Chernyshevsky's materialistic doctrine of society. N.G

About the philosophical sayings of the famous thinker Hegel, N.G. Chernyshevsky learned from the Notes of the Fatherland, the works of Belinsky and Herzen. However, in depth and truly, without additional footnotes and definitions of the teachings of Hegel already formulated earlier, Chernyshevsky independently studied the philosophy of this direction, being a student.

Thus, at the end of 1848, Chernyshevsky wrote in his personal diary that from now on he decisively belongs to Hegel. It also implies (like the Hegelian teaching) that everything that exists is drawn to the idea, all being is taken from the idea, and that the idea itself develops from itself, absolutely apart and independently, producing everything from individuals and then returning to itself.

In Hegelian philosophy, first of all, the Russian philosopher was attracted by a peculiar presentation of dialectics, from which he singled out individual revolutionary-democratic inclinations, thereby determining many philosophical questions. Giving due place to the methods of understanding and studying the subject of Hegel's philosophy, Chernyshevsky, along with this, criticized his conservatism and inability to change Hegel's views.

After becoming acquainted with the Russian writings of the Hegelian system in the essays by Belinsky and Herzen, he turned directly to the expositions and creative works of Hegel himself. Thus, Chernyshevsky claimed that he liked Hegel much less than he expected from all sorts of Russian writings and works of his contemporaries. The reason was that most of the Russian followers of Hegel defined his system in the spirit of the left side of Hegel's teaching. In essence, forming the image of Hegel, similar to the image of the philosophers of the 17th century, this made him attractive and unusual. As Chernyshevsky writes, the presentation of the material and its assimilation are presented mediocre for the formation of a scientific way of thinking.

In 1849, on the pages of his writings and personal diary, Chernyshevsky criticizes Hegel, arguing that he does not see strict and clear conclusions, and thoughts in a general sense are more of a narrow summary, breathing moderate innovations, and not at all a formulated doctrine of philosophy.

So, the Russian philosopher does not see the need for exposition of Hegel, considers him a “slave” of the current state of affairs, a slave of the current social warehouse, social structure, determines the philosopher’s fear and indecision to reject execution. Later, he would also write: “Are his conclusions timid, or is it really a general principle that somehow poorly explains to us what and how should be instead of what is now.” Therefore, for Chernyshevsky, the question of positioning his thoughts on one or another philosophical question was fundamental. He does not understand tolerance for the prevailing circumstances and society, considering it an adaptation and "slavery".

Chernyshevsky's theory of knowledge

The Russian philosopher throughout his life changed approaches to scientific understanding of the most important philosophical topics and issues several times. Being partly an idealist, he provides a materialistic solution to the main question of philosophy, showing that the scientific materialistic basis comes from the recognition of the basic ideas of concepts that are an integral part of the reflection of genuine things and processes occurring in the material world and the natural environment at the moment.

Chernyshevsky determines that concepts represent in their totality the result of combining research data, experience, the results of the study and knowledge of the material basis of the world, that they are the coverage of all essences of matter. Composing his own separate concept of a given object, he throws off all the specific, living details with which the object appears in reality, and constitutes only its general characteristic features; a really existing living person has a specific and precise height, a certain hair color, a certain skin type, complexion, nose height, etc. All these diverse characteristics, even in appearance, are not determined by some general concepts, but are revealed from individuality.

Thus, in fact, the image of a person includes more signs and qualities than there are in the abstract concept of a person as humanity. In an abstract concept, there is only the essence of the object itself, the essence of a person, while all its individual features are completely ignored.

The phenomena of reality, Chernyshevsky argued, are heterogeneous and varied. A person takes his strength in the sources of reality, in life, in knowledge, skills, the power of nature and in the qualities of human individual nature.

Acting in accordance with the laws of nature, a person transforms the phenomena of reality in accordance with his personal aspirations. Of considerable importance, according to Chernyshevsky, are only those human desires and goals that are based on reality and on his actual desires. Thus, success can be expected only from those hopes that awaken in the spirit of a person with the reality of his will. Chernyshevsky criticizes fantasy and fantastic understandings of the world, which have no real foundation at the root, considers them stupid assumptions before the facts of reality.

He considered a peculiar dialectical method of understanding and considering a philosophical subject, first of all, as a means against the subjective method of understanding, which imposes this or that reality, imposes certain conclusions that are in no way connected with objective reality.

Along with all kinds of criticism of the idealistic positions of philosophy and materialistic solutions philosophical questions in relation to thinking and being, Chernyshevsky actively criticized and “fought” against philosophical aspects:

• agnosticism;
• theories of unknowability of the world;
• theories that exclude the paramount importance of matter;
• theories of unknowability of phenomena;
• theories of unknowability of objects and their essence.

Thus, he called Kant's idealism (as well as most manifestations of idealism) "brilliantly intricate sophistry." The philosopher ardently criticized numerous representatives philosophical schools, who argued that a person in essence does not know objects as they really are, but only through sensations understands the relativity of these objects to himself.

In the general statements of the idealists, Chernyshevsky did not consider love for truth, deep scientific thought, and scientific understanding. He defined the supporters of such idealistic theories as ignorant "poor fellows" who do not understand the essence of things and the fact that a person cognizes objects as they really are.

Theory of selfishness

For his era, the general provisions of Chernyshevsky's philosophy were mainly understood as ideas of criticism of the theories of idealism, religious concepts and theological morality.

