The problem of man and nature. The problem of the relationship between man and nature The problem of the relationship between man and nature
Einstein once said that man is part of a whole we call the Universe. This part is limited both in time and space. And when a person feels himself as something separate, this is self-deception. The relationship between man and nature has always worried great minds. Especially nowadays, when one of the main issues is the problem of the survival of people as a species on Earth, the problem of preserving all life on our planet. Read about how the relationship between man and nature manifests itself, and what ways you can try to harmonize it.
Narrow frames
The inseparability of man, like all life on Earth, from the biosphere determines his existence. Moreover, this life activity becomes possible only in adequate conditions, very limited. The narrow limits correspond to the characteristics of the human body (it has been proven, for example, that an increase in the general ambient temperature by just a few degrees can lead to disastrous results for humans). He demands for himself the maintenance of the ecology, the environment where his previous evolution took place.
Ability to adapt
Knowledge and understanding of such a range is an urgent need for humanity. Of course, each of us can adapt to But this happens gradually, gradually. More drastic changes that exceed the capabilities of our body can lead to pathological phenomena and ultimately to death.
Biosphere and noosphere
The biosphere is all living things that exist on Earth. In addition to plants and animals, it also includes humans as its significant part. The influence of man as a species influences the process of reorganization of the biosphere more and more intensely. This is due to the impact of scientific and technological progress in the last centuries of human existence. Thus, the transition of the biosphere to the noosphere takes place (from the Greek “mind”, “mind”). Moreover, the noosphere is not a detached kingdom of the mind, but rather the next stage of evolutionary development. This is a new reality associated with various forms of impact on nature and the environment. The noosphere also implies not only the use of scientific achievements, but also the cooperation of all mankind, aimed at preserving a reasonable and humane attitude towards the common human home.
Vernadsky
The great scientist, who defined the very concept of the noosphere, emphasized in his works that a person cannot be physically independent of the biosphere, that humanity is a living substance associated with the processes occurring there. In other words, for a person’s full existence, not only the natural environment is important (he needs a certain quality of it). Such fundamental conditions as air, water, and earth ensure life itself on our planet, including human life! The destruction of the complex, the removal of at least one component from the system would lead to the death of all living things.
Environmental needs
The need for a good environment in humans has been formed since time immemorial, along with the needs for food, housing, and clothing. In the early stages of development, environmental needs were satisfied as if automatically. Representatives of the human race were confident that they were endowed with all these benefits - water, air, soil - in sufficient quantities and for all times. The shortage - not yet acute, but already frightening - began to be felt by us only in recent decades, when the threat came to the fore. Today, it is already becoming clear to many that preserving a healthy environment is no less important than eating or fulfilling spiritual needs.
Revision of vectors
Apparently, the time has come for humanity to reorient the main directions of development of science and technology, so that the very attitude towards nature and the environment becomes different. This concept should rightfully take its central place in people's minds. Philosophers and practitioners dealing with environmental issues have long ago made a final verdict: either man changes his attitude towards nature (and, accordingly, changes himself), or he will be destined to be wiped off the face of the Earth. And this, according to the testimony of many scientists, will happen quite soon! So we have less and less time to think.
Man's relationship to nature
In different eras, relationships were not easy. The idea that man is a part of nature was expressed and embodied in ancient times. In various pre-Christian religious cults we observe the deification of Mother Earth, the water environment, wind, and rain. For many pagans, there was a part of nature, and it, in turn, was perceived as the single beginning of everything that exists. The Indians, for example, had powerful spirits of mountains, streams, and trees. And for some animals the meaning of equality was cultivated.
With the advent of Christianity, man's relationship to nature also changes. Man already feels like a servant of God, whom God created in his own image. The concept of nature fades into the background. A kind of reorientation is taking place: the relationship between man and nature is disrupted. In return, kinship and unity with the divine principle are cultivated.
And in the philosophical systems of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries we see the formation of the idea of the god-man, where the individual is perceived as the unconditional king over all things. Thus, the problem of man and nature is solved unambiguously in favor of the former. And the relationship with God completely reaches a dead end. The concept of “man is the king of nature” was cultivated with particular force in the mid-to-late twentieth century. This justifies the thoughtless cutting down of strategically important forests, the turning back of rivers, the leveling of mountains to the ground, and the unreasonable use of the planet's gas and oil resources. All these are negative actions of a person in relation to the environment in which he lives and exists. The problem of man and nature is becoming more acute with the formation of ozone holes, the emergence of the effect of global warming, and other negative consequences leading the Earth and humanity itself to destruction.
Back to the roots
Nowadays, there is a tendency for people to return “to the bosom of nature.” The relationship between man and nature has been reviewed by many public figures and organizations (for example, the Greenpeace movement, which advocates universal conservation of the environment and the wise use of natural resources). In science we also see the successful implementation of ideas for environmentally friendly mechanisms. These include electric vehicles and magnetic engines. All of them contribute to the preservation of the environment and in every possible way prevent its further pollution. Large businessmen carry out technical reconstructions of enterprises and bring products into compliance with international environmental standards. The “man and nature” scheme is beginning to operate actively again. Progressive humanity is restoring former family ties. If only it weren’t too late, people still hope that Mother Nature will understand and forgive them.
