THE TEACHINGS OF CONFUCIUS AND THE THREE WORLDS OF SYNTHESIZING REALISM
Ravil B. Kalmykov
The famous teachings of Confucius, in the author's opinion, anticipated the appearance of the doctrine promoted in the article - synthesizing realism. The new teaching is designed to combine in one philosophical image of the world the three main branches of the development of modern philosophy – objectivism, subjectivism and empiricism. The highlight of the new teaching - the theory of vortex (ring) determinism - strictly fixes the fact of dividing the human world into three components: the inner world, the outer world and the world of experience, the result of their close interaction. There is a connection with the three worlds of Kant. The nonlinear specificity of human living space is investigated. The fundamental role of the algorithm of successful action in the human development and cognition of the world is emphasized.
Keywords: Confucius, Tao, Ouroboros, experience, synthesizing realism, vortex determinism, algorithm of successful action, multifaceted monism.
The teachings of Confucius have enjoyed great authority among the Chinese since ancient times and are a serious ethical guideline for them. The integration of rapidly developing China with the world community observed in the modern period inevitably raises the question of harmoniously fitting the teachings of Confucius into the mainstream of world philosophical thought. In particular, the search for ontological foundations under the famous ethical rules, teachings and instructions of the great thinker promises to be very interesting and fruitful.
When the question of building bridges and cooperation of advanced Chinese anthropological, sociological and philosophical thought with the scientific heritage of world philosophy is raised, it should be borne in mind that today Anglo-American and European scientific traditions set the tone there, within which a wide range of teachings and methodologies have been developed. At the same time, if in the Anglo-American tradition there is a tendency to an endless logical fragmentation of the philosophical picture of the world into many more detailed actual and rational aspects, then in the European tradition there is a tendency to an increasingly subtle dissection of the picture of the subjective perception of the world by man through the discovery of increasingly subtle epistemological nuances in it. As far as is known, attempts to involve Chinese researchers in the fields of these two trends have not been significantly successful so far. In this regard, the problem of co-opting Chinese thought into world philosophy should, according to the author of this article, be considered from a significantly different angle.
It is no secret that in the East the imaginative, holistic type of perception of reality and thinking prevails over the rational-logical, characteristic of the West. Therefore, the Chinese do not necessarily need to be involved in this petty fragmentation of the picture of reality, which Western thought is enthusiastically engaged in. Perhaps, there is a reason for them to work on collecting a common synthesizing image of reality, which is still lost behind the accumulation of many pretentious Western logical and epistemological constructions.
Thus, the Chinese have a chance to join the global division of intellectual labor in the field of philosophy much more successfully as a gathering, unifying, integrating principle and act together as a powerful squad of synthesizers. In addition, well-known Chinese pragmatism can help, in accordance with the advice of the famous empirical philosopher F.Bacon, "hanging weights from the wings of reason," excessively detached from reality in flights of unbridled theoretical fantasy. Thus, he will be able to exert a healing, orienting and organizing influence on the development of the entire world philosophy. In this regard, it makes sense for Chinese thinkers today to focus on building bridges with the achievements of world philosophy of just such a unifying and collective orientation.
In this article, I would like to focus on what seems to me to be a promising prospect of bringing Chinese science and philosophy closer to a particular trend in world philosophy, fragments of which have taken shape today in the form of synergetics, autopoiesis and synthesizing realism. At its origins stood the philosopher and sociologist G.Spencer, physiologist I.M. Sechenov, economist L.von Mises, theoretical physicist G.Haken, physical chemist I.Prigozhin, biologists U. Maturana and F. Varela, the materialist-emergentist M.Bunge, and in the philosophy of the USSR and Russia this trend can be traced in the works of such scientists as S.L.Rubinstein, B.S. Ukrainians, Bernstein N. A., Ursul A.D., Petrushenko L.A.
As for synthesizing realism, this doctrine was born in the 90s of the 20th century in Russia in the works of the author of this article. Synthesizing realism is focused on creating a unified philosophical picture of the world, combining in one image all the relevant aspects of reality discovered by private philosophies. He follows the attitude of eliminating contradictions between the main philosophical trends, teachings and schools by searching for unifying principles and connecting bridges. In particular, he successfully eliminates the antagonism between such global trends in world philosophy as objectivism and subjectivism. He uses the achievements of great
Keywords: Confucius, Tao, Ouroboros, experience, synthesizing realism, vortex determinism, algorithm of successful action, multifaceted monism.
