Abstract: This article is dedicated to examination of the nature of philosophy. The author juxtaposes the common within the former USSR definitions of philosophy as a type of worldview or a specific science with his own definition of philosophy as an autonomous meta-rational discipline, which subject is the detection and research of the universal and antecedent bounds of knowledge. The major difference of the proposed concept of philosophy is the negative transcendentalism – an appeal to the conceivable absoluteness and universality of the bounds of mind, such as the Gödel's incompleteness theorems of any formal system, in the conditions of an evident inconceivability of the absolute truth and crisis of classical rationality, based on the free from value dimension objectivism and the idea of absolute justification. At the same time, the author questions if there is a way to compile a list of threshold questions, as well as how to make certain of its boundedness. Although  the author does not come to an unequivocal conclusion, the reasons about such potential feature of boundedness as a need for exceeding the bounds of present discourse into a richer logics, meta-discourse for the final solution of a question. To illustrate his position, the author refers to the so-called “hard problem" of consciousness” posed by D. Chalmers, as well as briefly discusses the “transcendental naturalism” of C. McGinn.

Abstract: This article examines Kant’s ethics through the prism of general philosophical idea of meta-subjectivity, the most basic theoretical foundation for which is the embarked by Kant in the “Critique of Pure Reason” substantiation of the principles of critical rationalism. The author demonstrates how the idea of meta-subject (transcendental subject), introduced by Kant in the theory of cognition, affects his interpretation of a number of fundamental traditional concepts of ethics, such as “moral subject”, “freedom of will”, and especially “autonomy”. It turns out that the concept of autonomy and its interpretation by Kant is associated with a number of emanating problems, particularly the problem of moral evil and problem of responsibility, “authorship” of the doings. Methodology of the research leans directly on Kant’s texts with fairly loose interpretation, as well as comparative research of the key sources of Kant studies with regards to autonomy. The article allows tracing the conceptual link between Kant’s transcendentalism and other related philosophical teachings, all the way from Upanishads in Antiquity until the contemporary “open individualism” of D. Kolak, as well as the concepts in spirit of the “integral approach” of K. Wilber.

Abstract: The relevance of this article is substantiated by the popularity of thought experiment as one of the key methods of modern philosophy. The author examines the differences between the thought and empirical experiments. It is demonstrated that the role of thought experiment is far from being reduced to the study of theories of internal consistency, but rather that it can be presented as an independent, primarily, critical method of philosophical analysis, as well as a mediator between the intuitions of common sense and abstract theoretical constructs. Based on this, the author underlines the role of thought experiment as an important tool for examination of the limits of rationality itself, as well as formulation of the “complex issues” of philosophy. The article also reviews the various strategies of application of thought experiment in the normative ethical discussions – on the example of theories and thought experiments of Nozick, D. Thompson, and others. At the same time, the author notes the closeness of the thought experiment in its narrative-metaphoric form to fiction, which has already gained the status of an interpreter of the philosophical and normative-ethical theories onto the figurative language of intuition.

Abstract: This article reviews and critically analyzes the popular among some contemporary scholars and philosophers point of view, according to which fiction lacks any knowledgeable function, and thus, only “the serious” scientific and scientific-popular literature is able to answer the “eternal questions”. Polemicizing with the similar scientist approach, the author refers to the rational critical metaphilosophy, within the framework of which the “eternal questions” pertain to pursuit of philosophy rather than science. The work substantial the problem-dynamic understanding of philosophy as the core of critical rationality, and therefore – metatheoretical core of the science itself. From such metaphilosophical perspective, the author examines the works of F. M. Klinger and F. M. Dostoyevsky, proving the possibility of existence of a specific literary-philosophical method, which is the most relevant for the analysis of ethical issues. Based on the C. McGinn’s opinion, the author justifies the point of view, according to which, fiction is able to perform the role of mental laboratory in philosophy. In reference to the certain most complicated for the philosophical analysis problems, fiction possesses even richer and more suitable range of methods for understanding of these issues.

Abstract: This article is dedicated to the determination of methodological ground for comparative research of the ethics of Kant and Dostoyevsky. The researchers of Dostoyevsky creative works have not yet come to a consensus on the question of whether or not Dostoyevsky was familiar with Kant’s philosophy, at least in general. The author carries out an analysis of a broad circle of literature on the topic “Dostoyevsky and Kant”, as well as reconstruction of the concepts of a few thinkers, who could affect Kant and Dostoyevsky, as well as contribute to the introduction of Dostoyevsky to Kant’s philosophy. The work substantial the thesis about the formulation of a peculiar philosophical-literary method by Dostoyevsky for cognition of ethical phenomena, which makes possible the reconstruction of Dostoyevsky’s philosophy based on his compositions, and thus, direct comparison of Dostoyevsky’s ethics with Kant’s ethics. The author also supports and explains the idea of N. N. Vilmont that Dostoyevsky was familiar with the fundamental ideas of Kant’s philosophy through F. Schiller. In conclusion, the author underlines that Kant’s ethics and Dostoyevsky’s ethical philosophy had at least one common source of influence consisted in the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. All of these together allows making a conclusion about the methodological substantiation of comparative analysis of the ethics of Kant and Dostoyevsky.

Abstract: The author of the article analyzes Kant's ethical theory in its communication with methodological aspects of his general philosophy and its central problem, definition of concept and bounds of reason. According to Kant, ethics are the highest form of philosophy. At the heart of the Copernican revolution made in philosophy by Kant there is not the constructivism introduction in the knowledge theory but bringing of the good (good will) to the level of the only absolute lies not so much. Thus the chronology of works of Kant does not always coincides with internal logic of movement of its philosophy: from the moral law to the star sky, i.e. from Criticism of practical reason to Criticism of pure reason. The idea of freedom as identities of will and good is necessary Kant as the valuable matrix defining his constructivism in the theory of knowledge. Kant considered idea of freedom as the main postulate of practical reason, so and its main limit. Thus freedom is understood by it as an exit out of limits of the empirical subject and coincidence to the transcendental subject of morals. Kant's this approach corresponds to crisis of rationality of the middle of the XX century when after Einstein, Bohr and Gedel's major opening the confidence of opportunities of human reason to learn an objective truth was shaken.