Plato's theory of knowledge. Plato of human consciousness Plato's teaching about the soul and the mind as its highest element

It is traditionally believed that the merit of a holistic formulation of the problem of consciousness, or rather the problem of the ideal, belongs to Plato. Before Plato such a problem did not exist in formalized form. The soul, which was reduced to the fundamental principle of the whole world, was considered the bearer of human thoughts and feelings. Atomists ( Democritus) consider the soul as a formation consisting of special rounded atoms and emptiness, i.e. as a special material formation. Developing Socrates' ideas about innateness true knowledge the soul before its incarnation into the human body, Plato first distinguishes the ideal as a special essence that does not coincide and is opposite to the sensory, objective, material world of things. However, for the ancient Greek consciousness was not yet an independent phenomenon. The soul (consciousness) was part of the world cosmos, and absolutely accurately reproduced the surrounding phenomena. The idea of ​​consciousness as the internal spiritual experience of a person appears in medieval philosophy, where it is analyzed through the prism of religious issues. IN modern era, when in fact there is a turn from the concept of soul to the concept of consciousness, the latter is interpreted as a person’s cognitive ability, as “I” - a personal formation. Consciousness is understood as a product of internal development (thinking in Descartes) and as a result of external influences (sensations in Locke and Hobbes). Philosophy19th century opens up new horizons of consciousness. Irrationalists Schopenhauer and Nietzsche make consciousness dependent on unconscious processes. This will be proven later Z. Freud in the psychology of the unconscious. K. Marx And F. Engels analyze the influence of social preconditions on consciousness.

The following have developed in philosophy and retain their significance in modern culture: concepts of consciousness.

1. Objective-idealistic interpretation consciousness as a superhuman, transpersonal, ultimately transcendental idea (the world of ideas in Plato; the absolute idea in Hegel; God in theologians; alien intelligence in ufologists), which underlies all forms of earthly existence. Human consciousness is a particle, product or other being of the world mind.

2. Subjective-idealistic systems consider human consciousness as a self-sufficient entity that contains a picture of itself and is the substance of the material world (R. Descartes, J. Berkeley, E. Husserl).

3. Hylozoism(materialized life) states that all matter thinks, consciousness is an attributive property of the entire material world. From the point of view of hylozoism, all matter is animate or, at least, has the prerequisites for thinking. (Thales, Anaximander, Aristotle, G. Bruno, B. Spinoza).

4. Vulgar materialism as a reductionist identification of consciousness with material formations in the human brain. Consciousness is purely material in nature, it is the result of the functioning of certain parts or formations of the brain (K. Vogt, L. Büchner, J. Moleschott).

5. Sociologization of consciousness. Consciousness is placed in absolute dependence on the external, including social, environment (J. Locke, Voltaire, P.A. Holbach).

6. Dialectical materialism approaches the study of consciousness as a complex, internally contradictory phenomenon of the unity of the material and ideal, objective and subjective, biological and social (K. Marx, F. Engels).

ü Antiquity: Plato, Aristotle.

ü Middle Ages: St. Augustine.

ü Modern times: Descartes, Spinoza, Locke.

ü Wundt. Psychology of consciousness.

ü Functionalism (Brentano, James).

ü Gestalt psychology.

ü Behaviorism.

1. Basic characteristics of consciousness (in summary).

Definitions

Consciousness is one of the key and most ambiguous terms in psychology and many other sciences. A. Ben: consciousness is “the most confusing word in the human dictionary.” Not a single definition of S. is either unique or generally accepted.

In different sciences, consciousness is understood as different aspects of reality:

ü in philosophy – consciousness is opposed as the ideal to the real;

ü in physiology – the level of wakefulness and is opposed to sleep;

ü in sociology – consciousness as a rational regulator of behavior - as opposed to spontaneous behavior;

ü in linguistics – consciousness as mental (mental) states expressed in words.

Well, in psychology there are even more different concepts of consciousness. “Consciousness is something about which we as people know everything, but as scientists we know nothing” (M.K. Mamardashvili).

Development of ideas about consciousness

Antiquity. At the first stages of the development of philosophical and psychological thought, a syncretic idea of ​​soul and body, mental and physical, feelings and mind dominated. The soul was considered as an impersonal principle, devoid of the uniqueness and individuality of the human personality. For the first time, the problem of differentiation between the supersensible and the natural, soul and body, was outlined in the teachings of the Sophists and Socrates, then developed in the philosophy of Plato.

