The article deals with the destruction of the widespread myth about Karl Marx as a “Promethean thinker”. Under Prometheism/Prometheanism is the point of view according to which nature is considered as a quantitatively “inexhaustible storehouse”, which must be known and conquered on the basis of scientific and technical knowledge in order to be used to meet constantly growing human needs through continuous growth of production and, accordingly, a permanent increase in the degree of aggressive exploitation of nature while completely ignoring (...) the consequences of this exploitation both for the environment and for human society itself. Since the myth of the “prometheanism” of Marx, which is very tenacious to this day, was previously dispelled in the field of political economy, sociology, ecology, political science, then in the proposed study the author focused only on some of the philosophical aspects of the problem. In the first part of the article it is shown that Marx is mistakenly criticized by many thinkers for anti-environmentalism; in the second, relying on the texts of Marx himself, it is proved that these fragments torn from the general context of his philosophy are mostly false, because Marx, often praising technological progress, nevertheless, was not a Promethean, as he subjected the social and environmental consequences of the capitalist application of technology and science to radical scientific criticism; Finally, in the third part, through the reconstruction of Marx’s philosophical-anthropological and socio-philosophical ideas, Marx’s true attitude to environmental issues is shown. The author’s arguments are as follows. According to Marx, the ontological basis for the existence of any human society is social metabolism, i.e. the exchange of substances between man and nature through transformative activity, during the deployment of which all the “worlds” in which man exists are drawn into metabolic exchange. Each socio-historical stage of development has its own specific type of metabolism, i.e. its own special form of ecological interaction between all “worlds”. Based on this method, Marx shows that metabolic rifts, i.e. disturbances in the processes of normal, balanced flow of social metabolism in the totality of all these “worlds” are most characteristic of capitalism due to its structural Promethean intentions. And in this sense, Marx’s philosophical ecology not only fully corresponds to the modern level of understanding of ecological/environmental problems, but also offers a holistic methodology not only for “explaining” these problems, but also for their “practical solution”. (shrink)

This article examines the siginifcant role that Romeplayed in the life of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. The author researches the “Roman” preferences of young Turgenev, who specialized in ancient literature and philosophy in Moscow, St. Petersburgand Berlin. Special attention is paid to the circumstances of 21-years-old Turgenev’s stay in the Eternal City in February–April 1840 and his relationship with members of Khovrins’ salon in Rome, espesially with the eldest daughter of Khovrin, Alexandra Nikolaevna, in marriage Bakhmeteva, whо became later a wellknown (...) writer on religious and philosophical topics. The author substantiates the version that it was young “Sashenka” Khovrina who became the prototype of Lisa Kalitina in the novel Home of the Gentry, started in Rome at the end of 1857. The author studies the “Italian traces” in the literary work of Turgenev: in early romantic poem Steno, poem Venus of Medicis, novel On the Eve, etc. The author notes that the “civilizational” contrasts between the “North” and the “South”, abundantly scattered in the works of young Turgenev, suggest that in his work has found a kind of continuation of the tradition of the “Russian Northernship,” deriving in Russian literature from G.R. Derzhavin, N.M. Karamzin, Prince P.A. Vyazemsky. (shrink)

The article raises the question of the heuristic potential of the theory of socioeconomic formations. The author tries to challenge the opinion shared by many researchers that this theory was an exclusively ideological product aimed at justifying the political regime that prevailed in the USSR. Behind dogmatic template-like judgments the lively discussions aimed at elucidating the universal laws of social development were hidden. The results of these discussions do not lose their relevance today as many scientists are discussing again the (...) prospects of a post-capitalist society. The theory of socioeconomic formations is aimed at finding relevant criteria for highlighting the historical stages of social development within the framework of a materialistic understanding of history. As such a criterion, the prevailing forms of ownership, historical types of technology, and the specifics of relations of production are proposed. At the same time, the article substantiates that each of these criteria had produced many problems. Thus, the traditional Eurocentric scheme for changing the prevailing forms of ownership was poorly coordinated with the social processes taking place in the East. The technical and technological criterion turned out to be extremely difficult in terms of identifying the qualitative stages of scientific and technological development. The emphasis on the specifics relations of production led to poorly consistent conclusions that there was a fundamental difference between Soviet socialism and Western industrial capitalism. The article attempts to discard obsolete dogmatic and ideological constructions from the theory of social formations. At the same time, it proposes using such a criterion for highlighting social formations as the prevailing sources of consumer values. This criterion allows to connect qualitatively a quantitative technical and technological criterion with political and legal phenomena, such as prevailing forms of ownership, systems of relations of power, exploitation and exclusion, etc., into a single causal scheme. An attempt was made to redefine social formations, based on the corresponding prevailing sources of consumer values. The conclusion is made that the historical forms of socialism and capitalism are different modifications of the class socioeconomic formation. The emergence of a personalistic socioeconomic formation based on creativity as the main source of consumer values is an extremely controversial process. This formation will have its internal logic and contradictions; therefore, the categories characterizing it should not be confused with the categories of a class socioeconomic formation that is gradually fading into the past. (shrink)

У статті подається короткий огляд прагматичного емпіризму Джеймса, емпіризму Дьюї, неопрагматистських ідей Рорті, огляд метамоделей Крейга щодо теорії комунікації. На основі даного огляду авторка обґрунтовує необхідність радикалізації прагматизму та аналізує його вплив на комунікаційні дослідження. Досліджується теорія комунікації Роберта Крейга, яку він розглядає як практичну дисципліну. Доводиться, що всі теорії комунікації є взаєморелевантними, якщо їх адресують у практичний життєвий світ, в якому «комунікація» вже є багатозначним терміном. Кожна традиція теорії комунікації походить з риторичних посилань на певні загальноприйняті уявлення про комунікації, (...) оскаржуючи інші переконання. Взаємодоповнення та напруженість традицій породжують теоретичний метадискурс, який перетинається з існуючим практичним метадискурсом у суспільстві та потенційно інформує про нього. За попередньою схемою комунікативного поля риторична, семіотична, феноменологічна, кібернетична, соціально-психологічна, соціокультурна і критична традиції теорії комунікації вирізняються властивими способами визначення комунікації та проблем спілкування, метадискурсивними словниками та метадискурсивними загальними поняттями. Запропоновано порівняльну аргументацію між традиціями, розглянуто результати для теоретичної роботи та дисциплінарної практики в цій галузі. (shrink)