German classical philosophy is an influential current of modern philosophical thought. It sums up its development in this segment of Western European history. This trend includes the philosophical teachings of I. Kant, I. Fichte, G. Hegel, F. Schelling, L. Feuerbach. They posed in a new way many philosophical and worldview problems that neither rationalism, nor empiricism, nor enlightenment were able to solve. These thinkers are brought together by common ideological and theoretical roots, continuity in the formulation and resolution of problems. By "classical" is meant the highest level of its representatives and the significance of the problems solved by this philosophy.

The formation of the classical form of philosophy in one of the textbooks is considered starting from Descartes, and this has its own logic. The authors of the textbook distinguish the following directions in the classical philosophical tradition

Kant's work is divided into two periods: pre-critical (from 1746 to 1770s) and critical (from 1770s to his death). In the pre-critical period, Kant dealt mainly with cosmological problems, i.e. questions of the origin and development of the universe. In his work “The General Natural History and Theory of the Sky”, Kant substantiates the idea of ​​the self-formation of the Universe from the “original nebula”. Kant gave an explanation for the emergence of the solar system, based on Newton's laws. According to Kant, the Cosmos (nature) is not an immutable, ahistorical formation, but is in constant motion, development. Kant's cosmological concept was further developed Laplace and went down in history under the name of the "Kant-Laplace hypothesis".

The second, most important, period Kant's activity is associated with the transition from ontological, cosmological issues to issues of epistemological and ethical order. This period is called "critical", because. it is associated with the release of two of Kant's most important works - the Critique of Pure Reason, in which he criticized the cognitive capabilities of man and the Critique of Practical Reason, which deals with the nature of human morality. In these works, Kant formulated his main questions: “What can I know?”, “What should I do?” and “What can I hope for?” The answers to these questions reveal the essence of his philosophical system.

In "Critique of Pure Reason" Kant defines metaphysics as the science of the absolute, but within the boundaries of human reason. Knowledge according to Kant is based on experience and sensory perception. Kant questioned the truth of all human knowledge about the world, believing that a person is trying to penetrate the essence of things, cognizes it with distortions that come from his senses. He believed that the boundaries of human cognitive abilities should first be explored. Kant argued that all our knowledge about objects is not knowledge about their essence (to designate which the philosopher introduced the concept of “thing in itself”), but only knowledge of the phenomena of things, i.e. about how things appear, reveal themselves to us. The “thing in itself”, according to the philosopher, turns out to be elusive and unknowable. In the historical and philosophical literature, Kant's epistemological position is often called agnosticism.

Kant's theory of knowledge is based on the recognition of the existence of pre-experienced knowledge or a priori knowledge, which is innate. The first pre-experimental forms of consciousness are space and time. Everything that a person knows, he knows in the forms of space and time, but they are not inherent in the "things in themselves" themselves. From the senses, the process of cognition passes to reason, and from it to reason. Reason that goes beyond its boundaries, i.e. the limits of experience are already mind. The role of reason, according to Kant, is higher than other human cognitive abilities. The capacity for supersensory cognition, he called transcendental apperception. This meant that already at birth a person was given the ability to orient himself in space and time. And even animals have innate instincts (for example, little ducklings go to the water and begin to swim without any training). Thanks to transcendental apperception in human consciousness, a gradual accumulation of knowledge is possible, a transition from innate ideas to ideas of rational knowledge.

For Kant, human behavior must be based on three maxima:

1. Act according to the rules that can become a universal law.

2. In actions, proceed from the fact that a person is the highest value.

3. All actions must be done for the benefit of society.

The ethical teaching of Kant is of great theoretical and practical importance; it orients a person and society to the values ​​of moral norms and the inadmissibility of neglecting them for the sake of selfish interests.

Thus, all morality in society should be based on the observance of a sense of duty: a person should, in relation to other people, show himself as a reasonable, responsible and strictly observing moral rules being.

I. Kant also suggested, relying on the categorical imperative, to change the lives of people in society, to create a new "ethical social order".

He believed that people live in two dimensions:

1) among the regulation and establishment, in the state;

2) in the process of their life activity in society, in the world of morality.

I. Kant did not consider the world officially regulated by the state and the church to be a truly human world, since such a world, in his opinion, is based on superstitions, deceptions and survivals of animal desires in man.

Only a society in which the behavior of people will be regulated by the voluntary fulfillment of moral laws, and above all the categorical imperative, can give true freedom to a person. Kant, having formulated the moral law - the moral imperative “act so that your behavior can become a universal rule”, put forward the idea of ​​“eternal peace” based on economic unprofitability and the legal prohibition of war.

Kant's ideas were continued and developed by the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte(1762-1814). His concept was called "Science". He believed that philosophy is a fundamental science that helps to develop a unified method of cognition. The main thing in philosophical knowledge is intellectual intuition. In the process of cognition, the subject interacts with the object, his consciousness acts as an active and creative principle.

The process of cognition, according to Fichte, goes through three stages:

1) "I" asserts itself, creates itself;

2) "I" opposes itself to "Not-I", or an object;

1) “I” and “Not-I”, limiting each other, form a synthesis.

To the natural question: "Does an object exist without a subject or not?" - Fichte's philosophy answers that without a subject there is no object. That is, only the active "I", or the will of the subject, through interaction with the object, is able to change the world and assert itself in it.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

1) the law of transition of quantitative changes into qualitative ones;

2) the law of unity and struggle of opposites;

3) the law of negation of negation.

In the field of socio-philosophical concepts, Hegel expressed a number of valuable ideas: about the meaning of history, about understanding historical patterns, about the role of the individual in history. Hegel had the greatest influence on the fields of philosophy of the state and the philosophy of history. The general world history is considered by him as a process of self-consciousness of the world spirit and at the same time as "progress in the consciousness of freedom." Freedom consists in the fact that a person recognizes his identity with the absolute and identifies himself with the formation of an objective spirit (state and law).

The followers of Hegel, who adopted his dialectical method, began to be called the Young Hegelians. They wanted to change the state system, they wanted state reforms. Supporters of the preservation of old forms of life - no - old Hegelians - rationality justified the reality of the feudal estate state. In the 30s and 40s of the 19th century in Germany, as in other European countries, there was a theoretical struggle between these two branches of post-Hegelian philosophy. It reflected both the strength of the impact of Hegelian ideas on society, and the public need for the implementation of progressive ideals.

To the school of the Young Hegelians in the initial period of his philosophical activity belonged Ludwig Feuerbach(1803-1872).

L. Feuerbach among German philosophers is a representative of the materialistic direction. Criticizing idealism, he put forward a holistic and consistent materialistic picture of the world. He considers matter as the natural objective principle of the world, deeply analyzes such properties of matter as motion, space and time. He developed a theory of knowledge, in which he acts as a sensualist, highly appreciating the role of feelings in cognition. He believed that a person cognizes the world through his sensations, which he considered as a manifestation of nature. Feuerbach substantiated with a high assessment of the role of feelings in cognition. Feuerbach substantiated the objective value of man in the system of the world, criticizing religious ideas about man as a creation of God; developed the basic principles of humanism, based on the idea that man is a perfect part of nature.

Feuerbach is the ancestor anthropological materialism, but at the same time he remained an idealist in understanding society. He argued that historical eras are distinguished by changes in religious consciousness. Christianity proclaims love as the main creative spiritual force that changes morality, the relationship of man to man. According to Feuerbach, love for God also expresses love for man, since God is the alienated essence of man. Through religion, a person expresses his feeling of love, striving for immortality. In this spiritual aspiration, both the generic essence of a person and his ideal essence coming from the generic essence are expressed. The moral rebirth of people for Feuerbach becomes the driver of social development. His philosophy completed the classical stage of German philosophy and laid the foundations of German materialism.

Questions for self-examination

(first level of material reproduction)

1. Name the historical framework and main features of German classical philosophy.

2. What are the features of Kant's philosophy of the pre-critical and critical periods?

3. What is the essence of the basic laws of dialectics formulated by Hegel?

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF GERMAN CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHY

German classical philosophy is considered a separate topic in the philosophy course, because four giants appeared in a short period of time. Philosophers are theorists who have made theoretical discoveries of such a global scale that are studied and confirmed in modern science. The founders of German classical philosophy: I. Kant was born (1724-1804). All his life he lived in the city of Koenigsberg (Kaliningrad). Fichte (1762-1814), F. Schelling (1775-1854), G. Hegel (1770-1831). Philosophers were bound by bonds of friendship and teaching. Fichte considered himself a student of Kant, Schelling was a student of Fichte. In the process of life, they parted, friendship was interrupted, many of them blamed each other. Germany had a favorable environment for the development of science and research. By this time, a network of universities had formed in Germany. Philosophers were teachers. Universities were supported by the state in material terms. Scientific information was available to a wide range of people. 19th century considered the development of European philosophical thought. German philosophers turned philosophy into a professional occupation. They made an attempt to turn it into the highest form of theoretical knowledge. Philosophizing is inseparable from science. Theory is higher, more essential than any empirical contemplative being. A characteristic feature of German philosophy was the absolutization of conceptual knowledge on the basis of a special form of work with the concept. The main subject of science - the concept of German classical philosophy - appears in the ultimate form of rationalism laid down by the traditions of Plato and Aristotle. At the heart of the tradition are the thoughts: “not a person, but the world mind. The laws of reason underlie the world” (not proven not true). The proof of truth was carried to the extreme of German classical philosophy. All German classical philosophy is characterized by a special technique of philosophizing (working with a concept). The thinking force is able to foresee, working only with the concept. Hence the conclusion follows: the intellect has purely theoretical possibilities, which is capable of even thought experiments. German classical philosophy developed the dialectical method: the world is considered as a whole, not in parts. The world is considered in motion, development. The connection between the lower and the higher has been proved. The world develops from the lowest to the highest, changes occur quantitatively and pass into a new quality. Development has an internal purpose. Hegel made a special discovery in dialectics. He suggested that there is a threefold method of thinking. For example, the thesis-antithesis is a synthesis; being - non-being - becoming. Hegel thinks speculatively, i.e. speculatively, referring to the concept, and not to experience through the unity and opposition of these concepts. Hegel starts from the simple, through the movement towards synthesis, from the abstract to the concrete, from the one-sided to the many-sided. Until the whole “fabric” of reality is obtained. His thinking corresponds to the law of logic and is subject to the unity of the logical and the historical. German classical philosophy stands on the border with modern philosophy. She was able to synthesize the idea of ​​romanticism and enlightenment. The beginning of the Enlightenment in German philosophy is closely connected with the famous Christian Wolff (1679-1754), who systematized and popularized the teachings of G. Leibniz. Many philosophers not only in Germany, but also in Russia, for example, M.V. Lomonosov, studied with H. Wolf, who for the first time in Germany developed a system that covered the main areas of philosophical culture.

Philosophy developed in the intellectual atmosphere of progressive scientific and artistic thought. A significant role was played by the achievements of natural science and the social sciences. Physics and chemistry began to develop, and the study of organic nature advanced. Discoveries in the field of mathematics, which made it possible to understand the processes in their exact quantitative expression, the teachings of J.B. Lamarck, in fact the predecessor of Charles Darwin, about the conditionality of the development of the organism by the environment, astronomical, sharpness and inevitability brought to the fore the idea of ​​development as a theory and method of cognition of reality.

PHILOSOPHY OF KANT

One of the greatest minds of mankind, the founder of German classical philosophy is Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). There are two periods in Kant's philosophy. The first one is “subcritical”. At that time, he stood on the positions of natural-scientific materialism and put forward a hypothesis of the origin and development of the solar system from the original nebula on the basis of the internal mechanical laws of motion of matter. Later, this hypothesis was processed by the mathematician Laplace and received the name of the Kant-Laplace hypothesis.

In the second, “critical” period, i.e. starting from the 80s of the 18th century, Kant creates three “Critiques”: “critique of pure reason”, “critique of practical reason”, “critique of the faculty of judgment”. Kant calls his philosophy “transcendental”, i.e. beyond the realm of the empirical, beyond the realm of experience. He admits the existence of an objective reaction that is on the other side of phenomena (phenomenon). This reality is transcendent, it is a “thing in itself”, elusive (noumenon).

Kant's theory of knowledge is based on the recognition of the activity of human consciousness. In the depths of our consciousness, before experience and independently of it, there are basic categories, forms of understanding (for example, time and space). He called them a priori. The truth is not in reality, but in consciousness itself. It is precisely from itself that it creates its own forms, the method of cognition, and its object of cognition, i.e. creates the world of phenomena, nature, acts as the creator of all things. Essence is contained in “things in themselves”, it is inaccessible and objective, and phenomena are created by a priori consciousness, they are accessible, subjective.

Kant proves the impotence of the human mind by the doctrine of antinomies, i.e. opposite statements, equally true and false. To such he attributed the expressions: “the world is finite and infinite”, “freedom and necessity reign in the world”.

In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant shows how we should act in life. Here he makes arguments in favor of belief in God, but does not try to prove that God really exists.

Kant is the author of the categorical imperative in ethics: “act according to such a rule that you would like to have as a universal law, and in such a way that you always treat humanity and every person as an end and never treat him only as a means” . The categorical imperative, in his opinion, should be applied in relations between nations.

The philosophy of I. Kant was influenced by the French initiation of J. J. Rousseau. He was under the influence until the “critical” period. Until 1780, Kant was brought up on Newton's mechanics. In 1755, under the influence, the work “The General Natural History and Theory of the Sky” was written. Essence: the search for great links that connect the system into the world reality. Kant put forward the theory of transcendental idealism. The essence of the theory lies in the search for the cognitive power of man. Kant sets himself the task of cognizing the ability of the mind to cognize the surrounding world. Scientists believe that Kant made a theoretical journey into the human mind. Three works were devoted to the ability of the human mind: “critique of pure reason”, “critique of practical reason”, “critique of the faculty of judgment”. In these works, he gives an analysis of the intellect, considers the sphere of human emotions and human will. Considers the example of the ability of the human mind to evaluate a work of art. All three works have an anthropological focus. The main question that runs through his theoretical judgments is what is a person? What is its essence? Answer: man is a free being and realizes himself in moral activity. The next question relates to epistemology. What can I know? what are the abilities of the human mind to know the world around? But can the human mind, the surrounding world, fully know? The powers of the mind are vast, but there are limits to knowledge. Man cannot know whether God exists or not, only faith. The surrounding reality is cognized by the method of reflection of consciousness, therefore the human consciousness cannot fully cognize the surrounding world. Kant distinguished between the phenomena of things perceived by man and things as they exist in themselves. We cognize the world not as it really is, but only as it appears to us. Thus, a new theory of “thing in itself” was proposed.

Kant poses the following question: if the thing-in-itself cannot be known, can the inner world of man be known? If so, how does the learning process proceed? Answer: reason is the ability to think on the basis of sensitive impressions, reason is the ability to reason about what can be given in experience. For example, your own soul. Kant comes to the conclusion that one cannot rely on reason in everything. What cannot be known by reason can be relied upon by faith. Experience is nothing but a stream of sense-data which fit into a priori forms; are in space and time. The a priori forms of the understanding are the concepts that we fit into our experience. For Kant, consciousness appears in the form of a hierarchical ladder.

Practical reason considers moral problems, a person is understood as a dual being: a person as a bodily being and as a phenomenon.

PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL

The most prominent representative of German idealist philosophy was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). The cornerstone of Hegelian idealism is the absolute idea, which Hegel considered as the subject of philosophy. From the point of view of the absolute idea, he considers all other sciences, considering his teaching to be the ultimate truth. Hegel's philosophical system consists of three main parts: logic (where the development of the absolute idea is seen as a movement from a simple thought to a concept), philosophy of nature (the development of the absolute idea in its "otherness"), philosophy of the spirit (where the development of the absolute idea goes from the world spirit to abstract). This whole system and each part of it develops according to a three-term division (triad) - thesis, antithesis, synthesis. So, in logic, the absolute idea acts as a synthesis, in the philosophy of nature it passes into the opposite, nature and becomes an antithesis, in the philosophy of the spirit it returns to its previous state, but already in the form of human consciousness, through which it cognizes itself. The same triadic development is observed in parts of the Hegelian system:

In logic: the doctrine of being (thesis), the doctrine of essence (antithesis), the doctrine of the concept (synthesis);

· in the philosophy of nature: mechanics, physics and chemistry, the doctrine of organic nature;

· in the philosophy of spirit: subjective spirit (anthropology, phenomenology and psychology), objective spirit (law, morality, morality), absolute spirit (aesthetics, philosophy of religion, history of philosophy).

Hegel's absolute idea is not an empty abstraction; it is the process of human thinking, taken in its objective laws, torn off from man and nature and presupposed by them. In this detachment lie the roots of Hegel's idealism.

In his logic, Hegel develops dialectics most fully. The rational grain of his dialectics is the idea of ​​development and its three main principles (law): the transition of quantity into quality and vice versa, contradiction as a source of development and negation of negation. Hegel's philosophy suffered from internal contradictions, in which "a comprehensive, once for all completed system of knowledge of nature and history contradicts the basic laws of dialectical thinking" (Lenin). He believes that the mind is a substance, a universal principle. There is a concept as a world mind. If Kant breaks the connection between object and subject, Hegel does not. Object and subject are self-directed. They are a single whole, outside of some kind of environment. The idea of ​​unity is relative, a characteristic feature of Hegel's philosophy is the fusion of anthology and epistemology. As the world develops, the cognitive process also develops. For Hegel, the development of the surrounding world is a way and a method. He considers general development in three areas:

1) everything develops logically and abstractly;

2) the development of the otherness of the idea (nature);

3)Specific spirit

1) the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative changes;

2) negation of negation;

3) the law of unity and struggle of opposites.

The materialist Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872), an outstanding classic of German philosophy, acted as a critic of Hegel's idealistic philosophy. He came out in defense of materialism, which, under the influence of Hegelian and French philosophy, was forgotten for a long time.

Like Hegel, he builds his philosophy from a single principle. Such a principle, the only and highest subject of philosophy, he declares a person, and philosophy itself - anthropology, i.e. doctrine of man. Feuerbach has an inseparable unity in them. In this unity, the soul depends on the body, and the body is primary in relation to the soul.

Feuerbach considered man only as a biological and physiological being, not seeing his social essence. This led the German philosopher to idealism in understanding society and social phenomena. He seeks to build ideas about society and relations between people, based on the properties of an individual, whose essence he considers as a natural phenomenon. Communication between people is formed on the basis of the mutual use of one person by another, which is considered by Feuerbach as a natural (natural) relationship.

He positively solved the question of the cognizability of the world. But the misunderstanding of the social essence of man determined the contemplative nature of his theory of knowledge, the role of practice was excluded from it.

