THE CATEGORY OF GOOD IN CLASSICAL WESTERN EUROPEAN DISCOURSE

Статья посвящена анализу генезиса категории «благо». Актуальность данной работы обусловлена растущей значимостью такого феномена, как благополучие. Личностное благополучие - предмет исследований социологии и психологии, эксплицирующих его феноменологию прежде всего в прикладных аспектах; для социальной же философии данная проблематика выступает новеллой. Коннотация благополучия как качества жизни в современной литературе полностью нивелирует духовные аспекты категории. Авторы прослеживают трансформацию смыслов категории, исходя из понимания блага в первую очередь как «общего блага», сформировавшегося в Античности, эпоху, когда понятие и образ составляли единство в созерцании форм, благодаря чему благо выступает ценностью, объединяющей человека, человечество и мир. Для Платона благо социально и оно же - цель познания, для Аристотеля - полнота моральных добродетелей и наслаждение; идеи античных философов находят свое развитие в христианской теологии и реинтерпретируются в Новое время, когда в качестве установки познания появляется разумеющее «Я». Благо - уже не единство тела и духа, но единство разума, долга и свободы. Место метафизики занимает опыт, категория блага сменяется категорией благополучия - социального и личного, и обязательно конкретно измеримого. The article is devoted to the analysis of the genesis of the category «good». The relevance of this work is due to the growing importance of such a phenomenon as well-being. Personal well-being is the subject of research by sociology and psychology, which explicate its phenomenology primarily in applied aspects; for social philosophy, this issue is a novel. The connotation of well-being as a quality of life in modern literature completely negates the spiritual aspects of the category. The authors trace the transformation of the meanings of the category, proceeding from the understanding of the good primarily as a «common good», which was formed in Antiquity, the era when the concept and the image were a unity in the contemplation of forms, due to which the Good is a value that unites man, humanity and the world. For Plato, the Good is social and it is also the goal of knowledge, for Aristotle it is the fullness of moral virtues and pleasure; the ideas of ancient philosophers find their development in Christian theology and are reinterpreted in modern times, when an understanding «I» appears as an attitude of cognition. Goodness is no longer a unity of body and spirit, but a unity of reason, duty and freedom. The place of metaphysics is taken by experience, the category of good is replaced by the category of well-being - social and personal, and necessarily specifically measurable.

ON INSTRUMENTAL RATIONALITY: NIHILISTIC AND TOTALITARIAN POTENTIAL

The article analyzes the phenomenon of instrumental rationality, which underlies the processes of dehumanization, anonymity, irresponsibility, conformism. It is noted that Enlightenment nihilism as a distorted understanding of freedom, denying the cordocentric spiritual tradition, leads to the disintegration of the substantive unity of reason, giving rise to the relativization of morality and the aestheticization of evil. The positivist program, which deals with value-neutral scientific "facts", takes its meaning and supreme values beyond the logical structure of the world. Purified from morality, the "Euclidean mind" becomes a soulless and heartless technique of selection and calculation of optimal means to solve goals "beyond good and evil", and "engineering" approach to the study of nature and society in combination with the subject-object oriented "strategic action" and "technical thinking" creates the preconditions for the emergence of a specific situation of Totality, in which everything individual and individual is impossible.

The Unity of Reason: Kant’s Copernican Presupposition

In the controversial Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant claims to “complete the critical work of pure reason” [A670/B698] by providing a transcendental deduction of the ideas of pure reason. In order to analyse the role that this Appendix plays in the first Critique, this paper will read the Appendix alongside Kant’s comments in the B-Preface concerning the astronomy of Copernicus. Through an analysis of the nature of Kant and Copernicus’ respective use of presuppositions, and by looking at their respective attempts to unify a science around a single systematic conception of the object of that science, this paper will offer a defence of the fundamental role that Kant’s transcendental deduction of the ideas of pure reason plays in the text.

A Phenomenological Perspective On Feminist Critique Of Reason

This study expounds a phenomenological perspective on feminist critique of reason. Following the lead of Nagl-Docekal, a hypothesis is reached by which a possibility is recognized that the feminist argument which is founded on gendering the unity of reason is mistaken. This gendering ultimately results in identifying the traditional manifestations of reason as a structure of oppressive power dynamics which feminist philosophy deems masculine. Although, this investigation admits that some of the main premises of feminist argument are supported by evidence, however, the main contention is that its conclusion is problematic. A phenomenology of reason is proposed, after Edmund Husserl‟s transcendental phenomenology, with the intention of providing support for the validity of hypothesis and offer better prospects for a critique of reason. Furthermore, It is also argued that phenomenology of reason so outlined already incorporates the valid aspects of feminist critique of reason. The methodology of this investigation is comparative-analytic. The purpose of this study is to provide a philosophical foundation for feminist critique of reason which is aimed at unmasking the illicit pretensions of the oppressive dynamics exhibited in the name of reason.

From the Critique of Reason to a Critique of Culture

This paper argues that Cassirer’s development of ‘the critique of reason into a critique of culture’ was prompted by two motives that ultimately seem to collide. On the one hand, Cassirer attempts to overcome the Kantian dichotomy between the faculties of sensibility and the understanding. To this end, he turns to the schemata of the Critique of Judgment. On the other hand, Cassirer expands the scope of transcendental philosophy to include cultural domains such as myth, language, and the human sciences. His desire to maintain both the differences between these domains and the unity of reason however leads to a new dualism between the material modalities of the symbols and their ideal, recurring, forms. Yet, by adopting both a constitutive and a regulative conception of objectivity, Cassirer renders this duality legitimate, and his motives for a philosophy of culture on a Kantian foundation compatible.