Fundamentals of the philosophy of technology. Technology as an object of knowledge Destabilization of the existential reproduction of human life

1. Stages of formation of technical knowledge. Interrelation of natural and technical sciences.

2. Correlation between theoretical and empirical in technical sciences. Forms of scientific and technical knowledge. Methodology of scientific and technical knowledge.

3. The emergence and development of engineering activities. Place and role of engineering in modern society.

4. Types of engineering activities. Engineering thinking.

1. What stages did technical knowledge go through in its development?

2. What impact did natural science have on the formation of technical sciences?

3. Specify the general and special features of the interaction between the theoretical and empirical in science in general and in technoscience? What is the role of industrial practice in technical sciences?

4. What do you know about the disciplinary organization of technical sciences?

5. Name the main forms of scientific and technical knowledge and identify their specific features in comparison with natural forms scientific knowledge.

6. Compare the methodology of technical knowledge and design in relation to general scientific methodology.

7. Name the main problematic areas of communication between technical and social sciences and the humanities. What is the significance of philosophical principles in technical sciences?

8. What are the features of the development of society associated with the emergence of the engineering profession and its mass distribution?

9. What is the essence and main functions of the engineering profession? What are the aspects of its connection with production and science?

10. What classical and non-classical types of engineering activity do you know? What is the essence of each of them?

11. What are the prospects for the development of system engineering and sociotechnical design?

12. What are the ways to increase the prestige of the engineering profession in modern society?

13. What are the basic requirements for the personality of an engineer.

14. What are the strengths and weaknesses of engineering thinking?

15. How do you understand the meaning of the thesis about the "dialectic of engineering creativity"?

1. Gorokhov, V.G. Scientific engineering education: convergence of Russian and German experience / V.G. Gorokhov // Higher education in Russia. - 2012. - No. 11. - P. 138-148.

2. Gorokhov, V.G. Technical sciences: history and theory: the history of science from a philosophical point of view / V.G. Gorokhov. – M.: Logos, 2012. – 511 p.

3. Gusev, S.S. Interaction of cognitive processes in scientific and technical creativity / S.S. Gusev. - L .: Science. Leningrad branch, 1989. - 127 p.

4. Ivanov, B.I. Formation and development of technical sciences / B.I. Ivanov, V.V. Cheshev. - L .: Science. Leningrad branch, 1977. - 263 p.

5. Kochetkov, V.V. The ethos of creativity and the status of an engineer in a post-industrial society: a socio-philosophical analysis / V.V. Kochetkov, E.L. Kochetkova
// Questions of Philosophy. - 2013. - No. 7. - P. 3-12.

6. Lerner, P.S. Philosophy of the engineering profession / PS Lerner // School and production. - 2005. - No. 2. - S. 11-15.

7. Muravyov, E.M. Types of technical knowledge and features of their assimilation
// School and production. - 1999. - No. 1. - S. 23-26.

8. Nikitaev, V.V. From the philosophy of technology - to the philosophy of engineering / V.V. Nikitaev // Questions of Philosophy. - 2013. - No. 3. - S. 68-79.

9. Oreshnikov I.M. Philosophy of technology and engineering activities: tutorial/ THEM. Oreshnikov. - Ufa: UGNTU Publishing House, 2008. - 119 p.

10. Polovinkin, A.I. Fundamentals of engineering creativity: textbook / A.I. Polovinkin. – Ed. 3rd, sr. - St. Petersburg: Lan, 2007. - 360 p.

11. Ursul, A.D. Technical sciences and integrative processes: philosophical aspects / A.D. Ursul, E.P. Semenyuk, V.P. Miller. - Chisinau: Shtiintsa, 1987. - 255 p.

12. Philosophy of mathematics and technical sciences: a textbook for students, applicants and graduate students technical specialties/ under total ed. S.A. Lebedev. - M.: Academic project, 2006. - 777 p.

13. Philosophical questions technical knowledge: collection of articles / otv. ed. N.T. Abramov. – M.: Nauka, 1984. – 295 p.

14. Shapovalov E.A. Society and engineer: philosophical and sociological problems of engineering activities / E.A. Shapovalov. - L .: Publishing House of Leningrad State University, 1984. - 183 p.

15. Shubas, M.L. Engineering thinking and scientific and technical progress: style of thinking, picture of the world, outlook / M.L. Shubas. - Vilnius: Mintis, 1982. - 173 p.

Basic concepts of the topic

Technoscience, paradigm, technosphere, technical law, technical theory, applied science, technical epistemology, information technology, engineering, invention, design, design, engineering research, systems engineering, sociotechnical design, status of an engineer, engineering thinking.

Topic 4. TECHNOLOGY IN THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND SOCIO-CULTURAL DIMENSIONS

1.

2. Axiology of technology and its humanistic ideal. Directions of humanization and ethization of technical activity.

3. The role of technology in the history of human civilization.

4. Information-technogenic civilization: features and contradictions.

5. Environmental and social problems NTP, ways to overcome them.

Control questions and tasks

1. What aspects of human physicality and spirituality are changing under the influence of modern technologies?

2. What does the thesis about the humanitarian ambivalence of technology mean?

3. What is "technical reality"?

4. Point out examples of contradictory anthropological consequences of technological progress?

5. Are moral norms the fetters of technical progress? What if the value of free technical experiment conflicts with the value of personal integrity?

6. What is the significance of humanitarian culture for a technical specialist?

7. What are the main principles of engineering ethics?

8. What is the social responsibility of an engineer?

9. What are the socio-cultural aspects technical revolutions?

10. How does modern society differ from all previous ones in economic, political, social and spiritual terms?

11. Show the connection between the features of modern civilization and the growth of global environmental and social problems.

12. Give the most common arguments for and against scientism and technical optimism.

13. Point out examples of inconsistency in the socio-cultural consequences of technological progress?

14. What achievements of scientific and technological progress would humanity need to give up?

15. What are the ways to overcome the crisis of technogenic civilization?

Literature for additional reading

1. Alekseeva, I.Yu. "Techno-people" against "post-people": NBICS-revolutions and the future of man / I.Yu. Alekseeva, V.I. Arshinov, V.V. Chekletsov // Questions of Philosophy. - 2013. - No. 3. - S. 12-21.

2. Behmann, G. Socio-philosophical and methodological problems of dealing with technological risks in modern society: (debate about technological risks in modern Western literature) / G. Behmann // Questions of Philosophy. - 2012. - No. 7. - P. 120-132; No. 8. - S. 127-136.

3. Voitov, V.A. Unexpected scientific and technical problems of the modern stage of scientific and technological progress / V.A. Voitov, E.M. Mirsky // Social sciences and modernity. - 2012. - No. 2. - P. 144-154.

4. Gorokhov, V.G. Nanoethics: the meaning of scientific, technical and economic ethics in modern society / V.G. Gorokhov // Questions of Philosophy. - 2008. - No. 10. - P. 33-49.

5. Grunvald, A. The role of social and humanitarian knowledge in the interdisciplinary assessment of scientific and technological development / A. Grunvald // Questions of Philosophy. - 2011. - No. 2. - P. 115-126.

6. Dombinskaya, M.G. Ethics of an engineer - where and where? / M.G. Dombinska
// Energy: economics, technology, ecology. - 2009. - No. 2. - S. 60-66.

7. Zverevich, V.V. Information society in virtual and social reality. What kind of society is this and how does it exist in these realities? / V.V. Zverevich // Scientific and technical libraries. - 2013. - No. 6. - P. 84-103; No. 7. - S. 54-75.

8. Kaisarova, Zh.E. Eotechnical epoch and its historical and cultural role in the formation of technogenic civilization / Zh.E. Kaisarova // Questions of cultural studies. - 2012. - No. 1. - S. 20-26.

9. Kornai, J. Innovations and dynamism: the relationship between systems and technical progress / J. Kornai // Questions of Economics. - 2012. - No. 4. - P. 4-31.

10. Letov, O.V. Social studies of science and technology / O.V. Letov // Questions of Philosophy. - 2010. - No. 3. - S. 12-21.

11. Mironov, A.V. Science, technique and technology: techno-ethical aspect / A.V. Mironov // Bulletin of Moscow University. – Ser.7, Philosophy. - 2006. - No. 1. - S. 26-41.

12. Motroshilova, N.V. Scientific and technical innovations and their civilizational prerequisites / N.V. Motroshilova // Philosophy of knowledge: to the anniversary of L.A. Mikeshina: collection. stat. - M., 2010. - S. 66-95.

13. Oleinikov Yu.V. Social aspect of modern technical and technological modernization / Yu.V. Oleinikov // Philosophical Sciences. - 2010. - No. 9. - P. 37-49.

14. Popkova, N.V. Anthropology of technology: Problems, approaches, perspectives / N.V. Popkov. – M.: Librokom, 2012. – 360 p.

15. Trubitsyn, D.V. Industrialism as technological determinism in the concept of modernization: a critical analysis / D.V. Trubitsyn // Questions of Philosophy. - 2012. - No. 3. - S. 59-71.

Basic concepts of the topic

Personality, value, technical reality, anthropology of technology, axiology of technology, consciousness, ambivalence of technology, humanization, intelligentsia, technoethics, spirituality, humanization of technoknowledge, technocracy, ecology, technogenic civilization, virtual reality, information society, social technology, sustainable development.

Annex 1.

