The article synthesizes the cultural, historical and philosophical problem areas arising from the relationship of health / disease and music, with a focus on Western European music of the 19th and early 20th century. A first section gives an introductory overview of the representations of disease in operas and instrumental music. A second section examines medical histories of composers and the question of whether and to what extent illness may have had an effect on the creative process. In particular, works by Robert Schumann are examined in the light of his syphilis disease. Schumann was inspired by E. T. A. Hoffmann’s insane Kapellmeister Kreisler to write a piano cycle Kreisleriana, which gives the impression of insanity with compositional means. But the creation of such music and the structures of this music are anything but “insane”, they are well thought out to evoke the effect of madness. A very different impression brings the so-called Ghost Variations, a small cycle, Schumann’s last work. He believed that the music was given to him by angels – base is a subject that he had previously used in several works. The third part discusses the narrative of “ill art” on the one hand in the perspective it received from the Italian psychiatrist and coroner Cesare Lombroso. Illness, especially mental illness, in his opinion generates “degenerate” art. Illness, especially mental illness, in his opinion generates “degenerate” art. On the other hand, the opposite view is illuminated, pointing the disease, especially mental illness as a sign of the Chosen One. Thomas Mann embraces this perspective when he speaks of “genius-donating disease” in his Doctor Faustus. At the end there is an outlook on the ideological abuse of innovative art.

The main aim of this paper is to revisit and reassess the account of language at the origins of Husserl’s phenomenology specifically focusing on Logical Investigations. I would like to argue that there is an ambivalence in Husserl’s discussion of language in Logical Investigations: on the one hand, Husserl is concerned with language as one of the most important symbolic systems and a requisite for scientific knowledge, and he emphasizes the role of linguistic discussions as the philosophically indispensable preparations for constructing pure logic; on the other hand, he applies the idea of the fundamental distinction between the realm of ideal and real being to his views of logic, science and language, which finally causes him to interpret the relation between logic, science and language as the inessential one. The paper begins with discussing Husserl’s view of symbolic methods and sign systems in Prolegomena. The second section is focused on the idea of the necessity of linguistic investigations for pure logic presented in the Introduction to the second volume of Logical Investigations. In the final section I make an analysis of the 4th Logical investigation with the special emphasis put on the idea of pure logical grammar.

This study deals with the role a language plays in the phenomenologizing, focusing on the problem of the phenomenological language posed by E. Fink. The function of a language cannot be reduced to expressing the achievements of phenomenologizing. It gives appearance of transcendental realm both as the “illusion” and the “semblance”. The problem of the phenomenological language matters for the theory of phenomenological method as such: E. Fink emphasizes the meontic nature of transcendental realm in the 6th Cartesian Meditation. Though, in order to describe this realm phenomenologists have to use natural language, preformed within the natural attitude. The new way of description is required in order to prevent phenomenology from being “mundanized”: allowing the transcendental realm to appear and yet maintaining its particular ontological characteristic. It may be achieved through the metaphor-based speculative projection (Entwurf). This study considers the relevant correlation between Fink’s theory of the method and classical German philosophy: it juxtaposes Kant’s transcendental dialectics and the doctrine of the method with Fink’s “transcendental theory of the method” and Hegel’s Absolute spirit with Fink’s concept of Absolute. The ambiguous and vague natural word, that may be redefined, has a productive capacity for being used in the speculative projection. The right way of description transforms it into a speculative concept, which both raises a problem and maintains its problematic nature. The speculative projection provokes philosophical astonishment and requires readers to get into phenomenologizing.

