«МОНАСТЫРЬ В МИРУ» КАК ОБРАЗ ВСЕОБЩЕГО ОБЪЕДИНЕНИЯ В РОМАНЕ БРАТЬЯ КАРАМАЗОВЫ THE LAY MONASTERY AS AN IMAGE OF UNIVERSAL UNIFICATION IN THE NOVEL THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV

The article deals with the theme of a "lay monastery" (“монастырь в миру“), which became one of the important milestones of spiritual life and the life of the Сhurch in the late 19th and 20th centuries and which was reflected in the later works of Dostoevsky. According to Russian thinkers, there was an obvious need to overcome the spiritual isolation of the Church, which should show a desire to merge with the world and manifest heartfelt and vital work on this path. However, the new form and way of salvation are seen as an impulse of humanity to overcome the gap and strengthen connections with the Church. Dostoevsky thought that in the fluid and already different spiritual and historical reality, it was of the utmost importance to find or create new ways of salvation and unification. The Brothers Karamazov tells of the increasing social influence of hermits’ (подвижник). Dostoevsky suggested that their influence was utilitarian in nature and could be associated with the upper limit of Russian medieval culture in the 17th century, when the cult of saints was significantly strengthened as they were revered primarily as real helpers in secular affairs. Sanctity in Russia was often achieved by following the paths of martyrdom, passion-bearing, asceticism in its extreme forms, hermitry, mysticism and foolishness (юродство) rather than through constant, consistent, and purposeful self-discipline and abstention. However, the unifying factor is "Labor with Christ", where both joy about the world and spiritual ennobling are revealed, as Dostoevsky illustrates a path on which there is the possibility of expedient union between the laity and the Church. In the last chapter, in which Alyosha gathers the children and makes a speech, the mission of the "lay monastery" is carried out, because he manages to unite people in the name of Ilyushechka and his expected resurrection, thus, in the name of Christ. Each thing, having an absolute meaning, exists not only in a passive correlation to the other, but also takes action, fills it up and is being filled up. Only in a universal synthesis of this type, does the true miracle of universal interconnection live. Here, we are witnessing the mysterious communion of the boys and their entry into the mystical Church. One can use Lurie's successful comparison of two ways of life, secular and monastic, with Law and Grace (159). The lay monastery corresponds to the meeting of the Old Testament law and evangelical freedom, as two Christian paths that should exist in constant conjunction. Dostoevsky's thesis once again confirms the idea of Solovyov: "The Church is there where the people are, united by mutual brotherly love and free unanimity, who become a receptacle of God's grace, which is the true essence and vital principle of the Church, that forms one spiritual organism" (1914, 4: 658).

Financial Crisis: Time to Manage Earnings?

Previous research on how financial crisis affects managers’ earnings management behavior has resulted in different scenarios with inconclusive results. To address the ambiguity in the findings in the literature, the present study presents critical realism as an alternative to the positivist mainstream approach. The study argues against the existence of a causal law based on a constant conjunction model (i.e., whenever a financial crisis happens, earnings management happens) and concludes that financial crisis cannot be seen as the cause of earnings management. Finally, it suggests exploring other structures at work that might be responsible for earnings management.

British Philosophies of Qualitative Research

In this chapter, the British traditions of positivism and realism, which have been important for different strands of qualitative research, are discussed. Positivism is often misunderstood by qualitative researchers and presented as a form of realism, but it is actually an anti-realism that reduces knowledge claims to what we may positively verify in experience. Causality consequently becomes constant conjunction in experience. In contrast to this, realist positions argue that science should go beyond immediate experience to study working mechanisms that generate the phenomena that we in fact experience. Philosophers today disagree about the existence of such mechanisms when it comes to human psychological and social life. Some constructionists argue that there are no causally effective mechanisms in our social life, whereas others, especially critical realists, argue that social science should be all about identifying such mechanisms.

Dispositions: An Integrational Analysis

Whereas the Humean accounts of causality in terms of contiguity, temporal priority, constant conjunction, and contingency face difficulties of one sort, the dispositional explanations of causality in terms of reciprocity, simultaneity, ubiquity, and holism seem to meet difficulties of another sort. But the difficulties which dispositionalism faces may be dissipated if one can appeal consistently to the logic of naturalism, rather than to the grammar of an implicit dualism, for example, as it is illustrated when G. Molnar tried to advance the analogy between the mental intentionality and the physical intentionality. The notion of integration is taken to allow a conceptual space for naturalism of one kind. It may be expressed in the thesis that there is integrationality in any entity like dispositions, such that the integrationality is a power to realize the embedded objective of it in the context where it interacts with all others. The thesis would help to see how dispositions can be intentional, how the notion of information may be read integrationally from any object, and how the notion of fitting plays a role in the metaphysics of integrationality.

