Part I philosophy

Unit 1

Philosophy: the range of philosophical problems and the role and significance in culture.

The aim of the theme is: to consider the subject-matter of philosophy; to clarify the differences among philosophical, scientific and everyday knowledge; to stress the peculiarities of philosophical questions and philosophical problems in comparison with other forms of spiritual culture.

The key words of the theme are: philosophy, worldview, spirituality, culture, materialism, idealism, dialectics, metaphysics, monism, dualism, pluralism.

1.1. Philosophy as Specific Type of Knowledge

Man is a speculative being. He looks at the heavens and wonders whether they have an end. He ponders on the cause of the universe, puzzles over the fundamental constituents of things, searches for a meaning in the cycle of seasons and the distribution of good and evil fortune among men.

Man is also a reflective being. He acts, and then reflects on the principles of his actions. He reasons, and then reflects on the rules of correct reasoning. He judges a story to be true or a painting to be beautiful, and then reflects on the criteria of truth and beauty.

From these two impulses, speculation and reflection, there has developed in our civilization an extensive tradition of precise, systematic, sophisticated thought which is called philosophy.

Etymologically, the word philosophy means “love for sophia”, which is often translated as love for wisdom. In actual fact, the old Greek concept of “sophia” is much more complex and comprehensive than just wisdom. Plato who made the term of philosophy part of the European terminology did not see sophia as an acquired subjective human property, but a great objective quality becoming only a deity (God) inherent in a reasonable ordered and harmonious world. Man could not really merge with sophia because of his innate mortality and cognitive inadequacy, thought Plato, so man could only love it respectfully and at a distance. That is why it would be more correct to translate it as love for truth, although it is not quite exact either.

Philosophy is not conceived of as a mere collection of truths, but as a desire for the truth, as an ideal attitude of man’s soul and mind, that can lead to a harmonious equilibrium between both his inner physical life and his complex relationships with the world. Philosophy is, as it were, a guardian and indicator of the truth, one that is embedded in the soul of man himself and does not permit him to bow down before some partial or subjectively attractive knowledge, constantly reminding man of the need to correlate his actions and opinions with some deeper truth about himself and the world.

Philosophical questions appeal to spirituality of man and society. What is spirituality? Quite often people understand it as religiousness. But is it possible to completely identify spirituality and religiousness of man? Is it possible to say that a non- believing man does not have spirituality? To understand what spirituality is it is possible to get through consideration of the phenomenon of psycho-culture, which is formed in the process of vital activity of every individual who lives in a certain society with a certain culture and asks questions: what do I live for? What do I study for? What do I earn money for? What do I make a career for?, etc. Questions are general for all, but everybody must come up personally with answers to them. In fact, everybody integrates different components of the «external» and «internal» life in a certain unity in one's own way. These questions “what for?” and answers to them in their unity make a foundation of every personality's spirituality. The notion of spirituality refers to all sides of human life: material, everyday, political, legal, moral, scientific, religious and aesthetic one.

It embraces questions that can not be answered even during the whole life. These are the so called sense-formative questions which people answer in boundary vital situations when they must make a choice: to be or not to be? What kind of man to be? What is better: death or disgrace? So, these are questions of one's own being in the world, when man aims at looking into himself, into the most secret depths of his soul.

S.B. Krymskyi, a prominent Ukrainian philosopher, considered that to seek to answers on such questions requires an intensive work of personality's mind and soul in forming his own “internal world". This is man's way to himself. Just here the work of philosophy begins and it makes an area of human spirituality.

Each discipline is a certain system of knowledge, which applies both to practical realization, and to further production of new knowledge. The reason and purpose of any knowledge production is the need to understand the object of knowledge (things, processes and phenomena) within the limits of its subject for effective practical satisfaction of man’s vital needs. The subject of knowledge is a system of problems of the given discipline. Acquired understanding can be defined as the knowledge of the essence, of the main in the subject. Only when we correlate the essence that is learnt with man – his requirements, vital activity, desires, interests, purposes etc. – the essence gets meaning of sense.

The purpose of each sphere of cognition is the exposure of its subject essence, but not all of them take into account vital activity of man’s existence as a whole, as a source, content, purpose and sense of cognition.

The process of cognition as production of new knowledge in gnosiology (in the Greek “gnosis” meaning knowledge and “logos” meaning theory – theory of cognition) is analyzed through the concepts of “object” and “subject”. The object in gnosiology means at what the process of cognition is directed and the subject means who implements the process of cognition.

The concept of knowledge has various meanings.

Knowledge means:

 An ideal (from the Greek “idea” meaning image, similarity) product of man’s vital activity in space and time – in the world;

 An ideal image of the world – natural, social, personal;

 An ideal image of man’s vital activity in the world – being of man;

 A substantial base of all forms of man’s activity.

To clarify the essence of philosophy it is necessary to look through the typology of knowledge. The study of general structure of cognition as man’s activity in producing knowledge can be schematically shown as a unity of such elements:

RELATION

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MAN------WORLD

Consideration of any element in the system as an object of cognition forms the base of the appropriate types of knowledge.

1. The world as an object of cognition is the basis of the first type of knowledge – science – the system of knowledge about the world, its structure, properties and laws. The concept of the “world” is applied in the wide sense to the universe, and in the narrow sense to nature, geosphere.

