spiritual needs of man. Types of Spiritual Needs

Spiritual needs are usually understood as quite natural strivings to achieve happiness, harmony with oneself and the world around. The spiritual needs of a person are based on universal human values, such as: kindness, mercy, truth, beauty, love, art. Each of us independently decides on the need for self-development and personal growth. All people have spiritual needs, only in some they are expressed more, in others less. A mature person, as a rule, strives not only for material gain, but also for the formation of a sense of self-worth. What is included in the concept of spiritual needs and is considered in this article.

Types of Spiritual Needs

Need for knowledge

No knowledge is possible without the right motivation. A person who feels the need to learn new things in himself begins to strive to diversify his everyday life, in every possible way to expand his horizons. For example, people begin to sign up for all kinds of advanced training courses, receive additional education, and read literature of interest. The spiritual need for knowledge is one of the most important for an accomplished person. If this spiritual need is not satisfied, the person, most often, withdraws into himself and no longer wants to change anything.

Spiritual needs could not be fully manifested without striving for. Thanks to the natural interest in the surrounding reality, a person generally takes active steps towards achieving the desired. A person is always driven by something: the desire to improve one's literacy, the intention to achieve success, the inner spiritual need for self-realization.

Self improvement

Self-improvement is an important component of the spiritual needs of the individual. It includes constant work on character, the eradication of bad habits and the education of good ones instead. Spiritual needs can be satisfied only through constant fruitful work on oneself. When doing self-improvement, it is important to know how you differ from yourself yesterday. The realization that over time you as a person become better brings tangible benefits, affects all areas of life. A person becomes bolder in his dreams, is already making far-reaching plans, is not afraid to look to the future with hope. In order to engage in self-improvement, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to change in yourself. Otherwise, nothing will work.

There is one habit that can destroy all a person’s plans, instill uncertainty and fears in him. This is the habit of constantly looking back at the opinions of others and seeking approval from colleagues, friends, and acquaintances in everything. You should never compare yourself to others. The achievements of others should not mislead anyone. We must understand that everyone has different spiritual needs, opportunities, as well as goals in life. Each person is a free person, therefore he has the right to make decisions independently. Thanks to spiritual needs, a person has the opportunity to cultivate the potential given by nature, to strive for great achievements.

Favourite buisness

One of the most significant spiritual needs. Nothing inspires us to new achievements more than having an occupation or activity that brings satisfaction and joy. Favorite business gives additional energy for self-realization, often gives meaning to what is happening, inspires to exploits.

Fortunately, spiritual needs are not limited to the desire for knowledge and self-improvement. A truly whole person will always strive to fully express his individuality in the world. Someone achieves this goal with the help of their own talent, others begin to actively implement the ideas in their heads. The spiritual need to be noticed, recognized and recognized is an integral part of any strong person. Favorite business, to which a lot of time and effort is devoted, can contribute to its implementation. What could be better than an activity that inspires you? Perhaps nothing. A person who is engaged in creativity or business will never voluntarily give up his work. Spiritual needs always require our attention and daily participation.

Love and happiness

Almost every sane person has family and close people in the first place. Indeed, what kind of inner satisfaction can we talk about if the main spiritual need remains unfulfilled - to be loved and recognized. Moreover, there is absolutely no question of receiving attention from the society in which a person lives. It is much more significant to find happiness with your soulmate. Many people spend many years looking for such a truly close person, and some stay in this state all their lives. The spiritual need to give your love to someone is very strong. You can limit yourself in material wealth, not have newfangled things, but if you are deprived of care and attention, you will feel unhappy, despite all the outward success. One of the most basic spiritual needs of a person is the need for love. No one wants to live alone, closed in terrible anguish from the whole world. Everyone needs to feel needed and needed by other people.

Thus, spiritual needs guide the process of cognition and self-knowledge of the individual. Thanks to spiritual needs, we have a unique opportunity to prove ourselves as an individual: to reveal our natural abilities, to fully express our talents and gifts.

Spiritual needs are a necessary part of human life, along with physical needs. Satisfaction of spiritual needs is self-realization, creative activity, the use of one's abilities and getting satisfaction from this.

Spiritual needs of man

In order to better understand the term itself, let us turn to the developments of the famous scientist A.G. Zdravomyslov, who identified three important aspects:

spiritual needs are the desire to join science, art, culture;
the realization of spiritual needs leads to the harmonious development of the personality;
spiritual needs reflect social class relations.

The spiritual needs of a person are an inner craving for creativity, for beauty, for communication. This is that part of a person's life in which he delves into his own feelings, the analysis of beauty.

Material and spiritual needs: differences

To distinguish spiritual needs from material needs, it is enough to simply determine whether such features are inherent in a particular need:

the spiritual need always arises in the consciousness, the soul, it does not come from the body;
compared with physiological and material needs, spiritual needs do not seem necessary;
material needs always have a limited range of means for implementation, and they practically have no spiritual framework;
satisfaction of spiritual needs always requires free time;
spiritual needs are disinterested, they have as their goal only aesthetic, moral pleasure and no personal gain;
pleasure from spiritual needs can be obtained indefinitely.

Spiritual needs show that side of the human being, which is creative, for which self-realization is above profit.

Spiritual needs and their types

There is a fairly detailed classification of spiritual needs. These include the following options:

the need for labor, work;
aesthetic needs - to contemplate the beautiful;
moral needs - to be honest, respected;
the need for communication, society;
scientific and cognitive needs - to discover new things;
good health needs;
patriotic needs (for example, military duty).

The better a person is realized in these areas, the higher his pleasure from the process itself and the higher the level of moral principles and spirituality.

The spiritual needs of a person, together with the requests of a material nature, become, in fact, two sides of the same coin. As beings belonging to the animal world, people until the end of their days remain hostages of physiology, which requires society to constantly replenish the material resources necessary for life. Mankind needs food, shelter, saving from the hardships of the weather. A lot of things are needed to make life safe and satisfying. Including what, due to ignorance, a person does not yet guess. But there is also an aesthetic side. As human practice has shown, starting with Adam and Eve, the satisfaction of only biological needs for an individual from the Homo sapiens tribe is not enough. Why? For a person with reason, an ideological conditionality of his actions is also needed. People need certain life guidelines that give a more voluminous and rational designation and, if possible, assimilate the benefits that guarantee optimal comfort.

