How many people live on Earth, there are as many views on the surrounding reality, events taking place on the planet, and man’s place in all this.
The picture of the world of each individual individual lies in the totality of his knowledge, beliefs, emotional assessments and accumulated experience about the environment. That is why all people are different, but can be united in families, groups, parties and other communities on the same fragments of perception of the world.
The philosophical worldview is engaged in understanding and systematizing everything that happens in reality from the standpoint of logic and rationalism.
History of philosophy
Philosophy arose at the moment when a person first began to search for answers to the questions “Who am I?”, “Why am I here?” And “What is the meaning of life?” How it was formed in the 6th century BC e. in ancient China, India and Greece.
The philosophers who lived in that era left their scientific works and research, many of which have not lost their relevance today. At all times, people have tried to solve the tasks that the existing reality posed before them. Any discussion of the universe and its secrets, soul and God, death and life - all these are philosophical categories. The found answers to eternal questions became guidelines for people in their knowledge of the world.
Although more than 2,000 years have passed since the writing of the treatises by the first sages, and humanity today knows more about the Earth, the Universe and itself, the existing philosophical worldview remains controversial regarding the main questions about what is the meaning of life, what is their purpose, etc. .
A look at things
The worldview is called the totality of a person’s ideas about himself and the surrounding visible and invisible reality. There are 2 types of perception of being - individual and social.
A personal worldview can consist of both a person’s own ideas about himself and other people's opinions about him. Public manifestations include such manifestations of national identity as legends, myths, traditions and much more.
In the perception of reality, people evaluate it not only from the standpoint of personal acceptance or denial of any events, conditions or objects, but also from the point of view of understanding the world as a whole. Thanks to the invariable qualities that determine the essence of man, his philosophical worldview is formed.
For example, a person who believes that all sellers are thieves creates a stable opinion about this and transfers it to his picture of the world as a whole.
An indicator of how broadly and maturely a person’s worldview is his actions. What actions does he take based on his convictions? By figuring this out, one can establish what his true moral values are.
The essence of the philosophical worldview
In truth, any inhabitant of the planet could be called a thinker (because everyone at least once wondered what the meaning of life is), if his reasoning did not remain at the level of personal opinion about the system of things.
The peculiarities of the philosophical worldview are that it considers reality and man as interacting systems. Previously, scientists examined separately the world as a creation of God and the place of people in it.
The essence of this concept is to comprehend a person’s spiritual activity in an ever-changing world, his ability to adapt to it. Previously existed such types of worldview as religious and mythical, the first of which was characterized by fear of the unknown and the forces of nature, while the second - fear of God and punishment.
Another important feature of the philosophical worldview is that they are not based on fear and conjecture, but have a system based on logic and evidence. This is the highest way for human consciousness to understand the world in complete unity of all its manifestations and to present a picture of everything with all its components as a whole.
Features of a philosophical worldview
Any scientific knowledge about the nature of things, man and society can be the source data in order to form a reasoned, proven philosophy.
The philosophical worldview has the following features:
- scientific validity of reality (lack of speculation and unconfirmed statements);
- systematic collection of information;
- universality, as it suits any - both personal and religious worldviews;
- criticality, since it does not take anything on faith.
The features of a philosophical worldview are clearly different from a religious, mythological, scientific or everyday system. Those have “anchors” that hold them within the framework of norms developed over the years or centuries. For example, if in religion there are dogmas, in mythology - assumptions, and in science - facts due to the need to study them, then the philosophical worldview is not limited to the direction of their interests and proposals. In many ways, the development of critical thinking in modern man contributes to this. For example, the well-known scientific fact that a person is an upright creature can be questioned, indicating that the child must be taught to walk on two legs.
Reality picture
The global image of the world, or just an idea of it, is its picture. Each era has its own "illustration" of being, proceeding from the knowledge of the people of that time. The less they knew about the surrounding reality, the more tiny was its image.
For example, at one time people believed that the Earth rests on three elephants standing on a turtle. It was their level of knowledge of the world.
When the philosophers of antiquity realized such a concept as Cosmos, they previously divided the single world into their being and man. At the same time, people, as carriers of many features characteristic of the Universe, received the designation "microcosm".
