Anselm of Canterbury read the word addressed to himself. Proof of the existence of God in the concept of Anselm of Canterbury. History of ancient philosophy

Man has always strived for a rational explanation of his faith. This explains many well-known attempts in the history of philosophy to construct theological-philosophical systems. But in the process of reasoning about God and His self-existent being, the most important thing is that our reasoning should not become self-sufficient, i.e. lest our reason, ratio, take the place of God in our reasoning. therefore, all reasoning about the proof of the existence of God is always relative, and in the dilemma of faith and reason, faith must be the first and determining factor. “For I seek not to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand.” Such an approach, which is indisputable for all Christian thinkers, if by Christian thinkers we mean truly believing people, Anselm of Canterbury proclaims at the beginning of his treatise Proslogion.

Anselm of Canterbury was born in 1033 in Aosta (Northern Italy) into a family of local nobles. After the death of his mother at the age of 15, he left home, wandered around France for several years, moving from school to school, until he found himself in Normandy in the Beck monastery with teacher Lanfranc. Lanfranc was an excellent rhetorician and teacher. After long wanderings, he settled in a poor Beksky monastery, deciding to fight his own pride. Over time, his school gained fame, among the students of Lanfranc were Ivo Chartres, Anselm from Baggio, the future Pope Alexander II. By this time, Anselm wrote his first philosophical works “On Literacy”, “Monologion”, “Proslogion”, “On Truth”, “On the Fall of the Devil”, “On Freedom of Choice”. Anselm's century was marked by major historical events in which he participated. William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, knew and greatly appreciated the wisdom of Lanfranc. Therefore, when in 1066, with the blessing of Pope Alexander II, he undertook a successful campaign in England, and having strengthened himself in new possessions in 1070, he appointed Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury. After the death of William and Lanfranc, the second son of William the Conqueror, Wilhelm the Red, inherited secular power in England, and Anselm, the spiritual son of Lanfranc, assumed spiritual power at the common desire of the duke and bishops. Having a truly Christian approach to understanding his pastoral duty, Anselm, on the one hand, in his humility, never fought for the archpastoral baton, and on the other hand, vested by God to defend the interests of the Church, he always firmly resisted encroachments from secular authorities. The main direction of his activity, as an archpastor, was the fight against investiture, carried out with the support of Popes Gregory VII and Urban.

Anselm enjoyed great authority in the Church. Thus, at the Council of Bari in 1098, devoted to questions of "accurate interpretation of faith," Pope Urban exclaimed at a critical moment in the discussion: "Anselm, father and teacher, where are you?" - and Anselm gave a speech that has come down to us under the title "On the Descent of the Holy Spirit, a book against the Greeks." Surrounded by love and reverence for his friends and inspiring fear and respect for his enemies, Anselm reposed in the Lord in 1109, in the 16th year of his pontificate, at the age of 76. His life and activities, carried out in full accordance with his convictions, set forth in numerous theological writings, are rated by the Catholic Church as the life of a saint.

So, the proofs of the existence of God can be divided into several groups. Like that, cosmological, teleological, ontological, psychological, moral and historical. Of these, ontological proof stands apart, as it were, because all other proofs proceed from consideration of the phenomena or properties of the world and man, i.e. creations, and ascend by induction from the particular to the general, i.e. Creator. The ontological proof, at least as it was stated by Anselm of Canterbury, is self-sufficient, i.e. nothing is used to prove the existence of the Absolute, except for the concept of this Absolute. Thus, this proof is the most reliable, because it requires the least number of prerequisites, while each premise introduced into the argument about the Beginning or the First Cause of being can be extremely doubtful, because the whole world has a relative being to the Source of being.

So, Anselm of Canterbury set himself the task of rationally substantiating his faith without involving the concepts and phenomena of this created world. According to legend, he prayed for a long time that the Lord would give him understanding, and once during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy he was given illumination from above. Anselm himself formulates the proof in this way: “And, of course, something greater than which cannot be imagined cannot be only in the mind. For if it already exists, at least only in the mind, one can imagine that it also exists in reality, which is greater. Therefore, if that which cannot be imagined greater exists only in the mind, then that which cannot be imagined greater is that which can be imagined greater. But this, of course, cannot be. So, without a doubt, something greater than which cannot be imagined exists both in the mind and in reality.” “It means that something, greater than which cannot be imagined, exists so authentically that it is impossible to imagine it as non-existent. And this is You, Lord our God. This means that You exist so truly, O Lord my God, that it is impossible to imagine that You do not exist.”

The formula by which Anselm's proof is constructed is "that which cannot be imagined greater than" _ "id quo maius cogitari nequit". Not being correlated with everything that exists in the created world, it is accepted in the context of Anselm's proof as one of the names of God. Thomas Aquinas considers such a course of proof unconvincing, i.e. the derivation from the mental substance of the real, although the Bible teaches us precisely about the reality of the name of God and, generally speaking, only the name of God. “God said to Moses: I am who I am. And he said, “So say to the children of Israel: Jehovah has sent me to you.”

The beauty and completeness of Anselm's proof immediately aroused both admiration and the same objection from theologians and philosophers, which continues to this day. The first to criticize Anselm of Canterbury was his student Gaunilo of Marmoutier. The fact is that in Anselm's proof there is indeed a certain philosophical balancing act on the verge of a play on words. And to apply Anselm's method to any concepts other than the concept of God, as will be seen from further disputes, is logically unacceptable. Thus, Gaunilo, as an illustration of his criticism, cites the example of a certain perfect island of forgotten treasures. To the objection that this island does not exist, he argues that since it is the most perfect, then it must be. And that they say in this way you can prove the existence of anything. To this Anselm replies: “If someone finds for me in reality or only in imagination, apart from “what more cannot be imagined”, what the course of this proof of mine will suit, then I will find and give him the lost island, so that he will not be lost again. .” So, Gaunilo's criticism, as well as all further criticism over the centuries of ontological proof, is trying to extend to something else, besides "that which cannot be imagined greater".

№18 Realist vs Nominalist Controversy over Universals

№19 Pantheistic Philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa

A contemporary of many Italian humanists, Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) is one of the most profound philosophers of the Renaissance.

The concept of God in Cusan should be interpreted as pantheistic. Pantheism undermines the personal-transcendent interpretation of God and insists on his impersonality and omnipresence. There is no rigid, impassable boundary between theism and pantheism. It should also be borne in mind that theism and pantheism (as well as deism) have in common the idea of ​​a special, completely spiritual being-God, primary in relation to man, who cannot exist without such being.

Nicholas of Cusa understood that the most infinite and ultimately unified God is not only and not so much an object of one or another positive religion - Christian, Muslim or Jewish, but an interreligious concept inherent in the faith of any people, but various names of God, especially pagan ones, determined not so much by the attributes of the creator as by the attributes of his creations.

The main theme of the ontological problematics developed by Kuzanz is, on the one hand, the question of the relationship between countless specific individual things and phenomena of the natural and human world and the divine absolute, and, on the other hand, the question of God as the ultimate spiritual being, opposed to the world of finite bodily things, for if God is removed from creation, then it will turn into non-existence and nothingness. But this traditional dualistic creationist idea is constantly interrupted in Nikolai by the idea of ​​the unity of the infinite God and the world of finite things. "The existence of God in the world is nothing else than the existence of the world in God." The second part of this statement testifies to mystical pantheism (sometimes called panentheism), and the first to naturalistic pantheism. By virtue of the first of them, things and phenomena are only symbols of God, and by virtue of the second they are quite stable and are of interest in themselves. Moreover, often the same formulations can be regarded both in the first and in the second aspects, for example, the interpretation of the world as a "sensual God." For Kuzanets, as a Renaissance philosopher, who anticipated the birth of mathematical natural science, it became especially important to emphasize the presence in the world of ratios of measure, number and weight. Considering that the divine art during the creation of the world consisted mainly in geometry, arithmetic and music, declaring that "the first image of things in the mind of the creator is a number", without which nothing can be understood or created, Nicholas from a Platonist, as it were, becomes a Pythagorean, seeking to replace ideas with numbers, attributing such a view already to Augustine and Boethius.

Mathematics, according to Kuzanz, is applicable even in matters of theology, in positive theology, for example, when likening the "blessed Trinity" to a triangle that has three right angles and is therefore infinite. Similarly, God himself can be compared to an endless circle. But the Pythagoreanism of Nicholas was expressed not only and not even so much in the mathematization of theological speculations. Claiming the enormous help of mathematics in understanding "various divine truths", he not only anticipated mathematical natural science, but also took a definite step in this direction in his essay "On the Experience with Scales".

№20 Anthropocentrism in the philosophy of the Renaissance

The form of expression of the new worldview is anthropocentric humanism (the view that man is the center and the highest goal of the universe, recognizing the self-worth of the individual in the world, the human right to free development). The ideal in the new concept is a person in his earthly destiny with his earthly affairs. The great poets and thinkers Dante Alighieri (1285-1321), F. Petrarch (1304-1374) stand at the origins of the new worldview. They are the first to affirm the dignity and superiority of man, defend the idea that a person is born not for a sad existence, but for creation and assertion of himself in his deeds. The subject of philosophy is the earthly life of man, his activity. The task of philosophy is not to confront the spiritual and the material, but to reveal their humanistic unity. The place of conflict is occupied by the search for agreement. This applies both to the nature of man and to the position of man in the world around him - the world of nature and society. Humanism opposes the values ​​of the earthly world to the values ​​of the Middle Ages. Following nature is proclaimed a prerequisite. The ascetic ideal is seen as hypocrisy, a state that is unnatural to human nature. A new ethics is being formed, based on the unity of the soul and body, the equality of the spiritual and the physical. It is absurd to take care of the soul alone, for it follows the nature of the body and cannot function without it. What is human in a person is just a possibility laid in him by God. For its implementation, it requires significant efforts from a person, cultural and creative activity. In the process of life, nature is supplemented by culture. The unity of nature and culture provides the prerequisites for elevation to the one in whose image and likeness he was created. Human creative activity is a continuation and completion of Divine creation. Thanks to creativity, a person can rise to sky-high heights, become an earthly god. The world and man are the creation of God. The religious worldview was not denied by the creators of the Renaissance, it only changed in the direction of recognizing the destiny of man. Not in the passive enjoyment of divine deeds, but in creative life activity is the true human destiny. Only in a creative act does a person acquire the opportunity to enjoy this world. The ideal of the Renaissance is a universal personality that does not recognize any boundaries. The creativity of such a person is not limited to science or art, it acquires a comprehensive character, turning into a position of universal life-creation. This era needed titans and gave birth to titans. The general development of humanism prepared natural philosophy and the new natural science. During this period, there is a gradual change in worldview attitudes. This world becomes significant for a person. And the individual is autonomous, universal and self-sufficient.

№21 Philosophy of Francis Bacon

The main business of the philosopher is the criticism of traditional knowledge and the rationale for a new method of comprehending the nature of things. He reproaches the thinkers of the past for not hearing the voice of nature itself, created by the Creator, in their works.

The methods and techniques of science must correspond to its true goals - to ensure the well-being and dignity of man. This is also evidence of the emergence of mankind on the road of truth after a long and fruitless wandering in search of wisdom. The possession of truth reveals itself precisely in the growth of man's practical power. "Knowledge is power" - this is the guiding thread in clarifying the tasks and goals of philosophy itself.

Bacon's teaching solves a two-pronged task - it critically clarifies the sources of error of traditional wisdom that has not justified itself, and points to the correct methods of mastering the truth. A critical part of Bacon's program is responsible for the formation of the methodological discipline of the scientific mind. The positive part of it is also impressive, but it is written, according to the great Harvey, Bacon's personal physician, "in the manner of the Lord Chancellor."

Adherence to unsuitable methods of cognition of the world is due, according to Bacon, to the dominance of the so-called "idols" over the consciousness of people. He identifies four main types: idols of the clan, cave, market and theater. The typical sources of human delusions are thus figuratively presented by the philosopher.

"Idols of the race" are the prejudices of our minds, resulting from the confusion of our own nature with the nature of things.

"Idols of the cave" are prejudices that fill the mind from such a source as our individual (and accidental) position in the world. To get rid of their power, it is necessary to reach agreement in the perception of nature from different positions and under different conditions. Otherwise, illusions and deceptions of perception will impede cognition.

"Idols of the market" are delusions arising from the need to use words with ready-made meanings that we accept uncritically.

And finally, the "idols of the theatre" are delusions arising from unconditional submission to authority. But a scientist must look for truth in things, and not in the sayings of great people.

Combating authoritarian thinking is one of Bacon's main concerns. Only one authority should be unconditionally recognized, the authority of the Holy Scriptures in matters of faith, but in the knowledge of Nature, the mind must rely only on the experience in which Nature is revealed to it. The breeding of two truths - divine and human - allowed Bacon to reconcile the significantly different orientations of knowledge that grow on the basis of religious and scientific experience, to strengthen the autonomy and self-legality of science and scientific activity.

An impartial mind, freed from all kinds of prejudices, open to Nature and listening to experience - such is the starting position of Baconian philosophy. To master the truth of things, it remains to resort to the correct method of working with experience. Bacon points out two possible paths of searching and discovering the truth, from which we must choose the best and guarantee our success. The first takes us from feeling and particular cases "immediately to axioms of the most general character, and then gives way to judgments on the basis of these principles, already fixed in their inviolability, in order to derive intermediate axioms from them; this is the most common way. The other - from feeling and particular leads to axioms, gradually and continuously climbing the steps of the ladder of generalization until it leads to axioms of the most general nature; this is the surest road, although it has not yet been passed by people. The second way is the way of methodically thought out and perfected induction. Complementing it with a number of special techniques, Bacon seeks to turn induction into the art of questioning nature, leading to certain success on the path of knowledge. In this methodically calibrated path, the role of pure chance and luck in finding the truth, as well as differences in intellectual insight that exist between people, is overcome.

