Attitude to life is a philosophical choice. The meaning of human life is philosophy. Reflections on the Guilty

The philosophy of life is one of the main directions of non-classical philosophy. It lays the foundation for that direction of non-classical philosophy, which focuses its attention on the problem of human existence, the problem of personality. Of course, man has always, at least since the time of Socrates, been at the center of philosophy's attention. But classical philosophy never placed man at the center of the world. Even in Socrates, he is only a particle of the cosmos, a microcosm.

A philosophy of life arises in the second half of the nineteenth century. Its origins are Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) and Oswald Spengler (1880-1936). But when we talk about the philosophy of life, we mean, first of all, F. Nietzsche. It is with the name of Nietzsche that her enthusiastic perception, on the one hand, and indignant criticism, on the other, are associated. The name of Nietzsche and his ideas are also associated with the taboo that was imposed on the philosophy of life in the Soviet era. Nietzsche's ideas were declared the philosophical basis of German National Socialism, fascism, and therefore, at best, it was not customary to talk about them.

Criticism of previous philosophy and understanding of the subject matter of philosophy

Already in his early works, Nietzsche expresses distrust of existing philosophy, which intensifies more and more over the years. This does not mean that the philosophy of life has no connection with the previous philosophy. Nietzsche's work testifies to his deep knowledge of the history of philosophy. He was especially influenced by ancient philosophy and the philosophy of Schopenhauer. As for ancient philosophy, it is precisely there, and rightfully, that Nietzsche sees the origins of all European philosophy and refers to it everywhere. Regarding Schopenhauer, Nietzsche himself states that when he read his book The World as Will and Representation, he considered it entirely written for him. In Schopenhauer, Nietzsche is attracted by the “will to live,” which Schopenhauer puts in place of the objective world. But Nietzsche's attitude towards all previous philosophy is negative. Even with Schopenhauer, the mature Nietzsche breaks.

What does not suit Nietzsche in the existing philosophy?

First, says Nietzsche, philosophy has set the search for truth as its main task. Even Aristotle distinguished philosophy from other sciences and put it above other sciences because philosophy is only interested in truth for the sake of truth, Truth with a capital letter, while other sciences proceed from the principle of utility.

Secondly, reason is declared to be the source of truth, the means to achieve it. Feelings are a source of deception, they distort the true world, the essence. Only reason gives us an understanding of the true world.

Thirdly, which follows from the second, the world itself appears before us in connection with this in two hypostases: in the form of this world, given to us in the senses and which is a “moral-optical deception”, an apparent world, and in the form of a true world, the world of true being, the idea of ​​which gives us reason in philosophy and science.

Fourthly, ancient philosophy, stating that a person has a mind and body, Apollonian and Dionysian principles named after the two Olympian gods Apollo and Dionysus, personifying respectively the rational and bodily, sensual, instinctive principles in a person, prefers the Apollonian principle and denies the bodily principle. . The wisdom of the philosopher lies precisely in the fact that, in contrast to the crowd, he is freed from the deception of the senses regarding the true world and human desires. “To be a philosopher, to be a mummy, to portray monotonotheism with the facial expressions of gravediggers! - And above all, away from the body, this deplorable idéefixe of feelings! possessed by all the errors of logic that there are, refuted, even impossible, although it is brazen enough to pretend to be something real! .. ".

First of all, Nietzsche opposes the fact that the category of being should be placed at the center of philosophy, as a result of which the world is divided into true and untrue. “The grounds by virtue of which“ this ”world received the name of the seeming world rather prove its reality - a different kind of reality is absolutely unprovable. ... To rave about a "other" world than this one does not make any sense ... ". True being is an empty fiction. The world in general is not what has become, but continuous becoming, and this process can never be stopped. In place of the category of being, Nietzsche puts the category of life. But what is life?

A few words must be said here about Nietzsche's language. Nietzsche was a great stylist, recognized in his youth by the philological community, who at the age of 24 received the position of professor of philology at the University of Basel without defending his doctoral dissertation. He himself, without undue modesty, considers himself the first among the Germans in style, in brevity and clarity of language, puts himself on a par with Heine. Nietzsche speaks in aphorisms, metaphors, Aesopian language. His narrative is alien to the calm sequence of thought, the formulation of the problem and the construction of a network of arguments and evidence. His thought is bright, fragmentary, figurative, precisely figurative, more artistic than scientific. Therefore, we will not find definitions from him, his presentation is fragmentary, jumps from one subject to another, needs interpretation, and is difficult to perceive. Therefore, it is no coincidence that Nietzsche's main work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is called the Nietzsche Bible. And Nietzsche himself shared this assessment. Many researchers of Nietzsche's work rightly associate this style of Nietzsche's presentation with his headaches, which, according to Nietzsche himself, tormented him throughout his creative life. But this style of Nietzsche is also associated with his irrationalist attitude, which will be discussed below. Therefore, in Nietzsche it is difficult to find strict definitions, as a rule, inherent in both philosophy and science, a consistent presentation of the problem. This is the case with the concept of "life" and with other concepts.

