Essay on natural science at retraining courses.

The relevance of the topic of this work lies in the fact that the philosophical thought of this period is distinguished by a gigantic variety of ideas, views, directions. For example, this period is characterized by a detailed development of the foundations (methodology) of scientific knowledge in various aspects.

This paper addresses two main questions, such as:

F. Bacon's inductive method;

Deductive method of R. Descartes. Similarities and differences between these methods are revealed.

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Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….2

I. The Scientific Method of Francis Bacon. inductive method ……………………………...3

deductive method…………………………………..5

III. The teachings of F. Bacon and R. Descartes: common and different…………………………………….8

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….9

List of used literature……………………………………………………..10

Introduction

In the Renaissance, philosophers turned their attention to science, they gradually freed themselves from the influence of religion, Man and his problems are put in the spotlight. Anthropocentrism proclaims that man is the center of the universe. On this basis, the ancient tradition of humanism was revived. Humanism is initially against any form of servile dependence of a person on anyone. It started a movement towards self-awareness by people.

The philosophy of the New Age took the main ideas of the Renaissance and developed them. She was non-religious. Her focus was on the world, man and his relationship to the world.

The 17th century is the arena of discussions between rationalism and empiricism. On the one hand: the great empiricist philosophers - F. Bacon, T. Hobbes, D. Locke. On the other - the great rationalist philosophers - R. Descartes, B. Spinoza, G. Leibniz.

The relevance of the topic of this work lies in the fact that the philosophical thought of this period is distinguished by a gigantic variety of ideas, views, directions. For example, this period is characterized by a detailed development of the foundations (methodology) of scientific knowledge in various aspects.

This paper addresses two main questions, such as:

F. Bacon's inductive method;

Deductive method of R. Descartes. Similarities and differences between these methods are revealed.

Under the inductive method, Bacon considered it necessary to create a correct method by which one could gradually ascend from single facts to broad generalizations. In ancient times, all discoveries were made only spontaneously, while the correct method should be based on purposefully set experiments, which should be systematized in "natural history". In general, induction appears in Bacon not only as one of the types of logical conclusion, but also as the logic of scientific discovery, the methodology for developing concepts based on experience.

By deduction, Descartes calls the “movement of thought”, in which the coupling of intuitive truths takes place. The weakness of the human intellect requires checking the correctness of the steps taken for the absence of gaps in reasoning. Descartes calls this verification "deduction".

I. The Scientific Method of Francis Bacon

inductive method

Knowledge is power, but only knowledge that is true. Therefore, Bacon distinguishes between two types of experience: fruitful and luminous.

The first are such experiments that bring direct benefit to a person, luminiferous - those whose purpose is to know the deep connections of nature, the laws of phenomena, the properties of things. Bacon considered the second type of experiments more valuable, since without their results it is impossible to carry out fruitful experiments. The unreliability of the knowledge we receive is due, Bacon believes, to a dubious form of proof, which relies on the syllogistic form of substantiating ideas, consisting of judgments and concepts. However, concepts, as a rule, are formed insufficiently substantiated. In his critique of the theory of the Aristotelian syllogism, Bacon proceeds from the fact that those used in deductive proof general concepts- the result of experiential knowledge, done exceptionally hastily. For his part, recognizing the importance of general concepts that form the foundation of knowledge, Bacon believed that the main thing is to correctly form these concepts, since if concepts are formed hastily, by chance, then there is no strength in what is built on them.

The main step in the reform of science proposed by Bacon should be the improvement of methods of generalization, the creation new concept induction. Bacon's experimental-inductive method consisted in the gradual formation of new concepts through the interpretation of facts and natural phenomena. Only by means of such a method, according to Bacon, is it possible to discover new truths, and not to mark time. Without rejecting deduction, Bacon defined the difference and features of these two methods of cognition as follows: “Two ways exist and can exist for the discovery of truth. One soars from sensations and particulars to the most general axioms, and, proceeding from these foundations and their unshakable truth, discusses and discovers the middle axioms. This is the way they use it today. The other path, on the other hand, derives axioms from sensations and particulars, ascending steadily and gradually until it finally arrives at the most general axioms. This is the true path, but not tested.

The problem of induction only in Bacon acquires a dominant significance and acts as a primary means of understanding nature. In contrast to the induction through a simple enumeration, common at that time, he brings to the fore the true, in his words, induction, which gives new conclusions, obtained on the basis not so much as a result of observation of confirming facts, but as a result of the study of phenomena that contradict the position being proved. A single case can refute an ill-considered generalization. Neglect of the so-called negative instances, according to Bacon, is the main cause of errors, superstitions, and prejudices.

In the inductive method of Bacon, the necessary stages include the collection of facts, their systematization. Bacon put forward the idea of ​​compiling three tables of research - a table of presence, absence and intermediate steps.

Bacon's inductive method also includes conducting an experiment.

In order to conduct an experiment, it is important to vary it, repeat it, move it from one area to another, reverse circumstances, stop it, relate it to others, and study it under slightly changed circumstances. After that, you can proceed to the decisive experiment.

Bacon put forward an experimental generalization of facts as the core of his method, but he was not a defender of a one-sided understanding of it. Bacon's empirical method is distinguished by the fact that it relied on reason to the maximum extent in the analysis of facts. Bacon compared his method to the art of the bee, which, extracting nectar from flowers, processes it into honey with its own skill. He condemned the crude empiricists who, like an ant, collect everything that comes their way, as well as those dogmatists who, like a spider, weave a web of knowledge out of themselves.

The prerequisite for the reform of science should be, according to Bacon, the purification of the mind from delusions, of which he lists four types. He calls these obstacles on the path of knowledge idols: idols of the clan, caves, squares, theaters. The idols of the clan are errors due to the hereditary nature of man. To the idols of the kind, Bacon refers the desire of the human mind to unfounded generalizations.

The idols of the cave are the mistakes that are peculiar individual person or some groups of people due to subjective sympathies, preferences. For example, some researchers believe in the infallible authority of antiquity, while others tend to give preference to the new.

The idols of the square are the errors generated by verbal communication and the difficulty of avoiding the influence of words on people's minds. These idols arise because words are only names, signs for communication among themselves, they say nothing about what things are. That is why countless disputes about words arise when people mistake words for things.

The idols of the theater are errors associated with blind faith in authorities, uncritical assimilation of false opinions and views. Here Bacon had in mind the system of Aristotle and scholasticism, blind faith in which had a restraining effect on the development of scientific knowledge. He called truth the daughter of time, not authority.

The inductive method developed by Bacon, which underlies science, should, in his opinion, explore the internal forms inherent in matter, which are the material essence of a property belonging to an object - a certain type of movement. To isolate the form of a property, it is necessary to separate everything random from the object. Baconian forms are forms of "simple natures" or properties that physicists study. Simple natures are things like hot, wet, cold, heavy, and so on.

The combination of various simple forms gives all the variety of real things. In the theory of knowledge, for Bacon, the main thing is to investigate the causes of phenomena. Causes can be different - either active, which is dealt with by physics, or final, which are dealt with by metaphysics.

Bacon's methodology largely anticipated the development of inductive research methods in subsequent centuries, up to the 19th century.

II. The scientific method of René Descartes

deductive method

The new time, which began in the 17th century, became the era of capitalism, the era of the rapid development of science and technology. The main theme of philosophy was the theme of knowledge. Two major trends emerged: empiricism and rationalism, which interpreted the sources and nature of human knowledge in different ways.

Proponents of rationalism believed that the main source of reliable knowledge is the mind. Descartes is considered the founder of rationalism.

The philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) stood at the origins of the rationalist tradition. He early began to doubt the value of book learning, since, in his opinion, many sciences lack a reliable foundation. Leaving his books, he began to travel. The criterion of truth for Descartes is the methodological setting: "everything must be doubted." Descartes offers a method of cognition - the method of scientific doubt, this is a means of obtaining truth.

For Descartes, sensual evidence is unacceptable. Theoretical ideas are innate, their foundations cannot be found in experiment. According to Descartes, science needs a strict and rational method that allows it to be built according to a single plan, which will allow man to exercise dominance over nature through scientific achievements.

Descartes raises the question of comprehension of certainty in itself.

Reasoning about the method is the most important part of the philosophical heritage of Descartes. He believed that the beginning of knowledge is the mind, but first it must be taught everything.

Descartes' method (deductive) is called analytical or rationalistic. The beginning of deduction is intellectual intuition (this is simple knowledge born in the mind).

Deduction - obtaining private conclusions based on the knowledge of some general provisions, i.e. it is the movement of thinking from the general to the particular, the individual. The starting points are axioms. New knowledge is deduced from them in a logical deductive way.

The hypothetical-deductive model includes:

1) recognition as true only that which is known with the utmost obviousness;

2) selection of the simplest elements of knowledge;

3) ascent from simple to complex. Deduction - knowledge about one thing through knowledge of another thing, inferential knowledge.

Exist different types hypotheses. The criterion of truth is evidence, clarity, distinctness.

The hypothetical-deductive method should turn cognition into an organized activity, freeing it from random and subjective factors.

We must acquire true knowledge in order to be guided by it also in practical life.

The rules that Descartes adheres to and considers the most important:

Do not accept any things as true; avoid haste and interest;

Do not include anything that can be doubted;

Divide all problems into parts so that it is easier to solve them;

Arrange your ideas in sequence, starting with the simplest and moving slowly to the knowledge of the most complex;

To make such complete calculations and such complete surveys everywhere to be sure that you did not bypass anything.

The criterion of truth, according to Descartes, can only be the "natural light" of our mind. Descartes does not deny the cognitive value of experience, but he sees its function solely in that it comes to the aid of reason where the latter's own powers are insufficient for cognition.

Reflecting on the conditions for achieving reliable knowledge, Descartes formulates the "rules of the method" by which one can come to the truth.

By deduction, Descartes calls the “movement of thought”, in which the coupling of intuitive truths takes place. The weakness of the human intellect requires checking the correctness of the steps taken for the absence of gaps in reasoning. Descartes calls this test "induction". The result of a consistent and branched deduction should be the construction of a system of universal knowledge, a "universal science". Descartes compares this science to a tree. Its root is metaphysics, its trunk is physics, and the fruitful branches form the concrete sciences, ethics, medicine, and mechanics, which bring direct benefit. From this scheme it is clear that the key to the effectiveness of all these sciences is the correct metaphysics. What distinguishes Descartes from the method of discovering truths is the method of presenting already developed material. It can be stated "analytically" and "synthetically". Descartes favors the analytic method.

If the premises are not obvious and doubtful, then the conclusions of the deductive system are of little value. But how can one find absolutely obvious premises for a deductive system? Methodological doubt allows answering this question. It is a means of excluding all propositions that we can logically doubt, and a means of finding propositions that are logically certain. With the help of methodical doubt, Descartes puts various kinds of knowledge to the test.

1. First, he considers the philosophical tradition. Is it possible in principle to doubt what the philosophers say? Yes, says Descartes. This is possible because philosophers did, and still do, disagree on many issues.

2. Is it logically possible to doubt our sense perceptions? Yes, says Descartes, and makes the following argument. It is a fact that sometimes we are subject to illusions and hallucinations. For example, a tower may appear to be round, although it is later discovered to be square. Our senses cannot provide us with absolutely obvious premises for a deductive philosophical system.

3. As a special argument, Descartes points out that he has no criterion for determining whether he is fully conscious or in a state of sleep. For this reason, he may in principle doubt the real existence of the external world.

Is there anything we cannot doubt? Yes, says Descartes. Even if we doubt everything, we cannot doubt that we doubt, that is, that we are conscious and exist. We therefore have the absolutely true statement: "I think, therefore I am." The person who makes the statement is expressing knowledge that he cannot doubt. It is reflexive knowledge and cannot be refuted. He who doubts cannot, as a doubter, doubt (or deny) that he doubts and therefore that he exists.

The position of rationalists is that we have two kinds of knowledge. In addition to experiential knowledge, we can obtain rational knowledge about the essence of things in the form of universally valid truths.

The argument between rationalism and empiricism is mainly centered around the second kind of knowledge. Rationalists claim that through rational intuition we gain knowledge of universal truths. Empiricists deny the rational intuition that gives us such knowledge. According to empiricism, we gain knowledge through experience. It can be said that rationalists think that we are able to know reality (something real) with the help of concepts alone, while empiricists derive all knowledge about reality from experience.

