European Philosophy

In this paper, I argue that Johann Christoph Sturm’s eclectic scientific method reveals an unexpected indebtedness to Francis Bacon’s thought. Sturm’s reception of Bacon is particularly surprising given that the German academic context in the second half of the seventeenth century was still largely Aristotelian. Sturm is indebted to Bacon in the following respects: (1) the critique of the current state of knowledge, (2) eclecticism, (3) a fluid transition from natural history to natural philoso-phy, (4) the conception of science as (...) hypothetical and dynamic and (5) experimental philosophy and the use of instruments. Given that Sturm mentions Francis Bacon in important places in his work, these respects should not easily be dismissed as commonplace. Bacon is one of Sturm’s salient sources and they are both deeply concerned with a thoroughgoing reform of existing scientific practices. (shrink)

Enzo Traverso menciona que Portbou se ha convertido en un lugar de memoria. En ese pequeño pueblo de la frontera franco-española murió Walter Benjamin cuando huía del terror nazi desde Francia. Desde el otro lado de la frontera, en sentido contrario al de Benjamin, muchos republicanos huyeron del franquismo durante la Guerra Civil Española. Estos dos fenómenos hacen de Portbou un lugar de memoria, pues recuerda los desplazamientos forzados de hombres y mujeres que trataban de escapar del horror. Sin embargo, (...) ese mismo pueblo también es hoy un objeto privilegiado del turismo que, como también señala Traverso, ha sabido hacer de la memoria una mercancía, explotada por la lógica del neoliberalismo, fortaleciendo además aquella perspectiva de Uwe Steiner, según la cual “cada moda académica ha descubierto hasta ahora a su propio Walter Benjamin”. En el Libro de los pasajes, o en las notas que hoy componen las páginas que han llegado hasta nosotros bajo ese título, el mismo Benjamin sentenciaba que “la moda prescribe el ritual con el que el fetiche mercancía quiere ser adorado”, y que el afán de novedad se presenta siempre como “la quintaesencia de la falsa conciencia, cuyo agente incansable es la moda”. Memoria y mercancía confluyen en una tensión que acompaña a los homenajes y cantidad de trabajos académicos que todos los años desde hace algunas décadas se refieren a la figura de Benjamin. Quizás este trabajo sea uno más en la lista de compendios que engrosan la lista de la “moda Benjamin”. Sin embargo, las características que definen sus motivaciones están lejos de una empresa de beneficio comercial o de ínfula académica. Aunque no por ello puede decirse que el destino de lo que aquí se ofrece tenga su declive precisamente en la afirmación de estas tendencias. Ante ello, queremos manifestar que lo que creemos un aporte al ya rico campo de estudio de la teoría crítica en lengua castellana, solo se propone alcanzar un estatus modesto en medio de una rigurosa presentación de problemas, conceptos y contextos que la vida y obra de Benjamin permite seguir pensando en la actualidad, pues estudiarlas no es un trabajo sencillo y desafía constantemente la búsqueda de sentidos en medio de todo aquello que todavía hoy rodea su legado. Organizar la vida, más allá de fechas y lugares, supone el esfuerzo de la interpretación conceptual de Benjamin. (shrink)

Durante las últimas tres décadas, el ensayo de Walter Benjamin "La obra de arte en la época de su reproductibilidad técnica" puede haber sido citado con más frecuencia que cualquier otra fuente, en áreas que van desde la teoría de los medios de la nueva izquierda hasta los estudios culturales, desde el cine y la historia del arte hasta la cultura visual, desde la escena artística posmoderna hasta los debates sobre el destino del arte, incluido el cine, en la era (...) digital. En el contexto de estas invocaciones, el ensayo no siempre ha adquirido nuevos significados ni se ha vuelto menos problemático que cuando fue escrito por primera vez. (shrink)

Jung once observed, “With glorious naivete a statement comes out with the proud declaration that he has no ‘imagination for evil.’ Quite right: we have no imagination for evil, but evil has us in its grip” (Jung, 2019). His words feel more relevant than ever, as we traverse—whether consciously or unconsciously—a world increasingly shaped by collective trauma. Jungian Analysis in a World on Fire: At the Nexus of Individual and Collective Trauma (2024), edited by Laura Camille Tuley and John R. (...) White, delves into the profound impact of trauma—not just on individuals, but on entire societies. The book confronts the wounds we inflict upon nature, evident in the climate crisis, industrialized animal slaughter, and pandemics, alongside the fractures within human relationships, reflected in systemic oppression, gender inequality, and mass violence. (shrink)

