In accordance with his ontology, Spinoza calls the main object of knowledge of “God” – nature. Knowledge of God as the primary cause of all things is impossible through the empirical path. Knowledge of God is possible either through mystical revelation or through logical assumption. Since Spinoza's God is not a religious god, then the knowledge of nature-God in his interpretation acquires a rationalistic character. All natural connections appear as logical and completely accessible to reason and knowledge. Since it is logically clear to us that there is a certain first cause, then the movement from grounds to conclusions allows us to fully reveal the movement from causes to effects. Since the essence of the soul is knowledge of objects, then all consciousness is objective knowledge of something, and the problem of the subjectivity of knowledge loses its fundamental importance. The true method of knowledge consists “in the knowledge of pure reason alone... its nature and laws” (107. Vol. 1. P. 530).

How does a person understand the world around him? Being the unity of all simple and including the main modes (soul and body), it has ideas which are capable of expressing the productive causes of things. These are the ideas that are true.

The movement towards truths was understood by Spinoza not in the sense of the reflection of things in the ideas of the mind. In the cognitive process, according to Spinoza, there occurs a kind of connection of the mind with things, the assimilation of the external world by man. This process is achieved through sensory and rational knowledge. However, sensory knowledge, according to Spinoza, usually leads to subjective associations and indistinct “universals.” Most of our sensory ideas are false. Spinoza includes the concepts of taste, color, heat, cold, good and evil, merit and sin, order and chaos, emptiness, beauty, and God as a person among such “bad” universals. All these are subjective creations of our consciousness, sometimes useful, but more often disorienting and harmful.

Spinoza considered concepts obtained through rational intuition to be “good” universals. To these he included the concept of substance, “self-evident definitions” and the simplest consequences from them (for example, the principles of mathematics). Intuition is a criterion for the truth of knowledge. The sign of truth lies in the very fact of its nomination. “...he who has a true idea, at the same time knows that he has it, and cannot doubt the truth of the thing” (107. Vol. 1. P. 440). The influence of Cartesian ideas about innate intuition is clearly visible here. But Spinoza’s ideas differ from Descartes’s in that Spinoza’s intuition is not associated with any innate ideas. His rational intuition is focused on the omnipotence of definitions: the definitions of nature are intuitively true.

Analysis of synthesizing ideas from F. Bacon to outstanding philosophers of the 17th century. shows that the main subject of philosophical discussions in modern times are issues of cognitive activity. The main result of the discussions was a metaphysical approach to knowledge common to all philosophers, although it was not always the same in genesis and consequences. For some (Descartes, Spinoza), it stemmed from the features of the main sciences of this century - mathematics and mechanics, and for others (Hobbes) - from the metaphysical search for the supranatural fundamental principles of being. The method of the former for many decades corresponded to the trends in the development of science, while for the latter it soon led to a dead end.

However, both rationalists and empiricists accomplished a scientific and philosophical feat, freeing science from medieval scholasticism and distrust of knowledge. They laid the foundations of the categorical apparatus of the theory of thinking, examining in detail the relationships between appearance and reality, freedom and necessity, sensibility and rationality, experiment and deduction, etc.

GERMAN CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHY

Classical German philosophy occupies a period of time from the middle of the 18th century. until the 70s of the nineteenth century. It is represented by five outstanding minds of humanity: I. Kant (1724-1804), I. Fichte (1762-1814), F. Schelling (1775-1854), G. Hegel (1770-1831), L. Feuerbach(1804-1872). The first two are most often classified as subjective idealists, the next two as objective idealists, and the last as materialists. Thus, German classical philosophy embraces all the main philosophical directions.

Classical German philosophy arose and developed in the general mainstream of Western European philosophy of the New Age. She discussed the same problems that were raised in the philosophical theories of F. Bacon, R. Descartes, D. Locke, J. Berkeley, D. Hume and others, and tried to overcome the shortcomings and one-sidedness of empiricism and rationalism, materialism and idealism, skepticism and logical optimism, etc. German philosophers strengthened the claims of reason for the possibility of knowing not only nature (I. Kant) and the human “I” (I. Fichte), but also the development of human history (G. Hegel). Hegel’s formula “What is rational is real; and what is real is rational” was precisely intended to show that the reality of reason can be comprehended by philosophy. Consequently, according to Hegel, philosophy is time comprehended in thought. Bacon also has a similar statement: “... it is correct to call truth the daughter of time, and not of authority” (16. Vol. 2. P. 46).

Classical German philosophy is a national philosophy. It reflects the peculiarities of the existence and development of Germany in the second half of the 18th century. and the first half of the 19th century: its economic backwardness in comparison with the developed countries of that time (Holland, England) and political fragmentation. The unsightly German reality gave rise to German dreaminess, which was expressed in the rise of the German spirit, in the creation of philosophical theories and great literary works (J. Schiller, J. Goethe, etc.). Something similar happened in the middle of the 19th century. Russia, whose literature (L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky, I.S. Turgenev, N.A. Nekrasov, etc.) rose above the Russian reality bound by the chains of feudalism. One can probably say that the rotten swamp of life gives rise to a spiritual thirst to crawl out of it and create, at least in dreams, a new social reality in a dry and beautiful place.

German philosophers are patriots of their fatherland, even if it does not correspond to their ideals. At the height of the war with France, when Napoleon's troops were stationed in Berlin (1808), Fichte, aware of the danger threatening him, delivered his “Speeches to the German Nation,” in which he sought to awaken the self-awareness of the German people against the occupiers. During the war of liberation against Napoleon, Fichte, along with his wife, devoted himself to caring for the wounded. Hegel, seeing all the ugliness of German reality, nevertheless declares that the Prussian state is built on reasonable principles. Justifying the Prussian monarchy, Hegel writes that the state in itself and for itself is a moral whole, the realization of freedom.

Classical German philosophy is contradictory, just as German reality itself is contradictory. Kant maneuvers between materialism and idealism; Fichte moves from the position of subjective to the position of objective idealism; Hegel, justifying German reality, writes with admiration about the French Revolution as the rising of the sun.

Let us move on to a brief description of the philosophical theories of each of the representatives of German classical philosophy who solved the problems posed by the era.

Philosophical ideas of I. Kant

Subcritical period . Immanuel Kant is the founder of classical German philosophy. His creative biography is conventionally divided into two periods: pre-critical and critical. This is explained by the fact that in the second period Kant's main works began with the word "criticism": "Critique of Pure Reason" (1781), "Critique of Practical Reason" (1788) and "Critique of Judgment" (1790).

In the works of the pre-critical period (before approximately 1770), Kant focused on natural scientific problems.

Critical period. Kant first formulated three questions (although they constantly confronted philosophy) through which the interests of the human mind are expressed: What can I know? What should I do? What can I hope for? The first question is epistemological. Kant responds to this with the Critique of Pure Reason. The second is practical. This is answered by the Critique of Practical Reason. The third is both practical and theoretical, since, Kant explains, the practical serves as a guide for answering the theoretical question.

What do I know? In Kant's theoretical philosophy, this question is divided into three others: how is pure mechanics possible, how is pure natural science possible, and how is metaphysics possible as a science?

The situation in the philosophy of the 18th century. was characterized by a rather sharp confrontation between two main movements: empiricism and rationalism. Each of them claimed an exclusive place in knowledge, discarding the opposite for its unsuitability. According to Kant, both empiricism and rationalism have their shortcomings that must be eliminated, and their positive qualities. Empiricism rises from a multitude of individual perceptions to general concepts. This is certainly his merit. But the question remains, how can one move from the perception of the individual to deductive conclusions, that is, to knowledge of the general? Empiricists derived rational concepts from experience, and then began to discuss subjects that went far beyond the limits of experience. This, according to Kant, is unacceptable. Rationalists went to such heights, discussed such questions, the subjects of which could never be given in experience. Such objects (objects) include ideas (noumena) of the mind: God, the immortal soul, the afterlife, etc. Kant intends to safely guide the human mind between the dreaminess of Lockean empiricism, Humean skepticism and the claims of the rationalists in order to “indicate it (reason. - Auth. ) certain boundaries and nevertheless keep open for him all the fields of his purposeful activity" (52. Vol. 3. P. 189).

Kant proceeds from the need to explore the very instrument of knowledge and its possibilities. Here Kant should immediately reproach that the possibilities of knowledge can only be explored in the process of knowledge itself, and not before it. This reproach made by Hegel against Kant's transcendental philosophy is quite appropriate. “The desire to know before proceeding to knowledge,” says Hegel, “is as absurd as the wise intention of that scholastic who wanted learn to swim before jumping into the water" (22. T.1. P.95).

Kant divides the world into “things in themselves” and “things in themselves.” “Things in themselves” exist objectively, that is, outside human consciousness. But they are unknowable, since they cannot be given either in actual or in possible future experience. Some authors believe that, recognizing the existence of “things in themselves,” Kant takes the position of materialism. However, this “materialism” is very specific, because Kant refers to “things in themselves” as God, the immortal soul, the afterlife, ideas, ideals, etc., as well as, possibly, the first foundations of the material world. He does not agree, say, with Thales’s statement that there is still something at the heart of the world and he calls this something “the thing in itself.” In other words, Kant calls “things in themselves” everything that is not given in experience and the existence of which can only be believed. That's why he says: "I had to limit knowledge to make room faith" (52. T.3. P.95).

Kant argues that we do not know what things are in themselves, but we know them only as they are given to us and appear in experience. Things themselves are knowable, but only as appearances (phenomena), our ideas about them. Phenomena are images of consciousness and exist only in consciousness.

This statement of Kant served as the basis for some commentators of the German philosopher to classify the founder of German classical philosophy as a subjective idealist. However, such a pirouette, it seems, is not grounded, because, firstly, Kant himself declares his non-involvement in idealism: “things are given to us as objects of our feelings located outside of us...”, “I, of course, admit that outside of us there are bodies, that is, things about which we are completely unaware of what they are in themselves, but which we know from the ideas given to us by their influence on our sensuality" (52. Vol. 4, part 1. P. 105) . “Can this be called idealism?” asks Kant and answers: “This is its direct opposite” (52. Ibid.). For some reason, those who accuse Kant of idealism completely forget that Kant is talking about knowledge. Here Kant is absolutely right in declaring that in our consciousness there are not the knowable things themselves, but only their images (phenomena), our ideas about things in the form in which we perceive and feel them.

Following the track of empiricism, Kant asserts the experimental origin of our knowledge. “All of our knowledge begins with experience” (52. Vol. 3. P. 105). In addition to experimental knowledge, Kant distinguishes a priori knowledge as unconditionally independent of all experience. A priori knowledge has two qualities: necessity and strict universality, which are inextricably linked. But they can be used separately. This does not affect their infallibility. This Kantian apriorism can be interpreted as the knowledge we received from past generations. For example, there is no need to blow up the foundation of a building in order to find out experimentally whether the building itself will survive or collapse. It is known a priori: it will collapse.

Through the senses we receive single, scattered, random, chaotic contemplations, the design of which is carried out by a priori forms of sensuality - space and time, immanent to the subject of knowledge. The material of sensory intuition is superimposed on a priori forms, through which Kant affirms the activity of the knowing subject. Kant does not explain how they were received by the subject. He proceeds from the fact that they belong to the subject initially, are universal and necessary. Kant sees their objectivity only in their universal validity and intersubjectivity. This makes it possible for each subject to arrange the chaos of sensory contemplations in a certain sequence. This is how Kant answers the question of how pure mathematics is possible. In other words, pure mathematics as a science is possible only as a discipline based on experience.

