Western philosophy of the XX century significantly differs from the philosophy of the previous centuries. The main and most common difference is due to the fact that at the turn of XIX and XX centuries, there was a transition from traditional classical to non-classical philosophy. This transition was largely due to the fact that in this period, the whole of Western culture underwent profound changes, in particular in science.
A new, non-classical science, which significantly differs from the classical one, started in the late nineteenth century as the result the second scientific revolution. It still has no claims to complete objectivity and adequacy of knowledge. The notion of truth gives way to the notion of validity (soundness), which relies on internal, formal logical criterion. A similar fate is shared by such concepts of classical science, as causality and determinism, giving way to the probability and indeterminism. Theories and models, built in mathematical way by cognitive scientists, become increasingly important in the understanding. To paraphrase the famous dictum of Pythagoras, we can say that the whole world boils down to the number. The main methodological principles in science are the principles of relativism and pluralism.
Philosophy of life
Philosophy of life is a direction, considering all things as a form of manifestation of life, of some original reality, which is not identical to nor spirit, nor matter, and can be comprehended only intuitively. The most significant representatives of the philosophy of life were Friedrich Nietzsche (1844— 1900), Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), Henri Bergson (1859— 1941), Simmel (1858-1918), Oswald Spengler (1880— 1936), Klages Ludwig (1872-1956).
The thinkers of the most different orientation belong to this direction — as in actual-theoretical and, especially, in philosophical attitude.
Philosophy of life appeared in 60-70-ies of the XIX century. It reached the greatest influence in the first quarter of the twentieth century; subsequently, its value decreased, but the number of principles were borrowed from such areas as existentialism, personalism, etc. In some respects, such areas as, firstly, neohegelianism with his desire to create a science of spirit as a living and creativity, as opposed to the natural Sciences (W. Dilthey can be called and a representative of neohegelianism); secondly, pragmatism with its understanding of truth as usefulness for life; thirdly, phenomenology with its requirement of direct contemplation of the phenomena (phenomena) as wholes, as distinct from the mediate thinking, constructing the whole from its parts, were close to the philosophy of life.
Ideological forerunners of philosophy of life are primarily German romanticists, with which many representatives of this direction bias in terms of anti-bourgeois, the longing for a strong, unsplit personality, the desire for unity with nature. Like romanticism, philosophy of life starts from a mechanistic-rational worldview and tends to be organic. This is reflected not only in its requirement to directly contemplate the oneness of the body (here the model for all German philosophers of life is the I. V. Goethe), but in the desire to "return to nature" as organic to the universe that gives rise to the tendency to pantheism. Finally, in keeping with the philosophy of life, historical interest in the study of such "living wholes," as myth, religion, art, language is reborn in typical — especially for school of Jena romanticism and romantic Philology, with its doctrine of the hermeneutic.
The main concept of philosophy of life — "life" - vague and ambiguous; depending on its interpretation, it is possible to distinguish between options. Life is understood and biologically — as a living organism, and psychologically — as a stream of experiences, and culturally-historically — as a "living spirit", and metaphysically — as the original beginning of all creation. Although, each representative of this direction has the concept of life used in almost all of these values, however, predominant are, as a rule, biological, or psychological, or cultural-historical interpretations of life.
Biologically naturalistic understanding of life is most clearly advocated by F. Nietzsche. It appears here as the genesis of a living organism in contrast to the mechanism as "natural" as opposed to "artificial", as opposed to the original designed and original in contrast to derivative. In addition to Nietzsche, this course is presented by such names as the L. Klages, T. Lessing, L. Bolc anatomist, geologist and paleographer E. Dake, ethnologist L. Frobenius, etc., characterized by irrationalism, in sharp opposition to the spirit and the mind: the rational being is considered here as a special kind of disease, peculiar to the human race; many representatives of this current is distinguished by a tendency to primitivism and the cult of force. These thinkers are not alien to the positivist-naturalistic desire to reduce every idea to "interests", "the instincts" of an individual or community group. Good and evil, true and false are declared "beautiful illusions"; in the pragmatic spirit of kindness, and truth is what enhances life, and evil and lies — is what weakens it. For this option, a philosophy of life is characterized by the substitution of the personal individual and the individual is born (totality).
