What is philosophy: concept, role, methods and functions

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:41

Philosophy is of great importance for modern society. Every person, probably, at least once in his life thought about who he is and why he was born. The existence of humanity itself is meaningless without philosophical thinking. Though not realizing it, the individual becomes a part of it. Reasoning about life and death leads to the fact that humanity is increasingly immersed in the philosophical essence. What is philosophy? Few people can give a clear answer.

Since ancient times, people have been interested in life after death. He believed in its existence, and also in the fact that the soul is reborn and takes on a different look. This is evidenced by various archaeological finds associated with the burial of people.

The concept of philosophy

Life on earth cannot exist without philosophy. The formation of personality depends on its ideological concepts, which is observed in philosophical thinking. Questions about the originthe world, the existence of God, the purpose of objects have always worried man. The reasoning associated with them determines the main meaning of the ideology.

What is philosophy? This is a question that has been around for a long time and cannot be answered unambiguously. It was studied by many philosophers who differently understood the meaning of what is happening in the world. At present, understanding of everything that happens is impossible without studying the foundations of philosophy. What is the place of this teaching in the world?

The essence of philosophy lies in the knowledge and comprehensive study of its concept. And what is included in it? The concept of philosophy is multifaceted and covers many aspects of life. Translated from Greek, it means "love of truth, knowledge of wisdom." The very definition of philosophy is dry and does not give a clear understanding of it. Under this science it is necessary to understand the thought of a person aimed at:

Acceptance of awareness of the world, its purpose, the connection between humanity and nature, the relationship between the individual and the whole world.
Resolving issues related to life on earth, and knowing the meaning of worldly things.
Knowledge about the essence of nature, for example, how a tree grows, why the sun shines.
Awareness of morality, values, the relationship of society and thinking.

Knowledge of the world, its being, the formation of ideas about nature and man, the relationship between the state and the individual are the primary problems of philosophy.

Philosophy never stands still. Her followers are in constant search for the new, the immense, the unexplored, the multifaceted. Its purpose ingiving meaning to a person. Having comprehended the basic knowledge, the individual becomes enlightened, more open. Everyday problems and routine will seem like a piece that means nothing. The main directions of philosophy is the knowledge of the material and spiritual world. The thirst for knowledge, the desire to realize, to explore the unknown existed at all times. And the more answers people received, the more questions arose again. Now distinguish the main methods of philosophy. These include: dialectics, metaphysics, dogmatism, eclecticism, sophistry, hermeneutics.

Knowledge of philosophy lies in the awareness of everything human. Man has been trying to find the essence and object of being for many centuries, starting from ancient times. Now it is customary to distinguish four epochs of philosophy: ancient medieval, new and latest.

Philosophy as part of human history

There is no exact date when philosophical thinking appeared. As early as the 4th millennium BC, the first steps in its knowledge were visible. At this time, writing began in Egypt and Mesopotamia. In the notes found by archaeologists, scientists deciphered the records used by ancient people in economic areas. Already here a person was trying to understand the meaning of life.

According to some sources, the history of philosophy originated from the Ancient Near East, India and China. They are her ancestors. The development of understanding of life developed gradually. The peoples of different communities did not develop evenly. Some already had their own script, language, andothers still communicated with a system of gestures. The worldview of the peoples of the Middle East, India and China was different and they accepted life in their own way.

Ancient Greek philosophers who lived on the territory of Asia Minor were familiar with the economy, religion and other knowledge of the Eastern peoples, which prevented them from finding the correct and unified way to their idea of life. Most of all, they were knocked down by various myths that existed at that time, which came from the concepts of the Middle Eastern people. But, gradually rejecting them, people, the founders of ancient philosophy, began to form their own worldview, knowledge about nature and phenomena. The meaning of life, the purpose of each became more and more interesting. The first philosophers began to look for answers, but in the end, only more questions became.

In the period from 3 to 2 millennium BC, ancient philosophy began to develop intensively. This was due to the fact that there was a division of labor. Each person began to engage in certain activities. In the process of knowing the world, works were recorded that led to the emergence of such sciences as mathematics, mechanics, geometry, and medicine. Religious concept, rituals and cults, mythological faith did not leave the people. The clergy explained the emergence of mankind as "the will of God." Man associated all life processes with the existence of a mythical supreme deity.

Jainism and Buddhism

Starting from the middle of the 1st millennium BC, there has been a gradual stratification of the people. Some become in power, others become hired workers. Craft work developsindustry. As a result, there is a need for new knowledge. The philosophical understanding of the Vedic image no longer corresponded to the life of the people. The first scientific schools of Jainism and Buddhism appeared.