Plato: in his “Dialogues” he reveals the relationship between the supersensible and natural, the intelligible cosmos and the visible cosmos, the idea, or eidos (incorporeal) and the body. The structure, the three-component, according to Plato, structure of the human soul (lust, ardor, prudence) corresponds to the structure of the soul of the cosmos. The possibility of self-motion of the soul, its transmigration and immortality is recognized. The acquisition of true knowledge is associated with the process of the human soul remembering its stay in the intelligible world.

Aristotle for the first time formulates the idea of ​​development in relation to the soul, interpreting it as the organizing principle of life.

Medieval philosophy : consciousness as a manifestation in man of a spark of the supramundane divine mind, which exists before nature and creates it out of nothing. The philosophy of Christianity draws attention to the internal tension and inconsistency of a person’s mental life. St. Augustine: the individual, concentrating on his own consciousness, gains the ability to come into contact with the Almighty as an unshakable reality.

New Time. R. Descartes. He introduced the concept of consciousness and identified it as a criterion of the psyche. The world (including man) is based on two substances: extended and thinking. Thought is everything that happens in us, everything that we perceive directly by itself. To thinking, Descartes includes not only traditional intellectual processes (mind), but also sensations, feelings, ideas - everything that is conscious (identification of mental functions with consciousness). Hence: the only means of knowing it is introspection (the object of introspection is personal thought). The unity of the soul was achieved through consciousness, in whose inner gaze all mental phenomena are equal.

Spinoza: there is a single, eternal substance - Nature - with an infinite number of attributes (inherent properties). Of these, only two are open to our limited mind - extension and thinking. Therefore, it makes no sense to imagine a person as a meeting point between physical and spiritual substances, as Descartes did. Man is a holistic physical-spiritual being. The belief that the body moves or rests according to the will of the soul arose due to ignorance of what it is capable of in itself, “by virtue of the laws of nature alone, considered exclusively as corporeal.”

J. Locke(1632-1704) developed Descartes' thesis about the direct comprehension of thoughts. Two sources of knowledge:

A) objects of the external world (impressions);

b) the activity of one’s own mind (reflection; observations to which the mind subjects its activity.

There is no reflection in children and even in adults who are not inclined to think about themselves.

Locke gave the beginning of elementarism:

1) consciousness consists of ideas (an idea is an element of consciousness);

2) ideas can be simple and complex;

3) complex ideas are made up of simple ones.

There are 3 ways to create complex ideas from simple ones:

Compound (summation of primes);

Comparison (a complex idea arises as a relationship between simple ones);

Generalization through abstraction.

Association – a natural connection that arises in the experience of an individual between two contents of consciousness (sensations, ideas, thoughts, feelings), which is expressed in the fact that it appears. in the consciousness of one of the contents entails appearance. etc.

In parallel with the teachings of J. Locke, another movement, close to it, began to develop in science - the associative direction (D. Hartley, D. Hume).

W. Wundt created one of the first programs for the creation of psychology as a separate science. He called consciousness the subject of psychology, which was understood as “a set of conscious states.”

<= Модель сознания

Properties of consciousness according to Wundt:

1. Consciousness consists of elements. There are 2 types of such elements:

Objective - sensations - a reflection of a separate property of an object;

Subjective - simple feelings that can be combined into complex ones.

Objective sensations are characterized by: quality, intensity, duration in time and spatial extent (no auditory sensations). When objective elements are combined, an image is obtained.

Subjective, i.e. feelings represent 3 pairs: satisfaction/dissatisfaction, excitement/calm, tension/release. Any emotional state can be decomposed along the described axes or assembled from three simple elements.

2. Consciousness is rhythmic in nature (perception of the alternation of metronome beats): individual elements of consciousness tend to form groups of elements interconnected. Due to grouping, the volume of attention and consciousness can increase.

3. Volume of consciousness = 7 + 2 elements (if they are organized, then the volume of consciousness expands to 40, i.e. attention span = 7 + 2 elements, volume of consciousness – 16-40 elements);

Laws of connection between elements of consciousness. The connection between the elements of consciousness is carried out using associations . Memory – establishment of associations. The emergence of a single experience from individual components of consciousness explains theory of apperception .

Basic processes of consciousness:

Perception is the process of any content entering the field of consciousness,

Apperception is the concentration of consciousness (attention) on any content, i.e. the content falls into the realm of clear consciousness.