Remark 1

In his philosophical sayings, Chernyshevsky came to the conclusion that “a man loves himself first of all”; in its essence and reality, a person is an egoist, and egoism (as a concept) is a motivating mechanism for controlling human actions.

Chernyshevsky points to historical examples of the selflessness of the essence of man and his self-sacrifice (Empedocles threw himself into the crater to make a scientific discovery; Lucretia strikes himself with a dagger to save his honor). And Chernyshevsky argues that, since previously they could not explain from one scientific principle one law, the fall of a stone to the ground and the rise of steam up from the earth, there were no scientific methods and tools for understanding one law of a phenomenon similar to the examples given above. And he considers it extremely important to reduce all the often contradictory actions of a person to a single principle.

Remark 2

Chernyshevsky comes to such conclusions due to the fact that there are no two different natures of his essence in the motives of a person, and all the variety of human motives for action, as well as in his whole integral life, comes from one and the same nature, according to the same principle, under the action of one and the same mechanism, which together forms the law of rational egoism.

The thinker defined the law of rational egoism in several basic principles, which, in his opinion, are characteristic for every person and for every time epoch:

• at the heart of a variety of human deeds is a person's thought about his personal benefit, his own good;
• each person cares only for his own well-being;
• human sacrifice is a deliberate psychological impulse of the individual "ego";
• any deed for the benefit of society or another person is a manifestation of an action stimulated by the egoistic essence of the individual.

Based on the philosopher's relatively radical and abstract statements about human flesh and spirit, Chernyshevsky believed that his theory of rational egoism would ultimately glorify man himself. So, he believed that the personal individual interests of the individual should go to the public, and public goods should provide each person individually.

1. General characteristics of the materialistic tradition in Russia. Philosophy N.G. Chernyshevsky

The basis of Chernyshevsky's worldview was the anthropological principle. Proceeding from the general concepts of "human nature", about his desire for "own benefit", Chernyshevsky made revolutionary conclusions about the need to change social relations and the form of ownership. According to Chernyshevsky, the consistently carried out anthropological principle coincides with the principles of socialism.

Standing on the positions of anthropological materialism, Chernyshevsky considered himself a student of Feuerbach, whom he called the father of new philosophy. Feuerbach's teaching, in his opinion, "... completed the development German philosophy, which, now for the first time reaching positive solutions, threw off its former scholastic form of metaphysical transcendence and, recognizing the identity of its results with the teaching of the natural sciences, merged with the general theory of natural science and anthropology) ". Developing Feuerbach's teaching, he put forward practice as a criterion of truth," ... this immutable touchstone of any theory..." Chernyshevsky contrasted the dialectical method with abstract metaphysical thinking, he was aware of the class and party character of political theories and philosophical teachings.

From the end of 1857, Chernyshevsky, having transferred the department of criticism to N. A. Dobrolyubov, concentrated all his attention on economic and political questions. Involved in a journal campaign to discuss the terms of the forthcoming peasant reform, Chernyshevsky in the articles "On the New Conditions of Rural Life" (1858), "On the Ways of Redeeming Serfs" (1858), "Is it difficult to buy land?" (1859), "The arrangement of the life of the landlord peasants" (1859), etc., criticized the liberal-noble reform projects, opposing them with a revolutionary-democratic solution to the peasant question. He advocated the liquidation of landowner ownership of land without any redemption. In December 1858, finally convinced of the government's inability to satisfactorily resolve the peasant question, he warned of the unprecedented ruin of the peasant masses and called for a revolutionary disruption of the reform.

Overcoming anthropologism, Chernyshevsky approached a materialistic understanding of history. He repeatedly emphasized that "... mental development, like political and any other, depends on the circumstances of economic life ...".

Chernyshevsky saw that the Russian economy had already begun to obey the laws of capitalism, but mistakenly believed that Russia would be able to avoid the "proletariat ulcer", because. the question of "the nature of the changes in Russian economic life" has not yet been resolved. In the articles On Land Property (1857), Criticism of Philosophical Prejudices Against Communal Ownership (1858), Superstition and Rules of Logic (1859) and others, Chernyshevsky put forward and substantiated the idea that it was possible for Russia to bypass the capitalist stage of development through the peasant community to move to socialism. This possibility, according to Chernyshevsky, will open up as a result of the peasant revolution. Unlike Herzen, who believed that the socialist system in Russia would develop independently from the patriarchal peasant community, Chernyshevsky considered the assistance of industrialized countries to be an indispensable guarantee of this development. This idea, which became a reality for backward countries with the victory of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia, was utopian under those historical conditions. Along with Herzen, Chernyshevsky is one of the founders of populism.

In the article "The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy" (1860), systematizing his philosophical views, Chernyshevsky outlined the ethical theory of "reasonable egoism." Chernyshevsky's ethics does not separate personal interest from public interest: "reasonable egoism" is the free subordination of personal benefit to a common cause, the success of which ultimately benefits the personal interest of the individual. In his Preface to Current Austrian Affairs (February 1861), Chernyshevsky directly responded to the peasant reform, pursuing the idea that absolutism cannot allow the destruction of feudal institutions and the establishment of political freedom. At the same time, he led a narrow group of like-minded people who decided to appeal to different groups population. In a proclamation written by him "Bow to the lordly peasants from their well-wishers ..." (taken during the arrest of an illegal printing house), he exposed the predatory nature of the peasant reform, warned the landowning peasants against spontaneous scattered actions and urged them to prepare for a general uprising at the signal of the revolutionaries. From the summer of 1861 to the spring of 1862, Chernyshevsky was the ideological inspirer and adviser to the revolutionary organization Land and Freedom. In "Letters without an address" (February 1862, published abroad in 1874), he put forward an alternative to the tsar: the rejection of autocracy or a popular revolution.

