The role of philosophy in human life and society. Historical types of philosophy - The role of philosophy in society

Introduction

The first thought I caught myself thinking was that I first needed to find the exact definition of the term “philosophy” on the Internet. That's just the way he is modern man- double-checks everything on the Internet. Alas, after re-reading many confusing terms, I was still unable to formulate something definite. For some reason, I imagine either images of ancient philosophers, or late-night conversations in the kitchen over a glass of cognac. Moreover, these conversations are with a hint of bitterness and disappointment, most often based on their life experience. In general, for me it is the science of life. A difficult human life, where there are more questions than answers, and there is never just one correct option.
It would seem that in today’s crazy world there is no time to think at all. What kind of life questions are there if we run to work, the main values ​​are the eternal couple, time and money, and because of the frantic daily rhythm we do not answer the calls of loved ones and forget to call back? And we run like this, we run, but at one moment something like a click happens, after which we notice everything that passed by us - how old our parents are, how little we see our friends, how long ago we saw a rainbow, how our Childhood dreams…
And then the most interesting things begin to happen. Understanding the extravagance of this modern life, reflecting on your successes and mistakes allows you to make an unexpected discovery - well, you cannot say what is good and what is bad. Studying with straight A's does not ensure a good job; a new acquaintance can become much more good friend than the person you've been communicating with since first grade. All the templates for a good life don’t actually work! And there is no universal recipe happy life.
And, thanks to this understanding, we finally change - we interrupt any meeting for the sake of a call from our mother, and even if it’s ugly. We admire the sunrise - so what, we’ll be five minutes late. An accountant, who got a profession because her parents told her so, enrolls in cooking courses, and it doesn’t matter that she already has so much experience and, according to her colleagues, it’s stupid to quit her money job.
There is no black and white. And only we ourselves can decide what is good and what is bad.

Every person has ever wondered: “What is philosophy? And why is it needed? Philosophy, as a science, is based on knowledge of the essence of the entire universe. In its reflection, it is tightly intertwined with all areas of science, art, religion, helping a person to know himself and the world. Modern form philosophy differs significantly from earlier forms.

There is an opinion that philosophy is not a school science. It can only be comprehended by a person with extensive life experience and long reflection. Of course, neither one nor the other will hurt. But maybe childhood and adolescence are the best time to start. Philosophy loves to ask; for it, questions are often more important than answers. But childhood and youth are asked more often than other eras of life, and their questions are sharper, more fundamental, and than the questions of mature people. The teenager has not yet joined the “system”; he is often critical of the adult world, wants to understand and appreciate it. But here, too, his ally is philosophy. He is naive, and philosophy is essentially naive; it is impractical, but philosophy is also distracted from immediate benefit. He is idealistic, and philosophy also seeks ideals. Philosophy fights prejudices, but young people don’t have them yet.

The role of philosophy in society. Functions of philosophy

All functions of philosophy can be divided into two groups: ideological and methodological. In turn, the following ideological functions can be distinguished:

Humanistic function. Philosophy helps us comprehend life and strengthen our spirit. The loss of higher ideological guidelines in life can lead to suicide, drug addiction, alcoholism, and crime. For many centuries Substantial part humanity is alienated from property, power, and the products of its activities. A person becomes enslaved physically and spiritually. The politicization of public life and especially the ever-growing tendency towards totalitarianism suppresses a person, leads to a conformist personality, and has a negative effect on philosophy. More and more thinkers are paying attention to the impoverishment of the individual, which is caused by many factors, for example, the growth of specialization in all spheres of human activity, the increasing technicalization of society, the rapid growth of faceless natural science knowledge;

The social-axiological function is divided into a number of subfunctions, among which the most important are the constructive-value, interpretive and critical subfunctions. The content of the first of them is to develop ideas about values, such as Goodness, Justice, Truth, Beauty; This also includes the formation of ideas about the social (public) ideal. Intertwined with the constructive-value tasks of philosophy are the tasks of interpreting social reality and criticizing its structures, states, and certain social actions. Interpretation and criticism are associated with an orientation towards values, social ideals, and an assessment of social reality from an appropriate angle. The philosopher is constantly faced with the discrepancy between social reality and ideals. Reflections on social reality, its comparison with the social ideal lead to criticism of this reality. Philosophy is critical in its essence;

Cultural and educational function. Knowledge of philosophy, including the requirements for knowledge, contributes to the formation in a person of the qualities of a cultural personality: orientation towards truth, truth, kindness. Philosophy is able to protect a person from the superficial and narrow framework of the everyday type of thinking; it dynamizes the theoretical and empirical concepts of special sciences in order to most adequately reflect contradictions and the changing essence of phenomena;

Reflective information function. One of the main tasks of philosophy is to develop a worldview that corresponds to the modern level of science, historical practice and the intellectual requirements of man. In this function, the main purpose of specialized knowledge is modified: to adequately reflect its object, to identify its essential elements, structural connections, patterns; accumulate and deepen knowledge, serve as a source of reliable information. Like science, philosophy is a complex dynamic information system created to collect, analyze and process information in order to obtain new information. Such information is concretized in philosophical concepts (categories), general principles and laws that form an integral system. Within this system, sections of philosophical knowledge are distinguished:

Ontology is the doctrine of being;

Epistemology is the study of knowledge;

Social philosophy - the doctrine of society;

Ethics is the doctrine of morality;

Aesthetics is the study of beauty;

Logic is the study of the laws of thinking;

Philosophical anthropology - the study of man;

Axiology is the doctrine of the nature of values;

Methodology - the study of method;

The history of philosophy is the study of the development of philosophical knowledge.

In addition, we can highlight the applied aspects of philosophical knowledge:

Philosophy of science is a section of philosophy that includes studies of the structure of scientific knowledge, means and methods of scientific knowledge, methods of substantiation and development of knowledge;

Philosophy of technology is a section of philosophy associated with the interpretation of the phenomenon of technology in modern world;

Philosophy of history is a branch of philosophy associated with the interpretation of the historical process and historical knowledge;

Philosophy of politics - a branch of philosophy that studies general issues political sphere social structure;

Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy that includes general issues of jurisprudence and state science;

Philosophy of culture is a branch of philosophy that studies the essence and meaning of culture;

Philosophy of religion is philosophy in its relationship with religion. In terms of its method, philosophy is capable of performing several functions in relation to science: heuristic, coordinating, integrating, logical-epistemological.

The essence of the heuristic function is to promote the growth of scientific knowledge, including the creation of prerequisites for scientific discoveries. Philosophy does not contain any prohibitions on attempts to make predictions of a theoretical, worldview or general methodological nature. Consideration of the heuristic function of the philosophical method shows that the role of philosophy in the development of special sciences is significant, especially in relation to the formation of hypotheses and theories.

The coordinating function of philosophy is to coordinate methods in the process of scientific research. The need to coordinate particular methods arises against the backdrop of significantly more complex relationships between subject and method due to the need to have a counterbalance to the negative factors associated with the deepening specialization of scientists. Such specialization leads to the fact that there is a division between scientists according to methods and techniques of work; individual researchers find themselves inevitably limited in realizing the methodological capabilities of science. As a result, there is a danger of forgetting the cognitive power of a number of methods, exaggerating some and underestimating others.

The integrating function is associated with the unifying role of philosophical knowledge in relation to any set of elements that make up the system or are capable of forming an integrity. The mutual demarcation of sciences was the leading trend in the field of science until the 19th century. Despite the great successes achieved by science, there is a growing discrepancy scientific disciplines. A crisis of scientific unity arose. The solution to the problem of knowledge integration is based, first of all, on the philosophical principle of the unity of the world. Since the world is one, its adequate reflection must represent unity. Philosophy acts as one of the necessary factors for the integration of scientific knowledge.

The logical-epistemological function consists in the development of the philosophical method itself, its normative principles, as well as in the logical-epistemological justification of certain conceptual and theoretical structures of scientific knowledge. Private sciences do not specifically study forms of thinking, its laws and logical categories. At the same time, they are constantly faced with the need to develop logical and methodological means that would allow them to enrich the truthful representation of the object. Special sciences need logic, epistemology, and a general methodology of knowledge.

Functions of philosophy

What are the functions of philosophy in a complex cultural complex? First of all, philosophical thought reveals the fundamental ideas, ideas, patterns of action, etc., on which the socio-historical life of people is based. They are characterized as the most general forms of human experience, or universals of culture. An important place among them is occupied by categories - concepts that reflect the most general gradations of things, the types of their properties and relationships. Taken together, they form a complex, branched system of relationships (conceptual “grids”) that define possible forms and modes of action of the human mind. Such concepts (thing, phenomenon, process, property, relationship, change, development, cause - effect, accidental - necessary, part - whole, element - structure, etc.) are applicable to any phenomena or, at least, to a wide range of phenomena (nature, society, etc.). For example, neither in everyday life, nor in science, nor in various forms of practical activity can one do without the concept of cause. Such concepts are present in all thinking; human rationality rests on them. That is why they are referred to as the ultimate foundations, universal forms (or “conditions of possibility” of culture). Classical thought from Aristotle to Hegel closely linked the concept of philosophy with the doctrine of categories. This topic has not lost its significance even now. In the “daisy” scheme, the core corresponds to the general conceptual apparatus of philosophy - the system of categories. In fact, in action, it is a very flexible system of connections of basic concepts, the application of which is subject to its own logic and is regulated by clear rules. The study and mastery of categories is perhaps rightly called in our time “philosophical grammar” (L. Wittgenstein).

For many centuries, philosophers considered categories to be eternal forms of “pure” reason. The cultural approach revealed a different picture: categories are formed historically as human thinking develops and are embodied in the structures of speech and in the work of language. Turning to language as a cultural and historical formation, analyzing the forms of statements and actions of people, philosophers identify the most general (“ultimate”) foundations of speech thinking and practice and their uniqueness in different types of languages ​​and cultures.

In the complex of the most general foundations of culture important place occupy generalized images of existence and its various parts(nature, society, man) in their interrelation and interaction. Having undergone theoretical elaboration, such images are transformed into a philosophical doctrine of being - ontology (from the Greek on (ontos) - existing and logos - word, concept, doctrine). In addition, various forms of relations between the world and man - practical, cognitive and value-based - are subject to theoretical understanding. Hence the name of the corresponding sections of philosophy: praxeology (from the Greek praktikos - active), epistemology (from the Greek episteme - knowledge) and axiology (from the Greek axios - valuable). Philosophical thought reveals not only intellectual, but also moral-emotional and other universals. They always relate to specific historical types of cultures, and at the same time belong to humanity, world history generally.

In addition to the function of identifying and comprehending universals, philosophy (as a rational-theoretical form of worldview) also takes on the task of rationalization - translation into a logical, conceptual form, as well as systematization, theoretical expression of the total results of human experience.

The development of generalized ideas and concepts has been considered the task of philosophers from the very beginning. Where did they get the material for this work? The study of cultural history shows: from the whole diversity of human experience. In progress historical development the basis of philosophical generalizations changed. Thus, at first, philosophical thought turned to various extra-scientific and pre-scientific, including everyday, forms of experience. For example, the doctrine of the atomic structure of all things developed in ancient Greek philosophy, which anticipated the corresponding concrete scientific discoveries by many centuries, was based on such practical observations and skills as dividing material things into parts (crushing stones, milling, etc.). In addition, inquisitive observations of a wide variety of phenomena - dust particles in a light beam, dissolution of substances in liquids, etc. - provided some food for generalizations. The methods of divisibility of segments in mathematics, the language skill of combining words from letters, and sentences and texts from words, etc., which had been mastered by that time, were also used. The breadth of coverage of phenomena, consideration from a single angle of view of seemingly distant types of experience - together with the power of thought rising above the particulars - contributed to the formation of the general concept of “atomism”.

The most ordinary, everyday observations, combined with a special philosophical way of thinking, often served as an impetus for the discovery of amazing features and patterns of the surrounding world (observations of “extremes meet”, the principle of “measure”, the transition of “quantity into quality” and many others). Everyday experience and life practice are involved in all forms of philosophical exploration of the world by people constantly, and not just in the early stages of history. With the development of forms of labor, moral, legal, political, artistic and other practices, with the growth and deepening of everyday and scientific knowledge, the basis for philosophical generalizations significantly expanded and enriched.

The formation of generalized philosophical ideas was facilitated (and continues to be facilitated) by criticism and rationalization of non-philosophical forms of worldview. Thus, taking many of its themes, guesses, and questions from cosmogonic mythology, early philosophers translated the poetic images of myth into their own language, placing rational understanding of reality at the forefront. In subsequent eras philosophical ideas often drawn from religion. For example, in the ethical concepts of German philosophical classics one can hear the motives of Christianity, transformed from their religious form into theoretical speculations. The fact is that philosophical thought, mainly oriented towards rationalization, is characterized by the desire to express in general terms the principles of all possible forms of human experience. Solving this problem, philosophers try to embrace (to the limit) the intellectual, spiritual, vital and practical achievements of mankind, and at the same time comprehend the negative experience of tragic miscalculations, mistakes, and failures.

In other words, philosophy also has an important critical function in culture. The search for solutions to complex philosophical questions and the formation of a new vision of the world is usually accompanied by the debunking of misconceptions and prejudices. The task of destroying outdated views and shaking dogmas was emphasized by F. Bacon, who was acutely aware that in all centuries philosophy has met “bothersome and painful opponents” on its path: superstition, blind, immoderate religious zeal and other kinds of obstacles. Bacon called them “ghosts” and emphasized that the most dangerous among them is the ingrained habit of a dogmatic way of knowing and reasoning. Adherence to pre-given concepts and principles, the desire to “harmonize” everything else with them - this is what, according to the philosopher, is the eternal enemy of a living, inquisitive intellect and most of all paralyzes true knowledge and wise action.

In relation to the already accumulated experience of understanding the world, philosophy plays the role of a kind of “sieve” (or, rather, flails and winnowing machine), separating “the wheat from the chaff.” Progressive thinkers, as a rule, question, undermine, and destroy outdated views, dogmas, stereotypes of thought and action, and worldview schemes. However, they try not to “throw out the baby with the bathwater”; they strive to preserve everything that is valuable, rational, and true in the rejected forms of worldview, to support it, justify it and develop it further. This means that in the cultural system, philosophy takes on the role of critical selection (selection), accumulation (accumulation) of experience of understanding the world and its transfer (translation) to subsequent periods of history.

Philosophy is addressed not only to the past and present, but also to the future. As a form of theoretical thought, it has powerful creative (constructive) capabilities for the formation of generalized pictures of the world, fundamentally new ideas and ideals. In philosophy, different ways of understanding the world (“possible worlds”) are built, varied, and mentally “played out.” Thus, people are offered - as if to choose from - a whole range of possible world orientations, lifestyles, and moral positions. After all, historical times and circumstances are different, and the makeup of people of the same era, their destinies and characters are not the same. Therefore, in principle, it is unthinkable for any one system of views to always be suitable for everyone. The diversity of philosophical positions, points of view and approaches to solving the same problems is the value of culture. The formation of “trial” forms of worldview in philosophy is also important from the point of view of the future, which is full of surprises and is never entirely clear to people living today.

