Idealism is a philosophical trend. Founder and representatives of idealism

The philosophical doctrine of materialism appeared in the era of antiquity. Philosophers of Ancient Greece and the Ancient East considered everything in the surrounding world, regardless of consciousness - everything consists of material formations and elements, claimed Thales, Democritus and others. In the era of the new era, materialism acquired a metaphysical orientation. Galileo and Newton said that everything in the world comes down to the mechanistic form of the motion of matter. Metaphysical materialism has been replaced by dialectical. Consistent materialism appeared in the theory of Marxism, when the basic principle of materialism extended not only to the material world, but also to nature. Feuerbach singled out inconsistent materialism, which recognized the spirit, but reduced all its functions to the creation of matter.

Materialist philosophers argue that the only substance that exists is matter, all entities are formed, and phenomena, including consciousness, are formed in the process of interaction of various matters. The world exists independently of our consciousness. For example, a stone exists regardless of a person’s idea of \u200b\u200bit, and what a person knows about it is the effect that the stone has on the human senses. A person can imagine that there is no stone, but from this the stone will not disappear from the world. So, say materialistic philosophers, the physical exists first, and then the psychic. Materialism does not deny the spiritual; it merely claims that consciousness is secondary to matter.

The essence of the philosophy of idealism

The theory of idealism was also born in antiquity. Idealism ascribes to the spirit the dominant role in the world. A classic of idealism is Plato. His teaching was called objective idealism and proclaimed the ideal beginning in general, independently not only of matter, but also of human consciousness. There is a certain essence, some kind of spirit that has generated and determines everything, idealists say.

In the philosophy of modern times, subjective idealism has appeared. Ideal philosophers of the new era argued that the outside world is completely dependent on human consciousness. Everything that surrounds people is just a combination of some sensations and to these combinations a person ascribes material significance. The combination of some sensations creates a stone and all ideas about it, others - a tree, etc.

On the whole, idealistic philosophy boils down to the fact that a person receives all information about the outside world only through sensations, with the help of his senses. All that a person reliably knows is knowledge obtained from the senses. And if the senses are arranged differently, then the sensations will be different. This means that a person does not talk about the world, but about his feelings.

The question of materialism and idealism is, among other things, and quite well-known in philosophical literature, there is also the question of the correct use of our language. But first, we will dwell on a brief summary of what most philosophers have considered materialism and idealism.

Within the framework of the so-called fundamental issue of philosophy, materialists and idealists, it is customary to divide the relationship of thinking to being, consciousness to matter according to their understanding.

From the point of view of revealing the relation of consciousness to matter, it is customary to distinguish the following areas: materialism, idealism, as well as the less well-known dualism.

Materialism affirms the primacy of matter and the secondary of consciousness. Idealism - argues the opposite of materialism. Dualism believes that matter and consciousness develop in parallel and independently of each other.

Types of materialism:

1. The naive materialism of the ancients. Matter is primary, but it consists of some basic principles (Heraclitus - fire, Thales - water, Anaximenes - air, Democritus - atoms and void). These views are still preserved in some shamanistic and other magical practices.

2. Metaphysical materialism of the 18th century - Didro, Lametri, Gelvetsky. Matter is primary, but the specificity of consciousness was ignored: thoughts are a kind of product secreted by the human brain.

3. Dialectical materialism (Marx, Engels, Lenin). Consciousness is secondary, derived from matter, but through human activity it can influence and transform matter, due to this a dialectic relationship is realized between matter and consciousness.

Varieties of idealism:

1. Objective idealism. Recognizes the independence of some ideal principle (idea, god, spirit) not only from matter, but also from human consciousness (Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Hegel).

2. Subjective idealism (Bishop J. Berkeley) asserts the dependence of the outside world on human consciousness. The extreme form of subjective idealism is solipsism, according to which the reality is only one's own consciousness and complexes of perceived sensations.

3. It is also known such a trend as irrationalism. The point of view of irrationalism is the denial of the possibility of a reasonable and logical knowledge of reality.

So, materialists uphold the idea that the world is an objectively existing reality. They proceed from the fact that the world is cognizable, and our knowledge of the world serves as the basis for effective, efficient human activities.

Idealists recognize the primary idea, spirit, consciousness. They consider the material product of the spiritual. However, the ratio of consciousness and matter by representatives of objective and subjective idealism is not understood the same way. The consistent holding of the views of subjective idealism leads to the so-called solipsism, that is, to the recognition of the real existence of only the knowing subject, who, as it were, invents reality. Subjective idealists express doubt that knowledge of the objective world is possible, and objective idealists, recognizing the possibility of knowledge of the world, consider the cognitive capabilities of a person dependent on the will of God or otherworldly forces.

There are other philosophical views that regard matter and consciousness as two equal foundations of all things, independent of each other. Adherents of such views are called dualists (R. Descartes, F. Voltaire, I. Newton, etc.).

On this I, with your permission, will end my excursion into the jungle of existing philosophical ideas and try to expound some not sufficiently clarified aspects of materialism and idealism.

So, what does such a seemingly purely philosophical question of materialism and idealism have to do with the Terminology section? I answer: the most direct. Our communication is pretty good, although we don’t notice it, it resembles the communication described in the article “Terminology”, which opens this subsection. Our task with you is to clear our language of ambiguities and misunderstandings that arise not only in our communication, but also in the communication of highly learned husbands, especially when they release their semantic inventions into the medium of communication of ordinary citizens.

Now closer to the topic. Even in the distant years of university studies, they explained to me that a materialist is one who considers matter to be primary, and an idealist is consciousness. Later I found out that “cool” idealists believe that matter does not exist outside of consciousness at all - such, here, a lapsus as applied to the consciousness of a person engaged in practical activities, hunting or picking mushrooms. Less cool people think that matter is secondary in the sense that it was created by God or the Cosmic Mind.

First of all, I propose, in order to avoid confusion and verbiage spreading in scientific circles, to consider as materialists all who believe that matter is objective - if consciousness disappears, then matter will continue to exist anyway. True, with one more than essential clarification: a materialist should not introduce his own gag into the nature of things in the form of an appeal to the plan or will of the Creator. Well, whether someone created matter or somehow it always existed - this is already beyond the limits of human experience and even thought experiment. If we assume that someone created matter, then the question arises: is the one who created it material. In what relation to it is matter primary or secondary? And who created the one who created ... Etc. The question goes into infinity.

I must immediately make a reservation or apologize for the fact that in all cases I cannot draw a line between materialism and idealism, for there are many things in this world that simply go beyond my experience. For example, I know that with lobotomy (the dissection of the bridge between the hemispheres of the brain) in one person, two consciousnesses arise: one hand, for example, can attack its wife, and the other will protect her. Mentally, I understand this as the work of two psycho-intellectual devices with a common database. But I cannot apply this simple scheme to myself by any mental experiment. Where in this case my consciousness will “go” and what then is this phenomenon - consciousness. This is already beyond my experience.

I cited only one example, and not the coolest one, of the uncertainties in delimiting the concepts discussed. I will give another example from physics. Physicists have already reached elementary particles, then they no longer divide, but turn, in collisions, into each other. This situation is not new for the macrocosm. Chemical compounds also turn into each other even in school experiments. But the question arises: what are "elementary" particles that are not fissile in experiments - they are a kind of discs without a structure and intermediaries for the interaction and transformation of these particles. I can’t imagine this, and the one who says that further matter disappears and only the mathematical equation remains is an idealist for me. But further for the materialist the question also arises: but the mentioned intermediaries - can they really interact with something without the structure and other intermediaries. I can’t imagine this. Here again the question again goes to infinity: intermediaries of intermediaries of intermediaries - and so without any conceivable end. The wisest of philosophers, Kozma Prutkov, determined that "One cannot embrace the immense." And then he repeated even more categorically: "Spit in the eye of someone who says that it is possible to embrace the immense." So I can neither experimentally, on the computer, nor mentally embrace this infinity. This is something that is not in the internal representation of man as any concrete example, and the materialist cannot say anything intelligible about this infinity either.

However, we will not engage in chatter about concepts that we cannot say anything intelligible about, since there are enough problems in the circle of understandable concepts. I have already said that for me a materialist is one who considers matter to be objective reality, even if he believes in God or in the Cosmic Mind. Why do I propose to take it that way? Yes, for a very simple reason: If we load a concept with related meanings, then uncertainty arises and we already cease to understand what we are talking about. This is not fiction, but the results of observations. Therefore, the initial definitions should be completely cleared of related meanings, according to which our thought involuntarily and uncontrollably jumps, and then we can more thoroughly judge the terminology and the nature of things in general.

For me, not a materialist, not only the one who considers consciousness to be primary, but also the one who somehow deals with the “scientific” gag, assigns reality what it should be. Instead of the eternal and instinctive desire of a person to comprehend the truth, another caricature is imposed on reality, sometimes in some ways even more “beautiful” than reality. For me, the “first” idealist is Einstein, who, under the outwardly materialistic slogan: “theory must describe reality,” re-invented “this” reality in the special theory of relativity (STR), which had already been created in mathematical form before him.

