Modern problems of human philosophy. Human

Topic: "Man and the world - the main theme of philosophical reflections."

Philosophy occupies an important place in the system of extremely diverse knowledge about the world around us. Having originated in ancient times, it has gone through a centuries-old path of development, during which a variety of philosophical schools and currents arose and existed.

The word "philosophy" is of Greek origin and literally means "love of wisdom". Philosophy is a system of views on the reality around us, a system of the most general concepts about the world and the place of man in it. Since its inception, it has sought to find out what the world is like as a whole, to understand the nature of man himself, to determine what place he occupies in society, whether his mind can penetrate the secrets of the universe, to know and turn the powerful forces of nature for the benefit of people. Philosophy thus poses the most general and at the same time very important, fundamental questions that determine a person's approach to the most diverse areas of life and knowledge. To all these questions, philosophers gave very different, and even mutually exclusive answers.

The struggle between materialism and idealism, the formation and development in this struggle of a progressive, materialistic line, is the law of the entire centuries-old development of philosophy. The struggle of materialism against idealism expressed the struggle of the progressive classes of society against the reactionary classes. In ancient times, philosophy existed in China and India. In the VMM-VM centuries. BC. philosophy arose in ancient Greece, where it reached a high level of development. In the Middle Ages, philosophy as an independent science did not exist; it was part of theology. The 15th-15th centuries mark the beginning of a decisive turn from medieval scholasticism to experimental research. The growth of capitalist relations, industry and trade, the great geographical and astronomical discoveries and achievements in other areas of natural science led to the emergence of a new worldview based on experimental knowledge. Thanks to the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, Giordano Bruno, science has taken a huge step forward.

The path of philosophical understanding of the world is very complicated. Cognition always includes particles of fantasy.

World and Man. The fundamental question of philosophy.

The world is one and diverse – there is nothing in the world but moving matter. There is no other world but the world of infinite matter moving in time and space. The material world, nature is an infinite variety of objects, bodies, phenomena and processes. This is inorganic nature, the organic world, society in all their inexhaustible richness and diversity. The diversity of the world lies in the qualitative difference between material things and processes, in the variety of forms of motion of matter. At the same time, the qualitative diversity of the world, the diversity of forms of material movement exists in unity. The real unity of the world consists in its materiality. The unity of the world and its diversity are in a dialectical relationship, they are internally and inextricably linked, a single matter does not exist otherwise than in qualitatively diverse forms, the entire diversity of the world is the diversity of forms of a single matter, a single material world. All the data of science and practice convincingly confirm the unity of the material world.

Philosophy is a theoretically formulated worldview. This is a system of the most general views on the world, a person's place in it, an understanding of the various forms of a person's relationship to the world. Philosophy differs from other forms of worldview not so much in its subject matter, but in the way it is comprehended, the degree of intellectual development of problems and methods of approaching them. Therefore, when defining philosophy, the concepts of a theoretical worldview and a system of views are used.

In the worldview there are always two opposite angles of view: the direction of consciousness "outside" - the formation of a picture of the world, the universe, and, on the other hand, its appeal "inside" - to the person himself, the desire to understand his essence, place, purpose in the natural and social world. A person is distinguished by the ability to think, to know, to love and hate, to rejoice and grieve, to hope, to desire, to feel a sense of duty, pangs of conscience, etc. The various relationships of these angles of vision permeate the whole of philosophy.

The philosophical worldview is, as it were, bipolar: its semantic “nodes” are the world and man. What is essential for philosophical thinking is not a separate consideration of these opposites, but their constant correlation. Various problems of the philosophical worldview are aimed at understanding the forms of their interaction, at understanding the relationship of man to the world.

This big multifaceted problem “the world is a person”, in fact, acts as a universal one and can be considered as a general formula, an abstract expression of almost any philosophical problem. That is why it can, in a certain sense, be called the fundamental question of philosophy.

Central to the clash of philosophical views is the question of the relation of consciousness to being, or, in other words, of the relation of the ideal to the material. When we talk about consciousness, ideal, we mean nothing but our thoughts, experiences, feelings. When it comes to being, material, then this includes everything that exists objectively, independently of our consciousness, i.e. things and objects of the external world, phenomena and processes occurring in nature and society. In philosophical understanding, ideal (consciousness) and material (being) are the broadest scientific concepts (categories) that reflect the most general and at the same time opposite properties of objects, phenomena and processes of the world.

The question of the relationship between consciousness and being, spirit and nature is the main question of philosophy. From the solution of this issue, ultimately, depends the interpretation of all other problems that determine the philosophical outlook on nature, society, and, therefore, on man himself.

When considering the fundamental question of philosophy, it is very important to distinguish between its two sides. First, what is primary - ideal or material? This or that answer to this question plays the most important role in philosophy, because to be primary means to exist before the secondary, to precede it, ultimately, to determine it. Secondly, can a person cognize the world around him, the laws of development of nature and society? The essence of this side of the main question of philosophy is to clarify the ability of human thinking to correctly reflect objective reality.

