PHILOSOPHY- LECTURE 1- ALT

1. The subject, functions, and tasks of philosophy

LECTURE 1

2. DEFINITIONS

• Several alternative definitions of philosophy can be identified. 1) Philosophy
is the study of people, of what should be, of the ideal, of values or
meanings (Plato, Platonism, neo-Kantianism, Husserl). Philosophy isthe
study of all that exists, not just the spiritual realm (French materialists, Hegel,
Feuerbach). 2) Philosophy is the study of being as such, primarily human
being (ancient Indian and ancient Chinese schools of philosophy, medieval
philosophy,neo-Thomism, personalism, existentialism).
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3. DEFINITIONS

Philosophy is the study ofknowledge or morality, or happiness,
or man in general (Hume,Kant, positivism, ancient Greek and
ancient Chinese schools, Muslim philosophy, anthropological
philosophy). 3) Philosophy isa science or should be a science
(Aristotle, Descartes, Fichte, Hegel).
Philosophy is the science of the most general laws of
development of nature, society, and thought (Marxism,
dialectical materialism).
Philosophyis not a science, should not, and cannot be one
(irrationalism, intuitionism, existentialism, Karl Popper).
4) Philosophy is a specificworldview. Philosophy is not a
worldview, but a special intellectual activity associated with the
analysis of language, in particular, the languageof science and
culture (neopositivism, linguistic philosophy, structuralism,
hermeneutics).

4.

Philosophy emerged simultaneously in three cultures – ancient Chinese, ancient
Indian, and ancient Greek - in the 7th-6th centuries BC.The word "philosophy"
in Greek means "love of wisdom" ("phileo" -"love," "sophia" - "wisdom").
Even then, rationally posed philosophical questions were being raised about the
structure of the cosmos, society, human existence, good and evil, human
happiness, and so on. The main prerequisites for the emergence of philosophy
were the needs and abilities of society and the individual for a general, holistic,
and rational understanding of reality, the need to discover and establish general
principles of relationships between man and the world, man and man,
consciousness and self-awareness.
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5.

Philosophy was born from the human desire to comprehend the "ultimate"
foundations of the existence of things and processes, the unity and oppositions of
nature and society, the world and man. Philosophy is the highest form of conscious
human engagement with nature, society, culture, and oneself, replacing such limited
forms of worldview as myth, religion, science, or ideology. Philosophy is the full
expression of human free self-awareness; it is a reflective, theoretical
worldview.Philosophy is driven not simply by a love of knowledge, but by an
indomitable striving for truth as an adequate understanding of the world and meaning
as theidentification of the holistic significance of a thing, phenomenon, or any given
content in the system of existence. Philosophy is oriented toward a holisticknowledge
and understanding of the world.
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6.

What is Philosophy?
Philosophy is a set or system of theoretically understood
ideas about the essence and general laws of development
of nature, society, and human knowledge, and about the
place and potential of man in the world.
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7.

Since the dawn of culture, humans have possessed a worldview, i.e., a set of views on
the world-a certain awareness of one's place in the world, one's relationship to the
world, and the world's relationship to oneself. A worldview most fully expresses the
human need to understand reality, to interpret all phenomena based on a holistic
picture of the world. To clarify the understanding of philosophy as a worldview, it is
necessary to distinguish two levels of worldview. The first level is figurative,
representational, and symbolic. This includes mythology, religion, and non-religious
forms of cognition: ideological, artistic, and practical. The second level is conceptualcategorical, logical-rational, and reflexive. Philosophy is a worldview of the second,
mediated level. Philosophy is formed and functions through continuous interaction
with the worldview of the first level.
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8.

The subject of philosophy is connected with understanding the
world as a lawful, ordered, and valuable whole within a system of
categories and ideas, on the one hand, and with elucidating the
affordances of these categories and ideas in the fluid diversity of
reality itself, on the other.It was precisely with the identification of
universal categorical knowledge, the ability to "see rationally" ideas,
values, and meanings in reality itself, that philosophy acquired its
subject matter and status as an independent science.Speaking about the
structure of philosophy, it should be noted that philosophical
knowledge is hierarchical and complex in its composition. The
structure of philosophy is still debated.
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9.

The most widespread view is that it consists of three closely interconnected parts
(levels): ontology (the study of being), epistemology (the study of knowledge), and
axiology (the general theory of values).
Furthermore, there is a praxeological level, associated with the analysis of human
practical activity in mastering real existence, the objective world; anthropology-the
study of human nature, its origins, and the laws of its existence and development; and
social philosophy-the study of the laws, theories, and meanings of social life, i.e., a
comprehensive study of society. According to other approaches, the structure of
philosophy is divided into such sections as: philosophy of language, philosophy of
culture, philosophy of creativity, philosophy of scientific reason, philosophy of
religion, philosophy of science, philosophy of law, political philosophy, and others.
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10.

Based on the identified problems of philosophy, one can form an idea of the main functions of philosophy:the
ontological function – the formation of a holistic understanding of the world, of the universe and its structure
in the individual;the epistemological function – in the system of philosophy, the individual will find knowledge
about the sensory and logical, intuitive and heuristic exploration of the world, about the methods of cognition,
and about the criteria of true and false knowledge;the axiological function – the individual's value orientation in
a world with the historical opposition of culture and anti-culture,values and anti-values, good and evil, beauty
and ugliness;the social function – the development of civic consciousness,civic culture of the individual, their
ability to understand complex social processes (political, economic, legal,moral, environmental, etc.) for
adequate inclusion in the system of society with all its organizations, relationships, and functions;The
anthropological function is the development of a sense of self-worth, an understanding of one's potential
andways to realize it, the need for self-development, and the establishment of harmonious relationships within
the system of interpersonal contacts;The methodological function is the development of methods of cognition,
methods of theoretical and practical activity.
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11.

