Issue 1 2020

The article aims to analyze the relations between objects in the object-oriented ontology of Graham Harman. The authors consider Harman’s concept to be one of the main achievements of modern philosophy. This concept makes it possible to overcome the problem of objectivity as such and to gain access to the object uncorrelated by the subject of knowledge. Using the presented scheme of the object, the authors postulate the absence of the subject and subject-object relations based on correlations. Thus, the problem of objectivity is solved in a radical way. However, Harman’s object-oriented ontology does not explain how the relations between uncorrelated objects occur. It is essential to find the way to describe the mechanism of interaction between objects in which the object remains real, i.e. uncorrelated, and at the same time sensual, accessible for perception and interaction. That is why the authors turn to Jacques Derrida’s concept of deconstruction. Its application to the analysis of relations between objects in Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology allows the authors to deabsolutize correlationism as the only possible way of relations between objects, and at the same time to preserve it as a way of interaction between objects. The nature of the relations between objects can be logically explained by the philosophy of Albert Camus, through combining his method of cognition with the principle of deconstruction. Using this method, the authors come to a conclusion that correlations necessarily arise when objects interact, which allows them to manifest themselves as accessible. However, the existence of objects by themselves takes place without correlations. They are a condition for the appearance of a sensory object, but they are not possible with the existence of real objects on their own. The method proposed shows that the relations of objects represent an inextricable duality of the sensual and the real object, which is manifested in their knowable-unknowable nature. Studying the nature of interaction between objects in Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology with the help of this method allows better understanding of the problem of objectivity as such. This issue requires further, more extensive, study and discussion.

The article is a continuation of previous one, published in the preceding issue of this journal. It shows that any philosophical theory and a concept of the social ideal developed on its basis are somehow conditioned by the problems of the existing social reality. According to political leaders, the various models of socialism that existed in the last century represented the practical implementation of Marx’s teachings. Certainly, the Soviet Union appeared as a result of revolutionary activities of Lenin and his associates, who were devoted supporters of Marxism. Why did the socialist project fail in Russia? The article analyzes the problem of correlation between the social ideal developed by the founders of Marxism and the social reality that arose as a result of its implementation. The difference between utopia and a scientifically based social ideal is revealed, the difficulties of implementing any social ideal (theory) are considered. Socialism built in the Soviet Union causes many questions concerning the nature of this society; however, in the process of its construction Lenin and his associates relied on the ideas of the founders of Marxism. The paper studies the reasons for the differences between real socialism and Marx’s social ideal and identifies the factors that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. According to the author’s position, among those factors, of great importance was the superficial understanding of both the dialectics of interformational transition and criteria for distinguishing various types of society.

Ilyenkov and Korovikov presented their sensational theses on the subject of philosophy long before the Khrushchev Thaw. Although the authors of the theses were ostracized, Ilyenkov became the founder of the so-called «gnoseologism», and the dispute between «gnoseologists» and «ontologists» occupied the minds of leading theorists in the field of dialectical materialism for two decades. The point is that both parties considered themselves authentic spokesmen for Engels’s position. However, a close scrutiny of his construction of the «great basic question of all philosophy» shows one-sidedness of both approaches. Additional evidence in favor of the mutual but hidden relationship of the ontological and the epistemological in philosophical disputes can be obtained through analyzing the evolution of the idea of substance from Milesians to Parmenides. The concept of being, introduced by the head of the Elean school, had the distinction between knowledge-in-opinion and knowledge-in-truth as its premise. In the fourth section of the article, the author proposes that philosophy has its own empirical basis and tries to show it with the help of Engels’s description of pre-reflective ideas about the soul-and-body relationship. It is observed that in this thinking Engels opted for the phenomenological manner. This approach gets its development in the section «How is the basic question of philosophy possible». Here the author argues that such a question exists and its current form is the relationship of the subjective and the objective. This conclusion is supported, firstly, by peculiarities of the philosophical question as such, analysis of which was performed by Floridi. Another thought-provoking point is Russell’s proposal to differentiate between questions of philosophy and questions posed by philosophers. Finally, the article discusses the importance of the polemic under study for clarifying the structure of the worldview.

