Love for Truth Essay on Society. Essay on the topic "Simple words: goodness, truth, beauty." Love for truth

Introduction.

In everyday speech, we often come across the words “higher human feelings”, “love”, as a rule, using them in a rather narrow sense, unaware of all the rich variety of emotions that are hidden behind this word. The variety of variations in the manifestation of love is unusual in its quantity, but most often we talk about erotic love, by which hereinafter we will understand any (both spiritual and physical) relationships between a man and a woman, as the most characteristic manifestation of this feeling. Many philosophers have tried to reveal the essence and significance of these relations throughout the history of the existence of human thought: from antiquity to the present day. However, not a single era could give a complete definition of the concept of love, revealing only certain facets of this phenomenon of the human soul.

Having become interested in this problem, in my work I set myself the goal of getting acquainted with how the understanding and perception of love between a man and a woman changed in different historical conditions, in different eras. And for this it is necessary to carry out a number of tasks. And above all, to define love between opposite sexes as one of the most important aspects of its understanding and to single out this type of human relationship among other diverse forms and types of love. And besides, to get acquainted with the concepts of the philosophers of antiquity, the Middle Ages, the era of the Renaissance and the New Age in order to find out the main characteristic features of the philosophy of erotic love of each of the eras.

Variety of species and forms of love. their classifications.

The spiritual world of man, his aesthetic essence is, perhaps, one of the least known spheres of life on Earth by science. And that is why it is almost impossible to give a clear definition to the highest human feelings, one of which is love. The complexity and importance of love is due to the fact that it merges into one whole the physical and spiritual, individual and social, personal and universal, understandable and inexplicable. There is no such developed society, and there is no such person who would not be familiar with love. Moreover, without love, the moral character of a person cannot be formed, normal development does not occur. She might be in varying degrees developed, but it cannot be.

“Love is the only satisfactory answer to the question about the problem of human existence,” says E. Fromm. However, what is love? No one has yet been able to give a clear enough definition. And this difficulty arises primarily because of the variety of types and forms of love, because all human activity in all its manifestations is marked by love. We can talk about erotic love and love for oneself, love for man and God, love for life and for the motherland, love for truth and goodness, love for freedom and power ... Romantic, chivalrous, platonic, brotherly, parental love also stand out ... There is love-passion and love-pity, love-need and love-gift, love for the neighbor and love for the distant, love of a man and love of a woman. When listing the varieties of love, it seems that there is nothing in common between them and there is no common point at which all these feelings would intersect.

What connects to extremes various passions, inclinations, attachments under the general name "love"? How do they relate? Many philosophers have tried to answer all these questions about the essence and types of love since antiquity. However, no generally accepted answers have been found to this day.

In order to try to explain the phenomenon of love, in different time Attempts were made to create a classification of various types of manifestations of this feeling, but they all turned out to be incomplete and did not cover all its varieties.

Here are some examples that give an idea of ​​the complexity of dividing love into types.

The ancient Greeks distinguished two main categories:

love-passion (eros), bordering on madness, and

more peaceful love (filia).

Love-passion, like any passion, is rare, impetuous and short-lived. Usually this includes sexual love. Philia, on the other hand, is more stable and varied: this includes love for parents, children, relatives, love for a person, hometown or country. It is also love for power, glory, freedom, wealth, goodness. The objects of this love can even be vice, lies and greed.

The broad interpretation of the concept of love by the ancient philosophers in the Middle Ages is largely lost. The area of ​​its manifestation narrows only to a person and God, and sometimes even to a representative of the opposite sex.

In this regard, the classifications of types of love offered by medieval philosophers are based primarily not on various forms of its manifestation, but on “rank” relationships between people.

For example, the Florentine Neoplatonist of the XV century. Ficino spoke about the possibility of the existence of three types of love:

love of higher beings for lower ones (one of the manifestations is guardianship)

love of lower beings for higher ones (for example, reverence) and

· the love of equal beings, which is the basis of humanism.

The new time has brought new ideas to the philosophical interpretation of the concept of love. The scope of determining the influence of this feeling is expanding and its classification is becoming more branched.

Kemper, for example, bases his theory of possible types of love on two independent factors: power (the ability to force a partner to do what you want) and status (the ability to cause the other person to want to meet your requirements). And in connection with the level of manifestation of a particular quality, the philosopher distinguishes seven types of love:

· romantic love in which both partners have high power and status;

· parental love to a small child, in which the parent has high power and low status, are the opposite;

brotherly love, in which both members of the couple have little power of arcs over the other, but go towards one another;

Charismatic love, for example, in a teacher-student pair, when the teacher also has a high level of power and status, while the student, having no power, willingly goes towards the teacher;

· “worship” of a literary or any other hero with whom there is no real interaction and who has no power, but has a status, and his admirer has neither power nor status;

falling in love or one-sided love, when one has both power and status, while the other is deprived of them;

· "Treason", when one has power and status, and the other - only power. As in the case of adultery.

This interesting typology of love, which is simple and clear, is nevertheless abstract and incomplete. Two factors - power and status - are obviously not sufficient to reveal all those diverse relationships that are covered by the word “love”: for example, if you try to introduce love for God into the scheme under consideration, then it can be identified only with “falling in love”, unrequited love.

It is thus evident that simple classifications which rest on a clear foundation have only the merit of being verifiable in practice, and are therefore useful only in psychology, and not in the philosophical analysis of love.

Based on these conclusions, modern philosophers come to the conclusion that love is heterogeneous: it includes not only different kinds and their subspecies, but also its various forms or so-called “modes”. The types of love include, for example, love for one's neighbor. The forms of its manifestation are love for children, for parents, brotherly love; its modes are the love of a man and a woman, the love of a northerner and a southerner, medieval and modern love. Concretization can go further, and all these diverse manifestations of human feelings belong to one categorical concept - love.

There are a huge number of modes of love, and therefore we will pay attention to more specific types of love. In this regard, we will consider the theory of one of the modern researchers A. Ivin, who represents the entire field of love in the form of nine “steps” or “circles”. Let's consider this theory in more detail .

