Cognition is one of the types of human activity, one of the ways of spiritual and practical exploration of the world by man. Distinguish knowledge And cognition. If knowledge is an adequate representation of people about reality, then cognition is a way of obtaining knowledge. Since primitive times, man, in the struggle for survival, has been forced to obtain the most complete and accurate understanding of the world around him, the properties of things and their relationships. The quality of knowledge about reality directly influenced the level of human protection from the adverse effects of natural forces.
As the sociocultural forms of human existence became more complex, people's consciousness developed and the means of understanding the world improved. Already at the Neolithic stage (8th-4th millennium BC), the main types of knowledge took shape: everyday, religious-mythological, artistic (aesthetic), scientific, philosophical. If in the Ancient world these types of knowledge existed, as a rule, together, overlapping one another, then later (starting from the Renaissance) they noticeably differentiated.
At the level of everyday knowledge, obvious, elementary truths are comprehended (for example: power presupposes submission, law is the regulation of human behavior, etc.). One should not think that ordinary knowledge of political and legal phenomena was characteristic of people only in the early stages historical development, in the pre-scientific era. For a person of modern culture, everyday cognition is also an integral element of the cognition process, creating an empirical basis for higher forms of cognition.
Religious and mythological knowledge was mainly characteristic of ancient peoples. At the same time, both mythology and religion, giving their own, often mystified, explanation of political and legal phenomena, sought to identify the rational component in them, to find logic and meaning in them. The picture of the world, built on the basis of religious and mythological knowledge, often gave people fairly accurate guidelines for political behavior.
Art provides a person (both in ancient times and now) with an additional opportunity, with the help of specific images of literary, musical, and architectural works, to better understand the specifics of the world of politics and law. For example, the works of O. de Balzac, C. Dickens, L.N. Tolstoy, F. Kafka are able to say more about the soullessness of the state machine than individual theoretical articles.
Science is the most important view cognitive activity aimed at developing objective, systematically organized and substantiated knowledge about the world. Thanks to science, humanity was able to develop productive forces to gigantic proportions, creating on this basis high level material well-being. Scientific knowledge is characterized by the desire to obtain extremely accurate, objective knowledge about the properties of things (especially for the natural and technical sciences).
Philosophy is a special type of knowledge, within the framework of which the search for the ultimate semantic, value and logical foundations of things is carried out.
The question of the features of philosophical knowledge is directly related to understanding the essence of philosophy, the reasons, place and time of its appearance. Despite all the debatability of this topic, there are a number of provisions on which there is relative agreement.
Philosophy appears at that stage of people’s development when they develop self-awareness, the need to understand themselves as an autonomous being and their place in the world. At a certain stage of development, a person begins to distinguish himself from the world of things, realizing his special significance and role. As a thinking subject, he opposes himself to the world as a cognizable object, which gives rise to the so-called subject-object relations. The basis of conscious opposition of oneself to the world is the ethical need of a person to understand himself and his place in the world. Better than others, I. Kant formulated this moral search in the form of four questions that a person has always asked and will always ask himself: 1) what can I know? 2) what should I do? 3) what can I hope for? 4) what is a person? Ultimately, the content of all world philosophy is the result of a never-ending attempt to provide answers to these “eternal” questions. They are called “eternal” or “damned” because a person, by virtue of his moral nature, is doomed to put them before himself, but, unfortunately, without any special prospects for their final resolution. Someone may object that not all world philosophy is subordinate to ethics; for example, ontology or philosophy of nature are not directly connected with it. However, these sections of philosophical knowledge also have a worldview aspect, since their consideration helps to clarify the main philosophical question about the purpose of man and his place in the world.
“The intensity of the creative search for philosophical thought,” V.S. correctly notes. Shvyrev, - is associated primarily with the desire to theoretically comprehend the problem of the relationship between man and the world, man’s “inclusion” in the world, to develop such a holistic understanding of the world that would make it possible to include man in it and, on the contrary, to consider man from the point of view of the universe as a whole , understand its place and purpose in the natural and social world. The main problem here is that a person acts not just as a part of the world among other things, but as a being of a special kind, going beyond the world of objects, possessing mental and spiritual life, capable of manifesting an active attitude towards the world in consciousness and in practice. Compared to other forms of worldview, this problem in philosophy is theoretically sharpened, stands out most clearly, forming the basis of all philosophical reflections on the relationship between subject and object, spiritual and material, consciousness and being, freedom and necessity, etc. The “unity of opposites” laid down in the very essence of philosophical thought, associated with the need to “include” man and the world and at the same time consider it special place in the world, defines the deep dialectic philosophical consciousness» Shvyrev V.S. Philosophy // Philosophical Dictionary/ ed. I.T. Frolova. M., 2001. P. 602..
So, the essence of philosophical knowledge is that it is aimed at identifying the meaning and goals of human existence, i.e. ideological character. The basis of philosophical knowledge is the persistent motive of self-determination of man as a rational and moral being. The result of such self-determination is the formation of a semantic picture of the world, through the prism of which a person perceives reality and himself in it. The specificity of philosophical consciousness and knowledge is most clearly manifested in critical epochs in human history, when habitual forms of life collapse and society faces the problem of choosing new value guidelines. Thus, the birth of philosophy in Ancient Greece associated with the “great cultural revolution” of the 10th-5th centuries. BC, - when polis democracy opened the way to free discussion of social and spiritual problems 2. The philosophy of Socrates, Plato or Aristotle can be seen as an attempt to propose a new model of man's relationship with the world (natural and social).
Philosophy is often called a rational-theoretical form of worldview. This means that a person, trying to understand the meaningful problems of his life, turns not to the postulates of myth or religion, but to the arguments of reason. The logic of their own thoughts forced people to come to conclusions that often contradicted the religious and mythological picture of the world, traditions and customs. From the very beginning, philosophical knowledge meant freedom and creativity, not associated with pre-established truths. Philosophy has become a manifestation of independent thinking and independent behavior, forming a sense of responsibility in a person. Freedom of philosophical thought often brought with it a critical revision of established views on nature and society, which made philosophy and philosophers a noticeable social force (Pythagorean Union, Sophists). The execution of Socrates is an example of the influence of philosophy on the conservative life of the ancient Greeks, who sought to protect themselves from dubious values and ideas.
Philosophy as a sphere of free discussion of ideas often becomes a form of self-awareness of a particular historical era. Philosophical knowledge, generalizing the achievements of different areas of culture, tries to bring them to a certain common denominator, to express them in universal categories. The historically specific culture of a particular people, its way of life and forms of life receive an extremely broad and generalized assessment in philosophy. In philosophy, as a form of self-awareness, a value ideal of society is formed, which can be conservative, reactionary or revolutionary, orienting society towards progressive development or stagnation. Thus, in the philosophy of the Enlightenment of the 17th-18th centuries. the social ideal of the bourgeoisie was formulated, which determined the forms of economic, political, religious, scientific and cultural life Western countries. A market economy and the rule of law, ideological and religious pluralism, a focus on science as the productive force of society, social optimism and faith in a better future for humanity—these are the basic values put forward by European rationalism.
