idealism

Dictionary of medical terms

Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. D.N. Ushakov

idealism

idealism, pl. no, At. (from Latin idealis - ideal) (book).

A philosophical worldview that considers the basis of everything that exists to be a spiritual principle, an idea; opposite materialism (philosophy).

The behavior of an idealist (in 2 meanings).

Tendency to idealize reality. His attitude towards people is imbued with extreme idealism.

Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. S.I.Ozhegov, N.Yu.Shvedova.

idealism

A philosophical direction that asserts, in contrast to materialism, the primacy of spirit, consciousness and the secondary nature of matter, the ideality of the world and the dependence of its existence on the consciousness of people.

Idealization of reality.

Commitment to high moral ideals.

adj. idealistic, -aya, -oe. Idealistic currents. Idealistic theories.

New explanatory and word-formative dictionary of the Russian language, T. F. Efremova.

idealism

m. The general name of philosophical teachings that are opposed to materialism and assert that consciousness, spirit, idea are primary and form the basis of everything that exists.

1. A tendency to idealize reality, the ability not to notice its negative sides.

   Commitment to high moral ideals.

Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998

idealism

IDEALISM (French idealisme, from Greek idea - idea) is a general designation for philosophical teachings that assert that spirit, consciousness, thinking, the mental are primary, and matter, nature, the physical are secondary, derivative. The main forms of idealism are objective and subjective. The first asserts the existence of a spiritual principle outside and independently of human consciousness, the second either denies the existence of any reality outside the consciousness of the subject, or considers it as something completely determined by his activity. There are various forms of idealism depending on how the spiritual principle is understood: as the world mind (panlogism) or the world will (voluntarism), as a single spiritual substance (idealistic monism) or many spiritual primary elements (pluralism), as a rational, logically comprehended principle ( idealistic rationalism), as a sensual diversity of sensations (idealistic empiricism and sensationalism, phenomenalism), as an irregular, illogical principle that cannot be an object scientific knowledge(irrationalism). The largest representatives of objective idealism: in ancient philosophy- Plato, Plotinus, Proclus; in modern times - G. W. Leibniz, F. W. Schelling, G. W. F. Hegel. Subjective idealism is most clearly expressed in the teachings of J. Berkeley, D. Hume, and the early J. G. Fichte (18th century). In everyday usage, “idealist” (from the word “ideal”) often means a selfless person striving for lofty goals.

Idealism

(French idéalisme, from Greek idéa ≈ idea), a general designation of philosophical teachings that claim that consciousness, thinking, mental, spiritual is primary, fundamental, and matter, nature, physical is secondary, derivative, dependent, conditioned. I., thus, opposes materialism in solving the main question of philosophy - the relationship between being and thinking, spiritual and material, both in the sphere of existence and in the sphere of knowledge. Although philosophy arose more than two and a half millennia ago, this term, as a designation for one of the two camps fighting in philosophy, appeared only at the beginning of the 18th century. In 1702, the German idealist Leibniz wrote about the hypotheses of Epicurus and Plato, as the greatest materialist and the greatest idealist. And in 1749 French materialist D. Diderot called I. “...the most absurd of all systems” (Selected works, vol. 1, M. ≈ L., 1926, p. 28).

Philosophical term "I." should not be confused with the word “idealist” used in everyday language, in everyday discussions on moral topics, which comes from the word “ideal” and denotes an unselfish person striving to achieve lofty goals. IN philosophical sense"AND." also in the ethical field denotes the denial of the conditionality of moral consciousness social existence and recognition of its primacy. The confusion of these concepts was often used by idealists in order to discredit the philosophy of materialism.

With all the fundamental unity of the idealist camp in solving the main question of philosophy within this camp, one should distinguish its two main forms: objective and subjective philosophy. The first is characterized by the recognition of a spiritual principle outside and independent of our consciousness; for the second, the assumption of any reality outside and independent of our consciousness is unacceptable.

We meet the historical predecessor of objective history already in the religious and artistic images of the ancient Indian Upanishads ( material world≈ the veil of Maya, behind which the true reality of the divine principle, Brahman, is hidden). In conceptual form, objective philosophy received its first complete expression in the philosophy of Plato. IN medieval philosophy it was represented by scholastic realism, in modern times its largest representatives ≈ G. W. Leibniz, F. W. Schelling, G. Hegel. Subjective idealism received its most vivid expression in the teachings of the English idealists of the 18th century. J. Berkeley and D. Huma.

