SECTION X
POSTCLASSICAL DEVELOPMENT OF WORLD PHILOSOPHY IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE XIX - XX centuries.
The problem of man in modern philosophy
A person would not be a person if he were limited to the existing conditions of existence and life and did not strive to go beyond their limits. Therefore, previous generations, having encountered certain problems and not being able to overcome them, always appealed to the next, maintaining faith in the power of the human mind and spirit, hoping for the continuation and completion of their plans by their descendants. Humanity placed special hopes on the 20th century, on the triumph of reason. Like most previous stages of world history, the current century has proven unable to solve a number of problems inherited from its predecessors. The dynamism of development was largely driven by irrationality and tragedy. On the one hand, an unprecedented rise in the productive forces, scientific and technological progress, a period of social and national liberation revolutions, fundamental reforms that qualitatively changed the face of the world, and on the other hand, two world wars with their huge and unjustified victims, totalitarian regimes, genocide, violence, cruelty, increased social alienation, local, regional, environmental and global crises threatening the existence of civilization, the decline of morality and spirituality - all this required a deeper philosophical understanding.
The variety of manifestations of social existence has led to such a variety of philosophical schools, movements, trends that this has given grounds to talk about a new revolution in philosophy. However, these currents and directions sometimes demonstrated opposite positions, offering either overly optimistic or overly pessimistic conclusions and forecasts. Moreover, in the conditions of a divided world in opposing socio-political systems, the voice of passions prevailed over reason, and ideological intolerance revolved around scientific bias against the general background of increasing ideologization and politicization of science and philosophy, all forms of social consciousness. Therefore, another conclusion has ripened, opposite in its content to the first: modern philosophy is in a state of deep crisis. After all, general confrontation reigned, party slogans and political factors were declared to be the ultimate truth, and critical analysis of the views of opponents revolved around the search for errors (real or imaginary) and labeling. Such philosophizing became the norm not only of Marxist systems, but also of Western philosophical thought. Humanity had to go through terrible upheavals in order to realize simple truths: the world is not only split, but also unique; In addition to university-class and party interests, there are universal human values, we all live in one house - on Earth, and pluralism of opinions presupposes their dialogue, thanks to which the development of philosophical thought is possible.
Searching for the culprits of this state of affairs is a futile task, and not only because of their shortcomings, but also because such were the “communists” and “capitalists,” “Soviet” and “bourgeois” philosophers, defending their own interests from “the name of the people.” And the point, in fact, is not their conformism, for it was not they who determined the development of philosophical thought.
In both the Western and Marxist philosophical traditions, in addition to frank apologetics, preaching mysticism and the occult, means of intoxication, and distracting people from the concrete realities of life, there are a number of fundamental works that laid the foundation for new philosophical directions, violated important life-meaning problems. In distinguishing the complex interweaving of schools and trends in modern philosophy, and at the same time identifying points of contact between them, in addition to the division associated with the main issue of philosophy into idealism and materialism, there are other approaches.
Depending on the object of study and the formulation of central problems in modern philosophy, two currents are clearly distinguished - scientific and antiscientific. The first focuses on science, mainly natural science, completely subordinating philosophy to the cognitive needs of science and ignoring its ideological functions, trying to turn philosophy itself into an exact science with clearly fixed provisions that can be verified. The second current focuses on man, the world of his culture, paying special attention to the ideological functions of philosophy, reducing the latter to the doctrine of man, his culture; therefore it is often called anthropological.
Recently, the structuring and division of modern ( we're talking about o Western) philosophy is often associated with a general territorial approach, according to which numerous philosophical concepts are divided into continental (European) and English-language ones. This does not coincide with previous classifications. However, given the difference philosophical concepts According to the method of argumentation, the conceptual apparatus, such a division is completely justified, especially since it reflects some general trends, where the correlation of continental and English philosophy with materialism and idealism, scientism and anti-scientism is more or less obvious.
The English-language tradition, to which the philosophy of Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and the USA belongs, is closely connected with the scientific movement, reflected in various forms of positivism, structuralism, and post-positivism. Continental (European) tends to antiscientism, anthropological movements of “philosophy of life”, phenomenology, existentialism, personalism, hermeneutics, neo-Thomism and their modifications. It is more theoretical, mainly focused on the light of consciousness and man, and stands far from the empiricist, while the English language is closer to experience and tries to be scientific. All movements have their predecessors in classical philosophy of the 19th century, the ideas of which they developed and used in the process of their formation, even being critical of it.
In modern philosophy, along with a wide variety of schools, trends, trends, there is also convergence and interweaving of them. That is, in a certain period, one school or system dominates and exerts influence. When the ideas and principles of the latter come into conflict with the real processes of cognition and practice, there is a need to turn to other, more productive systems. This simultaneously encourages the formation of new schools and determines their diversity, both in form and content, while recognizing the rational aspects of their predecessors and refuting those provisions that have not been justified by practice.
Relations between modern philosophical systems are increasingly built on the principle of pluralism, a synthesis of views, styles, approaches in defining current issues, using the direction of methods. However, the very concept of “pluralism” is currently acquiring a specifically epistemological and social meaning and means the right of everyone to their own truth. within the framework of this approach, a form of synthesis is approved, such as a discussion of the most current issues at symposia and meetings of philosophers of various orientations, which, however, has not only positive, but also negative aspects. So, if in the 60s there were recognized authorities, leaders of trends, original thinkers (E. Husserl, M. Scheler, B. Russell, G. Carnap, J. P. Sartre, A. Camus, K. Popper, M. Heidegger , H. G. Gadamer, J. Habermas, etc.), now groups that unite around debatable issues dominate.
With all the variety of problems, the “cross-cutting” and most acute problem is the human problem. It integrates the search for modern philosophy. Awareness of human involvement in the global contradictions of the world necessitates constant consistency of its behavior with the objective laws of nature and society, foresight possible consequences human impact on nature.
The movement of social life actualizes the role of ideological regulators of human activity, sharpening interest in the problems of the meaning of life, the future of humanity, freedom, creativity, alienation and ways to overcome it, the relationship between the individual and the social. After all, a person who does not compromise on principles and conscience is not only the goal, but also the condition for the progressive development of society. When the intellect is not complemented by high spiritual needs and moral ideals, it turns into an evil force, giving rise to a lack of decency, duty, and responsibility. This requires integration and coordination of philosophical searches. As the Ukrainian philosopher V.P. Ivanov rightly noted, if philosophy is not oriented towards man and is not connected with ideological problems, it will lose its meaning and purpose. The extent of its humanization is determined by the understanding of the essence of human existence. Philosophical anthropology assumes the functions and representation of the science of man.
