Communication and understanding of the integrity of the universe. Philosophical understanding of the world and man - in - the world Understanding of the world as an integrity
Awareness that, along with the obvious side of the world as a plurality, there is also a side of it that by its nature denies any multiplicity and in relation to which the concept of a separate element and a set of elements completely loses its meaning (psychological research indicates that the absolute and complete detailing of a mental act unattainable), at the same time creates that apparently really possible alternative, which allows, within the framework of dialectical-materialist methodology, to approach the disclosure of the nature of the integrity of the functioning of self-organizing systems, consciousness.
Such an approach to understanding the world - plural and unified at the same time - requires turning to the dialectics of the philosophical categories of the plural and the unified, within which these categories are taken as contradictory, mutually exclusive and at the same time mutually presupposing one another, and the category of the unified is not understood in the traditional sense ( in the form of identity, equality, similarity, similarity or coincidence of elements, their connections in the set, on the basis of which a description of a certain set of objects as integral, unified is achieved), and in terms of its logical aspect - as the negation of multiplicity, the opposition of many.
This aspect of the interpretation of the one has not a sensually concrete, but a dialectical-logical nature and is the result of the sublation of the “many,” i.e., within the framework of this approach, the one appears as a complete and comprehensive negation of any multiplicity, the dialectical opposition of the many. Thus, at the level of abstract-logical thinking, the unified is presented as a certainty that fixes the objective property of the objects under study, manifested in their fundamental indecomposability into many elements and the fundamental impossibility of individualizing these elements.
Quantum theory has formed the prerequisites for a deeper, dialectical way of understanding and explaining the world through the complementarity of mutually opposed approaches - 152 based on the concept of set (variety) and the opposite and complementary concept of a single, indecomposable and indivisible ultimately into any sets of elements.
The starting points in this case are not the concepts of “set” and “element” (as in the systems approach), but the concepts of “many” and “not-many”, “multiple” and “one”.
It is the dialectic of the categories “multiple - unified” that turns out to be essential for a deeper understanding of the modern scientific picture of the world. Based on it, it becomes possible to go beyond related the whole, that is, the whole, conditioned only by the physical-causal connections of the elements, to such integrity, which has a completely different nature - implicative-logical, the source of which is not this or that type binding elements together, but the denial and exclusion of the very state of complete (or exhaustive) decomposability of the system into any isolated elements and sets in general.
A certain analogy of certain aspects of the phenomena of the microworld and the psyche, the comparability of epistemological situations emerging in psychology, biology and quantum mechanics, which is noted by many researchers, opens up wide opportunities for using the forms of thinking adopted in quantum theory as a methodological model.
Most clearly, apparently, this analogy is revealed in the impossibility of fully detailing mental processes and quantum systems, representing them as a collection of “a priori” individualized elements. When studying the phenomena of life, consciousness, and thinking, the abstractly unchanging nature of ideas about elementaryness and complexity is lost. With regard to internally integral systems, it must be said that they are equally complex and elementary. Therefore, the methodological results obtained in studying the nature of the integrity of quantum systems can significantly influence the solution of problems arising in the study of biological and mental processes.
The assumption about the special integrity of the mental act in the sense of its ultimate indecomposability into sets of any initially isolated elements (rules, operations, contexts) is the basis for understanding the fundamental impossibility of complete formalization of mental activity, the impossibility of expressing its essential features (primarily those associated with figurative and affective sides of mental activity, polysemy natural language) in the concepts and representations of information theory and cybernetics, plural in their basis. 153
Based on this, the limitations of all heuristic programs that model the process of solving problems by humans become clear. The underlying assumptions about the decision process as a heuristic search in the space of discrete and predetermined (by a program or machine design) states reflect only one aspect of thinking - the multiple structure of mental activity, but do not allow us to understand its opposite and additional side - unity, mutuality consistency and correlation of the inherent potential of the subject of cognition to form new and unusual ways of solving problems - not a priori, but during the very process of solving them.
The fundamental impossibility of determining a complete and exhaustive set of features used by a person when solving problems of recognition of images and contexts, and the need in this regard to assume the existence of potential capabilities, is apparently due primarily to the impossibility of accurate and exhaustive detailing of the states of situational interaction of the subject with the environment. A person builds a system of corresponding signs in the course of comprehending the task, and not simply by synthesizing the situation from ready-made signs.
Based on the methodological understanding of the results of quantum mechanical research from the position of the dialectical relationship of the categories multiple - unified, it becomes possible to go beyond the bounds of the connected whole, i.e. understanding the whole as a system, the unity of which is determined only by the physical causal connections of the elements, to such integrity, which has a completely different nature - implicative-logical, the source of which is not one or another type binding elements together, but the denial and exclusion of the very state of complete and exhaustive decomposability of the system into any isolated elements or sets in general. The implicative connection characterizes not the process of causing one phenomenon by others, but a logical dependence (“if..., then...”) - the disclosure of the potential capabilities of the system in the process of its development (movement), conditioned by the specific nature of its non-mechanical integrity. These potential possibilities, thanks to the property of integrity, are coordinated and correlated so that a change in the states of one of the subsystems instantly and non-forcefully changes the state of another subsystem (does not cause, but entails a change in the states of another subsystem).
A distinctive feature of implicative connections and dependencies is their unconditional unambiguity and strictly necessary nature, surpassing any type of causal determination. 154
The introduction of the idea of a special type of connection in integral systems - implicative - significantly enriches our understanding of the inexhaustible wealth of the comprehensive world connection, which is only one-sidedly, fragmentarily and incompletely expressed by causality, which constitutes only a “particle” of the world connection. It seems promising and fruitful to further study and develop this form of communication in complex systems of biological nature - one of the ways to understand their unity and non-mechanical integrity. From this point of view, it can be assumed that the further development of cybernetic technology along the path of using specifically quantum effects of non-force correlation of subsystems of a single quantum system (for example, using two correlated laser beams) will open up new opportunities in further approaching more accurate modeling (and reflection) of implicative properties of consciousness and the fundamental property of integrity.
Of significant interest is the study of implicative connections for understanding the special integrity, non-additivity of thought processes, the psyche, the principles of organization and functioning of the brain, especially since “none of the concepts expressing physical causality ... is applicable to understanding connections in the world of consciousness,” as the famous psychologist J. Piaget believes [100, p. 19 ]. The truth 2+2=4 is not the “cause” of the truth 4-2=2, it presupposes (includes, contains) the truth of the judgment 4-2=2, 4-1=3, etc. The hopes placed on this that the features of determination of the behavior of self-organizing integral systems can be explained on the basis of information (signal) connections and functional dependencies, also did not come true, since these connections and dependencies characterize those aspects of the subject that can be represented as a collection of individual homogeneous and unchanged elements in the process of changing the system and their aggregates. This determines the fundamental insufficiency of cybernetic ideas and concepts based on information connections, multiple in nature, for understanding the nature of the determination of behavior adequate to the nature of organically integral systems. Information connections do not allow us to understand the unity, mutual consistency and correlation of the fundamental possibilities inherent in the subject of cognition for the formation of new and unusual ways of solving tasks and problems.