The development of natural science and the receipt of new facts about the structure of the world once again changed its picture. This was especially influenced by Newton's law of gravity and the model of our Kepler universe. Based on the experience of past centuries, it can be understood that the specifics of the philosophical worldview regarding the structure of being changed with each new scientific discovery. This process continues today, which confirms the teachings of the ancient sages that the Cosmos, like its knowledge, has no boundaries.
Types of philosophical worldview
Each person has his own view of the existing reality, which was formed through his development, upbringing, education, professional activity and communication with other people. All this underlies the worldview, and each has its own.
But in addition to differences in world views, people have common ground that allows them to unite in different communities. Thanks to this, the types of philosophical worldview are conditionally divided into 2 types. In one of them, the majority’s opinion of reality is taken into account, in the other - personal:
- socio-historical - this is the formation of the views of mankind on the world in various epochs of its development, for example archaic, characteristic of antiquity, and philosophical, corresponding to modernity;
- the personality type is formed in the process of the individual’s spiritual growth and its ability to assimilate and apply the values and worldviews developed by mankind.
People can shape their views either purposefully or spontaneously.For example, when a person believes what the announcers are telling him on television and is not critical of information, it means creating his necessary worldview by imposing someone else's vision of reality. This is a targeted impact on the formation of his views.
Philosophy and Science
With the advent and development of various scientific disciplines, the opinion of the world around mankind began to change. Everything that people discovered during the cognition and study of reality gradually formed a scientific and philosophical worldview.
From century to century, science succeeded each other, each time creating the basis for new views on reality. For example, astrology has been replaced by a more exact science of stars - astronomy, alchemy has given way to chemistry. During these changes, a new perception of reality was also formed.
If ancient scientists made certain conclusions based on their observations of nature, then science was formed due to the awareness of the connections between natural phenomena. The specificity of the philosophical worldview is that it does not take anything for granted; this is also characteristic of the scientific mind. It is the development of critical consciousness in people that over time has generated the formation of all the disciplines that humanity has today.
Stages of development of a philosophical worldview
Everything in this world goes through several stages - from its inception to its final form. There are 3 stages of evolution of the philosophy of worldview:
- cosmocentrism is a view of reality, which is based on the influence on all things of a powerful and infinite Cosmos;
- theocentrism - the opinion that the whole world, both visible and invisible, depends on supernatural forces or God;
- anthropocentrism - at the head of everything is man - the crown of creation.
The main philosophical worldviews were formed due to the synthesis of all three stages of development, combining into a single object the study of nature, man and the society in which he lives.
The form of knowledge of the world
As civilizations grew and developed, they needed not only new concepts for understanding reality, but also a cognitive apparatus for their awareness. Thus, philosophy appeared - a form of cognition of the laws of nature and the development of problems in the formation of another kind of thinking.
The main part of its development was the creation of a secondary type of consciousness in society. Already established foundations and dogmas are difficult to destroy, so it was necessary to question all that had been generated by previous generations of thinkers and scientists.
It was thanks to the appearance of people with critical consciousness that the philosophical worldview, which affirmed the impossibility of cognition of reality by the mind, gradually disappeared.
Irrationalism
For too long, humanity has been evaluating reality from the perspective of denying the role of awareness in its perception. For more than 2000 years, people attributed all occurring natural phenomena to supernatural forces, so the main tenets for them were faith, instincts, feelings and divine revelations.
Even today, there are phenomena that people cannot explain from the standpoint of science. These include a philosophical worldview, which states the impossibility of knowing such areas of reality as immortality, God, creativity and others.
It is impossible to apply a scientific approach or explore them to all incomprehensible elements of being. Irrationalism is actually traced in the actions of each person when he listens to his intuition or creates.
The role of the mind
For a philosophical worldview, on the contrary, reflections on the essence of phenomena and their relationship are basic. This happens with the help of the mind, which is critical of the information received and wants to verify it.
It often happens that a rational solution to a problem originates in irrationality.Many scientific discoveries are just so made, an example of which is the periodic table of Mendeleev’s chemical elements or DNA molecules, which scientists first saw in a dream and then proved experimentally.
