SUMMARIES OFTHE LECTURES

THEME 1. Introduction to Philosophy. Philosophy as phenomenon of culture. Its subject and functions. Philosophy in cultural – historical context.

Philosophy began in the 6th Century B.C. in ancient Greece, when, instead of using mythological explanations, religious dogma, or social custom to answer life's questions, a small group of men began seeking a rational and predominantly naturalistic way of understanding the world. These first "scientists" were called the natural philosophers because they were primarily interested in the workings of the material world.

Philosophy is the form of human spiritual activity. It is based on special metaphysical type of thinking. The subject of philosophy is a sphere of spiritual human activity which involves reflection about aims, meaning, sense and essence of personality taken as subject of culture. The main peculiarity of this subject is study relationship between personality and society or objective reality.

The philosophy differs from mythology very much. Mythology involves the belief to the God, explanation of our reality’s by the God’s will. It involves the discovering whether moral values are eternal truth that exist in a spirit – like realm, or simply conventions. It tries to explain that moral principles have an objective foundation. Religion or mythology consist of notions of an all – powerful God is in control of everything. According to religion, God simply wills things, and they become reality. He wills the physical world into existence he wills humane life into existence and, similarly, he wills all moral values into existence. God informs humans of these command by implanting us with moral intuitions or revealing these commands in scripture.

Philosophy denies ideas of religion, and spiritual status of reality. The main function of philosophy is to preserve spiritual values and to form scientific worldview (philosophy). It teaches personality how to live by the rules of mind or intelligence, but not by heart or intuition. The subject discovers essence of human being (or life) and destination of the human. The fundamental question of philosophy is connected with two schools: idealism and materialism. Idealist philosophers claim that origins of our world is an idea (God, God’s mind, universal intelligence, universal reason or absolute spirit). By the materialism - our reality is made of material staff or matter itself.

The fundamental question of the human is essence of his life. Philosophy learns humans to find themselves and interpret or find the sense of his own life. One of the destinations of philosophy is education. It tries to solve all human problem, and that why philosophy generalize or summarize all scientific achievements of different sciences and makes up common notion (representation) of the world.

Philosophy is humanitarian discipline, it learns students to develop their thinking and speech. We can also call this subject as art of thinking or art of true (correct) living.

Philosophy is a form of culture. As we know culture is spiritual and material values of the humanity, or kind of self – consciousness. So philosophy is self – consciousness of the human (personality) and humanity. In comparison with religion, philosophy uses scientifical methods of cognition. Among them: experiment, theory, analogy, analysis, synthesis.

OBLIGATORY READING MATERIALS: 1(p-25-45)

ADITIONAL READING MATERIALS: 11(p-34-55)

QUESTIONS:

1. Philosophy as a form of culture.

2. The content of materialistic and idealistic philosophical traditions.

THEME 2. The Ancient Philosophy of East. Phenomenon of philosophy in Eastern philosophy.

The following is an overview of the Eastern philosophic traditions. Each tradition has a separate article with more detail on sects, schools, etc. (c.f.)

Hinduism is generally considered to be the oldest major world religion still practised today and first among Dharma faiths. Hinduism is characterized by a diverse array of belief systems, practices and scriptures. It has its origin in ancient Vedic culture at least as far back as 3000 BC. It is the third largest religion with approximately 1.05 billion followers worldwide, 96% of whom live in the Indian subcontinent.

Hinduism rests on the spiritual bedrock of the Vedas, hence Veda Dharma, and their mystic issue, the Upanishads, as well as the teachings of many great Hindu gurus through the ages. Many streams of thought flow from the six Vedic/Hindu schools, Bhakti sects and Tantra Agamic schools into the one ocean of Hinduism, the first of the Dharma religions.

What can be said to be common to all Hindus is belief in Dharma, reincarnation, karma, and moksha (liberation) of every soul through a variety of moral, action-based, and meditative yogas. Still more fundamental principles include ahimsa (non-violence), the primacy of the Guru, the Divine Word of Aum and the power of mantras, love of Truth in many manifestations as gods and goddessess, and an understanding that the essential spark of the Divine (Atman/Brahman) is in every human and living being, thus allowing for many spiritual paths leading to the One Unitary Truth.

Confucianism

Confucianism developed around the teachings of Confucius and is based on a set of Chinese classic texts. It was the mainstream ideology in China and the sinosphere since the Han dynasty and may still be a major founder element in Far-East culture. It could be understood as a social ethic and humanist system focusing on human beings and their relationships. Confucianism emphasizes formal rituals in every aspect of life, from quasi-religious ceremonies to strict politeness and deference to one's elders, specifically to one's parents and to the state in the form of the Emperor.

Taoism

Taoism, whose essence is centered around letting things take their natural course, is the traditional foil of Confucianism. Taoism's central books are the Tao Te Ching, traditionally attributed to Lao Zi (Lao tse), and the Zhuang Zi (Chuang Tse). The core concepts of Taoism are traced far in Chinese History, incorporating elements of mysticism dating back to prehistoric times, linked also with the Book of Changes (I Ching), a divinatory set of 64 geometrical figures describing states and evolutions of the world. Taoism emphasizes Nature, individual freedom, refusal of social bounds, and was a doctrine professed by those who "retreated in mountains". At the end of their lives --or during the night, Confucian officers often behaved as Taoists, writing poetry or trying to "reach immortality". Yet Taoism is also a government doctrine where the ruler's might is ruling through "non-action" (Wuwei).

Legalism

Legalism advocated a strict interpretation of the law in every respect. Morality was not important; adherence to the letter of the law was paramount. Officials who exceeded expectations were as liable for punishment as were those who underperformed their duties, since both were not adhering exactly to their duties. Legalism was the principal philosophic basis of the Qin Dynasty in China. Confucian scholars were persecuted under Legalist rule.

Buddhism

Buddhism is a system of beliefs based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, an Indian prince later known as the Buddha, or one who is Awake - derived from the Sanskrit 'bud', 'to awaken'. Buddhism is a non-theistic religion, one whose tenets are not especially concerned with the existence or nonexistence of a God or gods. The Buddha himself expressly disavowed any special divine status or inspiration, and said that anyone, anywhere could achieve all the insight that he had. The question of God is largely irrelevant in Buddhism, though some sects (notably Tibetan Buddhism) do venerate a number of gods drawn in from local indigenous belief systems.