The institution of marriage has long been used as a tool for securing and transferring property and wealth. The role of women in this system has traditionally been secondary yet essential. In the modern era, several female philosophers questioned women’s role in this system. The English enlightenment philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was critical of women’s role in a system in which people were either owners of property or owned as property. Wollstonecraft emphasized the ability of women to be financially independent, (...) both in her writings and in her own life. The French philosopher Gabrielle Suchon (1632-1703) recommended secular celibacy as a way for women to retain their independence, financial and otherwise. Sarah Scott (1720-1795) promoted separatist female communities. In this chapter, I consider the criticism of marriage put forth by these thinkers and others in the modern era, with a special emphasis on the promotion of financial independence for women and the critique of marriage as an essential factor in the ruling financial system. I argue that already in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, some female thinkers were putting forth a social analysis and critique that we tend to associate with later times. (shrink)

The following article is composed of four sections in which a philosophical problematisation of the historical relationship between anthropology and politics is developed. The first section discusses the anthropological foundation of the concept of the political, identifying its irrevocable relationship with an anthropocentric conception of life and technique as arcana that situate the human being in a place of ontological exceptionality above all other forms of terrestrial existence. The second section discusses, in a demonstrative tone, the crisis of political anthropology, (...) in confrontation with the ecological crisis that runs through our epochal and planetary present. The last two sections, on the other hand, propose a set of reading keys from contemporary posthumanist debates in philosophy, with the aim of providing a thinking that is sensitive to the ecological decentring of politics. (shrink)

AI-powered technology can both promote accuracy and hide the standards of measurement and circulation of information. It can also produce models that are opaque and hard to access. As such, the new paradigm of AI asks to pounder about societal values and sets of priorities we want to promote, especially as these technologies are further deployed in times of warfare. The systemic tracking of people’s life and the opaqueness of the models designate a new paradigm in the formation of truth, (...) as censorship is enabled on a new scale. (shrink)

"Nadie puede calibrar lo que fueron los sufrimientos, los problemas y la dimensión del drama humano vivido sobre todo por las gentes humildes en aquellos trágicos días". Con estas dolorosas palabras expresaba Federica Montseny, militante anarquista de la CNT y de la FAI y Ministra de Sanidad del Gobierno de la República Española (1936-1937), la inconmensurabilidad de la tragedia que supuso el triunfo de las tropas franquistas en 1939. Ella, mujer fuerte, luchadora y valiente -no hay que olvidar que fue (...) apodada como La Leona-tuvo que pasar, junto a sus seres queridos, por un éxodo, por un verdadero Apocalipsis. Sin embargo, fue consciente en todo momento de su situación privilegiada. Todavía con infinitos remordimientos por el hecho de haber intervenido en la política profesional y haber violado así uno de los principios esenciales del anarquismo que afirma que "el poder corrompe y el poder absoluto corrompe absolutamente", Montseny como su Matria al mismo tiempo. De esa orfandad terrible, como ya hemos dicho, renacerá una mujer nueva. Tras los primeros años de sufrimientos del exilio suavizó notablemente el individualismo defendido en sus novelas de juventud, entrando así en una etapa en el que el protagonismo fue cedido a los otros, defendido y levantando con ella una nueva comunidad humana cuyas características básicas presentaremos a continuación. (shrink)

Resumen: Este artículo pretende poner en tela de juicio las teorías que defienden que Gracián fue un autor que hay que situar dentro de la Modernidad. Partiendo de un uso excluyente de la noción de “modernidad” basado esencialmente en los términos de “secularización” y de “desencantamiento”, veremos cómo el pensamiento de Gracián sigue centrando todos los aspectos de la vida en Dios. Teniendo en cuenta esta noción de “modernidad”, se va a defender que la teología del autor acaba alejándolo de (...) la modernidad debido a sus ataques al individualismo y a su olvido del cuidado de sí en aras de la búsqueda de Dios. -/- Abstract: This article aims to criticize those theories that argue that Gracián was an author who may be located intellectually within the Modernity. I will analyze how all Gracián´s thinking is focused in the idea of God. For what it´s going to be used an exclusive notion of “modernity” based essentially in two terms: “secularization” and “disenchantment”. Bearing in mind this notion of “modernity”, I will defend that the theology of the author takes him away from the Modernity because of his attacks to the individualism and his forgetfulness of the self-care for the sake of seeking God. (shrink)

