Ontological Problems in Philosophy
1. Being as an object of philosophical research. Basic approaches to understanding being in the history of philosophy
2. The problem of substance in philosophy
3. Levels and types of being
4. Matter, motion, space, time: the ratio of these categories
5. The ideal sphere of being. The problem of consciousness
Being as an object of philosophical research. Basic approaches to understanding being in the history of philosophy.
Philosophy seeks to comprehend the world in its entirety. Asserting that the world is, that it is “here” and “now”, that with all the changes occurring in nature and society, the world is preserved, as a relatively stable whole, we approach the formulation of the problem of being. Being is investigated in ontology - a fundamental philosophical discipline.
There are several approaches to understanding life:
1) Being is everything that exists in one way or another.
2) Being is everything only truly existing (for example, in materialism empirical objects are recognized as genuinely existing, in most theological concepts only God is endowed with true existence).
3) Being is an indication of the process of existence itself (for example, everything that exists has being).
The discovery of the category of being belongs to the representatives of the Eleatic school (Parmenides), who believed that being is an eternal, unchanging, always equal to itself existence. Democritus (c. 460 - c. 370 BC) considered an infinite collection of atoms as being. Heraclitus considered being as changeable and continuously becoming. Plato contrasted the world of sensible things with the world of ideas - the world of true, genuine being. Based on the principle of the relationship between matter and form, Aristotle overcomes this opposition and builds a doctrine of various levels of being (from the sensible to the intelligible). Medieval philosophy contrasted divine being and created being, while distinguishing, following Aristotle, actual being (act) and possible being (potency). Departure from this position begins in the Renaissance, when the cult of material existence - nature - was recognized. In the concepts of the 17-18 centuries. being is seen as a reality opposed to man. Hence the interpretation of being as an object opposed to the subject arises. At the same time, being was considered as a reality subject to the action of the laws of mechanics. For the doctrines of being in modern times, a substantial approach was characteristic, when a substance (an indestructible, unchanging substrate of being, its ultimate foundation) and its accidents (properties) are fixed. For the European naturalistic philosophy of that time, being is a substantive being, opposing and impending knowledge. Being is limited by nature, the world of natural bodies, and spiritual world does not possess the status of being. Along with this line, which identifies being with physical reality and excludes consciousness from being, a different way of interpreting being is formed in modern European philosophy, in which it is determined on the path of the epistemological analysis of consciousness and self-consciousness. It is presented in the original thesis of Descartes' metaphysics - "I think, therefore I am", in Berkeley's subjective-idealistic identification of existence and the given in perception ("To exist is to be perceived"). This interpretation of being found its completion in German classical idealism. For Kant, being is not a property of things; being is a generally significant way of connecting our concepts and judgments, and the difference between natural and morally free being consists in the difference in the forms of law-making. For natural being, this form is causality, for morally free being - the goal. Hegel reduced human spiritual being to logical thought. The concept of being for him turns out to be extremely poor and, in fact, negatively defined (being, as something absolutely indefinite, immediate, qualityless), which is explained by the desire to derive being from acts of self-consciousness, from the epistemological analysis of consciousness. The idealistic attitude - to understand being based on the analysis of consciousness, is also characteristic of Western philosophy of the late 19th and 20th centuries. In the philosophy of existentialism, being in oneself is opposed to being for oneself, material and human being are differentiated. The main characteristic of human existence, in existentialism, is the free choice of possibilities. In neopositivism, radical criticism of the old ontology and its substantialism leads to the denial of the very problem of being, interpreted as a metaphysical pseudo-problem. Dialectical materialism defines being as an objective reality that exists outside and independently of human consciousness. Although this trend recognizes the irreducibility of being only to the objective-material world, highlighting social being and the being of the individual, all these forms of being are characterized by a common feature - independence from consciousness. The same sign (independence from consciousness) dialectical materialism recognizes as an attribute of matter. Thus, in this direction, the categories of being and matter actually coincide.
Summing up the consideration of the historical development of ontological problems, one can make output that the problem of being before German classical philosophy was not a problem of what is existence by itself , but the problem is what really exists ... In German classical philosophy and after it, the main problem became what is truly existing in man and what properties and characteristics of a person and his consciousness make it possible to find a way to true existence.
The problem of substance in philosophy
Being presupposes not only existence, but also its cause. In other words, being is the unity of existence and essence... It is in the concept of substance that the essential side of being is expressed.
