The article considers smart home technology in the framework of philosophical problematization. The article explores the ontological and epistemological potential of the smart home concept, and evaluates the benefits this technology presents for humans. The authors refer to the book by A. Deschamps-Sonsino, which investigated smart home evolution (2018) as the most significant interdisciplinary study of historical stages in the development of smart home idea and its social determinants. This study touches upon the gradual elimination of architects from smart home’s idea implementation and its transition to the disciplinary (soft) engineering field, as well as the specifics of smart home virtualization with the advent of the Internet. Further, the authors present a picture of the smart home functioning in the IoT system and consequently estimate the posthumanistic theory (in particular, suggested by B. Latour) as the most relevant research tool for this case. Analyzing the modern posthumanist paradigm and the engineering rationality principles underlying the smart home concept and socio-technical problems of the IoT that embraces smart home, the authors came to a paradoxical conclusion. Instead of remaining in their own home life center, the house owners are being pushed to the periphery, which, to a certain extent, turns out to be a periphery of the new post-humanist world order. A human has come a long way in designing her home space, which, on the one hand, was focused on facilitating domestic work, and on the other, increasingly depended on external requirements and restrictions, and at contemporary stage, it seems, the two sides of this process merged into a single field of control over the private human needs and pleasures.

This overview paper examines some current discussions in the field of interpretation of predicates of personal taste. These expressions are known to be judged on the basis of individual taste: what one considers tasty, the other does not. Their formal semantic interpretation faces a number of technical problems of logical semantics, as well as more general philosophical problems associated with understanding what the nature of disagreements about taste may be, what is the structure of propositional content, etc. The author offers an exposition of a number of influential approaches to the semantics of predicates of personal taste, and provides his own criticism of a difficult case that involves an occurrence of a predicate of personal taste in a de re propositional attitude report.

The author discusses some issues of the legitimacy of epistemic imperialism as a process that characterizes the specifics of interdisciplinary cooperation in the social sciences. This problem is analyzed on the example of discussions about the legitimacy of imperialism in economics. In this way, the suppression of political economy in the era of McCarthyism in the United States becomes a theoretical prerequisite for economic imperialism. In its turn, the socio-political context of economic expansion was determined by the rationale for the neoliberal version of political decisionism in the post-war world. The author believes that the phenomenon of epistemic imperialism can be viewed as a special case of the movement towards unificationism in science. Referring to Richard Posner’s ideas, the author shows that defenders of the economic analysis of law appeal to the values of unificationism. As for the critics, they argue the idea of the enrichment of the epistemic resources is misleading, since the ontologies “before” and “after” the reception are not comparable. The author believes that imperialism in the social sciences reflects the trend towards naturalization, which, in turn, is a reaction to the request for scientific support of politics. It follows that the further development of the epistemology of the social sciences will be characterized by the expansion of epistemic imperialism. Along with it, the author points out that the discussion about the legitimacy of epistemic imperialism goes beyond the problem field of epistemology and may be also relevant to the context of policy technocratization in the modern society.

The article discusses ethical issues arising in the course of the development of nuclear technolo-gies and related issues of radiation safety. Atten-tion is paid to ethical dilemmas and proposed so-lutions. The author suggests a critical analysis of the relevant discussions, conducted, first of all, in the English-language literature, and muses on the specifics associated with their transfer to the Russian context. This study considers ethi-cal problems arising in context of the depletion of uranium resources and nuclear waste man-agement and including the inevitable risks for the present and future generations, such as inter- and intragenerational justice (Gardiner's problem) and the problem of the identity of future genera-tions (Parfit’s problem); problems of collectivity and individuality in the assessment of permissible radiation doses for workers at nuclear enterprises and the population associated with the need to combine deontological and utilitarian ap-proaches in the practice of radiation protection. The author demonstrates cultural differences in attitudes towards the safety of the current and future generations of the population of countries and regions and the associated ambiguities in the choice of technology for nuclear reactors, long-term disposal or processing of nuclear waste; double standards in ensuring the radiation safety of personnel of nuclear facilities and the popula-tion; ethical problems of risk compensation to workers of radiation-hazardous production fa-cilities; issues of gender differences in sensitivity to radiation exposure, gender equality and dis-crimination in relation to access to the labor mar-ket in the nuclear industry. The article elucidates the importance of socio-humanitarian discussion of the ethical problems of nuclear technologies and radiation safety Such debates currently are almost absent in the Russian-language philosoph-ical literature, despite its exceptional importance due to both the level of development of nuclear energy in Russia and the potential risks that these technologies pose to current and future generations of both employees of nuclear facilities and the population of the country, neighboring coun-tries, and the world. The purpose of this article, thus, is to initiate such a discussion.

