My paper will deal with the contribution of philosophy to peace building. It provides a review of the peace concept in the works of Erasmus, a positive definition of the peace concept and an introduction of two important tools for peace building: philosophical counselling and Socratic dialogue. In line with Erasmus, I will define peace as a quality of friendship. I will distinguish an individual, social and political aspect of the peace concept and argue that we should integrate these different aspects of the peace concept in order to build peace. Dialogue seems to be the connecting substance. Philosophical practice can be the tool for shaping this substance by individual counselling or Socratic group dialogue. Philosophical practice originated in the 20th century. With a social utility in mind philosophers started counselling individual persons or moderating groups again. They criticised academic philosophy as being too theoretical and too detached from everyday life and revitalized a style of philosophy, as practiced by Socrates, Seneca, Erasmus, Descartes and many others in the history of philosophy. With respect to peace building, philosophical counselling helps individuals to deal with personal themes or problems in life and the Socratic method structures dialogue so that peace can be discussed in a rational way. Both serve attitude building and provide a philosophical experience important for peace building. As morale, I like to propose a variant of a famous saying of Erasmus, “Dulcis pax expertis”, i.e., “peace is only sweet for those who know it by experience”. I think that philosophical practice can provide us with such an experience.

An emerging approach to research is gaining ground with the aim to produce usable knowledge, able to support adaptation decisions, provide straightforward estimates of uncertainty, and meet the needs of climate sensitive sectors. An approach that implies collaboration among researchers, stakeholders and outreach specialists, gathered to develop not only a scientific contribution, but to offer a renewed appreciation of the relationships between knowledge, nature and society. What are the epistemic features of this new approach to knowledge production? How can Philosophy of Science help to conceptualize these new trends of research practices now emerging and consolidating, a trend where social scientists are not only invited to participate but to play an essential role? This presentation1 distinguishes two main senses of the concept of co-production, both playing an important elucidative function in current philosophical accounts and revisions of the relationships between science and society, human and natural systems, triggered by these new trends. One focusing on the articulation of talents, perspectives and values needed to produce new types of knowledge, and the other on the intertwined transformations of identities, institutions, languages and discourses that characterize the workings of science and technology within society.

The paper will draw on Foucault’s the last College de France lectures of to present his exploration of Cynic self-transformative practices and self-subjectivizing “ways of living” associated with social and political transfor-mation of ontology - of “life” and not just the “world” - as politics of difference, otherness, and alterity. For Foucault subjectivity is a historical production shaped through discursive practices immersed with social practices, where the transcription of power relations (and/or of other relations, such relations of strategies, of domination etc.) reflects various forms of governmentality (sovereignty, disciplinarity, control, etc.) as well as different “regimes” and “dispositifs”, combining various techniques, mechanisms, relations, effects etc. (social, cultural, political, etc.). Subjectivity is not a socially fixed determinate product but “techniques of living” (techne ton bion) that provide the foundation for the social and discursive practices and subjectivization and self-subjectivization processes, but as a foundational horizon that is (but also should remain) open, contingent, and always shifting. Foucault’s late focus on the “care of the self” (“souci de soi”) and “parrhesia” (truth-telling or freedom of speech) not only complements his analyses of regimes of truth or of mechanisms, techniques, processes, and powers associated with various forms of governmentality, but provides the final chapter of his social and political ontology.

Social recognition and social identity are closely related phenomena. Today we tend to understand them – with reference to Hegel – as a dialectical coherence, which is prominently the case in critical theory. However, the Hegelian dialectic did not survive after Hegel, and we now have two very different components of it that are both interesting as well as challenging. One is the figure of overall development of the entire society, which is predominant in the kind of dialectic thinking – and thus the notions of recognition and identity – to be found in critical theory. The other is the notion of concreteness that refers to the presence and density of historicity in our situated experience and contextual practices. The concreteness of recognition and identity, it is argued, is a topic of immediate sense and taken-for-granted meaning, i.e., of aisthesis and institution, which is more directly addressed in the corporeal phenomenology.

In this paper, I aim to identify the different cognitive, contextual and social values involved in epidemiological research on Chagas disease. As it is considered as a ‘neglected tropical disease’ by the World Health Organization, I will try to unfold the many senses of ‘neglected’ and in which sense different non-cognitive values can be manifested in research on this disease through a pluralism of disciplines and methods. The point of departure of this investigation is a model that explains the dynamics of scientific activity. The model is the one developed by Hugh Lacey, based on the notion of strategies of research, in which scientific research has to be socially framed. I will try to show that the social, political and economic conditions of certain populations, which define their ‘neglected’ character, constitute a perspective that needs to be considered in epidemiological research. Finally, this perspective is defined in the moment of adoption of strategies of research that reflects the social and ethical values adopted by scientists in Chagas disease investigations.

