Definition of philosophy as being on the road. Philosophy of being and its forms
The problems of being and its forms are considered by many philosophical systems. This is no coincidence. The study philosophical questions the existence of the world, man in the world, the problems of the spirit leads to the solution of complex problems of worldview, determines the system of human relations to the world and the place of man in the world.
Philosophical understanding of being
The problem of being is an object philosophical thought over two and a half millennia. "It is necessary to say and think that there must be being: there is only being, nothing - it does not exist" - argued ancient philosopher Parmenides (VI century - V century BC) in the poem "On Nature".
The category of being is the initial concept on the basis of which the philosophical picture of the world is built. Perhaps it is impossible to find a philosophical system in which the problem of being would not be raised. The relations of being are reflected in the main question of philosophy, are closely connected with the past, present and future in the existence of the world, with the life and activity of man.
The concrete and finite life of a person in specific and changing conditions leads to the thought of the frailty of the world, of the spatio-temporal boundaries of its existence. Anxiety about the finiteness and variability of the existence of a person, the surrounding world, the denial of abiding being was reflected in the formulas "everything flows" (Heraclitus), "everything is vanity", "vexation of the spirit" (Old Testament). These are existential foundations, attempts to realize one's own existence, the existence of the world, transient and not transient, time and eternity, limit and infinity.
The formation of the philosophical category "being" was the result of the historical development of philosophical thought. Depending on the historical era and philosophical position of the thinker in the concept of being invested different content.
Even in ancient Greek philosophy, this concept was interpreted ambiguously.
1. Being was considered as the beginning of the world, the basis of all things. For the Milesians, this is a specific kind of substance; for Heraclitus, it is fire, that is, being is eternal movement, development, process; for atomists, they are atoms. Such an understanding of being meant, in fact, the answer to the question posed in the period of the early Indian, Vedic culture in the Rig Veda:
What was that pivot point?
Which start?
What was this forest and the tree from which heaven and earth were hewn?
2. Being is considered as existence. So Parmenides believed that being is what exists beyond the world of sensible things, it is thought, logos is the cosmic mind, truly existing. Parmenides taught that being is that which is not generated and cannot be destroyed, it has no past, for the past is that which no longer exists, has no future, for it is nowhere to be found. Being is the eternal present without beginning and without end, finished and perfect, unlike the changing world of things. The absolute perfection of being was embodied in the idea of a sphere, which was understood as a beautiful form among other geometric figures. A person receives knowledge about being through direct contact with the mind, the truth is revealed without the help of experience and logic. Being as a hidden presence becomes unhidden, truth. Man, on the other hand, is the measure of the unhiddenness of beings.
Parmenides' introduction into the philosophical worldview of the problem of the transcendental, invisible world, that is, true being, led to the development in philosophy of the art of mentally comprehending being not represented in sensual images. In addition, we can conclude: if earthly existence, unlike the hidden one, is not genuine, then it, therefore, needs to be improved in order to correspond to genuine existence, genuine Truth, Good, Good, Light.
Such a position was realized through practical impact on the earthly world, as well as through the improvement of one's own spiritual world.
Examples of the first path are the philosophy of the Cynics and the political radicalism of such Russian thinkers as P.I. Pestel, V.G. Belinsky, P.N. Tkachev, M.A. Bakunin.
An example of the second way is the philosophical system of Epicurus, who believed that just as medicine is of no use if it does not expel diseases from the body, so is philosophy if it does not expel illnesses of the soul. The task of philosophizing is to learn to live. The philosophy of non-acquisitiveness of the Russian Orthodox thinker Nil Sorsky (1433 - 1508) calls for self-improvement. In general, all Russian philosophy pays most of all attention to the problems of man, the meaning and prospects of his existence, and moral principles.
Parmenides' doctrine of being had a great influence on the subsequent development of this problem in philosophical systems various directions.
In the philosophical heritage of Avicenna (Ibn-Sina, 980 - 1037), being is presented as a product of the divine mind. In being, Avicenna distinguishes between the necessary being, which cannot not be - this is God, and the really existing in the form of a fact, which could not be. Such being is, perhaps, existing, because in itself it has no grounds for being.
Following the goal of causal things will lead to the necessary existence - the divine mind.
In the philosophy of F. Aquinas (I22I-I274), God possesses true being. God is being itself, and the world has only a limited, not true being. Every being in the philosophy of Aquinas consists of essence and existence. Essence and existence are identical in God, but in the things created by him they are not identical and do not agree, for existence does not belong to the individual essence of things. Everything created in this way is accidental, singular, unconnected, partakes only of God.
Being is broken, mysterious, miraculous, adequate to the divine intellect, knowing thinking is identical to being.
The philosophy of modern times poses the problem of cognition of being not from the standpoint of familiarization with cosmic mind, but from the standpoint of human cognitive abilities. Reason is not directly given being, cognitive activity is necessary on the basis of methods and methods of cognition.
In addition, the worldview of the new time considers as a true being not the hidden being, which is the basis of the life and activity of people, but the person himself, his life, structure, needs, abilities, psyche. Surrounding sensual objects and processes began to be perceived as the only true being. The world was no longer viewed as a divine order. Man, on the basis of open objective laws, realized his ability to change the world. The materialistic theory of being is no longer based on an unreal basis and is not clothed in an idealistic mystification.
At the same time, in the 19th and 20th centuries, along with scientific and materialistic views on being, a break with rationalism began in the interpretation of the latter.
In the works of S. Kierkegaard, F. Nietzsche, A. Schopenhauer, and then M. Foucault, the mind is criticized, the awareness of some social strata of the meaninglessness of existence, the weakness and helplessness of human consciousness is expressed. The new worldview entailed a different formulation of the problem of being. In the philosophy of postmodernism, they began to consider the idea of being as becoming. But if until now the problems of development have been described from the standpoint of a strictly substantiated scientific logical system of laws and categories, then the philosophers of postmodernism, relying on the ideas of being as becoming, have set the goal of showing a thought that is in the process of becoming, being is reflected in the formation of thinking. Real life becomes a pseudo-problem. Philosophy has taken up the study of the complex phonological syntactic mechanisms of language as a structure, showing the extent to which our vision of the world depends on the language we use, the search for structural verbal forms for the emerging thought. Ultimately, we are not talking about being in its diverse forms, but about linguistic, mathematical, geometric units, about form, but not substance. Uncertainty is declared the main characteristic of a diverse being.
The solution to the problem of being in Russian philosophy of the 19th-20th centuries was associated with the specifics of the culture and worldview of the Russian people, with the Russian religious consciousness. The existence of man and the world is inextricably linked with the Absolute. So V.S. Solovyov (1853-1900) took the existent as the basis of being. Existing is not being, for it is the highest Absolute, but all being belongs to it. Divine and natural being are in eternal indissolubility with each other. God knows himself in every being. The reality of God cannot be deduced from reason and logic; the existence of the divine principle, according to Solovyov, can only be affirmed by an act of faith. However, in addition to the absolute, there is also a potential being, the first matter, the soul of the world, which serves as a source of a plurality of private forms, a natural principle. The soul of the world realizes itself in man. But since the soul of the world is involved in the Absolute and in man, then man is co-eternal with God, and the first matter is God-manhood. In this regard, the problems of being in the religious worldview should also be touched upon.