Previously established forms of pre-philosophical, extra-philosophical or philosophical understanding of the world are constantly subject to criticism, rational rethinking, and systematization. On this basis, philosophers form generalized theoretical images of the world in their correlation with human life, consciousness and corresponding to a given historical time. Ideas born in political, legal, moral, religious, artistic, technical and other forms of consciousness are also translated into a special theoretical language in philosophy. Through the efforts of philosophical intellect, theoretical generalization and synthesis of diverse systems of everyday, practical knowledge are also carried out, and with the emergence and development of science - growing arrays of scientific knowledge. The most important function of philosophy in the cultural and historical life of people is the coordination and integration of all forms of human experience - practical, cognitive and value-based. Their holistic philosophical understanding - necessary condition harmonious and balanced world orientation. Thus, a full-fledged policy must be consistent with science and morality, with the experience of history. It is unthinkable without legal justification, humanistic guidelines, without taking into account the national, religious and other uniqueness of countries and peoples, and finally, without relying on common sense values. Today we have to turn to them when discussing the most important political problems. A world orientation that corresponds to the interests of man, humanity as a whole, requires the integration of all the basic values ​​of culture. Their coordination is impossible without universal thinking, which is capable of the complex spiritual work that philosophy has taken upon itself in human culture.

Analysis of the most important functions of philosophy in the cultural system (instead of trying to abstractly understand the essence this concept) shows that the cultural-historical approach has made noticeable changes in ideas about the subject, goals, methods and results of philosophical activity, and this could not but affect the understanding of the nature of philosophical problems.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

TAMBOV STATE UNIVERSITY
THEM. G.R.DERZHAVINA

ACADEMY OF ECONOMICS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Gallyamova Ksenia Andreevna

The role of philosophy in the life of society

Test

in the academic discipline "Philosophy"

2nd year student (23 groups)

correspondence department

Scientific adviser:

Tambov – 2009

Introduction…………………………………………………………….……………..31 The place of philosophy in the general system of knowledge and social life………...…… 4

2 Philosophy as a special form of spiritual life……………………………….9

3 Methodological and social functions of philosophy…………………….14

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….……18

References……………………………………………………………19

Introduction

Many problems that are considered in philosophy have been posed and solved in their own way within the framework of mythology for a long time. These are problems of the world, its origin and essence, the place and role of man in the world and social reality, man's ability to understand and transform the world. But answers to these questions for a long time were given only on the basis of imaginative thinking, which was dominant at that time. Abstract thinking and the formation of the human mind gradually developed. The first attempts to answer questions about the essence of the world, society, man and human knowledge with the help of reason were expressed in the emergence of the first philosophical systems. The very appearance of philosophy indicated that humanity had moved to a new stage of its development - the formation and development of Homo sapiens. Therefore, Homo sapiens begins precisely with the emergence of philosophy. And the rationality of each person is determined by the degree of mastery of philosophical culture. And this is the meaning of philosophy.

During the existence of philosophy (more than 3.5 thousand years), people strive for it and study it. How it was studied and developed in ancient Greece, how it was studied in schools and universities of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the New Age and modern times. From this alone it is clear that for a long time, many generations of people considered philosophy to be something very important for an educated person. And determining the meaning of philosophy is possible only by considering philosophy itself and determining the role it plays in human life.

1 The place of philosophy in the general system of knowledge and life of society

Philosophy is a system of understanding and explaining the world and man’s place in it, which is based on science, is concretized and developed together with science, and itself has an active influence on the development of science.

Disputes still continue around the problem of the scientific nature of philosophy. The following points of view are widely accepted:

Philosophy is the science of the universal laws of nature, society, knowledge, or: philosophy is the science of methods and forms of knowledge, that is, the methodology of science;

Philosophy is not a science, it is a worldview (a certain type of worldview, different, for example, from religious and mythological);

Philosophy is both a science and a worldview, that is, philosophy performs in culture, in the spiritual life of society, the functions of science and the functions of a worldview.

It is possible to solve the problem of the relationship between philosophy and science, to determine the role of philosophy in the spiritual culture of society only in a broad socio-historical context. That is, not from the point of view of any particular philosophical school, but from the point of view of the entire history of culture and philosophy, through the prism of the entire body of philosophical knowledge, the role of philosophy, its influence on the development of science and knowledge.

Philosophy strives for scientific knowledge of the world, but at the same time it tries to maximally express the interests of the subject (classes). Philosophy as a system of ideas about the world (as a whole) is involved in class society in ideology and politics. The consequence of this, according to scientists, is an increase in confrontation between individual philosophical directions. Since philosophy turns out to be connected with ideology, its content has an ideological side, and philosophy can be considered related (in this aspect) to ideology.

In the history of philosophy, scientificism and ideology replaced each other, but this circumstance in no way canceled either the focus of philosophy on achieving truth, or the possibility of complete or partial coincidence of this focus with the interests of the social subject. However, philosophy should not get carried away with its ideological role. “As an integrative center of all sciences and as the embodiment of a systematic approach to all of humanity, to the entire biosphere, philosophy must be universal and meet the interests of society,” writes academician of the International Academy of Informatization R.F. Abdeev. The universal positions of philosophy do not exclude a negative attitude towards dictatorial leaders, social inequality, exploitation, oppression and political violence.

The scientific form of philosophy cannot be considered obviously the best or the only correct one. In the case of reducing philosophy only to science, natural questions arise: “Was L. N. Tolstoy a philosopher? Can F. M. Dostoevsky be considered a philosopher?” Both great writers raised and often posed for the first time the most important philosophical problems. The content of philosophical knowledge, and the process of philosophical knowledge itself, includes components specific to fiction and art (See: Philosophy. Experience of artistic comprehension. - Stavropol: SSU Publishing House, 1998).

A very significant part of philosophical knowledge consists of aesthetic ideas. Creating a philosophical picture of the world presupposes that its creators have a sense of beauty, harmony, and belonging to the world. The philosophical picture of the world also contains an aesthetic attitude towards the world. The kinship of philosophy and art, their interpenetration is evidenced by the works of A. Camus, N. Roerich, M. Ciurlionis, R. Tagore, I.V. Goethe.

Philosophical issues are the most important part of various religious teachings. At the same time, one cannot equate philosophy and religion, since the latter cannot be reduced to philosophical reflection.

Not all poets and writers addressed philosophical problems in their works, and there is not a single work of art entirely devoted to solving philosophical problems. Nevertheless, religion and fiction have played and continue to play a huge role in philosophy. The interweaving of literature, art, philosophy and religion has taken place throughout the history of philosophy right up to the present day.

So, functioning in the cultural system of society, philosophy develops the theoretical foundations of a worldview, axiological problems, and the logical and methodological foundations of science. In the conditions of growing differentiation of scientific knowledge, philosophy accepts the most Active participation in integration processes, in the synthesis of the achievements of individual sciences into a single picture of the world.

The social significance of philosophy as the living soul of culture, the quintessence of the era, is expressed in its functions. The cognitive function of philosophy is that, by orienting a person to understand the nature and essence of the world, the nature and essence of man himself, the general structure of the world, connections and laws of its development, it provides an increase in new knowledge about the world, man, connections and laws and influences for every area of ​​human activity. This influence is manifested in the fact that philosophical knowledge acquires the significance of a universal method of cognition of reality, and also in the fact that knowledge in any sphere ultimately represents various aspects of awareness of the relationship “man - world”.

The worldview function is that philosophy, giving people a holistic view of the world, allows them to determine their place and role in this world, makes each person a conscious participant in social progress, and sets before him universal goals and objectives of a social plan. The German thinker Hegel rightly wrote that philosophy is an era captured in thoughts.

The cultural function of philosophy is that it identifies and forms the so-called. universals of culture - the most general ideas and ideas about the universe, moral, artistic universal human principles and values, as well as the most general concepts(categories) reflecting the most general connections, relationships of things. In the field of culture, philosophy also performs an important critical function. It reveals mistakes and misconceptions, rejects outdated dogmas and stereotypes and serves as a generator of fundamentally new ideas.

The methodological function of philosophy is that, by revealing the universal laws, principles and foundations of the existence and development of the world, it thereby creates and shapes general method knowledge of this world and, therefore, acts as a strategy for the process of knowledge in each individual area of ​​knowledge.

The integration function of philosophy is that it unites and integrates individual areas of knowledge into a holistic system. This allows each narrow specialist to see his area of ​​knowledge or creativity in the context of general world connections, world processes and, therefore, gives him the opportunity to understand it more deeply.

The implementation of these functions determines the role of philosophy in the life of human society. Thus, philosophy not only provides a unified understanding of the phenomena occurring in the world, but also develops a general method of cognition, which is a set of interrelated principles or requirements formulated on the basis of universal laws discovered in reality and in knowledge and which are a conclusion from the history of the development of social knowledge.

The role of philosophy especially increases at turning points in history during periods of revolutionary change, when a person poses eternal questions to himself and society about his essence, the meaning of life, and the prospects for social progress.

Solving the global problems of our time requires extraordinary solutions, democracy and courage of thinking, courage to analyze the past, present, and future prospects. Without a known philosophical culture, it is hardly possible to solve these problems constructively. It is philosophical knowledge, which is characterized by constant search, doubt, criticism, that contributes to the formation of a thinking, creative, humanistically active person.

The study of philosophy is a necessary condition for the development of a person as an active subject of social activity, the creator of the world, his own existence, the creator of his own happiness.

Only by comprehending his socially active function can an individual realize who he is, what place he occupies in the life of society, and rise to self-awareness. Philosophy sees its purpose in cultivating the need and ability to be human. “Just as a fertile field,” wrote Cicero, “will not produce a harvest without cultivation, so does the soul. And the cultivation of the soul is philosophy. It weeds out vices in the soul, prepares souls to receive the sowing and entrusts it - sows, so to speak - only those seeds which, when ripe, bear a bountiful harvest." (Cicero. Selected works. - M., 1975. – P.252).

Phil. - this is such a region. spirit. activities, cat. is based on a special phil. type of thinking underlying f. cognition, and on the independence of the subject f. F. does not have the same subject as, for example, naturals. science, in the sense that the subject f. not localized within any particular region. knowledge such as biology, geology... However, the subject of f. there is a principle. the impossibility of its specified localization amounted to its specificity peculiarity.

This is the area of ​​the spirit. human activity, based on the cat. lies reflection on the activity itself and, consequently, on its meaning, purpose and forms and, ultimately, on clarifying the essence of the person himself. as a subject of culture, that is, the essential relations of people. to the world.

F. arose with the shifting of the main attention to man in his relationship to the world, i.e. on people, cognizer, transformation. and creating the world. Over the course of history, the concrete filling of this general specificity f. the subject was repeatedly updated, filled with new semantic nuances, but always at the core of f. knowledge was aimed at clarifying the connection between people. and the world, i.e. to clarify the internal goals, reasons and ways of knowing and transforming the world by man.

F. is so. not just n. discipline, and also specificity. type of thinking and even a kind of f. emotional mood, worldview system. feelings.

F. questions. Is sweetness an objective property of sugar or is it just a subjective feeling? Does beauty belong to objects? nature, people... or is it dictated by a sense of beauty, people. the ability to perceive beauty? Question about people freedom. Is the progress of society connected only with objective indicators of the pace of economic development or does it also include subjective, human ones? Aspects? All these questions touch on one common problem: the relationship between being and consciousness, objective and subjective, world and man.

4. The main question of philosophy and its two sides.

The question of the relationship between matter and consciousness is the main question of philosophy. The main question has two sides. The first is what comes first: matter or consciousness; second - is the world knowable? Various solutions to the first side of the main question determine the division of philosophers into materialists, based on science and practice, and idealists, whose views echo religious ones. In turn, solving the second side of the main question, philosophers are divided into those who stand on the point of view of the knowability of the world, and agnostics, who deny the possibility of knowing reality. Materialists believe that matter is primary, for idealists the idea is primary. There is also dualistic thinking (Descartes, Kant). Dualists believe that consciousness and being initially develop in parallel, independently of each other. Materialism: 1) Naive materialism of the ancients (Herclitus, Thales, Democritus); 2) Metaphysical materialism (French materialists of the 19th century). Idealism has 2 main varieties: 1) objective - objective idealists talk about the primacy of the idea. Objectivity - independence from human thinking. 2) subjective - subjective idealism says that the world within which a person exists, which surrounds a person, appears before him depending on the subject, i.e. the subject himself shapes his world.

Functions of philosophy

1. The functions of philosophy are the main directions of application of philosophy, through which its goals, objectives, and purpose are realized.

It is customary to highlight the following functions of philosophy:

Worldview;

Methodological;

Thoughtful and theoretical;

Epistemological;

Critical;

Axiological;

Social;

Educational and humanitarian;

Prognostic

2. Worldview function contributes to the formation of the integrity of the picture of the world, ideas about its structure, the place of man in it, the principles of interaction with the outside world.

Methodological function lies in the fact that philosophy develops the basic methods of understanding the surrounding reality (see question 3 “Subject and methods of philosophy”).

Thought-theoretical function is expressed in the fact that philosophy teaches conceptual thinking and theorizing - to extremely generalize the surrounding reality, to create mental and logical schemes, systems of the surrounding world.

Epistemological- one of the fundamental functions of philosophy - has the goal of correct and reliable knowledge of the surrounding reality (that is, the mechanism of knowledge).

Role critical function- question the surrounding world and existing knowledge, look for their new features, qualities, reveal contradictions. The ultimate goal of this function is to expand the boundaries of knowledge, destroy dogmas, ossify knowledge, modernize it, and increase the reliability of knowledge.

Axiological function philosophy (translated from Greek axios- valuable) is to evaluate things, phenomena of the surrounding world from the point of view of various values ​​- moral, ethical, social, ideological, etc. The purpose of the axiological function is to be a “sieve” through which to pass everything necessary, valuable and useful and to discard the inhibitory and obsolete. The axiological function is especially strengthened during critical periods of history (the beginning of the Middle Ages - the search for new (theological) values ​​after the collapse of Rome; the Renaissance; the Reformation; the crisis of capitalism at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, etc.).

Social function- explain society, the reasons for its emergence, evolution, current state, its structure, elements, driving forces; reveal contradictions, indicate ways to eliminate or mitigate them, and improve society.

Educational and humanitarian function philosophy is to cultivate humanistic values ​​and ideals, instill them in people and society, help strengthen morality, help a person adapt to the world around him and find the meaning of life.

