The concept of "evolution" in philosophy

History, biology, philosophy and other sciences always go hand in hand. Therefore, it is not surprising that some concepts can be interpreted from several sides. The concept of "evolution" to this day has very vague explanations. Many scientists are trying to find the best possible interpretation of this term.

The general state of things

When we hear "evolution", we immediately see Darwin with his theories and solutions. In fact, the term has a long history and is analyzed for several centuries in a row. It is often applied to the question of the development of mankind in the narrow sense and completely forget about other broad areas.

Evolution is also repeatedly mentioned together with the revolution and degradation. One concept is an active continuation of the first. The second signifies its opposite. Either way, the concept of "evolution" has a common feature that we will try to find.

Interpretation

As we have already mentioned, this term can be interpreted in both a narrow and a broader sense. It was first applied and generally recognized in the 19th century. If we want to say about the development of the organism or person, then in this case the definition of the concept of evolution is used as a narrow term. If we want to mention the progress of the people, in this case evolution is even broader. If, however, this term is associated with the development not only of the organic world, but also of the inorganic, then it will be explained most widely, in a philosophical context.

It is important to understand that the interpretation of this word does not change from whether we will narrow or expand the term. Anyway, the definition of the concept of evolution lies in the word "development". And whether it is the development of an individual, history or peace, the meaning will not change. So it turns out that in all the above cases the content remains permanent. It remains only to find common signs.

Conditions of existence

If you are asked: "Give the definition of the concept of evolution," which will be immediately indicated? First of all it is necessary to talk about the conditions, without which it can not exist. The first is changeability. It should be understood that not all changes are evolution, but any evolution entails changes. Obviously, if there were no processes, the world would be devoid of evolution.

The following condition is a distinctive feature. Changes are not always positive. But according to interpretation, evolution is different in that in the process there is a transition to a more perfect state. That is, something changes and becomes more complex, valuable and significant. And it does not matter, qualitative or quantitative changes occur.

The next condition concerns the unity of the subject. In this case, the encyclopedic dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron gives an example with water. If changes occur with water, and it is divided into components, it eventually turns out: both water itself and oxygen with hydrogen could exist independently. So, no development by and large did not happen. In this case, the concept of "evolution" is not appropriate. It can be applicable only if the new state could replace the previous one, that is, development took place.

Division

This term has long been tried to apply to various spheres of life. And if it can be interpreted logically about living organisms, then historically there are doubts. We can easily assert about the growth of the physical. But now regarding the development of spiritual principles immediately arise questions. Mental development seems to be obvious, although they were suppressed by the decline and even the absolute destruction of whole cultural epochs.

Nevertheless, the main reason why the basic concept of evolution appeared in philosophy and was transferred from the living world was the demand to analyze everything as a whole. Of course, there could immediately arise a desire to eliminate all existing boundaries between the dead and the living, matter and spirit. There would be those who would imagine the emergence of life from dead matter and in the reverse order.

The second reason relates to ideas of a moral order. The concept of the evolution of philosophy makes this aspect of social or even individual life a phenomenon of the world.

Other reasons

An important role played and cosmism with geology. Spencer summed them up under the scheme of development and continued the ideas of early scientists regarding the influence of organic evolution on any other.

The researcher notices its essence in the transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous, and the reason for this process is that any force can produce several changes, just as any occasion creates several acts. Of course, such a scheme easily embodied one of the conditions of evolution about unity.

Touching in philosophy

Naturally, this term has received strong support from Darwinism and Transformism. The task of the organic world was easily solved with the explanation that any form can be interpreted by differentiation of another or several simplest forms.

Thus, it became clear that evolution is directly related to history. It has all the same perfection and deprivation. But that's exactly what led to the conviction that evolutionism concerns only the birth of phenomena and in no way their essence. Consequently, he so needs to be interpreted from the side of philosophy and additions from different philosophical points of view.

All pro and contra

The concept of evolution began to interpret philosophy from its point of view. Naturally, it could not unite with the dualistic theory, it was also far from subjectivism and solipsism. But evolutionism has become an excellent basis for monistic philosophy. This can be explained by the fact that monism has two forms. One is materialistic, the other is idealistic. The representative of the first form was Spencer, the second tried to express Hegel. Both were imperfect, but, one way or another, boldly supported by the concept of evolution.

The origin of the theory

As mentioned earlier, when we hear the word "evolution", Darwin immediately comes to mind. So, the concepts of the theory of evolution were born long before Darwinism. The first thoughts appeared in Greece - so spoke the transformational views. Anaximander and Empedocles are now considered the originators of the theory itself. Although there are no sufficient grounds for such a statement.

In the Middle Ages, it was difficult to find the basis for the development of the theory. Interest in studying all life was negligible. Theological systems of government were not favorable for the development of evolutionary theory. At this time, Augustine and Erigen tried their best to understand this question.

