The subject of philosophical research. Modern philosophical problems. Philosophical concepts about man
The study of any science begins with the definition of its subject. Philosophy is no exception. The question of the object, as a rule, is not discussed. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the concepts of “object” and “subject” are considered identical. The word “object” in Latin transcription means “subject” (lat. objectum - subject).
The concept of an object is connected with the concept of an objective reality that exists independently of a person. An object is a thing, phenomenon or separate part something that has properties and acts in relation to other things or phenomena. Objects and objects can be material (bodies, things, phenomena, etc.) or ideal (concepts, thoughts, ideas, images, models, spirit, substance, absolute, etc.). The objects of philosophy are as diverse as philosophy itself. They can be objective and subjective reality, the world as a whole or the cosmos, substance or accidenum, science or religion, man and his attitude to the world, language, consciousness, spirit, God, etc.
The subject of philosophy is, first of all, those problems that this or that philosophy solves, those questions to which it gives answers, which, one might say, are an infinite number in philosophy. In general, the subject of philosophy is stated and created by the subject, but not arbitrarily, but depending on the object studied by philosophy. Therefore, in the subject of philosophy, in one way or another, accents are found on those problems and questions that arise from the knowledge of its object and which can be reduced to a certain extent to a certain unity, recognizing the world, man, society as the sphere of philosophy's interests. In this sense, the subject of philosophy is an expression of various areas of philosophy, gravitating towards the knowledge of the world (philosophical ontology and cosmology), man (philosophical anthropology, personalism, existentialism) and society (social philosophy). Often, as an extremely generalized subject of philosophy, the relation of a person to the world is called, with the concretization of the concept of world: the external world (macrocosmos) and the internal, human world (microcosmos).
With all the differences in the listed philosophies, one can still find a certain unity in it. The revealing of the philosophical essence of phenomena and processes can be considered as a connecting link of the named unity. For example, reasoning and thinking about the world as a whole as a subject of philosophy should obviously begin with the definition of the concepts of “the world as a whole”, which is one of the vague and sometimes causing a negative reaction right up to it as a subject of philosophy. Schopenhauer believed that the subject of philosophy is not “the world as a whole”, but the problem of the essence of the world, while the questions of the phenomenality of the world constitute the circle of interests of science and natural science. In close connection with ideas about the essence of the world is the idea of being, expressing, as the ancient Greeks already showed, the unity, integrity and harmony of the world. Therefore, the problem of being is often considered as a starting point in the subject of philosophy.
An equally ancient subject of philosophy is the problem of man, which includes questions of nature, soul and body, good and evil, honor and dishonor. Identification of the social essence of a person i.e. its direct dependence on social structures led to the fact that the subject of philosophy became the problems of society. As the subject of philosophy, one can name problems and issues related to the study of nature understood as a manifestation of the existent (the Universe, matter, being, spirit, etc.). It would be wrong to consider all the problems and questions that make up the subject of philosophy as equivalent. There are among them defining, defined and accompanying. The first include the problems of man, the meaning and goals of history and human existence, religious and moral issues. To the second problems of the world, knowledge, language. To the third problems of natural philosophy. But all of them are important and essential, especially in the historical environment, as important is the philosophical diversity and pluralism of philosophy, which ensure the work of philosophical thought in areas and spheres inaccessible to other forms of knowledge.
The subject of philosophy is to a certain extent a concrete historical phenomenon, it changes with a change in philosophical thought, ideas about the world, man and society change, and therefore, the problems and questions of its (subject) components.
Subject and object of philosophy. The structure of philosophical knowledge
Philosophy (from Greek) - love of wisdom. It arose simultaneously more than 2.5 thousand years ago in the VI century. BC It acquired the most developed forms in Dr. Greece. Philosophy tried to absorb all knowledge, because individual sciences were not able to give a complete picture of the world. The question of what is the world is the main question of philosophy. Its solution indicates the main approaches to understanding other philosophical problems, so philosophy was divided into 2 main areas: philosophical materialism (Democritus), and philosophical idealism (Plato). Philosophy sought to understand not only the world outside of man, but also man himself. Philosophy is characterized by the desire for the maximum generalization of the results of knowledge. It does not study the world as a whole, but the world as a whole.
According to Plato the beginning of philosophy was astonishment. This meant that philosophy should study the surrounding world, its origins and patterns.
According to Kierkegaard the beginning of philosophy was despair. It meant that philosophy should study the man himself and his existence. Both philosophers were right: subject Philosophy is both the surrounding world and the place of man in this world.
Object - the world as a whole; the subject is the study of the whole variety of principles of the relationship between man and the world in their general characteristics
Philosophical knowledge has a certain structure. Traditionally, philosophy includes sections:
The structure of philosophical knowledge:
– ontology (philosophy of being);
– epistemology (theory of knowledge);
- logic (knowledge of the principles of thinking);
– axiology (the doctrine of values);
- aesthetics (the study of beauty);
- Anthropology (study of the problems of nature, the essence of man);
– praxeology (social philosophy).
Philosophy and worldview
Worldview is a socialized system of ideas about the world and about oneself, value orientations and volitional motives that determine the life position of an individual.
Philosophy is a high theoretical level of worldview, where the worldview itself appears in the form of knowledge and is systematized and ordered.
Other important forms of worldview include mythological and religious.
Historically, the first form of worldview is mythology. At the earliest stage of social development, mankind in the form of myths tried to give an answer to global issues the origin and structure of the universe as a whole, to express ideas about the emergence of the most important natural phenomena, the life of animals and people. The representations embodied in myths were closely intertwined with rituals, served as an object of faith,
With the formation of the cult system, a religious worldview was also formed. It helped a person to break out of the sphere of the transient, temporary - into the sphere of the ideal, eternal, gave meaning to human life.
Philosophy grew out of these two antecedent forms.
worldview, but it implies a higher theoretical level.
The main functions of philosophy
Philosophy (love of wisdom) is a scientific and theoretical type of worldview
Depending on what role philosophy has performed or is performing in society, with respect to the elements of the spiritual culture of society, they distinguish following features philosophy:
Worldview: the philosophical core of the human worldview helps to form the basic principles of life. Philosophy, unlike mythology and religion, is based not on faith, but on knowledge and thinking.
Methodological: philosophy gives all sciences a methodology of knowledge. Philosophy developed methods of scientific knowledge.
Cognitive: Philosophy synthesizes knowledge and raises the question of their humane use.
Value: Philosophy builds a classification of values and poses the problem of true and false values.
Main philosophical directions and principles of their classification
Worldview views of philosophers, philosophical works and philosophical schools are usually classified according to the following indicators (features):
What is the philosopher's assessment of the relationship between spirit and matter? On this basis, philosophical thought can be divided into idealism, materialism and dualism.
Materialism is the doctrine of the primacy of matter and the secondary nature of spirit.
Idealism is the doctrine of the primacy of spirit and the secondary nature of matter.
Dualism is the doctrine of the simultaneous existence of matter and spirit.
According to the methodology of the study of worldview problems. And such is the methodology, like philosophy, it can be metaphysical or dialectical.
According to the role that philosophy assigns to reason and feelings in comprehending worldview problems. In accordance with this indicator, two types of philosophy are distinguished: philosophical rationalism and philosophical sensationalism.
According to the place and content of the Idea of God in philosophy. On this basis, such philosophical schools are distinguished: Theism, Deism, Pantheism, Atheism.
According to the number of dominant factors (beginnings, root causes) in the world, philosophy is divided into Monism, Dualism and Pluralism.
Pluralism - the doctrine combines different philosophical positions.
And, finally, according to national specifics and the historical time of the functioning of philosophical thought.
The classical period of ancient philosophy: the philosophy of Plato (the doctrine of ideas, the theory of knowledge and social utopia)
Plato, real name Aristocles - the founder of objective rationalism - an idealist, characterizes being as eternal, unchanging, cognizable only by reason. Being is an incorporeal idea, eternal. In order to explain a phenomenon, it is necessary to find its idea, that is, a concept, something constant and stable, which is not given to sensory perception.
The material world, cognizable by our senses, is only a “shadow”, a “reflection” of the world of ideas. All phenomena and objects arise, are born and perish, but ideas remain eternal and unchanged. Plato believed that ideas are the only subject of true true knowledge. Ideas exist outside the material world and do not depend on it, but the material world is subordinate to them.
An idea is an incorporeal entity that can only be known by the mind. Things exist through participation in an idea. Ideas and things exist for the good. For Plato, what matters is how good a thing is. The thing must match the idea.
