Vol 1, No 1 (2020)

The paper offers a Russian translation of the portion of the “History of the philosophers” by Philodemus, available in two Herculaneum papyri (PHerc. 1021 and PHerc. 164), which deals with the history of the foundation of the Athenian Academy and the biography of its founder. This important source, introduced and extensively commented in the article, allows highlighting the most interesting details of Plato’slife and political pursuits both in Athens and in Sicily. The biographical details discussed are reconstructed on the basis of the earliest evidence, including the Platonic letters, the works of the students of Aristotle Aristoxenus and Dicaearchus, the platonic philosopher Heraclides of Pontus, the Hellenistic historian Neanthes (who’sinformation ultimately comes back to Isocrates), and some others. This gives the biography of Plato and the earliest history of Academy more credence.

The article analyzes the intellectual and cultural preconditions that made it possible to create symbolic notation in mathematics of the 17th century. It is shown that the reprints of Euclid’sElements in the XVI century formed an intellectual and cultural background that allowed Viet and Stevens to transform the classical concept of arithmos into a symbolic concept of number, which made the creation of symbolic notation possible. It is argued that the development of symbolic notation is not a simple change in the way of notation, but significantly changed the mathematical practice, making it possible to introduce new objects and through symbolic transformations.

The article discusses various approaches to interpretation, which understand it as a universal method of the humanities. Particular attention wepaid to the interpretations in U. Ecoand E. Batti, who, althoughdo not agree with each other, however, are opposed both to the philosophic or analytic understanding of interpretation, whichwe call the appropriationist approach. The way of interpreting the past inherent in appropriationism often threatens with overinterpretation, for which it is criticized by adepts of contextualism. We analyze the interpretation through the prism of three skeptical argumentswe offered, “conceptual relativism”, “Gorgians’ minds”, “the part and the whole”. Skeptical arguments are often used in philosophy as an additional filter for testing the consistency of the concepts, and it is clearly seen that the contextualist concept of interpretation does not pass this filter. The thesis that appropriation is indeed a overinterpretation can be accepted under reserve that for a strictly philosophical way of reasoning and from within appropriationism, another version of interpretation is inconsistent.

Based on a comparative analysis of the Prussian and Anglo-Saxon models, as well as the implementation of the concepts of didactic encyclopedism and utilitarianism in the education system, the author demonstrates the changes taking place in social institutions – education and science. It is shown that in countries that have long developed under the influence of the public administration system that implemented the model of compulsory education for all, science as a sphere of strategic development of the country determined the content and level of training of graduates. The attempt to include research institutions in universities in the context of the formation of a new Russian system of administration in the field of science and education, as a stage of transition to the implementation of the Anglo-Saxon model, not only violates the logic of the established system of training, but also is a way to substitute real research activity for compliance with the formal criteria of international ratings.

The authors consider the features of genesis, stages of formation, theoretical and methodological foundations, basic ideas and approaches developed within the framework of the Novosibirsk Scientific Ethnosociological School. A description of the forms of activity, scientific ties and communicative practices that determined the process of its institutionalization is given. It is concluded that this scientific school meets the criteria for this kind of organization of the scientific community, both in terms of organizational structure, unity of research methodology and methods, forms of interdisciplinary communication, reproduction of scientific personnel, and based on an assessment of its role in regulating interethnic interactions and ethnosocial processes.