Substance(Lat. Substantia - essence, something underlying), can be defined as an objective reality, viewed from the side of its internal unity, as the ultimate basis, allowing to reduce sensory diversity and variability of properties to something permanent, relatively stable and independently existing. Spinoza defined substance as the cause of itself.
Substrate(Latin Substratum - base, litter) - the general material basis of phenomena; a set of relatively simple, qualitatively elementary material formations, the interaction of which determines the properties of the system or process under consideration. The concept of a substrate is close to the concept of a substance, which has traditionally been considered as the absolute substrate of all changes.
Greek philosophers Milesian school, and after them Heraclitus, Pythagoras and others came to the conclusion that there is a material of which all things are composed, which much later was called substance. According to Thales, everything consists of water, according to Anaximenes - from air, according to Heraclitus - from fire. Despite the naivety of these provisions, they contained productive moments. First, these considerations allowed us to conclude that there are no eternal things, but there is something underlying them, i.e. the material of which everything in the world consists, the substance of the world. Secondly, the first philosophers realized that there is a big difference between how things, phenomena and processes we observe look like, and what they really are. Anaximander believed that at the heart of the world rests an indefinite, material principle - apeiron. Pythagoras and his followers considered number to be such a beginning. Thus, these thinkers formulated an important philosophical principle - the principle of elementarity, It says that all things are reduced to some elements (one or more). The concept of “substance” that emerged later was such an element.
Thus, the Greek natural philosophers considered a substance, i.e. the basis of the sensually perceived world, various physical elements with special qualities. The movement, connection and separation of elements generate all the visible diversity in the Universe. In contrast, idealists, primarily Plato and his followers, believed that ideas form the substance of the world. Aristotle identified the substance with the "first essence" or form, characterizing it as the basis, inseparable from the thing. Aristotle's interpretation of the form as the primary cause determining the certainty of the object served as the source of not only the distinction between spiritual and bodily substance, but also the dispute about the so-called substantial forms that permeated all medieval scholasticism.
In the philosophy of modern times, two lines of substance analysis: ontological and epistemological.
The first- goes back to the philosophy of F. Bacon, who identified the substance with the form of concrete things. Descartes opposed this qualitative interpretation of substance with the doctrine of two substances: material and spiritual. At the same time, the material is characterized by extension, and the spiritual is characterized by thinking. but dualistic position Descartes discovered a tremendous difficulty: it was necessary to explain the obvious consistency of material and bodily processes in man. Descartes proposed a compromise solution, which is that neither the body itself can cause changes in the soul, nor the soul as such is capable of making any bodily changes. However, the body can still influence the direction of mental processes, just as the soul can influence the direction of bodily processes. Descartes even pointed to the pineal gland as the place where the physical and spiritual principles of the human person came into contact. Spinoza tried to overcome the contradictions of dualism in explaining the relationship of these substances on the basis of pantheistic monism. For Spinoza, thinking and extension are not two substances, but two attributes of a single substance (God or nature). In total, a substance has an infinite number of attributes, however, the number of attributes open to a person is only two (extension and thinking). Leibniz in his monadology distinguished many simple and indivisible substances ( pluralistic position), possessing independence, activity, perception and aspiration.
Second line analysis of substance (epistemological understanding of this problem) is associated with understanding the possibility and necessity of the concept of substance for scientific knowledge. It was started by Locke in his analysis of substance as one of the complex ideas and criticism of the empirically inductive justification of the idea of substance. Berkeley generally denied the concept of material substance, admitting only the existence of a spiritual substance - God. Hume, rejecting the existence of both material and spiritual substance, saw in the idea of substance only a hypothetical association of perceptions into a certain integrity inherent in ordinary, and not scientific knowledge. Kant, developing an epistemological analysis of the concept of substance, pointed to the need for this concept for a scientific and theoretical explanation of phenomena. The category of substance, according to Kant, is an a priori form of reason, a condition for the possibility of any synthetic unity of perception, i.e. experience. Hegel discovered the internal inconsistency of substance, its self-development.
Modern Western philosophy is generally characterized by a negative attitude towards the category of substance and its role in cognition. In neopositivism, the concept of substance is viewed as a relic of everyday consciousness that has penetrated into science, as an unjustified way of doubling the world and naturalizing perception. Along with this line of interpretation of the concept of substance, there are a number of areas of idealistic philosophy that retain the traditional interpretation of substance (for example, neo-Thomism).
