Irrationalism

Irrationalism in its diverse forms is a philosophical worldview that postulates the impossibility of knowing reality through scientific methods. According to supporters of irrationalism, reality or its individual spheres (such as life , mental processes, history , etc.) cannot be derived from objective reasons, that is, they are not subject to laws and laws. All representations of this kind are oriented towards non-rational forms of human cognition, which are able to give a person a subjective confidence in the essence and origin of being. But such experiences of confidence are often attributed only to the elect (for example, “geniuses of art”, “Superman”, etc.) and are considered inaccessible to the common man. Such "aristocracy of the spirit" often has social consequences.

Irrationalism is not a single and independent philosophical movement. It is rather a characteristic and element of various philosophical systems and schools. More or less obvious elements of irrationalism are characteristic of all those philosophies that declare certain areas of reality (God, immortality, religious problems, the thing-in-itself, etc.) inaccessible to scientific knowledge (reason, logic, reason). On the one hand, the reason realizes and raises such questions, but, on the other hand, the criteria of scientific nature are not applicable to these areas. Sometimes, at all (mostly unconsciously), rationalists in their philosophical reflections of history and society postulate extremely irrational concepts.

Philosophical irrationalism oriented from an epistemological point of view on such areas as intuition, intellectual contemplation, experience, etc. But it was irrationalism that convinced the researchers of the need to carefully analyze those types and forms of knowledge that were deprived of attention from not only rationalists , but remained unexamined in many philosophical systems of empiricism.

Researchers subsequently often rejected their irrationalistic formulations, but many serious theoretical problems shifted to new forms of research: such as, for example, the study of creativity and the process of creativity.

Irrationalistic (in the narrow and proper sense of the word) consider such ideological constructions, which are largely characteristic of these features. Scientific thinking in such systems is replaced by certain higher cognitive functions, and intuition replaces thinking in general. Sometimes irrationalism is opposed to views of progress prevailing in science and society. Most often irrationalistic moods arise in those periods when society is experiencing a social, political or spiritual crisis. They are a kind of intellectual reaction to a social crisis, and, at the same time, an attempt to overcome it. Theoretically, irrationalism is characteristic of such worldviews that challenge the dominance of logical and rational thinking . In a philosophical sense, irrationalism has existed as a reaction to situations of a social crisis since the emergence of rationalistic and educational systems.

The forerunners of irrationalism in philosophy were F. G. Jacobi , and, above all, G. V. I. Schelling . But, as Friedrich Engels argued, Schelling's work The Philosophy of Revelation ( 1843 ) is "the first attempt to make of worship of authority, gnostic fantasies and sensual mysticism a free science of thought."

Irrationalism becomes a key element in the philosophies of S. Kierkegaard , A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche . The influence of these philosophers is found in the most diverse areas of philosophy (primarily German), starting with the philosophy of life , neo-Hegelianism , existentialism and rationalism, up to the ideology of German national socialism. Even the critical rationalism of K. Popper , often called the author of the most rational philosophy, was characterized as irrationalism (in particular, by the Australian philosopher D. Stowe ).

It is necessary to think disagreement, respectively, irrational, in order to know the irrational. Logic - a rational way of knowing the categories of being and non-being, can be thought (as far as possible) that the irrational way of knowing lies in different methods.

Modern philosophy owes much to irrationalism. The clearly expressed outlines of modern irrationalism are primarily in the philosophy of neo-Thomism , existentialism , pragmatism and personalism . Elements of irrationalism can be found in positivism and neopositivism . In positivism, irrationalistic prerequisites arise because the construction of theories is limited to analytical and empirical judgments, and philosophical substantiations, evaluations, and generalizations are automatically shifted to the sphere of the irrational. Irrationalism is found everywhere where it is claimed that there are areas that are fundamentally inaccessible to rational scientific thinking. Such spheres can be divided into sub-rational and trans-rational ones.

The question of the irrational in cognitive activity is closely related to the problem of rationality. Irrational exists in all spheres of culture, in any human activity. It is important that the supremacy in science and social structure is kept in Reason ^{[ why? ]} . The fact is, what place in relation to the Mind and to the spiritual values ​​of a person is irrational. ^[3] .

Subrational Areas in Irrationalism

Under the subrational spheres of irrational subjective-idealistic worldviews can be understood, for example, such concepts as:

• will (at Schopenhauer and Nietzsche)
• soul (in L. Klages )
• instinct (in Z. Freud )
• life (with V. Dilthey and A. Bergson )

Transrational areas of objectively idealistic worldviews

The following classes of concepts may belong to transrational areas in objectively idealistic worldviews:

• idea of ​​a deity (in all forms of religious philosophy such as, for example, neo-Thomism)
• concepts of a single , root causes that are not amenable to rational comprehension, characteristic of the most diverse philosophies from Plotinus to M. Heidegger .
• existence (in S. Kierkegaard and K. Jaspers )

Ararational views in irrationalism

Philosophical systems that oppose rationalism are not always anti-rationalist. They can be characterized as aratsionalisticheskie in the event that it is argued that the forms of knowledge are something other than reason and reason (like the "enlightenment of existence" (K. "Existenzerhellung"), does not correlate with the latter and can not be reduced to them.

Philosophical irrationalism declares areas with truly creative beginnings inaccessible to objective rational analysis (for example, life, instinct, will, soul) and contrasts them with the mechanism of dead nature or abstract spirit (for example élan vital ). power ) in Nietzsche, Erlebnis ( experience or experience ) in Dilthey, etc.).

In sociological and cultural terms, irrationalistic views are often opposed to social and cultural innovations, which are perceived as the expanding power of science and technology and, thus, affirm educational and rationalistic emotional values ​​in culture. Supporters of irrationalism consider this a sign of the decline of a truly creative cultural spiritual principle (as, for example, O. Spengler in The Decline of Europe). In Germany, for example, irrationalism in the field of political theories and programs has found its most reactionary forms in the so-called Young Conservative and National Socialism. These theories deny the view that the social community is a collective that is self-regulating through social laws. It is declared that society is based on a mystical chauvinistic or racial culture.

Supporters of irrationalism J. Böhme , Nietzsche , Kierkegaard , Schopenhauer believe that the basis of the observed rational world is an irrational beginning.