Essence in philosophy - what is it?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

The category of reality, which is the intermediation of the phenomenon and the law, is defined as an essence in philosophy. This is the organic unity of reality in all its diversity or diversity in unity. The law determines that reality is uniform, but there is such a thing as a phenomenon that brings diversity to reality. Thus, the essence in philosophy is uniformity and diversity as form and content.

Outer and inner sides

Form is the unity of the manifold, and the content is seen as diversity in unity (or diversity of unity). This means that form and content are law and phenomenon in the aspect of essence in philosophy, these are moments of essence. Each of the philosophical directions considers this question in its own way. Therefore, it is better to focus on the most popular. Insofar asessence in philosophy is an organic complex reality that connects the external and internal sides, it can be considered in various spheres of manifestation.

Freedom, for example, exists in the realm of possibilities, while the community and the organism exist in the realm of species. The sphere of quality contains the typical and the individual, and the sphere of measure contains norms. Development and behavior are the sphere of types of movement, and numerous complex contradictions, harmony, unity, antagonism, struggle are from the sphere of contradiction. The origin and essence of philosophy - object, subject and activity are in the sphere of formation. It should be noted that the category of essence in philosophy is the most controversial and complex. It has come a difficult long way in its formation, formation, development. However, philosophers of far from all directions recognize the category of essence in philosophy.

Briefly about empiricists

Empirical philosophers do not recognize this category, because they believe that it belongs purely to the sphere of consciousness, and not to reality. Some are opposed literally to the point of aggression. For example, Bertrand Russell wrote with pathos that the essence in the science of philosophy is a stupid concept and completely devoid of accuracy. All empirically oriented philosophers support his point of view, especially those like Russell himself, who lean towards the natural-scientific non-biological side of empiricism.

They do not like complex organic concepts-categories corresponding to identity, thing, whole, universal and the like, therefore the essence and structurephilosophies do not fit together for them, the essence does not fit into the system of concepts. However, their nihilism in relation to this category is simply fatal, it's the same as denying the existence of a living organism, its vital activity and development. That's why philosophy is to reveal the essence of the world, because the specificity of the living in comparison with the inanimate and organic in comparison with the inorganic, as well as development next to a simple change or the norm next to an inorganic measure, unity in comparison with simple connections and can still be continued for a very long time - all this is the specificity of the essence.

Another extreme

Philosophers, inclined towards idealism and organicism, absolutize the essence, moreover, they endow it with some kind of independent existence. Absolutization is expressed in the fact that idealists can discover the essence anywhere, even in the most inorganic world, but it simply cannot be there - the essence of a stone, the essence of a thunderstorm, the essence of a planet, the essence of a molecule … It's even ridiculous. They invent, imagine their own world, full of animate, spiritualized entities, and in their purely religious idea of a personal supernatural being, they see in it the essence of the Universe.

Even Hegel absolutized the essence, but he, nevertheless, was the first to draw its categorical and logical portrait, the first to try to reasonably evaluate it and clear it of religious, mystical and scholastic layers. The doctrine of this philosopher about the essence is unusually complex and ambiguous, it contains many brilliant insights, but also speculations.are also present.

Essence and phenomenon

Most often, this ratio is considered as the ratio of external and internal, which is a very simplified view. If we say that the phenomenon is given directly in our sensations, and the essence is hidden behind this phenomenon and is given indirectly through this phenomenon, and not directly, this would be correct. Man in his cognition goes from the observed phenomena to the discovery of essences. In this case, the essence is a cognitive phenomenon, the very inner one that we are always looking for and trying to comprehend.

But you can go other ways! For example, from internal to external. There are many cases when it is phenomena that are hidden from us, since we are not able to observe them: radio waves, radioactivity, and the like. However, knowing them, we seem to discover the essence. Here is such a philosophy - essence and existence may not be connected at all with each other. The cognitive element does not at all designate the very category of the definition of reality. Essence can also be the essence of things, it can characterize an imaginary or inorganic object.

Essence is a phenomenon?

Essence can really be a phenomenon if it is not discovered, hidden, not cognizable, that is, it is an object of cognition. This is especially true for those phenomena that are complex, intricate or have such a large-scale nature that they resemble natural phenomena.

Becamebe, the essence, considered as a cognitive object, is imaginary, imaginary and invalid. It acts and exists only in cognitive activity, characterizing only one of its sides - the object of activity. Here we must remember that both the object and the activity are categories that correspond to the essence. Essence as an element of cognition is the reflected light, which is obtained from the actual essence, that is, our activity.

Human Essence

Essence is complex and organic, direct and indirect, according to the categorical definition - external and internal. This is especially convenient to observe in the example of the human essence, our own. Everyone wears it. It is given to us unconditionally and directly by virtue of birth, subsequent development and all life activity. It is internal, because it is inside us and does not always manifest itself, sometimes it does not even let us know about itself, therefore we do not fully know it ourselves.

But it is also external - in all manifestations: in actions, in behavior, in activity and its subjective results. We know this part of our essence well. For example, Bach died long ago, but his essence continues to live in his fugues (and, of course, in other works). Thus, fugues in relation to Bach himself are an external entity, since they are the results of creative activity. Here the relationship between essence and phenomenon is especially clearly visible.

Law and Phenomenon

Even inveterate philosophers quite often confuse these two relationships, because they havegeneral category - phenomenon. If we consider the essence-phenomenon and the law-phenomenon separately from each other, as independent pairs of categories or categorical definitions, the idea may arise that the phenomenon of the essence is opposed in the same way that the law is opposed to the phenomenon. Then there is the danger of assimilation or equating the essence with the law.

Essence we consider as corresponding to the law and of the same order, as everything universal, internal. However, there are two pairs, absolutely, moreover, different categorical definitions, which include the phenomenon - the same category! This anomaly would not exist if these pairs were considered not as independent and independent subsystems, but as parts of one subsystem: law-essence-phenomenon. Then the essence would not look like a single-order category with a law. It would unite the phenomenon and the law, since it has features of both.

Law and essence

In the practice of word usage, people always distinguish between essence and law. The law is universal, that is, the general in reality, which opposes the individual and the specific (the phenomenon in this case). The essence, even as a law, possessing the virtues of the universal and the general, at the same time does not lose the quality of the phenomenon - specific, individual, concrete. The essence of man is specific and universal, single and unique, individual and typical, unique and serial.

Here we can recall the extensive works of Karl Marx on human essence, which is not an abstract, individual concept, but a set of existingpublic relations. There he criticizes the teachings of Ludwig Feuerbach, who argued that only a natural essence is inherent in man. Fair. But even Marx was rather inattentive to the individual side of human essence, he disparagingly spoke about the abstract, which fills the essence of a separate individual. This cost his followers quite a lot.

Social and natural in human nature

Marx saw only the social component, which is why a person was made an object of manipulation, a social experiment. The fact is that in human essence the social and the natural coexist perfectly. The latter characterizes in it the individual and the generic being. And the social gives him personality as an individual and a member of society. None of these components can be ignored. Philosophers are sure that this can even lead to the death of mankind.

The problem of essence was considered by Aristotle as the unity of phenomenon and law. He was the first to deduce the categorical and logical status of the human essence. Plato, for example, saw in it only the features of the universal, while Aristotle considered the singular, which gave the prerequisites for further understanding of this category.