How R. Descartes defines the beginning of all knowledge

  • 30.09.2019

The similarities and differences between the two disciplines continue to be debated by scholars and researchers. For the most part, they are in relation to the knowledge of scientists and thinkers.

Origin

It is known that philosophy and science appeared in ancient Greece even before our era. Similarities and differences should be sought in that ancient era. Initially, philosophy arose as a universal science that studied everything that exists. Academies began to appear in prosperous cities. They became a platform for discussion of various opinions by scientists. They were called philosophers - translated from Greek as "lovers of wisdom."

Over time, the amount of knowledge has increased. Gradually, the first independent sciences broke away from philosophy, for example, physics. Scientists who delved into their favorite subject created special schools. Science arose at the moment when philosophers came to the conclusion that real knowledge is knowledge about something stable and unchanging. He was opposed to private opinions - observations and random reasoning of people that could not be proven.

Relationship

Concrete sciences study certain aspects of being. Philosophy, on the other hand, unites everyone, and therefore it is more important than disparate disciplines. This is how the ancient Greeks thought. For example, speakers of that time compared physics and philosophy in this way: the first studies nature and its laws, while philosophy embraces not only nature, but also man. It goes beyond narrow knowledge.

Disputes about what are the similarities between philosophy and science have continued for many centuries. The relatively recent school of positivism and Marxist teaching also tried to answer this question. Proponents of these theories believe that only the philosophy that is based on scientific achievements has the right to exist. Can this be done in practice?

A universal method that would determine the similarities between philosophy and science has never been formulated. Husserl did a lot of research on this topic. He became the author of the theory of "philosophy as a rigorous science". But neither he nor his supporters have been able to achieve satisfactory results in this direction. Philosophy and science, the similarities and differences of which were especially closely studied in the 20th century, gave rise to the existentialist doctrine. His postulates directly emphasize that these two disciplines have little to do with each other.

Limits of knowledge

What is common between philosophy and science? Definitely, they are ways of knowing things. However, their methods and goals differ markedly. Science is limited, it studies only those things that are within the limits of its narrow subject. Philosophy has no boundaries, it embraces everything around. Such knowledge is vague, it is not based on clear facts.

Similarities and differences between philosophy and science can also be seen in the attitude towards empiricism. For example, for physics and biology, the acquired experience and experiments are extremely important, since without them it is impossible to prove a single theory. In philosophy, these things are treated more lightly.

Differentiation

Scientific disciplines are very different from each other. This is explained by the fact that the world is very complex - there are many cuts in it. Each of them has its own science. For example, physics and mathematics are closely related, but at the same time they have little in common with the humanities. Philosophy and science, the similarities and differences of which can be clearly studied by the example of differentiation, are not similar in that the former is monumental, while the latter is diverse and fragmented.

Scientists, as a rule, are busy with their narrow sphere. They have little interest in how their work will affect the general scientific knowledge. Philosophers have always tried in their theories to embrace the whole world with all its laws and contradictions. These were: Aristotle, Hegel, Kant and many other famous thinkers of mankind.

Attitude towards non-existence

Important differences between philosophy and science lie in their relationship to the subject of study. Thinkers are trying to explain not only the real world, but also the conditional "nothing" - something that is beyond the limits of human consciousness. Science studies only what really exists.

Non-existence is an important area for all philosophical schools, starting from the ancient world. In China and India (one of the oldest civilizations in the world), "nothing" was the fundamental basis of any teaching. A similar attitude existed in Western European philosophy. For thinkers, "nothing" is so important, because it is one of the matters with which you can find the basis of everything that exists. Philosophers through the ages different ways tried to find some absolute - a comprehensive knowledge. Scientists do not engage in such projects. They investigate concrete facts and matters. Interestingly, the similarities and differences between philosophy, science and religion can also be drawn in relation to the absolute.

Objectivism and subjectivism

What else do philosophy and science have in common? What they have in common is that they both represent an intellectual mental activity. Their result is expressed in certain systems. The result of such activity is always different. Science strives to be objective. It relies only on dry facts. The results of long studies and experiments form the basis of Their main advantage is that they consist only of impersonal knowledge.

