What is existentialism? (short and clear). Existentialism in Russia Representatives of the religious direction of existentialism are

EXISTENTIALISM IN RUSSIA ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE CREATIVITY OF F.M. DOSTOEVSKY

Golysheva Ksenia Viktorovna

Gabidullina Regina Ramilevna

2nd year student, group 221, Faculty of Medicine, Org State Medical University, Russian Federation, Orenburg

E-mail:

Vorobyov Dmitry Olegovich

scientific supervisor, assistant at the Department of Philosophy of Orenburg State Medical University, Russian Federation, Orenburg

E-mail: dratsolonchack@ mail. ru

Existentialism, or “philosophy of existence” is a direction in philosophy that formed in the 19th century. This trend became most pronounced in Europe during the First World War. Then human existence was subjected to tragedy and catastrophe, which was reflected in ideas about the further existence of society and man as a whole. Existentialism focuses its attention on the uniqueness of human existence, and puts emphasis on man overcoming his own essence. At the beginning of the First World War, existentialism appeared in Russia. Further, this direction found itself in European countries.

This article was written with the aim of considering the history of the development of existentialism in Russia, and to analyze for this purpose the works of F.M. Dostoevsky. The relevance of this topic lies in the fact that this direction in philosophy can still be traced, and, especially, is acutely felt in the conditions of the crisis and unstable political situation in the country today. The following tasks are also noted, which will be covered in our article:

· Is there such a movement as existentialism in Russia?

· What problems does this philosophical trend raise?

· Connection between the creativity of F.M. Dostoevsky with Western existentialism

Existentialism is a philosophical movement that also took place in Russian philosophy. Its most prominent representatives were N. Berdyaev and L. Shestov. Russian existentialism was formed in conditions of growing social and spiritual crisis in the country. Common features characteristic of existentialism in Russia are its religious overtones, personalism, anti-rationalism, the struggle for freedom of choice and existence, etc.

Therefore, it must be said that existentialism arose in Russia as a self-evident phenomenon. The crises that developed into the First World War gave rise to philosophical thought about the future of human existence.

Berdyaev Nikolai Aleksandrovich is one of the first representatives of Russian existentialism, he outlined his views in his works: “Philosophy of Freedom”, “The Meaning of History”, “Philosophy of Inequality”, etc. He believed that existence filled with meaning is existence in truth, which is achievable by us on the paths of salvation or creativity. Creativity, namely the inherent human ability to do it, is divine and this is where its godlikeness lies.

The subject of existence is the personality as a qualitatively unique spiritual energy and spiritual activity - the center of creative energy. Personality, as N.A. believed. Berdyaev, is the unity of two natures - Divine and Human. Society, according to N.A. Berdyaev, is the dominance of the collective, where the position of a person is mediated by impersonal norms and laws, the relationship of a person to a person is determined through the relationship of a person to the collective.

Another representative of the existential-personalistic direction is L.I. Shestov. Existential philosophy, according to L.I. Shestov, this is a philosophy of life combined with a philosophy of faith or a philosophy of the absurd. At the center of existential philosophy L.I. Shestov is a man and his life. In this regard, he considered the main goal of philosophy to be the identification of the foundations of this life. The main role is played by the idea of ​​the orderliness of the world, the action of some “objective” laws in it that act as “irresistible”, thereby fettering a person. The focus of philosophy is L.I. Shestov is individual human existence. The path to personal salvation for a person L.I. Shestov considers it in creativity, and later in religion. It is Revelation that leads to real truth and freedom.

It turns out that existentialism in its early form arose on the eve of the 1st World War in Russia, after the war in Germany and during the 2nd World War in France. We can conclude that Russia had earlier embarked on the path of realizing the uniqueness of human existence.

The main place in the philosophy of existentialism is occupied by a lonely person with his split consciousness. Existentialist philosophy expresses the opinion of certain circles of the “elite”, which was concerned with the problems of culture, its development in a difficult age, saw a desire to explain the reasons for the unstable position of the “common man” in society, and revealed a protest against inattention to human suffering

The main characteristics of being are closedness and openness. The task of philosophy is to deal only with questions of human existence. Life is deeply irrational in its essence; suffering always prevails in it. Fear is a very important and necessary concept in the philosophy of existentialism. Troubles always await a person. Under the false slogan “for each other,” people harm each other.

Existentialism tells us that a person lives by emotions: he reacts to everything that surrounds him not logically, but first emotionally. The problem of freedom has a large place in this direction of philosophy, it is defined as a person’s choice of his own path: a person is the path he chooses for his life. Freedom matters in existentialism (for example, in J.P. Sartre) in the spirit of complete indeterminism, i.e. without any causal relationship. Because of this, the term freedom means: the independence of the present time from the past, and the future from the present.

Modern existentialism is unthinkable without a sense of crisis, loss, hopelessness. Existentialists find a way out of the crisis in the individual path of a person, in limiting communication to a small circle of the spiritual elite. The religious part of the existentialists seeks to overcome the problem of the meaninglessness of their existence in communication with God.

Existentialism - everything that exists around leads to an understanding of the existence of a person’s personality, and life - to the process of life’s path. “Existence” (existence) is determined by the uniqueness of human life: individual destiny, incomprehensible “I”. Every person faces the question: “To be or not to be as one is?” This tells us about a high level of self-development.

J.P. Sartre, in one of his public lectures to students, called Dostoevsky the founder of existentialism. According to the French philosopher, the Russian writer in his work formulated many of the fundamental points of this philosophical trend. Indeed, F.M. Dostoevsky had a significant influence on many representatives of both atheistic and religious existentialism. For example, in the philosophical works of A. Camus quite often there are quotes from the works of F.M. Dostoevsky, moreover, Zh.P. Sartre conducted a kind of dialogue with F.M. Dostoevsky all his life. A. Camus argued that, having first read the work of F.M. Dostoevsky at the age of twenty, experienced a huge shock, the influence of F.M. Dostoevsky's influence on this philosopher was of great importance.

After establishing such a powerful influence of F.M. Dostoevsky on representatives of existential philosophy, I would like to call him the predecessor of this entire philosophical movement, but this would not be entirely correct. In our opinion, F.M. Dostoevsky is considered to be existential only in the formulation of his questions, and not in their development. It is necessary to identify significant differences in the views of F.M. Dostoevsky and other representatives of atheistic existentialism. On the other hand, many philosophers of religious existentialism interpret the writer’s work, confirming their concepts, and not objectively reconstructing the ideas of F.M. Dostoevsky.

Firstly, it must be said about the civilizational differences between Dostoevsky’s work and the works of most representatives of existential philosophy. European thinkers constructed a specific “model” of man; if medieval society was traditional, social ties were strong, then bourgeois society considered it necessary for these interpersonal ties to disintegrate. Many nuances of the work of F.M. Dostoevsky contain this problematic, but, unlike the existentialists, for the Russian writer such loneliness of a person is a social “pathology”, something abnormal.

Secondly, if in the existentialism of the atheistic Western direction social alienation cannot be eliminated, since “others” are always something secret and alienated from us, then in religious existentialism there is hope in God. But the main difference between Dostoevsky’s views and the existentialists as a religious and atheistic movement is that the Russian writer understood that without changing the interpersonal relationships dominant in society, it is impossible to overcome the alienation of one person from another.

Thirdly, another main problem of existential philosophy is the issue of man’s loss of the meaning of his own existence. A person of our era is influenced by an “existential vacuum”; he is unable to understand why it is necessary to exist. There are similar problems in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky, in almost all the writer’s works there are people who think about the meaning of life. But F.M. Dostoevsky insisted that the Russian thinker believed in the irreducibility of God, on the contrary, Zh.P. Sartre and A. Camus believed that only in dialogue with God can one find the true meaning of one’s existence.

Dostoevsky is a writer who examines the sick aspects of his contemporary society. His views are clearly shown in the novel Crime and Punishment, which was conceived by F.M. Dostoevsky in hard labor. Then he called it “Drunk,” but gradually the meaning of the novel transformed into “a psychological report of a crime.” F.M. Dostoevsky in a letter to the publisher M.N. Katkovu describes the plot of the future work as follows: “A young man, expelled from university students and living in extreme poverty, ... succumbing to some strange unfinished ideas ..., decided to get out of his bad situation at once by killing and robbing an old woman...” In this letter, F.M. . Dostoevsky would like to especially emphasize two phrases: “a student living in extreme poverty” and “succumbing to some strange, unfinished ideas.”

It is these two statements that are fundamental to understanding the cause-and-effect relationship of the novel. F.M. Dostoevsky does not describe the moral resurrection of the hero, because this is not what this novel is about. The goal was to show what power an idea can have over a person, even if it is criminal. The main character's idea about the right of a strong man to commit a crime turned out to be absurd. Life has defeated theory.

