Democritus line. Philosophy according to Democritus of Abdera. The main question of philosophy and options for its solution
the object of religion is the Absolute, the object of philosophy is the world as a whole, which, if the worldview of an individual philosopher allows it, includes the Absolute; - religion is justified with the help of faith, and philosophy - with the help of rationalism; - Sacred texts are the source of knowledge for religion, and philosophical texts are the basis of philosophy, which allow the possibility of the existence of a different approach to the issue under consideration. Thus, religion and philosophy may have a common object of knowledge, but the justifications are different. They also have different understandings of truth: - in religion, true knowledge is already given in God-revealed truths and the establishment of the truth of any knowledge occurs by comparison with these provisions; - Philosophy strives for new knowledge, critically analyzes various forms of culture, does not seek to obey authorities, a revision of fundamental provisions is possible.
In religion, as in philosophy, we are talking about the most general ideas about the world; Both philosophy and religion seek to answer the question of man's place in the world, of the relationship between man and the world. They are equally interested in the questions: What is good? What is evil? Where is the source of good and evil? How to achieve moral perfection? What is everything? Where and how did everything in this world come from? Like religion, philosophy is characterized by transcending, that is, going beyond the boundaries of experience, beyond the limits of the possible, irrationalism, it has an element of faith.
In mythology, the rational principle is almost completely absent. When doubt, hypothesis and logical analysis arise, the mythological consciousness is destroyed and philosophy is born. Mythological knowledge is characterized by the inability to separate a person from nature, often natural forms are given human features, and fragments of the cosmos are animated. One of the varieties of mythology is animism, associated with the animation of inanimate nature. Fetishism - supernatural properties are attributed to things or elements, totemism endows animals with supernatural abilities. Unlike mythology, philosophy brings to the fore logical analysis, conclusions, proofs and generalizations. It reflects the growing need in society to understand the world and evaluate it from the standpoint of reason and knowledge.
Since the 17th century, science began to turn into an increasingly significant social phenomenon. But until the second half of the 19th century, their discussion was not systematic enough. It was at this time that the philosophical and methodological problems of science turn into an independent field of research. The dominance of empiricism in natural science in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. led to the emergence of hopes that the functions of theoretical generalization in science can be assumed by philosophers. The attention of scientists again began to attract the problems of philosophy and methodology of science. - What is the content of the concepts of number, function, space, time, law, causality, mass, force, energy, life, type, etc.? - How are analysis and synthesis combined in scientific knowledge, induction and deduction, theory and experience? - What determines the descriptive, explanatory and predictive functions of a theory? - What is the role of empirical and theoretical hypotheses? - How do scientific discoveries occur and what is the role of intuition in obtaining new knowledge? - How should the concept of theory be interpreted - What provides science with the opportunity to know the truth and what is such in scientific knowledge?
The problem of the object and subject of philosophy. In contrast to the SPECIFIC sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.), the object of which are separate areas, sides of the material world, the object of philosophy is the world as a whole, which gives a general view of the world. If specific sciences have as their subject the laws, properties and forms of being that operate in a certain, more or less limited, area of the material world, then the subject of philosophy is the laws, properties and forms of being that operate in all areas of the material world, in all objects, processes and processes. phenomena, they are connected in an inseparable unity.
The problem of the fundamental principle of the world. This is a material problem or; spiritual, ideal fundamental principle of the world, acting as the first side of the main question of philosophy. From here, in its entirety, the problem of matter arises, movement as a universal property or mode of existence of matter.
The problem of consciousness is being investigated, which requires the involvement of natural scientific knowledge about the nature of the ideal, the mechanism of thinking, memory, etc.
The problem of the development of the world. This is the problem of the formation of metaphysical and dialectical methods of cognition of the world, which approach the question of its development in different ways. The metaphysical approach does not see the development of the world, processes and phenomena from the lowest to the highest, from the simple to the complex, does not see contradictions as a source of self-development of the world. The dialectical method takes into account progressive development in the strictest way, studies it, reveals the objective dialectic of the world, formulates and investigates the universal principles and laws of dialectics. Hence the problem of historicism in the study of the phenomena of Nature and society, the criteria for their progressiveness.
… Problems of knowledge of the world. This is the definition of the object and subject of cognition, the disclosure of its complex dialectical process, the problem of Truth, the role of practice, the disclosure of the Methods of cognition, the scientific objectivity of cognition and the social position of a person.
The problem of man and his place in the world. This is the study of man as a universe as a whole. The development of human culture. It appears as a single, holistic process associated with the formation, functioning, storage, transfer of cultural and historical values from one era to another, with a critical overcoming of outdated forms of culture and the formation of new forms. The beneficial influence of philosophy on the development of culture arises due to its main functions: ideological, cultural, methodological and integration.
The origin of philosophical thought began in the middle of the first millennium BC. e. a long process of transition from a mythological worldview to a worldview based on knowledge. The cultural and historical prerequisites for the birth of philosophy were:
Social division of labor (separation of mental labor from physical, socialization of various types of mental activity)
The development of cities, handicraft activities, the colonization of lands, the development of communication between them, navigation, fortification required the development of specific knowledge.
The acquisition by large cities of a certain economic independence. They were characterized by an active political life. The atmosphere of political freedom, which in turn stimulated the freedom of spiritual creativity, also contributed to the development of philosophy.
Therefore, a philosophical worldview arises:
The desire to know the essence of things themselves, their cause and direct relationship.
Confidence and justification that a person is able, by virtue of his own qualities, to know the world.
This stemmed from the following two components:
Understanding of nature, the surrounding world, as an ordered single, harmonious, regularly arranged whole, that is, the cosmos - the spiritual principle, the world mind;
Man was understood as a semblance of the cosmos, as an element harmoniously inscribed in the cosmos. Man is a microcosm, he has a spiritual factor - mind, which in many teachings was understood as a particle of the world mind (logos), ==> the ability of a person to understand the world, the ability of a person to comprehend harmony, the laws of nature, etc.
Other important points followed from the above:
Recognition as the most essential, specifically human quality - reason, thinking, the ability to logically comprehend reality.
Cognitive activity is considered as the highest type of activity worthy of a person. The ideal of man was a sage who comprehended the essence of being.
Reason, knowledge were considered as the highest values on which all other spiritual values of a person are based (good is the result of knowledge, evil is the result of ignorance).
Such an absolutization of the rational principle in a person at the expense of ignoring other qualities is the rationalism of ancient philosophy and culture, cognitive and ethical. The rationalist attitude subsequently led to the fact that rationalism became one of the most essential features of the entire Western European culture.
Ontology is the study of being. For the first time, the category of being appeared among the Eleatics. When comprehending the problems of reality, people fix two parts: I and not me. The world appears as something consisting of two parts - I and not I - all this being. The category of being is opposed to the category of non-being. The Eleatics define being as thinking. Being is sometimes identified with consciousness. In existentialism, it is identified with complete freedom.
There are several approaches to the interpretation of being and non-being:
There is no non-existence, there is only existence. Non-existence is a kind of being (Zeno).
