Philosophical doctrine of being. Category of being in ontology

Ontology is the doctrine of being, a branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental principles of being, the most general entities, categories of being. Ontology stood out from the teachings about the being of nature as the teaching about being itself in early Greek philosophy.

Being according to Plato is a set of ideas - intelligible forms or essences, the reflection of which is the diversity of the material world. Plato drew a line not only between being and becoming (the fluidity of the sensually perceived world), but also between being and the beginningless beginning of being (an incomprehensible foundation, which he also called “good”).

Aristotle introduces a number of new and significant topics for later ontology: being as reality, the divine mind, being as a unity of opposites, and a specific limit of “comprehension” of matter by form.

Medieval thinkers adapted ontology to solve theological problems. Depending on the orientation of the thinker, the concept of being could differ from the divine absolute (then God is conceived as the source of being) or be identified with God.

By the 13th century it is planned to divide ontological thought into 2 streams: into the Aristotelian and Augustian traditions. Thomas Aquinas (arist) introduces the distinction between essence and existence into medieval ontology, and also emphasizes the moment of the creative reality of being, which is fully concentrated in being itself and in God.

The philosophy of modern times focuses on the problems of cognition, but ontology remains an invariable part of the philosophical doctrine. Kant's critical philosophy sets the parameters of a new ontology, in which the ability to enter the dimension of true being is divided between a theoretical ability that reveals supersensible being as a transcendent beyond and a practical ability. In the 19th century characterized by a sharp drop in interest in ontology. And only at the end of 19 early. 20th century neotemism revives the concept of ontology.

It is advisable to distinguish the following forms of being:

1) the existence of things (bodies), processes. B.

2) B. of the second nature - things produced by man.

3) B. spiritual (ideal), which is divided into individualized spiritual and objectified (non-individual) spiritual;

4) B. social, which is divided into individual existence (the existence of an individual in society and the process of history) and the existence of society.

The existence of each specific phenomenon of nature is limited in time and space, it is replaced by their non-existence, and nature as a whole is infinite in time and space, its existence is the dialectic of the transient and the imperishable. The first nature is the objective and primary reality.

"Second nature" - the being of things and processes produced by man - depends on the first, but embodies the unity natural material defined spiritual knowledge, activities of specific individuals and social functions, the purpose of these items.

Being an individual is a unity of body and spirit. Man is both first and second nature for himself. The existence of each individual person is the interaction of thinking and feeling "things" as a unity of natural and spiritual being and as a socio-historical being. Its specificity is manifested, for example, in the fact that:

Without the normal functioning in a person of his spiritual and mental structure, a person is not complete;

A healthy body is a necessary prerequisite for spiritual, mental activity;

Human activity, human bodily actions depend on social motivation.

A special place among other forms of "being in the world" is occupied by "spiritual being". This is human culture.

Language is not only a means of self-expression of the individual, but also the highest form of manifestation of the objective spirit. Being a means of communication, language is an effective tool for mastering the world. Language, linking the consciousness and the physical reality of the world, equally makes the spirit bodily, and the world spiritual. Thanks to the word, physical reality opens up to our knowledge. The history of a language reflects the social history of its speaker.

Concludes the list of being social. This is the process and result of the life of society as a self-developing system based on social production, as a combination of four subsystems. They ensure the production and reproduction of man.

The philosophical doctrine of being is called ontology. Ontology includes such questions as how our world arose, what are its characteristics and universal connections, according to what laws it develops and where its development is directed, what is a person. Ontology seeks to create a certain picture of the world, which would allow not only to create an idea of ​​the world as a whole, but would also reveal its hidden essence, deep causes.

The problem of being is one of the oldest in philosophy. In all developed philosophical systems known to us there is a doctrine of being.

For the first time the problem of being was touched upon ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides. For him, being is not some separate thing, but the very possibility of the existence of things. Being, according to Parmenides, does not arise and is not destroyed, it is always unchanged, has the shape of a ball or sphere, that is, it has spatial boundaries. Thought is always being. Thus, Parmenides formulated the problem of being as thought, discovered the ability of thinking to work with ideal objects, with supersensible reality (that is, a reality invisible to sensory vision).

Heraclitus was of a different opinion. He argued that being is eternal, but it is in constant motion and change. Being some things appear as a result of the departure of other things in non-existence. These philosophical categories are the most general concepts of ontology so far. Everything that exists is being, what does not exist is non-being (for example, people not yet conceived and not born, objects not created; people, things, societies, states that used to be, and then died, having collapsed, now they are no, they are in non-existence).

Plato contrasted two types of being - unchanging ideas and constantly changing matter. His student Aristotle named four sources of being of any thing: form, matter, purpose and creator. In the Middle Ages, the teachings of Aristotle were rethought in the spirit of Christianity.

In the 19th century K. Marx and F. Engels introduced the concept of "social being", i.e. the existence of a person among people, based on a variety of social relations that arise in the process of production of material and spiritual goods, communication.

As we can see, the attitude to being, its “reading” has changed over time, with the development of science, especially rapidly in the 20th century. The understanding of ontology and the content of the problems that make up its subject were also corrected. The attitude to being is associated with a materialistic or idealistic understanding of the world.

In philosophical literature, the concept of "existence" is often used as a synonym for the concept of "being", but it must be taken into account that the concept of "being" is broader than the concept of "existence". The concepts of "world", "space", "reality", "reality" are also used as synonyms. Everything that exists in the world has one thing in common - it is, it exists: galaxies and planets, plants, animals and people, society and culture. At the same time, everything that exists has different ways and forms of existence. This is philosophical principle of the diversity of the world.

There are three main types of being: the being of inorganic nature, the being of living nature and social being. Moreover, according to materialism, the existence of living nature precedes social existence, and the existence of inanimate nature precedes both other kinds of existence. In man, the unity of all three kinds of being is manifested.

What does it feel like thus, the content of the philosophical category "being"? To do this, we highlight a number of provisions:

The surrounding world, objects, phenomena really exist - they are

The surrounding world is developing, has an internal cause, a source of movement in itself

Matter and spirit are one, but, at the same time, opposite essences, they really exist - both matter and spirit exist.

These provisions are generalized by the concept substance– an independent entity that does not need anything other than itself for its existence(the concept is opposite accidents properties that exist in others).

Thus, being is a really existing, stable, independent, objective, eternal, infinite substance, which includes everything that exists.