Spirituality becomes this mediator. At least the most important of all achievable. It fills the consciousness of the individual with those guidelines that provide an opportunity to live better. They give into the hands of everyone the very metaphorical Darwinian knot, with which you can reach out to what was previously inaccessible. Filling the intellect with new knowledge, sensual images and applying all this in practice, a person improves his capabilities, understands their measure, and thereby better cognizes the environment and himself.

The difference between spiritual needs and material needs

The main difference between spiritual requests and material ones seems to be that, at first glance, they do not become necessary. There is no personal gain in them. They will not be able to feed, shelter from the cold, protect from enemies. The pleasure from filling the spiritual world is only moral, having a predominantly aesthetic character.

Another distinguishing point is motivation, the reasons that incline a person to satisfy certain needs. Material requests arise when they are directly needed. This is a kind of tactical, momentary, side of life. The main force of spiritual inclinations is not a specific benefit, but curiosity. This property of every animal nature, man in particular, is nothing more than an attempt to look a little further than one's own nose. To see something new in the hope that it will be useful in the future.
At the same time, spiritual activity, unlike material activity, is unlimited in its possibilities. It is limited only by the lack of free time.

Now about the means of satisfying needs. Material requests are subject and conditioned by the available resource base. Creativity becomes the only means of replenishing the spiritual potential.

How does a creative person realize himself? Two functions inherent in human consciousness become decisive here. One of them is associated with one form or another of communication, the other with sensory knowledge of the world.

The communicative function of consciousness allows the subject to obtain the necessary spiritual or practical information from printed, visual and audio sources, including as a result of direct communication with the owner of the necessary data.

The cognitive side of creativity involves not only obtaining any information, but also their selection, rejection of the superfluous and the assimilation of what seems necessary now.

Types of Spiritual Needs

Over a long history, mankind has tested many variants of the spiritual ideal that determined the morality of a particular society. This morality acquired terrifying features that corrupted human nature. The painful practice of many centuries has shown that love, children, friendship, faith in the best, the hope that it will come true, fidelity, devotion, everything that includes the concept of happiness become the most constant spiritual values of all times and peoples. This list can also include freedom of creativity, independence in making fateful decisions, self-righteousness.

The main needs in the spiritual sphere are conditionally divided into two groups. The first of them is associated with the accumulation of spiritual potential, the second - with its implementation in the social environment.

The first group of spiritual needs include:

the desire to communicate with interesting people in real and virtual life (for example, in books, performances, movies);
familiarization with beauty through the contemplation of beautiful landscapes, artistic achievements of great masters, listening to outstanding musical works;
scientific and educational work that expands the horizons of the worldview;
care for health as the only foundation for other life undertakings.

The second group, which means the needs of the social plan, includes:

the need for labor activity, allowing a person to realize material and spiritual needs;
the creation of moral guidelines that make it possible to correlate one's own views on things with the corresponding social ideal;
patriotic orientation of actions and views, orienting the individual to the protection and exaltation of the fatherland.

The sequence in meeting the needs of both groups does not become strictly linear. Most often, it correlates with material needs and the individual characteristics of the subject. So, as the basic biological tasks are realized, the need for a spiritual aura becomes more acute for most people. But in some cases, it is spiritual goals that come to the fore.

The role of art

Without exaggeration, we can say that art is the greatest teacher, giving a clear example of true spirituality.

At their best, the artistic, philosophical, pictorial, musical, sculptural and architectural masterpieces of modern and past civilizations show how deeply and gracefully human thought extends. By joining the spiritual culture, humanity not only satisfies spiritual needs, it also solves many previously unattainable tasks.

The communicative component of art, included in the images of literary works, makes it possible, through the experience of worthy people, to imagine and appreciate the meaning and possibility of true, devoted friendship, love that causes a desire to live beautifully and brightly, attention to each other's problems, sympathy in trouble, the fruitfulness of the exchange of worthwhile ideas.

The cognitive side of the knowledge acquired in this way allows one to reveal one's best qualities, use them for personal and social benefit, and earn the respect of contemporaries and descendants.

The abilities discovered in oneself through communication with the beautiful give rise to new needs. This is already evident in the child. The spiritual potential of the individual, under favorable conditions of upbringing and moral climate in society, is growing throughout life. The outlook is expanding, the views and behavior of a person are being improved, his manners are being refined.

Spiritual development, and with it consumption, is a mostly creative process. Its result is the appearance of a brighter, stronger, more active person. The level of culture of people depends not only on education, but also on the presence of weighty examples in front of their eyes, showing that it is possible and necessary to live beautifully and with dignity. In fact, this is the main task of art.

Conclusion

The atmosphere in which people prefer to arrange their personal lives also depends on spiritual requests. This is not always possible in full, and, nevertheless, no material need is able to stop the development of a strong spiritual nature. Primitive and rough will still be replaced by more refined and subtle. It is on this principle that human progress is based. And, if humanity wants this to continue in the future, the soul must be remembered and constantly raised to new and new heights.

Needs - a lack or need for something necessary for the normal functioning of a person, a social group and society as a whole. They are an internal stimulus to activity.

Man, being a representative of the animal world, has physiological needs, the satisfaction of which is necessary to maintain security, metabolism, etc.

Determining Spiritual Needs

The spiritual needs of a person are the desire to know the world around and their place in it, self-realization, self-improvement, self-knowledge.

This is a type of need, due to the inner world of a person, his desire for self-deepening, concentration on what is not related to social and physiological needs. His satisfaction is facilitated by the study of culture, art, religion, the purpose of which is to understand the higher meaning of existence.

