Philosophy of science and technology Stepin Vyacheslav Semenovich
Introduction. Subject of philosophy of science (Rozov M.A., Stepin V.S.)
Introduction.
Subject of philosophy of science
(Rozov M.A., Stepin V.S.)
Now, at the end of the twentieth century, looking back into the past, we can say with confidence that not a single sphere of spiritual culture has had such a significant and dynamic impact on society as science. Both in our worldview and in the world of things around us, we are everywhere dealing with the consequences of its development. We have become so familiar with many of them that we are no longer inclined to notice them, much less see special achievements in them.
The pace of our own growth and transformation of science is incomparable. Almost no one, except historians, reads the works of even such luminaries of natural science of the last century as Alexander Humboldt, Faraday, Maxwell or Darwin. No one studies physics anymore based on the works of Einstein, Bohr, and Heisenberg, although they are almost our contemporaries. Science is all directed towards the future.
Every scientist, even a great one, is doomed to the fact that his results will eventually be reformulated, expressed in a different language, and his ideas will be transformed. Science is alien to individualism; it calls on everyone to make sacrifices for the sake of a common cause, although it preserves in social memory the names of great and small creators who contributed to its development. But after their publication, ideas begin to live an independent life, not subject to the will and desires of their creators. Sometimes it happens that a scientist until the end of his days cannot accept what his own ideas have become. They no longer belong to him, he is not able to keep up with their development and control their use.
It is not surprising that in our time science is often the object of fierce criticism; it is accused of all mortal sins, including the horrors of Chernobyl and the environmental crisis in general. But, firstly, criticism of this kind is only an indirect recognition of the enormous role and power of science, because no one would think of blaming modern music, painting or architecture for anything like this. And secondly, it is absurd to blame science for the fact that society is not always able to use its results for its own benefit. Matches were not created for children to play with fire.
What has already been said is enough to understand that science is a completely worthy object of study. Nowadays, it has found itself under the cross attention of several disciplines, including history, sociology, economics, psychology, and scientific studies. Philosophy and methodology of science occupy a special place in this series. Science is multifaceted and multifaceted, but first of all it is the production of knowledge. Science does not exist without knowledge, just as the automobile industry does not exist without a car. One can therefore be interested in the history of scientific institutions, the sociology and psychology of scientific teams, but it is the production of knowledge that makes science a science. And it is from this point of view that we will approach it in the future. The philosophy of science tries to answer the following basic questions: what is scientific knowledge, how is it structured, what are the principles of its organization and functioning, what is science as the production of knowledge, what are the patterns of formation and development of scientific disciplines, how do they differ from each other and how do they interact? ? This is, of course, not a complete list, but it gives a rough idea of what is primarily of interest to the philosophy of science.
So, we will consider science as the production of knowledge. But even from this point of view, it represents something extremely multicomponent and heterogeneous. These are also the experimental means necessary for studying phenomena - instruments and installations with the help of which these phenomena are recorded and reproduced. These are the methods by which objects of research are identified and cognized (fragments and aspects of the objective world to which scientific knowledge is directed). These are people engaged in scientific research, writing articles or monographs. These are institutions and organizations such as laboratories, institutes, academies, and scientific journals. These are systems of knowledge, recorded in the form of texts and filling the shelves of libraries. These are conferences, discussions, dissertation defenses, scientific expeditions. A list of this kind can go on and on, but even now the enormous heterogeneity of the listed phenomena is striking. What do they have in common? Is it possible to reduce all this diversity to one thing?
The simplest and fairly obvious assumption may be that science is a certain human activity, isolated in the process of division of labor and aimed at obtaining knowledge. It is worth characterizing this activity, its goals, means and products, and it will unite all the listed phenomena, as for example, the activity of a carpenter unites boards, glue, varnish, a desk, a plane and much more. In other words, the idea suggests itself that studying science means studying a scientist at work, studying the technology of his activities to produce knowledge. It is difficult to object to this.
True, to a large extent, the scientist himself studies and describes his own activities: scientific texts, for example, contain a detailed description of the experiments performed, methods for solving problems, etc. But having described the experiment, the scientist, with rare exceptions, does not try to trace how It was he who came up with the idea of this experiment, and even if he tries, the results of such work are no longer organically included in the content of special scientific works.
Without going into details and roughening the picture, we can say that a scientist working in one or another special field of science, as a rule, limits himself to describing those aspects of his activity that can also be presented as a characteristic of the phenomena being studied. So, for example, when a chemist describes a method for obtaining certain compounds, then this is not only a description of the activity, but also a description of the compounds themselves: such and such a substance can be obtained in such and such a way. But not everything in a scientist’s activity can be represented in this way. Scientific research procedures in different fields of knowledge have much in common, and this alone takes them beyond the narrow professional interests of one or another special science.
So, one aspect of studying science might be studying a scientist at work. The results of such a study may have a normative nature, because by describing the activity that led to success, we, without meaning to, promote a positive example, and the description of unsuccessful activity sounds like a warning.
But is it legitimate to reduce the study of science to a description of the activities of individual people? Science is far from just an activity. Activity is always personalized, we can talk about the activity of a specific person or group of people, and science acts as a kind of supra-individual, transpersonal phenomenon. This is not just the work of Galileo, Maxwell or Darwin. Of course, the works of these scientists influenced science, but each of them worked within the framework of the science of his time and obeyed its requirements and laws. If we somehow understand the meaning of the expressions “work in science”, “influence science”, “obey the demands of science”, then we have intuitively already contrasted science with the activities of an individual or group of people and must now answer the question: what is represents this impersonal whole, peeking out from behind the back of each individual representative?
Looking ahead, we can say that we are talking about the scientific traditions within which the scientist works. The researchers themselves are aware of the power of these traditions. This is what our famous geographer and soil scientist B.B. Polynov writes, allegedly quoting excerpts from the diary of a foreign scientist: “Whatever I take, be it a test tube or a glass rod, no matter what I approach: an autoclave or a microscope, - all this was once invented by someone, and all this forces me to make certain movements and take a certain position. I feel like a trained animal, and this similarity is all the more complete because, before learning to accurately and quickly carry out the silent orders of all these things and the ghosts of the past hidden behind them, I actually went through a long school of training as a student, doctoral student and doctor." And further: "Nobody cannot blame me for the incorrect use of literary sources. The very thought of plagiarism disgusts me. And yet, it did not take much effort on my part to make sure that in several dozen of my works, which have given me the reputation of an original scientist and are readily cited by my colleagues and students, there is not a single fact and not a single thought that was not foreseen, prepared or in one way or another provoked by my teachers, predecessors or the bickering of my contemporaries.”