Philosophy also tries to be objective, but since a person is always at the center of its study, philosophers cannot exclude the opinion and attitude of a person to the subject being studied from the results of their work. The ideological position of any thinker is based on arguments that are very different from scientific ones. Therefore, any philosophy is a priori subjective. Related to this is the fact that many different schools and teachings arise within it, often contradicting each other. In science, this cannot be. If a scientist has proved a certain theory with the help of facts, then his successors will have to reckon with it in their works. Philosophers can reject and refute each other. For example, some currents of the 20th century denied the experience of the European schools of the 19th century, etc.

The role of philosophy in science

Philosophy and science do not just have similarities and differences. They are integral part each other. The first scientific theories were built on philosophical principles. Even modern scientists use those that were first tested by the sages of ancient Greece. And there is no contradiction in this.

Philosophy is a method of cognition, logic, worldview schemes. All this underlies the global and universal No scientist can understand and realize the processes of the surrounding world without the methods listed above. Thus, some philosophical techniques are the right tools for any scientific researcher. The ability to think theoretically, to put individual elements of systems into one picture - all these things are important for scientists.

The similarities and differences between science and philosophy have always attracted people's attention. So different, but talking about the same thing. Such eternal and seemingly familiar things as time, space and distance can be viewed from completely different angles. We will talk about what brings philosophy and science together in the material of the article.

How and where was philosophy born

Philosophy as a science was born more than two and a half thousand years ago in such countries as Egypt, China, India and Ancient Greece.

Definition of philosophy

Before looking for similarities and differences between philosophy and science, let's consider each concept separately. In Greek, "philosophy" means love of wisdom, and this definition perfectly captures the whole essence of the concept.

Who was first?

In any science there are pioneers, and philosophy is no exception. The first person to classify himself as a philosopher was Pythagoras. And Plato introduced it into a separate discipline.

Science is...

Despite the similarities and differences between philosophy and science, the very definition of what scientific activity is is formed on the basis of philosophical knowledge, which says that science is one of the forms of human spiritual activity aimed at understanding the laws of the universe, nature and society. No discoveries would have been made if humanity did not have philosophical questions and the desire to find answers to them.

In addition, the term "science" carries several meanings:

  1. The community of scientists and the totality of universities and scientific institutions.
  2. The totality of reliable knowledge about a person and society as a whole.
  3. Science as a process of obtaining information and knowledge.

Characteristics of Science

Science has its own set of characteristics, including:

  • study of a specific subject of reality;
  • obtaining reliable knowledge or a specific result;
  • operating with local concepts;
  • empirical and theoretical knowledge;
  • realization of values.

The main characteristics of philosophy as a scientific discipline

Philosophy has the following features:

  • teaches to think in general categories;
  • forms values ​​that are important for each person individually;
  • recognizes the existence of a common reality, one for all. Unites people into one big family, without states, nationalities and territories, referring primarily to the spiritual essence, and not the physical appearance;
  • the goal of philosophy is a formed worldview.

Religion and philosophy

Let us now understand the difference between such seemingly close concepts as "religion" and "philosophy".

The concept of philosophy is much broader than religion. Religion is confidence in the existence of God as the creator of the world, deep respect for him and observance of certain canons prescribed in the holy books ("Bible", "Koran"). Hegel placed religion very close to philosophy and art.

Faith and religious consciousness take precedence over reason and logical thinking. Religion is characterized by the absence of any flexibility of thinking, dogmatism and conservatism in judgments. To date, three world religions are official - Buddhism, Christianity (this includes Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox) and Islam. Buddhism is considered the oldest of all religions.

Philosophy and Science

What is the relation of philosophy and science to each other? These are two completely different forms knowledge of the world, independent, but complementing each other. The relationship between philosophy and science is expressed not only in the search for similarities and differences. One cannot exist without the other.

So, philosophy is the statements with which the individual person agrees, the totality of his general views on the world. Science helps to improve philosophy through new discoveries and supplements it with facts to substantiate a particular theory. The history of the development of science knows many examples of this fact. So, for example, it was previously believed that the Earth was flat, but as a result of the discoveries made by science, it was possible to establish that our planet has the shape of a ball. This discovery disproved one philosophical outlook on the structure of the world and gave rise to new options. The same applies to natural phenomena, when a flood, earthquake or thunderstorm was perceived solely as the wrath of the gods. Over time, science has learned not only to predict weather conditions, but also to control them in many ways.

