What is voluntarism - definition in philosophy, field, history of the formation of the term

Some concepts that are considered in philosophy may have several definitions at once, which is sometimes quite difficult to understand. Philosophy is a science that studies nature, society, and thinking. Such a vast scientific field in which many different philosophers worked, who formed new movements, teachings, ideas. Many philosophical terms are reflected in culture, but not everyone knows what they mean.

In the famous film “Prisoner of the Caucasus,” one of the film’s characters, played by Yuri Nikulin, in one scene utters the word “voluntarism ,” which causes shock among those present in the room. All the spectators laughed at this scene, but at the same time, not everyone at the screen was fully aware of what exactly this word means.

This article will talk about what this term means, its main definitions will be revealed, and it will also indicate in which areas this concept can be used.

Meaning and translation of the term “voluntarism”

Voluntarism (from the Latin voluntas - will, desire, desire)

- this is the behavior of a person in which he makes decisions, neglecting objective circumstances and the laws of human development. A manifestation of this behavior is the leadership with the following slogan “My life - my rules.” In this case, there is nothing sacred for a person when choosing goals and means of achieving them. This term was coined in 1883 by the German sociologist F. Tennis and initially meant “arbitrary decisions.” The antonym of voluntarism is determinism (behavior limited by certain social frameworks and norms).

Meaning of the word

Voluntarism initially denoted an idealistic philosophical direction. Thinkers who affirmed the decisive importance of the human will and its priority over circumstances stood at the origins of this teaching.

In the political lexicon of Soviet times, the word acquired a derogatory meaning. It was used for business and without purpose, often without understanding its meaning. In general, the term “voluntarism” served to evaluate human activity characterized by unmotivated decisions made under the influence of mood.

The concept of “voluntarism”

The meaning of the word “voluntarism” depends on what specific era it refers to and in what area of human life and society it is applied:

in philosophy
- a direction that recognizes will as the fundamental principle of everything;
in political science and sociology
- the behavior of an individual who, in his aspirations and desires, neglects to think about the reasons for his actions and their consequences;
in psychology
- the affirmation of will as a primary ability that determines all other mental processes and phenomena. From the point of view of psychological science, the justification for voluntarism is the following: the will is stronger than anything in the world, it can change the world itself, the will is stronger than the mind, which can only confirm what the will dictates to it;
in economics
- human actions that neglect all the real laws of nature and social development, as well as the advice and recommendations of expert experts (an example of the consequences of economic voluntarism is changing the course of rivers, polluting water bodies with industrial waste, the construction of power plants and reservoirs cause various kinds of climate anomalies).

Origin of the term

The word "voluntarism" came into European languages from Latin . In Ancient Rome, it served to describe the behavior of a person who does not want to take into account objective circumstances, moral standards and customs. Such people prefer to set their own rules, without limiting themselves to anything to achieve their chosen goal.

In sociology - the science of society - the term “voluntarism” originally implied the adoption of arbitrary, rash decisions. The opposite of this course of action is determinism - the behavior of an individual who does not have his own opinion and is guided by the principle of “what people will say.”

Application in philosophy

The beginnings of philosophical voluntarism can be traced in the teachings of such a famous philosopher as Augustine the Blessed. In his Christian teaching, he expressed the idea that a person without the will of God cannot commit a single act other than sin. The next who turned to the study of voluntarism from a philosophical point of view were Arthur Schopenhauer (the main idea: the human will is primary, reason is secondary, everything that exists around is the will to live) and Friedrich Nietzsche (novelty - introduced the concept of “biological voluntarism” – when the “will to live” develops into the “will to power”).

Summarizing the ideas of all philosophers who turned to the study of voluntarism, we can say that this direction of idealistic philosophy considers divine (supernatural) or human will to prevail in the development of nature and society. Philosophical voluntarism includes the following areas:

theological:
God is primary, all living things obey him, and not reason or knowledge, he is omnipotent and omnipotent, therefore his actions cannot be rationally explained (Augustine the Blessed);
metaphysical:
unconsciousness and irrationality dominate the mind (A. Schopenhauer, Z. Freud, F. Nietzsche);
epistemological:
for the will, faith is at the forefront in comparison with knowledge (F. Schelling, I. Fichte);
political:
the task of the government is to be guided by the needs and desires of the people, and not the ruling elite. If the government chair was occupied by a cruel tyrant or a person with an unbalanced psyche, the inhabitants of the country had the right and opportunity to overthrow him at the same hour (Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau).