Man and nature: essay topics
In this light, it becomes necessary and important to raise a generation that will treat the environment wisely and with due reverence. A schoolchild who cares about birds and trees, who culturally throws ice cream wrappers into the trash, and who does not torture pets, is what is needed at the present stage. By cultivating such simple rules, in the future society will be able to form entire generations that will form the correct noosphere. And in this, school essays “Man and Nature” play an important role. Topics may vary for junior and senior grades. One thing is important: by working on these essays, schoolchildren become part of nature, learn to treat it thoughtfully and with respect. The children are aware of the relationship between man and nature, arguments that irrefutably testify to the unity and indivisibility of these concepts.
Intelligent environmental transformation
Of course, every society influences the one in which it directly lives. Transforms it, uses the achievements of previous generations, passes this environment on as an inheritance to its descendants. According to Pisarev, all the work to transform nature is placed in the ground, as if in a large savings bank. But the time has come to use everything reasonable created by humanity for the benefit of nature, and forget everything negative forever!
In contact with
Classmates
The relationship between man and nature can be seen in shaping human needs. Man as a subject of social relations is a special type of living, corporeal being, a product of the historical development of society.
The distinctive feature of Homo sapiens is not its biological organization, but its ability to create a “second nature” and cultural values. A person, according to K. Marx, can behave according to the standards of any species.
Satisfaction of human needs is expressed in human interest. A person as an individual strives to understand the world around him and influence it in a practical way. The role of nature in human life is enormous. The natural environment, climate, soil characteristics, minerals, tree varieties - all this influences to a certain extent the formation of human needs.
So, Egypt is a country of stone - hence the pyramids, tombs, stone steles, columns; Greece has a lot of marble - hence the material for statues, temples, reliefs. The properties of the material facilitated the search and “suggested” the most appropriate fulfillment of a person’s spiritual needs, developing in him a sense of beauty. Papyrus (hieroglyphs) and clay tiles (cuneiform), paper (the printed word) in different ways served one thing - the development of human culture.
Mammoth and walrus tusks, marble and various types of trees influenced the shape of works of fine art. Children's needs for play are fully satisfied by toys made of plastic; in some ways they are better than wooden ones, but no one has yet been able to make a violin from plastic that is equal in sound to a Stradivarius violin.
Many needs, ways and means of satisfying them are dictated by nature. For example, in the not so distant past, the Chukchi had no need not only for books, but also for fruits, since they were not aware of their existence. Many natural phenomena suggested scientific discoveries and inventions. Observing the flight of birds, man strived for flight and came to the airplane; the movements of the heavenly bodies suggested him many calculations, and the change of natural rhythms - the first philosophical generalizations (the idea of cyclicity).
Man is the highest creation of nature. But from this we cannot conclude that culture is a creation of nature. Culture is human creativity, which is the link between her and nature. Nature existed and can exist without man and without culture, but man cannot break with nature, “escape” from it.
Some researchers even believe that it is not man who plays the main role, but various things: drinks, spices, money, energy sources, wood, coal, cities, geographical unity, climate, etc. This is the so-called geographical determinism(the generosity of African nature and the character of blacks).
For example, the French historian L. Febvre wrote that the death of Venice occurred after the sea route around Africa to India was opened: the Ocean defeated the Sea. Another historian F. Braudel believes that there are difficulties in making crackers, but the invention of crackers made it possible to keep a huge fleet in the Mediterranean Sea (no bread - no fleet). “In the history of wheat,” he writes, “is the history of civilization.” The Sahara was once a lush savannah, but countless herds of domestic animals have turned it into a desert. All this is important for studying the material basis of civilization, but it is forgotten that the main thing is the decisive element of culture is man.
Considering the main trends in the relationship and interaction of man and nature in the dynamics of socio-cultural life, one can see a tendency to harmonize their relations by adapting to it. Contradictions exist, but the historical experience of mankind indicates that they are generated by a “low-cultural” attitude towards nature. Thus, man in the Paleolithic period was a hunter, nature was hostile to him, and the fear of starvation constantly hovered over him. It is no coincidence that totemism was the first form of religion. The transition to agriculture and cattle breeding, that is, a productive economy, changed the relationship between man and nature. A long period of agricultural culture began. Man’s existence is dual: on the one hand, he is an actively acting being, on the other, he is not yet divorced from the natural conditions of his existence, which speaks of the great importance of nature in human life.
