Cognition- creative activity of the subject, focused on obtaining reliable knowledge about the world. Cognition is an essential characteristic of the existence of culture and, depending on its functional purpose, the nature of knowledge and the corresponding means and methods, it can be carried out in the following forms: everyday, mythological, religious, artistic, philosophical and scientific.
Cognition begins with sensory (sensation, perception, representation), then logical (concept, judgment, conclusion). Judgments have general form and are language independent. Inferences lead to the acquisition of new knowledge. In induction, verification is required, since the induction is not complete. Deduction requires verification of the original postulate.
Scientific knowledge is formed on the basis of the ordinary.
Peculiarities scientific knowledge:
1. The main task of scientific knowledge is the discovery of objective laws of reality- natural, social (public) laws of cognition itself, thinking, etc. This is the main feature of science, its main feature.
2. Based on the knowledge of the laws of functioning and development of the objects under study science predicts the future for the purpose of further practical development of reality.
3. The immediate goal and highest value of scientific knowledge is Objective truth comprehended predominantly by rational means and methods, but not without the participation of living contemplation and non-rational means.
4.An essential feature of cognition is its systemic nature.. Without a system it is not science.
5. Science is characterized by constant methodological reflection. This means that in it the study of objects, the identification of their specificity, properties and relationships is always accompanied - to one degree or another - by the awareness of the methods and techniques by which these objects are studied.
6. Scientific knowledge is characterized by strict evidence, the validity of the results obtained, the reliability of the conclusions. Knowledge for science is evidence-based knowledge. Knowledge must be supported by facts.
7. Scientific knowledge is a complex, contradictory process of production and reproduction new knowledge, forming an integral and developing system of concepts, theories, hypotheses, laws and other ideal forms, fixed in the language. The process of continuous self-renewal by science of its conceptual and methodological arsenal is an important indicator (criterion) of scientific character.
8. Knowledge, claiming the status of scientific, must allow the fundamental possibility of empirical verification. The process of establishing the truth of scientific statements through observation and experiment is called verification, and the process of establishing their falsity is falsification. An important condition for this is the orientation scientific activity to criticize their own results.
9. In the process of scientific knowledge, such specific material resources as devices, instruments, other so-called "scientific equipment", often very complex and expensive (synchrophasotrons, radio telescopes, rocket and space technology, etc.).
10. The subject of scientific activity has specific characteristics- individual researcher, scientific community, "collective subject". Engaging in science requires special training of the cognizing subject, during which he masters the existing stock of knowledge, the means and methods for obtaining it, the system of value orientations and goals specific to scientific knowledge, and ethical principles.
These criteria are met protective function, protect science from delirium. scientific knowledge is a concrete historical system of criteria. It is constantly changing and the given set is not constant. There is also a criterion of logical consistency, the principles of simplicity, beauty, heuristics, coherence.
Ordinary knowledge existed from the very beginning of mankind, delivering elementary information about nature and the surrounding reality. The basis was torture Everyday life , which, however, unsystematic character. Is an source layer any knowledge. Ordinary knowledge: common sense, and signs, and edifications, and recipes, and personal experience, and traditions.
Its feature is that it used by a person almost unconsciously and in its application, does not require prior evidence systems.
Another feature of it is fundamentally unwritten character. A scientist, while remaining a scientist, does not cease to be just a man.
A special form of extra-scientific knowledge is the so-called folk science which has now become the case individual groups or individual subjects: healers, healers, psychics, and earlier shamans, priests, elders of the family. Folk science exists and is transmitted in an unwritten form from teacher to student. It is possible to single out the condensate of folk science in the form of covenants, signs, instructions, rituals, etc.
In the picture of the world offered by folk science, the circulation of the powerful elements of being is of great importance. Nature acts as a "home of man", and man, in turn, as an organic part of him, through which constantly pass lines of force world cycle. It is believed that folk sciences are addressed, on the one hand, to the most elementary, and on the other hand, to the most vital spheres of human activity, such as: health, agriculture, cattle breeding, construction.
artistic activity irreducible entirely to knowledge. Artistically mastering reality in its various forms (painting, music, theater, etc.), satisfying the aesthetic needs of people, art simultaneously cognizes the world, and man creates it - including according to the laws of beauty. The structure of any work of art always includes in one form or another certain knowledge about nature, about different people and their characters, about certain countries and peoples, about culture, customs, mores, life, about their feelings, thoughts, etc. .
A specific form of assimilation of reality in art is artistic image, thinking in images, "feeling thought". Science is mastering the world, first of all in abstraction system.
The specificity of religious knowledge consists not only in the ability to transcend. to go beyond the limits of sensually tangible reality and the recognition of another ("supernatural") world - in other words, God or gods.
Features of religious knowledge are determined by the fact that it is due to direct emotional form of human relations to the earthly forces (natural and social) dominating them. Being a fantastic reflection of the latter, religious ideas contain certain knowledge about reality, although often false. Sufficiently wise and deep treasury of religious and other knowledge, accumulated by people for centuries and millennia, are, for example, the Bible and the Koran. However, religion (like mythology) did not produce knowledge in systematic and especially theoretical form. It has never performed and does not perform the function of producing objective knowledge that is universal, holistic, self-valuable and evidence-based. If religious knowledge is characterized by the combination emotional attitude to the world with faith in the supernatural, then the essence of scientific knowledge is rationality, which contains both emotions and faith as subordinate moments.
The most important concept of religion and religious knowledge is Vera. In this regard, we note that two aspects should be distinguished in the concept of "faith": a) religious faith; b) faith as confidence (trust, conviction), i.e. what has not yet been verified is not proven at the moment, in various forms of scientific knowledge, and above all in hypotheses. This belief is and will always remain the main motive of all scientific creativity.
Features of philosophical knowledge lie in the fact that special sciences study their own fragment of being(comprehension of certain issues), and philosophy seeks to study world at large, looking for the causes of everything (holistic comprehension).
Private sciences are turned to existing phenomena objectively, outside of man, and philosophy is formulated as a question of attitude man to the world.
A private specialist does not think How did his discipline come about?, and the philosophy of science is aimed at identifying reliable foundations, which could serve as a reference point.
Science is directed towards description and explanation of the processes of reality, and philosophy on comprehension such problems as the world and man, fate, cultures, the nature of knowledge, etc.
