Происхождение названия русского города Мценск имеет несколько объяснений, однако все они являются неудовлетворительными. В статье предлагается новая этимология гидронима Мецна, от которого образован этот ойконим: *Mьcna < *Mьt-sna < *Mьd-sna < *Mьdьsna как результат исчезновения слабого редуцированного, ассимиляции и упрощения < балт. *med- ‘лес’ с помощью форманта -sna, восходящего к общебалтийскому именному суффиксу *-sen-. Оба эти сегмента очень частотны в гидронимических названиях.

Ukraine's development in its perspective is mainly related to the promotion to Europe. We strive to transform ourselves to European standards. It requires a tolerant attitude towards unconventional religions, respect for dissent, protection of non-denominational beliefs and various non-traditional communities. We are also affected by globalization processes, which create in Ukraine new powerful organizational, technical and financial capabilities to create or borrow new beliefs - both with information disseminated through global communications and banking networks and with immigrants more people come (...) and settle in with us. (shrink)

The present paper is a continuation of the previous appearances by the author addressing the phenomenon of the cultural-symbolic world pictures as typologically founded in the “epoch-making” ontologies and culturally expressed versions of history. In their construction, philosophy is responsible for the love of wisdom, history – for the given in making the consciousness of being, culture – for the personal expression of human history. This article re-constructs the world picture of the Latin Christian Medieval Ages, adequate to the author’s (...) original theoretical constructs, with an emphasis on its ontological dimension proper. Section 1 deals with the European practice of interpreting the mentioned period as a distinct cultural-historical type, from Renaissance till the 20th century’s Human World. Concurrently, at the theoretical level, the paper addresses the very historical form of being is defined; philosophical tools to tell theory and history apart are offered; transformations of fact in the past are shown; distinguishing features of the knowledge relation. Section 2 deals with the basic components of cultural myth on the symbolic Divine World, and their representation in the philosophical practice of that period. Primarily, the very pathway of such philosophical “portraying” is sketched out: 1) the “epoch-making” interpretations of the absolute foundations of life of resp. ontologies → 2) ideals and values as defined by the latter, being components of an “epoch-making” ontological structure → 3) characteristic recording of the obtained “picture” in cultural reflections → 4) the “epoch-making” guides into knowledge and texts – realizers for the intent to irradiate knowledge. The paper also offers three symbolic worlds of the Latin Medieval Ages. Finally, under the distinctive Medieval “double-focus” view mode, and based on analysis of key texts of the period, seven twofold ontologically oriented characteristic features are offered as fundamental components of the then picture of the world. Section 3 suggests the final definition of the Latin Medieval Ages as a distinct cultural-historical type of life. Manuscript received 16.02.2020. (shrink)

Unlike the most common in the modern studies – the psychological, ethical, socio-cultural – approaches to the problem of suffering, in this paper the philosophical problematics of ontological dimension of the suffering in the Buddhist philosophy is raised. Many modern scholars are inclined to think that a more adequate translation for the Sanskrit term duḥkha is “unsatisfactoriness”. However, from the material presented in the article follows that this rendering does not feet the sense of the notion of duḥkha when it (...) is examined in the ontological plane, and thus the traditional translation “suffering” in this sense remains more adequate. It is also shown that the etymology of the Sanskrit term duḥkha as a «improperly installed» axle of the wheel of a cart has strong connotations with the metaphor of the wheel and the symbol of swastika in the Buddhist cultural tradition (wheel of being, three turnings of the Wheel of Dharma etc.). In this paper the main causes of suffering (self, body, ignorance, desire and other afflictions) exposed in Buddhist texts and scholarship are revised, and on the example of the Cūḷasuññata-sutta it is demonstrated that the real final cause of suffering in the Early Buddhism is our body and not our “self” and ignorance. While in the Mahayana Buddhism based on the philosophy of emptiness and the principle of nonduality, the dichotomy of soul and body is removed, the attainment of nirvana becomes possible in this body and the real cause and source of suffering becomes the ignorance. On the other hand, the paper argues that just the ontological view on the problem of suffering (under the angle of the principle of nonduality) provides us with understanding of the fact that the suffering can be overcome despite its indestructible ontological status. (shrink)

Among the significant religious factors that influenced and influence the cultural orientation of the Ukrainian nation, the phenomenon of Ukrainian Greek Catholicism is a unique place. In recent years, researchers of this phenomenon have focused their efforts primarily on identifying the national and consoli- datory role of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in identifying the opportunities and achievements of the Greek-Catholic denomination in identifying Ukrainian Greek Catholics in their identity between the neighboring-Polish Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox - ethnic groups.