Theory of knowledge. Its core is the theory of recollection, the soul remembers those ideas that it learned before joining the body. These memories are the stronger, the more the soul manages to move away from the body.
The theory of the ideal state. It emerges as a society of social groups:
The rulers - they are dominated by reason - are philosophers.
Strategists - the will prevails - these are warriors.
Producers are farmers and artisans. Their cravings should be manageable and moderate.
Three estates correspond to 3 of the 4 main virtues: respectively, wisdom, courage, moderation. The fourth virtue above the estate is justice. It appears when each estate performs its task.
Philosophy of Aristotle: the doctrine of substance, the theory of knowledge,
Renaissance philosophy
The main features of the philosophy of the Renaissance are anthropocentrism, humanism. From the 15th century the transitional Renaissance begins in the history of Western Europe, which created its own brilliant culture. In the field of economics, there is a disintegration of feudal relations and the development of the rudiments of capitalist production; the richest city-republics in Italy develop. The biggest discoveries follow one after another: the first printed books; firearms; Columbus discovers America; Vasco da Gama, rounding Africa, found sea route to India; Magellan proves the sphericity of the Earth with his round-the-world trip.
But most importantly, the dictatorship of the church was broken. This was the most important condition for the flourishing of culture in the Renaissance. Secular interests, the full-blooded earthly life of a person were opposed to feudal asceticism, the "other world" ghostly world.
The entire culture of the Renaissance, its philosophy is filled with recognition of the value of a person as a person, his right to free development and manifestation of his abilities. A new evaluation criterion is approved public relations-human. At the first stage, the humanism of the Renaissance acted as a secular freethinking, opposing medieval scholasticism and the spiritual dominance of the church.
What are the main features of the philosophy of the Renaissance? Firstly, this is the denial of "bookish wisdom" and scholastic word disputes based on the study of nature itself, secondly, the use of primarily materialistic works of the philosophers of antiquity - Democritus, Epicurus; natural science; fourthly, the study of the problem of man. The transformation of philosophy into anthropocentric in its orientation. Researchers distinguish between two periods in the development of the philosophy of the Renaissance: 1. Restoration and adaptation of ancient philosophy to the requirements of the new time - the 15th century. 2. The emergence of its own peculiar philosophy, the main course of which was natural philosophy - the 16th century.
Key Ideas
· Shift towards anthropocentrism. The attention of Renaissance philosophers is directed primarily to the person, it is he who becomes the addressee of philosophical interest. Thinkers are no longer interested so much in transcendental religious distances as in man himself, his nature, his independence, his creativity, his self-affirmation, and finally, beauty. The origins of such philosophical interest were largely determined by the transition from the feudal-rural to the bourgeois-urban way of life and industrial economy. The very course of history revealed the special role of human creativity and activity.
· Understanding the human creative personality . The shift towards anthropocentrism meant an understanding of creativity as the primary dignity of man. In the Middle Ages, it was believed that creativity was the prerogative of God. Now they think differently. Man believes Ficino powerful like God. He is able and must realize himself in art, politics, and technology. The Renaissance man seeks to maximize the field of his daring. Leonardo da Vinci- painter and inventor Michelangelo- painter and poet, both also talented philosophers.
· aesthetic- the dominant aspect of the philosophy of the Renaissance. In the Middle Ages, moralism was widespread, which knew no reasonable limit. On the contrary, the bodily-natural, which, it was believed, could belittle the dignity of the divine, was treated with suspicion: if you sing too harmoniously in church and come there in smart clothes, then attention from the divine will be diverted.
Supporters of EMPIRISM (Bacon, Hobbes, Locke) argued that the main source of reliable knowledge about the world is human sensations and experience. Bacon was a supporter of empirical methods of knowledge (observation, experiment). He considered philosophy an experimental science based on observation, and its subject should be the surrounding world, including man himself.
John Locke justified the origin of all knowledge from sensory perception outside world. He proves that the only source of all ideas can only be experience. At the same time, Locke distinguishes between internal and external experience. Accordingly, he points out two experiential sources of our ideas: sensation and reflection. Ideas of sensation arise from the action on the sense organs of things that are outside of us. Ideas of reflection arise in us when our mind considers the inner state and activity of our soul. Through ideas of sensation we perceive the qualities of things.
Hobbes defends the experimental method of studying nature and defends the well-known thesis of empiricism about the sensual origin of human thinking and knowledge, focuses on understanding the rational-mathematical principles of thinking.
Philosophy of Marxism
Dialectical materialism.
The basis of the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels was the dialectic of Hegel, but on completely different, materialistic (rather than idealistic) principles. In the words of Engels, Hegel's dialectic was put on its head by the Marxists. The following main provisions of dialectical materialism can be distinguished:
the main question of philosophy is resolved in favor of being (being determines consciousness);
consciousness is understood not as an independent entity, but as a property of matter to reflect itself;
matter is in constant motion and development;
There is no God, He is an ideal image, the fruit of human imagination to explain phenomena that are incomprehensible to mankind, and gives mankind (especially its ignorant part) consolation and hope; God has no influence on the surrounding reality;
matter is eternal and infinite, periodically takes on new forms of its existence;
an important factor in development is practice - the transformation by a person 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, the negation of negation.
IRRATIONALISM
(unreasonable, unconscious) implies the recognition of the leading role of instinct, intuition, blind faith, which play a decisive role in knowledge, in the worldview, as opposed to reason and reason.
EXISTENTIALISM
philosophy of existence. The most fashionable f-some current in the middle. 20th century Its representatives were: Jaspers and Heidegger in Germany, Marcel, Sartre, Camus in France, Abbagnano in Italy, Barrett in the USA. F-I E is the successor to F-fii of Bergson and Nietzsche, Huserl, Kierkegaard.
E. raised the question of the meaning of life, the fate of people, the choice and personal responsibility in the context of historical catastrophes and contradictions. The subject of f-fii is being.
F-ya e-ma arose in Germany after the First World War - a time of unrest, general uncertainty and anxiety. As a result of this, the center of f-ing research from the theory of knowledge and logic of scientific research on the problems of man and history.
Um is a form of modern irrationalism. Jaspers: "Everyone who sought in science the foundations of his life, guidance in actions" should have been deceived. Next, science has no value in finding the meaning of life.
the main problem existentialism is the problem of man, the meaning and authenticity of his being. Phil's starting point. E. is an isolated, lonely individual, all of whose interests are focused on himself, on his own unreliable and mortal existence. Alienation of a person from society. Existential problems are problems that arise from the very fact of existence. person. For E., only his own noun matters. and its movement towards non-existence.
Among all the ways of being, the existence of E. is looking for one, in a cat. noun would be most fully revealed - this is fear. Fear is the original experience underlying all existence. Ultimately, it is the fear of death. E. ad. subject f. - being. They argue that the concept of being yavl. indeterminate., and that no log. its analysis is impossible. That's why f. not m.b. science about being and must look for other, non-scientific, irrational ways to penetrate it.
freedom is the very people. existence, people and there is freedom. However, free understood by them as something irrational. Free they think like free out of society. This is int. state, mood, experience of the individual. Character trait people. noun is that he does not himself choose the conditions of his existence, he is thrown into the world and is subject to fate. The time of his birth and death does not depend on a person. This leads them to the idea that in addition to people. noun noun otherworldly reality, cat. understood as a way of noun. man, consisting in the concern of man, directed somewhere outside him. Ext. the world represents the environment, the world of human care, the surrounding people. existent and being inextricably linked with it. Space and time are ways of people. noun.
Society is a universal impersonal force, overwhelming and destructive. individuality that takes away from people. his being., imposing. personalities stereotyped tastes, manners, views. A person haunted by the fear of death seeks refuge in society. But social life is not true. In the depths of the true, lonely being is hidden.
PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
Last third of the 19th century in Germany and France. Nietzsche, Dilthey, Simmel, Bergson, Spengler, Ortega y Gasset.
The basis of FZh is the idea of life as a primary, fundamental reality, an organic integrity that precedes the division into subject and object, matter and spirit, being and consciousness. Life is devoid of being, devoid of purpose, beyond evaluation. The most adequate means of cognition of life are the intuitive foundations of creativity, bad image, myth
The philosophy of life is a direction that considers everything that exists as a form of manifestation of life, a kind of primordial reality that is not identical to either spirit or matter and can only be comprehended intuitively. The most significant representatives of the philosophy of life are Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), Henri Bergson (1859-1941), Georg Simmel (1858-1918), Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), Ludwig Klages (1872). -1956). This direction includes thinkers of very different orientations - both in their own theoretical, and especially in worldview terms.