The natural element predominates in human productive activity, since the land as an object of labor and the producer himself do not depend on the active forces of man. They only “meet” in the process of work, but the result of this “meeting” is largely determined by the spontaneous forces of nature. In human consciousness, this stage of interaction with nature was reflected in agricultural cults, in mythology, in the anthropomorphic perception of the world (the god of the sea - Poisedon, the god of the sun - Ra, the god of cattle - Beles, etc.). This worldview of a person of that era was based on the inseparability of culture from nature. This gave rise to animistic ideas about the Universe, that is, the spirituality of objects and natural phenomena.
The relationship between culture and nature has always been mediated by man’s worldview. World religions reflect this process. Thus, in the Indian cultural tradition (Hinduism, Buddhism), with its focus on achieving moral perfection and a state of internal concentration, the emphasis is on the practical negation of the world. And as a consequence - a passive attitude of man towards nature. But in concrete contact with nature, there is a tradition of respect for all living things and not causing harm. From ancient times to the present day, the culture of India, China, and Japan has maintained the idea of the divine essence of nature.
In the philosophical systems of ancient India, China and ancient Greece, scientific concepts of man were first formulated, where he was considered as part of the cosmos. A person can act as a small world (microcosm) and as a big world (macrocosm).
According to the ideas of the ancient Chinese, nature was interpreted as a living organism, and man as a combination of various “elements” of the cosmos. One of the Chinese sages said: “Between Heaven and Earth, man is most precious.” The most distinctive and original concepts of man in ancient Chinese philosophy are the theories of Confucianism and Taoism.
Confucianism(founder - the sage Confucius, 6th century BC) asserted the eternity and immutability of society and the world as a whole, where each person was given the right to occupy his original place predetermined for him. Humanity, mercy(ren) should permeate relationships between people. Everyone is obliged to help others achieve what they themselves strive for, and not to do what they do not want for themselves. Following strict order(li) and standards, including etiquette.
Another important direction of ancient Chinese philosophy, in which special attention is paid to the problem of man, was Taoism(founder Lao Tzu - 6th century BC). The central concept of this doctrine is "tao" - way. According to the teachings of Taoism, everything in the world is in motion, change, on the way; everything is impermanent and finite.
IN European culture with its principle of pragmatism, dominates principle of utility in relation to nature. “Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man is a worker in it,” says the hero of the novel “Fathers and Sons” by I. Turgenev. And the character of Gorky’s story “Malva” - the peasant guy Gavrila, in response to a woman’s admiration for the boundless picture of the sea, sadly says: “...Oh, if only this was land, if only it were black soil, if only it could be plowed up.” Here we meet the Western European tradition of mastering nature.
In the Christian culture of peace, the natural world is accepted on the terms of its active improvement, because man is a creation of God and by this very fact is called to treat himself and nature creatively.
These radical changes in the relationship between nature and culture are still observed today. During the period of industrial cultural development, that is, the next stage of cultural evolution, a person depends not so much on natural circumstances as on the historically created conditions of production activity. In the literature devoted to the fight against environmental abuses, the concept of “nature” is often replaced by the phrase “natural resources” or “raw materials,” or, at best, by “the natural conditions of human existence.” In such conditions, we are not talking about harmonizing the relationship between nature and culture, nature and man, but about nature as an object of utilitarian use for one’s needs.
In such conditions there arises the problem of man and culture and the harmonization of these relationships. Understanding nature as a useful thing for humans is destructive for culture. Many prominent philosophers have paid attention to this. Hegel: “The practical attitude towards nature is generally determined by arrogance, and the latter is selfish. Need strives to use nature for its own benefit, to erase its edges, to emasculate it, in short, to destroy it.”
K. Marx: “Culture, if it develops spontaneously and is not consciously directed... leaves behind a desert.” S. L. Rubinstein warned that “a culture that would completely banish nature from life would destroy itself and become unbearable.” Such human influence on nature can lead to harmful consequences and environmental disasters.
Used sources:
1. Hegel G.V. Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences in 2 volumes. M., 1975. – T. 2., p. 12.
2. Marx K., Engels F. Soch. T. 32, p. 43.
3. Rubinstein L. S. Problems of general psychology, M., 1973, p. 62.
4. Afonin V. A., Afonin Yu. V. Theory and history of culture. A textbook for independent work of students. – Lugansk: Elton-2, 2008. – 296 p.
Man and nature are inseparable. We are inextricably linked with the animal and plant world around us and, to a large extent, depend on it. It is no coincidence that the problem of the relationship between man and nature is so pressing.
Our blood relationship with all things is obvious. Nikolai Rubtsov wrote about this in his poem “My Quiet Homeland”:
With every bump and cloud,
With thunder ready to fall,
I feel the most burning
The most mortal connection.
For many of us, nature is a subject of admiration; the soul blossoms from communication with it. found charm even in the bad days of late autumn:
It's a sad time! Ouch charm!
I am pleased with your farewell beauty...
Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky called nature “an eternal example of art.” Writers, poets, artists, and musicians depicted her beauty in their works. For creative people, nature has often become a source of inspiration. The story “Creaky Floorboards” by Konstantin Georgievich Paustovsky tells the story of how Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky composed his works. The love for his native places, familiar from childhood, inspired the Russian composer to create beautiful music.