TOPICS OF CONTROL WORKS

1. The evolution of the concept of "technology" in the history of scientific and philosophical thought.

2. Technical and non-technical: the problem of correlation.

3. Types of technology and their classification.

4. Philosophy of technology in the system of culture.

5. Interdisciplinary aspects of the philosophy of technology.

6. Problem field modern philosophy technology.

7. Philosophy of technology in the educational space as a means of forming the general competencies of students.

8. The problem of technology in heritage ancient philosophy.

9. The beginnings of the ontology of technology in classical philosophy(T. Hobbes, R. Descartes, J. La Mettrie and others).

10. The concept of "conquest of nature" by the thinkers of the Enlightenment and its significance for modern civilization.

11. Philosophical engineers (Ernst Hartig, Johann Beckmann, Franz Relo, Alois Riedler).

12. The problem of technology in social theories Marxism.

13. Materialistic concepts of technological determinism. Concepts of technological optimism (D. Galbraith, W. Rostow, Z. Brzezinski and others)

14. Religious-idealistic and theological concepts of technology.

15. The problem of technology in philosophical anthropology and existentialism.

16. Information and epistemological concepts of the philosophy of technology (A. Diemer, H. Skolimovsky, T. Stonier, A. Etzioni and others).

17. Technique as an instrument of totalitarian control (T. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, J. Ellul, J. Deleuze and others).

18. Questions of the philosophy of technology in Russian materialistic and religious-idealistic philosophy of the late XIX - early XX centuries. (N.F. Fedorov, P.K. Engelmeyer, N.A. Berdyaev, P.A. Florensky and others).

19. The philosophy of technology in the USSR and modern Russia: main achievements.

20. Historical evolution of the relationship between technology and science in the history of the development of society.

21. Criteria and a new understanding of scientific and technological progress in the concept of sustainable development.

22. The predictive role of scientific knowledge. The role of science and technology in overcoming modern global crises.

23. Technique and technology of the Stone Age.

24. The origins of technical revolutions in the culture of ancient civilizations.

25. Archimedes and the development of technology.

26. Technical achievements of the Middle Ages.

27. Understanding the role of technical activity in the Renaissance. Technical inventions of Leonardo da Vinci.

28. Technical practice and its role in the development of experimental natural science in the 17th - 18th centuries.

29. Technical and technological revolutions in human history.

30. Industrial revolution of the 19th century.

31. Technical and technological boom of the 19th - early 20th centuries.

32. Scientific and technological revolution: main stages and directions.

33. Modern technologies, their significance and prospects.

34. Natural and technical sciences: the problem of correlation.

35. Scientific and technical theory in their relationship: philosophical and methodological aspects. The main types of technical theory.

36. Development of system and cybernetic representations in technical knowledge.

37. Methodological problems of technical sciences.

38. The technical factor in modern science.

39. Mathematization of scientific and technical knowledge.

40. Worldview function of scientific and technical knowledge.

41. Philosophical and methodological aspects of technical theory.

42. Technoscience within the framework of the synergetic paradigm.

43. The problem of creativity in technical knowledge.

44. Technical picture of the world.

45. System-integrative trends in modern technical sciences.

46. The role of information and computer technologies in scientific and technical research.

47. Scientific and engineering activities: similarities and differences.

48. The origins of engineering in pre-industrial civilizations.

49. Formation and development of engineering education in the XVIII - XIX centuries.

50. Dissemination of technical knowledge and engineering in Russia.

51. Technical and engineering culture: essence, structure, functions.

52. Social roles and functions of engineering.

53. Modern structure of the engineering profession.

54. Engineering creativity.

55. Scientific and technical intelligentsia, its place and role in modern Russia.

56. Technical reality as a manifestation of human existence.

57. Humanitarian ambivalence of technology.

58. The problem of "technology and morality" in Russian philosophy.

59. The role of the humanitarian intelligentsia in overcoming the spiritual crisis and the humanization of technical activity.

60. Humanitarian assessment of technologies: problems of expertise and diagnostics.

61. Technology as a way of objectifying spirituality.

62. Technical creativity and human freedom.

63. Philosophy of artificial intelligence.

64. The problem of personality in the information society.

65. The ethics of a scientist and the ethics of an engineer: the problem of interconnection.

66. Technical aesthetics: philosophical aspects.

67. Problems of humanization and humanitarization of the higher technical school and engineering education.

68. Technical progress and economic types of society.

69. Technique and technoscience in futurological theories.

70. The problem of antinomy of socio-cultural and technical in philosophical thought.

71. Contradictions of technogenic civilization.

72. Information security in the information society.

73. Scientific and technological progress and the theory of sustainable development.

74. Socio-ecological expertise of scientific, technical and economic projects.

75. Social technologies.

76. Technological progress and the state: the problem of mutual influence.

77. Technique and art.

78. Network society and virtual reality.

79. Internet as an instrument of new social technologies.

80. Technical development and cultural progress: ways to overcome the crisis of modern technogenic civilization.

Appendix 2

QUESTIONS FOR OFFSET

1. The concept of technology. Philosophy of technology, its subject, structure and functions.

2. Science as a sphere of human activity and its philosophical understanding. The relationship of science and technology.

3. Causes and patterns of technical progress. Technological progress in traditional societies.

4. Scientific and technological progress in modern and modern times. The main directions of scientific and technological revolution.

5. Philosophy of technology, its subject, the history of its origin (until the end of the 19th century).

6. The main directions and concepts of the philosophy of technology of the XX-beginning of the XXI century.

7. Scientific and technical knowledge: features, classification, levels. The relationship of technical sciences with the main branches of scientific knowledge.

8. Forms of scientific and technical knowledge. Methodology of technical sciences.

9. Engineering activity: essence, functions and types. Engineering thinking.

10. Man as an object and subject of technological progress. Technical reality and the crisis of modern man.

11. Humanization of technology. Engineering ethics and professional responsibility of a specialist.

12. Technique as a factor of socio-cultural development. The main features of modern civilization. Ecological and social problems of NTP.

Appendix 3.

§ 1. Object

A further modification of the interconversion of the ideal and the material is the dialectic of subject and object, the analysis of which in its pure form is a necessary stage of ascent.

Problem subject - object throughout the history of philosophy and sociology has been the subject of extensive discussion. A great many works are dedicated to her. A lot of points of view have been expressed about it: it would not be a mistake to say that there was not and is not a philosopher, a sociologist who in one way or another did not express his attitude towards her. And this is not accidental, because this problem is that sphere of theoretical thinking, which, as if in focus, reflects the interests of parties in philosophy, where all the roads of the struggle of materialism and idealism, dialectics and metaphysics lead, and therefore, ultimately, the struggle of social classes, groups.

Therefore, the problem has not lost its relevance today. Moreover, in the era of scientific and technological progress and fundamental social transformations in the lives of peoples, it is gaining more relevance and vitality every day, and therefore it is still a subject even more widely and actively discussed by both Marxists and non-Marxists. Marxist authors. At the same time, the needs of the continuously developing material practice and scientific knowledge brought to the fore not only new aspects of this problem and not only the solution of one or another of its moments, a “piece”, but the whole, urgently gave rise to the need, firstly, synthesis in the highest unity of abstract definitions, ascent to the concrete; secondly, a clear, definite and resolute application of the principle interconversionscheniya subject and object, which is actually the essence of the dialectical-materialistic solution of the problem.

The subject-object problem expressed the solution of the fundamental question of philosophy by the materialists and idealists. Although in ancient philosophy there is still no direct formulation of it, there are elements of an idea about it. The line of Democritus proceeded from a naive-materialistic, and the line of Plato from a naive-idealistic view of the world. Materialists understood the materiality of the world as an object and saw it in one or another sensually concrete beginning (Thales - in water, Heraclitus - in fire, etc.) - Moreover, this very beginning (or root cause) acts as the subject of changes in all things . In Heraclitus, for example, man-subject coincides with objective substance. Fate, necessity and reason are identical. God is an eternal periodic fire, fate, that is, the mind that creates everything from opposites. Everything depends on fate, which coincides with necessity. According to Democritus, a person is a microcosm and there is nothing else in it except atoms, a person dissolves in the elements of the necessary movement of atoms. Consequently, here the subject and object are not yet divided, they are merged into one.

Sophists make the first attempt to consider man as an independent problem. They believe that the laws of man cannot be completely reduced to the laws of the cosmos - the gods, but they must be explained from human nature. Protagoras' position is characteristic in this respect: Man is the measure of all things."Socrates takes a further step towards the study of man, requires to know his soul, consciousness, mind. He will tell the idea of ​​"daimonia", by which he understands the mind, his own conscience, common sense. “Socrates is aware that he,” writes Marx, “is the bearer of the daimonium ... but he does not withdraw into himself, he is the bearer not of the divine, but of the human image; Socrates turns out to be not mysterious, but clear and bright, not a prophet, but a sociable person.

At Plato the world of ideas, existing forever, being an object, at the same time acts as the subject of all changes, the creator of the world of "shadows". Man is made up of two substances: soul and body. The soul belongs to the world of ideas, while the body is a manifestation of the world of ideas. Man is thus the bearer of the spirit.