The “first circle” includes erotic (sexual) love and self-love. These two kinds are the paradigms of all kinds of love, regardless of its subject. It is noteworthy that when the word "love" is found out of context, it almost always means precisely erotic love.

In a certain sense, according to many philosophers, this kind of love makes a person complete: it gives him such a fullness and sharpness of being that nothing else can give him. So K. Marx wrote to his wife: “Not love for Feuerbach’s “man”, for Moleshotov’s “metabolism”, for the proletariat, but love for a loved one, namely for you, makes a person again a man in the full sense of the word, ”and thus defines this kind of love as a fundamental feature of a person's moral stability.

V. Solovyov also raises erotic love to the top of the hierarchical ladder and says that “both in animals and in humans, sexual love is the highest flowering of individual life.”

But if Solovyov’s erotic love, for all its significance, does not extend to other types of love, then Z. Freud maximizes this concept in all forms of friendship and love relationships, in all attachments, whether to oneself, to parents or to one’s homeland, he sees one and the same sexual source. Freud's teaching contributed to the spread of the simplified concept that all love is erotic love.

A person's love for himself is an important prerequisite for his existence as a person and, therefore, a condition for all love. In addition, “if someone loves their neighbor, but does not love themselves, this proves that love for their neighbor is not genuine,” writes E. Fromm. And since love “is based on affirmation and respect, then if a person does not experience these feelings in relation to himself, then they do not exist at all.”

The idea of ​​the paramount importance of self-love is also read in the writings of Erasmus of Rotterdam: “No one can love another if he has not loved himself before - but only righteously. And no one can hate another if he has not hated himself before.” Thus, in a philosophical sense, self-love is opposed to egoism, with which it is often identified. Selfishness, selfishness is attention only to oneself and the preference of one's own interests to the interests of others. Arising from a lack of self-love, selfishness is an attempt to compensate for such a lack. It is no coincidence that V. Solovyov assessed love as “the real abolition of egoism” and “the real justification and salvation of individuality”

The second “circle of love” is love for one's neighbor: for children, for parents, for brothers, for sisters, as well as for people who are firmly connected with our lives ... Many philosophers emphasized the importance of this phenomenon. So S. Frank considered love for one's neighbor "the germ of true love"; and the Russian thinker N. Frolov considered love for parents the highest kind of love and the basis of the human community. A special place here is occupied by parental feelings. Moreover, maternal and paternal love are two essentially opposite modes. And if a mother's love for her children is unconditional, laid down in her nature; then a father's love for his children depends on their appearance, character and behavior. And unlike a mother's, father's love can be earned by fulfilling all his requirements and meeting his expectations.

The third “circle of love” is love for a person, which includes a person's love for himself, love for his neighbor, and love for every other person. In particular, this is love for future generations and the responsibility towards them associated with it: each generation should strive to leave to the next generation everything that it received from the previous one, both qualitatively and quantitatively.

The fourth “circle of love” includes love for the motherland, for life, and love for God. Love for God is not the result of reasoning and analysis. It arises in the depths of the human soul, like any other love, does not tolerate excessive rationality. Sometimes this feeling reaches such intensity that it overpowers all his other passions, including the very love of life. A vivid description of the “holy feeling” is given by M. Scheler: “people who are overwhelmed with it endure any pain and death itself, not with reluctance to torment, but willingly and with bliss, because in the happiness and brilliance of this feeling of the all-joy of life, they turn pale and lose their meaning,” - these are the ideas of the philosopher about the ideal of love.

According to Freud, religious love is the transfer of sexual desire into spiritual activity. He believed that the believer plunges into the world of religious fantasies in order to find a substitute pleasure there. As a result, he calls religion either “a sublimated product of sexual drives”, or “a collective illusion that arose as a result of the suppression of primary natural drives.”

In Christianity, love for the god remained constant, it changed in its form and in its intensity. Having reached its highest tension in the Middle Ages, it began to gradually lose its loftiness and immediacy.

The “fifth circle” of love includes love for nature and, in particular, cosmic love, which, directed at the world as a whole, speaks of the unity of man and the world and their mutual influence. From the point of view of P.T. de Chardin, “comprehensive, cosmic love is not only psychologically possible, it is the only complete and final way in which we can love.” The cosmic feeling of unity with the Universe manifests itself in the face of beauty, in the contemplation of nature, in music. Feelings of universal love, according to many philosophers, is the desire for unity, characteristic of both living and inanimate nature.

At the turn of the Middle Ages and New Time, the idea of ​​cosmic love was developed by Nicholas of Cusa and Marsilio Ficino, who compared this feeling with the strongest hoop that holds the universe together into one structure, and all people into a single brotherhood. Somewhat later, D. Bruno, J. Boehme and others spoke about love as an all-penetrating cosmic feeling. However, this trend has since faded. A significant role in this was played by the rethinking of world forces, initiated by Newtonian mechanics.

The sixth “circle” includes love for truth, for goodness, for beauty, love for justice. The internal unity of all these types of love is obvious: in each of them the social component plays a significant role, as a result of which these feelings turn out to be less personal and are largely an expression of group feelings bringing people together in a team. Unlike, for example, erotic love, which unites two people, disconnecting them from society.

Thus, the concept of justice is one of the central concepts in morality, law, economics, politics, and ideology. And there is, perhaps, no such area of ​​human relations where the question of their justice and injustice would not arise. Even Socrates expressed the conviction that nothing can be placed above justice - neither children, nor life. But already Aristotle noticed that all people highly value justice, but everyone perceives it in their own way.

F. Nietzsche gives a high assessment to the desire for justice: “Indeed, no one has greater rights to our respect than the one who wants and can be fair. For in justice, the highest and rarest virtues are combined and hidden, as in a sea that receives and absorbs in its unexplored depths rivers flowing into it from all sides.

Love for justice is a complex, complex feeling, where love for oneself and for loved ones, love for a person and for the homeland, love for goodness and truth are intertwined. Nevertheless, there is an independent content in the love of justice, which does not allow us to reduce all meaning to its components.