It is legitimate to assume that the basis for introducing the idea of the potential capabilities inherent in the thinking process is the special integrity of the mental act in the sense of its ultimate indecomposability into sets of any initially isolated elements - rules, operations, contexts. By virtue of 155 This concept of an actually multiple structure becomes inadequate for understanding the psyche and consciousness. The structure of a mental act, similar to the structure of a quantum system, must necessarily be described in terms of the potentially possible: a set of possible meanings, possible paths and approaches to solving problems, etc. The entire diversity of these possibilities remains hidden and is revealed only in the process of solving a specific problem. The essence of the solution is not in choosing from a priori available possibilities, but in the process of their formation, the determinants of which are not only the conditions of the task (problem), but also all the previous stages of its solution.
Having abandoned the view of the organization and functioning of neurophysiological and psychological structures only as some actual set of elements and convinced of the need to consider them as indivisible, indecomposable into any sets, we can conclude that there is a need for complementary approaches in the study of thinking. One of them is based on multiple understanding of thinking. It is legitimate and necessary at a certain level of abstraction - when studying discursive thinking, abstract-logical aspects of mental activity, mainly in retrospective terms. This is due to the fact that at the level of formal operations the concepts of individual elements and their combinations remain distinguished. Formal logic is atomistic; it is based on many atomized elements. At this level, it is legitimate and necessary to widely use information-theoretic concepts and methods.
This approach cannot be extended to the dynamic side of thinking, to the level dialectical thinking. This level of mental activity cannot be understood as a process of independent development of individual elements and their subsequent assembly into a specific system. It is formed through the formation and isolation of components, differentiation and complication of an initially unified developing system. To study it, a significantly different, non-traditional approach to understanding the integrity of thinking is required. The information-theoretic approach, its ideas and methods turn out to be fundamentally limited due to the fact that they are multiple in nature.
Thus, in general, the identification of thinking with the information-theoretic process or the attempt to present thinking as a special case of the information-theoretic process, characteristic of many natural scientists and philosophers abroad, are methodologically untenable. 156
The separation of mental labor from physical labor, on the one hand, mythology and accumulation empirical knowledge, on the other hand, as well as man’s desire to comprehend his own essence contributed to the emergence of a general holistic view of the world and man’s place in it - philosophy. A fundamentally different type of worldview is emerging, one that differently interprets the ideas about the world and man established in mythology and religion and at the same time develops fundamentally different ways of understanding and solving ideological problems. The peculiarity of the philosophical worldview has become abstract-conceptual, and not sensory-figurative, as in other types of worldview, form mastering reality.
But the difference between a philosophical worldview and a mythological and religious one is not in form, but in content mastering reality. It already distinguishes between natural and social world, the human way of acting and the manifestation of natural forces and phenomena. This became possible thanks to the accumulation of mathematical, physical and astronomical knowledge, the appearance of the calendar and the spread of writing. If previous historical types of worldview can be defined as experience a person of reality and his existence in it, then the philosophical worldview is reflection a person about what exists is self-comprehension.
If a person wants to understand the meaning of his life, he does not turn to scientific treatises. Scientific knowledge can explain a lot to him, but it is not through this knowledge that he will move towards his ideals. They lie in a different plane. Comprehension of the meaning of life is an essential characteristic of philosophical knowledge. Philosophy allows a person to find himself in the boundless ocean of events, to deeply understand not only the external, but also his own spiritual world, to comprehend what his purpose is in the stream of being. No other science teaches what it takes to be human.
The idea has been preserved that the ancient Greek thinker Pythagoras was the first person who called himself a “philosopher,” pointing out that a person should not overestimate his capabilities in achieving wisdom; one love for wisdom, the desire for it corresponds to every living creature. And to this day we understand by this ancient Greek word the love of wisdom (phileo - love, sophia - wisdom).
The concept of wisdom in ancient Greek philosophy was associated with the highest ideal of knowledge and behavior. There is not a single significant philosopher who would not have contributed to the understanding of the concept of “wisdom”. “By wisdom,” wrote Rene Descartes, “we mean not only prudence in business, but also perfect knowledge of everything that a person can know: this is the knowledge that guides life itself, serves to preserve health, and is also a discovery in all sciences.” " The epistemological, ethical and existential characteristics of wisdom, which were formed historically, are preserved in our time and cannot be discounted. The desire for an integrative understanding of the phenomenon of wisdom led to its understanding as a desire for intellectual comprehension of the essence of the world.
The philosophical and theoretical transformation of the fundamental ideological problem is the main question of philosophy, in which the relationship “man - world” is transformed into the relationship “spirit - body”, “consciousness - nature”, “thinking - being”. One solution or another to this issue forms the basis philosophical teaching. In the history of philosophy, several options can be traced for solving the problem of the relationship between the material and the spiritual, which acts as the first side of the main question of philosophy. However, all of them are either monistic (coming from the recognition of one principle of the world) or dualistic (coming from the recognition of two principles of the world). And philosophical monism is heterogeneous. Throughout the existence of philosophical knowledge, it acted as materialism and as idealism in its two varieties: objective and subjective. Materialism comes from the recognition of the primacy of the material principle. Idealism declares the spiritual to be primary and determining. However, idealists differ in its interpretation. Some believe that the spiritual principle, which determines everything that happens in the world of phenomena, exists in the form of human consciousness, sensations, perceptions, and ideas. These are subjective idealists. Others represent this spirituality in the form of a nobody, the so-called absolute consciousness, spirit, pure idea, etc. These are objective idealists.
The main question of philosophy includes, in addition to the question of the primacy of the material and spiritual, also the question of man’s cognitive relationship to the world. Materialists view knowledge of the world as a reflection in human consciousness of a reality independent of it. Idealists oppose the theory of reflection and interpret cognitive activity either as a combination of sensory data, or as the construction of objects of knowledge through a priori (pre-experimental) categories, or as a purely logical process of obtaining new conclusions from existing axioms and assumptions.
The question of how the world works, what connections and relationships exist between objects and phenomena, processes, what laws characterize this world from the point of view of movement and development also deserves due attention. In other words, it is a question about the general structure of the world and the state in which the latter finds itself.
This question found its solution in two main concepts - dialectical and metaphysical. Dialectics- the concept according to which the world, in its structure, represents a single whole, where everything is interconnected and interdependent, and from the point of view of its state, it is in motion and development.
According to metaphysics, the world in its structure is a set of objects, phenomena, and processes that are not interconnected by mutual transitions. As for the state of the world, metaphysics recognizes movement and development only within a limited framework, as decrease and increase, as repetition.
The solution to the problem of the general structure of the world, which includes both man and the state in which he finds himself, is a relatively independent question. It can be solved in principle in the same way with different approaches to the main question of philosophy. That is, materialism can be metaphysical and dialectical. In the same way, idealism can be both metaphysical and dialectical.
Consequently, materialism and idealism, metaphysics and dialectics are different ways of revealing the relationship “man - world”. This attitude is a universal problem for all eras of human history - from the emergence of man until his existence ceases. Although at each stage of history it is filled with specific content and is perceived in different ways, its comprehension is a necessary condition for the life of society in its progressive development.
