Consciousness is primary, and matter is secondary - scientists have proven. What comes first - matter or consciousness? The Basic Question of Philosophy

“Philosophers and scientists, in endless debates about the primacy of consciousness or matter, forgot that the concept of consciousness was used without any explanation. And if, for example, dialectical materialism gave a more or less acceptable explanation of matter as “OBJECTIVE REALITY GIVEN TO US IN SENSATIONS,” then with regard to consciousness they could not come up with anything better than to “explain” it with the HIGHEST QUALITATIVE STATE of that same “objective reality” ”, which “is given to us in sensations”. Isn't it amazing logic?

Idealists, in turn, did not go so far from such logic, preaching the primacy of consciousness, the absolute idea, the absolute, the logos, and ultimately the Lord God, who created the “objective reality” that surrounds us.

In general, I would like to draw attention to the fact that the question itself: “what comes first—matter or consciousness?” is absurd in itself. Just as the question of the primacy of the egg or the chicken is absurd. Just as there is no chicken without an egg, there is no egg without a chicken, so there is no consciousness without matter and matter without consciousness. Both of these concepts are simply INSEPARABLE AND DO NOT EXIST WITHOUT EACH OTHER. It’s just that the concept of matter is much broader than it imagines modern science, and consciousness has many states that are qualitatively different from each other.

First of all, let's highlight the main criteria of consciousness:

1. Awareness, distinguishing oneself as a carrier of consciousness from the environment.
2. Harmonious interaction of the carrier of consciousness with the environment.

And if we consider a person through the prism of these criteria, we can determine the degree of his intelligence as a bearer of consciousness. And if, with the isolation of oneself from all surrounding nature, Homo sapiens everything is in perfect order, unfortunately, with harmonious interaction with the environment, things are very deplorable. Man has declared a real war on nature, instead of living in symbiosis with it. And for this there is absolutely no need to return to a wild state and expect from nature what it “wants” to give to a person.

It is necessary to know the laws of nature and, using this knowledge, to qualitatively change it so as not to disturb the harmony of the ecological system. And then it will become possible to control the planet’s climate, and control over its elements, and harmony with all other creatures who have no less, and maybe even more rights to breathe clean air, drink clean water and pass the baton of life to their descendants.

It is amazing that man looks at nature as a conqueror, and not as a child fed at her breast. And as long as this state of affairs continues, humanity must be considered a POTENTIALLY INTELLIGENT RACE, like a newly born child with everything ahead of him. I would like to wish that the “infant phase” does not drag on for so long that there will be no one and nowhere to visit “ kindergarten» nature...

Matter and consciousness, consciousness and matter. These two concepts contain unity and opposition. Consciousness implies rationality in the behavior of the bearer of consciousness. Reasonability, in turn, is manifested in the adequacy of reactions to processes occurring in the environment. Adequacy represents RATIONALITY, OPTIMALITY of certain reactions of the bearer of consciousness. Thus, one of the characteristics of consciousness is the RATIONALITY OF BEHAVIOR OF THE CARRIER OF CONSCIOUSNESS, which in any case is a MATERIAL OBJECT. In other words, CONSCIOUSNESS IS MANIFESTED IN MATTER ORGANIZED IN A CERTAIN WAY. It is only necessary to determine what the organization of matter should be in order for it to manifest certain elements of consciousness. Man is accustomed to dividing matter into living and non-living, forgetting that both one and the other are formed by the same atoms.

Moreover, any atom of living matter, sooner or later, will become part of non-living matter and vice versa, many atoms of inanimate matter will become part of living matter. Such a difference is determined only by the fact that the ratio of the masses of living and nonliving matter is not equivalent. Living matter makes up only a small part of the nonliving mass. However, both are completely capable of transforming into one another, the only difference being the SPATIAL ORGANIZATION AND QUALITATIVE STRUCTURE OF THESE MATERIALS. Thus, the qualitative difference between living and nonliving matter comes down to a DIFFERENCE IN THE SPATIAL ORGANIZATION AND QUALITATIVE STRUCTURE OF MATTER.

ABOUT THE PRIMARY OF MATTER AND SECONDARY CONSCIOUSNESS

P. T. BELOV

The Basic Question of Philosophy

The great and fundamental question of philosophy is the question of the relationship of thinking to being, spirit to nature. In the history of philosophical teachings there have been and are many schools and schools, many different theories that disagree with each other on a number of important and secondary problems of worldview. Monists and dualists, materialists and idealists, dialecticians and metaphysicians, empiricists and rationalists, nominalists and realists, relativists and dogmatists, skeptics, agnostics and supporters of the knowability of the world, etc., etc. In turn, each of these directions has within itself has many shades and branches. It would be extremely difficult to understand the abundance of philosophical trends, especially since supporters of reactionary philosophical theories deliberately invent “new” names (like empirio-criticism, empirio-monism, pragmatism, positivism, personalism, etc.) in order to hide the dilapidated content of long-standing -a long-debunked idealistic theory.

Identification of the main, fundamental question of philosophy provides an objective criterion for determining the essence and nature of each philosophical direction, and allows one to understand the complex labyrinth of philosophical systems, theories, and views.

For the first time, a clear and precise scientific definition of this main question of philosophy was given by the founders of Marxism. In Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, Engels wrote:

“The great fundamental question of all, especially modern, philosophy is the question of the relationship of thinking to being.” (F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy, 1952, p. 15).

“Philosophers were divided into two large camps according to how they answered this question. Those who argued that spirit existed before nature, and who, therefore, ultimately, one way or another recognized the creation of the world - and among philosophers, for example, Hegel, the creation of the world often takes on an even more confused and absurd form than in Christianity , - formed an idealistic camp. Those who considered nature to be the main principle joined various schools of materialism.” (Ibid., p. 16).

Any attempts by reactionary philosophers to bypass this basic ideological question, supposedly to “rise” above the “one-sidedness” of materialism and idealism, any attempts by idealists to hide the essence of their views behind the screen of a new “ism” have always and everywhere led and lead only to new confusion, to new charlatanism and ultimately to a more or less open recognition of the existence of an afterlife.

“Behind a bunch of new terminological tricks,” says V.I. Lenin, “behind the rubbish of Gelerter scholasticism, we have always, without exception, found two main lines, two main directions in resolving philosophical issues. Whether to take nature, matter, the physical, the external world as primary - and consider consciousness, spirit, sensation (experience, in the terminology common in our time), mental, etc., as secondary, this is the fundamental question that in fact continues to divide philosophers into two large camps." (V.I. Lenin, Works, vol. 14, ed. 4, p. 321).

The Marxist-Leninist solution to the basic question of philosophy is absolutely clear, categorical, not allowing any deviations from materialism. An exhaustive formulation of this decision is given by Comrade Stalin in his brilliant work “On Dialectical and Historical Materialism.”

“In contrast to idealism,” points out J.V. Stalin, “which asserts that only our consciousness really exists, that the material world, being, nature exists only in our consciousness, in our sensations, ideas, concepts, Marxist philosophical materialism proceeds from the fact that matter, nature, being represents an objective reality that exists outside and independently of consciousness, that matter is primary, since it is the source of sensations, ideas, consciousness, and consciousness is secondary, derivative, since it is a reflection of matter, a reflection of being, that thinking is a product of matter that has reached a high degree of perfection in its development, namely, a product of the brain, and the brain is an organ of thinking, that it is therefore impossible to separate thinking from matter, without wanting to fall into a gross error.” (I.V. Stalin, Questions of Leninism, 1952, p. 581).

The idealistic answer to the fundamental question of philosophy is directly opposed to both science and common sense and is closely aligned with the dogmas of religion. Some idealists (Plato, Hegel, Berkeley, theologians of all religions, etc.) without any pretense appeal to the idea of ​​God, the supernatural, the mystical. Other representatives of idealism (Machists, pragmatists, semanticists, and others and others) arrive at the same provisions of religion through intricate epistemological reasoning. Thus, rejecting any supposedly “inexperienced” postulates and recognizing as real only the consciousness of the philosophizing subject himself, they inevitably come to solipsism, that is, to denying the real existence of the entire surrounding world, the existence of anything other than the consciousness of the philosophizing subject. And when they reach this impasse, they inevitably appeal to the “saving” idea of ​​a deity, in whose consciousness they dissolve the whole world and the individual consciousness of man with all its contradictions.

No matter how different idealistic theories may be, there has never been and is not a significant difference between them.

V.I. Lenin points out that the entire so-called difference between idealistic schools boils down to the fact that “very simple or very complex philosophical idealism is taken as a basis: very simple, if the matter openly comes down to solipsism (I exist, the whole world is just my feeling); very complex if, instead of the thought, idea, sensation of a living person, a dead abstraction is taken: no one’s thought, no one’s idea, no one’s sensation, thought in general (absolute idea, universal will, etc.), sensation as an indefinite “element”, “psychic ", substituted for all physical nature, etc., etc. Between the varieties of philosophical idealism, thousands of shades are possible, and it is always possible to create the thousand-first shade, and the author of such a thousand-first system (for example, empiriomonism) distinguishes it from others may seem important. From the point of view of materialism, these differences are completely insignificant.” (V.I. Lenin, Works, vol. 14, ed. 4, p. 255).

Idealists of all times and all countries have always repeated and repeat the same thing, recognizing consciousness, spirit, idea as the fundamental basis of everything that exists, and material bodies and all of infinite nature, declaring reality to be secondary, derived from consciousness.

Any sane person who is not experienced in the “subtleties” of idealistic philosophy, encountering this kind of statements by idealists, is perplexed: what nonsense, how can anyone in their right mind deny the reality of the existence of the surrounding external world and the entire universe? And those who are perplexed are quite right: idealistic ravings are not much different from the ravings of a madman. In this regard, V.I. Lenin compares idealists with the inhabitants of “yellow houses” (i.e., psychiatric hospitals).

However, idealism is not just nonsense, otherwise it would not have been preserved in people's heads for thousands of years. Idealism has its own theoretical-cognitive (epistemological) roots and class and social roots. It is no coincidence that many, many representatives of bourgeois science, including natural scientists, find themselves in the snares of religion and idealism. It is no coincidence that millions and millions of working people in capitalist countries continue to remain religious people; and religion is the older sister of idealism, a type of idealistic worldview.

The epistemological roots of idealism lie in the contradictory relationship between the subject (consciousness) and the object (being).

“The approach of the (human) mind to a separate thing,” says V.I. Lenin, - taking a cast (= concept) from it is not a simple, immediate, mirror-dead act, but a complex, bifurcated, zigzag one, including the possibility of fantasy flying away from life; moreover: the possibility of transformation (and, moreover, an imperceptible, unconscious transformation by a person) of an abstract concept, an idea into a fantasy (ultimately = God). For even in the simplest generalization, in the most elementary general idea (“table” in general) there is a certain piece of fantasy.” (V.I. Lenin, Philosophical Notebooks, 1947, p. 308).

The reflection of things in human consciousness is a complex, biologically and socially contradictory process. For example, the same object for sensory perception sometimes appears hot, sometimes cold, sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter, depending on the conditions. The color of the same bodies looks different under different conditions. Finally, only a limited range of properties of things is available to a person for direct sensory perception. Hence the conclusion about the relativity of sensory data. The same relativity is also characteristic of logical knowledge. The history of knowledge is the history of the consistent replacement of some outdated ideas and theories by others, more advanced ones.

All this while forgetting the main thing - that, no matter how contradictory the process of cognition may be, it reflects the real material world that exists outside of us and independently of us, and that our consciousness is only a cast, a snapshot, a reflection of the eternally existing and developing matter - When this main thing is forgotten, many philosophers, entangled in epistemological contradictions, rush into the arms of idealism.

Studying, for example, intra-atomic, intranuclear phenomena and other physical processes in which the deepest properties of matter are manifested, modern physicists subject these phenomena they study to complex mathematical processing. In this case, mathematics turns out to be a powerful lever in the hands of the physicist, helping to establish and express in formulas the patterns of the microworld. However, having become accustomed to operating mainly with mathematical calculations and not being able to directly see atoms and even smaller units of matter, a physicist who does not firmly adhere to the positions of philosophical materialism “forgets” about objective nature behind mathematical symbols. As a result of such “oblivion,” Machian physicists declare: matter has disappeared, only equations remain. It turns out that, having begun to study nature, a physicist, helpless in philosophy, comes to deny the real existence of nature and slides into the abyss of idealism and mysticism.

Let's take another example - also from the history of natural science.

Studying the nature of the living body, biologists once established that the cells of various species of animals and plants have their own special set of chromosomes - peculiar threads into which the nucleus of a biological cell is converted at the moment of its division. And so, without knowing true reasons heredity and its variability, metaphysical biologists, in a purely deductive, speculative way, concluded that the cause of heredity and variability lies entirely in the chromosome, that in the chromosome of the germ cell every specific characteristic of the future individual is supposedly predetermined. And since an organism has many specific hereditary characteristics, these biologists began (again, purely speculatively) to divide the chromosomal thread into separate pieces (“genes”), which were declared determinants of heredity. But the development of the actual properties of living organisms does not fit into the far-fetched scheme of chromosomal genetics, then the supporters of this theory - the Weismann-Morganists - began to cry out about the “unknowability of the gene”, about the immaterial nature of the “immortal” “substance of heredity”, and so on and so forth.

Instead of subjecting a complete revision to the initial premises of the chromosomal theory of heredity and listening to the voice of the practice of innovators in agricultural production, bourgeois geneticists, not knowing the actual driving forces of the development of living organisms, fall into idealism and clericalism.

The main thing here is that bourgeois scientists ignore the role of practice in the process of cognition, in resolving all epistemological contradictions. When encountering certain difficulties in science and knowledge, they approach their resolution only speculatively. And since not a single theoretical question can be scientifically resolved without taking into account practice, philosophers who ignore the role of practice in knowledge ultimately become entangled in contradictions and drown head over heels in the quagmire of idealism.

At the same time, we must remember about the enormous oppression of religious traditions, which, under the conditions of the bourgeois system, weigh heavily on the minds of people from childhood and constantly lead them towards mysticism.

“Knowledge of man,” says V.I. Lenin, “is not (respective does not follow) a straight line, but a curved line, endlessly approaching a series of circles, a spiral. Any fragment, fragment, piece of this curved line can be transformed (one-sidedly transformed) into an independent, whole, straight line, which (if you cannot see the forest for the trees) then leads into the swamp, into clericalism (where it is secured by the class interest of the ruling classes). Straightforwardness and one-sidedness, woodenness and ossification, subjectivism and subjective blindness voilá (here - Ed.) are the epistemological roots of idealism. And clericalism (= philosophical idealism), of course, has epistemological roots, it is not groundless, it is an empty flower, no doubt, but an empty flower growing on a living tree of living, fruitful, true, powerful, omnipotent, objective, absolute human knowledge.” (V.I. Lenin, Philosophical Notebooks, 1947, p. 330).