8.1 . Modern Western philosophy is a philosophy that appeared in Western Europe and the USA in the 40-60s of the 19th century. If before this period the principle of rationalism (the Cartesian principle of knowledge), which affirmed the rational existence of society and man, dominated in Western European philosophy, then from the middle of the 19th century. In Western philosophy, a different orientation arose, the beginning of which was laid by I. Kant. Emergence new era led to the need for a new philosophy that could create a new picture of the world that meets the needs and interests of modern man and society
Irrationalism – characteristic modern Western philosophy, according to which, at the basis of the world and man lies a certain unreasonable, irrational principle. Thus, in modern Western philosophy by the middle of the 19th century. there is a collapse of classical philosophy and a reorientation from rationalism to intuitionism, the subconscious as a source of knowledge (inner feeling). The defining sphere of philosophical knowledge becomes not so much ontology, characteristic of classical philosophy, as philosophical anthropology, that is, the philosophy of man, his essence and purpose in the world. Thus, idealism in ontology and theory of knowledge turns out to be subordinate to the problems of man.
Modern Western philosophy is characterized by a variety of different systems and directions. In our opinion, the following directions are the main ones and determine the character of modern Western philosophy: phenomenology, neo-Thomism, existentialism, pragmatism, neo-positivism.
Modern Western philosophy is a complex and dynamic system of various ideas, concepts and trends, reflecting the contradictory nature of postmodern culture. The most characteristic feature of modern Western philosophy can be called eclecticism, that is, the combination of seemingly opposing ideas, concepts, theories and trends in philosophy.
Scientism, one of the leading trends in modern Western philosophy, is to a certain extent a continuation of the European tradition of faith in reason, science, scientific and technological progress, etc. The following trends in Western philosophy can be conventionally classified as scientism: neo-Kantianism (Marburg and Baden schools in Germany), E. Husserl’s phenomenology, positivism, neopositivism and postpositivism, structuralism. Neo-Kantians raised the question of the relationship between philosophy and science. The main task of science, they believed, was to develop a new methodology of science. Declaring themselves followers of I. Kant, they denied the “thing in itself” and, criticizing Hegelian philosophy (objective idealism), believed that science can only be descriptive, since it is not capable of explaining the essence of a phenomenon.
Positivism O. Comte, G. Spencer, J. Mill can be called social philosophy (sociology) - the science of society. The task that the positivists set for science was to find a new method that would not be speculative, but positive (positive). The new science of society should have the character of positive knowledge about society and man. The main task of such a positive method of cognition of social phenomena is to record the natural laws of society.
In the 20th century Positivism in its development took two paths, reflecting, as it were, the practical needs of society - this is empirical sociology or specific sociological research and the development of theoretical knowledge (critical rationalism, logical positivism, linguistic, etc.).
Ancestor phenomenology- German philosopher E. Husserl (1859 - 1938) argued that the sciences of nature and history can only be substantiated with the help of philosophy as a “rigorous science” (phenomenology), focusing on the direct experience of consciousness. However, Husserl understood consciousness in a somewhat unconventional sense. If Husserl’s predecessors understood consciousness from an epistemological point of view, then he is interested in the ontological aspect, the initial foundations of consciousness in its “pure form,” that is, before being filled with any content in the process of cognition of the surrounding world. Consciousness must be directed towards an object, which is consciousness itself. Such an act of direction in phenomenology is called intention. The intentionality of consciousness presupposes that consciousness is considered before it meets the world, and for this it is necessary, as it were, to take the world (objective reality) “out of the brackets” and not make any judgments about this reality. Only in this case does it become possible to comprehend the essence of things as they appear to consciousness.
If the intentionality of consciousness represented the potential inclusion of individual consciousness into reality horizontally, then the “life world”, as the primary orientation of a person in objective reality, seemed to bring universal human historical experience closer to individual consciousness vertically. Thus, the phenomenological I acted as a genuine human subjectivity, giving meaning to everything that exists as it appears in the present, then the “life world” gave meaning to the historical past of mankind and, thus, being turned out to be meaningful for a person.
This side of E. Husserl’s phenomenology was reflected and continued in the philosophy of existentialism. Existential philosophy refers to the anti-scientist movement in modern Western philosophy. Existential philosophy moves away from the problems characteristic of classical philosophy (awareness of the world as it exists in itself independently of man). The central problem of existentialism is the awareness of subjectivity, its sovereignty, the search for a special human truth, different from the abstract truth of scientific knowledge, alienated from human existence. Thus, existentialism, like all modern Western irrational philosophy, singles out man, his essence and existence as the main subject of research. The main task of philosophy is to answer the questions of the most ordinary people; help a person solve problems of existence; understand what is worth fighting for and what is the value of life, what is freedom and non-freedom, etc. Philosophy, as opposed to science, must give a person a certain system of concepts, but not abstract ones, but reflecting the feelings, sensations, hopes suffered by a real person.
In existentialism, in contrast to traditional ontology, which considers “being” as something alienated from a person, “being” is interpreted in a completely new way, as the unity of subject and object, as something indivisible. After all, man himself exists, is a being, and, moreover, a special being. Thus, the center of the “new ontology” in existentialism becomes not some isolated being, but the consciousness of a person, as awareness of this being, or more precisely, the spiritual existence of a person, as conscious and unconscious, taken in inextricable unity with his existence. This new meaning (existing existence, being here and now) is embedded in the traditional concept of being in classical philosophy, which becomes the central category of existentialist ontology. Other basic categories of this philosophy are the categories of “existence”, as the existence of a person, and “consciousness”, as the consciousness of a person. This approach is defined by many philosophers of existentialism as a new humanism (J.-P. Sartre, A. Camus): a person is placed at the center of existence, his choice, freedom, activity, revealed by his very existence.
The German philosopher F. Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) interprets the concept of being as a generalization of the concept of life. He strives to overcome Cartesian rationalism in understanding the essence of being . "Philosophy of life" for Nietzsche, this is not a philosophical system of concepts, but a certain system of polysemantic symbols that absorb human passions, fear, the instinct of self-preservation, something unconscious, etc. The concept of life is interpreted by F. Nietzsche as a certain beginning determined by the will - this is the will itself, the “will to live” (a concept in the “philosophy of life” of A. Schopenhauer). If A. Schopenhauer’s “will to live” has a certain dark, unreasonable beginning, but a very strong beginning, like a natural instinct (the instinct of self-preservation, forcing a person to fight for life in extreme conditions); then for F. Nietzsche, will is a “life impulse”; it is not one will, but many wills striving to possess being. This will, consisting of many wills, permeates the entire existence of man, the entire life of people. She “knows” what a person wants and strives for, although she is unreasonable. This will is the “will to power” (“will to power”) - an irrational force that forces every living organism to develop, multiply, defeat an opponent, and fight for existence. The starting point of the “philosophy of life” of both A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche was the following statement: man is a natural being, his life and relationships in society are determined, first of all, not by reason, but by feelings, sensations, instincts. Irrational motives play a more significant role in human life, compared to rational motives, and determine the types of behavior and consciousness in society and culture. This thesis is carried out even more sharply in the “philosophy of life” of V. Dilthey 1833 - 1911), for which true existence coincides with the integrity of life, determined by intuitive, unconscious impulses. The integrity of life can only be comprehended by the sciences of the spirit. Central to Dilthey is the concept of life as a way of human existence and cultural and historical reality. A person does not have a history, but he himself is a story that is capable of revealing his essence. Understanding of a person’s own inner world is achieved through introspection, introspection, and understanding of someone else’s world - through “getting used to”, “feeling”, “empathy”.
