Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that studies the problems of the nature of cognition and its possibilities, the relationship of knowledge to reality, explores the general prerequisites for cognition, and identifies the conditions for its reliability and truth. The theory of knowledge as a philosophical discipline analyzes the general grounds that make it possible to consider the cognitive result as knowledge expressing the real, true state of things.
The history of the theory of knowledge proves that this area of philosophy in more than others, is associated with science, acting in a number of cases as a critical analysis and interpretation (not always, of course, adequate) of scientific data. However, epistemology is not identical to some kind of metascience. It took shape as a sphere of philosophical knowledge long before the advent of modern science; besides, not every metascientific research is epistemological in nature. As an analysis of the logical structure of a particular scientific theory(e.g., metamathematics, metalogics, etc.), and the study of connections between the elements of the language of entire classes of scientific theories (the so-called logical analysis of the language of science) using the apparatus of modern formal logic, are not in themselves epistemological studies. The epistemological interpretation of science begins where theoretical constructions are interpreted from the point of view of their correspondence to reality, truth, the ability to attribute the status of existence to one or another abstract object used in the theory, the ability to evaluate as analytical or synthetic one or another statement of this scientific field. Such a study is associated with an analysis of the content of empirical data that confirms the theory in terms of their validity, the presence of reliable and problematic knowledge in them. The epistemological interpretation of specific scientific theories acts, on the one hand, as an application of some general principles of the theory of knowledge to the analysis of special cases, on the other hand, as a kind of assimilation of new scientific results to clarify and sometimes revise some general epistemological postulates. The development of science may require a new epistemological interpretation.
Gnoseology appeared as a part of philosophy somewhat later than ontology, originated in antiquity. The condition for the emergence of epistemology was the transition from the view of cognition as a natural process inherent in human nature, to the idea of control over cognitive activity. Stages in the development of epistemology are associated with the expansion of the range of factors of cognition under consideration. The first stage: at first, cognition was considered as an activity of the mind, therefore, the technique of thinking was studied and the main epistemological discipline was logic. The second stage: approximately from the 17th century. sensual, practical experience, the connection between mind and feelings, technologies for experimental experimental research are studied, and methodology becomes the main epistemological discipline. Third stage: in the XX century. the diversity of methods and foundations of cognition is taken into account, a number of new epistemological disciplines are being formed: phenomenology, the theory of implicit knowledge, semiotics, hermeneutics.
Human cognition proceeds in two main forms, which we consider as aspects of cognitive activity: sensory cognition and rational cognition.
Sense cognition- direct receipt of information through the senses and activities nervous system. Preservation and processing of knowledge in reality in the form of visual images.
Rational knowledge - abstract-logical thinking; comprehension of reality by generalized symbolic sign means.
Features of human cognitive activity are mainly associated with the ability to rational knowledge. Sensory cognition is approximately the same in humans and higher animals. The basic operations of cognitive activity (distinguishing, combining data, comparison) are the same for sensory and rational cognition.
The main forms of sensory cognition are sensation, perception, representation. Sensation is a sensual reflection of individual aspects of an object. Perception is a holistic image of an object. Representation - the preservation of a holistic image without contact with the object and the ability to produce it.
The main forms of rational cognition are the concept, judgment, and conclusion. A concept is a thought about an object that reproduces in an abstract form some object, phenomena, properties, relations. Judgment - a thought that establishes a connection between concepts, can be true or false. An inference is a connection of judgments in which others are derived from some judgments - new ones.
Knowledge can be viewed as:
one of the basic human needs (the need for information);
· one of the forms of the universal property of mathematical objects - reflection.
Reflection is a property of mathematical objects to change in accordance with the influence exerted on them and to keep these changes after the termination of the influence. Cognition as a reflection is divided into ideal, selective, realized in sign form. The latter can be defined in terms of implementation methods as the creation, preservation and interpretation of sign systems. This is how semiotics sees cognition. Semiotics defines a sign in general as an object that represents and replaces another object that does not coincide with it, but carries information about it. Three types of signs are revealed: image, index, symbol. Index - symbol, which preserves only the figurative structure of the object, for example, a scale plan. A symbol is a designation of an object in a fundamentally different way compared to its own nature.
In the structure of scientific knowledge, two levels of knowledge are distinguished - empirical and theoretical. The empirical and theoretical levels have a complex organization.
On the empirical level distinguish observations (primary information) and facts (reliable and objective information obtained as a result of processing observations, while establishing the fact requires the application of theoretical provisions). Observational data - always recorded in a specific language; moreover, this is a language that uses not only ordinary concepts, but also scientific terms. Empirical knowledge involves the formation of a scientific fact based on observational data. A scientific fact arises as a result of a very complex processing of observational data: their comprehension, understanding, interpretation.
Organization of the theoretical level of knowledge:
1. Particular theoretical models and laws - theories related to a limited field of phenomena.
2. A developed theory is a generalizing theoretical model that covers all special cases, and in relation to it a certain set of laws is formulated that act as generalizing in relation to all particular theoretical laws.
Mastering reality by a variety of methods, scientific knowledge goes through different stages. Each of them corresponds to a certain form of knowledge development. The main of these forms are fact, theory, problem (task), hypothesis, program.
The question of the use of induction and deduction as methods of cognition has been discussed throughout the history of philosophy. Induction was most often understood as the movement of knowledge from facts to statements of a general nature, and under deduction - the movement of thought from general statements to less general ones, including statements about individual subjects. In modern scientific knowledge, the opposition of induction and deduction as methods of cognition loses its meaning, since they are not considered as the only methods. In cognition important role other methods play, as well as techniques, principles and forms (for example, abstraction, idealization, problem, hypothesis, etc.).
Theoretically ideal objects serve as the main means of theoretical research. They are also called idealized objects. These are special abstractions that contain the meaning of theoretical terms. No theory is built without the use of such objects. Their examples are a material point, a rigid body.
In a theoretical study, special methods are used: idealization (the method of an idealized object); a mental experiment with an idealized object, which, as it were, replaces a real experiment with a real object; theory construction methods; methods of logical and historical research.
The layer of theoretical knowledge reveals such interconnected formations as a theoretical model that explains phenomena and a law that is formulated in relation to the model. The model includes idealized objects and links between them. For example: if oscillations of real pendulums are studied, then in order to find out the laws of their motion, the idea of an ideal pendulum as a material point is introduced. Then another object is introduced - a frame of reference (an ideal representation of a physical laboratory equipped with a clock and a ruler). And one more ideal object - force (abstraction of interaction of bodies).
There are quite a lot of data that characterize cognition not as a passive perception, but as an active process.
1. Purposefulness - cognition is always a focus on certain aspects of reality. In relation to science, Heisenberg gives the following formulation: "Nature answers us, but her answer always depends on the question we asked."
2. Efficiency - any cognitive act consists of a series of actions, operations.
3. Separation from the immediate given: a) the transition from phenomena to essence; b) foresight and forecasting.
As a result, the result of cognition - the epistemological image of the object - has three components:
subject aspect - the actual reflection of the object, knowledge about it;
operational aspect - knowledge of the procedures by which the object was studied;
evaluative aspect - knowledge about the possible use of the object, the attitude of a person to this object.
The idea of an object always consists of these three aspects. Only the first aspect depends on the influence of the surrounding world. The second and third aspects are determined by the knowing side.