Types of cognition
Based on this, there are several types of knowledge:
Mythological - a type of cognition characteristic of primitive culture (a type of holistic pre-theoretical explanation of reality with the help of sensually visual images, supernatural beings, legendary heroes, who for the bearer of mythological cognition appear as real participants in his daily life). Mythological knowledge is characterized by personification, personification complex concepts in the images of gods and anthropomorphism.
Religious - the object of religious knowledge in monotheistic religions, that is, in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, is God, who manifests himself as a Subject, a Personality. The act of religious knowledge, or the act of faith, has a personalistic-dialogical character.
The goal of religious knowledge in monotheism is not the creation or refinement of a system of ideas about God, but the salvation of man, for whom the discovery of the existence of God is at the same time an act of self-discovery, self-knowledge and forms in his mind the demand for moral renewal.
Philosophical - is a special type of holistic knowledge of the world. The specificity of philosophical knowledge is the desire to go beyond fragmented reality and find the fundamental principles and foundations of being, to determine the place of man in it. Philosophical knowledge is based on certain philosophical premises. It includes: epistemology, ontology.
In the process of philosophical cognition, the subject seeks not only to understand being and a person’s place in it, but also to show what they should be, that is, it seeks to create an ideal, the content of which will be determined by the worldview postulates chosen by the philosopher. Philosophical knowledge is part of the scientific.
Scientific philosophical knowledge is the development of a theoretical picture of the world.
Problems of Truth
Truth is a correct, adequate reflection of objects and phenomena of reality by the cognizing subject; the being of that being, which is called "true", that is, "true" is corresponding to the actual state of things. At the same time, it is obvious that there are undiscovered, unknown truths, and perhaps truths that a person cannot comprehend in principle.
The problem of truth is directly related to the worldview positions of the researcher, his paradigm affiliation, rooted in the mind, where the paradigm is the initial conceptual scheme, the model for posing problems and solving them, research methods that dominated during a certain historical period in the scientific community.
consciousness as an active reflection of objective reality is the regulation practical activities person in the world around him.
There are two global paradigms emanating from the main question of philosophy: what is the primary idea or matter - idealistic and materialistic. Depending on which paradigm is supported by the scientist, this is his interpretation of truth and true knowledge.
Thus, the materialistic concept of truth says that the content of our knowledge, ideas and concepts, which corresponds to reality, is confirmed by practice and does not depend on the subject. The assertion of natural science that the earth existed before man is an objective truth. So, from the point of view of positivism, the philosophical direction, all the laws of nature and society are objective truth, since they are correctly known, correspond to objective reality and are confirmed by the socio-historical practice of mankind. Our knowledge is objective in its source, in origin, and, being a reflection of the objective world in the human mind, has the character of objective truth. Without the recognition of objective truth, there is no science. This shows that the scientific worldview is associated with the recognition of objective truth. This also takes into account the relativity of truth. The relativity of truth is determined, first of all, by the fact that the world is in eternal and endless development and change. Our knowledge of the world is also developing and deepening. Knowledge develops infinitely, progressively. The relativity of truth also follows from its concreteness.
So, the eternal movement and development of the world, reflected in our knowledge, the dependence of truth on conditions - all this determines the relativity of truth. Recognition of the absolute existence of the external world inevitably leads to the recognition of absolute truth. Human thinking by its very nature is able to give us and gives us absolute truth. Absolute knowledge is contained in every science: insofar as our knowledge is objective, there is a grain of the absolute in it. Absolute and relative truth are two moments of objective truth, different in the degree of accuracy and completeness. In every objective relative truth is a particle of absolute truth, as a reflection of eternal, absolute nature. All true knowledge of nature is knowledge of the eternal, the infinite, and therefore it is essentially absolute. But absolute truth is made up of an infinite sum of relative truths discovered by developing science and practice. The limits of relative scientific truth can be expanded by new discoveries. Truth is always refined, replenished and reflects the infinite material world more and more fully and correctly. That is, positivism proceeds from the given, factual, stable, undoubted, and limits its research and presentation to them, and considers metaphysical (idealistic) explanations to be theoretically unrealizable and practically useless.
From the point of view of the idealistic paradigm, there is a truth that a person cannot rationally explain and cognize, he can only comprehend and accept it through faith, without empirical experience.
Sense cognition It relies on images that arise in the mind as a result of the activity of the five basic human senses - sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch.
The forms of sensory cognition include:
- an elementary sensory image that reflects individual, single properties of an object. It is possible to sense taste, color, smell, sound, etc. in isolation. For example, a lemon is characterized by sensations of acidity, yellowness, etc.;
- displaying not individual properties, but their system, integrity. For example, we perceive a lemon not as acid or yellowness, but as a whole object. Our perception of a lemon includes its color, and its taste, and its smell in an inseparable unity: it does not imply the work of a single sense, but the coordinated activity of several or all of the main senses;
Representation - sensual image of an object that arises in the mind in the absence of this object. For example, if we have ever seen a lemon, we may well imagine it, even if it is not in front of us and cannot affect our senses. Memory, memories, as well as the imagination of a person play an important role in the representation. Representation can be called the perception of an object in its absence. The possibility of representation and its proximity to perception are due to the fact that sensory images do not arise in the sense organs, but in the cerebral cortex. Therefore, the direct presence of an object is not a necessary condition for the emergence of a sensual image.
However, sensory knowledge is not enough to know the laws of the existence of the world.
rational cognition
Rational knowledge, based on abstract thinking, allows a person to go beyond the limited scope of feelings.
The forms of rational knowledge include:
concept- a thought that reflects objects, phenomena and connections between them in a generalized form. For example, the concept of "" is not identical to a simple sensual image of a particular person, but denotes in a generalized form the thought of any person - whoever he may be. Similarly, the concept of "table" includes images of all tables - of various shapes, sizes, colors, and not any specific image of the table. Thus, the concept captures not individual features of an object, but its essence, in particular, in the case of a table, its functions, use (an inverted box can also be included in the concept of “table”, if it is used in this capacity);
Judgment - it is the negation or affirmation of something with the help of concepts. In a judgment, a connection is established between two concepts. For example, "Gold is metal";
inference- reasoning, in the course of which another is deduced from one judgment - premises, the final judgment - a conclusion.
The main directions in the theory of knowledge
IN theory of knowledge there is no consensus about what the decisive role in cognition belongs to - feelings or reason.
