Methodological and epistemological ideas in the philosophy of modern times: F. Bacon, R

Philosophy test

Completed by first-year student of the Faculty of Law, group YuZ-991 Petrenko N. F.

Volzhsky Humanitarian Institute of Volgograd State University, Department of Social and Humanitarian Disciplines

Cognition is the highest form of reflection of objective reality. Cognition does not exist separately from the cognitive activity of individual individuals, but the latter can cognize only insofar as they master a collectively developed, objectified system of knowledge transmitted from one generation to another. There are different levels of knowledge:

sensory cognition

thinking

empirical knowledge

theoretical knowledge.

There are also various forms of cognition:

cognition aimed at obtaining knowledge inseparable from the individual subject (perception, idea)

cognition aimed at obtaining objectified knowledge that exists outside the individual (for example, in the form of scientific texts or in the form of things created by man).

Objectified cognition is carried out by a collective subject according to laws that are not reducible to the individual process of cognition, and acts as part of spiritual production.

There are also such types of cognition as:

ordinary

artistic

natural science

Rationalism (ratio - reason) as an integral system of epistemological views began to take shape in the 17th and 18th centuries. as a result of the “triumph of reason” - the development of mathematics and natural science, although its origins can be found in ancient Greek philosophy, for example, Parmenides distinguished between knowledge “by truth” (obtained through reason) and knowledge “by opinion” (obtained as a result of sensory perception ).

The cult of reason is generally characteristic of the era of the 17th and 18th centuries. - only that which fits into a certain logical chain is true. Justifying the unconditional reliability of the scientific principles of mathematics and natural science, rationalism tried to solve the question: how knowledge acquired in the process of cognitive activity acquires an objective, universal and necessary character. Representatives of rationalism (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz) argued that scientific knowledge, which has these logical properties, is achievable through reason, which acts as both its source and the actual criterion of truth. For example, to the main thesis of the sensualists, “there is nothing in the mind that was not previously in the senses,” the rationalist Leibniz adds: “Except the mind itself.”

Downplaying the role of feelings and sensations of perception in the form of which the connection with the world is realized entails a separation from the real object of knowledge. Appeal to reason as the only scientific source of knowledge led the rationalist Descartes to the conclusion about the existence of innate ideas. Although, from the point of view of materialism, this can be called a “genetic code” passed on from generation to generation. Leibniz echoes him, suggesting the presence of predispositions (inclinations) of thinking.

Descartes (Renatus Cartesius Decartes) - a French philosopher and mathematician, being one of the founders of the "new philosophy", the founder of Cartesianism, was deeply convinced that the truth "... is more likely to be encountered by an individual person than by an entire people." At the same time, he started from the “principle of evidence”, in which all knowledge had to be verified using the natural “light of reason”. This implied the rejection of all judgments taken on faith (for example, customs, examples, as traditional forms of knowledge transfer).

The great philosopher, who proposed his own coordinate system in mathematics (Cartesian-rectangular coordinate system), also proposed a starting point for public consciousness. According to Descartes, scientific knowledge had to be built as a unified system, while until now (before him) it was only a collection of random truths. The unshakable basis (reference point) of such a system should have been the most obvious and reliable statement (a kind of “ultimate truth”). Descartes considered the proposition “I think, therefore I am” (“cogito ergo sum”) absolutely irrefutable. This argument presupposes a belief in the superiority of the intelligible over the sensible, not just a principle of thinking, but a subjectively experienced process of thinking from which it is impossible to separate the thinker. However, self-consciousness as a principle of philosophy has not yet acquired complete autonomy - the truth of the original principle as clear and distinct knowledge is guaranteed by Descartes by the presence of God - an omnipotent being who has invested in man the natural light of reason. Descartes' self-awareness is not closed in on itself and is open to God, who acts as the source of thinking: all vague ideas are the product of man (and therefore false), all clear ideas come from God, therefore true. And here in Descartes a metaphysical circle arises: the existence of any reality (including God) is verified through self-consciousness, which (the significance of the conclusions of this consciousness) is again ensured by God.

The very first reliable judgment (“the basis of fundamentals”, “the ultimate truth”) according to Descartes is Cogito - a thinking substance. It is revealed to us directly (in contrast to material substance, which is revealed to us indirectly through sensations). Descartes defines this original substance as a thing that for its existence does not need anything other than itself. In a strict sense, such a substance can only be God, who “... is eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, the source of all good and truth, the creator of all things...”

Thinking and corporeal substances were created by God and maintained by Him. Descartes considers reason as a final substance "... a thing imperfect, incomplete, dependent on something else and... striving for something better and greater than I myself..." Thus, among created things, Descartes calls only substances those who for their existence need only the ordinary assistance of God, in contrast to those who need the assistance of other creatures and are called qualities and attributes.

According to Descartes, matter is divisible to infinity (atoms and emptiness do not exist) and he explained movement using the concept of vortices. These premises allowed Descartes to identify nature with spatial extension, thus it was possible to present the study of nature as a process of its construction (such as geometric objects).

Science, according to Descartes, constructs a certain hypothetical world and this version of the world (scientific) is equivalent to any other if it is capable of explaining phenomena given in experience because It is God who is the “designer” of everything that exists, and he could use this (scientific) version of the design of the world to implement his plans. This understanding of the world by Descartes as a system of finely constructed machines removes the distinction between the natural and the artificial. (A plant is the same equal mechanism as a watch constructed by a person, with the only difference being that the skill of the watch’s springs is as inferior to the skill of the plant’s mechanisms as the art of the Supreme Creator differs from the art of the finite creator (man)). Subsequently, a similar principle was incorporated into the theory of mind modeling - cybernetics: “No system can create a system more complex than itself.”

Thus, if the world is a mechanism, and the science about it is mechanics, then the process of cognition is the construction of a certain version of the world machine from the simplest principles that are in the human mind. As a tool, Descartes proposed his own method, which was based on the following rules:

Start with the simple and obvious.

By deduction, obtain more complex statements.

Act in such a way as not to miss a single link (the continuity of the chain of conclusions), which requires intuition, which sees the first principles, and deduction, which gives consequences from them.

As a true mathematician, Descartes made mathematics the basis and model of the method, and in the concept of nature he left only definitions that fit into mathematical definitions - extension (magnitude), figure, motion.

The most important elements of the method were measurement and order.

Descartes expelled the concept of purpose from his teaching because... the concept of soul (as an intermediary between the indivisible mind (spirit) and the divisible body) was eliminated.

Descartes identified the mind and soul, calling imagination and feeling modes of the mind. The elimination of the soul in its previous sense allowed Descartes to contrast two substances, nature and spirit, and turn nature into a dead object for cognition (construction) and use by man, but at the same time a serious problem arose in Descartes’ philosophy - the connection between soul and body, and since everything is the essence of mechanisms - tried to solve it mechanistically: in the “pineal gland” (where the seat of the soul is located according to Descartes), mechanical influences transmitted by the senses reach consciousness.

Descartes remained a consistent rationalist even when considering the categories of ethics - he considered affects and passions as a consequence of bodily movements, which (until they are illuminated by the light of reason) give rise to delusions of reason (hence evil deeds). The source of error is not reason, but free will, which forces a person to act where reason does not yet have a clear (i.e., divine) consciousness.

Francis Bacon is the founder of English materialism and the methodology of experimental science.

Bacon's philosophy combined empiricism with theology, a naturalistic worldview with the principles of the analytical method.

The seventeenth century is the period of the formation of capitalism and the beginning of bourgeois revolutions. The uniqueness of the New Time was determined by the industrial and scientific revolutions. The philosophical systems of Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes became an expression of the spirit of transformation of the New Age. Among these discoveries, first of all, we should highlight the development of the heliocentric picture of the world by Nicolaus Copernicus, which he contrasted with the geocentric picture of the world of Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century AD). According to Ptolemy, in the center of the world there is a motionless Earth. The further development of the heliocentric system is associated with the names of the Danish astronomer. The merit of Tycho de Brahe lies in the accumulation of valuable astronomical data: for more than thirty years he carried out systematic astronomical observation. A systematic justification for the heliocentric system of the world was given by Galileo Galileon, the founder of the scientific natural sciences, which laid a solid foundation for astronomy and substantiated new methods of scientific research. The most important scientific achievement of I. Newton was the creation of the theory of planetary motion and the associated discovery of the law of universal gravitation, which formed the basis for the physical justification of the heliocentric system. Francis Bacon who, like other thinkers of the New Age, was convinced that “philosophy is capable of becoming a science and should become one. He views science and knowledge as the highest value of practical significance. He expressed his attitude towards science in the aphorism “Knowledge is power ", or (a more accurate translation) “Knowledge is power." Bacon loved to repeat: we are as much as we can, as much as we know. The peculiarity of F. Bacon’s inductive method is analysis. This is an analytical method based on the “dismemberment” of nature in the process of its cognition Having learned the primary, simple elements, one can comprehend the mystery of nature (matter) as a whole and thereby achieve power over it. Western European rationalism originates in the philosophy of the French scientist and philosopher Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650), with whom, according to Hegel, it begins the promised land of modern philosophy and the foundations of the deductive-rationalistic method of cognition are laid. In addition to philosophical works, R. Descartes is known as the author of research in various fields of knowledge: he laid the foundations of geometric optics, was the creator of analytical geometry, introduced the rectangular coordinate system, and put forward the idea of ​​reflex.. Descartes was one of those thinkers who closely linked the development of scientific thinking with general philosophical principles. R. Descartes explains this thought with the help of the image of a tree, the roots of which are philosophical thinking, the trunk is physics as part of philosophy, and the branched bark is all applied sciences, incl. Ethics, medicine, applied mechanics, etc. Deckard's rationalistic method is a philosophical interpretation of the mathematician's methodology.

