The Manifesto of the Epistemic Centaur is a programmatic statement on the con- dition of the human and social sciences amid the spread of generative artificial intelligence. Its authors argue that these sciences are losing their primacy in explaining their own subject matter and their control over the language in which it is described, because the pace of social change and the rate at which quick and simple answers are produced now outrun the slower work of building well-grounded knowledge. The proposed response is the epistemic centaur – a single functional subject of inquiry within whose shared cognitive circuit human consciousness and artificial intelligence carry out cognitive work together. What such a circuit yields cannot be reduced to the contributions of its participants, while responsibility for the result rests entirely with the researcher. Knowledge produced by the centaur deserves the same standing in science as knowledge produced by a human being, provided that the character of the interaction is disclosed, the findings are verified, and responsibility is accepted. This strategy can be carried forward by a horizontal community of practice, and sustaining it over the long term calls for rethinking the aims of university education.
The article presents the results of a three-year study (2023-2025) on the specifics of the perception of the new academic discipline “Fundamentals of Russian Statehood” (FRS) by students of a technical university using the example of the Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University, consisting of a series of independent cross-sectional surveys of different student cohorts with a quasi-longitudinal design. The relevance of the study is due to the strategic task of preserving and strengthening traditional spiritual and moral values of the Russian civilization in the context of modern geopolitical challenges, as well as the need to form a civil and civilizational identity among future engineering personnel. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that the authors con- ducted one of the first representative cohort-dynamic studies of the perception of the discipline of FRS by students of a technical university with paired measurements “at the entrance” and “at the exit” for three academic years, taking into account and applying the ideological framework of the civilizational approach to interpret the research results. Based on a representative sample (1,663 respondents), the dynamics of students’ value and worldview attitudes “at the entrance” and “at the exit” of the course was revealed. According to the subjective level of students’ perception of the discipline, it was found that discipline contributes to the strengthening of traditional values (45.8%), the formation of civic identity (44.1%) and the growth of patriotism (33.3%). The specifics of the perception of the course sections are revealed: the topics of traditional values and the future of Russia are of the greatest interest. The sections on the political structure and the civilizational approach cause the greatest difficulties of perception. The relevance of interactive forms of teaching the course has been proven (74.5%). Based on the research results, the authors conclude that the content and teaching methods of the course correspond to the strategic objectives of state policy in the training of engineering personnel in matters of their ideological, civil and civilizational identity, but only based on the students’ subjective positive self-assessment of the effectiveness of the course. For a more representative conclusion, it is necessary to conduct additional studies with the participation of the control group and taking into account the factor of social desirability.
This article analyzes the problem of preparing future teachers to foster students’ technological culture in the context of implementing the Russian Federation’s state order for the training of engineering and technological personnel. The aim of the study is to develop and experimentally substantiate the effectiveness of a model for preparing teachers to foster students’ technological culture. A combination of theoretical methods and a pedagogical experiment were applied. It was established that teachers’ technological culture is a system-forming factor in their preparation for fostering such culture in students, and its structure and content were identified. A distinctive feature of the developed and implemented model is its ability to overcome the traditional “instrumental-prescription” approach by shifting the emphasis from digital literacy to technological culture, which includes not only a set of skills but also values, thinking, worldview, reflection, the integration of technological training with fundamental psychological and pedagogical knowledge, and the provision of an interdisciplinary and proactive nature of the holistic pedagogical process. The experiment involved 257 third- and fourth-year students: 128 in the experimental group and 129 in the control group. Effectiveness was assessed using four readiness criteria. By the end of the experiment, the proportion of students in the experimental group with a high level of readiness reached 38.3%, while in the control group, a low level was predominant. Statistically significant differences between the groups were confirmed for all criteria (p < 0.001). Correlation analysis revealed a strong positive relationship between teachers’ level of technological culture and their readiness to instill it in students. It is concluded that teacher training focused on fostering technological culture as an integrative professional and personal quality ensures a higher level of teacher readiness to instill technological culture in students. The developed model demonstrated effectiveness during pilot testing and can be used in the educational process at pedagogical universities.
The Epistemic Centaur Manifesto, published in this issue, proposes a strategy of alliance between the human researcher and artificial intelligence in the human and social sciences. Its proposi- tions are stated as theses, without argument or references, and this article sets out the grounds on which they rest and clarifies the points that invite disagreement. Drawing on recent research literature, the authors show that generative models are already built into every stage of the research cycle, from hy- pothesis formation and literature reviews to synthetic respondents, the recovery of missing survey data, machine interviewers, text annotation and statistical coding. The authors call this state of affairs the cen- taur situation, one in which researchers find themselves whether or not they have chosen the alliance. To analyse it, the article develops the distinction between the functional agency of artificial systems and human subjectivity that proposition 2.2 of the Manifesto introduces, and shows that the irreducibility of a result to the contributions of its participants does not rule out disclosing what the machine did. The article then takes up the objection that responsibility for a conclusion the researcher does not fully understand becomes a ritual admission of guilt, and argues that such responsibility is meaningful as long as the researcher retains the right to reject a conclusion and verifies it in proportion to its consequences. Finally, experimental evidence on human-machine collaboration gives no support to the idea that the alliance is productive in itself, which is precisely why the demands of personal discipline, of a community of practice and of rethinking the aims of university education carry the weight they do.
In the third millennium, humanity has entered an era of tumultuous change. The emerging problems and the search for ways to solve them require a new understanding on the part of the scientific community, which primarily involves reassessing values on the civilizational and historical scales of national interests and, as a result, getting rid of entrenched stereotypes and myths, including those stemming from blind imitation of ideas and methodological concepts that once seemed cutting-edge. In this regard, particular attention and thorough analysis are required for the pedagogical approaches and attitudes that determine the formation of guiding ideas for a person’s decision-making, their attitude towards the world and their homeland, and their professional, managerial, and everyday logic. Within the framework of this article, it is proposed to take a close look at the concept of “critical thinking,” which is widely used in professional circles, as well as its genesis and semantic elements. The risks associated with the concept of “critical thinking” are significantly increasing, primarily due to the widespread adoption and development of generative artificial intelligence. This work does not claim to provide an exhaustive or “final” judgment on the truth. On the contrary, it proposes to examine “critical thinking” in the context of the objective complexity and multidimensionality that makes this phenomenon the subject of such acute ideological and pedagogical contradictions. The article focuses on those aspects of “critical thinking” that are systematically silenced in liberal pedagogical discourse. Accordingly, the use of “complementarity optics” in this work makes it possible to obtain a comprehensive picture in order to make a well-considered decision about the appropriateness of using the ambiguous and context-rich concept of “critical thinking” in Russian educational realities and prospects.
