Philosophy of I. Kant

The leaders of the French Enlightenment, in the growing revolutionary situation, contrasted the bourgeois future they idealized with the present, believing that the “kingdom of reason” could come true as soon as people returned to “natural” views on things and public affairs.

As for the German Enlightenment of the late 18th – early 19th centuries, the spirit of social compromise inherent in Germany after the bloody lessons taught by history left its mark on it for a long time. It is no coincidence that the largest representatives of this movement considered the path to the triumph of reason in people’s lives to be long and difficult. The running of the “hot horse” of the Enlightenment itself gradually slowed down. The contradictions of this period in the world history of philosophy were expressed in the works of the German thinker Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) so ​​deeply that they make us think about the problems he raised in the current troubled times. Following the motto of the Enlightenment, “Have the courage to use your own mind!”, during this period he put forward a cosmogonic hypothesis, famous for its scientific revolution, about the emergence of the Universe from a giant gas nebula.

Based on the laws of mechanics discovered by Newton, Kant denies the possibility of absolute rest and seeks to prove the universal circulation of matter in the Universe. According to his hypothesis, material particles scattered in space due to the interaction of repulsive and attractive forces gave rise to vortices and spherical clumps that are heated by friction. This is how planetary systems arose around the stars of the Milky Way, including the Sun and its planets. And the various nebulae outside the Milky Way appear to be hierarchical systems of stars, galaxies with their own planets. Despite the unclear ideas about the nature of repulsive forces and many other inaccuracies inevitable for that time, Kant managed to explain a number of features of the solar system, such as the movement of planets in one direction, the location of planets almost in the same plane, etc. Kant did not consider the solar system unique and in the sense that most planets were believed to be inhabited, perhaps even more intelligent creatures than people.

Appealing to God as the creator of matter and the laws of its motion, he nevertheless argued that individual cosmic bodies and entire worlds are born and develop, and then die. At the same time, they give rise to new cosmic processes, since the matter that forms them does not disappear, but only passes into a new state. Kant thereby undermines one of the foundations of the old worldview, namely the idea of ​​finitude, limitation and isolation of the world. From Kant's point of view, the Universe is infinite not only in space, but also in time, i.e. has its own history. Kant views the natural movement of celestial bodies and the unfolding of cosmic processes as a constant progression, i.e. the transition from a lower level to a higher one, as “consistent improvement of creation.” Assessing its significance, F. Engels wrote: “Kant’s theory of the emergence of all present celestial bodies from rotating nebulous masses was the greatest achievement of astronomy since the time of Copernicus. For the first time, the idea that nature has no history in time was shaken.”

A dialectical approach to problems emerged in Kant and in connection with the tradition inherited from the 17th–18th centuries. an acute formulation of the question of the connection between the sensory and rational stages of cognition. Reflecting on the difficulties faced by both empiricism and rationalism, Kant strives precisely for a dialectical solution to the issues: he defends sensationalism from extreme rationalism, but also defends rationalism against one-sided sensationalism, which interprets thinking as a direct continuation of sensibility in reflecting the properties of the external world . He attacks sensationalism, which saw the mind as its recipient on the path to knowledge of the essence of things, but also the old rationalism, which claimed to directly solve this problem. On the one hand, by limiting their capabilities, Kant expects to combine the passive content of sensations and the activity of the mind, culminating in the productive power of the imagination. On the other hand, he uses their opposition to ultimately connect them. “...Through sensibility, objects are given to us,” writes Kant, “and only it provides us with intuition; Objects are thought by the understanding, and concepts arise from the understanding. All thinking, however, must ultimately be directly (directe) or indirectly (indirecte) through one or another sign related to intuition, and therefore, in our case, to sensibility, because not a single object can be given to us in any other way.” In his main work, “Critique of Pure Reason” (1781), trying to explain the existence of theoretical knowledge, he presents it as consisting of judgments that have necessary and universal significance. But in this case, science, in his opinion, is faced with a tragic alternative: either to recognize the unknowability of objective reality, or to question the truth of the judgments contained in it.

By putting not only the constructs of reason, but also reason itself, on the court of reason, Kant stepped over the line of his “pre-critical period.” It was in the criticism of reason that he crossed the boundaries seemingly prescribed by dialectics. Developing criticism of the rationalistic identification of the laws of being with the laws of thinking, he still allows for the isolation of consciousness from being. The scope of application of the methods of natural science of his time and the materialistic approach is increasingly narrowing. The dialectical idea that the denial of formal-logical contradictions does not prohibit the recognition of the inconsistency of reality itself is gradually reduced to the agnostic doctrine that real connections and relationships are generally inaccessible to logical analysis. This was not a complete farewell to educational ideas, but it sharply reduced their pathos and methodological effect.

Kant of the “critical” period proceeded from the idea that philosophy must always begin with criticism regarding the existence of things in the external world, because they are unknowable, and knowledge does not have a meaningful character. It was an obvious movement against metaphysical materialism, showing the need for a new method of thinking - dialectical, but it was armed with an arsenal of agnosticism and idealism.

At the same time, his denial of the coincidence of real relations with logical ones was directed against the rationalism of the 18th century, which declared the identity of the order and connections of things with the order and connections of ideas. Thus, he criticized the idealists, showing that the mind is not able to understand the world based on the logical connections inherent in it, the mind. The opposites that exist in the world, for example, movement and rest, emergence and disappearance, love and hate, freedom and necessity, i.e. “real inconsistency is something completely different from logical incompatibility or contradiction. For what follows from a contradiction is absolutely impossible.” Real (objective) negations should not be confused with logical ones.

Kant gave dialectic a negative rather than a positive meaning. If the concepts of reason contain contradictions, he decides, he can only take the “reverse path”, proving that knowledge is limited, we can only know phenomena, but not “things in themselves.” These are the boundaries that knowledge cannot and should not cross with any improvement of our experience and science. “Contradiction” does not mean the presence of mutually exclusive definitions of an object, but only indicates powerlessness, a lack of strength and means of knowledge.

Thus, Kant comes to the contrast between objective (real) causal connections and logical ones, believing that the former are generally inaccessible to rational knowledge. Later, he will write not about the difference between real and mental contradictions, but that “a contradiction between realities is unthinkable” - they are possible only between phenomena. By attacking open idealism, on the one hand, and “dogmatic” materialism, on the other, in the “Critique of Pure Reason,” he himself finds himself under the “crossfire” of criticism.

In Kant's early writings, the “thing in itself” is the objective side of reality both in its nature and in the history of development. In the Critique, however, it withdraws into the “transcendental” world and is declared inaccessible to knowledge. On the one hand, Kant’s “thing in itself” is matter insofar as it acts on our sensations. On the other hand, something similar cannot be said about it, since “things in themselves” are unknowable. It is rather a certain logical limit dictated by our need for the unity of all our knowledge.

Thus, even Kant’s “critical” writings are a serious advance in dialectics. This, in any case, is a movement from the dialectics of being to the dialectics of reason, thinking, along the path of analyzing contradictions in knowledge, which he calls antinomies.

According to Kant, only phenomena are knowable, but they cannot be considered as a manifestation of objective reality (in which case it would be knowable). Objective reality is a “thing in itself” primarily because it does not manifest itself in any way in sensory perceptions, is “closed” in itself and is therefore unknowable.

The significance of antinomies is that, appearing before us in the process of cognition, they prove the “transcendental ideality” of phenomena. However, in order for antinomies to become an infallible criterion for the errors of reason, it is necessary to be convinced that outside of knowledge no contradictions can be real. The contradictions of the mind are not reflections of the contradictions of existence, and therefore they arise only as a result of the illusions of the mind. Antinomies, according to Kant, are thus resolved in a negative sense, i.e. in that they are considered to be based on a misunderstanding. Reasoning, for example, about the world from the point of view of its size and content, we (tacitly) assume that the world as a whole is given to us in our experience, that the world, in other words, as a whole, is a phenomenon. We don't really have any evidence for this. The world as a whole is not a phenomenon, but a “thing in itself.” It remains to agree that there is no contradiction between the thesis and antithesis, and the antinomy is “removed.” The world as a whole is a “thing in itself”, and therefore cannot be an object of theoretical knowledge.

Experience is always limited and incomplete, therefore knowledge obtained by the method of induction (and Kant does not allow or know otherwise) by its nature cannot have strict universality and necessity. In this case, propositions such as “All phenomena exist in time and space”, “Every cause necessarily causes some effect”, are not empirical. They are by their nature inherent in our cognitive abilities and cannot be applied to objective reality. This also applies to the concepts of space and time, which are transformed into purely human, sensory forms.

A tree, stone, cloud, etc., perceived by us, are not “things in themselves”, and not their external manifestation. These are nothing more than “appearances.” “Between “things in themselves” and phenomena,” T.I. rightly notes. Oizermap in his assessment of Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason,” an abyss breaks out, and it is completely unclear what relation “things in themselves” have to the sensory perceptions of individual phenomena and the qualitative certainty inherent in them. Meanwhile, Kant argues that it is the presence of “things in themselves” that excludes the arbitrary nature of sensory perceptions and makes their content independent of our consciousness and will.” Thus, to the question about the content of the world, two equally valid contradictory statements (antinomies) are possible: 1) every complex substance in the world consists of simple parts, and nowhere exists anything other than the simple or that which is composed of the simple; 2) not a single complex thing in the world consists of simple parts, and nothing simple exists anywhere in it. Similarly, according to Kant, it can be argued that “causality according to the laws of nature is not the only causality from which all phenomena in the world can be derived. To explain phenomena, it is also necessary to assume free causation.”

The way in which Kant explains the origin of antinomies in knowledge and tries to resolve them is important for understanding not only his theory of knowledge, but also all of epistemology in general. It is not even important how successfully Kant carried out his proofs; what is more important are the consequences that followed from his discovery.

And yet the main part of Kant's philosophy is ethics. The formation of his “criticism” began precisely with reflection on antinomies, including the antinomy of freedom. “Precritical” Kant speaks in favor of the ethics of feeling, but then builds morality on the principles of the duality of human nature: his rationalism and anti-naturalism. His ethics are autonomous in the sense that it proclaims the independence of moral principles from other, non-moral arguments and grounds. The autonomy of the moral will means that it establishes a law for itself.

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Brief description of German idealism

German idealism or German classical philosophy is a stage in the development of German philosophy of the 18th-19th centuries, represented by the teachings of Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. In Soviet philosophical literature, the concept of German classical philosophy also included the philosophical teachings of L. Feuerbach.

