Much depends on the wording of its main question. Philosophers have different ideas about the content of such a question.
The fundamental question of philosophy
Yes, F. Bacon singled out in philosophy as the main -the question of expanding the power of man over nature, thanks to the knowledge of the phenomena of the surrounding world and the introduction of knowledge into practice.
R. Descartes and B. Spinoza singled out the question of gaining dominance over external nature and improving human nature as the main issue of philosophy.
K. A. Helvetius considered the question of the essence of human happiness to be the main issue.
J.-J. Rousseau reduced this question to the question of social inequality and ways to overcome it.
I. Kant considered the main question in philosophy of how a priori knowledge is possible, i.e., such knowledge that is obtained through pre-experimentation, and J. G. Fichte reduced this question to the question of the foundations of any knowledge.
For the famous Russian philosopher S. L. Frank, such a question sounded like this: what is a person and what is his true purpose, and the well-known representative of French existentialism A. Camus believed that this quality is the question of whether is life worth living?
In modern domestic philosophical thought, many experts consider the question of the relation of thinking to being, consciousness to matter to be the main one. Such a formulation of the main question of philosophy is reflected in the work of F. Engels “Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy”. It notes: “The great fundamental question of all, especially modern philosophy, is the question of the relation of thinking to being,” and further “philosophers have divided into two large camps according to how they answer this question,” i.e., into materialists and idealists. It is generally accepted that the main question in such a formulation has two sides. The first one is connected with the answer to the question of what is primary - matter or consciousness, and the second side is associated with the answer to the question of the cognizability of the world.
Let us first consider a question related to the first side of the fundamental question of philosophy.
idealists
As for the idealists, they recognize the primary idea, spirit, consciousness. They consider the material to be the product of the spiritual. However, the correlation of consciousness and matter by representatives of objective and subjective idealism is not understood in the same way. Objective and subjective idealism are two varieties of idealism. Representatives of objective idealism (Plato, W. G. Leibniz, G. W. F. Hegel, and others), recognizing the reality of the existence of the world, believe that in addition to human consciousness, there is a “world of ideas”, “world mind”, i.e. something that determines all material processes. In contrast to this view, representatives of subjective idealism (D. Berkeley, D. Hume, I. Kant and others) believe that the objects that we see, touch and smell are combinations of our sensations. The consistent holding of such a view leads to solipsism, i.e., to the recognition that only the cognizing subject, who, as it were, imagines reality, is recognized as really existing.
materialists
Materialists, on the contrary, defend the idea that the world is an objectively existing reality. Consciousness is considered derivative, secondary to matter. Materialists stand on the positions of materialistic monism (from the Greek monos - one). This means that matter is recognized as the only beginning, the basis of all that exists. Consciousness is considered a product of highly organized matter - the brain.
However, there are other philosophical views on the relationship between matter and consciousness. Some philosophers consider matter and consciousness as two equivalent foundations of everything that exists, independent of each other. Such views were held by R. Descartes, F. Voltaire, I. Newton and others. They are called dualists (from the Latin dualis - dual) for the recognition of matter and consciousness (spirit) as equals.
Now let us find out how the materialists and idealists solve the question related to the second side of the fundamental question of philosophy.
Materialists proceed from the fact that the world is cognizable, our knowledge about it, verified by practice, is able to be reliable, and serve as the basis for effective, expedient human activity.
Idealists in solving the problem of the cognizability of the world were divided into two groups. Subjective idealists doubt that cognition of the objective world is possible, while objective idealists, although they recognize the possibility of cognizing the world, make a person's cognitive abilities dependent on God or otherworldly forces.
Philosophers who deny the possibility of knowing the world are called agnostics. Concessions to agnosticism are made by representatives of subjective idealism, who doubt the possibilities of knowing the world or declare certain areas of reality fundamentally unknowable.
The existence of two main trends in philosophy has social foundations or sources and epistemological roots.
The social basis of materialism can be considered the need of some sections of society to proceed from experience or rely on the achievements of science when organizing and conducting practical activities, and its epistemological roots are claims to the possibility of obtaining reliable knowledge about the studied phenomena of the world.
