In which experts share with us their views on the fundamental concepts and phenomena of science, culture and history.
Philosophy, in essence, does not have its own subject and speaks of general laws. As soon as we start looking for specific knowledge, we leave philosophy and dive into scientific or pseudo-scientific disciplines like philology. Why, then, is philosophy needed at all?
Although I am not a philosopher in the classical sense of the word, I think that philosophy is necessary because it allows reflection on what I do, what people of specific disciplines do. There is always a need for some kind of super-general platform that would allow us to look from the outside at the foundations of our activities.
I started as a semiotician, I traveled to Tartu. After the appearance of the works of Lotman and his associates, it seemed that semiotics is a discipline that transforms our understanding of the world. We were sure that there were solid sign systems around, to which the whole culture could be reduced. When the semiotic epic was unfolding in our country, France developed its own structuralism - it was partly close to us, but only partly. Both here and in France, semiotics went back to Saussure, to structural linguistics. This can be seen in the early works of, for example, Michel Foucault or Lacan, who was closely associated with Jacobson, who stayed with him during his visits to Paris. When Lacan said that the unconscious is structured like a language, he borrowed a lot from Jacobson.
After Lotman, the Russian line of semiotics dried up without major consequences, although what was developed in the 1960s and 1970s is still being studied in our universities. The French line, transformed, had a huge impact on the world. I think the reason is that French structuralism was closely tied to philosophy, which allowed it to rethink the foundations and change over time. Russian semiotics turned out to be extremely rigid. It is important, for example, that in the sensational book On Grammar, Derrida subjected Saussure's linguistics and his understanding of the sign to "deconstruction". This allowed us to move forward and develop. It is impossible to move forward without constant problematization of the axiomatics of science. In Russia there was a ban on philosophy. You came to Tartu and found that you can't talk about philosophy, because everyone associated philosophy with Marxism-Leninism, and it was pure ideology. There was no place for philosophy where science was made, where there was a search for "objective" knowledge. The ban on philosophy led to a crisis and the collapse of the entire discipline.
Philosophy is a grandiose and always shaky attempt to look at foundations in a way that is not human.
Russian scientists used to say: sign, sign, sign, but no one problematized the concept of “sign”, they simply took from Saussure that there is a signified and a signifier, and that there are two sides. And why two sides - no one even asked. It was enough that Saussure wrote so. There was also Pierce, who put forward his idea of the sign, but few people read Pierce, because he was a pragmatic philosopher and was far from the interests of philologists. Peirce said that the sign should have three sides, not two, that it is not enough to have a signifier and a signified. He called the third party an interpretant and argued that without this mysterious “mark” it is impossible to understand whether the sign is in front of us or not, and if it is a sign, then what kind. The modality of reading these signs is determined by the interpretant. None of this was known in Russia. Saussure's semiotics knew only oppositions, nothing else. But this is not enough to understand the meaning and functioning of culture.
We must always doubt the dogma of our own disciplines. From within a discipline such as semiotics, this cannot be done. In the same way, in order to understand the foundations of mathematics, we must “get out of mathematics,” because mathematics operates on certain axioms and is unable to subject them to reflection. For me, philosophy is an opportunity to enter the realm of reflection.
I believe that in general the Russian tradition is marked by a lack of reflection. Our students, for example, are not prepared for it. They are taught courses like "XVIII century", "XIX century" or "Introduction to psychology". We are well aware of the system of university disciplines that do not imply the need for problematization. It is almost exclusively a matter of transmitting positive knowledge as if it were of absolute value. But knowledge is only apparently absolute. We also taught philosophy as dogmatics, as a set of dogmatic ideas, essentially anti-philosophical. What is important is not who said what, but the problematization strategy itself. It is terribly lacking in humanitarian knowledge, which is all the less reliable the less it comprehends itself.
Philosophy always claims to be universal, and this is its strength and weakness at the same time.
Philosophy, of course, has long attempted to become a positive science. In this sense, the relationship between psychology and philosophy is interesting. Psychology is an applied science that tries to study how we construct this world. It splits our attitude to the world into different modes and tries to empirically describe them: perception, memory, emotions, thinking, etc. In philosophy there is always the temptation to psychologize, for example, when it comes to subjectivity.
Some believe that philosophy is primarily an ontology, a description of what "is". Once such a description was conceived independently of the subject. Such an ontology is typical for eras when religion dominates, because the structures of the world in the religious universe are independent of the subject and are associated exclusively with God, who created certain hierarchies, orders, and these hierarchies contain certain forms of being, which are also often hierarchical. And all this does not depend on what position the subject takes.
But later, in the Renaissance, it already becomes clear that the whole world is constructed by the subject, that the world depends on his activity. Ontology approaches phenomenology. However, when we say that the world is constructed by the subject, we involuntarily crawl into psychology, because it is psychology that seems to allow us to understand the forms that the world takes in subjective perception. It is curious, however, that already Kant sharply separates philosophy from psychology and asserts that philosophy deals not with the empirical, but with the transcendental subject. This position later becomes central to phenomenology and many modern philosophies. And this means that philosophy studies the forms of our consciousness given to us before experience and determining what the experience studied by psychology will be like. For Kant, for example, space and time are not psychological categories, but precisely such transcendental forms of experience. Psychology studies how a person operates with space and time, but cannot explain to us why a person cannot think outside of these primary intuitions. These transcendental categories determine how the world appears to us. As we see, here, too, in the field of transcendental (non-experimental) psychology, philosophy concerns such general foundations that are inaccessible to empirical science, but without understanding of which science cannot move forward.
Julia Ryzhenko / website
The founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, believed that it was the description of such fundamental, transcendental structures that turned philosophy into a truly exact science. Because it is philosophies that make available the universal, that is, "objective" structures of our being. However, I will beware of calling philosophy a science. Husserl's phenomenology does not have the rigor of mathematics, but neither does it have the empirical experimental basis of sciences such as physics. Husserl came up with a way to get to the universal transcendental structures of the phenomenal world. He called it transcendental reduction. But the possibility of applying this method raises doubts among many philosophers. Husserl himself wrote that this reduction (which he called the Greek term "epoché") lies in a field that goes far beyond the limits of any scientific observation: produce in the individual a complete change that could be compared with a religious conversion, but where, besides this, is hidden the significance of the greatest existential change that humanity as such faces as a task. Such mystical revelations can hardly be attributed to the field of science. The outstanding phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty also had doubts about the possibility of reduction, who believed that by definition we cannot look at our thought and discover its foundations from the outside. “The greatest lesson of reduction,” he wrote, “is the impossibility of complete reduction. That is why Husserl again and again asks the question of the possibility of reduction. If we were absolute spirit, reduction would not be a problem. But since we, on the contrary, are in the world, since our reflections take place in the temporal stream, which they try to catch (in which they, as Husserl says, “sich einstromen”), there is no such thinking that would cover our thought. Since philosophy tries to deal with the foundations of our thinking and our world beyond experience, it, in my opinion, takes itself out of the realm of science. Philosophy is a grandiose and always shaky attempt to look at foundations in a way that is not human. Merleau-Ponty's remark that "there is no such thinking that would embrace our thought" conveys the very essence of the dilemma that the philosopher faces and which makes his activity so vulnerable, but no less necessary for this. A philosopher is not a scientist, he is a person who seeks to take an “impossible” position in relation to our world and the ways of knowing it. And this partly brings the real philosopher closer to the poet, who, it seems to me, is interesting only to the extent that he places himself in the realm of the verbal impossible.
If a person is skeptical, if he does not succumb to the hypnosis of authorities and systems, be it Kant or Heidegger, he is able to use philosophy very productively.
