N.A. Konstantinov, E.N. Medynsky, M.F. Shabaeva
A brief description of the philosophical views of the French materialists.
Among the French philosophers of the Enlightenment, the materialist philosophers stood out with the greatest consistency in their views and the militant nature of their principled positions. “Throughout the entire modern history of Europe,” wrote V. I. Lenin, “and especially at the end of the 18th century, in France, where a decisive battle was fought against all kinds of medieval rubbish, against serfdom in institutions and ideas, materialism turned out to be the only consistent philosophy, faithful to all the teachings of the natural sciences, hostile to superstition, bigotry, etc.” The materialist philosophers resolutely opposed the feudal state institutions and the church, and forged the sharp ideological weapons of the French revolution. The works of Diderot, Helvetius, Holbach were banned, confiscated, subjected to public burning by the authorities, the authors themselves were often persecuted, often forced to emigrate to other countries.
The French materialists were consistent, active fighters against religion, their atheistic worldview had a huge impact not only on their contemporaries, but also on subsequent generations. Church and religion were the main pillar of feudalism, the destruction of this pillar was a necessary condition for the revolution. Criticism of religion at that time, K. Marx explained, was a prerequisite for any other criticism.
Philosophers-materialists sought to prove that the sources of religion are ignorance, slavery, despotism and the deception of the masses by the clergy. Priests do not care about the enlightenment of the people, they wrote, and the less enlightened the mass, the easier it is to fool them. V. I. Lenin highly valued the atheists of the 18th century, who talentedly, witty, and openly attacked religion and priesthood. However, they did not understand the social essence of religion and could not point out the right ways to fight it. French materialists believed that enlightenment would eliminate all superstitions. Science, art, crafts give people new strength, assist them in the knowledge of the laws of nature, which should lead them to the rejection of religion.
Religion is required by the feudal government in order to more easily govern the people, but a just, enlightened, virtuous government will not need false fables. Therefore, the clergy should not be allowed to run schools, there should be no teaching of religion in schools, it is necessary to introduce such subjects that would lead students to the knowledge of the laws of nature. It would be expedient to establish such a subject that would teach the basics of moral norms of behavior in a new society, such a subject should have been a course in morality.
According to the teachings of the French materialists, there is only matter in the world, which is in constant motion, matter is a physical reality. They recognized universal interaction in nature and motion as a natural property of matter. But French materialism did not go beyond the mechanical understanding of movement and was of a metaphysical, contemplative nature.
Based on Locke's sensationalism, the French materialists recognized the sensations received from the external world as the starting point of cognition. According to Diderot, a person is like a musical instrument, the keys of which are the sense organs: when nature presses them, the instrument makes sounds - a person has sensations and concepts.
Being materialists in their views on nature, the French philosophers, in explaining the laws of social development, stood on the positions of idealism. They argued that “opinions rule the world”, and if so, it is enough to achieve a change in opinions, and all feudal vestiges and religion will fall away, enlightenment will spread, legislation will improve and the kingdom of reason will be established. Consequently, it is necessary to convince and re-educate people, and the nature of social relations will be radically changed. Therefore, the French materialists considered education a means of changing the social order. They also overestimated the influence of the environment, considering a person as a passive product of his environment and upbringing. They did not understand the role of the revolutionary activity of people, changing both the environment and their own nature. F. Engels explained that the inconsistency of the old materialism did not lie in the fact that he recognized the existence of ideal motive forces, but in the fact that he stopped at them, not trying to penetrate further, to reach the causes that created these forces.
The pedagogical views of the French materialists Helvetius and Diderot were of the greatest importance.
Pedagogical views of Claude Adrian Helvetius (1715-1771).
In 1758, the famous book of Helvetius "On the Mind" was published. The authorities condemned and banned this book, as directed against religion and the existing system. The book was publicly burned. Helvetius went abroad and at that time wrote a new work - "On Man, His Mental Abilities and His Education" (published in 1773).
Helvetius denied innate ideas and, being a sensualist, believed that all representations and concepts in a person are formed on the basis of sensory perceptions. He attached great importance to the formation of a person under the influence of the environment, the socio-political system that prevails in the country. According to Helvetius, "the young man's new and main educators are the form of government of the state in which he lives, and the morals generated by this form of government among the people."
He pointed out that the feudal system cripples people. The Church spoils human characters, religious morality is hypocritical and inhuman. "Woe to the nations," exclaims Helvetius, "who trust the priests to educate their citizens." He believed that the time had come when the preaching of morality should be taken over by secular power. Since the existing morality is built on errors and prejudices, on religion, a new morality must be created, arising from a rightly understood personal interest, that is, one that is combined with the public interest. However, Helvetia understood the public interest from a bourgeois position. He saw the basis of society in private property.
Helvetius considered it necessary to formulate a single goal of education for all citizens. This goal is to strive for the good of the whole society, for the greatest pleasure and happiness of the greatest number of citizens. It is necessary to educate patriots who are able to unite the idea of personal good and the “good of the nation”. Although Helvetius interpreted the “good of the nation” in a limited way, as a bourgeois thinker, such an understanding of the goals of education had a historically progressive character.
Helvetius argued that all people are equally capable of education, since they are born with the same spiritual abilities. This statement "about the natural equality of people" is imbued with democracy; it dealt a blow to the theories of contemporary noble ideologists who preached the inequality of people by nature, which was allegedly due to their social origin. However, Helvetius' denial of any natural differences between people is incorrect.
