The initial concept on the basis of which the whole philosophical picture of the world is built (regardless of the philosophical system) is a category of being. The concept is very difficult. Therefore, below we consider what being is, and its basic forms we will also find out.
A key section of philosophical science that deals with the study of the problem of being is ontology (that is, “the doctrine of existence”). The ontology is based on the fundamental principles of the emergence and existence of nature, man and society as a whole.
It was with the problems of being that the formation of philosophy once began. Ancient Indian, ancient Chinese and ancient philosophers first developed the problems of ontology, and only then did philosophy decide to expand the subject of its study and included epistemological, axiological, logical, aesthetic and ethical issues. But, one way or another, all of them in their foundation have precisely an ontology.
Before considering the main forms of being, we find out what is meant by philosophy in this category. It is easy to notice that the concept is “verbal”, formed from the word “to be”. What does it mean? Exist. Therefore, synonyms of being can be considered peace, reality, reality, essence.
This category covers almost everything that really exists - both in nature and in society, and even in thinking. Thus, it turns out that being is the most general, comprehensive concept, a kind of extremely generalized abstraction, combining the most diverse phenomena, objects, processes, states, only by the sign that they exist.
Depending on the variety of reality (beingness, existence) there are distinguished such basic types of being as subjective and objective reality. Objective reality includes everything that exists in itself, that is, outside of a person and regardless of his consciousness. Subjective reality, on the other hand, embraces everything that belongs to a person that cannot exist in any way outside of him (this is the spiritual world of the individual, the world of his consciousness and his mental states). If we consider these two realities in the aggregate, we can distinguish the following four main forms of being.
1. The existence of things, processes, tel. It, in turn, distinguishes:
Natural Being is the existence of bodies, things, processes that are untouched by man and which were even before his appearance on the planet (atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and so on).
Material - the existence of processes and things that a person created or transformed. It is customary to include industry, tools, cities, energy, furniture, clothes, artificially derived varieties of plants, animal species, etc.
2. The human
The main forms of human life are:
The being of the individual in the material world. From this position of man, philosophy considers as a thing among things, a body among bodies, an object among objects. A person is subject to various laws (in particular, biological, physical, chemical), which he is not able to change - he only exists among them.
Human being of its own. Here the individual is no longer perceived as an object. A person is a subject, not only obeying the laws of nature, but also being a spiritual, moral and social being.
3. The spiritual
The main forms of spiritual life are:
Being individualized. This includes the personality processes of consciousness and the unconscious, which are purely individual in nature.
The objectified being is, as it were, above the individualized consciousness. This includes everything that is in the possession of society, and not just an individual, and public consciousness in various forms (religion, philosophy, art, science, morality, and so on).
4. Social being, in which they distinguish:
The reality of the individual as a subject in the progress of history and in society. From this point of view, the individual acts as a carrier of social qualities and relations.
The reality of society itself, which covers generally the entire totality of its activity as a single organism, including all cultural and civilizational processes, material production, the spiritual sphere, etc.