Philosophy always claims to be universal, and this is its strength and weakness at the same time. Hannah Arendt saw in philosophy's claims to universality the origins of its inherent authoritarianism (she wrote about this in relation to her teacher and lover Heidegger). Once famous biologist Jakob von Ikskul introduced the concept Umwelt. Umwelt- This the world, and every animal, he said, has its own Umwelt. The bee only sees flowers, that is, certain geometric shapes that it identifies as important to it. And, for example, clouds are not important to her, and she does not see them. Later, Heidegger said that the animal world is much poorer than the human world, since we are able to fit into our world many more elements that do not have pragmatic significance for us. Configuration Umwelt" and varies depending on the state of the organism. Ikskul wrote that a well-fed shark does not see small fish, because it does not enter into its world, it does not need it. And a hungry shark sees a small fish because its world is changing. We proceed from the fact that each biological species has its own phenomenologization of the world. We see colors that other animals don't see, but monkeys, for example, see red because in the jungle they have to see fruits that are food for them, and therefore red becomes important to them.
But if the world manifests itself in different configurations, then it should be understood that its ontology is nothing but a “regional ontology”, that there can be many worlds and that the ways of describing them can also change. That is why I do not really believe in the universality of philosophical methods and images of the world. It seems to me that rational and critical eclecticism is quite acceptable for philosophy, unless, of course, it leads to chaos and a bad indistinguishability of categories and concepts. In any case, philosophy (and this is another of its paradoxes) is a form of universal reflection, which must understand its correlation with regional ontologies.
Nietzsche, for example, did not study philosophy. It is said that he did not even read Kant properly.
For all that, I believe that philosophy is absolutely unthinkable without the empirical sciences. At the beginning of the 20th century, Einstein forced to rethink the concepts of time and space, these Kantian a priori. But even before that, the non-Euclidean geometries of Riemann and Lobachevsky raised the question of in what configurations of space we think - Euclidean or not. And if Euclidean, then why? Physics and mathematics shift philosophical ideas and force us to think transcendentally in a new way. The same applies to biology, which changes a lot in our fundamental ideas about the world. At one time, linguistics gave a strong impetus to philosophy. In a word, sciences are necessary for philosophy. I don't like Russians religious philosophers they mostly think in terms of speculation about a God that no one knows anything about. It seems to me that this is a great shortcoming of a certain style of philosophizing ...
For me personally, a very important area is biology, which helps to understand the general transcendental foundations of our world. We are all, after all, biological beings. Kant built his aesthetics out of biology. Hegel believed that philosophy is what integrates scientific knowledge. He tried to construct an encyclopedia of philosophical sciences, that is, to create a unified idea of the interaction and interconnection of different sciences. I am inclined to believe that the construction of a single field subject to philosophy is always a mistake. Even if we imagine the world as a semantic continuum, we must introduce faults, “catastrophes” into it. Otherwise we cannot understand it. Meanings arise at the borders, watersheds, crevices. Georges Bataille talked about heterology, that is, the suspension, the destruction of the continuum. I believe that even if the world is continuous, we should not abandon the idea of regional ontologies, that is, radically different zones of meaning. The deep difference between scientific disciplines from this point of view can be productive. Philosophy, it seems to me, is the construction of the universal within the framework of heterology. As you can see, again something unimaginable.
Julia Ryzhenko / site
Very essential for philosophy and art. We know that one of the important areas of philosophy since the time of Baumgarten and Kant is aesthetics. Today, "aesthetics" seems outdated. Although quite recently there have been renewed attempts to revive it. Aesthetics and art are important because there are things in the world that are incomprehensible through rational concepts and categories. In this case, one often speaks of intuition, or, as has long been customary in the Russian philosophical lexicon, contemplation. Philosophy is fascinated by intuition, since in it the most direct contact with reality is realized. Intuition allows us to grasp "totalities" without any conceptual mechanisms. Actually, the field of aesthetics and art is sensual elements organized into forms, that is, into certain totalities. A number of philosophers gave preference to poets or artists in understanding the world. For example, Heidegger, who prayed to Hölderlin. Philosophy needs art because it opposes its invariable desire to reduce the world to conceptual schemes. These attempts, repeatedly criticized and linking philosophy with the exact and natural sciences, have always led philosophy to a crisis. Powerful conceptual apparatuses very rarely correspond to the structure of the world. The world resists conceptual schemes. Husserl wrote about the adequacy of the world of "vague concepts", which he called morphological, that is, associated with the form. The concept of "dog" is vague and based on a vague idea of form. From morphological concepts to art - one step.
The biggest threat to philosophy is dogmatization. What in the twentieth century is called metaphysics. Metaphysics arises when philosophy gives its own concepts the status of some absolute reality. Metaphysical consciousness is a classic disease of philosophy. The twentieth century has passed in philosophy under the sign of the struggle with metaphysics, which cannot be overcome in any way. One of these fighters was Nietzsche, another was Heidegger. And about each such fighter, in the end, it was said that he had not succeeded in overcoming metaphysics and that he himself was a metaphysician. Perhaps the metaphysical consciousness is ineradicable. It always gives rise to the temptation to apply some philosophical system or some concepts to reality. The result of fitting reality to a schema is always deplorable. The philosopher, alas, easily takes schemes for reality.
You don't have to be a philosopher to say that killing is wrong. It's another matter to understand why killing is bad.
One of the most common and serious mistakes is the understanding of philosophy as a system of dogmatic ideas, and not as a way to subject dogmatics to reflection. It seems to me that skepticism distinguishes a real philosopher from a bad one. If a person is skeptical, if he does not succumb to the hypnosis of authorities and systems, be it Kant or Heidegger, he is able to use philosophy very productively. If a person takes a ready-made model: “Kant wrote…”, “Hegel said…” - nothing good will come of it. Defending one's position with references to authority is an absolutely anti-philosophical position. We went through this with Marxism-Leninism. Philosophy is extremely useful as a way of problematization and extremely dangerous as an opportunity for dogmatization. And these two possibilities are inherent in its nature.
By the way, I am not completely sure that philosophy is a field of specific professionalism, although it has many technical aspects, and without knowing the history of philosophy, one can hardly say anything new. Nietzsche, for example, did not study philosophy. They say that he did not even read Kant properly, which did not prevent him from becoming a great thinker. There are people who are on the verge between philosophy and literature, such as Georges Bataille or Maurice Blanchot, literary critic, prose writer, who had a strong influence on philosophers such as Levinas or Foucault. With all the need for technical knowledge and knowledge of the history of philosophy, the ability to think freely is fundamentally important. And yet... I have often worked with students who are prone to broadcast declarations about the world over the space of several pages. I have always tried to explain to them how dangerous global speculation is based on little knowledge and always leads to trivialities. From the point of view of philosophy, trivial things are always uninteresting. You don't have to be a philosopher to say that killing is wrong. It's another matter to understand why killing is bad.
The philosopher Pyatigorsky tirelessly repeated the same thing: "We must think, think, think." When I heard and read this endless “one must think,” I involuntarily became irritated: “What, why do we need to think?” Is it really just to sit with your head propped on your hand and think about something incomprehensible? This seemed to me the absurdity of Pyatigorsky, his thoughtlessness. However, in cases where you have to think, you can think differently. You don't have to be a philosopher to do this. You can think philosophically, but you can think artistically, as you like. But when we touch the foundations and want to go beyond the trivial, there is no better help than philosophy. How else to break with the accepted axiomatics, how to subject it to reflection? How to understand what we are in our Umwelt" e and beyond?
Recorded by Yulia Ryzhenko
Natalia Maksimova:
“The first thought I caught myself on was that one must first find the exact concept of the term "philosophy" on the Internet. He is such a modern person - he double-checks everything on the Internet. Alas, after reading a lot of confusing terms, I could not formulate something definite. For some reason, either images of ancient philosophers or nightly conversations in the kitchen over a glass of cognac are presented. Moreover, these conversations with a touch of bitterness and disappointment, most often built on their own life experience. In general, for me it is the science of life. A difficult human life, where there are more questions than answers, and there is never a single correct option.