The main question of the existential ontology of M. Heidegger (1889 - 1976) is the question of the meaning of being. For Heidegger himself, the problem of being makes sense only as a problem of human existence, as a problem of the ultimate foundations of human existence in the world. The task of existential philosophy is to help a person answer the question: “Why does Something exist and not Nothing?” In the essay “Being and Time,” he raises the question of the meaning of being, which, from his point of view, turned out to be forgotten by European classical philosophy. Heidegger believes that being can be understood only through the being of a person, through consideration of the person himself, since only a person initially has an understanding of being. The basis of human existence is its finitude, its temporality in the world. Therefore, time, M. Heidegger believes, should be considered as the most essential characteristic of being. Unlike such physical time, studied by science, a person has no boundaries in the sense of time as past, present and future. Time, according to Heidegger, is “human time” and is perceived continuously in the phenomena of consciousness, as past, present and future at the same time. The experience of time is identified with a keen sense of personality. Focus on the future gives the individual “authentic being,” while the absolutization of the present leads to the fact that the “world of things,” the world of everyday life (“inauthentic being”) obscures from a person the meaning of his existence, which can only be revealed in the future, through his finitude ( death). Such concepts of M. Heidegger’s existential philosophy as “fear”, “determination”, “conscience”, “guilt”, “time”, “care”, “death”, etc. express the spiritual experience of a person experiencing his individuality, uniqueness, one-time occurrence and death.
M. Heidegger is trying to comprehend the person himself, who is faced with the problem of being, trying to comprehend it. For Heidegger, man is a being whose being is existence, that is, he is the only being among all beings in the world who goes beyond all other beings and himself. M. Heidegger describes the essence of man through a system of concepts: an abandoned, lonely person, thrown into this world of melancholy and despair, since man never appears to himself as a permanent, complete being, in control of himself and things. A man is a wanderer, a fugitive, constantly sliding, fleeing into the void, into oblivion. And although a person always rises, “soars” above himself, gets ahead of himself, he knows his inevitable end - death. Man is a creature that transgresses all forms of existence and gets ahead of itself - in the movement towards Death.
M. Heidegger contrasts true, “authentic being” with untrue being, impersonality, banal everyday life, which does not question the meaningfulness of being. A meaningful existence, Heidegger writes in Being and Time, “opens up to the human being the possibility of being himself, the prospect of Freedom without the illusion of facelessness, active freedom, self-confident and full of self-fear - freedom to die.” In another of his works, “What is Metaphysics,” the German philosopher argues that fear merges with courage: “The human being is increasingly permeated with a sense of approaching nothingness, and only fear can reveal its true character.” Fear manifests itself in each person differently: “it manifests itself weakest in a fearful person, completely imperceptibly in a businesslike person who knows only “yes is yes”, “no is no”, fear manifests itself most strongly “in a person whose essence is courage." Heidegger is confident that “courage is born from this fear in order to save the dignity of the human being.” Thus, with his philosophy, Martin Heidegger affirms the absoluteness of moral values - the value of freedom, clarity of understanding of the essence of being, human courage. The affirmation of these values is connected with humanism, which invites a person to direct his abilities to strengthen ethical ties. “And although ethical relationships support a human being temporarily and incompletely, their preservation and maintenance is necessary.”
The German philosopher K. Jaspers 1883 - 1969) also writes about the need to maintain ethical values, especially religious ones, in society. Unlike M. Heidegger, whose philosophical views can be defined as atheistic, the philosophy of K. Jaspers can be called religious (Christian) existentialism. K. Jaspers defines philosophy as “consciousness of being in the world”, and existence as a “situation”, i.e. the feeling that every question is posed on the basis of a certain existential situation.
French existentialism, whose outstanding representative is Jean Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980), already in his first major work “Being and Nothingness” (1943), does not agree with the teachings of M. Heidegger in a number of positions. Sartre's philosophy is an independent reading of the views of the German philosopher and turning it into its own subjectivist metaphysics. Sartre, in contrast to Heidegger's interpretation of freedom, strives to give the idea of freedom social meaning, and existence - specific historical content. Sartre argues that human “being-in-the-world” is impossible without other people. Therefore, for a person there is also “being-in-itself”, and “being-for oneself”, and “being-for another”. Existence, which a person realizes through the effort of the spirit and which “shines through” in “borderline situations”, presupposes “being-for others”, which a person should not get rid of. Moreover, a person is “doomed to freedom”, not expecting any help in his choice either from God, or from other people, or even from the laws of nature, and bears enormous responsibility for the choice of his “being”, which is associated with the choice of the future path of humanity. According to M. Marcel and K. Jaspers, freedom can only be found in God; Sartre's position in defining freedom is an expression of extreme individualism. Freedom appears in existentialism as a heavy burden that a person must bear because he is an individual. He can give up his freedom, stop being himself, become “like everyone else,” but only at a terrible price - the price of abandoning himself as an individual. The experience of two world wars showed humanity the true meaning of freedom and the rejection of it, which plunged humanity into the abyss of chaos, suffering and death.
According to A. Camus (1913 - 1960), in the face of nothingness, which makes human life meaningless, absurd, the breakthrough of one individual to another, true communication between them is impossible. The only way of genuine communication that A. Camus recognizes is the unity of individuals in rebellion against the “absurd” world, against the finitude of mortality, imperfection and meaninglessness of human existence.
Personalism(in translated Latin Persona - personality) is a religious trend in modern Western philosophy that recognizes the individual as the primary creative reality and the highest spiritual value, and the whole world as a manifestation of the creative activity of the superpersonality - God. Personalism contrasted idealistic monism with idealistic pluralism - a plurality of existences, consciousnesses, wills, personalities. At the same time, the basic principle of theism was affirmed - the creation of the world by God. Personalists recognize the value of the individual personality, not as a subject cognizing the truth, interpreted in classical philosophy, but as a human personality in the fullness of its specific manifestations. Thus, the fundamental ontological category of personalism is recognized as Personality - the main manifestation of being, in which volitional activity and activity are combined with the continuity of existence. However, the beginnings of personality are rooted not in itself, but in the infinite single beginning - God. Personalism assigns the task of orienting a person in the world to religious philosophy, which must find the meaning of existence from the point of view of the will of a person in relation to the highest principle - God.
Personalism distinguishes between the concepts of individual and personality. A person, as a part of the race, as a part of society, is an individual (he is only an element, a part, determined by its relationship with the whole). A person as an individual can assert himself only through free expression of will through will, which overcomes both the finitude of human life and social structures as if from within a person. Thus, the basis of the personalist doctrine of personality is the thesis of free will. At the same time, the question of the laws of social development cannot be resolved in the process of rational cognition. The decision always comes from the individual, who presupposes the direction of the will and makes a choice and moral assessment.
