Father of idealism. Idealism in philosophy is a spiritual principle

The most important philosophical problem is the question of primacy: from what substance - material or ideal - did the world emerge? In answering this question, already in ancient philosophy two opposite directions arose, one of which reduced the beginning of the world to a material substance, the other to an ideal one. Later, in the history of philosophy, these trends received the names “materialism” and “idealism,” and the question of the primacy of material or ideal substance was called the “fundamental question of philosophy.”

Materialism is philosophical direction, whose representatives believe that matter is primary and consciousness is secondary.

Idealism is a philosophical movement whose representatives believe that consciousness is primary and matter is secondary.

Materialists argue that consciousness is a reflection of the material world, and idealists argue that the material world is a reflection of the world of ideas.

A number of philosophers believe that the origin of the world cannot be reduced to one of two substances. These philosophers are called dualists (from the Latin duo - two), because they assert the equality of two principles - both material and ideal.

In contrast to dualism, the position of recognizing the primacy of one of two substances - material or ideal - is called philosophical monism (from the Greek monos - one).

The classical dualistic system was created by the French philosopher Rene Descartes. The philosophy of Aristotle and Bertrand Russell is often referred to as dualism. Monistic teachings are, for example, the idealistic systems of Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Hegel, the materialist philosophy of Epicurus, Holbach, and Marx.

Materialism is the oldest philosophical movement. Aristotle, considering the early philosophical teachings, says that the oldest of them considered matter to be the beginning of all things: “Of those who were the first to take up philosophy, the majority considered the beginning of all things to be only the beginning in the form of matter: that from which all things are composed, from what first they arise and into what they are ultimately destroyed.”

Early materialist philosophers reduced the beginning of things to some material element - water, fire, air, etc. The most prominent materialist theory of early antiquity was the atomic theory of Democritus (c. 460 - c. 370 BC). Democritus developed the idea of ​​the smallest indivisible particles of matter as the fundamental principle of the world, which he called atoms (from the Greek atomos - indivisible). Atoms, according to the theory of Democritus, are in constant motion, which is why all phenomena and processes in nature arise. It is impossible to see atoms (or to comprehend them in any other sensory way), but their existence can be realized with the mind.

In the era of the Athenian classics (IV - III centuries BC), materialism began to gradually lose its influence, almost completely giving way to idealism as the dominant direction of philosophy in the era of late Hellenism (II - III centuries AD), as well as in middle Ages.

The revival of materialism occurs in modern times, along with the revival of natural science. The rise of materialism comes with the Age of Enlightenment. The largest enlightenment materialists created, on the basis of the scientific discoveries of their time, a new doctrine of matter not only as the primary, but also as the only existing substance.

Thus, Holbach, to whom the classical definition of matter belongs, reduced everything that exists in the Universe to matter: “The Universe, this colossal combination of everything that exists, everywhere shows us only matter and movement. Its totality reveals to us only an immense and continuous chain of causes and effects.”

Consciousness was also considered by the materialists of the Enlightenment as a unique manifestation of material forces. The educational philosopher La Mettrie (1709 - 1751), a doctor by training, wrote the treatise “Man-Machine”, in which he described the materialistic essence of human nature, including consciousness.

“In the entire Universe there is only one substance (matter - Author), which changes in various ways,” La Mettrie wrote. “...Soul is a term devoid of content, behind which there is no specific idea and which the mind can only use to designate that part of our body that thinks."

In the 19th century In German materialist philosophy, a direction developed that was called “vulgar materialism.” Philosophers of this direction K. Vogt (1817 - 1895), L. Buchner (1824 - 1899) and others, relying on the achievements of the natural sciences, especially biology and chemistry, absolutized matter, asserting its eternity and immutability. “Matter, as such, is immortal, indestructible,” wrote Buchner. “Not a single speck of dust can disappear without a trace in the Universe and not a single speck of dust can increase the total mass of matter. Great are the merits of chemistry, which has proven to us... that continuous change and the transformation of things is nothing more than a constant and continuous circulation of the same basic substances, the total quantity and structure of which has always remained and remains unchanged." Absolutizing matter, vulgar materialists also identified consciousness with one of its forms - the human brain.

An opponent of vulgar materialism was dialectical materialism (Marxism), which considers consciousness not a form of existence of matter, but a property of one of its types. According to dialectical materialism, matter is not an eternal and unchanging substance. On the contrary, it is constantly changing, constantly being in a state of development. Developing, matter reaches a stage in its evolution at which it acquires the ability to think - to reflect the world. Consciousness, according to Marxist definition, is a property of highly organized matter, which consists in the ability to reflect the surrounding world. In contrast to vulgar materialism, which identified the highest form of development of matter with the human brain, Marxism considered human society to be the highest form of development of matter.

Idealism believes that the primary substance is spirit. Various idealistic teachings defined this first cause of the world in different ways: some called it God, others - the Divine Logos, others - the Absolute Idea, others - the world soul, others - man, etc. The whole variety of idealistic concepts comes down to two main varieties of idealism. Idealism can be objective and subjective.

Objective idealism is an idealistic movement whose representatives believe that the world exists outside of human consciousness and independent of human consciousness. The fundamental basis of existence, in their opinion, is the objective consciousness that exists before man and is independent of man, the so-called “Absolute Spirit”, “world mind”, “idea”, God, etc.

Historically, the first objective-idealistic philosophical system was the philosophy of Plato. According to Plato, the world of ideas is primary in relation to the world of things. Initially, it is not things that exist, but ideas (prototypes) of all things - perfect, eternal and unchanging. Incarnating in the material world, they lose their perfection and constancy, becoming transient, finite, mortal. The material world is an imperfect imitation of the ideal world. Plato's philosophy had the strongest influence on the further development of objective-idealistic theory. In particular, it has become one of the most important sources of Christian philosophy.

