The dispute about the nature of universals nominalism and realism. What was the dispute between medieval realists and nominalists? Arabic medieval philosophy

The main subject of debate in medieval Christian philosophy was the nature of universals. What are universals? These are generalized concepts that we cannot see and touch, but with which we constantly operate in thoughts and in speech. For example, everyone knows what a “cat” is and how it differs from a “dog”, but we always see this particular red cat on the windowsill and that one and only dog ​​outside the window, to see and feel the “cat in general” and "a dog in general" is not possible. This problem, as you understand, goes back to Plato with his ideas and Aristotle with his genera and forms. Antique problems (especially in the presentation of Aristotle - through Porphyry and Boethius) were transferred to Christian philosophy. And the question arose: what is the status of these universals, these genus-species concepts, if the world was created by God? Scholasticism gives two (and a half) answers to this question.

Realists (Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, John Scott Eriugena) believed that in reality, first of all, there is a general, that is, universals have the status of real (hence the name) being. When God created the world, he first of all conceived it, and therefore, before all red, striped and black cats there was a “cat in general”. General concepts are parts of God's plan, and therefore knowledge should be directed precisely at them. Individual, empirically perceived things realize in themselves general concepts, and their specific differences (the difference between a red cat and a striped one) are accidents, insignificant signs that have nothing to do with the true meaning of things, which is all contained in general, in universals.

Nominalists (John Roscelin, William of Ockham), on the contrary, believed that God created the world in its materiality and concreteness. Red, striped and black cat created by God directly, but "cat in general" is just a name (lat. nomen - hence the name "nominalism"), which we humans use to refer to many things. Universals are the names of names, and when we say "cat" we do not mean some ideal prototype of all cats, since it does not exist; rather, it can be said that a name is such a variable, under which you can substitute many things that are similar in one way or another. By “cat”, we can always understand specifically this red-haired Murka, that striped Masha or that black Musha, or all of them together - but not as a single image, but as a series of individuals that are similar to each other and therefore united under one name.

There was also conceptualism (Pierre Abelard, Duns Scott), representing a certain middle position: things, according to the conceptualists, exist in their singularity (this is similar to nominalism), however, grasping the general in them (conceptus - “captured”), we form in our mind a generalized image, concept. In other words, conceptualists reject realism, denying the “cat in general” real existence, but they also do not agree with nominalism, since they recognize the “cat in general” not just as a name for a number of individual things, but as a mental generalized image that has developed in our minds in the process of experiential comprehension of the world with its Mashki, Murki and Mushami. Conceptualism, therefore, is such an inverted realism: universals exist, but not before single things, but after, and not in the mind of God, but in the mind of man.

Many characteristic features of medieval philosophy were manifested in the struggle between realism and nominalism that took place over several centuries. Realism in his medieval understanding has nothing to do with modern meaning this term. Realism refers to the doctrine that only general concepts have true reality, or universals , and not single objects that exist in the empirical world. According to medieval realists (Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), universals exist before things representing thoughts, ideas in the divine mind. And only thanks to this, the human mind is able to cognize the essence of things, for this essence is nothing but a universal concept. It is clear that for realists, for example, for Anselm of Canterbury, knowledge is possible only with the help of reason, for only reason is capable of comprehending the general.

The opposite direction was associated with underlining priority of will over reason and was named nominalism . The heyday of nominalism falls on XIII and especially XIV century; its main representatives William of Ockham(c. 1285 - 1349), Jean Buridan(c. 1300 - c. 1358), Nicholas of Otrekur(c. 1300 - after 1350) and others.

In nominalism, the defining value is given idea of ​​divine omnipotence and creation is seen as an act of divine will. Here nominalists rely on the doctrine John Duns Scotus(c. 1266-1308), who founded dependence of the mind on the will and considered the divine will the cause of all being. However, the nominalists went further than Duns Scotus: if he believed that in the will of God there was entity selection , which He wanted to create, William of Ockham abolished the very concept entities , depriving it of the foundation it had in early and middle scholasticism, namely the thesis of the existence of ideas (general concepts) in the divine mind. Ideas, according to Occam, do not exist in the divine mind as prototypes of things: first, God creates things with his will, and ideas arise in his mind after things, as representations of things.