Platform urbanism as spatial dimension of platform capitalism has become a formidable challenge for economic, social and political life of cities. Therefore, the principles, underlying digital platforms and their transformational potential for urban environment are the two main focal points of the following article. The specificity of algorithms, functioning in cities, leads to balance upset between commercial and municipal organizations, with the latter not only allowing privatization of public infrastructure, but also depriving citizens of the “right to the city”. The effects algorithms bring out give rise to the development of conjunctural geographies. In this case, the platforms stress their physical or virtual presence whether the aim is to maximize capitalization or evade legal liabilities. Algorithmic data collection becomes a new tool used to map out urban space, hence it turns into a way of creating new power geometry. The negative consequences of continuously advanced data collection methods are aggravated social inequality together with destabiliza-tion of urban economy. Given these circumstances, the most appropriate civil urban initiative would be the claim to tighten legal control over activities of platforms. In practice, it is presented as a requirement for transparency. It is argued here, that this claim is not justified from both epistemological and pragmatic standpoints. The outlined analysis is given to path the way for better alternatives of sustainable urban development.

This paper is a reply to the article by Alina Kostina on platform urbanism. At the beginning, it briefly reviews some of the main trends in network urbanism and smart city research, including criticism of these phenomena. Further, it discusses the possibility of considering algorithms in the context of “black box” and “techno-subject”. With reference to the ideas of John Urry, the author considers the “smart” movement, understood in this case as the introduction of IoT into the management of various processes, as inherently moving towards the digital panopticon within a route-dependent outcome. Two potentially foreseeable visions of the future are suggested. The first includes adaptation to the ongoing irreversible changes, coexistence, and transfor-mation of the gestalt vision of a changing world (with reference to Timothy Morton's “dark ecology”). As an alternative, the author draws attention to projects such as rural development.

The article examines the changes in urban life caused by the active introduction of digital platforms and services into urban life. Digital platforms and services are becoming, together with discourses about the city, management and life practices in the city and its infrastructure, an element of a hybrid city. They provide the formation of new meeting places for city dwellers, in which they can agree on the provision of services to each other. By this, digital platforms undermine the logic of capitalism. Today, hired workers directly interact with their employers; everyone can work when they want and take a job they want. In this way, digital platforms continue the logic of counter-culture and counter-conduct, which had a great influence on the development of digital technologies. However, as a result of the successful implementation of their functions, platforms produce a by-product, which is data that become their capital. They use them to “improve” people's lives. As a re-sult, platforms and digital services are becoming mega-regulators of people's lives, and cities are los-ing their specificity, turning into a unified city of digital platforms and services.

In this reply to the discussion about platform urbanism, the author focuses on a particular aspect of the impact of platform implementation on the labor market. The penetration of platforms into the urban space is producing a noticeable impact on social structures and relations, including labor activity, changing the specifics of employment, working conditions, and affecting the employees’ situation. In this respect, it can be assumed that not everyone is able to integrate into the new conditions of their professional activity. Accordingly, they will be forced to either abandon it, or to take certain actions to search for clients out-side the platform mechanisms. In addition, the author assumes that with the development and spread of platforms in the urban space and the growth of the collected data, along with the shadow labor market, a shadow territory will emerge. Within it, among other things, certain labor activities will happen, hiding from the supervisory authoritie.

Urban digital platforms have not only become the main service mediators in the city, but also a driv-ing force, which forms the new urban landscape. Algorithm presents itself as the main tool of date processing, an object of both cultural mystification and epistemological research. Platform capitalism has influence on labor market, circular economies, services and city ideologies. The issue of checks and balances between commercial and municipal agents, their participation in the establishment of social inequality have been considered in the following article. It is argued that technocratic structures and extensive data collection make digital platforms the panopticon of urban life.

The article describes an implementation of ran-domized computer-based tests in a philosophy course. Based on two control tests performed by 172 students, we demonstrate the effectiveness of statistical analysis methods for measuring stu-dent performance, as well as evaluating the valid-ity of developed multiple-choice questions. Four criteria are considered: the validity of the results obtained basing on the hypothesis of the normal distribution of correct answers; calculation of test reliability (Spearman-Brown Coefficient); the index of difficulty and the index of discrimination calculated for each specific task. In the course of post-examination analysis, using the example of four test items, the study shows which questions appear effective and which ones require further refinement. The text argued that multiple-choice questions are both significant for assessing know-ledge of philosophical concepts and should be considered an important element of feedback. The data obtained in the course of solving the test by students can be used for subsequent adjustment of the items.