K. Marx and F. Engels studied the works of Chernyshevsky and called him "... the great Russian scientist and critic...", "... the socialist Lessing...". V. I. Lenin believed that Chernyshevsky "... made a huge step forward against Herzen. Chernyshevsky was a much more consistent and militant democrat. The spirit of class struggle emanates from his writings." Chernyshevsky approached scientific socialism closer than other thinkers of the pre-Marxist period. Due to the backwardness of Russian life, he could not rise to dialectical materialism Marx and Engels, but, according to Lenin, he is "... the only really great Russian writer who managed from the 50s until the 88th year to remain at the level of integral philosophical materialism ...".

The works of Chernyshevsky and the very image of a revolutionary, steadfast in his convictions and actions, contributed to the education of many generations of progressive Russian people. He had a great influence on the development of culture and social thought of the Russian and other peoples.

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CHAPTER TWO

Materialism in the historical views of Chernyshevsky

In 1855, in a large critical article on the third and fourth books of Leontiev's very famous collection of his time "Propylaea", Chernyshevsky, challenging the opinion of Kutorga, who considered the agricultural life to be the original life of mankind, wrote:

“The traditions of all peoples testify that before they learned agriculture and became settled, they wandered, existing by hunting and cattle breeding. - it is obvious that, according to the recollections of the Greek people, the beggarly and rude state of savage hunters was the first, and people later became acquainted with the prosperity of a settled agricultural life. The same is directly proved by the positive facts recorded in historical monuments: we do not know a single people who, having once reached the level of agriculture, then fell into a state of savagery, not knowing agriculture; European peoples reliable history recorded almost from the very beginning the entire course of the spread of agricultural life. European travelers in Africa more than once met Negro tribes, who, having been forced out of their old place of residence and found themselves in a new geographical environment, not very favorable for agriculture, left the agricultural life and became shepherds or hunters. Therefore, Chernyshevsky is mistaken in believing that, once having reached the level of agriculture, not a single people can descend to a lower level. But he is quite right when he says that it is impossible to regard agriculture as the first step in the history of the development of the productive forces. In the same way, he is right when he declares the economic development of society to be the cause of the development of its legal institutions. “Among the pastoral peoples, who constantly migrate from place to place,” he says, “personal land ownership is insufficient, embarrassing and therefore not needed. With them, only the community (tribe, clan, horde, ulus, yurt) keeps the boundaries of its region, which remains in the indivisible use of all its members, individuals do not have separate property. It is absolutely not the case in agricultural life, which makes personal landed property a necessity. That is why, from the nomadic state, the connection of the land with tribal and, subsequently, with state rights begins. ” Here, the decisive influence of the material side of the life of peoples on other aspects of this life is most correctly indicated. But they may notice, perhaps, that Chernyshevsky is talking here is actually only about the connection between "economics" and "politics". And this, of course, is true. However, when this connection is clarified, then what is called the social system is understandable in its main features. And when the social system is understood as the result of the economic development of society, then it is easy to understand the influence of "economy" on the thoughts and feelings of people: after all, since the beginning of the 19th century it has been recognized that their thoughts and feelings are causally dependent on the social environment, i.e. from public relations. And we have already seen that Chernyshevsky was able to explain the development of philosophical thought by the course of political struggle, that is, again, by the development of the social environment. We also know from the article "The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy" that any given society, as well as any given organic part of society, considers useful and just what is useful to this society or this part of it. Chernyshevsky had only to consistently apply this view of his to the history of the ideological development of mankind in order to clearly see how this development is conditioned by the clash of human interests in society, i.e., by the "economy" of this society. And Chernyshevsky saw this clearly, at least in some cases. Here is what he writes, for example, in a large bibliographic article on the "Principles of the National Economy" by V. Roscher, published in the 4th book of Sovremennik for 1861:

“Take whatever group of people you want, its way of thinking can be inspired (correct or erroneous, as we have noticed, anyway) ideas about its interests. Let’s start at least with the classification of people according to nationalities. Napoleon I out of hatred for the French welfare. The mass of the French find that the Rhine border is the natural and necessary border of France. They also find that the annexation of Savoy with Nice is a wonderful thing. The mass of the English find that Napoleon I wanted to destroy England, not guilty of anything, that the struggle against it was waged by England only for its own salvation. The mass of Germans finds the French claim to the Rhine frontier unjust. The mass of Italians considers the separation of Savoy and Nice from Italy an unjust matter. Why such a difference of views? Simply from the opposite (of course, imaginary, false, but considered valid by that nation) interests of nations. to whom the position. Producers of bread in every country find it fair. a matter that other countries allow the importation of the grain of this country duty-free, and just as fair that the importation of grain into their country be prohibited. The manufacturers of manufactured goods in every country find it just that foreign grain should be allowed into their country duty-free. The source of this contradiction is again the same: profit. It is beneficial for the bread producer that bread is more expensive. It is beneficial for the manufacturer of manufactured goods that it be cheaper. To increase the number of such examples would be in vain - everyone can collect thousands and tens of thousands of them himself.

