For over a century, Haeckel's Gastraea theory remained a dominant theory to explain the origin of multicellular animals. According to this theory, the animal ancestor was a blastula‐like colony of uniform cells that gradually evolved cell differentiation. Today, however, genes that typically control metazoan development, cell differentiation, cell‐to‐cell adhesion, and cell‐to‐matrix adhesion are found in various unicellular relatives of the Metazoa, which suggests the origin of the genetic programs of cell differentiation and adhesion in the root of the Opisthokonta. Multicellular (...) stages occurring in the complex life cycles of opisthokont protists (mesomycetozoeans and choanoflagellates) never resemble a blastula. Here, we discuss a more realistic scenario of transition to multicellularity through integration of pre‐existing transient cell types into the body of an early metazoon, which possessed a complex life cycle with a differentiated sedentary filter‐feeding trophic stage and a non‐feeding blastula‐like larva, the synzoospore. Choanoflagellates are considered as forms with secondarily simplified life cycles. (shrink)

The period between the late 1910s and early 1920s saw the emergence of onto-epistemological philosophical projects in Russia that was determined by criticism and attempts to overcome the domination of epistemology in philosophy which was the result of the intensive development of Neo-Kantianism and the influence of Husserl’s phenomenology. Attempts to turn towards ontology were made both by Russian religious philosophers and by Russian Neo-Kantians. I look at the little-studied philosophical projects of the Russian Neo-Kantians Lev Salagov and Nikolai Boldyrev. (...) Their philosophical concepts share the tendency to transpose epistemological problems to ontology, and to identify and bring closer together epistemology and ontology. Russian philosophers ontologise the theory of cognition through the analysis of subjectivity, the complete elimination of psychological motives and the separation of transcendentalism from transcendentism. These principles enable Salagov to ground a three-part structure of cognition and to assert that the main task of genuine epistemology is exclusively the study of the cognitive relationship, committing to consciousness. They enable Boldyrev, proceeding from the separation of reflection and sensibility, to build a doctrine on the self-unfolding of being. Similar tendencies — a turn towards ontology — were observed in the same period in West European philosophy, including German Neo-Kantianism. However, the concepts of Russian Neo-Kantians, which imply a new orientation towards ontology, are fairly independent, and not only on account of the original interpretation of Kantian critical philosophy and Neo-Kantian epistemology, but also on account of internal discussion with the Russian philosophers belonging to other movements. The analysis of the onto-epistemological projects of Russian Neo-Kantians makes important additions to the picture of the reception of Neo-Kantianism in Russia. (shrink)

Along with competing legal concepts of positivism and gnoseologism in the second half of the 19th century, a direction of legal psychology was formed, within which the psychological theory of law by the Russian and Polish lawyer L.I. Petrazhitsky takes a prominent place. L.I. Petrazhitsky's legal theory interprets the law as a mental phenomenon in a person's mind. The mental life forms the internal and external legal behavior. Studying the law becomes possible only by analyzing the subject's particular kind of (...) emotional life - legal experience. Our focus on the individual's emotional world gives us reason to think of the theory as individualistic, i.e., close to the subject's mental life. At the same time, the Russian lawyer's psychological doctrine also gains explanatory potential for scrutinizing social life. It contains ideas that reveal such mechanisms of social functioning as the affirmation of the ideal of love as the ultimate goal of law-making, the priority of unofficial law in the life of society, and a specific interpretation of public and private law. The system of legal emotions is carried out on the social niveau and establishes such values as love and social order. The article reconstructs the main provisions of Petrazhitsky's psychological theory of law from the point of view of the interaction of its individual and social sides. The social potential of the Russian lawyer's theory appears capable of supplementing and explaining the ideas of socialism and sobornost discussed widely at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Petrazhitsky's individualistic doctrine appears as a flexible concept, capable of fitting organically into various philosophical and sociological contexts. (shrink)