“It is well-known that language is a mirror of the intellect”: On Leibniz’ Monadological Conception of Language -/- Leibniz’ interest in language is characterized by a tension. Anticipating many strands of later formal logic, on the one hand, he is centrally involved in the rationalist project of a universal language that would replace historically developed languages in all their ambivalences and inconsistencies by the mathematical formalism of a characteristica universalis (so that, as Leibniz concisely puts, humanity once would reach a (...) stage at which problems of linguistic misunderstanding could be solved by a method of calculation). On the other hand, however, Leibniz emphasizes the both philosophical and political importance of national languages – and he is equally engaged, as one of the first German philosophers, in fostering the study of their complex history, their origins, and their etymologies. Whilst these two aspects, at first sight, seem to be at odds with each other, in Leibniz’ complex systematic conception they rather are internally connected. Accordingly, as a famous passage has it, Leibniz understands language not as an obstacle to rationality but as “a mirror of the intellect.” Instead of putting forward the conception of an abstract rationalism, Leibniz understands languages, insofar, as an irreducible and constitutive medium, as, in his terminology, an “expression” of rational thinking and the systematic unity of its logical rules. The present contribution aims (i) to clarify this connection by focusing on the monadological structure of Leibniz’ systematic conception (as published in his Monadologie). Monads, for Leibniz, are “living mirrors” of the entire universe that, as such, are constitutively determined by their worldly perspectives and the specific and concrete forms they have as being situated in the world. Instead of excluding each other, rationality and sensibility, for Leibniz, insofar, rather belong intrinsically together. Apart from overcoming the problem of dualism with which Cartesianism as the dominant paradigm of rationalism before Leibniz (by which one of Leibniz’ most popular students, Christian Wolff, is still influenced in his early Disquisitio philosophica de loquela) is confronted (as well as, later on, Kantianism), this systematic conception turns out to be a very original position of a philosophy of language, which, not least, lays the ground for later speculative strands of thinking about language in Post-Kantian German Idealism (– the term ‘speculative,’ following Leibniz, hereby precisely refers to the constitutively linguistic metaphor of ‘mirror’). Of particular interest (ii) are also the political-moral implications of this systematic conception: As well as rationality, within this model, has to express itself in language, language cannot be reduced to a merely historical or national particularity. As, in Leibniz, the per se irreducible plurality of languages goes systematically together with universality and, therefore, the possibility of universal communication and the constitution of a supra-national unity, this conception avoids the deadlock of a nationalistic understanding of language (with which later romantic and historicist conceptions, such as in Herder or in Arndt, indeed, are confronted). Rationality has to express and manifest, to embody itself in language. But instead of being caught in language and its Volksgeist, thinking rather necessitates its ongoing translation and interpretative transformation in new and other languages, hereby constituting a more and more complex, interconnected universalising texture. -/- Keywords: Expression, Logic, Monadology, Rationality, Sensibility, Translation, Universality. Authors: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; with some references particularly to Christian Wolff and Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Walter Benjamin. (shrink)

Marxism understood its relationship to Hegel’s absolute idealism – following re-spective programmatical formulas in Marx, Engels, and Lenin – as the procedure of a materialistic “reversal” (“Umkehrung,” or “Umstülpung”). Taking, however, the complex structure of Hegelian idealism seriously the question arises as to how such a “reversal” – and the separation between system and method hereby implied – is systematically and methodologically possible at all, going beyond a mere meta-phor. Among the philosophically most ambitious projects intending to clarify this question (...) and its theoretical and practical implications is the German Marxist philos-opher’s Hans Heinz Holz (1927-2011). By taking Hegel’s speculative philosophy and its systematic framework – and, along with it, the entire pre-Hegelian tradition of speculative metaphysics – as seriously as, both from part of the Marxist tradition and of non-Marxist philosophy, hardly anyone does, he puts forward that Marxism ultimately remains structurally dependent on Hegel’s entire system and should be understood, based on an elaborated understanding of the “speculative” nature of philosophy, as its “materialistic reading” or “translation.” It is the aim of the present paper to outline and – from a Hegelian perspective – critically discuss the program of this “materialistic reading.” By so doing the paper points to the relevance of this subject not only for Marxism but – as its particular focus – for interpretations of Hegel’s philosophy that are interested both in its strong systematic claims and in its – specific – metaphysical function in terms of our practical-political orientation in the world. (shrink)

In spite of Kant’s rigorous critique of the Leibniz-Wolffian metaphysics, questions about the systematical role central configurations of Leibniz’ philosophy play not only in early Kant but also in the idealist systems of Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling cannot be neglected. What connections can be traced, e.g., between Leibniz’ Monadology on the one hand and Fichte’s Doctrine of Science, Schelling’s conception of a philosophy of nature, Hegel’s speculative logic, or the overall idealist claim for systematicity on the other hand? And what (...) continuities can be identified between the metaphysical-theological problem of a theodicy and the philosophies of religion and history in German Idealism? What common issues can be found between Leibniz’ search for an encyclopedic philosophy and Hegel’s project of an Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences? In what respect are Leibniz’ – also politically relevant – conceptions of perspectivity and of an ontologically founded reflexivity and (inter-) subjectivity present in central configurations of German Idealism? -/- Keynotes: G.W. Leibniz, J.G. Fichte, G.W.F. Hegel, I. Kant, F.W.J. Schelling; Classical German Philosophy / German Idealism, Metaphysics, Monadology, Philosophy of the 18th Century, Rationalism, System. (shrink)

