Anthropological concepts. The problem of man in philosophy. Basic anthropological concepts. Methods for determining the age of paleontological material

5.1 History of the development of views on anthropogenesis

Human evolution, oranthropogenesis (from Greek anthropos - man, genesis - development) -this is the historical process of human evolutionary formation . The science that studies human origins is calledanthropology.

Human evolution is qualitatively different from the evolution of organisms of other species. For not only biological, but also social factors were at work in it. The complexity of the problems of anthropogenesis is deepened by the fact that man himself is two-faced. With one face he is turned to the animal world, from which he came and with which he remains connected anatomically and physiologically, and with the second - to the world of scientific and technical achievements created by collective labor, culture, etc. Man, on the one hand, is a biological being, on the other- social.

The hereditary constitution of man was formed as a result of a gradual and long process of evolution. In the process of evolution on the basis of the genetic program, the immediate predecessors of man continuously encountered contradictions between their morphophysiological organization and the emerging elementary methods of “instinctive labor” activity. The resolution of this contradiction through natural selection first led to changes in the forelimbs, then to the development of the cerebral cortex, and, finally, to the emergence of consciousness. We can say that this was the first but decisive act in completing the specialization of genes into structure genes and regulators. Moreover, consciousness ensured not only the formation, but also the further development of man.

Subsequently, the pace of human biological development began to decline. Since the emergence of consciousness provided new forms and possibilities of adaptation to the environment. This led to deviations from the action of natural selection, as a result of which biological development gave way to social development and improvement.

There are several theories that relate differently to the problem of anthropogenesis. ABOUTbasic concepts of the appearance of man on Earth.

 As in the question of the origin of the Universe, there is an ideaabout the divine creation of man. “And God said: Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness...And God created man in his own image” (Genesis 1.26, 27). The views of supporters of the supernatural origin of man have long merged with the biblical concept, which claims the sudden creation of man on the sixth day of Creation, which took place 10,000 years ago. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, under the pressure of scientific facts, Pope John Paul II in 1986 was forced to recognize the origin of the human body within the framework of the theory of evolution, but not the human soul. In October 1996, he repeated his statements about human evolution. Considering the authority of the head of the Roman catholic church, we can conclude that his statements mean the end of anti-evolutionary views on human nature.

 In many primitive tribes there was a widespread belief that theirancestors descended from animals and even plants (the idea of ​​totems is based on this). Such beliefs are still found among the so-called backward peoples. The concept of human origins from extraterrestrial beings who visited Earth. A variation of the concept: man came from crossing space aliens with monkeys. Since the end of the 19th century, it has dominatedthe concept of human origin from the highly developed ancestors of modern apes.

However, already in ancient times the idea of ​​the animal origin of man was expressed. Thus, Anaximander and Aristotle, defining the place of man in nature, recognized him as the ancestors of animals. Dividing animals into “blooded” and non-blooded, Aristotle classified humans into the group of “blooded” animals, and placed monkeys between humans and animals in the “blooded” group. The fact that man is close to animals was also recognizedK. Galen (130-200), who formulated a conclusion about human anatomy based on the results of the autopsy of lower apes.

K. Linnaeus, in comparison with his predecessors, went much further, highlighting the order of primates, including among them prosimians, monkeys and a genus of people with one species - Homo sapiens ( Homo sapiens) and emphasized the similarities between humans and monkeys. Not all of K. Linnaeus’ contemporaries recognized his system, in particular, that humans belonged to the order of primates. Other versions of the system were also proposed, in which the rank of man was significantly overestimated, since man was recognized as a separate kingdom of nature. This essentially separated man from animals.

Despite the correct solution to the question of the relationship between man and animals, the question of how man originated remained open in the works of scientists for a long time. It is believed that the first hypothesis of anthropogenesis was formulated by J.-B. Lamarck. Believing that man had ape-like ancestors, Lamarck was the first to name the sequence of evolutionary achievements in the transformation of an ape-like ancestor into man. Moreover, he attached the most important importance to the transition of arboreal quadrupeds to bipedal locomotion and to life on earth. Lamarck described changes in the skeleton and muscles of human ancestors in connection with the transition to upright walking. But, having overestimated the role of the environment, he, as in the case of other organisms, still misunderstood driving forces human evolution.

