Classical and non-classical approaches to the theory of knowledge. Vladislav Lektorsky

Theory of knowledge (epistemology, epistemology) is a branch of philosophy that analyzes the nature and possibilities of knowledge, its boundaries and conditions of reliability.

Not a single philosophical system, since it claims to find the ultimate foundations of knowledge and activity, can do without studying these issues.

Understanding the nature of the problems of the theory of knowledge, its fate and possible future involves the analysis of its two types: classical and non-classical.

In classical The theory of knowledge can highlight the following features.

life activity. Therefore, philosophy also acts as a critique of culture. The theory of knowledge is a criticism of what is considered knowledge in ordinary common sense, in the science available at a given time, in others philosophical systems. Therefore, the starting point for the theory of knowledge is the problem of illusion and reality, opinion and knowledge. This theme was already well formulated by Plato in the dialogue “Theaetetus”. What counts as knowledge? It is clear that this cannot be a generally accepted opinion, for it may be a general misconception, nor can it simply be an opinion that corresponds to the real state of affairs (i.e. true statement), because the correspondence between the content of a statement and reality can be purely accidental. Plato comes to the conclusion that knowledge presupposes not only the correspondence of the content of the statement and reality, but also validity first.

2. Fundamentalism and normativism. The very ideal of knowledge on the basis of which the task of criticism is solved must be justified. In other words, we should find a foundation for all our knowledge about which there is no doubt. Anything that claims to be known but does not actually rest on this foundation must be rejected. Therefore, the search for the basis of knowledge is not identical to simply clarifying the causal dependencies between different mental formations (for example, between sensation, perception And thinking), and is aimed at identifying such knowledge, compliance with which can serve the norm. In other words, one should distinguish between what actually takes place in the cognitive consciousness (and everything that is in it, for example, an illusion of perception or a delusion of thinking, something causally conditioned) and the fact that must be in order to be considered knowledge (i.e., something that corresponds normal). At the same time, in the history of philosophy, the normative has often been mixed with the actually existing and passed off as the latter.

Non-classical theory:

2. Refusal of fundamentalism. It is associated with the discovery of the variability of cognitive norms, the impossibility of formulating rigid and unchanging normative instructions for developing cognition. Attempts to separate knowledge from ignorance with the help of such prescriptions, undertaken in 20th century science, in particular logical positivism and operationalism turned out to be untenable.

3. Refusal of subject centrism. If for the classical theory of knowledge the subject acted as a kind of immediate given, and everything else was in doubt, then for the modern theory of knowledge the problem of the subject is fundamentally different. The cognizing subject is understood as initially included in real world and a system of relations with other entities. The question is not how to understand the knowledge of the external world (or even prove its existence) and the world of other people, but how to explain the genesis of individual consciousness based on this given fact.

The problem of consciousness in philosophy. The role of science in the study of consciousness;

Phenomenology (German: Phänomenologie - the study of phenomena) is a direction in the philosophy of the 20th century, which defined its task as an unpremised description of the experience of cognitive consciousness and the identification of essential, ideal features in it.

In psychology, consciousness is considered as a mental ability of the human body in two interrelated aspects:

in the aspect of self-awareness, consciousness is sometimes understood as the ability to control and understand an individual about himself. Opposite concepts: subconscious and unconscious.

in the aspect of state - as a normal state in which the individual controls himself, controls himself, is adequately aware of his place in the world, is conscious, in contrast to the unconscious state of fainting, seizure, etc. or insanity. The opposite concept: the unconscious.

Consciousness is something immediately inherent to us and at the same time something mysterious. Consciousness seems to be something self-evident, self-understanding and at the same time elusive and incomprehensible. We directly control our consciousness: we perceive, judge, rejoice or grieve, etc. However, it is worth asking a question about the essence of consciousness - and what was immediately accessible turns into something vague and almost inaccessible. The same thing can be said about consciousness as Augustine said about time: until they ask me, I know; when they ask me to explain, I don’t know.

The German neo-Kantian philosopher E. Cassirer compared consciousness with the sea deity Proteus (in Greek mythology), which could take various images: “It seems that the concept of consciousness is the true Proteus of philosophy. It appears in all its diverse problem areas; however, in none of them does it reveal the same appearance (Gestalf), but is comprehended in a continuous change in its meaning. The question, however, is whether enough effort has been made to comprehend this Proteus in his true form, especially since the mythological Proteus possessed him. In other words, does consciousness represent a certain set of functions, or is it still possible to identify the primary, “substantial” experience, which is the initial level of the hierarchy of other experiences, as well as functions of consciousness and mental states?

The problem of consciousness can be considered one of the traditional philosophical problems - this is discussed, for example, in Aristotle’s treatise “On the Soul”, and at the same time it is comparatively new problem. Only in the second half of the 19th century. With the emergence of modern psychology and phenomenology, the problem of consciousness is separated from the theory of knowledge.

As a special and fundamental problem of philosophy and psychology, the problem of consciousness was posed only by the German philosopher Franz Brentano (1838-1917) in his main work “Psychology from an Empirical Point of View” (1874).

In phenomenology, the question was first asked: how does our own consciousness appear to us, do the phenomena, or phenomena of consciousness, differ from the phenomena of objects of external experience, say, from things that we can perceive with our senses. Which way to resolve this issue? What should be the method of philosophy of mind? Brentano, who defined the range of these problems, which became the initial problematics of phenomenology, did not seek answers by resorting to metaphysical constructs or abstract definitions.

For Brentano, the starting point of philosophizing is experience, and first of all, internal experience, not external. Only internal experience can clarify to us how internal experience differs from external experience.

Brentano considers description and division to be the basis of the philosophical method: he does not seek general definition phenomenon (in Brentano the terms “phenomenon” and “appearance” are equivalent, but in a certain context, as we will see later, they can be distinguished), but immediately divides phenomena into two classes - mental and physical.

Brentano's goal was to make a sharp, radical distinction between mental and physical phenomena. He believed this difference to be the basis for the classification of sciences: the subject of psychology is mental phenomena, the subject of natural sciences is physical. Hence the difference in methods, in methods of research.

Hearing and audible sound always coexist, but this does not mean that they are the same thing. Hearing, seeing, various kinds of sensations are acts of consciousness, this is how the psychic, or consciousness, manifests itself; the audible sound, the visible landscape - these are physical phenomena, this is how the physical manifests itself.

Having given examples of mental and physical phenomena, we must now identify the characteristic features of mental phenomena and thereby indicate the criteria for distinguishing one class of phenomena from another. Before we begin, let us indicate into what classes psychic phenomena can be divided. So far, all our examples are hearing a sound, seeing a landscape, etc. - concerned only one type of mental phenomena, namely, ideas. According to Brentano, representation is a fundamental class of mental phenomena that underlies the second class - judgment and the third class - the phenomena of love, hatred, interests. In other words, you cannot judge anything, you cannot love or hate anything, and also strive for something without imagining it, without making it your object. Mental phenomena are acts of consciousness, acts of representation, judgment, love, hate, etc., and not what is represented, what is discussed, what is loved, etc. We can comprehend psychic phenomena with obviousness. The presence of internal perception, or internal consciousness, i.e. consciousness consciousness is one of the signs of consciousness, i.e. psychic phenomena.

Thus, our consciousness has the fundamental possibility of reflection, and reflection subsequently developed this idea German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)*, this is not an observation of consciousness from the outside, but a modification (modification) of consciousness.

Despite the importance of these criteria: 1) mental phenomena are either themselves representations, or have representations as their basis; 2) the source of knowledge about mental phenomena is internal perception (respectively, about physical phenomena - external), yet the main feature of mental phenomena is intentionality, a semantic focus on objects, things, situations (objectivity in the broadest sense). Brentano introduced into modern philosophy the term of medieval philosophy “intention”, or “intentional existence”. Every mental phenomenon, i.e. an act of consciousness is characterized by a focus on content: in representation something is represented, in judgment something is recognized or rejected, in love - loved, in hatred - hated, in desire - desired. At first glance, it seems that such a definition of intentionality is trivial and tautological.

Let us, however, pay attention to the fact that, firstly, this something may be the same object, and secondly, it may not exist at all. If the object that is presented, about which a judgment is made, to which we have an emotional attitude in one way or another is the same, then this means that our various acts of consciousness do not depend on the object and are not its “subjective image”, as is believed in reflection theory. Especially when an object does not exist, when we mistake one object for another. Such arguments were put forward by Brentano and, after him, by Husserl. And although these arguments can be criticized, they nevertheless turned out to be necessary for the opening of such a field of study as consciousness and the way of human being in the world. If Brentano focused on the difference between the act of consciousness and its content, then Husserl, due to his initial scientific interests (the status of mathematical objects, the subject of logic, the essence of theoretical knowledge in general), in the course of analyzing the concept of “content”, made a distinction between content as meaning, or meaning (in Husserl are synonyms), and content as a subject.

(Instead of introduction)

The problems of the theory of knowledge (epistemology - I do not distinguish between these terms, like most modern authors) over the past forty years have been one of the central issues in Russian philosophy. It was in this area of philosophy (as well as in logic, philosophy of science, some sections of the history of philosophy) that the pressure of ideology was less, and therefore there were opportunities for research work. Interesting philosophers with original concepts appeared here (E.V. Ilyenkov, G.P. Shchedrovitsky, M.K. Mamardashvili, G.S. Batishchev, M.K. Petrov, etc.), who created their own schools. Lively discussions were held, fruitful connections were established with some special sciences (psychology, history of science, linguistics).

Today the situation has changed. New disciplines have arisen in our philosophy, the very existence of which was previously impossible: political philosophy, philosophy of religion. Essentially, the history of Russian philosophy began to be studied anew. For the first time it became possible to discuss problems seriously social philosophy, ethics. In this new situation, epistemological issues seemed to fade into the background. It seems that the main approaches to its solution are known and thoroughly developed, while this cannot be said about other branches of philosophy. In addition, socio-philosophical issues, problems of philosophy of religion and ethics seem to be more directly related to understanding the modern situation, with attempts to understand the difficult world in which we find ourselves today.

To these considerations are added others. A number of postmodern theorists who are popular today (also influential in our country), for example, R. Rorty, talk about the removal of all traditional epistemological issues, about their displacement by hermeneutics, i.e., questions of interpretation of texts. Other postmodernists go further and say that even text (and its highest embodiment - the book) are disappearing, replaced by audiovisual media (primarily radio and television). The perception of information transmitted through audiovisual media is significantly different than the perception of meanings transmitted through text. It is the latter that has always been the main way of existence of what Popper calls “objective knowledge.” Knowledge recorded in the text can be treated reflectively, critically - with detachment, which is much more difficult to do in relation to oral speech or an image. It is not without reason that only the advent of writing made possible the emergence of philosophy and science. If it is true that audiovisual culture is today replacing book culture (and text culture in general), then this should have far-reaching consequences. In this case, we would be talking, in particular, about the emergence of a different type of personality with a very blurred, if not disappeared, consciousness of one’s own identity. After all, the latter presupposes the possibility of self-reflection, which historically arose precisely on the basis of the objectification of states of consciousness in the form of writing. Another consequence of the onset of non-textual culture would be a significant undermining of the positions of philosophy and science, in any case, deprivation of their culture-forming function. Epistemology as a critical reflection on knowledge in this case would largely lose its meaning.