Feuerbach criticizes idealism and religion, which, in his opinion, are ideologically related. In The Essence of Christianity, he showed that religion has an earthly basis. God is his own essence abstracted from man and placed above him.

Plan:
1. General characteristics of German philosophy of the XIX century.
2. Philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
3. Philosophy of Hegel.
4. Philosophy of subjective idealism.
5. Schelling's philosophy.
6. Philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach
7. Philosophy of vulgar materialists.

The materialistic period of the 17th-18th centuries, for all its progressive historical role, was distinguished by the fact that it considered the world metaphysically. However, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the most progressive representatives of natural science and philosophy had already begun to overcome the metaphysical way of thinking. The ideas of the development of nature and society found increasing popularity. Representatives of classical German philosophy J. Kant, J. G. Fichte (1762-1814), F. W. Schelling (1775-1854), G. F. Hegel (1770) played a significant role in the criticism of metaphysical views and in the theoretical preparation of the dialectical method. -1831).
Compared with Holland, England and France, where bourgeois revolutions had already taken place, Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was a country where feudal relations still existed. This was also reflected in the development of philosophical thought in Germany. It was dominated by idealistic views.

General characteristics of German philosophy of the XIX century

1. German philosophy of the XIX century. - a unique phenomenon of world philosophy.
In German philosophy of the XIX century. the following main areas can be distinguished:
- German classical philosophy of the first half of the 19th century;
- materialism of the middle and second half of the 19th century;
- irrationalism of the second half and the end of the 19th century, the so-called "philosophy of life".
2. German classical philosophy was especially widespread at the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th centuries. It was based on the work of five of the most prominent German philosophers of that time:
- Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804);
- Johann Fichte (1762 - 1814);
- Friedrich Schelling (1775 - 1854);
- Georg Hegel (1770 - 1831);
- Ludwig Feuerbach (1804 - 1872).
3. Three leading philosophical trends were represented in German classical philosophy:
- objective idealism of Kant and Hegel;
- Fichte's subjective idealism;
- Feuerbach's materialism.

Philosophy of Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant is considered the founder of German classical idealism.
In Kant's philosophical system there is a compromise between materialism and idealism. The materialistic tendencies in Kant's philosophy are manifested in the fact that he recognizes the existence of an objective reality, things outside of us. Kant teaches that there are "things in themselves" that do not depend on the knowing subject.
All the work of I. Kant can be divided into two large periods:
1. Subcritical (until the beginning of the 70s of the 18th century). The philosophical interest of I. Kant was directed to the problems of natural science and nature.
2. Critical (early 70s of the 18th century and until 1804). This period got its name in connection with the name of three fundamental philosophical works of Kant published at that time:
- "Critique of Pure Reason";
- "Critique of practical reason";
- "Criticism of the faculty of judgment."
2. The most important problems of Kant's philosophical studies of the pre-critical period were the problems of being, nature, and natural science.
Kant's philosophical conclusions were revolutionary for his era:
- The solar system arose from a large initial cloud of particles of matter rarefied in space as a result of attraction, repulsion and collision of its constituent particles;
- nature has its own history in time (beginning and end), and not eternal and unchanging;
- nature is in constant change and development;
- movement and rest are relative;
- all life on earth, including humans, is the result of natural biological evolution.
3. At the heart of Kant's philosophical studies of the critical period (the beginning of the 70s of the 18th century and up to 1804) lies the problem of cognition.
In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant defends the idea of ​​agnosticism, i.e. impossibility of understanding the surrounding reality.
Kant hypothesized that:
- the cause of difficulties in cognition is not the surrounding reality, i.e. object, but the subject of cognitive activity, i.e. man, or rather, his mind.
- the cognitive capabilities (abilities) of the human mind are limited, i.e. the mind cannot do everything;
- as soon as the human mind with its arsenal of cognitive means tries to go beyond its own possibilities of cognition, it encounters insoluble contradictions;
- data insoluble contradictions that were discovered by Kant - four. Kant called antinomies:
1) limited space;
2) simple and complex;
3) freedom and causality;
4) the presence of God.
The presence of antinomies, according to Kant, serves as proof of the existence of the limits of the cognitive abilities of the mind.
4. "Thing in itself" is one of the central concepts of Kant's entire philosophy. "Thing in itself" is the inner essence of a thing, which will never be known by the mind.
Kant believed that in cognition, the mind encounters two impenetrable boundaries:
- own (internal for the mind) boundaries, beyond which insoluble contradictions arise, i.e. antinomies;
- external boundaries - the inner essence of things in themselves.
According to Kant, human consciousness itself has its own structure, which includes:
- forms of sensibility: space and time;
- forms of reason category - extremely general concepts, with the help of which further understanding and systematization of initial sensations takes place;
- the forms of the mind are the final higher ideas, for example: the idea of ​​God; the idea of ​​the soul; the idea of ​​the essence of the world, etc.
Philosophy, according to Kant, is the science of higher ideas.
5. Along with "pure reason" consciousness, which carries out mental activity and cognition, Kant singles out "practical reason", by which he understands morality.
I. Kant formulated a moral law, which has a higher and unconditional character, and called it a categorical imperative:
- a person must act in such a way that his actions are a model for everyone;
- a person should treat another person only as an end, and not as a means.
6. Socio-political views of I. Kant:
- man is endowed with an inherently evil nature;
- salvation of a person in moral education and strict adherence to the moral law;
- was a supporter of the spread of democracy and the rule of law;
- condemned wars as the most serious delusion and crime of mankind.
7. The historical significance of Kant's philosophy is that it was:
- a scientifically based explanation of the origin of the solar system is given;
- the idea was put forward about the presence of limits of the cognitive ability of the human mind (antinomies, "things in themselves");
- the categorical imperative - the moral law is formulated;
- put forward the idea of ​​democracy and legal order, both in each individual society and in international relations;
- wars are condemned, "eternal peace" is predicted in the future, based on the economic unprofitability of wars and their legal prohibition.

Philosophy of Hegel

Dialectics in its idealist form reached its highest level of development in the philosophy of Hegel, who was the great representative of objective idealism and of all German classical philosophy.
1. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 - 1831), one of the most authoritative philosophers of his time, a prominent representative of German classical idealism.
Hegel's main contribution to philosophy lies in the fact that he put forward and developed in detail:
- the theory of objective idealism. The main concept of objective idealism is the absolute idea - the World Spirit;
- dialectics as a general philosophical method.
Hegel's most important philosophical works include:
- "Phenomenology of Spirit";
- "Science of logic";
- Philosophy of Law.
2. The main idea of ​​Hegel's ontology is the identification of being and thinking. As a result of this identification, Hegel derives a special philosophical concept - the absolute idea.
The absolute idea is:
- the only true reality that exists;
- the root cause of the entire surrounding world, its objects and phenomena;
- World spirit, possessing self-awareness and the ability to create.
3. The next key ontological concept of Hegel's philosophy is alienation.
The absolute spirit, about which nothing definite can be said, alienates itself in the form:
- the surrounding world;
- nature;
- a person;
- after alienation through human thinking and activity, the course of history returns to itself again, that is, the cycle of the Absolute Spirit takes place.
Alienation includes:
- the creation of matter from the air;
- complex relationship between the object (the world) and the subject (person). Through human activity, the World Spirit objectifies itself;
- distortion, misunderstanding by a person of the surrounding world.
4. Man plays a special role in the ontology (being) of Hegel. He is the bearer of the absolute idea. The consciousness of each person is a particle of the World spirit.
Through man the World Spirit:
- manifests itself in the form of words, speech, language, gestures;
- cognizes himself through the cognitive activity of a person;
- creates - in the form of the results of material and spiritual culture created by man.
5. Hegel's historical service to philosophy lies in the fact that he was the first to clearly formulate the concept of dialectics.
Dialectics, according to Hegel, is the fundamental law of the development and existence of the World Spirit and the surrounding world created by it.
The meaning of dialectics is that:
- The world spirit, man, objects and phenomena of the surrounding world, processes contain opposite principles (for example, day and night, heat and cold);
- the sides of a single being and the World Spirit are in conflict with each other, but, at the same time, they are one in essence and interact;
- unity and struggle of opposites - the basis of universal existence and development.
According to Hegel, contradiction is not evil, but good. It is contradictions that are the driving force of progress. Without contradictions, their unity and struggle, development is impossible.
6. Socio-political views of Hegel:
- the state is a form of God's existence in the world;
- law - cash existence (embodiment) of freedom;
- common interests are higher than private ones, and an individual, his interests can be sacrificed for the common good;
- wealth and poverty are natural and inevitable, this is a reality given from above, which must be put up with;
- contradictions, conflicts in society are not evil, but good, the engine of progress;
- contradictions and conflicts between states, wars - the engine of progress on a world-historical scale;
- "eternal peace" will lead to decay and moral decay; regular wars, on the contrary, purify the spirit of the nation.
One of the most important philosophical conclusions of Hegel about being and consciousness is that "Everything that is reasonable is real, and everything that is real is reasonable."

Philosophy of subjective idealism

An equally important role in German classical philosophy was played by Berkeley, Hume, Fichte, who were prominent representatives of subjective idealism.
1. Unlike objective idealists who believed that the idea exists by itself, regardless of human consciousness, the supporters of subjective idealism were convinced that:
- the only reality is the idea;
- the idea exists only in the human mind, that is, the human mind is an essential reality, outside of which nothing exists.
2. George Berkeley (1685 - 1753), English philosopher of modern times, subjective idealist. The following main ideas of his philosophy can be distinguished:
- the very concept of matter is false;
- there are separate things, separate sensations, but there is no single matter as such;
- materialism - a dead end trend in philosophy, materialists are not able to prove the primacy of individual things (matter) in relation to the idea;
- the primacy of the idea is easily provable - before the manufacture of any thing, there is its ideal, the idea in the mind of a person, as well as the idea of ​​the surrounding world in the mind of God the Creator;
- the only obvious reality is human consciousness;
- with the death of a person and his consciousness, everything disappears;
- the highest proof of the primacy of the idea is the existence of God; God eternally exists and cannot disappear, while his creation, the world around him is fickle, fragile and entirely dependent on him.
3. David Hume (1711 - 1776), English philosopher, subjective idealist - held the following views:
- the problem of the relationship between being and spirit is unsolvable;
- the human mind is prone to ideas;
- man himself is a concentrated idea;
- without its ideal essence. For example, without education, experience, a system of values, a person could not fully perceive the world at all.
4. Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 - 1814), representative of German classical philosophy, professor.
The key moment of Fichte's philosophy was the promotion of the "I-concept". The reason for its nomination is the contradictions in the philosophy of Kant, whose student was Fichte.
Fichte goes further than his teacher Kant:
- rejects the very idea of ​​"things in themselves" of an external reality unknowable by the mind;
- the only reality proclaims the internal, subjective, human “I”, in which the whole world is;
- believes that the life of the surrounding world occurs only within the subjective "I";
- outside of thinking, outside of the "I" there is no independent surrounding reality;
- "I" is not just a human consciousness, it is the receptacle of the surrounding world, the highest substance.
Another issue of Fichte's philosophy is the problem of freedom. According to Fichte, freedom is the voluntary submission to universal necessity. All human history is a process of spreading freedom. The basis of freedom is the granting of private property to all.
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ZZZ Schelling's philosophy
1. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775 - 1854), a representative of objective idealism and one of the brightest representatives of German classical philosophy. The main goal of Schelling's philosophy is to understand and explain the "absolute", that is, the origin of being and thinking. In its development, Schelling's philosophy went through three main stages:
- natural philosophy;
- practical philosophy;
- irrationalism.
In his natural philosophy, Schelling explains nature from the standpoint of objective idealism. The essence of Schelling's philosophy of nature is as follows:
- nature is the "absolute" root cause and origin of everything;
- nature is the unity of the subjective and the objective, the eternal mind;
- matter and spirit are one and are properties of nature;
- nature is a holistic organism with animation;
- the driving force of nature is its polarity - the presence of internal opposites and their interaction (for example, the poles of a magnet).
Schelling's practical philosophy addresses issues of a socio-political nature:
- the main problem of mankind is the problem of freedom;
- the desire for freedom is inherent in the very nature of man;
- with the final realization of the idea of ​​freedom, people create a "second nature", i.e. legal system;
- in the future, the legal system should spread from state to state, and humanity should eventually come to a worldwide legal system and a world federation of legal states.
Another major problem of Schelling's practical philosophy is the problem of alienation. Alienation is the result of human activity, opposite to the original goals, when the idea of ​​freedom comes into contact with reality. The philosopher comes to the following conclusions:
- the course of history is random, arbitrariness reigns in history;
- both random events of history and purposeful activity are subject to rigid necessity, to which a person is powerless to oppose anything;
- theory (human intentions) and history (reality) are often opposite and have nothing in common;
- There are often cases in history when the struggle for freedom and justice leads to even greater enslavement and injustice.
At the end of his life, Schelling came to irrationalism - the denial of any logic in history and the perception of the surrounding reality as inexplicable chaos.

Philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach

1. The philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach (1804 - 1872) is considered the final stage of German classical philosophy, of which Kant, Hegel, Schelling and Fichte were prominent representatives, and the beginning of the materialistic era in German and world philosophy.
Before becoming a materialist, Feuerbach was an adherent of the Hegelian school of philosophy. However, he soon discovered its limitations. He revived the Franco-British materialistic worldview.
The key direction of Feuerbach's philosophy is the criticism of German classical idealism and the justification of materialism.
Materialism as a direction of philosophy arose long before Feuerbach:
- Ancient Greece: Democritus and Epicurus;
- England of the New Age: Bacon, Locke;
- France: Enlighteners-materialists
However, these materialistic philosophical schools were an internal national phenomenon of their time and were distinguished by inconsistency. The philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach was the first case of deeply consistent materialism, the main features of which were:
- a complete break with religion;
- an attempt to explain God and religion from a materialistic point of view;
- materialistic explanation of the problems of the surrounding world and man;
- great interest in socio-political issues;
- belief in the cognizability of the surrounding world.
The early period of Feuerbach's philosophy is characterized by criticism of idealistic philosophy, especially Hegel. Yes, Feuerbach:
- rejects the idea of ​​the identity of being and thinking;
- does not recognize the presence of an absolute idea - an independent substance and the primary cause of the material world;
- logically proves the impossibility of transforming an absolute idea into the material world. The surrounding world is tangible, while the absolute idea is only an invention of Hegel;
- does not recognize the unity of philosophy and religion;
- rejects dialectics (Feuerbach's mistake).
Feuerbach put forward the theory of anthropological materialism. The essence of this theory is that:
- the only existing realities are nature and man;
- man is a part of nature;
- Man is a unity of material and spiritual;
- the idea does not exist by itself, but is a product of human consciousness;
- God - a figment of human imagination, as reality does not exist;
- nature (matter) is eternal and infinite, uncreated by anyone and indestructible by anyone;
- everything that surrounds us (objects, phenomena) - various manifestations of matter.
The problem of God occupies a special place in Feuerbach's philosophy.
Feuerbach:
- speaks from an atheistic position;
- There is no God as an independent reality;
- God is a product of human consciousness;
- religion is a fantastic ideology and has nothing to do with reality;
- the spread of religion became possible due to the ignorance of man, his difficult living conditions;
- the roots of religion - in the feeling of powerlessness of man before the outside world;
- God is the ideal image of man, created by man, this is what a man would like to see himself.
L. Feuerbach touched upon the issues of knowledge. Feuerbach was an opponent of I. Kant, who put forward a theory about the limited cognitive abilities of the human mind and the unknowability of the surrounding world. On the contrary, according to Feuerbach:
- the surrounding world is cognizable, and the cognitive possibilities of the mind are unlimited;
- however, the limitlessness of the possibilities of cognition of the mind does not come immediately, but develops with the evolution of man, the growth of scientific and technological progress: “What we do not know, our descendants will know”;
- the basis of knowledge is subjective sensory sensations, which are based on objective reality and which are recognized by the mind.
Thus, Feuerbach's epistemology is based on materialistic principles when combining and equating the empirical and rational approaches.
Feuerbach's socio-political views were conditioned by his anthropological philosophy. The essence of these views is as follows:
- man - a unique biological being, endowed with will, mind, feelings;
- full-blooded realization by a person of his "I" is possible only in interaction with "You" (that is, other people) - a person can live only in society;
- Religion should become the basis of relations between people in society, the core of society;
- this religion should not be based on faith in a fictitious God, but on other principles;
- it is necessary to discard the traditional religion (Christianity, Islam, etc.) and replace it with the religion of people's love for each other and the religion of love within the family;
- The purpose of human life should be the pursuit of happiness.
Feuerbach's philosophy became the boundary between German classical philosophy and German materialism of the 19th century, the forerunner of Marxism.