Descartes' methodology was anti-scholastic. This orientation was manifested, first of all, in the desire to achieve such knowledge that would strengthen the power of man over nature. Another important feature of Cartesian methodology is the critique of scholastic syllogistics. Scholasticism(scholasticism - philosophy)known to have considered the syllogism(syllogism - reasoning)the main instrument of human cognitive efforts. Descartes sought to prove the failure of this approach. He did not refuse to use the syllogism as a way of reasoning, a means of communicating already discovered truths. But new knowledge, in their opinion, syllogism cannot give. Therefore, he sought to develop a method that would be effective in finding new knowledge.

Descartes wants to offer, as he himself writes in Rules for the Guidance of the Mind, "clear and easy rules that will not allow the one who will use them to take the false for the true:

1. “Never take anything for granted, of which you are obviously not sure; in other words, carefully avoid haste and prejudice and include in your judgments only what appears to my mind so clearly and distinctly that it can in no way give rise to doubt ”;

2. "To divide each problem chosen for study into as many parts as possible and necessary for its best solution." By dividing the complex into simple, we achieve obviousness;

3. The decomposition of the complex into simple is not enough, since it gives the sum of separate elements, but not a strong connection that creates a complex and living whole out of them. Therefore, analysis must be followed by synthesis. This refers to the restoration of order by building a chain of reasoning from simple to complex;

4. And, finally, in order to avoid haste, the mother of all mistakes, individual stages of work should be controlled.

The rules are simple, emphasizing the need for full awareness of the stages into which any rigorous investigation falls apart. This allows us to get rid of all approximate or imperfect, fantastic or only close to the truth concepts that elude this necessary simplifying operation.

The rationalism of Descartes is based on the fact that he tried to apply to all sciences the features of the mathematical method of cognition. Descartes, being one of the great mathematicians of his time, put forward the idea of ​​universal mathematization of scientific knowledge. At the same time, the French philosopher interpreted mathematics not just as a science of quantities, but also as a science of order and measure that reigns in all nature. In mathematics, Descartes most of all appreciated the fact that with its help one can come to firm, precise, reliable conclusions. To such conclusions, in his opinion, experience cannot lead. The rationalistic method of Descartes is, first of all, philosophical reflection and a generalization of those methods of discovering truths that mathematics operated on.

The essence of Descartes' rationalistic method boils down to two main propositions. First, in cognition, one should start from some intuitively clear, fundamental truths, or, in other words, at the basis of cognition, according to Descartes, intellectual intuition should lie. Intellectual intuition, according to Descartes, is a solid and distinct idea, born in a healthy mind through the mind's own view, so simple and clear that it does not cause any doubt. Secondly, the mind must deduce all the necessary consequences from these intuitive views on the basis of deduction. Deduction is such an action of the mind, by means of which we draw certain conclusions from certain premises, obtain certain consequences. Deduction, according to Descartes, is necessary because the conclusion cannot always be presented clearly and distinctly. It can be reached only through a gradual movement of thought with a clear and distinct awareness of each step. By deduction we make the unknown known.

Descartes formulated the following three basic rules of the deductive method:

1. Every question must contain the unknown;

2. This unknown must have some characteristic features in order for the research to be aimed at comprehending this particular unknown;

3. The question should also contain something known. Thus, deduction is the definition of the unknown through the previously known and known.

Intellectual intuition for Descartes begins with doubt. Descartes questioned the truth of all the knowledge that mankind had. Having proclaimed doubts as the starting point of any research, Descartes set a goal - to help humanity get rid of all prejudices from all fantastic and false ideas taken for granted, and thus clear the way for truly scientific knowledge, and at the same time, to find a principle, an idea, which can no longer be doubted.

III. Teachings of F. Bacon and R. Descartes: common and different

The unconditional basis of all knowledge, according to Descartes, is the immediate certainty of consciousness (“I think, therefore I am”). The self-evident is grasped by reason in intellectual intuition, which cannot be confused with sensory experiment (as in Bacon) and which gives us a "clear and distinct" comprehension of the truth. At the heart of Bacon's philosophy, on the contrary, is to create the correct method based on experiment.

But is there anything in common in their teaching? Common in their teaching -attitude towards science.For both Descartes and Bacon, science is the highest value. She is the basis of hope, a symbol of the omnipotence of the human mind.Bacon was fascinated by sweeping projects for the transformation of science. Bacon was the first to come close to understanding science as a social institution. He shared the theory of dual truth, delimiting the functions of science and religion. Bacon's winged statements about science and its role have been repeatedly chosen by famous philosophers and scientists as epigraphs for their works.It was Bacon who expressed the basic commandment of new thinking in the aphorism "Knowledge is power". In knowledge, in science, Bacon saw a powerful tool for social change.

Descartes discovered the foundations of a new "amazing science". Most likely, Descartes had in mind the discovery of a universal scientific method, which he later fruitfully applied in a variety of disciplines.

Descartes puts the problems of human cognition into the center of attention.

A similar attitude to scholasticism. Bacon was critical of scholasticism. Descartes became imbued with antipathy to scholasticism.

Attitudes towards experience: Bacon fought against the so-called "fantastic scholarship", based not on reliable experience, but on unverifiable stories of miracles.
Descartes also does not deny the cognitive value of experience, but he sees its function solely in that it comes to the aid of reason where the latter's own powers are insufficient for cognition.

Conclusion

In the Middle Ages, philosophy turned into a method of studying Nature. Francis Bacon was a prominent representative of this trend.

According to Bacon, previous studies based on metaphysics were "sterile, like a virgin consecrated to God, and created nothing" mainly because they used the method of Aristotle. Aristotelian logic was a method that allowed the construction of logical proofs. With the help of such logic, one can convince another, but with its help it is impossible to find the truth in nature. Thus, Bacon defended the inductive method as a logical tool in the search for new truth. He called his treatise on logic the New Organon, in opposition to Aristotle's Organon.

Believing that traditional teachings are nothing more than logical arguments based on completely empty words, Bacon argued that in order to obtain reliable knowledge, we must first eliminate the prejudices to which we are subject, and then examine nature itself directly. Such prejudices are the four "idols". After eliminating the mentioned “idols”, we observe nature, conduct experiments, and on this basis we find universal essences contained in the depths of individual phenomena. Traditional inductive methods aimed at deriving general laws from a small number of observations and experiments, while Bacon tried to create a truly inductive method that allows one to obtain reliable knowledge on the basis of possible more facts, as well as giving serious weight to negative results.

Rationalistic motives in the teachings of Descartes are intertwined with the theological doctrine of free will, granted to man by God by virtue of a special disposition - grace. According to Descartes, reason alone cannot be the source of delusion. Delusions are the product of man's abuse of his inherent free will. Delusions arise when the infinitely free will oversteps the boundaries of the finite human mind, makes judgments that are devoid of reasonable grounds. However, Descartes does not draw agnostic conclusions from these ideas. He believes in the unlimited possibilities of the human mind in the matter of knowing all the reality surrounding it.

Thus, F. Bacon and R. Descartes laid the foundations of a new methodology scientific knowledge and gave this methodology a deep philosophical foundation.

List of used literature

1. Abishev K. Philosophy. - Almaty. 2002.- 250 p.

2. Bacon F. Works, 2nd revision. and additional ed. M., 1977.- 570s.

3. Gabitov T.Kh. Philosophy. - Almaty. 2002. - 480s.

4. Gorfunkel A.Kh. Philosophy of the Renaissance.- M. 1980.- 480s.

5. Descartes R. Rules for the guidance of the mind. // Descartes R. Works in two volumes. M., Thought. 1989.-590s.

6. Isakov A.Ya. The concept of modern natural science. Part 2: The classical period of natural science: Educational and methodological manual. - Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, KamchatGTU, 2004

7. History of philosophy in brief / Per. from Czech I.I. Boguta - M.: Thought, 1991.-470 p.

8. Karev V.M. "Francis Bacon: A Political Biography". M., 2005.- 490 p.

9. Losev A.F. History of philosophy in a concise presentation. - M.: Thought, 1989.- 600 p.

10. Lyubimov, N.A., Philosophy of Descartes, M., 1986.- 367 p.

11. Fisher, Kuno. History of New Philosophy. Descartes: His life, writings and teachings. - St. Petersburg: 1994.- 450 p.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

VLADIMIR STATE UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

ABSTRACT

DISCIPLINE PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy of the New Age

in the works of F. Bacon and R. Descartes»

Completed:

Student gr. ZEVM-202

Makarov A.V.

Checked:

Vladimir

PLAN

I Introduction

1. General characteristics of the era

2. The main features of the philosophy of modern times

II. Outstanding thinkers of modern times - Descartes and Bacon - and their contribution to the theory of knowledge

1. Rene Descartes as a representative of rationalism

2. Francis Bacon as a representative of empiricism

III. Conclusion

IV. List of used literature

The seventeenth century opens the next period in the development of philosophy, which is commonly called the philosophy of modern times. The process of disintegration of feudal society, which began as early as the Renaissance, expanded and deepened in the 17th century.

In the last third of the 16th - early 17th century, a bourgeois revolution took place in the Netherlands, which played an important role in the development of capitalist relations in bourgeois countries. From the middle of the 17th century (1640-1688) the bourgeois revolution unfolded in England, the most industrially developed European country. These early bourgeois revolutions were prepared by the development of manufactory production, which replaced handicraft work. The transition to manufactory contributed to the rapid growth of labor productivity, since manufactory was based on the cooperation of workers, each of whom performed a separate function in the production process divided into small partial operations.

The development of a new - bourgeois - society generates changes not only in the economy, politics and social relations, it also changes the consciousness of people. The most important factor in such a change in social consciousness is science, and, above all, experimental and mathematical natural science, which just in the 17th century is going through a period of its formation: it is no coincidence that the 17th century is usually called the era of the scientific revolution.

In the 17th century, the division of labor in production necessitated the rationalization of production processes, and thus the development of science, which could stimulate this rationalization.

The development of modern science, as well as social transformations associated with the disintegration of feudal social orders and the weakening of the influence of the church, brought to life a new orientation of philosophy. If in the Middle Ages it acted in alliance with theology, and in the Renaissance with art and humanitarian knowledge, now it relies mainly on science.

Therefore, in order to understand the problems that confronted the philosophy of the 17th century, one must take into account, firstly, the specifics of a new type of science - experimental and mathematical natural science, the foundations of which are laid precisely in this period, and, secondly, since science occupies a leading place in the worldview of this era, then in philosophy the problems of the theory of knowledge - epistemology - come to the fore.

Already in the Renaissance, medieval scholastic education was one of the subjects of constant criticism. This criticism is even more acute in the 17th century. However, at the same time, although in a new form, the old controversy, dating back to the Middle Ages, continues between two trends in philosophy: nominalistic, based on experience, and rationalistic, putting forward the most reliable knowledge with the help of reason. These two directions in the 17th century appear as empiricism And rationalism .

Descartes as a representative of rationalism.

Rationalism ( ratio- mind) as an integral system of epistemological views began to take shape in the 17-18 centuries. as a result of the "triumph of reason" - the development of mathematics and natural science. Nevertheless, its origins can be found in ancient Greek philosophy, for example, even Parmenides distinguished between knowledge "in truth" (obtained through reason) and knowledge "according to" (obtained as a result of sensory perception).

The cult of reason is generally characteristic of the epoch of the 17th-18th centuries. - only that which fits into a certain logical chain is true. Justifying the unconditional reliability of the scientific principles of mathematics and natural science, rationalists tried to solve the question of how knowledge obtained in the process of cognitive activity acquires an objective, universal and necessary character. Representatives of rationalism (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz) argued that scientific knowledge, which has these logical properties, is achievable through reason, which acts as both its source and the actual criterion of truth. So, for example, to the main thesis of the sensualists "there is nothing in the mind that was not previously in the senses," the rationalist Leibniz adds: "Except for the mind itself."

Belittling the role of feelings and sensations of perception, in the form of which the connection with the world is realized, entails a separation from the real object of knowledge. The appeal to reason as the only scientific source of knowledge led the rationalist Descartes to the conclusion that there are innate ideas. Although, from the point of view of materialism, this can be called a "genetic code", transmitted from generation to generation. It is the innate nature of the idea that explains the very effect of clarity and distinctness, the effectiveness of the intellectual intuition inherent in our mind. Delving into it, we are able to know the things created by God. Leibniz echoes him, suggesting the presence of predispositions (inclinations) of thinking.

