The art of questioning. Truth and Method

The book of the famous West German philosopher G.-G. Gadamer (b. 1900) is devoted to one of the philosophical trends that are widespread today in Western thought - hermeneutics - the theory of understanding and interpreting texts, historical monuments and cultural phenomena. It gives a fundamental for all modern hermeneutics exposition of its history, a systematic of principles and problems, outlines the outputs of hermeneutics in the methodology of the humanities.

Source: www.filosof.historic.ru

About the author: Hans-Georg Gadamer (German: Hans-Georg Gadamer; February 11, 1900, Marburg - March 12, 2002, Heidelberg) - German philosopher, one of the most significant thinkers of the second half of the 20th century, best known as the founder of "philosophical hermeneutics". Born February 11, 1900 in Marburg. more…

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WAHRHEIT
UND METHOD
Grundzuge einer phiosophischen Hermeneutik
von
HANS-GEORG GADAMER
G. B. Mohr (Pau Siebeek) Tubingen

H:G GADAMER
truth and method
FOUNDATIONS OF PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS
Translation from German
General edition
and introductory article
Doctor of Philosophy
B. N. Bessonova
Moscow, "Progress"" 1988
BBK 87.3(4F) G 13
. S (9 S
Translation:
Zhurinskaya? ?.- Part one Zemlyanoy S. ?.-^ Part two: I. 1, 1. 2, 1. 3
Rybakov A.A. - Introduction; Part two: II. 1, II.2, II. 3; Part three Burova IN - Excursions I-VI; Hermeneutics and historicism; Afterword
m
Gadamer H.-G.
13 Truth and method: Fundamentals of philosophy. hermeneutics: Per. with German/gen. ed. and intro. Art. B. N. Bessonova.- M .: Progress, 1988.-704 s,
The book of the famous West German philosopher H.-G. Gada Mera (b. 1900) is devoted to one of the philosophical trends that are widespread today in Western thought - hermeneutics - the theory of understanding and interpreting texts, historical monuments and cultural phenomena. It gives a fundamental for all modern hermeneutics exposition of its history, a systematic of principles and problems, outlines the outputs of hermeneutics in the methodology of the humanities.
It is recommended to philosophers, sociologists, cultural historians, and everyone interested in the problems of the development of knowledge.
„ 0301010000-739 ~006(tf) 88
-88
BBK 87.3 (4F)
ISBN 5-01-001035-6
Editorial Board of Literature and Humanities
(C) Translation into Russian. Introductory article- publishing house "Progress", 1988
Hermeneutics. History and modernity
In bourgeois philosophy, bourgeois social thought, there has always been a sharp struggle between positivist-oriented currents that claimed an absolutely rationalistic description of the surrounding world and rejected in this regard all kinds of “metaphysical” problems, such as, in particular, the problem of the meaning of life, the existence of a person in the world, goodness, justice, responsibility, etc., and anthropologically oriented concepts, which, on the contrary, brought to the fore precisely “metaphysical” problems, sought to explain the meaning and significance of life.
These two mutually exclusive tendencies nevertheless coexisted, intertwined and mutually supplemented each other, although at one stage or another in the development of history and philosophy reflecting the essence of historical processes, one or another trend acquired a predominant influence.
It is quite understandable that when the bourgeoisie was on the rise4, was an ascending class, it appealed to Reason, to natural science, and other scientific disciplines; she believed in their revolutionary influence on the development of industrialization, on the economic development of the capitalist countries.
However, already the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries showed that capitalism was entering historical era its deep crisis. This circumstance left an indelible imprint on all bourgeois thinking. It gave rise to disappointment in the possibility of "reasonable" comprehension of the world, undermined faith in the unlimited power of reason and science.
In bourgeois social thought, in bourgeois philosophy, the need arose again to pose and
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clarification of worldview, "metaphysical" problems, the general principles of human existence in the world.
At the same time, many bourgeois philosophers, and above all adherents of the "philosophy of life", accompanied the advancement of worldview problems, the assertion of the significance of life, with the demand to reconsider the role of "pure reason", to reduce its importance in explaining, evaluating "life". Any rationality was rejected as boring and sober prudence, ignoring everything "high", everything ethical and aesthetic. Some irrational contemplation, intuition, etc. were opposed to logical-discursive thinking.
Similar views had already been defended by the Romantics and Schelling. In particular, Schelling, criticizing the limitations of the metaphysical method, which operates with formal logical means, argued that genuine knowledge must be absolutely “free”, that it is such “knowledge to which neither evidence, nor inference, nor any other conceptual mediation, but only contemplation.
Following the romantics and Schelling, Schopenhauer also attached more importance to direct contemplation, intuition, than reason. From his point of view, the intellect is sufficient to understand the external connections between things, while the real knowledge of "things in themselves", the knowledge of their essence, is possible only with the help of intuition.
Later, similar views were developed by F. Nietzsche, one of the founders of the “philosophy of life”. It is known that in its origins the "philosophy of life" was a reaction to the fact of the growing alienation of the individual in bourgeois society, was an expression of "indignation" of "life" against the "decline" of man in this society; however, highlighting the “life” of the individual, the significance of a person’s individual appeal to the world, the adherents of the “philosophy of life” went to the extreme in their statements: they declared that objective knowledge about the world does not exist at all, that the idea of ​​the world is always an interpretation of the world by this subject.
Thus, Nietzsche argued that the cognitive apparatus of man is by no means arranged for the purpose of rational cognition, that the world is “interpreted” by human drives and that every drive has its own “perspective”. Therefore, by
1 S c h e i Q g F. Samtiche Werke, i. Abt. Stuttgart, 1856, S. 369.
2 See: Schopenhauer A. Poly. coll. cit., vol. 2, p. 189-198.
Nietzsche, the world does not have any one meaning, it has countless, often opposite interpretations and meanings (perspectives). Substantiating and defending irrationalism, Nietzsche argued that without mystical intuition, without myths, without illusions, man and humanity as a whole cannot do. The same views were then "substantiated" by A. Bergson. He believed that the sphere of activity of the intellect is limited by the myth of dead matter, but as for the spirit, the "life impulse" that supposedly determines all creativity, including social progress, here the intellect is absolutely unsuitable. Life, the living, cannot be understood by scientific means; to understand them, it is necessary to commit violence against the mind, to go against the "natural flow" of our thought. You need a "life impulse", irrational intuition, religious insight, etc.
Similar essentially irrationalist views were professed by X. Ortega y Gasset, O. Spengler, later M. Heidegger and others.
The turn towards irrationalism, anti-intellectualism in bourgeois society was, in essence, inevitable. Whether the bourgeois ideologists are willing or unwilling to admit this, it is dangerous for them to resort to reason. It is dangerous because the development of scientific knowledge, while revealing the historically transient character of the bourgeois social order, is contrary to the interests of the bourgeoisie. From this follows the turn of bourgeois social thought towards irrationalism and intuition; inasmuch as science reveals the historical inevitability of the decline of capitalism, so far its apologists (whether willing or involuntary) proclaim the “decline” of science, the “crisis” of scientific theoretical thinking, etc. a blind man who, in order to be on an equal footing with his sighted opponent, sought to sweep him into a deep, dark basement.
The strengthening of irrationalist tendencies in modern bourgeois philosophy is also objectively due to the fact that the state-monopoly "rationalization" of production and all other spheres public life capitalism leads to such a deep emptiness of the inner life of man, which has never been before. Of course, this causes everything to grow. coll. cit., vol. IX, p. 224 and ate.
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a general protest against such "rationalization". However, the whole point is that bourgeois thinking is not able to adequately solve all these problems; rejecting capitalist rationalization, it generally rejects scientific-rational thinking and seeks to fill the resulting “spiritual vacuum” by turning to intuition, myth-making, and other “values” oriented towards the past, such as religion.
Thus, M. Heidegger demanded a return to meta-scientific, meta-technical thinking and declared that philosophy and science are incompatible. “Philosophy,” he writes, “never emerges from science and through science. She is in a completely different order of spiritual being. In the same system as philosophy, there is only poetry. Thinking begins only when it is carried out contrary to the so-called reason, which for centuries has been the most violent opponent of thinking” 1. It was said clearly and definitely.
And although rationalist currents still exist in bourgeois philosophy, nevertheless, its dominant trend in the modern era is precisely p p p a t k t u a l i s t s s ka i n a n p a v -len noet b.
This finds expression in the views of today's adherents of "philosophical hermeneutics" (or "hermeneutic philosophy"), the leading representative of which is Hans-Georg Gadamer, the author of the book brought to the attention of the Soviet reader. First of all, what is hermeneutics? As you know, in ancient Greek mythology, Hermes was an intermediary between the gods and mere mortals; he had to interpret to the people the commands of the gods, and to the gods - the requests of the people. This is where the term “hermeneutics” comes from, originally meaning the art of interpreting the sayings of oracles, ancient texts, signs, the meaning of a foreign language, etc., etc. In the Middle Ages, hermeneutics was inextricably linked with theology, with the interpretation of the writings of the “church fathers ". During the Renaissance, philological hermeneutics proper appeared, designed to critically examine religious texts, free them from distortions, and return them to their original meaning. Philosophical hermeneutics arose by the middle of the 19th century. Its founder was F. Schleiermacher. He viewed hermeneutics as meH e i (o g g e g M. Was heisst denken? Tubingen, 1954, S. 134.
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tod all na u k o d u? s (humanities and sciences), proving that with the help of psychological "getting used to" you can penetrate into the inner world of the authors of ancient texts, any historical figures and on this basis to reconstruct historical events, to understand them more deeply than they were realized by the participants in these events.
Later, at the end of the 19th century, philosophical hermeneutics in the person of V. Dilthey merged with the "philosophy of life". Speaking from the standpoint of criticism of "historical reason", Dilthey argued that the main problem of understanding history is, first of all, intuitive experience. "? Acts pertaining to society, we can only understand from within, only on the basis of the perception of our own states ... With love and hatred, with all the play of our affects, we contemplate the historical world. Nature is silent for us, it is alien to us, it is external to us. Society is our world,” emphasizes Dilthey. According to Dilthey, "life" is primarily a spiritual process, what a person thinks, feels and wants; “life”, “experience” is a constant stream of sensations, desires, perceptions, ideas, etc., which we cannot cognize with the mind, with the help of rational categories of thinking. The main thing here is the inner psychological experience, the intuitive experience of the facts of consciousness 2.
As for Gadamer, in the book under consideration he seeks to dissociate himself from the subjectivism of his own followers, emphasizes the “fundamental” difference between modern philosophical hermeneutics and traditional. If the former hermeneutics claimed to be the methodology of the sciences about the spirit, then Gadamer proclaims hermeneutics the universal philosophy of our time. It is called upon, he argues, to give an answer to the fundamental philosophical question: how is it possible to understand the world around us, how is the truth of being embodied in this understanding? It should act as the self-consciousness of man in the modern era of science.