The most fundamental objective-idealistic system is religious philosophy, which asserts that the world was created by God out of nothing. It is God, as the highest ideal substance, who creates the entire existing world. The systematizer of medieval scholasticism, Thomas Aquinas, wrote: “We posit God as the first principle, not in the material sense, but in the sense of the productive cause.”

The religious form of idealism in philosophy was preserved in subsequent eras. Many major idealist philosophers of the New Age, explaining the root causes of the world, ultimately came to the need to recognize the existence of God as the “prime cause of the first causes.” So, for example, mechanical philosophers of the 17th-18th centuries, who absolutized mechanical movement, were forced to admit that there must have been a force that gave the primary impulse, the “first push” to the world movement, and this force is none other than God.

The largest objective-idealistic system of modern times was the philosophy of Hegel. What was called “God” in religious idealism was called the “Absolute Idea” in Hegel’s system. The absolute idea in Hegel's teaching is the creator of the rest of the world - nature, man, all particular ideal objects (concepts, thoughts, images, etc.).

According to Hegel, the Absolute Idea, in order to know itself, is first embodied in the world of logical categories - in the world of concepts and words, then in its material “other being” - nature, and, finally, in order to see itself even more accurately from the outside, the Absolute Idea creates man and human society. A person, cognizing the world around him, creates a new ideal world, a world of objectified ideal (ideal created by specific people, but independent of them), a world of spiritual culture. In this objectified ideal, in particular in philosophy, the Absolute Idea, as it were, meets itself, is aware of itself, is identified with itself.

Subjective idealism is an idealistic movement whose representatives believe that the world exists depending on human consciousness, and, possibly, only in human consciousness. According to subjective idealism, we ourselves create the world around us in our consciousness.

Representatives of this direction argue that the world always appears to a person in the form of his subjective perceptions of this world. What lies behind these perceptions is impossible to know in principle, therefore it is impossible to reliably assert anything about the objective world.

The classical theory of subjective idealism was created by English thinkers of the 18th century. George Berkeley (1685-1753) and David Hume (1711-1776). Berkeley argued that all things are nothing more than complexes of our perceptions of these things. For example, an apple, according to Berkeley, acts for us as a total sensation of its color, taste, smell, etc. “To exist,” according to Berkeley, means “to be perceived.”

“Everyone will agree that neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination exist outside our soul. And for me it is no less obvious that the various sensations or ideas captured in sensuality, no matter how mixed or combined they are neither were among themselves (i.e., no matter what objects they formed), they cannot exist otherwise than in the spirit that perceives them,” Berkeley wrote in his treatise “On the Principles of Human Knowledge.”

Hume in his theory emphasized the fundamental impossibility of proving the existence of something external to consciousness, i.e. objective world, because There are always sensations between the world and man. He argued that into the external existence of any thing, i.e. one can only believe in its existence before and after its perception by the subject. “The imperfections and narrow limits of human knowledge do not allow us to verify this.”

The classics of subjective idealism did not deny the possibility of the actual existence of a world external to human consciousness; they only emphasized the fundamental unknowability of this existence: between a person and the objective world, if one exists, there are always his subjective perceptions of this world.

An extreme version of subjective idealism, called solipsism (from the Latin solus - one and ipse - itself), believes that the external world is only a creation of human consciousness. According to solipsism, only one human mind really exists, and the entire external world, including other people, exists only in this single consciousness.

Idealism (novolat.) is a philosophical term. It is necessary to distinguish, first of all, between practical and theoretical idealism. Practical or ethical idealism denotes the distinctive direction and flavor of the entire mental life and activity of a person guided by ideals. An idealist applies his ideals to reality; he asks not what things are, but what they should be. The existing rarely satisfies him; he strives for better, more wonderful world, corresponding to his concept of perfection, and in which he already lives mentally. This is not dreamy idealism (idealism in the worst sense), which imagines a fantastic ideal world without asking the question whether it is within the realm of possibility, whether it is consistent with the nature of things and man. Such idealism leads either to pessimism and idle dreams, or to the death of the individual in the struggle with reality.

Theoretical idealism can be either epistemological or metaphysical. The first consists in the assertion that our knowledge never deals directly with the things themselves, but only with our ideas. It was substantiated by Descartes, who made the starting point of his philosophy the question of whether we have the right to assume that objects correspond to our ideas, and at the same time a preliminary doubt about the reality of these latter (skeptical idealism). The systems of Spinoza and Leibniz also belong to the idealist ones, but their doubt is nothing more than a transitional stage, since on the basis of the truthfulness of God, as the culprit of our ideas, according to the teachings of Descartes, or the “pre-established harmony” that Leibniz allows, we have the right to assume real external things corresponding to our ideas. However, under the influence of Locke, Berkeley and Hume went even further: the first recognized only the reality of God (as the culprit of our ideas) and other spirits, but disputed the reality of external things, and the latter - in general, any real being outside of ideas (subjective idealism). Finally, Kant tried, with his critical or transcendental idealism, to pave a middle path, since although he argued that space and time are only forms of our sensibility, and things are only phenomena that are conditioned by these forms and cannot be represented apart from the sentient subject, but At the same time, he recognized the undoubted empirical reality of “things in themselves”, outside individual personality, which itself is only a phenomenon in the transcendental sense. It remains doubtful for him whether things in themselves (transcendental objects), inaccessible to our knowledge, generally correspond to phenomena (empirical objects), or whether the concept of the latter is completely meaningless. Epistemological idealism is confirmed by modern physiology and psychology, which teach that the representation of the spatial external world arises in the soul and that subjective factors play a significant role in this.