Although postmodernists talk about real problems, I think that their main thesis cannot be accepted. There are many reasons to believe (and there is a large literature on this topic) that the most developed countries are now entering the stage of the information society, when the production, distribution and consumption of knowledge becomes the measure of wealth. It is the attitude towards knowledge, towards the possibilities of its creation and use that will increasingly determine the social stratification of society and the division into countries and regions in terms of their place and influence in the new world order. In this case, we are talking primarily about the knowledge that can be transferred from one person to another, about knowledge on the basis of which new technologies and types of collective practices can be constructed, i.e., existing in an intersubjective form, primarily in the form of text (both book and computer).

One of the features of the modern stage in science is the identification of the fundamental importance of the fact of production and consumption of knowledge for understanding a wide variety of phenomena. This is the “cognitive theory” of biological evolution, and cognitive psychology (both individual and social), and cognitive science as a whole (including, along with psychology, certain sections of linguistics, logic, philosophy, and mathematics). This is a cognitive approach to cultural theory. This is, finally, a growing understanding that the very successful functioning of a modern democratic society presupposes a rational justification for decisions made, a culture of reflection and critical discussion.

The problematic of knowledge and cognition, thus, not only remains on the agenda, but becomes central to understanding modern society and man. At the same time, the understanding of knowledge, its relationship to information, to processes in inanimate, living and computer systems, the possibilities of its justification, its social and cultural nature is seriously expanding and changing. New disciplines that study knowledge and cognition are emerging, such as “experimental epistemology,” in which philosophical and logical methods of analyzing knowledge interact with developments in the field of artificial intelligence, as evolutionary epistemology, which studies cognitive processes in the context of biological evolution, and social epistemology, which studies cognition. in the context of the functioning of social and cultural structures.

Thus, the field of study of knowledge and cognition is expanding enormously compared to classical epistemology. And at the same time, new research leads to the need to revise a number of provisions of classical epistemology regarding the understanding of knowledge and the possibilities of its justification, consciousness and its unity, the Self as a bearer of knowledge and consciousness. Classical epistemology was characterized by a number of features. These are hypercriticism (a skeptical attitude regarding the existence of a world external to consciousness and the possibilities of its knowledge, as well as regarding the knowledge of other people’s consciousnesses), fundamentalism (the idea of the existence of some unchangeable norms that allow one to highlight and justify knowledge), subject-centrism (the opinion about the absolute reliability of knowledge about states consciousness of the subject and the unreliability of other knowledge), science-centrism (the attitude that only scientific knowledge is knowledge in the precise sense of the word). The non-classical epistemology that is emerging today abandons all these attitudes and replaces them with others, such as, for example, trust in the cognitive tradition accepted by the subject (under certain conditions), taking into account competition and discussion of such traditions, rejection of fundamentalism, subject-centrism, a new understanding of “internal” states of consciousness, mental representations and the Self itself, etc. This gives rise to a whole series of new problems that did not exist for the classical theory of knowledge.

Domestic developments in the field of epistemology find themselves in a special situation today. On the one hand, for many of our philosophers the idea of non-classical epistemology turns out to be close. We can say that over the past forty years some of them have largely moved precisely along this path, using, in particular, a number of ideas of K. Marx, L. Vygotsky, M. Bakhtin (these ideas are very popular today in the West, including including in the context of the development of non-classical epistemology). On the other hand, we still have to seriously master and explore many fundamental problems of the non-classical understanding of knowledge and cognition. However, we have an additional difficulty in this work. The fact is that in the Soviet period, the so-called “Leninist theory of reflection” was the official ideological doctrine, from which specialists in the field of epistemology could not retreat under pain of ideological destruction. True, V.I. Lenin himself did not claim that his reasoning about reflection in the work “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism” (which in many cases he simply copied from the works of F. Engels) could be considered a complete and infallible “theory”, especially "highest stage" Marxist philosophy. V.I. Lenin’s understanding of reflection is not entirely clear and can be interpreted in different philosophical ways. Lenin's understanding of sensation as a “subjective image of the objective world” and as the only source of knowledge expressed the position of naive sensationalism and finally became an anachronism at least by the middle of our century. Meanwhile, starting from the 30s. the so-called “Leninist theory of reflection” was imposed on all Soviet philosophers as an undeniable dogma. When in the 60s, 70s. Since we had original research in the field of the theory of knowledge, they too were forced to refer to this “theory” and use its terminology, although in essence they could not help but deviate from its dogmatic principles in one direction or another. In a number of cases, this “theory” was given an interpretation that made it possible, as it were, to neutralize some of its attitudes (for example, a number of our philosophers and psychologists essentially criticized sensationalism). At the same time, the use of the terminology of “reflection theory” made it difficult to discuss a number of modern epistemological problems. The development of non-classical epistemology therefore also means for us a revision of our own heritage in this area, the rejection of some provisions, the clarification and concretization of others. At the same time, as I have already said, a number of philosophical ideas of K. Marx related to the development of the activity approach, to understanding the connection between activity, communication and cognition, work precisely for non-classical epistemology.

Theory of knowledge (epistemology, epistemology) is a branch of philosophy that analyzes the nature and possibilities of knowledge, its boundaries and conditions of reliability.

Not a single philosophical system, since it claims to find the ultimate foundations of knowledge and activity, can do without studying these issues.

Understanding the nature of the problems of the theory of knowledge, its fate and possible future involves the analysis of its two types: classical and non-classical.

In classical The theory of knowledge can highlight the following features.

life activity. Therefore, philosophy also acts as a critique of culture. The theory of knowledge is a criticism of what is considered knowledge in ordinary common sense, in the science available at a given time, in other philosophical systems. Therefore, the starting point for the theory of knowledge is the problem of illusion and reality, opinion and knowledge. This theme was already well formulated by Plato in the dialogue “Theaetetus”. What counts as knowledge? It is clear that this cannot be a generally accepted opinion, for it may be a general misconception, nor can it simply be an opinion that corresponds to the real state of affairs (i.e. true statement), because the correspondence between the content of a statement and reality can be purely accidental. Plato comes to the conclusion that knowledge presupposes not only the correspondence of the content of the statement and reality, but also validity first.

2. Fundamentalism and normativism. The very ideal of knowledge, on the basis of which the task of criticism is solved, must be justified. In other words, we should find a foundation for all our knowledge about which no doubt arises. Anything that claims to be known but does not actually rest on this foundation must be rejected. Therefore, the search for the basis of knowledge is not identical to simply clarifying the causal dependencies between different mental formations (for example, between sensation, perception And thinking), and is aimed at identifying such knowledge, compliance with which can serve the norm. In other words, one should distinguish between what actually takes place in the cognitive consciousness (and everything that is in it, for example, an illusion of perception or a delusion of thinking, something causally conditioned) and the fact that must to be in order to be considered knowledge (i.e., something that corresponds normal). At the same time, in the history of philosophy, the normative has often been mixed with the actually existing and passed off as the latter.

3. Subjectocentrism. The very fact of the existence of the subject acts as an undoubted and indisputable basis on which a system of knowledge can be built. From Descartes’ point of view, this is generally the only self-reliable fact. Everything else, including the existence of the world and other people external to my consciousness, can be doubted (thus, the criticism characteristic of the entire classical epistemological tradition is greatly strengthened by the acceptance of this thesis). The knowledge of what exists in consciousness is undeniable and immediate. Knowledge about things external to my consciousness is indirect (Descartes, 1950). For empiricists, the sensations given in my consciousness have such an indisputable status. For rationalists, these are a priori forms of consciousness of the subject. This is how specific problems of the classical theory of knowledge arise: how is knowledge of the external world and the consciousness of other people possible? Their solution turned out to be very difficult (although a number of them were proposed), including not only for philosophy, but also for the empirical sciences about man, which accepted the subject-centric attitude of the classical theory of knowledge, in particular for psychology. For a number of philosophers and scientists who shared the fundamental position of the classical theory of knowledge regarding the immediate givenness of states of consciousness and at the same time did not doubt the same obviousness of the fact of the existence of external objects (cognitive-theoretical realism), it turned out to be difficult to reconcile these provisions.

Non-classical theory:

2. Refusal of fundamentalism. It is associated with the discovery of variability in cognitive norms and the impossibility of formulating strict and unchanging normative instructions for developing cognition. Attempts to separate knowledge from ignorance with the help of such prescriptions, undertaken in 20th-century science, in particular by logical positivism and operationalism, turned out to be untenable.

3. Refusal of subject centrism. If for the classical theory of knowledge the subject acted as a kind of immediate given, and everything else was in doubt, then for the modern theory of knowledge the problem of the subject is fundamentally different. The cognizing subject is understood as initially included in the real world and the system of relations with other subjects. The question is not how to understand the knowledge of the external world (or even prove its existence) and the world of other people, but how to explain the genesis of individual consciousness based on this reality.

In connection with the preparation of texts for the New Philosophical Encyclopaedia, I had to revisit some of the key problems and principles of epistemology. And then it became clear that, firstly, it is impossible now to analyze these problems without taking into account their modern, i.e., non-classical meaning, and that, secondly, it is necessary to reconsider some of the provisions dogmatically accepted in our epistemology. We are talking not only about the concepts of the so-called reflection theory, but also about the meaning of such concepts as sensation, perception, objectivity and many others. On all these issues, I had to clearly formulate my position, which no one has yet expressed in this form in our philosophy (for example, the thesis that sensations, as they were understood in classical epistemology and psychology, do not exist). I specifically had to write about the theory of reflection, as we understood it, about the so-called subject-subject relationship (which, from my point of view, does not exist) and about many other subjects. The reader will find the expression of a position unusual for our literature in almost all articles published here. We simply did not write about some problems, for example, about the Self as a problem of epistemology, although this problem has always been one of the main topics classical philosophy and is now one of the most debated in epistemology and psychology. At first glance, a lot has been written about consciousness and self-awareness, but the actual philosophical difficulties associated with their understanding have, in fact, been simply passed over and not analyzed.

Taken together, these articles provide short essay non-classical epistemology in its comparison with classical.

Theory of knowledge (epistemology, epistemology)

A branch of philosophy that analyzes the nature and possibilities of knowledge, its boundaries and conditions of reliability.

