The study of intellectual procedures by which objects of knowledge are created has a long history. But in the field of the study of ancient history, this kind of research is relatively weak. In this article, I would like to fill this gap to some extent by considering two concepts of the" ancient East " proposed in the Russian historiographic tradition by B. A. Turaev and V. V. Struve.

This research is carried out within the framework of a constructivist research program that goes back to Kantian critical philosophy. According to Kant, "... we cannot imagine anything connected in an object that we have not previously connected ourselves... " [KrV, P.130]. The basic operation of cognition is synthesis, i.e. "the joining of various representations to each other and the understanding of their diversity in a single act of cognition", and it "is exclusively the action of the faculty of imagination, a blind, though necessary function of the soul" [KrV, B 103]. Thus, the analysis of the constructions of Russian historians is based on the assumption that the object created by them, namely the ancient East, is the result of a synthesis of a diverse set of intuitions, a synthesis carried out through the categories of reason and ideas of reason. It is therefore assumed a priori that intuitions alone are not sufficient for cognition: "Without sensibility, no object would be given to us, and without reason, no one could think. Thoughts without content are empty, contemplations without concepts are blind" [KrV, P. 75]. In the activity of historians, contemplations are sources containing very diverse information, and the works of other historians, predecessors and contemporaries. This work is based on texts created in the Russian historiographical tradition, which makes it possible to test it empirically. Its purpose is to establish the ways in which the ancient East is created as an object of knowledge, as well as to determine its logical status.1
Let's start with the constructions of B. A. Turaev. He writes: "The history of the ancient East is the first chapter of the history of mankind, the history of civilizations that genetically preceded Hellenism and Christianity" [Turaev, 1935, vol. 1, p. 1]. It follows that there was no human history prior to the "history of the ancient East", which is confirmed by B. A. Turaev's reference to the existence of "prehistoric cultures" [1935, vol.1, p. 27]. These ideas go back to G. W. F. Hegel [See, for example: Hegel, 2000]. B. A. Turaev's statement suggests the idea of humanity as a single subject of history, therefore, history itself is possible only in the form of a universal (Weltgeschichte). Further, this story characterizes-

1 For the full version of the article containing a study of the theories of I. M. Diakonov, V. A. Yakobson, and L. S. Vasiliev, see: [Zakharov, 2007, pp. 161-190].

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This is done by likening it to a book that includes a number of chapters (from a literary point of view - metaphorically), while the "ancient East" is only the first of them and has already been completed [Turaev, 1935, vol.1, pp. 3-4]. This leads to the idea that world history is a stage process and that not all communities of people participated in it. But since world history includes a number of "chapters" (stages, stages), its subject undergoes changes (since otherwise these stages could not be distinguished from each other). Change can be conceived only in the presence of a subject, at least two states of which must be fixed: the initial and final, time, due to which two different states are predicted to one subject, and an observer who, being in the third time position, will fix the subject of change in at least two of its states [KrV, B 48-49, 149, 230; Danto, 1965, p. 235-236; Zakharov, 2005]2. Consequently, the representation of the ancient East is possible through such an a priori form of contemplation as time. Only by thinking of time as a line can we connect a quantitative characteristic - "the first chapter" is of high quality, as it deals with the history of mankind and the "ancient East". It is important to note that there is not a single Old Eastern text that contains this predicate ("Old Eastern") as its characteristic. It is historians who refer certain contemplations and reconstructed phenomena to a particular time period.

We will quote one of the paragraphs of the Introduction in order to compare it with the above definition of the history of the ancient East and a number of other statements:

"The term "East", which we apply to the countries that developed the beginning of a world-historical civilization, is a legacy of the Roman time and the cultural duality in which the Romanized West was opposed to the Hellenistic East. At first, for the Romans, the "East" was all beyond Illyria... However, the heterogeneity of this "East" was recognized and expressed by its population... in the reactions against Hellenism. Already the Dio-Cletiano-Constantinovo prefecture "Oriens" embraces only Egypt and the Near-Asian provinces of the empire... The Oriens diocese is already limited to Syria. Thus, our term is of Greco-Roman origin, but for classical peoples it was more geographical than cultural and historical. For us, the situation is different. On the one hand, our civilization has taken over an area immeasurably larger than the classical one, and has penetrated into countries for which the areas of ancient civilizations can by no means be called Eastern, on the other - and the Ancient Eastern culture had its spread in the west and in the south and... Thus, it made the "ancient East" a conditional cultural and historical term for the countries of ancient civilizations that arose to the east of Greece and immediately chronologically and spiritually preceded the Greco-Roman one " [Turaev, 1935, vol.1, p. 2].

By analyzing these lines, a number of observations can be made. First, it is pointed out here that "ancient East" is a conditional term, which means that the characterization of the elements contained under it as "the first chapter of world history" is problematic. However, B. A. Turaev elsewhere in the monograph defines the " ancient East "as" an area of culture that originated in subtropical countries adjacent to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and spread to India, the Atlantic Ocean and tropical Africa. It was separated from the Far Eastern civilizations by an impassable wall of the Hindu Kush and Solomon Mountains " (Turaev, 1935, vol. 1, p. 59). Here we are already talking about the" area of culture "in the singular, but then why earlier B. A. Turaev attributed the term" ancient East " to a conditional character? Since he repeatedly uses the expressions "Ancient Eastern world" and "ancient world".-

2 Why the observer should be in the third (logically) temporal position is explained by the fact that the idea of two states of the subject of change, which keeps them in the same self-consciousness (so that they can be distinguished), clearly cannot be identical with these states.

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non-eastern culture" as a whole [Turaev, 1935, vol. I, p. 61, 121; vol. II, p. 56, 201], insofar as it is possible to draw a conclusion about the contradiction in the definitions given to the object of study.