Religion is a special refraction of being in the minds of people. Religion, in contrast to materialism, sees the hidden Divine Essence at the basis of being and defines itself as a connection with this essence. But if natural being is obvious to everyone, then with the help of what sense organs can a person learn about the Divine, transcendent Being? The facts of the super-rational structure of the world can be known, according to theologians, not by sensual or rational methods, but by the third way of cognition - by intuition, which is wider than worldly logic and goes beyond rational cognition. But the concept of intuition is closely related to the concept of faith, which is such an internal state of a person in which he is convinced of the certainty of something without the mediation of the senses or the logical train of thought through inexplicable certainty. Thus, intuition becomes a mystical intuition and reveals a higher reality to humanity.
In the philosophy of the Soviet period, which rejected all forms of idealism and irrationalism, being was considered from the standpoint of its multilevel nature: inorganic and organic nature, biosphere, social being, individual being. Being was understood as the being of nature and as a real process of people's vital activity. However, the problem of being, despite the widespread use of this concept, has not been discussed at philosophical conferences, symposiums for decades, has not been singled out as an independent topic in textbooks, that is, it has not been considered as a special philosophical category.
The starting concept for the categorical definition of being is the concept of existence. The term "to be" means to exist, to be. Being as existence was defined by Aristotle, I. Kant, G. Hegel, L. Feuerbach, F. Engels. In turn, the category of existence is difficult to define, because there is hardly a broader concept under which the category of existence can be subsumed. This concept is the result of an empirical generalization of facts, the presence of many separate things, processes, phenomena, both material and spiritual.
Recognition of the fact of the existence of an object is not an idle question. History testifies to errors and misconceptions in science in connection with the recognition of the presence of ether, living matter (O.B. Lepeshinskaya) and vice versa - with the non-recognition of the presence of a gene.
Since reality is called the totality of existing something, insofar as being embraces both material and spiritual, objective reality, subjective reality.
How did you think German philosopher M. Heidegger, no matter how one undertakes to interpret the existent, either as spirit, in the sense of spiritualism, or as matter and force, in the sense of materialism, or as becoming and life, or as representation, or as will, or as substance, or as the subject, either as energy or as the eternal return of the same, each time being as being appears in the light of being. (Heideger M. Time and being: Articles and speeches. M.: Respublika, 1993). Moreover, even on the logical plane, being acts as a designation of existence, a universal property "to be", because in the logical formula of the proposition S is P, the link "is" denotes not just a connection, but also existence.
From the concept of being as existence, it is logical to conclude that there is no being in general, independent being, there is the being of something: objects, properties, signs, things.
The same, apparently, can be said about the antithesis of being - "nothing". The transition into non-existence is the destruction of a given type of being, its transition from one form to another. Therefore, being (and also nothing) can be considered as a matter of fact only when it is objectively determined. Pure being, according to Hegel, is pure abstraction, that is, nothing. In the same way, nothing equal to itself is the same as abstract being.
Thus being is philosophical category, reflecting the universal property of the existence of all phenomena of reality, both material and ideal, in the aggregate of their qualitative characteristics. This is the actual reality of reality, the world of existence of material and ideal entities.
dialectic being metaphysics philosophical
Being is the unity and diversity of forms of its existence. Aggregate reality, the totality of all forms of being in time and space is the world.
In the forms of being, material being (metabolism, the material life of society) and ideal being (ideal, i.e. non-material), objective being (independent of human consciousness), subjective being (based on human consciousness) are distinguished.
However, deciphering the content of these forms depends on the solution of the main question of philosophy (in this case in its dialectical-materialist interpretation) is a question about the relationship of thinking to being, spirit to nature. The doctrine that takes as the basis of the existing one principle, material or spiritual, is called monism.
Based on the materialistic solution of the main issue in the philosophy of materialistic monism, being is understood as matter, its properties, material processes. Spiritual, ideal formations are considered as a product of matter, its derivatives, which have only relative independence.
Based on the materialistic approach, as well as taking into account the universal connections of being, the following developing and interconnected forms of being are distinguished:
- 1. The existence of things, processes, states of nature and the existence of things produced by man ("second nature").
- 2. Being a person in the world of things and specific human being. An important task of philosophy is to determine the place of man in being. Being itself is a self-developing system, at a certain stage of development of which a person appeared. Therefore, the existence of a person is a contradictory connection between natural and social principles, the contradictory unity of a person and society, his familiarization with others and his isolation from others. Human being is historically changeable in each specific socio-cultural situation and represents the unity of the biological, social, cultural. The existence of an individual person is a unity of body and spirit, somatic and mental. The functioning of the body and the human psyche are interdependent, they are the main components of health. It is known that a person, his health and illness are the object of medicine. Consequently, the existence of a person is the basis of the existence of medicine, which is a system of scientific knowledge and practical activities, the purpose of which is to strengthen and maintain health, prolong life of people, prevent diseases and treat a person. The circle of interests of medicine covers all aspects of human life. Medicine studies the structure and life processes of the human body in normal and pathological conditions, living and working conditions, the impact of natural and social environment on human health, the actual human disease, the patterns of their development and occurrence, methods of research, diagnosis, treatment of the patient.
- 3. Being spiritual (ideal).
Spirit (lat. spiritus) means moving air, breath as a carrier of life. Spirit is a philosophical concept, meaning an immaterial beginning, in contrast to the material, natural. Representatives of various currents in philosophy singled out three forms of being of the spirit.
- 1) subjective spirit as the spirit of the individual;
- 2) objective spirit as a spirit detached from a person and existing independently. This concept was the basis of all forms objective idealism. The objective spirit is connected with the personal spirit, for the personality is the bearer of the objective spirit;
- 3) The third form of being of the spirit is the objectified spirit as a set of completed creations of the spirit in science, culture and art.
The spirit is identical to the ideal, consciousness as the highest form of reflection of reality. The ideal is a subjective image of objective reality, that is, a reflection of the external world in the forms of human activity, in the forms of consciousness and will (see Ilyenkov E.V. The problem of the ideal // Questions of Philosophy - 1970. - No. 6,7).
The definition of the ideal is dialectical. It's something that doesn't exist and yet exists. It does not exist as an independent substance, but it exists as a reflected image of an object, as an active ability of a person, as a plan, motivation, goal, result of activity. The ideal is the product and form of human labor. Ideality exists only in the process of transforming the form of activity into the form of a thing and vice versa - the form of a thing into a form of activity.
The ideal is a subjective reality, and apart from consciousness, ideal phenomena cannot exist.
The ideal is a reflection of the material, it is devoid of physical and chemical characteristics, it exists not on its own base, but on the substance of the nervous tissue. The ideal is inalienable from the individual, but it is impossible to explain the ideal from the properties of the brain, just as it is impossible to explain the monetary form of the product of labor from the physical and chemical properties of gold. The ideal is inner side the activity of the subject, which consists in isolating the content of the object for the subject, is the given of the object to the subject.
4. Social being: individual being and being of society.
In an objectively idealistic understanding (idealistic monism), being is an objectively existing idea that underlies everything that exists (See: Introduction to Philosophy: A Textbook for High Schools. - Part 2 - M .: Politizdat 1989. - P. 29.) .
In the subjective-idealistic interpretation, being is in relation to coordination with the feelings of the subject. Not things are perceived, but sensations. Things are a complex of sensations. To exist is to be perceived.
In addition to the monistic view of being, there is a dualism that considers the world from the standpoint of 2 equal, independent principles. Dualism was most clearly manifested in the philosophy of R. Descartes, who divided being into a thinking substance (spirit) and extended matter. This position leads to psycho-physiological parallelism, according to which mental and physiological processes are independent of each other, and, consequently, the problem of the unity of the mental and somatic in a person, the problem of the genesis and essence of consciousness, is removed.
