One of the oldest philosophical categories is matter. The concept of it was originally very concrete, then it developed, expanded, and, in the end, turned into a description of the objective reality that we can feel.
The most generalized definition of this category is identical to the existence of the world, as philosophy understands it. Movement, space, time are its attributes. In this article we will talk about one of the most important philosophical categories. It's about traffic. We can say that this term covers all processes occurring in nature and society.
The concept of movement in philosophy
We can say that this category describes the mode of existence of matter. In principle, in very general terms, movement in philosophy is any change, the interaction of material objects, the transition from one state to another. It explains the diversity of the world. Without it, it’s hard to imagine any being. After all, to exist is to move. Any other being is practically unprovable. It is impossible to detect, because it does not enter into interaction with either objects or our consciousness.
Matter and motion in philosophy are also interconnected. They cannot exist without one another. Therefore, the movement is considered an absolute philosophical concept. And peace, on the contrary, is relative. Why? The fact is that thinkers agreed with the definition of rest as one of the types of movement. Astronomers prove it very well. If a certain body, for example, is at rest on Earth, then it moves in relation to other planets and stars.
Aporia - are there changes and processes?
Even in the ancient world drew attention to the contradictions of this problem. The movement in philosophy is, from the point of view of the Eleat school, an object for a special kind of reasoning - aporias. Their author, Zenon, generally believed that this should not be consistent in thinking. Therefore, thinking about movement is generally impossible. The philosopher gave examples of the fact that if in practice a fast runner (Achilles) can catch up with a slow turtle, then in the field of thought this is impossible, if only because for the time while the animal is crawling from one point to another, a person also needs time to get to where it was. And he is no longer there. And so on to the infinity into which space is divided.
The same thing happens when we watch an arrow fly. It seems to us (our feelings speak of this) that it is moving. But after all, every moment the arrow is (resting) at some point in space. Therefore, what we see does not correspond to what can be conceived. And since feelings are secondary, there is no movement.
Unity
True, even in the era of antiquity there were critics of these allegations. For example, the famous authority of the Ancient World Aristotle spoke out against the aporia of the Eleatics. The movement in philosophy is a kind of unity with space and time, the thinker maintained. They do not exist in isolation. Therefore, mechanically dividing them into infinite points is incorrect and illogical. The world is changeable, it develops due to the confrontation of the elements and beginnings, and the result is diversity. Thus, movement and development in philosophy began to be identified. Confirmation of this appeared in the Renaissance. At the indicated time, the idea that both of them was happening because the whole world was an arena for the formation of the soul or life was very popular. The latter is poured over all being. Even matter is spiritualized, and therefore develops.
A source
However, in modern times, philosophers began to look for what is the basis of the movement. They identified matter with matter, and the latter endowed with inertness. Therefore, a better explanation than the fact that someone, for example, God or the Supreme Being, made the “first push”, after which everything began to develop and move according to the established laws, could not come up with.
In the era of mechanism, the problem of movement was mainly explained from the point of view of deism. This is a philosophical concept that somewhat transformed the popular religious theory that God “started” the Universe like a clock, and therefore is the only and initial source of movement in it. This explained the reason for the changes in the time of Newton and Hobbes. But this is not surprising, since then the person was also considered something like a complex mechanism.
Materialism
Marxists also talked a lot about the movement. First of all, they rejected the idea of its external source. Representatives of these views were the first to state that motion in philosophy is an attribute of matter. The latter itself is its source. We can say that it self-develops due to its own contradictions. The latter push and urge her to move.
The motion of matter is due to the interaction of various opposites. They are the cause of a change in its specific conditions. Matter is a whole that cannot be destroyed. It is constantly changing. Therefore, the world is so diverse. If some processes occur in it that do not change the structure of the object, then they are called quantitative transformations. But if the object or phenomenon is internally transformed? Then these changes are called qualitative.
Diversity
Dialectical materialism came up with a concept that described the forms of movement. In the philosophy of Marxism, there were initially five of these kinds of changes - from simple to increasingly complex. It was believed that the features of the forms of motion determine the quality of objects. They also represent the source of the specifics of the phenomena of the material world.
In the nineteenth century, five such forms stood out. These are mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology and social processes. Each of them has its own material carrier - bodies, atoms, molecules, proteins, people and society. However, subsequently the development of science showed that this classification is not entirely true. The theory of the structural forms of the organization of matter has demonstrated that mechanical motion is inherently complex, not simple. Physical processes have their micro and macro levels. It turned out that each structural organization of matter has its own complex hierarchy, and the number of forms of their motion tends to infinity.
Development
Both matter and society are in constant change. If they are consistent, irreversible and of high quality, then they are usually called development. Movement and development in philosophy are very connected. The second term is wider than the first in meaning, because there is a movement that does not lead to a qualitative change, for example, movement. But development has several levels and meanings. For example, about how the world occurred, where it moves, there are mythological and religious explanations, not just scientific ones.
In the understanding of dialectical materialism, there is such a development as progress. This means that the level of structural organization is increasing, becoming more complex. If the reverse process occurs, it is called regression. But this is also a development. So they call the self-movement of nature, society. In general, development is considered to be the universal quality of the universe.
Philosophy of being
We draw some conclusions. In different schools of thought, movement is understood ontologically and acts as the basis of being. It is recognized not only as an integral property of matter, but also as the principle of the unity of the world, and the source of its diversity.
Movement in the philosophy of being is the connecting link between space and time. It is not only an attribute of matter, but also the foundation of the life of nature, man and society. The movement is characterized by contradictions and dialectics. It is simultaneously absolute and relative, changeable and stable, located at some point and does not do this. In modern ontology, the movement also has the appearance of an ideal. We are talking about subjective processes in the world of human consciousness. This is probably the movement that the great Goethe called happiness.