Having based his philosophy on the concept of experience, interpreting sensibility as the only source of all our knowledge, Bacon thereby laid the foundations of empiricism, one of the leading philosophical traditions of modern European philosophy.

№22 Metaphysics of the subject in the philosophy of R. Descartes .

IN reasoning contains very little information about the method, except for advice not to take anything for truth until it is proven, to divide any problem into as many parts as possible, to arrange thoughts in a certain order, starting with the simple and moving on to the complex, and do it everywhere the lists are so complete and the reviews so comprehensive that you can be sure nothing is missing. Descartes was going to give a much more detailed description of the method in the treatise Rules to guide the mind, which remained half-finished (Descartes worked on it in 1628-1629) and was published only after the death of the philosopher.

The philosophy of Descartes, commonly referred to as Cartesianism, is summarized in reasoning, in a more complete form - in Reflections on First Philosophy and from a slightly different point of view The origins of philosophy.

Sensory experience is not capable of giving reliable knowledge, because we often encounter illusions and hallucinations, and the world perceived by us with the help of the senses may turn out to be a dream. Nor are our reasonings certain, for we are not free from error; moreover, reasoning is drawing conclusions from premises, and as long as we do not have reliable premises, we cannot count on the reliability of conclusions.

Skepticism, of course, existed before Descartes, and these arguments were already known to the Greeks. There were also various responses to skeptical objections. However, Descartes was the first to propose the use of skepticism as a research tool. His skepticism is not a doctrine, but a method. After Descartes, among philosophers, scientists and historians, a wary attitude towards insufficiently substantiated ideas became widespread, no matter what source they may have: tradition, authority, or the personal characteristics of the person expressing them.

Methodological skepticism thus forms only the first step. Descartes believed that if we knew absolutely certain first principles, we could derive all other knowledge from them. Therefore, the search for reliable knowledge is the second stage of his philosophy. Descartes finds certainty only in the knowledge of his own existence: cogito, ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”). Descartes argues: I have no reliable knowledge of the existence of my body, because I could be an animal or a spirit that has left the body and dreams that it is a man; however, my reason, my experience, exists undoubtedly and reliably. The content of thoughts or beliefs may be false and even absurd; however, the very fact of thinking and believing is certain. But if I doubt what I think, then at least that which I doubt is certain.

Descartes' thesis that we have absolutely reliable knowledge of the existence of our own consciousness was recognized by all thinkers of the New Age (although the question of the reliability of knowledge about our past was raised). However, a difficult question arose: can we be sure that everything else that we obviously encounter is not a mere product of our mind? The vicious circle of solipsism ("I" can only know itself) was logically inevitable, and we are faced with the so-called. the problem of egocentrism. This problem becomes more and more significant as the philosophy of empiricism develops and reaches its climax in Kant's philosophy.

Contrary to expectations, Descartes does not use his valid thesis as a big premise of deductive inference and obtaining new conclusions; he needs the thesis to say that since we have not obtained this truth by means of the senses or by deduction from other truths, there must be some method which has enabled us to obtain it. This, declares Descartes, is the method of clear and distinct ideas. What we think clearly and distinctly must be true. Descartes explains the meaning of "clarity" and "distinctness" in First principles(Part 1, item 45): “I call clear that which is clearly revealed to the attentive mind, just as we say that we clearly see objects that are sufficiently noticeable to our gaze and affect our eyes. What I call distinct is that which is sharply separated from everything else, that contains absolutely nothing in itself that would not be seen with obviousness to those who consider it properly. Thus, according to Descartes, knowledge depends on intuition as well as on feelings and reason. In relying on intuition (which Descartes himself understood) there is a danger: declaring intuitive knowledge (a clear and distinct idea), we can actually deal with prejudice and a vague idea. At this point, Descartes stops to point out a gap in his argument and try to fill it. Are we not mistaken in calling clear and distinct what is offered to us as such by a powerful but evil being (genius malignus) who takes pleasure in misleading us? Perhaps so; and yet we are not mistaken about our own existence, in this even the "almighty deceiver" will not deceive us. However, there cannot be two omnipotent beings, and therefore, if there is an omnipotent and good God, the possibility of deception is excluded.

And Descartes proceeds to prove the existence of God without offering here any particularly original ideas. The ontological proof is quite traditional: from the very idea of ​​a perfect thing it follows that this thing really exists, since a perfect being must possess, among an infinite number of other perfections, the perfection of existence. According to another form of the ontological argument (which might more properly be called a cosmological proof), the Self, a finite being, could not have the idea of ​​perfection, which (since the great cannot have the small as its cause) could not be produced by our experience in which we we meet only with imperfect beings, and could not have been invented by us, imperfect beings, but was invested in us directly by God, apparently in the same way that an artisan puts his mark on the products he makes. Another piece of evidence is the cosmological argument that God must be the cause of our being. The fact that I exist cannot be explained by the fact that I was born by my parents. First, they did this through their bodies, but my mind or my self can hardly be considered the effect of bodily causes. Secondly, explaining my existence through my parents does not solve the fundamental problem of the last cause, which can only be God Himself.

The existence of a good God refutes the hypothesis of an omnipotent deceiver, and therefore we can trust our abilities and efforts to lead to the truth, if properly applied. Before proceeding to the next stage of thinking according to Descartes, let us dwell on the concept of natural light (lumen naturalis, or lumiere naturelle), intuition. For him, it is no exception to the laws of nature. Rather, it is part of nature. Although Descartes nowhere gives explanations for this concept, according to his assumption, God, creating the Universe, had a certain plan, which is fully embodied in the Universe as a whole and partially in its individual parts. This plane is also embedded in the human mind, so that the mind is able to know nature and even have a priori knowledge of nature, because both mind and objectively existing nature are reflections of the same divine plan.

So, let's continue: once we are confident that we can trust our abilities, we come to understand that matter exists because our ideas about it are clear and distinct. Matter is extended, takes place in space, moves, or moves, in this space. These are the essential properties of matter. All other properties are secondary. Likewise, the essence of mind is thinking, not extension, so mind and matter are quite different. Therefore, the Universe is dualistic, i.e. consists of two substances that are not similar to each other: spiritual and bodily.

Dualistic philosophy faces three difficulties: ontological, cosmological and epistemological. All of them were discussed by thinkers who developed the ideas of Descartes.

First of all, knowledge presupposes the establishment of identity in apparent diversity; therefore, the assumption of a fundamentally irremovable duality dealt a blow to the very spirit of philosophy. There were attempts to reduce dualism to monism, i.e. to deny one of the two substances or to admit the existence of a single substance, which would be both mind and matter. Thus, the occasionalists argued that since the mind and body are inherently incapable of influencing each other, the obvious "causes" that we observe in nature are the result of the direct intervention of God. This position received its logical conclusion in Spinoza's system. It is difficult to regard God as anything other than the Supreme Mind; therefore, either God and matter remain dichotomously separated, or matter is reduced to the ideas of God himself (as in Berkeley). The problem of monism and dualism occupied a central position in the philosophy of the 17th and 18th centuries.

The existence of matter as an autonomous substance independent of the spirit leads to the assumption that its laws can be formulated exhaustively in terms of space and time. This assumption, which is common in physical science, is useful for its development, but ultimately leads to contradictions. If, according to the hypothesis, the space-time-material system is self-sufficient, and its own laws completely determine its behavior, the collapse of the Universe containing something other than matter that exists along with matter in an interdependent whole is inevitable. So, if the mind is the cause of the motion of matter, then it produces energy and thereby violates the principle of conservation of energy. If we say, in order to avoid this conclusion, that the mind cannot cause the motion of matter, but directs its motion along one particular path or another, then this will violate the principle of action and reaction. And if we go even further and assume that the spirit acts on matter, only releasing physical energy, but not creating it and not controlling it, then we come to a violation of the fundamental assumption that the causes of the release of physical energy can only be physical.

Cartesianism had a significant impact on the development of science, but at the same time it created a gap between physical science and psychology, which has not been bridged to date. The idea of ​​the existence of such a gap is also expressed in the materialism of J. La Mettrie (1709–1751), according to which a person is nothing more than a complexly organized matter, and in the concept of epiphenomenalism, according to which consciousness is a by-product of the body that does not affect its behavior. These views were in vogue among natural scientists. At the same time, it was assumed that belief in the ability of the mind to be the cause of material phenomena is a prejudice, similar to belief in ghosts and brownies. This notion seriously delayed the investigation of a number of important phenomena in psychological science, biology, and medicine.

As for the philosophical aspects of the problem, Descartes got rid of them, declaring that the almighty God commanded that spirit and matter interact. The interaction takes place in the pineal gland at the base of the brain, the seat of the soul. Occasionalists believed that God controls matter and consciousness not with the help of a universal rule of interaction, but by intervening in each specific case and controlling one and the other side of the event. However, if God is mind, then we can understand his power over matter no more than the interaction that is explained by the above assumption; if God is not mind, then we will not be able to understand how He controls mental events. Spinoza and Leibniz (the latter with some reservations) tried to solve this problem by considering spirit and matter as two aspects of a single substance. However, this attempt, however ontologically merits it may be, is completely useless when we come to cosmology, for to think how a mental "characteristic" or "aspect" affects a physical characteristic is as difficult as to think how the spiritual substance affects the corporeal substance.

The last problem is related to epistemology: how is knowledge of the external world possible? Descartes also dealt with one of the formulations of this question; he argued that we can avoid the "problem of egocentrism" if we prove the existence of God and rely on His grace as a guarantee of the truth of knowledge. However, there is another difficulty: if a true idea is a copy of the object (according to the correspondence theory of truth, which was shared by Descartes), and if ideas and physical objects are completely different from each other, then any idea can only resemble another idea and be the idea of ​​another idea. Then the outer world must be a collection of ideas in the mind of God (Berkeley's position). In addition, if Descartes is right in assuming that our only correct and primary knowledge of matter is knowledge of its extension, we not only exclude the so-called secondary qualities as objective, but also exclude the possibility of knowing the substance itself. The consequences of this approach were outlined in the works of Berkeley, Hume and Kant.

№23 Pantheistic Philosophy of Benedict Spinoza.

The pantheistic philosophy of Spinoza is a concrete expression of the fact that he professes the unity of the world. The world is one (monism). There is no dualism.

Emphasizing the unity of the world, he poses the problem of the relationship between the one and the many. This problem could not be solved by all ancient philosophy. He, too, could not do anything about this problem. He cannot rationally move from the recognition of a single substance to a multitude of things. On the contrary, there is a logical bridge, a generalization. There is only one, how to derive a rational set?

Postulates that a substance has attributes, qualitatively defined properties of this substance. The one-many problem turns into the infinite-finite problem. Substance is infinite, multiplicity is the finiteness of things. The concept of an attribute serves as a bridge from the infinite to the finite.

An attribute is an integral property of a substance, something that expresses the essence of a substance in a qualitatively defined property, and certainty means finiteness, definition is negation. An attribute is a certainty, and therefore a finiteness.

Substance has an infinite number of attributes. The next step in difficulties is to enumerate them at least in part: we can only know two attributes, extension and thought. Descartes has two substances, with the attributes of extension and thinking. Spinoza refers to the same substance. This confirms the pantheistic position - both God and nature (thinking and extended substance). We can only know this.

Another difficulty is connected with epistemological dualism: the substance is given to intellectual intuition, it can be determined through an analytical judgment. Spinoza points to the attributes of substance that are given to us in empirical knowledge - cogito ergo sum, nature is also given to the senses. Gnoseological and ontological difficulties are intertwined.

Attributes are that which we need nothing but themselves to represent.

Modes are what we need something else to represent. Modes are certain states of a substance. Attributes are not states of substance. The state may or may not be; attribute cannot be missing.

There are infinite and finite modes. Infinite modes - movement and rest. One of the weakest points of Spinoza's philosophy is that movement is not an attribute, where did it come from?

The mode of movement and the attribute of extension - to represent movement, we must take the attribute of extension. We represent the length itself.

Movement is just a mode, but an infinite one, one of the states of all things in the universe. Where? Random: maybe, maybe not; it needs an external cause to exist.

Consequently, the substance is unchanging, motionless, it does not have movement as an attribute.

Movement - rest - a cross-cutting problem of ancient philosophy.

One of Spinoza's correspondents asked him about it. Spinoza answered: it must be admitted that there must be an external cause, while substance is one, there is nothing external. He will be accused of insufficient thoughtfulness of his philosophy for this point (Toland, English materialist).

End modes are also states of substance, fragments of a single substance. The finite mode exists because it is generated by an external cause, it is the product of another mode, also finite. There is a causal relationship between them (a cause produces an effect).

The causal relationship is characterized by necessity, and between objects, or parts of the universe, only a causal, only a necessary connection is carried out. Everything is necessarily connected by a single chain of causes (stoicism, a fatalistic picture of the world).

№24 Theory of knowledge in the philosophy of J. Locke.

Locke is always prudent and will always willingly sacrifice logic rather than become paradoxical. He proclaims general principles, which, as the reader can easily imagine, are capable of leading to strange consequences; but whenever such strange consequences seem about to appear, Locke tactfully refrains from deriving them. This logic is annoying, but for practical people it serves as proof of sound judgment. Since the world is what it is, it is clear that correct inference from true premises cannot lead to errors; but the premises may be as close to the truth as theoretically required, and yet they may lead to practically absurd consequences. There is, therefore, a justification for common sense in philosophy, but only in so far as it shows that our theoretical propositions cannot be perfectly correct so long as their consequences are verified by common sense, which turns out to be irresistible. The theorist may object that common sense is no more infallible than logic. But this objection, made by Berkeley and Hume, would be wholly alien to Locke's intellectual character.