Helvetius believed that a person is formed only under the influence of the environment and upbringing. At the same time, he interpreted the concept of "education" very broadly. Karl Marx pointed out that by education Helvetius "understands not only education in the usual sense of the word, but also the totality of all the conditions of an individual's life ...". Helvetius stated that "upbringing makes us what we are", and even more: "Education can do anything." He overestimated both the role of education and the environment, believing that a person is a pupil of all the objects around him, those positions in which chance puts him, and even all the accidents that happen to him. Such an interpretation leads to an overestimation of natural factors and an underestimation of organized education in the formation of a person.
Helvetius believed that the scholastic school, where children are stupefied with religion, cannot educate not only real people, but also a sane person in general. It is therefore necessary to radically reorganize the school, make it secular and state-owned, and abolish the monopoly of the privileged noble caste on education. Broad education of the people is necessary, it is necessary to re-educate people. Helvetius hoped that as a result of education and upbringing, a person free from prejudice, from superstition, a true atheist patriot, a person who could combine personal happiness with the "good of nations" would be created.
Pedagogical views of Denis Diderot (1713-1784).
The most prominent representative of French materialism in the 18th century was Denis Diderot. His writings were met with hostility by the authorities. As soon as his work “Letters on the Blind for the Edification of the Sighted” was published, Diderot was arrested. After his release from prison, he devoted all his energies to preparing for the publication of the Encyclopedia of Sciences, Arts and Crafts. The encyclopedia, around which he gathered the entire flower of the then bourgeois intelligentsia, played a huge role in the ideological preparation of the bourgeois French revolution.
Of all the French materialist philosophers, Diderot was the most consistent: he passionately defended the idea of the indestructibility of matter, the eternity of life, and the great role of science.
Diderot attached great importance to sensations, but he did not reduce knowledge to them, but rightly pointed out that the processing of sensations by the mind is of great importance. The sense organs are only witnesses, while the judgment is the result of the activity of the mind on the basis of the data received from them.
Diderot highly appreciated the role of education, however, in his objections to Helvetia, he did not consider education to be omnipotent. He wrote in the form of a dialogue the well-known "Systematic refutation of the book of Helvetius" Man "(1773-1774).
Here is one typical place:
"Helvetius. I regarded intelligence, genius and virtue as the product of education.
Diderot. Only education?
Helvetius. This thought seems to me still true.
Diderot. It is false, and because of this it can never be proved in a completely convincing way.
Helvetius. It was agreed with me that education has a greater influence on the genius and character of people and peoples than has been thought.
Diderot. And that's all I could agree with you on."
Diderot decisively refutes Helvetius's position that education can do everything. He believes that much can be achieved by upbringing, but upbringing develops what nature has given the child. Through education, it is possible to develop good natural inclinations and drown out bad ones, but only if education takes into account the physical organization of a person, his natural characteristics.
Diderot's position on the importance that the natural differences of people have in their development, on the need to take into account in education the characteristics of the physical organization and psyche of the child deserve a positive assessment. However, due to the limitations of the French materialistic philosophy of the XVIII century, Diderot mistakenly considers human nature as something immutable, abstract. Meanwhile, as the founders of Marxism later established, human nature changes in the course of historical development, people change their own nature in the process of revolutionary practice.
Diderot believed that not only the elite had good natural inclinations; he, on the contrary, argued that the people are much more often the bearer of talents than representatives of the nobility.
“The number of huts and other private dwellings,” wrote Diderot, “is related to the number of palaces as ten thousand to one, and accordingly with this we have ten thousand to one chances that genius, talent and virtue will sooner come out of the walls of the hut, than from the walls of the palace.
At the same time, Diderot rightly declared that the talents hidden in the masses of the people are often dying, since a bad social system deprives the children of the people of proper upbringing and education. He was a supporter of the enlightenment of the broad masses, recognizing its enormous liberating role. According to Diderot, "enlightenment gives a man dignity, and the slave will immediately feel that he was not born for slavery."
Like Helvetius, Diderot strongly criticized the French feudal system of education, emphasizing that the elementary schools, which are in the hands of the clergy, neglect the education of children from the people, and the privileged secondary schools of the classical type bring up only an aversion to the sciences and give insignificant results. The entire system of education and upbringing is useless, "it is necessary to change the method of public education to the very foundation."
It is necessary that all children study in schools, regardless of their social affiliation. Schools should be removed from the jurisdiction of the clergy and made public. Primary education should be free and compulsory, and public catering should be established in schools. The children of the poor know better the value of education than the rich. Diderot demanded a decisive restructuring of the secondary school. He opposed the dominance of classical education in secondary schools, considered it necessary to provide them with teaching on the scientific basis of mathematics, physics, chemistry, natural science, astronomy, and insisted on the implementation of real education.
In 1773, at the invitation of Catherine II, Diderot made a trip to St. Petersburg and lived there for about a year. As you know, Catherine at that time played the role of an “enlightened figure” and patron of persecuted philosophers.
Diderot drew up in 1775 a plan for the organization of public education in Russia on a new basis under the name "Plan of the University for Russia" (meaning the entire system of public education by the university). Catherine had no intention, of course, of carrying out Diderot's plan; it was too radical.
Bibliography
For the preparation of this work, materials from the site http://www.biografia.ru/ were used.
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Helvetius: Seeing the enormous mental inequality of people, we must first of all recognize that minds are as different as bodies ... But this reasoning is based only on analogy. The obvious inequality between the minds of different people cannot be considered proof of their unequal capacity for mental development ... What is the mind in itself? The ability to notice similarities and differences, correspondences and inconsistencies between different objects.