Glenn Wallis & John Kendall Hawkins An Interview with Glenn Wallis -/- Glenn Wallis is an independent scholar and founder of Incite Seminars in Philadelphia. He has taught at several universities, including Brown University and the University of Georgia. His most recent books include A Critique of Western Buddhism and How to Fix Education. Wallis blogs at Speculative Non-Buddhism. He holds a Ph.D. in Buddhist studies from Harvard University. He has also recently published An Anarchist’s Manifesto (Warbler, 2021). He is (...) an expert in Emma Goldman’s practical philosophy of anarchy. Here in this interview, he goes into detail about what Goldman espoused and her legacy, while also contrasting her thoughts on anarchy with his own. He addresses how notions of anarchy have changed over time and what its value is today. -/- John Kendall Hawkins is an American ex-pat freelancer based in Australia. He is a former reporter for The New Bedford Standard-Times. (shrink)

Intercultural Approaches between Europe and China via Art? -/- Two landscapes from different cultures, Europe and China, that are both considered masterpieces are the focus of a study by Martina Sauer. To what extent are they each perceived as beautiful? Can the differences in aesthetic understanding tell us something about the respective cultures? Do the results have the potential to contribute to intercultural rapprochement between Europe and China? The possibility that these ideas can be fruitful for intercultural connections and understanding, (...) and for a re-evaluation of the interaction between humans and nature, is considered and analysed using the tools and theory of vitality semiotics (VS). -/- The task is examined by taking up premises from the philosophy of emotions by Sabine A. Döring, from the art history by Heinrich Wölfflin, from the infant research by Daniel N. Stern and from the empirical research in neuroscience on vitality forms by the research group around Giacomo Rizzolatti. -/- Cf. Martina Sauer, Vitality Semiotics: The Ever Beautiful and Its Potential for an Intercultural Approach: In Atmospheric Design and Everyday Aesthetics, edited by David Brubaker & Zhuofei Wang [Contemporary Aesthetics, Special Volume 12, 2024]: 1-11. (shrink)

The starting point for the considerations in the article is the statement of Keiko Yamanaka that the Japanese know nothing about resistance to the bacterium represented by another human being. In the article, however, we put forward the thesis that Japanese culture has developed a collective immune system resulting not from individual but from shared systemic immunology in connection with the performance of family, professional and social functions. The analysis of Japanese ‘cultural immunology’ includes an examination of the ways of (...) functioning of the body in contemporary Japanese culture. To this end, we first discuss the relationship between humans and nature in Japanese religious-ethical tradition. Next, we examine the Japanese relationship to the body as a special part of nature. Then we analyze the tension in the Japanese culture between individual and sociocultural bodies. In conclusion, we show what the sociocultural body is and how it functions in the system of ‘cultural immunology’ in contemporary Japan. (shrink)

The second volume in the Homo Mimeticus mini-series advances the emerging transdisciplinary field of mimetic studies. After the linguistic and the affective turns, the new materialist and the performative turns, the cognitive and the posthuman turns, it is now time to re-turn to the ancient, yet also modern and still contemporary realization that humans are mimetic creatures. In this second installment of the Homo Mimeticus series, international scholars working in philosophy, literary theory, classics, cultural studies, sociology, political theory, and the (...) neurosciences engage creatively with Nidesh Lawtoo's Homo Mimeticus: A New Theory of Imitation to further the transdisciplinary field of mimetic studies. Agonistic critical engagements with precursors like Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Bataille, Irigaray, and Girard, involving contributions by leading international thinkers such as Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, William E. Connolly, Henry Staten, and Vittorio Gallese, among many others, reveal the urgency to rethink mimesis beyond realism. From imitation to identification, mimicry to affective contagion, techne to simulation, mirror neurons to biomimicry, homo mimeticus casts a shadow—but also a light—on the present and future, from social media to the Anthropocene. (shrink)

[1]. Dnevnik. Pisʹma. Dokumenty (1903-1938) -- [2]. Pisʹma. Memuary (1939-1954).

Tom 2. Tatarskoe prosvetitelʹstvo -- Tom 3. Tatarskai︠a︡ liberalʹnai︠a︡ myslʹ --.

This essay explores the distinct characteristics of Russian technical thinking within the framework of Yuk Hui’s concept of cosmotechnics. Hui’s proposal emphasizes “good technology,” which aligns with local cosmological perspectives and moral practices, as an essential component of the technosphere’s decolonization. The analysis contrasts Russian approaches to technical creativity with those of the West and China, highlighting the synthesis of collective and individual efforts through archetypal imagery such as the campfire and the reverence for “bookish wisdom.” Central to the essay (...) is the idea that Russian technical thinking, rooted in cosmism and conciliarity, integrates multidimensional understanding and co-creation with God, fostering a sense of universal responsibility. This perspective manifests in the prioritization of theoretical knowledge, unconventional problem-solving, and the moral imperative to serve humanity. Despite similarities to Western technological practices in material aspects, Russia’s unique contributions lie in its social technologies and motivational frameworks, which remain underexplored within global perspectives. The essay argues that these features provide a valuable addition to cosmotechnics and demonstrate the potential for alternative intellectual trajectories beyond Western paradigms. (shrink)

