ფილოსოფიური შემეცნება. PHILOSOPHICAL COGNITION

Abstract

It is no secret that understanding of the phenomenon of cognition in the history of philosophy has never been uniform. It is clear that understanding of the nature of cognition, its meaning and value was quite diff erent, let’s say in the antic epoch or the Middle Ages than it is in our times when science has become an immediate productive power and, accordingly, the aim of the cognitive activity is determined by the production of material goods. Nowadays the problems that science has to solve are posed by factories and laboratories. But for Aristotle, one of the most prominent philosophers of Antiquity, philosophy is the supreme among all sciences since it is free. It means that it is not determined by anything and has the end of its existence in itself. Contemplation of the fi rst causes and principles is prior to all other activities. According to Aristotle, it is a supreme activity. That is why it is impossible to place any other science above philosophical cognition since the most divine is the most valuable as well. Aristotle concludes that all other sciences are more necessary than philosophy though none is better and more valuable than it (Aristotle, 1976:70) Thus, according to Aristotle, a contemplative attitude to reality is valuable in itself. It has in itself the instance that justifi es it and attaches the meaning to it. Therefore, the signifi cance of the theoretical work for man is determined not by the truth itself or, as later Spinoza will say, intellectual love for God. In this sense, it is a real entelechy (“entelechy” means having the end in itself). In this respect, the Aristotelian interpretation of cognition as an activity which has its end in itself and is of the original value opposes the understanding of the cognition formulated in the New Times by Francis Bacon. According to Bacon, knowledge is power, therefore the value of the cognitive activity is determined by the practical-utilitarian results ensuing from it, namely, such a result is man’s domination over the forces of nature. A quite diff erent interpretation of the essence of cognition is given by Heraclitus of Ephesus. According to him, cognition of an event means understanding the place of this event in the universal unity of the world and the relation of this unity to Logos. That is why Heraclitus says that the mark of wisdom is to be in consent not with him, but with Logos and to understand that everything is in unity since there is only one wisdom – to use everything to conceive the essence which constitutes all things in the world (Anthology of the world Philosophy, 1969:279). Wisdom and knowledge imply the relation to this unity and retaining it. Therefore, the matter is not how much we know but whether we know the One that rules the universal unity of the things and phenomena in the world. Therefore, it is evident that Heraclitus understands cognition in his own way and needs much more from cognition than a mere description of its factual and immediate presence or even determining its closest causes. Heraclitus who relies on such a deep conception of cognition would, of course, have never admitted that the present-day scientifi c interpretation of cognition is cognition. It is not just a historical-chronological limitation of Heraclitus’s interpretation of cognition that matters, but a diff erent understanding of the concept of cognition, and the existence of different world outlook models of cognition. Thus, for example, present- day botany off ers us certain knowledge on ivy or a pomegranate tree. In particular, it describes the morphological structure of these plants (e.g., ivy is characterized by a mosaic arrangement of leaves, etc.), and states the biological regularities of their functioning and vital activities. But botany as long as we remain within the limits of this science will fail to explain why the united world being displayed itself as a vegetal being and, in its turn, why the vegetal being is displayed in the modus of ‘ivy’ or ‘a pomegranate fl ower’. This eventually is to be explained by philosophy which certainly will have to consider the data obtained by botany or any other special science. It is certain that Heraclitus relying on his specifi c understanding of cognition would not be satisfi ed with the data concerning plants given by botany only. Even more, he would never have considered it a “cognition”. In our epoch of unprecedented development of science M. Heidegger stated that science does not think (die wissenschaft denkt nicht) (Heidegger M. 1971:4). Later Heidegger interpreted this, at the fi rst sight, paradoxical statement when said that the phrase “science does not think” means that science does not move in the dimension of philosophy. He thinks that science remains in the sphere of an existing or the unity of existings and never manages to enter the sphere of the being. Therefore, it has nothing to do with the conceptualization of the being. “Thinking”/ cognition in its genuine sense is the task of poetry and philosophy and not of science since the basis of science is in the development of the contemporary technique and not vice versa (Heidegger M. 1970:72). Therefore, as we can see, it is possible to speak about various understandings of the concept of cognition in the great systems of the theory of cognition throughout the whole history of gnosiology. Thus, for example, cognition as comprehension of the meaning, the “logos” of the universal unity of the world is given by Heraclitus, cognition as remembering or reminiscence is found at Plato, cognition as constituting the object of cognition in the process of cognition – at Kant, cognition as admitting theoretical value – at Rickert, cognition as self-revealing of the being and existing in it – in existentialism, cognition as a refl ection of the regularities of the objective reality in order to transform it – in the Marxist gnosiology, etc. These interpretations of the concept of cognition, of course, form a certain unity without which there could be no united history of cognitive theoretical thinking.