The problem of the main question of philosophy and various options for its solution. Philosophy in Brief: The Basic Question of Philosophy

1. Main traditionally considered in philosophy the question of the relationship of thinking to being, and being - to thinking (consciousness).

Matter and consciousness (spirit) are two inseparable and at the same time opposite characteristics of being. In this regard, there are two sides of the main question of philosophy- ontological and epistemological.

ontological The (existential) side of the main question of philosophy lies in the formulation and solution of the problem: what is primary - matter or consciousness?

essence epistemological (cognitive) sides of the main question: is the world cognizable or unknowable, what is primary in the process of cognition?

Depending on the ontological and epistemological aspects in philosophy, the main directions are distinguished - respectively, materialism and idealism, as well as empiricism and rationalism.

When considering the ontological (existential) side of the main question of philosophy, we can distinguish such directions, as:

Objective idealism;

Subjective idealism;

Materialism;

Vulgar materialism;

Dualism;

epistemological (cognitive) side:

Gnosticism;

Agnosticism;

Empiricism (sensualism);

Rationalism.

2. ontological side The main question of philosophy is:

Materialism;

Idealism;

Dualism.

Materialism(so-called "line of Democritus")- a direction in philosophy, whose supporters believed that in the relationship between matter and consciousness, matter is primary.

Hence:

Matter really exists;

Matter exists independently of consciousness (that is, it exists independently of thinking beings and whether anyone 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 (spirit) is a property (mode) of highly organized matter to reflect itself (matter);

Consciousness is not an independent substance existing along with matter;

Consciousness is determined by matter (being).

Such philosophers as Democritus belonged to the materialistic trend; philosophers of the Miletus school (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes); Epicurus; Bacon; Locke; Spinoza; Diderot and others

French materialists; Herzen; Chernyshevsky; Marx; Engels; Lenin.

The virtue of materialism is its reliance on science. especially on the exact and natural (physics, mathematics, chemistry, etc.), the logical provability of many positions of the materialists.

The weak side of materialism is an insufficient explanation of the essence of consciousness, the presence of phenomena of the surrounding world that are inexplicable from the point of view of materialists.

In materialism, a special direction stands out - vulgar materialism. Its representatives (Vocht, Moleschott) absolutize the role of matter, are overly carried away by the study of matter from the point of view of physics, mathematics and chemistry, its mechanical side, ignore consciousness itself as an entity and its ability to influence matter in response.

Materialism as the dominant trend in philosophy was widespread in democratic Greece, the Hellenistic states, England during the period of the bourgeois revolution (XVII century), France in the XVIII century, the USSR and socialist countries in the XX century.

Idealism ("Plato's line")- a direction in philosophy, whose supporters in the relationship of matter and consciousness considered consciousness (idea, spirit) to be primary.

In idealism, there are two independent directions:

Objective idealism (Plato, Leibniz, Hegel, and others);

Subjective idealism (Berkeley, Hume).

Founder objective idealism considered Plato. According to the concept of objective idealism:

Only the idea really exists;

The idea is primary;

The whole surrounding reality is divided into "the world of ideas" and "the world of things";

the "world of ideas" (eidos) initially exists in the World Mind (Divine Plan, etc.);

"the world of things" - the material world does not have an independent existence and is the embodiment of the "world of ideas";

Each single thing is the embodiment of the idea (eidos) of this thing (for example, a horse is the embodiment of the general idea of a horse, a house is the idea of a house, a ship is the idea of a ship, etc.);

God the Creator plays a big role in transforming a "pure idea" into a concrete thing;

Separate ideas ("the world of ideas") objectively exist independently of our consciousness.

In contrast to the objective idealists subjective idealists(Berkeley, Hume and others) believed that:

Everything exists only in the consciousness of the cognizing subject (man);

Ideas exist in the human mind;

Images (ideas) of material things also exist only in the human mind through sensory sensations;

Outside the consciousness of an individual, neither matter nor spirit (ideas) exist.

A weak feature of idealism is the absence of a reliable (logical) explanation for the very existence of "pure ideas" and the transformation of a "pure idea" into a concrete thing (the mechanism for the emergence of matter and ideas).

Idealism as a philosophical trend dominated in Platonic Greece, the Middle Ages, and is now widespread in the USA, Germany, and other countries of Western Europe.

As well as polar (competing) main directions of philosophy - materialism and idealism - there are intermediate (compromise) currents - dualism, deism.

Dualism as a philosophical direction was founded by Descartes. The essence of dualism thing is:

Exist two independent substances material (having the property of extension) and spiritual (having the property of thinking);

Everything in the world is derived (is a modus) either from one or another of the indicated substances (material things - from the material, ideas - from the spiritual);

In a person, two substances are combined at the same time - both material and spiritual;

Matter and consciousness (spirit) are two opposite and interconnected sides of a single being;

the main question of philosophy (which is primary - matter or consciousness) does not really exist, since matter and consciousness complement each other and always exist. Deism- direction in philosophy, the supporters of which

(mainly French enlighteners of the 18th century) recognized the existence of God, who, in their opinion, having once created the world, no longer participates in its further development and does not affect the life and actions of people (that is, they recognized God, who practically does not have any "powers" , which should only serve as a moral symbol). Deists also considered matter to be spiritualized and did not oppose matter and spirit (consciousness).

3. Gnoseological side the main question of philosophy is presented:

Empiricism (sensualism);

Rationalism.

Founder empiricism is an F. Bacon.

The empiricists believed that knowledge can only be based on experience and sensory sensations("There is nothing in thoughts (in the mind) that would not have been before in experience and sensory sensations").

founder rationalism(from lat. ratio - mind) is considered R. Descartes.

