The article considers the theory of cognition of the Russian and Soviet philosopher Vasily Seseman in its relation to the main philosophical orientations in early 20th-century: phenomenology, neokantianism, and intuitionism. Seseman’s theory of cognition is interesting today because, following the tradition of neo-Kantianism, it largely shares the principles and methods of phenomenology, poses epistemological problems that were not explicitly formulated by Edmund Husserl, and offers solutions that are relevant today. The article highlights a common thematic field combining phenomenology, neo-Kantianism, and (...) intuitionism. This field is set by the initial subject-object cognitive attitude, the desire to identify the conditions for the possibility of cognition, the recognition of the presence of a non-linguistic level of knowledge. Moving in this unified theoretical cognitive context of the early twentieth century, Seseman offers his own solution to the following problems: defining the subject of cognition, developing the method of intuition in general and in relation to the contemplation of essence, distinguishing between objective and non-objective attitudes and using this distinction to describe different types of cognition, thematizing the irrational in cognition, and understanding the judgment and its role in the final formation of cognition. Seseman believes that the cognition of reality is preceded by the perception of its objects. He diverges from the Neo-Kantians, who claim that the objects of cognition are formed only in judgment, and holds a position than Husserl, according to whom we perceive the world around us already objectively. However, unlike Husserl, Seseman does not recognize the cognitive nature of perception and argues that knowledge begins with a reflexive fixation of the object of cognition. The cognition of an individual object is embodied in a judgment in which the relation of the object to its environment is fixed and the object is defined as a unique combination of universal properties. Finally, it is shown that the solution of epistemological questions inevitably leads Seseman to ontological issues. (shrink)

This preface to the translation of Harvey Sacks, Emmanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson’s paper “A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation” discusses the conceptual and methodological foundations of conversation analysis. It shows that conversation analysis, which embodies the program of primitive natural social science formulated by Harvey Sachs, offers a revolutionary approach to the study of social phenomena, based on detailed analysis of naturally occurring everyday interactions. While remaining closely related to Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology, conversation analysis shows (...) how careful and detailed can be sociological descriptions that involve the discovery of general mechanisms of the production of single events of conversation or any other social practice. This approach, however, risks losing the original purpose of studying the local concerted work of mutual understanding by the participants in social situations. The accumulation of the descriptions of general mechanisms of interactions’ production and perception brings the tendency of formalization into conversation analysis: analysts tend to collect the instances and properties of already known “interactional techniques.” The article considers the importance of “Simplest Systematics" in terms of the development of original program of conversation analysis, and discusses the peculiarities of translation of conversation analysis’s key terms into Russian. (shrink)