2022. vol. 21. No. 1

The author sees tradition as a special type of human interaction, typical of modern and changing societies rather than of traditional ones; for that reason, his focus is on its use as a category of political struggle and as an instrument of power. There are four strata of modern Russia, and tradition has its own modus operandi in each of them. These groups are the scientific community, the intellectual elites (reflexive and functional), the political elites, and the masses (the latter covering all groups not belonging to the listed above). The scientific community generally adheres to the ethos of professional neutrality. Intellectual elites produce more-or-less politically-biased interpretations of tradition, guided both by their moral pathos and by their contractual obligations to the political elites. The latter use tradition directly as a tool of political governance. Such use is (a) instrumental, (b) quite indifferent to the content of those policies and courses that are intended to serve, and (c), quite indifferent to the authenticity of the tradition as such. However, the effectiveness of these impetuses from the elite directed at the masses remains highly questionable. Until recently, no research has been conducted to find out what the Russian masses consider to be traditional, and how positively this tradition is perceived. The situation has only started to change in recent years, thanks to the work of the ZIRCON group. For the time being, however, it is not known to what extent resorting to tradition (that is, to the kind of substantivized speculation that is suggested to be seen as tradition) could play in the integrating and legitimizing role which the political elites expect from it.

An invariable characteristic of Russian elections in the post-Soviet period is the relatively-high turnout and electoral support of incumbents demonstrated by many of the ethnic republics. The article is devoted to the study of the reasons for the relationship between the ethnic factor and the reproduction of political loyalty. Unlike most previous studies, the authors test existing theories on the basis of opinion polls data rather than official electoral statistics. This makes it possible to include the ethnic characteristics of voters at the individual level in the analysis, rather than regional or local levels. The statistical analysis is complemented by the study of qualitative data in the form of expert interviews and materials from three focus groups conducted in the villages of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan. The results obtained make it possible to assert that the political loyalty of the Russian republics is determined not by cultural specifics, but by the nature of the settlement structure. Ethnic republics include a relatively-high proportion of the agrarian population, a significant part of which is represented by ethnic minorities. This overlap of ethnic and rural segments determines the reproduction of the electoral super-majority. However, the nature of this phenomenon is explained not by the “patriarchal culture” of non-Russian ethnic groups, but by the institutional capabilities of the local administration to monitor and control the political behavior of rural voters. The study also made it possible to clarify the role of the ethnic factor in contemporary electoral processes, which also affects the reproduction of political loyalty not only to the heads of the republics, but also to non-ethnic federal political actors. However, its influence is also conditioned by the political and institutional characteristics of the ethnic republics, and not by the cultural characteristics of the titular ethnic groups.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging the world for many months, drawing the public’s attention to the field of epidemiology. Governments around the globe urgently call on the scientific community to provide guidelines for the treatment and prevention of coronavirus infections. Immunity protection (natu-ral or man-made) is at the epicentre of state policies and public discussions. It is less known that the epi-demiological discourse had been used beyond natural sciences in the domain of philosophy and social research. This paper introduces the concept of social immunology developed by Italian philosopher Rob-erto Esposito at the turn of the 20th century as part of the discussion of the notion of biopolitics. I re-read one of my previous research projects through the lens of Esposito’s theory to show the potential of his theoretical constructs in studies on migration and integration.

The article examines the problem of the multiplicity of justice in Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes. The Leviathan combines at least two understandings of justice; the civil one is connected with the keeping of covenants, while the natural one is a law of nature. We demonstrate that monistic views reducing civil justice to natural justice or natural justice to civil justice are as inadequately justified as denying justice at all. Hobbes uses two terms for justice, justice and equity. The latter is natural and binds the sovereign, while the former is created by the sovereign so that the sovereign is not accountable to the principle of justice. The natural poly-semantism of justice postulated in Leviathan finds its solution in the power of the sovereign, which sets the limits of semantic uncertainty and teaches his subjects what justice is. The case of Hobbes’ Foole shows that any definition of justice that goes against the definition of the sovereign will be interpreted as unacceptable. At the same time, there is a possibility for a number of other types of justice. Due to the introduction of the global and eschatological contexts, we get two types of natural justice (pre-civil and international), four types of civil justice (two local-civil and two global-civil), and one global theological (eschatological) justice. This number of conceptions can be considered in a contensive unity, because of the theological foundation of theorizing about justice in Leviathan due to the coincidence of natural and divine laws and the understanding of the commonwealth as a mortal God.