The Buddhist soteriology is summed up in the Four Noble Truths:

Dukkha: All worldly life is unsatisfactory, disjointed, containing suffering.

Samudaya: There is a cause of suffering, which is attachment or desire (tanha) rooted in ignorance.

Nirodha: There is an end of suffering, which is Nirvana.

Marga: There is a path that leads out of suffering, known as the Noble Eightfold Path.

However, Buddhist philosophy as such has its foundations more in the doctrines of anatta, which specifies that all is without substantial metaphysical being, pratitya-samutpada, which delineates the Buddhist concept of causality, and Buddhist phenomenological analysis of dharmas, or phenomenological constituents.

Most Buddhist sects believe in karma, a cause-and-effect relationship between all that has been done and all that will be done. Events that occur are held to be the direct result of previous events. One effect of karma is rebirth. At death, the karma from a given life determines the nature of the next life's existence. The ultimate goal of a Buddhist practitioner is to eliminate karma (both good and bad), end the cycle of rebirth and suffering, and attain Nirvana, translated as nothingness or blissful oblivion and characterized as the state of being one with the entire universe.

Zen Buddhism

Zen is a fusion of Mahayana Buddhism with Taoist principles. Bodhidharma was a semilegendary Indian monk who traveled to China in the 5th century. There, at the Shaolin temple, he began the Ch'an school of Buddhism, known in Japan and in the West as Zen Buddhism. Zen philosophy places emphasis on existing in the moment, right now. Zen teaches that the entire universe is one's mind, and if one cannot realize enlightenment in one's own mind now, one cannot ever achieve enlightenment.

Zen practitioners engage in zazen (just sitting) meditation. Several schools of Zen have developed various other techniques for provoking satori, or enlightenment, ranging from whacking acolytes with a stick to shock them into the present moment to koans, Zen riddles designed to force the student to abandon futile attempts to understand the nature of the universe through logic. Entheogens are also used in some Zen sects, especially in the West.

Jainism

Jainism was founded by Mahavira, a teacher and religious leader who lived around the same time as the Buddha. The word Jaina comes from the title Jina, or victorious one, referring to those who have achieved victory over their own passions. Jainism teaches asceticism - acts of self-discipline, self-deprivation, and self-denial - as the way to enlightenment. The original Jains were among the world' first monks, retreating from ordinary life to devote themselves to fasting and meditation. Some Jaina communities still exist today.

Shinto

Shinto is the indigenous religion of Japan, a sophisticated form of animism that holds that spirits called kami inhabit all things. Worship is at public shrines, or in small shrines constructed in one's home.

The perception of God and the gods

Because of the influence of monotheism and especially the Abrahamic religions, Western philosophies have been faced with the question of the nature of God and His relationship to the universe. This has created a dichotomy among Western philosophies between secular philosophies and religious philosophies which develop within the context of a particular monotheistic religion's dogma regarding the nature of God and the universe.

Eastern philosophies have not been as concerned by questions relating to the nature of a single God as the universe's sole creator and ruler. The distinction between the religious and the secular tends to be much less sharp in Eastern philosophy, and the same philosophical school often contains both religious and philosophical elements. Thus, some people accept the metaphysical tenets of Buddhism without going to a temple and worshipping. Some have worshipped the Taoist deities religiously without bothering to delve into the philosophic underpinnings, while others embrace Taoist philosophy while ignoring the religious aspects.

This arrangement stands in marked contrast to most philosophy of the West, which has traditionally enforced either a completely unified philosophic/religious belief system (e.g. the various sects and associated philosophies of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), or a sharp and total repudiation of religion by philosophy (e.g. Nietzsche, Marx, Voltaire, etc.).

OBLIGATORY READING MATERIALS: 1(p - 45-46)

ADITIONAL READING MATERIALS: Internet

QUESTIONS:

1. Teachings of many great Hindu gurus through the ages.

2. Spiritual bedrock od Taotezen. Book of Changes.

THEME 3. The Ancient West Philosophy. Philosophy within the culture of Antiquity.

Classical (or "early") Greek philosophy focused on the role of reason and inquiry. In many ways it paved the way both to modern science and to modern philosophy. Clear unbroken lines of influence lead from early Greek philosophers, through early Muslim philosophy to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the secular sciences of the modern day.

Pre-Socratic Philosophers

The history of philosophy in the West begins with the Greeks, and particularly with a group of philosophers commonly called the pre-Socratics. This is not to deny the occurrence of other pre-philosophical rumblings in Egyptian and Babylonian cultures. Certainly great thinkers and writers existed in each of these cultures, and we have evidence that some of the earliest Greek philosophers may have had contact with at least some of the products of Egyptian and Babylonian thought. However, the early Greek thinkers add at least one element which differentiates their thought from all those who came before them. For the first time in history, we discover in their writings something more than dogmatic assertions about the ordering of the world -- we find reasoned arguments for various beliefs about the world.

As it turns out, nearly all of the various cosmologies proposed by the early Greek philosophers are profoundly and demonstrably false, but this does not diminish their importance. For even if later philosophers summarily rejected the answers they provided, they could not escape their questions:

What is life?

From where does everything come?

Of what does it really consist?

How do we explain the plurality of things found in nature?

And why can we describe them with a singular mathematics?

And the method the Greek philosophers followed in forming and transmitting their answers became just as important as the questions they asked. The pre-Socratic philosophers rejected traditional mythological explanations for the phenomena they saw around them in favor of more rational explanations. In other words they depended on reason and observation to illuminate the true nature of the world around them, and they used rational argument to advance their views to others. And though philosophers have argued at length about the relative weights that reason and observation should have, for two and a half millennia they have basically united in the use of the very method first used by the pre-Socratics.

Difficulties often arise in pinning down the ideas of the Pre-Socratic philosophers, and in determining the actual line of argument they used in supporting their particular views. This problem arises not from some defect in the men themselves or in their ideas, but simply from their separation from us in history. While most of these men produced significant texts, we have no complete versions of any of those texts. We have only quotations by later philosophers and historians, along with the occasional textual fragment.

