The formation of proper scientific forms of knowledge, separate from both philosophy and religion, is usually associated with the name of Aristotle, who laid the initial foundations for the classification of various knowledge, and today, having gone through the multi-stage stages of its development, science undoubtedly plays a leading role in the development of the Universe. Mankind is now at a turning point in its history, when the solution of truly vital issues depends on it, when the achievements of science, being the driving force of progress, have simultaneously become a threat to the life of man himself. In other words, the progressive development of science inevitably gives rise to many problems that are of a vital, moral nature. The study of the history of the emergence, logic and patterns of the formation and development of science enables a person to make the best decisions when choosing the right way to use the achievements of science for their own purposes. From the time of the first ancient philosophers to the present day, the development of science as a special kind of knowledge of the world around us has been inextricably linked with the development philosophical views to science. For the first time, the phenomenon of science was comprehended in the epistemological systems of classical rationalism of the modern period. Formation and development of experimental science in the 17th century. led to fundamental changes in the way of life of man Science was understood as a system of true knowledge. Philosophers were interested in understanding the correspondence between knowledge and the subject area of the set of objects in relation to which this knowledge was obtained. Philosophy in the form in which it is now would not be possible without conditions external to man, its source: the level achieved by science in everyday life frees up an enormous amount of time for reflection, in no way connected with the concern for getting a piece of bread essential, protecting yourself and loved ones from the external environment. And vice versa, science without philosophy is doubly impossible, since scientific discoveries(and just scientific work) it is necessary to realize, comprehend, experience, otherwise these will not be discoveries, but will be simple mechanical work to obtain, take away new, dead knowledge from Nature. Dead knowledge cannot give a person anything good. That is why a real scientist must be, first of all, a philosopher, and only then a natural scientist, experimenter, theorist.
On the basis of this idea, Descartes began to think carefully about the idea of a general analytical method, consisting in dividing any difficulty into its component parts and subsequently moving from the simplest to the more complex, assuming order even where the objects of thought are not at all given in their natural connection. Thus, Descartes' desire to create a single, omnipotent and universal analytical method, which would allow unified consideration of any particular problems, regardless of their content, was vividly expressed in the Rules for the Guidance of the Mind. Therefore, the field of mathematics, for example, includes only those sciences in which either order or measure is considered, and it is completely unimportant whether these are numbers, figures, stars, sounds, or anything else in which this measure is sought. In other words, the understanding of mathematics as the universal language of science, the desire to reduce philosophy to physics, physics to mathematics, and qualitative differences to quantitative relations, to transform existing knowledge about the world into a uniform system of quantitative laws are the most characteristic features of the natural science of the New Age. Speaking about the genesis of classical science, F. Engels noted that it originated in the 16th century. By classical science, he understood ideas about the world that, in contrast to the sporadic guesses of the past, had reached a systematic exposition. The discoveries of the 16th century, above all the heliocentric system of Copernicus, became the starting point of the mechanics of the 17th century. Schematically, the movement of thought goes from Copernicus through Galileo (cosmic inertia, laws of fall), Kepler (orbits of the planets), Descartes (rectilinear inertia) straight to Newton. “Philosophy,” Galileo wrote, “is written in the greatest book that is constantly open to our eyes (I am talking about the Universe), but it is impossible not to understand without first learning to understand the language and distinguish the signs with which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its signs are triangles, circles and other mathematical figures. /12, p. 107 / A carefully thought-out experiment, the separation of secondary factors from the main one in the phenomenon under study is an essential aspect of Galileo's scientific practice. He enriched applied optics with his telescope, with the help of which the planets he observed did not look like ideal bodies of celestial matter, and Galileo decisively "break" the crystal of heaven, inflicting, so to speak, an experimental blow to the thought of peripatetics and theologians about the perfection and immutability of the sky, about the opposition of "earthly" and "heavenly". Thus, the fundamental ideas of the science of nature were the ideas of the homogeneity of space (Galileo), the homogeneity of matter (Descartes). The unity of the world was just given by the totality of these principles. The universalism of the thinkers of the 17th century also flowed from them. Thus, Descartes argued that it is easier to learn all the sciences than to separate one of them from another. He objected to the division of labor in science. But, by and large, XVII gave only one universal mechanical system - Descartes' Principles of Philosophy. The world in the understanding and depiction of scientists of that time is devoid of any colors, it is geometrically clear.
Truly scientific knowledge unlike magic, it is obtained through experience and is subject to control, and is not the lot of a few initiates. Magic is a tool for dominating other people, while science should benefit people. In the light of this, man becomes in Bacon not a rational animal, but a servant and interpreter of nature. The power by which man is able to change nature is scientific knowledge. To conduct research, Bacon formulates a two-part procedure. "The first is to extract axioms from experience, the second is to derive new experiments from axioms." To extract axioms from experience, Bacon suggests using the method of induction, but "legitimate and true induction, which gives the key to interpretation." To search for forms natural phenomena three tables are introduced - a table of presence (a list of cases where the phenomenon under consideration is present), an absence table (a list of cases where the phenomenon under consideration is absent) and a table of degrees (a list of cases in which the phenomenon under consideration is presented to a greater or lesser extent). Having such tables, Bacon proceeds to induction, following the procedure of elimination (he used the term elimination). Thus, Bacon follows a path that is different from both pure empiricism and pure rationalism. 7. Rene Descartes Founder modern philosophy- outstanding French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) focuses his attention on building the foundation of a new edifice of philosophy. As a basis for it, a new scientific method of reasoning should be developed, which will become the beginning of new knowledge. According to him, philosophical knowledge must satisfy the requirements of truth, it must be substantiated, and so convincingly that it was acceptable to any critic and skeptic. If so, then it should be clear, obvious. It is in this connection that Descartes quotes his famous: "I think, therefore I am." Two things are obvious, I exist and I think. The starting point of the philosophy of modern times is the thinking subject, the rational person. From the point of view of Descartes, Galileo did not offer a method capable of penetrating the roots of philosophy and science. This is the task set by Descartes. His “Rules for the Direction of the Mind” and “Discourse on Method” contain “clear and easy rules that will not allow the one who will use them to take false for true and, avoiding futile mental efforts, gradually increasing the degree of knowledge, will lead him to true knowledge of all that he is able to comprehend. In his work, he put forward the formulation of four fairly simple and understandable fundamental rules. They divide any rigorous study into successive steps, typical of mathematics and geometry. Following them, you can be sure that the results obtained using the method will be true and objective. Using his method, Descartes laid the foundations of analytic geometry, introduced the concepts of variable and function, discovered the law of conservation of momentum, introduced the concept of reflex, explained the movement and formation of celestial bodies by the vortex motion of material particles. 8. Isaac Newton Isaac Newton (1642-1727), one of the greatest scientists of modern times, completed the creation of classical physics.