The constant argument of idealists comes down to the argument that consciousness deals only with sensations and ideas: Whatever object is considered, for consciousness it is a sensation (perception of color, shape, hardness, heaviness, taste, sound, etc.) . When turning to the outside world, consciousness, idealists say, does not go beyond the limits of sensations, just as one cannot jump out of one’s own skin.

However, no sane person has ever doubted for a minute that human consciousness deals not just with “sensations as such,” but with the objective world itself, with real things and phenomena that are outside consciousness and exist independently of consciousness.

And so, faced with a dialectically contradictory relationship between object and subject, the idealist begins to wonder: what could be there, “on the other side” of sensations? Some of the idealists (Kant) argue that “there” there are “things in themselves” that influence us, but which are supposedly fundamentally unknowable. Others (for example, Fichte, neo-Kantians, Machians) say: there is no such “thing in itself”, “thing in itself” is also a concept, and therefore, again, a “construction of the mind itself,” consciousness. Therefore, only consciousness really exists. All things are nothing more than a “complex of ideas” (Berkeley), a “complex of elements” (sensations) (Mach).

Idealists cannot get out of the enchanted circle of sensations that they themselves have created. But this “vicious circle” is easily broken, the contradiction is resolved if we take into account the arguments of the practical activities of people, if the evidence of practice (everyday experience, industry, the experience of the struggle of revolutionary classes, the experience of social life in general) is taken as the basis for solving the fundamental question of philosophy: about the relation of thinking to being, consciousness to nature.

In practice, people are convinced every day that sensations, ideas, concepts (if they are scientific) do not fence off, but connect consciousness with the external, material world of things, that there are no fundamentally unknowable “things in themselves”, that with each new success of social production We are learning more and more deeply the objective properties and patterns of the surrounding material world.

Take, for example, modern aviation technology. Every gram of metal in an airplane is both a plus, increasing the strength of the structure, and a minus, aggravating the load of the device, reducing its maneuverability. To what degree of accuracy must one know the aerodynamic properties of materials, engines used in aircraft construction, and the properties of air in order to correctly calculate the maneuvering capabilities of devices with their speeds on the order of the speed of sound! And if aviation technology moves forward with such rapid steps, then our knowledge about things is reliable. This means that sensations do not fence off consciousness from the external world, but connect it with it; This means that consciousness does not close itself in a “vicious circle” of sensations, but goes beyond the boundaries of this “circle” into the material world of things that a person cognizes, and having cognized, subordinates to his own power.

The successes of the synthetic chemistry industry, producing artificial rubber, silk, wool, dyes, organic compounds similar to proteins; advances in spectral analysis, radar and radio engineering in general, advances in the study of intra-atomic phenomena up to practical use inexhaustible sources intra-atomic energy - all these are irresistible arguments for materialism, against idealism.

And after this there are idealistic cretins who are still repeating that we supposedly do not know and cannot know anything about the existence of the material world, that “only consciousness is real.” At one time, F. Engels, in refuting the arguments of agnosticism, cited the discovery of alizarin in coal tar as an example as a fact of outstanding significance, clearly proving the reliability of human knowledge. Against the background of technical achievements of the mid-20th century, this fact may seem relatively elementary. However, from the fundamental epistemological side, it remains in full force, pointing to the decisive role of experience, practice, and industry in resolving all the difficulties of knowledge.

In addition to epistemological idealism, it also has its social and class roots. If idealism had not had class roots, this anti-scientific philosophy would not have lasted long.

The division of society into hostile classes, the separation of mental labor from physical labor and the antagonistic opposition of the first to the second, the merciless oppression of exploitation - all this gave rise and gives rise to religious and idealistic illusions about the dominance of the “eternal” spirit over the “perishable” nature, that consciousness is everything, and matter is nothing. The extreme confusion of estate and class relations in pre-capitalist societies, the anarchy of production in the era of capitalism, the helplessness of people before the spontaneous laws of history created illusions about the unknowability of the outside world. The conclusions of idealism, mysticism, and religion are beneficial to the reactionary classes and serve dying capitalism. Therefore, everything that in modern bourgeois society stands for capitalism and against socialism, all this feeds, supports, fuels idealistic speculation.

It can be said directly that in our time, in the age of exceptional successes of science, technology, industry in mastering the laws of nature, in the age of the greatest successes of the revolutionary struggle of the working class for mastering the laws of social development, the class roots of idealism are the main reasons for the preservation of this anti-scientific, reactionary philosophy .

And it is no coincidence that of all the varieties of idealism, the most fashionable among the bourgeoisie are now the currents of subjective idealism, which reject the objective laws of nature and open up space for unbridled arbitrariness, lawlessness, and charlatanism. German imperialism developed its wild adventuristic aggression under the sign of Nietzschean voluntarism. The US imperialists are now undertaking their adventures under the sign of pragmatism, logical positivism, semanticism - these varieties of specifically American business philosophy that justify any abomination, as long as they promise benefits to the Wall Street tycoons.

The objective course of history inevitably leads to the death of capitalism, to the inevitable victory of socialism throughout the world. This is why the objective laws of reality are so frightening to the reactionary bourgeoisie and its ideologists. That is why they do not want to take into account the objective laws of historical development and seek justification for their anti-people actions in anti-scientific systems of philosophy. That is why the imperialist bourgeoisie rushes into the arms of idealism and especially subjective idealism.

The imperialist reaction does not disdain anything. She tries to directly rely on the obscurantism of the Middle Ages, resurrecting, for example, the shadow of “Saint” Thomas (Aquinas), one of the main Christian theologians of the 13th century, and forming the philosophical movement of neophomism.

These are the social, class roots of modern idealistic theories. At the same time, however, one cannot fail to note the following. Trying to fool the working masses with the propaganda of idealism, clericalism, and obscurantism, the bourgeoisie at the same time fools itself, completely mired in anti-scientific devilry and losing any criterion for its own orientation in the turbulent current of modern events. Everyone knows into what abyss the Nazis led themselves by professing the theories of Nietzscheanism, the “myth of the 20th century,” etc. The same fate awaits the American imperialists. Wanting to confuse others, they themselves become entangled in the darkness of pragmatism, logical positivism, semanticism, etc., thereby accelerating their own death and the collapse of the capitalist system as a whole.

Such is the fate of the moribund reactionary forces of society, who do not want to voluntarily leave the historical stage.

The entire history of philosophy, starting from the ancient Chinese and ancient Greek schools, is the history of the fiercest struggle between materialism and idealism, the line of Democritus and the line of Plato. In solving the basic question of philosophy, Marxist philosophical materialism relies on the great traditions of materialism of the past and continues these traditions. Ruthlessly smashing idealism of all stripes, Marx and Engels relied on Feuerbach, French materialists of the 18th century, F. Bacon, ancient materialists, etc. Exposing Machism, V. I. Lenin in his brilliant work “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism” refers to Democritus , Diderot, Feuerbach, Chernyshevsky and other outstanding materialist philosophers and natural scientists of the past. V.I. Lenin advised to continue to republish the best materialist and atheistic works of the old materialists, because even today they have not lost their significance in the struggle against idealism and religion.

However, Marxist philosophical materialism is not a simple continuation of the old materialism. Proceeding quite correctly in solving the main philosophical question from the primacy of matter and the secondary nature of consciousness, the pre-Marxist materialists were, at the same time, generally metaphysical, contemplative materialists. When solving the main question of philosophy, they did not take into account the role of the revolutionary practical activity of man. The relation of consciousness to being was usually represented by him as a purely contemplative (theoretical or sensory) relation. If some of them spoke about the role of practice in knowledge (partly Feuerbach and especially Chernyshevsky), then for a scientific understanding of practice itself they still lacked a materialistic understanding of history.

Criticizing the limitations of all old materialism and formulating the foundations of the scientific proletarian worldview, Marx wrote in the famous “Theses on Feuerbach”: “ Main disadvantage of all previous materialism - including Feuerbach's - lies in the fact that the object, reality, sensuality, is taken only in the form of an object, or in the form of contemplation, and not as human sensory activity, practice...” (F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy, 1952, p. 54).

Being idealists in the field of history, pre-Marxist materialists, naturally, could not give a scientific interpretation of the laws of the emergence and development of human consciousness, could not give a materialist solution to the question of the relationship of social consciousness to social existence.

“Philosophers,” Marx pointed out at the conclusion of his “Theses on Feuerbach,” “have only explained the world in various ways, but the point is to change it.” (Ibid., p. 56).

Therefore, Marxist philosophical materialism is not and could not be a simple continuation of the old materialism.

Very many of the old materialists, for example, strayed either to hylozoism (i.e., to endowing all matter with the property of sensation) (Even G.V. Plekhanov paid tribute to such a point of view), or to vulgar materialism. Vulgar materialists do not see any difference between consciousness as a property of matter and the other properties of matter and consider consciousness as a kind of evaporation, a secretory secretion produced by the brain. The errors of the old materialists were inevitable, since the old materialists were unable to scientifically solve the problem of the generation of consciousness by matter.

In contrast, Marxist philosophical materialism asserts that consciousness is a property not of all, but only of highly organized and specially organized matter. Consciousness is a property only of biologically organized living matter, a property that arises and develops in accordance with the emergence and improvement of living forms.

In the work “Anarchism or Socialism?” J.V. Stalin points out: “The idea that the ideal side, and consciousness in general, in its development precedes the development of the material side is incorrect. There were no living beings yet, but the so-called external, “inanimate” nature already existed. The first living creature did not possess any consciousness, it possessed only the property of irritability and the first rudiments of sensation. Then the animals gradually developed the ability to sense, slowly passing into consciousness, in accordance with the development of the structure of their body and nervous system.” (I.V. Stalin, Works, vol. 1, p. 313).

Comrade Stalin also criticizes the point of view of vulgar materialists who identify consciousness with matter as untenable. He writes: “...the idea that consciousness is a form of being does not at all mean that consciousness by its nature is the same matter. Only vulgar materialists (for example, Büchner and Moleschott), whose theories fundamentally contradict Marx’s materialism and who were rightly ridiculed by Engels in his Ludwig Feuerbach, thought so. (Ibid., p. 317).

Consciousness is a special property of matter, the property of displaying external things and their relationships in the thinking human brain. Social consciousness is, in turn, a product of social existence.

Although not all nature has consciousness, this does not mean at all that the latter is a random property in nature. Generalizing the data of natural science and relying on them, Marxist philosophical materialism asserts that consciousness is a completely natural and, under appropriate conditions, an inevitable result of the development of forms of matter, because the possibility of sensation and consciousness is inherent in the very foundation of matter as its integral potential property.

Speaking about the eternal, irresistible and inexhaustible development of matter, about the emergence and disappearance of some of its forms and their replacement by other forms, including the possibility of the emergence and disappearance in the endless nature of living and thinking beings, Engels wrote: “... no matter how many millions of suns and lands neither arose nor perished; no matter how long time may last until the conditions for organic life are created in some solar system and on one planet only; no matter how many countless organic beings must first arise and perish before animals with brains capable of thinking develop from their midst, finding short term conditions suitable for their life, in order to then also be exterminated without mercy - we have confidence that matter in all its transformations remains eternally the same, that not one of its attributes can ever be lost and that therefore with the same “With the most iron necessity with which it will ever destroy its highest color on earth - the thinking spirit, it will have to give birth to it again somewhere in another place and at another time.” (F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, 1952, pp. 18-19).

Marxist philosophical materialism sweeps aside the absurd speculations of obscurantists about the “immortality of the soul”, the “afterlife”, etc. and, relying on the unshakable data of science and practice, reveals the true laws of the irresistible generation of consciousness by matter - the laws of the eternal transformation of some forms of matter into others , including the transformation of inanimate matter into living matter and vice versa.

In simple mineral bodies, of course, there is no irritability, no sensation. However, even here there are already possibilities that, subject to a qualitatively different organization of matter (living body), give rise to biological forms of reflection of the external world. Where living protein arises, the property of irritability and then sensation naturally and inevitably arises.

The same must be said about the emergence of human consciousness. In comparison with the mental abilities of even higher animals, it represents a qualitatively new phenomenon, of a higher order, which does not exist in the animal world. But its emergence is also based on those preparatory biological prerequisites that develop in the long-term natural-historical progress of animal species and their higher nervous organization.

Consciousness is a property of matter. “...The opposition of matter and consciousness,” V.I. Lenin pointed out, “has absolute significance only within a very limited area: in this case, exclusively within the framework of the basic epistemological question of what is recognized as primary and what is secondary. Beyond these limits, the relativity of this opposition is undeniable.” (V.I. Lenin, Works, vol. 14, ed. 4, pp. 134-135).

The same idea is emphasized by J.V. Stalin in his work “Anarchism or Socialism?”, speaking about a single and indivisible nature, expressed in two forms - material and ideal.

In “Philosophical Notebooks” V.I. Lenin again notes that “the difference between the ideal and the material is also not unconditional, not excessive.” (V.I. Lenin, Philosophical Notebooks, 1947, p. 88).

Beyond the main epistemological question, the material and the ideal appear as different forms of manifestation of a single and indivisible nature. Human consciousness really exists. It develops historically in space and time through millions and millions of minds of successive generations of people. The consciousness of an individual person is just as accessible to natural scientific research as any other property of moving matter. The great merit of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov lies in the fact that for the first time in the history of science he discovered and developed an objective (natural science) method for studying mental phenomena.

But having said that consciousness develops not only in time, but also in space, one cannot equate consciousness and matter, as vulgar materialists do. We are talking only about criticism of the notorious position of idealists (Kant, Hegel, Machists, etc.), that consciousness is a “timeless” and “extraspatial” category. In general, the relationship of matter and its properties to space and time cannot be imagined in a simplified, Newtonian way. This, too, would be a concession to vulgar, mechanistic materialism.

There is consciousness on earth, but it is not on the moon, it is not on the hot stars. Isn't this an attitude towards space? V. I. Lenin called the claims of the Machist Avenarius to the right to arbitrarily “invent” consciousness everywhere obscurantism. If, Engels says in the quotation already quoted, matter ever destroys on earth its highest color - the thinking spirit, it will again and inevitably give birth to it somewhere else and at another time. It is only in this sense that we are talking in this case about the development of consciousness in space and time.

Therefore, it is impossible to recognize as correct the sweeping (and essentially clarifying nothing) statement that consciousness is something timeless and spaceless. Nowhere in the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism is such a characteristic of consciousness found. And this is not accidental, for all forms of matter and absolutely all its properties - including consciousness - are located and develop in time and space, since matter itself exists and can exist only in time and space.

But consciousness, at the same time, is certainly not some kind of “excretion,” “juice,” “evaporation,” as vulgar materialists think. What, then, is the fundamental difference between matter and consciousness? In short, it is as follows.

Any substance, any other form of matter has its own objective content in itself - molecular, atomic or electromagnetic content, which can, so to speak, be measured and weighed. On the contrary, the objective content of consciousness is not in consciousness itself, but outside it - in the external world, reflected by consciousness. Consciousness, therefore, has no content other than the material world external to it, independent of it, and reflected by it.