Table of Contents 2
Classical German Philosophy 3
§ 1. Kant's philosophical system 4
The ethical teaching of Kant 12
§ 2. Fichte's "scientific teaching" 14
§ 5. Schelling's natural philosophy 19
§ 4. System and method of Hegel's philosophy 23
Philosophical system 24
Dialectical Method 38
§ 5. Anthropological materialism of Feuerbach 39
List of used literature: 45

Classical German philosophy
German philosophy of the late 18th - first third of the 19th centuries, represented by the names of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Feuerbach, is deservedly called classical. It marks an important stage in the history of world philosophical thought. It continued the progressive ideas of the philosophy of the New Age - faith in the power of reason, humanism, inalienable rights of the individual. But its main achievement is the development of the dialectical method, the substantiation of the world law of eternal development. This philosophy reflected both the main features of the era of the formation of a new, capitalist system, and the specific historical features inherent in Germany at that time. The classics of German philosophy were the ideologists of their bourgeoisie, which lagged far behind the bourgeoisie of the advanced countries in socio-economic and political development. From the time of the Reformation to the end of the eighteenth century Germany was not a single economic entity, the capitalist market was in the process of becoming. It did not represent a single political entity either: the country was divided into almost 300 independent states, most of which were dwarf.
The economic well-being of the burghers largely depended on the orders of the court and the feudal lords, on supplies for the army. This determined the political flabbiness of the German bourgeoisie. And although her interests did not completely coincide with the interests of the junkers, she dutifully followed the policy of the noble state.
These circumstances could not but find their reflection in the German philosophy of that time, defining its dual, compromise, sometimes contradictory character. If the works of the French enlighteners were banned and burned, and they themselves were subjected to legal persecution, up to imprisonment in the Bastille, then the German idealist philosophers were honored professors of German universities, recognized mentors of youth, and their works were published and distributed without any obstacles. But although they did not oppose the political institutions existing in the German states, their teachings were essentially hostile, incompatible with the feudal order, which had outlived its time. The dialectical method, especially thoroughly and consistently developed by Hegel, could easily be turned against these orders. This is exactly what the most radical students of the Berlin professor did. Therefore, Marx called the philosophy of Kant, the founder of classical German philosophy, the German theory of the French Revolution. With no less reason, this definition can be extended to other representatives of classical German philosophy.
§ 1. Kant's philosophical system
The founder of German classical philosophy, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), came from a family of an artisan. Early manifested abilities helped him to get an education. He deeply studied not only philosophy, logic, theology, but also mathematics and natural science. The whole life of the philosopher, poor in external events, but filled with tireless and intense creativity, passed in Konigsberg. Here he studied, taught, for many years was a professor and at one time - the rector of the university. Here he created all his philosophical and natural science works.
The philosophical development of Kant is usually divided into two periods: the first - until the beginning of the 70s - is called "pre-critical", the second - from the beginning of the 70s - "critical", since it was then that the main works were written that brought world fame to the philosopher: " Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, and Critique of Judgment. The main one is the first work devoted to the theory of knowledge. The second "criticism" expounds the ethical doctrine, and the third - aesthetics and the doctrine of expediency in nature.
In the "pre-critical period" Kant dealt a lot and fruitfully with questions of natural science, promoting the idea of ​​development in nature. Based on the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo and Newton, Kant in the book "General Natural History and Theory of the Sky (1755) puts forward a brilliant hypothesis about the origin of the solar system in a natural way from the original nebula. Further, Kant comes close to the conclusion about the plurality of worlds, about the continuous process of their emergence and The philosopher draws an analogy referring to the boundless fertility of nature, which, instead of the countless number of animals and plants that perish every day, produces no less number of them in other places.In the same way, worlds and systems of worlds perish and are swallowed up by the abyss of eternity, but creation never stops: in others places in the sky, new formations arise and the loss is replenished in abundance. Half a century later, the French scientist Laplace, independently of Kant, gave a more rigorous, mathematical justification for the ideas about the natural origin of our Universe. After that, the "nebular" theory was called the Kantolaplasian hypothesis. Although Kant's book, due to purely random circumstances remained unknown to the public for a long time, Kant's priority in creating the cosmogonic hypothesis is undeniable.
Kant is credited with creating another cosmogonic theory - about the slowing down of the Earth's rotation due to the action of the tides in the ocean. Kant's historical, dialectical approach to natural science dealt a significant blow to the dominant metaphysical worldview at that time. However, one cannot ignore the dual, contradictory position of the philosopher on this issue. On the one hand, he seeks to give a scientific picture of the emergence of the solar system on the basis of the laws of the development of matter. "Give me matter, I will build a world out of it," says Kant, calling Newton's opinion about the need for a divine first push "pathetic." But, on the other hand, he sees the ultimate root cause of the world still in God. The philosopher considers the very fact of the natural and regular development of the Universe from the initial chaos to be the "only possible" basis for proving its existence.
Already in the "pre-critical period" Kant speaks of the limits of knowledge. If it is possible to give a purely natural, mechanical explanation for the emergence of the Universe from chaos, then this cannot be done in relation to even the simplest living being. Here, the philosopher thinks, teleological principles of expediency, based on divine will, dominate.
The motives of agnosticism, the fundamental unknowability of the world around us, became the leading ones in the Critical Period, making up the specifics of what is called Kantianism.
The problems of the theory of knowledge are at the center of the philosophical system of Kant and his numerous followers. In the preface to the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant writes: "I had to limit the field of knowledge in order to make room for faith." Proceeding from this main task for him, the philosopher developed a very complex epistemological construction.
The process of cognition includes three stages, three stages: sensory cognition, rational cognition, rational cognition. All our knowledge begins with experience, with the work of the senses. They are affected by objects of the external world outside the person, or, as Kant calls them, things in themselves. The philosopher does not give an unambiguous definition of this concept. In many places in the Critique of Pure Reason he declares unambiguously that things in themselves exist objectively, i.e. independent of human consciousness, although they remain unknowable. Such an understanding of the thing in itself as the basis of all phenomena, as the actual cause of human sensations, as an objective reality, is Kant's dominant, which allows him to qualify as materialistic. But he also has other interpretations. By the thing-in-itself, he means a borderline, ultimate concept that closes the circle of possible human ideas and limits people's claims to knowledge of the world, as well as God, the immortality of the soul and free will. Obviously, the latter interpretations of the thing-in-itself contradict the former and are idealistic.
Sensations caused by the action of things in themselves on sensibility, according to Kant, are in no way similar to the originals. They belong only to the subjective properties of sensibility, are its modifications and do not give knowledge about the object. For example, the pleasant taste of wine is not one of the objective properties of the senses of the subject who enjoys it. Colors are also not properties of bodies, they are only a modification of the sense of sight, which is subjected to some action from the direction of light. Consequently, although sensations are caused by the action of "things in themselves" on human sensibility, they have nothing in common with these things. Feelings are not images, but symbols of things.
A similar point of view, which, as is well known, was most thoroughly expressed by D. Hume, is called agnosticism. Agreeing with Hume, Kant adds something of his own. Although our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it comes entirely from experience. Knowledge, according to Kant, has a complex composition; and is made up of two parts. The philosopher calls the first part; "matter" of knowledge. This is a stream of sensations, or empirical knowledge, given a posteriori, i.e. through experience. The second part - form - is given before experience, a priori, and must be completely ready to be in the soul, in the subject.
Thus, along with agnosticism, a prioriism is a characteristic feature of Kant's theory of knowledge. The question arises as to where the a priori, i.e. pre-experimental forms of sensibility and all other a priori forms of which Kant spoke. The philosopher was forced to admit that he was unable to answer this question: "this question cannot be resolved, because for it. And the resolution, as for any thinking, we already need these properties."
The concept of apriorism is the most important position of Kant's teaching, on which he based the possibility of achieving the necessary and reliable knowledge. Kant shared the general prejudice of rationalism, which underestimated the role of experience, the role of sensory knowledge in the process of achieving universal and necessary knowledge. According to Kant, experience can never give judgments a true and strict universality, but only an assumed and comparative universality. At the same time, he believed that mathematical knowledge was absolutely necessary. He tried to get out of this difficulty with the help of apriorism: only a priori judgments are universal, reliable and objective. For Kant, the concepts "a priori", "necessary", "universal", "objective" are closely intertwined and are used as equivalent. At the same time, he refused to recognize a priori knowledge as innate.
If the "matter" of knowledge is, according to Kant, an experimental, a posteriori nature, then the form of sensory knowledge is non-experiential, a priori. Prior to the perception of objects of experimental knowledge, "pure" ones must exist in us, i.e. free from everything empirical, visual representations, which are the form, the condition of all experience. Such "pure", i.e. a priori visual representations are space and time. According to the philosopher, space and time are forms of sensibility, and not reason, they are representations, not concepts. Kant argues this as follows: the concept is discursive and includes various types, for example, the concept of "man" includes various types of people. But the same cannot be said about space and time. There is, as Kant thought, one and only time and one and only space. Therefore, space and time are single representations of an intuitive nature.
Space does not at all represent the properties of any things in themselves, time also does not belong to things in themselves either as their property or as their substance. Kant thus takes away from space and time any claim to reality, he turns them into special properties of the subject.
Kant believed that with his doctrine of a priori forms of sensibility and reason, he saved science from Hume's skepticism and subjectivism. But in fact, apriorism is only one of the varieties of subjectivism. Speaking about the fact that there is only one space, he relied on the physics and cosmogony of his time, who really knew one thing, namely the Euclidean space. A quarter of a century after Kant's death, the Russian scientist N.I. Lobachevsky showed that the properties of space depend on the properties of matter, and that Euclidean geometry is by no means the only possible one. Other systems of non-Euclidean geometry also emerged. The theory of relativity also did away with the metaphysical idea of ​​the absolute independence of time, showing that the general properties of matter determine the properties of both space and time. Consequently, there are many forms of space and time, which refutes Kant's main argument in favor of their a priori nature. The first stage of knowledge - the field of sensibility - is characterized by the ability of a person to organize the chaos of sensations with the help of subjective forms of contemplation - space and time. In this way, according to Kant, the object of sensibility, or the world of phenomena, is formed. The next step is the realm of reason. Experience is a product of activity, on the one hand, of sensibility, on the other, of reason. None of these abilities can be preferred over the other. Without sensibility, no object would be given to us, and without understanding, not one would be conceivable. Thoughts without content are empty, and visual representations without concepts are blind. Knowledge thus arises from two conditions: sensibility and reason. Judgments of perception obtained on the basis of sensibility have only a subjective meaning - this is a simple connection of perceptions. The judgment of perception must acquire an "objective" meaning, in Kant's words, i.e. acquire the character of universality and necessity, and thereby become an "experienced" judgement. This happens, according to Kant, by subsuming the judgment of perception under the a priori category of reason. An example is given: "When the sun shines on a stone, it becomes warm." According to Kant, we have a simple judgment of perception, in which the causal relationship between the heat of the sun and the heating of the stone is not yet expressed. But if we say: "The sun warms the stone," then a rational concept, or category of reason, is added to the judgment of perception, which turns this judgment into an experimental one.
Causality is one of the categories that are a priori principles of thought. They serve as tools for processing sensory material. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant builds a special table of these categories. There are only 12 of them, which corresponds to the number of types of judgments according to the traditional classification of judgments in formal logic. These are the categories of unity, plurality, universality, reality, negation, limitation, belonging, causality, communication, possibility, existence, necessity. Kant cannot justify why there are exactly twelve categories and where they come from: “No further grounds can be indicated for this circumstance, just as it is impossible to substantiate why we have such and such and not other functions of judgment, or why time and space are the only forms of visual representation possible for us.
The artificial character of Kant's theory of categories was already clear to his contemporaries. Hegel rightly reproached Kant for dogmatism and formalism. According to the figurative expression of Hegel, the union of sensibility and reason in Kant takes place in a purely external way, "just as, for example, a piece of wood and a leg are tied with a rope."
By turning causality into a subjective category of reason, Kant created numerous difficulties for himself. First of all, the "thing in itself", since it exists outside the subject, cannot be considered the cause that, acting on the subject's sensibility, generates the "matter" of knowledge. Further, all the achievements of Kant of the “pre-critical” period are called into question, primarily his cosmogonic theories, since they, like all natural science, are based on the recognition of the objective nature of the laws of nature, including cause-and-effect relationships.
Kant in his "Critique of Pure Reason" argues that the principles of "pure reason", realizing the application of categories to experience, make possible nature itself and the science about it - "pure" natural science. He found the highest legislation of nature in the human mind: "Although strange, it is nevertheless true if I say: the mind does not draw its laws (a priori) from nature, but prescribes them to her."
The last and highest stage is reasonable knowledge. It is the "highest authority" for processing the material of visual representations and for bringing it under the highest unity of thinking. "Explaining these provisions, Kant points out that reason, unlike reason, generates" transcendental ideas "that go beyond experience. Such ideas three: 1) psychological (the doctrine of
soul), 2) cosmological (the doctrine of the world), 3) theological (the doctrine of God). These ideas express the desire of the mind to comprehend things in themselves. The mind greedily seeks to comprehend these things, tries to go beyond the limits of experience, but all in vain: things "run away from it" and remain unknown.
As a result, the mind creates only "paralogisms", "antinomies", "ideals without reality", gets entangled in insoluble contradictions. Kant pays great attention to antinomies, i.e. contradictory, incompatible with each other provisions, each of which, according to Kant, can be proved; logically flawless. There are four such antinomies in Kant:
1) thesis - "The world has a beginning in time and is also limited in space";
antithesis: "The world has no beginning in time and no boundaries in space; it is infinite in both time and space."
2) the thesis: "Every complex substance in the world consists of simple parts and in general there is only simple and that which is composed of simple";
antithesis: "Not a single complex thing in the world consists of simple things, and in general there is nothing simple in the world."
3) thesis: "Causality, according to the laws of nature, is not; the only causality from which all phenomena in the world can be derived. To explain phenomena, one must also admit free causality";
antithesis: "There is no freedom, but everything happens in the world only according to the laws of nature."
4) the thesis: "Belongs to the world, either as part of it, or as its cause, an unconditionally necessary being";
antithesis: "There is no absolutely necessary being, either in the world or outside the world, as its causes." In other words, there is no God.
In the first antinomy, it is important to see an approach to revealing the dialectical contradiction of the finite and the infinite: the world is both finite and infinite in the sense that infinite matter is composed of finite quantities. In the second antinomy, essentially the same question is posed as in the aporias of Zeno - about the unity of the finite and the infinite, the discontinuity and continuity of matter. But from this the Eleans made a metaphysical conclusion: since the movement and diversity of the world are contradictory, and any contradiction destroys thought, then movement is an illusion, the world is motionless and devoid of diversity. Kant does something similar. He believes that he equally flawlessly proves both the thesis and the antithesis of each antinomy from the point of view of logic. For example, in the fourth antinomy it is proved that God exists and that God does not exist. How to be? Both the thesis and the antithesis must be discarded. Logic and reason are powerless here. Belief in God is not a matter of science, but of morality, Kant believes.
So, antinomies are contradictions that testify to the impotence of the mind, its inability to comprehend "things in themselves", to go beyond the boundaries of experience. “There is something sad and humiliating in the fact that in general there is an antithesis of pure reason and that reason, which constitutes the highest tribunal for all disputes, is forced to enter into a dispute with itself,” states Kant.
It would be unfair not to notice the positive, progressive aspects of Kant's theory of knowledge. In the "Critique of Pure Reason" the cardinal problems of the theory of knowledge and logic are raised, an attempt is made to solve them dialectically. Kant was the first in the philosophy of modern times to show the complexity and inconsistency of the process of cognition. These ideas of his found a continuation and deeper development in Hegel's philosophy.
Ethical doctrine of Kant
Since the theoretical ("pure") reason failed in its attempts to comprehend the world of things in itself, then the only thing left for a person is to rely on "practical reason", by which the philosopher understood the doctrine of morality, ethics. In his opinion, in the field of morality, a person is no longer subject to necessity, which dominates with inevitable force in the field of phenomena. As a subject of moral consciousness, a person is free, i.e. attached to the world of things in themselves. Kant establishes a relationship of subordination between theoretical and practical reason: theoretical reason is subordinate to practical reason.
By practice, Kant understood not real activity, but the sphere of application of moral assessments of people's actions. Any moral assessments are based on the categorical imperative - the basic law of Kant's ethics. The imperative is a form of commands associated with the category of due. The philosopher calls a categorical imperative such a form of command, which is an action, as it were, for its own sake, a relationship to another goal. The imperative is not connected with the desire for the benefit or happiness of people, it has a strictly formal a priori character and has the form of a commandment, unconditional, obligatory for all people. The categorical imperative is formulated as follows: act in such a way that the maxim (basic principle) of your will can at all times serve as the principle of universal legislation. This principle is abstract. A wide variety of requirements and postulates can correspond to it: religious commandments, the conclusions of worldly wisdom, and much more.
The most important concretization of the categorical imperative is the "practical" imperative: act in such a way that humanity in your person, just as in the person of everyone else, will certainly be used as an end and never as a means.
These provisions, expressing the principles of humanism, were of great progressive importance for their time. They contain a protest against the bonds of the feudal-absolutist system that enslaves a person. A great influence on the ethical and socio-political views of Kant had J. Zh. Rousseau. "There was a time when ... I despised the mob," wrote Kant. Speaking for human rights, the philosopher emphasized that "a person who depends on another is no longer a person; he has lost this title, then he is nothing more than the belonging of another person, ... in human nature, slavery is the highest of evils" . Kant borrowed from Rousseau the idea of ​​the independence of the moral nature of man from the achievements of science and culture, refracting it in his doctrine of the independence and originality of morality, of the primacy of practical reason over theoretical. Kant, contrary to the tenets of Protestantism and Catholicism, believed that morality is autonomous and does not depend on religion. On the contrary, religion must be derived from the principles of morality.
The practical imperative, proclaiming a person an end, not a means, eliminates, according to the philosopher, "fanatic contempt for oneself as a person (for the entire human race) in general ...". A person cannot be anyone's slave, including God's slave. Therefore "morality should be cultivated more than religion", and "God is necessary only from a moral point of view". God has been turned into an ethical symbol. Philosophy of Kant, thus, approaches deism.
Kant dreamed of eternal peace on earth, of the union of free states and free peoples as the guarantor of this world. His treatise "Eternal Peace" is devoted to the justification of this.
Kant is one of the key figures in world philosophical thought. Hegel rightly believed that in the teachings of Kant there was a major transition to modern philosophy. In his teaching on the categories of reason and the antinomies of reason, on the activity of the subject in cognition and moral practice, the development of the dialectical method of cognition, the main achievement of German classical philosophy, began.
Kant had a huge number of followers and no less number of critics. Criticized him "right" and "left". Right: - from the positions of consistent idealism - for the assumption of the materialistic thesis about the existence of things in themselves independently of the subject. On the left - from the positions of materialism - for agnosticism and apriorism, which led to subjective idealism. For this, Hegel criticized him, but from the standpoint of absolute objective idealism and, which is very important, from the standpoint of a comprehensively developed dialectical method.
§ 2. Fichte's "scientific teaching"
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) was born into a peasant family. Thanks to his outstanding abilities and rare diligence, he managed to get an education. Unlike Kant or Hegel, Fichte's life was full of dramatic events. Fichte is not only a prominent representative of classical German philosophy, but also the ideologist of the German liberation movement directed against the French occupiers. At the same time, progressive ideas of the French Enlightenment and revolution were reflected in his work. In 1793 he published (anonymously) two writings praising these ideas. In 1799, articles appeared in a philosophical journal in which Fichte identified the idea of ​​God with the moral world order. The journal was banned by the government, Fichte was accused of atheism and dismissed from his post as professor at the University of Jena. Only in 1805 did he succeed in becoming a professor at the University of Erlangen. In 1807, in French-occupied Berlin, Fichte delivered a series of public lectures - "Speech to the German Nation", c. whom he called for the unification of the country, its revival, democratic reforms. The patriotic activity of the philosopher finds a wide response in the states of the then Germany. Since 1809, Fichte was a professor at the University of Berlin, and in 1811-1812. elected as its rector. In 1813, he joined the landshturm (militia) and in 1814 died in the hospital, having apparently contracted typhus.
Fichte calls his philosophy "the first system of freedom", which frees the human "I" from the shackles of things in itself, from external dictates. Philosophy, in his opinion, is not a worldview, but self-awareness associated with the character, way of thinking, practical actions of the individual.
Fichte criticizes the philosophy of Kant. He does not agree with the statement about the unknowability of things in themselves. This criticism is being made from the right, from the standpoint of a more consistent subjective idealism. Fichte calls the primary reality the absolute human "I", which includes everything that can be thought. "I" - a thinking subject with great activity. His activity results in a dialectical process: there is a movement from the original position (affirmation) to the opposite position (negation), and from it to the third position (unity, synthesis of the first two positions).
In addition to the "I" there is a "not-I", or some object of nature, the surrounding reality. It affects the "I" and even determines to some extent its activity. According to the philosopher, it is impossible to understand the mechanism of this influence with the mind; it can only be felt. Along with the theoretical activity of the "I", thinking, the philosopher also recognizes the activity of the unconscious. The moral behavior of the subject belongs to the unconscious activity: the fulfillment of his duty, obedience to the laws of morality and law.
"Not-I" not only exists, but also affects the "I". The physical nature of a person, his natural inclinations, which make up the "not-I", induce the "I" to act and at the same time distort the manifestations of morality, counteract the manifestations of moral duty. The stronger the influence of the "not-I", or the sensual nature of a person, the more difficult it is for the "I" to fulfill its ethical duty.