In social science, there are two approaches to analyzing sociopolitical movements as a manifestation of the modern civilization crisis. The difference between them lies in understanding of the human development process. The substantial approach seeks and finds a single basis in the historical process, and then deduces all social life phenomena from it. The non-substantial approach, on the contrary, considers that such a foundation (substance, essence) does not exist and, therefore, its search is meaningless. Following opposite methodological positions, the representatives of these two approaches variously explain the phenomena of social reality. For instance, from the standpoint of the non-substantial approach, the modern civilization crisis is declared to result from a combination of random factors: technological changes, the hegemony of one or another discourse, the change of the world hegemon in the core-peripheral relations, etc. Hence, from this point of view, the crisis becomes fundamentally inexplicable. Changes that have occurred in the nature of the organization, the forms of activity and the ideology of sociopolitical movements in this case also become random and, as a result, cannot be comprehensively explained. The substantial approach considers the modern crisis to be a result of objective processes taking place in the very foundation of society (primarily in the development of universal labor). Consequently, sociopolitical movements are a form of manifestation of this crisis. The paper emphasizes that differences of these approaches do not have a purely theoretical character, because it is about developing a strategy to overcome the current crisis of civilization, i.e. about the future of mankind.

In his early and especially late works, Walter Benjamin develops his own concepts of history and subject. The latter partly relates to psychoanalytical concepts of subject but differs from those in experimentally and scientifically oriented psychological approaches. Denouncing historicism, which constitutes the basis of the cultural-historical approach in psychology (among others), Benjamin questions both the cyclic and the linear, or progressive, concept of time from the standpoint of the moment of «here and now». In his own words, he conceptualizes time as history that takes place in «now-time of recognizability» (Jetztzeit der Erkennbarkeit). Only that kind of time, according to Benjamin, lets the history take place and begin, differing it from the empty, homogenous flow of mythical time. Benjamin does not solely develop his critique of the myth’s subject. He also critically defines the now-time as history, describing the phenomenological reality of the crisis of subjectivity and the subject of history as such. The paper focuses on the latter and analyzes it with the help of Benjamin’s figures of the storyteller, the critic and the historian, used to describe his own critical work. The paper sheds light on the linguistic nature of the crisis of subjectivity and, in this context, on Benjamin’s ideas of history, freedom and transformation of the subject, as well as on the possibility of something essentially new. In the course of analysis, the author of the article points out some psychological and psychotherapeutic consequences of W. Benjamin’s ideas which can induce psychology to take a critical look at its own understanding of history, subject and development, both from the theoretical and the empirical perspective.

The article studies the essence of the Soviet technological chronotope (the research object) resulted from a combination of material and semantic achievements of the scientific, technical and sociopolitical development of Soviet society in the 1970s–1980s. The methodological basis of the study is A.A. Ukhtomsky and M.M. Bakhtin’s theory of chronotope, postulating the ontological and functional interconnectedness of time and space. This theory allows revealing a studied object as a structure with two attributes being its forming elements — spatial and temporal. The former depicts belonging to a specific geographical material locus and semantic cultural and civilizational space; the latter describes a certain length and the period of objective time included in the semantic wholeness of interconnected cultural and historical eras. The study reveals the complex nature of its subject, because the fundamental essence of the technological chronotope is formed by the ontological essence of technology. It historically developed as a result of evolution of the European type of thinking, primarily in the classical epistemology of the New Age. The study shows the general essence of the technological chronotope, i.e its formation in the process of objectification of the rational and logical principle that underlies temporary acts of the human mind. The technological chronotope acts as temporal logic of internal chronology of human thinking, this logic being embodied in the space of material objective reality. Further, the study reveals the significance of the unique and original semantic content of the Soviet technological chronotope, surrounding its essential quality and forming a recognizable cultural and historical image. This chronotope is funded by the contradictory evolution of the Soviet social system, whose ideological component significantly evolved. It transformed from demonstrative praising of daily striking labor for the benefit of the global goal of the communist expansion to the era of stagnation, when alienation and depersonalization of everyday being of man served as one of the key reasons for the collapse of the Soviet technological chronotope.

The article discusses the relationship between the formal-dynamic characteristics of individuality and the properties of the value-semantic sphere of personality. It is suggested that in case of detecting such an interrelationship, it may be the evidence in favor of the subject’s desire to harmonize their own individuality and to make the interaction of its multilevel characteristics consistent. A research sample consisted of 463 people, including 219 girls and 244 young men aged 15 to 24 (M = 18.9; SD = 2.0). Based on a wide range of methods aimed at studying temperament traits, values and meanings, the authors identified generalized formal-dynamic characteristics of individuality. They are emotional stability – emotional instability, extraversion – introversion, psychoticism – superego strength, formal-dynamic features of intelligence, psychomotor endurance. Likewise, generalized indicators of the value-semantic sphere of personality, i.e. value-based orientations and life-purpose orientations, were detected. For this purpose, the following statistical methods were used: exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM). A close interdependence between the indicators of temperament and the value-semantic sphere of personality was found. To study the level of stability of the detected structure, a gender invariance test was carried out, which showed high consistency of the structure in male and female samples. The main hypothesis of the study was confirmed.