If every person always turns out to be good, undoubted and eternal everything that is practically beneficial for the group of people whose representative he serves, then, according to Chernyshevsky, the same “psychological law” should also explain the change of schools in political economy. The writers of the school of Adam Smith considered very good and worthy of eternal domination those forms of economic life that determined the domination of the middle class. “The writers of this school were representatives of the aspirations of the stock exchange or commercial class in the broadest sense of the word: bankers, wholesalers, manufacturers, and all industrial people in general. The current forms of economic organization are beneficial for the commercial class, more profitable for it than any other forms; , and found that these forms are the best in theory; naturally, under the dominance of such a trend, many writers appeared who expressed the general idea with even greater sharpness, calling these forms eternal, unconditional ".

When people began to think about questions of political economy, former representatives masses, then another school of economics appeared in science, which is called - for unknown reasons, as Chernyshevsky notes - the school of utopians. With the advent of this school, economists representing the interests of the middle class saw themselves in the position of conservatives. When they opposed medieval institutions that were contrary to the interests of the middle class, they appealed to reason. And now, representatives of the masses began to appeal to reason, in turn, reproaching the representatives of the middle class for inconsistency, not without reason. “Against medieval institutions,” says Chernyshevsky, “reason was an excellent weapon for the school of Adam Smith, but this weapon was not suitable for the fight against new opponents, because it passed into their hands and beat the followers of the Smith school, who had previously been so useful” . As a consequence, middle-class scholars stopped referring to reason and started referring to history. Thus arose the historical school in political economy, one of the founders of which was Wilhelm Roscher.

Chernyshevsky argues that such an explanation of the history of economic science is incomparably more correct than its usual explanation with the help of references to a greater or lesser stock of knowledge in one school or another. He mockingly notes that this second explanation is similar to the way students are assessed in exams: a given student knows such and such a science well, such and such a bad one. “As if in fact,” asks Chernyshevsky, “a little acquaintance with history could deprive political economists of the knowledge that there were other forms of economic life, different from the current ones, and as if through this, such people were deprived of the opportunity to feel the need for new, most perfect forms , the possibility of recognizing the current forms as not unconditional was taken away?" . It is not a matter of information, but what are the feelings of a given thinker or the group of people that he represents. Fourier knew history no better than Say, and meanwhile came to completely different conclusions than he did. "No," concludes Chernyshevsky, "whoever feels good about the present has no idea of ​​change; whoever feels bad about it, has it, regardless of whether he has historical knowledge or at least its complete absence."

You can't speak more clearly. Consciousness does not determine being, but being determines consciousness. This proposition, which forms the basis of Feuerbach's philosophy, is applied by Chernyshevsky to explain the history of economics, political theory, and even philosophy. Chernyshevsky sees that social being there are mutually opposite elements; he also sees how the struggle of these mutually opposite social elements causes and determines the mutual struggle of theoretical ideas. But this is not enough. He sees not only that the development of any given science is determined by the development of the corresponding category of social phenomena. He understands that the mutual class struggle must leave its deep imprint on the entire internal history of society. Here is an interesting proof of this.

In his "Essays on Political Economy" he, having explained the laws of the "three-term distribution of products" existing in modern advanced countries and drawing a brief concluding conclusion from his explanations, expresses the following, extremely remarkable view of the internal springs recent history Europe: "We have seen that the interests of rent are opposed to the interests of profit and wages together. Against the class to which the rent is allocated, average the class and the common people have always been allies. We have seen that the interest in profit is opposed to the interest in wages. As soon as the class of capitalists and workers gains the upper hand in its alliance over the rent-seeking class, the main content of the history of the country becomes the struggle of the middle class against the people.

Here the views of our author strikingly coincide with those of Marx and Engels. Yes, it is not surprising. Chernyshevsky went through the same school as Marx and Engels: he passed from Hegel to Feuerbach. But Marx and Engels subjected Feuerbach's philosophy to a radical revision, and Chernyshevsky remained a lifelong follower of this philosophy in the form it had in Feuerbach himself. Feuerbach belongs to the well-known - at one time caused a lot of noise and indignation - the expression: Der Mensch ist, was er i?t (a person is what he eats). Above we have cited some of Feuerbach's other propositions about the influence of people's way of life on their way of thinking. These are all completely materialistic propositions. However, these propositions remained with Feuerbach in a completely undeveloped form, even in his teaching on religion. Chernyshevsky applied Feuerbach's views to aesthetics, and here, as we shall see below, he achieved results that were quite remarkable in a certain sense. But here, too, his conclusions were not entirely satisfactory, because a completely correct concept of the aesthetic development of mankind presupposes a preliminary development of a general understanding of history. As regards this general understanding of history, Chernyshevsky succeeded in taking only a few steps, though very sure steps, towards its elaboration. The large excerpts from his writings that we have just made can serve as examples of such steps. These extracts clearly show that Chernyshevsky knew how to give a brilliant application to the materialistic thoughts of his teacher. But the materialistic thoughts of his teacher suffered from abstraction where they concerned the social relations of people. And this weak side of Feuerbach's thoughts led to the fact that the historical views of his Russian student turned out to be insufficiently harmonious and consistent. The main shortcoming of these historical views is that materialism almost at every step gives way to idealism in them, and vice versa, while the final victory still goes to idealism.

We know well how Chernyshevsky explains history in cases where he remains true to his materialistic philosophy. Now let's see how he explains it, passing to an idealistic point of view.