The types and methods of philosophical understanding of the world are determined by general philosophical paradigms. They are the ones who focus attention on certain aspects of the eternal philosophical problems. Such paradigms of philosophizing include the ontologism paradigm and the epistemologism paradigm. They can be found in any historical type of philosophy, with one of them capable of playing a dominant role.
The ontologism paradigm orients a person in knowledge and activity to the world outside of man, to the world not only objective, but also absolute, with which a person must coordinate both his mind and his goals and values.
The epistemologism paradigm originates in ancient Greek philosophy, but truly develops in modern times based on René Descartes’ thesis “I think, therefore I am.” It focuses on substantiating the reliability of scientific knowledge. Under her influence such features of modern European culture, such as rationalism, technologism, operationalism, pragmatism.
In the second half of the 19th century, a new paradigm developed, seemingly combining ontological and epistemological principles. It focuses on a vision of reality, which is neither pure being nor pure thinking. This paradigm turned philosophers towards man. It also showed the inaccessibility to the knowledge of the mind of the unique and unique existence of man as a person and confronted philosophy with the need to search for an object that represented the existence of man and would be accessible to the human mind. Culture is such a being. A new paradigm of philosophical thinking is born.
§ 4. Subject and structure of philosophical knowledge.
The problem of the relationship between thinking and being is the core of philosophical theories. The main aspects of this problem allow us to comprehend the subject and structure of philosophy.
What is the subject of philosophy in itself, without comparing it with science, art, politics? It has historically changed in close connection with the development of all aspects of the spiritual life of society, with the development of science and philosophical thought itself.
As has already been said, the emergence of philosophy historically coincides with the emergence of the rudiments of scientific knowledge, with the formation of the need for theoretical research. Philosophy itself emerged as the first historical form of theoretical knowledge. Initially, philosophy answered questions that had already been posed by mythology and religion. However, her way of solving these issues was already different; it was based on a theoretical analysis of these issues, consistent with logic and practice.
First thinkers ancient world sought mainly to understand the origin of diverse natural phenomena. But already at that time, a demarcation began between individual areas of emerging knowledge. Mathematics, medicine, astronomy, etc. are highlighted. Along with limiting the range of problems that philosophy dealt with, there was also a development, deepening, and enrichment of philosophical ideas proper, and various philosophical theories and directions arose. Such philosophical disciplines were formed as ontology - the doctrine of being, or the essence of everything that exists; epistemology - theory of knowledge; logic is the science of the forms of the correct, i.e. coherent, consistent, evidence-based thinking; philosophy of history; ethics; aesthetics.
Starting from the Renaissance and especially in the 17th – 18th centuries, the process of demarcation between philosophy and the special sciences occurred at a somewhat accelerated pace. Mechanics, physics, and then chemistry, biology, law, and political economy become independent branches of scientific knowledge. This progressive division of labor in the sphere of scientific knowledge qualitatively changes the role and place of philosophy in the system of sciences, its relationship with the special sciences. Philosophy is no longer concerned with solving special problems of mechanics, physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, law, etc., but acquires its own range of problems. She explores to the utmost General characteristics both the person himself and the conditions of his life, and the world in which he lives.
The subject of philosophy includes the universal in material existence and the universal that characterizes the integral existence of man. But the subject of philosophy is even more different from the subject of the private sciences that study material existence and man, in that it represents the special relationship of man to the world, the world to man.
Philosophy is knowledge about the world and about man’s relationship to this world. The problems of philosophy are projected onto the universal in the “world - man” system, which constitutes the subject of philosophical knowledge. They themselves are universal, ultimate - ultimate for human existence, for his general program of activity, for the entire human culture. Problems of philosophical worldview cover the world as a whole, human life as a whole, and a person’s attitude to the world as a whole. There are no broader problems than ideological ones (in terms of their significance for human activity).
Philosophical problems directly related to the fundamental questions of human existence are invariant and eternal in nature and, moreover, “eternal and unchanging” solutions to these problems are often proposed. However, just as all living things develop in a continuous process of self-renewal of their basic forms, so “eternal” philosophical problems find their life in the constant reproduction of their solutions based on new achievements of real knowledge and transformations in human social life.
The main way to solve philosophical problems is theoretical thinking, based on the total experience of man, on the achievements of all sciences and culture as a whole.
The integrity and systematic nature of the subject of philosophy determines its complex, multi-level, multi-aspect structure, which can be represented as follows:
Philosophical Sciences | Subject of study | Subfunctions | Aspect of the fundamental question of philosophy | |
Ontology | Objective reality | Ontological | How is a person with his consciousness possible in this world? | |
Social philosophy | Subject (society) | Sociological | How are social consciousness and social existence related? | |
Philosophical anthropology | Subject (person) | Humanitarian | How do individual consciousness and the existence of nature and society relate? | |
Epistemology | Cognitive attitude | Epistemological | How is adequate knowledge possible? | |
Praxeology | Conversion | Praxeological | How is it possible to effectively transform the world? | |
Ethics | Communication | Ethical | How is moral communication possible? | |
Axiology | Value-oriented activity | Axiological | How is it possible to realize values, key life meanings of a person? | |
Aesthetics | Aesthetic mastery | Aesthetic | How is it possible to work according to the laws of beauty? |
In different philosophical systems, these disciplines are expressed to varying degrees, are related to each other in different ways, and acquire different content and focus.
As for the methods by which philosophy studies its subject, they come down to the means of obtaining knowledge. The question of the method of philosophical knowledge is also the question of the very possibility of solving philosophical problems scientifically.
As is known, the problem of the method of philosophical knowledge arose in modern times, when the ineffectiveness of using special scientific methods to solve traditional philosophical problems was realized. “Until now,” Hegel wrote, “philosophy has not yet found its method. It looks with envy at the system of constructing mathematics, borrowing from it its method or the methods of those sciences that were only a mixture based on the experience of positions ... or came out out of difficulty because they simply discarded this method.” The search for a philosophical method in the second half of the 19th century took the form of a demand for philosophy to abandon traditional ideological problems. This was a reaction to the real contradictions of philosophical knowledge while abstracting from the socio-practical nature of its foundation. The real task was to understand the connection between the method of philosophical knowledge and its social purpose.
Regardless of the specific historical form of manifestation of the philosophical method and its awareness, what is common to it is that it represents a special theoretical activity to generalize and comprehend all existing experience of knowledge and practice. This is what is called philosophical reflection, the specific historical content of which is determined by the level of development of social historical practice. The historically established forms of philosophical reflection are dialectics and metaphysics, which in their specific historical content determine the methodological orientation of philosophical knowledge.
§ 5. The place of philosophy in the general system of knowledge and life of man and 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 have become widespread.
1) 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;
2) Philosophy is not a science, it is a worldview (a certain type of worldview, different, for example, from religious and mythological);
3) 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 human life and 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 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 into 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.
Scientific form philosophy cannot be considered obviously the best or the only true 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 indeed the process of philosophical knowledge itself, includes components specific to fiction and art. 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. It is enough to point out ritualism as the most important component of any religion.