The modern view of knowledge is its consideration as an activity. The activity interpretation of cognition involves the allocation of three fundamental components in its composition: object, subject, subject. The object is what the activity is aimed at. An object is a part of an object that directly interacts. The subject is the one who carries out the activity, its carrier. The subject can be a person or a social group.
Modern epistemology considers the study of the subject of knowledge to be one of the main directions. The subject of knowledge is characterized by:
level of initial knowledge;
Skills and methods of knowledge;
an idea of the possible results of a cognitive act and ways to evaluate them;
the goals of cognition and ideas about the purpose of knowledge.
The last two characteristics are cognitive orientations. Since cognitive orientations are formed in society, in a culture of a certain type and change historically, there is a cultural and historical loading of the subject of knowledge.
1. Sense cognition based on sensual sensations reflecting reality. Through the senses, a person is in contact with the outside world. The main forms of sensory cognition are: sensation, perception and representation. Sensation is an elementary subjective image of objective reality. A specific feature of sensations is their homogeneity. Any sensation gives information about only one qualitative side of the object.
A person is able to significantly develop in himself the subtlety and sharpness of feelings, sensations.
Perception is a holistic reflection, an image of objects and events of the surrounding world.
Representation is a sensual recollection of an object, which in this moment does not act on a person, but once acted on his senses. Because of this, the image of an object in representation, on the one hand, is of a poorer character than in sensations and perceptions, and on the other hand, a purposeful character is more strongly manifested in it. human knowledge.
2. rational cognition is based on logical thinking, which is carried out in three forms: concepts, judgments, conclusions.
A concept is an elementary form of thought in which objects are displayed in their general and essential properties and features. Concepts are objective in content and source. Allocate specific abstract concepts that differ in degrees of generality.
Judgments reflect the connections and relationships between things and their properties, operate with concepts; judgments deny or affirm something.
Inference is a process, as a result of which a new judgment is obtained with logical necessity from several judgments.
3. intuitive knowledge is based on the fact that a sudden decision, the truth independently comes to a person at an unconscious level, without prior logical proof.
Cognition differs in its depth, level of professionalism, use of sources and means. Ordinary and scientific knowledge are distinguished. The former are not the result professional activity and, in principle, are inherent in one way or another to any individual. The second type of knowledge arises as a result of a highly specialized, highly specialized activity called scientific knowledge.
Subject of knowledge- is the carrier of subject- practical activities and knowledge, the source of cognitive activity aimed at the subject of knowledge.
The subject of cognition can be both a separate person (individual) and various social groups (society as a whole). In the case when the subject of cognition is an individual, then his self-consciousness (the experience of his own “I”) is determined by the whole world of culture created throughout human history. Successful cognitive activity can be carried out under the condition of the active role of the subject in the cognitive process.
Object of knowledge- this is what opposes the subject, to which his practical and cognitive activity is directed.
The object is not identical to objective reality, matter. The object of knowledge can be both material formations (chemical elements, physical bodies, living organisms), and social phenomena (society, the relationship of people, their behavior and activities). The results of cognition (experimental results, scientific theories, science in general) can also become an object of cognition. Thus, things, phenomena, processes that exist independently of a person, which are mastered either in the course of practical activity or in the course of cognition, become objects. In this regard, it is clear that the concepts of object and subject differ from each other. The subject is only one side of the object to which the attention of any science is directed.
The concept of an object is broader in scope than the concept of an object. Since the emergence of philosophy, the problem of the relation of the subject to the object, as the relation of the knower to the known, has always been at the center of attention of philosophers. The explanation of the causes and nature of this relationship has undergone a complex evolution, going from extreme opposition of subjective reliability, self-consciousness of the subject and the world of objective reality (Descartes), to the identification of a complex dialectical relationship between subject and object in the course of cognitive activity. The subject itself and its activity can be correctly understood only with regard to specific socio-cultural and historical conditions, taking into account the mediation of the subject's relations with other subjects. Scientific knowledge presupposes not only the conscious relation of the subject to the object, but also the conscious relation of the subject to himself (reflection).
From the concepts of "subject" and "object" the terms "subjective" and "objective" are formed.
Cognition is woven into everyday human life and occurs as if by itself, "naturally", without visible effort on the part of a person. Just as a person does not think about what organs and systems provide his breathing, digestion, movement and other vital functions, he does not think about how cognition is carried out. But this "naturalness" does not mean at all that the process of cognition is spontaneous, unsystematic and aimless. Like most processes, it has a structure, that is, it can be considered as a sequence of separate elements connected into a single whole. The structural components of cognition are the subject, the object and what connects them, that is, the process of cognition itself.
The subject of cognition is the one who cognizes, that is, is the source of cognitive activity. The subject is always a specific person, immersed in a certain socio-historical environment and possessing many individual characteristics. These characteristics must be taken into account when analyzing cognitive activity. Obviously, in the course of cognition, the subject relies on the knowledge that he received as a person integrated into a certain socio-cultural environment. Many generations of people who lived before him took part in the development of this knowledge, and therefore it can be argued with good reason that in the person of a particular individual, the collective humanity acts as the subject of knowledge. For example, to formulate a theorem that establishes the relationship between the sides of a triangle, known as the Pythagorean theorem, it took millennia of intuitive searches, and the current student masters this theorem in one lesson. The same can be said about most physical laws. This is not due to the fact that modern student smarter than Pythagoras or Newton, but by the fact that each subsequent generation has the opportunity not to discover the world anew, but to use the fruits of the cognitive efforts of their predecessors.
The subject of cognition is also influenced by other factors of biological and sociocultural origin. The 17th-century English philosopher Francis Bacon summarized these factors into four types, calling them the "ghosts" (idols) of knowledge. To characterize the subject of cognition, the first two "ghosts of cognition" - "kinds" and "caves" - are of interest.
"Ghosts of the Kind" includes species features man given to him by nature. Vision, hearing, smell, touch in a person allow us to perceive the world in a certain perspective: he sees the world differently than a dog or an eagle sees it, his threshold of sensitivity to smell is lower than that of most animals, he perceives far from all the sounds that he can perceive animals and birds. Since the senses are the main channel for receiving information about the outside world, people are forced to "enhance" their sensory perception abilities with the help of various devices: microscopes, telescopes, sound amplifiers, odor analyzers, etc.
"Ghosts of the cave" are the specific characteristics of an individual, inherent only to him and including features of origin, upbringing and education, profession.
The influence of specific and individual factors on the process of cognition is confirmed by many studies, especially when it comes to social and humanitarian knowledge.
The object of knowledge is a part of the external or internal world, to which cognitive activity is directed. In the broad sense of the word, an object is that which opposes the subject in the process of cognition. It is customary to distinguish an object from an object - a part of the object on which cognitive interest is focused. For example, the object of knowledge can be the social life of people, and the subject can be relations within a certain team regarding the distribution of responsibilities and the results of joint activities.
For cognition, the nature of the object is of fundamental importance, that is, whether it has a natural or artificial origin. Natural objects that do not contain subjective, value components are cognized differently than artifacts, that is, objects created by people that include people's value preferences. Knowing social and cultural objects, we must necessarily take into account the fact that such objects were created by specific people who lived in a specific era and realized their individual and socially conditioned ideas about a decent life in social and cultural activities. This means that the goal of sociocultural knowledge is explication (clarification ) value preferences and motives that guided people involved in the creation of society and culture.