The seventh “circle of love” is love for creativity, for fame, for one's activities, for freedom, for wealth. Love for money has a certain social prerequisite: uncertainty about the future, the desire to protect oneself before the trials of fate. “Money and power,” writes Hesse, “are invented by mistrust. Whoever does not trust the life force in himself, who does not have this force, fills it with such a denominator as money.” But not every person will find the strength in himself to rely only on his talent, which Hesse speaks of. And the desire for minimal stability in life is quite understandable and understandable.

The eighth “circle” is the love of kigre, for communication, for collecting, for traveling.

And finally, the last “circle”, which, in principle, is no longer a “circle of love” is an attraction to food and foul language. These are rather addictions that cannot be put on a par with love for a person or God, but they resemble distant modes of love.

In this scheme, where the whole gamut of various forms of love is most fully represented, a clear pattern is visible: the farther we move from the center, the lower the intensity of love and the greater the role of social influences. Thus, for example, erotic love and love for children are capable of filling a person's entire emotional life; love for creativity and fame is most often only a part of life; passion for kigra and collecting is just one aspect of human existence.

Now, having familiarized ourselves with the diverse range of forms of love, let us focus on one of the main types of human relations: love between a man and a woman; and consider how the philosophical assessment of this feeling changed from antiquity through the Middle Ages, and how the philosophical concepts of these eras influenced the formation of the understanding of love in modern times.

The formation of understanding of love from antiquity through the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

2.1 The origin of erotic love in the ancient world.

Quite often one encounters the assertion that ancient world there was no love, and this phenomenon arose only in the Middle Ages, since love is an intimate, personal experience, to which the consciousness of people in that era had not yet matured. However, this hypothesis cannot serve as a basis for a complete denial of love between a man and a woman in the period of Antiquity.

In ancient society, when ideas about the individual (its value, independence, independence) were in their infancy and the individual was dissolved in the team as a whole, where his actions and motivations were subordinated to the interests of the team, love was understood accordingly. Mythology, as the worldview of the ancients, considers love not so much as a fact of personal life, but as a universal cosmic process in which a person participates, but does not play a decisive role. In this regard, the question arose very sharply of how humanity, united in its origin, is polarized and expressed in two sexes - male and female. In many ancient monuments, a single, despite the physiological differences, the essence of humanity is emphasized.

So, in Plato's dialogue “Feast”, Aristophanes expounds the myth of primitive people, in which he says that “first of all, people were of three sexes, and not two, as they are now, for there was still a third sex that combined the signs of both of them. .”

The topic of bisexuality and sex change is also touched upon in the Old Testament in the chapter on the origin of man: “The Lord God created a wife from a rib taken from a man, and brought her to a man” (Gen. 2:7,21-24). Thus, Adam himself was originally created as “male and female”, and only then Eve was taken out of his body, of which she had been a part before.

From the idea of ​​the unity of all people comes the justification of same-sex love, which was widespread in the ancient world. In the already mentioned dialogue of Plato “The Feast”, Aristophanes says that at first all people were double: they had four legs, two faces ... But then the gods separated them, and now each part seeks to recover with its half. “Women… who are half of the former woman, are not very disposed to men, they are more attracted to women. But men who are half of the former man are attracted to everything masculine.” And from here arises same-sex and heterosexual love.

But this form of relationship was not considered final and highly ideal. The ancients noticed that, despite the unity of the universe and man, each thing has its place and purpose, as a result of which the world consists of polar contradictions, the most stable of which are masculinity and femininity. And the union of two people of the opposite sex was considered by ancient philosophers as a kind of cosmic marriage between a male and feminine that pervade the world. So, in many ancient religions, the moon, earth and water were perceived as a symbol of femininity, and the sun, fire and heat - as a symbol of masculinity. The male beginning, as a rule (with the exception of Tantrism) expresses activity, will, form; feminine - passivity, obedience, matter.

From this understanding of the Cosmos came the distribution of roles in marriage, where a woman was not an object of love, but a means of childbearing. And even in enlightened Athens, the woman was excluded from public life and culture. Men were looking for the company of men, it was believed that love between males has a higher spiritual aspect, which is not in love between a man and a woman.

During the period of antiquity, some aspects of love are highlighted, which will later be adopted by philosophers of other eras. And above all, this is the idea of ​​love as a striving for the lost integrity of a human being, as well as a fairly clear distinction between spiritual love and sexual instinct. For the first time, this problem was addressed by Plato, who interpreted love as a divine power that helps a person overcome his imperfection, as an assistant on the path to morality and eternal beauty. This is not a physiological instinct that is easy to satisfy and whose monotonous repetition only causes irritation.

In the philosophy of the ancient world, mythological influences and the obvious dominance of natural-philosophical ideas associated with attempts to understand the Universe are felt. A person is perceived only as a part of the Cosmos, and therefore love between a man and a woman is not perceived as a deep intimate feeling, an experience inherent in the individual, because the personality does not exist - it is dissolved in the Universe. And in this regard, love itself was seen as a cosmic merger of two opposite policies of the world, which is necessary to achieve harmony. According to the laws of the universe, there was also a delimitation of internal roles, where the masculine principle was always active, and the feminine principle was passive.

The concept of love in the Middle Ages.

In the era of the Middle Ages, a radical change in views on the basic concepts of life, values, foundations takes place in society, which is associated with the wide spread of Christianity as a world religion. Originating in the 2nd half of the 1st c. AD in the provinces of the Roman Empire, becomes its dominant religion, meeting the interests of all segments of the population.

Christianity, quickly realizing itself as the bearer of a fundamentally new ethics, a new understanding of man and his place in the world, made a huge contribution to the history of human culture, and above all, it is the ideal of all-encompassing love as the basis of all human life. Love in the New Testament is understood very broadly and almost all of its aspects are associated with divine authority. Love for one's neighbor, for each person, which is a necessary stage of love for God, is also widely preached. “He who says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, is a liar… If we love one another, then God abides in us, and His love is perfect in us” (1 Jn 4:20, 12).

