Published in the journal “Problems of Philosophy”, 2006, No. 7, pp. 3 – 31.

The electronic edition is supplemented with brief information about the discussion participants obtained from publicly available sources. This information is placed before the text of the speech and is enclosed in angle brackets. It should be noted that on the website of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the wording of the topics of some dissertations of the institute’s employees is edited and differs from the corresponding wording on the websites of the Russian State Library and National Library of Russia. All participants in the discussion not only received higher education, but also defended all their dissertations back in Soviet times, and some of them became academicians in the same years. Such discussions are interesting both to those who take part in them and to those who do not take part in them.