The goal of the article is, one the one hand, to show the concrete correlation between the phenomenological conception of the world in Heidegger’s fundamental ontology and its conception in the critical philosophy of Kant, insofar such philosophy could be treated as one of the significant predecessors of Heidegger’s understanding of the world. On the other hand, this explication allows us to analyze the limits and the borders of Heidegger’s phenomenological conception of the world. In order to achieve such goal, the following tasks were undertaken by me: (1) the reconstruction of the phenomenological conception of the world in Heidegger’s fundamental ontology at two levels (i.e. (a) the world as wholeness of involvement and (b) the world as the direction of the transcendence)); (2) the reconstruction of Kant’s cosmological concept of the world made from the perspective of the interpretation of this concept given by Heidegger; (3) detection of the continuity and divergence between Kant’s cosmological concept of the world and its phenomenological conception posed by Heidegger in light of Kant’s concept of the transcendental ideal. As result, I would like to pose and defend the following theses. (1) Heidegger primarily treats the world as a priori condition of the possibility of the wholeness of involvement, and yet, more fundamentally it is treated as the direction for the transcendence of human Dasein. Thus, being understood as such direction, it represents universal horizon of the existent possibilities. (2) Kant characterizes the world as an idea of reason, namely, as the totality of appearances, being formed on the bases of the universal hypothetic synthesis of the unconditional one. Herewith, Kant’s cosmological concept of the world ought to be distinguished from his concept of the moral world. (3) Both Kant and Heidegger understand the world as the totality a priori, which in every case differently presupposes the presence of the human being. (4) The concept of the world as the direction of the transcendence posed by Heidegger has the formal functions similar to those, which are ascribed by Kant to the concept of the sum-total of all possibilities, consequently, not to the world, as the totality of appearances, but to the totality of all objects of thought altogether (to the transcendental ideal). Thereupon, Heidegger believes that whole definition of the Kant’s cosmological concept of the world can be achieved only from the perspective of the transcendental ideal. (5) Heidegger tries to overcome the limitation of Kant’s theory of the world as present being by understanding it as the condition for possibility of that-which-is as ready-at-hand. For Heidegger it is also a way to manifest the ontological foundation common both for Kant’s cosmological and moral concepts of the world.

In this article we have tried to trace the correlations between different meanings of the world-concept in Russian language. The problematic point is that the same Russian word (“mir”) has three meanings separated in other Indo-European languages (mundus, pax, communitas). The analysis of this issue is preceded by an exposition of the world-problem in modern philosophy, with an emphasis put on the so-called “cosmological difference” introduced by Eugen Fink. It turned out that both for Russian and other languages, the core of the considered concept is a habitable space which the order, agreement and concordance between people take place in. Thus, such aspects of the world as community (communitas) and as peace, harmony (pax) intersect here. Further, the derived meanings of the concept of communitas were considered, starting from the peasant and Church community to the “historical world” and the “secular world” (in its Christian interpretation). In conclusion, we turned to the experience of some special sentiments having a cosmological value. First of all, it is the unique experience of the universal harmony (harmonia mundi), i.e. the experience of the world as peace (eirene, pax) in cosmological perspective. In addition, existential-practical conditions of the possibility of such experience (location, disposition and care) were considered. We also drew attention to some natural and social factors that prevent participation in the experience of the cosmological harmony. As a problematization of such experience, it was emphasized that from the theological standpoint the idea of the world, as the whole, can be realized only in the eschatological outlook, since the world in its present state is split, subjected to disorganization and only partly serves as an image (“icon”) reminding of its Creator.

The paper is devoted to the dialogue between Orthodox theology of the latter half of the 20th century and Heidegger’s philosophy. We focus on the interpretation of the apophasis in the works of Vladimir Lossky. Our research tasks are not so much the description of the direct influence of Heidegger’s philosophy on the Lossky’s theological reflections, but, rather, a demonstration of the parallels between Heidegger’s existential and historical thinking and Lossky’s negative theology. In the first part we highlight the points common to early Heidegger’s interpretation of the mystical theory of cognition and Lossky’s understanding of the mystical theology of the Eastern Church: the correlation between theology and mystical experiencing, overcoming the conceptual frameworks, the knowledge of God as a transformative practice, which is aimed at the radical unity with God. There are also common features in both in Heidegger’s and Lossky’s critical interpretations of the identity of the concepts of God and being in Meister Eckhart’s mystical theology. Lossky opposes Eckhart’s God as Esse absconditum with the apophaticism of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite who has thought out God beyond being. Heidegger insists on the theological differentiation distinguishing between God and being. We also compare the concept of detachment given in the works of Eckhart, Lossky and later Heidegger. Lossky’s explanation of the human personality is focused on irreducibility of a person to nature; he referred to the ecstatic character of existence of Dasein, but his anthropology is constituted on doctrine of a human being seen as the image and likeness of God. Further development of Orthodox apophaticism (Chr. Yannaras, D. B. Hart and J. P. Manoussakis) demonstrates a critical attitude towards Heidegger’s philosophy. Such attitude originates in their attempts to develop the ontology of personal being. We argue that Orthodox thinkers correlate with Heidegger in their search for a renewal of theological method, for the identical-differential mode of thinking moving from subject-object speculation to the ecstatic transformations of subject. The difference is in the emphasis on the personal character of the mystical ecstasy, founded on the trinitarian provisions inherent to the Eastern Church.