The main idea of rationalism is that true (reliable) knowledge can only be derived directly from the mind and does not depend on sensory experience. (Firstly, only doubt in everything really exists, and doubt - thought - is the activity of the mind. Secondly, there are truths that are obvious to the mind (axioms) and do not need any experimental proof - "God exists", "At square equal angles", "The whole is greater than its part", etc.)

As a special direction, irrationalism(Nietzsche, Schopenhauer). According to irrationalists, the world is chaotic, has no internal logic, and therefore will never be known by the mind.

The concepts of gnosticism and agnosticism are connected with the epistemological side of the main question of philosophy.

Representatives gnosticism(usually materialists) believe that:

We know the world;

The possibilities of knowledge are unlimited. The opposite point of view is held agnostics

(usually idealists):

The world is unknowable;

The possibilities of cognition are limited by the cognitive possibilities of the human mind.

Among the prominent theoreticians of agnosticism was Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). According to Kant, the human mind has great possibilities, but these possibilities also have their limits. Based on the finiteness and limitations of the cognitive capabilities of the human mind, there are riddles (contradictions) that will never be solved by a person, for example:

God exists God does not exist

In total, Hunt singles out four such insoluble contradictions (antinomies) (see question 36 "The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant").

However, according to Kant, even what is included in the cognitive capabilities of the human mind will still never be known, since the mind can only know the reflection of a thing in sensory sensations, but will never know the inner essence of this thing - "thing in itself".

4. At present, in spite of thousands of years of searching for philosophers, fundamental question of philosophy has not been reliably resolved either from the ontological or epistemological side, and in fact is eternal (unresolved) philosophical problem.

In the twentieth century in Western philosophy there has been a tendency to pay less attention to the traditional basic question of philosophy, since it is difficult to resolve and is gradually losing its relevance.

Jaspers, Heidegger, Camus and others laid the foundations for the fact that another basic question of philosophy may appear in the future - problem of existentialism that is, the problem of a person, his existence, managing his own spiritual world, relationships within society and with society, his free choice, the search for the meaning of life and his place in life, happiness.

Introduction

3. Modern approach to understanding the main question of philosophy

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Philosophy is a generalized system of views on the world and the place of man in it. Such views are a body of rationally acquired knowledge, based on questions and the indefatigable desire of a person to answer them. But the nature of knowledge is such that the answer to one question often gives rise to a host of other questions and sometimes not only clarifies, but even more confuses the problem, sharpening human curiosity and prompting new research.

Every student of philosophy, sooner or later naturally, has an interest in whether there are such questions, problems in philosophy that would be paramount in relation to all the others, that is, the most important, main, basic. This topic is of interest not only for beginners, but also for professional philosophers, among whom some pay serious attention to it, while others, on the contrary, do not consider it relevant. And yet, if we take a general look at the entire long history of philosophy, it is not difficult to see that the "eternal" philosophical problems concerning the origin, genesis, essence, universe and man, as well as, for example, the meaning of life, the nature of human knowledge, etc. etc., are present in one way or another in all philosophical teachings, fragmentary or, on the contrary, are discussed in detail in various philosophical works, regardless of who exactly they belong to and to what time they belong.

1. Traditional interpretation of the main question of philosophy

It is difficult to find a philosopher who would not reveal his attitude to what consciousness, thinking, spirit, ideal are and how they relate to matter, nature, being. This circumstance gave F. Engels (1820-1895) a basis in his time to formulate the so-called "basic question of philosophy", in which two sides are distinguished.

The first of these concerns the relationship between the material and the ideal. The question is put like this: "What is primary, matter or spirit (consciousness)?" or, as F. Engels himself said: "The great fundamental question of all philosophy, especially the latest one, is the question of the relation of thinking to being."

The second side is closely related to the first and is formulated as follows: "Do we know the world?" In other words: "Can we, in our ideas and concepts of the real world, constitute a true reflection of reality?"

Depending on how certain philosophers answer the first question, they are divided into materialists (who believe that the world is originally material, and consciousness is a product of this matter) and idealists (who believe that at the basis of the world there is something ideal, preceding matter and the creator of it). These concepts will be discussed in more detail in the next section.

In answers to the question about the cognizability of the world among philosophers, there are also different approaches, where two extreme positions are distinguished. One of them is called epistemological optimism, according to which it is believed that a person’s cognitive abilities are in principle unlimited, and sooner or later he will be able to discover the laws of nature and society that interest him, reveal the essence of things and establish the true picture of the world. In this context, one should mention G.V. Hegel, K. Marx and numerous supporters of his teachings.

Another position is taken by agnostics, who believe that complete (or even partial) knowledge of the world, the essence of things and phenomena is impossible in principle. Such views are most characteristic of D. Hume. As a rule, I. Kant is also included here, which is controversial and causes discussion in the philosophical environment.

2. The main directions of philosophy: materialism and idealism

Materialism and idealism are not homogeneous in their concrete manifestations. Depending on this, various forms of materialism and idealism can be distinguished.

There are two varieties of idealism - objective and subjective.

Objective idealists include those who recognize the beginning of all things as something intangible and independent of human consciousness (that is, existing objectively) - it can be God, the world mind, an idea, the universal spirit, etc. in the history of philosophy, Plato, F. Aquinas, G.V. Hegel, V. Solovyov, N. Berdyaev and others. In the case when the world is viewed only through the prism of individual (subjective) consciousness, one speaks of subjective idealism, whose prominent representatives are J. Berkeley, D. Hume, I.G. Fichte. The extreme form of subjective idealism is solipsism. According to which one can speak with certainty only about the existence of my own "I" and my sensations.

