The main stages of the development of philosophical thought briefly. Stages of development of Russian philosophical thought and its ideas
Russian philosophical thought is an organic part of world philosophy and culture. Russian philosophy addresses the same problems as Western European philosophy, although the approach to them and the ways of understanding them were deeply national in nature. Famous historian of Russian philosophical thought V.V. Zenkovsky noted that philosophy has found its own path in Russia - “not alienating the West, even learning from it constantly and diligently, but still living with its own inspirations, its own problems...”. In the 19th century “Russia has entered the path of independent philosophical thought.”
He further notes that Russian philosophy is not theocentric (although it has a strong religious element) and is not cosmocentric(although she is not alien to natural philosophical quests), and above all anthropocentric, historiosophical and committed social issues: “she is most occupied with the topic of man, his fate and paths, the meaning and goals of history.”
These same features of Russian philosophical thought were noted by such researchers of Russian philosophy as A.I. Vvedensky, N. A. Berdyaev and etc.
Despite the fact that Russian philosophical thought is represented by the most in various directions, orientations and schools, when solving philosophical problems, it was dominated by a clearly expressed moral attitude, a constant appeal to the historical destinies of Russia. Therefore, without mastering the national spiritual heritage, it is impossible to understand the history and soul of the Russian people, to comprehend the place and role of Russia in world civilization.
The formation of philosophical thought in Ancient Rus' dates back to the X-XII centuries - a time of profound socio-political and cultural changes in life Eastern Slavs, caused by the formation of the ancient Russian state - Kievan Rus, the influence of Byzantine and Bulgarian cultures, the emergence of Slavic writing and the adoption of Christianity by Russia. These factors created favorable conditions for the emergence of ancient Russian philosophy.
The initial stage in the development of Russian philosophical thought is associated with the appearance of the first literary works containing original philosophical ideas and concepts. Chronicles, “teachings”, “words” and other monuments of Russian literature reflected the deep interest of Russian thinkers in historiosophical, anthropological, epistemological and moral problems. During this period, a unique way of philosophizing emerged, conditioned by the type of philosophical tradition adopted along with Christianity, characterized by V.V. Zenkovsky as “mystical realism.”
The most significant works of this period include “The Sermon on Law and Grace” by Hilarion, “The Tale of Bygone Years” by Nestor, “The Epistle to Thomas” by Kliment Smolyatich, “The Sermon on Wisdom” and “The Parable of the Human Soul and Body” by Kirill Turovsky, “ Teaching" by Vladimir Monomakh, "Message to Vladimir Monomakh" by Metropolitan Nikifor, "Prayer" by Daniil Zatochnik.
The next stage in the development of ancient Russian philosophy covers the XIII-XIV centuries - a time of severe trials caused by the Tatar-Mongol invasion. The enormous damage inflicted on Ancient Rus' did not, however, interrupt the cultural tradition. Monasteries remained the centers of development of Russian thought, in which not only the traditions of the spiritual culture of Rus' were preserved, but work continued on translating and commenting on Byzantine philosophical works. Among the monuments of Russian thought of this period, the most significant in ideological content are “The Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land”, “The Legend of the City of Kitezh”, “Words” of Serapion of Vladimir, “Kievo-Pechersk Patericon”. The most important themes for Russian thought of this period were spiritual perseverance and moral improvement.
The new stage in the development of Russian philosophy covers the period from the end of the 14th to the 16th centuries, characterized by the rise national identity, the formation of a Russian centralized state, strengthening ties with the Slavic south and the centers of Byzantine culture.
A significant influence on Russian philosophical thought of this period was exerted by hesychasm- a mystical trend in Orthodox theology that arose on Mount Athos in the 13th-14th centuries, rooted in the moral and ascetic teaching of Christian ascetics in the 4th - 7th centuries. The hesychast tradition in Russian thought is represented by the teachings and activities of Nil Sorsky, Maxim the Greek and their followers.
An important place in the spiritual life of Muscovite Rus' was occupied by the polemics between the Josephites and non-covetous people. First of all, the ideological struggle of their spiritual leaders - Joseph of Volotsky and Nil Sorsky, which covered such deep moral, political, theological and philosophical problems as social service and the vocation of the church, ways of spiritual and moral transformation of the individual, attitude towards heretics, the problem of royal power and its divine nature.
One of the central places in Russian thought of the 15th-16th centuries. was occupied by the problem of state, power and law. The view of the Moscow Orthodox kingdom - Holy Rus' - as the successor of Byzantium, called upon to fulfill a special historical mission, was reflected in the historiosophical concept “Moscow is the third Rome” formulated by Elder Philotheus.
Problems of power and law were leading in the polemics of Ivan the Terrible and Andrei Kurbsky; the works of Fyodor Karpov and Ivan Peresvetov, who defended the ideas of strengthening autocratic rule, are devoted to them.
The problems of man, moral improvement, and the choice of paths to personal and social salvation were the focus of attention of the outstanding Byzantine humanist-enlightenment figure Maxim the Greek, whose philosophical work became the greatest achievement of Russian medieval philosophy.
Heretical teachings associated with the European reformation-humanistic movement had a significant influence on the spiritual life of Russian society in the 15th-16th centuries. The most prominent representatives of Russian freethinking were Fyodor Kuritsin, Matvey Bashkin, and Feodosii Kosoy.
The final stage The development of Russian medieval philosophy is characterized by contradictory processes of forming the foundations of a new worldview, the clash of traditional spiritual culture with the growing influence of Western European science and enlightenment. The most significant figures of Russian thought of this period are Archpriest Avvakum, the successor and strict zealot of the spiritual traditions of ancient Russian culture, and his opponents, Simeon of Polotsk and Yuri Krizhanich, guides of Western European education and culture.
The most important themes of their reflections were man, his spiritual essence and moral duty, knowledge and the place of philosophy in him, problems of power and the role of various social strata in political life society.
A significant role in the dissemination of philosophical knowledge was played by the largest centers of education and culture - the Kiev-Mohyla and Slavic-Greek-Latin academies, in which a number of philosophical disciplines were taught.
The beginning of the 18th century was the final period in the history of Russian medieval philosophy and the time of the emergence of the prerequisites for its secularization and professionalization, which laid the foundations for a new stage in the development of Russian thought.
When characterizing the features of the development of philosophy in Russia, it is necessary, first of all, to take into account the conditions of its existence, which, in comparison with Western European ones, were extremely unfavorable. At a time when I. Kant, W. Schelling, G. Hegel and other thinkers freely expounded their philosophical systems in German universities, in Russia the teaching of philosophy was under the strictest state control, which did not allow any philosophical free-thinking for purely political reasons. The attitude of state power to philosophy is clearly expressed in the famous statement of the trustee educational institutions Prince Shirinsky-Shikhmatov “The benefits of philosophy have not been proven, but harm is possible.”
Until the second half of the 19th century. philosophical problems were mastered in Russia mainly in philosophical and literary circles outside the official structures of education, which had two consequences.
On the one hand, the formation of Russian philosophy took place in the course of the search for answers to the questions posed by Russian reality itself. Therefore, it is difficult to find in the history of Russian philosophy a thinker who would engage in pure theorizing and would not respond to pressing problems.
On the other hand, these same conditions led to such an abnormal state for philosophy itself, when, in the perception of philosophical teachings, political attitudes acquired a dominant meaning and these teachings themselves were assessed primarily from the point of view of their “progressiveness” or “reactionaryness,” “usefulness” or “ uselessness” for solving social problems. Therefore, those teachings that, although not distinguished by philosophical depth, responded to the topic of the day, were widely known. Others, who later formed the classics of Russian philosophy, such as the teachings K. Leontieva, N. Danilevsky, V. Solovyova, N. Fedorova and others, did not resonate with contemporaries and were known only to a narrow circle of people.
When characterizing the features of Russian philosophy, one must also take into account cultural and historical background, on which it was formed. In Russia, in the course of its history, there was, as it were, an interweaving of two various types cultures and, accordingly, types of philosophizing: rationalistic, Western European and Eastern, Byzantine with its intuitive worldview and living contemplation, included in Russian self-consciousness through Orthodoxy. This combination of two different types of thinking runs through the entire history of Russian philosophy.
Existence at a crossroads different cultures largely determined the form of philosophizing and the problems of Russian philosophy. As for the form of philosophizing, its specificity was successfully defined by A.F. Losev, who showed that Russian philosophy, unlike Western European philosophy, is alien to the desire for an abstract, purely rational taxonomy of ideas. In a significant part, it “represents a purely internal, intuitive, purely mystical knowledge of existence.”
On the content side, Russian philosophy also has its own characteristics. It presents to one degree or another all main directions of philosophical thinking: ontology, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of history, etc. However, there are also leading themes for it. One of them, which determined the very specificity of Russian philosophy, was the theme of Russia, understanding the meaning of its existence in history. The formation of Russian philosophical thought began with this topic, and it remained relevant throughout its development.
Another leading topic was man theme, his destiny and meaning of life. Increased attention to the problem of man determined the moral and practical orientation of Russian philosophy. A feature of Russian philosophical thinking was not just a deep interest in moral issues, but the dominance of moral attitudes in the analysis of many other problems.
Original Russian philosophy in its innovative quests was closely connected with the religious worldview, behind which stood centuries of Russian spiritual experience. And not just with the religious, but with Orthodox worldview. Speaking about this, V.V. Zenkovsky notes that “Russian thought has always (and forever) remained connected with its religious element, with its religious soil.
31. Philosophy of All-Unity by Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov
His outstanding contribution to the development of historical thought was recognized by scientists from the most different schools and directions. Soloviev left a huge legacy - 300 works. The “History of Russia since Ancient Times” is especially striking in its wealth of factual material; its 29 volumes are published regularly, from 1851 to 1879. came out into the world. By the age of 27, S.M. Soloviev defended two dissertations and became a professor. His whole life is connected with Moscow University.
For many years he headed the department of Russian history and was elected to the position of dean of the Faculty of History and Philology and rector. In 1872, he became a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and headed the Council of the Moscow Higher Women's Courses. In 1870 - director of the Armory Chamber.
One of the main ideas of the historical works of S.M. Solovyov - an idea of the history of Russia as a single, naturally developing process. The scientist not only introduced a huge number of archival documents into scientific circulation, but also presented many aspects of Russian history in a new way.
Doctrine of All-Unity
In philosophy, the term “ontology” refers to the doctrine of being, and “epistemology” refers to the doctrine of knowledge. In Solovyov's philosophy, as in the teachings of Hegel, ontology and epistemology, being and knowledge are inseparable and rest on a single basis.
The idea of all-unity is central to Solovyov’s philosophy, which is why his entire system is often called the philosophy of all-unity. It turned out to be so significant for him for many reasons, one of them is the philosopher’s acutely careful attitude towards culture, the desire to preserve in it all the best that has been gained, not to lose or lose what has been acquired.
According to N. Berdyaev, it was even completely incomprehensible “why such an airy, ground-based, non-earthly person justifies everything historical that has grown from the soil and is connected with the earth.” The philosophy of unity was about the unity of God and man; ideal and material principles; single and plural; rational, empirical and religious-mystical knowledge; morality, science, religion, aesthetics.
“Everything exists in everything” - this is the most general formulation of the principle of unity. Based on it, Soloviev develops a holistic concept. First of all, it is clear to him that this formulation should not be taken literally - everything exists in everything only as a tendency, as a law. Unity is the harmony and coherence of all parts of the Universe. But absolute unity is an ideal to which the world is only striving. Absolute unity is God, and the world is all-unity in a state of becoming.
The world contains the divine element (unity) as an idea. But without the element of divine unity it cannot exist, for in this case it would crumble into isolated parts hostile to each other. V. Zenkovsky wrote about this: “For Solovyov, as well as for the metaphysics of unity in general, the world is consubstantial with God, starting from Plotinus right up to Nicholas of Cusa, and later Schelling, the idea of “university steadily leads to this affirmation of the consubstantiality of God and the world.”
Absolute, or divine, unity is the absolute “unique integrity of being.” In other words, this is a combination of individual elements of the world that does not destroy the independence of the elements, i.e. real plurality of the world. This is the unity of diversity or the blooming fullness of life, i.e. harmony in diversity. In its ideal expression, it is God who unites the world into a single whole through love. Love is that without which the connection of individual parts cannot be harmonious and consistent. Divine love gives the world harmony and harmonious coherence.
Since unity is what the life of the spirit strives for, it finds its expression in the process of cognition. Thus, the principle of unity is also applied by Solovyov in the theory of knowledge - epistemology.
V. Soloviev distinguishes three methods of knowledge: empirical, rational and mystical. Empirical knowledge is experimental knowledge. In him main role sense organs play. Rational knowledge is carried out by reason. Finally, mystical knowledge is inner knowledge achieved through faith. By the term “faith” V. Soloviev understands not only subjective conviction, but intuition, or direct knowledge, i.e. knowledge that does not require logical steps.
Truth is unified in the sense that it is the result of the joint action of the senses, reason and intuition. Truth is rational in its form, but at the same time it is not dead, not dry and frozen - as it would be if it were entirely reduced to rationality. Sensual experience and intuition give it vitality.
Misconception arises as a result of gaps between empirical, rational and mystical (intuitive) knowledge or as a result of the absolutization of one of them. The principle of unity in relation to cognition thus means constant generalization, the search for more and more general theories that can include previously known ones.
Unity is also the principle of the relationship between three values fundamental to any classical philosophical system - truth, goodness and beauty. They are connected by the concept of love.
Doctrine of “Ecumenical Theocracy”
The principle of unity finds its continuation in Solovyov’s teaching about universal theocracy. Theocracy (literally “divine rule”), according to the philosopher’s plan, should unite all Christian peoples, first of all, into spiritual unity. It was assumed that the head of the new spiritual union would be the Pope. The Pope would become the head of the spiritual authority of all Christians. The secular power of the united peoples would be headed by the Russian emperor.
Finally, another “branch of power” was supposed to belong to the prophets - people who, due to their intellectual and moral qualities, enjoy special respect and authority. Their mission is “theoretical” and “propaganda”. Universal theocracy is called upon to counter the dangers of nihilism and crude materialism.
The concept of life in the works of Vladimir Solovyov
For him, a living organism serves as a model of positive unity. For a living organism, the rule is such a connection of parts in which each part is “interested” in all the others and the whole. For example, a disease of a single organ inevitably negatively affects the entire body and other organs. On the contrary, the health of any part benefits all others and the body as a whole. The concept of an organism is based on a broader category. This category is “life”. It occupies an important place in the doctrine of unity and in Solovyov’s philosophy as a whole.
The concept of life is nowhere formally defined by Solovyov. And this despite the fact that his philosophical system is distinguished by logical rigor and consistency. The fact is that life fundamentally cannot and should not be determined only by logical means. There are irrational elements in life.
Therefore, it cannot be comprehended in the same way as the objects of natural sciences are cognized. Life can be described, but it is not absolutely strictly defined. Life is an element. This is a flow in which individual stages can be distinguished only conditionally. This is the creativity of the new and the ability to reproduce itself. This is a vital impulse. This is a stormy, bubbling life, the diversity of its manifestations.
Finally, it is the “blooming fullness of life,” the fullness of being. Life is natural, as opposed to what is forced and artificial. In all its manifestations there is a soul, and at the highest levels there is a spirit. In order to comprehend a living being or mental-spiritual life, a person, in addition to the work of the intellect, also requires heartfelt participation.
Life is a cruel struggle for survival. This applies to life in all its manifestations. The life of living beings is based on devouring and exterminating some creatures by others: predators devour herbivores and each other, herbivores feed on plants; man, as a living being, needs food of organic origin, etc.
The same can be said about economic and other spheres. public life: There is also an intense struggle for existence here. However, life would cease to be life if it were reduced to competition and mutual destruction. Moreover, in this case it would simply be impossible: life would instantly destroy itself. However, this does not happen. In contrast, biological science traces the evolution of living things, in which progress in the development of life is evident. Progress in the development of society is also obvious.
Consequently, along with the competitive struggle in life, the moment of solidarity and mutual assistance is essential - without it, life would cease to be a reality. In the combination of struggle and solidarity, the “last secret” of life, the special plan of God or the Wisdom of God - Sophia, finds its expression.
