Specifics of Philosophy: Its Subject, Main Questions, and Historical Development

1.

Lecture 2
Specifics of philosophy?
Introduction

2.

1. Object and structure of
Philosophy

3.

Whereas The SUBJECT of philosophy is
the most general laws and patterns of
development and functioning of human
society, thinking and the universe.
The OBJECT and structure of philosophy
arise directly from the specifics of
philosophical knowledge

4.

The object of research is a
phenomenon of the reality of
interest to this science,
through which it determines
its goals, directions, structure
and so on; or is it the scope of
a scientific search application.

5.

The question of Object is
connected with the
structure of philosophical
knowledge and, of course,
with the formulation of the
main question of
philosophy.

6.

Modern philosophical
knowledge includes the
following sections:

7.

• ONTOLOGY
is a section of philosophy about
BEING in the most general,
ultimate sense of the word (from
the Greek, being, logos teaching). It is in ontology that
the main question of philosophy
is resolved, and on this basis the
whole constructed philosophical
concept will depend.

8.

• GNOSEOLOGY
(from the Greek gnosis knowledge and logos - teaching)
is a branch of philosophy that
studies the process of cognition,
methodology and methods of
cognition. Any philosophical
concept contains ideas about the
source of true knowledge

9.

• AXIOLOGY
(from the Greek aksio - - value)
is a section of philosophical
knowledge about values in
human existence

10.

• ETHICS
is a branch of philosophy that
studies questions of morality
and human behavior, the
essence of good and evil, the
motivation of human actions,
the meaning of human life and
the purpose of human actions.

11.

• AESTHETICS
is a branch of philosophy about
the essence and forms of beauty
in art, in nature and in life,
about art as a special form of
social consciousness and activity

12.

• SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY
is a branch of philosophy that
studies the principles and laws
of the structure of society and
the course of social processes. It
is social philosophy that creates
the concepts of the sociopolitical structure of society.

13.

14.

So, can you define me the
object of PH by this table of
areas of Philosophical
knowledge?

15.

2. The basic question of
Philosophy

16.

Of course, different philosophical concepts and
thinkers attach particular importance to the
issues that they consider to be meaningful. Thus,
the Sophists and Socrates paid great attention to
ethics: the issues of the meaning and essence of
human life, the problem of human
communication, arguing and discourse, unlike
many philosophers of Ancient Greece, such as
Thales, Anaxagoras, Anaximander and others
who tried to understand the principles of the
structure of the world. . In the era of medieval
philosophy, special attention was paid to the
issue of the creation of the world, the essence of
God and the divine principle in man and nature.

17.

Let’s look at this chart of the main issues
of Philosophy in historical perspectives to
know what kind of questions were
considered important in different
Philosophical Systems:

18.

19.

20.

However, none of the main sections of philosophy is an
independent branch of knowledge. These sections of
philosophy complement each other and are closely related
in each philosophical system. Any philosophical system
contains, if not a developed concept, then at least separate
ideas regarding axiology, epistemology and ontology.
Depending on the resolution of the Principal Questions,
philosophical directions can be opposed to each other, while
others, on the contrary, complement and continue each
other. What are the fundamental questions? And this is
precisely the fundamental question of philosophy. This basic
question has several formulations, but the essence, of
course, is one.

21.

The first formulation of the Basic
Question of philosophy is the
question of What is Primary:
Consciousness or Matter?

22.

Depending on the solution of the main
question of philosophy, several main
philosophical directions have developed:
Materialism and Idealism.

23.

The relationship between materialism and idealism was
considered in the most detail by F. Engels. It was he who
formulated the main question of philosophy as the
relationship of being to thinking, matter to consciousness
and spirit to nature. This is discussed in detail in his main
philosophical work "Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of
Classical Philosophy". In general terms, the question of the
relationship between the material and the ideal is the
question of the fundamental principle of being.
Accordingly, all events and phenomena in the world
around us can also be divided into material and ideal
(spiritual). And consequently, to determine the ratio of the
ideal and the material means to solve the question of
which of these phenomena is primary, and which is the
effect, and which is the cause.

24.

Materialism proceeds from the fact that the
fundamental principle of the world is matter - not
as something solid and tangible, but as a kind of
substance, often elemental substance. Thus, the
first ancient Greek philosophical teachings were
spontaneously materialistic. They considered
natural elements, such as fire, earth, water, air, to
be the fundamental principle of being. The ancient
Greek atomists proceeded from the fact that the
world is based on atoms, which are material
substances. These atoms are moving.
Consequently, matter was the primary substance
in the construction of philosophical systems in
ancient Greece.

25.

Idealism proceeds accordingly from the
opposite principle. At the heart of the world
lies an ideal beginning. Plato had the Idea of
Beauty, Truth, Good, Anaxagoras had the
Logos, Hegel had the Absolute Idea,
theologians of the Middle Ages had God,
Leibniz had the monad, Descartes had
modes, etc. The point is that idealists
consider the non-material beginning to be
primary. The material phenomena of the
surrounding world are generated by the
ideal beginning and proceed from it.

26.