V.I. Lenin criticized Joseph Dietzgen on this issue not at all for recognizing consciousness as a material property, but for the fact that Dietzgen, with his clumsy expressions, blurred the difference between the material and the ideal in the plane of the main epistemological question, declaring that the difference between a table in consciousness and a table in reality no more than the difference between two actual tables. This was already a direct concession to the idealists, who precisely strive to present the products of consciousness itself as reality.

In fact, the idea of ​​an object and the object itself are not two equally real objects. The idea of ​​an object is just a mental image real object, it is not real, but ideal. The objective content of a thought lies not in itself, but externally.

Of course, consciousness is connected and associated with certain biochemical, physiological (including electromagnetic) movements in the brain. Modern physiology has established, for example, that at the moment when a person’s consciousness is not tense and is in a calm (resting) state, uniform electromagnetic oscillations occur in the brain (alpha waves = about 10 oscillations per second). But as soon as intense mental work begins, say, a person begins to solve a mathematical problem, extremely fast electromagnetic oscillations are excited in the brain. When work on a task stops, these rapid oscillations of the waves also stop. The uniform alpha oscillation is restored again.

It turns out that thinking is associated with certain electromagnetic voltages occurring in brain tissue. However, the content of thinking in this case is not these electronic movements in the brain. They are only a condition for the thinking process. The content of the latter is the problem that the brain solved. And in the given mathematical problem, the forms of relationships between things, phenomena that are outside consciousness, in a world external to consciousness, were precisely reflected.

This is the specificity of consciousness as a property of matter. But this difference between matter and consciousness is not absolute, not excessive. It is permissible and obligatory only within the framework of the formulation of the main philosophical question. Beyond these limits, matter as primary and consciousness as secondary act as two sides of a single and indivisible nature.

V.I. Lenin points out that “the picture of the world is a picture of how matter moves and how “matter thinks”.”

Scientific data on the emergence of consciousness as a property of matter

For idealists, the problem of the origin of consciousness remains a fundamentally insoluble mystery. Idealists are not only unable to solve, or even pose this question correctly. Bypassing the direct formulation of the question of the relationship of thinking to being, modern idealists in their philosophical theories “desire” to remain only “within the limits of experience” (of course, subjectively idealistically understood experience, as a flow of sensations, ideas, etc.). Therefore, they can actually say absolutely nothing about the origin of consciousness other than the empty tautology that consciousness is consciousness (unless, of course, we count a more or less covert appeal to the supernatural). Such is the “depth” of their “wisdom.”

On the contrary, materialism and especially Marxist philosophical materialism in this matter directly turns to advanced natural science, which studies in detail and experimentally the deepest properties of inorganic and organic matter.

What exactly does 20th century science tell us about the generation of consciousness by matter? In modern natural science, this question breaks down into two independent, but closely related problems: 1) the problem of the origin of living things from non-living things and 2) the problem of the emergence and development of the properties of irritability, sensation, and consciousness with the progressive development of biological forms. In fact, if sensation, consciousness in general is a property only of highly and specially organized matter (living matter), then the question of the generation of consciousness by matter primarily rests on the question of the emergence of living things from non-living things, the question of the origin of life.

With legitimate pride, we must immediately emphasize that in our time, for a practical, natural-scientific solution to the centuries-old problem of the origin of life and the transformation of insentient matter into sentient matter, Russian and Soviet science with its greatest discoveries second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, which laid the foundation for a number of new branches in natural science and raised natural science as a whole to a new level.

Continuing the line of Mendeleev and Butlerov, Soviet scientists have made great progress in studying the chemistry of organic bodies, relationships and mutual transitions between organic and inorganic nature. Discoveries of V. I. Vernadsky in the field of geobiochemistry, discoveries of N. D. Zelinsky and his students, A. N. Bach, A. I. Oparin and their students, achievements of research institutes of Moscow, Leningrad and other scientific centers in the field of chemistry proteins, biochemistry, up to the artificial production (from resynthesis products) of proteins, which already reveal some biological properties(for example, immune, enzymatic properties) - all this sheds bright light on the problem of the origin of living things from non-living things.

In turn, the great achievements of Russian, Soviet materialistic biology are the works of K. A. Timiryazev, I. V. Michurin, N. F. Gamaley, O. B. Lepeshinskaya, T. D. Lysenko and other outstanding biologists and microbiologists, the works of I. M. Sechenov, I. P. Pavlov and their followers also irrefutably speak about the origin of sentient matter from non-sentient matter, confirming the unshakable provisions of Marxist philosophical materialism.

Modern natural science approaches the solution of the question of the origin of living things from non-living things, about the essence of life as a certain biochemical material process, from two sides. Chemistry, geochemistry and biochemistry - from the point of view of analyzing the patterns of transformation of inorganic substances into organic ones, the patterns of synthesis of more and more complex organic compounds, up to the formation of proteins (at a certain stage of complexity of which life appears), from the point of view of elucidating the essence of the initial biochemical reactions . On the contrary, theoretical biology, cytology, microbiology approach the same question from the point of view of studying the living forms themselves, starting from the highest and ending with the lowest, most elementary manifestations of life. Thus, the branches of modern natural science - some ascending from inanimate nature to living nature, others descending from living forms to inanimate nature - converge at the junction of both, on the study of the origin and essence of assimilation and dissimilation - the biological process of metabolism.

Summarizing the data of the science of his time, F. Engels wrote three quarters of a century ago in Anti-Dühring:

“Life is a way of existence of protein bodies, and this way of existence consists essentially in the constant self-renewal of chemical components these bodies."

“Life - the mode of existence of the protein body - consists, therefore, first of all in the fact that the protein body at each given moment is itself and at the same time different, and that this does not happen as a result of any process to which it is subjected from the outside, as happens with dead bodies. On the contrary, life, the metabolism that occurs through nutrition and excretion, is a self-perfecting process inherent, innate to its carrier - protein, a process without which there can be no life. And from this it follows that if chemistry ever manages to artificially create protein, then this latter will have to detect the phenomena of life, even the weakest ones.” (F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, 1952, pp. 77-78).

The subsequent development of advanced natural science fully confirmed Engels' brilliant definition of the essence of life and his forecast regarding the possibility of artificial synthesis of protein bodies, including those that will have the first signs of life.

The data of modern advanced science about the essence and origin of life can be briefly summarized as follows.

Living things are not something random on earth. The totality of all living beings on earth - the biosphere - is a natural product of the geochemical development of the surface of the planet. The biosphere continues to play a significant, extremely important role in all further geochemical processes of the earth's crust, determining the nature of rock formation, soil formation, the composition of the atmosphere and the general distribution of chemical elements in the upper layers of the earth's crust, the hydrosphere, and the atmosphere.

“Living organisms, from a geochemical point of view, are not an accidental fact in the chemical mechanism of the earth’s crust; they form its most essential and inseparable part. They are inextricably linked with the inert matter of the earth’s crust, with minerals and rocks... Great biologists have long been aware of the inextricable connection connecting the organism with the nature that surrounds it.” (V.I. Vernadsky, Essays on Geochemistry, Gosizdat, M – L. 1927, p. 41).

Leaving aside some absolutely erroneous philosophical conclusions that were made by the outstanding Russian scientist, founder of the science of geobiochemistry V.I. Vernadsky, it is necessary to emphatically emphasize that his works on geochemistry and the biosphere contain extremely important natural scientific generalizations, discoveries valuable for the materialistic understanding of the origin life on earth.

Living things are formed from the same chemical elements that make up the rest, the mineral part of nature.

The composition of the living body of an organism includes almost all (including radioactive) chemical elements of Mendeleev’s periodic system, some in large, others in smaller proportions. But no matter how small in quantitative terms the proportion of some chemical elements in the composition of protoplasm is (their presence in organisms is detected only with the help of spectral analysis), the latter, however, also play a significant role in the life of the protein; their absence causes the death of the organism. (It can be noted, for example, that soils that lack an element such as copper cannot be used for growing cereals; soil that does not contain boron is unsuitable for beets, etc.).

From a geochemical point of view, living matter, said V. I. Vernadsky, is an oxygen substance rich in hydrogen and carbon. However, the importance of carbon in organisms is determined not by its quantity, but by its exceptional chemical properties- provide unlimited possibilities for chemical association, which forms the core of all subsequent complications in the development of an organic molecule.

A living organism constructs its body from substances of inanimate matter. The works of K. A. Timiryazev show how in the green leaf of a plant - this natural laboratory - the first formation of organic matter occurs from inorganic, which forms the basis for the nutrition of all subsequent forms of life on earth. K. A. Timiryazev showed that both organic photosynthesis and, in general, all other biochemical processes in organisms are strictly subject to the immutable laws of the universe: the laws of conservation and transformation of matter and energy.

“Just as not a single atom of carbon,” said K. A. Timiryazev, “was created by a plant, but penetrated into it from the outside, so not a single unit of heat released by plant matter during combustion was created by life, but was borrowed, ultimately, from sun."

“...The law of conservation of energy is justified in general for animal and plant organisms, explaining to us the connection between the activity of an organism and the waste of its substance.” (K.A. Timiryazev, Selected Works, vol.II, M. 1948, pp. 341, 340).

Chemistry, biochemistry, and biology experimentally prove that in the body there are no special mystical forces invented by idealists (“entelechy,” “soul,” “vital force,” etc.) that supposedly “revitalize” “inert matter.” All properties of living things, including deepest processes biological metabolism stem from its own internal complexity and inconsistency of living matter. Every organism is a naturally and historically formed concentration of external conditions. Organisms in all their stages develop in inextricable unity with these material conditions.

Before our eyes, so to speak, there is a constant chemical exchange of substances between living and inanimate nature. Over a certain period of time, a complete renewal of the material composition of the body actually occurs. The chemicals that made up the living body (and every molecule of living protein) die and are removed from the body, and new chemicals coming from external environment, having become the tissue of the body, acquire all the properties of living matter.

“Every living body,” says Academician T. D. Lysenko, “builds itself from inanimate material, in other words, from food, from environmental conditions... A living body consists, as it were, of individual elements of the external environment, which have turned into elements of living bodies."

At the same time, it is important to emphasize that inanimate matter, assimilated by the body and thus turning into living matter, not only completely reproduces all those properties of the living matter in whose place it comes, but also generates, in addition, new, higher biological properties, thanks to which life progresses both in terms of the stage development of individuals and in the general plan of phylogeny.

K. A. Timiryazev, as a natural scientist, gives a definition of the essence of life, the difference between living and nonliving, which fully confirms Engels’s thought.

“The main property that characterizes organisms,” wrote the great Russian materialist scientist, “which distinguishes them from inorganisms, is the constant active exchange between their matter and the matter of the environment. The body constantly perceives a substance, transforms it into something similar (assimilates, assimilates), changes it again and secretes it. The life of the simplest cell, a lump of protoplasm, the existence of an organism consists of these two transformations: acceptance and accumulation - release and waste of matter. On the contrary, the existence of a crystal is only conceivable in the absence of any transformations, in the absence of any exchange between its substance and the substances of the environment.” (T. D. Lysenko, Agrobiology, ed. 4, 1948, pp. 459-460.).

“In a lump of protein substance, the entire diverse chemistry of the living body is potentially given.” (Ibid., p. 371).

Thundering vitalists, neovitalists and other idealists in science, K. A. Timiryazev proved with facts, on the basis of colossal experimental material, that in the biochemistry of a living body there is nothing except matter, except “nature”, developing according to the irresistible laws of nature itself.

Expelled from the field of understanding basic physiological processes, idealists in biology tried to transfer their tricks to the interpretation of the nature of heredity and its variability. However, idealism is completely defeated on this battlefield.

In a tense struggle against idealistic, Weismannian-Morganist genetics, K. A. Timiryazev, I. V. Michurin, T. D. Lysenko deeply and comprehensively proved that in the body there is no “substance of heredity” that is different from the body and supposedly immortal. The laws of heredity and its variability also have a completely understandable, material nature, consisting entirely of the interactions of the organism and the environment.

Looking for some special “substance of heredity” in the body is the same as looking for a “soul” or “vital force” independent of the body of the organism.

The fact that, when reproducing, individuals reproduce similar organisms to themselves, is determined not by any supernatural and special “determinants of heredity”, but by the dialectical laws of interconnection and interdependence of all parts of the living body - between atoms and their groups in a living protein molecule, between molecules in protoplasm and cells, between cells in tissues, between tissues in organs and organs in the body.

Reproducing from a germ cell or vegetative bud, as if regenerating, the organism develops all its potential properties in accordance with the law of interconnection and interdependence of molecules, cells, tissues, etc.

“Figuratively speaking,” writes academician T.D. Lysenko, “the development of the organism is, as it were, the unwinding from within of a spiral twisted in the previous generation.” (T.D. Lysenko, Agrobiology, ed. 4, 1948, p. 463).

These are the conclusions of modern advanced natural science, which consistently interprets life materialistically as one of the forms of movement of matter.

Modern advanced natural science (astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology) has completely exposed the idealistic theories of “eternity of life,” “panspermia,” etc. Life on earth is of terrestrial origin, the result of an extremely long natural synthesis of more and more complex organic substances. Where there is life on other planets of the solar system (Regarding life on Mars, science already has quite reliable data. Soviet scientists have created a new branch of natural science - astrobotany, which studies the Martian flora. More and more insistent assumptions are made about the presence of life on Venus) or on planets of other stars, everywhere it can only be the result of the development of matter on a given planet, for living things are inseparable from the conditions of their existence and are conceivable only as a product of the development of these conditions themselves.

In the book of Academician A.I. Oparin “The Emergence of Life on Earth,” first published in 1936 and summarizing the achievements of science in the USSR and abroad from the point of view of materialism, the main stages of possible natural organosynthesis are outlined, starting from the first carbide compounds to proteins capable of fall out of solutions in the form of various colloidal precipitates, which could then evolve into living matter. Of course, in the course of further development of cosmogony, geology, chemistry, biology, changes and clarification of natural science concepts regarding specific links in the overall picture of the original origin of living things from non-living things are inevitable. But no matter how individual natural scientific conclusions change, one thing remains unchanged - this is that the living, organic originated and originates from inorganic, inanimate nature according to the laws of the development of matter itself.

The emergence of life meant the greatest qualitative leap, a turning point in the development of matter on earth. The sharp turn in the development of matter in this case ultimately lies in the fact that chemical processes turn into biochemical processes, distinguished, strictly speaking, by a new type of chemical association and dissociation in the organic molecule itself.

A nonliving chemical compound is a closed system, all of whose valence and other bonds are usually substituted and interconnected. This gives the molecule stability of equilibrium. Stability of a nonliving molecule, its stationarity chemical composition is achieved by its relative inertness to surrounding bodies. (As soon as such a molecule reacts, it changes its chemical composition, which gives a different compound.)

