Vol 30, No 1 (2026): STUDYING OF RUSSIAN, SOVIET AND CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY IN CHINA

The work is devoted to the study of the methodology of research by Chinese specialists of the foundations and specifics of Russian philosophy, especially the issues of Russian religious philosophy, which allow Chinese colleagues to identify the uniqueness of Russian culture and the peculiarities of the national mentality. The purpose of the study is to identify the specifics of the Chinese reception of Russian religious philosophy as a form of transcultural dialogue, in which its holistic spiritual view is considered as a heuristic resource for a critical analysis of the problems of the world’s modernization and the search for solutions that lie outside the paradigm of purely rational Western thinking. The study also covers the institutional and substantive aspects of this reception, which are rooted in the recognition of the spiritual value and philosophical originality of the Russian Orthodox religious tradition. The paper shows that the study of Russian religious philosophy by Chinese scholars has its own characteristics related to research goals, methods, works, and conferences. The interpretation of the main issues of Russian religious philosophy in the context of China’s spiritual culture (such as the idea of conciliarity, all-unity, integral knowledge, the Russian idea, etc.) deserves attention. It is worth noting that Chinese experts believe that studying Russian religious philosophy not only provides a better understanding of the Russian civilizational code, but also helps Chinese people to recognize the commonality of the political and socio-cultural development of the two countries, as well as to better comprehend their own history. Studying Russian religious philosophy provides a deeper understanding of Western philosophy and a “key” for its competent criticism based on different worldviews. Translations of the works of Russian religious thinkers (primarily N.A. Berdyaev, V.S. Solovyov, the slavophiles, and others) are used to analyze Orthodoxy as a foreign cultural element in China’s spiritual culture. The paper provides some examples of how Chinese scholars have adopted Russian religious philosophy. The results of the study can be used in the preparation of lectures on the history of Russian and foreign philosophy. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the comprehensive analysis and study of the above-mentioned concepts based on the works of Chinese scholars from the 1990-s to 2025.

The exploration of nihilism in the context of traditional values concept formation concept in Russia and China is currently very relevant both because of the socio-cultural challenges facing both civilizations, and in connection with their foreign policy environment, the processes of globalization and polarization. Nihilism as a worldview paradigm arises in an era of crises, but despite the fact, that the political situation in the world may well be understood as a systemic crisis, the scientific community still does not pay due attention to the issues of modern nihilism as an element of intercultural communication. The authors aim to trace the mechanisms of Russian nihilism’s reception by Chinese thought and its unique integration into the socio-cultural environment of traditional society. The use of interpreting method of nihilism phenomenon through the Russian philosophy prism allows us to identify the essential features of its genesis, spiritual foundations, and axiological meanings. The comparative method, which includes both conceptual and historical-philosophical analysis, allows for a comprehensive theoretical coverage of the phenomenon of nihilism and the related concept of "nothing" within the traditions of Chinese and Russian thought. This perspective is necessary due to the unobviousness of the mutually exclusive presence of nihilism and traditional values within the framework of a same worldview situation. The authors conclude that if Russian philosophy understand nihilism as a radical denial of spiritual values, which are recognized as traditional, and therefore seeks to overcome it, then the situation in Chinese philosophy, which does not make a strict differentiation of ideal and material, unlike Western philosophy. It makes it possible to integrate the nihilistic project into the traditional value system, which corresponds to the principle of harmony of opposites and is reflected in Chinese religious and philosophical doctrines. However, the concept of “nothing” itself should be understood in the traditional Taoist, Confucian or Buddhist way, which will allow us to speak about specifically Chinese nihilism, regarding which Western European nihilism, adopted at the beginning of the 20th century through the influence of Russian thought, is an anti-traditional and destructive phenomenon. Thus, both Chinese traditional philosophy and Russian philosophy, appealing to spiritual values and the principle of all-humanity, are developing a way to overcome the type of nihilism that is characteristic of Western European thought. This method is based on an understanding of the continuity and organic fusion of tradition and modernity.