There is both being and non-being (representatives of this approach are atomists). According to Plato, being is the world of ideas, non-being is the sensible world. For Heraclitus, being and non-being are two categories flowing into each other.
There is only non-existence (Chanyshev).
There is such a category - existence, i.e. thinking, perception (according to Berkeley), the ability to be expressed in logical terms. In physics, existence is defined as that which can be described by physical laws. In ancient China, it was believed that to exist means to act. In mathematics, existence is associated with consistency, in another direction it is associated with the possibility of constructing a model of something. In the philosophy of life, existence is associated with the will of life (Schopenhauer), with the will to power (Nietzsche). In existentialism, existence is defined through rebellion, existence is a tense inner experience. In dialectical materialist philosophy, existence and essence are connected. Essence is a qualitative certainty of any phenomenon. To characterize being, the category of substance, which is associated with a property, a sign, is very important. Approaches:
A. Substance is an unchanging reality.
B. Substance is a changing and moving reality.
Aspects of life: Things. Properties. Relations.
Another important category of being is the category of matter, which correlates with the category of consciousness. Matter is a fundamental philosophical category. From the standpoint of idealism, matter is an arbitrary formation from spiritual substance. For subjective idealism, matter is a constant possibility of sensation. There are three concepts of matter:
Substantial: Matter is defined through things. This position was occupied by the first philosophers (Democritus). They understood matter through substance.
Attributive: matter was defined through primary qualities (mass, size) and secondary qualities (taste, color).
Dialectical-materialistic: matter is defined through a relationship with consciousness. The representative is Lenin. Matter is a philosophical category for reality, exists independently of our consciousness and which is copied by our senses. This definition eliminates the contradictions between philosophy and science. With the discovery of the electron came the collapse of materialism. Matter includes not only substances, but also fields.
The main properties of matter are: Objectivity. Knowability. Structurality. Substantiality.
The most important properties of matter are attributes. The main attribute of matter is motion. Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Attributes of matter: Space and time.
The most important characteristics of movement: Generality. Universality Objectivity. Absoluteness (there are no fixed things). Inconsistency (movement is the unity of stability and variability, stability is relative, and variability is absolute).
For Aristotle, motion was external to matter. Matter is a self-moving reality. In the non-materialistic concept, movement is understood as a manifestation of the objective spirit.
Forms of the motion of matter are connected by cause-and-effect relationships, a higher form is based on lower forms. In philosophy, in understanding reality, there is an approach of mechanism - the reduction of all the laws of the world to the principles of mechanics.
Consider other attributes of matter - space and time. It is necessary to distinguish between real, triceptive and conceptual space and time.
Space is a form of existence of matter, which characterizes its structure. Time is a form of existence of matter, which expresses the duration of its existence.
ancient philosophy put forward a number of ideas and problems, which are still relevant today.
Problems of being and non-being, matter and its forms: the idea of the opposition of form and matter, of the main elements, of the identity and opposition of being and non-being, the structural nature of being and its inconsistency; how the Cosmos arose and what is its structure. (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Zeno, Democritus).
The problem of a person, his knowledge, his relationship with other people: what is the essence of morality, the relationship between man and the state, is there an absolute truth and is it achievable by the human mind (Socrates, Antiphon, Epicurus).
The problem of human will and freedom: the idea of man's insignificance before the forces of nature and his fortitude in striving for freedom, for knowledge, the happiness of a free man was identified with these concepts. (Seneca, Epictetus).
The problem of the relationship between man and God, the divine will, the structure of the Cosmos. The ideas of the Cosmos and being, the structures of matter, soul, society were put forward as interpenetrating each other (Plotinus, Philo of Alexandria, etc.)
The Problem of the Sensible and the Supersensible- the idea of synthetic basic philosophical problems. The problem of finding a rational method of cognition (Plato, Aristotle and students).
Ancient philosophy has the following features: the material basis for the flourishing of philosophy was the economic flourishing of the Greek city-states. The thinkers were independent of production, freed from physical labor and claimed to be the spiritual leadership of society.
The main idea of ancient philosophy was cosmocentrism, which at later stages was mixed with anthropocentrism. The existence of gods who were close to man was allowed. Man is part of nature.
In ancient philosophy, two directions in philosophy were laid - idealistic (the teaching of Plato) and materialistic - (the line of Democritus).
Proponents of nominalism tried to prove that only singular things exist, while proponents of realism were convinced that everything exists in the divine mind. Extreme nominalists argued that general concepts are the result of abstraction, which is associated with thinking, while extreme realists argued that general concepts are universals that exist independently of us - they were even before the appearance of things. The realism of the Middle Ages is a doctrine that asserts that only universals (that is, general concepts) have reality. At the same time, things themselves are temporary, singular and constantly changing. Concepts are the root cause of things - they originated from the divine mind. In nominalism, the emphasis is on the fact that the will prevails over the mind. There are no concepts in the divine mind. The will of God was aimed at the creation of precisely things, while concepts are the creation of cognizing souls. Thomas Aquinas tried to overcome both extremes. In response to the nominalists, he said that the concepts that appeared at the behest of the divine mind are the prototypes of those concepts that we have now. He proved to realists that those concepts that are formed in the human mind are secondary to the main essence of things. Thomas Aquinas argued that knowledge is based on the fact that two sides act on a person at once - intelligible, as well as sensual. The point is that objects lead a kind of dual existence: inside the human consciousness, as well as outside it. Sensible views enable people to understand the individual in things. Philosophical knowledge of things elevates a person, brings him closer to God. Many believed that it was through things that one could comprehend reality. Realism as a direction of scholasticism is a doctrine in which it is argued that true reality is associated only with universals, and individual objects have nothing in common with it. The place of existence of such objects is the empirical world. One can speak of real being only in relation to things that have permanence, which are eternal. Universals are thoughts that originate from the divine mind. In nominalism, the existence of general concepts was not allowed. Universals are what appeared later than things. General concepts are only names that cannot have an independent existence at all. Of course, in realism there is much from idealism, and in nominalism - from materialism.
Thomas does not separate science from theology. prove the non-autonomy of science, turn it into a "servant" of theology, emphasize that human activity, theoretical and practical, comes from theology and is reduced to it. Aquinas develops theoretical principles that determine the general line of the church on the issue of the relationship between theology and science:
1. Philosophy and particular sciences perform auxiliary functions in relation to theology. Their use, in his opinion, is not evidence of the lack of self-sufficiency or weakness of theology, but, on the contrary, follows from the wretchedness of the human mind. Rational knowledge makes it easier to understand the well-known dogmas of faith, brings closer to the knowledge of the "original cause" of the universe, that is, God;
2. The truths of theology have their source in revelation, the truths of science are sensory experience and reason. Two types: knowledge discovered by the natural light of reason, such as arithmetic, and knowledge that draws its foundations from revelation;
3. There is an area of some objects common to theology and science. the same problem can serve as the subject of study of different sciences. But there are certain truths that cannot be proved by reason, they belong to the realm of theology. the dogma of resurrection, the history of the incarnation, the holy trinity, the creation of the world in time;
4. The provisions of science cannot contradict the dogmas of faith. The desire to know God is true wisdom. And knowledge is only the servant of theology. Philosophy, for example, relying on physics, must construct evidence for the existence of God, the task of paleontology is to confirm the Book of Genesis, and so on. In connection with these, Aquinas writes: "I think about the body in order to think about the soul, and I think about it in order to think about a separate substance, I think about it in order to think about God." If rational knowledge does not fulfill this task, it becomes useless, moreover, it degenerates into dangerous reasoning. In case of conflict, the decisive criterion is the truths of revelation, which surpass in their truth and value any rational evidence.