The term "nominalism" comes from the Latin word " nomen ", which means "name". According to nominalists, general concepts are only names; they do not have any independent existence outside and apart from individual things and are formed by our mind by abstracting the features common to a whole series of empirical things and phenomena. So, for example, we get the concept of "man" when we abstract from the individual characteristics of individuals and leave only that which is common to all of them. And since all people are living and animated beings with reason, then, therefore, the concept of a person includes precisely these signs: a person is a living being endowed with reason. Thus, according to nominalists, universals exist not before, but after things.

If in human life only the singular is real, and in nature it alone has significance; but since only the individual is real, concepts are no longer real, they are only products of the subjective spirit, names under which many things are united. The dispute between nominalists and realists arose in connection with the problem of the individual and the general.

According to William of Ockham only the singular really exists; any thing outside the soul is single, and only in the cognizing soul do general concepts arise. From this point of view, the essence (substance) loses its meaning of independently existing. God, according to the nominalists, can create anything without needing a substance to do so. As a result, the intelligible being of a thing (essence) and its simple empirically given being (phenomenon) turn out to be identical. Orientation to experience is a characteristic feature of nominalism.

Nominalism forms a new idea of ​​cognition and the nature of the knowing mind. Since knowledge is directed not at the essence of the thing, but at the thing in its individuality, it is intuitive knowledge(contemplation of individual properties of a thing), and knowledge is interpreted as establishing a connection between phenomena. The theoretical ability in nominalism loses its ontological character, minds are no longer considered as the highest in the hierarchy of created beings. The mind is not being, but the idea of ​​being, focus on being. This is how nominalism forms the idea of ​​the subject opposed to the object as a special kind of reality, and of cognition as subject-object relation. A subjectivist interpretation of the mind, the human spirit, arises, a conviction is born that the phenomena of the mental series are more reliable than the physical ones, since they are given to us directly, while the physical ones are indirectly. In theology, this emphasizes the priority of faith over knowledge, the will - over reason, the practical-moral principle - over the theoretical.

Occam considered the entire content of faith inaccessible to human understanding. To be a mystic in faith, an empiricist in science, and, where necessary, a skeptic—such is the motto of scholastic nominalism.

One of the important philosophical questions of the Middle Ages was the question of the relation of the general to the particular.

The dispute on this subject is known as the dispute about universals, that is, about the nature of general genera and concepts. There were two main solutions to this issue.

Realism. According to him, common genera (universals) really exist, regardless of the person. True reality is possessed not by single things, but only by general concepts - universals that exist outside of consciousness, independently of it and the material world. Among the most prominent representatives of realism are John Scott Eriugena and Thomas Aquinas. Eriugen singled out 3 types of existing universals: (tripleness of existence) “before things” (in the divine mind), “in the things themselves” (as their essence or forms) and “after things” (in the human mind as a result of abstraction). Aquinas' views are similar. First, the general concept (universals) exists in singular things (in rebus) as their essential form (forma substantiales); Secondly, they are formed in human mind when abstracting from a single (post res); thirdly, they exist before things (ante res) as an ideal prototype of individual objects and phenomena in the divine mind. In this third aspect, in which Aquinas ontologizes the future in the sense of objective idealism, he differs from Aristotle.

These views can be attributed to moderate realism. There was also extreme realism, according to the representatives of which the general exists only outside of things (for example, Anselm). According to Abelard, there are only single things. But they can be similar to each other, and the possibility of universals is based on this similarity. When we affirm something in relation to many things, our assertion does not refer to the thing, but to the word (this is nominalism). But along with this, Abelard assumed the reality of general concepts in the mind of God. These are the patterns by which God creates things.

According to the concept of nominalism, universals do not really exist, independently of a person. They are only names (Roscelin). There is only the individual and only it can be the subject of knowledge. The task of knowledge is the comprehension of the particular, the individual. The general exists only in the human mind. In the things themselves there is neither common nor singular. Both are inherent only in our way of considering the same thing. To explain the transition of thought to the general, the representative of nominalism, William of Ockham, introduces the concept of intention, that is, of the direction of thought, of the logical. and psychological. acts or signs. All general concepts are signs that logically designate many objects.

Renaissance Philosophy: Anthropocentrism.

Renaissance philosophy anthropocentric: a man (anthropos) is placed at the center of the universe, he is also the main theme of philosophical reflections of most philosophers. This shift - from theocentrism to anthropocentrism, in comparison with medieval philosophy - became possible on the basis of a rethinking of the previously dominant concept of man.