The dualistic approach is connected with the problems of the so-called "third line" in philosophy, which claims to overcome the extremes of idealism and materialism in the understanding of being. According to modern supporters of this approach, matter and mind have developed and are developing simultaneously, neither of them gives rise to the other, they are relatively autonomous in their single integrity. There is no other existence in the world except for the moving integral substance "mind-matter". The question of the primary and secondary nature of material and ideal substances loses its meaning. Materialism and idealism in this case are equal and equivalent approaches to the description of reality, being (See: Shulitsky B.G. Madealism-the concept of the worldview of the 3rd millennium. - Mn., 1997. - P.21-41).
In the history of philosophical thought, this is not the first attempt to find and substantiate a third line in philosophy. As a rule, such a line is substantiated with the help of near-philosophical speculations and logical errors. Whatever forms of being we consider, they all have matter as the basis of their existence. Spiritual, subjective reality from the standpoint of materialism is also determined by means of matter. Being, matter and spirit are extremely broad general philosophical concepts.
The category of being contains a holistic view of the surrounding world, of the relationship "man-world", of material and spiritual phenomena. The concept of "being" seems to reflect a view of reality through the prism of the existing level scientific knowledge, which, as you know, has the features of objectivity, consistency, evidence. It is obvious that a systematic view of the world, which sets the vision of being from the standpoint of general scientific concepts, is a scientific picture of the world. The picture of the world includes in its content the issues of the existence of the world as an integral system, the problems of matter and the forms of its existence, movement, interaction, causing, as well as modern concepts of evolution and self-organization. Thus, the picture of the world is a form of synthesis and systematization of knowledge about being. Since philosophy absorbs the results of scientific research, modern scientific pictures of the world represent an organic synthesis of philosophy and natural science, reflect the objective processes of being in relative truth. Therefore, the scientific picture of the world, systematizing knowledge into a holistic way of being, is constantly being refined, rebuilt and, thus, forms an integral characteristic of being in its concrete historical form.
The scientific picture of the world of post-non-classical science is inextricably linked with the definition of a person's place in the world as a subject of activity and as a subject of cognition with its value orientations, methods and forms of cognition. Consequently, the scientific picture of the world must necessarily include not only natural science problems, but also issues of co-evolutionary, harmonious, synergistic interaction between the world and man. The movement towards the noosphere is a response to the concepts of the egoistic gene of R. Dawkins, pragmatism, instrumentalism and, at the same time, it is a movement towards non-violence, dialogue, cooperation with the objectively existing world.
Scheme No. 1
In the presented figure, an attempt is made to schematically show the relationship between the fundamental principles of natural existence, man as a being of the biosocial, cosmic and evolutionary process of movement towards the noosphere based on the concepts of global evolutionism and unlimited progress. These concepts, according to experts, have the status of scientific picture peace. It seems that the proposed approach contains real opportunities for the development, addition and refinement of the scheme, which generally reflects the connection between various forms of being.
Currently, there are theories, hypotheses, which sometimes reflect speculatively, in a debatable form, in the relative truth of the beginning of being, a set of laws to which the Universe is subject. Even A. Einstein raised the question: "What choice did God have when he created the Universe?"
According to one of the hypotheses, the basis of the organization of the existence of the Universe is information, it is she who organizes the being. According to academician G.B. Dvoirin, God is an energy-field and material information-distribution system of the Universe, equipped with a mechanism in the form of an omnipresent dynamic energy-field and informational Universal code, on which the objective and living objective essences of the Universe are formed.
The informational approach, therefore, presents the world to a person as a self-governing and self-organizing system. If the informational approach is recognized as valid, the processes of the Universe will be explained from the point of view of the cosmological code given in the electromagnetic spectrum, from the standpoint of the "language" of electromagnetic waves that unite the world into a single whole and will have a universal meaning. Then the time will come for understanding the unified informational nature of all things (See: Dubnishcheva T.Ya. Concepts of modern natural science. - M .: 000 "UKEA Publishing House", 2005. - P.655.)
However, it is possible to offer other arguments in this case, also not confirmed experimentally. In the Universe, subject to the laws of Newton, Einstein, the existing world constants make the information factor as an organizing principle not quite capable of controlling the Universe, since the propagation speed of electromagnetic waves is finite. In this case, one can refer to the concept of space - time of the astronomer and naturalist Professor of the Pulkovo Observatory N.A. Kozyrev. ON THE. Kozyrev argues that in nature there is a substance that instantly connects any objects with each other, and these objects can be arbitrarily removed from each other. This substance Kozyrev N.A. called time. Time is a grandiose flow that encompasses all material processes in the Universe, and all processes occurring in these systems are sources that feed this general flow. Time at different levels of the organization of matter creates flows of material actions, time, thus, becomes the main driving force everything that happens, since all processes in nature go either with the release or absorption of time. So, for example, stars are machines that draw energy from the flow of time. In accordance with the statements of Kozyreva N.A. time does not spread, but appears immediately in the entire universe. Therefore, organization and information can be transmitted by time instantly over any distance. Thus, space - time according to the concept of Kozyrev N.A. makes it possible to carry out instant interactions, information exchange and, consequently, to organize the world. Time is the transformation of information, the transformation of information is the work of time. Note that the views of N.A. Kozyrev do not really fit into modern physical concepts, philosophical concepts, according to which there is no instantaneous interaction in the world, a long-range action that would instantly connect all the events of the Universe with each other. Reality is asymmetric with respect to the determination of events. Future events are uncertain, accurate prediction of future events is impossible. The unambiguity of the course of future events in objective reality does not exist. This is only one of the arguments that act as an antithesis in relation to the theory of A.N. Kozyrev. Kozyrev's theory of time has been disputed and is being disputed, as it does not have a sufficient evidence base. But the problems of time, the laws of the Universe, its origin occupy the minds of natural scientists and philosophers, both in Russia and abroad.
The famous English physicist, mathematician Stephen Hawking, who set himself the task of creating a theory that would explain the Universe, would show why it is the way it is, comes to the following, I think, a deep worldview, beautifully formulated conclusion that reflects the real picture of being: "The Universe without edge in space, with no beginning in time, with no work to do for the creator" (Hawking S. Brief History from the big bang to black holes. - St. Petersburg: "Amphora", 2000. - P.11.) The above views and hypotheses in no way claim to be a ready-made and complete concept of the organization of the world. However, in our opinion, they are of particular interest.
In understanding the existing hypotheses of the beginnings of being, in the debate about the laws of the Universe, not only natural scientists, but also philosophers should take part. It is on this path that it is possible to get answers to the questions: why and how does the Universe exist, man? What is the content of the scientific picture of the world? What are the fundamental laws of being?
With good reason, it can be argued that in philosophy there is no problem more fundamental in significance and more difficult to solve than the clarification of the essence of being.
