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The Philosophy of Unity and Development of Harmony as a Variant of the Anthropocosmic World View1
Halyna Berehova — Doctor of Philosophy, Professor Kherson State Agricultural University (Kherson, Ukraine)
E-mail: gberegova@meta.ua
The article touches upon the actual problem of integrity of the human being and space from the position of modern civilized aspects and noosphere vector of generating the mankind. Anthropocosmism is presented as an integral vision of the human being that embraces the natural-scientific direction of cosmism and noospherism and also defines the role and place of such philosophical categories as the unity and development of harmony in a new, planetary-cosmic world view of the individual.
Comprehension of anthropocosmism significantly expands the consciousness capacity of the contemporary individual by means of realizing the functional and structural unity of the universe and the human performing the humanity's space mission, striving for the world order and accepting the individual as the single whole.
Key Words: anthropocosmism, the single whole, the unity, the Universe, harmony, anthropocosmic world view.
Speaking about the importance of difficult and versatile relations of the human being and nature, the problem of integrity of existence of the human being and space (anthropocosmic unity) is now especially actual observing the technical civilization and a noospheric vector of generating mankind demanding, in its turn, a compulsory examination of such a philosophical category as the unity. Generally speaking, the unity (Greek. xoev, Lat. unum) is one of the fundamental notions of Philosophy and Mathematics, meaning the origin of indivisibility and integrity as something real essential — of a thing, of a soul, of consciousness, of a personality, as of an ideal being — of a notion, of a law, of number etc. [New philosophical encyclopedia].
The Pythagoreans and the founders of Elea philosophical school were the first to discuss the notion of the single: according to the Pythagoreans, the notion of the single (monad) is the origin of the number, and the number is a condition of the possibility of any knowledge; according to the scholars from Elea, the notions of the single and the essential are used like synonyms (the being is single and the plural is nonbeing) [Philosophical encyclopedic dictionary, 1983: 156].
In European philosophical traditions, the essence of the notion of "the unity" is discovered through understanding of such a category as "the single" which is as important for the philosophical comprehension of reality and discovering the essence of the anthropocosmic world view of the notion of "the single" as the "notion of being": depending on the fact, which of these notions is considered to be supreme, one can speak about the two types of
1 I express my sincere gratitude to Iryna Kyselevych for translation of the article from the Ukrainian language
© Berehova, Halyna, 2017
metaphysics — the metaphysics of the single (genology) and the metaphysics of the being (ontology). To generalize difference in the interpretation of the notion of "the single" between various representatives of philosophical schools and systems, we are giving them in the historical aspect in the form of the key quotations:
- Heraclitus: "There is one from everything, there is everything from one" [Anthology of world philosophy, 1969: 278].
- Anaxagoras: "There is a part of all in everything" [Anthology of world philosophy, 1969: 310].
- Parmenides: The space and human being are isomorphic structures, diametrically reflecting each other.
- Plato: The single is not the being, it is the superbeing.
- Aristotle: The single is: 1) uninterrupted; 2) the whole having a certain form; 3) general and 4) solitary.
- Plotin: The single is the supreme origin of the essential, higher than the reason and knowledge, incomprehensible.
- Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: The single is an apophatical subject of Theology, the super-essential, the being itself.
- Augustine: The single is God as the highest being; the Trinity is the logical completion of the single.
- Boethius: "What is not single, in general, can't exist because the being and the single are opposite and everything, that is single, exists" [Boethius, 2002: 176].
- Thomas Aquinas: The single is the indivisibility of the essential and its being, the precondition of the thought.
- Nicolaus Cusanus: "The single and the unfinished are identical, the single is everything, nothing is opposite to the single" [Kuzanskiy, 1979: 51].
- Rene Descartes: "The unity is the high perfection, characteristic of God" [Anthology of world philosophy, 1969].
- Descartes distinguishes the two types of the unity: physical and spiritual.
- Spinoza: "God is the single ... in the nature of things, only one substance exists and this substance is absolutely unfinished" [Spinoza, 1957: 372].
- Leibniz: "Only God is the first Unity or the eternal simple substance" [Leibnitz, 1982: 421].
- Kant: "the Unity is "Me" of the transcendental apperception" [Anthology of world philosophy, 1969].
- Fichte: High unity is Absolutely Me, later is the Absolute, the image of single-absolute knowledge.
- Schelling: "What we call "Me" is the only ideal and real, ultimate and unfinished unity; but this unity is one's own activity" [Schelling, 1987: 551].
As we can see the divergence between genology and ontology is not distinct as in the antiquity, the notions of the being and the single could replace each other because the being was considered to be the main basis of something simple or indivisible and that's why, single.