To justify the SRT, Einstein introduces a procedural or operationally determined time, where the simultaneity of spatially separated events corresponds, in fact, to the simultaneity of receiving messages about events transmitted by light signals that have traveled the same path. In the general case, time is our way of modeling relations in the outside world, and people came up with many such “times,” but Einstein, or rather, followers of his teachings on STR, declared procedurally defined time the only true, real time that is more correct than all others times. That is, our usual idea of \u200b\u200btime is something apparent, but time, which includes a series of manipulations to find it, is, you see, already a reality. Of course, one can accept such a point of view, in the sense that a person predisposed to faith can believe in it. But such a person is not a materialist who is trying to figure out the nature of things, and not to assign reality to what it should be.

Einstein began his SRT with the seemingly harmless assumption that the speed of light is constant in all coordinate inertial systems. But the fact is that in mathematical terms, coordinate systems are considered in a broad sense - each of them includes all the others. It turns out that the light in the carriage of a racing train propagates at the same speed as the sum of the speeds of the carriage and the light in the carriage. As a consequence of this postulate, it turns out that a racing train is reduced in relation to the platform, and the platform is reduced in relation to the train. Recognizing such inventions invented by man that are fundamentally contradictory to life experience, the reality - this is idealism. It is not possible to understand such relationships within the framework of sanity, but they can be taken on faith. But the belief that the world can adapt to someone’s speculative positions is also idealism.

Einstein, in the process of creating his general theory of relativity, departed from the odious postulates of SRT, but his followers in SRT, shifted to the mystical side of thinking, began to prove that reality, you see, is not what it seems from the standpoint of sanity. These followers went even further in string theory with many “rolled up dimensions”, where, apart from “beauty”, there is no evidence of its reality at all.

For me, the idealist and Niels Bohr with his school of Copenhagen, who announced that in the quantum world phenomena can occur without any reason. So, there is a phenomenon, let’s say the spread in the values \u200b\u200bof the parameters of the electron’s motion, but there are no reasons for such a spread, and that’s all. Such, here, the newfound god, who created his own philosophical reality, but he still could not scream about himself as loudly as Einstein to the whole world. Another major physicist (sorry, I did not find in his notes - it seems Neumann), introduced negative time into quantum equations and got a result consistent with experience. The result, as is known, for example, from logic and from the approximation provisions, can be obtained in different ways, but for me, negative time, like Einstein’s time in SRT with its non-simultaneous “simultaneity,” is terry idealism.

For me, it is not materialists and those who put forward indirect or plausible, as they see it, criteria for the "correctness" of these theories when building their theories: beauty, mathematical elegance, simplicity, and in a very specific and sometimes far from simple sense. All of them, in the very setting of goals, are detached from reality and themselves determine what this reality should be. But the goal is such a thing - if you try very hard, you can always find the right means for this purpose. There are more than a lot of such tools in mathematics. Sophisticated mathematician will always find a way to bring a convincing "scientific" base for any nonsense.

However, I have so far tried to outline some points of the topic under discussion only on a large scale. And the devil, as you know, is in the details. More specifically, the correct use of our language. And for this correctness, as already noted, it is required at least to clear words from related meanings within the framework of the problem that we are going to discuss. Materialism and idealism are only a special case of the problem, but it is crucial if we want to at least somehow understand the philosophical piles of philosophizing theoretical physicists and the philosophers following in their stream.

However ... I haven’t succeeded so far. Confusion begins with such key concepts for the structure of intelligence as time and space. Even in the so-called dialectical materialism, here, from my point of view, is complete idealism. The definition opens with an outwardly knowledge-intensive, but essentially meaningless, nothing specifically reflecting phrase that space and time are universal forms of the existence of matter. The following are the properties of matter and processes, such as length, sequence, duration, etc., and in an arbitrary, voluntaristic way, this is fastened to the concepts of space and time.

In fact, from my point of view, space and time are the initial intuitively formed concepts that are not defined by any other words. The formation of these, as well as many others, concepts begins with the development of movements - there are studies on this subject. Further, adults indicate examples of time and space and, most importantly, what can be done with these concepts. What may be revealed in various examples is an abstraction. "Chair in general" is also an abstraction, for which examples can be given. And space and time, as they say, can be measured. But you can only measure something specific. We can say that we measured such and such a space, but in fact we measured not an abstraction, but something specific: the distance from and to, a specific volume, etc. In this regard, it will be correct, in my opinion, to consider the concepts of space and time as some algorithms of thought introduced into the environment of interpersonal communication by a person. It is very similar to how the addition algorithm allows you to calculate the sum of specific numbers, but the addition algorithm itself does not exist in nature without introducing it by a person.

The named properties of matter and processes are measured or evaluated through standards. Standards - for example, a meter or an hour - have also already entered our intuitive concepts of space and time, which are displayed in the structures of our inner world. In the interpretation of the general theory of relativity such, to put it mildly unusual, phrases are allowed, such as the curvature of space and the deceleration / acceleration of time. The idealistic confusion here begins precisely because of the mixing or unification of the meanings of space and matter, as well as time and processes. Space and time are just our imaginary standards. You can find examples for them in the properties of matter and processes, but these abstractions themselves do not consist of anything outside our inner world. If we understand this, we will take another step from idealism to materialism. And we will understand that only fragments of matter can bend, and only processes can slow down or accelerate. Yes, you can tap into the concept of space and the properties of matter itself. And then the space, endowed with excessive properties, can not only bend or have additional folded dimensions, as in string theory, but even, say, giggle, make faces or dance the Ukrainian hopak. This is a question of correct or incorrect modeling of our mortal world, but at the same time it is a question of the correctness or quality of our use of our language. You can, of course, mean by “curvature of space” and just some kind of manipulation with mathematical structures, but to declare for ordinary citizens such, usually multi-way, manipulation by reality itself - this is worse than just idealism. This is a voluntaristic and often done disinterestedly distorted nature of things.

Now, nevertheless, I’ll try to say a few words about "the devil who is in the details." In my opinion, this “devil” in many cases hides in our habit of uncritical perception of the interpretations presented to us. It’s almost like according to Kozma Prutkov: “Many people are like sausages - what they start with, they go with them.” Well, “almost” is because people, including highly learned husbands, also tend to stuff themselves with such “sausages”.

Let's go back to the same "space". This, in fact, is only our way of modeling the outside world. Rather, our way of modeling interaction with the sim world. One has only to agree to such a “trifle” as space and time are something that independently exists outside of us, and Newton believed roughly, it went and went ... Yeah, Newton claimed that space and time are absolute? But since they have some properties, they may have others - not absolute, which are indirect, but for some even seemingly unambiguously convincing examples.

A normal person instinctively tries to rely on something unconditional in his ideas - a kind of standards in his own inner world. Our right, as we model the world, but, in my opinion, the intuitively established concept of space (as well as time) corresponds to materialism. While the idealist endows this concept with some properties from himself. A sane person may notice that both representations are only existing interpretations of the concept of "space". A sane person and a materialist will say that it is necessary, at a minimum, to take into account the possibility of different interpretations and to consider the situation from different possible positions. The idealist, on the other hand, is fixated on only one of the possible interpretations, then, if he weighs in the “scientific” world, he will declare this a new paradigm in terms of how to think, etc. Practice shows that such fabrications like the “curvature of space” or its “collapsed dimensions” did not lead to anything really useful or simply informative. As the scientists themselves note, over the past hundred years, no significant discoveries in the field of theoretical physics have occurred.

There are many examples of such one-sided voluntaristic interpretations of concepts and phenomena. And the root of many misunderstandings in modern physics lies, in my opinion, precisely in the one-sidedness of idealistic interpretations.

Is someone measuring something from something relative? No, the starting point is always chosen - a kind of absolute. Are there "inertial" systems that are not affected by external forces? There are no such systems in the world and on Earth in particular, if only because they interact with the force field of the Earth. It seems to be obvious things that I say from the point of view of completeness of interpretation, but highly learned theorists stubbornly blow their own things and build from their own idealistic interpretations the nonexistent, although it may be somewhat similar to the real world. This would be good, but these same theorists plus philosophers do not explain to ordinary citizens that some odious interpretations actually refer only to the notation of some mathematical abstractions. Here, after all, everything is quite simple - you can put something in any mathematical apparatus as source data and get something at the output: sometimes it corresponds to reality, and sometimes something is utter. But such a prosaic, materialistic explanation does not suit highly-learned husbands in any way - it will be much more effective if one shouts about the curvature of space, about the existence of phenomena without their causes, about minimized dimensions, about negative time and so on, which will lead to even greater fables of idealism, if they not illuminate from the angle of the materialist.