The philosophy of life arises in the 60-70s. 19th century the greatest influence reaches in the first quarter of the 20th century; subsequently, its significance decreases, but a number of its principles are borrowed by such areas as existentialism, personalism, etc. In some respects, such areas are close to the philosophy of life as, firstly, neo-Hegelianism with its desire to create sciences about the spirit as a living and creative principle, as opposed to the sciences of nature (for example, V. Dilthey can also be called a representative of neo-Hegelianism); secondly, pragmatism with its understanding of truth as usefulness for life; thirdly, phenomenology with its requirement of direct contemplation of phenomena (phenomena) as wholes, in contrast to mediating thinking, which constructs the whole from its parts.
The ideological forerunners of the philosophy of life are, first of all, the German romantics, with whom many representatives of this trend have an anti-bourgeois attitude, a longing for a strong, unsplit individuality, and a desire for unity with nature. Like romanticism, the philosophy of life starts from a mechanistic-rational worldview and gravitates toward the organic. This is expressed not only in her demand to directly contemplate the unity of the organism (here the model for all German philosophers of life is J. W. Goethe), but also in the thirst for a “return to nature” as an organic universe, which gives rise to a tendency towards pantheism. Finally, in line with the philosophy of life, a characteristic interest, especially for the Jena school of romanticism and romantic philology with its doctrine of hermeneutics, historical research such "living wholes" as myth, religion, art, language.
The main concept of the philosophy of life - "life" - is vague and ambiguous; depending on its interpretation, one can distinguish variants of this current. Life is understood both biologically - as a living organism, and psychologically - as a stream of experiences, and culturally and historically - as a "living spirit", and metaphysically - as the initial principle of the entire universe. Although each representative of this trend uses the concept of life in almost all of these meanings, however, as a rule, either a biological, or a psychological, or a cultural-historical interpretation of life turns out to be predominant.
30. Philosophy of postmodernism
Postmodernism- a complex, rather eclectic and heterogeneous phenomenon that arose in Western European culture in the last quarter of the 20th century. The first postmodernist ideas were actualized at the end of the 60s and were associated with critical reflection of socio-cultural and philosophical contexts modern civilization
. In the literal sense of the word "postmodernism" is what follows modern era, beyond modernism, and is associated with the comprehension of stylistic changes in European artistic culture. But only in the 80s the term "postmodernism" takes root and acquires the status of a commonly used concept.
In the strict sense, the philosophy of postmodernism does not exist: postmodern reflection is aimed at proving the impossibility of philosophy as such, the impossibility of developing a new philosophical style of thinking, understood as the creation of a holistic explanatory worldview-theoretical system.
Hence the pessimism so characteristic of postmodernism, loss of subject playing with the styles and meanings of previous eras, erasing any boundaries between certainties, structures, institutions, forms.
Postmodernism is associated with a claim to change philosophical paradigms, which is associated with a deep and versatile criticism of panlogism, rationalism, objectivism and historicism, characteristic of the previous Western European tradition. Postmodernism has brought to the fore issues that require clarification of the role of the sign, symbol, language and structure-generating activity.
At the same time, in ontological terms, postmodernism is characterized by a gradual transition from the attitude of "knowledge of the world with the aim of remaking it" to the requirement of deconstruction of the world.
Let us single out several initial postulates of the social theory of postmodernism.
1. Culture as a system of signs.– The idea of culture as a system of signs is the first and main idea of postmodernism.
The focus of postmodernism is the problem of language, the linguistic nature of thinking, the activities of people as "discursive practices". Language is described in postmodernism as a sign structure, which is a repository of meanings independent of their connection with the "facts" of the world or the intentions of the subject. Thus, it is argued that meanings are born in the context of relations between the signs that make up the structure of the language, due to their specific position in this structure, and not due to their correspondence to the "facts" of reality.
2. World as text"is one of the most famous theses of postmodernism. In postmodernism, all reality is conceived as a text, discourse, narration. "Narrative", "textuality", "intertextuality" are the most important concepts that are used by postmodernism to describe modern reality, the main words of its language. "Nothing exists outside the text" - says J. Derrida. The culture of any historical period appears as a sum of texts, or intertext. Understanding texts is possible only in the "discursive field of culture". In other words, they can only be understood in connection with other texts, but not in relation to any "literal" meaning or normative truth.The inevitable presence of previous texts - intertextuality - prevents any text from considering itself autonomous. Deconstruction how general method postmodern analysis, applicable to the analysis of any phenomenon of culture, any text, inevitably turns into a multi-meaning and endless interpretive process that relativizes any text, any concept, and therefore deprives the problem of truth of meaning.
3. "Death of the Subject" The most influential is the version of the concept of "death of the subject" developed by M. Foucault and R. Barth; Derrida's concept of deconstruction and J. Kristeva's concept of intertextuality lead to the same conclusions.
Since "nothing exists outside the text", then any individual is inevitably inside the text, which leads to the "death of the subject", through which "language speaks" (M. Foucault). decentration.– Postmodernism criticizes centrality as the basic principle of the European culture of modern times, the rational thinking of modernity, which is rejected as metaphysical. The decentration of the subject as a core, the center around which knowledge, culture, social life was built, the deconstruction of any text, revealing the looseness of signs, relativize any text, any concept. On this basis, postmodernists prove the impossibility of the existence of a holistic, universal system of knowledge - it can only be a fragment of many local cultural contexts that make it possible and give it meaning. Therefore, no knowledge can be evaluated outside the context of culture, tradition and language. It is with this thesis that the postmodern critique of all previous culture is connected. According to Lyotard, postmodernity is characterized by two main features - the disintegration of unity and the growth of pluralism.
4. "Postmodern sensibility"- a specific vision of the world - a decentered, fragmented, disordered world, devoid of causal relationships and value orientations, which appears to consciousness only in the form of hierarchically disordered fragments. Any attempt to construct a "model" of such a world is meaningless.
All this leads the theorists of postmodernism to "epistemological uncertainty", to the conviction that the most adequate comprehension of reality is available not to natural and exact sciences, not to traditional philosophy based on a formalized conceptual apparatus, but to intuitive, "poetic thinking" with its associativity, imagery, metaphor .
Being- an extremely broad philosophical category for designating the integrity and substantiality of the world. AT European culture the first definitions of being arose in ancient Greece, which historically coincided with the formation of philosophical knowledge, the transition from figurative-mythological to logical thinking.
The concept of the integrity of the world was formed gradually, its emergence was preceded by whole line intermediate concepts and concepts. The thinkers of antiquity comprehensively and thoroughly considered various alternatives to philosophical constructions, relying on the rich spiritual experience of previous development (mythology, religion, art). As a result, a radically new attitude emerged in the knowledge and understanding of the surrounding world. So, if the Greek natural philosophers ( early period) considered reality as a variety of constantly changing objects, phenomena, processes, then their followers (the first among them is Parmenides) raised the question of the universal and permanent basis of these changes, which was called being.
« Being” - a derivative of the calves “to be”, “is”, which are very common in many languages of the world, has its own specific, own philosophical content and means not just the existence of any objects of the surrounding world, but that which guarantees this existence.
The concept of being is abstracted from the infinite variety of properties and qualities of concrete objects, except for one thing - to be existing. Such an approach gives the world integrity, makes it an object of specific consideration. The doctrine of being (ontology) is an important section of philosophical knowledge.
The concept of being is based on the conviction of a person that the world exists not only here and now (this fayu is undeniably proven by human experience), but everywhere and forever (intuitive activity of consciousness). The unity of these aspects constitutes the most general structure of the concept of being.
We unshakably believe that despite all the upheavals in nature and society, the world is stable, permanent, eternal. This world is the true being, our vital support. The concept of just such a world forms the basis of the meaning-forming human activity. It is as if a certain system of concepts is superimposed on the intuitive “core”, which form the meaning contained in one or another philosophical concept.
Being forms the idea that the world around us develops and lives according to its own laws, independent of our will, desires and arbitrariness. These laws ensure the stability and harmony of the world, while at the same time restricting our activities. Understanding this and the ability to follow the requirements of being ensure the existence of man.