Thales

Anaximander

Pythagoras

Heraclitus of Ephesus Heraclitus is an excellent example of the Pre-Socratic philosopher. All of his existing fragments can be written in 45 small pages as poetry. (Brooks Haxton, a poet, has provided a very interesting translation of all of the fragments of Heraclitus titled "Fragments, the Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus.") Although he wrote twenty-five hundred years ago and very little of his work still exists, it is very appealing. Some of his lines remain among our common sayings today. For example, "You can never step into the same river twice" Brooks translates the original as follows:

The river where you set your foot just now is gone- those waters giving way to this, now this.

Heraclitus had a unique view of reality. For him change was the most important fact about the world, as the lines quoted illustrate. Brooks in his Introduction and brief Notes points out that it is very difficult to translate such ancient writing into contemporary English. The changes in the culture, the figures of speech, the chasm between the background of the contemporary reader and that of a Greek of twenty-five hundred years ago as relates to our understanding of the world, and so forth, makes literal translation pointless and freer translation subject to question. It is a point to keep in mind when considering any of these Pre-Socratics. Heraclitus also illustrates the point that these early philosophers do have important things to tell us about the world.

Xenophanes

Parmenides and the other Eleatic philosophers

Leucippus, Democritus and the other Atomists

Protagoras and the Sophists

Empedocles

Socrates

The philosopher Socrates (470 B.C. - 399 B.C.) of Athens

Socrates, an Athenian philosopher, became one of the most important icons of the Western philosophical tradition. He made his most important contribution to Western thought through his method of enquiry. In addition, he also taught many famous Greek philosophers. His most famous pupil was Plato. However, since Socrates discussed ideas that upset many people (some in high positions), he was sentenced to death by drinking the poison hemlock. Most of what we know about Socrates came from Plato as Socrates wrote nothing down..

Plato and Aristotle

Aristotle, known as Aristoteles in most languages other than English (Aristotele in Italian), (384 BC - March 7, 322 BC) has, along with Plato, the reputation of one of the two most influential philosophers in Western thought.

Their works, although connected in many fundamental ways, differ considerably in both style and substance. Plato wrote several dozen philosophical dialogues—arguments in the form of conversations, usually with Socrates as a participant—and a few letters. Though the early dialogues deal mainly with methods of acquiring knowledge, and most of the last ones with justice and practical ethics, his most famous works expressed a synoptic view of ethics, metaphysics, reason, knowledge, and human life. Predominant ideas include the notion that knowledge gained through the senses always remains confused and impure, and that the contemplative soul that turns away from the world can acquire "true" knowledge. The soul alone can have knowledge of the Forms, the real essences of things, of which the world we see is but an imperfect copy. Such knowledge has ethical as well as scientific import. One can view Plato, with qualification, as an idealist and a rationalist.

Aristotle was one of Plato's students, but placed much more value on knowledge gained from the senses, and would correspondingly better earn the modern label of empiricist. Thus Aristotle set the stage for what would eventually develop into the scientific method centuries later. The works of Aristotle that still exist today appear in treatise form, mostly unpublished by their author. The most important include Physics, Metaphysics, (Nicomachean) Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul), Poetics, and many others. See the article on Aristotle for more discussion.

OBLIGATORY READING MATERIALS: 1 (p – 57-76), 4 (p-55-456)

ADITIONAL READING MATERIALS: 9 (p – 23-56)

QUESTIONS:

Philosophy and science in Aincent Greece.

The philosophical system of Socrates.

The logical system of Aristotel

..

THEME 4. The Medieval Philosophy. Philosophy in Medieval culture. Arabic – Moslem philosophy within the context of Islam Medieval philosophy.

Medieval philosophy is the philosophy of Western Europe in the era now known as medieval or the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance. Though medieval philosophy is widely varied, one defining feature which distinguishes this period, in the western world, is the degree to which competing or contradictory philosophical views and systems were brought into dialogue with each other.

From the Neoplatonic (Johannes Scotus Eriugena, Saint Anselm) figures who dominated the early middle ages, to the Peripatetic debates of the 12th and 13th century, to the Nominalist and Voluntarist conflicts of the 14th and 15th, it is hard to find a similar period in the history of recorded thought so populated with figures who believed their ideas could be reconciled, given enough debate and inquiry. In fact, this belief is the very essence of the philosophical mode of inquiry most closely associated with the medieval period, scholastic philosophy.In the beginning of early rationalism, the concept of Plato, with his emphasis on spirituality, a pessimistic outlook of the world, and even the concept of the trinity, influenced Augustine and other early neoplatonist figures. It is important not to exaggerate either the ignorance of medieval philosophy or its sophistication. Many medieval thinkers greatly influenced future philosophers and rationalists who attempted to prove God's existence. It is popularly believed that faith overpowered reason in significance, as philosophers such as Anselm maintained. Nevertheless, it was not the case with all philosophers. Gilson, in his book "Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages" discusses Averroes and the Latins such as Seiger who maintained what Gilson called the primacy of reason. Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas emphacized the role of philosophy and theology while taking care not to confuse the two. John Wipple illustrates the purely philosophical thought of St. Thomas Aquinas in his book "Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas" and other works. Theology, though a leading field in the middle ages, was preceded by a study of "arts" or philosophy. With the contribution of Boethius, and the first Scholastic philosophers, key Aristotle works and ideas survived though most translations were complied later in Moorish Spain. Within Medival philosophy, the question of whether God could be comprehended by the human mind, was a key discussion and is still a large contrast between Orthodox and Catholic theology. St. Anselm produced ideas with a significant amount of influence by Aristotle and stated all things that exist can be comprehended. A recommended book discussing Scholasticism and the discovery Aristotle's ideas is Aristotle's Children

OBLIGATORY READING MATERIALS: 4 (p – 45-125)

ADITIONAL READING MATERIALS: 5(p – 23-45)

QUESTIONS:

God within Medival philosophy, and through the dialog between.

Orthodox and Catholic theology.

THEME 5. Philosophy of Renaissance period. Philosophy of Renaissance culture and Reformation.