The medieval image of the world and the mood of man and culture conditioned by it begin to collapse in the XIV century. This process continues during the 15th and 16th centuries, and in the 17th century a new picture of the world takes definite shape. To understand how ϶ᴛᴏ happens, let us turn again to different areas of human life and creative activity.
Of course, here, as well as in the description of the medieval picture of the world, we have no right to consider one of these areas as a “cause”, and to deduce the rest from it. Rather, it is about such a whole, in which each element supports and determines all the others: in other words, about human being, about feeling, understanding and seeing being. Perhaps it is best to start with the emergence of modern science. As we have already shown, for a medieval person, science means, first of all, understanding what is given to him in authoritative sources as truth.
Already in the second half of the XIV century, finally - in the XV century, the situation changes. The desire for knowledge makes a person turn to the immediate reality of things. It is worth noting that he wants - regardless of the given samples - to see everything with his own eyes, test it with his own mind and get a critically justified judgment.
He turns to nature, and there is an experiment and a rational theory of the new time. Turns to tradition - a humanistic critique and source-based historiography is emerging. Turns to public life: new teachings about the state and law will be prompted. Science is released as an autonomous area of culture from the unity of life and activity that existed until then, determined by religion, and is asserted independently.
A similar process occurs in economic life. Here it begins even earlier - in Italy already from the end of the 13th century. Until then, trade and income were fettered by estate ideas and guild prescriptions, and the canonical ban on the collection of interest made it impossible to credit - the main prerequisite for economic entrepreneurship; now the striving for income acquires ϲʙᴏboda and henceforth contains the ϲʙᴏth meaning in itself. It is limited exclusively by extremely elastic data norms and regulations of the legal order, designed to establish economic competition.
A capitalist economic system is emerging, in which everyone has the right to have as much as he can acquire without violating existing legal norms. The achievements of the ϶ᴛᴏ system are enormous, both in creation and in the distribution of wealth. Property explodes the established social order and opens access to once privileged estates and positions. Another autonomous area of culture is developing - an economy that lives according to its own laws.
As for politics, both the grounds and the yardstick for evaluation are changing here. It is worth saying that politics has always been a struggle of historical holders of power, seeking to acquire power and organize it at their own discretion. And it has always been associated with injustice. But in the Middle Ages, politics was included in the general moral and religious order, in the integrity of the state and the church as two forms of God's dominion on earth. And therefore its activity was estimated by their estimations; and where injustice was committed, there it was committed with an unclean conscience. Note that now everything is changing here too.
It is worth saying that political activity begins to appear as something that contains ϲʙᴏ and norms exclusively in itself. This "something" determines - not only practically, but also in principle - the tasks of achieving, asserting and exercising power. Any injustice justified by these tasks is committed not only with a clear conscience, but even with a kind of consciousness of the “duty” being performed. Machiavelli is the first to proclaim the new moral character of politics, followed by others. Pascal's contemporary Thomas Hobbes creates a theory of the state, where it turns out to be the absolute master and judge of human life, which, in turn, is understood as the struggle of all against all.
The practical basis for such ideas was the endless wars between the emerging sovereign possessions everywhere, from which the current nation-states gradually grew. The natural vitality of peoples. each of them is aware of its originality and its purpose, explodes the old order, and the new political thinking becomes as much a means as it is the result of this process.
Equally profound changes are taking place in cosmological views, in the conception of the world as a whole.
Formerly the world was presented as a limited quantity; however, its extensive finiteness was balanced, so to speak, by an intense infinity - an absolute symbolic content that shone through everywhere. The world whole had its ϲʙᴏth prototype in the Logos. Note that each of its parts embodied some side of the prototype. Individual symbols were correlated with each other, forming a polynomial hierarchical order. Angels and saints in eternity, luminaries in world space, natural beings and things on earth, man and his internal structure, human society with its various layers and functions - all ϶ᴛᴏ showed the structure of semantic images that had eternal meaning. The same symbolic order reigned in history with its various phases, from the true beginning in creation to the equally true end at the Last Judgment. Separate acts of the ϶ᴛᴏth drama - historical epochs - were connected with each other, and within the epoch each event had a ϲʙᴏth meaning.
Note that now the world is beginning to expand, breaking ϲʙᴏ and borders. It turns out that you can move in all directions without end. It is appropriate to note that the will to limit, which determined the former nature of life and creativity, is weakening, a new will is awakening for which any expansion of boundaries is perceived as liberation. Astronomy discovers that the earth revolves around the sun; thus the Earth ceases to be the center of the world. Giordano Bruno proclaims in his frantic writings the philosophy of demons. finite world, moreover, an infinite number of worlds, so that the exceptional value this world becomes doubtful.
But the achievements of the new astronomy are so great and are so consistently connected with other conclusions of the new natural sciences that from now on the researcher changes to be sure: now there is no place for any fantasy and such a picture of the world has been created, which focuses only on reality.