Within the framework of these forms of idealism, there are various varieties of it. For example, rationalism and irrationalism. According to idealistic rationalism, the basis of all that exists and its knowledge is the mind. One of its most important directions is panlogism, according to which everything real is the embodiment of reason, and the laws of being are determined by the laws of logic (Hegel). The point of view of irrationalism consists in denying the possibility of rational and logical knowledge of reality. The main type of cognition here is recognized as instinct, faith, revelation, etc., and being itself is considered as irrational (S. Kierkegaard, A. Bergson, M. Heidegger, etc.).

There are also quite a lot of materialistic schools and trends in the history of philosophy. So, the first philosophers spoke about the uncreation and indestructibility of matter. The representatives of this so-called "naive materialism" include ancient Chinese philosophers: Lao-tzu, Yang Zhu; ancient Indian philosophers from the Lokayata school; famous philosophers of antiquity: Heraclitus, Empedocles, Democritus, Epicurus, etc. In modern times, when there was an active formation and development of classical mechanics, "mechanistic materialism" became widely known (G. Galileo, F. Bacon, J. Locke, P. Holbach , P. Gassendi, J. La Mettrie). It is based on the study of nature. However, all the diversity of its properties and relations is reduced to a mechanistic form of motion of matter.

There are also such varieties of materialism as, for example, consistent materialism, in which the principle of materialism extends to both nature and society, and inconsistent materialism, in which 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 belittled his functions, reducing them to the creation of matter and giving it the initial impulse of movement (F. Bacon, J. Toland, B. Franklin, M.V. Lomonosov) . Further, a distinction is made between scientific and "vulgar materialism." The latter reduces the ideal to the material, consciousness identifies with matter (Vogt, Moleschott, Buechner). And, finally, the widely known "dialectical materialism" of K. Marx, F. Engels and their numerous followers, in which materialism and dialectics are presented in an organic unity.

Note, however, that certain philosophers, called materialists and idealists according to this classification, may not themselves refer to any of these trends, considering such a division as an unjustified schematization and simplification. The basis for such views is that, being formulated straightforwardly and in a categorical form, when other approaches to understanding this problem are ignored, the "basic question of philosophy" necessarily divides absolutely all philosophers into two large opposite camps - materialists and idealists. But here it is important to touch upon the question of the relationship and nature of the interaction between materialism and idealism. At the same time, monism, dualism, pluralism are distinguished.

Monism is a philosophical concept according to which the world has one beginning. This beginning is a material or spiritual substance. From this it follows that monism can be of two types - materialistic and idealistic. The first brings the material out of the material. According to the second, the material is conditioned by the ideal.

Dualism is a philosophical doctrine that affirms the equality of two principles: matter and consciousness, physical and mental. So, for example, R. Descartes believed that two equal substances lie in the basis of being: thinking (spirit) and extended (matter).

Pluralism - involves several or many initial bases. It is based on the assertion of the plurality of foundations and beginnings of being.

However, in the history of philosophical thought there are many other problems that are also considered as the most important or most significant, and therefore many philosophers, talking about substance (the fundamental principle of the world), are not inclined to correlate it with the "basic question of philosophy". So, for example, for the first ancient philosophers, the most fundamental philosophical problem was the question: "What is the world made of?" And he seemed to them the most important, basic.

From the point of view of medieval scholasticism, the "basic question of philosophy" can be formulated as follows: "How is a rational justification for the existence of God possible?" For modern religious philosophical concepts, in particular neo-Thomism, it still remains the main one.

The position of I. Kant seems interesting, for whom the question "What is a person?" is essentially the "basic question of philosophy". Man, from his point of view, belongs to two different worlds - natural necessity and moral freedom, in accordance with which, on the one hand, he is a product of nature, and on the other hand, the result of what "as a freely acting being, does or can and must make of himself."

This is not only a question about the relationship between being and consciousness, but a question about the relationship between man, nature and thinking - three systems. Philosophers interpret these systems in different ways, their relationship, location and involvement of thinking in the movement. So, Plato believes that ideas are outside things, according to Aristotle, - ideas are in reality, according to Kant, - thinking is in the head of a person, and Hegel argued that ideas move - into nature, then into a person and return to their original state. Absolute Idea. (Gorelov A.A.)

This formulation of the question is traditional, but there are different opinions of philosophers regarding the main question of philosophy.

Interpretations of the main question of philosophy by different philosophers

What is primary, fundamental, arising from one another - being or consciousness?

The ideological problem of the relationship between man and the world implies the problem of the relationship between being and consciousness. This problem can be formulated in various ways, but its very existence is due to the presence of human thinking and soul. There are two sides to the main question of philosophy, which philosophers reflect on - ontological and epistemological. The first side - ontological - implies the definition of the primacy of being and consciousness. The second side - epistemological - is the question of knowability, that is, the question of how our thoughts and the world around us correlate, are our ideas about the world correct, are we able to know the world?

The solution of all philosophical problems begins with the answer to the main question of philosophy. Depending on the specifics of the answer to this question, philosophical trends and schools are determined and developed.

Ontological side of the issue

There are two points of view on the ontological problem of solving the main question of philosophy, dividing philosophers into two categories - idealists and materialists. The former argued that nature and all material existence was generated by spiritual entities, while the latter, on the contrary, were sure that nature and matter were primary.

It should be noted that philosophers, reflecting on the question of primacy, do not solve the question of what appeared or arose earlier - matter or consciousness, but the question of their relationship - how they relate to each other, which is primary in relation to each other. Idealists and materialists understand the ontological relationship between the world and consciousness in different ways.

