Substrate (philosophy)

In the period of natural philosophy and in later periods, ancient philosophers assumed that at the heart of the diversity of things lies any one primary element. In the first scientific and philosophical ancient Greek Miletus school ^[1] :

• Thales singled out water , the most “formless” matter, as the primary element.
• Anaximander laid the foundation of the universe apeiron ( infinite or indefinite ), "none" in itself, but generating four elements and a whole world of certain things.
• Anaximenes determined the air he understood in a peculiar way as the basis of everything that is formed in the process of its rarefaction and condensation ^[1] .

• Aristotle suggested that the primary elements are 5 elements : air , water , earth and fire and ether (heavenly substance ). Each element is one of the states of a single primary matter - a certain combination of basic qualities - heat, cold, humidity and dryness:

• Heat + Dryness = Fire
• Heat + Humidity = Air
• Cold + humidity = Water
• Cold + dry = Earth.
• The fifth element of the ether is the beginning of the movement.

The mythological gods appeared to have arisen from a single righteous society, the very righteousness was conceived as a supreme and absolute deity ( Arist. Phys.) ^[2] .

The Stoics considered the primary element fire , which they identified with the inner self of man. Also, fire as the basis of all things was singled out by Anaxagoras from Clazomen .

In Neoplatonism, a hierarchy of Being was built in descending steps. Above all, there is the unspeakable, super-existent One ( Good ), which is a single, super-worldly, super-intelligent, unspeakable, unknowable beginning of all that exists. It emanates into the Mind, where it is differentiated into an equal set of ideas . The mind emanates into the Soul, where the sensory principle appears and hierarchies of creatures of demonic, human, astral, animals are formed; mental and sensual Cosmos are formed .

Tattva is the original substance , the primary element in Hindu metaphysics (especially in the philosophical direction of Sankhya ). This term also denotes the process of direct "cognition" of the five primary elements. The word tattva consists of two parts: tat ( Skt. तत् , “this, such”) and tvam ( Skt. त्वम् , “you, you”). In this context, the term refers to suchness , the true essence or quality of everything. In essence, the hermeneutic interpretation describes the two syllables of this word as the divine nature (tat) and the individual (tvam) - "the universe is you" (see tat tvam asi ). The indicated interpretation is directly related to the concept of macrocosm - microcosm relations.

U-sin - ( Five elements ; five elements ; five actions ) - one of the main categories of Chinese philosophy; five-membered structure that determines the basic parameters of the universe. In addition to philosophy, it is widely used in traditional Chinese medicine, fortune telling, martial arts, numerology. It includes five classes (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water), characterizing the state and the relationship of all existing objects and phenomena.

In various idealistic philosophical schools, ancient ideas and Christian religious ideas about the original were further developed.

In Hegel's philosophy

At the heart of the world is absolute spirit. Only he, due to his infinity, can achieve true knowledge of himself. For self-knowledge he needs a manifestation. Self-disclosure of the Absolute Spirit in space is nature; self-disclosure in time - history.

Philosophy of S. N. Bulgakov

Bulgakov's ideas largely repeat the " Timaeus " of Plato . Like being immersed in the whirlpool of emergence and destruction, transitions and transformations, created being is "being." But behind the multiplicity and many-sidedness of being, it is necessary to assume a single sub-basis, in the bosom of which all occurrences and transformations can only take place. This universal basis of being, from which all that arises, all the things of the world directly arises, is matter. Bulgakov accepts the provisions of the ancient tradition relating to it. Matter is the "third kind" of being, along with the things of the sensual world and their ideal prototypes, ideas. It is an unformed, indefinite "primary matter", materia prima potentially existing, the ability to detect in the sensual. In its ontological being, it, like created being in general, is meon, "being non-being." But these provisions are supplemented by others related, first of all, to the role of matter in the birth. According to Bulgakov, she acts as the "Great Mother Earth" of the ancient pagan cults of Greece and the East , as well as the "land" of the first verses of the Book of Genesis. “Earth” and “mother” are Bulgakov’s key definitions of matter, expressing its conception and birth force, its fruitfulness and fruitfulness. The Earth is “saturated with limitless possibilities”; it is “all-matter, for everything is potentially enclosed in it” ^[3] . Although after God, by His will, but matter is also a creative beginning. Following Gregory of Nyssa, Bulgakov considers the existence of the world as a process that directly continues the source creative act of God, the unceasingly lasting creation, performed with the indispensable active participation of matter itself. Here Bulgakov’s concept is patristic, at odds with Platonism and Neoplatonism; it receives its final meaning in the context of Christology and Meriology. Mother Earth does not just give birth, it drains everything from its bowels. At the peak of her birth-giving and creative effort, in its utmost tension and utmost purity, it is potentially the “God Earth” and the Mother of God. Mary comes from her bowels and the earth becomes ready to receive the Logos and give birth to the God-man. The Earth becomes the Mother of God, and only in this is the true apotheosis of matter, the rise and crowning of this creative effort. Here is the key to all “religious materialism” by Bulgakov ^[4] .

Solovyov distinguishes three sides from which living beings are considered:

“1) the inner essence, or prima materia , of life, the desire or desire to live, that is, to eat and multiply — hunger and love (more suffering in plants, more active in animals);

2) the way of life, that is, those morphological and physiological conditions that determine nutrition and reproduction (and in connection with them, other, secondary functions) of each organic species; and finally

3) a biological goal - not in the sense of external teleology, but from the point of view of comparative anatomy, which determines the place and importance of those particular forms, which are supported by nutrition and perpetuated by reproduction in relation to the whole organic world. The biological goal in this case is twofold: on the one hand, organic species are the steps (partly transient, partly abiding) of the general biological process, which goes from water mold to the creation of the human body, and on the other hand, these species can be considered as members of the global organism having independent significance in the life of the whole. "

• Universal
• Tao
• Root cause
• Nus (philosophy)
• Monism
• World soul
• Element (Alchemy)
• Amer