Throughout the history of the existence of mankind, philosophy has been developing as a stable form of social consciousness, worldview issues have been considered. She is theoretical basis worldview or its theoretical core, around which a kind of spiritual cloud of generalized everyday views of worldly wisdom has formed, which constitutes a vital level of worldview.

The relationship between philosophy and worldview is characterized as follows: the concept of "worldview" is wider than the concept of "philosophy". Philosophy is such a form of social and individual consciousness, which is constantly theoretically substantiated, has a greater degree of scientificity than just a worldview at the everyday level of common sense, which is present in a person who sometimes does not even know how to write or read.

The philosophical worldview is, first of all, a theoretical view of the world from the standpoint of an active being who is aware of himself and what he has to interact with. This is a set of fundamental ideas about man, about the world and about the relationship of man to the world. These ideas allow people to consciously navigate the world and society, as well as motivate their actions.

Philosophy refers to a reflexive type of worldview, which contains reflections on one's own ideas about the world and a person's place in this world. A look at one's thinking, at one's consciousness from the outside is one of the features of philosophical thinking. These are reflections on one's own reflections.

Freethinking is an objective principle of philosophy. By its very nature, philosophy requires reflection, doubt, allows criticism of ideas, rejection of belief in dogmas and postulates, which are approved by the mass practice of believers. Philosophy calls into question the ultimate foundations of being, including the very existence of the world, including such a question - "how is the world possible?". Philosophy was formed in the struggle with the religious-mythological consciousness, it rationally explained the world. The original types of worldview persist throughout history. "Pure" types of worldview are practically not found in real life form complex and contradictory combinations.

In the mass consciousness, philosophy is often presented as something very far from real life. Philosophers are spoken of as people "not of this world." Philosophizing in this sense is a lengthy, vague reasoning, the truth of which can neither be proved nor refuted. But such an opinion is already contradicted by the fact that in a cultured, civilized society, every thinking person, at least a little, is a philosopher, even if he does not suspect it.

Philosophical thought is the thought of the eternal. But this does not mean that philosophy itself is outside history. There was a time when there was no science yet, and philosophy was at the highest level of its creative development. Man's relation to the world is an eternal subject of philosophy, which is historically mobile and concrete. The "human" dimension of the world changes with the change in the essential forces of man himself.

The innermost goal of philosophy is to take a person out of the sphere of everyday life, to captivate him with the highest ideals, to give his life a true meaning, to open the way to the most perfect values.

Philosophy is one of the main forms of social consciousness, a system of the most general concepts about the world and the place of man in it. The emergence of philosophy as a worldview refers to the period of development and formation of the slave-owning society in the countries of the Ancient East, and the classical form of the philosophical worldview took shape in Ancient Greece. Initially, materialism arose as a kind of philosophical worldview, as a scientific reaction to a religious form of worldview. Thales was the first in ancient Greece to rise to the understanding of the material unity of the world and expressed a progressive idea about the transformation of matter, one in its essence, from one of its states to another. Thales had associates, students and followers of his views. Unlike Thales, who considered water to be the material basis of all things, they found other material foundations: Anaximenes - air, Heraclitus - fire.

Philosophy is correlated with worldview by such parameters.

Firstly, the worldview incorporates the entire experience of man's knowledge of the world around him. Philosophy is focused on revealing the most general principles the structure of this world and its most important characteristics, methods and forms of cognitive and practical human activity. Philosophy does not seek to answer all cognitive questions. With its own means, it solves only the most general (ideological) issues. These include, first of all, questions about what is the world, what is man, and so on.

Secondly, with the help of philosophy, the worldview reaches a high degree of orderliness, generalization and theoreticality (rationality). On the other hand, major turns in the development of scientific knowledge, as a rule, led to a change in the existing philosophical ideas about the world. So it was, for example, after the discoveries of N. Copernicus, C. Darwin, A. Einstein.

Thirdly, a developed, rich in content worldview stimulates and facilitates the formulation and understanding of philosophical, that is, the most general questions by a person. This becomes possible thanks to the most diverse knowledge about the world that a person acquires as his own worldview is formed.

Fourthly, philosophy determines the nature and general orientation of the worldview. For example, in the Renaissance it was anthropocentric in connection with the active understanding of the human phenomenon in philosophy. The idea of ​​man permeated not only the advanced philosophical thought of that time, but also other forms of social consciousness.

Fifthly, the worldview and philosophy are united by the formulation and solution of the problem of man in its various aspects. The worldview includes a wide variety of information about a person, drawn from many sources - from religion, from everyday knowledge, from science and others. Philosophy solves this problem in the most general form, answering first of all the questions about what a person is, what is his place in the world and why he lives.

The final definition of the relationship between philosophy and worldview can be formulated as follows: philosophy is a system of fundamental ideas as part of the Worldview of Man and Society.

In developed worldview systems, philosophy is always the main integrating principle. Without it, there is not and cannot be a complete worldview. That is why it is commonly believed that philosophy is the theoretical basis, the core of the worldview. Largely due to this fact, the special role of philosophy in the spiritual life of man and society follows.

The main task of philosophy is to answer philosophical questions. The task of philosophy is, first of all, to, in the words of G. Hegel, “comprehend what is” and form a complete picture of the world and man in it. Solving its main question, philosophy at the same time develops the most important approaches and orientations for comprehending other worldview issues.

