This editorial is a promise to our readers to carry articles speculations and judgments only science-based and of practical value, rather than dry and academic, and raise pressing questions of the Russian present-day life. This is also an invitation to our readers to embark on a philosophical journey in pursuit of knowledge and eventually truth, an invitation to take part in a creative dialogue on all the topics there to come and thus contribute actively to this Gazette.

BY EDITORIAL STAFF

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New Year’s Philosophical Greetings

This is in fact a very serious article speculating on the eternal question about the sense of life rather than just New Year’s greetings with humorous philosophical gravy. It holds that ills of our existence may be numerous, but they can be minimized though. What needs to be done is to achieve state-guaranteed equitable life sustenance. It is no easy task because it involves a situation where moral governance is possible. To bring about such a situation, one has to know how to organize a truly moral state. Understanding this and a desire to work for it is exactly what can fill our life with true sense.

BY ARNOLD KAZMIN

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English

The Samara Artifact

The elections of the Samara mayor held last autumn appeared to be unprecedented for many reasons: a record number of candidates, all-time low poll-tax; big business’ highly aggressive pressure, a clash of two ‘ruling’ parties with the victory of the weaker one. Regretfully, elections almost always turn into a disgusting show like a scene in a market place. At the same time, the events described are quite typical as people often set their hopes on a “good tzar” or a “good mayor” and they are easily mistaken. Today Russian philosophers offer a method for selecting right and righteous persons to the posts of state administrators out of a number of candidates. They say they have a scientific approach to understanding human thought as a systemic process producing human qualities long defined as ‘wisdom’, ‘morality’, ‘conscience’, ‘humaneness’ and so badly needed in each and every administrator to exercise moral governance.

BY DARIYA MALEEVA

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The First Monument to Philosopher in Russia

Indeed, we have very many monuments in Russia to political leaders, writers, composers, artists, tzars, war heroes, actors and so on but until recently we haven’t had any to honor a philosopher. This article is about opening in Moscow the first monument to a philosopher who certainly long deserved it. It is Aleksei Losev (1893–1988), a great Russian philosopher, philologist, culturologist, translator, one of the most prominent figures in Russian philosophy of the 20th century.

BY N. RODNOVA

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When Humor is Punishable

This is a short account of a real story of the Soviet past where one could pay a very dear price for an innocent joke as normally communist party bureaucrats did not have a sense of humor… or, perhaps, they were just adamant about defending the purity of the proclaimed ideals?

BY SERGEI STEPANKOV

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Civil Society. What Does it Mean?

Such terms as “civil society” or “law-governed state” that have been used by mass media with increasing currency do not seem to be quite well understood by ordinary people. Some think they are just high-flown words with little meaning, some believe they are a recent creation invented by political scientists to add ambiguity to their speculations to make them more scientific, yet few people know that they are centuries-long philosophical categories. The purpose of this article is an attempt to shed light on the meaning of such notions in the historical and present-day context. Pay special heed to the editorial note that follows.

BY OLEG TKACHENKO

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Philosophical Project of Science

Contrary to the conventional belief about the primacy of philosophy with regard to all science, the author asserts that science gave rise to philosophy and that there is a philosophical project of science on which great philosophers have been working for 2500 years now. Of particular interest are his speculations on the role of philosophy in the social educational process and thus his paradigms of society and science; nature – society – ideas; knowledge – co-knowledge (social knowledge) – science; wisdom – science – ideology; views (hypothesis) – knowledge (validation) – social (common) knowledge and so on. Don’t miss the editorial note.

BY ALEKSANDR VOITOV

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Bologna Process: Pluses and Minuses

One of the aspects of EU integration is a trend towards unification in the field of higher education which is now commonly referred to as the Bologna process. The Russian Federation also joined this process a few years ago. There is a wide range of different views on that score. The following materials provided by the Ministry of Science and Education address the subject and give detailed answers to many questions frequently asked. We hope they will help our readers to form their own opinion on advantages and disadvantages that the Bologna process holds for them individually and for Russia as a whole.

BASED ON MATERIALS PROVIDED BY THE MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND EDUCATION

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The Return of Romance

An interview with a famous singer Oleg Pogudin, one of the most competent specialists in the unique song genre of romance. Regarding romance as national heritage, he holds that its origin is undoubtedly Russian though as a genre it was inspired by French sensual music and German songs, in particular those by Schubert which clicked to form a harmonious combination with Russian national tunes and folk songs. According to Pogudin, it is the responsibility of the state to support and popularize everything what makes up our national heritage and to take measures to counter the expansion of immorality.

INTERVIEW BY SERGEI TURCHENKO

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Diogenes, “I am looking for a man!”

Diogenes "the Cynic", Greek philosopher, was born in Sinope (in modern day Sinop, Turkey) about 412 BC (according to other sources 399 BC), and died in 323 BC at Corinth. Diogenes of Sinope is said to have been a disciple of Antisthenes, a cynic who, according to Plato, was present at the death of Socrates. Diogenes, a beggar who made his home in the streets of Athens, made a virtue of extreme poverty. He taught contempt for human achievements and a return to animalism. His was a relentless campaign to "debunk" social values and institutions. But in so doing he was one of the first philosophers to speak about the moral aspects of polity and for this he is dear to us.

BY SERGEI IVANOV

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