Diderot: But is this ability innate, or is it acquired?
Helvetius: Born.
Diderot: And is it the same for all people?
Helvetius: All normally organized people.
Diderot: And what lies at the basis of it?
Helvetius: physical sensitivity.
Diderot: What about sensitivity?
Helvetius: It is an ability whose action changes only under the influence of upbringing, accidents and interest.
A .: So, here Helvetius (more precisely, expounding his views of Diderot) points to three factors that lead to inequality of minds with the initial equality of human natural abilities. Next, we will consider them in more detail.
Diderot: Does the organization, unless it is monstrously perverted, play no role here?
Helvetius: No.
Diderot: What do you see as the difference between man and animal?
Helvetius: In the organisation...
Diderot: And you don't see all your inconsistency?
Helvetius: What other inconsistency?
Diderot: You reduce the difference between the two extreme links of the animal chain - man and animal - to a difference in organization and use the same reason to explain the difference between dogs, but reject it when it comes to the difference between people in terms of intelligence, insight and intelligence ... .
A .: So, even purely logically, if the difference between two animals in terms of their mental functions is due to the difference in their nervous organization, then why not assume this in relation to people who are a link in the chain of living organisms?
Helvetius: I considered intelligence, talent and virtue as a product of education.
Diderot: Imagine five hundred newborn babies; you are trusted to raise them as you see fit. Tell me, how many of them will you make geniuses? Why not all five hundred? Think carefully about your answers, and you will be convinced that in the end they will lead you to a difference in organization, this primary source of laziness, frivolity, stubbornness and other vices or passions ... Prince Golitsyn has two children: a kind, meek and simple-hearted boy and a sly, cunning girl, always getting her way in a roundabout way. Their mother is devastated by this. Whatever she did to teach her daughter to be frank, and all to no avail. Where does this difference come from between two children, barely four years old, who were raised and cared for in the same way by their parents? Whether Mimi corrects herself or not, her brother Dmitry will never be able to maneuver among court intrigues like she does. The teacher's lesson can never be compared with the lesson of nature.
Helvetius: No one receives the same education, for everyone is mentors ... and the form of government under which he lives, and his friends, and his mistresses, and the people around him, and the books he read, and, finally, chance, that is, an infinite number of events, the cause and concatenation of which we cannot indicate due to ignorance of them.
S: And which one is right?
A.: As has happened many times in the history of scientific thought, both opinions reflect only different aspects of a single process. Later Sergei Leonidovich Rubinshtein would express this pattern in the classical formula: "External causes act through internal conditions." Of course, Diderot is right when he speaks of differences in innate predisposition, inclinations. But Helvetius is also right, who emphasizes the role of external conditions, including the "form of government" in the state, in the development of people's abilities.
Helvetius: Peoples groaning under the yoke of unlimited power can have only short-term successes, only flashes of glory; sooner or later they will fall under the rule of a free and enterprising people. But even if we assume that they will be spared this danger due to exceptional circumstances and situation, then bad management is already enough to destroy them, depopulate them and turn them into a desert [Ibid., p. 632].
A.: Helvetius is also right in that even if two twins are allegedly "identical" upbringing, this upbringing is still not the same: and this was proved by subsequent empirical studies of the psychology of upbringing and development of twins.
Helvetius: Chance plays an important role in the formation of character... Genius is the product of chance ... It is chance that puts known objects before our eyes, therefore, it causes us to have especially successful ideas and sometimes leads us to great discoveries.
Chance is the master of all inventors.
Diderot: Mister? Say better "servant", for he serves them, and not vice versa. Do you think that chance led Newton from the falling pear to the motion of the moon, and from the motion of the moon to the system of the universe? So chance would lead to the same discovery for anyone else? Newton himself thought of it differently. When asked how he came to his discovery, he answered: "Through reflection" [Ibid.].
A: Again, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. And the case plays an important role in the apparent sudden "enlightenment" of the scientist, but only on condition that he had previously thought about it for a long time. This is shown by modern research in the psychology of thinking.
Helvetius: Competition creates geniuses, and the desire to become famous creates talents ... The inequality of minds comes not so much from the too unequal distribution of the gifts of chance, but from the indifference with which they are received.
Diderot: My dear philosopher, don't say that; say rather that these reasons give them the opportunity to manifest themselves, and no one will argue with you.
Competition and desire do not create genius where there is none.
There are a thousand things that seem to me so beyond my powers that neither the hope of winning the throne, nor even the desire to save my life, would induce me to seek them, and there was not a moment in my whole life when my feelings and thoughts would shake me in this. persuasion.
A .: And again, both are right: passion plays an extremely large role in the development of abilities; very often a person is so in love with his own business that he acquires the necessary knowledge and skills as if effortlessly and quickly develops his abilities; but there is also an opposite picture, when a child is forced to study by force at first, and despite this, geniuses appear; a classic example is Paganini, who was literally forced by his father to play the violin as a child.
I will not dissemble: despite the fact that in these dialogues the extreme positions of both authors appear, both of them in their works often express themselves in the aforementioned compromise sense and therefore their views should be considered only as certain tendencies in understanding this or that problem...
Well, we went over the main problems of the French empirical psychology of consciousness of the 18th century, which developed the problem of the experimental origin of mental functions, emphasized the role of internal conditions (needs, activity of the subject, abilities, and so on) in the functioning of consciousness. This distinguished it from the English associative psychology that you and I discussed earlier.
S: What's going on in Germany?