The history of the development of science would be incomplete without philosophy. It performs the following functions:

  • forms new subject areas for discoveries in science;
  • forms and explains ideas and principles, eliminates emerging contradictions;
  • leads to an understanding of the result;
  • systematizes the acquired scientific knowledge, helping disciplines to determine their place in the knowledge of the picture of the world as a whole, establishes contacts and interaction not only with the sciences, but also with people.

The relationship of philosophy with the sciences

The connection between philosophy and the humanities is much stronger than one might think at first glance, and is characterized by the fact that several scientific disciplines have come out of it, including:

  • logic is a science that studies correct thinking;
  • axiology - a science that studies values;
  • ethics - the doctrine of manners of behavior;
  • aesthetics - the science of beauty;
  • anthropology is a discipline about a person;
  • epistemology - studies the theory of knowledge;
  • ontology - studies being.

Scientific definition of time

Time in science and philosophy is perceived differently. Since antiquity, all the great minds have wondered what it is.

Science puts forward several definitions of the concept of time, based on its characteristics:

  • Time is a quantity whose values ​​depend on units of measurement.
  • With the help of time periods, people establish intervals between events that have occurred in life.
  • Time is a parameter that describes the relationship of several processes to each other.
  • The time scale can be uniform or non-uniform.
  • Time always moves towards the future.

Units of time in science

  1. One for the entire planet - the Greenwich system.
  2. Belt - includes 24 hours.
  3. True time, measured by sundials installed at different points on the Earth.
  4. Solar - averaged over a certain area.
  5. Stellar - it is used in astronomy.
  6. Daylight Saving - clocks are adjusted to save energy resources.

A person divides time into intervals to describe specific events in his life, but this division is relative. The present is a moment in time that immediately becomes the past.

Physics defined time in its own way, and this definition became fundamental when creating watches: time is a reversible amount of movement of objects, which is measured by a sequence of events.

Some concepts of time

  • Classical physics claims that time is a continuous quantity from the point of view of quantum theory. It is paramount and indefinable. Time is a mandatory parameter for the flow of any processes. It is the same for everything that happens in the world, anywhere on the planet. Despite the acceleration or deceleration of some physical processes, time flows evenly, and nothing can affect its course.
  • Quantum mechanics also recognizes the irreversibility of the course of time, but claims that it flows unevenly. According to it, the measurement will give information about the state in which the object was in the past, but in the future a different, new state will appear.
  • Einstein put forward his theory, which is still popular today. Of greatest interest is the fact that time and space are not independent. So near, massive objects, space can be distorted, and time can slow down.

Table "Philosophy and Science"

Philosophy relies mainly on the inner feelings of a person, his feelings and experiences. Science recognizes specificity and calculation. The similarities and differences between science and philosophy are presented in the table.

Similarities

Philosophy

Both philosophy and science are looking for answers to the questions posed, designed to solve problems

He is looking for answers to questions about the meaning of life, his own path, the division into spiritual and material.

Science is designed to solve issues that arise in society at the present time.

Critical reflection on the past, search for new solutions, conducting a mental dialogue with predecessors.

Scientists do not dwell on the discoveries of the past.

Philosophy uses mostly abstract concepts.

Science is designed to solve problems through laboratory research, experience, observation.

In philosophy, there may be several conflicting approaches together.

Science rejects the coexistence of several mutually exclusive approaches.

Knowledge in philosophy is multilayered.

The concepts of science are precise and concrete.

Philosophy is called upon to find truth as a way to reconcile thoughts and human existence. Values ​​asserts as a form of harmonization of human existence with his thoughts.

Abstracts from assessments and judgments, does not divide into black, white, good and bad. Answers specific questions: how, for what, why, and so on.