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. And yet religion and fiction played and 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 takes an active part 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 of philosophy is manifested in the fact that, equipping people with knowledge about the world and 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.
The methodological function of philosophy is that it provides for all forms of social consciousness 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. However, it should be remembered that the universal principles of thinking studied by philosophy do not unambiguously determine the line of creative searches for truth. Being universal, they are a necessary condition for solving various specific problems, but do not replace special private scientific methods, but are concretized by them.
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 sets himself and society eternal questions about one’s essence, the meaning of life, 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."
E. Sinitsyn, O. Sinitsyna
The secret of the creativity of geniuses (excerpts from the book)
A holistic understanding of the world is one of the main factors in the creativity of a genius
Each axis, acting as a support in the autonomous psychoneurophysiological complex of a genius, reflects one dominant feature of this complex. If at least one of these dominants disappears, then the gift of genius will not be realized. Let us ask a strange and paradoxical question: is it possible to imagine an axis whose function is to see the entire creation at once?
The problem of integrity and its aspects was touched upon in their theoretical studies by many major scientists: Whitehead, Russell, Wertheimer, Wiener, Bertalanffy, Shenon, Bohm. The founder of Gestalt psychology M. Wertheimer wrote: “... there are connections in which what happens as a whole is not derived from elements that supposedly exist in the form of separate pieces, then connected together, but, on the contrary, what appears in a separate part of this whole is determined by the internal structural law of this whole” (20, p.6). The main thesis of Gestalt theory states that a person’s productive thinking proceeds along the path of discovering meaningful connections between the elements of an object; in this case, a holistic picture appears that displays all the properties of the object.
S. Grof in his book “Beyond the Brain” identifies some essential features of a holistic (holonomic) understanding of the world: the relativity of boundaries, the transcendence of the Aristotelian dichotomy between part and whole, the convolution and distribution of information throughout the entire system at once. The principle of holistic vision or the principle of Gestalt received its deep and fundamental development in the revolutionary theory of the Universe by the physicist D. Bohm, who collaborated with A. Einstein. Bohm's model of the dynamic relationship of all phenomena in the world provides new principles that were called holonomic. This model is similar to holographic views: an object is viewed from different angles that are not isolated, but are part of a larger picture. In Bohm's ideas, writes Grof, “the world is a constant flow, and stable structures of any kind are nothing more than an abstraction; any describable object, any entity or event is considered to be derived from an indefinable and unknown universality.” Bohm suggested that “perception and knowledge, including scientific theories, are a creative activity comparable to the artistic process, and not an objective reflection independently existing reality. True reality is immeasurable, and true intuition sees the essence of existence in immeasurability” (28, p. 101).
Mental processes that take part in the creative activity of an individual, similar to Bohm’s idea of the world as a flow, acquire the same features. Since creativity is largely determined by unconscious processes, it acquires the characteristics of indefinability. Bohm's theory, extrapolated to creative processes, becomes a description of conscious activity and its connection with the flow of unconscious processes.
S. Grof noted that many traditionally minded scientists in Jung's time interpreted the manifestations of archetypes discovered by Jung as fruits of his imagination, abstracted or constructed by him from the data of real sensory perception of other people, animals, objects and events of the material world. The conflict between Jungian psychology and mechanistic psychology was, in essence, a dispute over Platonic ideas waged throughout the Middle Ages by nominalists and realists. Nominalists argued that Platonic ideas are only names and do not have independent existence, unlike things that exist in the empirical world. Realists, like Plato, on the contrary, believed that ideas have an independent existence. In the context of modern ideas based on a holistic (holonomic) approach, Jung’s archetypes, Grof believes, “can be understood as phenomena, as cosmic principles woven into the fabric of the implicit order” (28, p. 108).
Jung's archetypes manifest their nature only in the reality of the collective unconscious, although they are part of the unconscious of every person. Archetypes are the common supports on which the entire edifice of the collective unconscious stands. But at the same time, these supports cannot be divorced from a certain universality of the law of the coexistence of the cosmic and the earthly. According to Bohm's theory of the holonomy of the structure of the Universe, no part of the Universe, including archetypes, inevitably enters the general cosmic metaconsciousness of the Universe, and therefore become part of the cosmic principles. In cosmic metaconsciousness there are global information and semantic structures that develop with the help of collective creative mental processes. An important place in these processes is occupied by the archetypes discovered by Jung.
To understand the nature of genius, it must be said that some revolutionary advances in physiological research have shown that a model of the human brain based on holographic principles can explain many of the seemingly mysterious properties of this most perfect creation of nature. A large amount of memory, the distribution of memory, the ability of sensory parts to imagine, the projection of images from the area of memory into consciousness, some important aspects of associative memory and so many other diverse properties of the brain that nature gave to man are scattered like grains in a field, and await a special mental state, to grow in the creation of genius.
The unique combination of all these properties of the brain distinguishes a genius from a person with average abilities. The drama or, conversely, the happiness of an ordinary person is that he not only does not use his brain to the full and almost unlimited extent, but, oddly enough, in another way, the psyche of an ordinary person does not develop this desire in him. The ever-alert potential of a brilliant brain does not depend on the type of its individual creative activity. And as soon as a genius has chosen an area of application of his powerful spiritual powers, his brain begins to intensively develop in this direction. The invariant characteristics of the gift of genius, combining together, create what underlies a holistic perception of the world and its various phenomena. An active form of fantasy and imagination gives an unforgettable special exaltation to the state of the creator. Ideas come and quickly seek their reflection in the semantic structures inherent in their individuality, but there comes a moment when you need to intuitively see the evolution, and then imagine the broken phenomena in their entirety. In this spacious channel, no matter how the creator strives to overcome the gaps and deformations, the “vectors of tension” of consciousness follow on their heels. At first they tear apart the thought and at first they only try to fit together the parts of the whole work that are not connected by harmony and beauty, but then, thought, which has paradoxical power, makes the transition from the unrelated parts to unity. The transition from initial meanings and structures to the final unity can be both instant and long. A thought flashes like a flash of lightning, tension immediately disappears, washed away by a stream of insights. The disharmony of deformations is replaced by the harmony of integrity. The new semantic connection resolves the contradiction inherent in the original structure. The axis of integrity keeps consciousness and the unconscious in a state of activity. Let's consider how this process proceeds.
Let us turn to the words of Mozart given in the book French mathematician J. Hadamard “Psychology of Inventions”: “When I feel good and am in a good mood, or travel, or walk... or at night, when I can’t sleep, thoughts come to me in a crowd and with extraordinary ease. Where and how do they come from? I don't know anything about this. Those that I like, I keep in mind, I hum... After I have chosen one melody, it is soon joined in accordance with the requirements of the overall composition, counterpoint and orchestration, by a second... My soul then ignites, in any case, if anything - It doesn’t bother me. The work grows, I hear it more and more clearly, and the composition is completed in my head, no matter how long it is. Then I take it in with one glance...I hear it in my imagination inconsistently, c details in all parts, as it should sound later, but everything is entirely in the entire ensemble. If at the same time my works take on the form or manner that characterizes Mozart and is not like anyone else’s, then I swear this happens for the same reason that, for example, my big hooked nose is mine, Mozart’s nose” (Quoted. according to 1, p. 135).