We are witnessing a growing interest of post-positivist philosophy, history, and sociology of science in medicine. For historical epistemology, biomedical sciences, medical theory and practice are one of the most preferred subjects of research. What is the epistemological uniqueness of medicine? What can medicine tell the historical epistemologist? What is important for historical epistemology is the pronounced dependence of medical theoretical know-ledge on medical practice, which in turn reveals a strong dependence on the historically changing so-cio-cultural context in which it unfolds. The article considers naturalistic and objectivist interpretations of disease, which understand disease as an unchangeable “natural kind” that does not depend on a perceiving subject. It is shown that these interpretations face serious problems, for example, the problem of logical definition of causal mechanisms of the dis-ease. The author demonstrates that disease has on-tological, epistemological and value dimensions, which turns it from a “natural kind” into a “concept” that arises and exists in the space of a certain “style of thinking”. The coexistence of different styles of thinking explains the conflicting interpretations of “disease”, each of which has its own legitimacy in the context of a particular style. The question is also asked about the possible reverse influence of historical epistemology on medicine: what can a philosopher (historical epistemologist) tell a doctor? The article shows that the position that historical epistemology takes in relation to medicine assumes that medicine is receptive to philosophy. Is this receptivity to philosophy spontaneous? And what is its relation to professional philosophy (historical epistemology)?

The article discusses the institutional features of little and big science as two normative-oriented forms of the community of scientists and stages of the development of all the science. Is the author shows that despite the relatively stable understanding of the differences between little and big science the radically changed status of the latter, as well, ‒ as new interpretations of the internal content of the former, require clarifi-cation of their general and special features. These circumstances determined the relevance of the topic of continuity of little and big science institu-tions in the context of the formation of its new organizational forms. The formal-logical basis for achieving this goal is the lack of a clear indication of the presence of a common generic feature in the institutions of little and big science. The article uses the paradigm conception in the quality of its methodological orientation and the essen-tial understanding of science as more relevant variant of the institutional approach. It is noted that the key concept of the paradigm doctrine is the concept of «disciplinary matrix», the norma-tive element of which is exemplary ways of solv-ing scientific problems. This leads to the conclusion that the paradigm-matrix is a normative component of the institute of science designed to ensure its efficient and stable functioning. As the analysis of the components of the normative structure shows, there is a fundamental simi-larity between the stating part of technical norms and the results of scientific research. This coincidence allows us to identify the institute of science as a normative form of activity implemented as part of the scientific community. The final part of the article shows the differences in the constitutive features of the target unions of little and big science and makes the following conclusions. The main difference between the target associations of little science is their internally autocephalous and externally heteronomous character. In turn organizations of big science are associations of a heterocephalic type that maintain moral, political and ideological dependence on society and the state, but rely in their professional activities on the heteronomous prescriptions of the institute of science as a whole.

Archaic laws of Draco and Solon were authoritative for the Hellenes of classical Athens. In the ancient tradition of classical time, a word θεσμός was used to denote the old legal provisions (the laws of Draco and Solon), by which the ancient Greeks primarily understood the sacred ordinance and associated their first laws with religion. However, along with the use of this concept, classical authors described their modern laws by using the word νόμος, which together was widely used in the philosophical thought of the ancient Greeks. The article discusses the possible reasons why the concept of θεσμός, relevant for the archaic era, was rarely used in the writings of classical authors being replaced by a new term, which, in addition to political law, was actively used in philosophical systems. The author investigates the issue of how the political thought of Greece developed and how it first interacted with the Greek religion, and then with philosophy. She slso considers the process of rationalization of Greek society, which, according to the author, led to the distinction between archaic legal provisions and the political law of the classical period. The author concludes that the change in the use of concepts reflected changes in the consciousness of the ancient Greeks and the transi-tion from a mythological and religious perception of the world to a more rationalized philosophical perception.

This overview introduces an area of semantics that is not often discussed in works on the philos-ophy of language. The overview talks about the mechanisms by which information about time is encoded in natural languages. The philosophy of language traditionally pays attention to the problems of reference to individual objects, as well as accounting for the so-called intensional contexts. However, reference to moments of time not only reproduces the key problems of reference to individual objects in extensional and intensional contexts, but also reveals new aspects of how this reference can be expressed in the structure of a natural language and, consequently, in the structure of human thought, if the latter is understood in the Fregean spirit as intelligible objective content. The review introduces the reader to the ways in which these topics are discussed in the latest research that was presented at the leading conferences in semantics in 2019 and 2020. In particular, the review examines the problems of the semantics of tense morphemes, verbal aspect, the lexical content of verbs and such issues that are more familiar to philosophers as the semantics of certain descriptions in the temporal dimension.