There are three options for solving the first side of the issue (monistic philosophy): materialism, subjective and objective idealism.

Materialism

The external world exists independently of our spirit, consciousness and thinking and is primary in relation to them.

The origin of materialism took place in the ancient world (Ancient China - Taoism, Ancient India - Charvakalokayata, Ancient Greece - the Milesian school). Throughout its development, one form replaced another - from the naturalistic materialism of antiquity to the mechanistic form of the New Age and the dialectical form in the 19th-20th centuries. Representatives of mechanistic materialism: F. Bacon, Hobbes, Holbach, etc. In accordance with this form, the material world is a mechanism in which everything is necessary, conditioned and has a reason. However, this applies only to nature, and not to society, in which, according to materialists, the principles of morality, and not mechanical causes, operate.

The modern form of materialism is dialectical. Founders: K. Marx and F. Engels. Its essence is an orientation towards science and practice, the mobilization of forces for a qualitative change in the life of society.

Subjective idealism

The external world is a product of the activity of human consciousness and exists thanks to it. Among the representatives of subjective idealism are such philosophers as Berkeley (1685-1753), Fichte (1762-1814) and others. The essence of subjective idealism is the assertion that the world is the way we imagine it. Everything that we observe in the world is only the totality of our sensations. All perceived qualities are relative: one and the same object may appear either large or small, depending on the distance to it. The well-known thesis of George Berkeley: “to exist means to be perceived”, implying that being is that which is perceived through various human sensations, and one cannot even argue about the objective existence of things.

Objective idealism

Representatives of objective idealism believe that there is a higher mind, thanks to which the world of things and human consciousness appeared. In various philosophical teachings, this mind (the highest spiritual principle) has a different name: Spirit, Idea, Brahman, etc.

Since this world mind exists independently of human consciousness, hence the name - objective idealism. Representatives of this trend: in Europe - Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Hegel, orthodox darshans - in India.

These directions refer to monistic philosophy (monism). In addition to the monistic teaching of philosophy, there is another concept, referred to as "dualism" - dualistic teachings. Dualism includes the teachings of Descartes (1596-1650), who believes that the world and consciousness are independent of each other.

Compromise doctrine - deism (G. Cherberi, Voltaire, Newton, Radishchev, etc.). Philosophers of this trend admitted that God created the world of things and man, but believed that he did not further participate in the development of the created world.

The epistemological side of the issue

There are also different answers and points of view to the question about the possibilities of human thinking to know the world around. The majority of people, including philosophers, answer in the affirmative to this question: “the world is cognizable,” which is called epistemological optimism or gnosticism.

In antiquity, agnosticism was presented in the form of skepticism. The skeptics pondered the question of the nature of things, man's relation to them, and the consequences of this relation to them. Philosophers argued that the nature of things is unknown to us, and things should be treated with skepticism, avoiding categorical judgments. This will entail equanimity and happiness (no suffering). Representatives of Renaissance skepticism: M. Montaigne, P. Bayle. Representatives of modern agnosticism: Hume and Kant.

In some modern areas of philosophy, elements of agnosticism are manifested. For example, some representatives of agnosticism believe that the world is not cognizable, and this fact is proposed to be assessed positively, since "knowledge makes life difficult."

The main question of philosophy remains unresolved and loses its relevance. Philosophers argue that the main question of philosophy can change, and the main problem will be the question of the existence of a person, his self-identification, the search for the meaning of life and happiness.

Useful sources

Gorelov A.A. Fundamentals of Philosophy: a textbook for students. medium institutions. prof. education / A.A. Gorelov. - 15th ed., erased. - M: Publishing Center "Academy", 2014. - 320 p.
Ilyin V.V. Philosophy in schemes and comments: Textbook / V.V. Ilyin, A.V. Mashentsev. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2005. - 304 p.
Kryukov V.V. Philosophy: Textbook for students of technical universities. Novosibirsk: Publishing house of NSTU, 2006.-219 p.

The main question of philosophy briefly (ontology of being) updated: October 30, 2017 by: Scientific Articles.Ru

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Introduction

Philosophy is often presented as a very sophisticated, abstract science, divorced from real, everyday life. Nothing is further from the truth than this kind of opinion. In fact, philosophy draws all problems from life and solves them with the sole purpose of helping a person in his life, life's vicissitudes, in improvement and development, in achieving desired goals and ideals, in overcoming adversity and ensuring success. Philosophy provides a person with rich factual material for reflection, as well as a very effective toolkit for mental activity.

The study of philosophy is a school of rational thinking, proven by the centuries-old experience of mankind, which allows you to freely operate with concepts, put forward new ideas and criticize well-known judgments, separate the essential from the non-essential, identify the interconnections of phenomena and reveal the laws that operate in the world. Philosophy helps a person to determine his life position and orientation, allows him to more reasonably and quickly solve the life problems that confront him.

The relevance of this topic lies in the fact that each of us constantly, voluntarily or involuntarily, faces the issues that are discussed in philosophy. These include: when and how did the world arise or does it exist forever? How is it arranged? Is it in a state of chaos, or is there order in it? Is the world changing or at rest? question philosophy materialism idealism

To an even greater extent, a person is concerned about issues that concern him directly. What is the place of man in the world? What role does he play in it? When and for what reasons did man appear? What is its purpose, the meaning of life? Is man mortal or immortal? What awaits him beyond the threshold of life? What are the possibilities of the mind and human activity? What is truth? How to distinguish it from delusion and lies? Are there analogues of a person in the world or is he alone in it? Is man good or evil by nature? Can we eradicate evil? Can the "epoch of universal peace and harmony" come in the development of mankind?

