Философия. Учебное пособие (практикум) на английском языке

Philosophy ●

of thought that dominated both idealist and materialist doctrines of those times.

Hegel opposed the dialectical principle that the essence manifests itself phenomenally, and that phenomena are essential, to Kant’s

“thing-in-itself”. Hegel asserted that categories are objective forms of reality underlying which is the world reason, absolute Idea, or the world spirit. That is the active principle that gave the impetus to the emergence and development of the world.

The activity of the absolute idea consists of thinking and the goal, in self-cognition. In the process of self-cognition, the world reason goes through three stages: the existence of the self-cognizing idea in its own womb, in the element of pure thought, the development of the idea in thought and in the history of mankind (the history of the spirit). At this last stage, the absolute idea reverts to itself, perceiving itself in the form of human consciousness and self-consciousness.

The common description of Hegel’s philosophical views. 1. Hegel’s Ontology

The main idea is the identification of being and thinking. As a result of this identification Hegel displays a special philosophical concept – the Absolute Idea.

The absolute idea is:

•the only real reality;

•the root cause of the world, its objects and phenomena;

•the world spirit, possessing self-consciousness and the ability to create.

The next key ontological notion is the category of alienation.

The Absolute spirit alienates itself in the form of the surrounding world, nature, man, and then, after alienation through thinking and human activity, the natural course of history returns to itself.

2. The problem of a Man

Man in Hegel’s ontology plays a special role. He’s the bearer of the Absolute idea. The consciousness of each human being – the bearer of the World of the mind.

Through man the world’s mind:

•manifests itself in the form of words, speech, language, gestures;

•know yourself;

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•creates in the form of the results of material and spiritual culture.

3. The doctrine of dialectics

•the world mind, man, objects and phenomena contain opposite principles that are in conflict;

•unity and struggle of opposites is the basis of development and existence of everything in the world.

Development is carried out as follows:

•There is a certain thesis (statement, form of being);

•This thesis is always antithesis (its opposite);

•As a result of the interaction of two opposing theses, a synthesis

is obtained – a new statement, which in turn becomes a thesis, but at a higher level;

•This process happens again and again, and each time as a result of synthesis of opposite theses the thesis of higher level is formed.

The doctrine of dialectics shows that it is impossible to understand a phenomenon without a clear picture of the whole path which is traversed in its development. That development does not run along a closed circuit but proceeds from lower forms to higher ones. That in this process quantative changes turn into qualitative ones. And that the source of development lies in contradiction, which sets the world in motion. Contradiction is the root of all motion and all vitality, it is the principle of all self-motion. Hegel’s philosophical system presented reality as a chain of dialectical transitions.

In his works Hegel also paid great attention to the philosophical problems of nature, law and history.

As part of preparation for the fourth question students should learn the content of philosophical views of L. Feuerbach the last representative of classical German philosophy.

The philosophy of L. Feuerbach is materialistic in nature, the main features of which are the following:

•Materialistic explanation of the world based on the achievements of science of the time;

•Great interest in social and political problems;

•An attempt to explain religion from materialistic positions, based on human nature;

•Belief in the man’s cognition of the world.

Philosophy ●

The early period of Feuerbach’s philosophy is characterized by criticism of idealism, especially Hegelian.

Feuerbach:

•rejects the idea of identity, being and thinking;

•does not recognize the existence of an absolute idea as an independent substance;

•logically proves the impossibility of alienation (transformation) of the absolute idea into the material world;

•does not recognize the unity of philosophy and religion;

•the philosophy of Hegel, is artificial, susceptible to prejudices, facing the past.

Feuerbach called his own philosophical system as a “new philos- ophy” or “philosophy of the future”. The subject of this philosophy should be a man, and philosophy itself – the doctrine of a man or anthropology.

So,criticizingHegel’sobjectiveidealism,Feuerbachpropoundedthe materialist view of nature. Feuerbach’s critique of Hegel was one-sid- ed: rejecting Hegel’s idealism, Feuerbach underestimated his dialectics.

Feuerbach’s materialism remained traditionally metaphysical.

The theory of the anthropological materialism of Feuerbach.

Characteristic feature of Feuerbach’s philosophy was anthropologism: the view of man as the highest product of nature, the tendency to consider man in an indivisible unity with nature. Nature is the basis of spirit. It must also be the basis of philosophy called upon to reveal the earthly essence of man, whom nature endowed with senses and reason and whose psyche depends on his physical constitution, possessing at the same time a qualitative specificity irreducible to the physiological processes.

In a short way it can be represented as:

•The only existing realities are nature and man;

•Man is part of nature;

•Man is the unity of material and spiritual;

•Man should become the main problem of philosophy;

•The idea does not exist in itself, but is a product of human consciousness;

•God-is the result of human imagination;

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•Nature is eternal and infinite, it is not created by anyone and indestructible;

•Everything that surrounds us are various manifestations of na-

ture.

In his gnoseological theory he criticized agnosticism. In his critique of agnosticism Feuerbach assumed that human thought correctly reflects the reality existing outside consciousness. The senses played the most important part in his epistemology: only the sensuous is as clear as the sun. To think means to connect one sense organ datum with another. Feuerbach regarded all forms of cognition (sensations, representations, concepts, ideas) as images or copies of things, of their properties and relations.

