Idealism is a philosophical direction. Founder and representatives of idealism. The meaning of the word idealism

Idealism - basic philosophical direction, affirming the primacy of consciousness, thinking, spiritual, ideal and secondary, the dependence of matter, nature, the world.

All idealist philosophers recognize that being depends on consciousness, depends on consciousness, but they explain in different ways how consciousness gives rise to being. Idealism has two main forms:

• - objective idealism, which considers consciousness as an extra-natural, superhuman, objective spiritual principle that creates the whole world, nature and man.
• - subjective idealism, which understands being not as an objective reality existing outside of human consciousness, but only as a product of the activity of the human spirit, the subject.

The French materialist D. Diderot in 1749 called idealism "the most absurd of all systems." But the historical, epistemological and social origins of idealism are very deep, and besides, this direction was considered the main one by many brilliant philosophers.

The historical roots of idealism are the anthropomorphism inherent in the thinking of primitive people, the humanization and animation of the entire surrounding world. Natural forces were considered in the image and likeness human actions conditioned by consciousness and will. In this idealism, especially objective idealism, is closely connected with religion.

The epistemological source of idealism is the ability of human thinking to theoretical knowledge. In its very process, a separation of thought from reality, its withdrawal into the sphere of imagination is possible. The formation of general concepts (man, goodness, truth, consciousness) and an increasing degree of abstraction are necessary in the process of theoretical thinking. Separation of these concepts from material items and operating them as independent entities leads to idealism. The epistemological roots of this trend go far back in history. When society began to stratify into classes, mental labor became a distinctive feature, a privilege of the ruling population. Under these conditions, they monopolize mental labor, direct politics, and material production activity becomes the lot of the working masses. This situation created the illusion that ideas are the main determining force, and ordinary material labor is something lower, secondary, dependent on consciousness.

IN Ancient Greece Pythagoras (580-500 BC) considered numbers to be independent essences of things, and the essence of the Universe was the harmony of numbers. Ancestor philosophical system objective idealism is considered Plato (427-347 BC). He argued that in addition to the world of things, there is also a world of ideas that a person can see only with the "eyes of reason." In this world, there are ideas of a ball, an amphora, a person, and specific copper balls, clay amphoras, living people are only material embodiments of ideas, their imperfect shadows. What everyone takes for real world, in fact, only a shadow of the world of ideas hidden from humanity, the spiritual world. For Plato, the world of ideas was a divine realm in which, before the birth of a person, his immortal soul lives. Getting to the earth and temporarily being in a mortal body, the soul remembers the world of ideas, this is precisely the true process of knowledge. Plato's idealism was criticized by his brilliant student Aristotle (384-322 BC): "Plato is my friend, but truth is dearer!" Aristotle believed that matter is eternal, uncreated and indestructible.

The ideas of objective idealism in modern times were developed by the German philosopher G. Leibniz (1646-1716). He believed that the world consists of the smallest elements, monads, active and independent, capable of perception and consciousness. The monad in this system is an individual world, a mirror of the universe and the infinite Universe. God-established harmony gives the monads unity and coherence. The lowest of them have only vague ideas about the surrounding world (mountains, water, plants), the consciousness of animals reaches the level of sensation, and in humans - the mind.

Objective idealism reached its highest degree of development in the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831). Hegel considered the World Mind, which he called the Absolute Idea or Absolute Spirit, to be the basis of everything that exists. The Absolute Idea is constantly developing, generating a system of concepts. In the process of its development, it acquires a material shell, acting first in the form of mechanical phenomena, then chemical compounds, and eventually gives rise to life and man. All nature is the "Kingdom of petrified concepts". With the advent of man, the Absolute Idea breaks through the material shell and begins to exist in its own form - consciousness, thinking. With the development of human consciousness, the Idea is more and more freed from matter, knowing itself and returning to itself. Hegel's idealism is imbued with the idea of ​​development, of dialectics. Objective idealism separates general concepts, laws from specific individual things and phenomena, absolutizing ideas and explaining them as the primary essence of the world.

Subjective idealism proves the dependence of being on human consciousness, identifying observed phenomena and objects with sensations and perceptions. "The only reality is the consciousness of the subject himself, and the world is only a projection of this consciousness outside."

The classic version of subjective idealism is the teaching of the English bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753). In his opinion, all things are really just stable combinations of sensations. Consider his theory on the example of an apple. The complex of feelings displayed by consciousness: red, hard, juicy, sweet. But the development of such an idea would lead to the conclusion that there is nothing at all in the world except sensations. This extreme is called solipsism (lat. solus - "one", lat. ipse - "self"). Trying to avoid solipsism, Berkeley argued that sensations do not arise in us arbitrarily, but are caused by the influence of God on the human soul. Thus, each time the deepening and upholding of subjective idealism sooner or later leads to a transition to religion and objective idealism.