One of B. A. Turaev's comments makes "ancient East" the name of an independent historical agent: "The ancient East has long been accustomed to the mixing of races and foreign dominions" (Turaev, 1935, vol.II, p. 206). And three other statements by B. A. Turaev finally convince us that the definitions given to the "ancient East "are contradictory in the above sense:"...the history of the ancient East is the only example of a completely completed historical life of peoples who, for the most part, have completely disappeared from the historical scene... Representing a complete whole, the history of the ancient East should be of particular interest to researchers... If in the last century it was hardly possible to insist on the isolation of ancient Eastern civilizations, even if only in view of the Assyrian conquests, now new discoveries have completely refuted it, and we have large data that allow us to see in the subject of interest not a complex of incoherent histories of individual countries, but really the first department of world history " [Turaev, 1935, vol. 1, pp. 3, 4, 6]. Here the integral and by no means conditional character of the object under study is emphasized with exhaustive completeness.

For B. A. Turaev, it is quite natural to talk about the "East" as such, but not so much in the geographical sense as in the "cultural and historical" sense: "For about two millennia, despite the pogroms and attempts to destroy (Sennacherib, Xerxes), despite the vicissitudes of political conditions, this city remained (Babylon. - A. Z.) the metropolis of Asia, as Alexander the Great most eloquently testified, making it the capital of a new empire designed to reconcile East and West"; " No matter how vassals were disposed towards the Pharaoh and whatever the degree of their loyalty, the expressions in which they addressed him were filled with obsequiousness, often passing over, like everything else in the East, all borders "3;" This "Kingdom of Countries", under the rule of the Persian king (Cyrus-A. Z.), was a transitional stage in the history of the East to the more centralized empire of Darius and Xerxes " [Turaev, 1935, vol. I, pp. 104, 278; vol. II, p. 118].

Of course, this use of words raises the question of the relationship between "the East in general" and "the ancient East"; complicating the problem is the presence of the "Far East", to which B. A. Turaev refers (if we proceed from the definition of "the ancient East" as a "cultural area") regions east of the Hindu Kush and the Solomon Mountains, including India. Here is one of the most important statements of B. A. Turaev: "Did the ancient and Far East have a common cultural root, or did their civilizations arise independently and flow along parallel channels? Science does not yet provide an answer to this question. The Chinese and Babylonian cultures, even the Ancient American cultures, have many analogies; direct relations between them may have existed, but the information about this is still too imperfect. We will therefore have to consider the historical destinies of the peoples among whom the elements of this civilization originated, i.e., the Egyptians, the earliest inhabitants of Shinar, and then the Semites of Babylonia and Assyria. Then there are the peoples whose culture is less independent and more or less dependent on the two preceding ones, namely: (a) the Semites of Syria, Arabia, and Phoenicia, which transplanted the Semitic population and Eastern culture to the Far West; (b) the tribes of the "Alarodian" or "Japhetic" race, which, occupying the northern regions of the ancient Eastern world It was divided into separate ethnic groups: Hittites, Mitanni, Chaldians; c) Elamites, a non-Semitic and non-Aryan people; d) the Negro-Nubian population of the Meroite kingdom; and finally, e) the oldest representatives of the ancient world.-

1 Here, B. A. Turaev describes the relationship between the pharaohs of the XVIII dynasty and their Asian vassals-the rulers of various regions subordinate to the Egyptian power in Asia.

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whether there is an Ario-European element, especially the Medes and Persians, to whom belongs the completion of the unification of most of the Ancient Eastern world into one properly organized empire " [Turaev, 1935, vol. I, pp. 2-3].

The most interesting thing about this quote is that the ancient East as a single civilization (the fact that B. A. Turaev preferred this interpretation, in the light of the textual data given above, is hardly doubtful) is characterized by listing its elements, and not by indicating the common features that all members of the class share. This is an extensional way of forming a logical class [Kassirer, 2002, vol. 3, pp. 240-241; Russell, 1903] 4. Consequently, the class "ancient East" is constructed by B. A. Turaev using two different methods. To the extent that he considers it a single object, which is expressed by the definitions of "cultural area", "civilization" and especially "the first chapter of the history of mankind" and "the first section of world history", he uses an intensive method of forming a logical class: he sets as a condition a common feature that all members of the class must satisfy [Russell, 1903, vol. I, chapter 6, sec 71; cit. by: Kassirer, 2002, vol. 3, p. 240]. Since B. A. Turaev's monograph does not contain a list of general essential features of what can be called "Ancient Eastern society"5, we will try to find its attributes.

Let's start by analyzing the phrase "ancient East" itself. It can only be decomposed into two components. First, the term "ancient" refers to the time line on which the researcher projects the manifold. This diversity (Sumer, Egypt, the Hittite Kingdom; or "The Laws of Hammurabi", "The Tale of Sinuhet", "The Epic of Keret", etc.) is connected by the imagination in a holistic view that has a temporal structure. The second reference is geographical, or rather spatial. The imaginary ancient East has not only a temporal, but also a spatial characteristic. Let us recall "the area of culture that originated in the subtropical countries adjacent to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and spread to India, the Atlantic Ocean and tropical Africa." They may object: why