The confusion of concepts that was mentioned is not only a manifestation of idealism, but also a disease of our language. Yes, as experts in this part note, the meaning of a word is understood from the context of its use. But there is, after all, a mass of words and concepts where different meanings are mixed, and we, due to some features of our abstract thinking, have not yet learned to distinguish between these different meanings. Someone will say, for example, that space without matter does not exist and from here will draw a bunch of conclusions about the “curvature” of space, but the real meaning visible to the materialist and slipping away for the idealist lies in the curvature of some fragment of matter, and, again, in some simulated "space" and with respect to something accepted as a non-distorting standard. In a different way, a person in his right mind does not think, but sometimes he can use different obscene phrases and words to express his thoughts.

Even take a simple word like "exists." You can, for example, say that there is water and there is a surface of water. The word is one, but their meanings are different and even somewhat opposite. Numbers, algorithms, geometry, space and time “exist” in a completely different sense from the two previous “existences”. The internal concepts of mathematics, serving various kinds of mathematical manipulations, "exist" in a certain fourth sense. Proponents of dialectical materialism adhere to any of these meanings, summing up nothing, the phrase "exist objectively." Moreover, managing to declare space and time as categories or the highest form of abstraction, which, according to its definition, objectively does not exist. Because they, like all of us, like color-blind people often do not distinguish between such "colors" of different meanings, and as a result, the meaning of the beginning of a phrase may not correspond to its end, the end of the article to its beginning, the starting points of the theory - its final interpretation, etc. .

Similar examples can be given and cited. Let's say the truth. For the materialist, this is something that can be known or not known, but which necessarily corresponds to the real nature of things. That is how we usually understand truth at the intuitive level and the level of common sense. But for the idealist, this is often only a matter of agreement on what is considered the truth, because, they say, absolute truth is still unattainable. Accordingly, different goals of theoretical constructions arise, and different approaches with different goals. Since truth is only a matter of agreement, you can draw your own voluntaristic, it’s idealistic, world, and even declare it to be reality, etc.

Well, you can add to the above very, very much, but perhaps it's time to finish your article. She, after all, requires her own thoughts, and not just my casual words read.

I wish you success in a better understanding of the words and concepts of our language!

09/28/2014 Protasov N.G.

P.S. If suddenly a professional philosopher reads my article, he, apparently, may well have convicted me of ignorance and amateurism. However, I mainly speak not of philosophy, but of the correctness of our language, which has not been worked out in the materialistic plane. As an algorithm engineer, I constantly come across the fact that many of the words and concepts that are necessary for expressing thoughts are simply not in our language. This gives rise to the opportunity for verbiage and the mass of intellectual speculation that have filled our information world. Moreover, informational idealistic obscurantism has become the predominant fact in the "inventions" of theoretical physicists over the past hundred years. And one of the reasons for this more than abnormal situation is, in my opinion, precisely in the imperfection of the language we use.

I will try to give a more or less clear example.

Representatives of dialectical materialism argue that matter exists objectively - suddenly disappear our consciousness, matter still remains. And then, that is, within the framework of one article, the statement may appear that matter is an abstraction, i.e. that according to the definition of abstraction does not exist objectively. And they explain that matter is a kind of collective image. It does not exist in this form outside our imagination and consciousness, just as the fruit does not exist at all, although apples, pears, plums, etc. may even exist.

But if I, say, laid out an apple, pear, plum and orange on the table and explain to the child, pointing to a specific object, that this apple is a fruit, and this pear is also a fruit, etc., then, one asks, Does such a fruit exist in this case objectively. The materialist will surely say that such a concrete fetus exists objectively. Perhaps he can even explain that the fetus exists objectively in this contextual sense. However, we do not always distinguish between such contextual meanings, and there are often simply no words to denote such meanings. From here, various possibilities arise for verbal confusion and intellectual speculation.

And this, I tell you, is not even harmless for our information space. The fact is that the vast majority of leading theoretical physicists are idealistic scientists. And this I did not determine - there is research and data on this subject. And many, if not the vast majority of those who consider themselves to be materialists, are also to a fair degree idealists - this is my personal opinion. As a result, theoretical physics over the past hundred years has come to a standstill in its attempts to impose the reality of what it should be, based on the speculative ideas of idealists, and instead of concrete discoveries, all kinds of "curvatures of space", "time dilation" and even "minimized dimensions of "space - a kind of parallel worlds.

Idealists do not need an exact language - they only interfere with the possibilities of speculation. But humanity needs such a more accurate language. This, in my opinion, is a long overdue problem.

After P.S ... Materialism and idealism is not my favorite topic. But it turned out that up to two dozen visitors per day have been browsing my article with this name, although many other articles are not even noticed. Such attention to the topic prompts me to add a few, again, not the most favorite lines to it.

One of the theses of materialists, to which I include myself, is that if consciousness disappears, then matter will still remain. This is characterized by the objectivity of the existence of matter. However, such a statement is not as correct as it seems at first glance. Within the limits of our life experience and the knowledge we have, we cannot reasonably affirm that consciousness can disappear. The body with its mental apparatus is a condition for the realization of consciousness, but consciousness is not rigidly connected with a specific body, nor with feelings, nor with memory, nor with beliefs. All of this can change, and sometimes even radically: I will not waste time exposing well-known examples; if you wish, you will find them.

It turns out that consciousness, in addition to some of its visible manifestations, is not an object that is part of the system of our concepts. As soon as we realize such a moment of our understanding of the world, the idea arises that in the world in which we live, there may be other moments that go beyond our understanding.

As a materialist, I recognize the reality of the world in which we exist, but I do not recognize the reality of idealistic inventions like “time dilation”, “curvature of space” and even “intersection” of parallel lines, where an uncritically minded mind tries to assign the world what it should be . And the latest discoveries of physicists, such as the detection of "gravitational waves", do not eliminate the need to restore at least an elementary order in the use of words in our language.

And, perhaps, the last on the broad topic of materialism and idealism. Man and humanity have two oppositely directed aspirations: a craving for the miraculous and a desire to isolate themselves from the incomprehensible, when it seems too real. The first is connected with the desire to learn and gain new opportunities, the second is the unwillingness and even fear to lose the clarity of one's usual view of the world. Both are controlled, mainly, by a single factor - the desire for inner (spiritual) comfort. From here come faith and unbelief, atheism and religiosity, the mystical theories of modern theoretical physics and the desire of official science to hush up and / or deny the manifestations of something unknown to us, even if phenomena that cannot be scientifically explained are unambiguously fixed and not refuted by anyone.

Introduction …………………………………………………………………… ........... 3

I. Materialism and idealism:

1. The concept of materialism ……………………………………………………… .4

2. The concept of idealism …………………………………………………………… ... 8

3. The differences between materialism and idealism ...................... ........ 12

II. Historical forms of materialism:

1. Ancient materialism ………………………………………………… ... 13

2. Metaphysical materialism of the New time ............................. 14

3. Dialectical materialism …………………………………………… .15

III. The difference between metaphysical and dialectical materialism ... 16

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………… 17

List of used literature ……………………………………………… ... 18

Introduction

Philosophers want to know what is the meaning of human life. But for this you need to answer the question: what is a person? What is its essence? To determine the essence of man is to show his fundamental differences from everything else. The main difference is the mind, consciousness. Any human activity is directly related to the activity of his spirit, thought.

The history of philosophy is, in a certain sense, the history of the opposition of materialism and idealism, or, in other words, of how different philosophers understand the relationship of being and consciousness.

If a philosopher claims that at first a certain idea appeared in the world, a global mind, and all the diversity of the real world was born from them, then this means that we are dealing with an idealistic point of view on the main issue of philosophy. Idealism is such a type and a way of philosophizing that assigns an active creative role in the world exclusively to the spiritual principle; only after him recognizing the ability to self-development. Idealism does not deny matter, but considers it as a lower kind of being - not as creative, but as a secondary principle.

From the point of view of the proponents of materialism, matter, i.e. the basis of all the endless multitude of objects and systems existing in the world is primary, therefore a materialistic view of the world is fair. Consciousness, inherent only to man, reflects the surrounding reality.

purpose   this work - to study the features   materialism    and   idealism .

For   achievements the goals    the following were delivered   tasks :    1) to study theoretical material on the topic; 2) consider the features of philosophical movements; 3) to compare and identify the differences between these flows.

Forms    materialism and idealism are diverse. Distinguish between objective and subjective idealism, metaphysical, dialectical, historical and ancient materialism.

I Materialism and idealism.

1. Materialism

Materialism    - This is a philosophical trend that postulates the primacy and uniqueness of the material principle in the world and considers the ideal only as a property of the material. Philosophical materialism affirms the primacy of the material and the secondary of the spiritual, ideal, which means the eternity, uncreated world, its infinity in time and space. Thinking is inseparable from matter, which thinks, and the unity of the world consists in its materiality. Considering consciousness as a product of matter, materialism sees it as a reflection of the outside world. Materialistic Decision of the Second Side   the main issue of philosophy    - about the cognizability of the world - means the belief in the adequacy of the reflection of reality in the human mind, in the cognizability of the world and its laws. Materialism is characterized by reliance on science, evidence and verifiability of statements. Science has repeatedly refuted idealism, but so far has not been able to refute materialism. Under   content    materialism is understood as the totality of its original premises, its principles. Under   form Materialism is understood as its general structure, determined primarily by the method of thinking. Thus, its content contains the general that is inherent in all schools and currents of materialism, in their opposition to idealism and agnosticism, and its specific form is associated with the special that characterizes individual schools and currents of materialism.