It may seem that this is a caricature. But B.B. Polynov himself summarizes the above notes as follows: “Everything that the author of the diary wrote is nothing more than the actual real conditions of the creativity of many dozens, hundreds of naturalists around the world. Moreover, these are the very conditions that alone can guarantee the development of science, that is, the use of the experience of the past and the further growth of an infinite number of germs of all kinds of ideas, sometimes hidden in the distant past.”
So, science is an activity that is possible only thanks to tradition or, more precisely, the set of traditions within the framework of which this activity is carried out. It itself can be considered as a special type of traditions transmitted in human culture. Activities and traditions are two different, although inextricably linked, aspects of science that require, generally speaking, different approaches and research methods. Of course, activity is carried out in traditions, that is, it does not exist without them, and traditions, in turn, do not exist outside of activity. But when we study traditions, we describe a certain natural process, while acts of activity are always purposeful. They involve the choice of values and goals by the subject of the activity, and it is impossible to understand the activity without fixing the goal. Philosophy of science, being a humanitarian discipline, faces here the cardinal dilemma of explanation and understanding for humanitarian knowledge.
Let's look at it in more detail. Let's imagine an experimenter in a laboratory, surrounded by instruments and various kinds of experimental setups. He must understand the purpose of all these devices; for him they are a kind of text that he can read and interpret in a certain way. Of course, the microscope standing on his table was not invented and made by him; of course, it was used before. Our experimenter is traditional. He may, however, object and say that he uses a microscope not because it was done before, but because it suits his present purposes. True, the goals are quite traditional, but our experimenter again chose them not because they were traditional, but because they seemed interesting and attractive to him in the current situation. All this is true, our experimenter is not deceiving us. Having studied traditions, we therefore still do not understand activity. To do this, we need to delve into her goals and motives, to see the world through the eyes of an experimenter.
The relationship between the understanding and explanatory approach is a very complex problem not only in the philosophy of science, but also in humanitarian knowledge in general.
Analyzing science as a tradition and as an activity are two methods of analysis that complement each other. Each of them highlights a particular aspect of the complex whole that is science. And their combination allows us to develop a more complete understanding of science.
Considering science as an activity aimed at producing new knowledge and as a tradition, it is important to take into account the historical variability of scientific activity and scientific tradition itself. In other words, the philosophy of science, when analyzing the patterns of development of scientific knowledge, must take into account the historicism of science. In the process of its development, not only new knowledge is accumulated and previously established ideas about the world are reconstructed. In this process, all components of scientific activity change: the objects it studies, means and methods of research, features of scientific communications, forms of division and cooperation of scientific work, etc.
Even a cursory comparison of modern science and the science of previous eras reveals striking changes. A scientist of the classical era (from the 17th to the beginning of the 20th century), say Newton or Maxwell, would hardly have accepted the ideas and methods of quantum mechanical description, since he considered it unacceptable to include references to the observer and means of observation in the theoretical description and explanation. Such references would have been perceived in the classical era as a rejection of the ideal of objectivity. But Bohr and Heisenberg, one of the creators of quantum mechanics, on the contrary, argued that it is precisely this method of theoretical description of the microworld that guarantees the objectivity of knowledge about the new reality. A different era means different ideals of science.
In our time, the very nature of scientific activity has changed in comparison with the research of the classical era. The science of small communities of scientists has been replaced by modern “big science” with its almost industrial use of complex and expensive instrument systems (such as large telescopes, modern systems for the separation of chemical elements, particle accelerators), with a sharp increase in the number of people engaged in scientific activities and serving her; with large associations of specialists in various fields, with targeted government funding of scientific programs, etc.
The functions of science in the life of society, its place in culture and its interaction with other areas of cultural creativity change from era to era. Already in the 17th century. The emerging natural sciences declared their claims to the formation of dominant ideological images in the culture. Having acquired ideological functions, science began to increasingly influence other spheres of social life, including the everyday consciousness of people. The value of education based on the acquisition of scientific knowledge began to be taken for granted.
In the second half of the 19th century, science was increasingly being used in engineering and technology. While maintaining its cultural and ideological function, it acquires a new social function - it becomes the productive force of society.
The twentieth century can be characterized as the ever-expanding use of science in a wide variety of areas of social life. Science is beginning to be increasingly used in various areas of managing social processes, serving as the basis for qualified expert assessments and management decision-making. By connecting with the authorities, it really begins to influence the choice of certain paths of social development. This new function of science is sometimes characterized as its transformation into a social force. At the same time, the ideological functions of science and its role as a direct productive force are strengthened.
But if the very strategies of scientific activity and its functions in the life of society change, then new questions arise. Will the face of science and its functions in the life of society continue to change? Has scientific rationality always occupied a priority place in the scale of values, or is this characteristic only of a certain type of culture and certain civilizations? Is it possible for science to lose its former value status and its former social functions? And finally, what changes can be expected in the system of scientific activity itself and in its interaction with other spheres of culture at the next civilizational turning point, in connection with humanity’s search for ways out of modern global crises?
All these questions act as formulations of problems discussed in modern philosophy of science. Taking this issue into account allows us to clarify our understanding of its subject. The subject of philosophy of science is general patterns and trends of scientific knowledge as a special activity for the production of scientific knowledge, taken in their historical development and considered in a historically changing sociocultural context.
Modern philosophy of science considers scientific knowledge as a sociocultural phenomenon. And one of its important tasks is to study how the ways of forming new scientific knowledge change historically and what are the mechanisms of influence of sociocultural factors on this process.
In order to identify general patterns of development of scientific knowledge, the philosophy of science must rely on material from the history of various specific sciences. It develops certain hypotheses and models for the development of knowledge, testing them against relevant historical material. All this determines the close connection between the philosophy of science and historical and scientific research.
The philosophy of science has always turned to the analysis of the structure of the dynamics of knowledge of specific scientific disciplines. But at the same time, it is focused on comparing different scientific disciplines and identifying general patterns of their development. Just as one cannot demand from a biologist that he limit himself to the study of one organism or one species of organisms, so one cannot deprive the philosophy of science of its empirical basis and the possibility of comparisons and comparisons.
For a long time, in the philosophy of science, mathematics was chosen as a model for studying the structure and dynamics of knowledge. However, there is no clearly defined layer of empirical knowledge here, and therefore, when analyzing mathematical texts, it is difficult to identify those features of the structure and functioning of the theory that are associated with its relationship to the empirical basis. That is why the philosophy of science, especially since the end of the 19th century, has increasingly focused on the analysis of natural science knowledge, which contains a variety of different types of theories and a developed empirical basis.
Concepts and models of the dynamics of science developed on this historical material may require adjustments when transferred to other sciences. But this is exactly how the development of cognition occurs: ideas developed and tested on one material are then transferred to another area and modified if their inconsistency with the new material is discovered.