Method (from the Greek Methodos, the path to something, tracing, research) is a set of techniques and operations for the practical and theoretical development of reality. The doctrine of methods began to take shape in the era of the New Age, the philosophical works of R. Descartes and F. Bacon played an important role here . The first group consists of general methods of cognition. There are usually two main methods of philosophizing: dialectical and metaphysical.
The dialectical method as a specific philosophical way of studying problems involving the comprehension of the existent in its main manifestations: the world, man, "man-in-the-world". This method is characteristic of critical and creative thinking, without which there can be no true philosophy. "Dialectics" - the ability to argue, dialogue, conversation. Philosophical doctrine of development. Origins in antiquity in the teachings of Heraclitus. The characteristic of the world is variability “Everything flows. Everything is changing". Dialectic is based on
The principle of universal universal connection (interconnection of different moments of being)
The principle of development (to imagine the world in development)
c) to build contradictory judgments according to the principle "both this and that" (because inconsistency is the basis of the dialectical method of cognition).
Unity and struggle of opposites,
The law of unity and struggle of opposites is revealed through the categories: opposition, contradiction, identity, difference.
Opposite - features, sides, signs of an object that are fundamentally different from each other and at the same time cannot exist. without each other, complement each other (day and night, good and evil, up and down). A contradiction is an impulse, an impetus to change and develop an object.
The essence of the law. Any object has: opposites, which in the process of interaction lead to a contradiction. The contradiction gives impetus to the change and development of the subject.
Mutual The transition of quality into quantity (mechanism of development)
The essence of the law. It manifests itself in the fact that quantitative changes lead to qualitative changes upon reaching a certain point, and qualitative changes lead to certain quantitative changes. shows the mechanism of development of the subject.
Negations of negation (orientation of development, path, trajectory)
The essence of the law. The law of negation of negation shows the connection between the old and the new in the process of development, which consists in the fact that the new quality discards the old and at the same time includes, in a transformed form, some features, aspects of the old. This law is contradictory in nature, shows the direction of development of the subject (phenomenon).
Hegel's Dialectic: Idealistic; The absolute idea is capable of development and creates everything that exists in the world; Development = progress (progressive character).
Marx's Dialectic: Materialistic; Spread the dialectic from the sphere of the spirit into the sphere of materialism. Phenomena; Progressive.
Negative Dialectic: Considering Regression, Not Just Progress.
Metaphysics - objects are immutable, only local connections are recognized. Was not phil. Method, infiltrated from science. The characteristic features of the metaphysical method are:
a) imagine the world at rest,
b) consider different moments of being in isolation from each other,
The second group consists of general scientific methods of cognition - these are methods that are used in various fields of science. (observation, experiment, measurement, axiomatic method, hypothetical-deductive method), the third group is private scientific methods. These are methods that are used only within the framework of a particular science or a particular phenomenon.
The Age of Enlightenment in Europe was formed in special historical conditions. These were the times of the domination of an absolute monarchy in France, which was experiencing a crisis and a gap between economic development and the system of power, as well as the tightening of clericalism (the Edict of Nantes on religious tolerance was canceled). The sources of new ideas were the scientific picture of the world developed by Newton, as well as English social philosophy (John Locke) and French free-thinking writers and thinkers such as Descartes and Montesquieu. The ideas of the Enlightenment, first of all, made the problem of the opposite of Reason and Faith the highest priority philosophical issue and put forward the cult of Reason and Progress as one of the most important goals of mankind. If the English philosophers, to whom the very term "enlightenment" belongs, were theorists of the so-called armchair character, the French Enlightenment represented a real social movement, or "party" of philosophers. They were fond of politics, had access to the general population and wrote in French, understandable to those who were literate. The main principle of the French Enlightenment was the belief in the prevalence of ideas over society. They believed that ideas influence the development of society, and in order to educate society, one should first of all educate people. François Voltaire, a fighter against fanaticism and superstition, his famous cry against the dominance of the clericalism of the Roman Catholic Church "Crush the vermin!". Voltaire was a deist in his views, he believed that the existence of Reason in the Universe proves the reason and purpose of this existence. He also spoke out against atheism, believing that the rejection of God would hit the moral foundations of humanity. In the theory of knowledge, Voltaire relied on Locke and Francis Bacon: knowledge is based on experience, but there are also absolute knowledge, such as mathematics, morality, and the concept of God. In the field of psychology, the philosopher shared the doctrine that man is a rational mechanism without a soul, but with instinct and intellect. Voltaire's opponent is Jean Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau believed that the main driving force in a person is not reason, but feelings, such instincts as conscience and Genius. Rousseau criticized contemporary science and industry, assuring that they separate man from nature, creating artificial needs for him and alienating people from each other. The task of philosophy is to overcome this gap and make a person happy. In the realm of history, Rousseau shared the notion of a "golden age" destroyed by private property. Back, of course, it is impossible to go back, but it is possible to at least partially correct the situation by concluding a social contract and creating communities of equal small owners who decide all issues through a referendum. Rousseau was also the theorist of "natural education" in the bosom of nature without restrictive limits. The philosophy of the Enlightenment is also represented by a galaxy of French materialists - Holbach, Diderot. Holbach in The System of Nature he reduced all phenomena to the movement of material particles. They also supported the idea of the development of man from the inorganic "kingdom" through the vegetable and animal. One of the hallmarks of French materialism of this era is its determinism: everything obeys universal laws, there is neither chance nor purpose, but only cause and effect. Cognition comes from experience, is transformed in thinking, and its goal is the improvement of man. But the main condition for knowledge is the sensations with which we “register” the world around us. However, for example, Diderot believed that a person in such a system resembles a piano, since he uses such a system of signs as language (and the signs correspond to the piano keys). In social philosophy, the materialists held views on rational egoism, which can cooperate in common interests and thus come to the general interest and morality. They created the Encyclopedia project, of which Diderot was the main ideologist and administrator. He managed to bring together all the enlighteners, both materialists and deists, so that they wrote articles about all scientific achievements in both the natural and humanitarian fields, combined progressive views with criticism of the outdated ones, and gave a picture of the human mind as a whole. This work began with great enthusiasm, but then most of the participants moved away from the project. Left alone, Diderot was able to complete this work and publish all 52 volumes of the Encyclopedia, which summarized everything that science had achieved in the 17th-18th centuries.
Positivism(from lat. positivus - positive) - ϶ᴛᴏ direction of philosophy, declaring specific empirical sciences as the only true source of knowledge and denying the cognitive value of philosophy. The term ʼʼpositivismʼʼ was introduced by one of its founders, the French sociologist and philosopher O. Comte.