A. Wallace (1823-1913) suggested that in the evolution of man forms that moved on two limbs were of great importance, and that after upright walking there was an increase in the brain. He suggested that the history of the emergence of man was very long in time. There is no doubt that these and other similar statements were only a significant step forward in understanding the issue of the emergence of man, but they were not exhaustive and did not lead to the formation of a scientific theory of the origin of man. Genuinely scientific theory The origin of man began to be formulated when the evolutionary teaching of Charles Darwin appeared, which became the basis for this theory.

In the second half of the 19th century. a crisis emerged in the mythological school: it reached a dead end due to the hopelessness of attempts to explain all beliefs, folk customs and traditions, folklore on the basis of ancient astral mythology.

Under these conditions, the outstanding representative of German classical philosophy, Ludwig Feuerbach, tried to find and substantiate the anthropological essence of religion. Putting forward as a subject of religion human needs and interests, the philosopher argued that “gods are people embodied... fulfilled desires”1 i.e. He reduced the essence of religion to the essence of man, seeing in every religion a reflection of human existence. Feuerbach put forward the idea that it was not God who created man, but, on the contrary, man created God in his own image and likeness in such a way that in the sphere of religion, man separates his own qualities and properties from himself and transfers them in an exaggerated form to an imaginary being - God.

Feuerbach also sought to find out how religion is formed in the human mind, what role in this process belongs to consciousness and its individual aspects. In his opinion, religious images are created by fantasy, but it does not create a religious world out of nothing, but comes from concrete reality, but at the same time distorting this reality: fantasy lights up only from natural and historical objects. Sharing the above-mentioned theories of ignorance, deception and fear, Feuerbach argued that these aspects, together with the abstracting activity of thinking and emotions, give rise to and reproduce religion throughout history. But these factors are realized when a person experiences a feeling of dependence on nature.

Based on Feuerbach’s anthropological theory, on the same idea of ​​human nature as the source of religion, an anthropological school later emerged, otherwise called “animist theory.” The most prominent and productive representative of this school, the English scientist Edward Tylor (1832-1917), considered faith in “spiritual beings,” souls, spirits, etc., as a “minimum of religion.” This faith arose because primitive man He was especially interested in those special states that he and those around him experienced at times: sleep, fainting, hallucinations, illness, death. From this belief in the soul, other ideas gradually developed: about the souls of animals, plants, about the souls of the dead, about their fate, about the transmigration of souls into new bodies, or about a special afterlife where the souls of the dead live. Souls gradually turn into spirits, then into gods, or into a single god - the Almighty. Thus, from primitive animism, in the course of gradual evolution, all the various forms of religion developed.

Man has traditionally been the focus of attention of European thinkers; the sophists - Protagoras, Socrates, Aurelius Augustine, Spinoza and Descartes, Rousseau and Holbach, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche - paid attention to him. But if by the beginning of the 20th century. problems related to human philosophy were solved in the context of other issues, then from the late 20s of the last century a comprehensive coverage of the essence of human spiritual life began.

The most famous representative philosophical anthropology was the German philosopher Max Scheler (1874-1928). In his works, he thoroughly reveals the content of philosophical anthropology, which arose as a reaction to the opposition between nature and culture.

Man, Scheler writes, appears in two forms - as a “natural man” and a “man-seeker of God.” “Natural man” is a highly developed animal, which later compensates for its weaknesses in the first years of life with intelligence. “Man-seeker of God” is something completely different. This hypostasis distinguishes it from the hypostasis of “natural man” not only by intellect, but also by the ability to make tools, language, and is a transitional link from nature in its absolute meaning to God. Leaving the sphere of “natural man” is very difficult and painful, since natural traits have been formed by evolution over millions of years.

One of the first was the question of man in the philosophy of the 19th century. put it in a new way by Kerkegaard (1813-1855). Philosophers, in his opinion, put matter, spirit, truth, God, progress in the first place in their theory, and subordinate man to these abstractions. The task of a new philosophy truly addressed to man “Yerkegaard saw it as entering into the feeling of human life, into human suffering (a person must discover a truth for which he would like to live and die).

Thus, back in the 19th century. An anthropological philosophical trend appears, which tries to replace the classical philosophy of essences with the philosophy of human existence. This is how the philosophy of existentialism appeared.

The central research problem that existentialism poses is alienation. The task of philosophy in this situation is to find an opportunity for man; if you do not overcome fear and alienation (this is not always possible), then in any case, look for and find your “I”, the content of your life in tragic, “absurd” situations.