The model of «normative» use of information technology (offered by V.A. Emelin, A.Sh. Tkhostov, E.I. Rasskazova) describes various psychological effects including changes of psychological boundaries and needs, and psychological dependence. The author of the article suggests that the list of such effects might contain disembodiment resulting from the lack of a person’s physical body due to their being on the aethyr and transformation of a person into an immaterial being (M. McLuhan). The new technological way of being-in-the-world is similar to a schizoid one, which R.D. Laing, a British psychologist and psychiatrist, relates to ontological insecurity, unembodiment (of the mental self in the body) and blurring of the existential boundaries between the «self» and «non-self». The authorial psychological construct of ontological security as a two-level system of experience, based on R.D. Laing’s conception, and authorial diagnostic procedures derived from this construct were used in the study. The first procedure was based on the principle of semantic differential «OS(SD)» and the second procedure was psychometric «OS(PM)». It was discovered that the group of students suffering from more pronounced consequences of normative use of mobile phones and prone to Internet-addicted behavior showed certain effect. It included a decline in manifestations of ontological security as experiencing existential props within and outside their selves, lower degree of existential antagonism (when existence is viewed as «a good life») and inflation of a false self linked to ontological insecurity and disembodiment. The analysis of the total sample revealed the selective nature of connections between the consequences of normative use of mobile phones and ontological security. In particular, a decline of the latter was associated with increasing changes in psychological borders. They involved the changes in the reflection of personal privacy during the expansion and erosion of the psychological borders, and the changes in the use of these conditions to simplify and secure communication with other people.

The paper studies the contributions of cognitive styles to the process of stereotyping and perceptual bias (ingroup favoritism). It was suggested that the role of cognitive styles weakens in conditions of the object’s perceptual clarity and amplifies in conditions of his/her perceptual nebulosity. In the experiment, the level of perceptual clarity appeared as an independent variable and was set using different stimulus objects. Low perceptual clarity was presented by a description of fictional groups of people sensitive to low or high frequency sounds. Medium perceptual clarity was characterized by a description of recognizable (typical) groups of people who preferred «low-status» or «high-status» things. The level of high clarity was set by visual presentation of a specific person allegedly being a representative of the group sensitive to low or high frequency sounds. At the level of low and medium perceptual clarity, the Other was not presented visually. The study involved 305 students aged 17 to 22 (M = 19,21, SD = 0,97), 71 male and 234 female. It was found that cognitive styles were the most reliable predictors for stereotyping of the Other when his/her image was as depersonalized as possible, i.e. devoid of typological and visual certainty. The highest values of stereotyping were observed upon pronounced rigidity, field-dependence, impulsivity and cognitive simplicity. When a specified, visually defined Other was perceived, cognitive styles did not affect the stereotyping. Perceptual bias (ingroup favoritism) did not change under the influence of cognitive styles, regardless of the perceptual clarity level.

The research deals with styles of business communication, which appears to be a topical issue nowadays. Its topicality correlates with the current needs and trends in the sphere of professional activity: in personnel selection the focus is on the ability to solve specific problems, not just on the profession; orientation is not towards an individual person but towards joint activity in a unique environment; there is an emphasis on complex assessment and employment of the resources, not of separate qualities of a person, etc. The purpose of the present study is a comparative analysis of business communication styles in the samples of penal colony employees, hospital nurses and managers. The subject of research is business communication styles of persons engaged in socionomic professions. Hypotheses of the study are as follows: 1) Styles of business communication are determined by the conditions of the environment; 2) In each particular environment, there are assumed to be some style niches, within the boundaries of which a person chooses certain patterns of behavior. Research methods: expert survey, psychodiagnostics (test questionnaires «Coping behavior in stressful situations» and «Questionnaire for ways of coping» by T. Kryukova, test questionnaires 16–PF by R.B. Cattell, questionnaire «Level of subjective control»); research technique — questionnaire «Styles of business communication» by V.A. Tolochek. In this article, we consider the results of t-comparison and correlation analysis obtained with the help of the research questionnaire. The results confirm the working hypotheses.

