Matter is an objective reality that exists independently of human consciousness and is reflected by it. Unlike many other definitions of matter, this definition does not connect the understanding of matter with concrete sensible things, but characterizes it in an extremely abstract way. The path to such an understanding of matter was quite long.

In the history of philosophy, several stages are distinguished, characterized by different interpretations of this concept. So, in antiquity, matter was thought of as its visual-sensory manifestations (water, air, fire, etc.); in the works of the French materialists of the 18th century (La Mettrie, Helvetius, Holbach), matter was identified with matter or with some of its properties (material-substrate idea of ​​matter).

The definition of matter given at the beginning can be considered philosophical and epistemological. Matter is characterized here through its opposite – consciousness. In the philosophical and epistemological aspect, matter is an objective reality that exists outside and independently of human consciousness. At the same time, some authors try to give a substantial-axiological idea of ​​matter when they list its attributes and properties, while emphasizing that the opposition between matter and consciousness in the ontological aspect disappears. With this approach, consciousness is interpreted as a property of highly organized matter that appears at specific historical stages of its development.

In addition to the property of being a certain type of objective reality, matter has a number of attributes: movement, space, time, as well as increatibility, indestructibility, omnipresence, inexhaustibility, the only substance (the fundamental principle) and the universal substratum. Note that such an understanding of matter is characteristic of the materialistic tradition in philosophy, which builds its understanding of matter on a number of principles:

• matter is primary in relation to consciousness;
• it is the universal substrate of interactions (common in various changing phenomena and processes);
• matter is cognizable on the basis of a consistent study of its specific properties, connections and forms of motion;
• the philosophical understanding of matter is not reduced to its specific natural-science definitions;
• there is a material unity of the world;
• matter is inextricably linked with motion, and motion cannot exist otherwise than in space and time;
• at every level structural organization matter reveals its features in its movement and interaction.

Materialists argue that in the epistemological aspect there is an opposition between matter and consciousness, since the latter generates an independent subjective world, which may not have direct analogues in material reality and appear in the form of ideal images. In the ontological aspect, such an opposition is removed, and consciousness acts as the highest form of reflection inherent in matter.

Let us consider in more detail the question of matter from the philosophical and ontological side. Matter here appears as a substance, that is, the basis of changing phenomena, the carrier of qualities. Hence, matter is self-sufficient and acts as the cause of itself. As a consequence - the self-movement of matter, its active self-producing character, eternity in time and infinity in space.

Substantiality, universality and absoluteness of matter characterize the material unity of the world. There is nothing in the world that would not be a certain type or state of matter, its property or form of motion. Matter exists in the form of an infinite variety of concrete formations. The material objects themselves have internal order and systemic organization.

The universal forms of existence of matter are space and time, which do not exist outside of matter. Without revealing the essence of these phenomena for now, we emphasize that space and time are forms that express certain ways of coordinating material objects. The content of these forms is the moving matter. The presence of a single content allows us to draw a conclusion about the relationship between space and time itself.

Matter as a substance is uncreated and indestructible. Consideration of matter in the substantial plan clearly shows that consciousness is genetically connected with matter (being its product). In addition, the connection of consciousness with matter is due to the material basis of individual consciousness, namely: its inextricable connection with the brain (as an organ and its function, material substrate and its properties).

Matter can be defined through relation to consciousness. The versatility of consciousness makes it an object of study for a number of sciences. Philosophy seeks to reveal the universal signs of consciousness. In the very general view: "Consciousness is the highest function of the brain, peculiar only to a person and associated with speech, which consists in a generalized, evaluative and purposeful reflection and constructive and creative transformation of reality, in a preliminary mental construction of actions and anticipation of their results, in reasonable regulation and self-control of human behavior" .

Consciousness gives an idea of ​​the surrounding world, reflecting and forming a certain image of it. Therefore, among the definitions of the concept of "consciousness" there is also the following: "subjective image of the objective world." But consciousness is not just an image, but a mental form of activity aimed at reflecting and transforming, evaluating reality.

Along with the concept of consciousness"others are often used -" spirit», « thinking”, and the main question of philosophy is often formulated not as the relationship of “matter and consciousness”, but as the relationship of “matter and spirit”, “matter and thinking”. However, the concept of "thinking" is not identical to the concept of "consciousness". In addition to the rational individual consciousness of a person includes a sensual reflection of reality, emotions, experiences.

“Spirit” can be defined as “the totality and concentration of all the functions of consciousness that arise as a reflection of reality, but concentrated in a single individuality, as an instrument of conscious orientation in reality for influencing it and, in the end, for remaking it” . In Marxist philosophy, the concepts of "consciousness" and "spirit" were usually used as synonyms.

What is the manifestation of the opposite of matter and consciousness in the epistemological aspect?

Firstly, in epistemological images there is not a grain of materiality, they are independent, abstracted both from the reflected world and from the neurodynamic codes contained in the structure of the brain.

Secondly, consciousness, thanks to its creative and constructive function, creates images that do not have direct prototypes in reality and can then acquire a material status.

So, in the aspect of epistemology, matter and consciousness are opposite. But this opposition is removed in the ontological plane. From this side, matter appears as a substance. B. Spinoza wrote:

“By substance I mean that which exists in itself and is represented through itself, i.e., that the representation of which does not need the representation of another thing from which it should be formed.”

Spinoza emphasized the inextricable connection between the basis of things and their concrete diversity within the limits of substance.

In materialistic philosophy, substance is understood as matter, as the subject of all its changes, i.e., the active cause of all its own shaping. In the aspect of substantiality, matter appears as an internal unity of all its forms. Matter as substance is the cause of itself (causa sui). Being a substance, it is uncreatable, indestructible, eternal and infinite.

“Consideration of matter in the substantial aspect shows that consciousness, both genetically and actually, turns out to be material. In contrast to the epistemological aspect of the problem of “consciousness and matter”, here there is not a relationship of cause and effect, but an organ and its functions, a material substrate and its properties. Here the opposition of consciousness and matter is not absolute, but relative…” .

Neither the epistemological nor the substantive aspects of the understanding of matter can be separated from each other, they are complementary, give a general idea of ​​matter.

1. Philosophical schools of ancient Greece.

2. Socrates.

3. Plato.

4. Aristotle.

5. Philosophy of Cynics and Stoics.

1. The emergence, formation and development of philosophical doctrines is a contradictory, but on the whole progressive process, in which there were many brilliant ideas ahead of their time and rapid declines. Sometimes moving forward in one respect was accompanied by a turning back in another, which gave rise to the most diverse, sometimes contradictory philosophical teachings. For example, to combine numerous ancient Greek schools and trends that existed before Socrates, their common natural-philosophical orientation, a special interest in the origin of the world and its integral essence, allows.

The philosophy of antiquity reached its peak in ancient Greece and Rome. Unlike mythology, ancient philosophy is not limited to referring to the gods when confronted with formidable and incomprehensible phenomena, it is looking for the causes of these phenomena accessible to knowledge, the true fundamental principles of the world.

The most famous philosophical schools of ancient Greece include:

Milesian (Ionian) - Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus;

Pythagorean - Pythagoras and his students;

School of Heraclitus of Ephesus;

Elea - Parmenides, Zeno;

Atomists - Leucippus, Democritus;

Sophists - Protagoras, Prodik, Hippias, Gorgias and others.