A .: But we will talk about German empirical psychology a little later, when we touch on the problem of unconscious mental processes, because this problem was developed mainly by German-speaking authors ...
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Pedagogical views of Claude Adrian Helvetius (1715-1771). In 1758, the famous book of Helvetius was published. "About the Mind". The authorities condemned and banned this book, as directed against religion and the existing system. The book was publicly burned. Helvetius went abroad and at that time wrote a new work - "On Man, His Mental Abilities and His Education" (published in 1773).
He attached great importance to the formation of a person under the influence of the environment, the socio-political system that prevails in the country.
He pointed out that feudal system cripples people. The Church spoils human characters, religious morality is hypocritical and inhuman.
Helvetius considered it necessary to formulate single purpose of education for all citizens. This goal is to strive for the good of the whole society to the greatest pleasure and happiness of the greatest number of citizens. It is necessary to educate patriots who are able to unite the idea of personal good and the “good of the nation”.
the statement "about the natural equality of people" is imbued democracy; it dealt a blow to the theories of contemporary noble ideologists who preached the inequality of people by nature, which was allegedly due to their social origin.
Helvetius believed that scholastic school, where children are drugged with religion, cannot bring up not only real people, but also a sane person in general. It is therefore necessary to radically rebuild the school, make it secular and state and destroy the monopoly of the privileged caste of nobles for education. Broad education of the people is necessary, it is necessary to re-educate people. Helvetius hoped that as a result of education and upbringing, a person free from prejudice, from superstition, a true atheist patriot, a person who could combine personal happiness with the "good of nations" would be created.
Pedagogical views of Denis Diderot(1713-1784). The most prominent representative of French materialism in the 18th century was Denis Diderot. His writings were met with hostility by the authorities. As soon as his work was published "Letters on the Blind for the Edification of the Sighted", Diderot was arrested. After his release from prison, he devoted all his energies to preparing for the publication "Encyclopedia of Sciences, Arts and Crafts". The encyclopedia, around which he gathered the entire flower of the then bourgeois intelligentsia, played a huge role in the ideological preparation of the bourgeois French revolution.
Diderot appreciated the role of education, but in his objections to Helvetius he did not consider education omnipotent. He wrote in the form of a dialogue the well-known "Systematic refutation of the book of Helvetius" Man "(1773-1774).
Diderot resolutely refutes position of Helvetius, that education can do everything. He believes that much can be achieved by upbringing, but upbringing develops what nature has given the child. Through education, it is possible to develop good natural inclinations and drown out bad ones, but only if education takes into account the physical organization of a person, his natural characteristics.
However, due to the limitations of the French materialistic philosophy of the 18th century, Diderot erroneously considers human nature as something immutable, abstract.
Just like Helvetius, Diderot resolutely criticized the French feudal system of education, emphasizing that the elementary schools, which are in the hands of the clergy, neglect the education of children from the people, while the privileged secondary schools of the classical type bring up only an aversion to the sciences and give insignificant results. The entire system of education and upbringing is useless, "it is necessary to change the method of public education to the very foundation."
It is necessary that all children study in schools, regardless of their social affiliation. Schools should be removed from the jurisdiction of the clergy and made public. Primary education should be free and compulsory, and public catering should be established in schools. The children of the poor know better the value of education than the rich.
Diderot demanded decisive high school refurbishment. He opposed the dominance of classical education in secondary schools, considered it necessary to provide them with teaching on the scientific basis of mathematics, physics, chemistry, natural science, astronomy, and insisted on the implementation of real education.
The concept of education J.-J. Rousseau.
Didactic system of J.J. Rousseau(1712-1778). J.J. Rousseau is a famous French educator. The concept of "natural" and free upbringing and development of the child, created by him, became the personification of the Enlightenment itself. In the novel “Emile, or On Education”, J.J. Rousseau proposed an original system of views on the process of development, education and training of the younger generation. Basically, in his theory, the author considers purely educational issues, however, it should be noted that he also proposed original approaches to the organization of the educational process itself.
At the same time, according to J.J. Rousseau, it is important to organize the learning process in such a way that it correlates with the interests and experience of the student and is associated with the independent acquisition of certain knowledge by him.
According to the French teacher, actually education should begin at the most suitable age period for this - 12 to 15 years old and be carried out without the use of various programs, work plans, textbooks and other purely school pedagogical tools. J.J. Rousseau believed that the peculiarity of the actual pedagogical process is to put the baby into position researcher, and provide him with the required information about the world around him. In doing so, the guiding principle should be the principle of usefulness of acquired knowledge.
J. J. Rousseau was a supporter of real, natural science education, therefore, in his opinion, the curriculum should include the following disciplines Keywords: geography, chemistry, physics, biology, which contribute to the development of the pupil's interest and love for nature. Humanitarian subjects, according to J. J. Rousseau, are false and distort children's ideas about the surrounding society.
At the same time, J. J. Rousseau expressed the idea of active use in the education process labor activity, which is also an effective learning tool. It is labor, according to J.J. Rousseau, that makes it possible to purposefully develop the child's mental powers and ensures the process of his socialization.
J.J. Rousseau believed that labor should be combined with mental activity, while the pupil should "work like a peasant and think like a philosopher."
Talking about didactic significance theories of free education J.J. Rousseau, it should be especially noted that, of course, he underestimated the role of scientific knowledge in the development of a person, but at the same time he definitely identified the problem of overloading children with the offered educational knowledge, skills and abilities that deprive the child of the joy of life and the desire for development and self-improvement .