Renaissance means ‘rebirth’ or ‘recovery’, has its origins in Italy and is associated with the rebirth of antiquity or Greco-Roman civilization. The age of the Renaissance is believed to elapse over a period of about two centuries, approximately from 1350 to 1550. Above all, the Renaissance was a recovery from the Middle Ages and all the disasters associated with it: the Black Death, economic, political and social crises. For the intellectuals, it was a period of recovery from the “Dark Ages”; a period, which was called so due to its lack of classical culture.

First Italian and then intellectuals of the rest of Europe became increasingly interested in the Greco-Roman culture of the ancient Mediterranean world. This interest was fostered especially by the migration of the Greek intellectuals during the Middle Ages and the fact that the ancient Greek works could then be translated more precisely into Latin. Increasing popularity of archeology and discovery of ancient Roman and Greek constructions also participated in this intense interest for the classical culture.

But the Renaissance was not exclusively associated with the revival of classical antiquity. It is believed that precisely from the fifteenth century great changes took place affecting public and social spheres of Europe and then the rest of the world; the basis of the modern European civilization and capitalist system were then founded. Technological innovations increased the rates of economic development. Great geographical discoveries opened up the boarders of the Western world, thus accelerating the formation of national, European and world markets. Major changes in art, music, literature and religion wrecked the system of medieval values.

The Renaissance saw the emergence and growth of humanism. Humanism was a form of education and culture based on the study of classics. Being primarily an educational form, it included the study of such liberal arts subjects as grammar, rhetoric, poetry, ethics and history that were based on the examinations of classical authors. Humanists occupied mainly secular positions such as teachers of humanities in secondary schools or professors of rhetoric in universities; they were mostly laymen rather than members of clergy. Education was central to the humanist movement since humanists believed that education could change immensely the human beings. Humanists wrote books on education and developed secondary schools based on their ideas. Their schools though, were principally reserved for the wealthy elite; children from the lower social classes as well as females were largely absent from them. In Renaissance philosophy a change was expressed through an assimilation of Platonic philosophy into Christianity by means of translation and interpretation. This led to the emergence of a new form of philosophy known as Neoplatonism. Renaissance humanists saw a human occupying central position in the great chain of being between the lowest form of physical matter (plants) and the purest spirit (God). A human being was the link between the material world (through the body) and the spiritual world (through the soul). M. Ficino (1433-1499) was one of the most important humanists that contributed to the emergence of the Neoplatonism. Concerning religion, Renaissance philosophers were not rejecting Christianity, they mostly believed in God and were only against the policies and practices of the Catholic Church at that period.

OBLIGATORY READING MATERIALS: 4 (p – 45-125)

ADITIONAL READING MATERIALS: 5(p – 23-45)

QUESTIONS:

Education as a centre within humanist movement.

The emergence of a new form of philosophy known as Neoplatonism

THEME 6. Enlightenment philosophy. Western European philosophy of “New time”. Philosophy of Enlightenment period

. Although present throughout Europe, the origins of the Enlightenment are closely associated with France and its philosophers such as Voltaire, Rousseau and others. The Enlightenment has been fostered by the remarkable discoveries of the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. It was during this period that the ideas of the Scientific Revolution were spread and popularized by the philosophers (intellectuals of the 18^th century).

Reason – was the word used the most frequently during the Enlightenment; it meant a scientific method, which appealed to facts and experiences. It was the age of the reexamination of all aspects of life, a movement of the intellectuals “who dared to know” and who were arguing for the application of the scientific methods to the understanding of all life. For these intellectuals it was also a recovery from the ‘darkness’ since all that could not be tested and proved by the rational and scientific methods of thinking was darkness. Blind trust and acceptance was darkness, while reason, knowledge and examination – was the ‘light’ that would lead to a progress and better society.

The Enlightenment philosophers such as Voltaire (1694-1778) or Diderot (1713-1784) went beyond Renaissance philosophers. They severely criticized traditional religion and actively called for religious toleration. Moreover, the Enlightenment philosophers, Voltaire in particular, championed, among other things, deism. Deism was based upon Newtonian world-machine, which implied the existence of a mechanic (God) who had created the universe, but did not have direct involvement in it and allowed it to run according to its own natural laws. These philosophers believed that God did not extend grace or respond prayers. Diderot, who advocated similar ideas, made a great contribution to the Enlightenment with creation of the famous Encyclopedia (Classified Dictionary of Science, Arts and Trades), which included works and ideas of many philosophers. Thanks to the Renaissance printing and the reductions in the Encyclopedia price, Enlightenment ideas became available to general literate public of the century.

In the Enlightenment art, the similarity with the Renaissance was that the Baroque style largely used in Renaissance continued into the eighteenth century. Also, Neoclassicism persisted to have a wide support. Neoclassicism was the revival of the classical style of ancient Greece and Rome. Nonetheless, by 1730s, a new style known as Rococo (a French innovation) began to gain great popularity. Unlike the Baroque, which accentuated majesty and power through the use of grand diagonals and games of light, Rococo emphasized grace and gentleness. This style could be seen in the works of important artists of the eighteenth century such as A. Watteau (1684-1721) and G. B. Tiepolo (1696-1770). In architecture, a combination of the Baroque and Rococo gave rise to some of the most beautiful architectural constructions such as Vierzehnheiligen church decorated by the great architect B. Newmann (1687-1753).

OBLIGATORY READING MATERIALS: 11 (p – 45-78)

ADITIONAL READING MATERIALS: 9 (p – 77-87)

QUESTIONS:

1.The Metaphysic of Space and Motion and the Wave Structure of Matter.

2. Montesquieu, J. J. Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot are the representatives of Enlightenment.

3. Analytical propositions and synthetic propositions.

THEME 7. German philosophy XVIII – XIX centuries. Marxism philosophy within the context of Soviet culture.