German idealism first raised the question about the essence of knowledge: “What is knowledge?” For Kant, this question boils down to the question of the possibility of pure mathematics and pure natural science. In his formulation, this question of knowledge is reduced to the question of the possibility of synthetic judgments a priori. For Fichte, the question of knowledge also becomes a question of the essence of man. If the subject is a necessary condition for the existence of the world, then knowledge becomes a way of its constitution. Schelling returns the question of knowledge to its objective component, considering knowledge as a result of the development of nature itself. Hegel synthesizes the question of knowledge in the proposition: “The true form of truth is a system of knowledge.” For Feuerbach, the question of the essence of knowledge against the backdrop of the tremendous success of science and technology is no longer significant, which indicates that the possibility of knowledge has ceased to be a problem.

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant (German: Immanuel Kant [ɪˈmaːnu̯eːl ˈkant]; April 22, 1724, Königsberg, Prussia - 12

February 1804, ibid.) - German philosopher, the founder of German classical philosophy, standing on the verge of the Enlightenment and Romanticism.

Kant went through two stages in his philosophical development: “precritical” and “critical”. (These concepts are defined in the works of the philosopher “Critique of Pure Reason”, 1781; “Critique of Practical Reason”, 1788; “Critique of Judgment”, 1790).

Stage I (until 1770) - Kant developed questions that were posed by previous philosophical thought. In addition, during this period the philosopher was engaged in natural science problems:

1. developed a cosmogonic hypothesis of the origin of the Solar System from a giant primordial gas nebula (“General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens,” 1755);

2. outlined the idea of ​​a genealogical classification of the animal world, that is, the distribution of various classes of animals in the order of their possible origin;
3. put forward the idea of ​​the natural origin of human races;
4. studied the role of tides on our planet.

Stage II (starts from 1770 or 1780s) - deals with issues of epistemology (the process of cognition), reflects on metaphysical (general philosophical) problems of being, knowledge, man, morality, state and law, aesthetics.

Kant rejected the dogmatic way of knowledge and believed that instead it was necessary to take as a basis the method of critical philosophizing, the essence of which is the study of reason itself, the boundaries that a person can reach with reason, and the study of individual methods of human knowledge.

Kant's main philosophical work is the Critique of Pure Reason. The initial problem for Kant is the question “How is pure knowledge possible?” First of all, this concerns the possibility of pure mathematics and pure natural science (“pure” means “non-empirical,” a priori, or non-experimental). Kant formulated this question in terms of the distinction between analytical and synthetic judgments - “How are synthetic judgments a priori possible?” By “synthetic” judgments, Kant understood judgments with an increase in content compared to the content of the concepts included in the judgment. Kant distinguished these judgments from analytical judgments that reveal the meaning of concepts. Analytical and synthetic judgments differ in whether the content of the predicate of the judgment follows from the content of its subject (these are analytical judgments) or, on the contrary, is added to it “from the outside” (these are synthetic judgments). The term "a priori" means "outside experience", as opposed to the term "a posteriori" - "from experience".

Kant did not share unlimited faith in the powers of the human mind, calling this faith dogmatism. Kant, according to him, made the Copernican revolution in philosophy by being the first to point out that in order to justify the possibility of knowledge, one must proceed from the fact that it is not our cognitive abilities that correspond to the world, but the world must be consistent with our abilities in order for knowledge to take place at all. In other words, our consciousness does not simply passively comprehend the world as it really is (dogmatism), but rather, on the contrary, the world is consistent with the possibilities of our knowledge, namely: the mind is an active participant in the formation of the world itself, given to us in experience. Experience is essentially a synthesis of that sensory content (“matter”) that is given by the world (things in themselves) and the subjective form in which this matter (sensations) is comprehended by consciousness. Kant calls the single synthetic whole of matter and form experience, which of necessity becomes something only subjective. That is why Kant distinguishes between the world as it is in itself (that is, outside the formative activity of the mind) - a thing-in-itself, and the world as it is given in phenomenon, that is, in experience.

As a result of his study of pure reason, Kant shows that reason, when it tries to obtain unambiguous and demonstrative answers to strictly philosophical questions, inevitably plunges itself into contradictions; this means that reason cannot have a transcendental application that would allow it to achieve theoretical knowledge about things in themselves, since, trying to go beyond the limits of experience, it “gets entangled” in paralogisms and antinomies (contradictions, each of whose statements is equally justified); reason in the narrow sense - as opposed to reason operating with categories - can only have a regulatory meaning: to be a regulator of the movement of thought towards the goals of systematic unity, to provide a system of principles that all knowledge must satisfy.

Antinomies of pure reason

1. “The world has a beginning in time and is also limited in space,” “The world has no beginning in time and no boundaries in space; it is infinite both in time and in space”;
2. “Every complex substance in the world consists of simple parts, and in general there is only the simple or that which is made up of simple things,” “Not a single complex thing in the world consists of simple parts, and in general there is nothing simple in the world”;
3. “Causality according to the laws of nature is not the only causality from which all phenomena in the world can be derived. To explain phenomena, it is also necessary to assume free causation”, “There is no freedom, everything happens in the world only according to the laws of nature”;
4. “An absolutely necessary entity belongs to the world, either as a part of it or as its cause,” “Nowhere is there any absolutely necessary entity - neither in the world nor outside the world - as its cause.”

Kant argues that the solution to antinomies “can never be found in experience...”

In addition, Kant is known for his categorical imperative. An imperative is a rule that contains “objective compulsion to act.” The moral law is compulsion, the need to act contrary to empirical influences. This means that it takes the form of a coercive command - an imperative.

The principles of morality go back to one supreme principle - the categorical imperative, which prescribes actions that are good in themselves, objectively, without regard to any goal other than morality itself (for example, the requirement of honesty).

“Act only in accordance with such a maxim, guided by which you at the same time can will that it becomes a universal law” [options: “always act in such a way that the maxim (principle) of your behavior can become a universal law (act as you could wish that everyone would do so).”

As conditions for the applicability of the categorical imperative in the world of phenomena, Kant puts forward three postulates of practical reason. The first postulate requires complete autonomy of the human will, its freedom. Kant expresses this postulate with the formula: “You must, therefore you can.” Recognizing that without hope for happiness, people would not have the mental strength to fulfill their duty despite internal and external obstacles, Kant puts forward a second postulate: “there must be an immortality of the human soul.” Kant thus resolves the antinomy of the desire for happiness and the desire for virtue by transferring the hopes of the individual to the super-empirical world. The first and second postulates require a guarantor, and this can only be God, which means he must exist - this is the third postulate of practical reason.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (German: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel; August 27, 1770, Stuttgart

- November 14, 1831, Berlin) - German philosopher, one of the creators of German classical philosophy and the philosophy of romanticism.

The world soul or absolute spirit is in Hegel’s philosophy what underlies everything that exists. Only he, due to his infinity, can achieve true knowledge of himself. For self-knowledge he needs manifestation. The self-revelation of the Absolute Spirit in space is nature; self-revelation in time is history.

History is driven by contradictions between national spirits, which are the thoughts and projections of the Absolute Spirit. When the Absolute Spirit's doubts disappear, it will come to the Absolute Idea of ​​Itself, and history will end and the Kingdom of Freedom will begin. Wars between nations express the intense clash of thoughts of the Absolute Spirit. In them Hegel saw a dialectical moment - an antithesis.

The meaning of history according to Hegel is progress in the consciousness of freedom. In the East, only one recognizes himself as free; all objective manifestations of rational human will (property, contract, punishment, family, civil unions) exist here, but exclusively in their common substance, in which the private subject appears only as accidens (for example, the family is generally legitimized as a necessity; but the connection of this subject with his own family is only an accident, for the only subject to whom freedom belongs here can always by right take away from any of his subjects his wife and children; in the same way, punishment in its general essence is fully recognized here, but the right of an actual criminal to punishment and the right of the innocent to be free from punishment does not exist and is replaced by chance, for the only subject of freedom, the ruler, has the generally recognized right to punish the innocent and reward criminals). In the classical world, the substantial character of morality still remains in force, but freedom is no longer recognized for one, but for several (in aristocracies) or for many (in democracies). Only in the German-Christian world the substance of morality is completely and inextricably united with the subject as such, and freedom is recognized as the inalienable property of all. The European state, as the realization of this freedom of all (in their unity), contains as its moments the exceptional forms of the former states. This state is necessarily a monarchy; in the person of the sovereign, the unity of the whole appears and acts as a living and personal force; this central power of one is not limited, but is supplemented by the participation of some in government and the representation of all in class assemblies and in jury courts. In a perfect state, the spirit is objectified as reality. But, carrying within himself an absolute idea, he returns from this objectification to himself and manifests himself as an absolute spirit on three levels: art, religion and philosophy.

Dialectics

Dialectics (ancient Greek διαλεκτική - the art of arguing, reasoning) is a method of argumentation in philosophy, as well as a form and method of reflexive theoretical thinking, which has as its subject the contradiction of the conceivable content of this thinking. Starting with Hegel, dialectics is opposed to metaphysics - a way of thinking that views things and phenomena as unchanging and independent of each other.
Laws of dialectics:

• the law of unity and struggle of opposites, concerning the transition of things in the process of their development into their opposite;
• the law of the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative ones, which speaks of the accumulation of gradual quantitative changes by developing objects and the subsequent abrupt transition of the latter into qualitative changes;
• the law of the negation of negation, which involves the synthesis of two opposites into one whole, followed by a new synthesis, and so on ad infinitum.

Ludwig Feuerbach

Electorate of Bavaria - September 13, 1872, Nuremberg, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire) - an outstanding German materialist philosopher, atheist, son of criminologist, specialist in criminal law Paul Johann Anselm von Feuerbach.

Feuerbach's philosophical development is best described by himself: “God was my first thought, reason my second, man my third and last.” From the study of theology, he moved on to a passion for Hegelian philosophy, and from it to sensationalism in the theory of knowledge and to the anthropological point of view in religion.

Feuerbach is convinced that sensuality is the only source of true knowledge. This inevitably leads him to deny the existence of general concepts and to recognize the individual, concrete as true. Thus repeating the sensualists of the 18th century, Feuerbach does not stop at a detailed study of how feeling itself can be a source of knowledge; at the same time, Feuerbach, together with Hegel, was deeply convinced of the power of reason, of the possibility of universal and necessary knowledge.