Rene Descartes (Renatus Cartesius Decartes) - French philosopher and mathematician. Being one of the founders of the "new philosophy", the founder of Cartesianism, he was deeply convinced that "an individual person rather than a whole people will come across the truth." At the same time, he proceeded from the "principle of evidence", in which all knowledge had to be verified using the natural "light of reason". This involved the rejection of all judgments taken for granted (for example, customs as traditional forms of knowledge transfer).

The starting point of Descartes' philosophizing is their common problem with Bacon of the reliability of knowledge. But unlike Bacon, who put the practical solidity of knowledge in the forefront and emphasized the significance of the objective truth of knowledge, Descartes is looking for signs of the reliability of knowledge in the sphere of knowledge itself, its internal characteristics.

Great Philosopher, who proposed his own coordinate system in mathematics (Cartesian rectangular coordinate system), also proposed a starting point for social consciousness. According to Descartes, scientific knowledge had to be built as a single system, while before him it was only a collection of random truths. The unshakable foundation (starting point) of such a system should have been the most obvious and reliable statement (a kind of "ultimate truth"). Descartes considered the proposition "I think, therefore I am" ("cogito ergo sum") to be absolutely irrefutable. This argument presupposes a belief in the superiority of the intelligible over the sensible, not merely a principle of thought, but a subjectively experienced process of thought from which it is impossible to separate the thinker. However, self-consciousness as a principle of philosophy has not yet gained full autonomy, because the truth of the original principle as clear and distinct knowledge is guaranteed by Descartes by the presence of God - an omnipotent being who put the natural light of reason into man. Self-consciousness in Descartes is not closed in on itself and is open to God, who acts as the source of thinking (“all vague ideas are the product of man, and therefore are false; all clear ideas come from God, therefore, are true”). And here Descartes has a metaphysical circle: the existence of any reality, including God, is confirmed through self-consciousness, which is again provided by God.

Matter, according to Descartes, is divisible to infinity (there are no atoms and emptiness), and he explained movement using the concept of vortices. These prerequisites allowed Descartes to identify nature with spatial extension, thus, it turned out to be possible to present the study of nature as a process of its construction (as, for example, geometric objects).

Science, according to Descartes, constructs some hypothetical world, and this scientific version of the world is equivalent to any other, if it is able to explain the phenomena given in the experiment, because. it is God who is the "designer" of all things, and he could use the scientific version of the construction of the world to implement his plans. Such an understanding of the world by Descartes as a system of finely constructed machines removes the distinction between natural and artificial. A plant is just as equal a mechanism as a clock constructed by man, with the only difference being that the skill of clock springs is as inferior to the skill of plant mechanisms as the art of the Supreme Creator differs from the art of the finite creator (man). Subsequently, a similar principle was incorporated into the theory of mind modeling - cybernetics: "No system can create a system more complicated than itself."

Thus, if the world is a mechanism, and the science about it is mechanics, then the process of cognition is the construction of a certain version of the machine of the world from the simplest principles that are in the human mind. As a tool, Descartes proposed his own method, which was based on the following rules:

start with the simple and obvious, i.e. Don't take anything for granted that you're obviously not sure of. Avoid all haste and prejudice, and include in your judgments only what appears to the mind so clearly and distinctly that it can in no way give rise to doubt;

by deduction to obtain more complex statements, i.e. divide each problem chosen for study into as many parts as possible and necessary for its best solution;

arrange your thoughts in a certain order, starting with the simplest and easily cognizable objects, and ascend little by little, as if by steps, to the knowledge of the most complex, allowing the existence of order even among those that in the natural course of things do not precede each other;

to act in such a way as not to miss a single link (continuity of the chain of inferences), which requires intuition, which sees the first principles, and deduction, which gives consequences from them. To make lists everywhere so complete and overviews so comprehensive that you can be sure that nothing is missing.

These rules can be designated respectively as the rules of evidence (achieving the proper quality of knowledge), analysis (going to the last foundations), synthesis (carried out in its entirety) and control (allowing to avoid errors in the implementation of both analysis and synthesis).

The method thus thought out should now be applied to proper philosophical knowledge.

The first problem was to discover the obvious truths underlying all our knowledge. Descartes proposes for this purpose to resort to methodical doubt. Only with its help can one find truths that cannot be doubted. It should be noted that exceptionally high requirements are imposed on the test for certainty, obviously exceeding those that completely satisfy us, say, when considering mathematical axioms. After all, the validity of the latter can be doubted. We need to find truths that cannot be doubted. Is it possible to doubt one's own existence, the existence of the world. God? That a person has two hands and two eyes? Such doubts may be ridiculous and strange, but they are possible. What cannot be doubted? Descartes' conclusion may seem naive only at first glance, when he finds such unconditional and indisputable evidence in the following: I think, therefore I exist. The validity of the certainty of thinking is confirmed here by the very act of doubt as an act of thought. Thinking is answered (for the thinking self itself) by a special, irremovable certainty, which consists in the immediate givenness and openness of thought for itself.

Descartes received only one undoubted statement - about the very existence of knowing thinking. But in the latter there are many ideas, some of them (for example, mathematical ones) have a high evidence of the idea of ​​reason. There is a conviction in the mind that there is a world besides me. How to prove that all these are not only ideas of the mind, not self-deception, but also exist in reality? This is a question of justifying reason itself, of trusting it. Descartes solves this problem in the following way. Among the ideas of our thinking is the idea of ​​God as a Perfect Being. And the whole experience of man himself testifies that we are limited and imperfect beings. How did this idea end up in our minds? Descartes is inclined to the only justified thought, in his opinion, that this idea itself is invested in us, that its very creator is God, who created us and invested in our mind the concept of himself as a Perfect Being. But from this statement follows the necessity of the existence of the external world as an object of our knowledge. God cannot deceive us, he created a world that obeys immutable laws and is comprehensible by our mind, created by him. Thus God becomes for Descartes the guarantor of the comprehensibility of the world and the objectivity of human knowledge. Reverence for God turns into a deep trust in the mind.

The very first reliable judgment ("the basis of foundations", "the ultimate truth"), according to Descartes, is a thinking substance. It is open to us directly (in contrast to the material substance, which is open to us indirectly through sensations). Descartes defines this original substance as a thing that needs nothing but itself for its existence. In a strict sense, such a substance can only be God, who is "eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, the source of all good and truth, the creator of all things."

Descartes believes that all possible things are two independent and independent from each other (but not from God who created them) substances - the soul and the body. Thinking and bodily substances are created by God and are supported by him. Reason Descartes considers as a finite substance - as "... a thing imperfect, incomplete, depending on something else and ... striving for something better and more than I myself ...". Thus, among created things, Descartes calls substances only those that, for their existence, need only the usual assistance of God, in contrast to those that need the assistance of other creatures and bear the names of qualities and attributes.

These substances are known to us in their basic attributes; for bodies this attribute is extension, for souls it is thought. Corporeal nature is consistently represented in Descartes by the concept of a mechanism. The ever-moving world, subject to the laws of mechanics, calculated mathematically and geometrically, is prepared for the triumphal procession of mathematical natural science. Descartes in the concept of nature left only those definitions that fit into mathematical definitions - extension (value), figure, movement. The most important elements of the method were measurement and order. Nature, according to Descartes, is a purely material formation, its content will be exhausted exclusively by extension and movement. Its main laws are the principles of conservation of momentum, inertia and the originality of rectilinear motion. On the basis of these principles and the methodically controlled construction of mechanical models, all cognitive tasks addressed to nature can be solved. Animals and human bodies are subject to the action of the same mechanical principles and are self-propelled automata; there are no living principles in organic bodies (both plant and animal).

Descartes expelled the concept of purpose from his teachings. the concept of the soul (as an intermediary between the indivisible mind (spirit) and the divisible body) was eliminated. Descartes identified mind and soul, calling imagination and feeling "modes of the mind." The elimination of the soul in its former sense allowed Descartes to oppose two substances - nature and spirit, and turn nature into a dead object for cognition (design) and use by man. But at the same time, a serious problem arose - the connection between the soul and the body. If animals do not have a soul and they are soulless automatons, then in the case of a person this is obviously not the case. A person is able to control his body with the help of the mind, and the mind is able to experience the influence of substances of such different nature. The soul is one, unextended and indivisible. The body is extended, divisible and complex. Descartes, who showed great interest in the successes of contemporary medicine, reacted with special attention to the "pineal gland", located in the central part of the brain, and associated with it the place where the soul substance interacts with the body. Although the soul, as a beginning, is unextended and does not occupy a place, it remains in the said gland, which is the seat of the soul. It is here that the material life spirits come into contact with the soul. Irritation from the outside world is transmitted through the nerves to the brain and excites the soul dwelling there. Accordingly, the self-stimulation of the soul sets the vital spirits in motion, and the nerve impulse ends with a muscular movement. The connection between the soul and the body as a whole fits into the schemes, in essence, of mechanical interaction.

Descartes remained a consistent rationalist even when considering the categories of ethics: he considered affects and passions as a consequence of bodily movements, which (until they are illuminated by the light of reason) give rise to delusions of reason (hence evil deeds). The source of delusion is not reason, but free will, which forces a person to act where reason does not yet have a clear (ie, divine) consciousness.

Thus, the basic moral precepts of Cartesianism are easily extracted from the general thrust of his philosophy. Strengthening the dominance of the mind over the feelings and passions of the body - the starting principle for the search for formulas moral behavior in a variety of life situations. Descartes is distinguished by a kind of dissolution of the phenomenon of will in pure intellectualism. Free will is defined by him by pointing to following the logic of order. One of Descartes' rules of life sounds like this: “Conquer yourself rather than fate, and change your desires rather than the world order; to believe that there is nothing that would be entirely in our power, with the exception of our thoughts. Since Descartes, new orientations philosophical thought, in which the central place is occupied by thought and the person himself, acquire a classically clear character.

The teachings of Descartes about the immediate certainty of self-consciousness, about innate ideas, about the intuitive nature of axioms, about the opposition between the material and the ideal, were the basis for the development of idealism. On the other hand, Descartes' doctrine of nature and his general mechanistic method make his philosophy one of the stages in the materialistic worldview of modern times.

Bacon as a representative of empiricism.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is considered the founder of the experimental science of modern times. He was the first philosopher who set himself the task of creating scientific method. In his philosophy, for the first time, the main principles characterizing the philosophy of modern times were formulated.

Bacon came from a noble family and throughout his life was engaged in social and political activities: he was a lawyer, a member of the House of Commons, Lord Chancellor of England. Shortly before the end of his life, society condemned him, accusing him of bribery in the conduct of court cases. He was sentenced to a large fine (£40,000), stripped of his parliamentary powers, dismissed from court. He died in 1626 after catching a cold while stuffing a chicken with snow to prove that the cold kept the meat from spoiling, and thereby demonstrate the power of the experimental scientific method he was developing.

From the very beginning of his creative activity, Bacon spoke out against the scholastic philosophy that dominated at that time and put forward the doctrine of "natural" philosophy, based on empirical knowledge. Bacon's views were formed on the basis of the achievements of the Renaissance philosophy and included a naturalistic worldview with the basics of an analytical approach to the phenomena under study and empiricism. He proposed an extensive program for the restructuring of the intellectual world, sharply criticizing the scholastic concepts of his predecessor and contemporary philosophy.

Bacon sought to bring the "boundaries of the mental world" in line with all those enormous achievements that took place in Bacon's contemporary society of the 15th-16th centuries, when experimental sciences were most developed. Bacon expressed the solution of the task in the form of an attempt at a "great restoration of the sciences", which he outlined in treatises: "On the Dignity and Multiplication of Sciences" (his largest work), "New Organon" (his main work) and other works on "natural history" considering individual phenomena and processes of nature.

Bacon's understanding of science included, first of all, a new classification of sciences, which he based on such abilities of the human soul as memory, imagination (fantasy), reason. Accordingly, the main sciences, according to Bacon, should be history, poetry, philosophy. The highest task of the knowledge of all sciences, according to Bacon, is domination over nature and improvement human life. According to the head of the "House of Solomon" (a kind of research center, the Academy, the idea of ​​which was put forward by Bacon in the utopian novel "The New Atlantis"), "the goal of our society is to know the causes and hidden forces of all things and to expand the power of man over nature, until all won't be possible for him."