The philosophers of most of these schools spoke from materialistic positions. For example, the founder of the Milesian school, Thales, considered water to be the beginning of all things, Anaximander - "apeiron" - an eternal, immeasurable, infinite substance; Leucippus and Democritus are atoms, Heraclitus is fire.

According to Heraclitus (end of VI - beginning of V centuries BC), the world was not created by any of the gods and none of the people, but has always been, is and will be an ever-living fire, moderately igniting and moderately dying out. He defined this regularity as logos. At the same time, he argued that everything in this world consists of opposites, everything happens through a struggle, then everything changes, moves. “You cannot enter the same river twice,” he said, “because each time you are surrounded by new waves, a new element.” Heraclitus from Ephesus deduced the law of dialectics, believed that the driving force of all processes is struggle. Dialectic of Heraclitus - the concept of continuous change. He paid special attention to the causes of change and development, to the problems of repetition and circulation. The philosophy of Heraclitus tries to reveal the ideas of the unity and struggle of opposites, the coincidence of the absolute and the relative. But he remains in the shadow of the problem of progressive development, spasmodic development of things and phenomena, the transition of one quality into another, into its opposite.

Heraclitus believed that wisdom is the knowledge of reason, logos, to be wise means to bow before this reason, to obey it. A person, knowing this world, becomes wise, obeying the laws of reason, acquires peace of mind

Pythagoras and his followers (late 6th - early 5th centuries BC) considered the number to be the root cause of everything, taking the unit for the smallest particle of everything. They advocated cognition of the world through a number, considering the number to be intermediate in cognition between sensual and idealistic consciousness.

The major representatives of the Eleatic school were Parmenides (late 7th - early 6th centuries BC) and Zeno (490 - 430 BC), who led the next stage on the path of rationalization of philosophical knowledge. The main category of their doctrine is "being". Parmenides argued that there is being, there is no non-being, because non-being can neither be known nor expressed. He reveals the existent through thinking and establishing the truth, while sensory perception is only an opinion. Parmenides believed that the Universe has no flaws, just like the being in its wholeness: the being cannot be "neither a little more nor a little less."

Zeno of Elea, a prominent philosopher, a talented student and follower of Parmenides, highly valued the mental abilities of a person and fought for truth and justice all his life. He developed logic as dialectics. Known aporia Zeno, which are of interest today. In the aporia "Achilles", Zeno claims that the swift-footed Achilles will never be able to catch up with the tortoise, since in order to go a certain way, you must first go half of it, and in order to go it, you need to go a quarter of the way, then one eighth of the way, and so on. to infinity. While Achilles has covered a certain part of the path, the tortoise also has to cover a part of the path that Achilles also needs to go through. Mathematicians say that in a continuum between two points there is always a third point, which makes it difficult to hit the neighboring point. If movement is impossible, then swift-footed Achilles will not be able to catch up with the tortoise.

The philosophers of the Eleatic school posed the problem of the relationship between the one and the many, the continuous and the discontinuous, movement and rest, being and non-being. Especially the aporias of Zeno expose the problem of the emergence of movement from immobility.

In epistemology, representatives of the Eleatic school leading role given up to thinking. They understood being as continuous, unchanged, inseparable, inherent in every element of reality. One being excludes any plurality of things in their movement.

Leucippus (V century BC) and Democritus (460-370 BC) believed that the world as a whole consists of countless tiny particles - atoms moving in the void. Atoms, according to Democritus, are indivisible, constantly in motion, and the human soul consists of the thinnest, round, mobile atoms.

Philosophers - atomists discovered new methods for solving philosophical problems: no matter what we deal with - with a theory, with a social phenomenon - there is always an elementary one: an atom - in chemistry, a material point - in mechanics, a person - in society, a concept - in cognition etc. The elemental appears as the unchangeable.

Considering the Universe, the atomists argued that there are cosmic vortices that give rise to many worlds. Emptiness is as real as atoms are necessary condition their movements. Atoms are different in form, they move in the void due to their connection and separation, therefore things and worlds arise, develop and come to death. Everything happens according to necessity, there is no accident.

2. The school had a special direction sophists- its focus on the person, on social issues, practical actions. Sophists - enlighteners of ancient Greek society - paid enough attention to the problems of language, logic, eloquence. The sophists' interest in man was symbolically expressed by Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things: those that exist, that they exist, those that do not exist, that they do not exist." Protagoras emphasizes the relativity of everything that exists, including the relativity of truth in our knowledge.

Among the philosophers of this era, Socrates (469 - 399 BC) occupied a special place. An outstanding philosopher, teacher, polemicist, sage, he used maieutics - the art of defining concepts with the help of leading questions. Thanks to logical techniques and skillfully asked questions, he led the interlocutor to an independent finding of the truth. The Socratic method of argument was to find contradictions in the reasoning of the students and bring them to the truth. His philosophical credo: "Know thyself." In the dispute, Socrates was inimitable, and he modestly noted: “I know that I know nothing,” calling on his students to a bold search for truth through self-knowledge.

The philosophy of Socrates is based on morality. The moral can be known and assimilated, and hence, according to the philosopher, each person must live in accordance with this knowledge. He tried to instill in his students the concept of truly moral. His philosophy contains irony in the form of dispute, dialogue and maieutics, i.e. birth of thought. He gave paramount importance to man, who is a knowing, rational being, having a soul. And the soul of a person is the ability to realize, to show active mental activity, to be conscientious and moral. He prepared his disciples for virtue, so that they would know and show wisdom, justice, and moderation in everything. Only then can everyone achieve the harmony of the soul, become free, which is the happiness of man.

Socrates conducted his philosophical conversations in the squares, markets in the form of a dialogue. He did not leave written works, but we know about him from the writings of Plato and Xenophon. Socrates in his disputes criticized all forms of political government: tyranny, monarchy, aristocracy, plutocracy, democracy, if the authorities showed injustice to the people. But the main topics of his conversations were those that are relevant even now: good and evil, honesty and virtue.

The official authorities did not want to understand the philosopher, they took him for an ordinary sophist, undermining the foundations of society, confusing the youth and not respecting the gods. In 399 BC he was sentenced to death, took a bowl of poison. The death of Socrates is a universal human tragedy, when the truth is killed, and the righteous is killed for the determination to fulfill a moral duty to the end.

3. The greatest philosopher of ancient Greece, a student of Socrates, the founder of his own school - the Academy, the founder of objective idealism was Plato (427 - 347 BC). The great thinker left behind a number of fundamental works: "Apology of Socrates", "Parmenides", "Gorgias", "Phaedo", "State", "Laws". Most of his works are written in the form of a dialogue. According to Plato, the world is by nature dual: it has a visible world of changeable objects and an invisible world of ideas. So, an individual horse can grow old, die, but the idea of ​​a horse is eternal. Moreover, the ideas were interpreted by him as some kind of eternal divine essence. In this regard, the main provisions of his teachings are as follows:

All material things and objects are changeable, they arise, develop, cease to exist;

The world around us is temporary, impermanent;

Ideas are eternal, really exist, are constant. The whole world is a display of pure ideas.