Not a single philosophical system, since it claims to find the ultimate foundations of knowledge and activity, can do without studying these issues. However, theoretical-cognitive issues can be contained in a philosophical concept and in an implicit form, for example, through the formulation of an ontology that implicitly determines the possibilities and nature of knowledge. Knowledge as a problem is specifically studied already in ancient philosophy(Sophists, Plato, Aristotle), although subordinated to ontological themes. The theory of knowledge turns out to be at the center of all the problems of Western philosophy in the 17th century: the solution of theoretical-cognitive questions becomes a necessary condition for the study of all other philosophical problems. Folds up classical type of theory of knowledge. True, the term “theory of knowledge” itself appears quite late - only in 1832. Before this, this problem was studied under other names: analysis of the mind, study of knowledge, criticism of the mind, etc. (usually the term “epistemology” is used as synonymous with the term “theory” knowledge." However, some philosophers, for example, K. Popper, classify only the study of scientific knowledge as epistemology). The theory of knowledge continued to occupy central place in Western philosophy until the middle of the 20th century, when there was a need to rethink the very ways of posing its problems and methods of solving, new connections between the theory of knowledge and other areas of philosophy, as well as science and culture in general, were revealed. Arises non-classical theory of knowledge. However, at this time there appear philosophical concepts, who are either trying to push epistemological topics to the periphery of philosophy, or even to abandon the entire problematic of the theory of knowledge, to “overcome” it.

Understanding the nature of the problems of the theory of knowledge, its fate and possible future involves the analysis of its two types: classical and non-classical.

In classical The theory of knowledge can highlight the following features.

1. Criticism. In essence, all philosophy arises as a distrust of tradition, of what is imposed on the individual by the external (natural and social) environment. Philosophy is a way of self-determination of a free personality, which relies only on itself, on its own powers of feeling and reason in finding the ultimate foundations of its life activity. Therefore, philosophy also acts as a critique of culture. The theory of knowledge is a criticism of what is considered knowledge in ordinary common sense, in the science available at a given time, in other philosophical systems. Therefore, the starting point for the theory of knowledge is the problem of illusion and reality, opinion and knowledge. This theme was already well formulated by Plato in the dialogue “Theaetetus”. What is considered knowledge? It is clear that this cannot be a generally accepted opinion, for it may be a general delusion, nor can it simply be an opinion that corresponds to the real state of affairs (i.e. true statement), because the correspondence between the content of a statement and reality can be purely accidental. Plato comes to the conclusion that knowledge presupposes not only the correspondence of the content of the statement and reality, but also validity first (Plato, 1993). The problem of substantiating knowledge becomes central in Western European philosophy, starting from the 17th century. This is due to the emergence of a non-traditional society, with the emergence of a free individual relying on himself. It is at this time that what is sometimes called the “epistemological turn” occurs. What exactly can be considered a sufficient justification for knowledge? This question is at the center of philosophical discussions. The theory of knowledge acts primarily as a critique of existing metaphysical systems and accepted systems of knowledge from the point of view of a certain ideal of knowledge. For F. Bacon and R. Descartes, this is a criticism of scholastic metaphysics and peripatetic science. For D. Berkeley, this is a criticism of materialism and a number of ideas of the new science, in particular, the ideas of absolute space and time in Newton’s physics and the ideas of infinitesimal quantities in the differential and integral calculus developed at that time (the subsequent history of science showed the correctness of Berkeley’s critical analysis of some foundations of modern science). Kant uses his epistemological construct to demonstrate the impossibility of traditional ontology, as well as of some scientific disciplines (for example, psychology as a theoretical rather than descriptive science) (Kant, 1965). The very system of Kantian philosophy, which is based on the theory of knowledge, is called critical. Criticism determines the main pathos of other epistemological constructions of the classical type. So, for example, for E. Mach, his theory of knowledge acts as a way to substantiate the ideal of descriptive science, and in connection with this, criticize the ideas of absolute space and time of classical physics (this criticism was used by A. Einstein when creating the special theory of relativity), as well as atomic theory (which was rejected by science). Logical positivists used their epistemological principle of verification to criticize a number of statements not only in philosophy, but also in science (physics, psychology), and K. Popper, using the epistemological principle of falsification, tried to demonstrate the unscientific nature of Marxism and psychoanalysis (Popper, 1983a, pp. 240-253).

2. Fundamentalism and normativism. The very ideal of knowledge, on the basis of which the task of criticism is solved, must be justified. In other words, we should find a foundation for all our knowledge about which no doubt arises. Anything that claims to be known but does not actually rest on this foundation must be rejected. Therefore, the search for the basis of knowledge is not identical to simply clarifying the causal dependencies between different mental formations (for example, between sensation, perception And thinking), and is aimed at identifying such knowledge, compliance with which can serve the norm. In other words, one should distinguish between what actually takes place in the cognitive consciousness (and everything that is in it, for example, an illusion of perception or a delusion of thinking, something causally conditioned) and the fact that must to be in order to be considered knowledge (i.e., something that corresponds to the norm). At the same time, in the history of philosophy, the normative has often been mixed with the actually existing and passed off as the latter.

In this capacity, the theory of knowledge acted not only as criticism, but also as a means of affirming certain types of knowledge, as a means of their unique cultural legitimation. So, according to Plato sensory perception cannot give knowledge, one can truly know only what mathematics teaches. Therefore, from this point of view, in the strict sense of the word, there cannot be a science of empirical phenomena; the ideal of science is the geometry of Euclid. According to Aristotle, the situation is different: sensory experience says something about reality. Experimental science is possible, but it cannot be mathematical, because experience is qualitative and cannot be mathematized. New European science, which arose after Copernicus and Galileo, essentially synthesized the programs of Plato and Aristotle in the form of a program of mathematical natural science (Gaidenko, 1980), based on experiment: empirical science is possible, but not on the basis of a description of what is given in experience, but on the basis of artificial construction in an experiment (and this involves the use of mathematics) of what is being studied. This program is based on a certain theoretical-cognitive attitude: reality is given in sensory experience, but its deep mechanism is comprehended through its preparation and mathematical processing. The theory of knowledge in this case acts as a way of substantiating and legitimizing a new science that contradicts and old tradition, and common sense, is something strange and unusual.

At the same time, the division of theoretical-cognitive concepts into empiricism to rationalism. WITH from the point of view of the former, only that knowledge that corresponds to the maximum extent to the data of sensory experience, which is based on either sensations (sensualism), or "sense data" (neorealism), or elementary protocol sentences (logical empiricism). The latter considered as knowledge only what fits either into the system of “innate ideas” (Descartes, Spinoza) or into the system of a priori categories and schemes of the mind (Hegel, neo-Kantians). Kant tried to take a kind of third position in this debate.

Another large and fundamental division characteristic of the classical theory of knowledge is the division into psychologists and antipsychologists. Of course, all philosophers distinguished between a causal explanation of certain phenomena of consciousness and their normative justification. However, for psychologists (this includes all empiricists, as well as some supporters of the theory of “innate ideas”), the norm that ensures the connection of cognition with reality is rooted in the empirically given consciousness itself. This is a definite fact of consciousness. The theory of knowledge in this regard is based on psychology, which studies empirical consciousness. Historically, many researchers in the field of the theory of knowledge were at the same time outstanding psychologists (D. Berkeley, D. Hume, E. Mach, etc. (Berkeley, 1978; Hume, 1965; Mach, 1908)). For anti-psychologists, epistemological norms that speak not about what is, but about what should be, cannot be simply facts of individual empirical consciousness. After all, these norms are of a universal, obligatory and necessary nature; therefore, they cannot be obtained through a simple inductive generalization of anything, including the work of empirical consciousness and cognition. Therefore, their source should be sought in another area. For philosophical transcendentalism(Kant, neo-Kantians, phenomenology) This area is transcendental consciousness, different from the ordinary empirical, although present in the latter. In this case, the method of theoretical-cognitive research cannot be an empirical analysis of psychological data. For Kant, this is a special transcendental method of analyzing consciousness (Kant, 1965). Phenomenologists, as a method of theoretical-cognitive research, offer a special intuitive grasp of the essential structures of consciousness and their description. The theory of knowledge in the latter case turns out to be not a theory at all in the precise sense of the word, but a descriptive discipline, although the description does not refer to empirical facts, but to a special kind of a priori phenomena (Husserl, 19946). In addition, this discipline does not depend on any others (including psychology), but precedes them. Neo-Kantians solve this problem differently: the theory of knowledge, from their point of view, tries to identify the transcendental conditions for the possibility of knowledge. To do this, a specialist in the theory of knowledge (and neo-Kantians reduce philosophy to the theory of knowledge) must subject to analysis the knowledge objectified in texts, and above all in scientific texts. The theory of knowledge appears, with this understanding, as, on the one hand, analyzing empirically given texts, and on the other, revealing as a result of this analysis not empirical, but a priori dependencies (Cassirer, 1916; Cassirer, 1906).

Anti-psychologism in the theory of knowledge was uniquely continued in analytical philosophy. Here it was understood as the analysis of language. True, this analysis itself is no longer a transcendental procedure, but a completely empirical procedure, but no longer dealing with the facts of empirical consciousness (as was the case with psychologists), but with the facts of the “deep grammar” of language. Within the framework of this approach, the theory of knowledge was interpreted as an analytical discipline, and the old theory of knowledge was criticized, in particular by L. Wittgenstein, as an untenable “philosophy of psychology” (Wittgenstein, 1994 a, p. 24). Such cognitive-theoretical principles that set the standards of knowledge, such as verification and falsification, were understood as rooted in the structures of language. In this regard, the “context of discovery” of a particular statement, which is the subject of psychological research, was clearly separated from the “context of justification” with which philosophical, theoretical-cognitive analysis deals. Early analytical philosophy, especially its versions such as logical positivism, shared the basic principles of classical epistemological anti-psychologism.

A peculiarly anti-psychological understanding of the theory of knowledge (epistemology) by K. Popper (Popper, 1983b, pp. 439-495). For him, it should be based on the study of the history of scientific knowledge, objectified in texts (“objective knowledge”) - in this he is similar to the neo-Kantians. The theory of knowledge (epistemology) does not deal with the individual subject. And since, according to K. Popper, there is no other subject besides the individual, epistemology has nothing to do with the subject in general (“epistemology without a cognizing subject”). However, unlike the neo-Kantians, K. Popper believes that epistemology should use the methods of empirical science. This means, in particular, that epistemological generalizations can, in principle, be subject to revision.