The presence of two main forms of philosophy does not exhaust the variety of different versions of idealistic philosophical systems. Within these two forms in the history of philosophy, there have been variations, determined by how the spiritual principle is understood: as the world mind (panlogism) or the world will (voluntarism), as a single spiritual substance (idealistic monism) or many spiritual primary elements (monadology ≈ see . Monad, pluralism), as a rational, logically comprehended principle (idealistic rationalism), as a sensory diversity of sensations (idealistic Empiricism and sensationalism, phenomenalism) or as an irregular, illogical “free” principle that cannot be the object of scientific understanding (irrationalism).

Since idealistic or materialistic solutions to the fundamental question of philosophy are mutually exclusive, only one of them can be true. This is the materialist solution, which is confirmed by the history of science, viewed from this angle, as well as the development of social practice. How, in this case, explains the longevity of I., its preservation in the public consciousness for thousands of years? This circumstance has its deep roots: epistemological and social. The historical origins of i. are inherent in thinking primitive man animism and anthropomorphism, the animation of the entire surrounding world and the consideration of its driving forces in the image and likeness of human actions as determined by consciousness and will. Subsequently, the ability of abstract thinking itself becomes the epistemological source of intelligence. The possibility of I. is already given in the first elementary abstraction. The formation of general concepts and an increasing degree of abstraction are necessary moments in the progress of theoretical thinking. However, the incorrect use of abstraction entails the hypostatization of properties, relationships, and actions of real things abstracted by thinking in isolation from their specific material carriers and the attribution of independent existence to these products of abstraction. Consciousness, thinking, size, form, goodness, beauty, conceived outside and independently of material objects and beings that possess them, as well as a plant “in general” or a person “in general”, taken as essences, or ideas embodied in things, ≈ such is the false course of abstract thinking that leads to I. “Straightforwardness and one-sidedness, woodenness and ossification, subjectivism and subjective blindness voilá (here ≈ Ed.) epistemological roots of idealism” (Lenin V.I., Complete collection of works. , 5th ed., vol. 29, p. 322). These epistemological roots of intellectualism are consolidated due to certain social factors, originating in the separation of mental labor from physical labor, in which “... consciousness is able to emancipate itself from the world...” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2 ed., vol. 3, p. 30). With the formation of a slave-owning society, intellectualism becomes a natural-historical form of consciousness for the ruling classes, since mental labor was originally their privilege.

By its origin and at all stages of its development, religion is closely connected with religion. In fact, I. arose as a conceptual, conceptual expression of the religious worldview and in subsequent eras served, as a rule, as a philosophical justification and justification religious faith. According to V.I. Lenin, philosophical philosophy is “...the road to clericalism...” (see Complete collection of works, 5th ed., vol. 29, p. 322).

The centuries-old history of India is very complex. In a variety of forms at different stages of history, he expressed in his own way the evolution of forms of social consciousness in accordance with the nature of changing social formations and the new level of development of science. The main forms of philosophy, which received further development in the subsequent history of philosophy, arose already in Ancient Greece. Philosophical I. reached its highest flowering in German classical philosophy(end of the 18th ≈ 1st half of the 19th centuries), which substantiated and developed a new historical form of rationalism - idealistic dialectics. With the transition of capitalism to the imperialist stage, the dominant feature of idealist philosophy becomes a turn to irrationalism in its various versions. In the modern era, the dominant idealistic trends in bourgeois philosophy are: neopositivism mainly in Anglo-Saxon countries), existentialism (in continental Western European countries), phenomenology (usually intertwined with existentialism), neo-Thomism (in Catholic countries).

Modern idealist philosophers rarely admit that they belong to the idealist camp. “Many people feel that this is more of a phenomenon past history than the living school of our days...” (Ewing A.S., The idealist tradition, Glencoe, 1957, p. 3). The dominant classification of philosophical teachings in modern idealistic philosophy is most often based not on the opposition between materialism and idealism, but on the opposition between materialism and realism. Thus, the neo-Thomists, calling their teaching “realism,” distinguish it from both materialism and subjective philosophy. Other idealistic movements claim to overcome both opposing directions with the help of various kinds of ambiguous terms (“neutral monism,” “elements,” etc.). In fact, such interpretations are essentially misleading in nature, and all the leading trends of modern bourgeois philosophy are in fact different types of I.

