Helvetius (1715-1771) became famous as the author of the book "On the Mind", which appeared in 1758 and provoked violent attacks from all the forces of reaction, ruling circles. The book was banned and sentenced to be burned. Helvetius developed his ideas even more thoroughly in the book “On Man, His Intellectual Abilities and His Education”. This book, written in 1769, in order to avoid new persecution, Helvetius bequeathed to be published only after his death, and it was published in 1773.

In his writings, Helvetius, for the first time in the history of pedagogy, quite fully revealed the factors that form a person. As a sensualist, he argued that all representations and concepts in humans are formed on the basis of sensory perceptions, and reduced thinking to the ability to feel.

He considered the most important factor in the formation of man the influence of the environment. A person is a product of circumstances (social environment) and upbringing, Helvetius argued.

Pointing to the enormous role of education in the reorganization of society, Helvetius formulated a single goal of education for all citizens. He saw it in striving for the good of the whole society, in reconciling the personal interest of each person with the "good of the nation." While affirming the omnipotence of upbringing, he denied individual differences in children.

The atheist Helvetius demanded that public education be wrested from the hands of the clergy and made absolutely secular. He proposed to put an end to the dominance of Latin in schools and equip students with real knowledge: they should thoroughly study natural science subjects, their native language, history, morality, politics, and poetry.

Sharply condemning the scholastic methods of teaching in the feudal school, Helvetius demanded that teaching be visual and based, if possible, on personal experience child educational material, he believed, should become simple and understandable to students.

Helvetius recognized the right of all people to education, believed that women should receive education equal to men.

Helvetius convincingly argued the advantages of public education over family education. Only in secular schools, which are in the hands of the state, he argued, it is possible to ensure the proper selection of teachers, accustom children to the observance of firm order, and educate true patriots. Rightly insisting that teachers should be enlightened people, he considered it necessary to improve their financial situation, to surround them with universal respect.

The child, according to Helvetius, is not born good or evil, it is made one way or another by the social environment and upbringing. The doctrine of Helvetius was historically progressive and served as one of the ideological sources of utopian socialism.

Pedagogical ideas of Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) is one of the most prominent French materialists of the 18th century. Like all representatives of this trend, Diderot was a materialist from below (in the explanation of nature) and an idealist from above (in the interpretation of social phenomena). He recognized the materiality of the world, considered movement inseparable from matter, the world is knowable, and resolutely opposed religion.

Standing on the positions of materialistic sensationalism, Diderot considered the source of knowledge to be sensations. But unlike Helvetius, he did not reduce the complex process of cognition to them, but recognized that its second step is the processing of sensations by the mind. He also believed that "opinions rule the world", and mistakenly associated the possibility of reorganizing society not with a revolution, but with the issuance of wise laws and the spread of enlightenment, correct education. He outlined his thoughts on education mainly in the work “Systematic refutation of the book of Helvetius“ On Man ”.

Diderot rejected the assertion of Helvetius about the omnipotence of education and the absence of individual natural differences in people. He sought to limit the extreme conclusions reached by Helvetius

Recognizing that much can be achieved with the help of education, Diderot noted the importance for the formation of a person of his physical organization, his anatomical and physiological characteristics. He also disagreed with the position of Helvetius that thinking can be reduced to the ability to feel. Mental operations depend, according to Diderot, on a certain state and organization of the brain. People have, he said, different natural inclinations and features; the natural organization, physiological characteristics of people predispose their natural inclinations to development, but their manifestation depends entirely on social causes, including education. Diderot rightly believed that the educator would be able to achieve great results if he strived to develop the positive inclinations inherent in the child by nature and drown out the bad ones. Diderot's call to take into account the natural characteristics of the child, to develop his individuality deserves a positive assessment.

Diderot rightly asserted that all people are endowed with favorable inclinations by nature, and not just the elect. Moreover, he said that people from the people are much more likely to be carriers of genius and talent than representatives of the nobility: . one for the fact that genius, talent and virtue will sooner come out of the walls of a hut than from the walls of a palace. The vicious social system, according to Diderot, deprives the children of the people of a good upbringing and education and is the cause of the death of many hidden talents. The great educator advocated universal, free primary education “from the first minister to the last peasant”, for everyone to be able to read, write and count. He proposed to remove the schools from the jurisdiction of the church and transfer them to the hands of the state; which should take care of the accessibility of the school, organize material assistance to the children of the poor, free food, etc. Protesting against the class organization of education, Diderot wrote that the doors of schools should be “equally open to all the children of the people ... because it would be just as cruel, how absurd to doom to ignorance. people who occupy a lower position in society.

Diderot rebelled against the dominance in the schools of classical education and brought real knowledge to the fore; in high school, he believed, all students should study mathematics, physics, and the natural sciences, as well as the humanities.

Paying great attention to the teacher, Diderot demanded that he deeply know the subject he teaches, be modest, honest and have other high moral qualities. He offered to create good material conditions for the teacher, to take care of him in case of illness and disability.

The pedagogical views of the French materialists of the 18th century, inextricably linked with their philosophical conception, reflected on the eve of the revolution of 1789 the demands of the bourgeoisie in the field of education. They found their expression in the most advanced projects for the organization of public education, created during the period of the French bourgeois revolution, and were further developed on a different social basis by the utopian socialists.

13. Philosophical and psychological foundations of Herbart's pedagogy. Herbart made an attempt to develop a system of pedagogical science based on idealistic philosophy, mainly ethics and psychology. In his worldview, Herbart was a metaphysician. He argued that the world consists of an infinite number of eternal entities - reals, which are inaccessible to human knowledge. The idea of ​​people about the variability of the world, he said, is illusory, being, the essence of being are unchanged. Herbart had a negative attitude towards the French bourgeois revolution and the progressive movement that arose under its influence in the advanced strata of German society. He dreamed of the time when the upheavals and changes would end, they would be replaced by "a stable order and a measured and orderly life." He sought through his activities in the field of philosophical sciences (he included psychology, ethics and pedagogy) to contribute to the establishment of such a stable life order. Herbart derived his understanding of the essence of education from idealistic philosophy, and the goal of education from ethics. Herbart developed an extremely metaphysical ethical theory. Public and personal morality rests, according to him, on eternal and unchanging moral ideas. These ideas constitute, according to Herbart, the basis of a non-class, universal morality, which was supposed to strengthen the social relations and moral norms that dominated the Prussian monarchy. The psychological doctrine of Herbart, based on idealistic and metaphysical philosophy, is generally anti-scientific, but some of his statements in the field of psychology are of a certain scientific interest. Following Pestolozzi, who sought to find its elements in any complex phenomenon, Herbart decomposed human mental activity into its component parts and tried to isolate the element that is the simplest, primary. Herbart considered representation to be such a simple element. He incorrectly asserted that all human mental functions: emotion, will, thinking, imagination, etc., are modified representations. Herbart considered psychology to be the science of representations, their appearance, combinations, and disappearance. He believed that the human soul does not initially have any properties. The content of human consciousness is determined by the formation and further movement of ideas that enter into certain relationships according to the laws of association. The concepts of association and apperception introduced by Herbart have survived in modern psychology. A mass of ideas, as it were, crowds in the soul of a person, trying to break into the field of consciousness. Those representations that are related to those existing in the field of consciousness penetrate there, those that are not supported by them weaken, become invisible and are pushed beyond the threshold of consciousness. The whole mental life of a person depends, according to Herbart, on initial ideas, reinforced by experience, communication, and education. Thus, understanding is determined by the relationship of representations. A person understands when an object or word evokes a certain circle of ideas in his mind. If no representations arise in response to them, they remain incomprehensible. The relationship of representations explains all the phenomena of the emotional sphere of the psyche, as well as the area of ​​volitional manifestations. Feelings, according to Herbart, are nothing but delayed representations. When there is a harmony of ideas in the soul, a pleasant feeling arises, and if the ideas are not in harmony with each other, then a feeling of unpleasantness arises. Desire, like feeling, is again a reflection of the relationship between representations. Will is a desire, to which the idea of ​​​​achieving the goal is attached. So, Herbart ignores the uniqueness of the various properties of the human psyche. He unjustifiably reduces the complex and diverse, deeply dialectical process of mental activity to mechanical combinations of ideas. By influencing the child's ideas, he expects thereby to exert a corresponding influence on the formation of his consciousness, feelings, and will. From this it followed from Herbart that properly delivered training has an educative character.

14.t AK, one of the founders of the didactics of primary education, a Swiss teacher Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi(1746–1827), who completed two courses at the Collegium Karolinum, was active in educational activities, organized a number of orphanages for children from the poorest environment, where orphans lived and studied. I.G. Pestalozzi was the author of works that reflected his pedagogical ideas: "Lingard and Gertrude" (1781-1787), "How Gertrude teaches her children" (1801), "Letter to a friend about his stay in Stanz" (1799), "Swan Song" (1826). The pedagogical heritage of Pestalozzi was analyzed by A.P. Pinkevich, E.H. Medynsky, V.A. Rotenberg and others.

