General topic: World View Problems of Human Being.
In the author's view, for man's existence satisfaction of needs of at least two orders is necessary (to a certain extent, if not completely) - the physic-biological and the so-called "spiritual" needs, of which world view ones are the most important. In particular, this is the irresistible striving for determination what the universe as a whole is and what the place, the role and the purpose of man's earthly existence, the meaning of his life are.
Man can see clearly at least two facts - the world around him (except cultural phenomena) is not created by him, and his physical or spiritual individuality, i.e. the so-called earthly existence is closed, confined, finite in time and space. Owing to self-reflection or self-consciousness, the above-mentioned world view questions naturally arise before him. He needs constantly to seek for certain answers to these questions and to be convinced in them. A world view with its "pure form", in its foundation is an inborn quality, ability and need of the human consciousness in a normal state to look at the universe "from without", to view it in the whole and to assign a certain place in it to himself - sometimes very humble (as in myths and religions), at times - relatively elevated and even aggrandized (as in some works of art and philosophical conceptions). Man always lives with one or another world view. Having a world view is so natural, specific and necessary for him that in a certain sense he can be defined as "animal with a world view".
A world view implies freedom as its foundation and condition. The fact that man is free as a being having consciousness is evident in the first place in that he necessarily adheres to a world view. In this case it does not matter what kind of world view this is. The main thing here is that he always wishes (if he is in a normal state) and is even able to imagine the universe as a whole and define his own place in it. Furthermore, he can believe in as well as cast doubt on and renounce a world outlook constructed by him. Here best of all man's real and complete freedom, inherent for our consciousness, can be seen. Every attempt to escape it again points to man's freedom. The quotation by J.P. Sartre: "Man is Cursed with Freedom" should be interpreted in this way. Insomuch as man cannot escape being a free creature, he cannot escape his responsibility either, first of all, the responsibility before the world view chosen by him, to which he adheres and which he follows in his private life.
To satisfy the needs of the first order man uses science and technology, whereas to answer world view questions he resorts to such spheres of the activity of the consciousness as art, myth, religion and philosophy. Each of these is a specific way of expression, rendering, interpretation or "argumentation" of a world outlook. Human world view cannot be reduced completely to any of these spheres of the activity of the consciousness. Our consciousness has various abilities - imagination (fantasy), reason, belief, will, determining the character of building an outlook, depending on which ability is dominant during the creation or choice of an outlook.
The peculiarity of philosophy as realization of world view needs lies in the following. World view implies the conviction in certain notions and views about the universe and man's place in it. For man scientific knowledge has the most persuasive and convincing power. It is the most obvious and clear for our consciousness. Therefore, as soon as scientific knowledge appeared, man naturally began to wish to solve (argue) in a scientific way his world view notions and opinions, to achieve assuredness and conviction in them by logical thinking. On the basis of such striving, philosophy (as a specific form of consciousness) with its various directions, trends and opposing disciplines, came into being. Philosophy is an attempt to construct and form a logically argued outlook, clear, understandable and acceptable for human reason. Exactly this must be meant in the definition current in recent years (acceptable for us) - "Philosophy is an attempt of argumentation of a world view" (Guram Tevzadze).
Argumentation of a world view, however, imparting final convincingness to it (mainly) by logical thinking is not easy. Due to this, philosophy has repeatedly been rejected and criticized. B. Russell even declared philosophy as a "groundless" branch along with religion and science. In Russell's view, philosophy (implying traditional, the so-called Classical philosophy) has claims on the "no-man's land" which is a bone of contention between religion and science. He believes that philosophy (in the form of "first philosophy" by Aristotle and generally metaphysics) is an attempt to solve religious problems by scientific methods and ways, always ending in a failure. Despite such extreme assessment, philosophy (traditional) retains to date the right of existence and performs a certain role in the settling of world view problems of human being. To illustrate this, views of A. Camus on the role and need for philosophy in overcoming absurd being and pessimistic attitudes of modern man can be named. In Camus's opinion, man at present faces, as the main world view problem, determination of how valuable man's life today is to continue his existence and not to give up life in general. "Is life worth staying alive?" Camus asks and seeks for an acceptable and convincing answer to this question in philosophical thinking. By this, Camus answers to a certain extent the question "What's the use of philosophy?" which became extremely acute in the second half of the 20th century.
General topic: Being and Man.
In the papers, the relation is sought for between the problem of existence (being) and world view, on the one hand, and the insurmountable difficulty of defining the concept of existence (being) is demonstrated, on the other one. The author proceeds from the fact that people usually shun non-existence (non-being), renouncing life voluntarily only in exceptional cases. Striving towards existence (being), the concern for its preservation and improvement are natural human needs. The choice between existence and non-existence (being and non-being) thus seems to be made. The author assumes, however, that such a decision pre-supposes having answers to such questions as - What is existence, being? What does the existence of nature, its objects and generally the universe mean? What does the existence of man himself (individual person), the entire mankind and culture mean? Etc. These are questions about the meaning of man's life, his place and role in the universe, thus, being world view questions. Hence, any world view, including, the philosophical picture of the universe, is based on the determination of the essence of being (existence). This may be special study of this problem or the "acceptance", "recognition" of its one or another already existing solution. Man as a creature with a world view represents "existence according to understanding of being" (M. Heidegger).
Philosophical study and analysis of man implies above all determination of his relation to existence, being. At present such study is entrusted to philosophical anthropology. It is one of modern continuations of Aristotle's "first philosophy" and traditional ontology, and aims to overcome their drawbacks, to replace them with man's ontology. Existentialism demonstrates well and confirms close interrelation of ontology and philosophical anthropology. The doctrine of Existentialism on man is "fundamental ontology" (M. Heidegger).
According to the author, the definition-interpretation of the concept of existence (being) proved extremely difficult. In his view, the difficulty stems from the vagueness and ambiguity of the concepts of existence and being. To dispel this ambiguity, sometimes these two concepts are distinguished from one another, considering e.g. existence as the predicate, and being as the subject; or emphasizing the difference between the (separate) existent and being. Such demarcation is mainly due, especially in Existentialist philosophy, to the wish to differentiate sharply man, as separate, individual being, and other things and phenomena of the world, existing also separately. Sometimes the reasons of the difficulty are sought for in the interpretation of language, in objective reality itself or incompatibility between the world around and the consciousness. E.G.B. Pascal saw the difficulty in the fact that "any definition (interpretation) of the concept of existence will necessarily employ and draw on the concept of existence itself. "Our thought (language) cannot act otherwise".
The author thinks that all these attempts have been unsuccessful and he tries to prove that in order to clarify the concept of existence, to interpret it correctly, the question should be posed differently: What is existence - thing, quality or relation? The author notes that all three possible answers are fairly well-reasoned by philosophers of various times and directions, and he tries to argue that the concept of existence, on the one hand, is a universal means of predication, and by the scale of the use with this aspect in thinking, no other category can be compared to it. On the other hand, existence is the only philosophical category pretending to be the universal subject, along with the universal predicate. Therefore, the author poses questions in which the difficulty manifests itself: Is existence predicable? Is existence such universal predicate which can be applied similarly to everything else and itself? Should raising the question of the existence of existence itself be considered right? The author arrives at the conclusion that these questions stand in need for further in-depth study.