In the process of its evolution, positivism went through three stages: the first, initial stage (the 19th century) is associated with the names of O. Comte, G. Spencer, J. St. Mill and others; the second stage, empirio-criticism, or Machism (R. Avenarius, E. Mach. A. Bogdanov and others), took shape in the late 19th - early 20th centuries; the third stage - logical positivism, or neo-positivism - arises at the beginning of the 20th century. and exists today.
All three stages of the evolution of positivism have common features. Features of positivism˸ 1) high appreciation of science, which is considered the main source of knowledge; 2) criticism of philosophy, rejection of its problems and concepts; 3) in epistemology - commitment to sensationalism and empiricism; 4) development of methodology for all sciences; 5) religious criticism, the theory of ʼʼtwo truthsʼʼ (scientific and theological knowledge) and ʼʼgod-buildingʼʼ (love of God is replaced by love of man).
In positivism, philosophy is deprived of the status of ʼʼscience of sciencesʼʼ, it becomes a special activity in the service of science, or it is engaged in the generalization of scientific knowledge, or it becomes the logic of science. The process of cognition becomes the only subject of philosophy. The process of cognition is one, knowledge is homogeneous, in connection with this, the application of scientific methods is possible in the study of not only nature, but also society and man.
On the first stage The evolution of positivism, philosophy is considered as a tool for streamlining the sciences, unifying knowledge, ways to identify laws common to all sciences, which can also be transferred to the study of society. Such common foundations for all sciences are the principles of the indestructibility of matter, the continuity of movement, and force resistance.
Auguste Comte(1798-1857) became the founder of positivism and positive sociology. Comte in his works considers the organism as a model of social processes; biology for him is the foundation of sociology. Comte believed that he had discovered the "law of double evolution" - social and spiritual - and embodied it in the concept of three stages of historical development. At the first stage of the development of society, the ʼʼinstinctive impulsesʼʼ of people are united by a ʼʼtheological synthesisʼʼ (single beliefs). The theological setting leads to a military-authoritarian regime in the state. The fall of faith leads to the emergence of a "metaphysical era" - an era of total criticism, which corresponds to a craving for democracy, to overthrow the monarchical regime. The third stage, the stage of ʼʼpositive knowledgeʼʼ, provides an organic link between order and progress. Science becomes the basis for the organization of social life. At the same time, neither the community of scientists nor the people can come to unity in a natural way. A second ʼʼtheological synthesisʼʼ is needed, an appeal to the god-building idea - the religious cult of mankind.
The law of three stages is universal, Comte believed. Three stages turn out to be three natural stages in the cognition of any object˸ for example, when cognizing fire, people first saw in it the god of fire Hephaestus, then - phlogiston (special fiery matter), as a result they came to a scientific explanation of combustion, turning to oxygen.
To solve the problems of reorganizing society on a rational basis and overcoming social crises, scientific knowledge about society is needed. Believing that the science of society should borrow its exact methods from physics, Comte develops ʼʼsocial physicsʼʼ, or sociology, which establishes the laws of social development. Sociology should consist of ʼʼsocial staticsʼʼ (the existing structures of society, taken as if in a frozen state) and ʼʼsocial dynamicsʼʼ (studies the processes of social change). Sociology is the pinnacle of scientific knowledge.
English philosopher and sociologist Herbert Spencer(1820-1903) is the author of the evolutionary theory of social development. Spencer substantiates the universality of evolutionary processes, which he understands mechanistically. Evolutionary changes are a mechanism of transition from a less connected form to a more connected one, from a homogeneous, homogeneous state to a heterogeneous, heterogeneous one. Evolution, from his point of view, is the integration of matter, accompanied by the dispersion of motion. The limit that evolution cannot cross is the ϶ᴛᴏ equilibrium of the system. Disbalance leads to disintegration, which eventually becomes the beginning of a new evolutionary process. The cyclical nature of development and decay is inherent in absolutely everything. Spencer fundamentally refuses to look for the causes of evolution, since science, in his opinion, is unable to penetrate into the essence of things, and studies only phenomena, phenomena.
Society is part of nature. It functions according to the laws of a living organism. It is not created by the will of God and did not arise as a result of a "social contract". The development of society goes from a homogeneous state to a heterogeneous one. There is an increase in the differentiation of social ʼʼorgansʼʼ and the emergence of new connections between them. Spencer likened the class division of society to the division of body functions and considered it necessary for any society. Since society, like any organism, is capable of self-regulation, the presence of state bodies in society is not extremely important, Spencer believed.
The development of society proceeds in a wave-like way, through the imbalance and its restoration. The military system coerces, the industrial system permits personal freedom. At the same time, the future belongs to the third type, in which conscious service to society will be at the same time the satisfaction of personal needs. Spencer draws pictures of the future industrial society, open to international cooperation, based on the principles of self-organization and self-government, protecting human rights and freedoms.
Second historical form of positivism was empiriocriticism, whose founders are the Swiss philosopher Richard Avenarius(1843-1896 r.) and Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach(1838-1896 gᴦ.). The founders of empirio-criticism share the positivist idea of the abolition of the old metaphysics. At the same time, unlike the ʼʼfirst waveʼʼ positivists, who believed that philosophy should be concerned with coordinating the results of scientific research, classifying scientific knowledge, empirio-critics saw the task of philosophy in establishing the principles of ordering phenomena, ʼʼexperienceʼʼ in the mind of the researcher. The individual with his nervous system and the environment form a real unity of experience. There is no object without a subject, just as there is no subject without an object. Experience does not allow separating the fundamental principle of the world (material or ideal) from everything visible, audible, tangible. The new philosophy must cleanse our experience of fruitless fantasies, unnecessary products of mental activity (statements about substance, about the soul, about causality). The more monolithic our experience will be, the less different points of view will be present in it, the more effective its adaptive action will be. The principle of the least expenditure of effort (ʼʼeconomy of thoughtʼʼ according to Mach) is the basic principle that philosophy should be guided by. This principle focuses on the cumulative model of the development of scientific knowledge (lat. cumulatio - increase, accumulation), which implies the continuity of the growth of science, the constant accumulation of knowledge, excluding jumps, the refutation of what has been achieved and generally recognized.
Third stage evolution of positivism neopositivism, or logical positivism, which arose in the 20s. 20th century Among the representatives of this trend is the English thinker Bertrand Russell(1872-1970 r.), Austrian logician Ludwig Wittgenstein(1889-1951 gᴦ.), members of the so-called ʼʼViennese circleʼʼ ( M. Schlick, R. Carnap, O. Neurath, F. Frank) and etc.
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Logical positivism retains continuity with previous forms of positivism. At the same time, logical positivists put the logical analysis of science at the center of the theory of knowledge.