4 Apparently, it should be clarified that a class in B. Russell's logic was called an aggregate of elements, and in modern logic this term denotes a finite or infinite set of objects distinguished by some feature, thought of as a whole. According to Kant, " every concept... it is necessary to think as a representation that is contained in an infinite set of different possible representations (as their common feature), so they are subordinate to it... "[KrV, P. 40]. He sees the concept as a "unity of rule "that" defines all the manifold and restricts it to the conditions that make possible the unity of apperception... the concept in its form is always something general, serving as a rule " [KrV, A 105-106]. He goes on to say that "the idea of a universal condition according to which a manifold can be posited (i.e., in the same way) is called a rule; it is called a law if, according to it, the manifold must be posited" (KrV, A 113). Thus, the concept is the unity of the representation of the universal condition according to which any manifold can be posited. This approach allows, in my opinion, to solve the problem of verbs, which, being general representations in the sense that they are thought of as a connection (relation) between objects assumed as entities, should find their expression in logic. B. Russell was one of those who used the term non-particular to denote everything. "universal", and he also referred to them as prepositions, as well as their combinations with nouns, for example," north of " [for more information, see: Russell, 2000, p. 222 sl.] Whatever term we use, it suggests that the concept is not identical to a class, a class can be considered as a class. only one of its varieties.

5 An outstanding Egyptologist urged "to be extremely careful about general conclusions, broad generalizations and beautiful hypotheses in the field of Ancient Eastern history", and "we can hardly talk about the general characteristics of cultures (for example, the notorious: immobility, theocracy, despotism, etc.), which had a history of several millennia, which undoubtedly passed through different stages of development and moreover belonging to the peoples of the most diverse races" [Turaev, 1935, vol. 1, p. 6].

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imaginary? This can be answered by pointing out that no ancient society (and not only it) is given directly. They may argue with this, but it will not be very convincing. When reading the Bible, for example, I see letters that I connect into words, words into sentences, and the Bible as a whole narrative exists only insofar as what I read earlier is retained in my imagination [KrV, A 98 - 114]. Returning to the analysis of the "ancient East", we can assume that it is analytically impossible to prove the necessity of combining all the elements into one class. What arguments can be given in favor of this hypothesis? Apparently, a strong argument will be to indicate that the boundaries of the created class are conditional (as B. A. Turaev himself noted). Why not include ancient India and China, for example? Or remove Carthage?

"Different answers were given to the question of the chronological limits of the history of the ancient East. Some believe that it ends where the cultural primacy passes to the Greeks, that is, at the time of the development of Hellenic civilization, which coincided with the era after the collision of the Hellenic world with the united Eastern one in the person of the Persian monarchy... But considered in itself, the history of the Eastern countries even after the Persian conquest reveals the same character and phenomena as before: national cultures continue not only to live, but also to develop, political life has not died and is often revived. The borderline that left more visible traces in their destinies and started a new era in their history was the conquests of Alexander the Great and the systematic spread of Hellenism, which turned the East from ancient to Hellenistic. But even this revolution, which reinforced new elements on the basis of ancient culture, did not destroy this very culture... The peoples of the ancient East, for the most part, adopted Christianity early, but even here they did not completely break with their past, which recalls itself now in superstition, now in the direction of literature, now in the nature of theological thinking, starting with Gnosticism. The Muslim conquest, the conversion of many descendants of native speakers of Ancient Eastern civilizations to Islam, the dominance of Arab culture, and finally the complete oblivion of native languages and cultural alienation from the Western world led to the fact that Ancient Eastern civilizations were finally lost to the historian... Thus, the Arab conquest was the final limit of the ancient East, but the Christianization of the latter can also be considered the end of it, since the new religion could not fail to make significant changes in the life and worldview of peoples for whom religion was the main and basic element of culture. Hence, in science, the Ancient, Christian, and Muslim Orient is distinguished; the ancient One has recently been aptly referred to as the classical One " (Turaev, 1935, vol. I, p. 3; see also Maspero, 1911; Maspero, 1895-1908).

This long quote shows that B. A. Turaev was aware of the difficulties that arise from any periodization. However, he completely ignores the question of the criteria for distinguishing the "ancient East": it is impossible to consider as such a reference to religion, since neither the term" ancient "nor the term" classical " contain anything specifically religious. In addition, the text of B. A. Turaev's monograph includes the history of Iran under the Sassanids (III-VII centuries AD), whose state cannot be considered Christian for any reason. This is known to the historian: he writes about the declaration of Zoroastrianism by the Sasanians as the state religion and about the return of Sasanian art and architecture to the "Ancient Eastern basis" [Turaev, 1935, vol. II, pp. 284, 287]. Another ambiguity: pointing out the possibility of distinguishing the "Christian East" along with the ancient and Muslim ones, B. A. Turaev did not explain the reasons for excluding the "Hellenistic East"from the periodization. Thus, we can conclude that the periodization proposed by B. A. Turaev is characterized by contradictions and that it is generally arbitrary. It is also not an exaggeration to say that the concept of "East in general" is unclear. Here the greatest difficulties arise from the need, which was not realized by B. A. Turaev himself, to coordinate his proposed allocation of the "ancient, Christian and Muslim East" with the su known to him.-

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There is no "Far East", which, being characterized as "East", should have something in common with other classification units.

So is there a common feature in the constructions of B. A. Turaev that is inherent in all elements of the "ancient East" class? The answer, I think, lies on the surface: "the ancient East" is "the first division of world history", "the first chapter of the history of mankind". It is this quality that is an attribute of this class, its concept. But since we were not able to analytically detect this feature in the elements of the class considered by themselves, and in its (class) Hence, it is necessary to conclude that the "ancient East" is a regulative, but not a constitutive principle, i.e., some empirical material is organized through it. In other words, this concept goes beyond experience, although it belongs to it. One may even doubt that this is precisely the concept, i.e., the " general idea "in Kant's interpretation, but there are apparently no sufficient grounds for this, as evidenced by the fact that the" ancient East " was constructed by B. A. Turaev as the totality of a space-time fragment of reality. It is a totality, because we are talking about the "first division of world history", and it is a space-time fragment, because it is delimited from other phenomena, even if arbitrarily.