Among the interpretations of ancient philosophers, Plotin's thought deserves a special attention. He considers the single to be the supreme origin of the essential that has need in nothing and does not want anything, is higher than the reason and knowledge and, because of that, incomprehensible. The reason is the first energy of the Single and comes out from its fullness in the way of emanation, like the light comes out from the sun. Only because the essential is involved in the Single, it makes something whole, universum. The reason, as the
nearest being to the Single, is identical to it in unity, but differs from it in multitude: Plotin calls the reason "the whole unity", as it contains the integrity of the essential [Taranov, 2005: 378-389].
A considerable contribution to the comprehension of the single was made by the German idealism whose representatives aspired to prove the impossibility of the thesis about the incomprehension of the single and created a special speculative method, based on the principle of the coincidence of the opposites and legalizing contradictions as a constructive principle of the philosophical system. With the aid of this method they strove to comprehend the Absolute in the notions, creating, as a matter of fact, pantheistic constructions in which the single appeared as the whole unity, as the unity of the opposites — the identity and non-identity. So, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel saw the origin of the unity in Me as in a transcendental subject that was, according to them, the absolute subject. According to Fichte's conviction, the establishment of the unity of knowledge was the main task of philosophy [Philosophical encyclopedic dictionary, 1983]. Under the influence of the German idealism, the theory about the whole unity became the central theme in the Russian religious philosophy at the end of 19th — at the beginning of the 20th centuries in the works of Volodymyr Soloviov, Serhiy and Yevhen Trubetzkyh, Mykola Losskyi, Semen Frank, Pavlo Florenskyi, SerhiyBulhakov, Lev Karsavin and others:
- Volodymyr Soloviov: The whole unity is "the unity of oneself and oneself's opposite" [Solovyov, 2004: 321]. The notion of the whole unity is tightly connected with its sophiology: Sophia (the World's Soul) is the intermediate origin between the First (God) and the Second (the Essential) Absolute.
- Serhiy Trubetzkoy: the starting point is the intuition of a Slavephile of the whole unity as the united consciousness whose basis is formed with love — "the unity of all is in one, the consciousness of all is in oneself and oneself is in all" [Trubetzkoy, 1994: 592].
- Semen Frank: the whole unity is the world and God as the whole single. "There is nothing in the world and nothing is thought as itself without any connection with something different. The being is the whole unity... Even the notion of God is not an exception... just because he is considered as "the Basis", "the Creator", "the Holder of the world" [Frank, 1990: 51].
- Mykola Losskyi: if the Single (God) is thought as the immanent of the world, it can be only the unity put aside, — not a single creature, but the unity of law. The single is "only in the system of much of something and in the mutual dependence with it..." [Losskiy, 1991: 384].
So, the philosophical ideas of the ancient cosmocentrism were organically completed with the idea of the whole unity. The Ukrainian philosophy of the 18th century contributed to the elaboration of the idea of the whole unity. Hryhoriy Skovoroda said in his philosophical studies about the idea of three "worlds": macrocosm, or the Universe, microcosm, or the human being and the third "symbolic reality" connecting large and small worlds and ideally reflecting them in itself.
Examining Skovoroda's views from the position of the metatheory as "the three suns unity", V. Ivanova proves that the components of this unity are "such world view conceptions as the theory of comprehension of three worlds and two natures, the theory of self-comprehension and formation of a real individual, the idea of affinity, the philosophy of heart ("cordocentrism"), the problem of seeking happiness [Ivanova, 2013: 3]. Besides that, the idea of unity is found in the theory of two natures with the characteristic pantheism in Skovoroda's interpretation of God: according to the philosopher, God was the real, identical to the nature, he was any in everything but at the same time, the world was very far away from God who was "the source",
"the sun" of the world. However, the invisible nature (God, spirit, soul) existed only in the visible one — in the body, whose advantage over the spirit Hryhoriy Skovoroda denied.
Characterizing the whole unity as a scientific category and reality, Kim Matsa regards the whole unity as the first principle of the organization of all spheres of being of the surrounding world. "The whole unity deep sense is the integrity of the world. The whole unity makes the world integrate. Only with the condition of the integrity in the world, the self-action of the laws of nature can take place and that makes the world capable to self-movement" [Matsa, 2001: 26].
The researcher also points out to the four aspects of the unity of the surrounding world among which there are: 1) the substrate unity which can be seen in its material unity; 2) the evolutional unity which is found in the unity of algorithm and the direction of the evolutional process; 3) the procedural unity with the general subordination of the action and antiaction and the rotation (of material, of energy, of information) as the universal form of movement in the Universe; 4) the structural unity which is explained by the hierarchy of the world which is the system of systems with the successive structural and functional subordination and the existence of its spacious niche and functional purpose for every object of the surrounding world [Matsa, 2001: 27-29].