So the problem of knowledge includes the following ideas:

•He was opposed to limited cognitive capabilities of the person;

•Feuerbach believed that the world is learning, and cognitive abilities of the mind are endless;

•The limitlessness of possibilities does not come immediately, but develops gradually, as the evolution of man. “What we do not know will be known by our descendants”.

•The basis of knowledge consists of subjective sensory sensations, which are based on objective reality and which are realized by the mind.

The Problem of God has a peculiar solution in Feuerbach’s philos-

ophy:

•There is no God as an independent reality, he is a product of human consciousness;

•The spread of religion was made possible by the ignorance of man, his difficult living conditions;

•God is not really the Creator, he is the creation of a man’ mind, while the true Creator is a man.

Feuerbach subjected the origin and essence of religion to a pro- found and striking analysis, but he traced their roots only to man’s psychology, his consciousness and emotions, in the first place the feeling of love. A human being is God to another human being. Feuerbach noted that political, economic, ethical and other social factors imposed their imprint on the content of religion.

Philosophy ●

The common characteristic of the socio-political views (related to anthropological materialism):

•Man is a unique biological being, endowed with will, mind, emotions;

•Realization of the “I” by a person is possible only in communication with other people, with society;

•The basis of the relationship between people in society should be a religion, but not based on traditional faith, but on the religion of love for each other and the religion of love within the family;

•The meaning of human life should be the pursuit of happiness.

Test questions and tasks

1.What General features can be characterized by the classical German philosophy?

2.Whose philosophical views were the source of the ideas of Kant, leading to the creation of a critical philosophy?

3.What are the basic principles of Kant’s agnosticism ?

4.What is the starting point and the basis of Hegel’s philosophical system?

5.How do you understand the principle of Hegel’s triad?

6.What laws of dialectics were formulated by Hegel?

7.What basic principles of the classification of history did Hegel propose? Explain your answer.

8.How is L. Feuerbach’s philosophical doctrine characterized?

9.What does Feuerbach offer as a “new religion”?

10.Task № 1. Prepare a presentation on the theme: “I. Kant is the founder of the German classical philosophy”.

11.Task №2. Check out the works of the following philosophers and analyze the philosophical ideas of the authors.

• Kant I. “Critique of practical reason”.

• Kant I. “Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view”.

• Feuerbach L. “The Essence of Christianity”.

Literature

Basic: 1–2.

Additional: 1–4.

Internet-resources: 1–5.

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5. The Problem of Being

in Philosophy

The aim: to characterize the main approaches to the problem of being, to consider the concept of substance and the main options for a substantive understanding of being, to characterize the forms of being, to consider the structural organization of being, its attributes.

The formed competences: ОК-1,ОК-5.

Knowledge and skills which the students acquire as a result of mastering of the theme, the formed competences or a part of it.

As a result of mastering the theme, students acquire:

•knowledge of basic ontological problems;

•skills to use fundamental knowledge of ontological issues in professional activities;

•ability of critical analysis of modern ontological doctrines.

The actuality of the theme is conditioned by the importance of studying the problems of existence for the characteristics of modern philosophical theories and analysis of modern concepts of the worldview in the context of socio-cultural transformations.

Plan

1.The concept of the picture of the world. Philosophical picture of the

world.

2.Being as a philosophical category.

3.Being as the substance.

4.Thing, attribute, relation. Forms of being.

Theoretical part

As part of preparation for the first question it is necessary to take into account that one of the main objectives of philosophy is to com- prehend the human ontological attitude to the world, the formation of a holistic view of it, which is designated by the concept of “picture of the world”. In the construction of the picture of the world the essential role plays ontology –the doctrine of the fundamental structures of the be-

Philosophy ●

ing. The ontology is a part of philosophy which creates a picture of the world based on the general principles of the knowledge of the world.

The definition of the role and the place of man in the universe, first of all, is connected with the building of a picture of the world. Various pictures of the world are created depending on the interpretation of worldviews and values orientation of a man.

So, the picture of the world is a holistic worldview, synthesizing knowledge on the base of a systematic beginning, for example, scientific principles, ideas, religious dogmas, and indicating the man’s worldview and values. There are mythological, religious, scientific and philosophical picture of the world.

The mythological picture of the world is contemplative, holistic understanding of the world through a specifically-sensual image in whichvisionandimagination,subjectandobjectareindistinguishable in its unity. That is why, in the mythological picture of the world the perception of nature is realized through spiritual beings, magic and fantastic phenomena.

The religious picture of the world is based on religious belief and on the irrational cognition of the world order. In the world order two units: God and his creation, man are in hierarchical relationship.In the religious picture of the world religious experience of mankind which is based on the idea of the dualistic way of life is summarized and synthesized.

The scientific picture of the world is an ordered integrity of systematic knowledge about the world and people, which is formed on the basis of the fundamental discoveries and achievements of natural sciences.