Answering the question of how pure natural science is possible, Kant postulates a priori synthetic categories of understanding, which represent a pure form, devoid of any content. With their help, sensory perceptions are synthesized and a transition to thought is made. Contemplation can only be sensual. The ability to think about the object of sensory contemplation is the prerogative of reason. “Without sensuality, not a single object would be given to us, and without reason, not a single one could be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, contemplations without concepts are blind” (52. Vol. 3. P. 155). Pure natural science cannot exist without relying on pure mathematics. Their objects are sensory material synthesized by a priori forms of sensuality and reason. In the latter case, we are talking about the activity of the subject of knowledge itself. This is how Kant combines empiricism and rationalism. He had no doubt at all about the existence of mathematical and natural science disciplines.

Answering the question of how metaphysics is possible as a science, Kant steps on the shaky ground of reason. Metaphysics as a science is possible only if it uses the material of mathematics and natural science. But as soon as it goes beyond these disciplines and begins to discuss questions that can never be given in experience, metaphysics loses its scientific character. She becomes entangled in the contradictions inherent in reason itself. Such concepts of reason as God, the immortality of the soul, the afterlife, the idea, the ideal, etc., cannot be the subject of experience and, therefore, scientific knowledge. They are transcendental. Their actual existence is problematic. It is impossible to prove the existence of God using scientific methods. One can only believe in its existence. But with the same reason one can not believe it. Both depend on the person himself. Science does not establish the existence of God. All evidence for the existence of God is groundless. “All attempts at the purely speculative use of reason in theology are completely fruitless and worthless in their internal character” (52. Vol. 3. P. 547). True, Kant still believes that it is better to believe in the existence of God than not to believe, because ultimately God acts as the guarantor of human morality.

So, answering the question what can I know, Kant answers unequivocally: I can only know phenomena that the subject receives through experience. Things in themselves are not accessible to human knowledge. They are transcendental, beyond sensuality.

What should I do? With this question, Kant enters the path of practical reason. A person, in order to be a moral being, is obliged to follow duty, no matter what obstacles confront him. Debt is not something imposed on a person from the outside. It is determined by the legislative activity of the human mind. Therefore, a person freely performs his actions and bears responsibility for them. By acting morally, that is, following duty, a person realizes his essence, which consists in the fact that he considers himself and everyone else as an end in itself, and not just a means. Kant formulates the humanistic, but highly abstract, unenforceable law of the categorical imperative: “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, both in yourself and in the person of everyone else, as an end, and never treat it only as means" (52. Vol. 4, part 1. P. 270).

Kant demands strict observance of the law of the categorical imperative, no matter what obstacles may be put in place, without demanding any rewards. “Duty! You are an exalted, great word, there is nothing pleasant in you that would flatter people, you demand submission, although ... you do not threaten” (52. Vol. 4, part 1. P. 413).

The German thinker realizes that a person most often follows his inclinations, satisfying his interests and needs. He strives for personal happiness and well-being, although they are purely empirical phenomena. Nevertheless, people are satisfied with them. Those who act at the behest of duty are, in empirical reality, unhappy, materially poor, people make fun of them, consider them eccentrics, etc. Kant cannot ignore such injustice and rewards the man with duty. This award is very specific.

What can I hope for? If in the creative part of his philosophy Kant denies God and the soul real existence, then in the practical part he recognizes the immortal soul, God and the afterlife without evidence. Recognizing that the moral perfection of man is problematic, Kant at the same time believes that his improvement has no limit and goes to infinity. So a person living according to duty can achieve the highest good if he has an immortal soul. Thus a moral person is rewarded with immortality. By postulating an immortal soul, Kant is forced to acknowledge the existence of God, for without the latter’s existence the existence of the soul is meaningless. The third postulate is the afterlife, that is, the place where the immortal soul will be. This is how Kant rewards a person for his adherence to duty. True, this reward comes to him only after physical death. This is Kant's answer to the question posed above.

Kant swaps the places of the divine and the human: morality is not given to people by God, as religion claims; on the contrary, people believe in God because they are moral.

Kant's philosophy had a strong influence on his contemporaries, who to one degree or another relied on its ideas.
In the 60s, a whole philosophical movement called neo-Kantianism appeared, which adapted Kant's theory to new historical conditions.

Spinoza (Spinoza, d "Espinoza)

Biographical information. Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632–1677) was born into a family of Jewish immigrants in Amsterdam. He graduated from a seven-year Jewish school, where he studied Hebrew, the Bible and the Talmud, then entered the school of Francis vanden Enden, famous for his freethinking, and there he studied Latin, physics, mathematics, and natural science. Here I became acquainted with the works of G. Bruno, Fr. Bacon, T. Hobbes, he was especially impressed by the works of R. Descartes, whose student (Cartesian) he later considered himself.

Failure to observe religious Jewish rites led to his being subjected to minor excommunication from the synagogue (for a month). However, the punishment did not break Spinoza. Then the rabbis offered him a monthly pension if he, at least for appearances, would attend divine services, but Spinoza refused. In 1656 the Council of Rabbis subjected him to great excommunication (forever) and damnation. Spinoza began to earn his living, first helping van den Enden in teaching, and then (and until the end of his life) by grinding optical glasses. The rabbis filed a complaint against Spinoza with the city magistrate demanding that he be expelled as a dangerous atheist. Spinoza was forced to leave Amsterdam. At first he wandered around different villages, and then in 1670 he moved to The Hague.

The publication of his first work ("The Principles of Descartes' Philosophy, Set forth in Geometric Order with the Application of Metaphysical Thoughts") immediately brought him fame. In 1673, Spinoza was offered a chair at the University of Heidelberg on the condition that he would not attack official religion, but he refused. In the same year, on behalf of the King of France, he was promised a pension if he dedicated one of his works to the king, to which he replied: “I dedicate my works only to the truth.” Spinoza died in 1677 from tuberculosis.

Main works. "The Principles of Descartes' Philosophy, Set forth in Geometric Order, with the Application of Metaphysical Thoughts" (1663), "Theological-Political Treatise" (published anonymously in 1670), "Ethics" (published posthumously in 1677), "Political Treatise" ( published posthumously in 1677).

Philosophical views. Relation to Descartes. Although Spinoza considered himself a Cartesian and in many respects indeed followed Descartes, on a number of fundamental issues he departed far from him: instead of Cartesian dualism, Spinoza exhibits consistent monism, and instead of deism, pantheism. But following Descartes, Spinoza developed rationalism.

Ontology. Mathematics served as a model of rigor for Spinoza (as well as for other philosophers of that time), and Spinoza modeled his philosophical works ("Principles of Descartes' Philosophy...", "Ethics") on the model of Euclid's geometry, i.e. setting definitions, identifying initial postulates (axioms), and proving theorems on their basis.

The concept of substance occupied a central place in Spinoza's philosophy. He defined this concept as follows.

"Under cause yourself (causa sui) I mean that whose essence includes existence, in other words, that whose nature can only be imagined as existing" ("Ethics". Part 1. Definition 1).

"Under substance I mean that which exists in itself and is represented through itself, i.e. something the representation of which does not require the representation of another thing from which it should be formed" ("Ethics". Part 1. Definition 3).

This definition of substance is close to Cartesian. But Descartes allowed the existence of two substances (matter and consciousness), and for their existence they needed an external cause, i.e. in God. In Spinoza, this contradiction is eliminated: there is only one substance, which is the cause of itself. She is both God and Nature, i.e. God = Nature (pantheism). This substance is:

• 1) free, since it exists and acts solely by virtue of its own nature;
• 2) eternal (having no beginning and end in time), since its existence lies in its essence;
• 3) infinite (in space);
• 4) indivisible and without parts.

Substance has an infinite number of attributes and manifests itself in an infinite number of modes.

"Under attribute I mean what the mind represents in a substance as constituting its essence" ("Ethics". Part 1. Definition 4). The various attributes of a substance are not identical to each other and are independent of each other, each of them expresses the infinity of the substance. Of the infinite number People know only two of these attributes: extension and thinking.

"Under "mode" I mean, the state of a substance, in other words, that which exists in another and is represented through this other" ("Ethics". Part 1. Definition 5). Modes represent a certain realization of attributes and their concretization. Modes are endless And final. Infinite modes occupy an intermediate position between attributes and finite modes. Thus, the attribute “thinking” manifests itself in the infinite mode “infinite mind” and “infinite will”; and the attribute “extension” – in the infinite modes “movement and rest”. On the basis of infinite modes, all finite modes somehow arise, i.e. various, concrete bodily things, phenomena, thoughts. But Spinoza does not explain how the transition from infinite to finite modes occurs. He only stipulates that every concrete finite mode also has something finite as its cause, and so on ad infinitum.

Substance (God = Nature) with its attributes constitutes "creative nature "(natura naturans), and modes, i.e. the world of finite things, are "created nature "(natura naturata). Creative nature is the cause, and created nature is the consequence of a given cause; at the same time, the effect cannot exist without the cause that generates it, and the cause, by virtue of its essence, cannot but give rise to this effect. Thus, everything what exists in created nature - in the world of finite bodily things (modes) - is causally determined, natural and necessary, there is nothing accidental; thus, according to the teachings of Spinoza, the strictest rule reigns in the world determinism.

Epistemology. Spinoza believed that, in principle, the world is knowable, but this does not happen because there are some innate ideas in our consciousness (as Descartes believed), and not because impressions from things in the external world enter our consciousness (as F. Bacon believed, Hobbes and many others).

Human consciousness and all thoughts (finite modes) are the result of the manifestation of the “infinite mind” mode, and the latter, in turn, is the result of the “divine thinking” attribute. Similarly, all concrete phenomena and things, including the human body (finite modes), through the infinite modes “movement and rest,” ascend to the attribute “extension.” The attributes themselves do not affect each other and are in no way related to each other. Thus, the two areas of finite modes – “thoughts” and “things or phenomena” – turn out to be completely isolated from each other. Then how can our thoughts contain knowledge about things and phenomena?

The solution to the problem is rooted in understanding the essence of attributes: each attribute equally, namely completely, expresses the Divine substance (God = Nature), which means that all modes of one attribute must perfectly correspond to the modes of another attribute. Consequently, our human thoughts (final modes) must correspond to other final modes - things and phenomena: “The order and connection of ideas are the same as the order and connection of things” (“Ethics”. Part II. Theorem 7) (diagram 104).

Scheme 104.

This leads to a somewhat paradoxical conclusion that, in principle, there are no false thoughts and ideas, and only more or less adequate ones can be distinguished. Accordingly, Spinoza distinguishes four types of knowledge, interpreting them as different degrees of knowledge: 1. Opinion; 2. Sensory cognition (imagination); 3. Rational knowledge; 4. Intuitive cognition (Table 62). The highest is intuitive knowledge, in which there is a vision of things emanating from God = Nature.

Table 62

Spinoza: types of knowledge

Type of cognition	Source	Characteristic	Object of knowledge
	Let's hear from other people	Almost not adequate at all; (for example, typical theologian references to the authority of Holy Scripture)	Arbitrary objects
Sensory cognition		Little adequate; vague, indistinct, "chaotic images"	Specific things and phenomena (Peter, this birch tree, this rain); general concepts (tree, person, raining)
Rational cognition	Reason	Adequate; scientific knowledge, typical of mathematics and physics, but also found in other areas	Ideas of quantity, form, motion, etc.; inevitable connections between ideas and especially cause-and-effect relationships
Intuitive cognition	Intuition	Absolutely adequate; clear and distinct; seeing things as coming from the substance God = Nature	Essences of things and phenomena

Ethics. The appeal to the human mind, the desire to understand its essence and boundaries does not pursue Spinoza’s (as was the case with Descartes, Francis Bacon, Newton, etc.) the desire to create a scientific methodology.