The process of cognition in a simplified form can be represented as a procedure in the course of which the object, which is opposed to the subject, reveals its content to the latter, becomes identical to it. That is, the properties, composition and other characteristics of the object are reproduced by the subject in the form of a cognitive image, concept, conceptual scheme. Until the 18th century, philosophy was dominated by the so-called "contemplative" concept of cognition, according to which the subject simply reflects the object, without introducing something of its own, subjective, into the process and result of cognition. In other words, the subject of cognition in this concept is content with the role of a kind of mirror, trying to reflect the object opposing it as adequately as possible. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was the first to say that cognition cannot be a simple reflection of reality that exists outside the subject. He drew attention to the fact that the world has the property of infinity and therefore it is impossible for a finite subject to reflect it in his mind. A person always, whether he realizes this or not, from the very beginning actively participates in cognition, already because from the variety of reality opposing him he singles out the fragment that interests him in this case. Cognition, according to Kant, is nothing but the construction by the cognizing subject of the object that he is to cognize. The active side is the subject, acting as a constructor of cognizable reality. At the same time, he is guided by his own determined goal and value preferences that are significant for him. It turns out, at first glance, a paradoxical situation: the subject cognizes what he himself had previously constructed. In fact, Kant, speaking of cognition as the process of creating an object of cognition, had in mind the fact that cognition should be understood not as simple, passive contemplation, but as active, purposeful process, during which the subject chooses what to learn, why to learn and what methods of knowledge to use. Later, with Hegel and Marx, this approach to knowledge received further development and was called active. It is characterized by an understanding of cognition as a side of practice, that is, the recognition that cognition is performed not for the sake of idle curiosity, but to solve a specific problem. practical task, which affects the choice of the object and subject of cognition, the course of cognition and acts as one of the main criteria for checking the received knowledge for truth.
The process of cognition analyzes the branch of philosophy called epistemology(from Greek - knowledge). This is a philosophical theory that studies the general principles, forms and methods of human knowledge.
First you need to get acquainted with the content of the term "cognition". You can suggest the following: cognition is a form of reflection of the surrounding world(objective reality) by the senses and thinking (mind).
Sometimes theory of knowledge so it's called: reflection theory. This tradition comes from the French philosopher R. Descartes.
Reflection- this is the property of matter (objects) to reproduce the signs of reflected objects. The following main forms of reflection have arisen in inanimate nature: 1) mechanical reflection (a footprint in the sand, on plasticine); 2) chemical reflection (color change of litmus paper); 3) reflection of light (electromagnetic waves) - photography.
Then there is a prepsychic form of reflection. She got the name - irritability. An example is the same reaction of a sundew plant to the touch of insects or a grain of sand. Subsequently, in the process of evolution, a mental form of reflection appears (first in animals, then in humans): sensation , perception , representation . At a certain stage of human development, he has a logical reflection in such forms as concepts, judgments, conclusions .
In philosophy, there are other points of view about the essence of the process of cognition:
Plato developed the theory of knowledge as a theory of recall - anamnesis.
Sensualism - recognized the sensual form of knowledge (sensation, perception) as the main source of correct knowledge. See the philosophy of D. Locke.
Rationalism - recognized reason as the basis (main source) of correct knowledge and behavior of people. Sensory knowledge, from this point of view, leads to unreliable knowledge. See the philosophy of R. Descartes.
Irrationalism - limits or denies the ability of the mind to achieve true knowledge. From the standpoint of irrationalism, there are phenomena that cannot be known with the help of thinking. But their essence can be revealed through other means - intuition, meditation, trance, mystical insight, divine revelation.
The process of cognition is a unity of sensory and rational cognition.
Consider the content of the last position on the issue of the process of cognition: cognition is the unity of two forms of cognition: sensual And rational (logical).
Sensual cognition is a stage that allows you to reflect the world in visual images. Here knowledge is realized in three main forms: Feel, perception, representation.
Feeling- reflection by the psyche of individual properties of objects. For example, sweet, bitter, hard, soft. Through sensations, people receive information about various properties objects around them. Man has five main sense organs: sight, touch, taste, hearing, smell.
Feeling features.
1. Sense organs limited in a reflection of reality. It means that a person does not perceive everything that is around him. For the sense organs, there are certain borders. For example, with the help of vision, people perceive the world around them in a narrow range. electromagnetic oscillations from 360 to 760 millimicrons. A person does not perceive ultraviolet and infrared rays.
2. Feelings do not always match with physical and chemical properties things, phenomena that a person perceives. For example, subjectively a person hears music, but objectively there is a sound wave of a certain tone and rhythm.
3. " Transparency of sensations- it seems to us that we perceive objects, but in fact the following happens: when an object affects us, the sense organs react to certain stimuli, which take the form of an impulse propagating at a speed of 1 to 120 m / s, depending on the type of nerve fibers. The impulse reaches the higher centers of the brain, where it is converted (decoded) into a signal, which takes the form of sensations. And it seems to us that this is not a feeling, but subject.
4. Subjectivity of sensations - we know only our sensations. For example, it is almost impossible to tell a person what pain is, so that he has a feeling of pain, if he himself has never experienced such pain himself.
Perception- a holistic image of an object that affects the senses, the image of the object as a whole. Perception can arise only when: 1) several are irritated at the same time receptors. For example, visual, together with auditory and tactile; 2) changes in the effect on receptors occur synchronously. Thus, for the occurrence of sensations, it is enough to influence one receptor, such as vision. For perception to occur, at least two receptors, such as visual and tactile.
properties of perception.
1. "Selectivity of perceptions." We do not perceive everything that we perceive. Our receptor apparatus selects sensory data according to special principles and forms our perception of the world. For example, two people can differently to see the same situation, first of all, thanks to different perceived data.
2. "Global perception" - perception depends on the environment in which the object is perceived. For example, the same drawing depicting a red circle will be perceived either as a geometric figure, or as an apple, or as a ball, depending on which row (environment) it is included in: geometric figures, fruits or toys.
Representation- an image of an object, a phenomenon that a person perceived earlier, but does not interact at the moment. This is part of the information retrieved from memory stores. In the representation there are images of objects that exist in the reality. On the basis of perceptions and ideas, various new images. This feature is called imagination. It allows you to create images of objects, phenomena that do not exist in reality: goblins, Lernean hydra, fairies.
So, feelings through sensations, perceptions and ideas play an important role in the knowledge of the surrounding world.
However, their abilities in cognition limited. For example, feelings fix only external properties of objects and cannot penetrate into the depths, essence phenomena.
This function is performed by the second stage of cognition - logical, rational, or proper thinking.
Thinking- a form of reflection of reality; a way for a person to know the essential properties, connections of objects and phenomena, a means of creating new ideas.
Thinking is carried out in three forms: concept, judgment, conclusion.
concept- reflection in the generalized, logical form essential properties of phenomena and objects. Examples of concepts: number, state, animal, man, Cosmos, categorical imperative, atom. Concept is different from perception. For example, perception reflects the appearance of a particular person. The concept characterizes the essential features of a person, such as: biosociality, intelligence, creativity, freedom.
In thinking, concepts exist in a certain connection. The form of this connection is judgment. This is a form of thinking that, with the help of concepts, affirms or denies something about phenomena, objects. Examples of judgments: “Man is mortal”, “Some metals are liquid”, “Happiness is when you are understood”. In textbooks on logic, you can get acquainted with various types of judgments. Types of judgments: true and false, affirmative and negative, general, particular, singular, judgments of reality, possibilities, necessity, conditional, divisive, categorical.