Aristotle makes a further attempt at dividing the problem and considering the object and subject separately. In his understanding, matter is the object towards which the form is directed. Matter-object is inert, passive, not actual, it is only a possibility, while the form-subject is the carrier of activity, effectiveness, it is actual. It is the substance, the root cause and the primary source of changes in matter, the transformation of possibility into reality. Only the free have the dignity of the subject-human. Slave not. man, but a speaking tool. Man is a political being. Society is a single entity.

Against the point of view of the fusion of man and society, the individualism of the Stoics, skeptics, and Epicureans is directed, who believed that the universal dominates the individual, who can receive the highest satisfaction only in solitude.

An important contribution to the solution of the problem was made by pre-Marxist materialism. Defending his materialistic view of the world, he emphasized its objective character, the existence of an object independent of consciousness. In his understanding, the object is the objective world, and, consequently, the object of knowledge.

So, bacon believed that the subject of science can only be matter (nature) and its properties. The answers to the questions put forward by science must be sought "...not in the cells of the human mind", but in nature itself. The object is primary, exists objectively, eternally. Unlike Aristotle, he does not deprive matter of internal activity, but considers it as an active, active principle that generates the diversity of its objective forms and forces. Whatever the original matter, it must necessarily be clothed in a certain form, endowed with certain definite properties, and arranged in such a way that every kind of force, quality, content, action and natural movement can be its consequence and its product.

Bacon believed that matter was originally objectively characterized by primary "forms" inseparable from matter, which are the source of "nature" or "nature", i.e., the physical properties of bodies. For Bacon, the primary forms of matter are living, individualizing, inherent in it, creating specific differences in the essence of force. Bacon tries to prove that, in addition to mechanical, there are other types of motion, of which there are 19. He tries not to reduce all manifestations of matter to one mechanical relationship, as the later materialists-mechanists do, but sees in matter the ability to comprehensive development, such as aspiration, vitality, tension, anguish, etc. Bacon as its first creator, materialism, - wrote K. Marx, - still harbors in itself in a naive form the germs of all-round development. Matter smiles with its poetic-sensual brilliance to the whole person.

Thus, in Bacon's materialism, in a spontaneous form, the idea is laid down that not only a person is a subject, but also matter (nature) itself, since the latter itself is a means to qualitative changes.

In philosophy Descartes the subject is definitely opposed to the object. According to him, the subject is inner world consciousness, the main content of which is innate ideas, consisting of innate concepts (the concepts of being, extension, figure, etc.) and of innate axioms, which are the connection of the first. (Nothing can arise from nothing, a thinking subject cannot but exist if he thinks, “I think, therefore I exist, etc.). The object, on the other hand, is an external objective reality, matter, which he identifies with space, since only the latter does not depend on consciousness. All the diversity of natural phenomena is explained by mechanical movement, which is impossible without an external push (God), being the universal cause of movement. This dualism underlies the decision and the question of the subject - a person. The latter is the connection between the soulless bodily (natural) mechanism and the thinking soul. The task of knowledge is to invent means for the domination of man (the thinking soul) over nature.

Spinoza, developing further the ideas of Descartes, overcame his dualism about material and spiritual substances. Locke developed the doctrine of primary and secondary qualities. Leibniz argued that God is not the source of innate ideas, and so on. That is why Marx wrote: “Mechanistic French materialism joined the physics of Descartes as opposed to his metaphysics. His students were anti-metaphysics by profession, namely physics…. The metaphysics of the seventeenth century, whose main representative in France was Descartes, had materialism as its antagonist from the day of its birth. Materialism opposed Descartes in the person of Gassendi, who restored Epicurean materialism. French and English materialism has always maintained a close connection with Democritus and Epicurus. Cartesian metaphysics met another opponent in the person of the English materialist Hobbes.

In essence, Spinoza's atheistic position - "matter is the cause of itself" (Causa Sui) contains a deep idea that matter is the only and infinite substance - the source of origin and change of all its modes, excluding the presence of any other beginning. The object and subject, therefore, in Spinoza is the identity of God and nature, which is the eternal and infinite holistic substance, which is not only the source of modes, but also of unchanging human nature. Considering man as part of nature, he considers him from the side of his body and soul. The latter is a particle of the infinite mind of God, which consists of a set of ideas and is directed to the body (object). Moreover, these opposites are mutually independent of each other, since they are due to two independent attributes of a single substance. Human cognitive activity goes through a number of stages: sense cognition(opinion), which is very limited and always contains error; rational knowledge (understanding), which is the source certain truths; intuition, which is the highest mind, the basis of reliable knowledge.

A significant step forward in the study of the problem was made by Diderot, Holbach, Helvetius, La Mettrie, Lomonosov, Radishchev, Feuerbach, Herzen, Chernyshevsky and other pre-Marxist materialists. Enlighteners of the 18th and 19th centuries, expressing the interests of developing capitalism, preached the ideal of a developed subject - the individual. The latter is the goal, and society is the means to achieve this goal. Society, the state is the product of an agreement between individuals. Considering man as a material being, at the same time, they essentially identify him with nature, explain the human essence from the laws of mechanics (“Man-machine” by La Mettrie, etc.) or reduce it to psychophysiology (Feuerbach).

In understanding Feuerbach, man differs from the animal in that the animal is limited in the way of his existence, and the man is not limited and universal. Therefore, man is the only universal and highest subject of philosophy. Recognizing the materiality of the human body, he did not see the materiality of society: for him, on the one hand, nature exists, and on the other, consciousness as a product of the same nature. In this form he carries out the principle of his anthropological materialism, in essence the principle of naturalism.

But his anthropologism proceeds from the biological, and not from the social essence of man, being, thus, an idealism "above". He sees the sociality of man only in the ethical relationship I And You. Sexual love is the basis of all human relationships and relationships, and the desire for I and You is the driving force for happiness, the unity of the human will. According to Engels, love is everywhere and always in Feuerbach's miracle worker, which must help out of all the difficulties of practical life - and this in a society divided into classes with diametrically opposed interests!

Hegel's idealism was criticized for understanding the essence of man as "pure thinking", Feuerbach, however, could not oppose him with a consistently materialistic solution to the problem, since his man is an abstract individual, a set of sensory-perceived biological qualities and properties. In other words, Feuerbach did not at all overcome idealism in understanding the essence of man, and he himself became a prisoner of idealism. It does not reach real, really existing people, but stops at the abstraction "man" and confines itself to recognizing a real, individual, bodily man in the realm of feelings. Actual social relations are thus replaced by the concepts of "kind" and interindividual communication. But man is not an abstract being lurking somewhere outside the world, and so on. state, moreover, in the sense that it is a historical product, the result of the activity of a whole series of generations, each of which stood on the shoulders of the previous one, continued to develop its industry and its mode of communication and modified its social order in accordance with changing needs. Even objects of the simplest "sensible certainty" are given to him only thanks to social development, thanks to industry and trade relations" 4.

Speaking of Feuerbach's idealism in understanding the subject, man, Engels wrote: “In form he is realistic, he takes man as the point of departure; but the world in which this man lives is out of the question, and therefore his man remains constantly the same abstract man who appears in the philosophy of religion. This man was not born from his mother's womb: he, like a butterfly from a chrysalis, flew out of the god of monotheistic religions. That is why he does not live in a real, historically developed and historically determined world. Although he is in communion with other people, each of them is as abstract as he is.

Pre-Marxist materialism as a whole "too much stress" on the nature-object, emphasized the primacy, activity, decisive role of nature, which was due to historical conditions and the need for methods of struggle of this materialism against idealism, mysticism.

At the same time, as mentioned above, this materialism not only did not deny the subjective factor of consciousness, but even exaggerated, inflated it, considering ideal motive forces, i.e., consciousness as the only driving force in evolution. public life. He explained social events, processes, phenomena, facts, actions, relationships, etc. from consciousness, considering the latter to be the root cause of the development of society. Even the most progressive materialists of the past, such as the French materialists of the eighteenth century, Feuerbach and the Russian revolutionary democrats, were materialists "below" but idealists "above". In the historical field, F. Engels wrote, the old materialism betrays itself, considering the ideal driving forces acting as the final causes of events, instead of investigating what lies behind them, what are the driving forces of these driving forces. The inconsistency lies not in the recognition of existence, ideal these motives, but in what they dwell on they do not go further to the motive causes of these ideal motive forces. This, in fact, is the historical limitation of the old materialism, striving for truth and preparing for its discovery.

Summing up the consideration of the views of pre-Marxist materialists on the problem of "subject-object", it is necessary to note the following: 1) They understood the essence of man as a "genus", as an abstract inherent in an individual, and not as a set of social relations; 2) The subject was understood as an individual, isolated person; 3) They did not see the most important thing in social life - the material and production activity of people, the decisive role of revolutionary practical activity, and therefore they did not understand the real source of the activity of consciousness. The latter was considered only as a product of nature itself, and not as a product of man changing nature, that is, not as a product of socio-historical practice; 4) They did not see the dialectics of the material and the ideal, the interaction of the subject and the object was understood as the impact of the object, nature on the subject, which is a passive appendage of the object; 5) They did not cover precisely the actions of the masses of the population, did not see their decisive role in history; 6) Society was understood as a random accumulation of events, facts, etc., they did not see in it a need, a pattern.

These shortcomings of pre-Marxist materialism, its limitations, gave rise to another extreme - an exorbitant exaggeration of the role of the subject, its absolutization, its hypostatization by subjective idealists (Berkeley, Hume, Mach, etc.), who reject the objective character of the material world, and all the problem of subject-object is completely transferred to the consciousness of the subject.

