“Clinging Stubbornly to the Antithesis of Assumptions”: On the Difference Between Hegel’s and Spinoza’s Systems of Philosophy

This essay re-examines Hegel’s critique of Spinoza’s Ethics, focusing on the question of method. Are the axioms and definitions unmotivated presuppositions that make the attainment of absolute knowledge impossible in principle, as Hegel charges? This essay develops a new reading of the Ethics to defend it from this critique. I argue that Hegel reads Spinoza as if his system were constructed only according to the mathematical second kind of knowledge, ignoring Spinoza’s clear preference for knowledge of the third kind. The Ethics, I argue, is a book with several layers: it is at once a deductive mathematical system, and a handbook to aid the intuitive power of the active philosophical reader. The letter of each text may be identical, but they have little else in common – Pierre Menard’s rewriting of Don Quixote given systematic philosophical form.

SCIENCE WITHOUT “INTERMEDIARIES” (TO THE ANNIVERSARY OF RIMMA DMITRIEVNA GOLDINA)

The article was prepared for the anniversary of R. D. Goldina and touches upon the issues of the methodology of scientific search in archeology. The positive role of the researcher in the discussion about the chronology of early medieval antiquities, which was held in 1976 in Leningrad, is noted. Possible negative consequences of using alien sketches of archaeological material in scientific research are shown. Modern research (B. V. Rauschenbach) has shown that visual perception of space is a joint work of the eye + brain system, and not of the eye alone. When working with a certain kind of archaeological sources, the researcher's brain must be “trained” to recognize significant signs of this particular kind of sources. The stability of the chronological scheme of R. D. Goldina is predetermined by absolute knowledge of the material that was obtained as a result of her own author's excavations. Methodology for the analysis of archaeological material, developed by R. D. Goldina, is at the heart of many modern researches.

STUDY OF GIT RELATED KOSHTHANGA W.S.R. TO PAKWASHAYA

Human anatomy is the science where human body structures are designed to enable complete physiological action thus establishing homeostasis of the human body. Acharya Sushruta had a keen observation about the human body reflecting that without the absolute knowledge of Rachana Sharir. Chikitsak cannot be considered an expert. In Ayurveda, the part of G.I.T. is mentioned in Koshthanga by various Acharya. These Koshthanga are Aamashaya, Pakwashaya, Purishdhara, Uttarguda, Adharguda, Kshudrantra etc. which are situated within the koshtha. In modern anatomy, G.I.T. or Alimentary canal includes all the structures between the mouth and anus, forming a continuous passageway that includes the main organ of digestion, namely the stomach small intestine and large intestine, each part of the Gastric intestinal tract is adapted to its specific function. The 'oesophagus' function primarily to conduct food rapidly from the pharynx to the stomach mixing along with the digestive juic- es, carrying out partial digestion and then propelling the food into the duodenum is the function of the stomach small intestine is designed for complete digestion and absorption of nutrients. Absorption of water and electrolyte from the chyme to form solid faeces is the function of the large intestine. Pakwashaya is the main organ related to the site of Vata Dosha, Purishvaha srotas, Purishdhara kala, Koshthanga and Aashaya. Pakwashaya plays an important role in formation of urine and digestion of food. Keywords: Pakwashaya, Purish

The concept “Information” as a factor in Bernard Werber’s style

The article investigates the concept “information” and its elements in the general creative activity conception of the French writer Bernard Werber through the analysis of his original work “The Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge”, each short story represents a narrative, a recommendation, a principle, a formula from various fields of popular science. It is pointed out that the author presents some scientific data in a simplified way, other facts are given in a purely professional one, thereby Bernard Werber demonstrates his own competence in the fields of history, mathematics, biology, astronomy, etc., as well as journalistic skills. It is stated that such diverse correlations exist due to the writer's passion for science and history, personal life experience in these areas, and all this ultimately stimulates readers' thinking, which is the main goal of Werber's creative activity. The article explores the correlative plane, which combines data from many branches of science in a historical context, that generally forms an informative complex containing the issues about the history of tribes and peoples (Maya, Aztecs, Arabs, Chinese, etc.), their legends and beliefs (Atlanteans, the origin of a man, pyramids, etc.), wars (episodes of individual military stalemate), religions (conflicts between paganism and Christianity, the Inquisition, etc.), technology and architecture (erection and structure of historical monuments, temples), the natural world (features of physiology) people, ants, dinosaurs), games (particularly about chess combining psychological and historical components). “The Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge” also includes the facts about many historical figures who have made significant contributions to the study and formation of the general noosphere. It is concluded that the writer by providing an array of diverse information in “The Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge” gets the reader not only to be a recipient of ready knowledge, but also to set up new tasks that need to be solved, and the main one among them is life mission understanding.

Sergey Rubinstein on Hegel’s Method of Thinking: a Neo-Kantian Criticism

In this research I focuse on Sergey L. Rubinstein’s German dissertation “A Study on the Problem of Method” (1913–1914), which aimed at solving the problem of method in transcendental philosophy as distinguished from Hegel’s philosophy and dualistic philosophical systems. After a brief description of the context in which this problem emerged in the 1910s, I reconstruct its general original in­tent from the archive copy of the dissertation. Further I show that the published part of Rubinstein’s study was the first serious attempt to explain the difference between the transcendental logic of Cohen and Natorp and what the Neo-Kan­tians called Hegel’s “absolute rationalism”. This issue has become one of the most difficult questions in the philosophical self-reflection of Marburg Neo-Kantianism. I reveal that in his critique of Hegel Rubinstein is based on the Co­hen’s thesis on the immanence of thinking and being, which means that all being in sense of its substantive determination is a function of thinking. In Hegel’s “Science of Logic” Rubinstein finds a violation of this principle, namely dualis­tic features expressed in the independence of being and thinking. From Rubin­stein’s further reflections it becomes clear that his critical thesis against Hegel about the transcendence of being in relation to all other logical definitions is ori­ented on Cohen’s conception of the last ground and his own project of an open system of categories. However, Rubinstein has overlooked that the epistemologi­cal differences between the concept and the object of the concept, thinking and being, are overcome on the last pages of Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit” by the concept of absolute knowledge, and “The Science of Logic” is a theory of pure thinking which seeks to justify the substantivity of thinking on the basis of a methodological rule, by means of which both the difference of being and think­ing, and their unity with the concept of pure thinking are revealed simultaneously.

Opera

This chapter aims to combat common philosophical and aesthetic reservations against opera by investigating opera’s potential for gaining insight into subjectivity, understood as a way of living reflexively. First, it shows that operatic heroes and heroines in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries rarely succeeded in self-determination and self-realization against superior powers, often residing in themselves. Second, it demonstrates that Rousseau’s and Diderot’s advocacy for increasing operatic expressiveness left audiences little time for reflection, once composers put it into practice. Third, it reconstructs Wagner’s endeavour to provide his operatic-political Gesamtkunstwerk with Schopenhauerian metaphysical meaning and investigates its demolition by Nietzsche, for whom Bizet’s Carmen became the source of absolute knowledge about the emotional self. Fourth, the chapter engages with theories of emotion from analytic philosophy as they relate to opera. In conclusion, it promotes the cultural value of opera in a near-valueless society, while arguing against the endowment of some canonical operas with metaphysical importance.