Jainism was founded by the Indian philosopher Mahavira Vardhamana, who lived around the 6th century BC. Jainism was founded on the material and spiritual side of the individual. The belief that there is a line between ajiva and jiva defined the concept of karma. Jains believed that karma directly depends on the actions and feelings of a person. A good person will be reborn forever, while an evil soul will leave this world in torment. Everyone can influence objects with the power of his thought. God in the Jain teaching is not the creator of the world, but the soul that has liberated itself and be in eternal rest. The followers thought that pure karma would bring anyone to the same state.

Jain teaching distinguishes between two directions:

Digambar, whose followers did not wear clothes and rejected everything worldly.
Shvetambar, whose adherents were more moderate in their views, and preferred white robes instead of nudity.

Jainism has not been eradicated. His followers are currently living and preaching in India.

Buddhism appeared in the 6th century BC, founded by Siddhartha Gautama. For a long time, Buddhist teaching existed in words and was passed from mouth to mouth. It suggested the existence of suffering, which can be eliminated by achieving the noble truth in its four manifestations.

Suffering is given to a person because ofhis agony, thirst for worldly pleasures.
The causes of suffering will be eliminated if thirst is given up.
The way to get rid of suffering is to adopt eight rules (rightly reason, make decisions, speak, live, strive, focus on focusing).
Worldly life and pleasures are rejected.

Subsequently, Buddhists began to call the cause of all worldly troubles not thirst, but ignorance, misunderstanding of a person of his essence and purpose.

Philosophy IV – XIV centuries

Starting from the fourth century AD, the history of philosophy has entered a new era. At this time, a person began to believe in God, to consider him as something incomprehensible and invisible. Christianity every year strengthened the love of God, faith in the salvation of the soul. Man was no longer a slave, freedom is his main goal, explaining the Divine philosophical thinking.

In the period of medieval philosophy, the question of the relationship between God and man was one of the main ones. A person thought about his role in life, why he was born, what is his purpose, and how to live in order to save his soul. People never knew how the world came into being - due to the evolution and development of nature, or a certain creator is the creator of all life on earth.

The divine will and intentions were speculated. A person is sure that the creator will not tolerate an evil and impure soul. He punishes anyone who does not live according to the laws of Christianity. His patience - a sign of reasonableness and generosity - was explained by the love of the creatorto their children.

The philosophy of the Middle Ages is divided into two successive stages: patristics and scholasticism.

Patristics originated around the first century AD. It is characterized by a gradual transition from ancient understandings to more modern, medieval ones. The followers tried to understand the teachings of Christ, to decipher the message of the ancestors, which was contained in the Bible.

One of the philosophers of that time was St. Augustine, who believed that society is in a constant struggle between the two sides. The first, earthly, was characterized by selfishness, love for oneself, the second, heavenly, by love for God, faith in his existence and in the salvation of the soul. He taught that the comprehension of knowledge does not require the study of scientific books and methods, faith alone is enough.

The period of scholasticism leads to more reasonable principles of philosophy. It falls on the X-XIV centuries of our era. Thomas Aquinas, who lived from 1235 to 1274, can be considered its founder. It was he who first introduced the concept of realistic philosophy. He believed that faith and reason should be interconnected, and not reject each other. He did not renounce religion, but tried to explain the emergence of the world from a scientific point of view.

Scholasticism was the beginning of the emergence of an era of new philosophy.

Renaissance

The Renaissance was the beginning of a period of new philosophy. At this time, industry and production were developing rapidly. The knowledge of the world was not in the heavenly, but in the material expression. Now it has become necessary to study the branches of life. Manreceived knowledge about space, mathematics, physics and other natural sciences.

One of the first philosophers who suggested the dominance of man over nature was Francis Bacon. He believed that it was necessary to gain knowledge about the real and scientific reasons for the appearance of all life on earth. How a tree grows, why the sun shines in the sky, why the water is wet - these are the main questions to which he gave an explanation with the help of the knowledge gained, and not based on assumptions about the possibility of knowledge in religion. Despite this, he was a religious man, but he could separate spirituality from truth and reason.

The English philosopher of modern times, Thomas Hobbes, assumed the existence of God only as a creator, which has nothing to do with the real existence of people. The main feature of philosophy was the person himself, and not his features, for example, height, weight, gender, appearance. The individual was part of the state.

Rene Descartes became a more realistic philosopher of modern times, who not only rejected the existence of a deity, but also explained the origin of the world on earth with the help of mechanistic ideas. He believed that the soul of a person is the activity of his brain, which is why thought has become one of the components of his existence. Descartes was a realist, a rationalist, and to some extent an analyst.