Martin Heidegger’s philosophy had a profound influence on the late Soviet and post-Soviet philosophical landscape. Nevertheless, there is no general picture of perception and critique of Heidegger’s philosophy in Russia. This article deals with Heidegger’s entry into the Russian philosophical scene as a philosopher of the future – a conservative critic of late modernity, a thinker of Being, and a “post” philosopher. On the one hand, by virtue of the influence French post-modernism had on late Soviet and post-Soviet philosophy, Russia has developed a special interest in Heidegger’s deconstruction theory. On the other hand, the reception of critique given by Heidegger to European nihilism, totalitarianism and machine technology, as the manifestations of modernity, has prompted significantly the interest in “political ontology”. The specifics of reception of Heidegger in Russia can also be traced to a refusal to make a strict division between the pure “core” of Heidegger’s philosophy and “accidental” circumstances associated with social and political aspects of his work in 1930s. The ongoing discussion about recently published Black Notebooks manifests not just the fact that there is a separate language of description and analysis existing in Russian philosophical field but also the original tendency for holistic consideration of Heidegger’s thinking, which includes not just his existential and historical reflections but also political passages and critique of civilizational discourse. Besides the reviews of Black Notebooks made by N. V. Motroshilova, V. V. Mironov and D. Mironova in the last year’s issues of Voprosy Filosofii (a philosophical journal), the attention is focused on the earlier works by N. V. Motroshilova, V. V. Bibikhin, A. V. Gulyga, V. A. Podoroga and A. G. Dugin, related to Heidegger’s overcoming of the Western metaphysical tradition and his concept of a new beginning beyond Machenschaft. The article is also devoted to considertion given to a new book by J. Love (2017) examining the philosophical influence Heidegger exerts in Eastern Europe and Russia.

The article analyzes the nature of the presence of the political aspect in Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology. Reconsidering the critique, expressed in Friedrich Fellmann’s, Hannah Arendt’s and Jürgen Habermas’ works, an author detects the strengths and weaknesses of such critique, as well as reveals the conceptual foundations and content of the political dimension in Husserl’s phenomenology. Herewith, the focus is made on the theory of intersubjectivity and theory of lifeworld, which constitute the conceptual core of Husserl’s phenomenological research on social, ethical and political issues. The reconsideration of Fellmann’s critique is based on considering the nature of the presence of the political dimension in Husserl’s intellectual and biographical legacy. Analyzing Arendt’s critique, an author argues that there are two theories of intersubjectivity existing in Husserl’s phenomenology: a theory of constitution of the alter ego in the “primordial world” through “analogizing transfer” and a theory based on the doctrine of “the primary Self”, mutual constitution and on the analyses of passive genesis. The problematization of Habermas’ critique is based on rethinking given the place of practical philosophy in Husserl’s phenomenology and its importance, as well as on defining the heuristic potential the concept of the lifeworld has for constructing the social and political theory. Relying on the philosophy of the state, reconstructed by Karl Schuhmann adapted from Husserl’s legacy, an author explicates the key prerequisites, ideas and terms, constitutive for the political dimension of Husserl’s phenomenology and essential for its understanding in historic-philosophical and modern contexts. The results of the analysis contribute to more adequate understanding of the nature of the political problematic in Huserl’s phenomenology.