Sensationalism
Sensationalists they believe that new knowledge can only be obtained on the basis of, and the mind is closed in the sphere of what is already known. In a conclusion, a conclusion based on reason and the laws of logic does not give any increment of knowledge in comparison with premises. For example, what new knowledge do we get from the conclusion "Gold conducts electricity" if we already know that "All metals are electrically conductive"? Moreover, the conclusion that metals are electrically conductive cannot be reached by reason alone. To do this, you need to conduct appropriate experiments. Therefore, sensory experience and feelings are primary and go ahead of any logical reasoning.
Rationalism
Rationalists(supporters of the primacy of reason in knowledge) point out that data based on sensory experience are unreliable.
For example, experience confirms that every time a thrown stone flies down, but this does not yet prove that after the next throw it will not be able to fly up. Proof requires reason and theoretical calculations (in this case, the theory of gravity). Experience and feelings have deceived mankind many times. This applies, in particular, to ideas about the shape of the Earth or about the rotation of the Sun around the Earth. Moreover, without the preliminary help of the mind, the senses cannot receive any new data. A scientist who does not use reason, but relies only on feelings, will collect everything he sees, but the scattered facts of an extralogical connection with each other will be anything but science. Experience is theoretically loaded: any experiment or scientific observation imply a reasonable hypothesis and purpose, otherwise they are meaningless. Therefore, reason and logical reasoning are primary and go ahead of all feelings and experience.
Both sensationalism and rationalism give a positive answer to the question of the knowability of the world. This position is called optimistic. In the theory of knowledge, it has also been developed pessimistic the position that the world is unknowable.
Skepticism
Skepticism expresses a pessimistic position and, in principle, does not deny the possibility of knowing the world, but doubts that this is possible with the help of the means that we have. The Persian poet Omar Khayyam (1048-1122) wrote about the world like this:
- Everything. what you see. - visibility is only one,
- Only the form - and the essence is not visible to anyone.
- Do not try to understand the meaning of these pictures -
- Sit quietly aside and drink some wine.
The foundations for skeptical argumentation were proposed by the philosophers of Ancient Greece:
- Feelings cannot be trusted different people there may be different sensations, for example, what one likes, causes disgust in another;
- feelings cannot be trusted also due to the fact that the sense organs constantly deceive us, for example, the refraction of the image of an object at the border of air and water creates an optical illusion;
- reason cannot be trusted, since any proof relies on data that also needs to be proven, and so on ad infinitum; consequently, nothing can be proved, unless unproven axioms or dogmas are taken for granted.
Agnosticism
IN agnosticism(from the Greek agnostos - unknowable) presents a stronger version of pessimism. This trend denies the cognizability of the objective world. A striking example of agnosticism is, according to which the real world is fundamentally unknowable. All that we can know is only the world of appearances, distorted beyond recognition by our feelings and experience.
Modern science adheres to an optimistic view of knowledge. The world is cognizable, scientists believe, and although absolute truth is unattainable, with each new scientific discovery we are getting closer to it.
What is considered primary in the process - feelings or reason? Although sensationalism and rationalism contradict each other, they are usually considered as complementary directions, constituting a unity. In this perspective, the question of the primacy of feelings or reason in cognition is removed, and they can be considered as two sides of a single process of cognition of the world.
The problem of cognition is one of the most important that philosophy deals with, along with such problems as the essence of being, man and society. Its solution is closely related, and often directly dependent on how the problems of being are solved.
Consider the ancient Greek materialist philosopher Democritus. All things are made up of the smallest indivisible particles - atoms. And the soul is also made of atoms. The thinnest shells - eidos - are separated from things. The eidos of Democritus is the material form of a thing. Getting into a person through the eyes, eidos are imprinted on the soul, like a seal on soft wax. Thus, two processes determine cognition: the outflow of eidos and their imprinting on the soul. But Democritus does not stop there. He recognizes the active activity of the mind. First, the mind corrects sensory images - imprints. After all, eidos can be deformed until they reach the soul. Secondly, the mind allows you to know what lies deeper, what is behind external impressions, behind sensory imprints. It is the mind that is able to see atoms invisible to the eye, it is the mind that is able to present the plurality of worlds to people living in this world. Therefore, Democritus divides knowledge into two types: dark, realizable by the senses, and light, realizable by the mind. In addition to this division ancient Greek philosophers liked to use the antithesis: in truth and in opinion. The first is what philosophy gives, rising above the ordinary views of uneducated people. The second is the opinion of the crowd. According to Democritus, according to opinion, there are different things, but in truth - only atoms and emptiness, because atoms and emptiness are the inner basis of the existence of any things.
The modern theory of knowledge does not oppose the sense organs, as an instrument of knowledge, to the mind, the ability of a person to give a logical, conceptual picture of the world. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the sense organs give only an external picture of the phenomena studied by man. Alogical means of cognition allow, on the basis of socio-historical practice, to penetrate into the essence of the phenomena and events of the world around us. This fact in the difference between the means of cognition was recorded by ancient thinkers in the form of the antithesis of feeling - the mind.
Aristotle developed the problems of the theory of knowledge in a rather rigorous form. He paid great attention to the analysis of inferential knowledge. The syllogistic of Aristotle determined the development of logic for many centuries. The group of logical works of Aristotle was already united in antiquity and received the name "Organon", that is, an instrument for obtaining true knowledge.
In modern times, the theory of knowledge received impulses for development. F. Bacon stood at the origins of this process with his remarkable work, the critical nature of which is already reflected in its very title: The New Organon. The purpose of this essay is to develop a doctrine of the method of knowing the laws of nature. Knowledge is power. This thesis of Bacon has not lost its significance today. But only true knowledge has power. Bacon discussed whole line questions of great importance for the development of the theory of knowledge. We will note only some of them.
He proposed that the basis of knowledge be considered not the old authorities, not church "holy writings", but the experimental study of nature. How to organize experiments and analyze their results; what is the relationship between theory and empirical research; how to form initial concepts; what are the characteristic delusions (idols, false images) that stand in the way of scientific knowledge - one enumeration of the problems and questions proposed by Bacon for consideration testifies to the breadth and depth of his approaches to the process of scientific knowledge, to the search for truth.
Offering the program of the “Great Restoration of the Sciences”, Bacon begins with a critique of dogmatism, primarily the dogmatism of Holy Scripture, which for centuries was regarded as absolutely true knowledge and, in essence, the only source of knowledge, and the dogmatism of medieval Aristotelianism. Doubt in the authorities, overcoming the "ghosts of the theater" - this is the first task, without the solution of which it is impossible to build a new science.