The image of Sophia in the philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov
The doctrine of Sophia clearly expresses the originality of Solovyov’s philosophy. Sophia is not only a concept, but also an image that gives the philosophical views of the Russian thinker romantic elation and poetic sublimity. The image of Sophia clearly reveals Solovyov’s special, exquisitely reverent attitude towards the world, which is also characteristic of his philosophy.
The doctrine of Sophia is a typical metaphysical doctrine, i.e. is a speculative hypothesis that can neither be proven nor disproved by the methods of natural sciences. In an increasingly widespread scientific (“positive”) worldview that rejects metaphysical essences, Soloviev boldly follows in the footsteps of Plato, the founder of metaphysics. Sophia is eternal femininity - an image of beauty, fragility, generative principles and at the same time - duality, changeability and indifference.
This is a generalized image of the earthly world - a world that is contradictory and deceptive and at the same time animated and beautiful. The image of Sophia reflected various ideas and ideas known in the history of thought. Soloviev synthesized the idea of duality (duality) of Plato, the concept of the Soul of the world of the Neoplatonists, the Christian doctrine of the Wisdom of God, the ideas of knowledge of medieval mystics, the image of the immaculate beauty of the Virgin Mary (Mother of God).
Thoughts about Sophia as a philosophical concept, Solovyov at the same time presented her completely clearly - in the form of a beautiful woman. She appeared to him in visions three times during his life, which he described in the poem “Three Dates.” We can say that the image of Sophia was for him a kind of muse that inspired him. At the same time, Sophia is the most important concept of the philosophical system. With the help of such an unscientific concept, which is much closer to the field of poetic creativity than to science, Solovyov consciously sought to avoid the one-sided rationalistic nature of his philosophy. The thinker always strives to avoid any one-sidedness. This was his programmatic position, directly following from the principle of unity.
The concept of Sophia appears directly or indirectly in all of Solovyov’s works. This means that the philosopher could not do without him when solving a wide variety of issues. The concept of Sophia contains many meanings. It also performs various functions in Solovyov’s philosophical system.
Sophia plays the role of a kind of “connecting bridge” between the rational content of philosophy and its poetically sublime side. The fact is that Sophia is the prototype of the world, in other words, the ideal plan of the world. With the help of the concept of Sophia, Solovyov argues that the world cannot be reduced to the chaotic side: the moment of orderliness is essential in it. The laws of the world, however, cannot be reduced to the laws of mechanical causality known to natural science. These laws (and not just their manifestations) are infinitely diverse and changeable.
This means that the world is animated, just as an individual person, an individual living being, is animated. The concept of Sophia individualizes the concept of the Soul of the world. Every soul is individual. But when we talk about the soul only as an abstract concept, then it is impossible to know it in its entirety. To do this, it must be presented specifically - in the form of a certain person, personality. It is impossible to love an abstract soul - you can only love a concrete face that can be felt or visualized. That is why the Soul of the World receives a concrete, visual expression from Solovyov.
On the other hand, Sofia is a symbol and visual image of love. Love is what unites. Sophia is the unifying principle. The world does not fall apart into separate parts, although it consists of many diverse and different-quality objects. Upon closer examination, we see that all parts are interconnected and interdependent. Therefore, there is something that unites him. This is Sofia - the beginning of love.
Sophia plays the greatest role not in relation to nature as such (that is, taken outside of man), but in relation to human society and history. Sophia is what unites humanity, all people, not only those living at the present time, but all generations, past and present. In the development of society, Sophia reveals herself directly for the first time.
Soloviev also shows in the image of Sophia the “body of Christ”, or Christian Church. The Church is an obligatory mediator between God and man. Outside the church, no faith in Christ is possible. The Church is a conciliar association of people. This is a voluntary association that arises on the basis of common faith, common ideals and values. Church is unity in love. Therefore, a church-conciliar association is a positive model for any creative association, which does not imply infringement of the rights and dignity of the individual, but, on the contrary, affirms the freedom of the individual.
The idea of the "divine-human"
From the moment of the emergence of Christianity, the history of society turns from a human process into a divine-human process: a moral principle operates in history, leading it to unity.
The doctrine of God-manhood developed by Solovyov occupies an important place in his religious system. It aims to interpret human history and common life. For Solovyov, the God-man is a simultaneous and universal being, embracing all of humanity through God. It expresses the unity of goodness, truth and beauty. Pursuing the goal of human perfection, God manifested himself in the earthly historical process in the form of the God-man - Jesus Christ. “With his word and the feat of his life, he began with victory over all temptations of moral evil and ended with resurrection, that is, victory over physical evil - over the law of death and corruption - the real God-man opened the kingdom of God to people.”
Man acts as a certain connection between the divine and natural world due to the fact that he is a moral being. Human life consists “in serving Good – pure, comprehensive and omnipotent.” Anyone who strives for improvement in moral goodness moves towards absolute perfection. Soloviev bases his ethics on this: a person is moral if he freely subordinates his will to serving the absolute Good, that is, God, and strives for the establishment of the divine-human kingdom.
The philosopher identified three types of moral attitudes (feelings): shame, pity and reverence. Shame indicates the supernatural status of a person (a person cannot be “equal” to an animal, he is always “above” or “below” him...); pity means solidarity with living beings; reverence is voluntary submission to the highest, Divine principle. All other moral qualities are recognized in “Justification of the Good” only as various forms of manifestation of the basic principles.
Defining the moral significance of love as the fundamental commandment of Christianity, Solovyov argued that “the commandment of love is not associated with any particular virtue, but is the final expression of all the basic requirements of morality.”
"Russian idea"
Solovyov is credited with posing and developing the problem, which has since been generally designated by the phrase “Russian idea”; it seems to be a concrete expression of the principle of unity.
Soloviev believed that each nation, united into a corresponding state unity, is called upon to fulfill a certain mission or role within humanity. By nation he understood not an ethnic group, but a collection of peoples united in one state. The mission, or role, of a nation within the global whole is its national glue. Every nation must find its own idea, otherwise the existence of a nation is not justified.
The national idea is a specific task given by God; This is the duty of the people united in the state before God. At the same time, this is the contribution that the nation is called upon to make to the treasury of universal human achievements. The national mission is the higher and more significant the more it contributes to the achievement of pan-human unity on Christian grounds.
Thus, the “Russian idea” in Solovyov’s understanding is the mission of Russia as part of the world community. It acts as a duty or moral obligation, and does not flow directly from the material conditions of Russia’s existence. An analysis of Russia's historical path will make it possible to determine those moments in history in which it made the greatest contribution to the development of Christian civilization. It is these moments that will make it possible to determine the mission of Russia in the future: “What Russia must do in the name of the Christian principle and for the benefit of the Christian world.”
What, according to Solovyov, is the “Russian idea”, or the historical mission of Russia? Of course, it should be connected with the task of strengthening the role of Christianity and Christian values. Soloviev believes that power should be used Russian state not for narrow national purposes, but for the benefit of Christian humanity. Russia, as the largest state, should become the initiator and main support of the spiritual unification of Christian countries.
This is the “Russian idea”: “Christian Russia... must subordinate the power of the state... to the authority of the Universal Church and give its due place to public freedom... The Russian empire, isolated in its absolutism, is only a threat of struggle and endless wars. The Russian Empire, which wished to serve the Universal Church and the cause public organization... will bring peace and blessing to the family of nations.”
The “Russian idea” is conceived by Solovyov in the context of his doctrine of the Ecumenical theocracy and unity. Therefore, “the Russian idea requires us to turn all our national talents, all the power of our empire to the final implementation of the social trinity, where each of the three main organic unities - church, state and society” will be “in unconditional internal connection” with the other two. The Church (the first person of the social trinity) represents the beginning of unity and solidarity. She is also the bearer of tradition or legend. The state, or secular power (the second person of the social trinity), must become a powerful instrument of “true social organization.”
To do this, the state should stop being a defender of selfish national interests. The state should not be an end in itself. It should be a means, first of all, to legislatively regulate the private initiative of individuals and organizations.
Finally, society, or the public (the third person of the social trinity), is a free and perfect organization that expresses the initiative and self-organization of free citizens. The public is guided by the activities of the prophets. The three persons of the social trinity must be “unconditionally in solidarity with each other,” since they are organs of a single organism that perform vital functions of the social whole.
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Main stages in the development of philosophical thought
Philosophy of Antiquity. Philosophy of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The birth of science. Three stages .
Formative period (VII - V centuries BC) - understand the essence of nature, the world, the structure of the cosmos, the root causes: Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, etc.
Classical period (IV century BC) - transition to humanitarian issues, the study of human life - Sophists and Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
Hellenistic period (III century BC - VI century AD) - individual ethics of the Epicureans and Stoics.
Philosophy of the Middle Ages
(II-XIV centuries). Two sources: the ideas of ancient thinkers and the establishment of monotheistic religion. Principle theocentrism
.
Questions about the soul, the meaning of life and death. The principle of revelation - the essence of God is revealed through faith. Interpretation of sacred books. Three stages
:
1) patristics; 2) word analysis; 3) scholasticism - rational interpretation of religious ideas.
Renaissance philosophy
(XIV-XVII centuries). Revival of ancient ideas. God is co-eternal with the world. Philosophy is associated with the development of natural science and a new cosmology. Magic and alchemy are developing. Against theocentrism, dogmatism, scholasticism. Philosophy of nature and man.
European philosophy
XVII
century.
Formulation of many sciences. Search for a true method of knowledge based on sensory experience. Clearing the mind of everything uncritically perceived is a condition for reliable knowledge.
English philosophy of enlightenment
XVIII
century
.
The Enlightenment appeared in England (the birth of capitalism). Schools: deistic materialism (God does not take part in the fate of the world after creation), Berkeleyanism, Humeanism and the common sense concepts of the Scottish school.
Age of Enlightenment in France
.
Voltaire, Montesquieu, Didro, Holbach, Helvetius, La Mettrie, Rousseau and others. Ideological preparation for the revolution. Reason and progress are the two main slogans of the French Enlightenment.
German classical philosophy
.
Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Feuerbach. Analysis of the capabilities of the mind in knowledge, in achieving freedom, in becoming, etc. Cognition is an independent, active creative process (the constructive function of the knowing subject).
Dialectical and historical materialism
(40s of the XIX century). Founders: Marx and Engels. Discovery is the unconscious motivation of human actions by material and economic factors. Social processes are driven by economic necessity. Class struggle over the desire to possess material wealth.
Non-classical
philosophy
(2nd half of the 19th century). Two extreme orientations: traditionalist (return to the classical heritage - neo-Hegelianism, neo-Kantianism, neo-Thomism) and critical (nihilism in relation to classical philosophy - Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Bergson, etc.).
Philosophy of Modern Times
.
Anthropologism and value coloring. The question is: how to give meaning to human existence. Moving away from rationalism. The slogan of the victory of reason over the inertia of nature and the imperfection of society is called into question.
^ 1. Philosophy, its subject and functions
Philosophy began around 2500 years ago in the countries of the ancient world - India, China, Egypt. His classic shape she reached V Ancient Greece. The first person to call himself a philosopher was the ancient Greek thinker Pythagoras , A V as a special science it was first identified by another ancient Greek thinker Plato.
The word “philosophy” (from the Greek “philio” - love, “Sophia” - wisdom) literally means love of wisdom. Since ancient times, philosophy has come to be understood as the desire for truth, for deep theoretical reasoning.
Philosophy as a special sphere of spiritual activity arose from the need of people for a generalized and holistic idea of the world around us. It is the oldest region theoretical knowledge in the world, dating back about three thousand years in its development.
Relatively independent branches of philosophy: ontology - the doctrine of being and its essence, gno-seology - the doctrine of knowledge, logics - the doctrine of thinking, its laws and forms, ethics - the doctrine of morality, aesthetics -the doctrine of beauty, social philosophy - the doctrine of human society, history of philosophy, studying the origin, formation and development of philosophical thought. The fundamental feature of philosophical thinking is that it never stops with what has been achieved. What is accepted as an unshakable truth in everyday experience, religion, morality, art, science, for philosophy serves only as a starting point for reflection.
Philosophy - it is a product of the free creative activity of the human mind.
Basic Method of Philosophy – reflection. It means - a reflection of one’s own thinking, a person’s thinking about his thinking, his awareness of his consciousness.
Item philosophy - universal properties to the connection (relationship) of reality - nature, society, man, the relationship between objective reality and the subjective world, material and ideal, being and thinking. The subject of philosophy should be distinguished from the philosophical problems that constitute the content of philosophy. The subject of philosophy exists objectively, independently of philosophy. Universal properties and connections existed even when there was no philosophy yet. Contents of philosophy - problems and their research, based on certain philosophical principles, laws and categories, they do not exist and cannot exist independently of philosophical teaching.
Philosophy appears as: 1) information about the world as a whole and a person’s relationship to the world ( ideological functions ); 2) a set of principles of cognition as a universal method of cognitive activity ( methodological).
Worldview functions:
1) humanistic (issues of life and death, problems of alienation);
2) socio-axiological (value creation, interpretation and criticism social reality);
3) cultural and educational;
4) explanatory and informational (development of a worldview that meets modern requirements).
Methodological functions:
1) heuristic (promoting the growth of scientific knowledge);
2) coordinating (coordinates methods in the process of scientific research);
3) integrating; relying on special sciences, generalizing their findings, uniting them on the basis of their functions and methods of cognition. Performing an integrating function in this way, it extends it not only to science, but also to other areas of spiritual culture, including all forms public consciousness: political, legal, moral, aesthetic, religious (or atheistic);
4) logical-epistemological (development of the philosophical method itself).
Based on universal human experience, philosophy seeks answers to the questions: what is a person, what can he know, what should he do, what can he dare to hope for.
Throughout the centuries-old history of philosophy, its content has changed. In every historical era, philosophers comprehend problems arising in it. But along with transient, temporary questions in philosophy there are also “ eternal" problems that always form the subject of philosophy : the meaning of life, the relationship between matter and spirit, the mystery of infinity, the ideals of love, goodness, justice, etc.
But no matter what problems philosophers deal with, the basis of philosophical knowledge is always the attitude to clarify the connection between man and the world.
2. The main question of philosophy. Main directions of philosophical thought.
In the process of historical development The subject of philosophy has historically changed in close connection with the development of society, culture, science and philosophical knowledge itself. And very rarely philosophers considered the results of previous philosophizing undoubted. Almost all the great thinkers tried to carry out radical reform of philosophy and they thought it was essential task - whose . If in Platonic-Socratic sense, philosophy is eternal search for Truth , Goodness and Beauty , That Kant defined philosophy as the science of the relationship of all knowledge to the essential goals of the human mind, A A. Camus considered the main philosophical question question about suicide , i.e. the question of whether life is worth living? IN modern world self-determination of philosophy even more diverse.
IN Marxist tradition
The consideration of the historical and philosophical process was based on two principles - the principle of sociocultural conditionality of philosophical knowledge and the principle of development.
The definition of the main question of philosophy, proposed by F. Engels
: « The great fundamental question of all, especially modern, philosophy
There is the question of the relationship of thinking to being"
.
This question, in turn, is divided by Engels into two sub-questions: what is primary or what is the essence of the world
? And " Can we, in our ideas and concepts about the real world, form a true reflection of reality?. The answer to the first sub-question serves as the basis for dividing all philosophical teachings into two directions - materialism
(recognizes the primacy of being, nature) and idealism
(recognizes the primacy of thinking, spirit). The answer to the second sub-question is epistemological
- allows you to highlight two main positions - epistemological optimism
(affirmative answer) and agnosticism
(challenges the possibility of exhaustive, reliable knowledge of the essence of the world). The historical and philosophical process appears from the point of view of the principle of development as a struggle between materialism and idealism, which led to the mutual enrichment of these two opposite directions. Both types of worldviews changed their historical form in close connection with the development of society, science, and religion.
^
3. The place and role of philosophy in culture
The answer to the question about the role of philosophy in culture is closely related to the definition essence itselfculture . Culture can be called the totality of the results of human activity and this activity itself. The concept of "culture" fixes the difference between human activity and the functioning of animals, identifies the sphere of extra-biological programs of human activity. The cultural area includes: religion, art, mythology, morality, politics, law, etc.