The research is devoted to the analysis of Russian theories of social justice with a focus on their gender dimensions and on assessing the possibilities of their application in the contemporary context, including Chinese philosophical discourse. The relevance of the research is determined, on the one hand, by the crisis of liberal models of justice and the growing interest in the spiritual and moral foundations of social order, and, on the other hand, by the development of gender studies, which reveal the patriarchal presuppositions of classical theories. The methodological basis of the research is formed by the principles of comparative philosophy, historical-philosophical and conceptual analysis, as well as feminist critique, including the critique of androcentrism. The study examines the ideas of the Slavophiles, the philosophy of all-unity of V.S. Soloviev, secular concepts of justice, and the ideas of modern Russian philosophers, as well as the works of Chinese researchers analyzing conciliarity, Sophia, the Eternal Feminine, and the “Russian idea.” It is shown that the Russian tradition forms an original spiritual and moral understanding of social justice based on the ideas of love, solidarity, responsibility and the limited use of force, while at the same time reproducing patriarchal models of gender roles and marginalising women’s experience by refusing to understand it in terms of justice. It is revealed that in Chinese reception these concepts are interpreted as a spiritually collectivist project of justice alternative to liberal individualism, while their gender presuppositions become the object of critical re-interpretation. The article substantiates the interpretation of Russian theories of justice as a valuable historical and philosophical resource which, under the conditions of intercultural dialogue and gender-sensitive critique, can be creatively adapted for discussing social, including gender, justice in contemporary China. The novelty of the research lies in combining a gender analysis of Russian philosophy of justice with an examination of its Chinese reception, which makes it possible to go beyond the usual “West - Russia” dichotomy and to inscribe the Russian tradition into a three-sided dialogue “West - Russia - China”. The research clarifies the place of the Russian philosophical tradition in global debates on justice and demonstrates the heuristic potential of its gender-sensitive and intercultural interpretation.

Research examines the development and reception of the philosophical legacy of Sergei Sergeevich Khoruzhy Khoruzhy (1941-2020) in China, including in the context of an international academic conference held in Haikou, China, commemorating the fifth anniversary of the philosopher’s passing. The conference featured engaging presentations and scholarly discussions organized around the following key thematic sections: 1) overall assessment and future prospects of Khoruzhy’s philosophical work; 2) Khoruzhy’s research in the history of Russian philosophy; 3) the study of spiritual tradition within the framework of hesychast anthropology; 4) synergic anthropology and its applied aspects; and 5) comparative analysis of Khoruzhy’s ideas and other philosophical concepts. The scholarly discussions presented here reflect the process of reception and interpretation of Khoruzhy’s teachings within the Chinese academic community. The influence of Khoruzhy’s ideas has long extended beyond scholars specializing in Russian philosophy, gaining global reach and, in particular, finding substantive continuation and creative development in China thanks to the creative efforts of Professor Zhang Baichunand his colleagues.

The issue delivers an analysis of schellingian motives in the later works by A.F. Losev. The author brings information about Losev’s retrospective evaluation of Schelling’s influence on the formation of his own philosophical approach, it’s specific character and it’s grade. The author shows that all the main investigation projects of the later Losev which have been realized during several decades of systematic studies have their ground in the same conceptual model which bears from Schelling’s idea of potencies as various form of quantitative difference between opposite factors. Losev refers to Schelling both explicitly in his commentaries on the history of philosophy and implicitly in his attempts to clear and to elaborate Schelling’s dialectical concepts. In his monumental project of his “History of the ancient aesthestics” Losev uses Schellings theory of potencies as the main instrument for the conceptualizing ancient Greek culture with it’s emphasis on the real and the corporal. In the context of his sigh theory it makes him able to draw an integral theory of verbal and plastic expression which synthesizes the most imporrtant innovations of semiotics, structural linguistics and information theory. In his studies on the European aesthetics it delivers him a matrix for his typology of styles in the art history. Schelling’s method of potencies is for Losev both a mean of hermeneutics and a conceptual tool for the elaboration of the system of categories of culture. The key reference in both contexts is Schelling’s theory of symbol. Thea author proves his hypothesis throgh the intertextual analysis of Losev’s works from 1970-1980s published in his life time and posthumously. Manifold parallelisms in these texts without any explicit cross references build a specific connection of meanings which make it possible to reveal a religious metaphysical background of the scientific language of Losev’s later works. The study creates precinditions for the more differentiated understanding of the discursive strategy of the later Losev and demonstrates their consistency and continuity in regard on the earlier works from 1920s.

The research examines the issue of literary nationalism in Central Asia through the case of Uzbekistan. Employing a constructivist approach, authors analyze how the Uzbek SSR’s writers influenced the formation of a post-Soviet canon of Uzbek national heroes, thereby establishing the continuity between different forms of nationalism. The research traces the development of Uzbek national self-consciousness from the late 19th century, when the Jadid movement sought to modernize the educational system in Turkestan. The driving force of nation-building in Uzbekistan became the Soviet nationalities policy, whose primary objective was the consolidation of a vast number of premodern communities along a single - namely, national - criterion to successfully implement the overarching state project of industrialization. In particular, the research addresses the impact of the primordialization of national identities in the 1930s on Soviet citizens’ perceptions of their national self-identification and identifies the main challenges encountered by the nation-building project in the Uzbek SSR. In the socio-cultural and historical context, the research elucidates the role played by the three major Uzbek writers in the development of national self-consciousness within their republic, providing, in broad terms, the biographical information necessary for understanding the topic. The primary focus is placed on an analysis of three novels - “The Treasures of Ulughbeg” , “Navoi” , and “Starry Nights” - devoted to the late medieval history of Uzbekistan. According to the authors, it was in these such works that writers popularized specific historical figures who would become cultural pillars of nationalism in Uzbekistan after the USSR collapse.