In epistemology, Plato proceeds from an idealistic picture of the world: if the material world is only a reflection of the "world of ideas", then the subject of knowledge should be "pure ideas". “Pure ideas” cannot be cognized sensually (sensory cognition gives only opinion), but it is possible only by reason, and only intellectuals, philosophers (educated, trained people) can engage in higher spiritual activity. Plato considered in detail the dialectic of the one and the many, movement and rest. He also suggested a whole system of philosophical categories: being, movement, rest, identity, difference.

In Plato's philosophy, much attention is paid to the origin of society and the state. He singled out seven types of state: six types of existing ones and one type of ideal - “states of the future”. According to his teaching, in the ideal "state of the future" philosophers govern the state, cognize the world and teach others. Warriors are engaged exercise maintain order and, where necessary, participate in hostilities. And workers (peasants and artisans) are engaged in physical labor, create material wealth. An ideal state should take care of educating its citizens in piety and support religion.

The principles of the device of an ideal state are the fundamental ancient values: wisdom, courage, moderation. Their harmonious unity makes it possible to achieve the good of the state - justice. Plato considered the best forms of state power to be an aristocratic republic and an aristocratic monarchy, to the worst forms state structure he attributed timocracy, oligarchy, demography, tyranny.

The whole philosophy of Plato touches on ethical issues: the highest good and human life, virtue and happiness, beautiful and useful, good and pleasant. According to the philosopher, the highest good (and the idea of ​​the good is above all) is outside the world. Therefore, the highest goal of morality is in the supersensible world. If the soul received its beginning in a higher world, then a person strives all his life for the sublime, although in the earthly flesh the human soul also encounters evil, fallen, impure.

Plato's Academy - a religious and philosophical school (387 BC-529 AD) - existed for about 1000 years. Famous pupils of this Academy were: Aristotle, Xenocritus, Clytomachus of Carthage, Philo (teacher of Cicero). Platonism and Neoplatonism became the leading trends in European philosophy.

4. The pinnacle of the philosophical thought of Ancient Greece is the philosophical teaching of Aristotle (384-322 BC), a student of Plato, educator of Alexander the Great. An encyclopedic scientist, he founded his own philosophical school-lyceum, left fundamental works: "Organon", "Physics", "Mechanics", "On the Soul", "History of Animals", "Nicomachean Ethics", "Rhetoric", "Politics" , "Poetics", etc. Aristotle began to develop his philosophical views in contrast to Plato's idealism (the saying is attributed to him: "Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer!"). Proceeding from the recognition of the objective existence of matter, Aristotle considered it eternal, uncreated, indestructible. Matter cannot arise from nothing, but matter, according to the philosopher, is inert. It contains the possibility of many things arising. But in order for this possibility to turn into reality, matter must be given an appropriate form. Form and matter, according to Aristotle, are inextricably linked. The world is a set of forms, closely interconnected. And the highest engine of the world and the creation of forms is God. At the same time, in the philosophy of Aristotle, a special role was played by the principle of the development of beings, organically associated with the categories of space and time. He considered the main categories to be "essence" or "substance", "state", "relationship", "possibility" and "reality". According to him, God is pure form and the first essence. And the human soul is eternal, immortal, it is a reflection of the actual reality of the universal Mind. Memory, emotions, according to the philosopher, are "parts" of the soul. In the process of cognition, a person is repelled from sensations to general perception, from perception to representation; from opinion, having mastered concepts, human thought goes to knowledge, reason. Scientific knowledge cannot be acquired through sensations alone. Forms of scientific knowledge are concepts, judgments, conclusions. He developed a classification of forms and methods of rational thinking.

According to Aristotle, the bearer of consciousness is the soul, which exercises control over the functions of the body. He believed that a person is one of the types of highly organized animals, but differs from them in the presence of thinking and reason, has a tendency to live in a team. Man is a “social animal”, whose sphere of life includes the family, society and the state. The happiness of man is in virtue, i.e. a combination of generosity and moderation.

Aristotle was particularly interested in the problems of the emergence of various social groups in society. The philosopher singled out such groups: wealthy, poor and average. The wealthy all their lives strive for profit, while they violate the traditions of the law of society. The rich seek power, are arrogant and arrogant. Aristotle's sympathy is on the side of the middle stratum, where mostly workers striving for perfection. He also singled out the types of states: monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy, polity, democracy. At the heart of all socio-political events is property inequality. Relations between the rich and the poor are not just different relations, but opposites, contradictions, and irreconcilable ones at that. Aristotle considered the best state to be such a state where the middle social stratum makes up a greater part of the population than the rich and the poor together. If there are too many beggars and poor in the state, then this can lead to social explosions. Not a single statesman, according to Aristotle, should wait until ideal political conditions come, but should reasonably manage people, take care of the physical and moral education of young people.

5. Cynics - the philosophical school of ancient Greece, which substantiated the idea of ​​freedom outside of society. The founder of this direction is Antisthenes (450-360 BC), and Diogenes of Sinop (400-325 BC) was his follower. Antisthenes more often communicated with ordinary people, preached moderation in everything. His philosophical teaching was close to the ideas of Socrates, i.e. a person should have self-control, be modest in food and clothing, be close to nature. The Cynics argued that there should be no rulers, no wealth, no marriage, condemned slavery, despised luxury and the pursuit of pleasure.

The philosophy of the Cynics reflected the deep crisis of Greek society, it was supported by crowds of beggars and those who did not find a worthy place in life.

The philosophical teachings of the Stoics, founded by Zeno of China (not Zeno of Aeneas, the author of "aporias" - paradoxes!), Became a response to the spread of the ideas of the Cynics. The main idea of ​​the Stoics is the liberation of a person from the influence of the outside world through constant self-improvement, the perception of the best achievements of culture, wisdom. The ideal of the Stoics is a sage who has risen above the fuss of the surrounding life, freed from the influence of the outside world thanks to his deep knowledge, virtue, self-sufficiency.

The Stoics preached that the actual philosophical principle is rooted in man himself. Representatives of the late Stoa (I century BC–III century AD) were Plutarch, Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, whose works have come down to us. Seneca (4 BC - 65 AD) - the great thinker, writer, statesman argued that a free person is hardy, endures all life's hardships, does not resist evil, is not outraged and calm, and accepted philosophy as practical leadership in government.

In ancient philosophy, there were also such ideological currents as skepticism and Epicureanism. Skepticism is the philosophical existence of some reliable criterion of truth. Epicureanism - the teaching of the ancient Greek philosopher - materialist Epicurus (341 - 270 BC), the enlightener of antiquity; his ethical teaching is based on man's rational striving for happiness.

Marcus Aurelius (121 - 180 AD) - Roman emperor, philosopher, in his work "Alone with myself" praises the power that respects working people, represents equal rights and freedom of speech. During his reign of the Roman Empire, the position of women and slaves was significantly improved. Particular attention was paid oratory, were subtle connoisseurs of philology, dialectics was understood in close connection with rhetoric. It was the Stoics who finally delimited philosophy into logic, physics, and ethics, although Aristotle wrote about this. The Stoics recognized virtue as the highest good, and vice as the only evil, called for life in harmony with nature and the Universal Mind. During the Roman Empire, the philosophical ideas of the Stoics turned into a state ideology.

