THE CONCEPT OF THE MATERIAL AND THE SPIRITUAL / IDEAL IN RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY OF THE XVIII CENTURY

The paper examines the issues of ancient Greek and Latin etymology of the concepts of ideal (idea) and material (matter), the origin of Russian philosophy in the XI-XVII centuries. as historical and religious “book wisdom”, as well as its development during the Russian Enlightenment of the XVIII century. The first attempts to define in Russian philosophy are no longer mythological-religious, but rational relations between the soul and the human body, between its spiritual/ideal and material/material qualities. It is shown that the beginnings of correct ideas on this issue, expressed in the ideas of the lifelong unity and interaction of soul and body, as well as the connection of such mental qualities as mind, intelligence, memory, and the ability to judge with the human nervous system and brain, appeared in Russian philosophy under the influence of the European Enlightenment in the first half of the XVIII century in the works of such highly educated Russian thinkers as Vasily Tatishchev and Antioch Kantemir. At the same time, it must be recognized that the general ideological character of Russian philosophy of that period remained deeply archaic, mythological, religious, and theistic (faith in the Creator and the immortality of the soul, the “sinfulness” of man, the dependence of nature and man – “God's creature, the servant of God" on his Creator).