Another characteristic feature of Feuerbach's theory of knowledge lies in his doctrine of theism. For him, the reliability of being is determined not only by its accessibility to a person’s own sense, but also by its reality for another. I know you before the awakening of my own self-awareness. Love for other living beings, solidarity with them reveals to me the true - real existence: “love is the true ontological proof of the existence of an object outside of our thought - and there is no other proof of existence except love and sensation.” This idea, apparently inspired by Schleiermacher, brings Feuerbach closer to the latest German positivists: the social proof of the reality of the external world in Riehl (“Philos. Kritizismus”, II, 57) and Avenarius (“Der Menschliche Weltbegriff”, 1891) resembles the views of Feuerbach. In Feuerbach's spiritual development, interest in ethics and religious problems was always predominant, and this side of his philosophy was developed much more fully than questions of the theory of knowledge.

An important part of Feuerbach's philosophy is his doctrine of the psychogenesis of religious worldviews. This teaching is inspired in part by Schleiermacher's Discourses on Religion. Feuerbach sets out to show how a certain religious worldview gradually takes shape in humanity and in man.

The inclination towards religious creativity is rooted in human nature, stemming from the inherent desire for anthropomorphism in the human spirit. Not only children and savages, but also civilized adults show a desire to project their traits outward. Religion is the most important type of such anthropomorphism. Since ancient times, people have translated the best aspects of their “I” - their thoughts, feelings and desires - into divine realities. The impetus for this spiritualization and deification of one's own ideals in humanity was the always sharp contrast between what is and what should be. Religious creativity strives to eliminate the opposition between desire and achievement, which has always been so painfully felt by man. The gods are children of desire, products of fantasy. It was not God who created man “in his own image and likeness,” but on the contrary, man created the gods. A person in the field of religious creativity in the imagination satisfies the desire for happiness. He recognizes the gods he himself created as superhuman entities; but this opposition between the divine and the human is based on illusion. Nevertheless, the historical significance of religion was enormous, since it embodied the best ideas and feelings of humanity, uniting in the ancient period all spheres of knowledge, art and practical activity.

According to Feuerbach, its role has been played: we have learned scientifically the metaphysical illusion that underlies religious creativity; the secret of religious phenomena has been guessed, the ideological side of religion loses its raison d'être. Its emotional basis also loses its significance. The religious need stemmed from the inability to satisfy desires and ideals; but with the progress of sciences, arts and social forms of life, these ideals are little by little realized , and religion loses the positive meaning that it had in the past.Just as now a goldsmith or a poet does not need the patronage of Hephaestus or Apollo, so, one hopes, humanity will learn in the future the art of being happy and moral without the help of the gods.

I. Kant believed that the purpose of history is the development of humanity towards complete spirituality, i.e. complete freedom. Kant asks: what is the purpose of nature, which endowed man with reason? And he answers: not to make him happy, but to give him the strength to become morally active, i.e. a free being.

The essence of a person is in his mind. But rationality is a feature of a person that cannot be fully developed during the life of one individual. No one person, for example, can independently create the entire science of mathematics. But he can, unlike an animal, use the experience of others. Consequently, the purpose of nature in creating the human mind was one that can be fully realized only in the history of the human race as a whole, and not in the course of the life of the individual. Kant shows why there should be such a thing as history. History is a progressive movement towards rationality. This is a common belief in 18th century philosophy.

Philosophy of the 18th century. contrasted society with nature. Nature is static, eternal and unchanging laws reign in it, it does not know progress. Society differs from nature in its historicity - its ability to develop. There are, however, societies without history that show no progress towards rationality. These are natural societies, they are in an inert state, like natural communities of bees and ants.

What forces force humanity to leave the natural state and take the path of progress? Kant's answer: this force is evil. The evil sides of human nature are the irrational and immoral elements of pride, vanity and greed; all these vices do not allow society to exist in peace and harmony. Dissatisfaction with life encourages people to strive for better, to improve their lives. Kant looks at the past of humanity with sadness: the spectacle of history is mainly a spectacle of madness, vanity, self-interest and vice. If history is a process in which a person becomes , then he cannot be rational at the beginning of history.

An exaggeratedly gloomy assessment of the past is combined with an equally exaggerated optimism about the future. He foresees a time when people will become rational, when the blind forces of evil that have driven them hitherto along the path of progress will be defeated. This will be a kingdom of peace, in which the rational order of both national life and international relations will lead to a golden era in politics.

The idea of ​​progress received its classical expression in the works Hegel(1770-1831). The German philosopher believed that world history is a natural process, the course of which is determined by the self-development of the world spirit - Absolute Idea. The meaning of history is to create conditions for the free activity of the human mind, through which the Absolute Idea cognizes itself. It is embodied in humanity, in nations, in individuals, manifests itself through their activities and cognizes itself, finding its expression in culture – in the products of people’s spiritual creativity. In individuals it acts as subjective spirit in society - how objective spirit and, finally, in spiritual culture - how absolute spirit.

Hegel thinks of history as the process of humanity’s movement towards freedom – towards “reasonable reality”. He highlights three stages developments that the individual, individual peoples and all of humanity undergo on the way from the dominance of necessity to the “kingdom of freedom”. This:

The stage of “natural spontaneity”, in which prehistoric tribes live a patriarchal communal life;

The stage of “conscious existence”, at which historical peoples find themselves who have embarked on the path of civil and state life;

-the highest stage of “reasonable reality”, which has not yet been achieved by anyone, although the peoples of free Europe have come closest to it.

The second stage of this process is actually historical.

The direction of world history is from East to West. The world spirit moves across the planet in this direction, infusing itself along the way in one or another people and gradually rising through them to the heights of free self-knowledge. The chosen people of the world spirit lead the development of humanity at some stage of world history and, having fulfilled their great mission, pass it on to another people who take the next step in understanding and realizing freedom.

Hegel divides all history into four stages: 1) eastern, in which the world spirit passes through China, India, Persia, Egypt, 2) Greek, 3) Roman, 4) German.

The countries of the Ancient East did not yet know true freedom. There was only one free person there - the ruler of the country, but even he, being a despot, became a slave to his passions. Hegel writes about Ancient China that people there meekly submitted to any authority: the authority of a father, an official, a sovereign. Egypt was the forerunner of the future era, since the Egyptians, although they were in slavery, in the sphere of art strived for freedom from natural forms.

In Ancient Greece, the idea of ​​freedom reached clear expression and realization in the artistic imagination of the people. The entire life of the ancient Greeks was permeated with spiritualized sensuality. But they had slaves, and not everyone in the Greek world considered themselves free, but only citizens of city-states. If democratic Athens created conditions for freedom of spirit, the cult of the state in Sparta suppressed individuality and creative freedom of the individual.

The further development of the principle of freedom, which took place in Rome, consisted in the development of its formal legal foundations. The state began to be seen as a guarantor of individual rights. However, in the Roman world, only some were free - Roman citizens, and not all. The spirit suffered from a lack of freedom and sought a way out in philosophy and the Christian religion.

Together with Christianity, the world spirit finally enters the German world. The German world knows that everyone is free, since Christianity affirms the equality of all people before God. The Protestant movement was decisive for the establishment of freedom. Luther, according to Hegel, freed the religious conscience of the German people, and the Prussian king Frederick II - the “hero of Protestantism”, the “philosopher king” - made his state a true stronghold of freedom. The Prussian monarchy becomes the completion of the development of the world spirit, in it it finds all the conditions for self-knowledge. Thus, progress in the system of the German philosopher is completed present.

The remaining peoples, bypassed by the world spirit, appear in the arena of world history only as extras. Hegel mentions the Slavs only in passing. He assigns a negative role to Muslim peoples in history, since he believes that the Islamic religion seeks to revive the eastern stagnation and fossilization of social life. He recognizes the opportunity for America to play a world-historical role in the future, but connects this with the war between North America and South America.

Positivism

Positivism, in contrast to the idealism of the 18th century, which asserted a fundamental difference between nature and history, denied such a difference. For positivists, the historical process was essentially identical to the natural process. It is important, however, to keep in mind that in the 19th century. ideas about nature changed dramatically: the old idea of ​​nature as a static system was discarded. The evolutionary concept of species emerging over time has become established in scientific circles. In 1859, when Darwin published his Origin of Species, it was no longer new. Both natural science and history are united in approaching their subjects as subjects in a state of development.

Positivism denies philosophy as metaphysics and philosophy of history as an a priori logical construction. For positivists, natural science serves as an example of science. Natural science consists of two elements: the establishment of facts and the development of laws. Facts are established by direct sense perception, and laws are determined by generalizing facts through induction. Natural science becomes a model for historical science.

Under the influence of these ideas, a positivist type of historiography developed. This was an era that enriched history with a huge increase in concrete factual material (archaeological materials, documents, etc.). The first part of the positivist program was carried out successfully. The historians themselves were quite satisfied. But the positivist philosophers were dissatisfied - when will historians move on to the second stage of work - the discovery of the laws of world history?

Auguste Comte(1798-1857) - the leading figure of positivism wanted historical facts to be used as raw material for something more important and more interesting than themselves. He proposed to create a new science - sociology, which, like the natural sciences, should begin with the discovery of facts (he assigned the solution to this task to historians), and then move on to the search for causal connections between these facts. Sociology was supposed to elevate history to the rank of a science - not an empirical, but a theoretical discipline.

O. Comte developed a doctrine in which social progress was interpreted as a movement from lower forms of society to higher ones, passing through three main steps. Each of them is characterized by its own specific “state” of spirit.

First stage(“childhood” of humanity) – "theological". On it, the basis of culture is religion, and everything in the world is interpreted as the result of the action of supernatural forces. It occupies a long era, during which there is a transition from primitive idolatry and polytheism (polytheism) to monotheism (monotheism) of the Jewish and then Christian religion.

Second stage(“youth” of humanity) – “ metaphysical" At this stage, philosophical thinking plays a leading role in culture, and supernatural forces are replaced by philosophical abstractions, metaphysical “essences” that determine all phenomena observed by people.

Third stage(“maturity” of humanity) – “ positive", scientific. Here, the main place in culture is occupied by science, which produces “positive”, that is, practically useful, substantiated and accurate knowledge that makes it possible to develop industry and rationally organize public life.

History, according to Comte, is directed towards an ideal state - a society ruled by an intellectual aristocracy of scientists, which professes a "positive religion" with faith in a supreme being - humanity. Positive religion, borrowing all forms of Catholic medieval cult, is nothing more than Catholicism without God, the Christian thought expressed in secular language about the movement of humanity towards a perfect state.

Many historians criticized Comte's theory for schematism, and under the influence of criticism he was forced to admit that the stages of progress he indicated could coexist, intersect and interact.

