Philosophy, its Subject, and its Role in Human and Societal Life

The Specificity of Philosophy as a Form of Worldview. Philosophy and Science

The term "philosophy" derives from the Greek, meaning the love of wisdom. The word "philosopher" was first used by the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras to describe those who sought intellectual knowledge and the right way of life. The interpretation and establishment of the term "philosophy" in European culture is primarily associated with the Greek thinker Plato.

Philosophy is a theoretically formulated worldview, a system of the most general theoretical perspectives on the world, humanity’s place within it, and the diverse forms of humanity’s relationship to the world. What distinguishes philosophy from other forms of worldview is not so much its subject matter as the way it contemplates and articulates worldview problems, and the degree of intellectual development it applies to them. Philosophy uses concepts and categories as its language, constructing its conclusions based on logic and evidence, reflecting society’s growing need to understand the world and humanity from the standpoint of knowledge, as opposed to mythological and religious worldviews that rely on dogmatic faith and supernatural explanations.

Philosophy belongs to a reflective type of worldview, characterized by contemplation on its own representations of the world and humanity’s place within it. It poses and seeks to answer fundamental questions of human existence, striving to discover the ultimate grounds and norms for a conscious attitude toward reality.

Since historical epochs differ in terms of cultural development, economic and political systems, and levels of knowledge, answers to these ultimate questions vary across time, manifesting as different historical types of philosophy.

Philosophy emerged in the 7th-6th centuries BCE, almost simultaneously in three centers of ancient civilization: India, China, and Ancient Greece. Its emergence was a natural result of humanity’s spiritual development, rooted in several preconditions: socio-economically, the rise of class societies and states, and the separation of intellectual from physical labor, which provided certain segments of the population the opportunity to engage in theoretical activities; spiritually, the accumulation of empirical knowledge about nature (e.g., mathematics, astronomy) and the development of mythology; psychologically, wonder, doubt, and reflection. German philosopher Karl Jaspers also considered the awareness of the lostness of human existence as a significant psychological precondition for philosophical thought.

Philosophy arose primarily as a means of rational comprehension of the world. Myth and religion, with their fixed, once-and-for-all answers, could no longer satisfy the growing human interest in knowledge, nor could they generalize and systematize accumulated experience. As we know, in the "Axial Age," humanity made a qualitative leap in its development: the mythological epoch slowly receded as rationally tested experience contested myth. It was at this time that the first philosophers emerged, replacing priests. They liberated thought from superstition, fostering the capacity for critical reflection. Philosophy always takes shape as a theory that formulates its system of categories and principles, applying them universally to nature, society, humanity, and thought itself.

Philosophy is a unique form of spiritual activity, possessing traits that both align it with other spheres of society’s spiritual life (science, art, religion) and set it apart from them. The distinctiveness of philosophy is often revealed through comparison with science.

Firstly, the main goal of scientific activity is to obtain true knowledge about reality, which is strictly regulated even at the empirical level. The elements of scientific knowledge include facts, laws, theories, and "scientific pictures of the world," all of which are crucially dependent on the ability to be tested by experiment.

In contrast, philosophical conclusions are not subject to empirical verification. As Nikolai Berdyaev noted, “The world is revealed to philosophy differently than it is to science, and the path of its cognition is different. Science deals with a partially abstracted reality; the world as a whole is not disclosed to it, nor does it grasp the meaning of the world.” Each science examines not the entire world but only a fragment, a particular aspect of it. In philosophy, however, the worldview issues of existence are explored. The essence of philosophy lies in contemplating general problems within the system of "world—humanity," and the universality of philosophical knowledge makes it impervious to experimental verification in laboratories.

Secondly, while scientific knowledge is embodied in new mechanisms, more efficient technological processes, and is largely utilitarian, philosophy serves as an eternal human need to search for answers to questions about existence and the meaning of life. No science sets out to answer questions like how one should live or what one should live for. Its truths are cold and impersonal: the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection; the sum of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees. It is in philosophy that the synthesis of two approaches is realized: the scientific-rational and the value-based (which is excluded from scientific knowledge). In other words, science answers the question "why," while philosophy answers "for what" and "with what purpose."

Unlike scientific and technical knowledge, which serves practical needs, philosophical thought substantiates ideals linked to the search for the meaning of human and societal existence. In this sense, German philosopher Max Scheler characterized philosophy as "knowledge for salvation," contrasting it with the scientific and technical "knowledge for domination."

Thirdly, in science, there is always a fundamental theory—a paradigm accepted by all scientists working in a given field. In philosophy, however, conclusions lack such unambiguousness and general significance, differing substantially across various systems and directions. Philosophy has never had a single paradigm, which Bertrand Russell characterized as the "scandal of philosophy." Pluralism of systems, currents, and schools is inherent in philosophy, where we enter the realm of spiritual freedom—one may adopt any viewpoint, hold one’s own position. This aspect draws philosophy closer to art.

Another trait uniting philosophy with art is their personal and subjective nature. The works of both the philosopher and the artist bear the imprint of their personality.

Finally, the paths of science and philosophy’s development differ significantly; their progress follows distinct types. Science evolves according to the natural-historical type of progress, characterized by gradual movement from lower forms to more perfect ones, and it progresses by assimilating earlier stages into later ones. For example, later physical theories "absorb" earlier ones, rendering them obsolete. This type of progress is typical of science, economics, technology, and industry.

In contrast, philosophy and art follow a sociocultural type of progress, where each new form is considered self-sufficient and not compared to others in terms of advancement. Creativity in philosophy is marked by a different kind of continuity than in science or technology. While 20th-century science far outstrips 19th-century science, the great philosophers of antiquity remain our contemporaries and interlocutors; their works and ideas retain relevance for us. It would be difficult to apply comparisons like "higher—lower" to outstanding philosophical systems. Socrates, Kant, and Sartre—philosophers of different centuries—equally belong to eternity. The emergence of new philosophical teachings does not devalue the content of earlier ones but rather increases the diversity of possible self-sufficient systems of worldview.

To a significant extent, the absence of the same kind of progress in the history of philosophy as seen in science is due to the nature of philosophical problems. Unlike in science, where questions and problems find definitive solutions within a limited timeframe, philosophical questions—concerning the essence of humanity, its purpose, the choice of spiritual values—do not lend themselves to final resolution. In this regard, Vladimir Vernadsky observed that philosophy "constantly touches upon eternal questions of human thought, regarding which the last word can never be said."

Initially, the term "philosophy" was used broadly to refer to the sum of all theoretical knowledge accumulated by humanity. Over time, individual sciences such as mathematics, physics, biology, and chemistry began to separate from philosophy and form independent fields of knowledge. However, philosophy has not lost its significance, for its specificity as a universal theoretical knowledge has become even more pronounced.