Thoughts of philosophers about man. Philosophical thought about the essence of man: basic positions. Plato: “It is the concepts of things that really exist, not the things themselves.”

Treatise "On the Philosophy of Action"

The treatise “Towards the Philosophy of Action” can be considered as an introduction to Bakhtin’s “first philosophy”, from which it is clear that the fundamental question of Bakhtin’s philosophy is the event of being, the ontological condition of which is the way of human existence, and the leading question is the human event from the point of view of its incarnations, i.e. being at peace with others. In connection with this, the concept of an act, which is nothing more than an event in the aspect of its embodiment, acquires a leading role.

Turning to Bakhtin, in whose philosophy responsibility is a fundamental phenomenon that determines precisely the moral character of his “first philosophy,” we, first of all, note a more radical development of the theses in the treatise “On the Philosophy of Action” compared to other works.

According to Bakhtin, a responsible way of being involves performing actions based on the recognition of one’s non-alibi in being. This means that taking responsibility for one's being always has another(s) in mind. So, since a responsible way of being is fixed in a specific act structured by a relationship to another, the other is 1) an accomplice and 2) a potential witness of such self-certification.

Nothing less than the embodiment of the human event in the world, in the world with others, is the primary basis for the fundamental ontology to be worked out as ethics. “To be responsible” in terms of embodiment and, therefore, in the perspective of the lifeworld, means the ability to “responsible for oneself. The ethics of the lifeworld is then determined by the dilemma of whether or not people in being with each other can “responsible for themselves.” For Bakhtin, this is not some a secondary level of thematization, and an analysis of a human event in the aspect of its embodiment, or - more specifically - a philosophy of action. A responsible way of being due to the embodiment of an event means, together with the recognition of one’s non-alibi in being - “throwing oneself at one’s own ability to become guilty” 5 - the ability to be responsible for oneself in being with others. Thus, the original phenomenon of responsibility is revealed in its ethical content in accordance with the definition of a human event as an event, i.e. when we begin to analyze a human event from the point of view of its embodiment in the world with others In a certain sense, responsibility as an ethical concept is an epiphenomenon of an event with others.

Thus, from the point of view of the order of justification, it is not ethics that guides and determines the paths of Bakhtin’s “first philosophy”, but the philosophy of the event itself opens the original ethical dimension. Which (using Bakhtin’s expression) is “the condition of possibility for “morally” good and evil, that is, for morality in general and its actually possible species” 6

The question arises about the ethical interpretation of a way of being: what does it mean to be irresponsible? The question of an irresponsible way of being rests on the question of everyday being with each other, which, although identified as improper, cannot be interpreted as ethically negative according to the principles of existential analytics. It follows from this that the ethical interpretation of a responsible way of being must presuppose a fundamental distinction between the improper - in the sense of irresponsible - way of being and everyday being with each other. Thus, in Bakhtin’s philosophy of action there is a pair of responsible and irresponsible. Bakhtin calls the mode of being corresponding to the latter imposture. This is a way of being in which a person’s actions are not certified by his responsibility, i.e. are not based on the recognition of their non-alibi in being. Responsibility and imposture in this case are not equally original, but equally possible ways of being, the ethical meaning of which is determined by being with each other in the world.

Everyday life as such is not the essential definition of an ethically negative way of being. Bakhtin views everyday life as an irreducible way of human existence as being in the world with others. “In life,” he writes, “I am involved in everyday life, way of life, nation, state, humanity, God’s world, here I live everywhere in another and for others” 7 . Such communion is interpreted by Bakhtin as rhythmization.

For Bakhtin, the ethical indifference of rhythmization as such means that familiarization with everyday rhythm - we can talk here about socialization, institutionalization, etc. - itself is realized either in the mode of responsibility or in the mode of imposture. The ethically indifferent “not self” of the rhythmic way of being (social roles, representation) then turns out to be the condition for the possibility of realizing the self-proclaimed way of being: “I,” writes Bakhtin, “hides in the other and others, wants to be only different for others, to enter completely into the world others as another, to throw off the burden of the only I in the world (I-for-myself)" 8. On the other hand, the inclusion of everyday life, if it is based on the recognition of one’s non-alibi in being, is performed as a modulation of responsibility. Bakhtin notes the justification of self-alienation in this case, and calls the resulting social order a choir.

Bakhtin's approach to the analysis of a human event as an event provides the basis for introducing, along with the ethical distinction between responsible and self-proclaimed modes of being, a distinction between the intensity and extensiveness of an event. The most mysterious thing, of course, remains the very conjugation of extensiveness and intensity. After all that has been said, it is no longer possible to limit ourselves to the formal relationship of mutual repulsion between them, fixed respectively in the poles of self-affirmation and self-alienation. Within the framework of this approach, an event with others is revealed only in its negative function in relation to one’s own state.

The unpredetermined nature of human existence makes risk and daring essential characteristics of existence. In this regard, Bakhtin speaks in this case about “the testing of man in man” 9. Bakhtin leads to the fact that a person in his being is a test for himself. Human existence tests itself against its own capabilities. Since the test here is not a test of something ready-made and definite, but a person becomes a person in the course (circle) of self-test, the test thereby acquires a polar existential meaning for a person - it turns into education. Thus, the formation of personality is ensured by the ambivalent phenomenon of testing and education.