Main forms of being are:

- material existence- the existence of material (having extension, mass, volume, density) bodies, things, natural phenomena, the world around

- ideal being- the existence of the ideal as an independent reality - spiritual world, the world of consciousness, the world of ideas

- human being- the existence of a person as a unity of the material and spiritual (ideal), the existence of a person in itself and his existence in the material world

- social being- which includes the existence of a person in society and the existence of society itself (its appearance, development, existence).

Of all forms of being, the most common is material existence.

In the history of philosophy, there have been different opinions about how many substances underlie being.

Lecture 13. Being and matter.

1. The doctrine of being.

A) The philosophical meaning of the problem of being.

B) Understanding of being in various schools.

C) Basic forms and dialectics of being.

2. The doctrine of matter.

A) The evolution of the understanding of matter in the history of philosophy. Matter as an objective reality.

B) Understanding movement. Movement as a way of existence of matter.

C) understanding of space and time. Space and time as forms of being of moving matter.

Learning goal: to study the central sections of the philosophy ʼʼbeing and matterʼʼ, material being and the main approaches to the concept of ʼʼmatterʼʼ, the ability of matter to self-organize, the disposition of matter in time and space, reflection as a property of matter.

Keywords: being, matter, movement, reality, space, time.

One of the central sections of philosophy (hereinafter phil.), which studies the problem of being, is ontology (hereinafter ont.). The problem itself is one of the most important in Phil. The formation of phil. began precisely with the study of the problem of being. Ancient Indian, Ancient Chinese, ancient philosophy first of all, they were interested in ontology, they tried to understand the essence of being, and only then philosophy expanded its subject and included epistemology (the doctrine of knowledge), logic and other philosophical problems.

Being means to be present, to exist. To reveal the category of ʼʼbeingʼʼ, it is extremely important to highlight a number of provisions:

The surrounding world, objects, phenomena really exist

The surrounding world is

It develops, has an internal cause, a source of movement in itself.

Nature, society, man, thoughts and ideas equally exist, they form an integral infinity of the imperishable world, ᴛ.ᴇ. they coexist

Matter and spirit are one, but at the same time opposite essences, they really exist.

Τᴀᴋᴎᴍ ᴏϬᴩᴀᴈᴏᴍ, being is a really existing, stable, independent, objective, eternal, infinite substance, which includes everything that exists.

To designate the general basis of everything that exists in philosophy, there are two categories: substratum and substance. The first is ϶ᴛᴏ what everything is made of. Substance is the fundamental principle of everything that exists. A doctrine that takes one principle as the basis of everything that exists - monism. (In contrast - dualism, two equivalent beginnings).

In the history of phil. the monistic approach prevails (there are 2 forms of monism - idealistic monism (ideal principles are the fundamental principle of the world) and materialistic monism (matter is the fundamental principle of the world)).

Under reality (reality) it is customary to understand the totality of all states of the object of the world in the past, present and future. Objective reality is the objective existence of any objects, phenomena, regardless of human consciousness.

Subjective reality is consciousness and all the processes that take place in it.

Sat. and object. realities are very closely connected, interact and influence each other. The connecting link between them is a person (a being belonging to both an object (bodily) and a subject (consciousness) to the world).

Being is the unity of subjective and objective reality. Man is the point of intersection of these realities. In this sense, man is the center of being, and his destiny is the core. philosophical problem generally.

Basic forms of being:

material existence- the existence of material bodies, things, natural phenomena ...

Ideal being is the existence of the ideal as an independent reality in the form of an individualized spiritual being and a non-individualized spirit. being

Human existence - the existence of man as a unity of material and spiritual being

Social being (includes the being of a person in society and the being of society itself)

Noumenal being (being that really exists regardless of the consciousness of the one who watches it from the side)

Phenomenal being - apparent being - the way the cognizing subject sees it

Non-existence is the complete absence of something, absolute nothingness. Objects can be both in existence and in non-existence (a person born and not yet conceived).

2. The doctrine of matter.

Matter is the most common form of being. The search for the basis of objective reality in philosophy is called the problem of substance. Antiquity:

Water (Thales)

Fire (Heraclitus)

- ʼʼApeironʼʼ (Anaximander)

Atoms are an indivisible substance (Democritus, Epicurus)

God (Plato, religious philosophers)

In the 17th century, matter was understood only as matter, in the 19th century. matter is not only matter, but also, for example, electromagnetic fields (which is not matter). At the beginning of the 20th century matter is usually understood as a category for designating everything that lies outside our consciousness. It is impossible to talk about any forms of its manifestation - there are an infinite number of them.

By matter it is customary to understand substance, ʼʼcommon thingsʼʼ. Matter as an objective reality is capable of influencing our sensations, which creates the basis for our consciousness to perceive the world around us, ᴛ.ᴇ. to know this objective reality. Matter is the opposite of consciousness (subjective reality).

Matter is the totality of all material formations in nature, existing independently of human knowledge.

Elements of matter: no Live nature, wildlife, society (society)

There are the following approaches to the concept of ʼʼmatterʼʼ:

Materialistic approach (matter is the basis of being, everything else is a product);

Objective-idealistic (matter objectively exists independently of the existing primary spirit);

Subjective-idealistic (mat. as an independent reality does not exist at all, it is only a product of the subjective spirit);

Positivist (the concept of matter is false, since it cannot be proved and fully studied with the help of experimental scientific research)

The main approach is materialistic.

The doctrine of being. - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "The doctrine of being." 2017, 2018.

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Introduction…………………………………………………………………......3

2. The main forms of being, their relationship and development………………....... 8

3. Substance and matter.……………………………………………………...12

Conclusion………………..………………………………………………..17

List of used literature……………………………….……..18

Introduction

Being is a philosophical category denoting a reality that exists objectively, regardless of the consciousness, will and emotions of a person. The problem of the interpretation of being and its relationship with consciousness is at the center of the philosophical worldview.

The relevance of this topic lies in the fact that, being something external for a person, being imposes certain restrictions on his activity, makes him measure his actions with him. At the same time, being is the source and condition of all forms of human life. Being represents not only the framework, the boundaries of activity, but also the object of human creativity, constantly changing being, the sphere of possibilities that a person turns into reality in his activity.

The interpretation of being has undergone complex development. Its common feature is the confrontation between materialistic and idealistic approaches. The first of them interprets the foundations of being as material, the second - as ideal. In the interpretation of being, several periods can be distinguished. The first period is a mythological interpretation of being. The second stage is connected with the consideration of being “in itself” (naturalistic ontology). The third period begins with the philosophy of I. Kant. Being is considered as something connected with the cognitive and practical activity of man.