These are the "eternal questions of being." People searched for answers to them in the past, they are doing today and will continue to do so in the future. This search enables a person to self-determine, not to “lose himself”, to gain confidence in his strengths, thoughts and actions, a solid foundation in life. Philosophy is called upon to provide answers to these questions.

The purpose of the test is to consider the main question of philosophy, the solution of which is materialism and idealism.

To achieve this goal, the following tasks are set:

Consider the main question of philosophy and options for its solution;

To study the two sides of the main question of philosophy;

Characterize materialism and idealism as the two main directions of modern philosophy.

Most philosophers are convinced that the world has one beginning: either matter or consciousness, that is, they adhere to a monistic (from the Greek. Monos - one) position. Those who consider nature, or matter, to be primary, began to be called materialists, and those who consider consciousness as such, or the ideal, spiritual - idealists. This choice determined, in fact, the entire worldview of this philosopher, and after that, his methodology for studying problems. That is why Engels called the question of the substance of the world the fundamental question of philosophy.

1. The fundamental question of philosophy

For a very long time, until the second half of the 19th century, philosophers did not even suspect the existence of the fundamental question of philosophy, although they constantly stumbled upon it and somehow unconsciously solved it for themselves.

For the first time, this question was consciously and clearly raised by the German philosopher of the 19th century, Friedrich Engels. “The great fundamental question of all philosophy, especially the latest one,” he argued, “is the question of the relation of thinking to being.” The essence of the question, according to Engels, is primarily in what is primary: being or thinking, nature or spirit. But why is such a question the main one, and do all philosophers agree with this? Let's answer the second part of the question right away: not everyone agrees. For example, the French philosopher of the 20th century Albert Camus considered the problem of the meaning of human life to be the most important. “To decide whether a life of labor is worth living, or not worth it, is to answer the fundamental question of philosophy,” he declared. Engels F. Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. - Marx K., Engels F. Soch., vol. 21. S. - 88

Well, the question of the meaning of life is indeed a very important philosophical question. But answering it in any, whatever version, a person, at least a philosopher, just proceeds (ultimately) from that version of solving the main question of philosophy, which he - consciously or unconsciously - adheres to. How? To understand this and see the full significance of this issue, we must consider how it is formed.

Recall, firstly, that the subject of philosophy is a universal, or rather, naked (taking into account the value side of the worldview) understanding of the universal. And, secondly, let's not forget that any knowledge is a process of generalization, since it is the general that expresses the essence of things and phenomena, as already mentioned above. The forms of human cognitive activity are very different - from everyday knowledge to conceptual, from artistic to scientific. And whatever form we use, we always follow the line of generalization.

Imagine that outside the window is nature rich in living creatures, where a variety of animals and little animals run around. At first glance, they are all different. But on closer examination, it turns out that some of them are similar to each other, and in-depth scientific study confirms that they can be attributed to, say, the same family. With further study of nature, it is revealed that literally all representatives of wildlife can be combined into various related groups: not only animals, but also fish, and insects, and all flowers - cornflowers. Which is what science has done. And the process of generalization comes to the concept of living nature, since it turns out that all living things (including man as a representative of the class of mammals) are organically connected with each other, have something in common. Gobozov I.A. Social Philosophy: A Textbook for High Schools / I.A. Gobozov - M.: Acad. Project, 2010. S. - 115

The same process of generalization can be done with inanimate things and, having made sure that they are all, in fact, related to each other, reach the concept of inanimate nature.

Is there something in common between animate and inanimate nature? Certainly. Any living organism consists of a mass of "non-living" elements, into which, after the termination of its life, it decomposes. This means that the concept of nature (or matter, physical, etc., synonymous concepts) will be common to all living and non-living things.

However, summarizing, what have we missed? Consciousness! And it turns out that the same process of generalization can be done here as in nature. Although each person's consciousness has its own individual expression, one can easily find something common in the consciousness of people not only of one social group, but also of classes of different social status, different nationalities, races, and societies. And generalizing, we will reach the concept of consciousness in general, consciousness as a phenomenon.

There are two main options for solving the main question of philosophy: materialism - the primacy of matter over consciousness, idealism - the primacy of ideas over matter. Plato believed that there is a world of ideas and a world of shadows. People live in the world of shadows (according to Plato's ideas - in a cave where ideas from the outside do not penetrate at all), only occasionally finding an idea. The philosopher is the one who sees both worlds and can tell about them. Aristotle fails to single out the explicit statement of the main question of philosophy, respectively, it is reconstructed through a certain number of mediated links. This is usually explained by the fact that his position, according to the generally accepted classification, is intermediate between materialism and idealism. Belskaya E.Yu. History and philosophy of science (Philosophy of science). Ed. Yu.V. Kryaneva, L.E. Motorina. - M.: Alpha - M, INFRA - M, 2012. - S. - 134

2. Two sides of the main question: materialism andidealism

I repeat, the fundamental question in philosophy is traditionally considered the question of the relation of thinking to being, and being - to thinking (consciousness).

The importance of this issue lies in the fact that the construction of a holistic knowledge about the world around us and the place of man in it depends on its reliable resolution, and this is the main task of philosophy. Matter and consciousness are two inseparable and at the same time opposite characteristics of being. In this regard, there are two sides of the main question of philosophy - ontological and epistemological.

The ontological (existential) side of the main question of philosophy lies in the formulation and solution of the problem: what is primary - matter or consciousness?

The essence of the epistemological (cognitive) side of the main question: is the world cognizable or unknowable, what is primary in the process of cognition?