At the same time, following Bakhtin - that being in the world in itself is testing and educational - allows us to consider not only the negative involvement of the other in self-existence. Bakhtin writes: “the most important acts constituting a personality are determined by the relationship to another... The very existence of a person is the deepest communication. To be means to communicate. To be means to be for another and through him - for oneself. A person does not have an internal sovereign territory, he is entirely and always on border" 10. This is the highest degree of sociality, which he also calls internal, because it relates to the immanent existential structure of the personality, expressed in the ambivalent phenomenon of testing and education. Based on the book about Dostoevsky, the following provisions can be formulated to clarify the positive meaning of attitude towards another:

possessing the existential structure fixed above, the personality, due to its embodiment, is revealed only as a result of questioning and provocation;

the involvement of another in the experimental and educational formation of personality revealed here is not a unidirectional act, but a moment of interaction, which is called internal sociality;

the social character of this dialogic structure acquires specific phenomenal features: internal sociality means that the immanent experimental-educational formation of the “subject” of the event occurs in the field of experimental-educational interaction between the “I” and the other.

Bakhtin writes that “the nearest everyday, everyday links are not skipped, but are interpreted in the light of final questions as stages or symbols of the final decision” 11 . He tries to hold the human event in all its phenomenal completeness. This presupposes that every “final decision” has its own “prehistory”, which belongs to everyday existence with each other, which in turn is associated with the action.

"Cleansing laughter" in religion

Any recognition of adherence to religion and, especially, Orthodoxy was absolutely excluded in the press (except purely church ones) of the USSR until the end of the 1980s. And this was dictated, by the way, not only by the authorities, but also by the overwhelming majority of ideologists - including those “in opposition” to the regime. Thus, in the “New World” of the time of Tvardovsky, extremely harsh anti-religious materials were regularly published, as anyone can see by leafing through the issues of this magazine in the sixties.

As for Orthodoxy, the leader of the dissidence A.D. Sakharov, who spoke more or less sympathetically about other religious confessions, in his “message” of April 3, 1974, essentially “branded” the Orthodox beliefs of A.I. Solzhenitsyn as, according to his definition, “religious-patriarchal romanticism” and as one from those “directions” that “lead him (Solzhenitsyn) to very significant mistakes, make his proposals utopian and potentially dangerous” 12. Thus, Sakharov, willy-nilly, joined the head of agitprop of the CPSU Central Committee, Comrade. Yakovlev, who shortly before him, at the end of 1972, wrote that “anti-communism... is trying to galvanize... the religious-idealistic concepts of the past. A striking example of this is the hype in the West around the works of Solzhenitsyn” 13. It seems that A.D. Sakharov’s ideal was not communism, but it still turns out that for his ideal (whatever it may be) Orthodoxy is just as unacceptable as for communism...

It is quite understandable that under such conditions Bakhtin’s religious beliefs could not be expressed in print. Thus, for example, when publishing his short but truly magnificent sketch “On the Philosophical Foundations of the Humanities,” it was necessary to omit some words. This passage was first published by Vadim Kozhinov: "...the thought of God in the presence of God, dialogue, questioning, prayer... The soul freely tells us about its immortality, but it cannot be proven..." 14.

At the same time, what was expressed here directly and openly lives in one way or another in any of Bakhtin’s texts, and it is only necessary to perceive these texts impartially and in sufficient depth in order to see this.

However, one cannot remain silent about the fact that when reading Bakhtin, one begins to doubt not only his Orthodoxy, but also his religiosity in general. The stumbling block in this regard is, first of all, Bakhtin’s studies of folk laughter culture - in particular his book about Rabelais, which is even perceived by some readers as something “satanic.” At the same time, it is strange, to say the least, that they manage not to notice the very significant role of the “laughing theme” in Bakhtin’s book about Dostoevsky (although this theme appears here, of course, in a completely different way than in the book about Rabelais).

The book about Dostoevsky says, in particular: “... we find a trace of the artistic, organizing and illuminating work of ambivalent laughter in all his novels... But the most important thing, one might say, is its decisive expression... laughter receives in the last author's position... Tragic catharsis (in the Aristotelian sense) is not applicable to Dostoevsky. That catharsis, however, is not adequately and somewhat rationalistically expressed as follows: nothing final has happened in the world yet, the last word the world and about the world have not yet been said, the world is open and free, everything is still ahead and will always be ahead. But this is also the purifying meaning of ambivalent laughter." Here is quoted a text written by Bakhtin, who had not yet been officially rehabilitated, for the second edition of his book on Dostoevsky. The italics are by the author himself, and it is clear that he was called upon to draw the reader’s very close attention to the highlighted words. Moreover, Bakhtin specifically warned readers that he expresses the essence of the matter “inadequately” and “somewhat rationalistically," since he does not have the opportunity to express the actual religious interpretation of the problem. But - let him who has ears hear! - what is expressed here, without a doubt, is precisely profound and a completely religious understanding of the existence of the World, where “everything is ahead and will always be ahead.”

What Bakhtin defines as “cleansing laughter” had a centuries-old tradition in Orthodoxy, known as “Christ for the sake of foolishness.” Several dozen Russian holy fools, starting with Isaac of Pechersk (11th century; died in 1090), are listed Orthodox Church to the saints. Moreover, traits of foolishness are also present in the behavior of the greatest saints, including Theodosius of Pechersk and Cyril of Belozersky. Fools played such a prominent role in Rus' that in the notes of foreign travelers of the 16th-17th centuries (Herberstein, Horsey, Fletcher, etc.) special paragraphs are devoted to them.