Prognostic function is to predict development trends, the future of matter, consciousness, cognitive processes, man, nature and society, based on existing philosophical knowledge about the surrounding world and man, achievements of knowledge.

Ancient philosophy - the philosophy of the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans, covering the period from the 6th century. BC e. up to 6th century n. e. She made an exceptional contribution to the development of world civilization; it contains the beginning of Western philosophy, almost all of its subsequent schools, ideas and concepts, categories, problems.

1. Problems of the beginning of all things, existence, non-existence, matter and its forms. Ideas were put forward about the fundamental opposition of “form” and “matter”, about the main elements, elements of the cosmos; about the identity and opposition of being and non-being; the structure of being (atoms and emptiness), the fluidity of being and its inconsistency, etc. The main problems: how did Space come into being? what is its structure? (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Zeno, Democritus). 2. A person’s problems, his knowledge, his relationship with other people. What is the essence of human morality? Are there moral norms that do not depend on circumstances? What is politics and the state in relation to man? How does the rational relate to the irrational in human cognition? Whether there is a absolute truth and is it achievable by the human mind? Various, often opposing answers were given to these questions (Socrates, sophists: Gorgias, Hippias, Antiphon, Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus, Epicurus, Posidonius, etc.) 3. Problems of human will and freedom, achieving happiness. The ideas of the insignificance of man before the forces of nature and social cataclysms and at the same time the power and strength of his spirit were put forward in the pursuit of freedom, for a noble life, for knowledge, in which philosophers, first of all, saw the happiness of a free person (Seneca, Epictetus, Aurelius, Epicurus, Titus Lucretius Kar and others). The main issues are epistemological and moral. 4. Problems of the relationship between man and God, divine will, God’s construction of the Cosmos. The ideas of a constructive Cosmos and being, the structure of matter, soul, society were put forward as interpenetrating and conditioning each other (Plotinus, Philo of Alexandria, etc.). 5. Problems of synthesis of the sensual and supersensible; the idea of ​​synthetic formulations of basic philosophical problems, the construction of metaphysical systems that recognized two worlds - the world of ideas and the fluid, moving world of things. The problem of finding a rational method of understanding these worlds (Plato, Aristotle and their followers). Of course, not all problems and ideas are listed here, nor are all the philosophers who put them forward. So, speaking about ancient philosophy, we can say that here the foundations were laid for the main types of philosophical worldviews that were developed in the subsequent history of philosophical culture.

Medieval philosophy has become an instrument of religious debate about Christology (the doctrine of the human and divine essence of Christ), eschatology (the doctrine of the end of history and the Last Judgment), creationism (the doctrine of the creation of the world by God) and received official recognition in the definition of trinitarianism (Father, Son, Holy Spirit ) divine essence. The main task of philosophy at this time became the substantiation of religious dogmas, such as: proof of the existence of God, proof of the immortality of the soul, justification of God for the existence of evil in the world, etc. In the history of medieval philosophy, two periods and corresponding directions are noted - patristics (the teaching of the church fathers ), including the schools of Gnosticism, Manichaeism, apologetics, the theological heritage of Aurelius Augustine and scholasticism (the teaching of monastic schools), when, in fact, philosophy served theology in the search for rational ways of the truth of the evidence of God and faith through the dispute about universals (nominalism and realism). At the same time, in the East, Arab and Jewish philosophy was developing (Avicenna, Averroes, etc.).

IN Renaissance philosophers again return to the “study of the human” (lat. studia humaniora), as opposed to the scholastic “study of the divine,” and therefore call themselves “humanists” (Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, Marsilio Ficino, Pietro Pompanazzi, etc.). Philosophy in that era was imbued with the spirit of empiricism and naturalism (Nikolai Cusansky, Bernardino Telesio, Giordano Bruno) - respect for human feelings, trust in sensory experience and the need for scientific comprehension of nature. Social (utopian) theories are being developed (Thomas More, Tommaso Campanella), designed to legally ensure a person’s happiness in the state (Niccolò Machiavelli, Jean Bodin).

PHILOSOPHY OF NEW TIMES

Since the 17th century. Natural science, astronomy, mathematics, and mechanics are rapidly developing; the development of science could not but influence philosophy.

In philosophy, the doctrine of the omnipotence of reason and the limitless possibilities of scientific research arises.

Characteristic of modern philosophy is a strong materialistic tendency, arising primarily from experimental natural science.

Major philosophers in Europe in the 17th century. are:

F. Bacon (England);

S. Hobbes (England);

J. Locke (England);

R. Descartes (France);

B. Spinoza (Holland);

G. Leibniz (Germany).

In the philosophy of modern times, much attention is paid to the problems of being and substance - ontologies, especially when it comes to movement, space and time.

The problems of substance and its properties are of interest to literally all philosophers of the New Age, because the task of science and philosophy (to promote the health and beauty of man, as well as to increase his power over nature) led to an understanding of the need to study the causes of phenomena, their essential forces.

In the philosophy of this period, two approaches to the concept of “substance” appeared:

Ontological understanding of substance as the ultimate basis of being, founder - Francis Bacon (1561–1626);

Epistemological understanding of the concept of “substance”, its necessity for scientific knowledge, founder - John Locke (1632–1704).

According to Locke, ideas and concepts have their source in the external world, material things. Material bodies have only quantitative features, there is no qualitative diversity of matter: material bodies differ from each other only in size, shape, motion and rest (primary qualities). Smells, sounds, colors, tastes are... secondary qualities, they, Locke believed, arise in the subject under the influence of primary qualities.

English philosopher David Hume(1711–1776) sought answers to existence, opposing the materialistic understanding of substance. He, rejecting the real existence of material and spiritual substance, believed that there is an “idea” of substance, under which the association of human perception is subsumed, inherent in everyday, not scientific knowledge.

The philosophy of modern times has made a huge step in the development of the theory of knowledge (epistemology), the main ones being:

Problems of philosophical scientific method;

Methodologies of human cognition of the external world;

Connections between external and internal experience;

The task of obtaining reliable knowledge. Two main epistemological directions have emerged:

- empiricism(founder - F. Bacon);

- rationalism(R. Descartes, B. Spinoza, G. Leibniz). Basic ideas of modern philosophy:

The principle of an autonomously thinking subject;

The principle of methodological doubt;

Inductive-empirical method;

Intellectual intuition or rational-deductive method;

Hypothetico-deductive construction of scientific theory;

Development of a new legal worldview, justification and protection of civil and human rights. The main task of modern philosophy was an attempt to realize the idea autonomous philosophy, free from religious preconditions; build a coherent worldview on reasonable and experimental foundations identified by research into human cognitive ability.

German classical philosophy represents a significant stage in the development of philosophical thought and culture of mankind.

It is represented by philosophical creativity:

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804);

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814);

Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling (1775–1854);

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831);

Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804–1872). Each of these philosophers created their own philosophical system, filled with a wealth of ideas and concepts.

1. The role of philosophy in the history of mankind and the development of world culture is that it is called upon to be the critical conscience of culture, consciousness arguing with reality, the soul of culture.

2. Human essence was explored, not just human history:

For Kant, man is a moral being;

Fichte emphasizes the effectiveness, activity of human consciousness and self-awareness, considers the structure of human life according to the requirements of reason;

Schelling shows the relationship between the objective and the subjective;

Hegel takes a broader view of the boundaries of the activity of self-consciousness and individual consciousness: for him, the individual’s self-consciousness correlates not only with external objects, but also with other self-consciousnesses, from which various social forms arise;

Feuerbach defines a new form of materialism - anthropological materialism, in the center of which stands a real person, who is a subject for himself and an object for another person.

3. All representatives of classical German philosophy defined it as a special system of philosophical disciplines, categories, ideas:

Kant identifies epistemology and ethics as the main philosophical disciplines;

Schelling - natural philosophy, ontology;

Fichte saw in philosophy such sections as ontological, epistemological, socio-political;

Hegel defined a broad system of philosophical knowledge, which included the philosophy of nature, logic, philosophy of history, history of philosophy, philosophy of law, philosophy of state, philosophy of morality, philosophy of religion, philosophy of the development of individual consciousness, etc.;

Feuerbach considered philosophical problems of history, religion, ontology, epistemology and ethics.

4. Classical German philosophy defines a holistic concept of dialectics:

Kant's dialectic is the dialectic of the boundaries and possibilities of human knowledge: feelings, reason and human reason;

Fichte's dialectics comes down to the development of the creative activity of the Self, to the interaction of the Self and the non-Self as opposites, on the basis of the struggle of which the development of human self-awareness occurs;

Schelling transfers the principles of dialectical development proposed by Fichte to nature; for him, nature is a developing spirit;

Hegel presented a detailed, comprehensive theory of idealist dialectics. He explored the entire natural, historical and spiritual world as a process, that is, in its continuous movement, change, transformation and development, contradictions, breaks in gradualism, the struggle of the new with the old, directed movement;

Feuerbach in his dialectics considers communications phenomena, their interactions and changes, the unity of opposites in the development of phenomena (spirit and body, human consciousness and material nature).

Karl Marx (1818-1883) – founder of scientific communism, dialectical and historical materialism and scientific political economy.

The starting point for the evolution of Marx's worldview is Hegelian philosophy. M. most consistently defended the revolutionary-democratic position both in theory and in practice. In 1841, while still an idealist, he made radical and atheistic conclusions from the philosophy of Hegel. Practical activities and theoretical research lead him to a collision with the hegemony. Phil, due to conciliatory tendencies, conservative political conclusions, inconsistency of theories. provisions to real social relations and the tasks of their transformation. This resulted in a transition to materialistic positions. Which was significantly influenced by familiarity with real economic relations and philosophies. Feuerbach. In 1844, a final revolution took place in M’s worldview. He changed his class position and moved from revolutionary democracy to scientific communism. This is due to the growing class struggle in Europe. Reveals the historical role of the proletariat. Comes to the conclusion that social revolution is inevitable. Gets closer to Engels.

Marxism was formed as an integral teaching in the organic unity of all its component parts. The philosophy of Marxism acts as scientific method knowledge and transformation of the world. The core, the essence of M.'s philosophy is formed by the study of classical philosophical questions, centered around the relationship of man to the world, the relationship of people among themselves, and the nature (essence) of man. There are two stages in the development of Marxism – “early” and “late”. “early” is characterized by attempts to develop a holistic worldview primarily through the means of philosophical analysis. “Late” - here, instead of an abstract construction of man and his essential forces, a more concrete one was formed, based on the study of the economic and social structure of society.

Basic theses: 1) the worldview is based not on religious-mystical or idealistic ones, but on the conclusions of modern natural science; 2) M. openly admitted his connection with the interests of a certain class - the proletariat; 3) as a consequence, a fundamentally new task is set - not to limit ourselves to explaining the world, but to choose a methodology for its transformation, first of all, the transformation of society on the basis of a conscious revolution. activities; 4) from here the center of Physics research is transferred from the area of ​​pure knowledge and abstract human relations, as well as from the area of ​​abstract reasoning about the general structure of the world to the area of ​​practice; 5) this leads to the fact that mathematics for the first time extends to the understanding of social life; 6) finally, knowledge and thinking themselves were understood differently. Thinking began to be viewed not as a product of the development of nature, but as a result of complex historical social and labor activity, i.e. practices.

Basic principle: antagonism between forces of production and relations of production - driving force in the transition from one to another social-ec. formations (a historically specific type of society, representing a special stage of its development). Closely related to ec. History is viewed objectively, outside of the individual. For this: social being and consciousness. OB - the material attitude of people to the environment. to the world, first of all to nature, in the process of making mat. benefits, and those relationships into which people enter into among themselves in the process of production. OS is society’s awareness of itself, its OB and surrounding reality. B determines C, the reverse is generally not true.

Philosophical thought of the twentieth century. was under the direct influence of the contradictory, dramatic development of human civilization.

XX century - this is the era:

Social disasters;

Inhumane political regimes;

Numerous local and world wars;

Destruction of the natural environment;

Crisis of humanistic values;

Scientific and technological revolution;

The flourishing of knowledge and education, etc.

In other words, the twentieth century. - this is the age of conflicts between the rational and the unreasonable in human life and activity, their obvious and large-scale confrontation.

The main philosophical trends of this era were: irrationalism; rationalism; humanism; personalism.

1. Irrationalism- a direction in philosophy that defines instinct, inner feeling, intuition, love as the main sources that precede rational knowledge.

It was formed as a reaction to the negative manifestations of the human mind in public life. Irrationalism is interested in unconscious emotional-volitional processes, such as intuition, instincts, and will.

The cult of reason is replaced by sharp criticism of irrationalism, knowledge by faith, historical optimism by pessimism, and the idea of ​​progress by disbelief in it.

Irrationalism attacked the proud and arrogant mind. According to irrationalism, the world is unreasonable and disordered; it confronts man as something external and absurd, elemental and beyond his control.

2. Rationalism- a set of philosophical trends that consider reason, reason, thinking from the subjective side and rationality, the logical order of things - from the objective side, to be the central point of their analysis.

Rationalism was formed as an expression of the progress of knowledge, science and technology, their enormous successes in modern times.

In the 20th century rationalism developed under the direct influence of the scientific and technological revolution and the transition of a number of countries to the stage of post-industrial civilization. For the rationalism of the twentieth century. characterized by scientism - an exaggeration of the role of science in public life. This direction represents the cult of scientific and technical reason, its defense and justification.

Towards the rationalism of the twentieth century. relate:

Neopositivism;

Structuralism;

Neo-rationalism;

Critical rationalism.

Philosophical rationalism of the twentieth century. represents confidence in the ability of knowledge to be a social force and a spring for the further upward development of civilization.

3. Humanism- a philosophical direction that represents reflected anthropocentrism, emanating from human consciousness and having as its object the value of man, except that it alienates man from himself, subordinating him to superhuman powers and truths or using him for purposes unworthy of man.

The main idea of ​​humanism in the twentieth century. there was a problem of human existence in the modern world, a search for ways to humanize social relations.

4. Personalism- a direction in philosophy for which a person is an acting and thinking person who takes a certain position.

The form of manifestation of personalism is philosophical anthropology.

Personalism of the 20th century. defends its positions in opposition to neorealism and logistics.

Independent philosophical creativity in Russia begins in the 19th century, which is the third stage in the development of Russian philosophy.

The first who began independent philosophical creativity in Russia was Petr Yakovlevich Chaadaev(1794–1856). He expressed his thoughts in the famous Philosophical Letters. The main principles in Chaadaev’s teachings were the philosophy of man and the philosophy of history.

Following Chaadaev, two directions appear, opposite in understanding the meaning and significance of the Russian idea:

- Slavophiles(laid the foundation of Russian religious philosophy of the second half of the 19th century);

- Westerners(they criticized the church and gravitated towards materialism).

