A dissident person who does not recognize the existing order of things. Letter p.l

Although zoologists of past times used the terms "genus" and "family", hinting at some kind of affinity or kindred resemblance between the species included in these categories, they were alien to the idea of ​​\u200b\u200ba real blood relationship, which could be represented as genealogical tree, like those trees that in those days depicted the genealogies of aristocratic families and reigning dynasties.

And for Linnaeus, his system of nature was like a geographical map, on which the entire animal kingdom was divided first into large, and then into fractional territories corresponding to classes, orders, families and genera, and real-life animal species, like settlements in the depicted territory, occupied their permanent places at certain distances from each other.

This is how specialists-scientists imagined the system of the animal world, based on the data of their then only descriptive spiders. However, the philosophers of that era and naturalists, inclined to broad generalizations, sought to find deeper connections in the general system of the universe, and not just a random neighborhood of individual areas.

On the eve of the 18th century, the philosopher Leibniz put forward his "principle of continuity", according to which "people are in close connection with animals, animals with plants, and plants, again, with fossils, while these latter, in turn, with bodies, which we perceive through the senses.

The Genevan natural philosopher and naturalist Charles Bonnet, who was a contemporary of Linnaeus and Buffon, developed the principle of continuity further. In his extensive work “Contemplation of Nature”, Bonnat wrote (I quote from the Russian edition of 1804): “Between the lowest and highest degree of bodily or spiritual perfection there are countless intermediate degrees. The succession of the powers of the degrees constitutes the universal chain. It connects all beings, connects all worlds, explains all spheres. There is only one being, outside the sowing chain, the creature that created it.

“There are no jumps in nature; everything in it goes gradually and smoothly, - Bonnet continues his thought. - And therefore, there is no creature that, both above and below, those who are not approaching it with some properties, and without moving away from it with others ... The polyp connects the vegetative kingdom (i.e., the vegetable) with the animal. The bat connects birds with quadrupeds, and the monkey of quadrupeds with man. And the author presents the reader with the system of the universe in the form of "the ladder of our world", in which there are "as many steps as there are special beings."

And in the subsequent chapters of the "Contemplation of Nature" Bonnet tries to draw his system of the animal, the world in the form of one continuous chain, or a single continuous series of beings, occupying countless steps of the "ladder of our world." To do this, he has to resort to obvious exaggerations, clinging to the most superficial similarities and placing, for example, flying fish as a link between fish and birds, and a bat as a transition from birds to tetrapods.

However, Bonnet himself sometimes finds doubts: whether his staircase leading to the tops of the animal world forks somewhere. “Insects and shells do not form two side and equally spaced branches of this great tree?” - asks the author, refraining, however, from solving the problem he raised. “We are not yet able to satisfactorily answer these questions,” Bonnet wrote evasively, but from the preceding lines it is clear that he felt the artificiality of his straightforward construction of the system and that the image of a branching “great tree” already arose in his mind.

Bonnet himself, as well as his contemporaries, was still alien to the idea of ​​the historical process of development of the organic world, and his “ladder”, or “branching tree”, did not yet indicate the paths for the actual advancement of living beings from lower forms of organization to more complex and perfect ones, but they were something like a museum stand, on which, in a sequential ascending order, individual bodies of nature were fixed in their permanent places.

Creature ladder, common among naturalists and philosophers of the 18th century. the idea of ​​a hierarchical arrangement of the bodies of nature, starting from the simplest inorganic bodies (minerals) and ending with the most complex living beings. The idea of ​​the complication of the forms of nature was expressed by Aristotle in the 4th c. BC e. In the 2nd half of the 18th century. L. s. built by Sh. Bonn, placing angels, archangels, etc., above man. materialist philosopher A. N. Radishchev. For the first time, a historical explanation of the existence of living bodies of varying degrees of complexity was given by J. B. Lamarck; L. s. he considered as the result of the evolution of organisms (see. Lamarckism ). He finally approved the idea of ​​the development of the organic world from simple to complex Ch. Darwin. see also Darwinism.