Russian social consciousness contains a number of specific archetype images and priority mythological plots which have both a direct and indirect influence on attitude of Russians. The myth about the Hero (“a powerful hand”) is of current importance in times of crisis or in transition period. The “powerful hand” can save miraculously the nation from troubles and “put it on the right track”. Archaic character of Russian social myth is manifested in the forms of political myths which fully correspond to ancient heroic chart of the good and evil struggle. A political hero has to solve irresoluble problems, he has no real past, his personal life, human weaknesses, and all these have a mythological analog, specially created in accordance with the society’s expectations. Identification social myths become apparent most of all during the crisis periods, when the destruction of one important socio-cultural myth, which ideologically ties together all society structures, is taken place. Nowadays, the Russian consciousness is differentiated rather significantly and disintegrated, and Russian public consciousness looks like a certain many-voiced discourse which includes conceptions strikingly differed from each other on nature of Russia and its population.

My theses are the following: 1) Bergson’s open society excessively maximizes the concept of an open society. Contrary to Bergson’s view, Popper’s open society excessively minimized the concept of an open society. Both maximized and minimized models need to be reexamined. 2) It is fanaticism that is the enemy of a 21st century open society, while historicism was the enemy of 21st century open society. Fanaticism has erupted in the appearances of religious fundamentalism, closed nationalism, and political populism. 3) Fanaticism starts first from believing a certain doctrine. Fanaticism, itself does not possess a certain doctrine nor possess any specific content. It does not matter if it is any religious doctrine, racial or ethnic doctrine. Second, fanaticism has the believer blindly believing and practicing it, so it does not allow any critical attitude. Third, it does not accept any other doctrines. The world is viewed in a dichotomous way, in which one doctrine is regarded as the only good and all the others are evil. 4) The features of fanaticism are dogmatism and exclusion. I insist that both features are fatal obstacles threatening mankind’s civilization in the 21st century.

World War II had ended in splitting Korea in half between the Soviet Union and the United States. Thereafter, the Unification of the two countries of Korea reveals a continuing major obsession of Koreans on both sides of the demarcation line. In a philosophical perspective, the Korean Unification will also be a long journey, marching to democratic republicanism. The indigenous blossom of the Korean Democracy started from the Dong-hak Peasant Revolution in 1894, which was an enlightened attempt to it, but thwarted by Japanese intrusion. The second phase was the 3.1 Independence Movement in 1919, which developed into the unfinished republican revolution for the recuperation of sovereignty in a modern sense. The third stage was the Korean Emancipation in 1945 that ended in an incomplete half emancipation which divided into two Koreas. In this sense, the future Korean Unification should fulfill another half remained. Thus, it would not be an option, but an imperative to Koreans to accomplish Unification. In consideration both of our modern history of democratic republicanism and the current globalization throughout the world, this achievement of Unification should be done in the principle of acronym SMART which represents the Korean Unification as a creation of new international peace paradigm of North Eastern Asia, including the Pacific Rim power-nations.

Since the Opium War, China has changed its society from traditional agricultural civilization to a modern industrial society. Compared with other countries’ transition from an agricultural society to an industrial society, China’s modernized reforming has something in common. That is why the powerfully marked agricultural civilization and the constantly changed international environment make China’s social transition having unique features. First, it is a long time for the process of the social transition. Second, the process of social transition is extremely complicated. Third, social conflicts tend to be sharpened during the period of social transition. Last, the process and completion of social transition is quite tough.

This article analyses the process of the foundation of the Czech state and its national self-identification throughout history. For this purpose the author mentions the three key periods: the Czech Reformation, Habsburg’s pe-riod and the 20th century in Czech history. These events are closely connected with the past of the Czech lands demonstrating the difficulties of coexistence between the Czechs and the other nations as well as the way the Czech people behaved under the political oppression: they have permanently desired to sustain their own culture, language and independence. The main question of the study is how Czech people managed to preserve national identification and to create a self-sufficient state despite the external influences. According to the author`s opinion, those influence and political dependence throughout almost 500 years were the important factor that helped the Czechs to appreciate their uniqueness and to protect it from the foreign invaders. The concrete ways of this process are analyzed in the article.