The same thing happens with history. The biblical doctrine of a definite beginning and an equally definite end of time is called into question. Breaking it, the idea of a historical process emerging from an ever more distant past and going into an ever more distant future breaks its way. The study of sources, monuments, remnants of past cultures brings to light an innumerable number of phenomena and events; the search for causes and effects, the study of the structures of human existence reveal connections that connect everything with everything. But in the ϶ᴛᴏm boundless sea of events, in the infinite duration of time, an individual event loses its ϲʙᴏe meaning. Among an infinite number of incidents, none can be more important than another: after all, none is of unconditional importance. When reality passes any measure, the moments disappear, on which the medieval idea of order rested: the beginning and the end, the border and the middle. It is important to note that the hierarchical articulations and ϲᴏᴏᴛʙᴇᴛϲᴛʙia that developed between them disappear at the same time, followed by symbolic accents. There is an endless connection going in all directions: on the one hand, it gives space and ϲʙᴏbod, on the other hand, it deprives human existence of an objective point of support. A person gets room for movement, but becomes homeless.
The cosmic experience of infinity continues on earth. Previously, man was limited to familiar areas - the boundaries of the old ecumene; now he ceases to feel the unknown lands surrounding her as a forbidden zone. It is worth saying that for Dante the undertaken It is important to note that the odyssey sailing into the open sea beyond the Pillars of Hercules, that is, through Gibraltar, is a daring lawlessness, leading him to death. And the man of the new time is attracted by the unknown, attracted to knowledge. It is worth noting that he begins to discover new lands and conquer them. It is worth noting that he felt the courage to go into the infinite world and become its master.
It is important to note that at the same time the personality consciousness characteristic of the new time is being formed. The individual becomes interesting to himself, turning into an object of observation and psychological analysis.
A sense of human exceptionality awakens. Genius comes to the fore. This concept, associated with the feeling of the opening infinity of the world and history, becomes a measure for determining human value. All these changes cause a dual feeling in a person. On the one hand, -ϲʙᴏboda of movement and personal activity. Material published on http: // site
There will be an autocratic, brave man-creator, driven by ϲʙᴏim “ingenium” (innate intelligence), led by “fortune” (good luck, happiness), receiving “fama” and “gloria” - glory and fame as a reward.
But, on the other hand, it is precisely because of ϶ᴛᴏ that a person loses the objective point of support, which he had in the previous world, and a feeling of abandonment, even a threat, arises. A new fear is awakening, different from the fear of medieval man. He was also afraid, since fear is a universal fate, it will always accompany a person, even under such a seemingly reliable protection of science and technology. But the reason and nature of it are different at different times.
The fear of medieval man was associated with the unshakable boundaries of the finite world, which opposed the desire of the soul for breadth and spaciousness; he calmed down in the transcendence performed anew each time - going beyond the limits of the local reality. Material published on http: // site
On the contrary, the fear inherent in modern times arises not least from the realization that man no longer has either his symbolic place or immediate safe haven, from the daily confirmed experience that man's need for the meaning of life does not find convincing satisfaction in the world.
Looking closely at the new picture of being, we will be able to distinguish its most important elements.
First of all, a new concept of nature. It is worth noting that it implies an immediate given; the totality of things as they are until a person has done something with them; the general is clear for energies and substances, entities and regularities. This is both a prerequisite for our existence and a task for cognition and creativity.
But “nature” is at the same time a valuable concept - a norm of the correct, healthy and perfect, obligatory for all knowledge and creativity - in a word, “natural”. It is worth noting that it becomes a measure of all manifestations of human existence: a “natural” person and a way of life, a “natural” society and state, upbringing - these measures are valid from the 16th to the 20th century: take, for example, the concept of “honnete homme” XVI- XVII centuries, the “natural man” of Rousseau, the “reasonableness” of the Enlightenment, the “naturally beautiful” of classicism.
The concept of "nature" thus expresses something final, indecomposable further. What can be deduced from it is finally substantiated. What can be justified in ϲᴏᴏᴛʙᴇᴛϲᴛʙ and with it is justified.
This does not mean that nature can be conceived as such; on the contrary, she takes mysterious character root cause and end goal. This is “Nature-Divinity”, the object of religious worship. She is glorified as a wise and good creator. This is “Mother Nature”, whom a person surrenders with unconditional trust. Thus "natural" becomes both holy and pious.
Such a consciousness is excellently expressed in the fragment "Nature" from Goethe's Tifurt journal of 1782: "Nature! We are surrounded and embraced by it, unable to get out of it, unable to enter deeper into it. Unbidden, unexpectedly, she carries us away in the whirlwind of his dance and whirls with us until we, exhausted, fall out of her arms.
She creates eternally new images: what is now has never happened before; what was will never be again - everything is new and at the same time old.
We live inside it and are alien to it. It is worth noting that she constantly speaks to us and never betrays her secret to us. We influence it endlessly, and yet we have no power over it...
She lives in countless children - but where is the mother? She is the first and only artist; in the simplest material - the greatest contrasts; without a shadow of tension - unattainable perfection; a clear certainty of features, always shrouded in a kind of softening cover. Let us note that each of its creations has its own essence, each of its manifestations is the most isolated concept, and all ϶ᴛᴏ ϲʙᴏ eventually leads to one...
She has everything thought out, and she thinks constantly, but not like a person, but like nature. She keeps her own all-encompassing meaning to herself, but no one can peep it from her ...
She sprinkles ϲʙᴏ and creations from Nothing and does not tell them where they came from and where they are going. Their business is to walk; she knows the way.