The role of philosophy in culture is determined by the fact that it reflects on the foundations of culture. She extracts cultural meanings from the socio-historical context, clears them of specifics And transforms them into pure concepts, operating with which constructs possible ideal worlds. Foundation cultures make up values and knowledge, A reflection above them deals with philosophy. Unlike science, philosophy sets itself the task assessments values, assessment of what there must be , and not what is. And at the center of consideration of philosophy are the so-called meaningful, or existential (lat-existence) , values: freedom, life, death, evil, the meaning of life, good, truth, beauty, purpose etc. In culture there are different worldview systems: religion, mythology, philosophy. However only philosophical theories meet the criterion rationality. Philosophy's view of the world and man more precisely and broader than point of view common sense and practical worldview . Therefore philosophy is considered science, special science, which M. M. Bakhtin (1895-1979) characterized as "metalanguage" of all sciences (and all types of cognition and consciousness). Rational-theoretical level of worldview can be structured as follows:
worldview (beliefs, a person’s psychological ideas about the world and his place in it, emotional preferences in this regard).
worldview (intellectual picture of the world -on theoretical level presented natural scientific, philosophical, religious and other theories.
attitude ( The main problem of any worldview is the question of man's relationship to the world - the core of all philosophical constructions, therefore philosophy is problem-centered world relations. Philosophy is not interested in nature in itself, culture purified from man. She's interested the relationship between man and the world, man and man, man and the product of culture.
^ 4. Mythology and philosophy
The emergence of philosophy dates back to to the 6th century BC. At this time in countries Ancient East(primarily in India and China) and in Ancient Greece transition from mythological worldview to philosophical.
Mythology in ancient times acted as form of social consciousness. People perceive and understand the world around them, capture the life experience they have accumulated, preserve and pass it on from generation to generation. People who live by myth perceive it as life itself.
Myths are characterized by the following features:
Birth of philosophy – the birth of a new type of thinking
, which, although nurtured in the bosom of mythological thinking, is fundamentally different
from him and stands out like his rival in constructing a picture of the universe. Philosophy arises when the authority of reason takes the place of the authority of tradition.
Main Differences Between Mythology and Philosophy are as follows.
Mythological consciousness satisfied with the descriptions , philosophical requires evidence.
Philosophical thinking strives to give explanation of reality by rational, logical reasoning, and not through a narrative, the reliability of which from the very beginning is placed beyond any doubt.
By means of philosophical reasoning do not serve visual images and emotions , A abstract concepts.
Mythology is historically the first form of worldview . Mythology is complex of myths, which set out ideas about the origin of the world, its structure, the emergence of man and society. For ancient man, myth was the reality in which he lived. Myths permitted or prohibited certain forms of behavior; myths established for ancient man certain guarantees of the unity of society and the stability of social life.
^ The main property mythological consciousness is considered syncretism. In mythological representations everything can be everything i.e. man and nature, cognition and experience, object and subject not once- efficient.
Second an important feature of mythological consciousness is insensitivity to contradictions. Any object, any person, any phenomenon can be something else at the same time. Objective connection between phenomena is indifferent to myth, it does not notice contradictions, which the modern mind is sure to notice.
Third a feature of mythological consciousness can be considered install laziness special type of connections between phenomena. The myth suggests the following types of such connections. Firstly, metamorphosis: objects, animals, people, phenomena transform into each other. Secondly, associative connections . Associations are very diverse, say, breath and soul or death and sleep. Third, explanation of the connection between phenomena in myth occurs depending on the given goal.
Fourth an important property of mythological consciousness - symbolism. The man of myth operates not in concepts, but in symbols and images. In this case, the symbols are always specific, as opposed to abstract concepts. In addition, symbolism is also manifested in that principle of myth, which can be called personification i.e. natural phenomena, cultural facts, human feelings appear in the form of personalities: The sun is the god Helios, time is Chronos, fear is Phobos etc.
^ Another important feature of the myth - collectivity. Not an individual, but a team creates a primitive myth.
And lastly, what can be noted is such a property of mythological consciousness as authoritarianism. Myth does not allow a person to criticize his positions, leaving him only the opportunity broadcast the myth, its forms and predetermined norms.
It must be said that in the course of historical development the myth is not completely overcome. In modern collective and mass consciousness there are fundamental features of primitive myth. Of course, the modern myth differs from the primitive one, but there are specific features, which prove that a modern myth is also a myth. Myth is present throughout the history of mankind. He existed in various forms of religion, art and politics, he is still alive. Philosophy borrows from myth ideological character, however she offers other solutions ideological problems.
Philosophy's view of the world -this is the point of view of the mind. Instead of characters and images characteristic of myth, philosophy offers concepts, rational categories.
The differences between philosophy and myth can be traced through all the above-mentioned features of myth. Firstly , philosophical consciousness not syncretic : it contrasts subject and object of knowledge, man and nature, knowledge and experience, individual and society.
Secondly, philosophical thinking does not tolerate contradictions and seeks to exclude them. The views of different philosophers may be contradictory to each other, but within one philosophical theory contradiction is not allowed.
Third , philosophy does not allow phenomena to be connected by association or through transformation. Philosophy builds cause-and-effect chains to explain certain phenomena in the life of the world or society.
In philosophy you can always trace the authorship
of this or that idea, i.e. it carries personal
, rather than a collective nature. Philosophy is created by specific individuals and addresses individuals.
^
5. Genesis of philosophy. Historical types of philosophical knowledge.
1). phileo - to love sophia - wisdom
A philosopher is a sage who has knowledge about the world in all its manifestations and at all levels (macrocosm), including about man (microcosm) as a particle, an element of the cosmos. Regardless of the type of occupation and scope of application in ancient Greece, all knowledge was united, undivided. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the physician Hippocrates, the mathematician Pythagoras, and the physicist Archimedes were called (and in fact were) philosophers.
As knowledge develops, on the one hand, the content of the concept of “wisdom” is clarified. Everyone was unanimous that wisdom is knowledge. But knowledge of what? Pythagoras by wisdom I meant search for truth; sophists - the ability to prove what is needed at the moment, regardless of the truth; Plato - the discovery of “eternal truths”; Aristotle - comprehension of the universal, knowledge of principles, causes and goals. On the other hand, increasing a person’s knowledge about the world leads to the “spinning off” of various branches of knowledge from philosophy as the universal wisdom. They begin to live an independent life mathematics, astronomy, medicine and other systems of knowledge about the world and man. Finally, philosophical knowledge itself has its own philosophical “specialization.” He started it Aristotle, divided philosophical knowledge into metaphysics, logic, ethics, physics and other components.
The initial system of general knowledge about the world for human society was mythology. Mythology - a way of understanding and mastering natural and social reality in the early stages of social development. The mythological consciousness of archaic society is characterized by the inseparability of thinking and the emotionally, affectively perceived environment, the humanization of nature, the animation of the cosmos, and at the same time the distinction between the early (sacred) heroic past and the current (profane) present. Myth acts as a way of reflecting the world in the human mind, characterized by sensory-figurative ideas about the world around us. In this sense, it includes a set of information, legends, norms, taboos, rituals, beliefs, in which attempts were made to give an answer to the origin and structure of the world, the origin of man and his clan (tribe). Myth regulated the behavior of clan members, ensured harmony in relations between the world and man, nature and society, regulated relationships between clans and tribes, explained various phenomena of natural and social life - rain, snow, frost, war, family, etc.
Of course, from the standpoint of modern knowledge, these explanations were naive and were based on the information that ancient man had at his disposal. But there was a lot he simply couldn’t explain. In these cases, archaic man resorted to the help of imagination, fantasy, but based on what he knew, what was known ancient man. Thus, he understood the process of the emergence of something as birth; in myths, everything - the earth, sky, sun, moon - is generated by someone. In Greek mythology, lightning was seen as the arrows of an angry Zeus. Thus, the very first ideas about the world existed as attitude , formed by myth. But at the same time, these ideas and knowledge about the world were not homogeneous. On the one hand, myth included fantasies, beliefs in gods and heroes, and on the other, empirical knowledge, generalizations of many years of observations, and common sense. The latter represented “pre-philosophy”, i.e. a prerequisite, a basis for philosophy as developed theoretical knowledge and a worldview based on this knowledge.
As conceptual thinking improves, the rationalization of myth also occurs; in it, knowledge based, on the one hand, on experience, on the other, on faith in the supernatural, “moves” further and further from each other. As a result, two systems of knowledge stand out from mythology and acquire the status of independent ones. That part of mythology that considered the problems of the fundamental principles of the world, its nature, structure, relationship with man, became "foremother" philosophy. And that part of mythology that addressed the problems of comprehending reality through faith became the basis for theology as teachings about religion.
In this capacity, philosophy acts as a way of solving ideological problems with the help reason, rational thinking, intellect.
Worldview can be defined as a set of views, assessments, principles that underlie general ideas about the world, a person’s place in it, life positions, programs and norms of human behavior. It includes the following main components:
A) informative – generalized knowledge about the world and people
B) value-normative – ideals, values, beliefs, norms that determine a person’s life position;
IN) moral-volitional – a system of personal orientations that form readiness for a certain action;
G) practical – activities to implement knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, value orientations.
The main levels of worldview are considered to be: a) world feeling, b) worldview, V) world view , G) world understanding (theoretical level).
In each specific society there are different forms of worldview, but the leading one is the one that gives society the most significant norms, ideals, values, standards of behavior for it, thereby providing the spiritual foundations of people’s life. The leading forms of worldview are:
Mythological - based on a myth in which patterns, patterns of behavior, and rules corresponding to the sacred order are indicated. The mythological worldview is aimed at protecting the community of people from internal and external threats. Includes many prohibitions, regulations, taboos for typical situations. It assumes the principle of the unity of the world and the inclusion of man in this unity.
At the core religious worldview lies in the principle of serving the transcendental principle - the deity, maintaining the order established by him, recorded in the commandments, dogmas, and religious virtues. The basic characteristics of the world are derived from the will of God. The main religious virtues are considered to be humility, obedience, service, fear of God, and reverence for God. The main vices of a person are pride and manifestation of individualism. In the religious view of the world, the beginnings of intolerance towards other worldviews are formed. She expresses herself; on the one hand, in an effort to convert everyone to their “true” faith, on the other hand, in an aggressive defense of the latter (and their worldview) from the expansion of the “untrue” faith.
Ideological worldview is based primarily on political interests; opposition to other views of the world; the desire to achieve victory over an ideological opponent. The choice of a course of action, an act and its evaluation is often based on partisanship as a requirement of a political community, often belligerence. At the same time, this worldview is characterized by increased attention to scientific knowledge. Religious service is being replaced by the concept of economic growth.
Philosophical worldview is formed by philosophy as a system of knowledge about the general. Philosophy forms in a person not a worldview, not a worldview and not a worldview, but worldview, which is based not only on feelings, images and common sense, but above all on rational-theoretical knowledge. In this sense, it can be argued that a philosophical worldview is a theoretical worldview.
Philosophy as independent system knowledge appears at approximately the same time (VI-V centuries BC) among different peoples and in different countries - in India, China, Egypt, Greece, Persia, Babylon. Initially, the philosophical systems of different countries differed significantly from each other. So, eastern philosophy considered mainly humanistic Problems; Egyptian philosophy paid great attention health research ; Greek - the search for origins and problems of knowledge. Gradually, the problems of philosophy were unified, which, of course, did not entail a unity of views on the same problems, but made it possible to outline the object and subject of this system of knowledge, its subject field.
2). Three main approaches to interpreting the essence of philosophy: First - doctrinal . Those., philosophy is a certain doctrine or a system of complete truths, discovered by one or another hero of the “thinking mind”. The task of his followers - use this doctrine to analyze modern processes. The doctrinal approach is represented by such a direction as neo-Thomism, which until 2000 was considered the official philosophy of the Catholic Church. The author of this doctrine is the largest Middle Ages scholastic Thomas Aquinas formulated the difference between theology and philosophy. Philosophy and theology study the same subjects - man, world, God . But intelligence , the basis of philosophy, ascends from the knowledge of consequences to the root cause, and Revelation - the basis of theology - from knowledge of the root cause to the consequences. Therefore, it is the truths of Revelation that act as a criterion for the truth of judgments obtained by reason. Faith orients reason, theology orients philosophy, without eliminating the latter.
Instrumental the approach is presented in the culture of the 20th century. in such directions as logical positivism, pragmatism, analytical philosophy. The essence of this position was clearly expressed by L. Witgenstein: “Philosophy is not a doctrine, but an activity” - an activity to clarify language, and first of all, to clarify the language of science. Purpose of this activity - eliminate all meaningless statements from the language of science , i.e., statements that cannot be reduced to “protocol sentences” that record sensory observable “atomic facts”, or to tautologies.
American philosopher R. Rorty, drawing on the traditions of analytical philosophy, distinguishes between systematic philosophy and edifying philosophy. First type philosophy strives to knowledge of the truth and finding the correct vocabulary to represent the essence of the world, universal for all humanity. He considers systematic philosophers Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Hegel and many others..
Philosophers-mentors , on the contrary, they believe that love of wisdom does not at all mean love of argumentation, and science is only “one of many words from that potential infinity of dictionaries in which the world can be described. The essence of edifying philosophy is “ to keep the conversation going, not to seek objective truth.” . This view of philosophy comes from ideas about man as a subject capable of generating more and more new descriptions of the world . The role of edifying philosophy is “ preventing the fallacy by which a person confuses himself with the concept of what he knows about himself or about anything else, except in optional descriptions". TO philosopher-mentors relate F. Nietzsche, S. Kierkegaard, K. Marx, W. James, 3. Freud, late L. Wittgenstein, late M. Heidegger, G. Gadamer.
Third approach has become widespread in modern philosophy - this existential self-determination of philosophy. Philosophy is seen as “tragic clarification by the spirit of the meaning of human existence” ( N. A. Berdyaev ), as a way of authentic existence, revealing the value and meaning of life . This approach is represented by such directions of philosophy of the 20th century as personalism, philosophy of life, existentialism.
"Philosophy,- wrote K. Jaspers (representative of German existentialism) - contains the claim: to find the meaning of life above all goals in the world - to reveal a meaning that embraces these goals - to realize, as if crossing life, this meaning in the present - to serve through the present the future - never to reduce any person or person in general to a means.” . In this sense, philosophizing is communication between absolutely free and equal people.
^ The purpose of philosophizing - to become a true human being through understanding existence. Unlike science, in philosophy the question of being is posed not independently of the philosopher, but in the way he is experienced me as a philosopher. Philosophizing , according to M. Heidegger , is such a questioning that questions the questioner himself. According to representatives of this approach, philosophy is much closer to art than to science. It is no coincidence that many representatives of existentialism (J. P. Sartre, A. Camus) preferred to express their philosophical ideas in works of art. However, philosophy is also different from art. If art comprehends the embodied whole , That philosophy - existence or a whole in transit.
^
6. The formation of Western philosophy: the Milesian school
The Milesian school is known as the first philosophical school. Was there for the first time consciously
the question was raised about the fundamental principles of all things
.
In the first place here is the Question of the Essence of the World . And although individual representatives of the school solve this issue differently, their views have a common denominator: the basis of the world they see in a certain material principle. We can say that this first Greek school of philosophy spontaneously tends towards materialism.
Representatives of this school intuitively understood the world as material, but at the same time the question of the interaction of material and spiritual principles was not raised. Along with spontaneous materialism, "naive" dialectics (development in all its complexity, diversity of forms and inconsistency). Using dialectics, the Milesian representatives strive to understand the world in the dynamics of its development and change.
Founder of the Milesian school of philosophy - Thales of Miletus - 640-562 BC.
The basis of everything Thales thought Water . He understood water not as a concrete form, but as an amorphous current concentration of matter . According to Thales, in " endless water” also contains the potential for further development. Everything else arises through the “condensation” or “rarefaction” of this primary matter.
About the earth, Thales believed that it had the shape of a disk. Connected with the understanding of water as a fundamental principle is his view that the Earth floats in endless water. It has pores and holes. He explained earthquakes as vibrations of the Earth on disturbed water.