Scientific knowledge is homogeneous. The criteria of truth in science are the mutual consistency of the proposals of science in accordance with logical rules (the criterion for the correctness of the construction of the statement); the possibility of reducing an utterance to sensory data or facts. Experience - a set of facts recorded in protocol sentences (such as ʼʼthis is redʼʼ) - is a single empirical basis of science. If we can compare a sentence with sensory data or indicate a method by which this can be done, then this sentence is verifiable (verifiable) and, therefore, scientifically. Verification principle is the fundamental principle of neopositivism. Another principle of neopositivism is reductionism, the reduction of the entire edifice of science to experientially verifiable knowledge.
These principles are closely related to the idea of the unity of scientific knowledge and cumulativeness, the principle of "accumulation" of scientific knowledge. The neo-positivists tried to create a unified science on the basis of a universal language, the language of physical phenomena ( physicalism). At the same time, the privileged status of ʼʼprotocol sentencesʼʼ was then questioned - these sentences are difficult to apply to the social sciences and psychology, and also, since these sentences fix our feelings, and their intersubjectivity(the similarity or identity of the sensory representations of various subjects) cannot be proved.
One of the main tasks of neopositivism was the fight against traditional ʼʼmetaphysicsʼʼ. The first step in the program of revising the role of philosophy in cognition is to reveal the unscientific nature of traditional philosophical ideas that are not comparable with experience. The second step involves replacing the old metaphysics with a new, ʼʼscientificʼʼ philosophy. The new philosophy should not be a system of statements about something transcendent, inaccessible to human experience. Philosophy is not a theory that gives a general picture of the world, it is a special ʼʼactivityʼʼ to clarify concepts, the logic of science, which helps to cleanse the language of science from illegal generalizations. The third step in the critique of traditional metaphysics is to preserve for it a special area, far from science. For L. Wittgenstein, this is the sphere of the mystical, the area of ʼʼquestioningʼʼ, in which answers are not provided. The field of philosophy borders on art.
Existentialism, or the philosophy of existence, analyzes the conditions of human existence, being, paying special attention to the "boundary" conditions of human life in crisis situations and severe trials.
Existentialism – this is an anthropological turn of philosophy towards man, his inner world. A. Camus formulated the task of philosophy in this way: what needs to be done to establish justice, find the truth, instill hope in people?
Existentialism had ideological predecessors: S. Kierkegaard, D. Dostoevsky, N. Berdyaev, L. Shestov. As a direction, it took shape in the period between the two world wars. The largest representatives of existentialism: M. Heidegger (1888-1976), K. Jaspers (1883-1969) - German philosophers, J.P. Sartre (1905-1980), A. Camus (1913-1960) - French researchers. Different areas of existentialism are united by the plot-thematic proximity of reflections on the individual and personal characteristics of human existence. In expressing their ideas, existentialists often use non-rational forms - artistic images, allegories, metaphors and symbols.
Existentialism tries to protect a person in a soulless technical world with its rational prudence, where a person’s personal life is devalued, such aspects of a person’s life as joy, sadness, despair and hope, admiration and fear lose their significance.
Man must be at the center of philosophy. His being is a directly given reality through which we perceive the objective world and society. This being is fluid, changeable, unsteady. Therefore, in order to save yourself in this world and arrange your free life, you need to understand yourself, your inner world, your capabilities, abilities, will, etc. In everyday life, a person reveals himself through crisis situations, Heidegger calls them borderline. This is a state of struggle and conflict, feelings of guilt and suffering, but above all, awareness of the finiteness of one's existence. “To decide whether life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question of philosophy,” Camus assures in The Rebel Man. The causes of crisis situations are different: illness, resentment, war, etc. In such cases, a person is faced with the cruelty of the outside world and even its hostility.
Philosophy helps you to understand yourself. According to Heidegger, human life has two sides - essence and existence. The essence cannot be understood by observing from the outside, it must be experienced, it is always a unique inner world of a person.
Existentialists emphasized a number of special features of human existence in the world - this is abandonment, fear, anxiety, care, hope.
Abandonment means that a person does not choose the place and time of his appearance in this world. He seems to be thrown into the element of things and processes unknown to him. And the very fact of existence for him is only a condition for him to acquire his essence. The essence is not inherent in a person, but is acquired by him through his activity in the world. Those. in man, existence precedes essence. Sartre explains it this way: “this means that a person first exists, appears in the world, and only then is determined.”
A man thrown into the world is, as it were, nothing, he seeks to assert himself, to become something. And he has no other way to find his essence except as self-fulfillment or transcendence. Religious existentialists understand this as a path to God, or rather, the acquisition of those values that he embodies (goodness, love, etc.). In the secular sense, this is the self-realization of the individual, associated with the transformation of the world, the subordination of things to oneself. When a person himself creates values, he thereby forms his inner world and his own essence.
Realizing his own abandonment (abandonment), a person experiences a feeling of loneliness among the mysterious world that opposes him, and he has no choice but to rely on himself. Transforming the opposing world, a person is responsible for his choice, according to Sartre, he bears the whole weight of the world on his shoulders.
Therefore, a person feels anxiety, because he cares what the world he created will be like, how the fate of future generations will be determined. Man's way of being in the world is care.
Genuine Existence associated with human self-determination. A developed individuality, the basis for making one's own decision and choice, helps a person to go beyond the inauthentic existence.
freedom from the point of view of existentialism, it is the result of a conscious choice and therefore is associated with the risk and responsibility of a person. Freedom frightens the weak and inspires the strong, but still, although the world is alien to us, we can assert ourselves in it.
So, existentialism illuminated the problem of man in a new way, revealed the deep structures of the personality. He fixed the great role of the subjective side in the system of people's attitudes to reality. However, in the works of its representatives, an underestimation of sociocultural factors in human existence is felt. It is also doubtful that existentialism is directed only to the negative characteristics of a person's experience of his being in the world, although he tries to indicate ways for a person to overcome the difficulties of his being.
Russian religious philosophy of the late XIX - early XX centuries was a reaction to the negative aspects of the anthropocentrism of modern times. She focused, first of all, on the spiritual qualities of a person, such as creativity, kindness, love. Man is also considered here as the center of the world (for example, in the works of N. Berdyaev), but he is not opposed to this world. On the contrary, man is studied as a free creative being, called by God to gather the world into a single whole, to bring love and solidarity into the world, to create harmony.
For Russian religious philosophers (V. Solovyov, P. Florensky, S. Frank and others), a person is the bearer of life and its successor, but not the destroyer. life on the planet.
In the religious philosophy of Russian philosophers, man is regarded as an active, freely creative force. He is endowed with high spirituality and is able to unite the world, save it from destruction by deadly time and human egoism. Religious (Orthodox) anthropocentrism in Russian philosophy acted as a kind of intellectual response to the technization of public life, the decline of morals and other vices, especially of industrial civilization. Industrial, technical in its essence, civilization destroys humanity, and only high spirituality can resist this dangerous process - this is how the main idea of Russian religious anthropology of this time, the Russian religious Renaissance, can be formulated.
The central place in religious philosophy is occupied by S. Bulgakov: philosopher, culturologist, sociologist, political economist. He is a theorist and practitioner: a deputy of the Second State Duma, in 1917 he was a member of the Local Council, which restored the patriarchate in Russia, then he himself became a priest, going from religious philosophy to theology, becoming a professor in Paris. His generosity is truly limitless. He is the author of such works as "Two Cities" (1911), "Philosophy of Economics" (1912), "Non-Evening Light" (1917), the trilogy "The Lamb of God" (1933).