Labouring upon the groundwork of “critical” ethics, Kant opposed its principle, the categorical imperative, to the principles of naturalistic morals, and, among others, to the principle of personal happiness. But in the system of concrete ethics in the Metaphysics of Morals the “happiness of others” emerged in the basis of this system, as one of the two objectively practical “ends-duties”. In this regard, historians of thought often claim that in his old age Kant made eudaimonistic “adjustments” to his ethics. Our paper aims to find out, by means of an analysis of the concept of happiness in Kant’s practical philosophy as well as of Kant’s arguments against the moral theory of Eudaimonism, whether there really is a contradiction between the principles of moral philosophy as laid down in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the principle of promoting the happiness of another / others, as one of the basic ethical principles in the “Metaphysics of Morals”. Such a contradiction turns out to be in fact nonexistent: The Groundwork considers promoting the well-being of others as a typical case of a specific class of ethical norms; the Critique of Practical Reason, the reflections of which complete the justification of Kant’s ethical doctrine, recognizes that the principle of happiness can become an objective practical law, if it is complemented by the happiness of others. At the same time, however, it remained unclarified how it is possible to affirm and justify the ethical principle of promoting the happiness of others in the context of a doctrine that invariably rejects the naturalistic grounding of morality on the feeling of pleasure from the reality of the object of the will. Although our examination of Kant’s texts shows that the principle of promoting the good of one’s fellowman was already formulated in his ethical groundworks as legitimate within the system of practical philosophy, the question of possible ways to justify it within this system remains nevertheless open. Our hypothesis in this regard is that, the extension of the principle of happiness indicated by Kant, the ground of determination in the maxim of the person obeying to it is not the concept of an empirically determined object of one’s demand, but the concept of another human being in need, or humanity in the person of the other human being. The principle remains the same, but its basis, which was in individualistic eudaemonism empirical, becomes transcendental.

Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg (1802-1872) wrote a testimony in 1865 for a student prize essay by Hermann Cohen (1842-1918), who later became the founder of the Marburg School in philosophy. The topic was: “How philosophers have defined and executed chance and the accidental.” The prize essay, framed by a motto from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, was written in the first half of 1865 in Berlin. It has been lost but served as the basis for Cohen’s dissertation, with which he received his doctorate in Halle in the autumn of the same year. However, there he confines himself to a specific area of his subject: antiquity. Trendelenburg’s testimony is the only source on Cohen’s much broader studies regarding the question of chance. It reports significant discussions, e.g., on Democritus, Spinoza, and Kant’s fourth antinomy.

The author examines the main trends in the digitalization of religion, focusing on the processes that occur within Christianity. The article emphasizes that with the onset of the process of modernization and secularization in the 19th century, the Christian Church faced the issue of finding forms of existence in the new reality. Today, this task is still relevant and is aimed at finding the “golden mean”, that is, a solution in which it is possible to preserve the fundamental principles of Christianity without abandoning the achievements of scientific and technological progress. The author notes that the complexity of the task lies in the fact that the digitalization process is built on a special algorithmic type of thinking and a rationalistic coding language, which is opposed to a religious type of thinking with super-rational and spiritual elements. At the same time, the article analyzes how the introduction of digital technologies into religious life can transform the essential characteristics of not only the Church, but also a person. The author emphasizes that the anthropological risks of the current stage are associated precisely with an attempt to minimize the sacred element in religious life. Modern digitalization not only changes technologies, but also restructures anthropological and socio-cultural contexts. This position is substantiated in the article using criticism of information and digital progress from Orthodox anthropology. The emphasis is on the views of Sergey Horujy and Metropolitan John (Zizioulas), as well as modern theologians, sociologists of religion and church leaders. At the same time, the key risks and challenges of digital transformation are described. The author examines them in the framework of anthropological degradation, through the loss of the spiritual dimension by man and the destruction of deep aspects of human freedom and unity of personality.