Thus, J.J. Rousseau laid the foundations humanistically oriented pedocentric didactic system and proposed a model for organizing the educational process based on the recognition of the need to develop the child's individuality through the self-development of natural forces and abilities.
Projects for the reform of public education in the era of the French Revolution (1789-1794)
Education system Zh.A. Condorcet and L.M. Lepelletier.
Schools the second stage, according to the project of Zh.A. Condorcet, should have been designed for children from more or less wealthy families. Here the children were supposed to receive the knowledge necessary in the crafts: in mathematics, natural history, chemistry, commerce. In an expanded volume, students of secondary schools were supposed to get acquainted with the life of society and the basics of morality.
At schools second stage J.A. Condorcet considered it necessary to create libraries and classrooms equipped with the equipment necessary for the study of the natural sciences. Such a school was to be opened in every administrative district and every city with a population of over 4,000 inhabitants.
At the third level of education, in institutes, according to the project of Zh.A. Condorcet, subjects related to practical activities were to be taught: agriculture, industry, military art, medicine, etc. Such educational institutions, according to the plan of Zh.A. Condorcet, were to be established in each department.
At the fourth level of education, in lyceums, were supposed to train scientists, people for whom science is the occupation of a lifetime. Here, future teachers of schools and institutes were supposed to receive education and training for practical activities. For the whole of France, J.A. Condorcet considered it sufficient to create nine lyceums.
Lead the entire education system, according to the plan of Zh.A. Condorcet should have National Society of Sciences and Arts like the modern academy of sciences, where members are elected by the community that is part of this association. Members of this organization were to determine the composition of teachers of all types of schools.
In general, the project of Zh.A. Condorcet was very progressive. Continuity of education levels, equality in the right to education of all people, the secular nature of the school, the free education, the strengthening of the role of the natural sciences - all this spoke in favor of the project. However, it was not adopted, unfortunately, by the majority of the Legislative Assembly.
Further Zh.A. Condorcet in terms of the democratization of education went Louis Michel Lepeletier (1760-1793). A nobleman by birth, during the revolution he was killed by the royal guards for voting in the Convention for the execution of the king. Shortly before the death of L.M. Lepelletier wrote the "Plan of National Education", which M. Robespierre reported at the Convention.
Turning to the project of J.A. Condorcet, L.M. Lepeletier emphasized that he himself dared to propose a much broader program that could contribute to the national revival France by "creating a new people". He believed that it was necessary to solve the problem, which consisted of two parts: the people must be given, firstly, upbringing and, secondly, education. And if education, even if accessible to all, is the property of a limited number of members of society, then education should be common to all.
He intended his project entirely for the poor, but he warned that if the rich man is a reasonable person, then he will approve it. Purpose of your project he saw in the establishment of education really national, really republican, really accessible to all.
French materialists of the 18th century. - La Mettrie, Helvetius, Diderot, Holbach - carry their ideas to wide circles of urban society. They do not directly address the sovereigns of contemporary Europe (although they do not miss the opportunity to interest them in their views) and not only to readers from the nobility, but also to the mass of readers from the bourgeois class. The French materialists relied on the broad development of free thought in England. Behind the bright figures of La Mettrie, Helvetius, Diderot, Holbach, there are no less bright and significant in their ideological influence figures of the English Enlighteners Toland, Tyndall, Shaftesbury. Another important source of materialistic ideas for them was the mechanistic materialism of Descartes' physics, as well as the materialistic doctrine of Spinoza about nature, substance and its attributes, about man, about the soul and its relation to the body.
18th century French materialism not only continued the materialistic traditions generated by the socio-historical development of England, France and the Netherlands, he developed these traditions further, put forward new ideas. For the great materialists of the 17th century. mechanics and astronomy were the main scientific pillars of materialistic thought. For French materialists, along with mechanics, medicine, physiology and biology also become such a support. The discoveries and ideas of Newton, Euler, Laplace, Lavoisier, Buffon, and other outstanding scientists form the natural scientific basis for the philosophical generalizations of the French materialists of the 18th century.
The philosophy of French materialism is composed of the materialist doctrine of nature and of the doctrine of man and society.
Founder of French materialism of the 18th century. Julien-Ofrat La Mettrie (1709-1751) expressed in a general form almost all the ideas that were subsequently developed, enriched, concretized by Helvetius, Diderot, Holbach and some naturalists - Buffon, Maupertuis and others.
La Mettrie argued that not only every form is inseparable from matter, but every matter is connected with motion. Deprived of the ability to move, inert matter is only an abstraction. Substance is ultimately reduced to matter, in the nature of which is rooted not only the capacity for movement, but also the universal potential capacity for sensitivity or sensation. Contrary to the teachings of Descartes, La Mettrie not only sought to prove the animation of animals, but at the same time pointed out the material nature of animation itself - animals and humans. Although for us, La Mettrie argued, the mechanism by which matter is endowed with the property of sensation is still incomprehensible to us, but it is undoubted that all our sensations are due to the connection of feeling - through nerves - with the material substance of the brain. Therefore, no sensation and no change in an already existing sensation can arise without a specific change in the corresponding organ of sense perception.
La Mettrie only outlined a number of basic ideas, but did not give them a detailed systematic development. The most systematic propagandist of the philosophical teachings of French materialism was Paul Holbach (1723-1789). The fruit of a mutual exchange of thoughts with friends was Holbach's System of Nature (1770), in which, in addition to Holbach, Diderot, Nejon and others took part. The System of Nature is the largest of Holbach's works devoted to the theory of materialism.