One can often come across the statement that ideas about the development of knowledge in the analysis of natural sciences cannot be transferred to the field of social cognition.
The basis for such prohibitions is the distinction made back in the 19th century between the sciences of nature and the sciences of the spirit. But at the same time, it is necessary to be aware that knowledge in the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences has common features precisely because it is scientific knowledge. Their difference is rooted in the specifics of the subject area. In the social and human sciences, the subject includes a person, his consciousness, and often acts as a text that has human meaning. Recording such an object and studying it requires special methods and cognitive procedures. However, with all the complexity of the subject of social sciences and humanities, the focus on its objective study and search for laws is a mandatory characteristic of the scientific approach. This circumstance is not always taken into account by supporters of the “absolute specificity” of humanitarian and socio-historical knowledge. Its opposition to the natural sciences is sometimes made incorrectly. Humanitarian knowledge is interpreted in an extremely broad way: it includes philosophical essays, journalism, artistic criticism, fiction, etc. But the correct formulation of the problem should be different. It requires a clear distinction between the concepts of “social and humanitarian knowledge” and “scientific social and humanitarian knowledge.” The first includes the results of scientific research, but is not limited to them, since it also involves other, non-scientific forms of creativity. The second is limited only by the scope of scientific research. Of course, this research itself is not isolated from other spheres of culture, it interacts with them, but this is not the basis for identifying science with other, although closely related, forms of human creativity.
If we proceed from a comparison of the sciences about society and man, on the one hand, and the sciences about nature, on the other, then we must recognize the presence in their cognitive procedures of both general and specific content. But methodological schemes developed in one area can capture some general features of the structure and dynamics of cognition in another area, and then the methodology may well develop its concepts in the same way as is done in any other area of scientific knowledge, including the social sciences and humanities . It can transfer models developed in one area of cognition to another and then correct them, adapting them to the specifics of the new subject.
In this case, at least two circumstances should be taken into account. Firstly, the philosophical and methodological analysis of science, regardless of whether it is focused on natural science or the social and humanities, itself belongs to the sphere of historical social knowledge. Even when a philosopher and methodologist deals with specialized texts of natural science, his subject is not physical fields, not elementary particles, not the processes of development of organisms, but scientific knowledge, its dynamics, research methods taken in their historical development. It is clear that scientific knowledge and its dynamics is not a natural, but a social process, a phenomenon of human culture, and therefore its study is a special type of spiritual science.
Secondly, it must be taken into account that the rigid demarcation between the sciences of nature and the sciences of spirit had its foundations for science in the 19th century, but it largely loses its force in relation to the science of the last third of the 20th century. This will be discussed in more detail in the following discussion. But let us first note that in the natural sciences of our days, studies of complex developing systems that have “synergetic characteristics” and include man and his activities as their component are beginning to play an increasingly important role. The methodology for studying such objects brings together natural science and humanities, erasing the rigid boundaries between them.
What does the philosophy of science give to a person who studies it without being a specialist in this field? In our pragmatic age, people usually expect immediate benefits from learning something. What benefit can anyone who works or is preparing to work in science on its specific problems derive from the philosophy of science? Can they find in the philosophy of science some universal method for solving problems, a kind of “algorithm of discovery”? Mentally turning to specialists in the field of specific sciences on this issue, one could say the following: no one will help you in solving your specific problems except yourself. Philosophy of science does not necessarily set out to teach you anything in your own field. She does not specifically formulate any specific recipes or instructions; she explains, describes, but does not prescribe. Of course, as already noted, any description of activity, including the activity of a scientist, can also be considered as a prescription - “do the same,” but this can only be a by-product of the philosophy of science. The philosophy of science in our time has overcome its previously inherent illusions in creating a universal method or system of methods that could ensure the success of research for all sciences at all times. It revealed the historical variability not only of specific methods of science, but also of the deep methodological attitudes that characterize scientific rationality. Modern philosophy of science has shown that scientific rationality itself develops historically and that the dominant attitudes of scientific consciousness can change depending on the type of objects being studied and under the influence of changes in culture, to which science makes its specific contribution. Does this mean that philosophy of science is generally useless for a scientist? No, that doesn't mean it. Let's try to clarify this somewhat paradoxical situation.
Is it possible to work in the field of science without understanding what it is? Probably possible, although to certain limits. To the same extent, for example, you can screw in a bolt on a car factory assembly line without having the slightest idea about the production process as a whole, or what a car is. Moreover, it is highly doubtful that expanding your understanding of the manufacturing process will significantly help in tightening a single bolt. However, if you set yourself the creative task of further development of the automotive industry, then here you may already need ideas about the previous stages and patterns of this development, and knowledge of related fields, and much, much more. It's hard to even predict what you might need. The uncertainty of the expected preliminary information is a specific feature of creative tasks. In fact, we have a tautology: if you know exactly what you need to solve a problem, then the problem is not creative. That is why the philosophy of science is not needed by a scientific artisan, it is not needed when solving standard and traditional problems, but genuine creative work, as a rule, leads a scientist to problems of philosophy and methodology. He needs to look at his field from the outside, understand the patterns of its development, comprehend it in the context of science as a whole, and needs to broaden his horizons. The philosophy of science gives such an outlook, but whether you benefit from it is up to you.
You can approach the issue from slightly different positions, from the position of value orientations, from the point of view of the meaningfulness of human life. Can we be satisfied with simply screwing a bolt on a conveyor belt without realizing a more global goal, without understanding the process in which we are a participant? Probably not capable. And this means that any scientist needs to understand what science and scientific knowledge are, to understand that global historical process of knowledge, on the altar of which he selflessly lays his head. The philosophy of science also serves these tasks.
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Vyacheslav Stepin, Mikhail Rozov, Vitaly Gorokhov
Philosophy of Science and Technology
Introduction.
Subject of philosophy of science
(Rozov M.A., Stepin V.S.)
Now, at the end of the twentieth century, looking back into the past, we can say with confidence that not a single sphere of spiritual culture has had such a significant and dynamic impact on society as science. Both in our worldview and in the world of things around us, we are everywhere dealing with the consequences of its development. We have become so familiar with many of them that we are no longer inclined to notice them, much less see special achievements in them.
The pace of our own growth and transformation of science is incomparable. Almost no one, except historians, reads the works of even such luminaries of natural science of the last century as Alexander Humboldt, Faraday, Maxwell or Darwin. No one studies physics anymore based on the works of Einstein, Bohr, and Heisenberg, although they are almost our contemporaries. Science is all directed towards the future.