At present, there is no single point of view in the world on the question of what being is. We adhere to a fairly common point of view that:
For the first time, the concept of “being” as a specific category for designating an existing reality is used by the ancient Greek thinker Parmenides (c. 540 - 470 BC). According to Parmenides, being exists, it is continuous, homogeneous and completely immobile. There is nothing else but being. All these ideas are contained in his statement: "it is necessary to say and think that being exists, because being is, while there is nothing else." He paid considerable attention to the problem of being, who, with his work, made a significant contribution to its development. Being is identified by Plato with the world of ideas, which are authentic, unchanging, eternally existing. “That being,” Plato asks, “whose existence we find out in our questions and answers, what is it, always unchanged and the same, or different at different times? Can what is equal in itself, beautiful in itself, everything in general existing in itself, i.e. being, to undergo any kind of change? Or is it that any of these things, uniform and self-existent, is always unchanging and the same, and never, under any circumstances, accepts the slightest change? And he answers: “They must be unchanged and the same ...” True being is opposed by Plato to inauthentic being, which means things and phenomena accessible to human feelings. Sense-perceived things are nothing but a likeness, a shadow, merely reflecting perfect images—ideas.
true being- this is an idea, this is the thought of every soul, which, like the thought of God, “feeds on reason and pure knowledge” whenever it suits it. “Therefore, when she sees things at least from time to time, she admires them, feeds on the contemplation of truth and is blissful until the vault of heaven, having described a circle, transfers her again to the same place. In its circular motion, it contemplates justice itself, contemplates prudence, contemplates knowledge, not the knowledge that arises, and not that which changes depending on the changes of what we now call being, but that real knowledge, which lies in genuine being." In the dialogue "Parmenides" Plato speaks in more detail about the earthly, derivative being, which for him is the real, sensually perceived world. In it, in contrast to the true, one might say, heavenly being, there is one and many, emergence and death, development and peace. The essence of this world, its dynamics are characterized by a constant conflict of heavenly existence and earthly non-existence, ideas and matter. In this world, there is nothing eternal, unchanging, because. Everything is subject to creation, change and destruction. Aristotle makes a significant contribution to the development of the doctrine of being. The basis of all being, according to Aristotle, is primary matter, which, however, is difficult to define using any category, since it is in principle not identifiable. Here is one of the explanations primary matter, which Aristotle gives: “this is the being that exists necessarily; and inasmuch as it exists necessarily, it is thereby (it exists) good, and in this sense it is the beginning ... there is some essence eternal, immovable and separated from sensible things: and at the same time it is also shown that this essence cannot have no size, but it has no parts and is indivisible ... but on the other hand, it is also (shown) that it is a being that is not subject to (external) influence and not accessible to change.
Although the first matter enters integral part in every being, nevertheless, it cannot be identified with being or considered one of the elements of real being. And yet, the first matter has some certainty, since it includes four elements - fire, air, water and earth, which, through various combinations, act as a kind of intermediary between the first matter, incomprehensible with the help of the senses, and the really existing world, which is perceived and known to man. The most important merit of Aristotle in developing the doctrine of being is his idea that real being becomes accessible to knowledge due to the form, image in which it is presented to man. According to Aristotle, potential being, which includes the first matter and the four basic natural elements, thanks to the form, forms a real being and makes it accessible to knowledge. For the first time, a really existing being appears as a unity of matter and form. The French thinker Rene Descartes lays the foundations for a dualistic interpretation of being. Descartes recognizes the primary certainty of all that exists, first of all, in the thinking Self, in the person's awareness of his activity. Developing this idea, Descartes argues that if we discard and declare false everything that can be doubted in any way, then it is easy to assume that there is no god, sky, body, but it cannot be said that we do not exist, that we do not think. It would be unnatural to believe that what thinks does not exist.
And so the conclusion expressed by the words “ I think, therefore I am” is the first of all and the most reliable of those that will appear before everyone who correctly philosophizes. It is not difficult to determine that here the spiritual principle, and in particular, the thinking I, acts as being here. Its main feature, attribute becomes length. Thus, movement and extension will be convincing characteristics of the materiality of the world. Consequently, being in Descartes is represented dualistically: in the form of a spiritual substance and in a material form. From positions subjective idealism explains the essence of being by the English philosopher George Berkeley (1685-1753). The essence of his views lies in the assertion that all things are just “complexes of our sensations”, which were originally given by our consciousness. According to Berkeley, real being, i.e. things, ideas objectively, in reality, in their earthly incarnation do not exist, their refuge is human thought. And although Berkeley tends to an objective-idealistic interpretation of the essence of being, in general, his interpretation of this problem is subjective-idealistic in nature. The founders of the philosophy of Marxism Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) interpret the problem of being from the standpoint of dialectical materialism. Relying on the materialist traditions in the interpretation of being, developed by the English and French materialist philosophers, Marxism understands by being the matter that exists infinitely, in space and time and is independent of human consciousness. While stating the eternity of being, Marxism at the same time recognizes the beginning, emergence and ending of concrete things and phenomena. Being does not exist without matter, they are eternal and exist simultaneously. Non-existence does not mean the disappearance of being, but the transition from one form of being to another. The founders of Marxism, unlike their predecessors, singled out several levels of being and, in particular, natural being and social being. By social being, they understand the totality of the material and spiritual activities of people, i.e. "the production of material life itself." In subsequent years, including the 20th century, there were practically no fundamental “breakthroughs” in the interpretation of being.
An example is the understanding of being by one of the most famous philosophers of the 20th century. Martin (1883 - 1976). As an existentialist philosopher, Heidegger gives various characteristics and interpretations of being, sometimes contradictory and refuting those previously expressed. Although the German thinker has dealt with this problem almost all his life, nevertheless he does not have an academic definition of being, but only characterizes, describes, highlights some important aspects, which, however, corresponds to the existentialist consideration of the problem. Thus, according to Heidegger: “Being is a thing with which we are dealing, but not something that exists. Time is a thing with which we are dealing, but not something temporary. We say about being: it is. Looking into this thing, “being,” looking into this thing, “time,” let us remain cautious. Let us say not: there is being, there is time, but: being has a place and time has a place. And further: “Being is by no means a thing, accordingly it is not something temporary, nevertheless, as a presence, it is still determined by time. Time is by no means a thing; accordingly, it is not something that exists, but remains constant in its course, itself not being anything temporal like what exists in time.
Being and time mutually determine each other, however, in such a way that neither the first - being - can be considered as temporary, nor the second - time - as being. Based on the foregoing, apparently, one should not be surprised that at the final stage of his activity, Heidegger comes to the conclusion that it is impossible to rationally cognize being.
Being as a material reality and the unity of the world
Previously, it was shown that the problem of being and its subsequent comprehension arises practically along with the formation of a cultural person.