In dialectical materialism, substance is identified with matter. Attributive characteristics of matter (such its properties, without which it does not exist) in this direction are considered structure, motion, space and time. By defining matter (substance) in this way, dialectical materialism presupposes its endless development and its inexhaustibility.
This or that understanding of substance in the models of the world is introduced as an initial postulate, representing, first of all, a materialistic or idealistic solution to the ontological side of the main question of philosophy: is matter or consciousness primary? Distinguish in the same way metaphysical understanding of substance as an unchanging principle, and dialectical - as a changeable, self-developing entity... All this taken together gives us a qualitative interpretation of the substance.
In the idealistic understanding, the substantial basis of the world is the spiritual essence (God, the Absolute Idea - to objective idealism; human consciousness - in the subjective).
In the materialistic understanding, the substantial basis of the world is matter.
A quantitative interpretation of substance is possible in three forms: monism explains the diversity of the world from one beginning (Spinoza, Hegel, etc.), dualism - from two principles (Descartes), pluralism - from many principles (Democritus, Leibniz).
Levels and types of being
Being as reality is multifaceted, extremely complex in structure. Depending on the bases, various spheres, levels and kinds of being... For example, you can consider being as a unity of such spheres:
1. Material-objective being ... This is the world of sensually perceived objects that affect consciousness, thinking through the senses. Here being is presented as the world of sensory images in its concrete-objective expression. This is the world of things, specific situations, the world of activities to create objects, primarily in the labor, economic, household spheres of life. V materialistic philosophy- this is the world of matter, objective reality.
2. Objectively spiritual being ... This is the spiritual life of a person in his sociality: the world of thoughts, scientific theories, knowledge, the world of spiritual values, the world of philosophy, the world of emotions, experiences, the world of relationships, etc., which really exist as a common human culture, as social consciousness, as the mentality of a particular nation , society.
3. Social and historical being ... Includes both material and spiritual elements of being. These are real relations in historical time: reforms, revolutions, wars, "resettlement" of peoples, change of power and forms of state, appearance and disappearance of new countries, cities, civilizations, etc. on the map.
4. Subjective-personal being ... It also includes material and spiritual elements, but this is the life activity of a specific individual with his unique individual experience, specific personal manifestations of being that occur only with a given person, and thus already different from the general course of life.
You can structure being according to the difference in the modes of functioning and forms of reflection: non-living, Live nature and society, biosphere and noosphere.
By the forms of movement: mechanical, physical, chemical, biological, social (classification of F. Engels).
By the systemic nature of interactions: megaworld, macroworld, microcosm (universe, galaxies, stellar systems, planets, objects, matter, molecules, atoms, nuclei, elementary particles, fields, etc.).
From a philosophical point of view, several more gradations can be distinguished in the structure of being:
· "Being in itself" (objective being), irrelevant to our consciousness, basic, and therefore primary.
· "Being for us" (subjective being). This is the being that we ourselves construct, the picture of the world in which we exist and with which, in fact, we interact. "Being in itself" relates to the concept of eternity, and "being for us" - to the concept of temporality, finiteness, limitation in space and time.
Also being is different as being real , actual, actual, present, manifested (it can be verified in any way), and how - potential being , possible, not yet manifested (it can only be predicted, assumed). Being as act and potency (Aristotle, Spinoza).
· Being true (semantic, essential) - the "world of ideas" in Plato, God in religious ontology, the Absolute Idea in Hegel, etc. and untrue being (seeming, visible) - being in opinion , being that has no meaning.
Monism and dualism in her understanding.
Plan:
1. Being. The meaning of the problem of being. The first and second aspects of the problem of being. The study of being is a prerequisite for understanding the unity of the world.
3. The creator of the dualistic teaching - R. Descartes. The meaning of Descartes' philosophy is the independence and independence of two substances: spirit and matter.
4. Monistic philosophy of Benedict Spinoza: spirit and matter are just different definitions, modes of substance are pure reality. Substance is the only reality.
5. Dialectical monism is the highest stage in the development of materialist monism. The real unity of the world in its materiality. Substance is not something third that embraces both spirit and matter, but the same matter in which consciousness is considered as its attribute.
6. Dialectical-materialistic concept of the material unity of the world in the XX century. Scientific discussions about substance. Theoretical and experimental confirmation of the unity of substance in all its formally contradictory properties.