A characteristic feature of Locke, which extends to the entire liberal trend, is the absence of dogmatism. The conviction of our own existence, the existence of God, and the truth of mathematics are the few unquestionable truths that Locke inherited from his predecessors. But however different his theory may be from those of his predecessors, in it he comes to the conclusion that it is difficult to possess the truth and that a reasonable person will stick to his views, retaining a certain amount of doubt. This way of thinking is obviously connected with religious tolerance, with the success of parliamentary democracy, with laissez-faire and with the whole system of liberal attitudes. Although Locke is a deeply religious person, sincerely believing in Christianity, accepting revelation as the source of knowledge, nevertheless he puts revelation under the control of reason. On one occasion he says: "The mere evidence of revelation is the highest certainty," but on the other he points out: "Reason must judge revelation." So in the end the mind is higher.

The chapter "On Enthusiasm" is indicative in this connection. "Enthusiasm" then did not mean what it does now: it meant faith in the personal revelation of the religious leaders or their followers. This is a characteristic feature of the sects that were defeated at the Restoration. When there are many such personal revelations, each incompatible with the other, truth, or what is taken as such, becomes purely individual and loses its social character. The love of truth, which Locke considers essential, is very different from the love of certain particular theories taken as truth. The unmistakable sign of love of truth, he says, is "not to support any proposition with more certainty than the evidence on which it is built allows." The tendency to prescribe, he says, shows the impossibility of loving the truth. "Enthusiasm, eliminating reason, seeks to establish revelation without its help. But in fact, it eliminates both reason and revelation at the same time and puts in their place the groundless fantasies of the human imagination." People who suffer from melancholy or from vanity are probably "convinced of direct communion with the Divine." Hence it turns out that the most diverse actions and views receive Divine sanction, which encourages "human laziness, ignorance and vanity." He concludes the chapter with the aphorism already quoted, that "reason must judge revelation."

What Locke means by the word "reason" can only be established on the basis of his entire book. True, there is a chapter called "On the Mind", but it is mainly devoted to proving that the mind does not consist of syllogistic reasoning, and the meaning of the whole chapter is summarized by the sentence: "The Lord God was not so stingy with people as to create them just two-legged creatures and let Aristotle make them intelligent." Reason in the understanding of Locke has two parts: the first is the establishment of what applies to things about which we have certain knowledge; the second is the study of propositions which it is wise to accept in practice, though they are only probable and uncertain. "There are two bases of probability," he says, "the agreement with our own experience, or the confirmation by the experience of others." The Siamese king, he notes, stopped believing what the Europeans told him when they mentioned ice.

In the chapter "On Degrees of Agreement" he says that the degree of agreement on any proposition depends on the grounds of probability in its favour. After pointing out that we must often act on the basis of probability, which is close to certainty, he says that the correct use of this consideration "consists in mercy and indulgence towards one another. For, therefore, most people, if not all, inevitably adhere to various opinions without reliable and undoubted evidence of their truth - and to depart and renounce their former convictions immediately after they present an argument to which it is impossible to immediately object and show its insufficiency, means incurring too heavy accusations of ignorance, frivolity or stupidity - it seems to me that, with differences of opinion, all people should keep peace and fulfill the common duty of humanity and friendliness. After all, it would be unreasonable to expect that anyone willingly and obligingly gave up his opinion and accepted our opinion with blind obedience authority, which, however, reason does not recognize. For however often reason may err, it cannot guide be guided by nothing but his own reasoning, and cannot blindly obey the will and dictates of other persons. If the person whom you want to persuade to your opinion is one of those who first study the case and then agree, then you should give him the opportunity to review everything at his leisure, so that he, remembering what has disappeared from his mind, studied all the details. to see which side has the advantage. And if this person does not recognize our reasons as weighty enough to involve himself again in such labors, then we ourselves often do so in such cases. We ourselves would be offended if others took it into their heads to prescribe to us what questions we should study. And if a man takes opinions on faith, how can we imagine that he will give up those convictions which time and habit have so fixed in his mind that he regards them as self-evident and undeniable certainty, or sees in them impressions received from Himself? God or from people sent to them? How can we expect, I repeat, that opinions thus affirmed will bow before the arguments or authority of an outsider or adversary, especially when there is a suspicion of interest or intent, as always happens when people think they are being mistreated? We will do well to be indulgent to our ignorance and endeavor to remove it by gently and politely enlightening, and not immediately mistreat others as stubborn and depraved because they are unwilling to give up their own opinions and accept our opinions, or at least those opinions we would like to impose on them, while it is more likely that we are no less stubborn about accepting some of their opinions. For where is the man who possesses the indisputable evidence of the truth of all that he condemns? Who can say that he thoroughly studied all his own and other people's opinions? With our instability in actions and with our blindness, the need to believe without knowledge, often even on very weak grounds, should compel us to be active and diligent more for our own enlightenment than for compelling others. ... And there is reason to think that if people themselves were more educated, they would be less intrusive" (15).

So far I have dealt only with the last chapters of the Essay, in which Locke expounds views on morality drawn from his earlier theoretical investigations into the nature and limits of human knowledge. Now it is necessary to consider what he wanted to say on this purely philosophical question.

Locke generally despises metaphysicians. Concerning some of Leibniz's speculations, he writes to his friend thus: "Both you and I had enough trifles of this kind." The concept of substance, which was in his time dominant in metaphysics, he considers vague and useless, but he does not dare to reject it completely. Locke admits the validity of metaphysical proofs for the existence of God, but he does not linger on them, and it seems that he is somehow uncomfortable talking about them. Whenever Locke expresses new ideas, and not just repeats traditional ones, his thought remains within the limits of specific specific issues, and does not resort to broad abstractions. His philosophy unfolds gradually, like a scientific work, and is not a monumental construction like the great continental systems of the seventeenth century.

Locke can be seen as the founder of empiricism, the doctrine that all our knowledge (perhaps excluding logic and mathematics) is derived from experience. Accordingly, the first book of the "Experience", contrary to Plato, Descartes and the scholastics, argued that there are no innate ideas or principles. In the second book he tries to show in detail how various kinds of ideas arise from experience. Rejecting innate ideas, he says: “Suppose that the mind is, so to speak, white paper without any signs and ideas. But how does it get them? variety? Where does he get all the material of reasoning and knowledge? To this I answer in one word: from experience. All our knowledge is based on experience, from it, in the end, it comes "(16).

Our ideas are derived from two sources: a) sensations and b) perceptions of the action of our own mind, which may be called "inner sense". Since we can only think in terms of ideas, and since all ideas arise from experience, it is obvious that no knowledge of ours can precede experience.

Perception, he says, is "the first step to knowledge, the path for all the material to it." To a modern person, this statement may seem almost a truism, since it has entered the flesh and blood of an educated person, at least in English-speaking countries. But at that time it was believed that the mind knew about all sorts of things a priori, and Locke's theory of the complete dependence of knowledge on perception was new and revolutionary. Plato in Theaetetus tried to reject the identity of knowledge and perception, and since his time almost all philosophers, including Descartes and Leibniz, have taught that much of our most valuable knowledge is not derived from experience. So Locke's pervasive empiricism was a bold innovation.

The third book of the "Experience" deals with the consideration of words and basically seeks to show that what metaphysicians present as knowledge of the world is purely verbal knowledge. In Chapter III, On General Terms, Locke takes an extremely nominalistic position on the question of universals. All things that exist are singular, but we can form a general idea, such as "man," which applies to many singular things, and we can give names to these general ideas. Their general character consists solely in that they apply, or can be applied, to a variety of single things; in themselves as ideas in our mind, they are as singular as all that exists.

Chapter VI of Book Three, On the Names of Substances, aims at refuting the scholastic doctrine of essence. Things may have a real essence, which is their physical organization, but this is largely unknown to us and is not the "essence" that the scholastics speak of. The essence, as we can know it, is purely verbal, it consists simply in the definition of a general term. For example, the dispute about whether the essence of the body is only extension, or extension plus density, is a dispute about words: we can define the word "body" in any way, and no harm will come from this as long as we stick to our definition. Separate species are not a fact of nature, but a fact of language; they are "a separate complex of ideas, with separate names given to them." True, there are different things in nature, but the differences appear in the form of continuous gradations:

"The boundaries of the species, by which people distinguish them, are created by people." He gives examples of freaks about whom it is doubtful whether they were human or not. This view was not generally accepted until Darwin, having created the theory of evolution, convinced people that there were gradual changes. Only those who were not satisfied with the teachings of the scholastics could understand how much metaphysical rubbish this theory swept away.

Both empiricism and idealism faced a problem that philosophy has not yet found a satisfactory solution to. This problem is to show how we know things other than ourselves, and what are the operations of our own mind. Locke addresses this problem, but what he says is wholly unsatisfactory. In one place he says: “Since the mind has no immediate object in all its thoughts and reasonings, except for its own ideas, which it considers or can consider, it is clear that our knowledge concerns only them” (17). And again: "Knowledge is the perception of the correspondence or inconsistency of two ideas" (18). From this it would seem to follow immediately that we cannot know of the existence of other people or of the physical world, since these, if they exist, are not merely ideas in my mind. Each of us, therefore, must, as far as knowledge is concerned, withdraw into himself and renounce all contact with the outside world.

However, this is a paradox, and Locke does not recognize paradoxes. Accordingly, in another chapter, he puts forward a different theory, completely incompatible with the former one. We have, he says, three kinds of knowledge of real existence. Our knowledge of our own existence is intuitive, our knowledge of the existence of God is demonstrative, and our knowledge of things given to the senses is sensuous (19).

In the next chapter, he begins to more or less understand their incompatibility. He believes that one can say: "If knowledge really consists only in the perception of the conformity or inconsistency of our own ideas, then the visions of an enthusiast and the reasoning of a man of sound mind will be equally reliable." And he answers: "It does not happen where ideas correspond to things." He goes on to argue that all simple ideas must correspond to things, since the mind, according to the above, cannot itself form any simple ideas: they are all "the product of things that act on the mind." And as for the complex ideas of substances, "all our complex ideas of them must be such, and only such, as being composed of such simple ideas as have been revealed as coexisting in nature." And yet, we cannot gain knowledge except 1) through intuition, 2) through reasoning, examining the correspondence or inconsistency of two ideas, 3) and through sensation, which perceives the existence of separate things (20).

In all this, Locke assumes it is known that certain mental phenomena, which he calls sensations, are caused by external causes, and that these causes are, at least to some extent and in some respects, similar to sensations, which are their results. But how, proceeding from the principles of empiricism, does this become known? We experience sensations, but not their causes; the action of sensations will be exactly the same as if our sensations arose spontaneously. The belief that sensations have causes, and still more that they are similar to their causes, is a belief which, if held, must be held on grounds wholly independent of experience. The view that "knowledge is the perception of the correspondence or inconsistency of two ideas" is attributed to Locke; to avoid the paradoxes that this point of view gives rise to, he can only resort to means so contradictory that only Locke's unconditional adherence to common sense allowed him to close his eyes to this.

This difficulty has troubled empiricists to this day. Hume overcame it by discarding the assumption that sensations "have external causes," but even he retained this assumption whenever he forgot his own principle, which happened very often. Locke, inspires confidence as long as we think of an impression as something caused by an external cause, which the very word "impression" inevitably suggests. And when Hume's reasoning becomes to a certain extent consistent, they also become extremely paradoxical.

No one has yet succeeded in creating a philosophy that is both credible and consistent. Locke strove for credibility, and achieved this at the cost of consistency. Most great philosophers did the opposite. A philosophy that is not consistent cannot be completely true, but a philosophy that is consistent can very easily be completely false. The most fruitful philosophical systems contained the most blatant contradictions, but for this very reason they were partly true. There is no reason to believe that a consistent system contains more truth than one which, like Locke's, is obviously more or less wrong.

The ethical theories of Locke are interesting partly in themselves, partly as an anticipation of Bentham. When I speak of his ethical theories, I do not mean his moral inclination as a practice, but his general theories about how people act and how they should act. Like Bentham, Locke was a very benevolent man who, however, believed that every person (including himself) should be motivated to action only by the desire for his own happiness or pleasure. Several quotes clarify this point:

"Things are good and evil only from the point of view of Pleasure and pain. We call good what can cause pleasure to increase, pain to decrease." "What drives desire? I will answer - happiness and only it." "Happiness in its full extent is the highest pleasure, we are capable of the second."

"The need to pursue true happiness is the foundation of all freedom."

"The preference for vice over virtue is an obvious fallacy."

"The control of one's passions is the true development of freedom" (21).

Apparently, the last of these statements depends on the theory of reward and punishment in the next world. God sent down certain moral rules; those who follow them will go to heaven, and those who dare to break them risk going to hell. Therefore, a person who uses pleasure wisely will be virtuous. With the decline of the belief that sin leads to hell, it has become more difficult to put forward purely selfish arguments in favor of a virtuous life. Bentham, who was a freethinker, put a human legislator in the place of God: the establishment of harmony between public and private interests became the business of laws and social institutions, so that each person, in striving for his own happiness, would be forced to contribute to the general happiness. But this is less satisfactory than the reconciliation of public and private interests, brought about jointly by the means of heaven and hell, since legislators are not always wise and virtuous, and since human governments are not omniscient.

Locke is forced to admit the obvious, that people do not always act in the way that, by reasonable calculation, should give them maximum pleasure. We value present pleasures more than future pleasures, and near-future pleasures more than distant future pleasures. It can be said (this Locke does not say) that the degree of interest is a quantitative measure of the general devaluation of future pleasures. If the prospect of spending a thousand pounds in the coming year were as delightful as the thought of spending it today, I need not regret delaying my pleasure. Locke admitted that godly believers often commit sins that they themselves believe threaten to be cast into hell. We all know people who put off going to the dentist longer than they would if they were intelligently seeking pleasure. Thus, even if pleasure or the desire to avoid pain guides our impulse, it must be added that pleasures lose their attraction, and pain loses its sharpness in proportion to their distance from the present.

Since, according to Locke, selfish and common interests coincide only in the final analysis, it is important that people, as far as possible, be guided by their own finite interests. In other words, people should be reasonable. Prudence is the only virtue to be preached, for every sin against virtue is a lack of prudence. The emphasis on prudence is a characteristic feature of liberalism. This is due to the rise of capitalism, as the prudent became rich while the imprudent became or remained poor. This is also connected with certain forms of Protestant piety: virtue with an eye to heaven is psychologically very similar to frugality with an eye to a commercial bank.

