The paper aims to show that combining D. Dennett’s conception of real patterns as the “object” ontology, understood as the fundamental concept of existence (D. Ross, J. Ladyman), and E. J. Lowe’s four-category ontology as the “base”, we can get an original conception of scientific realism, which will compete successfully with others in terms of traditional arguments for and against scientific realism, or in terms of interpreting the requirements posed by modern science, and will also be successful as an independent conception of metaphysics, setting original ideas about substantiality, identity, modality and causality. The adoption of E.J. Low’s “serious essentialism” helps to solve the problem of J. Ladyman’s ontic structural realism about the matching of nomological (natural) and metaphysical modalities. E. J. Lowe’s statement that “the subject of metaphysics is the possible, but only science can say which of the alternative metaphysical possibilities is actual” reinforces the required relationship between science and metaphysics. The fact that we choose the neo-Aristotelian rather than the Quinean type of metaphysics helps to formulate sufficient conditions for the pattern existence, as well as to adopt an understanding of causality in terms of “forces”, “predispositions” and “manifestations”, connected by a formal (not real!) ontological relation of metaphysical dependence. In this sense, dealing with H. Putnam’s question “what realism is”, we can answer that scientific realism is an exercise in the epistemology of modality, associated with clarifying the essence of the objects of scientific theory in terms of “basic” philosophical ontology.

The paper deals with two contemporary alimentary phenomena (food porn and mukbang) in order to understand the basis for researching such phenomena in the social and anthropological sciences about food. As conceptual approaches, we choose the conception of hyperreality of J. Baudrillard and the modern version of psychoanalysis (structural psychoanalysis of J. Lacan). Based on these two approaches, we demonstrated one of the key complexities of the methodology of contemporary research on alimentary practices. It consists in the problematic choice between the search for basis in the global representation of society or in anthropological models. We also need to consider such phenomena not only in the perspective of meaning, but also in terms of pleasure.

The article is devoted to the historical development of the vaccination practices institutionalization in the context of smallpox epidemics in Europe. Historical analysis allows identify three stages of institutionalization. The first lasted from the emergence of variolation as a social innovation until 1800 when it was replaced by vaccination. The second stage – when political and legislative legitimization of vaccination was accomplished. And the third one – when economic and moral-ethical persuasion methods of constructing public beliefs were developed. All of these led to reconstructing of relationships between state and society.

The relationship between the key social factors contributed to the transformation of vaccination institute from politically legitimized rules and strict sanctions for their violation to the balanced system of normative and value regulators of epidemic risks, which allowed certain European societies to perfect the system of public health protection and use the advantages in demographic and social development.

The paper offers an analysis of the positions available in the literature on the current state of the social state and paternalism as its managerial principle. The transformation of the welfare state is considered through the prism of new forms of paternalism. The analysis provides an assessment of a specific form of paternalism formed in Russia; its relevance in the conditions of the crisis is substantiated. The article also deals with the problem of inefficient public administration and indicates reasons for managerial failures. The conclusion is made about the potential of the paternalistic social state in Russia to relieve social tension and mitigate the negative consequences of the crisis.

The article focuses on the development of R. Collins’ concept of collegially shared power (CSP). The author formulates a definition of CSP and four criteria associated with the formal separation of powers: 1) the right of parliament to participate in the formation of government; 2) the responsibility of government to parliament; 3) the lack of authority of the head of state to appoint proxies to the legislative institutions; 4) the observance of written law by all branches of powers and their subordinate structures. The obtained results will contribute to a further, more detailed study of the CSP as a key element of democracy.

The article focuses on the difference between the two perspectives of considering the phenomenon of ideology: philosophical and socio-empirical. To describe the philosophical aspect of the problem of ideology, the term “ideological paradigm” is introduced. The distinction between ideology as a specific set of beliefs and ideology as a paradigm of socio-political thinking is implicit in both socio-cognitive and linguistic theories of ideology. The most important problems of the modern theory of ideology cannot be solved without referring to the concept of “ideological paradigm”.

The article presents an overview of medieval approaches to understanding the phenomenon of intentionality. First, the author outlines the approach of Thomas Aquinas, according to which the process of cognition consists in assimilating the intellect to the object of cognition. This theory insists that there is no difference between the form of a real object, thanks to which it exists, and the form of this object in the mind of the cognizing subject. Duns Scotus makes this picture more sophisticated when he begins to distinguish in the mind the sensory image of the cognized thing (phantasma) and the intelligible representation (species) of this thing. William of Ockham, on the other hand, refuses to introduce any additional entities between the object of knowledge and the mind of the knower. This rejection, together with the nominalism, led to the emergence of the concept of mental language, in which there is no place for signs connecting thought and object, instead, a direct connection between the spoken word and the corresponding mental words is postulated. In conclusion, the author considers the problem of the justification and legitimacy of the discovery of proto-phenomenological concepts in medieval philosophy.

On February 10, 2021, the first philosopher of Khakassia turned 90 years old. He represents the scientific and pedagogical community of the region, is the first Khakass researcher of the national issue of the peoples in Siberia, the first specialist in his field at Khakass Research Institute for Language, Literature, and History. The anniversary celebrant’s research and activities are of particular interest to the scientific community, which is due to the relevance of his doctoral dissertation topic, which he did not happen to defend. In this regard, it is important to cover his life. The main direction of the anniversary celebrant’s research has become the formation of socialist nations (the historical experience of the peoples in the Soviet East). V. S. Anzhiganov devoted significant attention to the issues of change of the Khakass’ statehood. The ideas of anniversary celebrant’s played a significant role in the formation of national statehood, ethnic culture of the people.

The review provides a detailed account of the collective study of the oeuvre of the Russian-Argentinian legal scholar Evgeny Viktorovich Bulygin, the results of which are reflected in the book “How Is Logic in Law Possible?” (M. V. Antonov, E. N. Lisanyuk, E. N. Tonkov (eds.). St. Petersburg: Aleteia, 2021). It is emphasized that the research participants succeeded in carrying out a comprehensive analysis of the merits and deficiencies of Bulygin’s logical positivism. Among the merits, most researchers consider the distinction between the rules of law and normative propositions, in virtue of which legal prescriptions came to lend themselves to logical analysis. The authors associate the weaknesses of logical positivism with its inability to justify normativity, as well as with the shortcomings of deductivism as a model of judicial argumentation.

Jonathan Lowe believes that metaphysics should regain its central place in philosophy. It is an autonomous philosophical discipline, which task is to outline the realm of what is really possible by defining a system of fundamental ontological categories under which everything that exists falls, and relations of ontological dependence in which objects of various ontological categories are related to each other. Metaphysical categories are what gives meaning to our experience, however, unlike I. Kant, they are not the result of a priori constraints – on the contrary, they are subject to revision in the face of experience. The question of why there is something in the world rather than nothing, is solved with a non-Wittgensteinian understanding of what the world is (world is the sum of all existing objects because world as “the totality of facts” lacks determinate identity-conditions), as well as an understanding that universals must be actually instantiated in particulars. Far from being an easy textbook in the proper sense, this book is a brilliant example of the return of Aristotle to modern metaphysics.

Reflections on the book: Lowe E. J. The Possibility of Metaphysics: Substance, Identity, and Time. Clarendon Press, 1998.