IN modern philosophy the existentialists S. Kierkegaard (1813-1855), L. Shestov (1866-1938), N. Berdyaev (1874-1848), M. Heidegger (1889-1976), G. Marcel (1889-1973) are close to subjective-idealistic views ), J.P. Sartre (1905-1980), A. Camus (1913-1960). The starting point for existentialists is not the essence (essentia) of the objective world, but the existence (exsistentia) of an individual person with his feelings, experiences. Therefore, the task of philosophy is not the study of being as the essence of the world, but the discovery of the meaning of human existence, true existence. Only through understanding the meaning of his existence can a person judge what is outside him, in the world around him. scientific knowledge things, writes K. Jaspers, cannot answer the question about the meaning of life and the meaning of science itself. For existentialists, the true form philosophical knowledge is intuition, a direct vision of the meaning of the reality under consideration, which is the subjective experience of the individual. They distinguish between the true and non-genuine existence of a person in the world: true - free, where a person will make decisions and be responsible for his actions; inauthentic - immersion of the individual in everyday life. Subjective idealism is closely related to another philosophical trend of the twentieth century - personalism (Latin persona - "personality"). Personalists consider a person in two aspects: spiritual - a person-personality and material - a person-individual. A person is a person, because he has a free and reasonable spiritual fundamental principle, freedom of choice and independence from the world. The individual man is a particle of matter, that is, nature and society, obeys their laws. But if the individual is subordinate to society, the state, then the individual is subordinate only to God. This, according to personalists, proves the necessity of a religion that connects a person with a supreme, divine Personality and reveals the secrets of being.

Often idealism is difficult to reconcile with real life, but it cannot be regarded as a collection of continuous delusions. In idealistic teachings there are many ideas that play a large role in the development of human culture.

At present, philosophy is also the science of the universal laws of the development of nature, society, thinking, cognition and a special form of social consciousness, the theoretical basis of the worldview, a system of philosophical disciplines that contribute to the formation of the human spiritual world.

Philosophy has always included consideration of the so-called ideological questions: how does the world work? Does it have a beginning and an end? What is the place of man in the world? The purpose of man. What is truth? Is it achievable? Is there a God? What is the meaning and purpose of life? What is the relationship between people, society and nature, good and evil, truth and error? What awaits us in the future? Not a single person can pass by these and similar questions. Philosophy has always helped people look for answers to these questions, while performing a worldview function.

1. Materialism.

Matter has always been there. At a certain stage of its development, highly organized matter has the ability to feel and think, i.e., the ideal arises (F. Bacon, L. Feuerbach. K. Marx. F. Engels, V. I. Lenin).

Vulgar materialism: "The ideal does not exist, the brain produces thought, like the liver bile." (End of the 18th century, Büchner, Vogt, Milichott).

Materialism- scientific philosophical direction, opposite idealism. Philosophical materialism affirms the primacy of the material and the secondary nature of the spiritual, the ideal, which means the eternity, the uncreated world, its infinity in time and space. Considering consciousness to be a product of matter, materialism considers it as a reflection of the external world, thus asserting the cognizability of nature. In the history of philosophy, materialism, as a rule, was the worldview of the advanced classes and strata of society interested in the correct knowledge of the world, in strengthening the power of man over nature. Summarizing the achievements of science, materialism contributed to the growth scientific knowledge, the improvement of scientific methods, which in turn had a beneficial effect on the success of human practice, on the development of productive forces.

In the process of interaction materialism and the special sciences, the form and forms of materialism itself changed. The first teachings of materialism appear along with the emergence of philosophy in slave societies. ancient india, China and Greece - for several centuries. BC e. - in connection with progress in the field of astronomy, mathematics and other sciences. common feature ancient, in many respects still naive, materialism (Laozi, Yang Chzhd, Wang Chun, the Lokayat school, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, Epicurus, etc.) consists in recognizing the materiality of the world, its existence independently of people's consciousness. Its representatives sought to find in the diversity of nature the common principle of everything that exists and happens (Element). The merit of ancient materialism was the creation of a hypothesis about the atomistic structure of matter (Leucippus, Democritus). Many ancient materialists were spontaneous dialecticians.

However, most of them have not yet made a clear distinction between the physical and mental, endowing the properties of the latter with all nature ( Hylozoism). The development of materialistic and dialectical provisions was combined in ancient materialism with the influence of mythological ideology. In the Middle Ages materialistic tendencies manifested themselves in the form of nominalism, doctrines of the "contemporaneity of nature and God" and early pantheistic heresies. During the Renaissance, materialism (Telesio, Vruna, and others) was often clothed in the form of pantheism and hylozoism, considered nature in its entirety, and in many ways resembled the materialism of antiquity. Materialism (materialism) developed further in the 17th and 18th centuries. in European countries (Bacon, Galileo, Hobbes, Gassendi, Spinoza, Locke).

This form of materialism arose on the basis of emerging capitalism and the growth of production, technology, and science associated with it. Acting as the ideologists of the then progressive bourgeoisie, the materialists fought against medieval scholasticism and church authorities, turned to experience as a teacher and to nature as an object of philosophy. M. 17-18 centuries. Associated with then rapidly progressing mechanics and mathematics, which determined its mechanistic nature. In contrast to the natural philosophers-materialists of the Renaissance, the materialists of the 17th century. began to consider the last elements of nature as inanimate and qualityless. Another feature of the M. of this era was the desire for analysis, for the division of nature into more or less isolated, unrelated areas and objects of study and their consideration outside of development; among the representatives of the materialist philosophy of this period, French occupies a special place. 18th century materialists (La Mettrie, Diderot, Helvetius and Holbach).

Staying in overall position mechanistic understanding of motion, they, following Tolaend, considered it as a universal and inalienable property of nature, completely abandoned the deistic inconsistency inherent in most materialists of the 17th century. Many elements of dialectics are characteristic of Diderot's materialism. The organic connection that exists between any metaphor and atheism was found by the French materialists of the 18th century. stood out especially brightly. The peak in the development of this form of M. in the West was "anthropological" M. Feuerbach. At the same time, Feuerbach most clearly manifested the contemplativeness inherent in all pre-Marxian mathematics.