In it everything is always - here and now. She does not know the past and the future. The present is her eternity. It is worth noting that she is kind. I praise her with all her creatures. It is worth noting that she is wise and quiet. You can't snatch explanations from her, you can't lure out a gift if she doesn't give it voluntarily. It is worth noting that she is cunning, but in the name of a good cause, and it is best not to notice her cunning ...
She brought me here, and she will lead me out of here. I trust her. It is worth noting that she can scold me. But she will never hate ϲʙᴏ his creation. I didn't talk about her. No, everything that is true and everything that is false - everything is said by her. Everything is her fault, everything is her merit.”
Such an experience of nature is intertwined with a new perception of antiquity. The latter is perceived as a historical, but forever significant embodiment of human existence, as it should be. The concept of "classical" corresponds in the sphere of culture to the concept of "natural".
The meaning of ideas about nature and ancient antiquity changes relative to Revelation: for the Middle Ages, nature was God's creation, and antiquity was its kind forerunner of Revelation; for the new time, both of them become a means to get rid of Revelation, to show its insignificance, moreover, its hostility to all living things.
In his first, bodily-spiritual being, man himself belongs to nature. But as soon as he realizes this belonging, he begins, disposing of it at his own discretion, to leave the world of natural connections and oppose himself to it. This experience underlies the second main element of the new understanding of human existence: the concept of subjectivity.
Subjectivity, in its specific meaning, was as little known to the Middle Ages as "nature." Nature then assumed the totality of things in their order and unity, understood, however, not as an autonomous universe, but as the creation of a sovereign God. Accordingly, the subject appeared as the unity of an individual human being and the bearer of his spiritual life. But above all, he remained God's creation, called to fulfill a higher will. At the end of the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, a feeling of "I" of a completely different kind awakens. The person becomes important to himself; I, and first of all the outstanding, brilliant I, becomes the criterion of the value of life.
Subjectivity will awake first of all as a “personality”, as an image of a person developing on the basis of his own talents and his own initiative. Like nature, personality is something primary, not subject to further discussion. A personality, and especially a great personality, must be understood from itself, and it justifies its actions and actions by its own originality. Ethical norms turn out to be relative next to it. This criterion, discovered on the example of an outstanding person, is then transferred to a person in general, in ϶ᴛᴏ from the objectively good and true, it is replaced by “authenticity” and “integrity”.
If the concept of personality comes from the originality of living individual being, then the concept of “subject” will be the formal expression of the concept of personality. The subject is the carrier of significant actions, as well as the unity of the categories that determine this significance. The subject received its extremely clear definition thanks to Kantian philosophy. It is worth saying that for a non-subject - logical, data-based, aesthetic - is that First beyond which thinking cannot penetrate. The subject is autonomous, independent and substantiates the meaning of spiritual life.
Everything that can be deduced from the person or subject is recognized as finally understood; every action, insofar as it is in accordance with the personality, is justified - similarly to how nature has become a source of knowledge, and naturalness a value criterion. With ϶ᴛᴏm, the person and the subject are themselves as incomprehensible as nature. But if something can be substantiated with their help, then it is already beyond doubt and criticism. Thus the individual enters the realm of the religious. Genius seems to be something mysterious and is associated with the idea of the gods. In the idealistic concept of spirit, the subjectivity of the individual correlates with the subjectivity of the universe - the world spirit and will, in fact, be its expression. The same Goethe so clearly, so expressively glorified the originality and completeness, the inner stability and happiness of the personality; suffice it to recall a few verses from the “West-Eastern Divan”: “Every person, whether free, or bonded, or invested with power, will agree that the highest happiness of mortals is ϶ᴛᴏ a person.”
Between nature, on the one hand, and the personality-subject, on the other, a world of human action and creativity arises. It is worth noting that it rests on these two poles, but it can also act independently - in the third important concept of modern times, in the concept of "culture".
The Middle Ages produced amazing things, managed to achieve almost perfect forms of human community - created, in a word, a culture of the upper class. At the same time, all ϶ᴛᴏ was understood as a service to God's creation. In the Renaissance, the work and the person who creates it acquire a new meaning. It is worth noting that they concentrate in themselves all the meaning that previously belonged exclusively to God's creation. The world ceases to be a creature and becomes “nature”: human work ceases to be a service expressing obedience to the Creator, and itself becomes “creation”, “creativity”; man, formerly a servant and slave, becomes a "creator".
Considering the world as "nature", man transfers it into himself; understanding himself as a "person", he makes himself the master of his own existence; imbued with the will to "culture", he takes upon himself the construction of his own being.
The concept of "culture" arises simultaneously with the formation of modern science. And from science there will be technology - the quintessence of all those methods of activity, thanks to which a person can set goals for himself at his own discretion. Science, politics, economics, art, pedagogy are increasingly consciously separating themselves from faith, as well as from universally binding data, and build themselves autonomously. But although each separate area justifies itself in this way, they also create something in common, which turns out to be at the same time their common foundation. This is the "culture" of independent human creation, opposed to God and His Revelation.
Culture also acquires a religious character. It reveals the creative secret of the world. Thanks to it, the world spirit becomes aware of itself and a person acquires the meaning of his being. “Whoever has science and art, he also has religion,” says Goethe in “The Meek Xenias”.
To the question: “How does existence exist?” - the consciousness of the new time answers: as nature, as a personality-subject and as culture. These three phenomena form one whole. It is worth noting that they condition and complete each other. Their connection is the last impenetrable foundation of everything: it does not need a fulcrum and does not obey any law.
How did the restructuring of the entire human existence manifest itself in the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era in religion? In passing we have already touched on the ϶ᴛᴏth question; now it's time to answer it in more detail.
For more than a millennium, church-Christian teaching has been the measure of true and false, right and wrong; with the disintegration of the Middle Ages, a purely secular system of values comes to the fore. A new orientation, hostile to Christian Revelation or, in any case, indifferent to it, arises, and henceforth it determines the development of culture. In addition, the old, in the struggle with the new, makes such mistakes that sometimes it begins to be perceived as an enemy of any spirituality.
