Types of knowledge in philosophy briefly and clearly. The concept of cognition and knowledge

1. Cognition as a philosophical problem.

2. Sensual and rational knowledge and their forms.

Z. The problem of truth in philosophy and science.

When studying the first question "Knowledge as a Philosophical Problem" it should be understood that the study of the essence of knowledge is one of the main tasks of philosophy. The theory of knowledge (epistemology) is the most important section of many philosophical systems, and sometimes its main component.

Cognition- it is a set of processes by which a person receives, processes and uses information about the world and about himself.

Cognitive activity is ultimately aimed at meeting the historically emerging material and spiritual needs and interests of people, and in this regard, is inextricably linked with the expedient practical activities. The latter is a historical prerequisite, the basis and the most important goal of knowledge.

Those specific things, phenomena, processes, which are directly directed cognitive activity people are called object of knowledge . The one who carries out cognitive activity is called subject of knowledge .

The subject can be a single individual, social group(for example, the community of scientists) or society as a whole. From here knowledge- this is a specific interaction between the subject and the object, the main purpose of which is to provide, in accordance with the needs of the subject, models and programs that control the development of the object.

In this way, epistemology studies a special type of relationship between subject and object - cognitive. “Relations of knowledge” include three components: subject, object and content of knowledge (knowledge). To understand the essence of cognition, one should analyze the relationship between: 1) the subject receiving knowledge and the source of knowledge (object); 2) between the subject and knowledge; 3) between knowledge and object.

In the first case, the task is to explain how the transition from the source to the "consumer" is possible. To do this, it is necessary to theoretically explain how the content of cognizable things and phenomena is transferred to the human head and transformed in it into the content of knowledge.

When considering the second of the above types of relations, a set of questions arises related, on the one hand, to the development by a person of ready-made knowledge arrays available in culture (in books, tables, cassettes, computers, etc.) On the other hand, assessment by the subject of certain knowledge, their depth, adequacy, assimilation, completeness, sufficiency for solving certain problems.

As for the relationship between knowledge and the object, it leads to the problem of the reliability of knowledge, truth and its criteria.

The solution of epistemological problems in philosophy is based on the following principles.

The principle of objectivity . He claims that the object of cognition (things, natural and social phenomena, sign structures) exists outside and independently of the subject and the process of cognition itself. This implies a methodological requirement - things and phenomena must be known objectively, i.e. as they are in themselves. A person should not bring anything from himself into the results of cognition.

Knowability principle . He argues that reality must be known as it is. This principle is a conclusion from the entire history of knowledge and practice of mankind. A person is able to adequately, with the fullness necessary in each specific case, to know the natural and social being. There are no fundamental boundaries on the path of the subject's endless movement towards a more adequate and exhaustive comprehension of reality.

Reflection principle . This principle is inextricably linked with the concept of reflection, which expresses the essence of the materialistic understanding of cognition. The first condition for the scientific understanding and explanation of cognition is the recognition of its reflective nature. The principle of reflection can be formulated as follows: cognition of an object is the process of its reflection in the human head.

In the epistemological concepts of past eras, reflection was considered: firstly, as a passive process, similar to a mirror reflection; secondly, as a process based on mechanical causality (the appearance of images is determined by the impact on the sense organs of specific causes); thirdly, as an exhaustive description of the method and specific mechanisms for the formation of objectively true knowledge. All this led to the interpretation of various forms of knowledge in the spirit of metaphysical and contemplative approaches.

Preserving the rational that was in the understanding of the principle of reflection in the past, modern epistemology puts a qualitatively new content into this principle. Currently, reflection is understood as a universal property of matter and is defined as the ability of material phenomena, objects, systems to reproduce in their properties the features of other phenomena, objects, systems in the process of interaction with the latter.

The principle of the subject's creative activity in cognition . Spiritual-theoretical and spiritual-practical exploration of the world by a person includes not only reflective activity associated with obtaining information about the world and oneself, but also various forms of creativity, the construction of new objective realities of the “world of culture”.

The introduction of the principle of practice and creative activity of the subject into the solution of epistemological problems allows us to understand the true nature of the subject and object of cognition, on the one hand, and the specific mechanism of their relationship in the structure of the cognitive act, on the other hand, at a qualitatively new level.

In epistemology subject there is not only a system that receives, stores and processes information (like any living system). The subject is, first of all, a socio-historical phenomenon endowed with consciousness, capable of goal-setting, objective, creatively transforming activity. From this point of view, the subject of knowledge is not only an individual, but also a social group, layer, society in a particular historical era.

Modern epistemology also approaches the examination of an object in a qualitatively new way. For the subject it is not indifferent whether something actual is an object of knowledge or not. From an epistemological point of view, this distinction is of special interest.

In connection with what has been said, it is possible to formulate a general pattern of knowledge, which says that the degree of objective mastering of reality in the practice of people singles out the set of dimensions of the object, which acts in each given era as the basis for its reflection in the minds of people. A person comes into contact with objects (things, phenomena, processes) of natural and social existence, in all their infinite complexity. Encouraged to activity by his material and spiritual needs, setting certain goals, he always takes them as a kind of “partial object”, or “object”.

Subject and object as opposite sides form a contradictory relationship. The subject cannot influence the object otherwise than in an objective way. This means that he must have at his disposal the material mediators of his influences on the cognized object - hands, tools, measuring instruments, chemical reagents, etc. The progress of knowledge would be impossible without the constant expansion and complication of this “world of intermediaries”. In the same way, the mechanism of the object's influence on the subject presupposes its own system of intermediaries - direct sensory information, various sign systems, and, above all, human language.