Like many ancient thinkers, Spinoza sees the main goal of philosophy in finding happiness, which requires complete liberation from passions. But since everything in the world is interconnected and causally determined, then for such liberation it is necessary to understand what nature is in general and what human nature is in particular. Hence: knowledge of nature is not an end in itself, but a means. And Spinoza’s motto became the words: "Don't laugh, don't cry, don't turn away, but understand!"

Knowledge of his nature allows a person to subordinate his passions to the dominance of reason, and then a person ceases to be their slave, becomes free, i.e. not forced to do anything, and can act of his own free will in accordance with the laws of nature: “Freedom is a recognized necessity!”

The fate of the teaching. Spinoza's monism, pantheism and rationalism had a significant influence on such representatives of German classical philosophy as Schelling and Hegel, and the criticism of religion undertaken by Spinoza served as a theoretical basis for the anti-clerical activities of the enlighteners (diagram 105).

Scheme 105.

• The family fled from Portugal, fleeing the persecution of the Inquisition, because, having adopted Christianity for appearance, they retained their former faith (Judaism).
• Excommunication meant that none of the devout Jews had the right to communicate with him - in any form during the entire period of excommunication.
• Holland at this time became a center for the manufacture of optical instruments (telescopes, microscopes). The glass was ground by hand.
• All quotations are given according to the edition: Spinoza B. Favorites. Minsk, 1999.

3. Reliable knowledge and rationalism of Spinoza. The role of intuition and the “geometric method”

The imperfections of both experimental and abstract knowledge give rise to fruitless debates, often leading to skepticism. The fight against skepticism occupies a significant place in Spinoza's methodology and epistemology. To understand the reasons for this struggle, one should keep in mind the ambiguity of the philosophical and social functions of skepticism.

Having emerged in antiquity, this direction reflected some essential features of the scientific and philosophical thinking of that era, in particular the lack of experimental knowledge at that time. At the same time, the edge of skepticism in antiquity was directed against numerous religious ideas, especially since those ideas began to have an increasingly powerful impact on philosophical teachings, giving rise to theological ideas that claimed absolute significance and infallibility. When skepticism, along with other ancient philosophical teachings, was renewed in the Renaissance, especially by the French humanist and philosopher Montaigne, it then acquired primarily an anti-dogmatic and anti-theological function, for it undermined the claims of numerous Christian theologians to the inviolability of the “truths” that they preached and defended. .

However, skepticism also concealed another side. It consisted in undermining claims to the ability to achieve reliable knowledge, not only in the field of theology, where such claims really had no logical basis, but also in the field of science, where the reliability of truths is one of the decisive reasons for their existence. And it must be said that many theologians of the era in question, in the face of the energetic attack of science on religion, began to encourage certain skeptical attitudes and teachings and began to see in them not so much enemies as allies. This explains the decisive rejection of skeptical arguments by a number of leading philosophers of the era under study, especially those of them who, like Descartes, saw in the reliability of mathematical knowledge the highest example and criterion of any other knowledge.

Spinoza is one of the most prominent anti-skeptic philosophers, for “with them... there can be no talk of science” (8, 1 , 334). One of the very significant reasons for Spinoza’s attitude to empirical knowledge discussed above was the impossibility of dispelling the skeptical interpretation of knowledge on its basis. Reflecting the vague and fluctuating experience of the individual, inadequate ideas of representation reinforce rather than refute the skeptic's arguments. To a large extent, the same must be said regarding abstract knowledge, consisting of universal concepts.

According to Spinoza, rational-reasonable, mathematical-geometric knowledge, first of all, has a completely different character. Its truths are of a supra-individual nature, for the connection between the subject and the predicate in judgments of the mathematical type is absolutely necessary. Such truths called by Spinoza general concepts(notiones communes), are completely devoid, in his opinion, of any elements of subjectivism. It is precisely such concepts, expressing adequate truth, that form the basis of the fundamental unity of the human mind. Its affirmation is one of the foundations of the rationalism of the advanced philosophers of the era under consideration.

Spinoza calls the second type of knowledge reason (ratio) or reason (intellectus). He uses the latter term more often.

The general concepts with which this type of knowledge operates are, first of all, mathematical concepts. They seem to the rationalist philosopher to be the only adequate and true ones. He sees evidence of such truth in the constant connectivity of these concepts in the deductive process of inferential knowledge, which always leads to reliable results. Logical coherence, systematicity from the point of view of Spinoza’s rationalistic methodology represents the most important criterion that distinguishes the adequate truth of reason from the inadequate, only partial truth of representation. If the activity of representation, the first kind of knowledge, is subject to random habits of associations, then the activity of understanding, or reason, is carried out according to the strict laws of logical consequence. Absolutizing them, the author of the “Treatise on the Improvement of the Mind” calls the human mind, developing the deductive process of inferential knowledge, “like a kind of spiritual automaton” (8, 1 , 349).

Another decisive feature of reason that distinguishes it from imagination is insensual the nature of his activities. If at the stage of representation the human soul is determined in its activity by external things, one way or another determining its body, influencing its sense organs, then at the stage of reason, or reason, it is “determined to understand the similarities, differences and contrasts between things from the inside" but not " from outside, encountering things by chance,” as is the case in the previous stage (ibid., 431). The power of imagination and the intensity of representation are directly proportional to the number of sensory contacts of the human soul with external things. The logical coherence of adequate ideas of the mind, on the contrary, is inversely proportional to this kind of contact, for “the more the actions of any body depend only on itself and the less other bodies take part in its actions, the more capable is its soul of clear understanding” ( ibid., 415).

The fight against skepticism and, even more so, the desire to defend the sovereignty of the “natural light” of the human mind from the incessant encroachments of the supernatural “revelation of God,” which were very characteristic of Descartes, were even more characteristic of Spinoza and became one of the first reasons for his assertion of the insensible nature of adequate truths , formed into a deductive system. “...A thing is then comprehended when it is assimilated by pure thought in addition to words and images,” wrote the author of the “Theological-Political Treatise,” for “invisible things and those that are objects only of the spirit can be seen with no other eyes than through evidence..." (8, 2 , 70, 182).

The orientation of Descartes, Spinoza and other rationalists of the century under review towards mathematical knowledge, the deductive chains of which were regarded as a model of all knowledge, necessarily required the recognition of certain initial positions as truths inherent in the human mind itself, which without them simply would not be capable of any cognitive activities. This necessity itself arose from the purely unhistorical interpretation of human thinking, especially its higher functions. In this respect, the philosophy of the 17th century differed little from the philosophy of previous centuries. This side of the rationalistic epistemology of the named century is inextricably linked with the problems intuition.

In the previous tradition, intuition was sometimes interpreted as direct, sensory, contemplation. Even more often, intuition was understood as direct intellectual cognition, which is in no way connected with discursive, logical activity. This understanding was, in particular, characteristic of pantheistic mystics, who insisted on the possibility of direct contact with the infinite and impersonal God.

The great rationalists of this century, starting with Descartes, conceptualized mathematical knowledge and generalized its methods, and rethought the understanding of intuition. Intuition, Descartes wrote in “Rules for the Guidance of the Mind,” cannot at all be identified with sensory knowledge. On the contrary, it is “simple and distinct... a strong concept of a clear and attentive mind, generated only by the natural light of reason and, thanks to its simplicity, more certain than deduction itself...” (20, 86). From this purely rationalistic Cartesian definition of intuition, its intellectual nature is completely obvious. In contrast to the irrationalistic, mystical tradition of the previous and contemporary religious-idealistic philosophy, in the interpretation of intuition, Descartes closely links it with the logical process, believing that the latter simply cannot begin without some initial, extremely clear concepts and provisions.

The understanding of intuition as direct contact with the infinite divine being present both in all of nature and in the human soul, the young Spinoza initially, in all likelihood, gleaned from the pantheistic tradition. We find traces of such an understanding, especially clear in the “Short Treatise on God, Man and His Happiness” and in the “Treatise on the Improvement of Reason” in the “Theological-Political Treatise”, and in a number of Spinoza’s letters, and even in “Ethics” . But in recent works the Cartesian-rationalist interpretation of intuition as intellectual has clearly prevailed. It is defined by the philosopher as third kind of knowledge. It is characteristic that all three types of knowledge were repeatedly illustrated by him with the following mathematical example.

Given three numbers, you need to find the fourth proportional to them. Merchants, without further ado, look for this number according to the method that other people told them at one time, without providing any evidence. This is characteristic of the first type of knowledge and of that method of perception, which the philosopher called perception “by hearsay.” But the correct solution can also be reached purely empirically - by multiplying all numbers until a general proposition is derived, according to which the desired result is obtained by multiplying the second number by the third and dividing the resulting number by the first. This method illustrates cognition “from disordered experience.” Mathematicians, who understand the nature of proportion, know which numbers are proportional to each other, and therefore find the required number without any difficulty. Their actions illustrate the third way of perception and the second type of knowledge, carried out in the form of a certain deduction.

But even higher than this is the fourth way of perception, which constitutes the third kind of knowledge. This is precisely intuitive knowledge that immediately, instantly grasps the proportionality of given numbers. But although, thus, the sought truth in this case is seen directly, nevertheless this immediacy itself is mediated by the previous knowledge of the mathematician. The latter would simply be incapable of intuitively solving such a problem if he did not first know the rule of proportionality and use it. Thus, the intuitive act turns out to be inextricably linked with discursive acts. The identity of their results can be subjected to practical verification and expressed in words.

Thus, this example alone testifies to Spinoza’s intellectualistic interpretation of intuition.

But we do not find in the great rationalist any clear demarcation of the spheres of application of the second and third types of knowledge, nor an unambiguous definition of the latter. It is absolutely clear, however, from the “Ethics” that both of these methods of knowledge, as a source of reliable truths, are opposed to the first kind of sensory-abstract, imaginative knowledge as a source of practically necessary, but completely unreliable truths. The necessary connection between the two higher types of knowledge and thus the intellectual character of intuition is also evident from the fact that, according to the categorical conviction of the author of the Ethics, it cannot arise from the first type of knowledge, but only from the second (see 8, 1 , 607). After all, both of them are supersensual.

The interpenetration of intuition and deduction is manifested in the “matter” of rationally reliable knowledge - general concepts. In contrast to universal concepts, which are formed on the basis of always unstable experience and are products of more or less artificial abstraction, general concepts are directly, intuitively given to the mind. Because of this, they constitute, according to Spinoza, the “foundation of reasoning,” the starting point of a deductive chain leading to a reliable result.

It is quite obvious that Spinoza here abandons the position of nominalism on which he stood in the interpretation of abstract knowledge. Hobbes's consistent nominalism became the most important element of the English materialist in his sensualist theory of knowledge. Hence Hobbes's denial of intuition and intuitive knowledge as consisting of truths that are completely independent of our sensory information. The rationalism of Descartes and Spinoza is inseparable from the recognition of the intuitiveness of some of the most important truths, without which the entire subsequent process of rational-deductive knowledge is impossible.