The positivist analogy between natural science and history turned out to be incorrect. The view of history as a science dealing with facts contained a mistake that was obvious to professional historians. What is a fact? According to the positivist theory of knowledge, a fact is something directly given in perception, perceived at the moment when it occurs. These are precisely the facts of natural science. But in history the word “fact” has a completely different meaning. The past is not given in direct perception; it must be reconstructed on the basis of evidence, using special techniques and logical procedures. The positivist philosophy of history ignored the complex question - how is historical knowledge possible, what is its specificity? This caused her crisis.

General characteristics of German classical philosophy.

Basic ideas of I. Kant's philosophy.

Philosophy of J. Fichte, F. Schelling, G. Hegel, L. Feuerbach.

Key terms : antinomy, intelligent world, categorical imperative, noumenon.

German classical philosophy is associated with the emergence of a new stage, which is represented by the work of the classics of idealism of the late 18th – early 19th centuries: I. Kant, I. Fichte, F. Schelling, G. Hegel. The personal relationship between these philosophical figures was sometimes conflicting, which could not but affect its complex and internally contradictory nature. However, they have much in common - they all developed grandiose theoretical concepts that claimed absolute truth. German classical philosophy, first of all, turns to the study of the internal structure of the human mind, the problems of human activity as a cognizing subject, therefore, in its problems, the theory of knowledge has predominant importance. At the same time, the problems of ontology are not removed, but are rethought anew.

The philosophy of this period acted as the “conscience” of culture. It primarily examines:

The history of mankind and the essence of man himself: I. Kant’s philosophical question “What is man?” was decided in favor of man as a moral being. According to J. Fichte, man is an active, active being, endowed with consciousness and self-awareness. F. Schelling focuses on the problem of the relationship between object and subject. G. Hegel expands the boundaries of self-knowledge, and a person’s self-knowledge is connected not only with the outside world, but also with the self-awareness of other people, which gives rise to various forms of social consciousness. For L. Feuerbach, man is also the central problem of philosophy.

Philosophy as a system of philosophical disciplines, categories, ideas. Kant has epistemology and ethics. Schelling has natural philosophy and ontology. Fichte has ontology, epistemology, socio-political philosophy. Hegel has logic, philosophy of nature, philosophy of history, history of philosophy, philosophy of law, morality, religion, state, etc. Feuerbach has ontology, epistemology, ethics, history, religion.

Problems of humanism, study of human life. For Kant, human life is the activity of the subject of moral consciousness, with his civil freedom. For Fichte, the people are above the state, the social world is the world of private property, the problems of the role of morality in human life. For Schelling, reason is a means of achieving goals. Hegel creates the doctrine of civil society, the rule of law, and private property. For Feuerbach, social progress is directly related to the religion of love. They were all unanimous in one thing: man is the master of nature and spirit.

Holistic concept of dialectics. For Kant, this is the dialectic of the limits and possibilities of human knowledge: the dialectic of sensory, rational and rational knowledge. Fichte explores the creative activity of the human “I”, the interaction of “I” and “not I” as opposites, as a result of the interaction of which self-development and human self-awareness occur. Schelling views the nature of the Spirit as an evolving process. Hegel presented the entire natural-historical and spiritual world as a process. Formulated the laws, categories and principles of dialectics as a science of development and interconnection.

Thus, it is obvious that representatives of German classical philosophy solved, first of all, the problem of the relationship between being and thinking. The movement of philosophical thought from substance to subject, from being to activity, from inert matter to an autonomous self-developing spirit is the main tendency of German idealism.

The outstanding thinker of German classical philosophy I. Kant (1724–1804) seemed to complete the era of Enlightenment and became its critic, especially those aspects that relate to rationalism and metaphysics of the New Age.

It is with I. Kant that the philosophy of modern times begins. The main motto of his work is “life is worth living in order to work.” In his famous “Critique of Practical Reason,” Kant wrote that two things always fill the soul with new and ever stronger wonder and awe: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me. These words express two main directions, two main sources of his philosophy - Newtonian mechanics - the theoretical premise of “precritical” philosophy; and “the moral law in me” - as a stimulus for the development of ethical philosophy, the justification of human dignity, freedom and mutual equality.

His work is usually divided into two stages: "subcritical"(before writing " Critics of Pure Reason" in 1770) and "critical"(from about 1770).

At the first stage of his spiritual development, Kant adhered to naturalistic ideas that were new for that time. In the essay " General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens" He suggested cosmological hypothesis, which was later developed by Laplace and entered the history of science under the name of the Kant-Laplace hypothesis. Kant suggested that at first matter was in a state of gas-dust nebula, in which initially small asteroids were grouped around heavier particles under the influence of attractive and repulsive forces. The mechanical circulation of particles without any intervention from God led to the formation of the Sun and planets. At the same time, the internal movement of particles in the original cosmic bodies caused heat in them. According to the same scheme, according to I. Kant, the formation of stars and other celestial bodies occurred. Here he expressed the idea of ​​tidal friction slowing down the daily rotation of the Earth. But in Kant’s system there is a place for God: God created the Universe and then it develops according to its own laws, internal to nature itself.

Critical period his philosophy is outlined in such works as " Critique of Pure Reason" (1781), " Critique of Practical Reason" (1788), " Criticism of judgment"(1790), etc. In the first book, Kant sets out his theory of knowledge, in the second - the problems of ethics, in the third - the problems of aesthetics and expediency in nature and answers the question "How is beauty possible in nature and art?" The main goal of his philosophy is to analyze human cognitive abilities, determine the boundaries of knowledge, the subject of science and the possibilities of philosophy itself (metaphysics).

I. Kant critically reconsiders all previous philosophy, creates his own critical metaphysics and develops a critical method. He was convinced that the phenomena of things are separated from essence, form from content, reason from faith, rationalism from empiricism, theory from practice.

I. Kant believed that the whole world expresses itself through “appearance” and “things in themselves.” He believed that a person tries to penetrate into the essence of things, but cognizes it with distortions that are explained by the imperfection of the senses. Whenever a person comes into contact with a “thing in itself” (this is an objective reality that is the actual cause of our sensations), he distorts the knowledge of this thing with perceptions, i.e. nerve endings, the energy hidden in them. The “thing in itself,” according to philosophers, turns out to be elusive and unknowable. But how can a person in such a situation practically exist in the world for many hundreds of thousands of years? Kant gets out of this difficulty by assuming that pre-experimental, or a priori knowledge , not deduced from experience, is the free creativity of the mind, which is innate. The ability for supersensible knowledge, in which a person goes beyond the limits of experience, he called transcendental apperception.

« Thing in itself “There is also a limiting concept that limits the possibilities of human abilities to understand the world with the help of reason (God, the immortality of the soul, free will - this is not a subject of science, this is a subject of faith). Thus, “things in themselves are transcendental” - that is, they go beyond the limits of possible experience, are inaccessible to theoretical knowledge, and are outside of time and space. From this follows his idealism, which is called transcendental materialism.

Speaking about the unknowability of the “thing in itself,” Kant captures the essence of scientific research. Science begins with the formulation of a scientific problem, which limits the subject of its study and highlights what can be known and explained and what cannot. In mythology, the world is completely knowable and subject to explanation. Science destroys this “omniscience”; it produces only logically and empirically based knowledge.

IN theories of knowledge I.Kant the main task is to explore the capabilities of the cognitive tools of human cognition themselves. Hence his famous questions: “What can I know?”, “What should I do?”, “What can I hope for?”, “What is a person and who can he be?”

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant comes to the conclusion that knowledge is heterogeneous, there are different objects of knowledge and hence different types of cognitive activity. He is trying to find a “third way”, where knowledge cannot be reduced either to feelings or to reason.

Cognition begins with visual representations(sensuality), then moves on to reason(the area of ​​a priori concepts) and ends in mind(the area of ​​ideas) is the highest authority for processing visual representations. Thus, for him, cognition is a single process - the data of the senses is an object of activity for the intellect, and the intellect is for the activity of the mind. According to this scheme, the Critique of Pure Reason is divided into three parts: the doctrine of sensibility, the doctrine of understanding and the doctrine of reason. Knowledge is a synthesis of sensuality and reason. Thoughts without content are empty, and visual representations without concepts are blind.

Matter(flow of sensations) is the content of knowledge and is given pastoriori(experiential knowledge), and the form ( a priori) – a priori knowledge (concepts that are already in a formed form in the soul). Kant divides all knowledge into experimental and pre-experimental (apriori). A priori concepts are the tools of cognition, that is, a system of concepts that belongs to the subject. They determine the structure of his perceptions and rational thinking, but do not belong to the things themselves. “The Thing in Itself” evokes a feeling that is in no way similar to the originals. Kant divides all a priori concepts into a priori forms of sensibility and includes among them space, time and causality, which, in his opinion, are given to a person already at birth as the ability to navigate in space and time. Thanks to transcendental apperception In human consciousness, a gradual accumulation of knowledge is possible, a transition from innate ideas to ideas of rational knowledge. Next he highlights a priori forms of reason: quantity(unity, plurality, totality); quality: reality, denial, limitation; Orelationship: substances and accidents (properties), cause and effect, interaction; modality relation: possibility-impossibility, existence-non-existence, necessity-accident ( modality is an affirmation or denial of something by the speaker).

For Kant, the process of cognition is not the reproduction of a “thing in itself,” but the construction of a world of phenomena with the help of a priori concepts independent of experience. There is a world of phenomena that are comprehended by reason, and here knowledge is limitless. A priori knowledge does not exist in itself, but only “forms” sensuality.

According to Kant, the external world is a source of sensations, and a person, having a priori forms of sensibility, with the help of the categories of reason and ideas of reason, receives knowledge, locates it in space and time, and causally connects them with each other. A person, cognizing the world, constructs it, builds order out of chaos, creates his own picture of the world. Nature as an object of universal knowledge is constructed by consciousness itself. Reason dictates laws to nature, consciousness itself creates the subject of science ( subjective idealism).

Transcendental cognition– going beyond the limits of empirical experience and organizing this experience with the help of a priori forms. The synthesis of sensuality and reason is carried out with the help of the power of imagination. Here different ideas are combined and a single image is created - synthetic knowledge (incremental). The synthetic ability of imagination is manifested in apperception, recognition of human ideas as identical to the corresponding phenomena.

Except synthetic knowledge Kant highlights analytical knowledge(explanatory). All experimental judgments are always synthetic, and analytical ones are a priori, pre-experimental.