In the history of philosophy, materialism, as a rule, was the worldview of the advanced classes and layers of society, interested in the correct knowledge of the world, in strengthening human power over nature. Summarizing the achievements of science, he contributed to the growth of scientific knowledge, the improvement of scientific methods, which had a beneficial effect on the successes of human practice, on the development of productive forces. The criterion of the truth of materialism is socio-historical practice. It is in practice that the false constructions of idealists and agnostics are refuted, and its truth is conclusively proved. The word “materialism” began to be used in the 17th century mainly in the sense of physical ideas about matter (R. Boyle), and later in a more general, philosophical sense (G.V. Leibniz) to contrast materialism with idealism. The exact definition of materialism was first given by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Materialism went through 3 stages in its development .

First    the stage was associated with the naive or spontaneous materialism of the ancient Greeks and Romans (Empedocles, Anaximander, Democritus, Epicurus). The first teachings of materialism appear along with the emergence of philosophy in the slaveholding societies of ancient India, China and Greece in connection with progress in the field of astronomy, mathematics and other sciences. A common feature of ancient materialism is the recognition of the materiality of the world, its existence, regardless of people's consciousness. Its representatives sought to find in the diversity of nature the common principle of all that exists and is happening. In antiquity, Thales of Miletus believed that everything arises from water and turns into it. Ancient materialism, especially Epicurus, is characterized by an emphasis on personal self-improvement of man: his liberation from fear of the gods, from all passions and the acquisition of the ability to be happy in any circumstances. The merit of ancient materialism was the creation of a hypothesis about the atomistic structure of matter (Leucippus, Democritus).

In the Middle Ages, materialistic tendencies manifested themselves in the form of nominalism, the doctrine of the "perfection of nature and God." In the Renaissance, materialism (Telezio, Vruna and others) was often clothed in the form of pantheism and hylozoism, considered nature in its entirety and in many ways resembled the materialism of antiquity - it was time   second    stage of development of materialism. In the 16-18 centuries, in the countries of Europe - the second stage in the development of materialism - Bacon, Hobbes, Helvetius, Galileo, Gassendi, Spinoza, Locke and others formulated metaphysical and mechanistic materialism. This form of materialism arose on the basis of nascent capitalism and the associated growth of production, technology, science. Acting as ideologists of the progressive bourgeoisie at that time, the materialists fought the medieval scholasticism and church authorities, turned to experience as a teacher and to nature as an object of philosophy. Materialism of the 17-18 centuries is associated with the rapidly progressing mechanics and mathematics then, which determined its mechanistic character. In contrast to the natural philosophical materialists of the Renaissance, materialists of the 17th century began to consider the last elements of nature as inanimate and unqualified. Remaining generally on the positions of a mechanistic understanding of movement, the French philosophers (Didro, Holbach and others) regarded it as a universal and inalienable property of nature, completely abandoned the deistic inconsistency inherent in most materialists of the 17th century. The organic connection that exists between all materialism and atheism among the French materialists of the 18th century was especially vivid. The pinnacle in the development of this form of materialism in the West was Feuerbach's “anthropological” materialism, in which contemplation manifested itself most vividly.

In the 1840s, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels formulated the basic principles of dialectical materialism - this was the beginning   third stage of development of materialism. In Russia and Eastern Europe in the second half of the 19th century, a further step in the development of materialism was the philosophy of revolutionary democrats, which became derived from the combination of Hegelian dialectics and materialism (Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Markovich, Votev and others), based on the traditions of Lomonosov , Radishchev and others. One of the features of the development of dialectical materialism is its enrichment with new ideas. The modern development of science requires that natural scientists become conscious supporters of dialectical materialism. At the same time, the development of socio-historical practice and science requires the constant development and concretization of the philosophy of materialism itself. The latter takes place in the constant struggle of materialism with the latest varieties of idealistic philosophy.

In the 20th century, in Western philosophy, materialism developed mainly as mechanistic, but a number of Western materialist philosophers also retained an interest in dialectics. Materialism of the late XX and early XXI centuries is represented by the philosophical direction of "ontological philosophy", the leader of which is the American philosopher Barry Smith. For this reason philosophical materialism can be called an independent direction of philosophy, because it solves a number of problems, the formulation of which is excluded by other areas of philosophical knowledge.

The main   forms    materialism in the historical development of philosophical thought are:   antique materialism ,   historical materialism ,   metaphysical materialism New time    and   dialectical materialism .

Idealism concept

Idealism    - This is a philosophical trend that ascribes an active, creative role in the world to an exclusively ideal beginning and makes the material dependent on the ideal.

Introduction …………………………………………………………………………… ..3

I. Materialism and idealism:

1. The concept of materialism ……………………………………………………… .4

2. The concept of idealism ...................................... 8

3. The differences between materialism and idealism ...................... ........ 12

II. Historical forms of materialism:

1. Ancient materialism ……………………………………………………… 13

2. Metaphysical materialism of the New time ............................. 14

3. Dialectical materialism …………………………………………… .15

III. The difference between metaphysical and dialectical materialism ... 16

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………… 17

List of used literature …………………………………………… 18

Introduction

Philosophers want to know what is the meaning of human life. But for this you need to answer the question: what is a person? What is its essence? To determine the essence of man is to show his fundamental differences from everything else. The main difference is the mind, consciousness. Any human activity is directly related to the activity of his spirit, thought.

The history of philosophy is, in a certain sense, the history of the opposition of materialism and idealism, or, in other words, of how different philosophers understand the relationship of being and consciousness.

If a philosopher claims that at first a certain idea appeared in the world, a global mind, and all the diversity of the real world was born from them, then this means that we are dealing with an idealistic point of view on the main issue of philosophy. Idealism is such a type and a way of philosophizing that assigns an active creative role in the world exclusively to the spiritual principle; only after him recognizing the ability to self-development. Idealism does not deny matter, but considers it as a lower kind of being - not as creative, but as a secondary principle.

From the point of view of the proponents of materialism, matter, i.e. the basis of all the endless multitude of objects and systems existing in the world is primary, therefore a materialistic view of the world is fair. Consciousness, inherent only to man, reflects the surrounding reality.

purpose   this work - to study the features   materialism   and   idealism .

For   achievementsthe goals   the following were delivered   tasks :   1) to study theoretical material on the topic; 2) consider the features of philosophical movements; 3) to compare and identify the differences between these flows.

Forms   materialism and idealism are diverse. Distinguish between objective and subjective idealism, metaphysical, dialectical, historical and ancient materialism.

IMaterialism and idealism.

1. Materialism

Materialism - This is a philosophical trend that postulates the primacy and uniqueness of the material principle in the world and considers the ideal only as a property of the material. Philosophical materialism affirms the primacy of the material and the secondary of the spiritual, ideal, which means the eternity, uncreated world, its infinity in time and space. Thinking is inseparable from matter, which thinks, and the unity of the world consists in its materiality. Considering consciousness as a product of matter, materialism sees it as a reflection of the outside world. Materialistic Decision of the Second Side   the main issue of philosophy   - about the cognizability of the world - means the belief in the adequacy of the reflection of reality in the human mind, in the cognizability of the world and its laws. Materialism is characterized by reliance on science, evidence and verifiability of statements. Science has repeatedly refuted idealism, but so far has not been able to refute materialism. Under   content   materialism is understood as the totality of its original premises, its principles. Under   form   Materialism is understood as its general structure, determined primarily by the method of thinking. Thus, its content contains the general that is inherent in all schools and currents of materialism, in their opposition to idealism and agnosticism, and its specific form is associated with the special that characterizes individual schools and currents of materialism.

In the history of philosophy, materialism, as a rule, was the worldview of the advanced classes and layers of society, interested in the correct knowledge of the world, in strengthening human power over nature. Summarizing the achievements of science, he contributed to the growth of scientific knowledge, the improvement of scientific methods, which had a beneficial effect on the successes of human practice, on the development of productive forces. The criterion of the truth of materialism is socio-historical practice. It is in practice that the false constructions of idealists and agnostics are refuted, and its truth is conclusively proved. The word “materialism” began to be used in the 17th century mainly in the sense of physical ideas about matter (R. Boyle), and later in a more general, philosophical sense (G.V. Leibniz) to contrast materialism with idealism. The exact definition of materialism was first given by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Materialism went through 3 stages in its development .

First   the stage was associated with the naive or spontaneous materialism of the ancient Greeks and Romans (Empedocles, Anaximander, Democritus, Epicurus). The first teachings of materialism appear along with the emergence of philosophy in the slaveholding societies of ancient India, China and Greece in connection with progress in the field of astronomy, mathematics and other sciences. A common feature of ancient materialism is the recognition of the materiality of the world, its existence, regardless of people's consciousness. Its representatives sought to find in the diversity of nature the common principle of all that exists and is happening. In antiquity, Thales of Miletus believed that everything arises from water and turns into it. Ancient materialism, especially Epicurus, is characterized by an emphasis on personal self-improvement of man: his liberation from fear of the gods, from all passions and the acquisition of the ability to be happy in any circumstances. The merit of ancient materialism was the creation of a hypothesis about the atomistic structure of matter (Leucippus, Democritus).