In a word, those who would like to see in the concept of “cleansing laughter” a departure from Orthodoxy should, in this case, excommunicate the entire host of Russian holy fools from it... True, it is necessary to stipulate that the phenomenon of holy foolishness is not reduced only to laughter (in it specific sadness is also embodied), and on the other hand, the element of joy (Nil Sorsky also spoke about it) is an integral quality, an attribute of Orthodoxy as a whole, and not just the behavior of holy fools.

It is clear that the greatest criticism is caused by Bakhtin's studies of the laughter culture of the West; It is in them that almost anti-religious and even “satanic” tendencies are found. However, accusations of this kind are directed, if you look closely at the essence of the matter, not against Bakhtin at all, but against Catholicism, in which the material-corporeal element has a completely different meaning than in Orthodoxy. And in order to realize this, a scrupulous study is not even necessary: ​​it is enough to carefully perceive the uniqueness of Catholic churches and the divine service itself.

In Bakhtin's works, which reveal the material and corporeal element of Rabelais's book and other phenomena of Western literature, it is absurd to see something contrary to religion; We have before us an objective and profound revelation of the tendencies inherent in a culture that existed and developed, as Bakhtin proved, entirely in the bosom of Catholicism. Unlike many superficial works of Western European scientists, to whom the same Rabelais seemed a heretic or even an atheist, Bakhtin revealed in its entirety what, to use a fashionable term, can be defined as “Catholic mentality.” It is characteristic that at first Bakhtin’s book about Rabelais was perceived in the West either with distrust or even hostility; only later was it recognized.

Finally, it cannot be emphasized enough that Mikhail Mikhailovich repeatedly asserted the highest importance of religion for a thinker and even a scientist. Only religion, he said, determines unlimited freedom of thought, for a person absolutely cannot exist without any faith, and the lack of faith in God inevitably turns into idolatry, that is, faith in something obviously limited by time and space and not giving real, full freedom of thought.

Pride- the first Christian sin. There is most likely no absolute truth.

Pride is behavior that puts YOURSELF next to absolute truth. Therefore, a proud man suffers. He cannot show HIS absolute truth to others, nor apply IT. If he suddenly does this, he gets hit by people, hence the sadness and suffering.

We proud our country, we proud our football players, etc. You hear this many times.

So, there can be pride only to the DAMAGE of someone. Pride always puts YOURSELF above everyone else, it is indisputable, even if EVERYONE else can see that THIS is complete stupidity.

Defending YOUR point of view is not pride, because such a person enters into an argument with others, but a proud person NEVER enters, he is always proud of HIS TRUTH.

Vanity- this is the desire to look good in the eyes of others.

Pride- this is an inflated self-esteem.

Pride- pride taken to the point of absurdity.

I am proud that my son became a master of sports, I am proud that he entered the budget. ALL this comes to the detriment of others or becomes on the same level as others whose child has achieved the same results. It seems to me that it is more correct to say this:

My son gave me pleasure by becoming a master of sports and enrolling on a budget. Only ME, and THIS position is no longer trying to HUMILIATE anyone with its pride.

In a narrow sense, pride is behavior requiring from an environment of respectful attitude towards a person, people, country, sexual orientation.

One word requiring, says that a proud person will demand something, BUT, in fact, a person cannot demand anything, people THEMSELVES either recognize him or not.

Don't be proud and you will never know that there are people an order of magnitude HIGHER than you. If you are proud, you may earn an inferiority complex. Never teach or say a word pride to their children, they also have the opportunity to earn the same complex in the future.

Our virtues can only be protected our sense of self-sufficiency. When this feeling is underdeveloped in a person, HE resorts to pride, which INFLATES HIS virtue relative to those around him.

Conclusion: cultivate a sense of self-sufficiency. Pride is a disadvantage of people who have an underdeveloped sense of self-esteem (self-sufficiency).

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Anonymous

added: 06/02/2015 15:06[message N5]

Conceit is an opinion based only on one’s own observations of oneself; if others show that self-esteem is inflated, then we can listen...

Pride is inflated self-esteem, and if others show that self-esteem is inflated, then we do not listen to them...

Anonymous

added: 11/07/2014 16:06[message N4]

Vanity is the desire to look good in the eyes of others.
Ambition is the desire to do something better than others.

Anonymous

added: 10/31/2013 17:33[message N3]

I will say more, Pride not only prevents people from connecting themselves with nature, but also their closest ones - their parents - young people are often embarrassed to show to their friends.

Anonymous

added: 11/30/2012 17:54[message N2]

Pride (I am God and only I am right in everything) is needed at the first stage of personality development, as defense mechanism in order not to develop complexes...

Further, when the first stage is overcome, Pride leaves us and Pride comes in its place, where we simply INFLATE our capabilities relative to others. Again, given as a defense mechanism against developing complexes...

And finally, when this stage is overcome, Pride leaves us and self-sufficiency comes, where we no longer COMPARE, but resort to the concept of LOVE.

Have you managed to overcome your PRIDE?
- Why, she’s defeating herself, just give her DEADLINE and don’t run here faster than necessary, it won’t end well.

Anonymous

added: 07/26/2011 21:32[message N1]

The pride of man is indignant at the doctrine of the origin of people from animals.

This pride posits a gap between nature and man. It is based on the explanation that only people possess SPIRIT.