Lit.: Engels F., Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy, Marx K. and Engels F., Works, 2nd ed., vol. 21; Lenin V.I., Materialism and empirio-criticism, Complete, collected. cit., 5th ed., vol. 18; him, On the question of dialectics, ibid., vol. 29; his, Synopsis of Aristotle’s book “Metaphysics”, ibid.; Bykhovsky B., Narsky I., Sokolov V., Idealism, in the book: Philosophical Encyclopedia, t. 2, M., 1962; Florensky P. A., The meaning of idealism, Sergiev Posad, 1914; Cherkashin P.P., Epistemological roots of idealism, M., 1961: Cornforth M., Science against idealism, trans., from English, M., 1957; Modern subjective idealism, M., 1957; Modern objective idealism, M., 1963: Oizerman T.I., Main philosophical directions, M., 1971; Willmann 0., Geschichte des Idealismus, 2 Aufl., Lpz., 1907; Ewing A.C. Idealism, L., 1934.

B. E. Bykhovsky.

Wikipedia

Idealism (meanings)

Idealism :

In philosophy:

• Idealism is the general name of philosophical doctrines that consider the idea to be the basis of everything that exists.

In psychology and everyday speech:

• Perfectionism is the belief that the best results can be achieved. In a pathological form, it is the belief that an imperfect result of work is unacceptable.

In music:

• Idealism is the debut album by German electro-pop band Digitalism.

Idealism

Idealism- term for a wide range philosophical concepts and worldviews, which are based on the assertion of the primacy of the idea in relation to matter (see The main question of philosophy) in the sphere of being. In many historical and philosophical works, a dichotomy is carried out, considering the opposition of idealism to materialism (in Orthodoxy - the Christian materialism of the Holy Fathers, although the terms “materialism” and “idealism” were proposed by Leibniz only in the 18th century) the essence of philosophy. The categories of materialism and idealism are historical categories in all eras. When using them, one must always take into account their historical coloring and, in particular, the aesthetic significance that they receive in connection with different periods historical development, in connection with individual philosophers and culturologists and in connection with the infinitely diverse diversity of results and works of philosophers and culturologists. Abstract idealism in its pure form and abstract materialism in its pure form are extreme opposites of the philosophical worldview, which do not reject, but presuppose a countless number of their combinations with an infinitely varied dosage.

Idealism asserts the primacy in the sphere of existence of the ideal spiritual in relation to the material. In Christianity, this doctrine was called “Barlaamism” after Barlaam of Calabria and was condemned at the Council of Constantinople in 1341. The term “idealism” appeared only in the 18th century. It was first used by Leibniz, speaking about the philosophy of Plato, condemned not only by Holy Tradition, but also in the Orthodox liturgy. There are two main branches of idealism: objective idealism and subjective idealism.

Examples of the use of the word idealism in literature.

And when she left Weil, he - weak, mocking - could not resist his heights idealism and rolled into the barren sands of Ecclesiastes, which lurk in every Jewish intellect and are always ready to suck it in.

Unlike other forms of materialism, with which it is in fundamental disagreement, dialectical materialism is closely connected in its genesis and in the basis of its judgments with idealism in its Hegelian form.

I speak not as an inveterate Darwinist against the rejection of the doctrine of evolution, and not as a professional researcher of causes against the causeless sense of value, and not as a convinced materialist against idealism.

Systematic idealism, which everywhere establishes relationships between things by virtue of their certain common property, which is considered as the most essential for them, easily leads to ossification and sterile classification.

Therefore, speaking of Greek idealism, should be understood by it not only as the philosophical idealism of Plato, but as the entire ideal worldview of the Greek people, which was expressed throughout its entire culture and was its real religion.

From the ruins remaining here from its former splendor, it is clear that its inhabitants were engaged in agriculture, but were not gifted with artistic flair, cared little about luxury, were completely indifferent to the beauty of forms and were exclusively devoted to idealism.

I remember, for example, one introverted, intellectually highly developed neurotic, who alternately hovered in higher spheres transcendental idealism, he spent his time in dirty suburban hangouts, and his consciousness did not allow for either moral or aesthetic conflict.

In turn, Cassius, admiring idealism Brutus and his deep decency, was indignant at his lethargy and inertia.

Turgenev Belinsky, who led the fight against the circle in the 40s idealism, romanticism and narrowness.

But only Daphne finally helped me understand that only with the help of Lynch’s strange combination of skepticism and idealism I will be able to successfully counteract Murrow's constant assertions that the world has never been so wonderful.

Then the author, without giving up yet, began to look closely at the work, so to speak, of individual parts of our mechanism and, in general, at various little things and little things that the professors could, of course, overlook, due to their high official and social position, finding them, well, let’s say , too vulgar, miserable, not sublime, or even simply humiliating for humanity and the rapid growth of the entire Christian culture based on idealism and on proud superiority against other animals, born, unlike humans, from mold, water and other vile chemical compounds.