Another example of philosophical reflection - Russia second half of the 19th century- the beginning of the 20th century, when several socio-political projects were intensively discussed: conservative-soilism, socialist, liberal-Western. All three projects reflected the deep needs of the Russian people, which paradoxically melted into Soviet statehood. The practice of “real socialism” in the USSR became the implementation of several vectors of Russian national identity and sense of justice: 1) the medieval imperial idea of “Moscow - the Third Rome”, 2) the peasant ideal of egalitarian socialism, 3) the desire (even if external) for rapprochement with Europe (ideas of popular sovereignty, parliamentarism, elections, etc.). The collapse of the USSR occurred not so much as a result of economic stagnation or the dissident movement for human rights (largely inspired by Western intelligence services and generally alien to the country's population), but because the idea Soviet power has exhausted itself. Self-awareness of society in the late 1980s - early 1990s. recorded not just the loss of basic Soviet values, but the collapse of the entire value system of coordinates. In subsequent years, the philosophical reflection of the post-Soviet intellectual elite of Russia invariably demonstrated a state of confusion, loss of guidelines and vital energy.
The features of philosophical knowledge are clearly visible against the background of other types of knowledge. As noted above, philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge appears in Antiquity and takes shape in modern times. At the same time, even in the 20th century. philosophy often includes non-philosophical components: science, aesthetics, religion. Thus, European philosophy of the 17th-18th centuries, in the era of rapid development of natural science and mathematics, sought to be similar in appearance and content to science. The vocabulary of philosophical texts is replete with the words “axiom”, “theorem”, “law”, the authors strive for maximum formalization, accuracy and rigor of their theses, definitions and conclusions. In the XIX--XX centuries. the idea of the scientific nature of philosophy reaches its culmination in positivism and directions close to it, where philosophy was declared the synthesis of all sciences, and all metaphysics (knowledge of the supernatural foundations of the world) were fantasies of an idle mind.
European and Russian cultures have produced many works of art imbued with philosophical ideas. Dramas by W. Shakespeare, poetry by I.V. Eete, D.N.G. Byron, F.I. Tyutchev, novels by F.M. Dostoevsky and L.N. Tolstoy, operas by R. Wagner, paintings by S. Dali, films by I. Bergman or A.A. Tarkovsky's works represent not just aesthetic phenomena, but often detailed philosophical concepts. For Russia XIX- the beginning of the 20th century, when, it would seem, professional philosophy had already fully risen to its feet, outstanding philosophical ideas often expressed in artistic form. For example, for the philosophical understanding of Russian history and Russian legal consciousness, the novels of F.M. Dostoevsky gave more than the texts of professional philosophers.
The unity of philosophy and religion also has a long and strong tradition. The philosophical component among theologians is commonplace. A huge body of literature has been accumulated, where philosophical problems are posed and discussed in the context of any religious dogma (Thomas Aquinas, J. Maritain, V.S. Solovyov, N. Berdyaev, S.L. Frank, etc.).
Science, aesthetics and religion acquire a philosophical aspect when they include a worldview component expressed in a rational-theoretical form. Without this component, any of the named elements of culture appears to us exclusively from the functional side: science produces knowledge, art gives pleasure, religion makes it possible to worship. Philosophy in this case disappears.
Philosophical understanding of the state and law also always presupposes an ideological, life-meaning aspect. The most different sides political and legal reality (ontology, epistemology, axiology, praxeology, aesthetics, logic of law), but all of them must be subordinated to the main thing - the question of the meaning of human existence. Forgetting this main, final goal of any philosophical research can significantly impoverish or even distort our understanding of the state and law.
The first question with which philosophical knowledge began and which declares itself again and again is the question: what is the world in which we live? In essence, it is equivalent to the question: what do we know about the world? Philosophy is not the only field of knowledge designed to answer this question. Over the centuries, its solution has included more and more new areas of scientific knowledge and practice.
The formation of philosophy, along with the emergence of mathematics, marked the birth in ancient Greek culture of a completely new phenomenon - the first mature forms of theoretical thought. Some other areas of knowledge reached theoretical maturity much later, and at different times, and this process continues to this day. The absence for centuries of scientific and theoretical knowledge about many phenomena of reality, sharp differences in the level of development of sciences, the constant existence of branches of science that do not have any mature theories - all this created the need for the cognitive efforts of philosophical minds.
At the same time, philosophy faced special cognitive tasks. At different periods of history they took on different forms, but some of their stable features were still preserved. Unlike other types of theoretical knowledge (in mathematics, natural science), philosophy acts as universal theoretical knowledge. According to Aristotle, special sciences are engaged in the study of specific types of being, while philosophy takes upon itself the comprehension of the most general principles, the beginning of all things. I. Kant saw the main task of philosophical knowledge in the synthesis of diverse human knowledge, in the creation of their all-encompassing system. From here the most important thing In philosophy, he considered two things: mastering a vast stock of rational (conceptual) knowledge and “combining them in the idea of the whole.” Only philosophy is capable, in his opinion, of giving “systematic unity to all other sciences.”
2 Kant I. Treatises and letters. M., 1980. P. 332.
True, this is not a specific task that needs to be dealt with in the foreseeable future, but an ideal reference point for the philosopher’s cognitive claims: a horizon line, as it were, receding as one approaches it. Philosophical thought is characterized by consideration of the world not only in a small “radius”, near “horizon”, but also in an increasingly wider scope with access to unknown areas of space and time inaccessible to human experience. The curiosity characteristic of people here develops into an intellectual need for the limitless expansion and deepening of knowledge about the world. This tendency is inherent to one degree or another in every person. Increasing knowledge in breadth and depth, the human intellect comprehends the world in such sections of it that are not given or even cannot be given in any experience. In fact, we're talking about about the ability of the intellect to super-experimental knowledge. This was emphasized by I. Kant: “... human reason... uncontrollably comes to questions that cannot be answered by any experimental application of reason and principles borrowed from here...” In fact, no experience can comprehend the world as a holistic , limitless in space and imperishable in time, infinitely superior to human powers, an objective reality independent of man (and humanity), which people must constantly reckon with. Experience does not provide such knowledge, and philosophical thought, forming a general understanding of the world, is obliged to somehow cope with this most difficult task, or at least constantly apply its efforts to this.
3 Kant I. Works: In 6 vols. T. 3. P. 118.
In understanding the world, philosophers of different eras turned to solving problems that either temporarily or, in principle, forever, were beyond the competence and attention of specific sciences.
Let us recall Kant’s question “What can I know?” This is a question not so much about what we know about the world, but about the very possibility of knowledge. It could be expanded into a whole “tree” of derivative questions: “Is the world knowable in principle?”; “Is human knowledge limitless in its capabilities, or does it have limits?”; “If the world is accessible to human knowledge, then what part of this task should science take upon itself, and what cognitive tasks fall to the lot of philosophy?” A whole series of new questions are also possible: “How is knowledge about the world obtained, on the basis of what cognitive abilities of people and using what methods of cognition?”; "How to make sure that the results obtained
Is this good, true knowledge, and not delusions?" All these are actually philosophical questions, noticeably different from those that are usually solved by scientists and practitioners. Moreover, in them - sometimes veiled, sometimes openly - there is invariably present the "world - man" relationship that distinguishes philosophy. .