Pyramid of Needs

In general, people's needs are often presented in the form of a pyramid. The physiological needs lie at its base, and at the top are the spiritual needs of man. These include: self-expression (in sports, religion, science, art, etc.), communication (rights, duties, etc.), self-affirmation (recognition, respect, power, etc.).

This article will take a closer look at this type of human need.

Different classifications of needs

The presence of many different requests is explained by the complexity of human nature, the variety of social and natural conditions in which people exist.

It is difficult to identify stable groups by which needs are classified, but this does not stop researchers. Different authors offer their grounds and motives for classification. For example, K. Obukhovsky, a Polish psychologist, noted that there are currently 120 of them.

Basic Needs

Let us dwell on the classification of basic needs, which is rather generalized and widespread. Basic needs are those needs that are common to all people. These include: material, biological, spiritual and social. The important thing is that they are arranged in a hierarchical order. In order for spiritual and intellectual needs to appear, it is necessary that the physiological systems in our body function, that is, the material and biological ones are satisfied. But not all authors absolutize this dependence.

Certainly, there is a sequence of satisfaction of needs, but it cannot be thought that it is absolutely the same for all individuals. There are cases when the need for spiritual development and creativity turned out to be dominant not after other needs were satisfied (biological, recognition, security, etc.), but when even the basic requirements for housing, food and security were not yet satisfied.

Any of the above needs has a focus on a particular subject, encourages us to take possession of it.

Biological needs require the possession of vital resources, material needs require the material means necessary to satisfy all needs, social needs require forms of communication and communication with other people. The spiritual needs of a person require the mastery of spirituality.

What is spirituality? Consciousness and spirituality are the same order of concepts. However, not all consciousness is spiritual. For example, a worker who performs certain operations on a factory conveyor does them consciously, with skill. At the same time, these actions are soulless, technological. An alcoholic consciously chooses liquor and snacks. Nevertheless, when drinking alcohol, he does not see a reasonable limit, his enslavement by passion does not allow him to rise higher, he falls into the state of an animal. The main reason for this decline is lack of spirituality.

Spiritual abilities and needs

Spiritual abilities that a person possesses lead to the emergence of spiritual needs. In a child, already in the first years of life, one can observe their glimpses - anger, fear, pleasure. At a young and mature age, if the conditions are favorable, spiritual development becomes more refined, expanded, improved, and in the period of old age it stops at the achieved height and after a while, as the body weakens, it weakens more and more. The spiritual needs of a person are created by his spiritual life, corresponding to the state, development, influence of the external environment and the material organism. The simplest, coarsest, responding first of all to the desire to satisfy the strongest material needs, appear before others, and later more complex and subtle ones appear.

Human values

Over a long period of history, mankind has determined which spiritual needs are leading. They are called in a different way universal or higher values, because they are important for most people. These include, for example, the categories of happiness, love, friendship, that is, physical and spiritual intimacy with a loved one, a happy family life, love for children, and the presence of devoted friends. This series can be supplemented and include here mental and physical health, the possibility of creative self-expression, enjoyment of the beauties of art and nature, interesting work and an active active life in general. Free will, that is, independence in actions and deeds, as well as self-confidence, that is, independence from internal contradictions, also belong to spiritual needs.

transcendence

Nikolai Mikhailovich Berezhnoy introduces the concept of transcendence in his work "Man and His Needs" to explain spirituality. The voluminous and multifaceted meaning of this concept is widely revealed in the philosophical works of Immanuel Kant. But we are now interested in transcendence only in relation to spirituality. In this sense, it represents going beyond the boundaries of the natural everyday life of a person, beyond the boundaries of the worldview he has achieved. To transcend means to overcome the limits of one's empirical being, oneself, to want to become higher, to strive for greater freedom.

Spirituality is a transcendence of consciousness beyond the boundaries of everyday life to a religious feeling, a philosophical comprehensive comprehension of the world, an aesthetic world experience. That is, this is the desire to overcome one's consciousness, achieve higher goals, follow social and personal ideals, higher values, as well as self-knowledge. This is expressed in the desire to contemplate nature, to the beautiful, in the interest in classical works of art and literature. Culture is the substance of spirituality, containing the entire spiritual development of mankind, its quintessence.

Fortitude

The concept of "firmness of spirit" is used in relation to a person who consistently implements in his life once a chosen ideal, who has turned the achievement of this goal into the meaning of his entire existence. A strong-willed person does not retreat in the face of difficulties, does not panic in front of difficult life situations, does not change his beliefs for money or for opportunistic reasons. He behaves according to the criteria of justice, honor and truth. The upbringing of spirituality, firmness of spirit is the most noble task for young people, since this is the surest way to understand and find the meaning of life, to overcome failures and life's hardships.

Spirituality is the most valuable wealth of a person that cannot be borrowed or bought, it can only be created by one's own efforts. Only a spiritually rich person is capable of lasting love, disinterested friendship. The characteristic of spirituality is not only a sphere of consciousness, since it can be realized in an individual only when he has strong-willed qualities, the ability to direct vital forces in a specific direction. Therefore, an unspiritual person is, first of all, spineless, weak-willed. Although it should be clarified that volitional qualities in themselves are not akin to spirituality.

Spirituality is not just consciousness

Summarizing the above, we note that spirituality is not just consciousness, it is a function of the active essence of the individual. A person, accumulating knowledge about the external world and himself, enriches his consciousness with internal energy, and the energy tends to be expressed in the spirit, this is how self-knowledge occurs.

This desire to acquire and enrich spirituality, to master the inner spiritual world of a person, is called spiritual needs. The arsenal of spirituality is very diverse. This is literature in human life, art, knowledge about people, society and the world. As well as music, philosophy, artistic creativity. Here we add the role of religion in human life.

Introduction to spiritual culture, the so-called spiritual consumption, is the process of satisfying spiritual needs.