The main cognitive relation is the relation “image - object”. In the broad sense of the word way one can name that state of consciousness, which in one way or another is connected with an object. In relation to the object, three types of images can be distinguished: 1) images-knowledge, reflecting the objective reality; 2) images-projects, which are mental structures that must be or can be put into practice; 3) images-values ​​expressing the needs and ideals of the subject.

Considering the second question Sensual and rational cognition and their forms" should be based on the fact that sense cognition contains images that give the human senses.

The main forms of the sensory level of knowledge are sensations, perceptions and representations. IN feelings each of the human senses in a specific way reflects individual properties, aspects of things (color, sound, smell, hardness). Perception - a holistic reflection of the properties and features of the object. Representation - a visual holistic image of a thing that arises on the basis of imagination and past sensory experience, preserved and reproduced in memory.

Sensual images of a person, in contrast to the images that give the sense organs of animals, are mediated by social experience and have internal activity (they are precisely living contemplation).

Sensations are the basic form of sensory cognition. They provide a direct link between consciousness and objective reality and are the only external channel through which information about the world can be obtained.

Rational knowledge. A person receives information through natural signals coming from objects and artificial signals transmitted from subject to subject and functioning in the system human language. The development and improvement of the language is closely connected with the development of the rational stage of cognition. Language is the most important information intermediary between the subject and society. Without it, it is impossible to operate with ready-made knowledge. Rational thinking is the functioning of the knowledge existing in the language, connected with reality through sensory images that can reflect what is inaccessible to the senses.

Elementary forms of rational (logical) thinking - concept, judgment and conclusion. In them, the subject signs of things are distinguished and fixed in the signs of the language.

concept reflects the essential features of things, i.e., which are necessary and sufficient for their difference in a certain respect. In concepts, as it were, our knowledge is concentrated and summed up. Judgment, fixing any signs of the subject, affirms or denies something about the object of knowledge:“the rose is red”, “metaphysics denies contradiction as a source of development”, “the atom is inexhaustible”.

inference is the binding of judgments (operating with them), giving new knowledge without resorting to the testimony of the senses. For example, already in antiquity it was concluded (judgment) that the Earth has the shape of a ball. This conclusion was obtained in the following way. Spherical bodies are known to cast a disk-shaped shadow. earth during lunar eclipses casts a disc-shaped shadow. So it is round.

human knowledge is the unity of the sensible and the rational. People set the tasks of cognition and interpret its results at the level of rational thinking, and receive the necessary information with the help of the senses. A scientist does not just look through a microscope, he checks some assumption (hypothesis), carries out a logically sound research program, interprets what he sees in the light of certain concepts and theories.

When studying the third question The Problem of Truth in Philosophy and Science" one should proceed from the fact that the main opposite characteristics of the relationship of the cognitive image, human knowledge to the object are truth and error.

True is an image that is adequate to the reflected object. An image that does not correspond to its object is considered as delusion . These seemingly simple definitions give rise to difficult problems, as soon as we ask ourselves what a correspondence is and what is the mechanism for establishing it.

Correspondence means the coincidence of the features of the image and the object. If each of the features of a concept is associated with a feature of an object, and vice versa, then the concept corresponds to the object. Any object is multi-qualitative, multidimensional, inexhaustible in its properties, connections and relationships. Knowledge about it contains a finite amount of information. Based on the foregoing, we can formulate the main problem of the theory of truth: how can one establish a correspondence final in its content of knowledge to an infinite object? To solve it, it is necessary to consider the main characteristics of truth: objectivity, absoluteness, relativity, concreteness and verification by practice.

Under objectivity of truth we understand the content of our knowledge, which, reflecting the actual state of things, does not depend on the subject of knowledge, does not depend either on man or on humanity.

Recognition of objective truth necessarily entails recognition in one form or another. absolute truth(absolute moment) in human cognition, and vice versa, the denial of this absolute moment entails the denial of objective truth itself, which leads to agnosticism.

absolute truth means complete, exhaustive knowledge about the object. However, the moment of absoluteness of truth is mobile, it is a certain historical limit, to which knowledge is infinitely approaching. With the further progress of society, what seemed to be absolute truth turns into relative truth .

Absolute truth is the complete correspondence of the image to the object; relative truth expresses the dependence of any truth on certain objective conditions, on the limits of the approximation of our knowledge to reality; delusion expresses the inconsistency of knowledge with the subject.

The truth of any knowledge is evaluated in relation to the subject allocated by the subject in certain objective conditions. Because of this, the very relation between relative truth and absolute truth is such that the former appears as truth precisely because it contains an element of absolute truth; the second - acts to a certain extent as the sum, the result of relative truths.

The most important circumstance that the characterization of any image as absolute truth, relative truth or error can be given not in general, but only in relation to certain conditions of cognition, to one or another section of the object, is expressed in the position of concreteness of truth , according to which there is no abstract truth, truth is always concrete.

The correspondence of the image to the subject is established through practical activity. Practice is an objective criterion of truth. There is a direct and indirect practical verification of truth. If the subject under study in practice manifests itself exactly as it was supposed to, which means that our ideas about it are true.