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Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (1828-1889) was born into the family of a hereditary clergyman, a Saratov priest. At the basis of his philosophical views, Chernyshevsky used the teachings of the French materialists of the 18th century, elements of the teachings of Hegel (although Chernyshevsky himself was very critical of German idealist philosophy) and the philosophical anthropologism of L. Feuerbach. Chernyshevsky mainly concentrated his efforts on the criticism of previous philosophical systems and defended the principles of utilitarian philosophy. However, Chernyshevsky did not create his own original philosophical system.

"Anthropological principle" in the philosophy of Chernyshevsky

The anthropological materialism of Chernyshevsky follows from a dispute with the aesthetics of German idealism. From a critique of aesthetics in German idealism, Chernyshevsky proceeds to a critique of philosophical idealism in general. Acquaintance with the Hegelian philosophical heritage led him to the conclusion that the general principles of the German idealist are distinguished by their extraordinary breadth and power. But the application of these principles by Hegel himself did not lead the German philosopher to an analysis of concrete reality. The realism of Chernyshevsky himself is based on the desire to proceed from reality. Therefore, Chernyshevsky considered Feuerbach the best thinker of the century. In his critique of German idealism, Chernyshevsky relied on Feuerbach's anthropological materialism. But he was also very critical of Feuerbach's philosophical views. Going towards materialism, Chernyshevsky did not become a true follower of Feuerbach.

Main philosophical article Chernyshevsky "The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy" (1860) was written about the philosophical essays of P.L. Lavrov. Chernyshevsky in his article criticizes any manifestation of philosophical dissent, he is inherently confident that only in the philosophical views that he shares, there is truth. In the article "The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy", Chernyshevsky states his own opinions as "undeniable" achievements of modern science. Moreover, in "anthropological principle" Chernyshevsky disappears the main traditional philosophical problems. Thus, Chernyshevsky perceived philosophy in a somewhat simplified way.

Materialistic anthropology in the philosophical views of Chernyshevsky

Chernyshevsky's article "The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy" indicates the essence "anthropological principle". The author of the article expressed the essence of this principle very briefly: a person exists as matter and as a quantitative combination of material substances. Man is part of nature and natural evolution.

Chernyshevsky fights against "philosophical" discretion in a man of duality, he is against the opposition "spirit" nature. Chernyshevsky defends the unity of man, that is, Chernyshevsky thinks of the unity of man as a fundamental principle in terms of biologism. The new philosophy, as he understood it, is based on anthropologism. In this Chernyshevsky is close to the French materialists of the 18th century. He believed that materialistic biologism is the true scientific trend in philosophy. He thought of a man "like a creature that has a stomach and a head, muscles and nerves". Life - "like any other chemical process", life is "a complex chemical process".

If these principles are accepted (and according to Chernyshevsky, it is precisely these statements that are truly philosophical), then there is no place for statements about the superiority of an independently existing spirit or mind. Will is not a manifestation of soul power, free from natural dependencies; it is merely a subjective expression which, in our consciousness, accompanies the origin of thoughts, actions, or external phenomena.

Ethical views of Chernyshevsky

The ethical views of Chernyshevsky are connected with the anthropological elements of his views. Chernyshevsky's positivism subdues the region "moral", that is, spiritual questions to those processes that dominate in the field of physical and chemical processes. Chernyshevsky's idealism found expression in his admiration for man in forms. "scientism". This is a certain simplification of the problems of the world.

Philosophy, according to Chernyshevsky, must answer not only the question of what is "man in general". Utilitarianism, Chernyshevsky believes, offers a safe standard and tool for securing equality. Utilitarianism provides an opportunity to measure people's needs and find out the nature and level of satisfaction. Utilitarianism can also serve as a tool for the protection of justice: to compare the amount of pleasure provided to more or less people.

The theory of rational egoism had a revolutionary-democratic, social meaning. Such a social structure and its principles do not contradict "anthropological principle" in Chernyshevsky's philosophy: as quantitative differences become qualitative differences, as water becomes ice or steam, so the most elementary and primitive feelings develop into the most tender and purified sensations and thoughts.

Chernyshevsky's elite as she appears in What Is to Be Done? - this is the elite of understanding and character, rational egoism, which develops into the purest, sacrificial, constructive social idealism. In this work, Chernyshevsky began to preach the imperatives of self-discipline, devotion to society, and the dignity of a soldier in the service of progress. Chernyshevsky's ideal is an exemplary person, an athlete of socialism Rakhmetov, who understands the course of history, the requirements of the time, the imperatives of science and public morality. He has willpower and he is free from selfishness, he is ready to put into practice what the theory requires, he lives the life of an ascetic. However, Chernyshevsky partly awarded a person "lifetime indulgence" which freed him from self-assessment of actions. And this social position ultimately leads to social and spiritual nihilism.

Aesthetic views of Chernyshevsky

Chernyshevsky's aesthetic views are manifested in his master's thesis "The Aesthetic Relationship of Art to Reality" (1853). Each class, according to Chernyshevsky, has its own ideas about the beautiful and the sublime, and these ideas may not correspond to a large extent.

Chernyshevsky was suspicious of the humanities and the arts. They, according to Chernyshevsky, lack accuracy "accurate" sciences and, moreover, the humanities provide few opportunities to confirm their postulates. Only natural, exact sciences deserve the title of sciences. And besides, the humanities and the arts weigh down "bad past" because of their ancient association with the idea "free art" with the concept of searching for a higher ideal by a person who has free time and a free mind and has a refined taste for the realization of his search.