The third form of logical knowledge is inference. inference- a form of thinking that allows, in the course of reasoning, to obtain new knowledge not on the basis of the existing one. In the process of inference, there is a transition from the known to the unknown by establishing a connection between judgments and deriving some judgments from others. Judgments on the basis of which conclusions are drawn are called premises. A new judgment derived from them is called a consequence or conclusion.
There are the following main types of inferences:
Inductive is a form of thinking in which a general conclusion is drawn from particular premises. For example, it has been established that copper, iron, lead, gold, and platinum conduct electricity. On this basis, we can conclude that all metals conduct electricity.
Deductive is a form of thinking in which general provisions a private conclusion is made about individual subjects. For example, the first premise: All metals conduct electricity. Second premise: Copper is a metal. Conclusion: therefore, copper conducts electricity.
So, human knowledge is carried out in the unity of two stages: sensory (sensation, perception, representation) and logical (concepts, judgments, conclusions).
1. The concept of knowledge. Cognition and knowledge. The problem of knowledge in the history of philosophy
1 The concept of knowledge
2 Cognition and knowledge
3 The problem of knowledge in the history of philosophy
The structure of knowledge. Steps, levels, forms, methods of cognition
1 Structure of knowledge
2 Stages, levels, forms, methods of cognition
Specificity of social cognition
The Problem of Truth
1. The concept of knowledge. Cognition and knowledge. The problem of knowledge in the history of philosophy
1 The concept of knowledge
Cognition is undoubtedly one of the basic human needs. Some scientists even talk about the innate curiosity or cognitive instinct of a person. Cognition, knowledge was the light that led our distant ancestors out of the darkness of savagery and barbarism onto the path of civilization and progress. And today it disperses the clouds of ignorance, prejudices, illusions and utopias of life.
Knowledge makes a person educated, and education is one of the most valuable social qualities of a person. Only an educated person can be free, only where education determines or significantly influences social status human being, democracy can flourish. Adam Smith once remarked that "a person who has been educated by hard work can be likened to expensive machines." Few people will probably like the comparison with a machine, but it certainly contains the right idea: knowledge is wealth, not only personal, but also social. The role of cognition, knowledge especially increases with the transition of society from the industrial to the post-industrial stage in its development. The main capital in this case is knowledge, embodied in information technology.
What is knowledge? Cognition is an active, creative reflection or reproduction of reality in the human mind. It can also be so: cognition is consciousness in action, the constant realization of consciousness. In cognition, a person does not just capture, passively registers information coming from outside - he actively participates in building the image of reality. The measure of objectivity (truth) of cognition is directly dependent on the activity of the cognizing subject. Knowledge is the result of the active interaction of the subject, that is, the one who knows, with the object, that is, that which is known.
The object of cognition is one or another fragment of reality, involved in the sphere of practical and cognitive activity of a person and in one way or another “signified” by it. Cognition is by nature a social process. Its real subject, therefore, is society as a whole. From the actual side, society as a subject of cognition is represented by separate individuals and research teams.
2 Cognition and knowledge
Cognition is a specific type of human spiritual activity, the process of comprehending the surrounding world. It develops and improves in close connection with social practice.
Knowledge is always perfect way reality. To know something means to have some ideal idea about the subject of interest to us.
Cognition and knowledge differ as a process and a result.
In its essence, knowledge is a reflection of the world in scientific ideas, hypotheses and theories. Reflection is usually understood as the reproduction of the properties of one object (original) in the properties of another object interacting with it (reflecting system). In the case of cognition, the scientific image of the object under study, presented in the form of scientific facts, hypotheses, and theories, acts as a reflection. There are relations of structural similarity between the reflection given in a scientific image and the object under study. This means that the elements of the image correspond to the elements of the object under study.
From millions of cognitive efforts of individuals, a socially significant process of cognition is formed. In order for individual knowledge to become public, it must go through a kind of “natural selection” (through communication between people, critical assimilation and recognition of this knowledge by society, etc.). Thus, knowledge is a socio-historical, cumulative process of obtaining and improving knowledge about the world in which a person lives.
The process of cognition is very multifaceted, as is social practice. Firstly, knowledge differs in its depth, level of professionalism, use of sources and means. From this side ordinary and scientific knowledge stand out. The former are not the result of professional activity and, in principle, are inherent in one way or another to any individual. The second kind of knowledge arises as a result of a highly specialized, highly specialized activity called scientific knowledge.
Knowledge also differs in its subject matter. The knowledge of nature leads to the formation of physics, chemistry, geology, etc., which together constitute natural science. The knowledge of the person himself and society determines the formation of the humanities and social disciplines. There is also artistic knowledge. Very specific religious knowledge, aimed at understanding the sacraments and dogmas of religion.
In cognition, logical thinking, methods and techniques for the formation of concepts, and the laws of logic play an important role. Also, an increasing role in cognition is played by imagination, attention, memory, ingenuity, emotions, will and other abilities of a person. These abilities are of no small importance in the spheres of philosophical and scientific knowledge.
It should be noted that in the process of cognition, a person uses both feelings and reason, and in close connection between themselves and other human abilities. So, the sense organs supply the human mind with data and facts about the object being known, and the mind generalizes them and draws certain conclusions.
Scientific truth never lies on the surface; moreover, first impressions of an object are known to be deceptive. Cognition is associated with the disclosure of secrets about the object being studied. Behind the obvious, what lies on the surface, science tries to reveal the non-obvious, to explain the laws of functioning of the object under study.
The cognizing subject is not a passive contemplative being, mechanically reflecting nature, but an active creative person, realizing his freedom in cognition. The question of reflection is closely connected with the question of the creative nature of cognition. Mechanical copying, wherever and by whomever it is carried out, excludes the creative freedom of the individual, for which he was criticized by many philosophers. The question was often raised: either the process of cognition is a reflection (and then there is nothing creative in it), or cognition is always creativity (and then it is not a reflection). In fact, this dilemma is essentially false. Only with superficial, unilateral and abstract understanding knowledge, when either one or another of its facets is absolutized, it is possible to oppose reflection and creativity.
Creativity is a specific human activity in which the will, purpose, interests and abilities of the subject are realized. Creativity is the creation of something new, something that has not yet been in existence. From an epistemological point of view scientific creativity is the construction of scientific images of the object under study. Imagination and intuition play an important role in creativity.
In the recent past, it was believed that cognition has two stages: sensory reflection of reality and rational reflection. Then, when it became more and more clear that in a person the sensual in a number of moments is permeated with rational, they began to come to the conclusion that the levels of cognition are empirical and theoretical, and sensual and rational are abilities on the basis of which the empirical and theoretical are formed. This representation is most adequate to the real structure of cognition, but with this approach, the initial level of cognition (sensory cognition) - “living contemplation” is not noticed, this stage is not distinguished from the empirical one. If the empirical level is characteristic only for scientific knowledge, then living contemplation takes place both in scientific and in artistic or everyday knowledge.
Mankind has always sought to acquire new knowledge. The process of mastering the secrets of being is an expression of the aspirations of the creative activity of the mind, which is the great pride of mankind. Our mind comprehends the laws of the world not for the sake of simple curiosity, but for the sake of practical transformation of both nature and man with the aim of the most harmonious living order of man in the world. The knowledge of mankind forms a complex system that acts as a social memory, its wealth is transferred from generation to generation, from people to people with the help of the mechanism of social heredity, culture.