In the light of this divine love and love for all mankind, a special imprint is also placed on intimate feelings. Love between two people was perceived as a kind of selfish and sinful manifestation. So, Augustine, the largest representative and finalizer of Latin patristics, singled out two types of love: one is earthly, impure, carnal, captivating to everything that passes, and as a result - to the depths of hell; another love is holy, which lifts us to the heights, to the heavens. Earthly love is heavy, it does not allow a person to enjoy the true beauty of life. It is necessary to be cleansed of it through two commandments: love for God and love for one's neighbor, which form the basis of life and the main stimulus to the knowledge of the world. “If you admire bodies, then praise God the Creator for them and be transported with your love to the Artist himself. If you are admired by souls, then love them in God, for all their constancy is in God,” Augustine wrote, blaming the baseness of earthly love.

And it was in this context that it was quite difficult for the Byzantine church fathers, who adhered to early Christian views on love, to explain many of the erotic motifs contained in the canonized (accepted by Christianity as a law) books of the Old Testament, which did not at all correspond to the preached ideas of abstinence and condemnation of sensual pleasures, especially in love lyrics. "Songs of Songs of Solomon". But they found worthy (although not always convincing) explanations of Old Testament erotica through symbolic understanding. Gregory of Nyssa showed special skill in spiritualizing sensual love.

According to the Byzantine thinker, the love erotica of the Song of Songs is the highest form of expression of Divine Eros, it is a purely spiritual marriage. Where is the bride, lusting for her groom (“Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth!”; “On my bed at night I looked for the one whom my soul loves.”) is a human soul striving to merge with God (groom). Therefore, the virgin first speaks about her feelings to the young man, and not the groom to her, as in ordinary life. George became the founder of the spiritual understanding of carnal eroticism in Scripture, which is firmly rooted in the minds of the Byzantines.

The doctrine of divine eros was the foundation of all Christian-Byzantine spirituality. Christianity sought to convey this idea to all members of the Church, simplifying it as much as possible and introducing the concept of love into the consciousness of people not in its cosmic meaning, but in a social and personal one. For although God was incomprehensible, he was a person. And the knowledge of God, merging with him is a very personal, intimate and secret act.

In parallel with the condemnation of carnal love in the philosophy of the late Middle Ages, the question of high love between a man and a woman is increasingly being addressed, which is seen as an example of selfless love given by God, which must be followed in everyday life. “The union of a man with his beloved is beyond all union, so that no one is able to understand or depict it in any way,” Cabasilas wrote. Byzantine “humanists” of the 10th-13th centuries tried to achieve harmony between man and earthly love. They contrast the extremes of the aesthetics of ancient asceticism with the aesthetics of eroticism, enclosed in the framework of Christian morality. Realizing the love of a man and a woman as an integral and wonderful property of human nature, philosophers say that she is worthy of respect, but only under the veil of chastity. Love and beauty should eventually lead to the creation of a family, which corresponded to the norms of medieval ethics.

Byzantine culture, continuing and developing many ancient traditions of understanding love, took a significant step in the study of this most complex phenomenon of human existence. Early Christian and then Byzantine thinkers saw in love the most important creative principle of the Universe, on which its existence is based. The Byzantines well felt the dual (negative and positive) meaning of sensual love and unconditionally brought to the fore spiritual love in all its aspects. All this puts forward the Christian-Byzantine theory of love to one of the prominent places in the history of culture.

The theme of love in the era of the Renaissance.

In the Renaissance, the theme of love flourished in an atmosphere of general keen interest in everything earthly and human, freed from the control of the church. The concept of "love" regained the status of a vital philosophical category, which was endowed with antiquity and which in the Middle Ages was replaced by the status of religious-Christian. But the religious connotation of love did not disappear altogether. However, in the center of the worldview there are no longer divine plots, but a person who is harmoniously connected with the world, where the heavenly does not oppose the earthly, but permeates it with the spirit of sublimity and nobility.

In the philosophical teachings of Giordano Bruno, the essence and meaning of love in the Renaissance view are most clearly represented. “Love is everything, and it affects everything, and everything can be said to it, everything can be attributed to it.” In his dialogues, love appears as a heroic, fiery passion that inspires a person in the struggle and in the pursuit of knowledge of the world. Love, from Bruno's point of view, is an all-penetrating cosmic force, the spring of human history.

This view of love as the most powerful spiritual impulse, passion leaves its mark on the assessment of the relationship between a man and a woman. Both “Venus with Cupid” by Raphael, and “Bacchanalia” by Titian testify that there was no particular moral intelligibility in the intimate feelings of a person.

The humanist Lorenzo Wall expressed the main moods and tendencies of his contemporary society, which in everything sought to achieve maximum pleasure and satisfaction of its natural desires and needs: “Everything that exists strives for pleasure. Not only those who cultivate the fields, which Virgil rightly sings, but also those who live in cities, noble and simple, Greeks and barbarians ... under the guiding influence of the leader and mentor - Nature. The realization of human desires and lusts, following human nature in everything became the center of the ideology of this historical stage.

The Renaissance, having returned man to nature, destroys the line between passion, permissiveness and unbridledness, between impulses of the heart and not too picky pursuit of pleasures.

Philosophy of love in the New Age.

The rapid development of natural science in the 17th century, associated with the birth of capitalism, as well as a number of discoveries in various fields of science that shattered ancient and medieval ideas about the world, could not but have an impact on the philosophy of its time, where there is a decisive break with religion, church dogmas and the authority of the church. In the center of attention of the philosophy of modern times, man with his natural desire to goodness, happiness, harmony, that is, the medieval idea of ​​the original sinfulness of people is completely denied. The philosophy of modern times is characterized by humanism and anthropocentrism.

Accordingly, with these changes, completely different concepts are formed regarding love between a man and a woman. Rene Descartes, in his treatise Passions of the Soul (1649), states that “love is the excitement of the soul, caused by the movement of “spirits”, which induces the soul to voluntarily connect with objects that seem close to it.” Such a psychological-mechanistic definition makes absolutely no difference between love to a member of the opposite sex, affection for a pet, or the artist's sense of pride in a lovingly created painting. Here on the face of the general gravitation, the desire, which many philosophers of the XVII-XVIII centuries write about. According to Hobbes, Locke and Condillac, love is a strong desire for something pleasant, that's all. The problem of “divine love” is increasingly receding into the background, “earthly love” is increasingly taking its positions.