Hume and the Problem of Causation

This chapter traces Hume’s search for the impression-source of the idea of necessary connection through Book 1 of the Treatise. It then sketches and evaluates the main interpretative positions concerning Hume’s account of causation. These positions characterize Hume either as a regularity theorist who thinks that causation is merely a matter of temporal priority, contiguity, and constant conjunction, a projectivist who takes causal talk to have an essential non-representational element, or a skeptical realist who believes in, and believes that we genuinely refer to, real causal powers. Finally, it briefly discusses rival interpretations of Hume’s famous “two definitions” of causation.

ON FORMALIZING CAUSATION BASED ON CONSTANT CONJUNCTION THEORY

Constant conjunction theory of causation had been the dominant theory in philosophy for a long time and regained attention recently. This paper gives a logical framework of causation based on the theory. The basic idea is that causal statements are empirical, and are derived from our past experience by observing constant conjunction between objects. The logic is defined on linear time structures. A causal statement is evaluated at time points, such that its value depends on what has been in the past. We first give a semantics that contains basic conditions that, we think, must hold for a concept of causation, on which we define the minimal causal logic. Then we discuss its possible extensions for various concepts of causation. Complete deductive systems are given.

Hume’s Two Definitions of Cause

This chapter examines David Hume's two definitions of cause in the context of quantitative and qualitative research. The two definitions can be found in Hume's quotation from Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding, and Concerning the Principles of Morals: “We may define a cause to be an object followed by another, and where all the objects, similar to the first, are followed by objects similar to the second [definition 1]. Or, in other words, where, if the first object had not been, the second never would have existed [definition 2].” Hume's phrase “in other words” makes it appear as if definition 1 and definition 2 are equivalent, when in fact they represent quite different approaches. The chapter considers how Hume's definition 2, which it calls the “counterfactual definition,” and definition 1, the “constant conjunction definition,” are related to understandings of causation in the qualitative and quantitative research traditions.

Berkeley’s Cartesian Account of Volitional Causation

Although the heart of Berkeley’s philosophy is active substance, some argue that Berkeley’s notion of causation precludes human agency, an undesirable result for Berkeley. In the hope of securing the ontological status of finite substance in Berkeley’s metaphysics, this paper seeks to offer a rather different take on the Cartesian influence supporting Berkeley’s views on the causal efficacy of human spirits. After demonstrating the possibility of a Malebranchian occasionalism in light of Berkeley’s views on necessary connection, a close examination of Berkeley’s works reveals his real stance on what type of connection counts as causal. Employing Descartes’s divinely-established natural connection between a finite will and its effects, Berkeley is able to offer a coherent account of finite causation in the natural world that can accommodate free will. This naturalistic interpretation is able to situate Berkeley as one who is influenced by a Cartesian version of causation (though not the one scholars often attribute to him), but is able to legitimately resist the fall into Hume’s metaphysically empty position on causation as nothing but constant conjunction.

Realism and Empiricism in Hume's Account of Causality

Hume's empirical approach seems to drain the concept of causality of all content, so that causality in objects is reduced to constant conjunction. His use of language of causality, which is necessarily realist, is undermined by his account of causality, which is not realist. The realist intepretation of Hume, by philosophers such as Galen Strawson, is rejected because it is incompatible with empiricism. However, if Hume's view that we do not have any sensory experience of causing is challenged, then the way is open to give an account of causality which is both empiricist and realist.

David Hume’s Treatment of Mind

This paper critically examines Hume’s argument against the knowledge/existence of substantival mind. This denial is rooted in his epistemology which includes a theory of how complex ideas which lack corresponding impressions are manufactured by the imagination, in conjunction with the memory, on the basis of three relations among impressions: resemblance, continuity and constant conjunction. The crux of my critique consists in pointing out that these relations are such that only an enduring, unified agent could interact with them in the way Hume describes. I note that Hume attempts to provide such an agent by invoking the activities of imagination and memory, but that it is unclear where these belong in his system. After discussing the relevant possibilities, I conclude that there is no category within the limits of his system that can accommodate the faculties and allow them to do the work Hume assigned to them. I then note that Hume’s rejection of substantival mind rests upon the assumption that something like substantival mind exists; for the action of the latter is required for the proper functioning of the process of fabrication which creates the fictitious notion of substantival mind. My concluding argument is that if the existence of substantival mind is implicit in Hume’s argument against substantival mind, then his argument resembles an indirect proof, and ought to be considered as evidence for, rather than against, the existence of substantival mind.