Neo-Kantianism is traditionally seen as a philosophy that was formed to develop and actualise Kant’s philosophy and Kantian transcendental methodology. However, Kant was the determining, but by no means the only, influence on the emergence of the neo-Kantian tradition. Neo-Kantianism was strongly influenced by the entire German post-Kantian philosophy, especially by Fichte and Hegel, although neo-Kantians have repeatedly tried to dissociate themselves from the great idealists. In many ways neo-Kantianism was cultivated by the Fichtean reading of Kant, which enabled succeeding (...) philosophers, notably H.-G. Gadamer, to consider neo-Kantianism to be “hidden neo-Fichteanism”. The main goal of this study is a historical-philosophical reconstruction of the image of Fichtean philosophy formed within German neo-Kantianism. To achieve this aim I have analysed the key projects of the German neo-Kantians in which the influence of Fichte’s philosophy, in particular his interpretation of the Kantian doctrine of the primacy of practical reason, is most clearly manifested. I show that the theory of values of the Southwest neo-Kantians and the ethics of pure will of the Marburg neo-Kantians are associated with the Fichtean revision of Kant’s doctrine of the primacy of practical reason. The following, in my opinion, are the main features of the image of Fichte’s philosophy: it is close to neo-Kantians precisely because it strives to combine theoretical and practical reason; it is in ethics that Fiche’s ideas are most manifest in neo-Kantianism; neo-Kantian original theories contain the ideas of self-consciousness “in the spirit” of Fichte. The conclusion is drawn that the growth of the metaphysical component in neo-Kantian doctrines may be connected with the influence of Fichte’s philosophy. (shrink)

The escape from the ‘Malthusian trap’ is shown to tend to generate in a rather systematic way quite serious political upheavals. Some demographic structural mechanisms that generate such upheavals have been analyzed, which has made it possible to develop a mathematical model of the respective processes. The forecast of political instability in Sub-Saharan African countries in 2015– 2050 produced on the basis of this model is presented.

This paper discusses continuity between ancient Pythagoreanism and the pseudo-Pythagorean writings, which began to appear after the end of the Pythagorean school ca. 350 BC. Relying on a combination of temporal, formal and substantial criteria, I divide Pseudopythagorica into three categories: 1) early Hellenistic writings ascribed to Pythagoras and his family members; 2) philosophical treatises written mostly, yet not exclusively, in pseudo-Doric from the turn of the first century BC under the names of real or fictional Pythagoreans; 3) writings attributed (...) to Pythagoras and his relatives that continued to appear in the late Hellenistic and Imperial periods. I will argue that all three categories of pseudepigrapha contain astonishingly little that is authentically Pythagorean. (shrink)

People feel they understand complex phenomena with far greater precision, coherence, and depth than they really do; they are subject to an illusion—an illusion of explanatory depth. The illusion is far stronger for explanatory knowledge than many other kinds of knowledge, such as that for facts, procedures or narratives. The illusion for explanatory knowledge is most robust where the environment supports real‐time explanations with visible mechanisms. We demonstrate the illusion of depth with explanatory knowledge in Studies 1–6. Then we show (...) differences in overconfidence about knowledge across different knowledge domains in Studies 7–10. Finally, we explore the mechanisms behind the initial confidence and behind overconfidence in Studies 11 and 12, and discuss the implications of our findings for the roles of intuitive theories in concepts and cognition. (shrink)

This essay examines the quantitative aspects of Greco-Roman science, represented by a group of established disci¬plines, which since the fourth century BC were called mathēmata or mathē¬ma¬tikai epistē¬mai. In the group of mathēmata that in Antiquity normally comprised mathematics, mathematical astronomy, harmonics, mechanics and optics, we have also included geography. Using a dataset based on The Encyclopaedia of Ancient Natural Scientists, our essay considers a community of mathēmatikoi (as they called themselves), or ancient scientists (as they are defined for the (...) purposes of the present paper) from a sociological point of view, focusing on the size of the scientific population known to us and its disciplinary, temporal and geographical distribution. A diachronic comparison of neighboring and partly overlapping communities, ancient scientists and philosophers, allows the pattern of their interrelationship to be traced. An examination of centers of science throughout ancient history reveals that there were five major centers – Athens, Alexandria, Rhodes, Rome and Byzantium/Constantinople – that appear and replace one another in succession as leaders. These conclusions serve to reopen the issue of the place of mathēmata and mathēmatikoi in ancient society. (shrink)