The term "knowledge" is usually used in three senses:
-abilities, skills, skills that are based on awareness of how to do something, to implement certain ideas; -any cognitively significant information (in particular - adequate); -a special cognitive unit, an epistemological form of a person's attitude to reality, existing along with and in interconnection with a practical attitude. It should be noted that the second and third paragraphs of this definition are the subject of epistemology. 3 The problem of knowledge in the history of philosophy The branch of philosophy that studies this issue is called grosseology (the study of knowledge). Already in ancient times people posed questions: “how to know the world?”, “Is it possible to know the world at all?”. This is the second side of the main philosophical question. Can being be correctly reflected in consciousness? Thinking = being? - identity? The central problem of epistemology is the problem of the cognizability of the world. In the history of philosophy, it was solved in different ways: Skepticism (from the Greek - "look around", "look around", be indecisive) is historically the first form of solving the problem of the cognizability of the world. Skeptical motives can be found in ancient times: in the mythology of Ancient Egypt, in philosophical schools Ancient China and ancient India. From point of view famous researcher ancient philosophy and culture A.F. Losev, all ancient philosophy is thoroughly saturated with skepticism. Even before Socrates, in particular Parmenides and Heraclitus, doubted the possibilities human mind to know the true essence of things. The spirit of skepticism pervaded the philosophy of the sophists, who believed that there are no absolute values, that truth and falsehood, good and evil are relative. You can find skeptical ideas in the teachings of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. As an independent philosophical trend, skepticism appears in the 3rd century BC. in Ancient Greece. Continuing the traditions of the sophists, skeptics pointed to the relativity of human knowledge, to dependence on various conditions (life circumstances, the state of the senses, the influence of traditions and habits). The founder of skepticism is Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360 - c. 270 BC). Representatives: Timon, Carneid, Aenesidemus, Sextus Empiricus, Agrippa. Pyrrho focuses on the problems of ethics, questions of happiness and its achievement. Pyrrho understands happiness as equanimity (ataraxia) and as the absence of suffering (apathy). The means of achieving happiness is a skeptical program of attitude towards the world. The essence of the skeptical doctrine is stated in three questions: What can a person know about things? Answer: In truth, a person cannot know anything about the world; the nature of things is incomprehensible. How should a person relate to things and to the world? Answer: since the nature of things is unknowable, there is no need even to speak, to judge them. A person should refrain from any judgments about things, then adhere to the principle of "epoch" - abstinence. What benefit will a person get from such an attitude towards things? Answer: happiness, a state of serenity, peace human soul, achieving peace of mind. The representatives of skepticism are the French thinker of the 17th century R. Descartes with his “universal doubt”, and the English philosopher of the 17th century D. Hume, who prove that it is generally impossible to get out of the universal doubt. Under universal skepticism, a person will not know what actually needs to be doubted, since the knowledge of what needs to be doubted is already a certain positive knowledge. In the 20th century, the ideas of skepticism were picked up by the phenomenology of E. Husserl. The extreme version of skepticism is agnosticism, the idea that true knowledge is generally impossible and, accordingly, the world is unknowable. Agnosticism asserts that a person knows nothing about the real essence of things, since it remains outside of experience. The term "agnosticism" first appeared with the English naturalist Huxley in 1869, but the ideas of agnosticism can already be found in ancient philosophy, in particular among the sophists, Plato, in ancient skepticism. Sometimes English philosophers of the 18th century, George Berkeley, who believed that “the world is a network of only a complex of my sensations”, David Hume and the German thinker Immanuel Kant, who believed that the world is cognizable only as a “phenomenon”, a phenomenon, but never as a “thing in itself”, are sometimes considered agnostics. ", noumenon. D. Hume argued that since experience is the only source of knowledge, experience itself cannot be verified. Therefore, it seems impossible to establish the truth of the relationship between data obtained through experience and the objective world. Cognition deals only with experience and fundamentally cannot go beyond its limits, and therefore cannot judge what is the relationship between experience and reality. The world forever remains a secret and insoluble riddle for human knowledge. Epistemological optimism unites thinkers who believe in the cognizability of the world, recognizing the limitless possibilities of the human mind in comprehending objective reality. Supporters of this point of view are representatives of the French enlightenment of the XVIII century D. Diderot, K.A. Helvetius, P.D. Holbach and others, who proclaimed the ideas of the liberation of the mind from the power of religious dogmas, its infinite progress, omnipotence and omnipotence. The French enlighteners believed in the power of science, in the endless progress of mankind, in the power of upbringing and education of the masses. A similar point of view was also held by Marxist philosophy, which believed that the volume human knowledge is constantly increasing, which, despite some moments of stagnation or regression of society, leads to irreversible social progress. The Marxist theory of knowledge recognizes the existence of objective reality. The philosophy of Marxism believes in the existence of a world independent of human consciousness (“being determines consciousness”), which is adequately reflected in human consciousness (the world is fully cognizable). Marxism believes that the process of cognition is not a passive imprint of the objects of reality by consciousness, but is an active creative activity subject. The purpose of the cognitive process is to obtain true knowledge about the subject, that is, to reveal the essence of the subject, and the basis of human cognitive activity and the criterion for the truth of the knowledge obtained is practice. 2.The structure of knowledge. Steps, levels, forms, methods of cognition 1 Structure of knowledge Life knowledge. Worldly knowledge is based on observation and ingenuity, it agrees better with generally accepted life experience than with abstract scientific constructions, and is empirical in nature. This form of knowledge is based on common sense and everyday consciousness, it is an important orienting basis for the daily behavior of people, their relationship with each other and with nature. Everyday knowledge develops and enriches itself as scientific and artistic knowledge progresses; it is closely related to culture. Scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge presupposes an explanation of facts, their comprehension in the entire system of concepts of a given science. The essence of scientific knowledge is: -in understanding reality in its past, present and future; -in a reliable generalization of facts; -in the fact that behind the accidental it finds the necessary, regular, behind the individual - the general, and on this basis it carries out the prediction of various phenomena. Scientific knowledge covers something relatively simple that can be more or less convincingly proved, strictly generalized, put into the framework of laws, causal explanation, in a word, what fits into the paradigms accepted in the scientific community. Artistic knowledge. Artistic knowledge has a certain specificity, the essence of which is a holistic, rather than dissected display of the world and especially a person in the world. Sensory knowledge. Sense cognition has three forms: sensations (elementary form, it includes visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, olfactory, vibrational and other sensations); perception (a structured image consisting of several sensations); representations (an image of a phenomenon previously created or perceived by the imagination). Rational knowledge. There are three forms of rational cognition: concept, judgment and inference. A concept is an elementary form of thought, which is the result of a generalization carried out on the basis of a set of features inherent in a given class of objects. A judgment is a thought that not only correlates with a certain situation, but is also an affirmation or denial of the existence of this situation in reality. A concept and a judgment differ in that a judgment as a statement, in contrast to a concept as a statement, must necessarily be true or false. Judgment is a connection of concepts. Inference is the conclusion of new knowledge, which implies a clear fixation of the rules. The conclusion must have a proof, in the process of which the legitimacy of the emergence of a new thought is justified with the help of other thoughts. The concept, judgment and conclusion form a certain integrity in their unity, this integrity is called the mind or thinking. Intuitive knowledge. Intuitive knowledge is unconsciously obtained direct knowledge. Intuitive knowledge is divided into: sensitive (intuition - an instant feeling); rational (intellectual intuition) and eidetic (visual intuition). 