A person creates himself, comprehends his essence, already existing - this is the essence of the first principle of existentialism. A number of important consequences follow from it; there is no given human nature; no external force, no one except this individual, can carry out his transformation into a person. It is he who bears responsibility if his transformation into a person never materialized.

Consciousness is existential oriented person- this is freedom, the will to which a person is doomed. The free choice of an individual is his destiny, his responsibility and his tragedy. Hence A. Camus states: “... I rebel, which means I exist.” And this happens in every situation when a person fights for his own “I” (his existence).

Existential philosophy fundamentally opposes the isolation of man from the world around him. Thus, existential philosophy places man, his consciousness, his will, his ability to choose, at the center of reflection.

Developing anthropological problems, most philosophers of the mid-20th century. moved away from a simplified biologization of the essence of man. This approach clearly represents personalism.

The problem of man has always been the focus of attention of different philosophical movements and schools, however, some thinkers interpreted it as something additional when solving various issues of ontology, while others gave it more significant attention. The latter can be entirely called personalists. True, a certain caution should be made - “true” personalism does not simply place a person at the center of its attention, but emphasizes the fact that it is man who is the fundamental basis of all things. Nowadays personalism as a modern trend social philosophy The West develops mainly in line with Christian philosophy, in particular Catholic. The most influential philosopher in personalism is the French thinker Emmanuel Mounié (1905-1950).

Analyzing modern social processes, Munier comes to the conclusion that the main attention of the state, society, educational institutions, public organizations and so on. should be focused on the formation of the spiritual foundations of a person.

In modern personalism, four maxima have been formed, in which, according to personalists, the main problems of man are reflected.

• 1. The guarantor of human values ​​is faith in God. In his activity, a person constantly fluctuates along a predetermined line. Everyone wants to somehow realize their inner “I”, which is unique, unique. A person must check his actions, thoughts, etc. from time to time. with the traditions of the Catholic Church, which were formed under the influence of faith in the absolute, perfect, all-good, all-powerful.
• 2. To modern man threatened by two forms of his existence: on the one hand, this active work in society, and on the other hand, searching within oneself. It is necessary to find the “golden mean” proclaimed by Aristotle and Seneca.

Man, personalists believe, is primary relative to society. Society is an active principle for a certain period of a person’s life. This period is determined by the boundary of 14-17 years, when a person becomes an individual. The “person” system is radically changing to the “person-society” system, i.e. the dominant element becomes the individual.

• 3. The essence of a person cannot be determined by rational means. Today she is one, tomorrow she is different. But this essence exists. It is determined by the level of religious faith. Essence is felt, not defined.
• 4. Society is formed when each of us, without renouncing our freedom, feels the need for another. Freedom is the ability to respect others. That person who, deep down in his soul, is imbued with faith in God, as a rule, with his vision of the paths to choice, stands above those who ignore this faith, but she should never object to the freedom of views and actions of others.
• 10 Genesis of modern methodological ideas (details about positivism, cultural-historical philosophy of science, hermeneutics - optional)

Positivism (positive) is a widely branched movement in bourgeois philosophy. Positivists declare all the most important problems that philosophy has dealt with for centuries (the question of the relationship of thinking to being) are far-fetched and meaningless. In their opinion, philosophy should not go beyond the framework of “positive”, positive knowledge, i.e. experimental data of science. But science, human experience, from their point of view, does not have access to the essence of things. Science can only describe the external aspects between phenomena, clarify their external similarity, sequence, but not the laws governing their change and development. Thus, characteristic positivism / agnosticism. The idealistic nature of the views of positivists is manifested in their interpretation of the concept of experience - one of the main concepts of positivist philosophy. In experience, positivists argue, a person cannot establish the objective nature of objects, phenomena, penetrate into their essence, because he does not deal only with his own inner world, does not go beyond the limits of his perceptions and experiences. Positivism seeks to enclose everything within the framework of human subjective experience. scientific knowledge. Positivism arose in the 2nd third of the 19th century. Its founder was Comte (France). Miles and Spencer (England) also played a major role in the development of positivist views during this period. Trying to prove the “justice” of the positivist point of view, Comte put forward an idealistic scheme according to knowledge in his historical development goes through three stages. At the first stage (theological), a person sees the cause of observed phenomena in the action of supernatural forces; at the second stage (metaphysical), he considers the basis of these phenomena to be certain abstract entities (for example, nature). and only at the third stage (positive) does he recognize experimental, practical, useful knowledge. Comte lays this scheme as the basis for everything historical process. In his opinion, the progress of society is the simple development of the spiritual abilities of humanity. Spencer put forward the so-called. organic theory of society. Likening society to a biological organism, he stated that social life strives for a balance of power, for harmony of class interests. On this basis, social revolutions were declared “harmful” by him. Further development positivism is associated with the names of Mach and Avenarius (late 19th century) - the founders of empirio-criticism (“second” positivism). The third stage in the history of positivism is neopositivism, which arose in the 20-30s. 20th century

