The existence and essence of people. The philosophical essence of man

The essence of a person is a philosophical concept reflecting the natural properties and essential characteristics that are inherent in all people in one way or another, distinguishing them from other forms and kinds of being. You can meet different views on this problem. To many, this concept seems to be obvious, and often no one thinks about it. Some believe that there is no specific entity, or at least it is incomprehensible. Others argue that it is knowable, and put forward a variety of concepts. Another common point of view is that the essence of people is directly related to a person who is closely intertwined with the psyche, and therefore, knowing the latter, one can understand the essence of man.

Basic aspects

The main pre-condition for the existence of any human individual is the functioning of his body. It is part of the natural environment around us. From this point of view, man is a thing among other things and part of the evolutionary process of nature. But this definition is limited and underestimates the role of the active-conscious life of the individual, without going beyond the passive-contemplative view, characteristic of materialism 17-18 centuries.

In modern conception, man is not just a part of nature, but also the highest product of its development, the carrier of the social form of the evolution of matter. And not just a "product", but also a creator. It is an active being endowed with vitality in the form of abilities and inclinations. Through conscious, purposeful actions, it actively changes the environment and changes itself during these changes. Objective reality, transformed by work, becomes a human reality, a "second nature," a "world of man." Thus, this aspect of being represents a unity of nature and spiritual knowledge of the producer, that is, it has a socio-historical character. The process of improving technology and industry is an open book of the essential forces of mankind. Reading it, one can come to an understanding of the term "essence of people" in an objectified, realized form, and not just as an abstract concept. It can be found in the nature of objective activity, when there is a dialectical interaction of natural material, the creative forces of man with a certain socio-economic structure.

The category "existence"

This term denotes the existence of the individual in everyday life. It is then that the essence of human activity manifests itself, a strong interconnection of all types of personality behavior, its abilities and existence with the evolution of human culture. Existence is much richer in essence and, being a form of its manifestation, includes, in addition to the manifestation of human forces, also the diversity of social, moral, biological and psychological qualities. Only the unity of both these concepts forms human reality.

The category "human nature"

In the last century the nature and essence of man were identified, and the need for a separate concept was questioned. But the development of biology, the study of the neural organization of the brain and the genome forces us to look at this relationship in a new way. The main question is whether there is an invariable, structured human nature that does not depend on all impacts, or whether it is plastic and changing in character.

The philosopher from the USA F. Fukuyama believes that there is such a one, and it ensures the continuity and stability of our existence as a species, and together with religion is our most basic and fundamental values. Another scientist from America, S. Pinker, gives a definition of the nature of man as a combination of emotions, cognitive abilities and motives that are common in people with a normally functioning nervous system. From the above definitions it follows that the characteristics of the human individual are explained by biologically inherited properties. However, many scientists believe that the brain only predetermines the possibility of forming abilities, but does not stipulate them at all.

"Essence in itself"

Not everyone regards the concept of "the essence of people" as legitimate. According to such a direction as existentialism, a person does not have a specific generic entity, since he is an "essence in himself". K. Jaspers, his largest representative, believed that such sciences as sociology, physiology, and others give only knowledge about certain separate aspects of human existence, but can not penetrate into its essence, which is existence. This scientist believed that you can explore the individual in different aspects - in physiology as a body, in sociology - in a social being, in psychology - in the soul, and so on, but this does not answer the question of what is nature and the essence of man , Because he always represents something more than he can know about himself. Close to this point of view and neopositivists. They deny that in the individual it is possible to find something in common.

Ideas about a person

In Western Europe, it is believed that the works of the German philosophers Scheller (The Situation of Man in the Universe) published in 1928, and Plessner's The Steps of Organic and Man, marked the beginning of philosophical anthropology. A number of philosophers: A.Gelen (1904-1976), N.Henstenberg (1904), E.Rothaker (1888-1965), O.Bollnov (1913) - were engaged exclusively in it. Thinkers of that time expressed many wise ideas about a man who still have not lost their defining importance. For example, Socrates encouraged contemporaries to know themselves. The philosophical essence of man, happiness and the meaning of life were connected with the comprehension of the essence of man. The call of Socrates was continued by saying: "Know yourself - and you will be happy!" Protagoras argued that man is the yardstick of all things.