Next, Kant sets the task of identifying the characteristics of various types of knowledge that underlie various sciences. In the Critique of Pure Reason, he poses three questions about how mathematics, natural science and metaphysics (philosophy) are possible: masubject matter relies on a priori forms of sensory knowledge. The ability to establish the position of various objects, changing places, the relationship of sequence is associated with the fact that he has a special prism through which he looks at the world - space and time. Theoretical natural science is based on reason. Reason is the ability to operate with concepts; they are independent of experience and any experienced content can be subsumed under the categories of quantity, quality, relationship, modality. As for philosophy, here Kant says that there is a third cognitive ability, which is the basis of philosophy as a special cognitive activity. This is the mind. Therefore, the third part of I. Kant’s teaching is the doctrine of the cognitive abilities of the human mind and its antinomies.

Intelligence embodied in philosophical reflection. It acts as a regulator of cognition and a guiding authority for reason. The mind strives for “unconditional synthesis,” that is, for extremely general ideas.

Speaking about the unity of the phenomena of the world as an unconditional integrity, we come to the conclusion that the boundary that exists between the world of phenomena (phenomena) and the world of noumena (the essence of things) leads to a series antinomies(this word literally means “conflict of laws”) - to such judgments that come into irreconcilable contradiction with each other. I. Kant identifies four such antinomies:

The world has a beginning in time and is limited in space. – The world has no beginning in time and is infinite in space.

There is only the simple, and that is made up of simple things. – There is nothing simple in the world.

There is not only causality according to the laws of nature, but also freedom. – There is no freedom, everything is done according to the laws of nature.

There is, of course, a necessary being (that is, God) as the cause of the world. – There is no absolute, necessary being as the cause of the world.

These antinomies are inexperienced and therefore insoluble. They are connected by the nature of human consciousness. Concepts equally do not allow one to assert either that the world is finite in space and time, or that it is infinite. Neither one nor the other is contained in experience, but depends on convictions and beliefs, and there is no other option for resolving the antinomies, according to Kant, how to transfer conviction and faith to the practical sphere.

Trying to give scientific knowledge about God, the world and the soul, the mind becomes entangled in contradictions. Reason, striving to cognize existing things, encounters antinomies, and these contradictions indicate that philosophy as thinking about the world, about “things in themselves” is impossible. It should only be a “criticism of reason”, establish the boundaries of knowledge, and demonstrate the heterogeneity of human cognitive activity. With the help of philosophy one can grasp the need for a transition from pure reason(theoretical) to practical reason(morality).

I. Kant formulates the theological idea of ​​“pure reason”. He critically analyzes all the proofs and refutations of God and constructs his own proof, transcendental - God really cannot be proven, but also cannot be refuted; this goes beyond the limits of reason and plunges it into an insoluble contradiction– to a personostayesonly verA.

I. Kant talks about two dimensions of human life: man belongs to the world of appearances (phenomena) and the world of noumena (“thing in itself”). In the world of phenomena there is no freedom, everything is conditioned there. But when a person treats himself as the only basis for his own actions, then he acts freely. I. Kant comes to the conclusion that man as a free and responsible being cannot be known with the help of “pure reason”; man cannot be approached as a phenomenon, an object. A person can only be known “from the inside,” as a subject of free, self-determined action.

Basic provisions ethics I.Kant set out in his work " Critique of Practical Reason”, this is where the question “What should I do?” comes up. He proceeds from the fact that the most important task of philosophy is to educate a person in the spirit of humanism. It should teach a person what it takes to be human.

Kant speaks of pure morality, which is based on what is due and necessary - these are, first of all, laws for oneself, they are found in the inner human impulse, this is the only source of morality. Kant calls the internal law " To categorical imperative ", i.e. an unconditional command that reads:

Act in such a way that the maxim (impelling motive) of your will can be a principle of universal legislation. Otherwise, act as you would like them to act towards you. This is the golden rule of morality.

Don't lie, don't steal, don't kill, because these actions cannot be universal human norms of behavior.

Particularly important is the problem of human debt, which is inseparable from the relationship between the individual and society.

Kant's moral ideal is the moral autonomy of the individual. Moral consciousness does not depend on sensory impulses and motives; they cannot be the basis of moral consciousness due to their individuality and selfishness.

I. Kant allows some exceptions to the law: if you are forced to lie, the lie should not be heard. Heroism should not be performed at any cost, without considering the consequences. In the works of the philosopher we also find justification for the need for religious faith. At the same time, Kant boldly swaps the places of the divine and the human: we are moral not because we believe in God, but because we believe in God because we are moral. But the idea of ​​God is only an idea, so it is absurd to talk about man’s duties before God, says the great thinker. In general, the philosophy of I. Kant is complex and contradictory and therefore has been criticized by various philosophical schools and movements.

The ideas of I. Kant continue to be developed I. Fichte(1762–1814). His concept was called " Scientific teaching».

The main problems of I. Fichte’s philosophy: 1) the philosophy of the absolute “I” - the Absolute”; 2) philosophy of action (practical philosophy). His main philosophical works are “ The basis of general science" And " About the appointment of a scientist».

According to Fichte, the main task of philosophy is to determine the goals of practical action of people in the world and in society. It should become the foundation of all sciences - “ teaching about science».

Man in Fichte's philosophy initially appears as an active being. Developing the problems of the theory of knowledge, Fichte raises the question of whether an object exists without a subject. Here he seeks to eliminate Kant’s dualism (“thing in itself and appearance”, “nature and freedom”). He believes that Kant does not reveal a single basis for truth, and the task of philosophy is to build a single system of knowledge that has a single basis. This will be the philosophy of “Scientific Teaching”.

The initial basis of Fichte’s philosophical system is the consciousness of “I” - this is the consciousness of a person, divorced from him and transformed into an absolute. How is the essence of consciousness expressed? For Fichte, this is not a subjective image of the objective world. The essence of consciousness is self-consciousness, consciousness in itself. For Fichte, there is no subject without an object, but only subject-object relations. The subjective is what acts, and the objective is the product of action, they coincide and are fused together.

Science begins with the statement “I am” and there is no need for scientific proof. The first foundation of scientific teaching: The “I” is aware of itself and thus creates this “I” by the act of its awareness. Awareness of the alien world of “not-I” is second basis of scientific doctrine, where “I” presupposes “not-I”. But this is not an exit to the outside world - this is a different state of human consciousness, when it is not directed towards itself, but its activity is directed mainly towards the outside world. Material things are considered only in relation to man. Individual consciousness, according to Fichte, is able to contain the entire vast world. Thus, “I” turns into a World subject.

For Fichte, the entire world of our consciousness (and awareness of nature and self-awareness) is a product of the activity of the human spirit of our “I”. And therefore, “I” and “not-I” are different states of consciousness, internal opposites. These opposites are a single whole, the absolute “I”. The “I” posits itself and the “not-I.” That's what it is third basis of scientific doctrine.

An important achievement here is the dialectical way of thinking. Fichte writes about the contradictory nature of all things, about the unity of opposites - contradiction is the source of development. The category “non-a priori forms of reason” is a system of concepts that absorb knowledge that develops in the course of the activity of the “I”.

Fichte, without realizing it, moves from the position of subjective idealism to the position of objective idealism. In work " Instructions for a Blissful Life“I” as an absolute merges with God, and philosophy turns into theosophy.

In practical philosophy, Fichte examines the problems of morality in law and state (under the influence of the French bourgeois revolution). The main problem here is the problem of freedom. Human freedom consists in obedience to laws and awareness of their necessity. Law is the voluntary submission of every person to the law established in society.

The state must provide everyone with property, because the social world is the world of bourgeois private property, where the state is the organization of owners (this, in fact, is a guess about the economic and social nature of the state).

Fichte views the concept of nationality as a collective personality that has its own calling and purpose. He substantiates the sovereignty and dignity of the individual, speaks of his active side as the creator of social reality and himself.

« Thoughts of myself», « be yourself», « be free, intelligent, infinite in your possibilities“- these are the calls of the thinker.

Thus, the main achievements of Fichte's philosophy are as follows: 1) the conscious use of dialectics as a method of constructing a philosophical system; 2) overcoming Kantian dualism through the principle of monism in the theory of knowledge; 3) assertion of the right of reason to theoretical knowledge.

F. Schelling(1775–1854) known as an idealist and dialectician, creator of " Systems of transcendental idealism"(his main philosophical work). The core of Schelling's philosophy is the category Absolute. This is not something independent, independent of individual “I”. The Absolute, in his opinion, is the complete identity of spirit and nature.

The main idea of ​​his philosophy is to cognize the absolute unconditional beginning of all being and thinking. He criticizes Fichte and believes that nature is not “not-I,” but it is not the only substance, as Spinoza wrote. Nature is absolute, and not the individual “I”. This is the eternal mind, the absolute identity of the objective and the subjective, since human cognition is not just a subjective ability, it is initially embedded in the structure of the universe, as an objective component of this world.

The material and ideal principles are identical and coincide, therefore they cannot be opposed. These are just different states of the same thing absolute reason. The single basis of the essence of nature is ideal spiritual activity.

Schelling's natural philosophy sought, first of all, to substantiate the discoveries in natural science (Coulomb, Golvani, Volta and others), to comprehend them, to bring them into a single worldview. The thinker is trying to protect philosophy from the disdainful attitude of natural scientists (thus, I. Newton believed that philosophy is like a litigious lady, and getting involved with her is like being subjected to prosecution).

Schelling's philosophical system is dialectical: he proves the unity of nature as such, as well as the idea that the essence of every thing is the unity of opposites, “polarities” (magnet, positive and negative charges of electricity, subjective and objective consciousness, etc.). This is the main source of activity of things - the “world soul” of nature. Living and inanimate nature is a single organism, even its dead nature is “immature intelligence.” Nature is always life (idea panpsychism), all nature has animation. This was the transition to objective idealism and dialectics in German classical philosophy.

The main problem is practical philosophy Schelling - this is freedom, since the creation of a “second nature” - the legal system of society - depends on it. States with a legal system must unite into a federation to end wars and establish peace among nations.

The problem of alienation in history is especially acute for Schelling. As a result of human activity, unexpected, undesirable consequences often arise that lead to the suppression of freedom. The desire to realize freedom turns into enslavement. History is dominated by arbitrariness: theory and history are opposite to each other. Society is dominated by blind necessity and man is powerless before it.

Schelling understands that historical necessity makes its way through the mass of individual goals and subjective interests that determine human activity.

But all this is the continuous implementation of the “revelation of the Absolute”, where the Absolute is God, and the philosophy of the identity of being and thinking is filled with theosophical meaning. Over time, Schelling's philosophical system acquires an irrationalistic and mystical character.

Philosophy G. Hegel(1770–1831) is the culmination of idealism in classical German philosophy. Its main ideas are set out in such works as “ Phenomenology of spirit», « The Science of Logic», « Philosophy of nature», « Philosophy of Spirit" and etc.