Developing the idea of ​​the relationship between upbringing, learning and development, the teacher proceeded from the recognition of the decisive role of upbringing in the development of the child's personality from the moment of his birth. The essence of developing and nurturing education was expressed by I.G. Pestalozzi in his theory of "elementary education", which was intended for elementary education. Elementary education implies such an organization of learning, in which the simplest elements are distinguished in the objects of cognition and activity, which allows you to constantly move from simple to more and more complex, bringing the knowledge of children to possible perfection. The teacher identifies the following simple elements of cognitive activity: number (the simplest element of a number is one), shape (the simplest element of a form is a line), names of objects indicated using words (the simplest element of a word is sound).

The purpose of training I.G. Pestalozzi defines it as the excitation of the mind of children to vigorous activity, the development of their cognitive abilities, the development of their ability to think logically and briefly express in words the essence of the concepts they have learned. Thus, the method of "elementary education" is a certain system of exercises for the development of the child's abilities. Pestalozzi developed this technique, guided by the following ideas: 1) a child from birth has inclinations, internal potential forces, which are characterized by a desire for development; 2) the many-sided and diverse activity of children in the learning process is the basis for the development and improvement of internal forces, their mental development; 3) the activity of the child in cognitive activity is a necessary condition for the assimilation of knowledge, a more perfect knowledge of the world. Such developmental and educative education should facilitate the transition of children from disordered and vague impressions to clear concepts.

I.G. Pestalozzi expanded the content of primary education, including information from geography and natural history, drawing, singing, gymnastics, and the beginning of geometry. The teacher believed that speech should be developed systematically and consistently, starting with sounds and their combinations in syllables, through the development of various speech forms while enriching and deepening the child's ideas about the world around him. Pestalozzi suggested starting teaching counting not with memorizing arithmetic rules, but with combinations of single objects and forming on this basis ideas about the properties of numbers. He divided the study of form into teaching children to measure (geometry), drawing and writing.

The idea of ​​developmental education K.D. Ushinsky called "the great discovery of Pestalozzi." The teacher considered the main goal of training not to master the knowledge set forth by the teacher, but to excite the mind of children to active activity, develop their cognitive abilities, the ability to think logically and express the essence of the concepts they have learned. Isolation of the developmental function of learning posed fundamentally new tasks for the teacher: the development of clear concepts in students in order to activate their cognitive powers. Interpretation of the idea of ​​developmental education in the works of I.G. Pestalozzi still has not lost its relevance.

Developing the idea of ​​developing education and elementary education, the teacher became one of the founders formal education: studied subjects were considered by him more as a means of developing abilities than as a means of acquiring knowledge. This point of view of Pestalozzi was supported by F.A. Diesterweg and K.D. Ushinsky. The method of "elementary education" made it possible to simplify the methodology of primary education and expand its possibilities.

Priority value of I.G. Pestalozzi assigned education, he believed that education should give children from the people good labor training and at the same time develop their physical and spiritual strength, which in the future will help them get rid of poverty. Education should be nature-conforming, that is, it should be built in accordance with the natural course of development of human nature itself, starting from infancy. "The hour of a child's birth is the first hour of his education," Pestalozzi insisted. He believed that the general goal of education is most capable of solving its moral component. Among the tasks of moral education, the teacher singled out the development of high moral qualities in children, the formation of moral consciousness and beliefs in the younger generation, their development through direct participation in good and useful deeds.

Trying to be consistent, I.G. Pestalozzi, speaking of educative education, singles out the initial element of a person's humanistic feelings. The first germ of morality, according to the teacher, is the very first and most natural feeling of a person - trust, love for the mother. With the help of education, the circle of objects of children's love should gradually expand (mother - sisters and brothers - teachers - schoolmates - people). Thus, according to Pestalozzi, school education is successful only when it cooperates with the family. Thus, I.G. Pestalozzi was the first to put forward the thesis about the activity of the child in the learning process.

In physical education, the main element is the desire of the child to move. The beginning of physical education, according to I.G. Pestalozzi is laid in the family when the mother gradually teaches the child to stand, take the first steps and walk. Joint exercises were put by the teacher as the basis of "natural home gymnastics", on the basis of which he proposed to build a system of school "elementary gymnastics".

Pestalozzi considered elementary labor training as an important part of the development of the child and proposed at the initial stage the assimilation of the “alphabet of skills”, which contributes to the development of physical strength and mastery of the necessary labor skills.

Pedagogical views and activities of I.G. The Pestalozzi influenced the further development of world pedagogical science and brought to life a whole pedagogical trend - Pestaloztsianism.

15. German teacher and educator, author of about 400 pedagogical works Friedrich Adolf Wilhelm Diesterweg(1790-1866) studied at the Heidelberg, Herborn and Tübing universities, received a Ph.D., was a teacher of a classical gymnasium, director of teacher's gymnasiums. For his huge contribution to the development of public education and the desire to unite the German teachers, he was called the "teacher of German teachers." According to the researchers of the heritage of F.A. Diesterweg (V.A. Rotenberg, S.A. Frumov, A.I. Piskunov and others), the merit of his theory lies not in special originality, but in the brilliant interpretation and popularization of the ideas of J.-J. Russo and I.G. Pestalozzi. The main pedagogical work of F.A. Diesterweg - "A Guide to the Education of German Teachers" (1835), in which the teacher theoretically substantiated and improved the ideas of developing and educating education. Diesterweg persistently advocated a secular school and non-interference of the church in the educational process, put forward the demand for a single folk (national) school.

According to F.A. Disterweg, three principles play a leading role in the organization of the upbringing process - natural conformity, cultural conformity and amateur performance. The use of the principle of conformity to nature in pedagogy presupposes the recognition of the value and expediency of the natural organization of man. Diesterweg emphasized that only knowing psychology and physiology, the teacher can ensure the harmonious development of children, he saw in psychology "the basis of the science of education", believed that a person has innate inclinations, which are characterized by a desire for development, included in the tasks of education the provision of this independent development . The teacher considered upbringing as a historical phenomenon and concluded that the state of culture of the people of each period of time also affects the development of the personality of pupils. Thus, the principle of cultural conformity means that in education it is necessary to take into account the conditions of the place and time in which a person was born and where he will live, because pedagogy is a part of human culture. The requirement of cultural conformity in F.A. Diesterweg means the need to take into account the historically achieved level of culture and the educational ideal of society in the content of education.

The teacher attributed the principle of children's amateur performance in the process of development to the universal educational principles. With the name of F.A. Diesterweg is associated with the creation of the foundations of developmental learning. Good, according to the teacher, can be considered only such training that stimulates the inclinations and initiative of a person, develops him mentally, morally, physically. Compliance with this principle ensures the developmental nature of training. Diesterweg understood self-activity as activity, initiative, and considered it the most important personality trait. In the development of children's amateur performances, he saw both the ultimate goal and an indispensable condition for any education, he determined the value of individual educational subjects based on how much they stimulate the mental activity of students. The teacher believed that successful learning is educational in nature.

F. Diesterweg developed rules covering all aspects of the learning process at school, drew attention to the decisive role of the teacher in the implementation of developing learning tasks, urged teachers to fight for the high culture of students' speech and constantly engage in self-education, free themselves from routine teaching methods, work creatively, never give up independence of thought.

16. The Development of Pedagogical Thought and Education in the 1740s–1760s associated with the name Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov(1711-1765) - scientist-encyclopedist, artist, poet. While working at the Academy of Sciences, the university and the gymnasium, he was actively involved in teaching, was a supporter of the class-lesson system of education, lectured, and created teaching aids. The scientist insisted on the need for a broad public education in Russia. His pedagogical views were based on the theories of Ya.A. Comenius, D. Locke, J.-J. Rousseau, in particular, on this basis, he formulated the principles of education, developed the basic methods of teaching in higher education, identified and substantiated some scientific categories of pedagogy and psychology. The main goal of the harmonious development of the personality of M.V. Lomonosov considered the upbringing of the "sons of the Fatherland", based on taking into account the psychological characteristics of the child. The scientist believed that the soul of a child consists of a "lower" - sensual, egoistic and "higher" - spiritual, patriotic component, from here he deduced the goal of enlightenment, which was the scientific education of a person, which should lead the child to an understanding of the primacy of public benefit over personal interests. Lomonosov advocated the creation of a national education system, against the dominance of foreign teachers.