Philosophy today

What questions does philosophy solve today? In connection with the development of a person as an individual, some issues that were important, say, about 100 years ago, today have gone by themselves. The central questions of philosophy today are:

  1. Is a person the creator of his life at the deepest level. This is not just decision-making, as it used to be, but a matter of shaping all events within the individual world of each person.
  2. The relationship of people among themselves as a single organism, even those who are unaware of the existence of each other. From this point of view, each person is perceived as a cell human body- our planet. Each cell does its job, but at the same time it is a small part of a large whole organism.
  3. Is there an existence of a reasonable Universe or God the Creator, and in what direction is the development going?
  4. Eternal questions of good and evil. Some philosophical works (such as Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita") touch on the topic more deeply than is customary in fairy tales and myths. The hero of the work of Yeshua, before his crucifixion, claims that there are no people who would be evil, because everyone performs his task in this world.
  5. The search for truth and the personal path of each person. Today, philosophy encourages a person not to follow the lead of marketers, psychologists, magicians and sorcerers. Spiritual leaders such as Osho urge a person to trust his own life and all the processes taking place in it, to find peace in himself. Modern philosophy says that all the answers that a person is trying to find, all the feelings that he wants to find in other people are in himself. And his task is to reveal in himself a source of strength and wisdom, which will allow him to be happy without becoming attached to people, things, countries and circumstances.
  6. Some topics in philosophy and science intersect, despite the difference in methods: both philosophers and scientists today are trying to unravel the mystery of the brain and its relationship with the body. A science such as psychosomatics claims that medicine can advance far if, instead of fighting the disease with antibiotics, vaccines and injections, it finds the root cause of its occurrence inside the human consciousness. It is known that a person's acute unwillingness to live leads to diseases such as AIDS. Back problems explain a person's lack of confidence in himself, his own attractiveness and viability.

Philosophy in culture

Despite all the differences and similarities between philosophy and science, it has a special role in society. The cultural function of philosophy is that, spreading in the form of certain knowledge, it creates conditions for a better understanding of the world around us, helps to form new ideas, uniting not only the society of a particular region, but also several countries among themselves.

Esotericism - the science of the future

Esotericism is a science that studies supernatural phenomena that a person is not yet able to explain either from the point of view of philosophy or from the point of view of official science. This may include prophetic dreams, conversations with deceased relatives, a feeling of deja vu and many other inexplicable, but interesting phenomena for humanity.

Einstein claimed that studying physics helped him understand and believe in the existence of God. This statement proves that philosophy and other sciences are closely related. Also, the famous scientist believed that a person can get any reality that he wants by tuning into a certain frequency. Since everything in the world consists of energy, it is enough for a person to simply begin to radiate into space those sensations, thoughts and emotions that he wants to receive.

Nikola Tesla, the eminent physicist, claimed that highest point development of human consciousness is in the embodiment of the reality that a person can imagine mentally.

We hope that the presented material helped to more clearly trace how philosophy and other sciences interact with each other, and also helped to expand the horizons of perception of things familiar at first glance.

    Secular philosophy and science are a rational way to comprehend the world and its phenomena.

    Philosophy and science work at the level of essence, that is, philosophy reveals the general, universal foundations for the existence of the world and its phenomena, and science reveals the general and specific laws of phenomena and processes of reality.

    1. Plato on the difference between philosophy and science.

Plato in the sixth book of the essay "The State" through the mouth of Socrates tells about the various ways of comprehending the soul of the intelligible world (the world of ideas). “One section of the intelligible soul is forced to search on the basis of premises, using images ... and striving ... not to the beginning, but to the end. ... another section, the soul seeks, ascending from the premise to the beginning of such a premise, which does not have images that were in the first case, but with the help of the ideas themselves, it paves the way for itself.

Here Plato introduces a methodically strict distinction between philosophy and science. It concerns their different attitude to their foundations and direction of knowledge.

Science and philosophy have their own premises, grounds (principles, postulates, axioms, fundamentals). Science considers its foundations intuitively clear, true and does not try to justify them; on their basis, she builds a theoretical idea of ​​the object. Philosophy, on the other hand, does not consider its premises to be true and tries first of all to find the foundations of these premises. For example, the thesis "The objective world exists" is a fundamental ontological foundation in both physics and philosophy. Physics does not question this thesis, but, proceeding from it, studies the material world. In philosophy, any ontological research begins precisely with the clarification of the question of the objective existence of the world. And only having clarified this question, the philosopher builds an ontological picture of the world. Moreover, not all philosophers answer this question in the affirmative.