Philosophical problems are not problems about objects (natural or created by people), but about a person's attitude towards them. Not the world in itself, but the world as an abode human life- this is the initial point of view of philosophical consciousness. "What can I know? What should I do? What can I hope for? ” - it is precisely in these questions that, according to Kant, the highest interests of the human mind are contained.

Philosophical questions are questions about the fate, destiny of man and mankind. These questions were not invented by philosophers, they are created by life itself. They appear as fundamental contradictions of living human history, which have an open, independent character. Philosophical questions, passing through the whole of human history, appearing in a certain sense as eternal problems, acquire their specific, unique appearance in different epochs, in different cultures. Philosophers, to the best of their strength and abilities, solve these eternal, vital questions. The very nature of philosophical problems is such that a simple, unambiguous, final result of their resolution is impossible. Their theoretical solution is conceived not as a final solution that removes the problem, but as solutions designed to: summarize the past; determine the specific shape of the problem in modern conditions; think pragmatically about the future. Philosophy, comprehending the historical era, proactively reflects the directions and ways of human development, warns of hidden dangers.

The organic combination in philosophy of two principles (scientific-theoretical and practical-spiritual) determines its specificity as a completely unique form of consciousness. This is especially noticeable in the history of philosophy, in the real process of research, in the development of the ideological content of philosophical doctrines, which historically, in time, are interconnected not by chance, but in a necessary way. All of them are just facets, moments of a single whole. Just as in science and in other areas of rationality, in philosophy new knowledge does not reject, but dialectically “removes”, overcomes its previous level, that is, it includes it as its own special case. Hegel emphasized: "In the history of thought, we observe progress - a constant ascent from abstract knowledge to more and more concrete knowledge." The sequence of philosophical teachings (basically and most importantly) is the same as the sequence in the logical definitions of the goal itself, that is, the history of knowledge corresponds to the objective logic of the object being known.

Philosophy as a scientific worldview

The word "philosophy" translated from Greek means "love of wisdom." (And you think about the question: what is wisdom?) And in modern dictionaries, philosophy is defined as the oldest, but ever-renewing form of thought, a theoretically developed and logically developed kind of worldview. This is the science of the most common problems development of nature, society and thinking.

Since ancient times (V11 century BC - V1 century AD), Philosophy, as the doctrine of being and the conditions for its cognition, becomes one of the types of professional activity of people who have dedicated their lives and work to it - philosophers.

The first person to call himself a "philosopher" was Pythagoras. According to Diogenes Laertes (later you will learn that in the history of philosophy there is Diogenes of Sinope), to him (to Pythagoras) belongs to the saying: "Life ... is like games: others come to compete, others - to trade, and the happiest - to watch." Among the "happiest" he saw philosophers.

According to Pythagoras, the meaning of philosophy is the search for truth. The same was said by the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. But philosophy is distinguished by a variety of approaches to its own subject. This was especially evident at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, when a lot of the most diverse in nature philosophical schools and directions.

At the same time, it is possible to single out the essential moments inherent in philosophical knowledge in general. First of all, philosophy is one of the forms worldview and independent the science. Therefore, first of all, we will define what we call a worldview.

Worldview - it is a system of man's views on the objective world and his place in this world. These are the life beliefs of a person, his ideals, value orientations.

outlook – it's a comprehensive form of consciousness. Depending on certain approaches, the worldview can be:

intellectual, and in this case we are talking about "world outlook",

emotional, and here we use the concept of "attitude".

worldview has levels: practical and theoretical. The practical level of worldview is sometimes called "philosophy of life". Synonyms here are the concepts of "everyday", "everyday", "unscientific". It is formed spontaneously, by generalizing typical ideas about life.

The theoretical level of worldview is based on evidence, understanding, knowledge, it is constantly enriched with cognitive and value content that helps a person to navigate in any particular situation. Philosophy is a theoretical type of worldview.

worldview has historical forms. This - mythology, religion and philosophy.

Mythology(Greek - legend, tradition)– this worldview ancient man, a way of understanding natural phenomena, social processes at the early stages of the development of society. It combines both fantastic and realistic perception of the surrounding reality. Having the form of stories about the deeds of gods, heroes, fantastic ideas about the world, about the gods and spirits that control them, myths, at the same time, contain the beginnings of scientific knowledge and political views. Therefore, a myth is not a fairy tale, it is a fantastic reflection in the minds of the ancient phenomena of the surrounding world, for the explanation of which they lacked the appropriate knowledge.

Religion (lat. - shrine, piety) - it is a form of worldview based on the belief in supernatural forces that affect human life and the world around us. It has the specifics of being not only a worldview, since in addition to ideology, religion consists of a religious cult (actions), that is, a system of established rituals, dogmas, ritual actions, as well as religious psychology. Therefore, we can talk not so much about the worldview as about the worldview.

Philosophy- this is the third historically established form of worldview. The word philosophy itself comes from two Greek words: "philio" - love, "sophia" - wisdom.

Philosophy is the science of the universal laws of the development of nature, society and thinking. Having borrowed from mythology the whole set of questions: about the origin of man and the world, its structure, about the position of man in the world, it arose as a desire to overcome the mythological worldview, solving these problems from the standpoint of reason, relying on the logic of judgments.