Such an ideology found a particularly vivid expression in French society, which in the last decades before the revolution was distinguished by a frivolous and frivolous attitude towards this feeling. Love in court and aristocratic circles turned into a sophisticated art of flirting, soulless and heartless. Love and fidelity itself has become something old-fashioned, they have been replaced by a fleeting infatuation. The love of the Rococo age is no longer love, but rather an imitation of it. And it is not surprising that La Mettrie does not find a fundamental difference between the animal instinct of copulation and human feeling, and even Denis Diderot, understanding this difference, reasoning about love, constantly emphasizes its aesthetic and physiological conditionality.

A look at love in German classical philosophy.

All four classics of German idealism of the late 18th - first third of the 19th centuries - Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel - expressed their definite philosophical attitude to the problem of love.

Immanuel Kant first of all made a distinction between "practical" love (for neighbor or God) and "pathological" love (that is, sensual attraction). He seeks to establish a person as the only legislator of his theoretical and practical activities, and therefore Kant took a fairly sober position in matters of relations between the sexes, corresponding to his skeptical ideas about the world around him and supported by cold observations of a lonely bachelor. In the "Metaphysics of Morals" (1797), Kant considers the phenomenon of love from an ethical point of view and nothing more. “We understand love here not as a feeling (not ethically), that is, not as pleasure from the perfection of other people, and not as love-sympathy; love should be conceived as a (practical) maximum of benevolence, resulting in a beneficence.” Consequently, according to Kant, love for a person of the opposite sex and “love for one’s neighbor, even if he deserves little respect” are actually one and the same. It is a duty, a moral obligation, and nothing more.

It seems to Kant that where there is love, there cannot be an equal relationship between people, for the one who loves the other (other) more than that (that) of him, involuntarily turns out to be less respected from the side of the partner who feels his superiority. It is important that there is always a distance between people, otherwise their personalities with their inherent independence will suffer. Selfless surrender in love is unacceptable for Kantavesh. It cannot be otherwise, for love is a duty, although voluntary, but a duty of man. It is not surprising that Kant considers marriage only as a variant of mutual obligations when concluding a legal transaction: it is a personal and material right to “the natural use (by a representative) of one sex of the genital organs of the other sex” for the sake of obtaining pleasure. And only the official ceremony of marriage and its legal registration transform a purely animal into a properly human one.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte did not accept the sober and prudent theory of Kant and talks about love as a union of “I” and “Not I” - two opposites into which the world spiritual force is first divided, in order to then again strive to reunite with itself. Fichte’s position is very tough: although marriage and love are not the same thing, there should not be marriage without love and love without marriage. In the essay “Fundamentals of Natural Law on the Principles of Science Reading” (1796), the philosopher creates an installation of physiological, moral and legal unity in relations between the sexes. Moreover, a man is credited with full activity, and a woman - absolute passivity - in bed, at home, in legal rights. A woman should not dream of sensual-emotional happiness either. Submission and obedience - that's what Fichte prepared for her. Being a radical democrat, the philosopher gives a purely masculine character to all his radicalism, giving this a philosophical explanation based on the structure of the whole world: “The mind is characterized by absolute self-activity, the passive state contradicts it and completely pushes it aside.” Where "mind" is a synonym masculine, and the “passive state” is feminine.

Friedrich Schelling, proclaiming love "the principle of the highest significance", in contrast to Fichte, recognizes the equality of the two sexes in love. From his point of view, each of them equally seeks the other in order to merge with him in the highest identity. Schelling rejects the myth of the existence of a “third sex”, which combined both the male and female principles, because if each person is looking for a partner prepared for him, then he cannot remain a whole person, but is only a “half”. In love, each of the partners we are not only overwhelmed with desire, but also give ourselves away, that is, the desire for possession turns into sacrifice, and vice versa. This double power of love is capable of conquering hatred and evil. As Schelling evolved, his ideas about love became more and more mystical.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel resolutely rejects all mysticism in love. In his understanding, the Subject seeks self-affirmation and immortality in love, and approaching these goals is possible only when the Object of love is worthy of the Subject in terms of its inner strength and capabilities and is equal to it. Only then love acquires vitality, becomes a manifestation of life: on the one hand, love strives to master and dominate, but overcoming the opposition of the subjective and objective, it rises to the infinite.

Hegel considers the function that connects men and women through the prism of the phenomenology of the spirit: “The relationship of husband and wife is the direct knowledge of one consciousness in another and the recognition of mutual recognition.” So far, this is only a natural relationship, which becomes moral only through the presence of children, and then the connection is colored by feelings of mutual tenderness and reverence.

Like Fichte, Hegel defends the principle of the inequality of husband and wife in marriage: a man “as a citizen possesses the self-conscious force of universality, he thereby acquires lust for himself and at the same time preserves his freedom from it.” A woman is denied such a right. Her destiny is family. Thus, the natural opposition of the two sexes is fixed.

In the mature philosophical system of Hegel, the problems of love and family are touched upon in the "Philosophy of Right" and in the "Lectures on Aesthetics".

In the philosophical concept of law, Hegel says that marriage is designed to raise the relationship between the sexes to the level of "morally self-conscious love." Marriage is a “legal moral love” that completely excludes infidelity. This is the spiritual unity of the spouses, which stands “above the randomness of passions and temporary whim.” In marriage, passion is even a hindrance, and therefore it is not desirable. Hegel's sober prudence is manifested in his philosophical position: “The difference between a man and a woman is the same as the difference between an animal and a plant: the animal is more in line with the character of the man, and the plant is more in line with the character of the woman.” This understanding is very convenient, especially for men.