In a number of areas of modern philosophy, an attempt is being made to rethink the ontological approach to being, which already proceeds from the analysis of human existence.

Being- this is a philosophical category denoting a reality that exists objectively, regardless of the consciousness, will and emotions of a person, a philosophical category denoting a being as it is thought. Under being in the very broad sense this word means to the utmost general concept about existence, about beings in general. Being is everything that is - everything visible and invisible. Being is what we can think, what we can think. The doctrine of being is called ontology.

There is real and ideal being. Real being is often called existence, ideal being essence. Real being is that which informs things, processes, actions, personalities, and so on. their reality; it has a spatio-temporal character, it is individual, unique. Ideal being is devoid of a temporary, real, experiential character, it does not tend to be a fact; it is strictly unchanged (frozen), existing forever (N. Hartman). Values, ideas, mathematical and logical concepts have ideal being.

Definite being is distinguished from being in the universal sense. In contrast to the diversity of everything that changes, is in the process of becoming, being is called the constant, abiding, identical in everything. In contrast to "appearance", which is often understood as "derived" from being, being is considered true. According to the Eleatics, there is no becoming, there is only being, unchanging, imperishable, one, eternal, motionless, permanent, indivisible, identical to itself; for Heraclitus, on the contrary, there is no frozen being, but only a constantly changing becoming.

In theological thinking, God is the eternal creator of being; in metaphysical-idealistic thinking, spirit is declared to be being; in materialistic thinking, matter; in energy thinking, energy.

According to modern ontology, being is identical in all the diversity of being. In the ancient understanding, being (according to the formula of Aristotle) ​​is “existing insofar as it is existing”, or existing as such in its characterization as existing, therefore, before its division into separate things and objects.

The antithesis of being is Nothing (non-being). According to Heidegger, being arises from the negativity of nothingness, while nothingness allows beings to "sink" - thanks to this, being is revealed. Genesis is a clearing that reveals the secret of being, makes it understandable. In this function of revealing the secret, according to Heidegger, "the meaning of being" consists. The meaning of existence is to allow one to discover being as a "clearway" of all that exists.

According to Hegel, non-existence is pure being, i.e. absolute uncertainty and the beginning of all things. Pure being is negative to itself. Being is conceived as a process of formation, development and transition into something else. The transition into non-existence is conceived as the destruction of a given type of being and its transformation into a different form of being.

Non-existence is a relative concept, in the absolute sense there is no non-existence. It is impossible to imagine non-existence, any attempt to do so will have some form of existence hovering in the mind.

Being is an extremely broad philosophical category for designating the integrity and substantiality of the world. AT European culture the first definitions of being arose back in Ancient (Greece), which historically coincided with the formation of philosophical knowledge, the transition from figuratively mythological to theoretical-logical thinking.

The concept of the integrity of the world was gradually formed, its emergence was preceded by a number of intermediate concepts and concepts. The thinkers of antiquity comprehensively and in detail considered various alternatives of philosophical constructions, relying on the rich spiritual experience of the previous development (mythology, religion, art). As a result, a radically new attitude arose in the knowledge and understanding of the surrounding world. So, if the Greek natural philosophers (early period) considered reality as a variety of constantly changing objects, phenomena, processes, then their followers (the first among them is Parmenides) raised the question of the universal and permanent basis of these changes, which is called life.

“Being” is a derivative of the categories “to be”, “is”, which are very common in many languages ​​of the world, has its own specific, own philosophical content and means not just the existence of any objects of the surrounding world, but that which guarantees it is existence.

The concept of being is abstracted from the infinite variety of properties and qualities of specific objects, except for one thing - to be existing. Such an approach gives the world integrity, makes it the object of a specific consideration.

The concept of being is based on the conviction of a person that the world exists not only here and now (this fact is undeniably proven by human experience), but everywhere and forever (intuitive activity of consciousness). The unity of these aspects constitutes the most general structure of the concept of being.

We unshakably believe that despite all the upheavals in nature and society, the world is stable, permanent, eternal. This world is the true being, our vital support. The concept of just such a world is the basis of meaning-forming human activity. On the intuitive “core”, as it were, a certain system of concepts is superimposed, forming the meaning contained in one or another philosophical concept.

Genesis forms the idea that the world around us develops and lives according to its own laws, independent of our will, desires and arbitrariness. These laws ensure the stability and harmony of the world, while at the same time restricting our activities. Understanding this and the ability to follow the requirements of being ensure the existence of a person.

Being as an initial concept is only the starting point of philosophical reflection on the world and man. It becomes meaningful, concrete-universal only through interaction with such philosophical categories as matter, consciousness, movement, space, time, systemicity, determinism and others.

2. The main forms of being, their relationship and development.

Being is everything that exists as it is conceived. There is no existence. Existence is the objective world. The problem of the interpretation of being and its relationship with consciousness is at the center of the philosophical worldview.

The main question of philosophy is the question of the relationship between being and consciousness. Its solution depends on deciphering the concept of being, on considering its basic forms. It must be emphasized that in philosophy various systems of forms of being were distinguished and analyzed.

There is no single question in this opinion even now. Philosophers, representatives of dialectical materialism, consider it appropriate to single out the following differing, but interconnected forms of being:

The existence of things (bodies), processes, which in turn are divided into:

the existence of things, processes, states of nature;

the existence of nature as a whole;

the existence of things and processes produced by man.

Nature includes the area of ​​the inorganic world (micro-, macro- and mega-world) and the area of ​​the organic (living) world. From the point of view of science, nature (in its broadest sense) exists forever, outside and independently of man. It is present everywhere, including in the man himself in the form of his biological principle. According to I. Goethe, life is the best "invention" of nature, and man is the crown of its evolution.

In the course of the active transformation of the natural environment, man, through his labor, managed to create a very complex and branched "second nature" - the world of artificial things, processes and relationships, or culture. It represents a set of high human achievements, a new (social) world of its existence. In the 20th century, in the wake of the achievements of scientific and technological progress, new forms of being appeared. For example, virtual reality which is created with the help of computer systems and is an essential component of modern information technology.

l Being of a person, which is divided into being of a person in the world of things and specifically - human being.

Philosophy studies the existence of a person as a unique living being, the organic unity of natural and social, bodily and spiritual principles. Representing himself, the result of the evolution of nature and being its “thinking thing” (R. Descartes), a person has a very complex inner world. With this in mind, the German poet G. Heine wrote that when a person dies, the whole history of society goes to the grave with him, because a person is a “receptacle” of the experience of all previous generations of people, of all epochs.