The third period in the development of domestic education was associated with the policy of Catherine II in the field of reforming educational institutions and the development of educational ideas. The first stage of Catherine's transformations in the field of education lasted from 1766 to 1782, when the idea of ​​creating a general education school for the general population with a pedagogical, and not a professional or class, goal of education was finally formed. In 1779, the first Teacher's Seminary was opened at Moscow University. Later, in 1786, in her image, a teacher's seminary was created in St. Petersburg, which became the first higher educational pedagogical institution in Russia and trained teachers to work in various educational institutions. Teachers' seminaries taught the basics of science and teaching methods.

During the reign of Catherine II, new types of educational institutions appeared. In 1763, on the initiative of I.I. Betsky, an educational home was opened in Moscow, and later similar homes began to be created throughout Russia. Children from 5 to 20 years old were brought up in these institutions. It was assumed that a special educational environment would be created there to protect the child from the negative influences of society. In 1764–1765 educational institutions for boys were opened at the Academy of Arts and the Academy of Sciences, in 1864 - an educational institution of an increased type for the education of women - the Institute of Noble Maidens in St. industry. Common to all these educational institutions were the prohibition of corporal punishment, intimidation of children, an individual approach to the assessment of each student, and an orientation towards the development of the personality of the pupil. Catherine II herself was attentive to the issues of education and upbringing, studied the treatise of J.-J. Rousseau "Emil, or On Education", having accepted the idea of ​​raising a child in isolation from society, was the author of pedagogical works "Selected Russian Proverbs" and "Continuation of the Primary Teaching". Thus, in the 1760-1780s. in Russia there were objective prerequisites for the creation of a uniform, harmonious state system of education on the basis of general education.

17. In 1813, Owen published his work "A New View of Society, or Experiments on the Formation of Human Character", in which he argues that a person's character is determined by environmental conditions independent of his will. The vices and shortcomings of people, their misdeeds are due to the environment in which they live. Man, he said, has never created his character and cannot create it. Owen believed that if you change the conditions of the environment and upbringing, you can form any character. The new organization of society will thus be achieved through the education and enlightenment of the people. New people will appear who will peacefully establish socialist relations.

The classics of Marxism highly appreciated Owen's ideas about the all-round development of man. In his experience of combining education with productive labor on an industrial basis, they saw the "embryo of the education of the future."

Robert Owen was the first to substantiate and implement the idea of ​​social education of children from the first years of their life and created the world's first preschool institution for the children of the proletariat. In his educational institutions, mental and physical education was given, children were brought up in the spirit of collectivism. Many leading figures, in particular the Russian revolutionary democrats A. I. Herzen and N. A. Dobrolyubov, spoke very positively about these institutions. Owen not only expelled religion from his educational institutions, but also fought against religious beliefs, which, in his opinion, hindered the true enlightenment of the people. The educational institutions he created for adult workers were also of great importance. Owen consistently and sharply criticized the capitalist system and education in bourgeois society.

However, he did not understand the role of the class struggle of the proletariat in the transformation of society, did not realize that it was possible to achieve a communist system and carry out rational education only as a result of a proletarian revolution. At the same time, Owen and other utopian socialists put forward a number of great ideas, including in the field of education, which were critically used by K. Marx and F. Engels in creating a truly scientific system of communist education.

18. The pedagogical thought of the Renaissance is most clearly represented by the works of Italian, German and French humanist scholars. Undoubtedly, their works bear the imprint of national originality. Thus, the works of Italian teachers are characterized by a pronounced humanistic trend, the value of education and upbringing is assessed in their orientation towards universal ideals. In the writings of the German humanists, democratic tendencies are strongly manifested; ideas about universal education, the need to organize a mass public school merge with the idea of ​​national education. French aristocratic humanism is filled with pedagogical ideas of the future: the need for free and individual education, the development of women's education, the importance of including physical labor in the education system.

French Renaissance humanism is represented by the name Francois Rabelais(1494–1553). A writer, humanist, a bright and extraordinary personality, he was born into the family of a lawyer, received an excellent education in a monastery, led the life of a wandering scientist, studied ancient languages, archeology, law, natural sciences, medicine, received a doctorate in medicine, in the last years of his life he was a priest . A very accurate description of the contradictory character of F. Rabelais, which determined the originality of his pedagogical views, was given by E.N. Medynsky: “A man who all his life was afraid of being burned at the stake, and at the same time openly mocked religion. A man who rebels against the church and twice begs Pope Paul III for remission of his sins and apostasy; first a monk, then a sworn enemy of monasticism and a white priest, then a doctor, a great old man of the Renaissance, finally a priest again; encyclopedist by education - philologist, physician, archaeologist, lawyer and naturalist; an author whose books are sometimes published under the auspices of the king, sometimes banned by parliament, but have tremendous success among the bourgeoisie of that time; a writer whose first books are filled with a passionate thirst for a healthy life, unbridled joy and hope for an improvement in social life with the help of royalty, and in the last parts of his novel, deep disappointment comes through; writer with deep ideas and, in particular, with the best pages world pedagogy; the largest teacher proclaiming the bottle as the god of the whole world and the inspirer of all culture; sometimes revolving in the royal circle, sometimes forced to flee from France - such is always restless, full of hobbies, extreme exaggerations, doubts and contradictions of Rabelais.

F. Rabelais expressed his pedagogical ideas in his novel “Gargantua and Pantagruel”, in which he sharply condemned the medieval school for its formal and purely verbal character, for scholastic teaching methods and opposed it with the program of education of a “free and well-behaved person” of the Renaissance. The pedagogical theory of F. Rabelais was based on his belief that a person by nature, regardless of origin, is predisposed to goodness, therefore humanistic values ​​can be reflected in education and passed on from generation to generation. F. Rabelais expressed his ideals of new upbringing and education, describing the upbringing of the hero of the novel: the whole day is divided into a system of classes alternating with games and physical exercises. The leading place in the curriculum is given to ancient and new languages, which open the way to understanding the works of ancient authors, scientific analysis of biblical texts. Therefore, in the novel, Gargantua studies Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, "ignorance of which is unforgivable for anyone who wants to be known as an educated person." An important place in education is given to the natural-scientific knowledge of man and nature on the basis of the "seven free arts". F. Rabelais was a supporter of visual teaching methods, so the main way of mastering knowledge is the direct observation of a young person of the world around him.

F. Rabelais developed the idea of ​​individual education, since education, carried out through individual lessons of an educator with a student, makes it possible to solve the problem of combining education and moral education. Rabelais attached particular importance to physical education, in which he required a combination of physical exercises with vigorous activity and the development of crafts. His hero “threw a spear, a dart, a bar, a stone, a horn, a halberd, pulled huge crossbows with muscle strength, aimed at the eye from a musket, pointed a cannon, shot at a target. He swam in deep water face down, supine, on his side, with his whole body, his arm outstretched, he climbed like a cat on trees; hunted, jumped, fenced. The teacher put forward the requirement of alternating study and rest, physical and mental activities. Later, the global ideas of F. Rabelais were developed in the theories of M. Montaigne, Ya.A. Comenius, D. Locke, J.-J. Russo, I.G. Pestalozzi and others.

Lawyer, author of the famous work "Experiments", which reflected advanced humanistic views on the upbringing and education of children, Michel Montaigne(1553-1592) considered the child, his natural features, inclinations, abilities that make up the individuality, as the main guideline in the activities of the educator. Criticizing the school of his day, which retained many features of scholastic education, Montaigne demands that the organization of education be guided by the physical characteristics of children and, above all, not undermine their health. Proclaiming experience as the basis of all knowledge, the teacher in the teaching methodology suggests first introducing children to specific objects and only then to the words denoting these objects, which, according to M. Montaigne, should form an interest in learning based on understanding knowledge. Subsequently, such a logic of knowledge presentation will be considered in the theory of Ya.A. Comenius.

M. Montaigne paid a lot of attention to the development of children's independence, putting forward an imperative requirement: “I do not want one teacher to work and always speak in the class. Let the students work, observe, talk.” The teacher should develop the mental abilities and independent thinking skills of students, and not "pouring knowledge like water into a funnel." The thinker spoke out against corporal punishment, widespread in school, opposing violence to the ideal of free and joyful learning, in moral education he proposed to combine mildness with severity, but not severity, insisted on the harmonious development of the spiritual and physical powers of the child, expressed thoughts about the need to learn the native language.

19. the Czech pedagogue and philosopher became the most important figure in the pedagogy of modern times Jan Amos Comenius(1592-1670), who developed many pedagogical problems, created the first scientific theory in the history of pedagogy - didactics, subordinated to the idea of ​​the all-round development of the personality. Ya.A. Comenius was born in the Czech Republic in the family of a priest of the community of Czech brothers, he received his primary education at a brotherly school, then studied at a Latin school, graduated from the Herborn Academy and the University of Heidelberg. All his life he was engaged in educational activities, created a number of pedagogical works and textbooks for the school.