The principle of doubt was adopted by Descartes. But in Descartes it acquires the meaning of a fundamental principle of the theory of knowledge. Inferential knowledge needs unconditionally true initial premises. In geometry, this is a system of axioms formulated by Euclid. And what about philosophy? In order to reach such beginnings that cannot be doubted, one must doubt everything, absolutely everything, even that there is a sun and stars, there is an earth and a sky, there is own hands and legs. But, doubting everything, one cannot get away from doubt itself, and doubt is a certain thought, which means that the thinking soul, doubting the existence of anything, undoubtedly exists itself. Hence the conclusion, the thesis, which can and should be taken as the basis of philosophy as a starting point in the construction of a true philosophical system: “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito ergo sum).
Our delusions are due to the misuse of the faculties of knowledge and the lack of a method for ensuring their correct application. Axioms are propositions, the truth of which is directly and immediately visible, obvious to our mind. They are the basis of knowledge. All other knowledge should be deduced from them by deductive means. Deduction is the path to truth (note that for Bacon, the main way to obtain true knowledge was induction: the path of movement from individual facts obtained in experience to general conclusions).
In the Discourse on Method, Descartes proposes the following rules of knowledge: 1) admit as true only such statements that are clearly and distinctly presented to the mind and cannot cause any doubts; 2) dismember challenging tasks into parts that are simpler and more accessible for solution; 3) consistently move from the known and proven to the unknown and unproven; and 4) avoid skipping links in the chain of logical reasoning. The application of these rules will provide true knowledge.
It is easy to see that all the arguments of Descartes concern primarily the activity of the mind. And this kind of system was called rationalism (from the Latin racio - reason). And theories of knowledge, which asserted that the entire content of our knowledge is determined by what is given to a person in feelings, in sensations and impressions, received the name of sensationalism (from the Latin sensus - feeling, sensation). The largest representative of this trend was the English philosopher J. Locke. The opposition of sensationalism and rationalism largely determined the nature of philosophical research in the field of epistemology in the 17th and 18th centuries.
However, already during this period, some ideas were expressed, the development of which determined new directions in the theory of knowledge. In this regard, the activities of the German philosopher G. W. Leibniz should be noted. He gave an assessment of the available knowledge, made a classification of truths, trying to combine the theses of rationalism and the theses of empiricism and sensationalism.
The attention shown by Leibniz to the fundamental problems of logic and mathematics determined the appearance of such his work as "On the Art of Combinatorics". Leibniz put forward the idea of creating an alphabet of thoughts with which one could classify truths, just as Aristotle classified concepts using a system of categories. If you create a system of signs for thoughts, similar to the system of numbers in the science of numbers (in arithmetic), and use formulas that determine the truth or falsity of statements in a similar way algebraic equations, then it is possible to develop a formal combinatorics that makes it possible to find truths or to determine cases when the statement will inevitably turn out to be false. Thus, the idea of a universal science, expressed by Bacon and Descartes, received from Leibniz the form of propositional calculus, which makes it possible to obtain true knowledge in a formally logical way.
One of the notable trends in the theory of knowledge of the XVIII century. there was a trend of agnosticism, i.e., the creation of such philosophical theories that denied the cognizability of the world. The largest representatives of this trend were the English philosopher David Hume and the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Hume's agnosticism was based on the premise that a person can judge anything only on the basis of the impressions that are in his mind, and going beyond the limits of consciousness, beyond the limits of impressions, is theoretically illegal. It turned out that impressions, perceptions fence off a person from the outside world. And Hume thus shuts himself off both from the external world itself, closing in on itself, in its consciousness, and from theories according to which the very impressions of the subject reflect the external world. Hume is likened to a wanderer who finds himself in a foreign country for a masquerade. He sees the whirling of masks, but what is behind each mask, he does not know and, in principle, cannot find out. Therefore, he does not accept the assertions of the materialists that the cause of perception is matter, but equally rejects the assertions of those who believe that the images of the world are given by God. Of course, the external world exists, Hume believes, but we are not allowed to go beyond our own consciousness. Therefore, all sciences are reduced to one, to the science of the soul, to psychology.
Kant's agnosticism, which was discussed in one of the previous chapters, looks somewhat different (see Chapter VI of the second section). In this case, we only note the following. To justify his agnostic position, Kant puts forward two grounds. The first is the position that in the process of cognition we deal only with the phenomenon, and the essence of the thing remains unknown to us. The second is the proposition that when trying to solve metaphysical, i.e., general philosophical, problems, the mind encounters antinomies, i.e., with the possibility of obtaining equally justified, but opposite statements, for example, that the world is infinite and that it is finite. This indicates, Kant thought, that the soul, the cosmos and God are areas that are inaccessible to scientific knowledge. Kant designated the unknowable essence of the world with the special term "thing in itself".
Followers of agnosticism were found not only among philosophers, but also among natural scientists of the 19th century. In this regard, we can point to the English biologist Thomas Huxley (1825-1895), who coined the term "agnosticism" itself. However, the rapid development of industry and natural science by its very course refuted agnostic approaches to solving even the most complex scientific and philosophical problems.
In the middle of the XIX century. a new direction in philosophy arises and develops - dialectical materialism, within which many problems of the theory of knowledge, formulated in the course of the previous development of philosophy, were resolved.
Let us note some essential points in the new theory of knowledge.
First of all, attention should be paid to the fact that the concept of dialectical materialism goes beyond the framework of traditional philosophy, which is closed in the sphere of abstract theoretical thinking, and introduces practice into the basis of the theory of knowledge. This step was taken at an early stage in the development of dialectical materialism. In the "Theses on Feuerbach", written in 1845, K. Marx formulated a number of fundamental provisions. “Public life,” he wrote, “is essentially practical. All mysteries that lead theory into mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the understanding of this practice. The practice primarily includes material production. And although this type of activity is carried out by consciously acting people, its results do not directly depend on consciousness, but depend on the material interactions of labor tools and objects of labor. It is impossible to process a steel casting with a cutter made of soft wood, but only with one that is made of a harder metal or alloy. An aircraft cannot take off if it does not have a sufficiently powerful engine, wings and other design features necessary for aircraft. And only knowledge of the objective laws of aerodynamics, or more broadly - the laws of nature, allows you to create devices, devices and, in general, necessary for a person things.