In addition, philosophy summarized the entire body of knowledge accumulated by mankind. That is why it constitutes the theoretical basis of the worldview and rises to the level of the scientific worldview.

Philosophy originated in ancient times (has about 3 thousand years of its history). As we have already said, the mathematician Pythagoras called himself a philosopher for the first time. The ancient Greeks, deeply believing in the power of their gods, believed that only the gods can be wise, and a person can only comprehend their wisdom.

For many centuries, philosophy united all known sciences. Then, gradually, but especially in the period from the 15th century to the 15th century, natural ones separated from it one by one, and then in the 19th and 20th centuries. - and social sciences. But, despite this, philosophy retains the position of the "science of sciences", the "queen of sciences".

Like any science, it has an object and subject of research, philosophical categories, functions and methods of research, a structure and a main question.

object philosophies are, as we see from the definition, the most general laws of development of nature, society and thought. Under subject philosophical research is understood as a certain area of ​​reality or a range of problems studied by philosophers in a certain era. For example, the subject of study of ancient Greek philosophers was nature.

Philosophy as a science has a set of basic concepts - categories. What are they needed for? As you can see for yourself, the world consists of many things, properties and phenomena. But it is always possible to find the similarity, the identity of things and phenomena, to find their common essence, and a person expresses this common essence with any one concept (category). Such concepts in philosophy are: being, matter, nature, society, man, movement, development, general and singular, essence and phenomenon, cause and effect, etc.

Philosophy as a science fulfills certain functions. By functions, we mean certain duties, activities. The most significant of them are: worldview, methodological, epistemological, humanistic, axiological (value).

dialectical, considering phenomena, objects, processes of the material world in close unity and development,

metaphysical which considers the phenomena and objects of the material world without their relationship, in a stationary state.

Philosophy as a system of knowledge has its own structure. Its elements are: history philosophy and theory philosophy.

The theory of philosophy, in turn, includes:

ontology, which explores the most general questions of being,

social philosophy, which studies the most general issues of the development and functioning of society,

dialectics, the doctrine of the universal connection and development of objects, phenomena and processes of the material world,

epistemology or epistemology, which includes human cognitive activity,

philosophical anthropology - doctrine of man

axiology- learning about values

praxeology- the doctrine of social practice,

methodology- the doctrine of the methods of cognition.

Philosophy as an established system of knowledge has whole line specific questions. (We will learn about them in the process of studying the discipline). But philosophy has a core, oh main question is the question of the relation of thought to being. He has two sides.

First side expressed in the question - what is primary and what is secondary (derivative) - spirit or nature, consciousness or matter? In other words, we are talking about the root cause, the fundamental principle, that is substances. Depending on the answer that philosophers gave to this question, they were divided into two areas: materialists and idealists.

Materialism This is one of the main philosophical directions. Representatives of this direction solve the main issue in favor of the primacy of matter, which is an infinite set of all objects and systems existing in the world, nature, being, everything physical. And consciousness is spirit, thinking, mental, as a property of matter. At the origins of this trend was the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus, so in some cases they say - "the line of Democritus."

Idealism- it philosophical teachings, who assert that consciousness, thinking, the spiritual are primary, and matter is derivative, secondary. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato stood at the origins of this direction, therefore this direction is also called the “Plato line”

Both materialism and idealism are varieties of philosophical monism, that is, one substance is taken as the basis - matter or consciousness.

But there is dualism, proceeding from the recognition of two principles at the same time - both spirit and matter, which are not reducible to each other.

Second side expressed by the question: "Do we know the world around us?". The answers to it also divide philosophers into three philosophical directions: agnosticism, skepticism, optimism.

Agnosticism denies the fundamental possibility of the cognizability of the world.

Skepticism does not directly deny the cognizability of the world, but casts doubt on the possibility of comprehending the truth.

Optimism proclaims the fundamental possibility of knowing the essence of all phenomena, objects and processes of the objective world.

Revealing the specifics of philosophical knowledge, first of all, we should emphasize its universalism. After all, philosophy is a form of knowledge of the universal foundations of being. Throughout the history of human culture, it has claimed to develop universal knowledge, universal principles and methods.

One of characteristic features philosophical reflections is doubt. The spirit of true philosophy is criticism, so there are no truths given once and for all. With the development of culture and science, the accumulation of experience, the boundaries of philosophical knowledge are expanding more and more.

And there is no limit to this.

It is impossible not to take into account the characteristic features of those problems that are most interested in philosophy. Many of these problems are usually called "eternal", since each new generation of people, each person in his life is forced to turn to these problems again and again, to look for their solution. And every time they appear before people in original, inimitable forms, determined both by the uniqueness of history and individual characteristics the person himself, since these problems are not something external and indifferent to a person, but affect the very essence of his existence. And philosophy is the science that develops the means and methods for solving these problems. In addition, she brings to the judgment of reason various options solutions to these problems.

One more circumstance should be noted. Philosophy is a special field of knowledge, significantly different from other sciences. The special status of philosophy finds expression in the very style of philosophical works. Many outstanding philosophers have left behind creations that delight people not only with the depth of thought, but also with a brilliant literary form. There are also frequent cases when one or another philosopher expounded his teaching in the form of aphorisms. That is why philosophy affects not only the intellect of a person, but also his emotions, the entire spectrum of his spiritual abilities. And in this sense it is akin to literature and art.

Topic 2: Philosophy of the Ancient World.