However, our primitive ancestors saw the spirit everywhere in nature and did not consider it an exclusive property of man, so many famous families were not ashamed to descend from animals, trees, and even saw this as a special honor: the spirit was then considered that which connects us with nature, and not what separates us from it.

However, now people who are proud in spirit have appeared and once and for all separated themselves from Nature.

Federal Agency for Science and Education of the Russian Federation

State educational institution higher professional education

Scientific work

Discipline: Philosophy

Subject: Action as a subject of philosophical analysis

Introduction

1. The problem of action in ancient Greek philosophy

1.1 Socrates' search for the reasons for action. Deed and law

1.2 Aristotle: “nothing too much...”

2. Philosophy of action M.M. Bakhtin

2.1 Action as a responsible “entry” of a person into a single being

2.2 The act and the problem of manipulating human behavior

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

We live, act, experience, love, that is, every day, every hour we perform some kind of mental or practical action. And we never think that many of them are actions. But not all. Once observing the work of a seller on the market, I noticed that, in principle, it consists of the same actions that underlie its activities, but they are carried out differently. Some are friendly, neat, collected, decent, while others are rude to customers, perform their duties poorly, and others strive to deceive and enrich themselves at the expense of old pensioners. The activity is the same, but their behavior is different. The actions of the first seller are an act, the actions of the second hardly fall under such a definition.

So the topic of action and the desire to understand what it is, why a person acts one way in one situation and another in another, came into the field of my scientific interest. In search of an answer, I turned to history and philosophy. And I found the first serious discussions about actions in the thoughts of Socrates and Aristotle, who, to a greater extent, sought to find the foundations of human actions. So Socrates, following Parmenides’ position on a single being, and his attempt to find the basis of successive things, looks for a single basis in the behavior of people, considering virtues as such and connecting them with knowledge.

While largely agreeing with his predecessor, Aristotle sharply criticized his ethical intellectualism - the strict conditioning of human behavior by knowledge, its dependence on rational justification. Aristotle finds this approach abstract and speaks of specific life situations in which a person acts in accordance with goals and values. In his works “Nicomachean Ethics” and “Great Ethics”, he analyzes many human actions and comes to the conclusion that the right action is, of course, a virtuous action, but virtue is some possession of the middle. There is only one way to do the right thing - the only way- not allowing “anything too much.”

All these arguments, like later by Kant and his contemporaries, relate to the so-called classical, substantial ontology, where being was considered as a doctrine of beings, as “being in general,” regardless of a specific person. The action here was presented as a consequence of being, as something that had become, completed. Hence, the main tasks became the search for the “core” of an act, its criterion, the first attempts were made to classify actions, and their relationship to the law was discussed.

The situation changed in the 20th century, when the classical ontology was replaced by a non-classical ontology, which interprets being not as “being in general,” but first of all as human existence, not as separated from life, but, on the contrary, as filled vital energy, in which a person acts with every act, experience, even thought.

This approach is proposed in “Philosophy of Action” by Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, a Russian scientist, philosopher, and cultural scientist. He insists that in general “all life as a whole can be considered as some complex act. I act with my whole life, every act and experience of my life is an act.”

An act, according to Bakhtin, becomes an event performed freely and consciously, by the responsible participation of a person in a single being in the only way intended for him. In this understanding, human action acquires the extremely important feature of “responsible “entry” into being,” direct and responsible participation in its formation.

This is how the Russian thinker discovers a new facet of human action.

1 . The problem of action in ancient Greek philosophy

1.1 Socrates' search for the basis of action. Deed and law

One day Socrates was walking with his student Phaedrus. They found themselves outside the gates of Athens, and Socrates was delighted with the beauty of the area. He admired the landscapes and exalted them. But Phaedrus interrupted the teacher, amazed that he was behaving like a stranger to whom a guide was showing the surroundings. “Well,” he asked Socrates, “don’t you even go beyond the city wall?” Socrates replied: “Forgive me, my dear friend, I am inquisitive, but the terrain and the trees do not want to teach me anything, not like the people in the city.”

The meaning of what has been said is this: there are many strange things in the world, but only MAN can satisfy the curiosity of a philosopher to the greatest extent.

And, indeed, the greatest merit of Socrates is that he transferred philosophizing from contemplation of nature and the “theory” of cosmic problems to “theory” public life and solving anthropological issues. Not the universe and its structure, but man and his life were at the center of the thoughts of the ancient Greek philosopher. Socrates, as it were, “humanizes” philosophy. The main task that he set for himself was to help people understand themselves, the meaning and goals of human life and their own actions.

If we turn to the history of society, we will see that initially man was “inscribed” in nature and was an integral part of it. He lived according to the instructions that the tribal community had developed over many centuries in relation to nature and other people. These were customs, rituals, various magical rituals. They strictly determined human behavior in each specific situation. There was only one criterion for the “correctness” of an action - a reference to the authority of fathers and grandfathers: “This is what our ancestors did,”

“This is the custom”... Other behavior was assessed as incorrect, it simply seemed impossible. And if this happened, it was severely punished, including expulsion from the clan or tribe.

From the chain of natural causes of tribal ties and relationships, almost all “pre-Socratics”, in particular Democritus, explained human behavior. Socrates breaks this chain and, as it were, extracts man from the world of natural connections and dependencies. And this, to a certain extent, was due to the “new” life, the life of the ancient polis, where a person became a citizen - a social, active being, trying to independently resolve issues of public and national importance. He became familiar with various arts and science, participated in disputes, thought, and reflected.

