Matter and its basic properties

Philosophy of the concept of “matter”

“Matter” is one of the most fundamental concepts of philosophy. However, in different philosophical systems its content is understood in different ways. For idealistic philosophy, for example, it is characteristic that it either completely rejects the existence of matter or denies its objectivity. Thus, the eminent ancient Greek philosopher Plato considers matter as a projection of the world of ideas. By itself, the matter of Plato is nothing. In order to become a reality, some idea must be embodied in it.

In the follower of Plato, Aristotle, matter also exists only as a possibility, which is transformed into reality only as a result of its connection with form. Forms ultimately originate from God.

In G. Hegel, matter is manifested as a result of the activity of an absolute idea, an absolute spirit. It is the absolute spirit, the idea that generates matter.

In the subjective-idealistic philosophy of J. Berkeley, it is openly stated that there is no matter, and no one has ever seen it, that if one exiles this concept from science, no one will notice it, because it means nothing. He wrote that you can use the concept of “matter”, if you really really want, but only as a synonym for the word “nothing.” For Berkeley, to exist is to be potentially perceived. To the question of whether nature existed before man, Berkeley would answer – yes, in the consciousness of God.

Other representatives of subjective idealism (E. Mach, R. Avenarius, and others) openly do not deny the existence of matter, but reduce it to “the totality (complexes) of sensations.” Matter, thing, subject, by; their opinion is a complex of human sensations. It is the human sensations that create and construct them.

In materialist philosophy, there are also different ideas about matter. True, for all materialist philosophers, recognition of the nature of its objective existence, independent of the consciousness (sensations), is characteristic.

Already ancient philosophers (Chinese, Indian, Greek) considered as matter the most common sensually-specific substance, which they considered to be the primary basis of everything existing in the world. Such an approach to the definition of matter can be called substantial, because its essence was the search for the basis (substance) of the world. For example, the ancient Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus (beginning and middle of the 6th century BC) believed that everything originated from water.

Even the land, in his opinion, floats on water, like a piece of wood. A representative of the same Milesian school, the philosopher Avaximes, asserted that all things come from the air, due to its dilution or condensation (air evaporation, rising up and discharging, turn into fiery celestial bodies and, on the contrary, solid substances – earth, stones, and .d. – is nothing but thickened and frozen air). The air is in constant motion. If he were immovable, we would not perceive him in any way, when he moves, he makes himself felt in the form of wind, clouds, flame. This means, Anaksimen teaches, that all things are air modifications, and therefore air is the universal substrate of things.

Heraclitus of Ephesus considered fire to be the fundamental principle of all things. By the way, the fire at Heraclitus is the image of perpetual motion. “This cosmos,” he argued, “is the same for everyone, none of the gods created and none of the people, but it has always been, is and will be forever alive by fire, gradually burning and gradually fading.”

Of course, it was hard to imagine that at the heart of the diversity of things and processes is one thing. Therefore, later, philosophers began to consider several substances as a fundamental principle of the world (matter). So, for example, Empedocles (U c. BC) spoke of 4 elements as the roots of all things: fire, air (ether), water, and earth. These roots are eternal, unchanging, they can neither arise from anything else, nor pass into each other. All other things are the result of combining these elements in certain proportions.

Another ancient Greek philosopher, Anaxagoras, taught that the world consists of an infinite number of “seeds” – particles that are divided to infinity. In each thing there is a particle of each other, black is in white, white is black, heavy is heavy, and so on. The life of the world, Anaxagoras emphasized, is a process. Evaluating these views of Anaxagoras, it is impossible not to see that his philosophy practically prepared atomistic materialism.

Atomistic materialism is associated with the names of the ancient Greek philosophers Leucippus and Democritus (IV century BC). They identified matter with structureless atoms (the atom in Greek means “indivisible”). According to Democritus, being is made up of atoms and voids moving in space. Atoms are geometrical (for example, the soul consists of round atoms), they are not exposed to any external influence, they are incapable of any change, they are eternal and indestructible. They have a certain size, mass, can collide, hitting each other. The atoms are completely invisible to the eye, ”noted Democritus, but, however, they can be quite visible in a mental sense. Life, from the point of view of Democritus, is a combination of atoms, death is their decomposition. The soul is also mortal, because its atoms can decompose, ”Democritus taught.