3. Subjectocentrism. The very fact of the existence of the subject acts as an undoubted and indisputable basis on which a system of knowledge can be built. From Descartes' point of view, this is generally the only self-reliable fact. Everything else, including the existence of the world and other people external to my consciousness, can be doubted (thus, the criticism characteristic of the entire classical epistemological theoretical tradition is greatly strengthened by the acceptance of this thesis). Knowledge about that. what exists n consciousness - undeniably and directly. Knowledge about things external to my consciousness is indirect (Descartes, 1950). For empiricists, the sensations given in my consciousness have such an indisputable status. For rationalists, these are a priori forms of consciousness of the subject. This is how specific problems of the classical theory of knowledge arise: how is it possible to know the external world and the consciousness of other people? Their solution turned out to be very difficult (although a number of such solutions were proposed), including not only for philosophy, but also for the empirical sciences about man, which accepted the subject-centric attitude of the classical theory of knowledge, in particular for psychology. For a number of philosophers and scientists who shared the fundamental position of the classical theory of knowledge regarding the immediate givenness of states of consciousness and at the same time did not doubt the same obviousness of the fact of the existence of internal objects (theoretical-cognitive realism) it turned out to be difficult to reconcile these provisions. Hence the ideas of G. Helmholtz about the “hieroglyphic” relationship of sensations to reality, the “law of specific energy of the sense organs” of J. Müller, etc. These real difficulties were essentially simply ignored as non-existent in V.I. Lenin’s work “Materialism and Empiricism” "ticism", which comes from a realistic attitude about the objective existence of objects of knowledge and at the same time from the sensualist thesis that sensations underlie all knowledge (Lenin, 1957). The latter were interpreted by V.I. Lenin as “subjective images of the objective world,” which sensations in reality are not and cannot be (see. Feel). On the basis of the simplified attitude adopted in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, many complex problems of the theory of knowledge simply could not be discussed. A number of representatives of the theory of knowledge proposed to “remove” the very problem of the relationship between knowledge and the external world, interpreting the consciousness of the subject as the only reality: for empiricists these are sensations, for rationalists these are a priori structures of consciousness. The world (including other people) appears in this case either as a set of sensations or as a rational construction of the subject. This position was criticized by representatives of various realistic schools (neorealism, critical realism), however, as long as cognition continued to be understood only as a fact of individual consciousness, as something that occurs only “inside” the subject (even if causally determined by external events). peace), the noted difficulties could not be solved.

If Descartes does not distinguish between the empirical and transcendental subjects, then such a distinction is subsequently made. Empiricists and psychologists deal with the individual subject, transcendentalists deal with the transcendental. So, for example, for Kant it is undeniable that the objects given to me in experience exist independently of me as an empirical individual. However, this experience itself is constructed by a transcendental subject. The transcendental unity of the apperception of this subject is even a guarantor of the objectivity of experience. For E. Husserl, the undoubted reality is the givenness of phenomena to transcendental consciousness. As for the relationship between these phenomena and external reality, phenomenology “refrains” from these questions. The neo-Kantians of the Freiburg school proceed from the fact that the theory of knowledge deals with “consciousness in general,” while the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism deals rather with the “spirit of science.” For the early representatives of analytical philosophy, although language is not the property of only one individual subject, the meaning of statements derives from their relationship to the subjective data of the individual's experience.

Some epistemological concepts that are classical in most respects go beyond these limits at this point. This applies, in particular, to Hegel’s epistemological system, in which an attempt was made to overcome the opposition of the subjective and objective as two separate worlds on the basis of the Absolute Spirit, which is not an individual subject (neither empirical nor transcendental). The same can be said about K. Popper’s “epistemology without a knowing subject” (Popper, 19836).

4. Science-centrism. The theory of knowledge acquired a classical form precisely in connection with the emergence of modern science and in many ways acted as a means of legitimizing this science. Therefore, most epistemological systems proceeded from the fact that scientific knowledge, as it was presented in the mathematical natural sciences of that time, is the highest type of knowledge, and what science says about the world actually exists. Many problems discussed in the theory of knowledge can only be understood in the light of this attitude. This is, for example, the problem of the so-called primary and secondary qualities discussed by T. Hobbes, D. Locke and many others, some of which (heaviness, shape, location, etc.) are considered to belong to the real objects themselves, while others (color, smell) , taste, etc.) are considered as arising in the consciousness of the subject when objects of the external world influence the senses. What really exists and what does not really exist is, in this case, completely determined by what classical physics said about reality. Kant's theory of knowledge can be understood as the foundation of classical Newtonian mechanics. For Kant, the fact of existence scientific knowledge is initially justified. Two questions of his “Critique of Pure Reason” - “how is pure mathematics possible” and “how is pure natural science possible” - do not question the justification of these scientific disciplines, but only try to identify the epistemological conditions of their possibility. This cannot be said about the third question of Kant’s “Critique” - “how is metaphysics possible” - the philosopher is trying to show that from a theoretical-cognitive point of view, the latter is impossible. For neo-Kantians, the theory of knowledge is possible only as a theory of science. Logical positivists saw the task of philosophy (the analytical theory of knowledge) precisely in the analysis of the language of science, and not at all of ordinary language. According to K. Popper, epistemology should deal only with scientific knowledge.

We can say that in the last decades of the 20th century, a non-classical theory of knowledge, which differs from the classical one in all main parameters. The change in theoretical-cognitive issues and methods of work in this area is associated with a new understanding of cognition and knowledge, as well as the relationship between the theory of knowledge and other sciences about man and culture. This new understanding is in turn driven by shifts in modern culture generally. This type of epistemological theory is in its early stages of development. Nevertheless, some of its features can be highlighted.

1. Post-criticism. This does not mean a rejection of philosophical criticism (without which there is no philosophy itself), but only an understanding of the fundamental fact that knowledge cannot begin from scratch, based on distrust of all traditions, but presupposes the inscription of the knowing individual into one of them. Data from experience are interpreted in theoretical terms, and the theories themselves are transmitted over time and are a product of collective development. The attitude of distrust and the search for self-confidence is replaced by the attitude trust to the results of the activities of others. This is not about blind trust, but only about the fact that any criticism presupposes a certain point of support, Adoption something that is not criticized at a given time and in a given context (it may become the object of criticism at another time and in another context). This idea is well expressed by L. Wittgenstein in his later works (Wittgenstein, 19946). This means that collectively developed knowledge may contain content that is not currently recognized by the participants in the collective cognitive process. So unconscious to me implicit I may also have knowledge about my own cognitive processes (Polanyi, 1985). In the history of knowledge different traditions mutually criticize each other. This is not only a mutual criticism of myth and science, but also a criticism of one cognitive tradition from the point of view of another in science, for example, the mathematical and descriptive traditions in biology. In the process of development of knowledge, it may become clear that those cognitive traditions that seemed completely repressed or moved to the periphery of knowledge discover new meaning in a new context. For example, in the light of the ideas of the theory of self-organizing systems developed by I. Prigozhin, the modern heuristic meaning of some ideas of ancient Chinese mythology is revealed (Prigozhy, 1986; Stepin, 1991).

2. Refusal of fundamentalism. It is associated with the discovery of the variability of cognitive norms, the impossibility of formulating strict and unchanging normative instructions for developing cognition. Attempts to separate knowledge from ignorance with the help of such prescriptions, undertaken in 20th-century science, in particular by logical positivism and operationalism, turned out to be untenable.

There are different reactions to this situation in modern philosophy.

Some philosophers consider it possible to talk about abandoning the theory of knowledge as philosophical discipline. So, for example, some followers of the late L. Wittgenstein, based on the fact that in everyday language the word “know” is used in several different senses, do not see the possibility of developing unified theory knowledge. Others (for example, R. Rorty (Rorty, 1996; Yulina, 1998)) identify the rejection of fundamentalism with the end of the theory of knowledge and with the displacement of epistemological research by philosophical hermeneutics.

Other philosophers (and they are the majority) consider the opportunity to provide new understanding of this discipline and in this regard they propose different research programs.

One of them is expressed in the program of “naturalized epistemology” by W. Quine (Quine, 1972). According to the latter, scientific epistemology must completely abandon the issuance of instructions, any normativism and be reduced to a generalization of data from the physiology of higher nervous activity and psychology using the apparatus of information theory.

The famous psychologist J. Piaget developed the concept of “genetic epistemology” (Piaget, 1950). Unlike W. Quine, he emphasizes that epistemology deals with norms. But these are not the norms that the philosopher formulates based on a priori considerations, but those that he finds as a result of studying the real process of mental development of a child, on the one hand, and the history of science, on the other. The fact is that cognitive norms are not an invention of philosophers, but real fact, rooted in the structure of the psyche. The job of a specialist in the theory of knowledge is to generalize what really exists, empirically.

An even more interesting and promising program for developing a non-fundamentalist theory of knowledge in connection with the study of modern psychology is proposed within the framework of modern cognitive science. The philosopher builds some ideal model of cognitive processes, using, among other things, the results obtained in the history of the theory of knowledge. He conducts various “ideal experiments” with this model, exploring first of all the logical possibilities of this model. These models are then compared with data obtained in psychology. This comparison serves as a way to test the effectiveness of the corresponding epistemological models. At the same time, these models can be used to develop computer programs. This type of epistemological research, interacting with psychology and developments in artificial intelligence, is sometimes called “experimental epistemology” (D. Dennett et al. (198 lb)).

Thus, within the framework of the non-classical theory of knowledge, a kind of return to psychologism seems to be taking place. It is important to emphasize, however, that we are no longer talking about psychologism in the old sense of the word. Firstly, the theory of knowledge (like modern cognitive psychology) proceeds from the fact that certain norms of cognitive activity are built into the work of the psyche and determine the latter (and in this regard, rational grounds also act as causes of mental phenomena). Secondly, the main way to obtain data on the work of the psyche is not the inductive generalization of introspective data of consciousness, but the construction of ideal models, the consequences of which are compared with the results of psychological experiments (self-reports of subjects are used, but only subject to their critical verification and comparison with other data). By the way, in the process of theoretical-cognitive work of this kind, the important heuristic role of some ideas expressed in line with the antipsychological tradition (in particular, a number of ideas of I. Kant and E. Husserl) is revealed.

There are other ways of understanding the tasks of epistemology in the light of the collapse of fundamentalism. A number of researchers emphasize the collective nature of acquiring knowledge (both ordinary and scientific) and the need in this regard to study the connections between subjects cognitive activity. These connections, firstly, involve communication, secondly, they are socially and culturally mediated, and thirdly, they change historically. The norms of cognitive activity change and develop in this socio-cultural process. In this regard, a program of social epistemology is formulated (which is currently being implemented by researchers in many countries), which involves the interaction of philosophical analysis with the study of the history of knowledge in the socio-cultural context. The task of a specialist in the field of epistemology looks in this regard not as a prescription of cognitive norms obtained on the basis of some a priori considerations, but as identifying those of them that are actually used in the process of collective cognitive activity. These norms change, they are different in different spheres of knowledge (for example, in everyday life and scientific knowledge, in different sciences), they are not always fully understood by those who use them; contradictions may exist between different norms. The task of the philosopher is to identify and explicate all these relationships, establish logical connections between them, and identify possibilities for changing them (Motroshilova, 1969; Bloor, 1983; Yudin, 1984; Scientific Knowledge, 1988). In domestic studies of the theory of knowledge, under the influence of the ideas of K. Marx on the collective and communicative nature of cognitive activity, a successfully working school of socio-cultural analysis of knowledge has developed (Ilyenkov, 1974; Bibler, 1975; Kuznetsova, 1987; Bibler, 1991; Lektorsky, 1980; Mamchur, 1987; Theory of knowledge, 1991-1992; Mamardashvili, 1998; Rationality at the crossroads, 1999; Frolov, Yudin, 1986;

Finally, it is necessary to name such a direction of modern non-fundamentalist theory of knowledge as evolutionary epistemology - the study of cognitive processes as a moment of the evolution of living nature and as its product (K. Lorenz, G. Vollmer, etc.). In this regard, attempts are being made to solve a number of fundamental problems theories of knowledge (including issues of correspondence of cognitive norms and external reality, the presence of a priori cognitive structures, etc.) based on data from modern biology (Lorenz, 1994; Vollmer, 1998; Kezin, 1994; Merkulov, 1999).