In Kant's understanding, man is a combination of the world of nature and the world of freedom. In the first world, he is subject to natural necessity; in the second, he is a morally self-determined being. Therefore, Kant's anthropology considers man from two points of view: physiological, which examines him, that nature makes a man, and pragmatic, which explores what what does he do as a freely acting beingor can and should make of himself. Man is the main object in the world, for he is his own final goal.

The real subject of cognition for Kant is a kind of transcendental consciousness, standing above the individual consciousness of a person as a finite subject, which is opposed by a finite, limited object of cognition. Speaking against the "epistemological robinsonade", Kant, however, did not understand the decisive role of socio-historical practice in cognition, which led him to dualism. This dualism was expressed in the fact that the subject and the external "thing in itself" in Kant simply oppose each other, without interpenetrating, without passing into each other. Moreover, the external object is not for the subject in general an object of knowledge. For Kant, the act of constructing the objective world by the subject takes place in some supersensible, otherworldly spheres of the real natural world.

Fichte developing Kant's subjectivism, eliminates his dualism "from the right". He completely derives the entire material world-object from the active activity of the subject, which he understands as a combination of various mental states. Thus, the initial category in Fichte's philosophy is active human activity. However, he considers it as an absolute, undetermined, unconditioned active mental activity, which from itself generates the subject - a set of states of the subject. Pure "I" as a universal human consciousness in the process of action posits both itself and its opposite - "not I" (object).

Deep thoughts about the relationship "subject-object" expressed by Hegel. Criticizing the romantic individualism of the old materialism, as well as Kant and the subjective idealists, he points out that the incompatibility of the personal ideal with reality is explained only by the subjectivity of this ideal. What is true in these ideals is preserved in practical activity; it is only the untrue, the empty abstractions that man must get rid of. The latter is not an isolated monad, but a moment of the universal, which realizes not subjective goals, but objective ones. Being and essence are the moments of the formation of a concept, which is a stage of both nature and spirit. Logical forms as forms of the concept constitute the living spirit of the real.

The goal turned out to be the third term in relation to the mechanism and chemism: it is their truth. Since it itself is still within the sphere of objectivity, it is still affected by externality as such, and it is confronted by some objective world with which it is related. On this side, with the conditional relation being considered, which is an external relation, mechanical causality still appears, to which chemism is generally to be included, but appears as subordinate to it, as holy in itself.

Commenting on these thoughts of Hegel, V. I. Lenin writes: “The laws of the external world, nature, subdivided into mechanical and chemical (this is very important), are the basis expedient human activities .

Man in his practical activity has the objective world before him, depends on it, determines his activity by it.

From this side, from the side of practical (goal-setting) human activity, the mechanical (and chemical) causality of the world (nature) is, as it were, something external, as if secondary, as if covered up.

According to Hegel, reason is as cunning as it is powerful, cunning consists in general in mediating activity, which, by conditioning the interaction and mutual processing of objects according to their nature, without direct interference in this process, fulfills its goal.

Further, commenting on Hegel’s hesitations regarding the fact that “in his tools a person has power over external nature, while for his own purposes he is rather subordinate to it,” V. I. Lenin writes: “Historical materialism as one of the applications and developments of brilliant ideas - grains, in the embryo available in Hegel" 7.

True thoughts were expressed by Hegel also about practice as a criterion of truth, which was also highly valued by the classics of Marxism. "Marx, consequently, directly adjoins Hegel, introducing the criterion of practice into the theory of knowledge" 8.

Thus, Hegel's merit in the historical field lies in the fact that he tries to understand the development of society as a necessary, natural process. He criticizes those who consider the opinion, the will of kings, legislators, etc., to be the decisive force in the development of human society, who represent society as a random, chaotic accumulation of events, facts, etc.

By sharply criticizing the dualism of object and subject, which is characteristic of "rational metaphysics", Hegel puts forward the concept of the identity of these opposites. The basis of reality, according to Hegel, is the self-development of the absolute spirit, which is an absolute subject, which has itself as an object. The subject exists only in so far as it is an eternal becoming, movement. The absolute spirit as an absolute subject - the object does not exist outside the process of self-development.

The subject, according to Hegel, does not exist outside the activity of a social person in the cognition and transformation of the surrounding world and himself. The Phenomenology of Spirit is devoted to the substantiation of this position. "The greatness of the Hegelian "Fenomenology" and its final result - the dialectics of negativity as a driving and generating principle, - Marger wrote in this connection, - lies ... in the fact that Hegel considers the self-generation of man as a process, considers objectification as deobjectification, as self-alienation and the removal of this self-alienation , in that he, therefore, grasps the essence labor and understands objective man, true, because real, man as the result of his own labor... He sees labor as essence as the self-affirming essence of man" 9.

Although Hegel, according to Marx, knows and recognizes only one type of labor - namely, abstract-spiritual labor, he correctly emphasizes the connection between the cognitive and practical activities of social man.

However, at the same time, he mystifies real connections and relationships, considers the main driving force behind the development of society to be the “world mind”, the “absolute spirit”, which, in his opinion, is the bearer of historical necessity, the only real concreteness. Everything else is abstract, metaphysical. For Hegel, man is the subject of spiritual activity, creating the world human culture. He is not an individual at all, as materialists understand, but the bearer of universal consciousness, reason, spirit. He is a "humanized idea" - an absolute spirit that has returned to itself through other being.

Hegel understands the development of the "world mind" as an ascent from the abstract to the concrete. Having discovered this logical law of development for the first time, he applies it to the phenomena of consciousness, to "spirit". The absolute spirit ascends to itself through a series of steps, representing a number of its abstract manifestations - mechanism, chemistry and organism. Becoming concrete, it manifests itself in society. The economic life of society is also an abstract manifestation of the spirit. Separate individuals operate in this sphere, entering into certain relations with each other in order to preserve their individuality. But here the abstract form of consciousness dominates - reason, which is not concrete. True, it contains opposites, but the latter remain themselves and are not a source of development. Development is provided by legal activity. But law is a manifestation of a higher essence - a purposeful will. The state is a concrete, higher reality, the reality of the general will, the image and reality of reason. The entire material culture of society, according to Hegel, is a product of the development of the spirit, the concept or the form of its manifestation.

Thus, in Hegelian philosophy, despite the historical understanding of the subject, the latter turns out to be nothing other than the absolute idea standing above the individual, positing itself at the same time as an absolute object.

In this regard, it is extremely important to emphasize that if the classics of Marxism critically overcame the limited understanding of man by past philosophers, including Hegel, and materialistically rethinking the correct thoughts, grains, they created an integral scientific theory man-subject and object, then modern philosophers, especially the existentialists, and even earlier the predecessor of the latter, Kierkegaard, sharply criticize all past philosophy, especially Hegelian, "from the right", rejecting everything reasonable that is contained in the philosophy of the past in order to to preach a consistently irrationalist individualistic anthropology.

Thus, speaking out against the Hegelian understanding of man as a moment of manifestation of a universal, absolute spirit, Kierkegaard believes that man should not be determined by anything, but should be absolutely free in choice and absolutely self-determined. Only in unconditional independence from all connections and external relations a person can become a personality, acquires the absoluteness of his individual choice and is responsible for his actions. The decisive condition for achieving this goal is the will of an absolutely isolated person. Reason is not only not a value, spiritual wealth, but rather an evil that destroys and disfigures the authenticity of a person.

This indeterministic, irrationalistic conception of man is further developed by contemporary existentialists. The general content of the anthropology of all existentialism is a person who is absolutely isolated from this world, abandoned by everyone and everything, left alone with himself, desperate, having lost faith, yearning and dying.

If we ignore the external form of expression and proceed from the content, then the diversity of pre-Marxist and modern non-Marxist anthropological concepts of man in their essence can be reduced to the following main directions:

• I.Biological. Man is considered as a natural biological phenomenon, his social entity, just as the laws of the development of society are absolutely identified with the laws of the development of nature.
• II.Objectively idealistic. A person is considered as a moment of manifestation of the mystical absolute idea, and the laws of the development of society are manifestations of the laws of the absolute idea. In other words, the essence of man is mystified thinking.
• III.Subjective-idealistic. Human society and man are derived from the consciousness or will of the individual, from the absolute Self, and the laws of the development of society are considered as manifestations of this consciousness.
• IV.Dualistic. Its essence lies in the fact that a person is considered as a unity of natural and social, physical and spiritual: “on the one hand, on the other hand”;
• v.Theological. These are the teachings about the first man as a divine being, the anthropology of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, etc., the essence of which is the divine origin of man, human society, as well as the divine laws of their development.

Of course, all these directions differ not only from each other, but within each of them one can find any number of distinguishing features of one concept from another, one point of view from another. However, these differences are not significant, they do not change their essence. And the essence is one - idealistic. All these directions represent various varieties and modifications of the idealistic understanding of both society and the laws of its development, as well as the individual, the individual, the individual.