In resolving the issue of the knowability of the world, there are antipodean positions: the point of view of cognitive optimism is opposed by more pessimistic belief systems - skepticism and agnosticism (from the Greek a - denial and gnosis - knowledge; inaccessible to knowledge).
It is difficult to directly answer questions related to the problem of the cognizability of the world - such is the nature of philosophy. Kant understood this. Highly appreciating science and the power of the philosophical mind, he nevertheless came to the conclusion that there is a limit to knowledge. The rationale behind this often criticized conclusion is not always realized. But today it is of particular relevance. Kant’s position, in essence, was a wise warning: a person, knowing and being able to do a lot, you still don’t know a lot, and you are always destined to live and act on the border of knowledge and ignorance, so be careful! Kant's warning about the dangers of know-it-all attitudes becomes especially clear in modern conditions. In addition, Kant also had in mind the fundamental incompleteness and limitation of purely cognitive development of the world, which we also increasingly have to think about today.
Codifier of content elements of the discipline “Philosophy”
Consciousness and cognition
main approaches to solving the problem of the origin of consciousness and its essence
structure of consciousness
connection between consciousness and language
relationship between consciousness and unconsciousness
the role of consciousness and the unconscious in human life and activity
The essence and nature of knowledge
main approaches to solving the problem of world cognition
essence and nature of knowledge
relationship between understanding and explanation
Structure of cognitive activity
levels and forms of knowledge
relationship between knowledge and faith
The problem of truth
basic concepts of truth
relationship between truth and error
1. P.V. Alekseev, A.V. Panin. Philosophy: textbook. M., 2004
The theory of knowledge (or epistemology, philosophy of knowledge) is a branch of philosophy in which the nature of knowledge and its possibilities, the relationship of knowledge to reality are studied, and the conditions for the reliability and truth of knowledge are identified.
The term “gnoseology” comes from the Greek words gnosis - knowledge and logos - concept, doctrine and means “the concept of knowledge”, “the study of knowledge”. And although the term “theory of knowledge” itself was introduced into philosophy relatively recently by the Scottish philosopher J. Ferrer (in 1854), the doctrine of knowledge began to be developed since the times of Heraclitus, Plato, and Aristotle.
Epistemology studies the universal that characterizes human cognitive activity. Within its competence is the second side of the main question of philosophy, most often expressed by the question “Is the world knowable?” In epistemology there are many other questions, the disclosure of which is associated with other categories and concepts: “consciousness”, “truth”, “practice” and “cognition”, “subject” and “object”, “material” and “ideal”, “man” ” and “computer”, “sensual”, “rational”, “intuition”, “faith”, etc. Each of these concepts, expressing spiritual or material phenomena, is autonomous and associated with a special ideological problem. However, in the theory of knowledge, they all turn out to be united among themselves through the concept of “truth”, with which they are somehow related.
Problem and subject specificity philosophical theory knowledge becomes clearer when compared with non-philosophical sciences that study cognitive activity. And there are more and more sciences that study cognition. Currently, cognitive activity is studied by psychology, the physiology of higher nervous activity of humans, cybernetics, formal logic, linguistics, semiotics, structural linguistics, cultural history, history of science, etc. Thus, a new direction has emerged in psychology - cognitive psychology (from the Latin cognitio - knowledge, cognition). For her, analogies with a computer are important, and the primary goal is to trace the flow of information in the “system” (i.e., in the brain). Cognitive psychology studies cognitive activity associated, as U. Neisser notes, with the acquisition, organization and use of knowledge (see: “Cognition and reality. The meaning and principles of cognitive psychology.” M., 1981. P. 23).
All of the named disciplines (or sections) of psychological science are aimed, as we see, at the study of human cognitive activity. They relate to the relationship between the individual (or collective) psyche of people and the external environment, the consideration of psychological phenomena as a result of the influence of external factors on the central nervous system, changes in a person’s behavior or state under the influence of various external and internal factors.
Philosophical theory of knowledge explores largely the same phenomena of cognitive activity, but from a different perspective - in terms of the relationship of cognition to objective reality, to truth, to the process of achieving truth. The main category in epistemology is “truth”. For psychology, sensations, concepts, intuition, doubt, etc. act as forms of the psyche associated with the behavior and life activity of an individual, and for epistemology they are means of achieving truth, cognitive abilities or forms of existence of knowledge associated with truth.
Along with questions about what is the essence of the world, whether the world is finite or infinite, whether it develops, and if it develops, then in what direction, what time, causality, etc. represent, questions occupy an important place in philosophical problems related to the knowledge of objects surrounding a person (things, relationships, processes). “Is the world knowable?” - this is the traditional question that arose in ancient times, when philosophy took its first steps, striving to be an evidence-based, rationally based worldview. But the traditional nature of this particular form of the question can lead to the idea that there were philosophers who believed that the world is not knowable at all.
In the history of philosophy there have been two positions: cognitive-realistic and agnostic, and the first was not always sensitive to the real complexity of the problem.
The first historical form of agnosticism is skepticism. The ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras (c. 490 - c. 420 BC) shared materialistic beliefs and doubted the existence of gods. The philosopher concluded that reliable, i.e., generally valid (“unambiguous”) knowledge of the essence of surrounding phenomena is impossible.
The school of sophists set a goal to substantiate any judgments and points of view, even resorting to logical distortions and paradoxes (sophisms).
The founder of ancient skepticism, Pyrrho (c. 365 - 275 BC), considered sensory perceptions to be reliable (if something seems bitter or sweet, then the corresponding statement will be true); delusion arises when we try to move from a phenomenon to its basis, essence. Any statement about an object (its essence) can be countered with equal right by a statement that contradicts it. It was this line of thought that led to the position of abstaining from final judgments.
In modern times, on the basis of the progressive development of natural science, the ideas of D. Hume and I. Kant about the possibilities of knowledge were formed.
The English philosopher D. Hume (1711 - 1776) argued: “Nature keeps us at a respectful distance from her secrets and provides us with only knowledge of a few superficial qualities of objects, hiding from us those forces and principles on which the actions of these objects entirely depend” (Hume D. Soch.: In 2 vols. T. 2. M., 1966. P. 35).
Without doubting, unlike D. Hume, the existence of material “things in themselves” outside consciousness, I. Kant, however, considered them in principle unknowable. Influencing a person, “things in themselves” evoke in him a multitude of diverse sensations, which turn out to be ordered through a priori forms of living contemplation. So, we cognize only the world of phenomena; things in themselves cannot be achieved by knowledge; they are elusive. “We know nothing,” Kant points out, “about what they (things - P.A.) can be in themselves, but we know only their appearance, i.e. the ideas they produce in us, acting on our feelings.”