Fichte correctly grasps the contradiction that actually exists between feeling and duty. But what, after all, should be understood by the category "not-I"? One might get the impression that, using a peculiar terminology, Fichte expresses the usual materialistic views on the relationship between subject and object, consciousness and nature. However, this impression is deceptive. Fichte consciously distances himself not only from materialism as a philosophical worldview, but also from the half-hearted views of Kant, who recognized the objectively real existence of things in themselves. As Fichte emphasizes, the "not-I" cannot be identified with the thing-in-itself in the Kantian sense. The category "not-I" is the result of the activity of consciousness, i.e. product "I". It seems to ordinary consciousness that the things around it, nature, the whole world exist independently of human consciousness. Fichte is convinced that we are dealing with an illusion that is overcome by philosophical thinking. In a word, the subject, "I", is primary. His active activity, which, however, is of a spiritual nature, creates an object, an external world.
It is easy to see that in Fichte's reasoning there is a logical circle: "I" generates "not-I", and "not-I" generates "I". Trying to break out of this logical whirlwind, the philosopher introduces another category - intellectual contemplation", or "intellectual intuition". It is designed to eliminate the opposition of subject and object, but this opposition still remains, and overcoming it turns into an infinitely distant, unattainable goal.
Intellectual intuition does not belong to theoretical thinking, but to "practical activity", by which Fichte understands the sphere of morality, moral "action" and "should", ethical assessments, which is very similar to "practical reason" in Kant's philosophy. Here another contradiction arises in Fichte's philosophical system. On the one hand, he proclaims the omnipotence of reason, he calls his doctrine "the doctrine of science", "scientific teaching" (Wissenshcaftslehre). Philosophy is the science of science, the highest and unconditional foundation for all sciences, the universal method of cognition. On the other hand, theoretical reason obeys "practical", i.e. moral consciousness and will, which are comprehended intuitively, are areas closed to theoretical reason.
Fichte's philosophy is burdened with other contradictions that are inevitable for subjective idealism. If we proceed from its premises and be consistent, subjective idealism inevitably leads to solipsism, i.e. the assertion that there is one and only my "I", and the whole world around is its creation. Fichte tries by deductive means to deduce from the original "I" the possibility of the existence of many other free individuals, other "I". According to the philosopher, this deduction is also conditioned by the rules of law. If we recognize the existence of one "I", then there can be no question of any right and legality. Of course, this is true, but then the initial premises of subjective idealism as a monistic philosophy collapse. In fact, Fichte moves to the positions of idealistic pluralism of the type of Leibniz's monadology. However, this path does not appeal to Fichte, and he tends to objective idealism, combining it with the subjective.
In fact, Fichte uses two meanings of the concept "I": 1) "I", identical to individual consciousness and 2) "I", not: identical to individual consciousness, absolute "I", i.e. superhuman consciousness. And this is already objective idealism. The philosopher does not always warn in what sense he uses the concept of "I", which creates difficulties for understanding his thoughts. Both meanings either coincide or diverge, and in this the philosopher sees the driving principle of thinking, the core of dialectics.
The evolution of Fichte's views should be taken into account. After 1800, he made significant adjustments to his philosophy. In the first period it was dominated by subjective idealism. The absolute "I" was considered as an unattainable goal of the subject's activity, as a potential infinity. In the second period, the absolute "I" is interpreted as an actual being, equivalent to God, and everything that is outside this absolute is its creation, image, scheme. This interpretation is close to Platonism, is an objective idealism. In the first period, the activity of the subject was identified with morality; in the spirit of Protestant ethics, activism was regarded as a virtue. In the second period, activity and morality were separated, since they do not always coincide, and activity may not be virtuous.
Socio-political views were also changed: a transition was made from bourgeois liberalism to national patriotism.
Fichte contributed to the development of the dialectical method. True, he calls his method not dialectical, but antithetical. Unlike Hegel, Fichte's antithesis is derived not from the thesis, but is compared with it, forming a unity of opposites. "I" is set in motion and impelled to action by something opposite. The subject of activity is the "I" interacting with the "not-I". There is a contradiction between the activity and the task performed by it. The resolution of this contradiction leads to the emergence of a new one, and so on without end.
Fichte considers freedom to be the central category of "practical philosophy". Like Spinoza, Fichte believed that man is subject to the law of causality, i.e. need. Randomness is interpreted by him as a subjective category; by accident, the cause of which we do not know. But since everything is causal, everything is necessary. In the historical process, freedom is possible and it is achieved by the awareness of the need, which makes it possible to act with knowledge of the circumstances. Therefore, freedom consists in active activity within the framework of recognized necessity. The practical-active attitude to the subject precedes the theoretically contemplative one. The dialectic of active activity of the subject is the most important feature of Fichte's philosophy, which influenced the further development of classical German philosophy.
Fichte paid much attention to the doctrine of law. The science of law concerns external relations between people and differs from ethics, which studies the inner world of a person based on freedom. Thus, law and ethics are not comparable. Law is based on reciprocity relations, on the voluntary submission of each citizen to the law established in society. The law is an agreement on civil hostel.
The state as a political organization can only function where there is property. People are divided into owners and non-owners, while the state is an organization of owners. Of course, this is a conjecture about the dependence of law:. and state structure from economic relations, from the institution of property. In his work "The Closed Trading State" (1800), Fichte argues for the right to work and labor private property. The task of the state is to protect these social institutions. Fichte stands for active state intervention in the economic sphere. It should regulate the monetary system, restrict freedom of trade and competition, "in order to protect the interests of its citizens, to protect them from trade and financial expansion by stronger powers. These requirements can only be understood in the context of the specific historical conditions in which the German states were at the beginning of the 19th century.
Fichte's philosophy is not just a link between the philosophy of Kant, on the one hand, and the philosophy of Schelling and Hegel, on the other. It is of great independent importance as a peculiar expression of the progressive aspirations of the radical sections of German society, as a philosophy of human freedom and active practical action.
§ 5. Schelling's natural philosophy
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854) was born in the family of a priest, graduated from the theological seminary and the University of Tübingen, where he studied with Hegel. In his youth, Schelling expressed sympathy for the French Revolution, mainly for its Girondin wing. In the 90s he published works on the problems of natural philosophy, which were accepted with interest by scientists and philosophers. On the recommendation of Goethe, Schelling was invited as a professor at the University of Jena. During this period, he communicates with Goethe, Schiller, Fichte, Hegel.
Schelling lived a long life. His work includes a number of stages. Especially fruitful was, apparently, the first one, connected with understanding the dialectics of nature. Schelling approached the traditional philosophy of nature, or natural philosophy, as a dialectician. At the same time, he relied on major discoveries made by that time in physics, chemistry, biology by such scientists as Lavoisier, Galvani, Brown, Volt, Priestley.
Schelling opposes the metaphysical gap between "matter" and "force", as well as the notion of the existence of a special "life force". He does not agree with the opinion that light is immaterial. The philosopher views nature as a dynamic process that includes the evolution of inorganic and organic matter. He expresses the fruitful idea of ​​the inner unity of nature. From these positions, Schelling criticizes the mechanistic ideas common in the natural sciences of that time.
Among the classics of German philosophy, Schelling came closest to understanding the philosophy of nature as a dialectic of nature. True, he understood this dialectic in an idealistic manner. Nature, from his point of view, is an expedient whole, as well as a form of the unconscious life of the mind.
The originally laid down goal of nature is the generation of life, capable of knowing itself, i.e. endowed with self-awareness. Nature, said Schelling, "is the Odyssey of the spirit."
In natural processes, Schelling sees the expression of the principle of differentiation of the original unity; every body is a product of the interaction of oppositely directed forces (attraction and repulsion, positive and negative electricity, magnet poles, etc.). Polarity, duality and at the same time the unity of opposite sides is the universal principle of nature.
In the phenomena and processes of nature, Schelling discovers dialectics, namely the unity of such opposite principles as necessity and chance, whole and part, internal and external, finite and infinite. Overcoming mechanistic ideas about evolutionary processes, he points to the appearance of a qualitatively new thing in the course of development. The dynamic process of nature consists of steps qualitatively different from each other. The higher degrees or forms of nature are the lower ones raised to a power. In other words, a quantitative increase leads to a new quality.
Each stage of development contains all the lower stages in a "removed" form. Schelling approaches the formulation of the law of negation of negation, most fully and consistently developed by Hegel.
Schelling's views on the development of forms of thinking are peculiar. Traditional thinking, which obeys the laws and rules of formal logic, is the sphere of reason, which is not able to reveal the essence of phenomena. This can be done only by the mind, not relying on ordinary inferences, but by direct contemplation of the object with the help of intellectual intuition. Reason sees the hidden essence of things - the unity of opposites. But the mind is not ordinary, not ordinary, but "philosophical and artistic genius",
The positive side of Schelling's natural-philosophical views was the struggle against the metaphysical, mechanistic worldview, the assertion of the dialectical way of thinking. However, like any natural philosopher of that time, he did not always take into account the specific data and conclusions of the natural sciences, he came into conflict with them.
At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, Schelling concentrated his efforts on the development of a "transcendental philosophy". In it he saw the second most important part of his system. If the first considers nature from philosophical positions, then the second considers the subjective world, the history of consciousness from its lower manifestations to higher forms, to self-consciousness.
Although the subjective moment is proclaimed the only basis of all that exists, Schelling believes that transcendental idealism cannot be considered a kind of subjective idealism. After all, the subjective is reduced by him not to the subjective feeling or thinking of the individual subject, but to the direct contemplation by the mind of the essence of things. But such an intellectual intuition is capable not of an ordinary subject, but of a "genius" expressing absolute reason.
Schelling's "transcendental idealism" is an objective idealism based on the concept of the identity of spirit and nature. Spirit is not an individual consciousness, but an absolute superhuman mind, the self-consciousness of God. Absolute reason is the only reality in which the differences between the subjective and the objective are erased, all opposites coincide, and the possibilities of everything that can be are concentrated. Absolute mind generates the Universe and there is nothing else in the Universe besides it. Absolute reason is neither spirit nor nature, but "the indifference of both," like the indifference of the poles in the center of a magnet. Such views can be considered panlogism, but they are even closer to Neoplatonism.
From about 1801 until the end of his life, Schelling preached the philosophy of identity, which grew with him into the philosophy of revelation. The philosopher abandons his youthful hobbies when he showed some radicalism and free-thinking, substantiating, for example, the need for a historical and critical approach to the study of the Bible.
The philosophy of revelation goes far beyond the philosophical criticism and rationalism characteristic of classical German philosophy. Moreover, it goes beyond the traditional for philosophy in general, and goes into theosophy and mysticism. Schelling seriously argues that there are two parts in the concept of God, one is God himself, and the second is some kind of indefinite basis, "abyss", "groundlessness", irrational will. The bifurcation of the absolute is an act above the temporal and inaccessible to human understanding.
The Prussian king invited Schelling to the University of Berlin. However, Schelling's lectures on the philosophy of revelation disappointed the audience and provoked protests from the progressive German public. The philosopher has clearly outlived his glory and could not adequately replace Hegel in the philosophical department.
§ 4. System and method of Hegel's philosophy
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was born into the family of a prominent official. He studied at the Tubingen Theological Institute. For some time he worked as a home teacher. He served as director of the gymnasium in Nuremberg. From 1801 he taught at the University of Jena. At this time, together with Schelling, he publishes the Critical Philosophical Journal. From 1816, Hegel was a professor at the University of Heidelberg, and from 1818, at Berlin. For some time he was its rector.
Hegel's work is considered the pinnacle of classical German philosophy. It continued the dialectical ideas put forward by Kant, Fichte, Schelling. But Hegel went much further than his great predecessors. He was the first to present the entire natural, historical and spiritual world in continuous development. He discovered and substantiated from the standpoint of objective idealism the basic laws and categories of dialectics. He deliberately opposed dialectics as a method of cognition to its antipode - metaphysics. Agreeing with the need to study the premises of knowledge, which Kant insisted on, Hegel rightly reproached him for trying to present them outside the history of knowledge, in isolation from the mental activity of man. Kant, as you know, put forward the requirement: know the ability of knowing before you start to know something. This is similar to the anecdote that is told about the scholastic who did not want to enter the water before he learned to swim, ironically Hegel.
Hegel is an opponent of Kant's agnosticism and apriorism. He does not agree with the metaphysical gap between essence and appearance, as Kant insisted. Appearance, according to Hegel, is no less objective than essence. The essence is, i.e. is found in the phenomenon, and the phenomenon acts as the carrier of the essence. This is the unity of opposites that cannot exist without each other. Therefore, Kant's assertions about the fundamental unknowability of things in themselves are untenable. The thing-in-itself, Hegel teaches, is only the initial moment, only a stage in the development of the thing. "So, for example, a man in himself is a child, a sprout is a plant in itself ... All things are first in themselves, but the matter does not stop there."
Contrary to Kant, the thing-in-itself, firstly, develops, entering into diverse relationships, and, secondly, is cognizable, insofar as it reveals itself in phenomena.
Criticizing Kant's subjectivism and agnosticism, Hegel recognizes the possibility of adequate knowledge of the world on the basis of the identity of thought and being. Untenable, according to Hegel, is Fichte's attempt to deduce all nature and society from the "I", i.e. from individual consciousness. He criticized Schelling for his intuitionism, for underestimating the role of reason and logic. However, common to Hegel and his predecessors was an idealistic solution to the question of the relationship between consciousness and nature, matter. The differences between them in this matter are the differences between objective and subjective idealism.
Hegel's philosophy is the most rationalized and logical objective idealism. At the heart of everything that exists are the laws of thinking, i.e. the laws of logic. But the logic is not formal, but coinciding with dialectics - dialectical logic. When asked where these laws came from, Hegel answers simply: these are the thoughts of God before the creation of the world. Logic is "the image of God as he is in his eternal essence before the creation of nature and any finite spirit."
Philosophical system
The philosophical system is divided by Hegel into three parts: 1) logic, 2) philosophy of nature, 3) philosophy of spirit. Logic, from his point of view, is a system of "pure reason, coinciding with the divine mind. However, how could Hegel know the thoughts of God, and even before the creation of the world? The philosopher simply postulates this thesis, i.e. introduces without proof. In fact, his Hegel draws his system of logic not from sacred books, but from the great book of nature itself and social development.Therefore, the most seemingly mystical part of his philosophy - logic - is based on a huge natural-scientific, historical material that was at the disposal of an encyclopedically educated thinker.
The "thoughts of God" turn out to be the most general laws of the development of nature, society and thought. It is precisely in logic that Hegel's dialectical idealism stands closest to dialectical materialism. In essence, this is an inverted and turned upside down materialism. The matter, of course, cannot be reduced to a simple "reversal". There are significant differences between Hegel's idealist dialectic and materialist dialectics, which will be discussed below.
The starting point of Hegel's philosophy is the identity of thinking (consciousness) and being. Things and thoughts about them coincide, therefore thinking in its immanent definitions and the true nature of things are one and the same.
Logics. The identity of being and thinking, from Hegel's point of view, is the substantial unity of the world. But the identity is not abstract, but concrete, i.e. one that implies a difference. Identity and difference are the unity of opposites. Absolute identity, as in Schelling, excludes the very possibility of development. Thinking and being are subject to the same laws, this is the rational meaning of the Hegelian position on concrete identity.
Objective absolute thinking, Hegel believes, is not only the beginning, but also the driving force behind the development of everything that exists. Manifesting itself in all the variety of phenomena, it acts as an absolute idea.
The absolute idea does not stand still. It is constantly evolving, moving from one stage to another, more specific and meaningful. The ascent from the abstract to the concrete is the general principle of development.
The highest stage of development is "absolute spirit". At this stage, the absolute idea manifests itself in the sphere of human history and makes itself the subject of thought.
The philosophical system of Hegelian objective idealism has certain peculiarities. First, pantheism. Divine thought does not hover somewhere in the sky, it permeates the whole world, constituting the essence of every, even the smallest thing. Secondly, panlogism. Objective divine thinking is strictly logical. And thirdly, dialectics.
Hegel is characterized by epistemological optimism, the conviction that the world is knowable. Subjective spirit, human consciousness, comprehending things, discovers in them a manifestation of the absolute spirit, divine thinking. From this follows an important conclusion for Hegel: everything real is reasonable, everything reasonable is real. Many have been mistaken in interpreting the thesis about the reasonableness of everything real as an apology for everything that exists. In fact, what exists, Hegel believed, is reasonable only in a certain sense, namely, when it expresses some kind of necessity, regularity. Only then can the existing be qualified as something reasonable. But as soon as the necessity of the existence of something disappears, it loses the status of the real and must necessarily disappear. Obsolete forms of life will certainly give way to the new, such is the true meaning of Hegel's formula.
So, logic is a regular movement of concepts (categories), expressing the content of the absolute idea, the stages of its self-development.
Where does this idea start? After a long discussion of this difficult problem, Hegel comes to the conclusion that the category of pure being is the beginning. Being, in his opinion, does not have an eternal existence and must arise. But from what? Obviously, from non-existence, from nothing. "So far, there is nothing and something must arise. The beginning is not a pure nothing, but such a nothing from which something must come, being, therefore, is also already contained in the beginning. The beginning, therefore, contains both, being and nothing; it is the unity of being and nothing, or, to put it differently, it is non-being, which is at the same time being, and being, which is at the same time non-being.
One may get the impression that we have before us a verbal balancing act, devoid of meaning. The course of Hegel's thought seems artificial, if we proceed from natural-science, deterministic premises. Indeed, out of non-existence, out of nothing, something can arise. But after all, Hegel is not talking about the real world, but about the thoughts of God before the creation of the world.
If we ignore the mystical plots of the divine creation of the world, being out of nothing, then in the reasoning of the philosopher we will find a reasonable content, or, as they say, a rational grain. Being and non-being are the unity of opposites. One category negates the other. As a result, a third category arises, which synthesizes both previous ones. Hegel calls this new category becoming. "Becoming is the inseparability of being I am nothing ... in other words, such a unity in which there is both being and nothing." Becoming - "; this is a dialectical process of emergence, which is appropriate to call becoming, is a turning point, when a thing as an established integrity is not yet there, but it cannot be said that it does not exist at all. And in this sense, becoming can be considered the unity of non-being and being. “Becoming is an unsteady restlessness that settles down, passes into a kind of calm result.
If Hegel seeks to express the dialectical process of emergence with the help of the category of becoming, then the process of disappearance, annihilation is expressed by him with the help of the category of removal. It must be borne in mind that the German verb aufheben - to remove - has many meanings, including negative ones: to stop, cancel, abolish, liquidate. But at the same time, it also has a number of positive meanings: to save, preserve, provide. Accordingly, the noun aufheben means both cancellation and preservation. Hegel also refers to the Latin language, where the verb tollere has two meanings: 1) to destroy, deny, remove, and 2) to exalt. The philosopher does not accidentally use linguistic polysemy. In this case, it expresses spontaneous dialectics and its main feature: the identity of opposites. Nothing in the world perishes without a trace, but serves as a material, an initial step for the emergence of a new one. This regularity is reflected in the category of removal, as well as the category of negation, which Hegel widely uses in his philosophical system.
Hegel calls the new category becoming. "Becoming is the inseparability of being I am nothing ... in other words, such a unity in which there is both being and nothing." Becoming is a dialectical process of emergence, which it is appropriate to call becoming, is a turning point, when a thing as an established integrity does not yet exist, but it cannot be said that it does not exist at all. And in this sense, becoming can be considered the unity of non-being and being. “Becoming is an unsteady restlessness that settles down, passes into a kind of calm result.
The synthesis of the categories of pure being and nothing gives the category of becoming, and from it a transition to the present is possible, i.e. some particular being. This is the scheme proposed by Hegel.
If Hegel seeks to express the dialectical process of emergence with the help of the category of becoming, then the process of disappearance, annihilation is expressed by him with the help of the category of removal. It must be borne in mind that the German verb aufheben - to remove - has many meanings, including negative ones: to stop, cancel, abolish, liquidate. But at the same time, it also has a number of positive meanings: to save, preserve, provide. Accordingly, the noun aufheben means both cancellation and preservation. Hegel also refers to the Latin language, where the verb tollere has two meanings: 1) to destroy, deny, remove, and 2) to exalt. The philosopher does not accidentally use linguistic polysemy. In this case, it expresses spontaneous dialectics and its main feature: the identity of opposites. Nothing in the world perishes without a trace, but serves as a material, an initial stage for the emergence of a new one. This regularity is reflected by the category of withdrawal, as well as the category of negation, which Hegel widely uses in his philosophical system. Each category expresses one moment, an aspect of the development process and simultaneously serves as a starting point for the next category, which denies, removes the previous category. The new denies the old, but dialectically denies not only throws it aside and destroys it, but preserves and uses the viable elements of the old in a reworked form to create the new. Hegel calls this negation concrete.
Negation for Hegel is not a one-act process, but essentially an endless process. And in this process, he everywhere finds a bunch of three elements: thesis - antithesis - synthesis. As a result of the denial of any position taken as a thesis, an opposition (antithesis) arises. The latter is necessarily negated. There is a double negation, or negation of negation, which leads to the emergence of the third link, synthesis. It reproduces some features of the first, initial link at a higher level. This whole structure is called a triad.
In Hegel's philosophy, the triad performs not only a methodological function, but also a system-creating function. This is not only a substantive principle, or the law of dialectics, but also a way of building a system. The whole architectonics, the structure of Hegelian philosophy is subject to a triple rhythm, is built in accordance with the requirements of the triad. In general, Hegel's philosophy is divided into three parts: - logic, philosophy of nature and philosophy of spirit. These are not adjacent parts that can be swapped. This is a triad, where each part expresses a natural stage of dialectical development. At least that's what Hegel himself thinks. He also divides logic into three parts: the doctrine of being, the doctrine of essence, and the doctrine of the concept. Each of these parts is also a triad. The doctrine of being, for example, includes: 1) certainty (quality), 2) magnitude (quantity), 3) measure. Quality consists of three parts: 1) being, 2) being present, 3) being for-itself. Being, as we have already said, is a triad: pure being - nothingness - becoming. Here the limit of division is reached, or the triad, consisting of categories, each of which cannot be decomposed into triads.
It is neither possible nor necessary to expound this entire complex system of large and small triads. Let's take a look at some of the most important points.
its inherent quality. By virtue of qualitative certainty, things not only differ from each other, but are related to each other.
The category of quality precedes the category of quantity in Hegel's logic. This order generally corresponds to the history of human knowledge. Savages (like children) distinguish things by their qualitative certainty, although they do not know how to count, i.e. do not know the proportions.
The synthesis of qualitative and quantitative certainty is the measure. Every thing, insofar as it is qualitatively determined, is a measure. Violation of the measure changes the quality and turns one thing into another. There is a break in gradualness, or a qualitative leap.