In the light of all that has been said, the great enduring significance of the world-historical revolution that Marxism accomplished in understanding both the object and the subject becomes more understandable. The discovery by Marxism of a materialistic understanding of society was also the key to the discovery of the dialectic of object and subject. The object, whatever its further definitions, is the opposite of the subject, is what the subject's activity is directed at, is what processes, assimilates the subject and from which the latter builds his body. Since the object is something involved in the activity of the subject, it is not identical with nature. The latter is eternal, boundless, etc., objective reality, which is an object only by those aspects of itself that are involved in the process of subjectivation, in the process of the subject's activity. It is the practical and cognitive activity of the subject that is the criterion, or better to say that side, that line that separates the object from nature. Of course, this sphere will continuously expand and deepen. However, outside this sphere, beyond this boundary, the question of what happens in the rest of nature remains always open. "Nature, taken abstractly, isolated, fixed in isolation from man, is nothing for man" 10. "

However, here it is necessary to make a reservation: as shown above, in the history of philosophy, the object was often identified with nature, and idealism, in particular Machism, denying the objective reality of the object - nature, adhered to the thesis: "without a subject there is no object", which was rightly and decisively opposed by materialists, in features of V. I. Lenin in the book "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism".

We mean by object not nature as such, but the subject of human activity, which can be one or another side of both the material and the ideal, involved in the process of this activity. Thus, for example, Marx wrote that with the liquidation of capitalism, “workers, as subjects, use the means of production as an object to produce wealth for ourselves.” 11 It follows that human activity is possible as an identity of opposites - object and subject, and in this sense these concepts are impossible without each other.

Nature, which exists by itself outside of this activity, has nothing to do with the subject-object relation and is not an object at all. There is an object-subject relationship relation. And therefore, it, like any relation, must have two sides, which are impossible without each other. Consequently, there is no object without a subject and, conversely, the subject is impossible, and therefore unthinkable, without the object and the object without the subject. In the subject-object relation, the object of activity (which will be shown in detail below) is not only natural, but also social; even more than that - not only material, but also ideal. That is why reasoning such as that something is only an object and the other is only a subject has nothing to do with dialectical materialism. Such an abstraction simply does not creatively repeat the opinion of pre-Marxist materialism, which just took reality only in the form of an object, and consciousness in the form of a subject. Unfortunately, there are still authors who turn their erroneous judgments into truth by referring to the classics of Marxism. And in this case it was not without it.

§ 2. Subject

Great principle dialectical materialism- the materialistic understanding of history is the basis for a truly scientific solution to the problem of the subject - man, over which the best minds of mankind have been unsuccessfully breaking their heads for centuries and millennia.

In the philosophy of Marxism, for the first time, the actual subject becomes public man carrying out material production. Not an isolated individual, "epistemological Robinson", not an absolute idea, but a person who produces in society and only therefore cognizes reality. Only such an understanding is truly scientific.

At the same time, as Marx pointed out, “it is especially necessary to avoid again opposing “society”, as an abstraction, to the individual. Individual is a social being. Therefore, every manifestation of his life - even if it does not appear in an immediate form collective, done together with others, manifestations of life, is a manifestation and affirmation public life" 12.

Society is a higher, concrete generalization of the material world (not nature, as is sometimes claimed), characterized primarily by the interaction of people in the course of their labor activity. Labor as an expedient activity is a historically and logically decisive condition not only for society as a whole, but also for an individual human individual, the line that separates, distinguishes man from everything the rest of the world. Labor is the essence main contentsociety. As Marx wrote, labor as an expedient sensory activity as useful labor is independent of any public forms a condition for the existence of people, an eternal, natural necessity; without it, the exchange of substances between man and nature would not be possible, i.e., human life itself would not be possible.

Consequently, a scientific explanation of the genesis and evolution of society can only be given on the basis of its essence, from labor, labor activity of people, their social existence. People can be distinguished from each other by anything, but they themselves begin to differ from animals as soon as they begin to produce, to work. “Labor is first of all a process taking place between man and nature, a process in which man, through his own activity, mediates, regulates and controls the metabolism between himself and nature. He himself opposes the substance of nature as a force of nature. In order to appropriate the substance of nature in a form suitable for his own life, he sets in motion the natural forces belonging to his body: arms and legs, head and fingers. Acting through this movement on the external nature and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops the forces dormant in it and subordinates the play of these forces to his own power ”and“ At the end of the labor process, a result is obtained that was already in the beginning of this process in the mind of a person, that is, ideally. Man not only changes the form of what is given by nature; in what is given by nature, he realizes at the same time his conscious goal, which, like a law, determines the method and nature of his actions and to which he must subordinate his will.

In this regard, it should first be emphatically emphasized the social essence of man. This must be done because the erroneous opinion is widespread even in our literature that “man is a unity of the natural social self”, that “man is a complex biosocial being”, etc. Supporters of this opinion get stuck on a purely empirical, rational: level and do not want to ascend to the mind. They have before them an empirical fact: mechanical, physical, chemical, biological regularities function in man. And based on this fact, they conclude that a person is “a unity of the natural and the social”, a “bio-social being”.

However, firstly, one must be consistent and declare that a person is not only a complex “biosocial”, but a “mechanical-physical-chemical-biosocial being”. Secondly, if the "bio" contains the lower forms, then why does the social not contain the lower forms; otherwise what is the meaning of this "bio-social". Thirdly, the lower form is contained in the higher not mechanically and does not constitute "autonomy" in it, but enters into it in a remelted, sublated form. This means that nature exists in man, in a sublated form, that is, it has been turned into sociality. Consequently, the essence of man is social. from all sides. Man is not, on one side, a man, but on the other, something else, but on all sides, a man. Previously, it was repeatedly emphasized that the essence is contradictory, but there is no dualism of the essence. But now we are forced to say this again, because the criticized opinion “dilutes” the social essence of a person with natural, drags back to dualistic anthropology, draws a line of sophistry, which, simply speaking, leads to the loss of the essence of a person.

Nature is not man, it is not human society. It by itself does not create anything human. The human is created by man, and only by him. Human, social is a product, the result of people's labor activity. Man is this "permanent presupposition of human history, is also its permanent product and result, and premise man appears only as his own product and result.” 14. Various social functions are successive ways of people's life activity, which are based on labor production activity.

Society is a dialectical, objective, necessary, natural process that develops according to its own social, public objective laws, and not according to the laws of nature or the hybrid "nature - society". While proving the objective nature of society and its laws, Marxism did not deny the role of consciousness, since labor, as was said, is not an activity in general, but a purposeful activity. Consequently, in society the material and the ideal are inseparable. But in this unity of the material and ideal aspects of society, material life, the production of material goods is the objective existence of society, the content, sources, and basis of it. ideal life. It is not the consciousness of people that determines their being, as was asserted before Marxism and is now affirmed by bourgeois apologetics, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness. This famous position of Marx, which means a radical change in the views on society, does not at all diminish the role and significance of consciousness, as the critics of Marxism think, but only indicates that social being is primary, that it is the decisive, defining side of society, its essence. , and consciousness is secondary, derived from it, its reflection. It is in the atom sense that Marx defines society as a set of material, production relations, without denying the ideological phenomena that rise above them, which also, of course, enter into the concept of society.

At the same time, having substantiated the materialist understanding of history and the decisive role of the mode of production in the life of society, Marxism also discovered the laws of its development. Whatever the action of numerous ideal motive forces and strivings, even such as passion, ambition, hatred, whims of various kinds, etc., no matter how history may seem to us the realm of chance - all this does not eliminate the natural character of development society. All its events and facts are subject to hidden, internal objective laws of its development.

Further. Society is not a once-for-all given, motionless, moreover, a chaotic accumulation of things, ideas, and is not just a sum of people, as metaphysicians think. It is a single social organism developing dialectically, according to its own objective laws, having its own history, its own stages of development qualitatively different from each other, conditioned by its own dialectics.

Changes in the whole of social life are ultimately brought about by changes in the mode of production; changes in the mode of production are caused by changes in the productive forces, and in the productive forces they change primarily guns labor. “Acquiring new productive forces,” wrote K. Marx, “people change their mode of production, and with a change in the mode of production, the way they provide for their life, they change all their social relations. A hand mill gives you a company with an overlord at the head, a steam mill gives you a company with an industrial capitalist.

The instrumental activity of people is the decisive source, the cause of both the emergence of society and all its changes. Improvement, the development of tools, in the end always led to profound changes in social life. Thus, for example, the transition from a primitive society to a slave-owning society was due to the transition from stone tools to metal ones. Only on the basis of the development of tools of labor in the bowels of the primitive system could labor productivity reach a level that made it possible to obtain a surplus of products, and at the same time the possibility arises alienation from the worker of a part of the product produced, the opportunity for some people to live off the labor of others. Under certain conditions of the social division of labor this possibility becomes a reality. New relations arise between people - relations of private ownership of the means of production, relations alienation. The replacement of the former relations of people based on public property with new, slaveholding relations based on private property meant the emergence and establishment of social classes, relations of inequality of property, exploitation of man by man, domination and subordination, enmity and antagonism, “war of all Against everyone".

The improvement of the instruments of labor and the growth of labor productivity within the framework of the slaveholding system lead to the fact that the existing social relations begin to retard the development of the productive forces. At this stage, an objective possibility arises of attaching slaves to the land, the implementation of which meant the transition of society from a slave-owning state to a feudal one.

Further improvement of the tools of labor within the framework of feudalism, the transition from handicraft and manual labor to manufactory, then to machine production, the appearance of a mechanical weaving machine, a spinning machine, at the same time a further growth in the social division of labor, in particular, the technical division of labor within the enterprise, the emergence of a new type of worker, etc. - all this caused the industrial revolution and raised the question of the abolition of feudal relations of production. The latter, under the weight of the overgrown productive forces, began to collapse and were forced out by new, capitalist social relations. This process meant the transition of society from feudalism to capitalism.