ь Spiritual (ideal) being - which is divided into individualized spiritual and objectified (non-individual) spiritual.

Philosophy highlights and spiritual being, or the world of the Spirit as a special kind of reality. The spiritual principle is invisible and weightless, but it is present in all acts human activity. It represents feelings, ideas, emotions, images, concepts that are created by people in their spiritual and practical life - all that in philosophy is denoted by the concept of "consciousness". But the spiritual being also includes the unconscious, called Z. Freud"dark layers" of the human psyche. Spiritual is also public consciousness in various forms ah of its manifestation (religious, moral, artistic, etc.).

b Being social, which is divided into individual being (being
individual in society and history) and the existence of society.

Society is the sphere of action of the Mind, Memory and Will of a person, and this gives it its own specifics, inexhaustible sources of functioning and development. Of course, society (including its culture) lives, first of all, according to its own laws (in economy, politics and other spheres). At the same time, it is organically connected with its natural environment. That is why we should never forget that we all, in the words of K. Marx, “flesh and blood” belong to nature and are inside this unique organism.

The emergence of a particular form of being is the result of the transition from one form of being to another. Whatever forms of being are considered, they all have their ultimate basis, their substance - matter.

The typology of the forms of being is important when choosing a solution to the so-called "basic question of philosophy". For example, materialism considers natural existence to be the main form of being; subjective idealism - subjective being; objective idealism is an objective spirit.

In short, being implies two realities - the "outer world" (nature, society) and the "inner world" (human consciousness). There is nothing else outside of them (in any case, science has not yet discovered), but there is only the interaction and interweaving of these realities. The dichotomy, the duality of being ("man - the world", "consciousness - matter", etc.), is eternal and ineradicable, and diversity is the way the world exists.

All forms of manifestation of being have their own laws and patterns, which are the object of study for various sciences - physics, biology, anthropology, sociology, etc. Forms of being actively interact and penetrate each other. In this sense, a person as a kind of “crossroads” of the universe is a kind of symbol of the unity of the world and the close interaction of its various spheres, their complementarity. That is why it is not accidentally named in the philosophy of the "small Universe", because, in words P. A. Florensky, in man "there is everything". It is thanks to the interaction of various forms of being that a very contradictory, but still integral and harmonious world exists. This world is not only unified, but also dynamic, constantly incomplete in its development. Such is the person: integral, dynamic and incomplete in its eternal formation and development.

In its reality, being is the world, in which man exists. The surrounding world is revealed to man by means of scientific and non-scientific scientific knowledge. It is an eternal riddle and mystery for people, the object of their practical actions and the source of everyday existence.

3. Substance and matter.

When comprehending the problems of being, philosophy also applies the concept "substance". By it it is customary to understand a certain unchanging basis of the entire universe, the ultimate foundation of being. Substance is self-sufficient, i.e. it does not need anything else for its existence.

Until the end of the XIX century. There were many definitions of matter.

The dialectical-materialistic definition of the concept of matter was given by V.I. Lenin in the book "Materialism and Empiriocriticism": "Matter is a philosophical category for designating an objective reality that is given to a person in his sensations, which is copied, photographed, displayed by our sensations, existing independently of them." This definition highlights 2 main features:

1) matter exists independently of consciousness;

2) it is copied, photographed, displayed by sensations.

The first characteristic means the recognition of matter as primary in relation to cognition, the second - the recognition of the fundamental cognizability of the material world. Thus, this definition matter appears as a concise, convoluted formulation of the material solution to the fundamental question of philosophy (the relation of the ideal to the material).

In the ontological sense, "matter is an infinite set of all objects and systems existing in the world, the substratum of any properties, connections, relations and forms of movement; there is nothing in the world but moving matter." Such an approach to the definition of matter shows the relative opposition between matter and consciousness, nature and spirit. Thus, individual consciousness, through its substratum basis, carries out an inseparable connection between the spiritual and the material.

The attributes (inherent properties) of matter are:

1) movement.

The change in form is indicated by the concept of movement. The movement of matter should be understood not only mechanical movement bodies in space, but also any interactions, as well as changes in the states of objects that are caused by these interactions. Movement is both the mutual transformation of elementary particles, and the metabolism in the cells of the body, and the exchange of activities between people in the course of their social life. Matter cannot exist without motion. Any of its objects exists only due to the fact that certain types of movement are reproduced in it. When they are destroyed, the object ceases to exist, passes into other objects, which are characterized by a certain set of types and forms of movement. That is, motion is intrinsic to matter, It is as absolute as matter itself is absolute.

2) space and time.

Time and space are the basic forms of the existence of matter. Philosophy is primarily interested in the question of the relation of time and space to matter, that is, whether time and space are real or are they pure abstractions that exist only in consciousness. Idealist philosophers deny the dependence of time and space on matter and consider them either as forms of individual consciousness (Berkeley, Hume, Mach), or as a priori forms of sensory contemplation (Kant), or as categories of absolute spirit (Hegel). Materialism emphasizes the objective nature of time and space. The fact that time and space are inseparable from matter reveals their universality and universality. Space expresses the order of arrangement of simultaneously coexisting objects, while time expresses the sequence of existence of successive phenomena. Time is irreversible, that is, every material process develops in one direction - from the past to the future. Dialectical materialism recognizes not only external communication time and space with moving matter, but considers that movement is the essence of time and space and that, therefore, matter, movement, time and space are inseparable from each other.

Matter covers an infinite number of really existing objects and systems of the world, is the substantial basis of all kinds of properties and forms of motion. Matter does not exist except in countless specific forms, various objects and systems. Matter is uncreated and indestructible, eternal in time and infinite in space.

Matter characterizes the material unity of the world. There is nothing in the world that would not be a certain kind or the state of matter, its property or form of motion, the product of its historical development. Recognition of the material unity of the world is the initial principle of philosophical materialism, as opposed to all idealistic concepts, in which the Divine will, the "absolute idea", spirit, energy are understood as the substance of all phenomena in the world.

Matter is inexhaustible, and its knowledge is potentially unlimited.