Since the personality is in a hostile relationship with the outside world, the life of the individual begins with the fact that it breaks all relations with the world: the personality must “withdraw into itself”, “concentrate”. E. Mounier argues that the internal properties of the individual (“recognition”, “intimacy”) should protect the individual and society from both totalitarianism and individualism. And thus connect individuals with each other. The main way of self-affirmation of an individual is internal self-improvement.
Philosophical anthropology as one of the directions of modern Western philosophy, it took shape in the 20s of the twentieth century. influenced by the German philosopher Max Scheler (1874-1928). In his work “The Position of Man in Space” (1928), he clearly spoke out for the synthesis of various approaches to the study of man. The new principle for the study of human existence proposed by Scheler reflects philosophical and natural science views on the origin, evolution and the actual value specificity of the existence of humanity as a bearer of a special kind of reality. He proposed an original program for the philosophical knowledge of man in the fullness of his existence based on the combination of religion, philosophical anthropology and the concrete scientific study of various spheres of human existence. The need to create a “new philosophical anthropology” was explained by the fact that by that time there were many teachings about man, which, according to M. Scheler, did not so much explain as confuse the true meaning of human existence. Considering the problems of human existence, M. Scheler tried to identify the specific features of man, which allow us to talk about his special and unique place in the world, in the kingdom of nature and in space. He rejected points of view that did not recognize the special metaphysical and ontological status of man or considered reason, intellect, memory, instinct, etc. as the essence of human organization. The most important principle of the organization of human existence, which distinguishes it from the animal and plant world, according to Scheler, is “spirit”, by which he understood not only intelligence, but also the ability to intuitively comprehend the essence of things, along with the presence of emotional and volitional acts (including love , suffering, pity, despair, freedom of choice, etc.). Scheler's "spirit" is the ability for "existential liberation" from the organic world or a kind of "openness to the world." The originality of Scheler’s understanding of “spirit” lies in the recognition of its emptiness, “pure form”, but not closed on itself, but open to the world. In the work of another theorist of philosophical anthropology, G. Plesner, “Stages of the Organic and Human,” the essential aspects of man’s relationship to the animal and plant world are examined from a cosmological perspective.
Supporters of philosophical anthropology in each case choose some specific aspect of consideration of a person and elevate it to the level of an absolute (single) sign of the essence of a person, while other, no less important aspects of the human being are ignored by them.
Despite some of its scientific and theoretical achievements, philosophical anthropology did not become a holistic doctrine of man, but broke up into separate philosophical and anthropological concepts: biological, psychological, religious, political, cultural, etc., which, despite some commonality, revealed differences in both methods research, and in understanding the essence and purpose of philosophical anthropology. In the 60-70s, philosophical anthropology joined a broad ideological movement in modern Western philosophy, claiming to provide theoretical understanding and interpretation of modern knowledge about man, to achieve a new philosophical understanding of the essence and nature of man (pragmatism, depth psychology, structuralism).
8.2 . In the last decades of the twentieth century, new philosophical paradigms have emerged, reflecting the features of postmodern culture. “Postmodern culture is often compared with the culture of late antiquity. The mood of the “end of history”, when everything has already been expressed to the end, the ground for new ones has disappeared, original ideas…" 1
Philosophy of the postmodern era is trying to find new sources for solving the same old problems: in ontology, epistemology, philosophical anthropology, etc. Such a “new” potential for the development of philosophical and scientific ideas today are art, aesthetics, theater and even such non-traditional areas as ecology and feminism. “Postmodernist aesthetics, which goes beyond the classical logos, is fundamentally alien to the rigidity and isolation of conceptual structures.” 2
One of the first works of emerging postmodernism was the work of the French thinker of the late twentieth century. Gilles Deleuze (1926 – 1995) - “Difference and Repetition” (1969). The study of philosophical problems is carried out by Deleuze in the mainstream of modern art and is a unique expression of the state of European culture, which is experiencing a crisis of classical concepts and ideas about the world and man.
Theorists of postmodernism (J. Deleuze, J. Derrida) substantiate the deconstruction of classical philosophy, science and art. In philosophy, the problem of the objectivity of existence is revised, in science - the principle of correspondence and objectivity as a criterion of true knowledge, in art, based on classical (Aristotelian) aesthetics - the sign nature of things. Postmodernism introduces a “new” system of concepts: deconstruction, simulacrum, simulation project, which are used to analyze the text (philosophical, literary, scientific), a kind of “game of text against meaning” (J. Derrida).
In “Letter to a Japanese Friend,” J. Derrida explains that it would be futile to look for any clear definition of deconstruction. If the term “destruction” is identical to destruction, then the grammatical, linguistic, rhetorical meanings of deconstruction are associated with “machine” (disassembling the machine as a whole into parts for transportation to another place).
For centuries, the concept of “simulacrum” was used in classical aesthetics and meant the similarity of reality as a result of imitation of it (artistic image, synonym). In modern times, another interpretation arises - “game”, “substitution of reality” (in romanticism as simulation, imitation, substitution of reality). Today, simulacrum is interpreted not even as imitation, but as an ersatz, a dummy of reality, a “plausible likeness,” an empty form (appearance that has displaced the artistic form from aesthetics, and the principle of correspondence and objectivity from science).
Jean Baudrillard played a major role in the development of the concept of simulacrum. Jean Baudrillard's early works were devoted to sociological psychoanalysis of the world of things and consumer society. In the spirit of left-radical protest, Baudrillard criticizes the aesthetics of consumer society, noting the “fatigue” of society from excess in consumption, in the production of goods (objects) that prevail over the production of humans (subjects) and human feelings. Offering a unique understanding of the structure of everyday life, Baudrillard divides things (objects) into functional (consumer goods), non-functional (antiques, art collections), metafunctional (toys, robots, etc.), emphasizing that the younger generation chooses the latter. Thus, according to J. Baudrillard, the natural world is replaced by its artificial likeness, “second nature,” and the simulacrum acts as a kind of alibi, indicating a deficiency of nature and culture.
Thus, if classical philosophy modeled the world, then modern postmodern philosophy constructs it.
Introduction______________________________________________________________2
General characteristics of modern Western philosophy________________3
Man in the world and the world of man_______________________________________________6
Between life and death_________________________________________________8
Analysis of the “Man-Technology” relationship________________________________8
Conclusion______________________________________________________________10
List of used literature_________________________________11
Introduction:
In the second half of the 19th century, the transition to non-classical philosophy was gradually being prepared, a departure from the classics was taking place, and a change in principles, samples, and paradigms of philosophizing was taking place. Classical philosophy, from a modern point of view, is characterized as a certain general orientation, a general tendency or style of thinking, characteristic as a whole of approximately a three-hundred-year period of development of Western thought. The mental structure of the classics was permeated with an optimistic sense of the presence of a natural order, rationally understandable in knowledge. Classical philosophy believed that reason is the main and best tool for transformation human life. Knowledge and rational cognition were proclaimed as the decisive force that allows us to hope for the solution of all the problems that face man.