Art for art's sake can become a trap for a person who wants to escape the mysteries of existence. Such people avoid life responsibility and duty in relation to their loved ones and fall into illusions and the opium of dreams. The cult of art for the sake of art without any connection with the problems of real life, a preoccupation with form without regard to content, combined with indifference towards the suffering of mankind - this, for Chernyshevsky, is even worse than indifference, since it is based on the approval of the status quo (Complete collection works in 15 vols. M., 1939. Vol. 2, pp. 271, 273-4, 514-16).

Art should be about life. Art must recognize its subordination to nature. This view did not mean that art should only copy, imitate and "photograph" life. Art should reflect and emphasize the never-ceasing noble and higher forms of life. But any attempt to create a sphere of beauty more elegant, loftier, purer than in reality was condemned by Chernyshevsky, since it was a manifestation of idealism, a manifestation of the denial of the true meaning of life.

Materialism(material) - a philosophical worldview, according to which matter (objective reality) is ontologically the primary principle (cause, condition, limitation) in the sphere of being, and the ideal (concepts, will, consciousness, etc.) is secondary (result, consequence) . Materialism asserts the existence of the only "absolute" substance of being - matter; all entities are formed by matter, and ideal phenomena (including consciousness) are processes of interaction of material entities. The laws of the material world apply to the whole world, including society and man.

Representatives of materialism in Russia: N. A. Dobrolyubov, D. I. Pisarev, N. V. Shelgunov, M. A. Antonovich, N. A. and A. A. Serno-Solov’evichi, A. I. Herzen, N. G. Chernyshevsky.

Works by Alexander Ivanovich Herzen:"Doctor Krupov" story (1847), "The Thieving Magpie" story (1848), "Damaged" story (1851), "Tragedy over a glass of grog" (1864), "For the sake of boredom" (1869).

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen(March 25, 1812 - January 9, 1870) - Russian publicist, writer, philosopher.

The atmosphere of philosophical discussions of the 30-40s. 19th century spawned many great thinkers. Among them, an outstanding place belongs to Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812-1870) - the founder of the theory of "Russian socialism". 1847 divides his life into two periods - Russian and foreign. After going abroad, he lived and worked in France, Switzerland, Italy, England. In the Free Russian Printing House founded by him together with N.P. Ogarev in London, the almanac "Polar Star", the newspaper "The Bell", works banned by censorship in their homeland, were published. A graduate of Moscow University, Herzen was closely acquainted with V. G. Belinsky, M. A. Bakunin, T. N. Granovsky and A. S. Khomyakov. From a young age, he considered himself one of the people who passionately love Russia, those who are "open to many Europeans, not closed to many domestic." Having thoroughly studied the history of natural science and having experienced a fascination with Hegelian philosophy and French socialism, Herzen in the series of articles “Amateurism in Science” (1843) suggested that Russia might have to “throw our northern hryvnia into the repository of human understanding” and reveal to the world “ real unity of science and life, word and deed. Herzen at first (until 1847) was formed as a thinker adjoining the Western trend. The terms of his reading were the works of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Spinoza, Hegel, Leibniz, Descartes, Herder, Rousseau and many other authors. One of the main ideas, assimilated by Herzen in the early period of his work, is affirmation of the need for individual freedom. Freedom to join European culture in its full scope, freedom from the arbitrariness of the authorities, uncensored creativity - these are the values ​​inaccessible in Russia that Herzen aspired to. Impressions of the first meeting of Herzen with Europe, presented in "Letters from France and Italy" (1847-1852) and at work "From the Other Shore" (1850), testify to radical changes in his estimates European civilization. He later recalled: "Beginning with a cry of joy when crossing the border, I ended with my spiritual return to my homeland." Herzen notes the "greatest contradictions" of Western civilization, made "not to our standards", writes that in Europe "our brother is uneasy." Outlining his vision of European life, Herzen fundamentally disagrees with all the social and philosophical theories known to him - from the Enlightenment theories to the constructions of Hegel and Marx. He comes to the conclusion that that the claims of the social sciences to put an end to the evil and hopelessness that reign in the world are untenable. Life has its own logic, which does not fit into rational explanations. Target human life- life itself, and people do not want to make sacrifices on the altar of history, although they are forced to do so, which was shown by the events of the revolution of 1848. Herzen's criticism of Western civilization due to internal discord with it can be characterized as existential criticism. He criticized Hegel's idealism for the fact that he sacrificed the fate of a particular person to an absolute idea. According to Herzen western civilization rich in external forms, but poor in human content. That is why the leveling influence of European civilization is dangerous for all nations. This idea gets a clear outline in his works of the 50s, in which the theory of "Russian socialism" is outlined(He first used the term "Russian socialism" in his work in 1866). The essence of this theory, according to Herzen, is connection of Western science and "Russian life", hope for historical features the young Russian nation, as well as the socialist elements of the rural community and the workers' artel. The contours of "Russian socialism" were clarified by him many times, letters "To an old comrade" (1869) the fate of the future "Russian socialism" is considered by Herzen already in a broader pan-European context. Here are warnings against leveling and "iconoclasm" - the slogans of revolutionary rebels. Herzen criticizes the poetization of revolutionary violence, the nihilistic denial of cultural values. Many of these warnings are still relevant today. Unpromising and unviable, according to Herzen, are such ways of realizing the socialist ideal that do not take into account the specific national, historical, psychological, and political characteristics of the people's environment to which they are applied. After all, both the “senseless battle of destruction” and “the universal suffrage imposed on an unprepared people” can turn out to be equally useless. Herzen was a living mediator between Russian and Western European social thought and contributed a lot to the dissemination of true, undistorted information about Russia among the European intelligentsia. So, the French historian J. Michelet, who at one time spoke negatively about the Russian people, under the influence of Herzen's essay published in French "Russian people and socialism" (1852) changed his views on Russia and even became a regular correspondent and admirer of the Russian thinker. A staunch opponent of autocracy and despotism, Herzen at the same time resolutely opposed seeing "only the negative side of Russia."