It would seem that in the modern crazy world there is no time to think at all. What are the vital questions there, if you run to work, the main values are an eternal couple, time and money, and because of the frantic daily rhythm, we do not answer calls from loved ones and forget to call back? And we run like this, we run, but at one moment there is such a click, after which we notice everything that passed us - how old our parents are, how little we see friends, how long ago we saw a rainbow, how our children continue to live. Childhood dreams…
And then the fun begins to happen. Understanding the madness of this modern life, reflecting on your successes and mistakes, allows you to make an unexpected discovery - well, you can’t say what is good and what is bad. Studying for one five does not provide Good work, a new acquaintance can become much more good friend than the person you've been with since first grade. All templates of the right life do not really work! And there is no universal recipe for a happy life.
And, thanks to this understanding, we finally change - we interrupt any meeting for the sake of a call from my mother, and let it be ugly. We admire the dawn - so what, we'll be five minutes late. An accountant who got a profession because her parents told her so, signs up for cooking courses, and it doesn’t matter that she already has such a long experience and it’s stupid, according to her colleagues, to quit a money job.
There is no black and white. And only we ourselves can decide what is good and what is bad.”
Margarita Potapova, "Man and Philosophy":
"Philosophy, speaking plain language is just the ability to ask questions, to be curious. Thus, we can say that we all become philosophers to some extent in childhood.
A three-year-old child asks a huge number of questions about how this or that phenomenon occurs, why any events happen in life. So he learns to think, learns the world. Adults, in my opinion, are not too different from children in this regard - they need philosophy to find out something new, to develop, move forward and find new solutions.
The fact that philosophical questions in most cases have no answers is not a problem. The answer itself is not important. It is important to search for it. It is this ability to question that makes a person a person, helps to remain adequate in this world.
In the modern world, the ability to reflect on global problems is extremely important for everyone. The search for non-standard solutions, the ability to discover something new in the “old” place, the ability to look at this or that situation from the outside and come to some conclusion - this allows each of us to step forward on our own, effectively interact with others and develop the whole society.
Timur Perepelkin:
"I know that I know nothing" Socrates
“Philosophy, by the definition of most scientists-philosophers, is a tool for understanding the world. But the same can be said about other sciences. For example biology or physics. Biology studies living microorganisms, their interactions within themselves and with their own kind. Physics, on the other hand, covers questions of natural science and first of all answers the question: "How does it work?". These sciences are also a tool for understanding the world, but in my humble opinion they themselves are only components of philosophy. For philosophy sets itself goals inaccessible to ordinary, everyday thinking.
Let's take an example. ancient man explained natural phenomena his imagination, because he did not have enough experience and level of intelligence to use a scientific approach. But he wondered! Why does lightning strike?
Over time, having established causal relationships and having done a huge scientific work no longer a person, but humanity was able to explain, first of all, to itself, why lightning strikes. And although the more mankind learned, the more philosophical questions again arose before him. The structure of the universe, the reality of superworldly entities. All these questions, belonging to the category of philosophical ones, started the engines of knowledge. Pushing humanity forward towards the unknown.
In the modern world, in its variety of information and, unfortunately, misinformation, philosophy is necessary as a simulator of critical thinking. By studying this science, a person learns to look at things not from one side, but from two, three or more. Giving a subject or situation a multifaceted, detailed description. Having managed to cultivate in himself a similar way of knowing the world around him, a person, as a part of society, gives him a chance to answer another philosophical question. Of which, as I said, there are many more and there will be many more.
Julia Pakhomova:
“For some, the flow of time turns out to be extremely fleeting, for someone it turns out to be too much, but it goes on, sparing no one.
But even this fact can be looked at from a different angle, and philosophy will help us in this.
They say that time, it remains, it is always there. It is we, human beings, who come to this planet to live the segment allocated to us, after which we also inevitably evaporate. All these are philosophical judgments.
Philosophy gives us the opportunity to look at things that are not taught in school, hidden from public view and those that only a few think about. Suppose what other science studies good and evil?
After all, it is extremely relative concepts. Even in early childhood, we are given certain attitudes and stereotypes that can only be changed through their deep rethinking. Day replaces night, spring replaces winter, fire and water are very different, they can act as a source of creation and destruction - nothing is “bad or good”, in fact. All this is nothing more than a prism of our perception.
Thanks to philosophy, a part of which in the modern world is present in almost every science, we can build our own worldview, different from others. All this will help us to live a different life, not following the majority, but choosing our own path.
Such people stand out from the majority and offer humanity A New Look to the world. From later they are called philosophers, having seen the share of truth in their words.
Also, philosophy suggests that from most options, pay attention to the one that will be closer to your heart and illuminate your life path inspiration."
Yuri Chernov:
“Asking the right question is half the battle, it is important to find the right answer to it. But what is the correct answer? There are always contexts, frameworks, categories on the scale of which it is impossible to understand the absolute truth of this or that judgment. Philosophy for modern man, it is rather an opportunity to be able to correctly place the necessary accents in Everyday life than thinking about the essentials. This may seem initially small and misinterpreted to such a broad concept, but it is more necessary for the individual to think correctly within a certain set of factors than to develop it outside of himself.
Philosophy for a modern person is rather a springboard of categories, definitions and concepts that he uses in self-knowledge of himself and self-awareness of himself. The morality of philosophy as a science allows one to correctly pose the question, which should, in general, lead the answer from the general to the particular. Understand yourself. Indeed, in understanding oneself, what we can call absolute truth is born. Truth that will be applicable specifically to us as individuals.
By trying to think inside ourselves, we can give explanations to what is around us, because every little thing that revolves around our spiritual world is the material world that we perceive through the prism of spirituality. And it does not matter whether you are an atheist or a believer, what is important is that those categories that in the hands of a person become tools for researching oneself, ultimately provide answers to questions about global things.
After all, you just need to ask yourself the question "Who am I?", and you can start reasoning about the purpose of yourself in this world, transfer the flow of thoughts into the general channel of humanity, and eventually reach the formation of a reasoning about why we are here, how this was done more than once by many science fiction writers, such as the Strugatsky brothers, for example.
Philosophy is for a modern person a tool for knowing the world through oneself, an opportunity to look through oneself into the universe and look for answers to the questions of the outside world, developing oneself from within.
We learn to be more than just "I". Philosophy leads us from the selfish "I" to the open "We" for all.
Ekaterina Sokolova:
“I think modern man needs Knowledge. And Academic - exact sciences and Humanities and Philosophical and Ancient! Need Knowledge about Legends, Myths different peoples- For what? Yes, that would proudly wear the title of "reasonable man". Since, in my opinion, now, when there is a HUGE amount of information, I would say that the person as a whole is quite LIMITED! It is limited to monotonous, narrow-profile, and sometimes, very ugly garbage. Philosophy allows you to understand the UNIVERSE, true essence, and reflections develop BRAIN :) and imagination! And it's really interesting!!!"
Anna Guskova:
“It's about 12 at night. Kostya and I rush along the first longitudinal in his new car. Kostya is a model. Participates in beauty contests for men, wins creative competitions, he is young and attractive. Favorite move is to run your fingers through perfectly combed hair. “And why do you need all this nonsense?” I ask after stories about clubs, go-go girls and photo shoots. “We only live once. My philosophy is: think less, do more. Silently, he looks at his reflection in the mirror.
Washed, faded sweater, unkempt hands, always stooped back and a tired heavy look. “Guskova, write on the blackboard: “All people are mortal, but Socrates is a man.” I am ashamed, I do not listen to Svetlana Arkadyevna, our philosophy teacher, but I cannot listen to her either. Philosophical truths in her performance sound somehow flat and boring. Socrates is mortal, I conclude, looking back at her. She slowly draws an assessment in the journal.