Solving the main question, philosophers were divided into two large camps, depending on what they take as the source - material or ideal. Those philosophers who recognize matter, being, nature as primary, and consciousness, thinking, spirit as secondary, represent a philosophical direction called materialistic. In philosophy, there is also an idealistic direction opposite to the materialistic one. Philosophers-idealists recognize the beginning of all existing consciousness, thinking, spirit, i.e. perfect. There is another solution to the main question of philosophy - dualism, which believes that the material and spiritual sides exist separately from one another as independent entities.

The question of the relationship of thinking to being has another side - the question of the cognizability of the world: can a person cognize the world around him? Idealistic philosophy, as a rule, denies the possibility of knowing the world.

The first question with which philosophical knowledge began: what is the world in which we live? In essence, it is equivalent to the question: what do we know about the world? Philosophy is not the only area of knowledge designed to answer this question. Over the centuries, its solution has included ever new areas of special scientific knowledge and practice. At the same time, special cognitive functions fell to the lot of philosophy. In different historical epochs, they took on a different form, but still some stable common features were preserved.

The formation of philosophy, along with the emergence of mathematics, marked the birth of a completely new phenomenon in ancient Greek culture - the first mature forms of theoretical thinking. Some other areas of knowledge reached theoretical maturity much later and, moreover, at different times.

Philosophical knowledge of the world had its own requirements. Unlike other types of theoretical knowledge (in mathematics, natural science), philosophy acts as a universal theoretical knowledge. According to Aristotle, the special sciences are engaged in the study of specific types of being, philosophy takes upon itself the knowledge of the most general principles, the beginnings of all things.

In cognition of the world, philosophers of different eras turned to solving such problems that either temporarily, in a certain historical period, or fundamentally, forever, were outside the field of understanding, the competence of individual sciences.

It can be seen that in all philosophical questions there is a correlation "the world - man". It is difficult to answer questions related to the problem of the cognizability of the world in a straightforward manner - such is the nature of philosophy.

Man's relation to the world as a subject of philosophy.

Philosophy as a historical type of worldview appears last, after mythology and religion. Philosophy solves the main question of the worldview (about the relation of a person to the world) in a theoretical form (ie, the theoretical justification of the worldview). This means that a new type of rationality has emerged that does not require a human or supernatural component. Philosophy is interested in the objectively existing world itself without the human role in it.

In the philosophical worldview there are always two opposite angles of view: 1) the direction of consciousness "outside" - the formation of one or another picture of the world, the universe; and 2) his appeal "inside" - to the man himself, the desire to understand his essence, his place in the natural and social world. Moreover, a person here appears not as a part of the world in a number of other things, but as a being of a special kind (by the definition of R. Descartes, a thing that thinks, suffers, etc.). It is distinguished from everything else by the ability to think, to know, to love and hate, to rejoice and grieve, and so on. The "poles" that create the "field of tension" of philosophical thought are the "external" world in relation to human consciousness and the "inner" world - psychological, spiritual life. The various correlations of these "worlds" permeate the whole of philosophy.

The philosophical outlook is, as it were, bipolar: its semantic "nodes" are the world and man. What is essential for philosophical thought is not a separate consideration of these poles, but their constant correlation. Unlike other forms of worldview in the philosophical worldview, such a polarity is theoretically pointed, it appears most clearly, and forms the basis of all reflections. Various problems of the philosophical worldview, located in the "field of force" between these poles, are "charged", aimed at understanding the forms of their interaction, at understanding the relationship of man to the world.

The problem of "the world - man", in fact, acts as a universal one and can be considered as an abstract expression of almost any philosophical problem. That is why it can, in a certain sense, be called the fundamental question of philosophy.

The main question of philosophy captures the ontological and epistemological relationship of matter and consciousness. This question is fundamental because without it there can be no philosophizing. Other problems become philosophical only because they can be viewed through the prism of man's ontological and epistemological relationship to being. This question is also the main one because, depending on the answer to its ontological part, two main, fundamentally different universal orientations in the world are formed: materialism and idealism. The main question of philosophy, as noted in the literature, is not only a “litmus paper” with which one can distinguish scientific materialism from idealism and agnosticism; it becomes at the same time a means of orienting man in the world. The study of the relationship between being and consciousness is a condition without which a person will not be able to develop his attitude to the world, will not be able to navigate in it.

A characteristic feature of philosophical problems is their eternity. This means that philosophy deals with problems that at all times retain their significance. Human thought constantly rethinks them in the light of new experience. These are the following philosophical questions: 1) about the relationship between spirit and matter (spirit is primary for idealists, matter for materialists); 2) the cognizability of the world (epistemological optimists believe that the world is cognizable, objective truth is accessible to the human mind; agnostics believe that the world of essences is fundamentally unknowable; skeptics believe that the world is not cognizable, and if we are cognizable, then not completely); 3) the question of the origins of being (monism - either matter or spirit; dualism - both; pluralism - being has many bases).