Empirical direction in philosophy. F. Bacon's inductive method of cognition.

He outlined his views in the work “New Organon”

In this work, Bacon consciously contrasts his understanding of science and its method with the understanding on which Aristotle's Organon is based. Bacon distinguishes 2 types of experiences: 1. “fruitful” - the goal is to bring immediate results. benefits to man 2. “luminous” - the goal is not immediate benefit, but knowledge of the laws and properties of things. In the history of science, there are clearly two paths or methods of research: dogmatic and empirical. The dogmatic method begins with general conclusions of propositions and attempts to derive all particular cases from them. A dogmatist is like a spider; a cat weaves a web out of itself. (brings truths out of the mind, which leads to neglect of facts). A scientist who follows the empirical method is like an ant, which randomly drags everything that comes in its way. (the ability to collect facts, but not the ability to generalize them). The true method consists in the mental processing of materials, which provides experience. (bee) Until now, discoveries have been made by accident. There would be more of them if researchers were armed with the right method. Method is the path, the main means of research. It includes tools, perfect. the ability of our perception, and tools, perfect. human thought itself. Science is expanded not by passive contemplation, but by experiment, that is, by active testing of nature. The main condition for the progress of knowledge is the improvement of the ability of inference, the most important form of cat. is correct induction. Based on human cognitive capabilities, which include memory, reason and imagination, F. Bacon developed a classification of sciences. History is based on memory as a description of facts; poetry, literature and art in general are based on imagination. Reason lies at the basis of theoretical sciences or philosophy in the broad sense of the word. The main difficulty in understanding nature, according to F. Bacon, lies in the human mind in its use and application. The point is to follow a completely different path, a different method. The method acts as the greatest transformative force, since it orients the practical and theoretical activity of man. By pointing out the shortest path to new discoveries, it increases man's power over nature. induction (the term “induction” means guidance), i.e. the movement of knowledge from the individual to the general. Induction, according to B, is the compass of the ship of science. The peculiarity of the inductive method B is analysis. This is an analytical method based on the “dismemberment” of nature in the process of cognition. Having learned the primary, simple elements, one can comprehend the secret of nature (matter) as a whole and thereby achieve power over nature. B's influence on the development of science is great, since his philosophy was an expression of the spirit of experimental natural science.

Rationalist direction in philosophy R. Descartes on a single universal scientific method.

He substantiated the rationalistic approach to the knowledge of phenomena, placing logical thinking as the basis for knowledge. In his opinion, in philosophy the most profound processes are those in nature and in the soul of a person that can only be known with the help of logical analysis. Experience is powerless and not available everywhere. For example, when studying the Universe and the human soul. The idea of ​​​​creating a universal scientific method with the help of which he considered it possible to build a system of sciences and ensure man's dominance over nature. This is the method of universal mathematics. Truth is what is obvious: the eyes or the inner gaze (intellect, intuition), which gives no reason for doubt. “by thought means I exist”, “I can doubt anything, but I don’t doubt that I doubt, i.e. thought, and this is a sure sign of my existence” i.e. thinking is the primary life of a person. Descartes is an outstanding scientist. He is the creator of the analytical. geometry, introduced the coordinate method, and mastered the concept of function. The system of algebraic notation originates from Deckard. In mechanics, Deckard pointed out the relativity of motion and rest, formulated the law of action and reaction, as well as the law of conservation of the total amount of motion during the collision of two inelastic bodies. In knowledge, the main role is played by reason - rationalism. Deckard believed that the source of certainty of knowledge can only be reason itself. Deckard's method consists of 4 requirements: 1. admit as true only such provisions that are presented to the mind clearly and distinctly and cannot raise any doubts about the truth; 2. break down each complex problem into its constituent individual problems; 3. methodically move from the known and proven to the unknown and unproven.; 4.do not allow any omissions in the research links.

Philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment. Mechanical materialism.

In the 18th century Rapid development continues in Europe in industry, commerce, as well as in political and spiritual life. This required further development of science and education of peoples. Scientific knowledge that was previously the property of a narrow circle of scientists spread widely and went to the people; the first encyclopedias were created, which contained information about all scientific knowledge known at that time. It is rapidly developing educational institutions, universities, and academies of sciences. The population of Europe studied intensively and became enlightened. Confidence in the power of the human mind in its ability to solve economic, social and political problems - such is the pathos of the Age of Enlightenment. The connection between science and practice is becoming ever closer. 2 chapters of the slogan: “science” and “progress”. Prominent representatives of the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment: John Locke, Voltaire, Montsenier, Kant Emmanuel. Solutions to fundamental philosophical problems concern nature and man, carried out on the basis of data from the natural sciences: mechanics, physics, biology, anatomy, astronomy, and other natural sciences. Mesanics was the most developed; the poet often used natural processes, including. biological reduced to mechanical.

29 Social and philosophical teachings of the Enlightenment.

Haldebach and Lucretius deeply substantiated the role of the social environment before the formation of personality. They wrote that they give birth to a person, but they become a person. An important role is played by the social conditions of people's lives (the role of the family, school, other social institutions, state, church, law) in the form of the individual, his moral and civic exploits. If a person’s character was shaped by circumstances, then the circumstances must be human. Unlike Marchiavelli, Gops and other thinkers 16017 in Rousseau, Holbach argue that man is by nature good. Rousseau believed that civilization infringes on the natural beginning of people and this leads to evil and injustice. Many French educators share the theory of reasonable egoism: realizing their interests, taking into account the interests of other people. Social-legal ideal Locke considered the non-alienable natural rights of every person: the right to life, liberty, and property. These ideas of bourgeois idealism are different from the interests of nascent bourgeoisism. Rousseau's contractual societies substantiated the ideas of equality of people and their political freedom, which should compensate for their economic inequality generated by civilization. Montesquieu developed the theory of separation of powers into legislative, executive, judicial, which must balance each other

Critical philosophy of I. Kant: pre-critical and critical periods.

Kant directed his attention to studying the nature of human morality, religion, art, i.e. on the world around a person and the existence of the person himself. He turned to criticism of the mind (having examined the mind itself), that is, to a critical analysis of the possibilities of human cognitive activity. This is the essence of his critical philosophy - the critical analysis of pure reason. In the 80s 18th century - name (2) period of Kant's philosophy. Works: “Critique of Pure Reason” “Critique of Practical Reason” (“Critique of the Power of Judgment”. He takes the field of art. 1st Kant outlined his doctrine of knowledge, 2nd Ethics as the science of regulating the practical behavior of people, 3rd aesthetics Kant considered the “theory of knowledge” he created as the main part of his philosophy. He pointed to 3 stages of human knowledge of the world: 1) sensory contemplation of a phenomenon 2) rational thinking 3) reason. 1) This idea of ​​people about the phenomenon of nature and society is formed on the basis of their sensations. Knowledge about these phenomena is formed in the process of everyday life of people (peasant, artisan, teacher, etc.). They have ideas about many phenomena, like the external side of phenomena. The essence is hidden from people - these are “things in themselves” 2) rational thinking is inherent in both ordinary everyday consciousness and science. Kant explored the cognitive ability in the uterus and natural science. He came to the conclusion that these sciences can comprehend certain phenomena and the laws of their development, much deeper than the ordinary consciousness of people, but they cannot hide the essence of these phenomena. It still remains a “thing in itself.” 3) According to Kant, the essence of a phenomenon that the mind tries to comprehend represents the highest cognitive ability of a person. The mind is aimed at understanding the world as a whole. But in solving these problems, the mind encounters unresolved contradictions - antinomies. 1. The world does not have a beginning in time and space and at the same time has such beginnings 2. The world is endlessly divided and indivisible. 3. The world is dominated by necessity, only what is necessary and exists. 4. God exists and does not exist. It is impossible to prove any of these statements with certainty. All these are “things in themselves.” They can only be taken on faith. Thus, according to Kant, the world itself as a whole is unknowable, and the essence of individual things is also unknowable. People deal only with their external side - a phenomenon.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

VLADIMIR STATE UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

ABSTRACT

BY DISCIPLINE PHILOSOPHY

"Philosophy of the New Age"

in the works of F. Bacon and R. Descartes"

Completed:

Student gr. ZEVM-202

Makarov A.V.

Checked:

Vladimir

PLAN

I. Introduction

1. General characteristics of the era

2. Main features of modern philosophy

II. Outstanding thinkers of modern times - Descartes and Bacon - and their contribution to the theory of knowledge

1. Rene Descartes as a representative of rationalism

2. Francis Bacon as a representative of empiricism

III. Conclusion

IV. List of used literature

The seventeenth century opens the next period in the development of philosophy, which is commonly called the philosophy of modern times. The process of decomposition of feudal society, which began in the Renaissance, expanded and deepened in the 17th century.