In Russia and other Eastern European countries in the second half of the 19th century. A further step in the development of mathematics was the philosophy of the revolutionary democrats (Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Markovich, Votev, and others), which was based on the traditions of Lomonosov, Radishchev, and others and, in a number of respects, rose above the narrow horizon of anthropologism and metaphysical method. The highest and most consistent form of mathematics was created by Marx and Engels by the middle of the 19th century. dialectical M. He not only overcame the above shortcomings of the old M., but also the idealistic understanding of human society inherent in all its representatives.

In the further history of M. (materialism), two fundamentally different lines have already sharply emerged: the development of dialectical and historical mathematics, on the one hand, and a number of simplified and vulgarized varieties of mathematics. Among the latter, the most typical was vulgar mathematics, which approached positivism; the latter also gravitate to those varieties of M. that arose at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. as a distortion of dialectical mathematics (a mechanistic revision of Marxism, etc.), as well as the so-called "scientific materialism" (J. Smart, M. Bunge, and others). In the second half of the 19th century M. in its mature forms turned out to be incompatible with the narrow class interests of the bourgeoisie.

Bourgeois philosophers accuse M. of immorality, misunderstanding of the nature of consciousness and identify M. with its primitive varieties. While rejecting atheism and M.'s epistemological optimism, some of them were nevertheless forced, in the interests of the development of production and natural science, to admit individual elements of a materialistic worldview. Sometimes idealists portray their teachings as "authentic" and "most modern." M. (Carnap, Bachelard, Sartre). In a number of cases, obscuring the opposition between materialism and idealism, bourgeois philosophers resort not only to positivism and neorealism, but also to such amorphous and ambiguous constructions as the modern one. American naturalism.

On the other hand, among scientists in the past there were quite a few who, declaratively recognizing idealism or positivistically shunning “any philosophy,” actually occupied the positions of mathematics in special scientific research (natural-historical M. Haeckel, Boltzmann, and others). For modern advanced scientists are characterized by an evolution from the natural science to the conscious, and ultimately to the dialectical language (Langevin, Joliot-Curie, and others).

One of the features of the development of dialectical mathematics is its enrichment with new ideas. Modern the development of science requires that natural scientists become conscientious advocates dialectical materialism. At the same time, the development of socio-historical practice and science requires the constant development and concretization of the philosophy of mathematics itself. The latter occurs in the constant struggle of mathematics with the latest varieties. idealistic philosophy.

2. Idealism.

a) Objective idealism: “Primary was the idea. Everything came from it, including in an evolutionary way” (Plato, Hegel).

Contemporary French philosopher Teilhard de Chardin:

“There was a psychic principle in everything, but in the inanimate it did not develop.”

b) Subjective idealism (Berkeley, Hume). “There is only me and my consciousness. It generates the surrounding world. The phenomena of the world are complexes of our sensations.

Idealism - philosophical direction, the opposite of materialism in the solution of the main. question of philosophy. I. proceeds from the primacy of the spiritual, non-material, and the secondary nature of the material, which brings him closer to the dogmas of religion about the finiteness of the world in time and space and its creation God. I. considers consciousness in isolation from nature, due to which it inevitably mystifies it and the process of cognition and often comes to skepticism and agnosticism. Consistent I. contrasts materialistic determinism with teleological t. sp. (Teleology). Bourgeois philosophers the term "I." is used in many senses, and this direction itself is sometimes considered as truly philosophical. Marxism-Leninism proves the inconsistency of this perspective, but, in contrast to metaphysical and vulgar materialism, which views idealism only as absurdity and nonsense, it emphasizes the presence of epistemological roots in any specific form of idealism (V. I. Lenin, vol. 29, p. 322).

Development of theoretical thinking leads to the fact that the possibility of I. (idealism) - the separation of concepts from their objects - is already given in the most elementary abstraction. This possibility becomes a reality only in the conditions of a class society, where the I. appears as a scientific continuation of mythological, religious-fantastic ideas. According to its social roots, I., in contrast to materialism, acts, as a rule, as a worldview of conservative and reactionary strata and classes that are not interested in the correct reflection of life, in a radical restructuring public relations. At the same time, I. absolutizes the inevitable difficulties in the development of human knowledge and this hinders scientific progress. At the same time, individual representatives of I., posing new epistemological questions and exploring the forms of the process of cognition, seriously stimulated the development of a number of important philosophical problems.

In contrast to the bourgeois philosophers, numbering many independent forms of I., Marxism-Leninism divides all its varieties into two groups: objective I., which takes the personal or impersonal universal spirit, a kind of supra-individual consciousness, as the basis of reality, and subjective I., which reduces knowledge about the world to the content of individual consciousness . However, the difference between subjective and objective I. is not absolute. Many objective-idealistic systems contain elements of subjective idealism; on the other hand, subjective idealists, trying to get away from solipsism, often switch to the position of objective I. In the history of philosophy, objective idealistic teachings initially arise in the East ( Vedanta , Confucianism).

The classic form of objective I. was the philosophy of Plato. The peculiarity of the objective I. Plato, characteristic of the ancient. In general, there is a close connection with religious and mythological ideas. This connection is strengthened at the beginning of AD. e., in the era of the crisis of ancient society, when Neoplatonism develops, fused not only with mythology, but also with extreme mysticism. This feature of objective I. is even more pronounced in the Middle Ages, when philosophy is completely subordinate to theology (Augustine, Thomas Aquinas). The restructuring of objective I., carried out primarily by Thomas Aquinas, was based on distorted Aristotelianism. The main concept of objective-idealistic scholastic philosophy after Thomas Aquinas there was the concept of an intangible form, interpreted as a target principle that fulfills the will of an extra-natural God, who wisely planned the world finite in time and space.