The social foundations of idealism include the underdevelopment of science, disbelief in its possibilities, disinterest in its development and use of the results of scientific research of certain social strata. To the epistemological roots of idealism - the complexity of the process of cognition, its contradictions, the possibility of separating our concepts from reality, raising them to the absolute. V. I. Lenin wrote: “Straightness and one-sidedness, woodenness and ossification, subjectivism and subjective blindness ... (here are) the epistemological roots of idealism.” The main source of idealism lies in the exaggeration of the importance of the ideal and in the downplaying of the role of the material in people's lives. Idealism developed in the history of philosophy in close connection with religion. However, philosophical idealism differs from religion in that it wraps its evidence in the form of theorizing, and religion, as noted earlier, is based on the recognition of the indisputable authority of faith in God.
Materialism and idealism are two currents in world philosophy. They are expressed in two different types of philosophizing. Each of these types of philosophizing has subtypes. For example, materialism appears in the form of the spontaneous materialism of the ancients (Heraclitus, Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius Carus), mechanical materialism (F. Bacon, T. Hobbes, D. Locke, J. O. La Mettrie, C. A. Helvetius, P. A. Holbach) and dialectical materialism (K. Marx, F. Engels, V. I. Lenin, G. V. Plekhanov and others). Idealism also includes two subtypes of philosophizing in the form of objective idealism (Plato, Aristotle, W. G. Leibniz, G. W. F. Hegel) and subjective idealism (D. Berkeley, D. Hume, I. Kant). In addition, within the framework of these subtypes of philosophizing, special schools with their inherent features of philosophizing can be distinguished. Materialism and idealism in philosophy are in continuous development. Between the representatives of both, there is a controversy that contributes to the development of philosophizing and philosophical knowledge.
Rationalism
Rationalism is the most widespread form of philosophizing. which means recognition of the value and authority of reason in knowledge and in the organization of practice. Rationalism can be inherent in both materialism and idealism. Within the framework of materialism, rationalism admits the possibility of a rational explanation of all processes in the world. Philosophers who stand on the positions of materialistic rationalism (K. A. Helvetius, P. A. Golbach, K. Marx, F. Engels, V. I. Lenin and others) believe that people, relying on the consciousness formed in them in in the course of interaction with nature, they are able to carry out cognitive activity, thanks to which it is possible to achieve adequate awareness of the objects of the world around them and, on this basis, rationally, i.e. reasonably, optimally, economically organize practice. Idealistic rationalism, whose typical representatives are F. Aquinas, W. G. Leibniz and G. W. F. Hegel, adhere to the view that the basis of everything that exists is the mind that rules everything. At the same time, it is believed that the human consciousness, which is a product of the higher divine mind, is able to comprehend the world and enable a person to act successfully.
Irrationalism
The opposite of rationalism is irrationalism. which, belittling the importance of reason, denies the legitimacy of relying on it both in knowledge and in practice. Irrationalists call revelation, instinct, faith, and the unconscious the basis of human interaction with the world.
In addition to these foundations, the nature of philosophizing can be mediated by such principles as monism, dualism and pluralism. Monism can be both idealistic and materialistic. Those who adhere to idealistic monism consider God, or the world mind, the world will, as a single principle. According to materialistic monism, matter is the origin of everything that exists. Monism is opposed by dualism, which recognizes the equality of the two principles of consciousness (spirit) and matter.
Philosophers who consider the most diverse points of view equal in rights are called pluralists (from the Latin pluralis - plural). The assumption of pluralism in the presence of a high philosophical culture in the conditions of uncertainty of public goals and objectives gives rise to the possibility of an open discussion of problems, lays the ground for controversy between those who defend different, but legitimate at the moment in public life, ideas, hypotheses and constructions. At the same time, the formal and rigid use of this principle can create grounds for equalizing the rights of true, genuinely scientific and false opinions, and thus hinder philosophizing as a process of searching for truth.
The variety of types and forms of philosophizing, formed on the basis of a combination of different approaches to understanding the phenomena and processes of the surrounding world, helps to find answers to numerous questions of an ideological, methodological and practical nature. This turns philosophy into a system of knowledge useful for solving both social and individual problems. The acquisition of such a status by philosophy makes it necessary for every educated person to study it. For his success in life as an intellectual is problematic without partaking in it.