The bar is dark, only the stage is very brightly lit. Today there is a master class from the chef, but for now the audience is entertained by two hosts. Finally, Alex appears. "Today we'll make a seafood salad, fettuccine with vegetables and a rack of lamb," he says calmly. I like his ponytail. He is dark-haired, tall and looks like an adult against the backdrop of flooding presenters. “Do you know what we call him in the kitchen?” - Baring his white teeth, he is the first to address the audience. "Philosopher! - shouts the second. “Lesha has a smart answer for everything.” "And sometimes abstruse! ..". The philosopher, meanwhile, is chopping lettuce leaves.
Every life has its own philosophy. Only to hear it, only to catch it, not to let it slip away. And if you look into yourself, you will discover such depths that you will sway, as if over an abyss. It seems that philosophy is not fashionable today. Fundamentalism has been replaced by success books and confidence training. But wise philosophy, whatever we call it, seeps into the room of a rebellious teenager, sits down at a bar with a tired worker, enters bass in hipster headphones. Philosophy is a plateau in the everyday plains. And whoever we are, whenever we live, we feel next to this eternal and inexplicable Something.
Konstantin Shivtsov:
“In fact, it is necessary to define philosophy, such a broad concept. Philosophy is... Philosophy is... On reflection, it turns out it's not so easy. It is rather a tool, one of the ways of knowing the world around us and interacting with it. Philosophy is very different from the mentality and different groups of society. A person often needs logical calculations or, something similar to them, for the ability to act, or even for indulgence. It is undeniably important, but, like any tool, it manifests itself in two ways, and can serve as a way of manipulation. Philosophy, an integral part of consciousness. In the process of becoming a personality, it is selected by a person for his qualities, and then begins to develop them. Where necessary, it gives freedom, in some places it includes brakes, or smoothes out bumps. Do not underestimate it, a person has little time at all, and philosophy gives a vector of development, not only to the individual, but to society as a whole. In a word, it is necessary to live, rejoice and seek your happiness, and philosophy will help us in this.
Tikhon Spirin:
“The life of a modern person is determined by patterns imposed from outside: how to live correctly, what follows what, what is prestigious to do, and what is not worth touching, when is it worth starting a family, etc. It turns out that life is written for us, and we just, without hesitation, follow someone's plan. Without hesitation - this is the main problem of modern society - people stopped thinking, stopped reasoning and looking at their lives somehow differently than others, it's easier to live when someone thinks for us.
And what does philosophy do? It makes you think, makes you reason and realize what is happening around us. Reflection becomes deeper, and you analyze your actions a little differently, realizing that before you didn’t think at all when you looked at your interaction with this world, society.
The frantic rhythm of everyday life, life flies faster and faster: born, kindergarten, school, university, work, career, family, children, work, old age, grandchildren, death. I don't seem to have forgotten anything, correct me if you can, where did I go wrong in your ideal being? Here it is - the problem of modern man: following a plan created not by him, but by someone out there, someone who knows better. Doing philosophy is what makes a person stop in this flow and see what is happening. He moves away from the running crowd to the side and looks at what is happening from the side. A person begins to think, and this helps him to bypass others: the crowd runs along the intended path, and the philosopher will reach the point where they will arrive in a year, a month, why? Everything from the fact that he sees many ways to achieve a particular goal and chooses the shortest one for himself, because he has no right to waste time and live according to someone else's pattern.
The great Russian writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky said: “Life suffocates without a purpose”, so we all need to find life in something more than just a stereotyped existence, that’s why modern man needs philosophy.”
Irina Knyazeva:
“For me, philosophy as a science begins where faith in God ends. If a person believes in God, he is looking for answers to the main questions of Genesis in religious literature, no matter what confession he belongs to. Even if a person has not yet found his religion, but he has this faith, he will never seek truth for himself in people's reasoning about matters and ideas.
But nowadays, when faith in God has begun to play a very small role in people's lives, when spiritual quests and experiences are often replaced by rituals, philosophy is becoming more relevant than ever. When faith in the Creator falls asleep in a person, the depth of life disappears. People seem to float on the surface, but they feel in the corners of their hearts that they are missing something. And then philosophy can become a guide and a savior.
The only pity is that not every teacher of philosophy is able to convey to the audience the whole interest of this science. Often, the study of this subject within the framework of courses at a university, on the contrary, discourages people from any interest in this subject. You need to learn a bunch of some theories, with names, dates. Meanwhile, in my opinion, philosophy is more than applied in nature. After all, every person has a philosophy of life, the only question is what ideas this philosophy relies on. And if philosophy was not put on a pedestal, and not elevated to the rank of a super lofty science, but explained its earthliness and importance for every thinking person, perhaps people could become a little happier. Because a thinking person seeks happiness, first of all, in himself, and it is easier to distinguish between what is the goal and what can only be a means.
Olga Zabarina:
Why does modern man need philosophy? Why do I need philosophy? To ask questions and look for answers. To remain a thinking person.
I have many unanswered questions. But more often than others, I ask myself one thing, for me the most important: why is life given to a person and why only for a while? After all, not for the sake of academic success, the achievement of any benefits, a certain status in society. The finiteness of life itself eventually deprives all this of its meaning. Knowing the truth? I doubt. Know the truth and die with this knowledge? It's illogical. Serving God, chanting his greatness? God is self-sufficient, not conceited and does not need confirmation of his greatness. So why is this short period of time given to a person?
There was a period in my life when I stopped asking such questions. They didn't have time or energy. Life was limited to the most, as it seemed, necessary: food, sleep and work. And there was dissatisfaction, there was a feeling that I did not live, and the time allotted to me was running out.
I do not have unambiguous answers to my questions, but while they excite me, while I ask them to myself, I am looking, I am trying to change something in my life. While I think, I live.
Sara Verigo (pseudonym):
“A lot of thoughts in my head, but alas:
If I express them - do not take off your head!
Only this paper is worthy of trust ...
…I have made knowledge my craft...
(Omar Khayyam)
Believe me, I am far from the fear of death:
More terrible than life, what has fate prepared for me?
I only got my soul on hold
And I will return it when the time comes.
(Omar Khayim)
Philosophy is multifaceted, reflections on philosophy can only be interrupted, because they have no end. “Months were replaced by months before us, wise men were replaced by sages before us”; To become a sage, one must go through life's path.
"If you cannot change the world, change your attitude towards this world," said Lucius Annei Seneca.
Unfortunately, in the modern world there is an opinion that philosophy is a second-class science, divorced from practice and life in general. This sad fact suggests that the development of philosophy requires its popularization. After all, philosophy is not abstract, not far from real life reasoning, not a mixture of various concepts expressed in abstruse phrases. The tasks of philosophy are, first of all, the transmission of information about the world at a certain point in time and the display of a person's attitude to the world around him.
The concept of philosophy
The philosophy of each era, as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said, is contained in the minds of each individual who has fixed this era in his thinking, who has managed to bring out the main trends of his era and present them to the public. Philosophy is always in fashion, because it reflects a modern view of people's lives. We always philosophize when we ask questions about the universe, our purpose, and so on. As Viktor Frankl wrote in his book Man's Search for Meaning, a person is always in search of his own "I", his meaning of life, because the meaning of life is not something that can be conveyed like chewed gum. Having swallowed such information, you can remain without your own meaning of life. everyone's work on himself is the search for that very cherished meaning, because without it our life is not possible.
Why is philosophy needed?
In everyday life, having taken care of the problem of interpersonal relationships and self-knowledge, we come to the understanding that the tasks of philosophy are realized on our way every day. As Jean-Paul Sartre said, "the other person is always hell for me, because he evaluates me in a way that suits him." In contrast to his pessimistic view, Erich Fromm suggested that only in relationships with others do we know what our "I" is in reality, and this is the greatest blessing.