The view of matter as an infinite number of atoms, without any noticeable changes, was preserved in various schools of philosophical materialism until the beginning of the twentieth century. The identification of matter with matter (and with indivisible atoms at its base) was characteristic of both the French materialists of the 18th century and L. Feuerbach. It is interesting that F. Engels, based on the positions of atomistic materialism, at the same time answering the question: does matter exist as such, wrote that matter actually exists only in the form of concrete forms, objects, and there is no matter as structureless primordial matter, not changeable form of all forms.

The most profound revolutionary changes took place at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century in natural science, especially in physics. They were so fundamental that they gave rise not only to the crisis of physics, but also very seriously affected its philosophical foundations. Among the most important discoveries that undermined the foundations of the mechanical picture of the world were, in particular, the detection of X-rays (1895), the radioactivity of uranium (1896, A. Becquerel, L. Curie, M. Warehouse-Curie), and the electron (1897 Mr. D. Thomson).

By 1903, we note that significant results were achieved in the study of radioactivity: its explanation as a spontaneous decay of atoms received a certain justification, and the convertibility of chemical elements was proved. M. Planck created the theory of quanta, the energy of micro-objects, A. Einstein revealed a quantitative relationship between the mass of bodies and the binding energy of their atoms.

It was not possible to explain the indicated (and some other) discoveries within the framework of the mechanical picture of the world; The inadequacy of the classic-mechanical understanding of physical reality was becoming increasingly apparent. This caused some confusion among a number of major physicists.

All this led to a radical revision of the previous established ideas about the structure of matter. The basic position of atomistic materialism about the indivisibility, immutability and indestructibility of the atom, which served as a pretext for the refutation of materialism in the light of the latest conclusions of natural science, collapsed. For example, the famous French physicist Henri Poincaré wrote about “signs of a serious crisis of physics,” that before us are the “ruins” of its principles, their “general defeat”, that “the great revolutionary radium” undermined the principle of energy conservation, and the electronic the theory negated the principle of conservation of mass. As a result, he comes to the conclusion that all the old principles of physics are crushed, therefore its positions are not true, but are only products of human consciousness.

The thesis that in connection with the new discoveries of physics matter disappeared, was legitimately challenged by V.I. Lenin, who defended philosophical materialism. Describing the true meaning of the expression “matter disappeared”, V.I. Lenin shows that it is not matter that disappears, but the limit to which we knew matter, that disappearance of matter, which some scientists and philosophers say, has nothing to do with a philosophical view. about matter, for it is impossible to confuse the philosophical concept (term) of matter with the natural science concepts of the material world.

With the development of natural science there is a change of one scientific view of the world (matter) to another, deeper and more solid. However, such a change of specific scientific ideas cannot disprove the meaning and significance of the philosophical concept (category) “matter”, which serves to denote objective reality given to a person in his sensations and existing independently of them.

Overcoming the difficulties faced by physics required (as always happens during a period of revolutionary changes in science) analyzing the problems of not only physical, but also epistemological. As a result of intense discussions in physics, there were several schools that radically diverged in their understanding of the ways out of the crisis situation. Some of them began to focus on an idealistic world view (although most physicists, naturally, were in the position of elemental materialism), than representatives of spiritualism and fideism tried to take advantage of.

This led to the fact that the revolution in physics developed into its crisis. “The essence of the crisis of modern physics,” wrote V.I. Lenin, “is to break the old laws and basic principles, to reject objective reality out of consciousness, that is, to replace materialism with idealism and agnosticism.“ Matter has disappeared ”is how it can be expressed basic and typical of many particular issues, the difficulty that created this crisis. ”

To understand the meaning of some physicists in the words “matter disappeared”, the following should be taken into account. The atomistic worldview has long been asserted in natural science. At the same time, the atom (in the spirit of Democritus) was understood to be an absolutely indivisible (without parts) elementary particle.

The point of view, according to which matter consists of atoms, which were regarded as a kind of “unchanging essence of things”, was divided by the majority of natural scientists, including physicists, by the end of the 19th century. Therefore, the discoveries testifying to the complexity of atoms (in particular, radioactivity as their spontaneous decay), were interpreted by some scientists as “decay”, “disappearance” of matter. It was on this basis that conclusions were drawn about the collapse of materialism and the science oriented towards it.