The criterion for the success of the sciences is the practical results to which they lead. "Fruits and practical inventions are, as it were, guarantors and witnesses of the truth of philosophy." Knowledge is power, but only knowledge that is true. Therefore, Bacon distinguishes between two types of experience: fruitful and luminous. The first includes such experiments that bring direct benefit to a person, the second - those whose purpose is to know the deep connections of nature, the laws of phenomena, the properties of things. Bacon considered the second type of experiments to be more valuable, since without their results it is impossible to carry out fruitful experiments. The unreliability of the knowledge we receive is due, Bacon believes, to a dubious form of proof, which relies on the syllogistic form of substantiating ideas, consisting of judgments and concepts. However, concepts, as a rule, are formed insufficiently substantiated. In his criticism of the theory of Aristotelian syllogism, Bacon proceeds from the fact that the general concepts used in deductive proof are the result of empirical knowledge obtained extremely hastily. For his part, recognizing the importance of general concepts that form the foundation of knowledge, Bacon considered the main thing to form these concepts correctly, because. if this is done hastily, accidentally, then there is no strength in what is built on them. The main step in the reform of science proposed by Bacon should be the improvement of methods of generalization, the creation of a new concept of induction.

Bacon's experimental-inductive method consisted in the gradual formation of new concepts through the interpretation of facts and natural phenomena. Only with the help of such a method, according to Bacon, it is possible to discover new truths, and not stagnate. Without rejecting deduction, Bacon defined the difference and features of these two methods of cognition as follows: “Two ways exist and can exist for finding and discovering truth. One soars from sensations and particulars to the most general axioms and, proceeding from these foundations and their unshakable truth, discusses and discovers the middle axioms. This is the way they use it today. The other path, on the other hand, derives axioms from sensations and particulars, ascending continuously and gradually until, finally, it leads to the most general axioms. This is the true path, but not tested.

Although the problem of induction was raised earlier by previous philosophers, it is only in Bacon that it acquires a dominant significance and acts as a primary means of knowing nature. In contrast to induction through a simple enumeration, which was common at that time, he brings to the fore the true, in his words, induction, which gives new conclusions obtained not only on the basis of observation of confirming facts, but as a result of studying phenomena that contradict the position being proved. A single case can refute an ill-considered generalization. Neglect of the so-called authorities, according to Bacon, is the main cause of errors, superstitions, prejudices.

In Bacon's inductive method, the necessary steps include the collection of facts and their systematization. Bacon put forward the idea of ​​compiling 3 tables of research: tables of presence, absence and intermediate steps.

Take Bacon's favorite example. If someone wants to find a formula for heat, then he collects in the first table various cases of heat, trying to weed out everything that is not connected with heat. In the second table he collects together cases which are similar to those in the first, but do not have heat. For example, the first table may include rays from the sun that create heat, while the second table may include rays from the moon or stars that do not create heat. On this basis, all those things that are present when heat is present can be distinguished; finally, in the third table, cases are collected in which heat is present in varying degrees. Using these three tables together, we can, according to Bacon, find out the cause that underlies heat, namely, movement. This is the principle of research common properties phenomena and their analysis.

Bacon's inductive method also includes conducting an experiment. At the same time, it is important to vary the experiment, repeat it, move it from one area to another, reverse the circumstances and link them with others. After that, you can proceed to the decisive experiment.

Bacon put forward the experimental generalization of facts as the core of his method, but he was not a defender of a one-sided understanding of it. Bacon's empirical method is distinguished by the fact that it relies to the maximum extent on reason in the analysis of facts. Bacon compared his method to the art of the bee, which, extracting nectar from flowers, processes it into honey with its own skill. He condemned the crude empiricists who, like an ant, collect everything that comes their way (meaning the alchemists), as well as those speculative dogmatists who, like a spider, weave a web of knowledge out of themselves (meaning the scholastics).

The prerequisite for the reform of science should be, according to Bacon, the purification of the mind from delusions, of which he lists four types. He calls these obstacles on the path of knowledge idols: idols of the clan, caves, squares and theaters.

Idols of the clan- These are errors due to the hereditary nature of man. Human thinking has its shortcomings, tk. "It is likened to an uneven mirror, which, mixing its own nature with the nature of things, reflects things in a distorted and disfigured form." Man constantly interprets nature by analogy with man, which finds its expression in the theological attribution to nature of final goals that are not characteristic of it. The idols of the race are the prejudices of our mind, resulting from the confusion of our own nature with the nature of things. The latter is reflected in it as in a crooked mirror. If in the human world goal (teleological) relationships justify the legitimacy of our questions: why? For what? - then the same questions addressed to nature are meaningless and do not explain anything. In nature, everything is subject only to the action of causes, and here only the question is legitimate: why? Our mind must be cleansed of what enters it not from the nature of things. He must be open to Nature and only to Nature. To the idols of the kind, Bacon also refers the desire of the human mind to unfounded generalizations. For example, he pointed out that often the orbits of rotating planets are considered non-circular, which is unreasonable.

Cave idols- these are mistakes that are characteristic of an individual or some groups of people due to subjective sympathies, preferences. For example, some researchers believe in the infallible authority of antiquity, while others tend to give preference to the new. “The human mind is not a dry light, it is sprinkled with will and passions, and this gives rise to what is desirable for everyone in science. A person rather believes in the truth of what he prefers ... In an infinite number of ways, sometimes imperceptible, passions stain and spoil the mind.” The idols of the cave are prejudices that fill the mind from such a source as our individual (and accidental) position in the world. In order to free ourselves from their power, it is necessary to reach agreement in the perception of nature from different positions and under different conditions. Otherwise, illusions and deceptions of perception will impede cognition.

Idols of the Square(market) are errors generated by verbal communication and the difficulty of avoiding the influence of words on people's minds. These idols arise because words are only names, signs for communication among themselves, they do not say anything about what things are. That is why countless disputes about words arise when people mistake words for things.

Theater idols(or theories) are delusions arising from unconditional submission to authority. But a scientist must look for truth in things, and not in the sayings of great people. Combating authoritarian thinking is one of Bacon's main concerns. There is only one authority to be unreservedly recognized, the authority Holy Scripture in matters of faith, but in the knowledge of Nature, the mind must rely only on experience in which Nature is revealed to it. The dilution of two truths - divine and human - allowed Bacon to reconcile the significantly different orientations of knowledge that grow on the basis of religious and scientific experience, to strengthen the autonomy and self-lawfulness of science and scientific activity. Artificial philosophical constructions and systems that have a negative impact on the minds of people - this, according to Bacon, is a kind of "philosophical theater".

Let's pay attention to one important point Baconian criticism of idols: everything that makes up the specifics of the cognizing subject is declared by the philosopher to be a source of delusion. This includes not only the individual characteristics of the empirical subject, declared by the Greek philosophers to be the cause of false opinions, but also the very nature of reason, this general ability of the human race. Bacon calls for liberation not only from the individual subject, but also from the generic subject, from subjectivity as such. And only under this condition is it possible to gain access to being itself, to the knowledge of nature. He considers experience and the inductive method based on experience to be the best means for this.

The inductive method developed by Bacon, which is the basis of science, should, in his opinion, explore the forms inherent in matter, which are the material essence of a property belonging to the object - a certain type of movement. To isolate the form of a property, it is necessary to separate everything random from the object. This is an exception to the random, of course, a mental process, an abstraction. Baconian forms are forms of "simple natures" or properties that physicists study. Simple natures are things like hot, wet, cold, heavy, and so on. They are like the "alphabet of nature" from which many things can be composed. Bacon refers to forms as "laws". They are determinants, elements of the fundamental structures of the world. The combination of various simple forms gives all the variety of real things. The understanding of form developed by Bacon was opposed by him to the speculative interpretation of form by Plato and Aristotle, since. for Bacon, form is a kind of movement of the material particles that make up the body.

In the theory of knowledge, for Bacon, the main thing is to investigate the causes of phenomena. The reasons can be different: active, which is the concern of physics, or final, which is the concern of metaphysics.

Bacon's methodology largely anticipated the development of inductive research methods in subsequent centuries, up to the 19th century. However, Bacon in his studies did not emphasize enough the role of a hypothesis in the development of knowledge, although in his time the hypothetical-deductive method of understanding experience was already emerging, when one or another assumption, hypothesis was put forward and various consequences were derived from it. At the same time, deductively carried out conclusions are constantly correlated with experience. In this regard, a large role belongs to mathematics, which Bacon did not master to a sufficient extent, and mathematical natural science was just being formed at that time.

The founder of empiricism, Bacon, was by no means inclined to underestimate the importance of reason. The power of the mind just manifests itself in the ability to organize observation and experiment in such a way that allows you to hear the voice of nature itself and interpret what it says in the right way. Therefore, Bacon illustrates his position by comparing the activity of bees, collecting nectar from many flowers and processing it into honey, with the activity of weaving a web from itself (one-sided rationalism) and ants, collecting various objects in one heap (one-sided empiricism). Why, nevertheless, does he remain a philosopher of empiricism? The value of reason lies in its art of extracting truth from the experience in which it is contained. Reason as such does not contain the truths of being and, being detached from experience, is incapable of discovering them. Experience is thus fundamental. Reason can be defined through experience (for example, as the art of extracting truth from experience), but experience does not need to be pointed to reason in its definition and explanation, and therefore can be considered as an independent and independent instance from reason.

At the end of his life, Bacon wrote a book about the utopian state, New Atlantis (published posthumously in 1627). In this work, he depicted the future state, in which all the productive forces of society are transformed with the help of science and technology. In it, Bacon describes various amazing scientific and technological achievements that transform human life: here are rooms for the miraculous healing of diseases and maintaining health, and boats for swimming under water, and various visual devices, and the transmission of sounds over distances, and ways to improve the breed of animals, and much more. Some of the technical innovations described have been realized in practice, others have remained in the realm of fantasy, but all of them testify to Bacon's indomitable faith in the power of the human mind. In modern language, he could be called a technocrat, because. he believed that all contemporary problems could be solved with the help of science.

Despite the fact that he attached great importance to science and technology in human life, Bacon believed that the successes of science relate only to "secondary causes", behind which stands the almighty and unknowable God. At the same time, Bacon emphasized all the time that the progress of natural science, although it destroys superstition, strengthens faith. He argued that "light sips of philosophy sometimes lead to atheism, but deeper ones return to religion."

The influence of Bacon's philosophy on contemporary natural science and the subsequent development of philosophy is enormous. His analytical scientific method of studying natural phenomena, the development of the concept of the need for its experimental study played a positive role in the achievements of natural science in the 16th-17th centuries. Bacon's logical method gave impetus to the development of inductive logic. Bacon's classification of sciences was positively received in the history of sciences and even made the basis for the division of sciences by the French encyclopedists. Although the deepening of rationalist methodology in the further development of philosophy after the death of Bacon reduced his influence in the 17th century, but in subsequent centuries, Bacon's ideas acquired their new sound. They did not lose their significance until the 20th century. Some scholars even regard him as a forerunner of modern intellectual life and a prophet of the pragmatic conception of truth (meaning his saying: "What is most useful in action is most true in knowledge").

Conclusion.

It is very difficult to draw a conclusion about the final correctness of any of the described concepts of cognition - the complete denial of the meaning of experience by one school and the denial of the organizing principle as a more complex system ( integral part which is also our three-dimensional world) another school does not allow us to do this.

Most likely, as history has proven more than once, the truth will be somewhere away from the lists, but philosophers will still try to find out “what is more important”, “what appeared earlier”, “what is primary - an idea or matter”, trying to launch the wheel of history from some one absolute point (“beginning of time”) of spatial coordinates.

The occupation is fascinating and worthy of respect, but it is completely beyond the power of the human mind at its present level of development, for it is impossible to find the beginning at the ideal circle. Idea generates matter, and vice versa. This process has been and will always be endless.

