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DEVELOPMENT OF STUDENTS’ SPIRITUAL AND INTELLECTUAL POTENTIAL IN THE PROCESS OF STUDYING “PHILOSOPHY”

The publication highlights the role and importance of teaching “Philosophy” for the formation and development of spiritual and intellectual potential and harmonization of the inner spiritual world of students. The necessity of studying “Philosophy” as a compulsory, fundamental, universal, basic discipline for bachelors in higher education institutions of Ukraine is analyzed.
Keywords: spiritual and intellectual potential, philosophy, personal potential, ontology, epistemology, anthropology, axiology.

Marukhovska-Kartunova O. O.
PhD in Philosophy, Associate Professor, Head of the Section of Social Sciences,
Professor of the Department of Foreign Languages and General Education,
University of Economics and Law “KROK”, Kyiv, Ukraine

10.34142//2708-4809.SIUTY.2022.103

It is well known that of all the humanities disciplines taught in higher education institutions in Ukraine and around the world, the oldest, most humanitarian, most spiritual discipline has always been, and will always be, the discipline of philosophy. It is this discipline that forms and develops the spiritual and intellectual potential of young people, which, according to the Ukrainian scientist S. Vovkanych, “at different levels of formation of its components covers the following components: spirituality as a social and moral basis… humanization of society, creation of a new socio-humanistic paradigm of the Ukrainian nation and… national identity of a person…” [1] and others.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the role and importance of teaching “Philosophy” for the formation and development of spiritual and intellectual potential and harmonization of students’ inner spiritual world.

In this context, from the point of view of studying “Philosophy”, it is worth explaining the meaning of the three ascending concepts of “spiritual”, “intellectual” and “potential”, which form the phrase of a qualitatively new scientific term “spiritual and intellectual potential”.

Firstly, the concepts of “spirituality,” “humanity,” “spiritual values,” “spiritual potential” – all these and other similar concepts are studied in the teaching of “Philosophy” in the section “History of Philosophy.”

— from the “golden rule of morality” of the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius to the ethical anthropology of Socrates and Aristotle’s “Ethics” in the era of ancient philosophy;
— from the humanism of the Renaissance philosophy to the categorical imperative, i.e. the main moral law of the German philosopher I. Kant and the work of E. Fromm “The Spiritual Essence of Man”
— from the doctrine of “kindred labor” by H. Skovoroda to the “philosophy of the heart” by P. Yurkevych in Ukrainian philosophy, etc.

Secondly, in the course of teaching “Philosophy” in the section “Theory of Philosophy” spiritual and intellectual aspects of personal potential are studied, such as:

1) the formation of a worldview as a form of spiritual and practical mastery of the world and self-determination of a person in it;
2) cognition of the worldview as an integrally spiritual formation and a form of social self-consciousness of a person;
3) determination of the main structural levels of worldview, among which the cognitive-intellectual level, i.e. worldview, is of great importance;
4) in ontology (the doctrine of man) – explanation of the philosophical content of the problem of being, including spiritual;
5) in the philosophical concept of creativity – determination of the spiritual and creative potential of a creative personality as a socio-cultural phenomenon;
6) in epistemology (theory of knowledge) – from understanding Socrates’ “Know thyself” as cognition of the socio-cultural and spiritual world of man to mastering the essence of the laws of dialectic of G.-W.-F. Hegel
7) in anthropology (the doctrine of man) – the idea of man as a subject of spiritual activity;
8) in social philosophy – analysis of V. Vernadsky’s doctrine of the noosphere as a sphere of reason, i.e., the reasonable regulation of the moral and humanistic unity of man, nature and science;
9) in historiosophy (philosophy of history) – understanding of civilizations as integral socio-cultural entities;
10) in the philosophy of science – clarification of the role of science in the cultural and historical process, in the humanization and dehumanization of modern society
11) in the philosophy of culture – understanding the humanistic nature of universal and national culture as an integral system of human achievements in the spiritual and material spheres;
12) in axiology (philosophical theory of values) – mastering the system of values as the foundation of the spiritual life of society and understanding the hierarchy of values of human existence (spiritual, moral, humanistic and other values): peace, freedom, humanism, goodness, goodness, harmony, justice, beauty, love, respect, honesty, faith, mercy, goodwill, dignity, mutual assistance, etc.

By actualizing the importance of forming and developing the spiritual and intellectual potential of students in the process of studying the above aspects in Philosophy, one can help them harmonize their inner spiritual world and develop their potential spiritual strengths and abilities that can later manifest themselves in certain life circumstances.