Works by Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky:1854 - A critical look at modern aesthetic concepts, 1855 - The aesthetic relationship of art to reality. Master's thesis, 1855 - The Sublime and the Comic, 1885 - The Character of Human Knowledge, 1858 - A Critique of Philosophical Prejudices Against Common Ownership, 1860 - The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy.

Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky(July 12, 1828 - October 17, 1889) - Russian utopian philosopher, revolutionary democrat, scientist, literary critic, essayist and writer.

A major Russian materialist philosopher was Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (1828-1889), theorist of utopian socialism, in the 60s. materialistic leader. N. G. Chernyshevsky was born in the family of a Saratov priest, a native of the serfs of the village of Chernyshev in the Penza province (the surname Chernyshevsky comes from his name). How materialist and atheist Chernyshevsky developed while studying at St. Petersburg University, overcoming the religious views of the period of study at the Saratov Theological Seminary. His surviving seminary writings (“On the Essence of the World”, “Do the Sense Organs Deceive Us?”, “Death is a Relative Concept”) indicate that in his youth he was not an atheist. Chernyshevsky first became famous for his master's thesis " Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality" (1855), which outlines the main provisions his "realist aesthetics". In contrast to the Hegelian understanding of the beautiful, which asserted that reality is fleeting from an aesthetic point of view, has no enduring value for art, Chernyshevsky argued that that "beautiful and sublime indeed exists in nature and human life." But they do not exist by themselves, but in connection with man.“The beautiful is life itself”, and not in the sense that the artist must accept reality as it is, including in its ugly manifestations, but in accordance with the “correct concepts” about it, pronouncing a “sentence” on negative social phenomena. The main philosophical work of Chernyshevsky - "The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy" (1860). It sets out monistic materialistic position author, directed both against dualism and against idealistic monism. Defining philosophy as "the theory of solving the most general problems of science", he substantiated the provisions on the material unity of the world, the objective nature of the laws of nature, using the data of the natural sciences. The principle of the philosophical outlook on man, according to Chernyshevsky, is developed by the natural sciences. idea of ​​the unity of the human body. He believes that if a person had some other nature, essence, than the one that we observe and know, then it would somehow manifest itself. But this does not happen, which means that there is no other nature in a person. Anthropological materialism Chernyshevsky from an idealistic point of view, criticized the professor of the Kyiv Theological Academy P. D. Yurkevich. In the article "From the Science of the Human Spirit" (1860) he denied the possibility philosophical explanation man with the help of natural science data alone. Yurkevich criticizes Chernyshevsky not because he limits the study of mental phenomena to the field of physiology. He disagrees primarily with the materialistic idea of ​​the unity of the human organism. The human being, according to Yurkevich, will always be considered in two ways: in the external experience, his body and organs are known, in the internal experience - mental experiences. In general, nature has its own logic (like the spirit). In the phenomena of nature, its "materialism" is revealed. From this side it is investigated by the natural sciences. But in order to understand the world in its entirety, one must also recognize the “self-conscious” mind, which opens not in matter, but in spirit. AT Critique of Philosophical Prejudices Against Common Ownership (1858) Chernyshevsky sets out own interpretation of the dialectical idea of ​​development. The "great, eternal, ubiquitous" law of the dialectical development of all things receives from him the name of the "law of eternal change of forms." Its action can be traced in all spheres of being and is illustrated by "physical", "moral" and "social" facts. Starting with an analysis of the phenomena of physical nature, Chernyshevsky shows that development in it is characterized by a "long gradualness." In society, it is more complicated, so people have incomparably more chances to "under favorable circumstances, move from the first or second stage of development directly to the fifth or sixth." Chernyshevsky's dialectic of eternal change of forms serves as the starting point for substantiating the ideal of communal socialism and his sociophilosophical views in general. In other words, in this way he proved the possibility of a transition to socialism, bypassing capitalism, using the institution of the peasant community existing in Russia. In order to remove "philosophical prejudices against communal ownership", he introduces a number of arguments in favor of a radical transformation of the Russian community. Chernyshevsky believes that the "old communal ownership" is expedient not in itself, not from the point of view of its historical stability (as with the Slavophils), but effectively as an economic principle of collective land ownership.

MATERIALISM ANTHROPOLOGICAL- Materialism, which sees in the concept of man the main worldview category and claims that only on its basis can a system of ideas about nature, society and thinking be developed.

Populism - ideology of the intelligentsia in the Russian Empire in the 1860s-1910s, focused on "rapprochement" with the people in search of their roots, its place in the world. The populist movement was associated with the intelligentsia's feeling loss of connection with folk wisdom, folk truth.