Hegel resolutely opposes flat evolutionism, which recognizes only a gradual transition from one qualitative state to another. "They say: there are no leaps in nature... But we have shown that, in general, a change in being is not only the transition of one quantity into another, but also the transition of the qualitative into the quantitative and vice versa, becoming different, which is a break in gradualness, and qualitatively different in comparison with the previous state. Water through cooling does not gradually become solid, does not at first become mushy, so that, gradually becoming harder and harder, it reaches the consistency of ice, but solidifies immediately. Having already reached the temperature of the freezing point, it can still completely retain its liquid state if it is left alone, and a slight shaking brings it to a solid state.
Hegel gives another example, but from the moral realm. Here, too, there are transitions of quantitative changes into qualitative ones, and the "difference in quality" turns out to be based on the difference in magnitude. Thus, due to quantitative changes, the measure of frivolity is transcended and the result is something completely different, namely crime. A qualitative leap can turn right into injustice, virtue into vice. The philosopher's reasoning is also curious: other things being equal, states acquire a different qualitative character due to their difference in size. Laws and government change into something else when the size of the state increases and the number of citizens increases. The state has a measure of its magnitude, exceeding which it irresistibly disintegrates under the same state structure, which, with a different size, constituted its happiness and strength.
Hegel convincingly substantiates what later became known as the law of the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative ones and vice versa through jumps. The development of science and social practice confirmed the correctness of this dialectical law discovered by Hegel.
The dialectic of the transition from quantity to quality answers the question about the form of development of all natural and spiritual things. But there remains an even more important question about the driving force, the impetus for this development. And here Hegel is looking for an answer not in the other world, but in reality itself. He formulates this answer in the doctrine of essence. "Only by wandering from one quality to another, and only by the transition from qualitative to quantitative and vice versa, the matter is not yet over, but there is something abiding in things, this abiding is, first of all, essence."
Quality, quantity, measure - all these, as already mentioned, are categories of being. These are the forms in which we perceive reality, and perceive it empirically, empirically. But empirically it is impossible to comprehend the essence of things. Essence is the inner basis of being, and being is the external form of essence. There are no pure essences, they are expressed, manifested in the forms of being. Essence is the same being, but on a higher level. Essence, as the internal cause of being, is not identical with the latter, it is different from it. In other words, essence is known from the opposite of immediate being. This means that knowledge must go deep, to reveal their essence in phenomena.
What, according to Hegel, is this hidden essence of being? In short, in its internal inconsistency. Everything that exists contains a contradiction, a unity of opposite moments.
Identity, the unity of opposites is the key concept of Hegel's logic. Ordinary consciousness is afraid of contradiction, considering it as something abnormal. And formal logic with its laws (not contradictions, excluded middle) forbids logical contradictions. Hegel says many unkind words to this logic. But in fact, he is not against formal logic, but against its absolutization. Such logic cannot claim to be a universal methodology as opposed to dialectics. In this case, formal logic turns into metaphysics. Correctly interpreted formal logic forbids absurd contradictions, doctrinal, verbal contradictions that confuse reasoning. Hegel also fulfills these requirements, otherwise he would simply not be understood. But besides the contradictions of incorrect reasoning, there are real contradictions, contradictions of life itself. And no one can get rid of them. “Contradiction is what really drives the world, and it is ridiculous to say that contradiction cannot be thought.” “Contradiction is the root of all movement and vitality, only insofar as it has contradiction in itself, it moves, has impulse and activity.”
Contradiction leads forward; it is the principle of all self-movement. Even the simplest type of motion - the movement of a body in space - is a constantly emerging and immediately resolved contradiction. Something moves not only because it is now here, and at another moment there, but also because it is both here and not here at the same moment, i.e. both is and is not at the given point of the trajectory. Hegel proposes "together with the ancient thinkers" to recognize the contradictions they discovered in the movement. But it does not follow from this that there is no movement, but, on the contrary, it follows that movement is an existing contradiction.
The "ancient dialecticians", and these are the philosophers of the Eleatic school and, above all, Zeno, revealed in their aporias the objective contradictions inherent in movement, space, and time. But since any contradictions were considered an unacceptable anomaly, an error in logical reasoning, the revealed contradictions were declared to be an appearance generated by the imperfection of sensory cognition. And in its essence, the world comprehended by the mind is devoid of both movement and diversity.
Kant has a similar line of reasoning: the attempt of the mind to comprehend things in themselves leads to antinomies, i.e. to irresolvable logical contradictions. According to Kant, one should recognize the powerlessness of reason and the unknowability of the world. Hegel does not agree with this: the revealed contradictions testify not to the impotence of reason, but to its power. Antinomies are not a dead end, but a path leading to the truth. “Since each of the two opposite sides contains within itself its other, and neither of them can be conceivable without the other, it follows from this that none of these definitions, taken separately, is true, but only their unity is true. This is the truly dialectical way of considering these definitions, as well as the true result.
One cannot metaphysically separate the finite from the infinite, discontinuity from continuity, freedom from necessity, and so on. This is the essence of the dialectical way of thinking.
The doctrine of the concept is the third and final part of Hegel's logic. Here he most sharply expresses the point of view of absolute idealism. From these positions, the philosopher criticizes formal logic, which sees in the concept of "an empty and abstract form." “In fact, everything is the other way around: the concept is the beginning of all life, it is entirely concrete. This is a conclusion from all the logical movement that has been carried out so far and therefore does not require proof here.” And why, in fact, does it not? Formal logic formulates the law of sufficient reason: every thought must be proved either by experimental data, facts, or with the help of scientific and other logical conclusions from already proven positions. Therefore, a proof can be either inductive or deductive. But Hegel does not require any of this. The concept and other logical forms are not, as he believes, a reflection of things. On the contrary, things are secondary, they are reflections of concepts, they must correspond to them. And the concepts are of divine origin. After all, "God created the world out of nothing, or, in other words, ... the world and finite things came from the fullness of divine thought and divine plans. By this we recognize that thought, or, more precisely, the concept, is that infinite form, or free creative activity that does not need external material for its realization. Neither concepts, nor judgments, nor inferences are only in our head and are not formed only by us. The concept is that which lives in things; to understand an object means, consequently, to realize its concept.
All this, of course, is absolute idealism: real things in their essence are concepts, judgments and conclusions. However, there is a rational point here too: logical forms are not a subjective creation of the human head (although, from the point of view of materialism, they cannot exist outside this head), but a reflection of the laws of the objective world, the ordinary relations of things. Hegel rightly emphasizes that concepts, judgments, and inferences are a dialectical unity of such categories as universal, particular, and individual. But this unity is inherent in real things, in the objective world, and then, because of this, in logical forms. By applying the dialectical method to the analysis of logical concepts, judgments, and inferences, Hegel, in contrast to traditional formal logic, revealed the dialectics of these forms. Marx rightly regarded Hegelian dialectics as the basic form of all dialectics, but only after it had been purged of its mystical form.
Philosophy of nature. Hegel considers nature to be the second stage in the development of the absolute idea. Nature is a product of the absolute idea, its other being. Generated by the spirit, nature has no existence independent of it. This is how Hegel solves the basic question of philosophy, although he does not use this expression itself. At the same time, Hegel tries to dissociate himself from the traditional religious idea of ​​the creation of the world. The absolute idea at the level of logic exists, according to him, outside of time and space. It is no coincidence that these categories are absent from his logic. As Hegel says, it is wrong to talk about what was before and what will be after. The expressions "before" and "then" are not appropriate for this case. They express "purely logical" primary and secondary. And although Hegel's God is not quite traditional, but an abstract idea of ​​the world mind, he still does not abandon the Christian dogma about the creation of the world.
Nature interests Hegel not in itself, but as a necessary stage in the development of the absolute idea. He considers mechanics, physics, organics to be its manifestations in nature. The transition from inanimate nature to living nature completes a purely natural process. The spirit comes out of nature, breaking through the outer crust of materiality as something lower.
A preconceived philosophical scheme did not allow Hegel to understand properly the dialectic of nature. Oddly enough, the great dialectician did not accept the evolutionary ideas advanced for his time in geology, organic chemistry, embryology, plant and animal physiology. He called the evolutionary doctrine of the origin of more developed organisms from the lower ones meaningless. In his opinion, the whole variety of changes in nature fits into the framework of the eternal cycle. Therefore, "nothing is new under the sun," and the diverse play of nature's forms "causes boredom." Only in the changes that take place in the spiritual realm does the new appear.
Sometimes in Hegel's reasoning about nature there is no logic, whether dialectical or formal. Engels rightly calls the philosopher's statement that nature develops in space, but not in time, nonsense. After all, time is the basic condition for any development.
Contrary to this, Hegel expresses deep dialectical conjectures, which were confirmed in the further development of natural science. These, for example, include indications of the transformation of quantitative changes into qualitative ones in chemical processes, the understanding of electricity as a special form of the movement of matter. On the whole, the philosopher could not overcome the metaphysical, mechanistic understanding of nature. He remained on the positions of the old natural philosophy, the essence of which is that the philosopher, as a representative of the "science of sciences" and the owner of "absolute knowledge", may not take into account the opinion of specialists in specific areas of natural science. This, apparently, should explain Hegel's speeches against atomism, his non-recognition of the wave and corpuscular theories of light, the assertion that blood globules are formed only when blood comes into contact with air. Hence the strange formulas: “light is the simplest thought that exists under the form of nature”, “sound is the complaint of the ideal”, etc.
Philosophy of spirit. This is the third stage of the Hegelian system, which is a synthesis of the two previous ones. Here, the absolute idea, as it were, awakens, frees itself from natural bonds and finds its expression in the absolute spirit. Man is part of nature. However human; spirit is not a product of nature, but of absolute spirit. Yes, and nature itself is generated by the spirit. “For us, the spirit has nature as its prerequisite, it is its truth, and thus absolutely first in relation to it. In this truth, nature has disappeared, and the spirit has appeared in it as an idea that has reached being-for-itself.”
The self-development of the spirit proceeds along three steps. The first is "subjective spirit" - individual human consciousness, which is divided into three types: anthropology, phenomenology and psychology. The second step is the "objective spirit" - human society and its three main forms: law, morality, and the state. The last step - "absolute spirit" - includes art, religion, philosophy.
The problems raised by Hegel in the "Philosophy of the Spirit" are considered in more detail in the series of works: "Phenomenology of the Spirit", "Philosophy of History", "Philosophy of Law", "Aesthetics", "Philosophy of Religion", "Lectures on the History of Philosophy".
"Philosophy of Spirit" is a work devoted mainly to individual and social consciousness, as well as the dialectics of historical development.
Spirit is something unified and whole, but in the process of development, transition from the lower to the higher. Hegel considers the dialectical contradiction of subject and object, thought and object, to be the driving force behind the development of the spirit. Overcoming this contradiction, the spirit progresses in the consciousness of its freedom. "The substance of the spirit is freedom, i.e. independence from another, relation to oneself." Real freedom, according to Hegel, does not consist in the negation of necessity, but in its awareness, in the disclosure of its content, which has an ideal character. The history of mankind is a progress in the consciousness of freedom, but again freedom of the spirit, of thought. Undoubtedly, Hegel's understanding of freedom was progressive in nature, as it was directed against feudal survivals.
As for the philosophy of history, Hegel has a teleological character, i.e. the development of society is directed towards a predetermined goal. The philosopher divides world history into three epochs: eastern, ancient and German. The Eastern era is completely devoid of the consciousness of freedom, in the ancient era the consciousness of freedom reached a select minority, and as for the Germanic peoples, primarily the Germans, they have already reached the stage of freedom. The artificial nature and bias of such a scheme is quite obvious. According to Hegel, the estate system, the monarchy (though constitutional) fit perfectly into the category of freedom. He considered the state not only the embodiment of freedom, but also the procession of God on earth. The limit of the development of human society and its political institutions is the constitutional monarchy, which preserves class features, but promotes transformations in the bourgeois-liberal spirit.
The events of world history are a dialectic of individual "folk spirits". Each nation with its inherent "spirit" is one of the stages, or moments of world history. And world history realizes the "absolute goal of the world." However, the vast majority of peoples remain beyond the limits of progress, they are declared unhistorical. They failed to express some moments of the absolute spirit. The peoples of the East, the Slavs, were especially unlucky in this sense. They have no future and are forever frozen in their development. If world history begins in the East, then it ends in the West. Here the "absolute goal of the world" is realized. The development of human society, according to Hegel, must stop in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Here is the pinnacle and the end of world history. Here she "stops her course."
Still higher than the state are art, religion and philosophy in Hegel's system. And not just any, but the philosophy of Hegel himself. It was in it that the absolute idea found its full embodiment. Hegel believed that the essence of the world is as it is depicted in his philosophy, especially in the Logic. His philosophy is "single", "absolute", "philosophy in general".
Ironically about such claims, L. Feuerbach noted: “But no matter how witty this author is, he still acts uncritically right off the bat, without asking himself the question: is it possible at all for the genus of the absolute to be realized in one artist, and philosophy in one philosopher.
Dialectical method
As already mentioned, in Hegel's philosophy it is necessary to distinguish between the research method and the system, in accordance with which the material is not only presented, but also structured. The method, according to Hegel, "is the movement of the very essence of the matter," the consciousness of the "internal self-movement of the content." In Hegel, it has a dialectical character, being the most general expression of the contradictory development of the world. The dialectical method, its principles and categories are developed mainly in the first part of its system. The system is the order of presentation of the material chosen by the philosopher, the connection of logical categories, the general construction of the entire philosophical building. Unlike the method, which is determined mainly by the objective content of the world, the system largely bears the features of the author's arbitrariness. The main principle of structural construction is the triad, as we could see. It has a rational meaning (an expression of the dialectical law of negation of negation). However, Hegel formalizes this principle and often uses it as a template that specific material is forced to obey. Therefore, many transitions of categories are arbitrary, artificial. For example, the last triad in the system: art - religion - philosophy. To substantiate the logical connection between them, to show that philosophy is a synthesis, the unity of art and religion - this task remained unresolved. Hegel simply declares, but does not substantiate this construction.
Feuerbach, Herzen, Engels and other thinkers drew attention to the contradiction between method and system in Hegel's philosophy. The very spirit of the dialectical method contradicts the formalized conservative system. This contradiction cannot be classified as dialectical, it is a contradiction of doctrine, which is forbidden by both formal and dialectical logic. Hegel gets a paradoxical picture: dialectics with its struggle of opposites, spiritual and historical progress are actually turned into the past. They have no place either in the present or in the future: after all, the "absolute goal" of progress has been achieved. For Hegel, the dialectical method cannot serve as a tool for critical reflection and transformation of reality. For it to become such, it is necessary to discard the conservative system of Hegelian philosophy. And this was done by K. Marx and F. Engels. The idealist dialectic was replaced by the materialist dialectic.
§ 5. Anthropological materialism of Feuerbach
The galaxy of classics of German philosophy is closed by Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) - an outstanding representative of philosophical materialism and atheism. His philosophical views were formed under the influence of Hegel, whose lectures he listened to at the University of Berlin. However, Feuerbach was not an orthodox Hegelian. Moving to the positions of materialism, he systematically criticized philosophical idealism and the religious worldview. Feuerbach has been teaching at a German university for two years, but he is fired for publishing a work in which he doubts the personal immortality of a person, believing that only great deeds of the human mind can be immortal. Before Feuerbach, the doors of all universities in Germany are closed, and he is forced to lead a secluded life in the countryside, where his wife had a small factory.
Feuerbach creates a series of philosophical works, the most significant of which is recognized as "The Essence of Christianity" (1841). Feuerbach's materialism had a strong influence on the formation of the worldview of Marx and Engels. Toward the end of his life, Feuerbach joined the German Social Democratic Party and studied Marx's Capital. However, Feuerbach did not become either a Marxist or a revolutionary. All his life he eschewed active political activity, did not take part in the revolution of 1848 and refused to run for the national (Frankfurt) assembly. He entered the history of philosophy as the last great representative of classical German philosophy.
Feuerbach called his philosophical system "new philosophy" and "philosophy of the future". Having overcome Hegel's idealism, Feuerbach calls man a product of nature, and his mental activity is the only bearer of reason. Only man can think, there is no superhuman divine mind in the world. This is evidenced by the data of natural science, all experimental sciences.
Solving the fundamental question of philosophy materialistically, Feuerbach is convinced of the cognizability of the world. He is a consistent supporter of materialistic sensationalism, an opponent of agnosticism. The new philosophy must proceed not from abstractions, but from sensory data, from experience. Feuerbach calls human sense organs in this sense the organs of philosophy. Those sense organs that a person has are quite enough for adequate knowledge of things, the philosopher believes. Sensory perceptions are direct and mediated. As Feuerbach writes, “not only the external, but also the internal, not only the body, but also the spirit, not only the thing, but also the Self constitute objects of the senses. Therefore, everything is sensually perceived, if not directly, then indirectly, if not ordinary crude senses, then refined, if not the eyes of an anatomist or surgeon, then the eyes of a philosopher, so empiricism quite legitimately sees the source of our ideas in the senses.
Human feelings are qualitatively different from the feelings of animals. Feeling in animals is animal, in man - human, Feuerbach emphasized. Speaking against the speculative, i.e. divorced from the empirical basis of philosophizing, he pays tribute to theoretical thinking, capable of reflecting the inner essence of things, their natural connections. The truth of theoretical propositions, according to the philosopher, is verified by their comparison with sensory data. Of course, such a criterion of truth cannot be recognized as reliable; it is not universal. As a result of a generally just criticism of philosophical idealism, Feuerbach lost what was valuable that was contained in the works of his great predecessors, and, above all, Hegel - dialectics, including the dialectics of knowledge.
The subject of the new philosophy, Feuerbach believed, should be man, and philosophy itself - the doctrine of man, or anthropology. The unity of being and thinking for a philosopher makes sense only when man is taken as the basis, the subject of this unity. The new philosophy turns man, including nature as the basis of man, into the only, universal and highest subject of philosophy, thus turning anthropology, including physiology, into a universal science.
Man is a part of nature, a natural living being. Natural science, primarily physiology, proves the inseparability of thinking and physiological processes occurring in the brain. Feuerbach dissociates himself from the views of the vulgar materialists, who asserted that thought is a special kind of substance secreted by the brain. Thought is a product of the brain, but it is immaterial. Not wanting to be identified with vulgar materialists, Feuerbach hesitates to call his philosophy materialism. Of course, the materialistic essence of his philosophy does not disappear from this.
Feuerbach's anthropological philosophy proceeds from the natural essence of a person who strives for happiness, loves and suffers, needs to communicate with his own kind. His freedom depends on the environment, which either helps or hinders the manifestation of his essence. As Feuerbach says, a bird is free in the air, a fish in the water, and a man is where nothing prevents him from realizing his natural desire for happiness. Feuerbach speaks of man in general as a generic being. Such a view sins with an abstract, naturalistic approach to man, ignoring his social characteristics. As a humanist and democrat, Feuerbach understood that class barriers and privileges are contrary to human nature. But how to get rid of this evil, he did not know. Being far from politics, the philosopher relied mainly on morality and ethics.
Like the French materialists, Feuerbach believed that the rightly understood interest of the individual ultimately coincides with the public interest. This is the theory of "reasonable egoism", supplemented by altruism. "I" cannot be happy without "You". A person cannot be happy alone, therefore, love for others is a prerequisite for social harmony, the goal of human existence. However, such a philosophical construction greatly simplifies reality, abstracts from the prose of life, where, along with love, ill will, envy, malice, and enmity are often encountered.
Feuerbach recognizes the existence of both individual and group egoism. The clash of various kinds of group egoisms creates tension, gives rise to social conflicts. Feuerbach speaks of the “completely legitimate egoism” of the oppressed masses, that “the egoism of the now oppressed majority must exercise and is exercising its right and will begin a new era in history.” These arguments can be regarded as the germ of historical materialism, but only as a germ. Ultimately, the philosopher tries to explain the social opposites by the anthropological features of people.
Based on the anthropological principle, Feuerbach criticizes the opposition of ethical norms, characteristic of Kantianism, to the natural needs of man, his desire for happiness. Morality, opposed to human nature, is worth little. Therefore, one cannot consider sensual inclinations as something sinful. There is no "original sin" on which religious doctrine is based. Our vices are failed virtues, said the philosopher. They did not become virtues because the conditions of life did not meet the requirements of human nature.
Criticism of religion occupies a significant place in Feuerbach's work. He tried to explain the origin of religious feelings and beliefs from the standpoint of anthropological materialism. Religious feelings are generated not only by fear of the elemental forces of nature and the deceit of priests, as the materialists of the 17th-18th centuries believed. According to Feuerbach, not only and not so much fear, but aspirations, hopes, suffering, ideals inherent in human nature, his entire emotional world to a decisive extent contribute to the generation of religious beliefs. Religion, therefore, has a real life content, it is not accidental, but necessary for people. The birthplace of the gods, Feuerbach believed, is in the heart of man, in his suffering, hopes, and hopes. In contrast to the cold mind, the heart seeks to love and believe. In religion the whole man is expressed, but in a wrong way.
A person believes in the gods not only because he has fantasy and feelings, but also because he has the desire to be Happy. He believes in a blissful being, not only because he has an idea of ​​bliss, but also because he himself wants to be blissful. He believes in a perfect being because he himself wants to be perfect. He believes in an immortal being because he himself does not want to die.
Feuerbach derived religious consciousness from the peculiarities of human nature, but understood this nature itself not historically, but abstractly. Hence his interpretation of religion was unhistorical, abstract. The naturalistic approach to human essence prevented him from seeing the social content of religious ideas, their historical character.
If religion is born in a person's heart, then it is as indestructible as human emotions are indestructible. Feuerbach, however, assumed that religious fantasy ideas would someday disappear. But when? Then, answered the philosopher, when the love of man for man becomes a religious feeling and replaces traditional religion. Man will achieve on earth what religion promises in heaven. Atheism is the true religion, a religion without God, a religion of human brotherhood and love.
Religious beliefs and feelings are based on the alienation of certain human properties. Mind, strength, justice and other qualities are torn off from their specific carriers, generalized and multiplied many times over. Then they are attributed to fantastic creatures - the characters of numerous religions. If birds had a religion, Feuerbach said, then their 6ogs would appear to be mighty birds. Man, on the other hand, creates gods in his own image and similar, alienating from himself and attributing to them his best qualities, but in a fantastic and hypertrophied form. It is necessary to put an end to this process of alienation, to return to a person the qualities taken from him, to reduce religious beliefs to their earthly, real basis.