The main feature of the scientific picture of the world is that it is built on the basis of the fundamental principles underlying the scientific theory which takes the leading position.

The philosophy gives an overall picture of the world. The philosophical picture of the world which is created in the ontology determines the main content of the worldview of a man, defines the core ideology of the individual, social group, society. Being a theoretical way of knowing of the world, philosophical picture of the world is ab- stract in nature and reflects the world in general terms and categories.

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So, the philosophical picture of the world is the ordered integrity of systematically organized knowledge in the form of ideas, doctrines, theories and concepts that reflect the very broad understanding of the world and the man’s place in it.

The peculiarity of the philosophical picture of the world is determined by the basic concepts and ideas that it proposes for solving fundamental philosophical problems.

In order to understand this thesis, the following explanation is necessary.

•The main problem of the religious world view is the relationship of God and a man.

•The main problem for the scientific picture of the world is the synthesis and generalization of different knowledge into a coherent whole.

•The main problem of the philosophical world view is the interaction of the world and of a man.

•In the religious picture of the world the understanding of the world is based on the idea of the god’s creation of the world and of a man.

•In scientific picture of the world, the world is a set of natural pro- cesses, developing the objective laws.

•For the philosophical picture of the world, the world and a man are seen in connection with the idea of the mind.

Finally, the philosophical view of the world always relies on the scientific picture of the world. It’s development was linked to the scientific picture of the world of a particular era. Changing of these pictures were always determined each other.

The basic concepts of the philosophical picture of the world are

such categories as: being, substance, matter, consciousness, evolution, space, time.

As part of preparation for the second question it is important to understand that Being is a fundamental philosophical category. In the hierarchy of categories, which were developed in philosophy for many years, Being holds a special place.

In the broadest sense of the word being is understood as a general notion of the existence of things. Being is one of the major philosophical categories, indicating the existence of something.

Philosophy ●

The category of being is a subjective area of ontology, which is the structural element of the philosophy. The term “Ontology”, originating from a combination of the Greek words “Ontos” (essence) and “logos” (knowledge), means “knowledge about essence”. So ontology is the teaching about the fundamental structures of the being.

Being is the central problem of philosophy. The philosophical problem of Being starts with the definition of life as the highest reality. To understand the meaning of Being is to understand the human existence.

So, the philosophical problem of Being is the problem of the “original foundations”, purposes and meanings of the existence of the world in its wholeness and evolution, the world that defines the meaning of human existence.

In the history of philosophy since ancient times, Being was a central problem.

1. In the early stages of the formation of the ancient Greek philosophy the concept of being was used in the conventional sense, and it was understood as the reality of the world and its individual parts and things.

The concept Being was introduced into philosophy by Parmenid. He considered that the world is the material being, and nothingness is something relative to the emptiness. He was the first of the ancient Greek philosophers who draw two main philosophical problems: the problem of the relation of Being to Nothingness and problem of the relation of Being to Thinking.

A)The problem of the correlation between Being and Nothingness.

According to the views of Parmenid, Being is a huge globe, which lays motionless in the center of the universe. The world is the material being, which is “everywhere closed”.

Nothingness is something relative to the emptiness, empty space. Being exists, but Nothingness doesn’t exist. This position in the philosophy of Parmenides has specific physical and cosmological sense.

B)The Problem of the correlation between Being and Thinking.

In the teachings of Parmenid Being and Thought about things is the same. Thought cannot be separated from its subject (being). It should be admitted that in Antiquity there were different interpretations of

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Being. For example, in Plato’s theory the real being is the world of ideas. And according to Aristotle, there are different levels of being: from material to extrasensory.

Summary. The theories of Being of the Greek philosophers were the basis for the creation of the philosophical world view of ancient epoch. The Antique ontology was based on the following philosophical ideas.

1.The real Being is a universal characteristic of the world foundation. It is understood as the beginning of the beginnings, the cause of the causes.

2.The real Being is a kind of ideal reality (Logos), which can be understood only with the help of the abstract thinking.

3.The real Being defines the meaning of human existence.

2.In the Medieval Christian philosophy two forms of being: the divine and created were formed. First form is correlated with the true Being which is God. Second form is correlated with the God’s creation.

In the understanding of Being a Christian philosophy formulated another understanding of this category. The true Being is considered not from the cosmological point of view but is identified with the Christian God who with the help of his power creates the world. So that the real Being is the divine substance, and all the rest is his creation.

3.In the Renaissance the Being is identified with natural, materi-

al beginning. At that period the naturalistic conception of being was formed. Nature is understood as the absolute reality.

4.In the philosophy of New Times three models of Being were formed. They are: the monistic, dualistic and pluralistic. The monistic model is based on the Spinosa’s theory of the single self-contained substance, equating God with nature. The dualistic model is based on the idea of R. Descartes of the existence of two substances – ideal and material. G. Leibnitz, claiming the plurality of the foundations of the

Being. Such foundations the philosopher called the monads, which are arranged by the “divine harmony”.

5.In the Age of French Enlightenment Lametri, Didro, Holbach

etc., tried to interpret the Being from the materialistic point of view. As the only reality of the universe was called a substance or a matter.