Metaphysical ( objective) idealism teaches that truly existing lies not in dead matter and blind natural forces, but in spiritual principles (“ideas”): material nature is only a form in which ideal spiritual content is minted, just as piece of art– only a means for realizing an artistic idea. Metaphysical idealism, therefore, gives preference to the ideal over the sensually real; causal explanation subordinates teleological, and the research private recognizes substances and forces as the lowest level of knowledge of nature, completed only by penetration into general"plan" and "purpose" of creation. This doctrine was substantiated in antiquity by Plato and further developed by the Neoplatonists. In modern times, Kant restored it again, and then Fichte, Schelling and Hegel created brilliant idealistic systems, turning Kant's epistemological idealism into metaphysical one. If Kant argued that external things are only appearances for the subject, then Fichte taught that they are entirely determined Through the medium of the I I understood the world process as the gradual implementation of moral ideas. Schelling expanded this concept of the Self into the concept of universal creative activity, through which the Self and all individual beings receive reality, which forms nature and spiritual life, depending on whether it is conscious or unconscious of itself (objective idealism). Finally, Hegel moved to absolute idealism, saying: “Thinking, the concept, the idea, or rather the process, the immanent origin of the concept is the unity that is and is true. Nature is the same idea in the form of otherness.” But even these great thinkers could not eliminate the difficulties associated with the question of the relationship of the ideal to the real, causality to teleology, and their system was later greatly shaken by the realistic natural-scientific worldview tending towards materialism. At the end of the 19th century Eduard von Hartmann tried in his “Philosophy of the Unconscious” to update metaphysical idealism and reconcile it with realism.

Photographer Andrea Effulge

Idealist philosophy refers to all directions and concepts within this science that trace idealism as its basis. Therefore, in order to understand the essence of these trends and concepts in philosophy, one should become familiar with the concept of idealism itself, as well as its consequences.

Idealism (from the Greek idea - idea) is a fundamental principle in science, asserting the primacy of the immaterial (ideal) before the material, to put it narrowly. And also the primacy of the incorporeal, insensitive, subjective, evaluative and non-spatial in any phenomena and processes over the material, which is characterized by objectivity, corporeality, sensory sensation without evaluation and the presence of space, if we consider the concept broadly. That is, in many respects it is true that idealism is an alternative to materialism, and in cosmogonic (the origin of the Universe) issues these concepts are often considered as antagonists. Thus, it is not difficult to understand that idealistic philosophy fully includes all the properties of idealism.

It is important to understand that the term idealism should not be confused with the concept of idealist, since the latter is derived from the term “ideal”, which in turn is not synonymous with the concept of “idea”.

Idealistic philosophy itself is divided into two directions, diverging in the fundamental consequence, despite the agreement in other opinions. These directions: objective and subjective idealism, that is, subjective and objective idealistic philosophy. The first, objective direction, declares that the immaterial, that is, the ideal, exists outside and independently of any consciousness, while the second, subjective direction, asserts that only in any consciousness can ideal reality exist. Here it is important to understand that “ideal” reality is not a synonym for “perfect”; understanding the real meaning of the terms is what distinguishes scientific perception from ordinary perception.

One of the first to deal with problems idealistic philosophy who is known to history was Plato. For this thinker, idealism was presented in a dualistic combination of the perception of the world by the mind. The first part is the perception and awareness of the true essence of things - their ideas, which are eternal and accurate, and the second part is the feeling of things in their material form, which is multifaceted, deceptive and temporary.

We will omit the opinion of various religious thinkers - supporters of religious-idealistic philosophy, as obviously anti-scientific or extra-scientific, where, for example, an idea was understood as an eternal and accurate image of any thing, phenomenon or process, as a true idea in the mind of God. Such supporters of the idealistic trend in philosophy included George Berkeley, who called supporters of materialism at best vulgar atheists, and at worst even sectarians of atheism.

A new word in idealistic philosophy, as well as in many areas of this science, was said by Immanuel Kant, who, with his transcendental, limited the knowledge of the idea and the ideal to consciousness, as a phenomenon that approaches this with difficulty. That is, Kant drew direct parallels between his concept and formal idealism.

Kant, as the founder of German classical philosophy, motivated the emergence of other types of idealism, which were formulated by the thinkers of his era. For example, Hegel's absolute idealism, Schelling's objective, and Fichte's subjective. The key differences between these views within idealistic philosophy are that Kant asserted the completeness and completeness of the world in itself, but the unknowability of some of its parts for reason. Fichte called reality (environment) outside the mind of the subject limited for the latter and therefore provoking the mind to reflect and organize the internal (ideal) world. Schelling believed that the boundary between the ideal (mind) and the material is the identity of any object and subject, that is, the secret fundamental principle. And Hegel, with his absolute idealism, abolished material reality, assigning it only the role of stating the ideal, which was revealed in the former. That is, Hegel’s idealistic philosophy assigned idealism the role of an absolute process, where the immanent statement of any ideas proceeds dialectically. Yes, this subject is very difficult to understand, but for a deep consideration of it it is necessary to become closely acquainted with the works of each of the representatives of idealistic philosophy. For obvious reasons, I cannot provide the latter to you, the reader, within the framework of the article.