The question of the secularity of society still remains open, since scientists have proposed only cautious speculative answers, while every scientist understands that in the social sciences it is a sad experience of predictions, that history is random and therefore unpredictable and the future always remains fundamentally open. The process of transformation of postmodern society, the development of which is actively influenced by the current pandemy of COVID-19, entailed the revival of religious values ​​and the formation of a qualitatively new (...) religious consciousness. In connection with the rise in the social status of religious consciousness and the widespread dissemination of religious ideas, primarily at the everyday level, the analysis of individual religious consciousness as one of the ways to comprehend the world is of particular importance. The social nature of religious consciousness is manifested not only in the fact that religious values ​​are perceived as a kind of khanism of social regulation, but also in the fact that they serve as epistemological guidelines and often compete with scientific values. This determines the growing philosophical interest in the analysis of the epistemological functions of religion and secular reality, as well as the cognitive capabilities of religious consciousness, which is impossible without a consistent study of the methodological basis of religious knowledge. (shrink)

The article offers forecasts of the geopolitical and geo-economic development of the world in the forthcoming decades. One of the main accusations directed toward globalization is that it deepens the gap between the developed and developing countries dooming them to eternal backwardness. The article demonstrates that the actual situation is very different. It is shown that this is due to the globalization that the developing countries are generally growing much faster than the developed states, the World System core starts weakening (...) and its periphery begins to strengthen. At the same time there is a continuing divergence between the main bulk of developing countries and the group of the poorest developing states. The article also explains why the globalization was bound to lead to the explosive rise of many developing countries and the relative weakening of the developed economies. In the forthcoming decades this trend is likely to continue. It is a.. (shrink)

In this book we attempted to gather together a set of chapters that describe new ways of approaching questions about aesthetics and innovation. Rather than going over old ground, the chapters describe attempts to break out in new directions. The book begins with a description of von Ehrenfels development of a Gestalt theory of aesthetics so evocative of the Vienna of 1900 that readers will wish that they had been there to experience the intellectual excitement and ends with a survey (...) the very latest research on brain scan research on perception of art. In between, we encounter chapters as diverse as a description of cognitive effects on art perception and on the analogies between oscillations in art history and waves in the physical world. About half of the book contains chapters by well known western psychological aestheticians and half chapters by Russian scholars many of whom will be new to western readers. As well as describing new methods and results, the chapters by Russian scholars will be novel to most western readers, because the Russian perspective on aesthetics and innovation is rather different than the traditional western perspectives. Looking at phenomena from new viewpoints never hurts and very often helps in science. (shrink)

As a comparative study of the virtue ethics of Aristotle and Confucius, this book explores how they each reflect upon human good and virtue out of their respective cultural assumptions, conceptual frameworks, and philosophical perspectives. It does not simply take one side as a framework to understand the other; rather, it takes them as mirrors for each other and seeks to develop new readings and perspectives of both ethics that would be unattainable if each were studied on its own.

In ancient tradition, Pythagoras emerges as a wise teacher, an outstanding mathematician, an influential politician, and as a religious and ethical reformer. This volume offers a comprehensive study of Pythagoras, Pythagoreanism, and the early Pythagoreans through an analysis of the many representations of the individual and his followers.

Interview of Vlada Davidenko, Ryenat Shvets, Sofia Bryl with Leonid Finberg.

B a c k g r o u nd. The article focuses on the study of modern adaptations and modifications of Marxist principles in the context of the practice of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Focusing on the process of modernization, the article explores how Marxism developed and adapted to China's unique socio-political and economic landscape. Through an in-depth analysis of the CCP's policy and ideological changes, the article sheds light on the distinctive features characterizing the modernization of Marxism in (...) the Chinese context. The study covers not only theoretical aspects but also practical aspects, providing a refined understanding of the specifics of the relationship between Marxist ideology and the dynamic realities of Chinese governance. M e t h o d s. The article uses an in-depth analysis of the politics, ideological changes, and practical aspects of the CCP. The research is based on an analysis of primary sources, including official documents, political speeches and ideological narratives. R e s u l t s. The authors found that the ideology of the CCP is based on Marxism, but adapted to the unique historical context of China, often framed in the concept of "socialism with Chinese characteristics". This adaptation reflects the CCP's recognition of China's special conditions, cultural heritage, and development needs. At its core, Marxism provides the theoretical foundation for the ideology of the CCP, emphasizing class struggle, historical materialism, and the ultimate goal of achieving a classless communist society. However, the CCP recognizes that the application of Marxist principles must take into account the specific realities of China, distinguishing its path from the classical Marxist trajectory. C o n c l u s i o n s. The study highlights that the CCP recognizes the importance of adapting Marxist principles to the specific conditions of China. Acceptance of the concept of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" defines a pragmatic approach to the integration of Marxist ideology with the conditions of the country, taking into account its path of economic development and modernization. (shrink)