Types of Spiritual Needs

The most important spiritual need is the desire for knowledge, including external and self-knowledge. This was noted by philosophers of various eras. Aristotle wrote that we all naturally strive for knowledge. Michel de Montel, a sixteenth-century French thinker, argued that the desire for knowledge is the most natural of all. The aesthetic need is also a very important spiritual need. Its components: the desire to see harmony in people and nature, to master the world according to the laws of beauty. This also includes literature in human life, painting, music, poetry, the desire to improve human relationships. Another spiritual need is fellowship. This includes friendship, love, camaraderie, consideration for each other, psychological and moral support, empathy, empathy, co-creation and exchange of ideas.

Conclusion

Needs are the driving force and basis of human behavior, its purpose and motivation. Values are objects of the external world that serve to satisfy human needs. Spiritual consumption is a process in which the satisfaction of spiritual needs, the development of the individual. The most important of them are the need for knowledge, communication, as well as aesthetic.

Spiritual values, unlike material ones, do not disappear in the process of consumption, but remain part of the spiritual world, enrich it. Comprehension, perception of them is subjective, it is connected with the unique individual experience of a particular person. Spiritual consumption, therefore, is often a creative process, the result of which is a change in the personal qualities of a person, the development of a person.

The formation of spiritual values, their choice for consumption is largely determined by the level of culture of the individual, his education. This is a rather lengthy process. The higher the general cultural and educational level, the higher the spiritual needs of a person, the requirements for the quality of spiritual values.

Introduction 3

1. The concept of spiritual needs and their place in human needs 4

2. Spiritual needs as an element of the spiritual life of society 9

3. Satisfaction of spiritual needs 13

Conclusion 14

References 22

Introduction

The optimal, in my opinion, definition of need is given in the "Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary". "Needs - the need or lack of something necessary to maintain the life of an organism, a human person, a social group, society as a whole; an internal motivator of activity" .

Physiological needs are determined by the fact that a person, as a representative of the animal world, must satisfy the needs for the energy supply of his body, maintaining the necessary metabolism, safety, etc. in it.

The spiritual needs of a person are the need to know the world around and oneself, the desire for self-improvement and self-realization.

The spiritual needs of people are conditioned by the inner world of a person, the desire to "withdraw into oneself", to deepen oneself, to concentrate on what is not related to physiological and social needs. Such needs induce to engage in art, culture, religion, not for the sake of satisfying physiological and social needs, but from an inner spiritual impulse, from the desire to understand the highest meaning of one's existence.

In general, the needs of people can be represented as a pyramid, at the base of which are physiological, and at its top - spiritual needs. Spiritual needs (requests) include: communication (duties, rights, etc.), self-expression (in religion, sports, art, science, etc.), self-affirmation (respect, recognition, power, etc.).

The purpose of this work is to study the spiritual needs of man. The following tasks are set in the work: consideration of the concept of spiritual needs, consideration of spiritual needs as an element of the spiritual life of society, as well as consideration of the process of satisfying spiritual needs.

Needs- source of activity of living beings. The most ancient needs in evolutionary terms are genetic programs aimed at preserving life, reproduction and development of the environment. The more useful needs a living organism has, the more active it is, the greater its expansion, the higher its competitiveness in the struggle for existence. Of all the living organisms that live on Earth, humans have the most needs.

Features of needs:

Needs are always associated with a person's feeling of dissatisfaction, which is due to a shortage of what is required.

Needs determine the selectivity of perception of the world, fixing a person’s attention on those objects that can satisfy this need (“A hungry godfather has only bread on his mind”, “Whoever hurts, he talks about it.”)

The presence of a need is accompanied by emotions: first, as the need intensifies - negative, and then - if it is satisfied - positive.

The number of needs increases in the process of phylogenesis and ontogenesis. Thus, the number of needs increases in the evolutionary series: plants - primitive animals - highly developed animals - man, as well as in the ontogenetic series: newborn - infant - preschooler - schoolchild - adult.

Human needs form a hierarchical system, where each need has its own level of significance. As they are satisfied, they give way to other needs.

1. The concept of spiritual needs and their place in human needs

The pluralism of needs is determined by the versatility of human nature, as well as the variety of conditions (natural and social) in which they manifest themselves.

The difficulty and uncertainty of identifying stable groups of needs does not stop numerous researchers from looking for the most adequate classification of needs. But the motives and grounds with which different authors approach classification are completely different. So, for example, the Polish psychologist Obukhovsky K. counted 120 classifications. How many authors, so many classifications.

In this paper, I will focus on a rather generalized classification of the so-called basic needs. Basic Needs: These are the universal needs that all people have. Basic needs include: biological, material, social, spiritual needs.

An important aspect of needs analysis is their hierarchy. The condition for the emergence of intellectual and spiritual needs, according to many authors, is the functioning of the physiological systems of the human body, i.e. satisfaction of biological and material needs. However, many authors absolutize this dependence.

Although some consistency in the satisfaction of needs undoubtedly exists, it cannot be considered the same for all people. There are known facts when the need for creativity and spiritual improvement became dominant not after satisfaction of all other needs (biological, security, recognition, etc.), but, in fact, on the verge of survival, when the basic needs for food were not yet satisfied, housing and security.

Any of the above needs is characterized by a focus on some object, encourages a person to master this object.

A biological need encourages a person to master the universal life resources, a material need has as its object the material means of satisfying all needs, a social need encourages a person to master the forms of communication and communication with other people. The subject of spiritual need is spirituality. But what is spirituality?

Spirituality and consciousness are concepts of the same order. But not all consciousness is spiritual. For example, a worker who performs operations on a factory conveyor does them with skill. But these actions are technological, unspiritual. The alcoholic makes a conscious choice of alcoholic beverages, as well as the choice of food as a snack. But he does not realize the reasonable limits of the use of alcoholic beverages, is not able, due to the enslavement of passion, to rise above it and falls into an animal state. The main reason for this decline is lack of spirituality.

Possessing spiritual abilities, a person has spiritual needs. Already in the early years of childhood, glimpses of spiritual life are noticed in the child - fear, anger, pleasure. In the years of youth, youth and adulthood, under favorable conditions, the spiritual development of a person expands, refines, improves, with the onset of old age it stops at the height reached and then, as the body weakens, weakens more and more. Spiritual life, according to its development, state, influence of the material organism and the external environment, creates spiritual needs for a person. First, simpler, coarser ones appear, mainly responding to the desire to satisfy the most powerful material needs, and then more subtle and more complex ones appear.