To others was an outstanding Milesian philosopher Anaximander (611-545 BC). Like Thales, he spontaneously gravitated towards materialism . He was a student of Thales. The most interesting of his astronomical views is the idea that " The earth rises freely, not being bound by anything, and is not held back, since it is equally distant from everywhere" He also says that the Earth is in perpetual rotational motion, which serves as a source of heat and cold.
Just like Thales, Anaximander puts question about the beginning of the world. He claimed that the origin and basis is something infinite , and did not define it either as air, or as water, or as anything else. He taught that the parts change, but the whole remains unchanged. Thus, Anaximander offered his arche and left material certainty Thales - Water. His arche characterized as something limitless, indefinite (apeiron)
Anaximander encounters problems that Thales only abstractly designates - problems of the origin and formation of life: “The first animals were born in a humid environment and had a covering with spines. But when they grew up, they came out onto land and, when the cover broke, they lived for a short time.”.The ability to live is here attributed directly a certain type of matter. According to this view - all matter is living . Anaximander also includes humans among the natural series of animals. He said: " In the beginning, man was born from an animal of another species."
Anaximander's thoughts are thus deepen the materialistic tenets of the Milesian school.
Third the outstanding Milesian philosopher is Anaximenes. (585-524 BC). He was a student and follower of Anaximander. Like Thales and Anaximander, he studied astronomical phenomena, which, like other natural phenomena, he sought to explain in a natural way. In a certain sense, he strengthened and completed the tendency of ancient Greek materialism to search for the natural causes of phenomena and things. That's what it was new worldview which arises in the fight against the old religious and mythological. That is why representatives of the Milesian school consider explaining natural phenomena an important task and are making a lot of efforts in this direction.
From this point of view, Anaximenes, like Thales and Anaximander earlier, puts forward and resolves the question of the primary cause of being and action, about what is The basis of the world. He, like his predecessors, believes that the fundamental principle of the world is a certain type of matter. He considers such matter - Air. But not just air, but unlimited, endless, indefinitely shaped . Everything else then emerges from thin air. Discharge air leads to the appearance fire, A thickening causes winds-clouds- water - earth - stones. Anaximenes extends the natural explanation of the origin and development of the world to explanation of the origin of the Gods. Anaximenes said: “The beginning is the boundless air and that from it arises everything that is, that was, that will be, divine and divine things, and that everything that follows will arise from the offspring of the air.” The air, in his opinion, constantly fluctuates, otherwise if it did not move, it would not change as much as it does.
Anaximenes is last representative of the philosophy of the Milesian school. As you can see this the school sought to explain the world materialistically, its individual phenomena, its principle or basis.
^
Psychology and atheism
. First Milesian philosophers, Thales and Anaximander
, as far as we know, little was said about the soul, about consciousness
. Thales bound the soul with the ability to move independently.
The magnet, he said, has a soul because it attracts iron. All the more valuable is the little that we find on this issue in Anaximenes. Completing the construction of a unified picture of the world, Anaximenes
saw in the boundless air is the beginning of both body and soul. The soul is airy.
Significance of the Milesian School
: She was the first to suggest understanding the material basis of the world,
and thereby laid the foundations of European science.
^
7. Dialectics of Heraclitus of Ephesus.
Heraclitus – great ancient greek dialectician. Dialectics in Heraclitus , like his predecessors, - this is first of all ascertainment and recordingthe eternity of changes taking place in the world. Thought about changes Heraclitus takes shape philosophical idea. Everything changes, and changes constantly; there is no limit to change; they are always, everywhere and in everything - this is what is said in the famous short formula attributed to Heraclitus: “Everything flows, everything changes.”
In Heracles, the river is nothing more than a symbol, thanks to which it is affirmed in a way understandable to people. universal thought. The same is the role of others Heraclitean symbols - fire, war (hostility), etc. The connection of Heraclitus's thoughts with symbols, images - specific feature of his philosophy . This dialectics of change in images and symbols. For example, Heraclitus characterizes the sun as "new every day, but always and continuously new " In another case, according to Heraclitus, in You cannot enter the same river twice.
Specifics of dialectics Heraclitus - also that thought about change joins here with the idea of unity and struggle of opposites. The forerunner of this approach, as already mentioned, was Anaximander. The idea of the One - and, therefore, of bringing to One, to unity - adjacent to the idea bifurcation of the One , isolating opposites from it. Heraclitus asserts not just the existence of opposites, but their inescapability and universality. Opposites exist everywhere. The presence of opposites for Heraclitus - the basis of both existence and harmony of the world . Contradiction brings us closer together - such is the Heraclitian paradox.
Another dialectical idea - struggle, "enmity" of opposites . Heraclitus was the inventor of the idea the struggle of opposites as a constructive philosophical principle. In the depiction of Heraclitus, struggle, strife, war have a deep relationship to birth, emergence, flourishing, i.e. to life itself. “One must know that war is generally accepted, that enmity is the usual order of things... and that everything arises through enmity and borrowing (= “at the expense of another”)
^ Three fundamental dialectical ideas, which were isolated from the corpus of Heraclitean fragments, internally connected to each other, flow into each other, which also the dialectic is already emerging Since we have accepted, together with Heraclitus, the idea-image of eternal change: you cannot enter the same river twice, then it is logical to draw a conclusion in a slightly different form: we enter and do not enter the same river, we exist and do not exist. One state gives way to another, " The cold is heated, the hot is cooled, the wet is dried, the parched is watered." So the idea of universal variability merges into a thesis about unity of opposites . Change is, according to Heraclitus, a combination of extremes - first of all existence And non-existence , but also destruction of one There is the emergence of another.
Dialectics entered into the history of philosophy and culture, and then moved forward also through reasoning that demonstrated the relativity of man’s ideas about the world and himself, confronted philosophers and people interested in philosophy with ideological, logical, and mathematical paradoxes, riddles, contradictions, and difficulties.
Heraclitus was a desperate debater. Word "I bet" perhaps most closely related to Heraclitean dialectic .
Thought of the Ancients about mutual transformations , the overflow of opposite things, states, elements into each other, Heraclitus preferred fixed in the form of a dialectical paradox. It would seem that what could be more incompatible than the Sun and night? If the Sun is shining, it certainly means that there is no night. However, here too Heraclitus prepared his own paradox: “If it weren’t for the Sun, we wouldn’t know what night is.”
Aristotle believed that Heraclitean dialectic had a huge influence on Plato. It is difficult not to believe Aristotle - after all, he was a student of Plato. In the intellectual destinies of many subsequent philosophers, such dissimilar ones as Hegel and Nietzsche, one can detect a profound influence Heraclitean ideas and images.
So, the enduring merit of Heraclitus is that he, imagining the world multiple, mortal things, the human world is mobile, changeable, fluid, divided into opposites, at the same time held the idea of unity and natural order in the immeasurable, always asking riddles, a completely unknown and unknowable space.
Plan:
Introduction.
1. Prerequisites and conditions for the emergence of philosophy.
2.Philosophy of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages.
3. Philosophy of the Renaissance and Modern times.
Conclusion.
Literature:
1. Fundamentals of philosophy. Tutorial. Edited by E.V. Popov - Moscow: VLADOS, 1997 (Topic 2.).
2. Kanke V.A. Philosophy. - Moscow: LOGOS, 1996 (p. 10 - 100).
3. Introduction to philosophy. In 2 parts. Part 1. Moscow: POLITIZDAT, 1989 (p. 74 - 192).
4. Philosophy. Lecture course. Edited by E.F. Solopov. Moscow: VLADOS, 1997 (p. 251 - 285).
5. History of philosophy. Edited by V.M. Mapelman, E.M. Penkov. Moscow: PRIOR, 1997 (p. 11 - 255).
Time: 2 hours.
Audience: No.
INTRODUCTION.
The previous lecture already touched on a number of issues related to the history of philosophy.
The purpose of this lecture:
- to give an idea of the LOGIC of the development of world philosophical thought, of the most important problems that were posed to man and solved in different ways in the history of philosophy for almost 2.5 millennia.
The relevance of the topic is determined by the very essence of the history of philosophy.
The development and improvement of the worldview of the future officer is possible only through a comprehensive study of the history of philosophy, which expresses all the spiritual wealth of human thought.
- Studying the history of philosophy is a necessary condition for mastering philosophy and developing the ability of theoretical-dialectical thinking.
- Studying the history of philosophy develops among cadets an interest in science, its current problems, and human intelligence in general.
- In the history of philosophy, as in no other science, there is continuity, critical processing, and interconnection of ideas and theories of past philosophical systems with the present. This connection is made through philosophical traditions. One generation passes on to another not only material culture, but also its ideas, thoughts, theories, and you need to know this.
- In modern conditions, when the amount of knowledge necessary for a person increases sharply and quickly, it is impossible to place the main emphasis on assimilating a certain amount of facts. It is important to develop the ability to independently replenish your knowledge and navigate the rapid flow of scientific and socio-political information.
Let us move on to consider the logic of the development of world philosophical thought.
QUESTION #1.
Prerequisites and conditions for the emergence of philosophy.
The real process of development and change philosophical ideas studies a special science - the history of philosophy.
The history of philosophy is the history of the self-awareness of human culture, i.e. ultimately, world history itself, but not in empirical, but in essential, categorical expression.
Reflecting the history of mankind, in the history of world philosophy various problems were posed and solved, which were posed and solved in different ways.
The philosophical heritage is still relevant today and has enduring value.
What are the historical types of philosophy?
This:
-Philosophy of the ancient world, including:
-Indian philosophy
-Chinese philosophy
-Ancient philosophy
-Philosophy of the Middle Ages
-Philosophy of the Renaissance
-Philosophy of modern times of the 17th century
-Philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment
-European philosophy of the 19th century
-Modern philosophy of the 20th century.
Each of these stages of philosophy was distinguished by a number of features:
* Ancient philosophy - developed under the influence
-On the one hand - mythology,
-On the other hand, science emerging in Ancient Greece.
* Medieval philosophy - developed in close connection with the religious form of consciousness dominant in that historical period.
* Philosophy of the Renaissance (15-16 centuries) - developed under the strong influence of art. It is then that a new reading of ancient literature begins; The aesthetic approach plays a big role in shaping the views of humanists.
* Philosophy of the New Age (17th century) - it is characterized by an orientation towards science. Moreover, science was understood as experimental and mathematical natural science, which differed significantly from ancient and medieval science, which did not yet know experiment.
* Philosophy of the Enlightenment (18th century) - based on criticism of religion, theology, its important function was the ideological preparation for the French Revolution. Great importance is attached to reason as the engine of social progress.
* European philosophy of the 19th century acted as the “critical conscience of culture,” and its leading representatives not only managed to penetrate into the essence of the fundamental interests of their contemporaries, but also stood up for their defense and joined the struggle to solve serious historical problems. This period is characterized by the fact that the world begins to take the form of industrial civilization - in European countries there is a change in the socio-political system (the feudal foundations of society are changing to capitalist ones).
* Philosophy of the 20th century - characterized by a new stage of Western European, Russian philosophy and connections with the names of existentialist, neo-Freudian philosophers, with the ideas of the philosophy of life, the ideology of the Frankfurt school, etc. The new era with its values and ideas was reflected in philosophical teachings.
According to Hegel, philosophy is “an era reflected in thinking.” Despite all the uniqueness of the stages of philosophy in different periods, CONTINUITY was preserved in the development of thought, which allows us to speak about the UNITY of the historical-philosophical process.
Speaking about genesis (Greek Genesis - origin, emergence), it should be noted that philosophy is formed in a period when traditional mythological ideas become unable to satisfy new worldview demands.
Socio-economic conditions changed, old forms of communication between people collapsed, they required the individual to develop a new position in life. Philosophy was one of the answers to this demand.
What did she offer the man?
* New type self-determination: not through habit, but through your own mind.
* The philosopher told the student: do not take everything on faith, think for yourself. Education took the place of custom.
CONCLUSION:
Thus:
- Philosophy reflects the tragic confrontation between tradition and new relations (the formation of law and state).
- Philosophy is precisely this type of worldview, which at all times conveyed in theoretical or artistic form the crisis of the era and the birth of a new culture.
QUESTION No. 2.
Philosophy of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages.
1. Philosophy of the Ancient World.
The philosophy of the Ancient World is divided into:
* philosophy of the Ancient East
* Ancient philosophy.
1. The philosophy of the Ancient East is represented by the cultures of Ancient Egypt, Babylon, India and China.
A. Ancient Egypt and Babylon.
The first philosophical ideas began to take shape in Ancient Babylon and Ancient Egypt, where slave societies were formed as early as 4-3 thousand BC and, therefore, it became possible for some people to engage in mental work.
The emergence of philosophical thought proceeded heterogeneously, under the influence of two powerful processes:
- on the one hand – cosmogonic mythology
- on the other hand, scientific knowledge.
This affected her character.
Traits:
1. Philosophical thought included ideas about the material basis of the world. This was water, the source of all living beings.
Air was often mentioned in ancient Egyptian monuments, filling space and “absorbing in all things.”
2. “Theogony” and “cosmogony” of Ancient Egypt.
A big role was given to luminaries, planets and stars. They played a role not only for calculating time and for predictions, but also as forces creating the world and constantly acting on it (the world).
3. The emergence in philosophy of skepticism regarding religious mythology.
Written monuments:
- “The Book of the Dead” is the most ancient book in the world.
- “Dialogue between master and slave about the meaning of life”
- "Harper's Song"
- “Conversation of a disappointed person with his spirit.”
CONCLUSION:
Philosophical thought here (Egypt, Babylon) had not yet reached the level characteristic of more developed countries of that time. Nevertheless, the views of the Egyptians had a significant influence on the subsequent development of science and philosophical thought.
B. Ancient India:
In India, philosophy arose (as evidenced by the monuments of Indian philosophical culture) in the 2nd - early 1st millennium BC, when the invasion of the Aryans (pastoral tribes) from the north-west, their conquest of the country's population, the decomposition of the primitive communal system, led to the appearance in Ancient India class society and the state.
1st stage - Vedic:
The first monument of the thought of the ancient Indians was the Vedas (translated from Sanskrit as “knowledge”), which played a decisive role in the development of the spiritual culture of ancient Indian society, including the development of philosophy.
The Vedas were apparently created from 1500 to 600 BC; they represent an extensive collection of religious hymns, spells, teachings, observations of natural cycles, “naive” ideas about the origin - the creation of the universe.
The Vedas are divided into 4 parts:
-samhitas - religious hymns, “holy scripture”;
-brahmanas - a collection of ritual texts;
-aramyaki - books of forest hermits (with rules of their behavior);
-Upanishads (seat at the feet of the teacher) - philosophical commentaries on the Vedas.
2nd stage - Epic (600 BC - 200 BC):
At this time, two great epics of Indian culture were created - the poems “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata”.
* Philosophical schools appear, since ancient Indian philosophy is characterized by development within certain systems or schools.
These schools are divided into two large groups:
Group 1: Orthodox - recognizing the authority of the Vedas.
1. Sankhya - 6th century BC
2. Vanzheishka - 6th - 5th centuries BC
3. Mimamsa - 5th century BC
4. Vedanta - 4-2 centuries BC
5. Nyaya - 3rd century BC
6. Yoga - 2nd century BC
Group 2: Unorthodox (not recognizing the authority of the Vedas).
1. Jainism - 4th century BC
2. Buddhism 7-6 centuries BC
3. Charvaka - Lokayata.
3rd stage - Writing sutras (3rd century AD - 7th century AD):
The accumulated philosophical material is systematized and generalized.
Common features of the philosophical schools of Ancient India:
1. The world around us and personality are closely connected. Vl. Solovyov (Russian philosopher): “Everything is one - this was the first word of philosophy, and with this word its freedom and fraternal unity were first proclaimed to humanity... Everything is a modification of a single essence.”
2. The philosophy of Ancient India is directed inward to man. The highest goal of life is liberation from the suffering of the world and the achievement of a state of enlightenment and bliss - Nirvana.
3. Life principles - asceticism, introspection, self-absorption, inaction. Those. philosophy acts not only as a theory, but also as a way of life, of guiding life.