One of the main accusations directed toward globalization is that it deepens the gap between the developed and developing countries dooming them to eternal backwardness. The article demonstrates that the actual situation is very different. It is shown that this is due to globalization that the developing countries are generally growing much faster than the developed states. The World System core starts weakening while its periphery gains strength. At the same time there is a continuing divergence between the main bulk (...) of developing countries and the group of the poorest developing states. The article also explains why globalization was bound to lead to an explosive rise of many developing countries and relative weakening of the developed economies. In the forthcoming decades this trend is likely to continue. It is also demonstrated that this convergence constitutes a necessary condition for the ongoing and forthcoming change of political and power balance in the World System. We also show how and why it manifests itself in the US current and possible future policy. (shrink)

The article analyzes the main preconditions for the formation of pro-Ukrainian views among students of the Kyiv Theological Academy and determines their percentages among the graduates from the 1890s to 1907. When in the late 1850s and the early 1860s the Ukrainian intelligentsia carried out semi-legal cultural and educational work within Ukrainophile communities, few students of the Academy took part in their activities, with only 4 participants being active members in the Kyiv Hromada. Later, when students from the 1890s to (...) 1907 at the Kyiv Theological Academy joined the national movement, pro-Ukrainian activities became more popular with the clergy. According to statistical and biographical data gathered by the author, the percentage of nationally-minded graduates among Ukrainian-born students at the Academy varied from 5 to 38% depending on the year of graduation. They engaged in educational work in schools, popularized Ukrainian-language literature, collected ethnographic materials, studied the history of their native land, and translated religious literature. Moreover, 11 students left their mark in the history of the hromada movement. Such well-known public figures as Oleksandr Lototskyi, Volodymyr Durdukivskyi, Serhii Lypkivskyi, and Volodymyr Chekhivskyi, who all played a significant role in the events of the national revolution and the struggle for the independence of Ukraine, deserve special mention. Active participation of Academy graduates in Ukrainian public life challenges the general view of the Kyiv Theological Academy as a highly reactionary educational institution that trained cadres who served only the interests of the Russian Empire. (shrink)

The thesis represents the analysis of strategies in contemporary philosophy as for synthesis with irrational mystical doctrines in general and Buddhism in particular. The definition is given to the historical philosophical sense of mysticism as a phenomenon. The logic of development which determines European and Ukrainian traditions of Buddhology is being revealed.

This paper discusses a common contemporary characterization of skepticism and skeptical arguments-that their real importance is instrumental, that they “drive progress in philosophy.“ I explore two possible contrasts to the idea that skepticism's significance is thus wholly methodological. First, I recall for the reader a range of views that can be understood as `truth in skepticism' views. These concessive views are those most clearly at odds with the idea that skepticism is false, but instrumentally valuable. Considering the contributions of such (...) `truth in skepticism' theorists, I argue, shows that the good of furthering philosophical progress is partly achieved by the work of those who would reject the `merely methodological' view of skepticism's import. While this shows such a view of skepticism's import to be partially self-effacing, it is not therefore incoherent. Rather, the characterization is revealed to be wedded to particular diagnoses of skepticism, and not independently innocuous or neutral. Second, I discuss the idea that the `merely methodological' characterization of skepticism's import draws a contrast with philosophical positions or theses that are supposed to have practical teeth. Here, I think the danger of acquiescing too readily to this view is that the normative import of skeptical arguments is obscured. At a time when discussions of the value of knowledge are in ascendency, this in particular seems a loss-a route from consideration of skeptical arguments to broader normative questions worth keeping open is rather more obscured than opened up. Any radically revisionary outcome of an encounter with skepticism is less likely, led by such an understanding, just when there is opportunity instead to connect up with broad questions of epistemic value. For these reasons I argue the characterization is not one to too readily, unthinkingly, endorse. (shrink)