This essay delves into the potential non-Western contributions to the technosphere by exploring Russian perspectives within Yuk Hui’s framework of cosmotechnics. Hui's concept emphasizes "good technology"—aligned with local cosmologies and moral practices, integrating sustainability and ecological preservation. By drawing parallels with China's distinct cosmological underpinnings in technical creativity, the essay questions whether Russian civilization can provide similarly unique contributions. The text investigates the evolution of the technosphere, distinguishing between instrumental and bio-artificial components, while situating Russian technical thought within broader global (...) contrasts. Despite an outward resemblance to Western technological development, Russia’s distinctiveness emerges in social technologies, state-driven innovation, and its cosmological foundation, particularly the "Russian cosmism" of the 1960s. Through a focus on co-creation with God, universal responsibility, and theoretical prioritization, the essay identifies multidimensional understanding and the moral imperative of service as hallmarks of Russian technical creativity. These features highlight a unique trajectory that complements Hui’s concept of cosmotechnics, emphasizing Russia’s potential to enrich global discussions on decolonizing technology. (shrink)

Given the cultural significance of the Silver Age religious renaissance in the history of Russian thought, it is important to examine how contemporary Russian philosophers, amidst increasing academic specialization, approach and categorize indigenous religious philosophy from this period. This article investigates contemporary Russian philosophical research and its evaluations of Sergei Nikolayevich Bulgakov, a key Silver Age figure. This study finds that, following the surge in research during the 1990s, Russian scholars have maintained consistent interest in Bulgakov. However, within the discipline (...) of philosophy these researchers may still be facing some structural problems. Bulgakov’s philosophical and theological ideas are intrinsically linked, which makes it difficult to pinpoint his disciplinary orientation. Researchers have been obliged to adjust their approaches to overcome misunderstandings. Not only philosophy of language but also philosophy of science and technology have been influenced by this new interest in Bulgakov. The overall trend in the examination of Bulgakov’s intellectual legacy has been toward careful and balanced deliberation and analysis. (shrink)

Kantian philosophy, despite its historical origins in the eighteenth century, continues to inspire modern philosophers and stimulate the research of historians of philosophy. This holds true for Ukraine, where, over the past four decades, Kantian studies have become a dynamic area of philosophical inquiry. In this article, the author traces the trajectory of these studies’ advancement, outlining their inception in the 1970s–1980s, their liberation from ideological constraints in the 1990s, their culmination in the initial decade of the twenty-first century, and (...) their ongoing evolution in the face of the numerous challenges encountered by Ukrainian scholars in recent years. Additionally, this paper refers to the translation of Kant’s works into Ukrainian and the debates they sparked among the members of the Kant Society of Ukraine. (shrink)

In Alexander Bogdanov’s work, the term ‘empiriomonism’ is used in two ways: broadly to signify his general worldview (a monist, naturalist, determinist, scientific outlook) and narrowly to refer to the philosophy of cognition and being (a critical, transformed version of the empiriocriticism of Richard Avenarius and Ernst Mach) that he briefly employed to substantiate his general worldview. It has often been said that Bogdanov developed empiriomonism ‘to bring Marxism up-to-date’ with modern science, but this is a misunderstanding. Before he ever (...) used the term ‘empiriomonism’ Bogdanov had already elaborated an up-to-date scientific worldview that presented Marx’s historical materialism as a natural science, and it was this worldview that constitutes ‘empiriomonism’ in the broad meaning of the term. Bogdanov developed empiriomonism (in its narrow sense) not to substantiate Marxism philosophically but to provide an up-to-date philosophical foundation for his own scientific outlook. The worldview he defended in Empiriomonism was precisely his initial scientific outlook, but in the course of justifying it philosophically, he arrived at highly speculative and unscientific conclusions that he quickly abandoned, making empiriomonism, in its narrow sense, a brief episode in his intellectual development. (shrink)

The philosophy of Johannes Rehmke (1848–1930), also called “Rehmkeanism,” and the intuitivism of Nikolai Lossky (1870–1965) converge on essential doctrinal points. The Bulgarian philosopher Dimitar Mihalchev (1880–1967), who studied under Rehmke in Greifswald, became a promoter of the Rehmkean philosophy in Bulgaria. The points of convergence between Rehmkeanism and Losskyan intuitivism led Mihalchev to develop an interest in Lossky. He visited Lossky in Saint Petersburg in 1911 and mentioned the similarities between Rehmke and Lossky in 1914 in Forma i otnoshenie (...) (Form and Relation). They also moved in the same circles in Prague, where Lossky, whom Lenin had expelled from Russia in 1922, had found refuge, and where Mihalchev had been appointed ambassador between 1923 and 1927. After his return to Sofia, Mihalchev invited Lossky to publish an article in his newly created philosophy journal, Filosofski pregled. Mihalchev would likely have seen in Lossky an ally in his endeavor of promoting Rehmkeanism in Bulgaria. Moreover, given the similarities between Rehmke and Lossky, Mihalchev had come to believe that Lossky had, just like himself, been influenced by Rehmke and that he developed his intuitivism under this influence. However, Lossky, who translated one of Rehmke’s books as a student and who admitted similarities between Rehmke’s philosophy and his own intuitivism, nevertheless denied having been influenced by him. The present article proposes a comparison of Lossky and Rehmke, and chronicles the interactions between Lossky and Mihalchev in their historical context. (shrink)