The teachings of Confucius have enjoyed great authority among the Chinese since ancient times and are a serious ethical guideline for them. The integration of rapidly developing China with the world community observed in the modern period inevitably raises the question of harmoniously fitting the teachings of Confucius into the mainstream of world philosophical thought. In particular, the search for ontological foundations under the famous ethical rules, teachings and instructions of the great thinker promises to be very interesting and fruitful.
When the question of building bridges and cooperation of advanced Chinese anthropological, sociological and philosophical thought with the scientific heritage of world philosophy is raised, it should be borne in mind that today Anglo-American and European scientific traditions set the tone there, within which a wide range of teachings and methodologies have been developed. At the same time, if in the Anglo-American tradition there is a tendency to an endless logical fragmentation of the philosophical picture of the world into many more detailed actual and rational aspects, then in the European tradition there is a tendency to an increasingly subtle dissection of the picture of the subjective perception of the world by man through the discovery of increasingly subtle epistemological nuances in it. As far as is known, attempts to involve Chinese researchers in the fields of these two trends have not been significantly successful so far. In this regard, the problem of co-opting Chinese thought into world philosophy should, according to the author of this article, be considered from a significantly different angle.
It is no secret that in the East the imaginative, holistic type of perception of reality and thinking prevails over the rational-logical, characteristic of the West. Therefore, the Chinese do not necessarily need to be involved in this petty fragmentation of the picture of reality, which Western thought is enthusiastically engaged in. Perhaps, there is a reason for them to work on collecting a common synthesizing image of reality, which is still lost behind the accumulation of many pretentious Western logical and epistemological constructions.
Thus, the Chinese have a chance to join the global division of intellectual labor in the field of philosophy much more successfully as a gathering, unifying, integrating principle and act together as a powerful squad of synthesizers. In addition, well-known Chinese pragmatism can help, in accordance with the advice of the famous empirical philosopher F.Bacon, "hanging weights from the wings of reason," excessively detached from reality in flights of unbridled theoretical fantasy. Thus, he will be able to exert a healing, orienting and organizing influence on the development of the entire world philosophy. In this regard, it makes sense for Chinese thinkers today to focus on building bridges with the achievements of world philosophy of just such a unifying and collective orientation.
In this article, I would like to focus on what seems to me to be a promising prospect of bringing Chinese science and philosophy closer to a particular trend in world philosophy, fragments of which have taken shape today in the form of synergetics, autopoiesis and synthesizing realism. At its origins stood the philosopher and sociologist G.Spencer, physiologist I.M. Sechenov, economist L.von Mises, theoretical physicist G.Haken, physical chemist I.Prigozhin, biologists U. Maturana and F. Varela, the materialist-emergentist M.Bunge, and in the philosophy of the USSR and Russia this trend can be traced in the works of such scientists as S.L.Rubinstein, B.S. Ukrainians, Bernstein N. A., Ursul A.D., Petrushenko L.A.
As for synthesizing realism, this doctrine was born in the 90s of the 20th century in Russia in the works of the author of this article. Synthesizing realism is focused on creating a unified philosophical picture of the world, combining in one image all the relevant aspects of reality discovered by private philosophies. He follows the attitude of eliminating contradictions between the main philosophical trends, teachings and schools by searching for unifying principles and connecting bridges. In particular, he successfully eliminates the antagonism between such global trends in world philosophy as objectivism and subjectivism. He uses the achievements of great
thinkers, in particular, the idea of "final causes" or special "goals" in the foundation of the existence of any separate objects in the teachings of Aristotle (Immanent teleology - teleology, which proceeds from the fact that the goal lies in the things and phenomena themselves), Descartes' axiomatics, the doctrine of the parallelism of natural philosophy and transcendental Schelling's philosophy, Kant's famous doctrine of the three worlds (the world of phenomena, the world of "things-in-themselves" and the world of noumens), Feuerbach's anthropology, and so on.
A distinctive feature of synthesizing realism is the emphasis on the desire to formalize movement itself, self-government and self-organization as full-fledged philosophical categories, which implies the need to make appropriate fundamental amendments to the theory of determinism. It is the modernized theory of determinism (expanded by including the author's theory of vortex (ring) determinism) that makes it possible to eliminate the main contradictions between subjectivism and objectivism. This opens up the prospect of directing the efforts of adherents of these two global, so far conflicting philosophical trends to work in the status of exploring two fundamental sides of the same reality.