The main idea of the treatise is the idea of the reduction of all natural phenomena to various forms of motion of material particles, "forming in their totality the eternal uncreated nature. All theological and idealistic prejudices about the nature of the forces acting in nature and about their causes are consistently refuted.
The basis of all processes of nature is matter with its inherent property of motion. The "System of Nature" distinguishes between two kinds of motion: 1) the motion of material masses, due to which bodies move from one place to another; 2) internal and hidden movement, depending on the energy inherent in the body, i.e., on the combination of action and reaction of the invisible molecules of matter that make up this body. Referring to Toland, Holbach proves the universality of movement in nature. Everything in the universe is in motion. The essence of nature is to act; if we carefully consider its parts, we will see that there is not one of them that would be in absolute rest. Those that appear to us to be devoid of movement are in fact relatively at rest. In contrast to Descartes, who taught that God imparted movement to matter, Holbach argues that nature receives its movement from itself, for nature is a great whole, outside of which nothing can exist. Matter is eternally in motion, motion is the necessary mode of its existence and the source of such initial properties as extension, weight, impenetrability, figure, etc.
The materialistic understanding of nature is incompatible with the assumption of any kind of supernatural causes. According to Holbach, in nature there can be only natural causes and effects. All movements arising in it follow constant and necessary laws. Of those laws of phenomena which elude our observation, we can at least judge by analogy. The laws of causality are as universal as the property of motion in nature is universal. Therefore, if we know the general laws of the motion of things or beings, it will be enough for us to analyze or analyze to discover the movements that have come into combination with each other, and experience will show the consequences that we can expect from them. Over all connections of causes and effects in nature, the strictest necessity dominates: nature in all its phenomena acts necessarily, according to its inherent essence. Through movement, the whole enters into intercourse with its parts, and the latter with the whole. The universe is only an immense chain of causes and effects, continuously flowing from each other. Material processes exclude any kind of chance or expediency. Holbach's position on necessity extends to human behavior and to the emergence of all his sensations and ideas. This doctrine is undoubtedly mechanistic materialism. The behavior of a person in society and his actions, this doctrine reduces to a mechanical necessity. French materialism does not suspect the existence of a special regularity and necessity generated by the emergence of society.
Since everything is necessary in nature, and since nothing that is in it can act otherwise than it does, Holbach deduces from this the negation of chance. In a swirl of dust raised by a stormy wind, no matter how chaotic it may seem to us, there is not a single molecule of dust that is located randomly; each molecule has a definite cause, by virtue of which it occupies at every moment precisely the place where it is located. From the theory of universal determinism, Holbach also derives the denial of order and disorder in nature. The ideas of order and disorder are subjective and represent only our assessment of a necessary and objective situation.
The doctrine of nature, set forth in Holbach's System of Nature, was further developed in the works of the most prominent representative of French materialism, Diderot's pen (1713-1784). Diderot went from ethical idealism and deism to materialism in the doctrine of being, in psychology, in the theory of knowledge, and also to atheism in matters of religion. Diderot's philosophical writings of the 1940s and 1950s clearly reflect this evolution. In the later written Rameau's Nephew, d'Alembert's Conversation with Diderot, and in d'Alembert's Dream, the presentation of the theory of materialism reaches the highest inspiration, charm of literary form, ingenuity and wit in argumentation. Simultaneously with these philosophical writings, Diderot wrote extensively on art, aesthetics, and art criticism. In the Salons he published, in correspondence with the sculptor Falcone, in The Paradox of the Actor, he developed a new aesthetics of realism, opposing it to the theories of the epigones of classicism and the naturalistic understanding of truth. Diderot sought to implement the theoretical principles of aesthetics in his works of art - in novels and dramas.
Like other representatives of French materialism, Diderot proceeds from the position of the eternity and infinity of nature. Nature is not created by anyone, except for it and outside of it there is nothing.
Diderot introduced certain features and ideas of dialectics into the materialist doctrine of nature. Through his views on organic nature, the thought of development, of the connection between the processes occurring in nature, breaks through. In a number of issues Diderot's teaching breaks through the narrow framework of mechanistic metaphysics. According to Diderot, everything changes, disappears, only the whole remains. The world is continually born and dies, every moment it is in a state of birth and death; there never was and never will be another world. Individual features of Diderot's dialectics were highly valued by Engels.
Diderot's special attention was drawn to the problem of the materialistic interpretation of sensations. How can the mechanical movement of material particles give rise to a specific content of sensations? There can be two answers to this question: either sensation appears at a certain stage in the development of matter as something qualitatively new, or an ability analogous to the ability of sensation must be recognized as a property of any matter, regardless of the form of the material body and the degree of its organization. According to the latter view, organization determines only the kind of animation, but not the very quality of animation, which belongs to matter as such.
Diderot was a supporter of the idea of the universal sensitivity of matter. As indicated above, La Mettrie was already inclined to this view. Later, the inconsistent materialist Robinet (1735-1820), the author of the treatise On Nature, also defended the doctrine of the universal sensitivity of nature and of organic germs as its material primary elements.
Diderot not only worked out a clear formulation of this doctrine, but, in addition, refuted the arguments usually put forward against it. In D'Alembert's Conversation with Diderot, he argued that the recognition that the difference between the psyche of man and animals is due to differences in their bodily organization does not contradict the idea that the ability to sense is a universal property of matter.