The paradigm of spatial paradigm is a derivative of the developing mentality structures and universal description of epistemological and ontological aspects of human existence, social space and its structures. It provides internalization of external conditions, of forms of social and cultural life, and externalization of schemes of perception and action, as a series of simple shapes of increasing dimensions: a point, a line, a square, a pyramid. The development of social space and its structures is associated with the emergence of carries of a new spatial paradigm within the society. In the initial state, society is not structured and occupies minimal social space. Each subsequent level increases both size of social space and its dimension by one. The carriers of the highest spatial paradigm determine size of social space and act as representatives of the society as a whole. Social structures of different levels form a nested construction, which is isomorphic to the structure of their mentality. Historical periodization of the development of society and its culture follows changes of the spatial paradigm. For Ancient Greece it includes zero-dimensional period (dark ages), one-dimensional (archaic), two-dimensional (classical), three-dimensional (Hellenism) and finally decay and collapse of all social structures.

Languages are not called mirrors, but rather lenses of the world, and for a reason. The world perceived by an individual refracts in the native language according to his ethnic mentality. As an intermediary between individual thinking and social reality, language sets not only cogitative stereotypes and world outlook limits, but also standards of behavior. The language assimilation alters the ethno-cultural identity at social and individual levels. Since the familiar material life conditions, cultural environment, social surroundings do not always correspond to occurring changes in the mentality of a polyglot, it leads to personal and social contradictions, inter-ethnic conflicts. Cultural and linguistic unification accompanying globalization entails extinction of small and rare languages. The gradual extinction of the world languages raises the questions of language rights, language freedom, language planning, and language politics. Observations of the mentality of the Chuvash people show that for young people original positive qualities gain strength before the threat of globalization. During a modern era ethnic features and ethno-cultural activity of the population don’t disappear, and it casts a doubt that the processes of modernization and integration remove ethnic problems from today’s agenda.

Axel Honneth’s development of a theory of recognition is aimed at an intersubjective reconfiguration of social philosophy grounded on normative and anthropological premises. Honneth attempts to extend Jürgen Habermas’ communicative paradigm beyond its linguistic formulations and challenges the social-theoretical separation of system and lifeworld, whilst offering important insights towards an intersubjective theory of power and analysis of social action. In this sense, Honneth seeks to investigate the normative, intersubjective relations underlying all social spheres, including the market and state bureaucracy. However, despite his early insights into an alternative analysis and critique of power, in his subsequent development of a theory of recognition, Honneth does not adequately account for power as a constitutive factor in relations of recognition. It might be argued that Honneth’s intersubjective theory requires a consideration of power not only in terms of domination, but also as an ontological category constitutive of identity and social formations. This paper investigates the problems that result from Honneth’s attempt to bring together a theory of intersubjectivity, normative theory and the project of critique, and considers the resulting loss of insights regarding an intersubjective theory of power.

In The Apology and elsewhere, Socrates defends a vision of the philosopher as “gadfly”, an interrogator and social critic intimately connected to his or her particular community. In this paper, I examine the relevance of this model of the philosopher for the contemporary world, a world characterized by migration, transience, and dislocation. Specifically, I argue that current trends in professional philosophy, including the twilight of tenure-track employment and the increasing reliance on temporary forms of employment, make it difficult for philosophers develop community attachments, and therefore to discharge Socrates’ practical task. Beyond even such current trends, I argue that the professionalization of philosophy in general is not conducive to the Socratic model of philosophizing. In shedding some light of these arguments, I end by contrasting the Socratic model of philosophy with a more contemporary image provided by Deleuze and Guattari: the image of the nomad. I argue that this model of the philosopher retains the possibility of critique essential to the Socratic model, but also addresses the transient conditions that many of us find ourselves in today.