Every scientist, even a great one, is doomed to the fact that his results will eventually be reformulated, expressed in a different language, and his ideas will be transformed. Science is alien to individualism; it calls on everyone to make sacrifices for the sake of a common cause, although it preserves in social memory the names of great and small creators who contributed to its development. But after their publication, ideas begin to live an independent life, not subject to the will and desires of their creators. Sometimes it happens that a scientist until the end of his days cannot accept what his own ideas have become. They no longer belong to him, he is not able to keep up with their development and control their use.
It is not surprising that in our time science is often the object of fierce criticism; it is accused of all mortal sins, including the horrors of Chernobyl and the environmental crisis in general. But, firstly, criticism of this kind is only an indirect recognition of the enormous role and power of science, because no one would think of blaming modern music, painting or architecture for anything like this. And secondly, it is absurd to blame science for the fact that society is not always able to use its results for its own benefit. Matches were not created for children to play with fire.
What has already been said is enough to understand that science is a completely worthy object of study. Nowadays, it has found itself under the cross attention of several disciplines, including history, sociology, economics, psychology, and scientific studies. Philosophy and methodology of science occupy a special place in this series. Science is multifaceted and multifaceted, but first of all it is the production of knowledge. Science does not exist without knowledge, just as the automobile industry does not exist without a car. One can therefore be interested in the history of scientific institutions, the sociology and psychology of scientific teams, but it is the production of knowledge that makes science a science. And it is from this point of view that we will approach it in the future. The philosophy of science tries to answer the following basic questions: what is scientific knowledge, how is it structured, what are the principles of its organization and functioning, what is science as the production of knowledge, what are the patterns of formation and development of scientific disciplines, how do they differ from each other and how do they interact? ? This is, of course, not a complete list, but it gives a rough idea of what is primarily of interest to the philosophy of science.
So, we will consider science as the production of knowledge. But even from this point of view, it represents something extremely multicomponent and heterogeneous. These are also the experimental means necessary for studying phenomena - instruments and installations with the help of which these phenomena are recorded and reproduced. These are the methods by which objects of research are identified and cognized (fragments and aspects of the objective world to which scientific knowledge is directed). These are people engaged in scientific research, writing articles or monographs. These are institutions and organizations such as laboratories, institutes, academies, and scientific journals. These are systems of knowledge, recorded in the form of texts and filling the shelves of libraries. These are conferences, discussions, dissertation defenses, scientific expeditions. A list of this kind can go on and on, but even now the enormous heterogeneity of the listed phenomena is striking. What do they have in common? Is it possible to reduce all this diversity to one thing?
The simplest and fairly obvious assumption may be that science is a certain human activity, isolated in the process of division of labor and aimed at obtaining knowledge. It is worth characterizing this activity, its goals, means and products, and it will unite all the listed phenomena, as for example, the activity of a carpenter unites boards, glue, varnish, a desk, a plane and much more. In other words, the idea suggests itself that studying science means studying a scientist at work, studying the technology of his activities to produce knowledge. It is difficult to object to this.
True, to a large extent, the scientist himself studies and describes his own activities: scientific texts, for example, contain a detailed description of the experiments performed, methods for solving problems, etc. But having described the experiment, the scientist, with rare exceptions, does not try to trace how It was he who came up with the idea of this experiment, and even if he tries, the results of such work are no longer organically included in the content of special scientific works.
Without going into details and roughening the picture, we can say that a scientist working in one or another special field of science, as a rule, limits himself to describing those aspects of his activity that can also be presented as a characteristic of the phenomena being studied. So, for example, when a chemist describes a method for obtaining certain compounds, then this is not only a description of the activity, but also a description of the compounds themselves: such and such a substance can be obtained in such and such a way. But not everything in a scientist’s activity can be represented in this way. Scientific research procedures in different fields of knowledge have much in common, and this alone takes them beyond the narrow professional interests of one or another special science.
So, one aspect of studying science might be studying a scientist at work. The results of such a study may have a normative nature, because by describing the activity that led to success, we, without meaning to, promote a positive example, and the description of unsuccessful activity sounds like a warning.
But is it legitimate to reduce the study of science to a description of the activities of individual people? Science is far from just an activity. Activity is always personalized, we can talk about the activity of a specific person or group of people, and science acts as a kind of supra-individual, transpersonal phenomenon. This is not just the work of Galileo, Maxwell or Darwin. Of course, the works of these scientists influenced science, but each of them worked within the framework of the science of his time and obeyed its requirements and laws. If we somehow understand the meaning of the expressions “work in science”, “influence science”, “obey the demands of science”, then we have intuitively already contrasted science with the activities of an individual or group of people and must now answer the question: what is represents this impersonal whole, peeking out from behind the back of each individual representative?
Vyacheslav Stepin, Mikhail Rozov, Vitaly Gorokhov
Philosophy of Science and Technology
Introduction.
Subject of philosophy of science
(Rozov M.A., Stepin V.S.)
Now, at the end of the twentieth century, looking back into the past, we can say with confidence that not a single sphere of spiritual culture has had such a significant and dynamic impact on society as science. Both in our worldview and in the world of things around us, we are everywhere dealing with the consequences of its development. We have become so familiar with many of them that we are no longer inclined to notice them, much less see special achievements in them.
The pace of our own growth and transformation of science is incomparable. Almost no one, except historians, reads the works of even such luminaries of natural science of the last century as Alexander Humboldt, Faraday, Maxwell or Darwin. No one studies physics anymore based on the works of Einstein, Bohr, and Heisenberg, although they are almost our contemporaries. Science is all directed towards the future.
Every scientist, even a great one, is doomed to the fact that his results will eventually be reformulated, expressed in a different language, and his ideas will be transformed. Science is alien to individualism; it calls on everyone to make sacrifices for the sake of a common cause, although it preserves in social memory the names of great and small creators who contributed to its development. But after their publication, ideas begin to live an independent life, not subject to the will and desires of their creators. Sometimes it happens that a scientist until the end of his days cannot accept what his own ideas have become. They no longer belong to him, he is not able to keep up with their development and control their use.
It is not surprising that in our time science is often the object of fierce criticism; it is accused of all mortal sins, including the horrors of Chernobyl and the environmental crisis in general. But, firstly, criticism of this kind is only an indirect recognition of the enormous role and power of science, because no one would think of blaming modern music, painting or architecture for anything like this. And secondly, it is absurd to blame science for the fact that society is not always able to use its results for its own benefit. Matches were not created for children to play with fire.
What has already been said is enough to understand that science is a completely worthy object of study. Nowadays, it has found itself under the cross attention of several disciplines, including history, sociology, economics, psychology, and scientific studies. Philosophy and methodology of science occupy a special place in this series. Science is multifaceted and multifaceted, but first of all it is the production of knowledge. Science does not exist without knowledge, just as the automobile industry does not exist without a car. One can therefore be interested in the history of scientific institutions, the sociology and psychology of scientific teams, but it is the production of knowledge that makes science a science. And it is from this point of view that we will approach it in the future. The philosophy of science tries to answer the following basic questions: what is scientific knowledge, how is it structured, what are the principles of its organization and functioning, what is science as the production of knowledge, what are the patterns of formation and development of scientific disciplines, how do they differ from each other and how do they interact? ? This is, of course, not a complete list, but it gives a rough idea of what is primarily of interest to the philosophy of science.