Man and the world in the philosophy and culture of the Ancient East.

Middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. - that milestone in the history of the development of mankind, at which philosophy practically simultaneously arises in the three centers of ancient civilization - China, India and Greece. The commonality of the genesis does not exclude the ways of forming a systematized philosophical knowledge in various centers of ancient civilization. In India, this path ran through opposition to Brahmanism, which assimilated tribal beliefs and customs, preserved a significant part of the Vedic ritual, recorded in the four Samhitas, or Vedas (“Veda” - knowledge), collections of hymns in honor of the gods. Each Veda was later overgrown with brahmana (commentary), and even later with aranyakas ("forest books" intended for hermits) and, finally, upanishads ("sitting at the teacher's feet"). The first evidence of an independent systematic exposition of Indian philosophy was the sutras (sayings, aphorisms), VII-VI century BC. e. Until modern times, Indian philosophy has practically developed exclusively in line with the six classical darshan systems (Vedanta, Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimansa), oriented towards the authority of the Vedas, and unorthodox currents: Lokayata, Jainism, Buddhism.

The Vedantists defended the monistic model of the world, according to which Brahman is the ideal One, the cause of the world.

Sanhyaikas and yogis tended towards dualism: they recognized the unmanifested prakriti, possessing undefinable guna elements.

The Lokayatikas or Charvakas - Indian materialists - argued that four "great essences" are inherent in the beginning: earth, water, air and fire.

Representatives of the Nyayas and especially the Vaisheshikas were among the ancient atomists (atoms create a moral image of the world, realizing the moral law of dharma).

The position of Buddhism was in the middle in the sense that, according to it, the universe was presented as an endless process of separate elements of matter and spirit, appearing and disappearing, without real personalities and without permanent substance. In many ways, the formation of ancient Chinese philosophy was similar. If in India numerous philosophical schools were in one way or another connected with Vedism, then in China - with Confucian orthodoxy (rival schools of Taoism, Mohism and Legalism). Ancient myths describe the origin of the cosmos in no other way than by analogy with biological birth. The Indians had a marriage combination of heaven and earth. In the imagination of the Chinese, two spirits were born from the formless darkness, ordering the world: the masculine yang spirit began to rule the sky, and the feminine yin - the earth. Gradually, the ordering of chaos and the organization of the universe begin to be attributed to the “first man”. In Vedic myths, this is the thousand-headed, thousand-armed Purusha. The mind or spirit of which gave birth to the moon, eyes - the sun, mouth - fire, breath - wind. Purusha is not only a model of society, but also of a human community with the earliest social hierarchy, manifested in the division into "varnas"; From the mouth of the Purusha came the priests (Brahmins), from the hands - the warriors, from the thighs - the merchants, from the feet all the rest (Shudras). Similarly, in Chinese mythology, the origin is associated with the supernatural man Pansu. Turning to the rational comprehension of the causality of the world in various manifestations of its constancy and variability, a person had to see his place in a new way, the purpose in which it also reflects the specifics of the social structure of ancient Asian society: centralized despotism and the rural community. In China, a single "great beginning" is deified in the Sky - "Tian". In the Shi Jing (Canon of Poems), Heaven is the universal progenitor and great ruler: it gives birth to the human race and gives the rule of life: the sovereign must be the sovereign, the dignitary-dignitary, the father-father ... Confucianism, which laid the ideological foundation of Chinese society from ancient times, put forward as a cornerstone of social organization - whether - norm, rule, ceremonial. Li assumed the maintenance of forever rank-hierarchical differences. In India, Brahma, who forms the real and unreal, is not only the "eternal creator" of beings, but also determines for all the names, type of activity (karma) and a special position. He is credited with the establishment of caste division ("Laws of Manu"), the highest position in which is occupied by the Brahmins. In ancient China, next to the ethical concept of Confucianism, focused on maintaining the harmony of man with society, there was a Taoist “exit” beyond the boundaries of society into space, to feel oneself not as a cog in a powerful state mechanism, but as a microcosm. The caste system in ancient India rigidly determined a person, leaving no hope for the possibility of getting rid of suffering in a different way than the path of rebirth. Hence the path of asceticism and mystical search in the Blagavad Gita, developed even more in Buddhism. Climbing along the path of human perfection in Buddhism ends with the state of nirvana (an indefinite ultimate goal - nirvana - a huge meaning, there is no end to perfection). The fluctuation between two extremes: the justification of the social status of morality by belittling the real individual, or the assertion of a specific individual by ignoring the social essence of morality was a universal characteristic of the ancient era. However, the peculiarities of the social life of the ancient Asian society had an unfavorable effect on the development of individual freedom. This, in turn, determined the further development of philosophical thought, which for centuries remained in the closed space of traditional mental structures, was mainly occupied with commenting and interpretation.