During its long life, humanity has already identified the leading spiritual needs. They are also called the highest or universal values, because. are important to one degree or another for most people. Universal values include, for example, the categories of Love, Happiness, Friendship - spiritual and physical closeness with a loved one, love for children, a happy family life, the presence of true friends. The list can be continued: physical and mental Health, the opportunity to be creative, enjoy the Beauty of nature and art, have an Interesting job, and, in general, lead an Active active life. Spiritual needs include Free will, as independence in one's actions and actions, and Self-confidence, as freedom from internal contradictions.

To explain the phenomenon of spirituality, N.M. Berezhnoy ("Man and his needs") uses the concept of transcendence. The multifaceted meaning of this concept is widely disclosed in the philosophy of I. Kant. But we are interested in transcendence only in relation to spirituality.

Transcendence is going beyond the limits of the everyday natural existence of a person, beyond the limits of the understanding of the world achieved by a person. To transcend means to overcome the limits of one's empirical existence, to overcome oneself, to strive to become higher, to reach a new round of freedom.

Spirituality is the transcendence of consciousness beyond the limits of everyday life to the height of religious feeling, aesthetic world experience, a comprehensive philosophical comprehension of the world.

Thus, spirituality is the desire to overcome oneself in one's consciousness, achieve lofty goals, follow a personal and social ideal, universal human values. Spirituality is also manifested in the desire for beauty, for the contemplation of nature, for classical works of literature and art. Culture is the substance of spirituality, in it is the quintessence of the spiritual experience of mankind.

There is such a thing as "hardness of mind". So they say about a person who consistently realizes once the chosen ideal, turning its achievement into the meaning of his whole life.

A person with firmness of mind will not succumb to difficulties, will not panic before difficult life situations, will not be tempted by monetary promises in return for his honor and dignity, will not change his beliefs for opportunistic reasons. He will perform all his actions according to the criteria of honor, justice, truth. There is no nobler task for young people than cultivating fortitude in oneself, for this is the surest way to gain the meaning of life, to overcome life's hardships and tribal failures. Spirituality is the most valuable wealth of a person, it can neither be bought nor borrowed from anyone, it can only be shaped by one's own lilies. Only a spiritually rich person is capable of true disinterested friendship, of lasting love that binds a man and a woman through marriage.

The characteristic of spirituality is not limited to the sphere of consciousness, it can be realized in individual life only if the individual has developed volitional qualities, his ability to direct his life energy in a certain direction, and an unspiritual person is, first of all, a weak-willed, spineless person. Although in themselves developed volitional qualities are not akin to spirituality.

Summing up, spirituality is not just the focus of the functions of consciousness, it is a function of the active essence of a person. Accumulating knowledge about himself and the outside world, a person enriches his consciousness with internal energy, which seeks to express itself in the spirit.

Spiritual needs are the desire to acquire and enrich one's spirituality. The arsenal of spirituality is infinitely diverse: knowledge about the world, society and man, art, literature, philosophy, music, art, religion.

The process of satisfying spiritual needs is called spiritual consumption, familiarization with spiritual culture.

The most important spiritual need of a person is in knowledge. Philosophers of different epochs spoke about it. Aristotle wrote: "All people by nature strive for knowledge." A French thinker of the XVI century. M. Montaigne argued: "there is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge."

Another important spiritual need is aesthetic. The desire to master the world according to the laws of beauty, to see harmony in nature, in people, to deeply feel music, painting, poetry, to improve human relations - all these are the facets of a single aesthetic need.

Another spiritual human need is communication. Love for a person, friendship, fellowship are truly human needs. Moral and psychological support, attention to each other, sympathy, empathy, exchange of ideas, joint creativity - these are some of the manifestations of the need for communication.

2. Spiritual needs as an element of the spiritual life of society

The structure of the spiritual life of society is very complex. The main elements of the spiritual life of society are considered to be:

spiritual needs;

Spiritual activity and production;

Spiritual values;

Spiritual consumption;

spiritual relations;

Manifestations of interpersonal spiritual communication.

Spiritual needs give rise to activities aimed at satisfying them. There is a kind of movement to each other: the activity of the actor - with the activity of the spectator, etc.

The spiritual life of society is inconceivable without the combination of spiritual production and spiritual consumption. No one can enjoy music that is not created! In the spiritual life of society, activities aimed at the creation, preservation and dissemination of spiritual values, spiritual needs and spiritual consumption are an inseparable unity.

Spiritual values most often appear before us in material form. A book is a spiritual value, but at the same time a thing, an object.

Spiritual consumption is a special type of activity and, therefore, it has its own focus, requires certain efforts, the use of appropriate means.

In the process of spiritual consumption, the means to achieve the goal are, on the one hand, material opportunities, on the other hand, the relevant knowledge and skills (to read a book, you need to be able to get it in the library or buy it.) The level of education and general culture of the individual directly affects the consumption of spiritual values.

The most common means of introducing spiritual values are books, radio and television.

The spiritual needs of a person are internal motivations for creativity, the creation of spiritual values and their development, for spiritual communication. Unlike natural, spiritual needs are set not biologically, but socially. The individual's need to master the sign-symbolic world of culture has the character of an objective necessity for him, otherwise he will not become a man and will not be able to live in society. However, this need does not arise on its own. It must be formed and developed by the social context, the environment of the individual in the complex and lengthy process of his upbringing and education.

At the same time, at first, society forms in a person only the most elementary spiritual needs that ensure his socialization. Spiritual needs of a higher order - the development of the wealth of world culture, participation in their creation, etc. - society can form only indirectly, through a system of spiritual values that serve as guidelines in the spiritual self-development of individuals.

Spiritual needs are fundamentally unlimited. There are no limits to the growth of the needs of the spirit. The natural limiters of such growth can only be the volumes of spiritual wealth already accumulated by mankind, the possibilities and strength of the desire of a person to participate in their production.

