Том 36, № 6 (2025)

The article examines the issue of evaluating the practice of so-called euthanasia, ending the life of a terminally ill person, in the light of Immanuel Kant’s practical philosophy (ethics and philosophy of law). Compulsory euthanasia, which ignores the free expression of the patient’s will, is definitely criminalized and condemned by Kantian morality. The universal principle of law, which allows to recognize as legal any voluntary and independently determined action compatible with the external freedom of individuals, could have served as a justification for this practice, if separated from its context. However, by analogy with the first example of the categorical imperative, that considers the situation of a person intending to commit suicide due to the unbearable burden of disasters and troubles, it can be concluded that in the case of voluntary euthanasia, according to the principles of Kantian ethics, the moral law is contradicted not by the maxim of the doctor, but by the maxim of the requester, i.e. the patient. Kant’s ethical idealism is focused on the value of the civil freedom of individuals, on their right to self-determination in matters of personal happiness. The person or panel deciding on the euthanasia of a patient who cannot give meaningful consent (involuntary euthanasia) encroaches therefore by its decision into the sphere of the patient’s original personal rights, and its maxim is thus a special case of despotic, or “paternal”, practical legislation. Thus, this maxim not only does not implement the universal principle of law, but sharply contradicts this principle. Kant’s doctrine of law and morality, which at a first glance disposes to an unconditional justification of medical euthanasia by justifying liberal values, in fact makes Kant a principled opponent of this practice.

Background knowledge is examined as a key epistemological category that shapes the dynamics of interpretation and legitimation of knowledge within digital communication, which is characterized by fragmented meanings and algorithmic content moderation. The aim of the study is the theoretical reconstruction of the conceptual status of background knowledge and the identification of its functions in a digital environment marked by a deficit of shared context and the atomization of semantic fields. The objectives of the work include: 1) an analysis of the conceptual foundations of personal and background knowledge in the works of Michael Polanyi and Harry Collins; 2) consideration of Niklas Luhmann’s system-communicative theory as a methodological tool for analyzing digital communicative structures; 3) identification of the symbolic and technical intermediaries that mediate the selection and circulation of knowledge; 4) investigation of the phenomenon of “digital Cartesianism” as a new regime of truth. Background knowledge is interpreted both as an embodied anthropological stance and as a socially reproducible medium that ensures the coherence of communication. On the basis of a theoretical synthesis of Polanyi’s, Collins’s, and Luhmann’s propositions, the thesis is advanced that background knowledge performs a selective function, determining which messages are received as credible and which are excluded from the cognitive field. In an environment of hyper-information, background knowledge becomes not only a prerequisite for mutual understanding but also an instrument of epistemic coercion, defining the parameters of truth legitimation through cognitive schemas embedded in the user experience. The results of the study demonstrate that background knowledge underlies the ideological mechanisms of the digital environment, controlling access to knowledge via algorithmic filtering, narrative normalization, and the delegitimization of alternative viewpoints. The dual nature of background knowledge is analyzed as both a condition of understanding and a means of covertly regulating meanings in mass communication.

Analyzing traditions and continuity of Russian intellectual culture, the authors turn to the question of the figure of the scholar who embodies our information age and epistemologically adequately represents the prospects for the development of modern science. This question arose at the intersection of two research themes. First, it concerns the distinctiveness of epistemological style in Russian philosophy (that particular understanding of the goals of scientific knowledge and the epistemological conditions for achieving them, which enabled Russian intellectuals to propose ideas that are becoming relevant today: integrity, historicism, the sign-semiotic nature of knowledge, orientation toward communication, and others). Second, it concerns the philosophical and methodological understanding of the features of the modern technogenic stage of science’s development, where a radical transformation of structural and instrumental-cognitive parameters is taking place. In the course of research on the first theme, the authors focused on such Russian thinker-scholars as Ukhtomsky, Vernadsky, Shpet, Moiseev, Likhachev, Florensky, and many others. They were distinguished by the multifaceted nature of their scientific interests and the depth of their engagement in both the natural and the social-humanitarian sciences — what today in the methodology of science is defined as interdisciplinary. Turning to the second theme, the authors concentrated on the philosophical and methodological idea of the human-sizedness of knowledge, present in this interdisciplinary and recognized today in modern science. The ideas of interdisciplinarity and the human-sizedness clearly express the social-humanitarian orientation of knowledge. The intersection of these themes prompted the authors to address the problem of the applied orientation of modern science and to consider the epistemological function of the expert, who plays a key role in the information age.

