Berdyaev’s philosophy of history is not a purely theoretical doctrine, but has a strong practical orientation and is based on the crisis of the times. He believed that this crisis stemmed from the pervasive objectification that had infiltrated all aspects of society. Facing the deep crisis of his time, Berdyaev sought to guide humanity towards the future by constructing a philosophy of history. This philosophy aimed to lead to the ultimate end, the eschaton, and ultimately conquer objectification and evil. Overall, Berdyaev’s philosophy of history holds a clear utopian undertone and is seen more as a form of spiritual self-salvation. However, as a guiding theoretical system for practice, it ultimately fell short due to its disconnect from social reality and the needs of the people. Despite this, the traditional Russian intelligentsia, including Berdyaev, has always emphasized the importance of individual life, strived for an ideal society, and aimed for the ultimate liberation of humanity, which holds eternal value. As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Berdyaev’s birth, a thorough exploration of his profound intellectual legacy is particularly crucial and essential.
The article addresses the problem of bringing back into contemporary philosophical discourse semi-forgotten and historically marginalized works whose authors stood outside mainstream movements of their time and published their books in a distinctive linguistic style without formal academic editing. Although there is a revived interest in the diversity of 19th-century “Golden Age” philosophical literature, this alone does not guarantee access to the substance and meaning of these texts. Instead, they require rigorous scholarly analysis accompanied by extensive historical, cultural, and philosophical commentary. The paper compares the historical trajectories of the philosophical works of P.A. Bakunin, V.V. Rozanov, and N.N. Strakhov. Bakunin took no steps to help his book find an audience; nevertheless, his work is gradually gaining recognition today alongside the rehabilitation of philosophical theism. Strakhov, by contrast, made every effort to promote both his own writings and other valuable works, yet remained ignored as a philosopher for a whole century. Rozanov achieved fame as an original writer, an outstanding stylist, and an active participant in the religious, philosophical, literary, and political developments of his era – but not as the author of a classical treatise on epistemology. Contemporary scholars simply cannot resign themselves to the accumulation of ignorance regarding what was once known, understood, and written. They choose instead to serve the enlightenment of the reading and writing public, promoting the intellectual literature of past centuries through a genuine dedication to the written word.
This article offers a critical analysis of Carlo Rovelli’s conceptual positions in works devoted to interpretations of quantum mechanics and the notion of time. Attention is paid to the relational interpretation developed by the author in “Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution” and to its philosophical foundations, which go back to the ideas of Ernst Mach and Nagarjuna. The article examines key elements of the quantum-mechanical formalism, including the superposition principle, interference effects, and commutation relations, with emphasis on their interpretive consequences. The article also analyzes Rovelli’s critical remarks on alternative approaches, such as Hugh Everett III’s many-worlds interpretation, hidden-variable theories associated with the works of Louis de Broglie and David Bohm, as well as models that propose a physical explanation of wave-function collapse. It is shown that some of the author’s arguments are limited in scope and do not consider contemporary experimental results, in particular studies that cast doubt on the epistemological interpretation of the wave function. Special attention is given to internal contradictions in Rovelli’s relational approach, including the problem of the ontological status of objects and the reconciliation of the principle of relationality with the existence of invariant physical quantities. The interpretation of time given by Rovelli in works such as The Order of Time and A Brief History of Time is also examined. The limitations of his ontological approach to time within loop quantum gravity are emphasized.
Experientialism is a family of philosophical theories of well-being that tie well-being to experiencing certain positively charged experiences. Experientialism has fallen out of favor today because of Robert Nozick’s experience machine objection. According to this objection, experientialism must allow that there is no difference between living well in reality and living well in a plausible computer simulation, because the experiences would be identical in both cases. This article proposes a theory that avoids this objection: relational experientialism. According to this position, well-being is experiencing certain positively charged experiences, but only when those experiences are caused by the realization of some genuine objective good. This version of experientialism avoids the experience machine objection and also has a number of explanatory advantages over the dominant theory of well-being today: naturalistic perfectionism. In particular, relational experientialism does a better job of explaining the nature of the motivation to pursue objective goods, as well as the asymmetry between conscious and unconscious entities. It also does a better job of addressing the challenge of the “flourishing anhedone” – a person who realizes genuine goods in their life but has no positive experiences at all. Such a person’s life, despite the presence of objective goods, is hardly a happy one, but only relational experientialism can explain why this is so. In addition, relational experientialism is most consistent with relationism about phenomenal consciousness. This is the view that the phenomenal character of experience is constituted by the relational properties of external objects, and that the experience of real perceptions is therefore phenomenally distinct from the experience of illusions and hallucinations. All of these considerations suggest that relational experientialism is, at least as a first approximation, a plausible theory of well-being.
The article analyzes the theoretical background underlying the logic of the formation of book collections in different cultural eras. Attention is focused on the social aspects associated with the content of the texts, which are prioritized when there is a choice. In ancient China, the Confucian canon emphasized the value of ancient knowledge, while condemning “wrong” views. The supporters of legalism, who called for the eradication of dissent in the country, saw the direct harm in the activities of philosophers who relied on books and questioned the emperor’s actions. While philosophical and historical works were considered dangerous from this perspective, books on medicine, divination, and agriculture were not. In European culture, the philosophy of book collections was also shaped by various social solutions to the problem of storing and using knowledge. Thus, the Encyclopédie of the Enlightenment claimed that it could replace all the books in the world if they were suddenly lost in a catastrophe. It is noteworthy that among the encyclopedists, the goal of compiling all of humanity’s knowledge was coupled with a commitment to eradicating prejudices and questioning the values of absolutism. It is noteworthy that one of the prominent Rousseauists, Mercier, had no doubt that the libraries of the future would be less filled with volumes due to people’s perceived rejection of useless knowledge. In Russia, N. Fedorov called for a way out of the unbrotherly state of the world through the combined efforts of science and action, emphasizing the impossibility of solving the problem with theoretical means alone. In fact, the philosophy of book collections in the history of culture includes both a tendency towards limitation, often justified by a specific social program, and a tendency towards maximum completeness without any critical selection of content.