While acknowledging the growing signs of a “new wave of technological hostility to history”, the dominance of technical experts, the rise to the forefront of “positivist self-deprecation”, pushing into the background “politics” Dithey W. Gesammete Schriften, Bd. V. Stuttgart, 1957, S. 60-61.
True, Dilthey sometimes departs from the subjective-idealistic position and interprets "spirit" in the sense of the Hegelian "objective spirit" (Ibid., S. 60 ff).
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logical reason, etc., Gadamer draws the indisputable conclusion that the "tension" between truth and scientific method "has enduring relevance" (p. 616 present, ed.). If in natural science the main thing is the use of inductive methods, then the sciences about the spirit (humanities) cannot be measured by the scale of the progressive knowledge of patterns, Gadamer argues. The ideal of historical understanding is rooted not in knowing how people, nations, states develop in general, but in understanding what this person, this people, this state is like, what was their formation, etc.
According to Gadamer, “what makes the humanities sciences is more likely to be comprehended from the traditional concept of education than from methodological and ne and modern science” (p. 59). To be educated means to measure one's personal goals and interests with common goals and interests, it means to have the ability to abstract: from the particular and the special to the general, writes Gadamer, appealing to Hegel. "Rise to the general" - this is the essence of education, this is the essence of the humanistic tradition, which makes a person a truly spiritual being.
Gadamer is, of course, right when he rejects a utilitarian approach to science 1 , an orientation toward the “bare” efficiency of the achievements obtained (only that which functions is correct), when he claims that any knowledge has a socio-political significance, that science must know its own limits. and conditionality, that it cannot be neutral, that a scientist is responsible to society for his scientific discoveries, that a person must be a spiritual being, think about the “general”, and not about the “private”.
Indeed, since ancient times, science has been an instrument of subjugation and enslavement: the ruling classes abused science, put it at the service of
1 At one time, Marx already pointed out the limitations of the utilitarian approach to science inherent in capitalism. Capitalism, K. Marx noted, “creates a system of universal exploitation of natural and human properties, a system of universal utility; even science, like all the physical and spiritual properties of man, acts only as the bearer of this system of general utility, and there is nothing that, outside this circle of social production and exchange, would act as something higher in itself. as lawful in itself” (M a p k s K. and Eng o l s F, Soch., vol. 46, part I, pp. 386-387).
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to their goals. But science itself cannot be held responsible for how it is used by certain social classes. If the exploiting classes strive to make science an instrument for the suppression and enslavement of people, then the exploited masses, in their struggle for freedom, need science, scientific knowledge, and even more so. In any case, socialism cannot be built without relying on the achievements of science.
And, by the way, many scientists with a deep sense of responsibility have treated and still treat their activities, understand its enormous socio-historical significance, and resolutely reject the thesis that in science one can limit oneself only to tasting the sweet fruit of knowledge.
A. Einstein, N. Bohr, M. Born and other prominent scientists have always emphasized that the practical application of the results of scientific research urgently requires scientists to turn to moral problems again and again. The well-known West German publicist and scientist R. Jung, in his book “Brighter than a Thousand Suns,” tells how E. Fermi, seeing the first explosion of an atomic bomb at a test site, exclaimed, addressing his colleagues and students: “You all say, it's terrible and I don't understand why. I find this to be a wonderful physical experiment!” Jung condemned this position; the scientist must know the consequences of his discovery. He must fight "for sighted progress", for progress in which it is well known "what lies ahead." In his other book, Rays from the Ashes, dedicated to the victims of the American atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima, Jung writes that one can now meet many people (including in Hiroshima itself) who are “asking: should we not draw a line under past? Shouldn't you try to erase "that day" from your memory? ... In their opinion, the view of the atomic ruins in vain leads to sad thoughts of the new citizens of Hiroshima - energetic businessmen who are optimistic about the future. All over the world, Jung continues, "the 'forgetters' who secretly calculate on plans for a new war may already be behaving as if the last war had become part of history." But here, in Hiroshima, he warns, “the past is still too fresh, more and more outbreaks of radiation sickness are constantly reminded of it, people who seemed to have already been pardoned by death, but after many
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years again thrown into the abyss of suffering. Hiroshima calls for peace ... because it gives - albeit a very faint - idea of ​​\u200b\u200bwhat our planet would look like in the event of an atomic war. Jung urges people to fight against the threat of atomic war, placing himself and everyone before a very clear moral line: “What did we people who survived the Second World War do to justify our salvation? For many years, I, like many others of my contemporaries, accepted this fact completely thoughtlessly; I took it for granted that I was spared by fate. In Hiroshima, I met with the victims of the atomic bomb, And then I began to understand what a new misfortune was approaching humanity. Since then, I know that we, the generation of those who “and this time managed to escape the embrace of the bony one,” must make every effort to ensure that the salvation of our children is not the same pure accident as our own salvation. Let everyone find their own way to fight for the preservation of life on Earth. And let him take it very seriously.”
And today, when imperialism can unleash a thermonuclear war that threatens to destroy all of humanity, questions about the responsibility of a scientist, about social consequences the results of his discoveries, in general about the meaning of life and the activities of people, about truth, duty, etc.
The reasoning of Gadamer and other hermeneutics on the problems of the responsibility of a scientist, the meaning of people's lives, truth, the interaction of science and philosophy, etc., is inconsistent in the fact that they absolutely break science and philosophy, the scientific method of analysis and philosophical truth. From Gadamer's point of view, it is philosophy, and only philosophy, that includes the factor of moral and social responsibility, since only it discusses the real goals of human existence, its historical origin and its future. Moreover, according to hermeneutics, philosophical experience is not included in the logic of science, lies outside of science, precedes it, it cannot be verified by means of scientific methodology. Like the experience of art and religion, it is based primarily on intellectual contemplation, on intuition.
1 Yun R. Rays from the ashes. M., 1962, p. 286.
2 Ibid., p. 290.
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In any case, Gadamer openly proclaims the inability of reason and science to know life, the world of history. That “what is vital ... in reality is never truly known by objective consciousness, the tension of the mind, which seeks to penetrate into the law of phenomena. Vital is not of such a quality that it is possible to achieve the comprehension of vitality from outside. Against, the only way to comprehend the vital is to comprehend it from within” (p* 304).
In contrast to scientific methodology, Gadamer appeals to the ethics of Aristotle. After all, moral knowledge, as Aristotle describes it, is obviously not objective knowledge, that is, the knower does not face the facts that he only establishes. On the contrary, he is directly affected by what he knows, it is something he has to do. Exactly aesthetic experience, taste, emphasizes Gadamer, is a direct determination of the finiteness of the individual, taking into account the infinite whole; moreover, this cannot be traced and proved in any way, it must be felt.
Rejecting the objective, scientific methods of cognition of history, the cognition of "life" as the result of a kind of "false objectification", Gadamer at the same time seeks to dissociate himself from the frank subjectivism inherent in F. Schleiermacher and W. Dilthey. As is known, Schleiermacher, like the Romantics, argued that understanding of historical events is possible only on the basis of psychological "getting used to" the inner psychological world of historical figures. In the same spirit, Dilthey also believed that the main thing for understanding history is to penetrate into the subjective world of historical characters. As for the historical events themselves, then, according to Dilthey, in order to be “interesting” for the historian, they must be in sufficient and appropriate form? e n and “m o? ? in y m and ". Only then can the subjective participation of the researcher be excluded. !"·«;«;From the point of view of Gadamer, waiting for the "death" of a historical event is a paradox, a scientific and theoretical correspondence to the old moral problem about whether anyone can be called happy before his death.
According to Gadamer, the restoration of the original
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circumstances, like any restoration, is a naive and impotent undertaking in the face of the historicity of our existence. Life restored, returned from alienation, is not identical with the original life. In the same way, hermeneutic activity, for which the restoration of the original would be called understanding, is only the communication of a “dead meaning”. For Gadamer, true understanding is not only a reproductive, but always a productive attitude as well. It requires constant consideration of the historical distance between the interpreter and the text, all historical circumstances directly or indirectly linking them, the interaction of the past and present spiritual atmosphere; this not only does not complicate, but, on the contrary, contributes to the process of understanding history.
Gadamer's conclusion is largely correct. How legitimate is his appeal to Hegel, who at one time rightly emphasized that the essence of the historical spirit lies not in the restoration of the past, but in thinking mediation with modern life. This mediation, according to Hegel, does not in the least have any external or additional relation. It is the path to truth.
In any case, the historian, studying the works of this or that author, these or those historical events, must take into account that the author's reflection, reflections, testimonies of participants in historical events are not always adequate to the content of the work, the spirit of the historical event itself. Suffice it, for example, to recall O. Balzac, who, in the preface to The Human Comedy, is absolutely perfect? ? he pointed out: “I am writing in the light of two eternal truths: religion and morality, the necessity of both is confirmed by modern events, and every writer who has common sense should try to lead away our country towards them"]. However, if we turn to the real content of Balzac's works, then he by no means appears in them as a defender of Catholicism and the monarchy. In The Human Comedy, wrote F. Engels, Balzac "gives us the most remarkable realistic history of French "society", especially "Parisian light", describing in the form of a chronicle, almost year after year, from 1816 to 1848, the increasing penetration of the rising bourgeoisie into a noble society,
Balzak O. Sobr. op. in ten volumes, vol. 1. M., 1982, p. 43.
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which, after 1815, rebuilt its ranks and again, as far as possible, showed the model of old French sophistication. * He describes how the last remnants of this exemplary society, for him, either gradually succumbed to the onslaught of the vulgar upstart rich man, or were corrupted by him .. Balzac concentrates the whole history of French society around this central picture ... But for all this, his satire never ?,? - was sharper, his irony more bitter than when he forced to act precisely those men and women whom he is more all sympathy-I, lived, - nobles "1.
Thus, Gadamer is right when, in contrast to P1,! Neuermacher and Dilthey, who one-sidedly place the inter-retagora in the historical situation of the author of the text and ignore his own historical conditionality, he requires the convergence and merging of the "horizons" (historical situations) of both. Understanding is a process of merging horizons, Gadamer emphasizes. Only the interpreter’s own historical >L,movlennoetp, penetration into the historical situation to be understood, he points out, contributes to overcoming both his own particularity and the textuality of the text, leads the interpreter to (

