Cognition is called nothing more than a purposeful active display of reality in human consciousness. In the course of this process, completely new facets of being are revealed, phenomena and objects of the surrounding world, the essence of things and much more are investigated. It is also important that a person has the ability to know himself. The science of knowledge is epistemology.
In philosophy, there are two main points of view on the whole process of cognition:
- agnosticism;
- Gnosticism.
As a rule, materialists are proponents of Gnosticism. They look at cognition very optimistic. Their opinion is that a person is initially endowed with the possibilities of knowledge, which are unlimited, the world is knowable, and the true essence of all things will be discovered sooner or later. Agnosticism in philosophy is its complete opposite.
Agnostics are most often idealists. They do not believe either that the world is knowable or that a person is able to know it. In some cases, only partial cognition of the world is allowed.
Agnosticism in Philosophy
Agnostics emphasize that it is impossible to say for sure whether gods exist. In their view, the likelihood that God exists is absolutely equal to the fact that there is no God. Such provisions add a fair amount of skepticism to this area.
Agnosticism in philosophy is notable for the fact that its followers are often ranked as atheists or, at least, to unbelievers. This is not entirely correct, since there are many agnostic theists. They identify themselves as agnostics, as well as followers of a specific religion.
Agnostics assert that the human mind is simply not able to understand the laws of nature, as well as notice signs of the existence of God, since this requires something else, not at all what a person owns. If God is, then he did everything so that a mere mortal could not only understand, but even feel it.
Agnosticism in Philosophy: Subcategories
There are several such subcategories:
- weak agnosticism. It is also called soft, empirical, temporary, open, and so on. The bottom line is that perhaps the Gods exist, but it is impossible to know;
- strong agnosticism. It is also called closed, absolute, strict or solid. The bottom line is that the existence or non-existence of God cannot be proved only for the reason that a person cannot fully and completely believe in any of these options;
- indifferent agnosticism. Beliefs based on the fact that there is not only no evidence of the existence of God, but also evidence that he does not exist;
- Ignosticism. Its representatives say that before asking questions about the existence of God, it is necessary to give an exhaustive definition of the word "God."
Exemplary atheism, agnostic atheism, and agnostic theism also exist.
Kant's agnosticism
This topic has been studied by many. Representatives of agnosticism are different, but in the first place they always single out Johann Kant, who put forward a consistent theory of this philosophical direction. The bottom line is:
- man’s abilities are very much limited by his natural essence (limited cognitive abilities of the human mind);
- cognition is nothing but an independent activity of the ideal mind;
- the world is unknowable in itself. A person is able to know only the outer side of objects and phenomena, but the inner side will forever remain a mystery to him;
- cognition is a process in which matter studies itself. All this is possible with the help of its reflectivity.
In addition to Kant, philosophers Robert J. Ingersoll, Thomas Henry Huxley, and Bertrand Russell made a great treasure in agnosticism.