Introduction……………………………………………………………………...........3
I. Materialism and idealism:
1. The concept of materialism…………………………………………………….4
2. The concept of idealism………………………………………………………...8
3. Differences between materialism and idealism……………….…….12
II. Historical forms of materialism:
1. Ancient materialism………………………………………………...13
2. Metaphysical materialism of modern times………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
3. Dialectical materialism………………………………………….15
III. The difference between metaphysical and dialectical materialism...16
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………… 17
List of used literature…………………………………………...18
Introduction
Philosophers want to know what is the meaning of human life. But for this you need to answer the question: what is a person? What is its essence? To define the essence of a person means to show his fundamental differences from everything else. The main difference is the mind, consciousness. Any human activity is directly related to the activity of his spirit, thoughts.
The history of philosophy is, in a certain sense, the history of the confrontation between materialism and idealism, or, to put it another way, how different philosophers understand the relationship between being and consciousness.
If a philosopher claims that at first a certain idea, a world mind, appeared in the world, and from them all the diversity of the real world was born, then this means that we are dealing with an idealistic point of view on the main issue of philosophy. Idealism is such a type and such a method of philosophizing that assigns an active creative role in the world exclusively to the spiritual principle; only for him recognizing the ability to self-development. Idealism does not deny matter, but considers it as the lowest kind of being - not as a creative, but as a secondary principle.
From the point of view of supporters of materialism, matter, i.e. the basis of the entire infinite set of objects and systems existing in the world is primary, therefore the materialistic view of the world is fair. Consciousness, inherent only to man, reflects the surrounding reality.
Target of this work - to study the features materialism And idealism .
For achievements goals the following tasks : 1) study theoretical material on the topic; 2) to consider the features of philosophical currents; 3) compare and identify differences between the indicated currents.
Forms materialism and idealism are diverse. There are objective and subjective idealism, metaphysical, dialectical, historical and ancient materialism.
I materialism and idealism.
1. Materialism
Materialism- this is a philosophical direction that postulates the primacy and uniqueness of the material principle in the world and considers the ideal only as a property of the material. Philosophical materialism affirms the primacy of the material and the secondary nature of the spiritual, the ideal, which means the eternity, uncreation of the world, its infinity in time and space. Thinking is inseparable from the matter that thinks, and the unity of the world lies in its materiality. Considering consciousness to be a product of matter, materialism views it as a reflection of the external world. Materialistic decision of the second party fundamental question of philosophy- about the cognizability of the world - means the belief in the adequacy of the reflection of reality in human consciousness, in the cognizability of the world and its laws. Materialism is characterized by reliance on science, evidence and verifiability of statements. Science has repeatedly refuted idealism, but so far has not been able to refute materialism. Under content materialism is understood as the totality of its initial premises, its principles. Under form materialism is understood as its general structure, determined primarily by the method of thinking. Thus, its content contains that which is common to all schools and currents of materialism, in their contrast to idealism and agnosticism, and its form is connected with that particular thing that characterizes individual schools and currents of materialism.
In the history of philosophy, materialism, as a rule, was the worldview of the advanced classes and strata of society, interested in the correct knowledge of the world, in strengthening the power of man over nature. Summarizing the achievements of science, he contributed to the growth of scientific knowledge, the improvement of scientific methods, which had a beneficial effect on the success of human practice, on the development of productive forces. The criterion of the truth of materialism is socio-historical practice. It is in practice that the false constructions of idealists and agnostics are refuted, and its truth is undeniably proved. The word "materialism" began to be used in the 17th century mainly in the sense of physical ideas about matter (R. Boyle), and later in a more general, philosophical sense (G. W. Leibniz) to oppose materialism to idealism. The exact definition of materialism was first given by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Materialism went through 3 stages in its development .
First the stage was associated with the naive or spontaneous materialism of the ancient Greeks and Romans (Empedocles, Anaximander, Democritus, Epicurus). The first teachings of materialism appear together with the emergence of philosophy in the slave-owning societies of ancient India, China and Greece in connection with progress in the field of astronomy, mathematics and other sciences. A common feature of ancient materialism is the recognition of the materiality of the world, its existence independently of people's consciousness. Its representatives sought to find in the diversity of nature the common origin of everything that exists and happens. In antiquity, even Thales of Miletus believed that everything arises from water and turns into it. For ancient materialism, especially for Epicurus, the emphasis on personal self-improvement of a person is characteristic: freeing him from fear of the gods, from all passions and acquiring the ability to be happy in any circumstances. The merit of ancient materialism was the creation of a hypothesis about the atomistic structure of matter (Leucippus, Democritus).