S. Bulgakov in his youth was a Marxist, a professor of political economy at the Polytechnic Institute. His ancestors were priests, initially he studied at the seminary. It had a deeply rooted Orthodox foundation. He was never an orthodox Marxist; in philosophy he was not a materialist, but a Kantian. He expressed the crisis he experienced in the book From Marxism to Idealism. He is the first in this trend to become a Christian and Orthodox. S.N. Bulgakov began his scientific and literary career as an economist, then his interest moved to the field of philosophy, but for most of his life (after the publication of the book "Non-Evening Light", 1917), he remained a philosophizing theologian. The ecclesiasticalization of life, the religious community, the subordination of socio-economic problems to religious and spiritual ones - these ideas were close to him.
Continuing to develop the philosophical precepts of Solovyov, he creates an original system of his own - sophiology, where cosmism, sophia are intertwined with the elements of the fallen state of the created world, therefore the direction of S. Bulgakov's philosophy is called sophiological. He remains true to the basic Russian idea of God-manhood.
Solovyov's followers - Berdyaev, Bulgakov, Fedotov, Florovsky, Trubetskoy - are trying to create a holistic religious worldview, comprehending history as a process of cooperation between man and God, as god-creation. The world must be transformed not by violence, but by genuine Christian teaching.
Akin to Solovyov, Berdyaev seeks to introduce into consciousness the idea of the superiority of human freedom over everything else, seeing in it a self-sufficient truth. Berdyaev comes to the conclusion that communism is a product of the Russian national character, which is characterized by the messianic idea of the liberation of mankind and the salvation of peoples from conquerors, which has found practical embodiment more than once in the long history of Russia.
Many conquerors, intimidating East and West, having managed to subdue many nations, having come to Russia, were defeated: Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler. The Russians thus won not only their own freedom, but also liberated other peoples from enslavement. So the messianic idea of orthodox Marxism - the liberation of all mankind from exploitation through the world revolution - is nothing but a modification of the Russian messianic idea.
Berdyaev sought to convince his reader that only the inner potentialities of the individual, capable of revealing the religious and mystical essence of being, make it possible to gain true freedom. He saw the only way out of the spiritual crisis in the religious quest of the individual. The revolutionary actions of the people were denied or simply not taken into account by them, and he saw the natural state of a person in loneliness and despair.
A special place in the religious mentality of the 19th century is occupied by the theory of the common cause of N. Fedorov, who became a well-known cosmist philosopher, who introduced a lot of new things into the interpretation of the Russian apocalypse and universal salvation. People must unite in a brotherhood that will conquer death, organize cosmic life, and resurrect the dead.
Fedorov called his teaching active Christianity, calling for the active transformation of the natural, mortal world into another, non-natural, immortal divine type of being. The most essential thing in his disclosure of God's plan for the world is the conviction that the Divine will acts only through man as a rationally free being, through a single conciliar totality of mankind. The main task at the same time is to become an active instrument of the will of God, and his will is clear - the elevation of the world into a glorified immortal state through man himself.
4. The origin of materialism and idealism in ancient Greek philosophy. "Line of Democritus" and "Line of Plato"
The set of philosophical teachings that developed in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome from the end of the 7th century BC. to the VI century AD, called ancient philosophy. Antique (from Latin antiquitas - antiquity, antiquity) philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans originated and existed until the beginning of the 6th century. n. e., when Emperor Justian in 529 closed the last Greek philosophical school - the Platonic Academy. Thus, ancient philosophy lived for about 1200 years and has four main periods in its development:
I. VII-V centuries. BC e. - pre-Socratic period (Heraclitus, Democritus, etc.),
II. 2nd floor V - the end of the IV centuries. BC e. - classical period (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc.);
III. End of IV-II centuries. BC e. - Hellenistic period (Epicurus and others),
IV. 1st century BC e. - VI century. n. e. - Roman philosophy.
Ancient philosophy arose and developed during the birth and formation of a slave-owning society, when it was divided into classes and a social group of people engaged only in mental labor was isolated. It is also due to the development of natural science, primarily mathematics and astronomy. True, at that distant time, natural science had not yet emerged as an independent field of human knowledge. All knowledge about the world and man was united in philosophy. F. was the science of sciences.
The ancient type of philosophizing was characterized by:
Cosmocentrism - a worldview in which the Universe was considered inextricably linked with a person, and a person was understood as an organic part of the Universe, his micromodel - "microcosm";
Anthropocentrism, that is, the focus of philosophical thought on a person, his inner world, his cognitive abilities;
Communication with scientific (mathematical, natural, political) knowledge, as well as with mythology and art;
A huge number of directions and schools, which are the source for all later forms of European philosophizing.
There were two opposite directions: materialism (the line of Democritus) and idealism (the line of Plato).
Materialism ancient Greek philosophy
Heraclitus (about 544-483 BC) He had a difficult character, he shunned society, did not want to write laws to them. When I wrote the book, there was a lot of vague and incomprehensible. There were oracles who communicated only with whom they wanted. They called him the Dark One. Recognized for matter its primacy in relation to the spiritual. At the heart of everything that exists, he believed, lies the material principle - fire, which, passing from one state to another, is in perpetual motion and change. Thanks to the struggle of the opposites that form it, fire serves as the basis for the development of the whole world. The fire of Heraclitus is the link between opposites (elements). As an image of the unity of opposites, he cites, in particular, the string of a bow that unites its opposite ends.
Heraclitus expressed truly brilliant ideas about the variability of the cosmos, its bifurcation, the inconsistency of the world - this is the beginning of dialectics. Everything, according to the views of Heraclitus, is subject to logos, that is, it is natural. Heraclitus' teachings about development. The statement about the universal fluidity of things, the changeability of phenomena - his great conjecture in dialectical thinking. We read from him: “We enter and do not enter the same river, we are the same and not the same.” “You cannot enter the same river twice”
Democritus (c. 460-370 BC), a student of one of the creators of ancient atomism Leucippus (V century BC). Inherited a significant estate. This allowed him to devote himself entirely to science. It is no coincidence that his works are something like an encyclopedia of knowledge of that time. They include more than 70 titles of his works from the field of physics, ethics, mathematics, rhetoric, astronomy, etc. Through his works, he earned the deep respect of Aristotle, Cicero, Plutarch and other outstanding thinkers of antiquity.
The greatest merit of Democritus is his doctrine of atomism. At the heart of the universe is the atom as the fundamental principle of the development of the world. Atoms, that is, the smallest, further indivisible physical particles, are unchanging and eternal, are in constant motion and differ from each other only in shape, size, position and order. Along with atoms, according to Democritus, there is a void (emptiness is non-existence and, as such, is unknowable, only being is cognizable), in which atoms move. The principle of motion of matter is the basis of the entire atomistic system. It is only thanks to movement that the emergence and development of the world takes place. Thanks to the movement of atoms in the void, atomic masses are composed, and other worlds arise. Democritus, therefore, in his views was not limited to the earthly world. Since the number of atoms, as well as the length of empty space, are infinite, there are many worlds that constantly arise and die, being at different stages of development too. Allocates 2 types of knowledge, but tends to rational.