Any form of drug addiction is a disease, be it alcoholism, morphinism or idealism.

Idealism Plato is not purely monologistic. He becomes a pure monologist only in the neo-Kantian interpretation.

Another thing is that logical positivists were unable to get out of the labyrinth of difficulties arising from the identification of reality and its sensory images, slipping into the subjective idealism.

In other matters, the Cynics, on the contrary, very sharply criticized the basic principles idealism and Socrates and Plato.

Idealism- an anti-scientific direction in philosophy, which, when resolving the main question of philosophy: the question of the relationship of thinking to being, in contrast to materialism, takes consciousness, spirit as primary and denies that consciousness is a product of matter. Idealism considers the world to be an embodiment. “consciousness”, “absolute idea”, “world spirit”. According to idealism, only our consciousness really exists, and the material world, existence, nature is only a product of consciousness, sensations, ideas, concepts.

The idealistic trend in philosophy falls into two main varieties: subjective idealism and “objective” idealism. Idealism, subjective, takes as the basis of the existing sensation, idea, consciousness of an individual, subject. This type of idealism is associated primarily with the name of the English bishop (see). Subjective idealism denies that behind sensations there are real objects independent of humans that act on our senses and cause certain sensations in us. This point of view inevitably leads to solipsism. Social practice, which at every step convinces us that human sensations, perceptions, and ideas reflect really existing objects, convincingly shows the anti-scientific nature of subjective idealism as one of the forms of idealistic philosophy.

In contrast to subjective idealism, “objective” idealism takes as the basis of what exists not the personal, not subjective consciousness, but a kind of mystical, “objective” consciousness, consciousness in general: “world mind”, “universal will”, etc., which, according to “objective” idealists, exists independently, independently of man. In fact, there is and cannot be any objective consciousness, that is, one that exists independently of people. Idealism is closely related to religion and leads one way or another to the idea of ​​God.

Idealism is a faithful ally and assistant of religion. Pointing out that idealism is clericalism, Lenin emphasizes at the same time that “philosophical idealism is the road to clericalism through one of the shades of the infinitely complex knowledge of (dialectical) man.” Idealism has its roots in public life, as well as in the process of cognition itself. In the very process of cognition, in the process of generalizing phenomena, there is the possibility of separation of consciousness from reality, the possibility of transforming general concepts into an absolute, divorced from matter and deified.

So, for example, speaking about the ratio of actually existing apples, pears, strawberries, almonds and their general concept“fruit”, the “objective” idealist considers this concept (“fruit”) abstracted from reality to be the basis of existence itself: these apples, pears, strawberries, almonds. In the same way, subjective idealism, on the basis that without sensations it is impossible to know objects, turns sensation into the only reality, denying the existence of the external world.
The social conditions for the emergence of philosophical idealism are the separation of mental labor from physical labor, the emergence of classes and exploitation. The idealistic explanation of natural phenomena was developed primarily by the ideologists of the reactionary classes. Therefore, as a rule, philosophical idealism played a reactionary role in the history of society: it fought against progressive forces, against democracy and science.

Idealism originated in ancient times. The representative of ancient Greek “objective” idealism was (see), who expressed the interests of the slave-owning aristocracy, ardent opponent ancient democracy. Plato declared that real world is a special, supersensible world of ideas, and the world of real things is a world of shadows, a world of pale reflections of ideas. Feudal society was dominated by idealistic religious scholasticism, which turned philosophy into the handmaiden of theology. During the period of the disintegration of feudalism and the development of bourgeois relations, the revolutionary bourgeoisie of countries that are more economically developed (England, Holland) put forward a number of materialist philosophers ( - see, - see, - see, etc.). During the era of the establishment of capitalist relations in England, the forms of the struggle of idealism against materialism of English philosophers were Berkeley's subjective idealism and skepticism (see).

As an aristocratic reaction to French revolution and French materialism of the 18th century. in Germany takes shape in the 18th century. and in the first third of the 19th century. idealistic philosophy: (see), (see), (see), (see). Hegel brought philosophical idealism to its extreme expression: but to Hegel, everything is an idea or the other being of an idea. Hegel was the last representative of that idealist philosophy, in which, despite idealism, there were some progressive elements (the “rational grain” of Hegelian dialectics).

Russian materialists of the 18th and 19th centuries played a major role in the struggle against philosophical idealism. - (see), (see), (see), (see), (see), (see), (see), (see), etc.