Ancient philosophy has a number of features: firstly, the flowering of philosophy was associated with the economic rise of the Greek policies; secondly, the philosophers were independent of production and physical labor, they really were the "brain" of Greek society and claimed to be the spiritual leadership of society; thirdly, philosophers admitted the existence of gods who were close to man, and recognized man as part of society.

Ancient philosophy, whose representatives developed a variety of teachings, was the basis of European philosophy. The main idea was cosmocentrism (admiration for the Cosmos, interest in the problems of the origin of the material world). It was in ancient philosophy that two directions were laid - idealistic (Plato's line) and materialistic (Democritus' line).

Matter

In ancient philosophy, matter was understood as the primary substance from which all things arise and into which all things turn (lat. - substance, material). He considered it to be water, Anaximenes - air, Heraclitus - fire. Anaximander came to the conclusion that one of the existing "elements" or a combination of them cannot be the origin; it is a hypothetical indefinite substance - apeiron. Another ancient Greek philosopher, Anaxagoras, believed that being consists of infinitely varied eternal and unchanging "seeds of things" - homeomers. In the teachings of the ancient atomists, everything that exists consists of the smallest indivisible particles - atoms and emptiness. This hypothesis, which anticipated the natural scientific idea of ​​the structure of matter, explained the infinite diversity of the world from a single material principle underlying the material and spiritual world (the soul, according to Democritus, also consists of atoms).

The atomistic picture of the world, formed in the 4th century BC. BC. and existed until the end of the 19th century, was based on the understanding of matter as a substance, building material which are atoms, endowed with eternal invariable properties: extension, impenetrability, mass constancy, gravity, displacement, etc. This understanding of matter served as the basis for the formation of a number of scientific theories and the discovery of the laws of nature, including the molecular kinetic theory of heat, the law gravity, the basic laws of dynamics, the law of conservation of matter, the periodic system of elements.

But at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. in the understanding of matter, a revolution was made, caused by a number of scientific discoveries.

In 1869, cathode rays were discovered, which began to be considered as a stream of negatively charged particles almost 2000 times lighter than a hydrogen atom. As a result, a hypothesis was put forward about the existence of an atom of electricity - an electron. In 1897 the electron was discovered. It was found not only in cathode rays, but also in thermal and light radiation, in chemical processes.

The study of the electron showed that its mass is not constant, it depends on the speed of its movement. Physicists were forced to revise the mechanical concept of mass and replace it with the concept of electromagnetic mass. The idea of ​​one "invariable" property of matter - the constancy of mass - collapsed. The electron began to be considered not as a material particle, but as energy (a bundle of electricity). The study of cathode rays led to the discovery by K. Roentgen of X rays, which were then named after him. These rays, perceived by the eye, have the property of penetrating through transparent bodies and acting on a photographic plate. In 1896 A.A. Becquerel also discovered rays that penetrate opaque objects. These rays were spontaneously emitted by certain substances. The discovery of this phenomenon, later called radioactivity, was of exceptional importance. After some time, the spouses Marie and Claude Curie discover radium - one of the wonderful radioactive substances. These discoveries undermined the notion of another immutable property of matter - impenetrability. In addition, in the property of radioactivity - to constantly emit energy - some physicists saw the collapse of the principle of storage of matter: matter turns into energy. Other discoveries have also been made.

This, in the words of the French physicist Poincaré, "the general destruction of principles" led many scientists to come to the denial of matter (matter disappeared, only energy remained), to the recognition of energy as the only basis of the world, its substance. At the beginning of the XX century. in the book "Energy and Its Transformations", the German physicist and chemist W. Ostwald wrote: "... We can take energy as a perfect analog of weighty matter and have the right to call it substance."

This point of view was also supported at a later time by a number of prominent physicists. In the book “Philosophical Problems of Atomic Physics” (1953), one of the founders of quantum mechanics, Heisenberg, wrote: “We now know what the ancient Greeks hoped to find, namely, that there really is only one substance, of which everything that exists consists. If you give this substance a name, then it can be called only "energy".

Topic questions

1. Philosophical doctrine of matter and nature.

2. Universe, life, man.

Main idea

The world is a matter that exists in the unity of all its manifestations and is represented primarily in the form of nature surrounding a person.

1. Philosophical doctrine of matter and nature. The picture (image) of the world and the surrounding nature is formed in philosophy depending on various worldview premises - religious, natural science, idealistic, mythological and others. Because of this, the history of philosophy is a process of the emergence and coexistence of various ideas about the world and human existence in it. Philosophical materialism (“the line of Democritus”), which has a long tradition and deep roots in the culture of society, strives to form a picture of the world from the standpoint of scientific knowledge.

In philosophical materialism, the main concept is matter ("thing", "substance"). It concentrates a long and rich experience of knowing the world around us and man from the standpoint of natural science and common sense, explaining the world by natural causes. According to the supporters of this philosophical direction, the world is a moving matter in various forms of its manifestation. Nature (natural environment) is the most important form of existence of matter, which is directly related to man and society.

The first, visual in their essence, ideas about matter appeared in ancient philosophy in connection with attempts to find some fundamental principle of the world in the form of a specific substance. So, for Thales, water was such a basis, for Heraclitus it was fire, and Democritus found it in mobile atoms. Empedocles simultaneously singled out four elements (“the roots of things”) - water, earth, air and fire. In the teachings of Plato, the material world was considered as the lowest level of being, a "pale shadow" and the objective embodiment of the "world of ideas".

The concept of "matter" first appeared in the works of Aristotle. He understood by it a formless and passive mass, which potentially contains any things. Matter is, as it were, a possible being, its source, and all concrete things arise under the influence of some creative energy (“form”), and this transition of matter to a different state is, according to Aristotle, movement (“kinesis”).

In the philosophy of the Middle Ages, it was believed that the material world was created in a very short time by the will of the almighty Creator. Having created the world, God also established a certain order (hierarchy) in it. Nature (flora and fauna) was considered by philosophers as the lowest step in the hierarchy of the world. In it, they say, there is no soul, no freedom. Such qualities exist only in a person who is created in the image and likeness of God.

In the Renaissance and in the New Age, matter began to be considered as a combination of physical bodies and processes. In particular, I. Newton, who formulated the laws of classical mechanics, played an important role in the knowledge of the material world. N. Copernicus created a heliocentric picture of the world, which radically changed the ideas about the Universe that existed until now. In the French materialism of the 18th century (J. La Mettrie, D. Diderot, and others), it was emphasized that matter was not created by God and exists forever. It is a colossal workshop, which is equipped with all the necessary tools and materials for human work.

At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, a number of major discoveries took place in the natural sciences, on the basis of which the previously established idea of ​​the material world began to change. In the middle of the 19th century, the theory of Charles Darwin was formed, in which the organic relationship in the plant and animal world was revealed. In 1869, the Russian scientist D.I. Mendeleev created the periodic table of chemical elements. Were open chemical element radium (V. Roentgen) and electron, the phenomenon of artificial radioactivity (A. Becquerel). In 1905-1916, A. Einstein developed the special and general theory of relativity, which revealed the unity of motion, space and time. In those years, there were many other major discoveries in natural science that radically changed the picture of the universe.