In the Renaissance the main engine was Giordano Bruno. The philosopher looked at the world, even if he was fantastic enough, nevertheless he was thinking in the right direction. He argued that being consists of a special system that has monads of varying difficulty. Unfortunately, the point of view of Bruno was not accepted by that world and did not affect the course of philosophy in any way.

Somewhere near the "walked" the Bakon and Descartes. The former spoke about transformism, about the change in species of plants and animals, but his thoughts were completely devoid of evolutionism. Descartes supported Spinoza with his representation of the world as a substance.

Evolution is now being developed after Kant. The philosopher himself also did not express vivid thoughts about development. He in his works repeatedly mentioned the theory of evolution, but his philosophy should be attributed rather to involution. Yet Kant sympathized with epigenesis.

But then the theory began to receive quite clear explanations and full justifications. Fichte, Schelling and Hegel began to develop Kant's ideas. At them evolution began to be called natural philosophy. Hegel, and did try to apply it to the spiritual world and history.

Human

Sooner or later the world had to learn what the evolution of man is. This concept is now described by the term "anthropogenesis". Thanks to his theories there is an idea of where, why and when a person appeared. The main opinions are three: creationism, evolutionism and cosmism.

The first theory is the oldest and the most classical. She argues that humanity is the product of a mystical being (God). The evolutionary theory proposed by Darwin speaks of ape-like ancestors and of the fact that modern people emerged from them during development. The third theory is the most unlikely and fabulous tells that people have an extraterrestrial pedigree, connected either with extraterrestrial beings, or with tests of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Reality

If we still talk about anthropogenesis as a science, many researchers adhere to the evolutionary theory. It is the most real, moreover it is confirmed by archaeological and biological finds. At this point, this biological evolution points to several stages in the development of mankind :

• Australopithecus.
• The man is skilled.
• The man is erect.
• The oldest man is reasonable.
• Neanderthal.
• A reasonable person is new.

Australopithecus at the moment is considered the first person closest to the image of man. Although outwardly he was more like a monkey than a human. He lived about 4-1 million years ago in the field of Africa.

A skilled man is considered the first of our kind. They called him that because he could produce the first tools of labor and combat. Perhaps he could speak. The man who bore down took up not only Africa, but also Eurasia. In addition to weapons, he extracted fire. Also there is a possibility that I could talk. The oldest reasonable person is a transition stage. Therefore, it is sometimes overlooked from the description of the stages of anthropogenesis.

Neanderthals used to be considered the direct ancestor of man, but later they decided that it was a dead end of evolution. It is known that it was a fairly developed people, had its own culture, art and even morality.

The last stage is the Intelligent New Man. He came from the Cro-Magnon people. They externally differed little from the modern person. After themselves could leave a huge legacy: artifacts related to the culture of life and society.

Society

It is worth saying that the concept of "social evolution" appeared earlier than Darwinism. Its foundations were laid by Spencer. The main idea remains that any society begins its path from the primitive state and gradually goes to Western civilization. The problem with these ideas was that the research concerned only individual societies and their development.

The most logical and consistent attempt to analyze and substantiate the social theory of evolution belonged to Parsons. He conducted research on the scale of the theory of world history. Now there is a huge number of archaeologists and anthropologists who have directed their resources to study the theory of multilinear evolution, sociobiology, modernization, etc.

System

Speaking about society, this aspect should not be overlooked. The evolution of the concept of the system has long come to its apogee. It took more than half a century, when all sorts of theories were accepted by the scientific community. Nevertheless, the main problem to this day is the lack of a generally accepted approach to all systemic studies.

Although most scientists positively look at this issue. Many believe that there is still a real community in this "heap" of directions. But so far no one has developed a single understanding of the system. Here, as in many other spheres, one half of the interpretation tends toward the philosophical principle, the other touches on practical use.

The science

Science also remained without a single terminological concept. For a long time, the development of the term "science" could not find itself. Perhaps the appearance of PP Gaidenko's book "The Evolution of the Concept of Science" is not surprising. In the work the author shows not only the development of the term in the 17th and 18th century, but also the understanding of it, the methods and methods of substantiating knowledge, as well as the further development of the concept.

Concepts

The notion of evolution became known not only in biology. The term was able to spread to all kinds of spheres. It turned out that evolution can relate not only to living organisms, philosophy or society, evolution can be interpreted in a narrower sense, as the development of a term or a specific subject.

Often, evolution is remembered in Marxism. Along with the revolution, this term is used to describe various aspects and development. This, by the way, is another influence of philosophy on this concept. Evolution in this regard is a change in being and consciousness. It can have quantitative and qualitative transformations. And if evolution is gradual change, then revolution is considered a sharp, cardinal, qualitative transformation.