In its further development, idealistic philosophy degenerates, borrowing the most reactionary and mystical theories from the philosophical systems of the past. Idealist philosophy takes on a particularly reactionary character in the era of imperialism. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. The empirio-criticism of Mach and Avenarius, who revived Berkeleyism, became widespread.

Subjecting Machism to crushing criticism, Lenin wrote that “behind the epistemological scholasticism of empirio-criticism one cannot help but see the struggle of parties in philosophy, a struggle that ultimately expresses the tendencies and ideology of hostile classes modern society" But never before has idealistic philosophy been in such a state of insanity and decay as modern bourgeois philosophy. Hitlerism, based on an idealistic philosophy, showed what a mess anti-scientific, reactionary views on the development of society can and have led entire nations to. This is also evidenced by the idealistic philosophy of the ideologists of modern imperialists of the USA and other countries following in the footsteps of Hitlerism.

Renegades and traitors to the working class have always used and are using bourgeois philosophy as an ideological weapon to justify revisionism and opportunism. Defending the idea of ​​class cooperation and fighting against the idea of ​​proletarian revolution, revisionism rejected materialist dialectics, trying to eclectically combine the teachings of Marx with one or another idealist philosophy. Modern opportunists from the camp of right-wing socialists openly preach philosophical idealism and go out of their way to discredit the all-conquering Marxism-Leninism that they hate. But all attempts by idealists to defend their reactionary cause are in vain. The progress of science and the victory of the forces of democracy and socialism lead to the fact that philosophical idealism is losing one position after another. The death of capitalism will mean the collapse of the social foundations of idealism.

In explaining social phenomena, all philosophers before Marx and Engels, including pre-Marxian materialists, took an idealistic position, arguing that the main drivers of history are educated people, “heroes” who create history without the people, that the people are a passive, inert force, unable to rise to historical activity. These idealistic positions were occupied by Russian populists - see, all kinds of petty-bourgeois socialists, anarchists, etc.

Modern bourgeois philosophers, in order to prolong the existence of dying capitalism, use the most reactionary idealistic theories - racism, Catholicism, etc. Marx and Engels expelled idealism from its last refuge - from the field of science about society. Marxism indicated the true driving forces social development, having discovered that the method of production material goods is the main force of social development, that the creator of history is the people, the working masses. The founders of Marxism were the first to create a consistently materialist worldview that was completely hostile to idealism. The emergence of Marxist philosophical materialism meant a whole revolution in centuries-old history development of materialist philosophy.

The philosophical doctrine of materialism appeared in the era of antiquity. Philosophers of Ancient Greece and Ancient East considered everything in the surrounding world regardless of consciousness - everything consists of material formations and elements, Thales, Democritus and others argued. In the modern era, materialism acquired a metaphysical orientation. Galileo and Newton said that everything in the world comes down to the mechanistic form of the movement of matter. Metaphysical materialism replaced dialectical one. Consistent materialism appeared in the theory of Marxism, when the basic principle of materialism extended not only to the material world, but also to nature. Feuerbach identified inconsistent materialism, which recognized the spirit, but reduced all its functions to the creation of matter.

Materialist philosophers argue that the only substance that exists is matter, all entities are formed by it, and phenomena, including consciousness, are formed in the process of interaction of various matters. The world exists independently of our consciousness. For example, a stone exists regardless of a person’s idea of ​​it, and what a person knows about it is the effect that the stone has on human senses. A person can imagine that there is no stone, but this will not make the stone disappear from the world. This means, say materialist philosophers, first there is the physical, and then the mental. Materialism does not deny the spiritual, it just asserts that consciousness is secondary to matter.

The essence of the philosophy of idealism

The theory of idealism was also born during antiquity. Idealism ascribes to the spirit a dominant role in the world. The classic of idealism is Plato. His teaching was called objective idealism and proclaimed an ideal principle in general, independent not only of matter, but also of human consciousness. There is some essence, some spirit that gave birth to everything and determines everything, say idealists.

Subjective idealism appeared in the philosophy of modern times. Idealist philosophers of modern times argued that the external world completely depends on human consciousness. Everything that surrounds people is just a combination of some sensations, and a person attributes material meaning to these combinations. The combination of some sensations gives rise to a stone and all ideas about it, others - a tree, etc.

In general, idealistic philosophy boils down to the fact that a person receives all information about the outside world only through sensations, with the help of the senses. All that a person knows for certain is knowledge obtained from the senses. And if the senses are arranged differently, then the sensations will be different. This means that a person talks not about the world, but about his feelings.