LIST

USED ​​LITERATURE:

1. Gurevich P.S. Philosophical Dictionary. Moscow, "Olimp", 1997

2. Alekseev P.V. Reader in Philosophy. Tutorial. Moscow, Prospekt, 1997;

3. Sokolov V.V. "European Philosophy XV - XVII centuries". Moscow, 1984.

4. Subbotin A.L. "Francis Bacon". Moscow, "Thought", 1974

5. Lyatker Ya.A. "Descartes". Moscow, "Thought", 1975

Introduction

XVII XVIII centuries. in the history of Europe it is customary to call the New Time. By the beginning of this period, the entire Western European culture, under the influence of the asserting capitalist social order has undergone a profound transformation. These changes, first of all, manifested themselves in the views on science. It began to be regarded as the main means of rationalizing practice and even as the basis of worldly wisdom.

This orientation towards science could not but be reflected in philosophy. Progressive philosophy began to see the first task in substantiating the methodology scientific research. But the development of knowledge can be carried out either in the form of the development of experimental sciences based on experiment, or in the form of the construction of theoretical systems subject to strict rules of logical inference. Therefore, it is no coincidence that two main currents have developed in the philosophy of modern times: empiricism and rationalism.

The relevance of this topic is due to the fact that the new philosophy at its very source was divided into two areas: empiricism and rationalism. Highlighting the essence in the views of empiricists and rationalists, we can give the following definitions of these areas.

Empiricism is a direction in the theory of knowledge that recognizes sensory experience as a source of knowledge and believes that the content of knowledge can be presented either as a description of this experience, or reduced to it.

Rationalism is a method according to which the basis of knowledge and action of people is intelligence .

The purpose of this work: to get acquainted with the philosophy of Rene Descartes and Francis Bacon. And also to study the methods of cognition of their philosophy andconsider the problem of the foundations of knowledge in classical rationalism and empiricism.

In this essay, I set myself the following tasks:

1. Explore general characteristics empiricism and rationalism
2. Learn about Francis Bacon's philosophy of empiricism
3. Study the rationalism of René Descartes

1. general characteristics

The period of development of philosophy, called the New Age, is associated with the fact that new foundations for philosophizing are being laid. These foundations are in the human mind. The cultural and historical conditions for the emergence of the New Age was the development of all traditions during the Renaissance. The Renaissance paved the way for the New Age, freeing philosophical thought from scholasticism.

The main features of this period: the final victory of anthropocentrism in philosophy, the basis of the philosophical worldview is the principle of rationality, the subject of philosophy is shifting to the field of epistemology, the main problem of philosophy is the search for methods of knowledge.

Directions of modern philosophy: empiricism (whose supporters believe that knowledge is based on experience, founder F. Bacon, representatives T. Hobbes, J. Locke) and rationalism (whose supporters believe that knowledge is based on reason, founder R. Descartes , representatives of B. Spinoza, Leibniz), a subjective-idealistic direction is also taking shape.

An independent stage in line with modern European philosophy is the philosophy of the French Enlightenment. Her character traits: criticism of the Church as an institution; materialistic orientation of philosophy; a new ideology, ("the Enlightenment project"). The French enlighteners in deism (a direction that understands God as setting an impulse for the development of the world and not taking further part in its development) took shape the concept natural religion(Rousseau): "True natural religion" should promote the coexistence of people within the boundaries of the common good.

The New Age is characterized by the Reformation movement associated with the reform catholic church V VI VII centuries, which resulted in the emergence of a new branch of Christianity - Protestantism. Protestant ethics, based on the central idea of ​​the need for a person's personal responsibility before God without the help of the church hierarchy, had a serious impact on the development of social critical thinking, the early bourgeois ideal of the "lawful state" and new entrepreneurial orientations in economic practice.

1. Francis Bacon's empiricism

2.1. Fundamentals of Francis Bacon's Philosophy

The founder of empiricism, the English philosopher F. Bacon (1561-1626), expressed the social purpose of science very clearly and concisely: “Knowledge is power” 2 . The goal of science is to increase the power of man over nature. To achieve it, science must comprehend the true causes of phenomena. Therefore, the whole of the former scholastic science must be radically restructured.

Bacon considers the first step towards the reform of science to be the liberation of the mind from the four types of delusions or idols that constantly threaten it. He calls the first kind of delusions the idols of the clan. These are delusions that are generated by the fact that the human mind, like a crooked mirror, can distort the facts. Idols of the cave, Bacon calls the delusions that are generated by the predispositions of people. To the idols of the square, Bacon refers to collective delusions (belief in authorities, myths, etc.). Finally, the mind must also get rid of the idols of the theater - the belief that only Aristotelian syllogistics - is the only method of comprehending the truth.

Bacon considers the reform of the method to be the second, most important step towards the formation of a genuine science. A scientist should not be like a spider that produces tissue from itself, i.e., he should not deduce knowledge from his own concepts. He should not be like an ant and only collect meaningless facts. He should be like a bee. Collecting facts, he must process them in his mind, getting to the bottom of the reasons for what is happening.. And in his main work "New Organon" (the title itself says that it is directed against the logic of Aristotle, the expositions in the collectionhis writings called "Organon"), he develops such a method of searching for causal relationships the method of exclusive induction. The main components of this method are the method of similarity, the method of difference and the method of concomitant applications (later J. St. Mil added the combined method of similarity and difference and the method of residuals to them).

The essence of the similarity method is simple. From the fact that, for example, a rainbow is observed during rain, when the sun is shining on a sunny day in the play of crystals, in the dust of waterfalls, when the sun is shining, the scientist must see one common feature: the passage of sunlight through a transparent spherical or prismatic surface. This will cause the rainbow. (In ordinary induction, the thought goes in a different direction. Following ordinary induction, we state, for example, that in this locality the ravens are black, in another, etc., and that white ravens are rare exceptions, and from this we conclude that all ravens are black. ). Bacon's exclusive induction still forms the basis of the methodology of all experimental sciences.

F. Bacon sums up the ideological basis for his methodology. All the nature around us is matter, a collection of bodies endowed with diverse qualities. Movement is an essential property of matter. It is not limited to mechanical movement, but has 19 types or forms. The task of science is to explore different combinations of these forms and to search for the causes of various phenomena.

The political convictions of F. Bacon were reflected in his "New Atlantis", a utopian depiction of the prosperity of a monarchical ideal society in which life is organized on the rational foundations of science and technology.

2.2. delusions of the mind

Science, according to Bacon, cannot serve only the purposes of substantiating God, and also be knowledge for the sake of knowledge. The ultimate goal of science is invention and discovery. The goal of inventions and discoveries is human benefit: meeting the needs and improving people's lives, increasing the potential of its energy, increasing the power of man over nature. But science, according to Bacon, in its modern form is not capable of solving positive problems, it is necessary to rebuild the building of science. For the reform of science and the development of natural science, it is necessary, according to Bacon, to learn correct thinking. This, in turn, requires the purification of the mind from delusions that act as an obstacle to the knowledge of nature. Bacon identifies four kinds of delusions, which he calls idols or ghosts:

1) idols of the family;

2) idols of the cave;

3) idols of the market;

4) idols of the theater.

Bacon considered the idols of the kind to be false ideas about the world that are inherent in everything. the human race and are the result of the limitations of the human mind and senses. This limitation is most often manifested in the anthropomorphization of things, that is, endowing natural phenomena human characteristics, mixing with the natural nature of their own human nature. In order to reduce the harm caused by the knowledge of the idols of the family, people need to compare the readings of the senses with the objects of the surrounding world and thereby verify their correctness.

Bacon called the idols of the cave distorted ideas about reality associated with the subjectivity of the perception of the surrounding world.Each person, according to Bacon, has his own cave, his own subjective inner world that leaves an imprint on all of his
judgments about things and processes of reality. The inability of a person to go beyond his subjectivity is the cause of this type of delusion.

To the idols of the market or the square, Bacon refers to the false ideas of people generated by the misuse of words. People often put different meanings into the same words, and this leads to empty, fruitless disputes over words, a passion for word disputes, which ultimately distracts people from studying natural phenomena and understanding them correctly. Bacon calls them idols of the marketplace or squares because in medieval towns and in Bacon's time, scholastic verbiage about such problems as, for example, how many devils can fit on the end of a needle, took place in crowded places - markets and squares.

In the category of theater idols, Bacon includes false ideas about the world, uncritically borrowed by people from various philosophical systems. Each philosophical system, according to Bacon, is a drama or a comedy played before people. How much has been created in the history of philosophical systems, so many dramas and comedies depicting fictional, artificial worlds have been staged and played. People, on the other hand, took these performances at face value, referred to them in their reasoning, took their ideas as guiding rules for their lives.

The idols of the clan and the cave belong to the natural properties of the individual, and it is possible to overcome them on the path of self-education and self-education. The idols of the market and the theater are acquired by the mind. They are a consequence of the dominance of past experience over a person: the authority of the church, thinkers, etc. Therefore, the fight against them must go through the transformation of public consciousness.

The general meaning of the doctrine of idols is determined by its educational function. However, the enumeration of idols does not yet guarantee movement towards the truth. Such a guarantee is a carefully developed doctrine of the method.

2.3. Methods of knowledge

Bacon not only laid the foundations materialistic understanding nature, but also substantiated the inductive method as the movement of thought from the particular to the general. Bacon sets out the problem of choosing the true method and its solution in an allegorical way.

According to him, there are three main ways of knowing -spider, ant and bee.The Way of the Spider is an attempt to deduce truths from the mind itself with a complete disregard for facts."Way of the Ant" - this is a narrow path, whose representatives collect scattered facts, but do not know how to generalize them. True is"the way of the bee" , which combines the advantages of the named "paths" and is free from the shortcomings of each of them. Thus, the unity of sensory experience and reflection can be a sure guide on the road to truth.

Bacon believed that the "bee" method helps to discover material causes and provides a study of matter itself and the laws of its action. Matter is multi-qualitative, it has various forms of motion: oscillation, resistance, inertia, striving, tension, vital spirit, torment, etc. These forms were actually characteristics of the mechanical form of motion of matter, which at that time was most fully studied.

People, according to Bacon, can be masters and masters of nature. However, the degree of human dominance over nature depends on the level of development of his knowledge. Hence it follows that "the knowledge and power of man coincide."

An important place in Bacon's philosophical system is occupied by criticism of the scholastic philosophy that prevailed in the Middle Ages, which he considered the main obstacle to the study of nature. Bacon said that scholastic philosophy is fruitful in words, but fruitless in deeds and has given the world nothing but disputes and bickering. Bacon saw the fundamental defect of scholasticism in its abstractness, expressed, in his opinion, in the concentration of all mental activity on syllogisms, on the derivation of the corresponding particular consequences from general provisions. Bacon argued that using only syllogisms, it is impossible to achieve true knowledge of things and the laws of nature. The scholastic theory of syllogism, as the main form of knowledge, Bacon opposed the inductive method.

Bacon taught that induction is necessary for the sciences, based on the indications of the senses, the only true form of proof and method of knowing nature. If in deduction the order of movement of thought is from the general to the particular, then in induction it is from the particular to the general.

The method proposed by Bacon provides for the sequential passage of five stages of the study, each of which is recorded in the corresponding table. Thus, the entire volume of empirical
ductive research, according to Bacon, includes five
tables. Among them: 1) Table of presence (listing of all occurrences of a phenomenon); 2) Table of deviation or absence (all cases of absence of one or another sign or indicator in the presented items are entered here); 3) Table of comparison or degrees (comparison of an increase or decrease in a given attribute in the same subject); 4) Rejection table (the exclusion of individual cases that do not occur in this phenomenon is not typical for it);
5) Table of "collecting fruits" (forming a conclusion based on the common that is available in all tables).

1. Rationalism by Rene Descartes

1. Fundamentals of the philosophy of Rene Descartes

The French scientist and philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650), like Bacon, demanded a radical reform of scholastic science. He also states that her focus on the Aristotelian syllogistic allows her at best to explain how particular knowledge follows from known general premises with logical necessity. But it cannot explain the logic of creative thinking, which discovers new truths in the field of mathematics and other theoretical sciences. And Descartes set as his goal to create the logic of creative thinking, the logic of intellectual intuition.

This logic is based on four simple rules. The first must be accepted as true only that which is perceived by the mind clearly and distinctly. The second is to divide the existing problem under consideration into simpler problems. Thirdly, it is necessary to move from solving simple problems to more complex ones. Fourth Review each step so that nothing is left unattended.