The development of the philosophy of modern times is explained by the fact that America was discovered at that time, Newton comprehended his first laws, mathematics became one of the fundamental knowledge of man.

The Age of Modern Philosophy

Starting from the 15th century, philosophy acquireda completely different look. The Banden school appeared, which focused its attention on the social and humanitarian problems of philosophy. There is a division into natural, scientific knowledge of laws, and historical - knowledge of the soul and events.

Karl Marx first described the relationship between social philosophy and politics. He was a realistic thinker who based his assumptions on the study of the methods of Hegel and Feuerbach.

The newest philosophy still exists today. Now it has become not a part of religious knowledge, but more of a scientific one. Man is regarded as a mysterious unknown being, whose thoughts are unknown to anyone. What is a person capable of, what is his goal in life? These questions can be answered with the help of analytical thinking, scientific knowledge, consistent assumptions of human development.

Modern philosophy was born at the beginning of the 20th century. It had its own characteristics in the variety of problems it studied, as well as the presence of its many forms.

The main problems of the philosophy of the twentieth time was the study of issues related to a deeper knowledge of humanity.

Why was a person born, what should he do now, why couldn't he appear in another body, how should he live and where to direct his energy and abilities?
Studying global problems: why do people fight, why do diseases occur, how to overcome eternal hunger?
Questions related to history: the emergence of life, its course, why the world is not the same as before, what is itaffected?
Natural questions related to the study of languages, subjects of science, rational knowledge.

Philosophical schools of the twentieth century

Philosophy of the twentieth century was characterized by the emergence of many schools that treated the questions of being in different ways. Thus, neopositivism had three waves of its appearance, the first of which occurred at the end of the nineteenth century, and the last in the thirties of the twentieth century. Its main characteristic was that the followers shared science and philosophy. All knowledge must be confirmed, and the thought must be at a distance from them.

Followers of existentialism believed that the tragedy of a person and his disappointment comes from the fact that he cannot understand himself. The knowledge of philosophy occurs in a situation of life and death, when a person is in danger. A person should not be guided by reason, he should obey thinking.

The founder of phenomenology was E. Husserl, who separated philosophy from science. His teachings were based on the knowledge of the phenomena occurring in the world. Their origin and significance were the main issues disclosed by the philosopher. You cannot rely on reason and reason to open them.

Pragmatism originated in the United States of America. It was characterized by the fact that a person should not study the natural sciences if it is not necessary. Knowledge of philosophy is impossible when applying science, sociology, moral principles, and so on.

Twentieth century Catholic teaching -neo-Thomism - was similar to the medieval knowledge of the philosophical thinking of the scholastic period. The relationship of religion, soul and material understanding are in constant relationship.

Philosophical hermeneutics adopted the theory of knowledge of language, writing, human creations. Why and why is this happening, how did it appear, the main questions solved by followers?

In the thirties of the twentieth century, the Frankfurt school appeared, which suggested the domination of man over man. Her followers opposed the legacy of Hegel, as they considered his works to be a negation of the real.

Structuralism, which appeared in 1960, gradually developed into philosophical thinking. The main feature of philosophy was the understanding of the relationship of the object and the relationship to it. He completely rejects the story because it has no proper structure.

Postmodernism appeared at the end of the twentieth century and has become the most popular in the present period. It is based on the theory of knowledge of what a person does not see, but it seems to him, which is called a simulacrum. Followers believed that the world was in constant chaos. If there is order, then it is necessary to free oneself from thoughts and the meaning of what is happening, then a person will be able to comprehend the philosophical thinking of postmodernism.

Personalism is a direction of philosophy that appeared at the end of the twentieth century, which is explained by the relationship between God and man. Personality is nothing but the highest value of the world, and the existence of God is the supremacy over all human.

Freudianism and neo-Freudianism were characterizedthe study of the meaningless. Philosophical thinking appeared on the basis of psychological analysis, when a person's actions were explained by psychological analysis. Neo-Freudianism rejected the influence of physiological feelings on human behavior, such as sexual thinking, hunger, cold, and so on.

Russian philosophy

The domestic philosophy of man originated from two sources - Christianity and paganism. The influence of Byzantine culture led to the establishment of certain traditions such as Neoplatonism, rationalism and asceticism.

In the eleventh century, Hilarion gave the first philosophical explanation of Russian life. In the twelfth century, epistemology developed, the founder of which can be considered Cyril of Turov. It was he who connected the mind with philosophy and explained the need for knowledge of the natural sciences.