V.I. Lenin showed that in reality there was not a collapse of materialism as such, but the collapse of only its concrete, original form. After all, matter, understood as a certain invariable essence of things, is matter without movement, a category of non-dialectical materialism. In this connection, V.I. Lenin noted: “The recognition of any unchanging elements,” the unchanging essence of things, “etc., is not materialism, but metaphysical, that is, non-dialectical materialism.” Dialectical materialism considers matter as matter moving and therefore “insists on the approximate, relative nature of any scientific position on the structure of matter and its properties.” Accordingly, this type of materialism is not related to the specific content of physical representations. All that matters for him is that moving matter is the substantial basis of reality, reflected by human consciousness. “The recognition of the theory, – emphasized V.I. Lenin, – a snapshot, an approximate copy of an objective reality, – is what materialism is about.”

Therefore, the discovery that the structure of matter is much more complex than it seemed before is not evidence of the inconsistency of materialism. V. I. Lenin explained in this connection: “<< Matter disappears >> – this means that limit disappears, until which we knew matter until now … such properties of matter disappear that seemed previously absolute, unchanging, original. … and which are now discovered as relative, inherent only in certain states of matter. For the only “property” of matter, with the recognition of which philosophical materialism is connected, is the property of being an objective reality, to exist outside our consciousness. ”

The dialectic of the process of knowledge, we note, was deeply understood by Hegel. He developed, in particular, the concept of relative truth as a limited truth, i.e. which is true only within certain limits. The materialistic dialectic has developed these ideas into the doctrine of objective truth, meaning by it the process of bringing knowledge to reality, in the course of which the synthesis of the positive that exists in certain relative truths is carried out.

Objective truth is the unity of the latter, where they are present in the removed form, complementing and restricting each other. Classical mechanics, for example, is true if it is applied to macro-objects with non-relativistic velocities. The theorems of Euclidean geometry are true if we are talking about a space with zero curvature. And modern physics includes classical mechanics, but, importantly, with an indication of the limits of its applicability. Modern geometry in the same way includes the Euclidean geometry. And so on.

In other words, one of the reasons that gave rise to the crisis of physics is the understanding by some scientists of relative truth as only relative (this is epistemological relativism, which originated and was largely overcome in ancient philosophy). However, what is essentially important, “in every scientific truth, despite its relativity, is an element of absolute truth.”

Finishing consideration of the analysis of V. I. Lenin of the crisis of physics, let us pay attention to the following. His position that “the only” property “of matter, with the recognition of which philosophical materialism is associated, is the property of being an objective reality” is sometimes perceived as an indication that, according to materialist dialectics, matter has only this single property. But this is not so: it is only a matter of the fact that the only “property” of matter, with non-recognition of which is associated philosophical idealism, is objectivity.

Therefore, it is appropriate here to once again emphasize the inadmissibility of identifying the dialectical-materialist category “matter” with the natural science ideas about its structure and properties. The misunderstanding of this by the majority of scientists (who were mainly in the position of elemental materialism) at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries was one of the main causes of the crisis of natural science.

Considering the problems associated with the crisis of natural science at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries., We pay attention to the fact that crisis situations have arisen in it before, ending with a revolutionary transition to a new, deeper level of knowledge. Principal difficulties arose whenever science, deepening the analysis of the essence of phenomena, revealed a contradiction, which the existing theory could not explain. The need for its removal and led to the intensive development of a new theory, a new scientific picture of the world. (Dialectics, we recall, considers the contradiction as a source of development).

Considering matter as a philosophical category denoting objective reality, V.I. Lenin thereby continues the materialistic line in philosophy. In its definition, there is no tabulation of the category “matter” under a broader concept, because such a concept simply does not exist. In this sense, “matter” and “objective reality” – synonyms. Matter is opposed to consciousness, while emphasizing objectivity, as the independence of its existence from consciousness.

Matter and its attributes: space, time, movement, system

Matter as an objective reality is characterized by an infinite number of properties. Material things and processes are finite and infinite, because their localization is relative, and their interconnection is absolute, continuous (homogeneous inside themselves) and discontinuous (characterized by an internal structure): there is a mass in all material objects (be it a rest mass for any substance or a mass movements for the fields) and energy (potential or actualized).

But its most important properties, its attributes, are space, time and movement.

The space is characterized by the length and structure of material objects (formations) in their correlation with other formations.

Time is characterized by the duration and sequence of the existence of material formations in their relationship with other material formations.

Of fundamental importance is the answer to the question of how space and time are related to matter.

On this issue in philosophy there are 2 points of view.