In the late 60s - early 70s. XIX century a worldview emerges in Russia populism. His main idea was the desire to come to socialism, bypassing capitalism, and the recognition of the originality of Russia's development path. Continuers of Slavophilism in the 60–70s. appeared soil scientists, the idea of ​​their philosophy is national soil as the basis of social and spiritual development Russia.

The next stage (late 19th - first half of 20th centuries) of Russian philosophy is associated with the emergence of philosophical systems.

Character traits:

Anthropocentrism;

Humanism;

Religious character;

The emergence of Russian cosmism(mystical, theological).

Consciousness- this is a certain state, characteristic only of a person, in which both the world and himself are simultaneously accessible to him; consciousness instantly correlates and connects what a person saw and heard with what he felt, thought, experienced.

Being- the general concept of existence, of existence in general, these are material things, all processes (chemical, physical, geological, biological, social, mental, spiritual), their properties, connections and relationships.

Being of consciousness- this is an important part of human existence, therefore, in consciousness one should highlight and study not only that side of it that appears during the awareness of consciousness itself, not only its reflection, but also that which, constituting a living component of the living action of a real person, is not subject to reflexive analysis.

The question of the relationship between consciousness and being is of a different nature than ordinary philosophical questions. There is an opinion that this is not so much a question as the semantic orientation of philosophical thought.

It is important to understand that the difference between the material and the spiritual, the objective and the subjective constitutes a certain “nerve” of any specific philosophical question or reflection, regardless of whether the one who philosophizes is aware of this.

Moreover, this difference does not always result in a question, and after translation into this form it grows into many interrelated questions.

The most complex interaction and opposition of being and consciousness, material and spiritual, grows out of all human practice and culture and permeates them. That is why these concepts, which have meaning only in pairs, in their polar correlation, cover the entire field of worldview and constitute its extremely general (universal) basis.

The most general, most important prerequisites for human existence are:

The presence of the world (primarily nature), on the one hand;

People, on the other hand.

And everything else is derivative, interpreted as the result of people’s practical and spiritual mastery of primary (natural) and secondary (social) forms of existence and the interaction of people with each other on this basis.

Basic qualities of consciousness:

Cognitive and communicative equipment of consciousness - allows you to distinguish the existence of a person from the existence of other living beings;

The integral connectedness and consistency of the interaction of individual structures of consciousness allows a complex system of very diverse processes to work: mental, emotional, sensory, volitional, mnemonic (memory processes), intuitive, etc.;

The intentional ability of consciousness, which expresses the orientation of consciousness towards someone, something or consciousness about someone, something, distinguishes the orientation of consciousness “outside” and “inside”, i.e. consciousness must be oriented either towards the external world of a person’s existence, or his internal world;

Epistemic, which express the states of a person’s inner world - these qualities presuppose states of doubt, belief, faith, confidence, etc.

Basic functions of cognition:

Cognitive (reflects reality);

Evaluative-orientational (evaluates the phenomena of reality and one’s existence in them);

Goal-setting (sets goals);

Managerial (controls one’s behavior).

Unity and diversity of being. Basic forms of being.

Genesis – philosophical category, denoting, first of all, existence, being in the world, given being. In this case, in particular, it is necessary to make a special distinction between real and ideal being. Real being is often called existence, ideal being - essence. Real being is what informs things, processes, personalities, actions, etc. their reality; it has a spatiotemporal character, it is individual, unique; ideal being is devoid of a temporary, real, experiential character; it does not tend to be a fact. Ideal being in this sense is possessed by values, ideas, mathematical and logical concepts. Plato sees in it true, actually “real” being. In contrast to the diversity of everything that changes and is in the process of becoming, being is called constant, abiding, identical in everything. According to the Eleatics, there is no becoming, there is only being, eternal, constant; for Heraclitus, on the contrary, there was no frozen being, but only constantly changing becoming. For metaphysicians, “true” being is contained in the transcendent, in the thing-in-itself. Being, finally, is the totality of all things, the world as a whole. In this case, being is: 1) or a comprehensive concept, i.e. the broadest in scope, but the poorest in content, since it does not possess any other attribute other than the attribute of “existence”; 2) or a completely opposite concept; in this case it extends only to one thing, the total unity, and its content is therefore infinite. In theological thinking, God is the eternal creator of this being; in metaphysical-idealistic thinking, spirit is declared to be existence; in materialistic thinking, matter is declared; in energetic thinking, energy is declared.

According to modern ontology, being is the diversity of existence that is identical in everything. In another understanding, being, according to Aristotle, is “being insofar as it is being.” There are two ways of being - reality and ideality, and in them there are three types of being - possibility, reality and necessity.

Matter is the objectively real existence of the world in time, space, movement, determined and directly or indirectly cognizable by man

Spirit is ideal, ruling the world a force in which a person can be actively and passively involved.

. Movement and its basic forms.

The dialectical-materialist understanding of movement is based on the following provisions.

Movement is an integral, necessary and essential property, a way of existence of matter. “Matter without movement,” wrote F. Engels, “is as unthinkable as movement without matter.”

Movement is defined as any change. “Motion, when applied to matter,” argued F. Engels, “is change in general.”

Movement is a contradiction, and its source is the interaction of opposites.

The dialectical-materialist doctrine of the forms of motion of matter was developed by F. Engels. His ideas on this issue are by no means outdated. F. Engels identified five main forms of motion of matter.

The simplest form of movement is mechanical, simple movement.

Physical motion - heat, electromagnetism, gravity...

Chemical movement is the transformation of atoms and molecules associated with the rearrangement of the electronic shells of atoms (but not their nuclei).

Biological movement is a process specific to living things.

Social movement (with which thinking is also connected).

The forms of movement are located in this order not by chance: each subsequent one includes the previous ones. The classification of F. Engels is based on the following principles: structure (each form of movement has a specific, main material carrier); development (higher forms of movement arise as a result of the development of lower ones); historicism (characterizes the sequence of human knowledge of the basic forms of movement: from relatively simple to more complex). Each of these forms includes an infinite number of types of movement.

There is also another division into forms:

in inorganic nature; 2) in living nature; 3) in the company. In each of the groups there is a set Ф(form). D(movement). M (matter), which is related to the inexhaustibility of matter. F. d. m. of inorganic nature include: spatial movement; movement elementary particles and fields, etc.

F. D. m. in living nature is a set of life processes in organisms and in supra-organismal systems: metabolism, reflection processes, self-regulation

Social physical activity includes diverse manifestations of people’s conscious activity and all higher forms of reflection and purposeful transformation of reality.

Space characterizes the extent and relative position of objects, their volumes, shapes, ranges of influence and interaction. Time characterizes the duration of existence of objects, the sequence and rate of change of their states in the process of movement. In the history of philosophy, two significantly different approaches to understanding space and time have developed: substantial and relational.

The concept of dialectics, its historical forms.

Dialectics (Greek διαλεκτική - the art of arguing, reasoning) is one of the main methods of philosophical knowledge of the world, based on the collision of thesis and antithesis. The goal of the dialectical method is to try to resolve this conflict through rational discussion. The subject of dialectics is change, all changes, and interaction, all types and degrees of interaction. Thus, Heraclitus also argued that “everything flows, nothing stands still.”

In a narrower sense, dialectics is the name of the epistemological method (methodological principle of cognition), which is implemented according to the “thesis-antithesis-synthesis” scheme. Following this method, first the cognizing subject identifies a certain phenomenon in reality, forms a concept or formula (judgment) for this phenomenon, which he considers as a thesis. Then the process of cognition continues with the formation of an antithesis - a formula or concept, the content of which is opposite (contrasted) to the thesis. Only after this does the subject move on to considering and cognition of the relationship between thesis and antithesis - to cognition of synthesis. The process can be repeated at the meta level, when the synthesis is considered as a thesis at a higher level. In this way the truth is realized.

In the history of philosophy, the following historical forms of dialectics are distinguished:

1. Spontaneous, naive dialectics of antiquity. Socrates viewed dialectic as the art of discovering truth through the collision and reconciliation of various opposing points of view. Heraclitus imagined the world as “a fire that is kindled by measures and extinguished by measures”

2. Idealist dialectics of German classical philosophy of the 18th – first half of the 19th centuries. Kant applied the concept of development to the solar system and raised the question of the development of morality. Hegel developed from the position of objective idealism the concept of development, and, above all, the historical development of mankind.

3. Dialectics of revolutionary democrats of the 19th century. (A.I. Herzen, V.G. Belinsky, N.G. Chernyshevsky, N.A. Dobrolyubov, etc.). 4. Materialistic dialectics (K. Marx, F. Engels and V.I. Lenin).

Dialectics appears in two forms: objective and subjective. Objective dialectics is the dialectics of the development of the objective world, i.e. nature and the material basis of social life. Subjective dialectics is the dialectics of the development of the subjective world, first of all, human thinking. Subjective dialectics is a reflection of the objective, and always incomplete. The absolute coincidence of subjective dialectics with objective dialectics is possible only with absolute knowledge of the world, i.e. in the endless development of thought.

Basic principles are the broadest and most fundamental provisions of science that determine its content and structure. The principle of universal connection From the standpoint of dialectics, the world is a single whole, permeated with a universal connection. The concept of universal connection is multifaceted. The universal connection is the connection of each individual with every other individual. But at the same time, it is peculiarly polarized: it is the connection of each individual, finite, particular with the universal, infinite, whole. The concept of universal connections includes the concept of infinity and refers to the infinite world. There are many forms of universal communication. Direct connections are direct connections between things, phenomena, processes, connections without intermediary links. The indirect connections of things are infinite in nature: each thing is indirectly connected with each other. In the process of cognition, a person discovers more and more complex, deep and unexpected connections between things. Internal connections are connections between the internal elements of things, phenomena, processes. External – connections between things, phenomena, etc. internal connections are leading and determining. The principle of universal connection includes a number of elements, often also called principles, expressing any essential aspect of the general principle of dialectics. These include, first of all, the principle of determinism. In a broad sense, determinism means the universal conditionality of things, phenomena, processes: since everything is interconnected, every object, phenomenon, process depends on conditions. In a narrow sense, determinism means causality. Recognition of the causality of each object, phenomenon, process is a necessary element of scientific thinking, materialism and dialectics. Law and regularity. One of the most important forms of communication is law. The most important features of a law: firstly, the law is a repeating connection, secondly, the law represents an internal, essential connection, moment or side of the essence, thirdly, being a side of the essence, the law is a necessary connection, acts in a certain range of phenomena with necessity. The most important feature of the law is that it defines the range of phenomena corresponding to it. There are objective laws, i.e. laws are objective laws, and laws of the spiritual, subjective world. There are laws of nature and society. The main feature of the laws of society is that they are the laws of the activities of people who have consciousness and carry out their activities with more or less participation of consciousness. In modern natural science, the distinction between dynamic and probabilistic laws has acquired great importance. Dynamic laws are characterized by a strict sequence of events in which the previous unambiguously determines the subsequent. In science of the 20th century. interest in probabilistic laws prevails. The world, from this point of view, by its fundamental nature is a probabilistic world. The concept of regularity has several meanings. First of all, it expresses the fact that phenomena are subject to certain laws, i.e. proceed naturally and are carried out in accordance with the laws. Regular connections are also called regularities, which in their role are close to laws, but do not have such a broad and fundamental character. Emerging laws are also called patterns. The principle of universal connection, being a principle of theory, acts as one of the most important requirements of the dialectical-materialist method. The fundamental condition for the success of knowledge and practical activity is taking into account the requirement to consider the world in its universal connections. The methodological principle of universal connection is expressed in two more specific methodological principles: the concrete historical approach and the main link in the value of events. The essence of the concrete historical approach is to take into account all connections and mediations of a phenomenon. The principle of the main link is based on the fact that in the process of development at any given moment any one link plays a decisive role. ^ Development principle Principle of movement- the broadest and most fundamental principle of dialectics. Development is a process that embraces the entire interconnected world as a whole. Movement and development. Movement is change in general. Development is understood as the emergence of something qualitatively new. Movement is a simpler property of matter, which is therefore found in any acts of change. Development is a more complex and fundamental process, manifested only in large intervals of change, in a mass of partial changes. Development includes movement; movement is the most abstract side of development. Discussion about the concept of development. Soviet scientists put forward a definition of development as a global cycle. According to this concept, the development of matter is a cycle consisting of two equal processes: progressive and regressive. To the two “forms of development” a third is often added – “neutral” development or “development in one plane”. The central point of the concept of the world cycle is the postulate of the equivalence of progress and regression in world development. Development concept. Development is an endless movement from lower to higher. Development paradox. The higher can be represented as a combination of content borrowed from the lower (S) and an increase in complexity (h). So where does the added complexity come from? Attempts to answer this question go through the entire history of philosophical thought and human knowledge in general. As a result, the answer was received: additional complexity does not come from nowhere: it is born in the process of development. ^

Categories are extremely general concepts that reflect the universal essential properties and connections of objects and phenomena. The more developed the conceptual-categorical apparatus is, the greater the number of entities science has mastered. Categories display internal connections. The law expresses the internal necessary, essential, repeating, objective connection between objects and reality. The law determines the nature of the functioning and development of the subject. On the basis of laws, man is able to change nature. The connection between law and category: 1. In the ontological aspect, they are in unity 2. In the epistemological aspect: categories and concepts are the basis for the formation of laws.

Development as a principle of dialectics.

Modern materialist philosophy understands dialectics as the philosophical doctrine of the development and interaction of opposites.

The concept of “development” presupposes directed, qualitative, irreversible changes in complex system objects. Depending on the direction and nature (quality), development is divided into two groups.

The first group includes: progress, regression, single-plane and cyclical development.

Progress is a type of development in which there is a transition from lower, less organized forms to higher, highly organized forms.

Regression is a type of development in which there is a transition from higher, highly organized forms to lower, less organized forms.

Single-plane development occurs within one level or plane. The transition of the system to a more organized or less organized state is not observed.

Cyclic development is carried out in a closed cycle, in which there may be phases of progress and regression. However, the system returns to its original state - to the zero point of the cycle.

The second group includes evolution and revolution.

Evolution is a type of development that involves a smooth, gradual change in the system towards improvement.

A revolutionary type of development presupposes a sharp, rapid, abrupt change in the system.

DIALECTICS proceeds from the fact that everything in the world is interconnected, there is nothing in it in a ready-made form, all objects and phenomena are constantly changing, moving from one state to another, appearing and disappearing, developing. Moreover, development occurs in an unfolding spiral, each turn of which repeats the previous one at a higher level of development. Development here means a continuous process of emergence and destruction, an endless ascent from the lower to the higher.

Dialectics acts as a method of cognition.

METHOD is a system of rules and techniques developed for knowledge and practice.