Hegel's understanding of love in Lectures on Aesthetics differs sharply from the reflections just given. He now distinguishes true love as a deeply individualized mutual feeling from religious love and from the desire for pleasures, above which neither medieval nor ancient philosophers rose. “The loss of one's consciousness by a sudden, the appearance of disinterestedness and the absence of egoism, thanks to which the subject finds himself again and acquires the beginning of independence; self-forgetfulness, when the lover does not live for himself and does not care about himself - this is the infinity of love.” It is also noteworthy that in this work Hegel refuses the stereotype of gender inequality and says that a woman in love is far from a “plant”, and a man is not an “animal”. “Love is most beautiful in female characters, because in them devotion, self-denial reaches its highest point,” the philosopher wrote, recognizing the aesthetic superiority of a woman in love.

Hegel's understanding of love cannot be interpreted unambiguously, because with age his worldview changes radically. The mature works of the philosopher represent the most complete and rational ideas about the world, man and his soul.

The German materialist of the middle of the 19th century, Ludwig Feuerbach, also went through the Hegelian understanding of human relations. He tried to create a doctrine of morality based entirely on the principles of biopsychic sensibility. Therefore, he believes that “the sexual relationship can be directly characterized as the basic moral attitude, as the basis of morality.” Therefore, his ethics is oriented primarily towards achieving sensual happiness. Feuerbach's love is also a symbol of the unity of man with man, the aspiration of people to perfection. Objective and subjective, cognitive and objective are combined here. This extended view allows Feuerbach to turn "love" into a major sociological category. It deifies the person himself and the relations of people among themselves, deriving these relations from the need of “I” and “You” in each other, their mutual need in the sense of sexual love. And only all other derivative needs of people in communication and joint activity are superimposed on this. Feuerbach denies the paramount importance of the individual, believing that it is weak and imperfect. And only “husband and wife, united, represent perfect man”, that is, love is strong, infinite, eternal and makes people complete.

Ludwig Feuerbach clearly showed the greatness of healthy and boundless human passion, completely denying the possibility of building illusions on this score. He convincingly outlined the significance of universal human moral values. And he put a person, his needs, aspirations and feelings at the center of philosophy.

New time has brought new trends in the development of philosophy in general. In the legacy of the thinkers of the 17th-19th centuries, its universal, humanistic content is most important. Love as a thirst for wholeness (although not only in this

m aspect) assert in their work most of the philosophers of the New Age, not repeating either the ancients or each other in their arguments, they find in it more and more new features, explore the shades of human passion, some, delving into particular, others - generalizing.

Conclusion.

Love as a supreme human feeling is part of the life of any of us. And I think that everyone will agree with the statement of Van Gogh, who said: “I am a man, and a man with passions. I can't live without love... otherwise I'll freeze and turn to stone.” This is what the great artist said about love for a woman. The problem of the relationship between the two sexes was one of the leading themes of the philosophy of different eras, and each of them introduced its own conceptual innovations in its understanding and evaluation.

Thus, ancient philosophers doubted the power and strength of love. However, she seemed to be a kind of universal gift, a kind of cosmic feeling, capable of generating both good and evil equally. Love was considered not so much as a fact of personal life, but as a universal cosmic process in which a person participates, but does not play a decisive role. The marriage of a man and a woman was considered as a combination of two opposite policies (by analogy with the processes occurring in nature, where each phenomenon was considered either male or female, and their combination was harmony), each of which performed its function, from which the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe inequality of a man originated. and women in love relationships.

The Middle Ages were characterized by a generally dismissive attitude towards erotic love. And the writings of Aurelius Augustine appeared in an era when a woman is considered by Christianity as a “gate of hell”, a “vessel of temptation” and the culprit of Adam's sin. For a believing thinker of the Middle Ages, love for a woman is a threat to the salvation of the soul, the greatest duty of a Christian. Love for God is opposed to erotic love in all its respects. However, at a later stage in the development of Christianity, the love of a man and a woman is recognized as an inalienable and wonderful property of human nature, which is worthy of respect, but only under the guise of chastity and with the aim of creating a family.

The era of the Renaissancebecame a transitional stage between the philosophy of Christianity and the New Age. This period is characterized by attempts to return to erotic love its rights, oppressed by divine authority. The desire to satisfy pleasures, called manifestations of human Nature, was considered as the main meaning of love.

The era of the New Age, having absorbed the experience of previous historical stages in the development of human thought, gave rise to a whole galaxy of philosophers, each of whom expressed his own assessment of the essence of love between a man and a woman. Each of the philosophical concepts is deeply individual, but they are all united by the general idea of ​​anthropocentrism, which has become the leading motive of the entire ideology of the New Age.

WHAT IS LOVE?

(essay)

“Love is a priceless gift. It's the only thing we can give and yet you keep it."

(L. Tolstoy)

So, love... What is this feeling that has been stirring people's hearts since time immemorial?!

How many pages have been written and told about this great all-encompassing feeling both in prose and in verse. In how many poems it is sung - a unique, inimitable, unlike anything state of mind!

And the question of what love is, as it was, remains relevant to this day. Until now, a person is puzzling over what kind of power is behind him and why he performs strange metamorphoses with people, throwing them from one pole to another, radically changing the perception of the world, himself, loved ones, endowing the owner of this feeling with great creative power. Or vice versa destructive.

Who or what is the cause of this phenomenon, is behind these events, one might say, orchestrates them?

As if the great Mage endowed people with an amazing quality to LOVE and made a person responsible for how to dispose of this precious gift:

One becomes a creator, the other goes to crime,

He endows one with strength, courage, makes him disinterested in his motives, the other - on the contrary, weak, weak-willed, dependent on the object of his desire, or a selfish owner and lust for power, ready for any action to satisfy his own EGO,

Inspires one, plunges another into despondency and even depression,

One becomes sacrificial, while the other makes the object of his love a victim.

And how many times love saved and healed sick people doomed to slow extinction and death! And these are real facts! And there are a lot of them.

And so on... The list of miracles performed by this divine feeling is long. And there is not a single, even the most potent medicine, which in its effect could be compared with this feeling that heals the soul and body.

In order to understand the question "What is love?" and to understand what kind of force it is, which lies in the great all-consuming feeling and which leads to such absolutely opposite phenomena, we will have to remember, oddly enough, the design of man.