Classical philosophical constructions did not satisfy many philosophers due, as they believed, to the loss of man in them. The specificity, the diversity of human subjective manifestations, they believed, is not “captured” by the methods of reason and science. In contrast to rationalism, they began to develop a non-classical philosophy, in which they began to represent life (philosophy of life) and human existence (existentialism) as the primary reality. There was a “destruction” of the mind: instead of reason, will (A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche), instincts (psychoanalysis of S. Freud), etc. came to the fore. In non-classical philosophy, the desire of philosophical classics to present society as an objective formation similar to natural objects was questioned. The new image of social reality, characteristic of the philosophy of the twentieth century, is associated with the concept of “intersubjectivity”. It is intended to overcome the division into subject and object characteristic of classical social philosophy. Intersubjectivity is based on the idea of a special kind of reality that develops in the relationships between people. At its origins, this reality is the interaction of “I” and “Other”.
General characteristics of modern Western philosophy.
Since the middle of the 20th century, the interest of philosophers in the problems of interaction between society and nature, in understanding the results and ways of development of modern civilization, has noticeably increased.
In general, Western philosophy of the second half of the 19th-20th centuries. represents a wide variety of different movements, schools, concepts, problems and methods, often opposing each other.
Since the middle of the 19th century, the rationalistic vector of classical modern European philosophy, through the efforts of A. Schopenhauer, S. Kierkegaard and F. Nietzsche, was opposed by the phenomenon irrational- unconscious processes and emotional-volitional acts. Let us note that classical thought, for a number of reasons discussed above, did not focus attention on the problems of will, intuition, spiritual insight, instinct, the will to live and the will to power, i.e. on those that did not obey the laws of logic and reason. The philosophical opponents of classical rationalism tried to fill this intellectual “gap.”
The founder of European irrationalism is Arthur Schopenhauer(1788-1860), who systematically outlined his views in the work “The World as Will and Idea” (1818). The world, according to Schopenhauer, can be discovered by man both as will and as representation. Will- this is the absolute beginning of all being, a certain cosmic and biological force in nature that creates the world and man. With the advent of the latter, the world appears as an idea, as a human picture. Man is a slave of the will, because in everything he serves not himself, but the Absolute. The will forces a person to live, no matter how meaningless his existence may be. It lures the individual with phantoms of happiness and temptations such as sexual pleasure. In fact, a person has only an indirect significance for the will, since he serves as a means for its preservation. A person has only one way out - to extinguish the will to live. This truth, according to Schopenhauer, was discovered by ancient Indian sages, who expressed it in the Buddhist doctrine of nirvana.
Schopenhauer identified two types of people who have ceased to be slaves of the will: saints in earthly life and geniuses in art. According to Schopenhauer, genius is the ability to remain in pure contemplation. A person immersed in such a state is no longer an individual, but a pure, weak-willed, timeless subject of knowledge. An ordinary person is not capable of this kind of contemplation. He pays attention to objects due to the fact that they relate to his will. Therefore, he must be content either with unsatisfied desires, or, if they are satisfied, with boredom. At the same time, Schopenhauer emphasized, every person has the three highest blessings of life - health, youth and freedom. As long as they exist, the individual does not realize or value them; he only realizes them if they are lost, since these goods, according to Schopenhauer, are only negative quantities.
Schopenhauer was the first in the 19th century. gave a philosophical justification for pessimism. However, his reasoning about the meaninglessness of human existence did not seem convincing enough. European society continued to look forward optimistically, the ideal of progress not yet overshadowed by future shocks. The fame of a true thinker-prophet would come to Schopenhauer much later.
One of the brightest representatives of European philosophical irrationalism was the German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche(1844-1900). In his first major work, “The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music” (1872), the philosopher analyzes the culture of pre-Socratic Greece. Nietzsche claims that it was determined by the equality of two principles - Dionysian and Apollonian. Dionysus is the god of wine and intoxication, the god of life itself in its physical sense. Apollo is the patron of the arts. The cult of Apollo is a cult of reason and harmony. According to Nietzsche, starting from the times of Socrates and Plato, European culture took the path of suppressing the Dionysian principle with hypertrophied Apollinism. This led her to a deep crisis. As for everyday life, it turned out to be strictly regulated; there was no longer any room left for heroism and action. Everywhere there is a triumph of mediocrity. Mediocre people invented mass religions for themselves - Christianity and socialism. These religions are the religions of the offended and oppressed, the religions of compassion. According to Nietzsche, Christian morality, like socialist morality, only weakens the personal principle in man. Man is the path to the Superman, the one who stands above the “herd”, above the crowd with its prejudice and hypocrisy. The latter needs a special morality - the courageous morality of a fighter and warrior.
Nietzsche viewed life as " will to power"Every living thing, according to the philosopher, strives for power, while inequality of power creates natural differentiation. Life is a struggle of all against all, in which the strongest wins. Violence, according to Nietzsche, is a crystal clear manifestation of man’s innate will to power.
The philosopher saw the main reason for the collapse of his contemporary civilization in the dominance of the intellect, in its predominance over the will. Where the intellect rises above the will, it is doomed to inevitable decay. That is why the mind must be subordinated to the will and work as an instrument of power.
Nietzsche tried to break the boundaries of purely theoretical knowledge and introduce practical life into it as a regulator. However, this regulator turned out to be nothing more than an instinctive activity directed by a blind irrational will to power.
Nietzsche was one of the first to speak about the onset of nihilism, i.e. a time when the Christian God lost its significance for European culture. The thinker saw the purpose of European man, sobered by nihilism, in courageously triumphing over the remnants of illusions.
The German philosopher-prophet was, of course, right in characterizing contemporary European culture as " thin apple peel over hot chaos ".
At the beginning of the 20th century. The teachings of the French philosopher, a representative of intuitionism, gained great popularity in Europe Henri Bergson(1859-1941), whose goal was to overcome the one-sidedness of positivism and traditional rationalistic metaphysics. The emphasis in it is on direct experience, with the help of which the absolute is supposedly comprehended. In metaphysics, according to Bergson, there are two central moments - true, concrete time (duration) and intuition that comprehends it as a truly philosophical method. Duration is understood by the philosopher as the basis of all conscious mental processes. Unlike the abstract time of science, it presupposes the constant creation of new forms, formation, interpenetration of past and present, unpredictability of future states, and freedom. Intuition as a way of comprehending duration, it is opposed to intellectual methods of cognition, which are powerless before the phenomena of consciousness and life, for the latter are subordinated to practical and social needs and are capable of providing knowledge only of the relative, and not the absolute.
Man in the world and the world of man.
Existentialism (from Lat. exsistentia - existence), or
philosophy of existence , played and continues to play a significant role in the development of philosophy of the twentieth century. It is characterized by anti-scientist
orientation and is focused on problems related to man, the meaning of his existence in the modern world.
The problem of man in Western philosophy
Introduction______________________________________________________________2
Man in the world and the world of man_______________________________________________6
Analysis of the “Man-Technology” relationship________________________________8
Conclusion______________________________________________________________10
philosophy, from a modern point of view, is characterized as a certain general orientation, a general tendency or style of thinking, characteristic as a whole of approximately a three-hundred-year period of development of Western thought. The mental structure of the classics was permeated with an optimistic sense of the presence of a natural order, rationally understandable in knowledge. Classical philosophy believed that reason is the main and best tool for transforming human life. Knowledge and rational cognition were proclaimed as the decisive force that allows one to hope for the solution of all problems that face a person.
