Philosophy of war: forming a modern discourse

Abstract

Introduction. The armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which is fully supported by the so- called collective West, has brought the world to the brink of a global war. There has not been such a large-scale military confrontation in Europe since the Second World War. At the same time, it is not clear to what extent the escalation of the conflict is justified, where is the line beyond which none of the parties will not only be able to achieve military- political goals, but also catastrophic consequences will arise on a continental, and even global scale. It is not surprising that war as a social phenomenon has now moved to the epicenter of scientific inter- est in various disciplines — from narrow military experts to philosophers, who are expected to make assessments, forecasts, and recommendations for political elites and the entire world community. The purpose of the study is to characterize the modern philosophical discourse about the war, to identify the main trends in its change. Methods. Within the framework of the system ap- proach, we consider war as a complex, multi-level, open system that is in deep interaction and mutual influence with the external environment (political, economic, social, ideological, scientific and techno- logical, etc.). We use structural-functional analysis, as well as general scientific methods: abstraction, comparison, description and explanation. Scientific novelty of the study. The authors give characteristic of the philosophical discourse of war, and consider its main variants. Results. New means of armed violence, as well as methods and mechanisms for inflicting economic, political and psychological damage on the enemy, are making significant changes to the content of modern wars. In scientific and popular literature, the concepts of “information warfare”, “psycho- logical warfare”, “new cold war”, “proxy war”, “and cyber war” are increasingly used. We have considered the correlation of their content with the content of the category “war”, which is basic for the philosophical doctrine of war and the army. The philosophical discourse on war is undergoing inevitable changes. This is connected not only with the development of the categorical apparatus, but also with clarifying the boundaries of the discursive field — the expansion of areas for understanding the processes taking place in the military, military- political, military-economic, military-social and military-ideological areas. Results. War as a social phenomenon still requires its philosophical understanding, primarily in con- nection with the changes that are taking place in the military and related fields. At the same time, the philosophical heritage in this area should not be discarded as overcome by a new discourse, but developed taking into account modern economic, political, technological and cultural realities. At the same time, it is not possible to form a universal philosophical discourse about the war. This would be contrary to the essence of philosophy as a sphere of free search for truth.