In the reference literature on this topic, see the articles:

New philosophical encyclopedia. In 4 volumes - M., 2001. St.: "Truth", "Falsehood", "Intuition", "Information Theory", "Rationalism", "Sensualism", "Theory of Knowledge", "Object", " Subject".

philosophical encyclopedic dictionary. - K., 2002. St.:

"Truth", "Intuition", "Rationalism", "Theory of knowledge", "Sub" єkt", "On" єkt.

Cognition - reflection of reality by a person and society in order to obtain knowledge for their further use in practice.

Cognition - the process of comprehension by man and society of previously unknown facts, phenomena and patterns of reality.

Cognition The process by which a person acquires knowledge about the world and himself.

Cognition as an activity includes the receipt of information through the senses (sensory cognition), the processing of this information by thinking (rational cognition), and the material assimilation of cognizable fragments of reality (social practice).

Thinking - an active process of reflecting the objective world in concepts, judgments, theories.

Based on an ancient philosophical tradition dating back to antiquity, there are two levels of thinking:

- reason

- intelligence

Reason is the initial level at which one thinks within the framework of an unchanging scheme, template, standard: this is the ability to consistently and clearly reason, correctly build thoughts, systematize, classify facts.

Reason is the highest level, it is characterized by creativity and self-reflection, identification of the causes, driving forces of objects and phenomena.

There is a characteristic transition between them.

The result of cognitive activity is knowledge , which:

Is fixed in human memory;

Passed down from generation to generation;

It is recorded in the appropriate material media (manuscripts, books, film and magnetic tapes, computer memory, etc.).

Cognition is connected with socio-historical practice.

Practice - socio-historical activity of people aimed at the knowledge and transformation of the world, the result of which is the world of material and spiritual culture ("second nature").

Types of practice:

Material and production;

Socio-political (reforms, revolutions, etc.);

Scientific and experimental (mental experimentation);

Artistic and creative.

Practice is inextricably linked with cognition and performs certain epistemological functions in relation to it.

The main functions of practice in the process of learning:

Practice is the basis of knowledge, because we can get all the information about objects only on the condition of practical interaction with them. Practice also acts as a source of all factual data. It is directly included in the cognitive process in the form of observation, subject examination, questioning, experiment.

Practice is the goal of knowledge, because it is not done out of curiosity. Practice directs knowledge to the solution of urgent and most urgent problems. Practice not only sets goals, but helps to correctly determine the object of study, to understand what is most significant and important in it. this stage. The more the process of practice develops, the more objects are involved in the orbit of cognition, the more fully and accurately the range of priority cognitive tasks is determined.

Practice supplies the basic material means of cognition and thereby determines its specific possibilities and boundaries.

Practice is the criterion of truth, practice allows you to check and evaluate the results of knowledge, allows you to distinguish between truth and error. The practice itself is historically limited. The determinant of what kind of knowledge is true and what is false, practice is not in an absolute, but in a relative sense, in a certain form, at a certain stage of its development. It happens that at one level it is not able to determine the truth, but at another, higher level, it acquires such an ability in relation to the same complex of knowledge. Thus, the criterion of truth is the practice taken in the process of its movement, development.

2. Objects and subjects of knowledge . Determining the ultimate source of knowledge and characterizing the objects of cognition involves solving the following series of questions: Where does cognition draw its source material from? What is an object of knowledge? What are the objects of knowledge?

Source of Knowledge- the external world, which ultimately delivers the original information to consciousness for processing.

The object of knowledge in broad sense everything that our knowledge is directed to, surrounding a person the material world (natural and social), included in the sphere of people's activities and their relations. In the course of practical activity, a person involves natural objects and phenomena in the sphere of his life, giving them the status of both an object of labor and an object of knowledge. Already for primitive man items outside world as if they “break away” from their natural basis and “connect” with the system of social needs.

The object of knowledge is that which opposes the subject, that which is known. The object of cognition becomes such a fragment of objective (or subjective) reality, to which the attention of the cognizing subject is directed, which becomes the subject of the theoretical or practical activity of the subject. Both material and ideal phenomena can act as an object (for example, the consciousness of an individual is an object for a psychologist.)

Society is a special object of knowledge. Social cognition has its own specifics, in particular, it differs in comparison with natural science by less formalization of the research language, by the presence of sufficient freedom to choose specific methods or means of solving cognitive problems.

The specifics of social cognition:

1. The cognizing subject is often included in the processes that he studies.

2. The basis of social cognition is social facts , which are the actions of people, the judgments of individuals, the results of the material and spiritual activities of people. The interpretation of social facts always depends on the position of the researcher.

3. Because of this, he is not always able to objectively relate to the phenomenon under study. In social cognition, the personality of the researcher is always visible, which brings subjective moment into knowledge. For example, an assessment of the results of the Second World War in the former Soviet Baltic republics. For Russians, this is the defeat of fascism and the liberation of the world from Nazism. For the Baltic politicians, taking into account nationalist sentiments, it is occupation. Hence the transfer of monuments, and the marches of the former SS men, etc.

4. People and social groups operate in society, pursuing their own interests and goals, which greatly complicates social processes. Most often, people hide the true motives of their actions. History is full of accidents, so social processes are difficult to study and unpredictable.

5. The development of society is influenced by a combination of diverse factors. Social processes cannot be repeated, duplicated. For example, we denote by the concept of "revolution" a certain process. There have been many revolutions in the world, but among them there are no processes that coincide in the course and development.