In the last third of the 16th - early 17th centuries, a bourgeois revolution took place in the Netherlands, which played an important role in the development of capitalist relations in bourgeois countries. From the middle of the 17th century (1640-1688), the bourgeois revolution unfolded in England, the most industrially developed European country. These early bourgeois revolutions were prepared by the development of manufacturing, which replaced craft labor. The transition to manufacture contributed to the rapid growth of labor productivity, since manufacture was based on the cooperation of workers, each of whom performed a separate function in the production process, divided into small partial operations.

The development of a new - bourgeois - society gives rise to changes not only in economics, politics and social relations, it also changes the consciousness of people. The most important factor in such a change in public consciousness is science, and, above all, experimental and mathematical natural science, which was going through its period of formation in the 17th century: it is no coincidence that the 17th century is usually called the era of the scientific revolution.

In the 17th century, the division of labor in production creates a need for rationalization of production processes, and thereby for the development of science that could stimulate this rationalization.

The development of modern science, as well as social transformations associated with the disintegration of feudal social orders and the weakening of the influence of the church, gave rise to a new orientation of philosophy. If in the Middle Ages it acted in alliance with theology, and in the Renaissance - with art and humanitarian knowledge, now it relies mainly on science.

Therefore, to understand the problems that faced the philosophy of the 17th century, it is necessary to take into account, firstly, the specifics of a new type of science - experimental-mathematical natural science, the foundations of which were laid precisely in this period, and, secondly, since science occupies a leading place in the worldview this era, then in philosophy the problems of the theory of knowledge - epistemology - come to the fore.

Already during the Renaissance, medieval scholastic education was one of the subjects of constant criticism. This criticism was even more acute in the 17th century. However, at the same time, although in a new form, the old polemic, dating back to the Middle Ages, continues between two directions in philosophy: nominalistic, based on experience, and rationalistic, which puts forward knowledge through reason as the most reliable. These two trends in the 17th century appear as empiricism And rationalism .

Descartes as a representative of rationalism.

Rationalism ( ratio- reason) as an integral system of epistemological views began to take shape in the 17th-18th centuries. as a result of the “triumph of reason” - the development of mathematics and natural science. However, its origins can be found in ancient Greek philosophy, for example, Parmenides distinguished between knowledge “by truth” (obtained through reason) and knowledge “by opinion” (obtained as a result of sensory perception).

The cult of reason is generally characteristic of the era of the 17th-18th centuries. - only that which fits into a certain logical chain is true. Justifying the unconditional reliability of the scientific principles of mathematics and natural science, rationalists tried to resolve the question of how knowledge acquired in the process of cognitive activity acquires an objective, universal and necessary character. Representatives of rationalism (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz) argued that scientific knowledge, which has these logical properties, is achievable through reason, which acts as both its source and the actual criterion of truth. So, for example, to the main thesis of the sensualists, “there is nothing in the mind that was not previously in the senses,” the rationalist Leibniz adds: “Except the mind itself.”

Downplaying the role of feelings and sensations of perception, in the form of which the connection with the world is realized, entails a separation from the real object of knowledge. Appeal to reason as the only scientific source of knowledge led the rationalist Descartes to the conclusion about the existence of innate ideas. Although, from the point of view of materialism, this can be called a “genetic code” passed on from generation to generation. It is the innate nature of the idea that explains the very effect of clarity and distinctness, the effectiveness of intellectual intuition inherent in our mind. By delving into it, we find ourselves able to understand the things created by God. Leibniz echoes him, suggesting the presence of predispositions (inclinations) of thinking.

Rene Descartes (Renatus Cartesius Decartes) - French philosopher and mathematician. Being one of the founders of the “new philosophy”, the founder of Cartesianism, he was deeply convinced that “it is more likely for an individual to stumble upon the truth than for an entire people.” At the same time, he started from the “principle of evidence,” in which all knowledge had to be verified with the help of the natural “light of reason.” This implied the rejection of all judgments taken on faith (for example, customs, as traditional forms of knowledge transfer).

The starting point of Descartes' philosophizing is the problem they share with Bacon of the reliability of knowledge. But unlike Bacon, who emphasized the practical validity of knowledge and emphasized the importance of the objective truth of knowledge, Descartes looks for signs of the reliability of knowledge in the sphere of knowledge itself, its internal characteristics.

The great philosopher, who proposed his coordinate system in mathematics (Cartesian rectangular coordinate system), also proposed a starting point for public consciousness. According to Descartes, scientific knowledge had to be built as a single system, while before him it was only a collection of random truths. The unshakable basis (reference point) of such a system should have been the most obvious and reliable statement (a kind of “ultimate truth”). Descartes considered the proposition “I think, therefore I exist” (“cogito ergo sum”) to be absolutely irrefutable. This argument presupposes a belief in the superiority of the intelligible over the sensible, not just a principle of thinking, but a subjectively experienced process of thinking, from which it is impossible to separate the thinker. However, self-consciousness as a principle of philosophy has not yet acquired complete autonomy, because The truth of the original principle as clear and distinct knowledge is guaranteed by Descartes by the presence of God - an omnipotent being who has invested in man the natural light of reason. Descartes' self-awareness is not closed in on itself and is open to God, who acts as the source of thinking (“all vague ideas are the product of man, and therefore are false; all clear ideas come from God, therefore, true”). And here in Descartes a metaphysical circle arises: the existence of any reality, including God, is verified through self-consciousness, which is again ensured by God.

According to Descartes, matter is divisible to infinity (atoms and emptiness do not exist), and he explained movement using the concept of vortices. These premises allowed Descartes to identify nature with spatial extension, thus it was possible to present the study of nature as a process of its construction (such as geometric objects).

Science, according to Descartes, constructs a certain hypothetical world, and this scientific version of the world is equivalent to any other if it is capable of explaining phenomena given in experience, because It is God who is the “designer” of all things, and he could use the scientific version of the construction of the world to implement his plans. This understanding of the world by Descartes as a system of finely constructed machines removes the distinction between the natural and the artificial. A plant is the same equal mechanism as a watch constructed by a person, with the only difference being that the skill of the watch’s springs is as inferior to the skill of the plant’s mechanisms as the art of the Supreme Creator differs from the art of the finite creator (man). Subsequently, a similar principle was incorporated into the theory of mind modeling - cybernetics: “No system can create a system more complex than itself.”

Thus, if the world is a mechanism, and the science about it is mechanics, then the process of cognition is the construction of a certain version of the world machine from the simplest principles that are in the human mind. As a tool, Descartes proposed his own method, which was based on the following rules:

start with the simple and obvious, i.e. do not take anything for granted that you are obviously not sure of. Avoid all haste and prejudice and include in your judgments only what appears to the mind so clearly and distinctly that it can in no way give rise to doubt;

by deduction, obtain more complex statements, i.e. divide each problem chosen for study into as many parts as possible and necessary for its best solution;

arrange your thoughts in a certain order, starting with the simplest and easily knowable objects, and ascend little by little, as if by steps, to the knowledge of the most complex, allowing for the existence of order even among those that do not precede each other in the natural course of things;

act in such a way as not to miss a single link (continuity of the chain of inferences), which requires intuition, which discerns the first principles, and deduction, which gives consequences from them. Make listings throughout so complete and reviews so comprehensive as to ensure that nothing is missed.

These rules can be designated, respectively, as the rules of evidence (achieving the proper quality of knowledge), analysis (going to the last foundations), synthesis (carried out in its entirety) and control (allowing to avoid errors in the implementation of both analysis and synthesis).

The method thus thought out should now be applied to philosophical knowledge itself.

The first problem was to discover the self-evident truths underlying all our knowledge. Descartes suggests resorting to methodological doubt for this purpose. Only with its help can one find truths that are impossible to doubt. It should be noted that the test of certainty is subject to extremely high requirements, obviously exceeding those that completely satisfy us, say, when considering mathematical axioms. After all, one can doubt the justice of the latter. We need to find truths that are impossible to doubt. Is it possible to doubt your own existence, the existence of the world? God? The fact that a person has two hands and two eyes? Such doubts may be absurd and strange, but they are possible. What cannot be doubted? Descartes' conclusion may seem naive only at first glance when he finds such unconditional and indisputable evidence in the following: I think, therefore I exist. The validity of the certainty of thinking is confirmed here by the very act of doubt as an act of thought. Thinking is answered (for the thinking Self) by a special, irreducible certainty, which consists in the immediate givenness and openness of thought for itself.

Descartes received only one undoubted statement - about the very existence of cognitive thinking. But the latter contains a lot of ideas, some of them (for example, mathematical ones) have a high degree of evidence of the idea of ​​reason. The mind contains the conviction that there is a world besides me. How to prove that all these are not only ideas of the mind, not self-deception, but also exist in reality? This is a question about the justification of reason itself, about trust in it. Descartes solves this problem as follows. Among the ideas of our thinking is the idea of ​​God as a Perfect Being. And all the experience of man himself testifies to the fact that we are limited and imperfect beings. How did this idea become inherent in our minds? Descartes is inclined to the only justified thought in his opinion, that this idea itself is embedded in us, that its creator himself is God, who created us and implanted in our mind the concept of himself as the Most Perfect Being. But from this statement follows the necessity of the existence of the external world as an object of our knowledge. God cannot deceive us; he created a world that obeys unchanging laws and is understandable by our minds, which he created. Thus, for Descartes, God becomes the guarantor of the intelligibility of the world and the objectivity of human knowledge. Reverence for God turns into deep trust in reason.

