Čelovek

The article provides a philosophical analysis of F.M. Dostoevsky’s late novel “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man”. In contrast to the approach common in scientific literature, in which researchers try to interpret the writer’s work by inscribing his reflections in various traditions, the author of the article aims to analyze the philosophical problem of the relationship between life and consciousness posed by Dostoevsky. The personification of Dostoevsky’s solution to this problem is the antagonists “underground man” and “ridiculous man”. If for an “underground person” consciousness is higher than life and opposes it, then for a “ridiculous person” life is higher than consciousness, and happiness is higher than knowledge of the laws of happiness. The author reveals the semantic structure of the story, according to which the hero from the idea that his consciousness is, but there is no world, comes to the opposite conclusion: the world is, but there is no consciousness. The article consistently explores such questions as: what does it mean to be funny? What is the source of feeling and conscience? How do dreams and reality relate? Why does Dostoevsky talk about the hero’s God-fighting, without talking about God? How do the planetary paradise and consciousness, as well as consciousness and suffering, relate? Answering these questions, the author shows the contradictions contained in the story, and comes to the conclusion that the reason for them is Dostoevsky’s connection of two pictures of the world. According to the first, a human is a planetary being and self-sufficient in his nature. According to the second, a human is burdened with an inner world, which can only be settled by an inner law, which Dostoevsky formulates as a commandment of love.

The changes in perceptions of subjectivity in posthumanism are analyzed. Considering the differences between a “strong” and a “weak” subject, the author shows that environmental subjectivity in posthumanism implements the project of a weak philosophy. The question of subjectivity in this case is determined not in connection with consciousness, but in connection with the transformation of corporeality. Posthumanism suggests the transformation of a person through hybridization, that is, various manipulations of the body (for example, by adding plant and animal genes to a person). The attitude towards oneself is understood here as a mirror peering into one’s otherness, which is now connected not with the figure of other, but with an animal. The basic opposition of “man-animal” is called into question, since qualitative differences between man and animal disappear. It is shown that the rationale of this posthumanistic idea is based on Aristotle and postmodern philosophy. Similarly, posthumanism redefines the boundary between man and technology, opening up wide opportunities for human modification and transformation into a cyborg. The essence of the philosophical foundations of this position is revealed and it is concluded that procedural philosophy allows not only to eliminate the differences between man and nature, but also to identify the artificial and the natural. Thus, subjectivity is understood as belonging to existence, and a more environmentally friendly subjectivity of a person means the need to incorporate other beings into his world. Eco-friendly subjectivity in this case boils down to ecological physicality, that is, to an attempt to concentrate different entities in the body.

This article explores the connection between biobanks and society through informed consent. An analysis of the risks associated with biobanks and the idea of informed consent in the context of the functioning of biobanks are carried out. The hypothesis of this study is that the concept of informed consent structurally, at the level of risk assessment in relation to oneself and close relatives, does not coincide with the beneficiary model of obtaining scientific knowledge based on justice and the concept of minimal harm. This may argue for the principle of informed consent based on respect for the principle of autonomy. The article makes the assumption that the introduction of an extended informed consent form without the possibility of specifying in which studies biospecimens will be used affects not only individual interests, but also the interests of immediate relatives. Finding such a model of informed consent, where not only the arguments of the beneficiary model and the concept of negligible risk, implemented on the basis of an individual decision, will be taken into account, but also family connections will be taken into account, can be considered the task of adapting informed consent to the work of biobanks.

The paper addresses some philosophical aspects of face transplantation and starts with a brief overview of more or less successful surgeries in international clinical practice. Related discussions about medical and ethical risks are also brought into the picture. The issue of the ethical and axiological grounds and consequences of face allotransplantation is placed into the context of a broader problem of biomedical objectification. The author suggests understanding the biomedical objectification in that the patient is regarded as a clinical body taken out of the psychosocial context of her/his life, considered redundant for diagnostic and therapeutic tasks. This view finds expression in various practices that alienate the patient’s subjectivity, including the alienation of her/his name, face or body from her/his personality. Within the existent donation practices, two types of biomedical objectification can be outlined, such as instrumentalisation and alienation for protective purposes. In terms of face transplant, objectification as instrumentalisation consists in reducing the face to a collection of tissues and turning it into a biomedical artifact endowed with instrumental value. In this context, the distinction between the notions of “somatic face” (facial structures) and “psychosocial face” (subject identity) is introduced. As for alienation for protective purposes, the recipient who has to adjust to her/his new face is required to detach from the donor’s personality. The author concludes that face transplantation, similar to donation practices in general, may cause the tension between the rhetoric of gift-giving, essential for the development of transplantology, and the logic of alienation inherent in biomedicine.