    1. Differences between philosophy and science.

    Science, in a finite number of steps, provides definitive answers to specific questions of universally recognized importance. Philosophy is not a collection of ready-made truths. Her problems do not have an unambiguous solution. Offering its own solution to some problems, philosophy always leaves room for new solutions and approaches. Therefore, there has never been unanimity in philosophy, it only creates the prerequisites for an independent search for answers to the eternal questions of being.

    Philosophy, unlike science, is interested in the beginning, foundations. A physicist studies the material world, things, but never asks the question: “What is matter in itself?”. The mathematician operates with numbers, but never asks the question: "What is a number in itself?" Philosophy is interested precisely in these questions: What is matter in itself? What is a number in itself? etc.

    Science studies the real real world as it is. Philosophy comprehends the world through a prism due, that is, it reflects on what are the ultimate foundations of the world, allowing it to be or thanks to which it can perish.

    Philosophy in its essence is a reflection, that is, it is an activity associated with consciousness, which seeks to determine its own boundaries and overcome them. This desire requires intense reflection, reflection, directed at one's own consciousness. That is, philosophy is a special form of individual and social consciousness, characterized by progressive reflection and the maximum use of human abilities. Whereas in science and religion, reflection is not obligatory, that is, it is not obligatory for a scientist to study the process of cognition. But still, practice shows that a philosophizing scientist can achieve great results. (For example, Albert Einstein).

    Philosophy and science differ in the objects (subjects) of research. If the object of science is the real world of things (the world of existence), then the subject of philosophy is the transcendent world (existing beyond the boundaries of the world of existence), the world of being, the world of the ultimate foundations for the existence of man, society and nature.

How is philosophy different from myth, religion, science?

According to the generally accepted, formal definition of the task of philosophy, philosophy, unlike private sciences, is the doctrine of unity, of being as a whole. But the history of philosophical thought teaches that any attempt to find the unity and integrity of being, or - which is the same - to build a system of being, without going beyond the totality of individual, sensually given things, to create a system of being as a system of nature, is doomed to inevitable failure.

Appearing, like art, from mythology, the philosophical "child of clear thought", accumulating knowledge and improving the logical apparatus, grew into the science of the most general patterns of being, that is, nature, society and spiritual world person. Over time, various fields of knowledge spun off from philosophy, turning into independent sciences - physics, chemistry, geography, biology, history, political economy, etc. so philosophy became the mother of all sciences. Carefully watching her children and taking care of them, at the same time she did not dissolve in her children, clearly taking her place in the spiritual activity of mankind. If natural Sciences aimed at studying the world around a person and a person as part of this world (biological being), if art is, first of all, the world of the person himself, then philosophy is the comprehension of a person in the world and the world in a person.

Philosophy as a form of culture differs from science:

    Individual sciences serve individual specific needs of society: technology, economics, the art of healing, the art of teaching. Legislation. They study their specific slice of reality, their fragment of being. Private sciences are limited separate parts peace. Philosophy is concerned with the world as a whole. It cannot reconcile itself with the particular, for it is striving for a holistic comprehension of the Universe. Philosophy thinks about the world as a whole, about the all-encompassing unity of all that exists, it seeks an answer to the question "what is being, inasmuch as it is." In this sense, the definition of philosophy as the science of “first principles and primary causes” is fair.

    Particular sciences are turned to the phenomena and processes of reality that exist objectively, outside of man, independently of man or of humanity. They are not interested in the value scale of human meanings, they are priceless. Science formulates its conclusions in theories, laws and formulas, putting aside the personal, emotional attitude of the scientist to the phenomena being studied and the social consequences that this or that discovery can lead to. The figure of a scientist, the structure of his thoughts and temperament, the nature of confessions and life preferences also do not arouse much interest. The law of gravity, quadratic equations, the Mendeleev system, the laws of thermodynamics are objective. Their action does not depend on the opinions, moods and personality of the scientist. Philosophy is all permeated with a personal principle. The philosopher, first of all, must determine his attitude to the world. Therefore, the main question of philosophy is formulated as the question of the relation of thinking to being (man to the world, consciousness to matter).

