ABOUT SIGNIFICANCE OF METAPHYSICS FOR HUMAN

Abstract

The modern worldview inherent in postmodern culture consists in the negation of metaphysics. Metaphysics is a teaching that has its subject universal, considered in the forms or absolute basis, or the ultimate cause of the universe, the universe itself as an ordered whole (cosmos), as well as the soul as a principle of unity. In the modern era, the absolute beginning (the absolute can be described as complete infinity) moves from the transcendent to nature and to the human race. This naturally led to the «loss» of metaphysics in the culture of postmodernism. The logical development of the opposing theories of empiricism and rationalism ultimately led to one result – the absurdity of the world and the «disappearance» of man.

Metaphysics is inextricably linked with the concept of «sacred», which characterizes the absolute beginning, the highest and perfect value of something for a person. Therefore, it is not by chance that in post-metaphysical time there is a process of desacralization of the world and man, and all ties that root man in the unchanging and eternal are broken.

The essential characteristic of man is consciousness. The component structure of consciousness includes will, knowledge, emotions and self-consciousness. If metaphysics as a doctrine is correlated with the rational aspect of the mastering of the world, the sacred is correlated with the strong-willed and emotional. The widest range of feelings is connected with the sacred: faith, love, worship, awe, etc. The sacred is what causes these feelings. Hostile attitude to integrity, as the implementation of violence, affects and distorts all components of consciousness: rational, strong-willed, sensual and emotional. The true sacred sphere complements metaphysics as the highest level of the value component of consciousness. The «deformation» of metaphysics and the sphere of the sacred has led to two consequences in modern culture: mass man (in the presence of affects) and man-made man (in the absence of affects).

Efforts to «restore the integrity of man» are opposed by the logic of the development of modern society, carried out by methods of specialization and «prosthetics». If the logic of development is higher than the sense of self-preservation of man, then he can expect an anthropological catastrophe.