Philosophers have divided into two broad camps according to how they answered this question. Those who affirmed that the spirit existed before nature, and who, therefore, in the end, in one way or another recognized the creation of the world, and among philosophers, such as Hegel, the creation of the world often takes on an even more confused and absurd form than in Christianity, formed an idealist camp. Those who considered nature to be the main principle joined the various schools of materialism. Ostrovsky E.V. History and Philosophy of Science: Textbook / E.V. Ostrovsky. - M.: Vuzovsky textbook, NIC INFRA - M, 2013. - 328 p.

Materialism recognizes matter as primary, nature, and consciousness, thinking as secondary, derived from matter. The material world around us exists forever, always, materialists believe. Nobody created it. It exists independently of the will and consciousness of people. Consciousness, the bearer of which on Earth is a person, is a product, the result of the development and functioning of matter, nature.

Idealism, in contrast to materialism, considers something non-material to be primary, namely, consciousness, spirit, idea. Spirit, consciousness, according to the idealists, exists before nature and independently of it. They consider matter, nature as the result of the creative activity of consciousness, spirit. The spiritual, in their opinion, generates, determines the existence of the material, nature.

At present, despite the thousands of years of searching for philosophers, the main question of philosophy has not been reliably resolved either from the ontological or epistemological side and, in fact, is an eternal (unresolved) philosophical problem.

In the XX century. in Western philosophy there has been a tendency to pay less attention to the traditional basic question of philosophy, since it is difficult to resolve and is gradually losing its relevance. Jaspers, Heidegger, Camus and others laid the foundations for the fact that another main question of philosophy may appear in the future - the problem of existentialism, that is, the problem of man, his existence, managing his own spiritual world, relationships within society and with society, his free choice, search the meaning of life and its place in life, happiness. Engels F. Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. - Marx K., Engels F. Soch., v. 21. S. - 96

3. Materialismas one of the maindirections of modern philosophy

Materialism (from Latin materialis - material) is one of the two main philosophical directions, which resolves the main question of philosophy in favor of the primacy of matter, nature, being, physical, objective and considers consciousness, thinking as a property of matter, as opposed to idealism, which takes spirit as the initial , idea, consciousness, mental, subjective thinking.

The recognition of the primacy of matter means that it was not created by anyone, but exists forever, that space and time are objectively existing forms of the existence of matter, that thinking is inseparable from matter, which thinks that the unity of the world consists in its materiality.

The materialistic solution of the second side of the main question of philosophy - about the cognizability of the world - means the belief in the adequacy of the reflection of reality in human consciousness, in the cognizability of the world and its laws.

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.W. Leibniz) to oppose idealism.

The content of materialism contains, first of all, that which is common to all schools and currents of materialism, in their contrast to idealism and agnosticism, and the form of materialism is connected with that particular thing that characterizes individual schools and currents of materialism. But such a distinction is at the same time relative, conditional. Kanke V.A. Fundamentals of Philosophy: Textbook. - M.: Logos, 2003. S. - 223

The form of materialism, influencing its content, makes significant adjustments to it, due to which, for example, dialectical materialism, not only in form, but also in content, is qualitatively different from vulgar materialism, from metaphysical materialism and all other types of materialism, although it has with them, that which is common to all materialism in general.

If we are talking about successive stages in the development of one and the same type of materialism, then these stages are considered as its stages. When there is a radical change in the form of materialism, a change from its old form to a new one, it is said that the form of materialism changes. The change in the form of materialism takes place primarily under the influence of the progress of scientific knowledge and social development.

In development, the main types of materialism are distinguished:

The naive or elemental materialism of the ancient Greeks and Romans, which they combined with naive dialectics. Ancient science is not divided into separate branches; it has a single philosophical character: all branches of knowledge are under the auspices of philosophy and are subordinate to it.

Metaphysical, or mechanical materialism of the 17th - 18th centuries. Science is rapidly differentiating, dismembering into separate branches that go beyond the tutelage of philosophy.

There is a gap between materialism and dialectics: in materialism there are only elements of dialectics with the dominance of a general metaphysical view of the world.

Dialectical materialism, in which materialism and dialectics are organically combined, so that a complete unity of dialectics (the doctrine of development), logic (the doctrine of thinking), and the theory of knowledge is established. The great idea of the universal connection and development of nature penetrates into science. Separate sciences, separated until then, are brought into mutual connection not only among themselves, but also with philosophy. Further differentiation of the sciences takes place in unity with their integration.

Along with the main types of materialism, there were intermediate ones - transitional from one main type of materialism to another. In the development of materialism, sudden upheavals were always prepared gradually.

The following types of materialism were distinguished as transitional ones:

Materialism of the Ancient East, which preceded ancient materialism. For the most part, this was pre-materialism, since the first elements of materialism in the philosophical teachings of the Ancient East had not yet completely separated from mythological ideas, had not yet freed themselves from anthropomorphism and hylozoism.

The most ancient materialistic philosophical trend in India was the Lokayat doctrine. Lokayata denied the existence of any other world than the material. The lokayata philosophy arose, apparently, in an era when the ancient tribal system was replaced by the state in India and when, along with the ancient Varnas of warriors and clergy (Brahmins), the Varna of merchants began to rise, and free peasants and artisans began to stand out from the farmers.

According to the Lokayat doctrine of being, the whole world consists of material primary elements. Apart from these primary elements and their combinations, there is no other reality. Belief in the existence of God, soul, paradise, the afterlife is false, and the objects of this faith are inaccessible to perception. Things of nature are composed of air (or winds), fire (or light), water and earth. After death, organisms decompose again into their original elements. Lavrinenko V.N. Philosophy: Proc. allowance. - M.: Lawyer, 1996. S. - 96

The materialism of the Renaissance combined the features of naive materialism and naive dialectics with the first elements of a metaphysical worldview. Thus, he was, strictly speaking, a transitional between ancient, naive materialism and yet unformed metaphysical materialism.