    Representatives of individual sciences proceed from certain ideas that are accepted as something given that does not require justification. None of the narrow specialists in the process of direct scientific activity asks the question of how its discipline arose and how it is possible, what is its own specificity and difference from others. If these problems are touched upon, the natural scientist enters the sphere of philosophical questions of natural science. Philosophy, first of all, seeks to contain the initial premises of any knowledge, including the philosophical one itself. It is aimed at identifying such reliable foundations that could serve as a starting point and criterion for understanding and evaluating everything else. A favorite topic of philosophical reflections is the limiting, boundary questions with which a separate cognitive area either begins or ends.

    Philosophy seeks to find the ultimate foundations and regulators of any conscious attitude to reality. Therefore, philosophical knowledge appears not in the form of a logically ordered scheme, but takes the form of a detailed discussion, a detailed formulation of all the difficulties of analysis, a critical comparison and evaluation of possible solutions to the problem. In philosophy, not only the result achieved is important, but also the path to this result. For the path is a specific way of substantiating the result.

    In science, a cumulative forward movement is accepted, i.e. movement based on the accumulation of already obtained results. The specificity of philosophy is manifested in the fact that it applies its special reflection method, a method of wrapping thoughts on itself. It is, as it were, a shuttle movement, implying a return to the original premises and enriching them with new content. Philosophy is characterized by the reformulation of major problems throughout the history of human thought.

    Science relies on facts, their experimental verification. Philosophy is separated from the sphere of everyday life and carried away into the world of intelligible (intelligible) entities, it denotes the existence of objects that are comprehended only by the mind and inaccessible to sensory knowledge. Questions about what beauty, truth, goodness, justice, harmony are are not limited to empirical generalizations.

    The language of philosophy differs significantly both from the language of science from the language of science with its clear fixation of the term and subject, and from the language of poetry, in which reality is only figuratively outlined, as well as from the language of everyday life, where objectivity is designated within the framework of utilitarian needs. Philosophy, assuming a conversation about the world from the point of view of the universal, needs such language means, in such universal concepts that could reflect the immensity and infinity of the universe. Therefore, philosophy creates its own language - the language of categories, extremely broad concepts that have the status of universality and necessity.

    Specific scientific disciplines can develop without taking into account the experience of other forms of culture. Physics, for example, can safely progress without taking into account the experience of art history or religion, but biology can not. And although philosophy cannot be reduced (reduced) either to science or to any other form of culture, in general, it accepts the cumulative experience spiritual development humanity, all forms of culture: science, art, religion, technology, etc.

The question between philosophy and religion about the inevitability of their divergence and mutual struggle, belonging to the number of typical " eternal questions The consciousness of the human spirit, with particular acuteness, confronts consciousness in the era of radical changes in the world outlook, in the era of spiritual confusion and the search for the lost integrity of spiritual life. The dominant ideas about philosophy and religion, the most widespread in wide circles, coming from the Age of Enlightenment, and partly from an even more ancient direction - from the rationalism of the 17th century, present the matter in such a way that between philosophy and religion it is not only possible, but inevitable, a fundamental divergence. Namely, religion is conceived here as a kind of blind faith, as someone else's opinion, precisely the opinion of church authority, accepted on faith without any verification, without independent judgment of personal consciousness, only on the basis of childish gullibility and humility of thought; and wherein content of this faith, or - at best - such that genuine knowledge about it is impossible, or even such that it directly contradicts the conclusions of knowledge. Philosophy, on the other hand, is free, devoid of any emotional tendencies, rigorous knowledge based on evidence, on logical discrepancies. Between the one and the other, a fatal abyss is inevitable, which cannot be filled by anything. In fact, for the philosophical justification of faith, for the coincidence of philosophy and religion, it would be required that the completely irrational, essentially unmotivated - for traditionally perceived - content of religious faith be at the same time logically proved, as if mathematically deduced by abstract thought. Any conscientious attempt in this direction immediately leads to negative results. An honest, genuine philosopher is inevitably, if not a convinced atheist, then, in any case, a "free-thinking", "skeptic". And from this point of view, attempts to reconcile and harmonize the results of such diverse spiritual orientations and aspirations seem artificial, tortured, internally fruitless. Only if the philosopher cowardly renounces freedom and prejudice of thought and forcibly adjusts the argument to justification in advance, on the faith of the theses accepted, can an illusory appearance of agreement between philosophy and religion be obtained.