Dialectics arose as a result of the generalization of achievements various sciences and practices of humanity. In contrast to the methods of knowledge of specific sciences, dialectics provides the key to understanding not individual areas of reality, but all spheres of nature, society and thinking, to understanding the world as a whole.

Dialectics acts as a method of cognition only in relation to philosophy itself. In relation to other sciences, it is a methodology. METHODOLOGY is the science of methods. If natural sciences study reality itself, then philosophy studies the process of cognition of this reality. Thus, philosophy teaches knowledge, shows by what methods one can know reality.

Dialectics is based on several fundamental ideas:

Everything in nature, society, and thinking is subject to continuous change and development.

Phenomena and processes inevitably have polarity and inconsistency.

There is a universal connection and mutual influence of things on each other.

Categories: individual and general, their methodological significance. All the objects around us are singular in their mode of existence, since they are delimited from the rest of the world by their quantitative and qualitative certainty, by their measure. In addition to what belongs only to him, it also has features that other objects also have. This makes it possible to combine various subjects into certain groups and classes.

The category “single” reflects the existence of individual objects or systems of objects in which objects are inextricably linked, and therefore are considered as one whole (atom, molecule, solar system, etc.). And those common features that exist in many subjects are reflected by the category “general”. The general is a set of properties inherent in a multitude of individual, separate objects.

Due to the fact that in reality the individual and the general exist in an inextricable connection (in the individual there is a general, and the general exists in the individual), then the category of the individual and the general exist in an inextricable connection.

The categories individual and general are of great importance for all sciences, because scientific knowledge begins only when the general is identified in individual phenomena. Russian scientist D.I. Mendeleev was able to identify the most general, essential properties of chemical elements and, on the basis of this, discovered the periodic law and compiled a table of chemical elements. In addition, on the basis of this law, he predicted the discovery of 4 chemical elements unknown to science at that time. They were later found

. Main historical stages and types of interaction between nature and society.

Human society and nature are inextricably linked with each other. On the one hand, society cannot exist outside of nature and without interaction with it, since:

It arose as a result of the development of the natural world, emerging from it at a certain stage (this happened in the long and complex process of human development);

it takes from the surrounding nature the means and resources necessary for its development, that is, nature is a condition and means of social development

the pace and features of the development of society are largely determined by the specifics of the natural environment, climatic and geographical conditions; nature influences the location of productive forces and the social division of labor;

in addition, nature, due to its cyclical nature, forces people to obey this cyclicality;

nature is the basis of all human knowledge about the world.

On the other hand, society has the opposite effect on nature, since:

it develops various means of adaptation, adaptation to the surrounding natural elements (man learned to use fire, build houses, sew clothes, created artificial materials necessary for the functioning of society);

in the process of labor, society modifies natural landscapes, uses certain Natural resources in the interests of further social development (the consequences of this impact can be both destructive and charitable).

The entire history of interaction between nature and society can be divided into several stages

he called the first periodbiogenic oradaptive (F. Engels called it savagery).

Second period – man-made, it covers two stages – agricultural and industrial.

Third period – noogenic(present tense).

Forbiogenic The period was characterized by hunting, fishing, gathering and appropriation of finished products of nature using primitive tools. The role of the natural environment in human life was decisive. Human interaction with nature was predominantly biological in nature. Man directly communicated with the natural world, being himself a part of nature, constantly adapting to changing conditions.

Transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and cattle breeding caused a genuine revolution in the productive forces of society - from finished products of nature, man moved to their production. The production of tools becomes a special social need, and labor becomes the main condition of life. Society enters man-made period of his relationship with nature. Within this period, two stages are distinguished - agricultural and industrial. The agrarian stage is characterized by an increased scale of society's influence on nature: the first slave-owning civilizations emerged in the Ancient East (Babylon, Egypt, India, China). New branches of knowledge were born here - astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, serving mainly irrigated agriculture and cattle breeding.

However, the further growth of industrial production qualitatively changes the situation - a transition is made to the second stage of the technogenic period - industrial, associated with the emergence of machine production and its widespread introduction into production, due to which human pressure on nature increases. The acceleration of scientific and technological progress led to the total and predatory exploitation of nature, the depletion of its natural resources - with such “achievements” man entered the 21st century.

Third period in the history of interaction between nature and society received the name noogenic.

“The noosphere,” wrote Vernadsky, “is the last of many states of the evolution of the biosphere in geological history - the state of our days... The noosphere is a new geological phenomenon on our planet. In it, for the first time, a person becomes largest geological force. He can and must rebuild the area of ​​his life with his work and thought, rebuild it radically in comparison with what was before

In the twentieth century, there was an explosion of scientific thought; humanity entered the highest phase of its development, associated with the information and computer revolution, which summed up the existence of material civilization, giving priority to knowledge, information, intelligence, self-awareness and educated personality. Information resources thus acquire the status of a strategic resource and the most powerful source of wealth.

Basic concepts of social life: naturalism, idealism, materialism.

Naturalistic the concept explains the life of society by the action of natural factors: gravity, cosmic radiation, geographical conditions, genetic characteristics. This concept explains the life of society by physical, biological and other laws => nature is the substance of all things; society acquires a special character; society is deprived of qualitative certainty, because these factors are absolutized. This approach distorts the purpose of man and denies freedom. The life of people in such a society is predetermined.

idealistic – sees the foundations, causes and factors of the origin and functioning of society in the spiritual sphere. Within this approach, objective-idealistic and subjective-idealistic ideas are distinguished. From the perspective objective idealism society is decisively influenced by public opinion, the world of absolute ideas, the World Mind, the World Will, the Absolute Spirit, etc. According to subjective-idealistic According to versions, society is a product of will, reason and other manifestations of the spirit of outstanding individuals. The incompleteness of the truth of social idealism is revealed by the degree of (in)conformity of a person’s life to the goals he has set. It is a kind of “indicator” of the level of our understanding of the essence of social processes in which every social being is included.

The dialectical materialist concept views society as a subsystem of objective reality. Society is a complex structural formation that includes various levels of organization of matter that exists independently of anyone's mind. On the other hand, one of these is society itself, but it must always take into account the law of living and inanimate nature. It should be remembered: society is a part of nature, but it is a relatively independent part that does not completely merge with it. Society is a developed form of life activity of people who have a logic of being. The laws operating in society are objective in nature and independent of spiritual formations. Differences: the laws of nature exist in the external world and for the most part pave their way in the form of external necessity; social laws are the laws of human and spiritual activity itself. The development of society is a natural historical process, manifested in the unity of its two sides: objective and subjective. On the one hand, this is a natural process, i.e. natural and necessary, and on the other hand, historical, because is the result of human activity.

Social life is considered as the highest form of movement of matter. Spontaneous inanimate nature, biological programs of vision are replaced by cultural mechanisms - the ability to work, consciousness.

.The concept of social production. Material and spiritual production.

Without a constant process of production, society could not exist, much less develop. The meaning of social production is that in this process the historically determined reproduction of man as a social being is carried out. Social production, or, what is the same thing, the production of social life, has its own structure, covering both spiritual production, and the production of man himself, and material production. Material production is a fundamental element in the structure of social production, because it is in it that the material conditions of people’s existence are reproduced as a fundamental condition of human history itself and the very ability of people to create history. The life of society, therefore, cannot be likened to a river in which all the drops play an unambiguous role. There is one decisive force in it, which ultimately determines everything down to the refined sphere of the spirit - the production of material wealth. Moreover, the process of production of material goods is always of a social nature: the production of an isolated individual is as meaningless as the development of a language without people living together. The joint labor of individuals is the first basis for the social nature of production, on the basis of which collective forms of social relations, the way of life and the entire way of life of people are born and improved.

What is material production?

In order to live, people must have the necessary minimum, people must work: everything is created for mortals by the care and work of man, the ancients said. Man cannot be content with what nature gives him ready-made. By combining their labor with what is given by nature, using its laws, people create something that is not there. In this process, material goods are created, and this is the process of material production. Consequently, material production is the process of labor activity of people who, using appropriate means, carry out the transformation of nature in order to create material goods aimed at satisfying human needs.

spiritual production or the production of social ideas and other products and forms of spiritual life of society.

The method of production, its structure and role in society.

At the heart of a specific social organism is the economy of the dominant production method - way , which determines the specific type of production relations, first of all, the type of property, organization of labor and exchange, combination and division of various types of social labor, as well as consumption. The method of production is the unity of productive forces and production relations.

Industrial relations refers to the relationships that arise between people regarding the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material goods. The essence of industrial relations is the relationship property.

Productive forces – a system of subjective (human) and material elements that carry out “exchange of substances” between society and nature.

People influence the substance of nature in order to assimilate its beneficial properties and neutralize those properties that have a negative, destructive effect on humans. In the process of work, people change the substance of nature, turning it into objects that serve to satisfy their needs. The state and level of development of productive forces is one of the objective indicators of the historical development of a given social organism.

Among the productive forces stands out primarily working man(living labor), then - guns labor And subject of labor(that is, material factors of production). Tools of labor are those factors of production that the producer puts between himself and nature in the process of direct production and with which he influences the natural substrate involved by the worker in the production process. The composition of the objects of labor includes that part of the objects of production to which the production, instrumental and instrumental activity of the worker is directed. These are raw materials, semi-finished products, components, etc.

The most active agent of production is the producer - a working person or a professional labor association of people (team, workers of a site or farm, workshop, enterprise, industry complex of specialized labor, as well as simultaneously living carriers of living - functioning labor).

In a broad sense, production is also called technical and organizational, And production and economic relationship. The social role of both is ambiguous. The technological unity of the means of production and technical-production connections between workers and the means of production forms the technical basis of society. Due to the continuity and dynamism of the development of the technical basis of society, its productive forces seem to connect adjacent phases of the historical development of a particular society, while production relations, and, in particular, property relations typologically delimit the stages in the development of social formations.

Thus, from the economic organization of society grows a corresponding social an organization or system of social groups, each of which has specific relationships to the means of production. Classes have a special place in social organization and division of labor, a special share of social wealth, which each class appropriates, using its place in the system of social production. In addition to classes and estates, the social structure of society includes the relationships of other social groups: family, ethnic, territorial (regional), professional groups and communities.

Concept and structure of socio-economic formation. Formational approach to the analysis of the historical process.

The identification of typologically different societies in history, carried out on the basis of objective criteria, is a necessary aspect of its materialist analysis. Materialism, applied as a research method, made it possible to discover common, repeating features in the economic basis of a number of countries, which gave grounds to classify them as a certain single social type, called a socio-economic formation. The identification of an objective and, moreover, criterion of generalization and typification related to the essence of the historical process was of fundamental importance for the science of society. The analysis of material public social relations immediately made it possible to notice repetition and correctness and to generalize the orders of different countries into one basic concept of social formation.

Marx carried out a scientific division of the historical process and substantiated the historically transitory nature of each of the socio-economic formations. As a result, the entire history of mankind appeared as a natural process of development and change of socio-economic formations, stages of this history, its forward movement.

formation is not a chronological, not a geographical, but a social and philosophical concept. The formation cannot be determined chronologically, assigning each of them to a specific century or century. It is impossible to identify a formation with any country, because this concept captures the type of society in theoretical form, but does not reproduce the real history of a particular people.

Formational division is not identical to the real historical process: some countries more fully express the formational type, others are further from it. In history everything is more complicated. But in order to take into account the complexity, originality, and variability, it is necessary to know the general pattern of the forward movement of history. It is this objective logic of the historical process that is precisely reproduced by the Marxist doctrine of socio-economic formations.

A socio-economic formation is a specific historical type of society, taken in its entirety, functioning and developing in accordance with its inherent objective laws.

Each formation is an integral system. ITS qualitative originality depends on the totality of material relations, i.e. basis, it is he who gives the formation the character of a certain specific historical social type: primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist. The formation also includes productive forces, which, together with production relations, constitute its material basis.

There are local features and variations in the development of individual countries and regions. Specific transitional eras from one formation to another have their own specificity. Not every nation goes through all formations. but no matter what happens in the history of mankind, a change in formation leads to a more developed type of society. But the process of humanity consists not so much in a stepwise transition, but in the accumulation of the value of civilization at each turn of the process.

.The concept of civilization. Civilizational approach to the analysis of the historical process.

In terms of content, the concept of civilization has a number of meanings. It is used as a specific stage in the development of peoples and regions. Morgan and Engels defined it as the stage of historical development following the era of savagery. All the heterogeneity in the use of the concept of civilization can be reduced to certain meanings: as a synonym for culture; as a stage of decomposition of local cultures; as the era following barbarism; as a stage of development of a separate region or ethnic group. There are 3 approaches: local-historical; historical-stage; world-historical. Each of them has its own classification of civilization. The choice of foundations of civilization is also varied. Toynbee and Weber considered religious faith to be its basis; Jaspers - philosophical faith. For others, the basis of civilization is material education. Krapivnitsky, based on the determination of the influence of technology on society, believed that the technical and technological basis lies at the foundation of civilization. It included: technology, technological method of production and technological relations. Technology is the basis and product of civilization; its independence is relative; it depends on society as a whole. The way a person influences nature is the same as technology, but it is considered technology - a set of operations for the purposeful use of technology. The technological method of production is characterized by specific means of labor; labor system; the nature of the work. As a result of people’s relationships with objects and the means of their labor, as well as with each other during the technological process, technological relationships develop. The foundations of civilization are not exhausted. In the real historical process, the natural conditions of its life are put forward at the foundation of society; ethnic characteristics; socio-psychological component. Forms of social organization play an important role: natural, commodity, planned and regulated.

But putting forward the concepts of civilization of the technical and technological basis as a certain component allows us to detect the existing features of civilization:

civilization characterizes the actual social organization of society;

there is civilization social organization individuals with a basic social image;

The goal of civilization is the reproduction and increase of social wealth.

The civilizational approach allows us to put forward specific historical forms of social economy and understand their role in the development of society; understand the genesis, characteristic features and development trends of various socio-ethnic forms of society; enrich ideas about the socio-psychological appearance of a particular society; increase integration trends in society.

The essence of the dialectical-materialist understanding of history.

Contradiction is the true source of development and history. The driving force of history is the tops and bottoms, forces and means. In contradiction lies the key to understanding the laws of negation of negation, quantity/quality.

Marx-Engels – dialectical-materialist understanding. The basis of existence is material production. Determines the nature of human behavior and spiritual processes. A mode of production is a specific historical way for people to obtain values. Two elements - productive forces and production relations - in dialectical unity, depend on each other. Development, change. Relationships can either slow down or speed up the production process. The law of correspondence of forces and relationships is a guarantor of uninterrupted production. Lag, slowdown - otherwise. The conflict leads to the destruction of the economy, to the undermining of miners and coal. Refusal from the crisis is either revolution or scientific evolution.