The term "German Idealism" refers to a phase of intellectual life that had its origin in the Enlightenment as modified by German conditions. English and French representatives of the Enlightenment, giving precedence to sensation, had become empiricists and skeptics. They viewed the world as a great machine, adopted hedonism as their ethics, and interpreted history from a subjective-critical point of view. The situation in Germany was just the reverse. There thought was given precedence over sensation, and, instead of empiricism, idealism was dominant. Ethics was based on norms of universal validity, instead of on individual whim. History was interpreted genetically as a rational process; and in place of the mechanical conception of the world, an organic or dynamic view was substituted. Nature was seen to be spiritual, as well as spatial, and was interpreted teleologically. In the hands of Jacobi and Kant, Hume's skepticism became the weapon that destroyed the influence of empiricism and thus paved the way for idealism. For the Germans, at least, Rousseau's radicalism brought into question the value of the culture-ideals of the Enlightenment, and impelled them to seek the basis of culture in the creative power of the mind. For the philosopher German idealism usually means the philosophy of Kant and his immediate followers, while for the historian of literature it may seem little more than the personality of Goethe; and it is not usual to characterize the literary aspect of the movement as neo-humanism. However, there is a unity in the movement that cannot be ignored. All its varied manifestations, whether in science, philosophy, literature, art, or social life, are properly treated under the title German Idealism

Leibniz and the Pietists. Several factors contributed to the peculiarly independent character of the Enlightenment in Germany. Most notable was the influence of Liebniz and that of the Pietists. Leibniz was an essentially religious personality, and in transplanting the spirit of the Enlightenment into Germany he gave it that distinctively ethical and religious flavor which became characteristic of German Idealism. It was he who was chiefly instrumental in substituting the mechanical view of nature with a teleological one. He transformed the atoms of the materialists into monads, or psychical entities, and substituted for natural law his theory of preestablished harmony. He asserted the absolute worth of the individual against the destructive monistic pantheism of Spinoza, and saw in the progress of history a movement of the monads towards some divine end. On the one hand, he made the development of materialism and skepticism impossible in Germany, and, on the other hand, he brought about the teleological explanation of the history of the universe as a whole. The teleological and idealistic tendencies of Leibniz were strengthened through Pietism; Klopstock, Herder, Jacobi, Goethe, and Jean Paul, all betray in their works the Pietistic influence.

Kant's Transcedentalism. The conceptual framework of German Idealism was provided by Immanuel Kant who was the first to reconcile the conflicting empirical and rationalistic elements of the prevailing dogmatic philosophy. With one stroke he secured for mind priority over nature, and yet without endangering the validity of the principles of scientific investigation. By giving the primacy to practical reason, he placed religion and ethics on a sure footing and broke the ban of rationalism. In the first instance Kant's work was purely epistemological. He made it particularly his problem to rescue natural science from the (epistemological) skepticism of Hume, and then to rescue religion from nationalism. Kant demolished the rationalistic arguments of Anselm, Descartes, and others, for the existence of God. Science is valid, but it has to do only with phenomena. This phenomenal world, however, is produced a priori by the activity of consciousness, reacting on that external reality whose eternal nature cannot be known. The constancy of experience is accounted for by the very fact that the world as we know it is only the sum total of phenomena. This becomes the basis of the universal validity of certain principles of explanation. Space and time, and the categories of the understanding are subjective and thus ideal. Taken together they form a mold in which we shape the impressions coming from the unknowable, transcendent reality. Thus, the principles of science and the laws of nature are universally valid because they are in the subject, not in the object. Knowledge of ultimate reality comes through the practical reason, particularly through the a priori moral law in us. Kant's idea of inner freedom became the inspiration of the creative genius. The phase of German Idealism manifested in the art and poetry of the period has been called aesthetic-ethical idealism. The leaders of this artistic movement, who really popularized idealism and made it a part of the life of the time, were not intent on solving the old philosophical problems. For conceptual thought they substituted the creative imagination.

Lessing, Herder, and Others. Klopstock and Wieland mark the turning-point toward idealsm. However, their contemporary, Lessing, was the first representative of the movement to liberate himself completely from conventional theology and all that was arbitrary and external in German culture and find in the inner aesthetic and ethical development of the mind the ideal to be followed. Idealism in the sense in which the word is here used became even more effective in the work of Herder. His break with the Enlightenment was complete. In his large application of the idealistic method to the interpretation of science, art, and history, he practically reformed all the intellectual sciences. He, too, proceeded from an analysis of the poetic and artistic impulse, and in the creative activity of the mind he found the key to ethics, aesthetics, and religion. From this subjective, or idealistic, view-point he saw the panorama of history as a spiritualistic development. If Lessing's great work was to introduce idealism into aesthetics, particularly the aesthetics of dramatic poetry, Herder's greatest service to the idealistic cause was his application of idealism, as a method, to the interpretation of history. What Wieland, Lessing, and others had done for poetic art, this Winckelmann did for plastic art. He too found in the conception of the free creative mind the basis of ethics, aesthetics, and religion.

Goethe, Schiller, and Others. The great representatives of the idealistic type mind in German poetry were Goethe, and Schiller. Against the exclusive claims of the aesthetic view of nature, and a morality essentially classical, Goethe emphasizes the moral and religious worth of the individual, thus approaching the ethical teachings of Kant. Schiller combined the epistemology of Kant with the pantheism of Goethe. With him aesthetic values were the chief types of intellectual norms. Thus, his ethics and religion might be regarded as a phase of aesthetics. However, the aesthetic harmony that he found in the universe had an impact on his ethical and religious nature; despite his aesthetic view-point, he must be classed with Kant and Fichte as one of the great moral teachers of Germany. Schiller's only consistent follower was Willhelm von Humboldt, who was instrumental in bringing about the Neo-Humanistic reform, on the basis of the new aesthetic-ethical culture. Jean Paul was a representative of the anti-classical type of idealism.