Georg Hegel not only made a significant contribution to the improvement of philosophy, but also formulated a new type of idealism - absolute. The main criticism of absoluteness in idealistic philosophy lies in its separation from reality, that is, it is good in the theoretical and abstract construction of all known conditions and quantities, but is difficult to apply in practice in the existence and life of a rational being - man. In the latter, the limit of the research of mental science was discovered, where it ceased to be practically useful; at least at this stage of the evolution of the mind.

Modern idealistic philosophy has defined itself by no longer considering idealism as an antagonist of materialism, but only as its alternative, while at the same time opposing the former to realism. In general, there is a steady tendency for idealistic philosophy to disguise its fundamental principle, based on idealism, behind ambiguous or neutral concepts, names and expressions. But despite this, the ideological modality of any concepts and trends in modern philosophy that is not related to materialism or realism is indisputable.

Idealism is the main philosophical direction that affirms the primacy of consciousness, thinking, the spiritual, the ideal and the secondary nature and dependence of matter, nature, and the world.

All idealist philosophers recognize that being depends on consciousness, depends on consciousness, but they explain differently how consciousness gives rise to being. Idealism has two main forms:

• - objective idealism, which considers consciousness as an extra-natural, superhuman, objective spiritual principle that creates the whole world, nature and man.
• - subjective idealism, which understands existence not as an objective reality existing outside human consciousness, but only as a product of the activity of the human spirit, the subject.

The French materialist D. Diderot in 1749 called idealism “the most absurd of all systems.” But the historical, epistemological and social origins of idealism are very deep, and besides, this direction was considered the main one by many brilliant philosophers.

The historical roots of idealism are the anthropomorphism inherent in the thinking of primitive people, the humanization and animation of the entire surrounding world. Natural forces were considered in the image and likeness of human actions, determined by consciousness and will. In this, idealism, especially objective idealism, is closely related to religion.

The epistemological source of idealism is the ability of human thinking for theoretical knowledge. In its very process, it is possible for thought to separate from reality and go into the realm of imagination. The formation of general concepts (man, goodness, truth, consciousness) and an increasing degree of abstraction are necessary in the process of theoretical thinking. The separation of these concepts from material objects and treating them as independent entities leads to idealism. The epistemological roots of this trend go back far into history. When society began to stratify into classes, mental work became distinctive feature, the privilege of the dominant population. Under these conditions, they monopolize mental labor, direct politics, and material and production activities become the lot of the working masses. This situation created the illusion that ideas are the main determining force, and ordinary material labor is something inferior, secondary, dependent on consciousness.

In Ancient Greece, Pythagoras (580-500 BC) considered numbers to be the independent essences of things, and the harmony of numbers to be the essence of the Universe. Plato (427-347 BC) is considered the founder of the philosophical system of objective idealism. He argued that in addition to the world of things, there is also a world of ideas that a person can see only “with the eyes of the mind.” In this world there are ideas of a ball, an amphora, a person, and concrete copper balls, clay amphoras, living people are only material embodiments of ideas, their imperfect shadows. What everyone takes for the real world is in fact only a shadow of a world of ideas hidden from humanity, spiritual world. For Plato, the world of ideas was the divine kingdom in which, before the birth of a person, his immortal soul resides. Landing on earth and temporarily being in a mortal body, the soul remembers the world of ideas; this is precisely what the true process of cognition consists of. Plato's idealism was criticized by his brilliant student Aristotle (384-322 BC): “Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer!” Aristotle considered matter eternal, uncreated and indestructible

The ideas of objective idealism in modern times were developed by German philosopher G. Leibniz (1646-1716). He believed that the world consists of the smallest elements, monads, active and independent, capable of perception and consciousness. The monad in this system is an individual world, a mirror of the universe and the infinite Universe. The harmony established by God gives the monads unity and coherence. The lowest of them have only vague ideas about the surrounding world (mountains, water, plants), the consciousness of animals reaches the level of sensation, and in humans - the mind.

Objective idealism reached its highest degree of development in the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831). Hegel considered the basis of everything that exists to be the World Mind, which he called the Absolute Idea or the Absolute Spirit. The Absolute Idea is constantly evolving, giving rise to a system of concepts. In the process of its development, it acquires a material shell, appearing first in the form mechanical phenomena, then chemical compounds, and ultimately gives birth to life and humans. All nature is the “Kingdom of petrified concepts.” With the advent of man, the Absolute Idea breaks through the material shell and begins to exist in its own form - consciousness, thinking. With the development of human consciousness, the Idea is increasingly freed from matter, cognizing itself and returning to itself. Hegel's idealism is imbued with the idea of ​​development and dialectics. Objective idealism tears off general concepts, laws from specific individual things and phenomena, absolutizing ideas, and explaining them as the primary essence of the world.

Subjective idealism proves the dependence of existence on human consciousness, identifying observed phenomena and objects with sensations and perceptions. “The only reality is the consciousness of the subject himself, and the world is only a projection of this consciousness outside.”

The classic version of subjective idealism is the teaching of the English bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753). In his opinion, all things are actually just stable combinations of sensations. Let's consider his theory using the example of an apple. A complex of feelings reflected by consciousness: red, hard, juicy, sweet. But the development of such an idea would lead to the conclusion that there is nothing at all in the world except sensations. This extreme is called solipsism (Latin solus - “one”, Latin ipse - “himself”). Trying to avoid solipsism, Berkeley argued that sensations do not arise in us arbitrarily, but are caused by the influence of God on the human soul. Thus, each time the deepening and upholding of subjective idealism sooner or later leads to a transition to religion and objective idealism.