A person is trying to find an answer to the most common and deep questions: what is the world around and what is the place and purpose of a person in the world? What underlies everything that exists: matter or spirituality? Is the world subject to any laws? Can a person cognize the world around him, what is this cognition? Late 16th - early 17th century. capitalist relations arose, which changed the spiritual life of society. Religion lost its dominant influence on the development of science and philosophy, and a new worldview arose that met the interests of the development of the science of nature. The efforts of scientists concentrated on collecting, describing and classifying facts. The whole is looked upon as the mechanical sum of the parts, and the individual parts are often endowed with the properties of the whole. Such techniques are also common in philosophy, which led to the creation of mechanistic materialism and the metaphysical method of studying the surrounding world. In modern times, one of the first places put forward before philosophy was the task of creating and substantiating the methods of scientific knowledge. The weak point of Descartes' teaching was the indefinite status of substances: on the one hand, only infinite substance, God, had true existence, while finite, that is, created, substances were dependent on infinity. This difficulty was overcome by Spinoza, who was strongly influenced by Descartes, but did not accept his dualism and created a monistic doctrine of a single substance, which he called God, or nature. Spinoza does not accept the substantiality of individual things and in this sense he opposes the traditions of nominalism and empiricism. His teaching is an example of extreme realism (in its medieval sense), turning into pantheism.

Substance- the cause of itself, that is, as that which exists through itself and is known from itself. Naming the substance God, or nature, Spinoza thereby emphasizes that this is not the God of theistic religions, he is not a person endowed with consciousness, power and will, he is not the creator of natural things, God S. is an infinite impersonal essence, the main definition of which is existence , being as the beginning and cause of all things. The idea of ​​the fusion of God and nature, which underlies the teachings of Spinoza, is called pantheism; Spinoza continues the tradition outlined by Nick. Cusa and deployed at Giordano Bruno. Spinoza's pantheism is a step towards materialism. Thinking and extension, according to Spinoza, are attributes of substance, and single things - both thinking beings and extended objects - are modes (modifications) of substance. Already Descartes developed the doctrine of a kind of parallelism between material and spiritual substances. According to Descartes, each state and change in the material substance (for example, in the human body) corresponds to a change in the spiritual substance (in human feelings, desires, thoughts). The substances themselves, according to Descartes, cannot directly influence each other, but their actions are strictly adjusted thanks to God. We find a similar reasoning in Spinoza: all phenomena in the physical world, being modes of the attribute of extension, develop in the same sequence as all modes in the sphere of thought. Therefore, the order and connection of ideas corresponds to the order and connection of things: both of them are only consequences of the divine essence. From this follow Spinoza's definition of the soul as the idea of ​​the human body. The entire world process, therefore, takes place by virtue of absolute necessity, and the human will is not able to change anything here. S. generally does not recognize such an ability as will: a single person. the soul is not something independent, it is not a substance, the spirit of a person is nothing but a mode of thinking, and therefore, according to Spinoza, “will and reason are one and the same.” Man can only comprehend the course of world progress in order to conform his life and his desires to it.

Conclusion

Studying the problems associated with philosophical analysis matter and its properties is a necessary condition for the formation of a person's worldview, regardless of whether it ultimately turns out to be materialistic or idealistic.

In the light of the foregoing, it is quite obvious that the role of defining the concept of matter, understanding the latter as inexhaustible for constructing scientific picture world, solving the problem of reality and cognizability of objects and phenomena of the micro- and mega-world.

The following definition is reasonable: "... Matter is an objective reality given to us in sensation"; "Matter is a philosophical category for designating an objective reality that is given to a person in his sensations, which is copied, photographed, displayed by our sensations, existing independently of them." (In the first case, we are talking about matter as a category of being, an ontological category, in the second - about a concept that fixes it, an epistemological category).

List of used literature:

1. Introduction to philosophy. Textbook for higher educational institutions, 2 vol. P/r Frolova I.T.-M., 1989

2. The world of philosophy. Book for reading, part 1. - M., 1991

3. Losev A.F. Genesis, name, space. M., 1993.

4. Sartre J.P. Existentialism is humanism. M., 1991.

5. Twilight of the gods. Collection. M., 1989.

6. Whitehead A.N. Selected Works in Philosophy: Per. from English. - M.: Progress,

8. Heidegger M. Time and being. M., 1993.

9. Heidegger M. Being and time. - M.: Ad Marginem, 1997.

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Kurgan State Agricultural Academy named after T.S. Maltsev"

Department: Philosophy and History

Faculty: Economic

TEST

Philosophy

on the topic: "Philosophical doctrine of being (ontology)"

Completed: 2nd year student

correspondence department

Accounting, analysis and audit

Sysolyatina Natalia Nikolaevna

Checked by: Shagieva Olga Leonidovna

1. The concept of being in philosophy

Dialectics of being and non-being

Used Books

1.The concept of being in philosophy

Being is a philosophical category denoting a reality that exists objectively, regardless of the consciousness, will and emotions of a person, a philosophical category denoting a being as it is thought. By being, in the broadest sense of the word, we mean the extremely general concept of existence, of beings in general. Being is everything that is - everything visible and invisible.

The doctrine of being - ontology - is one of the central problems of philosophy.

The problem of being arises when such universal, seemingly natural prerequisites become the subject of doubt and reflection. And there are more than enough reasons for this. After all, the surrounding world, natural and social, now and then asks man and mankind difficult questions, makes you think about previously unexplained familiar facts. real life. Like Shakespeare's Hamlet, people are most often preoccupied with the question of being and non-being when they feel that the connection of times has broken up ...

Analyzing the problem of being, philosophy starts from the fact of the existence of the world and everything that exists in the world, but for it the initial postulate is no longer this fact itself, but its meaning.

The first aspect of the problem of Being - this is a long chain of thoughts about existence, answers to questions What exists? - World. Where does it exist? - Here and everywhere. How long? - Now and always: the world was, is and will be. How long do separate things, organisms, people, their vital activity exist?

The second aspect of the problem of being is determined by the fact that for nature, society, man, his thoughts, ideas, there is something in common, namely, that the listed objects really exist. Due to their existence, they form an integral unity of the infinite, imperishable world. The world as an enduring holistic unity is outside and, to a certain extent, independent of man. Being is a prerequisite for the unity of the world.

As a third aspect of the problem of being, the proposition that the world is a reality, which, since it exists, has an internal logic of existence and development, can be put forward. This logic precedes, as it were, pre-exists the being of people and their consciousness, and for effective human activity it is necessary to know this logic, to investigate the laws of being.

Being is divided into two worlds: the world of physical things, processes, material reality and the ideal world, the world of consciousness, the inner world of a person, his mental states.

These two worlds are various ways of its existence. The physical, material, natural world exists objectively, regardless of the will and consciousness of people. The mental world - the world of human consciousness exists subjectively, as it depends on the will and desire of people, individual individuals. The question of how these two worlds relate is the main question of philosophy. The combination of these two basic forms of being allows us to distinguish several more varieties of forms of being.