There are many cases where nature healed a person and gave him vitality. In O. Henry's story “The Last Leaf,” the heroine becomes seriously ill. Lying in bed, she counts the leaves on the old ivy. Jonesy thinks that when the last leaf falls, she will die. But the leaf desperately resists the weather. And the girl is also fighting for her life.
Connection with nature has a beneficial effect on a person: one who lives in harmony with the world around him cannot but possess inner beauty. Let us remember Olesya, the heroine of the story of the same name by Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin. A girl who grew up in the lap of nature, in Polesie, attracts with her moral purity and integrity of character.
However, the relationship between man and nature is not always harmonious. Sometimes we forget about the spiritual principle that is inherent in the world around us. “Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man is a worker in it,” says Evgeny Bazarov, hero. Probably, in some ways the young nihilist is right. However, his judgment, in my opinion, is too one-sided. Nature cannot be perceived only as a space for human activity and a source of material wealth. This consumer attitude leads to irreparable consequences, and we already have the opportunity to verify this.
Unreasonable and sometimes barbaric actions of people provoked the disappearance of rare species of animals and plants, air and water pollution. In some areas of the planet, the rapid development of industry has become the cause of a real environmental disaster.
But everything in the world is interconnected, and the harm we cause to nature will sooner or later turn against us...
Man and nature are inextricably linked. We are hugely dependent on the world around us. Not so long ago, the prevailing opinion was that man is the king of nature, its rightful owner. However, today it is clear that we are just a tiny particle in the world.
Human interaction with nature can be harmonious only when we treat its gifts with respect and care. People are one with the environment, and therefore must take responsibility for their actions and evaluate their consequences.
Man is an integral part of the world
In the process of our life, we largely depend on nature. It gives us much needed things like air, water, light, food. It depends only on us in what form we will preserve all these valuable resources for ourselves and subsequent generations. The population in all corners of the planet is developing, building its life and work activities, focusing on natural conditions and the climate in the place of residence. The lifestyle of people living near the warm sea is very different from life in the harsh northern conditions.
Despite its seemingly quite strong ability to change natural conditions, change river beds and landscapes, humanity is still highly dependent on its environment. Disasters such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis and many others can destroy entire cities and even civilizations. Economic development and the creation of new progressive technologies are also not possible without the use of natural resources.
In recent decades, it has become increasingly obvious that nature cannot endlessly satisfy all the needs of people if they do not give anything in return. The basis of a harmonious life should be the awareness that a person is an integral part of the world around him, and, therefore, must take care of and protect it, wisely use all resources without harm to nature.
How humanity affects the Earth
From the moment a person became intelligent and gained the opportunity to use tools, his influence on the surrounding conditions and their changes began. Under the influence of our forces, many changes have occurred in the environment, both positive and negative. The positive aspects of human influence include the creation of national parks and reserves, where many rare species of animals and plants can be preserved from extinction. Such activities make it possible to expand the biological diversity of species existing on the planet. By creating artificial irrigation systems, we help increase the area of fertile soils and use them effectively.
Unfortunately, nature suffers great damage from the unreasonable and ill-considered actions of people. For example, deforestation destroys the natural habitat of many animals and plants, leading to a decrease in oxygen production, which, in turn, inevitably causes global warming. Deserts often form in place of cleared forests, since after the disappearance of trees the top fertile layer of soil is easily eroded.
Rapid population growth leads to the need to use new technologies in agriculture to provide food. If previously the fertile soil was not constantly exploited, giving it some time to rest, now people plow up more and more areas and use them without interruption, thereby reducing fertility.
For faster growth, modern fertilizers are used, which have a negative effect on soil and water. We build a huge number of factories, but we care little about how much waste they emit into the atmosphere and how much garbage ends up in the water. In the Pacific Ocean there is a huge zone completely covered with debris floating on the surface, which inevitably leads to the extinction of many species of oceanic animals. Cities located on freshwater rivers dump sewage and industrial waste into them every day.
Thus, we not only harm nature, but also trap ourselves by reducing the amount of water suitable for drinking. The lack of fresh water is already a big problem in some areas of the planet.
If we want to learn how to have a less destructive impact on nature, we should take a few simple steps:
- for the effective and rational use of mineral resources, it is necessary to improve methods of their extraction, reducing the amount of waste and harmful emissions;
- It is necessary to use the resources of the animal and plant world in such quantities that this does not lead to the extinction of individual species.
- it is necessary to widely introduce the use of alternative energy sources in everyday life and production.
For a more detailed introduction to the topic, it is recommended to view educational presentations, where all the information is presented in an accessible and understandable form. The sooner humanity begins to treat nature more carefully, the better we will be able to preserve all its beauty and wealth for our children and grandchildren.