"Being" - one of those concepts that many thinkers of the past and present are put at the foundation of philosophy. The philosophical understanding of being is close to the innermost depths of human life, to those fundamental questions that a person is able to pose for himself in moments of the highest tension of spiritual and moral forces. The problem of being arises when a person's natural conviction that the world is, there is and that with all the changes occurring in nature and society, the world is saved asrelatively stable whole becomes the subject of doubt and thought. The first aspect of the problem of being- this is a chain of thoughts about being, answers to some questions, each of which prompts the statement of the next. The second aspect of the philosophical problem of being connected with the question of the unity of the world, nature, man, thoughts, ideas, society equally exist; different in the forms of their existence, they, first of all, due to their existence, form integral unity of an endless, everlasting world... In other words, the existence of everything that is, was and will be in the world is a prerequisite for the unity of the world. A the study of being is only a prerequisite for understanding the unity of the world.
Is there something that unites the main spheres of being, a certain common basis that unites the diversity of phenomena, events, processes included in these spheres, can we talk about the unity of the entire infinite diversity of the world? To indicate the general basis of all that exists, the category of substance was developed. Substance denotes the internal unity of the variety of specific things, events, phenomena and processes through which and through which it exists. Conventionally, we can distinguish two main philosophical positions in solving the issue of the unity of the world. From the point of view of the first of them, the universal commonality of all world phenomena is seen in their materiality (line of Democritus), from the point of view of the second, such unity is seen in the common ideal basis of the world (line of Plato). They both bear the name monism, since both see the basis of the world in any one substance. Opposed to monism dualistic interpretation of the world, according to which it is formed by two existing, initial principles - material and ideal. The first of them unites the sphere of corporeal-objective reality, and the second - the sphere of spirit.
The creator of the dualistic teaching is R. Descartes (1596-1650). Describing the world as the creation of God, he denied the unity of the world and taught that the world consists of two independent substances: spiritual and material, soul and body. Corporeal substance and spirit, or thinking substance, can both be included in general definition, according to which they need the assistance of God or his help for their existence. We have here three beings, or substances: two finite substances, that is, a corporeal and created thinking substance, and one infinite, that is, an uncreated and independent thinking substance. Matter and spirit, it is true, are created, dependent on uncreated substance, they need God for their existence, they cannot exist or survive without him; but they are both independent and independent not only from each other, but also from God.
Unlike R. Descartes, the Dutch materialist philosopher Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) strove to create a holistic picture of nature. He proceeded from the identity of God and nature, which he understood as a single, eternal and infinite substance, which is the cause of itself. The concept of substance has its positive existence, its reality in God and with God; therefore the concept of substance does not differ from concepts of god, for God is an infinite being, and spirit and matter created by him are dependent beings. But it is precisely this infinite being that is substance, in relation to which spirit and matter are only finite beings, different definitions, modes of substance. There is only one substance; this eliminates any contradiction, for spirit and matter, thinking and extension are now only properties of this one substance, spirit and matter do not have a special existence for themselves, but substance is the only reality.
The highest stage in the development of materialist monism is dialectical monism. Consistent implementation of materialistic monism is possible only if the material unity of the world is understood as a dialectical, contradictory unity of diversity. Otherwise, materialistic monism leads to vulgar materialistic interpretations of consciousness and thinking. Dialectical monism rejects the views that distinguish consciousness, reason into a special substance opposed to nature and society. The reality around us and we ourselves are a single material world. The concept of substance is inextricably linked with the concept of matter: these are two sides of one essence. Substance is not something third, embracing both spirit and matter, but the same matter, only considered outside of its relationship with consciousness, matter in which consciousness is already firmly and unconditionally considered as its attribute.
The dialectical-materialist concept of the material unity of the world, as well as the inexhaustibility of the structure and properties of matter, was confirmed by the achievements of science of the 20th century, and above all physics. The opposition of continuity and discreteness, which so excited physicists at the beginning of the century, found its dialectical expression in quantum mechanics, in which such a property of matter as its simultaneously corpuscular and wave structure was discovered. Behind the external formal contradiction, scientists saw the reflection of the essential properties of a single material substance, which, at the same time, was not exhausted by these corpuscular-wave representations. The substance is one in all its formally contradictory properties - this is now an indisputable, theoretically and experimentally confirmed fact.
Philosophical meaning and problems of substance.
Monism and dualism in her understanding.