This article offers a cross-cultural analysis of two enigmatic figures from Indo-European mythologies: Tīrka Šavār, a lesser-known Persian omen of death or misfortune, and the Dullahan, Ireland’s iconic headless horseman. Both entities serve as harbingers of fate, embodying their cultures’ anxieties about mortality, the unknown, and the thin veil between the human and supernatural realms. Through comparative methodology, this study explores how these myths reflect distinct cultural values—Persian narratives often intertwine destiny with moral and cosmic order (aša), while Irish lore (...) emphasizes the inevitability of death and the capriciousness of the Otherworld. The analysis reveals striking parallels: both figures act as liminal beings, mediating between life and death, and their appearances are marked by omens (e.g., the Dullahan’s lantern, Tīrka Šavār’s symbolic manifestations). Yet their differences are equally telling: Tīrka Šavār’s role in Persian cosmology often ties to Zoroastrian dualism, where moral choices influence fate, whereas the Dullahan operates within a Celtic framework of inescapable doom. By situating these myths within their historical and religious contexts, this article illuminates how ancient societies grappled with existential fears and conceptualized the supernatural. (shrink)

The centennial of the infamous Philosophers’ Ships (filosofskii parokhod) in 2022 offered an opportunity to examine the story that has been evolving around those involved since the end of the Soviet era. This article discusses the place of Gustav Shpet in the myth of the 1922 steamers. Although he never boarded the steamers, Shpet has come to be associated with their story. In asking why this is the case, the article explores the ships’ history as a part of the popular (...) conception of Russian ‘Silver Age’ philosophy. It suggests that this concept developed during the post-Soviet search for an ‘authentically’ Russian philosophical identity and under the strong influence of Nikolai Berdyaev’s émigré era texts on Russian messianism. An examination of Shpet’s and Berdyaev’s parallel philosophical developments between 1916 and 1922 showcases the differences between the two thinkers. The article proposes that Shpet’s philosophy is indeed incompatible with the popular Silver Age narrative and that this narrative, therefore, is in need of revision. (shrink)

Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin (1883–1954) was a Russian philosopher whose writings have recently resurfaced among Russian political elites and in contemporary Russian Orthodox Church discourse. This article provides a reading of Ilyin’s main works on violence, The Basic Moral Contradiction of War (1914) and On Resistance to Evil by Force (1925), outlining how Ilyin’s texts have been utilised by both the Russian Orthodox Church and security service actors from 2005 to 2023. The case study demonstrates that Ilyin’s writings have been instrumentalised (...) by these groups to support arguments in favour of soldiering and for a deeper connection between the church and the military. This article contributes to our understanding of religious militancy in Russian Orthodox discourse by examining an inherent tension in both Ilyin’s work and its reception among Russian religious and military audiences. The article concludes that both Ilyin and references to his works made by individuals associated with the Russian Orthodox Church rely on a problematically subjective conception of morality and attribute virtue to soldiering. (shrink)

The Russian-Ukrainian war, unparalleled in scale and the number of victims in Europe since World War II, presents a substantial opportunity for the social sciences and humanities to investigate its humanitarian aspects. While concentrating on socio-political problems, we must not overlook several critical issues, such as the transformation of communicative practices of cultural memory and perception, as well as written culture as their medium, which demands distinct examination. The focus of this article is the graphosphere of the Viber channel that (...) was active during the 2022 military operations in the city of Mariupol. It is regarded as a recorded cultural memory and perception that is/are shaped, transmitted, and preserved through the practices of new communication forms. It also illustrates how digital writing during wartime has become an incredibly informative source for scrutinizing particular facets of everyday life under extremely acute conditions. The intensity of communication through media channels has led to the prevalence of “vernacular writing on the web” and a corresponding unidirectional perception of the digital environment. Here, forms of cultural memory are mediated through the experience of witnesses. Such a Viber channel functions as a specific digital form of the graphosphere. The paper presents a case analysis of the media channel’s graphosphere within the framework of cultural studies and cultural history. These new methodological approaches in the interdisciplinary field of modern humanities allow for an examination of the transformation of cultural practices concerning memory and perception, along with their modes of documentation. (shrink)