The word "philosophy" comes from two Greek words - "phileo" - love and "sophia" - wisdom, so in general we get - love of wisdom.

Often philosophical knowledge defined as scientific knowledge. However, there are a number of differences between philosophy and science that have led many thinkers to question the identification of science and philosophy.

Firstly, philosophy, like science, is the predominant human activity in the sphere of thinking. Philosophy does not specifically set itself the task of testing aesthetic feelings, as art does, or moral actions, as required by religion and morality. Although philosophy can talk about both art and religion, it is, first of all, reasoning, thinking about all these subjects.

There is no doubt that philosophy is close to science by the desire not only to affirm and accept some provisions on faith, but to first try to subject them to criticism and justification. Only if these propositions satisfy the requirements of criticism are they accepted as part of philosophical knowledge. This is the similarity of philosophy and science. Like science, philosophy is a kind of critical thinking, which tries not to take anything simply on faith, but to subject everything to criticism and proof.

At the same time, there is an important difference between philosophical knowledge and scientific knowledge. All sciences are private areas of knowledge that explore only some part of the world. Unlike private sciences, philosophy tries to understand the world as a whole, in the unity of inorganic and organic processes, the life of the individual and society, etc. Philosophy is the project of universal knowledge, universal science. That. Philosophy differs from the sciences in its subject of study: the sciences have parts of the world as their subject, while philosophy has the world as a whole.

Summing up summary, we can conclude that 1) philosophy is similar to scientific knowledge in terms of the method of cognition - just like private sciences, philosophy uses a critical method of cognition based on evidence and justification. 2) philosophy differs from private sciences in the subject of knowledge - unlike private sciences, philosophy tries to critically cognize the world as a whole, the most universal laws and principles.

It should be emphasized here that, until now, truly scientific knowledge has been built only within the framework of private, non-universal knowledge. Such knowledge is distinguished by high rigor and reliability, but at the same time it is private knowledge. As for the philosophical - universal - knowledge, so far, again, it has been possible to build only universal, but not too strict knowledge. It is very difficult to combine high rigor and universality in the final human mind. Usually knowledge is either strict and non-universal, or universal, but not too strict. That is why philosophy today cannot be called a true science, but rather a universal doctrine, or knowledge.

Philosophy may not differ from science in two cases: 1) when the level of development of scientific rigor is not yet high enough, and is approximately equal to the rigor of philosophical knowledge. Such a situation existed in antiquity, when all sciences were branches of philosophical knowledge, 2) when philosophy could catch up with science in terms of increased rigor. Perhaps this will happen in the future, and then philosophy will become a full-fledged synthetic science, but so far it is difficult to talk about this with certainty.

Even if philosophy today does not have a level of rigor sufficient for science, the existence of such universal knowledge is in any case something better than the complete absence of synthetic knowledge. The fact is that the creation of universal knowledge about the world, the synthesis of knowledge of particular sciences is the fundamental aspiration of the human mind. Knowledge is considered not quite true if it is broken into many unrelated fragments. Since the world is one, true knowledge about the world must also represent some kind of unity. Philosophy in no way rejects the particular knowledge of individual sciences, it should only synthesize these particular knowledge into some kind of integral knowledge. That. the synthesis of knowledge is the main method of philosophy. Particular sciences develop parts of this synthesis; philosophy is called upon to raise all these parts to some higher unity. But real synthesis is always a difficult task, which can never be reduced simply to the juxtaposition of separate parts of knowledge. Therefore, philosophy cannot simply be decomposed into the sum of all particular sciences, or philosophical knowledge can be replaced by this sum. Synthetic knowledge requires its own efforts, although dependent, but not entirely reducible to the cognitive efforts of individual sciences.

Philosophy is a special, scientific-theoretical type of worldview. The philosophical worldview differs from the religious and mythological in that it:

Based on knowledge (and not on faith or fiction);

Reflexively (there is a focus of thought on itself);

Logical (has internal unity and system);

Relies on clear concepts and categories.

Thus, philosophy is the highest level and type of worldview, characterized by rationality, consistency, logic and theoretical design.

Philosophy as a worldview has gone through three main stages of its evolution:

Cosmocentrism;

Theocentrism;

Anthropocentrism.

Cosmocentrism - philosophical outlook, which is based on the explanation of the surrounding world, natural phenomena through the power, omnipotence, infinity of external forces - the Cosmos and according to which everything that exists depends on the Cosmos and cosmic cycles (this philosophy was characteristic of Ancient India, Ancient China, other countries of the East, as well as Ancient Greece).

Theocentrism is a type of philosophical worldview, which is based on the explanation of everything that exists through the dominance of an inexplicable, supernatural force - God (was common in medieval Europe).

Anthropocentrism is a type of philosophical worldview, in the center of which is the problem of man (Europe of the Renaissance, modern and modern times, modern philosophical schools).

25. Philosophy of irrationalism (A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche).

Irrationalism- philosophical concepts and teachings that limit or deny, in contrast to rationalism, the role of reason in understanding the world. Irrationalism presupposes the existence of areas of worldview that are inaccessible to the mind and achievable only through such qualities as intuition, feeling, instinct, revelation, faith, etc. Thus, irrationalism affirms the irrational nature of reality.

Irrationalist tendencies are to some extent inherent in such philosophers as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Schelling, Kierkegaard, Jacobi, Dilthey, Spengler, Bergson.