The following main forms of life can be distinguished:
* things, processes, containing being of nature as a whole and the being of things produced by man;
* human - is subdivided into human being as a natural being and specific human being;
* spiritual, consisting of objective and subjective spirit;
* social, consisting of the existence of an individual and the existence of society.
Being as a starting concept is only the starting point philosophical reflection about the world and man. It becomes meaningful, concrete-universal only through interaction with such philosophical categories as matter, consciousness, movement, space, time, systemicity, determinism and others. But this already applies to the following presentation.
32. The structure of being: types, levels, forms
The structure of life. In the structure of being, types, levels and forms are distinguished.
Species are both objective and subjective reality.
Levels are actual and potential being.
Forms are natural and social being.
There are 3 periods in the formation of scientific and philosophical ideas about matter.
1. Antiquity. spontaneous materialism. At this time, materialism is understood
either a natural element (iperon; Anaximander) or atoms (in translation:
indivisible).
2. New time, 17-18 centuries. Matter is still associated with atoms or
corpuscles. Matter as a substance is endowed with the following features:
extension, hardness, density, impermeability, weight, shape, etc.
3. Late 19th - early 20th century. The crisis in natural science associated with the discovery
electron, radioactivity, x-rays, electromagnetic field.
All these discoveries were used by idealist philosophers.
to prove the idea that matter does not exist .. The only
reality is a subject (man). Thus, materialism is criticized
from the point of view of subjective idealism. (Mach, Avenarius; theory - Machism
or empirio-criticism)
In 1908 Lenin in his work "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism" gives an analysis of the crisis
in natural science and concludes that matter has not disappeared, the former
ideas about her.
reality, which is given to a person in his sensations, which is copied,
photographed, displayed by our sensations, existing independently of them.
There are 3 levels in the structure of materialism:
· Live nature
· society
| materialism | idealism | dualism | |
| They considered that: | Primary matter | Primarily consciousness | Matter and consciousness arose simultaneously |
| 1. spontaneous materialism | 1. objective idealism Consciousness or something spiritual exists outside of human nature. There is rational and irrational idealism. | ||
| representatives | Heraclitus, Democritus | Plato, Hegel | Descartes |
| 2. materialism of the new time 17-18 century | 2. subjective idealism. The primary idea (spirit, consciousness). But they make the world dependent on consciousness and reduce the world to a complex of our sensations. | ||
| representatives | Diderot, Holbach, Lamerty | Berkeley, Avenarius, Mach, Humm | |
| 2.1 solipsism (an extreme degree of subjective idealism). Its representatives do not allow the existence of any reality outside of man: "The whole world exists insofar as I exist." | |||
| 3. materialism of the new time | |||
| representatives | Marx, Engels, Lenin |
Epistemological. and agnostics
Structure Ф - those structural elements that are considered philosophical
problems: ontology is the science of being, epistemology is the science of cognition,
cosmology, ethics, - the science of the rules and norms of behavior, logic, social
philosophy.
Being. Matter.
Life forms:
1. the being of things, bodies is divided into
things, bodies created by nature
· things, bodies created by human hands.
2. human being
a person in the world of bodies, things
The being of a person
3. spiritual being:
public
individual
4. social being:
public
individual
The antithesis of being or "something" is nothingness or non-being. Non-existence is a concept
relative, because in the absolute sense there is no non-existence.
Matter concepts and shapes are relative. So, a brick is a matter for building a building. In turn, a brick, as a body with certain properties, is a mold for the clay from which it is made. Everything in nature is in motion. Movement, according to Aristotle, is a change in general, and not just a change in the state of things in space. In the general case, movement, according to Aristotle, is the combination of matter with form, the emergence of a thing.
Causality operates in nature. According to Aristotle, four kinds of causes should be distinguished. Firstly, these are material and formal reasons. These are, if I may say so, causes inherent in things themselves. As Aristotle writes, “cause in one sense denotes that which is part of a thing, from which a thing arises, as it were, for example, copper for a statue and silver for a bowl, as well as their more general genera.” Secondly, the cause should be understood as that which determines the essence of a thing - the essence of being. “In another sense, this is the name of the form and pattern, in other words, the concept of the essence of being, and more general genera of this concept, as well as the parts that make up such a concept.
The first attempts to define the concept of "matter" were made in ancient philosophy. Ancient materialist thinkers identified matter with any specific type of substance: water (Thales), air (Anaksvmen), fire (Heraclitus), atoms (Democritus). Aristotle understood matter as a set of four "elements" (beginnings) - fire, water, air and earth. An attempt to overcome the substitution of matter by one of the types of matter was made by Anaxmander, who considered the "aleuron" - an infinite, indefinite, boundless changing substance, to be the fundamental principle of everything that exists.
In the philosophy of the New Age (XVII-XVIII centuries), matter was understood as a kind of monotonous material principle (substance) different from concrete bodies, endowed with such properties as corporality, mass, length, density, heaviness, etc. According to F. Bacon, matter is a collection of particles, and nature is a collection of material bodies. For French materialists (Holbach, Diderot, etc.), matter is a system of all existing bodies that cause our sensations. For Feuerbach, matter is nature in the diversity of all its manifestations, including man as a biological being.
As philosophy and science develop, the concept of matter gradually loses its sensory-concrete features, but at the same time becomes more and more abstract. In dialectical-materialist philosophy, matter (objective reality) is a philosophical category that expresses its existence outside and independently of consciousness and negativity.
1264.31kb.
SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF PHILOSOPHY
1. Understanding philosophy
2. The subject of philosophy
3.Functions of philosophy
- Understanding Philosophy
Philosophy, from the point of view of B. Russell, is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists in speculations about subjects about which exact knowledge has hitherto been unattainable, but, like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether tradition or revelation. All exact knowledge, but his opinion, belongs to science; all dogmas, insofar as they exceed exact knowledge, belong to theology. But between theology and science there is a sphere, which is philosophy. Almost all the questions that interest minds the most are such that science cannot answer them, and the self-confident answers of theologians no longer seem as convincing as they were in previous centuries. Is the world divided into spirit and matter, and if so, what is spirit and what is matter? Such questions cannot be answered in the laboratory. Theologians have professed to give answers to these questions, and very definite ones at that, but the very definiteness of their answers makes modern minds suspicious of them. To investigate these questions, if not to answer them, is the business of philosophy.
Science teaches us that we are capable of knowing, but what we are able to know is limited, and if we forget how much lies beyond these limits, we will lose our receptivity to many very important things. Theology, on the other hand, introduces a dogmatic belief and that we have knowledge where in fact we are ignorant, and thus generates a kind of arrogant contempt for the universe.
Philosophy, as something distinct from theology, arose in Greece and VI and. BC e. Having survived its history in Antiquity, it again, in the era of the rise of Christianity and the fall of Rome, was absorbed by theology. During its second great period, from the 11th to the 14th centuries, it experiences the dominance of the Catholic Church, apart from a few great rebels, such as the emperor - Frederick 11 (1195-1250). This period was brought to an end by that which reached its climax in the epochs of the Reformation. The third period - from the seventeenth century to our time - is more than any of the previous ones influenced by science. Modern Philosophy begins with Descartes, for whom the main indisputable position was the position of the existence of only oneself and one's own thoughts, from which it should be concluded that the external world exists. This is only the first stage in the development that led through Berkeley and Kant to Fichte, for whom everything is only an emanation of the "I".
- The subject of philosophy
The question of the subject of philosophy is raised within the framework of the scientific side of philosophical knowledge, i.e. philosophy is considered here primarily as a science. The subject of philosophy was formed historically.
The ancient concept of philosophy was identical to scientific knowledge in general: the whole reality was the subject. The object of philosophy began to be outlined and studied at the level of "living contemplation".
For many centuries, philosophy acted as natural philosophy. Private natural sciences for a long time did not have a theoretical level of knowledge in their structure
Theoretical, speculative related to philosophy as a doctrine of the general. The understanding of philosophy as the doctrine of the universal (theoretical) is already found in Aristotle. Subsequently, behind the "first philosophy" (Aristotle) the name "metaphysics" was established (that which is "after physics"). Metaphysics has become synonymous
Philosophical science about the first principles, about the universal. Currently, the term "metaphysics" has three meanings: ontology; philosophy in general; a general method, the opposite of dialectics.
The central concept in defining the subject matter of philosophy is the “universal”. What is the universal? Metaphysics, according to Kant, should be based on epistemology, on the doctrine of the universal in Hegel's thinking, the universal exists exclusively in the sphere of "pure thinking". The universal is pure thought. Understanding the subject matter of philosophy as universal, and philosophy as a theory of the universal is generally recognized. And as before, so now the very interpretation of the "universal" is different in different philosophical systems.