The unity of the world can be not only revealed in the light of "crude" (seen) matters and types of energy but in the light of "thin" (unseen) matters and types of energy as well. So, Karl Popper distinguishes three levels in the whole unity — physical, mental, thought-creating and from here — the whole unity must be exposed as the material unity, energetic-informational and spiritual unity (the existence of the single world emotional-sensual und thought-creating field) [Popper, 1983]. And also, "the structural and procedural unity of the world causes it's through unity: the unity of the material and ideal, corporal and spiritual" [Matsa, 2001: 29]. Besides, the whole unity is the process of "collecting" the Universe". So, Volodymyr Soloviov noted that, "... the positive connection of the successive kingdoms lies in the fact, that every type embraces or includes (the further, the more completely) the lower ones in itself in such a way that the world process is not only the one of development and improvement, but the process of collecting the Universe" [Kuvakin, 1988: 40-41]. From this the following can be drawn: in the hierarchy of the Universe there are no small things — everything has its purpose and is in the intercommunication and interdependence.
Characterizing the unity as the very first foundation of the regulation of the world and its components, lying in the principle of the universal world order, some researchers determine it as the whole cosmic unity. According to Hennadiy Makukha, the whole cosmic unity is demonstrated by the Single Cosmic System consisting of three levels — informational, energetic and material (atomic-molecular), arranged by the principle of mutual transition: information comes into energy, energy comes into substance.
By the way, information and energy are tightly interdependent field creatures, and that's why the Universe, as Hennadiy Makukha states, is the single informational-energetic field, the single informational-energetic "ocean", on the surface of which the subject "islands" in the form of the starry-planetary systems (galaxies) and other cosmic objects (having the informational-energetic basis) "float." From this the following conclusion can be made that with the aid of influence the single informational-energetic field of the Universe, one can influence the whole Cosmos in general [Makukha, 2007: 127].
The Universe is the unity of the opposites, the unity of the opposite types of energy being in harmony and balance, and the Creator could reach this harmony thanks to the energy of love which He possesses, because only love can unite the opposites and bring their struggle to the level of unity and harmony [Makukha, 2007: 130].
The similar ideas are expressed by the famous contemporary philosopher Valery Sahatovskyi (1933) who substantiates the necessity of formation in the humanity a new world view, "anthropocosmic by its foundations, noospheric by its sense of purpose and orthodoxchristian by keeping of spiritual traditions" [Shubin, 2010]. The harmony, coming from the ancient studies about the musical ringing of the planets (the Sun, Mars and planetary "spheres") in the geocentrical imaginations of Eudoxus, Ptolemaeus and others, forms the basis of his philosophizing, and wider — about the musical-mathematical system of space. By the way, within the Pythagoreism, the harmony had a deep ethical, esthetical and eschatological sense, because "the soul" was also thought as "harmony", the isomorphic harmony of space; the terrestrial lyre was the precise "reflection" of the celestial one, the play on the lyre was the drawing to the harmony of the Universe and the preparation for the returning to the astral great Motherland; music played catharsis in the soul and was the medicine of spirit [New philosophical encyclopedia].
On the basis of the philosophy of the harmony development and the basic notion of the social-anthropological integrity, Valery Sahatovskyi tried, examining the individual, to unite organically the social philosophy and the philosophical anthropology. This approach was called integrated-interactive and expounded in the third part of his book "The philosophy of the harmony development" — "Anthropology" (1999) and "The philosophy of anthropocosmism in a short interpretation" (2004) and in other publications.
Sahatovskyi's philosophy of the harmony development is based on the fact, that the social-anthropological integrity (SAI), according to the researcher, is a subject of history — it is a contradictory unity of the society, social groups and the personality, and the structure of this integrity is formed with the intersection of three existing (objective, subjective and transcendental) and three functional (natural, social and psychological) levels. The filling of the matrix cells forming on the intersection of the existing and functional levels shows such spheres of life of the SAI which, in principle, are not formalized and cannot be rationally analysed (except the comprehension of their place and role in this life) that means the crossing from the contours of the completely rationalized social-anthropological system to the social-anthropological integrity containing "lacunas" in the soul (existence) and spirit (transcendence).
The specific features of the human being in defining the criteria of its norm and progress is in existence of the alternative: either the movement to the accepted level of the harmony development of SAI, its components and their relations with the nature, or the movement to the planetary catastrophe, to the disintegration. After all, the person cannot but create. However, the direction of his/her self-expression and creativity holds the opposite powers in itself: either noosphere (the development of the society harmony, the personality and nature on the basis of the inner perception of the self-value of the whole and its parts), or turning of the global problems into the global catastrophe. "The individual has swum away from the animals' bank, but hasn't swum to the human's one yet, where the dialogue and responsible co-creativity with the world will become his/her everyday norm (the idea of anthropocosmism)", — Nona Sahatovska explains the meaning of such philosophizing [Sagatovskaya, 2013]. No doubt, the direction of the way of life development is determined with the content and correlation of the basic values of the human activity. In Valery Sahatovskyi's conception, the axiological structure of the activity as a whole, having the specific character of the attributive types of activity (change, consumption, communication, cognition, the esthetical and religious attitude to the world, etc.) is determined with the basic values on which the given type of activity orientates.
