Objective Reality: Philosophical Justification (Descartes-Nesmelov-Vl. Solovyov)

Abstract

The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the truth of knowledge about the existence of the external world, which all scientific knowledge is based on, has not received final philosophical and theoretical justification in Russian philosophy, and the works of some domestic philosophers, for example, V.I. Nesmelov, who specifically studied this problem, are practically unknown to the modern philosophical public. The purpose of the article is to reflectively critically examine the epistemological significance of Descartes’s principle of “cogito”, presented in the works of V. I. Nesmelov and Vl. Soloviev in order to justify the truth of knowledge about the existence of the objective world. The leading approach to the study of this problem is based on a theoretical reconstruction and interpretation of texts, which allows not only to reveal the semantic content of the philosophical reflections of these philosophers on the problem of substantiating the existence of the external world and the identity of thinking and being, but to critically reflectively evaluate and compare their approaches and the obtained results. The main results obtained in this article: it is shown how, recognizing the full legitimacy of the skeptical position about the inaccuracy of our knowledge about the existence of objective reality, Descartes tried to overcome skepticism in this matter; it is explained why Descartes, having discovered the incontrovertible truth “cogito”, “threw it as completely unnecessary to him” (V.I. Nesmelov) to justify the existence of the objective world and set about looking for other criteria for substantiating reliable knowledge about this world; the inconsistency of the idea of God proposed by Descartes as a criterion for such a justification is analyzed; the analysis of V. I. Nesmelov's attempt to use the incontrovertible truth "cogito" left by Descartes to justify the reliability of our knowledge of the existence of the objective world is given; it is considered why Vl. Solovyov’s reflections, who considered the principle of Cogito ergo sum to be not fully clarified by Descartes, himself requires further clarification of V.I. Nesmelov’s solution of the question of the criteria for the reliability of our knowledge of the existence of objective reality.