Historically, the third understanding of philosophy (after "proto-knowledge" and "metaphysics") is associated with the final delimitation of philosophy and particular sciences. Thus, the consideration of the question of the subject of philosophy is connected with the elucidation of the relationship of the philosophy of particular sciences in the historical aspect. There are two concepts of changing the subject matter of philosophy. The burrow concept of "budding"; the second is the substantive self-determination of philosophy. The essence of the first concept is that the subject of philosophy in the course of the development of scientific knowledge and the allocation of frequent sciences had to "bud", i.e. the content of philosophy as metaphysics and natural philosophy turned out to be "taken apart, but in parts - separate sciences." Philosophy eventually "disintegrated", decomposed. According to this concept, it turns out that philosophy cannot have its own subject of knowledge, and therefore cannot be an independent science. At best, philosophy turns out to be dissolved in positive knowledge; acts as a doctrine about science in general and about the methods of particular sciences, i.e. does not go beyond the boundaries of aggregate private knowledge. In accordance with the concept of “objective self-determination of philosophy”, the formation of philosophy as independent science ended around the middle of the 19th century. I historically the third understanding of philosophy is associated with the end of the demarcation of philosophy with other areas of knowledge.
The concept of “budding” draws a picture of the formation of Finnish philosophy (the appearance of an object in it), in which the historical path of philosophy turns out to be fundamentally different than any other science. In fact, the genesis of philosophy as a science did not differ in the main from the path along which the private sciences went towards their autonomy.
The subject of philosophy is the universal in the "world-man" system. There are two subsystems in this system: "world" and "man". The relationship between these parties is divided into four aspects: ontological, cognitive, axiological, spiritual and practical.
- Functions of Philosophy
By "function" is meant:
1) mode of action;
2) a way of displaying the activity of the system (philosophical knowledge)
3) types of tasks to be solved in relation to a person, a social group, a spider, art, and other phenomena of social reality.
The essence of philosophy is in reflections on the universal problems of man,
Philosophy is like:
1) information about the world as a whole and about the relationship of a person to this world;
2) a set of principles of cognition, a general method of cognitive activity.
Accordingly, there are:
1) worldview;
2) methodological functions of philosophy.
Worldview functions include the following.
1) Humanistic function: helps to comprehend life, find its meaning and strengthen your spirit.
2) The socio-axiological function includes sub-functions:
3) constructive-value development of ideas about values (goodness, justice, truth, beauty); the formation of ideas about the snotty ideal (the relationship between the individual and society);
interpreter subfunction - interpretation of social reality;
critical - criticism of structures, states of social reality, discrepancies between social reality and ideals.
4) Cultural and educational function. The function is able to protect a person from the superficial and narrow framework of the ordinary type of thinking; education of the subject's ability not to circumvent cognitive contradictions.
5) Reflective-informational function. Developing a mindset that matches state of the art science, historical practice and the intellectual demands of man.
Methodological functions of philosophy (relation to the spider):
heuristic (formation of hypotheses and theories);
coordinated (coordination of methods);
infective (between scientific disciplines);
logical-epistemological (private sciences need logic, epistemology, general methodology of knowledge).
Philosophy as a science. The question of the scientific nature of philosophy still remains. Is there a similarity between the particular sciences and philosophy, or are they fundamentally different? Are the scientific-rationalistic aspects of philosophy revealed or not?
A particular system of knowledge is considered scientific or belonging to the field of science if it meets certain criteria,
The scientific criteria are as follows:
1) objectivity;
2) rationality;
3) essentialist orientation;
4) systematic knowledge;
5) verifiable.
The criteria of scientific character are applicable to part of the content of philosophical knowledge, especially to ontology (philosophy of nature), epistemology (epistemology) and the methodology of scientific knowledge.
Thus, philosophy is part of the scientific sphere of knowledge, at least in part of its content; and in this respect philosophy is a science, a kind of scientific knowledge.
Philosophy as ideology. Ideology always expresses the interests of society, its main principle is not the principle of objectivity, like the natural sciences, but the principle of partisanship. Party membership is the certainty of the subject's social position.
Since philosophy has an ideological side, it is both an ideology and a science. Philosophy strives for scientific knowledge of the world and at the same time for the maximum expression of the interests of the subject or group.
Philosophy as humanitarian knowledge. Philosophy belongs to the humanities. The most striking examples in this regard are the concepts of B. Pascal, S. Kierkegaard, L.I. Shestov.
The object of the humanities is the individual, his spiritual, inner world, as well as the associated world of human relationships and the world of the spiritual culture of society. Humanities study spiritual world person through text.
Spirit (both one's own and someone else's) cannot be given as a thing, but only in symbolic expression. A human act is also a potential text. Text and its understanding - specific feature humanitarian knowledge. Humanitarian knowledge is inseparable from hermeneutics as the art of interpreting texts, as the art of comprehending someone else's individuality; the dialogic nature of humanitarian knowledge is associated with it.
Philosophical knowledge has a humanitarian character.
Philosophy as art. Philosophical works, just like works of art, turn out to be personal, expressing the personality and experiences of the philosopher, his attitude to reality. The results of philosophizing are closely connected, as in art, with individuality. The phenomenon of personal, “internal” rejection by readers of some philosophers and attraction to the works of others is based on this peculiarity of philosophical knowledge (someone, for example, does not accept Hegel, but is fascinated by Sartre, the other is vice versa).
The affinity of philosophy and art and their interpenetration up to the merger is demonstrated by the fact that philosophical works were often created in the form works of art(for example, Plato, Nietzsche, Camus), and many prominent poets and writers (Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy) were philosophers and thinkers.
Philosophy as a transcendent comprehension of an object. The transcending character is the side of philosophical knowledge. “Transcendental” (from Latin “to cross”) is understood as going beyond the boundaries of possible experience, lying outside this experience, going beyond the limits of human consciousness. This concept is opposed to "immanent". Scholasticism distinguished between immanent and transcendent causes and effects; the former take place in the objects themselves, the latter are beyond their presence of being. The transcendent enters into religious knowledge and into philosophy. Transcending, although it does not provide definite and precise knowledge, like scientific rationality, is capable of capturing some of the deep properties of the comprehended being (“knowing ignorance”). Comprehension of the wealth of the fundamental principle of the world also occurs through meditation. Delving into himself, a person through himself comprehends the world in its fundamental principle, and delving into this fundamental principle, a person comprehends more and more himself. Meditation is an integral element in the general philosophical method of transcending. Transcending is closely related to mysticism, if by it we mean “something mysterious, inexplicable”, “belief in the supernatural, divine, mysterious”. Any philosophizing that reaches the borders of the incomprehensible and to ideas about the fundamental principle of the world, its properties, cannot but touch the supernatural areas. In mystical experience, the transcendent becomes immanent. The result of philosophical transcendence - with meditation and mysticism included - is philosophical faith. This is no longer science, but the psychological attitude of an individual who accepts something unreasonable, unrealistically existing. The specificity of this faith lies in its subject, which is the fundamental principles of the world and human existence.
Faith (in philosophy), according to Jaspers, is the consciousness of existence in relation to transcendence. The real difference between philosophy and objectively cognizing thinking used in the sciences is that philosophy, and only philosophy, is characterized by transcending thinking.
From what has been said, it follows that in its separate aspects, as well as in its separate concepts, philosophy is similar to religion and mysticism as types of knowledge.
Lecture 3
STRUCTURE OF PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE
1.Historical foundations of the structuralization of philosophy
2.modern structure philosophical knowledge
- Historical foundations of the structuralization of philosophy
As philosophy in historical development understood its content, determined the circle fundamental problems, developed methods and ways of understanding, set goals and objectives, formed the structure of philosophical knowledge. Already ancient philosophy, turning into an independent system of knowledge, acquired its own internal composition, its own structure. Aristotle summarized and grouped the sections of philosophy in this way:
theoretical philosophy, its goal is knowledge for the sake of knowledge;
practical philosophy, its goal is knowledge for the sake of activity;
creative (pathetic) philosophy, its goal is knowledge for the sake of creativity.