Already the first ancient sages began to think about what their environment is, where it came from, whether it is finite or unlimited, and finally, how to designate or call it. Paradoxical as it may seem, but approximately the same questions are of interest to modern man, primarily from among those who think about the problem of their existence and the world as a whole. In our time, being is interpreted as a philosophical category to denote real existing world underlying all things and phenomena. In other words, being encompasses and includes all the diversity of cosmic, natural and man-made things and phenomena. Before a specific person, being appears in at least two forms (two ways). This is, first of all, space, nature, the world of things and spiritual values created by man. This is such a being, which in relation to a person exists forever as an infinite and imperishable integrity.
human consciousness states the existence of this being and thus, as it were, receives an unshakable foothold to confirm the eternity and indestructibility of the world. However, there is another, everyday understanding of being, which is due to the temporary transient existence of a person and receives a corresponding reflection in his consciousness. This being is temporary, finite, transient. That is how it is perceived by man. In the strict sense of the word, the category of “being” cannot be used to designate and characterize this way of human existence, but since it has come into use, it is advisable to reinforce it with such concepts as relative, finite, transient being when characterizing such being. The subject of our study is being in its transcendental, universal plane as eternally existing, imperishable and eternal. The study of being in this context requires understanding the categories of non-existence, existence, matter, space, time, formation, quality, quantity. After all, before talking about something, let alone making any generalizations, it is necessary that this something first of all be available, i.e. existed. Indeed, at first, with the help of sensory perception, a person fixes, as if photographing the things and phenomena that have appeared, and only then does he have a need to reflect them in an image, word, concept. The qualitative difference between the category of “being” and the real existence or the concrete existence of a thing, phenomenon lies in the fact that the category “being” is not self-evident, it arises, is formed due to both a concretely existing thing or phenomenon, and the presence of a concretely existing human thinking. Having arisen as a result of such interaction, the category “being” then begins an independent existence. In understanding the essence of the existence of the world as a whole, an important role belongs to the category of matter. Indeed, being needs not only existence, but also some kind of basis, foundation. In other words, all concrete things and phenomena for their unification into one whole, and in particular, into the category of being, must have points of contact, some kind of common basis. Matter is such a basis that forms the inseparable unity and universal integrity of concrete things and phenomena. It is thanks to her that the world appears as a single whole, existing independently of the will and consciousness of man. Nevertheless, there are certain difficulties in understanding the unity of the world. They are due to the fact that in people in the process of their practical activity, the transient is intertwined, mixed with the imperishable, the eternal with the temporal, the infinite with the finite. In addition, the differences that exist between nature and society, the material and the spiritual, the individual and society, and finally the differences between individual people, are too obvious. And yet, man was steadily moving towards understanding the unity of the world in all its diversity - natural-material and spiritual, natural and social, since reality itself pushed him more and more insistently towards this.
The conclusion that can be drawn from what has been said is that the cosmos, nature, society, man, ideas exist in the same way. Although they are presented in various forms, nevertheless, by their presence they create a universal unity of the infinite, imperishable world. Not only what was or is, but also what will be will necessarily confirm the unity of the world. Another important characteristic or component of the philosophical category "being" is the presence of reality as an aggregate reality. AT Everyday life a person is constantly convinced that various wholes, structures of the world, having only their inherent properties and forms, coexist equally, manifest themselves, and simultaneously interact with each other. Space, nature, society, man - these are all different forms of being, having their own specifics of existence and functioning. But at the same time they were, are and will be interdependent and interconnected.
There is no need to explain in detail how interconnected such "remote" entities as the cosmos and society are. Environmental problems, which are increasingly making themselves felt, are not least based on human activity. On the other hand, scientists have been convincing for more than a decade that only through the exploration of outer space will mankind in the coming centuries, and possibly decades, be able to solve vital problems for itself: for example, supplying earthlings with so urgently needed energy resources and creating high-yielding varieties of grain crops. Thus, there are grounds to assert that the idea of the existence of an aggregate reality is formed in the human mind, which includes the cosmos and its impact on nature and man; nature, which refers to the environment that directly or indirectly affects man and society, and, finally, society and man, whose activities, respectively, not only depend on the cosmos and nature, but also, in turn, have a certain impact on them. All this total reality directly influences the formation of a person's idea of being, the consciousness of being. It must always be borne in mind that not only the external natural world, but also the spiritual, ideal environment is mastered in the process of practice, interaction with something that really exists, and therefore, reflected in the human mind, it acquires a certain independence and in this sense it can be considered as special reality. Therefore, not only in everyday life, but also in the analysis of transcendental problems, this must be taken into account no less than the objective material world of phenomena.
The main forms of being and the dialectic of their interaction
World how everyday reality appears in front of a man as an integral phenomenon, a universal unity, which includes a huge variety of things, processes, states of human individuals, natural phenomena.
This is what we call universal being. The main component, with the help of which the universal connections between this infinite multitude of things are carried out, is the individual. In other words, the world is filled with many single phenomena, things, processes that interact with each other. This is the world of individual entities, which include people, animals, plants, physical processes and much more. But if we proceed only from the universal and the individual, then it will be very difficult for human consciousness, but rather impossible to navigate in this diverse world. Meanwhile, in this diversity there are many such singularities that, while differing from each other, at the same time have a lot in common, sometimes even essential, which allows them to be generalized, combined into something more general and integral. This is what is best labeled as special. Of course, all these forms of being are closely interconnected with each other, and their classification as universal, singular and special, reflecting the real thing, helps a person to better understand being. If these states are presented objectively with examples, then it will look like this:
- universal- this is the world as a whole, space, nature, man and the results of his activities;
- singular is an individual person, animal, plant; the special is the various species of animals, plants, social classes and groups of people.
Given the above, the forms of human existence can be represented as follows:
- the existence of material phenomena, things, processes, which, by detailing, in turn, can be divided into natural existence in all its diversity and material existence created by man;
- the material existence of a person, in which, for the convenience of analysis, one can single out the bodily existence of a person as a part of nature and the existence of a person as a thinking and at the same time socio-historical being;
- spiritual being, which includes individualized spirituality and universal spirituality.
In addition to these forms of being, which serve as the object of our present analysis, there is also social being, or the being of society, the nature of which will be considered within the framework of the doctrine of society. Before proceeding to clarify what natural being is, we note that human knowledge about this very first and most important form of being, thanks to which, in fact, it became possible to speak out about the problem under consideration, is based on the entire experience of human practical and mental activity, on numerous facts and arguments of applied and theoretical sciences, collected and generalized over the entire time of the existence of cultural mankind. These conclusions are convincingly confirmed by modern science. Natural being is materialized, i.e. visible, perceptible, tangible, etc. states of nature that existed before the appearance of man, exist now and will exist in the future. A characteristic feature of this form of being is its objectivity and its primacy in relation to other forms of being. The objective and primary nature of nature is confirmed by the fact that it arose and existed many billions of years before the appearance of man. Therefore, the recognition of its existence did not depend on whether or not there is a human consciousness. Moreover, as you know, man himself is a product of nature and appeared at a certain stage of its development. Another argument to justify the inviolability of the most essential qualities of natural existence is that, despite the appearance of man, his conscious activity and impact on nature (often destructive), humanity now, like thousands of years ago, in the most important thing, in , as regards the foundations of its existence, continues to depend on natural phenomena.
Weighty evidence in favor of the primacy and objectivity of nature can be the fact that the physical and mental state of a person depends on natural conditions. If we allow some even not very significant changes in nature, for example, an increase or decrease by several degrees in the average temperature on earth, a slight decrease in the oxygen content in the air, this will immediately create insurmountable obstacles to the survival of hundreds of millions of people. And if more severe natural disasters occur, for example, a collision of our planet with a large comet or other cosmic body, then this threatens the physical existence of all mankind. Finally, it is impossible not to mention one more quality of natural, or rather, cosmic being. It is known that in the course of its existence, mankind step by step - and I must say with great difficulty - mastered the secrets of the natural world. And today, at the turn of the new millennium, despite the discovery of laws that explain cause-and-effect relationships in the world around man, perfect tools and devices created by the human mind, in the world external to man, including in outer space, there are many things that now, and perhaps in the distant future will remain inaccessible to the human intellect.