The paper is devoted to examining the analytic tools for under-standing sociocultural processes. To analyze the influence of the social and cultural environment on some fixed economic, administrative, state building, educational, informational and communicative processes the notion of the matrix effect is introduced in the paper. For this purpose the author addresses the phenomenon of historical pseudomorphoses mentioned by O. Spengler in his 2nd volume of Decline of the West. She considers that this metaphor is very useful for understanding societal processes. The matrix effect is understood as a similar phenomenon to “imprinting”, when the well-known political, civil, economic, educational and other institutions under the influence of a form introduced from outside obtain a certain form. Some examples of matrix in the humanities, certifying its sociocultural context are analyzed. Among them are: V. Andrushchenko’s “pedagogical matrix”; P. H. Collins’s “matrix of domination”; P. Bourdieu’s theory of stucturation, and the concept of habitus as the key methodological instruments for social-philosophical understanding of the notion “matrix”. Based on this approach the sociocultural matrix is understood in this paper as a pattern of social identity of a group of people included in the system of relationships and interaction of social institutions that allow them to orient themselves spontaneously in the society. Three types of the matrix effect (the family pattern, the ship pattern, and the sport pattern) were depicted as they represent the most common patterns of social organization. The author finds the matrix influence to be deep and variable. The main mass types of social imagination and cognition, dominant behaviors, and principles of administrative institution construction come into view. The socialization process, the daily experience transmission, the adoption and assimilation process of other cultural values take place with the help of the matrix; the necessary stereotype recreates, propagates and popularizes. The methodological possibilities of the specific matrix mode of social philosophy research are examined in the paper. The author reveals that, first, the processual aspect of things, rather than the static one, is emphasized. In the given case a state, church, political parties, etc. are represented mainly in the process of arising and reproducing, but not as static organizations. Secondly, the matrix is perceived not only as a form, but also as the main type, a pattern of a certain kind of mass activity. The matrix is the symbol of existing institutions on an individual daily level. The above-mentioned patterns as matrixes are the algorithms of the order of interconnection in the society. Such a setting problem opens the possibilities of integration of sociological theorizing on micro and macro levels. Thirdly, the matrix effect can be used for describing multidimensional schemes. This utilization is another peculiarity of their examination, because such analysis is based on the advantages of correlative mechanisms, but not on genetic and causal ones.

I argue that the right to solidarity may be understood as the negative right not to be hindered by social vulnerabilities in the exercise of citizen rights. I define social vulnerabilities as those vulnerabilities that result from structures of society. As a negative right, the right to solidarity shifts attention away from what is necessary for basic flourishing, and toward what is social structures that hinder full participation in other civic or political obligations and rights.

The position on all religions should be based on the constitutional regulations about the secular character of the Russian state and the equality of citizens regardless of their attitude to religions. Only the secular state can provide freedom of worship of its citizens. According to the results of the sociological research of different organizations the following conclusion can be done: the public views of the Russians would like to minimize the influence of religion as a social institution. Confabulating the manipulative influence of religions, and, especially the Russian Orthodox Church, the state expands it and may cause the future social conflicts.

Unlike traditional views on populism, some influential theorists like Margaret Canovan have argued that populism must be regarded as a “shadow” which follows democracy’s inherent weakness or deficit. Benjamin Arditi agrees with Canovan, but he stresses the need to take a closer look at the distance or conflict between democracy and populism. According to him, populism is nothing but a “periphery” located inside democracy and has a good chance to enter into conflict with the latter. This paper attempts to articulate further Arditi’s thesis by focusing on populists’ un-and anti-democratic political behavior. The paper will conclude that populism must be differentiated from the equality- and participation-oriented populistic democracy.

This paper deals with relevance of non-violence in changing scenario of globalizing society. Gandhiji practiced non-violence in all walks of life, which is specially based on Bhagavadgita. He advocated non-violence qua Anasaktiyoga and conceived that the concepts of Ramarajya, Sarvodaya, Svadeshi, Sarvadharmsambhava, etc. are derived from non-violence. In its culmination, non-violence becomes identical with compassion, love, detachment and self-control. He confined non-violence not only in spiritual sphere but also in socio-political and economic spheres of life. Now as a result of globalization, the market forces have captured political economy. It has wid-ened world-wide disparity between rich and poor. Consequently disharmony, exploitation, terrorism and unrest have appeared in social phenomena. The non-violence must be adopted as the ethics of globalization to resolve these problems and also to bring all humanity under one world and one religion, i.e., humanism. This will be a paradigm shift in the domain of politics which focuses on changing of hearts and attitudes of people to convert them into a family. This is the noble mission for whom Gandhiji lived, fought and sacrificed himself for the sake of humanity and eternal peace on the earth.

Human life should not be perceived out of the context of its everyday-life content (is a series of acts and passions). The individual attributes senses to such series of acts and interrelations on the basis of self-identity in certain communities. Going through this process, the individual effects transition from the situation of pure “I – consciousness” to that of being related. Life attains meaning from the identity “I – related to”. These are related to such fundamental characteristics of human existence as “being – among others”. An individual imparts a certain meaning or sense to his own life by attributing meanings to life practices. The individual does not produce the imparted meanings deliberately as they are defined by the existing social and cultural communities and collective identities. Meanings of life may be metaphorically defined as “what for”. Recognition of collective senses as personally meaningful marks the transition from individual to social consciousness. Social consciousness is largely based on aggregate perceptions of the common past. The ‘we-here’ identity is based on the ‘we-in-time’ identity rooted in social memory. Values and meanings related to the existing collective identities and socio-historical communities are defined here as “socio-historical senses”.