So, we will consider science as the production of knowledge. But even from this point of view, it represents something extremely multicomponent and heterogeneous. These are also the experimental means necessary for studying phenomena - instruments and installations with the help of which these phenomena are recorded and reproduced. These are the methods by which objects of research are identified and cognized (fragments and aspects of the objective world to which scientific knowledge is directed). These are people engaged in scientific research, writing articles or monographs. These are institutions and organizations such as laboratories, institutes, academies, and scientific journals. These are systems of knowledge, recorded in the form of texts and filling the shelves of libraries. These are conferences, discussions, dissertation defenses, scientific expeditions. A list of this kind can go on and on, but even now the enormous heterogeneity of the listed phenomena is striking. What do they have in common? Is it possible to reduce all this diversity to one thing?
The simplest and fairly obvious assumption may be that science is a certain human activity, isolated in the process of division of labor and aimed at obtaining knowledge. It is worth characterizing this activity, its goals, means and products, and it will unite all the listed phenomena, as for example, the activity of a carpenter unites boards, glue, varnish, a desk, a plane and much more. In other words, the idea suggests itself that studying science means studying a scientist at work, studying the technology of his activities to produce knowledge. It is difficult to object to this.
True, to a large extent, the scientist himself studies and describes his own activities: scientific texts, for example, contain a detailed description of the experiments performed, methods for solving problems, etc. But having described the experiment, the scientist, with rare exceptions, does not try to trace how It was he who came up with the idea of this experiment, and even if he tries, the results of such work are no longer organically included in the content of special scientific works.
Without going into details and roughening the picture, we can say that a scientist working in one or another special field of science, as a rule, limits himself to describing those aspects of his activity that can also be presented as a characteristic of the phenomena being studied. So, for example, when a chemist describes a method for obtaining certain compounds, then this is not only a description of the activity, but also a description of the compounds themselves: such and such a substance can be obtained in such and such a way. But not everything in a scientist’s activity can be represented in this way. Scientific research procedures in different fields of knowledge have much in common, and this alone takes them beyond the narrow professional interests of one or another special science.
So, one aspect of studying science might be studying a scientist at work. The results of such a study may have a normative nature, because by describing the activity that led to success, we, without meaning to, promote a positive example, and the description of unsuccessful activity sounds like a warning.
But is it legitimate to reduce the study of science to a description of the activities of individual people? Science is far from just an activity. Activity is always personalized, we can talk about the activity of a specific person or group of people, and science acts as a kind of supra-individual, transpersonal phenomenon. This is not just the work of Galileo, Maxwell or Darwin. Of course, the works of these scientists influenced science, but each of them worked within the framework of the science of his time and obeyed its requirements and laws. If we somehow understand the meaning of the expressions “work in science”, “influence science”, “obey the demands of science”, then we have intuitively already contrasted science with the activities of an individual or group of people and must now answer the question: what is represents this impersonal whole, peeking out from behind the back of each individual representative?
Looking ahead, we can say that we are talking about the scientific traditions within which the scientist works. The researchers themselves are aware of the power of these traditions. This is what our famous geographer and soil scientist B.B. Polynov writes, allegedly quoting excerpts from the diary of a foreign scientist: “Whatever I take, be it a test tube or a glass rod, no matter what I approach: an autoclave or a microscope, - all this was once invented by someone, and all this forces me to make certain movements and take a certain position. I feel like a trained animal, and this similarity is all the more complete because, before learning to accurately and quickly carry out the silent orders of all these things and the ghosts of the past hidden behind them, I actually went through a long school of training as a student, doctoral student and doctor." And further: "Nobody cannot blame me for the incorrect use of literary sources. The very thought of plagiarism disgusts me. And yet, it did not take much effort on my part to make sure that in several dozen of my works, which have given me the reputation of an original scientist and are readily cited by my colleagues and students, there is not a single fact and not a single thought that was not foreseen, prepared or in one way or another provoked by my teachers, predecessors or the bickering of my contemporaries.”
Introduction. Subject of philosophy of science
Now, at the end of the twentieth century, looking back into the past, we can say with confidence that not a single sphere of spiritual culture has had such a significant and dynamic impact on society as science. Both in our worldview and in the world of things around us, we are everywhere dealing with the consequences of its development. We have become so familiar with many of them that we are no longer inclined to notice them, much less see special achievements in them.
The pace of our own growth and transformation of science is incomparable. Almost no one, except historians, reads the works of even such luminaries of natural science of the last century as Alexander Humboldt, Faraday, Maxwell or Darwin. No one studies physics anymore based on the works of Einstein, Bohr, and Heisenberg, although they are almost our contemporaries. Science is all directed towards the future.
Every scientist, even a great one, is doomed to the fact that his results will eventually be reformulated, expressed in a different language, and his ideas will be transformed. Science is alien to individualism; it calls on everyone to make sacrifices for the sake of a common cause, although it preserves in social memory the names of great and small creators who contributed to its development. But after their publication, ideas begin to live an independent life, not subject to the will and desires of their creators. Sometimes it happens that a scientist until the end of his days cannot accept what his own ideas have become. They no longer belong to him, he is not able to keep up with their development and control their use.
It is not surprising that in our time science is often the object of fierce criticism; it is accused of all mortal sins, including the horrors of Chernobyl and the environmental crisis in general. But, firstly, criticism of this kind is only an indirect recognition of the enormous role and power of science, because no one would think of blaming modern music, painting or architecture for anything like that. And secondly, it is absurd to blame science for the fact that society is not always able to use its results for its own benefit. Matches were not created for children to play with fire.
What has already been said is enough to understand that science is a completely worthy object of study. Nowadays, it has found itself under the cross-attention of several disciplines, including history, sociology, economics, psychology, and science. Philosophy and methodology of science occupy a special place in this series. Science is multifaceted and multifaceted, but first of all it is the production of knowledge. Science does not exist without knowledge, just as the automobile industry does not exist without a car. One can therefore be interested in the history of scientific institutions, the sociology and psychology of scientific teams, but it is the production of knowledge that makes science a science. And it is from this point of view that we will approach it in the future. The philosophy of science tries to answer the following basic questions: what is scientific knowledge, how is it structured, what are the principles of its organization and functioning, what is science as the production of knowledge, what are the patterns of formation and development of scientific disciplines, how do they differ from each other and how do they interact? ? This is, of course, not a complete list, but it gives a rough idea of what is primarily of interest to the philosophy of science.
