The paper vastly comments on Vitaly S. Pronskikh’s article “Proto-Megascience. The Transfer of Interests in the Trading Zones”. In analysing a particular project of the Megascience type, the author poses a question on the comparison of the gnoseological potential possessed by the collective collaboration and the single scientist. Along with it, he also suggests a solution for the problem of the equivalence in the intellectual and technological exchange between Megascience participants.

This paper is a short reply to the critics’ comments given on my article Proto-Megascience: Translating interests in a trading zone.

This is an introduction to the Russian translation of the first chapter from William Whewell’s “On the Principles of English University Education”. The author makes a short review of the situation in Cambridge university at the beginning of the XIX century. She pays special attention to the development of mathematics in Cambridge. The author reconstructs the key ideas about the university education and teaching provided by Whewell. She claims that Whewell’s philosophy of education makes a contribution to a proper understanding of the ways for modernization of Russian education. She argues that the “practical” way of teaching, which was defended by Whewell, could be implemented through integration of STS program in Russian universities.

The practice-oriented approach implies a shift in emphasis from objective knowledge to operational knowledge. The focus is on a transition from the description of ways to obtain knowledge to acquiring them, from established knowledge to knowledge of ignorance. The formation of operational knowledge involves the use of technologies that answer the navigational model in education. The article aims to enunciate the philosophical basis of the practice-oriented approach in education and substantiate its efficiency for the course on the History and Philosophy of Science in post-graduate studies, referring to the ideas of the Russian philosopher Nina I. Martishina. Philo- sophical reflection as a universal intellectual operation suggests analyzing the three levels of objective reality of science, depicted by the Russian philosopher Mikhail B. Sapunov. The results of the study. Philosophical knowledge, presented in the form of intellectual operations, becomes available for practical use, and the three levels of philosophical reflection on the objective reality of science substantiate the unity of the three aspects of the existence of science. Operational knowledge bases on using the navigation (or network model in education. Discussions and conclusions. The results of the study give the basis for suggesting the “navigational” model (Sergei A. Smirnov’s concept), or network model of education. The authors suggest two cases using a practice-oriented approach in the teaching of the History and Philosophy of Science.

The article deals with R.G. Collingwood’s “reform of metaphysics” in the context of the historical development of post-Kantian critical philosophy and science. The question raised by the author is what do such phenomena as a “return to pre-Kantian modes of thought” (A.N. Whitehead) or “ontological turn” in contemporary philosophy mean, provided that the historical development of thought is irreversible? It is shown that Kant’s Copernican revolution consisted in closing the question of external sources of knowledge. Collingwood continues the line of Kant’s critical philosophy, proposing a project of “metaphysics without ontology”, which must deal with the structure of our knowledge of the world, but not with the world as it is in itself. However, Collingwood is in a different historical situation, far removed from Kant. Applying the Kantian-inspired method of regressive (or genetic) epistemological justification of experience, Collingwood sets out to uncover “absolute presuppositions”, i.e. back- ground metaphysical assumptions about the world that make a historically new experience possible. The historical bankruptcy of Kant’s fundamental idea that there is only one universal way of organizing our experience, belonging to timeless transcendental subjectivity, brings the problem of justification of knowledge claims to the ontological level. The non-removability of ontology could be understood as a real alternative to Kant’s Copernican revolution. This is discussed through the reading of Collingwood, whose project of “metaphysics without ontology” reveals dependence on certain ontological premises which show the opposite – “ontology without metaphysics”.