The main work of his life is the "Universal Council for the Correction of Human Affairs", in which, as in his other works, the main idea is panso-phia - universal wisdom, which means "knowledge of all things" that really exist in the world. According to the teacher, the possibility of improving social life and delivering society from injustice lies in improving the system of upbringing and education of people, since this will allow each person and, as a result, the whole world to improve. In this regard, the teacher throughout his life tried to create a program of general education and a comprehensive method of personality formation, based on a continuous process of improving everyone and everything through creative work. In the twentieth century this postulate of Ya.A. Comenius was developed in the theory and practice of lifelong education.

The idea of ​​the universality of education in the theory of Ya.A. Comenius has not only a philosophical, but also a practical orientation, its implementation is developed in detail in the Great Didactics and the Rules of a Well-Organized School. In these works, the teacher outlined the universal theory of "teaching everyone everything", based on the principle of natural conformity. Man, as part of nature, is subject to its universal laws; accordingly, education should be determined by the natural nature of things and allow learning quickly, easily and firmly. Based on this, the education of a person should begin at an early age and continue through adolescence. To implement this idea, Ya.A. Comenius, for the first time in the history of pedagogy, developed a scientifically substantiated integral system of schools in accordance with age periodization and outlined the content of education at each level of education. The teacher advocated universal education and believed that in any well-organized society there should be schools for the education of children of both sexes.

The first step in the project of Ya.A. Comenius had a maternal school (from birth to 6 years). At the stage preschool education When a child learns information about natural phenomena, people's lives, receives basic knowledge of geography, astronomy, the teacher called labor and moral education the main areas of education. At the stage of primary education (from 6 to 12 years old), the school of the native language follows, in which children in their native language are introduced to a fairly wide range of knowledge that goes beyond the traditional framework of modern teacher education. Ya.A. Comenius proposed to include in the program of this school the native language, arithmetic, the beginnings of geometry, geography, "the beginnings of cosmography", the beginnings of social and political knowledge, crafts, psalms, catechism, and other sacred texts. The mother tongue school was intended for the joint education of all children. Secondary school in the Ya.A. Comenius is a gymnasium, or a Latin school (from 12 to 18 years old), which should be opened in every city for the education of young men who have achieved success in education. The teacher included the "seven liberal arts", physics, geography, history, the beginnings of medical knowledge, etc. in the gymnasium program. In the structure of the academy, traditional university faculties were singled out, and the purpose of its creation was to communicate pansophic knowledge.

In the organization of training Ya.A. Comenius initially preferred the subject principle and was the author of a number of textbooks on physics, geometry, geodesy, geography, astronomy, and history. Subsequently, he came to the conclusion that a person should receive system knowledge about the world, and created a textbook of a new type - "The Open Door of Languages ​​and All Sciences", in which the phenomena of the surrounding world were given in their integrity and unity from the standpoint of various sciences. The learning process should be based on clear principles.

1. Ya.A. Comenius promoted visual learning, which was reflected in the “golden rule” of didactics: “Everything that is possible should be provided for perception by sight, heard by hearing, smells by smell, subject to taste by taste, accessible to touch by touch. If any objects can be perceived by several senses at once, let them be grasped at once by several senses.

3. Education should evoke in children the joy of mastering educational material. The teacher demanded that the educational material be arranged "by age, so that only that was offered for study that was accessible to the ability of perception." In this regard, the clarity of teaching was of particular importance, consisting in a clear explanation of all provisions without much delving into details, but in a clearly traced logic.

4. The strength of knowledge is based on the independence and activity of students in the learning process. “In my students, I always develop independence in observation, in speech, in practice and in application, as the only basis for achieving solid knowledge,” Ya.A. Comenius.

Allocated by Ya.A. Comenius principles served as the core of a new universal classroom training system, which the teacher theoretically substantiated and proposed the rules for its implementation in practice. Until today, the class-lesson system remains the basis of school education, which can be considered an indisputable merit of Comenius. The key concepts of this system are: a) Class, which implies a constant number of students of approximately the same age and level of knowledge, who, under the general guidance of a teacher, strive towards one educational goal common to all; b) lesson, which implies a clear correlation of all types of educational work with a specific time period ( academic year, quarter, holidays, school week, school day - from 4 to 6 lessons, lesson, break). An important link in the developed Ya.A. The process of consolidating and repeating knowledge becomes the Comenius system, for which the teacher suggested using regular homework and exams.

Issues of education and training Ya.A. Comenius considered in inseparable unity, giving priority to the learning process. The teacher paid attention to the study of the main categories of education - goals, content and methods. According to the principle of conformity to nature, education should be based on the analysis of the laws of a person's spiritual life and the coordination of all pedagogical influences with them. The purpose of education, according to Comenius, is to prepare a person for eternal life. He saw the path to eternal bliss in the knowledge of the external world, in the ability to control things and oneself, in raising oneself to the source of all things - God. Thus, the Comenius system singled out the components of education - scientific education, moral and religious education. The teacher saw the goal of education not only in the acquisition of knowledge, but also in the system of moral qualities, of which he considered justice, courage and moderation to be the most important. In the process of education Ya.A. Comenius assigned a decisive role to the personal example of the teacher, and at school he attached great importance to discipline.

20. French philosopher and enlightener, writer Jean Jacques Rousseau(1712-1778) considered it necessary to change the social order based on unjust inequality, through education and proper education, which is the backbone of any form of government and therefore valuable to society; well-being of the state and every person depends on properly organized education. He outlined his theory of "free natural education" in the treatise "Emil, or On Education" (1762).

Rejecting the traditional system of education, J.-J. Rousseau believed that upbringing would contribute to the development of the child only if it acquired a natural nature-like character, if it was connected with the natural development of the individual. Education is given to a person by nature as an internal development of the abilities and organs of a person, education from people is learning how to use this development, education from the side of things is the acquisition by a person of his own experience regarding the objects that give him education. All these factors, according to the teacher, should act in concert. A child is born sensually receptive, receives impressions through the senses, as his susceptibility increases as he grows, knowledge about the environment expands under the influence of adults. This approach J.-J. Rousseau was fundamentally new for the pedagogy of that time, since the traditional school rejected both individual and age differences.

For Rousseau, education is the art of developing the true freedom of man. The desire for nature in the teacher is manifested in the rejection of the artificiality and attractiveness of everything natural, simple, direct. In the pedagogical system of J.-J. Rousseau places the child at the center of the pedagogical process. However, the educator must accompany the child in all his experiences, direct his formation, but never impose his will on him. In teaching, it is important not to adapt knowledge to the level of the student, but to correlate them with his interests and experience. It is important to organize the transfer of knowledge in such a way that the child himself takes on the task of obtaining it. The teacher believed that different education systems were needed for boys and girls: nature assigns an active, leading role to men in the life of society, therefore Rousseau attaches more importance to their upbringing; women should be brought up differently, because they have a different purpose in society, endowed with opposite properties and inclinations. The teacher argued that “the natural state of a woman is dependence,” so a girl should be brought up for a man, able to adapt to her husband’s opinions and judgments, and accept his religion.

In the interpretation of training and education, J.-J. Rousseau argues that they are inseparable, since they are connected by a single goal: to teach a child about life, to raise a person who is independent, sane, friendly to people, who feels confident in any situation. The upbringing of a child should not take place in a school, which, being part of a corrupted society, is not capable of forming a natural person, but in the bosom of nature, in a country house under the guidance of an enlightened mentor and teacher. In the most general form, the requirements for the personality of the educator were reduced to broad knowledge in the sciences and crafts, knowledge of the laws of "human nature" and the individual characteristics of the pupil, possession of the secrets of pedagogical art.

J.-J. Rousseau proposes such an organization of the upbringing process, which is based on the age periodization he deduced, where tasks and means of upbringing were provided for each age period. At an early age (from birth to 2 years), the main goal of education should be physical development, going along with the development of the senses and speech. From a very early age, it is necessary to give the child freedom in movement, it is unacceptable to accelerate the process of mastering speech.

The teacher calls the age from 2 to 12 years the period of “sleep of the mind” and considers the main goal of education to be “the development of external feelings”. J.-J. Rousseau expressed the conviction that during this period of his development, the child is already aware of himself as a person, is relatively independent, but is not able to reason, therefore, in education, instructions should be abandoned. During this period, it is necessary to continue the physical education of the child, intellectual development is not yet available to him, but he can still acquire knowledge on his own, by observing wildlife and his own experience. The mentor is obliged not to teach science, but to skillfully and thoughtfully create situations that, awakening in the child a desire to acquire this or that knowledge, would force him to independently discover them. It is necessary to gradually initiate him into the relationship of a person with the outside world and one should not give the child books, except for "Robinson Crusoe", in which an example of "natural education" is brilliantly described. It is especially important to impress upon him that to be free means to yield to necessity.