So, now we will analyze how philosophy differs from myth. The myth is explained in a subject-object structure, moreover, as if it belongs to external reality, and the myth does not see it ("identifies"), and therefore personifies everything. We are talking about the personification of natural phenomena, as if the latter are directly, naturally in reality itself (while they are only a set of constructs of the new European scientific mind), but only seen by primitive man inadequately, through a veil of illusions.

Here we are dealing with naturalism, which allowed Cassady's philosophy to find its object unusually quickly and thus emerge (a mentalistic figure). You just need to stop impersonating, and you will immediately see "phenomena of nature", "nature as a whole." "Miletian thinkers reject personification natural phenomena and thereby make the transition from a figurative (religious-mythological) representation to an abstract concept, more precisely, to theoretical thinking, if we mean the ancient understanding of theory (mental contemplation of a living picture of reality, the image of the cosmos). This transition from figurative representation to theoretical thinking meant the discovery of a new picture of the world in which phenomena are explained by their natural conditioning. "Thus, we see that the specificity of consciousness is determined by Cassidy in a mentalistic key - through content. A myth is about gods, that is, about what in fact (objectively) does not exist, philosophy is about objective reality. Therefore, it turns out that philosophy is always occupied only with what creates a "picture of the world", which differs from mythological in its theoretical, logical prudence for the subject object - in this and consists of "novelty". Actually, thanks to the logic, this new picture becomes "adequate" to reality itself - to the phenomena of nature, the essence of which it singles out. From the point of view of Cassidy, the Milesians were philosophers to the extent that they were looking for the essence of natural phenomena - we are talking about their "original principles" obtained by abstracting from observable cosmic phenomena.So, philosophy here is such a m an ideology in which a theoretically formalized, conceptually abstract and therefore adequate (objective) picture of the world is given. The object for philosophizing is given by the actual reality itself, but it turns into an object of thinking as a result of abstraction from its figurative givenness. This is how, from the point of view of Cassidy, philosophical thought arises. It remains to explain only one thing - the formation of the skill of abstraction, conceptual thinking. This explains the transition "from myth to logos" as a transition from one level of worldview to another (remember Chanyshev). This transition is conceived by the authors historically, and history, in a Marxist way, is a lawful, necessary and progressive change of stages in which social phenomena depend on the modes of production. Thus, methodologically, this move looks like this - a change in formations causes a change in the levels of worldview. As a result, we get that the Greeks became philosophers because they became slave owners. In connection with the emergence labor activity, a person "spontaneously develops" an ideological need, but how it is realized depends entirely on the social substratum, that is, on the type of production relations - on the formation. "The fundamental basis of all forms of social consciousness, including philosophy, is the socio-historical practice of people, which implies an active and interested attitude to phenomena outside world, to the world order of things, to the social order", etc. The natural primitive mode of production entails "the indivisibility of the primitive collective, which corresponds to the complete vagueness of the myth as social consciousness (where everything is in everything)". But gradually "social being" begins Chanyshev pays great attention to the change in the mode of production, which provoked the change in the mythological picture of the world into a theoretical one. productive forces in connection with the transition from bronze to iron, it increased the possibilities of people and their mastery of the world, which stimulated thinking and gave new, objective knowledge about reality (we are talking about pra-science) ... Commodity and money as a sensual-supersensible thing, having appeared, led to abstraction social life and public consciousness... The class struggle undermined traditions... There was a desacralization of priestly knowledge in connection with democracy and the fall of the hierarchy. The new classes needed a new world view. The rise to the second level for the worldview became possible thanks to the growth of the sciences, which stimulated the emergence of the highest part of the ideological superstructure. Philosophy arises as a resolution of the contradiction between the mythological picture of the world and new knowledge, as the spread of thinking to the entire worldview from a narrowly specific (production) sphere... This is how philosophy is formed as a system-rationalized worldview. "This passage reveals many misunderstandings. Firstly , "Pre-philosophy (myth as a worldview) is the same everywhere." But due to the fact that in the East slavery was wrong, that is, patriarchal, "the philosophy of China, India, Babylonia, Syria, Phoenicia, Judea, Israel, Egypt did not receive classical forms like in Hellas" - the list itself is so odious that there is no way to comment on it. The peoples of the East lacked abstract thinking - but why? - didn't they know how, for example, to count? Cassidy, moreover, deprives them of logic , strenuously proving that the myth is illogical at all.Such extremes are not accidental - otherwise there is simply no reason to distinguish Eastern mythology from philosophy. phenomenon of philosophy with the formation of a desacralized social space, a new problem arises - we get ancient philosophy, and philosophy in antiquity, that is, any nation that has the skill of divided labor and has passed to the stage of class society (for example, classical slavery), will certainly acquire philosophy. Thus, it should be essential for philosophy not that it arises as "Hellenic", but that it arises as "slave-owning". In other words, it is always class. As a result, Chanyshev and Cassidy receive an ideology, and not just any ideology, but a theoretical one, scientific and cognitive (and in this sense progressive, socially useful) and self-conscious as such. This - back side already mentioned terms - "worldview", "picture of the world". And this, of course, explains the intuitively transparent knowledge that something, the origin of which is described by Chanyshev and Cassidy, can be anything, but only Philosophy as an event of thought cannot arise in this way. But the authors were not looking for events, they were looking for the formation of the subject. And what they got is quite understandable if their foundations are the classical type of rationality of the Marxist model, where classicism entails mentalism - when the thought event is not seen behind the subject of thought, formed historically, and Marxism adds naturalism (subject-object structure and natural phenomena are presented as natural data as elements of reality itself).