Characteristic

Irrationalism in its various forms is a philosophical worldview that postulates the impossibility of knowing reality by scientific methods. According to supporters of irrationalism, reality or its separate spheres (such as life, mental processes, history, etc.) cannot be derived from objective causes, that is, they are not subject to laws and regularities. All representations of this kind are guided by non-rational forms of human cognition, which are able to give a person subjective confidence in the essence and origin of being. But such experiences of confidence are often attributed only to the elite (for example, "geniuses of art", "Superman", etc.) and are considered inaccessible to the common man. Such "aristocratism of the spirit" often has social consequences.

Irrationalism as an element of philosophical systems

Irrationalism is not a single and independent philosophical trend. Rather, it is a characteristic and element of various philosophical systems and schools. More or less obvious elements of irrationalism are characteristic of all those philosophies that declare certain spheres of reality (God, immortality, religious problems, the thing-in-itself, etc.) inaccessible to scientific knowledge (reason, logic, reason). On the one hand, the mind is aware of and raises such questions, but, on the other hand, the criteria of scientificity are inapplicable to these areas. Sometimes at all (mostly unconsciously) rationalists in their philosophical reflections of history and society postulate extremely irrational concepts.

The influence of irrationalism on scientific research

Philosophical irrationalism is focused [source not specified 771 days] from an epistemological point of view on such areas as intuition, intellectual contemplation, experience, etc. But it was irrationalism that convinced researchers of the need to carefully analyze such types and forms of cognition that were deprived of attention from outside not only rationalists, but also remained unexamined in many philosophical systems of empiricism.

Researchers subsequently often rejected their irrationalist formulations, but many serious theoretical problems were transferred to new forms of research: such as, for example, the study of creativity and the creative process.

Conditions for the emergence of ideas of irrationalism

Irrationalistic (in the narrow and proper sense of the word) are considered such worldview constructions, which to a large extent are characterized by these features. Scientific thinking in such systems is replaced by certain higher cognitive functions, and intuition comes to replace thinking in general. Sometimes irrationalism opposes the prevailing views on progress in science and society. Most often, irrationalist moods arise during those periods when society is experiencing a social, political or spiritual crisis. They are a kind of intellectual reaction to the social crisis, and, at the same time, an attempt to overcome it. In theoretical terms, irrationalism is characteristic of such worldviews that challenge the dominance of logical and rational thinking. In a philosophical sense, irrationalism has existed as a reaction to situations of social crisis since the advent of rationalistic and enlightenment systems.

Types of philosophical irrationalism

The forerunners of irrationalism in philosophy were F. G. Jacobi, and, above all, G. W. J. Schelling. But, as Friedrich Engels argued, Schelling's Philosophy of Revelation (1843) represents "the first attempt to make a free science of thought out of authority worship, gnostic fantasies, and sensual mysticism."

Irrationalism becomes a key element in the philosophies of S. Kierkegaard, A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche. The influence of these philosophers is found in the most diverse areas of philosophy (primarily German), starting with the philosophy of life, neo-Hegelianism, existentialism and rationalism up to the ideology of German National Socialism. Even the critical rationalism of K. Popper, often called by the author the most rational philosophy, was characterized as irrationalism (in particular, by the Australian philosopher D. Stove).

It is necessary to think dislogically, respectively, irrationally, in order to know the irrational. Logic is a rational way of knowing the categories of being and non-being, one can think (as far as possible) that the irrational way of knowing lies in dyslogical methods.

[edit] Irrationalism in modern philosophical systems

Modern philosophy owes much to irrationalism. Modern irrationalism has clearly expressed outlines, first of all, in the philosophy of neo-Thomism, existentialism, pragmatism and personalism. Elements of irrationalism can be found in positivism and neopositivism. In positivism, irrational presuppositions arise due to the fact that the construction of theories is limited to analytical and empirical judgments, and philosophical justifications, evaluations and generalizations are automatically shifted into the sphere of the irrational. Irrationalism is found wherever it is argued that there are areas that are fundamentally inaccessible to rational scientific thinking. Such spheres can be conditionally divided into subrational and transrational.

The question of the irrational in cognitive activity is closely connected with the problem of rationality. The irrational exists in all spheres of culture, in any human activity. It is important that the supremacy in science and social organization should be kept by Reason. The point is what place the irrational occupies in relation to Reason and spiritual values ​​of a person.

One of the earliest irrationalist philosophers is the German philosopher A. Schopenhauer (1788-1860). His major work, The World as Will and Representation, was published as early as 1819, but did not receive recognition until late in his life. Schopenhauer relies on the philosophy of Kant, but noticeably irrationalizes his doctrine of the “thing in itself”, absolutizes the irrational nature of the productive power of the imagination. He is also influenced by Indian philosophy.