Dynamics of apperception and perception: if perception is connected with apperception, then there may be a receipt of more (the whole), if there is no such connection, then the percept can be pushed beyond the threshold of consciousness.

Plato seeks to develop Socratic ideas. In his reflections, he goes beyond the boundaries of the human personality. He wonders what, in fact, is the whole collection of phenomena called “the world.” Continuous movement, continuous change of disparate, unconnected things, where there is neither permanent nor eternal, there is no being, but only becoming. But reality must exist somewhere, and it is impossible to mistake everything for an illusion. Finding this reality is the main task of Platonic philosophy, and the answer to it is the doctrine of ideas.

An idea is being, a living embodiment, of all generic and specific characteristics of things - the embodiment is not abstract and subjective, but concrete and objective. The idea has a real existence, separate from things and independent of our thought. It is the quintessence of all things belonging to the same homogeneous group. The idea in relation to things plays the same role as the concept of the artist plays in relation to his works. Ideas are types, or prototypes, according to which the things of the sensory world are created. They are not realities among others, but realities par excellence - the only and absolute ones. Things do not have any real existence; like a reflection in a mirror. They are incorrect, unclear photographs that have an existence, and even then a ghostly one, only thanks to ideas. The universe therefore breaks up into two worlds: the real world of ideas, and the illusory world of things. In the first - originals, in the second - similarities; in the first - being, in the second - becoming. Ideas live in the superstellar sphere, making up a special world. Pure, without color, without form, without extension, they sit there like a deity, shining with eternal beauty and truth, inaccessible to anyone except the Immortal Mind.

When an idea is realized, it inevitably becomes distorted. Matter is imperfect and cannot fully convey the beauty of an idea. Therefore, for example, friendship is better than love, because the latter through physical manifestation is desecrated and degraded.

Plato's teaching about the soul and the mind as its highest element

Human souls, according to Plato, before being embodied in mortal shells, lived there, in the heavenly abodes, contemplating these sacred ideas, being saturated with their light and forming precise concepts about truth and being. The soul consists of three elements: reason, will, and the desirable part.

Note: I copied the last sentence entirely from Kanke’s textbook. In the process of writing the essay, I still did not understand for myself what was meant here. Without knowing the Greek language, you have to trust translators and interpreters. In other books, the word “will” is translated as “spirit,” “courage,” and even “passion.” Mutually exclusive interpretations! I think that Plato knew what he was talking about, and I really want to eventually find adequate words for translation. Many thinkers talk about the three-component nature of the soul. Maxim the Confessor: mind, reason, vitality. Theophan the Recluse: spirit, soul, feelings and sensations. Freud: superego (controlling structure), self (consciousness), id (subconscious, illicit desires). Our psychology teacher: cognitive part, emotional, volitional. I think they are all right, each from their own point of view. It seems to me that the definition that is most comprehensive and corresponds to the modern level of knowledge is given by Alice A. Bailey, which will be discussed below.

Of the three parts of the soul, only the mind, which cognizes ideas, is immortal. Plato poetically depicted the soul in the form of a charioteer and two winged horses harnessed to a chariot. For the gods, the driver and horses are noble and immortal. People have only a driver, horses of low origin and unclean blood. It takes a lot of effort to control these horses. Woe to the charioteer who cannot cope with them: the Chariot will fall from the heavenly stronghold and the soul, having lost its wings, will be forced to enter the corporeal shell. Its fate is sad and difficult, but that soul that is gifted with a living aspiration to heaven can enter the shell of a philosopher, and then its earthly wandering ends sooner.

Hence the meaning of virtue. Virtue is knowledge, and for each part of the soul there is its own special kind of virtue. The cognitive part - the mind - must strive for truth, beauty and goodness, therefore knowledge of them, or wisdom, is the virtue of the mind. The will must help the mind, without fear and without stopping at anything. The virtue of the sensual part of the soul should be moderation and self-control, so it can contribute to the other parts of the soul in their pursuit of ideals. “Love is a kind of attraction. Attraction is unreasonable and can become unbridled. A person who obeys desire is a slave to pleasure.” (Phaedrus).

Thus, the mind, according to its measure of knowledge, must control the life of the soul and its manifestations: emotions, desires, actions.

