Александр Жалнин - Основной метод философии The Basic Method of Philosophy

The Basic Method of Philosophy

The book is in English and Russian

Основнойметодфилософии

Книганаанглийскомирусскомязыках

The main problem of modern philosophy

Modern philosophy, unlike other disciplines, has one amazing feature: it does not know what it is. And the point here is not so much in the accuracy of the definitions of its subject matter, but in fundamental disagreements about its essence: some consider it science, others consider it art, still others consider it a special way of thinking, fourth find religion in it, fifth find mysticism, and so on, up to to those who consider it empty verbiage.

By the way, there are quite a few of the latter and their arguments are well founded: the quality of many philosophical publications is such that the difference between them and verbiage is sometimes rather arbitrary, if at all.

It should be noted that the matter of clarifying the essence of philosophy – if we talk about a common opinion – has long reached a dead end, so some suggest that philosophy should be considered what each particular philosopher thinks about it. True, this leaves open the question of how to determine who exactly is a philosopher and who is not.

Such a situation, on the one hand, attracts many people to “philosophy” who want to prove themselves in this “mysterious and incomprehensible” area, which makes it close to the people, and on the other hand, it litters it very much, as if in mathematics, along with with formulas and numbers, would use poems and music. In addition, the fuzziness of the modern understanding of philosophy attracts many individuals with fuzzy, eclectic, demagogic thinking, which in other disciplines is a sign of mental retardation.

For the same reasons, the development of philosophy itself also stopped: how can you develop something if you do not know what it is? Or, if we talk about the practical needs of understanding various life problems – what should philosophy develop to solve them, which would not be within the competence of many sciences and modern technologies? Many are looking for “wisdom” in philosophy, which is not found in the sciences and art, but if you start to understand the texts they offer for this title, it immediately becomes clear that this is a kind of fraud, only with the use of confusing terminology, which as a result does not promote solution to the problem.

Thus, we come to the question of the foundations of philosophy – and as we know, it is with the idea of wisdom that its emergence is connected. It is obvious that philosophizing is a type, a special way of thinking, or, to put it another way, it is a special way of thinking. Which, as was believed in antiquity, wise people possessed. Isn't that what Heraclitus meant when he said that much knowledge does not make the mind better?

Основная проблема современной философии

Современная философия, в отличие от иных дисциплин, имеет одну удивительную особенность: она не знает, что она есть такое. И дело здесь не столько в точности определений её предмета ведения, сколько в принципиальных разногласиях о её сущности: одни считают её наукой, другие считают её искусством, третьи – особенным способом мышления, четвёртые находят в ней религию, пятые – мистику и так далее, вплоть до тех, кто считает её пустым словоблудием.

К слову сказать, последних довольно-таки немало и их доводы имеют веские основания: качество многих философских публикаций таково, что разница между ними и словоблудием порою довольно условна, если вообще имеется.

Надо отметить, что дело с уяснением сущности философии – если говорить о едином мнении – давно зашло в тупик, так что некоторые предлагают считать философией то, что о ней думает каждый конкретный философ. Правда, при этом остаётся открытым вопрос о том, как определить кто именно является философом, а кто нет.