The modern interpretations of science are:

1. Fundamental knowledge – mathematics and related disciplines;

2. Natural knowledge – mechanics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, geography, biology and related disciplines;

3. Technical knowledge - applied disciplines, derivatives of the first two.

The purpose of science is the understanding of the world. The maximum forms of its theoretical level are the natural-scientific pictures of the world according to the levels of world organization.

The general attribute of initial fundamental principles of science is axiomatic character of their bases, which can not be formalized within the limits of systems, derivative of them. K.Goedel’s theorems of incompleteness of formal systems summarize this idea as: “Verity and conclusiveness do not coincide”. This proves the impossibility of complete formalization of human thinking and its products in principle.

An evident example of the axiomatic character of fundamental science is the concept of infinity-eternity – the existence of an objective analogue of the concept is taken on trust, but the concept itself exists and practically functions in science, in particular in mathematics.

Thus, concepts of science need necessarily the concept of belief, which its modern researchers define differently.

In general belief is acceptance of any thesis as veritable. I a man, who trusts, wishes it, i.e. by means of the will, while will may be subject to suggestion and self-suggestion, emotional self-determination of action, and behavior on the basis of desire. Desire is an emotional choice of action, behavior motivation.

The problem of the will, belief and essence of knowledge, their interaction and interrelation is most important in the study of man’s vital activity in all its forms. It is also the basis for solving the cardinal problem of man’s life – the problem of the essence of freedom and creativity; freedom-creativity as the purport of his life.

And there is one more important thing as to the “objective” cognition of the “external” in man’s world. Science in itself, by definition, does not contain subjective, “human” characteristics, including the main of them – morals as its basis and criterion; it causes neutrality of science to human values and, thus, potential and real animosity to its creator – to man. To prevent manifestations of such animosity, society has been historically producing specific mechanisms of self-defense – ethics of cognition, ethics of science, humanistic worldview, in particular for scientists. An evident example of this is the wonderful exact concurrence of creative, moral and civil evolution of two giants of science and morals of the 20^th century - A. Einstein and А.D. Sacharov.

2. Man as an object of cognition is the basis of the second type of knowledge – anthropology (from the Greek “anthropos” – man and logos – doctrine – theory of man) –the system of knowledge about man, his origin, structure, properties, laws of existence.

The modern interpretations of anthropology are as follows:

1. The complex of medical and biological courses ensures knowledge of corporal structure, properties and functioning of man.

2. Psychology is the knowledge of man’s mental activity:

a) general psychology is the knowledge of general laws of man’s mental activity;

b) specific types of man’s mental activity: psychology of feelings, recognition, thinking, emotions, creativity, an individual and so on.

3. Linguistics.

4. Pedagogic.

5. History of man and mankind: natural, ethical, social, political, cultural and spiritual.

The purpose of anthropology is the understanding of man’s essence. The maximum form of its theoretical level is a generalized, systematized study of human nature on the basis of all the above mentioned areas.

The study of human nature, historically and logically, was formed on a qualitatively different basis of understanding man’s essence:

1. Man is a social human being, an element of the world, its derivation, and, hence, man only reflects laws and structure of the world. Freedom of man is acknowledged necessity.

2. Man is the creation of God, simultaneously both a means of God’s will and the free human being that himself makes free choice between good and evil and who is responsible for it. Freedom of man is responsibility.

3. Man is the free human being who creates the world by the activity of his own consciousness. He is the creator of himself, of his own history, his own sense of life, the source of good and evil. Freedom is a realized opportunity.

In anthropology belief has fundamental significance too, and it cannot be reduced only to religious forms. For man belief is the choice of a model of vital activity, comparison – intuitive and realized – of vital activity with his own unique essence and his soul. Such unique essence inspires and guides man’s life, but it is not realized by everybody and serves as the criterion of distinction between the concepts of “man” and “person”.

Obvious examples of usual faith are present in our behavior:

 Is man able to give a rational account of the bases of his own liking – aesthetic, ethical, domestic, interpersonal, even scientific?

 Is man able to give a rational account of the bases of his own emotions – sympathy-antipathy, love-hatred, kindness-malignancy, peace of mind-unease and so on?

 Is this important in man’s life?

 Is science able to answer these questions or to formulate more important problems in man’s life?

3. Man’s relation to the world as the object of cognition is a basis of the third type of knowledge – philosophy – a system of knowledge of the most general nature of man’s relation to the world, its structure, properties, functioning laws.

The contemporary interpretations of the philosophy structure are in:

 Ontology - a theory of being;

 Gnosiology - a theory of cognition;

 Logic - a theory of veritable thinking;

 Ethics - a theory of moral;

 Aesthetics - a theory of art and artistic activity;

 Social philosophy - a theory of society;

 History of philosophy - a systematized account of philosophical views by chronological, logical, contansive and other principles.

The aim of philosophy is understanding the purport of man’s relation to the world. The higher form of its theoretical level is a methodology system (from the Greek “methodos” meaning the way to something, and “logos” meaning theory - teaching about means, methods of man’s activity.)

The personally-individualized form of philosophy is the worldview.

Philosophy is a kind of knowledge that is based on faith even more than the previous types, because the relation between the two open systems – man and the world – is the object of greater uncertainty and vagueness than of its elements.

Worldview, methodology of activity, philosophy, anthropology and science are a viable unity of will, faith and knowledge in their decisive factors.

So, philosophy is a system of theoretical knowledge, the unity of:

 Principles: of humanity, activity, consciousness, spirituality;

 Categories: of humanity, world, relation;

 Laws of development and cognition of its object – man’s relation to the world.