Consequently, when analyzing the natural form of being, one must also proceed from the fact that, due to its primacy and objectivity, due to its infinity and immensity, nature or the universe as a whole has never before, and, consequently, in the future, cannot be covered not only by perception but even by human imagination and thought. The material being produced by man or, as it is also called “second nature”, is nothing but the material world created by people and surrounding us in everyday life. “Second nature” or “second being” is that material world, object-domestic and industrial, which is created and used to satisfy the individual and special needs of people. Strange as it may seem, but this being, once having arisen at the will of man, then continues to exist relatively independent of man - and sometimes of mankind - by life for a very long time, spanning centuries and millennia. So, for example, tools of labor, means of transportation change faster than material objects used by an individual for life (dwelling), education (books), everyday life (tables, chairs). In the relationship between the first and second nature, the defining role belongs to the first, if only because without its participation not only existence is impossible, but also the creation of the “second nature”. At the same time, and this has become especially tangible and noticeable in the last century, the second nature has the ability to locally destroy the “first” being. Currently, this manifests itself in the form of environmental problems generated by ill-conceived or socially uncontrolled human activities. Although the “second nature” cannot destroy the first being, considered in its cosmic dimensions, nevertheless, as a result of destructive actions, irreparable damage can be inflicted on earthly being, which, under certain circumstances, will make the physical existence of a person impossible.
It is impossible not to touch upon such a feature of human existence as the dependence of his bodily actions on social motivations. While other natural things and bodies function automatically and one can predict their behavior in the near and far future with sufficient certainty, this cannot be done with respect to human body. His activities and actions are often regulated not by biological instincts, but by spiritual, moral and social motives. It is necessary to mention such a form of human existence as individualized spiritual existence and universal human spiritual existence. The spiritual, without pretending to cover its entire essence, means the unity of the conscious and the unconscious in human activity, morality, artistic creativity, knowledge materialized in specific symbols and objects. Individualized spiritual being is, first of all, the consciousness of the individual, his conscious activity, which includes elements of the unconscious or the unconscious. The individualized spiritual to a certain extent, although not very significant, is connected with the evolution of universal being, but on the whole it is a relatively independent form of being. In general, it exists and makes itself felt due to the fact that there is another form of spiritual being - universal human spiritual being, which, in turn, is also relatively independent and could not exist without individual human consciousness. Therefore, these forms of being can and should be considered only in inseparable unity. Literature, works of art, production and technical objects, moral principles, ideas about the state and political structure of public life. This form of spiritual existence is practically eternal, however, purely in the human time dimension, because. her life is determined by the existence of the human race. Individualized spiritual being and universal human spiritual being, although created artificially, without them the existence of mankind would be impossible.
BEING (Greek ousia; Lat. esse) is a philosophical concept that conceptualizes the presence of phenomena and objects, and not their content aspect. It can be understood as a synonym for the concepts of "existence" and "existent" or differ from them in semantic shades. Encyclopedia of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science
BEING (Greek - τ? ε?ναι, ουσ?α; Latin - esse), one of the central concepts of philosophy, characterizing everything that exists - both actual and potential (actual being, possible being), both in reality and in consciousness (thought, imagination). Ontology - the doctrine of being - has been the subject of the so-called first philosophy since the time of Aristotle. The concepts of "existing", "essence", "existence", "substance" represent various aspects of being.
Being in ancient Greek philosophy. Ancient philosophy, especially the teachings of Plato and Aristotle, for many centuries determined the general nature and ways of dividing the concept of being. In a theoretically reflected form, the concept of being first appears among the representatives of the Eleatic school, who opposed being, as something true and cognizable, to the sensible world, which, being only an appearance (“opinion”), cannot be the subject of true knowledge. The concept of being, as it was understood by Parmenides, contains three important moments: 1) there is existence, but there is no non-existence; 2) being is one, indivisible; 3) being is knowable, and non-being is incomprehensible.
These principles were interpreted differently by Democritus, Plato and Aristotle. Leaving the main theses of the Eleatics in force, Democritus, in contrast to them, thought of being as multiple - atoms, and non-being - as emptiness, preserving the principle of indivisibility for atoms, to which he gave a purely physical explanation. Plato, like the Eleatics, characterizes being as eternal and unchanging, cognizable only by the mind and inaccessible to the senses. However, Plato's being is multiple, but these are not physical atoms, but intelligible non-material ideas. Incorporeal ideas Plato calls "essences" (Greek ο?σ?α from the verb "to be" - ε?ναι), that is, that which "exists." Becoming is opposed to becoming - sensory world transitory things. Claiming that it is impossible to express or think non-being (“Sophist” 238 s), Plato, however, admits that non-being exists: otherwise it would be incomprehensible how delusion and falsehood are possible, that is, “opinion about the non-existent”. For the sake of substantiating the possibility of cognition, which presupposes a relationship between the cognizer and the cognized, Plato opposes to being something else - “existing non-existence”. Being as an interconnected set of ideas exists and is conceivable only by virtue of participation in the super-existential and unknowable One.
Aristotle retains the understanding of being as the beginning of the eternal, self-identical, unchanging. To express various aspects of being in terms of concepts, Aristotle uses rich terminology: τ? ε?ναι (substantiated verb "to be") - being (Latin esse); τ? δν (substantivized participle from the verb "to be") - su-schee (ens; the concepts of "being" and "existing" are interchangeable in Aristotle); ο?σ?α - essence (substantia); τ? τ? ?ν ε?ναι (substantiated question "what is being?") - whatness, or the essence of being (essentia); α?τ? τ? ?ν - being in itself (ens per se); τ? ?ν η оν - being as such (ens qua ens). In the teachings of Aristotle, being is not a category, because all categories point to it; the first among them - essence - stands closest to being, it is more existing than any of its predicates (accident). Aristotle defines the “first essence” as a separate individual - “this man”, and the “second essence” as a species (“man”) and a genus (“animal”). The first entity cannot be a predicate, it is something independent. Being as such can be understood as the highest of all first beings, it is a pure act, free from matter, an eternal and immovable prime mover, which is characterized as "being in itself" and is studied by theology, or the science of the "first being" - the Deity.
The Neoplatonic understanding of being goes back to Plato. According to Plotinus, being presupposes a super-existential principle, standing on the other side of being and cognition, the “One”, or “Good”. Only being is conceivable; that which is higher than being (the One) and that which is lower than it (the infinite) cannot be the subject of thought, for “mind and being are one and the same” (“Enneads” V 4. 2). Being is the first emanation, "the firstborn of the One"; being intelligible, being is always something definite, formed, stable.
Being in medieval philosophy and theology. The understanding of being in the Middle Ages was determined by two traditions: ancient philosophy on the one hand, and Christian Revelation on the other. Among the Greeks, the concept of being, as well as perfection, is associated with the concepts of the limit, the one, the indivisible, the formed and the definite. Accordingly, the infinite, the boundless is recognized as imperfection, non-existence. On the contrary, in the Old and New Testaments, the most perfect being - God - is infinite omnipotence, and therefore any limitation and certainty are perceived here as a sign of finiteness and imperfection. Attempts to reconcile these two tendencies or to oppose one another determined the interpretation of being for more than a millennium and a half. So, Augustine, in his understanding of being, is sent both from Holy Scripture (“I am who I am,” God said to Moses, Ex. 3:14), and from the Greek philosophers, according to which being is good. God is good as such, or "mere good". Created things, according to Augustine, are only involved in being or have being, but they themselves are not the essence of being, for they are not simple. According to Boethius, only in God, who is being itself, are being and essence identical; He is a simple substance that does not participate in anything, but in which everything participates. In created things, their being and essence are not identical, they have being only by virtue of participation in what being itself is. Like Augustine, being in Boethius is good: all things are good insofar as they exist, without, however, being good in their essence and their accidents.
