Attributes of matter: the concept and properties

The basic concepts of philosophy are matter and spirit. Idealists and materialists differently define their meaning, but they agree on the objective existence of matter. It is the physical foundation of the world. Moreover, philosophers say that the attributes of matter are movement, space and time. They are its essence and specificity.

The concept of

The philosophical definition of matter says that this is some kind of objective reality, everything that exists regardless of human consciousness. Matter, attributes, forms of existence which are considered in the article, is defined as the antipode of the spirit. It embodies all the inanimate in contrast to the living life, the soul. In philosophy, matter is understood as an entity that is known to the senses, but retains its characteristics, regardless of the awareness of it. Thus, matter is objective.

Ontology comprehends the essence and role of matter in being. The answer to the question of the meaning of matter led to the emergence of two global trends in philosophy: idealism and materialism. In the first case, it is considered that consciousness is primary, and matter is secondary. In the second matter is regarded as the beginning of being. Matter exists in an infinite variety, has many properties and features, its own structure and functions. But in the global sense, there are universal attributes of matter. However, before the crystallization of ideas about the properties of matter occurred, philosophy went a long way of thinking about the essence of this phenomenon.

Evolution of representations

Philosophy was formed as a sphere of comprehension of such objects as being, matter. Attributes of the objective world became the subject of reflection of thinkers back in ancient times. The founder of the first system of views on the essence and role of matter was the ancient Greek philosopher Thales. He stated that the first principle of being is water as a material reality. She possessed in the mobile, changing world the property of the constancy of her characteristics. She could change her form, but her essence remained the same. Water is knowable through the senses, and its transformation is comprehended by the mind. So Thales expressed first observations about the objective nature of matter and its universality.

Later, Heraclitus and Parmenides broadened their notions of objective characteristics of being, posing many new questions. Democritus' views, his atomistic theory, became a source of reflection on movement as the main attribute of being. The problem of the opposition between the ideal and the material worlds came about thanks to Plato. Any thing in the world is the result of a combination of idea and matter. And then an important ontological question appears: what is matter? Aristotle devoted much thought to this question. He wrote that matter is a sensually perceptible substance, the substrate of every thing.

In the next few centuries, discussions about matter proceeded only in the context of the confrontation between materialistic and idealistic ideas. And only the emergence of science once again made the reflection on the definition of matter urgent. Under it we begin to understand an objective reality that exists according to one's own laws, independent of human perception. Philosophers, relying on scientific discoveries, begin to comprehend the properties and forms of the objective world. They substantiate such properties of matter as length, inertia, mass, indivisibility, impermeability. Later discoveries in physics introduce philosophical concepts such as the field, electrons, etc. The attributes of matter in philosophy become the most important field of reflection. Discoveries of modern physicists enrich and expand these concepts, new theories on the properties and structure of matter appear in ontology. Today, the problem of the correlation between the concepts "matter" and "energy" is gaining relevance.

Properties

Characterizing matter, philosophers go by describing its properties. This allows us to understand the specifics of the phenomenon. The main property of matter is the objectivity of its existence. It does not change its form and properties in the perception of man and without it, it obeys the physical laws of existence. The second property, concretizing the content of the concept of "matter", is systemic. Matter is characterized by order and structural certainty. Another universal property of matter is activity. It is subject to changes and development, has dynamics. In addition, matter is characterized by the ability to self-organize and reflect. An important property of it is information. It is capable of preserving and transmitting information about its origin, development, structure.

The universal properties of matter philosophers also consider its indestructibility and unconsciousness. It can not be reduced or added in ways known to man, the world is self-sufficient. Matter has no beginning and no end, it has never been created, never began and will never end. An important property of matter is its determinism, all objects and things in the world depend on the structural connections within it. Everything in the material world is subject to objective laws, everything has its own cause and effect. The uniqueness of matter is another important property of matter. In the world there can not be two identical things, each subject has a unique composition. In addition to these properties, matter has special attributes that are inherent in it, regardless of the form of existence. The properties of the attributes of matter and their study are an important sphere of modern philosophical knowledge.

Attributes

The subject of ontology and epistemology is matter. Attributes and properties of it are constant, universal regardless of the form of existence. Even the ancient Greeks drew attention to the fact that matter is peculiar to movement. This means not only physical movement, but variability, its flow from one form to another.

Matter is eternal in time, since it does not have an initial principle and a point of completion. In addition, it is infinite in the spatial aspect. Reflections of philosophers on the universal characteristics of matter led them to identify its basic attributes. It stands apart from its structure, which is also a global basic property. The main attributes of matter are movement, time and space, they are the subject of profound philosophical analysis and reflection.

Structure

The philosophers of antiquity raised the most important questions: what is matter, is it infinite, where does it originate from? From the search for answers, an ontology was born, which substantiated the existence of special characteristics of matter. She also formulated the theoretical premises on the basis of which the attributes of matter were named in modern times. But the first answer to the question about its structure was given in the framework of ancient Greek philosophy. Atomic theory Democritus argued that matter consists of the smallest particles - atoms that can not be seen by the eye of a person and that exist in free space. At the same time, the atoms are immutable, but the things they are grouped in are variable and mobile.