Intuitive knowledge, according to Spinoza, is directly related to knowledge of the essences of things. Also calling them the natures of things, from which all the properties of the latter can be deduced, the philosopher thinks of essences as certain eternal, timeless truths (see 8, 1 , 78; 2 , 68). Entities understood in this way cannot at all be defined on the basis of universal concepts, as the scholastics usually did. They can be determined based on general concepts and by drawing up correct, precise definitions. Emphasizing, following Hobbes, the importance of drawing up such definitions, which are “possibly accurate explanations of the signs and names by which the corresponding objects are designated ...” (8, 1 , 175), Spinoza, in contrast, connects the composition of definitions with the activity of intuition, which comprehends the essence of things. And here Spinoza acts as a rationalist-Cartesian, striving to “explain not the meaning of words, but the essence of things,” to give not verbal, but objective definitions (ibid., 512).

Such definitions should be analytical judgments, the truth of which necessarily follows from the content of the subject and predicate and is completely independent of the empirical generalization that is the basis of universal concepts, complete with accidents and contradictions. From the very definition of a triangle, its “essence,” it follows that its angles are equal to two right angles. By thus linking intuitive knowledge with the formulation of precise definitions expressed in analytical judgments, Spinoza improves the Cartesian definition of intuition quoted above. In the latter, the truth of intuition is determined by such features as extreme simplicity, clarity and distinctness of the concepts conceivable through it. From the point of view of the author of “Ethics”, such Feel truth is not yet enough for complete confidence in it, for it may contain a more or less significant element of subjectivity. The truth of intuition becomes indisputable for everyone if it is expressed in precise definitions and analytical judgments. Only the identification of such judgments, which express the very essence of things, saves us from all subjectivism, and thereby skepticism. At the same time, it delivers, according to Spinoza, immanent criterion of truth.

For Descartes' rationalism, true, primarily intuitive, concepts express the deepest essence of the objective world of nature. From the point of view of Hobbes's nominalism, the accuracy of definitions in itself has no relation to the material world. Spinoza, like Descartes, interprets truth as knowledge that expresses completely objective properties and connections of things (“formal”, that is, expressing certain forms, or essences, of things). But the true idea, comprehended through intuition and expressed in precise definitions, the rationalist usually calls such an adequate idea (idea adaequata), “which, being considered in itself without relation to the subject, object (objectum), has all the properties or internal characteristics of a true idea " (8, 1 , 403).

An adequate idea analytically expresses its truth and does not require its correlation with the subject. Because of this, it represents an immanent criterion of truth. Hence the central principle of Spinoza’s rationalism in his doctrine of truth: “Just as light reveals both itself and the surrounding darkness, so truth is the measure of both itself and lies” (ibid., 440).

The inconsistency of this purely rationalistic interpretation of the criterion of reliability of knowledge, which ignores the practical activity of people, through which even the clearest concepts are constantly compared with things and refined in the process of such comparison, is completely obvious. As a metaphysical rationalist, Spinoza does not see the need for this kind of comparison. Adequate ideas, established by intuition and expressed in precise definitions, constitute absolute truth, opposed the relativity of lies, associated with experimental-abstract knowledge.

It is precisely because of their absoluteness that adequate ideas, general concepts, developed into analytical judgments, can serve as a criterion of truth, an indicator of the degree of veracity of our knowledge. After all, they are dominated by inadequate ideas gleaned from experience, and in these ideas truth and falsehood are mixed to varying degrees. Adequate ideas provide a standard of reliability, through which genuine knowledge can be distinguished from vague, unreliable opinions.

Spinoza's contrast between knowledge gleaned from experience and knowledge that owes its origin to the actual mental activity of man as unreliable and reliable knowledge reflected a number of attitudes in the interpretation of knowledge that were characteristic both of his era and, to a large extent, of many previous centuries, starting from antiquity . In some ways it reflected the interpretation of knowledge inherent in all pre-Marxist philosophy. It reflected, firstly, a purely unhistorical understanding of the higher, theoretical functions of the human mind, especially intuition, which in antiquity, and even more so in the Middle Ages, led to the deification of these functions. In the era of Spinoza, advanced philosophers, like him himself, took the path of secularization, considering these functions as purely human activities. But they were also far from historicism in their understanding of these functions, which they now closely linked with mathematical knowledge. Absolutizing the latter, they saw in reliable knowledge - it is significant to note the absence then of such an important branch of mathematics as the theory of probability - the main manifestation of the “natural light” of the human mind in its opposition to the supernatural “revelation of God,” as well as everything vague and unstable that was associated with sensory experience.

The absolutization of mathematical knowledge in its elementary form, going back to Euclid’s “Principles,” found perhaps its most vivid expression in what Spinoza himself called the “geometric method.” If the discovery of genuine truths expressed by general concepts occurs, as Spinoza believed following Galileo, Descartes, Hobbes and other philosophers of his century, using the analytical method, which decomposes the object under study into the simplest elements possible, then the reconstruction of the complete picture is carried out using a synthetic method. The author of "Ethics" called him geometric. In this main work, Spinoza made a grandiose attempt to apply the axiomatic method to the presentation of the entire range of philosophical knowledge, including here the sphere of human behavior, which is most difficult to generalize.

This attitude of Spinoza became the most radical manifestation of rationalist methodology in the century under review. The author of “Ethics” used the techniques of Euclidean geometry in it, forgetting that the rigor of its axioms, postulates, theorems, and the accuracy of its proofs are based on unambiguity its concepts and terms. Outside the realm of mathematics, especially in the realm of human life, this kind of precision is the exception rather than the rule. The ambiguity of philosophical language easily broke the geometric scheme of presentation of the Ethics, and the author himself was forced to abandon it more and more often, resorting to numerous scholia, appendices and prefaces, in which he usually more clearly and concisely stated his point of view. In general, the “geometric method” of presentation essentially makes it difficult to read the Ethics, many of whose fundamental provisions are often formulated in a random context.

Convinced that with the help of the “geometric method” he expounds the timeless logic of the world of nature and man, Spinoza, in the spirit of his age, proceeded from a purely ahistorical understanding of human knowledge. And under these conditions, it is natural that he saw in Euclid’s “Elements” a model of reliability, for the understanding of this work is accessible to every person endowed with the ability of logical thinking. Such an understanding, says the author of the “Theological-Political Treatise,” does not require knowledge of “the life, occupation, character of the author, or to whom, in what language and when he wrote” (8, 2 , 119).

However, emphasizing the unhistoricism of Spinoza’s interpretation of knowledge, which is essentially characteristic of all other philosophers of that century, one cannot help but note that we find certain, albeit small, elements of the historical interpretation of knowledge in the author of the “Treatise on the Improvement of Reason.” Refuting here the argumentation of skeptics who rejected the possibility of reliable knowledge on the grounds that there is not a single stable criterion for such knowledge, and who pushed such a criterion to infinity, the philosopher proved the inconsistency of skepticism, referring to the practice of human cognition and action. Agreeing with skeptics and admitting that people are unable to know anything, since they never have a stable criterion for such knowledge, is the same as admitting that it is impossible for people to begin, for example, to forge iron. For this requires a hammer, which can only be made with another hammer, and so on ad infinitum. Meanwhile, people usually start by making the simplest tools, with the help of which they create more complex ones, improving them more and more. The situation is exactly the same with “mental tools”, which are also improved in the process of cognition, for the human spirit, “understanding more, thereby acquires new tools, with the help of which it expands understanding even more easily” (8, 1 , 329 and 331).

It remains for us to consider one more sense in which the philosopher interprets intuitive knowledge. This meaning was drawn by the philosopher from the pantheistic tradition and is absent in Descartes’ methodology. By intuition, Spinoza also understands the constant striving of the human spirit for a holistic grasp of an object, culminating in the knowledge of the most grandiose object, which is nature-the universe. And only when this last knowledge has been realized can the world connection of all truths be considered complete. Only at this stage is the absolute nature of truth fully revealed, which illuminates the countless steps of falsity-truth leading to it. Such intuitive and holistic coverage of the entire Universe is called knowledge of it by the mind “from the point of view of eternity” (sub specie aeternitatis).

The maximum integrity of knowledge, achieved on the scale of the entire Universe, necessarily leads Spinoza to the conclusion about the existence in nature itself of such an objective ability, which he called infinite intelligence (intellectus infinitus). Its defining property is to always know everything clearly and distinctly. It is quite obvious that this metaphysical ideal of complete knowledge on the scale of the entire Universe represents an ontological projection of that ahistorical view of the highest theoretical ability of the human spirit, which was mentioned above.

One of its most important properties is the ability to form two types of ideas. The mind forms some ideas “absolutely, and some from others.” The creative ability of the human spirit, completely independent of its bodily-sensory activity, manifests itself with the greatest force precisely in the formation of ideas of the first kind - ideas of infinity, or more precisely, the idea of ​​an actual, completed, once-for-all given infinity. The second ideas are all ideas of quantity, always limited and dependent on other ideas. Thus, any body is perceived by us as the result of the movement of some planes, a plane is the movement of lines, and a line is the movement of a point (see 8, 1 , 356).

The decisive idea for Spinoza seems to be the idea of ​​absolute, actual infinity as the clearest of all ideas of the human spirit, if he manages to completely detach himself from sensory ideas that confuse the spirit. This main idea lays the foundation for all other ideas (see ibid., 332 and 351) and constitutes the deepest foundation of reliable knowledge (see 8, 2 , 122). Starting from it, one can comprehend “the whole of nature, as it really exists in itself” (8, 1 , 168).

The most general conclusion of Spinoza’s intuitive-rationalist methodology is that the most reliable, truly philosophical understanding of nature is achieved not when we start from experiential and sensory ideas, starting with the knowledge of external bodies, but only when we start from the depths of our own spirit. And only in this case does the philosophically thinking mind manage to completely overcome its subjectivity and enter the wide expanses of nature-the universe, for “what lies objectively in the mind must necessarily exist in nature” (8, 1 , 388). Already from the beginning of his philosophical activity, the Dutch thinker was convinced of what was clearly formulated in the “Treatise on the Improvement of the Mind”, namely, in the unity “by which the spirit is connected with all nature” (ibid., 323). Now is the time for us to turn to this teaching about nature.

Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632 - 1677)- one of the outstanding philosophers of the 17th century. He helped his father in the trading business, even headed it after his father’s death. In order to bring Spinoza back into the fold of the religion of the Jewish community, they tried to bribe and even kill him. He was subjected to great excommunication ", which meant expulsion from the community. Spinoza provided his life outside the community by grinding lenses. The first work - " About God, man and his happiness " - Spinoza apparently wrote for his students, members of his circle. He is the author " Treatise on the Improvement of Intelligence "(unfinished), as well as such works as: " Theological-political treatise ", "Ethics ", etc.

Spinoza's focus is on ethical issues. He considered metaphysics an introduction to his ethics. But it was precisely questions of metaphysics that became the main content of his writings. Spinoza's metaphysics contained both ontology and epistemology. Along with Descartes, Spinoza is one of the main representatives rationalism XVII century, both in the methodological and epistemological sense of the word. Was a supporter cognition peace. Spinoza called for distinguishing between ideas that arise in the idea or imagination associated with the activity of the senses, and ideas that express the essence of human understanding, independent of the senses. Sensual ideas - are vague, but the ideas of the human soul, or mind, are always clear. Without ideas of the mind no reliable knowledge is possible. An example of such knowledge is provided by mathematics .

Sense knowledge, as the first kind of knowledge, is representation, imagination. It is always vague, because... is the contemplation by the human mind of external bodies through ideas about the state of one's own body. These ideas act as images. They have a complex composition, containing not only the nature of external bodies, but also the nature of the person himself, his body, his sensory organs. Sensory ideas are generated "a confused (vague) experience."

