2011. vol. 10. No. 3

The key issue of social life is the problem of solidarity. This problem, as the recent events show, will grow more acute in the near future, both in Russia and around the world, which is especially evident in the crisis. The paper will consider the question of solidarity in the context of the theory of sociology. As the outcome of this investigation the increase both in the knowledge of social life and in the theoretical resources for its study is expected to be. Thus, the research is considered to become, first of all, the contribution to the theory of sociology, but not formal sociology ­— rather pithy one, oriented towards the current issues’ resolving.

In this article the new methodological social sciences concept «geo-spacialism» is supposed and studied. Coming from the regularities of Western Modern development the introduction of this concept is settle down. The necessity of «geo-spacialism» use as a concept and a methodological approach is related to transition from spaciality to co-spaciality in interpretation of discourse peculiarities of human societies development. The concept «geo-spacialism» helps to realize the specific character of civilization dynamics and the imaginary geographies formation processes.

Tomas Hobbes’ conception of language can not be described in common terms of conventionalism and nominalism. Language plays a very important role in the Hobbes’ thought, therefore, we should pay careful attention to it. What can the language says about distinction between natural and political philosophy? Has the sovereign the power over the language of his subjects? Can we distinguish the language in the commonwealth and the language in the natural state? Searching answers to these questions is important not only in the context of the history of philosophy, but allows us to include Hobbes’ ideas in modern political and philosophical discourse.

The paper presents short fragment of labyrinthine history of the concept of ambiguity of sacred in Durkheimian sociology. The prominence and advantages of the «strong program» in cultural sociology to a great degree result from taking Durkheim’s theory of the sacred seriously. The explanatory power of cultural sociology rests upon explanatory schemes and research techniques that draw on the properties of the sacred such as the absoluteness and the irreducibility of the sacred/profane opposition, the principles of contagiousness and mimesis, and the objectification of the sacred. However, there is a further property of the sacred which is essential for the development of cultural sociology, and yet it is not consistently engaged in research practice. This property is the ambiguity of the sacred. The paper provides historical-sociological reconstruction of the reasons of this tangential treatment. The main reason is situated in the corpus of Durkheim’s theory. Durkheim didn’t ignore the property of the ambiguity of the sacred, indeed, and defined the very phenomenon in a right way. However his account of the ambiguity of the sacred appears to be contradictory to his own theory. It allows describing certain class of phenomena in primitive societies, but it is inadaptable for the modern societies. The latter is seen as an inner reason of the lack of the attention to the ambiguity of the sacred in the «strong program». The paper provides an alternative account of the ambiguity of the sacred which overcomes current theoretical contradiction and provides more power to explanations in cultural sociology.

D. Bartmanski’s article is devoted to the re-interpretation of post-communist nostalgia. He begins the analysis with the question: why would people respond to perceived transitional failures by longing for the failed reality they had just fled from? His main goal is to offer the new framework for understanding nostalgia based on the ideas of the iconic turn and American cultural sociology. For this purpose Bartmanski subjects to criticism principal theoretical approaches of nostalgia and provides a comparative analysis of the phenomenon of so-called Ostalgie that manifest itself in the streetscapes of Berlin and Warsaw. His key argument consists in that «nostalgic» icons are successful because they play the cultural role of mnemonic bridges. That is they provide a possibility to re-establish the continuous temporal sequence which was interrupted by sudden social changes.

The paper considers effects of the habitualization of absolute events — events that destroy and create social orders and therefore inevitably stand out of the flow of routine practices. Author reviews different types of everyday world's reaction to the phenomena of extraordinary existential character, returning thereby to the key question of the sociology of everyday world: one of the link between everyday and transcendental dimensions of social reality.