In the Middle Ages, materialistic tendencies manifested themselves in the form of nominalism, the doctrine of the "eternal nature of nature and God." In the Renaissance, materialism (Telesio, Vruna and others) was often dressed in the form of pantheism and hylozoism, considered nature in its entirety and in many ways resembled the materialism of antiquity - it was a time second stage of development of materialism. In the 16-18 centuries, in the countries of Europe - the second stage in the development of materialism - Bacon, Hobbes, Helvetius, Galileo, Gassendi, Spinoza, Locke and others formulated metaphysical and mechanistic materialism. This form of materialism arose on the basis of emerging capitalism and the growth of production, technology, and science associated with it. Acting as the ideologists of the then progressive bourgeoisie, the materialists waged a struggle against medieval scholasticism and church authorities, turned to experience as a teacher and to nature as an object of philosophy. The materialism of the 17th and 18th centuries is associated with the then rapidly progressing mechanics and mathematics, which determined its mechanistic character. In contrast to the natural philosophers-materialists of the Renaissance, the materialists of the 17th century began to consider the last elements of nature as inanimate and qualityless. Remaining in general on the positions of a mechanistic understanding of motion, French philosophers (Didro, Holbach and others) considered it as a universal and inalienable property of nature, completely abandoned the deistic inconsistency inherent in most materialists of the 17th century. The organic connection that exists between all materialism and atheism was especially pronounced among the French materialists of the 18th century. The peak in the development of this form of materialism in the West was Feuerbach's "anthropological" materialism, in which contemplation was most clearly manifested.
In the 1840s, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels formulated the basic principles of dialectical materialism - this was the beginning third stage of development of materialism. In Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe in the second half of the 19th century, a further step in the development of materialism was the philosophy of revolutionary democrats, which was derived from the combination of Hegelian dialectics and materialism (Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Markovich, Votev and others), based on the traditions of Lomonosov , Radishchev and others. One of the features of the development of dialectical materialism is its enrichment with new ideas. The modern development of science requires that natural scientists become conscious adherents of dialectical materialism. At the same time, the development of socio-historical practice and science requires constant development and concretization of the very philosophy of materialism. The latter occurs in the constant struggle of materialism with the latest varieties of idealist philosophy.
In the 20th century, in Western philosophy, materialism developed mainly as a mechanistic one, but a number of Western materialist philosophers also retained an interest in dialectics. Materialism of the late 20th and early 21st centuries is represented by the philosophical direction of “ontological philosophy”, led by the American philosopher Barry Smith. Philosophical materialism can be called an independent trend in philosophy precisely because it solves a number of problems, the formulation of which is excluded by other areas of philosophical knowledge.
Main forms materialism in the historical development of philosophical thought are: antique materialism , historical materialism , metaphysical materialism new time And dialectical materialism .
The concept of idealism
Idealism- this is a philosophical direction that ascribes an active, creative role in the world to an exclusively ideal principle and makes the material dependent on the ideal.
IDEALISM (from the Greek ίδέα - visible, appearance, form, concept, image), one of the fundamental philosophical currents or directions, which considers the ideal in one form or another to be valid (idea, consciousness, spirit, absolute, etc.). As a term, it has been used in modern European philosophy since the 18th century, although the philosophical doctrine it denotes took shape already in ancient Greek philosophy. The concept of "idealism" is ambiguous and has undergone significant changes in the course of its history, as a result of which the entire previous history of philosophy has often been retrospectively rethought. Depending on whether we are talking about a theoretical-epistemological or metaphysical-ideological aspect in the understanding of the “idea”, as well as on what is considered as an opposing current, various types of idealism are distinguished.
