Characterization of the philosophy of modern times can be briefly formulated as follows. This era of the development of human thought justified the scientific revolution and prepared the Enlightenment. Quite often in the specialized literature there is a statement that it was during this period that the methods of scientific knowledge were developed, namely empiricism, which proclaimed the priority of experience based on feelings, and rationalism, which defended the idea of reason as the bearer of truth. However, both approaches considered mathematics and its methods to be ideal for any science. Features of the philosophy of the New Age in this regard can be considered on the example of Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes.
Opponents
The English philosopher believed that the human mind is so “littered” with a kind of “idols” that prevent it from perceiving real things that he elevated experience and direct study of nature into an absolute. Only this, according toBacon, can lead to the independence and independence of the researcher, as well as to new discoveries. Therefore, induction based on experiment is the only way to the truth. After all, the latter, from the point of view of the thinker, is not the daughter of authorities, but of the era. Bacon was one of the famous theorists who started the New Age. The philosophy of his contemporary Descartes was based on other principles. He was a supporter of deduction and reason as a criterion of truth. He agreed that everything should be doubted, but he believed that thinking is the only way to distinguish error from truth. It is only necessary to adhere to a clear and definite logical order and move from simple things to more complex ones. But, besides these thinkers, this era is interesting by several more names.
New Times: The Philosophy of John Locke
This thinker proposed a compromise between the theories of Descartes and Bacon. He agreed with the latter that only experience can be the source of ideas. But by this term he understood not only external sensations, but also internal reflections. That is, thinking too. Since man himself is a kind of “blank slate”, on which experience draws certain images, these images, or qualities, can also be sources of knowledge. But this can only be said of the most essential ideas. More complex concepts such as "God" or "good" are combinations of simpler ones. In addition, as the thinker believed, we are arranged in such a way that some qualities that we perceive are objective andcorrespond to reality, while others reflect the specifics of the action of things on the senses and can deceive us.
New time: the philosophy of David Hume
Another feature of the described time is the emergence of agnosticism and skepticism. Both of these directions are associated with David Hume, who preferred to proceed not from high truths, but from common sense. "What's the point in talking about Genesis," he thought, "it's better to think about something practical." Therefore, mathematics is the most reliable knowledge, it can be proved logically. This idea seems to have concentrated all the New Time. Hume's philosophy leads him to the conclusion that all other knowledge, even from experience, is only our assumptions, and it can only be of a probabilistic nature. All sciences proceed from the fact that any action has a reason, but it is far from always possible to understand it. We cannot know for sure whether our knowledge of the universe and its order is correct. But some ideas are very useful because they can be put into practice.