In this paper I undertook a study of Henri Maldiney’s problematization of the way which we aesthetically experience the world in. The notion of aisthesis unites the aesthetic, in its etymological meaning, as related to the sensory perception, and the aesthetic, as related to the theory of art. According to Maldiney, aisthesis, or sensing, cannot be described in Kantian terms of experience as being structured by intelligence; being pre-reflective and ante-predicative, sensing should be classified as épreuve, passive experience that puts one to the test. Sensing is not just the sensory perception: it is holistic and gives the access to the world as a whole; in sensing one senses not the qualities of individual objects but, rather, the world which is not got crystallized in objects yet. Sensing is also a basic level of communicative human experience: through sensing one obtains an access to the world as being shared with others. Sensing is aesthetically important inasmuch as it possesses its own rhythm. I have carried out the analysis of two metaphysical notions, i.e. transpassibility and transpossibility, introduced by Maldiney in order to overcome the classical dichotomies of passibility/impassibility and possibility/impossibility accordingly. Aesthetically, rhythm as opposed to schema, is transpossible; it also constitutes the work of art in a dynamic unity. The hypothesis I come to can be formulated as follows: there is a special synthetic function of rhythm that can be opposed to the synthetic function of intentionality. This synthetic function cannot be normalized and, thus, it paves a way to de-transcendentalized and de-normalized phenomenology. In the conclusion I contemplate the experience of depression as described by Matthew Ratcliffe. Ratcliffe deals with a methodological challenge of how to apply transcendental notions to the empirical. I argue that the language of transpassible and transpossible can be used as a replacement for the Husserian language of transcendental constitution.

The paper explores the guiding motif of psychopathological phenomenological investigation. In other words, it investigates when, how and why the phenomenological method is applied to that, which represents the sole object of study in psychopathology. The exploration begins with a reappraisal of a famous case of melancholia presented by one of the founders of phenomenological psychiatry, Ludwig Binswanger. In critical reading of Binswanger’s analysis I give, I argue that we should shift the focus from a patient to a phenomenologizing psychiatrist, to his or her own experience of the situation and the role it plays in application of the phenomenological approach to the analysis of this situation. Surprisingly, the personality of a psychiatrist has never been regarded as the ultimate object of phenomenological and psychopathological study per se neither by Binswanger, nor by other phenomenologizing psychiatrists, although a certain amount of attention has been paid to the relationship between a clinician and a patient by researchers. Moreover, to date, no one has questioned the relationship between the psychiatrist’s subjective experience, characterized by a strong emotional input, and the process of establishing a phenomenological attitude. In this paper, I reveal how feelings of a psychiatrist encountering psychosis and, in particular, the malaise of a psychiatrist relate directly to applying the phenomenological method in order to understand of the clinical situation. This, in turn, allows me to revise the role of the phenomenological approach, as providing a psychiatrist with the tools for acknowledging the singular relationship, which his or her psychiatric knowledge has with his or her own experience of the clinical encounter.

Unlike most other philosophical systems of India, Buddhism, though it gives a central place to “consciousness” in its philosophical enquiry, does not raise its status to a transcendental metaphysical level. Buddhism, in this way, has a special affinity with the phenomenological approach. The present paper focuses on the points of a contact between phenomenology and mindfulness meditation, the Buddhist spiritual practice. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part gives an account of the four kinds of mindfulness meditation based on the Buddha’s sermons on mindfulness. Then it focuses on their core features, namely, “objectivity”, “impermanence and other essential features” and “dynamic, yet passive awareness”. These features bring the two approaches close to each other. The second part brings out similarities and differences between the two approaches. The phenomenological approach, like the approach of mindfulness meditation regards consciousness as being of the intentional and propositional nature. It also emphasizes immanent to consciousness and brackets transcendent to it. Both approaches exhibit a scientific temperament and both tend to be presupposition-less. In spite of these close similarities, there are glaring differences between these two approaches. The phenomenological inquiry is aimed at intellectuality, whereas that of the Buddhist approach is spiritual. Phenomenology attributes reality to essences, whereas there is a tendency to deny ontological status to essences in Buddhism. Husserl’s acceptance of transcendental or pure ego contrasts with the no-self theory of Buddhism. Intentionality attributed to consciousness is also alien to all forms of Buddhism. The third part of the paper asserts the similarities and differences between the two approaches open to various possible forms of phenomenological practice. Furthermore, the paper suggests that different models of phenomenology are possible within Buddhism.