Early Views of Fichte and Schelling. The basis of the aesthetic-ethical movement was Kant transcendental idealism. But while Kant made the idealistic position secure, he had not accounted for the reality of the world of nature, with all that it means to the poet as the expression of some divine purpose. To get at the bottom of the matter, it was felt that human consciousness as a starting-point would have to be abandoned and an absolute consciousness posited. From this reality of absolute consciousness, then, individual consciousness could be deduced in a manner, analogous to that employed by Kant. The first to attempt such a comprehensive solution of the problem was Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Starting from Kant's idealistic position he tried to overcome the dualism involved in Kant's doctrine of a (thing in itself) by bringing this mysterious reality into consciousness. To do this he dropped the Kantian distinction between practical and theoretical reason, and conceived of the absolute mind, or ego, as moral reason. In his view all existence is psychical, and the human mind is only a manifestation of the absolute ego. Thus, the last trace of an unknowable transcendent reality is obliterated. The absolute ego has divided itself into a large number of relative egos, and through these it is moving progressively toward its own destiny. The core of reality lies in human personality, in the finite mind, but this is caught up in an endless process of development; Hence, to transcend his own consciousness and explain the progress of history, with reference to the past and future, the philosopher must look at existence from the point of view of the absolute ego. In this way Fichte developed his subjective realism, bringing this scheme of idealistic evolution every phase of human experience. Under his treatment, ethics, sociology, aesthetics, and religion become a part of the history of the Absolute. He overcame the dualism between individual mind and nature by dissolving both individual nature and mind. Schelling, starting from the Kant-Fichte point of view, extended the conception of the Absolute to objective nature. His system may be characterized as a sort of spiritualized pantheism. The world is a continuous process from inorganic unconscious nature to organic conscious nature, and then from organic nature back to inorganic nature. While in humans the Absolute reaches consciousness, nature remains essentially objective, but not in a materialistic sense. Nature, for Schelling, is a system of spiritual forces similar to the monads of Leibniz. Schelling worked out his so - called Identitatsphilosophie by extending to absolute consciousness the view that in consciousness subject and object are identical. The sum total of existence then becomes the Absolute as perceived by itself. Naturally, all distinctions and qualities, which are created by a finite relational consciousness, disappear in a self-contemplation of the Absolute by itself, and existence becomes neutral. If Fichte had interpreted existence ethically, Schelling interprets it aesthetically. While with Fichte the Absolute distributes itself in finite minds in order to work out its own moral development, with Schelling the Absolute comes to consciousness in humans in order that we may enjoy the aesthetic contemplation of the unity of mind and nature, the identity of mind with its sensuous content.

Later Views of Fichte and Schelling. The first to feel the pressure of the realistic-historical problems were the founders of metaphysical idealism, Fichte and Schelling. Both betray the influence of Schleiermacher. Realizing the inadequacy of their philosophy to meet practical needs, they now sought an ethical and religious ideal which should unify the concrete content of spiritual life and at the same time be a necessary deduction from the metaphysical background of existence. Fichte retained his idea of the moral state as the consummation of the historical process. However, he no longer considered this state merely as a postulate of progressive freedom, but as a concrete civilized state, in which all members of society share in the blessings of religion, morality, and art. In this remodeled view of Fichte, religion is dominant; for he finds that only religious faith makes possible the realization of the moral idea, and thus the reality of the external world. The world is ethical. It is religious faith that gives an ultimate aim to ethical conduct, that makes possible a union of the empirical ego with its metaphysical basis, that is, God. His ethics is thus deprived of its formal character as an endless progress and given a definite aim. This ethical and religious view necessitates a modification of his metaphysics. The background of empirical consciousness is no longer an endless progression of the Absolute, but a fixed and unchanging divine being. In this being the empirical ego has its origin, and through ethical conduct it returns to its source. Similarly, in view of moral and aesthetic needs, Schelling was forced to change his views. In applying the principle of identity, he destroyed the variety of existence, and thus its reality. In describing the universe as a quality-less neutrum he had only caricatured the Absolute. His philosophy disagreed with every phase of experience. Just as Fichte, so Schelling sought in religion the key to the origin and destiny of humans. The phenomenal world takes its rise in the absolute, self-determined will of God. Because of its origin, the phenomenal world necessarily works its way back up to God again. This movement back to God is a religious process, through mythology, or natural religion, up to Christianity, at which stage the union of man with God takes place. Thus, Christianity, whose dogmas are interpreted evolutionistically by Schelling, becomes the end and purpose of history; and it is upon Christianity that ethics, politics, and aesthetics are to be based.

Hegel's System. If Fichte and Schelling tried to find the purpose of existence in some concrete content (such as the moral state or the Christian religion, deducing this concept from the conception of God), Hegel solved the problem by a systematic exploitation of the conception of evolution, which with him was both a constituent and a teleological principle. The conception had been variously and obscurely employed by Leibniz, Lessing, Kant, Herder, Goethe, Schiller, and F. Schlegel. Then, on the basis of Kant's transcendental deduction, Fichte and Schelling interpreted the process of development in a purely idealistic manner as the unconscious opposition of the Absolute to itself; this further entailed the conscious and gradual removal of this opposition by self-absorption, the double process following necessarily from the very nature of mind. Hegel makes the impulse of the absolute mind a gradual and self-determined process, by which the Absolute lifts itself from mere possibility and actuality to conscious, free, and necessary possession. Viewed sub specie aeternitatis the whole process is timeless, and only to a finite mind does it appear as an endless procession in time and space. However, it is just in this finite view that the ethical, aesthetic and religious character of Hegel's philosophy manifests itself. In the finite consciousness there is a separation of the natural, the actual, and the empirical from the spiritual, the free, and the necessary. In the unity reached by overcoming this divorce of the finite from the infinite lies religious blessedness, perfect beauty, and moral freedom. Every phase and stage of this inner teleological development is necessary to the life of the Absolute, and all variety in finite experience is preserved in the higher unity. Nothing is lost. Instead of being an undifferentiated substance, or a qualityless neutrum, the Absolute is the living, vital reality that manifests itself in human experience. This reality is spiritual, and the guiding principle of its upward movement is the fulfillment of its own divine purpose, which is religious, ethical, aesthetic. Religion and ethics are thus a necessary product of the self-explication of the Absolute, or God.

OBLIGATORY READING MATERIALS: 11 (p – 45-78)

ADITIONAL READING MATERIALS: 9 (p – 77-87)

QUESTIONS:

1. Hegel's philosophy as the history of theology transformed into a logical process.

2The light of reality within the darkness of abstraction.

THEME 8. Kazakh national philosophy. Phenomenon of philosophy in Kazakh culture. Russian philosophy XIX- XX centuries..