So, we will consider science as the production of knowledge. But even from this point of view, it represents something extremely multicomponent and heterogeneous. These are also the experimental means necessary for studying phenomena - instruments and installations with the help of which these phenomena are recorded and reproduced. These are the methods by which objects of research are identified and cognized (fragments and aspects of the objective world to which scientific knowledge is directed). These are people engaged in scientific research, writing articles or monographs. These are institutions and organizations such as laboratories, institutes, academies, and scientific journals. These are systems of knowledge, recorded in the form of texts and filling the shelves of libraries. These are conferences, discussions, dissertation defenses, scientific expeditions. A list of this kind can go on and on, but even now the enormous heterogeneity of the listed phenomena is striking. What do they have in common? Is it possible to reduce all this diversity to one thing?
The simplest and fairly obvious assumption may be that science is a certain human activity, isolated in the process of division of labor and aimed at obtaining knowledge. It is worth characterizing this activity, its goals, means and products, and it will unite all the listed phenomena, as for example, the activity of a carpenter unites boards, glue, varnish, a desk, a plane and much more. In other words, the idea suggests itself that studying science means studying a scientist at work, studying the technology of his activity in producing knowledge. It is difficult to object to this.
True, to a large extent, the scientist himself studies and describes his own activities: scientific texts, for example, contain a detailed description of the experiments performed, methods for solving problems, and so on. But having described the experiment, the scientist, with rare exceptions, does not try to trace how exactly he came to the idea of this experiment, and if he tries, then the results of such work are no longer organically included in the content of special scientific works.
Without going into details and roughening the picture, we can say that a scientist working in one or another special field of science, as a rule, limits himself to describing those aspects of his activity that can also be presented as a characteristic of the phenomena being studied. So, for example, when a chemist describes a method for obtaining certain compounds, then this is not only a description of the activity, but also a description of the compounds themselves: such and such a substance can be obtained in such and such a way. But not everything in a scientist’s activity can be represented in this way. Scientific research procedures in different fields of knowledge have much in common, and this alone takes them beyond the narrow professional interests of one or another special science.
So, one aspect of studying science might be studying a scientist at work. The results of such a study may have a normative nature, because by describing the activity that led to success, we, without meaning to, promote a positive example, and the description of unsuccessful activity sounds like a warning.
But is it legitimate to reduce the study of science to a description of the activities of individual people? Science is far from just an activity. Activity is always personalized, we can talk about the activity of a specific person or group of people, and science acts as some kind of supra-individual, transpersonal phenomenon. This is not just the work of Galileo, Maxwell or Darwin. Of course, the works of these scientists influenced science, but each of them worked within the framework of the science of his time and obeyed its requirements and laws. If we somehow understand the meaning of the expressions “work in science”, “influence science”, “obey the demands of science”, then we have intuitively already contrasted science with the activities of an individual or group of people and must now answer the question: what is represents this impersonal whole, peeking out from behind the back of each individual representative?
Looking ahead, we can say that we are talking about the scientific traditions within which the scientist works. The researchers themselves are aware of the power of these traditions. This is what our famous geographer and soil scientist B.B. Polynov writes, allegedly quoting excerpts from the diary of a foreign scientist: “Whatever I take, be it a test tube or a glass rod, no matter what I approach: an autoclave or a microscope, - all this was once invented by someone, and all this forces me to make certain movements and take a certain position. I feel like a trained animal, and this similarity is all the more complete because before I learned to accurately and quickly carry out the silent orders of all these things and the ghosts of the past hidden behind them, I actually went through a long school of training as a student, doctoral student and doctor. And further: “No one can blame me for the incorrect use of literary sources. The very thought of plagiarism disgusts me. And yet, it did not take much effort on my part to make sure that in several dozen of my works, which have given me the reputation of an original scientist and are readily cited by my colleagues and students, there is not a single fact and not a single thought that was not foreseen, prepared or in one way or another provoked by my teachers, predecessors or the bickering of my contemporaries.”
It may seem that this is a caricature. But B.B. Polynov himself summarizes the above notes as follows: “Everything that the author of the diary wrote is nothing more than the actual real conditions of the creativity of many dozens, hundreds of naturalists around the world. Moreover, these are the very conditions that alone can guarantee the development of science, that is, the use of the experience of the past and the further growth of an infinite number of germs of various kinds of ideas, sometimes hidden in the distant past.”
So, science is an activity that is possible only thanks to tradition or, more precisely, the set of traditions within the framework of which this activity is carried out. It itself can be considered as a special type of traditions transmitted in human culture. Activities and traditions are two different, although inextricably linked, aspects of science that require, generally speaking, different approaches and research methods. Of course, activity is carried out in traditions, that is, it does not exist without them, and traditions, in turn, do not exist outside of activity. But when we study traditions, we describe a certain natural process, while acts of activity are always purposeful. They involve the choice of values and goals by the subject of the activity, and it is impossible to understand the activity without fixing the goal. Philosophy of science, being a humanitarian discipline, faces here the cardinal dilemma of explanation and understanding for humanitarian knowledge.
Let's look at it in more detail. Let's imagine an experimenter in a laboratory, surrounded by instruments and various kinds of experimental setups. He must understand the purpose of all these devices; for him they are a kind of text that he can read and interpret in a certain way. Of course, the microscope standing on his table was not invented and made by him; of course, it was used before. Our experimenter is traditional. He may, however, object and say that he uses a microscope not because it was done before, but because it suits his present purposes. True, the goals are quite traditional, but our experimenter again chose them not because they were traditional, but because they seemed interesting and attractive to him in the current situation. All this is true, our experimenter is not deceiving us. Having studied traditions, we therefore still do not understand activity. To do this, we need to delve into her goals and motives, to see the world through the eyes of an experimenter.
The relationship between the understanding and explanatory approach is a very complex problem not only in the philosophy of science, but also in humanitarian knowledge in general. Analysis of science as a tradition and as an activity are two methods of analysis that complement each other. Each of them highlights a particular aspect of the complex whole that is science. And their combination allows us to develop a more complete understanding of science.
Considering science as an activity aimed at producing new knowledge and as a tradition, it is important to take into account the historical variability of scientific activity and scientific tradition itself. In other words, the philosophy of science, when analyzing the patterns of development of scientific knowledge, must take into account the historicism of science. In the process of its development, not only new knowledge is accumulated and previously established ideas about the world are reconstructed. In this process, all components of scientific activity change: the objects studied, means and methods of research, features of scientific communications, forms of division and cooperation of scientific work, and so on.