The problem of man in modern philosophy.

It reflected the complexity and depth of the human problem. Knowing himself, man gains freedom; before him the secrets of the Universe are revealed, and he becomes on a par with the Gods. But this has not happened yet, despite the fact that thousands of years of history have passed. Man was and remains a mystery to himself. There are grounds for asserting that the problem of man, like any truly philosophical problem, is an open and unfinished problem that we only need to solve, but do not need to solve completely. Kantian question: "What is a man?" remains relevant.

In the history of philosophical thought, various human problems are known for research. Some philosophers tried (and are trying now) to discover some unchanging nature of man (his essence). At the same time, they proceed from the idea that such knowledge will make it possible to explain the origin of people's thoughts and actions and thereby indicate to them the "formula of happiness." But among these philosophers there is no unity, for each of them sees as an essence what the other does not see, and thus complete discord reigns here. Suffice it to say that in the Middle Ages the essence of man was seen in his soul turned to God; in the epoch of modern times, B. Pascal defined a person as a "thinking reed"; Enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century saw the essence of man in his mind; L. Feuerbach pointed to a religion based on love; K. Marx defined a person as a social being - a product of social development, etc. Following this path, philosophers discovered more and more facets of human nature, but this did not lead to a clarification of the picture, but rather complicated it.

Another approach to the study of human nature can be conditionally calledhistorical. It is based on the study of the monuments of the material and spiritual culture of the distant past and allows us to imagine a person as a historically developing being from its lower forms to its higher ones, i.e. modern. The stimulus for such a vision of man was given by the theory of evolution of Ch. Darwin. K. Marx occupies a prominent place among the representatives of this approach.

Another approach explains the nature of a person by the influence of cultural factors on him and is called culturological. It is, to one degree or another, characteristic of many philosophers, which will be discussed in our lecture.

A number of researchers note a very important side of human nature, namely, that in the course of historical development, a person carries out self-development, i.e. he "creates" himself (S. Kierkegaard, K. Marx, W. James, A. Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin). He is the creator not only of himself, but also of his own history.

Thus man is historical and transient in time; he is not born "reasonable", but becomes so throughout the life and history of the human race.

There are other approaches, you can read more about them in the work of E. Fromm and R. Hirau "Preface to the anthology" Human Nature "(see the list of references at the end of the lecture).

Before proceeding to the presentation of specific issues, we will make one terminological explanation. We are talking about the fact that the philosophy of man in the special literature is calledphilosophical anthropology(from the Greek anthropos - man and logos - teaching). This term is used in this lecture.

Abstract individual and universal man K. Marx.

In 1844, the most important components were combined in the work of Marx to create a single, integral philosophical and worldview concept. Marx connected the political and economic analysis of reality with the philosophical tradition of the German classics with a critical revision of the theories of utopian socialism and communism. The first attempt to develop a holistic worldview was carried out by Marx mainly by means of philosophical analysis; accordingly, the result was precisely a philosophical concept.

It was created at the same time in the summer of 1844. titled "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844". The main thing in the work is the idea of human alienation in a society dominated by private property and overcoming alienation in the historical perspective of the communist future. Marx considers alienated labor (forced labor) in four aspects. First, the worker uses materials that are ultimately taken from nature and receives as a result of labor the objects, things, products of labor necessary for life.

Neither the source material nor the products belong to the worker - they are alien to him. Nature becomes for the worker only a means of labor, while objects, things that are created in production, become means of life. Secondly, the very process of labor activity is compulsory for the worker. He has no choice: to work for him or not to work, because he cannot otherwise provide the possibility of existence. But such labor "does not satisfy the needs of labor, but only a means to satisfy all other needs ...".

Further, the worker remains subordinate in the process of labor - control, regulation, management do not belong to him. Therefore, not in labor, but only outside labor, the worker is freed, he controls himself. He feels free to carry out the vital functions that man and animals have in common. And labor - a specific human form of life - for the worker, on the contrary, appears to be a humiliation of a person in himself, the use of a person in an animal function, an anti-human occupation. Thirdly, forced labor generally robs the worker of "tribal life."

The human race lives in nature. Man himself is a natural being, his life is inextricably linked with nature. This connection is an active contact with nature, in which the main thing is labor, production, "...productive life is a generic life. This is life that gives birth to life." But for the worker, on the contrary, labor is only a means for maintaining his own individual life, and by no means the life of the "kind."

The worker relates to production and nature not as a free man, but as a worker, i.e. aloof, even hostile. Fourthly, forced labor breeds alienation between people. Workers are alien to each other as they compete for the opportunity to work in order to live; the workers are all the more alien to those who force them to work and take away the product of labor. People living in conditions of alienated labor, alienation, "partial", "abstract" individuals (all these terms were used by Marx to characterize the humiliation and perversion of the "human" principle in people).