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"Ladder of Living Beings"

The abundance of empirical material led Aristotle to the need to systematize it. Generalizing the fact of the presence of transitional forms between flora and fauna, plants and animals, he arranged all the empirical material in the form of ascending steps of the “ladder of living beings”. Nature, according to the views of Aristotle, passes continuously from inanimate to animate bodies through those who live, but are not animals. Those who have more life and movement are more animated. At the same time, all forms of living nature are eternal and unchanging.

Aristotle also made a classification of animal species. In his opinion, all animals are divided into two large classes - circulatory And bloodless, which corresponds in modern biology to the systematization of living beings into vertebrates and invertebrates. Each class is in turn subdivided into lower and higher genera. Thus, for example, circulatory animals are subdivided into the following higher genera: (a) viviparous quadrupeds with hair; (b) oviparous tetrapods with skin scutes; (c) oviparous bipeds with feathers; (d) legless livebearers, living in water and breathing with lungs; (e) ovoviviparous (sometimes viviparous), which are covered with scales (or smooth skin), have no legs, live in water and breathe with gills.

As for bloodless animals, they are divided into four genera: (a) soft-bodied - cephalopods; (b) soft-shelled with many legs; (c) skulls; (d) solid-bodied insects. A number of transitional forms of organic life also belong to this class. As such, the thinker considers organisms transitional from plants to animals: sea anemones, sponges, jellyfish, starfish, etc.

The transition from lower forms to higher ones is carried out, according to Aristotle, by achieving goals, for expediency present in all "works of nature". In this regard, he writes: "... the goal is in each individual case this or that good, and in all of nature in general - the best."

The doctrine of expediency in nature is one of the most important components in the natural philosophy of Aristotle and is something new in comparison with the teachings of Plato. The principle of expediency is extended by Aristotle to the whole of nature as a whole and is even raised in the final instance to God, but nevertheless Aristotle's teleology is objective. This position is based on the fact that Aristotle does not accept the conscious nature of expediency acting in nature. According to his views, expedient creativity is realized by nature unconsciously. On the contrary, according to Plato, the conscious expedient principle is not in nature, but in the “soul of the world”, which controls the entire world process.

Thus, pointing to the expediency of nature as a whole, Aristotle, contrary to Plato's teachings about the conscious and goal-directing soul of the world, puts forward a position about the internal and unconscious expediency of nature. As purposefully acting, nature is divine.

The thinker's teleological views are formed under the influence of two principles: Plato's teleology and his own observations made by him in the study of a number of objects and natural phenomena, in which the facts of expediency are very obvious. First of all, the phenomena of organic life should be attributed to the facts of this kind.

Aristotle saw examples of expediency in the expedient structure of organisms, in the adaptation of organisms to the environment and in the mutual adaptability of their organs, in the expedient action of instincts, in the processes of the birth of organisms from a seed, in the phenomena of growth and vital activity of organisms, as well as in the expedient functions of the human soul.

Teaching about the soul. Aristotle's doctrine of the soul was the fertile ground on which his theology sprouted, formed and expanded to a universal cosmological principle. The philosopher was able to transfer - by analogy - the results of the study of the expedient functions of the soul to all natural bodies. Accordingly, the soul is connected, on the one hand, with the world of things, and on the other hand, with God. Therefore, psychology, which studies the soul, is connected with both physics and theology. The connection between psychology and physics is manifested primarily in biology. Both psychology and biology study living beings, but in different aspects: biology studies the living as a physical substrate in the aspect of a formal and material cause, psychology in the aspect of a target and driving cause, and these last two causes have a life-giving beginning, and this beginning is soul. “The soul is somehow a cause, whence movement, as a goal and as the essence of animate bodies” 1 .

According to the above statement, the soul is the cause and beginning of the living body. As a cause, it appears in three hypostases: (1) as source of movement happening in the body; (2) how target, defining this movement; (3) how essence living bodies. Since the essence is the cause of the existence of any object, the essence of "animate bodies" is life. Therefore, the soul is the cause of life, "the beginning of living beings."

In the doctrine of the soul, Aristotle is very inconsistent, recognizing either the idealistic or the materialistic point of view as correct. In his writings there are a number of materialistic statements about the dependence of changes in the soul on the body. In "Metaphysics" he writes that "the soul does not exist without matter", and in the second chapter of the treatise "On the Soul" the views of those "who believe that the soul cannot exist without a body and is not any body" are recognized as correct. After all, the soul is not a body, but something that belongs to the body, and therefore it abides in the body, and precisely in a certain kind of body ... ".