In the Middle Ages, materialistic tendencies manifested themselves in the form of nominalism, the doctrine of the "perfection of nature and God." In the Renaissance, materialism (Telezio, Vruna and others) was often clothed in the form of pantheism and hylozoism, considered nature in its entirety and in many ways resembled the materialism of antiquity - it was time   second stage of development of materialism. In the 16-18 centuries, in the countries of Europe - the second stage in the development of materialism - Bacon, Hobbes, Helvetius, Galileo, Gassendi, Spinoza, Locke and others formulated metaphysical and mechanistic materialism. This form of materialism arose on the basis of nascent capitalism and the associated growth of production, technology, science. Acting as ideologists of the progressive bourgeoisie at that time, the materialists fought the medieval scholasticism and church authorities, turned to experience as a teacher and to nature as an object of philosophy. Materialism of the 17-18 centuries is associated with the rapidly progressing mechanics and mathematics then, which determined its mechanistic character. In contrast to the natural philosophical materialists of the Renaissance, materialists of the 17th century began to consider the last elements of nature as inanimate and unqualified. Remaining generally on the positions of a mechanistic understanding of movement, the French philosophers (Didro, Holbach and others) regarded it as a universal and inalienable property of nature, completely abandoned the deistic inconsistency inherent in most materialists of the 17th century. The organic connection that exists between all materialism and atheism among the French materialists of the 18th century was especially vivid. The pinnacle in the development of this form of materialism in the West was Feuerbach's “anthropological” materialism, in which contemplation manifested itself most vividly.

In the 1840s, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels formulated the basic principles of dialectical materialism - this was the beginning   third   stage of development of materialism. In Russia and Eastern Europe in the second half of the 19th century, a further step in the development of materialism was the philosophy of revolutionary democrats, which became derived from the combination of Hegelian dialectics and materialism (Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Markovich, Votev and others), based on the traditions of Lomonosov , Radishchev and others. One of the features of the development of dialectical materialism is its enrichment with new ideas. The modern development of science requires that natural scientists become conscious supporters of dialectical materialism. At the same time, the development of socio-historical practice and science requires the constant development and concretization of the philosophy of materialism itself. The latter takes place in the constant struggle of materialism with the latest varieties of idealistic philosophy.

In the 20th century, in Western philosophy, materialism developed mainly as mechanistic, but a number of Western materialist philosophers also retained an interest in dialectics. Materialism of the late XX and early XXI centuries is represented by the philosophical direction of "ontological philosophy", the leader of which is the American philosopher Barry Smith. For this reason philosophical materialism can be called an independent direction of philosophy, because it solves a number of problems, the formulation of which is excluded by other areas of philosophical knowledge.

The main   forms   materialism in the historical development of philosophical thought are:   antiquematerialism ,   historical materialism ,   metaphysicalmaterialismNewtime   and   dialecticalmaterialism .

Idealism concept

Idealism - This is a philosophical trend that ascribes an active, creative role in the world to an exclusively ideal beginning and makes the material dependent on the ideal.

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Materialistic philosophy considers the world around us as an objective reality that exists independently of our perception of it.

Marxist materialist philosophy considers randomness a complex form of manifestation of necessity, a multi-causal consequence of the manifestation of law. The above should be understood in the sense that the result of human actions, experiments, experiments (considered as a consequence) is influenced by many factors of the external world.

This position of materialist philosophy is confirmed by the entire development of science.

The further development of materialist philosophy is associated with the teachings of Democritus (V century. According to this theory, the basis of all things are atoms, of which there are countless, and the void in which they move. Moving in this void, the atoms join together and form different bodies. Everything, what exists is made up of atoms.

3. Materialism and idealism

Man differs from the animal in a special arrangement of the atoms of the soul, alternating with the atoms of the body.

The scientific basis of mechanics is materialistic philosophy. Marxist philosophical materialism proceeds from the fact that the world is inherently material.

We see that materialist philosophy does not at all hinder the development of special sciences by any dogma and requires only one thing: recognition as the source of knowledge of the outside world. Moreover, dialectical materialism gives the natural scientist the highest criterion for evaluating particulars, and precisely in those cases in which he himself often goes gropingly, changing his ideas only under very strong pressure of new facts. This is already evident from the fact that Lenin, not being a physicist, but on the basis of general philosophical views on the complexity of any form of matter, even at the dawn of the discovery of an electron predicted its inexhaustibility. But physicists themselves a long time later still presented the electron as a structureless point formation.

The assertion that materialistic philosophy requires the obligatory modeling of knowable objects has no basis.

As follows from the basic principles of materialist philosophy, the motion of matter is eternal, only the forms of motion of matter are diverse. In nature, there are continuous processes in which there is a transition from one form of movement to another.

The merits of Chernyshevsky in the development of Russian materialist philosophy are enormous.

Materialistic philosophy does not at all determine the concrete content of categories in special sciences, in particular, it does not determine concrete structures of matter, concrete forms of causality, concrete systems of transformations, and the corresponding invariants.

Enormous achievements of Chernyshevsky in the development of Russian materialist philosophy.

Great merits Chernyshevsky in the development of Russian materialist philosophy.

The spontaneously developing new, basically materialistic philosophy is closely connected with natural science and therefore differs in the same features. Its most important task is the conscious development of the methodology of science, and, therefore, concepts, including energy.

Conservation laws are closely related to the basic tenet of materialistic philosophy on the non-destructibility of matter.

His name is inextricably linked with the development in our country of materialistic philosophy, physics and chemistry, chemical technology and instrumentation, mining technology of glass and ceramic production, optics and astronomy, geology and mineralogy, geography and navigation, history and economics, philology and poetry.

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▪ Augustine Aurelius(354-430) - Christian theologian and mystic philosopher. In the essay “On the City of God” he developed the Christian concept of world history, understood fatally as the result of divine predestination. A deep psychological analysis of the formation of personality contains his autobiographical Confession.

▪ Anaximander(c. 610-after 547 BC) - an ancient Greek philosopher, representatives of the Milesian school. The main desire is to understand the essence of nature, Cosmos, the world as a whole; find the source from which everything came. Anaximander put forward the idea of \u200b\u200bthe infinity of worlds and gave the first formulation of the law of conservation of matter (things, being destroyed, turn into the same elements from which they arose).

▪ Aristotle Stagirite(384-322 BC) - an ancient Greek philosopher and encyclopedic scientist, the founder of the science of logic and a number of branches of special knowledge. Disciple of Plato. He founded his own school (of faces) in Athens. In philosophy, I distinguished parts: theoretical - the doctrine of being, its composition, causes and principles, practical - the doctrine of human activity and poetic - the doctrine of creativity. The main works: “Organon”, “Metaphysics”, “About the soul”, “Ethics”, “Politics”, “Rhetoric”.

▪ Boethius Anicius Manlius Severin(c. 480-524) - Christian philosopher and Roman statesman.

▪ Bruno Giordano(1548-1600) - Italian philosopher, a fighter against scholastic philosophy and the Roman Catholic Church, a propagandist of a materialistic worldview. After eight years in prison, it was burned by the Inquisition in Rome. He set forth his ideas in the form of philosophical dialogues: “On Cause, Beginning and One,” “On Infinity, the Universe, and the Worlds.”

▪ Buddha(literally means "enlightened") - the founder of Buddhism as an ethical and philosophical doctrine, which, according to legend, came from the royal family of the Shakya tribe in North India. He taught that life is suffering caused by desires and that there is a way to free oneself from suffering and achieve nirvana - a serene state of consciousness.

▪ Bacon Francis(1561-1626) - English philosopher and founder of the methodology of experimental science. Developed a new understanding of the tasks of science. He considered the goal of knowledge to increase human power over nature. To achieve this goal can only science, comprehending the true causes of phenomena. Work: “New Organon”.

▪ Voltaire (Francois Marie Aruet,1694-1778) - French writer, philosopher, historian, one of the leaders of the French Enlightenment. Recognizes the existence of a creator god as the “first mover." At the same time, he is a supporter of the mechanics and physics of Newton and inclines to identify God and nature. He fought against serfdom, advocated for the equality of citizens before the law. Works: “Philosophical Letters”, “Fundamentals of Newton's Philosophy”, “Experience on the mores and the spirit of peoples” and others.

▪ Galileo Galileo(1564-1642) - Italian thinker, scientist, one of the founders of exact natural science.

▪ Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich   (1770-1831) - German philosopher, objective idealist. Main works: “Phenomenology of the spirit”, “Science of logic”, “Philosophy of law”.

▪ Heraclitus of Ephesus(c. 520-c. 460 BC) - the ancient Greek philosopher-dialectician.