.alovsnshyu new, more general, wider, more?.! side "horizontal.
!!«· How will all this be realized!,? First of all, it is necessary to take into account that the interpreter, historian, approaching K "ytu, always already has a certain preliminary ein. pressing (npregn> h" p "anie), a deterministic condition-p."; "1n ( family, society, state), in which he;?.·?;??. >) that pre-understanding has the character of prejudice. P;" ,Mr. Gadamer rejects the traditionally negative i»>".«.»more like prejudice as something to be and;·")» ","to be ashamed of. Historical analysis and "· the concept," he writes, shows that only good-and: "···" Prosvepimshk) the concept of prejudice received "·," ;>", r! rzate.chykkh* meaning, (]ts by itself?? 'reason means a judgment that is made before s " "the tgel check of all ??????,????? ) the method of early speaking pre; 1. [) assudok ozna-h "" 1: P [) is correct (k4 jXMnenne before making nodlipno1 "o\u003e" "-M a p to with K. and Engol with F. Soch .. t. 37, pp. 30 -37.
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both positively and negatively (pp. 322 - 323).
It is here that the point is where “the experience of historical hermeneutics must critically enter into business,” Gadamer emphasizes. “The overcoming of all prejudices, this is the most general requirement of the Enlightenment, itself exposes itself as a prejudice, the revision of which for the first time opens the way for a correct understanding of that finitude, which dominates not only our human existence, but also our historical consciousness” (p. 328). According to Gadamer, prejudices, to a much greater extent than reflection, judgments, etc., constitute the historical reality of human existence. They are legitimate, inevitable, rooted in objective historical conditions. And the point, therefore, is not at all to discard these prejudices; they must be recognized, taken into account, brought, so to speak, into a balanced state. And if you get rid of, then only from false prejudices. But in order to find out which prejudices are false, in order to get rid of negative prejudices, it is necessary to constantly conduct a dialogue with the studied tradition, text, event, constantly question the tradition. For a tradition, an event, a tradition, according to Gadamer, is not simply an accomplished thing that we learn to recognize in the process of experience; it itself speaks to us, like a certain "You". Gadamer emphasizes that at the beginning of historical hermeneutics there should be the destruction of the abstract opposition between tradition and history, between history and knowledge about it. The actions of living tradition and the actions of historical research form an active unity (p. 336).
The one who, “relying on the objectivity of his methods and denying his own historical conditioning, imagines himself free from prejudices, experiences the power of these prejudices, which dominate him without any control on his part, like a kind of vis a tergo ...
The case here is the same as in the relationship between "I" and "Thou". Anyone who, by reflection, removes himself from the two-sided nature of these relations, changes them, destroying their moral obligation” (p. 424).
Undoubtedly, Gadamer has every reason to assert that a person, in order to understand this or that phenomenon of the real world of history or to interpret a historical document (“text”, in the terminology of the adherents of hermeneutics), must have a certain kind of “historical
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skim understanding”, “pre-understanding”; he must understand the historical situation in which he lives and acts; on this basis, interpret, interpret, evaluate historical facts, events and processes. That is, the researcher must go to the truth, conducting a constant "dialogue" with the "text", with the surrounding today's world and the world of history.
Of course, in this case we are not at all talking about the fact that the historian, conducting a "dialogue", constantly "rewrites" history. But it is important to remember that history is not "dead stones". Historical events continue to affect us with the discovery of new facts, new documents. On the other side, contemporary tasks can highlight new facets in the bygone. And most importantly, a dialogue with history is necessary to understand the essence of modern phenomena. F. Engels emphasized more than once that scientific understanding modernity cannot be the result of an isolated consideration of a given historical being; To make sense of the present, we must constantly refer to the past.
The outstanding Russian historian of the 19th century Granovsky rightly wrote that history may be indifferent to the tools with which it operates, but a person has no right to such dispassion. On his part, it would be a sin, a sign of mental or spiritual impotence. The verdict must be based on a faithful, honest study of the case. It is pronounced not with the aim of disturbing the grave sleep of the accused, but in order to strengthen the moral sense of the living, subject to countless temptations, to strengthen their shaky faith in goodness and truth.
But what does it mean for a "sentence" to be based on a faithful, honest study of the case? Doctor of Philology M. L. Gasparov notes: “The traditional answer is this: to comment on, evaluate a historical event, a document so that the reader perceives the translation, the interpretation of a historical document, as contemporaries perceived the original.” According to M. L. Gaspa1 See: Marx K. and Eng sl with F. Soch., vol. 20.
See: Granovsky T. N. Soch., M., 1900; his: Lectures on the history of the Middle Ages. ?«? AQ&"-~- *--·*- --*- - -""··-^"***-^*
.; |?t i ". (*y, >1 .T*"Y*1
dude, that's not enough. For, for example, “antiquity is an epoch lasting a thousand years, and its beginning is unlike the middle and the end, and if in our translations Homer, Aeschylus, Plato, and Virgil will be felt by us as our contemporaries, then they will seem contemporaries to each other, and this will merge them into such a leveled and faceless image of “antiquity in general”, which obviously does not correspond to any reality. And further, how to comment, how to bring the translation to the understanding of the reader? “Now antiquity has moved away from us, has lost its privileged place in the European spiritual world, has become as exotic as (not so long ago) Arabic or Chinese culture. The current commentator is more likely to assume that the reader accidentally knows what Hercules, Venus or Delphi are, but he is unlikely to be able to connect these names with each other or with any ancient name - he does not know how to assemble a system of ancient culture from them. Therefore, to comment “not on particulars, but on the whole, to present the monument not as another illustration of some (as if) previously known image of antiquity, but as the first introduction to something still unknown, distant and complex, which is called ancient culture”, - emphasizes M. L. Gasparov, this is what is required of a modern commentator 1.
According to the Doctor of Historical Sciences M. A. Varga, in order to correctly judge historical events, each researcher of history must have a specific historical consciousness, the essence of which lies in the ability to reflect, that is, in the ability to “look at oneself from the side”, subject criticism of the very process of obtaining knowledge. “Are you really writing? ?. Varg, - at no time in her long history was Clio's muse and - contrary to appearances, at the first approach to her, could not be but by her very essence a thoughtless accumulator of "facts". Since the time of the "fathers of history" Herodotus and Thucydides, and regardless of the degree of awareness of this et1 by the servants, the elements of reflection have been a tool through which the historian l selection See: "Foreign Literature", 1983, No. 3, p. 190.
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with historical consciousness it is impossible to explain why the vision of history is so different. For Titus Livius, history is an epic of Roman virtues. For Tacitus it is a horror drama, for Otto of Freisingen it is the eve of the end of the world.
In short, posing the question of "historical understanding", "dialogue" with the "text", etc. quite right-Mi rna. Here another question arises, namely: in which one? renoFin "historical understanding", "pre-understanding" of one person, based, according to Gadamer, by no means, and on scientific knowledge of objective social patterns, but, in essence, on philosophical intuition that opposes science, can be truly true? (. Marxist point of view, in any case, the position, and, reasonably belittling the role of conscious rationality.? th reasonable activity of a person, exaggerating the importance of subconscious, irrational moments in the motivation of his activity, cannot be 1! ultimately a subjectivist position.4 Kissel in this regard is quite right from -?????: "The current level of scientific knowledge and knowledge ... science ... makes it possible to dispel that special surrounded in the history of philosophy is the concept of intellectual intuition. .h "matiki ... the criterion of intuitive evidence has lost r "" cue credit. Intuitive evidence appeared in " ^ "(m true guise as a result of repeated? "··??, experience, historically formed intellectual habit but no breakthrough to original and authentic. On the contrary, the "primordial" is that which is beyond immediate evidence, "\u003e with" your intuition, we cannot break through
Varg M. A. Epochs and ideas. The rise of historicism. M., 1987,
2-I3.
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"to the things themselves" ... enter the field of genuine objectivity, complete "openness" for thinking mind" one.
There is no doubt that in the concrete movement of the thought of each individual, intuition “is often the first form of what reflection then makes clear,” writes the prominent French philosopher L. Seve. “But the scientific theory of knowledge has convincingly proved, like the history of one’s own sciences and the psychology of the child, that this primacy of intuition is relative and empirical. From a psychological point of view, the wealth of thought is not a gift, but a conquest; from a logical point of view, its accuracy is not a premise, but a result. In other words, if we talk about tasks that are impossible for philosophical intuition, then first of all we should name the task of substantiation, because intuition itself needs substantiation.
Adherents of hermeneutics, in essence, evade the need and obligation to show the true sources and boundaries of philosophical intuition, depicting the direct data of consciousness, the facts of inner experience, etc. (though sometimes presented as some a priori principles of universal human communication) as immutable starting points history research. The result that follows from such a subjectivist position has been very well shown by the English philosopher Aldous Huxley, who maintains that no psychological experience is, so far as we are concerned, "more true" than any other. Science is not at all "true" than common sense, and madness is not at all "true" than art or religion. Every man has every right to his own separate outlook, as well as to his own special character, for there is a very close connection between a man's vision and his philosophy. Philosophy in this case, Huxley believes, is not an account of the universe, it is a symptom that indicates a particular state of mind.
At one time, Hegel already convincingly showed in The Phenomenology of Spirit the whole inconsistency of the subjectivist, intuitionist comprehension of truth. He wrote that “the proponents of this knowledge imagine that, enveloping self-consciousness in a fog and renouncing reason, they are those
1 Kisei M. A. Phenomenological concept of knowledge.-
3: Criticism of modern bourgeois theories of knowledge. L., 1981, p. 151.
Sev L. Modern French Philosophy. M., 1968, p. 94, 95.
20
initiates, to whom God sends down wisdom in a dream; what they thus actually receive and produce in sleep are therefore also dreams.
Gadamer and other adherents of hermeneutics in this case also take a step back in comparison with another founder of classical bourgeois philosophy, I. Kant. Indeed, Kant, as you know, wrote in the Prolegomena: “The matter of the senses is to contemplate, the matter of the understanding is to think. To think, on the other hand, means to unite representations in consciousness... The combination of representations in consciousness is a judgment. Therefore, to think is the same as to form judgments, or to refer representations to judgments in general. The peculiarity of our mind, Kant emphasizes, is that “it is a thought, ??? everything is discursive, that is, through concepts.
Modern hermeneutics seem to be following the old pra-rationalist trend, coming from Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and even earlier from Schelling. They do not understand, they do not want to understand that true knowledge of the world of nature and history surrounding us is achieved primarily as a result of the complex and prolonged development of the mind, thinking in concepts, in concrete rational forms. At the same time, we emphasize once again, Marxists do not in the least deny intellectual intuition as a special stage of cognition, at which knowledge appears as a result of a direct generalization of the initial experimental data. However, in any case, it is based on all the experience accumulated before. Intuition does not oppose the rational mastery of the world, the whole point is that intuitive knowledge is carried out, as it were, according to a “reduced”, synthesized program, without a detailed identification and awareness of all the logical forms and mechanisms of the process of the emergence of new knowledge.
Ultimately, art, to the truths of which Gadamer so often appeals, is by no means the fruit of mystical insight. Genuine artistic creativity has always acted and acts as a reflection and expression of the very essence of reality. That is why K. Marx, in his "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844", analyzing capitalist socio-economic relations, more than once referred, for example, to
1 Hegel G. V. F. Soch., vol. IV. M., 1959, p. 5.
Kant I. Op. in six volumes, vol. 4, part 1. M., 1965, p. 123, 155. 3 See: Bunge M. Intuition and science. M., 1967.
21
"Faust" by Goethe and "Timon of Athens" by Shakespeare, finding in them much more understanding of the essence of things than in the works on bourgeois political economy. Such major artists of our time, guided in their work by the principles of socialist realism, such as Louis Aragon and Bertolt Brecht, as well as Thomas Mann and Heinrich Mann, also came to a deep understanding and correct depiction of the essence of the capitalist world through specific art paths. All this confirms the inconsistency, the groundlessness of the role that Gadamer and other supporters of hermeneutics attribute to art, denying it to science, namely: to be the norm of philosophical truth. Their appeal to art turns into an open glorification of irrationalism and anti-intellectualism.
And it's not just and not only that Gadamer and hermeneutics sing of irrationalism. They are waging an open and covert struggle against materialism and dialectics, against Marxism, which allegedly imposes on living history the “laws of historical progress” by means of some kind of “historical reason”, etc. Today they come out with a claim to the only true explanation of the world, all human life and humanity as a whole. They promise to draw lessons from the past, to understand the present and the future in a comprehensive way, to give social science a "single universal principle" that will ensure the overcoming of the "cult of the immediate" that prevails in bourgeois society, the deflation of high standards, spiritual anarchism, the triumph of the petty-concrete, relativism in scientific theory etc. They promise to find the “last ground” on which one can build, substantiate and justify the absolute truth, the true meaning of human existence, etc.
Of course, philosophical hermeneutics, despite its claims, cannot give an adequately holistic picture of the world and surpass Marxism as the only true methodology of social, historical knowledge. Gadamer, adherents of hermeneutics are powerless here, primarily because, in essence, they do not recognize objective reality, its primacy in relation to the thinking subject. At best, they proceed from the identity of the subject and object, at worst, they consider the object as a product of the subject, since they give priority to the subjectivist interpretation of the world, consider the feelings, experiences of the subject as the main reality of life.
22
A similar tendency appears with all distinctness in this book by Gadamer. He rejects all “hunting” as a phantom of historical research and calls to see in the object another of his own, and thus both one and the other. The real historical object, writes Gadamer, is not an object, but the unity of this one and the other, a relation in which both the reality of history and the reality of historical understanding lie. Hermeneutics adequate to the essence of the matter must show the reality of history in its very understanding. “We are talking about what I call the history of influences.”1 Understanding in its essence is an action-historical accomplishment” (p. 355).
Undoubtedly, Marxist materialist dialectics also takes "things and their mental reflections in their partial connection, in their cohesion, in their movement, in their emergence and disappearance ..." 1. F. Engels wrote about this more than once. At the same time, he emphasized: “the concept of a thing and its reality move together, like two asymptotes, constantly approaching each other, but never coinciding. This difference between the two is precisely that difference, by virtue of which the concept is not directly and immediately reality, and reality is not directly the concept of this very reality.
K. Marx also emphasized the absolute illogicality of any doubt about reality, and even more so the denial of the external world in relation to the subject of the world: after all, standing on such a position, nevertheless, does not limit himself to his own being, but enters into an argument with others about this position . In the Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts, Marx sarcastically remarks: “I tell you: give up your abstraction and you will give up your question; if you want to stick to your abstraction, then be consistent, and when you think of man and nature as non-existent, then thoughts of yourself as non-existent, since you, too, are both nature and man. Do not think, do not ask me, because as soon as you start thinking and asking, your abstraction from the existence of nature and man loses all meaning. Or perhaps you are such an egoist that you consider it non-existent, but you yourself want to exist? 3.
Marx K. and Engels F. Soch., vol. 20, p. 22. Marx K. and Engels F. Soch., v. 39, p. 354. Marx K. and Engels F. Soch., v. 42, p. 126.
23
This essentially "egoistic" position is taken by Gadamer and all other adherents of hermeneutics. In this regard, Lenin's critique of the Machist "identity" of being and consciousness can be fully attributed to them. “... The subjectivist line on the question of causality, deducing the order and necessity of nature not from the external objective world, but from consciousness, from reason, from logic, etc., not only separates the human mind from nature, not only opposes the first to the second, but they make nature a part of the mind, instead of considering the mind a particle of nature, ”!, wrote V. I. Lenin. Hermeneutics do not understand that it only seems to a person “that his goals are taken outside the world, independent of the world.” In fact, as Lenin emphasized, "man's goals are generated by the objective world and presuppose it, they find it as given, present" 2.
Of course, Gadamer rejects any accusations of subjectivism, and even more so of solipsism. Hermeneutics, he argues, by no means denies the substantiality of the world. But what, in his opinion, is the basis of hermeneutic ontology, the basis of being?
Gadamer recognizes the formulation of the problem of being in ancient philosophy as a guideline in resolving this issue. First of all, he approves of Plato, who, in contrast to subjectivism, does not take as a starting point the concept of a self-existing subject that turns everything else into an object. On the contrary, the existence of the “soul” is determined in Plato by the fact that “it participates in true being, that is, it belongs to the same essential sphere as the idea. Aristotle also believes that the soul is in some way everything that exists. Therefore, Gadamer emphasizes, in in such thinking there is no question of a spirit free from the world and possessing its own certainty, which would have to seek ways to a being that has the character of the world, but one is initially connected with the other.The moment of connection is here primary.
In modern philosophy, Gadamer finds especially great merit in overcoming subjectivism, as well as all metaphysics, fascinated by being as cash, in E. Husserl and M. Heidegger. He recognizes Husserl's conclusion that "life ... transcendentally reduced subjectivity ... is the source of all objectification" (p. 299) as an important achievement. He is rated even more highly by V. I. Poli. coll. cit., vol. 18, p. 159.
2 Lenin V. I. Poly. coll. cit., vol. 29, p. 171.
L
nods at the philosophical constructions of Heidegger, seeing his merit primarily in the fact that he raised the question of being at the same time as the question of nothingness; metaphysics has been unable to pose the problem in this way. Proceeding from the interrelation of the "dialectics" of being and nothingness, Heidegger interpreted being, truth and history in terms of absolute temporality; what being, understanding, truth is, should be determined in the horizon of time, he emphasized.
Following Heidegger, Gadamer argues that every human experience is an experience of human finitude. Experienced in the proper sense of the word is he who remembers this finiteness, he who knows that time and the future are not subject to him.
But what initially directs a person's cognition, what shapes his experience? - Language. In the spirit of Heidegger, Gadamer declares that being is language. Only in language is the truth of being revealed to man. At the same time, he constantly emphasizes that the linguistic character inherent in the human experience of the world does not at all imply the objectification of the world. Language is the medium where I and the world express-; and from the very beginning and mutually and p and due (p. 520).
In these arguments, Gadamer is very close to the tradition of objective idealism. In any case, "verbality" is very reminiscent of Hegel's absolute knowledge, now presented as a "pure form of thinking", as an absolute condition for all knowledge.
Gadamer himself recognizes the task of philosophical hermeneutics to go "the path of the Hegelian phenomenology of the spirit", albeit in the opposite direction, in order to discover "about any subjectivity the substantiality that determines it. It is language that constitutes the world, determines the mode of human existence in the world, it is language that creates for us so that we can speak it.
To express, to express oneself does not mean to acquire a second existence. On the contrary, the mode of self-expression belongs to being itself. Thus, in the case of language, we are dealing with a speculative unity: with a distinction between being and self-manifestations, which just should not be a difference ... What is being discussed is something other than the spoken word itself. But a word is a word only because of what is expressed in it. And vice versa, what is expressed is not wordlessly given, but receives its own definiteness in the word, Gadamer emphasizes.
Of course, the objective-idealistic constructions of Ga25
Dahmer differ from the Hegelian. He criticizes Hegel for the latter's view of language as a form of realization of thought that exists before and independently of language. According to Gadamer