Hegel considered his main task to be the creation of dialectics as a science, as a system and as Logic. To do this, Hegel needed to embrace all knowledge and all human culture in their development, critically rework them and create a complex philosophical system in which the development of the world is presented as the development of an absolute idea (spirit).

Hegel's philosophical system begins with the doctrine of logic. He solves the question of logic from the position of idealism. Logic as a whole includes objective logic (the doctrine of being and essence) and subjective logic (the doctrine of the concept).

Objective logic is the logic of the pre-natural world, which is in the state before the creation of the world by God. It's there absolute idea. God and the absolute idea are identical as primary causes, but at the same time they are different in their state. God is always equal to himself, while the absolute idea continuously develops from abstract and poor in content definitions to more complete and concrete definitions.

After the “work” of objective logic, subjective logic (the doctrine of the concept) comes into play. It follows the same path with the help of concepts, judgments and conclusions and at the same time reflects the history of the practical movement of culture, in the process of which a person masters (cognizes) the world.

Self-development of the idea leads logic to the final point of movement - nature arises. Hegel's concept of nature is unusual. Nature is another being, that is, another form of being of an idea. The meaning and significance of nature is to mediate the divine and human spirit in their development - deployment.

The goal of the dialectical development of the absolute idea is awareness and absolute knowledge of one’s own path. This awareness must occur in a form that corresponds to the content of the idea. Moving towards absolute self-knowledge, the spirit itself finds the necessary forms for itself - these are contemplation, representation and conceptual thinking, which at the same time are the stages of self-knowledge of the spirit.

At the level of contemplation, the spirit appears in the form of art, at the stage of representation - in the form of religion, and at the highest level - in the form of philosophy. Philosophy is the pinnacle of world history and culture, and the final stage of self-knowledge is the absolute truth.

The grandiose philosophical work done by Hegel led him to the conclusion about the rationality of the world, which he expressed in the aphorism: “Everything that is real is reasonable, everything that is reasonable is real.” At the same time, in the process reasonable development of the idea overcomes the evil and imperfection of the world. Hegel's philosophy was of great importance for the subsequent development of the entire spiritual culture of Europe. But philosophical comprehension of the world has no limit. And Hegel's philosophy was not only further developed, but also criticized.

L. Feuerbach(1804–1872) directed his work towards criticism of the Christian religion, Hegel's idealism and the establishment of anthropological materialism. He believed that the common basis for religion and idealism is the absolutization of human thinking, its opposition to man and its transformation into an independently existing entity.

The roots and secret of religion and idealism are on earth. Man as a generic being in his activity is only indirectly connected with the idea, with the general, which prevails over the individual. People do not understand that these general ideas are their own creations, and they attribute supernatural properties to them, turning them into the absolute idea of ​​God.

To overcome this understanding of the idea, you need to understand man as an earthly being with his thinking. The subject of philosophy should not be spirit or nature, but man.

For Feuerbach, man is a spiritual-natural being, the most important characteristic of which is sensuality. People are connected by natural ties and, above all, by a feeling of love. At the same time, Feuerbach misses a very important feature of man - his social essence.

(in the last years of his life, Schelling created an irrationalistic positive philosophy, and it is not transcendental idealism), Kant was the first to call his “critical philosophy” that way:

The main difference between these four types of transcendental idealism can be clarified in relation to the main question of the reality of the external world. According to Kant, this world not only exists, but also has a completeness of content, which, however, of necessity remains unknown to us. For Fichte, external reality turns into an unconscious boundary, pushing the transcendental subject, or self, towards the gradual creation of his own, completely ideal, world. For Schelling, this external boundary is taken inside or understood as a dark fundamental principle (Urgrund and Ungrund) in the creative substance itself, which is neither subject nor object, but the identity of both. Finally, in Hegel, the last remnant of external reality is abolished, and the universal process, outside of which there is nothing, is understood as the unconditionally immanent dialectical self-disclosure of the absolute idea. In the Marxist tradition, along with the above-mentioned philosophical concepts, the materialist teaching of L. Feuerbach was also considered, the basis of which was the works of K. Marx and F. Engels, in particular the work “Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy” (German. Ludwig Feuerbach und der Ausgang der klassischen deutschen Philosophie , 1886) .

In the French tradition, it is believed that such philosophers as: opponent of Mendelssohn and Kant, Jacobi, Reinhold, Schleiermacher, also made a significant contribution to German classical philosophy.

German classical philosophy was founded on the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s. This philosophical movement was closely associated with romanticism and the revolutionary writers and politicians of the Enlightenment. But in the concepts of “German classical philosophy” or “German idealism” the Germans themselves never include the philosophical works of the authors of Sturm and Drang, especially such titans as Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, despite the extreme similarity of their views to the classics. The concept of “classical German philosophy” does not include such phenomena as the philosophy of romanticism itself (for example, the extensive and varied philosophical work of members of the Jena circle or the philosophical works of Hegel’s friend Friedrich Hölderlin), as well as the tradition of hermeneutic thought of the systematizers of philosophy from Johann Georg Hamann before Friedrich Ast and Friedrich Schleiermacher, the philosophical quests of such figures as, for example, Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Joseph Görres. It has now become clear that many of Hegel’s works were written earlier than those works of Schelling and even Fichte, which were previously considered by everyone to be the basis for Hegel’s work. Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel were lecturers, and although the records of Kant’s university lectures have hardly survived due to their radicalism and sense of duty as students, the records of the lectures of the other classics published in the 50s-60s of the 20th century show that they developed and improved , radically changed their ideas after publication. This concerns Kant himself to an even greater extent, as can be seen from the Opus postumum - handwritten notes in which Kant, after publishing his main works, continues to critically rethink the problems of these works and the reaction of various critics and opponents to the arguments he gave, developing them and his philosophy.

Achievements

The main idea of ​​classical German philosophy is the idea of ​​freedom. Kant advocated self-government for the British colonies in North America and welcomed American independence. It is no coincidence that, although its classics were subsequently disappointed in the practical results, the Great French Revolution was perceived by Kant and his successors as the beginning of a new era - the recognition of civil rights and freedom of every member of society. Fichte reflected this in two pamphlets: “An Attempt to Help Correct the Public’s Judgments about the French Revolution” (1794) and “Demanding from the Princes of Europe Freedom of Thought, Which They Hitherto Oppressed” (1794). Hegel, in his Philosophy of History (1832), said of the French Revolution: “It was a magnificent sunrise. All thinking beings celebrated this era” (Works, vol. VIII. M.–L., 1935, p. 414). Fichte, in his lectures “On the Purpose of the Scientist” (1794), declares: “... anyone who considers himself the master of others is himself a slave... Only he is free who wants to make everything around him free” (Oc., vol. 2. M ., 1993, p. 27). Schelling translated La Marseillaise into German. Justifying the substantiality of freedom, Schelling makes this abstract principle concrete: “The most unworthy and disturbing to the soul is the spectacle of such a structure, in which the rulers are not the law, but the will of the organizer and despotism...” (System of Transcendental Idealism. M., 1936, p. 331). Hegel states in The Philosophy of History: “World history is progress in the consciousness of freedom, a progress that we must recognize in its necessity” (pp. 18–19). In accordance with Kant’s ideas, human freedom lies in following the laws of one’s own mind, for only that which acts under its own “compulsion” (as a conscious and purposeful activity), and not under coercion from the outside, is free. In Kant's philosophy and ethics, the very laws of reason - that is, first of all, the natural tendency of man to reason about the Soul, the World and God - lead us to the existence of such a concept as “God”, which does not exist in reality (as in a religious concept), but existing in the consciousness of each individual person, since everyone has their own mind and their own worldview, but with laws that are the same for everyone due to a universal natural inclination. In a civilized liberal society, Man must make decisions taking into account the existence of God, regardless of whether the liberal God actually exists or not. Since, according to Kant, there is no human-loving God of Christians, then for the proper functioning of a liberal society it is necessary to do away with Christianity, at the same time not eliminating the Church and avoiding attacks on it, but using it to achieve freedom - a return to the liberal gods of the ancient Fuhrers, but in within the framework of the rule of law, obeying the law - this is apparently a parody and satire. .. However, Kant was not only a philosopher, but also a satirist. Although he recognized only his “Dreams of a Spiritual Seer...” and his lectures on geography for the public as purely satirical, elements of satire are present in all his works, in which he often pays tribute not to the liberal morality of those close to the king, but to the opposite Christian morality, and was a champion of freedom, not liberalism. . Still, Freedom as legal order is true freedom in the sense of Kant. But Hegel already understands freedom as the conscious need to follow the laws of development of nature and society...

German idealism first raised the question about the essence of knowledge: “What is knowledge?” For Kant, this question boils down to the question of the possibility of pure mathematics and pure natural science (see Critique of Pure Reason). In his formulation, this question of knowledge is reduced to the question of the possibility of synthetic judgments a priori. For Fichte, the question of knowledge also becomes a question of the essence of man. If the subject is a necessary condition for the existence of the world, then knowledge becomes a way of its constitution. Schelling returns the question of knowledge to its objective component, considering knowledge as a result of the development of nature itself. Hegel synthesizes the question of knowledge in the proposition: “The true form of truth is system knowledge". For Feuerbach, the question of the essence of knowledge against the backdrop of the tremendous success of science and technology is no longer significant, which indicates that the possibility of knowledge has ceased to be a problem. In the doctrine of categories, Hegel reveals the dialectical unity of necessity and chance, necessity and freedom. The dialectical logic created by Hegel includes such categories as “being”, “non-being”, “becoming”, “quality”, “quantity”, “measure”. The doctrine of the concept - the final part of dialectical logic - traces the logical development of such concepts as “object”, “mechanism”, “teleological relation”, “practice”, “life”. Thus, Hegelian dialectical logic is not only a theory of knowledge, but also an ontology. The concept of development is the central concept of Hegelian dialectics.

The most important main characteristic of classical German philosophy is also the attempt to understand philosophy itself as one of the sciences. Kant believes that previous philosophy was only philodoxy, reasoning on philosophical topics, but by no means philosophy in the strict sense of the word, i.e. science. Supporting Kant, Fichte defines philosophy as “science,” or the science of science. Schelling, rejecting the traditional opposition of philosophy to the natural sciences, comprehended the achievements of natural science. Already in his first major work, “Phenomenology of Spirit” (1807), Hegel proclaims: “The true form in which truth exists can only be its scientific system. My intention was to help bring philosophy closer to the form of science - to that goal, having achieved which it could renounce its name of love of knowledge and be real knowledge" (Hegel. Works, vol. II. M., 1959, p. 3 ).

