On the historical, civilizational and cultural role of philosophy in the modern world: Russia and Europe

When considering the relationship of history and cultural and civilizational processes with philosophy, a typology of two types of philosophy is proposed. More precisely, there are two types of philosophy of justice – “equivalence” and “qualification”. The first, unfortunately, is the most common in politics, especially European, Euro-Atlantic or rather Western, is one of the most significant causes of crises and wars, both in history and in modern times. It is the equivalence that, in fact, is synonymous with blood feud (talion), in which retribution becomes equivalent to a crime. In this case, each of the conflicting parties acts as a subject of law and considers itself an injured party. At the same time, one of the parties (as can be seen from the example of Europe when studying its history, especially the last 500 years of colonial history) considers itself to be the only source of rulemaking in the contractual coordinate system. Which in fact leads, without any exceptions, in the history and, most importantly, in the present, to the multiplication of conflicts and the rejection of peace negotiations in principle. Both the past and the present of the political, historical, civilizational, and cultural development of mankind testify to this. This is the philosophy of political solipsism. The qualification, or as it is called in Roman law – “humane justice in favor of freedom”, is more appropriate, as the experience of history in general and the historical development of Russia, in particular, with its multinational composition of statehood, which has preserved about 190 nations and nationalities during its centuries-old development, proceeds from the fact that the norm is not relative and it is not conventional, but has apodictic characteristic and it involves a long process of public-legal coordination of representative databases in the form of various socio-political relations (including conflict ones) in their correlation with the interests of conflicting subjects. And norms, the recognition of the universality and necessity of which on the part of the contracting parties is an indispensable condition for overcoming any crisis. This is the philosophy of political symphonism and synergy. When comparing the relationship between philosophy and history, philosophy and culture, it should be born in mind that it (philosophy) primarily carries the educational function, and at the same time the function of strategic planning, but not a predictive function. Otherwise, we get what can be called “parallel” or, as they say now, “block thinking”, unable to distinguish in the long term, medium-term, and even in the short term, the true and false types of progress, with all their consequences in the history of cultures and civilizations. Or what could be recognized as political solipsism, incapable of any interaction of cultures and negotiation processes in domestic affairs and international relations.