But intellectual intuition, like Aristotelian deduction, needs initial meaningful premises to build meaningful knowledge. It is impossible to obtain them from experience, because it does not provide universal and necessary knowledge. And Descartes looks for them in thinking itself. It, doubting all knowledge, nevertheless states its doubt. But that which doubts, thinks. So there is something that thinks: "I". From hereDescartes' famous conclusion: "I think, therefore I am (Cogito ergo sum) 3 ". Based on this premise, Descartes tried to derive the idea of ​​God, and then the beliefin the existence of the external world. But with regard to all other premises (axioms) of meaningful knowledge, he was forced to admit that they are innate ideas.

The idea of ​​mind as a reality that builds all knowledge about the world with the help of intellectual intuition, on the one hand, and the belief in the recognition of the external world, on the other hand, inevitably led Descartes to dualism, to the conclusion that two substances underlie the universe: a thinking substance and the substance is extended. An extended substance is an infinite matter that preserves a constant, albeit infinitely large, amount of motion. Gradually becoming more complex, it gives rise to planets, things and, finally, people with their passions. In man, thinking substance and extended substance coincide, for man consists of a soul and a body. But the movements of the soul, desires, passions of thought govern human behavior. This means that a thinking substance, through a person and his actions, can invade the structure of the universe and disrupt the amount of motion available in it. Cartesianism (the teaching of Descartes and his followers) could not explain this antinomy of soul and body. Therefore, it fell apart. The Cartesians materialists A. Arno (1612-1694), Heydrick de Roy (1598-1679) and others rejected the idea of ​​the existence of a spiritual substance and began to consider a person as a completely material being. Cartesians idealists Geylink (1625-1669), Clauberg (1622-1665), Malebranche (1638-1715) and others used Cartesian ideas to create a religious philosophy of occasionalism (occasion), according to which God in each case brings both substances into line .

1. Methods of knowledge

Descartes' methodology is that the sciences and philosophies should be combined into a single system. The thinker likens their unity to a powerful tree, the roots of which are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches are mechanics, medicine, and ethics. Metaphysics (or the first philosophy) is the foundation of systematic knowledge; it is crowned with ethics. Such is the general architectonic design of the building of science and philosophy proposed by Descartes.

The origins and objectives of methodological doubt, justified by Descartes, are as follows. All knowledge, including those about the truth of which there is a long and strong agreement (which applies especially to mathematical truths), is subject to verification by doubt. Moreover, theological judgments about God and religion are no exception. According to Descartes, it is necessary - at least temporarily - to leave aside judgments about those objects and totalities, the existence of which at least someone on earth can doubt, resorting to one or another rational arguments and grounds. The meaning of Descartes' methodical doubt: Doubt should not be an end in itself and boundless. Its result should be a clear and obvious primordial truth, a special statement: it will talk about something such, the existence of which can no longer be doubted. Doubt, explains Descartes, must be made decisive, consistent and universal. Its goal is by no means private, secondary knowledge. As a result, doubts and - paradoxically, despite the doubt - must line up, moreover, in a strictly justified sequence, undoubted, generally valid principles of knowledge about nature and man.

philosophical knowledge must be based, according to Descartes, on a proposition whose truth is beyond doubt. In order to find such a position, he takes the position of radical skepticism, rejecting everything that can be in any way doubted. Having proclaimed doubt as the starting point of any research, Descartes aims to help humanity get rid of all prejudices. Knowledge must be based, in his opinion, on an obvious and reliable statement.

The existence of God, the external world and his own body are doubtful for him. Only the proposition is undoubted: "I think, therefore I am." Based on the act of thinking, Descartes tries to prove the necessity of a correct knowledge of being.

Only by possessing a true method, perhaps, according to Descartes, "to achieve the knowledge of everything" 4 . In the Discourse on Method, Descartes identifies four basic rules of method.

The first rule requires accepting as true everything that is perceived in a very clear and distinct form and does not give rise to any doubt, i.e. quite self-evident.

The second rule suggests dividing every complex thing into simpler components. In the course of division, it is desirable to reach the most simple, clear and self-evident things.

According to the third rule, one should adhere to a certain order of thinking, starting with simple elements and moving gradually to more complex ones.

The fourth rule focuses on the achievement of the completeness of knowledge and requires always to make lists so complete and overviews so general that there is confidence in the absence of omissions.

1. intuition and deduction

The two main paths leading to knowledge of the world are, according to Descartes, intuition and deduction.

By intuition he means the notion of a clear and attentive mind so simple and obvious that it leaves no doubt about what we think. The prototype of such intuition is the axioms of geometry. Based on intuitively reliable principles, one should move along the steps of deduction, i.e. move from general to specific.

Developing rationalism, Descartes believed that in the act of cognition, the human mind does not need sensual things, since the truth of knowledge is in the mind itself, in the ideas and concepts comprehended by the mind. To justify the doctrine of reason as the main and only source of knowledge, Descartes was forced to admit that non-material, i.e. spiritual substance has in itself initiallydressed ideas. He refers to them the idea of ​​God, the idea of ​​spiritual substance, the idea of ​​material substance, the idea of ​​numbers and figures, the ideas of various geometric shapes etc. True, innate ideas are not yet ready-made truths, but the assumptions of the mind. Therefore, in cognition, the main role belongs to the mind, and not to sensations. The mind, on the other hand, can achieve true knowledge if it proceeds from a reliable, deductive method. At the same time, Descartes believed that with the help of the deductive method it is possible to logically deduce all knowledge about the world.

Descartes did not recognize the qualitative difference between inorganic and organic phenomena. Animals for him were a kind of machines. He saw the difference between a person and them in the presence of two substances - bodily and spiritual, and also in the fact that a person has innate ideas.

Descartes was a son of his time, and his philosophical system, like that of Bacon, was not without internal contradictions. Highlighting the problems of cognition, Bacon and Descartes laid the foundations for the construction of the philosophical systems of modern times. If in
Medieval philosophy was given a central place
the doctrine of being ontology, then from the time of Bacon and Descartes to the fore in philosophical systems comesthe doctrine of knowledge epistemology.

Bacon and Descartes marked the beginning of the split of all reality into subject and object. The subject is the bearer of the cognitive action, the object is what this action is aimed at. The subject in Descartes' system is the thinking substance the thinking "I". However, Descartes was aware that the "I" as a special thinking substance must find a way out to the objective world. In other words, epistemology should be based on the doctrine of being - ontology.

1. Substances and their attributes

The central concept of rationalistic metaphysics is the concept of substance, the roots of which lie in ancient ontology.

Descartes defines a substance as a thing (under the "thing" in this period was understood not an empirically given object, not a physical thing, but any thing that exists in general), which does not need anything other than itself for its existence. If we strictly proceed from this definition, then, according to Descartes, only God is a substance, and this concept can be applied to the created world only conditionally, in order to distinguish among created things those that need “only the usual assistance of God” for their existence, from those who for this need the assistance of other creatures, and therefore are called qualities and attributes, and not substances.

Descartes divides the created world into two kinds of substances - spiritual and material. The main definition of a spiritual substance is its indivisibility, the most important sign of a material one is divisibility to infinity. Here Descartes, as it is easy to see, reproduces the ancient understanding of the spiritual and material principles, an understanding that was basically inherited by the Middle Ages. Thus, the main attributes of substances are thinking and extension, their other attributes are derived from these first: imagination, feeling, desire - modes of thinking; figure, position, movement - modes of extension.

An immaterial substance, according to Descartes, has in itself ideas that are inherent in it initially, and not acquired in experience, and therefore in the 17th century they were called innate. In the doctrine of innate ideas, Plato's position on true knowledge as a recollection of what was imprinted in the soul when it was in the world of ideas was developed in a new way. Descartes referred to the innate idea of ​​God as an all-perfect being, then - the ideas of numbers and figures, as well as some general concepts, such as, for example, the well-known axiom:"If equal values ​​are added to equal, then the results obtained will be equal to each other," or the statement "Nothing comes from nothing." These ideas and truths are considered by Descartes as the embodiment of the natural light of the mind.

From the 17th century, a long controversy began around the question of the mode of existence, the nature and sources of innate ideas. Innate ideas were considered by rationalists as a condition for the possibility of universal and necessary knowledge, that is, science and scientific philosophy.

As for the material substance, the main attribute of which is extension, Descartes identifies it with nature, and therefore declares with good reason that everything in nature obeys purely mechanical laws that can be discovered with the help of mathematical science - mechanics. From nature, Descartes, like Galileo, completely banishes the concept of purpose, on which Aristotelian physics was based, as well as cosmology, and, accordingly, the concepts of soul and life, central to the natural philosophy of the Renaissance. It was in the 17th century that the mechanistic picture of the world was formed, which formed the basis of natural science and philosophy until the beginning of the 19th century.

The dualism of substances thus allows Descartes to create materialistic physics as the doctrine of extended substance and idealistic psychology as the doctrine of thinking substance. For Descartes, the connecting link between them is God, who introduces movement into nature and ensures the constancy of all its laws.

Descartes was one of the creators of classical mechanics. By identifying nature with extension, he created a theoretical foundation for those idealizations used by Galileo, who had not yet been able to explain on what basis we can apply mathematics to the study of natural phenomena. Before Descartes, no one dared to identify nature with extension, that is, with pure quantity. It is no coincidence that it was Descartes who, in its purest form, created the idea of ​​nature as a gigantic mechanical system set in motion by a divine "impulse". Thus, the method of Descartes was organically connected with his metaphysics.

Conclusion

Conclusion of the 1st section:The philosophy of modern times owes its achievements partly to the in-depth study of nature, partly to the ever-increasing combination of mathematics and natural science. Responding to the needs of scientific knowledge, the philosophy of this period putthe problem of the method of cognition,proceeding from the fact that there is an infinite amount of knowledge, and the method of their achievement should be the same, applicable to any sciences, including philosophy. The concept of such a universal method divided the philosophers of the New Age into a number of different directions.

Conclusion of the 2nd section:The philosophy of F. Bacon is the first hymn to scientific knowledge, the formation of the foundations of modern value priorities, the birth of the “new European thinking”, which remains dominant in our time. Bacon's world is a vivid harbinger of the world of modern European science, its spirit and method, but signs and techniques of the medieval world outlook are still clearly distinguishable in it.

Conclusion of the 3rd section:The significance of Descartes for the development of modern science and philosophy is enormous. In addition to the fact that he approved the "new principles of philosophy", he contributed to the development of a number of special scientific disciplines, in particular mathematics. He is the creator of analytical geometry. Worthy of attention are his works devoted to the problems of physics, including optics. His ideas related to the field of natural sciences seriously influenced the development of French, in particular, mechanistic, materialistic, philosophical and natural-science thinking.

The goals set at the beginning of the work have been achieved, the tasks have been considered. In this essay, we got acquainted with the empiricism of Francis Bacon and the rationalism of Rene Descartes.

Bibliographic list

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4. Philosophy. Lecture course. A. A. Radugin M.: Center, 2004. 336 pp.

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6. Rickert G. On the concept of philosophy. N.: "Logos" 1910. 33 p.

7. Locke J. Experiments on the human mind. Selected Philosophical Works, v.1. M.: 1960. 127 pp.

8. Abramov Yu. A., Demin V.N. "One hundred great books" - M: "Veche", 2009.

9. Alekseev P.V. History of philosophy: textbook. M.: Prospekt, 2010 240s.

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2 Quote from Francis Bacon"Experiments, or moral and political instructions"

3 lat. “I think, therefore I am”, a statement that appears in the work of R. Descartes “Discourse on the method”, written in 1637.

4 Quote from René DescartesDiscourse on the method "(1637)

The intellectual spirit of the modern era found its most vivid embodiment in the philosophical systems of the Englishman. Francis Bacon(1561-1626) and French Rene Descartes(1596-1650). The essence of the modern worldview is concentrated in Bacon's aphorism "Knowledge is power". Knowledge, first of all - scientific, the philosopher recognized as the most effective source of positive changes in human life. The most important task of philosophy Bacon declared the creation of a new method of scientific knowledge. He believed that science should bring real benefits to people, that it is not an end, but a means designed to help meet human needs. Bacon was the founder of the inductive method of cognition of reality. An important part of Bacon's epistemological teaching is the typology he developed of delusions, idols or ghosts that prevent a person from knowing reality. The author singled out four types of idols, giving them figurative names. "Idols of the family" he considered the obstacles caused by human nature. Man judges the entire natural world by analogy with his own nature. The "idols of the cave", according to Bacon, include errors that arise as a result of subjective ideas about reality inherent in certain groups of people. "Idols of the market" are obstacles associated with cases of misuse of language, when the meanings of words are formed not on the basis of comprehending the essence of the subject, but under the influence of random impressions. "Idols of the theater" are called obstacles arising from the subordination of the mind to erroneous views, which lure a person like the instinct of theatrical performances.

