ФИЛОСОФИЯ. Философия науки

Doctor of Philosophy, professor R.Yu. Rakhmatullin

Bashkir state agrarian university, Russia

What exactly is a worldview?

Most authors who have studied this phenomenon are unanimous in saying that it is a kind of philosophical knowledge. It is known that in contrast to consciousness a term “world outlook” does not include all the knowledge of the world, but only the knowledge those are significant for humans and are their convictions. In our earlier studies we concluded that the worldview is a substantive side of the world outlook, where knowledge about and understanding of the objects and interconnections among are concentrated. In is referred to the most important for human being objects and understanding [1, p. 52-63]. Recognition of such a rigid connection of the worldview to the world outlook confirms that the number of the worldviews is determined by the number of world outlook types. The main elements of the worldview are ontologized images experienced by a person as reality existing objects of the external world. These images are structured into a single integrity using the philosophical, scientific, religious, mythological principles and ideas, often coexisting within one world outlook.

Principles, ideas and images of the world view, as a rule, are the subject of research for philosophers-oncologists, but this fact does not mean that the worldview and ontology are the terms. To the maximum extent the worldview is close to classical ontology, which is characterized by two features: a) a statement that the essence precedes existence; and b) a belief in the cognition of this essence, that is possible with the elimination of the subjective factors from this cognitive process. Proximity of the worldview to the classical ontology is explained by its intentionality: images of the worldview as actually existing objects. This feature characterizes the classical ontology too: its proponents believe that the world looks the way in is represented in their minds. Developing the ideas of John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume, in the 18th century Immanuel Kant justifies the idea of determinacy of ontological knowledge a priori by the given mental qualities of the person. As the American philosopher T. Rockmore exactly noticed, the revolution of Kant in philosophy is in a replacement of the formula “knowledge must conform to objects” by the formula “objects must conform to our knowledge” [2, p. 40]. He calls this revolution “Copernican revolution” : Copernicus turned people’s ideas about the structure of the solar system and Kant moved the source of knowledge and ideas about the world from the objective to subjective world. Ontology “from the object” was replaced in the space of philosophical ontology by the “from subject” ontology.

In the 19-20th centuries Kantian paradigm was successfully developed by neo-Kantians (A. Liebman, H. Cohen), empirio-criticists (E. Mach, R. Avenarius), neopositivists (R. Carnap, B. Russell), postpositivists (T. Kuhn, K. Popper). Proponents of these studies have shown that in addition to the Kantian a priori forms of understanding and human drain, the result of objective knowledge of the world is affected by the senses, language, human value systems. Perhaps the most important finding of non-classical ontology is the statement of impossibility of absolute objective knowledge about the external world because of the conditionality of knowledge by the characteristics of the knower. This allows us to speak about unity of ontology and epistemology.

The principle of unity of ontology and epistemology, in turn, gives rise to the claim that the images and ideas of the scientific worldview are the result of constructive human activity. According to V. A. Lefebvre “the theory of the object generated by the researcher is not product of the object’s activity itself” [3, p. 7]. Of course, images of the scientific worldview are representatives of the things and events from the objective world, i.e. they are not only subjective, but objective. But in isn’t copies of the objects. A. N. Leontiev writes that there is no glowers, no smells, and no sounds outside the psyche: a original is a-modal [4]. The fact that the scientific world is a representative, but not a copy of the external world, is described by V. S. Stepin [5, p. 188].

Previous arguments the worldview belong to the sphere of non-classical ontology, that represents the study not only about the most important objects of the world where a person exists, but also about study confidence. Therefore, in contrast to the worldview ontology performs a critical function that is inherent the whole philosophy. Since ontology deals with the representatives of the same objects which constitute the worldview (substance, Got, space and time, development, etc.), it can be called philosophical reflection on the worldview. In this case, the object of the oncologist’s reflection , as a reflection of theologian, astronomer, biologist, is not the objective world but its representative – the worldview. Illusion of perfection of the existing world outside of the world subject, as already noted, is created due to the property of intentionality of the human psyche allowing its contents to project its content to the external world.

Conclusion:

Ontology is not worldview, but corresponds to a philosophical reflection on this view that is considered by the person as objective existence matter. The worldview is the point of contract of the world of things and ideas that was sought by the ancient philosophers, and ontology is an attempt to explain this contract.

References:

1. Rakhmatullin R. Yu. Ontologized images in scientific cognition: genesis and function: dissertation of PhD. Ufa, 2000.

2. Rockmor T. Kant about representationism and constructivism // Epistemologiya i filosofiya nauki. 2005. No. 1.

3. Lefebvre V. A. Conflicting structures. Moscow: Institut of psychology RAS, 2000.

4. Leontiev A. N. Sensual image and model in the light of Lenin’s theory of reflection // Voprosy psikhologii. 1970. No. 2.

5. Stepin V. S. Theoretical knowledge. Moscow: Progress-Traditsiya, 2000.