Man occupies a special place in these worlds. He is a natural being, on the one hand. On the other hand, he is endowed with consciousness, which means that he can exist not only physically, but also talk about the existence of the world and his own existence. The human being embodies the dialectical unity of the objective-objective and the subjective, body and spirit. In itself, this phenomenon is unique. The material, natural acts in man as the primary prerequisite for his existence. At the same time, many human actions are regulated by social, spiritual and moral motives. In the broadest sense, humanity is a community that includes all individuals living now or who lived earlier on Earth, as well as those who are to be born. It must be borne in mind that people exist before, outside and independently of the consciousness of each individual person. A healthy, normally functioning body is a necessary prerequisite for mental activity and a healthy spirit. This is what the proverb says: “A healthy mind in a healthy body”. True, the saying, which is true in its essence, allows exceptions, since the human intellect, his psyche is not always subordinate to a healthy body. But the spirit, as you know, has, or rather, is able to have a huge positive impact on the vital activity of the human body.

Attention should also be paid to such a feature of human existence as the dependence of his bodily actions on social motivations. While other natural things and bodies function automatically, and one can predict their behavior in the short and long term with sufficient certainty, this cannot be done with respect to the human body. Its manifestations and actions are often regulated not by biological instincts, but by spiritual, moral and social motives.

A peculiar mode of existence also characterizes human society. In social being material and ideal, nature and spirit are intertwined. The existence of the social is divided into the existence of an individual in society and in the process of history, and the existence of society. We will analyze this form of being in the sections devoted to society.

The theme of the forms of being has great importance to clarify the differences in philosophical views. The main difference usually concerns what form of being is considered the main and determining, initial, what forms of being are derivatives. So, materialism considers natural being the main form of being, the rest are derivatives, dependent on the main form. And idealism considers ideal being to be the main form.

2. Dialectics of being and non-being

It makes sense to talk about being if and only if it concerns something concrete, i.e. only something, something, can have being. One can still say about such something being, it has a place to be here and now, it is present now, at the present time.

Non-existence in any language is identified with nothing and cannot be conceived in any way. In other words, non-existence denies being, and it is in this sense that the term non-existence is used, when a thing, body, phenomenon, consciousness (that is, something that can exist) cease to be themselves, and they are said to have gone into non-existence .

However, in a strict philosophical sense, this is not entirely true. There is a dialectical relationship between being and non-being.

First, according to modern ideas about the world, our Universe emerged from vacuum, which makes it a special state of matter. Vacuum turns out to be not the poorest, but the richest type of physical reality, representing a kind of potential being, because it contains all possible particles and states, but at the same time there is nothing actual in it.

It should also be taken into account that, from the point of view of physicists (D.A. Landau, I.D. Novikov, etc.), our Universe itself is not the only one in the world, since it consists of an infinite number of different Universes passing through different development cycles. In this light, the problem of the relationship between being and non-being also becomes relative.

Secondly, the objective existence of what was goes into non-existence, but if it is nevertheless spoken about, and, consequently, it is thought in a certain way as something concrete, then this something again exists, but already in consciousness and , therefore, retains its second being, remaining in this case a copy of the original object, in the form of an ideal image.

This image of Socrates is most clearly drawn by Plato in the Phaedo dialogue, when Socrates, together with his students, is trying to find and prove the immortality of the soul.

Throughout the development of philosophy, there are various approaches to the interpretation of the problem of the unity of the world.

For the first time, the question of the unity of the world was raised by the ancient thinkers Thales, Democritus, and others. Since their views on the world, matter were naive, they failed to fully resolve this issue. They are characterized by guesses that the unity of the world is in its materiality. The problem of the unity of the world was also solved in its own way by other ancient thinkers, who proceeded from the recognition of the basis of the unity of the world in the existence of primary absolute ideas, or human sensations. Consistency in the recognition of a single principle - matter or spirit - is called philosophical monism.

The opposite of monism is dualism. Dualists believed that there are two equal beginnings, two substances independent of each other: matter and spirit.

The most prominent representative of dualism was the French philosopher and mathematician of the 16th century. R. Descartes.

In the same period, the representatives of metaphysical materialism F. Bacon, T. Hobbes, B. Spinoza, and the French materialists of the 18th century pursued the materialist line in resolving the question of the unity of the world.

Deeper than other materialists, Russian philosophers of the middle of the 19th century approached the solution of the problem of the unity of the world. Based on the achievements of philosophy, as well as new advances in natural science, they tried to look at the world as a process of development. According to Chernyshevsky, nature is nothing but heterogeneous matter with diverse qualities. He argued that organic and inorganic "combinations of elements" form a unity and that organic elements arise from inorganic ones. However, considering the essence of social phenomena idealistically, the Russian revolutionary democrats failed to consistently solve the problem of the material unity of the world to the end.

The problem of the unity of the world was solved by Marx and Engels from materialistic positions, relying on the achievements of the natural and social sciences. They rejected the metaphysical idea of ​​an impassable abyss between living and non-living matter, substantiating the proposition about the emergence of life from inorganic matter, defining life as a way of existence of protein bodies that are its material carriers.

Marxism, when considering the question of the unity of the world, proceeds from the fact that there is nothing in the world but moving matter, and that moving matter cannot move except in space and time.

The material unity of the world as a dialectical unity of diversity manifests itself in two ways. First, as a kind of discrete structure of objective reality. The presence in it of qualitatively different, delimited from each other things, phenomena, processes, systems. Second, how hierarchical relationships between systems varying degrees complexity, organization, expressed in the "inclusion" of less complex systems in more complex ones. The irreducibility of the specific regularities of the latter to the former.

The dialectical-materialist position on the material unity of the world corresponds to the development of natural science of that period. The discovery of electromagnetic waves and light pressure indicates the materiality of the electromagnetic field and the presence of a mass of light, which, as it turned out, is electromagnetic waves of a certain length. The discovery of the cell showed the unity in the structure of all living things, with all the diversity of its species. Important discoveries in this respect are the discovery of the law of conservation and transformation of energy and the creation of an evolutionary theory of the origin of species by Darwin.

Mastering the method of spectral analysis made it possible to establish that the Sun and other stars, stellar associations and planets contain the same chemical elements as the Earth. The variety of chemical elements is revealed by D.I. Mendeleev.

Especially significant were the discoveries in physics at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, which showed the complex structure of the atom. Enriched ideas about the basic forms of movement. These discoveries reject the substratum-substantial model of the world, the authors of which tried to reduce all matter in the Universe to some kind of "pra-matter". The English physicist Prout considered, for example, the hydrogen atom to be such a primary matter of all things.