At the same time, the question of the relation of
matter to thinking is also of a specific nature.
Distinguish between subjective idealism and
objective idealism. Subjective idealism proceeds
from the fact that the surrounding world exists
because there is thinking. There is no subject, no
thinking and no surrounding world.
Objective idealism proceeds from the fact that
there is an objective ideal principle, for example,
God, regardless of whether the subject exists or
not. Consequently, the main weakness of
subjective idealism is a tendency to solipsism - i.e.
transformation of the surrounding world into an
illusion, a myth.

27.

Materialism went through several stages in
its development:
• Spontaneous materialism of antiquity
• Materialism of the New Time
• French materialism (the teachings of La
Mettrie, Goldbach, Dilthey, etc.)
• Dialectical materialism of Marxism
• Modern scientific materialism

28.

Several stages can also be observed in the
development of idealism.
• Idealism of antiquity
• Theological idealism of the Middle Ages
• Metaphysical idealism (the teachings of
Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz)
• Idealism of classical German philosophy
• Modern idealism (the doctrine of
existentialists, neo-Thomists, etc.)

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3. The other side of the BQP:

30.

The Other Side of the main
question of philosophy is the
resolution of the question of
whether the world is
knowable.
Here are the following main
areas:

31.

Epistemological optimism.
This means that the world is recognized as knowable,
that man and scientific thought in his person are able to
know this world, that the whole question lies in time and
in methods of cognition that will be improved and as a
result a person will come to absolute truth. . In principle,
of course, most of the teachings of philosophy proceed
from the principle of epistemological optimism. This
gives confidence in the scientific search and the desire
to "get to the end", no matter how difficult the task may
seem.

32.

• Skepticism - casts doubt on the possibility of
knowing this world. Consequently, both the
purpose of human life and the ethical ideal will
not be in the search for truth, but in something
else, for example, in spiritual improvement or
service to society

33.

• Agnosticism - epistemological
direction, which recognizes the world
as unknowable in principle. Truth is
not accessible to human thinking and
perception

34.

Developing philosophical problems, we come to
another interesting question. But what if we
admit that the world is based on more than one
principle? Let us assume form and matter, as in
Aristotle, the thinking I and the material I, as in
Descartes, or in general a multitude of particles,
as in the case of the ancient Greek atomists. In
this case, we must introduce another
characteristic to describe philosophical
teachings. So, based on how many beginnings
are laid at the basis of the world, philosophical
concepts are divided into:

35.

• Monistic. These are such concepts that believe that at the heart of
the world there is only one beginning. For example, medieval
philosophy, which comes from the divine principle, or the philosophy
of F. Hegel, which considers human history to be the procession of
the Absolute idea on earth.
• Dualistic. These are such concepts that put two principles in the
basis of the world - material and ideal. For example, the philosophy of
Aristotle, which criticizes the absolute idealism of Plato and considers
form and matter to be the fundamental principle of all things.
• Pluralistic. These are concepts that recognize many beginnings in
the basis of the world, for example, the ancient Greek atomists. In the
concept of atomism, the world is based on an infinite number of
atoms that collide, connect, move along a certain trajectory

36.

4. Methods of Ph

37.

Finally, an important place in philosophy is
occupied by the question of movement and
development as an attribute of movement.
Depending on this, philosophical concepts are
divided into:
• metaphysical
• dialectical.

38.

Metaphysics in philosophy proceeds from the fact that the world
is static, unchanging. True authentic being is statically
unchanging. This is particularly characteristic of the philosophy of
Parmenides.
Dialectics considers movement and development to be the basic
principle. It is in dialectical philosophy that it is believed that
"you cannot enter the same river twice", because it will already
be a completely different river. Dialectics proceeds from the
principle of variability, movement and development of all things,
both material and spiritual phenomena. The founder of dialectics
is the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. The pinnacle of the
development of dialectics is the dialectical idealism of F. Hegel of
the 19th century.

39.

4. Historical types of Philosophy:

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We single out the main stages in the
development of philosophical
knowledge:

41.

• The era of the Ancient World (mid-1st millennium
BC - I century AD):
o Ancient philosophy
o Philosophy of Ancient China and India
o Philosophy of the interfluve countries
• The era of the Middle Ages (I in AD - the middle of
the 15th century)
• Renaissance (15th-17th centuries)
• The era of the New Age (17-19 centuries)
o Beginning of the New Time (17th century)
o Age of Enlightenment (17th-18th centuries)
o German classical philosophy (18th-19th centuries)
• Modern philosophy (19-21 centuries)

42.

Summarizing, we can draw the
following conclusions:

43.

So, we have described the main directions of philosophy
and formulated its most important concepts.
These concepts include: materialism and idealism;
objective and subjective idealism; recognition of the
cognizability of the world and its denial (agnosticism);
dialectics and metaphysics; ontology and epistemology;
monism, dualism and pluralism; creationism; being;
mind; consciousness; sensationalism; solipsism; common
sense; spirit, soul.
Further consideration of philosophical concepts will be
considered through the prism of these fundamental
concepts and categories of philosophical knowledge

44.

Home Task:
Сompose a concise glossary for these basic
concepts of philosophy which given on the
previous slide.
Resourses:
1. https://plato.stanford.edu
2. https://iep.utm.edu