“grasped” by the methods of reason and science. In contrast to rationalism, they began to develop a non-classical philosophy, in which they began to represent life (philosophy of life) and human existence (existentialism) as the primary reality. There was a “destruction” of the mind: instead of reason, will (A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche), instincts (psychoanalysis of S. Freud), etc. came to the fore. In non-classical philosophy, the desire of philosophical classics to present society as an objective formation was questioned, similar to natural objects. The new image of social reality, characteristic of the philosophy of the twentieth century, is associated with the concept of “intersubjectivity”. It is intended to overcome the division into subject and object characteristic of classical social philosophy. Intersubjectivity is based on the idea of a special kind of reality that develops in the relationships between people. At its origins, this reality is the interaction of “I” and “Other”.
General characteristics of modern Western philosophy.
irrational instinct, the will to live and the will to power, i.e. those that did not obey the laws of logic and reason. The philosophical opponents of classical rationalism tried to fill this intellectual “gap.”
The founder of European irrationalism is (1788-1860), who systematically outlined his views in the work “The World as Will and Idea” (1818). The world, according to Schopenhauer, can be discovered by man both as will and as representation. Will- this is the absolute beginning of all being, a certain cosmic and biological force in nature that creates the world and man. With the advent of the latter, the world appears as an idea, as a human picture. Man is a slave of the will, because in everything he serves not himself, but the Absolute. The will forces a person to live, no matter how meaningless his existence may be. It lures the individual with phantoms of happiness and temptations such as sexual pleasure. In fact, a person has only an indirect significance for the will, since he serves as a means for its preservation. A person has only one way out - to extinguish the will to live. This truth, according to Schopenhauer, was discovered by ancient Indian sages, who expressed it in the Buddhist doctrine of nirvana.
Schopenhauer identified two types of people who have ceased to be slaves of the will: saints in earthly life and geniuses in art. According to Schopenhauer, genius is the ability to remain in pure contemplation. A person immersed in such a state is no longer an individual, but a pure, weak-willed, timeless subject of knowledge. An ordinary person is not capable of this kind of contemplation. He pays attention to objects due to the fact that they relate to his will. Therefore, he must be content either with unsatisfied desires, or, if they are satisfied, with boredom. At the same time, Schopenhauer emphasized, every person has the three highest blessings of life - health, youth and freedom. As long as they exist, the individual does not realize or value them; he only realizes them if they are lost, since these goods, according to Schopenhauer, are only negative quantities.
Schopenhauer was the first in the 19th century. gave a philosophical justification for pessimism. However, his reasoning about the meaninglessness of human existence did not seem convincing enough. European society continued to look forward optimistically, the ideal of progress not yet overshadowed by future shocks. The fame of a true thinker-prophet would come to Schopenhauer much later.
One of the brightest representatives of European philosophical irrationalism was the German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche(1844-1900). In his first major work, “The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music” (1872), the philosopher analyzes the culture of pre-Socratic Greece. Nietzsche claims that it was determined by the equality of two principles - Dionysian and Apollonian. Dionysus is the god of wine and intoxication, the god of life itself in its physical sense. Apollo is the patron of the arts. The cult of Apollo is a cult of reason and harmony. According to Nietzsche, starting from the times of Socrates and Plato, European culture took the path of suppressing the Dionysian principle with hypertrophied Apollinism. This led her to a deep crisis. As for everyday life, it turned out to be strictly regulated; there was no longer any room left for heroism and action. Everywhere there is a triumph of mediocrity. Mediocre people invented mass religions for themselves - Christianity and socialism. These religions are the religions of the offended and oppressed, the religions of compassion. According to Nietzsche, Christian morality, like socialist morality, only weakens the personal principle in man. Man is the path to the Superman, the one who stands above the “herd”, above the crowd with its prejudice and hypocrisy. The latter needs a special morality - the courageous morality of a fighter and warrior.
Nietzsche viewed life as " "Every living thing, according to the philosopher, strives for power, while inequality of power creates natural differentiation. Life is a struggle of all against all, in which the strongest wins. Violence, according to Nietzsche, is a crystal clear manifestation of man’s innate will to power.
The philosopher saw the main reason for the collapse of his contemporary civilization in the dominance of the intellect, in its predominance over the will. Where the intellect rises above the will, it is doomed to inevitable decay. That is why the mind must be subordinated to the will and work as an instrument of power.
Nietzsche tried to break the boundaries of purely theoretical knowledge and introduce practical life into it as a regulator. However, this regulator turned out to be nothing more than an instinctive activity directed by a blind irrational will to power.
Nietzsche was one of the first to speak about the onset of nihilism, that is, the time when the Christian God lost its significance for European culture. The thinker saw the purpose of European man, sobered by nihilism, in courageously triumphing over the remnants of illusions.
"thin apple peel over hot chaos ".
At the beginning of the 20th century. The teachings of the French philosopher, a representative of intuitionism, gained great popularity in Europe Henri Bergson(1859-1941), whose goal was to overcome the one-sidedness of positivism and traditional rationalistic metaphysics. The emphasis in it is on direct experience, with the help of which the absolute is supposedly comprehended. In metaphysics, according to Bergson, there are two central moments - true, concrete time (duration) and intuition that comprehends it as a truly philosophical method. Duration is understood by the philosopher as the basis of all conscious mental processes. Unlike the abstract time of science, it presupposes the constant creation of new forms, formation, interpenetration of past and present, unpredictability of future states, and freedom. Intuition as a way of comprehending duration, it is opposed to intellectual methods of cognition, which are powerless before the phenomena of consciousness and life, for the latter are subordinated to practical and social needs and are capable of providing knowledge only of the relative, and not the absolute.
Man in the world and the world of man.
Existentialism
philosophy of existence , played and continues to play a significant role in the development of philosophy of the twentieth century. It is characterized by anti-scientist
orientation and is focused on problems related to man, the meaning of his existence in the modern world.
However, the philosophy of existence does not represent some kind of monolithic, unified teaching. Each of its main representatives creates, as it were, his own teaching. Each of the existentialist philosophers focuses on some real side of human relations and gives them a convincing socio-psychological analysis. However, paying attention to one of the characteristics of these relations, he leaves aside others, considering them derivatives of it, and at the same time creates quite complex philosophical constructions. The great Russian writer-thinker F. M. Dostoevsky is rightly called the forerunner of existentialism as a philosophy of human existence. But a systematic ordering of the ideas of the philosophy of existence appears in German philosophers, primarily in the book “Being and Time” by M. Heidegger (1927), and in the three-volume “Philosophy” of K. Jaspers (1932), as well as in the French philosopher J. - P Sartre in his book “Being and Nothingness” (1943).