Alienated labor is tantamount to the existence of private property. Private property is the basis of economic life, which political economists do not discuss, considering it a "natural prerequisite." Marx's negative philosophical assessment of the "atomic individual" and life reality coincides with Feuerbach's, but Marx harbors no hopes for a purely spiritual, moral upheaval.

Alienation must be overcome at its very foundation - in labor, in productive activity. The reverse process of alienation - the appropriation by a person of his own true human essence Marx connects this process with social transformation, with "general human emancipation", with that liberation, which is based on the destruction of alienated labor. Or, in other words, labor will turn into a means of self-development of a person, into the realization by a person of his best personal aspects: into such free activity, it vaguely resembles children's games or creative professions.

The nature of "appropriation" by a person of his own essence is considered by Marx according to the same parameters as in the process of alienation: a) according to the appropriation of the object of labor and its result; b) appropriation or release of the activity itself; c) by the appropriation by a person of labor of a common "generic essence"; d) to harmonize the relationship of a person with a person, "I" and "You" in the activity itself.

Conclusion.

Philosophy is sometimes understood as some kind of abstract knowledge, extremely remote from the realities of everyday life. Nothing is further from the truth than such a judgment. On the contrary, it is in life that the most serious, deepest problems of philosophy originate, it is precisely here that the main field of its interests lies; everything else, down to the most abstract concepts and categories, down to the most cunning mental constructions, is ultimately nothing more than a means for comprehending the realities of life in their interconnection, in all their fullness, depth and inconsistency. At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that from the point of view of scientific philosophy, understanding reality does not mean simply reconciling and agreeing with it in everything. Philosophy involves a critical attitude to reality, to what is becoming obsolete and obsolete, and at the same time - a search in the very reality, in its contradictions, and not in thinking about it, of the possibilities, means and directions for its change and development. The transformation of reality, practice, is the sphere where only philosophical problems can be resolved, where the reality and power of human thinking are revealed.

An appeal to the history of philosophical thought shows that the theme of man is, firstly, enduring. Secondly, it is comprehended from various worldview positions, due to concrete historical and other reasons. Thirdly, in the history of philosophy, questions about the essence and nature of man, the meaning of his existence, remain unchanged. In essence, the history of anthropology is the history of understanding the process of separating a person from the outside world (antiquity), opposing him (Renaissance) and, finally, merging with him, gaining unity (Russian religious philosophy and other teachings).

The world surrounding a person consists of many different parts, each of which has its own characteristics and is studied by some branch of knowledge, for example. astronomy studies space objects, mathematics is interested in quantitative relations, biology is the sphere of life, etc. However, in order to understand any phenomenon in the world, it is necessary to understand it as part, in relation to other parts of the world, as part of the whole. This means that in addition to individual branches of knowledge (science and art), a person needs a general, holistic view of the world. However, the visible world is diverse, - hence the question arises - why does a multifaceted and multidimensional world, with a careful look, show a certain consistency, integrity? What is behind this integrity? The importance of such a question lies in the fact that without resolving it in a certain way, we will not be able to further confidently explain individual parts of the world by specific sciences. And here it turns out that certain stable principles can be observed behind the variability of the world - laws (laws in physics, mathematics, biology). However, individual laws of specific sciences reveal similar points, which allows us to speak about the existence of certain more general, fundamental and universal laws. This reveals the limit of philosophical knowledge, its attempt to understand the world as one and eternal, despite the apparent diversity and variability. Such an eternal beginning in philosophy is usually called substance (from the Latin Substancia essence). Under substance in philosophy they understand a certain essence, a fundamental principle, something unchanging, existing due to itself and in itself, and not because of another and in another.

However, the question of substance, in addition to the question of the world, includes the question of man as a being different from the world and at the same time being part of it. This is a question of how a person can interact with the world, what are the goals and meaning of his life. Together, both questions are fundamental question of philosophy, which consists of two parts: first side is the question of how to understand the fundamental principle of the world, second side- Is it possible for a person to know the world and what should be the attitude towards it. In the history of philosophy, many answers have been offered to this question, which today can be considered different worldview positions.

In answering the question about the fundamental principle of the world, all thinkers can be conditionally divided into materialists(who considered matter, substance as the fundamental principle of the world) and idealists(who did not deny the fact of the materiality of the world, but believed that the material processes depend on the spiritual, immaterial principle). Both directions have come a long way of historical development and have their own special concepts. Thus, materialism is traditionally divided into spontaneous (thinkers who believed that the basis of the world is one of the four elements - water, air, earth and fire - Thales, Anaximenes, Heraclitus), metaphysical (thinkers who reduced all the diversity of the world to any one of its forms - for example, physical - G. Galileo, F. Bacon, J. La Mettrie), and dialectical (thinkers who understood the world as a complex interweaving of various forms of living and non-living, but having substance at the core - K. Marx, F. Engels). Idealism is also divided into objective (thinkers who believed that the fundamental principle of the world was an independent ideal principle - God, the Absolute Spirit - Augustine the Blessed, Thomas Aquinas, Hegel, E. Gilson), and subjective (thinkers who argued the dependence of the world on the characteristics of human consciousness - J. Berkeley, D. Hume).