In modern philosophy, the existentialists S. Kierkegaard (1813-1855), L. Shestov (1866-1938), N. Berdyaev (1874-1848), M. Heidegger (1889-1976), G. Marcel ( 1889-1973), J.P. Sartre (1905-1980), A. Camus (1913-1960). The starting point for existentialists is not the essence (essentia) of the objective world, but the existence (exsistentia) of an individual person with his feelings and experiences. Therefore, the task of philosophy is not the study of being as the essence of the world, but the discovery of the meaning of human existence, true existence. Only through understanding the meaning of his existence can a person judge what is outside him, in the world around him. Scientific knowledge of things, writes K. Jaspers, cannot answer the question about the meaning of life and the meaning of science itself. For existentialists, the true form of philosophical knowledge is intuition, a direct vision of the meaning of the reality in question, which represents the subjective experiences of the individual. They distinguish between the genuine and inauthentic existence of a person in the world: genuine - free, where a person will make his own decisions and be responsible for his actions; inauthentic - the individual’s immersion in everyday life. Closely related to subjective idealism is another philosophical trend of the twentieth century - personalism (Latin persona - “personality”). Personalists consider a person in two aspects: spiritual - a person-personality and material - a person-individual. Man is a person because he has a free and reasonable spiritual fundamental principle, freedom of choice and independence from the world. An individual person is a particle of matter, that is, nature and society, subject to their laws. But if the individual person is subordinate to society, the state, then the individual person is subordinate only to God. This, according to personalists, proves the need for religion, which connects man with the supreme, divine Person and reveals the secrets of existence.

Idealism is often difficult to reconcile with real life, but it cannot be considered as a set of continuous misconceptions. There are many ideas in idealistic teachings that play a large role in the development of human culture.

P.B. Goffman-Kadoshnikov

To understand the current state of biology and the directions of its development, it is necessary to take a quick look at the history of the biological sciences. In all periods of its history, biology has been an arena of struggle between two opposing worldviews - materialism and idealism. Worldview serves as the basis for theoretical generalizations, without which no science can do. Scientists, as F. Engels notes, often believed that their theoretical statements were based only on facts obtained through accurate observations and experiments, and that therefore they were free from the influence of one or another philosophical system. But scientists cannot do without inferences in their conclusions. And if they try to neglect philosophy, they unwittingly fall into captivity of long-outdated philosophical systems.

In the history of science, the struggle of worldviews took various forms, depending on the ideology of the social system. Nevertheless, at all times, philosophers and natural scientists have been divided into two camps depending on how they answered the main question of philosophy - the relationship of nature to spirit, matter to consciousness. Those who argued that spirit existed before nature formed the idealist camp. Those who considered nature to be the main principle joined various schools of materialism.

Biology, like other sciences, arose and developed in connection with the needs practical activities humanity. Modern biology serves as the natural scientific basis of medicine and agriculture. And in the past, the development of biology has always been associated with practice. The first information about living beings began to accumulate by primitive people in connection with hunting and gathering edible plants. The domestication of animals and the transition to agriculture contributed to the further accumulation of knowledge. The low level of productive forces, as V.I. Lenin noted, was the reason that “... primitive man was completely suppressed by the difficulty of existence, the difficulty of fighting nature” (c) - V.I. Lenin. Essays. Ed. 4th, vol. 5, p. 95. Gospolitizdat. M., 1954.) Fear and helplessness in the face of elemental forces were the soil on which the first rudiments of religion arose. The ignorant imagination of ancient people created the idea of ​​omnipotent deities.

With the emergence of slave society in Egypt, India, China and Greece, the productive forces rose to a higher level. The philosophers of the Ionian colonies of Greece (VII-VI centuries BC) systematized the accumulated knowledge about nature and developed a materialistic worldview, which “means simply an understanding of nature as it is, without any extraneous additions, and therefore the Greek philosophers originally had it something taken for granted" (F. Engels. Dialectics of Nature. Gospolitizdat, 1948, p. 159.). They, in the words of F. Engels, were “born” dialecticians, viewing the world as a single whole, as an endless process of change and transformation of primary substances.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (IV century BC), whom F. Engels calls the most comprehensive mind of antiquity, significantly expanded knowledge with his own observations and research. In particular, in his works “The History of Animals” and “On the Parts of Animals” he described more than 500 species, provided data on their external features, lifestyle, anatomical structure and created the first attempt to classify animals. His students described 550 plant species. In his worldview, Aristotle fluctuated between materialism and idealism.

Famous doctor ancient Greece Hippocrates (IV century BC) systematized information about the human body. Studying human anatomy, he used it as the basis for treatment. Hippocrates opposed mystical ideas about the cause of diseases and looked for them in the conditions of life, nutrition and work.

The slave system was replaced by feudalism. Religion became the dominant ideology. Science, in the figurative expression of K. Marx, has turned into the handmaiden of theology. Authority scripture was recognized as above human reason. At this time, the culture of the peoples of the East was ahead of European culture. The Tajik philosopher, doctor and encyclopedist Abu Ali Ibn Sina (980-1037), known in Europe under the name of Avicenna, had a huge influence on the development of world culture. About 100 of his works have reached us, including the famous “Canon of Medicine,” which was translated into Latin and for centuries was the main medical guide in all European universities. In his works on issues of natural science and medicine, Avicenna took a spontaneously materialistic position. He developed the idea of ​​eternity and the uncreated nature of the world and was a supporter of the doctrine of causal patterns in nature.