This doctrine is close in spirit to synergetics and autopoiesis, has many common positions with them and logically follows from them, for the first time correctly and harmoniously solving the teleological problem that has been separating and baffling scientists for a long time.
So, the name of the teaching directly indicates the installation of collecting disparate parts of philosophical knowledge into a single teaching about the life of the world, as opposed to its endless fragmentation into small particulars and nuances, characteristic of most modern Western philosophy. The collecting image of a single world should be closer to the eastern character of Chinese thinking, therefore it is simply doomed to be more useful and relevant for him than the confusing variety of often contradictory and simply dubious logical constructions of Western culture.
In addition, in the depths of the world of Chinese teachings and instructions, one can find islands of thoughts that are surprisingly close in spirit to synthesizing realism.
Perhaps it is worth starting a policy of rapprochement with them.
A distinctive feature of synthesizing realism is the emphasis on the desire to formalize movement itself, self-government and self-organization as full-fledged philosophical categories, which implies the need to make appropriate fundamental amendments to the theory of determinism. It is the modernized theory of determinism (expanded by including the author's theory of vortex (ring) determinism) that makes it possible to eliminate the main contradictions between subjectivism and objectivism. This opens up the prospect of directing the efforts of adherents of these two global, so far conflicting philosophical trends to work in the status of exploring two fundamental sides of the same reality.
This doctrine is close in spirit to synergetics and autopoiesis, has many common positions with them and logically follows from them, for the first time correctly and harmoniously solving the teleological problem that has been separating and baffling scientists for a long time.
So, the name of the teaching directly indicates the installation of collecting disparate parts of philosophical knowledge into a single teaching about the life of the world, as opposed to its endless fragmentation into small particulars and nuances, characteristic of most modern Western philosophy. The collecting image of a single world should be closer to the eastern character of Chinese thinking, therefore it is simply doomed to be more useful and relevant for him than the confusing variety of often contradictory and simply dubious logical constructions of Western culture.
In addition, in the depths of the world of Chinese teachings and instructions, one can find islands of thoughts that are surprisingly close in spirit to synthesizing realism.
Perhaps it is worth starting a policy of rapprochement with them.
The teaching of the Tao of the Righteous man
The right way of man, or tao, is one of the main ethical categories in the teachings of Confucius. If you look at it, the philosophical background of this teaching about the tao of a correct virtuous person is an objective statement of the existence of a special fan of possibilities that opens up to a person actively choosing the path. In fact, we are talking about a situation with the availability of choice, about the assumption of some special freedom, human autonomy in relation to the natural and social environment. In each individual situation, a person can act differently, depending on the actively chosen initial attitude. If a person is righteous, then he builds his behavior in accordance with the tao, if not, then he goes about his primitive inner needs - urges or external compulsions and influences.
This means that to a certain extent he is an active player, the master of the situation and is often able to turn the situation in one direction or another. And here we have to state that the traditional Western doctrine of determinism, which denies teleology as a doctrine of internal goals, excluding freedom of choice for a person, turns out to be alien to the Confucian doctrine of Tao, and therefore cannot help a thoughtful Chinese. It is synthesizing realism that comes to the rescue, which is based on a modernized version of determinism, which provides for the inclusion of the author's theory of vortex (ring) determinism in it. Within the framework of this theory, the possibility of a special autonomous human behavior is ontologically provided and dictated by the presence of a special internal deterministic process (deterministic vortex) continuously circulating in the bowels of a living human organism.
It is the presence of this continuously circulating determinant factor, if you look at it, that distinguishes a living organism from inanimate nature, ensures its separateness, actual isolation from the outside world, autonomy of its vital activity and behavior.
The situation is well illustrated by the concept of an Ouroboros – a snake biting its tail. One of the oldest mythological symbols known to humans, the ouroboros has been considered since ancient times as a symbol of the regenerative cycle of life, renewal, self-sufficiency-self-generation-self-reproduction. For medieval alchemists, ouroboros was the embodiment of the cycle of death and rebirth, it was a symbol of the "opus circularium" — the circulation of life. Among other things, it symbolized the process of "feedback" in autonomous entities. The name comes from the ancient Greek Oὐροβόρος (devouring its own tail), but close analogues of this symbol and concept are also found in the cultures of Egypt, Scandinavia, India and China.
In ancient China, the ouroboros was called "Zhulong". The "center" of ouroboros — the space inside the ring — is reflected in philosophy in the concept of "tao", which means "the way of man".