If you believe Plato, especially his early dialogues, then Socrates considered such a criterion for distinguishing a person from the natural world as his ability to independently choose decisions and actions, emphasizing that his behavior is determined not so much by external reasons as by internal goals. The philosopher is convinced that everyone acts based on their ideas about what is “best” for them. And how does this best relate to what should be.

And here we discover the contrast between the views of Socrates and his contemporary Protagoras, the head of the Sophists. It was the sophists who undertook to teach young men how to find out the motives of their behavior. First of all, they said, we need to find out the hidden reasons for our own actions, giving them the status of conscious goals. This is one of the conditions for personal success. Thus, the meaning of human life, according to Protagoras, lies in in clear terms and successful satisfaction of personal desires and needs. Although, he noted, there is another reason for an individual to analyze his actions. After all, a person does not live alone. This means that every selfish act must be justified in the eyes of other people, be it relatives or fellow citizens. That is why the sophists teach young men not only to set clear goals, but also to defend their interests, their own rightness in all possible circumstances.

The essence of such a procedure most often was to pass off a private interest as a general one, proving with the help of sophistical techniques that public benefit follows from my selfish act. It is at this point that we find Socrates' differences with the Sophists. He sees his tasks differently, not in passing off a private interest as a general one, but a random desire as a necessity. His search is aimed at finding in the individual such a motivating force that no longer needs to be presented as a general and necessary basis for actions. Socrates, like the Sophists, insists on the procedure of self-knowledge, but sees in it a way of identifying in diverse ethical concepts and assessments some solid basis, a natural basis of human actions, which can replace centuries-old traditions for a person. Socrates discovers such a substance in good, in the realization of good as the goal of human aspirations. Most often for him, good is good.

That is, according to Socrates, a person is forced to embark on the path of self-knowledge in order to discover within himself the highest meaning of existence, which cannot be reduced to either transient bodily joys (pleasure) or selfish benefit. At the same time, the ancient requirement, which became the guiding principle of the teachings and entire life of Socrates, “Know thyself!” takes on the character of a complex system of techniques known as “Socratic dialogue” - a special “path to follow” (from the Greek - method) of achieving truth. Together with his interlocutors, Socrates is trying to reach an understanding of what goodness, courage, valor, moderation and other virtues are, without which a person cannot be considered a human being. And the choice of action, he concludes, depends on what virtues a person possesses. Virtue is understood as a good habit, an internal desire for good. The opposite quality - vice - lies at the basis bad deeds, in the pursuit of evil.

The complexity of the question has given rise to a wide range of opinions, perhaps greater than the traditional, eternal questions “On the nature of things” or “On the nature of the gods” (as they were posed, say, in the works of the same name by C. Lucretius, M. T. Cicero and some others thinkers).

Some authors proceed from the recognition of the constant, eternal nature of man, predetermined by his belonging to a certain natural biological species, others reduce it to specific historical social relations, others deny the original givenness of this nature and see it in the fact that each individual himself forms it in the process of its existence. There are also natural-social, informational and other approaches.

The existentialist J.P. For Sartre, the essence of man is inextricably linked with freedom of choice; it is not “natural” or “divine”, not predetermined, but acts as a result of a person’s individual life. The existence of individuals life process necessary precedes their essence. This view, however, is not shared by all existentialists. A. Camus, for example, believes that it is not existence that precedes essence, but, on the contrary, essence that precedes existence. The essence of man, according to Camus, is present as a necessary beginning in any emerging existence; it serves as a condition for its very possibility and constantly manifests itself in it (in the form of principles, demands for justice, freedom, and other moral values).

Thus, in the view of L. Feuerbach, the “highest, absolute” essence of man consists of reason (thinking), feeling (heart) and will, i.e. it is predetermined in advance, before the birth of a person, by his biological nature and therefore is eternally given, unchangeable. According to K. Marx, the essence of a person is expressed in the totality of those social relations into which he enters in his objective activity, i.e. in what is also given before the birth of each given person. Unlike Feuerbach, Marx believed that this essence is not inside, but outside the individual, and is not a constant natural given, but a socio-historical one, which is “modified in every historically given era.”

Many other judgments about human nature in one way or another concretize or complement the above-mentioned idealistic or materialistic approaches to the problem. Thus, in R. Descartes, the essence of man is expressed in his ability to think. In the view of D. Hume, human nature, being the subject of “moral philosophy,” is determined by the fact that man is a rational, social and active being. According to I. Kant, the essence of man lies in his spirituality. For I. - G. Fichte and G. Hegel, this essence is equivalent to self-knowledge. From the point of view of the German philosopher and writer F. Schlegel, the essence of man is freedom. For A. Schopenhauer it is identical to will. According to B.A. Bakunin, the “essence and nature” of a person consists in his creative energy and invincible inner strength, and the development of the human essence of society lies in the development of freedom of all people who make up society. According to the Austrian psychologist W. Frankl, the creator of logotherapy, the essence of human existence is responsibility towards life. In the opinion of F. Nietzsche, and to a large extent also of A. Schopenhauer, it lies entirely in the natural processes of his biological, physiological and mental life, subject to the needs, drives, demands and will of instincts, which by their nature are not shameful or evil , which are tamed by civilization.