Another form of answer to the question about the beginning of the world is the question of the composition of the substance: does the beginning of the world come from a single source or are there several given sources? According to the nature of the answers to this question, all philosophical teachings are traditionally divided into monistic (monism) proceeding from the recognition of one principle of the world, dualistic (dualism) proceeding from the recognition of the two principles of the world, or pluralistic (pluralism) proceeding from the recognition of the plurality of the beginnings of the world.

The second side of the main question of philosophy - is it possible for a person to know the world, and if possible, in what form - also has several points of view (this side of the main question of philosophy is also called the problem of the relationship between being and thinking, being and consciousness). The philosophical doctrine that believes that the world is in principle knowable is called optimism(Hegel, K. Marx, K.R. Popper). The totality of doctrines that affirm the fundamental unknowability of the world is called agnosticism(I. Kant), but those who affirmed relative knowability with the subsequent possibility of a complete denial of the known - skepticism(Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus, D. Hume). Another side of the second part of the main question of philosophy is the problem of the method of cognition of the world by man. In this regard, it is customary to distinguish 3 main currents of thought - empiricism, rationalism, irrationalism. Supporters empiricism(from Latin Empirio - experience) believe that feelings are the fundamental source of our knowledge about the world, which means that the leading method of cognition is observation, experiment and experience (F. Bacon, T. Hobbes, J. Locke). Supporters rationalism(from Lat. Ratio - mind) consider the main source of our knowledge about the world to be the mind, human thinking, linking disparate sensory sensations into a single understanding of the world (R. Descartes, B. Spinoza, I. Kant). Representatives irrationalism believed that the possibilities of the mind in cognition are limited, since the world is based on something illogical in general, and does not obey the laws of the mind (A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche).

Against the background of spontaneously emerging (everyday, mythological) forms of worldview, philosophy appeared as a specially developed doctrine of wisdom. Unlike mythological and religious traditions, philosophical thought has chosen as its guideline not blind, dogmatic faith, not supernatural explanations, but free, critical reflection on the principles of reason about the world and human life.

In worldviews, there are always two opposite angles of view: the direction of consciousness "outside" - the formation of a picture of the world, the universe, and, on the other hand, its appeal "inside" - to the person himself, the desire to understand his essence, place, purpose in the natural and social world. A person is distinguished by the ability to think, to know, to love and hate, to rejoice and grieve, to hope, to desire, to feel a sense of duty, pangs of conscience, etc. The various relationships of these angles of vision permeate the whole of philosophy.

Take, for example, the issue of human freedom. At first glance, it only applies to humans. But it also presupposes an understanding of natural processes and the realities of social life that do not depend on human will, with which people cannot but reckon. The philosophical worldview is, as it were, bipolar: its semantic “nodes” are the world and man. What is essential for philosophical thinking is not a separate consideration of these opposites, but their constant correlation. Various problems of the philosophical worldview are aimed at understanding the forms of their interaction, at understanding the relationship of man to the world.

Question number 20. Values and meaning of life.

Axiology is the science of values.

The German philosopher R. G. Lotze introduced the very concept of “value”. G. Rickert believed that objective reality is disordered, a person cognizes and arranges this chaos through the correlation of two objects as cause and effect. W. Windelband interpreted philosophy as the science of values. V. Dilthey developed the method of understanding as a method of "empathy", "getting used to" the culture of past eras. This means that the historian must present the values and feelings of people from the past era as his own. For example, the main value of the people of a primitive society is the moral authority and respect from relatives, the main value of the people of a slave-owning society is military power, the main value of the people of a feudal society is administrative power and noble honor, the main value of a capitalist society is the money for which you can buy almost everything today. From today's standpoint, it is difficult to understand the behavior of Pushkin, who challenged Dantes to a duel because of the latter's attempts to court Pushkin's wife. But, according to the ideas of the Russian society of the 19th century about values, d'Anthes affected Pushkin's noble honor, so Pushkin was obliged to challenge d'Anthes to a duel, otherwise Pushkin risked losing his honor, and not a single noble would shake hands with him. M. Weber founded "understanding sociology". He wrote that man is doomed to choose between duty and conviction. For example, duty dictates a soldier to kill enemies of the state, and beliefs sometimes forbid a person to kill even a fly. Values are statements about what is good and what is bad in terms of culture . Values are cultural standards of good and bad. For example, American values are that people should have equal opportunity, so a woman or an African American can, in principle, be the President of the United States. Although, according to Robert Williams , most Americans prioritize men over women, whites over people of color, Western and Northern Europeans over other people, rich over poor. , than others".