The doctrine of socio-economic formations. The type of society is a stage in development. Five types: primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, bourgeois, communist. There is also an Asian method of production.

The historical process is certainly progressive. Linear and defined progress. New forms are inevitable. Losses in the past. Growth is endless: values, productive forces, population, information, knowledge, cognition. Science is the productive engine of society. Mastery of the forces of nature and the elements. Internationalization of the world community, universal ideals, a single whole - humanity, expansion of freedom. Information society - for the first time, activity is required from a person.

So, characterizing the materialist understanding of history by K. Marx, we can say that it is associated with several fundamental ideas, according to which:

1. In each of the forms of human activity (including science, art, religion), the goals and plans of people, their inherent consciousness are ultimately determined by the objective needs and interests of the subject;

2. Of the two types of human activity—purposeful change of the world and purposeful change of ideas about the world, reflecting and modeling it—practical activity determines spiritual activity, subordinating it to its goals and objectives;

3. Of the existing forms of practical activity, material production (production of things) has an impact on the production of direct social life and the production of “forms of communication between people”;

4. As part of the collective activity of people, their attitude to objects and means of production has a decisive impact on the entire way of life, including their attitude to the mechanisms of power, the way of reproducing immediate life, the way they think and feel.

.Natural preconditions of consciousness. Reflection and its basic forms.

The consciousness of modern man is a product of the entire world history, the result of centuries of development of the practical and cognitive activity of countless generations of people. And in order to understand its essence, it is necessary to clarify the question of how it originated. Consciousness arose at a certain stage in the development of matter, as a result of its universal property - the property of reflection. In its highest form, consciousness is considered not as an accidental phenomenon, but as a necessary consequence of the unfolding of possibilities. Reflection is a process, the result of the interaction of systems of any nature, when the features of these systems mutually influence each other, imprint each other, therefore, reflection is defined as a universal property of matter, representing the interaction of two or more qualitatively defined systems, as a result of which the features of one system are reproduced in the other in a form specific to each of them. The ability to reflect and its properties depend on the level of organization of matter. Reflection in inanimate nature, considered the simplest, occurs at the mechanical, physical, chemical level with their inherent specificity. At these levels, a violation of the object occurs. Some note that reflection at this level is not simple, that mechanical, physical, chemical reflection is not simply a mass-energy transfer of an impact, but it is the simplest information of the stages of its development.

Consciousness is the highest form and the result of the development of the universal property of matter - reflection. Reflection- this is a change in one object under the influence of another, or, in other words, the transfer of the characteristics of one object to another in the process of their interaction.

The ability to reflect and its nature depends on the level of organization of matter. Reflection appears in qualitatively different forms in the inorganic world, in the world of plants, animals and, finally, in humans. In the simplest case, reflection in inorganic nature is mechanical deformations, physical and chemical changes that appear as a result interaction.

With the emergence of life, qualitatively new forms of reflection are formed. The simplest form of reflection in nature is irritability, which is the body’s response to external or internal environmental influences in the form of excitation. This form of reflection, which is adaptive in nature, is widespread in plants and protozoa.

A higher form of biological reflection, compared to irritability, is reflexes And Feel. Reflexes and sensations appear in animals with a nervous system. At this stage of evolution, mental forms of reflection arise, characterized by selectivity and activity. Reflex- This is a natural reaction of the body to external irritation, which is carried out with the participation of the central nervous system.

As organisms become more morphologically complex in the process of organic evolution, along with unconditional(or innate) reflexes and on their basis in animals appear and conditional(or acquired) reflexes, higher nervous activity occurs.

. Social essence of consciousness. Socio-historical foundations of its occurrence.

Consciousness is the highest form of reflection associated with brain activity, which arises under the influence of work, communication and language. Social consciousness is the totality of views, ideas, feelings, and moods existing in society, with the help of which the immediate existence of people is comprehended or reflected. In the structure of consciousness, the following is distinguished: 1. a specific historical aspect: the consciousness of a primitive society, the consciousness of slave owners. society, new European, modern 2. social aspect (spheres and forms) - ideology and social psychology.

The philosophers of antiquity understood that consciousness is a universal connection between man and the world. They tried to convey the form of this connection using the metaphor of a waxed tablet. Plato associated consciousness with the soul. Medieval approach: consciousness is identified with spirit, new European: consciousness is a vessel containing ideas of things in the external world. 4. Marxist: consciousness is conscious existence, that is, a reflection in an ideal form of the existence of social processes and phenomena.

Social consciousness, despite the presence of ideas, opinions, and feelings common to many people, is differentiated. Representatives of different classes in the same society will have different contents of consciousness. For example, according to the three classes of the 19th century, three forms of morality are distinguished (feudal, bourgeois, proletarian)

The concept of social consciousness. Social and individual consciousness, their dialectical relationship.

Social existence- these are the material conditions of society, the material relations of people to each other and to nature (tools of labor, geographical environment, man himself, production relations).

Social consciousness- this is a complex set of feelings, moods, customs, traditions, views, ideas, theories, which reflect social existence, the real process of people’s lives. Social consciousness manifests itself specifically, it manifests itself through the way of thoughts, feelings, views of a particular person, through his individual consciousness.

Social consciousness is inextricably linked with social existence. Social consciousness is the main attribute of human activity and reveals itself in all manifestations of social existence.

Individual consciousness – this is a single consciousness, in which in each individual carrier (subject) the characteristics common to the consciousness of a given era are refracted in a unique way; features that indicate a person’s membership in a particular social group; and individual traits determined by upbringing, abilities and circumstances of personal life.

Thus, we can conclude that individual consciousness is a kind of alloy of the general, the particular and the individual in the consciousness of the individual. And yet, social consciousness is fundamentally different in quality from a simple aggregate, the sum of individual consciousnesses. This relatively independent spiritual education includes levels of everyday and theoretical exploration of the world, social psychology and ideology, as well as forms of political, legal, moral, religious, scientific, aesthetic and philosophical consciousness.

The relationship between public and individual consciousness:

they are interconnected: social consciousness does not exist without individual consciousness;

individual consciousness arose on the basis of social consciousness;

The individual is not separate from society. Social consciousness and individual consciousness are not reducible to each other; social consciousness is not the sum of individual consciousnesses; social consciousness does not absorb every individual consciousness, and what enters into it is not completely, but only in that part that corresponds to the needs of social development. Likewise, the consciousness of an individual is not capable of fully reflecting the entire richness of the content of social consciousness.

Differences between public and individual consciousness: carriers; role; way of existence; time frame; degree of generalization

45question The structure of social consciousness.

Levels of public consciousness:

ordinary - spontaneous, everyday practical, the one that appears in a person’s everyday life; at this level it is not possible to isolate the essence of the phenomena of reality, it reflects only its external properties, without it it is impossible to cognize the theoretical level;

theoretical.

Spheres of public consciousness:

socio-psychological - the totality of people’s feelings;

social ideology is an evolutionary consciousness that develops spontaneously as a result of a person’s daily life.

Public consciousness appears also in certain forms, each of which is also a reflection of social relations and forms as aspects of the spheres of human activity: political consciousness; legal consciousness; religious consciousness; moral consciousness; aesthetic consciousness; philosophical consciousness.

Social consciousness is a complex structure, multi-quality formation. Structure public consciousness- this is its structure, device, including its various elements, sides, faces, aspects and mutual connections between them.

It follows from this that in the public consciousness such various elements as levels, spheres, forms; they are all interconnected and interact with each other. And therefore consciousness is not only differentiated, but also holistic.

Levels social consciousness are ordinary and theoretical consciousness. They correspond to the following spheres social consciousness as social psychology and ideology.

Ordinary consciousness– this is everyday, practical consciousness, it is a function of the direct practical activity of people and most often reflects the world at the level of phenomena, and not its essential deep connections. As society develops, everyday consciousness undergoes changes.

Ordinary consciousness also has the following forms: everyday-empirical consciousness(adds up in the process of cognition) and social psychology(formed in the course of an evaluative reflection of reality).

Social psychology- this is a set of feelings, moods, emotions, as well as illusions, superstitions, traditions that are formed spontaneously under the influence of the immediate conditions of people’s social life on the basis of life experience and personal observations. It is no coincidence that social psychology acts as a spiritual stimulus for the practical activities of people. It is also formed taking into account the specific features of their spiritual development, national traditions, and cultural level.

Theoretical consciousness includes science and ideology. At the theoretical level, knowledge is presented in the form of a clear, hierarchical system of principles, laws, categories, and programs for the practical transformation of reality.

A special place at the theoretical level of public consciousness is given to ideology. ideology is a system of views, ideas, theories, principles that reflect social existence through the prism of interests, ideals, goals, social groups, classes, nations, society.

Comparing the two named levels of social consciousness, it is necessary to trace the relationship between ideology and social psychology. They are connected, respectively, reflecting the rational and sensory (emotional) levels of social consciousness. Ideology is precisely designed to clarify what is vaguely grasped by psychology, to penetrate deeply into the essence of phenomena. In addition, if social psychology is formed spontaneously, directly under the “pressure” of life circumstances in which a certain social community finds itself, then ideology acts as a product of the theoretical activity of “specially authorized” persons who serve this community - professionally trained theorists, ideologists.

Patterns of development of social consciousness.

Considering the relationship between social existence and social consciousness, K. Marx discovered the main patterns development of social consciousness.

The first rule is that social consciousness depends on social existence, is determined by the material conditions of society. The dependence of social consciousness on social existence can be traced in epistemological and sociological aspects. Wherein epistemological aspect means that social consciousness is a spiritual mental reflection of social existence in a variety of social feelings, moods, interests, ideas, views and theories that arise in specific historical societies among the majority of people. Sociological aspect means that the role of social consciousness is determined by social existence.

The second regularity in the functioning of social consciousness is its relative independence from social life. The relative independence of social consciousness is its ability to break away from the existence of society and, following the internal logic of its own existence, to develop according to its specific laws within the limits of the final and general dependence of social consciousness on social existence.

due to the relative independence of social consciousness. epistemological aspect– the nature of consciousness itself as a reflection of being, its active, creative character. IN sociological aspect– the separation of mental labor from physical labor, as a result of which spiritual production is to some extent “isolated” from material production, although ultimately they are in organic unity.

The relative independence of social consciousness is manifested:

IN continuity spiritual development of humanity. Social ideas and theories in every new era do not arise out of nowhere. They are developed on the basis of the achievements of previous eras.

The fact that public consciousness is capable get ahead social existence. This ability is especially inherent in theoretical consciousness (science and ideology).

The fact that public consciousness can fall behind from social life. Examples of lag include remnants of the past, which persist especially long and stubbornly in the field of social psychology, where habits, traditions, and established ideas that have great inertial force play a huge role;

IN active role social ideas and theories, human feelings, desires, aspirations, will. The strength and effectiveness of social ideas depends on the degree of their dissemination among the masses, on the willingness of people to apply practical efforts to implement them.

In interaction various forms of social consciousness. Political, legal, philosophical, religious, moral, artistic consciousness are interconnected and influence each other.

Most phyla systems of modern times distinguished 2 main stages: Sensual and rational. Their role and significance in the social sciences of cognition were defined differently by different phyla. Rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel) attributed the decisive importance to rational knowledge, without denying the importance of the senses of knowledge as a mechanism for connecting the mind with the outside world. Supporters of empiricism considered sensory knowledge to be the main and even the only source of knowledge (Hobbes, Locke).

Cognition is the initial stage of cognition. Firstly, in historical terms: the division of physical and mental labor and the separation of the latter into a separate type of activity is comparatively a late stage of history. Secondly, this is how it works. is initial in the sense that on its basis contact is made between people and the world of material objects. It is a prerequisite without cat other forms of cognizing activities cannot be noun.

To understand objects of this type, the functioning of the sense organs, the nervous system, and the brain is necessary, due to which sensation and perception of objects arises. This form of activity is called feelings activity or feelings cognition. It is necessary to emphasize the dependence of the senses of cognition on direct feelings-practical activity and, secondly, the integrity of the sensory development of the material object. However, it is possible to identify individual elements that function within the framework of this integrity.

Irrationalism is a philosophical doctrine that insists on the limited capabilities of the mind, thinking and recognizes intuition, feeling, instinct as the basis of knowledge... Considers reality to be chaotic, devoid of patterns, subordinate to the game of listening, blind will. (irr. in particular the phenomenon of existentialism)

Rationalism - The doctrine of the theory of knowledge, according to which universality and necessity - the logical signs of universal knowledge - cannot be deduced from experience and its generalizations. They can be drawn from the mind itself, or from concepts inherent in the mind from birth (Descartes), or from concepts that exist only in the form of inclinations, predispositions of the mind. Experience stimulates manifestation. (Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling.)

Cognizability of the world as a philosophical problem and the main options for its solution

Knowledge itself, a person’s cognitive attitude to the world, is studied in theories of knowledge as a branch of philosophy.

Epistemology (from the Greek “gnosis” - knowledge and “logos” - word, teaching) is a branch of philosophy in which the subject of study is the process of cognition as such in its integrity.

Its main problems are: the essence of the cognitive process, its patterns, conditions and prerequisites, possibilities and boundaries, universal foundations and sociocultural determinants. When posing and solving these problems, the opinions of philosophers differ, but they all have arguments. Theoretically, none of these points of view can be confirmed or refuted with absolute certainty.

The problem of obtaining true knowledge about the world, i.e. the question of the knowability of the world is the central problem of epistemology. As noted in Topic 1, this problem constitutes the content of the second side of the main question of philosophy.

In the history of philosophy, three main approaches have emerged that answer the question of the knowability of reality in different ways: 1) cognitive optimism; 2) skepticism; 3) agnosticism (cognitive pessimism).

Cognitive optimists(these include mainly materialists and objective idealists) believe that the phenomena of reality are essentially knowable, although the world - due to its infinity - is not completely knowable.

Supporters skepticism doubt the possibility of obtaining reliable knowledge about the world, absolutizing the moment of relativity in true knowledge, pointing out its formal unprovability.

Representatives agnosticism(these are mainly subjective idealists) deny the possibility of knowing the essence of phenomena. Absolutizing the imperfection of sensory perception of reality, agnostics in their extreme conclusions even deny the existence of objective reality.

All these approaches have a certain theoretical basis. But the decisive arguments in favor of cognitive optimism are: the development of social practice and material production, the successes of experimental natural science, confirming the truth of knowledge. The theoretical-cognitive situation has its own structure, including the subject and object of cognition, as well as a “mediator” that connects them into a single process.

The main stages of the cognition process. The unity of the sensual, rational and intuitive in knowledge.

In modern European philosophy, the idea of ​​cognition as a step-by-step process has developed.

The initial stage of cognition is sensory cognition , in which the object is cognized mainly through the senses. Sense organs are a direct channel of communication between the subject and reality, through which he receives primary information about the object.