The materialism of ancient Greece is the most important stage in its development. However, it must be borne in mind that it also has such characteristic features as
contemplation (direct perception of reality),
metaphysical (supersensible principles and principles of being),
mechanism (recognition of the mechanical form of movement as the only objective)
· spontaneity (unconscious conviction of the vast majority of natural scientists in the objective reality of the external world).
Idealism Plato and his features
In parallel, there was an opposite philosophical direction - idealism, "Plato's line".
Plato (428-347 BC), a student of the founder of objective idealism Socrates, was born in Athens. His real name is Aristocles, Plato being the alias to which he owes his powerful body; according to other sources, he received it thanks to the sweeping style of writing and a wide forehead (“platos” in Greek means fullness, breadth, spaciousness). Plato owns 36 philosophical writings (dialogues).
The main thing in the legacy of Plato is the doctrine of ideas. Ideas are the essence of things, that is, what makes each of them what it is. Plato uses the term "paradigm" (from the Greek paradigm - an example, an example), indicating that ideas form a thing as it should be. The world of ideas, therefore, forms in its totality "true being", and the sensible, material world is secondary in relation to it.
There is no really visible and tangible thing, but the idea of a thing - that's the main thing in Plato's idealism. At the top is the idea of God as the highest good. In this regard, the cosmological teaching of Plato, which is of a mystical, theological nature, is indicative. Plato says that there is only one world that is controlled by the demiurge (from the Greek demiurge - master, artisan, creator).
The theory of knowledge is opposite to the materialistic one. It is based on the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. To achieve the truth, Plato said, there is no need to turn to feelings, to sensations, on the contrary, one must completely renounce them and, plunging into the depths of one’s soul, try to make her remember what she saw in the world of ideas. The source of knowledge is in the memories of the soul. Plato reduced dialectics to art, the ability to ask questions and answer them.
In socio-political views, Plato expressed the views of the ruling class of slave owners, the aristocracy. Platonic City-State should consist of 3 classes:
1) peasants, artisans and merchants (moderation); 2) guards (strength); 3) rulers (wisdom).
The lower class does not need special education - practice. The task is to increase wealth, take care of the material needs of society. The class of guards should be educated in gymnastics and music in order to strengthen in his soul that element that nourishes endurance and courage. Men and women of this class were subject to the same education, they were assigned the same dwellings. For the guards, the community of husbands and wives, and therefore children, was also envisaged. The latter had to be brought up in suitable places and institutions. Goal: to build a city-family where everyone would love each other like mothers, fathers, children, brothers, sisters, relatives. The goal is to rid society of selfishness and defeat "mine" and "yours". Everyone was obliged to say "our". Private property is marked as public. The rulers are sages of 50 years, philosophers.
This is an unfinished science treatise. A.A. Lyubishcheva, written in Ulyanovsk in 1961 - 1964.
“The two lines in question are materialism and idealism; they are taken from the phrase IN AND. Lenin with which the treatise began. A preface was written, 2 introductory chapters (on Plato's line), a chapter on mathematics and 2 chapters on "astronomy" (more precisely, on cosmology). Physics, biology and humanitarian knowledge were outlined, touched upon in the preface, where the author's methodological guidelines are given, but there is no theme of "lines".
According to Lyubishchev, the history of European culture is characterized by three lines: 2 named and the line of Aristotle (he considered it intermediate). The author defended Plato's line (Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, the Academy, Neoplatonism), in which he saw both idealism and clear knowledge.
The line of Democritus (Miletian school, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius) is both materialism and vague (fuzzy) knowledge. The main idea of the book is this: the basic knowledge about the world was achieved not on the path of materialism (as was believed at that time not only in the USSR, but almost everyone in the West), but on the path of objective idealism. Materialism (both ancient and modern) is inclined to dogmatism, although it declares freedom of thought.
He saw the defect of the first in the desire to build mathematics as a continuation of physics (where atomism is productive). Turning to the analysis of the philosophical foundations of 20th-century mathematics, he concluded: the criterion of truth in it is not practice, but internal harmony; the idealism of most mathematicians is a consequence of the specifics of mathematics as a science; it gives freedom and harmony to thoughts.
With regard to cosmology, it is argued that the main achievements of the heliocentric theory took place on the line of Pythagoras. Unfortunately, not having at hand the bulk of the ancient sources, Lyubishchev used surveys, sometimes superficial, which, in relation to cosmology, led to an oversimplified scheme of ancient knowledge.
In fact, Lyubishchev outlined 3 ways of knowledge.
1. A fuzzy explanation of everything in the world, which he connected with Democritus (although Plato's Timaeus serves as a vivid illustration of this path) and with C. Darwin. It would be more correct to say that Lyubishchev was talking about a line that comes from myths and is typical of all early philosophers.
2. Clear knowledge based on the concepts of number and ideal form. This "Plato's line" begins with Pythagoras by Lyubishchev. (In fact, it is older: in mathematics it comes from Thales, in cosmology from Anaximander, and only in acoustics from Pythagoras.) From the current point of view, there is no contradiction between the two mathematicians: according to A.N. Parshin, the understanding of a segment as a continuous one and as a set of points do not contradict each other, but are complementary. Pythagoras appears in Lyubishchev as the forerunner of the astronomy of Copernicus and Kepler. (In fact, Pythagoras is characterized by a numerical mysticism, really connected with the idea of abstract form, but far from astronomy and the exact sciences of modern times.)
3. Teleological knowledge founded by Aristotle, who introduced the concept of final cause, causa finalis . (However, the main tool of Aristotle is logic, it starts from Parmenides, and Lyubishchev almost did not touch him.)
In this line Yu.A. Schrader I saw, speaking about Lyubishchev, one of the foundations of the new physics ( extreme principles) and biology (expediency).
Lyubishchev listed all three lines in his last article "On the Classification of Evolutionary Theories" (Problems of Evolution, Volume IV, Novosibirsk, 1975, p. 215).
Tchaikovsky Yu.V. , "Lines of Democritus and Plato in the history of culture", in the Encyclopedia of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, M., "Canon +"; "Rehabilitation", 2009, p. 422-423.
Colleagues of the thinker Democritus gravitated towards a certain current of philosophical thought, occasionally being distracted by related theories. The life attitude of the Abdera philosopher was absolutely opposite - the sage tried to understand many mysterious phenomena, expressed a weighty opinion about the opposing disciplines, and was interested in a wide range of sciences. Therefore, the philosophy of Democritus is a valuable contribution to the development of ancient Greek society, is the basis for subsequent world intellectual concepts.
The life path of a sage
Speaking about the biography of ancient philosophers, it should be remembered that reliable facts about their lives that have come down to our time are practically reduced to zero. It's about millennia ancient history when there were no ultra-modern devices capable of storing important information (which, moreover, at that time, was not such). We can draw conclusions on the basis of tales, retellings, legends, which to some extent interpret reality. The biography of Democritus is no exception.