In Ancient Greece for the first time the question arose about the origin of people, but often it was decided speculatively. Syracuse philosopher Empedocles first expressed the assumption of the evolutionary, natural origin of man. He believed that everything in the world moves by enmity and friendship (hatred and love). According to the teachings of Plato, the souls live in a world of empiricism. He likened the soul of man to a chariot, whose ruler is Will, and harnessed to it Feelings and Mind. Feelings pull it down - to gross, material pleasures, and Reason - to the sky, to the realization of spiritual postulates. This is the essence of human life.

Aristotle saw in people 3 souls: reasonable, animal and vegetable. The vegetative soul is responsible for growth, maturation and aging of the organism, animal - for independence in movements and a range of psychological feelings, reasonable - for self-awareness, spiritual life and thinking. Aristotle was the first to understand that the main essence of a person is his life in society, defining him as a social animal.

Stoics identified morality with spirituality, laying firm foundations of the notion of him as a moral being. You can recall Diogenes, who lived in a barrel, which, with a lighted lantern in the light of day, was looking for a man in a crowd. In the Middle Ages, ancient views were criticized and completely oblivious. The representatives of the Renaissance renewed the ancient views, placed Man at the very center of the world view, and laid the foundation for Humanism.

On the essence of man

According to Dostoevsky, the essence of a person is a secret, which must be solved, and let those who undertake this and spend all their lives on it do not say that they have wasted their time. Engels believed that the problems of our life will be solved only when the person is comprehensively known, offering ways to achieve this.

Frolov describes him as a subject of socio-historical process, as a biosocial creature, connected genetically with other forms, but separated by the ability to produce tools that have speech and consciousness. The origin and essence of man are best traced against the background of nature and the animal world. Unlike the latter, people are represented by beings with the following main features: consciousness, self-awareness, work and social life.

Linnaeus, classifying the animal world, included a man in the animal kingdom, but carried it, together with the great apes, to the category of hominids. Homo sapiens he located at the very top of his hierarchy. Man is the only being to which consciousness is inherent. It is possible thanks to articulate speech. With the help of words, a person realizes himself, as well as the surrounding reality. They are primary cells, carriers of spiritual life, allowing people to exchange their inner life with sounds, images or signs. An inseparable place in the category "the essence and the existence of man" belongs to work. This was written by the classic of political economy A. Smith, the predecessor of K. Marx and the disciple of D. Hume. He defined man as an "animal worker".

Work

In defining the specifics of the essence of man, Marxism rightly gives labor the main significance. Engels said that it was he who accelerated the evolutionary development of biological nature. Man in his work is completely free, unlike animals, in which labor is rigidly encoded. People can perform completely different jobs and in any way. We are so free in labor that we can even ... not work. The essence of human rights lies in the fact that, apart from the duties accepted in society, there are also rights that are granted to an individual and are an instrument of his social protection. The behavior of people in society is regulated by public opinion. We, as well as animals, feel pain, thirst, hunger, sexual attraction, balance, etc., but all of our instincts are controlled by society. So, work is a conscious activity, assimilated by a person in society. The content of consciousness was formed under its influence, and is fixed in the process of participation in production relations.

The social essence of man

Socialization is the process of acquiring elements of social life. Only in society is acquired behavior, which is guided not by instincts, but by public opinion, animal instincts are curbed, language, traditions and customs are adopted. Here, people adopt the experience of production relations with previous generations. Starting with Aristotle, the social nature was considered the main in the structure of the personality. Marx, moreover, saw the essence of man only in social nature.

Personality does not choose the conditions of the external world, it simply is always in them. Socialization occurs through the assimilation of social functions, roles, acquiring a social status, adaptation to social norms. At the same time, the phenomena of social life are possible only through individual actions. As an example, you can bring art, when artists, filmmakers, poets and sculptors create it by their work. The society sets the parameters of the social certainty of the individual, approves the program of social inheritance, maintains a balance within this complex system.

A Man in a Religious Worldview

Religious worldview is such a world view, the basis of which is the belief in the existence of something supernatural (spirits, gods, miracles). Therefore, human problems are considered here through the prism of the divine. According to the Bible, which forms the basis of Christianity, God created man in his own image and likeness. Let us dwell in more detail on this doctrine.

God created man from the dirt of the earth. Modern Catholic theologians argue that in the divine creation there were two acts: the first - the creation of the whole world (the universe) and the second - the creation of the soul. The oldest biblical texts of the Jews affirm that the soul is the breath of a person, what he breathes. Therefore, God blows his soul through his nostrils. It is the same as that of the animal. After death, the breath stops, the body turns to dust, and the soul dissolves in the air. After a while, the Jews began to identify the soul with the blood of man or animal.

