1. Mythology.

It appeared at the earliest stages of human development. Myth is a legend of gods and heroes life in the invisible world. There were two types of myth:

1. Cosmological (structure of nature, its functions, origin and functioning);

2. Human life (mystery of birth and death, everyday life, experience).

Primeval myth was not a story which was told but the reality in which people lived. It was a kind of practical guidance for activity in primeval society. The aim and purport of ancient myth was not exactly to give people knowledge but rather to approve some social aims, models of behavior and beliefs. So, myth was not an initial form of knowledge, but rather it indicated a particular type of natural and social life. As the earliest form of human culture, myth combines primitive knowledge, religious beliefs, morals, aesthetic and emotional estimation of situations. In mythology man manifested himself as being completely identified with nature, as its inseparable part.

The main principle of mythology was a genetic method. Ancient myth usually included two aspects: diachronical and synchronical. Thus, the past was connected with the future and it provided spiritual succession of generations. The main importance and significance of myths was that they established harmony between man and the world, nature and society, society and individual and, thus, made certain stability and inner self-agreement possible.

Mythological world perception was based on belief and expedirncy. It operated with symbol and image and did not suppose any doubt.

2. Religious worldview.

In primeval society religion was closely connected with mythology. But the specificity of religion is its system of worship. The system of ritual actions which is aimed at establishing special relations with the supernatural.

Religious worldview doubles the world: one is this side of the grave, which is unfair and evil, the other – afterdeath world which is beautiful good and kind.

Worldview constructions involved in a system of worship acquired the character of dogmas. It gave a particular spiritual-practical character to this type of worldview.Religion was directed into the future, better life. Religion permited no doubt either as it was considered the Sirit of heartless established order. The main function of religion has always been to help man to get over historically changeable transient aspects of his being and to raise man’s soul to something higher, eternal and lofty.

Religious worrldview operated with symbol and image and did not suppose any doubt either but it asserted a new idea of salvation, the hope for better life.

3. Philosophical worldview.

With the development of human society, man had realized some definite laws and regularities, man’s cognitive abilities advanced greatly. Man got a new form of mastering worldview problems, it took on a theoretical character. Images and symbols of mythological worldview were being replaced by reason. Thus, this is the way philosophy was born as an attempt to solve different worldview problems by means of reason - thinking, using concepts, categories, logic.

Philosophy is a theoretical level of worldview. It appeared in the form of knowledge and had got a systematic character. This brings it closer to science. Actually, at early stages of human development the theoretical form of investigation of reality was called philosophy.But later when much of experience had been accumulated, methods were perfected and therefore certain differentiation of theoretical forms of studying the reality took place. Many individual sciences appeared. As for philosophy, it gained a new content. Its subject methods and functions had been greatly changed.Aristotle considered philosophy as a Missis of science. And he did not exaggerate, as its maturnity level was much higher than that of any other branches of science.

Philosophy is intrinsic to investigating the world beyond the limits of man’s experience. No experience can afford to understand the world as integral, endless in space and eternal in time, reality that surpasses immeasurably man’s abilities, that actually exists, and people should constantly take it into consideration.Thus, the principles most intrinsic to philosophy are universality and substantiality.

Universality means that during all the history of culture philosophy tried to produce universal knowledge and universal principles of spiritual-moral life.

Substantiality means an investigation of the essence of the world, seeking for some constant basis, the initial points of everything to explain the world, its structure, that is functioning not genetically, but with the help of a universal basis.

And there is another thing that should be mentioned. Philosophers tried to call everything into question to reflect everyday life, one’s own activity, norms, traditions. They doubted in what is called “common sense”. That is typically a philosophical way of thinking to compare with mythology and religion

Philisiphical worldview is characterized by its theoretical character. Images and symbols of mythological and religious worldview were being replaced by reason. Philosophy tried to solve different worldview problems by means of reason, thinking, using logic and its elements: concepts, categories and laws.

In the history of philosophy there formed two different approaches in explaining the surrounding world: materialism and idealism.

Materialism takes the world which exists objectively and independently of the consciousness of man and of mankind. Explanation of the world from the world itself such is the worldview and methodological principle of materialism. In its development materialism passed through several significant stages from the naïve form in antiquity through mechanical and metaphysical forms to dialectical materialism.

Idealism holds the opposite view, insisting that the development of the world is determined by the spiritual element. Idealism also has various forms. Thus, objective idealism recognizes the existence of a real world outside man, but it is believed that underlying it is reason. The irrationalist variety of objective idealism (Schopengauer and others) postulate an unconscious unreasonable element as the basis of being (blind will, representation and will).From the point of view of subjective idealism, the objective world independent of man does not exist, it is the product of man’s subjective cognitive abilities, sensations and perceptions. Hence, the fundamental idea of this philosophical system (Berkeley or Mach) is that: things are complexes of sensations and to exist means to be perceived by man’s sense organs. Subjective idealism insists that our attempts to go beyond consciousness are in vain and that the existence of an outside world independent of our mind is therefore impossible to prove. Indeed, we know the world as it is given to man but that does not mean that the perception of the world is the world itself. Even everyday experience demonstrate that the being of things does not depend on the act of their perception. A logical development of the ideas of subjective idealism leads to solipsism, to the assertion that nothing but the self exists. If subjective idealism locks itself within the sphere of the cognizing individual and the sensuous form of his cognition, objective idealism, on the contrary, lifts the results of human thoughts, of man’s entire culture to an absolute, ascribing to it absolutely independent suprapersonal being and active power. This logic of human thought is expanded to cover the whole world becoming the logic of being itself.

The other important philosophical problem that has been discussing through the ages is the question of whether the world is knowable. Can man grasp its objective laws? Those who believe that the world is in principle unknowable are called agnostics. The most striking example of agnosticism is religious philosophy which rejects the knowability of the world in its desire to assert the primacy of faith over reason.

Philosophy as General Methodology.

Methods originate in practical activity as generalized devices that conform with the properties and laws of reality, with the objective logic of the things at the transformation of which human activity is directed. The methods of practical activity thus reflect the historically formed and socially consolidated modes of man’s sensuously objective interaction with the world. This was the basis for the formation of cognitive and later theoretical methods – sets of devices and operations directing the mind towards the path leading to the truth. Philosophy is a universal method, its subject matter being the most universal principles of thought of all cognition. Philosophical methods do not determine unambiguously the course of the creative search for the truth. In the final analysis the decisive factor here is practical life. The universal methods of philosophy are the necessary condition for the solution of various concrete tasks they do not replace the special scientific methods – rather they are given concrete form in these methods. Philosophical methods are devices for the study of objects with the aim of discovering in them the universal laws of movement and development manifested in specific ways in accordance with the specificity of the object.

Methodology is a system of basic principles or elements of generalized modes of the organization and construction of theoretical and practical activity. It is a particular area of philosophical knowledge.

The main philosophical methods are dialectics, metaphysics, phenomenology, hermeneutics.

Dialectics is the method, by which we study development in its most complete deep-going and comprehensive form. Dialectics affords a reflection of the extremely complex and contradictory processes of the material and spiritual world.Dialectics is not a mere statement of that, which happens in the reality but an instrument of scientific cognition and transformation, an instrument for moving from the domain of non-knowledge into the realm of knowledge, a methodology of knowledge based on action and methodology of action based on knowledge. It is in this that the unity of dialectics as theory and method is manifested.

Metaphysics is characterized by the static mode of thinking, by the veering of thought from one extreme to the other by exaggeration of some aspect of an object, such as stability, repetition and relative independence. A characteristic feature of metaphysics has always been one-sidedness, abstractness and the lifting of certain elements to an absolute.