The connection of sensory images in consciousness is random, associative, individual. Memory storing sensory images is always associated with habits of people. Images as ideas of sensory experience are subjective. But, Spinoza believed, they cannot be considered as only false. They reflect aspects, features, signs of the objective nature of things. Although human subjectivity predominates in them, the images contain a certain element of truth , no matter how insignificant it may be. Thus, the judgment of an uneducated person that the Sun is a very small body, although erroneous, contains an element of truth, consisting in the recognition of the existence of the Sun and its action on us.

Spinoza considers a false idea inadequate idea , one in which the object is only partially reflected. This means that partial truth is declared complete, complete. The falsity of knowledge is not absolute, but relative. It means the fragmentation of knowledge, and can have very different degrees.

Cognition "through disordered experience" the most extensive, massive. Without him, no one's life is possible. In everyday life “we do a lot of things based on assumptions.” It prevails here faith , without which human activity is impossible; " we have to follow what is most likely." Human “he would die of hunger and thirst if he did not want to drink and eat until he had perfect proof that food and drink would benefit him.”

Spinoza spoke negatively about inductive method Bacon. Using this method, one can find out these or other random signs of things, but it is impossible to establish a single reliable, necessary truth. Reliable truths are established purely logically, regardless of experience. However, reliable truths continually require experimental confirmation. In this case, experience is of a subordinate nature: with its help we ascertain the existence of a thing, a fact, but are not able to reveal their essence. Theoretical value of experience Spinoza's work is small, although such empirical sciences as medicine and pedagogy are based on him.

Spinoza called the second way of perceiving the first experimental kind of knowledge hearsay perception . This perception arises on the basis of passively perceived verbal information. People use this as often as they use disordered experience. Spinoza calls the first kind of knowledge not only imagination, but also opinion. But opinion is impossible without words, which help people remember something and form certain ideas about it.

Perception "hearsay" implies both ordinary knowledge and scholastic philosophy. Scholastic universals are generalizations based on random experience. The process of generalization based on such concepts is spontaneous, because at the same time, the soul of a person perceives only those features of the object that influence it with the greatest force. These concepts are very vague. For example, a person for one is an upright animal, for another a laughing one, for a third a rational being, etc.

Universal concepts Spinoza classifies it as an inadequate idea. Scholastics also ontologize universals in the spirit of realism. Spinoza, like Hobbes, turns to the nominalist tradition. It warns against mistakes that result in mixing “the universal with the individual and things only conceivable or abstract entities with real beings.” Spinoza criticizes scholastic verbalism, which fetishizes words and contrasts them with things.

Spinoza eventually comes to conceptualism and begins to interpret abstract knowledge as partial knowledge. Words - these are signs of things that exist in the imagination. Spinoza warns against identifying words and things in the imagination with the things themselves. Spinoza said that “words are first found by the crowd, and then used by philosophers.” Spinoza directly suggests distinguish "images, words and ideas." He believes that most disagreements in philosophy arise “either because people express their thoughts incorrectly, or because they misinterpret those of others.”

Spinoza saw that the imperfection of experimental (first) and abstract (second) knowledge gives rise to disputes leading to skepticism . He has a sharply negative attitude towards skepticism. But he understood that neither experimental nor abstract knowledge could refute skepticism. To do this you need to have reliable knowledge. Spinoza considered such knowledge to be the second full kind of knowledge - reason , or intelligence . Intelligence operates with general concepts, primarily mathematical ones. Such concepts are devoid of subjectivity and are completely true. Spinoza considered the proof of this to be the constant coherence of such concepts in deductive process inferential knowledge that always leads to reliable results. Spinoza called the logical activity of the mind "as if by some kind of spiritual automaton."

Activity crazy How "logical automaton" completely insensitive. This is its advantage over imagination. The deductive mind grasps things" from the inside "If the power of imagination is directly proportional to the number of sensory contacts of the human soul with the outside world, then the power of logical coherence of adequate ideas of the mind is inversely proportional to the number of such contacts.

Spinoza tirelessly sought to reveal the logical nature of ideas. Precisely according to its logical nature ideas have the functions of judgment - affirmation or denial.

Spinoza considered the third kind of knowledge intuition . But he, like Descartes, interpreted intuition primarily in an intellectualistic way. Intuition, together with the second, intellectual, based on the mind, kind of knowledge is opposed to the first kind of knowledge - directly experimental and sensory-abstract, or imaginative ( imaginative ). The mind is no longer genetically connected with experienced knowledge, much less intuition has such a connection. Intuition is inextricably linked with the reasoning mind, i.e. the second kind of knowledge.

In general concepts, the interpenetration of intuition and deduction is revealed. Ordinary universals are formed on the basis of unstable experience; they are a product artificial abstraction . General concepts, according to Spinoza, express the true properties of things. They are directly, and in this sense intuitively, given to the mind.

Intuitive knowledge, contained in general concepts, is directly related to the knowledge of essences and the nature of things. From them all the properties of the latter can be deduced. This is a way of determining the reliability of ideas in their relation to the objective world of things. Such complete objectivity of reliable, adequate ideas makes nature and the world completely knowable. Thus Spinoza comes to panlogism positions , which Hegel noted and for which he highly appreciated.

Spinoza sought to link the concept of a clear and attentive mind with the composition of precise, unambiguous definitions of this concept. Definitions of general concepts (intuitions) are analytical judgments , i.e. those in which the predicate reveals the characteristics of the subject. The truth of these judgments follows from the very content of the subject and predicate and does not depend on the empirical generalization characteristic of any universal. The construction of such concepts saves us from subjectivism, and therefore from skepticism. Such concepts and the analytical judgments that reveal them give us immanent criterion of truth .

Spinoza calls this criterion adequate idea which is comprehended by intellectual intuition and is expressed in precise definitions (definitions). There is no need to correlate such an idea with an object, because “just as light reveals both itself and the surrounding darkness, so truth is the measure of both itself and lies.” Inadequate, experimentally abstract ideas, along with lies, contain some truth . Intuitive-analytical ideas include only the truth. Therefore, the latter can serve as a criterion of truth.

Spinoza absolutizes adequate truths , separating them from experienced, sensory knowledge. Such ideas, according to Spinoza, are the only possible ones and have no history.

In his interpretation of adequate ideas, Spinoza relies on the mathematical knowledge of his time. Form of proofs in Euclidean" Beginnings "for Spinoza, seemed to be the standard of reliability and persuasiveness for any person capable of logical thinking. Spinoza believed that understanding "Began" Euclid does not require knowledge "the life, occupation, character of the author, not to whom, in what language and when he wrote." Based on this, Spinoza formulates his " geometric method ".

"Geometric method" is a variant of the synthetic method. The attempt to apply such a method to philosophical questions has no precedent in the history of philosophy. It was based on Spinoza's conviction in the possibility of exhaustive and final knowledge of both natural and human existence. With the help of intellectual intuition, Spinoza wanted to achieve knowledge of the integrity of the world. Spinoza distinguishes two kind of ideas of the mind, or intellect:
1) ideas that the mind forms "absolutely" And 2) ideas formed from other ideas. Thus, any body is perceived by a person as the result of the movement of some planes, a plane - as a result of the movement of lines, a line - as the result of the movement of a point. But such ideas arise in experimental-abstract knowledge. The human spirit manifests itself with full strength when it acts completely from itself, from its own depths. On this path, the mind gives birth to the highest of all ideas - the idea of ​​actual, complete infinity , given once and for all. Spinoza, like Descartes, interpreted this idea as the clearest of all our ideas . Its clarity is intuitive, for it does not require any other idea more general than itself. The main idea lays the foundation for all other ideas, constituting the deepest foundation of reliable knowledge. Only by starting from this idea can one comprehend "all nature as it really exists in itself."

The primacy of the idea of ​​actual infinity meant in Spinoza the primacy God as the final basis of being and truth. He said: “Either nothing exists, or a being also exists, absolutely infinite,” and further: "God... - the first cause of all things, and also the cause of himself - is known from himself." In fact, Spinoza restores the ontological argument in favor of divine existence. Spinoza affirms the knowability of God based on the intuitive presence in our mind of the idea of ​​the actually infinite. As a result, Spinoza's God depersonalized And disanthropomorphized . God can be understood mentally, but he cannot be represented figuratively. God is completely identical with substance. Spinoza gives the following formula for this: God, or substance, or nature (more precisely: God and/or substance and/or nature ). God merging with substance does not possess any special creative functions. God-substance , being completely free, acts, however, by virtue of the necessity of its own nature, without possessing any free will, any arbitrariness. According to Spinoza, “in the nature of there is no creation, but only generation.” God-substance is characterized as nature generating or producing . This is an intuitively and speculatively comprehended nature. The world of individual things, comprehended by sensory-abstract knowledge, is nature generated or produced .

Spinoza is convinced that with the help deep intuitive-deductive knowledge one can imagine individual things as products of a single and unique substance. He makes the following statement: “all nature constitutes one individual, the parts of which, that is, all bodies, change in infinitely many ways without any change in the individual as a whole.”

Concrete things, conceived by the highest kind of knowledge as products of a single and unique substance, become modes , i.e. isolated manifestations of this substance. Things-modes ontologically identical, they differ only in their cognitive reality. To explain the diversity of modes of one and only substance, Spinoza introduces the concept attribute substance as infinite in its kind, as opposed to absolutely infinite, which is substance as a whole. Basic, decisive attributes of a substance two - length And thinking . Two attributes, according to Spinoza, are enough for the human mind to comprehend substance in its concreteness.

Spinoza argues that not only man, but also all other individuals of nature “albeit to different degrees, nevertheless all are animated.” True, living individuals of nature, other than humans, are of little interest to Spinoza. In man sensory knowledge constitutes a lower genus, subordinate to its higher intuitive-deductive activity. It was under intuitive-deductive activity that Spinoza laid the ontological foundation with his doctrine of substance, mode and attribute. Adequate ideas, which are comprehended intuitively and deductively, are also rooted as the essences of things in objective existence. This is peculiar hylonism (new term for objectivity, "materiality" human mind).

Knowability of the world Spinoza interprets it not only as an epistemological principle, but also as an ontological principle, going back to such an attribute of substance-nature-God as thinking. In his panlogism, ontology, methodology, and epistemology, and therefore logic, merge. Intelligent The (intellectual, knowable) side of all objects and phenomena of nature exists no less objectively than the objects and phenomena themselves. Extension and thought are only two aspects of the same reality. Spinoza identifies ideal, logical and material, material connections. There is an identification of the logical basis and the physical cause, the action of the physical cause with the logical consequence. “The order and connection of ideas are the same as the order and connection of things.” Spinoza introduces another concept - infinite intelligence , as something that, by definition, always knows everything clearly and distinctly. This intellect is the result of the ontologization of the highest intuitive-deductive ability and activity of the human spirit (this is how it returns anthropomorphization ).

Infinite Mind Spinoza refers to generated, created nature, to the world of modes, to the world of finite human spirits. But this is a special, infinite mode that acts as a connecting link between the attribute of substance - thinking and the specific thinking of individual people. Infinite Intelligence can be understood as a set of ideas unfolding in nature parallel to the emerging, defining things (cf. Hegel).

"Parallel" the mode of thinking in nature appears infinite mode of movement and rest as something unified. It is an intermediary link between extension as an attribute of substance and the world of specific individual corporeal things.