▪ Hobbes Thomas(1588-1679) - English materialist philosopher. In the doctrine of law and the state, he rejected the idea of \u200b\u200bthe divine establishment of society, upholding the theory of social contract. Hobbes' social teaching had a significant influence on the development of European social thought. The main works: “Philosophical elements of the doctrine of the citizen”, “Leviathan”.

▪ Descartes Rene(1596-1650) - French philosopher, mathematician, physicist. One of the founders of the new philosophy and new science, who demanded a revision of the entire past tradition. He put forward the ideas of rationalism. His rationalism was one of the sources of the Enlightenment philosophy. The main works: "The discussion of the method", "The Beginning of Philosophy."

▪ Democritus(c. 470-370 BC) - the ancient Greek materialist philosopher, one of the founders of the doctrine of atoms (the smallest indivisible particles of which everything consists of the world).

▪ James William(1842-1910) - American philosopher and psychologist, the largest representative of pragmatism, the doctrine that made the importance of knowledge dependent on its practical consequences. The main works: “Principles of Psychology”, “Pragmatism”.

▪ Diderot Denis(1713-1784) - French materialist philosopher, writer, ideologist of the Enlightenment. Founder and editor of the Encyclopedia, or Explanatory Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts.

▪ Camus Alber(1913-1960) - French writer and philosopher, representative of existentialism, Nobel laureate (1957). The central theme of philosophy is the meaning of human existence. Considering the contradictions of the spiritual and social life of the individual, he comes to the conclusion that the existence of man is absurd, meaningless. The meaninglessness of human life in Camus personifies the mythological image of Sisyphus. Works: “Rebel Man”, “Myth of Sisyphus” and others.

▪ Kant Immanuel(1724-1804) - German philosopher, the founder of German classical philosophy. He was a professor at the University of Koenigsberg, a foreign honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1794). Developed a hypothesis of the origin of the solar system from the original nebula. He put forward a “critical philosophy”, the main problem of which is the problem of the mind and analysis of its capabilities. Major works: "General Natural History and Theory of Heaven", "Critique of Pure Reason", "Critique of Practical Mind", "Critique of Judgment Ability".

▪ Confucius(c. 5151-479 BC) - an ancient Chinese thinker, the founder of Confucianism. His name is associated with the wording of the "golden rule of morality": "Do not do to others what you would not want yourself."

▪ Locke John(1632-1704) - English philosopher, creator of the political doctrine of liberalism. This concept is based on the theory of natural law and social contract. In pedagogy, he proceeded from the decisive influence of the environment on education. The main work: "The experience of the human mind."

▪ Machiavelli Nicolo(1469-1527) - Italian political thinker, writer. In the work, "Sovereign" revealed the principles of political power.

▪ Montaigne Michel(1533-1592) - French philosopher of the Renaissance. He resolutely rejected Christian ethics with its call for the mortification of the flesh. He put forward the idea of \u200b\u200bequality of people.

What is materialism and idealism? What is the difference?

He demanded a rejection of opinions taken on faith, called for all questions to be submitted to the court of reason. The main work: "Experiments."

▪ Nietzsche Friedrich(1844-1900) - German philosopher, representative of philosophical irrationalism, one of the founders of the "philosophy of life." He sharply criticized Christianity. He made a radical "reappraisal of values", which took shape in European philosophy. The main works: "So said Zarathustra", "On the other side of good and evil."

▪ Pythagoras of Samos(VII century BC) - an ancient Greek thinker, religious and political figure, the founder of Pythagoreanism, a mathematician who first called philosophy a philosophy.

▪ Plato(428-348) - an ancient Greek philosopher, a student of Socrates, a representative of objective idealism. At the center of cosmology is the doctrine of the “world soul,” psychology, the doctrine that the soul is imprisoned in our body, but capable of reincarnation. In the doctrine of society, he portrayed an ideal aristocratic state based on the division of labor, where “philosophers” rule, guards are “guards” or “warriors”, and the main   social needs are provided by “artisans”. The main works: “Apology of Socrates”, “Sophist”, “Parmenides”, “State”.

▪ Russo Jean Jacques(1712-1778) - French philosopher, sociologist and theorist of pedagogy. He sharply criticized the despotic regime, spoke out for bourgeois democracy and civil liberties, for the equality of people regardless of birth. The main essays: “A discussion of the origin and foundations of inequality between people”, “On a social contract, or the Principles of Political Law”.

▪ Sartre Jean Paul(1905-1980) - French philosopher, writer, representative of atheistic existentialism. The main category is freedom, it appears as the essence and basis of human behavior. The main works: “Imagination”, “Being and Nothing”, “Existentialism is Humanism”, “Situations”.

▪ Seneca (Lucius Anney)(c. 4 BC-65 AD) - Roman philosopher, mentor of the emperor Nero. He considered ethics the main part of philosophy, in which he taught contempt for death and fate, preached freedom from passions and moral equality. Seneca’s views are set forth in “Letters to Lucius”.

▪ Socrates(470-399 BC) - an ancient Greek philosopher, one of the founders of dialectics as a means of finding the truth by raising leading questions - the so-called Socratic method. For subsequent ages, Socrates became the embodiment of the ideal of the sage. The goal of philosophy and human life was considered self-knowledge.

▪ Teilhard de Chardin Pierre(1881-1955) - French philosopher. His philosophical concept is “Christian evolutionism”. God - is represented in every particle of the Universe in the form of a special spiritual energy, which is the driving and directing force of evolution. An important place in the process of improving the world, which with the emergence of man is carried out through the consciousness and activity of people, belongs to science. The main works: "Divine environment", "The phenomenon of man."

▪ Thales of Miletus(640 - c. 562 BC) - one of the legendary "seven wise men", is considered the first ancient Greek philosopher, the founder of the Milesian philosophical school. The main desire is to understand the essence of nature, Cosmos, the world as a whole; find the source from which everything came. Thales has such a principle of all things - water ("Everything from the water").

▪ Freud Sigmund(1856-1939) - Austrian psychiatrist, founder of psychoanalysis. One of the first to study the psychological aspects of the development of sexuality. I interpreted Western European culture as the highest point of violence against natural drives, which inevitably leads to the neurotization of the human psyche, sacrifices natural impulses, the energy of which begins to serve social purposes. These ideas had a huge impact on various areas of philosophy, sociology, psychology, literature and art. Main works: “On the other side of the pleasure principle”, “Dissatisfaction with culture”, “I and IT”.

▪ Heidegger Martin(1899-1976) - the largest German philosopher, one of the founders of existentialism. The main category of philosophy is “temporality”, understood as an inner experience of a person. In order to comprehend the "meaning of being", a person must renounce all practical goals, to realize his "mortality", "mortality". Only by feeling constant in the face of death, is a person able to see the significance and fullness of every moment of life. The main works: “Being and Time”, “Introduction to Metaphysics”.

▪ Schopenhauer Arthur(1788-1860) - German philosopher-pessimist. He interprets the world as an illusion (representation), which is based on a blind, unreasonable will - an attraction to life, following which leads to suffering. The meaning of philosophy is to get rid of suffering and gain a serene state of consciousness. This is the ideal of "nirvana", borrowed from Buddhism. The main work: "The world as a will and a representation."

▪ Spengler Oswald(1880-1936) - German philosopher, representative of the philosophy of life. It introduces the idea of \u200b\u200bplurality and locality of cultures. Draws an analogy between culture and forms of organic life. Like a plant, each culture is separate from all others and goes through a cycle of development from birth to death. Dying, culture is reborn into civilization. The transition from culture to civilization is a transition from creativity to sterility, from becoming to ossification, from "heroic deeds" to mechanical work.

The main work: "Sunset of Europe."

CONTROL QUESTIONS

1. Philosophy, its subject and functions.

2. The philosophy of antiquity: cosmology, ontology, anthropology, ethics.

3. The philosophy of the Middle Ages: theocentrism.

4. Philosophical directions of the Renaissance: humanism and natural philosophy.

5. New time: empiricism and rationalism, Marxism.

6. The philosophy of modern times: scientism, irrationalism, existentialism.

7. The nature and essence of man.

8. The problem of the meaning of human life.

9. Consciousness and its structure.

10. The unity of sensory and rational knowledge.

11. Types of spiritual values: worldview, moral, aesthetic.

12. Philosophical concepts of history: antique, Christian, rationalistic, theory of local cultures and civilizations.

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Since matter and consciousness exist, exist, so far as the need for philosophy arose, the questions “What is the foundation of the world — matter or consciousness?” And “What is the main (primary) in cognition — feelings or reason?” Depending on how the first was decided question, in philosophy, the following main directions : materialism; idealism; dualism. Depending on how the second question was resolved, in philosophy such main directions were formed as: empiricism and rationalism

MATERIALISM(so-called "Line of Democritus") - a direction in philosophy, whose supporters believed that matter is the source, the ultimate foundation of the world, and consciousness is a product of matter. Matter   really exists; matter exists independently of consciousness (that is, it exists regardless of whether someone thinks about it or not); matter is an independent substance - does not need its existence in anything other than itself; matter exists and develops according to its internal laws. Consciousness is a property of such matter as the human brain. Consciousness is not an independent substance, i.e. cannot exist without matter, being its property. Famous Materialist Philosophers: Thales, Democritus, Epicurus, Bacon, Locke, Didro, Marx and many others. Philosophers representing the direction of materialism, rely on science   (primarily in the natural sciences: physics, mathematics, chemistry, etc.), many of the principles of materialist philosophers are logically provable.