F. Engels considered the Renaissance to be the beginning of modern natural science, as well as all modern history. This was the period of the collapse of feudal society. The revolution in the socio-economic structure caused fundamental changes in science. The spiritual dictatorship of the church was broken; natural science began to gradually free itself from theology; secular schools arose; The development of science has taken giant strides. Characterizing this era, F. Engels wrote: “It was the greatest progressive revolution of all that humanity had experienced up to that time, an era that needed titans and which gave birth to titans in strength of thought, passion and character, in versatility and learning” (F. Engels . Dialectics of nature. Gospolitizdat, 1948, p. 6.).

As factual data accumulated, natural science began to differentiate, to be divided into separate sciences: mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology, and they, in turn, were divided into individual areas and discipline. The differentiation of science was a positive phenomenon, as it made it possible to penetrate deeper and deeper into the particular laws of nature, knowledge of which is necessary for the development of the productive forces of society. However, along with the dismemberment of science in the minds of natural scientists and philosophers, there was also a dismemberment of nature. There was a false idea that nature consists of separate, unrelated objects and processes. Scientists have ceased to notice the unity of nature and the interconnection of the phenomena occurring in it. But what especially characterizes the views of scientists of this period is their idea of ​​the immutability of nature, the absence of its development. In their minds, nature has always been the way we see it now. All development in nature was denied. This metaphysical view of nature was opposite to the ideas of the Greek philosophers - spontaneous dialecticians, for whom the world was something whole, arising and developing from chaos.

The liberation of natural science from the power of religious and metaphysical ideas occurred slowly. They persisted for a particularly long time in the biological sciences, where until the middle of the 19th century the views of creationists (Latin creator - creator) dominated, who sought to harmonize science with the tenets of religion. Creationist ideas were shared even by such prominent scientists as the founder of plant and animal taxonomy, Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) and the founder of paleontology, Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). For example, Linnaeus wrote: “There are as many species as various forms produced at the beginning of the world by the Almighty." Creationists considered the amazing adaptability of animals and plants to the conditions of their life to be a manifestation of primordial expediency, proving the wisdom of the creator of the Universe.

Already at that time, materialist scientists were fighting creationists. The great Russian scientist M.V. Lomonosov (1711-1765), ridiculing them, wrote: “In vain many people think that everything we see was first created by the creator... Such reasoning is very harmful to the growth of all sciences... although these clever people It’s easy to be philosophers by learning three words by heart: God created it this way” (M. V. Lomonosov. Selected Philosophical Works. M., 1940, p. 214.).

Materialistic views found their way with difficulty. In the XVII, XVIII centuries materialism became the ideology of the bourgeoisie, its weapon in the fight against feudalism. The materialism of this time was mechanistic, since of all the sciences only mechanics had achieved significant development by this time. In biology, which, in the figurative expression of F. Engels, at that time was still in swaddling clothes and could not give scientific explanation life processes, mechanistic materialism led to the interpretation of the organism as a machine. The concept of “animal-machine” was first introduced by the French philosopher R. Descartes (1596-1650). Developing this concept, the physician and philosopher J. O. Lamettrie (1709-1751) created the doctrine of “man-machine”. He denied the existence of an immaterial soul and proved the close dependence of the human psyche on the body.

Mechanists, being right in recognizing the primacy of matter, did not notice the qualitative specificity of living things. For them, the body was a sum of parts, the vital activity of which can be entirely explained by the laws of physics and chemistry. In fact, biology also has special purely biological laws and theories, for example, the theory of the cellular structure of organisms, laws of the struggle for existence and natural selection, laws of transmission of hereditary characteristics in generations, etc. All these laws cannot be reduced only to physical and chemical processes .

According to our modern ideas, the laws of physics and chemistry have especially great importance when the phenomena of life are studied using molecular level. But the study of the same phenomena at the level of the cell and the whole organism makes it possible to discover the natural dependence of these phenomena on the specific biological characteristics of the organism, for example on structural components cells, on the presence of structural features and relationships between organs and, finally, on the relationships of organisms in biological communities. Reducing the phenomena of life only to the laws of physics and chemistry, mechanists were powerless in explaining the phenomena of life.

Both the materialists and idealists of this period were metaphysicians. They saw nature only as a collection of unrelated, absolutely unchangeable, frozen objects. Explaining the reasons for the dominance of metaphysics, F. Engels wrote: “It was necessary to study things before one could begin to study processes. One must first know what a given thing is so that one could deal with the changes that occur in it” (F. Engels . Ludwig Feuerbach. Gospolitizdat, 1949, p. 38.).

By the end of the 18th century, the metaphysical method began to seriously impede the further development of science. There is an urgent need to study the natural connections of objects, their emergence, change and development. Only this approach made it possible to scientifically understand nature. The first hole in the metaphysical worldview was made back in 1755 by the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). In his General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, the entire solar system and the Earth appeared as something developed in time.

However, in order to break the metaphysical worldview that was widespread at that time, major discoveries were needed in all major areas of natural science. F. Engels pointed out the decisive importance of three great discoveries of the 19th century: the law of conservation of matter and energy, cell theory and evolutionary theory Charles Darwin.

The time of publication of Darwin's main work - 1859 - was a major milestone in the history of biological sciences. Having collected enormous factual material, Darwin provided irrefutable evidence of the development of the organic world, and later proved the animal origin of man. Darwin's theory caused a revolutionary revolution in the biological sciences. When assessing its significance, two fundamentally important points need to be emphasized.

• Firstly, Darwinism dealt a severe blow to the metaphysical view - the entire organic world, all species of animals and plants now appeared as a result of the process of development of living nature. Darwin's teaching established the historical method in the biological sciences.
• Secondly, Darwinism has proven the incompatibility scientific knowledge nature with religious ideas. Creationism, which dominated science before the publication of Darwin's works, ceased to exist.