Over the long history of research by F.M. Many called Dostoevsky’s work a “prelude” to existentialism. Some considered his works existential, but F.M. Dostoevsky is not an existentialist. We agree that not a single idea that F.M. Dostoevsky, cannot be considered as definitive. F.M. Dostoevsky is a dialectician, he shows the interaction of different ideas. The writer has his own antithesis for each statement.

In the course of our research, we tried to reveal the history of the development of existentialism in Russia and consider this development with the help of the works of F.M. Dostoevsky and came to the conclusion that the complete identification of the writer with the existentialists is incorrect.

We can say that F.M. Dostoevsky gave a lot to existentialism and its formation, posing “damned questions” to himself and his readers and not always giving his answer to them.

Bibliography:

1. Gritsanov A.A. The latest philosophical dictionary / Comp. A.A. Gritsanov. Mn.: Ed. V.M. Skakun, 1998. - 896 p.
2. Dostoevsky F. M. Crime and punishment / Intro. Art. G. Friedlander; Note G. Kogan. M.: Fiction, 1978. - 463 p.
3. Dostoevsky F.M. Articles and notes, 1862-1865. Complete collection: In 30 volumes. T. 20. L., 1984.
4. Kashina N.V. man in Dostoevsky's works. M.: Artist. lit., 1986. - 318 p.
5. Latynina A.N. Dostoevsky and existentialism // Dostoevsky - artist and thinker: collection. articles. M.: Publishing house. “Fiction”, 1972. - 688 p.
6. Sartre J.P. Being and nothingness: the experience of phenomenological ontology. M.: Republic, 2000. - 639 p.

The Problem of Human Existence

in existentialism

Existentialism

• (from Latin existentia - existence)
• philosophy of existence;
• philosophical movement that claims
• the uniqueness of human existence,
• and its inexpressibility in the language of concepts

existentialism

• “existence precedes essence” (J.-P. Sartre)
• interest in anthropological issues
• an attempt to philosophize not from the position of an observer, but from the position of a doer
• an attempt to philosophize in a state of alienation
• “What is a person and what is true existence?”

Directions:

• Religious, theistic, Christian
• Atheistic, secular

Religious existentialism

Representatives of religious existentialism

• Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
• Karl Jaspers (1883-1969)
• Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948)
• Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973)

Kierkegaard Soren (1813-1855)

• Danish theologian, philosopher
• views developed into polemics with the philosophy of Hegel and romantic theology
• works:
• "Or or",
• "Fear and Trembling"
• "Disease unto death"
• "Philosophical crumbs"
• “Life Path Stages”, etc.

The essence of the position

• the subject of philosophy is human individuality (“Single”)
• the existence of the “Single” - the realization of individual existence through free choice

existence

• something internal, constantly transforming into external objective existence, which is an inauthentic expression of the internal
• Finding true existence presupposes the path of “existential dialectics”

stages of ascent to authentic existence - “existential dialectics”:

• aesthetic
• ethical (“knight of reason”)
• religious (“knight of faith”)
• the condition for transition is despair

Problems

• fall from grace
• “What is fear?”
• “What is true Christianity and what does it mean to be a Christian?”

Jaspers Karl (1883-1969)

• German philosopher
• works:
• "General psychopathology"
• "Psychology of worldview"
• "The Origins of History and Its Purpose"
• "Spiritual situation of the time"
• “Modern technology”, etc.

Main themes, issues and concepts

• philosophy - the art of thinking
• the goal of philosophy is to illuminate existence and bring a person closer to transcendence (indicate the stages of transcendence)
• man and his story
• communication problem
• concepts
• "philosophical faith"
• "axial time"
• criticism of pantragism

There are four “slices” in history:

• the emergence of languages, the invention of tools, the beginning of the use of fire;
• the emergence of high cultures in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and later in China in 3-5 thousand BC.
• the “spiritual foundation” of humanity, which occurred in the 7th-2nd centuries. BC. simultaneously and independently in China, India, Palestine, Persia, Greece - the “world time axis”
• the birth of the scientific and technological era, prepared in Europe since the end of the Middle Ages, ... is rapidly developing in the 20th century.

"axis of world history"

• the formation of human history as world history (before the “axial time” there were local histories)
• the emergence of modern man with his own ideas about responsibility, capabilities and boundaries
• the idea of ​​​​the possibility of moving towards a new “axial time”, the condition of which is the rule of law and the rejection of any forms of totalitarianism

"totalitarianism"

• first introduced into the political lexicon in the 1920s. ideologists of Italian fascism (B. Mussolini)
• desire for centralization of power and statism
• The reasons include the advancing process of formation of mass society compared to the formation of civil society
• classic analytical works are:
• H. Arend “The Origins of Totalitarianism” (1951)
• Friedrich C., Brzezinski Z.K. Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy.

Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948)

• Russian philosopher, publicist
• in 1922 expelled abroad for anti-revolutionary activities
• in 1947 awarded the title of Doctor of Theology from the University of Cambridge
• works:
• "Philosophy of Freedom"
• "The meaning of creativity"
• "Philosophy of Inequality"
• "Philosophy of the Free Spirit"
• “On the appointment of a person”, etc.

The essence of the position

• philosophy is not reduced to a system of concepts (“knowledge-discourse”), but represents “knowledge-contemplation”, i.e. involves a language of symbols and myths
• the main symbols of philosophy are freedom and creativity

N. Berdyaev:

“You need to choose between two philosophies - a philosophy that recognizes the primacy of being over freedom, and a philosophy that recognizes the primacy of freedom over being... Personalism must recognize the primacy of freedom over being. The philosophy of the primacy of being is the philosophy of impersonality"

Marcel Gabriel (1889-1973)

• French philosopher, playwright, critic, founder of Catholic existentialism
• works:
• "Towards Tragic Wisdom and Beyond"

The essence of the position:

• contrasted two radically different ways of being:
• “possession” is a form of personality degradation, the pursuit of worldly goods
• “being” - insight into “divine truth”
• human existence is unthinkable without communication
• “inauthenticity” of interpersonal relationships is not a product of social circumstances, but the result of forgetting the religious and moral dimension of the existence of the individual

Secular existentialism

the position of a person for whom, according to Nietzsche, “God is dead”

an attempt to show the consequences of atheism

Representatives of secular existentialism

• Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
• Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
• Albert Camus (1913-1960)

Heidegger Martin (1889-1976)

• German philosopher
• Professor at the University of Marburg and Rector of the University of Freiburg
• works:
• "Being and Time"
• "What is metaphysics"
• "Question about technology"
• "Plato's Doctrine of Truth"
• “Technique and rotation”, etc.

M. Heidegger:

“A man who does not philosophize is a man who sleeps”

Periods of creativity: main themes and problems

• Early (before 1930)
• phenomenology of E. Husserl
• the task is to build a “fundamental ontology”
• Late (1930-1960), problems:
• true
• events being
• technique

The essence of the position

• the goal is to become the “Aristotle of our days”, because considers the problem of existence
• The first step to finding the meaning of being is the question of the questioner’s being, because the problem of being is the mode of human existence

• man is existence
• human existence cannot be defined, because there is potential existence
• modes of existence:
• man is being-in-the-world
• man is a being occupied and interested in “others”
• man is a being-in-the-world, interested in things as available means for the realization of his own possibilities

Analysis of man as a being that is open to being (existential analytics)

• "inauthentic" existence
• - obediently agree with one’s membership in the “other” to the point of dissolution in the consciousness of the crowd
• "true" existence
• come to discover oneself as an individual subject

Existentialism (from Latin existentia - existence) was formed in the first half of the 20th century. and was the most popular philosophical movement in Western Europe in the 40-60s. After the First World War, serious changes took place in public consciousness. People began to become disillusioned with existing values. Liberal optimistic sentiments in the 20th century. came into conflict with real facts: two world wars and many local wars, bloody revolutions and counter-revolutions, totalitarian regimes and concentration camps. Moods of uncertainty, anxiety, and depression spread throughout society. This was especially felt in Germany, which was defeated in the First World War. Since there were very definite sentiments in society, their theoretical exponents were also found. They became the existentialists.

Existentialism is a peculiar reaction to disappointments in modern society, interpreting it as a period of crisis of civilization, reason, and humanity. But it would be an exaggeration to think that existentialism justifies this crisis; on the contrary, it can be seen as a protest against the capitulation of the individual before the crisis. To survive in this world, a person must evaluate his capabilities and abilities. In existentialism the human problem comes to the fore.

Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Husserl are considered the ideological predecessors of existentialism. The first two were discussed above.

Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)- German philosopher, received his mathematical education under the leadership of Weierstrass. At first he worked in line with the philosophy of science, then became the founder of the so-called phenomenological school.