Belief in harmony between private and social interests is a characteristic feature of liberalism, and has long outlived the theological foundation on which it rested in Locke.

Locke argues that freedom is based on the need to achieve true happiness and on the control of our passions. He derived this view from his theory that personal and social interests eventually coincide, although not necessarily in every single period. It follows from this theory that a given community of citizens, whether pious or prudent alike, will act with freedom in such a way as to achieve the common good. There will be no need for them to be restrained by human laws, for divine laws will suffice. Until now, a virtuous person who is persuaded to become a robber says to himself: "I could escape human judgment, but I could not escape punishment from the hand of the Divine Judge." Accordingly, he will give up his wicked plans and live as virtuously as if he were sure that he could be caught by the police. Therefore, legal freedom is fully possible only where prudence and piety coincide and are universal; somewhere else, the restrictions imposed by criminal law are indispensable.

Locke repeatedly claims that morality is justifiable, but he does not develop this idea as fully as he would like. Here is the most important passage in this regard:

"Morality is provable through arguments.

reasonable, with the clarity in which these ideas differ among us, could, in my opinion, if properly considered and followed, provide our duties and rules of conduct with foundations capable of placing morality in a series of provable sciences; and I have no doubt that it would then be possible to establish the standard of good and evil from self-evident propositions, by deductions as necessary as they are indisputable, as conclusions in mathematics, to establish them for anyone who studies morality with the same impartiality and attention, with which he deals with the sciences of mathematics. The relation of other modes can be perceived with the same certainty as the relation of the modes of number and extension; and I do not see why other modes could not be provable, if one thought of proper methods of examining and tracing their conformity or inconsistency. The proposition "Where there is no property, there is no injustice" is just as certain as any proof in Euclid: for if the idea of ​​property is a right to some thing, and the idea to which the name "injustice" is given, there is an encroachment on this right or violation of it, it is clear that, as soon as these ideas are established in this way and connected with the names indicated, I can know the truth of this proposition as surely as that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles. Another example: "No state will give complete freedom." If the idea of ​​the state is the organization of society according to certain rules or laws that require that they be observed, and the idea of ​​​​complete freedom is for everyone to do what he pleases, then I can be sure of the truth of this proposition no less than the truth of any statement in mathematics" (22).

This passage is puzzling because, on the one hand, it seems to make the rules of morality dependent on divine purposes, on the other hand, the examples it gives suggest that the rules of morality are analytic. I believe that in fact Locke thought that one part of ethics is analytic and the other part is dependent on divine purposes. But something else is also puzzling, namely that the examples given do not look like ethical proposals at all.

There is another difficulty which one might wish to consider. Theologians generally hold that God's purposes are not arbitrary, but inspired by His goodness and wisdom. This requires that there be some notion of goodness prior to God's purposes, a notion that led God to accomplish that and no other purpose. What this concept may be, based on Locke, it is impossible to reveal. What he says is that a prudent person will act in such and such a way, otherwise God will punish him. But he leaves us completely in the dark as to why punishment should be imposed for some acts and not for others.

The ethical theory of Locke, of course, can not be justified. Besides the fact that there is something unpleasant about a system that views prudence as the only virtue, there are other, less emotional objections to his theory.

First, to say that people desire only pleasure is to put the cart before the horse. Whatever happens to me to desire, I will feel pleasure in satisfying my desire; but pleasure is based on desire, not desire on pleasure. It is possible, as happens with masochists, to desire suffering; in this case there is still pleasure in the satisfaction of desires, but it is mixed with its opposite. Even according to Locke's own theory, it is not pleasure as such that is desired, since immediate pleasure is more desirable than distant pleasure. If morality is to be derived from the psychology of desire, as Locke and his students attempt to do, then there can be no grounds for protesting against the neglect of distant pleasures, or for preaching prudence as a moral duty. His argument can be summarized as follows: “We want only pleasure. But in fact, many people do not desire pleasure as such, but immediate pleasure. This is contrary to our theory that they desire pleasure as such, therefore it is immoral." could happen if the theory were true, and Locke's theory is an example of this kind.

№25 Monadology G.V. Leibniz.

Dialectics as a doctrine of development, constant movement and change was developed by idealist philosophers. A great contribution to it was made by G.V. Leibniz (1646-1716), an outstanding German philosopher and scientist.

From the point of view of Leibniz, the basis of the world is God and the mind created by him. Matter receives its content and source of development from the mind of God. The world consists of the smallest elements - monads, special simple substances that are part of complex substances. Monads have no figure extension, they cannot come into being or perish naturally. Leibniz endows monads with the principle of force, activity. But their activity is explained teleologically (from the point of view of universal subordination to the ultimate goal) and theologically. God not only gave birth to the Universe, but constantly directs it to ever more perfect and richer forms.

In the doctrine of the monad as a particle connected by unity with the infinite world. Leibniz formulated the dialectical idea, since in nature, everything is connected with everything, because the monad represents the universe. This shows the connection of individual substance with everything. the world.

Monads are simple substances. There is nothing in the world but monads. The existence of monads can be inferred from the existence of complex things, which is known from experience. But the complex must be made up of the simple. Monads have no parts, they are non-material and are called "spiritual atoms" by Leibniz. The simplicity of monads means that they cannot decay and cease to exist naturally. Monads "do not have windows", that is, they are isolated and cannot really influence other monads, as well as be affected by them. True, this provision does not apply to God as the highest monad, endowing all other monads with existence and harmonizing their internal states with each other. By virtue of the "pre-established harmony" between the monads, each of them turns out to be a "living mirror of the universe." The simplicity of monads does not mean that they do not have an internal structure and a plurality of states. The states or perceptions of monads, unlike parts of a complex thing, do not exist by themselves and therefore do not cancel the simplicity of substance. The states of monads are conscious and unconscious, and they are not realized because of their "smallness". Consciousness, however, is not available to all monads. Arguing on this topic in an anthropological context, Leibniz admitted the possibility of the influence of unconscious ideas on people's actions. Leibniz further stated that the states of monads undergo constant changes. These changes can only be due to the internal activity of the monads. Despite the fact that Leibniz came to the system of monadology largely as a result of reflections on the nature of physical interactions, the model of the monad for him is the concept of the human soul. At the same time, human souls as such occupy only one of the levels of the world of monads.

"The main provisions of this theory (monadology) the following:

the whole world consists of a huge number of substances that do not have a dualistic (dual, like in Descartes and Spinoza), but a single nature;

these substances are called monads(translated from Greek - "single", "unit");

the monad is simple, indivisible, has no extension, is not a material-material formation;

the monad has four qualities: aspiration, attraction, perception, representation;

in essence, a monad is an activity, a single, continuously changing state;

by virtue of the continuity of its existence, the monad is aware of itself;

monads are absolutely closed and independent of each other (according to Leibniz: "they have no windows through which something could enter in and out"). Leibniz divides all existing monads into four classes:

"bare monads" - underlie inorganic nature (stones, earth, minerals);

animal monads - have sensations, but undeveloped self-consciousness;

monads of a person (soul) - have consciousness, memory, a unique ability of the mind to think;

the highest monad is God.

Above them are the animal souls, which have feeling, memory, imagination, and an analogue of the mind, the nature of which is to expect similar cases. The next step in the world of monads are human souls. In addition to the abilities listed above, a person is also endowed with consciousness, or "apperception." Apperception is also connected with other higher abilities, reason and reason, which allow a person to clearly comprehend things and open to him the sphere of eternal truths and moral laws. Leibniz was sure that all monads, except God, are associated with the body. Death does not destroy the body, it is only its “coagulation”, just as birth is “expansion”. The body is the state of monads, of which the soul is the ideal ruler. At the same time, Leibniz denies the real existence of corporeal substance, i.e., matter.

The higher the class of the monad, the greater its intelligence and degree of freedom. The Leibniz method spreads individualization and autonomy throughout the world, to its most remote corners. Like various human personalities, substances are individual and inimitable, each of them has its own originality, changes and develops in its own way, although the development of all of them ultimately takes place in the same direction.

№26 The subjective idealism of J. Berkeley

Berkeley argues that we are given only sensory sensations and ideas. If we remove them from our consciousness, nothing will remain in it, including material substance. Berkeley declares matter to be an unnecessary, meaningless "support" for our sensations, which should be got rid of for the sake of economy of thought. Berkeley's philosophy is an example of an immaterialistic philosophy, i.e. a doctrine that completely denies the existence of matter in the world.

Berkeley states that the existence of things depends on our perception of them, and puts forward the thesis that for things "to exist is to be perceived." All objects exist as long as someone perceives them. An object that no one perceives, or about which no one thinks about, does not exist. The subject exists only when he perceives something. For him, to be is to perceive. All this indicates the closeness of Berkeley's position to an extreme form of subjective idealism - solipsism, in which only the cognizing subject is declared an undoubted reality, and everything else exists only in his mind. However, the position of consistent solipsism was not consistent with traditional religious views. Wanting to avoid accusations of solipsism and being a believer, Berkeley recognizes the existence of other perceiving subjects (souls) and God as the supreme subject. Berkeley postulates that the world as an object exists as long as it is perceived by God.

In his views, Berkeley adhered to nominalism. In an attempt to explain the origin of what we call the common, he created the so-called theory of representativeism. The general for us, according to Berkeley, represents any specific object of a given set, that is, there is no general as such. So, at the word "teacher" you have an image of a specific, single lecturer or seminar leader, who serves as a representative, representing all teachers in your mind, without becoming, nevertheless, general. It is possible that the development of Berkeley's representativeism was influenced by the centuries-old practice of English parliamentarism.

Berkeley recognizes as subjective, along with secondary, primary qualities, since the qualities of extension, form, etc. also depend on the position of the subject perceiving them. Berkeley also considers the belonging of primary qualities to the subject as an argument in favor of the absence of material substance. Secondary qualities, according to Berkeley, even precede primary ones. He believed that at first there is a certain sensation, and then we perceive its form. The criterion of truth, Berkeley believed, is the brightness of sensory perceptions and the simultaneity of the existence of similar perceptions in many subjects.

№27 Transcendental-critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant.

Kant's concept: things exist by themselves, act on the senses and cause sensations, which are ordered by pre-experimental forms of sensibility (space, time) and fixed as duration. Perceptions obtained on the basis of forms of thinking are universal and necessary.

Things become the property of consciousness through the senses, i.e. are the subject. Their appearance can be known, but their essence, their relationship outside of consciousness, cannot be known. Therefore, for man, things in themselves are not known and not revealed: "Things in themselves." Kant draws a conclusion on this basis: only the world of experience is accessible to the forms of sensibility and reason of a person, everything else is accessible only to the mind, which guides the mind, sets its goal. Reason operates with ideas - this is an idea of ​​the goal towards which knowledge strives and the tasks that it sets.

Awakened mind, reason goes beyond experience. The ideas of the mind cannot correspond to a real object, because there are antinomies of the mind (a contradictory, mutually exclusive position). Antinomies take place where, with the help of finite human reason, one tries to draw a conclusion not about the world of experience, but about the world of things in themselves. Therefore, the world of things is for sensibility, and it is closed to theoretical reason.

Man according to Kant- a resident of two worlds of sensual perceived and intelligible. He relates the world of nature to the sensuously perceived, to the intelligible - freedom, independence, everything that determines the causes of the sensually perceived.

It is not the theoretical and practical reason that operates in the sphere of freedom, which determines the actions of a person. The driving force is not thinking (mind), but will. The will is autonomous, determined not by natural necessity or divine will, but by the individual law of the individual. Therefore, Kant refers the laws of practical reason to moral laws, which in essence represent the knowledge of the intelligible world. These are certain requirements for a person how to behave in this world. From this he derived a categorical imperative: Treat a person as you would like them to treat you. Kant put forward a new concept of the subject. With its help, he divided being into the world of nature and the world of man, which develop according to their own laws and which contradict each other.

The subject can cognize the world, but he cannot establish connections between phenomena at the essential level, because things exist on their own.

In the theory of knowledge, Kant gives a great place to dialectics. He argues that contradiction is a necessary moment of knowledge. But dialectics for him is only an epistemological principle. At the same time, it is subjective, because does not reflect the contradictions of the things themselves, but only the contradiction of mental activity. Dialectics has a subjective moment, everything depends on the person.

On the whole, Kant's philosophy is free from compromise. He strives to try on science and religion with the help of human mental activity. In this way, he tried to limit the field of knowledge and leave room for the transcendental subject. Having done this, he separated in his philosophy the concept of the transcendental subject and the concept as a whole.

№28 Practical philosophy of I. Kant

The basis of Kant's practical philosophy is the doctrine of the moral law as a "fact of pure reason". Morality is associated with unconditional duty. This means, Kant believes, that its laws stem from the ability to think the unconditional, that is, from reason. Since these universal prescriptions determine the will to act, they can be called practical. Being universal, they presuppose the possibility of their fulfillment regardless of the conditions of sensibility, and, therefore, presuppose the "transcendental freedom" of the human will. The human will does not automatically follow moral precepts (it is not "holy"), just as things follow the laws of nature. These prescriptions act for her as "categorical imperatives", that is, unconditional requirements. The content of the categorical imperative is revealed by the formula "do so that the maxim of your will may be the principle of universal legislation." Another Kantian formulation is also known: "never treat a person only as a means, but always also as an end." Concrete moral guidelines are given to a person by a moral sense, the only sense, which, as Kant says, we know completely a priori. This feeling arises from the suppression of sensual inclinations by practical reason. However, pure pleasure in the performance of duty is not a motive for doing good deeds. They are disinterested (unlike the outwardly similar "legal" actions), although they are associated with the hope of receiving a reward in the form of happiness. The unity of virtue and happiness Kant calls "the highest good." Man must contribute to the highest good. Kant does not deny the naturalness of a person's desire for happiness, understood by him as the sum of pleasures, but he believes that moral behavior must be a condition for happiness. One of the formulations of the categorical imperative is the call to become worthy of happiness. However, virtuous behavior itself cannot generate happiness, which depends not on the laws of morality, but on the laws of nature. Therefore, a moral person hopes for the existence of a wise creator of the world who can reconcile bliss and virtue in the afterlife of a person, faith in which stems from the need for the perfection of the soul, which can continue indefinitely.