Hermeneutics, science and philosophy

The phenomenon of understanding and correct interpretation of the understood is not only a special methodological problem the sciences of the spirit. For a long time there was also a theological and legal hermeneutics, which was not so much of a scientific and theoretical nature, but corresponded to and contributed to the practical actions of a scientifically educated judge or priest. Thus, already by its very historical origin, the problem of hermeneutics goes beyond the limits assumed by the concept of method, as it has developed in modern science. Understanding and interpreting texts is not only a scientific task, but obviously refers to the totality of human experience as a whole. Initially, the hermeneutic phenomenon is not a method problem at all. We are not talking here about some method of understanding that would make texts the subject of scientific knowledge, like all other objects of experience. In general, we are not talking here primarily about the construction of any system of firmly substantiated knowledge that meets the methodological ideal of science - and yet here, too, we are talking about talk about knowledge and truth. When understanding what has been handed down to us by historical tradition, one or another text is not simply understood, but certain ideas are developed and certain truths are comprehended. What is this knowledge and what is this truth?

Understanding Phenomenon not only permeates all human ties with the world. Likewise in science, he has independent meaning and opposes all attempts to turn it into any scientific method. The sciences of the spirit are approaching such methods of comprehension that lie outside the boundaries of science: with the experience of philosophy, with the experience of art, with the experience of history itself.. All these are ways of comprehension in which the truth that is not subject to verification by the methodological means of science.

When understanding the texts of the great philosophers, the truth is comprehended, unattainable in any other way.. The same can be said about art experience. In this case, scientific research, which the so-called art studies are engaged in, is aware from the very beginning that it can neither replace nor surpass direct experience of interaction with art. The fact that in a work of art is comprehended truth that cannot be reached in any other way, and constitutes the philosophical meaning of art, asserting itself in spite of all rationalization. Thus, along with the experience of philosophy, the experience of art turns out to be the most urgent appeal to scientific consciousness. recognize your own boundaries.

The proposed studies therefore begin with a critique of the aesthetic consciousness, seeking to protect the experience of truth, in which we become involved through a work of art, from aesthetic theory, narrowed and impoverished by the concept of truth, which has developed in science. However, they do not stop at justifying the truth of art. We seek, rather, starting from this point, to develop a concept of knowledge and truth, corresponding to the integrity of our hermeneutical experience. In the experience of art we deal with truths, resolutely rising above the sphere of methodical knowledge, the same can be said about sciences of the spirit in general, sciences in which our historical tradition in all its forms, although it becomes subject research, but at the same time finds a voice in its truth. The experience of historical tradition rises fundamentally above what can be investigated in it. It is not only true or false in the sense that is subject to historical criticism, but it always proclaims a truth that should be shared.

The Problem of Method in the Humanities

The logical self-consciousness of the humanities, which accompanied their actual formation in the 19th century, is completely in the power of the model. natural sciences. However, at the same time, in fact, the problem that is put before thinking humanitarian sciences: their essence cannot be correctly understood if measured by the scale of the progressive knowledge of patterns. Knowledge of the socio-historical world cannot rise to the level of science by applying the inductive methods of the natural sciences. Whatever the word "science" here means, and however widespread in historical science as a whole the application of more general methods to one or another subject of research, historical knowledge, nevertheless, does not aim to present a specific phenomenon as a case illustrating a general rule. The singular does not serve as a simple confirmation of a pattern that, in practical circumstances, allows one to make predictions. Against, the ideal here should be an understanding of the phenomenon itself in its one-time and historical concreteness. In this case, the impact of an arbitrarily large volume is possible. general knowledge; the goal is not to fix and expand them for a deeper understanding of the general laws of development of people, peoples and states, but, on the contrary, in understanding what this person, this people, this state are like, what was the formation, in other words - how could it turn out that they have become so.

Gadamer X. G. Truth and method. M., 1988, S. 38-40. pp. 44-46.

"TRUTH AND METHOD" - fundamental philosophical research of Hans-Georg Gadamer (aterN.U. Wahrheit und Methode. Tubingen, 1960; Russian translation: Truth and Method: Fundamentals of Philosophical Hermeneutics. M., 1988). The main idea of ​​the book is to present epistemological issues in a hermeneutic context, demonstrating the limitations of a narrowly epistemological interpretation of cognition and the insufficiency of the already existing methodological arsenal for the study of real cognitive processes.

The central concept for Gadamer is "experience"(Erfahrung), interpreted in the Hegelian key as "experience of consciousness", "life experience", "historical experience", "experience of generations", etc. The conceptual shift carried out by Gadamer in the process of interpreting the concept of "experience" allows us to consider it as "experience of the world." The world is not so much known as a result of theoretical and cognitive procedures, but is experienced by a person in the process of living life, in the universal, in its essence, process of vital and practical development of the world. Gadamer identifies three forms of experience of experiencing the world - art, history, language - the study of which leads the author to a hermeneutic consideration key issue theories of knowledge - problems truth.

In accordance with the distinguished forms of cognitive experience, the book contains three sections. In the first section - "Statement of the problem of truth in relation to the cognition of art" - the author undertakes the expansion of aesthetic problems into the realm of the transcendent, demonstrating the insufficiency of a "purely aesthetic" formulation of the question in relation to the field of art. Attempted expansion research horizon leads Gadamer to the need for a hermeneutical consideration of the leading humanistic concepts (“education”, “sensus communis”, “judgment”, “taste”), i.e. to immersing them in the context of the philosophical and aesthetic concepts of I. Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, W. von Humboldt, I.F. Herder, J. Vico and others.

Another specific form history becomes a cognitive experience, the study of which makes up the second part of the book - "The extension of the question of truth to understanding in the sciences of the spirit." The main focus of Gadamer's philosophical reflection is: 1) criticism of the positivist methodology of studying history, which presupposes "objectifying" research methods; 2) demonstration of the productive possibilities of the ontological interpretation of history. He pays special attention to the research experience of V. Dilthey, who made a significant step towards historical philosophy and criticized the positivist-oriented historical science of that time. Referring to the historical experience of the German romantics - Hegel, Schelling, Droysen, etc. - and also identifying the specific features of the theory of hermeneutic experience, he deepens the hermeneutic problematics and offers an expanded interpretation hermeneutics not so much as the methodology of the humanities (Dilthey's line), but as the ontological basis of philosophy.

The source of experiential knowledge is also language, those. the reality where historical and aesthetic consciousness intersect with each other. The study of linguistic consciousness undertaken by Gadamer in the third part - "The ontological turn of hermeneutics on the guiding thread of language" - is directed against the nominalistic interpretation of language, which is the focus of modern analytical philosophy. Language is interpreted by Gadamer as a hermeneutical phenomenon, i.e. both as a condition for the possibility of human existence, and as "a being that can be understood." A person “finds” himself in language (the reality of thought coincides with the reality of language, internally present in a person), therefore Gadamer expresses doubts about the exhaustive productivity of the objectivist methodological methods of studying linguistic consciousness. Language for Gadamer is the "environment of hermeneutic experience", i.e. a context that gives us the possibility of understanding in general and is conditioned by the process of conversation: only through the process of mutual understanding does language become a reality. Gadamer excludes the existing artificial language sciences from the sphere of language as an experience of the world. The language of science is interpreted by him as artificial system mutual understanding, requiring the experience of live communication. Therefore, the very reality of conversation is so important: after all, the plane in which word and meaning coincide (science) is, in essence, immersed in “conversation”, in life, and therefore science should not be considered at all outside the context of life. Gadamer immerses scientific consciousness in the "sphere of conversation" and considers language as the only existing whole context of all human experience, i.e. builds a kind of project of hermeneutic ontology as a linguistic ontology.

The ontological interpretation of hermeneutics proposed by Gadamer not only opens up new methodological possibilities for the humanities, but also demonstrates the universality of linguistic ontology in the process of assimilation of the life experience of previous generations, represented in the historical tradition, which becomes one of the most important concepts of Gadamer's hermeneutic philosophy and is understood as an opportunity provided by the presence linguistic consciousness. Dialogue between traditions involves the search for a common language as a common cognitive foundation of the life world.

The book caused a wide research response, and the concept presented in it became the subject of a philosophical dispute between H. - G. Gadamer, J. Habermas and G. Albert.

ver. 1.0
Gadamer H.-G. (HCH)
ON THE ART OF QUESTIONING
(Fragment from the book “Truth and Method.
Fundamentals of philosophical hermeneutics")
abstract
(Korobkov A.A.)

HERMENEUTICAL PRIVACY OF THE QUESTION
An example of Platonic dialectic
Hermeneutics (ancient Greek ἑρμηνευτική - "the art of interpretation", from ἑρμηνεύω - "interpreting",
whose etymology is unclear):
art of interpretation, theory of interpretation and understanding of texts, including texts
classical antiquity;
direction in the philosophy of the XX century, which grew up on the basis of the theory of interpretation of literary
texts.
The fundamental question of hermeneutics is: How is understanding possible?
Understanding as a method of the humanities was opposed to explanation as a method
natural sciences.
There are 3 fields of understanding:
- in the first field: "what is, is proven." It's a world of facts with dignity
immediate reality, while understanding requires constant
completions in the mind of the "visible" world;
- the second field is the world of demonstrative judgments, geometric theorems and logical
tasks;
- the third field is not a field of isolated values, but their complex interweaving -
texts.
Note:
such a background - inserts from Wikipedia, revealing definitions;
Such a font
- author's editing for linking words.

… When raising the question of the logical structure of openness,
characterizing hermeneutic consciousness, it is necessary to recall the meaning
which in the analysis of the hermeneutic situation received the concept of a question.
The structure of the question is assumed by any experience. In order to make sure
anything in experience requires the activity of questioning.
… The logical form of the question and the negativity inherent in it acquire
completion in some radical negativity: in the knowledge of ignorance. Exactly
famous Socrates "docta ignorantia" (learned ignorance) reveals in the highest
the negativity of their aporias, the high dignity of questioning. If we want
understand the features of the implementation of hermeneutic experience, we should delve into
the essence of the question.
The essence of the question is that the question makes sense. Meaning is
directionality (the direction in which the answer can only follow). Question
puts the interviewee in a certain perspective. The appearance of the question
reveals the being of the interviewee. Therefore, the logos that reveals this revealed
being is always the answer. It itself has meaning only in the sense of the
question.
To the deepest discoveries that we owe to Plato's Socratic dialogues,
It also applies that the question is more difficult to answer.
To be able to ask, one must want to know, that is, to know about one's
ignorance. Plato points out the need for a preliminary question for
all knowledge, all speech, revealing the essence of the matter. The speech called
solve the case, needs the question to open this case.