After all, it was this concept that was explained to us from childhood incorrectly, distorted, reducing the perception of such a complex creature as Human to a simplified scheme, representing it as a material two-legged creature with a head, arms, body and five sense organs attached to them.

Since the concept of MAN is extremely narrowed down to such a stereotyped designation, that is why we perceive ourselves as such, with all the ensuing consequences. And we are not to blame for this.

But it is in our power to understand ourselves and this amazing feeling given to us by the Almighty! It would be a wish! Shall we try?

None educational institution, including a medical institute (and I know firsthand, since I myself graduated from one) did not study at the department of human anatomy and physiology a complete structure, including both material and spiritual components. Knowledge was limited only to the topography of organs, nerves, muscles and blood vessels in the human body and the chemical reactions taking place in it. But in vain. Since the spiritual part really exists and even explains to us WHERE this great feeling called Love lives in a person! I won't go into details now, and I don't need to. Because there is a very visual video on the youtube site. In 6 minutes and 53 seconds of viewing, you will receive comprehensive information about this.

I would like to note that LOVE is a SPIRITUAL category. And so to answer the question "What is love?" from a material point of view, it is practically impossible, despite the fact that its presence is confirmed in the material environment by certain chemical reactions, the presence of endorphins, neurotransmitters and other chemicals present in the human body and accompanying this unique feeling. At the physical level, that is, at the level of the body, when a person experiences Love, there is a surge of strength, there is a powerful surge of endorphins and other “happiness” hormones. Visually, this state is reflected on the face of a lover in the form of a special radiance of the eyes, a surge of positive emotions directed outward, in particular to the object of adoration.

But the point is that these chemical substances are not the cause, but the result of the chemical processes launched by this deep feeling, regardless of the will of the person.

The answer to this process lies elsewhere. And that's what we're talking about now, if you don't mind...

So what is love?

Why does it inflame people's hearts?

Why "drives them crazy"?

How to distinguish true love from substitution?

Should love cause sadness, sadness?

How to properly dispose of this feeling without spilling its main message over trifles?

If we consider a person, contrary to the popular opinion of school teachers, precisely as a spiritual being who received his body for temporary use, then it becomes clear that there are two principles in a person: Spiritual and Material. The body is necessary for the soul, only for its development, for acquiring the skills necessary for the soul. The body is practically a tool that, when used skillfully, gives the soul invaluable experience and helps to reach certain peaks.

And Love, as a feeling, plays the most important role in this process.

Our life path can be safely called a "test of love."

Anyone who has experienced this feeling at least once has gained invaluable personal experience.

There are significant differences between superficial feelings coming from matter and deep feelings coming from the spiritual, that is, the true feeling of the manifestation of higher Love.

Real spiritual feeling is boundless, unconditionally, unconditionally, disinterestedly. And it is precisely these qualities that need to be learned here on Earth, while we are still in the body shell. This is what we're here for! Because EXPERIENCE IS GAINED ONLY HERE, ON EARTH.

And in Heaven, we only use what we have acquired, what we have brought up in ourselves while in the body. Ultimately, we will bring this true feeling of love to the Creator, who created us this way and breathed into us this great feeling, on which our Universe practically rests.

But we acquire the experience of Love precisely on Earth, giving this feeling to our neighbors: parents, our chosen ones, children, just people.

What happens to us while we are in the body?

Insofar as material beginning exists in us on a legal basis, (as the manager of the corporeal shell), it participates in decision-making. The material mind is characterized by such features as ego, possessiveness, lust for power, selfishness, jealousy and others. And it is these features, influencing the sensual component, that distort the real feeling, bringing suffering into it. And people mistakenly take these sufferings for a strong feeling, confusing it with Love and succumb to its tricks. They allow themselves to be enslaved, or vice versa, they enslave and blackmail others with their feelings.

A person cannot understand these confused feelings, in which both light and dark qualities are mixed into one heap. But repeatedly reinforced by each other, they are distortedly perceived by a person as a real feeling of Love - after all, he suffers so much! As a result of such an experience, a person develops a false idea of ​​Love, with which he goes further in life and on which he is guided in the future.

However, this feeling has nothing to do with real Love! And this will be understood only by the person who can recognize and curb the egoistic material component in himself with all the ensuing consequences and allow his Love to exist in its pure form - that is, in the way it appeared to us from his spiritual world.

If love acquires a shade of sadness, suffering, tragedy and other qualities similar to them, then this is a sign that the material has intervened, which wants to immerse Love in a rusty, creaky cart of negativity in order to drag it into a swamp, which in fact happens to this feeling. in people.

Remember what a great and bright feeling it was at the beginning of the relationship, when everything was just beginning! How many positive emotions were directed outward and harmonized the world around the lover!

And what did you feel at the end of an unfinished relationship? Weighted with mutual reproaches, jealousy, the desire for revenge and other negative emotions that bring destruction, sadness, suffering to their owners and the outside world in the immediate environment!

And here already great importance has that HOW the person gets out of this situation! With what feelings is going to live on! What "baggage" will carry with you into the future!

Therefore, we, all the people of the planet, need to learn to perceive any end of a relationship (if any) with understanding and gratitude for the experience of love gained. After all, in fact, no matter how hard it is on the soul, by and large, it is not the loss of the object itself that is important, but rather, the subject of love as such, but the acquisition of the experience of growing up, the ability to get out of any situation with dignity, without becoming embittered, continuing to love this peace, God, your loved ones. This is the positive experience of Love - the path that develops and tempers the soul!

It is important for us to remember the main thing - the only value in this life that will go with the soul to another world to the Creator of the Universe is LOVE!

Everything before that was an exercise in perfecting and developing this real and deep feeling.

From here, the answer to the question becomes clear: Why does the material (physical) mind need to wedge itself into this holy feeling and destroy it with its negative emotions?

The answer becomes clear:

Because it will never give way to the Spiritual. It is mortal by definition and will end its existence with the death of the body. And the soul is eternal! Therefore, this confrontation will always be. As long as the person allows it. As long as it is his mind that decides, and not pure consciousness! Understanding this, we just need to learn how to subordinate the material mind to the spiritual one. Because he will not give up his positions voluntarily.