Thanks to the rapid development of science, the previously dominant mechanistic picture of the world was undermined. It was convincingly shown that the world is not only one, but infinite and diverse in its forms, properties and manifestations. Thus, the horizon of knowledge about matter expanded and was supplemented with new information and facts that changed the previous, “material” ideas about matter. Summarizing this trend in the science of his time, Lenin in 1908 proposed a detailed definition of the concept of matter. In his work “Materialism and Empiriocriticism”, he wrote that matter is “a philosophical category for designating an objective reality that is given to a person in his sensations, which is copied, photographed, displayed by our sensations, existing independently of them.” In short, matter is an objective reality that exists outside and independently of man and humanity. This concept is of fundamental importance for philosophical materialism and natural science.

In the above definition, it is emphasized that matter is the main object of research interest for the “Democritus line”. Lenin singled out, first of all, the main property of matter - the objectivity of existence, i.e. its existence is outside and independent of man and his consciousness. He also pointed to the fundamental cognizability of the surrounding world by man. He emphasized that matter as a reality includes not only known phenomena, but also phenomena that are still unknown to science. The concept of matter characterizes the world as a unity of the manifold and helps to explore its real nature. The material world also includes man as a unique phenomenon of the universe. That is why the Russian philosopher A.F. Losev called for "to understand matter personally, from the point of view of the category of personality", i.e. to include a person in the object of analysis of philosophy, and to perceive matter also from the point of view of its value (axiological) value. Matter, nature, life - all these phenomena are of permanent importance for human existence. With the help of the concept of matter, scientific ideas about the world are formed, data from private sciences are generalized, polemics are conducted with philosophical idealism and religious worldview, and agnosticism (the philosophical doctrine of the unknowability of the world) is refuted. This concept thus performs an ideological function and is directly related to the formation of a philosophical and scientific picture of the world.

The significance of this concept also lies in the fact that it focuses on a strictly defined (materialistic, natural-science) approach to the knowledge and explanation of this world, identifying the true place and role of man in it. The doctrine of matter also makes it possible to resolve the issue of the basis (substance) and causes of all forms of being, to distinguish between the subject matter of philosophy and particular sciences. This concept contains the basic ideological premises and initial principles of the “Democritus line”.

Whenever scientific philosophy talks about matter, it certainly implies nature as its most important component. In the broad sense of the word, nature is a non-social, "wild" world, not created by man. Sometimes it is understood as the whole cosmos, the Universe. Sometimes - that part of the material world that directly surrounds a person and with which he comes into contact and practically interacts. In any case, one cannot imagine matter without nature, but nature must also be considered not in itself, but taking into account its inclusion in the general structure of the material world. Nature is a phenomenon of life. Nature is also man as the crown of its thousand-year evolution. The theme of nature is traditional, multifaceted and inexhaustible for philosophy and science.

Structure and properties of matter. When it comes to the structure of matter, science usually distinguishes two of its types - matter and field, which are closely interconnected. The substance is discrete (internally divided) and structured, has a rest mass and is dispersed in space. The forms of matter are diverse - atoms and molecules, gases, liquid and solid bodies, polymers, proteins, viruses, living organisms, macro-bodies. Unlike matter, the field is a complex electromagnetic formation, which consists of quanta ("portions"). They have no rest mass and are uniformly distributed in space. The field also exists in various types- gravitational, electromagnetic, biological, etc. A special (energetically lowest) state of the field is vacuum, in which there are no particles. Sometimes scientists express an opinion about the existence of an "information-energy" field, which allegedly has a tremendous propagation speed and determines the development of the Universe according to the original program.

Substance and field interpenetrate and complement each other. Their synthesis is, for example, plasma as a special state of matter. It consists, in particular, of celestial bodies such as the Sun. Close interaction between matter and field exists at the level of elementary particles in the microcosm. In fact, the material world is a unity of opposites - discontinuous and continuous, finite and infinite. The existence of matter and field testifies precisely to this.

Matter has a number of universal (universal) properties, or attributes. First of all, as noted above, it is characterized by the objectivity of existence, i.e. being outside and independent of man and humanity. Science, unlike religion, claims that this world was not created by anyone, it was, is and will exist without us. Even in ancient philosophy, Heraclitus expressed the idea that this cosmos "... was not created by any of the gods and by any of the people, but it has always been, is and will be an eternally living fire, igniting in full measure and quenching in full measure".

Philosophy and science emphasize the inexhaustibility of the material world, which means a huge variety of its aspects, properties, phenomena and states. In this regard, at the beginning of the 20th century, V.I. Lenin noticed that although the electron discovered by science turned out to be as inexhaustible as the atom, the human mind will eventually make even more discoveries and thereby increase the power of man over the surrounding nature. The growth of knowledge feeds the inexhaustible hope of man to find creatures like himself in the Universe. ON THE. Zabolotsky said about this in the language of poetry: “Once again, a dream torments me, / That somewhere out there, in another corner of the Universe, / The same garden and the same darkness, / And the same stars in imperishable beauty.”

Such a property of matter as infinity implies eternal incompleteness, incompleteness of processes and states in it. The material world has no beginning and no end. In it there is only unceasing development, change of forms and states 1 . In this regard, we can say that human life is just a small moment in the history of the boundless Cosmos, a fragile link in an endless chain of transformations of matter. Man is a creature lost in the "deaf corner of the Universe", B. Pascal lamented. In the vast expanses of space and time, we are nothing, the French scientist emphasized.

Matter is also characterized by integrity and structure. Being relatively independent, all fragments and aspects of the world are directly or through intermediate links connected with each other - nature and society, the individual and the social group. Etc. etc.

Among the universal properties of matter is reflection, which is the ability of objects to reproduce (copy) in interaction the external features and internal content of other objects, to retain these imprints (“copies”). The forms of manifestation of reflection (irritability, psyche, etc.) are as diverse as the material world itself.

A special property of matter is movement, which expresses the ability of objects to change and move into a different state. According to Engels, movement as applied to the material world is change in general. It is not just a property: it is the root way of existence of all things of the material world without exception.

The opposite of movement is rest as a state of temporary balance, stability and immutability of things. It is always relative, since there are no things that do not have movement. Peace is fleeting and brief, it is constantly destroyed by the power of the inexorable and ruthless ("deadly", in the words of N.A. Berdyaev) movement. Movement is eternal, and rest is temporary - this is the formula of their relationship.

The motion of matter exists in different forms (kinds), which are specific types of interactions and changes. Until the 19th century, the whole variety of forms of movement was reduced by philosophy mainly to mechanical processes. In this view, mechanism was manifested as a concrete historical type of philosophical worldview, the initial principle of explaining the world and man in it. But major discoveries in the science of the 19th century (the theory of cellular structure, evolutionary doctrine, etc.) destroyed this simplified and schematic picture of the universe. Taking this into account, Engels in his "Dialectics of Nature" proposed a more perfect classification of the forms of motion of matter. They are allocated to them taking into account their specific material (material) carrier. Let us name these forms and briefly characterize them.

Mechanical movement is the movement of bodies in space along a certain trajectory, or "change of place", as defined by G. Hegel. In this case, the carriers of motion (falling of a stone, oscillation of a clock's pendulum, flight of a satellite, etc.) are specific material objects.

