The virtual and the ideal: the problem of the relationship between the categories

The philosophical categories of the virtual and the ideal are often used as synonyms. Admittedly, in rela-tion to material being, these categories denote one class of existence. However, these categories should have not only a moment of identity but also a moment of difference, this expressing their specificity in re-lation to each other. Consideration of the ideal within the framework of the methodology of the activity approach (E.V. Ilyenkov) allows us to identify not only its substrate, which is social activity, but also its processual nature — the transition from one form to another, the «representation» of one material object through another. Meanwhile, the category of the virtual captures this transition as the transformation of the possible into the actual (the concept of S.S. Khoruzhy) or the potential into the actual (the concept of N.A. Nosov). At the same time, in the context of the analysis of the processuality and formation of ideal phenomena, the question of their substrate comes second. In this respect, the virtual, in contrast to the ideal, allows us to conceptualize the becoming of being universally, without regard to its substrate. The virtual can be defined as a philosophical category that characterizes being in becoming — in the transition from the possible to the real, from the potential to the actual. In the becoming and unfolding of ideal content, the fundamental properties of the virtual are manifested: activity, dynamism, and processuality. Virtuality is a moment of ideal being, its processual side, which reflects its dynamism, the transition from one of its forms to another. Thus, the virtual is a mode of existence of the ideal. In other words, the ideal answers the question of why one material object represents another, while the virtual — the question of how this happens. Defining the differences between the virtual and the ideal opens up the prospect of analyzing their functioning as different elements of social being.