Meaning of life.

Philosophical vision of the problem

The concept of the meaning of life is present in any developed worldview system, justifying and interpreting the moral norms and values inherent in this system, demonstrating goals that justify the activities they prescribe.

The social position of individuals, groups, classes, their needs and interests, aspirations and expectations, principles and norms of behavior determine the content of mass ideas about the meaning of life, which in every social system have a specific character, although they reveal certain moments of repetition.

Subjecting to a theoretical analysis of the ideas of the mass consciousness about the meaning of life, many philosophers proceeded from the recognition of some unchanging “human nature”, constructing on this basis a certain ideal of a person, in the achievement of which the meaning of life was seen, the main purpose of human activity.

Ancient Greece and Rome

Aristotle-happiness

Epicurus - pleasure

kiniki - virtue

Stoics - morality

Irrationalism

Founder - Arthur Schopenhauer. Believes that life is meaningless and spent in finding activities, illusions.

Existentialism

Life itself is considered absurd, because it necessarily ends in death and there is no meaning in it. Founder - Soren Obu Kierkegaard

Humanism

The meaning is in maintaining human values, humanity and development, self-improvement of a person .. It originated in the ancient world and partly Aristotle, Epicurus, Democritus and others applied their views to it.

Nihilism

being has no objective meaning, cause, truth or value

Positivism

Only things in life have meaning, but life itself has no meaning.

Pragmatism

Meaning is all those goals that make you appreciate it.

transhumanism

The meaning is in the development of man, with the help of science and any other means, a gradual transition to the superman, the heir of the species Homo Sapians.

But still it is worth highlighting that each person determines the meaning of life for himself.

Since time immemorial, man has been the object of philosophical reflection. This is evidenced by the oldest sources of Indian and Chinese philosophy, especially the sources of the philosophy of ancient Greece. It was here that the well-known call was formulated: "Man, know yourself, and you will know the Universe and the Gods!" It reflected the complexity and depth of the human problem. Knowing himself, man gains freedom; before him the secrets of the Universe are revealed, and he becomes on a par with the Gods. But this has not happened yet, despite the fact that thousands of years of history have passed. Man was and remains a mystery to himself. There are grounds for asserting that the problem of man, like any truly philosophical problem, is an open and unfinished problem that we only need to solve, but do not need to solve completely. Kantian question: "What is a man?" remains relevant. In the history of philosophical thought, various human problems are known for research. Some philosophers tried (and are trying now) to discover some unchanging nature of man (his essence). At the same time, they proceed from the idea that such knowledge will make it possible to explain the origin of people's thoughts and actions and thereby indicate to them the "formula of happiness." But among these philosophers there is no unity, for each of them sees as an essence what the other does not see, and thus complete discord reigns here. Suffice it to say that in the Middle Ages the essence of man was seen in his soul turned to God; in the epoch of modern times, B. Pascal defined a person as a "thinking reed"; Enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century saw the essence of man in his mind; L. Feuerbach pointed to a religion based on love; K. Marx defined a person as a social being - a product of social development, etc. Following this path, philosophers discovered more and more facets of human nature, but this did not lead to a clarification of the picture, but rather complicated it. Another approach to the study of human nature can be conditionally called historical. It is based on the study of the monuments of the material and spiritual culture of the distant past and allows us to imagine a person as a historically developing being from its lower forms to its higher ones, i.e. modern. The stimulus for such a vision of man was given by the theory of evolution of Ch. Darwin. K. Marx occupies a prominent place among the representatives of this approach. Another approach explains the nature of a person by the influence of cultural factors on him and is called culturological. It is, to one degree or another, characteristic of many philosophers, which will be discussed in our lecture. A number of researchers note a very important side of human nature, namely, that in the course of historical development, a person carries out self-development, i.e. he "creates" himself (S. Kierkegaard, K. Marx, W. James, A. Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin). He is the creator not only of himself, but also of his own history. Thus man is historical and transient in time; he is not born "reasonable", but becomes so throughout the life and history of the human race. There are other approaches, you can read more about them in the work of E. Fromm and R. Hierau "Preface to the anthology" Human Nature "(see the list of references at the end of the lecture). Before proceeding to the presentation of specific issues, we will make one terminological explanation. We are talking about the fact that the philosophy of man in the specialized literature is called philosophical anthropology (from the Greek. anthropos - man and logos - teaching.) This term is used in this lecture.