Physical movement is associated with such natural phenomena as heat, light, electricity and magnetism, gravity. There is no longer a clear trajectory of movement, and sometimes it is even chaotic (for example, Brownian, the movement of gas molecules).

Chemical motion absorbs the interactions of atoms, which gives rise to even more complex substances in the course of reactions. As the simplest chemical reaction, Engels called the formation of ozone in the atmosphere during a thunderstorm. Science believes that once within the framework of chemical processes on our planet, the phenomenon of life originated.

A special place in the universe is occupied by biological movement - the existence and development of living organisms, flora and fauna. (Currently, there are more than 500 thousand plant species and about 1.5 million animal species on Earth.) The carrier of life processes is protein, which has a complex molecular structure. According to Engels's laconic definition, life is "the mode of existence of protein bodies." Thanks to life, the tendency to self-preservation nevertheless prevails over the tendency to decay, and therefore our planet is not dominated by the destructive element of Chaos.

The social movement, which incorporates the entire set of phenomena and processes occurring within the framework of social life, has a great specificity. The “author” and bearer of the social movement is man, as a thinking and active being. The most complex manifestation of social movement is the process of human thinking as a stream of thoughts and ideas, the activity of the cognizing mind.

The classification of the forms of motion of matter proposed by Engels captures the most important areas of the material world and the processes taking place in it. But it has limited cognitive capabilities for understanding this world, because in the 20th century a rich array of scientific knowledge was accumulated. At present, science has singled out and is studying geological, geographical, cosmological and other forms of motion. Of course, the search for new forms of movement by science will continue further. In this regard, we can propose a new classification of the forms of motion of matter:

"world of the nucleus" (particles and antiparticles) - the so-called "nuclear" forms of movement of the material world;

"the world of electromagnetism" - intraatomic and molecular processes;

"world of gravitation" (plasma, planetary substance), including gravitational forms of matter motion;

the "world of life", which unites biogenetic, population, organismal and other processes on our planet;

"the world of human society" as a close unity of the material and spiritual, a system of people's activities and relations between them.

Obviously, in this classification, the forms of motion are distinguished taking into account the level of organization of matter, its gradual complication. For convenience, it is possible to single out forms of movement in inanimate and living nature, in social life. As for man, he is a most complex system that synthesizes and carries within itself the most diverse forms of the movement of matter.

In addition to the above-mentioned universal (universal) properties of matter, such characteristics as space and time are also inherent. These are forms of the existence of matter, which cannot move otherwise than in space and time. Man himself also resides in these forms of the material world. By the will of fate, he is immersed in them and exists in the endless expanses of space and the inexorable flow of time, which are the "limits of human life", in the words of the SP. Chaadaev. Every person lives here (in space) and now (in time).

Philosophy understands space as the mutual arrangement of things and processes next to each other, their length and a certain order of interconnection. It is, as it were, the coexistence (“near-existence”) of the things of the world. The elements of space are point, volume, length, distance, etc. It is customary to single out, first of all, such properties of space as extension, three-dimensionality (length, width and height), isotropy (equality of all three of its dimensions), reversibility (the ability to move an object and a person to any point in space).

The history of man's existence convinces him that he is capable of gaining practical power over space. Thanks to knowledge, technology and hard work, this power is constantly growing. This is especially evident in the example of the active development of the earth's interior, the expanses and depths of the World Ocean, and outer space that is taking place in our time. After all, the world always does not satisfy a person, and a person seeks to transform it by his actions. Writer P.L. Proskurin once remarked that nature intended man to master wide spaces. But as a result, a sharp and ineradicable contradiction arose between an active person and the surrounding world, between man and nature.

In the 20th century, this contradiction manifested itself in very dangerous forms, gave rise to a global ecological crisis, which called into question the very further existence of mankind.

By time, philosophy understands the duration of the existence of things and processes, the sequence of changes in their states. In its reality, it is an inexhaustible stream of events, or, in the words of Plato, "a moving image of eternity." Different material systems have their own time and its specific characteristics. We can talk about physical and biological, cosmic, social time. Sometimes philosophers single out "existential" time, referring to the complex flow of feelings and emotions, human experiences, and other mental states.

It is generally accepted that time has three dimensions - the present (current events), the past (frozen events) and the future (future events). Moreover, events in different material systems occur at a different pace. Time flows most quickly and densely in society, which is associated with the high activity of a person, the variety of forms of his spiritual and practical activity and the steady expansion of its scale. Time flows only in one direction - from the past through the present to the future, and this vector is unchanged, irreversible. So far, no one has been able to turn their lives back and live it in a new way. This can only be done mentally, turning to a bold fantasy.

The Arrow of Time is the almighty and ruthless destroyer of all things. But time is to the same extent the creator of everything new, emerging. Temporal means perishable, dying and passing away. On the contrary, the eternal is lasting, imperishable and immortal. Time moves the world in the direction of both life and death, directly affecting the fate of a person, his past, present and future. Human life is always tragic under the rule of "deadly" time, and we are all its captives. They say that every hour of time hurts, and the last one even kills. Only continuous creativity helps a person overcome death, preserve himself in the memory of grateful descendants and join eternity. The biological life of a person is finite, and therefore many still prefer not to “think about seconds down”.

Realizing their temporality, they think about the content and purpose of their lives, about the meaning of their existence in this world.

The concepts of space and time also apply to the study of social life. From the point of view of philosophy, social space is created by people and represents a set of social institutions, processes and relations, cultural objects that are concentrated within a specific period of social time (a specific era, period of history). By and large, social space and social time are the entire world history of Man as the arena of his spiritual and practical activity and its substantive incarnations. Social space, being a humanized Universe, always bears the stamp of its time, era. It is easy to verify this by comparing, for example, the city of ancient times and the modern city, the social distance between the slave and the master in ancient society and the relationship between citizens in the civilized countries of our time. Social time is indomitably directed to the future, it is becoming more dynamic and full of various events. It is not surprising that under the influence of scientific and technological progress, modern society rushes forward, resembling a flaming comet in the vast expanses of the Universe.

In the history of philosophy and culture, in folklore, time has always been recognized as a great value. It was believed that it is filled with human content and therefore is an object of emotional perception and rational understanding 1 . Philosophy emphasizes that time is not only certain limits of human life, but also his life itself. Being full of events and lively communication of people, it is the "space of human development" (K. Marx). But, alas, time is not subject to man. It is not surprising that people dreamed of the so-called "time machine", with which you can gain power over him. W. Shakespeare expressed the dream about this as follows: “Do not boast, time, of power over me!” However, time inexorably flows, leaves, and therefore it is something priceless. That is why, in the words of the poet S.L. Marshak, “... while we have a particle of time in our hands, /

Let her work for us!” But for this it is absolutely necessary that the soul of man should work tirelessly day and night. Philosophy and folk wisdom remind a person: hurry to live, because “the clock is ticking, the days are running, the years are flying”, and if sometimes “you miss a day, you won’t make up for a year”, “time is an hour of fun”, right?

In philosophical materialism, the question of the material unity of the world is also very important. For the first time it was identified and solved in ancient philosophy (Heraclitus, Democritus, etc.). In essence, this problem means the following.