Life is natural as opposed to mechanical, artificial, an intuitively comprehended integral reality that is not identical to either spirit or matter. “Life, as the form of being most familiar to us, represents a specific will to the accumulation of force ...”, life is the will to power. Nietzsche considers life very broadly, meaning by life not only the organic world, but the world as a whole. He even proposes to replace the concept of "strength" in physics with the concept of "will to power." Such an interpretation of life follows from the understanding of the world as an eternal becoming, and not one that has become, completed, determined. But at the same time, such an interpretation of being makes it possible for Nietzsche to focus his attention on the problem of man, since it is in man that life manifests itself with the greatest fullness, it is here that it becomes obvious that "... the deepest essence of being is the will to power." .

Nietzsche does not agree with the very approach of classical philosophy to the problem of man. Beginning with Socrates, the Apollonian approach to man won in Greece. Man is a reasonable man. The Dionysian principle, instinct, natural is now declared inferior, passions must be suppressed. This approach to man becomes dominant and later, thanks to Christianity, is further strengthened. Nobility, strength, health, exclusivity, nobility are declared forbidden, inferior to reason. But reason is calmness and serenity, prudence and skepticism, Socratic dialectics, finally winning exclusivity and courage with ingenious dialectical conclusions. Nietzsche opposes such an approach, proclaims the priority of the Dionysian principle over the Apollonian one, the priority of instinct, feelings over reason, the priority of Heraclitean fluid being, becoming before Parmenidean and Socratic absolute being, absolute virtue, goodness and justice.

Based on this, one should also approach the problem of truth. According to Nietzsche, a true judgment is in no way preferable to a false one. A false judgment has the right to exist if it "promotes life, supports life." Therefore, according to Nietzsche, to make philosophy a theory of knowledge, a means of achieving true knowledge, is extremely wrong. Scientific knowledge is not objective knowledge. Science, even physics, is only a means of interpreting and ordering the world, but not its explanation. The world itself is chaos. The laws of the world, causal relationships are just fictions that are convenient for a person, which he invents for himself and which allow him to strengthen his confidence, to establish himself in life. Therefore, the mind is not omnipotent, as the previous philosophy, especially the philosophy of enlightenment, believed, and it is not able to give us objective truth. And thinking itself is only a manifestation of instinct. “After long observations of philosophers and reading their creations between the lines,” writes Nietzsche, “I tell myself that most of the conscious thinking must still be attributed to the activity of instinct, and even in the case of philosophical thinking…” .

From Nietzsche's point of view, the mind is far from the main feature of a person, and the cognitive function has a subordinate significance in a person's life. Knowledge is necessary for self-preservation, for strengthening the will to power. “Utility from the point of view of conservation - and not some abstract-theoretical need not to be deceived - serves as a motive for the development of the organs of knowledge ... they develop in such a way that the results of their observations are sufficient for our preservation. In other words: the measure of the desire to know depends on the measure of the growth of the will to power in the said breed ... ". Based on this approach to knowledge, Nietzsche interprets truth. He rejects the classical understanding of truth as the correspondence of knowledge to reality. From his point of view, the truth is a fiction convenient for a person. Science is an arbitrary creation of man, allowing him to navigate in his environment. “Truth is that kind of error,” he writes, “without which a certain kind of living beings could not live. Value for life is the last foundation.” . Nietzsche's understanding of truth is close to its pragmatic understanding as useful knowledge. But there is one essential point in this understanding. Proceeding from his concept of the overman, Nietzsche believes that truth is not for everyone his own (that is, he avoids consistent subjectivism), but it is his own for the overman and the man of the crowd. That is, there are two kinds of truth, as well as two types of value systems - the truth for the majority, for the common people, and the truth for the elite, for the superman. Nietzsche generally believes that the mind, with its desire for analysis, certainty, definitions, is not able to comprehend the dynamics of life. This can be done more by intuition than by reason. At the same time, Nietzsche's intuition is different from the intellectual intuition of Descartes.

Intuition in the understanding of Nietzsche is more sensual than rational, since, as already emphasized, life is not the mind, but the body, nature, nature, and the mind is only a function of the body. Therefore, life in its dialectics, fluidity, impermanence is better accessible to the senses than to the mind. But in general, Nietzsche does not pay much attention to this problem. This problem interests him only from the point of view of criticism of the classical understanding of science and the role of reason in cognition and in general in human life. Nietzsche's researchers Dilthey and Spengler paid more attention to this problem.

