The paper aims to reveal an analogy between the algebraic system of formal logic and the algebraic system of formal axiology. Our aim is to correct some previously published formulations of the mentioned system and clarify interconnections between similar but different notions of “formal-logical-contradiction” and “formal-axiological-contradiction”. Corrected definitions of several basic notions are given; a fundamental analogy is established between the algebraic system of formal logic and the algebraic system of metaphysics as formal axiology. Special attention is paid to an unexpected analogy between the role of   self-contradiction in the algebra of formal logic and the role of self-termination (suicide) in the algebra of formal axiology. “Self-annihilation in response to what is unacceptable (from the suicide viewpoint)” is a formal-axiological analogue of “the formal-logical proof by reducing the contrary to absurdity”.

The paper analyzes the typology of personal identity theories. It identifies the criteria that form the basis for conceptualizing identity theories: psychological, biological, substantial and narrative. The main arguments in favor of using each criterion are presented and the directions of modern criticism of these theories are outlined. The holistic potential of the theory of narrative identity is studied in the context of the joint application of the psychological, biological and narrative criteria used to solve the problem of personal identity. It is argued that the theory of narrative identity allows the use of the three designated criteria in constructing a holistic model of personal identity through a number of dialectical oppositions: Self/Other; personal/social; subjective/objective; intentionality/passivity; intelligible/physical.

The forthcoming formation of the knowledge society in the near future was confidently predicted in the middle of the twentieth century. Many social researchers, and after them the general public, accept the accomplished realization of this forecast as an obvious reality. There are some reasons for this. This mode was really meant to be implemented to overcome the problem of the limits of industrial growth. But in practice, the results have not been so impressive so far. And today, even the most developed countries do not look like the embodiment of the model of the knowledge society.

The article treats the history of mutual influence and complex personal relationships between the literary critic A. L. Volynsky and the writer D. S. Merezhkovsky. Having known each other while studying at St. Petersburg University, they collaborated for ten years in the journal “Severny Vestnik,” which became an outpost of the struggle against ‘sociologism’ and positivism in the system of artistic thought. Both of them became forerunners of the Russian religious and philosophical renaissance of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Almost simultaneously they rediscovered Leo Tolstoy and Fedor Dostoevsky for the reading audience and, each in his own way, searched for ways to a new religiosity. The unstable alliance between the two writers collapses due to their disagreement over Nietzsche’s philosophy. Volynsky does not accept Nietzschean immoralism, extreme individualism and godlessness. Their interpretations of the Renaissance are also fundamentally different: while Merezhkovsky viewed it in the Nietzschean vein as a period of revival of the vivid light pagan force, struggling with the dusky Christianity, and longed for the coming of the Third Renaissance, Volynsky interprets the Renaissance as an anti-Christian, demonic movement, the restoration of dark pagan forces.

The paper aims to show that some elements of J. Woodward’s manipulative concept of causality are capable of playing the role of «salient characteristics of an explanation» that can be associated with the key characteristics of meta-justification that «a system of empirical beliefs that is justified according to accepted standards is thus likely to correspond to reality» in a situation where an appeal to more traditional concepts of explanation – unificationist (P. Kitcher) or causal (W. Salmon) – is not accepted due to the «paradigm conflict» dividing the given scientific community. As a heuristics we consider the reception of C. Renfrew’s concept of the diffusion of Indo-European language across Europe during the Neolithic Revolution, proposed by A. Wiley aimed to show that «the discussion of the inconsistency of the explanation of phenomena within the Renfrew’s concept is revealed precisely along the line dividing the intuitions of Kitcher and Salmon». The key component of meta-justification will be the notion of «invariance» or «stability» of the proposed explanation «in the face of new data» (L. Bonjour). An explanation will be invariant «in accordance with Woodward’s concept» when its functionally significant components (as parts of the proposed explanatory mechanism) are connected by the relation of «constitutive explanation» (С. Craver), characterized and distinguished from the relation of causality by the requirement of «mutual manipulability»