The concept of the Renaissance man is still fundamentally Christian: man is the image and likeness of God. However, if medieval philosophy emphasizes the sinfulness, imperfection of man, then the Renaissance focuses on communion with God, god-likeness person. “Man is God,” writes N. Kuzansky, “but not in an absolute way, for
he is a human".

The godliness of man lies in his ability to creativity. Moreover, the creative essence of man is embodied not only in the creation cultural property. Human creativity is manifested primarily in its self-creation.
In the famous speech “On the Dignity of Man”, the Italian philosopher D. Pico dela Mirandolla sees the main difference between man and other creatures created by God precisely in his “incompleteness”: God gave man free will, and thereby the opportunity to complete his own image, to choose himself.

Already within the framework of medieval philosophy, an understanding of man as personality. But there man was only a part of the Absolute Personality. If a medieval thinker realizes himself through God, then in the Renaissance, on the contrary, the human person sees within himself an absolute principle, that is, God. In the most radical forms of renaissance Neoplatonism, God acts as a supra-personal principle, therefore only a person is a Personality, and now it is he who occupies the center of being, which in medieval philosophy belonged to the Absolute Personality, that is, God.

The renaissance glorifies a person not only as a creative, spiritual person: it glorifies him as an integral unity souls and bodies. "Rehabilitation" of the human body leads to the revival of the (Christianly rethought) ancient ideal kalokagatii- a wonderfully kind person. So, T. Campanella in his aesthetic treatises develops the idea that bodily beauty is God's gift for good people and, conversely, bodily imperfection is a warning sign of God: it is evil person. The philosophy of the Renaissance does not always keep the unity of ethical and aesthetic principles and tends to aestheticism, that is, to the exaltation of the beautiful, regardless of its ethical content.

Universal (from lat. universalis - general) - a term of medieval philosophy, denoting general concepts. The problem of universals goes back to philosophical ideas Plato and Aristotle and is one of the main themes of scholasticism, especially its early period. The theme of universals comes to medieval philosophy not directly from the works of ancient philosophers, but through comments on their works. In particular, through Porfiry's comments on Aristotle's "Categories".

In the eleventh century in scholastic philosophy discussion began between nominalists and realists. The conflict began with the interpretation of the dogma about the trinity of the essence of God. "God the Father, Son, Holy Spirit." - One in three things, but the controversy spilled over beyond this issue and grew into a discussion of the nature of universals. Universals are a general concept, as opposed to specific single things. But do universals really exist, or do only specific individual things really exist?

Three directions were defined in the dispute: nominalism, realism and conceptualism.

Nominalism (from the Latin nomen - name) saw in general terms only a “manner of speech”, names that are applied not to a class of things “as a whole”, but separately to each individual thing from any aggregate, in this sense one or another a class of things is nothing more than a mental image, an abstraction. The nominalists taught that in reality there are only individual things, and genera and species are nothing more than subjective generalizations of the similar, made through equal concepts and identical words. In this sense, a horse is nothing more than a general name applied to both the Arabian horse and the Akhal-Teke horse.

Realism, on the other hand, believed that universals exist in reality and independently of consciousness. Extreme realism attributed real being to general concepts, independent, isolated and prior to things. Moderate realism adhered to the Aristotelian view and argued that the general, although it has a real being, is contained in individual things. (The realist point of view was more suited to Christian dogma, and therefore was often welcomed by the Catholic Church).

Conceptualism (from lat. conceptus - thought, concept) interpreted universals as generalizations based on the similarity of objects. In this sense, he was a cross between realism and nominalism. Thus, according to Thomas Aquinas, universals exist before the created nature in the divine mind as "thoughts" of God and prototypes of individual things, they also exist in individual things as their real similarity or their identity with the prototype, finally, universals exist after individual things in the mind of the knower. as a result of abstracting similar properties in the form of concepts.

Representatives: nominalism - William of Ockham, extreme realism- Anselm of Canterbury, moderate realism is represented by Thomas Aquinas, conceptualism - by Peter Abelard.

Although the main point of disagreement between realism, conceptualism and nominalism was the question of the ontological status of universals: whether they have real existence or not, in fact, all the main problems of philosophy were the subject of discussion.

It could not be otherwise, because it is impossible to answer the question about the status of universals without understanding what reality is.