The first of these is usually called the substantial concept of space and time. In accordance with this concept, space and time are independent entities that exist along with matter and independently of it. This understanding of space and time led to the conclusion that their properties are independent of the nature of the material processes occurring in them. Substantial concept originates from Democritus, it found its most vivid embodiment in. classical physics I. Newton. The idea of ​​absolute space and time of I. Newton corresponded to a certain physical picture of the world, namely, his views on matter as a set of atoms delimited from each other, having a constant volume, inertness (mass) and acting on each other instantaneously, either at a distance or in touch. Space, according to Newton, is invariably, motionless, its properties do not depend on anything, including time, they do not depend either on material bodies or on their movement. You can remove all bodies from space, but the space will remain and the properties will be preserved. It turns out that space is like a grand container, resembling a huge box turned upside down, in which matter is placed. Newton has the same views on time. He believed that time flows equally in the Universe and this flow does not depend on anything – and therefore time is absolute, because it determines the order and duration of the existence of material systems.

As we see, in this case both space and time appear as realities, which in a certain sense are higher entities in relation to the material world.

The second concept of space and time is called relativistic. According to this concept, space and time are not independent entities, but systems of relations formed by interacting material objects. Accordingly, the properties of space and time depend on the nature of the interaction of material systems. The relativistic concept originates from Aristotle. Most consistently, it was carried out in the non-Euclidean geometry of Lobachevsky and Riemann and in the theory of relativity by A. Einstein. It was their theoretical positions that excluded the concepts of absolute space and absolute time from science, thereby revealing the inconsistency of the substantial interpretation of space and time as independent forms independent of matter. It was these teachings, especially the general and special theory of relativity, that justified the dependence of space and time, their property on the nature of the movement of material systems.

Space and time, as the universal forms of its being inseparably connected with matter, possess a whole series of both general and specific properties for each of these forms.

General properties of space – time: their objectivity, and universality. The recognition of these properties almost immediately opposes the materialistic interpretation of space and time to their idealistic interpretations. After all, according to idealistic teachings, space and time are a product of human consciousness, and therefore they objectively do not exist.

The main properties of space are: length, homogeneity, isotropy (equality of all possible directions), three-dimensionality, and specific properties of time: duration, uniformity. (equality of all moments) ,, one-dimensionality, irreversibility.

The properties of space and time are manifested each time in a special way in the microworld, the macrocosm and megaworld, in living nature and in social reality.

The objective continuity of space and time and their discontinuity determine the movement of matter, which is the main mode of its existence. The movement of matter is absolutely, its rest is relative.

It should be borne in mind that in philosophy, movement is understood as any change in things and processes.

Denoting the change in time of the spatial characteristics of things and processes (their location and volume) by the concept of “movement”, and the variability of their qualitative certainty as a result of their existence in time by the conditional term “change”, we arrive at the following conclusion.

Movement in its broadest sense is the unity of the moments of movement of things and processes and their change. The driving car moves in space, the “old” book on the shelf “grows old”, occasionally “moving”.

This is the meaning put in the term “movement”, when they say that the material can not exist without movement.

A significant addition to this principle is the assertion that, in turn, movement cannot exist without a material carrier (substance or field). The statement that motion exists without matter is, from the point of view of materialistic philosophers, as absurd as the conclusion about the existence of matter without motion.

In the inseparable unity of matter and motion, matter is original, and motion is derivative. It is subordinated to matter.

The position opposite to materialism is taken by the energeticism advanced by the German scientist V. Oval’d. In his theory, V. Ostalald tried to reduce matter and motion to energy (hence the name of the theory of energetism). As you know, energy is a physical measure of movement. V. Ovalald declares with energy everything that exists in the world. Therefore, both matter, and consciousness, and cognition – all this is energy, and therefore matter and consciousness are derived from energy and movement. The modern form of energy (neo-energy) is associated with attempts to prove – the process of converting matter into energy based on A. Einstein’s well-known mass-energy law E = mc 2 (here E is energy, m is mass, c is the speed of light in vacuum). However, these attempts were unsuccessful, both physically and philosophically.

From a physical point of view, this formula reflects the proportionality of the relationship between the mass of matter and the energy of its interatomic bonds and the coefficient of this proportionality is the square of the speed of light in a vacuum).

From a philosophical point of view, it only confirms that things that have a mass of peace objectively exist. Moreover, they are in communication with equally objectively existing fields that have no rest mass (electric, magnetic, lepton, microlepton, etc.). And finally, this formula confirms the fundamental position of materialistic philosophy about the possibility of turning everything into everything, and including matter in the field.

Movement has a number of important properties. First, objectivity is peculiar to the movement, i.e. independence of its existence from human consciousness. In other words, matter itself has a reason for its change. Hence the position and the infinity of interconversions of matter.