Society as a self-improving, self-developing system has not only changed, but is also changing and will continue to change.

At the same time, changes in society do not mean the loss of the essence of man, as is sometimes believed. Nowadays, especially in connection with scientific and technological progress, you can think of all kinds of thoughts. They even agree to the point of absurdity that intensive changes in the tools of labor and technology will eventually lead to the disappearance of the social essence of a person, since it will not be a person who will work, but “thinking”, “reasonable”, etc. machines that it is as if a person is already turning into a “subsystem”, etc., etc.

However, fantasy is fantasy, and the scientific truth is that intensive changes in technology, social life as a whole, have led and will lead to its enrichment, concretization, its more comprehensive and full-blooded development. Society is that universal, which is not abstract, but concrete, one that contains the wealth of the separate, special, individual. This universal, with each new step of ascent, is enriched, filled with new content, becomes more concrete, more meaningful, because every time it absorbs the richness of the individual, special. Each human individual, being a manifestation of the universal, by his life activity transfers his last content to this, at the same time being a form, a way of his being, development, he himself is enriched by this universal.

Summarizing what has been said, we can derive the following definition of a person. In this case, first of all, one should proceed from the fact that the concept of a person is ambiguous. At least two of its aspects are known: a) man is a society, humanity; b) a person is a separate individual, a person. Although both aspects express the same essence, yet their dialectic is the dialectic of the general and the separate, the individual.

Man is the highest state of the material world, characterized by the following specific features or traits.

1. The essence of man-society is the totality of all social relations. The individual man is the manifestation, the bearer of this essence. This is a first order abstraction.
2. The first - and main - modification of this abstraction is ability to dotools. Production, reproduction, improvement of labor tools - the basis, the basis of all other social relations.
3. On this basis, the production and reproduction of all other means of production.
4. Production and reproduction of industrial and individual consumption items.
5. Production and reproduction of all material relations in the process of production, exchange, distribution, consumption - in the unity of the components of the material sphere of interaction between members of society.
6. Production and reproduction of the spiritual life of society. Consciousness, purposeful activity.
7. Verbal language or articulate speech is the immediate reality of consciousness.
8. Production and reproduction of the entire system of social relations, the entire system of material and spiritual culture generally.
9. The continuation of the race, conditioned by all this, is the reproduction of the people themselves.

These are, in our opinion, character traits definition of a person. In this regard, it is necessary to make the following remark. When we say that the individual man is a manifestation of the universal, the man-society, this should not be understood in the sense that he is a passive, inert "case", which is only busy waiting until other people "stuff" it. culture created by society. Of course not man active subject. Although he cannot fully embody material and spiritual culture, he nevertheless embodies it depending on certain historical conditions, that is, especially, specifically and. in turn, this enriches the universal, introduces something unique into the general material and spiritual culture of mankind.

At the same time, neither the subject nor the object can be fully understood.project outside the process, outside their mutual transformation. Reason shows its weakness when it declares something to be an object, and another to be a subject, and does not ascend to their essence. He analyzes these opposites as different, petrified, frozen (giving, of course, some of their abstract definitions), but at the same time he does not explore how the object becomes the subject, and the subject becomes the object, does not go back to their synthesis, but gets stuck at the entrance to dialectic of subject and object. Meanwhile, the main thing is not that there are such opposites - their recognition is not yet a complete departure from the framework of the metaphysical method of consideration - but that these opposites are mutually transformed into each other.

§ 3. Mutual transformation of object and subject

The relationship between object and subject is a continuous process of their mutual transformation. The whole history of mankind is the history of this mutual transformation. But, since, although this is a fact, but, unfortunately, still not realized, it is necessary to dwell on this side of the problem in more detail.

1. The first correct abstraction in this regard is the thought of pre-Marxist materialists (Bacon, Spinoza, etc.) that matter itself is the cause of its changes - Causa sui. This form of expression of the materialistic view of the world was directed against all mysticism. Having rethought these essentially atheistic propositions in a dialectical-materialistic way, Marx put forward the proposition that matter itself is the subject of all its changes, of course, in the Marxist understanding of the subject of its changes. In the understanding of Marx, matter is not reduced to nature, human society is also matter, the highest state of matter. Moreover, it develops dialectically. Consequently, for Marx, matter is a more concrete concept, rich in content, than for the old materialism.
   However, despite the historical limitations of the latter, his merit lies in the fact that he, one way or another, in the very matter-nature, discovers its own forces, causes, laws of its changes, consciously rejecting any mysticism, idealism, god, creator, etc. , e. Therefore, the position Causa sui or matter is the subject of its changes played an extremely important role in the struggle of materialism against idealism, and in the development of a scientific understanding of matter itself.
2. However, this position is not only the strong side of the old materialism, but also its weak side, since he stopped at this essentially correct, but meager abstraction and did not go further, where he investigated neither the individual man, nor the man-society, as they are in yourself. This shortcoming was eliminated by Marx, who gave a comprehensive scientific study of modern bourgeois society and, on the basis of this, worked out the general laws of the development of society. According to Marx, the subject is, first of all, human society as a whole, which, through its practical and cognitive activity, turns the natural into an object of change, realizing its own goal in this. The object and the subject are identical, because they do not exist without each other, they mutually determine, penetrate each other and mutually transform into each other. But they are different at the same time. This difference in this aspect of the object-subject relationship is as follows: in contrast to the laws of the object-nature, which are blind necessity, the laws of society are a necessary, essential, conscious, expedient activity of people. Genetically, the laws of nature, which have now become an object, functioned without the active objective activity of people, without the use of tools, while public laws- this is the activity of people with the use of tools made by people themselves. Both the laws of the object-nature and the laws of the society-subject are objective character, do not depend on the will and consciousness of people, however the laws of societythere is an expedientactivityof people. This means that if the laws of the object-nature existed before people, without people, without their creativity, then the laws of society do not exist without people, without their activity, but are their actions, their creativity. People, as Marx said, are both authors and performers of their own drama. This thesis is directed against fatalism, against the underestimation of the role of the people themselves, who create their own history.

External alien forces that oppose society are transformed in the process of production into intra-social forces and means. And since production is a continuous process, the transformation of external natural resources into an object and further into raw materials, and consequently into internal elements of the productive forces, is also a continuous process.

“So, in the process of labor, human activity with the help of means of labor causes a predetermined change in the object of labor. The process fades into the product. ... Labor united with the object of labor. Labor is embodied in the object, and the object is processed. What appeared on the side of the worker in the form of activity (Unruhe) now appears on the side of the product in the form of a quiescent property (ruhende Eigenschaft), the form of being.

All this means that the labor process is primarily the transformation of an object into a subject. At the same time, it is at the same time the transformation of the subject into an object. As mentioned earlier, the mutual transformation of opposites is not movement in a vicious circle, but is an ascent, enrichment. By its activity, the subject, changing, processing the object, firstly, and transfers all its content into it, objectification of the subject occurs. Labor is always an expenditure of physical, mental, intellectual, etc. forces, abilities of a person. The latter, in order to produce, change the object, sets in motion the natural forces belonging to his body: arms, legs, head and fingers. Secondly, the change of an object by the subject is a change not only of the object, but also a change of the subject itself - this is actually one and the same process, one and the same relation. Thirdly, by its continuous activity, the subject just as continuously expands and deepens the object of its activity. In other words, the activity of the subject is the change of the object. Thus, the process of subjectification of the object and objectification of the subject is the internal content of the subject-object relationship.

Literature

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Here, in particular, in what aphorisms it was expressed: Knowledge is power (Bacon); People stop thinking when they stop reading (Didero); Fear of the possibility of error should not turn us away from the search for truth (Helvetius); The honest remain fools, and the rogues triumph. Opinions rule the world (French materialists of the 18th century); The honor of the Russian people demands that it be shown with particularity and sharpness in the sciences. (Lomonosov); A happy era will be when ambition begins to see greatness and glory in the acquisition of new knowledge and leaves the impure sources with which it tried to quench its thirst. Enough honors Alexander Ram! Long live only Archimedes (Saint-Simon); True knowledge does not lead to self-satisfaction, but creates an ever-increasing desire to move forward (Robert Owen).

The pluralism of approaches to the concept of "technology" is due to the diversity of its forms and types, as well as the inalienability social relations. The basic definitions of the concepts "equipment" and "technology" complement each other within the framework of the system of unity of material means and tools, knowledge of their creation and operation, and man as the bearer of this knowledge.

Technical progress - the most important characteristic of the socio-historical process since the primitive era. The fundamental causes of technological progress are rooted in the contradiction between the dynamic needs of society and the limited ability to meet them with the help of existing technology.

The relationship between science and technology has the character of a multilateral relationship, both direct (for example, the use of scientific discoveries in the process of technical inventions) and indirect, i.e. through the material production system. Each subsequent stage of technological progress - from gun to information technology - causes significant social changes affecting not only the economic sphere, but the entire system of social relations, contributing to the transition to a new type of social organization.

