Філософсько-релігійний та політологічний виміри витоків наук про мир і врегулювання етнополітичних конфліктів

Анотація

The article is devoted to the analysis of the origin of sciences on peace, war, and ethnopolitical conflicts in philosophical, religious and political dimensions. Views and ideas of Ancient Eastern philosophers marked the beginning of future sciences on analysis of the origin of sciences on peace, war, and ethnopolitical conflicts. Subsequently, Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers took up these ideas. Beginning and development of these sciences started in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance.

 The Middle Ages witnessed the birth of a number of projects related to achieving and maintaining permanent peace. These projects were based on religious principles. Some of them are of scientific interest to this day. Thus, the treatise of George of Poděbrady was republished several times in English, German, Czech and other languages and had an influence on the development of ideas on war, armed conflict, and peace. Erasmus of Rotterdam, the brightest representative of the Renaissance, became well-known due to his exposure of the true causes of wars and armed conflicts.

 The fundamental work of the prominent Dutch lawyer and political thinker at the turn of the Renaissance and the Modern Era Hugo Grotius made a significant contribution to the study of the issues identified in the article, predominantly from the political and legal viewpoint. A notable contribution to the further development of the sciences on peace, war, and armed ethnopolitical conflicts was made by the eminent English philosopher and lawyer Jeremy Bentham.

 An outstanding German philosopher Immanuel Kant made a huge contribution to the formation of a new field of knowledge on peace and ethnopolitical conflicts. From a political perspective, it's worth to mention the contribution of the distinguished Austrian-German thinker and politician Friedrich von Gentz to the development of sciences on peace, war, and armed conflicts.

 The science of peace is called "eirenology" (from Greek "eirnene" – peace). However, this relatively unknown and incomprehensible term due to various reasons has been popular among most foreign researchers, not to mention domestic researchers who are engaged in the study of this problem.

 In Western corresponding academic literature in 1960–1970 this term was known as "Peace Studies". Nevertheless, since the mid-1980s issues related to it had been investigated mainly within the framework of a new field of scientific knowledge called "Peace and Conflict Studies". In the West today, it is quite known and influential scientific trend. This is demonstrated by the training at many Universities of bachelors, masters and even PhDs in this field and publishing scientific journal "Peace and Conflict Studies".

However, in the author's view, this field should be divided into 2 separate ones, namely a) science of peace and b) science of conflicts. The author of the article offers to introduce a new concept "mirology" into the corresponding Ukrainian political and conflict literature, which should be interpreted as the science of peace as the eternal and highest all-human value.

 Speaking of science aimed at studying conflicts in ethnopolitical sphere of social life. in the West it is known as "Ethnic Conflict Studies". But given that the global ethnopolitical conflicts explosion has occurred at the turn of the millennia, in our opinion, a new branch of scientific knowledge of these conflicts deserves a more correct and adequate name - "Ethnopolitical Conflict Studies".