The World of Islam is rightly proud of the great achievements in the field of spiritual culture that distinguished it in the history of the mankind and gave it a well-deserved place in the global civilizing process. The broad spread and centuries-old development of Islamic spirituality, fixed and expressed in the Moslem holy book – the Koran – enriched many states and regions of the world. Kazakhstan is no exception; It is an area of traditional Islamic expansion with a long history of Islamic values and the spatial expansion of its spiritual influence. Though Kazakhstan, due to geopolitical conditions, is to some extent "peripheral" to epicenters of Islam, one should emphasize that Islam in its essential, human features holds a strong position in Kazakhstan as well. However, it has undergone a certain transformation related, first of all, to the features of management and way of life of the nomadic Kazakh society. Therefore a peculiar syncretism, a synthesis with local traditions of tengryian and other religious beliefs, has become a specific trait of Islam in Kazakhstan. Having expanded into the Kazakh steppe, Islam has not become the leading principle of state life and policy, but is a strong part of the global orientation of the society, and an important part of the religious-cult and the public practice of religion. Proceeding from primacy of human rights, in particular the right on choose or not to choose one’s religion, in the civil society being formed in our Republic a person must have the right to use freely the achievements of both secular and religious culture.

The universal outlook of Islam, especially in the sphere of morality, from the time of the expansion of Islam into the Kazakh steppe and later, has been reflected both in the practical experience of everyday life of the people and in the philosophical thoughts of the great thinkers of the Steppe.

How is this amazing vitality of Islam and its growing influence upon the spiritual climate of the millennium to be explained? In my opinion, it answers the cardinal principles of the modern epoch, being oriented upon polycentrism and democracy. Islam is open to the constructive dialogue, partnership, co-operation of the East and the West, of religion and science; it is capable of ethical contacts and cultural-historical interaction with the other cultures and religious beliefs. Islam is devoid of a spirit of intolerance and fanaticism – that is why many people in all parts of the globe accepted it, and why it spread overtime, while at the same time remaining loyal to the unique and peculiar postulates of its theology. The amazing cultural productivity of Islam and its abilities for dialogue and mutual understanding can be comprehended if we turn to the creative activity of such leaders of world culture as our famous ancestor Abu Nasr al-Farabi who has been praised through the ages for his wisdom; his follower, encyclopedically educated Ibn Sina, who opened the Gates of science; the prophet and sage of the Kazakh lands, mentor and Teacher of many and many generations, Hodja Akhmed Yassavi; and the great thinker and genius of the global culture Abay and his associate Shakarim. This cultural philosophical approach remains productive in XXI century. First of all we turn to the creative work of al-Farabi.

The development of philosophy on the territory of former USSR proceeded under banner of a militant atheism. Whereas a typical feature of most studies was a logical-gnoseological direction, which stipulated the primary development of the cognitive aspect of the philosophical outlook, yet philosophy in its essence is an overall reflective outlook, synthesizing the results of both the cognitive and the moral, the aesthetic and the religious attitude toward the world.

Modern practice of the independent development of Kazakhstan and Kazakhstani philosophy has shown that the primary orientation of a person to cognitive culture and the cultivation of rationality in the form of scientific knowledge is an important component of personal development, but not the only one. Moreover, without being complemented by other important components of personal development, including, first of all, morality and spirituality, this can lead to a deformation in education. Consciously rejecting every hypostasis of a personal culture, scientifically oriented philosophy has lost in its content since its studies have mostly become lacking in spirituality and personal meaning. Presently we have an opportunity to read works in a totally new way, through the prism of his religious Islamic outlook. It is no use to present him as a materialist and atheist; rather, his key ideas: reason, science and philosophy are ways of understanding the One who is First, namely, Allah. Al-Farabi’s creative activity reveals that Islam promoted the development and flowering of philosophy, in ways which from the beginning were tolerant and democratic.

OBLIGATORY READING MATERIALS. In Russian Segisbaev. O.A. “Kazakhskay philosophiy”

ADITIONAL READING MATERIALS: Internet

QUESTIONS:

Abai Kunanbaev - great poet, philosopher, writer, public figure, founder of the modern Kazakh written literature.

Chokan Chingisovich Valihanov - the Great scientist-historian, ethnographer, geographer, economist, traveller.

Kazakh philosophy in contemporary period.

THEME 9. The nineteenth century philosophy.

The nineteenth century philosophy is determinated by the activities of Sören Kierkegaard, Karl Barth, Friedrich Nietzsche and others. These philosophers have made vast contributions to philosophy, and through philosophy, to the course of world history. Perhaps the most influential were the ‘great triumvirate’ of Kant, Hegel and Marx. Other noteworthy philosophers include Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger and the Nobel prize-winner Hermann Hesse.

One of the greatest characters of German philosophy was Friedrich Nietzsche, who professed himself to be “a follower of Dionysus, the god of life’s exuberance”, and declared that he hoped Dionysus would replace Jesus as the primary cultural standard for future millennia.

Nietzsche showed his academic talents early on. As a child he didn’t like playing, and the neighbour’s children called him ‘the little minister’. He died in 1900 after 11 years of madness. He went insane one morning after seeing a horse being whipped by a coachman. Historians argue whether his insanity was caused by syphilis, drug abuse, or a disease inherited from his father.

Nietzsche was heavily influenced by the work of Schopenhauer, a man so unpleasant, negative and pessimistic that even his own mother eventually banned him from her house.

Schopenhauer's philosophy was based on that of Kant, but he did not believe in individual free will, he believed that we are all part of a vast single will which is the entire universe, and any sense of individuality is pure illusion.

Schopenhauer never married, perhaps not surprisingly considering his view of women, he once declared that women “are directly fitted for acting as the nurses and teachers of our childhood by the fact that they are themselves childish, frivolous and short-sighted; in a word, they are big children all their life long.” Instead, he shared his lonely existence with a poodle.

The first of the ‘great triumvirate’, Kant, was born in 1724 in Königsberg, (now part of Russia, and called Kaliningrad). He was one of the fathers of ‘critical philosophy’, and divided modes of thinking into two kinds, analytic and synthetic.

Analytical propositions are those which can be proven to be true by analysis, for example ‘pink boots1 are boots2’. This statement must be true, because the predicate is contained in the subject. (If pink boots1 weren’t boots2, then they wouldn’t be boots1!)

Synthetic propositions are those that cannot be contrived purely from analysis, for example, ‘the boot is pink’, this relates to something in the real world and cannot be shown to be true or untrue purely by analysis of the statement, you need to see the boot. His most famous works include his ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ and ‘The Metaphysics of Ethics’, in which he discussed his views on ethics.