3. Refusal of subject-centrism. If for the classical theory of knowledge the subject acted as a kind of immediate given, and everything else was in doubt, then for the modern theory of knowledge the problem of the subject is fundamentally different. The cognizing subject is understood as initially included in the real world and the system of relations with other subjects. The question is not how to understand the knowledge of the external world (or even prove its existence) and the world of other people, but how to explain the genesis of individual consciousness based on this given fact. In this regard, important ideas were expressed by the outstanding Russian psychologist L. Vygotsky, according to which the internal subjective world of consciousness can be understood as a product of intersubjective activity, including communication. Subjectivity, thus, turns out to be a cultural-historical product. These ideas were used in a number of domestic developments of problems in the theory of knowledge (with this understanding, the difference between two modern approaches to the development of the theory of knowledge is removed: interacting with psychology and relying on the cultural-historical approach). They were also picked up and connected to philosophical ideas late L. Wittgenstein by a number of Western specialists in the field of epistemology and philosophical psychology who proposed a communicative approach to understanding the Self, consciousness and cognition (R. Harre et al. (Harre, 1984; Harre, Gillet, 1994)). The communicative approach to understanding the subject, which turned out to be very fruitful, at the same time poses a number of new questions for the theory of knowledge: is knowledge possible without the Self; Doesn’t the communicative interaction between the researcher and the subject when studying mental processes lead to the creation of the very phenomena that are being studied, etc.

4. Refusal of science-centrism. Science is the most important way of understanding reality. But not the only one. In principle, it cannot displace, for example, ordinary knowledge. In order to understand knowledge in all the diversity of its forms and types, it is necessary to study these pre-scientific and extra-scientific forms and types of knowledge. The most important thing is that scientific knowledge not only presupposes these forms, but also interacts with them. This was well shown, in particular, in the study of ordinary language in the philosophy of the late L. Wittgenstein and his followers. For example, the very identification of objects of research in scientific psychology presupposes an appeal to those phenomena that have been identified by common sense and recorded in ordinary language: perception, thinking, will, desire, etc. The same, in principle, applies to all other sciences about man: sociology, philology, etc. Similar ideas were developed by E. Husserl in his later works, when he tried to show that a number of problems in modern science and European culture are a consequence of forgetting the rootedness of the original abstractions of scientific knowledge in the everyday “life world” ( Husserl, 1994 a). Science is not obliged to follow the distinctions that common sense makes. But she cannot ignore them. In this regard, the interaction of everyday and scientific knowledge can be likened to the relationship between different cognitive traditions, which mutually criticize each other and in this criticism are mutually enriched (today, for example, there is a heated debate on the question of how much data from “folk psychology” should be taken into account, recorded in everyday language, in cognitive science (see: Porus, 1982; Zotov, 1985; Filatov, 1989; Scientific and non-scientific forms of thinking, 1996; Kasavin, 1998; Kasavin, 2000; Farman, 1999)).

Thus, today the theory of knowledge is at the center of many human sciences, from psychology to biology and studies of the history of science. The emergence of the information society makes the problem of obtaining and assimilating knowledge one of the central issues for culture as a whole. At the same time, the problems and nature of the theory of knowledge are changing significantly. New ways are being found to discuss traditional problems. Questions arise that did not exist for the classical theory of knowledge (see also: Nikitin, 1993; Mikeshina, 1997).

Feeling

Sensation is the elementary content assumed by a number of philosophical and psychological concepts that underlies sensory knowledge of the external world, a “brick” for building perception and other forms of sensuality. As examples of this phenomenon, they usually cite the sensations of color, sound, hard, sour, etc. The sensations were interpreted as relating not to the object as a whole, but only to its individual properties, “qualities.” In the history of philosophy and psychology, sensations were divided into those related to the properties of objects in the world external to man and those related to specific states of the human body itself (the latter signal movements and relative position different parts body and the functioning of internal organs). At the same time, sensations related to the external world are divided according to their modality into visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory and gustatory.

Sensations were clearly identified as the initial unit of analysis of cognitive processes in philosophy empiricism And sensationalism XVII - XVIII centuries(before this, for example, in ancient philosophy there was no sharp division between sensation and perception). True, the term “sensation” itself arose even later than their clear identification - initially, empiricist philosophers called them either “sensory ideas”, or “simple ideas”, or “impressions”, etc. The grounds that were used to distinguish sensations can be classified as follows.

Perception as knowledge of integral objects and situations presupposes the participation of the mind. But any operations of the mind, including those related to the creation of perception, presuppose the material on which the mind operates. Such initial material is sensations (Kant, who opposed empiricism in general, sensationalism in particular, nevertheless allowed the presence of sensations as the initial material for the activity of a priori forms of sensibility and reason that organize experience). That's why givenness, immediacy are specific characteristics of sensations. It is very important what this means conscious

Precisely because perception presupposes a certain activity of the mind, it can be misleading and illusory. However, the source material for constructing perception cannot in itself lead to error. I may mistakenly perceive a straight pencil dipped into a glass of water as broken, but the very elementary sensations that make up my perception cannot be mistaken. I may be mistaken in perceiving cold water with a hot hand as warm, but thermal sensations cannot deceive me about themselves. “In reality there are no illusions of the senses, only errors in the interpretation of data as signs of things other than themselves” (Russell, 1957, p. 200). Therefore absolute indisputability, indisputability

is also a distinctive characteristic of sensations (Sagpar, 1928). 3. As scientific knowledge teaches (in particular, classical mechanics, which in the 17th - 18th centuries, i.e. at the time when the doctrine of sensations was formulated, acted as a paradigm of scientific knowledge in general), complex formations can be understood as a result of the interaction of elementary components. In a number of areas of philosophy and psychology, sensations were considered such an indecomposable element of all mental processes in general and cognitive processes in particular. Therefore they were understood as

atomic units of experience. Experimental psychology, which emerged at the end of the 19th century and, above all, such a branch of it as psychophysics, made sensations the subject of scientific research

. The dependence of sensations on the action of external stimuli (stimuli) was studied. In this regard, the so-called sensitivity thresholds, the nature of the dependence of sensations on the intensity of the stimulus (Weber-Fechner law) and a number of other facts were identified.

However, the philosophical and scientific analysis of sensations has encountered a number of fundamental difficulties.

We experience every sensation because we can isolate it as part of our experience, as something not only unique and not repeatable, but at the same time as something generalized. Thus, we perceive a given color spot not only as an absolutely individual, but also as an individual expression of a color universal, for example, as a given specific shade of red (“red in general”). If the identification of the general is the result of the activity of the mind, in particular, the result of a comparison of different individual cases, then it is not clear how sensations, which are characterized by absolute immediacy (i.e., the absence of components, characteristics) can have not only a unique, but also a generalized character.

If one of the most important characteristics of sensations is their reality in individual consciousness, then it is not clear how perception can be built from these subjective and individual elements relating to objects of the external world that exist independently of my consciousness and can be perceived not only by me , but also by every other person. In general, the question of the relationship of sensations to the corresponding qualities of the external world turned out to be difficult and leading to paradoxical solutions. A number of philosophers, in particular D. Locke, divided sensations into those related to the so-called “primary qualities” that actually exist in the objects themselves (sensations related to the spatial properties of objects, their shape, location, etc.), and those related to “secondary qualities” that exist only in consciousness - despite the fact that the criteria for separating these qualities are not entirely clear (and were challenged by D. Berkeley). In the 19th century, in connection with the discovery of the fact that certain sensations can be caused not only by adequate stimuli (for example, the visual sensation of light), but also by inadequate stimuli (for example, the same visual sensation by a mechanical or electrical stimulus), it was formulated ( I. Muller) the so-called “law of specific energy of the senses”: the quality of sensation depends not on the properties of external objects, but on the characteristics of the human sensory (receptor) system.

In the same connection, G. Helmholtz formulated the thesis that sensation relates to the qualities of the external world as a hieroglyph to the object designated by it. For sensualists - phenomenalists (D. Berkeley, D. Hume, E. Mach, etc.) the problem of the relationship of sensation to the objective property of an object does not exist, but for them the possibility of constructing the perception of an objectively existing object from subjective, individual sensations remains a stumbling block.

It was also not clear whether sensation should be considered elementary knowledge. For most philosophers who have analyzed sensations, it is the certainty and infallibility of sensations that takes them beyond the limits of knowledge. From the point of view of these philosophers, there is no division into sensations into subject and object. Therefore, even if we assume that sensations relate to some qualities of objective objects, we can draw this conclusion only by going beyond the sensations themselves. At the same time, at the beginning of the 20th century, a concept arose (early E. Moore, B. Russell and others (Russell, 1915)), according to which sensation is an act of awareness of some elementary sensory content (sensory datum), existing outside the consciousness of the subject and at the same time, not belonging to the world of objective physical things. In this case, sensation is considered as elementary knowledge.

In philosophy and psychology of the 20th century, trends arose that questioned the very fact of the existence of sensations as some independent entities. First of all, attention was drawn to the fact that in most cases in everyday life we are never aware of our sensations, but deal only with the perception of entire objects and situations. Even in those rare cases when, as it seems to us, we are dealing only with sensations (warmth in a certain area of the body, pressure, etc.), we are actually dealing not with the elementary facts of our consciousness, but with obtaining information about some objective situation (even if perceived very vaguely). Of course, you can try to isolate individual sensations as part of perception, for example, look more closely at the shades of red in a tomato (artists are often involved in solving problems of this kind). However, firstly, this situation is quite rare and not typical for ordinary experience, secondly, it does not explain the formation of perception, because it is already carried out on the basis of existing perception, thirdly, even in this case it is not possible to isolate the sensation as such , because red in this case is perceived as a property of a certain object - a tomato, i.e., as if against the background of holistic perception. In this regard, it was noted that the experimental study of sensations, which psychophysics has been studying for a hundred years, was possible only because it took place in artificial laboratory conditions that did not take into account a number of important features of normal, natural perception of the world (therefore, the results of psychophysics are applicable only insofar as , since a situation arises that is close to artificial). As the English philosopher G. Ryle, who proceeded from the ideas of the late L. Wittgenstein, noted, in the case of sensations a category mistake was made: the features of perception were transferred to imaginary objects, which are sensations: in reality one can see objects, for example, flowers, but not the sensations of red, green, you can hear the sound of the surf, the roar of thunder, the sounds of speech, etc., and not the sound sensations of loud, quiet, etc. Therefore, no indisputable and indubitable units of experience (namely, these qualities were attributed to sensations) does not exist (Ryle, 2000). Perception there can be absolutely nodoubtful which does not prevent it from being quite reliable in most cases.