It should be explained why the "ancient East" is a regulatory principle, or idea of reason. It has already been noted above that this is the first section (the first chapter) of world history, the subject of which is humanity. It was also pointed out that B. A. Turaev did not include the "Far East" in his constructions, apparently believing that the space-time phenomena united by this term do not belong to world history. He interpreted the latter from a Christian point of view, which is proved by the text of his monograph: "The Bible, many centuries before the Greeks (Pseudo-Aristotle), proclaimed the idea of the unity of humanity and even created a chronological scheme for this world-historical concept..."; "...the Jewish people were perhaps ahead of their more cultured neighbors, not only maturing to the idea of the unity of humanity, but also to classify it according to the genealogical table, the famous genealogy of peoples in the tenth chapter of Genesis"; "In the era we are interested in (the last centuries B.C. - the first centuries A.D. - A3.), Judaism fulfilled its world mission: "out of Zion came the law" for all mankind " [Turaev, 1935, vol. I. p. 4, 64; vol. II, p. 276].

B. A. Turaev considered world history as progress [1935, vol. I. p. 147]. But, first of all, humanity cannot be given in contemplation, since it encompasses all representatives of the species homo sapiens, both the living, the dead, and the future. It cannot be deduced from experience, because it is not identical with a biological species: its essence does not consist in a set of biological characteristics, but consists in activity, the objects of which are not only external objects, but also itself (this is, in fact, the Hegelian concept of spirit). Consequently, humanity is not an empirical concept in its origin. So it's an idea of the mind. Secondly, progress also cannot be justified by experience if we apply this concept to humanity and its history as a whole. The concept of "human progress" requires such a unity of all the conditions included in it, which relate to all aspects of the activity of the subject of world history, which no experience can ever provide. After all, if we say that humanity is progressing in one direction and regressing or standing still in another, then the synthesis of these statements will refute the general statement about the progress of humanity as a whole. Empirically, we can state progress in the sphere of material culture, but it is extremely difficult to use this concept in relation to all other spheres. Consequently, the progress of mankind is also an idea of reason, by means of which empirical material is organized (it de facto obeys the scheme set a priori according to the postulate of practical reason). Therefore, the "ancient East", which is the "first chapter of world history", is the first / initial stage of the progress of the human race.-

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according to B. A. Turaev, the idea of humanity, and the idea of reason, according to our study of its logical status.

Thus, a review of the monograph by B. A. Turaev suggests that the construction of the concepts of historiography is connected with time and space as a priori forms of contemplation6 and that the "ancient East" turned out to be an idea of reason, at least in this concept, and not an empirical concept at all.

Next, we examine the theoretical views of V. V. Struve, who for forty years was the leading Soviet orientalist and historian of " Antiquity "-from the mid-1920s to the mid-1960s.We would like to analyze his" History of the Ancient East " (Struve, 1941). Attention to this particular text is due to the fact that it is one of the few books devoted to the "ancient East" in general, written in the main part by one author and therefore provides an opportunity to consider the relationship between general provisions and empirical descriptions.

V. V. Struve writes::

"The history of the ancient East is the history of the oldest class societies. It covers the history of numerous peoples and tribes that inhabited a vast territory from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the Aegean Sea to the Great Ocean for several millennia - from the emergence of class society in the middle of the fifth millennium to the end of the sixth century BC.Thus, both the geographical and chronological framework of the history of the ancient East is extremely wide. The very concept of the " ancient East "is conditional; after all, most of the" eastern " states lie, for example, in relation to the USSR, not to the east, but to the south. The term we use to define "eastern" countries dates back to ancient times, when these countries were provinces of the Roman Empire and really lay to the east of Rome. Despite the conventionality of the term, we can call the countries under study Eastern, but we must not forget that there is no gulf between the "west" and "east" [Struve, 1941, p.3].

At the same time V. V. Struve gives a different interpretation:

"The history of the ancient East is the history of numerous tribes, peoples, and states that have appeared and disappeared from the arena of history. The ancient East encompasses a vast territory inhabited by the most ancient peoples" [Struve, 1941, p. 8].

First of all, it should be noted that the statement "The history of the ancient East is the history of the oldest class societies" is an essential definition: in fact, there can be no other oldest class societies, or, more precisely, according to it, all the oldest class societies can belong only to the logical class "ancient East". Thus, the general attribute of the class is immediately set, and therefore, we are dealing with an intensive method of its formation. But then V. V. Struve begins to list the elements included in this class, without yet naming them more specifically, and thereby prepares the transition to the extensional method. It can also be argued that highlighting the attribute of the "ancient East" class contradicts the thesis about the conventionality of this "concept" (Sic!). At the same time, it is not entirely clear how to reconcile the statements quoted above with each other: after all, if "the history of the ancient East is the history of the oldest class societies", then all the "tribes, peoples, states" included in it must be class-based. At the same time, these statements immediately reveal a projection on a single time line and geographical parameters of the object being constructed, which again confirms the fundamental importance of a priori forms of contemplation.