"Being" - one of those concepts that many thinkers of the past and present are put at the foundation of philosophy. Around “being” and the doctrine of being (ontology) in philosophy there have always been and are still being heated debates. When considering being, the flight of thought sometimes reaches the highest limit of generalization, abstraction from the individual, particular, transitory. At the same time, the philosophical understanding of being is close to the innermost depths of human life, to those fundamental issues that a person is able to pose for himself in moments of the highest tension of spiritual and moral forces.
What is the meaning of the problem of being? Why is it constantly - from antiquity to the present day - discussed in philosophy? Why did many thinkers consider and consider it as the starting point for systematic philosophical reflection? To understand the meaning of such a broad philosophical problem means, first of all, to reveal what roots it has in real life man and humanity.
Our life activity is based on simple and understandable premises, which we usually accept without much doubt and reasoning. The very first and most universal of them is the natural conviction of man that the world is, there is“Here” and “now”, is present... People just as naturally count on the fact that with all the changes taking place in nature and society, the world is saved asrelatively stable whole.
The problem of being arises when such universal premises become the subject of doubt and reflection. It was enough to say that the world exists “now” and questions about its past and future were asked. Answering them, some philosophers argued that the endless world is imperishable - always was, is and will be; others argued that the world was, is and will be, but it has its beginning and end not only in space, but also in time. In other words, the idea of the existence of an infinite world as a whole was further combined in philosophy with the thesis of either the transitory or the everlasting existence of the world. The idea of the enduring (or, at least, very long) existence of the world as a whole, in turn, led to the question of how knowingly transitory, finite things and human beings relate to this existence. So a whole chain of questions and ideas related to being was already lined up. It was precisely problem of being, divided into closely related aspects (subproblems).
The forms of being reflect different ways of the existence of the world. But the problem arises of the essence of the world, which is at the basis of the world. Ancient Greek philosophers looked for the material cause of all things to solve this problem. However, as V. Heisenberg notes, here they immediately faced a dilemma. Namely, with the need to answer the question of whether the material cause of everything that happens should be identified with one of the existing forms of matter, for example, with “water” in the philosophy of Thales or “fire” in the teachings of Heraclitus, or should such a “primary substance” be accepted in relation to which all real matter is only a transitory form1. This found its expression in the concept of substance.
Substance (from Latin substantia - essence) is in the usual sense a synonym for matter, substance, material. In philosophy - the common basis of all that exists, something stable, unchanging in relation to changing states, properties. Substance exists by itself, thanks to itself, it is the root cause of everything that exists, incl. the root cause of all changes. Substance characterizes real reality from the side of its internal unity, the interconnection of all forms of its movement and contradictions. Thus, essence appears already in Aristotle, is investigated in the Stoics, Descartes and Spinoza.
In the history of philosophy, there have been various ideas about substance. Ancient Greek philosophers understood substance in a naturalistic way, as the material of which the world is composed. They reduced a substance to something corporeal, material, or interpreted it as a property of a substance - impenetrability, space, mass, etc.
Descartes, Spinoza - saw in substance the ultimate foundation of being. In Marxism, substance is equivalent to matter. On the basis of a substantial understanding of matter, dialectical materialism considers all the diversity of being in all its manifestations, from the point of view of its material unity. Being, the Universe appears in this concept as an endlessly developing variety of a single material world. The unity of the world is proved by the achievements of science and human practice (the law of conservation and transformation of energy and matter, the unity of flora and fauna, etc.).
Depending on the understanding of the foundation of the world, several paradigms are distinguished:
monism is a concept according to which the world is based on one substance (but both matter and spirit can be thought of as a substance). Materialistic and idealistic monism has existed in the history of philosophy.
dualism is a concept that asserts two equal substances, two principles in explaining the world - material and spiritual. The representative of dualism was Descartes.
pluralism is a theory that comes from many origins when explaining the world. Pluralists were Pythagoras, Democritus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leibniz.
10.3. The concept of matter, its structure and properties
The concept of substance is inextricably linked with the concept of matter, these are two sides of one essence. Matter as a substance is not a collection of things that form the world as a single system. The essence of matter as a substance is made up of universal properties and connections of material formations, things, universal conditions and forms of being, universal dialectical laws.
Things as relatively stable systems do not just coexist, but interact. In interaction, the corresponding properties of things are manifested. A property can be defined as a manifestation of the inner nature of a thing through its interaction with other things. Relationship is a concept that characterizes the interdependence of the elements of a certain system. There are only things in the world, their properties and relationships, which are in endless connections with other things and properties. A connection is such a relationship between things when a change in the properties of one causes a change in the corresponding properties of the other.