In the 20th century, psychological trends emerged that revised those philosophical foundations, from which researchers of sensation and perception had previously proceeded. The results of this revision led to different theories of perception. However, in the end, all these theories, for various reasons, abandoned the concept of sensation, as it was used in previous philosophy and psychology. Gestalt psychology formulated the thesis about the structural, holistic nature of perception and the impossibility of understanding this integrity as a sum individual atoms,“bricks” - sensations. In the experiments of representatives of this direction, it was shown that perception may not change even if some of the components of the entire system change (if we interpret these components as sensations, then it turns out that perception is not determined by the sensations included in its composition). From the point of view of Gestalt psychologists directly yesBut not a sensation, but a holistic perception (the latter, therefore, does not imply constructive operations of the mind on individual sensations). According to the concept developed by J. Gibson (Gibson, 1988), perception is an active process of the body collecting information about the environment. In this process, individual sensations (as well as individual images of perception) do not exist. Representatives of cognitive psychology believe it is possible to identify individual units of information from which perception is built. However, these units in most cases are not realized and this means they can hardly be interpreted as sensations, as they were previously understood in philosophy and psychology.

Thus, for various reasons, the concept of sensation is not used in most areas of modern philosophy and psychology, because those philosophical premises within the framework of which this concept had meaning have been called into question.

Meanwhile, in Russian philosophy of the Soviet period, this concept played an important role for a long time. This was due to the uncritically accepted provisions of V.I. Lenin, formulated in his work “Materialism and Empirio-criticism”, that sensation is the only source of all our knowledge, that sensation is “a subjective image of the objective world” (Lenin, 1957, p. 101), that matter as an objective reality is “given to man in his sensations”, that it is “photographed, reflected by our sensations, existing independently of them” (Lenin, 1957, p. 131). Criticizing the subjectivist phenomenalism of E. Mach, V.I. Lenin contrasts it with the materialistic (realistic) interpretation of sensations, but does this incorrectly. All those who recognized and studied sensation noted such qualities of it that make it impossible to think that in sensations “matter is given.” From this point of view, what is “given” in sensations is not material objects (not to mention matter in general), but only individual properties. In addition, as most supporters of the existence of sensation believe, there is no knowledge at all in it, because there is no division into subject and object. Therefore, it cannot be an “image” of anything. The most important thing is that, while criticizing E. Mach, V. I. Lenin at the same time found himself dependent on the main philosophical premise of the object of his criticism - his philosophical sensationalism, i.e. the opinion that all content our knowledge can be inferred from sensations (Oizerman, 1994). It must be said that some Russian philosophers, without formally criticizing V. I. Lenin’s theses regarding sensations, in their research actually disavowed them (E. V. Ilyenkov, V. A. Lektorsky, etc. (Ilyenkov, 1960; Lektorsky, 1980 )). A number of the most prominent Russian psychologists (A.N. Leontiev, A.V. Zaporozhets, V.P. Zinchenko and others (Zaporozhets, 1967; Leontiev, 1982)), studying the problem of perception, actually refuted the theory of sensations as elementary atoms of experience , in particular in connection with the criticism they developed of the receptor theory of sensibility.

Perception

Perception is sensory cognition, subjectively perceived as immediate, of objects (physical things, living beings, people) and objective situations (the relationship of objects, movements, events). Perception is characterized by a specific experience of direct contact with the real world (a sense of the reality of what is perceived). Historically, perceptions have differed from Feel, which characterizes not a holistic object, but only individual qualities, properties, and also from thinking as conscious reflection, analysis, as interpretation, since thinking acts as an indirect activity, and its results (abstractions, concepts, idealizations, theoretical objects, ideas, theories, etc.) may not be perceived. Perception also differs from visual images ideas, which, being subjectively directly given, at the same time are not accompanied by a feeling of direct contact with the real world.

Perception interested philosophy as a type of knowledge that occupies a certain place among its other types. For rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, etc.), perception, which they did not clearly separate from sensation, either does not relate to knowledge at all, or is considered as “vague knowledge” and in any case cannot lie at the basis of knowledge. The contact with reality experienced in perception is, from this point of view, imaginary. For representatives of empiricism, it is in perception that one should look for the justification of the entire system of knowledge as a whole. And since, as experience shows, perception can lead to misconception and give rise to illusions, it was necessary to highlight within the composition of perception itself those components that are undoubted and immediate. Thus, in the philosophy of empiricism, elementary “atoms” were identified sensory knowledge- Feel. Perception, according to this concept, is built from sensations on the basis of the laws of association, which were first formulated by D. Hume and D. Hartley (Hume, 1965), and then studied in experimental psychology of the 19th - early 20th centuries. Perception, in contrast to sensation, from this point of view presupposes some activity of the mind, but the degree of activity of the mind in this case is minimal, since associations between sensations are not so much discovered as imposed by experience itself (Mach, 1908).

When at the beginning of the 20th century facts were discovered (in particular by Gestalt psychology) that cast doubt on the possibility of understanding perception as the result of a simple association of “atomic” sensations, in the philosophy of empiricism an attempt was made to take these facts into account to some extent and at the same time It’s time to save the basic idea of empiricism: the existence of an undoubted and immediately given sensory content underlying perception and the entire system of knowledge as a whole. Thus, the so-called sense data were postulated (D. Moore, B. Russell, etc. (Russell, 1915)), from which perception supposedly arises. According to this view, if I, for example, perceive a tomato, then one can doubt whether the object of my perception really exists (perhaps it is just a fake tomato, or its reflection in a mirror, or simply a hallucination of mine). But there is no doubt that my consciousness is directly given a certain red spot of a round and partly convex shape, protruding against the background of other color spots and having some visible depth (see Price, 1932, p. 3). This is the so-called sensory data, which has a rather paradoxical character.

On the one hand, it exists outside of my consciousness (therefore it differs from its direct grasping in an act of consciousness).

On the other hand, it is not a physical thing.

On the one hand, it is of a purely personal nature, on the other, it is from sensory data that perception arises, dealing with objects that are sensually accessible to all other people.

In the philosophical empiricism of the first half of the 20th century (neorealism, critical realism, early logical positivism), there were great discussions regarding the nature of sensory data and the logic of constructing perception from them. In this case, the apparatus of symbolic logic was used to demonstrate how an object of perception can be understood as a certain collection, class or family of sensory data (both actually present in the sensory field of consciousness and possible). Attempts to understand perception on the basis of sensory data did not yield any results, because in the end it was necessary to admit that the very selection of sensory data and their identification are possible only on the basis of an already existing perception and that the construction of perception from sensory data is logically impossible, since it presupposes the use of an infinite many of the latter. Philosophical criticism of the thesis about the possibility of constructing perception from sensations or sensory data was especially clearly given from the position of the late philosophy of L. Wittgenstein by G. Ryle (Ryle, 2000) and from the position of phenomenology by M. Merleau-Ponty (Merleau-Ponty, 2000).

In the psychology of the 20th century, many of the philosophical premises that underlay the classical understanding of perception in philosophy and psychology were revised. This revision followed the following lines.

First of all, this is a refusal to understand perception as a combination of atomic sensory contents - sensations - and the interpretation of perception as holistic and structural. This approach was first formulated by Gestalt psychologists, and was subsequently adopted with various modifications and other directions in psychology. In this regard, perception is understood not as the result of more or less active activity of the mind, but as something directly given. The characteristic of givenness, previously attributed to sensation, is considered within the framework of this concept to be a trait of perception. However, if from the classical point of view, sensation is not only immediate, but also undeniable and unmistakable, then from the point of view of Gestalt psychology, perception, being immediate, at the same time can lead to errors and illusions (Wertheimer, 1980).

Other directions in the study of perception, as opposed to Stalt psychology, emphasized precisely its active, constructive nature. But this activity was understood in a new way in comparison with its classical understanding. The subject’s activity in constructing perception consists not simply in stating associations (as classical philosophy and psychology believed), but in solving intellectual problems.

At the same time, the intellect deals not with sensations or sensory data, but with sensory information, which is not simply processed, but is organized into certain structures, in particular those with which Gestalt psychologists dealt. J. Piaget proceeds from the fact that the difference between perception and developed thinking is not of a fundamental nature, but characterizes only different stages of the development of intelligence. Perception from his point of view is possible only on the basis of the existence of a certain type of intellectual operator structures (Piaget, 1969). J. Bruner, R. Gregory, and after them other representatives of modern cognitive psychology proceed from the fact that the process of perception is a process categorization, comprehension perceived (Gregory, 1972; Bruner, 1977 a). This is the process of making intellectual solutions, outside of which perceptions do not exist. This is the solution that not realized (and therefore perception appears to the subject as something directly given), is possible only on the basis of attributing perceived objects to one or another class of objects, to one or another category, starting with such as “table”, “chair”, “tree” ”, and ending with the categories of subject, movement, causality, etc. Some of these categories (acting as perceptual hypotheses, perceptual standards) are a product of experience, others have an innate, pre-experimental character. J. Bruner refers to last time

Thus, in modern cognitive psychology there is, in some form, a return to the understanding of experience that was formulated by such a critic of empiricism as I. Kant. According to the latter, experience involves the organization of sensory impressions in a priori forms of space and time, as well as the application of a priori categories of reason (Kant, 1965). True, modern cognitive psychology is even further away from empiricism than Kant at this point. Kant still believed that, firstly, a priori forms of space and time apply to sensations (i.e., he assumed the existence of the latter, which most representatives of modern psychology rejected), Secondly, distinguished between perception and experience, believing that the first, unlike the second, necessarily presupposes only the forms of space and time, but not the categories of the mind. In other words, according to Kant, perception, unlike experience, may not be categorical. Modern cognitive psychology proceeds from the fact that perception is impossible without categorical comprehension.

A number of modern philosophers (N. Hanson et al. (Hanson, 1969)) point out the conventionality of distinguishing between conscious and unconscious interpretation (since the first can move into the second over time) and, in this regard, the relativity of judgment about what is considered perceived . Thus, according to T. Kuhn, the conceptual paradigm sets a stereotype of perception, so a scientist who has mastered it well directly perceives some theoretical entities (for example, looking at the readings of an ammeter, he sees not just the movement of the instrument’s needle, but the current strength in the circuit, etc.) . From this perspective, a paradigm shift leads to a new way of perceiving the world (Kuhn, 1975).