This work analyzes alchemical doctrine through the lens of ideas that correlate with the theoretical constructs of transhumanism. It is shown that alchemy, a complex and contradictory cultural phenomenon that existed in various civilizations over long periods of their historical and cultural development, currently occupies a unique niche in the heritage of philosophy, chemistry, and natural science in general. The activities of a small circle of initiates striving to master “perfect knowledge” were focused on the holistic study of the entire diversity of the surrounding world: from phenomena of cosmic and biological scale to the study of the composition of inorganic matter, understanding the causes of disease, and finding ways to treat them. A deeper dive into alchemical sources reveals that the human desire to modify the surrounding world and oneself, one’s biological nature as a controlled process, has very deep historical roots. For centuries, the primary focus and cherished goal of alchemists was to bring about fundamental qualitative changes within a body or object (either inanimate or animate), its “rebirth” and transition to a new, more perfect level. From the author’s perspective, the ideological and conceptual legacy of previous eras, with its focus on understanding the laws of the universe, uncovering the secrets of life’s origins, and solving problems of human perfection, life extension, immortality, and so on, has not yet been exhausted. The alchemical tradition, an integral part of the spiritual and material history of humanity, represents an important, yet not fully understood and not fully overcome, legacy of the past, a worldview doctrine that retains its heuristic potential to this day. The study emphasizes that in the current complex and conflict-ridden historical situation, humanity, having begun to widely and actively utilize the fruits of convergent technologies, is rather carelessly immersing itself in the grip of technocratic thinking, not fully realizing the sociocultural consequences. Transhumanism, being the conceptual successor of alchemy and drawing its inspiration from contemporary creative and constructive activity, is the most radical project of postmodernism, oriented towards mastering “perfect knowledge” and concentrating all-encompassing power over nature and man in the hands of those who succeed in mastering this knowledge.

The research devoted to the studies of Merab Mamardashvili and Alexander Pyatigorsky, their philosophical approaches to understanding consciousness. M.K. Mamardashvili and A.M. Pyatigorsky first presented the “metatheory of consciousness” in the joint work “Symbol and consciousness” (completed in 1974, published in 1982). The basics of their “metatheory” are the description of the “structure of consciousness” and the search for “universal synthesizing category”. Mamardashvili and Pyatigorsky saw in consciousness universal combination of content and form, sought to substantiate consciousness as sphere of symbols and interpretations. They called the general direction of their research work “symbology” and believed that different symbol systems are formed in the process of understanding. The book “Symbol and consciousness” became the basis for further researches by Mamardashvili and Pyatigorsky. Mamardashvili preferred to focus on the relationship between consciousness and individual self, relying on Western European tradition of philosophy. In “Cartesian meditations”and “Lectures on Proust”, he developed the concept of consciousness, moving from the “metatheory of consciousness” to “real psychology”, by which he understood concrete consciousness turned to the phenomena of life. Pyatigorsky chose different research way: on the basis of “metatheory of consciousness” he developed “observational philosophy”, substantiated the concepts of “observer” and “observation”. For Pyatigorsky, observation process is impersonal, and external observer is the structure of consciousness and the object of observed thinking. Pyatigorsky created “observational philosophy”, combining phenomenology and Buddhist theory of consciousness. Mamardashvili did not abandon personality as metaphysical center of cognition and continued to develop philosophical tradition coming from R. Descartes.

The research examines the issues related to determining a strategy for the development of university education in the present and in the future. Based on the concepts of contemporary philosopher Bill Readings, the problem of the mission and idea of the modern university is discussed. In this regard, the main stages of historical development of the university education system and the university ideas relevant to each stage are given. The particular attention is paid to the role of humanities education in its structure. It is shown that teaching is now becoming increasingly important not only and not primarily for the purpose of imparting the “ready-made” knowledge, but primarily to encourage the students to think deeply and independently, while developing the ability to apply the knowledge gained in a broadly understood practical context. Another important issue is the relations between the humanities knowledge, particularly philosophical knowledge, and the real cultural requirements for it. This article presents a conception of the German philosopher Max Scheler that actualizes the principles of connection between the historically emerged forms of knowledge and education. This concept helps clarify the situation of educational development in the realities of contemporary culture and its prospects. In this context, the very idea of modernity is analyzed that, as shown, is related to the idea of relevance. Modernity is not a property of some general abstract chronology; it lies in the interaction of various independent attitudes and mutually influencing activities. The contemporary practices shall retain their original heterogeneity, conditioned both by the time of their origin and by the planes of existence implied. The myth of modernity encompasses the concepts of multi-temporality and multiple localities. Particular attention is given to the metaphysical aspect of human existence that contributes to the establishment of a person’s essential attitude to the true foundation of things in its connection with education and the humanization process of human existence, cognition, and the world.

-