For almost two millennia the relationship between a physician and a patient, with regard to medical treatment, was settled according to the paternalistic moral principles laid down in the Hippocratic oath and later, in a modernized diction, in the Declaration of Geneva. With social und scientific changes occurring over the recent decades this structure lost its ethical balance and, thus, requires an amendment. Medicine is split into a curative part and a new field of scientific biomedicine, researched in laboratories independently from the relationship between a physician and a patient. While doctors have been experiencing increasing economic and legal restrictions, actual and potential patients have been tending to make use of the new medical opportunities, claiming their right to autonomous decisions. With advances made in biomedicine, the concept of health became broader and now it includes all sorts of the desired treatment (Wunschmedizin) and projective diagnosis. Today not only patients seek medical assistance, but also clients who, on the basis of their own right for autonomy, claim to have their bodily wishes fulfilled by medical practitioners. The article examines the ethical implications of these changes, with special attention paid to the concept of autonomy. Autonomy, in Kant’s enlightened deontological ethics, is the basis of such universal moral principles as the human dignity and the social responsibility. However, as can be shown, for contemporary biomedical ethics the concept of autonomy is based on libertarianism and utilitarianism. Moreover, the newly revised Declaration of Geneva neither is able to solve the moral dilemma physicians have to face choosing between professional duty and own conscience, nor can it compensate for the lack of responsibility of both sides in the relationship between a physician and a patient. Mutual respect can help to recreate a full-fledged notion of autonomy that would regain its moral value.

As Susan Sontag highlights in her seminal monograph “Illness as metaphor” published in 1978, the appropriation of illness for constructing powerful metaphors which have a great impact on broad social, political or cultural issues became a widespread phenomenon both in everyday life and in artistic discourse. For various arts illness turns into an important meaning-making metaphor for the social and cultural phenomena. In my article I intend to explore the use of such kind of metaphor in the context of Franz Kafka’s short story Country Doctor („Ein Landarzt”). A condition of a man who is ill is similar to the condition described by Freud in terms such as “oblivion”, “suppression”, “negation” etc. This text is very important for the psychoanalytical interpretation of Kafka’s legacy because one can see a definite parallel between a wound of a young man and his sexual desire for Roza. In my article I also analyse Hans Werner Henze’s homonymous radio opera, composed in 1951, which is based on Kafka’s text. Thanks to the special expressive instrumental medium, Henze creates an atmosphere of unreality and fuzziness of the Kafka’s short story. Adopting Walter Benjamin’s interpretation of Kafka’s œuvre qua a reflection on the “illness of tradition” („Erkrankung der Tradition”) in relation to the modern situation, I point out that Kafka and Henze share common understanding of modernity as well as show how Henze re articulates this idea of modernity as “illness of tradition” both in his poetic as well as in his compositional strategies after World War II.

This publication is devoted to manuscript of a famous Russian-Lithuanian philosopher Vasily Sesemann (1884-1963), accompanied by a preface. The text of The Problem of Spiritual Beauty belongs to Sesemann’s manuscript collection, located at the Vilnius University (F122-85). The text was written by Sesemann during the time of his imprisonment in the Gulag labor camp in Taishet (Irkutsk region). Being in the camp, Sesemann used to teach western philosophy and aesthetics to other prisoners. Sesemann devotes the manuscript of The Problem of Spiritual Beauty to reflection on the circumstances which make the aesthetic contemplation of the moral qualities possible. According to Sesemann, spiritual beauty is possible not only in the ethical field, but it also manifests itself in intellectual constructions. Ethical actions and products of human thinking are not the same, but both of them can be of the aesthetic value. All of them require the conditions for sensual presentation and realization in the specific situations. Ideas must be sensually expressed in order to acquire aesthetic value. Sesemann emphasizes two following points with respect to the aesthetics of ethical behavior. First of all, the reference is made not to general judgments about beauty, but to individual experiencing of a particular situation. Secondly, aesthetic experiencing is provoked by the actions, which astonish by their spontaneity, clarity and timeliness in a concrete situation.