Thus, the Christian faith is more and more pushed into defensive positions. A number of dogmas suddenly find themselves in conflict with the actual or supposed results of philosophy and science - remember, for example, a miracle, the creation of the world, that God rules the world; arises as a literary genre and as a spiritual position, an apology for the new time. Formerly Revelation and faith formed the basis and atmosphere of human existence; now they have to prove ϲʙᴏ and truth claims. Even where faith has endured, it loses its calm certainty. It is worth noting that she is in constant tension, emphasizes and accentuates herself. It is worth noting that she is no longer in a world obedient to her, but in an alien and even hostile one.
A special religious problem arises due to the fact that the finite world becomes infinite. To put it more precisely: God is losing his ϲʙᴏ place, and man is losing it with it. Before God was in the heights, in the Empyrean, in "heaven". In the ϶ᴛᴏ word, to this day, the astronomical meaning is inseparable from the religious one. But what if there is no more “height”, top? One could object: ϶ᴛᴏ-de materialistic train of thought; for God is a spirit and needs no place. But ϶ᴛᴏ is only true in the abstract; for a particular religious life, God has a ϲʙᴏ place - exactly where the biblical “Glory to God in the highest” places him. The height of heaven is the direct cosmological expression of God's dominion and fulfillment of human existence in God. But if there is no more ϶ᴛᴏth “height” above the world, how can the world no longer have outlines? “Where” then is God? The opposite of God's majesty and human bliss, the place of malice and abandonment also used to have its direct cosmological expression. It is worth noting that it was located at the greatest distance from the Empyrean, in the depths of the Earth - in the same place where antique man placed the underworld, Hades. But if the interior of the Earth is ϶ᴛᴏ solid matter, then nothing of the kind can be there; where then is the place of despair?
A similar question can be asked to the man himself: where is his place? Not an immediately natural place, such as every bodily thing has, but an existential one? The Middle Ages answered: its place is the Earth, and the Earth is the center of the world. This expressed the position of man in the totality of being, his dignity and his responsibility. But new astronomical knowledge is pushing the Earth out of its position. First, it ceases to be the center and becomes one of the planets revolving around the Sun: then solar system itself dissolves in the immensity of the universe, and the Earth becomes something, from a cosmic point of view, having no special significance. "Where" then does man exist?
Let us stop for a moment on the ϶ᴛᴏm question: it is very instructive. The Middle Ages looked at man from two points of view.
From one point of view, he was God's creature, subordinate to God and entirely in his power, but, on the other hand, he is the bearer of the image and likeness of God, directly connected with him and destined to eternal life. Absolutely less than God, but certainly more than any other creature. This position in the system of being was also manifested in the place that man occupied in the world. It is worth noting that he stood open on all sides to God's gaze; but he himself directed the energy of spiritual domination over the world in all directions. The changing picture of the world has put man's place in the world in question. A person finds himself “somewhere”, in a place more and more random.
New time seeks to pull a person out of the center of being. It is worth saying that for the ϶ᴛᴏth era, a person no longer walks under the gaze of God, embracing the world from all sides; man is now autonomous, free to do what he wants and go where he pleases, but he will no longer be the crown of creation, having become exclusively one of the parts of the universe. New time, on the one hand, elevates a person - at the expense of God, against God; on the other hand, with Herostratian joy, it makes man a part of nature, not different in principle from animals and plants. Both sides are interconnected and inseparable from the general change in the picture of the world.
This sheds light on such a phenomenon as the trial against Galileo. Of course you can't see him. negative side or excuse her; but it is equally certain that the process of ϶ᴛᴏt was not only a manifestation of spiritual obscurantism. His deepest motive was concern for the existential foundations of human existence, for the place of God and man. Of course, the “places” given are symbols; but the symbol is as real as a chemical substance or a bodily organ. The psychology of our days has recognized ϶ᴛᴏ and is beginning to slowly restore the knowledge that was once taken for granted for medieval man. Perhaps the shock inflicted by the restructuring of the world on human existence has already been overcome? Looks like no. The scientific picture of the world has become more correct, but a person, apparently, does not yet feel at home in the ϶ᴛᴏm world - just as God has not found his lasting place in it.
Special questions are posed to Christian faith and the main elements of the picture of the world in modern times. How is it with God and his omnipotence, if that experience of the boda, which distinguishes the man of modern times, is justified? And, on the other hand, what kind of autonomy can a person have if God is ϶ᴛᴏ really God? Does God really act if the initiative and creative power are on the side of a person, as modern times claim? And can a person act and create if God creates? If the world is what science and philosophy see in it, then can God act in history? Can he foresee everything and be the Lord of mercy? Can he go down in history and become a man? Can he establish in history an institution that intervenes with divine authority in human affairs - the church? And again; can a person have a true relationship with God if the authority belongs to the church? Can an individual find the true path to God if the church speaks to all people and is meaningful to all? These and similar problems are known to religious life new time. They need to be solved somehow.
First of all internally. The ability to reach agreement with oneself and cope with the questions of his being was previously provided by the reliability of the old traditional state of the world; now she disappears. The person is shocked, unsettled and vulnerable to doubts and questions. As ϶ᴛᴏ always happens in epochs of change, the deepest layers of the human being awaken. With a power unknown before, primitive affects awaken: fear, violence, greed, indignation against order. There will be something elemental and frightening in words and deeds... The main religious forces are also in motion.
Mighty supernatural powers outside and inside are now felt more directly, their impact is fruitful, but at the same time destructive ... Always topical questions about the meaning of existence, about happiness and unhappiness, about the true relationship to God, about the correct dispensation of life receive new sharpness in this atmosphere . The contradictions within the human soul - between the will to truth and resistance to it, between good and evil - are now felt more strongly. The whole problematic of a person begins to be felt.