Developing this view, Diderot outlined a materialistic theory of mental functions, which in many respects anticipated the latest theory of reflexes. According to this theory, in the ways animals and people communicate with each other, there is nothing but actions and sounds. The animal is an instrument with the ability to sense. Humans are also instruments, endowed with the ability to sense and remember. Our senses are the "keys" that the nature around us strikes and which often strike themselves. At one time, Descartes drew the conclusion from similar ideas that animals are mere machines. According to Diderot, something else follows from them. Man, like animals, contains something automatic in his organization, and the automatism of organic forms is not only not devoid of animation, but presupposes the possibility of sensation as a universal property of matter. From inert matter, organized in a certain way, under the influence of other matter, as well as heat and movement, the ability of sensation, life, memory, consciousness, emotion, thinking arises. This teaching is incompatible with the ideas of the idealists about the spontaneity of thinking. According to Diderot, we do not deduce conclusions: they are all deduced by nature, we only register contiguous phenomena known to us from experience, between which there is a necessary or conditioned connection. The recognition of the existence of the external world independent of consciousness, as well as the recognition of the ability of sensations to reflect the properties of external things, does not mean, however, that sensations are mirror-exact copies of objects. Already Fr. Bacon found that the human mind is not like a smooth mirror, but a rough mirror in which things are reflected in an inaccurate way. According to Diderot, there is no more similarity between the majority of sensations and their causes than between these same representations and their names. Together with Locke and with all the mechanistic materialism of the XVII-XVIII centuries. Diderot distinguishes between "primary" qualities in things, that is, those that exist in the things themselves and do not depend on the attitude of our consciousness towards them, and "secondary" qualities, consisting in the relationship of the object to other things or to itself. The last qualities are called sensible. According to Diderot, sensual qualities are not similar to the ideas that are created about them. However, unlike Locke, Diderot emphasizes the objective nature of "secondary" qualities, that is, that they exist independently of the consciousness of the perceiving subject. On the basis of the materialist doctrine of nature, French materialism put forward the doctrine of the dependence of all forms of knowledge on experience, on sensations, which are transformed at a higher stage of development into forms of thinking and inference. Experienced in its source, knowledge has as its goal not an abstract comprehension of the truth, but the achievement of the ability to improve and increase the power of man. The French materialists adopted this view from Fr. Bacon. Diderot developed this view, taking into account the role of technology and industry in the evolution of thought and knowledge. The condition for the emergence of any knowledge is the excitation of the soul, sensation from the outside. The work of memory, which preserves acquired knowledge, is reduced to material organic processes.
Diderot and other French materialists recognized experiment and observation as methods of cognition. Fighting against the idealism of Leibniz, the dualism of Descartes and theology, the French materialists, beginning with La Mettrie, argued that the cognitive value of the mind is not diminished by the fact that it relies on the data of external senses, on experience and observation. It is on this basis that knowledge can achieve, if not complete certainty, then at least a high degree of probability.
The conditionality of cognition by the mechanism of sensations and physical causes does not diminish the importance of language in the development of the intellect. In language, La Mettrie sees a system of signs invented by individuals and communicated to people through mechanical training. In the process of understanding someone else's speech, French materialism sees a reflex of the brain excited by words, like a violin string responding to a strike on a piano key.
With the establishment of signs associated with various things, the brain begins to compare these signs with each other and consider the relationship between them. The brain does this with the same necessity with which, for example, the eye sees objects when their influence is transmitted along the nerve from the periphery of the visual apparatus to the brain. All ideas of the human mind are conditioned by the presence of words and signs. In turn, everything that happens in the soul is reduced to the activity of the imagination. The different types of mental endowments are only different ways of applying the power of the imagination.
In the doctrine of society, the French materialists still remain, like all pre-Marxist philosophers, idealists. However, they oppose the idealistic-theological understanding of the history of mankind, arguing that the driving force behind the history of mankind is the human mind, the progress of enlightenment. In the doctrine of human nature, education, society and the state, the French materialists defend determinism, that is, the doctrine of the causality of all human actions. Although a person is a product of external forces and physical conditions, he still cannot be released from responsibility for everything he does in relation to society. Since to impute a misconduct to a person means only to attribute the commission of this misconduct to a certain person, the necessity of actions performed by a person does not in the least exclude the legitimacy of punishment. Society punishes crimes, since the latter are harmful to society, and they do not cease to be harmful because they are committed by virtue of necessary laws. Further, punishment itself is the strongest means of preventing crime in the future.
The doctrine of morality, according to the French materialists, must be based on experience. Like all sentient beings, man is driven solely by the desire for pleasure and the aversion to pain. A person is able to compare different pleasures and choose the greatest among them, as well as set goals for himself and seek out means. Therefore, rules and concepts about actions that underlie morality are possible for him.
Physical pleasures are the strongest, but they are impermanent and harmful in excess. Therefore, preferences deserve mental pleasure - more durable, lasting and more dependent on the person himself. Strictly speaking, the starting point of wisdom should not be pleasure, but the knowledge of human nature guided by reason.
Since people cannot live alone, they form a society, and from their union new relationships and new duties arise. Feeling the need for the help of others, a person is forced in turn to do something useful for others. This is how the general interest is formed, on which the private interest depends. According to the teachings of Holbach and Helvetius, properly understood self-interest necessarily leads to morality.
