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Scepsis's goal - as the title suggests - consists in counterbalancing all sorts of dogmas pervading the society (see our manifesto).

It is both fashionable and profitable nowadays to link up the idea of enlightment with imposing one's outlook, with hardcore soviet marxism and even to go as far as associating it with totalitarian ideals. Criticizing rational thinking is concidered mainstream now. It is good enough for those inventing "myths for the poor" (e.g. the ancient trinity familiar to the Russians, namely "Christianity, Autocracy and National Character") and for those sticking to more "sophisticated" postmodern variations of rationality. It is only a trained sceptical mind, accustomed to thinking critically, that can oppose them.

Therefore you will find both authentic theoretical articles and acute publicistic texts in the "Scepsis" quarterly.

The main topics of the first issue are as follows:

  • the crisis of humanitarian knowledge and possible ways of solving the problem
  • atheist view on religious propaganda and the support it finds with the government
  • ways of diagnosing 'mental decay' in Russian education and some methods of curing it
  • globalization and the problems it engenders in Russia

"Scepsis" takes pains to translate the works by famous foreign authors, which the Russian reader has not had the opportunity to get acquainted with so far and which are unlikely to be published in translation at the moment. Thus, the published issues already on sale contain articles by the brilliant philosopher Bertrand Russell and the prominent Darwinist Richard Dawkins. Now we are planning to publish Immanuel Wallerstein's analytical accounts of the war in Iraq and "antiglobalistic" articles by Noam Chomsky and Slavoj Zizek.

Among our authors you will find world-famous researchers and famous journalists, but first and foremost young scholars, aspiring authors and even students. Therefore it is first above all the youth, unwilling to plunge into apathy and indifference, that we expect to become our principal audience.

The quarterly is published by a group of young scholars, who do not find themselves under the auspice of any political parties, or any local or foreign trusts, and who therefore are independent in their scientific research and the expression of their opinion.

News

Open letter to the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir V. Putin from the Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences

This translated piece opens a series on the current events in Russian society, politics and culture. In June 2007, ten scientists, all members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, including Nobel Prize winners Zhores Alferov and Vitaly Ginzburg addressed the Russian President Vladimir Putin in an open letter demanding an end to the ever-increasing clericalization of Russian society, education and science. [Read]
February 2008

The Manifesto of the Journal «Scepsis»

Our modern society is shot through with myths from ancient ideologies. Thus critique of rationalism is considered to be good form. This is done both by those who try to impose the myths «for the poor» (e.g., ancient trinity of «Orthodoxy Absolutism National ethos») and those who adhere to more «enlightened» post-modernist versions of irrationalism, according to which «anything goes». Only trained critical thinking, i.e. sceptical thinking, can hinder confusion and chaos and then only to a limited extent. [Read]
July 2007