In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in ontological research in the social sciences, the content and direction of which are described as an “ontological turn”. These studies set the formation of a new social ontology as their main goal. The article reveals the basic principles and content of this new social ontology, identifies controversial issues inherent in such a method of its renewal, and formulates guidelines for the return of epistemology to overcome the undesirable consequences of the “ontological turn”. Criticism of the «ontological turn» and the rationale for the return of epistemology are argued as follows; in the first section of the article, two possibilities of constructing a social ontology are considered, those of the essentialist ontology of mainstream sociology and the “flat ontology” of assemblage. The second section provides a critical analysis of three consequences of the “ontological turn”: the problematization of the idea of the autonomous social; the neutralization of the a priori ontological reasoning of social research; and the denial of the real outside beyond the assemblage. In the third section, the consequences of the “ontological turn” are considered in the context of the current discussion about the role of ontology in the social sciences, which is expressed through the opposition of a priori ontological and instrumental-pragmatic justification of social research. To overcome such consequences, the following guidelines for the return of epistemology are formulated: the “underdetermination” of reality by theories; the epistemological difference between the conceptual reality of an object and its ontological reality; and the equality (covariation) of ontology and epistemology.

The article examines the features of human interaction with the atmosphere as a phenomenon, acquiring an independent ontological status in modern concepts of the atmosphere. The author explores the existing philosophical concepts of atmosphere which actualize the adoption of a new category, that is, a “quasi-thing”, to define phenomena similar to the atmosphere that do not fit into the “thing” concept. Atmospheres as quasi-things are perceived through the felt-body (Leib) in which they excite sensory-bodily resonance, which in turn is linked to a mind-body problem which is now of an interdisciplinary nature. In this regard, an attempt is made to comprehensively review the perspective philosophical, sociological, psychological, and physiological aspects of the relationship between the subjective state of mind and the objective atmosphere. The atmosphere creation problem, which has long been studied in arts and currently requires a conceptualization through aesthetic theory, has a special value.

This paper focuses on the integrative models of culture and cultural phenomena developed at the intersection of the cognitive and social sciences. It is argued that the leading research program of “cultural neuroscience” rests on the erroneous presuppositions with regard to the nature of cultural phenomena. Two alternative theoretical strategies are subsequently proposed for consideration. The first builds on the traditional computational approach in the philosophy of mind and cognitive sciences. According to this strategy, culture consists of information units as mental and public representations that are disseminated and transformed in the process of communication. The second strategy builds on a family of competing cognitivist approaches, namely the “4E” approaches. It asserts that culture is best explained in terms of individuals interacting in the shared material environment. The paper argues that the first strategy faces a number of substantial problems. It is claimed that the notions of information and mental content employed within this approach are scientifically questionable. In addition, it is maintained that the second strategy, although less conceptually mature and elaborate, does not face the same kinds of problems as the first one. In the concluding paragraph, the advantages and disadvantages of both theoretical strategies are, once again, weighed up.

This article presents the results of the pilot study in the sphere of literature classifications in Russia in the case of a group of students. The creation of artistic classifications is the focus of research, as the constructed symbolic hierarchies of consumption practices lead to the creation of social boundaries between groups. The boundaries between groups are manifested in the social exclusion of those individuals whose practices are marked as illegitimate in the established system. The results discuss two main categories that structure the reading practices of students, those of “classical literature” and “dime novels”. The consumption of classics is referred to “good taste” (the analogue of highbrow taste in the Russian context), while noting that these books are generally known to all segments of the population. The consumption of “dime novels” for our informants is possible only as a guilty pleasure, a consumption practice that takes a creation of distance with an object of consumption marked as something illegitimate into account. The results also discuss the universality of such a hierarchy of consumer practices. One group of informants can be attributed to those who support the norm that an educated person includes only the classics in his literary preferences, an object of consumption that brings symbolic benefits while avoiding any contact with illegitimate objects of consumption, while others question the grounds for such symbolic hierarchy.