Spiritual activity is the basis of the spiritual life of society. Spiritual activity is a form of active attitude of human consciousness to the surrounding world, the result of which is: a) new ideas, images, ideas, values embodied in philosophical systems, scientific theories, works of art, moral, religious, legal and other views; b) spiritual social connections of individuals; c) the person himself.

Ideal formations as a product of spiritual activity and production have the general character of their consumption. Any spiritual value, unlike material, ideally can be the property of all. They do not decrease from consumption, like material ones, on the contrary, the more people master spiritual values, the more likely they are to increase.

A special type of spiritual activity is the dissemination of spiritual values in order to assimilate them to as many people as possible. A special role here belongs to the institutions of science, culture, education and upbringing systems.

Spiritual values - a category that indicates the human, social and cultural significance of various spiritual formations (ideas, theories, images) considered in the context of "good and evil", "truth or falsehood", "beautiful or ugly", "fair or unfair" . The social nature of the person himself and the conditions of his existence are expressed in spiritual values.

Values are a form of reflection by the public consciousness of objective tendencies in the development of society. In terms of the beautiful and the ugly, good and evil, and others, humanity expresses its attitude to the actual reality and opposes to it a certain ideal state of society, which must be established. Any value is "raised" above reality, contains the due, and not the real. On the one hand, this sets the goal, the vector of development of society, on the other hand, it creates the prerequisites for the separation of this ideal essence from its "earthly" basis and is capable of disorienting society through myths, utopias, and illusions. In addition, values can become obsolete and, having irretrievably lost their meaning, cease to correspond to the new era.

A person becomes spiritual when he has needs based on non-biological characteristics of the body, that is, the need to acquire new knowledge, the need to effectively exploit this knowledge, the need to communicate with art, the need for creativity, self-analysis, self-improvement, empathy and sympathy for surroundings and many others.

These needs vary from person to person. Faith in God, for example, may not be included in it. (In general, in my understanding, “believer” and “spiritual” are not synonymous, and even more so, spirituality cannot be tied to any particular religion: a Muslim and a Buddhist, a Krishnaite and a Shintoist can be equally likely to be or not be “spiritual” people.)

The ability to experience and satisfy spiritual needs leads to the complexity of the personality, its improvement, the formation of a more flexible response to the complex and changing conditions of the surrounding world. The existence of a developed complex of spiritual needs leaves an imprint on the entire structure of the personality, elevates and ennobles the simplest biological needs. It turns, for example, the instinct of procreation into the ability to experience love, and the food instinct into the ability to experience aesthetic pleasure from beautiful and carefully prepared food.

A person endowed with the ability to experience spiritual needs more accurately and better perceives the world around him in all its diversity. Such a person understands more easily and faster that behavior that coincides with moral norms, among other things, gives a feeling of emotional satisfaction and inner peace, makes a person more successful, easier to achieve their goals. It is beneficial to be a moral person, and this realization comes the faster, the more complex the personality.

3. Satisfaction of spiritual needs

Satisfaction of needs occurs in the process of consumption. Spiritual consumption is aimed at meeting the spiritual needs of people. It can be spontaneous, when no one is directed and a person independently, according to his taste, chooses certain spiritual values. In other cases, spiritual consumption may be forced on people by advertising, the media, popular culture, and so on. As a result of such influences, we can talk about the manipulation of consciousness, about averaging and standardizing the needs and values of people.

At the same time, the conscious consumption of genuine spiritual values - cognitive, artistic, moral, etc. - acts as a purposeful creation and enrichment of the spiritual world of people. Any society is interested, from the point of view of the long term and the future, in raising the spiritual level and culture of individuals and social communities. The lowering of the spiritual level and culture leads to the degradation of society in almost all its dimensions.

Spiritual needs give rise to various activities aimed at satisfying them. Musician-listener, writer-reader. Spiritual needs bring to life spiritual and practical activity, on the one hand, and the activity of spiritual needs, on the other.

Features of spiritual consumption are as follows:

can be used repeatedly;

spiritual values in the process of consumption do not disappear, but enrich the spiritual world of a person;

the process of spiritual consumption is also a process of spiritual production.

Spiritual consumption is a special type of activity and, therefore, it has its own focus, requires certain efforts, the use of appropriate means. In the process of spiritual consumption, the means to achieve the goal are, on the one hand, material opportunities, on the other hand, the relevant knowledge and skills (to read a book, you need to be able to get it in the library or buy it.) The level of education and general culture of the individual directly affects the consumption of spiritual values.

The most common means of introducing spiritual values are books, radio and television.

Summarize. The spiritual activity of people is diverse, each has a wide choice of its forms and types. Such activity can become his profession: he will be a scientist or a writer, an actor or an artist, a teacher or a librarian, a tour guide or a journalist. He can join amateur spiritual creativity by participating in a folk theater, a literary association, the creation of a folk museum, and amateur art competitions. And most importantly - everyone communicates with books, music, theater and cinema. And on what values a person prefers, what he himself largely depends on.

Conclusion

Needs are the basis and driving force of human behavior, its motivation and purpose. The objects of the external world, with the help of which a person satisfies his needs, are called values.

According to the classification proposed by N.M. Berezhnov, the first level of basic needs are divided into four groups - biological, material, social and spiritual needs. In each group, the so-called basic (basic, fundamental) needs are distinguished, from which many other needs (quasi-needs) are derived, which, in fact, are reducible to one or another basic need.

Man has spiritual needs that have a socio-cultural origin.

Spiritual consumption is the process of satisfying the spiritual needs of a person. The most important spiritual needs of a person are the cognitive need, the need for communication, the aesthetic need.

Unlike material values, spiritual values do not disappear in the process of their consumption, they become part of the spiritual world of a person, enrich him spiritually. At the same time, perception, comprehension of spiritual values is subjective, it is associated with a unique individual experience of a person. That is why spiritual consumption is often a creative process leading to the modification of a person's personal characteristics.

