Catastrophic Consciousness: A Brief Overview of the Problem

Abstract

This article presents the relevant for the modern worldview sphere of philosophical reflection on the interaction between consciousness and reality as well as on the way thinking matches its content. The author takes a historical look at the ideas concerning the controversial problems of consciousness, from the views of Confucius and Socrates to the reasoning of modern authors about certain aspects of consciousness leading all subsequent human activity to catastrophic results. In the context of this issue, various approaches to the interaction of human and society with the outside world are demonstrated, as well as the historically developed views on harmonization (the idea of the cosmos as an orderly system of world order in ancient Greece and the laws of Heaven in Chinese pre-philosophy). The paper traces the origins of understanding those aspects of people’s attitude towards property in which one can find the basis for the catastrophic consciousness characteristic of our time. The formation and functioning of “names” in the system of existence is considered, which is presented in the theoretical principles developed by A.F. Losev. In addition, the paper analyses ideas about the possibility of achieving harmony in human relationships in the system of social existence and in the psychology of behaviour of crowds and individuals, as well as the existential views of the latter leading to actions with catastrophic attitudes. Moreover, the theoretical positions of D.S. Sommer and M.K. Mamardashvili’s school are compared. V.P. Vizgin’s article on catastrophic thinking and its main forms of manifestation is considered in detail. This paper uses comparative methods, historical analysis and interdisciplinary synthesis in combination with the techniques of abstraction and analogy