Introduction
The relationship between people and the surrounding natural world is an important problem of social philosophy, and, like any other philosophical problem, it is quite complex and multifaceted. The aggravated environmental situation gives particular relevance to the philosophical understanding of this problem. It is worth paying attention to the fact that the entire complex and developing range of people’s relationships to nature within the framework of social philosophy is explored and revealed to the extent that it contributes to the understanding of society.
When studying the relationship between society and nature, they should not be considered as purely externally, mechanically separated parts of the world, and society is often interpreted as something higher in comparison with nature, standing above it. The basic thesis of materialism “nature is the natural basis of human life and society” should be understood quite deeply - in terms of the “inclusion” of natural characteristics in the most diverse aspects of social life.
Understanding the essence of society as a natural phenomenon allows us to expand and deepen our understanding of the dialectics of society and nature. This dialectic appears as an extremely complex, multidimensional, contradictory, continuously developing process of active interaction between society and nature. The entire history of the existence of human society is inextricably linked with nature, but one should not lose sight of and underestimate the fact that it was people’s own active (and primarily material-transformative, i.e. nature-transformative) labor activity that became the basis for the emergence and further development of society.
Modern problems of the relationship between man and nature
Philosophy gives self-knowledge to culture, semantic guidelines for human life. It was rightly emphasized that true philosophy is the living soul of culture. Of course, the social origins and social meaning of philosophical teachings depend on the social forms that bring them to life.
World philosophy, in essence, revolves around “eternal” problems. Among them is the problem of the relationship between man and nature, which, at the current turning point in human history, has, unfortunately, acquired a tragic sound. Among the numerous socially significant problems, the main place was occupied by the problem of the survival of Humanity and all life on Earth. Human existence is threatened by self-destruction. This circumstance, as well as environmental, scientific, technical and other aspects, have been repeatedly interpreted by thinkers of the most diverse ideological orientations.
The negative consequences of anthropogenic activity for nature and man himself, which have sharply manifested themselves in recent years, force us to take a closer look at the system of ecological relationships and think about the problem of their harmonization. Why should we talk specifically about the harmony of man with nature, and it is not enough to talk, for example, only about their unity? The fact is that, due to its objective dialecticity, the contradictory unity of man with nature also takes place at those stages of their relationship when these relations are aggravated, as, for example, at the present time. At the same time, the need to get out of the current crisis situation necessitates the establishment of a special form of unity between man and nature, which would ensure this. This is the harmony of man with nature.
Man, like all living things on Earth, is inseparable from the biosphere, which is a necessary natural factor of his existence. Nature is the prerequisite and natural basis of human life, and their full life activity is possible only in adequate natural conditions. A person can exist only within a fairly defined and very narrow framework of the natural environment, corresponding to the biological characteristics of his body. He feels the need for the ecological environment in which the evolution of humanity took place throughout its history.
The possibility of the existence of society can be guaranteed only in the context of the development of the biosphere, and then only in a relatively narrow range of its parameters. Knowledge of this range is a vital necessity for people. Of course, every person has the ability to adapt to changing (within certain limits) conditions of the natural environment, a new habitat for him. J. Weiner notes that “All representatives of the species Homo Sapiens are capable of demonstrating the necessary plasticity of reactions in response to changing external conditions.” However, for all their breadth and mobility, the adaptive capabilities of the human body are not unlimited. When the rate of change in the natural environment exceeds the adaptive capabilities of the human body, then pathological phenomena occur, leading ultimately to the death of people.
In this regard, there is an urgent need to correlate the rate of environmental change with the adaptive capabilities of humans and the human population, to determine the permissible limits of their impact on the biosphere based on the permissible limits of its change. “Humanity as living matter is inextricably linked with the material and energy processes of a certain geological shell of the Earth with its biosphere,” Vernadsky emphasized. “It cannot be physically independent of it for one second.” In other words, man as a biosocial being for full life activity and development requires not only a high-quality social environment, but also a natural environment of a certain quality. This means that, along with material and spiritual needs, there are objectively environmental needs, the entirety of which is affected by the biological organization of man. Ecological needs are a special type of social needs. needs a certain quality of its natural habitat.
Only by maintaining the proper quality of such fundamental conditions for the existence of people as air, water and soil is their full life possible. The destruction of even one of these vital components of the environment would lead to the death of life on Earth.
Thus, environmental needs are as ancient as human needs for food, clothing, housing, etc. Throughout previous history, their satisfaction occurred automatically and people were convinced that they were provided with enough air, water and soil for everything time. Sobering came only a few decades ago, when, due to the growing threat of the environmental crisis, the shortage of clean air, water and soil became increasingly acute. Today it is clear to everyone that a healthy environment is no less important than material and spiritual needs. It would be a great misconception to believe that the environmental crisis can be dealt with through economic measures alone. The ecological crisis is caused by the “arrows” that directed the movement of our technocratic civilization towards specific values and categories, without the adjustment of which it is impossible to begin radical changes. When reorienting categories, the concept of nature should become central, so that man’s very relationship to nature will be different than it was before. It is important to understand and accept new value guidelines, semantic attitudes, to create a new image of a person - as opposed to a person who is a consumer of a person who is humane in relation to himself and nature. Without this global philosophical restructuring of relations in the “Man-Nature” system, all measures of an economic, environmental, scientific and technical nature will have only partial significance and will not be able to become any serious obstacle to the impending environmental catastrophe. The final conclusion of philosophers dealing with this problem is quite cruel: “Either he (man) must change, or he is destined to disappear from the face of the Earth.”