6. In social cognition, it is difficult to apply such methods of scientific cognition as experiment, modeling, even the possibilities of observation are limited here. It is impossible to observe the past. When researchers begin to study the way of life of a tribe leading a primitive way of life, then under the "influence of civilization" irreversible changes begin in it.

7. Society is a special object of knowledge, because the historical process is the activity of people pursuing their goals. Knowledge in this case acts as self-knowledge.

There are primary, secondary and tertiary objects of knowledge:

- Primary object of knowledge(accordingly, the ultimate source of knowledge) is always a certain part, a fragment of the material world.

- Secondary objects of knowledge(respectively, a secondary source of knowledge) - images of consciousness that are formed as a result of the reflection of primary objects. Consciousness and its images act as such, and more broadly - all spiritual processes, spiritual world of people.

- Tertiary objects of knowledge- objects that a person specially creates and studies in the process of scientific and theoretical activity. These include the concepts of "point", "ideal gas", "plane", etc.

The problem of the subject of knowledge includes the following questions: What is the subject of knowledge? What role does the subject play in the process of interaction with the object?

The subject - the one who cognizes - the active side of cognition, the individual and collective carrier of cognitive activity. The subject can be an individual, collective, social. group, class, society as a whole.

The basis of the "subject-object" relationship is practical activity. In the course of its development, the formation of a cognitive (epistemological) relationship is carried out. The subject of activity turns into the subject of cognition, the object of activity - into the object of cognition.

To play the role of the subject of knowledge, the individual must:

Have an educational experience;

Master the existing cognitive tools;

Constantly relate your cognitive activity with the activities of other cognizing subjects.

The subject makes his own adjustments to the cognitive process:

Along the line of individual subjectivity (when we attribute properties and qualities to objects of knowledge in accordance with our needs and interests);

Along the line of "collective" subjectivity (the subject always realizes his cognitive interest in certain social conditions and bears their stamp).

3. Types and levels of knowledge. What are the content, forms, laws of the process of cognition? How is knowledge developing? Today, science singles out sensual and rational cognition, sees the cognitive possibilities of intuition. Are there patterns in this process? If yes, what are they? What are the contradictions of the process of cognition, how are they resolved?

Cognition as a form of spiritual activity has existed in society since its inception, and the process of cognition is carried out in diverse socio-cultural forms developed in the course of human history.

Consider these forms:

- ordinary - practical knowledge : based on everyday experience, practice, gives elementary information about nature, people, etc. But everyday knowledge is chaotic, fragmented, a simple set of information and rules;

- game cognition : important element activities not only for children, but also for adults: business games, sports, acting, etc. game models and game scenarios are increasingly used in a number of sciences, where various options the course of complex processes;

- mythological knowledge;

- artistic knowledge - received expression in art, is figurative;

- religious knowledge : genetically connected with mythology, it is characterized by a combination of an emotional attitude to the world with faith in the supernatural;

- philosophical knowledge;

- scientific knowledge .

levels of knowledge. Cognition is carried out at two levels:

- Sensual level. Sensory cognition is carried out with the help of human sense organs. (6) - vision, hearing, etc. and there is a direct character, because it occurs through direct contact with cognizable objects. At the same time, the sense organs deliver the corresponding data to the mind. Sensory cognition is subjective, at this level external characteristics subject.

- The rational level (lat. ratio - mind, mind, thinking) is carried out with the help of thinking . Thinking in philosophy is understood as a process of generalized and indirect reflection of reality, which provides the receipt of the essential properties of objects and phenomena based on the data of sensory cognition.

Rational cognition does not deal with the objects themselves, but with data about them, which provides us with sensory cognition (this is mediation). The mind summarizes the facts, draws conclusions, comprehends them.

Rational knowledge is highest form knowledge, with the help of which penetration into the essence of objects and phenomena takes place, laws are revealed , theories are created.

With rational cognition, direct contact with the subject is not needed.

Levels of cognition do not exist in isolation either from practice or from each other. The activity of the sense organs is always controlled by the mind; the mind functions on the basis of the initial information that the sense organs supply to it. Since sensual cognition precedes rational cognition, it is possible in a certain sense to speak of sensual and rational as stages, stages of the process of cognition. Each of these two levels of cognition has its own specifics and exists in its own forms.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, a dispute broke out between philosophers about effective ways knowledge, as a result of which the directions of empiricism and rationalism took shape.

Empiricism(Fr. Bacon, J. Locke) believes that the main source of knowledge about the world and the beginning of our knowledge is experience. Most effective method knowledge that can be used to a large number of true knowledge, is the method of induction. Induction - the movement of thought from the particular to the general.

A form of empiricism is sensationalism who believes that sensory impressions are the basis of our knowledge (D. Locke).

Rationalism(R. Descartes, G. Leibniz) believes that the source of human knowledge about the world is the mind ("innate ideas" of Descartes). An effective and rigorous method of cognition is the method of deduction. Deduction - the movement of thought from the general to the particular.