Aporia (from the Greek aporia - difficulty, bewilderment, from a - a negative particle and poros exit) - the term by which ancient Greek philosophers denoted intractable or
unsolvable problems (most often associated with contradictions between observational data and
experience and attempts at their mental analysis)
Dialectics (other Greek διαλεκτική - the art of arguing, reasoning) - a method of argumentation
in philosophy, as well as the form and method of reflexive theoretical thinking, which has its own
subject contradiction of the conceivable content of this thinking. The word "dialectic"
originates from ancient Greek philosophy and became popular thanks to Plato's Dialogues, in
which two or more participants in the dialogue could hold different opinions, but
sought to find the truth by exchanging their opinions. Starting with Hegel, the dialectic
opposed to metaphysics - a way of thinking that considers things and
phenomena as immutable and independent of each other.
In the history of philosophy, the most prominent thinkers have defined dialectics as:
the doctrine of eternal becoming and variability of being (Heraclitus);
the art of dialogue, understood as the comprehension of truth by setting suggestive
questions and methodical answers to them (Socrates);
a method of dismembering and linking concepts in order to comprehend the supersensible (ideal)
essence of things (Plato);
the science concerned with the general principles of scientific research, or, what is the same thing, with the general
places (Aristotle);
the doctrine of the combination of opposites (Nicholas of Cusa, Giordano Bruno);
a way of destroying the illusions of the human mind, which, striving for wholeness and
absolute knowledge, inevitably gets entangled in contradictions (Kant);
universal method of cognizing contradictions as internal driving forces development of being, spirit and
history (Hegel);
doctrine and method taken as the basis for cognition of reality and its revolutionary
transformations (Marxism-Leninism).

Genesis - in the broadest sense - existence.
The concept of being is a central philosophical concept. Being is the subject of study of ontology.
In a narrower sense (Heidegger believes that the question of being, which, according to him, is
main philosophical question, was forgotten in the entire history of Western philosophy, starting
even from Plato. Being was interpreted incorrectly, since it did not have a purely "human"
measurements. Already in Plato the world of ideas in its objectivity is indifferent to man. "Only
elucidation of the essence of human existence reveals the essence of existence") meaning characteristic
for the fundamental ontology of M. Heidegger, the concept of "being" captures the aspect
the existence of beings, as opposed to their essence. If essence is defined by the question: "What
is being?", being the question: "What does it mean that being is?"
Logos (from the Greek λόγος - “word”, “thought”, “meaning”, “concept”, “number”) - term
ancient Greek philosophy, meaning both "word" (statement, speech) and "concept"
(judgment, meaning). Heraclitus, who first used it, called the logos "the eternal and universal
necessity”, a stable regularity. In the following, the meaning of this term
repeatedly changed, however, logos is understood as the deepest, most stable
and the essential structure of being, the most essential laws of the world.
Speech - a stable combination of words, an expression, as well as a well-aimed, figurative word

The way in which dialectics is carried out is questioning and answering,
it lies in the fact that all knowledge passes through a question. Ask means
put out in the open. The openness of what is being asked consists in the uncertainty
response. The question must be in a state of indeterminacy.
relation to the decisive, truth-establishing statement.
The meaning of the question is to reveal in this way
asked in its problematic. It must be brought into the state
uncertainties, when "for" and "against" are balanced. The meaning of any
the question becomes complete only by passing through such uncertainty, in
which the question becomes an open question. Every genuine question requires
openness. If it is absent, then the question remains ultimately only
the appearance of a question devoid of true meaning (pedagogical, rhetorical
questions).
However, the openness of the issue is not unlimited. Rather, it includes
a certain limited horizon of the question. Question without it
horizon, disappearing into the void. A question becomes a question only when
the vague indeterminacy of the direction he points, turns into
a definite "this or that", in other words, the question must be posed.
The formulation of the question presupposes openness, but at the same time its limitation.
The question can also be right or wrong, depending on the
whether it penetrates the realm of the truly open or not.

False statement - such a statement of the question, which does not reach the open,
but, holding false premises, only closes it. Remaining nonetheless
question, it creates the appearance of openness and the possibility of a solution. However, there
where the problematic is not separated - or incorrectly separated - from the real
unshakable premises, there it is not really revealed, and any
solution is not possible in this case.
Inasmuch as the question leads into the open, it always embraces what
is expressed in the positive, and what is expressed in the negative judgment.
This is the basis of the essential connection between questioning and knowledge. After all, the essence
knowledge lies in the fact that it not only endures correct judgment, but
at the same time and on the same grounds excludes the wrong. Decision
question is the way to knowledge. The issue is resolved due to the fact that the grounds in favor of
one possibility prevails over reasons in favor of another; full knowledge
it is, however, not yet. Only after parsing the counterarguments, only after
after we have become convinced of their failure - only then we
we really know the business.
… To know always means: to know the opposite at the same time. Knowledge in
basically dialectical. Knowledge can only be with those who have questions,
questions always capture the opposites between "yes" and "no."
There is no method that would allow you to learn to ask, to learn
see problematic. The example of Socrates teaches us that it is all about knowledge
ignorance. The Socratic dialectic is confusing and thus creates
background for asking. Every question and desire for knowledge
presuppose knowledge of ignorance - and moreover, in such a way that to a certain question
leads to some ignorance.

Plato... shows why it is so hard to know what we do not know. This is the fault
the power of opinion that must be overcome in order to come to an awareness of one's own
ignorance. It is opinion that suppresses questioning. Opinion has a special
spreading trend. It would always like to be the general opinion,
("doxa" - from Greek - opinion, decision made at the meeting "by the whole world"). How
in general, it can come to ignorance and questioning?
The real essence of insight is not what comes to mind
a solution similar to solving a riddle, but in the fact that a question comes to our mind,
pushing us into the realm of the open and therefore creating the possibility of an answer.
Every insight has the structure of a question.
…
The art of questioning is the art of asking further, that is, the art
thinking. It is called dialectic because it is the art of leading
genuine conversation.
Conversation requires that the interlocutors really hear each other,
therefore it has a question and answer structure. The first condition in art
conversation is to make sure that the interlocutor follows
your thought.
The art of questioning is possessed by one who is able to resist
dominant opinion, seeking to hush up the issue. The one who possesses it
art, he himself looks for all the arguments that speak in favor of one or another
opinions. Dialectics lies in the fact that the interlocutor does not look for weak
sides of what the other interlocutor says, but he himself reveals the true power
said to others.
... Whoever strives for knowledge cannot be content with simple opinions,
can distance themselves from those opinions that are called into question

That which is revealed in its truth during conversation is the logos, which is not
belongs to neither one nor the other interlocutor and which so much exceeds
subjective opinions of the interlocutors, that the one who leads the conversation always remains
in ignorance. Dialectics as the art of conversation is at the same time
the art of seeing together with the interlocutor the unity of a given point of view (συνοραν
εις εν είδος), that is, the art of forming concepts as the development of opinions,
common to interlocutors.
…
Correspondence is a kind of written conversation, which, as it were, stretches
time, the movement of interrupting-each-other and negotiating-with-each-other. Temporary
the distance separating sending a letter from receiving a response is not just some
external factor; it leaves its mark on the very being of that form
communication, which is correspondence as a special form
writing. The acceleration of mail messages did not lead to intensification at all
this form of communication, but, on the contrary, to the decline of the art of writing letters.

10.

Question and answer logic
The hermeneutical phenomenon includes conversation and question-response structure. That the text handed down to us becomes the subject of interpretation,
means that this text asks the interpreter a question. Therefore the interpretation
always contains an essential connection with the question posed to the interpreter.
To understand the text means to understand this question. This happens through the acquisition
hermeneutic horizon - the horizon of the question, within which
the semantic orientation of the text is determined.
…
Whoever wants to understand the text must, when asking, turn to something behind it.
said.
…
We understand the meaning of the text only if we acquire the horizon of the question,
which covers other possible answers as well.
…
R. J. Collingwood. (developed the idea of ​​some kind of question and answer logic, but, unfortunately,
never reached its systematic development) argues that we can
understand:
- text only if we understood the question, the answer to which he
is an;
- a work of art - only if we accept the premise of
its adequacy;
- a historical event only if we reconstruct the question with the answer
on which there were in each given case the historical actions of certain persons.

11.

… Understanding of the doubtfulness, problematic nature of something is always already there
asking.
Whoever wants to think must ask. And even if we say, for example:
“You ought to ask yourself...”, then this is already a real question, only
veiled out of caution or out of politeness.
This is the reason why understanding is always something more than mere
reproduction of someone else's opinion.
…
To understand a question means to ask it.
To understand an opinion means to understand it as an answer to a question.
About the problem
Aristotle understood by "problem" those questions that represent
is an open alternative, since all possible arguments say both in
in favor of one and in favor of another possibility, and their solution is impossible with the help of
only arguments, because these are too general questions.
For this reason, Kant limits the application of the concept of "problem" to the dialectic
pure mind. Problems are tasks whose source lies wholly and
completely in the mind itself, that is, as it were, its own products, to the final
whose resolution he cannot count on.

12.

About language
The way consciousness functions is described as a merging of horizons
understanding - a fusion that serves as an intermediary between the text and
interpreter.
The merging of horizons that occurs in understanding is carried out by language itself.
What is language is, of course, one of the most obscure questions of all.
that is generally accessible to human thought. The language is so frighteningly close
our thinking and in the process of its implementation to such a small extent is its
object, that he, as it were, hides his being from us.
We seek to approach the problem of language from the concept of
conversation.
Every conversation develops a common language (as the Greeks said, in the middle between
the interlocutors put something in which both are involved and on which the exchange takes place
between them). It's not just an external tool-fitting process; it will be wrong
even to say that the interlocutors adapt to each other; rather in
in the resulting conversation, they find themselves at the mercy of the truth itself
the case they are discussing, which unites them into a new community. To attain
mutual understanding in a conversation, it is not enough just to carry out one’s point of view, but mutual understanding, uniting the interlocutors, transforms them so that they no longer
are more than they were before.

Part one

Statement of the problem of truth as applied to the knowledge of art

I. Extending the Aesthetic Dimension into the Realm of the Transcendent

1. The Significance of the Humanist Tradition for the Humanities

a) THE PROBLEM OF THE METHOD

The logical self-awareness of the humanities, which accompanied their actual formation in the 19th century, is completely dominated by the model of the natural sciences. This can be shown by the very consideration of the term "humanities" (Geisteswissenschaft, lit., "the science of the spirit"), although it receives its usual meaning only in the plural. The fact that the humanities are understood by analogy with the natural sciences is so obvious that the overtones of idealism inherent in the concept of the spirit and the science of the spirit recede before it. The term "humanities" has gained currency mainly due to the translator of "Logic" John Stuart Mill. In his work, Mill consistently tries to outline the possibilities that the application of inductive logic has to the field of the humanities (“moral sciences”, literally, “moral sciences”). The translator puts “Geisteswissenschaften” in this place. "It follows from the very course of Mill's reasoning that here we are not talking at all about recognizing some special logic of the humanities, but, on the contrary, the author seeks to show that all cognitive sciences are based on inductive method, which appears to be the only effective one in this area as well. Thus, Mill remains in line with the English tradition, which was most expressively formulated by Hume in the introduction to his "Treatise" 2 . In the sciences of morality, it is also necessary to recognize similarities, regularities, patterns that make individual phenomena and processes predictable. However,

in the natural sciences, this goal is not always equally achievable. The reason is rooted solely in the fact that the data on the basis of which it would be possible to learn similarities are not always presented in sufficient quantity. Thus, meteorology works in the same methodical way as physics, but its initial data are lacunar, and therefore its predictions are inaccurate. The same is true for moral and social phenomena. The application of the inductive method in these areas is free from all metaphysical assumptions and retains complete independence from how exactly the formation of the observed phenomenon is thought. Here, for example, the causes of certain manifestations are not thought up, but regularity is simply stated. Thus, regardless of whether one believes, for example, in free will or not, in the field of social life, prediction is in any case possible. To draw conclusions about phenomena from the presence of regularities does not in any way mean to recognize something like the existence of a relationship, the regularity of which allows for the possibility of prediction. The implementation of free solutions - if any - does not interrupt the regularity of the process, U itself belongs to the realm of generalizations and regularities obtained by induction. Such is the ideal of "natural science" about society, which acquires a programmatic character here and to which we owe research successes in many areas; it is enough to recall the so-called mass psychology.

However, in this case, in fact, the problem that the humanities pose to thinking appears: their essence cannot be correctly understood if measured by the scale of the progressive knowledge of laws. Knowledge of the socio-historical world cannot rise to the level of science by applying the inductive methods of the natural sciences. Whatever the word "science" here means, and however widespread in historical science as a whole the application of more general methods to one or another subject of research, historical knowledge, nevertheless, does not aim to present a specific phenomenon as a case illustrating a general rule. The singular does not serve as a simple confirmation of a pattern that, in practical circumstances, allows one to make predictions. On the contrary, the ideal here should be an understanding of the phenomenon itself in its one-time and historical concreteness. At

it is possible to influence an arbitrarily large amount of general knowledge; the goal is not to fix and expand them for a deeper understanding of the general laws of development of people, peoples and states, but, on the contrary, in understanding what this person, this people, this state are like, what was the formation, in other words - "how could turn out that they became like that.