The determining action or the life-giving force initiating the internal movement begins to move in a circle from the head, reaches the tail and, after passing through the cycle, passes from it back to the head. The inertia of the circular motion of the initiating force is so great that it does not stop for a long time. Therefore, everything described happens cyclically over and over again.
As long as the initiating force is strong, the organism is alive like a rotating vortex or spinning top, it exists as a separate autonomous natural formation with homeostasis, as an active player in its environment, purposefully transforming the area of its nearest habitat.
When my end is also my beginning at the same time, it turns out that I am closing in on myself as a goal and a route of movement. The closure of the cycle on itself generates self-sufficiency and reduces dependence on the outside world. At the same time, internal self-isolation gives rise to a systemic unity of internal processes in the organs and subsystems of the organism, the self-sufficiency of the organism as a whole. Such conditions contribute to the emergence of a single internal organizing and governing principle. Apparently, this is how life originated in the course of evolution in some spontaneously closed vortex-like natural processes.
Through a steady, continuously renewable initiating internal cycle, the body is able to withstand the chaos of the surrounding world as a self-renewing, self-sustaining force. In its depths, homeostasis is generated – an internal mechanism for maintaining a special internal environment of the body. At the same time, along with physical homeostasis, mental homeostasis also occupies an important place. Confucius's teaching on the tao is, in fact, a manifestation of healthy mental homeostasis, a set of principles of behavior of a righteous person in the immediate social environment, independent of current changes in the social climate.
As long as the initiating force is strong, the organism is alive like a rotating vortex or spinning top, it exists as a separate autonomous natural formation with homeostasis, as an active player in its environment, purposefully transforming the area of its nearest habitat.
When my end is also my beginning at the same time, it turns out that I am closing in on myself as a goal and a route of movement. The closure of the cycle on itself generates self-sufficiency and reduces dependence on the outside world. At the same time, internal self-isolation gives rise to a systemic unity of internal processes in the organs and subsystems of the organism, the self-sufficiency of the organism as a whole. Such conditions contribute to the emergence of a single internal organizing and governing principle. Apparently, this is how life originated in the course of evolution in some spontaneously closed vortex-like natural processes.
Through a steady, continuously renewable initiating internal cycle, the body is able to withstand the chaos of the surrounding world as a self-renewing, self-sustaining force. In its depths, homeostasis is generated – an internal mechanism for maintaining a special internal environment of the body. At the same time, along with physical homeostasis, mental homeostasis also occupies an important place. Confucius's teaching on the tao is, in fact, a manifestation of healthy mental homeostasis, a set of principles of behavior of a righteous person in the immediate social environment, independent of current changes in the social climate.
The tao of man is similar in nature to the process of rotation of a vortex or a swirling "top". There is an initial generative twisting impulse (birth), there is a long period of rotation, a powerful cyclic movement by inertia (youth, youth, maturity), there is a gradual weakening of movement (aging), the appearance of distortions, beats and vibrations (diseases), and finally, a stop of movement (death). It is the presence in the bowels of the human body of its own independent deterministic principle, the vortex, that makes a person capable of independent active behavior, active choice of a line of behavior, preference for tao.
The Tao of Righteous Society
The family and the state are a vivid example of a social organism. Therefore, reasoning about the tao, the path of a righteous social aggregate, is also valid for them. It is no coincidence that Confucius emphasizes the importance of ritual and tradition for the formation of a healthy society. These things actually contribute to the ordering of people's behavior through the inoculated habit of acting virtuously. Cyclic repetition, regularity of the ritual is the basis for the affirmation and consolidation of virtuous behavior in society, an instrument of the tao of virtue of the social organism. Confucius cared not only about the virtue of an individual, but also about the virtuous state of society, so he appealed to the rulers to show an example of virtue to their subjects in order to authoritatively broadcast their own individual virtue to the public and instill this healthy habit through regular repetition in the form of a ritual in the social organism.
Here, the teachings of Confucius echo the legacy of Aristotle, who understood virtue as a habit.
Here, the teachings of Confucius echo the legacy of Aristotle, who understood virtue as a habit.
Features of human living space
The presence of the phenomenon of self-generating and self-renewing ability of the organism prompts us to allocate in the surrounding space and time a special limited area of private existence (the closed body of the Ouroboros), where, on the universal linear determinism of the Universe, a special local vortex (ring) own determinism of the organism is additionally superimposed.