Husserl spoke of the need for a reform in thinking that would open up a “liberated horizon” for us. Husserl did not deny in principle the existence of the external world, but was convinced that “truth should be sought in the immanent properties of the human mind, and not in the external world.” Husserl believed that the sciences of nature and history needed a certain justification; it can only be given by the science of the phenomena of consciousness (phenomenology). “The spirit and only it is being in itself and for itself. Only it is autonomous and accessible to truly rational, truly scientific study... As for nature and natural scientific truths, the autonomy of nature is only apparent... For the “true” nature of the natural sciences is a product of the spirit that studies nature. Thus, the science of nature presupposes the science of spirit.” The main concept of phenomenology is the concept of phenomenon. In a literal sense, phenomenon means "phenomenon" . But not every phenomenon is worthy of being called a phenomenon. A phenomenon then becomes a phenomenon when the nature of a thing is manifested in it. Things and facts appear to our consciousness as phenomena, but we need to move on to their essence. A phenomenon becomes a phenomenon when it is “essential”, reveals an essence, and is inseparable from the essence by any boundary.

The world of phenomena is limitless. Husserl distinguishes various layers of phenomena: the outer shell, mental experiences, an object conceived in consciousness, meaning (the invariant structure and content of linguistic expressions). The task of phenomenology is to reveal the meaning of an object.

One of the most important properties of consciousness is the focus of consciousness on an object ( intentionality ), the “correlation” of both. During the movement of consciousness towards an object, fields of meaning of objects are created.

The existence of objects acquires meaning only when included in consciousness. But this meaning is often obscured by various attitudes, contradictory opinions, words and assessments. The task of phenomenology is to find the true meaning of an object; The basic principle of phenomenology is an appeal to the things themselves, cleared of verbal clutter. To find the true meaning of an object, it is necessary to free consciousness from empirical content, as a result of which the immanent world of consciousness, the transcendental meaning of objectivity, is expressed. Husserl attaches great importance to intuition. He formulated the “principle of all principles”: “Everything that reveals itself through intuition must be accepted as it reveals itself, and within the limits within which it reveals itself.” The phenomenon is not only comprehended by intuition, but also created by it. To be a phenomenon, a phenomenon must not only be noticed or discovered, it must be a product of intuition, “live” in intuition. Husserl argues that absolute reality is consciousness, and the world is "constructed" by consciousness. You need to bring out the obvious in your consciousness. Husserl said that if we want to create a philosophy of reality, then we must base it on “stable evidence.” “Without evidence there is no science.” You need to find something that cannot be denied. It is necessary to rely on “immediate” vision as “the last legitimate source of all reasonable statements”, it is necessary to find the last self-evident logical principles, to clear the consciousness of empirical content. This can be achieved through the so-called phenomenological reduction.

Husserl understands phenomenological reduction as a kind of “suspension” operation, abstention from habitual judgments and beliefs, going beyond what is called common sense. In this case, a priori conditions for the conceivability of objects and pure structures of thinking (consciousness) are distinguished, regardless of the spheres of their application. Husserl's reduction is sometimes identified with intuition. When reduction is carried out, the intentionality of consciousness and its focus on objects becomes clearly expressed.

Some of Husserl's ideas were continued by prominent representatives of existentialism - M. Heidegger and J.-P. Sartre.

The main figures in the philosophy of existentialism are Heidegger, Jaspers, Marcel, Sartre and Camus. Despite certain differences in their views, there are common motives. Existentialists argued that in the 20th century. all beliefs in the reliability of scientific knowledge, all “absolutes” have collapsed. In science it is useless to look for the foundations of human life, for a guide to action. Science cannot help in finding the meaning of life. Philosophy, which is supposed to clarify the values ​​of the worldview, the meaning of life, life guidelines, must be unscientific. It was further argued that the scientific worldview is abstract and impersonal, and real “existential thinking” is associated with the inner life of a person, with his intimate experiences.

Existentialism is a special type of philosophizing, the task of which is to reflect a person, the inner world of the individual. In this case, the main role is given to the reflection and expression of the moral crisis of people who are attached to the old and at the same time despise it, relating to the future with a mixed sense of curiosity and disbelief. Existentialism viewed man as a finite being, “thrown” into the world, constantly finding himself in problematic and even absurd situations. This philosophy reflected all kinds of forms of pessimism and despair, escape from public life. “The universal consciousness of the tragedy of existence,” “the metaphysical revolt of humanity,” “the eternal drama of human existence,” etc. are characteristic formulas of existentialism. The main categories are existence (existence), “care”, “fear”, “borderline situation”, freedom, alienation, etc.

The initial concept of existentialism is the concept of existence (existence), the main problem is determining the place of (human) existence in the general structure of existence. It should be noted that existentialists do not give a logically correct definition of existence. Moreover, it is sometimes said that trying to figure out the content of the concept of existence plunges us into an abyss of uncertainty and mystery.

As for the place of existence, there are different opinions on this matter. Human existence presupposes possibility and going beyond oneself, risk, determination, and a leap forward. However, it remains unclear what exactly this “forward” means.

Human existence is connected with something else. What is this “other”? Religious existentialists (Jaspers, Marcel, Buber, Berdyaev, Shestov) characterize this other, authentic being as “transcendence”, revealed in the act of faith. Self-deepening calls a person to God and allows him to find a “transcendental” dimension of existence. Self-deepening expands the boundaries of the individual Self, opens the horizons of communication with eternity. But even on this path, a person is haunted by a feeling of meaninglessness, unworthiness of his existence.

From the point of view of atheistic existentialism (Heidegger, Sartre, Camus), true existence is connected with the world, the recognition of the freedom of another along with my own freedom. Existence is the awareness of the difference between personality and everything else, the awareness of the possibility of being or not being oneself. To understand existence means to understand your capabilities.

Existentialism asserts that man and his existence are not determined by any natural, social or self-essence. There is simply no such entity. Sartre says that existence precedes essence . A person first simply exists, lives in the world, and then is defined as a person and builds his essence. Existence, according to Heidegger, manifests itself in “borderline situations” when you need to choose one or another form of your behavior, an orientation towards certain ideals.

Existentialists speak of freedom as unlimited freedom of choice. Determinism is declared to be the philosophy of “cowards” who are trying to abdicate responsibility for their actions. One of the most important principles of existentialism is that man makes himself. No external force, nothing except the individual himself, is responsible for him. Everyone builds their own morality; moral choice is an act of free creativity. But freedom of choice means responsibility to one’s self. Hence - pessimism, fear of choosing an inauthentic existence.

We have noted some general positions of existentialism. But it should be borne in mind that existentialism does not have a single, generally accepted philosophical doctrine. Existentialists argue among themselves on a number of issues. For a more complete understanding of this direction, one should turn to the concepts of its main representatives.

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) born in Meskirke (Baden-Württemberg) in the family of a craftsman (who was both a clergyman and a bell-ringer at the local Catholic church). He studied at the Jesuit gymnasium in Konstanz. In 1911-1913 studied theology and philosophy under Rickert and Husserl in Freiburg. In 1916 he defended his dissertation. In 1922 he began working as a professor in Marburg. In 1928, after Husserl, he received a chair in Freiburg. In 1933 he became rector of the university in Freiburg, but the following year he abandoned this position and active political activity. After World War II, he spoke out in the spirit of the “left”, in particular, he highly appreciated Marx. Died in Freiburg. Heidegger was one of the most influential philosophers in Germany in the 20th century. Heidegger says that philosophy is not a science; it represents a special way of thinking. “Philosophy never arises from science or through science. She is in a completely different order of spiritual existence. In the same layer as philosophy, there is only poetry. Thinking begins only when it is carried out in spite of so-called reason, which for centuries has been the most vehement opponent of thinking.”

But what then is philosophy? "She herself There is, only when we philosophize. Philosophy is philosophizing." This is a rather vague statement. But here’s one more thing: “Philosophy - we somehow know in passing - is not at all an ordinary activity in which we while away the time according to our mood, not just a collection of knowledge that can be obtained from books at any moment; but - we only vaguely feel it - something aimed at the whole and the most extreme, in which a person speaks out to the last clarity and conducts the last debate.

Heidegger says that in everyday life a person deals with a concrete existence. But everyday communication with him leads a person to boredom, melancholy and even horror: “Deep melancholy, wandering in the abyss of our existence, like a dull fog, displaces all things, people and you yourself along with them into one mass of some strange indifference.”

The personality feels thrown into certain circumstances beyond its control, which appear to it as something irrational. The “I” experiences “existential” fear. The opposite of fear should be understanding, mastering what surrounds the individual. Understanding finds expression in language. In language, personality is realized, constructed, feels itself and the world: “Language is the house of being. And a person lives in it. Thinkers and poets are the guardians of this abode.”

Heidegger distinguishes being (existence) and being. Being is not some existing thing, objects, phenomena, it is something else. The concept of being has three meanings: it is “the most general concept”; it is indefinable due to its universality; it is present in any judgment (in the form of the connective “is”).

Man approaches the concept of being, the question of being, the question of his own being, the relationship to his being. When turning to a particular object, the first a priori condition is to see in it the specificity of one’s own existence.