G. W. Leibniz, who first used the term “idealism”, considered idealism in opposition to “the greatest materialists and the greatest idealists”: he considered Epicurus and his supporters as a model of the first, according to the hypothesis of which “everything happens in the body as if it did not exist soul”, a model of the latter - Plato and his followers, according to the hypothesis of which “everything in the soul happens as if there were no body at all” (Leibniz G. V. Soch. M., 1982. T. 1. S. 332) . Among the idealists, Leibniz attributed the representatives of Cartesianism. Already in the 18th century, "spiritualism" (M. Mendelssohn and others) acted as a synonym for idealism. An extreme case of idealism, which recognizes that only one's own soul exists, was called "egoism" in the 18th century (in modern usage it is called solipsism).
I. Kant and T. Reed considered J. Berkeley to be the founder of idealistic metaphysics (he himself called his doctrine “immaterialism”), however, Reed also referred to the “ideal systems”, or “theories of ideas”, the philosophy of J. Locke and D. Hume . The reason for this discrepancy turned out to be a different understanding of the “idea”: if for English and French philosophy almost any representation (for example, “red”) could turn out to be an idea, then for the German tradition (at least starting with Kant), the concept of reason predominantly acts as an idea, which, like Plato, has a supersensible and universal character, and the use of an “idea” in the sense of any representation turns out to be impossible. Russian philosophy in this matter follows the German and ancient Greek traditions.
I. Kant used the concept of idealism not only in polemics with his opponents, but also - in a new meaning - to designate his own position. He distinguished between formal and material, or psychological, idealism. Material, or “ordinary”, idealism “doubts the existence of external things themselves or denies them”, while in case of doubt about the existence of objects in space outside of us, we are talking about problematic (skeptical) idealism (R. Descartes), and in the case of declaring things in space, the product of the imagination, we are talking about dogmatic, or "mystical and dreamy", idealism (J. Berkeley). Such idealism, whose conclusions about the unproved existence of things outside of us, Kant considered "a scandal for philosophy and universal reason", he opposed his own formal, or transcendental, idealism in the Critique of Pure Reason, which was based on his doctrine of empirical reality and transcendental reality. ideality of space and time. The first consists in the objective significance of space and time for all objects that can be given to our senses, while the second means the absence of claims to absolute reality and the impossibility of comprehending the properties of "things in themselves" through the senses. Faced with the identification of his own position with the teachings of Berkeley, Kant included in the 2nd edition of the Critique of Pure Reason the section "Refutation of Idealism" and proposed his own formal, or transcendental, idealism, in order to avoid confusion, also be called critical idealism, according to which "we are given things as outside of us are the objects of our feelings, but we don’t know anything about what they are in themselves, but we know only their phenomena ”(Kant I. Sobr. soch. M., 1994. Vol. 4. P. 44). Thus, critical idealism does not refer to the existence of things, which Kant "didn't even dream of" doubting, but only to the sensible conception of things. However, already J. G. Fichte recognized the existence of things as dogmatism. Trying to overcome it and build a system of “true” idealism, or criticism, which he did not find in Kant, Fichte laid the concept of the Self at the foundation of philosophy, identifying transcendental idealism with his own “scientific teaching”. If Kant traced the opposition of ideality and reality, then Fichte tried to combine them in a kind of synthesis of idealism and realism (“real-idealism” or “ideal-realism”).
F. W. Schelling, interpreting Fichte’s teaching of science as “subjective” idealism, tried to present idealism “in its entirety”: the system he built was a combination of transcendental philosophy (removal of nature from the intelligentsia) and natural philosophy (removal of the intelligentsia from nature) and received terminological design in the distinction between “relative” (“transcendental”) and “absolute” idealism as a kind of “whole” underlying both realism and “relative” idealism (Schelling F. Ideas for the philosophy of nature as an introduction to the study of this science. St. Petersburg ., 1998. S. 141-142). The interpretation of absolute idealism also corresponded to Schelling's understanding of the absolute as the indistinguishability of the real and the ideal.
G. W. F. Hegel, believing, like F. W. Schelling, that all philosophy is essentially idealism, characterized his position as the point of view of "absolute idealism", according to which "the real definition of finite things consists in that they have the basis of their existence not in themselves, but in the universal divine idea” (Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences. M., 1975. Vol. 1. S. 162-163).