Note: I think that all Greek philosophers of the first centuries were to some extent followers of Plato, in any case, they used similar terminology. Therefore, in order to understand the teachings of Plato, I took the book of John of Damascus, “An Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.” The translation was made by an authoritative team of scientists under the leadership of Professor A.I. Sidorov, the same one who translated Maximus the Confessor and Basil the Great. In John of Damascus we read: “You need to know that the rational principle of the soul rules over the unreasonable. For the powers of the soul are divided into the rational and the unreasonable. But the irrational principle of the soul has two parts: one is disobedient to reason, that is, it does not obey reason (vital force: the force of the heartbeat, the force of growth, the force of seed, etc.), the other obeys reason and is divided into anger and lust. This part of the soul is called the passionate and lustful principle.”

According to Plato, individual things are comprehended through the senses, but the mind comprehends not individual things, but essences, which means these essences are ideas that form the basis of things.

Consideration of an idea as a real being and as a concept about the essence of an object makes it possible to answer the question about the process of cognition and its essence. Plato believes that knowledge cannot be reduced either to sensation, or to correct opinion, or to the combination of correct opinion with meaning. True knowledge is knowledge that penetrates into the world of ideas. Knowledge, therefore, belongs to the world of ideas - “true” being is the subject of true knowledge. Opinions relate to the world of sensory things, since sensory individual things are changeable and are therefore the subject of opinion, not knowledge. Sensory knowledge cannot be genuine knowledge, since it is nothing without understanding, just as, for example, we do not understand foreign speech, although we hear.

In Plato's theory of knowledge, his concept of memory plays an important role. In his opinion, the soul recalls ideas that it knew during that period of its existence when it had not yet united with the body. The more the soul has been in the next world, the more ideas it remembers, and therefore Plato advised, in order to know the truth, to “close your eyes and plug your ears” and trust your soul, which remembers your divine past.

The paradox of knowledge - if you know something, then why do you need to know it? If you don't know anything, how will you find what to look for?

Thus, Plato's theory of knowledge is anamnesis- theory of recollection.

In support of his theory of memory, in the dialogue “Meno,” Plato cites a conversation between Socrates and a young man who had never studied mathematics before, but after correctly asking questions, came to his own formulation of the Pythagorean theorem.

Thus, in the theory of knowledge, Plato clearly distinguished between knowledge and opinion; this distinction was of great importance to him. The first relates to knowledge of ideas, the second is associated with the sensory world. Knowledge leads to absolute truth; opinion concerns only the external side of things.

Plato calls everything stated above dialectics, by which he understands logic, the doctrine of knowledge, the doctrine of method, the doctrine of being, ideas and their kinds, as well as rational knowledge of these truly existing kinds of real being.

Plato's dialectic is based on the ascent and descent of ideas. The ascent goes from human opinion and sensory things to the general concept - the idea, and the descent, on the contrary, from the general to the particular.

Plato's cosmology

In his philosophical teaching, Plato identifies a “triad”. Everything that exists is made up of three substances: “one”, “mind”, “soul”.

The world of ideas and the natural world are embraced by a single and divine purposeful principle. “The One” is the basis of all being, has no signs (no beginning, no end, no parts, no integrity, no form, no content, etc. The One is above all being, above all thinking, above all sensation, It is the beginning of everything - both ideas and things, phenomena and properties (both everything good from the point of view of man, and everything bad).The One is nothing.

The cosmos has a spherical shape, it was created and finite. Demiurge(creator, divine mind) gave the world a certain order. "Mind" comes from the "one", is divided with it and is opposed to it. Mind is the essence of all things and is the generalization of all life on Earth.

The world is a living being, it has a soul that is not located in itself, but surrounds the entire world, consisting of the elements of earth, water, fire and air. “The soul rules everything that is in heaven, on earth and in the sea with the help of its own movements” (Laws. 896e). “Soul” is a mobile substance that unites and connects “one - nothing” and “mind - all living things”, and also connects all things and all phenomena with each other. The world soul is dominated by numerical relations and harmony. Moreover, the world soul also has knowledge. The world forms a series of circles: the circle of fixed stars, the circle of planets. So, the structure of the world is as follows: the divine mind (demiurge), the world soul and the world body (cosmos). Living beings are created by God. God, according to Plato, creates souls, which, after the death of the body where they live, move into other bodies. Thus, according to Plato, the soul can be the world soul and the soul of an individual person.

The doctrine of the soul.

Plato's epistemological and ontological views are closely related to his understanding of the soul, which seems to him immaterial, immortal and existing forever. The human soul is part of the world soul. She is the cause of herself. All foreknowledge is contained in it. Foreknowledge is knowledge about the essence of things. As already mentioned, the soul is imprisoned in our body, but is capable of reincarnation (metapsychosis). It has a hierarchy and is divided into three levels or parts: the rational divine soul is immortal; the bodily part is mortal; the lustful part of the soul is black.