The position of the so-called “physiological idealism”, presented in the works of the German physiologist I. Muller (1801 - 1858), is close to the Kantian concept. I. Muller put forward the thesis about the existence of specific energy of the sensory organs, which plays a decisive role in the specification of sensations. He emphasized that “sensation is the result of excitation of energy innate to the sense organ”, that color, for example, does not exist outside the sense organ; external factor“launches” the energy of the corresponding sense organ, which gives rise to the sensation of color in us. From all this I. Muller concluded: “We know neither the essence of external objects, nor what we call light, we know only the essence of our feelings.” What I. Müller said is not some kind of naive mistake, if we remember that color even today is considered the result of the influence of electromagnetic waves on the retina of the eye, which themselves are colorless. I. Müller came to the same idea, to the same scheme of cognitive interaction of the subject with the object, as I. Kant; the only difference was that I. Muller tried to prove the validity of this scheme using physiological data.
The “theory of hieroglyphs” or “theory of symbols” of the German physicist and physiologist G. Helmholtz (1821 - 1894) is also based on the law, or principle, of the specific energy of the sense organs of I. Muller. The difference (from the concept of I. Müller) consists, firstly, in the concretization of this principle, in the establishment of a connection between “specific energy” with individual subsystems of the sense organs, with nerve fibers (since G. Helmholtz believed that there are specific energies of different qualities even in the same sense organ). Secondly, the theory of hieroglyphs gave a more generalized epistemologically general idea of cognition than Müller’s interpretation of it. G. Helmholtz considered both sensations and concepts to be signs. As for sensations, he wrote: “Senses for us are only symbols of external objects; they correspond to them as much as a written word or sound corresponds to a given object. Sensory sensations inform us about the features of the external world, but they do this no better than we can communicate to a blind person through words the concept of colors” (Helmholtz G. “Popular Scientific Articles.” St. Petersburg, 1866. Issue I. P. 61 ). Sensory impressions are only marks of the qualities of the external world, signs (symbols, hieroglyphs), the interpretation of which we must learn from experience. The main thesis of his concept is “the absence of the closest correspondence between the qualities of sensation and the qualities of the object” (ibid., p. 82).
At the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries. Another type of agnosticism has emerged - conventionalism(from Latin conventio - contract, agreement) is defined as a philosophical concept according to which scientific theories and concepts are not a reflection of the objective world, but the product of an agreement between scientists.
Its most prominent representative is the French mathematician and methodologist of science A. Poincare(1854 - 1912). Analyzing the fact of the existence of a number of geometries in science - Euclidean, Lobachevsky, Riemann, A. Poincaré came to the conclusion that “geometric axioms are neither synthetic a priori judgments nor experimental facts. They are conditional propositions... One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient” (Poincaré A. “Science and Hypothesis”. M., 1904. P. 60 - 61). The pragmatic criterion, taken as the only guideline for reliability, led to doubt about the knowability of the essence of material systems and the laws of natural reality; scientific laws, in his opinion, are conventions, symbols.
Conventionalism as a system of ideological views and principles of scientific knowledge has become widespread in recent decades in Western philosophy, as well as in the logic and methodology of science. Conventionalist attitudes were advocated K. Popper, I. Lakatos, P. Feyerabend and many other scientists. The founder of neorationalism, the French philosopher G. Bachelard (1884 - 1962), divided the world into “natural reality” and “technical reality.” In practice, practical actions, he believed, the subject is included in “natural reality”, creates a new one according to the principles of reason through the objectification of ideas. In the process of transformative practice, the subject, however, does not reveal any features of natural reality, but reveals “forms,” “order,” “programs” deployed in “technical reality.” This world is knowable.
The modern philosophical theory of knowledge does not disagree with agnosticism on the issue of the knowability of phenomena (as phenomena, objects of sensory knowledge). They also do not differ in answer to the question: is it possible to know the world as a whole in all its connections and mediations? (The answer to this is negative.)
The difference lies elsewhere - on the question of whether the essence of material systems is knowable. Discrepancies - in the interpretation of the nature of the "phenomenon" - phenomena: do these phenomena have a direct relationship to the essence and is it possible through phenomena to obtain reliable knowledge about the essence of material systems?
When asked about the possibility of obtaining reliable knowledge about the essence of objects (or about the main thing in this essence), agnostics answer negatively, although in different ways, depending on whether they generally recognize the existence of the essence or not, and if they do, what kind of connection they see essences with phenomena.
Thus, the following definition can be proposed as a starting point: agnosticism is a doctrine (or belief, attitude) that denies the possibility of reliable knowledge of the essence of material systems, the laws of nature and society.
Agnostic concepts are divided on many grounds. Exist materialistic and idealistic agnosticism, sensualistic and rationalistic, Humean, Kantian, etc. agnosticism(if we take the names of the creators of the corresponding schools), agnosticism ethical, hieroglyphic, physiological, cybernetic and so on. (by means, nature of argumentation).
The problem of knowledge is one of the most important in philosophy.
How is it possible to understand the world? Is it possible? What is truth? - those questions that were initially dictated by the love of knowledge (wisdom) and still form the essence of philosophical problems. These questions are philosophical because they are asked in a general form (i.e., addressed to the world as a whole) and are only a generalized formulation of the problems that constantly confront a person.
The theory of knowledge (or epistemology) in general view can be defined as a section of philosophy in which the nature of knowledge, its possibilities and boundaries, the relationship of knowledge to reality, the subject to the object of knowledge are studied, and the conditions for the reliability and truth of knowledge are identified.
The term “gnoseology” comes from the Greek words “gnosis” - knowledge and “logos” - teaching, the word means the doctrine of knowledge, despite the fact that the term “gnoseology” itself was introduced into philosophy relatively recently (by the Scottish philosopher J. Ferrer in 1854 g.), the doctrine of knowledge began to be developed from the times of Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle. In recent decades, the concept of “epistemology”, adopted in English-speaking countries, is often used to denote the theory of knowledge. This term comes from the Greek. “episteme” (“knowledge”, “science”). In ancient Greek philosophy given word emphasized the difference between knowledge and specific forms and types. But there are some particularly deep reasons for terminological changes in relation to the concepts of “epistemology”.
Aristotle developed the problems of the theory of knowledge in a fairly strict form, paying great attention to the analysis of inferential knowledge. A group of his logical works was already united in ancient times under the name “Organon”, i.e. a tool for obtaining true knowledge.
In the modern era, epistemological issues become a priority. The doctrine of knowledge began to be considered as the original philosophical discipline. This process is often called the epistemological (or epistemological) turn that occurred in modern philosophy, which was largely associated with the development of scientific knowledge and the weakening of theological oppression. At the origins of this process was F. Bacon with his work “New Organon”, which was critical and constructive in nature. The purpose of this essay is to develop a doctrine of the method of knowing the laws of nature. Bacon's aphorism “knowledge is power” did not lose its meaning in subsequent centuries.
I. Kant formulated general question, to which the theory of knowledge as a philosophical discipline must answer: “What can I know?” In the “Critique of Pure Reason” he took a decisive step in the self-definition of epistemology as a doctrine of scientific knowledge. Kant made the so-called “Copernican revolution” in philosophy, shifting the emphasis in epistemological research from the object to the specificity of the knowing subject. He also emphasized the inseparability of the theory of knowledge from the problems of philosophical anthropology and ethics, noting the paramount importance of “practical reason”, which determines the goals of knowledge.