4. Philosophy is abstract in nature, solves the problems of the root cause, the absolute, reflects on what owns souls.
5. The doctrine of rebirth - an endless chain of rebirths, the eternal cycle of life and death. The law of cosmic order and expediency forces inanimate matter to strive for transformation into living matter, living matter into conscious, intelligent matter, and intelligent matter towards spiritual, moral perfection.
6. The doctrine of Karma - the sum of the evil and good deeds of each person. Karma determines the form of the next rebirth.
THAT. Indian philosophy was a huge leap of the human spirit from complete dependence on the material world to its freedom.
B. Ancient China.
China is a country of ancient history, culture, and philosophy. In the middle of the 2nd millennium BC in the state of Shan-Yin (18-12 centuries BC) a slave-owning economic system arose.
In the 12th century BC, as a result of a war, the Shan-Yin state was destroyed by the Zhou tribe, which created its own dynasty.
In 221 BC, China united into the mighty Qin Empire and a new stage in the development of the state and philosophy began.
Chinese philosophy solves a number of universal human problems:
* awareness of nature, society, man
* the relationship between man and nature.
The main philosophical schools in Ancient China:
1. Natural philosophers (supporters of the doctrine of Yin and Yang) developed the doctrine of opposite principles (male and female, dark and light, sunrise and sunset). Finding harmony, agreement between principles was one of the tasks of philosophy of that time.
2. Confucianism (Confucius 551-479 BC - the most prominent thinker and politician, founder of the school of Confucianism):
* Confucius's views were based on the traditional religious concept of Heaven. This is the great beginning, the supreme deity, which dictates its will to man. Heaven is the universal progenitor and great ruler: it gives birth to the human race and gives it rules of life.
* Idealization of antiquity, cult of ancestors, replenishment of the norms of the SNF - sons are respectful and caring for their parents.
* Each person must correspond to his purpose and be obedient (in accordance with the chain of command)
3. Taoism - the doctrine of the great Tao (the way of things).
Founder Lao Tzu (6th - 5th centuries BC).
Main idea:
* the life of nature and people is not controlled by the “will of heaven”, but flows along a certain path - Tao.
Tao is the natural law of things themselves, which, together with the substance Tsi (air, ether), forms the basis of the world.
*In the world, everything is in motion and change, everything is constantly changing, no matter how this development goes, justice will prevail. This is the law. A person should not interfere with the natural course of things, i.e. The meaning of life is to follow naturalness and inactivity (inaction). The surrounding society is harmful to humans. We need to strive from the society around us.
Features of Chinese philosophy.
1. It is closely connected with mythology, but the connection with mythology appears, first of all, as historical legends about past dynasties, about the “golden age”.
2. It is associated with acute socio-political struggle. Many philosophers held important government positions.
3. She rarely resorted to natural science material (with the exception of the Mohist school)
4. Practicality of theoretical searches: human self-improvement, government. Ethical criteria in any business were the main material for the Chinese.
5. The canonization of Confucianism led to an ideological law between natural science and philosophy.
6. The separation of Chinese philosophy from Logic and Natural Science slowed down the formation of the political apparatus, so theorizing of a natural philosophical and ideological nature was rare. The method of philosophical analysis remained virtually unknown to most Chinese schools.
7. Consideration of the world as a Single Organism. The world is one, all its elements are interconnected and harmoniously maintain balance.
8. Chinese philosophy of antiquity is anthropocentric, aimed at solving problems of worldly wisdom, has an attitude towards the natural course of things, non-action.
In general, conclusions on the philosophy of the Ancient East.
1. It had a number of features reflecting the peculiarities of the development of peoples, their socio-economic and state traditions.
2. Many theses of this philosophy were included in subsequent philosophical systems:
-Indian - “that is, you (or everything is one)” - the first word of philosophy about the unity of everything that exists was reflected in the metaphysics of unity of Vl. Solovyov;
-Egyptian - about the material basis of natural phenomena, which was reflected in the ancient philosophy of materialists.
-Chinese - a) Taoist philosophy about the natural path of all things - Tao - is reflected in the moral categorical imperative of Kant, Hegel's dialectics.
b) the Confucian school became the first dogmatic school that substantiates authoritative power - it was reflected in Soviet philosophy.
3. The periods of culture - Renaissance, Enlightenment, Reformation - were not developed in the regions studied.
Why?
Rationalistic tendencies were not properly implemented, and therefore the centers of the highest ancient civilization of India, Egypt, and China remained essentially unaffected by scientific and technological progress. This is due to a special eastern tradition, a tradition of spirituality, and a special mentality.
The peculiarity is that the richness of spiritual life from the very beginning was preferable to rationalistic material life. That is why civilization in these countries (especially in India), civilization in the sense of industrial and technical development, is not developed precisely because development could only take place to the detriment of spiritual development. And that would be disastrous. The destructive nature of rationalism and technological progress for the culture was well recognized, and is now recognized.
2. Ancient philosophy.
It is known that our civilization is a subsidiary of antiquity, therefore ancient philosophy acts as the forerunner of modern philosophy.
Ancient philosophy is the philosophy of the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans.
It existed from the 6th century BC to the 6th century AD, i.e. about 1200 years:
1. Beginning - Thales (625 - 547 BC) - end - the decree of Emperor Justinian on the closure of philosophical schools in Athens (529 AD).
From the formation of archaic cities on the Ionian and Italian coasts (Miletus, Ephesus, Elea) to the heyday of democratic Athens and the subsequent crisis and collapse of the city.
The surge of philosophical thought was due to:
-democratic structure of society;
-the absence of eastern tyranny;
-remote geographical location.
In its development, ancient philosophy went through 4 stages:
Stage 1: Pre-Socratic from the 7th - 5th centuries BC (famous German classical philologists of the 19th century: Hermann Diels, Walter Crans introduced the term “Pre-Socratics” to collectively designate natural philosophical schools).
Ionian group of schools:
-Miletus: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes (6th century BC).
-Eleatic school (5th century BC): Parmenides, Xenophanes.
-Heraclitus from Ephesus.
Athens Group of Schools:
-Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans.
-Mechanism and atomism: Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Leucippus.
-Sophism (2nd half of the 5th century BC): Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Hippias.
Stage 2: Classical (from half of the 5th to the end of the 4th century BC).
Socrates (469 - 399 BC).
Plato (427 - 347 BC).
Aristotle (384 - 322 BC).
Ethical schools:
- hedonic (Aristippus)
- cynical (Antiseen).
Stage 3: Hellenistic (late 4th - 2nd centuries BC).
Philosophical schools:
-peripatetics (school of Aristotle)
-academic philosophy (Platonov Academy)
-Stoic school (Zeno of Kition)
-epicurean (Epicurean)
-skepticism.
Stage 4: Roman (1st century BC - 5-6th centuries AD)
-stoicism (Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius)
-Epicureanism (Titus Lucretius Carus)
-skepticism (Sextus Empiricus).
Characteristics of the stages.
The 1st stage is characterized as natural philosophy (philosophy of nature).
Why?
1. For the Greeks, nature is the main absolute (i.e. it is something eternal, infinite, unconditional, perfect, unchangeable, self-sufficient).
2. It was not created by the gods (the gods themselves are part of nature).
3. Man is initially connected with nature.
4. The human mind has freed itself from the power of the gods, therefore in their lives people rely on the arguments of reason.
5. The first Greek philosophers were also the first natural scientists.
6. The most important discovery of the human mind for the Greeks is the law (Logos), to which everything and everyone is subject, and which distinguishes a citizen from a barbarian.
From here:
1. There is a search for the beginning (the first brick) from which everything that exists is created.
a) from a specific substance (625-547 BC)
* For Thales, the origin is water (everything comes from water and turns into air).
* Anaximenes (585-525 BC) - air (due to its infinity and mobility), things are born from it: “when rarefied, fire is born, and when condensed, wind is born, then fog, water, earth , stone. And from this everything else arises.”
* Heraclitus has fire. “No one created this world, but it always was, is and will be an eternally living fire, creating existence from opposing aspirations.” Soul is fire.
b) from something uncertain
* In Anaximander (610-545 BC) - Apeiron (infinite), “apeiron is nothing more than matter, in which opposites are, as it were, combined (hot - cold, etc.), the separation of which is determines all development in various forms. This movement of things is eternal."
* For Leucippus (500-440 BC) and Democritus (460-370 BC) - atom. Atoms are the elements that make up all of nature. The atom is indivisible, eternal, unchanging, impenetrable. Therefore, the world is eternal and indestructible.
Atoms differ from each other:
-in shape (triangle, hook, etc.), the human soul and thoughts consist of atoms - round, smooth, tiny and mobile. They are located in the body.
-in size (and weight).
-by movement.
c) the essence of things is in numbers.
* Pythagoras (580-late 5th century BC) - everything is a number. Number for Pythagoras is not an abstract quantity, but an essential and active quality of the supreme Unit, i.e. God, the source of world harmony. Numbers expressed, in their opinion, a certain order, harmony of the surrounding world and the diversity of things and phenomena. “Where there is no number and measure, there is chaos and chimeras.”
d) the essence of things in their being
* For Parmenides - substance - being as such. “Existence is, non-existence is not, for non-existence can neither be known (after all, it is incomprehensible) nor expressed. Being is eternal, one, motionless, indestructible, identical and always equal to itself. It is homogeneous and continuous, spherical. There is no empty space - everything is filled with being.
2. Cosmogonic theories of the structure of the world are substantiated.
Based on the understanding of the substance of the world (or the first brick), philosophers of Ancient Greece created their cosmogonic theories of the structure of the world (universe).
* Thales - The Earth is a flat disk floating on the surface of water - it is the center of the Universe. The stars, the Sun, the Moon are made of the Earth and are fed by the evaporation of water, then during rain the water returns and passes into the Earth.
* Heraclitus (the first dialectician) - his cosmology is built on the basis of elemental dialectics.
The world is an ordered cosmos. The formation of this cosmos occurs on the basis of the general variability and fluidity of things. “Everything flows, everything changes, nothing is stationary.”
All nature, without stopping, changes its state. “You cannot step into the same river twice.”
The world is born and dies.
The basis of the entire movement is the Struggle of opposites - it is absolute.
Democritus: atoms move chaotically, colliding, they form vortices, of which the earth and the stars, and subsequently entire worlds. The idea is about an infinite number of worlds in the Universe.
The 2nd stage (Classical) is characterized as anthropological, i.e. the central problem becomes the problem of man.
Why?
1. By the end of the 5th - beginning of the 4th century BC, due to a number of reasons (endless wars, destruction of states, the transition from tyranny to slave-owning democracy and vice versa), a crisis of Athenian democracy began, which gave rise to the ideology of the slave-owning aristocracy.
2. Changes in social life, new social needs, have changed the conditions for the formation of the human personality.
3. In philosophy itself, a sufficient amount of knowledge has been accumulated, and thinking tools have been developed for the transition from philosophy as love of wisdom, to philosophy as the “first science”.
From here:
1. There is a transition from the primary study of nature to the consideration of man, his life in all its diverse manifestations, a subjectivist-anthropological tendency in philosophy arises.
2. Problems are solved:
A) The problem of a person, his knowledge of his relationships with other people.
Socrates for the first time at the center of philosophy sees the problem of man as a moral being:
-reveals the nature of human morality;
-determines what is Good, Evil, Justice, Love, i.e. that which constitutes the essence of the human soul;
-shows that it is necessary to strive for knowledge of oneself precisely as a person in general, i.e. moral, socially significant personality.
Cognition is the main goal and ability of a person, because at the end of the process of cognition we come to objective, universally valid truths, to the knowledge of goodness, beauty, goodness and human happiness. In the person of Socrates, the human mind first began to think logically.
B) The problem of politics and the state and their relationship to man.
* Socrates - the state is strong in how citizens fulfill the laws - for everyone, the Fatherland and the Laws should be higher and more expensive than father and mother.
* Plato - created the theory of the “Ideal State”, dividing society into three classes:
1st - managers - philosophers
2nd - guards (warriors)
3rd - lower (peasants, artisans, traders).
-the state is the embodiment of ideas, and people act as toys, invented and controlled by God.
* Aristotle - man is a political animal, a manifestation of concern for another is a manifestation of concern for society.
C) Problems of synthesizing philosophical knowledge, constructing metaphysical systems that recognized two worlds - the world of ideas and the fluid, moving world of things, searching for a rational method of knowing these worlds.
* Plato is the founder of idealistic European philosophy.
1. For the first time he divided philosophy into two movements depending on their solution to the question of the nature of true being (materialists and idealists).
2. Plato discovered the sphere of supersensible existence - the “world of ideas.” The first principle is the world of ideas. Ideas cannot be touched, they cannot be seen, they cannot be touched. Ideas can only be “contemplated” with the mind, through concepts. The material world is also necessary, but it is only a shadow of the world of ideas. True existence is a world of ideas. Plato declared the world of ideas to be the divine kingdom in which, before the birth of a person, his immortal soul resides. Then she falls on the sinful earth and, temporarily being in a human body, remembers the world of ideas.
Thus, knowledge is the soul’s recollection of its pre-earthly existence.
* Aristotle is a student of Plato, his works are considered the pinnacle
philosophical thought of Ancient Greece.
The main provisions of his teaching:
* criticized Plato’s theory of Ideas (“Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer”);
* created the doctrine of categories (essence and quality);
* the doctrine of matter and form: he was the first to introduce the concept of Matter, recognizing it as eternal, uncreated, indestructible;
* made a distinction between sciences into theoretical, practical and creative:
Theoretical:
-metaphysics (or philosophy itself) - studies the root causes of all things, the origin of all things;
-physics - studies the state of bodies and certain “matter”;
- mathematics - abstract properties of real things.
Practical:
-ethics - the science of norms of behavior
-economics, politics
Creative:
-poetics
-rhetoric.
* developed the science of logic, calling it an “organic” science for the study of being, and identified in it the method of cognition - induction;
* the doctrine of the soul on which Aristotelian ethics is based.
3rd stage: Hellenistic.
Associated with the decline of the ancient Greek slave society and the collapse of Greece. The crisis led to the loss of political independence by Athens and other Greek city states. Athens became part of the huge power created by Alexander the Great.
The collapse of the power after the death of the conqueror intensified the development of the crisis, which caused profound changes in the spiritual life of society.
General characteristics of the philosophy of this stage:
-transition from commentary on the teachings of Plato and Aristotle to problems of ethics, preaching skepticism and stoicism:
Skepticism is a philosophical concept that questions the possibility of knowing objective reality.
Stoicism is a teaching that proclaims the ideal of life - equanimity and calmness, the ability not to react to internal and external stimuli.
Main problems:
-morality and human freedom, achieving happiness;
-problems of the ability to understand the world;
-structures of the cosmos, the fate of the cosmos and man;
-relationship between God and Man.
4th stage: Roman
During this period, Rome began to play a decisive role in the ancient world, under whose influence Greece fell. Roman philosophy was formed under the influence of the Greek, especially the Hellenistic period. Those. Stoicism and Epicureanism develop in it, which acquire their own characteristics.
During the period of decline of the Roman Empire, the crisis of society intensified, causing a catastrophe for personal existence.
The craving for religion and mysticism increased.
Answering the questions of the time, philosophy itself became a religion, a bridge to Christianity.
CONCLUSIONS:
1. Ancient philosophy is based on the principle of objectivism. This means that the subject does not yet become higher than the object (as happened in modern European philosophy).
2. Ancient philosophy comes from the sensory cosmos, and not from the absolute personality (which is typical for the Middle Ages).
3. Cosmos is an absolute deity, which means that ancient philosophy is pantheistic, i.e. identifies God and nature. The Greek gods are natural and human-like. Space is animated.
4. Space creates necessity. Necessity in relation to a person is fate. But since she is not known to him for certain, he can make a choice.
5. Ancient philosophy has reached a high level in the development of concepts (categories), but it knows almost no laws.
6. In ancient philosophy there is still no clear opposition between materialism and idealism, both directions are spontaneous in nature.
2. Philosophy of the Middle Ages.
Medieval European philosophy is an extremely important substantive and long-lasting stage in the history of philosophy.