It is in this sense that the importance of teaching “Philosophy” as a compulsory discipline at the bachelor’s level in Ukrainian higher education institutions should be constantly growing. We should agree with the statement of the famous Ukrainian philosopher Yevhen Bystrytsky, who rightly and fairly responds to all guarantors of educational programs who want to get rid of this basic fundamental discipline:

“Philosophy is necessary for the development of the ability to think, that is, to be a scientist and to be trained in any scientific discipline. In this sense, philosophy as a discipline of study is universal, general. Without teaching it, we will have trained students who are not very or not at all capable of thinking independently and creatively. Philosophy, as is known in developed countries and as evidenced by the historical genesis of the sciences, is a basic discipline for all scientific disciplines… By abandoning philosophical disciplines, we say that we do not really need, or do not need at all, a self-aware, critically thinking, free person with a developed spiritual world” [2].

Based on these provisions, it should be noted that the training of highly specialized specialists without basic knowledge of philosophy as a universal and general science gives us specialists who are unable to understand the laws and patterns of the general development of nature, society, thinking, and spiritual culture.

“The focus on narrow professionals, characteristic of the last century, is gradually disappearing… In the twenty-first century, a specialist is needed who is able to flexibly rebuild the direction and content of his or her activities due to changes in life orientations or market requirements… Narrow professional training is gradually being washed out of the higher education system…” [3, с. 14].

Therefore, it is worth mentioning, as an example, the quality of education of the new British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who, like Liz Truss, received a fundamental, not a narrowly specialized, higher education in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University, like many well-known representatives of the modern British establishment.

In addition, some heads of graduate departments and guarantors of educational programs of higher education institutions in Ukraine, who were students in the USSR and studied “Marxist-Leninist philosophy“, today, based on their life experience, do not imagine any fundamental changes in the teaching of “Philosophy”, so sometimes they exclude it from the curriculum. It so happened that “in the last century, philosophy for a long time performed primarily ideological functions, so it is quite by inertia that someone may consider the main function of philosophy to be ideological”, although this is no longer the case [4, p. 58]. Therefore, it is clear that without basic knowledge of “Philosophy” it will be impossible for a student in modern Ukraine to acquire the “worldview and civic qualities and moral and ethical values” required by Article 1 of the Law “On Higher Education” [5, p. 1].

It is interesting that the ancient Greek scientist Pythagoras was both a mathematician and a philosopher, made a significant contribution to philosophy, namely, he introduced the concept of “philosophy” as the love of wisdom, was the first to call himself a philosopher, i.e. “the wise man” and claimed that he did not teach wisdom so much as he healed ignorance. Thus, since ancient times, the Roman philosopher Cicero considered philosophy to be the mother of all sciences, the queen of all sciences.

A modern explanation of this phenomenon is that “in the general system of sciences, philosophy occupies a central place, performing a unifying function, because philosophical knowledge is based on the most general laws of the development of society, nature and human thinking” [6]. It is for this reason that the world-famous scientist, one of the most prominent physicists of the twentieth century, Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein, when asked about the importance and role of philosophy for science, replied that philosophy is the foundation, “the mother of scientific research” [6].

It should also be noted that today, in the context of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine, the conclusions drawn back in 2005 are very relevant. at the UNESCO International Symposium “Philosophy and Democracy in the World”, where the program document “Paris Declaration on Philosophy” was approved, and where it was noted … that the teaching of philosophy contributes to the development of open minds of people who are able to resist various forms of propaganda and … should not be subject to any dominant economic, religious, political or ideological requirements [7, p. 15-16].

List of references

1. Spiritual and Intellectual Potential of Being of Man and Nation: Horizons of Development of Ukrainianness. Psychology and Society. 2012. Issue 4 (50). С. 27-51.
2. Why philosophy should be a compulsory discipline in universities and academic institutions. 2015. URL: https://blogs.pravda.com.ua/authors/bystrytsky/54c84e4990b7f/page_5/ (accessed 07.11.2022).
3. Semerikov S.O. Fundamentalization of teaching informatics disciplines in higher education. Kyiv; Kryvyi Rih: Mineral; Drahomanov National Pedagogical University, 2009. 340 с.
4. Marchuk M. G. Philosophy in University Education: Crisis and Opportunities for Self-Preservation. Scientific Bulletin of the Chernivtsi National University. Series: Philosophy. 2018. Issue 799. С. 54-60.
5. On education: Law of Ukraine, 2014. Document 1556-VII. Bulletin of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (VRU). No. 37-38. 2004. URL: https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/1556-18#Text (accessed on 09.11.2022).
6. Why philosophy is the science of all sciences. URL: https://ukrpublic.com/navchannia/chomufilosofiya-nauka-vsikh-nauk (accessed November 09, 2022).
7. Roger-Pol Droit. Philosophy and democracy in the world: a UNESCO survey / translation by C. Cullen. UNESCO Publishing, 1995. 191 p.