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THE RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHICAL GAZETTE

March 2009 – No 3

FEATURES

Pyotr Chaadaev: Truth is more dear to me than Homeland

 

Chaadaev (1794-1856) was one of the most brilliant, cultivated, and perceptive Russians of his time. Despite having been declared officially insane and publicly silenced by Tsar Nicholas I in 1836 after the publication of his "First Philosophical Letter," Chaadaev maintained friendly contacts and lively intellectual interchanges with some of his most distinguished contemporaries, including Aleksandr Pushkin.

The article carries a short biography with a focus on Chaadaev’s contribution to Russian philosophical thought.

 

BY NATALYA LOGINOVA

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The Philosophical Aspect of the Crisis

 

 

“A natural wish of each and everyone to safeguard himself and his family against crises or their implications, on the one hand, and a questionable and sometimes clearly criminal means to gain material superiority over other people, on the other hand, constitute the two vectors resulting from the problems of human existence. Today their idea of individual (physiologically meaningful) and social (theoretically substantiated) measure of the severity of this continuing crisis of this human ignorance is incomplete. How can we single out and use for the purposes of mankind that potential of rectitude and conscience that was and still is in people, though little as it may be because of the life conditions now in question?”

 

 

BY ARNOLD KAZMIN

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English

 

The Development of Russia’s Expanse

 

Russia is a large country and in it there are vast regions that are scarcely populated. In the Former Soviet Union the task of achieving more even distribution of its population was a government policy. And it was a right and well-thought policy because it involved the opening up of the vastness of Siberia for the good of the people. Read this article for an update as to what is being done in this line by the Russian government. The answers are provided by A.Ogarkov, ScD in Economics from the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

 

I

INTERVIEW BY SERGEI SHARAKSHANE

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The World of Illusions

 

Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? Man’s first fundamental illusion about life has to do with how we look at ourselves in this world. The author holds that our prime mistake is that tend to separate ourselves from the rest of the organic world. This outlook gives rise to other secondary illusions as it makes us think that we make up a certain caste of almost half-gods guided by high moral principles. A huge load of different laws, norms, appropriate ways of life, canons, and commandments has been devised to be instilled in human mind. Nothing seems to be wrong with it at first glance but if we take a closer look at all this, we will notice a crying contradiction: we call amoral those strategies that have actually made man what he is – the most developed of all animals or, if you like, living creatures on Earth. Is it not true that only tough competition and the continuous struggle for survival allow us to move forward and evolve?

 

BY ALEKSEI SHABALIN

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From Historical Idealism Towards Ecological Materialism

 

The well known Marxist provision that the degree of development of production forces in society determines its production relations seems to be almost universally accepted. However, the production forces as a whole have always been understood as a combination of labor and means of production or even means of labor. The key point is that Marx, as an economist, could not have possibly considered production forces to be an element of Earth’s ecology system and for this matter his understanding is not complete. Thus the author tries to analyze the practical aspect of that new vision of the role of production forces in our lives.

BY VASILI SKORIN

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Robert Frost

 

The US can hardly be thought of as a country of poetry lovers. For an average American, a person, a man in particular, who is fond of poetry is something odd, something alien, kind of a freak. To be completely honest, the attitude of Americans towards their own poets changes once the latter receive worldwide recognition expressed in printing runs and the size of circulation. Sometimes a poet in America may live to such recognition, but still live a life plagued with grief and loss like that of Robert Lee Frost (1874 –1963), an American poet who is very popular in Russia. Frost’s work frequently employed themes from the early 1900s rural life in New England, using the setting to examine complex social and philosophical themes. A popular and often-quoted poet, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.

 

BY EDITORIAL STAFF

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Three Lives of Aleksandr Belyayev

The first life of Aleksandr Belyayev begun in 1884 and ended when his first book “Professor Dowell's Head” was published. His second life went on until he died 1942. But he has been living his third life ever since in the hearts of millions grateful readers.

Belyayev is a Russian author of science fiction whose body of work from the 1920s and 1930s made him a highly regarded Russian author in that field. His published works include Professor Dowell's Head, Amphibian Man, Ariel, and The Star KETs (KETs are the initials of Konstantin

Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky), The Air Seller, and many more.

Belyayev died of hunger in the Soviet town of Pushkin in 1942 while it was occupied by the Nazis. 

 

BY NATALYA LOGINOVA

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Russia is Nigeria Covered with Snow

The unusual name of the article accounts for its content. Besides, there are many things common between the two countries. But the main point is that it is about a Nigerian postgraduate student from the People's Friendship University of Russia whose PhD thesis about the specific of political process and foreign policy of Nigeria was based to a great measure on some material published in our Gazette. Moreover so our representative was invited to sit in the dissertation board as the student’s scientific opponent.

 

 

BY VLADIMIR ROSCHUPKIN

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The Beginning of the Radio Age

This month we are going to mark the 150th anniversary of the great Russian scientist and inventor Aleksandr Popov (1859 –1906) who first demonstrated the practical application of electromagnetic (radio) waves, although he did not apply for a patent for his invention. Beginning in the early 1890s, he continued the experiments of other radio pioneers, such as Heinrich Hertz. In 1894 he built his first radio receiver, a version of the coherer. Further refined as a lightning detector, it was presented to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society on May 7, 1895 — the day has been celebrated in the Russian Federation as "Radio Day". In March 1896, he effected transmission of radio waves between different campus buildings in St. Petersburg. Upon learning about Guglielmo Marconi's system, he effected ship-to-shore communication over a distance of 6 miles in 1898 and 30 miles in 1899.  

This is a good time for RPhG not only to pay what is due to this remarkable man – an outstanding researcher who made a noticeable contribution to electrical engineering and radio communications in particular but also give a review of some of the present-day problems our science is facing today.

 

BY ANTON SMIRNOV

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