At the age of 12–15, according to J.-J. Rousseau, a person enters the most favorable time of life, the most suitable for a full-fledged intellectual and labor education. The organization of mental education is based on natural curiosity. Rousseau proposed a research way of obtaining knowledge, which is possible when the object or phenomenon being studied is of interest to the child. The teacher abandoned the subject construction of education and proceeded from the cognitive interests of the pupil, teaching him the ability to independently apply knowledge in life. At first, the child's curiosity is caused by things and phenomena that directly surround him, therefore, first of all, he must be introduced to geography and astronomy. The teacher attached particular importance to work, which not only cultivates virtue, but also allows you to maintain an independent position in society. In labor education, the child learns to respect the common man, begins to appreciate the results of labor. The child must invent and create the tools necessary for the craft on his own, then he will be not just a craftsman, but a researcher, a thinker.

From 15 to 22 years old, the “period of storms and passions” begins, at this age J.-J. Rousseau assumes the moral education of the young man in society. According to the teacher, such qualities as a sense of duty, citizenship, patriotism, compassion for people should be brought up. Returning to society, the young man remains free inside, because in previous periods independence from social prejudices and delusions was formed in him. Ways of moral education is communication with good people and the study of history, in which there are enough examples of noble, moral, patriotic behavior. By the age of 22-24, natural education should be completed, a person begins an independent life, he should marry, focusing on the advice of a mentor in choosing a bride.

The views of J.-J. Rousseau had a great influence on the development of the theory and practice of education in the XVIII-XIX centuries. and continue to be relevant to this day.

N.A. Konstantinov, E.N. Medynsky, M.F. Shabaeva

A brief description of the philosophical views of the French materialists.

Among the French philosophers of the Enlightenment, the materialist philosophers stood out with the greatest consistency in their views and the militant nature of their principled positions. "During the whole recent history Europe, - wrote V.I. Lenin, - and especially at the end of the 18th century, in France, where a decisive battle was fought against all kinds of medieval rubbish, against serfdom in institutions and ideas, materialism turned out to be the only consistent philosophy true to all the teachings of the natural sciences, hostile to superstition, hypocrisy, etc.” The materialist philosophers resolutely opposed the feudal state institutions and the church, and forged the sharp ideological weapons of the French revolution. The works of Diderot, Helvetius, Holbach were banned, confiscated, subjected to public burning by the authorities, the authors themselves were often persecuted, often forced to emigrate to other countries.

French materialists were consistent, active fighters against religion, their atheistic worldview had a huge impact not only on their contemporaries, but also on subsequent generations. Church and religion were the main pillar of feudalism, the destruction of this pillar was necessary condition revolution. Criticism of religion at that time, K. Marx explained, was a prerequisite for any other criticism.

Philosophers-materialists sought to prove that the sources of religion are ignorance, slavery, despotism and the deception of the masses by the clergy. Priests do not care about the enlightenment of the people, they wrote, and the less enlightened the mass, the easier it is to fool them. V. I. Lenin highly valued the atheists of the 18th century, who talentedly, witty, and openly attacked religion and priesthood. However, they did not understand social entity religions, could not point out the right ways to deal with it. French materialists believed that enlightenment would eliminate all superstitions. Science, art, crafts give people new strength, assist them in the knowledge of the laws of nature, which should lead them to the rejection of religion.

Religion is required by the feudal government in order to more easily govern the people, but a just, enlightened, virtuous government will not need false fables. Therefore, the clergy should not be allowed to run schools, there should be no teaching of religion in schools, it is necessary to introduce such subjects that would lead students to the knowledge of the laws of nature. It would be expedient to establish such a subject that would teach the basics of moral norms of behavior in a new society, such a subject should have been a course in morality.

According to the teachings of the French materialists, there is only matter in the world, which is in constant motion, matter is a physical reality. They recognized universal interaction in nature and motion as a natural property of matter. But French materialism did not go beyond the mechanical understanding of movement and was of a metaphysical, contemplative nature.

Based on Locke's sensationalism, the French materialists recognized the sensations received from the external world as the starting point of cognition. According to Diderot, a person is like a musical instrument, the keys of which are the sense organs: when nature presses them, the instrument makes sounds - a person has sensations and concepts.

Being materialists in their views on nature, the French philosophers, in explaining the laws of social development, stood on the positions of idealism. They argued that "opinions rule the world", and if so, it is enough to achieve a change in opinions, and all feudal survivals and religion will fall away, enlightenment will spread, legislation will improve and the kingdom of reason will be established. Consequently, it is necessary to convince and re-educate people, and the nature of social relations will be radically changed. Therefore, the French materialists considered education a means of changing the social order. They also overestimated the influence of the environment, considering a person as a passive product of his environment and upbringing. They did not understand the role of the revolutionary activity of people, changing both the environment and their own nature. F. Engels explained that the inconsistency of the old materialism did not lie in the fact that he recognized the existence of ideal motive forces, but in the fact that he stopped at them, not trying to penetrate further, to reach the causes that created these forces.

The pedagogical views of the French materialists Helvetius and Diderot were of the greatest importance.

Pedagogical views Claude Adrian Helvetius (1715-1771).

In 1758, the famous book of Helvetius "On the Mind" was published. The authorities condemned and banned this book, as directed against religion and the existing system. The book was publicly burned. Helvetius went abroad and at that time wrote a new work - "On Man, His Mental Abilities and His Education" (published in 1773).

Helvetius denied innate ideas and, being a sensualist, believed that all representations and concepts in a person are formed on the basis of sensory perceptions. He attached great importance to the formation of a person under the influence of the environment, the socio-political system that prevails in the country. According to Helvetius, "the young man's new and main educators are the form of government of the state in which he lives, and the morals generated by this form of government among the people."

He pointed out that the feudal system cripples people. The Church spoils human characters, religious morality is hypocritical and inhuman. "Woe to the nations," exclaims Helvetius, "who trust the priests to educate their citizens." He believed that the time had come when the preaching of morality should be taken over by secular power. Since the existing morality is built on errors and prejudices, on religion, a new morality must be created, arising from a rightly understood personal interest, that is, one that is combined with the public interest. However, Helvetia understood the public interest from a bourgeois position. He saw the basis of society in private property.

Helvetius considered it necessary to formulate a single goal of education for all citizens. This goal is to strive for the good of the whole society, for the greatest pleasure and happiness of the greatest number of citizens. It is necessary to educate patriots who are able to unite the idea of ​​personal good and the “good of the nation”. Although Helvetius interpreted the “good of the nation” in a limited way, as a bourgeois thinker, such an understanding of the goals of education had a historically progressive character.

Helvetius argued that all people are equally capable of education, since they are born with the same spiritual abilities. This statement "about the natural equality of people" is imbued with democracy; it dealt a blow to the theories of contemporary noble ideologists who preached the inequality of people by nature, which was allegedly due to their social origin. However, Helvetius' denial of any natural differences between people is incorrect.

Helvetius believed that a person is formed only under the influence of the environment and upbringing. At the same time, he interpreted the concept of "education" very broadly. Karl Marx pointed out that by education Helvetius "understands not only education in the usual sense of the word, but also the totality of all the conditions of an individual's life ...". Helvetius stated that "upbringing makes us what we are", and even more: "Education can do anything." He overestimated both the role of education and the environment, believing that a person is a pupil of all the objects around him, those positions in which chance puts him, and even all the accidents that happen to him. Such an interpretation leads to an overestimation of natural factors and an underestimation of organized education in the formation of a person.

Helvetius believed that the scholastic school, where children are stupefied with religion, cannot educate not only real people, but also a sane person in general. It is therefore necessary to radically reorganize the school, make it secular and state-owned, and abolish the monopoly of the privileged noble caste on education. Broad education of the people is necessary, it is necessary to re-educate people. Helvetius hoped that as a result of education and upbringing, a person free from prejudice, from superstition, a true atheist patriot, a person who could combine personal happiness with the "good of nations" would be created.

Pedagogical views of Denis Diderot (1713-1784).

The most prominent representative of French materialism in the 18th century was Denis Diderot. His writings were met with hostility by the authorities. As soon as his work “Letters on the Blind for the Edification of the Sighted” was published, Diderot was arrested. After his release from prison, he devoted all his energies to preparing for the publication of the Encyclopedia of Sciences, Arts and Crafts. The encyclopedia, around which he gathered the entire flower of the then bourgeois intelligentsia, played a huge role in the ideological preparation of the bourgeois French revolution.

Of all the French materialist philosophers, Diderot was the most consistent: he passionately defended the idea of ​​the indestructibility of matter, the eternity of life, and the great role of science.