What kind of knowledge is this, which makes it possible to understand something as such through an understanding of the ways of its formation? What is called science here? And even if we admit that the ideal of this kind of cognition is fundamentally different in type and settings from that accepted in the natural sciences, there is still a temptation to turn in this case, at least privatively, to such a characteristic as “inexact sciences”. Even the attempt (as significant as it is just) to equalize the rights of the humanities and natural sciences, undertaken by Hermann Helmholtz in his famous speech of 1862, no matter how he emphasized the superiority of the humanities in their universal meaning, retained the negativity of their logical characterization from the point of view of methodological ideal of the natural sciences3. Helmholtz distinguishes between two types of induction: logical and artistic-instinctive. But this means that he distinguishes both ways of thinking in their basis not logically, but psychologically. Both use inductive inference, but the process that precedes inference in the humanities is unconscious inference. Thus, the practice of humanitarian induction is associated with special psychological conditions. It requires a kind of tact, and it requires a variety of spiritual qualities, such as a rich memory and recognition of authorities, while the self-conscious reasoning of natural scientists, on the contrary, is based entirely on the inclusion of one's own consciousness. Even if we admit that the great natural scientist resisted the temptation to make his own way of working a universally binding norm, he nevertheless clearly has no other logical possibility to characterize the results of the human sciences than with the help of the concept of induction familiar to him thanks to Mill's Logic. That the new mechanics, which triumphed in Newton's celestial mechanics, became the actual model for the sciences of the 18th century, was still so self-evident for Helmholtz that he did not even ask the question, for example,

about what philosophical prerequisites ensured the formation of this new science for the 17th century. Today we know how important the Parisian school of the Occamists was for this. For Helmholtz, the methodical ideal of the natural sciences needs neither the search for historical antecedence nor epistemological limitations, and therefore he is logically unable to understand the work of humanities scientists in any other way.

An urgent task also urgently required a solution: to raise to logical self-knowledge such studies that had reached their full flowering, such as, for example, the studies of the “historical school”. Already in 1843, I. G. Droyzen, the author and discoverer of the history of Hellenism, wrote: “Probably, there is not a single area of ​​​​science that is so remote, theoretically justified, limited and dissected as history.” Droysen already needs Kant, who saw in the categorical imperative of history "a living source, ίίί>, which flows historical life humanity." He expects "that a more deeply understood concept of history will become that point of gravity where the present empty fluctuations of the human sciences can find permanence and opportunities for further progress" ° .

The model of the natural sciences, to which Droysen appeals here, is thus not understood in a meaningful way, in the sense of scientific and theoretical assimilation, but, on the contrary, in the sense that the humanities must find justification as an equally independent group of scientific disciplines. Droysen's "History" is an attempt to solve this problem.

Dilthey, whose influence is much stronger natural scientific method and the empiricism of Millev's logic, nevertheless firmly adheres to the romantic-idealistic traditions in the understanding of humanitarianism. He also experiences constant feeling superiority in relation to the English empirical school, as he directly observes the advantages of the historical school in comparison with any natural science and natural law thinking. “Only from Germany can a truly empirical method come, taking the place of preconceived dogmatic empiricism. Mill is dogmatic because of his lack of historical education,” such is Dilthey’s note on a copy of Mill’s Logic 6. In fact, all the hard, decades-long work that Dilthey spent on substantiating the humanities was “

constantly clashing with the logical demands that Mill's famous concluding chapter places on these sciences.

Nevertheless, in the depths of his soul, Dilthey agrees that the natural sciences are a model for the humanities, even when he tries to defend the methodological independence of the latter. This can be clarified by two pieces of evidence that both point us in the direction of further observations. In an obituary dedicated to Wilhelm Scherer, Dilthey emphasizes that the spirit of the natural sciences accompanied Scherer in his writings, and makes an attempt to explain why Scherer was so strongly influenced by the English empiricists: “He was a modern man, and the world of our ancestors was no longer home his spirit and heart; he was his historical object.”7 This phrase itself shows that for Dilthey, scientific knowledge involves the breaking of vital ties, the retreat to a certain distance from one’s own history, which makes it possible to turn these ties and this history into objects. We can say that both Scherer and Dilthey use inductive!

and a comparative method with a genuine individual (tact and that such tact arises only on the basis of a spiritual culture that maintains a living connection with the world of enlightenment and romantic faith in individuality. Nevertheless, "nevertheless, in their scientific conception, both of them were guided by a model of natural Sciences.

Particularly evident here is Dilthey's attempt to appeal to the independence of the method of the humanities, substantiating it by their relation to their object. In the end, such an appeal sounds quite Aristotelian and demonstrates a genuine rejection of the natural scientific model. However, Dilthey elevates this independence of humanitarian methods to the old Baconian thesis “natura parendo vin-citur” (“nature is conquered by submitting”) 9 , and this strikes a painful blow to the classically romantic heritage, which Dilthey was so eager to master. Thus, even Dilthey, who had an advantage in his historical education over modern neo-Kantianism, in his logical constructions, in fact, did not go far beyond the modest statement proclaimed by Helmholtz. No matter how much Dilthey defends the epistemological independence of the humanities, what is called a method in modern science is the same everywhere.

and only manifests itself in the field of natural sciences with the greatest consistency. There is no proper method of the human sciences, but one might perhaps ask, following Helmholtz, to what extent the concept of method is used here, and whether certain conditions associated with them influence the style of work in the humanities more than inductive logic. Helmholtz rightly noticed this when, wishing to rehabilitate the humanities, he spoke of memory, authority and psychological tact, which in this field of knowledge are put forward in place of conscious inference. What is the basis for this tact? How does it arise? Is the scientific nature of the humanities contained in it rather than in their methodology?

Since the motivation for such questions is created by the humanities, which prevents the introduction of modernity into scientific concepts, they were and remain a philosophical problem proper. The answer given to these questions by Helmholtz and his age cannot satisfy us; they followed Kant, orienting the concepts of science and knowledge to the model of the natural sciences and searching for the distinctive features of the humanities in artistic moments (artistic flair, artistic induction). At the same time, Helmholtz’s picture of the work of a scientist in the natural sciences turns out to be rather one-sided when he is silent about the “quick lightning of the spirit” (that is, what is called insight) and prefers to find here only “the iron labor of self-conscious reasoning.” He relies on the testimony of J. S. Mill, according to which “the inductive sciences in modern times have done more for progress logical method than all professional philosophers” 10. He recognizes these sciences as a model of the scientific method.

However, Helmholtz knows that historical research is predetermined by a completely different type of knowledge than that which serves the study of the laws of nature. He therefore tries to assert that the inductive method, as applied to historical knowledge, is in different conditions than in the study of nature. In this regard, he turns to the distinction between nature and freedom, which lies at the heart of Kantian philosophy. Historical knowledge, in his opinion, is precisely because it is so peculiar that in its sphere there are not the laws of nature, but the voluntary submission of practical

skim laws, that is, commandments. The world of human freedom is therefore unfamiliar with the absence of exceptions approved for the laws of nature.

This train of thought is, however, unconvincing. It corresponds neither to Kant's intentions, according to which the inductive investigation of the world of human freedom should be based on his distinction between nature and freedom, nor to the own ideas of inductive logic. Mill was more consistent, methodically bracketing the issue of freedom. But in addition, the inconsistency with which Helmgolyd relies on Kant to justify the human sciences also bears false fruit, since, according to Helmholtz, the empiricism of these sciences should be regarded in the same way as the empiricism of weather forecasts, namely, as a rejection of an active position and an attempt to rely in case of.

But in fact the humanities are far from feeling inferior to the natural sciences. In contrast, the spiritual followers of German classical philosophy developed a proud sense of themselves that they were the true defenders of humanism. The era of German classicism not only brought a renewal of literature and aesthetic criticism, which were able to overcome the obsolete ideals of the Baroque and the rationalism of the Enlightenment, but also gave a completely new content to the concept of humanity, this ideal of an enlightened mind. Above all, Herder transcended the perfectionism of the Enlightenment with the new ideal of the "education of man" and thus prepared the ground from which the historical sciences could develop in the nineteenth century. The concept of education (Bildung), which at that time took possession of the minds, was probably the greatest thought of the 18th century, and it was it that designated “the element in which the humanities of the 19th century existed, even if they did not yet know its epistemological justification.

b) LEADING HUMANIST CONCEPTS a) Education

The concept of education helps to most clearly feel how deep the spiritual evolution is, allowing us to still feel like contemporaries.

Goethe and, on the contrary, forcing the Baroque age to be considered prehistoric. The most significant concepts and turns of speech with which we are accustomed to operate took their shape precisely in this process, and those who do not want to study the language, surrendering to the will of its elements, but strive to gain an independent and reasonable understanding of history, find themselves forced to move from one problem from the field of the history of words and concepts to another. In the following presentation, we will try to touch only on the prerequisites for the huge working task that confronts researchers here and contributes to the philosophical formulation of the problem. Such concepts as “art”, “history”, “creativity”, “worldview”, “experience”, “genius”, “outer world”, “inner world”, “expression”, “style”, “symbol”, for us, taken for granted, are fraught with an abyss of historical connotations.

If we turn to the concept of education, the significance of which for the humanities has already been emphasized, we will find ourselves in a happy position. We have at our disposal a compact study of the history of this word ": its origin rooted in medieval mysticism, its further existence in baroque mysticism, its religiously based spiritualization in Klopstock's "Messiad", which captured an entire era, and, finally, its fundamental definition by Herder as “age-rastan_i_ya_k.g^zhadaoskhi.” ​​The religion of education in the 19th century retained the deep parameters of this word, and our concept of education comes precisely from here.

With regard to the usual meaning of the word “education”, the first important statement is that the older concept of “natural education” as the formation of external manifestations (the structure of body parts, proportional physique) and in general a product of nature (for example, “mountain building”), is already almost completely separated from the new concept. Now "education" is closely connected with the concept of culture and ultimately means a specific human way of transforming natural inclinations and capabilities. The final polishing of this concept, stimulated by Herder, ended in the period between Kant and Hegel. Kant does not yet use the word "education" in this sense and in this connection. He speaks of a "culture" of abilities (or "natural inclinations"), which in this capacity represents an act of freedom of the acting subject. So, among the duties of

in relation to himself, he also calls the duty "not to let his talent become rusty", without using the word "education". Hegel, on the contrary, is talking about self-education and education when he raises the same question about duties in relation to himself, as Kant 13, and Wilhelm von Humboldt fully perceives with his subtle ear, which was his distinguishing feature, already the whole difference in the meaning of “culture” and “education”: “... but when we say “education” in our language , then we have in mind something at the same time high and rather internal, namely, a kind of understanding that harmoniously pours out on perception and character, originating in the experience and feeling of a collectively spiritual and sensual striving” m. Here, “education” is no longer equivalent to culture, that is, the development of abilities or talents.This change in the meaning of the word "education" rather awakens the old mystical traditions, according to which a person wears and nurtures in the soul the image God, whose likeness he was created. The Latin equivalent of this word is formatio, and it corresponds in other languages, for example in English (in Shaftesbury) form and formation. In German, the word "education" has long competed with the corresponding derivative concepts of forma, for example, formation, formation (Formierung, Formation). From the time of Aristotelism, the concept of "form" was completely separated by the Renaissance from its technical meaning and was interpreted in a purely dynamic and natural sense. Nevertheless, the victory of the word “education” over “form” does not seem to be accidental, since “image” (Bild) is hidden in “education” (Bildung). The concept of form recedes before that mysterious two-sidedness with which the "image" includes at the same time the meanings of display, cast (Nachbild) and sample (Vorbild).

That "education" (like the more modern word "formation") designates the result of the process of becoming rather than the process itself corresponds to the widespread transfer of the meaning of becoming to being. Here, the transference is quite legitimate, since the result of education is not represented by the type of technical intention, but stems from the internal process of formation and formation, and therefore is constantly in a state of continuation and development. It is no coincidence that the word "education" is identical to the Greek physis. Education, as little as nature, knows

about anything beyond the set goals. (One should be distrustful of the word and the concept “goal of education” associated with it, behind which some kind of secondary “education” is hidden. Education cannot be the goal itself, it cannot be strived for in this capacity, even if it is in the reflections of the educator.) This is precisely the superiority of the concept of education in relation to the mere cultivation of the existing inclinations from which it originated. The cultivation of inclinations is the development of something given; here simple means achievement of the goal is exercise and diligence, which have become a habit. So, the educational material of a language textbook is just a means, not an end in itself. Its assimilation serves only the development of language skills. In the process of education, on the contrary, on which and by which one is educated must be fully assimilated. In this respect, everything that it touches enters into education, but all this does not enter as a means that loses its functions. On the contrary, in the education received, nothing disappears, but everything is preserved. Education is a truly historical concept, and it is this historical character of "preservation" that must be discussed in order to understand the essence of the humanities.