Beethoven once told L. Schlesster about how he composes music, how he transforms many ideas embodied in a melody into a harmonious and harmonious work: “I redo a lot,” the composer said, “I discard it, try again until I am satisfied, and then processing in width, length, height and depth begins in my head. So I am aware of what I want, then the main idea never leaves me; it rises, it grows, and I see and hear the image in all its volume, standing before my inner gaze as if cast” (Quoted from 86, p. 25).
Although creativity is a spontaneous, individual and unique process, many common patterns can be traced in the descriptions of its moments by two different composers: the birth of initial images at the moment of inspiration; the connection of ideas and images in the mind, the discovery of new connections in them, which can become the framework of the entire work.
Thoughts coming from within, from the depths of consciousness and the unconscious, are what the process of creating a work begins to evolve from. First, we are talking about the need for inspiration, which appears in moments of good spirit. Inspiration gives birth to concentration, and the process of creation begins - “thoughts come to me in a crowd...”. A new composition begins with the framework of a new structure, in which at this initial moment only individual unrelated elements are outlined - the “raw dough” of the future composition. An intensive process of exchange of ideas begins between the unconscious and consciousness - “I redo a lot of things, throw them away, try again...”.
All semantic structures are dynamic and capable of self-development. In fact, the principle of evolution is described: “... the soul ignites... the work grows, I hear it more and more clearly, and the composition is completed in my head...” (Mozart) or “... processing begins in width, in length , in height and depth" (Beethoven). When concentrating, there is a surge of mental energy and its concentration on individual local elements of the semantic structure. When separate supporting parts are present in consciousness, they cause tension, then the imagination begins to look for trajectories of connection between these supports. The imagination of a genius moves between details and points the direct path to the goal. If individual local structures are built into the overall composition of the work, each new local insight realizes the intensive development of the initial structure in the direction of the final one. The entire composition is covered with a single glance, entirely in the ensemble. This is the Gestalt principle.
The theory of mental filters could arise from only one statement by Mozart, in which there is the idea that these filters really exist in the mind: “If at the same time my works take the form or manner that characterizes Mozart and is not similar to anyone else, then I swear this happens for the same reason that, for example, my big hooked nose is mine, Mozart’s nose.” We tend to attribute what is usually called the individual style or manner of an artist to the properties of an individual mental filter.
The same features of the creative process can be found in a writer. At the first stage of creating works, imagination dominates, which is then supplemented by painting detailed description everything that the writer wanted to express. Every image appears in vague, almost ghostly outlines. At first, the writer sees only outlines, hears unclear voices, but gradually the thought sharpens, and characters emerge. Describing Bulgakov’s work on the play “Days of the Turbins,” Paustovsky notes that when the play was still in the writing stage, unfinished, the characters were already living their own lives in the writer’s mind. Bulgakov often saw them in his dreams and talked with them. He clearly heard the sounds of a piano. It seemed to him that “their melancholy and evil harmonic was breaking through the blizzard...”. The play was born “as if from a game, from the imagination, but clearly visible world,” writes Paustovsky. Bulgakov himself recalls: “Then it began to seem to me in the evenings that something colored was emerging from a white page. Looking closely, squinting, I was convinced that this was a picture. And moreover, this picture is not flat, but three-dimensional - like a box, and in it you can see through the lines - the light is on, and the very figures that are described in the novel are moving in it” (Quoted from 22, p. 101).
The process of “building” an integral structure is emerging. The elements are already artistically connected at the irrational unconscious level, although this connection-relationship between the elements has not yet emerged clearly. First, the images, pictures and heroes that have arisen in the imagination are sketched out; the structural outlines are not yet clear; at the second stage, a description of the scene in words appears. When the play was created, images and color were primary, and words were secondary, then words became primary, and images and color were secondary. From one focal point of a holistic image, the construction of connections from disparate focal points begins. Development follows trajectories. We call this process the evolution of semantic structures. The evolutionary trajectory of each local semantic structure is divided into a number of new branches, which, flowing from the general channel like streams, give rise to new and more detailed local semantic structures. This process is endless and resembles a growing tree with a wide crown.
Although the human intellect is inclined to consider any work or theory, decomposing them into individual components, elements and details, intuitively these parts form a complete picture, which clarifies the creator’s intention, which may be unclear at first.
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PHILOSOPHY
Subject of philosophy.
Formulation: Philosophy is a form of spiritual activity aimed at posing, analyzing and solving fundamental ideological issues related to the development of a holistic view of the world and man. Literally, the word “philosophy” means the love of wisdom (from the Greek words phileo - love and sophia - wisdom).
The origin of philosophy as a specific form of spiritual activity dates back to approximately the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, i.e. three thousand years ago. The term “philosophy” itself was introduced into circulation by the ancient Greek mathematician and thinker Pythagoras (mid-6th century BC). The first fairly detailed explanation of the content and meaning of this concept, in contrast to the related concepts of “knowledge” and “wisdom,” belongs to Plato. Aristotle played a significant role in understanding the content of the concept of “philosophy”.
Before Plato and Aristotle, philosophical knowledge mainly coincided with the systematization of the so-called worldly wisdom, that is, the everyday life experience of people, expressed in symbolic, artistic and figurative form. Beginning with Plato and Aristotle, philosophy is no longer satisfied with a simple love of wisdom, but strives to become a detailed, consistent teaching, based on a reliable foundation of ideas not only about man, but also about the world in which his life activity takes place. Moreover, this holistic picture of existence, against the background of which only one can understand the uniqueness of a person, increasingly begins to be created not in a symbolic, artistic-figurative manner, but primarily in conceptual forms, by logical means. But artistic, figurative, symbolic ways of expressing content human experience were never completely excluded from philosophy. Moreover, in philosophical tradition Of the East, this latter manner of philosophizing still remains dominant.
As for the understanding of the very subject of philosophy, it was formed, firstly, in the process of overcoming the limitations of the types of ideological consciousness that preceded philosophy, namely mythology and religion in its original forms (animism, totemism, polytheism, etc.), different from later world religions; secondly, as a result of long-term efforts aimed at isolating philosophical knowledge from the entire body of knowledge that a person had in that historical era. Unlike mythology and the original forms of religiosity, philosophy chose as its guide not tradition and authority, not spontaneously formed archetypes and stereotypes of consciousness, but a free, critical understanding of the world and human life. Philosophy contrasted anthropomorphism (the endowment of human qualities with natural things and processes) of mythology and early forms of religiosity with the idea of the world as a field of action of impersonal objective forces.
Discussing the problem of the structure of integral being, ancient Greek philosophy proposed a certain list of different answers to this problem:
Ideas about the presence of the smallest particles of matter from which the entire universe is built (ancient atomism);
The idea of the infinite, limitless divisibility of nature, therefore, the absence of limits to this divisibility;
the idea of unity and integrity of the entire universe.
Every thinking person could participate in a conscious search and free choice of such ideas. Both the search and the choice were carried out through criticism and acceptance of any of the options based on methods logical argumentation, theoretical analysis and justification.