Forms of knowledge:

Forms of the sensory level: · Feeling- a reflection of individual properties or qualities of an object that directly affects our senses. However, not the whole subject is given. Feelings are specialized. Visual sensations give us information about the shape of objects, about their color, about the brightness of light rays. Auditory sensations inform a person about various sound vibrations in environment. Touch enables us to feel the temperature of the environment, the impact of various material factors on the body, their pressure on it, etc. Finally, the sense of smell and taste provide information about the chemical impurities in the environment and the composition of the food taken. Sensations are the only source of human knowledge about the surrounding world. The lack of sensations from the outside world can even lead to mental illness. For example, a person placed in a sound chamber found himself in a situation of so-called sensory deprivation. The latter manifests itself in the form of specific experiences of isolation, loneliness, "sensual hunger", associated with a significant restriction or complete cessation of the inflow to the central nervous system stimuli from the sense organs. · Perception- a holistic image of an object that affects our senses. It's over complex shape sensory knowledge, it more fully characterizes the subject. Perception is based on combinations various kinds sensations. But this is not just a mechanical sum of them. Sensations that are received from various sense organs merge into a single whole in perception, forming a sensual image of an object. So, if we hold an apple in our hand, then visually we receive information about its shape and color, through touch we learn about its weight and temperature, smell conveys its smell; and if we taste it, we will know whether it is sour or sweet. In perception, the purposefulness of cognition is already manifested. We can focus on some side of the subject, and it will be "bulged out" in perception. From the types of perceptions, the perception of space, time and movement is distinguished. The perceptions of man are more developed and perfect than those of animals. As F. Engels noted, an eagle sees much farther than a man, but the human eye notices much more in things than the eye of an eagle. · Representation- preservation of the image of an object in the mind without its direct impact on the senses. These include - images of memory, images of imagination (associated with creativity, fantasy). Some time after the object has affected us, we can recall its image in our memory (for example, remember an apple that we held in our hand some time ago and then ate). At the same time, the image of the object, recreated by our representation, differs from the image that existed in perception. Firstly, it is poorer, paler, in comparison with the multicolored image that we had with the direct perception of the object. And, secondly, this image will necessarily be more general, because in the representation, with even greater force than in perception, the purposefulness of knowledge is manifested. In the image evoked from memory, the main thing that interests us will be in the foreground. In the representation, one can also obtain images that in reality do not exist and have never been directly perceived by a person. This means that representation is connected not only with memory, but also with imagination, fantasy. IN Greek mythology For example, the idea of ​​a centaur was created - a half-man, half-horse, and the fantasy of our Slavic ancestors gave rise to the idea of ​​a mermaid - a woman with a fish tail instead of lower limbs. However, all such representations are based on real fragments of reality, which are only bizarrely combined with each other. So, in our idea of ​​a trait, individual features, body organs that animals actually have (tail, hooves, horns, etc.) are interconnected in such a way that a fantastic image of “evil spirits” is obtained. Rational level forms: · concept- reflection of the most essential and stable properties of a certain class of objects with the help of thought. Concepts are expressed in the language in the form of words or phrases. But words and concepts are not the same thing. The concept means the meaning and meaning of the word, so a person thinks not in words, but in concepts. Therefore, thinking is possible only on a linguistic basis, is closely related to speech, and the number of concepts determines the human intellect. The formation of a concept is a complex dialectical process, including: comparison (mental comparison of one object with another, identification of signs of similarity and differences between them), generalization (mental association of homogeneous objects on the basis of certain common characteristics), abstraction (singling out some signs in the object , the most essential, and distraction from others, minor, insignificant). All these logical devices are closely related to each other in the process of concept formation. Developing, for example, the concept of "table", people, on the one hand, are distracted from such private features that are not essential for the formation of this concept (inherent in many real tables), such as shape (round, rectangular, oval, etc.), color, the number of legs, the material from which specific tables are made, etc., and on the other hand, those common signs, which determine the use of this item (table) in Everyday life. · Judgment- connection of concepts, where there is a complete block of information. A judgment is that form of thinking through which the presence or absence of any connections and relations between objects is revealed (that is, it indicates the presence or absence of something in something). The objective basis of the judgment is the connections and relationships between objects. The necessity of judgments (as well as concepts) is rooted in the practical activity of people. Interacting with nature in the process of labor, a person seeks not only to distinguish certain objects from others, but also to comprehend their relationships in order to successfully influence them. Connections and relations between objects of thought are of the most diverse nature. They can be between two separate objects, between an object and a group of objects, between groups of objects, etc. The variety of such real connections and relations is reflected in the variety of judgments. For example, science has established that iron has electrical conductivity. The presence of this connection between iron and its individual property makes it possible to say: "iron is electrically conductive." At the same time, it does not have transparency; permeability to light rays. The lack of connection of iron with this property determines the judgment: "Iron is not transparent." · inference- a form of thinking through which new knowledge is derived from known knowledge. Inference is a connection of judgments, where from the information of some (premisses) the information of others (conclusion) follows. It is the conclusion from two or more judgments in favor of a new judgment. Here is a classic example of a conclusion (syllogism): All people are mortal (premise 1). Socrates man (2 premise). Therefore, Socrates is mortal (a new judgment is a consequence). In fact, we think in inferences, and concepts and judgments act as "bricks" for building inferences. Inference is widely used in everyday and scientific knowledge. So, looking out the window in the morning and noticing the wet roofs of houses, we easily conclude that it rained last night. The significance of inferences lies in the fact that they not only link our knowledge into more or less complex, relatively complete mental structures, but also enrich and strengthen this knowledge. Inference in science is used as a way of knowing the past, which can no longer be directly observed. It is on the basis of inferences that knowledge about the occurrence of solar system and the formation of the Earth, the origin of life on our planet, the emergence and stages of development of society, etc. But reasoning in science is used not only to understand the past. They are also important for understanding the future, which cannot yet be observed. There is even a whole scientific direction - futurology (from the Latin futurum - the future), predicting the future, the forms of its formation. Together with concepts and judgments, inferences overcome the limitations of sensory knowledge. They turn out to be indispensable where the sense organs are powerless in comprehending the causes and conditions for the emergence of any object or phenomenon, in understanding its essence, forms of existence, patterns of its development, etc. Inferences are: - inductive, - deductive, - by analogy.