On the contrary, the stability of a living molecule is achieved by the fact that it constantly carries out self-renewal of its chemical composition through the continuous assimilation (assimilation) of new and new atoms and their groups from the external environment and the release of them outside (dissimilation). Just as the apparent stability of the shape of a fountain jet or a candle flame is determined by the rapid passage of particles through these forms, so the relative stability and constancy of the chemical composition of a living protein molecule is achieved by the fact that through it (the molecule) passes the constant and regular movement of certain chemical particles captured from the outside and allocated outside. This is where the observed sharp dissymmetry of the living protein molecule follows, because it constantly associates at one end, so to speak, and dissociates at the other.

It is impossible to agree that living protoplasm is formed from non-living molecules. The essence of life - regular metabolism - determines the nature of chemical bonds (association and dissociation) within the living protein molecule itself. It would be more accurate to say that biological metabolism itself - the unity of assimilation and dissimilation - stems from a qualitatively new type of chemical association and dissociation that develops in a living protein molecule as opposed to non-living chemical compounds.

A living protein molecule is a complex chemical formation, consisting of many tens of thousands of atoms, which includes most of the elements of Mendeleev’s periodic table. According to modern data, the composition of a living protein molecule includes up to 50 thousand individual amino acid units. These amino acid units themselves are very diverse. The molecular weight of such a chemical compound reaches 2-3 million. According to the theory of N.I. Gavrilov and N.D. Zelinsky, an extremely bulky protein molecule (macromolecule) is made up of slightly less bulky, but in turn very complex units (micromolecules). Within such a structure, more and more new forms of chemical bonds arise, which, in comparison with the original covalent, ionic bonds, are characterized by greater and greater flexibility, instability, and mobility. As a result, such a molecular system ultimately acquires an exceptionally mobile, fluid character.

That is why protein molecules, like no other chemical compounds, have the ability to associate into ever larger associations, into increasingly complex complexes both among themselves and with other organic and inorganic compounds. The physicochemical structure of such a substance has the properties of liquid crystals with all their inherent abilities of movement, growth, budding, and the formation of more bulky forms characteristic of crystalline compounds placed in an appropriate environment. Living protein acquires enzymatic activity, accelerating and self-regulating the course of biochemical processes.

The relative stability of the mobile system of a living molecule is supported only by the fact that, through a regular sequence of certain reactions, on the one hand, it constantly, every moment, adds more and more new chemical substances to itself, and on the other hand, it constantly releases them back into the outside.

Hence, the qualitative feature of a living chemical formation, in contrast to a non-living one, lies further in the fact that a living protein can only be more or less preserved as such, since there are appropriate chemical materials and energy conditions (external environment) necessary for the protein to continuously pass them through itself, which maintains the relative constancy of the elemental chemical composition and a certain energy level of its molecules.

This is a qualitatively new type of chemical association and dissociation, the appearance of which in the history of chemical evolution on earth means the transformation of non-living protein into living matter.

As the internal structure of living matter further became more complex (the emergence of precellular forms, biological cells, multicellular organisms, etc.), the biochemical processes of metabolism also became more complex. Enzymatic and then nervous regulation of these processes acquired an increasing role. But no matter how complex these processes become and no matter how the role of enzymes and the nervous system in the body increases, the roots of living things go into the internal specifics of the chemical organization of the living protein molecule itself, which causes its constant self-renewal.

If “a living substance that does not have the form of a cell has the ability to metabolize, develops, grows and multiplies” (O.B. Lepeshinskaya, The Cell, Its Life and Origin, M. 1950, p. 46), then there is no doubt that each molecule of such a body of nature is characterized by the laws of assimilation and dissimilation.

“Living matter,” says O. B. Lepeshinskaya, “begins from a protein molecule capable of such a metabolism in which this molecule, while remaining, develops, gives new forms, grows and multiplies.” (Ibid., p. 46).

The outstanding discoveries of O. B. Lepeshinskaya in the field of studying the role of primary living matter that does not have a cellular structure in the body undeniably convince us that life really begins with a protein molecule.

This is especially clearly evidenced by the discoveries of Soviet science about viruses - these, apparently, the most extreme forms of life, standing on the border between living and nonliving. The smallest forms of viruses are nothing more than individual protein molecules, then aggregates of protein molecules, forming a whole scale of transitions to the world of bacteria and single-celled organisms.

“The self-reproduction of viral particles,” says one of the prominent Soviet virologists K.S. Sukhov, “marks their ability to assimilate and is a quality that fundamentally distinguishes them from bodies of inanimate nature. At the same time, due to the simplicity of their organization, viruses retain a number of properties that make them extremely similar to molecular substances. This includes their ability to crystallize and their chemical reactivity.”

“At this stage of the development of living matter,” K. S. Sukhov further writes, “life turns out to be reversible, it can completely stop and resume depending on environmental conditions.” (“Questions of Philosophy” No. 2, 1950, pp. 81-82).

In other words, a viral protein molecule can obviously transition (depending on conditions) from one type of chemical association and dissociation of atoms, characteristic of a living, open and mobile system, to another type, characteristic of an internally closed, stationary system of a non-living chemical compound. These are the natural transitions in nature from chemistry to biochemistry, from inanimate forms of matter to living ones, established by Soviet scientists.

Abundant factual materials obtained by advanced natural science of the 20th century comprehensively prove and confirm the truth of Marxist philosophical materialism about the unity of all forms of motion of matter, about the origin of living and sentient matter from inanimate, non-sentient matter.

Defending and defending materialism from the attacks of the Machists and developing and deepening the Marxist worldview, V.I. Lenin, in his work “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,” pointed out that natural science still faces a great task to concretely and experimentally clarify how sentient matter arises from non-sentient matter.

“...It remains to be explored and investigated,” says V.I. Lenin, “how matter, which supposedly does not feel at all, is connected with matter, composed of the same atoms (or electrons) and at the same time possessing a clearly expressed ability Feel. Materialism clearly poses an as yet unresolved question and thereby pushes towards its resolution, pushes towards further experimental research.” (V.I. Lenin, Works, vol. 14, ed. 4, p. 34).

And indeed, for a very long time, natural science could not give a scientific answer to the question about the generation of consciousness by matter, about the nature of sensation, consciousness. If astronomy, since the times of Copernicus and Galileo, has done away with pre-scientific Aristotelian-Ptolemaic views on the movement of celestial bodies, if chemistry, since the time of Lomonosov and Dalton, has abandoned alchemical and phlogiston theories, then the science of mental phenomena, right up to Sechenov-Pavlov, continued to vegetate at the level of pre-scientific natural philosophical hypotheses.

“We can rightfully say,” says I. P. Pavlov, “that the unstoppable progress of natural science since the time of Galileo for the first time noticeably stops in front of the higher part of the brain, or, generally speaking, in front of the organ of the most complex relations of animals to the outside world. And it seemed that this was not without reason, that this was truly a critical moment in natural science, since the brain, which in its highest formation - the human brain - created and is creating natural science, itself becomes the object of this natural science.” (I.P. Pavlov, Selected works, Gospolitizdat, 1951, p. 181).

While natural scientists studied, so to speak, weighty, tangible forms of matter and motion, they acted in accordance with completely scientific methods of an objective, materialistic approach to phenomena, bringing them under the fundamental laws of nature - the laws of conservation and transformation of matter and motion. But when confronted with the field of psychic phenomena, natural scientists were at a dead end and, leaving the soil of natural science, fell into arbitrary natural-philosophical fortune-telling. I. P. Pavlov said that “the physiologist at this point abandoned his firm natural scientific position... the physiologist took upon himself a thankless task guess about the inner world of animals." (Ibid., p. 183. (Italics are mine. - P.B.)).

Of course, philosophical materialism resolved this issue long ago, speaking about the primacy of matter and the secondary nature of consciousness as a property of highly organized matter. But this was only in a general theoretical form. Natural science has not yet truly entered this area with its methods of experimental study, which is what idealism took advantage of, feeling almost the master in this area.

I.M. Sechenov was the first in science to show natural science the main ways to storm the last fortress for science - the brain. I.P. Pavlov carried out its conquest. From now on, after the great discoveries of I.P. Pavlov, the basic natural scientific laws have also been clarified in the field of mental life of animals and humans. The brain is revealed as a material laboratory of spiritual life. “And this,” said I.P. Pavlov, “is entirely our Russian indisputable merit in world science, in general human thought.” (I.P. Pavlov, Selected Works, p. 48).

The great discoveries of Sechenov and Pavlov dealt a crushing blow to all systems of “brainless philosophy” and “brainless psychology.” Idealism was expelled from this last refuge of his.

Pointing to the theoretical significance of the successes of physiological science and bearing in mind primarily the significance of Pavlov’s discoveries, V. M. Molotov at a reception in the Kremlin for participants in the XV International Congress of Physiologists said:

“Modern, fundamentally materialistic, physiology, penetrating ever more deeply into the essence of the life processes of the human body, into the life processes of animals and plants, does, together with the development of other sciences, a great liberating work for the mental development of man, freeing him from all this mold mysticism and religious survivals." (“Pravda” dated August 18, 1935).

With his teaching on higher nervous activity, I. P. Pavlov gave the deepest natural scientific substantiation of the fundamental provisions of Marxist philosophical materialism about the primacy of matter and the secondary nature of consciousness, about consciousness as a reflection of reality in the brain, about the brain as a material organ of consciousness.

Having accomplished a revolution in the science of mental phenomena, I. P. Pavlov achieved the following:

1. For the first time in the history of science, he put forward, justified and developed an objective, i.e. natural science, method for studying mental phenomena.

2. I.P. Pavlov discovered the conditioned reflex and thereby gave into the hands of natural scientists a powerful tool for experimental research into the laws of the psyche, a tool for penetrating the secrets of the brain.

3. Analyzing the mechanism of displaying the external world in the brain of animals and humans, I. P. Pavlov established three stages, three stages of organization and cognitive (reflective) ability of nervous tissue: a) a system of unconditioned reflexes (characteristic of the lower parts of the brain and undifferentiated tissue of animals without nervous system), which is characterized by conductive communication (i.e. direct and constant communication based on direct contact of a living body and an external stimulus); b) the system of conditioned reflex activity (the cerebral hemispheres) - a mobile closure connection, which Pavlov likened to telephone communication through a switchboard, through a central station; c) the second signaling system is a specifically human mechanism for displaying reality in the brain through articulate speech - through words, concepts, through language and thinking.

4. I. P. Pavlov revealed the structure of the organization and interaction of centers of higher nervous activity and the basic laws of internal movements in nervous tissue: the interaction of excitation and inhibition, irradiation and concentration of excitation and inhibition, mutual induction of these processes, etc.

5. Having revealed the dialectics of internal processes of nervous activity, I.P. Pavlov explained the physiological nature of the phenomena of sleep, hypnosis, mental illness, and temperamental characteristics, thereby expelling idealism from this area of ​​science.

6. With his discoveries, I.P. Pavlov shed bright light both on the specific ways of transforming non-sentient matter into sentient matter, and on the way of forming biological prerequisites for the emergence of human consciousness.

7. Finally, with his ingenious propositions about the features of the second signaling system, I. P. Pavlov pointed out the ways of a detailed disclosure of the physiology of thinking, the physiological foundations of the interaction of language and thinking.

Considering life as a natural product of the development of matter in the earth's crust, I. P. Pavlov approached the explanation of absolutely all manifestations of the mental life of animals from the point of view of the unity of the organism and the environment, from the point of view of the progressive adaptation of organisms to the conditions of their existence, from the point of view of the unity of ontological and phylogeny in the development of living forms. I. P. Pavlov showed that all nervous activity, starting from the very first manifestations of irritability of protoplasm, is subordinated to the function of adapting the organism to the conditions of existence and acts as a means of this adaptation.

“It is absolutely obvious,” says I.P. Pavlov, “that all the activities of the body must be natural. If an animal were not, to use a biological term, precisely adapted to the outside world, then it would soon or slowly cease to exist. If the animal, instead of heading towards the food, moved away from it, instead of running from the fire, threw itself into the fire, etc., etc., it would be destroyed one way or another. It must react to the outside world in such a way that its existence is ensured by all its response activities.” IV, ed. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, M. - L. 1951, p. 22).

These Pavlovian conclusions are fully consistent with the provisions of Marxist philosophical materialism about consciousness as a property of reflection.

Slamming the Machists, V.I. Lenin points out in his book “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism” that only by reliably reflecting reality through the nervous system is an animal able to ensure a regular exchange of substances between the organism and the environment. And the fact that animals generally behave correctly in the environment of their life and adapt to their environment - this fact most convincingly suggests that they generally correctly reflect the properties of the world of phenomena around them.

Setting before natural scientists the task of investigating how the transition from non-sentient to sentient matter occurs, V. I. Lenin at the same time gave brilliant instructions in which direction the scientists’ thoughts should work in order to solve this problem. In two places in the book “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism” V. I. Lenin repeats the idea that it cannot be argued that all matter has the property of sensation, but “in the foundation of the building of matter itself” it is logical to assume the existence of a property similar to sensation, akin to sensation, - reflection properties. (See V.I. Lenin, Works, vol. 14, ed. 4, pp. 34, 38).

In Engels's works "Anti-Dühring" and "Dialectics of Nature" there are absolutely clear indications that a qualitatively new property inherent only in living matter - the property of irritability, sensation - arises along with the transition from chemistry to biochemistry, i.e., together with the emergence of metabolism, and follows from the very process of assimilation and dissimilation.

Engels says: “From metabolism through nutrition and excretion - metabolism, which constitutes the essential function of protein - and from the plasticity inherent in protein, all other simple factors of life flow: irritability, which already lies in the interaction between protein and its food; contractility, which is detected already at a very low level during the absorption of food; the capacity for growth, which at its lowest level includes reproduction by division; internal movement, without which neither absorption nor assimilation of food is possible.” (F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, 1952, p. 78).

Exploring the physiology of irritability and sensations, I. P. Pavlov gave deep natural scientific confirmation of these thoughts of Engels and Lenin. Pavlov establishes what is common in this regard, which unites and connects sentient and non-sentient matter. The general thing here, according to Pavlov, is that an inanimate body, like a living one, exists as an individual only as long as the entire structure of its external and internal organization allows him to withstand the influences of the entire surrounding world on him. After all, everything in the world is interconnected, there is no absolute emptiness, and each body is directly or indirectly influenced, so to speak, by the rest of the world. And yet, each body for the time being resists this enormous influence on it from the outside.

Mechanical, chemical, acoustic, optical and other mirror-dead acts of reflection by the body of external influences on it help it maintain its shape until it decomposes and turns into other forms.

This is the case with the bodies of dead nature. A living body also has all these properties of inanimate matter, because it consists of the same atoms as physical bodies.

“What actually is in the fact of adaptation? - asks I.P. Pavlov and answers. - Nothing... except for the exact connection of the elements complex system between themselves and their entire complex with the environment.

But this is exactly the same thing that can be seen in any dead body. Let's take a complex chemical body. This body can exist as such only due to the balance of individual atoms and their groups among themselves and their entire complex with the surrounding conditions.