The text of The Problem of Spiritual Beauty belongs to Sesemann’s manuscript collection, located at the Vilnius University (F122-85). The text was written by Sesemann during the time of his imprisonment in the Gulag labor camp in Taishet (Irkutsk region). Being in the camp, Sesemann used to teach western philosophy and aesthetics to other prisoners. Sesemann devotes the manuscript of The Problem of Spiritual Beauty to reflection on the circumstances which make the aesthetic contemplation of the moral qualities possible. According to Sesemann, spiritual beauty is possible not only in the ethical field, but it also manifests itself in intellectual constructions. Ethical actions and products of human thinking are not the same, but both of them can be of the aesthetic value. All of them require the conditions for sensual presentation and realization in the specific situations. Ideas must be sensually expressed in order to acquire aesthetic value. Sesemann emphasizes two following points with respect to the aesthetics of ethical behavior. First of all, the reference is made not to general judgments about beauty, but to individual experiencing of a particular situation. Secondly, aesthetic experiencing is provoked by the actions, which astonish by their spontaneity, clarity and timeliness in a concrete situation.

The paper offers a critical analysis of a programmatic article by Alexander Mikhailovsky on the reception of “late” Heidegger’s philosophy in Russian philosophical community. I mainly focus on the thesis put forth by Mikhailovsky on the peculiar esoterism of Heidegger’s “being-historical” thought, demanding a special philosophical practice of a “meaningful silence” considered the only commensurate approach to it. Moreover, according to Mikhailovsky, only Russian cultural and philosophical space (by which he understands mainly Russia’s conservative cultural and political thought) retains the ability to perform this kind of silence, while Western researchers and scholars have completely lost it. I put forward the following main arguments against this thesis: 1) several varieties of “esoterism” are simultaneously inherent in early” and “late” Heidegger’s philosophy and none of which requires a disavowal of a public scientific discussion and undertaking of a particular socio-political mission instead; 2) Heidegger’s conception of the so-called “other beginning” is not a radical-reformist but diagnostic one, that is to say, in its basic intentions it is not active revolutionary but rather quietist; 3) By now, the most substantial contribution to the systematic research of Heidegger’s legacy is made by Western interpreters; 4) Heidegger’s publishing policy testifies precisely to his intention to prevent ideologized forms of appropriation of his philosophy and, on the contrary, to guarantee the possibility of its systematic scientific reception. In addition to issues of content, I pay attention to the rhetorical form of the article in question. From my point of view, the rhetorical strategy of Alexander Mikhailovsky draws on a general tonality that came to be strongly associated with reception of Heidegger in Russian speaking cultural space due to the translations of Heidegger’s works into Russian made in the 1980-90s. In conclusion I, in general outline, present my own – alternative – view on the productive strategies of treating Heidegger’s theoretical legacy.

The review of the International Scientific Conference “Phenomenology of Oil”, held at the Institute of Philosophy of the St Petersburg State University on May 17-18, reflects the structure of the event, presents the participants of the conference, includes the main abstracts of the reports. The conference was devoted to the issues related to the ontological, socio-cultural, economic role oil plays in the modern world order. The program was conveniently divided into three thematically related and logically arranged components: theoretical, demonstration, interactive. The first and main one involved delivering of reports and organized discussions. The composition of speakers was distinguished by diversity of nations (Italy, Germany, Poland) and professions (philosophy, literature, art). Besides the main (scientific) part, a film seminar, an exhibition of Vitaly Kasatkin’s paintings in oil and oil products (the demonstration part), the conference “Phenomenology of Oil” also included a master class of painting in oil, which was of great interest. Such workshop made it possible to feel the potential hidden in the very object of two-day intellectual and artistic exploration. As a result, a number of oil-related phenomena, that can not be described and analyzed through classical approaches and generally accepted terminology have been detected, which suggests the need for developing the research in the domain of the oil philosophy.