Spinoza was a consistent critic teleological explanation nature and man. He believed that teleology (whether it be transcendental or immanent theology) distorts our ideas about the true connection between cause and action and obscures ideas about proximate causes.

Spinoza can be considered one of the radical mechanistic determinists . He, however, uses the categories of chance, possibility and necessity. For the first, sensory-abstract kind of knowledge, all things and events appear as accidental or possible (for Spinoza these terms are synonymous). This is a consequence of the fact that sensory-abstract knowledge is always fragmentary knowledge. Spinoza calls the knowledge of the integral world, transforming isolated individual things into modes of a single substance knowledge "in the aspect of eternity" . Such knowledge reveals the illusion of randomness of all things and events, their independence from substance and convinces of their necessity.

Tough, unambiguous connection between cause and effect , eliminating randomness, turns it into subjective appearance, born of inadequacy of cognition. This reveals the illusory nature of the countless miracles that filled the religious consciousness of that time. With his approach, Spinoza destroyed the concept miracle as something inexplicable, irrational. A miracle, according to Spinoza, is pure absurdity.

Spinoza carried out in his writings a deanthropomorphization of the concept law , interpreted as a law of nature. He clearly distinguished the law of nature from social law, which depends on "human permission". The laws of nature express the interactions not of individual things, but of modes. They reflect not so much the conditions of a specific time, but the unconditionality of a timeless substance with its attributes.

Some researchers qualify Spinoza's teaching as fatalism . Spinoza rejected such an assessment of his teaching. He considered fatalism the view that everything is always directed by the extranatural personality of God. Spinoza did not recognize such a God. It can be considered that Spinoza's fatalism is a non-religious fatalism.

In human activity, as a part, "particles" nature, the second attribute of nature is clearly manifested - thinking .

But they work here too Nature laws , to which the activity of the soul or mind is subject. The cognitive mind consists of a collection of ideas. The soul is defined as the idea of ​​one's own body. The most vague ideas of sensory knowledge express the passive side of the human soul. But the soul is capable of realizing its own ideas. This reveals its active side, associated with rational-intuitive knowledge. This is how it is revealed self-directedness human consciousness, called Spinoza" idea body idea ", or " the idea of ​​the soul ". This activity of the mind makes a person subject - the center of continuous mental activity.

The relationship between the bodily-sensory and intuitive-intellectual sides of the human soul (the psychophysical problem in Spinoza’s version) is characterized in the following general formulation: “Neither the body can determine the soul to thinking, nor the soul can determine the body to movement, nor to rest, nor to anything else.” Unlike Descartes, with his psychophysical dualism, in Spinoza we find a peculiar monistic parallelism .

Adhering to a nominalistic approach, Spinoza believed that human soul does not represent any substantial whole. It is always composed of discrete thoughts - ideas. It cannot have special abilities, such as understanding, desire, love. She has no will either. But people have the opposite experience. They believe that their actions depend on them and only on their permission. In response to this, Spinoza says that free will - this is one of the most common universals, i.e. pseudo-generalizations. People usually become aware of their desires without understanding the reasons that cause them. Hence their belief in the freedom of their will. In reality, will is a universal concept that generalizes countless individual thoughts - ideas. Each of these ideas has a certain degree of truth. To the extent of truth, they are affirmative, affirmative . To the extent that thoughts and ideas are false, they are negative, negative . In concept will , according to Spinoza, expresses the degree of affirmative activity of ideas. But people who are philosophically unprepared do not see the partiality of their truths and consider them complete. This is where the belief of ordinary people about the freedom of their will originates. There is no free will, according to Spinoza, because there is no will itself as a special ability of the human soul.

In Spinoza "will and reason... are one and the same."

Spinoza, like many others, tried to understand the problem of human passions . His affect expresses the state of both the human soul, always filled with certain ideas, and his body. The body's capacity for action can increase or decrease under the influence of corresponding affects. Emotional Spinoza reduced human life to the affects of attraction, desire (which is what an attraction realized by the soul becomes), joy, and sadness. Spinoza most often considers ideas as the causes of affects. Sensory-abstract cognition gives rise to passive affects (passions). Such affects-passions purely individual. Filling the entire consciousness, they suppress conscious aspirations and actions associated with the highest kind of knowledge. Lead a person to a peculiar slavery .

Denying free will, Spinoza at the same time asserted the possibility human freedom . Freedom is the opposite of necessity, coercion, and violence. The concept of freedom is a consequence of the highest kind of knowledge - intuitive-deductive, which comprehends universal necessity. As a result of such cognition, affects and passions are transformed into affects-actions , which are based on the power of the mind. Active affects express the essence of human nature, concentrated in the mind. Reasonable-intuitive knowledge of substance-nature allows few to the sages achieve dominance over one’s own affects and passions. Contemplative freedom arises, equivalent to "cognitive love of God." This freedom as a passion for knowledge (cf. Platonic eros), leading the sage to deep satisfaction and even happiness.

Rejecting the usual ideas about the immortality of the individual soul in its sensory originality, Spinoza asserts impersonal immortality of the highest, theoretical faculty of the individual soul , through which each soul participates in the logical structure of the world.

Sensory-abstract consciousness and cognition are not enough for education morality . This requires completely reliable knowledge. It is such knowledge that raises philosopher-sages to a state of freedom and makes them free people.

Using nominalistic methodology, Spinoza comprehended the basic ethics categories - good and evil. Good is some benefit, which is a type of pleasure. Evil is some specific harm leading to displeasure. Without denying the significance of the Bible, Spinoza emphasized that moral rules can be "proved from general concepts." From Spinoza, "free people", guided by reason, they live only by such morality. Anyone who seeks to develop a valid moral doctrine must “not to ridicule human actions, not to be upset by them and curse them, but to know them.” Spinoza noted the importance pleasures to overcome "dark and sad superstition." But he strongly condemned the desire for pleasure for its own sake. This resulted from his low assessment of sensory knowledge, especially when it is proclaimed the highest kind of knowledge. In Spinoza's ideal of the free man, or sage, the essence of human nature is concentrated in reason.

In the spirit of the concept" two truths "Spinoza resolutely denied any value of the Bible in the matter of knowing the true truth relating to the objective world. Only reason completely "subjugated the kingdom of truth." Spinoza rejected the supernatural ability of possessing complete truth prophets believed that the prophets relied on sensory knowledge, remained dark and superstitious people who invented all kinds of miracles and constantly contradicted each other.

Spinoza believed that in interpretation of Holy Scripture , first of all, the Old Testament, one must proceed only from its contents, taking into account as much as possible the historical circumstances of the compilation of certain parts of it.

Spinoza clearly represented the alliance of monarchical power with the church, “so that people would fight for their enslavement as for their well-being,” being misled "the great name of religion." He saw reasons for religious superstitions in fear of the ignorant people, guided only by sensory knowledge, of incomprehensible and formidable natural phenomena. Spinoza believed that the overwhelming majority of the people, due to shortcomings of their mental abilities, live guided only by passive affects. " It is impossible to free the crowd from either superstition or fear.” It is in relation "crowds" The Bible, according to Spinoza, retains a moral and pedagogical function: "The Scriptures have brought great comfort to mortals."

Spinoza believed Christ historical figure. He characterized Christ, in contrast to the prophets, as a man who comprehended the truth in its adequate, purely intellectual form, but was unable to preach the truth in the same intellectual form to the people, not only the Jews, but also "all languages" Spinoza ignored the dogma of the resurrection of Christ.

Spinoza did not consider his teaching atheistic, much less anti-religious. But he saw that all official religions were based on ignorance and prejudice. True religion , according to Spinoza, means the highest wisdom, which is based on the most reliable knowledge. "Superstition has its basis in ignorance, and religion(true - CX) -wisdom".

I. Newton on knowledge

Isaac Newton (1643 - 1727)- a person whose activities can be considered the highest achievement" centuries of geniuses "He headed the department of physics and mathematics for more than 30 years. Newton's main areas of research were optics, mechanics, and astronomy, which were united on the basis of mathematics into a single science. He called this science " natural philosophy ".

Newton turned experiment into the main means of purposeful exploration of nature. His experiment depended on an accurate mathematical understanding of the results. Already in the early Lectures on optics "Newton emphasized that perfect mastery mathematical knowledge - the first condition for achieving any significant result in "natural philosophy".

In the course of physical research, Newton made epoch-making discovery - differential and integral calculus. He discovered the phenomenon of light dispersion (various refrangibility), showed the complexity of white light, which was then considered almost the simplest (pure) substance.

Newton summarized the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Descartes. The results of the generalization are presented in the famous essay " Mathematical principles of natural philosophy ", which is considered by many to be the most outstanding work in the history of natural science.

Continuing his research, Newton began practical work. WITH 1703 and until the end of his life he was president Royal Society of London . For some time he was a member of parliament.

Newton's activity clearly illustrates one of the main patterns in the development of philosophy - the interaction of philosophical and worldview and special scientific knowledge. Newton's mechanics, as an exact science, greatly enhanced the impact of special knowledge on philosophical concepts. Not a single special scientific work of the past has had such an impact on philosophy as Newton's " Beginnings ".

Newton emphasized that he used two interrelated methods in his research - analytical And synthetic . Through the first, the forces and simple laws of nature are established on the basis of careful observation and study. This basis for Newton’s scientific activity led him to a maxim known to almost everyone: “I do not invent hypotheses. However, everything that is not deduced from phenomena should be called a hypothesis, but hypotheses of metaphysical, physical, mechanical, hidden properties have no place in experimental philosophy.” It is necessary, however, to take into account the historical context of these words.

Newton's pathos was directed against "hypotheses", which were in no way supported by facts and did not lead to a mathematically flawless system. This statement, its initial part, should be understood as follows: “I don’t make up speculation”(V.V. Sokolov). In Newton one can find the use of assumptions, which were then verified by experiment (hypothesis in the modern sense of the word). He wrote elsewhere: “hypotheses must obey the nature of phenomena, and not try to subjugate everything to themselves, bypassing experimental evidence” . It is known that Newton used the ether hypothesis to explain the action of bodies on each other. The hypotheses were Newton's provisions on the mechanical nature of heat, on the atomic (corpuscular) structure of matter (substance), etc.

The second part of Newton's method - synthetic - was hypothetico-deductive, i.e. the same as Galileo's, only mathematically much more rigorous. Newton's methodology led to the interpretation of scientific explanations as a mathematical description of facts recorded in experience. He demanded in one of his four rules " Began": “One should not require other causes in nature than those that are true and sufficient to explain phenomena.”(cf. " Occam's razor").

Newton was hostile to the metaphysics that was developing on the continent. But he, naturally, could not do without the most general concepts, which is impossible in principle. These are, first of all, concepts absolute space And absolute time . Newton understood matter as an inert mass capable of movement only due to the influence of external factors. Such a factor for Newton was the mysterious gravity . But concrete movement - moving from place to place, recorded in experience - is always relative, and accordingly, space and time must be relative. On this basis, by the way, Hobbes spoke about the accidentality (derivativeness) of space and time. This did not suit Newton, however. He needs absolute space and time as a kind of constant cosmic scale for measuring all the countless specific movements. Neither one nor the other is perceived in sensory experience, which led him to recognition God . He wrote: "... the most graceful conjunction of the Sun, planets and comets could not have happened except by the intention and power of a powerful and wise Being." But Newton’s religiosity was more determined by his conviction in the unknowability of God, a distant idea of ​​which we can get by some analogy. Newton defined empty space as "God's sense." His religiosity is rather of a traditional theological nature. Newton even wrote " Interpretation of the Apocalypse ", a completely orthodox theological work. Newton combined in his worldview seemingly incompatible things - the rapid development of scientific knowledge, on the one hand, and the religious searches of his time, on the other.