In exactly the same way, the enormous complexity of higher as well as lower organisms remains to exist as a whole only as long as all its components are subtly and precisely connected and balanced with each other and with the surrounding conditions.” (I.P. Pavlov, Selected Works, 1951, pp. 135-136).

But living matter is incomparably more complex than a dead body. Being extremely complex in its organization, living matter is always in a state of constant exchange of substances with the environment. In this non-stop process of assimilation and dissimilation, the inanimate turns into the living and vice versa.

In such relations between the organism and the environment, in order to maintain existence and ensure the regularity of metabolism, mechanical, chemical, optical, acoustic, thermal, etc., mirror-dead properties of reflecting external influences are not enough. What is needed is the ability to have a selective biological attitude towards the environment from the point of view of what can and cannot be perceived, assimilated, assimilated, with what can and cannot come into contact. Thus, in the very process of developing metabolism, during the transition from non-living protein to living protein, from chemistry to biochemistry, simple mechanical, thermal, acoustic, optical, etc. properties of reflection are transformed into phenomena of biological irritability. More precisely, on the basis of the first, the second arises. And on the basis of irritability, as biological forms develop and become more complex, all other, higher forms of reflection of reality grow and arise - sensation, perception, ideation, etc.

Emphasizing the natural, material basis of the higher nervous reactions of an animal, I. P. Pavlov wrote: “Even though this reaction is extremely complex compared to the reaction of a lower animal and infinitely complex compared to the reaction of any dead object, the essence of the matter remains the same.” (I.P. Pavlov, Complete Works, vol.III, book 1, 1951, p. 65).

The idea that the causes of the emergence and development of the properties of irritability, sensation, etc. in living bodies are material causes was expressed very deeply at one time by I.M. Sechenov. Tracing the main stages of the progressive development of forms of sensitivity of living tissues, from the most elementary manifestations of the property of irritability, still evenly distributed throughout the body, to the differentiation of special sense organs (smell, vision, hearing, etc.), I. M. Sechenov wrote: “ The environment in which the animal exists is also a factor determining organization. With a uniformly distributed sensitivity of the body, excluding the possibility of moving it in space, life is preserved only if the animal is directly surrounded by an environment capable of supporting its existence. The area of ​​life here is, of necessity, extremely narrow. The higher, on the contrary, the sensory organization through which the animal is oriented in time and space, the wider the sphere of possible life encounters, the more diverse the environment acting on the organization and the methods of possible adaptations. From here it clearly follows that in the long chain of evolution of organisms, the complication of organization and the complication of the environment acting on it are factors that determine each other. This is easy to understand if you look at life as a coordination of vital needs with environmental conditions: the more needs, that is, the higher the organization, the greater the demand from the environment to satisfy these needs.” (I.M. Sechenov, Selected philosophical and psychological works, Gospolitizdat, 1947, pp. 414-415).

Developing and deepening the thoughts of I.M. Sechenov presented here, I.P. Pavlov revealed a specific mechanism for the progressive development of nervous activity, the mechanism for the formation of an increasingly complex psyche in animals, up to the higher apes. This mechanism is the transformation of conditioned reflexes into unconditioned ones.

I. P. Pavlov established that in addition to the constant (innate) reflex reactions of the body, rooted in the irritability of protoplasm associated with the biochemical process of metabolism caused by direct contact of a living body with a pathogen, animals with a more complex nervous system are capable of forming temporary reflexes. The body is a thin membrane that captures and records the slightest changes in its environment. If a newly appearing pathogen (a new smell, sound, shape of an object, etc.) turns out to be indifferent to the performance of vital functions, the animal will very soon stop reacting to it, no matter how noticeable it may be in itself. But if this new pathogen turns out to be a signal of approaching food, danger, etc., then the body will soon develop a stereotypical, automatic response to it - a reflex. These new ones, produced in the process individual life The animal's reflexes provide the body with an increasingly subtle, more differentiated adaptation to the environment and expand the range of the animal's life activity.

I. P. Pavlov further points out that while maintaining the direct connection of this signal with life needs In an organism over a long series of generations, the temporary, conditioned reflex developed for it can gradually become so entrenched that it will be inherited, that is, from being individual for each individual individual it will become common to a given species of animal - from conditional it will turn into unconditional.

“We can accept,” writes the great Russian physiologist, “that some of the conditioned newly formed reflexes are later transformed by heredity into unconditioned ones.” (I.P. Pavlov, Complete Works, vol.III, book 1, 1951, p. 273).

“It is extremely probable (and there are already separate factual indications of this),” he says in another work, “that new emerging reflexes, while maintaining the same living conditions in a number of successive generations, continuously turn into permanent ones. This would thus be one of the operating mechanisms for the development of the animal organism.” (I.P. Pavlov, Selected Works, 1951, p. 196).

Indeed, the very fact that, depending on the duration of the exercises and other contributing factors, conditioned reflexes developed in a laboratory setting become more and more durable, speaks of the possibility of their consistent and ever-deepening consolidation, which can ultimately lead to the transition to unconditioned connection.

The transformation of conditioned reflexes into unconditioned ones expands the basis for the formation of more and more new conditioned reflexes, which can arise only on the basis of unconditioned nervous reactions, and the expansion and deepening of the animal’s nervous activity in this way entails a quantitative growth and qualitative complication of the nervous tissue and brain.

Natural selection, inexorably acting at all stages of the life of individuals and species, shapes and directs this process of complication of the nervous activity of animals.

Revealing physiological basis progressive complication of higher nervous activity, I. P. Pavlov gave at the same time a materialistic interpretation of the mechanism of formation - more and more complex instincts animals, driving out idealism from this refuge as well.

I. P. Pavlov points out that “there is not a single essential feature that distinguishes reflexes from instincts. First of all, there are many completely imperceptible transitions from ordinary reflexes to instincts.” (I.P. Pavlov, Complete Works, vol.IV, 1951, p. 24).

Comparing one after another the features of instincts and reflexes, I. P. Pavlov points out that reflexes can be no less complex, represent an equally consistent chain of actions of an animal, can also be caused by excitations coming from inside the body, and completely capture the vital activity of the body, like instincts . “Thus, both reflexes and instincts,” says Pavlov, “are natural reactions of the body to certain agents, and therefore there is no need to denote them with different words. The word “reflex” has an advantage, because from the very beginning it was given a strictly scientific meaning.” (Ibid., p. 26).

I. P. Pavlov’s materialistic interpretation of the instinctive behavior of animals, his discoveries in the field of understanding the material reasons for the development of animal instincts from lower to higher, make it possible to understand the process of formation of the basic biological prerequisites for the emergence of human consciousness.

* * *

It would be a gross mistake to imagine the emergence of human consciousness as a process of simple improvement of animal instincts. Human consciousness is qualitatively different from animals; it arises and develops on a qualitatively new basis - on the basis labor activity person, on the basis of social production. Therefore, natural science alone (physiology, biology in general) cannot scientifically solve the problem of the emergence and development of thinking. Natural science must come to the aid of historical materialism, the science of the history of society, the history of language and other social sciences.

The classics of Marxism showed that labor created man, that it was only thanks to labor that the highly developed species of monkeys that once lived on earth became humanized.

In his article “The Role of Labor in the Process of Transforming Ape into Man,” Engels writes: “Labor is the source of all wealth, say political economists. He really is such, along with nature, which provides him with the material that he transforms into wealth. But he is also infinitely more than that. It is the first fundamental condition of all human life, and, moreover, to such an extent that in a certain sense we must say: labor created man himself.” (F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, 1952, p. 132).

In the light of the discoveries of I.P. Pavlov, it is easy to imagine the specific ways in which the biological prerequisites for the emergence of labor were formed, and, accordingly, the prerequisites for the transformation of the instinctive consciousness of a monkey into the logical thinking of a person.

Engels notes that in higher animals, in the embryo, in the rudiments, all types of rational activity take place. (See F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, 1952, pp. 140, 176). Indeed, one can give many examples of quite meaningful behavior of animals, for example dogs, foxes, bears, beavers and especially apes. This, of course, does not mean that it is necessary to equate the “consciousness” of an animal with the consciousness of a person. We are talking only about the general biological prerequisites of thinking, about the fact that human consciousness is a natural-historical product of the development of the brain - a development that took place back in the animal kingdom.

Human consciousness is qualitative new form reflections versus the reflection of the outside world in the animal's brain. Not to mention abstract-logical (thinking, which is characteristic only of man, even the sensations, perceptions, ideas of a person are significantly different from those of animals, because these are meaningful ideas, perceptions, sensations.

This new leap in brain development occurred thanks to work. Labor created man, labor gave birth to human consciousness.

The monkey, the ancestor of man, led an instinctive life, at first only occasionally using a stick, stone or bone as a tool in the form that nature itself provided them to it. Great apes, as well as some other animals, sometimes use a stone or stick as a tool. Many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of years had to pass before the random use of a tool turned (according to the laws of transformation of conditioned reflexes into unconditioned ones) for a certain species of monkeys into a regular habit, became their labor instinct, hereditarily transmitted from generation to generation.

It hasn't been hard yet. It was instinct. Marx strictly distinguishes truly human labor activity from “the first animal-like instinctive forms of labor” (K. Marx, Capital, vol.I, 1951, p. 185), because here the instinct was not yet realized and the “labor” activity of the monkey was not much different from the instinctive behavior of birds or animals building a nest or den for themselves.

Consequently, at first, work was instinctive in nature, obeying the laws of formation and development of purely animal reflexes, conditioned and unconditioned, the origin of which was materialistically explained by the teachings of I. P. Pavlov.

But since the entire subsequent life of this certain species of monkeys began to be more and more based on instinctive labor activity, on forms of instinctive labor, then little by little, reflected in the brain billions and billions of times, this connection of the organism with the surrounding nature, mediated through tools of labor, became to be fixed in the consciousness by certain figures of logical thinking.

As the monkey, the ancestor of man, instinctively grew over millions of years with tools and was no longer able to do without tools, obtaining the latter became the same need for it as obtaining food. One can imagine what new relationships between the organism and the environment should have been reflected in the brain if the satisfaction of the direct need for food was henceforth mediated by preliminary “care”, actions of obtaining (searching, processing, storing) objects that are not themselves directly consumed.

Thanks to work, more and more previously hidden connections between phenomena occurred in the consciousness. These connections were reflected and recorded in the brain in the form of certain concepts, categories, which were steps in identifying the general, natural from the seeming chaos of individual phenomena.

“Before man,” notes V.I. Lenin, “there is a network of natural phenomena. An instinctive person, a savage, does not separate himself from nature. A conscious person singles out, categories are steps of isolation, that is, knowledge of the world, nodal points in the network that help to cognize it and master it.” (V.I. Lenin, Philosophical Notebooks, 1947, p. 67).

The beginning of human consciousness is the transformation of animal instinct into thinking. “This beginning,” say the founders of Marxism, “is as animal in nature as social life itself at this stage; this is a purely herd consciousness, and a person differs here from a ram only in that consciousness replaces instinct for him, or that his instinct is conscious.” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol.IV, 1938, p. 21).

The experiments of I. P. Pavlov and his followers on monkeys show all the absurdity and reactionary reasoning of supporters of idealistic Gestalt psychology in Europe and America, who have been repeating since the time of Kant about the “indivisibility” of a dog, cat or monkey “self-consciousness”, about the “independence” of the mental abilities of animals from their reflex nervous activity.

Summarizing experimental observations of monkeys, I. P. Pavlov showed how exactly the actions of a monkey in a certain environment, its real collisions with surrounding objects, cause in its brain the corresponding ideas and associations of these ideas, helping it navigate the environment and adapt to it.

It is action, said I.P. Pavlov, that gives rise to association in the animal’s brain, and not vice versa. I. P. Pavlov mercilessly criticized the idealistic “arguments” of dualist psychologists, positivists, Kantians like Köhler, Koffka, Yerkes, Sherrington and others, who believed that the “consciousness” of animals is born and develops independently of movements, of the development of the body of the organism. Consistently pursuing the principle of determinism in the field of mental science, Pavlov established the material, physiological foundations of the generation and development of consciousness.

“The monkey,” said I. P. Pavlov to his students, “has associations related to the interaction of mechanical objects of nature... if we say what is the success of the monkey compared to other animals, why is it closer to man, it is precisely because she has arms, even four arms, that is, more than you and I have. Thanks to this, she has the opportunity to enter into very complex relationships with surrounding objects. That is why she forms a lot of associations that other animals do not have. Accordingly, since these motor associations must have their material substrate in the nervous system, in the brain, the cerebral hemispheres of monkeys have developed more than those of others, and they have developed precisely in connection with the diversity of motor functions.” (I.P. Pavlov, Selected Works, 1951, p. 492).

In the process of the emergence and development of human consciousness, in the process of isolating it from the world of instinctive ideas of the animal, together with labor and on its basis, language, articulate speech, which is the material shell of thought, played a huge role.

Engels says: “First work, and then, along with it, articulate speech, were the two most important stimuli, under the influence of which the monkey’s brain gradually turned into the human brain, which, for all its similarities with the monkey’s, far surpasses it in size and perfection.” (F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, 1952, p. 135).

Slamming the anti-scientific idealistic views of supporters of Marr’s theory, I. V. Stalin points out: “Sound language in the history of mankind is one of those forces that helped people stand out from the animal world, unite into societies, develop their thinking, organize social production, and wage a successful struggle with the forces of nature and reach the progress that we have at present.” (I.V. Stalin, Marxism and questions of linguistics, 1952, p. 46).

Animals, who are content only with what nature gives them ready-made, in their biological adaptation to the environment are limited to the representation in the brain of surrounding phenomena in their narrow and direct relation to the body. For this, unconditioned reflexes and conditioned reflex activity of the brain are sufficient. But for a person whose life is based on work, on social production, it is not enough to display in the brain the direct relations of the organism to the bodies of nature. To carry out material production, it is also necessary to display in the brain all kinds of - direct and indirect - relationships between the bodies themselves and natural phenomena.

Animals in their mutual communication have enough of the sounds they make. But as people expand and deepen their connections with nature and with each other, the sounds that a monkey can pronounce are no longer enough. In the process of labor, labor communication, ape-people were forced to modulate these sounds more and more in order to express in them new and new properties and relationships of things that were revealed to them.

“Need,” says Engels, “created its own organ: the undeveloped larynx of the monkey was slowly but steadily transformed through modulation into an increasingly developed modulation, and the organs of the mouth gradually learned to pronounce one articulate sound after another.” (F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, 1952, p. 134).

The sharp turn in the expansion and deepening of interactions between the body and the environment due to the emergence of labor also required the brain to move to a qualitatively new level of analysis and synthesis - to the level of logical thinking associated with speech, with signals through words and concepts.

The teachings of I.P. Pavlov, which consistently apply the principles of materialism in the analysis of mental phenomena, make it possible to reveal and understand those new physiological patterns that develop in the brain during the transition to reflecting reality through signaling in words, in articulate speech.

