Institute of Philosophy as a State Organization and Social Institution

Abstract

The article examines the 100-year history of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IF) as a state organization and a special social institution. It traces the history of systematization of philosophical knowledge in an encyclopedic form: the initial plan (early 1920s) of G.G. Shpet to focus ef­forts on the question “What is philosophy?”; the project of the historical study of philosophy in the light of materialistic dialectics as its pinnacle (1928–1930); a partly realized plan (late 1930 – early 1940) of writing a 7-volume world his­tory of philosophy; “Philosophical Encyclopedia” in 5 volumes (1960–1970); “New Philosophical Encyclopedia” (2000–2001) in 4 volumes. The article shows the contradictory interaction of the tasks of the study of philosophy and its
development. In the history of IF, the following stages are highlighted: the dog­matism of 1930–1940, the humanistic turn of the mid-1950s, rejection of the mo­nopoly of Marxist philosophy, pluralism of post-Soviet philosophy. The contem­porary situation has put into question the traditional beliefs what a human being is. The challenges from the brain and cognitive sciences highlight a new under­standing of consciousness and reason, which creates a common field of research for the IF and exciting creative perspectives for its staff