The scope of the concept of "classical German philosophy" includes the philosophical systems of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Feuerbach. Created in a relatively short historical period and forming a succession series, these systems have some common features. These include, firstly, the development of dialectics not only as a way of criticizing "pure reason" (Kant), but also as a universal method of cognition and an integral system of logical categories. Second, application; dialectical method to the historical process, attempts to formulate the laws of social development, however, on the basis of objective idealism. Thirdly, faith in historical progress, in the fruitfulness of scientific, including philosophical knowledge. And, finally, humanism, a deep respect for man, who acts as an end, not a means (Kant) and as a universal subject of philosophy (Feuerbach's anthropological materialism).
Classical German philosophy left a noticeable imprint on the subsequent course of development of world philosophical thought. It served as a theoretical source for the formation of the philosophical views of Marx and Engels, Herzen and Chernyshevsky. On its basis, influential philosophical schools of neo-Kantianism and neo-Hegelianism arose, the flourishing of which falls in the last third of the 19th and the first third of the 20th centuries.

List of used literature:

1. Kant I. Criticism of Pure Reason. 2nd ed. SPb., 1915.
2. Kant I. Prolegomena. M., 1934.
3. Kant I. Op. in 6 volumes, T.P.S.
4. Hegel. Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences. Ch.1,2,3. M., L., 1929
5. Hegel. Science of logic. Op. T. V. M., 1937
6. Feuerbach L. Op. T. 1. M., 1956
7. Feuerbach L. Selected Philosophy. works: In 2-vol. T. 1.,2. M., 1955
8. Philosophy: Ch 1, History of Philosophy. Ed. 2nd., M., Jurist., 1998

1. German philosophy of the 19th century. - unique phenomenon of world philosophy.

The uniqueness of German philosophy in the fact that in just over 100 years she has succeeded in:

Deeply investigate the problems that have tormented humanity for centuries, and come to conclusions that determined the entire future development of philosophy;

To combine in itself almost all philosophical trends known at that time - from subjective idealism to vulgar materialism and irrationalism;

Discover dozens of names of prominent philosophers who entered the "golden fund" of world philosophy (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, etc.).

2. In general, in the German philosophy of the XIX century. the following can be distinguished main directions:

German classical philosophy (first half of the 19th century);

Materialism (middle and second half of the 19th century);

Irrationalism (second half and end of the 19th century), "philosophy of life".

3. German classical philosophy became especially widespread at the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th centuries. Its basis was the work of the five most prominent German philosophers that time:

Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804);

Johann Fichte (1762 - 1814);

Friedrich Schelling (1775 - 1854);

Georg Hegel (1770 - 1831);

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804 - 1872).

In German classical philosophy, three leading philosophical directions:

Objective idealism (Kant, Schelling, Hegel);

Subjective idealism (Fichte);

Materialism (Feuerbach).

German classical philosophy developed several common problems, which allows us to speak of it as a holistic phenomenon. She:

She turned the attention of philosophy from traditional problems (being, thinking, knowledge, etc.) to the study of human essence;

She paid special attention to the problem of development;

Significantly enriched the logical and theoretical apparatus of philosophy;

Looked at history as a holistic process.

4. The founder of German classical philosophy is considered Immanuel Kant(1724 - 1804).

Immanuel Kant:

He gave an explanation for the emergence of the solar system due to natural causes on the basis of Newton's laws - from a rotating nebula of particles of matter discharged in space;

He put forward a theory about the existence of limits to the cognitive ability of a person and the impossibility of knowing the inner essence of things and phenomena of the environment ("things in themselves");

Formulated a moral law ("categorical imperative");

He put forward the idea of ​​"eternal peace" in the future, based on the economic inefficiency of war and its legal prohibition. Georg Hegel(1770 - 1831) identified being and thinking, put forward the doctrine of the absolute idea, independent of consciousness and being the root cause of everything that exists, the material world, and thereby deeply substantiated concept of objective idealism, widespread in several Western countries.

Hegel's exceptional service to philosophy - development of dialectics- the doctrine of universal development, its basic laws and principles.

Johann Fichte(1762 -.1814), on the contrary, made a great contribution to the development concepts of subjective idealism, according to which the only and main reality for a person is himself, his consciousness (the so-called "I-concept").

Friedrich Schelling(1775 - 1854) deeply substantiated the understanding of nature from the standpoint of objective idealism, put forward the idea that freedom and the legal order are inherent in nature.

Ludwig Feuerbach(1804 - 1872) was a representative of the materialistic trend in German classical philosophy. Feuerbach criticized idealism and put forward a holistic and consistent materialistic picture of the world. In his philosophy, Feuerbach acted as complete atheist, He proved the absence of God, his artificiality, invention by people, transferring unrealized human ideals to the personality of God. 5. Another direction of German philosophy of the XIX century. along with German classical philosophy was materialism, became widespread in the second half of the 19th century.

German materialism of the 19th century. presented mainly:

Philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach;

Marxist philosophy;

Creativity of vulgar materialists.

The atheistic and materialistic philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach is reckoned both with German classical philosophy and with materialism. This is true, since Feuerbach's philosophy completed the German classical philosophy and laid the foundations of the German materialism of the 19th century, was the watershed between them.

6. Classical materialism of the 19th century. presented Marxism comprehensive teaching, which included:

Marxist philosophy;

Political economy (economic doctrine);

Scientific communism (socio-political theory). The founders of Marxism were German scientists and philosophers Karl Marx(1818 - 1883) and Friedrich Engels(1820 - 1895).

Marxist Philosophy:

She put forward a consistently materialistic picture of the world;

She showed the role of the economy, production for material and social existence;

Comprehended philosophical problems from the standpoint of dialectics (dialectical materialism);

Considered history as a purposeful and regular process (historical materialism);

She gave a detailed picture of the emergence of a person, society, state;

She spoke from an atheistic standpoint.

7. A variety of German materialism of the 19th century. was vulgar materialism. Vulgar materialists - Focht, Buechner, Moleschott- looked at the problems of man, the surrounding world, knowledge exclusively from the standpoint of the natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology). In particular, they:

They mechanically transferred the laws of nature (behavior, organization of animal life, natural selection, struggle for existence) to human society (social Darwinism); they denied the ideal, the ideality of consciousness;

They considered the activity of consciousness as a physiological process ("the brain secretes a thought, like the liver - bile").

8. In the second half of the XIX century. ideas of irrationalism were especially widespread in Germany.

Irrationalism- a direction in philosophy that denied the objective laws of being and history, dialectics, perceiving the surrounding world and history as chaos, a chain of accidents.

The founder of irrationalism is considered Arthur Schopenhauer(1788 - 1860).

In general, Schopenhauer's philosophy is filled with a pessimistic spirit, disbelief in a person's ability to influence the world around him and his own life.

Close to irrationalism is "philosophy of life", which puts the focus not on abstract concepts - being, idea, matter, etc., but on the being of a person in the world - that is, life, the only reality for a person.

One of the founders of the "philosophy of life" was Friedrich Nietzsche(1844 - 1900). In particular, he put forward ideas about the ability of a person to completely influence his destiny, the driving forces of human behavior ("the will to live", "the will to power" - the expansion of one's "I"), the illusory nature of God ("God is dead") .

In the future, the "philosophy of life" formed the basis of popular modern philosophical trends - pragmatism And existentialism.

12) GERMAN CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHY

German classical philosophy represents a significant stage in the development of philosophical thought and culture of mankind.

It is represented by philosophical creativity:

- Immanuel Kant (1724-1804);

- Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814);

- Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling (1775-1854);

- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831);

- Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804-1872). Each of these philosophers created his own philosophical system, filled with a wealth of ideas and concepts.

1. The role of philosophy in the history of mankind and the development of world culture is that it is called upon to be the critical conscience of culture, the consciousness arguing with reality, the soul of culture.

2. Human nature was explored, not just human history:

– for Kant, man is a moral being;

- Fichte emphasizes the effectiveness, activity of human consciousness and self-consciousness, considers the structure of human life according to the requirements of the mind;

– Schelling shows the relationship between the objective and the subjective;

– Hegel more broadly considers the boundaries of the activity of self-consciousness and individual consciousness: the self-consciousness of the individual in him correlates not only with external objects, but also with other self-consciousness, from which various social forms arise;

- Feuerbach defines a new form of materialism - anthropological materialism, at the center of which is a real person who is a subject for himself and an object for another person.

3. All representatives of classical German philosophy defined it as a special system of philosophical disciplines, categories, ideas:

– Kant singles out epistemology and ethics as the main philosophical disciplines;

– Schelling – natural philosophy, ontology;

– Fichte saw in philosophy such sections as ontological, epistemological, socio-political;

– Hegel defined a broad system of philosophical knowledge, which included the philosophy of nature, logic, philosophy of history, history of philosophy, philosophy of law, philosophy of state, philosophy of morality, philosophy of religion, philosophy of development of individual consciousness, etc.;

– Feuerbach considered the philosophical problems of history, religion, ontology, epistemology and ethics.