Purpose. The article is devoted to the analysis of corporality as an attribute of plastic art in the Ancient art, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the modernism and the postmodernism. Theoretical basis. The authors consider historical development of the art as a change of paradigms. Within each paradigm a special understanding of art is created, which is characterized both by the act of creativity itself and by the evaluation of its results. Particularly urgent is the task to identify the origins (...) of these changes, to indicate their stages, the direction of the evolution of artistic creativity. In this context, corporality as a paradigm of European plastic art is considered in the article in the concrete historical dimension from the classics to the postmodernism. Originality. Postmodern experiments stimulate blurring the borders between the traditional forms and genres of art. Review of canonical ideas about the creation and destruction, order and chaos in art illustrates conscious reorientation from the classical understanding of artistic creativity to the construction of artifacts-simulacra, which is a characteristic feature in the oeuvre of contemporary artists, ranging from the pop art to the present day. Conclusions. The ideas of postmodern philosophers found their visual embodiment in modern artistic practices. Reconstruction of the body, re-switching of its elements according to the principle of chaotic collage, the interpretation of the human body as a separate substance isolated from the individual him/herself, which is presented as a phenomenon of mass culture, became the basis of the creative method of contemporary plastic art. The ideas of postmodern philosophers have found their visual embodiment in the contemporary artistic practices. (shrink)

In Soviet ethical literature, the study of the language of morals is denoted as “the study of ethical categories”. These categories include the concepts of good and evil, duty, conscience, dignity, happiness and meaning of life. The set of categories is open but these traditional categories will always constitute the core of the system of ethical concepts. Remarkable difficulties in interpreting the nature of ethical categories result from the fact that they develop on the borderland between two forms of social (...) consciousness – morality and ethics conceived of as the science of morals. Thus, on the one hand, they are scientific notions, but, on the other, they retain the specific qualities of morality: prescriptivity, evaluativeness and evocativeness. While professing his allegiance to the programme of Marxist ethics as a science intended to develop a system of ethical categories the author points out the danger of overrating the role of the economic factor as this may lead to misapprehending the specific qualities of ethics. (shrink)

Following the design of the author, reforms of the UN would consist of four rules. The first rule: Payments from the global community should correspond with the services provided by the UN. - For this purpose it is necessary to develop a system of compensation in which payment would be made only for the completion of a concrete service. Such a system would in effect serve as a continuous audit and guarantor of quality service at all times visible to the (...) entire public. The second rule: Servantura not dictatorship - The author has created a word "servantura" and has given it the following meaning: the performance of administrative service, guided by (1) ethical conduct, (2) democratic norms, (3) the newest scientific knowledge, (5) safe technology, (6) justice, (7) equality of people and (8) the priority of human life. On an idea of the author, servantura is a global managerial philosophy with a system of global service in which each decision should be in accordance with the wishes and the will of the entire global community, not of a separate group of nations, or a single nation, or person. The third rule: Noncommercial services. Commercialization of the UN should be considered a crime. Further commercial use of the UN should be stopped, as it will lead to aglobal catastrophe. The fourth rule: Without enemies or competitors, Full transparency and a strict prohibition of secrecy and privacy in the UN must be established. i.e. openness, publicity and a strict international prohibition on any secret structures or secret activities within the UN. (shrink)

COVID-19 often manifests with different outcomes in different patients, highlighting the complexity of the host-pathogen interactions involved in manifestations of the disease at the molecular and cellular levels. In this paper, we propose a set of postulates and a framework for systematically understanding complex molecular host-pathogen interaction networks. Specifically, we first propose four host-pathogen interaction (HPI) postulates as the basis for understanding molecular and cellular host-pathogen interactions and their relations to disease outcomes. These four postulates cover the evolutionary dispositions involved (...) in HPIs, the dynamic nature of HPI outcomes, roles that HPI components may occupy leading to such outcomes, and HPI checkpoints that are critical for specific disease outcomes. Based on these postulates, an HPI Postulate and Ontology (HPIPO) framework is proposed to apply interoperable ontologies to systematically model and represent various granular details and knowledge within the scope of the HPI postulates, in a way that will support AI-ready data standardization, sharing, integration, and analysis. As a demonstration, the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework were applied to study COVID-19 with the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO), leading to a novel approach to rational design of drug/vaccine cocktails aimed at interrupting processes occurring at critical host-coronavirus interaction checkpoints. Furthermore, the host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) relevant to COVID-19 were predicted and evaluated based on prior knowledge of curated PPIs and domain-domain interactions, and how such studies can be further explored with the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework is discussed. (shrink)