6 This is, of course, Kant's idea, and I have only tried to apply it to specific historiographical phenomena.

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The territory that V. V. Struve refers to as the" ancient East "in his constructions unites peoples, tribes and states through its characterization as the" arena of history", and this is an obvious metaphor. Thus, various formations (class societies, etc.) are "actors" on this stage. But since they are not given in the name "ancient East", V. V. Struve is forced to list them (although not all of them-others will appear in the manual), and therefore, go to the extensional method of forming a logical class.:

"The most significant of them (countries - A. Z.) were the states that emerged in Mesopotamia, in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers: Sumer and Akkad, then Babylonia and Assyria. In their immediate neighborhood to the east lay the states of Elam, Media, and Persia, and to the north of Assyria, in the Armenian highlands, the state of Urartu... On the peninsula of Asia Minor... there was a Hittite state. To the south of the Asia Minor Peninsula, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, there are numerous commercial cities of Phoenicia, to the east of them, closer to the Euphrates, - the cities of Syria, and to the south of Phoenicia - the states of Palestine: Israel, Judah, Moab and others. To the east of the Iranian plateau, along the valleys of the Indus and Ganges rivers, on the Hindustan peninsula, lay the ancient states of India, and on the shores of the Great Ocean, along the Huang-he and Yangtze-jiang valleys, the state of China arose. The only state of the ancient East located in Africa was Egypt... " [Struve, 1941, p. 3].

It is easy to see that the states listed by V. V. Struve are combined conditionally, which, however, is natural for a class, the elements (but not the content!)of the state are combined conditionally. In fact, the relations of India and China with other countries appeared later than the states in Mesopotamia and Egypt, which were in the strict sense of the word "oldest"; and Israel and the Kingdom of Judah were short-lived (for example, in comparison with Assyria and especially Egypt) historical figures. V. Struve explains the inclusion of India and China in the class "ancient East" by the fact that they "contributed their share to the treasury of universal culture" and were class [Struve, 1941, p. 4, 5]. For the analysis I have undertaken, the idea of a "universal culture"is primarily important in this argument.

What is the criterion for judging whether a certain phenomenon is part of universal culture? V. V. Struve does not answer this question and, moreover, does not ask it at all (in this, however, he is not alone). I do not presume to judge this criterion, but I would like to emphasize that the idea of universal culture is logically connected with the idea of humanity. Since the latter is only a regulative principle, empirically we cannot avoid making arbitrary judgments when substituting phenomena for it. Indeed, let's say that India and China have contributed to this culture. Is this a sufficient reason to assign them to the logical class "ancient East"? It seems that this is not enough, since no one can prove that, firstly, the ancient polities of Vietnam, which appeared in the IV century BC, do not deserve a place in the domain of universal culture, although V. V. Struve does not consider them; and secondly, a significant number of nomadic peoples, such as the Scythians, also apply to humanity (if we proceed, as V. V. Struve does, from the theory of historical materialism, according to which humanity and the specieshomo sapiens coincide in their volumes), therefore, they also contributed to this culture. In any case, it is clear that without a clear criterion, we cannot use the concept of universal culture.

Apparently, this thesis needs additional argumentation. For lack of space, I will limit myself to a few arguments. So, it is known that the term "culture "already has more than a thousand definitions, which significantly complicates its application without reservations: it is already close to being a semantic void, connoting both associations of people and ways of their behavior, both individual artifacts and the conceivable"kingdom of values". So any talk about a " cult-

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re " and its relation to any other concept requires clarification of the initial assumptions. Thinking about the use of this word in the language convinced me that it means, on the one hand, something that exists (in this sense, they say about Russian culture or about the culture of agricultural labor), and on the other - something due (then we are talking about a cultured person, cultural values). It is rather difficult to combine what is due and what is within the same interpretation. Therefore, I will focus on the interpretation of culture as a socially significant experience [Semenov, 1999, p. 32], although I should note that in this case there is a problem of "experience", which cannot be considered here.

If culture is a socially significant experience, then universal culture is an experience that is significant for all of humanity. If we assume that humanity embraces the dead, the living, and the future, then how can we find some experience that is meaningful to them all? And what's more, how do we perform an empirical check of any position attributed to this experience? Even "universal values", such as the right to life, cannot be verified, as there are always counterexamples. Thus, if we define the slave as an "instrumentum vocale" and, consequently, consider him as a thing, then it is extremely problematic to talk about this right in relation to him: as a thing, it is a passive principle that is entirely subordinate to the master. Any contract killing can also be used as evidence that in the society where it took place, at least some of its members do not share this value. Therefore, it can be argued that universal culture, universal values are only regulatory, and not constitutive principles, the application of which, if possible, is only from the point of view of practical reason.

Returning to V. V. Struve, we note that he still admits the existence of the "ancient East" as a whole, which is confirmed by the mention of the "Ancient Eastern society": "From this moment (the end of the third millennium BC - A. Z.), the period of flourishing of the Phoenician cities, which turned out to be located in the very center of trade routes, begins. Asia and the entire Ancient Eastern society" [Struve, 1941, p. 270]. V. V. Struve uses other terms referring to this integral formation: "It was a large trading state (New Assyrian Empire . - A. Z.trade routes now covered the entire Ancient Eastern world"; "It was not for nothing that Ancient Eastern societies were called bureaucratic monarchies" (Struve, 1941, p.336, 182). In addition, V. V. Struve identifies common features of "Ancient Eastern societies". But before proceeding to their consideration, it is necessary to point out one obvious logical error - the construction of the chronology of the "ancient East". In the first definition given above, V. V. Struve dated the end of the history of the "ancient East" to the end of the sixth century B.C. How then can we explain that the last chapter of the book "Organization of the Persian Kingdom under Darius I" ends with the story of the fall of the Persian Kingdom as a result of its conquest by Alexander the Great in [Struve, 1941, pp. 386-388]?! Since V. V. Struve insists on including India and China in the history of the "ancient East", it is even more incomprehensible why the history of India was brought to the fourth century AD (Struve, 1941: 4, 425). N. A. Sholpo, who wrote about India and China, ended the political history of the latter with the fall of the dynasty Han in 220 AD [Struve, 1941, p. 453]. In defense of V. V. In this case, one can say to Struve that "we must have a particular society in mind in each individual case of research" [Struve, 1941, p. 6], but this is not an argument in favor of choosing any date without justification for the completion of the history of any period, if it is determined intensively. Otherwise, it turns out to be a unique situation: the "history of the ancient East" ended at the end of the VI century.