2.2 Stages, levels, forms, methods of cognition empirical level of knowledge. At the empirical (experimental) level of cognition, methods are mainly used that rely on sensory-visual methods and methods of cognition, such as systematic observation, comparison, analogy, etc. Here, primary experimental material is accumulated, which requires further processing and generalization. At this level, knowledge deals with facts and their description. Theoretical level of knowledge. Only at this level does it become possible to formulate laws, which is the goal of science. To do this, you need to be able to see behind the numerous, often completely dissimilar outwardly facts, precisely the essential, and not just recurring properties and characteristics of objects and phenomena. The main task of the theoretical level of knowledge is to bring the data obtained into a coherent system and create a scientific picture of the world from them. To do this, separate sensory data are added into one integral system - theory. But when building a theory, other, higher methods of cognition are used - theoretical ones. The theoretical level of knowledge is usually divided into two types - fundamental theories and theories that describe a specific area of reality. Thus, mechanics describes material points and the relationship between them, and on the basis of its principles, various specific scientific theories are built that describe certain areas of the real world. With all the differences between the empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge, there is no insurmountable boundary: theoretical level is based on empirical data, and empirical knowledge cannot exist without theoretical concepts, it is necessarily immersed in a certain theoretical context. The main forms of scientific knowledge include scientific facts, problems, hypotheses and theories. Their purpose is that they reveal the dynamics of the process of cognition, i.e. the movement and development of knowledge in the course of research or study of an object. The foundation of all scientific knowledge is scientific facts, with the establishment of which scientific knowledge begins. A scientific fact is a reflection of a specific phenomenon in human consciousness, i.e. its description using the language of science (designation, terms, etc.). One of the most important properties of a scientific fact is its reliability, which is determined by the possibility of its reproduction using various experiments. In order for a fact to be considered reliable, it must be confirmed in the course of numerous observations or experiments. The process of cognition of the world around us in the very general view represents a solution different kind tasks that arise in the course of practical human activity. These problems are solved by using special techniques - methods. The scientific method is a set of methods and operations of practical and theoretical knowledge of reality. They optimize human activity, equip it with the most rational ways of organizing activities. At the empirical level, there is a collection of facts and information (establishment of facts, their registration, accumulation), as well as their description (statement of facts and their primary systematization). The theoretical side is associated with the explanation and generalization of facts, the creation of new theories, the advancement of hypotheses, the discovery of new laws, as well as the prediction of new facts within the framework of these theories. With their help, a scientific picture of the world is developed, which is important for the implementation of the ideological function of science. The unity of empirical and theoretical aspects underlies the methods of science. They are interconnected and condition each other. Their break, or the predominant development of one side at the expense of the other, closes the way to the correct knowledge of nature: theory becomes pointless, experience becomes blind. In addition to distinguishing two levels of cognition, the classification is based on scientific methods the applicability of the method, the possibility of its use in various spheres of human activity can be assumed. In this case, we can distinguish general, special and private methods of scientific knowledge. 3.Specificity of social cognition knowledge epistemology social truth Social cognition is one of the forms of cognitive activity - knowledge of society, i.e. social processes and phenomena. Any knowledge is social insofar as it arises and functions in society and is determined by socio-cultural reasons. Depending on the basis (criterion), within social cognition, cognition is distinguished: socio-philosophical, economic, historical, sociological, etc. In understanding the phenomena of the sociosphere, it is impossible to use the methodology developed for the study of inanimate nature. This requires a different type of research culture, focused on "considering people in the course of their activities" (A. Toynbee). As the French thinker O. Comte noted in the first half of the 19th century, society is the most complex of the objects of knowledge. His sociology is the most difficult science. Indeed, in the region community development it is much more difficult to detect patterns than in the natural world. In social cognition, we are dealing not only with the study of material, but also with ideal relations. They are woven into the material life of society, do not exist without them. At the same time, they are much more diverse and contradictory than material connections in nature. In social cognition, society acts both as an object and as a subject of cognition: people create their own history, they also cognize and study it. It is also necessary to note the socio-historical conditionality of social cognition, including the levels of development of the material and spiritual life of society, its social structure and the interests that dominate it. Social cognition is almost always value-based. It is biased towards the knowledge gained, since it affects the interests and needs of people who are guided by different installations and value orientations in the organization and implementation of their actions. In the cognition of social reality, one should take into account the variety of different situations public life of people. That is why social cognition is largely probabilistic knowledge, where, as a rule, there is no place for rigid and unconditional statements. All these features of social cognition indicate that the conclusions obtained in the process of social cognition can be both scientific and extrascientific in nature. The variety of forms of non-scientific social cognition can be classified, for example, in relation to scientific knowledge (pre-scientific, pseudo-scientific, para-scientific, anti-scientific, non-scientific or practically everyday knowledge); according to the way of expressing knowledge about social reality (artistic, religious, mythological, magical), etc. The complexities of social cognition often lead to attempts to transfer the natural science approach to social cognition. This is connected, first of all, with the growing authority of physics, cybernetics, biology, etc. So, in the XIX century. G. Spencer transferred the laws of evolution to the field of social cognition. Supporters of this position believe that there is no difference between social and natural scientific forms and methods of cognition. The consequence of this approach was the actual identification of social cognition with natural science, the reduction (reduction) of the first to the second, as the standard of any cognition. In this approach, only that which belongs to the field of these sciences is considered scientific, everything else does not belong to scientific knowledge, and this is philosophy, religion, morality, culture, etc. Supporters of the opposite position, seeking to find the originality of social cognition, exaggerated it, opposing social knowledge to natural science, not seeing anything in common between them. This is especially characteristic of representatives of the Baden school of neo-Kantianism (W. Windelband, G. Rickert). The essence of their views was expressed in Rickert's thesis that "historical science and the science that formulates laws are mutually exclusive concepts." But, on the other hand, one cannot underestimate and completely deny the significance of natural science methodology for social cognition. Social philosophy cannot but take into account the data of psychology and biology. The problem of the relationship between the natural sciences and social science is actively discussed in modern, including in domestic literature. So, V. Ilyin, emphasizing the unity of science, fixes the following extreme positions on this issue: ) naturalistics - uncritical, mechanical borrowing of natural scientific methods, which inevitably cultivates reductionism in different options- physicalism, physiology, energyism, behaviorism, etc. ) humanities - the absolutization of the specifics of social cognition and its methods, accompanied by the discrediting of the exact sciences. In social science, as in any other science, there are the following main components: knowledge and the means of obtaining it. The first component - social knowledge - includes knowledge about knowledge (methodological knowledge) and knowledge about the subject. The second component is both individual methods and social research itself. Undoubtedly, social cognition is characterized by everything that is characteristic of cognition as such. This is a description and generalization of facts (empirical, theoretical, logical analyzes with the identification of the laws and causes of the phenomena under study), the construction of idealized models (“ideal types” according to M. Weber) adapted to the facts, explanation and prediction of phenomena, etc. The unity of all forms and types of cognition presupposes certain internal differences between them, expressed in the specifics of each of them. Possesses such specificity and knowledge of social processes. In social cognition, general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, analogy) and particular scientific methods (for example, a survey, sociological research) are used. Methods in social science are the means of obtaining and systematizing scientific knowledge about social reality. They include the principles of organizing cognitive (research) activities; regulations or rules; a set of techniques and methods of action; order, scheme or plan of action. Techniques and methods of research are built in a certain sequence based on regulatory principles. The sequence of techniques and methods of action is called a procedure. The procedure is an integral part of any method. A technique is an implementation of a method as a whole, and, consequently, of its procedure. It means linking one or a combination of several methods and relevant procedures to the study, its conceptual apparatus; selection or development of methodological tools (set of methods), methodological strategy (sequence of application of methods and corresponding procedures). A methodological toolkit, a methodological strategy, or simply a methodology can be original (unique), applicable only in one study, or standard (typical), applicable in many studies. The technique includes technique. Technique is the realization of a method at the level of the simplest operations brought to perfection. It can be a combination and sequence of methods of working with the object of study (data collection technique), with these studies (data processing technique), with research tools (questionnaire compilation technique). Social knowledge, regardless of its level, is characterized by two functions: the function of explaining social reality and the function of its transformation. It is necessary to distinguish between sociological and social research. Sociological research is devoted to the study of the laws and patterns of functioning and development of various social communities, the nature and methods of interaction between people, their joint activities. Social research, unlike sociological research, along with forms of manifestation and mechanisms of action social laws and patterns involve the study of specific forms and conditions social interaction people: economic, political, demographic, etc., i.e. along with a specific subject (economy, politics, population) social aspect- interaction of people. Thus, social research is complex; it is carried out at the intersection of sciences, i.e. these are socio-economic, socio-political, socio-psychological studies. In social cognition, the following aspects can be distinguished: ontological, epistemological and value (axiological). The ontological side of social cognition concerns the explanation of the existence of society, the laws and trends of functioning and development. At the same time, it also affects such a subject of social life as a person. Especially in the aspect where it is included in the system of social relations. The question of the essence of human existence has been considered in the history of philosophy from various points of view. Various authors took such factors as the idea of justice (Plato), divine providence (Aurelius Augustine), absolute reason (H. Hegel), the economic factor (K. Marx), the struggle of the “life instinct” and “ death instinct" (Eros and Thanatos) (Z. Freud), " social character"(E. Fromm), geographical environment (C. Montesquieu, P. Chaadaev), etc. It would be wrong to assume that the development of social knowledge does not affect the development of society in any way. When considering this issue, it is important to see the dialectical interaction of the object and subject of knowledge, the leading role of the main objective factors in the development of society. to the main objective social factors The basis of any society should include, first of all, the level and nature of the economic development of society, the material interests and needs of people. Not only an individual, but all mankind, before engaging in knowledge, satisfying their spiritual needs, must satisfy their primary, material needs. Certain social, political and ideological structures also arise only on a certain economic basis. For example, the modern political structure of society could not have arisen in a primitive economy. The epistemological side of social cognition is connected with the peculiarities of this cognition itself, primarily with the question of whether it is capable of formulating its own laws and categories, does it have them at all? In other words, can social cognition claim to be truth and have the status of science? The answer to this question depends on the position of the scientist on the ontological problem of social cognition, on whether he recognizes the objective existence of society and the presence of objective laws in it. As in cognition in general, and in social cognition, ontology largely determines epistemology. The epistemological side of social cognition includes the solution of the following problems: how the knowledge of social phenomena is carried out; what are the possibilities of their knowledge and what are the limits of knowledge; what is the role of social practice in social cognition and what is the significance of the personal experience of the cognizing subject in this; what is the role of different kind sociological research and social experiments. The axiological side of cognition plays an important role, since social cognition, like no other, is associated with certain value patterns, preferences and interests of subjects. The value approach is already manifested in the choice of the object of study. At the same time, the researcher seeks to present the product of his cognitive activity - knowledge, a picture of reality - as “cleansed” as possible from all subjective, human (including value) factors. The separation of scientific theory and axiology, truth and value, led to the fact that the problem of truth, associated with the question "why", was separated from the problem of values, associated with the question "why", "for what purpose". The consequence of this was the absolute opposition of natural science and humanitarian knowledge. It should be recognized that value orientations operate in social cognition in a more complex way than in natural science cognition. In its valuable way of analyzing reality, philosophical thought seeks to build a system of ideal intentions (preferences, attitudes) to prescribe the proper development of society. Using various socially significant assessments: true and false, fair and unfair, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, humane and inhumane, rational and irrational, etc., philosophy tries to put forward and justify certain ideals, values, goals and objectives of the social development, build the meanings of people's activities. Some researchers doubt the legitimacy of the value approach. In fact, the value side of social cognition does not at all deny the possibility of scientific knowledge of society and the existence of social sciences. It contributes to the consideration of society, individual social phenomena in different aspects and from different positions. Thus, a more concrete, multilateral and complete description of social phenomena occurs, and therefore a more consistent scientific explanation of social life. The separation of the social sciences into a separate area, characterized by its own methodology, was initiated by the work of I. Kant. Kant divided everything that exists into the realm of nature, in which necessity reigns, and the realm of human freedom, where there is no such necessity. Kant believed that the science of human action, guided by freedom, is in principle impossible. Questions of social cognition are the subject close attention in modern hermeneutics. The term "hermeneutics" comes from the Greek. "explain, interpret" The original meaning of this term is the art of interpreting the Bible, literary texts, etc. In the XVIII-XIX centuries. hermeneutics was considered as a doctrine of the method of cognition of the humanities, its task is to explain the miracle of understanding. Fundamentals of hermeneutics as general theory interpretations were laid down by the German philosopher F. Schleiermacher in late XVIII- early 19th century Philosophy, in his opinion, should not study pure thinking (theoretical and natural sciences), but everyday everyday life. It was he who was one of the first to point out the need for a turn in knowledge from the identification of general laws to the individual and individual. Accordingly, the "sciences of nature" (natural science and mathematics) begin to be sharply opposed to the "sciences of culture", later the humanities. For him, hermeneutics is conceived, first of all, as the art of understanding someone else's individuality. The German philosopher W. Dilthey (1833-1911) developed hermeneutics as a methodological basis humanitarian knowledge. From his point of view, hermeneutics is the art of interpreting literary monuments, understanding the manifestations of life recorded in writing. Understanding, according to Dilthey, is a complex hermeneutical process that includes three different moments: intuitive comprehension of someone else's and one's own life; its objective, generally significant analysis (operating with generalizations and concepts) and the semiotic reconstruction of the manifestations of this life. At the same time, Dilthey comes to an extremely important conclusion, somewhat reminiscent of Kant's position, that thinking does not derive laws from nature, but, on the contrary, prescribes them to it. In the twentieth century hermeneutics was developed by M. Heidegger, G.-G. Gadamer (ontological hermeneutics), P. Ricoeur (epistemological hermeneutics), E. Betty (methodological hermeneutics), etc. The most important merit of G.