Philosophy, in fact, was not so much a search for truth as a presentation of the philosopher's experience, something like memoires, written by him against his will and imperceptibly to himself. And the result of philosophical thinking every time was the system of values ​​proclaimed by the philosopher. Nietzsche states the fact that, starting with Socrates, any philosophical system ended with the interpretation of ethical problems, the proclamation of a certain system of morality. The solution of the problem of being and the problem of truth was significant insofar as it opened the way for a certain interpretation of good and evil, justice and injustice, and all other categories of morality. However, before Nietzsche, I. Kant had already proclaimed this, declaring that he undertook the criticism of pure reason in order to determine the possibilities and boundaries of practical reason. Based on this understanding of the function of philosophy, Nietzsche sets himself the task of criticizing the entire existing system of values ​​and creating a new system of values.

Philosophy of relationships applied to life

People sometimes ask what philosophy has to do with their daily lives. Perhaps much more than they think.

Even if we have never studied philosophy or even heard of it, we still hold many philosophical beliefs. Take, for example, the belief that physical objects continue to exist even when no one perceives them. We all share this belief. However, this is precisely the philosophical belief that was once criticized by the eighteenth-century philosopher George Berkeley.

It is not difficult to find other examples. Belief in an afterlife is philosophical, just like the belief that death means the end of everything. Most of us are convinced that morality is not subjective. We are convinced that killing a baby in the womb is evil, and not just bad-for-us, but good-for-those-who-think-otherwise. Again, this is a philosophical belief. And, of course, so are atheism and belief in God.

It is clear that many of these beliefs have an impact on our daily lives. Take, for example, a person who believes in reincarnation. He may behave a little differently compared to someone who does not believe in it. For example, he may be less afraid of death. And the individual who sincerely believes that morality is determined by subjective preferences is often prone to theft and fraud when he hopes for impunity. Our philosophical attitudes play a fundamental role in the way we live.

Philosophy can also help us with countless practical questions, such as questions about what we should and should not do. The chapters of the book provide specific examples. Is it possible to sacrifice the life of one of the twins to save the other? Is homosexuality morally acceptable? Can children be sent to religious schools? Is it moral to eat meat? You will see how a little philosophical reflection helps to bring clarity to all these issues.

Even when philosophy seems to have no direct bearing on everyday life, it retains its value.

For most of us, life is limited to a very narrow sphere of interests. We worry about how to pay the mortgage interest, whether to buy a new car, what to cook for dinner.

When we begin to think philosophically, we take a step back and look at the bigger picture. We begin to question what we previously thought was certain.
I think that someone who has never taken this step back and has never tried to analyze his life is not only superficial, but even a potentially dangerous person.

The great lesson that the twentieth century has taught us is that no matter how "civilized" people are, they remain morally undeveloped. Without question or reflection, we tend to follow the moral principles imposed on us by our environment. From Nazi Germany to Rwanda, you will find many people drifting blindly.

The value of even modest philosophical training lies in the fact that it stimulates the development of skills for independent thinking and develops the ability to doubt what others seem to be unconditionally true. It can help you strengthen your morals.

As philosophy professor Jonathan Glover said in an interview with The Guardian:
“If you look at the people who saved Jews from the Nazis, you can find a lot in common in them. They aspired to a different upbringing than most people, their behavior was not authoritarian, they were sympathetic to the people around them and tended to think before they did anything.

Glover adds that "the ability to think critically and rationally can help people not to be influenced by false ideologies." Apparently, the desire to think critically does not yet guarantee that we will not fall into some kind of trap. However, with Glover, I am convinced that the danger comes not from a society of independent and critical thinkers, but from a society of unreflective moral dullards.

You will also find that the skills acquired through accurate reflection on serious issues are useful in all other areas. Whether you're deciding whether or not to buy a used car or bathroom tile, or deciding who to vote for, the ability to build clear reasoning and identify a logical error will be helpful. In any case, it will protect you from the tricks and tricks of a car salesman, ministers of religious worship, charlatans from medicine and other scammers.

The reflective attitude and thinking skills developed by philosophy are not only not indifferent to our daily affairs, but make our life smarter and better.
Stephen Low, Philosophical Training. - M., 2007

On the topic in the cycle:

Philosophical choice in a broad sense is a choice of attitude towards life and towards oneself. In a more concrete sense, the philosophical choice is the construction of a model of the inner world in which to live. To do this, you need to comprehend the elements of the inner world, what they should be, and what should be the relationship between these elements. This is not so much planning actions in the outside world as plans to restore order within oneself. To do this - neither more nor less - you need to rethink your whole life in terms of the perception of life events and attitudes towards fellow citizens and towards oneself.