Voluntarism

(from Latin voluntas - will; the term was introduced by F. Tönnies (See Tennis) in 1883)

an idealistic direction in philosophy that considers will as the highest principle of existence. Bringing the will to the fore in spiritual existence, V. opposes intellectualism (or rationalism) - idealistic philosophical systems that consider the intellect and reason to be the basis of existence.

Elements of V. were already present in the philosophy of Augustine, who saw the will as the basis of all other spiritual processes, and Duns Scotus, with his emphasis on the primacy of the will over the intellect (voluntas est superior intellectu - “will above thinking”). The prerequisite for modern philosophy was I. Kant’s doctrine of the primacy of practical reason: although the existence of free will, according to Kant, cannot be theoretically proven or disproved, practical reason requires the postulation of free will, because otherwise the moral law would lose all meaning. Based on this, I. G. Fichte saw in the will the basis of personality, and in the volitional activity of the Self - the absolute creative principle of being, the source of the spiritual self-generation of the world. At the same time, the will of Fichte (as well as of Kant, as well as subsequent representatives of German classical philosophy - F.W. Schelling and G. Hegel (See Hegel)) is rational in nature, the source of the implementation of the moral principle. In contrast to this, A. Schopenhauer, in whose philosophy philosophy was first formalized as an independent direction, gives an irrationalistic interpretation of will (see Irrationalism) as a blind, unreasonable, aimlessly acting principle of the world. Schopenhauer interprets Kant's “thing in itself” as will, manifesting itself at various stages of objectification; Schopenhauer assigns the role of one of the secondary manifestations of will to consciousness and intellect. In Schopenhauer, as well as in E. Hartmann, V. is closely associated with pessimism, the idea of the meaninglessness of the world process, which has its source in unconscious and blind will. Schopenhauer's voluntaristic ideas were one of the sources of F. Nietzsche's philosophy. See also Will.

The term "V." is also used to characterize socio-political practice that does not take into account the objective laws of the historical process and is guided by the subjective desires and arbitrary decisions of the persons implementing it. See subjectivism.

Lit.: Engels F., Anti-Dühring, M., 1969, p. 111-12; Knauer R., Der Voluntarismus, B., 1907; Marcus J., Intellectualismus und Voluntarismus in der modernen Philosophie, Düsseldorf, 1918.