A clearer understanding of the subject of philosophy was facilitated by the desire to isolate from the entire body of available knowledge that unique knowledge that constitutes the main content of philosophy. From the moment of its inception, philosophy began to claim that it is philosophical knowledge that is the most mature and perfect. For the emergence and subsequent consolidation of this opinion about the special status of philosophy, there were quite serious reasons, generated primarily by the fact that the predominant part of the available knowledge of that era (with the exception of the purely deductive sciences such as mathematics and logic) was of a descriptive-registering nature and did not pretend to identify and explanation driving forces, causes of observed phenomena and processes. Due to the underdevelopment and insufficient maturity of the empirical, experimental natural science of that era, philosophy took on this role. She acted as a kind of “science of sciences”, or “queen of sciences”, the only one capable of giving a theoretical explanation of everything that happens in the surrounding world and in man himself.
In order to clarify the uniqueness of philosophical knowledge and, accordingly, the subject of philosophy, Aristotle introduced a special concept "metaphysics", which to this day is often used almost as a synonym for the concept of philosophy. In his understanding, metaphysics was a special type of knowledge, building on top of physical knowledge, which at that time was identified with natural scientific knowledge. And if the concept of “knowledge” is given a deeper meaning, not exhausted only by the fixation of the directly given or directly observed, but also presupposing the ability to give a theoretical explanation, to reveal the deep essence of the observed, then we can say that in the initial phases of its development philosophy included everything available knowledge. And in this literal sense of the word it represented knowledge about the world as a whole and about man. This understanding of the subject of philosophy has been preserved for many centuries.
Much later, already in the era of modern times, the beginning of which dates back to the 17th century, individual specific sciences began to emerge from philosophy. With the development of experimental natural science, they reached higher levels of theoretical maturity, gaining the ability to use their own means to explain the essence of the physical, chemical, biological and other natural processes they studied. As a result, the natural sciences ceased to need the patronage, guardianship, supervision and control of philosophy as a certain higher type of knowledge. Philosophy could no longer claim to be the “science of sciences.” Accordingly, there was a need to change and clarify the idea of its subject.
Another significant circumstance that very actively stimulated the search for new ideas about the subject of philosophy was the need to reconsider the nature of the relationship between philosophy and religion - this other most important form of ideological regulation of human behavior. Since its inception, philosophy has been in the closest, but at the same time very complex and internally contradictory relationship with religion. For the Western European philosophical tradition, this problem appears as a problem of the relationship between philosophy and the Christian religion.
In the early days of its existence (1st-5th centuries), Christianity, in the course of its establishment, actively turned to ancient philosophical teachings to clarify and deepen its content, recognizing ancient thought as having a rather important and independent role in the spiritual and social life of man. During the Middle Ages, the situation changed significantly: religion became not only dominant, but also an almost monopoly dominant sphere of human spiritual life. Philosophy is assigned the role of an important, but still quite technical, auxiliary tool for the spiritual development of the human world and the world of the surrounding nature. This relationship between philosophy and religion is expressed very clearly by the well-known formula: “philosophy is the handmaiden of theology.” Although, it should be emphasized, this formula did not express the entire diversity of the relationship between philosophy and the theoretical core of Christianity - its theology (theology).
This interpretation began to increasingly clearly reveal its inconsistency against the backdrop of the growing social significance and authority of special scientific, and then philosophical knowledge and knowledge, which was clearly identified in the era of the New Age and the Enlightenment. Accordingly, the idea of the need to restore the independent status of philosophy, to gain sufficient independence from religion and theology, begins to take hold.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, this task was fully realized. Moreover, in establishing their independent status, philosophy and science have advanced very far, largely changing the balance of forces in their favor. In these new conditions, religion and theology were gradually pushed to the periphery of the social and spiritual life of man and humanity, and philosophy emerged as the dominant force, and from about the middle of the 19th century, science. The rapid growth of the prestige of science has led to a significant change in the understanding of the subject and purpose of philosophy. Many outstanding thinkers began to view philosophy as a special type of scientific knowledge. It was in this vein that the idea of philosophy as the science of the most general laws of development of nature, society and thinking. It was formulated by K. Marx and F. Engels. Unlike all philosophical teachings of the past, they called their philosophy scientific philosophy. More radical views were held by the founders of positivism, who believed that the so-called positive, i.e., concrete, sciences make philosophy as such completely redundant and unnecessary.
The focus on science, on scientific knowledge as the highest or generally the only type of knowledge accessible to humans has led to a significant change in ideas about the nature of philosophical thinking, philosophical consciousness. The belief has become widespread that philosophy, in contrast to all other forms of spiritual and practical exploration of the world by man - such as religion, moral consciousness, aesthetic perception, everyday practical experience, ideology, etc. - must focus its efforts to build a holistic picture of natural and human existence on the means of rational comprehension. In other words, philosophy must rely only and exclusively on the abilities and powers hidden in the human intellect. The human mind and thinking began to be viewed not only as completely autonomous, but also as self-sufficient grounds for understanding the world in general and the human world in particular. Therefore, philosophy from this point of view is nothing more than knowledge of the final foundations of being, carried out in a consistently rational form. Philosophy is a rationalized form of worldview. At previous stages of centuries-old history Western European philosophy there was no such understanding of the subject of philosophy.
Another characteristic feature of the understanding of the subject of philosophy that developed in the 17th-18th centuries. and in the first half of the 19th century, was that philosophy was built and developed based on the premise that sooner or later a philosophical system would be created that would be able to cope once and for all with its The main task is to create an extremely generalized universal picture of the world and man’s place in it. The fundamental principles of such a philosophy will become completely indisputable for all times. Humanity will always have to adhere to them.
Such claims to the creation of some “last,” complete and complete system of philosophical knowledge are quite clearly expressed in the most characteristic examples of philosophy of this period, which include the philosophy of Hegel and the philosophy of Marxism. Hegel believed that in his philosophical system the absolute spirit (world mind) has acquired an adequate form of knowledge and expression of its own innermost depth, and therefore its main provisions are absolute and unchanging truths. Essentially, Marxism adheres to the same view, which believed that it had made a genuine revolution in philosophy. Its essence lies in the fact that for the first time, the variety of different philosophical teachings and constructions is replaced by the only true, genuine philosophy, namely scientific philosophy represented by Marxist philosophy. All previous historical and philosophical thought is only prehistory, leading to the emergence and awareness of the true content of philosophy.
Over the course of almost three thousand years of philosophy, the understanding of the subject of philosophy has constantly changed and been refined. But the most significant changes occurred in the middle of the 19th century. These changes were so profound and radical that one can even say that philosophical thought itself as a whole entered a qualitatively new stage of its development. This means that in the almost three-thousand-year history of the development of Western European philosophical thought, two main historical stages can be distinguished: the stage of formation and development of traditional, classical philosophy and the stage of unconventional, non-classical philosophy, which began in the second half of the 19th century. and continues in our time. What is the essence of these fundamental changes, if we turn to the problem of the subject of philosophy and the means of achieving the goals put forward by philosophy?