“In the developing animal world during the human phase,” says the great physiologist, “there was an extraordinary increase in the mechanisms of nervous activity. For an animal, reality is signaled almost exclusively only by irritations and their traces in the cerebral hemispheres, directly arriving in special cells of the visual, auditory and other receptors of the body. This is what we also have in ourselves as impressions, sensations and ideas from the surrounding external environment, both natural and social, excluding the word, audible and visible. This is the first signaling system of reality that we have in common with animals. But the word constituted the second, especially our, signaling system of reality, being a signal of the first signals... However, there is no doubt that the basic laws established in the work of the first signaling system should also govern the second, because this work is still the same nervous tissue " (I.P. Pavlov, Selected Works, 1951, p. 234).

Thus, three main steps, three main stages are distinguished in the history of the development of mental phenomena, in the development of the property of reflecting reality in living matter. Starting from the first signs of irritability of living matter, a system of unconditional reflex reactions to excitations from the outside operates. The range of “vision” is extremely narrow at this stage, when the body is able to respond expediently only to the direct influence of a vital agent and is not able to rebuild the reflex apparatus in relation to a changing situation. The second stage, which is a superstructure over unconditioned reflexes, is the system of conditioned reflex nervous activity. By sharply expanding the horizon of observation, it allowed the body to respond expediently to an infinite number of new stimuli, only indirectly related to the needs of the body, but nevertheless signaling the approach of important changes in the environment for it. And, finally, as the highest product of the development of the analytical ability of the brain, the formation of a second signaling system, reflecting the phenomena and patterns of the surrounding world through the word, through articulate speech.

Developing this idea, I. P. Pavlov wrote: “A person is added, one might think, specifically in his frontal lobes, which animals do not have in such a size, another signaling system, signaling of the first system - speech, its basis or basal component - kinesthetic irritation of the speech organs. This introduces a new principle of nervous activity - abstraction and, together, generalization of countless signals from the previous system, in turn, again with the analysis and synthesis of these new generalized signals - a principle that determines limitless orientation in the surrounding world...” (I.P. Pavlov, Selected Works, 1951, p. 472).

At this new stage, truly limitless possibilities and abilities to display reality in the thinking brain open up. Unlike the stimuli (signals) of the first signaling system, each word reflects the whole world of phenomena and signals about it. “Every word (speech) already generalizes” (Lenin), each word is a generalized expression of entire groups, classes of objects, their properties, their relationships among themselves and to man. It is through the word that the concept is formed - this is a powerful weapon of thought.

Thanks to the word, the brain overcomes the limited sphere of reflexive-sensory display (reflecting only isolated phenomena) and enters the expanses of analysis of increasingly deeper and more complex connections, interweavings, relationships between things, penetrating into the hidden essence of things. The word, language is a powerful means of developing human consciousness. Comrade Stalin points out:

“Whatever thoughts arise in a person’s head and whenever they arise, they can arise and exist only on the basis of linguistic material, on the basis of linguistic terms and phrases. Bare thoughts, free from linguistic material, free from linguistic “natural matter”, do not exist. “Language is the immediate reality of thought” (Marx). The reality of thought is manifested in language. Only idealists can talk about thinking that is not connected with the “natural matter” of language, about thinking without language.” (I.V. Stalin, Marxism and issues of linguistics, p. 39).

The role of words and language in the history of the development of thought is similar to the role of tools in the history of the development of material production. Just as through the system of tools of labor the achievements of people’s labor activity are consolidated and transmitted from generation to generation, thanks to which social production irresistibly progresses, so in words, in language and through it, the cognitive successes of thought are deposited and transmitted from generation to generation.

Comrade Stalin writes:

“Being directly connected with thinking, language registers and consolidates in words and in the combination of words in sentences the results of the work of thinking, the successes of human cognitive work and, thus, makes possible the exchange of thoughts in human society.” (I.V. Stalin, Marxism and issues of linguistics, p. 22).

These are the main stages of formation, the birth of consciousness as a product of highly organized matter, established by modern, most advanced science, which leaves no stone unturned from the inventions of idealism, rooted in the ignorant ideas of savages. The potential possibilities inherent in the very foundation of matter (the property of reflection), when living matter arises, give biological irritability, initially in lower organisms it is still evenly distributed throughout the body. With the progress of biological forms, more and more differentiated abilities of sensation and representation arise, until, with the transition from ape to man, human consciousness arises, relying in its development on labor and articulate speech.

Social existence and social consciousness

Philosophy is the science of indigenous universal laws development not only of nature, but also of society. Therefore, the main and fundamental question of philosophy - about the relationship of thinking to being - inevitably turns out to be the main question also in understanding the essence of social phenomena, speaking here in the plane of the relationship between social consciousness and social being. Moreover, if in the interpretation of the fundamental laws of the development of nature in the history of science, many bright materialist theories had previously been put forward, boldly smashing idealism and religion, then in the field of understanding the foundations of social development in pre-Marxist science, idealism reigned supreme. Even the most advanced materialist thinkers of the past remained in the position of idealism in matters of sociology, viewing social consciousness as primary and social existence as secondary.

True, even before Marx and Engels, advanced scientists (philosophers, historians, economists) expressed individual guesses moving in the direction of a materialistic understanding of history. For example, French historians of the Restoration times (Guizot, Mignet, Thierry), English economists (A. Smith and D. Ricardo), in Russia - Herzen, Belinsky, Ogarev and especially Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Pisarev.

Thus, N.G. Chernyshevsky wrote that “mental development, like political and any other, depends on the circumstances of economic life”, that in history “development has always been driven by the successes of knowledge, which were mainly determined by the development of working life and the means of material existence.” (“Notes by N.G. Chernyshevsky to the translation of “Introduction to History”XIXcentury "Gervinius". See N.G. Chernyshevsky, Collection of articles, documents, and memoirs, M. 1928, pp. 29-30).

D.I. Pisarev, continuing the line of Chernyshevsky, stated that “the source of all our wealth, the foundation of our entire civilization and the real engine world history consist, of course, in the physical labor of man, in the direct and immediate action of man on nature.” (D.I. Pisarev, Complete Works, vol. 4, ed. 5, 1910, p. 586). Pisarev said that the decisive force of history “lies and lies always and everywhere - not in units, not in circles, not in literary works, but in general and mainly in the economic conditions of existence of the masses.” (D.I. Pisarev, Complete Works, vol. 3, ed. 5, 1912, p. 171).

But still, these were just brilliant guesses. The general concept of the driving forces of history among the great Russian materialists - the ideologists of revolutionary democracy of the 19th century - remained idealistic, because from their point of view, mental progress determines the development of all other aspects of social life, including the economy. The immediately conspicuous fact that in society, in contrast to the spontaneous, blind forces of nature, people endowed with consciousness act, that every human act is somehow realized, passes through the head, blocked scientists from the opportunity to discover primary, decisive, material factors independent of human consciousness. living conditions of society.

Therefore, as soon as the materialists of the past moved on to the interpretation of social phenomena, they themselves each time strayed into the position of idealism, claiming that “opinion rules the world.” Following at one time this formula of the French enlighteners of the 18th century, the utopian socialists (Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, etc.) therefore hoped to achieve the abolition of exploitation and oppression of man by man and the transition to socialism. The failure of these idealistic dreams has been proven by history itself.

It must be said that the very nature of social production, the economy in pre-capitalist formations (patriarchal backwardness, routine, feudal fragmentation, etc.), the very structure of society of those historical eras with its extremely complicated class relations obscured the real foundations of social life. Only capitalism, which connected (through the market, through the social and technical division of labor) all sectors of production into one whole and simplified antagonistic class relations to the limit, exposed these real, material foundations of the life of society, allowing the ideologists of the proletariat - Marx and Engels to turn the theory of society into a science .

Only from the position of the working class could one understand the objective laws of history. Pre-Marxist scientists turned a blind eye to the actual laws of social life because of their class limitations.

Only with the emergence of Marxism, for the first time in the history of thought, a holistic materialist doctrine of society appeared - historical materialism. “Now,” says Engels in Anti-Dühring, “idealism has been expelled from its last refuge, from the understanding of history; Now the understanding of history has become materialistic, and a way has been found to explain the consciousness of people from their being instead of the previous explanation of their being from their consciousness.” (F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, 1952, p. 26).

Subsequently pointing out the essence of the revolution brought about by Marx in his views on history, Engels said in a speech at Marx’s grave:

“Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of the organic world, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history - that until recently hidden under ideological layers, the simple fact that people first of all must eat, drink, have a home and dress before being able to engage in politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that, consequently, the production of the immediate material means of life, and thereby each given stage of economic development of a people or era, form the basis from which state institutions, legal views, art, and even religious ideas given people and from which they must therefore be explained - and not vice versa, as has been done until now." II, 1948, p. 157).

In contrast to all pre-Marxist and anti-Marxist theories, without exception, which are idealistic, historical materialism establishes the primacy of social existence and the secondary nature of social consciousness. Marx says: “The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and spiritual processes of life in general. It is not the consciousness of people that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, vol.I, 1948, p. 322).

This is the iron consistency of Marxist philosophical materialism, consistently and comprehensively, from natural phenomena to the highest manifestations of social life, interpreting consciousness as a product of the development of material existence, as a reflection of material existence.

With the emergence and development of the Marxist, materialist understanding of history, idealistic theories of society did not cease to exist. Various representatives of the bourgeoisie preach to this day in every way various idealistic views on society, from openly priestly “disciples” to those hidden behind pseudo-socialist phraseology. Like the theories of the outspoken troubadours of the imperialist bourgeoisie, the theories of the right socialists, in contrast to the sincere errors of the old utopians, are also designed precisely for the deliberate, conscious deception of the working class, for the defense of the privileges of the monopoly bourgeoisie from the revolutionary pressure of the masses. Right-wing socialist ideologists and politicians are the same sworn enemies of the working class as the fascist pogromists, for whom they always clear the way to power and with whom they constantly block against the true representatives of the interests of the working people.

“Modern right-wing social democracy,” said Comrade. Malenkov at the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in addition to his old role as servants of the national bourgeoisie, has turned into an agent of foreign American imperialism and carries out its dirtiest orders in preparing for war and in the fight against its peoples.” XIX

Idealist sociologists in our time cannot openly deny the enormous role of the economic factor - industry, industrial progress, etc. in the life of society, in the rise and fall of states. Refining themselves in deliberate lies, they only try to prove that technical and economic progress itself is ultimately determined allegedly by consciousness, since technology itself, the economy, is created by people driven by the consciousness of purpose and interest. Idealists simply cannot understand that not all emerging relations in society first pass through the consciousness of people, that the decisive social relations - relations of production - develop outside the consciousness and are imposed on people with the coercive force of the laws of nature.

“When entering into communication, people,” says V.I. Lenin, “in all somewhat complex social formations - and especially in the capitalist social formation - are not aware of what kind of social relations take shape, according to what laws they develop, etc. etc. For example, a peasant, selling bread, enters into “communication” with world grain producers on the world market, but he is not aware of this, nor is he aware of what social relations are formed from exchange. Social consciousness reflects social existence - this is what Marx’s teaching consists of.” (V.I. Lenin, Soch., vol. 14, ed. 4, p. 309).

For example, proletarians under capitalism from generation to generation must go and sell their labor power to the capitalists, work for the capitalists, otherwise they will die by starvation. It makes no difference whether they are aware or unaware of their objective position in the entire system of production relations of capitalism - it makes no difference, as long as the tools and other means of production are not taken away from the exploiters and converted into socialist property, the proletarians are forced to go into hire to the exploiters. This is the material, economic basis of life in capitalist society, independent of people’s consciousness, which determines all other aspects of the life of this society.

The material, i.e., independent of people’s consciousness, nature of social laws does not disappear even with the victory of socialism over capitalism. The economic laws of socialism are also objective. Developing further the theory of Marxism-Leninism, J.V. Stalin in his brilliant work “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” strongly emphasizes the fact that the laws of social development are as objective as the laws of nature. “Here, just as in natural science,” points out Comrade Stalin, “the laws of economic development are objective laws that reflect the processes of economic development that occur independently of the will of people. People can discover these laws, know them and, based on them, use them in the interests of society, give another direction to the destructive effects of some laws, limit the scope of their action, give room to other laws that make their way, but they cannot destroy them or create them new economic laws." (I.V. Stalin, Economic problems of socialism in the USSR, p. 5).

Under the conditions of the material life of society, independent of the consciousness of people, historical materialism understands: the surrounding nature, the geographical environment, then the growth and density of population, i.e. the existence and reproduction of generations of the people themselves who make up society, and, finally, as the most important and determining - a method of social production that embodies the unity of productive forces and production relations in society.

The geographical environment and biological reproduction of generations are material conditions that are quite sufficient only for biological development. Laws of development of animal and plant forms, laws natural selection, strictly speaking, are formed from the interaction of these conditions: the influence of the environment on organisms and the degree of fertility of a given species (which itself develops in the long process of adaptation of organisms to the environment).

But for humans, purely animal conditions of development are not enough, for people do not simply adapt to the surrounding nature, but themselves adapt it to their needs, producing through the tools of production everything necessary for life: food, clothing, fuel, lighting, even oxygen for breathing where it doesn't turn out to be. That is why it is precisely the method of production of material goods that is the main and decisive condition for the material life of society. That is why the degree of influence on society of a given geographical environment and the laws of population in different socio-economic formations are different, corresponding to differences in the method of production. Moreover, it is the method of production that determines other aspects of life - state and legal, political, legal, philosophical, religious and aesthetic views of people and the institutions corresponding to them.

“In the social production of their lives,” says Marx, “people enter into certain, necessary, relations independent of their will - relations of production that correspond to a certain stage of development of their material productive forces. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real basis on which the legal and political superstructure rises and to which they correspond certain forms public consciousness." (K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, vol.I, 1948, p. 322).

Exposing the inconsistency of idealistic theories of society, defending and further developing the materialist understanding of social phenomena, V.I. Lenin pointed out: “Until now, sociologists have found it difficult to distinguish between important and unimportant phenomena in a complex network of social phenomena (this is the root of subjectivism in sociology) and have not been able to find objective criterion for such a distinction. Materialism provided a completely objective criterion, highlighting “relations of production” as the structure of society, and making it possible to apply to these relations that general scientific criterion of repeatability, the applicability of which to sociology was denied by subjectivists. While they were limited to ideological social relations (i.e. those that, before they take shape, pass through the consciousness of... people), they could not notice the repetition and correctness in the social phenomena of different countries, and their science, at best, was only description of these phenomena, selection of raw material. Analysis of material social relations (i.e., those that develop without passing through people’s consciousness: by exchanging products, people enter into production relations, without even realizing that there is a social production relation here) - the analysis of material social relations immediately made it possible to notice repeatability and correctness and generalize the orders of different countries into one basic concept of social formation.” (V.I. Lenin, Works, vol. 1, ed. 4, pp. 122-123).

The practical significance of these unshakable scientific principles of Marxist philosophical materialism, historical materialism for the working class, for the communist party is enormous. They provide a reliable theoretical basis for the strategy and tactics of the revolutionary struggle for socialism and communism.