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

A significant place in the development of German idealism is occupied by J. G. Fichte (1762-1814) with his subjective idealism. Fichte rejected Kant's idea of ​​“things in themselves,” pointing out its inconsistency, and believed that the world is “a subject-object, with the leading role played by the subject.” He said that there are two series of reality: objective (independent of our consciousness) and imaginary. He declared the second real, referring to the fact that when imagining, we spend real time on this process, which means that we can also consider everything imaginary to be real. The criterion of such reality is the subject, his self-forgetfulness, separation from reality. In his reasoning he goes even further and completely breaks away from the real, considering it only as a manifestation of consciousness. He was sharply criticized by his contemporaries (Kant, Hegel, etc.) for his subjectivity.

His ethical views are interesting. He believed that for successful coexistence, each individual must voluntarily limit his needs. At the same time, everyone must be guaranteed by the state the personal rights of free physical and spiritual development. On this basis, he became close to the socialists, in particular he influenced Ferdinand Lassalle.

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

F. Schelling (1775-1854) occupies a prominent place in German classical philosophy. The main areas of his work: natural philosophy, transcendental idealism and philosophy of identity.

In natural philosophy, he tried to combine all the achievements of contemporary natural science. He viewed nature as the formation of the spiritual principle. Man is aware of this principle in himself, but in the rest of nature it is unconscious; the process of awareness goes through several simultaneous stages. According to Schelling, nature appears as a forceful unity of opposites, the prototype of which can be a magnet. Nature has a “world soul”. Matter does not exist without spirit and vice versa, even in God.

Within the framework of transcendental idealism, he discusses how the subjectivism of nature in the process of its development becomes objective. The internal act of the subjective is “intellectual intuition”, the possibilities of which, according to Schelling, are greater than inferences and evidence.

Schelling asserted the unity (identity) of nature and spirit. He separated the Absolute, in which everything is one (objective and subjective cannot be separated), and the material world, in which everything is represented as a process. The nature of each thing is determined by the preponderance of the objective and subjective in it - the degree of the Absolute. The idea of ​​absolute identity is connected with the idea of ​​God's self-consciousness.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Perhaps the main place in German classical philosophy is occupied by G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831). He was a supporter of idealistic monism. In contrast to many philosophers, he considered everything real in its desire to become philosophy, pure thinking. He looked at nature in its empirical manifestations as “the scales that the snake of absolute dialectics sheds in its movement.” He saw in all things the “world mind”, the “absolute idea” or the “world spirit”, the purpose of which is self-awareness, which goes through three main stages: the presence of the absolute idea in its own lair, its manifestation in “other existence” in the form of natural phenomena, analysis and generalization in human thinking. Hegel's great merit is the introduction into philosophy of such transparent concepts as development, process and history.

He also studied the problem of reason in history. Pursuing his goals, Hegel said, a person along the way creates something that does not depend on these goals, which he then must take into account as a prerequisite. Thus, according to Hegel, chance turns into necessity. In this, the philosopher sees the “cunning of historical reason,” which lies in “mediating activity, which, having allowed objects to act on each other according to their nature and exhaust themselves in this influence, without interfering directly in this process, still carries out only its own goal." This is where Hegel's panlogical view comes into play. The bearer of the world mind at certain stages of historical development is one or another people: the Eastern world, the Greek world, the Roman world, the Germanic world. In his works, Hegel examines the reasons for the natural emergence of state power and the economy.

Ludwig Feuerbach

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) was a student of Hegel, and later his critic, especially in the field of views on religion. Developed one of the variants of anthropological materialism. He considered the ideal to be only material organized in a special way. At the same time, he was impressed by the idea of ​​a “really feeling person.” He considered nature to be the basis of the spirit. At the same time, according to some, the “natural” side of a person in Feuerbach was exaggerated, and the “social” side was underestimated. Of all human feelings, Feuerbach singled out moral love and considered religion useful from the point of view of the fact that it prescribes a reverent attitude of man towards man. On this basis, he considered it possible to create an ideal state in which love and justice would reign. The philosopher's main work is “The Essence of Christianity.” Feuerbach argued that “it was not God who created man, but man who created God.”

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Literature

• Gulyga A. V. German classical philosophy. - 2nd ed., rev. and additional - M.: Rolf, 2001. - 416 pp. With. - ((Library of History and Culture)). - 7000 copies. - ISBN 5-7836-0447-X.
• Kuznetsov V.N.. Textbook manual for universities - M.: Higher. school, 1989. ISBN 5-06-000002-8
  • Kuznetsov V.N. German classical philosophy: Textbook. 2nd ed., rev. and additional - M.: Higher. school, 2003. - 438 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-06-004223-5.
• Oizerman T.I. German classical philosophy is one of the theoretical sources of Marxism. - M.: Knowledge, 1955.

see also

Links

• on the Runiverse website
• in the Electronic Library of Philosophy

Notes

An excerpt characterizing German idealism

It was already dark when Prince Andrei and Pierre arrived at the main entrance of the Lysogorsk house. While they were approaching, Prince Andrey with a smile drew Pierre's attention to the commotion that had occurred at the back porch. A bent old woman with a knapsack on her back and a short man in a black robe with long hair, seeing the carriage driving in, rushed to run back through the gate. Two women ran out after them, and all four, looking back at the stroller, ran into the back porch in fear.
“These are the Machines of God,” said Prince Andrei. “They took us for their father.” And this is the only thing in which she does not obey him: he orders these wanderers to be driven away, and she accepts them.
- What are God's people? asked Pierre.
Prince Andrei did not have time to answer him. The servants came out to meet him, and he asked about where the old prince was and whether they were expecting him soon.
The old prince was still in the city, and they were waiting for him every minute.
Prince Andrei led Pierre to his half, which was always waiting for him in perfect order in his father’s house, and he himself went to the nursery.
“Let’s go to my sister,” said Prince Andrei, returning to Pierre; - I haven’t seen her yet, she is now hiding and sitting with her God’s people. Serves her right, she will be embarrassed, and you will see God's people. C "est curieux, ma parole. [This is interesting, honestly.]
– Qu"est ce que c"est que [What are] God's people? - asked Pierre
- But you'll see.
Princess Marya was really embarrassed and turned red in spots when they came to her. In her cozy room with lamps in front of icon cases, on the sofa, at the samovar, sat next to her a young boy with a long nose and long hair, and in a monastic robe.
On a chair nearby sat a wrinkled, thin old woman with a meek expression on her childish face.
“Andre, pourquoi ne pas m"avoir prevenu? [Andrei, why didn’t you warn me?],” she said with meek reproach, standing in front of her wanderers, like a hen in front of her chickens.
– Charmee de vous voir. Je suis tres contente de vous voir, [Very glad to see you. “I’m so pleased that I see you,” she said to Pierre, while he kissed her hand. She knew him as a child, and now his friendship with Andrei, his misfortune with his wife, and most importantly, his kind, simple face endeared her to him. She looked at him with her beautiful, radiant eyes and seemed to say: “I love you very much, but please don’t laugh at mine.” After exchanging the first phrases of greeting, they sat down.
“Oh, and Ivanushka is here,” said Prince Andrei, pointing with a smile at the young wanderer.
– Andre! - Princess Marya said pleadingly.
“Il faut que vous sachiez que c"est une femme, [Know that this is a woman," Andrei said to Pierre.
– Andre, au nom de Dieu! [Andrey, for God’s sake!] – repeated Princess Marya.
It was clear that Prince Andrei’s mocking attitude towards the wanderers and Princess Mary’s useless intercession on their behalf were familiar, established relationships between them.
“Mais, ma bonne amie,” said Prince Andrei, “vous devriez au contraire m"etre reconaissante de ce que j"explique a Pierre votre intimate avec ce jeune homme... [But, my friend, you should be grateful to me that I explain to Pierre your closeness to this young man.]
- Vraiment? [Really?] - Pierre said curiously and seriously (for which Princess Marya was especially grateful to him) peering through his glasses into the face of Ivanushka, who, realizing that they were talking about him, looked at everyone with cunning eyes.
Princess Marya was completely in vain to be embarrassed for her own people. They were not at all timid. The old woman, with her eyes downcast but looking sideways at those who entered, had turned the cup upside down onto a saucer and placed a bitten piece of sugar next to it, sat calmly and motionless in her chair, waiting to be offered more tea. Ivanushka, drinking from a saucer, looked at the young people from under his brows with sly, feminine eyes.
– Where, in Kyiv, were you? – Prince Andrey asked the old woman.
“It was, father,” the old woman answered loquaciously, “on Christmas itself, I was honored with the saints to communicate the holy, heavenly secrets.” And now from Kolyazin, father, great grace has opened...
- Well, Ivanushka is with you?
“I’m going on my own, breadwinner,” Ivanushka said, trying to speak in a deep voice. - Only in Yukhnov did Pelageyushka and I get along...
Pelagia interrupted her comrade; She obviously wanted to tell what she saw.
- In Kolyazin, father, great grace was revealed.
- Well, are the relics new? - asked Prince Andrei.
“That’s enough, Andrey,” said Princess Marya. - Don’t tell me, Pelageyushka.
“No...what are you saying, mother, why not tell me?” I love him. He is kind, favored by God, he, a benefactor, gave me rubles, I remember. How I was in Kyiv and the holy fool Kiryusha told me - a truly man of God, he walks barefoot winter and summer. Why are you walking, he says, not in your place, go to Kolyazin, there is a miraculous icon, the Mother of the Most Holy Theotokos has been revealed. From those words I said goodbye to the saints and went...
Everyone was silent, one wanderer spoke in a measured voice, drawing in air.
“My father, the people came and said to me: great grace has been revealed, the Mother of the Most Holy Theotokos is dripping myrrh from her cheek...
“Okay, okay, you’ll tell me later,” said Princess Marya, blushing.
“Let me ask her,” said Pierre. -Have you seen it yourself? - he asked.
- Why, father, you yourself have been honored. There is such a radiance on the face, like heavenly light, and from my mother’s cheek it keeps dripping and dripping...
“But this is a deception,” said Pierre naively, who listened attentively to the wanderer.
- Oh, father, what are you saying! - Pelageyushka said with horror, turning to Princess Marya for protection.
“They are deceiving the people,” he repeated.
- Lord Jesus Christ! – the wanderer said, crossing herself. - Oh, don't tell me, father. So one anaral did not believe it, he said: “the monks are deceiving,” and as he said, he became blind. And he dreamed that Mother of Pechersk came to him and said: “Trust me, I will heal you.” So he began to ask: take me and take me to her. I’m telling you the real truth, I saw it myself. They brought him blind straight to her, he came up, fell, and said: “Heal! “I will give you,” he says, “what the king gave you.” I saw it myself, father, the star was embedded in it. Well, I have received my sight! It's a sin to say that. “God will punish,” she instructively addressed Pierre.
- How did the star end up in the image? asked Pierre.
- Did you make your mother a general? - said Prince Andrei, smiling.
Pelagia suddenly turned pale and clasped her hands.
- Father, father, it’s a sin for you, you have a son! - she spoke, suddenly turning from pallor to bright color.
- Father, what did you say? God forgive you. - She crossed herself. - Lord, forgive him. Mother, what is this?...” she turned to Princess Marya. She stood up and, almost crying, began to pack her purse. She was obviously both scared and ashamed that she had enjoyed benefits in a house where they could say this, and it was a pity that she now had to be deprived of the benefits of this house.
- Well, what kind of hunting are you doing? - said Princess Marya. -Why did you come to me?...
“No, I’m joking, Pelageyushka,” said Pierre. - Princesse, ma parole, je n"ai pas voulu l"offenser, [Princess, I'm right, I didn't want to offend her,] I just did that. Don’t think I was joking,” he said, smiling timidly and wanting to make amends. - After all, it’s me, and he was only joking.
Pelageyushka stopped incredulously, but Pierre's face showed such sincerity of repentance, and Prince Andrei looked so meekly first at Pelageyushka, then at Pierre, that she gradually calmed down.