The main forms of sensory cognition are sensation, perception and representation.

IN sensations individual aspects and properties of the object are directly reflected.

Perception- this is a holistic reflection of an object by the senses, representing the unity of all sensations.

Representation– these are sensually visual images of objects that are stored and recreated in the human mind outside of the direct impact of objects on the senses. The emergence of ideas occurs on the basis of memory, that is, the ability of the psyche to preserve and reproduce the past experience of the subject.

The forms of sensory cognition include and sensory imagination, which consists in the ability to create new images based on previous experience.

Rational stage cognition is based on abstract thinking, which is a purposeful, indirect and generalized reflection by a person of the essential properties and relationships of things. Abstract thinking is also called logical, since it functions according to the laws of logic - the science of thinking.

The main forms of abstract thinking are: concept, judgment and inference.

Concept- a form of thought that expresses the totality of the most essential features of an object.

Judgment- a form of thinking in which, through concepts, something is affirmed or denied about an object. In language, any statement (phrase and simple sentence) is an example of judgment. For example, “all metals are conductors of electricity”, “knowledge is power”, “I think - therefore I exist”, etc.

Inference is a form of thinking in which a new judgment containing new knowledge is derived from several judgments. Thus, the idea that the Earth has the shape of a ball was obtained in ancient times based on the conclusion:

all spherical bodies cast a disk-shaped shadow, During lunar eclipses, the Earth casts a disc-shaped shadow on the Moon, Therefore, the Earth is a spherical body

Rational cognition is inextricably linked with the sensory, but plays a leading role in the process of cognition. This is manifested, firstly, in the fact that true knowledge at the level of essence and law is formulated and justified at the rational stage of cognition; secondly, sensory cognition is always “controlled” by thinking.

Many scientists have noted that an important role in the process of cognition is played by intuition , that is, the ability to comprehend the truth by directly observing it without sensory and logical justification. Intuition is based on the unconscious combination and processing of accumulated abstractions, images and rules in order to solve a specific problem. The main types of intuition are sensual, intellectual And mystical.

On the question of the role, place and relationship between the sensual and rational in knowledge, two opposing trends have emerged in the history of philosophy - sensationalism And rationalism. Sensualists considered sensory knowledge to be the main form of achieving true knowledge, considering thinking only a quantitative continuation of sensory knowledge. Rationalists sought to prove that universal and necessary truths can only be deduced from thinking itself. Sensory data was assigned only a casual role.

In the history of philosophy, a fairly widespread trend is also intuitionism, who considers intuition the main means of achieving truth in isolation from the sensory and rational stages of knowledge.

The very word “philosophy” (which, by the way, was introduced by Pythagoras) already contains the answer to the question of why this science plays such a role. great importance in the life of each of us. After all, the literal translation of this term means “love of wisdom.” And who among us doesn’t like to philosophize and philosophize from time to time? And if it is impossible to develop lyricism in the field of logarithms, and the physicist feels insecure in the field of iambic and trochee, then both of them love to think. Why is this so, and what is the role of philosophy in human life and society? Aristotle called her “the mistress of all sciences, whom they, like slaves, do not dare to contradict.” Seneca considered the ability to think the main means of cultivating civic virtues, intelligence and morality of the individual.

“The love of wisdom” truly stands above all sciences. Compared to it, every branch of knowledge is only a fragment. The role of philosophy in the life of man and society lies in the fact that it harmoniously combines the achievements of all disciplines and builds a system of our knowledge about the world as an integral phenomenon. Yes, philosophical views change in connection with discoveries in the field of other knowledge. For example, a heliocentric device solar system, discovered by Copernicus, and from higher primates as a result of the evolution of species, proven by Darwin, forced us to reconsider the world order. But philosophy is a “connecting link” that, taking advantage of achievements in individual fields, builds a certain “picture of the world.”

But the role of philosophy in the life of man and society is not limited to the construction of general principles of the universe (ontology). In our everyday life, we, in principle, care little whether the Earth moves around the Sun, or vice versa. Philosophical ontology is value-wise and emotionally connected with the human world, since it poses the questions: “Who are we in this world?”, “What is our place here?”, “What can we hope for?” That is, in addition to ontology, in the science of philosophy, which Aristotle also called metaphysics, there are the departments of anthropology (the study of man and his existence), (the study of the development of human society and the role of the individual in it), epistemology (that is, the theory of knowledge from Greek ). Religious studies, aesthetics and ethics close this series.

If we learn, for example, that electric current is the movement of charged electrons, we assimilate this information with our minds and remember it. Emotions remain unaffected. In the future, knowledge about current will allow us to use electrics for our needs and avoid being hit by a large discharge. However, knowledge about the flow of electrons will not change our life, it will not turn it upside down and will not be a motive to act one way and not another. and society is also important because it builds a worldview, values ​​and ideals. It guides people’s actions and, to some extent, predetermines them. Understanding any concept of science, we experience sympathy or antipathy for it, it becomes “ours” or we completely reject it, which cannot be said in the case of comprehending any natural or mathematical discipline.

The role of philosophy in the life of a person, an individual, can hardly be overestimated. To the questions “Who am I, and why do I live?”, “What will happen to me after the death of my body?” Religion also answers, but, unlike it, philosophy uses a scientific evidentiary apparatus. Does she respond comfortingly to It depends on which concept a given individual is inclined to. Morality is also a product of philosophical views. Respect for each individual, as in another universe, is opposed to the concepts of Machiavellianism and Social Darwinism.

The ancient sages knew that man is a “zoon politikon”, a social animal. And this creature is trying not to adapt to the conditions of the world, but to remake it “for itself.” The role of philosophy in the life of society is that it seeks answers to the questions: “Is it possible to build an ideal society on earth?”, “What should it be?”, “What should govern the human masses?”, “Is it possible to achieve equality and brotherhood or is this a utopia?

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

Posted on http://www.allbest.ru/

Introduction

1. Philosophy: its purpose, meaning, functions

2. The essence of philosophical problems

3. The role of philosophy in society

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Philosophy is the most ancient field of knowledge. It arose in the middle of the first millennium BC almost simultaneously in three regions of the world - China, India and Greece. This already indicates that the birth of philosophy was caused by urgent social needs.

Philosophy (from Greek - love of truth, wisdom) is a form of social consciousness; the doctrine of the general principles of being and knowledge, the relationship of man to the world, the science of the universal laws of development of nature, society and thinking. Philosophy develops a generalized system of views on the world, the place of man in it; it explores cognitive values, the socio-political, moral and aesthetic attitude of a person to the world.

The subject of philosophy is the universal properties and connections (relations) of reality - nature, man, the relationship between objective reality and the subjectivism of the world, material and ideal, being and thinking. Where the universal is the properties, connections, relationships inherent in both objective reality and the subjective world of man. Quantitative and qualitative certainty, structural and cause-and-effect relationships and other properties and connections relate to all spheres of reality: nature, consciousness. The subject of philosophy must be distinguished from the problems of philosophy, because the problems of philosophy exist objectively, independently of philosophy. Universal properties and connections (production and time, quantity and quality) existed when the science of philosophy did not yet exist as such.

Thus, philosophy is a person’s search and finding of answers to the main questions (problems) of his existence. This determines the relevance of the topic of this work.

1. Philosophy: its purpose, meaning, functions

Philosophy is a special system of knowledge designed to solve a number of interrelated problems that arise in natural scientific research and in historical knowledge, and in everyday production and political activity Philosophy: Tutorial/ Ed. L.G. Kononovich. - Rostov-n./D.: Phoenix, 1996. - P. 9. .

According to Socrates and Plato, the purpose of philosophy is that under the influence of philosophy a person “becomes truly perfect” Philosophy. Basic ideas and principles / Under. ed. A.I. Rakipova. - M.: Infra-M, 1999. - P. 93. . The Englishman Hobbes believed that a lack of philosophy causes a lot of suffering. The German thinker Heidegger characterized philosophy as “the last reprimand and last argument of man” Ibid. - P. 94. . B.C. Soloviev saw the purpose of philosophy in the pursuit of “the spiritual integrity of human existence” Gorbachev V.G. Fundamentals of philosophy: Course of lectures. - M.: VLADOS, 1998. - P. 18. . The purpose of philosophy is to search for man's destiny, to ensure his existence in a bizarre world. The purpose of philosophy is, ultimately, to elevate man, to ensure his improvement. The study of philosophy is a noble cause, if only because with it it is much more difficult to become a “monkey civilization” than without it.

Main functions of philosophy:

1) synthesis of knowledge and creation of a unified picture of the world corresponding to a certain level of development of science, culture and historical experience;

2) justification, justification and analysis of worldview;

3) development of a general methodology for human cognition and activity in the surrounding world.

Disclosure of the significance of philosophy as a form of social consciousness presupposes the need to disclose its social functions, the role it plays in the life of society and the individual. The main social functions of philosophy include: methodological, epistemological, worldview, constructive, ideological, intellectual, practical-active Gorbachev V.G. Fundamentals of philosophy: Course of lectures. - M.: VLADOS, 1998. - P. 20. . Let us consider in more detail the methodological and ideological functions.

The identification of the methodological function as the initial one is due to the fact that philosophy occupies a special place in the process of awareness of existence in the structure of social consciousness. Each of the forms of social consciousness, acting as an awareness of the dependence of human life on a certain sphere of reality, is a reflection of precisely this specific aspect human existence. Philosophy, considering in the most general form a person’s relationship to the world and to himself, considers not individual spheres of human existence as such, but their interrelation through the prism of revealing the nature and essence of the world, the nature and essence of man and their interconnection. Therefore, the main provisions of philosophy are generally valid and have methodological significance for each of the forms of social consciousness in the process of a person’s awareness of his relationship to all spheres of reality and to himself.

Methodology should be understood as a system of initial, fundamental principles that determine the method of approach to the analysis and assessment of phenomena, the nature of the attitude towards them, the nature and direction of cognitive and practical activity. Ibid. - P. 22. . These principles contain, expressed in a general form, ideas about the essence of the world and man, about the ultimate foundations of their existence, about man’s relationship to the world and to himself. Of course, in various philosophical systems the interpretation of these initial principles varies. Nevertheless, in these interpretations one can see a desire to understand the specifics of the philosophical understanding of reality and the place of man in it. Thus, methodological function philosophy provides for all forms of social consciousness, for the theoretical and practical activities of man, the initial, fundamental principles, the application of which determines the general direction of the approach to understanding reality, the direction of cognitive and practical activity. This function presupposes that a person’s attitude to the world should proceed from his awareness of the nature and essence of the world and man, the ultimate foundations of their existence, man’s awareness of his place in the world and attitude towards it, awareness of the general structure of the world and the state in which he finds himself.

The worldview function of philosophy lies in the fact that, by equipping people with knowledge about the world and about man, about his place in the world and the possibilities of his knowledge and transformation, it influences the formation of life attitudes, the awareness of social subjects of the goals and meaning of life Gorbachev V.G. . Fundamentals of philosophy: Course of lectures. - M.: VLADOS, 1998. - P. 23. .

Often, when it comes to worldview, its characteristics as a generalized system of ideas and views on the world, man, his place in the world, etc. come to the fore. This approach is important, since a worldview is always based on certain mental material, on a certain system of knowledge. However, in this case, the worldview is reduced only to an objectified system of knowledge, divorced from social subject. Often, when characterizing a worldview, attention is actually drawn to the etymology of a word - and then it appears as a general view of the world.

Worldview should be considered not only from the point of view of its content, which is the result of the reflection of reality in the minds of people, but also from the point of view of the relationship of knowledge about the world and about man with the social subject, with his relationship to reality based on this knowledge. With this approach, the importance of knowledge for human life comes to the fore. Therefore, a worldview should be understood not simply as a system of generalized knowledge about the world and man, but as that system of knowledge that for a social subject acquires the meaning of its inherent way of seeing, understanding, analyzing, evaluating phenomena, which determines the nature of a person’s relationship to the world and to himself, consciousness of goals and the meaning of life, the nature of actions and actions. It is a way of spiritually and practically mastering the world.

Philosophy performs a number of cognitive functions akin to the functions of science. The immediate goal of science is to describe, explain and predict the processes and phenomena of reality that constitute the subject of its study, based on the laws it discovers. Philosophy has always, to one degree or another, performed in relation to science the functions of a methodology of knowledge and ideological interpretation of its results. Philosophy is also united with science by the desire for a theoretical form of constructing knowledge, for logical proof of its conclusions.

philosophy being social consciousness

2. The essence of philosophical problems

Each science studies its own range of problems. To do this, he develops his own concepts that are used in a strictly defined area for a more or less limited range of phenomena. However, none of the sciences, except philosophy, deals with the special question of what “necessity” and “chance” are, although they can use them in their field. Such concepts are extremely broad, general and universal. They reflect universal connections, interactions and conditions of existence of any things and are called categories.

The main tasks or problems in philosophy concern the clarification of the relationship between human consciousness and the external world, between thinking and the being around us.

Every person faces problems discussed in philosophy. How does the world work? Is the world developing? Who or what determines these laws of development? Which place is occupied by a pattern, and which by chance? The position of man in the world: mortal or immortal? How can a person understand his purpose? What are human cognitive capabilities? What is truth and how to distinguish it from lies? Moral problems: conscience, responsibility, justice, good and evil Nesmenov E.E. Fundamentals of philosophy in questions and answers: Textbook. - M.: Infra-M, 1997. - P. 76. . These questions are posed by life itself. This or that question determines the direction of a person’s life. What is a sense of life? Does it exist at all? Does the world have a purpose? Is the story going anywhere? Is nature really governed by any laws? Is the world divided into spirit and matter? What is the way for them to coexist? What is a person: a piece of dust? A set of chemical elements? Spiritual giant? Or all together? Does it matter how we live: righteously or not? Is there a higher wisdom? Philosophy is called upon to correctly resolve these issues, to help transform spontaneously formed views in the worldview, which is necessary in the formation of personality. These problems found solutions long before philosophy - in mythology, religion and other sciences.

Thus, philosophy is a person’s search and finding of answers to the main questions of his existence (the most essential, fundamental, all-encompassing, knowing no exceptions, uniting people’s lives into a single whole, within the field of action of which every person falls).

The meaning of philosophy is not in practical usefulness, but in moral one, because philosophy seeks an ideal, guiding star in people's lives. First of all, the ideal is moral, associated with finding the meaning of human life and social development. At the same time, philosophy is guided by the ideals of science, art and practice, but these ideals acquire in philosophy an originality corresponding to its specificity. Being a whole, philosophy has a branched structure.

In its content, philosophy is the desire for inclusiveness and unity. If other sciences make the subject of study a particular slice of reality, then philosophy strives to embrace all of reality in its unity. Philosophy is characterized by the idea that the world has internal unity, despite the external fragmentation of its parts. The reality of the world as a whole is the content of philosophy.