[lat. Anselmus] (1033, Aosta, Northern Italy - 21.04. 1109, Canterbury, England; commemorated in the Catholic Church - April 21), Catholic. St., Archbishop Canterbury, theologian, is considered the "father" of the app. scholastics. From a landowning family. In 1056, after the death of his mother, A. left his parental home and went to Burgundy and France. In 1059 he entered the school at Mont-re Bec in Normandy, where he became a student of Lanfranc. In 1060, A. took monastic vows, and in 1063 he was elected prior of the monastery of Beck. Here he wrote his first works. After the death of the abbot in 1078, Mr.. A. was elected to his place. During his abbey, he once visited England, where he met with Lanfranc, who by that time had become the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1093, the English. box Wilhelm II invited A. to take the place of Lanfranc, who had died by that time. Dec. the same year A. was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. Soon, a conflict broke out between A. and the king over the lands and population of the archdiocese, which was complicated by the issue of recognition by Pope Urban II and the right of the archbishop to convene Councils. In 1098, Mr.. A. went to Rome for advice to the pope. Oct. 1098 A. was present at the Council in Bari, which dealt with dogmatic differences between Zap. and Vost. Churches on the issue of the procession of the Holy Spirit. In Apr. In 1099 he was at the Council of the Lateran, where he learned about papal decrees against the right of investiture. In Aug. 1100 Wilhelm II died. Returning to England, A. refused to take the oath to the new core. Henry I and recognize the bishops, to which he issued investiture. A. demanded from the king to comply with the papal decrees. Thus began another conflict between A. and the secular authorities. In 1103, he again went to Rome to get the pope to relax the severity of the decretals in the interests of the core. Henry I. When this attempt ended in failure, A. resigned himself to his position as an exile. After the pope and Henry I came to a compromise in 1106, A. returned to England. He devoted the last 2 years of his life to church affairs. He convened a Council on the issue of celibacy of the clergy and entered into a struggle for primacy with York. Canonized in 1720

A.'s scientific nickname is Doctor magnificus (Wonderful Doctor). He owns approx. 30 essays on theological, philosophical, logical issues. It is conditionally possible to distinguish 3 periods lit. A.'s activities: 1) philosophical and theological (1070-1090), 2) theological (1090-1105), 3) philosophical (1105-1109).

1st period

The first major Op. "Monologion" (or "Soliloquium" - Conversation with oneself, 1078), which is an essay on dogmatic theology. The next op., "Proslogion" (or "Alloquium" - Conversation with an interlocutor, 1079), contains an ontological proof of the existence of God. To "Proslogion" adjoins "Liber apologeticus contra insipientem" (Apology against a madman), where A. defends his evidence from the objections of Mon. Gaunilo, prior of the monastery in Marmoutier, to-ry in his book. The Liber pro insipiente (Book in Defense of the Madman) raises objections to the ontological argument. In 1080-1085. the dialogues "De grammatico" (About the literate) were written; “De veritate” (On the truth), in which the definition of truth is given, the relation of various types of truth to a single truth is analyzed; "De libero arbitrio" (On freedom of choice), in which A. seeks the perfect definition of freedom of choice and gives varieties of this freedom. “De casu diaboli” (On the fall of the devil, 1085-1090) directly adjoins the last 2 dialogues, where A. considers the question of the origin and essence of evil. This is the last dialogue he wrote in Mont-re Beck.

2nd period

Before his consecration as Archbishop of Canterbury (1093), A. wrote “De fide Trinitatis” (On Faith in the Holy Trinity) and “De incarnatione Verbi” (On the Incarnation of the Word), they expound the doctrine of the Holy Trinity with the help of rational arguments and condemn the nominalism of Roscellinus. In 1098, in Italy, A. completed his main Christological Op. "Cur Deus homo" (Why God became a man), where the Catholic. The church generally accepted the legal theory of the Atonement as satisfaction (satisfactio) for an insult to the Divine Majesty, as well as dealt with Christological problems. In the same period, A. was written Op. “De conceptu virginali” (On the Immaculate Conception), the later “De originali peccato” (On Original Sin, 1107-1108) is associated with it, these writings are devoted to the origin and nature of evil, the spread of original sin to all mankind, cleansing from this sin in Baptism, the fate of unbaptized babies, the holiness and ever-virginity of the Mother of God, etc. “De processione Spiritus Sancti” (On the procession of the Holy Spirit) was originally A.’s speech at the Council in Bari (1098), dedicated to the interpretation of faith against the teachings of the Orthodox. Churches. 2 works - "De sacrificio azymi et fermentati" (On unleavened and leavened bread in the Eucharistic offering), or "De azymo et fermentato" (On unleavened and leavened bread), and "De sacramentis ecclesiae" (On the Sacraments of the Church) - are A.'s answer to Bishop's question. Varlaam of Naumburg about the Holy Gifts.

3rd period

At the end of his life, A. returns to philosophical problems, Ch. arr. to the problem of free will. In the works “De concordia praescientiae, praedestinationis et gratiae Dei cum libero arbitrio” (On the agreement of foreknowledge, predestination and the grace of God with freedom of choice), “De voluntate” (On the will), “De voluntate Dei” (On the will of God) A. attempts to harmonize the concepts of divine foreknowledge and predestination with human free will. This period includes 19 prayers (orationes) and 3 Reflections, or Conversations (Meditationes, Sermones), which are distinguished by their original style and deep spiritual content. This group also includes the Hymn of St. Mother of God, several homily, "Tractatus asceticus" (Ascetic treatise), and other small works.

475 letters A. give an idea of ​​his outstanding personality and are a valuable source on the history of Zap. Churches.

Theology Relationship between faith and reason

Following blj. Augustine A. believes that faith is only the first, preliminary condition of Christ. life. From faith in the truths of Christianity one must ascend to the knowledge of these truths: credo ut intelligam (I believe in order to know). A person must first be strengthened in faith and only after that strive to make the content of faith an object of knowledge, which, in turn, must pass into direct contemplation. A., as well as blzh. Augustine, admits the possibility of knowing God for the human intellect. This knowledge is twofold: mediated and direct. The first is the knowledge of God not as He is in Himself, in His own properties (per suam proprietatem), but only the knowledge of God through His created likenesses (per similitudinem), primarily through man himself, created in the image and likeness of God. The second, or direct, knowledge of God occurs through the illumination of the soul with the Light of Reason, which is God Himself. As far as a person sees this Light of Truth, which gives him the ability of reliable knowledge, so much a person sees God Himself, enlightening his mind. However, the knowledge of God cannot be realized in its entirety in earthly life.

Teaching about God

1) Evidence for the existence of God. In most of his proofs of the existence of God, A. proceeds from the existence of the created world and its properties: being, goodness, perfection (A. borrowed these proofs from Blessed Augustine). Actually A. belongs to the so-called. ontological proof, based on the very concept of God as id quo nihil majus cogitari nequit (that which nothing greater can be conceived), which must contain the existence of God, otherwise it would turn out to be self-contradictory. A contemporary of A. mon. Gaunilo objected to him that from the mere concept of c.-l. the most excellent object (for example, an island) does not yet follow its being. To this A. pointed out that in the ontological proof we are not talking about any conceivable object, but about an object without beginning (sine initio), infinite and devoid of c.-l. parts. Therefore, it is impossible to understand God as “the greatest of all” or “the best among the existing”, that is, to put Him on a par with other things. The ontological argument was also rejected by Thomas Aquinas (in modern times - I. Kant), but accepted by the majority of scholastics (for example, Bonaventure, I. Duns Scotus, in modern times - R. Descartes, G. V. Leibniz, G. V. F . Hegel). 2) The doctrine of the essence of God. God as the Supreme Being exists through and from Himself (per se et a se), while everything else exists through and thanks to Him. He possesses all the perfections that do not speak of God as qualities of substance (qualitative), but coincide with the very essence of God (quidditative). God is absolutely simple and has no parts, so the multitude of His properties are actually one. God as the highest Truth has neither the beginning nor the end of his existence. 3) Triadology. For A. God is a concrete, single Essence (substantia concreta), manifested in Three Persons, representing the highest and main images of Her existence. As the highest Spiritual Being, God always remembers, thinks and loves Himself. Since God is absolutely simple, these memory (memoria), thinking (intelligentia) and love (caritas) are God Himself: Memory is God the Father, Thinking is the Son, Love is the Holy Spirit. Since it is impossible to love without memory and without thinking, the Love of God comes equally from Memory and from Thinking, that is, from the Father and the Son (Filioque). In addition to this Augustinian formula, A. uses the pre-Nicean doctrine of the Word of God (Verbum Dei). The Divine Reason (ratio), containing the forms of all things, is nothing else than the inner Speech of things (rerum locutio), or the inner Word of God (Verbum Dei), through which all things were created and which is the true essence (veritas essentiae) of the created. God always had such a Word: both before things came into being and after they came into being, for from eternity God expresses Himself and the creature by the same Word, and thus generates His consubstantial likeness - God the Son.

The doctrine of universals

In the Middle Ages dispute about the nature of universals A. took a moderate realistic position. The general concepts of our understanding are obtained through abstraction from sensible objects, therefore they exist after them (post rem) and are their likenesses, and every likeness is always less true than that to which it is similar. But our concepts reflect the true state of affairs in the world, i.e., in the world, universals are realized (in re). Finally, before things came into being, in the ratione or Word of God, there were their exemplary forms, according to which they were created. Consequently, general concepts existed even before things (ante rem).

Christology

A. teaches that Christ is a perfect God and a perfect man, in one person (una persona) uniting two natures - Divine and human, which, even after the union, remain integral and completely retain their properties, not turning one into another and not forming, when mixed, some kind of third nature. This union in Christ of divinity and humanity is not a union of two persons possessing different natures. The perception of human nature (assumptio hominis) has been consummated into the unity of the Divine Person of the Son of God (in unitatem personae Dei), and not into a new composite person. God the Word (Verbum Deum) assumed human nature, identical with the nature of Adam, to which original sin spread. However, Christ Himself was without sin (sine peccato), although He was subject to all the weaknesses inherent in human nature. Christ, apparently, could not die, but he died voluntarily (ex sua libera potestate), and not out of necessity. As God, Christ at any moment of his earthly life possessed omniscience and omnipotence, although he did not show it publicly.

Doctrine of the Atonement

A.'s view of the sacrament of the Atonement is distinguished by a one-sided legal character. Man, as a rational and free being, created by God and endowed with all rights, had the only duty (debitum) to his Creator - to give Him honor (honor), i.e., to subordinate his will to the will of God. By violating the commandment of God given to him in paradise, man thereby dishonored (exhonorare) God, deprived him of what was rightfully his, and offended him (contumeliam fecit). This was the original sin. Man must now return his debt to God, render due honor to Him, and thereby bring satisfaction (satisfactio) to God for the offense done to Him. Such satisfaction, which would be commensurate with the severity of the crime, could not be brought by anyone but God, but should not have been brought by anyone but man. Consequently, it is necessary that both God and man simultaneously bring it, i.e., the God-man (Deus-homo), Jesus Christ.

The Doctrine of Free Will and the Essence of Evil

A. believed that free will, or freedom of choice (liberum arbitrium), is not identical to the ability to sin or not to sin. Freedom of choice was given to the angel and man in order to possess the rightly directed will received from God and keep it. Therefore, A. defines freedom of choice as the ability (potestas) to maintain the correctness of the will (rectitudо voluntatis) for the sake of this very correctness. This ability is always present in man and cannot be alienated from him. However, without Divine grace, people are now unable to properly exercise their freedom of choice. Considering the nature of evil, A. indicates that free will itself is not evil. Moral evil, that is, injustice (malum injustitiae), arises when the will freely desires the wrong. The first evil that the devil committed, and man under his influence, was the disobedience of one's will to the will of God, the desire for autonomy. Ultimately, it was a striving by robbery (per rapinam) to become like God.

Cit.: Anselmi, St. Opera Omnia. P., 1675, 1721, 1744; PL. 158-159; [Crete. ed.:] Anselmi Opera Omnia: In 6 vol. /Ed. F. S. Schmitt. Edinb., 1946-1961; Anselmi, S. Opera Omnia. Stuttg., 1968; Memorials of St. Anselm // Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi / Ed. R. W. Southern and F. S. Schmitt. L., 1969. Vol. 1; Anselm Canterbury. Op. M., 1995.

Lit .: Shtekl A. History of Medieval Philosophy. M., 1912. St. Petersburg, 1996. pp. 113-131; Barth K. Fides quaerens intellectium. Munch., 1931; Stolz A. Zur Theologie Anselms im Proslogion // Catholica. 1933. No. 2. S. 1-24; Sohngen G. Die Einheit der Theologie in Anselms Proslogion. Bonn, 1939; Kolpm A . Anselms Proslogion-Beweis. Bonn, 1939; Cenam G. S. Anselmo. Brescia, 1946; Springer J.L. Argumentum Ontologicum. Van Gorcum, 1947; Rovighi S.V. S. Anselmo e la Filosofia del sec. XI. Mil., 1949; Southern R. W. St. Anselm and his Pupils // Medieval and Renaissance Stud. L., 1941-1943. Vol. 1; Penno R. La doctrina Trinitana di S. Anselmo. R., 1951; McIntyre J. St. Anselm and his Critics: A Reinterpretation of the Cur Deus Homo. Edinb., 1954; Schmitt F.S. La Meditatio redemptionis humanae di S. Anselmo in relazione al "Cur Deus Homo" // Benedictina. 1955. P. 197-213.