Descartes is an outstanding philosopher who strove for maximum clarity and deductive rigor of the process of scientific knowledge. In an effort to prove the power of reason, Descartes resorts to a critique of the orientation sensory knowledge to be the only criterion for the truth of knowledge. “I think, therefore I am,” said Descartes. The basic rules leading to the knowledge of truth, Descartes formulates in the work "Discourse on the method". There are four such rules. First, one should accept as truth what is self-evident, what is perceived easily and clearly and does not give rise to doubt. Secondly, each thing must be divided into simple components, bringing the researcher to self-evident things. Thirdly, the path of knowledge consists in moving from simple elementary things to more complex ones. Fourthly, the completeness of the enumeration, the systematization of both the known and the unknown, is necessary in order to be sure that nothing is missed. Building a rationalistic methodology for the cognition of reality, Descartes declares the expediency of the transition from the most general ideas philosophical nature to more specific provisions of individual sciences, and further - to the most specific knowledge.

An important contribution to philosophy was metaphysics Descartes, which was based on the idea "substances". Being a dualist, Descartes recognized the existence of two independent substances - thinking and material. Both of them are creations of God, who is the highest substance with innate ideas.

The philosophical teachings of Descartes had a significant impact on the teachings of the Dutch thinker Benedict Spinoza(1632-1677). According to Spinoza, there is a single substance, that is, God or nature. The identification of God and nature by Spinoza allows us to consider him a pantheist. Nature for him is the cause of itself, and besides, it cannot be known by anything but itself. Substance is characterized by an infinite number of attributes that express its highest essence. If the number of attributes of a substance is infinite, then only two of them are revealed to people: “thinking” and “extension”. From the attributes come modes, which are different states of the higher substance. Spinoza declares that human freedom is a conscious necessity.

German thinker, philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz(1646-1716), in opposition to the teachings of Spinoza, developed the concept of the plurality of substances. Substances in Leibniz are spiritual entities called monads. Monads are "the elements of all things". The knowledge of the nature of monads is identical to the knowledge of everything that exists in the world. Monads are absolutely indivisible, but at the same time they have a rich and diverse content. The human mind, like monads, is also one, however, with all the richness of its content, it cannot be divided into parts. Monads represent the entire Universe, while each of them is characterized by different levels of discrimination of perceptions and different viewing angles. Monads are outside of causality. Their relationship, predetermined by God, is a harmony, a synchronous interaction.

Introduction: a portrait of an era

1.Philosophical system and method of F. Bacon.

2.Philosophical system and method of R. Descartes.

Bibliography

Introduction: a portrait of an era

The seventeenth century opens the next page after the Renaissance in the history of the development of philosophical thought, which was called the "philosophy of the New Age". This name is not given by chance. In Europe, a period of change from the feudal social system to the bourgeois one began. In 1609 the first bourgeois revolution took place in Europe. The Dutch bourgeoisie overthrew feudalism in their own country and set an example for the bourgeoisie of other European countries. He was followed by England, the most industrialized country.

The development of a new - bourgeois - society led to the weakening of the spiritual dictatorship of the Church. However religious outlook still retained significant ideological power over people: the first bourgeois revolutions were carried out under the banner of a reformed religion - Protestantism. Started by the Renaissance, the process of destroying the medieval, feudal system of values ​​in the 17th century. was continued. In this regard, quite a. south to draw a line between the philosophy of the Renaissance and modern times. If the first was only a kind of opposition, a reaction to the long period of scholasticism, then the philosophy of the New Age, starting from the 17th century. - this is already a programmatic expression of a new worldview, in which the main value is a person, his personal qualities and dignity.

The new worldview with particular urgency posed the problem of choosing the historical path of development of European civilization: spiritual or scientific and technological progress? Western Europe chooses the second way. But the consequences of technical innovations are not yet clear; they inspire the development of trade, navigation, science, technology, and the arts. Although it should be noted that the naive optimism of the Renaissance was already shaken. The new worldview is also permeated with another, no less acute question: how can a separate, concrete person find his place in historical period changes, when old social relations collapse and new ones are formed? If the maxim of social consciousness in the XV-XVI centuries. said that "man is free and equal to God", then in the XVII century. it looks more earthly - man is only a small link in the majestic mechanism of nature, therefore he must live according to the laws of the latter.

Hence the new understanding of the tasks of science and philosophy - not "science for science", but science to increase the power of man over Nature. New goals and objectives of science lead to a significant accumulation of factual data, the formation of experimental and mathematical natural science. According to ancient and medieval thinking mathematics deals with unreal objects, and physics deals with real ones. Is it possible to apply strictly quantitative methods of mathematics in physics? This problem became one of the central ones in the physics of the 17th century. In philosophy, it appeared as a problem of connection between the experimental and abstract ways of studying nature.

In addition, the new science was based on the practice of material production: E. Toricelli invented a mercury barometer and an air pump, I. Newton formulated the basic laws of classical mechanics, R. Boyle applied mechanics in chemistry, thereby deepening the development of the problem of atomism. R. Descartes and G. Leibniz made an outstanding contribution to the development of mathematics, mechanics, and physics.

The need of science to systematize a huge number of facts, create a holistic picture of the world, establish causal relationships between natural phenomena has intensified the search for new methods of cognition. Because of this, the problems of the theory of knowledge (epistemology) come to the fore in philosophy, in particular: what does it mean to know? what paves the way to the truth - sensations or reason, intuition or logic? Should knowledge be analytical or synthetic? etc.

So, the seventeenth century essentially included two revolutionary streams: a social revolution in society associated with the transition from feudalism to capitalism and scientific revolution, which manifested itself in a special passion for experiment and classifications, rational knowledge and explanation of the world, the formation of experimental and mathematical natural science. This prompted thinkers to look at the world differently. If in the Middle Ages philosophy developed in alliance with theology, and in the Renaissance - with art and humanitarian knowledge, then in the 17th century. philosophy has chosen natural and exact sciences as its ally. This union served as fertile ground for bold innovative ideas. philosophers XVII century, he brought up a whole galaxy of world-class thinkers. And it is no coincidence that some historians of philosophy and science call the 17th century the century of geniuses, the century of the philosophical systems of F. Bacon, R. Descartes.

1. Philosophical system and method of F. Bacon.

The beginning of a new European philosophy is associated with the colorful figure of Francis Bacon, whose thoughts are marked by the great culture of the Renaissance and directed to the future. In a certain sense, Bacon can be called the last thinker of the Renaissance and the pioneer of modern philosophy.

Francis Bacon was born on January 22, 1561 in London, in the family of one of the highest dignitaries of the royal court - Sir Nicolae Bacon.

Thanks to his legal and political activities, Nicolae Bacon rose in his career to the Lord Privy Seal of England and for almost twenty years, until his death, he held this high post in the government cabinet. Francis's mother, Anna Cooke, was a highly educated woman, fluent in ancient Greek and Latin, was interested in theology and art, and translated several religious writings into English. Such was the family environment in which the future philosopher and Lord Chancellor of England grew up and was brought up.

In 1573, Francis was sent to study at Cambridge College, where mostly young people who were going to hold public office studied. F. Bacon gets acquainted with the works of Aristotle, Plato, Sophocles, Euripides and other thinkers with great interest, but he perceives them critically. So, the philosophy of Aristotle caused him feelings of dissatisfaction and hostility, because, in his opinion, it is suitable only for sophisticated disputes, but is fruitless in relation to obtaining new knowledge.

After graduating from university, Bacon went to Paris with his brother, where he began working at the British Embassy. During this so-called Parisian period (1577-1579), he received an excellent lesson in political and diplomatic education, gained experience as a courtier and religious life. Bacon visited many countries of the European continent - Germany, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Sweden and Italy. The result of his visit to these countries was his notes "On the State of Europe".

Bacon's political career reached a certain apex in 1620. He becomes first Lord Privy Seal, and then Lord Chancellor and Governor of the State in the absence of the King of England. According to his official position, he also receives titles: first, a baron, and then a viscount. In 1621, the Parliament of England presented Bacon with a serious accusation: participation in intrigues, corruption and bribery. The culprit was convicted, imprisoned and fined £40,000. However, the verdict was soon overturned and the trial annulled. Bacon, having been released, leaves the political scene of England forever and devotes himself entirely to science and philosophy until last days life (1626).

All scientific work Bacon can be divided into two groups. One group of works is devoted to the problems of the development of science and the analysis of scientific knowledge. This includes treatises related to his project of the "Great Restoration of the Sciences", which, for reasons unknown to us, was not completed. Only the second part of the project, devoted to the development of the inductive method, was completed, published in 1620 under the title "New Organon". Another group included such works as Moral, Economic and Political Essays, New Atlantis, History of Henry VII, On Principles and Principles (unfinished study) and others.

Bacon considered the main task of philosophy to be the construction of a new method of cognition, and the goal of science was to bring benefits to mankind. Science should be developed, according to Bacon, “neither for the sake of one’s spirit, nor for the sake of some scientific disputes, nor for the sake of neglecting others, nor for the sake of self-interest and fame, nor in order to achieve power, nor for some other low intentions, but in order that life itself may benefit and succeed from it. The practical orientation of knowledge was expressed by Bacon in the well-known aphorism: "Knowledge is power."

Bacon's main work on the methodology of scientific knowledge was the New Organon.

It gives a presentation of the "new logic" as the main way to gain new knowledge and build a new science. As the main method, Bacon proposes induction, which is based on experience and experiment, as well as a certain methodology for analyzing and generalizing sensory data.

Bacon seriously criticizes the old, "old" logic of Aristotle, which is based on the deductive method of thinking. It only creates confusion, prevents us from "deciphering" the secret language of nature, as a result of which the latter slips out of the hands of the researcher.

The foundation of all knowledge, according to Bacon, is experience, which must be properly organized and subordinated to a specific goal. It must be carried out according to a certain plan, consistently, and lead from experiments to new experiments, or to theoretical positions, which, in turn, push for new experiments. Logically, this means that our thought moves from the knowledge of single facts to the knowledge of a whole class of objects or processes. Induction, according to Bacon, is a guarantee against shortcomings and blunders both in the very logic of thinking and in cognition in general.

It is known that Aristotle once described induction as a method of thinking, but he did not attach universal significance to it, as Bacon did.

Induction, as a rule, is incomplete, so the inductive conclusion is not reliable, but only probabilistic (presumable). This conclusion needs to be verified. To understand the essence of incomplete induction, we give two examples.

In these examples, both conclusions obtained by induction are probabilistic, since the experiments were not carried out with all existing types of liquids and gases. In order to obtain a reliable conclusion, it is necessary to conduct experiments with the entire class of liquids and gases. In practice, such an experiment is not always possible due to various reasons. What to do in this case? Bacon strongly recommends, in order to increase the reliability of the conclusion, to look for as many facts as possible, not only confirming, but also refuting the inductive conclusion. It is noteworthy that Bacon himself, by means of induction, determined the philosophical essence of heat, having discovered the movement of body particles in heated objects. Despite the fact that Bacon put a lot of work into the development of the theory of induction, he did not consider it perfect and complete. The philosopher quite seriously hoped that in subsequent centuries scientists would improve it.

Induction can be complete or incomplete. Complete induction presents a conclusion general position about the class as a whole. Such a conclusion has a reliable character, but the scope of its application is limited to the studied class of phenomena, the number of which is easily observable. Incomplete induction makes it possible to draw a conclusion based on the study of not the entire class of phenomena, but only part of it. The basis for the choice is the disclosure of the class of essential features in the studied elements. The researcher assumes that they are inherent in the whole class of phenomena. Such a conclusion is not reliable, but a probabilistic (presumable) character.

Bacon believed that human consciousness incapable of knowing the subject being studied fully and accurately. Prejudices that prevent a person from discovering the truth are a serious obstacle to complete and accurate knowledge. Allegorically, he called them "idols" of the clan, the cave, the market and the theater. He classified the first two types of idols as innate, and the second two types of idols - as acquired in the process of people's lives.