In the middle of the 19th century. A new direction in philosophy arises - dialectical materialism, within which many problems of the theory of knowledge, formulated during the previous development of philosophy, were resolved. The epistemological concept of dialectical materialism goes beyond the framework of abstract theoretical thinking: the principle of practice is introduced into the basis of the theory of knowledge. Another important contribution to this area of philosophy is the development by the classics of Marxism of the dialectical doctrine of truth and its classification (objective, absolute and relative).
Development of epistemological concepts of the late 20th - early 21st centuries. is determined by the fact that it occurs in the conditions of the information society and, in particular, is based on the data of the so-called “post-non-classical” science. This stage is characterized by: a change in the objects of research (they are increasingly becoming self-developing “human-sized” systems), widespread dissemination of ideas and methods of synergetics - the science of such systems; methodological pluralism; bridging the gap between the object and subject of cognition; connection of the objective world and the human world; the introduction of time into all sciences, their deep dialectization and historicization, etc.
Cognition is the process of acquiring and developing knowledge, which is primarily determined by socio-historical practice. The main concepts to denote different aspects of the cognitive process are knowledge and ignorance. Knowledge is an objective reality given in the consciousness of a person who, in his activities, reflects and ideally reproduces the objective natural connections of the real world. It is important to note that knowledge is an image of a thing or event that a person freely and consciously possesses. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish knowledge from information and impressions (i.e., everything that the subject captured). An animal can also have the latter unconsciously. As they say, the animal knows, but it does not know what it knows. The conscious nature of knowledge is possible only because knowledge exists only against the background of ignorance (any knowledge appears from ignorance). The form of expression of ignorance is a question. Only such imprinted information becomes knowledge (i.e., something that a person consciously possesses), which is the answer to the question posed (even if implicitly posed). The difference and relationship between knowledge and ignorance are at the basis of the difference between science (“scientific knowledge”) and philosophy (“scientific ignorance”). The perceived boundary between knowledge and ignorance is a problem. Thus, identifying and posing a problem is identifying a field of ignorance.
If knowledge is the result of cognition, then the essence of cognition (more precisely, scientific research) - method. It is the method of acquiring knowledge that makes them conscious. Method (from the Greek methodos - literally “path to something”) - “path”, a way of knowing. The method determines the direction of the search and the research strategy. The question of the method arises immediately after posing the problem (and, as a rule, after putting forward a hypothesis - a theoretical assumption about the essence of the subject of knowledge), i.e. when the area of the unknown is delineated. Each method involves the consistent (methodological) use of basic categories. Categories (Greek kategoria - statement, evidence) are a form of awareness in universal terms. Language provides the primary way to categorize the world.
Who? or what? (subject or entity), which? (quality or property), how much? (quantity), where? (space) when? (time), why? (reason), why? (goal), etc. - these are all questions of categorization. In the strict sense, categories are not concepts. Categories represent and express stable differences between things and relationships between things. Concepts are a linguistic form of reflecting the essence of an object. Categories and concepts - important tools knowledge in general, philosophical analysis as well.
Let's return to understanding the method as a path of knowledge. Methods are distinguished from techniques, sometimes methods or procedures of cognition, which, although based on methods, are not directly related to the universal definitions of existence (the subject of cognition). These include measurement, comparison, idealization, etc. The boundary between the method and procedure of cognition is, naturally, fluid, and, in addition, depends on the worldview position of the scientist. (If he believes that ideas exist objectively, then idealization for him will act not as a procedure, but as a method). On the other hand, in cognition there are guidelines that are not related to the subject itself, are located beyond its boundaries - these are the principles of cognition. These, for example, include the requirements of rigor, evidence, objectivity, verifiability, etc. Methods are inextricably linked with the means of scientific knowledge (tools). Such means primarily include the language of science (language of description), instruments, experimental installations, etc.
It should be especially noted that knowledge becomes scientific only if the method of obtaining it is indicated. It is the presence of a method that distinguishes scientific knowledge from everyday knowledge.
The most important categories in epistemology are the subject and object of knowledge. Subject (Latin - proper) is the source and bearer of an active relationship to an object. The subject is, first of all, a person - an individual, a collective, a social group, society as a whole. Object (Latin - subject) - that which opposes the subject in his cognitive and practical activities (i.e. material and spiritual phenomena); but the object of knowledge can be the person himself. The object should be distinguished from the subject of knowledge. A subject or “subject area” is that set of properties of an object that is isolated by cognitive or practical means. So, for example, man is the object of study of various sciences, but the subject of psychology is the human psyche, anatomy is the various organs and their systems, anthropology is the problem of the origin of man, history is the process of development of human society, etc.
Subject and object are paired categories, like “cause” and “effect”, “accident” and “necessity”, etc. The subject always presupposes the object, and the object always presupposes the subject. An object in epistemology should be understood not simply as any fragment of objective (or subjective) reality, but only as one to which the subject’s attention is directed, which is involved in the subject’s activity and becomes the subject of his theoretical or practical activity.
As paired categories, subject and object express the unity of opposites. The resolution of constantly arising contradictions between the subject and the object occurs through the practical change of the object by the subject, through its subordination to the conscious will of man. But in the course of their interaction, the goals of the subject, which determine his will, change, and the contradiction is reproduced again.
The structure of cognitive activity and human cognitive abilities
Man comprehends the world different ways. Back in the XVII-XVIII centuries. The subject of heated debate was the problem of the relationship between the sensory and rational sides of cognition and their significance in human cognitive activity. Depending on the solution to this issue, two opposite directions in epistemology: sensationalism and rationalism.
Sensualism (Latin - sensation, feeling) is a direction in epistemology, which considers sensory data to be the main source of knowledge. Rationalism (Latin - reasonable) is a direction in epistemology, which considers reason (thinking) to be the main source of knowledge, as a fairly autonomous human ability to see the universal in individual phenomena.
In general, strictly speaking, we can distinguish two main types of knowledge that are opposite to each other: rational and irrational.
The initial level of the first cognition is “sensory cognition” - active cognition of phenomena included in practical activity. A person’s ability to sensually reflect reality is the ability to receive information about objects in the form of individual concrete sensory images that arise in the human mind as a result of the activity of the senses and central nervous system. Sensory reflection is carried out in the form of sensations, perceptions and ideas.
A sensation is an elementary sensory image, for example, a sound (which we hear), a color (which we see), etc. That is, sensation is a reflection in the human mind of individual properties of objects. Perception is a holistic sensory image that we receive from a particular object when several sense organs are simultaneously affected. For example, the sensation of the taste of an apple and, on the other hand, the perception of the taste, shape, smell, color of an apple in their unity. Thus, perceptions correspond to the system of properties of an object. Perception is the result of an active, active relationship of the subject to the external environment, and sensations are a prerequisite for perception. Thus, sensations can exist outside of perception, for example, sensations of cold, darkness, but perceptions are impossible outside of sensations.
And, finally, the third form of sensory reflection - representation - a generalized sensory-visual image of objects and phenomena of reality, which appears in our consciousness in their absence (i.e. without the direct impact of these objects and phenomena on the senses). An idea arises when we remember an object and, as it were, view in our memory what it looks like.