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 a philosophical movement 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 claim that consciousness is a reflection of the material world, and idealists claim 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 types 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, there are not things, 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 producing 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 (from the Greek idea - concept, idea) is a philosophical direction opposite to materialism in solving the main question of philosophy - the question of the relationship of consciousness (thinking) to being (matter). Idealism, contrary to science, recognizes primary consciousness, spirit and considers matter and nature to be secondary, derivative. In this regard, idealism coincides with the religious worldview, from the point of view of which nature and matter are generated by a certain supernatural, spiritual principle (God).

Absolute idealism (SZF.ES, 2009)

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM is a movement in Anglo-American philosophy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The concept of absolute reality, or the absolute, was formed in classical German. philosophy. According to F.V.Y. Schelling And G.V.F. Hegel, the attribute of the absolute is the harmonious reconciliation of opposites. However, in their systems the concept of the absolute contained an implicit contradiction, which was not slow to reveal itself during further evolution. philosophical ideas. This is a contradiction between the principle of historicism, according to which “spirit” becomes absolute in the process of historical development, and the very concept of the absolute as the timeless fullness of being and perfection. Adherents of absolute idealism abandoned historicism in the name of a consistent concept of the absolute. At the same time, they did not have unanimity in their understanding of absolute reality. The differences between them can be reduced to three positions. The first is represented by the British neo-Hegelians ( ) F.G. Bradley and B. Bosanquet, the second - by the supporter of personalism J. E. McTaggart, the third - by J. Royce...

Transcendental idealism

TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM. Based on Kant's explanations of the concept of “transcendental,” Husserl gave it a broader and more radical meaning. In the book “The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology” he wrote: “The word “transcendental philosophy” has become widespread since the time of Kant as a universal designation for universal philosophizing, which is oriented towards its Kantian type.

Transcendental idealism

TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM (transzendentaler Idealismus) - philosophical doctrine I. Kant, epistemologically substantiating his system of metaphysics, which he opposed to all other metaphysical systems (see Transcendental). According to Kant, “transcendental philosophy must first resolve the question of the possibility of metaphysics and, therefore, must precede it” (Prolegomena to any future metaphysics that may appear as a science. Works in 6 vols., vol. 4, part 1, M. , 1965, p. 54).

Materialism and idealism

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM (French materialisme; idealisme) - from the point of view of materialism, two main philosophical directions. the struggle between which affects the development of psychological thought throughout its history. Materialism proceeds from the principle of the primacy of material existence, the secondary nature of the spiritual, mental, which is considered as arbitrary from the external world, independent of the subject and his consciousness.

Absolute Idealism (NFE, 2010)

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM is a trend in British philosophy that arose in the second half of the 19th century, sometimes also called, although not entirely accurately, British neo-Hegelianism. Absolute idealism also had supporters in American philosophy. The immediate predecessors of absolute idealism were the English romantics (primarily S.T. Coleridge), as well as T. Carlyle, who stimulated interest in speculative objective-idealistic metaphysics among professional philosophers. German idealism (and not only in the Hegelian version) first of all became popular in Scotland, where in the mid-19th century. Positivism and utilitarianism were not as influential as in England. Distribution in North America German idealism initially associated with the activities of a group of transcendentalists, and then it was continued by the St. Louis Philosophical Society led by W. Harris...

Idealism (Gritsanov)

IDEALISM (French idealisme from rp. idea - idea) is a term introduced in the 18th century. for the integral designation of philosophical concepts, oriented in the interpretation of the world order and world knowledge towards the semantic and axiological dominance of the spiritual. The first use of the term I. was in 1702 by Leibniz when assessing the philosophy of Plato (in comparison with the philosophy of Epicurus as materialism). It became widespread at the end of the 18th century. after the explicit formulation within the framework of French materialism of the so-called “fundamental question of philosophy” as a question about the relationship between being and consciousness.

Idealism (Kirilenko, Shevtsov)

IDEALISM (from the Greek idea - idea) is one of the main trends in philosophy, whose supporters recognize the spirit, idea, consciousness as the original, primary, substance. The term I. was introduced German philosopher Leibniz in early XIX V. For Leibniz, Plato was the model and founder of the idealistic trend in philosophy. Pythagoreanism is considered to be the predecessor of Plato's I. The ideal origin was called differently: it was called the idea, consciousness, God, the Absolute, the world will, the absolute idea, the One, the Good.

Animals