The first kind of delusion - the idols of the race - is inherent in all people, since they mix the nature of their own spirit into the nature of cognizable things. This type of delusion is led by the limited capabilities of the senses, and the desire of people to interpret new ideas in the spirit of previous ideas, and the desire of a person to extend ideas about the small world in which he himself lives to the big and universal world.

The second type of delusion is the idols of the cave, the essence of which is the individual characteristics of a person. In addition to the idols common to the entire human race, each individual has "his own special cave", which additionally "weakens and distorts the light of nature." The contents of the idols of the cave are the features of education and human psychology, the specifics of the social environment, the orientation of the interests of the individual. The ghosts of the cave are of considerable diversity, since they express the individual differences of each person individually. “The human mind is not a dry light, it is sprinkled with will and passions ... A person rather believed in the truth of what he prefers ... In an infinite number of ways, sometimes imperceptible, passions stain and spoil the mind.”

Of course, one cannot but agree with Bacon's remark about the impact emotional sphere of a person and his diverse interests on the objectivity and completeness of knowledge of objects and processes. It is completely impossible to overcome the influence of the idols of the clan and the cave on the process of cognition, but it can be significantly weakened with the help of collective experience that corrects individual experience. To do this, each person needs not only to realize the nature of the action of delusions, but also to master the methodology of the process of cognition.

The third kind of delusions are the idols of the market (or marketplace), which arise in an environment of "mutual communication and shared use of language". In the process of verbal communication, people imagine that their mind commands words. An unsuccessful and incorrect choice of words creates serious difficulties and obstacles on the way of knowing the truth. In this case, the words, as it were, cloud the mind, lead it into confusion, disorientate in search of truth.

Bacon's criticism of the "idols of the market" carries a rational grain, because it emphasizes the relative independence of the language, which consists in the presence of both a certain conservatism of the language in relation to thinking, and its ability to actively influence the latter. Bacon's merit lies in the fact that he drew attention to the existing connection between language, thinking, knowledge and reality. Of course, Bacon could completely solve this problem in the 17th century. it was not possible. Many linguists, logicians, cybernetics, psychologists and philosophers continue to work on this problem.

The fourth and last type of delusions are the idols of the theater, which have their roots in science and philosophy. They move into human thoughts from various philosophical teachings as a result of trust and worship of one or another scientific authority. Traditional philosophical doctrines and systems are especially dangerous in this respect. Bacon includes Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle among the imaginary authorities. Most fundamentally, Bacon dealt a blow to the system of Aristotle and scholasticism based on his teachings. According to Bacon, blind superstition, immoderate religious zeal, also adjoins the idols of the theater.

Bacon strongly recommends removing the obstacles (idols) that lie in the way of knowledge, and thereby making the soul more receptive to the truth. The main means of overcoming the "ghosts" is the appeal to experience and the processing of experimental data by the scientific method. Then it was necessary to solve the second problem: what method of cognition should be considered scientific and how to use it in this or that case? Bacon solves the problem of choosing the true method in an allegorical way. In his opinion, there are three main ways of knowing - "spider, ant and bee." Each of them has its positive and negative sides.

The "Way of the Spider" is an attempt to derive truth from "pure" consciousness itself. On this path, there is a complete disregard for facts and reality itself. The conclusions obtained by this method are in the form of hypotheses. They may be true or they may be false. This method is used by dogmatists and rationalists, who, like a spider, weave a web of thoughts from their minds.

The Way of the Ant is a narrow empiricism focused only on gathering facts. Empiricists persistently, like ants, collect disparate facts, but do not know how to generalize them. This method of cognition is also one-sided, because it does not allow the researcher to look into the essence of the subject being studied.

The Way of the Bee combines the virtues of the first two methods and is free from the drawbacks of each. With its help, the researcher makes the rise from empiricism to theory. The fear of this ascent leads to the false "path of the ant", and the haste of ascent leads to the "path of the spider". In order to avoid both extremes, according to Bacon, one should observe systematic perseverance and unswerving consistency, adhere to the principle of unity of the sensual and the rational.

Bacon, not being a naturalist, sometimes incorrectly assessed some of the discoveries and scientific ideas of his time. So, for example, he downplayed the role of mathematics in the development of natural science, refused to recognize the truth of Copernicus' heliocentric system. At the same time, he was the founder of experimental science, having managed to capture its new spirit and understand its needs and interests.

So, the teachings of Bacon had a huge impact on the subsequent development of science and philosophy. Bacon's logical method became the starting point for the development of inductive logic. The classification of sciences proposed by the philosopher played a big role in the history of science and was used by the French enlighteners in the process of publishing their Encyclopedia. F. Bacon's doctrine of nature and knowledge was continued by Thomas Hobbes and other thinkers.

2. Philosophical system and method of R. Descartes.

Rene Descartes was born in 1596 into a noble family in the south of the country in Touraine, in the small town of Lahe. Doctors predicted his quick death, since his mother died of consumption a few days after giving birth, and it was expected that this disease would also mow down the baby. However, fate decreed otherwise: the boy grew up healthy and strong. When Rene was eight years old, he was sent to a Jesuit school in Lafleche. It was one of the best schools in France at that time, in which the division of students into classes was first introduced, an innovation unusual for those times. However, the methodology and content of teaching remained scholastic and outdated. Rene became seriously interested in mathematics, dreamed of seriously reconstructing philosophy in the future with its help. In 1612, he left the walls of the school with a feeling of deep dissatisfaction with the knowledge he had received. This prompts him to independent study sciences (medicine, law, mathematics, philosophy, etc.)

In 1628, Descartes moved to Holland in order to use his life there to improve his mind and further knowledge of the truth. Holland of the 17th century was the advanced country of Europe, the center of education and culture, where civil liberty and personal security were more complete. Descartes spent two whole decades of his life in this country, which became for him the most fruitful scientifically. During this period, he wrote most of his works:

“Reflections on the First Philosophy”, “Principles of Philosophy”, “Rules for the Guidance of the Mind”, etc. They considered questions of ontology and the theory of knowledge, and formulated the rules of the scientific method.

In 1649 Descartes accepted the invitation of the Swedish Queen Christina to come to Stockholm. Sweden turned out to be a harsh and cruel country for Descartes. In February 1650, he caught a serious cold, fell ill, and died of pneumonia. Descartes was buried as a non-Christian in the cemetery for unbaptized babies. After some time, his ashes were transported to his homeland.

But after the death of Descartes, thunderclouds surrounded his name for a long time. In 1663, the Pope of Rome added the works of Descartes to the list of books banned for Catholics, and eight years later, Louis XIV banned the teaching of Cartesianism throughout the French kingdom.

A significant place in the work of Descartes is occupied by the doctrine of being. The central concept of this doctrine is "substance".

By substance, Descartes understands any being that does not need anything other than itself for its being. It can be both an idea and a physical object. But in the strictest and deepest sense of the word, the substance, according to Descartes, is only God, who is eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent. He is the Creator of all things. Source of all goodness and Truth. The concept of substance can be applied to the created world only conditionally.

Descartes divides the entire created world into two kinds of substances: spiritual and material. If the main sign of the spiritual substance is its indivisibility, then the material one is divisibility to infinity. As the main attribute (root property), the spiritual substance has thinking, and the material substance has extension. The remaining attributes are derived from these first, and they should be called modes. So, for example, the modes of thinking are imagination, feeling, desire, and the modes of extension are figure, position, movement, etc.

According to Descartes, there are two substances “created” by God and sharply different from each other in a person: one is an extended (bodily) substance, and the other is a thinking (spiritual) one. Both are equal and independent of each other. This clearly shows the dualism of Descartes. Due to this fact, his double man” (divided into two halves), of course, is a weak creature, but with the help of his mind, he is able to strengthen and elevate himself. And this can be done only with the help of a good method.

If F. Bacon paid attention to the predisposition of the mind to some delusions, then Descartes tries to discover such ideas that are inherent in consciousness from birth. These ideas, according to Descartes, are not acquired in experience, they are inherent in the spiritual substance from the very beginning, so they can be considered innate. Descartes referred to innate ideas: a) concepts (being, God, number, duration, corporality, structure, will, and others); b) axiom judgments (“nothing has properties”, “nothing comes from nothing”, “it is impossible to be and not be at the same time”, “every thing has a reason”, “the whole is greater than its part”, etc. ).

Descartes' doctrine of innate ideas is a kind of development of Plato's position on true knowledge as a recollection of what was imprinted in the soul when it was in the world of ideas. Under the innateness of ideas, Descartes understood only the "embryonic", rudimentary nature of thoughts, for the clarification of which the activity of the "natural light" of the mind is necessary, which is possible only in adults. In itself, Descartes' idea of ​​the innate knowledge was erroneous in any of its versions, but it was not absurd as a statement of the problem, because each new generation absorbs the experience and knowledge of past generations, and it receives some part of this knowledge at birth in the form of inclinations, abilities and a set of unconditioned reflexes. The latter, of course, is not knowledge in the full sense of the word, but it can be interpreted as certain information.

Descartes saw the ultimate goal of knowledge in mastering the forces of nature, discovering and inventing technical means, and improving the very nature of man.

He believed that the beginning of the process of cognition was doubt about the truth of generally accepted knowledge. The stage of doubt, as it were, clears the ground for the formation of new knowledge. Descartes believes that everything can and should be doubted: does the external world exist, does the human body exist, does science exist, etc. Only one thing can be sure: doubt itself really exists. If a person doubts, it means that he thinks. Doubt itself exists insofar as there is thinking, and hence the "I" as a thinking being. Hence the famous aphorism of Descartes was born: "I think, therefore I am."

Descartes was the ancestor of rationalism, which he developed as a result of observations of the logical nature of mathematical knowledge. He considered the truths of mathematics to be completely reliable, possessing signs of universality and necessity. Due to this circumstance, Descartes assigned an exceptional role in the process of cognition to such a method as deduction, or the deductive form of proof of presentation.

The method, according to Descartes, turns knowledge into an organized activity, frees the process of research from accidents. Thanks to the method, the process of cognition is transformed from handicraft to industrial production, from sporadic and random discovery of truths to systematic and planned reproduction. scientific knowledge. The process of cognition turns into a kind of production line, which has a continuous character.

In the Discourse on Method, Descartes says that the scientific method controls the mind of man, leads him in a short way, so it must necessarily include certain rules. The main rules of the deductive method proposed by Descartes are the following:

1) start with the simple and obvious, so that there is no possibility of doubting the initial assumptions;

2) by deduction to obtain more and more complex judgments;

3) to act in such a way as not to miss a single link, that is, to constantly maintain the continuity of the chain of inferences;

5) to divide a complex problem into its constituent particular problems or tasks.

The rules of Descartes, like all of his Discourses on Method, were of exceptional importance for the development of philosophy and science of modern times. They have not lost their significance even today. Condition of "obviousness" and "intuitive clarity" of initial statements scientific theory is one of the main characteristics of scientific knowledge in the modern era. If F. Bacon in the "New Organon" developed the inductive method and considered it the main method of obtaining true and practically useful knowledge, then R. Descartes in his "Discourse on the method" developed a deductive method, which, in his opinion, promises humanity previously unknown opportunities and will make people masters, masters of nature.

So, the significance of Descartes in the history of philosophy is enormous. He took a fresh look at the place and role of deduction in the cognitive process, discovering previously unused logical and epistemological possibilities in it. By deduction, Descartes understood reasoning based on quite reliable initial positions (axioms) and consisting of a chain of also reliable logical conclusions. The reliability of the axioms is revealed by the mind intuitively, without any proof, on the basis of clarity and evidence.

The synthesis of deduction and rationalism, according to Descartes, will allow science to advance far in the knowledge of natural phenomena and processes. The rationalism of Descartes was borrowed by representatives of the German classical philosophy. To all subsequent generations, Descartes bequeathed an unshakable faith in the power of the human mind, a close union of philosophy with science. Descartes was and remains France's greatest progressive philosopher. The problems posed by the Cartesian system stimulated the development philosophical views P. Gassendi and B. Spinoza.

Bibliography

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2. Introduction to philosophy. Part I – M.: Politizdat, 1989.

3. Brief outline of the history of philosophy. – M.: Thought, 1972.

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7. Philosophy: Course of lectures: Proc. A manual for university students / Ed. V.L. Kalashnikov. – M.: Vlados, 1997.

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