Another option of philosophy of life is associated with cosmological-metaphysical interpretation of the concept of "life"; the most prominent philosopher is Henri Bergson. He understands life as cosmic energy, the vital force as "vital impulse" (élan vital), the essence of which consists in the continuous reproduction of itself, and the creativity of new forms; a biological life form is recognized as only one of the manifestations of life along with the soul-spiritual powers. Life actually relates to the psychological order, and the psychic entity - cover of troubles of the plurality of mutually penetrating each other members. But what belongs to the psychological nature, cannot accurately be applied to the space, nor enter perfectly into the framework of the mind .The substance of mental life is, according to Bergson, time as pure duration (duree), fluidity, changeability, it cannot be known by conceptual, rational by design, and is achieved directly — intuitively. Genuine, i.e. life, time, Bergson considers not as a mere sequence of moments, like the sequence of points on a spatial interval, and as interpenetration of all elements of duration, their internal coherence, non-physical, spatial radiologist. The concept of Bergson's metaphysical interpretation of life is connected with its psychological interpretation: it is imbued with the psychology and ontology (theory of being) and epistemology of the French philosopher.
Existentialism
Existentialism (from exsistentia — existence), or philosophy of existence, is a philosophical trend of the twentieth century, whose ideas were widespread in many European countries and in the United States. Its founders in the West are considered German philosophers Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980), Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973), as well as Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) and Albert Camus (1913-1960).
Existentialism is not an academic doctrine, its main themes — human existence, the fate of the personality, belief and disbelief, loss and finding meaning in life, similar to any artist, writer, poet. This has made this trend popular among the artistic intelligentsia, and led the existentialists to refer to the language of art (J. P. Sartre, A. Camus, G. Marcel). There is the religious (K. Jaspers, G. Marcel, M. Buber) and atheistic existentialism (M. Heidegger, J. P. Sartre, A. Camus, M. Merleau-Ponty, S. de Beauvoir). However, the definition of "atheist" in relation to existentialism is somewhat arbitrarily, as the recognition that God is dead, is accompanied by his supporters’ statement of the impossibility and the absurdity of life without God. Their predecessors, the existentialists are B. Pascal, S. Kierkegaard, M. Unamuno, F. M. Dostoevsky, and F. Nietzsche. Philosophy of life and phenomenology of E. Husserl have provided a prevailing influence of existentialism
Unlike methodologism and gnosiologism, common in the philosophy of the late XIX — early XX century, existentialism is trying to revive ontology (theory of being). The desire to understand being as something immediate and to overcome intellectualism as a traditional rationalist philosophy and science is common with the philosophy of life. Genesis, according to existentialism, is neither empirical reality given to us in external perception nor rational design, offer scientific thinking, nor the world of "intelligible entities", the knowledge of which was the task of classical rationalism; in all these cases there was a distinction and even opposition of subject to object. Genesis should be grasped only intuitively, as a kind of initial immediate, undifferentiated integrity of subject and object. But unlike the philosophy of life, contributing as original and genuine existence itself is an experience, existentialism seeks to overcome psychologism and find the core of immediate experience, which cannot be called just an experience, i.e. something subjective. As such, the kernel of existentialism puts forward the experience of the subject of its "being-in-the-world". Genesis here is given directly in the form of our own existence. To describe its structure, many representatives of existentialism resort to a phenomenological approach of Husserl, highlighting as patterns of consciousness, his focus on the other (intentionality). Unlike that, philosophy of life called "life" experience, which is closed in itself, existence is open, it is aimed at the other, which becomes its center of attraction. According to the atheistic version of existentialism, existence is being, directed to nothing and is aware of his finiteness. Therefore, the description of the structure of existence, taken by Heidegger, is a description of a number of modes (properties) of human existence. Such modes of existence as care, fear, determination, conscience, etc., are defined through death, they are different ways of touching nothing, moving towards it, running away from it, etc. According to Jaspers, it is in border situations (in the times of deepest turmoil, in the face of death) the person begins to see existence as the deepest root of his being.