Comrade Stalin points out that if nature, existence, the material world is primary, and consciousness, thinking is secondary, derivative, if the material world represents an objective reality that exists independently of the consciousness of people, and consciousness is a reflection of this objective reality, then it follows from this, that the material life of society, its existence is also primary, and its spiritual life is secondary, derivative, that the material life of society is an objective reality that exists independently of the will of people, and the spiritual life of society is a reflection of this objective reality, a reflection of existence.

“What is the existence of society, what are the conditions of the material life of society - such are its ideas, theories, political views, political institutions.” (I.V. Stalin, Questions of Leninism, 1952, p. 585).

In its revolutionary activities, the Communist Party is consistently guided by these theoretical principles. Organizing and raising the working class, and together with the working class the entire working people, to fight against capitalism, for socialism and communism, the Communist Party proceeds primarily from the need to change the material basis of society. Only by changing the material, economic basis of society can one change the entire superstructure that rises above it - political and other public views and their respective institutions.

The development of the USSR in the post-October period at all stages shows an organic connection between the policies of the Communist Party and Soviet power with the fundamental Marxist philosophical position about the primacy of being and the secondary nature of consciousness. The Soviet government carried out the expropriation of landowners and capitalists, steadily pursued a course towards strengthening the socialist economy, industrializing the country, increasing the number of the working class, then eliminated the kulaks as the last exploiting class and transformed the multimillion-dollar small-holder peasant economy into large socialist collective farm production.

Thus, step by step, the material, economic basis of socialism was created and created in the USSR, on which a socialist superstructure was erected and strengthened in the form of socialist social consciousness, in the form of Soviet political, legal and cultural institutions corresponding to this consciousness and organizing the masses for the further struggle for communism.

Having then set a course for a gradual transition from socialism to communism, the Communist Party, following the instructions of Comrade Stalin, again put at the forefront the solution of the main economic task, that is, the task of catching up and overtaking the main capitalist countries in terms of size industrial production on a per capita basis.

“We can do this, and we must do this,” points out J.V. Stalin, “Only if we surpass the economically major capitalist countries, can we count on our country being completely saturated with consumer goods, we will have abundance products, and we will be able to make the transition from the first phase of communism to its second phase.” (I.V. Stalin, Questions of Leninism, 1952, p. 618).

The fourth five-year plan for the restoration and development of the national economy of the USSR, its implementation and overfulfillment, further powerful development of the socialist economy based on the fifth five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR for 1951-1955. demonstrate the practical implementation of a program to accelerate the provision of material prerequisites for the transition from socialism to communism.

This is the connection between the original philosophical position of Marxism-Leninism about the primacy of being and the secondary nature of consciousness with politics, strategy and tactics of the struggle for communism.

Over the past 35 years, right-wing socialists have come to power more than once in a number of European countries. Laborists took the reins of government three times in England, German Social Democrats ruled Germany for many years, and socialists formed governments many times in France, Austria, and the Scandinavian countries. But, hiding behind a smokescreen of idealistic theories and limiting themselves for appearances to individual top-level administrative or cultural changes, they never and nowhere affected the material, economic fundamentals capitalism. As a result, their “rule” constantly turned out to be only a bridge for the fascist and other parties of the Black Hundred pogrom to come to power.

Nowadays, right-wing socialists are helping the ruling cliques of the bourgeoisie in their countries to harness the people to the yoke of Wall Street monopolists. “The right-wing Social Democrats, primarily the leadership of the Labor Party of England, the French Socialist Party, and the Social Democratic Party of West Germany, also bear direct responsibility for this anti-national policy of the ruling circles. The right-wing socialists of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Austria and other countries are following in the footsteps of their brothers and throughout the entire period after the Second World War they have been fiercely fighting against the peace-loving and democratic forces of the peoples.” (G. Malenkov, ReportXIXParty Congress on the work of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b), p. 23).

Only communist and workers' parties, unswervingly guided by Marxist-Leninist theory, base their activities on the need for a radical change, first of all, in the material basis of society. The seizure of power is, in fact, necessary for the working class in order to, using the powerful instrument of unlimited state power, break down and destroy the capitalist relations of production that form the basis of capitalism, and in their place to establish socialist relations of community and mutual assistance of people free from exploitation, which form the basis socialism.

From the position of Marxist materialism about the primacy of social existence and the secondary nature of social consciousness, it does not at all follow that there is an underestimation of the role and importance of ideas in the development of society, which is characteristic of vulgar materialism - the so-called “economic materialism” (Bernstein, Kautsky, P. Struve, etc.). Even at the origins of opportunism in the parties of the Second International, Engels exposed this kind of vulgarization of Marxism. In a number of letters (to I. Bloch, F. Mehring, K. Schmidt and others), Engels pointed out that the Marxist materialist understanding of history has nothing in common with economic fatalism.

Engels wrote that “according to the materialist understanding of history, in the historical process the determining moment in the final analysis is the production and reproduction of real life. Neither I nor Marx ever asserted anything more.”

“The economic situation is the basis, but the course of the historical struggle is also influenced and in many cases primarily determines its form by various aspects of the superstructure: political forms class struggle and its results - constitutions established by the victorious class after the victory, etc., legal forms and even the reflection of all these actual battles in the brains of the participants, political, legal, philosophical theories, religious views and their further development into a system of dogmas . Here there is an interaction of all these moments, in which, in the end, economic movement, as a necessity, makes its way through an infinite number of contingencies... Otherwise, applying the theory to any historical period would be easier than solving the simplest equation of the first degree.” . (K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, vol.II, 1948, pp. 467-468).

Aligned with Western European opportunism, the enemies of Marxism in Russia - the so-called “legal Marxists”, “economists”, Mensheviks, and subsequently right-wing restorers of capitalism - also interpreted historical development only as a spontaneous growth of “productive forces”, while negating the role of socialist consciousness and organization of the proletariat, the role of theory, the political party and the leaders of the working class, generally denying the importance of the subjective factor in social development. Such pseudo-materialistic views are no less anti-scientific and no less reactionary than the most rabid fictions of a subjective-idealistic kind, for if the latter lead to adventurism in politics, then views that deny the role of the subjective factor in history doom the working class to passivity, to resignation.

In his work “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR,” Comrade Stalin, while exposing and demolishing idealistic, subjectivist, voluntaristic views on the laws of social development, at the same time exposes the fetishistic attitude towards the objective laws of nature and society. It is impossible to create or “transform” objective laws of development, but people can, by cognizing these objective laws, master them, and put their action into the service of society.

Historical materialism is equally hostile to both subjectivist, voluntarist theories and theories of spontaneity and gravity.

V.I. Lenin and J.V. Stalin, at all stages of the revolutionary struggle, waged a merciless struggle against this kind of reactionary theories in the Russian and international labor movement. “Without revolutionary theory,” said V.I. Lenin, “there can be no revolutionary movement.” (IN.I. Lenin, Works, vol. 5, ed. 4, p. 341).

“Theory,” points out Comrade Stalin, “is the experience of the labor movement of all countries, taken in its general form. Of course, theory becomes pointless if it is not connected with revolutionary practice, just as practice becomes blind if it does not illuminate its path with revolutionary theory. But theory can turn into the greatest force of the workers’ movement if it develops in inextricable connection with revolutionary practice, because it, and only it, can give the movement confidence, the power of orientation and understanding of the internal connection of surrounding events, because it, and only it, can help practice to understand not only how and where classes are moving in the present, but also how and where they should move in the near future.” (I.V. Stalin, Works, vol. 6, pp. 88-89).

Thus, explaining the origin and emergence of ideas, theories, and views as a result of the development of social existence, Marxist materialism not only does not deny their significance in social development, but, on the contrary, in every possible way emphasizes their role, their significance in history. Depending on the interests of which classes - reactionary or revolutionary - these theories and views reflect and defend, they, in both cases, playing an active role, either slow down or accelerate historical development. Therefore, the progressive forces of society always face the task of relentlessly identifying and exposing the essence of reactionary views and thereby opening the way to the minds and hearts of millions for advanced theories and views that unleash the revolutionary initiative of the masses and organize them to destroy outdated ones and establish new social orders.

Comrade Stalin points out: “New social ideas and theories arise only after the development of the material life of society has posed new tasks for society. But after they have arisen, they become a very serious force that facilitates the resolution of new tasks posed by the development of the material life of society, facilitating the advancement of society forward. This is precisely where the greatest organizing, mobilizing and transforming significance of new ideas, new theories, new political views, new political institutions comes into play. New social ideas and theories actually arise because they are necessary for society, because without their organizing, mobilizing and transformative work, it is impossible to resolve the pressing problems of the development of the material life of society. Having arisen on the basis of new tasks posed by the development of the material life of society, new social ideas and theories make their way, become the property of the masses, mobilize them, organize them against the moribund forces of society and thus facilitate the overthrow of the moribund forces of society that are inhibiting the development of material life society.

Thus, social ideas, theories, political institutions, having arisen on the basis of urgent tasks for the development of the material life of society, the development of social existence, then themselves influence social existence, the material life of society, creating the conditions necessary to complete the resolution of urgent problems material life of society and make its further development possible.” (I.V. Stalin, Questions of Leninism, 1952, p. 586).

Theory, Marx said, itself becomes a material force as soon as it takes possession of the masses.

The history of the Russian labor movement, the world-historical experience of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the history of the construction of socialism and communism in the USSR in fact show the inexhaustible significance of these tenets of Marxist materialism for the practice of revolutionary struggle.

Lenin and the Leninists did not wait until the gradual growth of capitalism finally ousted feudalism from Russian life, until the spontaneous labor movement “by itself” rose to the level of socialist consciousness, but, crushing the “legal Marxists”, “economists”, they created an independent political party of the working class - a Marxist party of a new type, boldly launched organizational and agitation work, introducing socialist consciousness into the working class, connecting through the party the mass labor movement with the theory of scientific socialism.

Lenin, Stalin, and the Bolsheviks did not wait until the so-called liberal bourgeoisie completed the political and economic transformation of Russia in a bourgeois way, and after which the proletariat would allegedly “naturally” open up direct prospects for the socialist revolution. No, smashing the tailist installations of the Mensheviks, the Russian communists, led by Lenin and Stalin, led a course towards ensuring that it was the proletariat that would lead the people’s, bourgeois-democratic revolution, and led a course towards the development of a bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist one.

Enlightened and organized, educated and tempered in the spirit of Leninist-Stalinist revolutionary activity as a hegemon, the leader of the great popular forces in the revolutionary struggle, the Russian working class overthrew the yoke of capitalism, built socialism on one sixth of the globe, and the Western European right-wing socialists are Wall’s paid agents - Street in the labor movement - are still trying to persuade workers to wait until capitalism “by itself”, “peacefully” develops into socialism.

Barely passed after the Great October revolution two decades since the USSR transformed from an economically backward agricultural country under the state leadership of the Communist Party into a powerful industrial power, which, in terms of the pace of industrial development, far left behind the most developed capitalist countries, came out on top in Europe in terms of the total volume of industrial production, and turned into a country of continuous literacy, the most advanced culture, to the country of victorious socialism, which has set a course for a gradual transition to the second phase of communism.

And on the contrary, over the same decades, Germany, for example, where the reactionary ideology of the German right-wing socialists and then the Nazis temporarily gained the upper hand, once the most advanced, civilized country in Europe, fell to the level of fascist barbarism. And only the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Soviet Army opened the path to social and cultural revival for the German people.

In its activities, the Communist Party constantly takes into account the great driving force of advanced social consciousness. While developing gigantic economic construction, the Communist Party is simultaneously expanding more and more actively to overcome the remnants of capitalism in the minds of people, to educate the masses communistically. It is no coincidence that one of the most important functions of the state of victorious socialism is the function of not only economic and organizational, but also cultural and educational work of state bodies. Resolutions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in the post-war period on ideological issues, discussions held on issues of philosophy, biology, physiology, linguistics, political economy and other fields of knowledge, directives of Comrade Stalin, his works devoted to issues of linguistics, economic problems socialism in the USSR, the decision of the XIX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on strengthening ideological work in all levels of Soviet society - all this suggests that, along with the creation of the material and technical base of communism, the Communist Party is fighting to provide the spiritual prerequisites for the USSR’s transition to the second phase communism.

This is the methodological significance in the practice of revolutionary struggle of the provisions of Marxist materialism about the primacy of social existence and the secondary nature of social consciousness, and at the same time about the active organizing, mobilizing and transforming role of advanced social ideas. Such is the monolithic integrity and consistency of Marxist philosophical materialism, which speaks of the primacy of matter and the secondary nature of consciousness.

I would like to hear your colleague’s opinion on this issue. What comes first, matter or consciousness? And accordingly, hear not only a short answer, but a well-founded description of the problem. The best comment will be awarded with financial gratitude!

And so, it all started when I was asked a question about the primacy of matter or consciousness. A man brought up in the spirit of destructive materialism told me that: in those days when he studied at the institute, the primacy of matter was proven very simply: “Here is a table. Touch it. Remove your hand. Close your eyes. It’s still there. Therefore, matter is primary and does not depend depends on what you think about it, whether you close your eyes or not, and what you imagine there.” And in those days, those who believed that consciousness was primary were simply laughed at. And the question is, what has changed now?

I answered like this: The first thing I want to say is that the words materialism and idealism have absolutely different meanings from the point of view of etymology, what the average Marxist thought about them in those days is completely ignorant. Any mystic would say that matter is truly omnipresent, it just has different densities of existence and there is an infinite number of types of this matter. Well, for example, rub your palms and spread them a little and you will feel the warmth, but this is also matter, just more subtle. If we talk about the density of matter, then it must be said that each denser type of matter necessarily consists of a subtler type of matter, which is more spiritual.

I tried to explain that what you were told at the institute was unfounded. If only because we mystics and magicians do not deny that matter is not primary. We are only talking about the diversity of matter and its density. The more subtle the matter, the more consciousness and the divine predominate in it. God is a manifestation of the subtlest matter and We do not deny this. And everything that exists is a manifestation of divine energy or matter.

If you take a table, then it also consists of finer matter, protons, electrons, neutrons, etc. All this suggests that the table also has a subtle spiritual origin of its origin. And all this is physically and scientifically proven and all this is spiritual energy. In those days, ancient teachers defined this matter as “light”, “heat”, “magnetism”, universal love”, “thought of God”, “world soul”, “Universal Logos”...... And if we proceed from that the thesis that “something cannot consist of nothing,” so we come to the conclusion that consciousness is primary.Here we understand that the higher we rise, the more spiritual the form of matter becomes.

You can also give an example when the Doctor says, “I have opened a person many times, but still have not found a soul,” and we magicians, mystics, would ask him, “How many thoughts, memories, ideas did you find there?”

I look forward to your live comments.