By the time of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the Russian political activist Aleksandr Dugin was known as an ultra-nationalist, a fascist, a geopolitician, a Eurasianist, a Heideggerian, and sometimes also as a Traditionalist in the school established by René Guénon. Some, however, hold that Dugin had left Traditionalism far behind, or perhaps had never really been a Traditionalist in the first place. This article examines the extent to which Dugin’s engagement with Traditionalism has persisted throughout his intellectual and political career. It (...) begins with Dugin’s formative years in the late-Soviet Iuzhinskii Circle, where he first encountered Traditionalism, and explores his adaptations of Guénon’s views. The article argues that Dugin’s works, including his best-seller The Fundamentals of Geopolitics (1997), reflect his continued commitment to Traditionalist principles, despite significant modifications. The article thus challenges views that dismiss Dugin’s Traditionalism as superficial or abandoned. It concludes that Dugin’s enduring adherence to Traditionalism is essential to understanding his influence on Russian political thought and his broad appeal. (shrink)

This essay examines the role of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy in the ideology of what the author calls the “Nationalist International,” a loosely affiliated international network of “New” Right, nationalist, alt-right, and neo-fascist groups. The author argues that thought leaders of this movement, from the relatively obscure to politicians and organizers in major political parties, such as Steve Bannon in the MAGA movement in the United States or Marc Jongen of Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, have drawn upon Heidegger to articulate (...) their principles and aims. More openly neo-fascist thinkers, such as Greg Johnson in the United States and Aleksandr Dugin in Russia, have produced sophisticated readings of Heidegger to support their causes. Such figures use Heidegger’s critique of Plato, as the onset of a metaphysical nihilism that culminates in modernity, to condemn liberalism as a facet of a rootless universalism that deprives a people of its history and identity. The repudiation of classical liberal democracy in many militant alt-right organizations and online communities played a role in assault on Congress on January 6, 2021 and Donald Trump’s attempted coup that day. The conclusion addresses the question of how educators and others can engage a new generation vulnerable to radicalization and argues for a form of “absolute welcome” as a response to increasing polarization. (shrink)

Michael Millerman, English-language translator of many of the works of Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin, has suggested – most recently in an essay in the journal First Things and in an accompanying podcast with the editor of the journal – that Dugin is a thinker of the first rank, offering a political philosophy that liberals and anti-liberals alike need to take seriously. How well does such a claim stand up to critical scrutiny? In particular, does Dugin’s principal contribution to political theory, (...) his book The Fourth Political Theory, offer a coherent and thoughtful philosophical challenge to the liberal and democratic ideas that prevail in Western societies? Or is his “theorizing” of a piece with the hysterical rants that typically characterize his activities as a ferociously anti-liberal ideologue? This article attempts to address such questions by means of a critical re-examination of the relationship between Dugin the philosopher and Dugin the ideologue. (shrink)

The first section reconstructs Dugin’s claims to have charted a “fourth political theory” (4PT), which would have broken from “fascism” and “Nazism”, the “third political theory” (as well liberalism and communism, the first and second “PTs” respectively). The second section of the paper critically unpacks four Duginian claims to defend this position, despite his avowed recourse to intellectuals who became Nazi Party Members and public advocates of the Third Reich, led by Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt. In the third section, (...) we assess whether Dugin’s substantive claims hold up about “Nazism” and “fascism”, which enable him to present his 4PT as “anti-Nazi/fascist/racist”, by recourse to Aurel Kolnai’s monumental 1938 work The War on the West: the most extensive anglophone examination of the intellectual sources, texts, and parameters of “the Nazi creed, … its fundamental principles and its details” (Kolnai 1938: 18). Our argument is that Dugin’s “4PT” involves a more or less clever ideological repackaging of the “3PT” in the face of continuing horror at the Nazi’s crimes, rather than a novel political theory, based on a “retreat[ing] from the “sub-standard” Hitler to the “eminent” Spengler, Heidegger or Nietzsche” (Lukács 1980: p. 8). (shrink)

Marian Zdziechowski, a prominent Polish philologist and publicist, was open-minded about history, literature, philosophy, and religion. He paid attention to social and political life, leading him to believe that morality was the key to solving some pressing issues. “Great evil should evoke great good as a natural response”—this moral rule, which is the subject of this article, is derived by Zdziechowski in one of the chapters of the book Politicheskaya nravstvennost’ v Rossii (Political Morality in Russia). The censorship of that (...) time could not ignore the Jagiellonian University professor’s free and outspoken statements on political morality; therefore, the book was released in 1899 under the pseudonym Wladyslaw Karowski. Although the book’s content is not intended to be a scholarly work, Zdziechowski’s contribution to the long-running debate between politics and morality is valuable. True to Christian values, Zdziechowski contrasted the power of the word—the word of the writer and philosopher—with the political system, emphasizing the strength of morality in both individuals and society. (shrink)