Ethics and politics Aristotle attributed to practical philosophy, rhetoric and poetics - to pathetic. Theoretical sciences Aristotle put above the practical and pathetic, and the first philosophy, of course, had absolute primacy in relation to all other theoretical disciplines. Among the Stoics (4th century BC), philosophy began with logic. But it did not have the status of an independent science, but was an introduction to the whole complex of sciences. After logic came physics (the doctrine of nature), and after physics - ethics (the doctrine of man, of his ways to a wise, meaningful life). For the Stoics, ethics was of paramount importance, since both logic (the doctrine of knowledge) and physics (the doctrine of nature) only prepared the basic life-giving provisions and conclusions of philosophy about the purpose and destiny of man, about its relation to the eternal and infinite world. The proto-Aristotelian structure of knowledge became the basis for the disciplinary schematization of philosophy in its future history. In the ideas of that time, epistemology was wider than logic, since it considered not only the abstract-theoretical, but also the sensory level of knowledge (sensation, perception, representation).
What ancient philosophers called physics, in the philosophy of subsequent centuries, was called ontology (the doctrine of being, or the origin of all things).
An attempt to rethink the structure of philosophical knowledge was made by I. Kashi. In the Critique of Judgment, he speaks of the three parts of philosophy and relates them to the three "faculties of the soul." By them, he means the cognitive, practical (desire, will) and aesthetic abilities inherent in man from birth. Kant, therefore, interprets philosophy as a doctrine of the unity of truth, goodness and beauty, which significantly expands its narrowly rational understanding, as only theories or methodologies of scientific knowledge, which were first expressed by the enlighteners and then by the positivists. The scope of philosophy is covered by the following questions.
What can I know?
What should I know?
What can I hope for?
What is a person?
The first question is answered by metaphysics, the second by morality, the third by religion, and the fourth by anthropology. Kant emphasizes and sets the perspective of understanding anthropological issues as the most important for philosophy, Hegel, on the contrary, believes that the main goal of philosophy is the dialectical disclosure of the categorical structure of the mind. In man, Hegel first of all sees the ability to think rationally. The essence of man is the ability to comprehend the rational mind. Therefore philosophy. Therefore, Hegel defines philosophy as a person's self-realization of his essence. Hegel's ideal of man reasonable person who cognizes reality with the help of concepts and categories. Hegel distinguishes three parts of philosophical knowledge:
1) logic;
2) philosophy of nature;
3) philosophy of spirit.
Hegel refers to the philosophy of spirit (objective, subjective, absolute) a complex of philosophical disciplines about the state and law, morality and morality, about world history about art, religion and philosophy itself. Thus, the Hegelian system of philosophy is universal, it embraces the world of human culture, reality in all its diversity.
- Modern structure of philosophical knowledge
Ontology is the doctrine of being as such, of the fundamental principles and forms of being, its most general essence and definition. A person lives in the real world, filled with numerous and varied things (big and small, long and one-day, living and inanimate). They are born and disappear, destroyed and restored. Therefore, people have long been raising the question: is there some single basis, some invisible foundation, which makes them all living, allows them to interact and unite, in vain flickering of individual things. To determine the source of life, that beginning, which gives some thing the opportunity to be, to exist as a multitude, to appear, and the concept of being arose.
Ontological problems are problems of the objective existence of reality, that indestructible foundation on which everyday reality is built, given to us through the senses.
For the early Greek philosophers, the search for being is the search for the primary substance from which all things without exception seem to be made (the water of Thales, the air of Anaximenes, the aleuron of Anaximaidr, the elements of Empedocles, the fire of Heraclitus, the atoms of Democritus, the seed of Anaxagoras). The problem of the difference between real being and fake existence turned out to be extremely relevant in ancient society (5th-4th centuries BC), when people began to lose faith in traditional gods, the foundations and norms of the world began to collapse, the main reality of which was the gods and tradition. The philosophers of the Eleatic school developed ontology as a doctrine of eternal, unchanging, unified, rational being. Parmenides substantiated the thesis On the identity of thinking and being, informing people about the discovery new strength, the force of absolute opinion, which holds back the world from chaos, provides the world with stability and reliability. Consequently, man found in the ancient world some certainty that everything would necessarily obey
some order.
For the Middle Ages, being is equal to God, because it is God, according to the religious conception, who creates everything and breathes life into everything. Starting from the XVI-XVII centuries. the problem of being was considered as a problem of matter with its most important attributes such as space, time, movement, causality. In the XX century. the idea arises that the existence of the world can only be understood through the existence of a person, and therefore it is pointless to look for it in the field of natural science. The deep recesses of the world can only be illuminated by going deeper into the stream of human life, where the objective and the subjective are inseparable.
The second section of philosophical knowledge is the theory of knowledge (epistemology). The theory of knowledge has its origins in ancient philosophical teachings. Already among ancient thinkers, we find complex reflections on how a person receives impressions about the world around him, whether they are true or not, whether it is possible to know the truth at all.
Gnoseology is closely connected with ontology. If for Indian Vedic philosophy the world is built in such a way that an illusion reigns in it, then it is natural that an ordinary person, incl. and the scientist, never touches the truth, it only circles in the wheel of illusory representations. Truth is available only to a person who selflessly practices yoga and thanks to this is able to directly experience the truth in spiritual enlightenment without the help of words and concepts. In the European tradition, on the contrary, the reasonable word (logos), conceptual thinking is an adequate form of expressing the truth. So, Hegel argued that the mind is the true essence of being. All things are rational within themselves, and logic represents their true nature.
The third section of philosophy is logic, methodology, philosophy "of science and scientific knowledge (epistemology). If epistemology is concerned with whether it is possible to know the world, logic and methodology are directly addressed to someone, what needs to be done in order to know, i.e. it develops the most effective ways and rules of the learning process. Methodology formulates the principles, shows the norms and ideals that guide the scientist in the knowledge of the world.
One can enumerate many methodologies that have been established in the 20th century: positivist, dialectical, phenomenological, hermeneutical, synergetic. Each methodology is a whole world of ideas and theoretical disputes. Appeal to philosophy opens up the possibility to expand the methodological outlook, forms a culture of thinking that meets the modern level of science.
The philosophy of science is developed from traditional methodological problems, but the range of its interests is wider. It examines the place and role of science and scientists in the life of society. Actually, science is not such a long-standing phenomenon in people's lives. As a specialized type of spiritual production and a social institution, it appears only in the 17th century, but since then its importance in the life of society has been constantly increasing, and the figure of the scientist has become more influential and weighty. How communication is built between scientists, which models of the world they recognize and which they reject, what is the relationship between natural science and humanitarian knowledge - all these questions are the prerogative of the philosophy of science.
The fourth section of philosophy, which was formed in the XVIII century. and intensively developing in the 20th and 21st centuries, is philosophical anthropology and the philosophy of culture. Philosophical anthropology tries to find out the place of man in the world, to establish him and, by virtue of the quality that distinguishes him from animals, to reveal the military essence of man. She tries to identify the common moments and suems of the biological, mental, spiritual-historical and social development of man. “Who are we, where are we going, where is our Place and purpose in the Universe?” - these are the questions that occupy the mind of anthropological philosophers. And the topic of culture is closely related to these issues, which is primarily a “measure of the development of the person himself”. Philosophy studies culture (as the second nature of man, as the world of human meanings and values) in the entire volume of historical formation and in the entire depth of its structural specifications. Local and universal in cultures, the nature and mechanism of cultural creation, ways of transmitting socio-cultural experience, the relationship between culture and civilization, culture and freedom - these are the problems of the philosophy of culture.
A large and traditional section of philosophy is social philosophy and the philosophy of history. Social philosophy is close to theoretical sociology, considers the organization of society, its relationship with nature, the relationship that exists between social groups, the role and position of man in the system of social ties and relationships. The philosophy of history draws the researcher's attention to the problem of the driving forces of history, its sources, goals, beginning and end.
The last two divisions in the world of philosophy are ethics and aesthetics. Ethics is a philosophical theory of morality, which studies what the character, nature of a person is and how they relate to the idea of \u200b\u200bthe proper. Ethics is interested in where the conviction comes from that we should be good and not evil, what is the general nature of morality, good and evil, what is honor, conscience, guilt, why responsibility is an integral companion of freedom.
And, finally, aesthetics is the theory of beauty. Aesthetics as a philosophical discipline analyzes beauty both in life and in art, asks what beauty is, where its sources are, tries to find out the internal laws of beauty.
Finally, it can be said that many humanitarian sciences closely related to philosophy: psychology, history, ethnography! literature, philology. But I have this connection and interweaving! the place is only where all these disciplines rise above concrete material and make the greatest generalizations that embrace man and the world in general, in their interaction and interpenetration.