For several centuries now, there has been a debate about what philosophy is and how it differs from science. Someone identifies these concepts, someone contrasts them, and someone highlights common and particular features. It is hardly possible to answer such a fundamental question in one article, but it is quite possible to give a general idea of ​​​​the problem.

Philosophy is a worldview, a scientific discipline, as well as a way of knowing the surrounding reality. The activity is aimed at studying the origin of man, the world and the universe, the relationship between the human and the divine. Philosophy is represented by hundreds of schools that answer the age-old questions in different ways. The key problems of this discipline can hardly be resolved unambiguously: what is God, what is truth, what is death.

The science is a field of human activity, which sets as its main task the development of new knowledge, their practical use, systematization, development. As a rule, such work is aimed at solving applied problems. Having appeared in ancient times, science has developed its own methods of studying reality. modern science is a well-coordinated mechanism that not only works to improve quality human life, conservation of nature, but also successfully wedged into market relations.

Both science and philosophy express knowledge in a theoretical form, abstracting from details. They are aimed at finding answers, but the questions are always different. Science is interested in what lies on the surface: how to defeat cancer, how to increase engine power, how to increase productivity. Philosophy deals with questions that are unambiguously impossible to answer: what comes first - God or man, what is the meaning of life, how one should relate to death.

Science gives a concrete result, in the absence of which one can doubt its expediency. The only thing that philosophy can give is food for the mind, reflections, theoretical constructions, which cannot be verified in practice. So, at one time science invented a steam engine, and after a relatively short time - an atomic reactor. Philosophy stood at the origins of modern statehood (the ideal state of Plato), and today it actively promotes the ideas of cosmopolitanism (a world without borders and countries).

The main goal of science is to know the world, interact with it. Philosophy, on the contrary, allows you to find a place for a person in this reality. Some schools isolate a person from the universe, others consider him as an integral part of what is happening. It is believed that philosophy and science originated at the same time. But deeper analysis shows that the science is somewhat older until proven otherwise.

Findings site

  1. Age. The most ancient sciences (astronomy, arithmetic) appeared in the first states (Egypt, Mesopotamia), while philosophy - in Ancient Greece, much later.
  2. Worldview. The philosophical picture of the world gives a central place to man or God, while the scientific one - to objective reality.
  3. Goals. Philosophy is engaged in self-knowledge, while science is the search for accurate knowledge, a picture of the world around.
  4. Truth check. The calculations of philosophy can only be proved theoretically, while scientific theories can also be proved empirically.
  5. Result. Thanks to scientific achievements, we have a physical result - new cars, medicines, paints, building materials. Thanks to philosophy, new social systems and political ideologies are developed.