Hermeneutics (explanatory, interpretative) is a set of methods and rules for interpretation, translation and explanation of the meaning, content and significance of works of culture and science (primarily ancient texts). Initially, the methods of hermeneutics were developed in theology, where hermeneutics meant the doctrine of the correct interpretation and translation of Bible texts. At the beginning of the 19th century. Schleiermacher attempted to create hermeneutics as a methodology for the historical interpretation of cultural works, as the art of translating philosophical texts (in particular, Plato). He distinguished it from dialectics, which reveals the substantive content of works, and grammar, associated with the analysis of their language, and reduced it to the disclosure of the individual stylistic manner of a particular writer, revealing his spiritual world. In the works of a number of philosophers and cultural historians, hermeneutics begins to be interpreted as a method of such analysis historical sources, differs from checking their historical accuracy. As a methodology for the cultural sciences, hermeneutics is especially developed by Dilthey. Against leaving methods natural and humanities, “explanation” and “understanding”, he sees in hermeneutics a method of comprehending originality and integrity creative life artist or philosopher, recorded in their works. Unlike natural scientific explanation, hermeneutics, according to Dilthey, cannot claim general validity and reliability, and its results cannot be verified or refuted, because they are based on the intuition of the interpreter. Thus, the methods of hermeneutics are given an irrationalistic interpretation. In phenomenology and existentialism, hermeneutics turns into a method for constructing a new type of ontology, into a way of justifying human existence. At the same time, the role of language, as well as “feeling” as a means of one person’s comprehension of the life of another, is absolute; they are declared the basis of communication between people, the main condition for their mutual understanding and, ultimately, the meaning of their existence (Gadamer).

The interpretation of the riddle of human origin has always depended on the degree of cultural and social development. For the first time, people probably thought about their appearance on Earth back in the ancient Stone Age, tens of thousands of years away from us.

Man of the ancient Stone Age (like some peoples close to him in terms of level of social development that have survived to this day) did not put himself above other living beings, did not separate himself from nature. A very clear idea of ​​this can be obtained in the book of the famous scientist, researcher of the Ussuri region V.K. Arsenyev, Dersu Uzal:

“Dersu took the pot and went to get water. A minute later he returned, extremely dissatisfied.

What's happened? - I asked the gold. - My river goes, I want to take water, the fish swears. - How does he swear? - the soldiers were amazed and roared with laughter... Finally, I found out what was the matter. At that moment, when he wanted to scoop up water with a pot, the head of a fish stuck out from the river. She looked at Dersa and opened and closed her mouth.

“Fish are people too,” Dersu finished his story. - I can say that too, just quietly. Ours understand that he is not there."

Obviously, our distant ancestor reasoned approximately this way. Moreover, primitive people believed that their ancestors came from animals. Thus, the American Indians from the Iroquois tribe considered the marsh turtle to be their ancestor, some tribes of East Africa considered the hyena to be their ancestor; California Indians believed that they were descendants of steppe wolves-coyotes. And some of the aborigines of the island of Borneo were sure that the first man and woman were born from a tree fertilized by a vine entwining it.

The biblical myth of the creation of man, however, also has more ancient predecessors. Much older than this, for example, is the Babylonian legend, according to which a man was fashioned from clay mixed with the blood of the god Bel. The ancient Egyptian god Khnum also sculpted a man from clay. In general, clay is the main material from which the gods sculpted people in the legends of many tribes and peoples. Some of the nationalities even explained the appearance of races by the color of the clay used by the gods: from white - white man, from red - red and brown, etc.

The Polynesians had a widespread legend according to which the first people were supposedly made by the gods from clay mixed with the blood of various animals. Therefore, the character of people is determined by the disposition of those animals with whose blood they are “mixed.” Thus, thieves can be people whose ancestors were created using the blood of a rat. The blood of a snake is for infidel people. Courageous and persistent people were “mixed” with the blood of a rooster.