The article analyzes the role of modern mass communication in the construction of social reality representations. Based on the phenomenological and postmodern approaches to social analysis, the authors draw a conclusion about the determining and specific influence of the mass media on the individual in the context of the information society. The modern socio-informational exchange is greatly complicated by the information redundancy factor and the impossibility to fully process the entire volume of information. Excess of information puts a person in a situation of choice: he needs to choose certain channels. Then the chosen ones become the main media providers of social reality representations. Consequently, those representations in many respects are influenced by the content broadcasted through the selected channels. Theoretical and empirical data show that this plays a special role in the structure of individuals’ everyday informational practices and affects the level of trust to information sources and the processes of self-identification and socialization in the current social reality. The authors draw a general conclusion that people’s representations of social reality are, to a large extent, of an image nature. In many ways, this process also depends on the media concept of the selected channels. It is constructed and promoted by the communication efforts of the modern mass media. The authors emphasize the simulated and controllable nature of this process. The article presents data which may be useful in further sociological analysis of the modern mass communication process, in interpretation of its institutional characteristics, in determining their role in the construction of social reality representations.

Protest actions of the population are the most important factor in the transformation of the society’s political systems. The authors consider protest moods monitoring to be an indicator of the government legitimacy and an integral part of public opinion. At the same time, indicators of citizens’ protest activity often become hostages of political technologies and public consciousness manipulation. The paper attempts to give an analytical description of dynamic potential and actual indicators of street protest activity in modern Russian society, which is done based on the materials of monitoring surveys conducted by leading sociological agencies, as well as information from the media and non-government organizations. It is shown that street protest activity as such can indicate deep social contradictions in Russian society. The main reason for mass protests of the population is essential problems that affect specific vital interests of ordinary people. In addition, the border between socioeconomic and political requirements is becoming increasingly blurred. At the same time, it is revealed that manifestations of street protest activity in modern society are situational. The social resource of rallies and demonstrations among the population is relatively limited. Survey data indicate that the majority of Russian citizens do not support participation in mass protests against decreasing living standards, in defense of their rights. In case of such protests they will most likely not take part in them, and, in general, they hold an opinion that mass street protest movement is unlikely to develop. According to the authors, the possible scenario for the protest situation development in society will depend on what problem factors determining the «peak» social tension and protest potential will coincide, as well as on the intensity of those factors.

Being a relatively young academic field in Russia, sociology of management started to study the problems of managerial activity not long ago. There exist different approaches to studying it, which leads to pluralism of scientific opinions and theories. Various social processes and elements of the social sphere that determine management activities are presented as accentuated objects. The article provides theoretical understanding of individual and corporate actors and the totality of their interests through the prism of management activities linking them. Moreover, the potential for conflict of interest, as a point of social growth for the actors is conceptualized taking into account their subjective and objective behavioral activity. Assessing the rationality of an individual actor’s behavioral activity and self-selected economic activity, the author touches upon the role of human capital in management as a phenomenon. The person is a nominal part of social management and the process-forming element of a concrete administrative activity even if not being identified with it. The convergent approach as an approach of total knowledge, practices, theories, individual aspects and as an actual interdisciplinary and TRANS-scientific approach is applied to build a certain management model. This model is adequate to external aggressive environment conditions (market, political system, professional community) and immanent resource (intangible, first of all) problems. This is required for the correct construction of the social organization, relevance to the established rules of behavior and for achieving the effectiveness of the management activity itself and the activities it has an impact on. The strengthening of the entire social structure is facilitated by the development of all its social elements. Thus, management activity of corporate actors, as well as financial and economic activity of those are at the forefront of the economy. Consequently, behavioral activities of individuals faced with such stress factors as uncertainty and large amounts of information should be aimed at making productive management decisions.

The author substantiates the importance of sociological analysis of mental health factors in modern conditions through the example of married couples. The paper reveals the essence of sociological concepts (theory of stress, structural strain theory, stigma theory) in the study of mental health and factors that determine it. It is established that the theory of stress considers an individual’s current state of life and negative life events to be factors determining mental health. It also indicates high risks of mental illness in groups with a low socioeconomic status. The representatives of the structural strain theory qualify weak social support for others and weak individual control over life circumstances, along with unfavorable organization of social space, as significant factors in the deterioration of mental health. It is noted that, according to the stigma theory, mentally unhealthy people become victims of stigma since others identify them as deviants, expecting corresponding behavior. Based on the analysis of a number of studies, a conclusion is drawn about the effect of marriage on mental health indicators, regardless of gender. It is revealed that some researchers point to improvement in mental health in a short term, while others do not show such dependence at all. The key role of «quality of marriage» and spouses’ satisfaction with marriage in the formation and strengthening of their mental health is noted.