The wanderer calmed down and, brought back into conversation, talked for a long time about Father Amphilochius, who was such a saint of life that his hand smelled like palm, and about how the monks she knew on her last journey to Kyiv gave her the keys to the caves, and how she, taking crackers with her, spent two days in the caves with the saints. “I’ll pray to one, read, go to another. I’ll take a pine tree, I’ll go and take a kiss again; and such silence, mother, such grace that you don’t even want to go out into the light of God.”
Pierre listened to her carefully and seriously. Prince Andrei left the room. And after him, leaving God’s people to finish their tea, Princess Marya led Pierre into the living room.
“You are very kind,” she told him.
- Oh, I really didn’t think of offending her, I understand and highly value these feelings!
Princess Marya silently looked at him and smiled tenderly. “After all, I have known you for a long time and love you like a brother,” she said. – How did you find Andrey? - she asked hastily, not giving him time to say anything in response to her kind words. - He worries me very much. His health is better in winter, but last spring the wound opened, and the doctor said that he should go for treatment. And morally I am very afraid for him. He is not the type of character we women are to suffer and cry out our grief. He carries it inside himself. Today he is cheerful and lively; but it was your arrival that had such an effect on him: he is rarely like this. If only you could persuade him to go abroad! He needs activity, and this smooth, quiet life is ruining him. Others don't notice, but I see.
At 10 o'clock the waiters rushed to the porch, hearing the bells of the old prince's carriage approaching. Prince Andrei and Pierre also went out onto the porch.
- Who is this? - asked the old prince, getting out of the carriage and guessing Pierre.
– AI is very happy! “kiss,” he said, having learned who the unfamiliar young man was.
The old prince was in good spirits and treated Pierre kindly.
Before dinner, Prince Andrei, returning back to his father’s office, found the old prince in a heated argument with Pierre.
Pierre argued that the time would come when there would be no more war. The old prince, teasing but not angry, challenged him.
- Let the blood out of your veins, pour some water, then there will be no war. “A woman’s nonsense, a woman’s nonsense,” he said, but still affectionately patted Pierre on the shoulder and walked up to the table where Prince Andrei, apparently not wanting to engage in conversation, was sorting through the papers the prince had brought from the city. The old prince approached him and began to talk about business.
- The leader, Count Rostov, did not deliver half of the people. I came to the city, decided to invite him to dinner, - I gave him such a dinner... But look at this... Well, brother, - Prince Nikolai Andreich turned to his son, clapping Pierre on the shoulder, - well done, your friend, I loved him! Fires me up. The other one speaks smart things, but I don’t want to listen, but he lies and inflames me, an old man. Well, go, go,” he said, “maybe I’ll come and sit at your dinner.” I'll argue again. Love my fool, Princess Marya,” he shouted to Pierre from the door.
Pierre only now, on his visit to Bald Mountains, appreciated all the strength and charm of his friendship with Prince Andrei. This charm was expressed not so much in his relationships with himself, but in his relationships with all his relatives and friends. Pierre, with the old, stern prince and with the meek and timid Princess Marya, despite the fact that he hardly knew them, immediately felt like an old friend. They all already loved him. Not only Princess Marya, bribed by his meek attitude towards the strangers, looked at him with the most radiant gaze; but little, one-year-old Prince Nikolai, as his grandfather called him, smiled at Pierre and went into his arms. Mikhail Ivanovich, m lle Bourienne looked at him with joyful smiles as he talked with the old prince.
The old prince went out to dinner: this was obvious to Pierre. He was extremely kind to him both days of his stay in Bald Mountains, and told him to come to him.
When Pierre left and all the family members came together, they began to judge him, as always happens after the departure of a new person, and, as rarely happens, everyone said one good thing about him.

Returning this time from vacation, Rostov felt and learned for the first time how strong his connection was with Denisov and with the entire regiment.
When Rostov drove up to the regiment, he experienced a feeling similar to the one he experienced when approaching the Cook's House. When he saw the first hussar in the unbuttoned uniform of his regiment, when he recognized the red-haired Dementyev, he saw the hitching posts of red horses, when Lavrushka joyfully shouted to his master: “The Count has arrived!” and shaggy Denisov, who was sleeping on the bed, ran out of the dugout, hugged him, and the officers came to the newcomer - Rostov experienced the same feeling as when his mother, father and sisters hugged him, and the tears of joy that came to his throat prevented him from speaking . The regiment was also a home, and the home was invariably sweet and dear, just like the parental home.
Having appeared before the regimental commander, having been assigned to the previous squadron, having gone on duty and foraging, having entered into all the small interests of the regiment and feeling himself deprived of freedom and shackled into one narrow, unchanging frame, Rostov experienced the same calm, the same support and the same consciousness the fact that he was at home here, in his place, which he felt under his parents’ roof. There was not all this chaos of the free world, in which he did not find a place for himself and made mistakes in the elections; there was no Sonya with whom it was or was not necessary to explain things. There was no option to go there or not to go there; there were no 24 hours of the day that could be used in so many different ways; there was not this countless multitude of people, of whom no one was closer, no one was further; there were no these unclear and uncertain financial relations with his father, there was no reminder of the terrible loss to Dolokhov! Here in the regiment everything was clear and simple. The whole world was divided into two uneven sections. One is our Pavlograd regiment, and the other is everything else. And there was nothing else to worry about. Everything was known in the regiment: who was the lieutenant, who was the captain, who was a good person, who was a bad person, and most importantly, a comrade. The shopkeeper believes in debt, the salary is a third; there is nothing to invent or choose, just don’t do anything that is considered bad in the Pavlograd regiment; but if they send you, do what is clear and distinct, defined and ordered: and everything will be fine.
Having entered again into these certain conditions of regimental life, Rostov experienced joy and tranquility, similar to those that a tired person feels when he lies down to rest. This regimental life was all the more gratifying for Rostov during this campaign because, after losing to Dolokhov (an act for which he, despite all the consolations of his family, could not forgive himself), he decided to serve not as before, but in order to make amends, to serve well and to be a completely excellent comrade and officer, that is, a wonderful person, which seemed so difficult in the world, but so possible in the regiment.
Rostov, from the time of his loss, decided that he would pay this debt to his parents in five years. He was sent 10 thousand a year, but now he decided to take only two, and give the rest to his parents to pay off the debt.

Our army, after repeated retreats, offensives and battles at Pultusk, at Preussisch Eylau, concentrated near Bartenstein. They were awaiting the arrival of the sovereign to the army and the start of a new campaign.
The Pavlograd regiment, which was in that part of the army that was on the campaign in 1805, was recruited in Russia, and was late for the first actions of the campaign. He was neither near Pultusk nor near Preussisch Eylau, and in the second half of the campaign, having joined the active army, he was assigned to Platov’s detachment.
Platov's detachment acted independently of the army. Several times the Pavlograd residents were in units in skirmishes with the enemy, captured prisoners and once even recaptured the crews of Marshal Oudinot. In April, Pavlograd residents stood for several weeks near an empty German village that had been destroyed to the ground, without moving.
There was frost, mud, cold, the rivers were broken, the roads became impassable; For several days they did not provide food to either the horses or the people. Since delivery became impossible, people scattered across abandoned desert villages to look for potatoes, but they found little of that. Everything was eaten, and all the inhabitants fled; those who remained were worse than beggars, and there was nothing to take from them, and even little - compassionate soldiers often, instead of taking advantage of them, gave them their last.
The Pavlograd regiment lost only two wounded in action; but lost almost half of the people from hunger and disease. They died so surely in hospitals that soldiers, sick with fever and swelling resulting from bad food, preferred to serve, dragging their feet to the front rather than go to hospitals. With the opening of spring, the soldiers began to find a plant emerging from the ground, similar to asparagus, which they called for some reason Mashkin’s sweet root, and they scattered across the meadows and fields, looking for this Mashkin’s sweet root (which was very bitter), dug it up with sabers and ate it, despite to orders not to eat this harmful plant.
In the spring, a new disease appeared among the soldiers, swelling of the arms, legs and face, the cause of which doctors believed was the use of this root. But despite the ban, the Pavlograd soldiers of Denisov’s squadron ate mainly Mashka’s sweet root, because for the second week they were stretching out the last crackers, they were only given half a pound per person, and the potatoes in the last parcel were delivered frozen and sprouted. The horses had also been eating thatched roofs from houses for the second week; they were hideously thin and covered with tufts of matted winter hair.
Despite such a disaster, soldiers and officers lived exactly the same as always; in the same way now, although with pale and swollen faces and in tattered uniforms, the hussars lined up for calculations, went to the cleaning, cleaned horses, ammunition, dragged straw from the roofs instead of feed and went to dine at the boilers, from which the hungry got up, making fun of with your disgusting food and your hunger. Just as always, in their free time from service, the soldiers burned fires, steamed naked by the fires, smoked, selected and baked sprouted, rotten potatoes and told and listened to stories about either the Potemkin and Suvorov campaigns, or tales about Alyosha the scoundrel, and about the priest's farmhand Mikolka.