The very first reliable judgment (“the basis of fundamentals”, “the ultimate truth”), according to Descartes, is a thinking substance. It is revealed to us directly (in contrast to material substance, which is revealed to us indirectly through sensations). Descartes defines this original substance as a thing that for its existence does not need anything other than itself. In a strict sense, such a substance can only be God, who is “eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, the source of all good and truth, the creator of all things.”

Descartes believes that all possible things are composed of two independent and independent substances from each other (but not from the God who created them) - soul and body. Thinking and corporeal substances were created by God and maintained by Him. Descartes views reason as a final substance - as “... a thing imperfect, incomplete, dependent on something else and... striving for something better and greater than I myself...”. Thus, among created things, Descartes calls substances only those that for their existence require only the ordinary assistance of God, in contrast to those that require the assistance of other creatures and are called qualities and attributes.

These substances are known to us in their basic attributes; for bodies this attribute is extension, for souls it is thinking. Corporeal nature is consistently represented in Descartes by the concept of mechanism. The ever-moving world, subject to the laws of mechanics, calculated mathematically and geometrically, is prepared for the triumphant march of mathematical natural science. In the concept of nature, Descartes left only those definitions that fit into mathematical definitions - extension (magnitude), figure, motion. The most important elements of the method were measurement and order. Nature, according to Descartes, is a purely material formation; its content is exhausted exclusively by extension and movement. Its main laws are the principles of conservation of momentum, inertia and the originality of rectilinear motion. Based on these principles and the methodically controlled construction of mechanical models, all cognitive tasks addressed to nature can be solved. Animals and human bodies are subject to the action of the same mechanical principles and are self-propelled automata; there are no living principles in organic bodies (both plant and animal).

Descartes expelled the concept of purpose from his teaching because the concept of soul (as an intermediary between the indivisible mind (spirit) and the divisible body) was eliminated. Descartes identified the mind and soul, calling imagination and feeling “modes of the mind.” The elimination of the soul in its previous sense allowed Descartes to contrast two substances - nature and spirit, and turn nature into a dead object for cognition (construction) and use by man. But at the same time a serious problem arose - the connection between soul and body. If animals have no soul and are soulless automata, then in the case of humans this is obviously not the case. A person is able to control his body with the help of his mind, and his mind is able to experience the influence of substances of such different nature. The soul is one, unextended and indivisible. The body is extended, divisible and complex. Descartes, who showed great interest in the successes of contemporary medicine, paid special attention to the “pineal gland,” located in the central part of the brain, and associated with it the place in which the mental substance interacts with the bodily substance. Although the soul, as a beginning, is unextended and does not occupy space, it resides in the indicated gland, which is the seat of the soul. It is here that the material life spirits come into contact with the soul. Irritation from the outside world is transmitted along the nerves to the brain and excites the soul residing there. Accordingly, the self-excitement of the soul sets in motion the vital spirits, and the nerve impulse ends in muscular movement. The connection between soul and body as a whole fits into the schemes of essentially mechanical interaction.

Descartes remained a consistent rationalist even when considering the categories of ethics: he considered affects and passions as a consequence of bodily movements, which (until they are illuminated by the light of reason) give rise to errors of reason (hence evil deeds). The source of error is not reason, but free will, which forces a person to act where reason does not yet have a clear (i.e., divine) consciousness.

Thus, the basic moral principles of Cartesianism are easily extracted from the general thrust of his philosophy. Strengthening the dominance of the mind over the feelings and passions of the body is the starting principle for the search for formulas of moral behavior in a wide variety of life situations. Descartes is distinguished by a kind of dissolution of the phenomenon of will in pure intellectualism. Free will is defined by him by indicating adherence to the logic of order. One of Descartes’ rules of life sounds like this: “Conquer yourself rather than fate, and change your desires rather than the world order; to believe that there is nothing that is entirely in our power, with the exception of our thoughts.” Beginning with Descartes, new orientations of philosophical thought, in which thought and man himself occupy a central place, acquire a classically clear character.

Descartes' teachings about the immediate reliability of self-consciousness, about innate ideas, about the intuitive nature of axioms, about the opposition of the material and the ideal were the support for the development of idealism. On the other hand, Descartes' teaching about nature and his universal mechanistic method make his philosophy one of the stages of the materialistic worldview of modern times.

Bacon as a representative of empiricism.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is considered the founder of experimental science of the New Age. He was the first philosopher to set himself the task of creating a scientific method. In his philosophy, the main principles characterizing the philosophy of the New Age were formulated for the first time.

Bacon came from a noble family and was involved in social and political activities throughout his life: he was a lawyer, a member of the House of Commons, and Lord Chancellor of England. Shortly before the end of his life, society condemned him, accusing him of bribery in the conduct of court cases. He was sentenced to a large fine (£40,000), deprived of parliamentary powers, and dismissed from court. He died in 1626 after catching a cold while stuffing a chicken with snow to prove that cold kept meat from spoiling and thereby demonstrate the power of the experimental scientific method he was developing.

From the very beginning of his creative activity, Bacon opposed the scholastic philosophy that was dominant at that time and put forward the doctrine of “natural” philosophy, based on experimental knowledge. Bacon's views were formed on the basis of the achievements of Renaissance philosophy and included a naturalistic worldview with the fundamentals of an analytical approach to the phenomena under study and empiricism. He proposed an extensive program for restructuring the intellectual world, sharply criticizing the scholastic concepts of previous and contemporary philosophy.

Bacon sought to bring the “boundaries of the mental world” into line with all those enormous achievements that took place in Bacon’s contemporary society of the 15th-16th centuries, when the experimental sciences were most developed. Bacon expressed the solution to the problem in the form of an attempt at a “great restoration of the sciences,” which he outlined in treatises: “On the Dignity and Augmentation of the Sciences” (his greatest work), “New Organon” (his main work) and other works on “natural history” , considering individual phenomena and processes of nature.

Bacon's understanding of science included, first of all, a new classification of sciences, which he based on such abilities of the human soul as memory, imagination (fantasy), and reason. Accordingly, the main sciences, according to Bacon, should be history, poetry, and philosophy. The highest task of knowledge of all sciences, according to Bacon, is domination over nature and the improvement of human life. According to the head of the “House of Solomon” (a kind of research center, the Academy, the idea of ​​which was put forward by Bacon in the utopian novel “The New Atlantis”), “the goal of our society is to know the causes and hidden forces of all things and to expand the power of man over nature, until everything will not be possible for him."

The criterion for the success of sciences is the practical results to which they lead. “Fruits and practical inventions are, as it were, guarantors and witnesses of the truth of philosophy.” Knowledge is power, but only knowledge that is true. Therefore, Bacon distinguishes between two types of experience: fruitful and luminous. The first includes those experiences that bring direct benefit to a person, the second includes those whose goal is to understand the deep connections of nature, the laws of phenomena, and the properties of things. Bacon considered the second type of experiment more valuable, since without their results it is impossible to carry out fruitful experiments. The unreliability of the knowledge we receive is due, Bacon believes, to a dubious form of evidence, which relies on a syllogistic form of substantiation of ideas, consisting of judgments and concepts. However, concepts, as a rule, are not formed sufficiently substantiated. In his criticism of the theory of Aristotle's syllogism, Bacon proceeds from the fact that the general concepts used in deductive proof are the result of experimental knowledge acquired exclusively hastily. For his part, recognizing the importance of general concepts that form the foundation of knowledge, Bacon considered it important to formulate these concepts correctly, because if this is done hastily, accidentally, then there is no strength in what is built on them. The main step in the reform of science proposed by Bacon should be the improvement of generalization methods and the creation of a new concept of induction.

Bacon's experimental-inductive method consisted of the gradual formation of new concepts through the interpretation of facts and natural phenomena. Only with the help of such a method, according to Bacon, can new truths be discovered, and not mark time. Without rejecting deduction, Bacon defined the difference and features of these two methods of knowledge as follows: “Two ways exist and can exist for finding and discovering truth. One soars from sensations and particulars to the most general axioms and, proceeding from these foundations and their unshakable truth, discusses and discovers the middle axioms. This is the way they use today. The other way derives axioms from sensations and particulars, rising continuously and gradually until, finally, it leads to the most general axioms. This is the true path, but not tested.”

Although the problem of induction was posed earlier by previous philosophers, only with Bacon it acquires paramount importance and acts as a primary means of knowing nature. In contrast to induction through simple enumeration, common at that time, he brings to the fore true, in his words, induction, which gives new conclusions obtained not only on the basis of observing confirming facts, but as a result of studying phenomena that contradict the position being proven. A single case can refute a rash generalization. Neglect of so-called authorities, according to Bacon, is the main cause of errors, superstitions, and prejudices.

Bacon's inductive method includes the collection of facts and their systematization as necessary stages. Bacon put forward the idea of ​​compiling 3 research tables: tables of presence, absence and intermediate stages.