1. The general concept of the main question of philosophy, its aspects.

The main question in philosophy is traditionally considered to be the relationship of thinking to being, and being to thinking (consciousness). The importance of this issue lies in the fact that the construction of a holistic knowledge about the world around us and man’s place in it depends on its reliable resolution, and this is the main task of philosophy. Matter and consciousness (spirit) are two inseparable and at the same time opposing characteristics of existence. In this regard, there are two sides to the main question of philosophy - ontological and epistemological.

Ontological (existential) side of the main question of philosophy lies in the formulation and solution of the problem: what comes first - matter or consciousness?

The essence epistemological (cognitive) sides of the main question: is the world knowable or unknowable, what is primary in the process of cognition?

Depending on the ontological and epistemological aspects, the main directions in philosophy are distinguished - materialism and idealism, respectively, as well as empiricism and rationalism. When considering the ontological (existential) side of the main question of philosophy, we can distinguish the following areas:

objective idealism;subjective idealism;materialism;vulgar materialism;dualism;deism;

epistemological (cognitive) side: gnosticism; agnosticism; empiricism (sensualism); rationalism.

2. The ontological side of the main question of philosophy.

The ontological side of the main question of philosophy is represented by: materialism; idealism; dualism.

Materialism(so-called "line of Democritus") - a direction in philosophy, whose supporters believed that in the relationship between mother and consciousness, matter is primary. Hence:

Matter really exists; - matter exists independently of consciousness (that is, it exists independently of thinking beings and whether anyone thinks about it or not); - matter is an independent substance - it does not need anything other than itself for its existence ;- matter exists and differs according to its internal laws; - consciousness (spirit) is the property (mode) of highly organized matter to reflect itself (matter); - consciousness is not an independent substance existing along with matter; - consciousness is determined by matter (being).

Philosophers such as Democritus belonged to the materialist movement; philosophers of the Milesian school (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes); Epicurus; Bacon; Locke; Spinoza; Diderot and other French materialists; Herzen; Chernyshevsky; Marx; Engels; Lenin. The advantage of materialism is its reliance on science, especially on exact and natural sciences (physics, mathematics, chemistry, etc.), and the logical provability of many materialist positions. The weak side of materialism is the insufficient explanation of the essence of consciousness, the presence of phenomena in the surrounding world that are inexplicable from the point of view of materialists. There is a special direction in materialism - vulgar materialism. Its representatives (Vocht, Moleschott) absolutize the role of matter, are overly keen on the study of matter from the point of view of physics, mathematics and chemistry, its mechanical side, ignore consciousness itself as an essence and its ability to respond to matter. Materialism as the dominant direction of philosophy was widespread in democratic Greece, the Hellenistic states, England during the bourgeois revolution (17th century), France in the 18th century, the USSR and socialist countries in the twentieth century

Idealism ("Plato's line")- a direction in philosophy, whose supporters considered consciousness (idea, spirit) to be primary in the relationship between matter and consciousness.

In idealism there are two independent directions:

objective idealism (Plato, Leibniz, Hegel, etc.);

subjective idealism (Berkeley, Hume).

Plato is considered the founder of objective idealism. According to the concept of objective idealism:

only the idea really exists;

the idea is primary;

the entire surrounding reality is divided into the “world of ideas” and the “world of things”;

the “world of ideas” (eidos) initially exists in the World Mind (Divine Plan, etc.);

“world of things” - the material world has no independent existence and is the embodiment of the “world of ideas”;

each individual thing is the embodiment of the idea (eidos) of a given thing (for example, a horse is the embodiment of the general idea of ​​a horse, a house is the idea of ​​a house, a ship is the idea of ​​a ship, etc.);

God the Creator plays a large role in transforming a “pure idea” into a concrete thing;

individual ideas (“the world of ideas”) objectively exist independently of our consciousness.

In contrast to objective idealists, subjective idealists (Berkeley, Hume, etc.) believed that: everything exists only in the consciousness of the knowing subject (man); ideas exist in the human mind; images (ideas) of material things also exist only in the human mind through sensory sensations ;outside the consciousness of an individual person on matter, neither spirit (ideas) exists. A weak feature of idealism is the lack of a reliable (logical) explanation for the very presence of “pure ideas” and the transformation of a “pure idea” into a concrete thing (the mechanism for the emergence of matter and ideas). Idealism as a philosophical trend dominated in Platonic Greece, the Middle Ages, and is now widespread in the USA, Germany, and other countries of Western Europe. Along with the polar (competing) main directions of philosophy - materialism and idealism - there are intermediate (compromise) currents - dualism, deism.

Dualism as a philosophical movement was founded by Descartes. The essence of dualism is that: there are two independent substances - material (possessing the property of extension) and spiritual (possessing the property of thinking); everything in the world is derived (is a mode) from either one or the other of these substances; 9material things - from material, ideas - from the spiritual); two substances are combined in a person at the same time - both material and spiritual; matter and consciousness (spirit) are two opposite and interconnected sides of a single being;

the main question of philosophy (what is primary – matter or consciousness) does not actually exist, since matter and consciousness complement each other and always exist.

Deism- a direction in philosophy, whose supporters (mainly French enlighteners of the 18th century) recognized the existence of God, who, in their opinion, having once created the world, no longer participates in it further development and does not affect the lives and actions of people (that is, they recognized a god who has practically no “powers”, who should only serve as a moral symbol). Deists also considered matter to be spiritual and did not oppose matter and spirit (consciousness).

3. The epistemological side of the main question of philosophy.

The epistemological side of the main question of philosophy is presented:

empiricism (sensualism);

rationalism.

The founder of empiricism is F. Bacon. Empiricists believed that knowledge can only be based on experience and sensory sensations (“There is nothing in thoughts (in the mind) that was not previously in experience and sensory sensations”).

The founder of rationalism (from the Latin ratio - reason) is considered to be R. Descartes. The main idea of ​​rationalism is that true (reliable) knowledge can only be derived directly from the mind and does not depend on sensory experience. (Firstly, only doubt in everything really exists, and doubt is thought - the activity of the mind. Secondly, there are truths that are obvious to the mind (axioms) and do not need any experimental proof - “God exists”, “U square has equal angles”, “The whole is greater than its part”, etc.).

As a special direction stands out irrationalism(Nietzsche, Schopenhauer). According to irrationalists, the world is chaotic, has no internal logic, and therefore will never be known by reason.

The concepts of gnosticism and agnosticism are associated with the epistemological side of the main issue of philosophy. Representatives Gnosticism(as a rule, materialists) believe that: the world is knowable; the possibilities of knowledge are unlimited.

The opposite point of view is held agnostics(usually idealists):

the world is unknowable; the possibilities of knowledge are limited by the cognitive capabilities of the human mind.

Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) was one of the prominent theorists of agnosticism. According to Kant, the human mind has great capabilities, but these capabilities also have their limits. Based on the finiteness and limited cognitive capabilities of the human mind, there are riddles (contradictions) that will never be solved by man, for example: God exists, God does not exist.

In total, Kant identifies four such insoluble contradictions (antinomies). However, according to Kant, even what is included in the cognitive capabilities of the human mind will still never be cognized, since the mind can only cognize the reflection of a thing in sensory sensations, but will never cognize the inner essence of a given thing - the “thing in itself.”

4. The current state (unresolved) of the main issue of philosophy and its prospects.

At present, despite the millennia-long quest of philosophers, the main question of philosophy has not been reliably resolved either from the ontological or epistemological side and is in fact a well-known (unresolved) philosophical problem. In the 20th century In Western philosophy, there has been a tendency to pay less attention to the traditional basic question of philosophy, since it is difficult to resolve and is gradually losing its relevance. Jasper, Heidegger, Camus and others laid the foundations for the fact that in the future another fundamental question of philosophy may appear - the problem of existentialism, that is, the problem of man, his existence, management of his own spiritual world, relationships within society and with society, his free choice, search the meaning of life and your place in life, happiness.

2. Is the world knowable?

It should further be noted that both sides of this philosophical question have an alternative solution: either/or. Depending on how philosophers answer the first side of the main question of philosophy, they are divided into materialists and idealists, and two fundamentally different universal orientations in the world are formed: materialism and idealism. Materialism is based on the principle of the primacy of matter in relation to consciousness. Idealism, in contrast to materialism, proves the primacy of consciousness and the secondary nature of matter. The primacy of matter means that it is an absolute beginning and exists outside of consciousness. In principle, there is nothing in the world that is not matter, its property or a product of development. Apart from material reality, there is no special spiritual, ideal substance outside of matter.

The secondary nature of consciousness means that it: 1) arises only at a certain level of development of matter, 2) does not exist outside of matter, being its property, the result of the activity of a highly organized material organ - the brain; 3) is a reflection of matter; the content of consciousness is determined by the external world.

Next, it is necessary to consider the question of the forms of materialism and idealism, each of which has gone through a long path of development. The following main forms of materialism are distinguished: 1) spontaneous, naive materialism of ancient thinkers (Democritus, Heraclitus, Epicurus); 2) metaphysical materialism of the 16th–18th centuries. (Bacon, Spinoza, Diderot, Holbach, Helvetius); 3) dialectical materialism, created by K. Marx, F. Engels, V. I. Lenin.

Idealism, in turn, affirms the substantiality and primacy of the ideal factor, consciousness, and for the most part denies the possibility of knowing the world.

It is necessary to consider the question of the varieties of idealism. There are two main forms of idealism: objective and subjective, depending on what consciousness is accepted as the fundamental principle of the world.

Objective idealism (Plato, Hegel, neo-Thomists) takes as the fundamental principle of the world an impersonal, objectively existing spiritual principle, which turns into the forms of the external world, nature, human history. Such an absolutized consciousness is declared primary; it rises above both matter and the individual.

Subjective idealism considers various forms of consciousness of an individual person, a subject, to be primary. Subjective idealists declare the world to be a totality of sensations, perceptions, and ideas. They deny the objective existence of the external world. But regardless of these differences, the essence of all forms of idealism remains the same - they all, in one way or another, recognize the creation of the world by spirit.

The essence of the second side of the main question of philosophy, as defined by F. Engels, is “how do our thoughts about the world around us relate to this world itself? Is our thinking capable of cognizing the real world? Can we, in our ideas and concepts about the real world, form a true reflection of reality? Most philosophers and, above all, materialists, give a positive answer to these questions, i.e. recognize the fundamental possibility of knowing the world.

But along with them there are philosophers who deny the knowability of the world. Philosophical teaching, which denies the fundamental possibility of knowing the world is called agnosticism. Elements of agnosticism in the form of skepticism arose in ancient Greek philosophy, and agnosticism received its classical form in the philosophy of D. Hume (1711–1776) and I. Kant (1724–1804).

In the history of philosophy, there have been and now exist a large number of philosophical schools, whose representatives occupy an intermediate, inconsistent position between materialism and idealism, eclectically combine elements of both directions, declaring the uselessness of the main question of philosophy and focusing mainly on the positivist (specific descriptive) methodology. Currently, modern philosophy continues the materialist line, and idealism is represented by various philosophical movements: existentialism, post-positivism, hermeneutics, neo-Thomism and other directions. In recent decades, postmodernism has emerged in the West as an ideology that generalizes and includes many idealistic movements. Postmodernism manifests its essence through the denial of the objectivity of the world, the role of science and scientific knowledge, affirmation of the subjectivity of the results of cognitive activity.

The modern stage of development of philosophy is characterized by the interaction of materialism and idealism in the form of dialogue. Modern materialism recognizes the possibility of the determining role of the subjective factor within the framework of individual historical processes, while many idealistic trends included elements of dialectics, recognition of the decisive role of socio-economic conditions in the development of society and other essential provisions of materialist theory. So, from what has been discussed it follows that an alternative solution to the main question of philosophy theoretically predetermines the polarization of philosophy into materialism and idealism as two main directions (see Fig. 1.3).

The main question of philosophy determines the general principles of the philosophical worldview, the process of cognition of the world, acting as the main question of epistemology; significantly influences the understanding of general theoretical problems of science, politics, morality, art, etc.

Modern philosophy, as a new stage in the development of theoretical thought, reflects the state of society and the position of man in the world in relation to the post-industrial era and the corresponding level of scientific achievements. It is a theoretical model of the emerging information technology civilization that helps to find solutions global problems humanity, understanding of deep integration processes in the world community, correct understanding of other pressing problems.

Rice. 1.3. The main question of philosophy is about the relationship of consciousness to matter

Philosophy acts as a universal method of cognition. The specificity of the philosophical method is determined by the nature of the solution to a number of fundamental problems:

Is the world evolving or does it remain in a constant state?

Is the world a single whole or is it a mechanical collection of objects?

What is the source of development?

What is the direction of development of the world: from lower to higher or is it simple repetition?

Depending on the solution to these questions in philosophy, two research methods are distinguished: dialectics And metaphysics.

One of the important features of scientific knowledge in comparison with everyday knowledge is its organization and the use of a number of research methods. In this case, a method is understood as a set of techniques, methods, rules of cognitive, theoretical and practical, transformative activity of people. These techniques and rules, ultimately, are not established arbitrarily, but are developed based on the laws of the objects being studied themselves. Therefore, methods of cognition are as diverse as reality itself. The study of methods of cognition and practical activity is the task of a special discipline - methodology.

Despite all the differences and diversity of methods, they can be divided into several main groups:

1. General, philosophical methods, the scope of which is the widest. The dialectical-materialist method also belongs to their number.

2. General scientific methods that find application in all or almost all sciences. Their originality and difference from universal methods is that they are used not at all, but only at certain stages of the cognition process. For example, induction plays a leading role at the empirical level, and deduction at the theoretical level of knowledge; analysis predominates at the initial stage of research, and synthesis at the final stage. At the same time, in the general scientific methods themselves, as a rule, the requirements of universal methods find their manifestation and refraction.

3. Private or special methods, characteristic of individual sciences or areas of practical activity. These are methods of chemistry or physics, biology or mathematics, methods of metalworking or construction.

4. Finally, a special group of methods is formed by techniques, which are techniques and methods developed to solve some special, particular problem. Choosing the right methodology is an important condition for the success of the study.

In the 21st century, materialistic philosophy is defined as a new methodology, on the basis of which all scientific disciplines appeared as elements of a single knowledge about the evolution of the Universe and man.

Control questions

1. Define philosophy.

2. Name the main structural elements of philosophical knowledge.

3. What is the relationship between worldview and philosophy?

4. What historical types of worldview do you know? Give them brief description. How are they different from philosophy?

5. How is the main question of philosophy formulated and what is its ideological and methodological significance?

6. What are the ideological and methodological functions of philosophy?

7. Why is the study of philosophy necessary for a specialist in any field of knowledge: engineer, doctor, teacher, etc.?

Bibliography

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Topics of abstracts and reports

1. The place and role of philosophy in the system of modern scientific knowledge.

2. The importance of studying philosophy for a specialist with higher education.

3. Mythology as a historical type of worldview. Mythology and modernity.

4. Philosophy and special sciences.

5. Religion and mythology: comparative analysis.

6. General and special in religion and science.

7. The relationship between philosophy and art.

TOPIC 2.

HISTORICAL TYPES OF PHILOSOPHY