3. An interesting concept of perception, which at the same time most radically breaks with some fundamental tenets of the philosophical and psychological tradition of its study, belongs to the famous modern psychologist J. Gibson (Gibson, 1988). The latter draws attention to two features of the understanding of perception, which have so far been shared by all its researchers - philosophers and psychologists, including those who worked in our century. This is, firstly, the opinion that there is not only a process of perception (usually not recognized by us), but also its separately given result, product, percept, image of perceived reality. Secondly, this is the thesis that the percept exists in the world of consciousness of the subject. The latter somehow correlates this image with reality. The philosophical question of how this correlation is possible has always been a stumbling block for all researchers of perception. J. Gibson proceeds from the fact that perception is not some “ideal object,” a percept, an image existing in the subjective world of the perceiver, but an active process of extracting information about the surrounding world. This process, which involves all parts of the subject's body, involves the actual actions of examining the perceived environment. Retrievable information - in contrast to sensory signals, which, from the point of view of old concepts of perception, generate individual Feel- corresponds to the features of the real world itself. Sensations that are supposedly caused by individual stimuli and which, from the point of view of old philosophy and psychology, underlie perception, cannot provide knowledge about the world (which was recognized in the so-called “law of specific energies of the sense organs” by I. Muller). Meanwhile, perception, understood as an active process of extracting information, presents to the subject those qualities of the external world itself that are correlated with his needs and that express different possibilities of his activities in this objective situation. The sensations postulated by the old philosophy and psychology cannot develop, and new types of them cannot arise. At the same time, practice contributes to the fact that the information extracted in perception becomes more and more subtle, perfect and accurate. You can learn to perceive all your life. Therefore, from the point of view of J. Gibson, perception exists not in consciousness and not even in the head (although it is impossible without the participation of the head and consciousness), but in a cyclical process of interaction between the subject extracting perceptual information and the world perceived by him. Within the framework of his concept, J. Gibson clarifies the characteristics of the perceived world. From his point of view, it is important to take into account that the perceiving subject is not dealing with space, time, the movement of atoms and electrons, which modern science deals with, but with the environmental characteristics of the world, correlated with its needs. Therefore, J. Gibson fundamentally distinguishes the world(perceived by the subject) and physical world(which modern science deals with).

Important additions and at the same time amendments to the concept of J. Gibson were made by W. Neisser (Neisser, 1981). The latter shares many of the ideas of the first, but at the same time considers it important to pay attention to the fact that the extraction of information from the surrounding world occurs according to a certain plan. This plan is given schemes(they can also be considered as cognitive maps), which are hierarchically linked to each other and differ from each other in the degree of generality. So, for example, there are diagrams of a table, a room, a house, a street, but there is also a diagram of the world I perceive as a whole. Most of these schemas are acquired through experience (therefore, perception, while directed by the schema, at the same time influences it, modifies it), but the original schemas are innate. W. Neisser thus makes an attempt to reconcile the basic ideas of J. Gibson with some ideas of modern cognitive psychology.

4. In a number of important respects to the concepts of J. Gibson and W. Neisser, the interpretation of perception in the studies of domestic psychologists over the past 40 years is close. Distinctive feature these studies - identifying the connection between perception and the activity and actions of the subject (Leontyev, 1976). In this regard, the concept of perceptual actions was developed (V.P. Zinchenko introduced the concept of productive perception), and the process of formation of perceptual standards (schemes) was specially studied (Virgiles, Zinchenko, 1967), while the influence of social and cultural laws on this process was analyzed. pitchfork (Zaporozhets, Wenger, Zinchenko, 1967). A.N. Leontiev emphasized the role of the amodal scheme of the world (“image of the world”) as necessary condition each individual perception and interaction with this schema of the amodal schema of the subject's body (Leontiev, 1979). Thus, the perception of the external world presupposes the self-perception of the subject. The latter does not relate to the perception of the internal contents of consciousness (as is believed, in particular, in phenomenology), and to perception of the subject’s body and its place in relation to other objects and events (Logvinenko, 1985).

Thus, in the understanding of perception in most directions of modern philosophy and psychology (with all the differences between different directions) there is something in common: this is the interpretation of perception as a type of knowledge. This circumstance is very significant, since in traditional philosophy perception, as a rule, was not considered as knowledge, but in best case scenario was understood (by empiricist philosophers) as a prerequisite and source of the latter. This understanding was associated with the interpretation of perception as a more or less passive result of sensory data. Therefore, many philosophers believed that it was impossible to talk about the falsity or truth of perception, because the latter characteristics can only relate to judgments that claim knowledge, while perception from this point of view can only be adequate or inadequate, illusory.

As for the illusions of perception, from the point of view of traditional empiricism they are associated with the transfer of existing associations (perception from this point of view is only a set of associations of individual sensations) to those conditions in which they no longer operate. Therefore, for empiricism (for example, for E. Mach) there are no fundamental differences between adequate and inadequate perception, between reality and illusion, but only differences between habitual and unusual associations. From a modern point of view, the illusion of perception occurs when an inappropriate scheme (perceptual hypothesis) is used when extracting sensory information, when the process of perceptual examination is artificially interrupted. The difference between illusion and adequate perception in this case is fundamental, although the measure of adequacy can be very different. In traditional philosophy, the prevalence of illusions of perception has been exaggerated (reference to these illusions has always been one of the main arguments of rationalism). Traditional psychology, which experimentally demonstrated the presence of such illusions, seemed to reinforce this opinion. As modern research shows, such results were the result of studying perception in artificial laboratory conditions, which did not take into account a number of significant features of real perception. In real experience, emerging illusions quickly reveal themselves as such and are removed during the subsequent activities of perceptual examination.

Perception, being knowledge, cannot at the same time be considered as simply a “lower stage of knowledge,” as was said in many textbooks on philosophy published during the Soviet period. Of course, thinking that goes beyond perception can deal with content that is not directly perceived (although, as follows from the above, perception is also a type of mental activity). At the same time, in perception a content is presented to consciousness that is absent in that thinking that is not included in the composition of perception. Perception provides the most direct contact with the surrounding real world and the ability to directly examine it. Finally, as mentioned above, some abstract entities can also be perceived under certain conditions (Lektorsky, 1980).

Today, a number of authors, both here and abroad, write about the need to overcome or rethink what is called classical epistemology (theory of knowledge). In this regard, the idea of non-classical epistemology is sometimes put forward. In other cases, the creation of some new discipline is proposed: “epistemics” by A. Goldman , new epistemology by S. Toulmin , a new understanding of epistemology in K. Popper etc. Discussion of this range of ideas has a tradition in our country

Previously, we talked about the difference between the classical theory of knowledge and the Marxist theory of knowledge (which acted in this regard as non-classical).

Today, a number of our philosophers associate the non-classical nature of epistemology with its interdisciplinarity, with the “linguistic turn” in philosophy, with the emergence of social epistemology and other subjects of modern philosophy. Some authors propose replacing the theory of knowledge with a broadly understood “philosophy of knowledge.” There are also arguments that all the old categories of traditional epistemology: subject, object, reality, objectivity of knowledge, rationality, truth - have lost their meaning today. It is clear that in the case of such an understanding, epistemology itself loses its right to exist. Thus, discussions about overcoming classical epistemology have different meanings and are accompanied by different recommendations. But is it necessary to raise the question of rethinking epistemology at all? and philosophy from claims to absolutism.

Understanding the relativity of knowledge and cognitive norms, the difficulty in many cases to distinguish between knowledge and belief, information and misinformation - all this determines the insufficiency of those ways of understanding knowledge and cognition that were developed in classical epistemology, and the need for some other understanding of knowledge and cognition and another idea about the capabilities of the discipline called epistemology.

I want to emphasize right away that I am a proponent of developing a non-classical epistemology. But for me, the latter is not a denial of classical philosophical themes in the understanding of knowledge, but only a new way of its development, taking into account modern social, cultural and scientific reality. Classic epistemological themes are rethought. At the same time, many new problems arise in epistemology. The scope of its applications is expanding enormously. I have had to write on this topic several times. Vladimir Sergeevich Shvyrev repeatedly reflected on these subjects, in particular, in the famous article of three authors on classical and non-classical bourgeois philosophy , as well as in a recently published article on rationality (co-authored with I.T. Kasavin and me)

. I will try to express some thoughts on this topic. But first, about the very understanding of classical and non-classical epistemology. It is very important to keep in mind that by classical I do not mean all epistemological reasoning that has existed in the history of philosophy. I believe that epistemology became classical only in the 17th century, after the well-known “epistemological turn”, when cognitive theoretical topics became

central philosophy

1. , and epistemology began to play the role of “first philosophy”. Before this, it was successfully developed: it is enough to remember that the main points of understanding what is considered knowledge were expressed by Plato. However, until the 17th century, epistemological topics were studied in subordination to ontological problems. Classic, in my opinion, should be considered the way of asking and discussing epistemological problems that arose precisely in the 17th century.. validity first.

The problem of substantiating knowledge has become central in Western European philosophy since the 17th century. This is due to the formation of an unconventional society, with the emergence of a free individual relying on himself. What exactly can be considered a sufficient justification for knowledge? This question is at the center of philosophical discussions. Epistemology acts primarily as a critique of existing metaphysical systems and accepted systems of knowledge from the point of view of a certain ideal of knowledge. For F. Bacon and R. Descartes, this is a criticism of scholastic metaphysics and peripatetic science. For D. Berkeley, this is a criticism of materialism and a number of ideas of the new science, in particular, the ideas of absolute space and time in Newton’s physics and the ideas of infinitesimal quantities in the differential and integral calculus developed at that time (the subsequent history of science showed the correctness of the critical analysis given by Berkeley , some principles of modern science). Kant uses his epistemological construct to demonstrate the impossibility of traditional ontology, as well as of some scientific disciplines (for example, psychology as a theoretical rather than descriptive science). The very system of Kantian philosophy, which is based on epistemology, is called critical. Criticism determines the main pathos of other epistemological constructions of the classical type. So, for example, for E. Mach, his epistemology acts as a way to substantiate the ideal of descriptive science, and in connection with this, criticize the ideas of absolute space and time of classical physics (this criticism was used by A. Einstein when creating the special theory of relativity), as well as atomic theory (which has been rejected by science). Logical positivists used their epistemological principle of verification to criticize a number of statements not only in philosophy, but also in science (in physics, in psychology), and K. Popper, using the principle of falsification, tried to demonstrate the unscientific nature of Marxism and psychoanalysis.

2. Fundamentalism And normativism. The very ideal of knowledge on the basis of which the task of criticism is solved must be justified. In other words, we should find a foundation for all our knowledge about which there is no doubt. Anything that pretends to be known, but does not actually rest on this foundation, must be rejected. Therefore, the search for the basis of knowledge is not identical to simply clarifying the causal dependencies between different mental formations (for example, between sensation, perception and thinking), but is aimed at identifying such knowledge, the correspondence of which can serve causally the norm must. In other words, one should distinguish between what actually takes place in the cognitive consciousness (and everything that is in it, for example, an illusion of perception or a delusion of thinking, something due) to the fact that

be in order to be considered knowledge (i.e. something that corresponds

In this regard, I want to draw attention to the fundamental division characteristic of classical epistemology - this division into psychologists And anti- psychologists. Of course, all philosophers distinguished between a causal explanation of certain phenomena of consciousness and their normative justification.

Anti-psychologism in epistemology. was continued in a unique way in analytical philosophy.