Chronologically, this period covers the 5th - 15th centuries.
Characteristics of this period:
1. The formation and flourishing of the era of feudalism.
2. The dominance of religion and the church in the public consciousness. Christianity becomes the state religion. F. Engels: “the dogmas of the church simultaneously became political axioms, and biblical texts received the force of law in any court.”
3. The Church monopolized all processes of development of education and scientific knowledge.
Most scientists were representatives of the clergy, and monasteries were centers of culture and science.
This determined the nature of the philosophy of the Middle Ages:
-the movement of philosophical thought was permeated with problems of religion;
-church dogma was the starting point and basis of philosophical thinking;
-philosophy quite often used the religious conceptual apparatus;
- any philosophical concept, as a rule, was brought into line with the teachings of the church;
-philosophy consciously puts itself at the service of religion “Philosophy is the handmaiden of theology.”
Two trends in Medieval philosophy:
1st - sacralization - rapprochement with religious teachings;
2nd - moralization - rapprochement with ethics, i.e. the practical orientation of philosophy to substantiate the rules of behavior of a Christian in the world.
Features of Medieval Philosophy.
1. Theocentricity - i.e. The highest reality is not nature, but God.
The main principles of worldview:
a) creationism - (or creation) - i.e. the principle of God creating the world out of nothing.
* God is eternal, unchangeable, does not depend on anything, he is the source of all things and is inaccessible to knowledge. God is the highest good.
* The world is changeable, impermanent, transitory, perfect and good insofar as it was created by God.
b) the principle of Revelation - being in principle inaccessible to knowledge by mortal people, the Christian God Himself revealed Himself through revelation, which is recorded in holy books- Bibles. The main instrument of knowledge was faith as a special ability of the human soul.
The task of the theologian-philosopher is to reveal the secrets and mysteries of biblical texts and thereby get closer to the knowledge of the highest reality.
2. Retrospective - medieval philosophy is turned to the past, for the maxim of medieval consciousness said: “the more ancient, the more authentic, the more authentic, the truer” (and the most ancient document was the Bible).
3. Traditionalism - for the medieval philosopher, any form of innovation was considered a sign of pride; he had to constantly adhere to the established pattern, the canon. The coincidence of the philosopher's opinion with the opinions of others was an indicator of the truth of his views.
4. Didactism (teaching, edification) - an orientation towards the value of teaching and upbringing from the point of view of salvation, of God. The form of philosophical treatises is a dialogue between an authoritative teacher and a humble, assenting student.
Teacher qualities:
-virtuoso knowledge of the Holy Scriptures
-knowledge of the rules of formal logic of Aristotle.
Stages of Medieval philosophy.
Stage 1 - Patristics (from the word “pater” - father, meaning “father of the church”) in the history of philosophy is determined from the 1st-6th centuries.
The pinnacle of patristics is Augustine the Blessed (354 - 430), whose ideas determined the development of European philosophy.
Characteristics of the stage:
-intellectual design and development of Christian dogma and philosophy;
-philosophical elements of Platonism play a decisive role.
The main problems of patristics:
1. The problem of the essence of God and his trinity (Trinitarian problem).
2. The relationship of faith and reason, the revelation of Christians and the wisdom of the pagans (Greeks and Romans).
3. Understanding history as movement towards a certain final goal and defining this goal - “City of God.”
4. The relationship of human freedom through the possibility of salvation or destruction of his soul.
5. The problem of the origin of evil in the world, and why God tolerates it.
2nd stage - Scholasticism (9th-15th centuries, from the Greek scholastic school) - a form of philosophy widely taught in schools and then in universities in Western Europe (from the 12th century).
Thomas Aquinas (1223-1274) - the peak of medieval scholasticism, one of the greatest philosophers of all post-ancient philosophy.
Characteristics of the stage:
1. Systematization of Christian philosophy (in 1323 Thomas Aquinas was proclaimed a saint by the Papal See, and his system became the official philosophical doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church).
2. The philosophical teaching of Aristotle plays a decisive role in the systematization of Christian philosophy.
The main problems of scholasticism:
1. The relationship between religion, philosophy, science. There is increasing attention to philosophy as a science that is fully compatible with religion and thinks about the salvation of the human soul. Ancient philosophy is no longer a hostile competitor to religion.
From here:
-more attention to it, to rethinking its provisions;
-and most importantly - the perception of a developed categorical apparatus from the point of view of religious problems.
2. The relationship between reason and faith.
Scholastic philosophy set the task of comprehending the essence of Christian teaching not only by faith, but also on a rational basis, also by science - philosophy. Reason and faith do not exclude, but help each other in the desire of the human soul to know the truth. But there is only one truth - this is Christ and his teaching.
There are two ways to get to this truth:
-by faith, revelation - a short, direct path;
-through reason, science - this is a long path with many evidence.
3. Problems of the relationship between the general and the unified.
This problem is connected with the dogma of the “Trinity” and was solved from the position of “nominalism” (the general exists only in name or in the mind, individual things really exist) or from the position of “realism” (the general exists in reality in the form of a certain essence).
Thomas Aquinas resolved this dispute in his own way:
- the general exists quite realistically, but not in the mind and not in the form of Plato’s ideas;
-common in God. God is the general fullness of being, the general in its pure form;
- moments of commonality can be found in any thing, because things are involved in being;
-that individual things exist, i.e. exist, connects them into a common whole;
-there is no other common thing except God and the connection of individual things through being (i.e., again through God).
Conclusions:
1. Medieval philosophy is theocentric:
-her worldview is based on religious faith;
-at the center of philosophy is God;
2. But it is not a barren period in the field of philosophical thinking. Her ideas served as the basis for the development of philosophical systems of the Renaissance, New Age, and modern religious philosophy:
a) the dispute between nominalists and realists formed a new idea of cognition, thereby highlighting epistemology as an independent field of study;
b) the interest of nominalists in all the details of the empirical world and their orientation towards experience and experiment were subsequently continued by the materialists of the Renaissance (N. Copernicus, J. Bruno) and the English philosophers of the empirical school (F. Bacon, T. Hobbes, J. Locke).
3. Representatives of realism laid the foundations for the subjective interpretation of the human mind (17-18th century subjective idealists J. Berkeley, D. Hume).
4. Medieval philosophy “discovered” self-consciousness as a special subjective reality, moreover, more reliable and accessible to man than external reality. The philosophical concept of “I” took shape (it became the starting point in the philosophy of rationalism of the New Age - R. Descartes).
5. Medieval ethics sought to educate the flesh in order to subordinate it to a higher spiritual principle (this direction was continued by the humanism of the Renaissance - F. Petrarch, E. Rotterdam).
6. The eschatological (the doctrine of the end of the world) focus focused attention on comprehending the meaning of history. Hermeneutics emerged as special method interpretation of historical texts (during the Renaissance, the political philosophy of humanism took shape).
QUESTION No. 3.
Philosophy of the Renaissance and New Time.
1. Philosophy of the Renaissance.
Renaissance (Renaissance) - the period of transition from the Middle Ages to modern times (from 14 to 17).
Characteristics of the era:
1. The emergence of capitalist relations, mass industrial production.
2. Creation nation states and absolute monarchies of Western Europe.
3. The era of deep social conflicts (the Reformation movement of the revolution in the Netherlands, England).
4. The Age of Great Geographical Discovery (1492 - Columbus - America; 1498 - Vasco da Gama - having circumnavigated Africa, came to India by sea; 1519-1521 - Ferdinand Magellan - first trip around the world).
5. Culture and science are increasingly becoming secular in nature, i.e. freed from the undivided influence of religion (Leonardo da Vinci).
1. The philosophy of the Renaissance went through three periods:
I. Period - humanistic (14th - mid-15th century). (Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca).
II. Period - Neoplatonic (mid 15th - 16th centuries). (Nicholas of Cusa, Pico della Mirandolla, Paracelsus).
III. Period - natural philosophy (16th - early 17th century). (Nicholas Copernicus, Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei).
Characteristics of Renaissance philosophy.
1. Anti-scholastic character (although for the state scholasticism remained the official philosophy, and its principles were studied in most universities). Produced a new style thinking, which assigns the main role not to the form of expression of an idea (scholasticism), but to its content.
2. Pantheism as the main principle of worldview (development of the idea of Neoplatonism - Nikolai Cusansky, Mirandollo, Paracelsus). (Pantheism (Greek pan - everything and theos - god) is a philosophical doctrine that brings the concepts of “god” and “nature” as close as possible). The hierarchical idea of the universe has been replaced by the concept of a world in which the interpenetration of earthly, natural and Divine principles occurs. Nature is spiritualized.
3. Anthropocentrism and humanism (Dante Alighieri - “ The Divine Comedy"; Petrarch - “Book of Songs”).
The essence of the new philosophy is anthropocentrism. Not God, but man is now placed at the center of cosmic existence. Man is not just a natural being. He is the master over all nature, the creator. The cult of body beauty associates it with anthropocentrism.
The task of philosophy is not to contrast the divine and natural, spiritual and material in man, but to reveal their harmonious unity.
* Humanism (from the Latin Humanitas - humanity) is a cultural phenomenon central to the revival. Humanism is free-thinking and secular individualism. He changed the nature of philosophizing, the sources and style of thinking, the very appearance of a scientist - theorist (these are scientists, poets, teachers, diplomats who bore the name “philosopher”).
* Creative activity person acquires a sacred (sacred) character. He is a creator, like God, he creates new world and the highest thing that is in him is himself.
4.Natural philosophy of the Renaissance:
* N. Copernicus (1473 - 1543) - creates a new model of the universe - heliocentrism:
* Center of the world of the Sun;
* The world is spherical, immeasurable, infinite;
* All celestial bodies move in circular trajectories;
* The Earth, together with the planets and stars, forms a single Universe;
* The laws of motion for the planets and the Earth are the same.
* Giordano Bruno (1548 - 1600) - develops the philosophical aspect of the theory of N. Copernicus.
* The Sun is not the center of the Universe, there is no such center at all;
* The Sun is the center of only our planetary system;
* The Universe has no boundaries, the number of worlds in it is infinite;
* Life and intelligence exist on other planets;
* The universe is equal to God, God is contained in the material world itself.
(Burn on February 17, 1600 in the Field of Flowers Square).
* Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642) - continued the study of Space, invented the telescope, developed a method of scientific analysis using mathematics, and is therefore considered the founder of scientific natural science.
(He died while remaining a prisoner of the Inquisition).
5. Social philosophy of the Renaissance.
Renaissance philosophy presented original treatises on the historical process and projects ideal state related to the idea of social equality.
* Nicolo di Bernardo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527) - was a high official in the Republic of Florence, diplomat, and military theorist. Works: “Discourses on the first decade of Titus Livy” and “Sovereign”.
Ideas:
* Completely rejects the idea of Divine predestination in public life;
* Political systems are born, achieve greatness and power, and then decline, decay and perish, i.e. are in an eternal cycle, not subordinate to any purpose predetermined from above. The emergence of society, state and morality is explained by the natural course of events.
* Thomas More (1478 - 1535) - founder of utopian socialism. Lord - Chancellor of England. Work: “Utopia” (description of the ideal structure of the fantastic island Utopia (from Greek; literally “Nowhere” - a place that does not exist - a word coined by T. More)).
Ideas:
* Destruction of all types of private property;
* Compulsory labor for all citizens;
* Election of government bodies;
* The family is the unit of communist life.
* Tomaso Campanella (1568 - 1639) - Dominican monk, participant in the struggle for the liberation of Italy from the rule of the Spaniards. 27 years in prison. Labor: “City of the Sun” is a communist utopia.
Ideas:
* Abolition of private property and family;
* Children are raised by the state;
* Mandatory 4-hour work;
* Distribution of products according to needs;
* Development of sciences, education, labor education;
* A person of outstanding knowledge is elected as the head of state;
* The need to form a global unity, a union of states and peoples, which should ensure the end of fratricidal wars between peoples.
Conclusions:
1) The essence of Renaissance philosophy is anthropocentrism. Man is considered as the Creator.
2) Although the Renaissance did not leave great philosophers, and philosophical creativity unfolded mainly in the form of “modernizing memory”, it:
* substantiated the idea of trust in natural human reason;
* laid the foundation of a philosophy free from religion.
2. Philosophy of the New Age.
Conventionally, the philosophy of the New Age can be divided into three periods:
1st period: empiricism and rationalism of the 17th century.
2nd period: philosophy of the Enlightenment of the 18th century.
3rd period: German classical philosophy.
Each period has its own characteristics, which are determined by the state of society at that historical stage.
A) Empiricism and rationalism of the 17th century:
Historical conditions:
1) Replacement of feudal society with bourgeois society (revolution in the Netherlands, England).
2) Weakening of the spiritual dictatorship of the church (development of Protestantism).
3) Connecting science with the practice of material production.
-Torricelli - mercury barometer, air pump;
-Newton - formulated the basic laws of mechanics;
-Boyle - applied mechanics to chemistry.
Historical conditions led to a change in public consciousness:
1. Western Europe Of the two paths of historical development of civilization (spiritual or scientific and technological progress), he chooses the path of scientific and technical progress.
2. A new understanding of the tasks of science and philosophy has been developed - not “science for science’s sake,” but science to increase human power over nature.
3. The search for new methods of cognition has been intensified for:
-systematization of a huge number of facts;
-creating a holistic picture of the world;
- establishing cause-and-effect relationships between natural phenomena.
Therefore, the main problems in the philosophy of this period are the problems of the theory of knowledge (epistemology):
-What does it mean to know?
-what paves the way to the truth:
* sensation or mind;
* intuition or logic.
-cognition must be analytical or synthetic.
The idea of “pure reason” arises, i.e. a mind free from “idols” that penetrates into the essence of phenomena.
Philosophers are actively looking for the true, main method of knowledge, which will lead to eternal, complete, absolute truth, recognized by all people.
The basis of the new method is being sought:
1) in sensory experience, putting forward an idea beyond the significance of empirical inductive knowledge (Bacon, Hobbes, Locke).
2) in the intellect, which provides logical deductive-mathematical knowledge that is not reducible to human experience (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz).
The most significant were the philosophical systems of the empiricists: F. Bacon, T. Hobbes, the rationalists: R. Descartes, B. Spinoza, G. Leibniz.
1. Empiricists (Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke) believed that: *the only source of knowledge is experience
* experience is associated with our sensuality, with sensations, perceptions, ideas;
* the content of all knowledge of man and humanity ultimately comes down to experience.
*in the soul and mind of a person there is no innate knowledge, concepts or ideas.
* the soul and mind of a person are initially pure, like a wax tablet, and already sensations and perceptions “write” their “writings” on this tablet.
*since sensations can deceive us, we check them through an experiment that corrects sensory data.
*knowledge must go from pure, experimental (experimental) to generalizations and the development of theories; this is the inductive method of moving the mind, along with experiment, and is the true method in philosophy and all sciences.
A) Francis Bacon (1561-1626) - Lord Chancellor of England, Viscount.
Work: “New Organon” - problems of the development of science and analysis of scientific
knowledge.
Ideas:
1. The practical significance of philosophy and all science. “Knowledge is power” is his saying.
2. The main method of cognition is induction, based on experience and experiment. “Our thought moves from knowledge of individual facts to knowledge of a whole class of objects and processes.”
3. The foundation of all knowledge is experience (empirio), which must be properly organized and subordinated to a specific goal.
4. The facts on which science relies can be classified using its method (induction). People, he believed, should not be like:
-spiders who weave a thread from themselves (i.e., they derive truth from “pure consciousness” as such);
-ants who simply collect (i.e. just collecting facts);
They should be like bees that collect and organize (i.e. this is a rise from empiricism to theory).
5. Criticizing rationalism, he warned humanity against four “idols”, i.e. bad habits of mind that create mistakes:
- “idols of the race” - i.e. orientations characteristic of the human race (in particular, the expectation of a greater order than exists in things);
- “idols of the cave” - personal superstitions inherent in an individual researcher;
- “market idols” - the use of bad words in the language that influence our mind;
- “theater idols” - those that are associated with generally accepted systems of thinking (scientific, philosophical, religious).