Schopenhauer considers the world in two aspects: as representation and as will. The whole world “existing for cognition” is an object in relation to the subject, my representation, which does not exist without a subject (“There is no object without a subject”). Considering representation as a unity of subject and object, Schopenhauer anticipates the idea widespread in modern philosophy. The representation of the world is carried out in the forms of space and time, causality, multiplicity. The world as representation is the world of phenomena, the world of science. Scientific knowledge explores the relationship between things, but the essence of things, the reality is hidden. The world of phenomena is an illusion, a veil of Maya. Already the human body shows the insufficiency of understanding a person only in the aspect of the world as a representation. The body is not just a body among other objects, but also a manifestation of the will. ("A volitional act and bodily movements are one and the same"). The body is the visible will, the essence of practical actions is in the will. Schopenhauer concludes that will is the essence of not only an individual, but the world as a whole. Will is free and irrational, it is outside of time, space of multiplicity - a thing-in-itself. The will is one, but it is possible to distinguish the "stages of objectification" of the will - the ideas of Plato. Will manifests itself in different ways - from the unconscious stages of objectification to the formation of ideas about the world. Knowledge, reason are secondary, derivative in relation to the will.

The will as the will to live is the basis of suffering, it is a continuous tension. A person's life passes between suffering from an unsatisfied need and boredom. The world is the abode of suffering, optimism is unscrupulous. Schopenhauer's ethics - ethics pessimism. This is a new phenomenon in Western European philosophy. It is possible to reduce suffering through art, contemplating unchanging ideas. But suffering can be completely eliminated only through asceticism, taming the will. Together with the extinction of the will to live, the world of appearance is also abolished, the dissolution into nothingness and the calming of the spirit take place.

Philosophical doctrine F. Nietzsche (1844-1900) inconsistent and contradictory, but it is united in spirit, tendency and purpose. It is not limited to the philosophy of life. His main works are "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" (1885), "Beyond Good and Evil" (1886) and others. The early Nietzsche was influenced by Schopenhauer, but unlike the latter, he paid much less attention to the questions of being and knowledge. His work is mainly devoted to criticism of European culture and moral problems. Non-rational will, "life" in its opposition to scientific reason, constitutes the original reality. The world is the world of our life. A world independent of us does not exist. The world is considered in the process of continuous formation, it is a world of constant struggle for existence, a clash of wills. Nietzsche, like other contemporary philosophers, biologizes the world, which for him is based on the “organic world”. Its formation is a manifestation of the will to power, which gives rise to a relatively stable order of reality, since a greater will defeats a smaller one. Unlike Schopenhauer, Nietzsche proceeds from a pluralism of wills, their struggle shapes reality. "Will" is understood more specifically - as the will to power. Finally, he defends the need to strengthen the will, criticizing Schopenhauer for his desire to appease the latter. It is necessary to strive not for non-existence, but for the fullness of life - this is the principle of the philosophy of F. Nietzsche. He is critical of the idea of ​​development: there is only becoming and "eternal return" Periodically comes an era nihilism, chaos reigns, there is no meaning. The need for will arises, reconciliation with oneself appears, and the world repeats itself again. Eternal return is the fate of the world, on its basis the “love of rock” is formed. Cognition of the world is inaccessible to logic, a generalizing science, knowledge is a means of mastering the world, and not of obtaining knowledge about the world. Truth is just a "useful delusion". In the process of cognition, we do not penetrate into the essence of the world, but only give an interpretation of the world, the will to power is manifested in the creation of its “world” by the human subject.

Criticizing contemporary culture, Nietzsche notes a special historical place of his era. This is the era when "God is dead" and Nietzsche proclaims a new era of coming superman. His Zarathustra is the prophet of this idea. Modern man is weak, he is "something that needs to be overcome." The Christian religion as a religion of compassion is the religion of the weak, it weakens the will to power. Hence the anti-Christianity of Nietzsche (with a high assessment of the personality of Jesus). The Christian Church, he believes, has turned everything upside down ("turned any truth into a lie"). Required "change of world view". Traditional morality is also subject to reassessment. Modern morality is the morality of the weak, the "slaves", it is an instrument of their domination over the strong. One of the culprits of the moral upheaval is Socrates, and therefore Nietzsche idealizes the pre-Socratics, whose morality was not yet perverted. Nietzsche extols aristocratic morality, which is characterized by courage, generosity, individualism. It is based on the connection of man with the earth, the joy of love, common sense. This is the morality of the superman, a strong, free person who is freed from illusions and realizes a high level of "will to power", returning "to the innocent conscience of a predatory beast." The “immoralism” declared by Nietzsche is connected with the replacement of the “morality of slaves” with the “morality of masters”. The new morality is essentially a new interpretation of the world. The philosophy of Nietzsche often received ambiguous assessments: the ideologists of fascism tried to use it, they saw it as the ideology of the imperialist bourgeoisie. At the same time, she influenced a number of currents in modern philosophy and culture.

Any philosophy is a worldview, that is, a set of the most general views on the world and man's place in it. However, this does not mean at all that any worldview is also a philosophy. The concept of "worldview" is broader than the concept of "philosophy". This means that the first includes the second. Just as the concept of "fruit" implies, for example, not only an apple, but also a pear, cherry, etc., so the concept of "worldview" cannot be reduced only to philosophy. It also includes other types of worldview - mythological, artistic, religious, etc.

Philosophy is the highest level and type of worldview, it is a theoretically formalized, system-rational worldview. It is, by its very essence, designed to reveal the rational meaning and universal laws of the existence and development of the world and man. Philosophy, like other forms of worldview, arose from the need of man to know the world and himself. But it turns out to be a more developed form, and before it arose, humanity created simpler, although no less important for human existence, forms of worldview. In the depths of history, almost to the very birth of the primitive communal system, go the initial moments of the formation of the mythological, and with it the everyday forms of the worldview. The prerequisites were the thinking and feelings inherent in a person, his desire to think about what is observed in ordinary contemplation and in the first practical actions, which had a tendency to turn into the original production with its productive forces.