At the end of the fifteenth century, hesychasm, which came from Byzantium, was approved in Russia. He taught to be in constant solitude, to speak and contemplate as little as possible. Sergius of Radonezh, a follower of hesychasm, believed that it was impossible to live off the labor of others. All food, clothing a person must earn or create for himself. Nil Sorsky said that monasteries should not have serfs at the court. Only faith and prayer can save humanity, as well as sympathy and understanding of each other.

Also in Russia there was a concept that proclaimed Russian Orthodoxy and the Tsar above all.

B. I. Ulyanov made a great contribution to the subject of philosophy. He developed the theory of Marxism and foundedthe theory of reflection, which consisted in the study of the problems of truth and truth.

In the twenties there was a great debate about the importance of the natural sciences and the functions of philosophy. In 1970, there was a need to develop methods and logic for the cognition of philosophy. The fall of Marxism occurred during the period of perestroika, starting in 1985. The main issue was the understanding of the phenomena of modern life.

Philosophical teaching in the modern world

What is philosophy in the modern world? Again, the answer is not so simple. Philosophy and man are in constant relationship. The existence of one without the other is impossible. The study of the question of the role of philosophy in modern society is structured. It consists in the study by a person of his thoughts, natural processes, material objects.

Knowledge of the philosophy of man led to the identification of four main directions in teaching: the philosophy of freedom, body, position and death.

The philosophy of freedom is the knowledge of a person in relation to some prejudices that deprive the individual of the right to be alienated and distant from anything. According to her, a person is never free, because she cannot live without society. For there to be a reason for action, motivation is necessary, but in fact, a reason cannot be the reason for a person’s choice. What he fails to do, achieve, does not tie his hands, does not make him a slave to the position, but may be the reason for the restriction of his freedom. A person's past should not influence his present and future life. He learns from his mistakes and tries them no more.commit. He is free from beliefs, from God. No one can impose their point of view on him, force him to choose a religion to which he does not belong. All his freedoms lie in the ability to choose and have his own interest, which never contradicts the essence and spiritual personality.

The philosophy of the body is characterized by the fact that the physical shell of a person is directly dependent on his thoughts and soul. So that he does not want to commit, that is, to express his desire, will, it is necessary to perform actions that cannot be applied without the existence of a body. The body is not the protection of the soul, but serves as its helper. It explains the relationship between philosophy and nature, reality.

Philosophical positions represent a variety of forms of philosophy. At all times, its existence has been an integral part of life. But each period of time was characterized by the fact that philosophers made assumptions that had great differences from each other. Each of them had his own position and understood the philosophical meaning according to the doctrine that he preached or developed.

The philosophy of death is one of the main directions of philosophy, since the study of the essence of man and the soul leads to the question of the existence of spiritual death. Of course, everyone knows that the body is not a priority for the study of philosophy, but physical death makes one think about its existence, as something inexplicable and incomprehensible.

The question of many generations is immortality. It is philosophy that is called upon to solve it. Religion and relationship with Godan opportunity to explain the existence of various forms of eternal life.

The relationship between philosophy and man is explained by the fact that he is constantly looking for answers to questions about the need for his appearance on earth, his purpose. No individual has yet been able to find answers to all his questions. Perhaps this is the point. After all, when a person runs out of questions, he will no longer be interested in his destination, place in life, the meaning of being. Then everything will lose its meaning.

Philosophy and Science

Currently, philosophy and science are closely related. Explaining scientific facts that defy common sense is only possible through reasoning and accepting that the unusual exists.

The existence of scientific philosophy is determined by the fact that it is part of life. When writing scientific papers, a person always comes to understanding, reasoning and philosophical thought. Philosophy itself is a science. It is interconnected with mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy. She analyzes the logical occurrence of things and explains it.

The doctrine of ethics, axiology, culture, social aspects of life - all this leads to the emergence of the concept of scientific philosophy. But the complete relationship between scientific facts and philosophy was proved by the followers of the twentieth century.

On the one hand, it seems that science should in no way concern philosophy, since the latter considers the existence of God possible, while the former denies it. But it is impossible to explain some scientific facts without accepting the methods by whichknowledge and enlightenment.

The subject of philosophy is the study of society, which influences science. After all, the creation of new technologies, the invention of something is impossible without human participation, and these actions are a scientific product. Conversely, science has an impact on society. So, for example, the advent of computers and telephones has affected the modern life of a person, his habits and features of cognition.

What is philosophy? It is a part of life, without which the existence of mankind would be threatened, due to the lack of thinking. Philosophy is interconnected with many areas of our life from society to science. Every person is a bit of a philosopher, which is explained by the presence of the mind and thoughts of the individual.