Material being is the most common form of existence. There are several ways to interpret matter:
materialism proceeds from the fact that matter is the basis of being, and spirit, man, society is a product of matter. Matter is primary and is present being.
objective idealism asserts that matter is the result of the absolute spirit, which exists before matter and is its cause.
subjective idealism believes that matter does not exist at all, that it is a product of the subjective spirit, exists only as human consciousness.
positivism does not recognize the concept of matter, believes that it general concept and it is false, since it cannot be proved with the help of experimental natural science.
Since antiquity, philosophers have tried to define matter to explain the surrounding reality. Initially, matter was understood as the basis of all things and phenomena, the substrate of everything that arises. Matter is a philosophical abstraction, a concept through which diversity is designated natural phenomena and processes. In his historical development this concept has gone through several stages. The first stage is visual and sensory presentation. This is an attempt to find a substance that is characteristic of many specific phenomena and processes. In the teachings of the ancient Greek philosophical (Thales, Anaximenes, Heraclitus), certain elements relied on the basis of the world: water, air, fire, etc. Everything that exists was considered a modification of these elements. Matter as the basis of things was understood as something homogeneous, unchanging, uncreable and indestructible. Philosophical thinking developed in terms of abstraction from external, insignificant qualities and properties to the allocation of a common object or substrate for the whole of reality.
The second stage is material-substrate (substantial) representation. Since it was impossible to find a single substance underlying all things, philosophers began to look for a common property, a substrate for all that exists. Matter was identified with matter, with atoms, with a complex of properties. Aristotle, for example, understood matter as a substance, as something passive, amorphous, qualityless, as a material for things and phenomena. During the Middle Ages, dominant idealism and religion were not conducive to the experimental study of nature. Progress in the development of the theory of the material structure of the world became apparent in the New Time (XUP - XVIII centuries), when experimental natural science was developing rapidly. In the concepts of mechanistic materialism of that period, matter was understood as a set of properties of things (length, shape, weight) that act on the senses. The main thing in this concept belongs to corporeality, which was based on the categories of science of that time - atom, substance, mass.
The third stage is the philosophical and epistemological concept of matter1. This understanding reached the greatest development in the works of the 18th century French materialists Diderot, Lametrie, Helvetius, Holbach, who reject the concept of matter as a homogeneous and inert substance. According to their view, matter in general is everything that corresponds to objective reality and acts on our senses. This idea is developed further by F. Engels, who emphasizes that matter as such is nothing more than a pure creation of thought, an abstraction. We are distracted from the qualitative differences of things when we combine them into the concept of matter. Matter as such does not exist as something corporeal, concretely sensible.
The scientific concept of matter was formed in line with the Marxist worldview and is associated with the name of V.I. Lenin: “Matter is a philosophical category for designating an objective reality that is given to a person in his sensations, which is copied, photographed, displayed by our sensations, existing independently of them” 2. The concept of matter does not mean anything other than an objective reality that exists independently of human consciousness and is reflected by it. This concept was formulated taking into account the criticism of metaphysical and mechanistic materialism and new trends in the development of science.
At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, major discoveries took place in science, which radically changed the idea of the essence of matter, changed the worldview of scientists. These innovations include the discovery x-rays, radioactivity, electron, theory of relativity, etc. However, these discoveries came into clear conflict with those fundamental principles that were formed and dominated at that time in the minds of scientists. What was considered eternal was crumbling before our eyes. The revolution in physics led to a crisis, to physical idealism. These are erroneous, idealistic conclusions from revolutionary discoveries (matter disappears, only energy, formulas remain).
The revolution in the natural sciences showed that there is no last level in nature, that knowledge about nature is incomplete and incomplete. It was the real difficulties of cognition that caused the emergence of physical idealism. The old physics saw in its theories the real knowledge of the material world, the new trend of physics sees in the theory only symbols, signs, i.e. denies the existence of objective reality. Matter has disappeared, only formulas remain - this is the conclusion of the idealists. The causes of the crisis in physics and physical idealism lie in the distorted interpretation of the mathematization of science and the principle of relativism. With no knowledge of dialectics, relativism inevitably leads to idealism. The way out of this state is to increase the methodological and philosophical literacy of natural scientists1.