Ethnocultural and ethnopsychological features of interaction with foreign students require the creation of certain educational technologies and creative trajectories of communication in the learning process. In this case, cognition is based on understanding as a result of cognitive operations, and education is based on “confirmation” of reality as a condition for the formation of a professional’s personality. These are two wings for mastering independent creative flight. The purpose of the work is to demonstrate the principles of information modeling in the educational process with the cooperation of representatives of different ethnic cultures. The teaching of professional disciplines involves, depending on the subject, creative modeling of the structure, the actual algorithm and the compositional solution of effective knowledge transfer. The game principle in such modeling is expressed in the elements of the training that remove linguistic barriers. Each component of such a model is largely correlated with the content of the ethnocultural space and the ethnopsychological field of foreign students at the group and individual levels. The teacher becomes a kind of “guide” not only to the profession, but also to the culture and traditions of the country in which students receive their education. In the classroom, an intellectual atmosphere is created through the disclosure of various cultural codes that manifest themselves in the process of communication and reflect the original perception of reality. The professional worldview is formed as a result of the synthesis of ethnocultural ideas about the world, that is, monocultural concepts are fused into multicultural systems that define the individual author’s handwriting of a professional.

The paper is devoted to the conceptualization of the close relationships phenomenon and generalization of ideas about their development throughout the life span. Based on different theoretical approaches, the following six fundamental qualities of close relationships are highlighted: the direction of resource transfer (invest/acquire), remoteness/closeness, passion/reasonableness, responsibility/carelessness, authenticity (sincerity)/pretense, taking the perspective of a partner/egocentrism. In an empirical study (196 Russian-speaking young adults aged 18 to 30 years) using open-ended questions, these qualities were verified. As for the development of close relationships throughout life, it seems heuristic to link the rotation of close people with the content of the crises experienced by a person and the development tasks solved by them. Although the most frequent mechanism of moving away from some people and getting closer to others is separation, it seems that a person rather carries out interpersonal re-centering, changing the subjective significance of different people who do not disappear from the communication but the interaction loses some of the qualities listed above. To date, recentering has been studied in the period of transition from adolescence to adulthood. However, we assume that this is a universal mechanism of rotation of significant others throughout life. The recentering can be reverse when, after a break in the relationship, people again get closer to the reference persons from the past but the pattern of intimacy may be different from the one that was before. This assumption is illustrated by examples from consulting practice and fiction. It is concluded that there are no systematic evidence-based studies of the development of close relationships throughout the life span, which necessitates the justification and conduct of such a study.

Nostalgia for the late Soviet past takes various forms and is intertwined in complex ways with global trends to look to the past for inspiration in creating new examples of mass culture. New generations of those who were born and raised after the collapse of the Soviet system are being introduced to nostalgic reminiscences. The article analyzes the socio-cultural phenomenon of electronic music Soviet Wave, which combines the stylistics of the late Soviet popular culture and contemporary electronic music. This phenomenon can be understood as post-nostalgia for the late Soviet, since it involves members of the younger generation who know about the Soviet from the stories of their parents and the media. In addition, the “Soviet Wave” is also analyzed as part of the general trend of retromania described by S. Reynolds. Reynolds, where there is an endless reference to the musical styles of the past in the creation of new works. The main concept of the phenomenon of the Soviet Wave is the idea of “ersatz-nostalgia” by A. Appadurai, which suggests the contemporary experience of the past without a corresponding life experience and collective historical memory, but based on the popular patterns of mass culture, in the representations of which the past has already undergone profound transformation. Nostalgia for the late Soviet past takes various forms and is intertwined in complex ways with global trends to look to the past for inspiration in creating new examples of mass culture. The article presents a brief history of the formation and evolution of the musical culture of “Soviet Wave” in the Russian subcultural scene, shows the connection of the aesthetics of this trend with the nostalgic mood of the late Soviet period, reveals the elements of ersatz and techno nostalgia (T. Pinch, D. Reyneke), examines the relationship of this phenomenon with the broader trends in contemporary mass culture in the international context. “The Soviet Wave” is also considered as an element of cultural citizenship formation and transformational museumfication of the Soviet. The article is based on the results of the author’s empirical research, which included interviews with musicians working in the “Soviet Wave” genre.