The Bible takes a big role in the spiritual essence of man to the heart. According to the authors of the Old and New Testaments, thinking does not occur in the head, but in the heart. In him is the wisdom given by God to man. And the head exists only so that the hair grows on it. In the Bible there is no hint that people can think with their heads. This idea had a great impact on European culture. A great scientist of the 18th century, a researcher of the nervous system, Buffon was sure that man thinks in his heart. The brain, in his opinion, is only the food system of the nervous system. The authors of the New Testament recognize the existence of the soul as a substance independent of the body. But this very concept is vague. Modern Jehovah's Witnesses interpret the texts of the New Testament in the spirit of the Old and do not recognize the immortality of the human soul, believing that after death, existence ceases.

The spiritual nature of man. The concept of personality

The person is arranged so that in the conditions of social life he is able to turn into a spiritual person, into a person. In the literature, you can find many definitions of personality, its characteristics and attributes. It is, first of all, a being consciously making a decision and taking responsibility for all of its behavior and actions.

The spiritual essence of a person is the content of a person. Central to this is the world view. It is generated in the process of the activity of the psyche, in which three components are distinguished: Will, Feelings and Mind. In the spiritual world, there is nothing more than intellectual, emotional activity and willful motives. Their ratio is ambiguous, they are in dialectical connection. Between feelings, will and mind there is some inconsistency. Balancing between these parts of the psyche is the spiritual life of man.

Personality is always a product and subject of individual life. It is formed not only from its own existence, but also from the influence of other people with whom it comes into contact. The problem of the essence of man can not be considered one-sidedly. Teachers and psychologists believe that it is possible to talk about personal individualization only from the time when the individual perceives his Self, personal self-consciousness is formed when he starts to separate himself from other people. Personality "builds" its own line of life and social behavior. In philosophical language this process is called individualization.

Purpose and meaning of life

The concept of the meaning of life is individual, since this problem is solved not by classes, not by labor collectives, not by science, but by individuals and individuals. To solve this task is to find your place in the world, your personal self-determination. For a long time, thinkers and philosophers have been looking for the answer to the question of why man lives, the essence of the concept of "meaning of life", why he came into the world and what happens to us after death. The call to self-knowledge was the main fundamental orientation of Greek culture.

"Know thyself," called Socrates. For this thinker, the meaning of a person's life consists in philosophizing, finding oneself, overcoming trials and ignorance (searching for what is good and evil, truth and error, beautiful and ugly). Plato argued that happiness is attainable only after death, in the afterlife, when the soul - the ideal essence of man - is free from the fetters of the body.

According to Plato, man's nature is determined by his soul, or rather his soul and body, but with the superiority of the divine, immortal principle over the body, the mortal. The human soul, in the opinion of this philosopher, consists of three parts: the first - the ideal-reasonable, the second - the lusting-volitional, the third - the instinctive-affective. On which of them prevails, depends human destiny, the meaning of life, the direction of activity.

Christianity in Russia adopted a different concept. The main measure of all things is the higher spiritual principle. Through the realization of their sinfulness, smallness, even insignificance before the ideal, the prospect of spiritual growth opens up before him, the consciousness becomes directed toward constant moral perfection. The desire to create good becomes the core of the individual, the guarantor of its social development.

In the Age of Enlightenment, the French materialists rejected the concept of human nature as the totality of the material, corporeal substance and immortal soul. Voltaire denied the immortality of the soul, and on the question of whether there is divine justice after death, preferred to keep a "reverential silence." He did not agree with Pascal that man is a weak and insignificant creature in nature, a "thinking reed." The philosopher believed that people are not as pathetic and evil as Pascal thought. Voltaire defines man as a social being, striving to form "cultural communities."

Thus, philosophy considers the essence of people in the context of universal aspects of being. They are social and individual, historical and natural, political and economic, religious and moral, spiritual and practical grounds. The essence of man in philosophy is considered multifaceted, as an integral, unified system. If you miss out on any aspect of being, the whole picture collapses. The task of this science is the self-knowledge of man, always a new and eternal comprehension of his essence, nature, purpose and meaning of existence. The essence of man in philosophy, therefore, is a concept that modern scientists address, opening up his new facets.