Thus, even a first look at the history of the word "education" introduces us to the circle of historical concepts that Hegel initially placed in the sphere of "first philosophy". In practice, Hegel developed the concept of what education is in the most subtle way. We follow him here.15 He also saw that for philosophy "the conditions for its existence lie in education," and we add that this is also true of the humanities in general. For the existence of the spirit is to a large extent connected with the idea of ​​education.

Man is distinguished by the fact that he breaks with the immediate and natural; this is required of him by the spiritual, rational side of his being. “Taken from this side, he is not by nature what he should be,” and therefore he needs education. What Hegel called the formal essence of education is based on its universality. Starting from the notion of ascent to the universal, Hegel was able to comprehend in a uniform way what in his time was understood by education. The rise to universality is not limited to theoretical education and generally does not imply only a theoretical aspect as opposed to a practical one, but embraces the essential

definition of human intelligence in general. General essence human education is that man makes himself in every respect a spiritual being. One who indulges in particulars is uneducated, such as one who does not curb his blind, disproportionate and irrelevant anger. Hegel shows that such a person initially lacks the ability to abstract: he cannot abstract himself from himself and look at the general, by which his particular is proportionately and relatively determined.

Education as an ascent to the universal is thus the task of man. It requires sacrificing the common to the special. Negatively, sacrificing features signifies the curbing of drives and thus freedom from their objects and freedom for one's own objectivity. Here the deductions of the phenomenological dialectic supplement what was introduced in the Propaedeutics. In The Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel develops the genesis of a truly free self-consciousness "in and for itself" and shows that the essence of labor is to create a thing, and not to consume it. The working consciousness regains itself as an independent consciousness in the independent existence that labor gives to the thing. Labor is a restrained attraction. As long as it forms objectivity, that is, it acts selflessly and provides a common, working consciousness, it rises above the immediacy of its being to universality, or, as Hegel put it, as long as it creates, forms an object, it forms itself. At the same time, he means the following: to the extent that a person has mastered the “skill”, has achieved dexterity in work, he has also received his own sense of self. What, as it seems to him, is denied him in his selfless service, as soon as he completely submits to someone else's mind, becomes his lot as soon as he acquires a labor consciousness. And in this capacity he finds his own mind in himself, and it is quite right to say about labor that it forms a person. The self-feelings of the working consciousness contain all the aspects of what constitutes practical education: the distance from the immediacy of inclinations, personal needs and private interests, that is, the demand for universality.

In Propaedeutics, Hegel, emphasizing that the essence of practical education lies in striving for the universal, shows that it also appears in moderation, which limits immensity in the satisfaction of

needs and the application of forces to the universal. It is also present in the prudence shown in relation to individual states or occupations, in taking into account other things that may still be necessary. But in any vocation there is something of fate, of external necessity, and any vocation requires you to indulge in tasks that can in no way be regarded as the pursuit of personal goals. Practical education is reflected in the fact that professional work is carried out entirely and comprehensively. But this also includes the overcoming of that alien that is in the work in relation to a person, that is, the complete transformation of this alien into one's own by a person. Thus, to give oneself to the general in one's work means at the same time to be able to limit oneself, that is, to make one's vocation entirely one's own business. And then for a person it is no longer a barrier.

In this Hegelian description of practical education, one can see the fundamental definition of the historical spirit: reconciliation with oneself, recognizing oneself in otherness. This definition is finally clarified in the idea of ​​theoretical education, because theoretical activity as such is already alienation, namely, the desire "to engage in non-direct, alien, belonging to recollection, memory and thinking." So, theoretical education leads beyond what a person directly knows and comprehends. It consists in learning to attach importance to the other and to find generalized points of view in order to “perceive the objective in its freedom” and without selfish interests. the world and the language of the ancients. This is due to the fact that such a world is far enough from us and alien enough to be able to exert its influence. positive impact the necessary distance that separates it from us, however, it "simultaneously contains all the initial moments and threads of returning us to ourselves, but in the form of a truly universal essence of the spirit" "8.

In these words of the director of the gymnasium in Hegel, one can see the typical prejudice of an adherent of classicism, who believes that it is especially easy to find the universal essence of the spirit among the ancients. But the main idea retains its validity: to recognize one's own in someone else, to get used to it - this is the main movement of the spirit, the meaning of which is only in returning to oneself from otherness. AT

otherwise, all theoretical education, including the study of foreign languages ​​and alien worldviews, is a simple continuation of the educational process that was laid down much earlier. Each individual, rising from his natural essence into the sphere of the spirit, finds in the language, customs, social structure of his people a given substance that he wants to master, as happens when teaching speech. Thus this separate individual is constantly on the path of education, and his naturalness is constantly subtracted in proportion to the fact that the world into which he grows is shaped by human language and human customs. Hegel emphasizes: in this world of his own, the people acquires being. He works it out in and out of himself, and establishes in the same way what he is in himself.

Thus, it is clear that the essence of education is not alienation as such, but a return to oneself, the premise of which, however, is alienation. At the same time, education should be understood not only as a process that provides a historical uplift of the spirit into the realm of the universal; at the same time it is the element in which an educated person lives. What is this element? This is where the questions that we have already addressed to Helmholtz begin. Hegel's answer cannot satisfy us, since for him education takes place as a movement from alienation and assimilation to complete mastery of substance, to separation from all objective entities, which is achievable only in absolute philosophical knowledge.

Real education, like the element of the spirit, is by no means connected with the Hegelian philosophy of the absolute spirit, just as a true understanding of the historicity of consciousness has little to do with his philosophy of world history. It must be clear that for the historical sciences of the spirit, which departed from Hegel, the idea of ​​a perfect education remains a necessary ideal, since education is precisely the element in which they move. And what the older usage calls " perfect education in the realm of bodily phenomena, this is not so much the last phase of development as the state of maturity, which has left all development behind and ensures harmonic motion all members. It is in this sense that the human sciences assume that the scientific consciousness appears already educated, and precisely because of this it has a genuine tact, which can neither be learned nor imitated, and which is imitated.

supports the formation of judgments in the humanities and their way of knowing.

What Helmholtz describes as the working specificity of the humanities, in particular what he calls artistic feeling and tact, actually presupposes the element of education, within which a particularly free mobility of the spirit is ensured. Thus, Helmholtz speaks of "the readiness with which the most heterogeneous experience should be introduced into the memory of a historian or philologist" 19.

This can be described very superficially from the point of view of that ideal of "the iron labor of self-conscious reasoning" in the light of which the natural scientist thinks of himself. The concept of memory, in the sense in which he uses it, is not enough to explain the components of this work. As a matter of fact, this tact or this feeling is misunderstood when it is understood as an incoming psychic faculty served by a tenacious memory and thus reaching knowledge beyond strict control. That which enables such a function of tact, which helps to acquire it and to dispose of it, is not a simple psychological device favorable to humanitarian knowledge.

The essence of memory itself cannot be properly understood without seeing in it anything but a general inclination or ability. Retention, forgetting and remembering anew belong to the historical states of man and themselves form part of his history and his education. If someone uses his memory as a simple faculty - and all technical methods are an exercise in such use - he still does not attribute it to the sphere most inherent in him. Memory should be formed, because it is not memory in general and for him. Something is stored in memory, something else is not, something they want to keep in memory, and something they want to expel from it. The time has come to free the phenomenon of memory from psychological equalization with abilities and to understand that it represents an essential feature of the finite historical existence of man. Along with the ability to store in memory and recall, connected by a certain relationship, the same relationship enters in a certain way, which has not yet been paid due attention, and the ability to forget, which is not only a loss and a disadvantage, but also - this was primarily emphasized by F. .Nietzsche - a condition for the life of the spirit20. Only through forgetting does the spirit retain the possibility

total renewal, the ability to look at everything with a fresh eye, so that the long-known is fused with the newly seen into a multi-layered unity. "Retention in memory" is just as ambiguous. Being memory (μνήμη), it is connected with recollection (άνάμνησις) 21. But the same is true of the concept of "tact" used by Helmholtz. By tact, we understand a certain receptivity and ability to perceive the situation and behavior within it, for which we do not have knowledge based on general principles. Because of this, the concept of tact is inexpressive and inexpressible. You can say something tactfully. But this will always mean that at the same time something is tactfully bypassed and not expressed, and that it is tactless to talk about what can be bypassed. But "bypassing" does not mean turning away from something; on the contrary, you need to have something in front of your eyes so that you don’t stumble over it, but pass it by. Thus, tact helps to keep a distance, to avoid wounds and collisions, too close contact and injury to the intimate sphere of the personality.

But the beat that Helmholtz speaks of is not simply identical with this sensual and everyday phenomenon. However, there is an essential commonality here, since the tact that operates in the humanities is not limited to a sensual and unconscious character; rather, it is a way of knowing and a way of being at the same time. The above analysis of the concept of education helps to clarify this. What Helmholtz calls tact includes education and is both its aesthetic and historical function. It is necessary to have a feeling for both the aesthetic and the historical, or to form this feeling, in order to be able to rely on one's tact in humanitarian works. And since this tact is not just a natural device, we rightfully speak of aesthetic or historical consciousness, and not of our own feeling, although, obviously, such a consciousness correlates with the immediacy of feeling, that is, in some cases it can certainly dismember and evaluate , although it is not possible to give reasons for this. Thus, one who has an aesthetic sense is able to distinguish between the beautiful and the ugly, good or bad quality, and the one who has a historical sense knows what is possible and what is impossible for a certain era, and has a sense of the otherness of the past in relation to the present.

If all this is based on education, then this means

that it is not a question of experience or position, but a question of the past becoming of being. Neither more precise observations nor a more thorough study of tradition can help this, unless a sensitivity to the otherness of the work of art or the past is prepared. This is what we encountered when, following Hegel, we emphasized such hallmark education^ as its openness to everything else, to other, more generalized points of view. In education there is a general sense of proportion and distance in relation to itself, and through it - the rise above oneself to the universal. To look at oneself and one's personal goals as if from a distance means to look at them as others do. This generality is certainly not a generality of concepts or reason. Proceeding from the general, the particular is determined and nothing is forcibly proved. Common points the views to which an educated person is open do not become for him a rigid scale, which is always effective; rather, they are peculiar to him only as possible points of view of other people. To this extent, an educated consciousness actually has rather the character of feeling in practice, since any feeling, for example vision, seems to be general only insofar as it covers its own sphere, insofar as it opens up a wide field to it, and insofar as it is capable of producing distinctions within what has been revealed to it. An educated consciousness surpasses any of the natural senses in that these latter are each limited to a certain sphere, it also has the ability to act in all directions; it is a general feeling.

The general feeling - this is what the formulation of the essence of education is in fact, in which an echo of broad historical ties is heard. The understanding of the concept of education, which underlies Helmholtz's reflections, returns us to the distant history of this concept. Let us follow this connection if we want to free the problem of the philosophical approach to the humanities from the artificial narrowness imparted to it by the doctrine of method in the nineteenth century. The modern concept of science and the concept of method subordinated to it are insufficient for us. What makes the humanities sciences is more likely to be grasped from the traditional concept of education than from the methodological ideas of modern science. This is the humanistic tradition, and we will turn to it. In comparison with the claims of modern science, it takes on a new meaning.

Obviously, it would be worthwhile to specially trace how

During the time of humanism, criticism of "school" science found its audience and how this criticism evolved following the evolution of its opponents. First of all, ancient motifs were revived here. The enthusiasm with which the humanists proclaimed the Greek language and the path of learning was more than just a passion for antiques. The awakening to life of the classical languages ​​brought with it a new appreciation of rhetoric. It opened a front against the "school", that is, against scholastic science, and served an ideal of human wisdom that was unattainable within the framework of the "school"; such an opposition truly stands already at the origins of philosophy. Plato's criticism of the sophists, and even more so, his peculiarly ambivalent attitude towards Isocrates, explains the philosophical problem. In connection with the new awareness of the method in the natural sciences of the 17th century, this ancient problem still increases its critical severity. In the face of the claims of this new science on exclusivity, the question arises more and more urgently, whether the only source of truth may not lie in humanistic concept education. Indeed, we shall see that the humanities of the nineteenth century, without realizing it, drew their only vitality from the viable humanist thought of education.