Frangeskou’s point of departure in his juxtaposition of Levinas and Kant is the problem of transcendental schematism but not the tension between autonomy and heteronomy as it is common for most of the published literature. Thus, the middle ground between Levinas and Kant is occupied by Heidegger, but also by Franz Rosenzweig with his “biblical” version of ecstatic temporality. Levinassian diachrony is described by Frangeskou as a new form of ecstatic temporality, different from the interpretations given by Heidegger and Rosenzweig. It is analogous to transcendental schematism of reason. We briefly compare Frangeskou’s interpretation with Marc Richir’s notion of transcendental schematism which also goes back to Levinassian diachronic temporality. Richir’s schematism functions as a medium joining together heterogenous elements such as the layer of “phenomenological”, i.e., the unstable and flickering sense, and the layer of “symbolic”, i.e., the organised and stabilised sense. In a similar way, for Frangeskou, diachronic temporality provides a synthesis (though, not a synchronisation) of God, the world and a man.

This review examines the main aspects of the 32nd International Hegel Congress, which was held in Finland in early June 2018. The analysis of Hegel’s Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences was chosen as the central theme of this congress. The participants especially focused on the relation between Encyclopedia and Hegel’s other works, as well as on the interpretation of the semantic features in various versions of the Encyclopedia. Most reports argued that the form of Encyclopedia is, by no means, an external and accidental limitation which thinking is organized in, but it is determined by the very nature and originality of the “method” of Hegel’s dialectically speculative philosophy. The main emphasis in the reports was laid on the study of those forms of thinking and knowledge, which Hegel applied in order to give a holistic picture of the correlation between the spirit, nature and logical categories. Therein, researchers revealed some ways of employment of Hegelian ideas for modern studies. Besides, we should pay attention to another cross-cutting theme of the Congress, i.e. an analysis of the subjective spirit, since the integrity problem becomes objective and is realized as an object in the individual self-awareness. The section devoted to “Hegel in Russia” became especially prominent for the congress. Reports on this issue delivered at the congress may be divided into two categories, i.e. Russian Hegelianism of the 19th and the early 20th century and comprehension of Hegel’s ideas in the USSR period. Therein, it should be noted that Hegelianism of the Soviet period attracted more speakers and aroused more interest for the public, apparently, due to the fact that at that time both it reflected the ideological and inner sides of that modernization project, implemented in Russia in the 20th century. Besides, some reports were focused on the analysis of ideas of emigration of the Soviet period.

The review is devoted to the book of American philosopher D. Kleinberg-Levin Beckett’s Words. The Promise of Happiness in a Time of Mourning. The book presents an analysis of the contemporary post-religious and post-metaphysical situation in Western culture, which was became known as nihilism in the 19th century. “The Death of God” has become a historical, cultural and intellectual trauma, which requires the “work of mourning” in order to cope with its consequences. The author analyzes the causes of this situation and possible positions for philosophers and writers. Guided by the late works of Heidegger, D. Kleinberg-Levin argues that the path in a world without grounds is possible due to a promise that calls us from the essence of the language. Beckett’s work is interpreted as an example of the writer’s struggle with the forces of nihilism in the name of the “promise of happiness”, which is inherent in the very language as such. Therein lies the messianic dimension of language that can be freed from religious doctrines and retain its importance in the “disenchanted” modern world. In the epoch of nihilism, after the death of God, there is the last remaining hope of the immanent power and responsibility of a writer, true to his paradoxical vocation – the impossibility and necessity of expression. In the review Kleinberg-Levin’s book is considered in the context of studies of nihilism as a cultural trauma of modernity.

REDAKTIONSVERMERK

This review is an attempt to read the main ideas of Catherine Malabou’s Before Tomorrow: Epigenesis and Rationality, with a particular emphasis made upon the problem of the modifiability of the transcendental one and the rejection of the a priori dimension of subjectivity within scientific and philosophical thought of a materialist orientation. Malabou’s thesis of the epigenesis of pure reason evinces the dynamical dimension of the transcendental one, integrating structural and evolutionary conceptions of reason. Epigenesis secures the stability of the phenomenal world and provides the possibility of a contingent metamorphosis of reason, thereby establishing the economy of the transcendental contingency. Largely, Malabou’s work has many affinities with the recent phenomenological thought, although it makes just a few explicit references to phenomenological philosophers as such.