Diderot attached great importance to sensations, but he did not reduce knowledge to them, but rightly pointed out that the processing of sensations by the mind is of great importance. The sense organs are only witnesses, while the judgment is the result of the activity of the mind on the basis of the data received from them.

Diderot highly appreciated the role of education, however, in his objections to Helvetia, he did not consider education to be omnipotent. He wrote in the form of a dialogue the well-known "Systematic refutation of the book of Helvetius" Man "(1773-1774).

Here is one typical place:

"Helvetius. I regarded intelligence, genius and virtue as the product of education.

Diderot. Only education?

Helvetius. This thought seems to me still true.

Diderot. It is false, and because of this it can never be proved in a completely convincing way.

Helvetius. It was agreed with me that education has a greater influence on the genius and character of people and peoples than has been thought.

Diderot. And that's all I could agree with you on."

Diderot decisively refutes Helvetius's position that education can do everything. He believes that much can be achieved by upbringing, but upbringing develops what nature has given the child. Through education, it is possible to develop good natural inclinations and drown out bad ones, but only if education takes into account the physical organization of a person, his natural characteristics.

Diderot's position on the importance that the natural differences of people have in their development, on the need to take into account the peculiarities of the child's physical organization and psyche in education, deserves a positive assessment. However, due to the limitations of the French materialistic philosophy of the XVIII century, Diderot mistakenly considers human nature as something immutable, abstract. Meanwhile, as the founders of Marxism later established, human nature changes in the course of historical development, people change their own nature in the process of revolutionary practice.

Diderot believed that not only the elite had good natural inclinations; he, on the contrary, argued that the people are much more often the bearer of talents than representatives of the nobility.

“The number of huts and other private dwellings,” wrote Diderot, “is related to the number of palaces as ten thousand to one, and accordingly with this we have ten thousand to one chances that genius, talent and virtue will sooner come out of the walls of the hut, than from the walls of the palace.

At the same time, Diderot rightly declared that the talents hidden in the masses of the people are often dying, since a bad social system deprives the children of the people of proper upbringing and education. He was a supporter of the enlightenment of the broad masses, recognizing its enormous liberating role. According to Diderot, "enlightenment gives a man dignity, and the slave will immediately feel that he was not born for slavery."

Like Helvetius, Diderot strongly criticized the French feudal system of education, emphasizing that primary schools those in the hands of the clergy neglect the education of children from the people, and the privileged secondary schools of the classical type instill only an aversion to the sciences and give insignificant results. The entire system of education and upbringing is useless, "it is necessary to change the method of public education to the very foundation."

It is necessary that all children study in schools, regardless of their social affiliation. Schools should be removed from the jurisdiction of the clergy and made public. Primary education should be free and compulsory, and public catering should be established in schools. The children of the poor know better the value of education than the rich. Diderot demanded a decisive restructuring of the secondary school. He opposed the dominance of classical education in secondary schools, considered it necessary to provide them with teaching on the scientific basis of mathematics, physics, chemistry, natural science, astronomy, and insisted on the implementation of real education.

In 1773, at the invitation of Catherine II, Diderot made a trip to St. Petersburg and lived there for about a year. As you know, Catherine at that time played the role of an “enlightened figure” and patron of persecuted philosophers.

Diderot drew up in 1775 a plan for the organization of public education in Russia on a new basis under the name "Plan of a University for Russia" (meaning the entire system of public education by the university). Catherine had no intention, of course, of carrying out Diderot's plan; it was too radical.

Bibliography

For the preparation of this work, materials from the site http://www.biografia.ru/ were used.

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“They did not recognize any external authorities of any kind. Religion, understanding of nature, society, state order - everything was subjected to the most merciless criticism; everything had to stand before the judgment of reason and either justify its existence or renounce it.”

This remarkable characterization of the historical role of the French enlighteners and materialists of the 18th century. given by Friedrich Engels. He called them the great men who in France enlightened their heads for the approaching revolution.

One of the first places among the French enlighteners belongs to the materialist and atheist Denis Diderot. Diderot devoted his whole life to the struggle against the absolutist-feudal system, against medieval barbarism. Already Diderot's early literary works were imbued with such bold ideas that his work "Philosophical Thoughts" was burned by decree of the Paris Parliament, and for the publication of "Letters on the Blind for the Edification of the Sighted" he was arrested and imprisoned in the state prison - Vincennes Castle.

At the suggestion of Diderot and under his leadership, the publication of a grandiose work was undertaken - the Encyclopedia of Sciences, Arts and Crafts, which united the most outstanding scientists of France around itself. They showed in their encyclopedia the successes of natural-scientific, philosophical and technical thought, subjected religion and theology to witty and convincing criticism, and revealed the reactionary nature of the political institutions of their time.

Diderot played an important historical role in the development of the materialistic worldview. The main philosophical works of Diderot are “Thoughts on the explanation of nature”, “D’Alembert’s conversation with Diderot”, “ Philosophical principles Matter and Motion”, “Systematic Refutation of the Book of Helvetius “On Man””. Diderot advocated in his works the union of philosophy and natural science, believing that in this way it is possible to most convincingly substantiate the materialistic understanding of the world. He resolutely rejected the existence of God, as an invention of churchmen, rejected the church fable about the immortality of the soul.

Diderot was an outstanding theorist of realistic art. Diderot's main aesthetic works are On Dramatic Poetry, The Paradox on the Actor, An Essay on Painting, and Salons. The reproduction of reality in concrete images is, according to Diderot, the essence of art. His main requirements for art are ideology and artistry.

The French thinker also acted as the creator of literary and artistic works. He owns such well-known stories as "Ramo's Nephew", "The Nun", "Jacques the Fatalist", "Indiscreet Jewels", etc. In an artistic form, these stories promoted educational ideas, criticized religious morality, and exposed the crimes of churchmen. The propaganda of family virtues was devoted to the plays of Diderot - "The bastard son" and "Father of the Family".

Diderot also played a significant role in the development of progressive pedagogical thought. He sharply opposed feudal-religious education, against scholastic methods of teaching, against the isolation of the school from life. The school must be rebuilt, said Diderot, "on reasonable and just principles."

Diderot's works belong to the golden fund of the classical ideological heritage of France.

French materialists of the 18th century. - La Mettrie, Helvetius, Diderot, Holbach - carry their ideas to wide circles of urban society. They do not directly address the sovereigns of contemporary Europe (although they do not miss the opportunity to interest them in their views) and not only to readers from the nobility, but also to the mass of readers from the bourgeois class. The French materialists relied on the broad development of free thought in England. Behind the bright figures of La Mettrie, Helvetius, Diderot, Holbach, there are no less bright and significant in their ideological influence figures of the English Enlighteners Toland, Tyndall, Shaftesbury. Another important source of materialistic ideas for them was the mechanistic materialism of Descartes' physics, as well as the materialistic teaching of Spinoza about nature, substance and its attributes, about man, about the soul and its relation to the body.
18th century French materialism not only continued the materialistic traditions generated by the socio-historical development of England, France and the Netherlands, he developed these traditions further, put forward new ideas. For the great materialists of the 17th century. mechanics and astronomy were the main scientific pillars of materialistic thought. For French materialists, along with mechanics, medicine, physiology and biology also become such a support. The discoveries and ideas of Newton, Euler, Laplace, Lavoisier, Buffon, and other outstanding scientists form the natural scientific basis for the philosophical generalizations of the French materialists of the 18th century.