The ideas of Herzen and Chernyshevsky had a direct influence on the formation of the worldview of populism, a major ideological trend in Russia in the last third of the 19th - early 20th centuries. The sources of populism go back to a wide range of works of European ( I. Kant, O. Comte, G. Spencer, J. S. Mill, P. J. Proudhon, L. Feuerbach, etc.) and Russian thought V. G. Belinsky, A. I. Herzen, N. G. Chernyshevsky and others.). One of the theoretical sources of populism was Marxism. In turn, K. Marx actively used the works of Russian populist ideologists in the last decade of his life as an important source for studying the patterns of development of pre-capitalist society.

Populism has gone from disparate circles to cohesive organizations of revolutionary raznochintsy ("People's Will" and etc,). At the beginning of the XX century. the rise of the revolutionary movement in Russia led to the emergence of a number of populist groups and parties, including the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.

The beginning of the formation of the ideology of populism was laid by the works Petr Lavrovich Lavrov (1823-1900) "Historical Letters"(1868-1869) and Nikolai Konstantinovich Mikhailovsky ( 1842-1904) "What is progress?" ( 1870). Lavrov and Mikhailovsky denied the possibility of an objective interpretation of history, emphasizing the need to take into account the personal, moral and value criteria for assessing historical facts. Thus, social progress, from their point of view, cannot be understood as summing up historical processes under a certain general principle that explains the course of events like the action of the inexorable laws of nature. Progress is the "development of personality" and "embodiment in public forms truth and justice” (Lavrov). It is not equivalent to biological evolution, where the most accessible criterion of perfection is the complication of organization and differentiation. Mikhailovsky, in contrast to Spencer, defines progress not as an increase in social heterogeneity in society (through the growth of the social division of labor), but as movement towards social homogeneity, understood as a state of harmony of the social whole, expressed in the unification and organic development of its constituent parts, in the formation of a comprehensively developed person, the achievement of public good and social justice. The peculiarity of social cognition, according to Lavrov and Mikhailovsky, is that social phenomena are studied by scientists, specific individuals who have certain ideas about good and evil, desirable and undesirable. With this approach, the social sciences acquire the character of axiological disciplines. All that remains is to cleanse them of “bad” subjectivism, arbitrary judgments and evaluations, and properly, critically select the positive, rejecting everything negative. The sphere of the positive, according to Mikhailovsky, covers the ideals of social justice (solidarity), and the second sphere - "idols" and prejudices generated by ignorance of modern science. Assertion of the primacy of value over fact, the priority of the moral over the existent in the sphere of the social is one of the original ideas of Lavrov and Mikhailovsky. They believed that all social sciences must be built on the primacy of the individual. These ideas of populism were developed in Lavrov's doctrine of critically thinking individuals and in the theory of "struggle for individuality" Mikhailovsky.

Populism did not develop a unified philosophical system. The views of its representatives reflected a connection with various traditions of Russian thought, as well as belonging to the three main areas of populism - anarchist (M. A. Bakunin), propaganda (P. L. Lavrov) and conspiratorial (P. N. Tkachev).

Works by Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin : Statehood and anarchy. The struggle of two parties in an international society of workers.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin(May 18, 1814 - June 19, 1876) - Russian thinker, revolutionary, pan-Slavist, anarchist, one of the ideologists of populism.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin(1814-1876) went through a complex philosophical evolution, successively replacing his passions for the philosophy of Hegel, left-wing Hegelianism and Feuerbach. He was the creator of perhaps the most consistent atheistic doctrine in Russia, based on the materialistic denial of religion and the church, in his words, the most alien to human freedom, the offspring of state oppression: “If God exists, man is a slave. And man can and should be free. Therefore, God does not exist." Bakunin is characterized by references not to the opposition of science and religion (as for most European supporters of atheism), but to the opposition of "real and immediate life and religion", "the divine ghost and the real world." The falsity of religion, according to Bakunin, lies mainly in the fact that it tries to subordinate to the will of the deity the elemental stream of life, which does not fit either into the framework of the legislators of science, or into the pre-establishment of the Supreme Being.

Works by Pyotr Alekseevich Kropotkin:"Notes of a Revolutionary", "Ideals and Reality in Russian Literature", "Fields, Factories and Workshops" (abbreviated), "Speeches of a Rebel", " modern science and anarchy”, “Bread and freedom”, “Ethics” (Volume 1), “Anarchy”.

Prince Pyotr Alekseevich Kropotkin(November 27 (December 9), 1842 - February 8, 1921) - Russian revolutionary anarchist and scientist, geographer, geomorphologist, historian, publicist from the Kropotkin family. Creator of the ideology of anarcho-communism and one of the most influential anarchist theorists.

A major theorist of populism was a supporter anarcho-communism Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin(1842-1921). As a naturalist, historian, sociologist and theorist of moral philosophy, he possessed encyclopedic knowledge. The center of his theoretical research was a large-scale historical and sociological study of communities, associations, unions, rural communities and other forms of human collectivity. Kropotkin saw his main task in substantiating the need to replace violent, centralized, competitive forms of human society based on the state. These forms should be replaced by decentralized, self-governing, solidarity associations, the prototype of which was a rural community, a free city of the Middle Ages, guilds, brotherhoods, a Russian artel, cooperative movements, etc. Kropotkin found confirmation of this in the "law of mutual aid" whose action covers both the sphere of nature and the sphere public life(social solidarity). The area of ​​solidarity, according to Kropotkin, is universal and is included in human life as an instinct of sociality, which originates even in animals and overpowers the instinct of self-preservation.