Starting with Descartes in bourgeois philosophy In modern times, as individualistic motives strengthened, the Subjective Identity developed more and more. IN philosophy of Kant the materialist assertion about the independence of “things in themselves” from the consciousness of the subject is combined, on the one hand, with the subjective-idealistic position about the a priori forms of this consciousness, which justifies agnosticism, and on the other hand, with the objective-idealistic recognition of the supra-individual nature of these forms. The subjective-idealistic tendency later prevailed in the philosophy of Fichte, while the objective-idealist trend prevailed in the philosophy of Schelling, and especially of Hegel, who created a comprehensive system of dialectical dialectics.

The bourgeois philosophers themselves the concept of "I." became identified only with its most overt, spiritualistic form. There was an opinion of supposedly “intermediate” and even supposedly “towering” teachings over I. and materialism (positivism, neorealism, etc.). Agnostic and irrationalist trends intensified, mythologization of philosophy as a “necessary self-deception”, disbelief in human mind, into the future of mankind, etc. Reactionary pseudo-atheism (Nietzscheanism, fascist philosophical concepts, certain types of positivism, etc.) developed. During the period of the general crisis of capitalism, such forms of modernism as existentialism and neopositivism, as well as a number of schools of Catholic philosophy, primarily neo-Thomism, spread. The three named currents were the main variety of I. in the middle of the 20th century, but along with them and within them, in the second half of the century, the process of splitting I. into small epigonian schools continued.

The main social causes of "diversity" forms of modern I. (phenomenology, critical realism, personalism, pragmatism, philosophy of life, philosophical anthropology, the concepts of the Frankfurt School, etc.) are the deepening process of the disintegration of bourgeois consciousness and the desire to consolidate the illusion of "independence" of idealist philosophy from the political forces of imperialism. On the other hand, partly the opposite process is also taking place—the rapprochement and even “hybridization” of various trends in ideology on the basis of the general anti-communist orientation of the bourgeois ideology of the 20th century. Scientific foundations of criticism of modern. forms of I. laid down by Lenin in the book "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism", where a Marxist analysis is given not only of the Machian variety of positivism, but also of the basic content of all bourgeois philosophy of the era of imperialism.

Basic concepts of the theory of knowledge and the history of philosophy (empiricism, rationalism, irrationalism) In the cognitive process, the goal of which is truth, achievement passes through a series of steps:

1. Empiricism(founders Beckon, Locke, Hobbes). Such a philosophy is a methodological orientation of knowledge, which recognizes sensory experience as the main one in terms of sources and criteria, integrated into materialistic empiricism as a result of the influence of connections and objects of the external world on human feelings, as a result of which they act as images of this world. And in ideological empiricism, this is the property of the inner world of a person, his unconditional experiences.

2. Rationalism- this is an ideological - theoretical and methodological orientation, whose supporters recognize the mind as the main source of true knowledge and the basis of human behavior, absolutizing its significance and underestimating or ignoring the role of sensory experience and practical human activity. Representatives: Deckard, Leibniz, Spinoza (XVI century).

3. Irrationalism is the direction philosophical thought which recognizes the basis of the process of cognition and transformation of the world - the non-rational aspects of a person's spiritual life: intuition, faith, will, limiting or denying the possibilities of reason in this process.

4. Sensationalism- a diverse philosophical position, representatives of which fully recognized feelings as the only source and factor in achieving truth with all its content and the only essential reality, absolutizing their significance, underestimating or ignoring other cognitive features of a person. The problem of knowing the world and the main ways to solve it The problem of obtaining true knowledge about the world, i.e. the question of the cognizability of the world is the central problem of epistemology.

In the history of philosophy, three main approaches have developed that answer the question of the cognizability of reality in different ways:

1) cognitive optimism;

2) skepticism;

3) agnosticism (cognitive pessimism).

Cognitive optimists (they mainly include materialists and objective idealists) believe that the phenomena of reality are essentially cognizable, although the world - due to its infinity - is not completely cognizable.

Skepticism(from the Greek "skepticos" - seeking, examining, investigating) doubt the possibility of obtaining reliable knowledge about the world, absolutizing the moment of relativity in true knowledge, pointing to its formal unprovability. Representatives of agnosticism (mostly subjective idealists) deny the possibility of knowing the essence of phenomena. Absolutizing the imperfection of the sensory perception of reality, agnostics in their extreme conclusions even deny the existence objective reality. All these approaches have a certain theoretical justification.

But the decisive arguments in favor of cognitive optimism are: the development of social practice and material production, the successes of experimental natural science, confirming the truth of knowledge. The epistemological situation has its own structure, which includes the subject and object of cognition, as well as the “intermediary” linking them into a single process. Dialectics of the process of cognition. The unity of the sensual, rational and intuitive in cognition Cognition is a socio-historical process of people's creative activity that forms their knowledge. And knowledge is ideal images (representations, concepts, theories) fixed in the signs of natural and artificial languages, on the basis of which the goals and motives of human actions arise.