The specificity of the consumption of spiritual values is largely determined by the level of education and the general culture of the individual. The higher the educational and general cultural level of a person, the more actual his spiritual needs are, the higher the demands he makes on the quality of consumed spiritual values.

Hegel's view of human needs

From Hegel's point of view, the basis of the real world is an absolute idea - a spiritual principle, an impersonal superhuman consciousness. It can be figuratively imagined, for example, as a kind of invisible radiation penetrating the Universe and controlling the processes occurring in it. Having created man, the absolute idea turns into the world spirit. The world spirit has an ineradicable need for knowledge of itself (from a materialistic point of view, this is simply the need of society for knowledge of the world, which has been given some kind of supernatural, mystical meaning). In order to know itself, the world spirit unfolds its inner content, going through a long path of historical development. At the same time, he creates the whole variety of manifestations and structural elements of society - religion, art, science, philosophy, family, state, morality, law. The history of society is the history of self-knowledge of the world spirit. The German philosopher turns out that history is driven by the need for knowledge, torn off from man and transformed by Hegel's imagination into some kind of mysterious superhuman force. From this follows a peculiar understanding of all other needs. The main among them, according to Hegel, are spiritual needs, while material ones (“for example, the need for food, drink, clothing”), although they exist, do not affect the course of development of civilization. Behind all human needs and the means of their realization is the world spirit - the life and activity of people is interpreted as satisfying the need of the world spirit for self-development and self-knowledge.

Hegel did not develop a complete concept of needs, but expressed a number of profound new ideas about their nature. If the French Enlightenment vaguely talked about the fact that one person "delivers" to another the means to fulfill his desires, then Hegel clearly and clearly pointed out the source of their satisfaction: "Human sweat and human labor provide a person with the means to satisfy his needs." The need for labor is an essential attribute and the most important achievement of civilization: “The barbarian is lazy and differs from a cultured person in that he stares blankly and indifferently in front of him, for practical culture consists precisely in the habit and need for occupation. The unskillful one always produces something other than what he wants to produce, because he is not master over his own doing, while that worker can be called skillful, who produces an object as it should be, i.e., such as this is required by the logic of the development of the world spirit. The need for labor ("occupation") is being improved in the history of civilization.

Hegel illustrates the idea of the historical development of needs by comparing man and animal: “The animal has a limited range of means and ways of satisfying its also limited needs. A person proves his universality, first of all by creating a variety of needs and means, and then by distinguishing in the specific needs of individual parts and sides ... ". Needs don't just change and become more complex. The German philosopher believes that they will change endlessly: "There is no limit to the orientation of the social state towards an indefinite increase in diversity and the specification of needs, means and pleasures, just as there is no limit to the difference between natural needs and the needs of cultured people." A more detailed analysis of needs in Hegel was hindered by the idea of them as a product of a universal spiritual principle - an absolute idea.

Karl Marx's opinion on human needs

Hegel's student Ludwig Feuerbach returned to the concept of philosophical materialism and began to explain needs from the natural, material nature of the human body. But to rise above the interpretation of man both as a product of the world spirit and as nature was destined for another, the most outstanding student of Hegel - Karl Marx.

In his early works, Marx describes the relationship between man and nature in a new way, the Hegelian concept of the world spirit is completely denied. (This spiritual superhuman reality is recognized by Marxists as a distorted, fantastic image of human consciousness). The main human needs are formed and manifested in the relationship of man with nature and in the relationship between people.

Hegel wrote about the special position of man in the world, about his "universality", "universality". In the materialist conception of Marx, this approach has a more concrete and definite meaning: “Practically, the universality of man is manifested precisely in that universality that turns all nature into his inorganic body, since it serves, firstly, as a direct means of life for man, and secondly , matter, object and instrument of his life activity. Nature is the inorganic body of man...”. The amazing ability that allowed a person to satisfy his needs due to the endless, unlimited, "universal" processing of all the matter of the nature around him is labor.

What is the main difference between labor and animal activity? First, labor begins with the manufacture of tools. A tool of labor is a special object that a person places between himself and the substance of nature to enhance his impact on it. It is the tool of labor that allows a person to rise in a certain sense above nature, to rise above all living beings. Secondly, work is a purposeful activity. It is inseparable from consciousness. At the beginning of the labor process, a person formulates a goal, a mental image of the necessary future he creates, and then materializes it, embodies it in a tangible material form. Let us recall Marx's well-known reasoning about the mechanism of labor activity: “The spider performs operations reminiscent of the operations of a weaver, and the bee, by building its wax cells, puts some human architects to shame. But even the worst architect differs from the best bee from the very beginning in that, before building a cell out of wax, he has already built it in his head. At the end of the labor process, a result is obtained that already at the beginning of this process was in the mind of a person, that is, ideally.

All specifically human, social needs are satisfied with the help of object-tool purposeful labor activity. Therefore, labor itself becomes the main, fundamental need of the human race. Without labor activity, which creates the whole world of artificial things (“second nature”, in the words of Marx), the human way of life is in principle impossible.

The concept of need occupies a central place in the substantiation of Marx's main philosophical idea - the concept of historical materialism, or the materialistic understanding of history. According to this concept, the determining role in the development of society, ultimately, is played by material production and the material needs of a person that it satisfies. Spiritual needs are secondary, derived from material ones, they depend on material production, although they have a less strong reverse effect on it. Outlining his philosophical conception of society, Marx emphasizes that "the first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals." People, firstly, begin to satisfy their needs, due to their physical, natural organization: to get food, equip a home, make clothes. Thus, biological needs are the initial, primary incentives for human activity. Secondly, people have new, more complex social needs, which also require satisfaction. This is how the law of the rise of needs begins to operate, which was noticed in a more primitive form by Holbach and Hegel. The mechanism of the rise of needs does not arise in living nature, since the interaction of animals of one species or another with the environment remains the same all the time, it cannot become more complicated and improve, like human labor. Thirdly, people produce other people, thereby satisfying both their personal needs (biological and social) and the general need of the entire human race to maintain their own existence. Finally, fourthly, between people in the process of production and consumption, regardless of their will and consciousness, an objective, material connection is formed. This connection is caused by their needs and the way they produce wealth. Thus, in the concept of Marx, a relationship is established between biological and social, spiritual and material, personal and social needs.