Secondly, universality is peculiar to the movement. This means that any phenomena in the world are subject to movement as a way of existence of matter (there are no objects devoid of movement). It also means that the very content of material objects in all its moments in a relationship is determined by movement, expresses its specific forms (and manifestations).

Thirdly, the movement is characterized by inconvenience and indestructibility. Consistent philosophical materialism rejects any argument about the beginning or end of the movement. It is known, for example, that I. Newton admitted the possibility of a divine jolt. and the German philosopher E. Dühring believed that movement arises from peace through the so-called bridge of gradualness. In an explicit or implicit form, in this case, the thought is given about a certain beginning (outcome) of the movement.

This position is criticized by the materialists. Consistently this protects dialectical materialism. Claiming the principle of self-movement of matter. the materialist dialectic simultaneously reveals its mechanism. In their opinion (and it is confirmed by the experience of mankind and the data of the natural sciences), the movement is the result of the struggle of objectively existing opposites. These are, for example, action and resistance in mechanical movement, higher and lower temperature (energy) in thermal movement, positive and negative charge in electricity, polar interests of people and their various associations in social development, etc.

Fourthly, absoluteness is peculiar to movement. Recognizing the universal character of the movement, philosophical materialism does not reject existence in the world of stability, peace. However, consistent philosophical materialism emphasizes the relative nature of such states of material objects. This means that the absolute nature of the movement is always realized only in certain, locally and historically limited, dependent on specific conditions, passing and, in this sense, its relative forms.

That is why it can be said that any peace (or stability) is a moment of movement, since it is transitory, temporary, relative. Peace is like. movement in balance, because peace is included in the total movement, and it is removed by this absolute movement. Therefore, one can speak of rest as a certain equilibrium, a moment of movement only in relation to a certain point of reference. So, for example, one can see that any age of a person (say 18 years old) is a fixed moment in his constant change, movement, associated with a certain stability, rest of the temporary state of some properties of his nature compared to, say, the 17th anniversary and 19th anniversary.

A variety of specific manifestations of movement can be correlated with certain material carriers. This makes it possible to construct different classifications of the forms of motion of matter. The form of motion of matter is associated with a certain material carrier, has a certain area of ​​distribution and its own specific laws.

F. Engels noted the presence of 5 basic forms of motion of matter.

• Mechanical motion associated with the movement of bodies in space.
• Physical (essentially thermal) movement, like the movement of molecules.
• Chemical motion – the movement of atoms inside molecules.
• Organic or biological movement associated with the development of a protein life form.
• Social movement (all changes in society).

This classification is now obsolete. In particular, it is not right to reduce physical movement only to thermal movement.

Therefore, the modern classification of forms of motion of matter includes:

1. spatial displacement;
2. electromagnetic movement, defined as the interaction of charged particles;
3. gravitational form of motion;
4. strong (nuclear) interaction;
5. weak interaction (absorption and emission of a neutron);
6. chemical form of motion (process and result of the interaction of molecules and atoms);
7. geological form of motion of matter (associated with changes in geosystems – continents, layers of the earth’s crust, etc.);
8. biological form of movement (metabolism, processes occurring at the cellular level, heredity, etc.);
9. social form of movement (processes occurring in society)

Obviously, the development of science will continue to continue. make their own adjustments in this classification of the forms of motion of matter. However, it appears. that in the foreseeable future it will be carried out on the basis of the principles formulated by F. Engels.

First of all, the principle of development will not lose its significance as applied to the analysis of the forms of motion of matter. It allows them to be systematized in accordance with the real processor of the evolution of material systems from simple to complex, from lower to higher, from the simplest processes of mechanical movement to processes occurring in human society.

Still important is the principle of the connection of each form of movement with a specific material carrier, or more precisely, with a set of specific material carriers.

The principle of genetic and structural conditionality of the lower forms of motion of matter to the lower remains relevant. After all, any higher form of movement arises on the basis of the lower, includes it in itself in the removed form. This essentially means that structures specific to the higher form of movement can only be known by analyzing the structures of the lower forms.

And, conversely, the essence of the lower order form of motion can only be known on the basis of knowledge of the content of the higher form of matter motion relative to it.