This paper focuses on three concepts – commensurability, bicultural, and domestication, aiming to consider their epistemic significance in sociocultural anthropology. All classical non-relativistic anthropology rested on the idea of commensurability, while the incommensurability as a problem did not even exist there: “savage” and “civilized” cultures were assumed by default to be commensurable. For convenience, I will refer to such positivistic “commensurability by default”, which is before or outside relativistic and interpretive anthropology, as “commensurability-1”. However, there is another – the hermeneutic – understanding of commensurability, developing in the “post- relativistic era” of anthropology; I will call it “commensurability-2”. This is a more reflexive and critical form, which assumes that understanding comes not through an exact knowledge or translation of a representative of an alien culture, but rather as an intermittent process of a continuing “long talk” that changes the interlocutors. This “long conversation” can be investigated, for example, as a sequence of communicative situations. The question of commensurability in interpretive anthropology and interpretative sociology involves the study of epistemically obscure, “muddy” communication situations between representatives of different cultures. These are situations in which uncertainty, ambiguity, anomaly, illusions and errors in understanding are considered epistemically constructive, rather than negative, phenomena (from the positivist viewpoint). Such situations can be depicted through the concept of epistemic murk (Michael Taussig), that characterizes a state of anthropologists on the road to biculturalism, entering into the alien culture. Domestication, in all likelihood, can be considered as a mechanism for achieving biculturalism.

The article aims to describe the main problems that can become a substantive basis for the journal thematic section “The Discussion Questions of the Language of Science” actualizing in the context of the semiotic paradigm. The author has set and achieved two major objectives, which determined the general logical and semantic structure of the article. These objectives include reviewing the main Russian journals published on the language of science and the actualization of the problems of the ideal language into possibilities including the language of science through the semiotic model proposed by Charles Morris. The syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects of the ideal sign-language system are used as grounds for differentiating the synchronic and diachronic problems of the language of science. As shown in the article, the main semiotic problems of the language into possibilities and the language in reality include questions related to the peculiarities of using the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic rules. For syntactics, such rules are the requirements concerning the procedure for constructing and transforming a language system. For semantics, these are rules for applying signs to designated objects. For pragmatics, these are rules of interpretation of signs. The overall positive assessment of Morris’ meta-language model as a normative language matrix bases on the absence of generally accepted and stable theories of language differing from the semiotic language doctrine. At the same time the modern semiotics does not limit the range of its cognitive interests to the level of speech discourses of the sign-language system, the standard of semantic correctness of which includes the language of science. Today the object of semiotics covers various types of language practices, which being implemented in the language are not limited to it. In this context, the article attempts to encourage interdisciplinary discussion platforms focusing on the actual debatable problems of the language to be created within such advanced forms of periodicals, as philosophically oriented e-journals.

The article discusses the methodological conception of the Scottish thinker William Whewell, created in the middle of the twentieth century. Whewell believed that man has some innate ideas, which imposing on sensory perceptions generate knowledge. Among the fundamental ideas that guide human knowledge, Whewell distinguishes the ideas of space, time and number. They are studied and developed by «pure» sciences. In other sciences, these fundamental ideas are complemented with the ideas of causality, environment, similarities, etc. In his methodological constructions, Whewell relied on a thorough study of the history of practically all the developed sciences of his time, therefore he anticipated a turn towards the history of the philosophy of science, which took place in the second half of the twentieth century. The conception of Whewell included of idea of a hypothetical-deductive structure of scientific knowledge, the idea of «theory-ladeness» of facts, and empirical verifiability as a most important criterion of scientific nature. It is a pity that the conception created by the founder of the philosophy of science was forgotten for a long time.

The article continues the philosophical discussion on the recent significant work by Vladimir Kutyrev. In his critical analysis of it, Vadim Rozin accepts the key points of V. Kutyrev’s book and scholarship, such as the concepts of “being”, “non-being”, “negative consequences of scientific and technological development”, “philosophical discourse”; still, the conclusions are denied. The understanding of “being” and “non-being” by V. Kutyrev comes in line with Parmenides’ onto- logical discovery and M. Heidegger’s criticism of metaphysics. The novelty of V. Kutyrev’s ideas relates to the situation in which contemporary scientific and technical changes maintains the possibility of post-human and beyond-human transformations along with a possible termination of human history. Parmenides’ abstract «being» is transforming into “otherness” of post-humanity and artificial intelligence superseding human be- ings. “Negative consequences of scientific and technical development” is a form of transition of technogenic civilization into a posthuman exist- ence. Hardly anybody is able to know the future – yet, the transition from human to posthuman seems to be getting more pronounced. Obviously, we have to reconsider all philosophy starting with Thales for its connection to human being or non- being. Classical rational strategies of philosophical discourse should be supplemented with non- classical ones. An essayistic and even artistic character of V. Kutyrev’s scholarship appears a worthy example of such reconsideration. To my mind, his recent book once again confirms his sta- tus as a leading philosopher in the field of under- standing and solving the crucial issue of modern humanity: to be or not to be?