This last position is largely consonant with the naturalistic and positivist views of O. Comte, G. Spencer, D.S. Mill, C. Darwin, J.B. Lamarck, from the point of view of which the essence of man is not that he has reason, but that he belongs to nature, that his spirit, reason is only a new step in the development of the higher mental abilities of animals, his quality as a highly developed animal.

Many Marxists believe that “the essence of man is expressed in activity, but cannot be reduced to it.” This is largely consistent with the position of F. Engels, who defined a person mainly through work, creative, transformative activity, i.e. He associated the essence of man with the ability to work, produce, create, to be, as B. Franklin said in the 18th century, “Homo faber” - “a man who makes” tools. Other authors, as if summing up the approaches of K. Marx and F. Engels, argue that the essence of man lies in activity and social relations, taken not separately, but in their unity, i.e. talk about the “socially active” nature of man, defining him both as a product of society and as its creator, creator.

As you can see, not all Marxists fully share Marx’s view of the essence of man as a set of social relations, or, better said, do not consider such a definition to be exhaustive. At the same time, it should be noted that Marx himself was not always limited to it. He also spoke about “human nature in general,” about human essence as something given in advance, arguing, for example, that the future communist society will overcome the alienation of the true human essence from man and will be the appropriation of this essence by man and for man. He carried out the same idea more than once later, speaking about the need for a person to build the world “truly in a human way, according to the requirements of his nature,” to show himself as an “unspoiled person.” In the third volume of Capital he writes about unalienated labor in conditions that are most consistent with human nature and worthy of it.

This indicates that in his various works Marx, on the one hand, tried to approach the essence of man from a specific historical, socially given side (this assumes that the essence of each person can change depending on conditions), without particularly emphasizing the values ​​of the practically active factor; on the other hand, he sought to somehow express the constancy of human nature (linking it with social relations in general, with “true” humanity, or with something else given in advance).

Approaches to the essence of man, as can be seen, are very different and often contradictory: some authors come to it from nature, others from society, some consider it eternal (located, as F.V. Schelling said, beyond all time and all causation), others - changeable, some - given in advance and preceded by everything from centuries, others - acquired, etc.

The presence of such approaches determines the conclusion about the understanding of human nature, if not in the spirit of Fromm, then, in any case, as a contradictory phenomenon, as a unity of opposites. Even S. Kierkegaard said that man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, the temporary and the eternal, freedom and necessity. N. Berdyaev noted approximately the same thing: “Personality does not exist without change and at the same time it does not exist without the unchangeable. Personality is the unchangeable in changes." [Berdyaev N.A. On the purpose of a person. M.: Respublika, 1993. - 383 pp.]

If we approach this issue more fully and specifically, then the essence of man can be associated with his duality, with the unity of such opposites as social and natural, social and individual, subjective and objective, constant and variable, abstract and concrete, universal and unique (individual ), earthly and cosmic, existential and historical. These contradictions, although not identical to the essence of man, are, according to dialectics, within it itself. Their identification is necessary to comprehend the truth, for, as Hegel said, contradiction is the criterion of truth, and its absence is the criterion of error.

Considering all that has been said, based on the requirements of the dialectical-materialist method, the essence of man can apparently be expressed as follows. Man at his most general view is a social (more precisely, socialized) animal, a socio-biopsychic being. In this definition, which includes the contradictory unity of the social and the natural, the emphasis is not on the natural (as was the case with L. Feuerbach, O. Comte, Charles Darwin, A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche, etc.), but on the social component ( as was the case with many philosophers from Aristotle to Marx and his followers), on the conditioning of man by society. However, the essence of man can be approached differently, defining it more specifically: man is a being endowed by society and nature with such qualities that are necessary for free, creative activity and have a certain specific historical character. In a tendency, in an esoteric sense, this activity is increasingly connected with such essential features and properties of a person as wisdom, justice, moral responsibility, beauty, love. Moreover, love is associated here with the primary and most acute need of a person to affirm his existence in his unique individuality, in free expression of will and at the same time as an affirmation of the existence of the uniqueness of another and the need to know his essence.

Summarizing everything that has been said about the essence of man, one could give the following definition. Man is a socialized natural being, capable of actively creative, constructive activity that has specific historical social forms and associated with the dynamics of an ever-increasing affirmation of the just, the beautiful, and love.

Man as a unity of contradictions: natural-biological and spiritual-social. Man, individual, personality, individuality

Many people say that life is a struggle of contradictions. It is obvious that the treatise can be taken as the basis for a philosophical polemic without rejecting other definitions, because animal and vegetable world also live in a struggle of contradictions. However, it would be more correct to say that this is not life, but the existence of contradictions in the struggle. The main difference is that nature has endowed man with reason, unlike the rest of the world.

Since ancient times (starting from ancient Indian, ancient Chinese, ancient philosophy) the problem of man occupied the minds of philosophers. This problem becomes even more relevant in the 20th century, when the scientific and technological revolution and human personality risks leveling out “in the grip” of the information-technological society.

Man is a special being, a natural phenomenon, possessing, on the one hand, a biological principle (bringing him closer to higher mammals), on the other hand, a spiritual one - the ability for deep abstract thinking, articulate speech (which distinguishes him from animals), high learning ability, assimilation cultural achievements, high level social (public) organization. It is a multi-level system, the sides of which are fixed using private concepts. It is at the same time a biological and social, social and mental system. At this stage of cognition, personality acts as one of the systemic properties of a person.