The philosophical choice of attitude to life begins with the desire to change oneself for the better, then with understanding the essence of the change and choosing the attitude as to what exactly should be changed. Thus, the attitude towards a concrete change in one's attitudes towards life and oneself is a key moment of philosophical choice, anticipating the order of further actions to improve oneself.

Examples of attitudes in a philosophical choice can be different and depend on the predispositions of a person. As an illustration, I found in various sources examples of attitudes towards life and / or towards oneself.

"The wise man does not deny the realities of life, does not neglect human values, but philosophically questions the significance of minor troubles and hardships."

"The philosophical attitude to life is the attitude to turn even heavy stress into a task."

"Success is a path from well-perceived failures."

"You can relate to life in different ways. The easiest way is to live the way you live and not think about the philosophical perception of problems. This is also a philosophical choice. But the simpler a person lives, the less prepared he is for meeting vital problems."

"In fact, the philosophical attitude to life is exhausted by the following position: "Since I got into this world, I must understand and live in it." Eliminate vanity, envy, greed and other negative emotions that distort the picture of reality that the philosopher sees. there is a deliverance from these vices and is one of the goals of the philosophical choice of attitude to life.

So, we live in two worlds: real and imaginary (models of the first). All our thoughts, experiences are life in the second world. The philosophical choice lies in the correct organization of this world. The imaginary world is not only a world of illusions, etc. It also has an important function - adaptation to the outside world. When a person does not directly encounter the external world, he comes into balance with his inner (imaginary) world.

Primary in philosophical choice is our choice of how we decide for ourselves to relate to life and to ourselves: in a more positive or more negative way. And the secondary is how we justify our choice for ourselves in different life circumstances, and recipes that help to implement this choice.

The first step of a philosophical choice is the very decision to rethink one's life in terms of the mentioned relationships to life and to oneself. Further steps already relate to specific elements of building one’s inner world: what is in it, and what should be improved in it in terms of goals and global spiritual needs of a person - such as the desire for self-improvement, the desire for knowledge, etc.

Remembering my path in terms of philosophical choice, I want to note the difference between "accept" and "apply" (use). To "accept" means to make some tool a part of one's "philosophy", and without this it was rarely possible to fully "apply" something. It was a typical kind of self-deception: as if I wanted to "apply" something, but did not want to "accept", and as a result, in fact, I did not want to "apply" either. In other words, I might have been able to "apply", but I did not want to pay for it with my desires, changing my lifestyle, etc.

I will add to this that changing one's views in the philosophical choice of attitudes towards life and towards oneself does not at all mean the same thing as changing oneself. In the end, relationship patterns are a trifle, and not the essence of a person, you just need to know why these relationships need to be changed.

In my old notes, I found extracts (where they were taken from is not indicated), more or less close to the topic. “From the subjective factors, one should single out the main one, which consists in a person’s feeling the meaning of his own life. In a person’s soul, there is basically an unconscious system of values ​​that determines his attitude to the phenomena of life and to himself. This organization (structure) of values ​​​​creates a feeling in a person order in the soul. The need to establish this order is instinctive and constitutes the "law of meaning" - the fundamental principle to which all human life is subject.

In other words, in a philosophical choice one must sacrifice some of one's own needs in favor of other, global needs that determine the basic meaning of life and which can no longer be sacrificed.

For me, for example, the novelty of knowledge is no longer a philosophical choice, but a necessary attribute of my existence, without which life loses its meaning. And within the framework of this understanding, it is not even important what the novelty is, but that this NOVELTY SHOULD BE. And I do not have such a choice to have novelty or not, if my main internal vector is directed along the component of the one who chose to live. That is, not in terms of the fear component, but in terms of the "have an interest in life" component. From the same point of view, it is not even important what my task is now, but whether I can find novelty in it.

With any philosophical choice of attitude to life, novelty must remain with me. This is not a need that I can replace with some other: "Where knowledge perishes, - let everyone know, - There the human child perishes in darkness!" So it is said in the Bhagavad Gita, which reflects the Indian wisdom of the ages.

Philosophical choice, as the need to change the attitude towards life, arises most often under the pressure of life circumstances that have changed for the worse. Here, in order to adapt to the changed current life, one must admit that it is the NORM, and not nonsense, collapse, etc. You have to force yourself to go through this.