The main disadvantage of the definition of the concept of matter, which existed before that, was that it was identified with a specific level of matter, with specific ideas about its structure, which change with the development of knowledge. It is important to distinguish between philosophical and natural-scientific understanding of matter and there is no need to equate them. The philosophical understanding of matter is a category for designating objective reality, everything that exists, regardless of whether we know this reality. The natural-scientific understanding of matter is actually an understanding of what objective reality itself is, here we single out matter and field, different types material systems and their corresponding structural levels (elementary particles, atoms, molecules, macro-bodies, living organisms, biocenoses, human community, earth and other planets, galaxies, etc.). The natural science concept is narrower than the philosophical one; their identification leads to erroneous, idealistic conclusions.
Matter is objective, universal, uncreate and indestructible, is in motion, space and time. It exists as a substance and as a field. Matter as a substance is a bodily objective reality, everything that has a rest mass. The field is a kind of matter that has no rest mass and depends on various interactions and relationships of material bodies (these are gravitational, electromagnetic, and other fields). Matter as substance exists as various material systems with certain structural levels: inanimate, living and socially organized matter. The levels of organization of inanimate nature include elementary particles, atoms, molecules, macro-bodies, planets, systems of planets, galaxy, metagalaxy, the universe as a whole. The levels of organization of living nature include DNA, RNA, proteins, cells, multicellular organisms, species, populations, biocenoses, and the biosphere as a whole. Socially organized matter presupposes a separate individual, family, collectives, social groups, ethnic groups, nations, races, states, unions of states, humanity as a whole. Matter as an objective reality is characterized by various forms being, universal properties and connections: space, time, movement, causality, regularity, structure, etc.
The meaning of this concept lies in the development of the correct scientific worldview, helps us understand what we are dealing with - with material or spiritual phenomena, focuses on endless search and knowledge, is directed against idealism and agnosticism.
One of the main problems of modern philosophy was the problem of substance. Substance- “objective reality, viewed from the side of its internal unity ...; the ultimate foundation that allows us to reduce sensory diversity and variability of properties to something permanent, relatively stable and independently existing. " The problem of substance goes back to ancient philosophy and receives three main solutions in modern times.
Dualism
Dualism is a philosophical concept that reduces all the diversity of being to two substances. In the philosophy of modern times, dualism is presented in the teachings of R. Descartes. R. Descartes defined substance as “a thing that causes itself”. He identified two substances: spirit and matter. A parallel change in material and spiritual substance is corrected by God.
Attribute (an inalienable, essential property) of the spiritual substance is thinking, and the material is extension.
Modus (properties inherent only in certain, certain states) of the spiritual substance are imagination, feeling, desire. The modes of material substance are multiple, including: figure, movement, position, etc.
Monism
This philosophical concept at the basis of being sees one substance. In the philosophy of modern times, the monistic concept is represented by the pantheistic philosophy of the Dutch philosopher B. Spinoza (1632-1677).
According to B. Spinoza, there is only one substance - it is God or nature. It has two attributes: thinking and stretching. The modes of substance are singular things. Thus, finite things are states of God, and God is the inner cause of all things. The human soul is the idea of the body, that is, the soul is not a substance, but only a mode of thinking.
Pluralism
In the philosophy of modern times, there is a third solution to the problem of substance, which can be conditionally called pluralism... This is a concept that allows infinitely many substances. The author of this concept himself is the famous German mathematician and philosopher G.V. Leibniz (1646-1716) - called his teaching "monadology".
According to G.V. Leibniz, there is an infinite number of substances or monads (translated: "one", "unit"), they are indivisible and ideal. An attribute of each monad is activity, that is, representation, perception, striving. Substances are closed on themselves: each substance is a separate universe, in each monad - the whole world. Only not all monads are able to realize this.
The whole world is an aggregate of monads: not only man has a soul, but plants and even minerals have a soul, but only they have unconscious ideas, not conscious ones, as in humans. Leibniz builds a hierarchy of monads: minerals - plants - animals - man - God. God is the highest monad, that is, the highest level of intelligence and consciousness. Between the steps of this hierarchy - smooth transitions, continuity.
Monads are in harmony predetermined by God. The world is perfect. The degree of freedom of each monad is determined by the degree of its rationality, consciousness.
SUBSTANCE (Latin siibstantia - essence) - matter in the aspect of the internal unity of all forms of its self-development, the whole variety of natural and historical phenomena, including man and his consciousness, and therefore the fundamental category of scientific knowledge, theoretical reflection of the concrete (Abstract and specific). In the history of philosophy, initially, substance is understood as the substance of which all things are composed. In the future, in search of the foundation of all that exists, the substance begins to be considered as a special designation of God (scholasticism), which leads to a duaism of the soul and body.