Let's take Bacon's favorite example. If someone wants to find a formula for heat, then he collects various cases of heat in the first table, trying to weed out everything that is not related to heat. In the second table he collects together cases which are similar to those in the first, but have no heat. For example, the first table may include the rays of the sun, which create heat, while the second table may include rays emanating from the moon or stars, which do not create heat. On this basis we can distinguish all those things that are present when heat is present; finally, in the third table we collect cases in which heat is present to varying degrees. Using these three tables together, we can, according to Bacon, find out the cause that underlies heat, namely, motion. This reveals the principle of studying the general properties of phenomena and their analysis.

Bacon's inductive method also includes conducting an experiment. At the same time, it is important to vary the experiment, repeat it, move it from one area to another, reverse the circumstances and connect it with others. After this, you can move on to the decisive experiment.

Bacon put forward an experienced generalization of facts as the core of his method, but he was not a defender of a one-sided understanding of it. Bacon's empirical method is distinguished by the fact that it relies as much as possible on reason when analyzing facts. Bacon compared his method to the art of the bee, which, extracting nectar from flowers, processes it into honey with its own skill. He condemned the crude empiricists who, like an ant, collect everything that comes their way (meaning the alchemists), as well as those speculative dogmatists who, like a spider, weave a web of knowledge from themselves (meaning the scholastics).

According to Bacon, a prerequisite for the reform of science should be the cleansing of the mind from errors, of which there are four types. He calls these obstacles to the path of knowledge idols: idols of the clan, cave, square and theater.

Idols of the family- These are errors caused by the hereditary nature of man. Human thinking has its shortcomings, because... “is likened to an uneven mirror, which, mixing its nature with the nature of things, reflects things in a distorted and disfigured form.” Man constantly interprets nature by analogy with man, which is expressed in the theological attribution to nature of ultimate goals that are unusual for it. The idols of the race are the prejudices of our mind, arising from the confusion of our own nature with the nature of things. The latter is reflected in her as in a distorting mirror. If in the human world goal (teleological) relations justify the legitimacy of our questions: why? For what? - then the same questions addressed to nature are meaningless and do not explain anything. In nature, everything is subject only to the action of causes, and here the only legitimate question is: why? Our mind must be cleared of that which enters it not from the nature of things. He must be open to Nature and only Nature. Bacon also includes the desire of the human mind for unfounded generalizations among the idols of the family. For example, he pointed out that the orbits of rotating planets are often considered non-circular, which is unfounded.

Idols of the Cave- these are errors that are characteristic of an individual or certain groups of people due to subjective sympathies and preferences. For example, some researchers believe in the infallible authority of antiquity, while others tend to give preference to the new. “The human mind is not dry light, it is sprinkled with will and passions, and this gives rise to what everyone desires in science. A person rather believes in the truth of what he prefers... In an infinite number of ways, sometimes imperceptible, passions stain and spoil the mind.” The idols of the cave are prejudices that fill the mind from such a source as our individual (and accidental) position in the world. To free ourselves from their power, it is necessary to reach agreement in the perception of nature from different positions and under different conditions. Otherwise, illusions and deceptions of perception will complicate cognition.

Idols of the square(market) are errors generated by verbal communication and the difficulty of avoiding the influence of words on the minds of people. These idols arise because words are only names, signs for communicating with each other, they do not say anything about what things are. This is why countless disputes about words arise when people mistake words for things.

Theater idols(or theories) are delusions arising from unconditional submission to authority. But a scientist must look for truth in things, and not in the sayings of great people. The fight against authoritarian thinking is one of Bacon's main concerns. Only one authority should be unconditionally recognized, the authority of the Holy Scriptures in matters of faith, but in the knowledge of Nature the mind must rely only on the experience in which Nature is revealed to it. The separation of two truths - divine and human - allowed Bacon to reconcile significantly different orientations of knowledge growing on the basis of religious and scientific experience, and to strengthen the autonomy and self-legitimacy of science and scientific activity. Artificial philosophical constructs and systems that have a negative impact on the minds of people are, according to Bacon, a kind of “philosophical theater.”

Let us draw attention to one important point in Bacon’s criticism of idols: everything that constitutes the specificity of the cognizing subject is declared by the philosopher to be a source of error. This includes not only the individual characteristics of the empirical subject, declared by the Greek philosophers to be the cause of false opinions, but also the very nature of reason, this general ability of the human race. Bacon calls for liberation not only from the individual subject, but also from the generic subject, from subjectivity as such. And only under this condition is it possible to gain access to being itself, to knowledge of nature. He considers experience and the inductive method based on experience to be the best means for this.

The inductive method developed by Bacon, which lies at the basis of science, should, in his opinion, explore the forms inherent in matter, which are the material essence of a property belonging to an object - a certain type of movement. To highlight the form of a property, it is necessary to separate everything random from the object. This is an exception to chance, of course, a mental process, an abstraction. Baconian forms are the forms of "simple natures" or properties that physicists study. Simple natures are things like hot, wet, cold, heavy, etc. They are like the "alphabet of nature" from which many things can be composed. Bacon refers to forms as "laws." They are determinants, elements of the fundamental structures of the world. The combination of various simple forms gives all the variety of real things. The understanding of form developed by Bacon was opposed to the speculative interpretation of form by Plato and Aristotle, because for Bacon, form is a kind of movement of the material particles that make up the body.

In the theory of knowledge, for Bacon, the main thing is to investigate the causes of phenomena. Causes can be different: efficient, which is the concern of physics, or final, which is the concern of metaphysics.

Bacon's methodology largely anticipated the development of inductive research methods in subsequent centuries, up to the 19th century. However, Bacon in his studies did not sufficiently emphasize the role of hypothesis in the development of knowledge, although in his time the hypothetico-deductive method of understanding experience was already emerging, when one or another assumption, hypothesis was put forward and various consequences were drawn from it. At the same time, deductively carried out conclusions are constantly correlated with experience. In this regard, a big role belongs to mathematics, which Bacon did not possess sufficiently, and mathematical science was just being formed at that time.

The founder of empiricism, Bacon, was in no way inclined to underestimate the importance of reason. The power of reason manifests itself precisely in the ability to organize observation and experiment in such a way that allows you to hear the voice of nature itself and interpret what it says in the correct way. Therefore, Bacon illustrates his position by comparing the activities of bees, collecting nectar from many flowers and processing it into honey, with the activity of weaving a web from himself (one-sided rationalism) and ants collecting different objects into one pile (one-sided empiricism). Why, nevertheless, does he remain a philosopher of empiricism? The value of reason lies in its art of extracting truth from the experience in which it lies. Reason as such does not contain the truths of existence and, being detached from experience, is incapable of discovering them. Experience is therefore fundamental. Reason can be defined through experience (for example, as the art of extracting truth from experience), but experience in its definition and explanation does not need an indication of reason, and therefore can be considered as an independent and independent entity from reason.

At the end of his life, Bacon wrote a book about a utopian state, New Atlantis (published posthumously in 1627). In this work, he depicted a future state in which all the productive forces of society are transformed with the help of science and technology. In it, Bacon describes various amazing scientific and technological achievements that transform human life: here are rooms for miraculous healing of diseases and maintaining health, and boats for swimming under water, and various visual devices, and the transmission of sounds over distances, and ways to improve the breed of animals, and much more. Some of the technical innovations described were realized in practice, others remained in the realm of fantasy, but they all testify to Bacon's indomitable faith in the power of the human mind. In modern language he could be called a technocrat, because. he believed that all contemporary problems could be solved with the help of science.

Despite the fact that he attached great importance to science and technology in human life, Bacon believed that the successes of science concern only “secondary causes”, behind which stands an omnipotent and unknowable God. At the same time, Bacon constantly emphasized that the progress of natural science, although it destroys superstition, strengthens faith. He argued that “light sips of philosophy sometimes push towards atheism, while deeper sips return to religion.”

The influence of Bacon's philosophy on contemporary natural science and the subsequent development of philosophy is enormous. His analytical scientific method of studying natural phenomena and the development of the concept of the need for its experimental study played a positive role in the achievements of natural science in the 16th-17th centuries. Bacon's logical method gave impetus to the development of inductive logic. Bacon's classification of sciences was positively received in the history of sciences and even formed the basis for the division of sciences by French encyclopedists. Although the deepening of rationalist methodology in the further development of philosophy after Bacon’s death reduced his influence in the 17th century, in subsequent centuries Bacon’s ideas acquired their new meaning. They did not lose their importance until the 20th century. Some researchers even consider him as a forerunner of modern intellectual life and a prophet of the pragmatic concept of truth (referring to his statement: “what is most useful in action is most true in knowledge”).

Conclusion.

It is very difficult to draw a conclusion about the final correctness of any of the described concepts of cognition - the complete denial of the meaning of experience by one school and the denial of the organizing principle as a more complex system (of which our three-dimensional world is an integral part) by another school does not allow us to do this.

Most likely, as history has proven more than once, the truth will be somewhere on the side of the list, but philosophers will still try to figure out “what is more important”, “what appeared first”, “what comes first - idea or matter”, trying to launch the wheel of history from one absolute point (“the beginning of time”) of spatial coordinates.