In the 19th century, as the environmental situation worsened, an increasing number of philosophers and scientists were drawn into solving the problem of the harmonious relationship between Man and Nature. Even new branches of knowledge have emerged: philosophy of ecology, socio-natural history, born at the intersection of natural and humanities disciplines, which was caused by the scale and diversity of the problem.
2. Unity of man and nature
It seems simpler - to separate natural and social principles - to attribute some objects to nature, and others to society. It's actually not that simple. The trees in the garden were planted by man. Their seeds and growth process are a fact of nature. Soil is that part of nature formed by man. Domestic animals are objects of nature in which, to a certain extent, human goals are realized through artificial selection. Buildings are built by man, and the materials used for this are a gift from nature. Man is a finite, natural being; he is the crown of nature, the highest biological species. But he is first and foremost a social being. Man lives on earth within its thin shell - the geographical environment. This is that part of nature that is in particularly close interaction with society and which experiences its influence. The geographical environment includes not only a river, which is directly or indirectly connected by human activity, but also a canal, not only a bank, but also a dam, not only a forest, but also an artificial forest belt, as well as fields, pastures, and pastures, and meadows, and cities, and all other settlements, climatic and soil conditions, minerals, plant and animal kingdoms.
Life arose and develops in the geographical environment. The history of mankind is a continuation of the history of the Earth; these, according to A.I. Herzen, are two chapters of one novel, two phases of one process, very distant at the edges and extremely close in the middle. The geographical environment is that part of nature (the earth's crust, the lower part of the atmosphere, water, soil and ground cover, flora and fauna), which constitutes a necessary condition for the life of society, being involved in the process of social existence. We are connected to the geographical environment by “blood” ties, and outside of it our life is impossible: it is the natural basis of human life. There is no gap between natural and social principles, which, of course, does not mean the absence of qualitative specificity. Despite all its qualitative differences, society remains part of a larger whole - nature.
What do we even mean by nature? Although the word “nature” is associated with very diverse meanings, when one speaks of nature in general, without any immediate definition, then, according to V. Solovyov, some essential and in itself unified principle is always implied, producing all things from itself. The etymological meaning of the word “nature” is also consistent with this, which indicates in it the beginning of the work or generation of things. Since nature produces everything from itself, we find in it the basis of all things: it is their single common basis.
Since the appearance of society on Earth, three types of processes have taken place: strictly natural, specific social and, as it were, fused processes that combine both.
The dialectic of interaction between nature and society is such that as society develops, its direct dependence on nature decreases, and its indirect dependence increases. This is understandable: by learning more and more the laws of nature and transforming nature on their basis, man increases his power over it; At the same time, society, in the course of its development, comes into ever wider and deeper contact with nature. Man, both historically and ontogenetically, constantly, day after day, communicates with nature. This is how things are, according to I.A. Ilyin, for the farmer and the laboratory scientist, the railway watchman and the artist.
Each of them interacts with nature in their own way. Everyone learns from her, everyone tries to adapt to her, to use her for their own purposes, to somehow persuade her. And this listening persuasion of nature, this learning from it that takes possession of it, this careful overcoming and subjugation of it is for every spiritual living person one of the joys in earthly life. It happens that nature makes him wise, refines his aesthetic feelings with its beauties, sometimes punishes him, and sometimes rewards him a hundredfold.
Nature requires reciprocity: you need to not only take from it, but also give. Nature in the early stages of the formation of society was either the all-powerful despotic mother, as V. Solovyov says, of an infant man, or a slave, a thing alien to him. In this second era, an unconscious and timid feeling of love for nature arose as an equal being that has or can have life in itself.
3. Interaction between society and nature
Each society transforms the geographical environment, using the achievements of previous eras, and, in turn, passes it on as an inheritance to future generations, turning the wealth of natural resources into means of cultural and historical life. An immeasurable amount of human labor was spent on transforming nature, and all this work, according to D.I. Pisarev, was put into the ground, as if into a huge savings bank. Human labor has cut down forests for farming, drained swamps, built dams, founded villages and cities, intertwined the continents with a dense network of roads, and done many other things. Man not only moved various types of plants and animals to other climatic conditions, but also changed them.
It is impossible to analyze society without taking into account its interaction with nature, since it lives in nature. The impact of society on nature is determined by the development of material production, science and technology, social needs, as well as the nature of social relations. At the same time, due to the increasing degree of influence of society on nature, the scope of the geographical environment is expanding and some natural processes are accelerating: new properties are accumulating, increasingly moving it away from the pristine state. If we deprive the modern geographical environment of its properties, created by the labor of many generations, and place modern society in its original natural conditions, then it will not be able to exist: man has geochemically remade the world, and this process is no longer reversible.