Internal tensions spill out and out into history; thus begins the religious movements of the age, above all those which we call the Reformation and the Coptre-Reformation. It is worth noting that they are initially associated with theological problems, with the ossification of the church system, with disorders in the way of life - but they also mean that a general change in the entire Christian life is ripe.
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In the Renaissance, the medieval concept of the Divine principle was replaced by rational ideas, from the point of view of which medieval concepts began to be rethought. Man is conceived not as God's creature, but as a co-creator with God, placed in the center of the world, which, by its own will, can become both a higher and a lower being.
Divine laws are conceived as natural laws, Divine forces and energies - as hidden natural processes. Nature becomes a source of hidden natural processes. Knowledge not only describes nature, but also tries to comprehend it, to reveal and establish its laws. Revealing the laws of nature now does not consist only of description, but of describing and constituting them. Nature can now not only be described, but also understood; it becomes fundamentally cognizable, and its processes can serve for man. But for use natural forces a preliminary knowledge of its laws is necessary. Man here acts as the last link of causality described by Aristotle.
Having learned natural laws, a person can use them to create the "new nature" he needs. As a result, the laws of nature and ancient principles, cognition, reflection, technical actions, divine mind, cosmos and nature are approaching and rethinking.
Speaking about the development of technical knowledge in the Renaissance, one cannot fail to note the English philosopher, historian and politician Francis Bacon(1561 - 1626). It is he who takes the last step, declaring nature the main object of the new science and interpreting nature entirely in the natural modality. Nature for him appears as a necessary condition for practical action that produces a "new nature." Man can combine objects of nature, however final result nature does within itself. Practical action in Bacon is inseparable from scientific knowledge. He considers the generation and communication of a new nature to a certain object to be the main vocation of a person. Bacon considers the discovery of the form of a given nature, its true difference, the producing essence and sources of natural origin, as the business and goal of human knowledge. He combined three parts at once into one whole - the idea of scientific knowledge, about engineering action and about nature, as a condition and object of both the first and second. Bacon formed a new understanding of nature as an infinite reservoir of materials, forces, energies that a person can use, provided that he describes its laws in science. With all this, it should be understood that such views were shared by only a small group of scientists of the new formation. Moreover, in those days, even for these scientists, such ideas were perceived, in part, as hypothetical knowledge. It is obvious that from the idea to the implementation of the use of the forces of nature on the basis of science, the distance was, and was quite large. Now it is clear that it was only a plan, and a very bold idea, it was not known whether this plan could be realized.
Along with Bacon, it is impossible to get around the Italian physicist, mechanic, astronomer, philosopher and mathematician Galileo Galilei(1564 - 1642). His name is associated with the formation of a mechanistic picture of the world.
A distinctive feature of his knowledge is the transformation of experience into an experiment, where the correspondence between theory and natural phenomena was established technically, that is, artificially. Galileo showed that not any scientific explanations and knowledge are suitable for using science to describe the natural processes of nature, but only those that describe the real behavior of objects of nature, and this description involves projection onto objects of nature. scientific theory. A theory of natural science should describe the behavior of ideal objects, but those that correspond to certain real objects. Galileo was interested in precisely that idealization that ensured the mastery of natural processes: it described them well (in scientific theory) and allowed them to be controlled (predict their nature, create the necessary conditions, launch them in practice). Galileo's attitude to the construction of a theory and at the same time to engineering research makes him project the characteristics of models and theoretical relations onto real objects, i.e. to liken a real object to an ideal one. However, since they are different, Galileo divides the real object in knowledge into two components. One component corresponds exactly to the ideal object, the other differs from it. This second component is considered by Galileo as an ideal behavior, distorted by the influence of various factors - the environment, friction, the interaction of the body and the inclined plane, etc. Then this second component of the real object, which distinguishes it from the ideal object, decreases so much that it can no longer be taken into account in the experiment. Galileo thinks about the possibility of changing the real object itself in such a way, practically influencing it, so that it would no longer be necessary to change its model, since the object will correspond to it. It was on this path that Galileo achieved success. In contrast to the experiments that were carried out by many scientists before Galileo, the experiment involves, on the one hand, isolating an ideal component in a real object, and on the other hand, transferring a real object to an ideal state in a technical way, i.e. fully displayed in theory. Interestingly, Galileo was able to test experimentally only the case where it was possible not to take into account the action of the main resistance forces. In reality, such a situation did not take place, it was ideal, calculated theoretically, implemented technically. But it turned out that the future lies precisely in such ideal situations. they opened new era in human practice - the era of engineering based on science.
Galileo's experimental method paved the way for the formation of engineering concepts, such as the concept of a mechanism. Galileo determined that such body parameters as its volume, weight, speed, surface finish can be controlled. As a result, Galileo managed to create such conditions in which the experimental body behaved strictly in accordance with the theory.
One of the most prominent philosophers of the New Age was the French Rene Descartes ( 1596 - 1650). Descartes made an attempt to consider the cosmos as a system gradually developing in time, which, thanks to its own laws, contained elements of dialectics, a historical approach to nature. Elements of dialectics are also contained in his mathematical discoveries. However, in general, his mathematical research (as well as cosmological ideas) is closely connected with his metaphysical understanding of nature as a gigantic mechanism. According to the teachings of Descartes, the method must proceed from an absolutely reliable theoretical position and be universal, unchanged, equally applicable in all areas of knowledge. This absolutization of the geometric method clearly shows the mechanistic essence of Descartes' philosophy.
The philosophy of Descartes contains an important materialistic element, namely, a physical theory based on materialistic understanding nature. The basis of Descartes' physics is the doctrine of matter and motion. Matter is the only substance, the only basis of being and cognition.