The principle of the irreducibility of higher forms of movement to lower ones and the illegality of the transfer (extrapolation) of the properties of higher forms of movement of matter to lower forms is closely related to the principle of genetic conditioning. This is the principle of the qualitative specificity of any form of movement. In the higher form of movement, its lower forms are represented not in “pure”, but in a synthesized (“removed”) form. The “mechanical” movement of the human hand is the result of the addition of complex processes of the mechanical, biological, chemical, and. etc. Therefore, any attempt to create a purely mechanical analogue of the human hand is absurd.

Absurd and the transfer of wildlife to society, even if at first glance it seems. that it is dominated by the “law of the jungle.” Of course, human cruelty can be incomparably greater than the cruelty of predators. Yet predators do not know such human feelings as love, participation, and compassion.

On the other hand, attempts to find matter in the lower forms of motion are absolutely groundless. items. its higher forms. Thinking cobblestone is nonsense. However, this is an extreme, so to speak, case of hyperbole. Looked less funny, trying one out. major Soviet biologists who tried to create “human” conditions for monkeys, hoping to find an anthropoid (primitive man) in their offspring in a hundred or more years.

Finally, it is impossible to include another very important principle underlying the classification of the forms of motion of matter – the principle of the relationship of each of them with a particular science. This principle allows us to associate the problem of classification of forms of motion with the problem of the classification of sciences.

The principles for the classification of forms of motion of matter make it possible to treat reduction mechanism, the essence of which is to reduce the laws of higher forms of motion to regularities: the lower forms of social to biological, biological to physicochemical, etc.

The principles of classifications of the forms of motion of matter make it possible to critically refer to vitalism (from the Latin. Life) – a philosophical trend absolutizing the specificity of the biological form of motion and explaining the specificity of all living things by the presence of some special “life force”.

The most important property of matter and material formations is their systemic organization. A system (from the Greek is a whole made up of parts) is a complex of interacting elements, or, which is the same: a limited set of interacting elements.

Practically any material and ideal object can be represented as a system, for this it is necessary to select its elements in it (the element is then an indecomposable component of the system with this method of its consideration, identify the structure of the volume (a set of stable relations and connections between the elements) and fix its characteristics at the core of education. With this approach it is found that all systems are divided into complete and total. A complete system is one in which all its elements cannot exist from loss or withdrawal of at least one of its elements leads to the destruction of the system as a whole. Holistic systems are, for example, the solar system, water molecules (H2O)., salt (NaCl), symbiosis in organic nature, production cooperation in the economic sphere of public life, etc.

A distinctive feature of an integral system is its quality being non-reducible to the simple sum of the qualities of its constituent elements.

Summation systems are systems whose quality is equal to the sum of the properties of its constituent elements, taken in isolation from each other. In all summative systems, the constituent parts can exist autonomously by themselves. An example of such systems can be a bunch of stones, a cluster of cars on the street, a crowd of people. It is clear that it is impossible to say about these aggregates that they are unsystematic, although their consistency is weak and close to zero, since its elements have considerable independence in relation to each other and to the system itself, and the connection of these elements is often random.

A systematic approach or a systematic study of material objects implies not only the establishment of ways of describing the relationships and connections (structure) of this set, elements, but – what. especially important – the selection of those of them that are system-forming, i.e. provide separate functioning and development of the system. A systematic approach to material formations suggests the possibility of understanding the system in question more. high level. The system is usually characterized by a hierarchical structure – the sequential inclusion of a lower level system into a higher level system. This means that relations and connections in the system with a certain representation of it can themselves be considered as its elements, obeying the corresponding hierarchy. This allows you to build different, do not coincide with each other, the sequence of incorporation of systems into each other, describing the material object under study from different sides.

In modern science, the method of structural analysis is widely used, which takes into account the systematic character of the objects under study. After all, structurality is the internal dismemberment of material being, the mode of existence of matter. Structural levels of matter are formed from a certain set of objects of any kind and are characterized by a special way of interaction between their constituent elements.

Conclusion

The study of problems associated with the philosophical analysis of matter and its properties is a necessary condition for the formation of a person’s worldview, regardless of whether it turns out to be in the final analysis materialistic or idealistic.

In the light of the above, it is quite obvious that the role of defining the concept of matter, understanding the latter as inexhaustible for building a scientific picture of the world, solving the problem of reality and knowability of objects and phenomena of micro and megaworld is very important.

The definition is reasonable: “… Matter is an objective reality given to us in sensation”; “Matter is a philosophical category for denoting objective reality, which is given to man in his sensations, which is copied, photographed, displayed by our sensations, existing independently of them.” (In the first case, we are talking about matter as a category of being, an ontological category, in the second – about its fixing concept, the category of epistemological).