A subject in philosophy is a certain unit that carries in itself actions, consciousness and cognitive activity, which it influences when performing any actions. It can be either one person or a group of people, up to all of humanity as a whole. The concept of the subject in philosophy is impossible without some definitions.
Theory of knowledge
There is a certain hierarchy of human needs, where the need for knowledge is far from last. Throughout the history of mankind, it has been developing, expanding its knowledge and boundaries. Technology and human skills have made a tremendous leap from making tools from stone and making fire to working on the Internet and creating the World Wide Web.
One of the main subjects of history in philosophy is society. Its development is considered at this stage as a transition from an industrial society, the basis of whichwas the production of material goods, to the information, based on the production of knowledge.
A striking feature of the post-industrial society is the constant increase in the value and method of obtaining knowledge. Every day humanity produces books, creates information resources, contributes to technological progress and science, digitizes information.
In the philosophy of science, the subject of knowledge is a very important element. The science of knowledge is called epistemology.
Cognition is a creative human activity aimed at obtaining reliable information about the world.
Since ancient times, success in obtaining knowledge depended, first of all, on personal conviction in one's own rightness. People defended their beliefs in prisons and on scaffolds, not giving up their teachings to the last. This fact speaks of the social nature of knowledge: it is a reflection of the internal needs of society, its beliefs and values.
Knowledge related activities
The process of cognition is a set of certain activities. Among them are processes such as:
- Labor.
- Training.
- Communication.
- Game.
Need for knowledge
Expressed in the inquisitiveness of the mind and attempts to know the world around. This also includes spiritual quests, the desire to know the unknown, to explain the incomprehensible.
Motives
Motives of knowledge can be conditionally divided into practical and conditional. We are talking about practical in the event that knowledge is aimed at studying a subject with the aim of its further productive use. Theoretical motives are realized at the moment when a person solves some complicated problem, enjoying it.
Target
One of the goals of knowledge is obtaining reliable knowledge about the world around us, objects and phenomena. But the main goal of knowledge is to obtain the truth, in which the received knowledge corresponds to reality.
Funds
Cognition methods can be different: empirical and theoretical. The main ones are observation, measurement, analysis, comparison, experiment, etc.
Actions
The process of cognition consists of a sequence of certain actions, different for each method and type of cognition. The choice of this or that action depends on many factors.
Result
The result is the totality of all acquired knowledge about the subject. Interestingly, this or that discovery is not always the result of setting a specific goal. Sometimes it is the result of some other action.
Evaluation of the result
The result is only good if it is true. It is the ratio of the result of cognition and the facts known earlier, or those that will become clear in the future, that is an indicator of the effectiveness of the cognition process.
Subject of cognition
The subject in philosophy is, first of all, the subject of knowledge, a person endowed withconsciousness, included in the system of sociocultural relations, whose activity is aimed at comprehending the secrets of the object opposed to it.
The subject comes to know himself through his own discoveries. Conventionally, our knowledge has two levels: consciousness and self-consciousness. Consciousness makes us understand what exactly we are dealing with, what we see in front of us, describes the obvious properties of an object or event. Self-consciousness, on the other hand, describes the emotions and value judgments associated with this object or phenomenon. Both these sides of consciousness always go side by side, but are never perceived equally and in full force due to its narrowness. Sometimes a person clearly sees an object, can describe its shape, texture, color, size, etc., and sometimes he can more accurately express only his feelings regarding this object.
Cognition, as a rule, begins with a person's feeling not of himself, but of the world around him, and these feelings are directly related to bodily experience. Studying certain bodies, we, first of all, single out those that are directly related to us. In their own way, they seem to us the only ones, never leaving us, unlike other bodies. We feel everything that happens to this body.
So, for example, the contact of this body with something extraneous is felt by us not only visually, but also at the level of feelings. Any changes regarding this subject are reflected in our lives by pleasant or unpleasant events. We can also realize our desires through these bodies. Wanting to bring something closer to us, we bring it closer to the body, wanting to move it away, we move it away. As a result, it developsthe feeling that we are one whole, all his actions are our actions, his movements are our movements, his sensations are our sensations. This stage of self-knowledge teaches us to identify taking care of ourselves with taking care of our body.
The ability to distract develops in us a little later, gradually. Gradually, we learn to separate the mental gaze from the images that the external sensory reality creates, focusing our attention on the phenomena of our inner, spiritual world. At this stage, we find in ourselves a tremendous variety of thoughts, feelings and desires.
Thus, in the philosophy of consciousness, the subject is something obvious, it is the essence of a person and is expressed in phenomena that are directly perceived by a person, but hidden from prying eyes. It is perceived as an external object, which sometimes shows resistance to human will.
Subject concepts
Concepts of the subject in philosophy are some varieties of interpretation of this concept. There are several of them. Let's consider this question in more detail.
Psychological (isolated) subject
This concept completely identifies the subject with the human individual who carries out the cognitive process. This concept is closest to modern realistic experience and is the most common today. According to it, the cognizer is only a passive registrar of external influences, which, with varying degrees of adequacy, reflect the object. This approach does not take into account the active and constructive nature of the behavior of the subject - the fact that the latter is capable of not onlyreflect, but also form the object of knowledge. Here it is very important to understand the relationship between the subject and object of knowledge in philosophy.
Transcendental Subject
This concept speaks of the existence of the so-called invariant (cognitive) core in each individual. This core ensures the unity of knowledge in different eras and cultures. Revealing this point is a very important stage in all theoretical-cognitive activity. The first such interpretation of the subject in the philosophy of science was given by Immanuel Kant.
Collective entity
According to this concept, the subject is realized through the joint efforts of many individual psychological subjects. It is quite autonomous and cannot be reduced to a set of individual subjects. A striking example of such a subject is the research group, the professional community and the entire human society as a whole.
Object of philosophy
The problem of the subject in philosophy cannot be fully disclosed without studying the concept of the object.
An object in philosophy is a certain category represented by the surrounding world, the universe and all the processes occurring in it, and the phenomena occurring in it. They are special in that all cognitive activity of the subject is directed to them. In philosophy, this concept has been actively studied.
As in any other science, philosophy has its own research object, containing its own list of relevant categories. The concepts of the problem of subject and object in philosophy are very ambiguous,it is not possible to concretize them, since philosophy is devoid of mathematical precision, and its boundaries are very blurred.
Despite this, it is still possible to form general theses. So, for example, a special relationship between the object and the subject of philosophy is noted. Sometimes these concepts can even be identified with each other. So, for example, when the object of philosophical doctrine is the universe, that is, the surrounding world, then the philosophical subject is the human activity carried out in this world, as well as the relationship of man with the world in various forms.
The process of scientific knowledge is a systematic education. As its main elements, the subject and the object of knowledge are distinguished. Summing up, we can give a general definition of the main concepts related to the theory of knowledge.
The subject of cognition carries a certain activity, a source of activity directed at the object of cognition. The subject can be a separate individual, a social group. If the subject is an individual, then his sense of his own "I" is determined by the entire cultural space created by mankind throughout history. Successful cognitive activity of the subject is possible only if he actively participates in the cognitive process.
The object of knowledge in some way can be opposed to the subject. It can be both material and abstract.
Objects of knowledge can also be the results of knowledge: the results of experiments, conclusions, science and scientific theories. More broadlythe object of cognition is things that do not depend on a person, which he masters in the course of cognition and any practical activity.
The concepts of an object and a subject differ significantly from each other, since the subject is only one side of the object, to which the attention of one or another science is directed.