The economic analysis of human needs was continued by Marx in Capital and a number of other works.

The general philosophical concept of man in Marxism develops and clarifies those ideas about man that have been formed in science in recent centuries. Marx and his like-minded Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) considered man as the "highest color", "the highest product", the pinnacle of the development of matter. It arises "with iron necessity", matter gives rise to thinking beings "by virtue of its very nature". This concept reproduces at a higher, already scientific level the naive ancient Greek understanding of man as a microcosm, a miniature copy of the entire Universe. Precisely because a person contains all levels of complexity of the material world, his needs are directed to all spheres of this world and he can transform all these spheres. Developing the tradition of Renaissance humanism, Marxism for the first time gives it a rigorous economic justification. Thus, the highest goal and meaning of the historical process is not rapprochement with God, not self-knowledge of the absolute idea, not the satisfaction of all possible needs, but the harmonious (ideally, all-round) development of the human personality and society, creating favorable conditions for the disclosure of the abilities of the individual. Satisfaction and development of needs is a tool for unlocking the creative potential of a person. From Marx's point of view, economic laws operate in such a way that the need for highly educated, comprehensively developed workers gradually increases. The humanistic transformation of all social life will eventually become an economic necessity. They will open up possibilities for the free development of human faculties and needs deeply intertwined with them.

K. Marx and F. Engels were among the first to study the influence of the economy and the entire social environment on the development of the human personality. Man and his needs historically change, evolve. Until now, their satisfaction has been directly connected with the class struggle - the fierce rivalry of various classes and social groups in the struggle for the possession of property and for access to the material and spiritual goods produced by society. Marxism thus focused its attention predominantly on the external social determinants of personality development. The internal psychological mechanisms of the formation of needs were studied in more detail already in the 20th century. within the framework of other scientific areas - primarily in Freudianism, neo-Freudianism and existentialism.

After the death of K. Marx and F. Engels, their concepts of human societies and human needs are widely discussed, criticized, but at the same time developed and used in social sciences.

Bibliography

Berezhnoy N.M. Man and his needs. Edited by V.D. Didenko. Moscow State University of Service. 2000.

Genkin B.M. The structure of human needs. Elitarium. 2006.

Spirituality, artistic creativity, morality (materials of the "round table") // Questions of Philosophy. 1996. No. 2.

Reflections on ... // Philosophical Almanac. Issue 6. - M .: MAKS Press, 2003.

Uledov A.K. Spiritual life of society. M., 1980.

Philosophical encyclopedic dictionary. M. 1983.

Rubinshtein S.L. Fundamentals of General Psychology. In 2 vols. M., 1989.

Pustorolev P.P. Analysis of the concept of crime. M.: 2005.

Marx K., Engels F. Works. 2nd ed. T. 3. p. 19.

Hegel G. V. "Philosophy of Law". M.; L.: Sotsekgiz, 1934. p. 218

spiritual needs

As we noted above, any need is characterized by a focus on some object, encourages a person to master this object.

Spirituality and consciousness are concepts of the same order. But not all consciousness is spiritual. For example, a worker who performs operations on a factory conveyor does them with skill. But these actions are technological, unspiritual. To explain the phenomenon of spirituality, it is necessary to use the concept of transcendence. The multifaceted meaning of this concept is widely disclosed in the philosophy of I. Kant. But we are interested in transcendence only in relation to spirituality.

Spirituality is the most valuable wealth of a person, it cannot be bought or borrowed from anyone, it can only be formed by one's own efforts. Only a spiritually rich person is capable of true disinterested friendship, of lasting love that binds a man and a woman through marriage.

Spirituality acquires a more complete certainty by comparing it with its antipode - the unspiritual. Lack of spirituality is a consciousness that does not go beyond the limits of utilitarian use, does not rise above the bustle of everyday life, but the satisfaction of biological needs and materialism.

Such a consciousness is inherent in people without high life ideals, who are oriented towards the senseless hoarding of things, money, callous to the troubles of their neighbor, lovers of momentary happiness, "life burners".

Lack of spirituality is one of the main reasons for the loss of the human in a person; alcoholism, drug addiction, the cynicism of prostitution, immorality - all those vices that hinder social progress. An unspiritual person is an estranged person, he is estranged from the sublime form of his being.

From the above analysis of the phenomenon of spirituality, it follows that the characteristic of spirituality is not limited to the sphere of consciousness, it can be realized in individual life only if the individual has developed volitional qualities, his ability to direct his life energy in a certain direction, and an unspiritual person is, first of all, weak-willed, characterless person. Although developed volitional qualities in themselves are not akin to spirituality, under certain circumstances they can serve the forces of evil, the destruction of spiritual values. This is evidenced by many events in our national history and, in particular, in Chechnya.

Thus, spirituality is not just the focus of the functions of consciousness, it is a function of the active essence of man. By accumulating knowledge about himself and about the outside world, a person enriches his consciousness with internal energy, which seeks to break free from the fetters of matter and express itself in the spirit. The spirit breaks down physiological partitions, national differences, group differences by its striving for unity, for the integration of diversity into a single integrity.

The optimal, in my opinion, definition of need is given in. "Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary". "Needs - the need or lack of something necessary to maintain the life of an organism, a human person, a social group, society as a whole; an internal motivator of activity" .

1. The concept of spiritual needs and their place in human needs

The pluralism of needs is determined by the versatility of human nature, as well as the variety of conditions (natural and social) in which they manifest themselves.

Any of the above needs is characterized by a focus on some object, encourages a person to master this object.

There is such a thing as "hardness of mind". So they say about a person who consistently realizes once the chosen ideal, turning its achievement into the meaning of his whole life.

The process of satisfying spiritual needs is called spiritual consumption, familiarization with spiritual culture.