There are different levels of knowledge- everyday, theoretical, artistic - as a sensual-figurative reflection of reality. The branch of philosophy that studies knowledge is called epistemology. Is the world cognizable, is a person capable of compiling a true picture of the world? Most philosophers take a positive approach to this problem. This position is called epistemological optimism. For materialists - the world is cognizable - knowledge is a subjective image of the objective world. In subjective idealism (Berkeley), knowledge of the inner world of a person is possible, etc. But there are philosophers who deny the possibility of reliable knowledge - agnosticism (not accessible to knowledge).

IN scientific philosophy cognition is considered as a process of interaction between an object and a subject in the material and sensory activity of a person. The subject and object act as sides of a practical relationship. The subject is the bearer of a material purposeful action that connects him with the object. Object - the object on which the action is directed. The initial characteristic of the subject is activity, the object is the application of activity. Activity is conscious in nature, it is mediated by goal-setting and self-awareness.

In the structure of cognitive activity such levels as sensual and rational are included. Sensory cognition: sensation is a subjective image of an object, primary information about the world, perception is a holistic sensory image of objects given through observation, it reflects the various properties of a thing as a whole, representation is an indirect holistic image stored and reproduced with the help of memory. It is based on past perceptions, imagination, dreams, fantasies, etc. Rational knowledge is, first of all, thinking, which is based on sensory knowledge and gives generalized knowledge. It is carried out in 3 forms: concepts, judgments, conclusions. All three forms of logical thinking are characterized by a connection with language. The levels of cognition exist inextricably linked and form a dialectical path of cognition: from living contemplation to abstract thinking- from it to practice. The result of knowledge is the achievement of true knowledge.

The subject of philosophy is the range of questions that philosophy studies.

The general structure of the subject of philosophy, philosophical knowledge consists of 4 main sections:

1. Ontology (the doctrine of being);

2. Gnoseology (the doctrine of knowledge);

3. Man;

4. Society.

The main sections of philosophical knowledge:

1). Ontology (Metaphysics). Ontology deals with the whole complex of issues related to the existence of Being and its basic principles. We can say that it includes such subsections as cosmogony, philosophical cosmology, natural philosophy, metaphysics, etc. It deals with issues of randomness and probability, discreteness and continuum, stationarity and variability, in the end, the materiality or ideality of what is happening in the environment us the world.

2). Epistemology. It studies the issues of cognition, the possibility of cognition, the nature of cognition and its possibilities, the relationship of knowledge to reality, the prerequisites for cognition, the conditions for its reliability and truth. It is from epistemology that such philosophical trends as skepticism, optimism, and agnosticism stem. Another important issue dealt with by epistemology is the question of the relationship between experience, the work of the Mind, and the sensations we receive with the help of the senses. In addition to other sections, epistemology also includes epistemology, which studies the philosophy of scientific knowledge. The theory of knowledge as a philosophical discipline analyzes the general grounds that make it possible to consider the cognitive result as knowledge expressing the real, true state of things.

3). Axiology is a philosophy of values. "What is good?" - main question general philosophy values. Axiology studies values, their place in reality, the structure of the value world, i.e. connection of various values ​​among themselves, with social and cultural factors and personality structure. She deals with some personal and public life human and organized groups of people. We can say that it includes, as components, ethics, aesthetics, sociophilosophy and philosophy of history. Philosophical anthropology also applies here.

4). Praxeology- a branch of philosophy that studies the direct practical life of a person. By and large, it includes, in fact, the same subsections as the previous paragraph, but in a somewhat arbitrary interpretation of them. It can be said that praxeology deals with the utilitarian problems of axiology.

The main sections of philosophy

Within the framework of philosophical knowledge proper, already at the early stages of its formation, its differentiation began, as a result of which such philosophical disciplines, as ethics, logic, aesthetics, and the following sections of philosophical knowledge gradually took shape:

- ontology- the doctrine of being, the origins of all things, the criteria for existence, general principles and laws of existence;

- epistemology- a branch of philosophy that studies the problems of the nature of cognition and its capabilities, the relationship of knowledge to reality, identifies the conditions for the reliability and truth of knowledge;

- axiology- the doctrine of the nature and structure of values, their place in reality, the relationship of values ​​among themselves;

- praxeology- the doctrine of the practical relationship between man and the world, the activity of our spirit, the goal-setting and effectiveness of man;

- anthropology- philosophy about a human;

- social philosophy the branch of philosophy that describes specific features society, its dynamics and prospects, the logic of social processes, the meaning and purpose of human history.

These sections are not reducible to each other, but are closely related..

Idealism is a category of philosophy that claims that reality depends on the mind and not on matter. In other words, all ideas and thoughts are the essence and fundamental nature of our world. In this article we will get acquainted with the concept of idealism, consider who was its founder.

Preamble

Extreme versions of idealism deny that any "world" exists outside of our minds. Narrower versions of this philosophical trend, on the contrary, argue that the understanding of reality reflects primarily the work of our mind, that the properties of objects have no standing independent of the minds that perceive them.

If there is an external world, we cannot really know it or know anything about it; all that is available to us are mental constructions created by the mind, which we falsely attribute to the things around us. For example, theistic forms of idealism limit reality to only one consciousness - the divine.

Definition in simple words

Idealism is the philosophical creed of those people who believe in high ideals and strive to make them real, although they know that sometimes this is impossible. This notion often contrasts with pragmatism and realism, where people have less ambitious but more achievable goals.

This sense of "idealism" is very different from how the word is used in philosophy. From a scientific point of view, idealism is the main structure of reality: adherents of this trend believe that its one “unit” is thought, not matter.