This paper employs quantitative historical-sociological analysis to describe the social background, professional practices, and achievements of Russian artists who participated in exhibitions in 1871–1917, starting with the first private exhibition of the “Peredvizhniki” society whose success stimulated the appearance of numerous artistic groups and associations. The biographies of three generations of painters are studied to check the hypotheses on the transition of the artistic world to the “institutionalization of anomie” (Bourdieu) and “singularity regime” (Heinich). The paper analyses how initial family resources and personal career investments influenced the chances of artists to receive recognition during their lifetime, and museum consecration after their death. The controls for the following parameters were included in the analysis are the class and status of an artist’s father, minority status, the membership of an artist’s father in the artistic milieu, gender, and lifetime recognition. The study shows that contrary to Heinich’s theses on the transition to the “singularity regime”, artists whose paintings are represented in the main Russian fine-art museums do not fit the image of non-recognized asocial mavericks. Lifetime official recognition, studying in leading Russian schools for the fine arts, lessons in foreign ateliers, and involvement in the organizational building significantly increases the chances of an artist to be present at the expositions of the most renowned Russian art museums. The study helps to understand the distinctive features of the youngest generation which produced the most important artistic innovation associated with Russia, the so-called Russian Avant-garde.

The article is devoted to the theory of intelligentsia developed by Jan Wacław Machajski (1866–1926) and to the history of its transfer and reception in modern Western social theories. The main thesis of the article is that Machajski’s theory directly influenced the shaping of several Western social theories in the second half of the 20th century, such as the theories of the new class and the post-industrial society. The article includes a review of modern research literature devoted to Machajski, a brief biographical sketch, and an explication of the main thesis of his theory of intelligentsia. A history of the reception and the criticism of Machajski’s theory is analyzed in both the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, the result being that this theory was practically excluded from the Russian conceptual and theoretical context. In the article, the history of the transfer of this theory to the Western context in which Max Nomad played the decisive part is analyzed. As the result of this transfer, these ideas became known and acknowledged by a range of social theorists of the middle of the 20th century, for example, by Daniel Bell and Alvin Gouldner. In the concluding part of the work, it is shown that Machajski’s ideas that considered access to education and knowledge as a certain type of capital can be systematically recognized in later theories, in particular, in the theory of cultural capital by Pierre Bourdieu, and in the theory of society of singularities by Andreas Reckwitz.

The article presents a historical-philosophical study of the book The City and Man published in 1964 by the political philosopher Leo Strauss. Using a large amount of material, the author attempts to assess the place the book holds in Strauss’ legacy. Additionally, the author presents his own interpretation. Highlighting that The City and Man is mostly concerned as a marginal work in comparison to other of Strauss’ papers, he gives and analyzes a number of political interpretations of the book. Not being content with any of them, he presupposes that The City and Man should be considered in the context of classical political philosophy research undertaken by Leo Strauss. Analyzing each of the three chapters of the book dedicated to Aristotle’s’ Politics, Plato’s Republic and Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, the author concludes that all three texts are interconnected through the figure of one man. This man is Socrates, who discovered sanity and reason as the basis of political philosophy. Each of these works has sanity and reason at their roots, which is a foundation for the revival of political philosophy. By comparing virtue and city (polis) as terms of classical political rationalism, we could shed light on the actual problem of the relationship between ethics and law.

Book Review: Steve Fuller. Postpravda: znanie kak bor’ba za vlast’ [Post-Truth: Knowledge as a Power Game] (Moscow: HSE, 2021) (in Russian).

Book Review: Lubov Ulyanova. Politicheskaja policija i liberal’noe dvizhenie v Rossijskoj imperii: vlast’ igry, igra vlast’ju. 1880–1905 [The Political Police and the Liberal Movement in the Russian Empire: The Power of Game, the Game of Power, 1880–1905] (Saint Petersburg: Aletheia, 2021) (in Russian).