4. Classical German philosophy defines a holistic concept of dialectics:

- Kant's dialectic is the dialectic of the boundaries and possibilities of human cognition: feelings, reason and human reason;

- Fichte's dialectics is reduced to the development of the creative activity of the Self, to the interaction of the Self and the non-Self as opposites, on the basis of the struggle of which the development of human self-consciousness takes place;

- Schelling transfers to nature the principles of dialectical development proposed by Fichte, nature for him is a developing spirit;

- Hegel presented a detailed, comprehensive theory of idealistic dialectics. He studied the entire natural, historical and spiritual world as a process, that is, in its continuous movement, change, transformation and development, contradictions, breaks in gradualness, the struggle of the new with the old, directed movement;

– Feuerbach in his dialectics considers the connections of phenomena, their interactions and changes, the unity of opposites in the development of phenomena (spirit and body, human consciousness and material nature).

13) Positivism in philosophy

Positivism (lat. positivus - positive) considers the question of the relationship between philosophy and science as the main problem. The main thesis of positivism is that true (positive) knowledge about reality can only be obtained by specific, special sciences.

The first historical form of positivism arose in the 30-40s of the 19th century as an antithesis to traditional metaphysics in the sense of the philosophical doctrine of the principles of everything that exists, of the universal principles of being, knowledge of which cannot be given in direct sensory experience. The founder of positivist philosophy is Auguste Comte (1798-1857), a French philosopher and sociologist who continued some of the traditions of the Enlightenment, expressed his conviction that science was capable of infinite development, and adhered to the classification of sciences developed by the encyclopedists.

Kant argued that all attempts to adapt "metaphysical" problems to science are doomed to failure, because science does not need any philosophy, but must rely on itself. The "new philosophy", which must decisively break with the old, metaphysical ("revolution in philosophy"), should regard as its main task the generalization of scientific data obtained in particular, special sciences.

The second historical form of positivism (the turn of the 19th-20th centuries) is associated with the names of the German philosopher Richard Avenarius (1843-1896) and the Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach (1838-1916). The main currents are Machism and empirio-criticism. The Machists refused to study an external source of knowledge as opposed to the Kantian idea of ​​the “thing in itself” and thereby revived the traditions of Berkeley and Hume. The main task of philosophy was seen not in the generalization of the data of particular sciences (Comte), but in the creation of a theory of scientific knowledge. We considered scientific concepts as a sign (the theory of hieroglyphs) for an economical description of the elements of experience - sensations.

In 10-20 years. In the 20th century, a third form of positivism appears - neo-positivism or analytical philosophy, which has several directions.

Logical positivism or logical empiricism is represented by the names of Moritz Schlick (1882-1936), Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970) and others. The focus is on the problem of empirical meaningfulness of scientific statements. Philosophy, the logical positivists argue, is neither a theory of knowledge nor a meaningful science of any reality. Philosophy is a kind of activity in the analysis of natural and artificial languages. Logical positivism is based on the principle of verification (lat. verus - true; facere - to do), which means empirical confirmation of the theoretical positions of science by comparing them with observable objects, sensory data, experiment. Scientific statements that are not confirmed by experience have no cognitive value and are incorrect. A statement of fact is called a protocol or a protocol sentence. The limitation of verification was subsequently revealed in the fact that the universal laws of science are not reducible to a set of protocol sentences. The very principle of verifiability also could not be exhausted by the simple sum of any experience. Therefore, supporters of linguistic analysis, another influential direction of neopositivism, George Edward Moore (1873-1958) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), fundamentally abandoned the verification theory of meaning and some other theses.

The fourth form of positivism - postpositivism is characterized by a departure from many of the fundamental provisions of positivism. Such an evolution is characteristic of the work of Karl Popper (1902-1988), who came to the conclusion that philosophical problems cannot be reduced to the analysis of language. He saw the main task of philosophy in the problem of demarcation, the distinction between scientific knowledge and non-scientific knowledge. The demarcation method is based on the principle of falsification, i.e. fundamental refutation of any statement related to science. If a statement, concept, or theory cannot be refuted, then it is not science, but religion. The growth of scientific knowledge consists in putting forward bold hypotheses and refuting them.

14) Philosophy of Karl Marx

1. Marxist philosophy was created jointly by two German scientists Karl Marx (1818 - 1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820 - 1895) in the second half of the 19th century. and is an integral part of a broader doctrine - Marxism, which, along with philosophy, includes economics (political economy) and socio-political issues (scientific communism).

The philosophy of Marxism provided answers to many burning questions of its time. It became widespread (left Germany, became international) in the world and gained great popularity in the late 19th - first half of the 20th centuries.

In a number of countries (the USSR, the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa), Marxist philosophy was elevated to the rank of official state ideology and was turned into a dogma.

An urgent task for today's Marxism is the liberation from dogmas and adaptation to the modern era, taking into account the results of the scientific and technological revolution and the reality of post-industrial society.

2. The emergence of Marxism and Marxist philosophy was facilitated by:

Previous materialist philosophy (Democritus, Epicurus, English materialists of the 17th century - Bacon, Hobbes and Locke, French enlighteners of the 18th century, and especially the atheistic-materialist philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach of the middle of the 19th century);

The rapid growth of discoveries in science and technology (the discovery of the laws of conservation of matter and energy, the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin, the discovery of the cellular structure of living organisms, the invention of the wire telegraph, the steam locomotive, the steamboat, the automobile, photography, numerous discoveries in the field of production, the mechanization of labor);

The collapse of the ideals of the Great French Revolution (freedom, equality, fraternity, the ideas of the French Enlightenment), their impossibility of implementation in real life;

The growth of social class contradictions and conflicts (revolution of 1848-1849, reaction, wars, the Paris Commune of 1871);

The crisis of traditional bourgeois values ​​(the transformation of the bourgeoisie from a revolutionary into a conservative force, the crisis of bourgeois marriage and morality).

3. Marxist philosophy is materialistic in nature and consists of two large sections - dialectical materialism and historical materialism (often historical materialism is considered as part of dialectical).

4. The philosophical innovation of K. Marx and F. Engels was the materialistic understanding of history (historical materialism). The essence of historical materialism is as follows:

At each stage of social development, in order to ensure their livelihoods, people enter into special, objective production relations that do not depend on their will (the sale of their own labor, material production, distribution);

Production relations, the level of productive forces form the economic system, which is the basis for the institutions of the state and society, social relations;

These state and public institutions, social relations act as a superstructure in relation to the economic basis;

Base and superstructure mutually influence each other;

Depending on the level of development of the productive forces and production relations, a certain type of base and superstructure, socio-economic formations are distinguished - the primitive communal system (low level of production forces and production relations, the beginnings of society); slave-owning society (the economy is based on slavery); Asiatic

The mode of production is a special socio-economic formation, the economy of which is based on the mass, collective, tightly controlled by the state labor of free people - farmers in the valleys of large rivers (Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China); feudalism (the economy is based on large land ownership and the labor of dependent peasants); capitalism (industrial production based on the labor of free, but not the owners of the means of production, hired workers); socialist (communist) society - a society of the future, based on the free labor of equal people with state (public) ownership of the means of production;

The growth of the level of production forces leads to a change in production relations and a change in socio-economic formations and the socio-political system;

The level of the economy, material production, production relations determine the fate of the state and society, the course of history.

5. Also, Marx and Engels singled out and developed

the following concepts:

Means of production;

Alienation;

Surplus value;

Exploitation of man by man.

Means of production - a unique product, a function of labor of the highest level, allowing the production of a new product. For the production of a new product, in addition to the means of production, a force is needed to serve them - the so-called "labor force".

In the course of the evolution of capitalism, there is a process of alienation of the main working mass from the means of production and, consequently, from the results of labor. The main commodity - the means of production - is concentrated in the hands of a few owners, and the bulk of the working people, who do not have the means of production and independent sources of income, are forced to turn to the owners of the means of production as hired labor for wages in order to meet their vital needs.

The value of the product produced by the hired labor force is higher than the value of their labor (in the form of wages), the difference between them, according to Marx, is surplus value, part of which goes into the pocket of the capitalist, and part is invested in new means of production to obtain even greater surplus value in the future.

The founders of Marxist philosophy saw a way out of this situation in the establishment of new, socialist (communist) socio-economic relations, in which:

Private ownership of the means of production will be abolished;

The exploitation of man by man and the appropriation of the results of someone else's labor (surplus product) by a narrow group of people will be eliminated;

Private ownership of the means of production will be replaced by public (state);

The product produced, the results of labor will be shared among all members of society through fair distribution.

6. The basis of the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels was the dialectic of Hegel, but on completely different, materialistic (rather than idealistic) principles. In the words of Engels, Hegel's dialectic was put "upside down" by the Marxists. The following main provisions of dialectical materialism can be distinguished:

The main question of philosophy is decided in favor of being (being determines consciousness);

Consciousness is understood not as an independent entity, but as a property of matter to reflect itself;

Matter is in constant motion and development;

There is no God, He is an ideal image, the fruit of human imagination to explain phenomena that are incomprehensible to mankind, and gives mankind (especially its ignorant part) consolation and hope; God has no influence on the surrounding reality;

Matter is eternal and infinite, periodically takes on new forms of its existence;

An important factor in development is practice - the transformation by a person of the surrounding reality and the transformation by a person of the person himself;

Development occurs according to the laws of dialectics - the unity and struggle of opposites, the transition of quantity into quality, the negation of negation.

15) PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

Philosophy of life: A. Schopenhauer. F. Nietzsche, A. Bergson.

According to the representatives (F. Nietzsche, W. Dilthey, G. Simmel, A. Bergson, O. Spengler and others) of this school, the development of the world and man is based not on a rational basis, but on an irrational reality - “life” as “creative evolution ”, an integral organic “flow” (“impulse”, “duration”), in which matter and consciousness, conscious and unconscious, logic and intuition are inseparable. And this constantly changing stream of life is inexplicable within the framework of rationalism, positivism and mechanism of the previous philosophy. Such theses-symbols of rationalism as “I think, therefore I exist”, “everything that is real is reasonable” are rejected in the new philosophical paradigm. Life and mind are not identical concepts! Life is a process, free spontaneous and instinctive creativity, - it does not lend itself to scientific analysis, in which the subject (man) and life itself (the object of knowledge) are opposed. Life cannot be known, being outside of it, it can be "grabbed" intuitively, "get used", "feel" and "experience". The main thing in life is not matter, but spirit, therefore, the “sciences of the spirit”, and not the “sciences of nature” come to the fore: music, poetry, myth, metaphor, symbol, etc.

The irrationalism of A. Schopenhauer. The world, according to Schopenhauer, is not based on the principles of reason. There is no mind at all in the world, everything in it is subject to will. Will is the “impulse” that exists in nature and in society. In the animal world, this is the desire to preserve life, in the physical world there is “attraction”, gravity, magnetism, in society there is the will of states, peoples and individuals, the will is “spilled”

in nature and society. Will gives rise to all phenomena and processes in the world, but it itself is groundless and causeless. The will is blind and has no rational purpose. It appears as an aimless need to survive.

At the human level, will exists in the form of passions (affects): lust for power, revenge, love, etc. If the basis of the world - "will" -is unreasonable, then the world is not reasonable either. The story is meaningless, there is no rational basis in it. Science constantly comes to a standstill when it tries to justify the world from the laws of reason. The world has not become a better place because of the development of science and technology. The latter become a great evil. Time is hostile to man, it is ruthless and inexorable. In religion, man tries to conquer time through the idea of ​​the immortality of the soul. But this is an illusion. Space is also hostile to man, it separates people.

In general, the life of people is a hopeless long extinction and grief. The meaning of life is to understand that the world is sorrow. A person can live with dignity by eradicating the “will to live” in himself, by eliminating the affects caused by the “will”. A person can give meaning to his life by getting rid of the "will to live" Schopenhauer refers to the provisions of ancient Indian philosophy, calling a person to deny the illusory world, in the pursuit of nirvana. The philosopher comes to pessimistic conclusions about the powerlessness of man and the hopelessness of his life and attempts to know the laws of nature and society. There is even no talk of any construction of a reasonable and happy state, and even more so of moral progress in society.

F. Nietzsche is an outstanding German philosopher who shocked contemporary philosophical thought with his statements. The essence of his views is a hymn to a strong man. He considered himself a student of Schopenhauer and shared his irrationalism. The world is an eternal formation, an eternal stream in which everything returns to normal. A person should not be afraid of death, because the world repeats itself in time with minor changes. The world is life. The basis of life, according to Nietzsche, is the will to power or the desire for self-affirmation of all living things. The purpose of philosophy is to help a person adapt to the world around him and realize himself - to assert himself.

In order to survive a person must be strong. It is this position that explains Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity - the ideology of the weak - slaves, not masters (of life). Christianity preaches humility, compassion, patience, meekness, non-violence.

However, these moral principles have not been accepted for a long time as a guide to action in society by those who really want to achieve something in life - and achieve it. Christian morality is “the sum of the conditions for the preservation of poor, semi-successful and completely unsuccessful types of man,” writes F. Nietzsche. Christianity is dead (God is dead!), it is not capable - and never was able - to be a guide for people. European culture is a culture of pampered people, and Christianity is to blame for this.

F. Nietzsche calls for a "revaluation of values", for replacing the morality of slaves with the morality of masters - "supermen". The philosopher contrasts the "simple man" and the "aristocrats of the spirit." Ordinary people are worthless, weak, half-hearted, soft-bodied, unable to create and rule, they are slaves by nature and can only obey. "Superman" is a being of the highest biotype. He is absolutely free, is outside the generally accepted (Christian) moral norms, outside good and evil. His morality presupposes the art of commanding, breadth of will, truthfulness, fearlessness, hatred of cowardice and cowardice, confidence in the deceitfulness of the common people, cruelty in overcoming the total lie of earthly existence. The "Superman" is neither a hero nor a great man. This is an absolutely new breed of people, which has not yet been in the world - the fruit of the development of all mankind, not some separate nation. The "Superman" will transform the future culture and morality of mankind, will give the peoples new myths instead of the old ones. The "weak" must perish and make way for a new generation of "superhumans". Nietzsche opposes European rationalism, opposing feelings and instincts to it: reason is essentially insignificant, logic is absurd, because deals with frozen forms that contradict the dynamics of life. There is no truth. Knowledge is always nothing more than a subjective interpretation of facts. A person "interprets" the big world, creating his own "small" world of illusions.

Henri Bergson is the founder of intuitionism. Life as a formation begins as a result of the initial explosion ("life impulse") and acts as a stream of qualitative changes.

The initial explosion brought to life intellect and intuition as forms of life and knowledge. “Evolution later led to their mutual alienation, the acquisition of opposite qualities.

Life also breaks up - into spirit and matter. Life can only be known intuitively, sympathetically. At the same time, all opposites are removed, including between the knowable and the knower.

Life seems to know itself. Intuition grasps the living through "durations" - subjectively experienced states of life. The intellect cognizes dead things that have lost "duration" in exchange for spatial fixation.

16) PHILOSOPHY OF THE 20TH CENTURY, GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

philosophical knowledge of this century has undergone a significant evolution, which can be characterized by a number of distinctive features.

the departure of philosophy from narrow, predominantly rationalistic philosophizing, focused on certain political views and religious (atheistic) beliefs, towards increasingly pluralistic and tolerant philosophizing, based on the principles of meeting or dialogue

· Philosophy of the 20th century, resolving important issues such as the relationship between knowledge and understanding, between knowledge and evaluation, between knowledge and truth. This moved philosophy forward not only in the traditional field, but also helped to find new fields of research.

A feature of the philosophy of the 20th century is that it long and painfully freed itself from ideological pressure, from the thesis that dominated for decades about the fierce struggle between materialism and idealism, the inseparable connection between the advanced class and advanced philosophical theory. Especially in the countries of the socialist camp. For decades, researchers have not had the opportunity to deal with those questions of philosophy that were of particular interest to them and to explain certain phenomena without many references to the works of the "founders of Marxism" and party documents.

· A feature of philosophical knowledge of the 20th century is its clear determination by the scientific apparatus of modern natural science (computer, computer, methods of mathematical sciences, systems approach, principles of synergetics). The philosophical knowledge of the 20th century is characterized by evolution towards the study of the problems of the essence and existence of man.

Philosophy of the 20th century opens and develops new areas of philosophizing, such as the philosophy of culture, the philosophy of technology, the philosophy of life, etc.

Philosophy of the 20th century put forward as the most significant and priority problems of our time a whole cycle of global problems that can be combined into one - this is the problem of the survival of mankind, inextricably linked with a new solution to the eternal question of philosophy - what is the meaning of life and the purpose of man.

· Philosophy of the 20th century - together with the entire spiritual culture of the modern world, seeks to help a person in his search for truth, in finding the real, and not the false meaning of life, in finding his Self and realizing his creative potential. Modern philosophy does not impose a single point of view on the world, presenting it as the ultimate truth. The philosophy of the end of the 20th century gave man the freedom to choose his worldview. Modern man is free in his choice. Even a brief review of the development of philosophical knowledge in the twentieth century leaving us shows how dramatically philosophical thought has evolved over the past century.

The philosophy of the 20th century is a diverse and fruitfully developing philosophizing of mankind about the fundamental problems of the existence of Nature, Cosmos, Mankind and Man

17) FREUDISM IN THE 20TH CENTURY

Freudianism is a direction named after the Austrian psychologist Z. Freud, which explains the development and structure of the personality by irrational, mental factors antagonistic to consciousness and uses the technique of psychotherapy based on these ideas. The philosophy of psychoanalysis is one of the most famous trends in European philosophy of the 20th century, which had the most significant impact not only on many philosophical schools, but on the entire spiritual culture - art and literature, theater and music, political and social doctrines.

The founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud is a psychiatrist, the successors of his philosophical traditions Carl Gustav Jung, Karen Horney and Erich Fromm were also practicing psychoanalysts, but the philosophy of psychoanalysis is wider than the utilitarian goal of medical care. In addition to the dynamic concept of the psyche and the creation of effective methods for the treatment of neuroses, psychoanalysis formed many concepts and original hypotheses related to the problems of philosophical anthropology, philosophy of culture, philosophy of life, made conclusions far beyond the scope of medical activity that caused a lot of controversy that has not stopped to this day. .

Freud's work, if we talk about its philosophical aspect, can be divided into two stages. The first concerns the creation of the concept of the unconscious (end of the 19th century - until 1920), when, on the basis of experimental data, he concludes that there are quite clearly defined structural formations in the psyche of each person, which are characterized as consciousness, preconsciousness and the unconscious. In contrast to the rationalist European philosophical tradition, Freud pays special attention to the unconscious, defining it as that part of the psyche into which the unconscious desires of a person, which are irrational and timeless, are forced out. The realization of these desires and ideas is hindered by that part of the psyche, which Freud called the preconscious. It censors the desires that characterize the unconscious aspirations of a person, here is the source of a person’s conflict with himself, since the unconscious is subject to the principle of pleasure, and the preconscious is considered primarily with reality. Its task is to curb the desires of the unconscious, to prevent them from penetrating into consciousness and being realized in some kind of activity, since they can become the source of neurotic behavior.