Existentialism is often divided into atheistic and religious. But this division is quite conditional, since all representatives of this movement focus on the existential problems common to them, first of all, the meaning of human existence in the world, and not just a person in general, but each individual. The Danish thinker S. Kierkegaard had a great influence on the existentialists, who dissolved a specific person in an absolute idea, strictly logically and dialectically unfolding in history.
phenomenological method Edmund Husserl (1859 - 1938), changing it in accordance with his concept. For
For Husserl, it was important to find a reliable foundation on the basis of which it was possible to create philosophy as a strict science that would serve as the foundation for all other sciences and all human culture. The main thing in his method is the direct perception of the essence of a thing in the process of experiencing this thing. This method is also called the method . Intention means the direction of consciousness towards an object. Consciousness is always consciousness about something. If I experience joy or sadness, then this joy and sadness will be about some object or event. There are no pointless experiences. A student and follower of Husserl, from whom he moved further and further, Martin Heidegger (1889 - 1976) takes not the categories of objective science, but subjective categories as a means of describing and interpreting being. existentials - emotionally charged concepts. Heidegger's basic existential “being-in-the-world” says that human existence and the world are inseparable from each other. Man is always in the world and the world is man’s world. The philosophy of existence tries to reveal the socio-ethical aspects of human existence. At the same time, German and French existentialism often emphasize the dark, pessimistic properties of existence, its absurd nature. Anxiety, fear, guilt, suffering invariably accompany a person in his life. Heidegger distinguishes between empirical fear, which concerns the everyday existence of man (Furht), and ontological fear, which lies at the core of his being (Andst). This is fear of nothing, death in its true sense, as well as fear due to the inability to find one’s personal meaning of being. Problems of life and death appear as the most important for humans.
pessimistic existentialism ), prevail because existentialists developed their teachings in an era of major historical
shocks after the First World War and during and after the Second World War. The largely senseless deaths of millions of people on the battlefields and other tragedies of the 20th century, of course, affected this worldview. However, it should be noted that in the 60s, an optimistic version of existentialism also appeared in England. One of the main representatives is the writer and philosopher Colin Wilson. He considers Heidegger's philosophy to be nihilistic and pessimistic and therefore has no future for its development. Wilson talks about a new understanding of freedom, which consists of expanding and deepening consciousness through various methods psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and meditation. Wilson wrote a six-volume work, The Outsider. An outsider is a prototype of a new person with
developed intellect, in contact with the sphere of the subconscious as a source of cosmic energy. Wilson's hero is busy searching for and realizing the meaning of human existence. K. Wilson himself writes that he develops .
Another important topic in the philosophy of existence is the topic of human communication, mutual communication or intersubjectivity. In existentialism, man initially acts as a social being. In alienated existence, for example, in a crowd, in a mass, everyone acts as the others do, following fashion, established patterns of communication, customs, and habits. Existentialists not only describe facts, but clearly express protest against mass, tabloid culture. However, it is characteristic that, in opposing popular culture, existentialism itself later became a fashion and an element of the same mass culture.
Between life and death .
One of the most important problems considered by existentialists is the problem of being between life and death.
Every person experienced the death of loved ones; many, at the height of life or at its end, had to look death in the eyes; Every person necessarily thinks about death.
A person’s life can be filled with meaning, but it can suddenly lose this meaning for him.
To die with dignity when death comes, to fight it when there is a chance to live, to help other people in their mortal struggle - this is a great skill that any person needs. Life itself teaches him. The life and death of a person, the meaning of life - these are eternal themes for philosophy.
This problem is becoming more and more urgent. The global historical situation today has become borderline: both the death of a person and his survival are possible. The most important step that humanity must take and is already taking is the realization that a qualitatively new situation has emerged, borderline between human life and death. And in this regard, the task of philosophy is to help humanity overcome fear and survive. Unfortunately, how to do this - existentialists do not answer this question.
Man-technique .
According to many philosophers and thinkers of our time, the contradictions in the culture of the twentieth century stem from the contradiction between man and machine. In general, the past century has demonstrated to humanity that culture as an integrating principle social development covers not only the sphere of spiritual, but increasingly - material production.
All the qualities of technogenic civilization, whose birth was marked just over three hundred years ago, were able to fully manifest themselves in our century. At this time, civilizational processes were as dynamic as possible and were of decisive importance for culture. Between the traditional humanitarian culture of the European West and the new, so-called “scientific culture”, derived from the scientific and technological progress of the 20th century, a catastrophic gap is growing every year. Enmity between two cultures can lead to the death of humanity.
This conflict most acutely affected the cultural self-determination of an individual. Technogenic civilization could realize its capabilities only through the complete subordination of the forces of nature to the human mind. This form of interaction is inevitably associated with the widespread use of scientific and technological achievements, which helped the contemporary of our century to feel his dominance over nature and at the same time deprived him of the opportunity to feel the joy of harmonious coexistence with it.
A significant part of culture in the 20th century is developing gigantic territories and taking over masses of people, in contrast to past eras, where cultures covered a small space and a small number of people, built on the principle of “selection of qualities.” In the 20th century everything becomes global, everything extends to the entire human mass. The will to expansion inevitably causes historical life wide sections of the population. This new form the organization of mass life destroys the beauty of the old culture, the old way of life and, depriving the cultural process of originality and individuality, forms a faceless pseudoculture.
The twentieth century forced many scientists to view culture as the opposite of civilization. If civilization always strives for steady movement forward, its path is to climb the ladder of progress, then culture carries out its development by abandoning unidirectional linear movement forward. Culture does not use the previous spiritual heritage as a springboard for new achievements for the reason that it cannot abandon the cultural fund in whole or in part. On the contrary, involvement with various incarnations of tradition is of great importance in the cultural process. Culture can only be built on the basis of spiritual continuity, only taking into account the internal dialogue of cultural types.
cultural worlds is an alliance formed towards the end of the 20th century in Europe between European nations. The possibility of a similar union between vast cultural regions can only arise through dialogue that preserves cultural differences in all their richness and diversity and leads to mutual understanding and cultural contacts.
List of used literature:
2. Aisina F. O., Andreeva I. A. “History of world culture”, “Enlightenment”, M., 1998.
4. "Fundamentals of modern philosophy." Ed. "Doe." St. Petersburg, 1997
In the history of philosophical thought, different images of man have evolved. For Democritus, man is part of the cosmos, a single order and the building of nature, microcosm, display and symbol of the Universe. Aristotle defines man as a living being endowed with spirit, reason and the ability for social life. Franklin views man as a tool-producing animal. In classical German philosophy, man acts as a subject of spiritual activity, creating the world of culture, as a bearer of universal human consciousness, a universal principle - the absolute spirit, reason. Kant sees in man a being belonging to two different worlds - natural necessity and moral freedom. At the center of Feuerbach's philosophical teaching is man, understood as the crown of nature, as a harmonious unity of “I” and “You”.