The article presents the results of an empirical study devoted to the analysis of the “ideal” places for thoughts, experiences and actions perceived in the environment of everyday life. The study involved 76 students of Moscow universities, the average age of 20.14 years (SD = 1.93), 50.7% of whom were men and 49.3% were women. The participants were asked to describe the places in which they feel comfortable thinking, experiencing and acting and to evaluate them using the semantic differential. As a result of the analysis of the obtained data, it was found that the “ideal” place for all aspects of mental functioning is a person’s home. Also, the ideal place for optimal thinking and experiences is the natural and urban environment. For “actions”, the optimal place, in addition to the home, is a comfortable workplace. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of the semantic differential data allowed us to identify two factors: “safety” and “aesthetics”, the ratio of which, when applied to different places, looks the same: the “safety” factor is dominant, and the “aesthetics” factor is additional.

Love is analyzed as a social phenomenon within the framework of systems theory. Starting from Niklas Luhmann’s complex formulation defining love as a “symbolically generalized communicative medium”, the author deciphers its meaning: love is understood as a specific language (code) that structures communication in dyadic relationships, making improbable mutual understanding and coordination of behavior possible amidst growing social complexity and individualization. The first part of the work provides a critical analysis of prior sociological conceptualizations of intimacy in the theories of Georg Simmel, Michel Foucault, and Anthony Giddens. It demonstrates how Simmel viewed love and marriage as a dialectic of “vital content” and “social form”, Foucault — as a sphere for the exercise of power and constitution of subjectivity, and Giddens — as a “reflexive project” of identity formation in the era of “plastic sexuality” and “pure relationships”. The second part offers a detailed reconstruction of Luhmann’s theory on the evolution of the semantics of love — from the courtly tradition and “amour passion” to modern romantic love. Love is analyzed as an autopoietic system employing the binary code “love/non-love” and relying on the symbiotic mechanism of sexuality to stabilize highly improbable communication. In conclusion, the article examines contemporary debates on the status of the intimacy system in world society. It challenges Peter Fuchs’s thesis of its fundamental closure and non-network character. Using the example of digital dating platforms (“dating-and-rating”), it argues that intimate relationships, despite their apparent privacy, are integrated into a global communicative network and subject to the same processes of technologization and mediatization as other social systems.

The article examines the current state of the methodological framework of cultural sciences. In the context of modern social changes, an interdisciplinary approach combining anthropology, sociology, cultural studies and media studies is proving ineffective. "Strong" theoretical concepts such as "globalization", "glocalization", "digitalization", "postcolonialism", the concept of the Global South, as well as other "meta-ideas" often generalize and simplify cultural differences, which leads to ignoring or underestimating the specifics of different cultures and their features. Modern works of cultural sociologists, for example, the studies of A. Reckwitz, W. Beck, Z. Bauman, D. Graeber and D. Wengrow and others, often focus on the analysis of narrow concepts. Philosophical approaches, on the other hand, are limited to a comparative analysis or suggest ignoring the utilitarian component in the study of cultures and their interaction, which is not fruitful in the modern context, since cultural dialogue is often based on utilitarian principles. The article notes that there is a relationship between technological and economic development and an increase in the number of studies related to cultural identity. However, the categorical framework of these studies is often criticized for depersonalizing cultural groups and communities. In general, it can be argued that the development of methodology in the cultural sciences takes place within critical analysis. It is concluded that methodological processes in the cultural sciences reflect those in the natural and human sciences, but due to the ambiguity of the subject and the traumatic, often violent, interactions between cultural communities in the 20th century, the formation of a clear scientific foundation took significantly longer. As a result, despite methodological inconsistencies and the lack of a clear structure, the process of "crystallization" (structuring) in the cultural sciences continues.

The article is devoted to the discussion of the concept of immediacy as a cultural style of too late capitalism by the American philosopher and researcher of contemporary culture Anna Kornbluh. The significant contribution of this concept to understanding the dynamic transformations of modern culture is noted. According to Kornbluh, today’s capitalism is characterized by the acceleration of circulation processes, as well as the growing role of social networks and Internet platforms. The acceleration of circulation affects the sphere of culture, which is increasingly characterized by immediacy — avoidance of intermediaries and mediating forms, intimacy and immanence, personalism and individualism. In literature, the genre of autofiction is increasingly noticeable, cinema is increasingly characterized by immanence, and philosophy is flooded with autotheories. According to Kornbluh, immediacy is a problem for critical understanding of the contradictions of modern society, since any serious theory requires mediation — elevation above empirical visibility and a systemic view. However, the article challenges the capitalist determination of the cultural trends identified by Kornbluh. In order to properly reveal them, a shift from political economic to anthropological optics is necessary. The main vulnerability of Kornbluh’s concept is that it is an attempt to remove responsibility from leftist theories for what they have led to. Accordingly, the conclusion is made that the root cause of immediacy as a cultural style should be sought not so much in capitalism as in the countercultural tendencies generated by left criticism, which contributed to the undermining of class analysis, the fragmentation of society and the fixation on the problems of race, sex and gender, which partly led to the personalization and immanentization of culture.