Understanding
Self-determination and understanding is very important for us. Understanding not only yourself, but also other people. But “how can the heart express itself, how can another understand you?”. More ancient philosophy Socrates, Plato, Aristotle says that only in a dialogue between two thinking people striving for the search for truth, some new knowledge can be born. From the theories of modernity, one can cite as an example the “theory of idols” by Francis Bacon, who speaks quite extensively on the topic of idols, that is, prejudices that dominate our consciousness, which prevent us from developing, being ourselves.
Death Theme
A taboo topic that stirs the hearts of many and remains the most mysterious, from ancient times to our present. Plato also said that human life is the process of dying. In modern dialectics, one can find such a statement that the day of our birth is already the day of our death. Every awakening, action, breath brings us closer to the inevitable end. A person cannot be separated from philosophy, because it is philosophy that builds a person, it is impossible to think of a person outside this system.
Tasks and Methods of Philosophy: Basic Approaches
There are two approaches to understanding philosophy in modern society. According to the first approach, philosophy is an elitist discipline that should be taught only in the faculties of philosophy, which build the elite of an intellectual society, which professionally and scrupulously establish scientific philosophical research and the method of teaching philosophy. Adherents of this approach consider it impossible independent study philosophy through literature and personal empirical experience. This approach involves the use of primary sources in the language of the authors who write them. Thus, for all other people belonging to some narrow specialization such as mathematics, jurisprudence, etc., it becomes unclear why philosophy is needed, because this knowledge is practically inaccessible to them. Philosophy, according to this approach, only burdens the worldview of representatives of these specialties. Therefore, it should be excluded from their program.
The second approach tells us that a person needs to experience emotions, strong feelings, in order not to lose the feeling that we are alive, we are not robots, that we need to experience the whole gamut of emotions throughout our lives and, of course, think. And here, of course, philosophy is most welcome. No other science will teach a person to think, and at the same time think independently, will not help a person to navigate in the boundless sea of those concepts and views that modern life generously abounds. Only she is able to discover the inner core of a person, teach him to make an independent choice and not be a victim of manipulation.
It is necessary, it is necessary to study philosophy for people of all specialties, because only through philosophy can one find one's true "I" and remain oneself. It follows from this that it is necessary to avoid difficult-to-understand categorical turns, terms and definitions for other specialties. Which brings us to main idea about the popularization of philosophy in society, which would significantly reduce its mentoring and instructive tone. After all, as Albert Einstein said, any theory passes only one test for viability - it must be understood by a child. All meaning, Einstein said, is lost if the children do not understand your idea.
One of the tasks of philosophy is to explain complex things in simple language. should not remain a dry abstraction, a completely unnecessary theory that can be forgotten after a course of lectures.
Functions
"Philosophy is nothing but the logical clarification of thoughts," writes the Austro-English philosopher in his largest and lifetime published work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The main idea of philosophy is to cleanse the mind of all pretense. Nikola Tesla, radio engineer and great inventor of the 20th century, said that in order to think clearly, you need to have common sense. This is one of the most important philosophical functions - to bring clarity to our consciousness. That is, this function can still be called critical - a person learns to think critically, and before accepting someone else's position, he must check its reliability, expediency.
The second function of philosophy is historical and ideological, it always belongs to some period of time. This function helps a person to form one or another type of worldview, thereby creating a different "I" from others, offering a whole bunch of philosophical currents.
The next one is methodological, which considers the reason why the author of the concept comes to it. Philosophy cannot be memorized, it only needs to be understood.
Another function of philosophy is epistemological, or cognitive. Philosophy is the relation of man to this world. It allows you to reveal unusual interesting things that have not yet been verified by any experience due to a lack of up to a certain period. scientific knowledge. It has repeatedly happened that ideas outstripped development. Take, for example, the same Immanuel Kant, whose quotes are known to many. His concept that the universe was formed from a gaseous nebula, the concept is completely speculative, after 40 years was confirmed conclusively and lasted for 150 years.
It is worth remembering Nicolaus Copernicus, the Polish philosopher and astronomer, who doubted what he saw. He managed to abandon the obvious - from the Ptolemaic system, in which the Sun revolved around the Earth, which was the motionless center of the universe. It was through his doubt that he brought about the great Copernican revolution. The history of philosophy is rich in such events. So far from practice, reasoning can become a classic of science.
Philosophy is also important - outside the forecast it is impossible today to build any more or less scientific knowledge, that is, in any work, research, we must initially predict the future. That is what philosophy is all about.
For centuries, people have always asked questions about the future arrangement of human life, philosophy and society have always gone toe-to-toe, because the most important thing in a person’s life is to realize himself creatively and socially. Philosophy is the quintessence of those questions that from generation to generation people ask themselves and others, a set of immortal questions that really arise in any person.
Founder of the German classical philosophy, Immanuel Kant, whose quotes are full of social networks, asked the very first important question - "What can I know?" Anticipating the question "What things people can most likely tell, what should remain in the field of view of science, and what things be deprived of the attention of science, what things will always be a mystery?". Kant wanted to outline the boundaries of human knowledge: what is subject to people for knowledge, and what is not given to know. And the third Kantian question - "What should I do?". This is the practical application of previously acquired knowledge, direct experience, a reality created by each of us.
The next question that worries Kant is "What can I hope for?". This question concerns such philosophical problems as the freedom of the soul, its immortality or mortality. The philosopher says that such questions go rather into the sphere of morality and religion, because it is not possible to prove them. And even after years of teaching philosophical anthropology, the most difficult and insoluble question for Kant is the following: “What is a person?”
According to his views, people are the biggest mysteries of the universe. He said: "Only two things amaze me - this is the starry sky above my head and the moral laws inside me." Why are humans such amazing creatures? Because they belong simultaneously to two worlds - the physical (objective), the world of necessity with its absolutely specific laws, which cannot be circumvented (the law of gravity, the law of conservation of energy), and the world that Kant sometimes calls intelligible (the world of the inner "I", the inner state where we are all absolutely free, do not depend on anything and decide our own destiny).
Kant's questions have undoubtedly added to the treasury of world philosophy. They remain relevant to this day - society and philosophy are inextricably in contact with each other, gradually creating new amazing worlds.
Subject, tasks and functions of philosophy
The very word "philosophy" means "love of wisdom." If you disassemble it, you can see two ancient Greek roots: filia (love), sufia (wisdom), which literally also means “wisdom”. Philosophy originated in the era of ancient Greece, and this term was coined by the poet, philosopher, mathematician Pythagoras, who went down in history with his original teaching. Ancient Greece shows us a completely unique experience: we can observe a departure from mythological thinking. We can observe how people begin to think independently, how they try to disagree with what they see in their lives here and now, do not concentrate their thinking on the philosophical and religious explanation of the universe, but try to be based on their own experience and intellect.
Now there are directions modern philosophy like neotomy, analytical, integral, etc. They offer us the latest ways to transform information coming from outside. For example, the tasks set by the philosophy of neo-Thomism are to show the duality of being, that everything is dual, but the material world is lost in the grandeur of the triumph of the spiritual world. Yes, the world is material, but this matter is considered only a small fraction of the manifested spiritual world, where God is tested “for strength”. Like Thomas the unbeliever, neo-Thomists yearn for the material manifestation of the supernatural, which by no means seems to them a mutually exclusive and paradoxical phenomenon.
Sections
Considering the main eras of philosophy, it can be noted that in ancient Greece, philosophy became the queen of sciences, which is completely justified, because, like a mother, she takes absolutely all sciences under her wing. Aristotle, being primarily a philosopher, in his famous four-volume collection of works described the tasks of philosophy and all the key sciences that existed at that time. All this constitutes an incredible synthesis of ancient knowledge.
Over time, other disciplines spun off from philosophy and numerous branches of philosophical currents appeared. By itself, regardless of other sciences (law, psychology, mathematics, etc.), philosophy includes many of its own sections and disciplines that raise whole layers of philosophical problems that concern all of humanity as a whole.