The main conclusion of the philosophy of psychoanalysis: the entire human culture was created on the basis of a biologically determined process of transformation of a person's sexual instinct into other, sublimated activities. This allowed him to characterize European culture as a culture created by neurotics, people whose normal sexual desires were repressed and then transformed into substitute activities.

At the second stage of creativity (1920-1939), Freud clarifies the concept of the unconscious, including in the sphere of instinctive impulses the primary cosmic urges - Eros and Thanatos (life and death). The most significant development of this period is the dynamic concept of the human psyche, which includes such structures as the id, the ego, and the superego. It, according to Freud, is a boiling cauldron of instincts, giving rise to all subsequent contradictions and difficulties of a person. The structure of the I is called upon to realize (forbid) the impulses of the It, coordinating them with the requirements of the social reality in which a person lives, and the super-I acts as a judge, a public overseer of the entire human psyche, correlating his thoughts and actions with the norms and patterns existing in society behavior. Each of the "floors" of the human psyche lives its own life, but the realization of the fruits of their activity is most often distorted, because a person's life in society is subordinated not to his bioenergetics, but to the cultural environment in which he is included. All European culture, according to Freud, is a culture of prohibition, and all the main taboos concern precisely unconscious impulses, therefore the development of culture involves the development of neuroses and misfortunes of people, leads to an increase in the guilt of each person, the rejection of one's own desires.

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) - Swiss physician, psychologist and philosopher, worked for a number of years with Freud as a practicing physician and at the same time as one of the adherents of the philosophy of psychoanalysis. Later, Jung diverged from Freud in his views on the nature of the unconscious, on the understanding of libido, on the primary forms of human adaptation to the world of society around him.

Analyzing the unconscious, Jung considers it unlawful to reduce all mental impulses of the id to sexuality, to interpret libido only as the energy of drives, and even more so to derive the entire European culture from the sublimations of the individual. Jung characterizes as libido all manifestations of vital energy perceived by a person as an unconscious desire or desire. He shows that a person's libido undergoes a series of complex transformations throughout life, often very far from sexuality; moreover, it can transform and come back due to some life circumstances, which leads to the reproduction in the human mind of a number of archaic images and experiences associated with the primary forms of human life even in the preliterate era. On this basis, Jung creates a cultural concept based on understanding the unconscious first of all as collective and impersonal, and only then as subjective and individualized. The collective unconscious manifests itself in the form of cultural archetypes that cannot be described, comprehended and adequately reflected in linguistic forms. In this sense, Jung claims to create a new type of rationality that is not amenable to traditional European logicism.

Exploring the relationship between individual and social being of a person, Jung comes to the conclusion that in the history of mankind this problem is expressed in different ways, depending on the specifics of Eastern and Western cultures. The East, with its mystical wheel of life, reincarnation and transmigration of souls, forms a person with the absolutization of the collective unconscious, belittling any personal principle in a person. Western culture, as it developed by the 19th century, is characterized by the predominance of rationality, practicality and scientificity in all spheres of life, and the Protestant morality that prevails in many European countries, based on individualism and elevating the subject, is marked by disregard for the collectively unconscious foundations of culture. The appeal of European culture to achievement, success, to personal victory leads to a serious breakdown of the human psyche.

From the concept of the archetypes of culture, a theory of mentality a little later grows, which is successfully developed in modern humanities. The word "mentality" (from Latin mens - way of thinking) denotes a set of attitudes and predispositions of a person, social group, ethnic group to feel, think and act in a certain way. The mentality presupposes not only the existence of certain traditions and norms of culture, it also includes the collective unconscious, which in a certain way influences the actions of people and their understanding of reality.

18. Analytical philosophy. Neopositivism

Analytic philosophy is an Anglo-American tradition of philosophy that became widespread in the middle of the 20th century. Analytic philosophy does not represent a single school, since although it was formed on the basis of British neo-realism (Moore and Russell), it also absorbed Austrian neo-positivism (through Ayer and Quine) and American pragmatism (Peirce, Morris). From positivism, it borrows an anti-metaphysical orientation (criticism of philosophical "pseudo-problems"), scientism and reliance on empirical knowledge, and from pragmatism - common sense. Term analytical indicates the ideals of clarity, accuracy and logical rigor of thinking, which the representatives of this direction of philosophy strive to implement.

This philosophical direction, in essence, proposes to change the subject of philosophy. Analytic philosophy is the philosophy of the language and meanings of concepts. in a broad sense, af can be qualified as a certain style of philosophical thinking. it is characterized, for example, by such qualities as rigor, the accuracy of the terminology used, a cautious attitude towards broad philosophical generalizations, all kinds of abstractions and speculative judgments. for philosophers of analytical orientation (orientation), the process of argumentation itself is sometimes no less important than the result achieved with its help.

At the same time, reasoned persuasiveness, logical conclusions are given a clear preference over their emotional impact.

As a special philosophical trend, neopositivism has become widespread in English-speaking countries. Its most famous representatives are R. Carnap, A. Ayer, B. Russell, L. Wittgenstein, J. Austin and others. Many very different theories are united under the general name of neopositivism: from logical positivism, logical empiricism and logical atomism to the philosophy of linguistic analysis and various areas of analytical philosophy, linked with the theory of critical rationalism.

Logical positivism proclaimed its main task to be the fight against metaphysics, traditionally understanding it as philosophy as a whole, striving to place itself above the struggle between materialism and idealism. Its theoretical source was the real development of physics, logic, mathematics, linguistics and empirical sociology, which directly led to the question of theoretical activity as an activity associated only with the logical language of science: science is reduced to fixing and then ordering facts within the framework of a conditionally accepted system of language . In this case, the task of science is limited to the description of its language. Logical positivism considered events and facts to be the initial prerequisites for any knowledge, i.e. "sense data" located in the sphere of consciousness of the subject. One of the features of this current is that it fundamentally identified the object with the theory of the object. This immediately removed the question of the existence of the objective world as an object of philosophical knowledge and led to the closure of philosophy only on the cognitive problems of logic and logical language, especially since the logico-mathematical language was traditionally considered a model of reliable knowledge. Another fundamental feature was the identification (or rather, replacement) of the concepts of “objective fact” and “scientific fact”. The latter was understood as “recorded” in science with the help of symbolic means, i.e. as a "protocol proposal". The language of science in logical positivism is built in such a way that complex statements are deduced from primary atomic statements according to the rules of logic. At the same time, the proposals of science can be either true, or false, or meaningless. Meaningless sentences, according to R. Carnap, are not sentences in the proper sense of the word, but only resemble them in form. An example of such a sentence would be: “the moon multiplies quadrangularly.” All philosophical propositions, Carnap believed, are also meaningless statements, since, being general propositions, they cannot be verified, verified by reduction to atomic statements fixing this or that “fact”. Since on this basis it is impossible to verify (verify empirically) also moral statements containing the general concepts of "good" and "evil", insofar as logical positivists deduced, for example, ethics beyond science. The disadvantage of the principle of verification in the system of logical positivism is that it does not follow from experience and cannot be obtained analytically. Of course, the analysis of language is important and necessary for science. But it is expedient only when the rules for the use of scientific terms, the rules for combining words in sentences and the rules for deriving others from one sentence reveal the connections and relations of objective reality. Neopositivists, on the other hand, consider all these rules on their own, in isolation from the objective world. Turning to semiotic problems, they singled out three areas of relations: pragmatics (the relation of the language to the one who uses it); semantics (the relationship between language and what it denotes); syntax (relationship between language expressions). All this is called semiotics. The subject of analysis was the meaning of words and signs in general, logical, linguistic and psychological problems of great scientific and practical importance (for example, for the creation of computer technology, the development of machine languages, etc.). In its development, neopositivism came to describe the diverse ways of using words and expressions as various “language games”, which led to a revision of the status of knowledge: philosophical and scientific systems turned out to be nothing more than language formations that have the character of a game. Moreover, this game has a conventional (conditional) character.

Neo-positivism evolved away from analysis. the language of science to the analysis of ordinary language and from the denial of philosophy to the use of the analytical method for a more or less meaningful analysis of philosophical problems proper - to the development, for example, of modeling methods, system-structural analysis, etc. This philosophical trend still continues to hold its positions, although and heavily modified.

Material for simple reading, maybe he will ask about it:

Neo-positivism, like the two previous stages of positivism, begins its struggle for a "genuine" philosophy with a critique of metaphysics. Neopositivists reproach traditional philosophy for vagueness of reasoning, excessive complexity of the language. Philosophy, according to neopositivists, must be radically transformed, it must be subject to the requirements that have developed in modern natural science and mathematics.

It should be noted that neopositivism is heterogeneous: as a philosophical trend, it consists of a number of philosophical schools and has gone through a number of successive stages in its development. Historically, the first and main variant of neopositivism is logical positivism. According to neopositivist philosophers, philosophy does not have an object of study, because it is not a meaningful science about some kind of reality, but is a kind of activity, a special way of theorizing.

Representatives of logical positivism believe that the task of philosophy is reduced to a logical analysis of scientific statements and generalizations. At the same time, neopositivists proceed from the premises that all knowledge is expressed using a language consisting of its elementary components - simple ("atomic") and complex, which, in turn, consist of simple ("molecular") judgments. The central task of philosophy is to develop principles for testing these propositions against their positively given human experience.

Logical atomism, developed by B. Russell and A. Whitehead in the book "Principles of Mathematics", identified the structure of the world with the structure of mathematical logic. B. Russell put forward the position that all statements are divided into three main categories: 1) logical-mathematical (analytical); 2) empirical (synthetic); 3) metaphysical (scientifically meaningless). Further, R. Carnap introduced a classification of sentences, dividing them into meaningless, scientifically meaningless (extra-scientific), scientifically meaningful (scientific). Thus, R. Carnap limited the task of philosophy to the logical analysis of the language, its syntax. Syntax studies the internal structure of sign systems, the rules for their construction, regardless of the functions they perform. Thus, philosophy was reduced to a theory of linguistic forms, a set of formal rules independent of the meaning of words and sentences.

Later, having become convinced of the limitations of the syntactic approach, the neopositivists came to the conclusion that a semantic analysis of the language is necessary. Semantics is a branch of linguistics that studies problems related to the meaning, meaning and interpretation of knowledge and sign expressions.

To test the scientific character of statements, logical positivism put forward the principle of verification (truth), i.e., any theoretical scientific knowledge is subject to experimental verification of truth.

For example, 2 × 2 = 4 is a sentence of a logical-mathematical construction, and the sentence “There are 50 people in the audience” is of an empirical type, since all those sitting in the audience can be counted. All other sentences are either erroneous, that is, they are constructed in violation of the rules of syntax, or metaphysical, that is, they are not scientifically comprehended. Metaphysical are all those sentences that claim to represent knowledge about something that is beyond all experience, about reality, the essence of things, for example, that the basis of the world is water, etc.

Thus, neopositivists interpreted truth as the coincidence of statements with direct human experience. However, in the course of research, it turned out that many statements of science cannot be reduced to experience, that is, subjected to verification, and that the principle of verification itself cannot be verified.

The neopositivists tried to find a way out of this difficulty by replacing the principle of verification with the principle of verifiability: a proposition is true if its fundamental verification is possible, and then this principle was also replaced by the principle of verifiability: partial empirical verification is possible.

The development of analytical philosophy has shown the failure of attempts to eliminate specific philosophical questions from science and reduce philosophy to the methodology of scientific knowledge. In the last decades of the XX century. within analytic philosophy there is a growing interest in the problems of metaphysics, in ontological, epistemological and general sociological problems. The crisis within analytic philosophy was largely associated with the emergence of post-positivist philosophy.

19) Existentialism.

1) General concepts of existentialism.

Existentialism is a direction of philosophy, the main subject of which is a person, his problems, difficulties, existence in the world around him.

Existentialism as a direction of philosophy began to emerge in the middle of the twentieth century, and in the 20s - 70s of the twentieth century. acquired relevance and became one of the popular philosophical trends in Western Europe.

2. Factors that contributed to the emergence and development of existentialism.

Actualization and flourishing of existentialism in the 20s - 70s. 20th century contributed to the following reasons:

the moral, economic and political crises that engulfed mankind before the First World War, during the First and Second World Wars and between them;

the rapid growth of science and technology and the use of technical achievements to the detriment of man (improvement of military equipment, machine guns, machine guns, mines, bombs, the use of poisonous substances in the course of hostilities, etc.);

the danger of the death of mankind (the invention and use of nuclear weapons, the approaching ecological catastrophe);

increased cruelty, inhuman treatment of man (70 million dead in two world wars, concentration camps, labor camps);

the spread of fascist and other totalitarian regimes that completely suppress the human personality;

impotence of man before nature by technogenic society.

3. The main problems considered by existentialism.

Existentialist philosophy spread in response to these phenomena. We can distinguish the following problems that philosophers - existentialists paid attention to:

the uniqueness of the human personality, the depth of his feelings, experiences, anxieties, hopes, life in general;

a striking contradiction between the human inner world and the surrounding life;

the problem of alienation of a person (society, the state have become absolutely alien to a person, a reality that completely neglects a person, suppresses his “I”);

the problem of loneliness, abandonment of a person (a person is lonely in the world around him, he does not have a “coordinate system” where he would feel needed);

the problem of meaninglessness of life;

the problem of internal choice;

the problem of a person’s search for both his inner “I” and his outer one - a place in life.

4. The philosophy of Sjoren Kierkegaard is the birth of existentialism.

The Danish philosopher Sjøren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) is considered the founder of existentialism.

He raised the question: why does philosophy deal with so many different questions - the essence of being, matter, God, spirit, limits and mechanisms of cognition - and pays almost no attention to a person, moreover, dissolves a specific person with his inner world, experiences in universal, abstract , as a rule, issues that are not of interest to him and do not concern his daily life?

Kierkegaard believed that philosophy should turn to a person, his little problems, help him find the truth that he understands, for which he could live, help a person make an inner choice and realize his "I".

The best representatives of existentialism of the twentieth century were:

Karl Jasper (1883 - 1969);

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980);

Albert Camus (1913 - 1960);

Martin Heidegger (1889 - 1976).

5. Philosophy of K. Jaspers.

Karl Jasper (1883 - 1969) - a German philosopher - was one of the first to raise existentialist problems in the twentieth century. (in the book "Psychology of worldviews", published in 1919 - after the end of the First World War).

According to Jasper, a person usually lives an "abandoned" life that does not have much meaning - "like everyone else." At the same time, he does not even suspect who he really is, does not know his hidden abilities, capabilities, true "I". However, in special cases, the true nature, these hidden qualities come out. According to Jasper, these are borderline situations - between life and death, especially important for a person, his future destiny. From that moment on, a person realizes himself and becomes himself, he comes into contact with transcendence - the highest being.

The whole life of a person, consciously or unconsciously, is directed towards transcendence - towards the complete liberation of energy and the understanding of some higher absolute.

A person approaches transcendence, the absolute, releases energy, realizes himself through the so-called "ciphers" of the transcendental:

erotica, sex;

unity of oneself with one's own inner world (consent with oneself);

death is the end of life.

6. Philosophy J.P. Sartre.

The main problem of the existential philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980) is the problem of choice.

The central concept of Sartre's philosophy is "being-for-itself".

“Being-for-itself” is the highest reality for a person, the priority for him is, first of all, his own inner world. However, a person can become fully aware of himself only through “for-other-being” - various relationships with other people. A person sees and perceives himself through the attitude of the “other” towards him.

The most important condition of human life, its “core”, the basis of activity is freedom.

A person finds his freedom and manifests it in a choice, but not a simple, secondary one (for example, what clothes to wear today), but in a vital, fateful one, when decisions cannot be avoided (issues of life and death, extreme situations, vital problems for a person) . Sartre calls this kind of decision an existential choice. Having made an existential choice, a person determines his destiny for many years to come, passes from one existence to another.

All life is a chain of various "small lives", segments of different existence, connected by special "knots" - existential decisions. For example: choosing a profession, choosing a spouse, choosing a job, deciding to change a profession, deciding to take part in a struggle, go to war, etc.

According to Sartre, human freedom is absolute (that is, irrelevant). Man is free insofar as he is able to will. For example, a prisoner sitting in prison is free as long as he wants something: escape from prison, stay longer, commit suicide. A person is doomed to freedom (in any circumstances, except for the case of complete submission to external reality, but this is also a choice).

Along with the problem of freedom comes the problem of responsibility. A person is responsible for everything that he does, for himself (“Everything that happens to me is mine”).

The only thing a person cannot be responsible for is his own birth. However, in all other respects, he is completely free and must responsibly dispose of freedom, especially with an existential (fateful) choice.

7. Philosophy of A. Camus.

Albert Camus (1913 - 1960) made the problem of the meaning of life the main problem of his existential philosophy.

The main thesis of the philosopher is that human life is essentially meaningless.

Most people live their little worries, joys, from Monday to Sunday, year after year and do not give their lives a purposeful meaning. Those who fill life with meaning, spend energy, rush forward, sooner or later realize that ahead (where they go with all their might) is death, Nothing. Everyone is mortal - both those who fill life with meaning and those who do not. Human life is an absurdity (in translation - unfounded).

Camus gives two main proofs of the absurdity, groundlessness of life:

contact with death - in contact with death, especially close and sudden, much that previously seemed important to a person - hobbies, career, wealth - loses its relevance and seems meaningless, not worth being itself;

contact with the surrounding world, nature - a person is helpless in front of nature that has existed for millions of years (“I smell the grass and see the stars, but no knowledge on Earth can give me confidence that the world is mine”).

As a result, the meaning of life, according to Camus, is not in the external world (successes, failures, relationships), but in the very existence of a person.

8. Philosophy of M. Heidegger.

Martin Heidegger (1889 - 1976) was engaged in the development of the very foundations of an existentialist understanding of the subject and tasks of philosophy.

Existence, according to Heidegger, is a being to which a person refers himself, the fullness of a person's being with specifics; his life is in what belongs to him and what exists for him.

The existence of a person takes place in the surrounding world (called by the philosopher “being in the world”). In turn, "being in the world" consists of:

"being with others";

"being oneself".

"Being with others" sucks a person, is aimed at his complete assimilation, depersonalization, transformation into "like everyone else."

“Being oneself” simultaneously with “being with others” is possible only if the “I” is distinguished from others.

Consequently, a person, wishing to remain himself, must resist the "others", lag behind his identity. Only then will he be free.

Defending one's identity in the surrounding world that absorbs a person is the main problem and concern of a person.

20. Postmodernism in the philosophy of the XX century.

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