A. R. Fokin

Man has always strived for a rational explanation of his faith. This explains many well-known attempts in the history of philosophy to construct theological-philosophical systems. But in the process of reasoning about God and His self-existent being, the most important thing is that our reasoning should not become self-sufficient, i.e. lest our reason, ratio, take the place of God in our reasoning. therefore, all reasoning about the proof of the existence of God is always relative, and in the dilemma of faith and reason, faith must be the first and determining factor. “For I seek not to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand.” Such an approach, which is indisputable for all Christian thinkers, if by Christian thinkers we mean truly believing people, Anselm of Canterbury proclaims at the beginning of his treatise Proslogion.

Anselm of Canterbury was born in 1033 in Aosta (Northern Italy) into a family of local nobles. After the death of his mother at the age of 15, he left home, wandered around France for several years, moving from school to school, until he found himself in Normandy in the Beck monastery with teacher Lanfranc. Lanfranc was an excellent rhetorician and teacher. After long wanderings, he settled in a poor Beksky monastery, deciding to fight his own pride. Over time, his school gained fame, among the students of Lanfranc were Ivo Chartres, Anselm from Baggio, the future Pope Alexander II. By this time, Anselm wrote his first philosophical works “On Literacy”, “Monologion”, “Proslogion”, “On Truth”, “On the Fall of the Devil”, “On Freedom of Choice”. Anselm's century was marked by major historical events in which he participated. William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, knew and greatly appreciated the wisdom of Lanfranc. Therefore, when in 1066, with the blessing of Pope Alexander II, he undertook a successful campaign in England, and having strengthened himself in new possessions in 1070, he appointed Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury. After the death of William and Lanfranc, the second son of William the Conqueror, Wilhelm the Red, inherited secular power in England, and Anselm, the spiritual son of Lanfranc, assumed spiritual power at the common desire of the duke and bishops. Having a truly Christian approach to understanding his pastoral duty, Anselm, on the one hand, in his humility, never fought for the archpastoral baton, and on the other hand, vested by God to defend the interests of the Church, he always firmly resisted encroachments from secular authorities. The main direction of his activity, as an archpastor, was the fight against investiture, carried out with the support of Popes Gregory VII and Urban.

Anselm enjoyed great authority in the Church. Thus, at the Council of Bari in 1098, devoted to questions of "accurate interpretation of faith," Pope Urban exclaimed at a critical moment in the discussion: "Anselm, father and teacher, where are you?" - and Anselm gave a speech that has come down to us under the title "On the Descent of the Holy Spirit, a book against the Greeks." Surrounded by love and reverence for his friends and inspiring fear and respect for his enemies, Anselm reposed in the Lord in 1109, in the 16th year of his pontificate, at the age of 76. His life and activities, carried out in full accordance with his convictions, set forth in numerous theological writings, are rated by the Catholic Church as the life of a saint.

So, the proofs of the existence of God can be divided into several groups. Like that, cosmological, teleological, ontological, psychological, moral and historical. Of these, ontological proof stands apart, as it were, because all other proofs proceed from consideration of the phenomena or properties of the world and man, i.e. creations, and ascend by induction from the particular to the general, i.e. Creator. The ontological proof, at least as it was stated by Anselm of Canterbury, is self-sufficient, i.e. nothing is used to prove the existence of the Absolute, except for the concept of this Absolute. Thus, this proof is the most reliable, because it requires the least number of prerequisites, while each premise introduced into the argument about the Beginning or the First Cause of being can be extremely doubtful, because the whole world has a relative being to the Source of being.

So, Anselm of Canterbury set himself the task of rationally substantiating his faith without involving the concepts and phenomena of this created world. According to legend, he prayed for a long time that the Lord would give him understanding, and once during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy he was given illumination from above. Anselm himself formulates the proof in this way: “And, of course, something greater than which cannot be imagined cannot be only in the mind. For if it already exists, at least only in the mind, one can imagine that it also exists in reality, which is greater. Therefore, if that which cannot be imagined greater exists only in the mind, then that which cannot be imagined greater is that which can be imagined greater. But this, of course, cannot be. So, without a doubt, something greater than which cannot be imagined exists both in the mind and in reality.” “It means that something, greater than which cannot be imagined, exists so authentically that it is impossible to imagine it as non-existent. And this is You, Lord our God. This means that You exist so truly, O Lord my God, that it is impossible to imagine that You do not exist.”

The formula by which Anselm's proof is constructed is "that which cannot be imagined greater than" _ "id quo maius cogitari nequit". Not being correlated with everything that exists in the created world, it is accepted in the context of Anselm's proof as one of the names of God. Thomas Aquinas considers such a course of proof unconvincing, i.e. the derivation from the mental substance of the real, although the Bible teaches us precisely about the reality of the name of God and, generally speaking, only the name of God. “God said to Moses: I am who I am. And he said, “So say to the children of Israel: Jehovah has sent me to you.”

The beauty and completeness of Anselm's proof immediately aroused both admiration and the same objection from theologians and philosophers, which continues to this day. The first to criticize Anselm of Canterbury was his student Gaunilo of Marmoutier. The fact is that in Anselm's proof there is indeed a certain philosophical balancing act on the verge of a play on words. And to apply Anselm's method to any concepts other than the concept of God, as will be seen from further disputes, is logically unacceptable. Thus, Gaunilo, as an illustration of his criticism, cites the example of a certain perfect island of forgotten treasures. To the objection that this island does not exist, he argues that since it is the most perfect, then it must be. And that they say in this way you can prove the existence of anything. To this Anselm replies: “If someone finds for me in reality or only in imagination, apart from “what more cannot be imagined”, what the course of this proof of mine will suit, then I will find and give him the lost island, so that he will not be lost again. .” So, Gaunilo's criticism, as well as all further criticism over the centuries of ontological proof, is trying to extend to something else, besides "that which cannot be imagined greater".

One of the most famous scholastic philosophers of the 10th century is Anselm of Canterbury. He was born in the Italian city of Aosta in 1033 and died in 1109. From 1093 he occupied the See of Canterbury in England. Among his works stand out "Monologue" and "Proslogion" (i.e. "Addition"), an addition to the "Monologue". Among the lesser-known works are “On Truth”, “On Free Will”, “The Fall of the Devil”, “On the Trinity”, etc.

Aiselm of Canterbury was called by his contemporaries nothing less than "the second Augustine". Indeed, many of the Augustinian formulations are in fact not Augustine's, but Anselm's. For example, “I believe in order to understand”; Augustine does not have such a phrase, it belongs to Anselm. But this saying expresses the meaning of Augustine's philosophy so well that many boldly attribute it to Bl. Augustine.

As Anselm of Canterbury said, “I do not think in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand.” Faith is higher than reason, and reason only helps in strengthening faith. The main instrument of reason is philosophy (at that time it was called dialectics), and its main task is to strengthen faith. And we must believe in order to better understand. Faith, as Anselm pointed out in agreement with Augustine, always precedes reason. In any study, we always believe something first, and in the act of believing, the truth is given to us completely and completely. But this whole truth is not yet fully understood by a person, and so that a person can better understand it and understand it. God gave him reason. With the help of reason, a person explains the truth that was given to him in the initial act of faith.

Anselm, following Augustine, developed a concept that was called the concept of concept realism. In the Middle Ages, there were many problems that attracted great attention. Among them was the dispute between realism and nominalism. This dispute goes back to Plato and Aristotle: do ideas really exist outside objects or only in objects themselves? The term “idea” was not common in the Middle Ages, so they talked about general concepts, universals. Realists argued that only ideas really exist, and individual objects exist by chance, due to involvement in these ideas. Thus, the realists continue the line that goes from Plato and Augustine. And the nominalists believed that only single things really exist, and concepts are only names (nomen) of these things. One of the first supporters of realism in the era of scholasticism was Anselm of Canterbury, who argued that only concepts, ideas really exist, and individual things exist by virtue of involvement in them. Otherwise, it is impossible to understand the majority of Christian dogmas and sacraments. For example, one cannot understand either the original sin of Adam, or the sacrament of communion, or the expiation of human sins by Jesus Christ, etc. Indeed, how to understand that each individual person bears the stamp of original sin? This is impossible unless we imagine that original sin exists as an idea existing independently and separately in the Divine mind, and that all people participate in this idea. After all, it is absurd that every person is the bearer of that original sin that our forefathers committed, in the sense that this sin was inherited by us.

The dogma of the atonement of our sins by Jesus Christ is also understood: Jesus Christ atoned for the sins of all people who were born and will be born, because the idea exists in the Divine mind, and for the Divine mind there is no concept of time - it is eternity, which applies to all people. And in the sacrament a person joins the idea; it is impossible to imagine that each time in each temple the body of Christ was present as a separate concrete object. Naturally, every time communion is possible, because the bread and wine become involved in the idea of ​​the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

However, the main position, thanks to which Anselm of Canterbury entered the history of Christian philosophy, is his attempt to prove the existence of God. Anselm lists several such proofs, dividing them into two types: a posteriori (i.e. based on experience) and a priori (independent of experience). Among the a posteriori proofs, Anselm lists those that have been known since the time of Aristotle and Plato, and met with the Church Fathers. Their essence is that, observing nature, the external world, one can come to the conclusion that there is a God whom we do not see, but whose existence our mind tells us about. This is both movement in the world (there must be an immovable Prime Mover), and the existence of degrees of perfection (if we see something less perfect, more perfect and even more perfect in the world, then it is necessary that there be a measure of perfection crowning this pyramid of perfections, i.e. e. an absolutely perfect being. God).

However, all these proofs, according to Anselm, do not satisfy a person, because they speak about God on the basis of nature, i.e. as if they subordinate faith in God to the data of the sense organs. God must be judged directly, not indirectly. Therefore, more important, from Anselm's point of view, is the a priori proof, which later received the name ontological. The meaning of the ontological proof is quite simple: God, “by definition”, is the most perfect Being and therefore has all the positive characteristics. Existence is one of the positive characteristics, therefore God has existence. It is impossible to imagine God as non-existent, for this contradicts the very concept of God. If we think of God to ourselves, then we think of Him as All-Perfect, and therefore existing. That is, the concept of the existence of God is derived from the very concept of God. This is the most famous formulation of the ontological proof.

In Anselm of Canterbury it appears in a slightly different context. He analyzes Psalm 13 (52), which says: "The fool has said in his heart: there is no God." Why, asks Anselm, did the psalmist say "fool"? Why can't a normal reasonable person say: there is no God. What is the madness? Answering this question, Anselm says: madness consists in the fact that the one who says this phrase contradicts himself. For there is a contradiction hidden in this very phrase: God is always conceived as existing; the non-existent God is deprived of one of His most important attributes, which is impossible. Therefore, to say "there is no God" means to express a contradiction, and there can be no logical contradictions. Therefore, God exists.

But as early as the time of Anselm of Canterbury, this evidence began to be questioned. In particular, a certain monk Gaunilon objected to Anselm: you can think anything, but this does not mean that it will immediately become existing. Therefore, it cannot be said that from the idea of ​​a certain concept one can immediately conclude that the thing denoted by this concept exists. One can imagine a fictional island existing, but this does not mean that it will actually exist.

Gaunilon's argument seems reasonable, but it misses the mark. Because Anselm himself said that this kind of evidence applies only to one being - to God, who possesses everyone positive features. No island has all the characteristics, so the ontological argument cannot be refuted with this example.

But nevertheless, there is indeed some contradiction in Anselm's reasoning. If a madman says that there is no God, then one can imagine God as non-existent, and this contradicts the fact that by imagining God as non-existent, we deprive God of one of these attributes in our imagination. To this, in the Proslogion, Anselm adds the following consideration as an objection to Gaunilon. First, there are two kinds of thinking: adequate and symbolic. A person very often confuses the fields of application of adequate and symbolic thinking. Symbolic thinking can indeed imagine whatever one pleases, but adequate thinking can analyze symbolic thinking and find contradictions in it. And if there are any, then this means that symbolic thinking turns out to be false. Adequate thinking thus shows us really the fact of the existence or non-existence of the object that was imagined in symbolic thinking.

And yet, Anselm adds to the monk Gaunilon: God is conceived as existing not in the same way that everything else in the world is conceived as existing, for what is conceived as existing is conceived as arising or disappearing, passing from non-existence into being and vice versa; but God always exists. He cannot be conceived as emerging, therefore He always exists and cannot be conceived as non-existent.

The ontological proof has roots in ancient philosophy and is not a pure invention of Anselm. Even Parmenides argued that being and thinking are one and the same. Plotinus came from the concept of the Mind and the One to their objective existence. A similar reasoning is found in Augustine, who builds the following chain of reasoning: “I doubt, therefore I am, this is true, - therefore, the truth exists, therefore, the truth is God” comes through the idea of ​​his own doubt to the idea that God exists. In subsequent philosophy, too, the ontological argument will occur quite often; it will be formulated especially clearly by Descartes, Leibniz, Hegel.

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The subject of philosophy
The first lecture, as you understand, should be introductory. However, it can be very important and even defining in our entire course. Let's start with a definition. So what is philosophy?