The world is one and diverse - there is nothing in the world but moving matter. There is no other world but the world of infinite matter moving in time and space. The material world, nature is an infinite variety of objects, bodies, phenomena and processes. This is inorganic nature, the organic world, society in all their inexhaustible richness and diversity. The diversity of the world lies in the qualitative difference between material things and processes, in the variety of forms of motion of matter. At the same time, the qualitative diversity of the world, the diversity of forms of material movement exists in unity. The real unity of the world consists in its materiality. The unity of the world and its diversity are in a dialectical relationship, they are internally and inextricably linked, a single matter does not exist otherwise than in qualitatively diverse forms, the entire diversity of the world is the diversity of forms of a single matter, a single material world. All the data of science and practice convincingly confirm the unity of the material world. Philosophy is a theoretically formulated worldview. This is a system of the most general views on the world, a person's place in it, an understanding of the various forms of a person's relationship to the world. Philosophy differs from other forms of worldview not so much in its subject matter, but in the way it is comprehended, the degree of intellectual development of problems and methods of approaching them. Therefore, when defining philosophy, the concepts of a theoretical worldview and a system of views are used. In the worldview there are always two opposite angles of view: the direction of consciousness "outside" - the formation of a picture of the world, the universe, and, on the other hand, its appeal "inside" - to the person himself, the desire to understand his essence, place, purpose in the natural and social world. A person is distinguished by the ability to think, to know, to love and hate, to rejoice and grieve, to hope, to desire, to feel a sense of duty, pangs of conscience, etc. The various relationships of these angles of vision permeate the whole of philosophy. The philosophical worldview is, as it were, bipolar: its semantic "nodes" are the world and man. What is essential for philosophical thinking is not a separate consideration of these opposites, but their constant correlation. Various problems of the philosophical worldview are aimed at understanding the forms of their interaction, at understanding the relationship of man to the world. This big multifaceted problem "the world - man", in fact, acts as a universal one and can be considered as a general formula, an abstract expression of almost any philosophical problem. That is why it can, in a certain sense, be called the fundamental question of philosophy. Central to the clash of philosophical views is the question of the relation of consciousness to being, or, in other words, of the relation of the ideal to the material. When we talk about consciousness, ideal, we mean nothing but our thoughts, experiences, feelings. When it comes to being, material, then this includes everything that exists objectively, independently of our consciousness, i.e. things and objects of the external world, phenomena and processes occurring in nature and society. In philosophical understanding, ideal (consciousness) and material (being) are the broadest scientific concepts (categories) that reflect the most general and at the same time opposite properties of objects, phenomena and processes of the world. The question of the relationship between consciousness and being, spirit and nature is the main question of philosophy. From the solution of this issue, ultimately, depends the interpretation of all other problems that determine the philosophical outlook on nature, society, and, therefore, on man himself. When considering the fundamental question of philosophy, it is very important to distinguish between its two sides. First, what is primary - ideal or material? This or that answer to this question plays the most important role in philosophy, because to be primary means to exist before the secondary, to precede it, ultimately, to determine it. Secondly, can a person cognize the world around him, the laws of development of nature and society? The essence of this side of the main question of philosophy is to clarify the ability of human thinking to correctly reflect objective reality. Solving the main question, philosophers divided into two large camps, depending on what they take as the source - material or ideal. Those philosophers who recognize matter, being, nature as primary, and consciousness, thinking, spirit as secondary, represent a philosophical direction called materialistic. In philosophy, there is also an idealistic direction opposite to the materialistic one. Philosophers-idealists recognize the beginning of all existing consciousness, thinking, spirit, i.e. perfect. There is another solution to the main question of philosophy - dualism, which believes that the material and spiritual sides exist separately from one another as independent entities. The question of the relation of thinking to being has a second side - the question of the cognizability of the world: can a person cognize the world around him? Idealistic philosophy, as a rule, denies the possibility of knowing the world. The first question with which philosophical knowledge began: what is the world in which we live? In essence, it is equivalent to the question: what do we know about the world? Philosophy is not the only area of knowledge designed to answer this question. Over the centuries, its solution has included ever new areas of special scientific knowledge and practice. At the same time, special cognitive functions fell to the lot of philosophy. In different historical epochs, they took on a different form, but still some stable common features were preserved. The formation of philosophy, along with the emergence of mathematics, marked the birth of a completely new phenomenon in ancient Greek culture - the first mature forms of theoretical thinking. Some other areas of knowledge reached theoretical maturity much later and, moreover, at different times. Philosophical knowledge of the world had its own requirements. Unlike other types of theoretical knowledge (in mathematics, natural science), philosophy acts as a universal theoretical knowledge. According to Aristotle, the special sciences are engaged in the study of specific types of being, philosophy takes upon itself the knowledge of the most general principles, the beginnings of all things. In cognition of the world, philosophers of different eras turned to solving such problems that either temporarily, in a certain historical period, or fundamentally, forever, were outside the field of understanding, the competence of individual sciences. It can be seen that in all philosophical questions there is a correlation "the world - man". It is difficult to answer questions related to the problem of the cognizability of the world in a straightforward manner - such is the nature of philosophy.

Modern problems of human philosophy. Human

The problem of man in modern philosophy.

Abstract individual and universal man K. Marx.