First of all, we note that non-classical philosophy decisively rejects the claim that sooner or later it will create a philosophical doctrine that will once and for all solve the fundamental problems of philosophy or at least identify the main content of the fundamental, fundamental problems of philosophical knowledge. Modern philosophy does not even put forward or pose such a problem, since it considers it in principle unsolvable and even meaningless to pose it. The reasons for this conclusion are quite obvious. After all, human knowledge by its very nature is always finite and limited. It cannot claim to know the so-called absolute, final and final truth. But to this generally quite banal truth, long established in philosophy, over the past century and a half, many other new arguments have been added, related primarily to the awareness of the socio-historical and cultural-historical conditionality of any cognitive act. Human cognition and thinking are always conditioned and limited by specific socio-historical and cultural circumstances. And until humanity stops its movement and development, the historically given type of society, the existing system of knowledge, the total human culture, including ideas about the deep foundations of world existence in general and human life in particular, will constantly change.
The socio-historical and cultural conditioning of cognition and thinking leads to a significant change in ideas about what means and methods philosophy should use to solve its problems. And first of all, the view on the place and role of the human mind and intellect in achieving these goals is changing. At the non-classical stage of its development, philosophy no longer considers the human mind as a self-sufficient basis, relying on which it develops its own content, poses and tries to solve the fundamental problems of existence. The mind also begins to be viewed as socio-historically and culturally-historically conditioned, historically changeable and limited in its cognitive capabilities. Not in the sense that sooner or later he will come across a blank wall, the insurmountable limits of his cognitive power, but in the sense that in its historical movement it overcomes and expands previously established limits and boundaries that seemed quite recently unshakable. At each historical stage, the capabilities of the mind are limited in the sense that they are dependent on the prevailing socio-cultural conditions. And at the same time, these boundaries, the limits of reason, expand as society and man develop.
At the same time, it is becoming more and more clearly realized that the set, the totality of cognitive resources that philosophy uses to achieve its goals cannot be limited only to those resources that are hidden in the human mind. Philosophical knowledge and spiritual and cultural activity as a whole should be based not only on thinking, but also on the entire totality of a person’s spiritual powers and abilities: on his will, on faith, on the emotional side human existence, on subconscious, intuitive drives, etc. In a more general form, it can be stated that non-classical philosophy deprives the human mind of the privileged status that it was given in the dominant philosophical constructs, primarily of the rationalist kind, the previous stage of its development. Non-classical philosophy tries to find some other fundamental principles of human existence, which are, as it were, an intermediary between being as such in all its universality and human consciousness.
Such an intermediary in modern philosophy stands out, firstly, language, understood in some broad and generalized sense. It includes not only ordinary spoken language, but also all the languages currently available to humans. means of communication and communication: mathematical and logical languages in all their diversity, linguistic means of recording and systematizing experimental data, readings of scientific instruments, diverse means of recording and transmitting an ever-increasing flow of information, languages of computer technology, artistic and symbolic means, etc. Particular emphasis on this side cognition and thinking is done in such trends of philosophy as linguistic philosophy, postpositivism, hermeneutics, various analytical and structuralist schools and directions.
Another important intermediary link between universal natural being and human consciousness in modern interpretations of the subject of philosophy is culture, also taken to the extreme in a broad and general sense. Culture means all total creative human activity and the products of this activity, that is, everything that is not a purely natural object and phenomenon, but is somehow transformed, modified by man. Culture includes not only works of art in all its forms, not only products of handicraft artistic creativity, architectural monuments, as is done in the ordinary understanding of culture, but also all practically transformative human activity and the products of this activity. In other words, the whole world of objects, tools and means transformed or newly created by man himself, in the environment and with the help of which flows human life, in contrast to the lifestyle and habitat of the rest of the living world. Culture is the entire set of natural things and phenomena transformed or newly created by man, starting from a knife, ax, saw, home, clothing and ending with the whole variety of industrial technological equipment, transport and information means, scientific measuring instruments, etc. Culture is everything that differs from the natural bears the imprint of human influence on the natural world in which human life takes place.
From this point of view, the subject of philosophy is the analysis of the so-called universals of culture, i.e. its universal characteristics, properties expressed in extremely general concepts - categories or universals. This approach is very productive, as it opens up new horizons for the development of philosophical thought. It has just begun to take shape and therefore has not yet acquired a systematically thought-out and detailed justification. Here, first of all, it is necessary to explain that the world of human culture, with all its undoubted originality, is still a superstructure over natural world, growing from its deep foundations and feeding on them. Therefore, philosophy, even with the new approach, ultimately was and remains a teaching about the ultimate foundations of existence in general and human existence in the first place. It is inappropriate to limit it only to the sphere of human culture. Nature has always been and remains the prerequisite and foundation of all human active and transformative activity. Taking this into account, the traditional understanding of philosophy as a special form of human spiritual activity, which claims to develop an integral universal picture of existence, the theoretical core of a worldview, and a view of the world as a whole, retains all its significance. The tool, means and bridge leading to the achievement of this goal is the cultural and creative activity of man in all its richness and diversity.
The main content and functions of philosophy
A preliminary idea of the problems of philosophy can be given by the formulation of one of the founders of German classical philosophy - I. Kant. In his opinion, philosophy should give a person an answer to the following questions: What can I know? What should I do? What can I hope for? What is a person, what is the meaning and purpose of his existence? This list quite clearly outlines the main problems of philosophy. However, it needs significant additions and clarification. The fact is that Kant completely excluded from this list one of the most important and fundamental problems of philosophy, which was constantly at its center. We are talking about the ultimate foundations of universal existence, about the foundation within which human cognition and life activity are carried out.
The fact that Kant avoided this problem is a direct consequence of the initial, fundamental tenet of his teaching. The great thinker believed that a person, in principle, cannot go beyond the boundaries of his knowledge and thinking, since everything that one way or another lies ahead of a person is recorded with the help and through human consciousness and thinking, one way or another passed through the sieve of his intellect, always bears on a certain imprint of the activity of consciousness and thinking. Therefore, we know the world not as it is in itself, but as it appears to us in our images. A person has no ways to avoid this mediating influence of human consciousness, there are no ways and means that allow him to enter into direct and immediate contact with the world of things that exist independently of consciousness, in themselves as they really are. This premise and final conclusion are controversial. They are rejected by almost all philosophers - Kant's predecessors, and by all subsequent developments of philosophical thought.
In reality, a person has the opportunity to overcome the limits of his consciousness and thinking. This possibility is rooted in the transformative activity and the products of this activity that a person carries out. Based on his ideas about the world, he creates real material objects that exist not only in his consciousness and imagination, but are also included in the world of objective objects and processes that exists outside of human consciousness. Thus, when creating a television, a person relies on certain ideas, knowledge about the properties of electricity, various kinds of electromagnetic waves and radiation, on the characteristics of human visual and auditory perception, on the properties of the materials from which all the components of this complex device will be made, etc. This design fulfills its function, that is, it gives an image and carries sound, only due to the fact that a person has comprehended the very essence of the listed physical, chemical, biological and other natural objects and processes. This is no longer just a product of imagination, fantasy or a purely mental construction, but some penetration of a person into the very essence of existence in the form in which it exists in itself.