Plato's theory of the state.

A large place in Plato’s philosophical worldview is occupied by his views on society and the state. Plato can be considered one of the first ancient Greek philosophers to present his understanding of the state in a systematic form. Plato's focus is not on abstract natural philosophical propositions about the principles of nature, but on human problems. Plato devotes two of his largest works to socio-political issues - “The State” and “Laws”. These questions are also addressed in the dialogues "Politician" and "Crito".

Plato draws an ideal type of state that supposedly existed in ancient times: people were born from the earth, did not need a home, and were engaged in philosophy. Then the need for struggle and self-preservation arose. The ideal time is becoming a thing of the past. A state emerges - a joint settlement. It arises as a result of the diversity of human needs and the resulting social division of labor.

Plato contrasted this ideal type with a negative type of state, which, in his opinion, can exist in four forms: timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, tyranny. Timocracy is a form of government in which power is held by the ambitious and the passion for wealth flourishes, while the lifestyle becomes luxurious. After timocracy comes oligarchy, in which power is vested in the few who dominate the many. It is in the hands of the rich, who gradually waste their property, turning into poor people and completely useless members of society. Oligarchy in its development leads to democracy, in which power is in the hands of the majority, but the opposition between rich and poor becomes even more acute. Democracy arises from the revolt of the poor against the rich, with the rich being destroyed or driven out and power distributed among the remaining members of society. Democracy is followed by tyranny, which is the result of the degeneration of democracy. According to Plato, an excess of something leads to its opposite. Therefore, an excess of freedom, as Plato believes, leads to slavery; tyranny is born from democracy as the highest freedom. First, when tyranny is established, the tyrant “smiles and hugs everyone he meets, does not call himself a tyrant, promises a lot in particular and in general, frees people from debts, distributes lands to the people and those close to him, and pretends to be merciful and meek towards everyone.” (State. VIII. 566). Gradually, the tyrant destroys all his opponents, “until he has neither friends nor enemies left from whom any benefit could be expected” (Ibid. 567b).

In contrast to all negative forms of the state, Plato puts forward his project of an ideal state, which was the first social utopia in the history of society. This ideal state, according to Plato, should be based on the principle of justice. Based on justice, each citizen in this state must occupy his own special position in accordance with the division of labor, although the difference between individual groups of people in Plato is determined by moral inclinations. The lowest social class consists of producers - these are farmers, artisans, merchants, then there are warrior-guards and rulers-philosophers.

The lower social class, according to Plato, also has a lower moral character. These three classes correspond to the three parts of the soul that were mentioned earlier. Rulers are characterized by the rational part of the soul, warriors are characterized by will and noble passion, producers are characterized by sensuality and drive. Thus, Plato places the moral qualities of warriors and rulers above the moral qualities of producers.

An ideal state system, according to Plato, has the features of a moral and political organization and is aimed at solving important state problems. He includes the following tasks among them: protecting the state from enemies, systematically supplying citizens, developing the spiritual culture of society. According to Plato, the fulfillment of these tasks consists in the implementation of the idea of ​​good as an idea that rules the world.

An ideal, and thereby good, state has the following four virtues, three of which are inherent in the three classes of society, respectively, namely: wisdom is inherent in rulers and philosophers, courage in warriors and guards, moderation in productive workers. The fourth virtue is characteristic of the entire state and is expressed in the fact that “everyone does his own thing.” Plato believes that “doing a lot,” that is, the desire to engage in activities that are not typical of one’s class, causes enormous damage to the state. Plato considers an aristocratic republic to be the best form of government. The work of slaves, usually barbarians captured, is allowed and welcomed.

A characteristic feature of negative types of state, according to Plato, is the presence of material interests. Therefore, Plato brings to the fore in his ideal state a moral principle, which should be expressed in the correct lifestyle of all citizens of this society. In Plato's project of an ideal state, the life of its citizens is largely regulated. For the upper classes, Plato does not allow private property; it is possible only for the lower, productive class. They live together, the state supports them.

For the upper classes, Plato also does not allow the existence of a family. He believes that marriages are possible only under state supervision and only for the birth of children. Children are taken away from their parents and raised in special institutions. Boys and girls receive the same education, since, according to Plato, a woman is fully capable of performing the same social functions as a man. Plato's social utopia, aimed at making the entire state happy, ultimately sacrifices the individual. The state is happy as a whole, and not in individual parts. According to Plato, the ideal state consists of people who perform their social functions without taking into account their personal interests and needs. Thus, the cohesion of the state is ensured through severe restrictions and impoverishment of people’s personal lives, and the complete subordination of the individual to the state.