The latter is a peculiar expression of the incompatibility of theological and scientific thinking. In modern times, the most acute problem of substance was posed by Descartes. The overcoming of dualism on the paths of materialistic philosophy was carried out by Spinoza, who. considering extension and thinking as attributes of a single bodily substance, he considered it as the cause of itself. However, Spinoza did not succeed in substantiating the internal activity, the “self-activity” of the substance. This problem was solved (albeit inconsistently) in it. classical philosophy. Already Kant understands substance as "that constant, only in relation to which all temporary phenomena can be determined."
However, the substance is interpreted by him subjectively, as an a priori form of thinking synthesizing experimental data. Hegel defines substance as the integrity of the inessential, changing. transient sides of things, in which it “reveals itself as their absolute negativity, that is, as absolute power and at the same time as the Wealth of all content”, “an essential step in the development of an idea” (human cognition), “the basis - to any further genuine development. " Associated with this is the understanding of the substance at the same time as a subject, that is, as an active self-generating and self-developing principle.
At the same time, Hegel views substance ideally, only as a moment in the development of an absolute idea. Marxist philosophy critically processes these ideas from the point of view of materialism. a substance is understood here as matter and at the same time as a “subject” of all its changes, that is, an active cause of all its own formations, and therefore it does not need an external activity of a special, different from it “subject” (God, spirit . ideas, "I", consciousness, existence, etc.).
In the concept of substance, matter is reflected not in the aspect of its opposition to consciousness, but from the side of the internal unity of all forms of its movement, all differences and opposites, including the opposition of being and consciousness. The anti-substantialist position in philosophy is defended by neopositivism, which declares substance to be an imaginary and therefore harmful category for science. The rejection of the category of substance, the loss of the "substantial" point of view leads the theory to the path of decay, incoherent eclecticism, formal unification of unconnected views and positions, represents, in the words of K. Marx, "the might of science."
Monism (from the Greek "monos" - one) in the basis of all reality seeks and sees one beginning. Monism can be materialistic, when it sees matter as a single basis (primary cause), or idealistic, when spirit (idea, feelings) proclaims such a single basis. Materialistic monism is the philosophy of Van Chun, Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius Cara, the French materialists of the 18th century, Feuerbach; Marxism, positivism. Idealistic monism is most consistently expressed in the philosophy of Plato, Hume, Hegel, Vladimir Solovyov, modern neo-Thomism, and theism.
There is both materialistic and idealistic monism. The most consistent direction of idealistic monism is Hegel's philosophy. Monism is the doctrine of total unity. Naive monism - the first substance is water (Thales). Recognition of one substance, for example: monism of divine substance (pantheism); monism of consciousness (psychologism, phenomenalism); monism of matter (materialism).
Dualism (from Lat. "Duo" - two) is a worldview that sees in the world the manifestation of two opposite principles (factors), the struggle between which creates everything that is in reality. In this inextricable duality there can be different principles: God and the World; Spirit and Matter; Good and evil; White and black; God and Devil; Light and darkness; Yin and Yang; Male and Female and so on. Dualism is inherent in many philosophers and philosophical schools. He occupies an important place in the philosophy of Descartes, Spinoza, Kierkegaard, modern existentialists. It can be found in Plato, Hegel, in Marxism (Labor and Capital) and many other philosophers.
Dualism serves as the philosophical basis for the theory of psychophysical parallelism. Descartes' doctrine of two substances independent from each other - extended and thinking. Descartes divided the world into two kinds of substances - spiritual and material. The material is infinitely divisible, and the spiritual is indivisible. Substance has attributes - thinking and extension, others are derived from them. Thus, impression, imagination, desire are modes of thinking, and figure, position are modes of extension. Spiritual substance has in itself ideas that are originally inherent in it, and not acquired in experience.
Pluralism (from the Latin "pluralis" - plural, many) - recognizes the existence of many interacting factors and principles in the world. The very word "pluralism" is used to describe different areas of spiritual life. Pluralism refers to the right to exist simultaneously for many variants of political views and parties in the same society; the legitimacy of the existence of different and even contradictory worldviews, worldview approaches, and the like.
The point of view of pluralism was at the heart of the methodology of G. Leibniz. Rejecting the idea of space and time as independent principles of being, existing along with matter and independently of it, he considered space as order mutual arrangement a multitude of individual bodies existing outside each other, and time is an order of phenomena or states alternating with each other.