But what exactly is existence? Heidegger says that attempts to understand what being is in general lead to contradictory results. “Being reveals itself to us in some kind of diverse opposition, which, for its part, again cannot be accidental, for the simple enumeration of these opposites already indicates their internal connection: being is at once the simplest and richest, at the same time the most common and unique, at the same time the most understandable and resisting every concept, at the same time the most erased from use and still only advancing for the first time, at the same time the most reliable and bottomless, at the same time the most forgotten and most memorable, at the same time the most expressed and the most silent.” But this means that the concept of being is rationally inexpressible. The idea of ​​being brings us closer to the concept of “Nothing”. The question of Nothing is one of the main questions of metaphysics. “Our questioning about Nothing is intended to demonstrate to us metaphysics in itself... Metaphysics is questioning beyond existence, beyond its limits... In the question about Nothing such a going beyond existence as a whole takes place.” But Nothing, like being, is also rationally inexpressible. They can only be somehow clarified with the help of new “existential” thinking. “Existential” thinking is characterized by intention (direction) towards something transcendental. Heidegger says about consciousness: “It transcends, that is, it constantly goes beyond its own limits, constantly runs ahead of itself, moreover, it is always ahead of itself.” But this intention itself is also not covered in rational concepts. In this regard, Heidegger says: “We comprehended the truth of being through the glow of the world as a mirror mutual reflection of the quaternity of heaven and earth, mortal and divine.” Being somehow reveals its secret in language. In Heidegger, the concept of the world is replaced by the concept of the house in which a person lives. Man is preoccupied with arranging the home of existence. A person asks about the meaning of his being, existence. Being as a whole is open to man, “present” for man, man stands in the “clearance of being.” Existence is the “presence” of a person, “standing within the openness of being.” “Man exists, and he is a man, because he exists. He appears in the openness of being, which is being itself, which, as a throw, threw the existing person into “care.” Thrown in this way, man stands “in” the openness of being. “The world” is the clearing of existence into which man enters with his abandoned being.”

Human existence is “being in the world,” “being with others,” and “being oneself.” The existence of the “I” can be realized in joint existence with another; “selfhood” can only manifest itself in difference from others. A person can “choose himself in his being.” He is capable of being something or not being something. He may lose himself or never even choose himself. When a person makes a choice, he has “originality,” when he does not, he lacks “originality.” “Care” (or “concern”) forms a special existential space in which a person lives, and time. If a person does not care about anything, does not strive for anything, does not fear anything, does not regret anything, time does not exist for him.

The forms of human existence are “existentials”. There are three of them - "abandonment" (we find ourselves already existing in the world, without our prior consent), "factuality" And "existentiality" (due to which our existence is always a “project”, going beyond the given). The unity of these existentials forms “temporality”, since “thrownness” is the discovery of the past, “factuality” is the present, and “existentiality” is revealed in the future.

Depending on which mode of time is in the foreground for a person, human existence will be genuine or inauthentic. “True existence” for Heidegger is a person’s awareness of his finitude. The essence of human existence is "being-towards-death" . Time pushes human “existence” towards non-existence. Every whole, including personality, inevitably includes a border. This border is death.

Death belongs to the individual himself. "No one can die for another." Inauthentic being is an escape from death. Turning your face to it is a return to authentic being. "Being-towards-death" creates fear, it puts a person face to face with Nothing, the meaninglessness of any projects, endeavors and existence itself. To feel the fear of “being-towards-death”, to gain the courage to look into the world of one’s own Nothingness, one’s own non-existence, means to feel true existence. And cowardly flight, denial of the reality of death is a shameful weakness.

IN borderline situations , in states on the verge of life and death, with tragic turns of fate, a person realizes his finitude, alienation from the world, tragic loneliness. Thus, a person is freed from the power of illusions. Anxiety plunges a person into despair; he seems to himself to be a fragile creature, whose life can be ended by any breath of the elements. Now man returns to the world, armed with the tragic knowledge of his fate and existence. He realizes his loneliness and doom to death, knows that he cannot wait for any help from the outside.

Man, says Heidegger, has a choice. It is possible either to escape from death into the world of everyday life, or to accept an existential perspective. In the first case, an inauthentic existence awaits a person: the “world of things” obscures his finitude from a person, a person is absorbed in the objective or social environment.

Human activity constructs and organizes the world. But in the course of this work, man becomes a slave to his creations. The things he creates acquire power over him. Moreover, man himself tends to view himself as a thing. In this existence, a so-called objective view of personality arises, in which one personality is completely replaceable by another; “averageness” appears, the fiction of the “average”, the common person. Man questions “his own metaphysical essence.”

Heidegger affirms the initial antagonism of people, the hostility of society to the individual. Social existence serves as an obstacle to genuine human existence. “General vanity” deteriorates the individual, suppresses him through coercion from the “impersonal”. The mass has no individuals; it has no thought or will. The contradiction between man and society can be resolved only through a decisive break between them.

Heidegger says that in the distant past there was “an original unity of man with the world.” But then, with the development of society, existence was consigned to oblivion. Heidegger points to five components of the Modern Age: science, machinery, art, culture and “deification.” In modern times, man has become a subject creating a picture of the world as an object. The main process of the New Age is the conquest of the world, the “terribly decisive processing of reality” at an ever-faster pace (“technical race”). The gap is becoming wider, the opposition between subject and object is becoming more and more vivid. A person views everything that exists as a means to realize purely practical goals and “forgets being.” This leads to an increasingly untrue existence.

Heidegger advocates overcoming the opposition of subject and object through understanding the true essence of being. But this understanding is only just beginning. Although modernity has “forgotten being,” it still lives in culture, in language. Therefore, you need to listen to the language in order to learn to hear what modern people have completely forgotten how to hear. One should, in particular, turn to the mythological worldview, in which there was “the original unity of man with the world.” We need to appreciate poets who “listen to the voice of being” (Sophocles, Hölderlin, Rilke, etc.). But, in general, this is a task for future reflection by philosophers. In the meantime, you need to “be in reverence for being.”

Karl Jaspers (1883-1964) born in Oldenburg. He received a law degree, but then became disillusioned with this profession. He studied medicine in Berlin, Göttingen and Heidelberg, receiving a doctorate in psychiatry. He worked as a doctor in a psychiatric clinic. In 1916 he became an extraordinary associate professor in psychology, in 1920 - professor of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. His academic career was interrupted from 1933 until the end of World War II (Jaspers refused to divorce his Jewish wife Gertrud Mayer). After the war, Jaspers returned to teaching. In 1948 he moved to Switzerland and until 1961 he worked at the University of Basel as a professor. Jaspers' philosophical views are presented in the three-volume work “Philosophy” (1932), “The Origins and Purpose of History” (1949), in works on Kant, Nietzsche, Augustine, Spinoza and others.

Giving his assessment of modernity, Jaspers says that the man of the past found solace in religion, the imperfection of earthly existence was compensated by dreams of the other world. Now, when faith in God has been lost, when a person tries to achieve completeness and perfection in earthly life and fails, a massive feeling of dissatisfaction and confusion arises.

Jaspers says that modern society is characterized by the development of a huge “productive” apparatus, which turns into a force dominating people. Machines become such a part of a person’s life that he seems to merge with them and considers himself as a “function of the machine.”

Technology itself is neutral, it is not good or evil - it all depends on how it is used. At the present time, “the development of technology does not lead to liberation from the power of nature through domination over it, but to the destruction, and not only of nature, but also of man.”

The development of technology leads to the unification of earthly goods, dulls individual tastes, reduces the diversity of material and spiritual needs, and introduces a mass standard of reduced quality. Today's people live a gray everyday life filled with current tasks. “Like ecstasy at the sight of dangerous sporting achievements, the savagery of the crowd manifests itself in the reading of detective stories, an ardent interest in the progress of trials, in a penchant for the unbridled, the primitive, the incomprehensible.” A person ceases to be considered as an individual and has value only in accordance with his “businesslikeness,” i.e., the quantity and quality of the work he has done. People have lost touch with cultural tradition, they do not see prospects for the future, they are completely absorbed in the present day, squeezed in the grip of technology, administration, organization, and mass culture.

The people turned into a mass, a crowd. “The masses arise where people are deprived of their true world, roots and soil, where they have become manageable and interchangeable. All this has now happened as a result of technical development and is reaching ever greater intensity in the following characteristics: a narrowed horizon, living from day to day, without effective memories, forced meaningless labor, entertainment as a filler of leisure time, life as constant nervous tension, a deceptive appearance of love, fidelity, trust; betrayal, especially in youth, and hence inevitable cynicism, because the one who committed betrayal loses self-respect.”

Jaspers says that today statements about the end of history, philosophy, and art are becoming more and more widespread. At the same time, people are characterized by a half-conscious longing for another life, which finds expression in a feeling of emptiness and insignificance of existence. What way out of this situation does Jaspers offer?