And one more important point in the philosophical choice of attitude to the phenomena of life: WE SHOULD BE MORALLY PREPARED FOR DEFEAT. Otherwise, another failure or, to put it mildly, an unforeseen obstacle on the path of self-improvement can turn into a disaster. The calculation, or rather the attitude, that circumstances must certainly develop successfully (no one, for example, randomly interferes with me), is my fundamental vice, which constantly unsettled me when trying to change my attitude to life and to myself.

Tune in to a philosophical choice, one must remind oneself again and again that the level of claims (to oneself, to everyone and in relation to everything one encounters or expects) is the root cause of most problems that give rise to negativity. The error of philosophical choice, perhaps, begins with the general idea that the world owes you something, owes you something, and you have the right to demand something from it. In fact, perhaps, one should only understand that there is only the probability of certain events, arising from the property of the world to do both evil and good. One should also accustom oneself to such, so to speak, informative attitude to life and one's place in the world, if psychological stability in life circumstances is the task of the philosophical choice being made.

As we age, we tend to consider our negativity, i.e. negative perception of life as a kind of supervalue, which cannot be changed. However, following the philosophical choice, we must take a different point of view: the negative is not a value, but only one of the states of a person in which he can stay, but is not obliged to stay.

Philosophical choice, for all its globality in relation to life, consists of some specific moments and steps: specific attitudes about specific phenomena, and so on. Each of us, apparently, would like to learn, when necessary, to do with pleasure what is unpleasant for you. You can do this (change the "philosophy of choice"), for example, by forcing yourself to do with pleasure what is unpleasant for you. To do, sacrificing your displeasure, to do repeatedly, and the means for this is the positive control of the moments. Here we just need to remember that in reality our life consists of moments. At every moment we can pay attention to the current moment, and at every moment we are able, for a brief moment, if we wish, to make this moment pleasant. Well, the general philosophical choice here is the willingness to establish such positive control in your life as a permanent tool for it.

I am very glad that in the lecture of the modern philosopher Alexei Tsurkan I found the answer to the question “How to live the wise advice of the ancient Greek philosophers about the philosophical attitude to life”? And now I will give you a set of these recommendations. They will help us develop a philosophical worldview, a correct attitude to life, help us live life with relative confidence, learn the secrets of a philosophical worldview and attitude to life, and, if possible, not make the mistakes often made by people with an ordinary worldview.

For some reason people are more tend to find the right solutions by trial and error. But a smart person will not put his hand on a hot stove to see if he really burns himself, he will use the knowledge of previous generations that hot objects should not be touched.

This is a banal, but illustrative example, because the same knowledge as knowledge of a hot stove, is (accumulated by previous generations) for absolutely all aspects of life. You just need to find the advice of the sages about life and use them.

We now live in a fast-paced and fussy world, we do not have time for contemplation and the formation of new thoughts. And no need to reinvent the wheel.

One of the philosophers owns the words: If a new thought comes into your head, know that it is not new and came before you to the darkness of those people who lived before you.

From the 1st part of the lecture, we learned what is . Ordinary and philosophical consciousness are 2 different approaches to adaptation to the external environment called LIFE and to reduce the pain syndrome from being in it. Most people prefer to solve this problem in simple ways with the help of ORDINARY CONSCIOUSNESS. These methods were discussed in the 1st part of the article. In this article, we will learn about ways to solve the same problem with the help of PHILOSOPHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS.

PHILOSOPHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS is an effective alternative to ordinary consciousness.

In order to understand in what is a philosophical approach to life, it is necessary to return to the past, to the origins of philosophy.

The ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras, who coined the term "philosophy was a mystic and ascetic. He began teaching his students mathematics only after they had eaten nothing for 40 days.

Pythagoras divided all creatures living in space into 3 classes:

• Higher creatures (immortal Gods), who have the full knowledge of the world;
• Inferior creatures (Fools) who have no need to seek the truth;
• Philosophers are an intermediate and evolutionary type of person who understands the limitations of human nature, since a person is mortal. But he strives to get closer to the world of the Gods through the love of wisdom and the search for truth. Strives to modify, transform its nature.

Pythagoras and Plato believed that Man can become God. Man has all the possibilities for this, since he contains an immortal soul.

Plato believed that before entering the human body, each immortal soul lived in the valley of Truth, in the world of the Gods, where it directly contemplated the truth. But then she lost her original knowledge and now the task of the philosopher is precisely to recall them.

The main thesis of Plato is the anamnesis (Greek, recollection). He believed that true knowledge is the recollection of the knowledge that the human soul possessed in the divine world. Therefore, a philosopher is a person who is in constant transformation or transfiguration.

The theme of Christian transfiguration echoes Plato's theory. Therefore, he is called a Christian before Christianity.

The Greeks believed that a person can achieve apotheosis (deification) in different ways:

• Through heroic over effort like Hercules, Alexander the Great,
• Through constant reflection, love of wisdom, like philosophers.