As a result, a special isolated area of the world arises, which there is reason to call the inner world. This inner world includes the body itself and the adjacent space and time relevant for its vital activity. A clear localization in space and time allows us to talk
As a result, a special isolated area of the world arises, which there is reason to call the inner world. This inner world includes the body itself and the adjacent space and time relevant for its vital activity. A clear localization in space and time allows us to talk
about the special ontological status of an organism and a person, about the limited, finite spatiotemporal nature of their existence in an infinite world. Geometrically, an organism (including a human one) can be depicted as a material point in physical and social space and time, from which, as from the beginning of the reference, the degree of its activity outside should be counted. In this situation, a special central character of human interaction with the surrounding infinite world develops. In accordance with it, the specifics of human exploration and cognition of this world are formed - from one center in all directions outwards. This specificity is the root of the philosophical understanding of the place and function of man in this world.
Therefore, when we take into consideration a human or social organism, we are obliged to impose anthropocentrism on the general linear determinism of nature – a special central metric of human living space.
In "Lun Yu" there is a dialogue that often baffles the Western reader. When Confucius heard a certain young man called "honest" for denouncing his father who stole a sheep, he sighed bitterly and said: a truly honest man is not like that. The father will hide the son's crime, the son will hide the father's crime – that's what honesty means.
Here Confucius emphasizes the paramount value of human connections with the closest environment. The immediate environment of a person is more relevant to him than the distant one, Confucius believed. And he was absolutely right: anthropocentrism dictates exactly this kind of prioritization of a person in the world around him. Moreover, the fundamental fields of the central forces in nature – gravitational and electric – are subject to a special law of decreasing force as they move away from the center – the law of inverse squares. By analogy with this, the author of this article formulated at one time the human law of egocentric concentration (or the "law of remote gradation of egocentric motivation" , the essence of which is to state the nonlinear nature (also in accordance with the law of inverse squares) of the decreasing degree of relevance to man of the phenomena of the surrounding material and social space-time. As a result, things and events at a distance from a person (spatial, temporal and social) touch and occupy him to a much lesser extent than the nearest ones, and this decrease in interest occurs quite sharply. The central character of interaction with the world, structured by the law of egocentric concentration, forms a special local metric of human living space.
The same applies to social distance, here the decrease in relevance also occurs in accordance with the law of inverse squares. As a result, for a person, the problems of a second cousin or a distant social stratum rarely become the subject of high attention. In accordance with the current range of attention, relationships between
Therefore, when we take into consideration a human or social organism, we are obliged to impose anthropocentrism on the general linear determinism of nature – a special central metric of human living space.
In "Lun Yu" there is a dialogue that often baffles the Western reader. When Confucius heard a certain young man called "honest" for denouncing his father who stole a sheep, he sighed bitterly and said: a truly honest man is not like that. The father will hide the son's crime, the son will hide the father's crime – that's what honesty means.
Here Confucius emphasizes the paramount value of human connections with the closest environment. The immediate environment of a person is more relevant to him than the distant one, Confucius believed. And he was absolutely right: anthropocentrism dictates exactly this kind of prioritization of a person in the world around him. Moreover, the fundamental fields of the central forces in nature – gravitational and electric – are subject to a special law of decreasing force as they move away from the center – the law of inverse squares. By analogy with this, the author of this article formulated at one time the human law of egocentric concentration (or the "law of remote gradation of egocentric motivation" , the essence of which is to state the nonlinear nature (also in accordance with the law of inverse squares) of the decreasing degree of relevance to man of the phenomena of the surrounding material and social space-time. As a result, things and events at a distance from a person (spatial, temporal and social) touch and occupy him to a much lesser extent than the nearest ones, and this decrease in interest occurs quite sharply. The central character of interaction with the world, structured by the law of egocentric concentration, forms a special local metric of human living space.
The same applies to social distance, here the decrease in relevance also occurs in accordance with the law of inverse squares. As a result, for a person, the problems of a second cousin or a distant social stratum rarely become the subject of high attention. In accordance with the current range of attention, relationships between
people are also being built. If we take into account the limited amount of human capabilities to make physical or intellectual efforts during a unit of time and the limited amount of his attention, then his actual private world appears, as a rule, in the form of a limited, clearly localized area of the infinite world in space and time.
Living in a social and natural environment, a person has to balance all the time between his egocentrism, the anthropomorphism of the surrounding society and the universal linear determinism of nature. The task of a noble person according to Confucius is precisely to find a healthy line of compromise in this comparison of different metrics, so that it benefits both oneself and the surrounding society, and does not harm the surrounding nature. The study of this delicate delicate situation has occupied and continues to occupy the minds of other Chinese philosophers.
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