Related information.

Spinoza Sokolov Vasily Vasilievich

3. Reliable knowledge and rationalism of Spinoza. The role of intuition and the “geometric method”

The imperfections of both experimental and abstract knowledge give rise to fruitless debates, often leading to skepticism. The fight against skepticism occupies a significant place in Spinoza's methodology and epistemology. To understand the reasons for this struggle, one should keep in mind the ambiguity of the philosophical and social functions of skepticism.

Having emerged in antiquity, this direction reflected some essential features of the scientific and philosophical thinking of that era, in particular the lack of experimental knowledge at that time. At the same time, the edge of skepticism in antiquity was directed against numerous religious ideas, especially since those ideas began to have an increasingly powerful impact on philosophical teachings, giving rise to theological ideas that claimed absolute significance and infallibility. When skepticism, along with other ancient philosophical teachings, was renewed in the Renaissance, especially by the French humanist and philosopher Montaigne, it then acquired primarily an anti-dogmatic and anti-theological function, for it undermined the claims of numerous Christian theologians to the inviolability of the “truths” that they preached and defended. .

However, skepticism also concealed another side. It consisted in undermining claims to the ability to achieve reliable knowledge, not only in the field of theology, where such claims really had no logical basis, but also in the field of science, where the reliability of truths is one of the decisive reasons for their existence. And it must be said that many theologians of the era in question, in the face of the energetic attack of science on religion, began to encourage certain skeptical attitudes and teachings and began to see in them not so much enemies as allies. This explains the decisive rejection of skeptical arguments by a number of leading philosophers of the era under study, especially those of them who, like Descartes, saw in the reliability of mathematical knowledge the highest example and criterion of any other knowledge.

Spinoza is one of the most prominent anti-skeptic philosophers, for “with them... there can be no talk of science” (8, 1 , 334). One of the very significant reasons for Spinoza’s attitude to empirical knowledge discussed above was the impossibility of dispelling the skeptical interpretation of knowledge on its basis. Reflecting the vague and fluctuating experience of the individual, inadequate ideas of representation reinforce rather than refute the skeptic's arguments. To a large extent, the same must be said regarding abstract knowledge, consisting of universal concepts.

According to Spinoza, rational-reasonable, mathematical-geometric knowledge, first of all, has a completely different character. Its truths are of a supra-individual nature, for the connection between the subject and the predicate in judgments of the mathematical type is absolutely necessary. Such truths called by Spinoza general concepts(notiones communes), are completely devoid, in his opinion, of any elements of subjectivism. It is precisely such concepts, expressing adequate truth, that form the basis of the fundamental unity of the human mind. Its affirmation is one of the foundations of the rationalism of the advanced philosophers of the era under consideration.

Spinoza calls the second type of knowledge reason (ratio) or reason (intellectus). He uses the latter term more often.

The general concepts with which this type of knowledge operates are, first of all, mathematical concepts. They seem to the rationalist philosopher to be the only adequate and true ones. He sees evidence of such truth in the constant connectivity of these concepts in the deductive process of inferential knowledge, which always leads to reliable results. Logical coherence, systematicity from the point of view of Spinoza’s rationalistic methodology represents the most important criterion that distinguishes the adequate truth of reason from the inadequate, only partial truth of representation. If the activity of representation, the first kind of knowledge, is subject to random habits of associations, then the activity of understanding, or reason, is carried out according to the strict laws of logical consequence. Absolutizing them, the author of the “Treatise on the Improvement of the Mind” calls the human mind, developing the deductive process of inferential knowledge, “like a kind of spiritual automaton” (8, 1 , 349).

Another decisive feature of reason that distinguishes it from imagination is insensual the nature of his activities. If at the stage of representation the human soul is determined in its activity by external things, one way or another determining its body, influencing its sense organs, then at the stage of reason, or reason, it is “determined to understand the similarities, differences and contrasts between things from the inside" but not " from outside, encountering things by chance,” as is the case in the previous stage (ibid., 431). The power of imagination and the intensity of representation are directly proportional to the number of sensory contacts of the human soul with external things. The logical coherence of adequate ideas of the mind, on the contrary, is inversely proportional to this kind of contact, for “the more the actions of any body depend only on itself and the less other bodies take part in its actions, the more capable is its soul of clear understanding” ( ibid., 415).

The fight against skepticism and, even more so, the desire to defend the sovereignty of the “natural light” of the human mind from the incessant encroachments of the supernatural “revelation of God,” which were very characteristic of Descartes, were even more characteristic of Spinoza and became one of the first reasons for his assertion of the insensible nature of adequate truths , formed into a deductive system. “...A thing is then comprehended when it is assimilated by pure thought in addition to words and images,” wrote the author of the “Theological-Political Treatise,” for “invisible things and those that are objects only of the spirit can be seen with no other eyes than through evidence..." (8, 2 , 70, 182).

The orientation of Descartes, Spinoza and other rationalists of the century under review towards mathematical knowledge, the deductive chains of which were regarded as a model of all knowledge, necessarily required the recognition of certain initial positions as truths inherent in the human mind itself, which without them simply would not be capable of any cognitive activities. This necessity itself arose from the purely unhistorical interpretation of human thinking, especially its higher functions. In this respect, the philosophy of the 17th century differed little from the philosophy of previous centuries. This side of the rationalistic epistemology of the named century is inextricably linked with the problems intuition.

In the previous tradition, intuition was sometimes interpreted as direct, sensory, contemplation. Even more often, intuition was understood as direct intellectual cognition, which is in no way connected with discursive, logical activity. This understanding was, in particular, characteristic of pantheistic mystics, who insisted on the possibility of direct contact with the infinite and impersonal God.

The great rationalists of this century, starting with Descartes, conceptualized mathematical knowledge and generalized its methods, and rethought the understanding of intuition. Intuition, Descartes wrote in “Rules for the Guidance of the Mind,” cannot at all be identified with sensory knowledge. On the contrary, it is “simple and distinct... a strong concept of a clear and attentive mind, generated only by the natural light of reason and, thanks to its simplicity, more certain than deduction itself...” (20, 86). From this purely rationalistic Cartesian definition of intuition, its intellectual nature is completely obvious. In contrast to the irrationalistic, mystical tradition of the previous and contemporary religious-idealistic philosophy, in the interpretation of intuition, Descartes closely links it with the logical process, believing that the latter simply cannot begin without some initial, extremely clear concepts and provisions.

The understanding of intuition as direct contact with the infinite divine being present both in all of nature and in the human soul, the young Spinoza initially, in all likelihood, gleaned from the pantheistic tradition. We find traces of such an understanding, especially clear in the “Short Treatise on God, Man and His Happiness” and in the “Treatise on the Improvement of Reason” in the “Theological-Political Treatise”, and in a number of Spinoza’s letters, and even in “Ethics” . But in recent works the Cartesian-rationalist interpretation of intuition as intellectual has clearly prevailed. It is defined by the philosopher as third kind of knowledge. It is characteristic that all three types of knowledge were repeatedly illustrated by him with the following mathematical example.

Given three numbers, you need to find the fourth proportional to them. Merchants, without further ado, look for this number according to the method that other people told them at one time, without providing any evidence. This is characteristic of the first type of knowledge and of that method of perception, which the philosopher called perception “by hearsay.” But the correct solution can also be reached purely empirically - by multiplying all numbers until a general proposition is derived, according to which the desired result is obtained by multiplying the second number by the third and dividing the resulting number by the first. This method illustrates cognition “from disordered experience.” Mathematicians, who understand the nature of proportion, know which numbers are proportional to each other, and therefore find the required number without any difficulty. Their actions illustrate the third way of perception and the second type of knowledge, carried out in the form of a certain deduction.

But even higher than this is the fourth way of perception, which constitutes the third kind of knowledge. This is precisely intuitive knowledge that immediately, instantly grasps the proportionality of given numbers. But although, thus, the sought truth in this case is seen directly, nevertheless this immediacy itself is mediated by the previous knowledge of the mathematician. The latter would simply be incapable of intuitively solving such a problem if he did not first know the rule of proportionality and use it. Thus, the intuitive act turns out to be inextricably linked with discursive acts. The identity of their results can be subjected to practical verification and expressed in words.

Thus, this example alone testifies to Spinoza’s intellectualistic interpretation of intuition.

But we do not find in the great rationalist any clear demarcation of the spheres of application of the second and third types of knowledge, nor an unambiguous definition of the latter. It is absolutely clear, however, from the “Ethics” that both of these methods of knowledge, as a source of reliable truths, are opposed to the first kind of sensory-abstract, imaginative knowledge as a source of practically necessary, but completely unreliable truths. The necessary connection between the two higher types of knowledge and thus the intellectual character of intuition is also evident from the fact that, according to the categorical conviction of the author of the Ethics, it cannot arise from the first type of knowledge, but only from the second (see 8, 1 , 607). After all, both of them are supersensual.

The interpenetration of intuition and deduction is manifested in the “matter” of rationally reliable knowledge - general concepts. In contrast to universal concepts, which are formed on the basis of always unstable experience and are products of more or less artificial abstraction, general concepts are directly, intuitively given to the mind. Because of this, they constitute, according to Spinoza, the “foundation of reasoning,” the starting point of a deductive chain leading to a reliable result.

It is quite obvious that Spinoza here abandons the position of nominalism on which he stood in the interpretation of abstract knowledge. Hobbes's consistent nominalism became the most important element of the English materialist in his sensualist theory of knowledge. Hence Hobbes's denial of intuition and intuitive knowledge as consisting of truths that are completely independent of our sensory information. The rationalism of Descartes and Spinoza is inseparable from the recognition of the intuitiveness of some of the most important truths, without which the entire subsequent process of rational-deductive knowledge is impossible.

Intuitive knowledge, according to Spinoza, is directly related to knowledge of the essences of things. Also calling them the natures of things, from which all the properties of the latter can be deduced, the philosopher thinks of essences as certain eternal, timeless truths (see 8, 1 , 78; 2 , 68). Entities understood in this way cannot at all be defined on the basis of universal concepts, as the scholastics usually did. They can be determined based on general concepts and by drawing up correct, precise definitions. Emphasizing, following Hobbes, the importance of drawing up such definitions, which are “possibly accurate explanations of the signs and names by which the corresponding objects are designated ...” (8, 1 , 175), Spinoza, in contrast, connects the composition of definitions with the activity of intuition, which comprehends the essence of things. And here Spinoza acts as a rationalist-Cartesian, striving to “explain not the meaning of words, but the essence of things,” to give not verbal, but objective definitions (ibid., 512).

Such definitions should be analytical judgments, the truth of which necessarily follows from the content of the subject and predicate and is completely independent of the empirical generalization that is the basis of universal concepts, complete with accidents and contradictions. From the very definition of a triangle, its “essence,” it follows that its angles are equal to two right angles. By thus linking intuitive knowledge with the formulation of precise definitions expressed in analytical judgments, Spinoza improves the Cartesian definition of intuition quoted above. In the latter, the truth of intuition is determined by such features as extreme simplicity, clarity and distinctness of the concepts conceivable through it. From the point of view of the author of “Ethics”, such Feel truth is not yet enough for complete confidence in it, for it may contain a more or less significant element of subjectivity. The truth of intuition becomes indisputable for everyone if it is expressed in precise definitions and analytical judgments. Only the identification of such judgments, which express the very essence of things, saves us from all subjectivism, and thereby skepticism. At the same time, it delivers, according to Spinoza, immanent criterion of truth.