But the geographical environment also has an important influence on the development of society. Human history is a clear example of how environmental conditions and the contours of the planet's surface contributed to or, on the contrary, hindered the development of mankind. If in the Far North, in this icy element, man wrested the means of subsistence from the inhospitable, harsh nature at the cost of painful efforts, then in the tropics, in this kingdom of bright fragrant flowers, eternal greenery and juicy fruits, the unbridled splendor of plant nature leads man like a child, on the leashes. The geographical environment as a condition for the economic activity of a society can have a certain influence on the economic specialization of countries and regions.
In general, the following stages of interaction between nature and society can be distinguished:
1. Prehistoric (pre-civilization), it covers the period from the emergence of the species Homo sapiens to the advent of cattle breeding and agriculture. During this period, man was in unity with nature, did not stand out from it in any noticeable way and did not have a tangible impact on nature. The so-called “appropriating” economy, including gathering, hunting, and fishing, was based on primitive tools and low development of the mind.
2. Historical (civilizational, modern) is associated with the emergence and development of cattle breeding and agriculture, which characterizes the transition to a “producing” economy, since man began to actively transform nature, to produce not only tools, but also means of subsistence. But social production (construction of irrigation structures, cutting down forests for arable land, breeding activities, etc.) also had a reverse side, destructive for nature, which was still characterized by locality and limited consequences. At this stage, the difference between society and nature is already quite clearly evident.
3. Post-historical, post-civilizational (future). It assumes the presence of an alternative: either an ecological catastrophe on a planetary scale, or a complete restructuring of the philosophical basis of the relationship between Nature and Man. The latter path will be the subject of consideration in Part II of this work.
So, at this stage we have a civilization of a technocratic type, the main priorities of which are aimed at further expanding power over nature without taking into account the possible consequences; the “Man-Nature” system, in which the arrows are sharply shifted towards the transformative activities of man. Since the Renaissance, when man was placed at the center
4. Biosphere and noosphere
The natural environment of society is not limited to the geographical environment. A qualitatively different natural environment of his life is the sphere of all living things - the biosphere, which includes the upper part of the earth’s crust inhabited by organisms, the waters of rivers, lakes, seas and oceans, as well as the lower part of the atmosphere. Its structure and energy-information processes are determined by the past and present activities of living organisms. It is influenced by cosmic as well as deep underground influences: it is a gigantic natural biophysical and biochemical laboratory associated with the transformation of solar energy through the green cover of the planet. As a result of long-term evolution, the biosphere has developed as a dynamic, internally differentiated equilibrium system. But it does not remain unchanged, but, being a self-organizing system, develops along with the evolution of the Universe and all living things. The history of life on our planet shows that profound transformations have occurred more than once, and a qualitative restructuring of the biosphere led to the disappearance of different species of animals and plants and the emergence of new ones. The evolutionary process of the biosphere is irreversible.
Our outstanding naturalist and thinker V.I. Vernadsky, being one of the creators of anthropocosmism, representing in unity the natural (cosmic) and human (social and humanitarian) sides of objective reality, studied the problem of the transition of the biosphere to the noosphere. It was he who introduced the very concept of “noosphere”.
In addition to plants and animal organisms, the biosphere also includes humans: humanity is part of the biosphere. Moreover, its influence accelerates the process of change in the biosphere, exerting an increasingly powerful and intense impact on it in connection with the development of science and technology. With the emergence of humanity, a transition takes place to a new qualitative state of the biosphere - the noosphere (from the Greek nooc. - mind, mind), which is the sphere of the living and intelligent. The noosphere, thus, is not an abstract kingdom of reason, but a historically natural stage in the development of the biosphere, created primarily by the growth of science, scientific understanding and the social work of mankind based on it. We can say that the noosphere is a new special reality associated with deeper and more comprehensive forms of the transformative impact of society on nature. It involves not only the use of the achievements of the natural and human sciences, but also the reasonable cooperation of states, all of humanity, and high humanistic principles of attitude towards nature - man’s native home.
5. Ecology - the science of the home
Ecology (from the Greek oikos - abode, residence) is the science of the home of humanity, of the living conditions of those who inhabit it. In a more strict definition, ecology is a complex scientific field that studies the patterns of interaction of living things with the external conditions of their habitat in order to maintain the dynamic balance of the society-nature system.
It is known that human activity is the channel through which constant “exchange of substances” takes place between man and nature. Any changes in the nature, direction and scale of human activity underlie changes in the relationship between society and nature. With the development of practically transformative human activity, the scale of his interference in the natural connections of the biosphere has also increased.