The article gives a new insight into how prolific the genre of the physiological sketch was in European literature at the beginning of the nineteenth century and how, in turn, it became the foundational genre of the Russian Natural School, at the time when Dostoevsky entered the literary scene in 1846. The genre appeared first in France and England and spread to Russia, where it was taken up by progressive writers and critics and made into a flagship for the sociological (...) representation of the nation through its professions and social occupations. National types, such as the baker, the street sweeper, the lawyer, the clerk and many others were subjects of the sketches. However, when Dostoevsky took up the form of the sketch in his early work Poor Folk, he transformed the typical characters of the nation into subjects who did not fit into the sociological explanation of personality and departed from the poetics of the Natural School. The second part of the essay is devoted to a brief analysis of Dostoevsky’s new poetics and its transformation of the context of the Natural School in which it was engendered. (shrink)

This essay historically contextualizes Aleksandr Dugin as an apocalyptic thinker by considering his interpretation of Western history as dominated by an apocalyptic desire for destruction. Exploring this interpretation of Western history through several key figures from the ancient and modern eras (Thucydides, Plato, Augustine, and Hitler), it concludes that Dugin’s apocalypticism hopes to overcome the destructive apocalypticism of Western history in a “new” beginning led by Russia for the sake of “preserving” Russia’s supposedly distinctive cultural-linguistic identity as an anti-Western, “Dionysian” (...) culture of “openness” and “inclusivity” in contrast to the Apollonian, imperial culture of “closure” and “exclusivity” found in the United States. However, Dugin’s claim to want to preserve Russia’s putative openness is belied by his exclusion of certain ways of thinking and being, most notably Epicureanism and most violently Ukrainian nationalism. Dugin condemns Epicureanism as the basis of crass American hedonism, and he supports Vladimir Putin’s violent assertion of Russian nationalism on Ukraine. (shrink)

Dostoevsky’s discourse in The Idiot is aimed—and this is his main artistic task—at developing the artistic language of a previously unknown world, of the singular human experience unfolding within the novel, rather than at conveying a finished, completed plot. The focus of this paper is on the process of constructing this new symbolic language of self-understanding, which can be approached through an analysis of the unique interplay of textuality, visuality and corporeality in this novel and in the genre of the (...) modern novel. This paper shall examine the crucial role played by Dostoevsky’s drawings and calligraphy in the poetics of The Idiot in the context of the genesis of this novel, in order to show that the “ideograms” that appear in sketches and drafts are saturated with metaphorical meaning and thus become text- and plot-forming motifs and discursive signs. This new discourse of the novel incorporates several other literary works at the level of intertextuality (specifically Cervantes’ Don Quixote and Victor Hugo’s novel The Last Day of the Condemned Man), and in this way recalls the genre specificity of the modern novel and the creative processes of text and plot creation. (shrink)

This essay explores Friedrich Engels’ understanding of, and contribution to, historical materialism through the lens of his military writings. After unpacking the tacit theoretical architecture underpinning some of his encyclopaedia articles on the history of warfare, I move to focus on his analysis of the organization, culture and leadership of the various antagonists involved in the Crimean War (1853-1856). Notwithstanding the fact that Engels often wore his Marxism lightly when writing on military matters, I argue that these essays illuminate a (...) sophisticated understanding of historical materialism that is quite at odds with those all too often repeated criticisms of his thought as a form of mechanical materialism and economic reductionism. Indeed, Engels’ writings on military organization during the Crimean War illuminate his dialectical understanding of the unity of essential and historical aspects of capitalist management; including powerful and nuanced analyses of national, class, ethnic and gendered subjectivities through which organizational cultures were reproduced in an (emerging) capitalist context. I show that while Engels understood that modes of production set parameters within which specific military forms emerged as (historically) necessary structures, he also laid great emphasis on the ways in which these organizations operated according to their own emergent principles and through specific cultures and concrete individuals. I submit that through these writings he made an important contribution to our understanding of military organization, and one that provides valuable historical context through which to understand more recent conflicts over the Crimean peninsula. (shrink)

Aleksandr Dugin proclaims Martin Heidegger as the “last God” of Western philosophy and seeks to assume a similar role in an other beginning for Russian philosophy. This paper examines Dugin’s extensive interpretation of Heidegger specifically in the context of the philosopher’s task as the one who rejects all conventions, who ventures beyond beings to Being itself. The philosopher in this sense begins anew, creating a philosophy of nothingness or “chaos” that Dugin derives as much from Heidegger as from an intriguing (...) reading of what Dugin calls “open” Platonism. This philosophy of chaos is, in Dugin’s terms, genuine Russian philosophy and a philosophy of inclusion. The paper then examines the practical implications of this philosophy of inclusion, as reflected in Dugin’s theory of “multipolarity,” in the context of the Ukrainian war where Dugin’s advocacy of Russian aggression appears baldly to contradict his philosophy of inclusion. Is Dugin’s advocacy a mask, a pose behind which stands the philosopher, beyond good and evil? Is Dugin a philosopher, idealogue, or malign jester? (shrink)