Kant died in 1804, when Hegel was 33. Hegel was born in Stuttgart and his philosophy was greatly influenced by that of Kant. After an inheritance he was able to devote his entire life to academic works.

He believed that dialectical reasoning (debate by question and answer to resolve two differing points of view) was the only way for progress in human thought. He believed that all men were fundamentally free, and that our task is to find a state or a set of laws under which we can all live freely.

Hegel did not advocate anarchy, rather he thought that we could make ourselves free by choosing to obey laws we knew to be rational. Hegel died in 1831 of cholera, after one day’s illness. He was buried next to another German philosopher, Fichte, and near another, Karl Solger, in a plot he had chosen himself.

The last of these three, with perhaps the biggest influence on recent history, born in 1818, was Karl Marx. He is in fact best known for his economic theories, especially one seminal work he produced together with Engels, ‘The Communist Manifesto’. In fact this only represents only a tiny fraction of his thought. Overall, his writing on Communism represents only an aside, he wrote much more simply in criticism of capitalism, or on analysis of concrete political events.

OBLIGATORY READING MATERIALS: 9 (p – 25 - 546), 11 (p – 34-231)

ADITIONAL READING MATERIALS: 12 (p – 54 - 65)

QUESTIONS:

1. Will to power" is the ruling principle of all life.

The ideal of a "good European."

The influence of Hegelian movements.

THEME 10. Contemporary philosophy. West philosophy within the context of XX – beginning of XXI centuries’ culture.

Contemporary philosophy is represented by following schools: existentialism, scientism, structuralism, pragmatism, positivism.

Existentialism is a philosophical movement that views human existence as having a set of underlying themes and characteristics, such as anxiety, dread, freedom, awareness of death, and consciousness of existing. Existentialism is also an outlook, or a perspective, on life that pursues the question of the meaning of life or the meaning of existence. It is this question that is seen as being of paramount importance, above both scientific and other philosophical pursuits.

Pragmatism originated in the United States in the late 1800s.

Like any philosophical movement, the nature and content of pragmatism is a subject of considerable debate, whether it is one of exegesis (determining what the original pragmatists thought it was) or subtantive philosophical theory (what is the most defensible theory that satisfies certain goals).

Scientism is a synonym of positivism, a common ideology in the 19th and 20th century which places its trust in scientific progress and only in scientific progress. However, while positivism may sometimes be used in a neutral way, scientism is always pejorative. It refers to the ideology of science as the only legitimate truth and to a conception of social progress as necessary and brought forth by technological development. Techno-utopianism and techno-progressivism, for example, have been accused of constituting a form of scientism, as well as the darker eugenicist movement or the Raelian cult which advocates the massification of cloning.

Structuralism, theory that uses culturally interconnected signs to reconstruct systems of relationships rather than studying isolated, material things in themselves. This method found wide use from the early 20th cent. in a variety of fields, especially linguistics, particularly as formulated by Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jakobson. Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss used structuralism to study the kinship systems of different societies. No single element in such a system has meaning except as an integral part of a set of structural connections. These interconnections are said to be binary in nature and are viewed as the permanent, organizational categories of experience. Structuralism has been influential in literary criticism and history, as with the work of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault. In France after 1968 this search for the deep structure of the mind was criticized by such “poststructuralists” as Jacques Derrida, who abandoned the goal of reconstructing reality scientifically in favour of “deconstructing” the illusions of metaphysics (see semiotics).

OBLIGATORY READING MATERIALS: 1 (p – 234-345), 11,15 (p – 56-78)

ADITIONAL READING MATERIALS: 9 (p – 56-67)

QUESTIONS:

Pragmatism and scientism in philosophy.

Personality in contemporary philosophy.

Søren Kierkegaard as the "father of existentialism".

THEME 11. Social philosophy. Anthropology. Philosophy of culture.

Social philosophy is characterized by what could be called a new anthropocentrism. The older classical anthropocentrism is being replaced by a new concept of man living in a world created by himself. Man once again returns to the "centre" only through his activity, creative work, cognition, and his ability to perceive the processes going on in nature and society, and to transform them by the methods heretofore unknown. New social philosophy, reflecting a feedback between man and the world created by him, endows the human "centricity" with only vectorial meaning. Man is perceived as being in the "centre" of the world only for the sake of the idea of practice.

According to new anthropocentrism, man is the creator of his world and of himself; he is resolved to improve his situation, and capable to of perpetual renewal of himself and of changing, renovating and improving the world. This is homo creator.

The idea of activities, of practice, which has brought man to the "centre" of the material (real) world, implies also the image of an open, incomplete, changing, becoming and developing world. The whole Western reasoning, which since the times of R. Descartes has absolutely opposed the man-subject to the world of the objects is bound for renewal. As man had been explained on the bases of the principles of a closed system, philosophical structuralism, which was particularly sensitive to the inadequacy of this kind of explanation, actually declared the "disappearance" of man as a whole, as the subject, his "death" (see M. Foucault, 1966). Presently this inadequate explanation is being replaced by another conception of man, explained on the grounds of the principles of open systems. Man as a social being is regarded as an open system of what only a relation with the environment (society and world) is a prerequisite (essence).

The process of becoming and the activities as a process of man can be reflected only by processes or by open theories. The purposefulness of contemporary social philosophy is obviously non-dogmatic and open theory.

The goals of philosophical theory change. Instead of these raised by classical philosophy, namely, to preserve personal identities and humaneness in itself, the goal of present-day philosophy is to reveal how the persons (man) should behave so as to preserve the humaneness in another person beside himself, i. e. to preserve the mankind and the world.

Thus, the goal of social philosophy can be defined as the attempt to elucidate the process of humanization: what basic actions create, preserve, change or destroy humaneness? Therefore contemporary social philosophy searches for the most common foundations that explain the processes of person’s and society’s humanization, bearing in mind that "essences" most often do not be on the surface and manifest themselves not directly, but indirectly.

OBLIGATORY READING MATERIALS: 15 (p – 235-345)

ADITIONAL READING MATERIALS: 12 9p – (45-67)

QUESTIONS:

The principles of contemporary social philosophy.

Most general issues of social philosophy.

Contemporary philosophy as the means of both thinking and action.

The methodological role of principles of the contemporary social philosophy.

THEME 12. Philosophy of science.

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