Distinguishing, following Aristotle, the actual and potential states, Thomas Aquinas, following the famous formula of Albert the Great “The first among created things is being”, considers being as the first of the actual states: “No creation is its own being, but only participates in being” (“ Summa theologiae", q. 12, 4 p.). Being is identical with goodness, perfection and truth. Substances (essences) have an independent existence, while accidents exist only thanks to substances. Hence, in Thomism, the distinction between substantial and accidental forms: the substantial form gives things a simple being, while the accidental form is the source of certain qualities.
The revision of the ancient and medieval traditions in the understanding of being, taking place in nominalism and German mysticism 13-14 centuries (for example, Meister Eckhart eliminates the difference between creature and creator, that is, being and being, as understood by Christian theology), as well as in the pantheistic and close to pantheism currents of philosophy of the 15th-17th centuries (with Nicholas of Cusa, J. Bruno, the life of Spinoza, etc.), led in the 16th-17th centuries to the creation of a new logic and a new form of science - mathematical natural science.
Being in philosophy of the 17th-18th centuries. As in the philosophy of the 17th century the spirit, the mind loses its ontological status and acts as the opposite pole of being, epistemological problems become dominant, and ontology develops into natural philosophy. In the 18th century, along with the criticism of rationalistic metaphysics, being is increasingly identified with nature, and ontology with natural science. So, T. Hobbes, considering the body as the subject of philosophy, excludes from the knowledge of philosophy the whole sphere, which in antiquity was called "being" as opposed to changeable becoming. In the formula of R. Descartes “I think, therefore I am”, the center of gravity is knowledge, not being. Nature as a mechanical world of effective causes is opposed by the world intelligent substances as a realm of goals. This is how the split of being into two incommensurable spheres is realized. Substantial forms, almost universally expelled from philosophical and scientific use in the 17th and 18th centuries, continue to play a leading role in the metaphysics of G. W. Leibniz. Although essence coincides with being only in God, nevertheless, in finite things, essence, according to Leibniz, is the beginning of being: the more essence (that is, actuality) in a thing, the more “being” this thing is. Only simple (non-material and non-extended) monads have true reality; as for bodies, extended and divisible, they are not substances, but only collections, or aggregates of monads.
In the transcendental idealism of I. Kant, the subject of philosophy is not being, but knowledge, not substance, but subject. Distinguishing between the empirical and the transcendental subject, Kant shows that the definitions attributed to substance - extension, figure, movement - actually belong to the transcendental subject, whose a priori forms of sensibility and reason constitute the world of experience; that which goes beyond the limits of experience - the thing in itself - is declared unknowable. It is "things in themselves" - relics of substances, Leibniz monads in Kant's philosophy - that carry the beginning of being. Kant retains a connection with the Aristotelian tradition: being, according to Kant, cannot be a predicate and cannot be “extracted” from a concept. Self-activity of the transcendental I gives rise to the world of experience, the world of phenomena, but does not give rise to being.
Being in 19th century philosophy. In J. G. Fichte, F. W. Schelling and G. W. F. Hegel, who stood on the positions of mystical pantheism (its roots go back to Meister Eckhart and J. Boehme), an absolutely self-determining subject appears for the first time. Being convinced that the human Self in its deep dimension is identical with the divine Self, Fichte considers it possible to derive from the unity of self-consciousness not only the form, but also the entire content of knowledge, and thereby eliminate the concept of “thing in itself”. The principle of knowledge takes the place of being here. Philosophy, according to Schelling, is possible "only as a science of knowledge, having as its object not being, but knowledge." Being, as understood by ancient and medieval philosophy, in German idealism opposes activity as an inert and dead beginning. Hegel's panlogism is carried out at the cost of transforming being into a simple abstraction, into "the general after things": "Pure being is a pure abstraction and, therefore, absolutely negative, which, taken just as directly, is nothing" (Hegel. Op. M .; L ., 1929. T. 1. S. 148). Hegel considers becoming to be the truth of such being. In the advantage of becoming over being, change over immutability, movement over immobility, the priority of relation over being, characteristic of transcendental idealism, affected.
The principle of the identity of thinking and being, the panlogism of G.W.F. Hegel caused a reaction in the philosophy of the 19th century. L. Feuerbach spoke in defense of the naturalistic interpretation of being as a single natural individual. S. Kierkegaard opposed Hegel's existence of an individual, which is not reducible either to thinking or to the universal world. F.V. Schelling declared his early philosophy of identity and Hegel's panlogism, which grew out of it, to be unsatisfactory precisely because the problem of being had disappeared from them. In the irrationalist pantheism of the late Schelling, being is not the product of a conscious act of the good divine will, but the result of the bifurcation and self-disintegration of the absolute; being here is rather the beginning of evil. This trend deepens in the interpretation of being as an unreasonable will, a blind natural attraction in the voluntaristic pantheism of A. Schopenhauer. Being in Schopenhauer is not simply indifferent to the good, as in T. Hobbes or the French materialists, but rather it is evil. Philosophical teachings The 2nd half of the 19th century, proceeding from Schopenhauer's voluntarism - E. Hartmann's "philosophy of the unconscious", F. Nietzsche's "philosophy of life" - also consider being as the opposite of spirit, mind. According to Nietzsche, being, or life, lies on the other side of good and evil, “morality is the aversion from the will to being” (Poln. sobr. essay M., 1910, vol. 9, p. 12).
The result of this process was the deontologization of nature, knowledge and human existence, the reaction to which in the 2nd half of the 19th-20th centuries was a turn to ontology in the neo-Leibnizianism of J.F. Herbart and R.G. Lotze, the realism of F. Brentano, in phenomenology, existentialism, neo-Thomism, Russian religious philosophy. In the pluralistic realism of Herbart and B. Bolzano, the Aristotelian-Leibnizian understanding of being is revived. The subject of Bolzano's science is not an absolute subject, as in J. G. Fichte, but an existent in itself, timeless and unchanging, similar to the ideas of Plato. The ideas of Bolzano influenced the understanding of being by A. Meinong, the early E. Husserl, who opposed subjectivism and skepticism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from the standpoint of an objective ontology of the Platonic type. Brentano also came out in defense of Aristotelian realism, preparing the phenomenological movement.
From the middle of the 19th century, attempts to revive realistic ontology were opposed by positivism, which continued the nominalist tradition and that critique of substance that English empiricism began and completed by D. Hume. According to O. Comte, knowledge has as its subject the connection of phenomena, that is, exclusively the sphere of relations: the self-existent is not only unknowable, but it does not exist at all. The deontologization of knowledge was carried out in the last quarter of the 19th century by neo-Kantianism. In the Marburg school, the principle of relation is declared absolute, the unity of being is replaced by the unity of knowledge, which G. Cohen substantiates, relying on the unity of function, not substance.