The activity is fascinating and worthy of respect, but completely beyond the capabilities of the human mind at its current level of development, because it is impossible to find a beginning in an ideal circle. Idea gives rise to matter, and vice versa. This process has been and will always be endless.

LIST

LITERATURE USED:

1. Gurevich P.S. Philosophical Dictionary. Moscow, "Olympus", 1997

2. Alekseev P.V. Reader on philosophy. Tutorial. Moscow, Prospekt, 1997;

3. Sokolov V.V. "European philosophy of the XV - XVII centuries." Moscow, 1984.

4. Subbotin A.L. "Francis Bacon". Moscow, “Thought”, 1974

5. Lyatker Y.A. "Descartes." Moscow, “Thought”, 1975

The philosophy of the New Age is the era of the independence of the mind, its liberation from the authorities of the past. This liberation was largely due to the split of Western European Christianity in the 16th century, which created a “neutral” territory of pure rationality, which the best minds began to master. The desire for independence was also present in the Renaissance, but philosophers of that time still looked back to ancient sources. New European thinkers rely on their own thinking, strengthened by empirical knowledge of nature. But the liberated mind needed inner discipline. Otherwise, it could not become an effective tool for obtaining truths that transform the environment of human existence and turn the world into a comfortable habitat for intelligent beings. It is no coincidence that the problem of method has come to the forefront of philosophical research in modern times. But it soon became clear that it would not be possible to develop unambiguous methodological recipes. Some philosophers believed that the mind can discover new things without the participation of experience, others believed that on its own, without the help of the senses, it cannot cope with this task. Disagreements on this issue led to the emergence of rationalist and empiricist lines. The first comes from Descartes, the second from Bacon. But these thinkers are united by the desire to make man the center and ultimate goal of their research. New European philosophy was the philosophy of the subject. The cult of human subjectivity gradually became common property, and the Age of Enlightenment legitimized this trend in the cultural space of Europe.

FRANCIS BACON (1561–1626) - the founder of the tradition of empiricism in England - pays main attention to the study of nature, to the development of a new view of science and its classification, goals and methods of research. To do this, first of all, you need to identify the reasons that delay mental progress. Bacon includes various kinds of “idols”, “ghosts”, i.e. prejudices to which the human mind is subject. These include: the inherent limitations of the mind and senses of all people (“ idols of the family"), individual shortcomings of people (" idols of the cave"), the influence of features of social life on a person (" idols of the square"), a tendency to believe in authorities (" theater idols»).

Bacon criticizes medieval scholasticism, saying that science cannot be built on concepts such as substance, hidden quality, etc. In reality, only individual objects and their relationships exist. Therefore, the basis of scientific knowledge should be the study of individual objectively existing things on the basis of purposeful, organized experience, on the basis of sensory data. Then you need to use the correct method of analysis and generalization of experimental data, allowing you to penetrate into the nature of the phenomena under study. This method is INDUCTION. Bacon demonstrates his understanding of the inductive method by the example of finding the nature, the “form” of heat. When specific facts of the presence and absence of heat, its various degrees in things, and tones are collected and analyzed, on the basis of this a general conclusion is made that the “form” of heat is movement.

Bacon saw his task as turning the process of scientific knowledge into a practical activity, carried out relying on human abilities: reason, imagination and feelings. To do this, from his point of view, it is necessary first of all to establish the correct relationship and connection between human abilities and provide each of them with appropriate techniques and methods of action. Only man himself can and must turn his mind and his cognitive abilities into an effective tool, direct them to the high goal of knowledge of nature. However, before moving forward in science, we need to work on the very tools of cognition. The course of human knowledge must be changed and improved, and for this we must learn to control the mind in a new way. Bacon's idea is that “the whole work of the mind should be begun anew, and that the mind should in no way be left to itself from the very beginning, but that it should be constantly controlled and the work done as if mechanically.” Success in the matter of knowledge does not lie in the natural talent or the scientist’s own mind, as Bacon emphasizes, action with the help of an instrument depends more on the instrument itself than on the skill of the hand; “neither the bare hand nor the mind left to itself has much power.”

On the positive side, the essence of Baconian empiricism is that the work of the mind should be based on sensory material, the mind should follow the nature of the things themselves and not try to act independently, in isolation from them. For reason to work properly, a new logic is needed, a logic that would focus on the application of reason to the creations of nature. Unlike formal logic, which deals with abstractions and thus tries to penetrate into the essence of things, “this science proceeds not only from the nature of the mind, but also from the nature of things” and, as a consequence, it will necessarily “everywhere be accompanied and illuminated by observations of nature and experiments."

Doctrine of Idols. Along with the natural tools of knowledge - reason and feelings, there are also natural difficulties that prevent a person from taking the path of strict scientific knowledge. These forces hostile to science, or idols, as Bacon calls them, are for the most part innate features of human nature, and it is impossible to completely get rid of them, but every scientist must fight them. In total, Bacon distinguishes four types of idols: idols of the clan, idols of the cave, idols of the market and idols of the theater. Particularly dangerous is the “idol of the race”, which pushes a person to identify his own nature with the nature of things; in modern science this is called anthropomorphism. Every person tends to trust his own feelings first. From a scientist's perspective, this prejudice masks the natural limitations of our senses. Nevertheless, our feelings, although they are often mistaken, can, as Bacon is sure, by helping each other and using devices and tools, provide reliable knowledge. Borrowing an image from Plato, Bacon exposes the danger for science also of the IDOL OF THE CAVE, behind which are individual inclinations and preferences of a person, reflecting his unique life experience: very often a person is inclined to think one way or another due to personal circumstances of life, characteristics of upbringing, established habits, which - random personal attachments not related to science, or under the influence of general mobility and changeability of personal character. MARKET IDOL or square, asserts: “This is true because everyone says so,” - such an attitude leads to the uncritical use of everyday ideas, the inclusion of ordinary word usage in science. The next obstacle that accompanies scientific knowledge is the authority of theories inherited from the past and recognized by the majority. That's how THEATER IDOL, since philosophical theories or uncritically accepted axioms and dogmas create their own fictional world, like a performance on stage, and scientists are able to act out a lot of such ideas.

New logic and induction. The path of reasoning of the mind must begin from precisely established facts of nature. Therefore, knowledge should begin with natural and experimental history, collecting material from experiments and observations, organizing it in the form of special tables and lists, and then apply true and legal induction. Bacon contrasts deduction as the main method of Aristotelian logic with induction, but not simple, through enumeration, but scientific. The movement from individual facts to general axioms must be accomplished gradually and consistently by ascending from experiments to axioms of increasing generality and back - from “luminous” experiences that give general knowledge to “fruitful” experiences that give practical results.

RENE DESCARTES (1596–1650), unlike Bacon, develops the so-called rationalistic methodology. Descartes objects to exaggerated assessments of the role of sensory experience in knowledge: after all, we know the essence of things in a different way. The path to truth begins with intuitively clear, simple concepts and goes to increasingly more complex ones. Intuition and DEDUCTION- the main components of Descartes' method. At the same time, Descartes brings together intuition and innate ideas that do not depend on sensuality.

Descartes includes the ideas of God, substance, motion, axioms such as “two quantities equal to a third are equal to each other,” etc. among innate ideas. In addition to this, Descartes introduces the principle of radical doubt in relation to human knowledge, which should exclude the possibility of hasty judgments. A systematic exposition of philosophy must begin with some intuitively clear idea. This is the cogito (“I think”). Everyone is sure of this. Even if you doubt this, doubt itself is an act of thinking. From the fact of thinking we come to the conclusion cogito, ergo sum (“I think, therefore I exist”). The next step is that we have ideas about things outside of us. But are they reliable? Maybe this is an illusion? Here Descartes appeals to God, who is incapable of deception; he is the guarantor of the truth of our knowledge. Then Descartes builds a dualistic system in which he separates two qualitatively different substances - nature, with its causality, and people with free will. The first substance is characterized by extension, the second by thinking.

Rene Descartes is the founder of rationalism as a special direction in the philosophy of the New Age, one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists of his era.

Teaching about the method. Descartes was convinced of the unity of scientific knowledge. “All sciences are so interconnected that it is much easier to study them all at once than separating one from the others... after all, they are all interconnected and dependent on each other.” Objects of knowledge can be arranged in a certain sequence corresponding to the order of their correct study. Mathematics serves as a model for Descartes that other disciplines should follow. According to Descartes, the world is completely knowable to the human mind - of course, provided that people use the right method of research. Since all scientific truths are interconnected, special significance belongs to the “first principles” of human knowledge, which form the subject of study of a separate discipline - metaphysics (“first philosophy”). The old metaphysics, according to Descartes, was not a real science. Proof of this, in his opinion, can be the endless debates among philosophers. All the provisions of existing metaphysics are doubtful, because they do not have the reliability that would convince all philosophers. Different judgments of thinkers about the same subjects indicate that the majority, or even all, of the disputing parties were wrong (after all, there can only be one true opinion). The French thinker especially sharply criticizes the dominant “school philosophy” - scholastic Aristotelianism. In his opinion, the falsity of Aristotle’s philosophy follows from the fact that for many centuries of its teaching it stagnate, not advancing human knowledge. The new philosophy, according to Descartes, should bring man power over nature (on this issue he completely agrees with Bacon).