Lotman’s contribution to semiotic theory, anthroposemiotics, the study of artistic texts and defining the relationship between language and culture represent some of the most powerful work produced within the Tartu–Moscow School of Semiotics. The importance of translation is one of the central principles that unites all of Lotman’s work. In the following paper, we will consider Lotman’s definition of translatability in the context of (1) the definition of semiospheric internal and external boundaries and the importance of crossing these boundaries, (2) (...) the role of no fewer than two languages as a minimal unit of semiotic meaning-generation, (3) culture text-level generation of collective memory, and (4) the ever-present tension in the communication act. In our concluding section, we will offer an extended model of the communication act, based on the fundamental principles given in Jakobson, Sebeok and Lotman, in order to specify important moments of the translation process. (shrink)

Development of transdisciplinary strategies involves addressing the question of the relationship between professionals and amateurs in science. The invasion of a foreign professional sphere turns it into an amateur. Effect of amateurism is inseparable from respect for the ideals of scientific. Refining and distribution of scientific standards will enhance the level of professionalism in the humanities and the success of their participation in transdisciplinary research.

The article is devoted to the comic effects in A. Scriabin’s compositions. Existence of metaphysics of laughter in works of composer is researched.

The purpose of this paper is an attempt to outline the main directions of differentiation and correlation of scientific and nonscientific humanities. Humanities in general terms can be defined as knowledge about the inner world of man, in terms of material and ideal cultural entities, endowed with human values, values and senses. In this case, outside the humanities there is knowledge of nature, including human nature, of technology, of the social relationships and regularities. In the humanities it is needed to (...) distinguish between the three spheres. The first one corresponds to the strict scientific standards. It practically does not differ from the natural sciences. Here mathematical models, rigorous methods are applied, verifiable theories are created. They limit the knowledge with a conjunction of at least such attributes: validity, explicitness, validity referentiality, valence, reflexivity. These include many sections of linguistics, some areas of literary criticism and psychology, sociology and quantitative history, etc. The second area uses more blurred scientific standards, soft criteria of rationality, not rigorous methods, narrative explanations, philosophical concepts. But it strives to comply with many of the principles of classical science: evidence, validity, hatchability, corroboration. These include most of the literary criticism, some areas of psychology, qualitative, non-quantitative history, sociology, microhistory, pedagogy. The third major area, the humanitaristics itself is extra-scientific, in the sense that knowingly waives certain requirements of science: from objectivity as literary criticism, from naturalness in explanation, resorting to the recognition of a higher power as theology, from experiment as the philosophy. Coexistence of so many different disciplines under one roof «extra-scientific» emphasizes only one thing: deliberate mismatch some generally accepted standards of science. This does not diminish their merits, in contrast, makes them more free and less bound by restrictions. The second sphere is partially inclined to the first one and also lays claim to scientific status, but it is achievable only in the case of revision or mitigate scientific standards. The third area is the opposite the science and is complementary to it. (shrink)

My paper consists of five parts. In the first part I explain what I mean by the phenomenology of mind. In the second part I show that in contemporary analytic philosophy the prevailing metaphysical theories of the mind are typically not connected to the phenomenology of mind. Views on the nature of the mind are developed without considering the phenomenological facts. In the third part I outline a notion of metaphysics connected to the phenomenology of mind, then in the fourth (...) and fifth parts I give some examples to illustrate how I envision the nature of this connection. (shrink)