Practice also includes real transformations of social relations in society, although here the relationship between the activities of people and the knowledge of laws community development are more complex.
We also note that in such an activity as science, which sets as its main goal the knowledge of the objective laws of nature and social development, there are methods of practical action, which primarily include experiment.
It is the practice of mankind that provides the main arguments for the refutation of agnosticism. “If we can prove the correctness of our understanding of a given natural phenomenon by producing it ourselves, calling it from its conditions, forcing it to also serve our goals,” F. Engels wrote, “then Kant’s elusive “thing in itself” comes to an end. » . And further on Engels gives examples from the history of industrial production and from the history of science, confirming the validity of these general conclusions. The introduction of practice as a criterion of truth allowed the philosophy of dialectical materialism to abandon the widespread claim among philosophers for absolute truth as the main goal of the philosophical system being created.
The philosophy of dialectical materialism, having proclaimed the rejection of the eternal, absolute, unchanging truths that were the ideal and goal of knowledge for the previous philosophical systems, of course, does not abandon the tasks of true knowledge of the world, it only orients scientists to the constant development of our ideas about the world, to deepening and expanding these ideas, warning them against declaring particular successes in cognition and the theories arising from this as eternal, unchanging, absolute.
The classification of knowledge in the philosophy of dialectical materialism and, accordingly, the classification of truths is constructed as follows.
First of all, the question of the source of our knowledge is solved. Since matter, which is the main object of knowledge, is objective reality, then the content of our knowledge, correctly reflecting this object, turns out to be independent of the cognizing subject, independent of the individual person and humanity as a whole. Therefore, the concept of "objective truth" is introduced into the theory of knowledge.
Another moment in the theory of knowledge is connected with the problem of completeness, depth and accuracy of reflection of the objects of study. In this case, we are talking about the relationship between the absolute and the relative in cognition, and the concept of "absolute truth" and "relative truth" is introduced. Absolute truth in this case is considered as an exact reflection in consciousness, in the theory of certain objects of knowledge or their properties. As a rule, these will be statements of facts, events in nature or history, such as “today is a frosty day”, “Russia is a multinational country”, etc. And somewhat complex theories and the laws established in them, as a rule, have meaning relative truths. However, in each relative truth there are elements of the absolute, which ensures the process of constant development of the total knowledge of mankind, although certain scientific theories lose their strength and give way to new ones.
Let us consider in more detail the question of the means by which the process of cognition is carried out, by what means the truth is obtained. IN modern philosophy two main forms of cognition are considered: sensory cognition and logical cognition. Sensory cognition appears in the form of images that arise in the human mind as a result of the activity of the sense organs and the central nervous system. These are sensations, perceptions and ideas.
A sensation is an elementary sensory image, for example, a sound that we hear, a color that we see, a feeling of heaviness that we feel when we lift an object, etc.
Perception is a holistic sensory image that we receive from an object when several sense organs work simultaneously.
A representation is a sensual image that arises in our minds in the absence of an object, when we remember this object and, as it were, look through our memory what this object looks like. We can easily imagine our relatives, our friends, our home, even if we are far from them. In representation, we have a generalized sensory image of an object that is not directly related to its perception.
Unlike sensory forms, logical means of cognition do not have to be accompanied by sensory images. Rather, the opposite is true - any sensual image in humans, unlike animals, is accompanied by a logical image.
Elementary forms of logical reflection, inherent in all people, are concepts, judgments and conclusions. A detailed analysis of these forms is given in the course of logic. In addition, in the course of the development of scientific knowledge, special techniques and means have been developed to reproduce and explain complex objects. Moreover, quite often what seems simple and understandable to ordinary consciousness is a complex scientific problem. For example, no one questions the fact that grass and tree leaves are green. But it took a long effort of scientists to answer the question of why the leaves are green and why they turn yellow in autumn.
The most important method of scientific knowledge is an experiment, during which the researcher seeks to get an answer to a particular question. Modern science conducts highly complex experiments that require large and often very expensive instruments.
In the course of the development of science, scientists specialize, so that some become "pure" experimenters, while others become "pure" theorists.
Another important way of knowing is modeling. Models are of different types: models made in the same material, representing an enlarged or reduced copy of an object; models made in another physical material, which are an analogue of the object under study, as well as mental and mathematical models that make it possible to study objects on modern computers. So, for example, when aviation began to develop, the great Russian scientist N. E. Zhukovsky (1847-1921) proposed to study the behavior of an aircraft in a wind tunnel using a reduced copy of the aircraft. Later Soviet academician M. V. Keldysh. (1911-1978) proposed a mathematical model of aircraft behavior in various adverse conditions. Currently, special computer programs, allowing you to design aircraft of optimal shape and study their behavior in various conditions.
It should also be noted that the interpretation of certain phenomena accessible to sensory observation essentially depends on the general system of ideas characteristic of this era. historical development society. In recent years, a special concept has even been introduced into the scientific circulation - a paradigm, which just fixes this circumstance. Let's explain this with an example. Imagine that you are looking at the evening sky and suddenly you see that one of the stars is moving quite quickly across the sky. You can almost certainly say that you will think that this is an airplane flying. This assumption will turn into certainty if you hear the characteristic sound of aircraft engines. Flying on high altitude the plane, illuminated by the sun, looks like a moving star. But if you observe the same picture late at night and besides, you will not hear the noise of the engines, then you will probably decide that you are watching the movement of an artificial satellite of the Earth. Now imagine that a person who lived two or three thousand years ago observes the same picture with you. How would he explain this phenomenon? Most likely, he would have suggested that some god decided to ride a star. And the point is only to establish who this mischievous person is. Because in the system of mythological thinking, the explanation of incomprehensible phenomena of nature was possible only through myths.
Thus, the explanation of the observed facts depends not so much on what exactly we are observing, but on the system in which the observed facts are discussed about the laws of nature and society. The development of science leads to an ever greater separation of knowledge from direct observation, to ever greater abstraction and use of formal systems: mathematical and logical.
The general historical practice of mankind testifies to the fact that there is a constant improvement in knowledge and that in the course of the development of mankind even such theories undergo significant changes that for many centuries were accepted as absolutely true. This applies primarily to mathematics. "Beginnings" of Euclid (111 century BC). in which the first axiomatic exposition of mathematics in the history of science was given, remained a model for many centuries. But at the end of the first third of the last century, the situation began to change. The beginning of this was laid by the Russian mathematician N. I. Lobachevsky (1792-1856), who in 1826 at a meeting of the academic council of Kazan University announced his intention to develop new system geometry in which the V postulate differs from the Euclidean postulate.