The essence of technology, its genesis and main types

The question of the essence of technology is fundamental and key in the philosophical study of this complex and multifaceted phenomenon. The origins of the concept of "technology" go back into the depths of centuries. The ancient Greek word "techne" is translated into Russian as "art, craftsmanship, ability, skillful activity." The concept of technology is already found in Plato and Aristotle in connection with the analysis of artificial tools. So, Plato understood technology as everything that is connected with human activity, everything artificial, in contrast to natural.

In the Middle Ages, technology was considered a reflection of divine creativity, with which it was compared. In modern times, a person saw in technology mainly the power of his own mind, it was understood as the totality of all those means, procedures and actions that relate to the skillful production of any kind, but above all to the production of tools and mechanisms. Nowadays, the word "technology" is associated by most people with machines, mechanisms, devices, with various tools of human activity. But the old meaning of this word has also been preserved, in particular, they talk about the technique of an artist, musician, athlete, etc., while implying all the same skill and skill of a person. The modern content of the concept of "technology" has expanded unusually, there are various interpretations and definitions of it.

To define a technique, first of all, it is necessary to fix its essential features, the main of which can be considered the following:

• Technique is an artifact, i.e. artificial formation, which is specially made, created by a person (master, technician, engineer). At the same time, specific plans, ideas, knowledge, and experience are used.
• Technique is a "tool", i.e. is always used as a means, a tool that satisfies or resolves a certain human need (for strength, movement, energy, protection, etc.).
• Technique is an independent world, a reality opposed to nature, art, language, all living things, and finally, man.
• Technique is a specific engineering way of using the power of the energy of nature.
• Technique is technology, i.e. the totality of the production operations themselves, the methods of using tools.

Thus, it is customary to proceed from the fact that technology is a set of artificial means, tools of human activity. In most philosophical publications, technology is defined as "a system of artificial organs and means of human activity, designed to facilitate it and increase efficiency, used to carry out the production process and serve the non-productive needs of society" .

Technology is often understood as a set of mechanisms and machines. In particular, one of the dictionaries says: "Technology is a set of mechanisms and machines, as well as a system of control, production, storage, energy and information tools created for the purpose of production and servicing the non-productive needs of society." The disadvantage of this definition is that it does not cover "non-mechanical technology", let's say its chemical and biological types.

In the literature, sometimes there are definitions of technology, which combine the characteristics of it as a means, skill, ability, as well as methods and operations of labor activity. For example, A.G. Spirkin notes: "Technology is understood as a system of created means and instruments of production, as well as methods and operations, the ability and art of carrying out the labor process."

IN Lately Interpretations of technology began to appear, including technology and technical knowledge, skills and professional skills of a person. In this case, the word "technique" means:

• area of ​​knowledge, acting as a link between empiricism and theoretical knowledge;
• the field of human activity (including all kinds of means and procedures), the purpose of which is to change nature in accordance with human needs;
• a set of skills and abilities that make up the professional characteristics of a particular kind of human activity (perfect possession of skills), the art and skill of a person engaged in this activity.

Such a broad interpretation of the word "technology" is hardly justified - it is eclectic in nature and combines almost all the meanings of this concept. As a result, it is practically impossible to present technology as an independent phenomenon, to reveal its originality, place and role in the development of society.

It is important to note that the idea has long been formed that technology, unlike nature, is not a natural formation, it is created by man, is a material, material object and instrument of human activity produced by man. Therefore, it is often called artifact (from lat. arte - artificially + factus - made). We can say that technology is a collection of artifacts. From this follows the definition of technology as a system of artificial material means and organs of human activity.

To designate products (elements, devices, subsystems, functional units or systems), which can be considered separately, the phrase "technical object" is often used.

Technical object is not only an object of technical practice, but also a material means of expedient social activity. It functions in society and is being improved as the technical basis of social production.

Considering all of the above, we can conclude that technique taken in the proper sense of the word, it is the most important component of the productive forces and material culture of society and is a combination of artificial, material means and at the same time the results of expedient human activity, designed to transform the world, natural, social and human existence, to strengthen and increase the efficiency of activity, primarily labor, to create a comfortable living environment.

True, as a result of the expansion of technology, the technization of the world, social and human existence, it acquires a relatively independent ontological status, becomes a technosphere ("technos"), i.e. acquires a broader meaning, is a special world, a certain way of human existence, an integral environment for his habitat.

It is known that the term "environment" is used in biology, geography and medicine and is understood as something external in relation to a living being, including a person - something surrounding him. In this regard, it should be noted that the technosphere is now becoming the internal environment for the existence of man and society, is becoming universal, is an indispensable element of social space in modern civilization. No wonder the French researcher J. Ellul noticed that the technology created in the human environment, little by little, itself becomes an environment in the truest sense of the word, the environment of the world of economic and humanitarian absurdity.

Still, technology is needed mainly as tool, tool, satisfying one or another human need (for strength, energy, protection, etc.). In this regard, technology is instrument, but it is such an instrument on which the fate of civilization now depends.

It should also be noted that technology is a material, material-subject formation, although in the process of its production there is a complex dialectic of the ideal and the material, the transformation of ideas into material, artifact objects.

In technology, thanks to the professional activity of technical specialists, engineers, technical ideas, ideas, projects and knowledge materialize, "reify". At the same time, the scientific and technical level of workers operating the equipment, their knowledge, experience, skills and abilities "revive" technical devices, tools, ensure their normal, efficient and safe functioning, primarily in the production sector.

There are various concepts regarding the origin of technology. Often, the emergence of technology is seen in the expedient human activity and the need for the rational use of the means of this activity. According to the concept proposed by O. Spengler, technology is the result of the joint activity of large masses of people and is a way of organizing this activity. Therefore, it should be considered not as a set of tools, but as a way of dealing with them, i.e. almost like technology.

The main reason for the emergence of technology lies in the desire of man to overcome the limitations of his natural nature and organization, to increase the impact of his natural organs on the substance and forces of nature. In other words, the contradiction between the physical organization of man and the need to transform nature in order to produce the material goods necessary for his existence and development has become the main source, the motivating force that determined human activity, his activity to create the first, primitive, archaic technology. The whole point of the further development of technology is that man intensifies his influence on nature, consistently transfers a number of his labor functions to technical devices.

Modern technology is diverse. There is still no unified and generally accepted typology of technology in the literature. As a rule, it is divided into the following functional branches:

• production equipment;
• transport and communication technology;
• scientific research technique;
• military equipment;
• technique of the learning process;
• technology of culture and life;
• medical equipment,
• control technique.

They also name such types of equipment as construction, space, computer, gaming, sports, etc.

It is usually noted that the leading place belongs to industrial equipment, within which industrial, agricultural and construction equipment, communication and transport equipment are distinguished. Lately there has been a lot of talk about computer, information technology, which is universal in nature and can be used in various areas of human life.

Technique is usually divided into passive and active. Passive technique includes a linking system of production (especially in the chemical industry), production areas, technical facilities, technical means of disseminating information (telephone, radio, television). Active technique consists of tools (tools), which are divided into tools for manual labor, mental labor and tools for human life (glasses, hearing aids, some prostheses, etc.), machines (industrial, transport, military), equipment for controlling machines, technological, production and socio-economic processes.

In addition to the horizontal structural analysis of the "cut" of the total technique, researchers also use a vertical one. In this case, the relationship between the various elements of the system of technology is the relationship of the general and the particular. In the light of this "cut", the following levels of technology are distinguished: total technology, technical systems and individual technical means.

The philosophy of technology explores the phenomenon of technology as a whole, not only its internal development, but also its place in social development, and also takes into account a broad historical perspective.

It has an object and subject that is different from technology and technical science: technology, technical activity and technical knowledge as a phenomenon of culture - this is an object, and the development of social technical consciousness, reflecting the given object, - this is the subject philosophy of technology. Her main task- study of the technical relationship of man to the world, i.e. technical understanding.

(Shapovalov, V. F. Philosophy of science and technology: On the meaning of science and technology and global threats of the scientific and technological era: textbook / V. F. Shapovalov. - M .: Fair-Press, 2004. - 320 p.)

The philosophy of science and technology considers the "science-technology" system in the broad context of the development of history, culture, and the value aspects of human existence. It studies issues related to the emergence of science and technology, their meaning, purpose and prospects, the problem of the relationship between theoretical and applied disciplines, the social and humanitarian consequences of scientific and technological progress, etc. She connects the issues of the development of science and technology with the issues certain character– such as: what is the essence of the world? what is its original source? what is the mission of man in the universe? what is the meaning of the history of society? What are the fundamental foundations of the joint existence of people? what is the meaning of human life?

In its method, the philosophy of science and technology does not differ from any other branch of philosophical knowledge: it is primarily a rational way of understanding and explaining reality.

According to its purpose, philosophy is knowledge, free from utilitarian practical interests. This also applies to the philosophy of science and technology. This quality distinguishes philosophy from most of the knowledge, primarily scientific and technological, which are designed to serve practical needs. Utility is not the goal of philosophy. The characteristic saying of Aristotle: "All other sciences are more necessary, but none is better" - is true for all sections of philosophy. Thus, having science and technology as its immediate subject, philosophy does not merge with them, preserving the universal features of philosophical knowledge. The philosophy of science and technology, although it is connected with the "science-technology" system itself, and with the study of the history of science and technology, nevertheless remains and must remain, first of all, philosophy. She studies her subject from a special point of view, inherent only in philosophy.