And vice versa: since being for medieval scholastics is being seen through the prism of logical structures, then the relationship of entities corresponding to the meanings of individual and general concepts is the central problem of ontology. Therefore, analyzing the ideas of medieval philosophers about the ontological structure of a thing, about the act of creation that communicates being to created things, about the difference between the infinite divine being and the finite being of things, about the relationship between form and matter, essence and existence, the individual and the universal, we simultaneously got acquainted with their views. on the nature of universals. But priority attention has so far been paid to the ontological aspect of the problem of universals, namely, their place in the structure of being. Let us now dwell briefly on another, epistemological aspect of this problematic.

Realism starts from the following obvious premise. All knowledge is formulated in general terms referring to many things. Judgments like "Socrates is a man" or "a horse is an animal", formulated with the help of the general concepts of man and animal, will correspond to reality only if Socrates has the property of humanity, and the horse - animality. If in reality there is nothing but single things, then all judgments turn out to be false, misleading, since they affirm the presence of common properties or relations in things. Therefore, it is necessary to assume that the general (universal) exists along with the individual, moreover, it precedes the existence of individual things, determining the presence of identical properties in them.

But substantiating the position of realism requires overcoming a number of difficulties. Some of them have already been noted.

For example, if universals are postulated as the initial elements of an ontology, then why does the world consist of single things? And how can universals be the reasons for the existence of individual substances (the problem of individualization)? Or, how does a genus or species turn into attributes of a single thing? There is also a difficulty of a theoretical-cognitive nature. If each significant word in the judgment corresponds in reality to a special entity, then any entity in which it is possible to single out characteristics denoted by different words turns out to be not single, but composite. The absence of internal unity in material substances is already stated by Boethius, every thing "is this and that, that is, the combination of its parts", united in a purely external way by matter. The thing was interpreted in exactly the same way in subsequent scholasticism: the position about the absence of unity in bodily substances was shared by all medieval philosophers.

The problem arose when discussing the attributes of incorporeal substances, such as the human soul. Everyone recognized the difference between the two abilities of the soul - the intellect and the will. But how is this difference to be understood? The real difference in scholasticism was the difference of things, in contrast to the purely mental difference produced by the mind. The statement about the real difference between intellect and will would mean the recognition that the soul is not a single incorporeal substance, but consists of two separate substances: intellect and will. philosophy medieval conflict

This would be contrary to one of the main theological premises - the position of the unity of the human soul.

If we deny the real difference between intellect and will, then behind these concepts there will be nothing in reality: the soul must then be considered as a substance in which it is impossible to distinguish various abilities. This conclusion would contradict the idea of ​​the soul that has developed in philosophy since the time of Plato and Aristotle. In order to find a way out of this situation, it was necessary to abandon one of the premises of realism, which says that it is real for everyone meaningful concept the mind corresponds to a separate thing - a separate substance that exists outside the mind, keeping the other intact: the presence of a correspondence between the terms of the judgment and the structure of the thing.

Nominalism rejects the thesis itself. He denies that the world consists of "atoms of meaning" (analogues of general concepts), putting forward an alternative statement: in reality there is nothing but individuals. Many philosophers, including Duns Scotus, recognized that only individuals really exist, but they also recognized that there are aspects in concrete things that justify the use of general concepts: what is called the kind of thing, its form or nature, is inseparable from the thing, is a prerequisite for the existence of individual things.

Nominalism considers it impossible to "build" an individual substance out of "semantic atoms".

Ockham, the most prominent representative of nominalism of the 14th century, denies the existence of universals or natures in God, they do not exist in things either. The so-called ideas are nothing but the things themselves produced by God. There are no ideas of species, only ideas of individuals, since individuals are the only reality that exists outside the mind, both Divine and human. The starting point for knowing the world is knowledge about individuals. As a result, the real, but purely numerical unity of individuals turns out to be opposed to the world of entities that have meaning, but have no existence anywhere but the human mind.

Starting with the postulate that "semantic atoms" have true being, scholastic philosophy generates in the XIV century. doctrine, in which the central place is occupied by the individual - an irrational unit of being, eluding any definitions of reason.

Occam's nominalism denies the basic premise of scholastic philosophy - the belief in the rationality of the world, the existence of some kind of primordial harmony of word and being.

Existential and conceptual structures are now opposed to each other: only a single, rationally inexpressible “it” has being, while semantic certainties fixed by general concepts have no place outside the mind. Since being is no longer connected with the semantic meaning of words, the scholastic study of being, based on the analysis of words and their meanings, becomes pointless.

The emergence of Occam's doctrine marked the end of medieval scholastic philosophy.