Philosophical development in Germany from J. Kant to G. W. F. Hegel, including F. Schlegel, F. Schleiermacher, Novalis, and others, is often referred to as German idealism. Despite the widespread use of this term, its boundaries are very blurred. Questions remain debatable as to whether the philosophy of Kant should be included in German idealism, whether it ends with Hegel or with A. Schopenhauer and others. For many representatives of Russian religious philosophy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (N.A. Berdyaev and others ) idealism was practically identified with German ("Germanic") idealism.
In parallel with the crisis of Hegelian speculative philosophy in the middle of the 19th century, idealism itself as a philosophical doctrine was criticized by thinkers of various trends (S. Kierkegaard, L. Feuerbach, K. Marx and F. Engels, F. Nietzsche, etc.). V. Dilthey, in the typology of worldviews he developed, singled out “naturalism”, “objective idealism” and “idealism of freedom” as three main types (Types of worldview and their discovery in metaphysical systems // New ideas in philosophy. 1912. No. 1. P. 156-157, 168-169, 176-177). Along with the reconstruction of Hegelian philosophy in various variants of neo-Hegelianism (British absolute idealism, etc.), criticism of it could initiate the development of new varieties of idealism, starting from the “abstract” Hegelian system (for example, S. N. Trubetskoy’s “concrete idealism”). In the 20th century, idealism was criticized by neopositivism and analytic philosophy. In general, the opposition of idealism - materialism, characteristic of the 18th and 19th centuries, lost its sharpness in the 20th century, and the problems of classical idealism were developed and discussed in a variety of philosophical directions.
Lit .: Problems of idealism. M., 1902; Florensky P. A. The meaning of idealism. Sergiev Posad, 1914; Idealist tradition: from Berkeley to Blanshard / Ed. by A. S. Ewing. Glencoe, 1957; Willmann O. Geschichte des Idealismus. Aalen, 1973-1979. Bd 1-3; Voßkühler F. Der Idealismus als Metaphysik der Moderne. Würzburg, 1996; Kroner R. Von Kant bis Hegel. 4.Aufl. Tube., 2006. Bd 1-2.
AND realism - a term for a wide range of philosophical concepts and worldviews, which are based on the assertion of the primacy of consciousness in relation to matter.
According to idealistic concepts, physical objects do not exist outside and independently of consciousness (i.e. outside of their perception and thinking about them). Idealists believe that a person can judge the existence of the external world only with the help of his consciousness as a means of referring to the physical world. What exists exists not only through consciousness, but also in consciousness. Therefore, in order for the physical body to become perceptible to man, it must exist as an ideal body. At the same time, representatives of idealism never claimed that physical objects do not exist, but insisted that they do not have substantial properties, the totality of which could be subsumed under the category of matter.
Idealism is far from a homogeneous trend, there are various types of it. The main forms of idealism - objective And subjective.
The largest representatives objective idealism: in ancient philosophy - Plato, Plotinus, Proclus; in modern times - G. W. Leibniz, F. W. Schelling, G. W. F. Hegel. Objective idealism affirms the existence of a spiritual principle outside and independently of human consciousness, the second either denies the existence of any reality outside the consciousness of the subject, or considers it as something completely determined by its activity. Objective (or absolute) idealism is called the philosophical doctrine of G.V.F. Hegel, who believed that the physical world represents various stages of realization of the consciousness spilled in nature (Absolute Idea). The spiritual and the physical are synthesized in him in an independent spiritual fundamental principle.
subjective idealism are considered concepts in which the world is presented as a fact of our (my) consciousness. It is most clearly expressed in the teachings of J. Berkeley, D. Hume, and early J. G. Fichte (18th century). The spiritual Ego outlines the boundaries of our knowledge - this version of idealism was adhered to by I.G. Fichte.
There are various forms of idealism depending on how the spiritual principle is understood:
as world reason (panlogism) or world will (voluntarism);
a single spiritual substance (idealistic monism) or a multitude of spiritual primary elements (pluralism);
reasonable, logically comprehended beginning (idealistic rationalism);
sensory diversity of sensations (idealistic empiricism and sensationalism, phenomenalism);
an irregular, illogical beginning that cannot be an object of scientific knowledge (irrationalism).
9. Determinism and its varieties. Causality and teleology
D determinism (from Latin determino - to delimit, define boundaries) - the doctrine of the universal regular interconnection of everything that exists.