A cultural text is an expression of a deep semantic field of culture. The meaning of the text is always deeper than the
meaning that lies on the surface, than what is sensually indicated in the cultural text.
Back in the 19th century German logician H. Frege pointed out that one should distinguish between the concepts of
"meaning" and "meaning". The "meaning" of the word reflects the generally accepted designation of a particular
object or phenomenon, and the meaning - information, information about the object in question, a kind of
understanding of this object. With the help of a word, a sign, we designate its meaning and express its meaning.
The meaning is most often not rigidly determined by a word or sign, but can be given to a thing or phenomenon
depending on the cultural context, hereditary information, time of pronunciation or writing, subjective experience.
The French researcher F. Polan, who introduced the distinction between the meaning of a word and its meaning,
argued that the meaning is determined by the context in which a particular word is uttered. L. S. Vygotsky introduced
the concept of subtext into science, the author of which was K. S. Stanislavsky, who understood subtext as a
generator of the meaning of a word in the theater, as an indication of the motive of an act. According to L. S.
Vygotsky, it is from the subtext, and not from the context, that the meaning is derived.
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12.

The history of philosophy, as the history of major concepts, can be represented as a sequence of
eight main philosophicalmovements (within which numerous schools and currents exist).Materialism
(Democritus, Heraclitus, Bacon, Hobbes, Diderot, Feuerbach, Marx, Engels, Lenin) believes that the
material principle (nature, air, water, fire, atom, matter) is the foundation of the universe. Manis
derived from the lawful development of this material principle.He is the highest flower of matter,
possessing consciousness. Material principles, not spiritual ones, underlie everything. Being
determines consciousness. A person's way of life determines their way of thinking.Idealism (Plato,
Thomas Aquinas, Hume, Berkeley, Fichte, Kant,Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Soloviev,
Florensky) believes that the spiritual principle (God, idea, world will, spirit, representation) is the
foundation of the universe. Man is derived from the spiritual principle.
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13.

The materialworld is derived from the objective (God, the world spirit) or subjective (man)
spirit, consciousness, reason, and feeling. Consciousness determines existence. A person's
way of thinking determines their way of life.Dualism (Descartes, Ribot, Wundt, Lipps)
believes that the foundation of the universe consists of two principles: the spiritual and the
material, consciousness and matter. They exist simultaneously, in parallel, independently of
each other. The body is independent of the spirit, and the spirit is independent of the body;
the psyche is independent of the neural processes of the brain; the brain is not the substrate
of consciousness.Dialecticism (Plato, Heraclitus, Hegel, Marx) is a position that holds that
in the universe and in man, everything develops according to the laws of the interaction of
opposites, with a progressive movement toward the higher. Metaphysics (Holbach,
Feuerbach, Hobbes) – an approach to the world from the position that in the universe and
in man, either everything is static, stable, and constant (dogmatists) or everything is fluid,
everything is changeable, nothing is permanent, nothing is absolute (relativists).
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14.

Eclecticism (Bukharin, James) – a worldview that believes that in the universe and in man
there is both the constant and the changeable, both relative and absolute, so that nothing
definitive can be said about the state of an object.Agnosticism (Hume, Kant, Mach, etc.) –
a school of philosophy that denies the possibility of human cognition of the world,
questioning the possibility of adequately reflecting the world in human consciousness
(either the world is unknowable, or the world is unknowable in its causes, or the world is
unknowable in its essence).9Skepticism (Sextus Empiricus, Hume) denies the possibility of
a definitive answer to the question "is the world knowable?" because there are known and
unknown phenomena, enigmatic and mysterious phenomena, and "worldly mysteries."
Therefore, the world is both knowable and unknowable, the skeptic concludes, although
he doubts both.
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15.

Monism (Hegel, Plato, Marx, Feuerbach) is a philosophy that explains the universe and
man on the basis of a single principle: material or ideal; the entire system of philosophy
must be built on a common, unified foundation.
Pluralism (James, Dewey, Hook, Peirce, and others) asserts the need for a pluralistic
understanding of the world, taking into account the multiplicityof factors determining its
development, and therefore the multiplicityof points of view.
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16.

References:
Smirnov, S.V. Introduction to Philosophy: A Brief
Course of Lectures / S.V. Smirnov. – Elabuga:
Publishing House of the Kazan Federal University
Branch in Elabuga, 2013
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17.

Preparation of an analytical work (essay, abstract,
report) on the topic "The Role of Philosophy in the
Implementation of the Third Modernization of
Modern Kazakhstan."
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18.

For the seminar:
1.Culture of thinking. Artistic reflection.
2. Philosophy as a love of wisdom.
3. The dialogic nature of philosophy and its heuristic potential.
4. Philosophical thinking as criticism and doubt.
5. A critical attitude toward the past as a condition for spiritual modernization and change in the national
consciousness of modern Kazakhstan.
6. The personal nature of philosophical problems.
7. Philosophy and worldview.
8. Scientific, philosophical, and religious worldviews.
9. The relationship between mythology, religion, and philosophy.
10. The role of myths in social development. Philosophy as a special type of knowledge and a special type
of spiritual activity.
11. The ambiguity of definitions, forms, and directions of philosophy and the diversity of methods of
philosophizing. Philosophy and Falsafa.Philosophy and the philosopher in the life of man and society.
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