Sensations, perceptions and ideas lead to the accumulation of information, life experience and provide the possibility of sensory-imaginative knowledge of the world. But many objective objects and phenomena (for example, atoms and elementary particles) cannot be directly reflected in the sense organs; moreover, the study of objects and phenomena on an essential level is inaccessible to sensory knowledge alone. The limitations of sensory cognition are resolved at the level of abstract mental reflection (Latin - distraction).
Abstract thinking is rational, logical knowledge that allows you to move from consideration external parties phenomena to the study of their essence through operating with concepts and constructing scientific theories. The main forms of abstract mental reflection are concepts, judgments and inferences. At this level of cognition, the analysis and synthesis of information, its comprehension, and the formation of generalizations are carried out. In thinking, we seem to cross the boundaries of the visible world. Thinking correlates the readings of the senses with all the already existing knowledge of the individual and, moreover, with the entire cumulative experience and knowledge of mankind to the extent that they have become the property of a given subject. As a result of the synthesis of the most essential features of objects and phenomena, abstraction, a concept is formed, a generalizing word fixed in the language. The concept is the initial and leading form of abstract mental reflection of objects. “A concept as a form (type) of thought, or as a mental formation, is the result of a generalization of objects of a certain class and the mental identification of this class itself according to a certain set of characteristics common to objects of this class.” (Voytvillo E.K.). Concepts are fixed in definitions.
Along with concepts, a person’s abstract mental ability also includes such forms of rational mastery of reality as judgments and inferences. Judgment is a form of thought in which, through the connection of concepts, something about something is affirmed or denied. When making judgments, we already use concepts. The latter are elements of judgments. On the basis of concepts and judgments, inferences are formed, which are reasoning during which a new judgment (conclusion or conclusion) is logically derived.
The following distinctive features of the ability for abstract thinking can be distinguished in comparison with the sensory reflection of reality:
the ability to reflect the general in objects;
the ability to reflect what is essential in objects;
the ability to construct, on the basis of knowledge of the essence of objects, concepts and ideas that are subject to objectification;
indirect knowledge of reality - both through sensitive (sensory) reflection, and through reasoning, inferences and through the use of instruments.
We should not forget that the entire process of cognition as a reflection of reality in the human mind takes place in the course of practice, the role of which in cognition will be discussed below.
Another type of cognition - irrational - may not be distinguished as a separate, autonomous type from rational. As M. Heidegger noted, “irrationalism is only rationality that has not comprehended itself.” At least, the possibility of partial rationalization of the irrational in the future is allowed.
According to the generally accepted interpretation, irrationalism is a direction in philosophy that denies or limits, on the one hand, the possibilities of reason in understanding the world, and, on the other, rejects or reduces the degree of rationality of the orders of the world. By limiting the cognitive abilities of the mind, irrational cognition puts forward other forms of mastering the world (or the ability to cognition) in its place: faith, intuition, instinct, feelings, experience, etc.
And, indeed, the experience of cognitive activity indicates that ordinary logic in many cases turns out to be insufficient for solving scientific problems. An important place in this process is occupied by intuition, which gives knowledge a new impulse and direction of movement. Intuition (Latin - “to look closely”) is a person’s unconditional ability to direct, direct understanding of meaning and knowledge, bypassing justification and evidence. A person’s intuitive ability is characterized by: 1) surprise, the suddenness of solving a problem; 2) lack of awareness of ways and means to solve it; 3) the immediacy of comprehension of truth at the essential level of objects. In another way, we can say that intuition is a sudden insight. IN late XIX V. how a reaction to positivism arose philosophical movement intuitionism.
Philosophical understanding of truth
The immediate goal of knowledge in any of its forms is truth, the path to which is usually complex, difficult and contradictory. The problem of truth is leading in epistemology. All problems of the philosophical theory of knowledge concern either the means and ways of achieving truth, or the forms of its existence (concepts of fact, hypothesis, theory, etc.), implementation, structure of cognitive relations, etc.
Available different understandings truth. For example, “truth is the correspondence of knowledge to reality” (or knowledge that corresponds to its subject, coinciding with it); “truth is experimental confirmation”; “truth is the property of self-consistency of knowledge”; "truth is an agreement." The first position is classic. It was shared by Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Holbach, Feuerbach, Marx and others. From this position it follows that the question of whether a statement (judgment) corresponds to the actual state of affairs is a question of its truth. Since a person does not have absolute knowledge and truth, but strives for them, the main problem for him is the criterion of truth (criterion of compliance) of his theories, beliefs and judgments. True, this problem can be rejected by taking a radical position of agnosticism and skepticism.
In the history of philosophy, several concepts of the criterion of truth have been put forward:
The importance of practice for the cognitive process has been emphasized by many philosophers of different orientations.
The concept of “practice” was expressed through wide range terms: “action”, “active life”, “experience”, “work”, etc. K. Popper pointed out the inadmissibility of destroying the unity of theory and practice or (as mysticism does) replacing it with the creation of myths. He emphasized that practice is not the enemy of theoretical knowledge, but “the most significant incentive to it.”
In the process of practice, a person creates new reality- the world of material and spiritual culture, new conditions of its existence, which are not given to it by nature in a ready-made form. The most important forms of practice are: material production - the transformation of the natural existence of people (nature); social action - transformation of people's social existence; A scientific experiment is an active (as opposed to observation) activity, during which a person artificially creates conditions that allow him to explore the properties of the objective world that interest him.
The main functions of practice, in addition to the fact that it acts as a criterion of truth, include the following:
practice is the source of knowledge, since all knowledge is brought to life mainly by its needs;
practice acts as the basis of knowledge, its driving force;
practice is indirectly the goal of knowledge, for it is carried out not for the sake of simple curiosity, but in order to guide and appropriately, to one degree or another, regulate the activities of people. All our knowledge ultimately returns back to practice and has an active influence on its development.
Characteristics of truth. The basic properties of truth are expressed using paired categories, for example: objectivity - subjectivity; absoluteness - relativity; universality - specificity. Thus, true knowledge is objective, since it does not depend on the opinion of an individual person or a finite group of people (i.e., truth is objective in content). But at the same time, it is subjective, since it is precisely human knowledge. A true judgment is absolute, since it has content that cannot be corrected by further development of knowledge, but at the same time it is relative, since there is no knowledge that cannot be clarified and supplemented. Thus, about absolute truth (the absolute in objective truth is stable, unchangeable) we can say that it is an epistemological ideal that is unattainable, i.e. complete, exhaustive knowledge of reality is unattainable. Absolute knowledge can represent knowledge about individual aspects of objects, aspects of reality. True knowledge is concrete, since it always presupposes the conditions under which it corresponds to reality (if the conditions are not presupposed, then it will be either error or stupidity), but at the same time it is universal in nature, since it presupposes that a specific situation corresponds to the general order. And although we know that in true knowledge there are all these opposite definitions, we cannot accurately indicate the measure of the objective subjective, the absolute - the relative, the concrete - the universal. This is the problematic or paradoxical or undecidable nature of true knowledge. When knowledge forgets about its problematic nature, about the existence of a paradoxical boundary between its opposite definitions, it becomes delusion, and even further - stupidity.