In addition to the substratum-material model of the unity of the world, there is a functional model, according to which each small particle in the Universe is connected with another, arbitrarily remote from it. The universe functions as a single mechanism in which each phenomenon is strictly necessary and occupies a well-defined place in the overall chain of events. Taken in isolation from others, this model simplifies reality.

The attributive theory of the unity of the world corresponds to the greatest extent to reality. This theory assumes the unity of all types of matter and forms of motion. Here we have in mind the unity of the attributes of matter, its laws. This unity is also manifested in the unity of conservation laws.

The unity of the world is reflected, for example, in mathematics, which reveals some common connections in the surrounding world. So, for example, solutions of the equations of general relativity based on various assumptions provide models that mathematically describe the Universe. Which of these models most accurately describes the world will become clear in the course of further development physics and astrophysics.

Contributes to the disclosure of the essence of the material unity of the world and cybernetics, which establishes the general in various phenomena and processes. In general, the integration of sciences is evidence of the material unity of the world. At the same time, the output of natural science to new level, where common sense can no longer regulate the relationship of truth and falsity, and demanded a change in the philosophical interpretations of Genesis. The category "observer" was introduced into the structure of being. The characteristics of the observed object depend on the characteristics of the observer (whether he is moving or at rest, what is his mass, charge, etc.). This concept, which arose as a reaction to the creation of the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, could not manifest itself in other areas of philosophical knowledge. Increasingly widespread in philosophical knowledge replacement of the question: what is the world, to the question "how do we imagine this world". Thus, in social philosophy, the idea of ​​"social construction of reality" is becoming increasingly popular. The categories of Being, according to the supporters of this concept, depend on the beliefs of people who perceive the world. What is considered true by the vast majority becomes true in its consequences. The most powerful attempt to construct a post-Marxist conception of Being was made by the German philosopher M. Heidegger. According to him, there are three types of Being. The first form, or Being proper, is the form of existence in general. life force, which allows objects and phenomena to cross the border between Being and Non-Being. According to Heidegger, the second variety of Being is here-being: an instant cast of the being of individual objects. In this concept, the characteristics of the existence of objects that are beyond our consciousness are fixed. They cannot be understood. But they can be experienced (heaviness, pain, fear, joy, cold, etc.).

Human consciousness does not want to put up with the fact that there is something that is inaccessible to understanding. It creates analogues of these characteristics, acting as attributes of Being. Temperature takes the place of cold, and mass takes the place of gravity. Unlike the first, the second characteristics are associated with human activities. They can be understood and studied. Heidegger called this form of Being Man (human Being).

AT recent times non-classical interpretations of Genesis are beginning to gain more and more weight in the humanities. This is especially true for sociology and economics. In place of the former "objective" linear laws independent of the opinion and consciousness of people, probabilistic laws come, the onset of which turns out to be associated with statistical regularities. It is no longer the natural sciences with their linear determinism (mandatory causal relationships) that dictate the rules of the humanities, but vice versa.

The relationship between man and the world pervades all philosophy, starting with the question of what is our knowledge? Is truth given by things or is it the product of the subject's arbitrariness? What is value? It follows that the question of the relationship between matter and consciousness is, in fact, the main question of philosophy. No teaching can bypass it. It defines a watershed between areas of philosophy.

The main question has 2 sides.

What comes first: consciousness or matter?

Do we know the world?

From the point of view of revealing the 1st side of the main question of philosophy in the system of general philosophical knowledge, the following areas are distinguished: a) materialism; b) idealism; c) dualism.

From the point of view of revealing the 2nd side, philosophers are divided into those who recognize the knowability of the world and agnostics.

Materialism is a philosophical trend that affirms the primacy of matter and the secondary nature of consciousness.

Idealism is a philosophical trend that asserts the opposite of materialism.

Dualism is a philosophical direction that claims that matter and consciousness develop independently of each other and go in parallel. (Dualism has not stood the test of time)

Forms of materialism and idealism:

Naive materialism of the ancients (Heraclitus, Thales, Anaximenes, Democritus) Essence: Matter is primary.

This matter meant material states and physical phenomena, which, with simple observation, were found to be global, without attempts at scientific substantiation, simply as a result of ordinary observation of environment at the level of naive explanation. It was argued that the massive existence around people is the beginning of everything. (Heraclitus - fire, Thales - water, Anaximenes - air, Democritus - atoms and emptiness.)

Metaphysical - matter is primary to consciousness. The specificity of consciousness was ignored. The extreme version of metaphysical materialism is vulgar. "The human brain secretes thoughts in the same way that the liver secretes bile." Metaphysical materialists of the late 18th century - Diderot, Mametri, Helvetsky.

Dialectical materialism (Marx and Engels)

Matter is primary, consciousness is secondary, but the primacy of matter in relation to consciousness is limited by the framework of the main philosophical question. Consciousness is derived from matter, but having arisen in matter, in turn, it can significantly affect and transform it, i.e. there is a dialectical relationship between matter and consciousness.

Varieties of Idealism:

Objective - not dependent on human consciousness.

Primary is the idea of ​​consciousness, which is objective: Plato is the world and the day, an idea, a memory. Hegel is an absolute idea.

Subjective idealism(Berkeley, Mach, Hume). Essence: The world is a complex of my sensations.

Philosophical theories that affirm the internal unity of the world are called monistic (from the Greek m ó nos - one, only). There are many such theories in philosophy. However, the history of philosophy also knows other, dualistic (from lat. dualis - dual) and pluralistic (from lat. pluralis - multiple) concepts.

Elements of dualism are inherent in the philosophical systems of Descartes and Kant. According to Descartes, there is nothing in common between the worlds of matter and spirit, each of them exists independently of the other. In Kant, the world of phenomena of human consciousness is opposed to the world of "things in themselves", about which nothing can be known.

Among the pluralistic concepts, one can, with some reservations, include Leibniz's doctrine of monads - countless ideal elements of being, each of which reflects the entire Universe. Monads are absolutely individual and devoid of any real connection with each other - as Leibniz put it, "monads have no windows", i.e. each is closed in itself.