Even a cursory comparison of modern science and the science of previous eras reveals striking changes. A scientist of the classical era (from the 17th to the beginning of the 20th century), say Newton or Maxwell, would hardly have accepted the ideas and methods of quantum mechanical description, since he considered it unacceptable to include references to the observer and means of observation in the theoretical description and explanation. Such references would have been perceived in the classical era as a rejection of the ideal of objectivity. But Bohr and Heisenberg, one of the creators of quantum mechanics, on the contrary, argued that it is precisely this method of theoretical description of the microworld that guarantees the objectivity of knowledge about the new reality. A different era means different ideals of science.
In our time, the very nature of scientific activity has changed in comparison with the research of the classical era. The science of small communities of scientists has been replaced by modern “big science” with its almost industrial use of complex and expensive instrument systems (such as large telescopes, modern systems for the separation of chemical elements, particle accelerators), with a sharp increase in the number of people engaged in scientific activities and serving her; with large associations of specialists in various fields, with targeted government funding of scientific programs, and so on.
The functions of science in the life of society, its place in culture and its interaction with other areas of cultural creativity change from era to era. Already in the 17th century, the emerging natural sciences declared their claims to the formation of dominant ideological images in culture. Having acquired ideological functions, science began to increasingly influence other spheres of social life, including the everyday consciousness of people. The value of education based on the acquisition of scientific knowledge began to be taken for granted.
In the second half of the 19th century, science was increasingly being used in engineering and technology. While maintaining its cultural and ideological function, it acquires a new social function - it becomes the productive force of society.
The twentieth century can be characterized as the ever-expanding use of science in various areas of social life. Science is beginning to be increasingly used in various areas of managing social processes, serving as the basis for qualified expert assessments and management decision-making. By connecting with the authorities, it really begins to influence the choice of certain paths of social development. This new function of science is sometimes characterized as its transformation into a social force. At the same time, the ideological functions of science and its role as a direct productive force are strengthened.
But if the very strategies of scientific activity and its functions in the life of society change, then new questions arise. Will the face of science and its functions in the life of society continue to change? Has scientific rationality always occupied a priority place in the scale of values, or is this characteristic only of a certain type of culture and certain civilizations? Is it possible for science to lose its former value status and its former social functions? And finally, what changes can be expected in the system of scientific activity itself and in its interaction with other spheres of culture at the next civilizational turning point, in connection with humanity’s search for ways out of modern global crises?
All these questions act as formulations of problems discussed in modern philosophy of science. Taking this issue into account allows us to clarify our understanding of its subject. The subject of philosophy of science is general patterns and trends of scientific knowledge as a special activity for the production of scientific knowledge, taken in their historical development and considered in a historically changing sociocultural context.
Modern philosophy of science considers scientific knowledge as a sociocultural phenomenon. And one of its important tasks is to study how the ways of forming new scientific knowledge change historically and what are the mechanisms of influence of sociocultural factors on this process.
In order to identify general patterns of development of scientific knowledge, the philosophy of science must rely on material from the history of various specific sciences. It develops certain hypotheses and models for the development of knowledge, testing them against relevant historical material. All this determines the close connection between the philosophy of science and historical and scientific research.
The philosophy of science has always turned to the analysis of the structure of the dynamics of knowledge of specific scientific disciplines. But at the same time, it is focused on comparing different scientific disciplines and identifying general patterns of their development. Just as one cannot demand from a biologist that he limit himself to the study of one organism or one species of organisms, so one cannot deprive the philosophy of science of its empirical basis and the possibility of comparisons and comparisons.
For a long time, in the philosophy of science, mathematics was chosen as a model for studying the structure and dynamics of knowledge. However, there is no clearly defined layer of empirical knowledge here, and therefore, when analyzing mathematical texts, it is difficult to identify those features of the structure and functioning of the theory that are associated with its relationship to the empirical basis. That is why the philosophy of science, especially since the end of the 19th century, has increasingly focused on the analysis of natural science knowledge, which contains a variety of different types of theories and a developed empirical basis.
Concepts and models of the dynamics of science developed on this historical material may require adjustments when transferred to other sciences. But this is exactly how the development of cognition occurs: ideas developed and tested on one material are then transferred to another area and modified if their inconsistency with the new material is discovered.
One can often come across the statement that ideas about the development of knowledge in the analysis of natural sciences cannot be transferred to the field of social cognition.
The basis for such prohibitions is the distinction made back in the 19th century between the sciences of nature and the sciences of the spirit. But at the same time, it is necessary to be aware that knowledge in the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences has common features precisely because it is scientific knowledge. Their difference is rooted in the specifics of the subject area. In the social and human sciences, the subject includes a person, his consciousness, and often acts as a text that has human meaning. Recording such an object and studying it requires special methods and cognitive procedures. However, with all the complexity of the subject of social sciences and humanities, the focus on its objective study and search for laws is a mandatory characteristic of the scientific approach. This circumstance is not always taken into account by supporters of the “absolute specificity” of humanitarian and socio-historical knowledge. Its opposition to the natural sciences is sometimes made incorrectly.
Humanitarian knowledge is interpreted in an extremely broad way: it includes philosophical essays, journalism, art criticism, fiction, and so on. But the correct formulation of the problem should be different. It requires a clear distinction between the concepts of “social and humanitarian knowledge” and “scientific social and humanitarian knowledge.” The first includes the results of scientific research, but is not limited to them, since it also involves other, non-scientific forms of creativity. The second is limited only by the scope of scientific research. Of course, this research itself is not isolated from other spheres of culture, it interacts with them, but this is not the basis for identifying science with other, although closely related, forms of human creativity.
If we proceed from a comparison of the sciences about society and man, on the one hand, and the sciences about nature, on the other, then we must recognize the presence in their cognitive procedures of both general and specific content. But methodological schemes developed in one area can capture some general features of the structure and dynamics of cognition in another area, and then the methodology may well develop its concepts in the same way as is done in any other area of scientific knowledge, including the social sciences and humanities . It can transfer models developed in one area of cognition to another and then correct them, adapting them to the specifics of the new subject.
In this case, at least two circumstances should be taken into account. Firstly, the philosophical and methodological analysis of science, regardless of whether it is focused on natural science or the social and humanities, itself belongs to the sphere of historical social knowledge. Even when a philosopher and methodologist deals with specialized texts of natural science, his subject is not physical fields, not elementary particles, not the processes of development of organisms, but scientific knowledge, its dynamics, research methods taken in their historical development. It is clear that scientific knowledge and its dynamics is not a natural, but a social process, a phenomenon of human culture, and therefore its study is a special type of spiritual science.