In 1829-1830. Lobachevsky publishes his research "On the Principles of Geometry)" in the "Kazan Vestnik". Historians of science compared this step with the publication of Copernicus' work on the rotation of the Earth around the Sun (note that the great German mathematician K. F. Gauss did not dare to publish similar mathematical studies). The point is that Euclid's postulates and all of his geometry fully correspond to the habitual experience of people, are confirmed by this experience, and therefore Euclid's geometry itself seemed to be a science exactly corresponding to nature. And philosophers, such as Spinoza, have tried to build a philosophical system in a geometric way precisely in order to achieve this correspondence.
The geometry of Lobachevsky did not at all correspond to the usual ideas. But at the same time, it was not internally contradictory. The system was logically flawless. But further - more. In 1868, the works of the German mathematician B. Riemann (1826-1866) “On the hypotheses underlying geometry”, by the Italian mathematician E. Beltrami, appeared. (1835-1900) "Experience in the interpretation of non-Euclidean geometry".
Riemann, in particular, developed the idea that it is not at all necessary to consider real planes, lines, figures as an object of geometry, i.e., what is given in sensory perception (as philosophers used to say - primary qualities, because to them attributed the length and figure). The elements of the set on which this or that geometry is realized can simply be some collections of numbers.
It turned out that it is possible to build different non-Euclidean geometries and proceed from different principles. So, Riemann proceeded from the element of length, and Beltrami - from the curvature of space (he believed that a surface like a gramophone pipe serves as a visual way for interpreting Lobachevsky's geometry, because there, on a surface of this type, the relations of this geometry are satisfied). As historians of science note, other mathematicians found new systems of axioms and new structures that underlie the construction of geometry. Thus, a new idea of geometry appeared in mathematics, not connected, as it was before, with direct sensory perception of the macrocosm. Mathematics has moved to a new, higher level of abstraction.
In parallel with the research that changed ideas about geometry in the middle of the 19th century, work began on revising the foundations of arithmetic and applying it in logic mathematical methods. The first to be noted here is the English mathematician and logician George Boole (1815-1864). He proposed to consider logic as an algebra, in which variables can take only two values: zero and one, corresponding to two truth values: false and true. Boole believed that there are some general principles of thinking, which gives grounds for an analogy between logic and algebra. If equations are used in algebra to find the value of an unknown term, then the same should be done in logic, that is, it is necessary to build logical equations to determine unknown logical terms. Thus, a new field of science arose - the algebra of logic, and the implementation of the program for the creation of a universal calculus of truth, proposed by Leibniz, began.
An important stage on this path was the work of the German mathematician Gottlob Frege (1848-1925). In The Calculus of Concepts (1879), he carried out the deductive-axiomatic construction of the logic of propositions and the logic of predicates by means of the formalized language he developed. His idea was that the basic fundamental laws of arithmetic and mathematical analysis can be reduced to the laws of logic. On this basis, a whole trend arose, called logicism. Logicism was developed in the works of the English mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), who, in collaboration with his compatriot Alfred Whitehead (1861-1947), published the work "Principles of Mathematics". In it, they developed the main provisions of the theory of logicism. However, the Austrian logician and mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) proved that it is impossible to completely formalize thinking, that Leibniz's program of complete formalization of thinking is impossible. Gödel also showed that it is impossible to prove the consistency of a formal system by means of the system itself. Gödel thus showed the failure of the central idea of logicism. The excessive claims of logicism to create absolutely true formal-logical systems were rejected.
The storms that raged in the oceans of logic and mathematics were invisible to most people. Wars and revolutions, industrial upsurges and severe crises, loud disputes about the greatness and insignificance of man, nation and peoples drowned out the peals of thunder resounding from the field of abstract sciences. And only sometimes information about the paradoxes of the theory of sets or the theory of relativity flashed like lightning on the distant horizons of public consciousness. However, on the path traversed by logic and mathematics during this period, results were obtained that are of fundamental importance both for these sciences and for philosophy - results without which success in the creation of modern computers would have been impossible, opening a new stage in the development of all human civilization.
Thanks to cybernetics, the founder of which was the American mathematician Norbert Wiener, and the mathematical theory of communication, developed by his compatriots C. Shannon and W. Weaver, a rethought concept of information entered science. Several mathematical theories of information have been created. There have been studies of information taken in different aspects: syntactic, semantic, axiological. Information became a general scientific concept, which began to be used very widely not only in the mathematical theory of control and communication, but also to characterize a wide variety of processes, up to thinking and social relations. The use of computer technology for the creation, storage, transmission and use of information required the creation of a whole direction in science, which was called informatics, and now such a concept as computer informatics is also used. 80s became a period of mass computerization in developed countries, where the number of computers of various types annually thrown onto the market, and primarily personal computers, is in the tens of millions. Computerization significantly affects the learning process, the formulation and solution of scientific problems, research in the field of thinking and cognitive processes. Modeling of thinking and other mental processes has become one of the critical issues modern science, one of the most important problems of the theory of knowledge.
The problem of the relationship between human thinking and machine thinking arose already in the early stages of the development of cybernetics. The fact is that the ability of the system to absorb information grows at first rather slowly compared to the amount of information invested in it. And only after the nested information has gone beyond a certain point, the ability of the machine to absorb further information will begin to grow rapidly, the acquired information can not only equal that which was originally embedded in the machine, but far surpass it. From this stage of complexity, the machine acquires some of the properties of a living being.
The problem of the relationship between man and machine, brain and computer occupied Wiener until last days his life. His latest work has the characteristic title "The Creator and the Robot". According to biblical myth. God created man from clay and revived him with his breath. The problem of creating a human-robot arose in new, already modern conditions. Wiener discusses it. He notes the undoubted advantages of the human brain as an organ of thinking in comparison with the machines of his time. “The main one of these advantages,” Wiener writes. - apparently, the ability of the brain to operate with vaguely defined concepts. In such cases, computers, at least at the present time, are almost incapable of self-regulation. Meanwhile, our brain freely perceives poems, novels, pictures, the content of which any computer would have to reject as something amorphous.
