Философские науки
УДК 01.1:800
Rethinking metaphysics today
Тинякова Елена Александровна
кандидат философских наук, доцент
НОУ Сергиево-Посадский гуманитарный институт,
кафедра иностранных языков
e-mail elena-cathy@yandex.ru
тел. 8 915 023 02 46
Аннотация. Метафизика как синоним философии утвердилась в ХVII
веке. Сейчас в переходе науки от классического знания к неклассическому
изменилась и трактовка метафизики как философии науки. Понятие
метафизики соотносится с синергетикой, понятием симметрии. Понятие
метафизики базируется на понятии человека. Поэтому философия
метафизики ставится в диалог с философской антропологией.
Ключевые слова: философия, метафизика, природа, наука,
классическое знание, неклассическое знание, симметрия, синергетика,
универсум, человек, познание.
Metaphysical conception of the universe got its philosophical shape in the
XVII-th century thanks to the idea of God, grasping the volume of human cognition
by that time. God was the absolute objective creative meaning of the world. At that
time the Earth, which held dominance in the solar system structure, was
considered the main object of God's creation in the universe. Thanks to Newton's
gravitation law the Earth focused the cosmic forces. Eternity was interpreted as the
absolute factor of nature. Human cognition searched for stability in understanding
nature which helped to sort out positive and negative natural processes. The global
law in understanding nature - the law of opposition - went from ancient times.
Human cognition held in changeability, absolute parameters in interpreting nature
as support in epistemology up to the beginning of the XX-th century.
Nowadays the basis of metaphysics is changeability, instability and relativity
of the world of nature thanks to blessing human cognition process by A. Einstein
in his theory of relativity. The wave qualities of material result in constant
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dynamics of our universe and deny the opposition between substance and energy.
According to quantum theory in similar experiments with similar objects we get
different results. The three principles of quantum theory are: uncertainty,
supplementarity, probability. The Copenhagen position in quantum theory denies
"reason-consequence relation" in the world's development and postulates in
determinability. Chance rules contemporary cognition process. Information space
develops in the form of collecting all varieties and variabilities of our universe.
This is one of the reasons of contemporary information crisis. Sometimes varieties
of one process or object go very far from one another and we have then to
recognize opposite positions in research. If in classic metaphysics the source of
development lay in natural oppositions of our universe, in our times the stimulus
for nature development lies in human knowledge itself. We build our dialogue
with nature from opposite positions and hence get opposite results.
Here it is just time to refer to the role of symmetry and synergetic in
contemporary research and contemporary conception of metaphysics. E.Noether
formulated the theoretical principle of symmetry in her theorem (1918): if any
system is invariant in relation to some global transformation, then it has a certain
quantity, having a preserving function. Examples of external symmetry: laws of
preserving energy, impulse, moment of impulse. Examples of internal symmetry:
global calibration symmetry of the electromagnetic field and as a consequence the
law of preserving the electric charge. Symmetry as a philosophical category in
contemporary metaphysics means the process of existing and generating identity
moments in certain conditions and certain relations among various and
contradictory conditions of world processes.
The essential point of contemporary metaphysic is synergetic. It began
getting dominance in research since the 70-ies of the XX-th century. Synergetic
drives the laws of nature from the anthropological space. The methodological
positions, which synergetic gives to human cognition, are the following:
-destruction and creation, degradation and evolution are equal in
significance; -complexity and getting in order grow further and further in
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distance from each other;
-chaos is not only destructive, but also creative;
-linear development, which is realized in the reason-result chain, is rather an
exception;
-non-linear development predominates in evolution, that is many factors
work in the form of syncretic entity;
-development is guided by chance, a chance is built into the essence of
evolution. Synergetic approach to contacts with nature gives a new type of
experiment: the one who makes an experiment changes his role of an outward
observer to a component of being experimented reality. Observation is gradually
losing its authority in research. A chance in contradiction to a reason in
synergetics should be understood as bringing laws of nature beyond the
anthropological cognitive space.
Quantum theory turns into information theory: relations among particles are
realized by transporting information, specific fields being its carriers.
The contemporary metaphysics explains "nothignness' in a new way:
vacuum is a dynamic system having intensive fluctuations, which are the source of
materia and energy. Vacuum is the energy condition of the quantum field.
According to the formula by de Broile every object with the mass "m" and the
velocity "v" is realized in the form of a wave.
The process of annihilation between an electron and a positron gives two
photons. From here proceeds the idea that light is the source of our universe. In
humanitarian sciences light embodies God. This idea is the basis of religious,
Christian first and foremost esthetics. Light is the beginning of our universe. In
ancient times Heraclitus stated: cosmos is organism of fire.