For Descartes' rationalism, true, primarily intuitive, concepts express the deepest essence of the objective world of nature. From the point of view of Hobbes's nominalism, the accuracy of definitions in itself has no relation to the material world. Spinoza, like Descartes, interprets truth as knowledge that expresses completely objective properties and connections of things (“formal”, that is, expressing certain forms, or essences, of things). But the true idea, comprehended through intuition and expressed in precise definitions, the rationalist usually calls such an adequate idea (idea adaequata), “which, being considered in itself without relation to the subject, object (objectum), has all the properties or internal characteristics of a true idea " (8, 1 , 403).

An adequate idea analytically expresses its truth and does not require its correlation with the subject. Because of this, it represents an immanent criterion of truth. Hence the central principle of Spinoza’s rationalism in his doctrine of truth: “Just as light reveals both itself and the surrounding darkness, so truth is the measure of both itself and lies” (ibid., 440).

The inconsistency of this purely rationalistic interpretation of the criterion of reliability of knowledge, which ignores the practical activity of people, through which even the clearest concepts are constantly compared with things and refined in the process of such comparison, is completely obvious. As a metaphysical rationalist, Spinoza does not see the need for this kind of comparison. Adequate ideas, established by intuition and expressed in precise definitions, constitute absolute truth, opposed the relativity of lies, associated with experimental-abstract knowledge.

It is precisely because of their absoluteness that adequate ideas, general concepts, developed into analytical judgments, can serve as a criterion of truth, an indicator of the degree of veracity of our knowledge. After all, they are dominated by inadequate ideas gleaned from experience, and in these ideas truth and falsehood are mixed to varying degrees. Adequate ideas provide a standard of reliability, through which genuine knowledge can be distinguished from vague, unreliable opinions.

Spinoza's contrast between knowledge gleaned from experience and knowledge that owes its origin to the actual mental activity of man as unreliable and reliable knowledge reflected a number of attitudes in the interpretation of knowledge that were characteristic both of his era and, to a large extent, of many previous centuries, starting from antiquity . In some ways it reflected the interpretation of knowledge inherent in all pre-Marxist philosophy. It reflected, firstly, a purely unhistorical understanding of the higher, theoretical functions of the human mind, especially intuition, which in antiquity, and even more so in the Middle Ages, led to the deification of these functions. In the era of Spinoza, advanced philosophers, like him himself, took the path of secularization, considering these functions as purely human activities. But they were also far from historicism in their understanding of these functions, which they now closely linked with mathematical knowledge. Absolutizing the latter, they saw in reliable knowledge - it is significant to note the absence then of such an important branch of mathematics as the theory of probability - the main manifestation of the “natural light” of the human mind in its opposition to the supernatural “revelation of God,” as well as everything vague and unstable that was associated with sensory experience.

The absolutization of mathematical knowledge in its elementary form, going back to Euclid’s “Principles,” found perhaps its most vivid expression in what Spinoza himself called the “geometric method.” If the discovery of genuine truths expressed by general concepts occurs, as Spinoza believed following Galileo, Descartes, Hobbes and other philosophers of his century, using the analytical method, which decomposes the object under study into the simplest elements possible, then the reconstruction of the complete picture is carried out using a synthetic method. The author of "Ethics" called him geometric. In this main work, Spinoza made a grandiose attempt to apply the axiomatic method to the presentation of the entire range of philosophical knowledge, including here the sphere of human behavior, which is most difficult to generalize.

This attitude of Spinoza became the most radical manifestation of rationalist methodology in the century under review. The author of “Ethics” used the techniques of Euclidean geometry in it, forgetting that the rigor of its axioms, postulates, theorems, and the accuracy of its proofs are based on unambiguity its concepts and terms. Outside the realm of mathematics, especially in the realm of human life, this kind of precision is the exception rather than the rule. The ambiguity of philosophical language easily broke the geometric scheme of presentation of the Ethics, and the author himself was forced to abandon it more and more often, resorting to numerous scholia, appendices and prefaces, in which he usually more clearly and concisely stated his point of view. In general, the “geometric method” of presentation essentially makes it difficult to read the Ethics, many of whose fundamental provisions are often formulated in a random context.

Convinced that with the help of the “geometric method” he expounds the timeless logic of the world of nature and man, Spinoza, in the spirit of his age, proceeded from a purely ahistorical understanding of human knowledge. And under these conditions, it is natural that he saw in Euclid’s “Elements” a model of reliability, for the understanding of this work is accessible to every person endowed with the ability of logical thinking. Such an understanding, says the author of the “Theological-Political Treatise,” does not require knowledge of “the life, occupation, character of the author, or to whom, in what language and when he wrote” (8, 2 , 119).

However, emphasizing the unhistoricism of Spinoza’s interpretation of knowledge, which is essentially characteristic of all other philosophers of that century, one cannot help but note that we find certain, albeit small, elements of the historical interpretation of knowledge in the author of the “Treatise on the Improvement of Reason.” Refuting here the argumentation of skeptics who rejected the possibility of reliable knowledge on the grounds that there is not a single stable criterion for such knowledge, and who pushed such a criterion to infinity, the philosopher proved the inconsistency of skepticism, referring to the practice of human cognition and action. Agreeing with skeptics and admitting that people are unable to know anything, since they never have a stable criterion for such knowledge, is the same as admitting that it is impossible for people to begin, for example, to forge iron. For this requires a hammer, which can only be made with another hammer, and so on ad infinitum. Meanwhile, people usually start by making the simplest tools, with the help of which they create more complex ones, improving them more and more. The situation is exactly the same with “mental tools”, which are also improved in the process of cognition, for the human spirit, “understanding more, thereby acquires new tools, with the help of which it expands understanding even more easily” (8, 1 , 329 and 331).

It remains for us to consider one more sense in which the philosopher interprets intuitive knowledge. This meaning was drawn by the philosopher from the pantheistic tradition and is absent in Descartes’ methodology. By intuition, Spinoza also understands the constant striving of the human spirit for a holistic grasp of an object, culminating in the knowledge of the most grandiose object, which is nature-the universe. And only when this last knowledge has been realized can the world connection of all truths be considered complete. Only at this stage is the absolute nature of truth fully revealed, which illuminates the countless steps of falsity-truth leading to it. Such intuitive and holistic coverage of the entire Universe is called knowledge of it by the mind “from the point of view of eternity” (sub specie aeternitatis).

The maximum integrity of knowledge, achieved on the scale of the entire Universe, necessarily leads Spinoza to the conclusion about the existence in nature itself of such an objective ability, which he called infinite intelligence (intellectus infinitus). Its defining property is to always know everything clearly and distinctly. It is quite obvious that this metaphysical ideal of complete knowledge on the scale of the entire Universe represents an ontological projection of that ahistorical view of the highest theoretical ability of the human spirit, which was mentioned above.

One of its most important properties is the ability to form two types of ideas. The mind forms some ideas “absolutely, and some from others.” The creative ability of the human spirit, completely independent of its bodily-sensory activity, manifests itself with the greatest force precisely in the formation of ideas of the first kind - ideas of infinity, or more precisely, the idea of ​​an actual, completed, once-for-all given infinity. The second ideas are all ideas of quantity, always limited and dependent on other ideas. Thus, any body is perceived by us as the result of the movement of some planes, a plane is the movement of lines, and a line is the movement of a point (see 8, 1 , 356).

The decisive idea for Spinoza seems to be the idea of ​​absolute, actual infinity as the clearest of all ideas of the human spirit, if he manages to completely detach himself from sensory ideas that confuse the spirit. This main idea lays the foundation for all other ideas (see ibid., 332 and 351) and constitutes the deepest foundation of reliable knowledge (see 8, 2 , 122). Starting from it, one can comprehend “the whole of nature, as it really exists in itself” (8, 1 , 168).

The most general conclusion of Spinoza’s intuitive-rationalist methodology is that the most reliable, truly philosophical understanding of nature is achieved not when we start from experiential and sensory ideas, starting with the knowledge of external bodies, but only when we start from the depths of our own spirit. And only in this case does the philosophically thinking mind manage to completely overcome its subjectivity and enter the wide expanses of nature-the universe, for “what lies objectively in the mind must necessarily exist in nature” (8, 1 , 388). Already from the beginning of his philosophical activity, the Dutch thinker was convinced of what was clearly formulated in the “Treatise on the Improvement of the Mind”, namely, in the unity “by which the spirit is connected with all nature” (ibid., 323). Now is the time for us to turn to this teaching about nature.

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Line of intuition and feeling “The Seagull” Another series of our productions and works followed the line of intuition and feeling. In this series I would include all the plays of Chekhov, some of Hauptmann, partly “Woe from Wit”, plays of Turgenev, dramatizations of Dostoevsky, etc. The first production from this

From the book With Antarctica - only to "You": Notes of a Polar Aviation Pilot author Karpiy Vasily Mikhailovich

The birth of a new method “Poincaré begins like Cauchy,” one of the leading professors at the Sorbonne once remarked approvingly. He had in mind the wide variety of works of the young mathematician, who published articles on Fuchsian functions, on the theory of ordinary

From the book by Charlie Chaplin author Kukarkin Alexander Viktorovich

Trust your intuition It would seem that things are going well, but for some reason you don’t want to be happy. Nothing changes in the matter of ensuring flights, but there is at least an explanation for this state of affairs - every year, practically, a new flight squad is created, which has no time to look into the future,

From the book Monsieur Gurdjieff by Povel Louis

Chapter V. INNOVATION OF THE METHOD

From the book of Democritus author Vits Bronislava Borisovna

From Spinoza's book author Sokolov Vasily Vasilievich

From Spinoza's book by Strathern Paul

Chapter I. The era and life of Spinoza Some historians of science and philosophy call the 17th century, when Spinoza was born and died, the age of geniuses. There are solid grounds for this. It is enough to remember that it was in this century that they published their philosophical and scientific works

From the book by Hugo Kollontai by Hinz Henrik

2. Interpretation of abstract knowledge and the nominalistic tendency in Spinoza During the era of the dominance of medieval scholasticism, there were two main epistemological trends - realism and nominalism. Realism began to be called numerous teachings that

From the book Kitchen. Notes from a cook author Ovsyannikov Alexander

The Life and Works of Spinoza Baruch (or Benedict) de Spinoza was born on November 4, 1632 in Amsterdam into a family of Portuguese Sephardic Jews - their surname comes from the name of the city of Espinosa in northwestern Spain. His family immigrated to Holland, where they were able to give up

From the author's book

From the works of Spinoza The first eight definitions on which Spinoza bases the “geometrical” proof of his system: I. By CAUSE OF ITSELF (causa sui) I mean that whose essence contains existence, in other words, that whose nature can

From the author's book

Chronology of Spinoza's life 1632? Spinoza was born in Amsterdam. 1646? Leibniz was born. 1648? The end of the Thirty Years' War, which devastated vast areas of Germany and Central Europe. 1650? Death of Descartes. 1654? Death of Spinoza's father and the ensuing legal battle with

From the author's book

From the author's book

I follow not reason, but intuition October 12, 2011, 12:15 pm Lately I have been following not reason, but intuition. I am bihemispheric from birth, that is, I have developed both hemispheres, I can write with both hands, at school I was easily taught both the exact sciences and the humanities, and