Similar ideas have existed among people for centuries. But at the same time, another thought arose in ancient times - the idea of ​​​​the natural origin of man. Initially, it was just a guess that carried a grain of truth. Thus, the ancient Greek thinker Anaximander from Miletus (VII-VI centuries BC) believed that living beings arose from silt heated by the sun, and that the appearance of people is also associated with water. Their bodies, in his opinion, first had a fish-like shape, which changed as soon as the water threw people onto land. And according to Empedocles (5th century BC), living beings were formed from a mud-like mass, warmed by the internal fire of the Earth, which sometimes breaks out.

The great thinker of antiquity, Aristotle, divided the animal world according to the degree of its perfection and considered man a part of nature, an animal, but an animal...social." His ideas influenced the Roman poet and materialist philosopher Lucretius Cara, the author of the poem "The Nature of Things." He sought to explain the emergence of people by the development of nature, and not by the intervention of God:

Since there was still a lot of heat and moisture left in the fields, then everywhere, wherever it was convenient, queens grew, attaching themselves to the ground with their roots, which opened when their embryos, in their mature years, wanted to escape from the phlegm and needed to breathe...

And then, in ancient times, the idea of ​​the similarity between man and ape arose. Hanno of Carthage believed, for example, that the gorillas of the West African coast were people covered with hair. Such ideas are quite understandable: apes have long amazed people with their resemblance to humans and were often called “forest people.”

However, even those ancient researchers who pointed out the kinship between man and animals and more or less correctly determined his position in nature, could not assume that man descended from low-organized forms of life. And this is not surprising. Indeed, in those distant times, the dominant idea was the nature and, therefore, the structure of the human body as created once and for all, not subject to development.

The Middle Ages, as we know, were a long night for all fields of knowledge. Any living thought in those days was mercilessly extinguished by the church. But man - God's creation - was under a special ban; no one dared to study him. But despite everything, several scientists dared to study the structure of the human body. These were, for example, Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), author of a book on the structure of the human body; William Harvey (1578-1657), an anatomist who laid the foundation of modern physiology with his work on blood circulation; Nicholas Tulp (1593-1674), founder comparative anatomy.

And later, the idea of ​​the relationship between man and ape came to the minds of many scientists. It was impossible to answer the question about the emergence and development of man, based only on anatomical studies and comparison of people with the mammals closest to humans (primarily monkeys). First of all, it was necessary to solve in its entirety the problem of the natural evolution of nature as a whole.

The development of navigation and great geographical discoveries revealed more and more new species of animals and plants to people. The Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus was the first to classify plants and animals. In his classification, he combined humans and monkeys into one group, noting that they had many common characteristics.

Philosophers could not help but pay attention to the information accumulated by natural scientists. Thus, the German philosopher I. Kant in his “Anthropology” (1798) noted that only a revolution in nature is capable of turning chimpanzees and orangutans into humans, giving them the opportunity to move on two legs and providing them with an arm. And even earlier, he anonymously published a sympathetic review on lecture by the Italian anatomist P. Moscati from Pavia, who argued that human ancestors walked on all fours. Some French materialist philosophers of the 18th century also came quite close to understanding that the monkey was the initial creature in human evolution. Diderot, for example, believed that between a man and a monkey there is only a quantitative difference. Helvetius in his work “On the Mind” (1758) noted that a man is distinguished from a monkey by certain features of his physical structure and habits.

One of the naturalists who came up with a hypothesis about the origin of man from the ape was the young Russian naturalist A. Kaverznev. In his book “The Rebirth of Animals,” written in 1775, he argued that it is necessary to abandon religious views on the creation of the world and living organisms, and consider the origin of species from one another, since there is a relationship between them - close or distant. Kaverznev saw the reasons for changes in species primarily in the way of nutrition, in the influence of climatic conditions and the impact of domestication.

And yet, most scientists in the 18th century adhered to the so-called concept of the “ladder of beings,” expressed by Aristotle. According to it, the series of living beings on Earth begins with the most lowly organized and ends with the crown of creation - man.