Important books and founding philosophers

If you want to get to know the concept of idealism better, it is recommended to read some fascinating works of some authors. For example, Josiah Royce - "The World and the Individual", George Berkeley - "Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge", Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 0 "Phenomenology of the Spirit", I. Kant - "Critique of Pure Reason".

You should also pay attention to the founders of idealism, such as Plato and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. All the authors of the books mentioned above have made a huge contribution to the development of this philosophical trend.

The Scottish philosopher David Hume showed that a person cannot prove the existence of a stable self-identification over time. There is no scientific way confirm people's idea of ​​their own "I". We are confident that this is true, thanks to intuition. She tells us: “Of course, it's me! And it cannot be otherwise!”

There are many ways to answer, including those based on modern genetics that Hume could not have imagined. Instead of being a physical object, the human self is an idea, and, according to ontological philosophical idealism, this is precisely what makes it real!

James Jeans was a British scientist and mathematician. In his quotation that each individual consciousness must be compared to a brain cell in the universal mind, the researcher shows a comparison between divine and ontological idealism. James Jeans was an ardent supporter of the latest theory in philosophy. The scientist argued that ideas cannot simply float in the abstract world of the mind, but are contained in a large universal mind. However, he does not use the word “God” itself, but many refer to his theory as theism. Jeans himself was an agnostic, that is, he believed that it was impossible to know whether the Almighty was real or not.

What is "mind" in idealism

The nature and identity of the "mind" on which reality depends is one of the issues that has divided the idealists into several parties. Some argue that there is some kind of objective consciousness outside of nature, while others, on the contrary, think that this is just a general force of reason or rationality, others believe that this is the collective mental faculties of society, and the rest focus simply on the thought processes of individuals.

Plato's objective idealism

The ancient Greek philosopher believed that there is a perfect realm of form and ideas, and our world simply contains its shadows. This view is often called Plato's objective idealism or "Platonic realism" because the scientist seems to have attributed to these forms an existence independent of any mind. However, some have argued that the ancient Greek philosopher held a position analogous to Kant's Transcendent Idealism.

Gnoseological trend

According to René Descartes, the only thing that can be real happens in our mind: nothing from the outside world is capable of being realized directly without the mind. Thus, the only true knowledge available to mankind is ours. own existence, a position summed up in the mathematician and philosopher's famous statement: "I think, therefore I am" (in Latin, Cogito ergo sum).

Subjective opinion

According to this trend in idealism, only ideas can be known and have any reality. In some treatises it is also called solipsism or dogmatic idealism. Thus, no claims about anything outside of one's mind have any justification.

Bishop George Berkeley was the main proponent of this position, and he argued that so-called "objects" existed only insofar as we perceived them: they were not built from independently existing matter. Reality only seemed to persist, either because people continued to perceive things, or because of the continued will and mind of God.

Objective idealism

According to this theory, all reality is based on the perception of one mind, usually, but not always, identified with God, which then transmits its perception to the minds of all the others.

There is no time, space or other reality outside the perception of one mind. In fact, even we humans are not separate from it. We are more like cells that are part of a larger organism than independent beings. Objective idealism began with Friedrich Schelling, but found its supporters in the person of G.W.F. Hegel, Josiah Reuss, S. Peirce.

Transcendental idealism

According to this theory, developed by Kant, all knowledge originates in perceived phenomena, which were organized into categories. These thoughts are sometimes called critical idealism, which does not at all deny that external objects or external reality exist. However, he at the same time denies that we have no access to the true, essential nature of reality or objects. All we have is a simple perception of them.

Absolute idealism

This theory claims that all objects are identical to some particular idea, and ideal knowledge is the system of ideas itself. This is also known as objective idealism, which is reminiscent of the movement created by Hegel. Unlike other forms of flow, this one believes that there is only one mind in which all reality is created.

Divine idealism

In addition, the world can be seen as one of the manifestations of some other minds, such as God. However, it should be remembered that the entire physical reality will be contained in the mind of the Almighty, which means that he himself will be outside the Multiverse itself (multiverse).

Ontological idealism

Other people who adhere to this theory argue that the material world exists, but at a basic level it was recreated from ideas. For example, some physicists believe that the universe is fundamentally made up of numbers. Therefore, scientific formulas do not just describe physical reality - they are it. E=MC 2 is a formula that is seen as a fundamental aspect of reality that Einstein discovered, and not at all a description that he subsequently made.

Idealism versus materialism

Materialism claims that reality has a physical basis, not a conceptual one. For adherents of this theory, such a world is the only truth. Our thoughts and perceptions are part of the material world, like other objects. For example, consciousness is a physical process in which one part (your brain) interacts with another (the book, screen, or sky you are looking at).

Idealism is a constantly challenged system, so it cannot be proved or disproved, however, like materialism. There are no specific tests that can find the facts and weigh them against each other. Immediately, all truths can be falsified and false, because so far no one has been able to prove them.

All that adherents of these theories rely on is intuition or instinctive reaction. Many people believe that materialism makes more sense than idealism. This is both a great experience of the interaction of the first theory with the outside world, and the belief that everything around really exists. But, on the other hand, a refutation of this system appears, because a person cannot go beyond his own mind, so how can we be sure that reality exists around us?

IDEALISM (from the Greek ίδέα - visible, appearance, form, concept, image), one of the fundamental philosophical currents or directions, which considers the ideal in one form or another to be valid (idea, consciousness, spirit, absolute, etc.). As a term, it has been used in modern European philosophy since the 18th century, although the philosophical doctrine it denotes took shape already in ancient Greek philosophy. The concept of "idealism" is ambiguous and has undergone significant changes in the course of its history, as a result of which the entire previous history of philosophy has often been retrospectively rethought. Depending on whether we are talking about a theoretical-epistemological or metaphysical-ideological aspect in the understanding of the "idea", as well as on what is considered as an opposing current, they distinguish different kinds idealism.

