harming foreigners and aggressive wars become banned. Orend call a state “minimally just” if it follows these rules. However, these states could violate non-intervention principle and start wars. A crucial point here is an idea that a “minimally just” state has a right to fight for the overthrow of the aggressive regimes and establishment of “minimal justice”. The author concludes that this notion helps Orend extend the list of just causes of war, though his original intention was limitation of cases when arms could be used.

This article is devoted to the study of Viet and Muong song lore. The traditional view on folk songs of the Viets assumes autochthonous music and poetry as opposed to high Vietnamese Sinicized culture. In reality, high and popular culture in Vietnam were in a state of mutual influence, that’s why we can suggest that there are Sinitic traits in folk poetry and music of Viets. It can be assumed that there are Sinitic traits even in Muong song lore, but in fact Muong song lore in Muong language is not Sinicized, though Muong folk music is Sinicized.

In the late 1960s, British popular music, evolution of its aesthetic and thematic traits had some peculiarities. Light guitar-based music was flavored by English folklore and exceptional British subjects, live performances demonstrated certain theatricality, imagery of rock bands was linked to British cases becoming a peculiar way of exhibiting their ‘Englishness’. As a result of new British musicians’ desire to determine their own sound, they tend to rework the past and actively include national history subjects in their music. The paper analyzes the mechanisms of treatment with the past in British popular music of the late 1960s on the example of the rock band, the Kinks. Focused largely on the musical style of American blues on their first albums, since 1967 year the Kinks turned to British musical tradition rediscovering mainly music hall. Despite the fact that other British Invasion leaders, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, also borrowed the music hall imagery, the Kinks embraced not only the external music hall style, but deeply adopted music form and subjects. An appeal to the widely recognizable tradition of the British music hall was occurring on the wave of general re-actualization of national past in England. The paper describes, firstly, particular historical subjects that became popular among the British audience in the 1960s; secondly, the format of treatment with the past, which is conditionally characterized as a ‘relevant history’.

This publication presents an overview of the situation in studies of Buddhist epistemology and logic in Western Europe and in Russia. Those studies are the young direction of Buddhology, and they started only at the beginning of the XX century. There are considered the main schools, their representatives, the directions of their researches and achievements in the review. The activity of Russian scientists in this field was not looked through ever before.   

In order to determine the concept of space interpretation in several multiverse hypotheses, this article analyzes a number of them, which arises from some theories of modern physics. The interpretation of space in the history of philosophy and science and their interrelation with modern physical notions are presented. The research is based on the cognitive interpretation method of the contents of formalistic mathematics and physics theories, the method of comparative analysis (analysis of philosophical texts), the hermeneutical method, and the phenomenological method (analysis of representations). The author shows how the context of modern physics multiverse hypotheses contributes to new connotations in the perception of space. The research draws some conclusions about the present status of the philosophical perception of space.

This paper focuses on fan fiction as a literary experience and especially on fan fiction readers’ receptive strategies. Methodologically, its approach is at the intersection of literary theory, theory of popular culture, and qualitative research into practices of communication within online communities. It presents a general characterization of fan fiction as a type of contemporary reading and writing, drawing upon the influential works by H. Jenkins, A. Dericho, K. Tosenberger, and others. Taking as an example the Russian Harry Potter fan fiction community, the paper poses a set of questions about meanings and contexts of immersive reading and affective reading, highly present among the reading strategies of this fan fiction community. The emotional reading of fan fiction communities is put into historical and theoretical context, with references to the works by researchers who analyzed and criticized the dichotomy of rational and affective reading, or «enchantment», in literary culture as one of the symptoms of modernity (M. Millner, M. Saler, R. Felski). The metaphor of «emotional landscapes of reading» is used in the paper for theorization of the reading strategies of fan fiction readers, and discussed through parallels with phenomenological theories of landscape. Among the «assemblage points of reading» of fan fiction, such specific elements are described as «selective reading», «kink reading», «first encounter with fan fiction texts» and «unpredictability»

Proposed study aims to clarify the nature of the rationality crisis in the European culture of Modernity. This crisis manifested itself in many ways already in the 17th-19th centuries, i.e. at the peak of rationalism. The study considers certain aspects of Cartesianism, which prevented it from dissolving entirely in the epistemology and methodology of Modernity and which, moreover, presuppose certain steps to be taken toward reconsidering the new European rationalism within the framework of overlapping philosophical ideas and literary images. The study focuses on three subjects implied by ‘cogito’: self-consciousness, will, and law.