In the writings of Aristotle, one can find a number of statements relating to issues immortality of the soul And animation of matter(hylozoism). The philosopher denied both the eternal existence and immortality of the soul, and the universal animation of matter. So, for example, speaking out against hylozoism, he writes: “Some also argue that the soul is poured into everything; perhaps, based on this, Thales thought that everything was full of gods. This view raises some doubts. Aristotle disagrees with the recognition of animation all Universe and believes that only plants, animals, people and God have a soul. In his opinion, "physical entities" and "physical part of the soul" are not identical. Hence the conclusion: in nature not All animated, "for not everything that exists has a soul."

Aristotle also criticizes the doctrine expounded “in the so-called Orphic hymns. Namely: they say that the soul, carried by the winds, emerges from the universe when breathing. However, this cannot happen either with plants or with some animals, since not all living beings breathe. This was overlooked by those who held this opinion.

Aristotle also rejects the Orphic-Pythagorean-Platonic doctrine of transmigration of souls. Although the soul is an entity in itself, it is nevertheless inseparable from the body, which is not indifferent to the soul. Therefore, according to Aristotle, some "predecessors" (Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans) were wrong when they "adapted [the soul] to the body, without specifying what kind of body it is and what it is, while we see that not every thing anyone is accepted."

Of all the psychological teachings known to Aristotle, the most unacceptable, from his point of view, is the theory of Plato's student Xenocrates that "the soul is itself a moving number." According to Aristotle, "the soul cannot move." Therefore, “of the above opinions, the most absurd is that the soul is a self-moving number. For those who express this opinion [Xenocrates], the above inconsistencies follow from the definition of the soul as moving, and the special ones from the assertion that the soul is a number.

This theory, according to which the soul is a self-moving number, is absurd not only by its inability to explain the nature and essence of the soul, but also by the absence of even indications of its basic properties. “It will become clear,” writes Aristotle, “if, based on this definition (about a self-moving number as the essence of the soul. - D.G.) try to explain the states and actions of the soul, such as

thinking, sensations, pleasures, sadness, and so on, because ... on the basis of movement and number it is not easy even to speculate about these states and actions of the soul” 1 .

Aristotle criticizes not only those who recognized the soul as "something highly mobile", but also those who "ranked the soul among the principles". In this regard, he writes: “As for the beginnings, there is a disagreement - what are they and how many of them - mainly between those who consider them bodily [Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Democritus, Anaximenes], and those who recognize them incorporeal [Pythagoreans, Plato, Xenocrates], and also between these and those who, having mixed the corporeal with the incorporeal, declare the beginnings to be composed of both [Empedocles, Anaxagoras]."

With this theory, according to which the soul consists of certain principles (elements, elements), Aristotle completes his review and criticism of previous teachings about the nature and essence of the soul.

So what is the soul according to Aristotle?

To answer this question, Aristotle turns to his metaphysical reality, the hyleomorphic structure of which is the synthesis of matter and form. At the same time, “matter is a possibility, and the form is entelechy (entelecheia)”, i.e. the factual reality or reality of something.

This Aristotelian attitude also applies to organic nature. The living being has life, but the living body is only a material substratum, a potentiality, while its form or act is the soul. Therefore, the body as a material substratum must have the possibility of life. Implementation (entelechy) of this possibility is the soul, which is the indicator of the realized possibility or the actual givenness of life. “That is why the soul is the first entelechy of the natural body, which has life in the possibility.”

every natural body that participates in life is an essence, and, moreover, a composite essence. But although it is such a body, i.e. endowed with life, it cannot be a soul. For the body is not something that belongs to the substratum (hypokeimenon), but rather is itself substratum and matter. Thus the soul is necessarily an essence in the sense of the form of a natural body, potentially possessing life. Essence [as form] is an entelechy, so the soul is the entelechy of such a body. ...So, it is said what the soul is in general. Namely: it is the essence as a form (logos), and this is the essence of the being of such and such a body ... 1

This idealistic tendency, expressed in the definition of the soul as the form and entelechy of the natural body, finds its continuation in the distinction between the plant, animal and human souls.