Claude-Adrian Helvetius (1715-1771) saw the main task of ethics in determining the conditions under which personal interest as a necessary incentive for human behavior can be combined with public interest. The treatise "On the Mind" was dedicated to the justification of this thought by Helvetius. According to Helvetius, not only is the individual a part of a wider whole, but the society to which he belongs is a link in a larger community or a single society of peoples bound by moral ties. This view of society must become, according to the French materialists, the driving force behind the complete transformation of all social life. Holbach and Helvetia consider the current state of society to be far from ideal. They saw this ideal not in the "state of nature", for nature made it impossible for man to exist in isolation and pointed out to him the reciprocity of benefits and benefits as the basis of a reasonable community. Without mutual benefit, no happiness is possible for a person. By virtue of the social contract, we must do for others what we want them to do for us. At the same time, the obligations arising from the social contract are valid for every person, regardless of which part of society he belongs to. Hence the French materialists, such as Holbach, derived the prescriptions of philanthropy, compassion, etc., common to all people.
According to the French materialists, there is no such form of government that would fully satisfy the requirements of reason: excessive power leads to despotism; excessive freedom - to self-will, that is, to an order in which everyone will be a despot; concentrated power becomes dangerous, divided power becomes weak. The French materialists see the means of getting rid of the shortcomings of the existing methods of government not in the revolution, but in the enlightenment of society. Education, led by a wise government, is the most reliable means of giving the peoples the feelings, talents, thoughts, and virtues necessary for the prosperity of society. At the same time, individual representatives of French materialism assess the role of education in different ways. Holbach considers the goal of education to be the alteration of the original original warehouse of the personality. Helvetius sees in man a creature from which, thanks to education, anything can be done. The natural givenness of temperament does not prevent the possibility of its change in any direction. The process of educating a person has a decisive influence on his physical, mental and moral abilities.
In the worldview of the French materialists, an important place was occupied by the proof of the independence of ethics from religion and the proof of the possibility of a highly moral society consisting of atheists. This teaching, as well as the proof of the inconsistency of all beliefs and dogmas of religion, especially shocked contemporaries. Not only Voltaire, who considered direct attacks on the very principle of religious beliefs dangerous for a society of owners, but even such people as d’Alembert, Diderot’s colleague in the Encyclopedia, condemned atheism and Holbach’s ethics as a doctrine, although exalted, but not supported by philosophical principles.
Pedagogical ideas of the French enlighteners of the XVIII century. (Voltaire, K.A. Helvetius, D. Diderot)
Denis Diderot is one of the most prominent French materialists of the 18th century. Like all representatives of this trend, Diderot was a materialist from below (in the explanation of nature) and an idealist from above (in the interpretation of social phenomena). He recognized the materiality of the world, considered movement inseparable from matter, the world is knowable, and resolutely opposed religion.
Standing on the positions of materialistic sensationalism, Diderot considered the source of knowledge to be sensations. But unlike Helvetius, he did not reduce the complex to them. the process of cognition, but recognized that its second stage is the processing of sensations by the mind. He also believed that "opinions rule the world", and mistakenly associated the possibility of reorganizing society not with a revolution, but with the publication of wise laws and the spread of enlightenment, with proper education. He outlined his thoughts on education mainly in the work “Systematic refutation of the book of Helvetius“ On Man ”.
Diderot rejected the assertion of Helvetius about the omnipotence of education and the absence of individual natural differences in people. He sought to limit the extreme conclusions reached by Helvetius. So, Diderot wrote: “He (Helvetius) says: Education means everything.
Diderot correctly argued that all people are naturally endowed with favorable inclinations, and not just the elect. Diderot rebelled against the dominance in the schools of classical education and brought real knowledge to the fore; in high school, he believed, all students should study mathematics, physics and the natural sciences, as well as the humanities.
Claude Adrian Helvetius - became famous as the author of the book "On the Mind", which was published in 1758 ᴦ. and caused fierce attacks from all the forces of reaction, the ruling circles. The book was banned and sentenced to be burned. Helvetius developed his ideas even more thoroughly in the book “On Man, His Intellectual Abilities and His Education”. This book, written in 1769 ᴦ., in order to avoid new persecution, Helvetius bequeathed to be published only after his death, and it was published in 1773 ᴦ.
In his writings, Helvetius, for the first time in the history of pedagogy, quite fully revealed the factors that form a person. As a sensualist, he argued that all representations and concepts in humans are formed on the basis of sensory perceptions, and reduced thinking to the ability to feel.
He considered the influence of the environment to be the most important factor in the formation of man. A person is a product of circumstances (social environment) and upbringing, Helvetius argued. The atheist Helvetius demanded that public education be wrested from the hands of the clergy and made absolutely secular. Sharply condemning the scholastic methods of teaching in the feudal school, Helvetius demanded that the teaching be visual and, if possible, based on the personal experience of the child, the educational material, he believed, should become simple and understandable to the student.
Helvetius recognized the right of all people to education, believed that women should receive education equal to men. Helvetius believed that all people with a normal physical organization naturally have equal abilities and opportunities for development. He resolutely rejected reactionary opinions about the inequality of the mental development of people due to their social origin, race or nationality. In fact, he argued, the cause of inequality is rooted in social conditions that do not allow most people to receive the right education, develop their abilities.
François Marie Voltaire (1694–1778). Known as a poet, playwright, writer, historian, philosopher. Voltaire did not leave special pedagogical works, and the ideas of education are quite rare in his work, but all his philosophy and all his ideology became the actual basis of many pedagogical concepts, ideas and attitudes in the field of upbringing and education.
Pedagogical ideas of the French enlighteners of the XVIII century. (Voltaire, K.A. Helvetius, D. Diderot) - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Pedagogical ideas of the French enlighteners of the XVIII century. (Voltaire, C.A. Helvetius, D. Diderot)" 2017, 2018.
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