Vulgar materialism.   In philosophical materialism stands out special direction – vulgar materialism.   Its representatives (Buchner, Focht, Moleshott) are excessively keen on the study of matter from the point of view of physics, mathematics and chemistry, its mechanical side; consciousness is considered the same matter as the gray matter of the human brain.

IDEALISM (so-called "Plato line")- a direction in philosophy, whose supporters believed that the idea (intangible) is the fundamental principle of the world, and the material world is a derivative of the idea (intangible).

In idealism   exists two independent directions: objective idealism   and subjective idealism.

Objective idealism.(Plato, Leibniz, Hegel, etc.) Founder - Plato.According to the concept of objective idealism: an idea is the beginning of all things and phenomena of the material world. In Plato, the world is divided into two worlds - the "world of ideas" and the "world of things." “World of things” - the material world is created by the “world of ideas”. Every single thing is an embodiment of an idea: for example, a live, real horse is an embodiment of the idea of \u200b\u200ba horse, a real, material house is an embodiment of an idea of \u200b\u200ba house, real kind and beautiful people are an embodiment of ideas of good and beauty, etc.). The “world of ideas” always exists, forever, never changes; only the "world of things" is changing. This "world of ideas" exists outside the human consciousness, regardless of the person.

Subjective idealism. (Berkeley, Hume, etc.). - Ideas exist only in the human mind. Ideas of material things also exist only in the consciousness of man. Outside the consciousness of an individual person, ideas and material things do not exist.

Idealism as a philosophical trend dominated in ancient Greece, in the Middle Ages. It is currently widely distributed in the USA, Germany, and other countries of Western Europe.

DUALISM   (from lat. dualis - dual) - a philosophical direction that allows the simultaneous existence of two independent first principles of the world (substances) - material (has the property of extension) and spiritual (has the property of thinking). Material substance produces material things, and spiritual substance produces ideas. In a man, two substances are combined simultaneously - both material and spiritual. Matter and spirit always exist and complement each other.

EMPIRICISM   (from the Greek. empiria - experience) - in philosophy it also represents a philosophical direction and method in cognition. Founder of empiricism   - English philosopher 17 ineka F. Bacon. Its most important representatives in the 17-18 centuries. there were also T. Hobbes, J. Locke, E. Condillac. Representatives of empiricism are convinced that only sensory experience is the only source of knowledge, only sensory organs give a person reliable knowledge. The human mind only generalizes the material obtained by the senses from experience. The scientific method of empiricism is induction.True knowledge we receive only from experience, i.e. when we go from private to general. For example, experience shows that many individual   metals (particular) melt, therefore everything   metals have the property of melting (general). The ultimate goal of knowledge is the dominance of man over nature. The tendency characteristic of empiricism to consider as more reliable the knowledge that is obtained through organs has found expression in various forms positivism 19-20 centuries. Positivists drew a sharp line between theoretical and empirical knowledge.For example, representatives of logical positivism considered only the so-called protocol sentences reliable, which are a concentrated expression of sensory experience: “A cow is a herbivore,” “Squares have equal angles,” “All metals melt,” “The whole is bigger than its part,” and etc. All genuine scientific theories and sentences can be reduced (reduced) to protocol sentences. All that cannot be reduced to protocol proposals, i.e. to sensory perception, logical positivists considered deprived of cognitive significance and simply meaningless.

Empiricism is the opposite of rationalism.

Rationalism(from lat. ratio - mind) - philosophical direction and method in cognition. The founder of rationalism -french philosopher 17 ineka R. Descartes.   Its most important representatives in the 17th century. there were also B. Spinoza and G.V. Leibniz. The representatives of rationalism are convinced that true knowledge can only be obtained from the mindwithout the influence of experience and sensations. The scientific method of rationalism - deduction.True knowledge we receive only from the mind, i.e. when we go from the general (ideas) to the particular (to experimental, sensual facts). There are truths that are obvious to the mind (axioms) and do not need proof through experience, for example, God, number, will, body, soul, “nothing comes from nothing”, “you cannot be and not be at the same time”, etc. d. Such truths make it possible to experience the empirical, sensual world. Mind expands and deepens the knowledge of a person about the world around him. Rationalism is the opposite of empiricism, irrationalism, the philosophy of life, etc.

Irrationalism   (from lat. irrationalis - unreasonable) - a special direction and method in philosophy. The most important representatives   - Nietzsche, Schopenhauer. Representatives of irrationalism deny the possibility of rational (reasonable) knowledge of reality.

Materialism and idealism: the essence and difference

Irrationalism puts forward irrational aspects to the fore   cognitive abilities of a person: instinct, intuition, feeling, will, mystical "insight", imagination, love, unconscious, etc. From their point of view, life itself, the world are illogical in nature, therefore the mind is powerless to know them.

AGNOSTICISM   (from Greek. a - negative prefix, gnosis - knowledge, agnostos - inaccessible to knowledge). Representatives of agnosticism are convinced that the world is unknowable. The most important representatives   - New Age philosophers (17th c.) - D. Hume and I. Kant. I. Kantrecognizes that independently of us there is an outside world - "Thing in itself". “The thing in itself” is the source and cause of our sensations, but that’s all we can say about it. Sensations and concepts give us ideas - "things for us." But the question of whether our ideas about the objects of the external world are similar to these objects themselves has no solution. Let's say we eat cherries. We see the scarlet color of the cherry, we feel its juiciness, softness, sweet and sour taste. All of our subjective experiences, our reason combines in a holistic object called "cherry". But is this “cherry” designed by us similar to a real object that generated the corresponding sensations in us? To answer this question, it would be necessary to compare our image of cherries with reality. but man is not able to see the world on his own; he sees it only through the prism of his sensuality. Therefore, a person can never know what the world is in itself. After Kant, every philosopher already draws a line between our view of the world and the outside world itself. One of the major representatives of agnosticism in philosophy 20 in. was K. Popper. This philosopher was convinced that, knowing the world, a person does not receive true knowledge, but only discovers a lie in his views. The progress of cognition is expressed not in the discovery and accumulation of truths, but in exposing and discarding errors.

The merit of agnosticism to philosophy lies in the fact that he refuted the position of "naive realism" - the belief that the outside world is exactly the way we imagine it.

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Question number 3. The problem of materialism and idealism in philosophy

The division into materialism and idealism has existed from the very beginning of the development of philosophy. The German philosopher G.V. Leibniz called Epicurus the largest materialist, but Plato - The Biggest Idealist.

Materialism - explains everything from matter, accepts matter as something first, original, as the source of all things.

Idealism - all deduces from one spirit, explains the emergence of matter from the spirit or subordinates to it. Historical developmentmaterialism:

Materialism of the Ancient East and Ancient Greece   - this is the initial form of materialism, within which objects and the world are considered on their own, regardless of consciousness and consisting of material formations and elements (Thales, Leucippus, Democritus, Heraclitus, etc.).

Metaphysical (mechanistic)   materialism. It is based on the study of nature. However, the whole variety of its properties and relations is reduced to the mechanical form of the motion of matter (G. Galilei, F. Bacon).

Dialectical materialismin which materialism and dialectics are represented in an organic unity (K. Marx, F. Engels, etc.).

Consistent materialism   - within its framework, the principle of materialism extends to both nature and society (Marxism).

Inconsistent materialism   - there is no materialistic understanding of society and history (L. Feuerbach). A specific form of inconsistent materialism is deism, whose representatives, although they recognized God, sharply reduced their functions, reducing them to the creation of matter and giving it the initial impulse of movement (F. Bacon, M.V. Lomonosov).

Distinguish between scientific and vulgar materialism. The latter, in particular, reduces the ideal to the material, consciousness identifies with matter (Focht, Moleshott, Buchner).

Like materialismidealism also heterogeneous. First of all, it is necessary to distinguish between its two main varieties:

Objective idealism   proclaims the independence of an idea, god, spirit - in general, an ideal beginning, not only from matter, but also from human consciousness (Plato, F. Aquinas, Hegel).

Subjective idealism   affirms the dependence of the external world, its properties and relations on human consciousness (J. Berkeley). The extreme form of subjective idealism is solipsism.

According to him, one can only speak with certainty about the existence of my own “I” and my sensations.

There are various varieties of idealism: rationalism and irrationalism. According to idealisticrationalism, the basis of all things and their knowledge is the mind.

2.2 The difference between idealism and materialism

Point of viewirrationalism   consists in denying the possibility of a reasonable and logical knowledge of reality. Here, instinct, faith, revelation, etc., are recognized as the main type of knowledge, and self-identity is considered irrational (S. Kierkegaard, A. Bergson, M. Heidegger, etc.).