A consistently pluralistic theory was built in the last century by the English logician and mathematician Bertrand Russell. He considered the world as a set of "atomic facts" independent of each other, each of which in an ideal language is described by a certain statement. Monistic theories initially saw the unity of the world in some primary and simplest substance from which all things consist (water, fire, atoms, etc.). In the future, the root cause of the universe was more often considered the universal law of being, linking all things into a single whole - into the universe. This law was called by various philosophers the Logos, the Absolute Idea, God, Nature, matter, and sometimes just substance (by Spinoza).

being ontology

The categories of the possible and the actual appear in Aristotle as universal. They cover the totality of being as a unity of potential and real, not only spatially, but contain time, express the process of development of being from simple to complex (the world of inanimate nature, the world of plants and animals, the world of people). Important in the system of concepts of Aristotle is another pair of categories - abstract and concrete. Matter, defined by the philosopher through the concept of the possible, is an abstract characteristic of being, and the form is concrete. Taken together, they, on the one hand, designate being as the entire presence of things in the world, and on the other hand, each thing separately.

Existence and essence. The comprehension of these categories should precede the very approach to the consideration of being, because its first working definition is given through the term Existence . On this basis, it is even concluded that the very category of being is superfluous in philosophy. However, not only the category of being, but also the category of existence includes the human mind in more complex connections and relationships than simply indicate the presence of something. Moreover, an indication of the presence of something also has more meaning than ordinary consciousness can imagine.

Thus, I. Kant understands existence as content, which means something located in space and time and directly or indirectly connected with other important concepts, which allows it to perform any function in the system. Existence here it is closely linked with such attributes of being as space and time; considers the connection with quantity, which is a sign of existence or its absence; the substrate nature of this quantity or the determinative character is revealed. Thanks to the connection existence with other categories, questions about the possibility, reality and necessity of being are resolved.

G. Hegel pays even more attention to the concept of existence. True, starting from pure being, he asserts that the given concept is the most abstract and the poorest definition. But, operating with the concept of absolute being, the philosopher agrees that it is at the same time the most real I, that is (like God in B. Spinoza) there is the principle of being in all existing being.

AT Essence Doctrine G. Hegel develops the idea of ​​an ontological connection between existence and essence. Existence points to originating from the foundation . Without explaining the secondary nature of existence in relation to the ground, substance, for this clearly follows from his idealism, let us emphasize the connection between essence and existence, which Hegel substantiates, and such a connection in which existence contains the ground. The foundation is present in it, denying and generating its new forms. Immediate existence thus expresses the certainty of stability v of content and form.

The category of existence acquires a new meaning from representatives philosophy of life (a direction that criticizes rationalism). Soren Kierkegaard, in particular, dealt with the problems of human existence itself and considered the category of existence as its fundamental characteristic. At the beginning of the XX century. a philosophical trend is spreading, already the name of which is existentialism (from the late Lat. Existence ) - indicates that existence is considered as its central concept. Karl Jaspers, a German philosopher and psychiatrist, was one of the first to raise existentialist problems of human existence in the world. According to Jaspers, a person usually lives abandoned life without much meaning, not thinking about who he really is, not knowing the hidden possibilities of his true I . This is the subject being in the world , or existence. The feeling of the authenticity of one's nature (existence) arises only in special situations in which a person finds himself on the verge of life and death. To him comes insight, awareness of the soul.

It is known that modern Western philosophy avoids the use of the concept essence , denying him reality, purity of definition, the possibility of ontological consideration. However, historical and philosophical analysis shows that essence, like existence, are fundamental correlative concepts that characterize being as the central category of ontology, indicating the existence of the world and its solidity, integrity and multi-qualitativeness. Essence, according to modern ideas, means a set of such properties of an object, without which it is not able to exist and which determine all its other properties.

Part and whole. The categories of the part and the whole have been singled out by man from the very beginning of the emergence of philosophy. Parmenides in the definition of being pointed to its integrity as the most important characteristic. One more characteristic can be added to this characteristic - uniformity. However, using these concepts, Parmenides did not introduce a correlative concept - a part - into their content. His being was continuity and it was indivisible. The parts here referred to another entity, the world as a moving, stretching reality. However, some characteristics of later definitions fit the definition of being given by the famous Eleatus. For example, what is the whole without end (Parmenides), does not imply the absence of one of the parts, due to which being is called the whole. This is the requirement of the name of the whole by Aristotle. This also includes the following statement by Aristotle: Parts and the whole are not the same.

In philosophy, the problem of the relationship between the whole and the part was discussed quite intensively in each period of development. It was expressed in questions: what is more important for philosophy - the whole or the parts? Can the whole be represented as the sum of its parts? Is the whole equal to the sum of the parts or not? Can the whole be greater than the sum of the parts? The ontological solution of these questions determines the difference methodological approaches and epistemological search for truth. In solving these issues, two positions were formed: merism and holism. The first "position was characteristic of mechanism. Here, on the basis of knowledge of the part, one can judge the whole. According to the second position, the whole is irreducible to parts and the whole cannot be judged by the part. In the process of development, the whole can acquire new parts. Holism is associated with dialectics. Data positions began to converge after the German classics (F. Schelling and G. Hegel) put forward the idea of ​​two types of integrity - inorganic, which later became known as summative, and organic, which, unlike the first, is capable of self-development.

Categories whole , parts , system represent a historically developed language for describing the central category - being. His analysis will no longer be an abstract description of the absolute, but will be based on the appropriate rules for dealing with the universal.

Content and form. Content is a philosophical category that reflects a system of interrelated constituent elements, properties and processes that determine the specifics and development of an object . We see that here content and system connected in a meaningful way. Distinctive feature content definitions are an indication of the fact that this category constitutes and reproduces the specifics of the system. An empty system cannot exist. Content can be rolled up not expressed, but then not only the systemic nature of the object, but the object itself becomes very problematic. The specificity of the system, in turn, depends on how, in what way the elements of the system are connected, that is, on the form. Form is a way of external and internal existence of content, a way of stability and preservation of its features. The form demonstrates the orderliness of the content, the nature of the connection of its elements, a certain sequence of this connection.

Content and form are ancient categories. Their fundamental importance is indicated by Aristotle. Its content is associated with matter, the substrate. He considers the content as the substratum of all possible things and any of their changes, but neither the things themselves nor their changes can exist even potentially outside the form. The form, according to Aristotle, not only contributes to the formation of a thing, but together with the content characterizes its specificity. That is, form and content are fundamental categories, the unity of which determines being as a self-organized, multi-qualitative system.

Used Books

2.Introduction to Philosophy / ed. Frolova. M., 1989.

3.Gaidenko, P.P. Being and Reason // Questions of Philosophy. 1997.- №7 Send a request with a topic right now to find out about the possibility of receiving a consultation.