Now, the essential definition of our being, called existence, is its nonclosure, openness, a prerequisite of which is the finality of existence, its mortality. In its finality, existence is temporal and its temporality differs from objective time as pure quantity, indifferent in relation to the filling its contents. Existentialists distinguish genuine, i.e. existential temporality (historicity) from physical time, which is derived from it. They emphasize in the phenomenon of time is of decisive importance for the future and consider it in connection with such existentials (modes of existence) as a commitment, project, hope, noting the personal-historical (rather than the impersonal-cosmic) nature of time and claiming its link with human activity, looking, tension, expectation. The historicity of human existence is expressed, according to existentialism, in that it always finds itself in a particular situation in which it was "abandoned" and forced to be reckoned with. Belonging to particular people, class that individuals have of particular biological, psychological and other qualities all of this is an empirical expression originally situational nature of existence, that it is "being-in-the-world". Temporality, historicity and "situational" existence are the modes of its limbs.
Another important definition of existence is transcending, i.e. going beyond your limits. The transcendent and the mere act of transcending refers to various representatives of existentialism uneven. From the point of view of religious existentialism transcendental is God. According to Camus and Sartre, transcendence is nothing acting as a great mystery of existence. If Jaspers, Marcel, Heidegger in recognizing the reality of the transcendent, the predominant point of symbolic and even mythological and poetic (in Heidegger), because the transcendental is impossible to rationally cognize, and can only "hint" at it, the teachings of Sartre and Camus, aiming to show the illusory nature of transcendence, is in this respect critical and even nihilistic in nature.
The social meaning of the doctrine of existence and transcendence is revealed in the existentialist concepts of identity and freedom. A person, according to existentialism, a goal, a team – based tool, providing the possibility of material existence of its constituent individuals. Society is intended to ensure the possibility of free spiritual development of each individual, ensuring her legal right protecting the individual from encroachments on her freedom. But the role of society remains essentially negative: the freedom that it can provide to the individual, that "freedom from" – freedom of economic, political, etc. Genuine freedom, "freedom for", begins on the other side of the social sphere, in the world of the spiritual life of the individual, where individuals face not as producers of wealth and not as subjects of legal relations, and as existence. While the company only limits a person. Hence the center of gravity moves from kin, community to a single person. The latter, however, is important not in itself, but only as a "transcendental even not". In this regard, introduced the distinction between individuality and personality. Existentialism extracts in man as if several layers: natural (biological-physiological and psychological), studied natural Sciences and making it a natural, empirical individuality; social , exploring sociology; spiritual, which is the subject of the study of history, philosophy, art, etc., and finally existential, which does not yield to scientific knowledge and can only be lit or "clarified" philosophy.
THE RELATION OF EXISTENTIALISM TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
The apparent source position of existential philosophy: handicap (die Unzulanglichkeit) thinking in the face of the contradictions of reality and its alignment with the problems that come from their own thinking of being. However, using this definition, the point of view of existential philosophy would be characterized by very poor way, at the same time exactly the same wording could be made and applied to more than a new philosophy of life. And philosophy of life is trying fundamentally the same way to understand the thinking based on its outcome for life, while emphasizing the lack of any conceptual comprehension before the fact of its inexhaustibility.
In fact, up to this point, a philosophy of life and philosophy of existence coincide exactly. In their original form, they must be understood as movements that begin the same way. That's why, previous definitions of the characteristics of life and living could be changed in between places. Only on the grounds of the original community then appears a characteristic difference. It is how they are interpreted in the human being and how it is reflected in their inherent fundamental concepts of life and existence. If the notion of life (der Lebensbegriff) the importance to the wealth of informative definitions, if it emphasizes the moment of the current and ongoing change of the image and this is attached at the same time feeling the support of all the individual lives inclusive of the total life (in extreme pantheistic origins is due to any other philosophy of life), in the case of the notion of the existence of such substantive definitions fall away, and there is only one "naked" "that" existence, and with which all of its statements are associated.
Appropriate sharpening against lifephilosophical point of view is also manifested in the accentuation of lameness thinking. Philosophy of life, first of all, believed that thinking with its universal concepts is a crude tool for an exhaustive comprehension of reality in the fullness of its individual-specific definitions, and it is constantly in live motion. In such lifephilosophical irrationalism it is still expected that thinking would be consistent with reality at least close. Existential philosophy, on the contrary, reveals the flawed thinking in a very radical sense: any attempt to clarify the thinking is reduced to insoluble contradictions, by which thinking is held constant, but futile motion. "Paradox" means hopeless insolubility of the contradictions, to whom thinking is doomed to failure and from which it cannot decline, as they are directly related to the decisive issues of our own existence that thinking.
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