Antique manuscripts claim that the ancient Greek philosopher was born in 460 BC. on the east coast of Greece (city of Abder). His family was rich, since most of his life the thinker was busy traveling and thinking, which required considerable expenses. He visited many countries in Asia, Africa, Europe. I saw the ways of different peoples. He made philosophical conclusions from careful observations. Democritus could just burst into laughter for no apparent reason, for which he was taken for a lunatic. Once, for such tricks, he was even taken to the famous doctor Hippocrates. But the doctor confirmed the complete emotional and physical health of the patient, and also noted the exclusivity of his mind. Just the everyday bustle of the townspeople seemed funny to the sage, so he was nicknamed the "laughing philosopher."
Ultimately, the family's fortune was squandered, for which, in ancient Greece, a trial was due. The Thinker appeared before the court, delivered an acquittal speech and was pardoned, the judge considered that his father's money had not been spent in vain.
Democritus lived a respectable life, died 104 years old.
Atomistic materialism through the eyes of Democritus
The predecessor of Democritus, Leucippus, was not well known in the scientific community, but he put forward the theory of the "atom", which was later developed by the Abdera philosopher. It became his most important work. The essence of the teaching comes down to the study of the smallest indivisible particle, which has a unique natural property - movement. Atoms, the philosopher Democritus, considered as infinity. The thinker, being one of the first materialists, believed: thanks to the chaotic movement of atoms, the variety of shapes and sizes, bodies are combined. Hence comes the atomistic materialism of Democritus.
The scientist assumed the presence of natural interatomic magnetism: “The atom is indivisible, integral. Everything that does not have emptiness inside has at least a small amount of emptiness outside. From the foregoing, they conclude that the atoms still repel each other a little, at the same time they attract. This is a materialistic paradox."
In the words of a materialistically inclined sage, atoms are “what”, vacuum is “nothing”. From this it follows that objects, bodies, sensations have no color, taste, smell, this is just a consequence of a diverse combination of atoms.
The principle of lack of sufficient reason - isonomy
Democritus in his atomistic teaching relied on the methodological principle of isonomy, that is, the absence of a sufficient basis. In more detail, the formulation boils down to the following - any possible phenomenon has ever been or will ever be, because there is no logical proof that any phenomenon existed in an established form, and not some other. The following conclusion follows from democratic atomism: if a particular body has the ability to exist in various forms, these forms are real. The isonomy of Democritus suggests:
- Atoms have unimaginably different sizes and shapes;
- Each space point of vacuum is equal in relation to another;
- The cosmic motion of atoms has a versatile direction and speed.
The last rule of isonomy means that the movement is an independent inexplicable phenomenon, only its changes are subject to explanation.
Cosmology of the "laughing philosopher"
Democritus called the cosmos the "Great Void". According to the theory of the scientist, the primordial chaos gave rise to a whirlwind in the great void. The result of the vortex was the asymmetry of the Universe, later the appearance of the center and the outskirts. Heavy bodies, displacing light ones, accumulate in the middle. The cosmic center, according to the philosopher, is the planet Earth. The earth consists of heavy atoms, the upper shells of light ones.
Democritus is considered an adherent of the theory of the plurality of worlds. The concept implies their infinite number and magnitude; growth trend, stop and decrease; different density of worlds in different places of the great void; the presence of luminaries, their absence or multiplicity; lack of animal, plant worlds.
Since our planet is the center of the universe, it does not need to move. Although in the previous theory, Democritus believed that she was in motion, but for certain reasons she stopped her path.
The cosmologist suggested that the Earth has a centrifugal force that prevents the collapse of celestial bodies on it. The scientific view of the thinker considered the relationship between the removal of celestial objects from the Earth and the slowdown in their speed.
It was Democritus who suggested that the Milky Way is nothing more than a cluster of a huge number of microscopic stars that are in such close proximity to each other that they form a single glow.
Ethics of Democritus
The philosophers of ancient Greece had a special attitude to ethics, each dwelling on his own favorite virtue. For the Abder thinker, it was a sense of proportion. The measure reflects the behavior of the individual, based on his inner potential. Satisfaction, measured by a measure, ceases to be a sensual sensation, develops into good.
The thinker believed that in order to achieve harmony in society, a person must experience euthymia - a state of serene disposition of the soul, devoid of extremes. The idea of euthymia promotes sensual pleasures, extols blissful peace.
Even the Greek philosopher believed that an important aspect of finding happiness is wisdom. Wisdom can only be achieved through the acquisition of knowledge. Anger, hatred, and other vices breed in ignorance.
Democritus and his theory of atoms
The atomistic materialism of the ancient atomist comes from his theory of atoms, which strikingly reflects the conclusions of the materialists of the twentieth century.
The ability of an ancient thinker to construct a theory about the structure of elementary particles, not being able to confirm it with scientific research, is admirable. How talented, what a genius this man was. Living thousands of years ago, he almost unmistakably penetrated one of the hard-to-justify mysteries of the universe. An atom, a molecule, being in continuous chaotic movement within outer space, contribute to the formation of hurricane whirlwinds, material bodies. The difference in their properties is explained by the shape and size diversity. Democritus put forward a theory (not having empirically possible provability) about changes in the human body when exposed to atomic radiation.
Atheism, the meaning of the soul
In ancient times, people attributed the explanation of mysterious phenomena to divine participation; it was not without reason that the Olympic Gods became famous in the civilized world. In addition, a specific sphere of human activity was associated with a certain mythological hero. For Democritus, such legends were subjective. Being an educated materialist, he easily debunked such misunderstandings, explaining them as ignorance, predilection for an easy explanation of complex issues. The deadly argument of the doctrine was the similarity of the celestials with ordinary people, from which the artificiality of the created deities follows.
But the "atheism" of the scientist is not so obvious. The philosopher did not have serious problems with the many-sided spiritual community, did not oppose the state ideology. It has to do with his relationship with the soul. Democritus believed in its existence, in his own way. As the thinker believed, the soul was a cluster of atoms, fusion with the physical body, and leaving it during a period of protracted illness, old age, or before death. The soul is immortal, as an energy clot endlessly wanders through the universe. In short, Democritus proposed the law of conservation of energy.
Ataraxic philosophy of Democritus
It was previously described that the ancient Greek sage showed interest in many areas of human activity, medicine was no exception.
The concept of ataraxia was burning for the philosopher. Ataraxia is defined as a mental state of a person characterized by absolute fearlessness against the background of an emotional upheaval. Democritus attributed this state of mind to the acquisition of wisdom and experience by a person. It can be achieved with the help of the desire for self-improvement, penetration into the mysteries of the universe. Philosophical ancient schools became interested in the ataraxic philosophical thought of the thinker (Epicurean, skeptical, Stoic schools).
But Democritus offers not only to study, to learn, to improve himself, but also to think. He compares the thought process with knowledge, where the former still dominates.
The philosopher's ataraxia reasonably explains the pattern of events. Teaches you how to use the ability to remain silent, which takes precedence over talkativeness. The above dogmas are correct.