The philosophy of French materialism is composed of the materialist doctrine of nature and of the doctrine of man and society.
Founder of French materialism of the 18th century. Julien-Ofrat La Mettrie (1709-1751) expressed in a general form almost all the ideas that were subsequently developed, enriched, concretized by Helvetius, Diderot, Holbach and some naturalists - Buffon, Maupertuis and others.
La Mettrie argued that not only every form is inseparable from matter, but every matter is connected with motion. Deprived of the ability to move, inert matter is only an abstraction. Substance is ultimately reduced to matter, in the nature of which is rooted not only the ability to move, but also the universal potential ability to sensitivity or sensation. Contrary to the teachings of Descartes, La Mettrie not only sought to prove the animation of animals, but at the same time pointed out the material nature of animation itself - animals and humans. Although for us, La Mettrie argued, the mechanism by which matter is endowed with the property of sensation is still incomprehensible to us, but it is undoubted that all our sensations are due to the connection of feeling - through nerves - with the material substance of the brain. Therefore, no sensation and no change in an already existing sensation can arise without a specific change in the corresponding organ of sense perception.
La Mettrie only outlined a number of basic ideas, but did not give them a detailed systematic development. The most systematic propagandist of the philosophical teachings of French materialism was Paul Holbach (1723-1789). The fruit of a mutual exchange of thoughts with friends was Holbach's System of Nature (1770), in the writing of which, apart from Holbach, Diderot, Nejon and others took part. The System of Nature is the largest of Holbach's works devoted to the theory of materialism.
The main idea of ​​the treatise is the idea of ​​the reduction of all natural phenomena to various forms of motion of material particles, "forming in their totality the eternal uncreated nature. All theological and idealistic prejudices about the nature of the forces acting in nature and about their causes are consistently refuted.
The basis of all processes of nature is matter with its inherent property of motion. The "System of Nature" distinguishes between two kinds of motion: 1) the motion of material masses, due to which bodies move from one place to another; 2) internal and hidden movement, depending on the energy inherent in the body, i.e., on the combination of action and reaction of the invisible molecules of matter that make up this body. Referring to Toland, Holbach proves the universality of movement in nature. Everything in the universe is in motion. The essence of nature is to act; if we carefully consider its parts, we will see that there is not one of them that would be in absolute rest. Those that appear to us to be devoid of movement are in fact relatively at rest. In contrast to Descartes, who taught that motion was imparted to matter by God, Holbach argues that nature receives its motion from itself, for nature is a great whole, outside of which nothing can exist. Matter is eternally in motion, motion is the necessary mode of its existence and the source of such initial properties as extension, weight, impenetrability, figure, etc.
The materialistic understanding of nature is incompatible with the assumption of any kind of supernatural causes. According to Holbach, in nature there can only be natural causes and actions. All movements arising in it follow constant and necessary laws. Of those laws of phenomena which elude our observation, we can at least judge by analogy. The laws of causality are as universal as the property of motion in nature is universal. Therefore, if we know the general laws of the motion of things or beings, it will be enough for us to analyze or analyze to discover the movements that have come into combination with each other, and experience will show the consequences that we can expect from them. Over all connections of causes and effects in nature, the strictest necessity dominates: nature in all its phenomena acts necessarily, according to its inherent essence. Through movement, the whole enters into intercourse with its parts, and the latter with the whole. The universe is only an immense chain of causes and effects, continuously flowing from each other. Material processes exclude any kind of chance or expediency. Holbach's position on necessity extends to human behavior and to the emergence of all his sensations and ideas. This doctrine is undoubtedly mechanistic materialism. The behavior of a person in society and his actions, this doctrine reduces to a mechanical necessity. French materialism does not suspect the existence of a special regularity and necessity generated by the emergence of society.
Since everything is necessary in nature, and since nothing that is in it can act otherwise than it does, Holbach deduces from this the negation of chance. In a swirl of dust raised by a stormy wind, no matter how chaotic it may seem to us, there is not a single molecule of dust that is located randomly; each molecule has a definite cause, by virtue of which it occupies at every moment precisely the place where it is located. From the theory of universal determinism, Holbach also derives the denial of order and disorder in nature. The ideas of order and disorder are subjective and represent only our assessment of a necessary and objective situation.
The doctrine of nature, set forth in Holbach's System of Nature, was further developed in the works of the most prominent representative of French materialism, Diderot's pen (1713-1784). Diderot went from ethical idealism and deism to materialism in the doctrine of being, in psychology, in the theory of knowledge, and also to atheism in matters of religion. Diderot's philosophical writings of the 1940s and 1950s clearly reflect this evolution. In the later written Rameau's Nephew, d'Alembert's Conversation with Diderot, and in d'Alembert's Dream, the exposition of the theory of materialism reaches the highest inspiration, charm of literary form, ingenuity and wit in argumentation. Simultaneously with these philosophical writings, Diderot wrote extensively on art, aesthetics, and art criticism. In the Salons he published, in correspondence with the sculptor Falcone, in the Paradox of the Actor, he developed a new aesthetics of realism, opposing it to the theories of classicist epigones and the naturalistic understanding of truth. Diderot sought to implement the theoretical principles of aesthetics in his works of art - in novels and dramas.
Like other representatives of French materialism, Diderot proceeds from the position of the eternity and infinity of nature. Nature is not created by anyone, except for it and outside of it there is nothing.
Diderot introduced certain features and ideas of dialectics into the materialist doctrine of nature. Through his views on organic nature, the thought of development, of the connection between the processes occurring in nature, breaks through. In a number of issues Diderot's teaching breaks through the narrow framework of mechanistic metaphysics. According to Diderot, everything changes, disappears, only the whole remains. The world is continually born and dies, every moment it is in a state of birth and death; there never was and never will be another world. Individual features of Diderot's dialectics were highly valued by Engels.
Diderot's special attention was drawn to the problem of the materialistic interpretation of sensations. How can the mechanical movement of material particles give rise to a specific content of sensations? There can be two answers to this question: either sensation appears at a certain stage in the development of matter as something qualitatively new, or an ability analogous to the ability of sensation must be recognized as a property of any matter, regardless of the form of the material body and the degree of its organization. According to the latter view, organization determines only the kind of animation, but not the very quality of animation, which belongs to matter as such.
Diderot was a supporter of the idea of ​​the universal sensitivity of matter. As indicated above, La Mettrie was already inclined to this view. Later, the inconsistent materialist Robinet (1735-1820), the author of the treatise "On Nature", also defended the doctrine of the universal sensitivity of nature and of organic germs as its material primary elements.
Diderot not only worked out a clear formulation of this doctrine, but, in addition, refuted the arguments usually put forward against it. In D'Alembert's Conversation with Diderot, he argued that the recognition that the difference between the psyche of man and animals is due to differences in their bodily organization does not contradict the idea that the ability to sense is a universal property of matter.
Developing this view, Diderot outlined a materialistic theory of mental functions, which in many respects anticipated the latest theory of reflexes. According to this theory, in the ways animals and people communicate with each other, there is nothing but actions and sounds. The animal is an instrument with the ability to sense. Humans are also instruments, endowed with the ability to sense and remember. Our senses are the "keys" that the nature around us strikes and which often strike themselves. At one time, Descartes drew the conclusion from similar ideas that animals are mere machines. According to Diderot, something else follows from them. Man, like animals, contains something automatic in his organization, and the automatism of organic forms is not only not devoid of animation, but presupposes the possibility of sensation as a universal property of matter. From inert matter, organized in a certain way, under the influence of other matter, as well as heat and movement, the ability of sensation, life, memory, consciousness, emotion, thinking arises. This teaching is incompatible with the ideas of the idealists about the spontaneity of thinking. According to Diderot, we do not deduce conclusions: they are all deduced by nature, we only register contiguous phenomena known to us from experience, between which there is a necessary or conditioned connection. The recognition of the existence of the external world independent of consciousness, as well as the recognition of the ability of sensations to reflect the properties of external things, does not mean, however, that sensations are mirror-exact copies of objects. Already Fr. Bacon found that the human mind is not like a smooth mirror, but a rough mirror in which things are reflected in an inaccurate way. According to Diderot, there is no more similarity between the majority of sensations and their causes than between these same representations and their names. Together with Locke and with all the mechanistic materialism of the XVII-XVIII centuries. Diderot distinguishes between "primary" qualities in things, that is, those that exist in the things themselves and do not depend on the attitude of our consciousness towards them, and "secondary" qualities, consisting in the relationship of the object to other things or to itself. The last qualities are called sensible. According to Diderot, sensual qualities are not similar to the ideas that are created about them. However, unlike Locke, Diderot emphasizes the objective nature of "secondary" qualities, that is, that they exist independently of the consciousness of the perceiving subject. On the basis of the materialist doctrine of nature, French materialism put forward the doctrine of the dependence of all forms of knowledge on experience, on sensations, which are transformed at a higher stage of development into forms of thinking and inference. Experienced in its source, knowledge has as its goal not an abstract comprehension of the truth, but the achievement of the ability to improve and increase the power of man. The French materialists adopted this view from Fr. Bacon. Diderot developed this view, taking into account the role of technology and industry in the evolution of thought and knowledge. The condition for the emergence of any knowledge is the excitation of the soul, sensation from the outside. The work of memory, which preserves acquired knowledge, is reduced to material organic processes.
Diderot and other French materialists recognized experiment and observation as methods of cognition. Fighting against the idealism of Leibniz, the dualism of Descartes and theology, the French materialists, beginning with La Mettrie, argued that the cognitive value of the mind is not diminished by the fact that it relies on the data of external senses, on experience and observation. It is on this basis that knowledge can achieve, if not complete certainty, then at least a high degree of probability.
The conditionality of cognition by the mechanism of sensations and physical causes does not diminish the importance of language in the development of the intellect. In language, La Mettrie sees a system of signs invented by individuals and communicated to people through mechanical training. In the process of understanding someone else's speech, French materialism sees a reflex of the brain excited by words, like a violin string responding to a strike on a piano key.
With the establishment of signs associated with various things, the brain begins to compare these signs with each other and consider the relationship between them. The brain does this with the same necessity with which, for example, the eye sees objects when their influence is transmitted along the nerve from the periphery of the visual apparatus to the brain. All ideas of the human mind are conditioned by the presence of words and signs. In turn, everything that happens in the soul is reduced to the activity of the imagination. different types mental endowments are only various ways using the power of the imagination.
In the doctrine of society, the French materialists still remain, like all pre-Marxist philosophers, idealists. However, they oppose the idealistic-theological understanding of the history of mankind, arguing that the driving force behind the history of mankind is the human mind, the progress of enlightenment. In the doctrine of human nature, education, society and the state, the French materialists defend determinism, that is, the doctrine of the causality of all human actions. Although a person is a product of external forces and physical conditions, he still cannot be released from responsibility for everything he does in relation to society. Since to impute a misconduct to a person means only to attribute the commission of this misconduct to a certain person, the necessity of actions performed by a person does not in the least exclude the legitimacy of punishment. Society punishes crimes, since the latter are harmful to society, and they do not cease to be harmful because they are committed by virtue of necessary laws. Further, punishment itself is the strongest means of preventing crime in the future.
The doctrine of morality, according to the French materialists, must be based on experience. Like all sentient beings, man is driven solely by the desire for pleasure and the aversion to pain. A person is able to compare different pleasures and choose the greatest among them, as well as set goals for himself and seek out means. Therefore, rules and concepts about actions that underlie morality are possible for him.
Physical pleasures are the strongest, but they are impermanent and harmful in excess. Therefore, preferences deserve mental pleasure - more durable, lasting and more dependent on the person himself. Strictly speaking, the starting point of wisdom should not be pleasure, but the knowledge of human nature guided by reason.
Since people cannot live alone, they form a society, and from their union new relationships and new duties arise. Feeling the need for the help of others, a person is forced in turn to do something useful for others. This is how the general interest is formed, on which the private interest depends. According to the teachings of Holbach and Helvetius, properly understood self-interest necessarily leads to morality.
Claude-Adrian Helvetius (1715-1771) saw the main task of ethics in determining the conditions under which personal interest as a necessary incentive for human behavior can be combined with public interest. The treatise "On the Mind" was dedicated to the justification of this thought by Helvetius. According to Helvetius, not only is the individual a part of a wider whole, but the society to which he belongs is a link in a larger community or a single society of peoples bound by moral ties. This view of society must become, according to the French materialists, the driving force behind the complete transformation of all social life. Current state the societies of Holbach and Helvetia are considered far from ideal. They did not see this ideal in the "state of nature", for nature made it impossible for man to exist in isolation and pointed out to him the reciprocity of benefits and benefits as the basis of a reasonable community. Without mutual benefit, no happiness is possible for a person. By virtue of the social contract, we must do for others what we want them to do for us. At the same time, the obligations arising from the social contract are valid for every person, regardless of which part of society he belongs to. Hence the French materialists, such as Holbach, derived the prescriptions of philanthropy, compassion, etc., common to all people.
According to the French materialists, there is no such form of government that would fully satisfy the requirements of reason: excessive power leads to despotism; excessive freedom - to self-will, that is, to an order in which everyone will be a despot; concentrated power becomes dangerous, divided power becomes weak. The French materialists see the means of getting rid of the shortcomings of the existing methods of government not in the revolution, but in the enlightenment of society. Education, led by a wise government, is the most reliable means of giving the peoples the feelings, talents, thoughts, and virtues necessary for the prosperity of society. At the same time, individual representatives of French materialism assess the role of education in different ways. Holbach considers the goal of education to be the alteration of the original original warehouse of the personality. Helvetius sees in man a creature from which, thanks to education, anything can be done. The natural givenness of temperament does not prevent the possibility of its change in any direction. The process of educating a person has a decisive influence on his physical, mental and moral abilities.
In the worldview of the French materialists, an important place was occupied by the proof of the independence of ethics from religion and the proof of the possibility of a highly moral society consisting of atheists. This teaching, as well as the proof of the inconsistency of all beliefs and dogmas of religion, especially shocked contemporaries. Not only Voltaire, who considered direct attacks on the very principle of religious beliefs dangerous for a society of owners, but even such people as d’Alembert, Diderot’s colleague in the Encyclopedia, condemned atheism and Holbach’s ethics as a doctrine, although exalted, but not supported by philosophical principles.