The main provisions of Descartes' physics are as follows: the universe is material and infinite; matter, although it consists of particles (corpuscles), nevertheless, is divisible to infinity; empty space does not exist; the attribute of substance is extension; particles of matter are in motion, which is a change in their position in space; no forces standing outside of matter itself exist (with the exception of God); matter and motion are indestructible. Proceeding from this, all phenomena are reduced to the movement of material particles, to their mechanical action on each other in direct contact at the moment of impact, and to a change in the shape of the particles. On the whole, Descartes' mathematical investigations (as well as cosmological ideas) are closely connected with his metaphysical understanding of nature as a gigantic mechanism.
Based on the discoveries of Galileo, Kepler and his own achievements in the natural sciences, Descartes tries to substantiate the mechanistic methodology of the science of nature, the logic of mechanistic natural science, considering it as a "universal science" that points the way to a correct, fruitful study of all phenomena of the surrounding world.
A distinctive feature of Cartesian physics was the requirement to explain the world based only on matter and motion. Descartes' physics was an attempt to build a comprehensive system of nature on a materialistic, mechanistic basis.
The position on the increability and indestructibility of motion, understood in the sense of a universal mechanical phenomenon, extended to the entire universe and served as a philosophical support for the materialistic direction in natural science.
The core of the mechanistic picture of the world can be considered mechanics, developed by an English physicist, astronomer and mathematician Isaac Newton(1642 - 1727). In his works, he reveals the methodology and worldview of research. Newton was convinced of the existence of matter, space and time, of the existence of objective laws of the world that are accessible to human knowledge. With his desire to reduce everything to mechanics, Newton supported mechanistic materialism (mechanism). Despite his great accomplishments in the natural sciences, he remained a Christian and took religion very seriously. He believed that "the wisdom of the Lord is revealed equally in the structure of nature and in the sacred books. To study both is a noble deed." Newton was the author of "Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Daniel", "Apocalypse", "Chronology". From this we can conclude that for Newton there was no conflict between science and religion, in his worldview both coexisted.
Newton himself characterizes his method of cognition as follows: "Deduce two or three general principle movements from phenomena and after that to state how the properties and actions of all corporeal things follow from these explicit principles, which would be a very important step in philosophy, even if the causes of these principles were not yet discovered. "By principles, Newton means the most the general laws underlying physics.This method was later called the method of principles.
Newton established four rules for all research:
1 Must not accept other causes in nature beyond those that are true and sufficient to explain the phenomena.
2 Identical phenomena must be attributed to the same causes.
3 Independent and unchanging properties of the bodies subjected to research should be taken as general properties material bodies.
4 Laws found inductively from experience must be considered true until they are contradicted by other observations.
Since the principles are established by studying the phenomena of nature, they are at first hypotheses, from which, by logical deduction, consequences are obtained that are verifiable in practice. This method of Newton's principles is defined as hypothetico-deductive and is one of the main ones for constructing physical theories.
Many questions and disputes in the history of physics have caused Newton's views on space and time. Newton proceeds from the fact that in their practice people cognize space and time by measuring the spatial relationships between bodies and the temporal relationships between processes. Newton calls the concepts of space and time worked out in this way relative. He admits that in nature there are absolute space and time that do not depend on these relations, as empty receptacles of bodies and events. Space and time, according to Newton, do not depend on matter and material processes, which is not consistent with the ideas of physics of the 20th century. Since Newton's matter is inert and incapable of self-motion, and the empty absolute space is indifferent to matter, he recognizes the "first impulse", that is, God, as the primary source of motion.
The crown of the mechanistic picture of the world, considering from the point of view of mechanics, not the surrounding world, but already the person himself can be considered the teaching of the French doctor and philosopher - materialist Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709 - 1751).
In his work "Man-Machine", he considered the human body as a self-winding machine, similar to a clockwork. Being an adherent of the philosophy of sensationalism, La Mettrie put the material world as the basis of human sensations. He supports the objectivity of the existence of the material world by substantiating the internal source of its development, by the inseparability of movement from material objects. At the same time, La Mettrie considered the essence of motion and matter itself to be unknowable. As the main problem of philosophy, he singled out the relationship between matter and human consciousness. Recognizing the primacy of the material world, La Mettrie defines consciousness and thinking as a property or ability of one of the types of the material world. The foundations of these properties are found in sensations. A person differs from an animal mainly in quantitative characteristics: the size and structure of the brain (“Man is an animal”). All living beings have the same ability to feel, regardless of their species. He develops this view in his book Machine Man. In it, La Mettrie interprets man as a machine, albeit a rather complex one. “Man is such a complex machine that it is absolutely impossible to form a clear idea about it, and, therefore, to give an exact definition.” But man is essentially different from mechanical devices, since he is a machine of a special kind, capable of feeling, thinking, distinguishing good from evil. "The human body is a self-starting machine, a living embodiment of perpetual motion." A person is a clock mechanism, which, however, is not wound up mechanically, but through the entry into the blood of the nutritious juice formed from food.
Considering man to be an incredibly complex machine, La Mettrie still takes risks, and cites various examples as evidence. As, for example, constriction of the pupils when bright light enters them and vice versa, their expansion in the dark, dysfunction of organs as a result of some disease, poisoning or external influence (injury).
Regarding more complex processes in the "man-machine"? then they also pass according to the scheme of reaction to environment, and correlate with the needs of the body. In his opinion, science has not yet given an exhaustive picture of the structure and operation of the mechanisms that ensure these processes. La Mettrie understood thinking as a feeling, and he considered the concept of the soul to be an extra designation of that part of the body that thinks. By identifying thinking with feeling, he thereby defines it as qualitatively homogeneous with the same sensations in animals that differ only quantitatively.
Being one of the first to express thoughts about the possibility of origin from animals, La Mettrie nevertheless believed that biological factors alone were not enough for the appearance of a person. Language, articulate speech and education are also necessary for human formation. "Without education, even the best organized mind loses all its value."