According to this principle, for every phenomenon there are causes that determine it.
The principle of determinism became one of the central principles in the 17th-18th centuries. and was understood as a universal causal conditionality of all phenomena of the natural, social, material and spiritual worlds. Causality was reduced to mechanical causality, and the explanation of any phenomenon meant the search for its cause. This determinism is called mechanistic.
P. Laplace completely identified the concepts of causality and determinism, excluding the objective existence of chance. Impressed by Newton's physics, Laplace argued that it is enough to have a complete description of the state of the universe at some point in time, "and nothing will be uncertain anymore, and the future, like the past, will appear before our eyes." He believed that what we call randomness is the result of limited knowledge.
Mechanistic determinism restricts free will and relieves a person of responsibility for his actions, turning him into a passive consequence of external circumstances. Such determinism often turns into fatalism - the doctrine of the inevitability of what is happening, the impossibility of foreseeing it.
In the social sciences, determinism is associated with the problems of individual freedom and the determinants of historical development. According to Marxism, society is determined by economic factors, and individual freedom is limited by class consciousness and other social factors.
Psychoanalysis is characterized by determinism associated with sexual desires and the needs of society in their utilization.
Modern determinism distinguishes various forms of regular relationships, in addition to causal ones, recognizes not only the unambiguous, but also the probabilistic nature of the relationships. Among the diverse dependencies, functional, symmetry relations, and target dependencies are distinguished.
The theory of non-equilibrium systems - synergetics - has made a new contribution to the doctrine of the necessary connection, understanding the relationship of cause and effect not as a unidirectional, but as a two-way process, with feedback.
The doctrine of causality (causality) is opposed by teleology - the doctrine of the expediency of everything that exists, of the target determination of individual spheres of being. Teleology is presented in two main forms - as the doctrine of an immanent goal inherent in every thing, and as a doctrine of a goal beyond the world (transcendent). Of particular importance for changing the concept of teleology are discoveries in the field of cybernetics, thanks to which the goal is considered as a function of a self-organizing system aimed at preserving its main quality.
Idealism is a category of philosophy that claims that reality depends on the mind and not on matter. In other words, all ideas and thoughts are the essence and fundamental nature of our world. In this article we will get acquainted with the concept of idealism, consider who was its founder.
Preamble
Extreme versions of idealism deny that any "world" exists outside of our minds. Narrower versions of this philosophical trend, on the contrary, argue that the understanding of reality reflects primarily the work of our mind, that the properties of objects have no standing independent of the minds that perceive them.
If there is an external world, we cannot really know it or know anything about it; all that is available to us are mental constructions created by the mind, which we falsely attribute to the things around us. For example, theistic forms of idealism limit reality to only one consciousness - the divine.
Definition in simple words
Idealism is the philosophical creed of those people who believe in high ideals and strive to make them real, although they know that sometimes this is impossible. This notion often contrasts with pragmatism and realism, where people have less ambitious but more achievable goals.
This sense of "idealism" is very different from how the word is used in philosophy. From a scientific point of view, idealism is the main structure of reality: adherents of this trend believe that its one “unit” is thought, not matter.
Important books and founding philosophers
If you want to get to know the concept of idealism better, it is recommended to read some fascinating works of some authors. For example, Josiah Royce - "The World and the Individual", George Berkeley - "Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge", Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 0 "Phenomenology of Spirit", I. Kant - "Critique of Pure Reason".
You should also pay attention to the founders of idealism, such as Plato and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. All the authors of the books mentioned above have made a huge contribution to the development of this philosophical trend.
The Scottish philosopher David Hume showed that a person cannot prove the existence of a stable self-identification over time. There is no scientific way to confirm people's idea of their own self. We are confident that this is true, thanks to intuition. She tells us: “Of course, it's me! And it cannot be otherwise!”
There are many ways to answer, including those based on modern genetics that Hume could not have imagined. Instead of being a physical object, the human self is an idea, and, according to ontological philosophical idealism, this is precisely what makes it real!