With the advent of science, ideas about the structure of matter underwent changes, concepts of living and inanimate matter appeared, each of which has its own structure. The world of inanimate nature consists of such levels as particles, atoms, chemical elements, molecules, planets, systems of planets, stars, galaxies, systems of galaxies. The living nature consists of cells, acids and proteins, multicellular creatures, populations, biocenoses and the biosphere. Also, philosophers introduce the concept of social matter, which includes the genus, family, ethnos, humanity.

The development of science led to the emergence of yet another point of view on the structure of matter, in which the microcosm, the macrocosm and megamir were singled out. The scale of these levels is determined through the main attributes of matter: time and space.

Movement: essence and properties

Movement, time - the attributes of matter, which were revealed in ancient times. Even then people noticed that in the surrounding world there is nothing permanent - everything changes, flows from one form to another. Comprehension of this phenomenon led to the appearance of two initial ideas about its essence. In the narrow sense of the word, motion is the spatial movement of objects from one point to another, without any change in the object. In this sense, the movement is the antipode of rest. In the broadest sense, movement is any change in an object, the dynamics of its forms and properties. And this is the natural state of matter. Like all attributes of matter, the movement inherent in it initially, genetically. It is characteristic of any material form. And it is impossible without matter, there is no pure movement. This is its attributive character. Matter inherent in development, which is movement, it constantly strives for complication, moves from the lower to the higher. It should also be noted that the movement is objective, only practice can change it.

Movement as an attribute of matter has a number of properties, they are most often ambivalent. First of all, it is characterized by absolute and relativity. The Absolute is connected with the fact that the movement is inherent in any form of matter, nothing in the world is at rest. In this case, any particular movement always tends to rest, of course, this is its relativity. Stopping, the individual movement goes into a new form, and this is an absolute law. Also, the motion is both intermittent and continuous. Ego intermittency is associated with the ability of matter to be divided into separate forms, for example, planets, galaxies, etc. And continuity lies in the ability to self-organize into holistic systems.

Shapes of movement

The main attribute of matter is a movement that can take a variety of forms. Their classification was proposed by Engels, who discovered five main types:

- mechanical; The simplest form is the movement of objects;

- physical, based on the laws of physics, it includes light, heat, magnetism, etc .;

- chemical, interaction of molecules and atoms;

- biological - self-regulation, reproduction and development in ecological systems and biocenoses;

- social - these are all kinds of conscious and transforming activity of people.

All forms of movement are composed of a complex hierarchical system: from simple to complex. These systems are subject to the same laws:

- between the forms of movement there are genetic connections, each simple form serves as a basis for development more complex and enters into it all its components;

- each higher form has its own unique differences, this leads to a qualitative development of matter.

At the same time, the essence of the higher form of motion can not be explained solely by the action of physical and chemical laws. The movement embraces all the unity of the material world, including the consciousness of people.

The history of the concepts of "space" and "time"

Space and time as attributes of matter began to be understood by people long before the emergence of philosophy. Even primitive people, mastering the surrounding world, realize the existence of these phenomena. And they perceive them as an inseparable whole, measuring space in hours and time as certain spatial segments.

Mythological concepts of space and time were significantly different from modern ones. Time was represented as a certain cyclic substance that is not directed from the past to the future, as we are accustomed to, but simultaneously coexists in the form of separate worlds: there is an ancestral world, a world of gods and a world of today's being. The concept of "tomorrow" appears only at higher stages of the development of society. And you can travel between temporary layers, as in space. In many mythological systems, such a spatial link was a tree. Thus, in the "Lay of Igor's Host" is told how the old man "spreads his thought through the tree," that is, travels through a tree that connects times.

The ideas about space also differed significantly. It seemed to be centered and finite. So, there was an opinion that there is a certain center of the earth, usually this is a holy place, and there is the edge of the earth, behind which comes the unknown, the immaterial chaos. In addition, the space had an appraisal marking, that is, it was not homogeneous: there were bad and good places. Man deified the entire material world, including space and time.

With the advent of scientific discoveries, ideas about these phenomena change. There comes the realization that the attributes of matter are objective, measurable and subject to the laws of physics.

Space: essence and properties

Space as an attribute of matter has an analog in the material world and is an abstraction of the first level. It has the following properties:

- the extent, that is, the existence and connection of any elements; It is defined as the unity of discontinuity and continuity and consists of separate segments that add up to infinity;

- three-dimensionality - according to physical parameters, space has length, width and height; According to the theory of A. Einstein, there is a fourth axis of coordinates - time, but it is applicable only within the framework of physics, in infinity and inexhaustibility of space appear in three-dimensionality;

- divisibility - space can be divided into the most different segments: meters, kilometers, parsecs;

- homogeneity means that in space there are no selected points;

- isotopy, i.e., the equal rights of any of the chosen directions;

- Infinity - Space has no end and no beginning.

Time: concept and properties

Time as an attribute of matter is defined as a special form of processes in the objective world and has special characteristics. It has no analog in the material world and is an abstraction of the second level. Time is irreversible, it is always directed from the past to the future through the point of the present, and another movement is impossible. It is characterized by duration and consistency. The processes proceed in a certain sequence, the stages can not change their order. Time is continuous and discrete at the same time. It is a stream that has no beginning and end, but it can be divided into segments: hours, years, centuries. An important property of time is also its infinity, or inexhaustibility.