Source: Great Soviet Encyclopedia on Gufo.me

Meanings in other dictionaries

voluntarism - Voluntarism, voluntarisms, voluntarism, voluntarisms, voluntarism, voluntarisms, voluntarism, voluntarisms, voluntarism, voluntarisms, voluntarism, voluntarisms Zaliznyak's Grammar Dictionary
voluntarism - VOLUNTARISM, voluntarism, many. no, husband (from Lat. voluntarius - strong-willed). 1. The direction of idealistic philosophy, which recognizes will as the basis of reality, of everything that exists (philosophy). 2. The direction of psychology that considers will as the main factor of mental life (psych.). Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary
VOLUNTARISM - VOLUNTARISM (lat. voluntas - will) is a philosophical direction centered around the concept of will, the phenomenon of which is thought of as the highest principle of being. The latest philosophical dictionary
Voluntarism - (lam. voluntas - will). 1. An idealistic philosophical concept that considers will as the basis of “mental life” and human behavior, the highest principle of existence. Explanatory dictionary of psychiatric terms
voluntarism - Borrowing. at the beginning of the 20th century from it. language, in which Voluntarismus is suf. derived from Lat. voluntas “will” (the original word volo “want, wish”). See will. Shansky Etymological Dictionary
VOLUNTARISM - VOLUNTARISM (from Latin voluntas - will) - English. voluntarism; German VoZ-untarismus. 1. A direction in philosophy that recognizes will as the fundamental principle of all things. 2. In social and political Sociological Dictionary
voluntarism - VOLUNTARISM -a; m. [from lat. voluntarius - strong-willed] 1. Philosophy. A trend in idealistic philosophy that attributes a decisive role to the divine or human will in the development of nature and society. 2. Psycho. Kuznetsov's Explanatory Dictionary
VOLUNTARISM - (from Latin voluntas - will) - a movement in philosophy and psychology, declaring will the highest principle of existence, opposing the volitional principle first to reason (intellectualism) ... Large psychological dictionary
voluntarism - Voluntarism, plural. no, m. [from Latin. voluntarius – strong-willed]. 1. The direction of idealistic philosophy, which recognizes will as the basis of reality, of everything that exists (philosophy). 2. The direction of psychology that considers will as the main factor of mental life (psych.). Large dictionary of foreign words
voluntarism - VOLUNTARISM, a, m. 1. A direction in idealistic philosophy that attributes to the divine or human will the main role in the development of nature and society, denying objective regularity and necessity. Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary
voluntarism - orf. voluntarism, -and Lopatin's Spelling Dictionary
voluntarism - Borrowing from the German language, in which Voluntarismus is derived from the Latin voluntas - “will” (the meaning of the noun Voluntarismus and the corresponding Russian word - “subjectivist, arbitrary decisions”). Krylov's etymological dictionary
voluntarism - voluntarism I m. 1. A direction in idealistic philosophy that attributes a decisive role to the divine or human will in the development of nature and society. 2. Recognition of the will - and not the mind - as the decisive factor in mental life (in psychology). II… Efremova’s Explanatory Dictionary
voluntarism - Voluntar /izm/. Morphemic-spelling dictionary
VOLUNTARISM - VOLUNTARISM (from Latin voluntas - will; the term was introduced by F. Tennis in 1883) - ... 1) a direction in philosophy that considers will as the highest principle of existence. Voluntarism is characteristic of the philosophy of Augustine, John Duns Scotus and others. Large encyclopedic dictionary
Voluntarism is the teaching opposite to intellectualism. V. consists in the assertion that reality in the final instance is something identical or related to will. Christianity contributed to the emergence of this doctrine, valuing the will above the intellect. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron

Blog
Jerzy Lec
Contacts
Terms of use

Application of voluntarism in psychology

The science of human behavior and mental processes studies voluntarism as a direction that recognizes the human will as the basis of all psychological impulses and actions. The founder of this idea is the German theoretical scientist Wilhelm Wundt, who immediately had critics and opponents who founded their own directions in psychology, opposite to voluntarism - pragmatism and functionalism.

Key ideas:

a person will never explain the reason for his actions with the help of introspection;
intelligence and desire cannot be measured objectively;
to understand the nature of human actions, you do not need to stop only at studying human society, you must also turn to understanding the behavior of animals and comparing them with the behavior of people in similar situations;
applying theory in practice is a very difficult task, so the value of such theoretical developments for identifying and solving individual problems is minimal.

Voluntarism and psychology

Among psychologists, there is a group of scientists who recognize irrational volitional impulses as the basis of all human actions. Their main ideas:

through analytical thinking a person is unable to comprehend the reasons for his actions;
reason and desires cannot be measured;
the basis of human behavior lies in the field of biology and instincts;
psychological science is not able to help a person solve his irrational problems.

Khrushchev's voluntarism

The appointment of N.S. Khrushchev in 1953 as the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee marked a new era in the economy of the USSR. Khrushchev's leadership style began to be officially called voluntarism. This is due to the fact that he carried out economic reforms using administrative methods, neglecting all the recommendations of experienced economists and scientists of the country.

The consequences of Khrushchev's arbitrary decisions were disastrous for the USSR economy and were as follows:

the groundless desire to “catch up and overtake America”, associated with constant investments in industry not confirmed by economic calculations, led to the country’s budget deficit;
the emergence of “overheating” of the economy due to the constant expansion of the industry for the production of means of production;
the increased rate of urbanization has led to an increase in unemployment in cities and a decrease in the overall qualifications of workers due to overpopulation and lack of education in the outback;
a decrease in agricultural production and a drop in the level of development of the agricultural sector.

The result of Khrushchev's voluntarism was his removal from office in 1964 through a conspiracy among political figures in the highest standard of power in the country. Later, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia gave the following characterization of N.S. Khrushchev’s personality: “There were elements of subjectivism and voluntarism in his activities.”

Important!

All textbooks on the history of the USSR say that all of Khrushchev’s decisions and actions that related to the country’s foreign and domestic policies were quite aggressive and unpredictable. In all dictionaries, the concept of “voluntarism” is explained using the example of Khrushchev’s activities.