So, the true method will allow you to adequately understand nature, as well as gain power over it. Descartes' method is rationalistic. The essence of things can be comprehended by the mind, but not by the senses. To substantiate this thesis, Descartes gives an example with wax. Wax is one of those material objects that, it seems to us, are quite clearly perceived by the senses. When extracted from a honeycomb, a piece of wax appears cold, white, has a clear outline, and smells like honey. However, it is enough just to bring this wax to the fire and all the listed properties disappear - it becomes liquid, hot, loses its color and smell of honey, and loses its previous shape. Of course, heating does not destroy the essence of a thing: wax remains wax. But if all of his sensually perceived qualities have changed, this means that his essence is not connected with them and, therefore, it is inaccessible to human feelings. The essence of wax, like any material object, is extension, and only our mind speaks about it.

The clear knowledge of the mind always gives more reliable information than the senses; for example, people see the sun well, but only thanks to reason do they know that its dimensions are much larger than those suggested by sensory perception.

Descartes identifies 2 " actions of the mind", with the help of which true knowledge of things is achieved. These actions are intuition and deduction. "Under INTUITION I do not mean the unsteady evidence of the senses, nor the deceptive judgment of a misformed imagination, but the understanding of a clear and attentive mind, so easy and distinct that there remains absolutely no doubt as to what we understand.” Thus, we are talking about intellectual intuition, which is characterized by simplicity and self-evidence. DEDUCTION consists of “the skillful derivation of knowledge. Deduction, according to Descartes, differs from intuition in two respects. Firstly, deduction presupposes a certain sequence, movement of concepts, which is never characteristic of intuition. Secondly, deduction does not require immediate evidence, without which intuition is impossible. A chain of deductive reasoning can “borrow” evidence from memory, which can easily confirm the reliability of the results in relation to each individual link in this chain. Properly constructed deduction never produces erroneous conclusions. In addition, when solving any scientific problem, there is always only one shortest and most effective way to construct a deduction. The initial principles of human knowledge can be comprehended by intuition, their most distant consequences - only by deduction.

Instead of numerous rules of scholastic logic, he proposes to establish a small number of true, truly useful principles of method. Defining a method as a set of reliable rules that make it possible to establish the truth and expand scientific knowledge, Descartes puts forward 4 rules of method: 1) consider only the obvious as true, i.e. clearly and distinctly perceived by the human mind; 2) divide a difficult theoretical problem into as many parts as necessary to solve it; 3) adhere to a strict order of research, moving from simple objects to knowledge of complex ones; 4) compile general reviews and complete lists - to eliminate omissions during the study of a particular issue (as well as to give completeness to the entire science). According to Descartes, the true method explains how to correctly use the intuition of the mind, without allowing errors (the first rule), as well as how to correctly build deductive conclusions.

The subject of philosophy is defined quite broadly: “all philosophy is like a tree, the roots of which are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emanating from this trunk are all other sciences, reduced to three main ones: medicine, mechanics and ethics.” Metaphysics is the foundation: the fact that for a long time it could not become a science hindered the fruitful development of other disciplines.

It is important to note that Descartes did not at all deny the need to use sensory experience in the process of scientific knowledge. Of course, from his point of view, the essence of things is revealed only to the mind, but experience is also of great importance for philosophy.

In the 17th century, two philosophical doctrines appeared, for the first time quite clearly putting forward two main points of view on the sources and criteria of knowledge - empirical And rationalistic. These are the teachings of Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes. The problem of knowledge receives a completely new formulation in them. Francis Bacon not only does not repeat Aristotle, but even stands in some opposition to him and develops a completely original theory of knowledge, the center of gravity of which lies in a new idea experiment as a tool of experimental science. In the same way, Descartes does not repeat Plato, but sees in the human spirit, in its organization, data for the discovery of fundamental and essential truths of knowledge, similar in their reliability and clarity to mathematics and which can serve as the foundation of the entire doctrine of the world.

Portrait of Francis Bacon. Artist Frans Pourbus the Younger, 1617

And yet, it cannot be denied that the spiritual father of Rene Descartes is Plato, the spiritual father of the philosophy of Francis Bacon is Aristotle. Despite all the private disagreements of the mentioned thinkers, their kinship cannot be denied. There are generally two kinds of minds, some of which are directed outward, to the external world, and from there they already go to an explanation of the inner man and the inner nature of things, others are directed inward, to the area of ​​human self-consciousness and in it they seek support and criteria for interpreting the very nature of the world . In this sense, the empiricist Bacon as a philosopher is closer to Aristotle, the rationalist Descartes to Plato, and the contrast of this two kinds of minds is so deep and difficult to eliminate that it also appears in later philosophy. Thus, in the first half of the 19th century, Auguste Comte was a typical representative of thinkers whose gaze is turned to the outside world and who are looking for clues to the problem of man, and Schopenhauer is a typical representative of that class of thinkers who are looking for clues to the world in human self-consciousness. Positivism is the newest stage in the development of Francis Bacon's empiricism, Schopenhauer's metaphysics - in a certain sense, the newest modification of Descartes' apriorism.

Biography of Francis Bacon

The biography of a thinker is of great importance when analyzing his worldview. Sometimes the height of a philosopher’s life reveals the reasons for the height and superiority of his teaching, sometimes the baseness or inner insignificance of his life throws light on the nature of his views. But there are also more complex cases. A life that is not remarkable in any way or even morally poor in quality is not devoid of greatness and significance in some respects and reveals by itself certain features of the internal make-up, for example, the one-sidedness and narrowness of the thinker’s worldview. This is precisely the case presented by the biography of the English philosopher Francis Bacon. His life is not only not edifying in a moral sense, but one might even regret that the history of modern philosophy should place such a dubious personality as Francis Bacon among its most important representatives. There were even overly zealous historians of philosophy who saw in the story of Bacon’s life sufficient grounds to exclude him from the category of great philosophers, and the dispute about the significance of Bacon as a philosopher, which arose in the 1860s in German literature, undoubtedly had an underlying ethical considerations. Cuno Fischer was the first to discover the close connection between Bacon’s unique character and his major philosophical worldview.

Francis Bacon was born in 1561, the youngest son of the Keeper of the Great Seal of England, Nicholas Bacon. After the death of his father, while serving at the embassy in Paris, the future philosopher found himself in a difficult financial situation. Having first chosen the career of a lawyer and then a parliamentary figure, Francis Bacon, thanks to his eloquence, enormous ambition and unscrupulousness in his means, quickly began to rise in the official field. As a result of the trial of the Earl of Essex, his former friend and patron, - a trial in which he, forgetting feelings of friendship and gratitude, acted as prosecutor Essex and a supporter of the government, Bacon managed to gain the special favor of Queen Elizabeth and achieve high positions through intrigue. Under James I he is made Keeper of the Great Seal, and then Chancellor, Baron of Verulam and Viscount of St. Alban. Then follows the fall, as a result of the process started by his enemies and the discovered fact that Bacon took large bribes in solving lawsuits and distributing positions. Bacon is deprived of all positions and honors and devotes the rest of his life on his estate to the final development of his philosophical doctrine of knowledge, no longer agreeing to return to power. Francis Bacon died in 1626 due to a cold from the experience of stuffing a bird with snow.

Bacon: “knowledge is power”

Thus, the life of Francis Bacon, even from the external connection of facts, represents a curious phenomenon: signs of a complete absence of moral principles and, despite this, devotion to science and knowledge reaching the point of self-sacrifice. This contrast reflects the entire spirit of his teaching - the idealistic fanaticism of his faith in science, combined with indifference to the role of knowledge in the creation of a person’s moral worldview. “Knowledge is power” is the motto of Bacon’s philosophy. But what kind of power? Power that suits not internal, but external life. Knowledge in the hands of man is an instrument of power over nature - the same thing that knowledge has finally become in our time of great victories over nature and the extreme debasement of the moral principles of human life. Francis Bacon gives in his philosophy a kind of prophecy, a proclamation of our time. Francis Bacon, in Windelband's apt comparison, is a supporter of the "spirit of the earth" in Goethe's Faust. “And who does not recognize in Bacon’s philosophy,” he notes, “the practical spirit of the English, who, more than any other people, were able to take advantage of the discoveries of science to improve life.” Francis Bacon is no exception; Bacon is a type of practical person who, at best, sees in science, in knowledge, a force capable of subjugating the outside world and nature to humanity. Bacon's guiding idea in his philosophical works was the idea of ​​the material benefit of all mankind. Bacon’s merit is that he was the first to generalize the principle of the individual’s struggle for the right to life, and Hobbes, who proclaimed the “war of all against all” as the initial beginning of the development of society, was only a successor of the philosophy of Francis Bacon in understanding the meaning of life, and both together were predecessors Malthus And Darwin with their doctrine of the struggle for existence as a principle of development in the economic and biological spheres. It is difficult to deny the continuity of national ideas and aspirations when they have been so clearly evident over the course of three centuries.