There are several types of worldview based on different pictures of the world: mythological worldview, religious worldview, scientific worldview, artistic worldview, philosophical worldview, everyday worldview.

The communicative factor operating within the framework of the family, clan, tribe, and especially the first visual-sensory images transmitted from generation to generation in the form of drawings, sculptures, etc., led to the expansion of a person's horizons and attempts to somehow explain the phenomena of nature. The formation of everyday consciousness required going beyond its scope and supplementing it with broader pictures and schemes. natural phenomena. So, along with and, probably, simultaneously with the ordinary worldview, a mythological form of worldview, covering different sides of the world and the world as a whole, developed. What is characteristic of this form?

1. Anthropomorphism, i.e. consideration of natural phenomena (for example, the movement of clouds, earthquakes, etc.) by analogy with a person; all those properties that a person had were attributed to them: sensations, reactions to negative factors, desires, hatred, suffering, etc. (the difference is only quantitative).

2. Descriptiveness (from the English. descriptive - descriptive) - the desire to explain events, phenomena in the form of a descriptive story, legend, legend; among the acting figures are heroes and gods in the form of special people (for example, the myths about Neptune, Zeus, Mercury, Apollo, etc.).

3. Syncretism (fusion, indivisibility) of the objective and subjective worlds, which is largely due to the anthropomorphism that permeates all aspects of this form

worldview.

4. Connection with magic, which is characteristic of a more mature primitive communal consciousness and is expressed in the actions of sorcerers, shamans and other people armed with the rudiments of scientific knowledge about the human body, about animals, and plants. The presence of a magical element in the composition of this form of worldview makes it possible to reject the point of view that this worldview was not connected with practice, but was only passive-contemplative.

5. An appeal to a precedent in explaining events that determine the modern order of things, for example: a person became mortal because a messenger (often some animal) incorrectly conveyed the will of a deity, or because a woman broke a magic pot (a later explanation, aimed at justifying the subordination of a woman to a man); man began to use fire because it was stolen from the gods by Prometheus, etc.

6. Anti-historical. Time is not understood as a process of progressive development. At best, it is admitted as a reversal: a movement from the golden age to the silver and copper, which in itself expresses the desire to see the world static, constantly reproducing in the same form. Any innovation, any unusual frightens a person at the first stages of his development.

Religious form of worldview The religious form of worldview arose on the basis of the transformation of ideas about the complex of gods of the mythological worldview, the correction of these ideas in connection with a more in-depth logical and philosophical reflection on the issues of the emergence of the world, human qualities, personal tasks of his self-improvement. Like mythology, religion relies on sensual images, develops the ability to imagine, fantasies. But unlike mythology, religion focuses imagination and fantasy on the supernatural, the spiritual, the wide area of ​​the deity and its attributes, the structures of the divine (among which angels often turn out to be). A psychological attitude comes to the fore - faith in God, in the ability of a person to live a divine-human life, achieve genuine moral (divine) values ​​and ensure immortality. Religion is closely connected not only with faith, but also with prayer, with a number of religious rites.

Religion was formed in the Upper Paleolithic (Stone Age) 40 - 50 thousand years ago, at a higher stage in the development of society than the mythological worldview began to develop. One of the essential prerequisites for the formation of religion was the gradual development of human thinking, when general concepts(“man”, etc.) acquire in consciousness an independent existence, the ability to separate from their real sources and endow them - with an exaggerated representation in images - with an independent existence. The most common, or, as they are also called, "world", "supranational" religions were Buddhism (VI-V centuries BC), Christianity (I century) and Islam (VII century). The main feature of all religions is belief in the supernatural, the supernatural.

Philosophical form of worldview

The philosophical form of worldview begins to mature at an even higher level of socio-economic and cultural development of society. Its first signs appear in the XII-VIII centuries. BC e. in ancient India, Ancient China, Ancient Egypt. Its origin as a specific form of spiritual activity was associated with such a premise as the great cultural upheaval in Ancient Greece in the 8th-5th centuries. BC e. One of the most important prerequisites was the development of polis democracy, which opened up the possibility of free thinking. The greatest connoisseur of the history of philosophy, Hegel, wrote: due to “the general connection of political freedom with freedom of thought, philosophy appears in history only where and insofar as a free state system is formed. . . Philosophy therefore begins only in the Greek world. Of the general cultural prerequisites, the most important was the contradiction between the increased scientific knowledge in the bowels of magic, striving for autonomy and for explaining nature and natural phenomena from themselves, and the mythological-religious form with which this knowledge was genetically connected. Reflections on the specifics of scientific knowledge led to the emergence of a new relationship between man and the world - "epistemological" - and to the formation of a theoretical-cognitive relationship between man and the world within the framework of the subject of the worldview.