G. W. Leibniz, who first used the term “idealism”, considered idealism in opposition to “the greatest materialists and the greatest idealists”: he considered Epicurus and his supporters as a model of the first, according to the hypothesis of which “everything happens in the body as if it did not exist soul”, a model of the latter - Plato and his followers, according to the hypothesis of which “everything in the soul happens as if there were no body at all” (Leibniz G. V. Soch. M., 1982. T. 1. S. 332) . Among the idealists, Leibniz attributed the representatives of Cartesianism. Already in the 18th century, "spiritualism" (M. Mendelssohn and others) acted as a synonym for idealism. An extreme case of idealism, which recognizes that only one's own soul exists, was called "egoism" in the 18th century (in modern usage it is called solipsism).

I. Kant and T. Reed considered J. Berkeley to be the founder of idealistic metaphysics (he himself called his doctrine “immaterialism”), however, Reed also referred to the “ideal systems”, or “theories of ideas”, the philosophy of J. Locke and D. Hume . The reason for this discrepancy was different understanding“ideas”: if for English and French philosophy almost any representation (for example, “red”) could turn out to be an idea, then for the German tradition (at least starting with Kant), the concept of reason is predominantly an idea, which, like in Plato, , supersensible and universal character, and the use of "idea" in the sense of any representation turns out to be impossible. Russian philosophy in this matter follows the German and ancient Greek traditions.

I. Kant used the concept of idealism not only in polemics with his opponents, but also - in a new meaning - to designate his own position. He distinguished between formal and material, or psychological, idealism. Material, or “ordinary”, idealism “doubts the existence of external things themselves or denies them”, while in case of doubt about the existence of objects in space outside of us, we are talking about problematic (skeptical) idealism (R. Descartes), and in the case of declaring things in space are a product of the imagination, we are talking about dogmatic, or "mystical and dreamy", idealism (J. Berkeley). Such idealism, whose conclusions about the unproved existence of things outside of us, Kant considered "a scandal for philosophy and universal reason", he opposed his own formal, or transcendental, idealism in the Critique of Pure Reason, which was based on his doctrine of empirical reality and transcendental reality. ideality of space and time. The first consists in the objective significance of space and time for all objects that can be given to our senses, while the second means the absence of claims to absolute reality and the impossibility of comprehending the properties of "things in themselves" through the senses. Faced with the identification of his own position with the teachings of Berkeley, Kant included in the 2nd edition of the Critique of Pure Reason the section "Refutation of Idealism" and proposed his own formal, or transcendental, idealism, in order to avoid confusion, also be called critical idealism, according to which "we are given things as outside of us are the objects of our feelings, but we don’t know anything about what they are in themselves, but we know only their phenomena ”(Kant I. Sobr. soch. M., 1994. Vol. 4. P. 44). Thus, critical idealism does not refer to the existence of things, which Kant "didn't even dream of" doubting, but only to the sensible conception of things. However, already J. G. Fichte recognized the existence of things as dogmatism. Trying to overcome it and build a system of “true” idealism, or criticism, which he did not find in Kant, Fichte laid the concept of the Self at the foundation of philosophy, identifying transcendental idealism with his own “scientific teaching”. If Kant traced the opposition of ideality and reality, then Fichte tried to combine them in a kind of synthesis of idealism and realism (“real-idealism” or “ideal-realism”).

F. W. Schelling, interpreting Fichte’s teaching of science as “subjective” idealism, tried to present idealism “in its entirety”: the system he built was a combination of transcendental philosophy (removal of nature from the intelligentsia) and natural philosophy (removal of the intelligentsia from nature) and received terminological design in the distinction between “relative” (“transcendental”) and “absolute” idealism as a kind of “whole” underlying both realism and “relative” idealism (Schelling F. Ideas for the philosophy of nature as an introduction to the study of this science. St. Petersburg ., 1998. S. 141-142). The interpretation of absolute idealism also corresponded to Schelling's understanding of the absolute as the indistinguishability of the real and the ideal.

G. W. F. Hegel, believing, like F. W. Schelling, that all philosophy is essentially idealism, characterized his position as the point of view of "absolute idealism", according to which "the real definition of finite things consists in that they have the basis of their existence not in themselves, but in the universal divine idea” (Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences. M., 1975. Vol. 1. S. 162-163).

Philosophical development in Germany from J. Kant to G. W. F. Hegel, including F. Schlegel, F. Schleiermacher, Novalis, and others, is often referred to as German idealism. Despite the widespread use of this term, its boundaries are very blurred. Questions remain debatable as to whether Kant's philosophy should be included in German idealism, whether it ends with Hegel or with A. Schopenhauer, etc. For many representatives of Russian religious philosophy In the late 19th and early 20th centuries (N. A. Berdyaev and others), idealism was practically identified with German (“German”) idealism.