This is the key to understanding the philosophical attitude to life as an alternative to the ordinary perception of life. The philosopher of Ancient Greece is a person who, through the comprehension of the highest truth, sought to establish an alternative to the ordinary type of perception of reality. If ordinary consciousness is built on a stereotype and dogma, then philosophical consciousness is based on skepticism (doubt), irony and speculation.

2. Signs of a philosophical outlook. Skepsis (doubt), irony, lack of faith in dogmas and authorities.

• Philosophy begins where a person has doubts. If a person does not doubt, then he is not a philosopher.
• A true philosopher does not worship anyone, and above all, he does not worship any of his own kind - none of the people, because he knows that there is no person on Earth who would have the fullness of truth and wisdom. If a person believes in an idol, authority, dogma, then he is not a philosopher.

Since man constantly falls into error, it was unacceptable for the philosophers of Greece to trust his judgment about anything and to believe him. This would mean enslaving oneself to someone else's consciousness. But there is no more terrible slavery on Earth than when one person is a slave to the intellect of another.

The fact that in the ancient Greek views we do not find such concepts as extremism, fanaticism, including religious fanaticism, is explained by the fact that the Greek consciousness was a consciousness based on healthy skepticism (doubt) and irony.

Doubt (skepticism) is very important, because it encourages you to move on. Any thesis presupposes an antithesis. Therefore, rejecting the service of authority as an idol, the Greek philosophers make their consciousness freer, and, therefore, god-like. Because all the fullness of freedom is with the Gods. But the Gods are also subject to the highest necessity, therefore the last secret of existence, the Greeks believed, is also hidden from the Gods.

3. Practical recommendations of Greek philosophers for the right attitude to life. How to live wise advice, philosophical outlook.

Greek philosophy reached such heights and was able to give practical recommendations for the right attitude to life thanks to its inherent doubt and irony.

So let's get started.

Tip #1 of the sages, ancient Greek philosophers.

If the consciousness of an ordinary person is involved in any process (a person is inside and does not see the whole picture), then the consciousness of a philosophical person is dissociated (not involved) in the process (he considers the situation from the outside).

The main principle of the philosophical perception of reality is the parallelism of existence with the world. The philosopher must strive to build certain barriers separating him from the world. He must keep the world at arm's length in order to secure a high degree of autonomy for his consciousness and independence of his judgments.

Face to face you can’t see a face, you can see a lot at a distance (Sergey Yesenin)

Here is the 1st advice of the Greek philosophers for us:Keep the world at arm's length, look at it as if from the outside!

Advice #2 of the sages, ancient Greek philosophers.

Socrates owns one of the brilliant discoveries of Greek philosophy of the 5th century BC:

A person does not completely convey in a word the reality that he names.

You know that the layman is constantly involved in the process of speaking and is terribly afraid of silence because silence is associated with nothingness and death. He produces so many words in which his consciousness simply drowns. By Most of these words don't mean anything. (note by A. Kraev: I recognize myself). And even those words that name objects do not convey the fullness of their reality, because the word and the object are different things.

A person is involved in the process of speaking, because in the process of speaking, meanings are imitated and meanings are created. The process of speaking is the process of constructing sounds endowed with some meaning in written or spoken speech. This process creates a kind of matrix for the inhabitant to stay, in which he is both comfortable and sad at the same time. Because he understands with his sixth sense that speech does not replace life, but is only its more or less convincing analogue. It all looks like a giant Chinese sound cracker, which was invented by man in order to drown out the silence.

A good illustration of this thought is the phrase from the book "Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf: "Mrs. Dalloway always throws parties to drown out the silence!"

We are all, to a greater or lesser extent, laymen, we love to throw giant parties, make speeches to chatter silence. But it was silence that the great philosophers considered the most perfect prayer on Earth, for only in silence is the mystery of God, beginningless and infinite, revealed.

Another striking illustration Socratic dialogues. The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates used this method to prove that words mean absolutely nothing. He went out into the streets of Athens, chose an interlocutor and asked him questions about what beauty, nobility and the like are. The interlocutor tried to define these abstract concepts, but experienced difficulty, because in reality these concepts have no definition. When the interlocutor asked the wise Socrates, what was his answer. Socrates replied: "I don't know. I know only one thing: that I know nothing!”

Thus, the Socratic discus, which begins with word extraction, ends with silence, and this is the great meaning and greatness of Greek philosophy in principle. Because it was Socrates who discovered the wisdom of silence.

Thus, the 2nd recommendation of the ancient Greek philosophers: Silence is always better than speaking!