The problem of personality is one of the central ones in the entire system of humanitarian knowledge. And each of the theoretical disciplines that study personality outlines its image in its own way, expressing it in specific concepts, from its own point of view.

Philosophy analyzes the problem of personality in its own way. It is no coincidence that in the structure of philosophical knowledge, in the system of philosophical anthropology, such a branch as “personalism” has emerged - the philosophical concept of personality and its universal status, free development. From the standpoint of philosophical personalism, a person is not an object among other objects, a thing among other things. It cannot be known from the outside. Personality is the only integrity that we both cognize and create from within. N. Berdyaev considers personality as something inimitable, unique, and valuable in itself. It must be understood only from itself, and not from anything external (nature, sociality, even the transcendent). The essence of personality is its freedom. It is a spiritual reality, the triumph of freedom over slavery, victory over the heaviness of the world. Most philosophers believed that an individual becomes a personality, not by withdrawing into himself, but by entering into complex relationships with Others, appearing in an ensemble of social relations, presenting himself as a social individual.

Based on the fact that in different theoretical constructs a person “looks” differently, it can be argued with one degree or another of evidence that every individual is a person, and vice versa, that not everyone can be considered as a person. Thus, for a lawyer, a newborn is a person protected by law and possessing a certain set of rights (property, the right to protection of dignity, etc.). But for a teacher or psychologist, a newborn is only the potential of a full-fledged personality; he still needs to “stand out”, become a personality.

To characterize a person as an individual phenomenon, a number of terms are used in the scientific literature, the most important of which are individual, individuality and personality.

Individual and individuality (from the Latin individum - indivisible) are concepts used, as a rule, to describe and display the various hypostases of a person’s existence.

The concept of “individual” (first introduced into scientific use by Cicero as a Latin analogue of the Greek term “atom”) is associated with the idea of ​​an individual representative of the human race, society, people, class social group, as a unique social atom, i.e. further a fundamentally indecomposable element of the existence of society. It is also used to introduce the idea of ​​a person as a bearer of any single quality. The concept of “individual,” on the one hand, allows us to record, first of all, sociocultural parameters that are “external” in relation to his psyche, but which define him in the most abstract form, and on the other hand, it presupposes its reinterpretation in terms and on the basis of methodological and ontological assumptions of a particular concept or scientific discipline. The concept of “individual” is the first condition for designating the subject area of ​​human research. In further research, this term is specified in the concepts of individuality and personality. The individual, considered in his specific characteristics, not reducible to any generic and universal characteristics, is synonymous with the concept of individuality. It follows from this that the concept of individuality captures what is special, specific and original, that is, everything that distinguishes a given specific person from other people.

The concept of individuality acts both as a biosocial given and as a characteristic of personality. Individuality as a characteristic of a person is a unique, original way of being for each person, an individual form of human social life. Individuality expresses the individual’s own world, his special life path, which in its content is determined both by social conditions and by his own life creativity. To know what is given to a person by nature, and to be prepared for long and painful work to realize and develop this gift, to ascertain one’s own uniqueness - this is the path to the formation and development of individuality.

Each person as an individual is a unique, irreplaceable event. At the same time, the degree of development of this individuality is expressed differently among people. It was this fact that brought V.V. Zenkovsky to the conclusion that there are many gray, undeveloped people for whom individuality is, as it were, not given, therefore they have nothing that should be developed, nurtured as an individual strength. In reality, all people have individuality, but to varying degrees.

Personality is a sociological interpretation of an individual, which includes his acquisition of a set of sociocultural roles and the maturation in the inner world of a set of value orientations. To characterize the spiritual nature of a person, the concept of “personality” has been used for many centuries - the totality of a person’s innate and acquired spiritual properties, his internal spiritual content.

Personality is the innate qualities of a person, developed and acquired in the social environment, a set of knowledge, skills, values, goals.

The word “personality” is used only in relation to a person, and, moreover, starting only from a certain stage of his development. We do not say “personality of the newborn,” understanding him as an individual. We do not seriously talk about the personality of even a two-year-old child, although he has acquired a lot from his social environment. Therefore, personality is not a product of the intersection of biological and social factors. Split personality is not a figurative expression, but a real fact. But the expression “split of the individual” is nonsense, a contradiction in terms. Both are integrity, but different. A personality, unlike an individual, is not an integrity determined by a genotype: one is not born a person, one becomes a person. A.N. Leontyev emphasized the impossibility of equating the concepts of “personality” and “individual” due to the fact that personality is a special quality acquired by an individual through social relations. Personality is impossible without social activity and communication.

The formation of personality occurs in the process of people’s assimilation of the experience and value orientation of a given society.

Personality is the subject of the historical process, social behavior, cognition, communication, work and creativity. It develops, self-realizing in work, communication, knowledge and creativity. Its development is, first of all, the improvement of its abilities and the elevation of its needs. The social development of the individual leads to its mental improvement. But changes in her psyche also have a strong impact on her social development. Wherein psychological characteristics turn out to be filled with socio-historical content.

Thus, the intellectual maturity of a person acts, first of all, as his civic maturity, as the stability of a person’s beliefs, interests and inclinations related to the destinies of other people, the team and society. An intellectually mature person transforms the attitudes, opinions, and views of his immediate social environment into his own individual form.