In parallel with the crisis of Hegelian speculative philosophy in the middle of the 19th century, idealism itself as a philosophical doctrine was criticized by thinkers of various trends (S. Kierkegaard, L. Feuerbach, K. Marx and F. Engels, F. Nietzsche, etc.). V. Dilthey, in the typology of worldviews he developed, singled out “naturalism”, “objective idealism” and “idealism of freedom” as three main types (Types of worldview and their discovery in metaphysical systems // New ideas in philosophy. 1912. No. 1. P. 156-157, 168-169, 176-177). Along with the reconstruction of Hegelian philosophy in various variants of neo-Hegelianism (British absolute idealism, etc.), criticism of it could initiate the development of new varieties of idealism, starting from the “abstract” Hegelian system (for example, S. N. Trubetskoy’s “concrete idealism”). In the 20th century, idealism was criticized by neopositivism and analytic philosophy. In general, the opposition of idealism - materialism, characteristic of the 18th and 19th centuries, lost its sharpness in the 20th century, and the problems of classical idealism were developed and discussed in a variety of philosophical directions.

Lit .: Problems of idealism. M., 1902; Florensky P. A. The meaning of idealism. Sergiev Posad, 1914; Idealist tradition: from Berkeley to Blanshard / Ed. by A. S. Ewing. Glencoe, 1957; Willmann O. Geschichte des Idealismus. Aalen, 1973-1979. Bd 1-3; Voßkühler F. Der Idealismus als Metaphysik der Moderne. Würzburg, 1996; Kroner R. Von Kant bis Hegel. 4.Aufl. Tube., 2006. Bd 1-2.

IDEALISM (from the Greek idea - concept, representation) is a philosophical direction opposite to materialism in solving the main question of philosophy - the question of the relation of consciousness (thinking) to being (matter). Idealism, contrary to science, recognizes consciousness and spirit as primary and considers matter and nature to be secondary, derivative. In this respect, idealism coincides with religious worldview, from the point of view of which nature, matter are generated by some supernatural, spiritual principle (god).

Absolute Idealism (SZF.ES, 2009)

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM - the course of Anglo-American philosophy of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. The concept of absolute reality, or the absolute, was formed in classical it. philosophy. According to F.V.Y. Schelling And G.W.F. Hegel, the attribute of the absolute is the harmonious reconciliation of opposites. However, in their systems, the concept of the absolute contained an implicit contradiction, which was not long in coming to light during further evolution. philosophical ideas. This is the contradiction between the principle of historicism, according to which the "spirit" becomes absolute in the process historical development, and the very concept of the absolute as the timeless fullness of being and perfection. The adherents of absolute idealism abandoned historicism in the name of a coherent conception of the absolute. At the same time, they did not have unanimity in their understanding of absolute reality. The differences between them can be reduced to three positions. The first is represented by British neo-Hegelians ( ) F.G. Bradley and B. Bosanquet, the second - a supporter of personalism J. E. McTaggart, the third - J. Royce ...

Transcendental idealism

TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM. Based on Kant's explanations regarding the concept of "transcendental", Husserl gave it a broader and more radical meaning. In the book "The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology" he wrote: "The word" transcendental philosophy Since the time of Kant, it has become widespread as a general designation for universal philosophizing, which focuses on its Kantian type.

Transcendental idealism

TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM (transzendentaler Idealismus) is the philosophical doctrine of I. Kant, epistemologically substantiating his system of metaphysics, which he opposed to all other metaphysical systems (see Transcendental). According to Kant, “transcendental philosophy must first resolve the question of the possibility of metaphysics and, therefore, must precede it” (Prolegomena to any future metaphysics that can appear as a science. Works in 6 vols., vol. 4, part 1, M. , 1965, p. 54).

materialism and idealism

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM (fr. materialisme; idealisme) - from the point of view of materialism, there are two main philosophical directions. the struggle between which affects the development of psychological thought throughout its history. Materialism proceeds from the principle of the primacy of material existence, the secondary nature of the spiritual, mental, which is regarded as arbitrary from the external world, independent of the subject and his consciousness.

Absolute Idealism (NFE, 2010)

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM is a trend in British philosophy that arose in the second half of the 19th century, sometimes also called, although not quite accurately, British neo-Hegelianism. Absolute idealism also had supporters in American philosophy. The immediate forerunners of absolute idealism were the English romantics (primarily S. T. Coleridge), as well as T. Carlyle, who stimulated among professional philosophers an interest in speculative objective idealistic metaphysics. German idealism (and not only in the Hegelian version) first of all becomes popular in Scotland, where in the middle of the 19th century. Positivism and utilitarianism were not as influential as in England. In North America, the spread of German idealism was first associated with the activities of a group of transcendentalists, and then was continued by the St. Louis Philosophical Society, headed by W. Harris ...

Idealism (Gritsanov)

IDEALISM (fr. idealisme from rp. idea - idea) is a term introduced in the 18th century. for integral notation philosophical concepts, focused in the interpretation of the world order and world knowledge on the semantic and axiological dominance of the spiritual. The first use of the term I. - in 1702 by Leibniz in assessing the philosophy of Plato (in comparison with the philosophy of Epicurus as materialism). Distribution gets at the end of the 18th century. after the explicit statement within the framework of French materialism of the so-called "basic question of philosophy" as the question of the relationship between being and consciousness.

Idealism (Kirilenko, Shevtsov)

IDEALISM (from the Greek idea - idea) is one of the main trends in philosophy, whose supporters recognize the original, primary, substance as spirit, idea, consciousness. The term I. was introduced by the German philosopher Leibniz at the beginning of the 19th century. For Leibniz, Plato was the model and founder of the idealistic trend in philosophy. Pythagoreanism is considered the forerunner of Platonic I.. The ideal principle was called differently: it was called the idea, consciousness, God, the Absolute, the world will, the absolute idea, the One, the Good.