4. Intuition as a way of knowing. The real process of cognition is not carried out as a purely rational one: it is always intertwined with irrational (irrational) forms.

Irrational - outside the mind, incommensurable with thinking: emotions, will, subconscious drives, intuition, faith, etc.

IN modern philosophy and science no longer recognizes the unconditional priority of the rational over the irrational, for example, the role of intuition is very large in scientific knowledge.

Intuition is direct immediate discretion truth, not connected with a chain of consistent reasoning and evidence, without a clear awareness of the ways and means of obtaining a result, as if a sudden insight . But, as a rule, intuition is preceded by a powerful and long work logical thinking.

Main feature intuition - its immediacy and integrity.

"Mediators" between the object and the cognizing subject at the sensual level are the sense organs, at the rational level - the abstract-logical abilities of a person. In the case of intuitive acquisition of knowledge, the process of cognition is carried out directly. Due to its immediacy, intuition has a high degree of integrity: the object of knowledge is captured in intuition as a whole, but the mind first divides the object into parts, cognizes them separately, then tries to synthesize the results.

Thus, intuitions are peculiar:

The unexpectedness of the solution of the problem;

Unconsciousness of the ways and means of its solution;

Immediacy of comprehension of truth;

Integrity in the perception of objects.

Intuition is common both in ordinary, everyday conditions (in a non-standard situation that requires a quick solution in conditions of limited information, a person seems to have a presentiment that it is necessary to do this and not otherwise), and in the history of human culture (very often scientists, designers, artists achieved fundamentally new results through “insight”, “on a whim”).

For example, A. Einstein said that the idea of ​​the relativity of simultaneity came to him as a result of a sudden intuitive guess. One morning, upon waking up, he suddenly realized that events occurring simultaneously for one observer may not be simultaneous for another.

Note, however, that sometimes intuition is taken not for what it is. For example, inferences whose premises are not formulated explicitly, and therefore the result seems unexpected, are not intuitive. It is not necessary to attribute to intuition also reactions according to the type of automatisms from the realm of instincts.

Types of intuition:

Depending on the specifics of the activity of the subject, one can distinguish technical, scientific, everyday, medical, artistic etc.;

By the nature of the novelty of the result, intuition is standardized And heuristic.

Standardized intuition called intuition - reduction (reduction). An example is the medical intuition of S.P. Botkin. It is known that while the patient was walking from the door to the chair, S.P. Botkin mentally made a preliminary diagnosis. Most of his intuitive diagnoses came true. In this case, as with any diagnosis, there is a summing up of the particular (a complex of symptoms in a patient) under the general (a certain “matrix” - a scheme of the disease in general).

Heuristic (creative) intuition is associated with the formation of a fundamentally new knowledge, new cognitive images, sensual or conceptual. The same S. P. Botkin as a clinical scientist, developing the theory of medicine, based on intuition put forward a hypothesis about the infectious nature of catarrhal jaundice (Botkin's disease).

TO general conditions The formation and manifestation of intuition can be attributed to the following:

1) thorough professional training of a person, deep knowledge of the problem;

2) search situation, problem state;

3) action in the subject of the search dominant; based on continuous attempts to solve a problem, strenuous efforts to solve a problem or task;

4) the presence of a hint that serves as a trigger for intuition.

As such a clue for I. Newton was, as you know, an apple that fell on his head, which caused the idea gravity; for the bridge engineer S. Brown - a web hanging between the branches, which prompted him to the idea of ​​​​a suspension bridge.

Some researchers believe that the intuitive ability was formed, apparently, as a result of the long development of living organisms due to the need to make decisions with incomplete information about events. The ability to intuitively know, in fact, is a probabilistic response to the probabilistic conditions of the environment. In the process of discovery, the scientist, indeed, is not given all the premises and means, therefore, in intuition, he makes precisely a probabilistic choice.

The probabilistic nature of intuition means for a person both the possibility of obtaining true knowledge and the danger of having erroneous, untrue knowledge. The English physicist M. Faraday, known for his work in the field of electricity, magnetism, electrochemistry, wrote that no one suspects how many conjectures and theories that arise in the head of a researcher are destroyed by his own criticism, and hardly one tenth of all his assumptions and hopes come true. .

The attitude towards intuition in the East is completely different. First of all, intuitive knowledge is as familiar to Eastern culture as rational knowledge is to Europeans. In traditional Eastern culture, intuition is not perceived as something random and probabilistic: intuitive knowledge is considered higher in level than rational knowledge.

The theory of knowledge (epistemology) is a branch of philosophy that studies the problems of the nature of cognition and its capabilities, the relationship of knowledge to reality, explores the general prerequisites for cognition, and identifies the conditions for its reliability and truth.

The subject is a single concrete person, a group of people and humanity as a whole.

The object is the entire existing reality. The process of cognition in all cases is active.