In the history of philosophy, the constant confrontation of materialism and idealism.

In the ancient period - militant idealism. Militant materialism is in our century. But this “struggle” should not be absolutized and assumed that it always and everywhere determines the development of philosophy. An example of the conjugation of materialism and idealism is the position deism. It is no accident that the thinkers of materialistic (F. Bacon, J. Locke), and idealistic (G. Leibniz), and dualistic(R. Descartes) directions.

The unity of the positions of materialism and idealism is found in solving the question of the cognizability of the world. So, agnostics and skeptics were both in the camp of materialism (Democritus) and idealism (Kant), and the principle of knowability of the world was defended not only by materialists (Marxism), but also idealists (Hegel)

Idealism and Materialism of Plato

1. The concept of idealism and materialism

In philosophy, depending on the solution of its main issue, two directions are distinguished - idealism and materialism.

Materialism and idealism (page 1 of 3)

Their opposite is recorded by various thinkers, although the question itself is a question about the relationship of thinking and being ...

Idealism as a direction of philosophical thought

1.1 The concept of "ideal" and "idealism"

Being one of the most fundamental, the problem of the ideal is one of the central places in philosophy. Extremely broad categories of matter and consciousness ...

Critique of religion and idealism in Feuerbach's philosophy

2. Criticism of Hegelian idealism

Feuerbach’s doctrine did not arise from scratch that the materialist tradition never disappeared from German philosophizing.

In the prerevolutionary era, German science is developing successfully. A number of significant discoveries are being made. F ...

Materialism and its varieties

2. The ratio of materialism and idealism

The eternal philosophical question, which is primary: spirit or matter, ideal or material? This question is the main one for philosophy, forms the basis of any philosophical construction ...

Worldview, its types

2. The difference between philosophy as a type of worldview from other worldview systems

Science as a special phenomenon of public life

2. Characteristic features of science and its difference from other branches of culture

Considering such a multifaceted phenomenon as science, three aspects can be distinguished: the cultural sector; a way of knowing the world; special institute (the concept of an institute here includes not only a higher educational institution, but also scientific societies ...

The problem of man and the meaning of his existence

2.2 The difference between humans and animals

The most massive, developed, intelligent, "attractive", aggressive, predatory, etc. view among all representatives of the animal kingdom is a man. Humans are just another kind of animal, so there are so many signs ...

Problems of the ideal

2.2 Systems of objective idealism

Problems of the ideal

2.2.1 Foundations of objective idealism

The main fact, on the basis of which the classical systems of objective idealism grew, is the actual fact of the independence of the total culture of mankind and the forms of its organization from an individual person ...

The philosophy of ancient medicine

2. The difference between Indian philosophy and Greek

It is difficult to speak with confidence about the theoretical foundations of ancient Indian medicine. The very nature of the development of philosophical and religious teachings in India suggests a profound difference between its medicine and European ...

Philosophy of beauty

3.1 Aesthetic worldview of idealism

An idealistic interpretation of the beautiful organically grows out of the transcendence of the mythological worldview as a result of deepening reflection. It reflected the awareness of the infinity of the Universe ...

The philosophy of Plato, its objective idealistic character

1.3 The ideological origins of Platonic idealism

Even people who have not studied the history of philosophy or have studied it superficially imagine more or less vaguely that idealism is a doctrine according to which the true being of things is thought, idea, concept ...

Philosophical views of natural scientists of the Renaissance (N. Copernicus, I. Kepler, G. Galilei)

1. The philosophy of natural science and natural philosophy: the causes of occurrence, essence, difference from idealistic thinkers

In the XIV century, a new cultural and historical movement was approved in Europe, which determined the direction of all subsequent stages of Western civilization and was called the Renaissance ...

The characteristic of ancient philosophy

1. The main forms of materialism and idealism in the philosophy of antiquity

One of the questions that reveal the nature of philosophical thinking is “What is primary: spirit or matter, ideal or material?” The general understanding of being depends on its solution, for material and ideal are its ultimate characteristics ...

Jaspers and philosophical faith

1. The similarity and difference between the ideas of Jaspers and other philosophers about faith

Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) is an outstanding German philosopher, psychologist and psychiatrist, one of the founders of existentialism. For him, the idea of \u200b\u200b"philosophical conscientiousness" was symbolized by I. Kant, and the idea of \u200b\u200ban amazing breadth of vision was symbolized by I.V. Goethe ...

Philosophy provides a rich ground for thought. One way or another, we are all philosophers. After all, each of us at least once thought about the meaning of life and other issues of life. This science is an effective toolkit of mental activity. As you know, any kind of human activity is directly related to the activity of thought and spirit. The whole history of philosophy is a kind of confrontation between idealistic and materialistic views. Different philosophers look at the relationship of consciousness and being in different ways. The article considers idealism and its manifestations in a subjective and objective sense.

General concepts of idealism

Focusing on an active creative role in the world of an exclusively spiritual principle, idealism does not deny the material, but speaks of it as a lower level of being, a secondary principle without a creative component. The theory of this philosophy leads a person to the idea of \u200b\u200bself-development ability.

In the philosophy of idealism, the directions are formed: objective and subjective idealism, rationalism and irrationalism.

Idealism is a philosophical theory that assigns an active role to the ideal principle endowed with a creative component. Material is made dependent on the ideal. Idealism and materialism do not have uniform concrete manifestations.

Such directions as objective and subjective idealism also have their manifestations, which can also be distinguished into separate directions. For example, the extreme form in subjective idealism is solipsism, according to which we can reliably speak only of the existence of a personal "I" and our own feelings.

Realism and Irrationalism

Idealistic rationalism suggests that the basis of all things and knowledge is the mind. His branch - panlogism, claims that everything real is embodied by reason, and the laws of being are subordinate to the laws of logic.

Irrationalism, which means unconscious, is the denial of logic and reason, as an instrument of cognition of reality. This philosophical theory claims that the main way of cognition is instinct, revelation, faith, and similar manifestations of human being. Being itself is also considered from the point of view of irrationality.

Two main forms of idealism: their essence and how they differ

Objective and subjective idealism have common features in the idea of \u200b\u200bthe beginning of all being. However, they differ significantly among themselves.

Subjective - this means belonging to a person (subject) and dependent on his consciousness.

Objective - indicates the independence of a phenomenon from the human consciousness and the person himself.

Unlike bourgeois philosophy, which has many separate forms of idealism, socialist Marxism-Leninism divided it into only two groups: subjective and objective idealism. The differences between them in his interpretation are as follows:

• the objective takes as the basis of reality the universal spirit (personal or impersonal), as a kind of supra-individual consciousness;
• subjective idealism reduces knowledge of the world and being to individual consciousness.

It is worth emphasizing that the difference between these forms of idealism is not absolute.

In class society, idealism has become a science-like continuation of mythological, religious and fantastic ideas. According to materialists, idealism absolutely inhibits the development of human knowledge and scientific progress. At the same time, some representatives of idealistic philosophy reflect on new epistemological questions and study the forms of the cognition process, which seriously stimulate the emergence of a number of important problems of philosophy.

How did objective and subjective idealism develop in philosophy?

Idealism has been shaped like for many centuries. His story is complex and multifaceted. At different stages, it was expressed in various types and forms of evolution of social consciousness. He was influenced by the nature of the changing formations of society, scientific discoveries.

Already in Ancient Greece, idealism was exposed in the main forms. Both objective and subjective idealism gradually gained their supporters. The classical form of objective idealism is the Platonic philosophy, the peculiarity of which is a close relationship with religion and mythology. Plato believed that they are unchanging and eternal, in contrast to material objects that are subject to change and destruction.

In the era of the ancient crisis, this connection is strengthened. Neoplatonism begins to develop, into which mythology and mysticism are harmoniously interwoven.

In the Middle Ages, the characteristics of objective idealism become even more pronounced. At this time, philosophy is completely subordinate to theology. Thomas Aquinas played a large role in the restructuring of objective idealism. He relied on distorted Aristotelianism. After Thomas, the basic concept of the objective-idealistic scholastic philosophy became the non-material form, interpreted by the target principle of the will of God, who wisely planned the final world in space and time.

What is materialism expressed in?

Idealism subjective and objective is the exact opposite of materialism, which states:

• the material world is independent of one's consciousness and exists objectively;
• consciousness is secondary, matter is primary, therefore, consciousness is a property of matter;
• objective reality is a subject of knowledge.

The founder of materialism in philosophy is Democritus. The essence of his teachings is that the basis of any matter is an atom (material particle).

Feelings and the question of being

Any teaching, including objective and subjective idealism in philosophy, is the result of reasoning and the search for the meaning of human life.

Of course, each new form of philosophical knowledge arises after an attempt to solve a vital issue of human existence and knowledge. Only through our senses do we receive information about the world around us. The formed image depends on the structure of our senses. It is possible that if they were otherwise arranged, the outside world would also appear before us different.