He believes that it is necessary to form a new attitude towards technology, to create a community of people involved in all humanistic values. We need to free ourselves from the laws of herd life, from the “slavery of ethical rules,” that is, those moral norms and responsibilities that society places on us. We need to free ourselves from faith in science. Science is not capable of guiding life. We need to create a new philosophy. What should it be?

Jaspers decisively dissociates himself from the rationalist line in philosophy, denying the very possibility of the existence of philosophy as a science. Philosophy should be expressed not in scientific concepts, but in psychological terms. The real subject of philosophy is not nature; it does not give knowledge about things, but shows that I understand what I want and what I truly believe. The categories of philosophy are: will, freedom, choice, responsibility, etc. The task of philosophy is to encourage people to lead an individual life. Philosophy should help a person understand the meaning of his existence.

Existence, unlike empirical objects, cannot be understood rationally. The only way to characterize existence is “existential clarification.” Paradoxically, Jaspers calls: “... one must learn to observe psychopathologically, pose questions psychopathologically, analyze psychopathologically, think psychopathologically.” Jaspers says that existential philosophy does not provide knowledge of what a person is, it “clarifies and excites, but does not fix.” “Existential enlightenment, since it is pointless, does not produce results. Clarity of cognition contains a requirement, but does not provide fulfillment. As knowers we have to be content with this. For I am not what I know, and I do not know what I am. Instead of knowing my existence, I can only introduce a process of clarification.”

Jaspers describes existence from various points of view. I am in some situation, I belong to some people, I have parents, etc. I need to realize and accept this situation as my situation. Existence “is the source of my thinking and activity.” An even more detailed description of existence is expressed: “1) in the dissatisfaction that a person feels, because there is always a feeling of some kind of inconsistency with his existing existence, his knowledge, his spiritual world; 2) in the unconditional, to which, as its true self-existence or as what is understood and meaningfully said to it, its existence is subordinated; 3) in an incessant striving for unity, for a person is not satisfied with any of the ways of influencing the encompassing on himself, nor with all of them together, but strives for unity in the basis, which alone is being and eternity; 4) in the consciousness of an incomprehensible memory, as if he also knows about creation (Schelling) or as if he can remember what he contemplated before the existence of the world (Plato); 5) in the consciousness of immortality not as a continuation of life in another form, but as a time-destroying concealment in eternity, which appears to him as a path of unceasing action in time.”

Existence cannot calm down and be satisfied with everyday existence. The “instability” of existence, the constant threat of collapse, forces a person to look for the durable, the enduring. This other thing is revealed in “borderline situations.” “Existence, unthinkable without struggle and suffering, a feeling of irreparable guilt and death-retribution, together form what I call a borderline situation.” In borderline situations, transcendence is revealed. Transcendence “lives” in objects, in language, in concepts as a “cipher of the other.” Jaspers says that neither existence nor transcendence is accessible to rational knowledge. This knowledge only prepares the “clarification” of existence, believing that behind the “phenomena” there is something underlying them.

Transcendence is God. It is God who is the true being. The breakthrough to transcendence comes through faith. “Faith is the consciousness of existence in relation to transcendence.” For Jaspers, God appears as a single, integral being. In a borderline situation, a person is able to see symbols of something in objects, feel them and his own transcendental foundations. “Groundless”, “abandoned” human existence acquires soil, rootedness in the Absolute. In borderline situations, freedom comes to the fore. A person here creates his own life (usually he behaves “like everyone else”). My freedom is manifested in the ability to resist the body, that is, not to accept myself as I am.

Existence is freedom. A person chooses norms of behavior from a variety of action options. “Conscious of his freedom, a person wants to become what he can and should be. He paints the ideal of his essence.” The choice of behavior is determined by the “call of existence.” This “call” is rationally inexpressible. And it is difficult for the individual who commits this or that act to judge what his motive is - whether it is the call of transcendence (God) or the “voice of the flesh.” Moreover, “every ideal of man is impossible because man cannot be completed. There can be no perfect person."

The structure of existence, according to Jaspers, includes communication, communication with other individuals, “being with others.” “We are what we are only through the community of mutual conscious understanding. There cannot be a person who is a person in himself, simply as a separate individual.” Personal freedom can only exist when others are free. A breakdown in communication leads to the destruction of freedom.

But what kind of communication are we talking about? Jaspers believes that scientific and technological progress and new information technologies have led to people communicating on the basis of false principles. Genuine unification of people is possible only through “existential” communication based on mutual love and trust. At the same time, we must be aware that irrational evil is inherent in human nature.

In conclusion, we note that Jaspers’s reasoning reveals a certain specific motive: he does not call for a general withdrawal from the empirical world in which we live, but to live with a constant sense of fear, remembering the possible loss of everything we live with, with a sense of our finitude.

At the origins of existentialism in France was a writer, playwright, philosopher Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973). However, existentialism became the leading philosophical trend in France after the publication of the book “Everything and Nothing” by J.-P. Sartre. It is characteristic that the French existentialists were active in literary and artistic activity (they wrote dramas, short stories, novels, and memoirs). This contributed to the spread of their ideas in wide circles of society, especially among young people and cultural figures.

Marcel openly breaks with rationality: a rejection of science is necessary. Belief in the omnipotence of science is a harmful illusion; science is unable to explain, improve or save the world. Scientific knowledge does not solve the problems of inner life and is not capable of identifying true values. Marcel says: “I cannot name, define, formulate who I am. My existence is not a rational problem subject to objective scientific analysis, but my personal secret.” Marcel speaks of two worlds that exist, as it were, in different dimensions: 1) the world comprehended by abstract thinking, the world of science, the world of “objectivity” and 2 ) the existential world, comprehended by emotionally charged intuition.

Marcel distinguishes between “problems” and “sacraments”. The problem is in the realm of the logical, here the I approaches something as being outside and independent of it.

Physics studies problems, and metaphysics is the world of mystery, this is “reflection aimed at mystery.” In place of the scientific-cognitive relationship between subject and object, Marcel puts a certain emotional “sympathy”, “complicity”.

The main thing for an individual is internal freedom, freedom of choice. But there are still real limits that limit individual freedom. My “I” is a face and a personality. As a person, “I” is a part of society, a material object observable from the outside. Marcel criticizes "industrial society". The development of technology transforms a person from a subject into an object, from “I” into a thing, from an actor into a function, from “being” into “possession”. This process is enhanced by collectivization and socialization.

Being a person, “I” is a unique, original, spiritual being. The most important condition for genuine existence is a critically differentiated attitude towards “ready-made” social norms, official values ​​and slogans. Generally accepted moral ideas are false entities that have removed a person from himself and appropriated his freedom. Afraid of losing a certain significance in society, a person follows moral precepts imposed on him from the outside. The true morality of man can only be saved by the most uncompromising demarcation from these prescriptions. Naturally, not everyone is able to make such a distinction. Therefore, everyone is free to choose: whether to remain himself or to give up his freedom, his Self.

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) born and died in Paris. From 1924 to 1928 he studied at Ecole Normale Superior, and in 1929 he received a diploma in philosophy. From 1931 to 1933 he worked as a gymnasium teacher in Le Havre. In 1933-1934. received a scholarship from the Institute of France; in Berlin studies the concepts of Husserl, Scheler, Heidegger, Jaspers. From 1937 to 1939 he taught philosophy at the Pasteur Lyceum in Paris. Later he was engaged in free literary activity. In 1945 he founded the magazine “New Time”. Sartre's most famous works are “Being and Nothingness. Essay on phenomenological ontology" (1943), "Critique of dialectical reason" (1960).

In ontology, Sartre affirms two types of being: being in itself and being for itself. Being in itself is something that cannot be characterized by the categories of quality, cause, time, etc.; only one thing can be said about it - “it is.” Being for oneself is consciousness. Being for itself is dialectical; it contains qualitative diversity, life, movement, activity, negation. Being in itself, as it were, shades being for itself, forming a kind of background against which being for itself operates.

Being in itself does not generate being for itself, but presupposes the possibility of its existence. In being in itself there is a certain “elusive crack”, “unstable coincidence” with oneself, “sparseness”, and hence the possibility of going beyond one’s limits, the emergence of consciousness as a “witness of being in itself”.

The world itself, matter for Sartre, is “the objectification of human activity.” Matter is “anti-man”. In itself, as “inert objectification,” material being is anti-dialectical. But the individual brings movement, development, life into the “practically inert field of being.” Sartre emphasizes the activity of the subject. The subject himself shapes his world.

Consciousness wants to see the ultimate basis only in itself. This inevitably leads to hostile opposition to the world. “Conflict is the original meaning of existence for another.” Consciousness is doomed to constant anxiety, going beyond its limits, running away from itself.