The main sections of philosophy include an anthology (the doctrine of being - such questions are raised as: the problem of substance, the problem of the substratum, the problem of being, matter, movement, space), epistemology (the doctrine of knowledge - the sources of knowledge, criteria of truth, concepts that reveal different facets of human knowledge).
The third section is philosophical anthropology, which studies a person in the unity of his socio-cultural and spiritual manifestations, where such questions and problems are considered: the meaning of life, loneliness, love, fate, "I" with a capital letter and many others.
Next section - social philosophy, which considers the problems of the relationship between the individual and society, the problems of power, the problem of manipulating human consciousness as a fundamental issue. This includes social contract theories.
Philosophy of history. A section that considers the tasks, the meaning of history, its movement, its goal, pronouncing the main attitude to history, regressive history, progressive history.
There are a number of sections: aesthetics, ethics, axiology (the doctrine of values), the history of philosophy and some others. In fact, the history of philosophy shows a rather thorny path of development. philosophical ideas, because philosophers were not always elevated to a pedestal, sometimes they were considered outcasts, sometimes they were sentenced to death, sometimes they were isolated from society, they were not allowed to spread ideas, which only shows us the significance of those ideas for which they fought. Of course, there were not so many such people who defended their position to their deathbed, because during the course of their lives philosophers can change their attitude and worldview.
At the moment, the relationship of philosophy to science is ambiguous. Quite controversial is the fact that philosophy has every reason to be called a science. And this was formed due to the fact that in the middle of the 19th century, one of the founders of Marxism, Friedrich Engels, formulated one of the most common concepts of philosophy. According to Engels, philosophy is the science of the most general laws of the development of thinking, the laws of nature and society. Thus, this status of philosophy as a science was not questioned for a long time. But over time, a new perception of philosophy has appeared, which already imposes a certain obligation on our contemporaries not to call philosophy a science.
Relationship of philosophy with science
Common to philosophy and science is the categorical apparatus, that is, key concepts such as substance, substratum, space, time, matter, movement. These fundamental cornerstone terms are at the disposal of both science and philosophy, that is, both of them operate with them in different contexts, facets. Another feature that characterizes the commonality of both philosophy and science is that such a phenomenon as truth is considered as an absolute cumulative total value in itself. That is, truth is not seen as a means to discover other knowledge. Philosophy and science elevate truth to incredible heights, making it the highest value as such.
Another point that unites philosophy with science is theoretical knowledge. This means that formulas in mathematics and concepts in philosophy (good, evil, justice) cannot be found in our concrete empirical world. These speculative reflections put science and philosophy on the same level. As Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Roman Stoic philosopher and teacher of Emperor Nero, said, it is much more useful to comprehend a few wise rules that can always serve you than to learn a lot of useful things that are useless to you.
Differences between philosophy and science
A significant difference is the rigorous factology inherent in the scientific approach. Any Scientific research focuses on a strict foundation of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed and proved. Science, unlike philosophy, is not unfounded, but demonstrative. Philosophical statements are very difficult to prove or disprove. No one has yet been able to invent a formula for happiness or an ideal person. The fundamental difference in these areas still lies in the philosophical pluralism of opinions, while in science there were three milestones around which the general idea sciences: Euclid's system, Newton's system, Einstein's system.
The tasks, methods and goals of philosophy, summarized in this article, show us that philosophy is filled with various currents, opinions, often contradicting each other. The third distinguishing feature is that science is interested in the objective world in itself, as it is, therefore there was an opinion that science is inhuman in the literal sense of the word (excludes a person, his emotions, addictions, etc. from the scope of his analysis ). Philosophy is not an exact science, it is the doctrine of general fundamental principles, thinking and reality.
Whether we know it or not, philosophy is part of our life world. That is why we must know her well!Let's illustrate this with the following example. Suppose someone has two beliefs (or, if you like, principles or norms). According to the first, he must not kill. According to the second, he is obliged to defend his homeland. What should he do in case of war? After all, on the one hand, becoming a soldier, he will be in a state of conflict with his conviction about the inadmissibility of murder. On the other hand, by refusing to join the armed forces, he would be in conflict with his civic duty to defend his homeland.
How to resolve this dilemma? Is one of these norms more fundamental than the other, and if so, why? thinking man must understand to what extent his participation or non-participation in hostilities will lead to minimal casualties and to what extent his possible actions in such situations are consistent with his principles. The further we delve into such questions, the more we philosophize, that is, we think philosophically.
Whether we realize it or not, philosophical reflections permeate our entire daily life. If their identification and clarification is carried out by an individual, then they are personal in nature. However, at the same time, they are also universal, since with their help an ever deeper and more unified understanding of the human world is revealed. This kind of activity is philosophical in nature, and much can be learned from knowing what philosophers thought and said about various life issues. That is why it is necessary to "study philosophy".
11
However, in connection with what has been said, the following question also arises: what can philosophy teach? Is modern sciences don't teach us everything we can know? If they are not able to substantiate norms and values, then one can appeal to the current legislation. Say, according to our laws, racial discrimination is prohibited. Is it worth philosophically substantiating this ban?
But here comes the next question. Would racial discrimination be legal and mandatory if we lived in a society where it was legislated? Readers who object to a positive answer to this question may refer to international human rights treaties that prohibit racial discrimination. But how to justify its illegality for those who do not recognize these agreements? We can continue this reasoning further and turn to religious beliefs or fundamental normative principles, which we consider as self-evident, in search of justification. However, will this argument be convincing for people who profess other religious beliefs or proceed from the self-evidence of other principles?
To resolve such problems, it is necessary to distinguish between knowledge and opinion. The difference between a person who knows something and a person who believes that he knows something is that the former has sufficient grounds for asserting some knowledge as true and correct, while the latter does not. The question of the extent to which we can be sure that our norms are universally binding then becomes the question of whether or not we have sufficient grounds for asserting their universality. Such reasons cannot be only personal. If the reason is valid (is valid), then it is valid for you and for me. It is universally valid regardless of who first formulated it. The ground that gives the right to say that we know something is the ground that must withstand critical scrutiny and objections directed against it. Only a statement that is able to pass a free and open test by people who hold different
12
points of view can be considered reasonable. This indicates the sense in which statements are considered valid, and this sense may include philosophical (in our example, ethical) questions.
Currently, it is customary to distinguish between the existing (what is) and the due (what should be). At the same time, they say that the natural sciences describe and explain the existing, but cannot explain why something should be as a value. Let's make a few clarifications about this difference. For example, science can describe how we learn, but not why we should learn. Of course, it can answer the question of why we should learn this or that if we are striving to achieve some particular goal, say, to get the best chance of passing an exam. But if we want to acquire a certain specialty and engage in a related activity, then we can explain why we have to take exams. Such questions about what should be concerned with relative ends, which are means to other ends. However, the natural sciences do not answer the question why, in such a sequence of ends and means, we should prefer a certain final end.
At the same time, the sciences, by clarifying the status quo, can have a huge impact on our attitudes and our actions. They can reveal our real motives, the consequences of our actions, and possible alternatives. Moreover, the natural sciences can find out what people, according to their words and deeds, consider right and good. They can also reveal how norms function in society. However, all this information about norms does not lead to the conclusion that some norms are binding.
If a social anthropologist describes, for example, the norms of a certain society, then his description implies their "obligation" for this society. However, it does not follow from this that they are mandatory for us living in a different society. Nor does it mean that these norms, which are actually perceived as obligatory by people living in the culture under study, should in fact be understood as justified. Suffice it to mention, for example, the bringing in some cultures of ritual human sacrifices in honor of the god of rain. For example, we can understand the norms that require the expulsion of physically and mentally abnormal children, but at the same time do not consider them universally valid. Thus, the consideration of certain functioning norms as mandatory does not mean recognition of their general validity.
13
Further delving into these problems would require writing another textbook. We have only tried to show how the problematic of the norms of our daily life leads us into the realm of philosophy and other disciplines, and what philosophy can do to clarify it.