Having outlined in general terms the essence of philosophy, the place, time and conditions of its origin, let's move on to a more detailed description of it, to identifying the nature of philosophical knowledge, its subject, structure and functions.
Born from the marriage of mythology, protoscience and art, philosophy has retained the features of all the above methods of mastering the world. No wonder the famous English philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) , called philosophy a "no man's land", located between science, religion and art. About the similarities and differences between philosophy, on the one hand, and science, religion and art, on the other, we will talk a little later. To begin with, we note that philosophy, like science, has its own object and subject of study.
object in science it is considered fragment, part of reality to which cognitive activity subject, in the role of both individual scientists and research teams. The subject is what is studied in the object. The subject is allocated by the researcher inside the object. This is necessary because the object is often so vast and deep, versatile and rich that studying it in all its nuances and details is both laborious and pointless. The researcher, as a rule, is not interested in the whole object, but only the most important, the main thing in it, and it is precisely these most fundamental aspects of the object that constitute the subject of science.
For example, the object of physics is all nature (the word "physics" comes from the Greek word "fusis" - nature), and its subject is "the simplest and at the same time the most general and fundamental properties of the material world." The object of sociological knowledge is both society as a whole and individual real existing societies(American, Japanese, Russian, Nigerian, etc.), while the subject of sociology is considered to be the most general laws of the structure, functioning and development of society. The sociologist, unlike the ethnographer, takes out the individual characteristics of individual societies, focusing on the essential features inherent in all or most societies.
The same is true in philosophy. The object of philosophy is the whole world, the whole reality, both material and spiritual, social. Whereas subject of philosophy constitute the most important, deepest, most general and universal properties and patterns of both the world as a whole and individual spheres of being. The latter include nature, society, man, knowledge.
It should be noted that important patterns often do not coincide with general, universal patterns. For example, what seems important to one philosopher may not matter at all to another. For example, for positivists, questions about the meaning of life, the existence of God, the primacy of matter or consciousness are completely meaningless, while for most other philosophers, the above questions are considered as the central themes of philosophy. And this is not surprising, because the very word “important” implies an assessment, a choice between “significant” and “insignificant”, and this choice is made by each person independently. In other words, the importance of the problem is determined on the basis of subjective opinion an individual or a group, society as a whole. But the terms "general", "universal" are to a greater extent objective, often statistical character. For example, such properties of the world as materiality, development seem to be general properties of the Universe, but for an individual philosopher they may be unimportant, and therefore he may not be interested in them, but focus, for example, on the problem of the specifics of the transcendental world. This latter will be very important to him, while the atheist will consider it a pseudo-problem.
However, as a rule, a philosopher solves not those problems that are important only for him, but those that are important for him, and at the same time for many people. For example, the problem of the originality of the transcendental (otherworldly, divine) world is important for all religiously minded people, for everyone who recognizes the existence of a transcendental reality. Thus, by solving a problem for himself, a philosopher solves it for others or for others, and these others can accept or reject the solution proposed by a particular philosopher, depending on how this decision is justified, how much it coincides with their intuitive foresight.
Object in philosophy- this is the subject of philosophy, considered within the nature of things and evaluated regardless of the subject that cognizes.
It is impossible, of course, to consider the object independently of the subject, even if we are talking about philosophical teaching. At the same time, many thinkers tried to find such objects of philosophy that would be absolutely independent.
The object of philosophy is nothing but the universe, that is, the surrounding world and the reality in which it exists. Particular attention in philosophical doctrine is given to a person who is considered the subject of philosophy.
What is an object in philosophy?
The object of philosophy is objective reality, containing within its own limits human life. Under the guise of reality, everything that exists in various forms (not only explicit ones) appears. Another definition of it in philosophy can be the concept of "being".
When being manifests itself for the physical senses, then it can be called reality. The same part of being that has not been manifested is called reality. Reality itself is considered hidden, yet intelligible. This ensures its versatility. A single being is thus composed of sides:
- Reality, which is the cause and condition for changing reality;
- Reality, which is the same reality that manifests itself in spatial and temporal outlines.
It turns out that reality is controlled by intelligible reality. The variability of being, composed of the real and the real, contributes to the emergence of the question of the regularity of the variability of being. The change in the world around us occurs in a rhythmic manner - even if we talk about physical laws.
This is one of the tasks of philosophical knowledge and is to consider the reasons for the constant change in the surrounding world. When knowledge can predict options related to the development of reality in the future, it can be called wisdom. In essence, wisdom is the knowledge possessed by a naturally developing being in various fields. Thus, the “invisible” is comprehended and preparations are made for the future.
About the subject of philosophy
It is not for nothing that philosophical science is unofficially called the love of wisdom. If we talk about what is the object of philosophy, then here knowledge about reality, which objectively changes, acts in this capacity. This is how “external” wisdom is defined, which is manifested in the human attitude to the world that surrounds it.
The subject of this science is knowledge about the various principles, as well as the laws of that reality, which is comprehended by the mind and gives rise to "internal" wisdom. The discovery of "inner wisdom" is possible in the attitude that a person shows towards himself.
The general principles of cognitive processes are determined by the unity of internal as well as external relations of the human individual to the surrounding world. Thus, philosophy is outward manifestation philosophical wisdom. Wisdom itself is an internal philosophical content.
When they talk about what is the object of study of philosophy, they consider the reality of the relationship between the human individual and the surrounding world. To clarify the specifics of the philosophical subject, it turns out the angle of view, under which the reflection of the phenomenon under study is carried out.
First of all, the emphasis is placed on the essence of the relations under study, their origins, the specifics of the world order, and interconnections. It turns out that the subject of philosophy is its own object, connected with the relationship between the surrounding world and man, considered together with the world and human essence. The possibilities for the transformation of the human personality, the structure of the world in which a person lives are being studied.
At various historical stages, a philosophical subject could not be presented in full integrity, but exactly as it needed to appear at that moment in order to master the surrounding reality.
At first, thinkers asked themselves only questions about the principles of the surrounding world, its structure and structure, one or another of its aspects. Subsequently, on the basis of the results of reflections, the meaning of being, considered by philosophers as one of the main tasks, was formed.
Although there has always been a variety of approaches related to the relationship between a person and the surrounding world, there was a need for a holistic view of the world and one's own "I". This approach was determined by the specifics of human life.
Solving problems related to practical human activity is often impossible without philosophically sound ideas about the integrity of the surrounding world. Actually, no activity is possible without the immediate existence of the world.
Tasks of philosophy
From this follow such important tasks that exist for philosophical science, such as:
- Designation of the nature of the surrounding world.
- Designation of social and personal interests in relation to the world, their nature and even orientation.
- Historical social development.
To solve the above problems, philosophy offers several approaches. For example, people need to reckon with the fact that there is an objective world that has objective laws, natural connections. The basis of this world is the material principle, and the person himself is a part of the surrounding world.
Types of object of philosophy
There are different types of object of philosophy related to the fact that the philosophical discipline itself is multilateral and multifaceted. Accordingly, the object under study cannot be the only one. Perhaps, most of all attention is drawn to a person, society and the surrounding nature, as worthy subjects of study, their patterns and relationships.
Regardless of the level of its development, society is not a homogeneous collection of different individuals, since it is associated with relations between completely different socio-historical communities. Each such community has its own qualitative characteristics, which must be regularly studied and analyzed.
Philosophical science characterizes society as a dynamic system that develops itself. With serious changes, it still continues to retain its own essence, as well as indicators of qualitative certainty.
Initial ideas about consistency in nature and society, are already found in the works of some ancient thinkers, when they said that being is ordered and holistic. Of the modern philosophers dealing with these issues, it should be noted Comte, Spencer, Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and so on.
The society itself is a social system that can develop on its own, but exists due to human activity. Actually, it is in human material or spiritual relationships that one should look for a real system-forming social factor.
social systems
The characteristics of a social system are:
- openness;
- Consistency of subsystems.
- Disequilibrium.
The dynamics of social systems can be described using special models. Sometimes the role of social systems can be played by some elements of society, which are its subsystems, such as certain areas of public life, the relationship between man and society, ethnic groups, state unions.
Such subsystems are combined through various working interactions and are marked by the presence of processes:
- Self regulation;
- Self-playback;
- Self structuring.
Society as a social system can be characterized by consistency between subsystems, openness and even unpredictability, since there are several options for its development.
