Life of people: meaning, purpose, conditions

From the earliest times the question of what is the life of people, worried about human society. People are beings endowed with consciousness, therefore they can not help thinking about the meaning, purpose and conditions of their being.

Let's try and we will consider this issue in more detail.

The formulation of the problem of the meaning of life in ancient philosophy

As scientists believe, the first works of a scientific nature that would comprehend people's lives as a philosophical problem began to appear in the era of Antiquity.

The Greek philosopher Parmenides believed that the knowledge of the meaning of life depends on an understanding of the question of the existence of man. Under the being the scientist understood the sensible world, which should be based on such values as Truth, Beauty and Good.

Thus, for the first time in science, the quality of life and its meaning were compared with the most important humanistic values.

The tradition of Parmenides was continued by other Greek philosophers: Socrates, his disciple Plato, the disciple of Plato Aristotle. The essence of human life was thoroughly worked out in their writings. Her understanding was also based on the ideas of humanism and respect for the personality of each individual as a necessary component of the entire social order.

Solving the problem in medieval European philosophy

Problems of life were also considered in the European philosophy of the Middle Ages. However, they were presented in the vein of Christian anthropology, so the questions of life and death, immortal life, faith in God, the afterlife of a person who supposedly got him either to heaven, or to purgatory, or to hell, were put on the agenda etc.

Much did in this vein the famous European philosophers of the time - Augustine the Blessed and Thomas Aquinas.

In fact, people's life on earth was seen by them as a temporary stage of existence, and not the best. Earthly life is a kind of test, full of hardship, suffering and injustice, which each of us must go through to find heavenly bliss. If a person will show proper patience and diligence in this field, his fate in the afterlife will be quite prosperous.

The problem of the essence of life in the tradition of modern times

The era of modern times in European philosophy has made significant adjustments to the understanding of two issues: the first studied the quality of life, and the second was addressed to the problem of social injustice that permeated society.

People were no longer satisfied with the prospect of eternal bliss in exchange for patience and labor in the present tense. They craved the construction of paradise on earth, treating it as the realm of righteousness, justice and brotherhood. It was under these slogans that the Great French Revolution was carried out, which, however, did not bring about what its creators dreamed of.

Europeans aspired to ensure that people's lives already on earth were both prosperous and dignified. These ideas also gave birth to those socio-political transformations that the following centuries were rich in.

Old Russian philosophy about the meaning of life

In Ancient Rus, the problem of the meaning of human being was considered from the point of view of the theocentricity of the universe. Man, born on earth, was called by God to salvation, so he had to carry out God's plan throughout his life.

In our country, West European scholasticism has not taken root, with its exact calculations, according to which for a particular sin a person had to perform a certain number of righteous acts or give alms to beggars or church servants alike. In Russia, for a long time, secret mercy was welcomed, which was done to God in secret from people, because Christ and the Mother of God, seeing the righteous behavior of the penitent sinner, will help him to go through all the ordeals and find the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Problem of Life in Russian Philosophy

Famous Russian philosophers, beginning with VS Soloviev, very carefully considered the problem of the meaning of human life on earth. And in their interpretation this meaning is connected with the embodiment of each person in his unique and inimitable being the most important spiritual and ethical values.

At the same time, this philosophy, unlike its Western version, was of a religious nature. Russian authors were interested not so much in the quality of life and social issues in the structure of society, as in the problems of a different order: the moral aspects of people's relationships, the problem of spirituality, faith and unbelief, the adoption of the Creator's divine plan and the acceptance of the idea of the original harmonious organization of the world of people.

In this vein, the dialogue between Ivan and Alyosha Karamazov (the novel of the Brother F. Karamazov by F. M. Dostoevsky) is indicative, which just shows the solution of the question of the meaning of the existence of mankind on earth.

If for the Alyosha who accepts the divine plan of the Creator and believes in his unconditional goodness, the world is a wonderful creature, and a person who has an immortal soul carries an image of divine beauty, but for Ivan, whose soul is full of bitter disbelief, the brother's faith becomes incomprehensible. He brutally suffers from his own imperfection and imperfection of the world around him, realizing that he can not change anything.

Such bitter reflections on the meaning of life lead the elder brother to madness.

Transformations of the 20th century in the light of the problems of life

The 20th century brought to the world not only a lot of new knowledge in the field of technology and science, it also aggravated the issues of a humanitarian nature, and first of all the question of the life of mankind on earth. What are we talking about?

The conditions of human life have changed dramatically. Whereas before, most people lived in rural areas, managing subsistence farming and practically lacking access to large sources of information, today the population of the planet settled mostly in cities, using the Internet and other numerous sources of communication.

Moreover, it was in the 20th century that weapons of mass destruction were invented. Using it in Japan and other countries has proved that it can destroy a huge number of people in the shortest possible time, and the zone of defeat can occupy the whole of our planet.

Therefore, questions about life have acquired a particularly topical character.

In the 20th century, humanity experienced two major world wars, which showed that the technology of death was greatly improved.

Bioethical problems of life

The development of new technologies has exacerbated the problem of bioethics.

Today you can get a living creature by cloning its cells, you can conceive a child "in vitro", picking up the genetic code that parents dream about. There is the problem of surrogate (donor) motherhood, when an embryo is alien to a woman for a fee, and she carries it out, and then gives birth. And gives ...

There is even a problem of euthanasia - voluntary and painless withdrawal from the life of mortally sick people.

There are many more tasks of the same nature: the daily life of a person provides them in abundance. And all these tasks must be solved, because these are actually problems of life, which are clear to every person and require from him an informed choice of one or the other side.

Problems of life in modern philosophy

The philosophy of our time takes a new look at the problems of being.

It becomes clear that modern human life gives us, on the one hand, many new opportunities, such as the right to learn information about what is happening on the whole planet, to move around the world, but on the other - the number of threats grows every year. And first of all these are threats related to terrorism.

It is quite clear that the life of the first people on earth was completely different. But humanity needs to adapt to new conditions, therefore the questions of life, its meaning are more important than ever.

In addition, man is the only being on Earth who realizes life in all its fullness and richness. Therefore, people, being, in fact, the first among living beings, are responsible for what will be our planet in hundreds and thousands of years.