Let us make one more remark on such a complex topic as the relationship between science and philosophy. Scientific understanding phenomena depends on the set of conceptual and methodological premises on which the scientific project of their study is based. This is especially evident when the subject of scientific discussion, such as hydropower development, can be analyzed from economic, environmental, technological, sociological and corporate perspectives. They highlight different aspects of the same subject matter, in relation to which a separate point of view does not give a true picture. Thus, in order to understand "what is really the subject of discussion", whether it is the development of hydropower or the centralization of the school system, it is necessary to know and comprehend the totality of the various points of view related to it. Thinking about them can be called philosophical reflection, and in the presence of many separate sciences, it turns out to be very appropriate. It is philosophical reflection that helps us to approach their common understanding in the conditions of a civilization that is threatened by splitting into autonomous, unrelated parts.
It should be noted that in trying to point out how genuine philosophical problems arise, we are guided by a certain vision of what is central to philosophy. (Other authors might have settled on other topics and ways of thinking.) This important point because the choice we have made has determined the form and content of this book. It is an introduction to the history of European philosophy in the context of natural rights(natural rights) and the expansion of natural science and scientific rationality. If we imagine the history of philosophy as a vivid tapestry, based on many threads, then these two are undoubtedly the longest and most important.
14
We have tried to avoid the shortcomings inherent in some expositions of the history of philosophy. Most of them bear the imprint of the characteristics of the scientific and pedagogical career of the authors, their scientific interests, research area and cultural orientation. Therefore, the presentation of history is usually given from some previously considered point of view. Each author inevitably singles out in the historical diversity what he considers the most appropriate and important. It is unlikely that anyone is able to read, maintaining a neutral attitude, the works of Machiavelli, Marx or Heidegger. Therefore, it would be an illusion to believe that the history of philosophy or any other discipline can be written from the point of view of eternity or from the standpoint of the Lord God. Any discussion of previous philosophers will have a "modern" character. This is inherent in every historian of philosophy, whether he likes it or not. The historian cannot be Baron Munchausen, who, as you know, managed to pull himself out of the swamp by the hair. The historian cannot extract himself from his own scientific and cultural environment. In addition, the preconceived position that the author adheres to may make it difficult for him to understand the ideas of other philosophers. All these circumstances sometimes give the exposition of the history of philosophy an evaluatively masterful tone. Even the great philosophers who have studied history philosophical thought, willingly took on the role of a school teacher, grading the previous thinkers. Yes, after reading the story Western philosophy B. Russell, it is easy to come to the conclusion that Hegel and Nietzsche are guilty of serious intellectual errors.
In this book, we have tried not to act as "all-knowing teachers" or "intellectual overseers."
Like our contemporaries, the philosophers of the past claimed to be speaking the truth. In this sense, they challenge our time just as they challenged theirs. That is why we will take Aristotle and Plato seriously only by taking a definite position in relation to what they said. This involves entering into a dialogue with them, allowing us to compare and test our points of view and theirs. This is precisely one of the differences between the philosophizing history of philosophy and the secondary reconstruction of the ideas of the past.
In our book, we give Special attention studying the views of each philosopher in the context of his time, in order to understand previous philosophers in the light of their own ideas. But at the same time, we strive for a dialogue with them. We desire not only to listen, but to respond to the voice that speaks from the past.
15
Our presentation of the history of philosophy bears the traces of the time, namely the end of the twentieth century. Although we are hardly in a more privileged position than previous authors, it is, of course, historically special. This does not mean that the book reflects some modernist quirks. Approaching with an open mind the various books on the history of philosophy, we find that they are surprisingly similar to each other. All of them contain some basic list of philosophers and ways of presenting philosophical problems. Modern philosophers and their predecessors do not express complete disagreement on most of the subjects discussed. They are unanimous as to what are the essential questions and the answers discussed, whether formulated by Plato, Descartes, or Wittgenstein. The same unanimity is characteristic of various expositions of the history of philosophy. This book also shares a fundamental agreement about what is the task of philosophy.
However, some features distinguish our History of Philosophy from other works. It is generally accepted that scientific revolution the beginning of the New Age challenged the existing picture of the world and gave rise to new epistemological and ethical questions. That is why the analysis of the ideas of Copernicus, Kepler and Newton is contained in any review of the history of philosophy. While sharing this approach, we also believe that the rise of the humanities (the Humanities or die Geistwissenschaften) and the revolution in the social sciences also raised similar questions. In this sense, our book goes one step further than traditional textbooks, which are usually limited to discussing the consequences of classical natural science for the modern picture of the world and understanding of human nature. The sciences associated with the names of Darwin, Freud, Durkheim, and Weber have also given rise to important philosophical problems. Therefore, in this book the reader will find a fairly detailed examination of the humanities and social sciences, as well as psychoanalysis.
This book has been in the making for quite some time. One of the authors (N. Guillie - V.K.) used its first edition as a textbook for an introduction to philosophy! As a result,
1 In this context, the humanities refer to human sciences that are not classified as experimental (for example, history, classical philology, cultural studies), and the term "social sciences" characterizes behavioral disciplines (such as sociology and psychology). - S.K.
16
this book, which has its own history, inevitably retained some "imprint" of the seventies and eighties of our century. But it also means that this edition has gone through a lot of testing. It is clear that didactic and pedagogical considerations and preferences played a role in the choice and presentation of the content of the book. Much trial and error lies behind our understanding of what is most important to communicate to students and how it should be communicated. No textbook is complete. Therefore, we are constantly open to suggestions regarding its changes and improvements.
Following tradition, we conducted the presentation in chronological order. However, the structure of the book allows you to start reading it from the end, that is, from the exposition of the philosophy of science and the modern problems of rationality and norm theory, say, from the chapters on Popper, Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Habermas.
In reading this book, whether it be read from the beginning or from the end, it is useful to keep in mind that a philosophical text can be read in many different ways.
1) First of all, the reader should try to understand what the text is talking about. Here it is important to emphasize the importance of original sources. It should be seen in the original text constituent part of the entire corpus of the author's works, simultaneously considering it in connection with common history ideas.
2) In addition, the text exists in a certain society. This society determines the text and, in turn, is itself determined by the text. Therefore, it is useful to consider the text in a historical context. Such an approach may also include sociological and psychological analysis text. His example is the exploration of how family background, social status, or political interests may have influenced, perhaps in a hidden way, the author and his contemporaries.
3) The main purpose of a philosophical text is to express what is true in one sense or another. Therefore, one can understand its philosophical essence only by finding out to what extent things really are as they are presented in the text. This clarification is possible only in a situation of dialogue with the text. Here in the best possible way argumentation is the verification and testing of one's opinion in the face of the point of view and the arguments contained in the text. At the same time, it is not enough for a philosopher to find out what, for example, Hegel said (sometimes this is
17
rather difficult), or to understand how his ideas were conditioned by his contemporary society (which is also not easy). It is extremely important for a philosopher to find out to what extent Hegelian ideas are generally valid.
Questioning continues to be the most important for understanding what philosophy is. The student of it must himself ask questions, even at the beginning and resorting to the help of others. In philosophy, there are no "final" answers that are easy to find in the list of ready-made solutions. Therefore, only by starting to ask questions, you can come to a better understanding of it.
To such a question, Alexei Valerievich Bosenko usually answers that “nothing” - because she is “not from need, but without need”, “from freedom and in freedom”. After all, the question is usually “why?” is put either rhetorically, expressing the futility of the subject (why is this necessary?), or out of selfish interest - based on the fact that our time is saturated with the spirit of commerce and pragmatism. Therefore, we are expected to give a pragmatic answer about the "fitness" of philosophy - that is, an explanation of its direct utility in the everyday sense.