Knowledge levels:

1) Sensual (empirical) - knowledge of the world with the help of the senses. There are 3 forms of sensory knowledge: a) sensations - only the properties of the object, the object before the eyes, through the senses. b) perception - an image of an object, directly in front of the eyes, through the senses (a holistic image). c) representation - an image of an object that is stored in the mind without direct impact on the senses.

Features of sensory cognition:

The result is visual image subject

Does not separate essential features from non-essential ones

Subjectively, because everyone's senses are different

There are objects and phenomena that cannot be known with the help of the senses.

Present in animals

Is the basis for rational knowledge

2) Rational knowledge - knowledge of the world with the help of mental operations (comparison, assimilation, abstraction, generalization). Forms: a) concept - a thought with which you can highlight the general and distinctive features. b) judgment - a thought that affirms or denies a previously formed idea. c) inference - a thought that establishes a logical connection between judgments.

Peculiarities:

Based on the result of sensory cognition

No direct effect of the item

It is possible to study objects that cannot be studied with sensory cognition.

The result is true knowledge about the subject

Forms (paths) of knowledge:

1. Non-scientific knowledge: A) everyday (ordinary): based on personal experience and common sense, quite conservative, has a peculiar language (a handful). B) folk wisdom: summarizes the experience of generations, expressed in the form of riddles, proverbs and sayings, quite contradictory. C) artistic: the result is an artistic image, quite subjective, has an emotional coloring, the language of symbols (colors, sounds) acts. D) mythological: replaces explanation with a story, serves to convey cultural values ​​and life experience people. E) parascience (astrology, palmistry): penetrates into an unexplored space, deals not with facts, but with hypotheses, avoiding specific explanations.

2. Scientific knowledge is the main form of human knowledge, which is expressed in the form of mental and subject-practical activity. Features: objectivity, proven by practice; deals only with what really exists and can be observed; is systemic: fact → hypothesis → law → theory; subjected to constant scrutiny, i.e. open to rational criticism; builds on the experience of predecessors; has its own scientific language; reproducibility of the obtained results.

3. Social cognition: the subject and object of cognition coincide; the role of the subjective factor (related to the interests of individuals and groups); society is a difficult object to study, because there are no repetitive events in it, and also people endowed with will act; limited use of methods such as observation and experiment.

4. Self-knowledge - the process of comprehending the characteristics of one's own personality (his interests, will, abilities). The image of "I" is a relatively stable representation of a person about himself, expressed in verbal form. Self-esteem is an emotional attitude towards one's own self-image.

Cognition is the process of comprehension by a person of new, previously unknown knowledge.
Structure learning process:

1. The subject of cognition is an actively acting individual, social group or society as a whole, endowed with consciousness and goal setting.
2. The object of knowledge is what the cognitive activity of the subject is aimed at. It can be animate (the person himself, animal) and inanimate (phenomena of nature); material (really existing object) or ideal (hypothesis, theory).
3. The result of cognition - knowledge - is a product of the relation of thought to reality, existing in a logically linguistic form, in the form of concepts, judgments, symbols, signs.

Characteristics of the main types of knowledge

The question of the relationship between the sensual and the rational caused the emergence of two philosophical trends.
Empiricism- the only source of all our knowledge is sensory experience.
Rationalism- our knowledge can be obtained only with the help of the mind, without relying on feelings.
But it is impossible to oppose the sensual and the rational in cognition, since the two stages of cognition appear as a single process. The difference between them is not temporary, but qualitative: the first stage is the lowest, the second is the highest. Knowledge is the unity of sensual and rational knowledge of reality.

Knowledge- the result of cognition of reality, the content of consciousness.

Types of knowledge:
Delusion- knowledge that does not correspond to a real object, but is accepted as truth. A lie is a deliberate distortion of the image of an object.
Zhiteiskoe- based on common sense, formed as a result of people's daily lives, reduced to stating facts and describing them.
Practical- the basis is the activity of people to fulfill their needs.
artistic- is built on the image, characterized by emotionality, subjectivity.
Scientific- characterized by the desire for objectivity, consistency, consistency, exists in the form of concepts and categories, general principles, laws, theories.
Rational- reflects reality in terms, is based on rational thinking.
Irrational- reflects reality in emotions, often based on intuition, does not obey the laws of logic.

Forms of knowledge

Scientific- objective, systematically organized and justified knowledge
empirical level methods: – observation; – experiment; - description.	theoretical level methods: – induction (from particular to general); - deduction (from the general to the particular); - analysis (decomposition of the whole into parts) - synthesis (combining individual knowledge into a single whole)
Unscientific- disparate, unsystematized knowledge that is not formalized and not described by laws
pre-scientific - prerequisites for scientific knowledge parascientific - incompatible with existing scientific knowledge pseudoscientific - deliberately using speculation and prejudice anti-scientific - utopian and deliberately distorting the idea of ​​reality

Features of social cognition:
- the subject and object of cognition coincide (society studies itself, the sociologist sees the process from the inside, since he himself is a participant public relations. Therefore, it plays a big role personal assessment social phenomena);
- the possibilities of the researcher are limited (it is not always possible to conduct an experiment);
- the complexity and variability of the object of study gives rise to a pluralism of points of view on society.

When studying society, one should apply concrete historical approach:
- to establish the relationship between the past and the future;
- identifying common patterns, it is necessary to remember the originality and originality historical path peoples, countries, regions;
- to study social phenomena in their diversity and interdependence;
- to consider the current activity as a result of the previous one.