How?

There are only two ways:

Firstly: keeping your thoughts under control, putting a barrier to the material mind. As if filtering these thoughts from spiritual ones. After all, at first a negative is born thought, which undermines from the inside (suspicion, jealousy, possessiveness, whatever) and only then, if you let it develop and strengthen in the mind, a negative emotion which requires its permission. How a person copes with this depends only on himself.

Secondly: through spiritual practices, meditation, mantra recitation, breathing exercises, etc.

Having coped with negative emotions, a person begins to subdue his mind, and this is a step towards the improvement of the soul.

A person will only benefit from this, as he will rise a step higher spiritually.

So I come to the conclusion that True love and suffering are incompatible!

And the feeling of love experienced in the body on Earth is nothing but the experience gained, the disclosure of the talent to love in order to come to due date with this feeling for God!

But as long as we - people live on Earth, this feeling can be of great service to us - to save civilization from destruction.

Since by emitting positive vibes of Love, a person cleanses the space with them, improves the energy of the Earth and thereby saves the planet from negativity.

Who said Beauty will save the world? Not! The world will be saved by Love!

Because beauty is an attribute, albeit an aesthetic one, but from the material world, and Love is from the Spiritual, where we will all return in due time to answer to the Creator!

Today, in our difficult, but insanely interesting time, Heaven has given the people of planet Earth a GOLDEN KEY that opens the door to the future, where instead of the predicted death of civilization, the entrance to the Golden Millennium awaits.

The point is small - take this key and open the magic door with it!

The choice is ours.

I invite everyone who is interested in this topic to speculate on the page of the group: "LOVE - what do we know about it ..."

JOIN!!!

MOU "Average comprehensive school No. 76"

Leninsky district of the city of Saratov

XIV regional virtual competition

Essay " Simple words»

on the topic: "Truth, goodness, beauty"

The work was completed by: a student of the 10th grade. Bubnova Anna(16 years)

Head: Zaitseva N.N.

Saratov 2014

Simple words "truth", "good", "beauty". We hear them from childhood, get used to them, often use them. And only now, when I sat down to write this essay, I thought: really, what do these words mean for everyone together and for each separately? Why do we, often pronouncing them and understanding the meaning of these words, do the opposite?

So - "good". Here, it would seem, everything is clear. Kindness is justice, responsibility, mercy, love for one's neighbor, for the Fatherland, responsiveness, readiness to help, fidelity ... The list can be long, that is, in my understanding, good is all that contributes to the improvement of life, the moral elevation of the individual, improvement of society. But why is the question of goodness one of the “eternal questions” and why has mankind been answering it for many centuries? To make everyone happy, follow a simple rule: do not do to another what you do not wish for yourself, that is, evil, so that the world becomes kinder. Everyone knows the expression: "Good must be with fists." But does good, imposed by force and supported by it, cease to be good? Journalist Vladimir Goloborodko commented on this topic as follows: “Give your fists to good, so evil will immediately declare itself good.” And how many examples can be given when people who committed evil justified themselves by saying that it was done in the name of good. So, starting from antiquity, from the facts of sacrificing in the name of life and ending with modernity: this is the long-suffering Ukraine (after all, the forces that came to power promise happiness to the people - happiness in the blood), this is the policy of the American government, which, under the motto of combating terrorism and becoming democracy interferes in the affairs of other states and wreaks havoc there. Where is the line that separates good from evil? What is the price of goodness? The great Michelangelo Buonaroti said: “I don’t know which is better – evil that brings benefit, or good that brings harm.”

It is obvious that everyone is more pleasant to be in society. good people, but for this we must ourselves be such. A simple truth: in order to have more goodness in life, it is necessary to help people, not to envy anyone, to forgive the mistakes of others, to act honestly and fairly. After all, this is not difficult to do?

Good is the movement of the soul, the heart, and truth is the movement of the mind. From the point of view of social science, “truth” is a statement, supported by practice, a scientific experiment, that accurately reflects reality. We know about relative and absolute truth. But here, too, questions arise: why is it that what seems true and true to everyone is often not realized in life? Suffice it to recall the good and evil again. German writerFanny Lewald wrote that the truth is often so simple that it is not believed. And they say that "how many people, so many opinions." Can it be rephrased as “how many people, so many truths”, because hardly anyone will say about himself that he is lying? Does this mean that there are many truths? Everyone considers the truth what he wants to consider as such. The world is not yet perfect and changeable, and our knowledge about it is limited. But each of us wants to be right in our judgments and conclusions, to achieve the truth, to know the right answers to our questions. And here, in my opinion, one should really strive for objectivity, even if it contradicts someone's desires. After all, “the main obstacle to the knowledge of truth is not a lie, but a semblance of truth” (L.N. Tolstoy). Thus, truth and goodness, reason and soul are the two sides of the human balance.

The Russian philosopher V.S. Soloviev said: “Stand on the ground of truth, and beauty and goodness will shine as guiding stars.” You can also talk a lot about beauty - this is female beauty, the beauty of nature, the beauty of a work of art and much more, but the most interesting thing is that each of us sees beauty in different ways and, perhaps, where the other does not see it. I believe that the most important thing is the beauty of the soul. You can live in a not very beautiful area, not be very attractive on the outside, but a person is beautiful if he has a soul, if his inner world is sublime and beautiful. Of course, the beauty of the body and face can delight. But this beauty is incomplete, it will always seem that something is missing if it is a “cold” beauty. It is the connection of goodness and beauty that will make the world a better place.

Summing up a general line, I want to note that modern society is called a society of consumption and consumers. First of all, in the personal qualities of a person they began to value efficiency, enterprise, rationalism. But along with rational knowledge and the ability to think, it is important to develop the emotional and moral sphere of a person, which involves self-improvement, a humanistic worldview, a civil position, i.e. what we refer to as the understanding of "moral personality". And therefore I am sure that beauty, goodness and truth (and each value separately) are the hallmarks of humanity. I tried to combine these concepts in my essay, because between them, in my opinion, there is an inextricable relationship, these simple words make a person a person.