The first philosopher who consciously set himself the task of developing a scientific method based on a materialistic understanding of nature was Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626).

In agreement with the progressive minds of his age, Bacon proclaimed the conquest of nature and the improvement of human life as the highest task of knowledge. Only that science is capable of conquering nature and dominating it, which itself "obeys" nature, that is, is guided by the knowledge of its laws.

Therefore, Bacon distinguishes between two types of experiments:

1) "fruitful"

2) "light-bearing"

Fruitful he calls experiments, the purpose of which is to bring direct benefit to a person, luminiferous - those whose purpose is not immediate benefit, but knowledge of the laws of phenomena and the properties of things.

Materialism, which immediately preceded dialectical materialism and partly developed in parallel with it, already went beyond the boundaries of metaphysical materialism, contained elements of dialectics, but did not yet rise to dialectical materialism and did not extend materialism to social phenomena.

4. Idealism as one of the directions of philosophy

Idealism (French idealisme from the Greek. Idea - idea) is a general designation of philosophical teachings that assert that consciousness, thinking, mental, spiritual are primary, fundamental, and matter, nature, physical are secondary, derivative, dependent, conditioned. And, thus, it opposes materialism in solving the main question of philosophy - about the relationship between being and thinking, spiritual and material, both in the sphere of existence and in the sphere of knowledge.

Although idealism arose more than two and a half millennia ago, this term, as a designation for one of the two camps fighting in philosophy, did not appear until the beginning of the 18th century. In 1702 the German idealist Leibniz wrote about the hypotheses of Epicurus and Plato as the greatest materialist and the greatest idealist. And in 1749, the French materialist D. Diderot called idealism "... the most absurd of all systems." Ostrovsky E.V. History and Philosophy of Science: Textbook / E.V. Ostrovsky. - M.: Vuzovsky textbook, NIC INFRA - M, 2013. S. - 215

With all the fundamental unity of the idealist camp, in solving the basic question of philosophy within this camp, two of its main forms should be distinguished:

1) Idealism is objective

2) Idealism is subjective

The first is characterized by the recognition of the spiritual principle outside and independently of our consciousness. For the second, the assumption of any reality outside and independent of our consciousness is unacceptable.

Objective idealism received its first complete expression in the philosophy of Plato.

The presence of two main forms of idealism does not exhaust the variety of different versions of idealistic philosophical systems. Within these two forms in the history of philosophy, their variations took place, determined by how the spiritual principle is understood: as a world mind (panlogism) or world will (voluntarism), as a single spiritual substance (idealistic monism) or a set of spiritual primary elements (monadology, pluralism). ), as a reasonable logically comprehended beginning (idealistic rationalism), as a sensory variety of sensations (idealistic empiricism and sensationalism, phenomenalism), or as an irregular, illogical "free" beginning that cannot be an object of scientific understanding (irrationalism).

The centuries-old history of idealism is very complex. In a variety of forms at different stages of history, he expressed in his own way the evolution of the forms of social consciousness in accordance with the nature of the changing social formations and the new level of development of science.

The main forms of idealism, which were further developed in the subsequent history of philosophy, arose already in ancient Greece.

In the person of Plato (427 - 347 BC), ancient Greek idealism for the first time appears in the form of a worldview, opposing itself to materialism. According to Plato, the world of sensible things is not the world of truly existing things: sensible things constantly arise and perish, change and move, there is nothing solid and true in them. The true essence of sensible things, their causes are incorporeal insensible forms comprehended by the mind. These causes, or forms, Plato calls species and, much less frequently, ideas. The area of "species", or "ideas", according to Plato, forms a system similar to a pyramid, at the top of this pyramid is the "idea" of the good. It determines the cognizability, the existence of objects, from it they receive their essence.

Among the students of Plato, the brilliantly gifted thinker Aristotle stood out, who created an original philosophical doctrine - one of the greatest in ancient Greek philosophy.

The teachings of Aristotle are objective idealism, which includes a number of essentially materialistic provisions. This doctrine was formed as a result of criticism of Plato's doctrine of ideas. However, Aristotle himself, as a result of this criticism, does not come to the denial of the idealistic position about the existence of non-material causes of sensually perceived things. According to Aristotle, every single thing is the unity of "matter" and "form". Spirkin A.G. Philosophy: textbook. - M.: Gardariki, 2008. S. - 134

At the end of the 4th century BC. signs of a crisis in Greek slave-owning democracy are intensifying. At this time, there are three main currents of Hellenistic philosophy: skepticism, epicureanism and stoicism.

Pyrrho was the founder of skepticism. According to his teachings, a philosopher is a person who strives for happiness. Happiness can only consist in imperturbable calmness and in the absence of suffering.

The philosophy of Epicurus is the highest stage in the development of ancient Greek atomistic materialism.

Epicurus defends and develops materialistic sensationalism. Everything that we feel is true, sensations never deceive us. The Stoic school, founded by Zeno, fought against the teachings of Epicurus. Among the Stoics, a single bodily world is endowed with divine properties, identified with God. In its origin and at all stages of its development, idealism is closely connected with religion. In fact, idealism arose as a concept expressing a religious worldview, and in subsequent eras, as a rule, served as a philosophical justification and substantiation of religious faith.

The works of the great philosopher Immanuel Kant played a huge role in the development of philosophy. The philosophical development of Kant is divided into two periods. In the first period until the beginning of the 70s, Kant tried to solve philosophical problems - the question of being, questions of the philosophy of nature, the philosophy of religion, ethics, logic, based on the conviction that philosophy can be developed and justified as a theoretical speculative science, that is, without resorting to experienced data.