Give the human what is human, and the computer what is machine. This, apparently, should be a reasonable line of conduct in organizing the joint actions of people and machines. This line is equally far from the aspirations of machine-worshippers, and from the views of those who, in any use of mechanical assistants in mental activity sees blasphemy and humiliation of man.
In the thirty years that have passed since Wiener expressed these thoughts, computer technology and the technology of using computers have developed so much that the question arose of developing a special part of the theory of knowledge that would specifically analyze the problems that arise in this area. In order to distinguish this part of the theory of knowledge from the problems traditionally considered in the theory of knowledge, it was proposed to designate a new area as "information epistemology". The task facing information epistemology is formulated in the most general form as follows: how can knowledge be formed in computers? The solution of this general task involves the revision or refinement of many concepts that were previously perceived at the level of intuitive representations as quite clear and understandable.
Let us consider two approaches to the assessment of intelligence as a whole, as a social expression of a person's cognitive ability, inextricably linked with his activity.
In the first case, we will talk about the role of intelligence in the development of mankind, not only in the present, but also in the future. As an example of such an approach, let's take the book of the modern Russian scientist A.P. Nazaretyan "Intelligence in the Universe" (M., 1991). The author considers, in the most general form, the problem of the evolution of the Universe, noting that in order to describe the potential prospects of civilization, its place and possible role in the universal evolutionary process, it is necessary to understand the nature of intelligence, the origins, causes and mechanisms of its formation. The higher the individual is organized, the greater the role of internal models that regulate his activity. Progressive evolution is characterized by three points: moving away from thermodynamic equilibrium, complication of organizational relationships and improvement of information models - the growth of their dynamism and content. With this approach, the intellect itself can be considered as a property of the information model to ensure the quantitative and energetic superiority of the useful result over the effort expended.
This applies not only to production, where the influence of intelligence is obvious. It is also a matter of moral regulators of social relations. Constructive morality, freed from the shackles of authoritarianism and dichotomy (they are us), built on a critical reflection on experience and rational assessments of long-term consequences, is the only reliable one in a dynamic, interdependent, technologically powerful world.
Ascending specific gravity mental labor reflects a general evolutionary law that requires complex systems advancing development of intelligence, advancing in relation to the other two vectors of growth - technological potential and organizational complexity - and, accordingly, to managerial claims. As other global problems are solved, a new one will come to the fore: the relationship between natural and artificial intelligence. And if humanity survives, and therefore grows up to the real emergence of the problem of "dual power of intellects", then confrontational approaches to its solution will be immediately discarded. We can only talk about different versions of their synthesis. The formation of such symbiotic structures in the future would provide a dialectical removal of contradictions between the limitless potentials of intellectual development and handicapped, needs, motives of a biological organism.
The problem of intelligence is considered in a different way in the article of the modern Russian scientist An. L. Maltsev "Intelligence as a resource", placed in the book "Thinking, cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence" (M., 1988). The author aims to cool the enthusiasm of ardent fans artificial intelligence and their hopes for very rapid, almost endless progress in this area. He notes that already now one has to face some fundamental limitations, primarily when compiling algorithms that computers work on.
Along with other questions, the following is also posed: if the intellect is a resource, then can its overexploitation, depletion be manifested in some forms? To answer this question An. A. Maltsev turns to the analysis of the situation with education. Education as a system is growing and developing all over the world. But there is a shortage of truly educated people all over the world. Pedagogical practice shows that not all children can graduate from school, and many of those who have graduated learn the program very superficially. The same is true with higher education. Although it is not as widespread as school education, the percentage of those who have mastered the knowledge offered by the university turns out to be even lower than at school. If at school it presumably reaches 75% (apparently, it is too high), then at the university the author lowers it to 25%. As an example, he cites the United States, which is struggling with an engineering workforce that has a turnover of ten percent a year. Being a real engineer is hard, it is such a burden on the intellect that even those who cope with it strive to get away. Even more difficult is the situation with scientific personnel: there are only a few scientists capable of producing new ideas. Even the number of those who are simply competent at their level is surprisingly small, especially in comparison with the population of the country. And it's not just a matter of improving the education system, selection methods for universities and postgraduate studies, and methods for placing personnel. There is a certain total ceiling, which indicates that the process of overexploitation of intelligence is taking place. In the old days, the requirements for intelligence were much lower, and its capabilities were most likely underused. And today they face the limits of the possibilities of intellect. Intelligence as a resource of mankind, and a finite resource, should be the subject of careful scientific research.
We also note that in most cases, authors who study the problems of the development of cognition and the development of intelligence, both natural and artificial, as a rule, are distracted from those circumstances that actually exist in society that impede this development. A kind of religious renaissance, characteristic of our time, is a process that captures many millions of people and naturally hinders the development of scientific education; Mass culture, widely promoted by means of television, radio, cinema, becomes a permanent background of life and action, thanks to audio and video equipment, and prevents the development of more complex shapes culture; propaganda of violence and pornography, which is expanding with the development of means of communication, sound and video recording and influencing the lowering of moral criteria in society - all these circumstances cannot but have a negative impact on the development of society, on the formation of the intellect and social feelings of modern man, and therefore, to the prospects for the development of all mankind.
So far, speaking of knowledge, we have focused on general problems. Now it is necessary, at least briefly, to dwell on the knowledge of social processes, on the knowledge of society, since in this case one has to deal with such features of the processes of knowledge that are not characteristic of the knowledge of nature.
When we consider the cognition of nature, then in the general case we are dealing with the relation of the subject (the cognizing person) to the object, which acts as an independent entity. But when it comes to the cognition of society, it turns out that the cognizing subject is again opposed by the subject, the person, because society is a society of people. There is no longer such a rigid opposition between the subject of cognition and the object of cognition. In a certain sense of the word, the process of knowledge of society by a socially developed subject acts as a process of self-knowledge of the subject, acting, however, in this case as the subject of historical action, as a socio-historical figure.
Using the conceptual apparatus of Plato's philosophy, we can say that a person who cognizes society, cognizes the process and result of the activity of the demiurge, who creates his own own world. But only the demiurge here is not the world soul, but self-developing humanity. The world he creates is society itself in all the richness of its forms of existence, its culture, the “second nature” created by it, that is, the world of materialized human activity: cities and villages built by him, roads and bridges, industrial and other structures. And, finally, the result of social creativity is man himself, one everywhere and always as a general social organism and different in different historical epochs and in different historical civilizations.
