The end of the last century was marked by an all-conquering interest in linguophilosophical problems in linguistics. Undoubtedly, the most relevant and at the same time the most promising today can be recognized as the description of language in the totality and interdependence of its ontological and epistemological characteristics. Such descriptions include the book by Yu. L. Vorotnikov "Degrees of Quality in the modern Russian language", published in 1999. The author's reasoning and assessment are based on a principled approach to the concept of quality as the most important philosophical category. Based on the relevant provisions, in particular, in the brilliant works of Yu. S. Stepanov, Yu. L. Vorotnikov qualifies the philosophical meaning of the concept "as a synonym for a widely understood quality". This widely understood quality is the ontological object of the author's description. Since the focus of the study is not on the quality itself, but on the degree of manifestation of a qualitative trait, the methodological tool for measuring this degree is gradation as a kind of universal category that "reflects the ability of human thinking to dissect qualitative changes occurring with objects into certain segments, quantify them and correlate them" (p.11). Thus, the gradation of the "quantity of quality" in the compared carriers of the trait(s) is the main epistemological category of the description. The content-formal characteristics of quality degrees are presented from two angles: a) as the quantity of quality that manifests itself in different states of the same carrier (relative or relative degrees of quality) and b) as the quantity of quality that manifests itself relative to the "norm" of the trait (regardless or absolute degrees of quality). A twofold approach to the subject of research forms the composition of the book. In the first chapter, various theoretical concepts are described in detail and critically understood, which reflect views both on the pr ... Read more