In the second period, from the beginning of the 70s, Kant tries to strictly separate phenomena from things as they exist in themselves, from "things in themselves"; the latter, according to Kant, cannot be given in experience. Now Kant is trying to prove that things in themselves are unknowable, that we know only "appearances" or the way in which these "things in themselves" affect us. During this period, Kant explores the composition, origin and boundaries of the various functions of knowledge. The teaching that developed during this period was the teaching of agnosticism. Kant himself called it the "critique of reason".

Kant understood that this teaching of his limits the mind, since it denies the mind the ability to cognize the essence of things, leaving behind it the knowledge of only phenomena. Kant believed that such a limitation of the mind to the knowledge of phenomena alone is necessary for the development of science, since it deprives any kind of logical “proof” of the existence of God, the other world, from the basis. Kononovich L.G., Medvedeva G.I. Philosophy: a textbook for higher educational institutions. - Rostov n / a: "Phoenix", 1999. S. - 83

However, Kant still believed that it was not only possible but necessary to believe in God, since without faith it is impossible to reconcile the requirement of moral consciousness with the existence of evil.

The main feature of Kant's "critical philosophy" is the reconciliation of materialism with idealism, agnosticism.

The most prominent representative of German classical philosophy is Hegel. His great merit lies in the fact that he first presented the entire natural, historical and spiritual world as a process, that is, in continuous movement, change, transformation and development, and made an attempt to reveal the inner connection of this movement and development. Proceeding from the dialectical position on the unity of essence and phenomenon, Hegel rejected the Kantian doctrine of the unknowability of the “thing in itself”; in the nature of things there are no insurmountable barriers to knowledge.

“The hidden essence of the universe does not possess in itself the power that would be able to resist the audacity of knowledge, it must open before him, unfold before his eyes the riches and depths of his nature and let him enjoy them.” Alekseev P.V. History of philosophy: textbook. - M.: Prospekt, 2008. S. - 116

Thinking, according to Hegel, is not only a subjective, human activity, but also an objective essence independent of a person, the fundamental principle, the primary source of everything that exists. Thinking, in comparison with sensory perceptions, is the highest form of cognition of the external world.

Ultimately, Hegel comes to the fantastic conclusion that human thinking is only one of the manifestations (albeit the highest on Earth) of some absolute thinking that exists outside of man - an absolute idea, that is, God. Reasonable, divine, real, necessary coincide with each other, according to the teachings of Hegel. From this follows one of the most important theses of Hegelian philosophy: everything real is reasonable, everything reasonable is real.

The basic form of thinking is the concept. Since Hegel absolutizes thinking, he inevitably deifies the concept.

It, according to his teaching, "is the beginning of all life and is an infinite, creative form that contains within itself the fullness of any content and at the same time serves as its source."

So, the starting point of the Hegelian philosophical system is the idealistic identification of being and thinking, the reduction of all processes to the process of thinking.

Considering the logical process of cognition as the self-development of objective reality, Hegel raised the question of the objectivity of logical forms. Thus, the "rational kernel" of Hegel's idealistic dialectics is made up of many of his ideas related to the knowledge of the most general laws of the development of nature, society and knowledge.

Conclusion

Philosophy is sometimes understood as some kind of abstract knowledge, extremely remote from the realities of everyday life. On the contrary, it is in life that the most serious, most profound problems of philosophy originate. From the point of view of philosophy, understanding reality does not at all mean simply reconciling and agreeing with it in everything. Philosophy presupposes a critical attitude towards reality. The study of philosophy is a school that allows you to cultivate a culture of rational thinking - the ability to freely operate with concepts, put forward, justify and criticize certain judgments, separate the essential from the secondary, reveal the relationship between various phenomena of reality, and finally, identify and analyze contradictions in the surrounding reality , which means to see it in change and development. Reasonable thinking is solid, strict, disciplined thinking that does not allow arbitrariness and is able to defend its rightness, and at the same time sharp, free and creative thinking.

However, it should be borne in mind that the culture of rational thinking, which philosophy brings with it, cannot be imposed on a person against his will and desire, his interest. Anyone who mechanically memorized, say, the laws of dialectics and the examples that accompany them, not only did not master this culture, but did not even come close to it.

Thus, I considered the fundamental philosophical problems to which people returned again and again in an attempt to rethink themselves, the world around them and their place in it in a new way. These are the problems of the structure of the universe, its infinity in time and space, the problems of cognition of the surrounding world, the problems of man, his soul, consciousness, morality, values. These problems are significant for a person, complex and ambiguous.

By their nature, these questions are among the "eternal", that is, those that exist as long as philosophy itself exists. They have not lost their relevance even today, since life sets new tasks for us that require our understanding.

Philosophy can excite representatives of different professions from at least two points of view. It is needed for better orientation in one's specialty, but most importantly, it is necessary for understanding life in all its fullness and complexity.

In the first case, the focus is on the philosophical issues of physics, mathematics, technical knowledge, biological science, medicine, pedagogy, art and many others. Such questions arise before specialists and insistently require their study. They are very important, but still they are only part of a vast field of philosophical problems. If we confine ourselves to them only, this would impoverish, narrow the field of philosophy, nullify its most interesting and important problems, which concern us not just as specialists, but as citizens. And this is no less important than the first.

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The problem of the main question of philosophy and various options for its solution. Philosophy in Brief: The Basic Question of Philosophy

Introduction

1. Traditional interpretation of the main question of philosophy

2. The main directions of philosophy: materialism and idealism