In the past, man's use of the forces of nature and its resources was predominantly spontaneous: man took from nature as much as his own productive forces allowed. But the scientific and technological revolution has confronted man with a new problem - the problem of limited natural resources, a possible disruption of the dynamic balance of the existing system, and in connection with this the need to take care of nature. We must not forget: we live in a world where the law of entropy reigns, where reserves of resources useful to us for industry and food are “dissipated” or, in other words, are irretrievably exhausted. If, therefore, the previous type of attitude of society to nature was spontaneous (and more often unresponsive) in nature, then a new type must correspond to the new conditions - an attitude of global, scientifically based regulation, covering both natural and social processes, taking into account the nature and boundaries of what is permissible the impact of society on nature with the aim of not only its conservation, but also its reproduction. Now it has become clear that human influence on nature should not occur contrary to its laws, but on the basis of their knowledge. Apparent dominance over nature acquired by violating its laws can only have temporary success, resulting in irreparable damage to both nature itself and man: we should not be too deluded by our victories over nature, for every such victory it takes revenge on us. F. Bacon also said: “Man must dominate nature, submitting to it.”
A person not only adapts to the conditions of the natural environment, but in his interaction with it constantly adapts it, transforming it in accordance with his needs and interests. However, human impact on nature tends to upset the existing balance of ecological processes. Humanity is closely faced with global environmental problems that threaten its own existence: air pollution, depletion and deterioration of soil cover, chemical contamination of the water basin. Thus, as a result of his own activities, man came into a dangerously acute contradiction with the conditions of his habitat. “Under the heavy veil of gray skies, under this leaden sky on a poisoned, tormented earth,” says S.N. Bulgakov, “life seems like some kind of accident, some kind of allowance, the condescension of death.”
Surrounded by a ring of death, constantly surrounded by the open mouth of non-existence, life timidly and meagerly huddles in the corners of the Universe, only at the cost of terrible efforts escaping from final extermination: the biosphere groans under the weight of industrial civilization.
We are all at war with nature, but we need to coexist peacefully with it. And not only in a narrow pragmatic sense, but also on a broad moral scale: after all, we are called not to rule over nature (and, of course, not to conquer it), but, on the contrary, being her children, we must cherish and love her like our own mother.
Awareness of the possibility of a global environmental crisis leads to the need for reasonable harmonization of interactions in the technology – man – biosphere system. Man, turning more and more of nature into his habitat, thereby expands the boundaries of his freedom in relation to nature, which should sharpen his sense of responsibility for the transformative impact on it. Here the general philosophical principle associated with the dialectic of freedom and responsibility finds its concrete expression: the more complete the freedom, the higher the responsibility.
This principle also has a deep moral and aesthetic meaning.
The modern ecological situation requires from a person precisely such an attitude towards nature, without which it is impossible to solve the practical problems facing him, much less improve the person himself as a “part” generated by nature itself. Man, as he develops, has always been characterized by not only a rational, purely practical, but also a deep emotional, moral and aesthetic attitude towards nature. A person's moral attitude towards nature is determined by his moral attitude towards people. The commandment of human labor itself says: to cultivate nature with effort for oneself, for all humanity and for itself.
In the face of an environmental disaster, it is difficult not to realize the unity of nature and society, their organic connection and man’s responsibility to his mother nature.
Conclusion
People cannot stop changing nature, but they can and should stop changing it thoughtlessly and irresponsibly, without taking into account the requirements of environmental laws. Only if people's activities proceed in accordance with the objective requirements of these laws, and not contrary to them, will the change of nature by man become a way of preserving it, and not of destroying it. An unjustified shift in philosophical emphasis in the “Man - Nature” system leads to the fact that, by crippling nature and the environment, man cripples his own human nature. Scientists believe the rise in mental illness and suicide around the world is linked to ongoing environmental violence. Communication with undamaged nature can relieve stress, tension, and inspire creativity. Communication with a disfigured environment depresses a person, awakens destructive impulses, and destroys physical and mental health. It is now clear that a lifestyle that requires ever more of the planet's non-renewable resources has no future; that the destruction of the environment leads to human degradation, both physical and spiritual, causing irreversible changes in his genotype. It is significant in this regard that the modern environmental situation has developed in the course of human activities aimed at meeting their growing needs. Such an anthropocentric strategy for transforming the natural environment, changing individual elements of the natural environment without taking into account the systemic organization of nature as a whole has led to changes in a number of factors, which together reduce the quality of the natural environment, necessitating an increasing expenditure of effort, money, and resources to neutralize them. Ultimately, the following happened: in an effort to achieve immediate goals, a person ultimately received consequences that he did not want and which are sometimes diametrically opposed to those expected and can cancel out all the positive results achieved. The earth cannot be considered as something separate from human civilization. Humanity is only a part of the whole; By turning our gaze to nature, we turn it to ourselves. And if we do not understand that man, being a part of nature, has a powerful and growing influence on the entire world around him, that man, in fact, is the same natural force as the winds and tides, we will not be able to see and realize all the dangers of our endless efforts to throw the Earth out of balance.
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