The world around a person is material (substantial) by its nature. All its phenomena and processes ultimately have a single material basis, or substance. The world is one (holistic), unique and dynamic. All its spheres are organically interconnected, intertwined. It is diverse, “multicolored” in its manifestations, and this gives it harmony and beauty. The material world has the same general (universal) properties and uniform laws of existence. Science shows and proves that all this is really, really, and is not a game of our ardent imagination. The world is the Universe, a single anthropo-socio-natural whole.

The idea of ​​the material unity of the world is substantiated, firstly, by the sciences of inorganic nature - physics, astronomy, chemistry, etc. The DM theories play a particularly important role in this. Mendeleev, A. Einstein, I. Newton and other scientists. Secondly, the sciences of organic nature - biology, genetics, anatomy, etc. A great contribution to this was made by the teachings of Ch. Darwin, A.I. Oparin, G. Mendel. This idea is also proved by the sciences of man and society as unique phenomena of the Universe. First of all, we are talking about such areas of scientific knowledge as history and ethnography, sociology, and ecology. F. Engels correctly noted that the unity of the material world "... is proved not by a couple of magic phrases, but by a long and difficult development of philosophy and natural science", by all the many-sided spiritual and practical experience of mankind.

In philosophical idealism and religion there is also the idea of ​​the unity of the world, its integrity and harmony. However, it is comprehended from opposite worldview positions: here the unity of the world is considered from the point of view of its spiritual conditionality. The solution to this problem is given, for example, in the work of G. Hegel, where the world is perceived as something integral and permeated with a spiritual principle (“world mind”). In Russian religious philosophy, the concept of unity was developed, which expresses the organic integrity of world existence. The most detailed doctrine of unity was developed by B.C. Solovyov, who sought to reveal the spiritual basis of the unity of the diverse in the universe and found this basis in a certain World Soul, or Sophia, Philosophy and science of our time consider the Universe as a self-organizing Universe, where coexistence and interaction of living and non-living things take place. Both linear and non-linear processes (chaos, pulsations, vortices, waves, etc.) take place in the world. Synergetics, a branch of scientific knowledge that studies the self-organization of complex material systems, sets a new perspective on the worldview (I.R. Prigozhy). Synergetics believes that Chaos plays a “constructive” role in complex systems, which potentially contains many options for subsequent development. This science emphasizes that the development of the world is predictable to the same extent as it is unpredictable, unexpected for a person. Development is a non-linear process in which chance plays an important role, so it can proceed in different directions. That is why the material world should be considered as a unity of order and disorder, harmony and disharmony.

2. Universe, life, man. Scientific Solution The problem of the origin of the world, life and man is not an easy task, since these processes cannot be reproduced experimentally. And we are talking about events that took place many millions and even billions of years ago.

In the 20th century, the American astronomer E. Hubble put forward the concept of the "Big Bang" in the Universe. The scientist suggested that about 15-20 billion years ago, the expansion of the Universe from the superdense state of matter began to occur. Time began, then the first atoms and molecules appeared, and later chemical compounds. The universe expanded more and more, the temperature dropped, and gradually the prerequisites for the appearance of the simplest forms of life were formed on Earth (about 5 billion years ago). The atmosphere began to form, and as a result of biochemical evolution, organic compounds appeared. A protein was formed - the carrier of life, a cell was born as the simplest structure of life. There was a natural selection of all living things, which eventually led to the appearance of man.

In 1924, the Russian scientist A.L. Oparin in his book "The Origin of Life" formulated the natural scientific concept of the origin of life. Oparin believed that before the appearance of life on Earth, there was a long (3-5 billion years) period of chemical evolution, during which complex organic substances and protocells appeared. This led to biochemical evolution, during which complex organic compounds began to form in the oceans, which gave rise to life.

Life appeared on Earth, it has not yet been discovered on other planets. By chance or naturally, it was on our planet that all the necessary prerequisites for the emergence of Man and his further existence were formed ( optimal composition atmosphere, water temperature, gravity, etc.). This amazing circumstance gave scientists a reason to formulate the "anthropic principle", which states that the Universe is allegedly arranged "under" and "for" man. Indeed, how could a person arise and exist if the Universe were not so “human”?

Philosophy considers man as a unique (within the known world) living being. Questions about the essence and nature of man, the meaning and purpose of his life are the most difficult worldview problems. The question of the origin of man is also of great importance. In his decision, the most common are the following ideological positions.

The natural science approach is based on the assumption that man is a consequence, the result of a long evolution of living matter on planet Earth. It did not appear by chance, becoming the "highest color" of wildlife. Man is the result of earthly causes, and not at all some kind of “spark” in the Universe. Science proves that the main factors in its formation as a specific living being were natural selection, bipedalism, brain development, labor and speech. The habit of working, i.e. to make and use special tools for processing nature, helped a person to survive and thereby consolidate one of the branches in the evolution of living beings on our planet. The anthropoid ape (Australopithecine) eventually turned into a skilled man. The scientific theory of anthropogenesis claims that man in his modern form was formed about 40-50 thousand years ago. In general, the history of man as a species has about 2-3 million years. Appearing first in Central Africa, it then spread to all continents. (For comparison, note that the age of the Earth is approximately 4.5-5 billion years.)

Within the framework of the natural science approach, the domestic scientist, academician N.N. Moiseev developed the concept of the so-called "universal evolutionism". The origins of this theory go back to the works of Russian cosmist thinkers N.F. Fedorov and V.I. Vernadsky. Moiseev considers the phenomenon of man as the result of the intersection of a combination of terrestrial and cosmic factors. In the face of man, matter for the first time acquired the ability to realize itself and put its development under the control of knowledge. The emergence of life and man was the largest revolution in the known science of the history of the universe. Reason appeared, and the development of the world (within the Earth) began to bear a conscious character. The Brain has developed and improved as a carrier of human mental abilities. Will was formed, i.e. the ability to intervene in the course of events and direct their course. Evolution also gave rise to Memory - a mechanism for storing information and experience, their accumulation and transmission. Thanks to all this, the spiritual world of man was formed as the thinnest fabric of the social organism, the source of the creation of a fundamentally new, human world - the world of culture.

In the subsequent evolution of man, two opposite tendencies emerged. The first is to increase the degree of his freedom on the basis of knowledge about the world around him and about himself, the improvement of the tools of labor and culture. The second - to the growth of unfreedom due to the complication man-made the so-called "second nature" (artificial environment in its various forms), as well as the eternal dependence on the "first" nature as a natural condition for its existence.

Unlike science in mythology and religion, other answers are given to the question of the origin of man. So, ancient Greek myths believe that in the beginning there was only eternal, boundless and dark Chaos. In it, in a folded form, were all the sources of the life of the world. From Chaos everything appeared - the whole world and the immortal gods. From it came the goddess of the Earth - Gaia. Dark Tartarus was born under the Earth - an abyss full of darkness. Love was also born as a mighty and all-revitalizing force. This is how the World began to be created with all its components - Night and Day, Mountains and Sky, Ocean, Sun, etc. Numerous gods appeared as omnipotent and immortal beings, and the whole emerging world became the arena of their activity and rivalry. The gods are supermen, although endowed with ordinary human qualities. The first people were created by the gods, at first they lived without worries, hard work and sorrows. That was the first - "golden" - age of mankind. Then it was replaced by the "silver", "copper" and "iron" ages. This is how the history of the human race began to develop from the point of view of ancient mythology.