B) In the person of the English philosopher T. Hobbes (1588-1679), Bacon’s materialism found its defender and successor. According to Hobbes, matter is eternal, but individual bodies are temporary. He considered the movement of matter as the movement of bodies in space, i.e. as mechanical movement, and likened to a mechanism not only all bodies of nature, but also man and society.
Unlike Bacon, Hobbes resolutely rejected religion and considered it incompatible with science. In public life, the place of religion is as a means of “curbing the masses.”
C) The English philosopher J. Locke (1632-1704) developed the doctrine of sensations as the source of our knowledge. People are not born with ready-made ideas. The head of a newborn is a blank slate on which life draws its patterns - knowledge. There is nothing in the mind that was not previously in the senses, this is Locke's main thesis. Having outlined the dialectic of the innate and the social, Locke largely determined the development of pedagogy and psychology.
2. Rationalists - Rene Descartes, Benedict Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz believed that:
-experience based on human sensations cannot be the basis of a general scientific method.
Why?
A. Perceptions and sensations are illusory;
B. Experimental data, like experimental data, are always doubtful.
- but in the mind itself, in our very soul, there are intuitively clear and distinct ideas.
-The main thing is that a person thinks. This is the main - intuitive (inexperienced) idea: “I think, therefore I exist” (R. Descartes).
-then, according to the rules of deduction (from general to specific), we can deduce the possibility of the existence of God, nature, and other people.
-what is the conclusion:
a) the human mind contains a number of ideas (irrespective of any experience, i.e. these ideas arose without sensations before sensations).
b) by developing the ideas embedded in the mind, we can obtain true knowledge about the world (although a person draws information about the world from sensations, therefore experience and experiment are important components of knowledge about the world, but the basis of the true method must be sought in the mind itself).
c) thinking is based on induction and deduction. It arises independently and before sensation, but thinking is applied to sensations.
d) the true method of all sciences and philosophy is somewhat similar to mathematical methods.
* they are given outside of direct experience, they begin with general, extremely clear and precise formulations, where they go from general ideas to particular conclusions and there is no experiment in mathematics.
a) Rene Descartes (1596-1650) - French philosopher, scientist, mathematician.
Proceedings:
"Reflections on First Philosophy", "Principles of Philosophy", "Rules for the Guidance of the Mind", "Discourse on Method", "Metaphysical Reflections".
Ideas:
1) In the doctrine of being, the entire created world is divided into two types of substances: spiritual and material.
* Spiritual – indivisible substance
* Material – divisible to infinity
Both substances have equal rights and are independent of each other (as a result of which Descartes is considered the founder of dualism).
2) Developed epistemology:
-the beginning of the process of cognition – doubt
-developed a deductive method.
b) The teaching of the Dutch philosopher B. Spinoza (1632-1677) was original. He, paying tribute to the views of that time, believed that God exists, but he is devoid of any personality traits. God is nature with extension and thought. All nature can think; human thinking is a special case of thinking in general.
Spinoza also paid great attention to the problem of necessity and freedom.
It was he who came up with the formulation: “Freedom is a conscious necessity.”
c) The German philosopher G. Leibniz (1646-1716) developed the ideas of objective idealism inherent in Plato’s heritage. The world, Leibniz believed, consists of the smallest elements - monads. Monads are the spiritual elements of existence, they have activity and independence, are in continuous change and are capable of suffering, perception and consciousness. God regulates the unity and coherence of the monads. Thus, the lower monads have only vague ideas (this is the state of the inorganic and plant world); In animals, ideas reach the level of sensation, and in humans - clear understanding, reason.
3. Subjective idealism was developed in the works of the English philosophers J. Berkeley and D. Hume.
A) J. Berkeley (1685-1753), a staunch supporter of religion, criticized the concept of matter. He argued that the concept of matter is general and therefore false. We do not perceive matter as such, Berkeley argued, but only individual properties of things - taste, smell, color, etc., the perception of which Berkeley called “ideas.” The things around us exist as ideas in the mind of God, who is the cause and source of earthly life.
B) D. Hume (1711-1776) also developed a subjective-idealist theory, but somewhat different from Berkeley.
When asked whether the outside world exists, Hume answered evasively: “I don’t know.” He proceeded from the fact that a person receives data about the external world only from sensations, and sensations are constantly changing. Hence the conclusion: objective knowledge is impossible. This is where such a philosophical trend as agnosticism originates.
Conclusions:
1. Philosophers of this period strengthened the epistemological capabilities of the sciences in the study of nature, developing methods scientific knowledge, thereby equipping a person with the knowledge to use its powers.
2. Under the influence of natural sciences, the worldview of the 17th century changed. It was allowed to divide the world into logically connected and mathematically precisely described constituent elements.
3. In the course of the competition between rationalism and empiricism, rationalism prevailed, thanks to which the foundation of the categorical apparatus of the theory of thinking was laid, and the prerequisites for future mathematical and dialectical logic were created.
4. Further development was found in the problems of social optimism, ideas - about natural human rights, social contract, forms government structure, the place of man in the world around him.
B. Philosophy of the Enlightenment of the 18th century.
Characteristics of the era:
5. The needs of the capitalist mode of production stimulated the development of science, technology, culture, enlightenment and education.
6. Changes in social relations and public consciousness served as a prerequisite for the emancipation of minds, liberation from feudal-religious ideology, and the formation of a new worldview.
7. The socio-political struggle that unfolded in the 18th century on the eve of the Great French Bourgeois Revolution (1789-1794).
With this in mind, in the 18th century the center of philosophical research moved from England to France (and then to Germany).
In France:
* pressing issues required the active work of philosophers, clear and quick refutations of outdated feudal and clerical ideas;
* philosophy went beyond the walls of universities and scientists’ offices, it moved to the secular salons of Paris, to the pages of dozens and hundreds of banned publications;
* philosophy becomes the business of ideologists and politicians;
* the idea of restructuring science on reasonable grounds is developing:
* dissemination of positive, practically useful knowledge about nature and society among a wide circle of educated people;
* introducing rulers (monarchs) to the latest achievements of science and philosophy, which will introduce the principle of reason into states;
* criticism of traditional Christianity and the fight against religious dogma.
Characteristics of the philosophy of the Enlightenment:
1. Rationalism. Rationalism is interpreted as an epistemological doctrine that asserts that the main instrument of cognition is the mind, sensations and experience have a secondary meaning in cognition.
2. At the center of all philosophical schools and systems there is, as a rule, an active subject, capable of cognizing and changing the world in accordance with his own mind.
* the mind is considered in rationalistic systems as all subjective human activity.
* man, as a rational being, from the point of view of rationalism, is called upon to become the ruler of the world, to rebuild social relations on a reasonable basis.
* the world is law-based, self-ordered, self-reproducing - this is associated with the internal activity of matter, with its universal movement.
* mechanicalness of French materialism. The laws of solid mechanics and the laws of gravity were elevated to the rank of universal ones and they determined all natural and social processes. (J. Lametrie “Man-machine”).
The most important representatives of the French Enlightenment:
* Francois Voltaire (1694-1778)
* Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
* Denis Diderot (1713-1784) (creator of the 35-volume encyclopedia)
* Julien La Mettrie (1709-1751)
* Claude Galvetius (1715-1771)
* Paul Holbach (1723-1789)
B. German classical philosophy
(late 18th - mid 19th century).
Historical conditions.
1. The world in Europe and America is energetically and consistently taking the form of industrial civilization. Progress in industry stimulates the development of technology:
1784 - Watt's universal steam engine appears;
1800 - A. Volta invents a chemical current source;
1807 - first steamships;
1825 - first steam locomotives;
1832 - L. Schilling - electromagnetic telegraph;
1834 - M. G. Jacobi - electric motor, etc.
2. In natural science, mechanics is losing its former dominant role:
-by the end of the 18th century, chemistry was formed as the science of qualitative transformations of natural substances;
-biology and the doctrine of electromagnetism are formed.
3. Rapid socio-political changes occurring in developed European countries Germany was not affected:
-Germany, unlike France and England of that period, remained an economically and politically backward country, fragmented into 360 independent states (“Holy Roman Empire of the German nation”);
-it preserved the guild system, the remnants of serfdom;
-the rigid political order of Chancellor Bismarck left the only sphere for individual self-expression, freedom of creativity, independence of spirit: the sphere of reason.
The progress of science and the experience of revolutions in Europe (especially the French Revolution of 1789-1794) created the prerequisites for the development of philosophical and theoretical thinking, which resulted in the development (within the framework of classical German philosophy) of idealistic dialectics.
Features of German classical philosophy:
1. Despite the diversity of basic philosophical positions, German classical philosophy is a single, relatively independent stage in the development of philosophy, because all its systems follow from one another, i.e. while maintaining a certain continuity, it denied the previous one.
2. Revival of dialectical traditions (through appeal to the ancient heritage). If for Kant dialectics still has the negative meaning of “sophistry” of pure reason, then for subsequent philosophers, and especially Hegel, it rises to an integral system of logical categories.
3. The transition from objective and transcendental idealism (Kant) to objective idealism based on dialectical methodology (through Fichte and Schelling to Hegel).
4. Criticism of traditional “rational” metaphysics and the desire to present philosophy as a system of scientific knowledge (“scientific teaching” by Fichte, “encyclopedia of philosophical sciences” by Hegel).
5. Appeal to history as a philosophical problem and Hegel’s application of the dialectical method to the study of history.
German classical philosophy is represented by outstanding philosophers:
* Kant
* Fichte
* Schelling
* Hegel
* Feuerbach
a) Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) - the founder of German classical philosophy - rector of the University of Königsberg, subjective idealist.
In his philosophical teaching, two stages are clearly manifested: precritical and critical.
Subcritical stage (spontaneous-materialistic):
-develops a cosmogonic theory of natural education solar system from diffuse gas and dust matter, as a result of vortex rotational processes.
Critical stage (since 1770).
Works: “Critique of Pure Reason”, “Critique of Practical Reason”, “Critique of Judgment”.
Ideas:
1. The central problem is the problem of the possibilities of human knowledge and the establishment of its boundaries
-The process of cognition is an active creative process of a unique construction of cognizable objects in the thinking of the cognizing subject, which proceeds according to its own laws.
-For the first time in philosophy, it was not the structure of the cognizable substance that was considered, but the specificity of the cognizing subject - as main factor, defining both the method and the subject of knowledge.
“Copernican revolution”, i.e. for Kant, “it was not the mind that, like the sun, revolved around the world of phenomena, but the world of phenomena that revolved around the mind.”
-The necessary conditions of knowledge are laid down a priori (i.e., before experience) in the human mind and form the basis of knowledge.
-But the human mind also determines the boundaries of knowledge. Kant distinguished between what a person perceives:
-phenomena of things;
-things in themselves.
We experience the world not as it is, but as we see it. We see the appearance of things (phenomena), but absolute knowledge about some thing is impossible, it remains a thing in itself (noumenon), from this the conclusion is about the impossibility of knowing the world, i.e. agnosticism.
2. The scheme of practical application of reason or ethics is considered
- Its initial premise is the belief that every personality is an end in itself (it is not a means to solve problems, even in the name of the common good).
-The main law of Kant’s ethics is the categorical imperative: An action can only be considered moral when it could become a law for others.
Deed
-is not moral if it is based on the desire for happiness, love, sympathy, etc.;
-is moral if it is based on following duty and respect for the moral law.
In the event of a conflict between feelings and the moral law, Kant demands unconditional submission to moral duty.
b) Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) - the first rector of the University of Berlin. Subjective idealist.
Ideas:
1. Fichte considered any theory, any contemplation to be secondary, derived from a practically active attitude to the subject.
2. Consciousness generates itself. It is never completed, it always remains a process.
3. Consciousness creates not only itself, but the whole world - with the blind, unconscious power of imagination
4. From the active, active relationship of consciousness to the world, He derived the principle of the unity of opposites (the relationship between “I” and “Not-I”) and other categories of dialectics.
5. “I” and “Not-I” are the world for him.
- “I” is spirit, will, morality
- “Not - I” is nature and matter.
6. The main problem of man is morality.
7. The main form of life is social cultural work.
c) Schelling Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph (1775-1854) - professor at the University of Berlin, an objective idealist.
Ideas:
1. Extended the concept of dialectics not only to consciousness, but also to nature:
-Nature is not a means for realizing human moral goals, not “material” for human activity.
-Nature is a form of unconscious life of the mind, initially endowed with a powerful creative force that generates consciousness. Nature is “fossilized intelligence.”
2. Cognition and, in general, all human activity will not receive an explanation if nature is not recognized as identical to spirit, reason. The Absolute is the identity of the ideal and the real. Therefore, only a philosopher or poet in the ecstasy of brilliant inspiration can cognize the Absolute (irrationally).
d) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770-1831) - professor at the University of Berlin - the apogee of German idealism.
Works: “Phenomenology of Spirit”, “Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences”, “Philosophy of Law”, “Lectures on the History of Philosophy”, “Lectures on the Philosophy of History”, etc.
Ideas:
1. In “Phenomenology of Spirit,” he examined the evolution of human consciousness from its first glimpses to the conscious mastery of science and scientific methodology (phenomenology is the study of the phenomena (phenomena) of consciousness in their historical development).
2. Constructed a philosophy in the form of interconnected ideas. Hegel's ideas are the way of things, of any kind, including concepts. This is the essence of both the object and the subject, therefore in the idea the opposition of subject and object is overcome. All world development is the development of the Absolute Idea, which is the basis of objective reality:
-the idea is primary;
- she is active and active;
-its activity consists of self-knowledge.
In its self-knowledge, the Absolute Idea goes through three stages:
1) The development of an idea in its own bosom, in the “element of pure thinking” - logic, where an idea reveals its content in a system of related and transforming logical categories;
2) Development of an idea in the form of “other being”, i.e. in the form of nature - philosophy of nature; nature does not develop, but serves only as an external manifestation of the self-development of the logical categories that make up its spiritual essence;
3) Development of ideas in thinking and history - taking the form of the Absolute Spirit - Philosophy of Spirit. At this stage, the Absolute Idea returns to itself again and comprehends its content in various types of human consciousness and activity, passing through three stages:
1st - subjective spirit (personality)
2nd - objective spirit (family, civil society, state)
3rd - absolute spirit (three stages of development, which are art, religion, philosophy).
The system is complete.
Thus, philosophy has the honor of saying the last and decisive word not only in the history of mankind, but in the entire history of the world.
The general conclusion of Hegel’s philosophy is the recognition of the rationality of the world: “Everything that is real is reasonable, everything that is reasonable is real.”
3. Created dialectics as a science, as a system, as logic.
e) Feuerbach Ludwig Andreas (1804-1872) - creator of anthropological materialism.
Ideas:
1. He criticized religion and idealism, calling it the latter a rationalized religion.
2. The subject in L. Feuerbach’s system is not cognitive thinking and not the “Absolute Spirit”, but a real man in the unity of physical, spiritual and generic characteristics.
3. Man is closely connected with nature. Nature is the basis of the spirit. It should be the basis of a new philosophy, designed to reveal the earthly essence of man.
Conclusions:
German classical philosophy:
1. Showed people the role, place and significance of philosophy in understanding their era, its achievements and miscalculations. Demonstrated the importance of philosophy for thinking about the future.
2. She developed methods of cognition corresponding to modern science - dialectical and historical, which, due to their uniqueness, made it possible to dramatically advance in the knowledge of the world.
3. Philosophy first appeared in the form of an integral scientific system, allowing one to approach the study of the world from a scientific position.
Conclusions from the lecture:
1. The history of philosophy shows that philosophy is not a purely speculative construction of the sages, but that at all times it has been closely connected with the life of society, reflecting its problems in its teachings.
2. Each of the historical eras - antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the New Age - is characterized by special ways of philosophizing, between which continuity is maintained.
3. Philosophical teachings of the past mostly have a humanistic orientation. They are different, but none of them claimed and does not claim to be absolute truth, and together they all constitute the spiritual wealth of humanity.
4. Knowledge of the history of philosophy enriches a person’s spiritual world and teaches moral, humane thinking, which is especially important for a military leader.
