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THE RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHICAL GAZETTE

July 2008 – No 7

FEATURES

Epicurus: “That philosopher’s words that do not relieve human suffering are just empty.”

Your happiness is entirely up to you. This has been revealed to us by a man of divine serenity and wisdom who spent his life among us, and showed us, by his personal example and by his teaching, the path to redemption from unhappiness. His name was Epicurus, the creator of one of the most significant moral doctrines of the ancient time and the founder of the Athenian School of Philosophy. He is deservedly the author of the greatest and most consistent materialistic teachings of Ancient Greece. The purpose and the focus of Epicurean philosophy is the enlightenment of people rather than pure theory or speculation.

BY NATALIYA LOGINOVA

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A Blind Game of Blind Forces

The article is a summing-up of what has to be done to lead philosophy out of a deadlock. It says that philosophy is to provide knowledge to human beings, so that they can build a civil society based on human wisdom. Therefore rethinking philosophy (which is the topic of the 22d World Congress of Philosophy starting on 30 June) implies the rethinking of our real life in all its social aspects. However, at present philosophers are now estranged from real life so that we can neither make out the subject of their research, nor its practical relevance. The need to guarantee their own sustenance and survival makes them take up some abstract topics for their candidate and doctoral theses, and thus abandon serious research for the benefit of society. The thing is that we may have wandered too far into the maze that there is almost no chance for us to unthread it and get back to reality. So we must review the idea that philosophy is essential for further development of thinking. Moreover so, we should start to regard philosophy as a way of perception of our social habitat.

Many constitutions declare that that the state is a tool designed for the benefit of the society. Unfortunately, it is not so. The constitutional norm proclaiming this country a social state is far from being implemented. Politicians’ statements about their concern for people’s needs are nothing but perpetual lies. The blind force of the state may pose a real threat to an individual, as well as to the whole humanity, if a profit motive, not wisdom, is at the helm. Human ignorance can be confronted by no other force, but human wisdom. It is wisdom that is the philosophy of virtue.

BY ARNOLD KAZMIN

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English

Symbiosis of Biology and Pictorial Art

Throughout human history artists have been trying to arouse interest among people in problems concerning man’s spiritual ascent through depicting nature and reflecting human life in their creations. Today we see that science and art are drifting more and more apart causing the sole essence of man to fraction. Unlike art, natural science has made little progress in studying the spiritual and psychic sides of human intelligence and perhaps it is for this reason that one of the principal scientific methods is the differentiation of everything that lives. We can say now that a more holistic vision of the world is to a greater measure inherent in philosophy and art. One should learn to understand that living nature is our biological habitat closely and essential connected with our unseen world, i.e. with what we feel and think. Thus we must do everything possible to strengthen this symbiosis of biology and art.

BY ELENA KARTASHOVA, ALEKSANDR OLESKIN, Moscow State University

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To Defend Means to Save

Much has been said about the reform of the High Attestation Committee and hopefully there are very few people indifferent to this subject among our readers. In fact, we have been receiving so many letters on the problem lately that we kindly asked Prof. Vladimir Mironov, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University and at the same time Chairman of the Expert Board of the High Attestation Committee for an interview to comment on the current situation with the reform.

INTERVIEW BY SERGEI SHARAKSHANE

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Rethinking Philosophy

This is an interview with a number of prominent Russian philosophers who will represent Russia at the 22d World Congress of Philosophy which is to take place in Seoul, South Korea from 30 June to 5 August. Such Congresses are held under the auspices of the International Federation of Philosophers once in five years and every time they assemble two or three thousand philosophers from all over the world. This time the topic and motto of the Congress is “Rethinking Philosophy Today”, which means that its principal objective is to take a new close look at the responsibility of philosophy and philosophers in the time of globalization. Inequality, injustice and conflicts caused by the development of contemporary multicultural and industrial civilization will come under philosophers’ scrutiny. RPhG promises to give its readers detailed coverage of WCP work.

INTERVIEW BY SERGEI SHARAKSHANE

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The Tree of Wisdom

It is not about a tree but the University of Salamanca, located in the town of Salamanca, west of Madrid. It is the oldest university in Spain, and one of the oldest in Europe. It was founded by Alfonso IX of Leon in 1218 and since then it has been one of the most prestigious educational and research institutions in the world. Many famous people studied there; among them are Francisco de Vitoria, Hernan Cortez, Ignatius Loyola, Jules Cardinal Mazarin, Miguel de Cervantes. As for the tree of wisdom, it is a real tree in the University courtyard under which professors of philosophy have been holding their open-air workshops for centuries.

BY VLADIMIR ROSCHUPKIN

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The Calendars are Never Right!

To be anxious and troubled about the future is very human. So this naturally accounts for the current high demand for quacks – all sorts of fortune tellers. They, as is known, range from astrologists to entrails readers. But there is yet another and rather interesting manifestation of the worries mentioned, which is apocalypticism or the anxiety over the end of the world. Global warming, earthquakes, tidal killer waves, industrial catastrophes, misguided asteroids, rumors of the explosion of the Sun and its turning into a black hole – all this are merely natural phenomena widely and cynically used by charlatans to kindle fear in people and make them believe their gruesome predictions of the end of the world. However, this time the article is not just about human ignorance but Maya’s calendar system in the first place believed to be more accurate than the Gregorian calendar, and this fact makes it extremely interesting to read.

BY ANTON SMIRNOV

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