The main written source of the Christian religion - the Bible - states that on the fifth and sixth days of creation ("creation") of the world, God created the entire animal world of the planet. On the sixth day, a man appeared, created in the image and likeness of God in the form of the first man Adam and the first woman Eve. It was a grandiose event, because with the advent of Homo sapiens (“homo sapiens”), the path of creation and the highest ascent opened up before life. However, having tasted the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, the first parents of people committed a great sin, for which they were expelled by God from paradise. The history of mankind began, and all the people in it fell into two large groups - the righteous and sinners.

In the folklore of the peoples of the world, one can find naive versions of the origin of man. For example, the Eskimos believe that man was molded from the earth and spread around the world with the help of birds. Some believe that man was created from stone or from clay - red, white, brown. Such naive ideas are based, as a rule, on ancient myths and are not supported by science. All myths have one thing in common - the idea of ​​some external force that allegedly created man.

In the 20th century, the French scientist and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin created the concept of the so-called "evolutionary finalism". It was an attempt to combine and, as it were, reconcile science and religion, reason and mysticism in solving the problem of the origin of the world and man. According to Teilhard, the history of the world is the history of its constant complication and ascent to Consciousness. In the course of this, a certain unified line of development of the world, the "space highway" was formed. Within its framework, the foundations of life and elements of consciousness were formed, a certain Spirit of the Earth arose. The man who appeared on this basis strives in the course of evolution to achieve the final state of the world, which Teilhard called the “Omega point”. She will become, according to the philosopher, the completion of evolution, the beginning of universal unification and world harmony under the life-giving influence of love. Here all fragments of the world will find each other and unite in harmony. The Omega Point is the future of the world and humanity, the highest pole of evolution. It will achieve reconciliation of all individuals and peoples, parts and the whole. Everything that exists will merge on the basis of love. According to the Russian preacher A. Menya, Teilhardism as a doctrine of the origin and place of man in the universe can be called "optimistic finalism." The Omega Point is a “bright end”, a kind of kingdom where God will dwell in everything.

Close to Teilhardism are the ideas of the Russian artist and philosopher N.K. Roerich. What is man in the universe? Man, in the view of the thinker, is the point at which a kind of docking of the Earth with the Cosmos takes place, where the earthly world comes into contact with the higher consciousness. As a universal being, man has an almost inexhaustible potential of cosmic energy, which has not yet been fully discovered and mastered by him. This energy gives him a high spirituality, gives strength to fight the Evil and Darkness of the world.

So who is a person in this world - an accomplice in the creation of the world or a passive contemplator of what is happening? Where is his place in the universe - in the center or on the sidelines? What is man called to do - to destroy or to create and improve the world? We will answer these and similar questions as we present the course of philosophy. Here we only note that a person is the smallest “atom”, wandering, according to B. Pascal, in the “abyss of infinity”. Of course, it is not given to him to comprehend the infinite, but the ability to think gives a person strength, faith and hope.

Output. From the point of view of scientific philosophy, the world is a moving matter, taken in the unity of all properties and forms of manifestation. An inseparable part of the material world, the crown of its evolution is man as a unique phenomenon of living nature. The origin of the Universe, life and man are very important worldview issues that traditionally arouse interest among philosophy and philosophers.

test questions

What was meant by matter in ancient philosophy?

In ancient philosophy, matter is understood as the primary substance from which all things arise and into which all things turn. The Latin word matter means substance, material.

primary substance: Thales - water, Anaximenes - air, Anaxemadrus - an indefinite, but further indivisible substance - apeiron, Heraclitus - fire.

According to the ancient atomists (Epicritus, Apekura), everything that exists in the world consists of the smallest indivisible particles and emptiness. The hypothesis of the ancient atomists anticipated the natural-scientific concept of matter and it explained the infinite diversity of the world from a single material principle. The beginning of the atomic picture of the world was laid in the 4th century BC. and in the flesh until the end of the 19th century, this picture of the world was based on the understanding of matter as matter. The building block of matter is the atom. The atom has eternal and unchanging properties: extension, impenetrability, constancy of mass, heaviness, displacement.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, a revolution took place in the understanding of matter. He was associated with a number of discoveries in physics.

One of these discoveries was the discovery of the electron (1897), the continuation of research on the electron showed that its mass is not constant, it depends on the speed of movement. Those. With this discovery, the idea of ​​one immutable property of matter, the constancy of mass, collapsed. The electron began to be considered not as a material particle, but as a bunch of electricity - energy.

Another discovery is radioactivity. Scientists Roentgen and Becquerel independently discovered rays that penetrate non-transparent objects. Soon the Curies discovered radium, a substance that spontaneously emits special rays. This phenomenon is generally called radioactivity. This discovery undermined the immutable property of matter - impenetrability. In this property, some physicists saw the collapse of the principle of conservation of matter.

All these discoveries at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, according to Poincaré, were the collapse of matter.

Many scientists have come to deny matter. Matter disappeared, only energy remained. Scientists come to the conclusion that the basis of the world is energy.

The crisis of physics in the 19th and 20th centuries is not associated with the disappearance of matter, but with a mechanistic picture of the world, a metaphysical approach to explaining various phenomena of the world.

From the point of view of the idealistic approach, the philosophical concept of matter cannot be reduced to the idea of ​​its structures and its properties. These ideas have changed and will continue to change along with the development of science.

Matter is an objective reality that exists independently of human consciousness and is reflected by it. (Philosophical definition).

In this definition, matter is not identified with any of its specific state (air, water, etc.), is not identified with its understanding as a substance, this understanding is not associated with an understanding of the immutable properties of matter. This is a broad philosophical concept that covers the entire objective reality.

In the anthological sense, matter is the only substance that is the cause of itself. Matter is uncreated and indestructible. It is eternal in time and infinite in space. It has a systemic character, is capable of self-organization and has a number of attributive characteristics. Such as movement, space, time.

Movement as a way of existence of matter.

The doctrine of motion has been developed throughout the history of philosophy.

Heraclitus is the founder of ancient dialectics. Known as the first spontaneous dialectician.

Movement exists in different forms, but at various stages of the development of science and philosophy, there were theories that absolutized some forms of movement and ignored others.

1) The theory of circulation - all changes in the world come down to the passage of the same stages and end with a return to the starting point. Pythagarians: every 760 thousand years everything in the world returns to its original state

A number of natural scientists (Galileo, Newton, Laplace, Gobs) are characterized by the reduction of all forms of movement in the world to mechanical movement and the transfer of the laws of mechanical movement to other forms of movement, without taking into account their specifics. This position is characteristic of mechanistic materialism. He relied on the development of mechanics.

Mechanism is the reduction of higher, more complex forms of movement to lower ones, as well as the explanation of higher forms based on the laws of the lower ones.

The French materialists of the 18th century developed the concept of the attribution of movement. The attribution of motion - motion is an internal, inalienable, necessary property of matter, a way of being of matter.

At the end of the 19th century, on the basis of discoveries in the field of physics, a special direction appeared - energyism. Supporters of energitism tried to substantiate the movement in isolation from matter, in other words, they tried to deprive the movement of its carrier.