In this case, it goes without saying that humanistic studies, and not mathematics, are decisive here, for what could the new doctrine of the method of the 17th century mean for the humanities? One has only to read the relevant chapters of the Port-Royal Logic, concerning the laws of reason as applied to historical truth, in order to understand the meagerness of what the humanities can draw from this "methodical idea." to something like the fact that the assessment of an event in all its truth requires attention to its accompanying circumstances (circonstances).The Jansenists, in this way of proof, tried to provide methodological guidance for deciding the extent to which miracles are trustworthy.They sought thereby to contrast uncontrollable faith of the spirit in the miracle of the new method and believed that in this way it would be possible to legitimize the true feelings of biblical tradition and church tradition. ancient church- it is too obvious that this relationship did not promise to be long-term, and one can imagine what should

was to happen when the very premises of Christianity became problematic. The methodological ideal of natural science in its application to the authenticity of the historical evidence of biblical tradition should have led to completely different results, catastrophic for Christianity. The path from Jansenist-style miracle criticism to historical biblical criticism is not so far, and Spinoza is a good example of this. In the future, we will show that the consistent application of this technique as the only criterion for determining the truth in the humanities in general is tantamount to its self-destruction.

&) Sensus communis (common sense)

In this state of affairs, it is not difficult, relying on the humanistic tradition, to ask what path of knowledge the humanities can learn from such a methodology. A valuable starting point for this discussion is Vico's On the Meaning of the Sciences of Our Time.23 Vico's defense of humanism, as the title itself shows, is mediated by Jesuit pedagogy and, to the same extent that it is against Descartes, is also directed against Jansenism. This pedagogical manifesto by Vico, like his "new science" project, is based on old truths. He appeals to common sense, to social feeling and to the humanistic ideal of eloquence, that is, to those moments that were already incorporated in the ancient concept of wisdom. "Charity" (ευ λέγειν) in this connection becomes an internally two-valued formula, and by no means a mere rhetorical ideal. It also implies the speaking of the right, that is, the true, and not only the art of speech, the ability to say something well.

Therefore, in ancient times this ideal, as is well known, was proclaimed by both teachers of philosophy and teachers of rhetoric, and yet rhetoric has long been at enmity with philosophy and claimed to, in contrast to the idle speculations of the "sophists", communicate true wisdom of life. Vico, who himself was a teacher of rhetoric, is therefore in line with the humanistic tradition coming from antiquity. Obviously, this tradition, and in particular the positive ambiguity of the rhetorical ideal, legitimized not only by Plato, but also by the anti-rhetorical methodology of modern times, is also important for the self-awareness of the humanities. In this regard, Viko already sounds a lot

from what interests us. His appeal to common sense, however, is fraught with one more moment of the ancient tradition, besides the rhetorical one: the opposition of the “school” scientist and the sage, on which Viko relies, is the opposition that had the cynical Socrates as its prototype and its material basis - the opposition of “Sophia” and “phronesis”, first developed by Aristotle and developed by the Peripatetics to the level of criticism of the theoretical ideal of life 24, and in the Hellenistic era became one of the defining images of the sage, especially after the Greek ideal of education fused with the self-consciousness of the leading political layer of Rome. Roman jurisprudence of later times is also known to develop against the background of legal art and legal practice, which are in contact with the practical ideal of "phronesis" rather than with the theoretical ideal of "philosophy" 25.

Since the revival of ancient philosophy and rhetoric, the image of Socrates has finally turned into the antithesis of science, as evidenced by the figure of an amateur who has taken a fundamentally new position between a scientist and a sage.26 The rhetorical tradition of humanism also skillfully appealed to Socrates and to criticism of dogmatists by skeptics. So, Vico criticizes the Stoics for believing in reason as a régula veri (rule of truth), and, on the contrary, praises the ancient academics, who asserted only knowledge about ignorance, and then the academics of the New Age because they are strong in the art of argumentation, which refers to the art of speech.

Vico's appeal to common sense, however, acquires a special coloration in line with this humanistic tradition. In the field of science, too, there is a clash of the old and the new, and what Viko means is no longer an opposition to the "school", but a special opposition to contemporary science. The critical science of modern times has its advantages, which he does not dispute, but indicates their limits. The wisdom of the ancients, their desire for prudence (prudentia) and eloquence (eloquentia), according to Vico, did not lose their significance in the face of this new science and its mathematical methods. When applied to the problems of education, they turn out to be nothing but the formation of common sense, nourished not by the true, but by the probable. Here the following is important for us: in this connection, common sense clearly means not only the general ability that every person has, but at the same time and a sense of community.

believes that the direction of the human will is given not by the abstract community of reason, but by the concrete general, the community of a group, people, nation or the entire human race. The development of this general feeling is thus of decisive importance for life.

On this general sense of truth and right, which is not fundamentally knowledge, but allows one to find a guiding light, Vico bases the meaning of eloquence and its right to independence. After all, education cannot follow the path of critical research. Youth needs images for the development of fantasy and memory. But this is precisely what the study of the sciences in the spirit of modern criticism does not provide. Thus, for Vico, the old topic pushes Cartesian criticism aside. Topeka is the art of finding arguments, it serves to develop a sense of conviction that functions instinctively and instantly (ex tempore), and that is why it cannot be replaced by science.

These definitions of Vico reveal their apologetics. They indirectly recognize the new, truthful concept of science, but at the same time they exclusively defend the right to the existence of the probable. In this Vico, as we have seen, follows an ancient rhetorical tradition dating back to Plato. But what Vico implies goes far beyond rhetorical persuasion. In fact, here, as we have already said, the Aristotelian opposition of practical and theoretical knowledge operates here, which cannot be reduced to the opposition of true and probable. Practical Knowledge, "phronesis" is another type of knowledge 27. This means in the end that it is directed to a specific situation. Therefore, it requires taking into account "circumstances" in their infinite variety. This is what Vico emphatically stands out for; however, he pays attention only to the fact that this knowledge departs from rational concept knowledge. But in reality this is not the ideal of Quietism. The Aristotelian opposition also means something other than just the opposition of knowledge based on general principles and knowledge of the concrete, something other than just the ability to subsume the individual under the general, which we call "the ability to judge." Rather, it has a positive ethical motive, which is part of the Roman Stoic doctrine of common sense. Awareness and sensual overcoming of a particular situation requires such a summing up under the general, that is, the goal pursued in order to achieve what is right. Follow-

Indeed, such submission already has as its precondition the direction of the will, and this signifies sensible being (εξιζ). Hence "phronesis", according to Aristotle, is "spiritual virtue". He sees in it not just an ability, but the certainty of sensual being, which cannot exist without the totality of the "ethical virtues", and vice versa, they cannot exist without it. Although the manifestation of this virtue causes discrimination between right and wrong, it is not just a practical mind and general resourcefulness. Its distinction between the appropriate and the inappropriate always includes the distinction between the appropriate and the inappropriate, and implies a certain moral position, which in turn develops.

This is the motive that Aristotle developed against the Platonic "idea of ​​the good" and which, in fact, Vico's appeal to common sense points to. In scholasticism, for example, for Thomas Aquinas, common sense - in the development of the ideas of the treatise "On the Soul" 28 - is the common root of external feelings, as well as the ability to combine them to judge the given, which is inherent in all people 29. For Vico, on the contrary, common sense - it is a feeling of correctness and common good that lives in all people, but even more so it is a feeling received thanks to the commonality of life, thanks to its way of life and goals. There is an echo of natural law in this concept, as in κοι,ναί εννοιαι (general ideas) Stop. But common sense in this sense is not a Greek concept and does not at all imply χοινή δΰναμις (general ability), which Aristotle speaks of in On the Soul when he tries to draw a parallel between the doctrine of specific feelings (αΐσΦησις ίσια) and the phenomenological state , which shows any perception as a distinction between the general and as a judgment about it. Vico rather relies on the ancient Roman concept of sensus communie, as it appears in the Roman classics, who, in contrast to Greek education, adhered to the values ​​and meaning of their own traditions of state and public life. Consequently, already in the Roman concept of common sense one can hear a critical note directed against the theoretical speculations of philosophers, and Vico picks it up in his opposition to contemporary science (critica).

One has only to substantiate historical and philological studies and the specifics of work in the field of the humanities on this concept of common sense, as soon as

something that clarifies the problem. For the subject of these sciences, the moral and historical existence of man, outlined in his works and deeds, is in itself decisively determined by common sense. Thus, the conclusion from the general and the proof on the grounds cannot be sufficient, because the circumstances are decisive. But this is just a negative wording. There is actually positive knowledge mediated by common sense. The type of historical knowledge is by no means exhausted by the assumption of "faith in evidence from outside" (Tetens 30) in place of "self-conscious inference" (Helmholtz). It is also not at all a matter of ascribing to such knowledge only a limited truth value. D "Alembert rightly wrote: "Probability mainly refers to the field of historical facts and in general to all past, present and future events that we attribute to some kind of chance, because we cannot find out their causes. That part of this kind of consciousness that relates to the present and the past, even if it is based on mere evidence, often produces in us a conviction as strong as that which axioms give rise to" 31.

Moreover, history is a completely different source of truth than theoretical reason. Cicero already had this in mind when he called it the life of memory (vita mémo-pae). Convincing examples are rather adapted for this, which only history can provide. That is why Bacon calls history, which gives such examples, another way of philosophizing (alia ratio philosophandi).

This is also quite a negative wording. But we will see that in all these evolutions of the concept, the mode of being of sensible knowledge seen by Aristotle can be traced. The recollection of this turns out to be important for the proper self-awareness of the humanities.

Vico's return to the Roman concept of common sense and his defense of humanistic rhetoric against contemporary science are of particular interest to us, since here we are approaching the moment of truth of humanitarian knowledge, which is no longer accessible to nineteenth-century science. Vico lived in the untouched tradition of rhetorical-humanistic education, and he only had to renew the full significance of its timeless

rights. After all, it has long been known that the possibilities of rational proof and doctrine do not completely exhaust the scope of knowledge. In this regard, Vico's appeal to common sense, as we have seen, appears in a broad context that extends all the way to antiquity, and its ongoing influence to this day is the subject of our study 34.

We, on the contrary, have to work hard for ourselves Return trip to this tradition; Let us first turn to the difficulties that the application encounters. modern concept method to the field of the humanities. To this end, let us study how this tradition fell into decay and how, at the same time, the problem of the truth of humanitarian knowledge fell under the standards of the methodological thinking of modern science, which is alien to it in its essence.

In this evolution, essentially conditioned by the German " historical school”, Vico and the uninterrupted rhetorical tradition of Italy did not play directly at all decisive role. Vico's influence on the 18th century is barely perceptible. But in his desire to turn to the concept of common sense, he was not alone. An essential parallel was Shaftesbury, whose influence in the eighteenth century was enormous. Under the name of common sense, Shaftesbury pays homage to the social significance of wit and humor and emphatically refers to the Roman classics and their humanistic interpreters. However, it is impossible to dispute the correctness of the humanistic interpretation, based on the Roman classics, which Shaftesbere follows. According to him, humanists interpreted common sense as an understanding of the common good, but also as a commitment to the community or society, as natural feelings, humanity, courtesy. They connected all this with one word in Marcus Aurelius - κοινονοημοσΰνη 36, denoting the unity of the common mind. Here we see an extremely rare artificial word, and this testifies in a fundamental way "that the concept of common sense does not at all originate from Greek philosophy, that the conceptual echo of Stoic philosophy is heard in it only as an overtone. The humanist Salmasius describes the content of this word as “moderate, conventional and proper human reason, which in every possible way cares about the general

important affairs, and does not turn everything to his own benefit, and also has respect from those with whom he communicates; thinks of himself modestly and softly. Therefore, it is not so much a mechanism of natural law, given to all people, but a social virtue, moreover a virtue of the heart than of the mind; this is what Shaftesbury means. And when he analyzes wit and humor from these positions, then in this he also follows the ancient Roman concepts, which included in humanitas life refinement, the behavior of a person who understands a lot about pleasures and fun and "indulges in them, because he is confident in the partner's deep solidarity. (Shaftesbury confines wit and humor exclusively to secular companionship.) If common sense appears here almost as a social everyday virtue, then in fact it must imply some moral and even metaphysical basis.

Shaftesbury has in mind the spiritual and social virtue of mutual understanding (sympathy), on which, as you know, he bases not only morality, but all aesthetic metaphysics. His followers, above all Hutcheson 37 and Hume, developed this proposition in the doctrine of common sense, which was later ridiculed in Kantian ethics.

The concept of common sense in the philosophy of the Scottish school, which is polemically directed against metaphysics, as well as against its variant diluted with skepticism, has acquired a truly central systematic function and builds its own new system on the basis of the original and natural judgment of common sense (Thomas Reid) 38 . Undoubtedly, the Aristotelian-skeptical conceptual tradition of common sense manifested itself here. The study of the senses and their cognitive achievements is drawn from this tradition and is ultimately intended to serve as a correction of exaggerations in philosophical speculation. But at the same time, the notion of common sense focuses on society: "It serves to guide us in public affairs or in public life when our powers of reasoning leave us in the dark." The philosophy of a healthy human mind (good sensé) of the representatives of the Scottish school acts not only as a remedy against the "sleepwalking" of metaphysics, it also contains the foundations of a moral philosophy that truly satisfies the vital needs of society.