The soul is everywhere where there is life. In general, it can be argued that in order to be alive, it is enough to have properties: (a) of a vegetative nature (birth, nutrition, growth); (b) sensorimotor character (sensation, movement); (c) intellectual nature (reasoning, reflection, cognition).

Based on these fundamental properties of all living things, Aristotle builds a psychological hierarchy of living beings.

• (1) Vegetative soul. This is the first, elementary and most general ability of the soul, regulating biological activity. Its functions are reproduction And nutrition.
• (2) Sensual soul. Animals, in addition to the above functions, also have the ability to perceive external forms, images of individual objects and phenomena in sensations. Other functions of the sensual soul - touch And movement. Touch is a derivative of sensations and "without touch, an animal cannot exist." The movement of living beings is due to their aspiration to the desired subject.
• (3) Rational soul. This is the most complex, hierarchically organized, rational soul. It is the soul that "knows and understands." The main manifestation of the rational soul - mental activity. The mind, "being a certain essence, appears, apparently, inside [the soul] and is not destroyed ... The mind is, perhaps, something more divine and not subject to anything."

Unlike a rational soul, the main manifestations of an unintelligent soul are desire, aspiration. According to this distinction of mental faculties soul functions divided into higher, rational and lower, sensual.

Between the rational soul and the unreasonable soul there is such an ability of living beings as feeling, which in some cases refers now to a reasonable, then to an unreasonable beginning. Based on this, the main faculties of the soul, through trichotomous division, appear in the end as follows: the ability to feed, reproduce and grow; the ability to sense desire and movement; the ability of knowledge and understanding, i.e. thinking. These three main abilities of the soul are the foundations on the basis of which Aristotle distinguishes three types of soul.

LOGICS

TARGET REASON

According to Aristotle, there are different kinds of causes in nature. There are four types in total. It is especially important to understand what he meant by "end cause." Aristotle took into account the "end cause" also in relation to processes occurring in inanimate nature. It suffices to give one example. Why is it raining? The “material reason” is that at the moment of cooling the air in a certain place there were just water vapor (clouds). The “influencing cause” consists in the cooling of the vapors, and the “formal cause” is that the water, by its “form”, or nature, is supposed to fall on the ground. If you hadn't said anything more, Aristotle would have added that it rains because rainwater is necessary for the growth of plants and animals. This is what he called "target cause". As you can see, Aristotle endows drops of water with a vital purpose, or "intention." According to Aristotle, purposefulness is inherent in everything in the world: Rain falls to give moisture to plants, and oranges and grapes grow to be eaten by people. Modern science takes a different view. But. Many believe that the world was created the way it is, by God - specifically so that people and animals could live in it. Based on this, it is natural to assert that water flows in rivers because it is necessary for the existence of people and animals. However, in this case it is God's fishery.

We separate from each other things made of stone, wool and rubber. We distinguish between living and dead objects, we distinguish plants from people or animals ... Aristotle wanted to do a general cleaning in the pantry of nature. He tried to prove that all objects of being belong to different groups and subgroups. (Hermes (dog) - a living being, more precisely - an animal, more precisely - a vertebrate, more precisely - a mammal, more precisely - a dog, more precisely - a labrador, more precisely - a male labrador.). Aristotle was a neat man who sought to bring order to human ideas, so it was he who laid the foundations logic like science. He introduced several strict rules as to which inferences and conclusions should be considered logically valid and which should not. To confine ourselves to one example: if I state that "all living beings are mortal" (premise one) and also that "Hermes is a living being" (premise two), I can gracefully conclude that "Hermes is mortal." Sometimes it can be very useful to put things in order in our ideas.

Dealing with the "ordering" of reality, Aristotle first of all emphasizes that everything that exists is divided into two main groups. On the one hand, we have inanimate (inanimate) things- such as stones, water drops and clods of earth. They do not have the potential to change. According to Aristotle, such inanimate objects can only change under external influence. On the other hand, there are living (animate) things, with the potential to change.

As for "living things", according to Aristotle, they are also divided into two large groups. To one we must refer living plants, to another - living beings."Living beings" can, in turn, be divided into two subgroups, namely animals And of people. This division is clear and illustrative.