The emergence of philosophy
In all the textbooks of the Soviet period one can find the conventional wisdom that philosophy arises from mythology. From mythology, according to some authors, religion also arises. This way

Religions of ancient greece
Let's try to trace how philosophy arises, using the example of ancient Greece. There has long been a cult of the dead. The ancient Greeks, or those peoples who later became the ancient Greeks

Religion of Zeus
The religion of Zeus is perhaps best known, if only because the main myths and provisions of this religion are set forth in the books of Homer and Hesiod. Homer Herodotus even calls the creator of the Greek religion

Religion of Demeter
Another Greek religion, which has a slightly different origin, but later merged and intersected in the form of myths with the religion of Zeus and Apollo, is the religion of Demeter. This religion grows out of m

Religion of Dionysus. Orphics
The religion of Dionysus is closely related to the religion of Demeter. At the heart of this religion, which came from the north, from Thrace, is the worship of the god Dionysus, who later became the god of wine. He became the god of wine, in particular

seven wise men
You all know about the seven wise men. They lived in the 7th-6th centuries BC. Different testimonies rank different thinkers among the seven wise men, but, as a rule, four wise men are found in all lists - this is F

Anaximenes
The next philosopher who lived after Anaximander is Anaximenes. Akme (i.e., the heyday that came at the age of 40) of Anaximenes falls on 546. He died, as Diogenes Laertes points out, from 528 to 525

Pythagoras
Almost simultaneously with the Milesian school, philosophy was born in the south of Italy, at the other end of the great Hellas. The first representative of Italian philosophy is Pythagoras. In the place of his birth

Heraclitus
Consider one of the most mysterious and incomprehensible philosophers of antiquity - Heraclitus. Heraclitus of Ephesus was born in the city of Ephesus in Ionia. The date of birth can also be calculated from his acme, which

Xenophanes
Xenophanes lived somewhat earlier than Heraclitus, but Xenophanes influenced the Eleatic school, so we study his philosophy together with the entire Eleatic school. Xenophon is a thinker, just like

Parmenides
Xenophanes' disciple is Parmenides. Far fewer fragments of Parmenides survived than Heraclitus, however, in terms of the degree of influence of Parmenides on subsequent Greek thought, it is also difficult with anyone to

Zeno of Elea
As you remember from the last lesson, Parmenides, the founder of the Eleatic school, came to conclusions that contradicted common sense. Naturally, this point of view could not but arouse objections. And these

Empedocles
The main task for many philosophers after the Eleatics, therefore, was obvious - to prove the validity of the testimony of the senses. Empedocles from Acragas, in Sicily, is not in this regard

Anaxagoras
The years of life of Anaxagoras - c. 500-428 BC Anaxagoras is the first Athenian philosopher, and there is a lot of information about his life, if only because among the students of Anaxagoras there was such a famous

Ancient Greek atomism
Two thinkers, Leucippus and Democritus, belong to the school of ancient Greek atomism. Leucippus was a student of Zeno of Hellea. Akme Leucippe around 450, i.e. he lived around the same time as

Sophists
By the time Democritus lived, in the 5th century, a revival of political, economic and state life began to be observed in the Greek city-states. Policies began to lead a more active life, Mr.

Socratic schools
Starting with today's lecture, we will study the philosophy of the post-Socratic period. We got acquainted briefly with the philosophy of Socrates, with what revolution Socrates introduced into the understanding of philosophy, se

Megara School
The Megarian school was founded by Euclid, a faithful student of Socrates. After the death of Socrates, the disciples hid in the city of Megara, which was located 40 km from Athens. Euclid lived there. Plato also

Cynic school
The most famous Socratic school is the school of cynics, or, in Latin transcription, cynics. This school received its name from the name of the area near Athens - Kinosarga, where

Cyrenaica
The founder of the Cyrenian school was Aristippus from Cyrene, a small town in North Africa. According to Aristippus and his school, happiness is attainable only on a personal level. In this he is similar to the Cynics. Every hour

Life and works
However, the most famous student of Socrates is Plato. The real name of this philosopher is Aristocles. "Plato" is a nickname, from the Greek. words platus - wide. Someone says that Plato himself was fat

The doctrine of ideas
So, we got acquainted with the dialogue “Theaetetus”, in which Plato proved the impossibility of knowing the truth by the method of sensory perception. Subsequently, these same arguments will be used by philosophers

Teaching about the soul
The theory of knowledge and the theory of ideas are closely connected with the doctrine of the soul. You remember that Plato recognizes the soul as immortal. Moreover, he believes that the soul is immortal in both directions. The soul has always existed

Doctrine of the state
In the dialogue "State", in which Plato tries to answer the question of what justice is, these components of the soul are considered in application to an ideal, just state. Go

Cosmology
Plato expounded his doctrine of the universe, the origin of the world and the universe in the Timaeus dialogue. This dialogue turned out to be the only one that became widespread in the Middle Ages, and many

Platonism and Christianity
I want to set you up for a correct understanding of Plato's philosophy. It is extremely close in many respects to Christianity. Plato, like Christianity, affirms the eternity of the soul, the priority of the ideal

Life and works
Aristotle is one of the outstanding representatives of the philosophical thought of antiquity. The philosophy of Aristotle had an influence on subsequent thought incomparable with the influence of any other philosopher, in degree

Basic axiom of philosophy
But in order to build a philosophy correctly, it is necessary to start philosophizing correctly, and for this it is necessary to find that axiom that is obvious and indisputable. Need to find the truth

Doctrine of the Four Causes
Let's continue our acquaintance with the philosophy of Aristotle. Today's lecture will be devoted to one topic: "Aristotle's doctrine of 4 reasons." Through this overarching theme, I will try to

Physics of Aristotle
From the Aristotelian classification of sciences, we remember the existence of physics, the second philosophy, which deals with the study of entities that exist independently, but move. Because movement is possible

Aristotle's doctrine of the soul
Aristotle defines the soul in accordance with his concepts set forth in the Metaphysics, and gives several definitions of it. "The soul is an entelechy (purposefulness, purposefulness

Theory of knowledge
The psychology of Aristotle is connected with his epistemology, with his doctrine of knowledge. In the 3rd book of the treatise "On the Soul" the doctrine of knowledge is expounded, although in "Metaphysics" (1 ch. 1 book.) Arist

Ethics of Aristotle
The ethics of Aristotle largely follows from his psychology and is based on his doctrine of the types of the soul. Ethics is set forth in the treatises "Nicomachean Ethics", "Eudemic Ethics", "Great e

Doctrine of the state
In connection with the doctrine of the family, Aristotle considers the state as an entelechy of the family. He believes that the state arises when several families unite in a hostel. Athens ascend

Hellenistic philosophy
The beginning of this philosophy coincides with the activities of Alexander the Great, with the departure of the Greek city-states from the arena and with the formation of an empire. Life changes, its usual pace is disturbed. Appeared

Stoicism
The philosophy of the Stoics is similar to the philosophy of Epicurus in its materialistic orientation, but differs from it. The philosophy of the Stoics is divided into 3 periods: 1. Ancient Stoa from the 4th century to the 2nd century. BC;

Antique skepticism
The philosophy of ancient skepticism lasted quite a long time and was the most influential trend in philosophy for many, many centuries - from the 4th century BC. to 3-4 centuries after R.Kh.

Life and treatises
Although not as well known to the layman as Socrates, Plato or Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher Plotinus (III century after A.D.) may well be put on a par with the just named geniuses

Approach to Plotinus' philosophy
Understanding the philosophy of Plotinus is very, very difficult, because Plotinus himself did not seek to expound it systematically (as we would have the right to expect from the philosophers of the 17th or 18th century). Many

Soul Immortality
Realizing the complexity of this problem, Plotinus does not solve it immediately. First, he proves that our soul still has a divine origin, different from the material world. Explore the soul

From self-knowledge to knowledge of the world
The material, sensible world, therefore, turns out to be not an all-encompassing being, but only one of the types of being. The immaterial, intelligible soul represents a completely different species. Arises

One, Mind, Soul
Most of the treatises, the entire sixth Ennead, Plotinus devotes to the description of the one, he devotes the fifth Ennead to the description of the mind, and the fourth - to the description of the soul. Plotinus considers the unity as if from two sides.

The doctrine of man
One of the main problems of Plotinus is the problem of human existence in this world, disastrous and impudent (the latter definition is a conditional translation of the Greek word tolma, which means daring

Theodicy
But why does evil still exist in the world, why is evil necessarily generated in the world? Plotinus thinks a lot about this question in his various treatises, and one of them is called: "On

Porfiry
Porphyry (232 - after 301) was a student of Plotinus and publisher of his treatises. In addition, Porfiry owns many original works. Blzh. Augustine in his main work "On the City of God"

Proclus and the end of ancient philosophy
Proclus (410-485), a representative of the Athenian school of Neoplatonism, is perhaps the most famous and most prolific of all these philosophers (according to experts, Proclus wrote more than all

medieval philosophy
At the end of the second century, the Christian Church was strengthened, and new tasks arose before Christian theology. Christianity begins not only to defend itself from paganism, Judaism and from the authorities - there are

Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (150-215) was born in Alexandria, a Roman province in northern Africa. It is interesting in that for the first time he tried to develop a proper Christian philosophy, to combine the philosophy

Tertullian
We see another approach to this problem in Tertullian, a younger contemporary of Clement of Alexandria. Tertullian also came from North Africa, from Carthage (160-220). Both as a person and

Life and works
Bliss. Augustine (or Latin: St. Aurelius Augustine) is not just one of the outstanding philosophers of the Middle Ages, but a philosopher who laid the foundation for the entire medieval method of philosophizing. Before Augustine

Relation to ancient philosophy
To understand the philosophy of Augustine, one must first of all understand his attitude to ancient philosophy. In the 7th book of "The City of God" Augustine sets out his attitude to ancient Greek philosophy in

Faith and reason
In Monologues, Augustine says: "I desire to know God and the soul." - "And nothing more"? Augustine asks and answers: “Absolutely nothing. In these words the key to the whole

Refutation of skepticism. Self-knowledge as the starting point of philosophizing
Augustine, in his conception of truth, proceeds from the phrase spoken by the Savior: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." Therefore, Augustine is sure that the problem of the existence of truth and knowledge

Theory of knowledge. Sense cognition
Augustine also makes the transition to the knowledge of God on the basis that, following Plotinus and other ancient philosophers, he shares the thesis that like is known by like. Therefore, if God is not a mother

Ontology
In addition to the fact that the Divine intelligible world is truth, this same world, according to Augustine, is being. This world does not have any non-existence in itself, it is eternal, does not change, is not destroyed, and always

The doctrine of time
Our world and our soul change in time. The problem of time for Augustine is one of the main ones; he devotes almost the entire 11th book of the Confessions to it. He starts by asking the question:

Cosmology
Along with time, God creates the material world. The material world for Augustine is not non-existence, is not, as Plotinus said, "a painted corpse", hinting at the etymology of the word "kos".

The doctrine of man
But if natural evil does not exist, then there is moral evil - evil in man, evil as sin. The man, who for Augustine is also one of the main problems, Augustine interprets with that

Origin of Evil. Controversy with the Manichaeans and Pelagians. Ethics of Augustine
As we have already said, many of the problems that Augustine had in his life were related to the solution of ethical issues, namely, the origin in the world of evil. That is why Augustine was at one time

Philosophy of history
Augustine is rightly considered the philosopher who first considered the problems of history. The fact is that in antiquity there was no linear idea of ​​time. The universe was presented as written by Ger

Dionysius the Areopagite
Any person who has read the Acts of the Apostles is well aware of the name of Dionysius, the first Bishop of Athens. Nothing was known about his works until the Council of Constantinople

Apophatic and cataphatic theology
The main problem for Dionysius the Areopagite is the problem of the knowledge of God and the unity of man and God. Dionysius the Areopagite offers two possible ways of knowing God: cataphatic and apophatic.

Origin of evil
Speaking of God as good, Dionysius sharply poses the problem of evil. Since if the world is created by God, then it is not clear where the evil comes from in the world. We remember that this problem was also acute for Augustine. It's clear that

Life and works
John Scotus Eriugena (or Erigena) was born around 810 and lived until around 877. He was a native of Ireland, as indicated by both of his names: Scot, which referred to the Irish and Scots, and E

The subject of philosophy
According to Eriugena, there are no contradictions between philosophy and religion, for true philosophy is true religion. Conversely, true religion is true philosophy. Between the mind

Scholasticism
Scholasticism is, literally, school philosophy. In the future, scholasticism began to be understood as a certain way of philosophizing and theology, and even later - reflections and philosophizing on topics

Berengaria
Let us turn to specific representatives of scholastic philosophy. Sometimes scholasticism begins with John Scotus Eriugena, whom we spoke about last time, but more often - with thinkers who lived in XI

Peter Damiani
The opposite position in the dispute between faith and reason was taken by Peter Damiani (1007-1072). He believed that it is possible to know God only by faith, and if the mind can be useful, then only as a

Other lesser-known Catholic philosophers of the xi-xi centuries
In addition to Anselm of Canterbury, a number of other philosophers, his contemporaries, should be noted. In particular, we should mention Peter of Lombardy, the author of four books of "Sentences". These books are famous for

Pierre Abelard
The dispute about universals received the greatest expression in the philosophy of Peter, or Pierre, Abelard (1079-1142). It was a tragic and paradoxical personality. On the one hand, Abelard was sentenced to two

Chartres school
The Chartres school was founded in 990 by Fulbert, who, for his love of ancient philosophy and philosophy in general, was called "Socrates". Thanks to Fulbert, a hundred

Bernard of Clairvaux
In addition to attempts to harmonize science and philosophy, there was another direction in Western scholasticism - mystical. The main representative of medieval Western mysticism is Bernard Clé

Saint Victor School
The main representative of the Saint-Victorian school was the abbot of this monastery, Hugh of Saint-Victor (1096-1141), a younger contemporary of Bernard of Clairvaux. Hugh of Saint-Victor considered Bernard as his teachers

Arabic philosophy
It is impossible to know the Catholic philosophy of subsequent centuries without knowing Arabic Muslim philosophy. Therefore, let's go back several centuries and mentally transport ourselves to the Arab world. Those

Al Kindi
Philosophy also developed at this time, mainly as an application of Aristotelian and Platonic principles to the provisions of Muslim theology. One of the first Arab philosophers was Al-Kindi (800

Al-Farabi
A little later, Al-Kindi lived another philosopher, important for understanding Arabic philosophy - Al-Farabi (870-750). He was born on the territory that is now in southern Kazakhstan, then moved

Ibn Sina
The most prominent thinker after Al-Farabi was the famous Arab thinker Ibn Sina, better known as Avicenna. His full name is Abu Ali Hussein Ibn-Sina, through the Jewish reading, as Ave

Al Ghazali
One of these philosophers, or rather even theologians, was Al-Ghazali (1059-1111). His full name was Abu Hamid Mohammed ibn Mohammed Al Ghazali. He was born and lived permanently in Persia, in the territory of the present

Ibn Rushd
By the XII century, the Arab Muslim world was expanding significantly, by this time both the north of Africa and Spain had already been conquered. The ideas of Muslim thinkers through Spain, closely connected with the rest

Catholicism in the 13th century
Serious events took place in the Catholic world in the 13th century, which led to significant changes in the way of thinking, and in theology, and in philosophy. This is due to the influence

Latin Averroism. Seager of Brabant
This situation leads to a serious philosophical and theological crisis in the Western world. The situation was largely due to the activities of the master of the Faculty of Arts of the Paris University

Bonaventure
But before turning to the analysis of the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, we first consider the philosophy of Bonaventure (1217-1274), a contemporary of Siger of Brabant and Thomas Aquinas. Born in Italy, at birth and

The struggle of the Catholic Church against Averroism
Today we will talk about Thomas Aquinas. First, a few preliminary remarks. Thanks to the efforts of the Latin Averroists - Siger of Brabant, Jean Zhandin and others - a very

Life and works
However, the decisive role in the assimilation of Aristotelian ideas by the Catholic Church belongs to another Dominican monk - Thomas Aquinas. He was born in 1225 or 1226 and died on March 7, 1274.