“Existence” (existence) contains consciousness and negation. Negation (as aspiration, gravitation, attraction) has a pronounced emotional connotation: it includes absence, hostility, disgust, regret, anxiety, restlessness, etc. “Man is a being thanks to whom negativity comes into the world.” Sartre writes that it is human nature to strive for the unrealistic, to pursue an illusory goal and, naturally, to experience disappointment when discovering the unreality of one’s hopes. Therefore, human existence is a “sterile passion.” In Being and Nothingness (sometimes called the “bible of modern existentialism”) Sartre talks about the gap between ideal and reality, intention and result. Being is that which exists and causes displeasure, and nothingness is the ideal to which we strive and which is constantly pushed back and is always unattainable. The fulfillment of desires reveals the emptiness, the lies hidden under the outer shell of events.

Sartre divides and contrasts “being for oneself” and “being for another.” My existence must be won from another. The “I” is separated from the other as subject from object. And at the same time, “I” is how another sees me. But this picture is inaccessible to me, and there is a suspicion that the “I” in it is simply an object. The perception of another as an object is equal to the destruction of his human essence. Thus, it turns out that “I” is both subject and object. The modes of “being for oneself” are “to have”, “to do” and “to be”. The modes of “being for another” are “love”, “indifference” and “hatred”.

Sartre affirms a unique “philosophy of freedom.” Freedom expresses a break with necessity. The existence of a person is a series of his actions. A person chooses his own future and cannot refer to objective circumstances (this idea is the main one in the novel “Nausea”). There is, however, one special case - I cannot be responsible for the fact that I was born. I am “thrown” into the world. But after that I begin to be responsible for myself, I am free and responsible.

Freedom is always unique, for each specific situation. A person is free to search for himself, to choose himself, his objective world. This choice is existential. We are talking about choice in “critical” situations, and there is no way to avoid choice. Freedom is the choice of one's being: a person is what he chooses to be. A person is free regardless of the real possibility of realizing his aspirations. Freedom is in the aspiration itself, in the ability to choose your attitude to a given situation.

Sartre talks about the relationship between freedom and love. Love is not only an attack on the freedom of another, but also a project of how to make oneself loved. The lover is forced to meet the object of his love halfway and, as it were, dissolve in his being. The beloved requires the lover to renounce his freedom, but if this happens, the lover turns into a passive, uninteresting object.

Sartre's hero falls out of everyday life, he is lonely. Only having lost faith in everything does a person understand that he is free and can choose.

According to Sartre, we are individuals insofar as we make our own and only our own choices.

A person is responsible for his own life. He has the “inevitability” of free choice. Any attempt to avoid this choice is “bad faith.” “Bad faith” manifests itself either in a stereotypical lifestyle, or when a person decides to change his life and does not do so. “Bad faith” is a form of lying to oneself. To live in a “bad faith” means to exist as an object.

The choice of freedom leads to conflict with another. Freedom itself leads to suffering, fear; This is what existential thinking is all about.

But it's not just about other people. Freedom itself turns into a painful necessity - there is no escape from freedom, a person must necessarily choose. Man is "condemned to be free." “Absolute freedom turns into responsibility to oneself. Therefore, there is no chance in life. Not a single social event that suddenly arose and captivated me comes from the outside: if I am mobilized for war, this war is my war, I am guilty of it and I deserve it. I deserve it, first of all, because I could always evade it - become a deserter or commit suicide... If I didn’t do this, I chose it, became its accomplice.”

In “Critique of Dialectical Reason” Sartre writes: “Let no one interpret me in the spirit that man is free in all situations... I want to say exactly the opposite, namely, that all men are slaves in so far as their experience of life is in the area of ​​practical inertia and to the extent that this area is conditioned from the very beginning by its shortcomings”, “Freedom is the choice of one’s own being, and this choice is absurd” (“Nausea”). Although man is free, Sartre nevertheless formulates the following requirement: “Everything must happen as if the whole world was watching what I was doing and conforming to it.”

Sartre says that there is a "fundamental project" of man - the "desire to become a god." But this project contains an internal contradiction: “the desire to become a god” means an absurd desire to combine the incompatible, that is, to become “being in oneself and for oneself.” “Becoming a god” means achieving absolute freedom and unlimited creative power. But this is impossible, since the “factuality” of existence includes “sociality,” being together with other people. This means that, recognizing myself as a free subject, I simultaneously recognize myself as an object (thing) for another. The opposition between “being for oneself” and “being for another” represents an insurmountable antagonism. In the play Locked Up (1945), the hero states: “Other people are hell.” The “other” with his freedom is an obstacle, a limitation of my freedom, “the hidden death of my possibilities.”

Sartre is an atheistic existentialist. Here is a typical episode. The hero of the drama “The Devil and the Lord God” says: “I begged, begged, sent messages to heaven - no answer. Heaven knows nothing, it doesn’t even know my name. Every minute I asked myself the question: what am I in the eyes of God? Now I know the answer: nothing, God doesn’t see me, God doesn’t hear me, God doesn’t know me. Do you see this emptiness above our heads? This is God. Do you see this hole in the ground? This is God. Silence is God. Absence is God. God is the loneliness of people."

Sartre says: if a person is free and makes himself what he is, then he does not depend on anything. Divine providence and human freedom are mutually exclusive. “If there is no God, then we cannot refer to any values ​​or commandments that legitimize our behavior. Thus, in the vast sphere of values, we find no excuses behind us, nor any rewards ahead of us. We are left alone." Each individual person is the only source, criterion and goal of morality. Hence the imperative: using your freedom, be yourself!

Albert Camus (1913-1960) born in Algeria, into a working-class family. The school teacher obtained a scholarship for Albert to study at the University of Algiers. Camus studied philosophy. In 1938, Camus became a contributor to the new left-wing newspaper Algiers Republiques. He moved to Paris, returned to Algeria in the fall of 1941, then moved again to France. During the war he was a member of the Resistance. Camus's main works: “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1943), the novel “The Plague” (1947), “The Rebel Man” (1951). In the last years of his life, he experienced a creative crisis and wrote nothing. Died in a car accident.

Camus, in principle, does not deny the value of scientific knowledge. But such questions as the number of dimensions of space and time, the structure of an atom or a galaxy, for all their scientific significance, do not make any sense. We are thrown into this space, into this history, we are finite and mortal, and science does not give any answer to the question about the purpose of existence, about the meaning of existence. In addition, reality itself is unreasonable, chaotic, it is dominated by chance, and therefore the truth of scientific knowledge is called into question.

“I want it either explained to me or nothing explained to me. The mind is powerless before the cry of the heart. The search for a mind awakened by this demand leads to nothing but contradictions and unreason. What I cannot understand is unreasonable. The world is populated by such irrationalities. I do not understand the unique meaning of the world, and therefore it is immensely irrational for me.”

Ontological and epistemological problems in Camus' philosophy fade into the background; we need to direct our searches in a completely different direction. What is the human situation? Man exists in a world that is irrational and alien to him. But man is instinctively attached to this world. At the same time, realizing the routine of everyday life, a person is faced with the question: is it worth living at all? “There is only one truly serious philosophical problem - the problem of suicide. To decide whether life is or is not worth living is to answer a fundamental question in philosophy. Everything else - whether the world has three dimensions, whether the mind is guided by nine or twelve categories - is secondary. And if it is true, as Nietzsche wanted, that a philosopher worthy of respect should serve as an example, then the significance of the answer is clear - it will be followed by certain actions.”

Camus emphasizes the doom of man and his mortal destiny, the hopelessness, absurdity and tragedy of existence. The “Myth of Sisyphus” tells how Sisyphus, with incredible efforts, rolls a stone almost to the very middle of a high and steep mountain. But suddenly the stone slips out of his hands and rolls down the mountain. Sisyphus repeats his attempt several times. If he manages to roll the stone, he will gain freedom. But when the desired freedom is already close, an inevitable breakdown occurs. There will be no victory. Camus writes: “The gods sentenced Sisyphus to lift a huge stone to the top of the mountain, from where this block invariably rolled down. They had reason to believe that there is no punishment more terrible than useless and hopeless labor.” This is the whole life of a person.

A person develops a feeling of the absurdity of life’s bustle. “Wake up, tram, four hours of work in an office or factory, lunch, tram, four hours of work, dinner, sleep; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, all in the same rhythm - this is the path that is easy to follow day after day. But one day the question arises: why? It all begins with this bewilderment-tinged boredom... Boredom is the result of a mechanical life, but it still sets consciousness in motion.”

A person desires clarity of vision, honesty with himself. But he is opposed by an unreasonable, irrational world. Reality is absurd. “You have to live in this state of absurdity. I know what its foundation is: mind and world, supporting each other, but unable to unite.”

There can be two ways out of the absurd. The first is suicide. If absurdity requires two factors: man and the world, then the disappearance of one of them means the cessation of absurdity. But “suicide is a mistake.” The second way out is to recognize the absurd and live in it. “The absurdity is recognized, accepted, a person comes to terms with it, and from that moment we know that the absurdity no longer exists.” “War cannot be denied. They either die in it or live in it. It’s the same with absurdity: you need to breathe it. Learn its lessons and implement it.” Camus says that all activities, both routine and creative, are absurd. “Creativity is primarily an absurd joy.” In particular, “it is a mistake... to believe that a work of art can be regarded as a refuge from the absurd. It is itself an absurd phenomenon.”