Besides that, Valery Sahatovskyi made a "deeper" topology of people than just the distribution of them according to ethnic, class, confessional, professional and other signs;
this topology is presented as the axiological topology, in whose frames people are divided into three types corresponding to the orientation on the metavalues: creators (an action — an unique event of entering the being in the process of its improvement), predators-destructors (a crime — an anti-action, the egocentric self-affirmation by exploiting the world) and conformists (mimesis—the adapting imitation of the generally accepted)—all the orientations can be more or less inherent in any person; the type is determined with the dominant). From these positions, the history is considered by the philosopher as the process of struggle for the leading role and influence the conformist majority from the side of predators (bringing the world to disaster) and creators (contributing to noosphere): outstanding personalities (both of positive and negative directions) form a consortium (a passionate association of the carriers of new values and projects) fighting the creation of critical mass in the society to carry out any changes (such an activity is understood to be realized in the interaction of the obvious objective conditions) [Sagatovskaya, 2013].
Valery Sahatovskyi's anthropocosmism testifies to the unity of the person and space but not to their estrangement and opposition to each other; he sees the personality not as the world centre, but as its organic part, responsible for the formation of the world unity. The chain of the clue values forms the basis of this world view; at the same time these values are the categories exposing the essence of the idea: the Sobornist (a complex term of unification, conciliation, independence and universal values of the Ukrainian nation) — the Whole unity — Sophianity — a Common Matter — Noosphere. The whole unity in this chain is such state of the world and individual in which the ideal of the Sobornist is embodied. The world and human appear as the whole unity in which the harmonization of the single and multitude is realized and the extremities of the totalitarism and individualism are overcome.
Sahatovskyi's philosophical system "The philosophy of the harmony development" is, to our mind, an original and systematically stated world view conception, which in the process of its turning into a subject, can become productive as for the personality's formation and his/her spiritual potential as for overcoming the social hopeless situation. "The philosophy of the harmony development" author's intellectual attempts are directed, to Volodymyr Shubin's mind, to the elaboration of the 21st century world view because "the former world view systems" drawn either to the power over the world or to the withdrawal from the world showed their inability. The latter can be brought to light as in the growth of nonspirituality as in the growth (quantitatively and qualitatively) of global problems" [Shubin, 2010].
So, the notion of unity, being in the centre of different philosophical systems has always served for the definition of the principles which form the basis of the surrounding world, and the understanding of the whole unity (the unity of the Universe) has always been a very important pre-condition of the human's being; after all the whole unity is ontologically characterized by the complete mutual penetration and division of the elements of the whole at the same time.
The unity as the social-anthropological integrity in which the author of the philosophy of the harmony development did not only give the general structure of the philosophy of anthropocosmism but made a systematic analysis of philosophy as a special type of activity, propounded the theory about the person's peaceful relations as nonmetaphisical axiological structure, the social-anthropological integrity (SAI), and outlined, in addition, the contours of the world view of the epoch of global problems. "The anthropocosmic point of view affirms the principal aspiration to life assertion and confirmation having mutual negentropical (sophian) tendencies of the developing harmony of everything essential on any of its levels denying the evil — the absolute domination of any beginning (from God to an egocentric personality). Hence, the highest good is a developing harmony, happiness is as an emotion of participation in
it, evil and unhappiness are as the principal assertion of disharmony and choice of corresponding emotions" [Sagatovskiy, 1999: 145].
So, anthropocosmism as a complex of imaginations about the unity of the person and Universe contains an integral imagination about the person's image in the philosophical anthropology and outlines more completely the natural-scientific direction of cosmism and noospherism and determines the role and place of such philosophical categories like the whole unity and harmony development in a new planetary-cosmic world view. More details about it can be found in the monograph "Educational potential of philosophical knowledge in the system of higher agrarian education in Ukraine" [Berehova, 2012: 131-154]. However, it is worthy to admit the inexhaustibility of the problems despite the anthropocosmism breadth; it is one of the main problems not only of the modern philosophy but culture and practice common to mankind.
It should be added that knowledge of anthropocosmism widen vitally the consciousness of a modern personality in a way of becoming aware of the functional and structural unity of the world system and person, fulfilment of the cosmic mission of humanity, aspiration to the world order and perception of the individual in him/herself as the whole united creature. We strongly believe that it is this spectrum of philosophizing that needs to be included into study programs in philosophy at all higher education institutions, though the author in the dissertation considers only agricultural higher schools [Berehova, 2013].
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