Knowledge of man and society is carried out in different ways and different means, not one science, but different sciences are involved in this process. The most general knowledge is given by philosophy, its sections such as social philosophy and philosophical anthropology (see the fourth and fifth sections of our textbook). Sociology and political science, which in the recent past were part of philosophy, now have the status of independent scientific (and educational) disciplines. The general history and the history of individual regions and countries cognizes and describes the course of a real historical process. It should be noted here that one of the features of the historical process is that there are no exactly repeating events in it, more precisely, repeating facts. Each person living and thus participating in the historical process is inimitable, unique. Features of the place, time, conditions and people make each unique historical event. Therefore, the identification of common connections, recurring relationships, everything that characterizes the law, turns out to be a very difficult matter.
As in natural science, in sociology the process of cognition leads to the construction of a theory that has similar cognitive functions. The unity of cognitive procedures in social and natural sciences manifests itself in a number of ways. The first stage of the study consists in the collection, description and primary grouping of facts. Then the internal interconnections of a group of facts, events, phenomena are revealed, generalizations are made. On this basis, attempts are made to reveal the internal logic of events. If this succeeds, then we can already talk about the discovery of patterns that operate in a particular area of nature or social life. On the basis of open objective laws, a general model of nature or society is built, and then this theoretical model is used to explain individual facts. And the fact itself is considered as a consequence of the processes explained through the general model. And, finally, on the basis of the theoretical model, the prediction of possible processes and phenomena in the future is carried out.
However, as all historical experience of development shows social cognition, the construction of a theoretical model adequate to real historical processes turns out to be not only difficult, but often impossible.
Thus, during the period of absolute domination of religious ideology in feudal society, any model of social development that excluded the determining influence of God on the fate of states and peoples was simply impossible.
But in other conditions, in conditions of considerable ideological freedom that have arisen in the developed capitalist states, the construction of a social theory that expresses the objective laws of the functioning and development of society is also very difficult. And it's not just the complexity of the object of study, that is, society itself. The fact is that in social research, special factors and circumstances that have not been considered above come into play. It's in the social interest.
In a developed society, there are various classes, estates, social groups that objectively, due to their economic position, political and ideological influence in society, have different interests. Moreover, sometimes these interests can be not only different, but also diametrically opposed, as in the case of the interests of a slave owner and a slave, a landowner and a serf. But despite this, the ruling class in society or a special social stratum, through its ideologists, always strives to present its separate class interest as universal, nationwide, nationwide. And since the ruling class, as a rule, possesses political and ideological means of influence in society, its ideology itself turns out to be dominant, even if it gives a distorted picture of real social relations. And only in crisis situations, in periods preceding radical social transformations, is there an active struggle in society against the dominant ideology, foreshadowing the change of the dominant social classes and groups and replacing them with new ones, which, in turn, are forced to represent their private interest as a general one.
More about specific social theories and their features will be discussed in the following sections.
Cognition is the process of comprehension by a person of new, previously unknown knowledge.
Structure learning process:
- The subject of cognition is an actively acting individual, social group or society as a whole, endowed with consciousness and goal-setting.
- The object of knowledge is what the cognitive activity of the subject is aimed at. It can be animate (the person himself, animal) and inanimate (phenomena of nature); material (really existing object) or ideal (hypothesis, theory).
- The result of cognition - knowledge - is a product of the relation of thought to reality, existing in a logically linguistic form, in the form of concepts, judgments, symbols, signs.
Characteristics of the main types of knowledge
The question of the relationship between the sensual and the rational caused the emergence of two philosophical trends.
Empiricism- the only source of all our knowledge is sensory experience.
Rationalism- our knowledge can be obtained only with the help of the mind, without relying on feelings.
But it is impossible to oppose the sensual and the rational in cognition, since the two stages of cognition appear as a single process. The difference between them is not temporary, but qualitative: the first stage is the lowest, the second is the highest. Knowledge is the unity of sensual and rational knowledge of reality.
Knowledge- the result of cognition of reality, the content of consciousness.
Types of knowledge:
Delusion- knowledge that does not correspond to a real object, but is accepted as truth. A lie is a deliberate distortion of the image of an object.
Zhiteiskoe- based on common sense, formed as a result of people's daily lives, reduced to stating facts and describing them.
Practical- the basis is the activity of people to fulfill their needs.
artistic- is built on the image, characterized by emotionality, subjectivity.
Scientific- characterized by the desire for objectivity, consistency, consistency, exists in the form of concepts and categories, general principles, laws, theories.
Rational- reflects reality in terms, is based on rational thinking.
Irrational- reflects reality in emotions, often based on intuition, does not obey the laws of logic.
Forms of knowledge
| Scientific- objective, systematically organized and justified knowledge | |
| empirical level methods: – observation; – experiment; - description. |
theoretical level methods: – induction (from particular to general); - deduction (from the general to the particular); - analysis (decomposition of the whole into parts) - synthesis (combining individual knowledge into a single whole) |
| Unscientific- disparate, unsystematized knowledge that is not formalized and not described by laws | |
| pre-scientific - prerequisites for scientific knowledge parascientific - incompatible with existing scientific knowledge pseudoscientific - deliberately using speculation and prejudice anti-scientific - utopian and deliberately distorting the idea of reality |
|
Features of social cognition:
- the subject and object of cognition coincide (society studies itself, the sociologist sees the process from the inside, since he himself is a participant in social relations. Therefore, a personal assessment of social phenomena plays an important role);
- the possibilities of the researcher are limited (it is not always possible to conduct an experiment);
- the complexity and variability of the object of study gives rise to a pluralism of points of view on society.
When studying society, one should apply concrete historical approach:
- to establish the relationship between the past and the future;
- identifying common patterns, it is necessary to remember the originality and originality historical path peoples, countries, regions;
- to study social phenomena in their diversity and interdependence;
- to consider the current activity as a result of the previous one.
Features of cognition by means of art:
- emotional coloring;
- carried out with the help of images.
Image- this is a reflection of reality, which has certain properties of a real-life object, refracted through inner world creator (artist, director, writer).
Canon- a set of applied rules for creating an image. It is characterized by the peculiarities of the worldview of the era. (For example, in the period of antiquity, the beauty of the human body, proportionality is sung; in the Middle Ages, the body is perceived as something sinful, therefore it is depicted flat, covered with clothes).