The significance of philosophy, including the philosophy of science and technology, lies not so much in practical usefulness as in moral, ideological, social and methodological aspects.

The contribution of philosophy to practice, to the practical arrangement of human life, is not direct, but indirect, mediated by many links. At the same time, it can be asserted with full confidence that in all the practical achievements of mankind there is a significant, albeit indirect, contribution of philosophy.

The philosophy of science and technology performs ideological and educational function. Existing in a certain society, philosophy directly or indirectly affects the consciousness of this society, including those people who are not specifically engaged in philosophy. The ideological and educational function is to transfer the knowledge accumulated by professional philosophy to those people who do not aspire to become professional philosophers, but devote their lives to another profession. Such transfer is most effectively carried out in the education system.

However, this does not mean that the study of philosophy should pursue the goal of forming a worldview that is uniform and obligatory for all. The worldview of a person is a complex system that is formed under the influence of many factors, including personal life experience, knowledge from various fields of science, etc. Religious ideas, as well as art, have a significant influence on him. Therefore, the goal of studying philosophy is not the formation of a worldview in its entirety, but the replenishment of the consciousness of the individual with a certain reserve philosophical knowledge. Philosophy helps to overcome the narrowing and impoverishment of the spiritual world. The danger of narrowing consciousness is one of the consequences of the specialization inherent in modern society.

The place of science in human culture. Man in the modern information technology world. Crisis of culture and modernity. Science is defined as a historically established form of human activity aimed at the knowledge and transformation of objective reality; this is such a spiritual production, which results in purposefully selected and systematized facts, logically verified hypotheses, generalizing theories, fundamental and particular laws, as well as research methods. Science is both a system of knowledge, and their spiritual production, and practical activity based on them.

The science- this is a specific form of human activity that provides the acquisition of new knowledge (about natural, social and spiritual reality), develops the means of reproduction and development of the cognitive process, checks, systematizes and disseminates its results. Almost all the functions of science are indicated in this definition.

Let's consider those criteria, or signs, the presence of which allows us to consider that we have before us - precisely scientific, and not any other (for example, ideological or aesthetic) knowledge.

The general criteria for scientificity are as follows:

1. Objectivity, or the principle of objectivity. Scientific knowledge is associated with the disclosure of natural objects, taken "by themselves", as "things in themselves" (not in the Kantian understanding, but as not yet known, but known). In this case, there is a distraction from the interests of the individual, and from everything supernatural. Nature must be known from itself, it is recognized in this sense as self-sufficient; objects must be known without introducing into them anything subjective or supernatural.

2. Rationality, rationalistic validity, evidence. If everyday knowledge is based on "opinions", then in scientific knowledge something is not simply communicated, but the necessary grounds are given for which this content is true; The principle of sufficient reason applies here. Reason becomes the judge in matters of truth, and criticality and rational principles of cognition become the way to achieve it.

3. Essentialist orientation, i.e. focus on reproducing the essence, regularities of the object (the reflection of the repeated, but insignificant properties of the object is also subordinated to this goal).

4. Special organization, a special system of knowledge; not just orderliness, as in everyday knowledge, but orderliness according to conscious principles; orderliness in the form of a theory and an expanded theoretical concept.

5. Verifiability; here is an appeal to scientific observation, to practice and testing by logic, by a logical path. Scientific truth characterizes knowledge that is, in principle, verifiable and ultimately proven to be true. Verifiability scientific truths, their reproducibility through practice gives them the property of general validity (and in this sense of intersubjectivity).

Sometimes truthful knowledge is included in the criteria of scientific knowledge and science is limited to this. However, there are many hypotheses in science that are neither true knowledge nor delusion; but hypotheses can form the most reliable knowledge - theory. Such knowledge is the ultimate goal of science. If, however, only true knowledge is taken as science, then hypotheses will be eliminated from it, and together with them, the most important source of the growth of scientific knowledge; we will have an extremely simplified and erroneous structure of the growth of scientific knowledge.

To determine the nature of a particular area of ​​knowledge (scientific or not), one should take not one of any of the listed features, but their entire system, their entire complex.

Science itself consists of many disciplines that are intertwined and influence each other. Their division into three blocks - natural, social and humanitarian - is considered generally accepted. The subjects of these three blocks of sciences stand out clearly enough: nature, society, the spiritual world of man.

The objects of socio-humanitarian knowledge as an area of ​​interweaving of social and humanitarian sciences are society, an individual, more precisely, his spiritual, inner world and the world of human relationships associated with it and the world of the spiritual culture of society. In socio-humanitarian knowledge, a scientist encounters a living human spirit. Human life is filled with thoughts and experiences, it is determined by projects, plans, expectations and hopes, successes and failures in their implementation. The life of a person takes place at the point where a person does not coincide with himself, on the edge that separates what he is from what he wants to be, and which is constantly overcome by the person. Human existence (as an object of humanitarian knowledge) never coincides with itself, it simultaneously exists in the categories of purpose and meaning.

Understanding is a specific way for the humanities to study a person, which allows one to penetrate into his inner spiritual world. Understanding is associated with immersion in the "world of meanings" of another individual, with the comprehension and interpretation of his thoughts and experiences. This process is inevitably influenced by the values ​​and worldview of the researcher. In other words, in understanding, the cognitive attitude is inseparable from the value attitude.

For a long time The development of mankind proceeded under the sign of social progress. This was characteristic of the industrial stage. Social progress is the development of society from the lowest (simple, imperfect) to the highest (complex, perfect). Social progress today is the development of societies to the post-industrial type - the information society. The term “post-industrialism” refers primarily to changes in the social structure (technical and economic system) of society and only indirectly to changes in the state structure and culture, which are also components of society.

Signs of the information technology society are the expansion of the real freedom of citizens, globalization, solving the problem of combining social equality and the efficiency of social production, improving the material conditions of their lives. Improving the material conditions of life and increasing its duration is still the main criterion for social progress.

Crisis of culture is a natural process within the technological path that has been chosen by our civilization. Her achievements are unconditional, her contribution to the creation of spiritual and material values ​​is undeniable. However, hardly everything that happened in such a culture was positive. Let us recall the ethnic and religious strife, which were based precisely on the values ​​of local cultures. Another culture is often perceived as hostile. In addition, mass culture destroys the sacred and moral nature of genuine culture, the purpose of which is the deep process of creating eternal values. The current state of culture fixes the stage of its transition from the individual local to the global integration level.

Until the period of the scientific and technological revolution, culture was a stationary entity. The concept of culture in a sense has always expressed what remains stable throughout the life of not only an individual, but also many generations. The life of people proceeded against the background of culture, and the inclusion of some new values ​​in it could take a person's whole life. Values ​​became cultural after a fairly long historical and social selection. This determined the initial conservatism of culture and its bearers. The bearers of culture were considered, first of all, representatives of the humanitarian intelligentsia, which was connected precisely, on the one hand, with the long-term nature of the selection of cultural values, and on the other hand, with the fact that science has always been pragmatic in nature, changes in it occurred faster and most its values ​​did not have time to be fixed as common cultural ones.

The process of changing cultural values ​​and incorporating new ones into it is a long and complex process. In the cultural sense, value conservatism is justified, since it allows preserving the generally significant foundation of culture. The values ​​of culture have the property of increment, while new scientific discoveries are often based on the negation of the previous ones.

NTP- continuous improvement of all stages of social reproduction, production and non-production areas through a single, interdependent, progressive development of science, education, technology, technology, organization and management. primarily for the practical solution of the socio-economic, social and political tasks facing society in a given historical period.
STP is a historical category, covering a long period of development of science and production and their impact on human life. The first stage of convergence of progress in science and technical means of production appeared in the 16th-18th centuries. (manufactory production, the needs of trade, navigation required a theoretical and experimental solution of practical problems). The next stage is associated with the development of machine production from the end of the 18th century (science and technology began to mutually stimulate each other's development at an accelerating pace). to man, production from a simple labor process was turned into a social technological application of the results of scientific work, the results scientific activity.
Scientific and technical progress is aimed primarily at the development of the productive forces of society. By the middle of the twentieth century. a fundamentally new stage of scientific and technical progress has been outlined - scientific and technological revolution, which is a natural step in human history and is of a global nature. This means that revolutionary changes have covered all sections of science, technology and production, that the scientific and technological revolution has influenced all aspects of public life, has affected, albeit to a different extent, all regions of the planet and all social systems.
Essential features of the scientific and technological revolution, characterizing its nature:
a) the merger of the scientific revolution with the technical revolution with the advancing development of science;
b) the transformation of science into a direct productive force;
c) organic integration of elements of the production process in a single automated system;
d) formation of a new type of worker;
e) transition from extensive to intensive development of production, etc.
The current stage of scientific and technical progress is characterized by many scientists as preparing the next scientific and technological revolution. Its distinguishing features will be the many times increased energy saturation of human life, the globalization of all basic processes, the radically transformed technological basis, the transformation of systemic intersectoral technologies into a determining factor in socio-economic development.
The current stage of scientific and technical progress is associated with the transition to a post-industrial civilization, with the formation of a special role of scientific knowledge, the results of diversified scientific work in the socio-economic progress of society. The main directions of modern scientific and technical progress: the use of new technologies, the exploration of outer space, the creation of rocket technology; production automation; the development of the chemical industry and the creation of materials with predetermined properties; creation of alternative energy sources, etc.