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It continued in India and China, as well as in the Achaemenid Kingdom of Persia.

V. V. Struve writes about the distinctive features of Ancient Eastern societies: "These features consist primarily in the preservation of some features of the primitive communal system, in the preservation of the rural community, in the preservation of some elements of patriarchal relations, in the somewhat slow, stagnant nature of the development of society, in the extreme persistence of communal forms of land ownership... The despotic power of the tsar in the field of political superstructure is also a distinctive feature of the ancient Eastern states "[Struve, 1941, p. 6]. V. V. Struve believes that "the history of the ancient East shows us the emergence and development of the slave-owning system", which "acquires peculiar features that distinguish it from ancient slavery": "Speaking about the development process Engels emphasizes that " they did not bring slavery to its highest development, neither to ancient labor slavery, nor to Eastern domestic slavery...". In the ancient East, slavery retains the character of domestic slavery, it does not yet penetrate into all spheres of economic life, the number of slaves is relatively small, production is mostly natural in nature" (Struve, 1941, p. 4). 5, 7]. The last feature noted by V. V. Struve is that "the basis of the economy of Eastern societies is artificial irrigation" [Struve, 1941, p. 7].

All these provisions require verification on the materials of the analyzed monograph. The difficulty lies in the fact that it is far from always possible to find the listed features at all in the narratives about specific "Ancient Eastern societies" proposed by V. V. Struve (let us assume for the moment that these features are attributes).

Let's start with the problem of Eastern despotism. First, the term "city-states" is used in relation to Phoenicia; in the chapter on it, when describing the state structure, there is not a word about despotism [Struve, 1941, p.80, 268-281, especially 275-276]. How the concepts of "despotism" and "city-state" relate is unclear. If we recognize "despotism" as a characteristic feature of ancient Eastern societies, then Phoenicia, which is not described using this concept, is not one of them. Secondly, Phoenicia is not the only country mentioned in the manual that is not characterized as despotic: Elam and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, for example, are also described without using this term [Struve, 1941, pp. 120-123, 282-300]. But if despotism is a distinctive feature of the "ancient East" and if "the history of the ancient East is the history of numerous tribes, peoples, and states," then among all these tribes and peoples, not to mention states, the form of political organization must be despotism. Since this requirement of logic is not fulfilled even in relation to states, it can be argued that one of the supposed distinguishing features of the "ancient East" class - despotism-is not its necessary feature.

In connection with the statement of V. V. Struve about the domination of the slave-owning system in the "ancient East", we note that, first, a reference to the statement of F. V. Struve is made. Engels ' description of the Germanic tribes, which "did not bring slavery to its highest development, neither to ancient labor slavery, nor to Eastern domestic slavery...", shows just the difference between antiquity and the East and contradicts other statements of V. V. Struve himself: "...there is no gulf between "west" and "east""; " it would be wrong to emphasize at the same time... the absolute difference between Ancient Eastern societies and the societies of Greece and Rome" [Struve, 1941, p. 3, 6]. Secondly, again, not every society that V. V. Struve is talking about turns out to be slave-owning. Elam is also an example: although the Elamites captured prisoners of war in Babylonia and "enslaved them," this is the only reference to slaves in the entire chapter [Struve, 1941, pp. 120-123, 121]. Even in chapter 9, devoted to I va-

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V. V. Struve writes: "However, the bulk of direct producers were peasants" (1941, p. 101). This means that the socio-economic structure of a given society ("slave-owning") is determined by a secondary feature: the ordinary presence of slaves who were not the main producers is sufficient to characterize society as a whole, and this is a very common literary metonymy technique, which consists in the fact that the whole is designated by its part (not necessarily the main one).

When V. V. Struve writes about the "somewhat slow, stagnant nature of the development of society" in the "ancient East", it is necessary to clarify the relationship between the concepts of" slow "and"stagnant". The term "stagnant development" is also unclear: is it not a contradictio in adjecto, if development is understood not as a change in general (then we have two terms for denoting the same category), but as a "process of transition from one state to another, more perfect"?7. In some cases, V. V. Struve directly points out the stagnation of the societies of the "ancient East": "In the stagnant society of Egypt, the remnants of matriarchy were not yet overcome at the moment when this cult of the main forces of nature was taking shape"; "...this monument ("Dialogue between master and slave on the meaning of life." - A. Z.) imbued with hopeless pessimism. We do not find in the above works of Babylonian literature ("Dialogue...", "The Innocent Sufferer").8. - A. Z.) optimism, cheerfulness, characteristic of the era of the rise, the ascent of slave society in Greece and Rome. The stagnation of Ancient Eastern society and the lack of clear perspectives were reflected in these works with great vividness"; "Communities provided a solid basis for the stagnant Ancient Eastern despotism" [Struve, 1941, p.211, 119, 70].

In other places, V. V. Struve emphasizes the variability rather than immobility of the described societies, but he does so in such a way as not to destroy the idea of stagnation, despotism as a form of political superstructure, and the slow pace of evolution of rural communities: "The productive forces of Sumerian society developed slowly over the following centuries"; " Land cultivation in irrigation economy (Sumer. - A. Z.) was a matter so complex that it was possible to entrust it to a slave only at a higher stage of the development of productive forces""; " Again, discontent is rising among the nobles of the nomes with the cumbersome political organization (of the New Kingdom of Egypt under the XIX and XX dynasties. - A. Z.), that is, the very movement that was in the at the end of the Ancient Kingdom, when the nomes, burdened by the Pharaoh's despotism, began to free themselves from duties that had a general Egyptian character" (Struve, 1941: 68, 69, 206).