But there is one more obligatory condition - it is a public life. La Mettrie believes that man by nature is a cunning, treacherous, insidious and extremely dangerous creature, that man is already evil from his birth. Virtue is only the result of the upbringing that a person receives in the process of his upbringing, life in society. And the possibilities of education are very large, since it can easily turn a person in one direction or another. At the same time, La Mettrie noted the possibility of innateness of some negative traits in a person.
La Mettrie recognized the soul as an extended, internally active, sensing material substance. The forms of matter are the organic, plant and animal kingdoms (the latter also includes man), between which, in his opinion, there are no qualitative differences. He understood the ability of thinking as a comparison and combination of ideas that arose on the basis of sensations and memory. Being a representative of mechanism, La Mettrie gradually approached the idea of evolution.
17th century This is the century of science and philosophy. The idea of creating a new, unified world arises in Europe, where time and space are the main coordinates of man. Leading acting scientific method becomes analysis. Plays an important role scientific revolution XVII century, its role in the formation of a new, mechanical picture of the world is invaluable. Thanks to her, significant discoveries were made in astronomy (Galioey, Kepler), physics (Galileo, Newton), mathematics (Descartes, Newton) and other scientific and cultural fields. During this period, the universalization of science takes place, where reason appears as the main criterion of truth.
In the period of the New Time, there is a fundamental change in the understanding of nature: from the interpretation of nature as an organism to nature as a mechanism. The role of the philosophy of Bacon, Hobbes, Pascal, Spinoza in the scientific and artistic knowledge of the world is invaluable.
Speaking about the period of the Middle Ages, R. Guardini argues that during this period the prerequisites for the creation of a new world had already begun, however, they were held back by the religious system.
“But what the medieval thinker does not have is the will to an empirically accurate knowledge of reality. When he submits to the guidance of ancient authority, there is a danger of a slavish repetition of thoughts. But, on the other hand, here opens up the possibility of such a mental construction, which is unknown to the individualistic modern times. Especially if we remember that we are not talking about singles, but about schools and traditions. Here there is a chance to achieve such depth and subtlety, which lead to true perfection.
In his work, R. Guardini cites periodization as an example philosophical thought from antiquity to modern times. In each of the periods, he sees incompleteness, and consistency. The whole philosophical system, in his opinion, was moving towards this very moment - the moment of the revolution in philosophical and scientific thought, towards the New Time.
What is nature-centrism?
Naturocentrism is, first of all, a philosophical and ideological position, in which the starting point in solving all issues and the highest value is nature or space.
The naturocentric direction stands out rather conditionally, however, the first outlines of such an approach can be found in religious systems. The basis of this approach is the belief in the virtue of humility not only individual person but of humanity as a whole.
In the era of modern times, naturocentrism is characterized by the recognition of the primacy of nature (nature), regardless of whether it is interpreted materialistically, as causa sui, or pantheistically, as the embodiment of the divine spirit identified with it, or even as created by God, but considered by philosophy abstracted from its problem. origin, in its real existence.
R. Guardini makes it very clear that separation from nature-centrism is sometimes necessary for a clear understanding of things and problems of our time.
“If we look without rationalistic and naturalistic prejudices at what has been happening in the world lately, then the very way of human behavior and his spiritual and spiritual disposition will be quite eloquent.”
What type of personality is formed in the era of the New Time?
We have already said that the Mind appears as the main category of the New Time, respectively, the person of this time must be, first of all, rational. Sensationalism and rationality are the main qualities that the personality of the 17th century will possess. The desire for self-knowledge, for mind control over human life and actions, and a sense of the fragility of human life and the chaos of being act as components of a single and contradictory vision of a person in the 17th century.
How did the emergence of new, capitalist relations affect the understanding of man as a practical, active being?
The emergence of new motives, such as the development of agriculture, trade and money relations, and industry, led to the idea of equality. Man is now understood as the driving factor of development. There is a need for new subjective-objective relations, building new principles and positions.
“A capitalist economic system is emerging, in which everyone has the right to have as much as he can acquire without violating existing legal norms. The achievements of this system are enormous both in creation and distribution of wealth. Property explodes the established social order and opens access to once privileged estates and positions. Another autonomous area of culture is developing - an economy that lives according to its own laws.
The whole essence of the New Time is in a revolution, a revolution in all spheres of human activity, hence the formation of capitalist positions that change our understanding of the existence of society and push us to create a new world, a new culture.
“Art in all its manifestations: architecture, plastic arts, painting, poetry, drama - also became an autonomous area of creativity and brought to life an unprecedented fullness of forms. One after another, nation-states were formed with their rapture of their own strength. With unheard-of courage, the whole land was seized in possession. Seas and continents were reopened, a system of colonies was organized. Finally, all these discoveries, unthinkable for any previous era, which we call "technology" and with the help of which man masters nature, were brought to life by a new type of management, in which the unrestricted desire for profit gives rise to an extensive system of capitalism. All this then looked like a powerful surge of unknown forces from some suddenly opened depths. Man began to experience the world and himself in it in a completely new way. He was filled with an irresistible confidence that now, at last, that Present begins, for which the previous one was either a preparation or a hindrance.
What are the reasons for the emergence of the crisis of the new European culture?
Despite the unclear nature of the crisis, philosophers and sociologists, analyzing current trends and facts in culture, politics, and economics, also discover its comprehensive nature, indicating that the most important foundations of human existence have been affected, and a deep connection with the historical exhaustion of trends formulated by the Enlightenment. At the same time, the growth rate of crisis phenomena, together with the absence of any solid (theoretical, ideological) alternative to the observed degradation trends, significantly actualizes the problems of the ontological foundations of culture in the broadest sense - as a civilizational whole, including spiritual culture, politics, economics and all other areas of human activity. .