By its method, philosophy is a rational way of explaining reality. She is not content with emotional symbols, but strives for logical argumentation and validity. Philosophy strives to build a system based on reason, and not on faith or artistic image, which play an auxiliary role in philosophy.

The goal of philosophy is knowledge free from ordinary practical interests. Utility is not its goal. Aristotle also said: “All other sciences are more necessary, but none is better.” Philosophy. Basic ideas and principles / Under. ed. A.I. Rakipova. - M.: Infra-M, 1999. - P. 91. .

3 . The role of philosophy in society

Philosophy is a worldview form of consciousness. However, not every worldview can be called philosophical. A person may have fairly coherent, but fantastic ideas about the world around him and about himself. Everyone who is familiar with the myths of Ancient Greece knows that for hundreds and thousands of years people lived, as it were, in a special world of dreams and fantasies. These beliefs and ideas played a very important role in their lives: they were a kind of expression and guardian of historical memory.

A mythological worldview, regardless of whether it relates to the distant past or today, is a worldview that is based not on theoretical arguments and reasoning, but either on the artistic and emotional experience of the world, or on social illusions born of inadequate perception in large groups people (classes, nations) of social processes and their role in them. One of the features of myth, which unmistakably distinguishes it from science, is that myth explains “everything,” since for it there is no unknown and unknown. It is the earliest, and for modern consciousness - archaic, form of worldview.

Close to the mythological, although different from it, was the religious worldview, which developed from the depths of a still undifferentiated, undifferentiated social consciousness. Like mythology, religion appeals to fantasy and feelings. However, unlike myth, religion does not “mix” the earthly and the sacred, but in the deepest and irreversible way separates them into two opposite poles. The creative omnipotent force - God - stands above nature and outside of nature. The existence of God is experienced by man as a revelation. As a revelation, man is given to know that his soul is immortal, eternal life and a meeting with God await him beyond the grave.

Religion, religious consciousness, religious attitude towards the world did not remain vital. Throughout the history of mankind, they, like other cultural formations, developed and acquired diverse forms in the East and West, in different historical eras. But all of them were united by the fact that at the center of any religious worldview is the search for higher values, the true path of life, and that both these values ​​and the life path leading to them are transferred to the transcendental, otherworldly realm, not to the earthly, but to the “eternal” " life. All deeds and actions of a person and even his thoughts are assessed, approved or condemned according to this highest, absolute criterion. Religion is certainly closer to philosophy than mythology. A look into eternity, a value perception of life, a search for higher goals and meanings inherent in both forms of consciousness. However, there is also a difference. Religion is mass consciousness. Philosophy is theoretical consciousness. Religion does not require proof or reasonable justification for its provisions; it considers the truths of faith above the truths of reason. Philosophy is always theorizing, always the work of thought.

In relation to the philosophical worldview, pre-philosophical worldview forms both historically and logically turn out to be their necessary, natural predecessor. Mythological consciousness was the consciousness of a deep, intimate connection between man and nature in the era of the tribal system. Religious consciousness was the first human look into eternity, the first awareness of the unity of the human race, a deep feeling of the universal integrity of being.

The relationship between philosophy and religion in the history of culture was not unambiguous. In the Middle Ages, when the spiritual power of religion over people was undivided, philosophy was assigned only the role of the “handmaiden” of theology. In modern times, especially in the era of Enlightenment (18th century), philosophy declared its “emancipation” from religion, and then - in the person of the most radical atheists - launched a real attack on religion and its dogmas. In the 19th century, the great idealist philosopher Hegel, being himself a man of moderate religious views, classified religion and philosophy among the highest forms of the hierarchy of spirit forms, but still placed conceptual thinking, that is, philosophy, at the top of the pyramid, and only “awarded” religion second place.

Religion experienced a real renaissance in Russia in the second half of the 20th century, known as the “Silver Age” of Russian culture.

In the mass consciousness, philosophy is often presented as something very far from real life. Philosophers are spoken of as people “not of this world.” Philosophizing in this understanding is a lengthy, vague reasoning, the truth of which can neither be proven nor disproved. This opinion, however, is contradicted by the fact that in a cultured, civilized society every thinking person, at least “a little bit,” is a philosopher, even if he does not suspect it.

Philosophical thought is the thought of the eternal. But this does not mean that philosophy itself is ahistorical. Like any theoretical knowledge, philosophical knowledge develops and is enriched with more and more new content, new discoveries. At the same time, the continuity of what is known is preserved. However, the philosophical spirit, philosophical consciousness is not only a theory, especially an abstract, dispassionately speculative theory. Scientific theoretical knowledge constitutes only one aspect of the ideological content of philosophy. The other, undoubtedly dominant, leading side of it is formed by a completely different component of consciousness - the spiritual-practical one. It is he who expresses the meaning-of-life, value-oriented, that is, worldview, type of philosophical consciousness as a whole. There was a time when no science had ever existed, but philosophy was at the highest level of its creative development.

Philosophizing should always be free from any goal external to it. It cannot be created “to order”, otherwise it will no longer be philosophizing, but a copy of a directive ideology.

Since ancient times, in the scrap of philosophical knowledge, categories have emerged and crystallized: being, reason, beauty, etc., in the language of categories, worldview theoretical systems have been built, expressing the conceptual ideas of culture about nature, God and man.

Developed in different eras Various types worldview systems.

Cosmocentrism is a distinctive feature of the most ancient philosophy. Behind the seemingly endless variety of bodies and natural phenomena, Hellenic sages (7-6 centuries BC) sought to recognize a single essence. Infinite power, harmony of space was in the eyes of the Greeks reliable support, the basis for the fact that theirs should be harmonious and reasonable public world and their morality.

The philosophy and culture of the Middle Ages was characterized by geocentrism. This corresponded to the exceptional importance that religion had in that era. All other forms of consciousness were subordinated to it, just as vassals in a feudal class society were subordinated to their master.

The Renaissance (14th-16th centuries) brought with it a different attitude. Man felt and realized himself as the center of the universe. Anthropocentrism meant the rehabilitation of not only the spirit, but also the human body. In no other era was the ideal of a holistic, universally developed personality so close to its real, actual embodiment in life as in this great, bright era, when, freed from the ideological and moral press of medieval asceticism, man did not yet find himself in the power of enslaving the forces of a rigidly one-dimensional, bourgeois division of labor.

Scientific knowledge is indifferent to the meanings, goals, values ​​and interests of humans. On the contrary, philosophical knowledge is knowledge about the place and role of man in the world. Such knowledge is deeply personal and imperative. Philosophical truth is objective, but it is experienced by everyone in their own way, in accordance with personal life and moral experience. Only in this way does knowledge become a conviction, which a person will defend and defend to the end, even at the cost of his own life. In this most important function, philosophy is nothing more than a strategy for life - the doctrine of “what you need to be to be a person.”

Man's relationship to the world is an eternal subject of philosophy. At the same time, the subject of philosophy is historically mobile, concrete, the “Human” dimension of the world changes with the change in the essential forces of man himself.

The secret goal of philosophy is to take a person out of the sphere of everyday life, to captivate him with the highest ideals, to give his life true meaning, open the way to the most perfect values. But if religion is mass consciousness, then philosophy is elitist consciousness, requiring not only talent, but also professional training.

Organic combination in the philosophy of two principles - scientific and theoretical and practical-spiritual - determines the specificity of it as a completely unique form of consciousness, which manifests itself especially noticeably in its history - in the real process of research, development of the ideological content of philosophical teachings, which are historically and temporally interconnected not by chance, but by necessity. All of them are just facets, moments of a single whole. Just as in science and in other spheres of rationality, in philosophy new knowledge is not rejected, but dialectical “removes”, overcomes its previous level, that is, it includes it as its own special case. In the history of thought, Hegel emphasized, we observe progress: a constant ascent from abstract knowledge to more and more concrete knowledge. The sequence of philosophical teachings - in the main and the main thing - is the same as the sequence in the logical definitions of the goal itself, that is, the history of knowledge corresponds to the objective logic of the object being cognized.

The very fact of existence and development - in relative independence in relation to world philosophy - national philosophy requires special explanation and attention to itself. This is another difference between philosophy and science. There is not and cannot be German mathematics. There can be no national multiplication table or table trigonometric functions. However, Russian, German, French philosophy are not only acceptable concepts, but also absolutely necessary in order to talk about the real process of the birth and life of philosophical ideas in the world of culture and civilization. The ideas of philosophy deeply express the “soul” of the people, their inner spiritual experience, their innermost dreams and aspirations, comprehending this experience and the tendencies contained in it as a facet, a moment of the universal. Constituting the core of national self-awareness, national philosophy reveals such truths, develops such values ​​that cannot be understood and accepted without participating in the life and affairs of one’s fellow citizens and compatriots. Such imperatives and values ​​are not absorbed and transmitted through “books”, like any other information. Contrary to the ideas of the enlighteners, a simple “export” of philosophical worldview ideas from one country to another, with a different historical experience and social way of life, with a different mentality and a different psychology, is not possible; such ideas will not take root, will not react with the spirit of the people, with mass consciousness, will not arouse widespread interest, remaining - and then only for amateurs - intellectuals - not abstract life knowledge(like, for example, the philosophy of yoga for Europeans of the 20th century).

The ideological constructs of philosophy have enormous attractive power. Ideas express the needs of the time, and if this time has come, then no barriers or obstacles can hold back or stop the onslaught of philosophical ideas, their powerful influence on the minds and hearts of their contemporaries.

Internationalization and globalization of social life in the 19th and 20th centuries brought world civilizations and cultures closer together and made the content and meaning of historical experience more universally significant, more universally human. The world has become more whole and united. The path of transmission and dissemination of philosophical ideas from country to country, from people to people became more direct and shorter. But even today the fate of philosophical ideas is in many ways complex and ambiguous, since even today ideas are deeply influenced by social, non-theoretical factors.

Another distinctive feature of philosophical creativity is that it is deeply personal. The personality and lifestyle of a philosopher are inseparable from his thoughts.

Conclusion

The philosophy of action finds its most vivid expression in a person’s morality, in his ethical values. The practicality of philosophy lies in its ethical orientation, in morality. There is nothing more practical, more moral, than good philosophy. Man is a moral being; he is called to live according to the laws of morality, which are interpreted in ethics.

Philosophy reveals and develops the meanings of human actions, actions, and forms strategic goals. It is in this area that the practical potential of philosophy is realized. Philosophy is not responsible for the thoughtless actions of people who either strive for momentary pleasures or simply do not know how to foresee the consequences of their actions. Philosophers consciously oppose the dominance of frivolity, the refusal to comprehensively analyze the viability of planned plans for practical actions and an equally thorough consideration of the consequences of what has already been done.

Thus, the purpose of philosophy is to search for man’s destiny, to ensure man’s existence in a bizarre world. To be or not to be? - that is the question. And if so, what kind? The purpose of philosophy is ultimately to elevate man, to provide universal conditions for his improvement. Philosophy is needed to make it possible better condition humanity. Philosophy calls every person to nobility, truth, beauty, goodness.

List of usesuemoth literature

1. Valyanov M.V. Fundamentals of Philosophy: Textbook. - M.: Prosvet, 1999. - 276 p.

2. Introduction to philosophy: Texts of lectures / Ed. N.P. Figurovskaya. - Novosibirsk: INGU, 1997. - 95 p.

3. Introduction to philosophy: Textbook for universities / Ed. I.T. Frolova. - M.: Politizdat, 1999. - 143 p.

4. Gorbachev V.G. Fundamentals of philosophy: Course of lectures. - M.: VLADOS, 1998. - 273 p.

5. Konovich L.G., Medvedeva G.I. Philosophy: Textbook. - Rostov-n./D.: Phoenix, 1995. - 117 p.

6. Nesmeenov E.E. Fundamentals of philosophy in questions and answers: Textbook. - M.: Infra-M, 1997. - 267 p.

7. Philosophy: Textbook / Ed. L.G. Kononovich. - Rostov-n./D.: Phoenix, 1996. - 226 p.

8. Philosophy. Basic ideas and principles / Under. ed. A.I. Rakipova. - M.: Infra-M, 1999. - 162 p.

9. Shapovalov V.F. Fundamentals of Philosophy: Textbook. - M.: Grand, 1998. - 264 p.

Posted on Allbest.ru

...

Similar documents

Forms of materialism and idealism in the philosophy of antiquity. Development of dialectical ideas. Comparative characteristics of the philosophy of the Ancient East and Greece. Teachings about the universal principles of existence, knowledge, the essence of man and his relationship to the world around him.

abstract, added 01/12/2015


The concept of philosophy as a form of social consciousness, the doctrine of the general principles of being and knowledge. The first philosophical level of world reflection. The relationship between philosophy and other forms of social consciousness. Methods and means of philosophy, their specificity and features.

abstract, added 10/11/2013


Definition of the subject of philosophy by thinkers of different eras, diversity of approaches. The main question of philosophy. Differentiation of philosophical methods. Functions of philosophy and their dialectical relationship. The nature of the problem of being. The relationship between philosophy and economics.

test, added 11/10/2009


Philosophy, its meaning, functions and role in society. Basic ideas of the history of world philosophy. Being as a central category in philosophy. Man as the main philosophical problem. Problems of consciousness, the doctrine of knowledge. Spiritual and social life of a person.

course of lectures, added 02/06/2011


The essential relationship of man to the world. Creation of mythological narratives. The role of mythology in the origin of philosophy. Functions of philosophy in the life of society and its role in restructuring the foundations of culture. The problem of transforming philosophy into a scientific system.

abstract, added 01/20/2013


The range of problems of philosophy, its role in society. Pre-philosophical worldview and picture of the world. The nature of perception as the main difference between mythological consciousness and scientific and philosophical consciousness. Subject and method of philosophy. The place and role of philosophy in scientific knowledge.

abstract, added 11/14/2014


Philosophy in the cultural system is the function of philosophy. Philosophy in the cultural system. Functions of philosophy. The nature of philosophical problems. The classical tradition connected philosophy with the comprehension of the night principles of understanding the world and human life.

course work, added 05/27/2002


The material basis for the functioning and development of society, expressed in the works of Marx. The nature of the interaction between people’s social existence and their social consciousness. The concept of “true” and “false” consciousness. Principles and laws of materialist dialectics.

test, added 01/17/2012


Functions of philosophy. Philosophical monism in the interpretation of problems of existence. The essence of the theocentric understanding of man. Empiricism in epistemology. The difference between the laws of nature and society. Philosophy of law. The meaning of the dispute between nominalists and realists. The concept of machinism.

test, added 11/11/2010


The attitude of philosophy to the spiritual world of man is determined by the system of basic values ​​that underlie the interaction between man and society. Approaches to the study of society in social philosophy: naturalistic, idealistic, materialism.