The article suggests a solution to the important problem of humanities and semiotics (the author proceeds from an interesting report made by Alexandra Volodina at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences). The fact is that traditional semiotics explains well only a relatively small class of signs, for example, natural language, transport, communication, etc. Attempts to bring works of art, icons, schemes, and projects under the classical concept of a sign (F. de Saussure, L. Hjelmslev, U. Eco) do not appear effective. The author suggests a hypothesis about the connection (symbiosis) of signs and events of psychic reality, allowing, in his opinion, to solve this problem. He attempts to demonstrate that while the first class of signs satisfactorily described in traditional semiotics serves primarily the processes of communication, the second class (works of art, icons, schemes, projects, etc.) supports two processes simultaneously – communication and going through the experiences of some individual reality. To clarify and prove this hypothesis, the article analyzes three cases (understanding eclipse by indigenous peoples; children experiencing fairy tales and discovering images). In these cases, the concepts of diagram, mental reality, event, and sign are used. The author also interprets the relationship between signs and events through a biological analogy with the symbiosis of two organisms (signs provide reality events, and events form the basis for meaning). At this, referring to his previous research, he claims that a similar symbiosis is characteristic of many processes (for example, the process of realization of personality and the process of dreams, as well as the processes of communication, game and some forms of reflection).

The article considers the prospect of a new ‘republic of letters’ in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike the ‘republic of letters’ that existed during Renaissance and Enlightenment, the new international community of researchers is built on the basis of common problems and affairs (res), rather than cognitive interests of the public. Nevertheless, certain cognitive and intellectual virtues may also be required from researchers in order to overcome the three types of risks associated with the formation of a new community. Each type of risk is described in a separate section of the article. Respectively in each section we disclose epistemic virtues necessary to minimize the risks, as well as provide examples of research practices in which these virtues are manifested. For example, the ability of social research to cognize fluid objects, such as viruses, may help to overcome danger of imprisoning in ‘ivory tower’. The virtues of openness and curiosity valued by biohackers help to cope with the threats of structural epistemic injustice. Intellectual courage and modesty, which allow bioethicists to criticize judgments that claim to be universal, help to overcome expert conformity.

Years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic were marked by decrease in trust in science and crisis of expertise. By the beginning of the pandemic once solid authority of science has eroded, while confidence in scientific knowledge has been replaced by diversity of conflicting opinions and proliferation of claims to expertise. One reason for tensions in relations between science and society is an extremely resilient image of scientists as cracking the nature’s secrets in a remote space, isolated from society. When in a specific moment public acquires a possibility to observe actual science-in-the-making, popular expectations regarding how reliable facts and trustworthy experts look like, become disappointed. However, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, conditions of global uncertainty and necessity to nonetheless make decisions with life and death implications provoked changes in knowledge production. These changes, including unprecedented accessibility of science’s “backstage” for observation and participation, can become foundation for bridging epistemically separated communities which otherwise will continue to drift apart from each other.

This article examines some features of the Republic of Letters of Renaissance and Modern Age, which can help to characterize peculiarities of information exchange about manifestations of COVID-19 virus in different countries within the framework of “new” Republic of Scientists formed on the basis of civil science. The article aims to identify the continuity of principles of the contemporary republic of scientists in relation to the Respublica literaria in Renaissance and Modern Age, as well as identify, within the framework of their comparison, some historical parallels related to the methods of research of the scientific object.

The article analyses the project of a new “Republic of Letters” built on the basis of epistemic virtues of biohackers. Consideration of the new “Republic of Letters” involves studying the concept of “fluid object”, which is key for a number of studies in the framework of actor-network theory. The author claims that fluidity is not an ontological property of the object itself. The concept of fluidity is used by researchers of science and technology to demonstrate the contingent variability of objects under conditions of their immutability in network spaces. It is proved that scientists and engineers strive to create extensive networks of stable relationships, and, consequently, science has never had the desired degree of autonomy. The article demonstrates the concept of risk as the general basis for the organization of institutional and citizen science. The risk model that emerged in the 70s of the twentieth century defined the conditions of the “new social contract” of science and the state setting the key principles of their interaction. In context of the coronavirus pandemic, the risk model is becoming basic for introducing the quarantine measures. At the same time, the quarantine is considered as a special case of “state of emergency” demonstrating the sovereignty of the state. The pandemic itself and its related activities are primarily political. Thus, the spread of epistemic virtues of biohackers is not able to solve all the problems associated with the creation of a new “Republic of Letters”.