Misconception is “knowledge” that does not correspond to its subject, does not coincide with it. Misconception as a theoretical-cognitive phenomenon should be distinguished from lies - deliberate distortion of the truth for selfish interests - and the associated transfer of obviously false knowledge - disinformation. Thus, delusions are characterized by the property of unintentionality. They play an ambiguous role, that is, on the one hand, they prevent the achievement of truth, but, on the other, they are part of the epistemological process: by putting forward hypotheses, the subject imposes on the area of the unknown a network of his preliminary ideas based on what is already known, which sometimes leads to misconceptions.
Misconceptions can contribute to the creation of problematic situations. "All existing ideas in science have been resolved in the dramatic conflict between reality and our attempts to understand it.” (A. Einstein).
Human knowledge becomes false not because it has no relation to reality, but because the boundaries of its reality are indicated incorrectly. A person’s inability to see the problematic nature of a situation or judgment at all is stupidity. What distinguishes stupidity from error and delusion is certainty. Stupidity is always sure of something, because it does not see or know the problem. Hence the kinship between stupidity and complacency, the persistent companion of which becomes theatricality, and subsequently viciousness and madness...
Scientific knowledge and its features
With the development of human society, the growth and development of productive forces and the social division of labor, the process of cognition became more complex and the most important indicator This was the formation of science - the highest form of cognitive activity. We observed the beginnings of scientific knowledge back in the era of antiquity, but as a specific type of spiritual production and social institution, science emerged in modern times (in the 16th-17th centuries) - in the era of the formation of capitalist relations.
Science is a form of spiritual activity of people and a social institution within which collective activity is carried out for the production, storage and transmission of new knowledge. The essence of science is research. The immediate goal is to comprehend the truth and discover objective laws based on generalization real facts in their interrelation. Science strives to bring new knowledge acquired into an integral system based on certain principles. Since its inception, science has been trying to fix its concepts and definitions as clearly as possible. The fundamental difference between scientific knowledge and all other forms of cognitive activity is also that it goes beyond the boundaries of sensory perceptions and everyday experience and reproduces an object at the level of essence.
The main features of scientific knowledge, therefore, include the following:
orientation mainly towards the general, essential properties of an object, its necessary characteristics and their expression in a system of abstractions;
objectivity, elimination, if possible, of subjectivist moments;
verifiability;
strict evidence, validity of the results obtained, reliability of the conclusions;
clear expression (fixation) of concepts and definitions in the special language of science;
the use of special material resources: devices, tools, so-called “scientific equipment”
In scientific research, based on the logic of the movement of knowledge and the nature of its organization, two main levels can be distinguished: empirical and theoretical. Empirical level: development of a scientific program, organization of observations, experiments, accumulation of facts and information, primary systematization of knowledge (in the form of tables, graphs, diagrams), etc.
Theoretical level: synthesis of knowledge at the level of abstraction of high orders (in the form of concepts, categories, scientific theories, laws, etc.. Both of these levels are interconnected and complement each other. The object of ND at the empirical level is presented in the form of specific fragments of reality; at the theoretical level the ND object is an ideal model (abstraction).
ND means are various instruments, a special scientific language, existing knowledge.
The structure of scientific activity is classified into stages:
Stage I - identification and formulation of the problem, putting forward a hypothesis.
Stage II - experiment (Latin - experience) - an experiment specially organized and adapted for certain conditions, when a test of any theoretical position is carried out.
Stage III - description and explanation of the facts obtained in the experiment, creation of a theory. Theory (Greek - “to consider”, “to see clearly”, “speculation”) is the most developed form of scientific knowledge, providing a holistic reflection of the natural and essential connections of a certain area of reality. (for example, A. Einstein's theory of relativity).
Stage IV - Testing the acquired knowledge in the process of practical activities.
Scientific activity is realized through methods. The study of methods, principles, means and procedures of scientific knowledge is called methodology. This teaching is generally philosophical in nature, although it uses the approaches of systems theory, logic, semantics, computer science, etc. The philosophical nature of the methodology is determined by the fact that no specific science, while remaining within the framework of its cognitive tasks, can make the methods of knowledge the subject of knowledge. which it itself uses (for example, physics uses various kinds of measurements, but the measurement procedure cannot be the subject of physical knowledge).
Methods are classified by degree of generality:
According to the levels of scientific research, we can classify:
methods of empirical research, for example, observation, comparison, measurement, description, scientific experiment;
methods used empirically and more theoretical levels research such as: abstraction, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, modeling, use of instruments;
methods of purely theoretical research: ascent from the abstract to the concrete, idealization, formalization.
Definition and main problems of philosophical anthropology. Typically, philosophical anthropology is the branch of philosophy that studies the essence and nature of man. In a special context, this term is adopted to name a separate direction of philosophy of the 20th century, the founder of which, the German philosopher Max Scheler (1874-1928), considered it necessary to unite all knowledge about man within the framework of a separate science, which he called philosophical anthropology. Representatives of this trend, among whom the most famous, in addition to M. Scheler, G. Plesner (1892-1985), A. Gehlen (1904-1976), E. Rothacker (1888-1965), believed that, ultimately, all philosophical problems can be reduced to one central question - what is a person. According to M. Scheler’s program, philosophical anthropology should combine concrete scientific, subject-based study various sides and spheres of human nature with a holistic philosophical comprehension of it. Most of the problems studied by these philosophers are fundamental to anthropology as a branch of philosophy. This is, first of all:
the problem of the specifics of human nature: what signs are really important for determining the essence of a person?
the problem of the relationship between individual and social characteristics in the personality structure: to what extent is a person determined by social factors?
The problem of defining and describing the spiritual nature of a person: what is spirituality and in what contexts of life does it manifest itself?
the problem of the meaning of life
The main stages in the development of anthropological problems in philosophy. The theme of man, starting from the era of antiquity, is key to all philosophical issues. Ancient philosophers They considered man as a prototype of the Cosmos, a microcosm, the smallest but necessary particle of the world whole, without which harmony and order are impossible. In Plato's philosophy, for the first time, the idea of man appears as a unity of the spiritual (the soul belonging to the world of ideas) and the physical (the body embodying the material principle). Thus, in the history of philosophy, a concept of man appears, which is based on the idea that his true essence has a spiritual-transpersonal nature.
Medieval philosophy is characterized by an understanding of man as a creation created by God in his own image and likeness, which lies primarily in the gift of freedom and creativity and, as a consequence, responsibility for one’s own existence. From the point of view of Christian anthropology, man is not an advanced ape, but a fallen God, a creature with a nature damaged by original sin. The present person is a negative value on the moral scale. And a person cannot rise upward and actualize his potential likeness to God on his own, without the help of God. But God cannot raise a person without his consent and active participation. Hence the absolute ban on ideological violence and coercion, the requirement of unconditional respect for the freedom and spiritual autonomy of the individual, which the Christian religion professes.
In the Renaissance and Modern times, the idea of self-sufficiency and autonomy of human existence was formulated. This period is characterized by special attention to the study of human thinking and his cognitive abilities, because It is believed that cognitive activity is the most important and meaning-forming aspect of human nature.