This text is an English translation of those several sections of the original paper in Russian, where collection-related issues are considered. The full citation of the original paper is as following: Pavlinov I.Ya. 2016. [Bioraznoobrazie i biokollektsii: problema sootvetstvia]. In: Pavlinov I.Ya. (comp.). Aspects of Biodiversity. Archives of Zoological Museum of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Vol. 54, Pр. 733–786. -/- Orientation of biology, as a natural science, on the study and explanation of the similarities and differences between organisms led in (...) the second half of the 20th century to the recognition of a specifi c subject area of biological explorations, viz. biodiversity (BD). One of the important general scientifi c prerequisites for this shift was understanding that (at the level of ontology) the structured diversity of the living nature is its fundamental property equivocal to subjecting of some of its manifestations to certain laws. At the level of epistemology, this led to acknowledging that the “diversifi cationary” approach to description of the living beings is as justifi able as the before dominated “unifi cationary” one. This general trend has led to a signifi cant increase in the attention to BD. From a pragmatic perspective, its leitmotif was conservation of BD as a renewable resource, while from a scientifi c perspective the leitmotif was studying it was studying BD as a specifi c natural phenomenon. These two points of view are united by recognition of the need for scientific substantiation of BD conservation strategy, which implies the need for a detailed study of BD itself. At the level of ontology, one of the key problems in the study of BD (leaving aside the question of its genesis) is determination of its structure, which is interpreted as a manifestation of the structure of the Earth’s biota itself. With this, it is acknowledged that the subject area of empirical explorations is not the BD as a whole ( “Umgebung”) but its particular manifestations (“Umwelts”). It is proposed herewith to recognized, within the latter: fragments of BD (especially taxa and ecosystems), hierarchical levels of BD (primarily within- and interorganismal ones), and aspects of BD (before all taxonomic and meronomic ones). Attention is drawn to a new interpretation of bioinformatics as a discipline that studies the information support of BD explorations. An important fraction of this support are biocollections. The scientifi c value of collections means that they make it possible both empirical inferring and testing (verification) of the knowledge about BD. This makes biocollections, in their epistemological status, equivalent to experiments, and so makes studies of BD quite scientific. It is emphasized that the natural objects (naturalia), which are permanently kept in collections, contain primary (objective) information about BD, while information retrieved somehow from them is a secondary (subjective) one. Collection, as an information resource, serves as a research sample in the studies of BD. Collection pool, as the totality of all collection materials kept in repositories according to certain standards, can be treated as a general sample, and every single collection as a local sample. The main characteristic of collection-as-sample is its representativeness; so the basic strategy of development of the collection pool is to maximize its representativeness as a means to ensure correspondence of structure of biocollection pool to that of BD itself. The most fundamental characteristic of collection, as an information resource, is its scientific signifi cance. The following three main groups of more particular characteristics are distinguished: — the “proper” characteristics of every collection are its meaningfulness, informativeness, reliability, adequacy, documenting, systematicity, volume, structure, uniqueness, stability, lability; — the “external” characteristics of collection are resolution, usability, ethic constituent; — the “service” characteristics of collection are its museofication, storage system security, inclusion in metastructure, cost. In the contemporary world, development of the biocollection pool, as a specific resource for BD research, requires considerable organizational efforts, including work on their “information support” aimed at demonstrating the necessity of existence of the biocollections. (shrink)

We study the logical and methodological aspects of historical and anthropological studies in the twentieth and the beginning of the XXI century.

It is shown that on way of forming the meaning of life the existential vacuum can get, mechanism of getting out of which must be sought in the service of an important cause, love for another human being, self-realization of man. Noted that it is necessary to demark it from the concept of «happiness» to analyze the meaning of life. In this context, it is necessary to indicate what goals we want to achieve when we talk about the realization of (...) the «meaning of life», and also to determine condi- tions that are worthy of greater pride or admiration, as well as the values that determine them. Emphasized that the opposite concept of nihilism arises when we try to isolate the meaning of life and determine its characteristic features. Pessimism is often associated with extreme pessimism and radical skepticism. Nihilism aims at the destruction of moral, religious and metaphysical beliefs and can fuel an anthropological crisis. And falling into an existential vacuum – to find there fertile soil. Various types of nihilism are considered, such as: political nihilism, which is based on the belief that the destruction of all existing political, social and religious institutions is an indispensable condition for any further improvement of the political system; Ethical nihilism or moral nihilism, which rejects the possibility of absolute moral or ethical values ; Existential nihilism, which postulates the idea that life has no intrinsic meaning or value. Asserted that humanism confirms our ability to self-realization of the individual and responsibility for the sake of the common good for all people. The happiness of an indi- vidual is inseparably linked with the well-being of mankind as a whole, in part because we are «social animals» and develop in a «cultural context». Losing the meaning of life leads to a psychological crisis, internal conflict, loss of self-identity, which leads to a new crisis – the identity crisis. The crisis of identity is actualized against the background of the disorientation of its social role, continuity as a result of conflicting expectations and un- certainty about itself and its role in society. The identity crisis is generated by many factors, including economic instability, negative images in the media, as well as the lack of role models, clear ideological programs and blurred values. Reported that in the context of the developed multiculturalism in the globalization world, the question of the hierarchy of values and the system of personal identification becomes particularly difficult, since in recent years the identity crisis, instigated by social divisions, economic difficulties, cultural ill-treatment and political oppression, is becoming an actual problem requiring Attention. The various moods that arise in society, and emo- tional upheavals provoke an identity crisis in large-scale structures. By personal self- identification, it is suggested to understand the idea that people create meaning through social interaction with other people-that is, the position of symbolic interactionism, in which the individual’s identity acts as a social product formed as a result of social interac- tions within specific social contexts. (shrink)