UDC

141:111

DOI

10.37482/2687-1505-V354

Authors

Mikhail M. Prokhorov

Dr. Sci. (Philos.), Prof., Prof. at the Department of History, Philosophy, Pedagogy and Psychology, Nizhny Novgorod State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (address: ul. Il’inskaya 65, Nizhny Novgorod, 603950, Russia).

e-mail: mmpro@mail.ru, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6170-3816

Abstract

The author of this article sees the research problem in the fact that I. Kant in his ontological substantiation of the theory of knowledge shifted from the concept of contemplation to the concept of transformation, considering transformation to be the main factor that determines the method of cognition and constructs the object of knowledge. Kant – the founder of classical German Philosophy – uses the terms contemplation and transformation in an epistemological sense, taking into account a certain ideological foundation laid by the cultural and historical conditions of the epoch that were reflected in his teaching. At that time, the idea of the subject’s dominance, that was ruling the worldview of the new European man, was being established in culture. According to Kant, humans are beings whose normal state is that which corresponds to their consciousness. This state must be created by a person him/herself. Kant is talking about a world in which the phenomena of nature are transformed by humans. From that moment on, history began to move faster than the natural environment. The centre of a new, accelerated (compared with natural processes) development started to take shape, which allowed humans to escape from the influence of purely natural processes while remaining in the same space with them. Nature handed activity to humans. According to B.F. Porshnev, an updated periodization of a historical process, if it is objective and captures the process’s own rhythm, turns out to be acceleration. This was the context in which Kant’s epistemological approach originated. The assertion of the subject’s dominance transported thinkers to an ontologically new world, ruled not by the naked necessity of nature, condemning humans to a contemplative position that was criticized by K. Marx in his first thesis on Feuerbach, but by necessity linked with consciousness. This necessity is established by consciousness and becomes a conscious necessity, redefined by Kant and by a person him/herself.

Keywords

concept of contemplation, concept of transformation, subject’s dominance, epistemological approach, theory of knowledge, I. Kant

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