The principle of the unity of our universe has a different interpretation in
contemporary metaphysics. It can be proved by the chemical law of stability of
composition: one and the same chemical substance has the same quantitative
composition independent from the way of its producing. This idea is supported by
other basic chemical laws: the law of multiple relations, the law of volume
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relations. The contemporary metaphysics intensifies the idea of interrelation
among particles. According to Bell's theorem there are no isolated systems, every
particle has moment relations with the rest of particles. The interpretation of the
universe proves endless variability of the world of nature. It is better to explain
how human cognition has come to this interpretation, referring to the philosophical
notion of space. There are three main conceptions of space in the history of
science: -space as the unchangeable carrier of materia (Newton);
-space determined by the qualities of various representations of materia
(Leibniz); -every object determines the geometry of space (theory of relativity by
A.Einstein). We have come to the point that time and space from external
categories of cognition in classic metaphysics are being transformed into internal
categories of human cognition in contemporary metaphysics and are rather results
of cognition than the starting points of human cognition.
At last two cardinal differences between classic metaphysics and
contemporary one. The reservoir of human knowledge in classic metaphysics is
the Earth, in contemporary metaphysics it is the Cosmos. Due to the absolute
parameters of the world classic metaphysics makes the illusion of absence of
motion. In marxism-leninism metaphysics was primitively explained as absence of
motion. Contemporary metaphysics is associated with high dynamics of the
universe. Oppositions were the basic source of the world in classic metaphysics,
they explained the development of the world. Contemporary metaphysics
recognizes oppositions of another type: universe/anti-universe, particle/antiparticle (an electron and a positron are the tiniest opposition level recognized by
the human cognition up till now).
Modern anthropology plays a substantial role in rethinking metaphysics
today. Contemporary situation in philosophical anthropology may be defined as
the end of classic philosophical anthropology. Classic anthropology has been
restricted to a man's bodiless. The prelude of destructing classic anthropology was
existentialism with its global question of the dialogue between life and death.
During the 1-st and 2-nd world wars the individuality of a man's life was wiped off.
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The second factor of destructing classic anthropology was the creation of artificial
intellect. A man tried to make a model of human thinking activity. The sign and
symbolic character of human language helped to do it; technical means used signs
and symbols of human language. Another approach to artificial model of thinking
activity and biological structure of a man as a whole is digital processing of brain
activity. The world outlook is transformed into energetic level. The dialogue of
field and substance, researched by physicists, leads to dematerialization of the
world of things. The biological image of a man is presented by the dialogue:
reason and biofield. Primitive reason is detected even in a cluster of bacteria,
today – nanobacteria. All living things of the biosphere are united together and a
huge thinking space is created, which has been being produced for one milliard
years. Here also belong aspirations to establish contacts with other worlds of
reason in the universe. These aspirations are based on the conception of human
language, but the portions of thought, sent into cosmos, surpass the anthropologic
space.
Classic philosophical anthropology ends and is transformed into non-classic
anthropology:
-human individuality is destroyed;
-harmony in human space is distorted;
-meaning loses its anthropological background, realized in human bodiless;
-the conception of BIOS is devoid of social characteristics.
The anthropological crisis of a post-modernist man is realized in broken,
fragmentary conscience. Brook-Rose, an English critic, makes a pessimistic
conclusion of the dissolving of a literary character. He mentions five reasons of
crashing the traditional character: epistemology crisis, epistemology uncertainty,
loss of popularity of the literary genres with distinct plots, growth of popularity of
popular genres with elements of primitivism, influence of mass media. Life
experience in the XX-th century is overwhelmed with horror and insanity.
Philosophers display a keen interest to the border between logical human intellect
and non-anthropological meaning, it is pathologic cases of human communication.
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This interest makes a model of global communication in the universe and removes
the breaks of it beyond human space. Now let's compare the presence of God in
classic and contemporary metaphysics. In the picture of nature, dating to the
XVII-th century, God was the general clock-maker (the metaphor belonging to
Hobbes). He put the clock mechanism into operation and was the supervisor of its
work. In contemporary metaphysics the conception of God is supported by the
dialogue of religion and science. Science is gradual disclosing of nature laws,
scientific information is so numerous in topics that it is impossible to perceive one
focus from which it is being emanated. Today researchers and scientists say that
"unknown force moves our universe". The conception of God in contemporary
metaphysics stands far from concrete religious behavior. It is energy and light.
The very conception of God is a scientific.
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