James Jeans was a British scientist and mathematician. In his quotation that each individual consciousness must be compared to a brain cell in the universal mind, the researcher shows a comparison between divine and ontological idealism. James Jeans was an ardent supporter of the latest theory in philosophy. The scientist argued that ideas cannot simply float in the abstract world of the mind, but are contained in a large universal mind. However, he does not use the word “God” itself, but many refer to his theory as theism. Jeans himself was an agnostic, that is, he believed that it was impossible to know whether the Almighty was real or not.
What is "mind" in idealism
The nature and identity of the "mind" on which reality depends is one of the issues that has divided the idealists into several parties. Some argue that there is some kind of objective consciousness outside of nature, while others, on the contrary, think that this is just a general force of reason or rationality, others believe that this is the collective mental faculties of society, and the rest focus simply on the thought processes of individuals.
Plato's objective idealism
The ancient Greek philosopher believed that there is a perfect realm of form and ideas, and our world simply contains its shadows. This view is often called Plato's objective idealism or "Platonic realism" because the scientist seems to have attributed to these forms an existence independent of any mind. However, some have argued that the ancient Greek philosopher held a position analogous to Kant's Transcendent Idealism.
Gnoseological trend
According to René Descartes, the only thing that can be real happens in our mind: nothing from the outside world is capable of being realized directly without the mind. Thus, the only true knowledge available to humanity is our own existence, a position summed up in the mathematician and philosopher's famous statement: "I think, therefore I am" (in Latin, Cogito ergo sum).
Subjective opinion
According to this trend in idealism, only ideas can be known and have any reality. In some treatises it is also called solipsism or dogmatic idealism. Thus, no claims about anything outside of one's mind have any justification.
Bishop George Berkeley was the main proponent of this position, and he argued that so-called "objects" existed only insofar as we perceived them: they were not built from independently existing matter. Reality only seemed to persist, either because people continued to perceive things, or because of the continued will and mind of God.
Objective idealism
According to this theory, all reality is based on the perception of one mind, usually, but not always, identified with God, which then transmits its perception to the minds of all the others.
There is no time, space or other reality outside the perception of one mind. In fact, even we humans are not separate from it. We are more like cells that are part of a larger organism than independent beings. Objective idealism began with Friedrich Schelling, but found its supporters in the person of G.W.F. Hegel, Josiah Reuss, S. Peirce.
Transcendental idealism
According to this theory, developed by Kant, all knowledge originates in perceived phenomena, which were organized into categories. These thoughts are sometimes called critical idealism, which does not at all deny that external objects or external reality exist. However, he at the same time denies that we have no access to the true, essential nature of reality or objects. All we have is a simple perception of them.
Absolute idealism
This theory claims that all objects are identical to some particular idea, and ideal knowledge is the system of ideas itself. This is also known as objective idealism, which is reminiscent of the movement created by Hegel. Unlike other forms of flow, this one believes that there is only one mind in which all reality is created.
Divine idealism
In addition, the world can be seen as one of the manifestations of some other minds, such as God. However, it should be remembered that the entire physical reality will be contained in the mind of the Almighty, which means that he himself will be outside the Multiverse itself (multiverse).
Ontological idealism
Other people who adhere to this theory argue that the material world exists, but at a basic level it was recreated from ideas. For example, some physicists believe that the universe is fundamentally made up of numbers. Therefore, scientific formulas do not just describe physical reality - they are it. E=MC 2 is a formula that is seen as a fundamental aspect of reality that Einstein discovered, and not at all a description that he subsequently made.
Idealism versus materialism
Materialism claims that reality has a physical basis, not a conceptual one. For adherents of this theory, such a world is the only truth. Our thoughts and perceptions are part of the material world, like other objects. For example, consciousness is a physical process in which one part (your brain) interacts with another (the book, screen, or sky you are looking at).
Idealism is a constantly challenged system, so it cannot be proved or disproved, however, like materialism. There are no specific tests that can find the facts and weigh them against each other. Immediately, all truths can be falsified and false, because so far no one has been able to prove them.
All that adherents of these theories rely on is intuition or instinctive reaction. Many people believe that materialism makes more sense than idealism. This is both a great experience of the interaction of the first theory with the outside world, and the belief that everything around really exists. But, on the other hand, a refutation of this system appears, because a person cannot go beyond his own mind, so how can we be sure that reality exists around us?