But Camus does not stop there. The Second World War is going on. Camus participates in the Resistance movement. His works explore the theme of rebellion. Anyone who understands that “this world does not matter will find freedom.” You can find freedom only by rebelling against the universal absurdity. Rebellion and freedom are inseparable. “Rebellion is one of the essential dimensions of man” (“Rebellious Man”).

The “rebellious man,” first of all, rebels against his slavery. The first rebellious movement slave revolts . The rejection of slavery simultaneously affirms the freedom, equality and human dignity of everyone. “Although apparently negative because it creates nothing, rebellion is in reality deeply positive because it reveals in a person that which is always worth fighting for.” But this form of rebellion also has a negative side - a rebellious slave may himself want to become a master, and the rebellion turns into a bloody dictatorship.

Another form of rebellion is "metaphysical revolt" “The slave protests against the fate prepared for him by his servitude; the metaphysical rebel protests against the destiny prepared for him as a representative of the human race.” This is a rebellion against the universe itself. “The metaphysical rebel declares that he is deprived and deceived by the universe itself.” “Metaphysical rebellion is directed against the Absolute. The ruler of this world, after the legitimacy of his power is challenged, must be overthrown, and his place taken by man... But what does it mean to be God? This is precisely to admit that everything is permissible, and to reject any law except your own.” “Metaphysical revolt” leads to nihilism, revolutions, and terror. The result of such a rebellion is “the sky is empty, the earth has been given over to an unprincipled force.”

Camus has a negative assessment of modern reality. People have always killed each other - this is an indisputable fact. But today the real threat is posed not by lone criminals, but by government officials who coldly send millions of people to their deaths, justifying mass murder in the interests of the nation, state security, human progress, and the logic of history. Camus opposes revolutions; he is for gradual reforms, as a result of which human solidarity, a common meaning of existence for all people, should be established.

The philosophy of existentialism was perceived by contemporaries as a philosophy of the gap between a tragically lonely individual and society, as an expression of protest against the oppression of the individual, against an absurd life. In this aspect, both ultra-left and far-right extremism were repelled from it.

The appeal of this philosophy to man, the meaning of his existence, greatly influenced social psychology. In this case, art influenced by existentialism (for example, surrealism and expressionism) and literature played a large role. We must not forget that the existentialists themselves (Sartre, Camus, S. de Beauvoir) were notable figures in literature. Existentialists saw the purpose of art as follows: it should evoke irrational, unconscious experiences of existence. Characteristic features of art influenced by existentialism are a focus on introspection, an indication of the absurdity of existence, a selection of dark events, crisis states of the soul, a gap between the individual and society, and the isolation of people from each other.

Surrealism and expressionism express the artist's morbid imagination. Naturalism merges with formalism, eroticism with religion and mysticism, reality with symbolism. Through hallucinations and suppressed impulses, surrealists free a person from his real social connections and suggest that happiness can be achieved in some other world. Motives of alienation are heard in literature. At the heart of the “absurdist” novel and the literature of “black humor”, the theater of the absurd, is a person condemned to exist in a cold, hostile world. People torment each other, cannot free themselves from greed, greed, anger, etc., and the reasons for all this are in the person himself.

The impact of existentialism on young people manifested itself in various versions of “kneeling riots” - these are “angry young people”, “beatniks”, “hippies”, etc. By the end of the 20th century. existentialism has lost its former influence. However, his ideas were not forgotten. They still find a certain response in people's minds.

The philosophy of existence occupies a special place in the fundamental development of the 20th century. It arose as an attempt to create something new, different from the evolving views of modern man. It must be admitted that practically none of the thinkers was a 100% existentialist. The closest to this concept was Sartre, who tried to combine all knowledge together in his work entitled “Existentialism - How do existentialist philosophers interpret the concept of “freedom”? Read below.

Establishment of existentialism as a separate philosophy

At the end of the sixties, people were going through a special period. Man was seen as the main thing, but a new direction was needed to reflect the modern historical path, which could reflect the situation that Europe was experiencing after the wars, finding itself in conditions of emotional crisis. This need arose due to experiencing the consequences of military, economic, political and moral decline. An existentialist is a person who reflects the consequences of historical disasters and seeks his place in their destruction. In Europe, existentialism was firmly established as a philosophy and was a kind of fashionable cultural movement. This position of people was among fans of irrationalism.

History of the term

The historical significance of the term as such dates back to 1931, when Karl Jaspers introduced the concept. He mentioned it in his work entitled “The Spiritual Situation of Time.” The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard was called by Jaspers the founder of the movement and designated it as the way of being of a certain person. The famous existential psychologist and psychotherapist R. May considered this movement as a cultural movement that imprints a deep emotional and spiritual impulse in the soul of a developing personality. It depicts the psychological moment in which a person is momentarily, expresses the unique difficulties that he has to face.

Existentialist philosophers trace the origins of their teaching to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. The theory reflects the problems of the crisis of liberals, who rely on the heights of technological progress, but are unable to express in words the incomprehensibility and disorder of human life. Involves constant overcoming of emotional feelings: a feeling of being in hopelessness and despair. The essence of the philosophy of existentialism is an attitude towards rationalism that manifests itself in the opposite reaction. The founders and followers of the movement argued about the division of the world into objective and subjective sides. All manifestations of life are considered as an object. An existentialist is a person who views all things from the unity of objective and subjective thought. The main idea: a person is who he decides to be in this world.

How to become self-aware

Existentialists propose to understand a person as an object that finds itself in a critical situation. For example, with a high probability of surviving mortal horror. It is during this period that world awareness becomes unrealistically close to a person. They consider it the true way of knowledge. The main way to enter another world is intuition.

How do existentialist philosophers interpret the concept of “freedom”?

The philosophy of existentialism devotes a special place to the formulation and solution of the problem of freedom. They view it as a specific individual choice out of a million possibilities. Object things and animals do not have freedom, since they initially have an essence. A person is given a whole life to study it and understand the meaning of his existence. Therefore, a reasonable individual is responsible for every act committed and cannot simply make mistakes, citing certain circumstances. Existentialist philosophers consider man to be a constantly evolving project, for which freedom is a sense of separation between the individual and society. The concept is interpreted from the point of view, but not “freedom of spirit”. This is the untouchable right of every living person. But people who have chosen at least once are subject to a new feeling - anxiety about the correctness of their decision. This vicious circle pursues a person until the very last point of arrival - the achievement of his essence.

Who is a person in the understanding of the founders of the movement?

May proposed to perceive a person as a process of constant development, but experiencing periodic crises. Western culture is particularly sensitive to these moments, as it has experienced much anxiety, despair and conflict-ridden warfare. An existentialist is a person responsible for himself, his thoughts, his actions, his being. He must be like this if he wants to remain an independent person. He must also have the intelligence and confidence to make the right decisions, otherwise his future self will be of appropriate quality.

Characteristic features of all representatives of existentialism

Despite the fact that various teachings leave certain imprints on the philosophy of existence, there are a number of characteristics that are inherent in each representative of the movement under discussion:

• The initial starting line of knowledge is a constant process of analyzing the actions of an individual. Only existence can tell everything about the human personality. The basis of the teaching is not a general concept, but an analysis of a specific human personality. Only people can analyze their conscious existence and must do this continuously. Heidegger especially insisted on this.
• Man is lucky enough to live in a unique reality, Sartre emphasized in his writings. He said that no other creatures have a similar world. Based on his reasoning, we can conclude that the existence of every person is worthy of attention, awareness and understanding. Its uniqueness requires constant analysis.
• Existentialist writers in their work have always described the process of ordinary life that precedes essence. Camus, for example, argued that the ability to live is the most important value. The human body comprehends the meaning of its presence on Earth during growth and development, and only at the end is it able to comprehend its true essence. Moreover, this path is individual for each person. The goals and means of achieving the highest good also differ.
• According to Sartre, there is no reason for the existence of a living human organism. “He is the reason for himself, his choice and his life,” they said existentialist philosophers. Difference statements from the ideas of other directions of philosophy are that how each life stage of human development goes depends on him. The quality of the entity will also depend on its actions that it performs on the way to achieving the main goal.

• The existence of the human body, endowed with intelligence, lies in simplicity. There is no mystery, since natural resources cannot determine how a person’s life will go, what laws and regulations he will follow and which ones he will not.
• A person must fill his life with meaning on his own. He can choose his vision of the world around him, filling it with his ideas and turning them into reality. He can do whatever he wants. What kind of essence he will acquire depends on personal choice. Also, the disposal of one's existence is completely in the hands of an intelligent person.
• An existentialist is Ego. Viewed from the perspective of incredible opportunities for everyone.