Considering nature, as an object of philosophy, then this term is used by science in several interpretations at once:
- To represent everything that exists.
- To determine the extrahuman reality (the world that exists regardless of the anthropological factor).
- As a synonym for the term "essence".
Representations of the ancients
As for the ideas of the ancients, nature was correlated with people, therefore people thought about what essence mental processes are endowed with and gradually began to use animism, associated with confidence in the existence of the human soul. You can also note such a definition as hylozoism, when the soul was completely endowed with the surrounding world.
It was these worldviews that served the subsequent formation of rationalistic ideas about what nature is. This is how the concept of “logos” appeared, that is, a universal law that is able to govern the world. He governs both nature and man. But the human mind initially challenged the right to independent transformation of nature.
Modern Philosophy
When studying the structure of the modern material world, they resort to the use of systematic approaches, suggesting that it is necessary to consider any objects of nature as complex formations. Actually, the development of the very concept of "system", in turn, was necessary to denote the composite integrity of objects. At the same time, the emphasis is also placed on the presence of relationships between system elements.
The very definition of "element" implies the presence of an indivisible component within the system, but only in relation to the represented system. If we analyze the relationship of the element to other systems, then a rather complex system is already presented here.
System integrity may imply the emergence of new interactive properties after the constituent parts form an overall system. In nature and its philosophical understanding, such systems can be represented by the microcosm, the macrocosm, and also the megaworld.
Man as an object of philosophy
Man as an object of knowledge in philosophy is considered not only in the social, but also in the generic totality. If we study the essence of man through the prism of philosophy, there is enough a large number of issues affecting the human essence, the cognizability or unknowability of a phenomenon, universality, the dominance of biological or social human nature, evolutionary principles and systems associated with human values.
Philosophical anthropology, dealing with answers to these questions, has been developing since ancient times and continues to develop along with the development of socio-natural areas of human habitation and the direct development of man himself.
Accordingly, we should talk about today's relevance and even topicality of this issue. Moreover, such relevance is generated not by conjectural features, but by the result of human activity (in the economy, ecology, society, and so on).
Object of study in philosophy
The central object of the study of philosophy is the world as a whole, due to which a general view of the world around is determined. As a philosophical subject, regularities, characteristics, as well as forms of being that operate in many material and spiritual spheres are considered.
It is impossible not to talk about the close relationship between philosophical science and man. In particular, we can note the following historical periods associated with the development of certain points of view on the problem of man and his role in the world around him:
- At first, the level of understanding of the problem was perceived as a methodologically initial philosophical principle. Man was considered as the main object or subject of philosophizing, the importance of such a principle was determined.
- Level philosophical reflection human individual. The independence of a person for philosophical reflection is considered, the means of in-depth analysis are used in the study of the problem of a person.
It turns out that the problem of man at all times was in the depths of philosophical research, regardless of the problems with which this science was occupied.
There are also such periods of philosophical study of the problem of man as the central object of philosophizing:
- Consideration of the problem by metaphysical means (by ancient representatives);
- Consideration of the problem by theological means (medieval thinkers);
- Analysis of the problem by means of mathematical and mechanical methods (by modern philosophers);
- Consideration of the human problem by biological science.
In order for a person to be studied as a complex object for cognition, a set of concepts was developed, thanks to which human nature and essence, the meaning of human existence, is determined.
First of all, man represents the highest level among living organisms living on our planet. In addition to philosophy, it is the subject and object of study of many sciences and activities, including culture, as well as historical activity.
Philosophical concepts about man
We should not forget about the generic category of such a concept as a person, since one definition can express the general characteristics of a genus or a socialized individual. This concept combines various characteristics of a person, including social and biological.
The definition of "individual" is used in the study of a separate human unit in philosophical science. Individuality is considered here as a complex of original traits and qualities that an individual possesses.
Personality is the social characteristics that an individual possesses and which he acquired during upbringing, spiritual development or social interaction. A personality necessarily has dynamic features, since it is simply not capable of being static.
Human nature initially presupposes activity and activity, since a person is free to independently create his own destiny, as well as create world history and culture. As for activity, it can be considered as a method of human existence in the role of a creative individual (it is not necessarily about cultural creativity, but a person is considered as a historical and life creator).
Life forces the individual to constantly change and in a certain way change the world that surrounds him. Accordingly, human abilities have the character of a specific historicity, which change in the course of activity.
According to the same Marx, external human feelings were formed under the influence of labor and industry. Activity makes a person more plastic and flexible, gives him physical energy and opportunities for constant search.
Moreover, a person has not only social, but also biological mechanism responsible for inheritance. For example, social inheritance takes place in the process of socialization, that is, personal development, which is carried out through educational procedures.
Still, a person cannot live without a collective lifestyle, since only such activity allows him to create and develop his own basic characteristics. The rich human mind and its emotional world are determined by the breadth of its communication capabilities and interaction with other individuals.
People are subject to the creation of their own tools and their subsequent improvement. Based on moral standards, a person regulates his relationships.
The evolution of philosophical views
It is necessary to note the constant changes in the views of different thinkers on the human being in different historical periods. The development of philosophical views can be traced from early eras. Moreover, views were constantly changing and were prone to evolution.
You can focus on the following philosophical approaches that help define the human essence:
- Subjectivistic, when the inner human world is studied.
- Objectivist, when a person is considered as a carrier of external living conditions.
- Synthesizing, when a person is seen as a union of subjective and objective causes.
Among the followers of the above approaches, definitions such as human essence and human nature are shared or not.
The main object of knowledge in philosophy is a person and everything that can only be connected with him: these are relations with the outside world, the laws of development and existence. Also, the role of another object of knowledge in philosophical science is played by the world as a whole, due to which a general view of the world around is determined.
Man as an object of knowledge in philosophy
It should be noted that the question of man occupies one of the most important places in philosophical science. In particular, such important issues as the value of a person in modern world, its exact place in society.
The very branch of philosophy dealing with the above issues is called philosophical anthropology. The problems associated with a person turn out to be important because one of the goals of philosophy is also considered to be the solution of worldview issues related to the freedom of a person, his place in society and the prospects for human development.
It is necessary to solve such problems because man is the creator of social history, the subject of many forms of activity. Accordingly, the understanding of its essence practically guarantees the understanding of this or that historical process.
On human responsibility
Because the global problems in modern times continue to become aggravated, a person becomes even more responsible for his own activities. First of all, he is responsible for preserving the earthly nature. The philosophical approach is specific because here the human personality is considered as an integrity, a lot of attention is paid to the connections of a person with the outside world.
It is interesting that the same ancient thinkers (for example, Aristotle) did not call a human being a social animal for nothing, since that is how they designated its main essence. Much later, Plekhanov clarified that a person is, indeed, a social being who can produce and operate tools of labor, contribute to changes in the world around him, use his own consciousness as a function of the brain, and use articulate speech for his own purposes.
In essence, it will be possible to correctly say that in man the natural is combined with the social. Such a question could be solved in absolutely different ways, depending on the philosophical doctrine:
- Naturalistic attitude towards man;
- Sociological.
Naturalistic approaches are associated with an exaggeration of the human natural principle, which directly affects human life. Such an example can be found, for example, in the teachings of social Darwinism, when the laws of evolution were simply transferred to social laws.
Human nature, according to the representatives of the naturalistic approach, never changes. The basis of human nature can be:
- Physical;
- genetic;
- Natural.
The commonality of such a foundation is noticeable at least in the fact that a human being, like animals, needs food and oxygen. Human health is determined by the basis of the body. Without this, social functions and their implementation are impossible.
The natural basis implies the consideration of man as natural phenomenon, which is dependent on it. This, by the way, further emphasizes the importance environmental problem. A person is able to realize his own role, analyze his life meaning to understand the finiteness of one's own being.
Religion is a rather important factor necessary for understanding human essence. In the context of philosophy, religious issues have always been considered important, and even more so in the medieval era.
As for the views of modern philosophers on man, they are quite diverse. At the same time, many thinkers believe that human essence lies in an adequate ability to distinguish the pragmatic from the integral. The real world needs a pragmatic and adequate assessment.
Conclusions about the object of philosophy
As we see the object of philosophy is the surrounding world, and its subject is the human individual. The relationship between the object and the subject turns out to be clear, the laws of which are also considered and studied by philosophical doctrine.
AT various eras different philosophical currents the same person and his destiny were considered differently from each other. At the same time, a certain commonality associated with the main place of a person was preserved.