If something annoys you, causes a movement of the soul, most often of a negative nature, then silence and silence are best, because silence eventually equalizes everything.

Tip #3 of the sages, ancient Greek philosophers.

The 3rd recommendation, which must be adopted, is called in Greek " kastema" and essentially means "peace" . A person takes everything too close to his heart and often suffers from it. A person is vulnerable, open to external shocks, which gives rise to psychosomatic changes in him. A person gets sick very often and dies very early due to the fact that he is very dependent on external influences.

So Epicurus, when his disciples asked him how to deal with the blows of fate, gave the answer, which in our list will be the 3rd recommendation of the sages.

3rd recommendation of the sages: Live unnoticed, avoid extremes, because lightning strikes the tallest trees, keep calm, peace and harmony with yourself!

Whatever happens to you, try to maintain a state of inner harmony and peace with yourself. In order for this to be possible, the following Epicurean advice must be followed.

Council #4 sages, ancient Greek philosophers.

This advice in Greek is called "ataraxia" - this is the avoidance of suffering, equanimity, calmness. In fact, this is a desire to reduce the pain syndrome from the very presence of a person in this world. Ataraxia is achieved by the fact that a person correctly distributes value systems, because most of the physical and mental suffering brings a person not so much illness as lack of what is desired.

And here it is very useful to recall the popular phrases of the outstanding English writer Aldous Huxley (1894-1963):

“The key to achieving happiness is very simple: you need to enjoy what you have and not desire what you cannot have!”

“Experience is not what happens to a person, but what a person does with what happens to him”

This, after all, is very correlated with what Epicurus taught in the 4th century BC.

When a person builds a system of values ​​correctly, he can understand what he can get rid of, he begins to understand what values ​​are:

• There is natural and natural values such as food and water.
• There is values ​​are natural, but no longer quite natural That is, they are dictated by the social nature of a person, susceptibility to stereotypes, and from these values ​​you can release more or less.
• There is values, and not natural, and not natural. This is, for the most part, fame, wealth, success, servility. These are words of praise from the outside, or condemnation from the outside if you do not meet the expectations of others. This may be over!

The basic principle of ataraxia is to minimize pain from external influences. And this is not about physical pain, but about emotional pain, which often appears due to the fact that a person is not accepted and not understood, as it seems to him.

Therefore, the 4th advice of the ancient Greek philosophers will be very useful to modern people. It sounds like this: Don't ask anything from God.

You are asking for a lot of money, a house, a wife, a husband, but you cannot know if what you are asking will be good for you. In one of Chekhov's stories, a little boy asked God for the same dentures as his grandfather. We also often ask ourselves for crutches, and not something useful. Therefore, our ideas about the good turn out to be something opposite when we receive it.

Therefore, philosophers say: Beware of your desires, for they may come true!

But man is weak and therefore he constantly asks. He asks the people around him, the state. And the person asks God. Ancient Greek philosophers advise not to ask the Gods for anything, because the Gods themselves know what a person needs. This resonates with Christian views. Christ tells his disciples: Look at the birds of the air: they don't sow, and they don't reap, and they don't gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you much better than them? In Christianity, it is not customary not to ask God for anything, but only to give thanks for what is. And if a person asks, then he says a prayer “Do thy will, Lord!”, i.e. "You yourself know what is best for me, give it to me."

4th Council of Ancient Greek Philosophers (PART 2): Don't ask anything from God.Hoh, if you decide to ask something from God, then ask so much that you can’t even imagine it in your imagination!

For, if you ask for little, what you have will be taken away(to teach you to love yourself, because he does not know how to love himself, as he can love his neighbor as himself).

It is very important for a person who has decided to ask God for something, never doubt that you will get what you ask for.

Tip #5 of the sages, ancient Greek philosophers.

This recommendation is the saddest for us, modern people, because we, unlike the ancient Greek philosophers, are afraid of death. A person is afraid of death, because it is the unknown, and it may very well be a punishment. The consciousness of the philosopher accepts death as a natural course of things, as a given, without which the world would not exist at all. Because every thesis must have an opposite antithesis, and in this world there is exactly as much creation as there is destruction.

And in the world, creation is possible only as destruction, and beauty only as a manifestation of ugliness. A segment is only a special case of an infinite straight line, and the Law is only a special case of chance. For there is a law for a certain number of cases, but there is no Law for chance as such.

5th council of ancient Greek philosophers. Understanding this dialectic leads the Greek philosophers to the idea that death is a natural and good course of things. This is similar to how real Christians should feel about death.

4. Resume.

In conclusion - a wonderful phrase of the English philosopher and writer Oscar Wilde, which reconciles the dialectically ordinary attitude to life and the philosophical one:

There are only two tragedies in the world: the first is not getting what you want, the second is getting.