-G. Gadamer (born 1900) is a comprehensive and profound development of the category of understanding that is key to hermeneutics. Understanding is not so much knowledge as universal way mastery of the world (experience), it is inseparable from the self-understanding of the interpreter. Understanding is the process of searching for meaning (the essence of the matter) and is impossible without pre-understanding. It is a prerequisite for connection with the world, nonpresuppositional thinking is a fiction. Therefore, something can be understood only thanks to pre-existing assumptions about it, and not when it appears to us as something absolutely mysterious. Thus, the subject of understanding is not the meaning embedded in the text by the author, but the substantive content (the essence of the matter), with the understanding of which the given text is connected. Gadamer argues that, firstly, understanding is always interpretive, and interpretation is understanding. Secondly, understanding is possible only as an application - correlating the content of the text with the cultural thinking experience of our time. The interpretation of the text, therefore, does not consist in recreating the primary (author's) meaning of the text, but in creating the meaning anew. Thus, understanding can go beyond the subjective intention of the author, moreover, it always and inevitably goes beyond these limits. Gadamer considers dialogue to be the main way to achieve truth in the humanities. All knowledge, in his opinion, passes through a question, and the question is more difficult than the answer (although it often seems the other way around). Therefore, the dialogue, i.e. questioning and answering is the way in which dialectics is carried out. The solution of a question is the path to knowledge, and the final result here depends on whether the question itself is correctly or incorrectly posed. The art of questioning is a complex dialectical art of searching for truth, the art of thinking, the art of conducting a conversation (conversation), which requires, first of all, that the interlocutors hear each other, follow the thought of their opponent, without forgetting, however, the essence of the matter in question , and even more so without trying to hush up the question at all. Dialogue, i.e. the logic of question and answer, and there is the logic of the sciences of the spirit, for which, according to Gadamer, despite the experience of Plato, we are very poorly prepared. Human understanding of the world and mutual understanding of people is carried out in the element of language. Language is considered as a special reality within which a person finds himself. Any understanding is a linguistic problem, and it is achieved (or not achieved) in the medium of linguisticity, in other words, all the phenomena of mutual agreement, understanding and misunderstanding, which form the subject of hermeneutics, are linguistic phenomena. As a cross-cutting basis for the transmission of cultural experience from generation to generation, language provides the possibility of traditions, and dialogue between different cultures implemented through the search for a common language. Thus, the process of comprehension of meaning, carried out in understanding, takes place in a linguistic form, i.e. there is a linguistic process. Language is the environment in which the process of mutual negotiation of interlocutors takes place and where mutual understanding is gained about the language itself. Kant's followers G. Rickert and W. Windelband tried to develop a methodology for humanitarian knowledge from other positions. In general, Windelband proceeded in his reasoning from Dilthey's division of sciences (Dilthey saw the basis for distinguishing sciences in the object, he proposed a division into the sciences of nature and the sciences of the spirit). Windelband, on the other hand, subjects such a distinction to methodological criticism. It is necessary to divide the sciences not on the basis of the object that is being studied. He divides all sciences into nomothetic and ideographic. The nomothetic method (from the Greek Nomothetike - legislative art) is a method of cognition through the discovery of universal patterns, characteristic of natural science. Natural science generalizes, brings facts under universal laws. According to Windelband, general laws are incommensurable with a single concrete existence, in which there is always something inexpressible with the help of general concepts. Ideographic method (from the Greek Idios - special, peculiar and grapho - I write), Windelband's term, meaning the ability to know unique phenomena. Historical science individualizes and establishes an attitude to value, which determines the magnitude of individual differences, pointing to the "essential", "unique", "of interest". Thus, the most important hallmark The methodology of social cognition is that it is based on the idea that there is a person in general, that the sphere of human activity is subject to specific laws. 4. The problem of truth The problem of truth and its criterion has always been one of critical issues philosophy. The first Greek materialist philosophers did not yet realize the complexity of the problem of truth and believed that truth is given directly by perception and reflection. But even they already understood that the essence and appearance of things do not always coincide. So, Democritus writes: “apparently sweet, bitter, warm, cold, colors; in reality it is atoms and empty space.” The Sophists, led by Protagoras, advanced the doctrine of the subjectivity of truth. Objective truth was therefore denied by them. According to Protagoras, "man is the measure of all things." Opponents of the extreme subjectivism of the sophists were Socrates and Plato. But, reflecting the interests of the aristocratic groups leaving the historical scene, Socrates and Plato took the path of an idealistic solution to the problem of knowledge. Man, according to Socrates, "must look into himself in order to know what truth is." According to the objective idealist Plato, the comprehension of truth is carried out only through thinking, purified from the "chaff" of sensory perception. Truth itself is understood as an absolute, achievable due to the fact that thought easily comprehends what it itself has produced, that is, the eternal and unchanging world of ideas. The criterion of truth consists in the clarity and distinctness of our mental concepts. The problem of truth is the central core of Kant's philosophy. Kant's philosophy set itself the task of investigating to what extent thinking is capable of bringing us the knowledge of truth in general. Considering sensory knowledge unreliable, Kant argues that only a priori knowledge, independent of experience, is true. Mathematics is also for Kant a model, of course, of reliable knowledge acquired independently of any experience. Recognizing the existence of the objective reality of the "thing in itself", Kant at the same time considers it unknowable. Reason is the legislator only in the field of phenomena, and its laws have nothing to do with "things in themselves." For Kant, objective knowledge is not knowledge that corresponds to an object, but generally valid knowledge that becomes objective due to the unchanging unity (apperception) of normal human consciousness. The criterion of truth for Kant lies "in universal and necessary rules reason”, and “that which contradicts them is a lie, since reason, in this case, contradicts the general rules of thinking, i.e., itself.” Having declared the world of things outside of us, although existing, but forever fundamentally unknowable, Kant, in essence, did not go beyond the limits of subjectivism in solving the problem of truth. Knowledge does not go beyond phenomena and depends entirely on the cognizing subject. Lenin says: “Kant took the finite, transient, relative, conditional character of human cognition (its categories, causality, etc., etc.) for subjectivism, and not for the dialectic of the idea (of nature itself), tearing cognition from the object” (“Philosophical Notebooks”, p. 198). Kant himself admits that he "limited the field of knowledge in order to make room for faith." Hegel opposed the extreme subjectivism of Kant's critical philosophy with a system of absolute objective idealism. Hegel made it his task not to discard the content of the concrete real world, like Kant, but to absorb this content into his system, not to take the external world beyond the limits of cognition, but to make it an object of cognition. He subjected Kant's analysis of the faculty of cognition before and independently of the process of cognition to a devastating critique; he compared this setup to trying to learn how to swim without entering the water. Cognitive abilities of man are revealed in the whole history of knowledge, and " real form truth can only be scientific system her". Unlike all previous metaphysical philosophy, who understood truth as something complete, given once and for all, as a given, ready-made, minted coin, Hegel for the first time considers truth as a process. In The Phenomenology of the Spirit, he considers the history of knowledge, developing and rising from the lower levels (sensory certainty) to the highest philosophy of absolute idealism. Hegel is coming close (but only coming) to the understanding that the path to truth lies through the practical, expedient activity of man. All past philosophical thought Hegel for the first time considers not as a "gallery of delusions", but as successive steps in the knowledge of truth. Hegel writes: “Only the unity of opposites is truth. In every judgment there is truth and falsehood. Engels evaluates the Hegelian doctrine of truth in the following way: “The truth that philosophy was supposed to know, appeared to Hegel no longer in the form of a collection of ready-made dogmatic propositions that can only be memorized once they are discovered; for him, the truth consisted in the very process of cognition, in the long historical development of science, rising from the lower levels of knowledge to the highest, but never reaching a point from which it, having found the so-called absolute truth, could no longer go further. Bibliography 1.History and philosophy of science. Ed. A. S. Mamzina. SPb., 2008 2.Philosophy. Textbook. 3rd ed., L.E. Balashov, 686 pages, 2009 .History of Russian philosophy., Maslin M.A., 640 pages, 2008 .Philosophy, Vishnevsky M.I., 480 pages, 2008 .History of Philosophy. Short course, Orlov S.V., 2009 .Philosophy of Science. Basic concepts and problems. / Grishunin S.I., Uch. allowance - 111 pages, 2009. .History and philosophy of science, Mamzina A.S., 304 pages, 2008