In his classical paper C. Wright Mills suggests a novel view of the motives within the framework of sociology of knowledge. Contrasting an approach of sociology of knowledge to subjectivistic understanding of the motives as outer manifestation of the inner elements, Mills locates a particular types of action within typical frames of normative actions and socially situated clusters of motive. Motives is something that is imputed and avowed by actors, therefore it is necessary to consider, first, how different motives are assigned by different actors to themselves and others in certain social and historical situations, and second, how different vocabularies of motive conflict with each other and replace each other over time. In this case motives are not a manifestations of some inner impulses but a justifications of the behavior.

This is the on-going publication of Karl Schmitt diaries entitled «Glossary». Here Schmitt turns to the works of Annette von Droste-Huelshoff considering the problem of charisma and political theology.

Given paper provides an introduction to one of the most spectacular discussions in the political philosophy of the 20 century that involved Leo Strauss, Eric Voeglin and Alexandre Kojève. As long as Kojève’s works and Kojève himself are relatively well known to Russian readers, we center our attention on the personality and ideas of Eric Voegelin, as well as on some central points of the discussion that took place after book «On tyranny» was published by Leo Strauss. Voegelin points out the problems, brought up by depicting ancient tyranny and one created in Modern age; he proposes new terms, not those used by Strauss. Finally, the author specially points out that Voegelin was one of the first who paid attention to the notion of «esoterically writing» in political philosophy of Leo Strauss.

In his review on Leo Strauss’ «On tyranny» Eric Voegelin, pointing out importance of his opponent’s work, still disagrees with several crucial Strauss’s findings. Especially important for him is comparing of «ancient» and «modern» tyranny, as well as Strauss’ idea that the text of «Hiero» makes up bounds between ancient and modern political philosophy, «tyrannical teaching» of Xenophon, the author of «Hiero», is very close to the Machiavelli’s point of view as presented in «The Prince». Voegelin points out that this thought is indeed not that true and Machiavelli’s teaching does deal with the same sort of problem as Xenophon’s writing, because these texts were created in different historical contexts. The main aim is to understand modern tyranny, but, Voegelin argues, it won’t happen if we, as Strauss does, think that ancient and modern tyranny are the same.

In this section of his book «The theory of communicative action» Jürgen Habermas considers Max Weber’s legalistic views. According to Habermas, Weber treats law in such a way that it is detached from evaluative sphere and can appear from the start as an institutional embodiment of cognitive-instrumental rationality. For Weber law is distinguished primarily by three formal properties: positivity, legalism, and formality. These three structural properties refer to the mode of legal validity and legal enactment, to criteria of culpability and the mode of sanction, and finally to the way in which legal action is organized. The dominance of purposive rationality in Weber’s view of the law allows Habermas to suggest a series of critical arguments. From his point of view, Weber’s theory of action prevent him from adequate understanding of the functioning of the modern law because it takes into account only one aspect of the tendencies toward juridization: detachment of the subsystems of purposive-rational action from their moral-practical foundations due to the rationalization of action orientations.

Karl August Wittfogel (1886–1988) is German and American sinologist, sociologist and historian, whose ideas were under strong Marxist influence. Soon after the World War II he created a theory of hydraulic state that ascribed the despotism and backwardness of non-European societies to their mostly irrigation based economies. This theory appeared in finished form in his book «Oriental despotism: a comparative study of total power» (1957). This article discusses modern (since 1991) critics and interpretation of Wittfogel’s ideas in English-written periodicals and dissertations. Our study reveals that Wittfogel is still widely cited author, though his ideas are rarely discussed. Hydraulic theory had an impact on the modern thought, although its modern interpretations may differ from Wittfogel’s one. For example, some scholars argue that hydraulic theory has to be regarded only as an economic theory and that it can be used in European studies, too.

This article is a reply to Carlo Ginzburg’s Max-Weber Lecture delivered at the European University Institute. The author agrees with Ginzburg in many important points. However, he insists that terror produced by the state cannot be interpreted as the highest degree of the usual fears of ordinary people. It is not even identical with the simple death fear.