For the first time in the history of science, the French natural scientist J.B. Lamarck came close to a correct understanding of the problem of the origin of man. He believed that the once most developed “four-armed” stopped climbing trees and acquired the habit of walking on two legs. After several generations, the new habit became stronger, the creatures became two-armed. As a result, the function of the jaws also changed: they began to serve only for chewing food. Changes also occurred in the structure of the face. After the completion of the “reconstruction,” a more advanced breed, according to Lamarck, should have settled throughout the Earth in areas convenient for it and expelled all other breeds. Thus, their development stopped. Due to growing needs, the new breed improved its abilities and, ultimately, its livelihood. When the society of such perfect beings became numerous, consciousness and speech arose.

And although Lamarck was unable to reveal the causes of human genesis, his ideas had a huge influence on the development of scientific thought, in particular the great English naturalist Charles Darwin, with whose name the victory of evolutionary teaching is inextricably linked.

Even at the beginning of his career, in 1837-1838, Darwin noted in his notebook: “If we give room to our assumptions, then animals are our brothers in pain, illness, death, suffering and hunger, our slaves in the hardest work, our comrades in our pleasures; they all trace their origins, perhaps, to one common ancestor with us - we could all be merged together.”

Subsequently, Charles Darwin devoted two works to the question of man: “The Origin of Man and Sexual Selection” and “On the Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals” (1871 and 1872). His works provoked the most furious attacks from defenders of religion. The church became one of Darwin's main opponents. This is quite understandable: his teaching radically undermined its age-old dogmas.

At first, even among scientists, the number of Darwin's supporters was insignificant. And yet, soon the greatest natural scientists of the time realized the significance of the ingenious discovery. For example, the Englishman T. Huxley ardently defended the evolutionary theory against all kinds of attacks. His comparative anatomical studies convincingly showed the kinship of humans and apes in many ways. Darwin and E. Haeckel supported him. In his extensive work "General Morphology of Organisms, the general principles of the science of organic forms, mechanically substantiated by Charles Darwin's reformed theory of the origin of species," the German naturalist recreated the pedigree of mammals. There is also a genealogical line in it, running from prosimians to monkeys and further to humans. Haeckel declared the existence of an ape-man in the human pedigree and called this creature Pithecanthropus. And in 1874 he published “Anthropology” - a special work devoted to the problem of the origin of man.

Charles Darwin collected and summarized the vast material accumulated by science before him, and came to the conclusion that man, like all other living beings, arose as a result of an extremely long and gradual development. As in all living nature, in this process one can observe variability, heredity, struggle for existence, natural selection and adaptability to environmental conditions.

The great naturalist believed that the origin of man from lower forms of life is proven, firstly, by the similarity in the structure of the body and its functions in humans and animals, secondly, by the similarity of some signs of the embryo and its development and, thirdly, by the presence of human vestigial (inherited from lower animals) organs. Darwin paid much more attention to the last feature than to the first two. The fact is that the first two proofs were also recognized by opponents of his theory, including defenders of religion: after all, they did not contradict the Christian myth about the divine creation of man. But it was absolutely clear that the intelligent “will of the creator” could not “create” useless organs in humans (for example, the small connecting membrane in the inner corner of the eye - a remnant of the nictitating membrane of reptiles - or the hair on the body, the coccygeal bone, the appendix, the mammary glands in men).

Darwin examined in detail the “method” of human development from a certain lower form. The Creator evolutionary theory I tried to take into account all possible factors: the influence of the environment, training of individual organs, stoppages in development, the connection between the variability of different parts of the body. He noted that humans gained a huge advantage over other types of living beings thanks to upright walking, the formation of the arm, the development of the brain, and the emergence of speech. All these properties, according to Darwin, man acquired through the process of natural selection.

Comparing the mental abilities of humans and animals, Charles Darwin collected a large number of facts proving that humans and animals are brought together not only by certain instincts, but also by the rudiments of feelings, curiosity, attention, memory, imitation and imagination. The scientist also considered the problem of man's place in nature. He suggested that our ancestors were monkeys of the “humanoid subgroup,” which, however, were not similar to any of the living monkeys. Darwin considered Africa to be the ancestral home of humans.

K. Marx and F. Engels highly appreciated Darwin's theory. At the same time, the founders of dialectical materialism criticized Darwin for his mistakes. Thus, they pointed out that the scientist, succumbing to the influence of the reactionary teachings of Malthus, attached excessive importance to intraspecific struggle.