Features of cognition by means of art:
- emotional coloring;
- carried out with the help of images.
Image- this is a reflection of reality, which has certain properties of a really existing object, refracted through the inner world of the creator (artist, director, writer).
Canon- a set of applied rules for creating an image. It is characterized by the peculiarities of the worldview of the era. (For example, in the period of antiquity, the beauty of the human body, proportionality is sung; in the Middle Ages, the body is perceived as something sinful, therefore it is depicted flat, covered with clothes).

Even before the emergence of science, in the course of their daily practical activities, people received the knowledge they needed about the properties and characteristics of objects and phenomena. Knowledge- this is a practice-tested result of cognition of reality, its true reflection in the human mind. The main function of knowledge is the generalization of disparate ideas about the laws of nature, society and thinking.

Knowledge can be relative or absolute.

relative knowledge is a reflection of reality with some incomplete matching of the sample with the object.

Absolute knowledge - this is a complete, exhaustive reproduction of generalized ideas about the object, which provide an absolute match between the sample and the object.

The movement of human thought from ignorance to knowledge is called knowledge. Its basis is the reflection of objective reality in the mind of a person in the process of his practical (industrial, social and scientific) activities. Consequently, the cognitive activity of a person is caused by practice and is aimed at the practical mastery of reality. This process is endless, since the dialectic of cognition is expressed in the contradiction between the boundless complexity of objective reality and the limitedness of our knowledge.

The main purpose of knowledge is the achievement of true knowledge, which is realized in the form of theoretical provisions and conclusions, laws and teachings, confirmed by practice and existing objectively, independently of us.

There are two types of knowledge: sensory (ordinary) and scientific (rational). Sense cognition is a consequence of the direct connection of man with the environment. Cognition of the world by a person and interaction with him is carried out due to the functioning of the organs of vision, hearing, touch, taste. Sensory cognition appears in 3 forms, which are stages of cognition: sensation, perception, representation (imagination).

Feeling - this is a reflection by the human brain of the properties of objects or phenomena of the objective world, which are perceived by its sense organs. Sensations are the source of all knowledge, but they give knowledge of the individual properties of objects, and a person deals not only with individual properties, but also with the object as a whole, with a combination of properties.

The contradiction between sensation and activity is resolved by the appearance of a higher form of sensory knowledge - perception.

Perception - this is a reflection by the human brain of the properties of objects or phenomena as a whole, perceived by its senses in some period of time, and gives the primary sensual image of an object or phenomenon. Perception is a reflection, a copy, an image of a set of properties, and not a single one of them. The object is reflected in the human brain. Perception gives knowledge of objects, things, not properties. But perception is also limited. It gives knowledge only when the perceived object is available, exists now. But human activity also needs knowledge about those objects that were perceived in the past or may be perceived (repeated) in the future.

The highest form of sensory knowledge is representation. Representation is a secondary image of an object or phenomenon, which in this moment time do not affect the human senses, but they must have acted earlier. This is a reproduction in the human brain by connecting them into an integral system. Representation can reproduce the past, images of those objects that once acted on the senses - as if to put it again before us. Representation can give knowledge of the future (for example, an idea about something based on what we have read, heard, etc.).

Thus, with the help of sensory cognition, we acquire the necessary knowledge about the properties and features of things and phenomena that we encounter in our daily practical activities.

Scientific (rational) knowledge - this is an indirect and generalized reflection in the human brain of essential properties, causal relationships and regular connections between objects and phenomena. Scientific knowledge is not separated by an insurmountable line from the sensual (ordinary), since it represents its further improvement and development. It complements and anticipates sensory cognition, promotes awareness of the essence of ongoing processes, and reveals the patterns of their development.

Scientific knowledge is a consciously carried out cognitive activity, which is based on an indirect and generalized reflection of the properties and relations of objects and phenomena in their contradiction and development. It is a purposeful process.

Scientific knowledge is associated with a sensual (ordinary) relationship of continuity, which means:

it has a common goal - to give objective, true knowledge about reality;

scientific knowledge arises on the basis of the common sense of sensory knowledge, i.e. and sensory and scientific knowledge are based on the principle of realism.

Scientific cognition subjects rational criticism to the initial positions of sensory cognition, using specific and theoretical research methods for this, and thereby achieves progress in understanding and explaining the phenomena under study.

Scientific knowledge differs from sensory (ordinary) knowledge in its systemic and consistent nature both in the process of searching for new knowledge and in ordering all found, available knowledge. It is characterized by consistency, which is expressed in its logical construction, the elimination of contradictions between its individual elements. Therefore, scientific knowledge is characterized by specific methods of construction, systematization and substantiation of knowledge.

Scientific knowledge has a number of characteristics:

focus on the production of knowledge;

a clear allocation of the subject of knowledge, which is associated with the fragmentation of the studied reality, the allocation of its various structural levels;

use of specialized tools;

regulation by a certain set of methods and other types of normative knowledge (principles, ideals and norms, the style of scientific thinking);

the presence of a specialized language that constantly adapts to the specifics of cognitive actions.

In scientific knowledge, there are two levels:

empirical;

theoretical.

At the empirical level facts are collected (recorded events, phenomena, properties, relationships), statistical data are obtained based on observations, measurements, experiments and their classification.

Theoretical level knowledge is characterized by comparison, construction, and development of scientific hypotheses and theories, the formulation of laws and the derivation of logical consequences from them for the application of theoretical knowledge in practice.