Assessing the significance of Darwin’s teachings, V.I. Lenin wrote: “How Darwin put an end to the view of animal and plant species as unconnected, random, “created by God” and unchangeable, and for the first time put biology on a completely scientific basis, establishing changeability species and continuity between them - so Marx put an end to the view of society as a mechanical aggregate of individuals, and for the first time put sociology on a scientific basis..." (V.I. Lenin. Works. 4th ed., vol. 1 , p. 124. Gospolitizdat, 1941).

At the very first moment of the appearance of Darwin's teachings, it became clear that the materialistic core of Darwinism - the doctrine of the development of living nature - is in antagonistic contradiction with idealism and metaphysics. Reactionary scientists and clergy made every effort to refute Darwinism. Government officials banned teaching and persecuted defenders and propagators of Darwin's teachings. Leading scientists from many countries took part in the defense and development of Darwin's teachings: in England - T. Huxley, in Germany - E. Haeckel and F. Muller, in the USA - Aza Gray, in Russia - I.M. Sechenov, I.I. Mechnikov, A. O. Kovalevsky, V. O. Kovalevsky, K. A. Timiryazev and others. Darwinism was established in the conditions of the most acute struggle of advanced scientists against the forces of obscurantism and reaction.

After the collapse of creationism, idealism in biology took on new forms. The most important of them is known as neovitalism. Its origins were the idealistic (vitalistic) ideas of some philosophers ancient world and a number of medieval scientists. Vitalists believed that the basis of the phenomena of life is a special immaterial principle, standing above the organism, existing before its material structures and directing their activity. Various names have been invented to refer to this fictitious beginning. The biologist G. Treviranus (1776-1837) called it vitality(vis vitalis), physiologist I. Muller (1801-1858) - organic force. According to Müller, this creative intelligent force “manifests itself in accordance with a strict pattern; it exists in the embryo before its future organs arise, and it is this force that produces them, without which the idea of ​​the whole could not be realized.” The vitalists did not even attempt to determine the nature of these forces.

The founder of neovitalism, G. Driesch (1867-1941), tried to revive the idea of ​​​​an immaterial life principle, taking Aristotle’s term “entelechy” to designate it. According to G. Driesch, entelechy is neither matter nor a special type of energy; it is outside space and only acts in space. It is not difficult to see that the idea of ​​entelechy, just like the idea of vitality, has nothing to do with science and leads to the path of superstition and mysticism. Nevertheless, the struggle against vitalism from the standpoint of primitive mechanistic materialism turned out to be untenable, since mechanistic materialism itself could not explain the complex specifics of life phenomena.

Both mechanistic materialism and idealism revealed their limitations more and more clearly. There was an urgent need to extend the idea of ​​development and interconnection of phenomena to all areas of natural science and complete the transition to recreating the general picture of nature in its eternal movement and development with mutual transformations of the forms of motion of matter. But the ideology of bourgeois society could not be the basis for the further progress of science.

The working class, born in the depths of capitalism, began to enter the historical arena. The basis for the further development of sciences was the philosophy created by the ideologists of the proletariat K. Marx, F. Engels and V. I. Lenin dialectical materialism. Just as at one time mechanistic materialism was the ideology of the emerging bourgeoisie and its ideological weapon in the fight against feudalism, so dialectical materialism became the ideological weapon of the new progressive class - the proletariat in its struggle against the worldview of moribund capitalism. Dialectical materialism, as a science about the most general laws of development of nature, society and thinking, generalizes the results of specific sciences and illuminates the ways of their further development. The works of F. Engels "Antiduring" and "Dialectics of Nature" are devoted to the main problems of the philosophy of natural science.

V. I. Lenin’s work “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism” (1908) marked a new era in the development of dialectical materialism. In this work, V.I. Lenin gave a philosophical generalization of the discoveries of the natural sciences for the entire period after the death of F. Engels. Dialectical materialism freed natural science from the philosophical limitations that characterize the science of bourgeois society.

Pre-Marxian materialism was predominantly contemplative. K. Marx shifted the focus to transforming the world. “Philosophers,” he wrote, “only explained the world in different ways, but the point is to change it” (K. Marx and F. Engels. Works. Vol. IV, Gospolitizdat, 1931, p. 591.).

The idea of ​​transforming the organic world and controlling biological phenomena becomes the leading idea of ​​Soviet biological science. It provides the basis for the closest connection between biology and practice. Soviet scientists learn about biological phenomena not in the process of passive contemplation, but in practical, transformative activity.

A reflection of the philosophical concept of transformation is the famous motto of I.V. Michurin: “We cannot expect favors from nature; taking them from her is our task.”

Speaking about modern physiology, it should be noted that its main task is to control the functions of the body. For several centuries, physiology studied the functions of all organs of the human and animal body, and only the functions of the cerebral cortex remained almost unexplored. Even the ways and methods with which one could begin to study the activity of the higher part of the brain, which is the organ of thought, were unknown. The development of this most important problem on a strictly materialistic basis is the indisputable merit of I. P. Pavlov.

In zoology and botany, tasks are no longer limited to describing animals and plants; a new goal is being set - to provide a scientific basis for the transformation of flora and fauna. Zoologists study the issues of acclimatization of animals and resettle them in new territories. Ichthyologists are developing scientific basis rational use of the country's fish resources, which allows increasing fish production.

We have analyzed only individual examples showing that the Marxist idea of ​​transformation deeply permeates the most diverse areas of Soviet biological science.

From the second quarter of the 20th century natural Sciences have taken a huge step forward. Physics and chemistry developed especially quickly. At the same time, the tendency to connect various fields of natural science with each other has intensified. Borderline sciences arose: physical chemistry, chemical physics, biophysics, biochemistry, molecular biology, etc.