This paper investigates the impact of digital and new information and communication technologies on the transformation of human identity, on urban life, social, political and scientific practices. Basing on the comparative method, the author attempts to show that the use of new digital and information and communication technologies leads to both positive and negative consequences. In the first case, technologies create new opportunities for the formation of identities, a greater inclusion of the population into urban life, as well as for the evolution of new social, political and scientific practices. In the second case, the formation of new techno-digital identities might lead to existential crises and human dehumanization. New practices of information search and the use of social networks contribute to shaping of an information cocoon and authoritarian regimes, while scientific knowledge ceases to be controlled by humanity and human reason. At the same time, this digital ambivalence sharpens old problems, showing their fundamental importance, though not forming a new agenda. The point is that not so much the new technologies themselves possess innovative potential but possible projects for constructing new sociocultural and technological conditions for their use have it.

The article considers the prospects for the evolving information and communication technologies basing on the British science fiction TV series “Black Mirror”. The contemporary development of the technologies and the global level of their distribution allow us to talk about revolutionary changes in the structure of society. The Internet, mobile communications, the ability to accumulate and analyze large amounts of information (Big Data), the integration of consumption into web-resources, and the development of AI-like systems make a combination of factors that encourages a number of scholars to speak about the formation of the Sixth technological paradigm. Along with it, the question of such technologies mostly turns out “overboard” from humanitarian expertise, since economic benefits prevail over considerations of humanness. Obvious that the socio-cultural implications of technology implementation have a long-term perspective, and it is practically impossible to predict how the society will change. The “Black Mirror” attempts to envisage not so much the technological changes but the influence of ICT on society in the long term. Proceeding from the current trends in robotics, technologies of virtual and augmented realities (VR and AR), medical functional diagnostics and psychophysiology, the creators of this TV series anticipate some trends in the development of technology. A global projection of one or more of these trends represents an agenda for a possible future. Along with it, the authors focus on a certain techno-paranoia that exists in contemporary mass culture. In this way not technical and technological aspects but rather some projective ethics of the future and future generations appears “on the surface” first of all. Such issues seem quite relevant given the rapid evolution and implementation of technologies. An attempt to critically evaluate their impact suggests that they merely manifest human sociality. Nevertheless, the author emphasizes the importance of assessing the social and humanitarian consequences of technology development, since modern ICTs are no less a threat than atomic physics or pharmacology.

This paper is a response to the article “The Philosophy of the ‘Black Mirror’: A revolution in the minds up and down...”. Agreeing with the conditions and trends in the development of modern science, technology and civilization described in this article, the author, however, approaches these issues from a different point of view. He agrees that contemporary culture is a reflection of the desired and expected future, and points to the inalienability of modern technologies that represent the “black box” for the user. However, since it is possible for technology to evolve much further, it might reach the level of humanity and overcome it. In such a case, humans would either find themselves in games and creativity or appear doomed to extinction. The author shows that in such circumstances, the development of virtual reality technology and the transfer of human consciousness to external media might be a most beneficial way for the civilization to develop. In a situation when the elimination of the physical body opens up much more opportunities for a person than they might have in the real world, death (in its physiological sense) becomes more a “liberation of the spirit” and a beginning of a new “life” rather than provokes fears as an insoluble problem. However, such technologies and their consequences need a thorough philosophical analysis, the responsibility for which is still on human shoulders.

The paper focuses on the TV series “Black Mirror”, which reveals the features of the life of an individual and society in the future, experiencing transformations under the influence of the technological progress. The author emphasizes psychological issues of the series, such as: modeling of the psyche and mental processes, digitization of the psyche and consciousness, domination of the psyche and consciousness through technology, modifications of subjective experiences, access to subjective images of an individual, modeling and simulation of personality, identity and self-concept, human relationships transfor-mation, changes in the existential fullness of human life.