3. Here it was understood as the analysis of language. True, this analysis itself is no longer a transcendental procedure, but a completely empirical procedure, but no longer dealing with the facts of empirical consciousness (as was the case with psychologists), but with the facts of the “deep grammar” of language. Within the framework of this approach, epistemology was interpreted as an analytical discipline, and the old epistemology was criticized, in particular by L. Wittgenstein, as an untenable “philosophy of psychology.”

A number of representatives of epistemology proposed to “remove” the very problem of the relationship between knowledge and the external world, interpreting the consciousness of the subject as the only reality: for empiricists these are sensations, for rationalists a priori structures of consciousness. The world (including other people) appears in this case either as a set of sensations or as a rational construction of the subject.

Representatives of various realistic schools criticized this position, however, as long as cognition continued to be understood only as a fact of individual consciousness, as something that occurs only “inside” the subject (even if causally determined by events in the external world), the noted difficulties could not be resolved.

4. If Descartes does not distinguish between the empirical and transcendental subjects, then such a distinction is subsequently made. Empiricists and psychologists deal with the individual subject, transcendentalists with the transcendental..

Epistemology acquired a classical form precisely in connection with the emergence of modern science and in many ways acted as a means of legitimizing this science. Therefore, most epistemological systems proceeded from the fact that scientific knowledge, as it was presented in the mathematical natural sciences of this time, is the highest type of knowledge, and what science says about the world actually exists. Many problems discussed in classical epistemology can only be understood in the light of this attitude. This is, for example, the so-called problem discussed by T. Hobbes, D. Locke and many others. primary and secondary qualities, some of which (heaviness, shape, location, etc.) are considered to belong to the real objects themselves, and others (color, smell, taste, etc.) are considered as arising in the consciousness of the subject when objects of the external world influence the senses . What really exists and what does not really exist is, in this case, completely determined by what classical physics said about reality. Kantian epistemology can be understood as the foundation of classical Newtonian mechanics. non-classical epistemology, which differs from classical in all major respects. The change in epistemological issues and methods of work in this area is associated with a new understanding of cognition and knowledge, as well as the relationship between epistemology and other sciences about man and culture. This new understanding is in turn driven by shifts in modern culture as a whole. I believe that it is possible to identify certain features of the new understanding of epistemology. I emphasize that I am talking exactly about the understanding of non-classical epistemology that I share (other authors, including domestic ones, may understand something else by non-classical epistemology).

1. Refusal of absolutist criticism. Faith, knowledge, trust.

This does not mean a rejection of philosophical criticism (without which there is no philosophy itself), but only an understanding of the fundamental fact that knowledge cannot begin from scratch, based on distrust of everything given in experience and all cognitive traditions, but assumes that the knower the individual comes from the acceptance of something.. Faith and knowledge are not absolutely mutually exclusive. Knowledge is not something completely undoubted and, in principle, not allowing for revision and adjustment, i.e. involves the moment of taking something on faith. In turn, faith, if it is not insane, to some extent tries to be justified (we can talk about rational faith). This refusal is associated with the discovery of variability in cognitive norms and the inability to formulate strict normative instructions for developing cognition.

Attempts to separate knowledge from ignorance with the help of such prescriptions, made in 20th century science, in particular by logical positivism, failed. But this refusal is also associated with the recognition of the impossibility of such a substantiation of knowledge that would make it absolutely undoubted and not allowing for revision and correction. Some philosophers, on this basis, have concluded that it is impossible to substantiate knowledge of any kind, and therefore about the impossibility of knowledge itself, which, with this understanding, becomes a type of faith. In this case, epistemology becomes meaningless (R. Rorty

). Another reaction to this situation: the transformation of epistemology from a normative philosophical discipline into a section of special cognitive sciences that study how cognitive processes actually occur. This is the so-called program. “naturalized epistemology”, which was proposed by the famous American philosopher W. Quine. It must be said that within the framework of a “naturalized” understanding of epistemology, a lot of work has been done to understand the results obtained in the cognitive sciences (cognitive psychology, cognitive linguistics, research in the field of artificial intelligence, cognitive neuroscience). But this comprehension showed that the classical epistemological theme in this case does not disappear, but appears again cognitive science, then in this case the philosopher does not simply comprehend the results of special cognitive research, but evaluates the activity of various cognitive mechanisms from the point of view of their “reliability”, i.e. contribution to knowledge. In other words, the normative function of epistemology does not disappear, although it takes on a new form, since it is based on the analysis of the results of special cognitive research.

But then it is clear that we have to understand in a new way the old dispute between psychologists and anti-psychologists in epistemology.

As I have already said, non-classical epistemology draws closer to the cognitive sciences, in particular, to cognitive psychology, and analyzes the facts obtained in the latter. In this, modern epistemology is unlike its classical anti-psychological predecessor.

There are other ways of understanding the challenges of epistemology in light of the collapse of fundamentalism. A number of researchers emphasize the collective nature of acquiring knowledge (both ordinary and scientific) and the need in this regard to study the connections between subjects of cognitive activity. These connections, firstly, involve communication, secondly, they are socially and culturally mediated, and thirdly, they change historically. The norms of cognitive activity change and develop in this socio-cultural process. In this regard, a program of social epistemology is formulated (which is currently being implemented by researchers in many countries), which involves the interaction of philosophical analysis with the study of the history of knowledge and its socio-cultural research.

The task of a specialist in the field of epistemology appears in this context not as prescribing cognitive norms obtained on the basis of some a priori considerations, but as identifying those of them that are actually used in the process of collective cognitive activity. These norms change, they are different in different spheres of knowledge (for example, in everyday and scientific knowledge, in different sciences), they are not always fully realized by those who use them, and there may be contradictions between different norms. The task of the philosopher is to identify and explicate all these relations, establish logical connections between them, identify the possibilities of changing them and their normative assessment from the point of view of their contribution to the acquisition of knowledge.

Finally, it is necessary to name such a direction of modern non-fundamentalist epistemology as evolutionary epistemology - the study of cognitive processes as a moment of the evolution of living nature and as its product (K. Lorenz, G. Vollmer, etc.) If for classical epistemology the subject acted as a kind of immediate given, and everything else was in doubt, then for modern epistemology the problem of the subject is fundamentally different. The cognizing subject is understood as initially included in the real world and the system of relations with other subjects. The question is not how to understand the knowledge of the external world (or even prove its existence) and the world of other people, but how to explain the genesis of individual consciousness based on this objective reality. In this regard, important ideas were expressed by the outstanding Russian psychologist L. Vygotsky, according to which the internal subjective world of consciousness can be understood as a product of intersubjective activity, including communication.

4. Subjectivity, thus, turns out to be a cultural-historical product. These ideas were also taken up by a number of Western specialists in the field of epistemology and philosophical psychology, who proposed a communicative approach to understanding the Self, consciousness and cognition (R. Harré et al.) Science is the most important way of understanding reality. But not the only one. In principle, it cannot displace, for example, ordinary knowledge. In order to understand knowledge in all the diversity of its forms and types, it is necessary to study these pre-scientific and extra-scientific forms and types of knowledge. The most important thing is that scientific knowledge not only presupposes these forms, but also interacts with them. For example, the very identification of objects of research in scientific psychology involves turning to those phenomena that have been identified by common sense and recorded in everyday language: perception, thinking, will, desire, etc. The same, in principle, applies to all other sciences about man: sociology, philology, etc. Science is not obliged to follow the distinctions made by common sense. But she cannot ignore them. In this regard, the interaction of ordinary and scientific knowledge can be likened to the relationship between different cognitive traditions, which mutually criticize each other and in this criticism are mutually enriched. Today, for example, there is a heated debate on the question of how much should be taken into account (and whether it should be taken into account at all) the data of “folk psychology” recorded in everyday language, in cognitive science .

In connection with the above, I want to make a number of important clarifications.

The fact is that criticism of classical epistemology is often accompanied by a rejection of the central epistemological problematic, which means, in essence, a rejection of this very area of philosophical research, although this is sometimes presented as a new understanding of epistemology. I mean, in particular, some options for the development of “social epistemology”, associated, for example, with the so-called. “Edinburgh school” (in our country there are supporters of this understanding) . According to this idea, there is no asymmetry of knowledge and misconception, all cognitive formations are nothing more than a product of the interaction of different cognitive groups, whose activities and competition between them are determined not by the search for truth, but by the desire to gain power (even in science) and access to financial resources. Knowledge turns out to be a “social construction” that has nothing to do with comprehending reality. The problematic of knowledge thereby loses its meaning. This “renewal” of epistemology is in fact a rejection of epistemology as a philosophical discipline. In fact, in modern society there is an urgent need to analyze different social structures

and social mechanisms for obtaining knowledge from the point of view of their contribution to ensuring its reliability: this is the central problem of real social epistemology, which does not break with the problems of epistemology, but explores it in a certain modern context.

And this is a real problem of modern society and people. I want to emphasize that as long as philosophy exists, issues related to the understanding of knowledge, reality, truth, rationality, the subject of cognitive activity, etc., will always be discussed. questions constitutive of the field of epistemology itself and, of course, discussed in classical epistemology. The transition to its non-classical phase does not mean abandoning these problems, no matter what some modern theorists say about this.(included in the “life world” of a person), and in scientific practice, and in a special way in different sciences. And this empirical cognitive practice suggests that opinion and knowledge always differ and that knowledge is impossible without justification. In the modern world, due to the development of new information technologies and telecommunications, the problem of distinguishing between belief and knowledge becomes in some cases difficult to resolve. The information society in some respects turns out to be a disinformation society. But this problem still needs to be solved, because otherwise a person loses his personal and social orientation and at the same time his own identity. This is one of the problems of social epistemology. But modern practice also testifies that there is no absolutely infallible knowledge, that it can be adjusted and changed in some ways in new contexts. We rightly criticize today some of the attitudes imposed on our philosophy in the past: the theory of reflection in its Leninist interpretation, sensationalism, etc. But the understanding of the relationship between objective and relative truth not so bad and with its further development it may correspond modern understanding

these stories. It also corrects the epistemological concept of reliabilism (reliability) that is popular today: we have reliable knowledge. And from this point of view, it is independent of science, because it substantiates the latter. For Kant, this is due to the fundamental distinction between transcendental analysis and empirical knowledge. For Husserl with the separation of the phenomenological and natural attitudes. Analytical philosophy separates the analysis of language (artificial or natural) from the formulation of judgments about the world.

Such an understanding of epistemology is based on the idea that the knowing subject (individual or transcendental) or language are, as it were, “outside the world,” and that the latter is constituted (in the strong version, constructed) by the subject. This idea comes from subject-centrism, first clearly formulated by Descartes. Non-classical epistemology reverses this idea.

For it proceeds from the fact that cognition is carried out by a real human being acting in the world and entering into communication with others.

In general, today the field of application of the cognitive (and at the same time epistemological) approach is seriously expanding. For example, previously impossible disciplines such as cognitive neurology, cognitive ethology, and the cognitive theory of biological evolution have emerged. The problems of epistemology are also changing: the understanding of knowledge, reality, consciousness, the relationship between knowledge and activity, knowledge and communication is being updated.

Nature

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