V. V. Struve writes that "the basis of the economy of Eastern societies is artificial irrigation" (see above). That this is actually a retelling of F.'s letter. Engels to K. Marx, not so important. For V. V. Struve, who wrote his "History of the Ancient East" in the late 1930s, references to the classics of Marxism-Leninism, including J. V. Stalin, were necessary. But as a result, there were inconsistencies between various fragments of a single text (by no means just V. V. Struve). The idea of irrigation as the basis of the economy of ancient Eastern societies is not confirmed by Phoenicia (already known to us for its violation of the theoretical con --

7 To confirm that V. V. Struve understood "development" in the second of these senses, we can cite the following statement: "The first class societies arose in that part of the globe that earlier than other regions of the northern hemisphere received the opportunity for the development of human society" [Struve, 1941, p.4]. Here you can see an indication of the idea of progress.

8 According to V. V. Struve, this text has no title, being referred to descriptively: "a Babylonian work about the sufferings of a pious citizen of Nippur" (op. cit., p. 117). The name "Innocent Sufferer" is now common in the historiographical tradition, although in ancient times this poem was called "I want to praise the Lord of Wisdom" by its first line (Ludlul bel nemeki) [Afanasyeva, 1983, p. 475].

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Struve, 1941, pp. 268-281]. V. V. Struve begins his story about it with a famous quote: "The Phoenician society in the history of the ancient East is a typical trading society. "The Phoenicians," says Marx, "are a mercantile people par excellence" [Marx, 1937, p. 147, note 90]. Such a society, of course, could have been formed only when the societies of Egypt and Babylonia already existed, which for the development of their economy needed intermediaries to supply them with technical raw materials" [Struve, 1941, p.268].

However, there is not a word about irrigation in the story about "ancient Assyria", but about the city of Ashur it is reported that in the 3rd millennium BC "it was mainly of commercial importance, supplying Babylonia with the necessary technical raw materials" [Struve, 1941, pp. 239-246]. Consequently, irrigation as a characteristic feature of "Ancient Eastern" societies is not de facto their attribute.

Thus, the distinctive features of the "ancient East" identified by V. V. Struve are not necessary features of this concept. Let's try to explain this phenomenon. First of all, we will try to do this by remembering that this class is formed in two different ways: intensional and extensional. Using the first method, it is sufficient to show that the described societies were class-based (in the Marxist sense of the word), and then, if their spatial and temporal characteristics are correct, they may well be included in the created logical class. However, the incongruity arises that only a few of those described in V. V. Struve's monograph can be truly ancient class societies, namely Sumer and ancient Egypt. The societies of the 2nd - 1st millennia BC, which Soviet historians attributed to class, already include both Greece and Rome, and therefore the line between them and the "Ancient Eastern societies" needs to be justified, and by establishing the essential features of the phenomenon. V. V. Struve manages to do this with some difficulty, since the features he identifies are not such. In general, he returns to the idea of G. Maspero and B. A. Turaeva says that the "ancient East" was the forerunner of the ancient world not only in terms of its time of existence, but also in terms of its position in world history [Struve, 1941, p.7].

But there is one difference: V. V. Struve subordinates the "ancient East" to the concept of a slave-owning formation. In the ancient East, in his opinion, slave-owning relations "preserve the character of domestic slavery", which is different from" ancient labor " slavery. These are two stages (lower and higher) within the same formation. The slave-owning formation itself is an element of the theoretical construction of a well - known theory-historical materialism. According to this concept, humanity has passed through five formations in its progressive development. Thus we are again confronted with the ideas of reason, one of which is the " ancient East "(as a subordinate idea).

Up to this point, I have used B. Russell's views on the formation of logical classes [Russell, 1903]. But this concept is clearly not enough to solve the problem. Already E. Kassirer wrote: "It is obvious that even before elements begin to be grouped into a class and extensively indicated by enumeration, a decision must be made: which elements should be considered as belonging to this class. This question can be answered only on the basis of the concept of class in the "intensional" sense of the word. Members that are combined by a class are bound to each other by fulfilling a certain condition formulated in a general form" (emphasis added by E. Kassirer - A. Z.) [Kassirer, 2002, vol. 3, p.241]. At first glance, it may seem that we have returned to the logic of necessary and sufficient conditions for the formation of a concept. But the research of many thinkers, for example, L. Wittgenstein and M. Weber, showed that a number of concepts cannot be defined based on this logic, for example, the concept of "games", which is created according to the logic of a prototype (or ideal type) [Wittgen-

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stein, 1994; Weber, 1990]. At the same time, it is impossible to abandon the logic of necessary and sufficient conditions, which is satisfied by any geometric concept, e.g. "triangle" [KrV, A 105, B 180]. Is it possible to assume that the "Ancient Eastern society" is constructed through the logic of a prototype?

If we proceed from the distinctive features of Ancient Eastern societies suggested by V. V. Struve and recall that they cannot be considered their attributes in the light of our analysis, we can conclude that the "Ancient Eastern society" was not built by the orientalist on the principle of necessary and sufficient conditions. Therefore, the characteristics chosen by him are typical features: they are likely, but not mandatory, and are characteristic of the societies under consideration to varying degrees. But then what about the essential definition that is present and plays an important role in V. V. Struve's constructions: "The history of the ancient East is the history of the oldest class societies"? After all, as already noted above, there can be no other ancient class societies, except those that belong to the "ancient East". Based on the above, we can conclude that there is a conflict between the logic of necessary and sufficient conditions and the logic of the prototype when constructing the concept of "ancient East". Apparently, this conflict has as one of its prerequisites the fact that the" ancient East " is an idea of reason, and not an empirical concept.