Thus, to the four main problems of philosophy listed by Kant, one more question should be added: about the fundamental, universal properties of being itself. In what sequence should they be put, theoretically comprehended and resolved in order to obtain a sufficiently holistic and systematic presentation of philosophical teaching?
Not only Kant himself, but also many subsequent generations of philosophers believed that the most reasonable and natural is precisely the sequence in which they were listed by Kant. However, at the stage of development of philosophy preceding Kant, the problems of the theory of knowledge were by no means put forward as the starting point of philosophizing, and were not considered as its most important problems. The starting point of philosophy was considered to be the doctrine of the universal universal properties of being in general, including in its composition all the uniqueness of human existence. Initial philosophical constructs were also proposed that brought to the fore the doctrine of man, his uniqueness and place in universal existence. Such approaches became most widespread in the 20th century, although their detailed justification was already contained in the works of many thinkers of the 19th century, such as S. Kierkegaard, A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche.
The creative search for philosophical thought is indeed connected primarily with the desire to theoretically comprehend the problem of the relationship between man and the world, the incorporation of man into the world, and on this basis, on the one hand, to develop such a holistic understanding of the world that would make it possible to include man in it, and, on the other hand, on the other hand, to consider the person himself from the point of view of the universe as a whole, to understand his place and purpose in the natural, social and spiritual world. The main problem here is that a person acts not just as a part of the world among other things, but as a being of a special kind, going beyond the world of objects, possessing mental and spiritual life, capable of cognition and practice of showing an active attitude towards the world. Compared to other forms of worldview, this problem in philosophy is theoretically sharpened, it forms the basis of all philosophical reflections on the relationship between subject and object, the spiritual and material, consciousness and being, freedom and necessity, etc. Emphasis on one or another side of the problem, orientation to one or another pole and were a prerequisite for the opposition of materialism and idealism, religious and secular philosophy, philosophical concepts taking the position of determinism or, on the contrary, emphasizing the importance of free will, anthropological or cosmological tendencies, etc.
The orientation towards the creation of a universal integral system of being and man’s place in it is realized in philosophy through theoretical understanding of the content inherent in all other forms of vital, practical and spiritual human activity: in science, religion, art, moral consciousness, ideology, etc. Contents , drawn by philosophy from the above-listed forms and branches of spiritual and vital-practical activity of man, sets its, so to speak, empiricism, its experimental basis and determines the variety of ways and means of moving philosophy towards its goals.
Accordingly, there are structures of philosophical knowledge. Over the course of the long historical development of philosophy, relatively independent and interacting areas of knowledge have been formed in it: the doctrine of being (ontology), the doctrine of knowledge (epistemology), the doctrine of man ( philosophical anthropology), the doctrine of society (social philosophy), ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, philosophy of history, etc. Historical and philosophical research plays a special and important role in the philosophical comprehension of the world.
Putting forward a certain understanding of man’s inclusion in the world, his place and purpose in the world, philosophy one way or another outlined some ultimate foundations for a conscious attitude towards the world, a system of spiritual values that determine the social and personal program of human life, and set its semantic content and direction. Therefore, philosophy acted not simply as a statement of the existing world in the form in which it directly confronts man, but by revealing the deep layers of existence, revealing the world in its most essential and fundamental properties and characteristics, it sought to reveal the fullness of possibilities and thereby the responsibilities of man in this world. Thus, she formulated a theoretical justification for the program of human action in the world, the implementation of the proper or desirable, ideal world order and the general structure of human life.
This social attitude of philosophical knowledge and its contribution to the future predicted direction of development of society and man do not always lie on the surface of life processes and phenomena. Most often, they are quite camouflaged in the depths of other spiritual, cultural goals, objectives, and expected prospects. But if you take a look at the main line of development of human society over a sufficiently long period of time, then these prognostic and ideological social functions of philosophy appear very clearly. Today in our country, in the world as a whole, such topical problems as the essence and ways of establishing civil society, the rule of law, personal freedom, etc. are being actively discussed. To understand the contribution of philosophy to solving these problems, it is enough to remember that they were first raised it was in philosophy almost three hundred years ago in the works of such major philosophers of the 18th century as J. J. Rousseau, T. Hobbes, J. Locke.
The theoretical justification of a person's program of action, the proclamation of new worldview ideals and values put forward by philosophy are always organically connected with morality and other forms of value consciousness. However, in contrast to moral consciousness, in which values act as certain unconditional foundations of activity, philosophy subjects them to critical analysis, considers them as the initial principles of human relationship to the world, the implementation of what is proper in the context of the existence of the universe as a whole, substantiates their meaning in this context and meaning.
Philosophy's claims to substantiate the active attitudes of consciousness in the light of a worldview based on a universal model of existence distinguish philosophy from ideology, in which the private interest of any group of people is always clearly visible - social, ethnic, confessional, etc. Of course, any worldview consciousness, including philosophical consciousness, is closely intertwined with ideology, with the interests of real communities of people. However, the social and cultural significance of philosophy as the theoretical core of a worldview lies in helping to overcome this kind of isolation. At the same time, this desire for truth as a universal human value is realized by philosophy in the course of fulfilling not only its immediate ideological function, but also the methodological role, the methodological function that it performs in the entire system of existing knowledge, in the established cumulative culture of mankind. Philosophy takes on the function of integration, synthesis of all available knowledge and total human culture, helps all branches of specialized scientific knowledge and individual branches of culture to more clearly understand and outline both the meaning and content of the tasks they put forward, as well as the ways and means of achieving them. By implementing this methodological function, philosophy contributes to the enrichment and growth of both the system of existing scientific knowledge and the achievement of new cultural and creative results.
Based on the experience of various forms of vital, practical, cognitive and value development of the world, comprehending and processing in their own concepts (which are called philosophical categories) ideological ideas generated by moral, religious, artistic, political, scientific and technical consciousness, carrying out the synthesis of diverse systems of practical knowledge, and with the development of science - and growing arrays of scientific knowledge, philosophy is called upon to carry out the integration of all forms of human activity in a given historical period, speaking as the self-awareness of the era. According to Hegel’s apt definition, philosophy is “an era captured in thought.”
In modern conditions, the tasks of philosophy as the self-awareness of the era are associated primarily with the responsibility of people in the face of global problems generated by the modern stage of post-industrial, technogenic civilization, on which the survival of humanity depends, such as the environmental crisis, the widening gap between a small group of the most developed in industrial and scientific and technical attitude of countries and the rest of humanity, loss of stability and reliability of human existence itself and its spiritual foundations, etc. In these conditions, philosophy is called upon to make its significant contribution to the development of consensus, agreement in the process of constructive interaction of various spiritual and cultural positions and creative communication of their carriers. A very important role in this complex and internally contradictory process can be played by a more systematic appeal to the development of experience within the framework of the philosophical tradition that developed in the countries of the East, with its emphasis on the internal spiritual and moral improvement of man, the search for harmony in the relationship of man with the surrounding nature. A very positive contribution to this can be made by constant close interest in the experience of the development of Russian philosophical thought.