In the philosophy of the 19th-20th centuries, anthropological topics expand and become so diverse that it seems impossible to talk about any ideological unity in the interpretation of the human problem. Irrationalistic concepts appear (voluntarism of A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche, intuitionism of A. Bergson, psychoanalysis of Z. Freud, etc.), whose representatives believe that human nature is inexplicable, spontaneous, uncontrollable and can never be explained by the scientific method. Theories of historicity are created (Hegel, Marx, Comte), insisting on the social conditionality of all individual and personal characteristics, such philosophical directions as existentialism and philosophical anthropology are formed, within the framework of which the theme of man determines the entire content of research,
Basic approaches to the interpretation of the essence and nature of man. All various options solutions to the human problem that exist in the history of philosophy can be summarized in such approaches as objectivism and subjectivism.
Objectivists tend to view a person as a part, a fragment of objective reality, existing autonomously and independently of the researcher. The objectivist approach is characterized by the idea of man as a structural component of the world whole. Existing as part of this whole, a person is subject to the laws of the world order, based on which we are able to more or less accurately understand, explain and predict his behavior and activities. The main distinctive feature of objectivist interpretations can be considered the explanatory principle “from the world to man.” Most objectivist theories also adhere to the principle of social determinism - i.e. believe that the individual personal characteristics of a person are strictly determined by socio-historical experience, upbringing, environment and other external circumstances. One way or another, the essence of a person in objectivist theories is determined through its correlation with some absolute substance. Representatives of objectivist trends include such concepts as Hegelianism, Marxism, positivism, etc.
Subjectivist concepts attribute the inadequacy of this approach to the fact that, considering a person as an object, we deliberately simplify the problem, distracting from the obvious fact that pure objectivity is impossible. In any study, a person is not only an object, but at the same time a subject of knowledge, therefore, it is impossible to understand his essence and nature objectively (“from the outside”), guided by the principles of strict classical science, and knowledge built on such foundations will always be one-sided. In addition, the objectivist attitude impoverishes knowledge about a person also because it excludes the possibility of obtaining it by non-rational means. Representatives of subjectivism believe that the essence of a person is autonomous, self-sufficient and does not need to be defined through a relationship with something external. At the same time, the main argument in favor of subjectivist concepts is the thesis that only the reality of human consciousness, the whole world, called objective in in this case we derive from consciousness as its phenomenon. To understand human reality, from the point of view of a subjectivist approach, higher value have irrational methods: experience, feeling, perception, intuition, etc. The explanatory principle “from man to the world” is of particular value, since it allows the researcher to focus his attention not on universal, but on unique and inimitable characteristics of the individual. Phenomenological philosophers, existentialists, poststructuralists, etc. can be considered representatives of subjectivism.
Basic categories of philosophical anthropology. The problem of man in philosophy is formulated and solved by turning to the ultimate concepts that constitute the foundations of our thinking and are called philosophical categories. In addition to general philosophical terms such as being, consciousness, general, special, essence, phenomenon, etc., for anthropological problems the key concepts are “personality”, “individual”, “individuality”, in which one of the central problems is expressed philosophical anthropology - the problem of the relationship between the individual, the general and the particular in man. The variety of approaches to solving this problem is due to the difference in the conceptual and methodological foundations of philosophical schools and directions. The meanings given below fix the most generally significant context for the interpretation of concepts.
The concept of “individual” in the strict sense is not philosophical, but is borrowed from biology. This term denotes the individuality of a person as a separate living being, in contrast to a collective, society, or group. Sometimes this concept is used as a synonym for “individuality,” which seems not entirely correct, because the word “individual” captures the uniqueness of man as an individual in the biological sense, without emphasizing his specific and unique characteristics, while by “individuality” we mean precisely the uniqueness and originality of a person. Especially a lot of discussions in modern literature are devoted to the concept of “personality”. Ultimately, ideas about what is meant by “personality” differ significantly among representatives of various philosophical schools and movements. Most of them think that characteristic feature personality is ideological maturity, manifested in a situation of responsibility for one’s life choices and decision, as well as an ethical orientation towards the values of humanism and goodness. If the concept of individuality captures the uniqueness and originality of a person’s external characteristics, then to determine personality main role play characteristics inner world person, i.e. his spiritual essence. According to most philosophers, it is the spiritual-personal sphere that expresses the specificity of a person and sets the meaning of his existence. Personal characteristics, unlike individual ones, are not innate, but arise in the process of socialization. Personality formation is influenced by various social institutions- family, state, education, army, etc. As a result of socialization, the experience of previous generations is transmitted and continuity in its development is ensured.
“There are two main trunks of human knowledge, growing, perhaps, from one common, but unknown to us root, namely sensibility and reason: through sensibility, objects are given to us, but through reason they are thought.” I. Kant
Knowledge is not limited to the sphere of science, every form public consciousness: science, philosophy, mythology, politics, religion, etc. - have their own specific forms of knowledge, but unlike all the diverse forms of knowledge, scientific knowledge is the process of obtaining objective, true knowledge aimed at reflecting the laws of reality. Scientific knowledge has a threefold task and is associated with the description, explanation and prediction of processes and phenomena of reality.
There are also forms of knowledge that have a conceptual, symbolic or artistic basis. In the history of culture, diverse forms of knowledge that differ from the classical scientific model and standard are classified as extra-scientific knowledge: parascientific, pseudoscientific, quasi-scientific, anti-scientific, pseudoscientific, everyday practical, personal, “folk science”. Since the diverse set of extra-rational knowledge does not lend itself to strict and exhaustive classification, there is a division of the corresponding cognitive technologies into three types: paranormal knowledge, pseudoscience and deviant science.
The initial structure of Cognition is represented by the subject-object relationship, where the question of the possibility of an adequate reproduction by the subject of the essential characteristics of an object (the problem of truth) is the central theme of epistemology (theory of Cognition). Depending on the solution to this issue, philosophy distinguishes the positions of cognitive optimism, skepticism and agnosticism.
In Book VI of the Republic, Plato divides everything accessible to knowledge into two types: comprehended by sensation and cognizable by the mind. The relationship between the spheres of the sensed and the intelligible also determines the relationship between different cognitive abilities: sensations allow us to understand (albeit unreliably) the world of things, reason allows us to see the truth.
What is felt is again divided into two types - the objects themselves and their shadows and images. Faith (πίστις) correlates with the first kind, and likeness (εἰκασία) with the second. By faith we mean the ability to have direct experience. Taken together, these abilities constitute opinion (δόξα). Opinion is not knowledge in the true sense of the word, since it concerns changeable objects, as well as their images. The sphere of the intelligible is also divided into two types - these are the ideas of things and their intelligible similarities. Ideas do not need any prerequisites for their knowledge, representing eternal and unchanging entities accessible only to reason (νόησις). The second type includes mathematical objects. According to Plato's thought, mathematicians only “dream” existence, since they use inferential concepts that require a system of axioms that are accepted without proof. The ability to produce such concepts is understanding (διάνοια). Reason and understanding together constitute thinking, and only it is capable of cognizing the essence. Plato introduces the following proportion: as essence is related to becoming, so thinking is related to opinion; and knowledge is related to faith and reasoning is related to assimilation.
Particularly famous in the theory of knowledge is Plato’s allegory “Myth of the Cave” (or “Parable of the Cave”).
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