The subject of philosophy
Thomas Aquinas begins practically all the problems that he begins to explore by setting out all possible points of view, including those that are impartial for the Catholic Church. In this plan

Evidence for the Existence of God
Evidence for the existence of God thus becomes one of the main subjects of philosophy. Thomas Aquinas offers five proofs for the existence of God. All of this evidence is cosmological.

Metaphysics
About God, Thomas Aquinas says much the same thing as the previous Church Fathers. So, in particular, Thomas repeats the Areopagitics a lot, that the essence of God is hidden, it is impossible to know anything about Him

The doctrine of man
A serious problem for Christian theology in all ages has been the problem of man. After Augustine assimilated Platonic philosophy into Christianity, it was believed that the essence

Epistemology
The theory of knowledge of Thomas Aquinas is also largely built on the theory of knowledge of Aristotle. Since the soul is the form of the body, and a person cognizes not the individual, but the general, i.e. what is the shape of t

social philosophy
According to Aquinas, the state should promote the moral state of a person. Thomas explores various concepts of the state, counting six forms (like Aristotle) ​​- three correct and three n

roger bacon
Roger Bacon (1214-1292) - a contemporary of Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas. Nicknamed "The Amazing Doctor". Studied in England, at Oxford University, taught at one time at the University of Paris

John duns cattle
In the 13th century, another Franciscan monk stands out - John Duns Scotus, one of the most prominent philosophers of the 13th century. John Duns Scotus, like Roger Bacon, came from Great Britain, from Scotland

William occam
The next Franciscan thinker is William of Ockham (c. 1300-1349/50). Just like the previous two philosophers, William of Ockham was born in Great Britain, not far from London, studied and

How to deduce the existence of God through the concept of God?

How was the "legal theory of the atonement" popular in Western theology formulated? Who was the first to give an ontological proof of the existence of God and what is its essence? And why, based on the concept, for example, of Santa Claus, it is impossible to prove the existence of this fairy-tale character with the help of an ontological argument? By Viktor Petrovich Lega.

The first really major theologian and philosopher of the era is usually called Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury. He is known not only as a saint of the Catholic Church, but also as the author of the so-called "juridical theory of atonement", adopted by the Catholic Church, as well as by some Orthodox theologians.

"Second Augustine"

Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) was born in the small Italian town of Aosta. After the death of his mother, he left his native places, wandered for several years; having got to the north of France, to Normandy, he stayed here, having entered the Benedictine Beksky monastery. The Benedictine monastic order in the Catholic Church is known as an order with a rather strict monastic rule. The motto of this order is: "Work and pray." So the choice of the monastery already speaks of Anselm's spiritual inclinations. Perhaps the choice was also influenced by the fact that in the middle of the 11th century Lanfranc, who was then abbot of the monastery, founded the famous monastic school in which Anselm studied the seven liberal sciences.

In 1078, he became abbot - rector of the Beck monastery, and in 1093 he was appointed bishop of Canterbury - after the death of Lanfranc, who had headed this department for more than 20 years. Anselm opposed the appointment to the Canterbury See: he liked the quiet life in the monastery, where he could indulge in theological and philosophical works, more. But I had to obey and go to England.

By the way, the very choice of Anselm to this chair testifies to the great authority that he already had by that time. The nickname "Second Augustine" even stuck to him. Indeed, Anselm followed this great father of the Church, without inventing anything new, trying to find the correct, dogmatically verified truth in the works of Blessed Augustine. And, as we remember, Blessed Augustine himself often doubted, changed his point of view. But since Augustine was one of the greatest Fathers of the Church and, for the Western Church, the most authoritative, it was essential to develop a clear theological opinion on every subject.

Anselm writes a number of works devoted to free will: “On the freedom of choice”, “On the agreement of the foreknowledge, predestination and grace of God with the freedom of choice”, “On the will”, “On the will of God”; among other works - "On Truth", "On the Trinity", etc. In the famous work "Why God Became Man" Anselm offers his famous "legal theory of redemption". From a philosophical point of view - although, I think, Anselm himself would be very surprised if he knew that his works and views were discussed in the course of the history of philosophy - the most interesting are the works "Monologue" ("Monologion") and "Addition to the Monologue" ( Proslogion). These works are so famous that often their titles are not even translated. Particularly interesting is Proslogion.

The Incarnation as an apology to Himself

A few words about the "juridical theory of atonement". Many Christians know Anselm precisely as the author of this point of view.

God turns out to be within the framework of the norms established by Himself, as if the law is higher than Divine love

The question stands as it is indicated in the title of the work: why did God become a man? What was the need for the incarnation of God, His death and His resurrection? And here we must remember the original sin, which, as you know, consisted in the fact that Adam and Eve disobeyed God - in the words of Anselm, "offended God." And an insult requires an apology. Using a secular, everyday example, Anselm explains it this way: if someone stole something, then “it is not enough just to return what was stolen: more must be returned for the insult than was stolen. So, if someone harms the health of another, it is not enough that he only restores health - there must also be some kind of compensation for the insult that caused suffering. If the insult was inflicted on God, then the apology, the satisfaction must be endless. And so the situation turns out to be a stalemate: none of the people, even all of humanity taken together, can bring this apology. But God wants to forgive a person. How to be? How can this impossible, endless apology of mankind still be brought? The way out is this: only God can forgive Himself, but since humanity needs to be forgiven, God becomes a Human in order to offer this apology on behalf of humanity. But then He must be not just a Man, but a God-man. And so, being the God-man, He offers on behalf of humanity an endless apology to Himself. This is, indeed, a legal theory, because here we operate with legal terms: crime - punishment, apology - retribution, and so on. Someone likes this theory, someone sees in it excessive legalism: God turns out to be within the framework of the norms and requirements established by Himself, as if the law is higher than Divine love. Therefore, most Orthodox theologians are critical of this theory. But this theory is accepted by Catholics, and its author is Anselm.

"I believe in order to understand"

Anselm does not doubt faith, but he wants to understand his faith

More philosophical questions are raised by Anselm in the works "Monologion" and "Proslogion". They say that they were written for the monks of the Bek Monastery, who asked their abbot to strengthen their faith so that they would have no doubts about the existence of God. And at the beginning of the Proslogion, Anselm even, as it were, asks for forgiveness from God: “I do not seek, Lord, faith, for I seek not to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. After all, I also believe that if I don’t believe, I won’t understand, ”Anselm expresses a simple thought in such a somewhat complicated language: his faith is strong, undoubted. One should not think that he doubts faith and tries to convince himself of the existence of God by some reasonable arguments. No, he believes. But he wants to understand his faith: “I believe in order to understand” or “I believe in order to understand” - this formula is often called the classical formula, which also expresses the Augustinian position on the relationship between faith and reason. Faith is primary, and reason helps us understand faith - the truth in which we believe.

In the work "Monologion" Anselm offers various arguments to prove the existence of God, which we have already met in ancient philosophy, in patristic thought - this is evidence from observation of the external material world. First of all, let's call the proof from the degrees of perfection: we constantly see in our world some objects that may seem to us more or less beautiful. But if I compare the beauty of one or another object, it means that in my mind there is an idea of ​​some ideal of beauty. Also, when I compare several people according to the degree of their mind, kindness, it is natural to assume that in my mind there is an idea of ​​some ideal mind, of ideal kindness - if this were not the case, we would not be able to compare. Therefore, there is absolute beauty, absolute goodness, absolute intelligence, absolute truth, which is God.

However, it is clear that Anselm is somewhat embarrassed by this argument and does not seem entirely convincing to him. He does not explain why - I can only guess: this argument is very subjective. Because something may seem ugly to someone, but it seems perfect to me - and we have different degrees of perfection. And someone, perhaps, is a skeptic in general and claims: there is no beauty at all, no kindness. And if I am blind, then I simply do not see this material world, its beauty and order. Well, for a skeptic, a disabled person, all paths to God are closed? - Of course no. And Anselm is looking for such a proof that could be effective for any person.

Can He who cannot not exist not exist?

And any person has a mind, so there must be such reasoning, which is based only on the arguments of the mind. This is the argument that I. Kant would later call ontological (from the word "ontology" - the doctrine of being). Anselm formulated it in his Proslogion. He puts it quite briefly and in complex language, but it will take me a little more time and words and simpler language to explain its essence.

Anselm's proof begins with the verse of Psalm 13: "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'"

Anselm begins with the first verse of Psalm 13: "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" There can be no superfluous words in a psalm. It doesn't say, let's say, "A certain man said, 'There is no God,'" but it says, "The madman said." If the psalmist uses precisely this word - "madman", then, - Anselm concludes, - in the phrase "There is no God" there is madness, and only a madman can say such words. And who is that crazy? we ask. Probably, this is a person who, in all seriousness, declares some nonsense. Let's say if I say that a square is round, and present some mathematical evidence for this, this will probably indicate that I'm out of my mind. Because a square cannot be round. Therefore, in the very phrase "There is no God" we must find the same contradiction, absurdity.

It is impossible even to conceive of the non-existence of God: He not only exists, He cannot not exist.

The word “God is clear to every person. Therefore, to the question: “Does God exist?” - immediately gives the answer: "God does not exist." He does not ask, "What is God?" or “Who is God?” - this word - "God" - is immediately clear to him. This is exactly what Anselm relies on - on clarity or, as we would say in Platonic language - the innate concept of God for each person. Every man, Anselm declares, by the word "God" means the same thing: God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived. But then a paradox arises: if in the mind of any person, even an atheist, there is the concept of God, the concept of that, greater than which nothing can be conceived, but there is no God Himself, then I can conceive something more, that is, existing besides that. what is in my mind, and then it turns out that God, who is only in my mind, can be more if He really exists. But God cannot be greater than Himself - God is already that, greater than which nothing can be conceived. And so Anselm concludes: “For if that, more than which nothing can be conceived, can be thought as something that does not exist, then it follows that that same thing, more than which nothing can be conceived, is not that, more than which nothing can be conceived.” , which is a clear contradiction. That is, God cannot exist. So even His non-existence is impossible to conceive: He not only exists, He cannot not exist. This is the meaning of the ontological proof of the existence of God.

It arouses some bewilderment in a person who first meets him: either this is some kind of sophistical trick, or scholastic wisdom, or some kind of gross mistake is hidden here. But this proof will be very popular indeed. There is a famous textbook on the history of Western philosophy, written in the twentieth century by the famous British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell, also famous for being an ardent atheist. So, I was struck at the time by the words that he wrote before proceeding to the presentation of the ontological proof. He writes: "It is clear that a piece of evidence with such a glorious history is worthy of respect, whether it is valid or not." Russell, as an atheist, is convinced that it is false, but the beauty and logic of this argument compels him to write such words.

This proof will then be refuted by many, for example, Thomas Aquinas, Kant. It will have famous supporters: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, and even the great mathematician of the 20th century, Kurt Gödel. This proof will gain immense popularity in Russian theological thought: for example, the head of the philosophy department of the Moscow Theological Academy, Archpriest Theodore Golubinsky, writes: “The argument of the truth of the existence of God, derived from the idea of ​​an infinitely perfect Being, is more excellent, more complete than others.” Why? – I think we will deal with this in our subsequent conversations.

Why God exists, but Santa Claus does not

Anselm answered Gaunilo that he does not notice the difference between two concepts, two types of thinking: adequate and symbolic - today we would talk about logical thinking and imagination: scientific, logical thinking corresponds to adequate, and fantasy, imagination corresponds to symbolic. I imagined the islands of the blessed in my mind - I have a good fantasy, I can assume that perhaps there are such islands. But I can neither indicate their geographical position, nor explain what exactly is the bliss of the people who live there, I can not. I cannot say what the climate is like there, what the political system is, what is the life expectancy of these people, and so on. Yes, and each person has his own concept of bliss. So it's fantasy. This is symbolic thinking.

And the proof can work only in the field of adequate or, as we would say today, scientific thinking. Everyone agrees that God is something greater than which nothing can be conceived, and therefore it is only from this, so to speak, definition (of course, Anselm understands that this is not a definition, this is some description) and the existence of God follows. That is, this argument is valid only to prove the existence of God. Not to prove the existence of the islands of the blessed, nor, as some not very smart atheists ironically, to prove the existence of Santa Claus, Baba Yaga and anything else - but you never know what concept I have in my mind! - it is not applicable. Anselm clearly explains: it is suitable only for proving the existence of God, because only from this expression: “God is that, greater than which nothing can be conceived,” and His existence follows.

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See also

Victor Lega Blessed Augustine
Part 3. How not to get entangled in the web of freedom
Victor Lega
About why there is only good, and evil ... no; what is freedom - the right to choose, as Pelagius argued, or independence, and why order is needed in love.