The disadvantages of Darwin's provisions also include an overestimation of the role of natural selection in the history of the development of countries and peoples. Darwin was unable to identify the basic property of the developed person and therefore argued that there are no qualitative differences between man and ape. Hence the misconception about the role of labor in the process of human evolution, a misunderstanding of the significance of his ability to work, to social production. That is why Darwin could not illuminate the reverse influence of social production on natural selection, or show that with the emergence of man, biological laws were replaced by social laws. The question of the qualitative uniqueness of this process was first resolved by K. Marx and F. Engels.

The founders of dialectical materialism were the first to clearly formulate the position that man was separated from the animal world by production, which is always a social activity. It was labor that radically changed the nature of humanoids and created Homo sapiens. They attached great importance to the role of purely biological factors in the formation of man.

“The first premise of all human history,” wrote K. Marx and F. Engels, “is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Therefore, the first concrete fact that must be stated is the bodily organization of these individuals and their relationship to the rest of nature determined by it."

The provisions of Marx and Engels on the role and relationship of biological and social factors in the history of people are convincingly confirmed by the data of modern science, helping to correctly understand the significance of natural selection in human evolution. The role of natural selection in the course of human formation was constantly decreasing. Main role The social factor began to play.

The origins of the anthropological direction are in the works of physiologists, physicians and psychiatrists at the end of the 17th century. early XIX V. For example, the French phrenologist F.I. Gall argued (1825) that the behavior of criminals “depends on the nature of these individuals and on the conditions in which they find themselves.” Among criminals, he singled out born lawbreakers.

Nevertheless, the Italian psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso, who wrote the book “Criminal Man” in 1876, is considered the founder of the anthropological school in criminology. The criminal is an atavistic creature, he argued, which reproduces in its instincts the instincts of primitive man and lower animals.

Lombroso's theory is characterized by three main theses:

1. there are born criminals, that is, people who are doomed from birth to sooner or later take the criminal path;
2. human crime inherited;
3. criminals are different from other people not only according to the internal, mental properties of the individual, but also according to external, physical data, by which they can be recognized among the population.

More restrained judgments were expressed by naturalists, psychiatrists and lawyers of the time. The very first checks of C. Lombroso’s thesis about the physical characteristics of criminals did not receive the slightest confirmation. In 1913, the English criminologist S. Goring compared the physical characteristics of prisoners in English prisons with students at Cambridge (1 thousand people), Oxford and Aberdeen (969 people), as well as with military personnel and college teachers (118 people). It turned out that there are no physical differences between them. A similar study with the same results was carried out in 1915 by the American V. Hile.

It should be noted that over time, C. Lombroso himself somewhat softened his theory:

• he admitted that in addition to “natural” criminals there are “criminals of passion”, accidental criminals, as well as the mentally ill;
• in his next book, “Crime,” published in translation into Russian in 1900 (republished in 1994), he agreed that “every crime has many reasons in its origin,” to which he included not only personality traits of the criminal (including heredity), but also meteorological, climatic, economic, professional and other factors.

In Russia, the views of Ch. Lombroso were supported with reservations by D. Dril, N. Neklyudov, and psychiatrists V. Chizh, P. Tarnovskaya.

Assessing the role of Lombroso in the development of criminological science, the French scientist J. Van-Kan wrote: “Lombroso’s merit was that he awakened thought in the field of criminology, created systems and invented bold and witty hypotheses, but he had to abandon subtle analysis and witty conclusions to his students."

Modern views

In the 20th century scientists no longer returned to the thesis about the physical differences between criminals and other people. But the ideas of a born criminal and the transmission of his properties by inheritance continued to attract their attention.

In numerous domestic and foreign textbooks and monographs on problems of psychology and genetics of behavior, one can find the results of the latest research, reflecting the complex relationships between genetic and environmental characteristics of a person, which allow us to get closer to solving the main mystery of criminology.

Experts in the field of behavioral genetics generally conclude that man is a product of the combined influence of both biological and social factors, generally directed by a genetic basis. At the same time, scientists conducting research in the field of behavioral genetics argue that many developmental factors that were previously considered products of the environment may be derivatives of genetics, but environmental specifics limit the range, which may be caused by a specific genotype. As American psychologist David Shaffer writes, “behavior is 100% hereditary and 100% environment, since these two series of factors appear to be inextricably linked with each other.”

According to another American psychologist, David Myers, from the moment of conception to adulthood, we are the product of the rapid interaction of our genetic predisposition with the environment. “Our genes influence the life experiences that shape our personalities. There is no need to contrast nature and nurture, just as you cannot contrast the length and width of a football field to calculate its area.”