The development of frontier sciences contributed to the further reconstruction of a holistic picture of the world in its unity and diversity of interconnected forms of matter movement. The metaphysical tearing of nature into parts was increasingly losing its ground. The development of physics and chemistry has given biologists ample opportunities to use new and sophisticated research methods. An electron microscope allows you to penetrate into the world of submicroscopic structures, examine the finest structure of a living cell, study in detail the morphology of bacteria and examine the structure of viruses.

• The method of labeled atoms opened up fundamentally new opportunities for studying chemical processes in the body and made it possible to deeply study life as a continuous process of synthesis and decomposition of substances.
• The method of histological chemistry (histochemistry) makes it possible to use precise study techniques chemical structure living matter in cells and tissues.
• The differential centrifugation method makes it possible to isolate individual parts of cells from the cell mass: their nuclei, microscopically small mitochondria, ribosomes invisible under a microscope, and “pure” protoplasm devoid of formed particles. This method of cell research has been widely used recently and allows one to study the details of metabolism in a cell.

All higher value acquire methods that use ionizing radiation(X-rays and gamma rays). Exposure to rays penetrating deeply into the body has opened the way for the study of a number of important issues in developmental physiology and genetics. Irradiation methods are also gaining great importance in practical medicine for the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases.

It is impossible to list all the new methods and techniques borrowed by biologists from related natural sciences. Using these methods gives modern biology a huge number of new facts that need to be systematized, evaluated and understood. Generalization of new factual material often leads scientists to directly opposite conclusions and conclusions. This shows that no matter how accurate the research methods are, the progress of science does not depend only on them. Crucial has a worldview. It allows you to find the right path among a huge mass of conflicting data.

In modern biology, as before, dialectical materialism fights on two fronts: against idealism and vulgar mechanistic materialism.

The rapid introduction of physical and chemical research techniques has caused modern biology new wave mechanistic theories. Advances in the study of the chemical and physical side of life phenomena give mechanists confidence that the phenomena of life can be entirely reduced to the phenomena of physics and chemistry. In particular, mechanists argue that the heredity of organisms comes down to the chemistry of the substance of heredity, that the evolution of organisms comes down to the selection of protein molecules (biochemical evolution), and thinking - to the physical and chemical processes of the brain.

Even F. Engels, criticizing the mechanists of the 19th century, wrote that “... organic life impossible without mechanical, molecular, chemical, thermal, electrical, etc. changes. But the presence of these side forms does not exhaust the essence main form(movements of matter. - P.G.-K.) in each case under consideration. We will undoubtedly someday “reduce” thinking experimentally to molecular and chemical movements in the brain; but does this exhaust the essence of thinking?” (F. Engels. Dialectics of Nature. Gospolitizdat, 1948, p. 199.).

Mechanists do not see that the specificity of life lies in the special, qualitatively unique interaction of material particles, and they reduce the whole to the sum of parts, qualitative differences to purely quantitative ones, higher forms of the movement of matter to lower ones.

Modern idealism often appears in disguised form. Without speaking openly about the immaterial beginning of life, idealists continue to absolutize the specifics of life. They deny the importance of chemical and physical research for understanding the essence of life and do not notice that specific physical and chemical processes in the body constitute an essential aspect of life phenomena. This leads them to a metaphysical separation of the biological form of the movement of matter from the chemical and physical. Nature is again being torn into disconnected parts.

Idealists now, as before, separate life from its material carrier - protein, thinking - from the brain, heredity - from its biochemical basis. Thus, in Smets’s idealistic philosophy (holism), the integrity of the organism is considered in isolation from its physico-chemical and structural-physiological basis and is elevated to an absolute.

A scientific solution to the problems of modern biology is possible only on the basis of the philosophy of dialectical materialism.

From the point of view of dialectical materialism, the phenomena of life represent a special form of the movement of matter, which cannot be reduced to purely physical and chemical phenomena. The main manifestations of life - metabolism, irritability, reproduction, heredity and variability - are specific properties of living matter that are not inherent in bodies inanimate nature. These properties arose, developed and improved in the process of evolution of living beings. Organisms have a complex structure and high orderliness of all processes occurring in them. At any moment, the body undergoes many different chemical transformations and physical phenomena, but all of them are strictly coordinated by the body as an integral system. The coordination of life processes is carried out by a variety of regulatory mechanisms, enzyme systems that direct chemical transformations along a certain path, hormones that regulate many biological processes; in animals, the leading role in the regulation and coordination of life processes belongs to the central nervous system and humoral factors.

The completeness of knowledge necessary to control biological processes can be achieved only if the phenomena of life are studied not only at the level of the organism as an integral system, but also at the cellular and molecular level. For example, when studying the main property of life - metabolism - it is necessary to study: the general coordinating influence of the organism, carried out through chemical and nervous regulation metabolic processes(level of the whole organism), the role of the cell and its structural parts in synthesis and decay organic compounds(cellular and subcellular level) and, finally, the properties of individual chemical substances, for example enzymes that catalyze metabolic reactions (molecular level).

The study of biological phenomena at the molecular level cannot be contrasted with the study of the same phenomenon at the level of cells and organisms. It only complements and expands the knowledge of various aspects of the biological process. In connection with the study of life processes at the molecular level, a new discipline arose in the second half of our century - molecular biology. Its task is to study the properties of biologically important molecules. We must not forget, however, that the properties of these chemical compounds are realized only in the body as an integral system. Biological properties organisms determine the specifics of life processes.