Plato envisaged a strict ideological dictatorship of the authorities. “Godlessness” was punishable by death. All art was subject to strict censorship, which examined each work from the point of view of whether it was aimed at promoting moral excellence in the interests of the state.

“The most important thing here is the following,” writes Plato, “no one should ever be left without a boss - neither man nor woman. Neither in serious studies nor in games should anyone accustom themselves to act at their own discretion...

One must rule over others and oneself be under their command" (Laws. XII. 942a, c).

Plato's state is a theoretical scheme of a utopian state in which the life of society is subject to strict state control.

Conclusions:

* for the first time left a collection of fundamental works;

* laid the foundation for idealism as a major philosophical trend (the so-called “Plato’s line” - the opposite of the materialistic “Democritus’ line”);

* for the first time, the problems of not only nature, but also society - the state, laws, etc. - were deeply studied;

* laid the foundations of conceptual thinking, made an attempt to identify philosophical categories (being - becoming, eternal - temporary, stationary - moving, indivisible - divisible, etc.);

* created a philosophical school (Academy), which existed for about 1000 years.

The main tenets of his idealistic teaching are the following:

* material things are changeable, impermanent and cease to exist over time;

* the surrounding world (“the world of things”) is also temporary and changeable and in reality does not exist as an independent substance, but is only a reflection of pure ideas, and a thing is a material reflection of the original idea (eidos) of a given thing.

* in reality there are only pure (incorporeal) ideas (eidos), which are true, eternal and permanent;

In matters of epistemology (the study of knowledge), Plato proceeds from the idealistic picture of the world he created:

* there is no point in knowing the world of sensory things, since it is constantly changing;

* since the material world is just a reflection of the “world of ideas”, then the subject of knowledge should be, first of all, “pure ideas”, the world of ideas;

* “pure ideas” cannot be known with the help of sensory knowledge (this type of knowledge does not provide reliable knowledge, but only opinion - “doxa”), they can only be known by reason;

* only prepared people can engage in higher spiritual activity - educated intellectuals, philosophers, therefore, only they are able to see and realize “pure ideas”.

* cognition is the process of recollection by the soul of what it saw in the world of ideas before it entered the human body.

Plato was the first in the history of philosophy to explicitly raise the question of the relationship of spirit to matter and consider it from different positions. He believed that first there must arise something that moves itself. And this is nothing more than the soul, the mind.

* distinguishes between the soul of the world and the soul of an individual person

* the soul of a person (thing) is part of the world soul;

* the soul is immortal;

* when a person dies, only the body dies, but the soul, having responded in the underworld for its earthly actions, acquires a new bodily shell;

* constancy of the soul and change of bodily forms is a natural law of the Cosmos.

Plato puts forward his own plan for government, according to which:

* the entire population of the state (policy) is divided into three classes - philosophers, warriors, workers;

* workers (peasants and artisans) engage in rough physical labor, create material wealth, and can own private property to a limited extent;

* warriors engage in physical exercise, train, maintain order in the state, and, if necessary, participate in military operations;

* philosophers (sages) - develop philosophical theories, understand the world, teach, govern the state;

* philosophers and warriors should not have private property;

* residents of the state spend their free time together, eat together (have meals), relax together;

* there is no marriage, all wives and children are common;

Origin of consciousness
Democritus spoke about social need, i.e. about people's need to survive.
French materialists of the 18th century: consciousness is the result of the evolution of nature.
Hegel: consciousness arises in the course of human activity through their appropriation of the “absolute idea.”
Engels created the theory of anthropogenesis:
a) biological prerequisites for the emergence of consciousness
b) labor
c) speech
d) language, etc.

Functions of consciousness
1. Cognitive
2. Goal-setting
3. Regulatory

3. Consciousness and matter

Brain activity is the physiological basis of consciousness. The left hemisphere is responsible for rational thinking, the right hemisphere is responsible for imaginative perception of the world.
the brain of a newborn is 350 grams, an adult’s is 1300-1400, some have 2 kg. The brain contains 40-50 billion cells.
But it is not the brain that thinks, but man with the help of the brain.
Consciousness is a reflection.
Matter is an objective reality.