And the emotional maturity of an individual is formed under the decisive influence of his social activity. This maturity is most clearly revealed in the individual’s real attitude to reality, in her ability to self-control, in the stability of her feelings, and in her ability to successfully endure failures and adversity. Social maturity presupposes goodwill towards other people, developing one’s own line of behavior and at the same time the ability to live and work in a team.

Personal development includes a transition from a child’s dependent position to independence, from a subordinate position in the family to equality, from carelessness to an understanding of one’s responsibility, from primitive interests to complex ones. The transition from a shallow time perspective to a scale of years and decades, from impulsive actions to behavior that is determined by long-term and deeply thought-out tasks is very important. At the same time, the ability to suppress impulsive impulses is developed, to refuse the immediate fulfillment of desires in order to achieve consciously planned milestones in the future.

The most important element in the development of personality is its moral maturation. It is preferable to consciously master the principles of freedom, justice, and respect for human dignity expressed by society. The conscious performance of duty is associated with the concept of honor, without which self-respect is impossible.

In general, three important levels can be distinguished in personality development. At the first level, the subject is not adequately aware of his true motives. At the second level, the personality acts as a subject who consciously correlates the goals and motives of actions, intentionally shaping the situations of his behavior. At the third level, the individual becomes the subject of his life path, which he consciously measures by the scale of his era. The qualities of individuality and uniqueness in their socio-historical meaning come to the fore here.

In its development, a personality is capable of self-determination in relation to external conditions. Personality is the subject of one’s life, that is, the source and driving force life dynamics. The peculiarity of a developed personality as a subject of life lies in its ability to solve life problems.

The formation of a person’s personal qualities depends not only on a person’s position in society, but is also in close connection with his individual self-awareness and depends on a person’s individual attitude to his position. The behavior of a particular person, his attitude towards his social roles and functions depends on his individual consciousness, understanding of the meaning of life, his abilities and needs.

The semantic similarity of the terms “individuality” and “personality” - that a person is individual, and the individuality of a person is its specificity, leads to the fact that these terms are often used as unambiguous, replacing each other. At the same time, in the concepts of individuality and personality one can also find different dimensions of what is changed by the “socially significant qualities of a person.”

To the word “individuality” we attach such epithets as “bright”, “original”. We would like to say about a person “strong”, “energetic”, “independent”. In individuality we note its originality, in personality - rather independence, or, as the Soviet psychologist S.L. Rubinstein, “a person is an individual due to the presence of special, individual, unique properties.” A person is a personality because he has his own face and because even in the most difficult trials of life he does not lose face.

The concepts of individual, individuality, and personality are interrelated. The term “individual” characterizes a person as one of the people. This term also means how typical the characteristics of a particular community are for its different representatives. As for personality, the philosophical encyclopedia defines it this way: the human individual as a subject of relationships and conscious activity. Another meaning is a stable system of socially significant traits that characterize an individual as a member of a particular society.

The dual nature of man has left its mark on concepts that make it possible, based on its basic characteristics, to understand the human essence. That's why we're talking about dick human society from different points of view, and we use different concepts - and, consequently, the concepts of the individual, individuality and personality. philosophical thought man freedom

• Desire expresses the essence of a person. Benedict Spinoza
• A person who has developed early cannot live exclusively family life, nor abandon it in favor of the general interests. Herzen A.
• Man is essentially a wild, terrible animal. We know him only in a state of tamedness called civilization, which is why the random attacks of his nature frighten us. Pierre Abelard
• A person absorbed in the thought of revenge does not allow his wounds to heal, which otherwise would have been healed and healed long ago. Francis Bacon
• A person, in addition to happiness, also needs unhappiness in exactly the same way! Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
• Our duty is to hate the sin of the sinner, but to love the sinner himself because he is a person capable of good. Thomas Aquinas
• A wise man should choose the paths laid out the greatest people, and imitate the most worthy, so that if you do not compare with them in valor, then at least be filled with its spirit. Niccolo Machiavelli
• Of two people of equal strength, the one who is right is stronger. Pythagoras of Samos
• I am grateful to fate for three things: firstly, that I am a man and not an animal; secondly, that I am a man, not a woman; thirdly, that I am a Hellenic and not a barbarian. THALES
• For Love is a person’s idea of ​​his need for a person to whom he is attracted. Thomas Hobbes
• Raising a person in the spirit of morality consists precisely in the fact that actions useful to society become an instinctive need for him. Georgy Plekhanov
• Family love is the most widespread between people and the most durable, therefore, in the sense of influencing people’s lives, it is the most important and most beneficial of all good human feelings. Chernyshevsky N.G.
• Iron rusts without finding a use, stagnant water rots or freezes in the cold, and the human mind, without finding a use, withers away. Leonardo da Vinci
• There is hardly anything more necessary for knowledge, for a quiet life and for the success of any business than a person’s ability to control his thoughts. John Locke
• The voice of truth is ungraceful, and graceful speech is deceitful. Moral man not eloquent, and the eloquent is a liar. Lao Tzu
• Every person who wants to rise to the knowledge of something must necessarily believe in that without which he cannot rise. Nikolai Kuzansky
• No man has the right to lead such a contemplative life as to forget his duty of service to his fellow man. St. Augustine
• A person has in the depths of his soul an indelible demand that his life be good and have a reasonable meaning. Tolstoy L.N.
• Each person manifests in morals what, through conviction, is deeply rooted in his soul. Erasmus of Rotterdam
• After looking at a person's actions, look at their reasons, determine whether they cause him concern. And then will a person be able to hide what he is? Confucius