But what exactly are these differences? All "living things" (plants, animals and people) have the ability to absorb nutrients, grow and develop. All "living beings" (animals and people) also have the ability to feel the world around them and move around. In addition, a person knows how to think, in other words, to distribute sensory impressions into groups and classes. Man, according to Aristotle, lives the life of all nature. It grows and absorbs nutrients (like a plant), has feelings and the ability to move (like animals), but it has another property that is unique to it - the ability to think rationally.

Aristotle points to the existence of God, who was supposed to give impetus to the movement in nature.

According to Aristotle, any movement on Earth depends on the movement of stars and planets. However, someone had to launch these celestial bodies. Aristotle called him "the prime mover" or "God." The “prime mover” itself is at rest, but it was he who was the “root cause” of the movement of celestial bodies, and at the same time of any movement in nature.

Dealing with the "ordering" of reality, Aristotle first of all emphasizes that everything that exists is divided into two main groups. On the one hand, we have inanimate (inanimate) things - such as stones, water drops and clods of earth. They do not have the potential to change. According to Aristotle, such inanimate objects can only change under external influence. On the other hand, there are living (animate) things, with the potential to change.

As for "living things", according to Aristotle, they are also divided into two large groups. To one we must referliving plants, to another -living beings. "Living beings" can, in turn, be divided into two subgroups, namelyanimals Andof people.

Paying tribute to Aristotle, it should be recognized that such a division is clear and illustrative. The difference between animate and inanimate objects is really significant, it is enough to compare, for example, a rose and a stone. Plants and animals also differ greatly from each other, in particular the rose and the horse. Moreover, I dare say that there are certain differences between a horse and a man. But what exactly are these differences? Can you answer such a question?

Unfortunately, I have no time to wait for you to write an answer and put it together with a piece of sugar in a pink envelope, so I will answer myself: dividing natural phenomena into different groups, Aristotle proceeds from the properties of things, more precisely, from the fact that they are able or what theydo.

All "living things" (plants, animals and people) have the ability to absorb nutrients, grow and develop. All "living beings" (animals and people) also have the ability to feel the world around them and move around. In addition, a person knows how to think, in other words, to distribute sensory impressions into groups and classes.

In nature, therefore, there are no sharp boundaries. We observe a smooth transition from the simplest plants to the more complex ones, from the simplest animals to the more complex ones. At the very top of the "ladder" stands man, who, according to Aristotle, lives the life of all nature. It grows and absorbs nutrients (like a plant), has feelings and the ability to move (like animals), but it has another property that is unique to it - the ability to think rationally.

So, Sophia, in man there is a spark of divine reason. Don't let the word "divine" surprise you. In several places, Aristotle points to the existence of God, who was supposed to give impetus to the movement in nature.

According to Aristotle, any movement on Earth depends on the movement of stars and planets. However, someone had to launch these celestial bodies. Aristotle called him "the prime mover" or "God." The “prime mover” itself is at rest, but it was he who was the “root cause” of the movement of celestial bodies, and at the same time of any movement in nature.

ETHICS

Back to the man, Sophia. According to Aristotle, his "form" is that he has a "vegetative soul", "animal soul" and "reasonable soul". And this philosopher asks: how should a person live? What does he need for a good life? Briefly, I can answer this: a person is happy only if he realizes all his abilities and inclinations.

Aristotle argued that there are three types of happy life. The first kind is a life full of joy and pleasure. The second is the life of a free and responsible citizen. The third is the life of a scientist and philosopher.

But, Aristotle emphasizes, a combination of all three types of life is necessary for happiness. In other words, he rejects any one-sidedness. If Aristotle were our contemporary, he might have said that a person who puts his body first lives the same one-sided - and inferior - life as the one who develops exclusively his head. Both cases are extreme and reflect a completely wrong way of being.

Aristotle also pointed to the "golden mean" in relations with people. Neither cowardice nor recklessness should be shown, but one must be courageous. (Too little courage leads to cowardice, too much to recklessness.) Equally, one should not be either greedy or wasteful, one must be generous. (To be not generous enough is to be a miser; to be too generous is to be a spendthrift.)

It's like with food. It is dangerous to eat too little, but it is equally dangerous to overeat. The ethics of both Plato and Aristotle are reminiscent of the precepts of Greek medicine: only by maintaining balance and exercising moderation can I become a happy (“harmonious”) person.