Difference from representatives of other movements

Existentialist philosophers, in contrast to educators who supported other movements (especially Marxism), advocated abandoning the search for a rational meaning of historical events. They saw no point in seeking progress in these actions.

Influence on the consciousness of people of the 20th century

Since existentialist philosophers, unlike the enlighteners, did not seek to see the pattern of history, they did not set out to win a large number of associates. However, the ideas of this direction of philosophy had a great influence on the consciousness of people. The principles of human existence as a traveler moving towards his true essence draw their line in parallel with people who categorically do not share this point of view.

One of the prominent predecessors of existential philosophy was F.M.Dostoevsky(1821 – 1881) – writer, publicist, one of the ideological leaders of pochvennichestvo. He developed his philosophical, religious, psychological ideas mainly in his works of art. He had a significant influence on the development of Russian religious philosophy at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, and at a later time on Western philosophical thought - especially existentialism.

As an existential thinker, he was concerned the theme of the relationship between God and man, God and the world. According to Dostoevsky, a person cannot be moral outside the idea of ​​God, outside religious consciousness. Man, according to him, is a great mystery: there is nothing more significant than man, but there is nothing more terrible. For: man is an irrational being, striving for self-affirmation, that is, for freedom.

But what is freedom for a person? This is the freedom to choose between good (life “according to God”) and evil (life “according to the devil”). The question is whether a person himself, guided by purely human principles, can determine what is good and what is evil. According to Dostoevsky, having embarked on the path of denying God, a person deprives himself of a moral guideline, and his conscience “can get lost to the most immoral”: there is no God, no sin, no immortality, no meaning of life. Whoever loses faith in God inevitably takes the path of personal self-destruction, like the heroes of his novels - Raskolnikov, Svidrigailov, Ivan Karamazov, Kirillov, Stavrogin.

But in the reasoning of the Grand Inquisitor (“The Brothers Karamazov”), the idea is conveyed: the freedom preached by Christ and human happiness are incompatible, because only a few strong-willed individuals can endure freedom of choice. Everyone else will prefer bread and material goods to freedom. Finding themselves free, people will immediately look for someone to bow down to, to whom to give the right to choose and to whom to assign responsibility for it, since “peace... is dearer to a person than freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil.” Therefore, freedom is possible only for the chosen ones, who, having taken responsibility, will control the huge mass of weak-spirited people.

Yes, real history does not coincide with the high Christian ideal, but the view of humanity offered by the Grand Inquisitor is essentially anti-Christian, containing “disguised contempt for it.” In fact, when choosing evil, every person acts quite freely and consciously, he knows whom he serves - God or Satan. This often leads Dostoevsky’s heroes to the brink of mental illness, to the appearance of “doubles” who personify their sick conscience.

Essentially, the image of the Grand Inquisitor personifies Dostoevsky’s plan for a godless socialist structure of society (“the devil’s idea”), for which the main guideline is the forced unity of humanity on the basis and in the name of universal material well-being, without taking into account the spiritual origin of man. Dostoevsky contrasts atheistic Western socialism with the idea of ​​an all-unifying Russian socialism, which is based on the Russian people’s thirst for a universal, nation-wide, all-brotherly unification.

One of the first versions of existential philosophy was developed in Russia ON THE. Berdyaev(1871-1948), who is called the "philosopher of freedom"; Existentialism – a philosophical doctrine that analyzes a person’s experience of his existence (existence) in the world.

Developing his teaching, Berdyaev adopted the philosophy of the German classics, as well as the religious and moral quest of V.S. Solovyov, L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky, N.F. Fedorov. His main works: “Philosophy of Freedom”, “The Meaning of Creativity”, “Philosophy of Inequality”, “The Meaning of History”, “Philosophy of the Free Spirit”, “Russian Idea”, “The Fate of Russia”, “The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism”, “Self-Knowledge” " and etc.

The main feature of Berdyaev’s philosophical teaching is his dualism, those. the idea of ​​internal duality, the split of the world and man. According to him, everything is based on two principles: spirit, which finds expression in freedom, subject, creativity, and nature, which finds expression in necessity, materiality, and object.

Initially, there is only one inseparable being, in which subject and object merge - irrational, groundless freedom, which is comprehended as a fact of mystical experience and in which the Birth of God takes place (Berdyaev: “Freedom is more primary than being”).

Man, having received creative freedom from God, “fell away” from him through the Fall, through the desire to establish his world as the only one. As a result, he (the person), following the path of “evil” creativity, plunged into the kingdom of unfreedom - the social kingdom of mechanical groups (state, nation, class, etc.), where he loses his individuality, the ability for free creative self-affirmation. As a result, human consciousness is objectified, i.e. determined and suppressed by the massiveness and heaviness of the world, subject to circumstances.

Therefore, says Berdyaev, our life bears the stamp of unfreedom, which is revealed to a person through his suffering (“I suffer, therefore I exist”). A person turns out to be internally bifurcated in his existence: in him there is a genuine “I” (spiritual, divine - an impulse towards freedom; determined “from within”) and an inauthentic “I” (social, impersonal, objective).

However, man has hope - in God, who “descends” into social history through Christ. The appearance of Christ, says Berdyaev, transforms negative (creativity against God) freedom into positive (creativity in the name of God and with God) freedom. But the outcome of the struggle between these two aspirations (freedoms) depends on the person.

The affirmation of “positive freedom” will mean, according to Berdyaev, the onset of an existential (creative) time, when the dialectical unity of the divine and human is established in history, and man in his free creativity becomes like God. As a result, the social world is being transformed on the basis of “conciliarity” or “communitarianism”. By this Berdyaev understood the religious variety of collectivism developed by Russian advanced life and the philosophical culture of Russia, coming from the Slavophiles. It is here that a person will cease to be only a means (“manure”) for future progress (future generations) and will turn into something valuable in itself (everyone is equal before God), into a free creative individuality.

The philosopher contrasted such an ideal society with both Russian socialism and Western soulless individualistic civilization (“Socialism and capitalism are two forms of slavery of the human spirit to the economy”).

The “Russian idea” in Berdyaev’s work also bears the stamp of dualism. According to him, a split and dualism runs through Russian history. Russian history is discontinuous and catastrophic. Through social catastrophes (riots, wars, revolutions - “the fate and cross of Russia”), each time a new Russia is born (Kievan Russia. Rus' during the Tatar-Mongol yoke, Moscow Rus', Petrine Rus', Soviet Russia, which will become a thing of the past, when the Russian people realize the religious essence of their character). Here each period is opposed to another.

This corresponds to the split within Russia: between society (the people) and the state, within the church, between the intelligentsia and the people, within the intelligentsia (“Slavophiles - Westerners”). Dual Also Russian culture and the nature of the Russian people, in which feminine(humility, renunciation, compassion, pity, propensity for slavery) and masculine(riotousness, rebellion, cruelty, love of freethinking) principles form the basis of the Russian soul, which knows no measure in anything: natural, pagan elements and Orthodox humility.

These contradictions, according to N. Berdyaev, are due to the fact that in Russia two streams of world history collide and come into interaction: East and West. But on the whole, the Russian people were not the people of a culture that was based on rational, orderly, averaged Western European principles. He is a people of extremes, inspirations and revelations. And, nevertheless, Berdyaev believes, Russia will overcome its dualism, having merged into Cosmic time, the kingdom of God, which is established on Earth in the form of “conciliarity” (“communitarianism”).

Close to Berdyaev in his existential-personalistic frame of mind L. I. Shestov(1866 – 1938) in his works “The Apotheosis of Groundlessness”, “Athens and Jerusalem” and others, substantiates the idea of ​​​​the tragic absurdity of human existence; puts forward the image of a doomed person - a subject immersed in a world of chaos, domination of the elements, and chance.

Philosophizing, in his opinion, should come from the subject, focusing not on thinking, reason (rationality), but on the experience of existence with his world of deeply personal truths.

Philosophical speculation, i.e. He contrasts the rationalistic “spirit of Athens” with revelation, trust in the foundations of life, which have a Divine source (“spirit of Jerusalem”). In general, Shestov draws the main conclusion for his system - true philosophy follows from the fact that God exists.

The work of another idealist philosopher V. V. Rozanova(1856 – 1919), conditionally comparable to existentialism, is distinguished by great originality and literary brilliance (works: “People of Moonlight”, “Fallen Leaves”, “Solitary”, etc.). Criticizing orthodox Christianity for its asceticism and “genderlessness,” but believing in God at the level of intuition, he affirmed the religion of sex, love, and family as the primary elements of life, the source of human creative energy and the spiritual health of the nation.

Raising the topic of Russia, Rozanov spoke out against the dark, self-destructive principles in Russian nature, including against nihilism, which creates the ground for revolutionary upheavals. In the revolution he saw only the destruction of national life. While deeply loving Russia, he, at the same time, did not accept not only the revolution of 1917, but also the idea of ​​a socialist state of Russian society.

End of work -

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The discipline is philosophy. Subject and specificity of philosophical knowledge

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