The comprehension of society as an integral organism continued throughout the development of philosophical thought. In the history of the development of social and philosophical thought, three main stages can be distinguished:
· From antiquity to the 19th century( when the accumulation of socio-philosophical ideas took place). For Plato and Aristotle, society is a state. They discussed ideal forms of government; the state was the starting point from which a variety of phenomena of social life were considered. T. Hobbes and J. Locke played an important place in the development of social philosophy. Both philosophers reject the Aristotelian identity of the general and the particular in human society; from their point of view, all people are primarily guided by their own own interests, and only then unite into a state. Therefore, they proceeded from the recognition of the ascent from nature to society and call it the natural state. Hobbes writes about this in his work “Leviathan.” On this basis, a deeper understanding of the essence of society as an integral organism and the determination of its basic functional connections gradually begins. Jean Jacques Rousseau examines the problem of social inequality and the origin of social inequality. The French thinker Saint-Simon was the first to draw attention to the development of industry, forms of ownership and class in society. The economic life of society becomes the subject of study by A. Smith. Thus, society increasingly became a special subject of philosophical reflection. During the philosophical revolution, a special subject area of social philosophy emerged - this is the philosophy of history.
· 19th century(when powerful integration processes and holistic concepts of social philosophy are formed). Hegel (“Philosophy of History”) developed a philosophical picture of society, the dialectic of man and society, stunning in its depth and richness of ideas. There is not a single major problem that Hegel did not comprehend: the structure of society as a whole, labor, property, morality, family, the system of government, the form of government, the relationship between social and individual consciousness, the world-historical process. That. Hegel is associated with a breakthrough in the knowledge of the philosophical foundations of society, its history and human social existence. All these problems are considered from the position of objective idealism. Marx - a material understanding of history. In his concept, society appeared as a complex formation, the basis of which was social production. The laws of society are viewed as objective, and history as a progressive process.
· since the 20th century(this is a period when new splits in the philosophical analysis of society occur along a broad front, many new directions). Durkheim substantiated the idea of social solidarity on the basis of the division of labor. M Weber creates a theory of ideal types. In the 20th century, sociology developed not so much in the directions of social depths, but rather tried to penetrate deeper into various states and layers of society, the meaning of history, i.e. comprehension of its individual phenomena and facets.
34. Society and its structure. Society as systemic education. Main spheres of public life.
Society, in the broadest sense of the word, is a part of the material world isolated from nature, one of the forms of existence of being, which is a historically developing form of human life, the totality of all methods of interaction and forms of unification of people, which express their comprehensive dependence on each other. Society itself can be considered as a certain system of interacting subsystems and elements. The main subsystems of society are spheres of public life. Usually they talk about the existence of 4 most important social (public) spheres: 1) economic - covers relations arising in the process of production, distribution, exchange and consumption material goods; 2) political - covers relations related to the interaction of the state, parties, political organizations regarding power and management; 3) social - covers relationships associated with the interaction of classes, social layers and groups; 4) spiritual - covers relationships related to the development of social consciousness, science, and art culture.
The data of the subsystem (sphere), in turn, can be represented totality included in them elements:
· economic – production institutions (plants, factories), transport institutions, stock and commodity exchanges, banks, etc.,
· political - state, parties, trade unions, youth, women's and other organizations, etc.,
· social - classes, social groups and strata, nations, etc.,
· spiritual - church, educational institutions, scientific institutions, etc. Each historically defined mode of production has its own specific type social sphere of society: the presence of certain classes and social groups (clan, tribe, nationality, nation, family). The defining element of the social sphere in any class society is classes. V.I. Lenin: classes are large groups of people that differ in their place in a historically defined system of social production, in their relation to the means of production, in their role in the social organization of labor. In every society, along with classes, there are also social groups that, in their relation to property, are not part of one class or another, but form social strata, estates, castes, etc. Society can be represented as a multi-level system. The first level is social roles that set the structure social interactions. Social roles organized into various institutions and communities (firm, university, family), which constitute the second level of society. Each institution and community can be represented as a complex system organization, stable and self-reproducing. Differences in functions require a systemic level of organization that would maintain order in society. It is realized in the system of culture and political power. Society asserts itself as an integrity in constant confrontation with the environment. The functioning of society is to maintain the balance of the system with the environment. How special social system society functions and develops according to its own laws.
The philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach (1804 - 1872) is considered the final stage of German classical philosophy, the prominent representatives of which were Kant, Hegel, Schelling and Fichte, and the beginning of the materialist era in German and world philosophy. The main direction of Feuerbach's philosophy is the criticism of German classical idealism and the justification of materialism, the main features of which were:
- - a complete break with religion (atheism) and liberation from centuries-old religious influence;
- - an attempt to explain God and religion from a materialistic point of view, based on human nature;
- - materialistic, taking into account the latest achievements of science, explanation of the problems of the surrounding world and man;
- - great interest in socio-political issues;
- - belief in the knowability of the surrounding world. In contrast to Hegel's objective idealism, Feuerbach put forward the theory of anthropological materialism. The essence of this theory is that:
- - the only existing realities are nature and man;
- - man is part of nature;
- - man is the unity of the material and spiritual;
- - man should become the main interest of philosophy;
- - an idea does not exist on its own, but is a product of human consciousness;
- - God as a separate and independent reality does not exist; God is a figment of man's imagination;
- - nature (matter) is eternal and infinite, not created by anyone and not destroyed by anyone;
- - everything that surrounds us (objects, phenomena) are various manifestations of matter.
- - according to Feuerbach, the world around us is knowable, and the cognitive capabilities of the mind are limitless. However, the limitlessness of the possibilities of cognition of the mind does not occur immediately, but develops gradually, as man evolves, experience accumulates, and scientific and technological progress grows. Feuerbach's socio-political views were determined by his anthropological philosophy.
The essence of these views is as follows: religion should become the basis of connections between people in society, the core of society; this religion should not be based on faith in a fictitious supernatural being - in God, but on other principles; it is necessary to discard traditional religion (Christianity, Islam, etc.) and replace it with the religion of people’s love for each other and the religion of love within the family as the most consistent with human nature;
Hegel formulated the laws and categories of dialectics.
Three laws of dialectics(the essence of development history).
- 1. The law of the transition of quantitative relations into qualitative ones (when quantitative relations change after a certain stage, a change in quality occurs due to the non-destruction of the measure).
- 2. Law of direction of development (negation of negation). Naked negation is something that comes after a given object, completely destroying it. Dialectical negation: something from the first object is preserved - a reproduction of this object, but in a different quality. Water is ice. To thresh grain is bare negation, to plant grain is dialectical negation. Development occurs in a spiral.
- 3. The law of unity and struggle of opposites. The contradiction between form and content, possibility and reality. The reason for development is the unity and struggle of opposites. This is inherent in the spirit. Initially identical, but potentially fraught with difference. Identity - difference - opposition. Opposites interact, that is, they fight.
First Principle of all things - absolute idea(world spirit, world mind), creative spiritual principle, manifesting itself in nature, history, consciousness. The absolute idea has as its ultimate goal knowledge of itself and thereby the restoration of its integrity, damaged by development. The purpose of human existence is the knowledge of the absolute idea.
Marxist philosophy was created jointly by two German scientists Karl Marx (1818 - 1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820 - 1895) in the second half of the 19th century. and is an integral part of a broader teaching - Marxism, which, along with philosophy, includes economics (political economy) and socio-political issues (scientific communism).
The philosophy of Marxism provided answers to many burning questions of its time. It became widespread (went beyond Germany and became international) in the world and gained great popularity in the late 19th - first half of the 20th centuries.
In a number of countries (USSR, socialist countries of Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa) Marxist philosophy was elevated to the rank of official state ideology and was turned into dogma. The emergence of Marxism and Marxist philosophy contributed to: previous materialist philosophy (Democritus, Epicurus, English materialists of the 17th century - Bacon, Hobbes and Locke, French enlighteners of the 18th century, and especially the atheistic-materialist philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach of the mid-19th century); the rapid growth of discoveries in science and technology (the discovery of the laws of conservation of matter and energy, the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin, the discovery of the cellular structure of living organisms, the invention of the wire telegraph, steam locomotive, steamship, automobile, photography, numerous discoveries in the field of production, mechanization of labor); the growth of social-class contradictions and conflicts (revolution of 1848 - 1849, reaction, wars, Paris Commune of 1871).
The main works of the founders of Marxism are: “Theses on Feuerbach” by K. Marx; “Capital” by K. Marx; "Economic and philosophical manuscripts of 1844" K. Marx; “Manifesto of the Communist Party” by K. Marx and F. Engels; “The Holy Family” and “German Ideology” by K. Marx and F. Engels.
“Dialectics of Nature” by F. Engels; “Anti-Dühring” by F. Engels; “The Role of Labor in the Process of Transformation of Ape into Man” by F. Engels; “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State” by F. Engels.
Marxist philosophy is materialistic in nature and consists of two large sections - dialectical materialism and historical materialism (historical materialism is often considered as part of dialectical materialism). Depending on the level of development of productive forces and production relations, a certain type of base and superstructure, socio-economic formations are distinguished - the primitive communal system ( low level forces of production and relations of production, the beginnings of society); slave society (economy based on slavery); Asian mode of production is a special socio-economic formation, the economy of which is based on the mass, collective, strictly state-controlled labor of free people - farmers in the valleys large rivers(Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China); feudalism (the economy is based on large land ownership and the labor of dependent peasants); capitalism (industrial production based on the labor of hired workers who are free but not the owners of the means of production); socialist (communist) society - a society of the future based on the free labor of equal people with state (public) ownership of the means of production; an increase in the level of production forces leads to changes in production relations and a change in socio-economic formations and socio-political system; economic level, material production, production relations determine the fate of the state and society, the course of history.
The following main provisions of dialectical materialism can be distinguished: Feuerbach idealism Hegel dialectics
- - the main question of philosophy is resolved in favor of being (being determines consciousness);
- - consciousness is understood not as an independent entity, but as the property of matter to reflect itself;
- - matter is in constant movement and development;
There is no God, He is an ideal image, a fruit of human imagination to explain phenomena incomprehensible to humanity, and gives humanity (especially its ignorant part) consolation and hope; God has no influence on the surrounding reality;
- - matter is eternal and infinite, periodically taking on new forms of its existence;
- - an important factor in development is practice - a person’s transformation of the surrounding reality and the acquisition by a person of the person himself;
- - development occurs according to the laws of dialectics - the unity and struggle of opposites, the transition of quantity into quality, negation.
In the history of the 18th century. entered as the Age of Enlightenment. England became his homeland, then France, Germany and Russia. The motto of this era is typical:
- - everything must appear before the court of reason! The development of science gaining wide scope, becoming the property of wide circles of thinking people,
- - this is the spiritual atmosphere of this time. Voltaire (Marie Francois Arouet) (1694-1778) - one of the ideological leaders of the French Enlightenment, a famous writer and thinker.
Voltaire and his comrades demanded freedom of thought, spoken and printed word. With all the force of irreconcilability he shouted to the whole country, to the whole world: “Dare to think for yourself!” Voltaire recognized the need for faith in God as the prime mover of the Universe. Voltaire considered the final cause of the movement of existence, thinking and mental phenomena in general to be a manifestation of divine power.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a philosopher, social thinker, writer, and a leading expert in the field of philosophy of art (especially music) and pedagogy. Believing in the existence of God and recognizing the immortality of the soul, Rousseau argued that matter and spirit are two eternally existing principles. In his famous treatise “On the Social Contract,” He boldly rebelled against his contemporary civilization as a civilization of inequality. His indignation was directed against a culture that is divorced from the people and that sanctifies social inequality. Rousseau distinguished between two types of inequality: physical, resulting from differences in age, health, talent, etc., and political, expressed in various privileges. Rousseau contrasted this with the simplicity and “innocence” of primitive people. Rousseau is a supporter of natural law. His ideal was the distant past, when all people were equal: and what discord could there be among people who do not own anything!
Denis Diderot (1713-1784) - famous thinker, encyclopedist. A characteristic feature of his political worldview is pronounced democracy. This is an amazingly gifted, comprehensively developed personality - a philosopher, playwright, poet, author of novels, art theorist and art critic. Diderot expressed the idea that from a molecule to a person there stretches a chain of creatures passing from a state of living torpor to a state of maximum flowering of reason. "Every animal is more or less a man; every mineral is more or less a plant; every plant is more or less an animal." When asked whether it can be assumed that the stone also feels, Diderot replied: “Why not?” Indeed, touch the stone with your palm, and the information about your touch will remain on the stone for a long time. Diderot, of course, did not and could not know computer science, but through the power of intuition he foresaw something similar. This was expressed in his subtle characterization of the essence of living things. The specific features of life are irritability and sensitivity, said Diderot, who paid great attention to biological problems. Education and insight allowed Diderot to express an idea that became the harbinger of evolutionary theory in the living world.
Diderot argued that the soul is a product of the unity of the organism, its integrity. Man “is a certain whole, it is one, and perhaps this unity - in combination with memory - constitutes the soul, I, consciousness.” In his “Elements of Physiology,” Diderot expressed a deep thought: “I cannot separate, even in the abstract, space and time from existence. This means that both of these properties are essentially characteristic of him.” Diderot wrote a huge number of works on philosophy for his brainchild - the famous Encyclopedia. Diderot's philosophical idol was F. Bacon with the breadth and depth of his views and the radiant brightness of his style.
Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) in his works “Fear and Trembling”, “Stages of Life’s Path”, etc. He opposes himself to the rationalistic philosophical tradition, which, in his opinion, is focused on general abstract entities, general concepts. In place of rational comprehension of the world, Kierkegaard puts experience or existence, which was ignored by previous philosophy. The new understanding of philosophy is connected with the inner life of a person, his most intimate experiences, and therefore only it can be concrete, “human” knowledge.
Complex, multifaceted, contradictory and dynamic life defies the efforts of reason. Kierkegaard focuses on the variability, instability, fluidity of human “existence”, its doom to death, fear, doubt, and suffering. According to Kierkegaard, the foundations of human existence can only be touched in situations of critical choice, in moments of choice, risk, when a person meets his “I”. Personal choice determines the path of a person's individual life. It is the ability to make free choice, and therefore accepting responsibility for it, that is distinctive feature man as a free being. In human existence, Kierkegaard distinguishes the following stages: aesthetic, ethical and religious stages.
- 1. Aesthetic stage where a person strives to experience all types of pleasure: from directly sensual to intellectual. At this stage, a person lives mainly by sensual pleasures, without thinking about the meaning of existence;
- 2. At the ethical stage, a person voluntarily submits to the moral law, realizing the difference between good and evil, becoming a person. At this stage, a person understands that the world is dominated by necessity, a universal law, a duty to which he is obliged to obey.
- 3. Religious stage: at the religious level, a person does not obey the universal law, but enters into direct communication with God. True faith is not a direct result of the assimilation of religious dogmas and church regulations. It is possible only through free and responsible choice. Faith is both the highest pleasure and torment. Philosophy of life of Friedrich Nietzsche The influence of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) is present to a certain extent in all significant philosophical concepts and cultural movements of the 20th century. However, throughout his life, Nietzsche does not create a single philosophical school, since he ironically claims that for his philosophy the framework of any school is too small.
Therefore, Nietzsche fundamentally abandoned the systematic presentation of his philosophy and said that every endeavor begins with criticism. Brought up on the basis of Western traditions, Nietzsche declares his criticism as a demand for a “revaluation of all values,” which calls into question the previous values, ideals and norms of the entire Western culture, which appear to him as the values of decline, as the “lie of millennia,” as nihilistic values. “The will to power” is the central concept of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy of life.
The will to power is “the innermost essence of man. The will to power is the main characteristic of everything that reaches out to life. Nietzsche comprehends life itself in the image of the “life stream” thanks to the concept of becoming, which acts as the main feature of all things. Becoming always requires effort . This effort is the inextricable unity of “preservation and growth" of life. It is the craving for growth that is the condition for the preservation of life. Life in Nietzsche’s philosophy is not a living prerequisite, but also not a result; it is becoming. It is the unity of “preservation and growth" as an effort of becoming sets the vector of the life flow and constitutes the main thrust, the main feature of life.
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