Very figurative definitions of man are also known. For example, the French writer Francois Rabelais (1494 -1553), called man an animal that laughs. Schopenhauer believed that man is a tragic animal, endowed with rational knowledge and instinct, although not sufficient for confident and error-free actions. For Nietzsche, the main thing in a person is not consciousness and reason, but the play of vital forces and drives. The Marxist interpretation of man is based on the understanding of him as a product and subject of social and labor activity. From this point of view, through familiarization with social heredity, with cultural, historically established traditions, as well as through the mechanisms of biological heredity, human formation occurs. Thus, each person is a unique individuality and at the same time a particle and bearer of the generic universal human essence, a subject of the historical process.
Philosophical anthropology
Man as an object of philosophical analysis in his integrity becomes the center of philosophical anthropology.
Man is a special kind of being, so it is necessary to synthesize new knowledge about man. In the 20s In the 20th century, the actualization of these problems by F. Nietzsche, W. Dilthey, and E. Husserl was continued by M. Scheler (1874–1928), G. Plesner (1892–1985), and A. Gehlen (1904–1976). The main ideas and methodological guidelines of this direction go back to the works of M. Scheler.
Despite the dissimilarity of the concepts of these philosophers, what they had in common was the belief in the need for a holistic consideration of man, a single principle that would explain the organic characteristics of man, his mental-emotional sphere, cognitive abilities, culture, and sociality. The specificity of man was seen in the fact that he constantly transgresses the limits of the present, distances himself from the immediately given both in the external world and in his mental activity.
In philosophical anthropology, a distinction is made between the “surrounding world”, the environment, i.e. that which is accessible to the perception and influence of an animal and is largely associated with the instinctiveness of its behavior, and the “world”, “universal everything”, which in principle is open to comprehension and activity a person and only a person. Man is open to the world, and the world is open to man (M. Scheler, A. Gehlen), so that his inner life does not have innate regulation and spontaneity, a gap arises between motivation and action (A. Gehlen), self-reflection, separation of the rational-intellectual from the psychic -vital (“spirit” from “life” - M. Scheler). The ability to look at oneself “from the outside” (“eccentricity” is the main term of G. Plesner, also found in M. Scheler and A. Gehlen), wealth of imagination (M. Scheler, A. Gehlen), “inappropriate reactions” to threatening and unexpected events (“laughter and crying” - G. Plesner) - all of this is interconnected and makes it impossible for a one-sided “materialistic” (biophysiological) and “idealistic” (intellectual-semantic) explanation.
The task of a “psychophysically neutral” description of a person is posed. Clarifying the position of man in space, M. Scheler establishes two principles (or a bifurcation of one original principle): the lower energetic principle - “impulse” and the highest - “spirit”. Sensual “impulse” is the primary phenomenon of life, but the “spirit” knows how to resist the “impulse”, attract it to the realization of higher values, borrowing its energy from it. The energy of the “impulse” can be turned by the “spirit” against this “impulse” itself (man as an “ascetic of life”); This ability to inhibit life’s drives is also the ability to discern essences, rejecting the actual so-being of things.
G. Plesner explores the phenomenology and logic of organic forms, the highest among which is man. The appearance of an inorganic body is different from that of an organic one; its boundary does not belong to itself, it is limited by another. The boundary of the living is determined by itself, its image is not accidental to its essence. The self-determination of a living thing within the boundaries it sets itself is called positionality. The positionality of a plant included in the environment is open; in an animal that has specialized its organs, it is closed and centric (since the divided organs are mediated by the center).
A person’s positionality is “eccentric”; it is as if he has another center, externalized and capable of perceiving centricity itself.
Unlike M. Scheler and G. Plesner, A. Gehlen proceeds from the functional unity of the somatic-psychological organization of man. Being an “insufficient” being by its organic nature, a person is forced to purposeful activity, the creation of an artificial environment in the form of culture and institutions.
Modern constructs of philosophical anthropology mean a special method of thinking when a person is considered in a specific situation (historical, social, existential, psychological, instrumental, etc.). This is how religious anthropology (G. Hengstenberg), educational anthropology (O. Bolnov), cultural anthropology (E. Rothacker) and other types of humanistic anthropology are produced. Ultimately, this indicates the development of a comprehensive study of man.
Existentialism
Existentialism, or the philosophy of existence, is a philosophical direction that puts human individual issues of meaning in life (guilt and responsibility, decisions and choices, a person’s relationship to his vocation, freedom, death) in the center of attention and shows interest in the problems of science, morality, religion, philosophy, history, art. Its representatives: M. Heidegger (1899–1976), K. Jaspers (1883–1969), J.-P. Sartre (1905–1980), G. Marcel (1889–1973), A. Camus (1913–1960), J. Ortega y Gasset and others. Existentialism is divided into religious (C. Jaspers, G. Marcel, etc. ) and atheistic (M. Heidegger, J.-P. Sartre, etc.). Existentialist philosophers are united by the desire to listen to the moving mindsets and situational-historical experiences of a person of the modern era who has experienced deep upheavals. This philosophy addressed the problem of critical, crisis situations, trying to consider a person in severe trials, borderline situations. The main attention is paid to the spiritual activity of people, the spiritual endurance of a person thrown into an irrational stream of events and radically disappointed in history. The modern history of Europe has revealed the instability, fragility, and irreducible finitude of all human existence.
The central category is existence, or existence. This means the subject’s experience of his existence in the world. This is being directed towards nothingness and aware of its finitude. Existentialism reduces the problem of being to human existence.
M. Heidegger sees the essence of “existing being” in existence (in German literally means “here being”). Existence, according to M. Heidegger, is determined by human finitude, i.e., awareness of one’s own mortality and imperfection. M. Heidegger calls this state the true existence of a person.
For J.-P. For Sartre, human existence is a constant self-negation, that is, “being in itself,” opposed to “being for itself” (consciousness).
A. Camus in his philosophy claims that the absurd is reality itself. The awareness of a meaningless existence, when the world has no meaning, leads either to suicide or to the hope that it will grant a person freedom, which can only be achieved by rebelling against the universal absurdity.
Existentialists believe that a person should not run away from the consciousness of his mortality, and therefore highly value everything that reminds the individual of the vanity of his practical endeavors. This motive is clearly expressed in the existentialist doctrine of borderline situations.
Borderline situations force a person to make a choice. For religious existentialism, the main point of choice is “for” (the path of faith, love, humility) or “against” (renunciation of God).
In the secular (atheistic) variety of existentialism, the main point of choice is associated with the form of self-realization of the individual. This self-realization is determined by the fact of the randomness of human existence, its abandonment in this world. Abandonment means that man was not created by anyone, uncreated. He appears in the world by chance, he has nothing to rely on, and he is forced to form the basis of his behavior himself. As J.-P. puts it. Sartre, man chooses himself.
Man's ability to create himself and the world of other people is, from the point of view of existentialism, a consequence of the fundamental characteristic of human existence - his freedom. Freedom in existentialism is, first of all, the freedom to create and choose the spiritual and moral position of the individual.
Thus, existentialism demonstrates the inseparability of the destinies of the human individual from society, from humanity. His ultimate task is to create such historical conditions under which the thought of the world, man and history will not fill him with either the fear of death, or the pain of despair, or the absurdity of existence.