Until the XIV century. realism dominated, and from the beginning of the century, the preponderance goes to the side of nominalism. It was precisely in the dispute about universals that the disintegration of scholasticism manifested itself in the 14th century. Thus, Medieval thought constitutes one of the important stages in the development of philosophy, where many of the issues that are still relevant today were raised.

An active discussion in medieval philosophy of such a general, extremely broad category as the existence of God, eventually led philosophers to another topical epistemological topic - problem of general and particular or, to put it another way, the problem of comparative value for the process of cognition of general concepts, the so-called universal and concrete concepts associated with individual, single objects and phenomena.

Philosophers have long noticed that a person perceives with his senses, sight, touch, etc., only single things, a given particular apple, but not fruits in general, a given cucumber, but not vegetables in general. Nevertheless, in our everyday speech and thinking, general concepts also play an important role, i.e. universals, such as man in general, goods, money, animals, vegetables, fruits.

What are general concepts? Are these only meaningless and therefore useless for cognition words, terms, or do they correspond to something that really exists in nature and in society? Or, perhaps, universals exist on their own, independently of things and before things, in the eternal world of ideas, generating the whole world of things, as Plato imagined?

During the discussion of the meaning and meaning of the concepts of the general and the singular, or the so-called controversy about universals formed two main currents in medieval philosophy, known as realism and nominalism. Representatives of these currents gave polar opposite answers to the question of the comparative significance of general and individual concepts in the process of cognition.

Nominalists believed that only concrete concepts reflecting separate, single things are true, significant. Universal concepts, universals, in their opinion, do not have any real prototype outside of thinking and therefore represent only forms of thought. In medieval philosophy, for the first time, the ideas of nominalism were outlined by the French philosopher Johann Roscelin convicted for it church cathedral at Soissons (1092). But the deepest substantiation of nominalistic ideas was given by English philosopher William of Ockham, who, for his perfect mastery of the art of argument, was called the invincible doctor.

According to the extreme nominalists, since there are only individuals, only individual concepts that reflect them are legitimate. And since in reality there is nothing that corresponds to the concept of "humanity", this concept is only a mental form, an empty sound, a name, just as there is no concept of "horseness", but only individual horses. There are only separate white things, such as, for example, a rabbit, sugar, a sheet, but the concept of “whiteness” is only a movement of the lips, a shaking of the air. In reality, there is nothing corresponding to the concept of "wisdom", and there are only individual wise men, for example, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc.

So, nominalism is a doctrine that believes that the general exists only in the human mind. Being, on the one hand, a continuation of the anti-Platonic line that arose back in antiquity, nominalism, on the other hand, became the forerunner of the philosophy of empiricism, which appeared several centuries later, in modern times.

Philosophers took a completely different position in the dispute about universals - realists. They considered the most significant not individual, but general concepts denoting the genus, class, species, to which certain individual objects belong, as well as the concepts of essence.

So, according to Thomas Aquinas, the universal is a real real being, while the individual is reality only insofar as it is part of the universal, as well as of some kind, class or species, in connection with which the individual can be deeply known. only on the basis of general

and universal. General concepts exist before individual things, they are ideal prototypes of individual objects and phenomena, generated by God himself. Concrete things are accidental, and concrete concepts are vague and indefinite.

From the desire to reconcile the opposite sides in the dispute about universals, a third, compromise solution to this issue was born, which later received the name conceptualism (from lat. connect / His most famous representative was the Scottish philosopher John Duns Scotus, nicknamed "the witty doctor". From his point of view, every thing is a unity of the general and the particular, essence and phenomenon. The general reflects the essence of things, and the concrete reflects the manifestations of this essence. But unlike Aquinas, Duns Scotus believed that there is still no separate common existence. A similar position on this issue was held by the Arab philosopher Avicenna.

Their concepts of general and separate are closest in their content to the modern understanding of this problem. Thus, the modern German philosopher Nikolay Hartman(1882-1950) wrote:

Just as pure individuality cannot exist by itself, so cannot the pure universal exist by itself. But the universal is real only “in the individual, since only this latter has existence; the individual, on the other hand, has a certainty only in that which in it is common with the other, which in it is universal in form.

Although nominalism in its main content still remained a religious doctrine, nevertheless, its appearance already foreshadowed a new stage in the confrontation between religious and scientific philosophy, idealism and materialism, empiricism and rationalism. Nominalism was the harbinger of modern philosophy.

• See: Brief philosophical encyclopedia. Article "Universal". - M.: Progress, 1994.