The famous French philosopher-educator Claude Helvetius (1715-1771) was born in Paris in the family of a court physician. He graduated from the Jesuit College, but he deeply criticized the feudal system, church absolutism and religious fanaticism, scholasticism and formalism in the fields of science and education. A deep conflict between the thinker, the authorities and the church was already laid by the first edition of his famous book "On the Mind", which was published in 1758. The book was immediately banned and publicly burned. Having traveled abroad, Claude Helvetius writes his new work about man , his mental faculties and his education", which he published in 1773. It outlines his main pedagogical views.

The purpose of education is to open the heart of the child to humanity, and the mind to the truth, in order to educate the citizens of the state with a harmonious combination of aspirations for personal goodness and goodness for all. moral education the thinker advises teaching, like any academic subject, with the help of a specially created "Catechism of Morals". Its principles should be made visible and accessible to children.

The decisive role in the formation of personality belongs to mental education and properly organized education. Physical education is also of great importance. / For its organization, special sites should be created at schools.

Women should be educated equally with men.

The pedagogical views of Claude Helvetius are clearly seen in his statements: "Woe to the nations that trust the priests to educate their citizens";

"The new and main educators of the young man are the form of government of the state in which he lives, and the customs born in the people of this form of government"; "Education can do everything"; "The more worthy of their upbringing, the happier the nations."

Denis Diderot on the state system of stateless public education.

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) - French philosopher, writer, encyclopedist was an ardent supporter of the state system of non-stand public education. Inspirer and editor of the Encyclopedia of Sciences, Arts and Crafts. He outlined his thoughts on education and upbringing in the works: "Systematic refutation of the book of Helvetius" Man "(1773-1774)," On Man "(1774)," Plan for a university or school of public teaching of all sciences for Russian government " (1775).

His works, like those of K. Helvetius, were met with hostility by the authorities. After the publication of his work "Letters on the Blind for the Edification of the Sighted" he was immediately arrested.

Of all the French materialist philosophers, Diderot is the most consistent. Highly appreciating the role of education in shaping personality, Diderot did not consider it omnipotent. I was sure that much can be achieved by upbringing, but upbringing only develops what nature has given the child. A newborn child is not a tabula rasa ("blank slate"), as Helvetius argued, it is a "board" on which certain natural inclinations are already written. Through education, the best of them can be developed, and the worst can be silenced. But this can be done only if the natural features of the child and his physical organization are taken into account.

The thinker showed endless surprise at the phenomenon of the birth of a genius. "Genius falls from the sky. And at one time, when he meets the gates of the palace, there are a hundred thousand cases when he flies by," Diderot said. Not only the elite have good natural inclinations. On the contrary, the encyclopedist argued, the people are much more often the bearer of talent than representatives of the aristocracy. “The number of shacks and other private dwellings,” he wrote, “is among the palaces as ten thousand to one, and in accordance with this we have ten thousand chances against one, but that genius, talent and virtue will sooner come out of the walls of the hut, than from the walls of the palace." Along with this, Diderot noted that everywhere the talents hidden in the masses of the people perish, since the imperfect social system deprives the children of the people of proper upbringing and appropriate education.

Diderot, like Helvetius, sharply criticized the French feudal system of education, believing that "it is necessary to change the very foundations of the method of public education." He insisted that all children study in schools, regardless of their social status. Schools should be deprived of the interference of the clergy, they should be made public. Elementary education shall be declared compulsory and free. Provide food for children. Need to rebuild and high school depriving it of the dominance of classical education and strengthening the scientific foundations of teaching mathematics, physics, chemistry, natural science, and astronomy.

Diderot's pedagogical views are partially traced in such expressions: "People stop thinking when they stop reading"; "Education gives a man dignity, and the slave begins to realize that he was not born for slavery."

Throughout his life, Denis Diderot was worried about the secret of genius as the highest vocation of man, and the thinker was constantly looking for "formulas" for its embodiment, trying to reduce it to the maximum. "Knowing what things should be," he wrote, "characterizes a person; knowing what things really are characterizes an experienced person; knowing how to change them for the better characterizes a person of genius." He devoted his whole life to knowing how to “change things for the better”, regardless of dangers or health, justifying this position with famous words: “If you are afraid of death, you won’t do anything good; if you still die from for some kidney stone, or an attack of gout, or some other equally absurd cause, it is better to die for some great cause."