I.e, no matter which approach to life we ​​choose, the end result will be the same for everyone. And we can only talk about questions of taste, style, behavior and nothing more. There is a fundamental ontological basis, a common denominator, which reconciles these two different attitudes towards life. And a person has no power to change these initial rules of the game, no matter how he tries to do it.

I think that during our lives at different periods we combine these 2 approaches to life in different ways - ordinary and philosophical.

With a conventional approach we are trying to conform to stereotypical values ​​in society, we want to HAVE more and LIVE longer. But over time, we begin to revise their values. And today, in my opinion, the lecture of the modern philosopher Alexei Tsurkan helped us a lot in this.

Here are the invaluable tips of the philosophers of Ancient Greece on how to live correctly, using a philosophical approach to life:

So let's sum it up. We reviewed in an abridged version Part 2 of the lecture "Ordinary and Philosophical: 2 Opposite Approaches to Life". They learned what a philosophical worldview and a philosophical approach to life are. And they got an answer to their main question “How to live the wise advice of ancient Greek philosophers about the philosophical attitude to life.”

I wish everyone not to give up, to believe in yourself and in people!

Enjoy life, love all people and forgive them their weaknesses!

And those who love philosophy can watch the full version of the lecture by the contemporary philosopher Alexei Tsurkan (30 minutes). PART 2 Lectures Ordinary and philosophical - 2 approaches to life:

Renowned left-wing philosopher André Gorz and his wife have been found dead in their home in the French town of Vovon, AFP news agency reported. According to doctors, the cause of death of the spouses was suicide. But it still remains a mystery what circumstances led to such a tragic ending.

The first involuntary witness to the drama was Highlander's friend, who came to visit the philosopher on Monday morning. There was a sign on the door of the house asking them to call the police. The bodies of elderly spouses, according to an eyewitness, were lying side by side on the bed. Letters addressed to friends and relatives were scattered around.

“You turned 82. You are still beautiful, generous and desirable. We've been together for 58 years and I love you more than ever."

It is still difficult to say what prompted the spouses to take this action. Perhaps one of the decisive factors was the illness of his wife, Doreen Gortz, from which she had suffered for the past few years. As you know, older people can hardly endure separation from loved ones, especially if they have no one else to rely on. And Andre might not want to continue living without her.

Good relations between the spouses can be judged by the entry that Gortz made to Doreen a year ago: “You just turned 82. You are still beautiful, generous and desirable. We've been together for 58 years and I love you more than ever."

Gorz was born in Vienna to a Jewish family. His real name is Gerhard Hirsch, he later changed his surname. After the capture of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, he moved to Switzerland, studied at the school of the Montana Institute.

The young man refused to go to the USA, Palestine or the USSR, and preferred to move to France in 1946. Here he was published in left-wing newspapers and magazines, including under the pseudonym Michel Bosquet.

Andre became a favorite student of the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and continuously studied his philosophical system for 9 years.

In 1954, he received French citizenship, at the same time he became one of the founders of the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, in which his most famous philosophical works were published.

Glory came to Highlander in the mid-1960s after the publication of his books on updating the strategies of the democratic movement. The philosopher is characterized by sharp turns in the movement of thought, a change in ideological orientation: in the 1960s he stood on the left socialist positions and tried to overcome the “gap” between “reform” and “revolution”, in the early 70s he came to an anarcho-libertarian denial of the values ​​of Western European civilization, and from the mid-70s - to more moderate liberal-libertarian attitudes.

At the same time, Gortz became increasingly disillusioned with the traditional working class and pinned all his hopes on new social movements, primarily environmental ones. “He sees in it an anti-capitalist protest against the attack of technocracy on society.

The global crisis of the entire industrial-capitalist civilization requires the solution of long-term problems of mankind, but the state and capital cannot and do not want to solve them,” wrote the historian Damier Vadim about it.

Gortz is considered one of the theorists of Western environmental thought. He is the author of such works as Ecology and Politics and Ecology and Freedom.

As a result of ideological wanderings, Gortz came to the conclusion that criticism of capitalist relations should be expanded to criticism of the entire "industrial" civilization. Gortz argued that the main problems of modernity are not material, but existential problems of the “oppressed individuality”.

Highlander's developments are highly appreciated by supporters of new social movements, popular in the left circles of Western Europe.

The writer's wife was born in the UK and was a year younger than the philosopher. They met and married in Paris in 1948. In the 1990s, Gortz retired and moved with his wife to the small town of Vovon, southeast of Paris.

Even then, information appeared in the media about Doreen's serious illness, all the worries about which fell on the shoulders of her husband.