Philosophy for a number of centuries developed along with natural scientific knowledge, and philosophers were at the same time natural scientists. Later, by the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th century, within this general scientific knowledge, a desire began to manifest itself towards the formation of a naturalistic form of worldview. Its first variety is vulgar materialism. In the XIX-XX centuries. this form most often began to appear in the form of natural-scientific materialism. Its main premise is the maturation of the theoretical sphere of physics, biology, and other sciences and the dissatisfaction of natural scientists with the attitude of philosophy towards them in the person of such representatives of idealistic natural philosophy as Schelling and Hegel, who claimed to guide naturalists in solving particular scientific problems. A negative reaction to the philosophical understanding of such problems led to attempts to solve worldview issues from the standpoint of the concepts, principles and laws of their specific sciences. For example, in the concept of the heat death of the universe by Clausius and Thomson, conclusions about the development trend of the entire cosmos and humanity involved in its evolution are made on the basis of one law of thermodynamics, which, of course, is not methodologically justified.

In contrast to the naturalistic form of worldview, from the attitude to the world based on particular scientific knowledge, philosophy as a form of worldview relied in solving worldview problems on generalizations of the data of all science, of all human experience of knowing the world, including the data of everyday human life. It transformed its connections with natural science, found ways to harmonize with it, and at the same time established connections with ideology, with humanitarian knowledge, with the everyday worldview of people. In a number of cases, philosophy turned out to be not far from belief in God, from the creation of metaphysical constructions in which transcendental worlds, cosmic entities were postulated, influencing the development of people's lives and the actions of an individual. Philosophy began to return to something that once, in antiquity, was only its privilege - the desire for wisdom (the gods own wisdom, and only the desire for wisdom is characteristic of philosophers). Plato noted: the name of a sage for a philosopher is “too loud and only fitting for God. A lover of wisdom - a philosopher or something like that - that's what suits him better and sounds better. “Whether wisdom can or cannot be learned. . . She can learn. . . She alone makes a person blissful and happy.”

Philosophy differs from the naturalist form not only in its universal concepts (categories), in its diverse (or multi-channel) connection with reality. All its content is permeated with wisdom, and it can be defined through this concept (Greek phileo - I love and sofia - wisdom). Wisdom is its beginning and its end. V Everyday life a person often uses some practically effective ideas that can be called an ordinary worldview. It is characterized by an orientation towards stereotypes of behavior presented in culture, that is, those accepted without any proof of position (it is better to get married than to remain single, it is better to get an education than to be uneducated), as well as a mixture of fragmentary scientific knowledge with philosophical and religious ideas. The ordinary worldview allows the combination of logically and culturally historically incompatible ideas, for example, the combination of Christian beliefs with the idea of ​​reincarnation (reincarnation and new birth), the adoption of religious rituals without understanding its meaning. This form of worldview is distinguished by the absence of a desire for a rational reflection of accepted beliefs, the absence of doubt that it is taken simply on faith, and the ease of wishful thinking.

Nevertheless, the ordinary worldview is practically effective, and the provisions contained in it, based on common sense, on the stereotypes of worldly wisdom, often become the starting points for philosophical generalization and even scientific analysis of reality. However, in modern world in which there is a global integration of mankind, a mixture of cultures takes place, the pace of life is accelerating, global threats arise - one ordinary worldview is more and more insufficient.

Worldview is a system of the most general ideas about the world as a whole and the place of a person in it. Worldview is that element of consciousness, the human soul, which gives them integrity, determines the purpose and meaning of life. The worldview is based on a certain picture of the world. The structure of the worldview includes four levels.

o Level of attitude. The worldview is always emotionally colored, since it is part of the human soul. The palette of emotions is varied. In extreme cases, the worldview can be optimistic and pessimistic, emotionally bright and emotionally muffled. (Level of feelings).

o The level of perception of the world. This is the totality of all knowledge that a person has (scientific knowledge, everyday knowledge, artistic knowledge, religious knowledge, etc.). (Level of reason and reason).

o The level of understanding of the world includes a scale of values ​​and ideals that a person is guided by. These are individually personal ideas about good and evil, about acceptable and unacceptable, about beautiful and ugly, about what one should strive for. (The level of reason and faith).

o The level of programs and goals of life activity, at which the models of human activity are located and the practical attitude of a person to the world is formed. In the extreme case, this is an active and passive attitude towards the world around. (The level of reason, faith and will).

Thus, a worldview is a subjective image of the world in the mind of a person, based not only on knowledge, but also on a system of beliefs, on elements of a person’s faith and will. The core of the worldview are the ideals and values ​​that determine the attitude of a person to nature, society and himself, set the meaning and purpose of his life.

It is important for us to highlight the specifics of the scientific worldview. Of course, this type of worldview is based on the general scientific picture of the world, which is made up of local scientific pictures of the world. The scientific picture of the world is determined by the discipline or group of theories that are currently the most general and fundamental in the description of nature. Starting from the 17th century, the basis of the general scientific picture of the world was the physical picture of the world. In modern conditions, the physical picture of the world is based on several fundamental principles - on the principle of consistency, evolutionism and self-organization of matter. If we talk about four levels in the structure of the worldview, then the scientific worldview is a reflection of an optimistic worldview. At the level of perception of the world, scientific knowledge must be objective, systemic, verifiable and substantiated. At the level of worldview, science sets a clear system of value orientations in the activities of a scientist, which we spoke about above: this is a disinterested search for objective truth, self-criticism, striving for the future, orientation towards the new, honesty, collectivism, universalism. At the level of practical attitude to the world, it is the scientific worldview that proclaims the need for transformative human activity and justifies the possibility of building a better future, taking into account the mistakes of the past and the ability of a person to improve himself.