On the contrary, the features that V. V. Struve highlights are empirical concepts in their origin. The concept of "irrigation", i.e. artificial irrigation, is the least problematic in this regard. Concepts such as slavery and its derivatives, the rural community, and the State can always be interpreted empirically. We can describe the relationship of slavery between two or more individuals in generally valid terms. The situation is more complicated with the rural community and the state: a number of researchers believe that the latter is an idea (and the same can be said about the community). Without going into the discussion, I will only note that the well-known features of the state, highlighted by F. Engels ' theory of public power separated from the people, territorial division, taxes, and the apparatus of coercion is empirically confirmed, at least by the materials of the history of Europe of the XIX-XX centuries. The concept of society is the most difficult in terms of its status, but I think it is also quite deducible from experience (through categories). For example, take the well-known definition of Karl Marx: "Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of those connections and relations in which these individuals are located" [Marx, 1968, p.214]. Any human association exists insofar as there are relations between individuals. Examples include a card game, a conversation in the queue at a store, or a scientific discussion 9.

Returning to the constructions of V. V. Struve, I would like to point out that the concepts that are empirical in their origin are not necessarily related to the space-time characteristic: they are often universal. All the features identified by the orientalist may well be found outside the borders of the ancient East: the slave-owning south of the United States before the Civil War of 1861-1865, the eastern despotisms of the medieval East, irrigation present in the modern world, etc. Class societies existed after the ancient East, so the "oldest" specification (temporary definition) is essential. Therefore, the conflict of logics noted above is probably caused by different sources of knowledge: reason, reason and sensuality. From the spatio-temporal definition itself, it is impossible to deduce specific objects with their specific features. Offer-

9 If the concept of society is specified to "human society" and the latter is interpreted as a synonym for humanity ("human society as a whole"), then, of course, it becomes an idea of reason, because it again requires thinking of a unity of object that can never be given in experience. However, this is an interpretation of the idea, and not a definition of the concept of society.

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V. V. Struve's characteristic features of the ancient East are neither temporal nor spatial characteristics. Consequently, their synthesis with the ancient East cannot be deduced from its essential definition (given by V. V. Struve). Therefore, the relationship between these features as predicates and Ancient Eastern society as a subject of judgment is problematic.

So, we can draw some conclusions. The concept of "ancient East" is an idea of the mind. When designing it, there is a conflict between the logic of necessary and sufficient conditions and the logic of the prototype. The distinctive features of the class that are distinguished are only a list of typical features of the class, but not necessary conditions, and they are also interpreted using concepts that are empirical in origin. The definition of the " ancient East "as" the oldest class societies "is in its essence a temporal characteristic (in combination with the term" East " of space-time) of a special stage of world history.

list of literature

Afanasyeva V. K. Vavilonskaya ideologiya i kul'tura [Babylonian ideology and Culture].
Weber M. Izbrannye sozdaniya [Selected Works], translated from German: Progress Publ., 1990.

Wittgenstein L. Philosophical studies // Wittgenstein L. Philosophical works (part I) / Translated from English. Moscow: Gnosis, 1994.

Gegel G. V. F. Lektsii po filosofii istorii [Lectures on the Philosophy of History]. St. Petersburg: Nauka Publ., 2000.

Zakharov A. A. the Problem of the concept of the state in traditional East in the national historiography (theoretical considerations) // Vostok (Oriens). 2005. N 6.

Zakharov A. O. Ocherki istorii traditsionnogo Vostoka [Essays on the History of the Traditional East]. Moscow: Vostochny University, 2007.

Kassirer E. Filosofiya simvolicheskikh form [Philosophy of symbolic forms]. Transl. from German Vol. 1-3. M. - SPb.: Universitetskaya kniga, 2002.

K. Marx. Capital / Translated from German by T. I. M.: Party Publishing House of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), 1937.

F. Marx. Economic manuscripts of 1857-1858. Part I / / K. Marx, F. Engels. Sochineniya [Essays], translated from German, vol. 46, ch. I. M., 1968.

Maspero G. Drevnyaya istoriya narodov Vostoka [Ancient History of the peoples of the East].

Russell B. Problems of philosophy // James W. Introduction to Philosophy; Russell B. Problemy filosofii [Problems of Philosophy].

Semyonov Yu. I. Filosofiya istorii ot istokov do nashim dny: osnovnye problemy i kontseptsii [Philosophy of history from the Origins to the present day: basic problems and concepts].
Struve V. V. Istoriya drevnego Vostoka [History of the Ancient East], OGIZ - Gospolitizdat Publ., 1941.

Turaev B. A. Istoriya drevnego Vostoka History of the Ancient East / Edited by V. V. Struve and I. L. Snegirev, vol. I-II. Leningrad: OGIZ-Socio-economic Publishing House, 1935.

Danto A.C. Analytical Philosophy of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1965.

Maspero G. Histoire ancienne des peuples de I'Orient classique. Vol. I-III. P.: Hachette, 1895 - 1908.

Russell B. Principles of Mathematics. Vol. I. L.: Allen & Unwin, 1903.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

IDV-History of the Ancient East. The origin of the oldest class societies and the first centers of slave-owning civilization. Part I. Mesopotamia. Edited by I. M. Dyakonov, Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1983. Ch. P. Voropernaya Aziya. Egypt. Edited by G. M. Bongard-Levin, Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1988.

KrV - Kant I. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. le Ausg. 1781. 2e Ausg. 1787.

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