Being in the philosophy of the 20th century. The revival of interest in the problem of being in the 20th century is accompanied by criticism of neo-Kantianism and positivism. At the same time, the philosophy of life (A. Bergson, W. Dilthey, O. Spengler, etc.), considering the principle of mediation to be specific to the natural sciences and scientism oriented towards them (mediated knowledge deals only with relation, but never with being itself), appeals to direct knowledge, intuition - but not the intellectual intuition of the rationalism of the 17th century, but the irrational intuition. According to Bergson, being is a stream of creative change, an indivisible continuity or duration given to us in introspection; Dilthey sees the essence of being in historicity, and Spengler - in historical time, which constitutes the nature of the soul. The role of being in phenomenology is restored in a different way. A. Meinong contrasts the neo-Kantian principle of “significance”, related to the subject, with the concept of “evidence”, which comes from the object and therefore is built not on normative principles (should), but on the basis of being. Meinong's theory of knowledge is based on the distinction between object and being, essence (Sosein) and existence (Dasein). The requirement of evidence as a criterion of truth also underlies the phenomenological "discretion of the essence"; however, the factual orientation of E. Husserl to psychology (like F. Brentano, he considers only the phenomena of the spiritual world to be directly comprehended) led to his gradual transition to the positions of transcendentalism, so that the true being of the late Husserl was not the world of “truths in themselves”, but the immanent life of transcendental consciousness. In the personalistic ontology of M. Scheler, being is a person understood as a “substance-act” not objectified in its deep essence, related in its being to the supreme person - God. Reviving the tradition of Augustinianism, Scheler, however, unlike Augustine, considers the higher being as powerless in relation to the lower: according to Scheler, spiritual being is no more primordial than being blind life force which defines reality.
Starting, like M. Scheler, from neo-Kantianism, N. Hartmann declared being the central concept of philosophy, and ontology the main philosophical science, the basis of both the theory of knowledge and ethics. Being, according to Hartmann, goes beyond the limits of any being and therefore is not amenable to direct definition, but by investigating - in contrast to specific sciences - being as such, ontology thereby also concerns being. Taken in its ontological dimension, the existent differs from objective being, or "being-in-itself", that is, the object opposite to the subject; being as such is not the opposite of anything.
M. Heidegger sees the task of philosophy in revealing the meaning of the being of being. In "Being and Time" (1927), Heidegger, following Scheler, reveals the problem of being through consideration of the being of a person, criticizing E. Husserl for considering a person as consciousness (and thus knowledge), while it is necessary to understand him as being - “here-being” (Dasein), which is characterized by “openness” (“being-in-the-world”) and “understanding of being”. Heidegger calls the existential structure of man "existence". Not thinking, but precisely existence as an emotionally-practically-understanding being is open to the meaning of being. Offering to see being in the horizon of time, Heidegger thereby unites with the philosophy of life against traditional ontology: like F. Nietzsche, he sees the source of “forgetfulness of being” in the Platonic theory of ideas.
The turn to being was initiated in Russian philosophy of the 19th century by Vl. S. Solovyov. Rejecting, following Solovyov, the principles of abstract thinking, S. N. Trubetskoy, L. M. Lopatin, N. O. Lossky, S. L. Frank and others put the question of being at the center of consideration. Thus, Frank showed that the subject can directly contemplate not only the content of consciousness, but also being, which rises above the opposition of subject and object, being absolute being, or All-Unity. Starting from the idea of the All-Unity, Lossky combines it with the doctrine of individual substances, dating back to Leibniz, G. Teichmüller and A. A. Kozlov, while highlighting the hierarchical levels of being: spatio-temporal events of the empirical world, the abstract-ideal being of universals, and the third, the highest level - the concrete-ideal being of extra-spatial and extra-temporal substantial figures; the transcendent Creator God is the source of the existence of substances. Thus, in the 20th century, there has been a tendency to return to being its central place in philosophy, associated with the desire to free itself from the tyranny of subjectivity that is characteristic of modern European thought and forms the spiritual basis of industrial and technical civilization.
Lit .: Lossky N. O. Value and being. Paris, 1931; Hartmann N. Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie. 2. Aufl. Meisenheim, 1941; LittTh. Denken and Sein. Stuttg., 1948; Marcel G. Le mystère de l'être. R., 1951. Vol. 1-2; Heidegger M. Zur Seinsfrage. fr. / M., 1956; Möller J. Von Bewußtsein zu Sein. Mainz, 1962; Sartre J. P. L'être et le néant. R., 1965; Lotz J.V. Sein und Existenz. Freiburg, 1965; Wahrheit, Wert und Sein / Hrsg. v. W. Schwarz. Regensburg, 1970; Man and his being as a problem modern philosophy. M., 1978; Gilson E. Constantes philosophiques de l'être. R., 1983; Stein E. Endliches und ewiges Sein. 3. Aufl. Freiburg u. a., 1986; Dobrokhotov A. L. The category of being in classical Western European philosophy. M., 1986.
The initial concept, on the basis of which the philosophical picture of the world is built, is the category of being.
One of the key sections of philosophy that studies the problem of being is ontology (from the Greek ontos - being, logos - word, doctrine, i.e. the doctrine of being). Ontology - the doctrine of fundamental principles existence of nature, society, man.
The formation of philosophy began precisely with the study of the problems of being. Ancient Indian, ancient Chinese, ancient philosophy first of all developed the problems of ontology, and only then philosophy expanded its subject and included epistemological, logical, axiological, ethical, aesthetic problems. However, all of them, one way or another, are based on ontology.
Parmenides (a representative of the Eleatic school of ancient Greek philosophy that existed in the 6th-5th centuries BC) was the first of the philosophers who singled out the category of being and made it the subject of a special philosophical analysis. Parmenides was the first to try to understand the world by applying the philosophical concepts of ultimate generality (being, non-being, movement) to the diversity of things.
The category of being is a verbal concept, i.e. derived from the verb "to be". What does it mean to be? To be means to exist. Synonyms for the concept of being can be such concepts as reality, world, reality.
Being covers everything that really exists in nature, society, thinking. Thus, the category of being is the most general concept, an extremely general abstraction that combines a wide variety of objects, phenomena, states, processes on a common basis of existence. There are two types of realities in being: objective and subjective.
Objective reality is everything that exists outside and independently of human consciousness.
Subjective reality is everything that belongs to a person and cannot exist outside of him (this is the world of mental states, the world of consciousness, spiritual world person).
Thus, being is the objective and subjective reality in its entirety.
Being as total reality exists in four main forms:
1. Being of nature. At the same time, they distinguish:
- First nature. This is the existence of things, bodies, processes, untouched by man, everything that existed before the appearance of man: the biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, etc.
- Second nature. This is the being of things and processes created by man (nature transformed by man). This includes tools of varying complexity, industry, energy, cities, furniture, clothing, bred varieties and species of plants and animals, etc.
2. Being a person. This form highlights:
- The existence of man in the world of things. Here, a person is considered as a thing among things, as a body among bodies, as an object among objects, which obeys the laws of finite, transient bodies (ie, biological laws, cycles of development and death of organisms, etc.).
- own human existence. Here, a person is no longer considered as an object, but as a subject who obeys not only the laws of nature, but also exists as a social, spiritual and moral being.
3. Spiritual being (this is the sphere of the ideal, consciousness and the unconscious), in which one can distinguish:
- Individualized Spirituality. This is personal consciousness, purely individual processes of consciousness and the unconscious of each person.
- The objectified spiritual. It is the supra-individual spiritual. This is all that is the property of not only an individual, but also society, i.e. it is the "social memory of culture", which is stored in language, books, paintings, sculpture, etc. This includes various forms of social consciousness (philosophy, religion, art, morality, science, etc.).
4. Being social, which is divided into:
- The existence of an individual in society and in the progress of history, as social subject, the bearer of social relations and qualities.
- The existence of society itself. It covers the totality of the life of society as an integral organism, including the material-production and spiritual sphere, the diversity of cultural and civilizational processes.