Monument to Francis Bacon at the Library of Congress

Francis Bacon's Scientific Method

But let us turn to the philosophical teachings of Francis Bacon. He outlined it in two major works - in the essay “On the Dignity and Increase of Sciences,” which appeared first in English in 1605 and then in Latin in 1623, and in the “New Organon” (1620). Both works form parts of the planned but unfinished philosophical work “Instauratio magna” (“Great restoration of the sciences”). Bacon contrasts his “New Organon” with the totality of Aristotle’s logical works, which in ancient times, in the school of Aristotle, received the name “Organon” - a tool, method of science and philosophy. What was Francis Bacon's "transformation"?

Back in the 13th century. his namesake, monk Roger Bacon, expressed the idea that it is necessary to study nature directly. Bernardino Telesio, during the Renaissance, tried to create a theory of experience as a tool of knowledge, and to prove the inconsistency of inference as a tool of knowledge. Raymund Llull tried to invent it in the 13th century. a method of discovering new scientific truths by combining concepts, and Giordano Bruno tried to improve this method in the 16th century. The philosopher Francis Bacon also sets out to improve the art of invention and discovery, but by identifying methods of direct, experimental, scientific study of nature. Francis Bacon is the successor of R. Bacon and B. Telesio on the one hand, R. Lullia and Giordano Bruno on the other.

The real basis for his philosophical theories was the actual inventions and discoveries of the coming era. What is the purpose of science? According to Bacon, it is to promote the improvement of life. If science is distracted from life, then it is like a plant torn out of its soil and torn from its roots, and therefore no longer uses any nutrition. Such is scholasticism; new inventions and discoveries of science were made on the basis of direct study of life and nature. Francis Bacon, however, does not understand the complexity of the problem of knowledge and science. He does not explore the boundaries and deep foundations of knowledge; he proceeds in his doctrine of the scientific method from certain general assumptions, based partly on observation, partly on fantasy. Apparently, Bacon is little familiar with the original works of Aristotle on nature and, in general, knows ancient philosophy and science superficially. A fan of experience and induction, he himself builds his theory of knowledge and its methods in the abstract, and priori, deductively rather than inductively; the founder of the doctrine of experiment, he explores and determines the foundations of knowledge not experimentally or even inductively, but on the basis general considerations. These are the reasons for the weakness and one-sidedness of his theory of knowledge. Bacon's main strength lies in his criticism of the previous insufficient success of the natural sciences.

Bacon's Idols

The philosophy of Francis Bacon recognizes reason and feelings (sensations) as the foundations of knowledge. In order to properly use the first for acquisition, through the second , true knowledge of nature must clear it of various false anticipations or preliminary experiences, incorrect and unfounded assumptions, to make it clean board convenient for the perception of new facts. For this purpose, Bacon very wittily and, in a psychological sense, subtly identifies the erroneous images or idols of our mind, which complicate its cognitive work. His philosophy divides these idols into four categories: 1) Idols of the family(idola tribus). These are features of human nature in general that distort the knowledge of things: for example, a tendency to excessive order in ideas, the influence of fantasy, the desire to go beyond the limits of the material of knowledge available in experience, the influence of feelings and moods on the work of thought, the inclination of the mind to excessive distraction and abstraction. 2) Idols of the Cave(idola specus): each person occupies a certain corner of the world, and the light of knowledge reaches him, refracted through the environment of his special individual nature, formed under the influence of education and relations with other people, under the influence of the books he studied and the authorities he revered . Thus, every person knows the world from his corner or cave (an expression taken from the philosophy of Plato); a person sees the world in a special, personally accessible light; Everyone should try to recognize their own personal characteristics and purify their thoughts from the admixture of personal opinions and from the coloring of personal sympathies. 3) Idols of the square(idola fori): the most nasty and difficult to eliminate errors associated with language, the word, as an instrument of knowledge, and which are revealed in the relations of people with each other (hence “square”). Words in the world of thoughts are a walking bargaining chip, their price is relative. By their origin from immediate, crude knowledge, words roughly and confusingly define things, and hence the endless disputes about words. We must try to define them more precisely, connecting them with real facts of experience, distinguishing them by the degree of certainty and exact correspondence to the properties of things. Finally, the fourth category - theater idols(idola theatri) are “deceptive images of reality arising from the erroneous portrayal of reality by philosophers and scientists who mix true stories with fables and inventions, as on stage or in poetry.” In this sense, Francis Bacon especially points out, among other things, the harmful interference in the field of science and philosophy of religious ideas.

Monument to Francis Bacon in London

Bacon's method of knowledge

No less than reason, the feelings themselves, which very often deceive us and yet serve as the only source of the entire content of thought, are subject to purification and refinement. We do not yet find a deep psychological analysis of sensations in the philosophy of Francis Bacon, but he correctly notes some of the weak sides of the process of sensory perception and sets as a general rule the need for methodological sophistication of the perceptions of the senses through artificial instruments and through repetition and modification of perceptions in the form of testing them with each other. But no one can know things through feelings alone - sensations must be processed by reason, and this gives general truths, axioms that guide the mind during further wanderings in the forest of facts, in the wilds of experience. Therefore, Bacon also condemns those philosophers who, like spiders all knowledge is weaved from itself (dogmatists or rationalists), and those who, like ants only collect facts into a pile without processing them (extreme empiricists), – to acquire true knowledge one must act as they do bees, collecting material from flowers and fields and processing it into unique products with a special internal force.

Experiment and induction in Bacon

One cannot, of course, disagree with this general method of knowledge, as Francis Bacon formulates it. The union of experience and thinking that he recommends is truly the only path to truth. But how to achieve it and achieve the proper degree and proportion in the process of cognition? The answer to this is Bacon's theory induction,as a method of cognition. A syllogism or inference, according to Bacon’s philosophy, does not provide new knowledge, real knowledge, for inferences consist of sentences, and sentences consist of words, and words are signs of concepts. It's all about how the initial concepts and words are composed. The method of correct composition of concepts in the philosophy of Francis Bacon is induction, based on experiment Experimentation is the path to artificial repetition and constant mutual verification of sensations. But the essence of induction is not in one experiment, but in a certain development of sensory data acquired through it. To organize this development of sensations and to correctly guide the experiment itself, Bacon proposes to compile special tables of cases of similar, different (negative), parallel changing facts that exclude each other, and so on. This famous Baconian theory tables is supplemented by the doctrine of a system of auxiliary inductive techniques or authorities Bacon's theory of induction, extended Newton And Herschel, formed the basis of the teachings of the philosopher John Stewart Mill about inductive methods of agreement, difference, concomitant changes and residues, as well as about inductive techniques auxiliary to them.

The essence of the inductive analysis of facts comes down to the fact that, through the study of various types of relationships between phenomena in experience, to discover their true causal connections and dependencies on each other, for the task of the science of nature, according to Bacon, is the study of the causal relationship of phenomena, and not their simple material composition , – general forms of phenomena, and not their specific differences. In this teaching, Francis Bacon adheres to the philosophy of Aristotle and by forms he means those general laws or typical relations of phenomena to the discovery of which all experimental science strives.

Bacon's classification of sciences

Bacon, while developing the question of the methods of the sciences, also tried to give a classification of the sciences, but the latter is certainly weak. He distinguishes the science of nature from the science of man and the science of God. Within the first - physics or the doctrine of material causes he distinguishes from metaphysics, science of forms, contrasts theoretical physics with practical science - mechanics, and metaphysics - of magic. The doctrine of goals in the New Organon is completely excluded from the science of nature, and thus Francis Bacon is in his philosophy the first representative of the purely mechanical tendencies of modern science. Next to physics and metaphysics, he sometimes places mathematics as a tool for quantitative analysis of phenomena, and, as critics generally admit, he poorly understands the meaning and internal value of mathematical knowledge. When determining the inner essence of the tasks of the science of man and God, Bacon occupies an ambiguous position. He considers the human sciences history(natural science of society), logic, ethics And politics. In man, he recognizes the soul as a principle emanating from God, and in principle considers only the animal soul associated with the bodily organization to be the subject of natural science, just as he considers only the lower inclinations of man to be the subject of natural morality, while the nature of the higher soul and higher moral principles are subject to definition and clarification only from the side of Divine revelation, like the very nature of God. But at the same time, Bacon, in his anthropology, as well as in the science of God, often transgresses the boundaries of natural science that he himself recognized. As one of the themes present in Bacon's philosophy and the idea universal science- first philosophy in the sense of Aristotle, which should be a “store of general axioms of knowledge” and a tool for researching some special “transcendental” concepts of being and non-being, reality and possibility, movement and rest, etc., but we are in charge of precisely defining the tasks and methods of this science We do not find the philosophy of Francis Bacon, which is completely understandable, since he thinks that all axioms of knowledge are still based on experience, on the sensations of external senses, and does not recognize other sources of knowledge. Thus, the classification of sciences is the weakest side of Bacon’s doctrine of knowledge.

Assessing the philosophy of Francis Bacon, we must admit that in general he deserves the credit for the first attempt to develop a comprehensive theory of objective knowledge, to find all the conditions, obstacles and aids for the correct development of factual material of experience, and one cannot be too harsh on Bacon for the fact that, having put While his task was to study external experimental elements and conditions of knowledge, he did not reach the proper depth in the analysis of the cognitive abilities and processes of the human mind themselves.