The paper considers power relations through a possession by subject of information about the object of power in context of the emerging trend to implement dominion by informational means rather than by force methods. In comparing two patterns ‘Human – state’ and ‘Human – machine’, the author concludes that this approach is objective in the conditions of advanced technologies of observing and accumulating information. She considers power relations between Human and technology in a historical aspect and distinguishes certain stages, which are referred to as follows: ‘Human – tool’, ‘Human – pet’, ‘Human – creation’, ‘Human – Human’, ‘Human – God’. The author traces the evolution of anthropocentric idea by illustrating it through the pattern of ‘Human – machine’ and analyzes the perspective of shifting to a technocentric idea.

This paper, initiated by a discussion about the philosophical problems of the “Black Mirror” series, examines whether artificial intelligence might be considered conscious. For a possible answer, we view Rene Descartes’ concept of ‘I’ and Arthur Schopenhauer’s idea of the world as the will and representation. Along with it, we also refer to contemporary views from psychology and neuropsychology. In addition, we distinguish and attempt to describe some key concepts related to human behavior, such as subject, subjectness, and consciousness, which in the sequel might be used to describe non-human activities.

This remark for the ”Black Mirror” philosophy discussion considers the transformations of the punishment system based on the technological development perspectives presented in the “Black Mirror” series. The state, by introducing certain laws, seeks to limit the actions of persons, creating for them a certain frame of behavior; moreover, it seeks not only to define the limits of what is permitted, but also to ensure that the person does not violate them. Modern digital technologies can provide an opportunity not only to monitor compliance with all existing rules, but also to make decisions about punishment and even to implement them. At the same time, unlike in the past, persons might be safe not only from any physical punishment, but also from any exclusion from the usual physical space. They may go on living in their homes, walking along the streets – however, at the same time they are experiencing an exclusion from society: being physically close to other people, they can no longer contact them. The question is posed of what consequences for the individual and society such a transformation of punishments might have.

This paper discusses how the relationship between the individual and society is shown in the TV series “Black mirror”. Based on the ways in which the show presents the role of technology and the Internet we can observe their possible impact and consequences on the individual and society, as well as on their interaction. A person, socializing and assimilating everyday practices of communication, life building and construction of self-presentation, adapts and implements them, seeking an integration into social reality. Such a desire might lead to a breakaway from the self and a focus on seeking an approval from society or the Other as a whole. Following the rules adopted in society and orienting to the social status and approval might be considered a reflection of the desire «to have» and the orientation to a «freedom from».

The paper contains brief comments on the issues raised in the responses to the article “The Philosophy of the ‘Black Mirror’: A revolution in the minds up and down...”. The author responds to criticisms, sums up the ensuing discussion and formulates some final provisions. It is unequivocal that there might be a bulk of different viewpoints on the picture of the world emerging in the conditions of digitalization. It is normal that among them there are adherents of transformations in a person, society, and culture. Such a polyphony of opinions is positive, since the issues and problems under discussion are nothing more than a futuristic prediction. As the author puts it, we need to remember this set of opinions, save it and transfer to technology and the future. The world needs to preserve polyionticism so that the people who create it themselves will not become outcasts, raw materials, and garbage. The paper summarizes the valuable comments on psychology, the philosophy of consciousness, power and law, which have been made during the discussion and which only emphasize the complexity and amount of the technologization processes in our society. In conclusion, the author notes that only people of today can determine the agenda of the future, and we are able to preserve the world in all its diversity for future generations.

The author examines the process of transition from close reading to distant reading as a linguistic problem and an emerging new type of text – information visualization. The conjunction of textual and visual components is specific for information visualization. This paper describes the information visualization as a «new abstraction» (according to the definition given by Lev Manovich, a new media researcher). This definition actualizes the problem of interrelations between abstractions and metaphors. The author attempts to determine a genealogical connection between information visualization and metaphors, distinguishes linguistic, cognitive, metalanguage, systematic and structural aspects of metaphor understanding, and considers in details the aspects that can be adapted both for metaphor and information visualization. These aspects help to identify characteristics that show similarity and difference of metaphors and information visualization. In the final part of the article, the author gives a conclusion about the potential of studying visualisation information in the context of contemporary humanities research.