In the case of philosophy, the answer to such a question will always be detrimental to philosophy itself, since by the very pragmatic tone of the question it is placed within the framework of a specific utilitarian benefit. Philosophy just does not give such a benefit, benefit. And having answered that philosophy forms a breadth of view of things and the ability to think in general, we, of course, will only lose - since this breadth and skill are not required from a modern person, and it is quite possible to do without them. All this is of no use to people who live by the standards of commodity value.
The question "why is philosophy needed?" largely due to our recent Soviet past. After all, today we are dealing with an education system that still retains much of its predecessor, which put at the forefront not just “useful” utilitarian skills and abilities, but the very development of a person. She set the task of building a developing education - since it had the goal of developing the individual. It is for this reason that philosophy, which hitherto has always been an elitist science, entered the former public system of education. Today it is washed out of education back, liquidated, and will soon be available again in its higher forms only to initiates.
Everything is very simple: philosophy really gives a person the opportunity to think independently and draw conclusions independently. And in the society in which we now live, such thinking and such conclusions are unsafe and unnecessary. He needs people who do not think, but only take the clichés and idioms produced by society, which are necessary to maintain the current status quo. Ideologists produce ideas, and people should consume them, take them ready-made, and in no case develop them themselves. Thinking is a dangerous thing. After all, free thinking is always fraught with disobedience and disobedience.
Philosophy has no future in our society. Therefore, students should understand that today only some universities are still trying to form a taste and need for philosophy. I really like the way Evald Ilyenkov writes about this: after all, we take care of the hygiene of the body, we do physical education - and we also need to take care of the hygiene of the mind, our mental health. The mind must be in good shape all the time, because, like muscles, it also becomes decrepit in the absence of constant activity and active work. Therefore, each person should have a normal need for self-development. After all, the mind is associated with skill, with methods of activity that are not formed spontaneously - that is, with the development of methods of activity necessary to solve problems that have not yet been solved in history, and do not have an algorithm, a specific ready-made method of solving, a scheme.
To develop such solutions, one needs not purely intellectual flexibility - a game of the mind, but a certain ability to develop solutions in unforeseen, not predetermined situations. Socrates taught that a person needs to master general concepts in order to develop the right decisions in situations that have not taken place before. Operating with general concepts was precisely the essence of philosophy for him.
When it comes to the significance of philosophy, we should first of all talk not about its benefits for an individual, but about the historical necessity with which philosophy appears, and what caused its appearance in society. Then it is already easier to talk about what role this person intends to play in history. individual person, and why he needs philosophy: either he will remain an agent and a cog in commodity production, or he will strive to be a person, a subject in historical process- changing society, not adapting to it.
It should be remembered that a person is born unprepared, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. He develops - more precisely, he develops himself, and his formation as a person is the work of his own hands. When history is just beginning, man is a man only at the initial stage of his development. But already at this stage it has universality in its essence. Such forms of consciousness as philosophy provide him with this universality and the formation of himself as a person. These forms act as projections of infinity, eternity, universality, generality, which man has yet to work out again in reality: first on a social scale, and then to appropriate individually.
To put it simply, philosophy is a project, strategy and perspective for the development of the human essence. In the course of the unfolding of history, each individual person appears more and more one-sided, monotonous, more and more one-sided in his functions, and is deprived of this universality. But it is acquired as a whole by the social essence of man. And philosophy - as a form of becoming the universality of this essence - plays a defining function in relation to other forms of consciousness. All forms of consciousness as an ideal form the sphere of human universality, and philosophy is the self-consciousness of this universality. Man realizes in philosophy his eternal, universal and infinite essence. After all, the very concepts of the eternal, the infinite and the universal can only be worked out by philosophy and assimilated by man only from it.
“Melancholy and hopelessness” is a signal and a symptom. Philosophy can help a person who constantly experiences boredom or a state of inhumanity of his existence, wanting to get out of it. But not every philosophy - but only one that allows you to discover infinity in the finite. Or, as Aristotle wrote, it makes it possible to know the individual contained in the general. Another philosophy seeks to pick up and strengthen this feeling of anguish, bringing it to despair and helplessness.
It is important to understand that philosophy is heterogeneous. When engaging in philosophy on your own, its simplest forms (or, even worse, philosophical fictions) are at hand, which lead to a dead end or leave a person in the same state, strengthen his frozen existence, reassuring him that nothing can be done. The absurdity of life is reinforced by the conviction that this absurdity is normal. It is as if all responsibility is removed from a person, he becomes ossified in impotence, believing in the impossibility of changing anything. That is why all kinds of mystical teachings are so popular.
Self-made in philosophy leads only to its surrogate forms, serving as an apology for the current state of affairs, the cultivation of human helplessness. Therefore, to real philosophy in its highest forms - to the theory of development, to dialectical philosophy- you can not come alone, spontaneously, by home-grown means and randomly. This requires training that is complex and requires some effort.
At the first encounter with it, philosophy destroys ordinary thinking and shakes dogmatism, forming a skeptical attitude towards reality. And if you do not bring this negative change to some mature form, to the transformation into a constructive, positive negation, then the person remains at the level of skepticism, relativism, subjectivism. These forms of thinking are very common these days. The skeptic does not know the dialectical negation of negation. And these people are very convenient in that, despite the criticism that they spread and sow around them, they are not able to do anything, and only create the appearance of some kind of activism, a social movement. Such a position is in a certain way nourished and cultivated in our time.
The most difficult thing is to rise to the dialectical level of thinking. Although, after the dogmatic surrogate of dialectics was no longer implanted, jagged, thoughtless, primitive formulations of dialectical positions disappeared. For those who have not had a negative experience of studying philosophy, dialectics is now opening up to a new world.
But to preserve these discoveries, appropriate forms of association are needed. As Engels said, since socialism has become a science, it demands that it be studied as a science. The history of ways of thinking also requires that it be studied, assimilating the most developed forms of thinking. However, in the modern education system, it is very difficult to teach this. Indeed, in order to teach how to walk, write and read, we allocate years of daily classes - and to study the theory of knowledge in the history of science, only eight lectures are given. Free time, free voluntary occupation of something becomes a luxury. Everyone who wants to do something freely, for the soul, must continuously resist the routine, everyday life, the flurry of affairs and events. And this requires perseverance and daily efforts.
At the same time, successful resistance to the system is impossible without philosophy. Spontaneous protest directed against it and explosive indignation are ineffective. They can always be redirected to strengthen the existing system.
So, a person cannot by himself find the way to developing philosophy, and to philosophical culture as such - although independence in this search for a way is as necessary as polemic and dialogue. However, independence is not the same as searching alone. What is offered to a person as part of the educational process at the university is often perceived by him with hostility, as a “compulsory obligation” imposed on him from the outside. And as Aristotle once noted, philosophy requires leisure and is more deeply mastered with a free attitude towards it, based on personal interest. Drill and coercion only repel. After all, philosophy is protected by its complexity - it cannot be learned by rote and cannot be forced to practice it by force. Cramming and coercion are powerless and contraindicated in her case.
However, philosophy classes - when they occupy and captivate a person for some time - can result in career growth and success. There are many examples when people involved in philosophy later used in their work the acquired skills of public speaking, competent and clear construction of thought, the ability to grasp the problem in its entirety and productively participate in polemics. However, this is not philosophy at all, but particular manifestations of the acquired knowledge, which favorably distinguish the people who own them - but nothing more.
Dialectics makes it possible to understand the world from itself, to understand the very system of social life and community development, realizing what a person is and what is his place in the universe. Alas, it also happens that there is a lot of sadness in this knowledge. This is especially characteristic of regressive eras - in particular, the one we are experiencing now. A person familiar with philosophy can identify advanced trends in all spheres of public life. Understanding the general, whole, basic, he understands not only the actual state of things in their connections, but also the position of himself in them. Such an understanding equips a person with knowledge, which, in turn, makes him able to change this situation. Then philosophy is needed.