Secondly, it must be taken into account that the rigid demarcation between the sciences of nature and the sciences of spirit had its foundations for science in the 19th century, but it largely loses its force in relation to the science of the last third of the 20th century. This will be discussed in more detail in the following discussion. But let us first note that in the natural sciences of our days, studies of complex developing systems that have “synergetic characteristics” and include man and his activities as their component are beginning to play an increasingly important role. The methodology for studying such objects brings together natural science and humanities, erasing the rigid boundaries between them.
What does the philosophy of science give to a person who studies it without being a specialist in this field? In our pragmatic age, people usually expect immediate benefits from learning something. What benefit can anyone who works or is preparing to work in science on its specific problems derive from the philosophy of science? Can they identify in the philosophy of science some universal method for solving problems, a kind of “algorithm of discovery?” Mentally turning to specialists in the field of specific sciences on this issue, one could say the following: no one will help you in solving your specific problems except yourself. Philosophy of science does not necessarily set out to teach you anything in your own field. She does not specifically formulate any specific recipes or instructions; she explains, describes, but does not prescribe. Of course, as already noted, any description of activity, including the activity of a scientist, can also be considered as a prescription - “do the same,” but this can only be a by-product of the philosophy of science.
The philosophy of science in our time has overcome its previously inherent illusions in creating a universal method or system of methods that could ensure the success of research for all sciences at all times. It revealed the historical variability not only of specific methods of science, but also of the deep methodological attitudes that characterize scientific rationality. Modern philosophy of science has shown that scientific rationality itself develops historically and that the dominant attitudes of scientific consciousness can change depending on the type of objects being studied and under the influence of changes in culture, to which science makes its specific contribution. Does this mean that philosophy of science is generally useless for a scientist? No, that doesn't mean it. Let's try to clarify this somewhat paradoxical situation.
Is it possible to work in the field of science without understanding what it is?
Probably possible, although to certain limits. To the same extent, for example, you can screw in a bolt on a car factory assembly line without having the slightest idea about the production process as a whole, or what a car is. Moreover, it is highly doubtful that expanding your understanding of the manufacturing process will significantly help in tightening a single bolt. However, if you set yourself the creative task of further development of the automotive industry, then here you may already need ideas about the previous stages and patterns of this development, and knowledge of related fields, and much, much more. It's hard to even predict what you might need.
The uncertainty of the expected preliminary information is a specific feature of creative tasks. In fact, we have a tautology: if you know exactly what you need to solve a problem, then the problem is not creative. That is why the philosophy of science is not needed by a scientific artisan, it is not needed when solving standard and traditional problems, but genuine creative work, as a rule, leads a scientist to problems of philosophy and methodology. He needs to look at his field from the outside, understand the patterns of its development, comprehend it in the context of science as a whole, and needs to broaden his horizons. The philosophy of science gives such an outlook, but whether you benefit from it is your business.
You can approach the issue from slightly different positions, from the position of value orientations, from the point of view of the meaningfulness of human life. Can we be satisfied with simply screwing a bolt on a conveyor belt without realizing a more global goal, without understanding the process in which we are a participant? Probably not capable. And this means that any scientist needs to understand what science and scientific knowledge are, to understand that global historical process of knowledge, on the altar of which he selflessly lays his head. The philosophy of science also serves these tasks.
Book: Stepin, V.S. Philosophy of science and technology / V.S. Stepin, V.G. Gorokhov, M.A. Rozov. - M.: Gardariki, 1996.
Characteristic: one of the best books on the philosophy and methodology of science and technology, combining a strict scientific approach to the material presented with laconicism and specificity of presentation. Despite the complexity of the issues raised, the book is distinguished by an accessible style of presentation. Philosophical problems are considered without deliberate use of refined terminology, which makes the book accessible to undergraduate and graduate students of non-philosophical specialties. Scientific knowledge is considered as a sociocultural phenomenon. The features of scientific knowledge are described and its role in modern society is outlined. The emergence and development of scientific knowledge is traced. The approaches of Karl Popper, Imre Lakatos, Thomas Kuhn to the development of science are analyzed. Particular attention is paid to the structure and dynamics of scientific knowledge. The empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge are characterized, and the concept of scientific revolutions is given. A separate section is devoted to the philosophy of technology.
Attention! The page layout of the proposed electronic version of the book does not match the page layout of the original paper edition. The electronic version is recommended for studying the material, but not for writing term papers and dissertations.
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CONTENT
INTRODUCTION SUBJECT OF PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Section I. SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AS A SOCIO-CULTURAL PHENOMENON
Chapter 1. FEATURES OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND ITS ROLE IN MODERN CIVILIZATION
Science in a technogenic world.
Specificity of scientific knowledge. The main distinguishing features of science.
Chapter 2. GENESIS OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
State of “pre-science” and developed science
Spiritual revolution of Antiquity. Philosophy and science
Section II. SCIENCE AS TRADITION
Chapter 3. EVOLUTION OF APPROACHES TO SCIENCE ANALYSIS
Karl Popper and the problem of demarcation
Concept of research programs by I. Lakatos
Normal science by T. Kuhn
Difficulties and problems
Chapter 4. BUILDING SCIENCE AS TRADITION
What is science like?
Kumatoid concept
Social Kumatoids and Social Relay Races
Types and connections of scientific programs
Science and social memory
Research and collection programs
Relay model of science
Ways to form science
Chapter 5. INNOVATIONS AND THEIR MECHANISMS
Types of innovations in the development of science
Variety of innovations and their relative nature
New methods and new worlds
Ignorance and Ignorance
What is a discovery?
Traditions and innovations
Montage phenomenon
Traditions and spin-offs of the study
Traffic with transfers
Metaphorical programs and interaction of sciences
The problem of stationarity of social relay races
Chapter 6. TRADITIONS AND THE PHENOMENON OF KNOWLEDGE
"The Third World" by Karl Popper
Knowledge as a mechanism of social memory
The structure of knowledge and its content
The concept of a representative
Descriptions and instructions
Representation in artistic thinking
Chapter 7. SCIENCE AS A SYSTEM WITH REFLECTION
The concept of a reflective system. What is scientific reflection?
Socratic dialogue and reflection
Analogies with natural science
Paradoxes of reflection and the problem of the research position
Reflection and activity
Reflexive symmetry and connections between scientific disciplines. An episode in the development of paleogeography
Reflexive symmetry
Reflexive symmetry and symmetry of knowledge
Subject-subject and program-subject disciplinary complexes
Object-instrumental disciplinary complexes
History of science and cumulativeism
Section III. STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
Chapter 8. EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL LEVELS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
Concepts of empirical and theoretical (main features)
Structure of the empirical study
Experiments and observational data
Systematic and random observations
Procedures for transition to empirical dependencies and facts
Structure of theoretical research
Theoretical models in the structure of theory
Features of the functioning of theories. Mathematical apparatus and its interpretation
Foundations of Science
Ideals and norms of research activity
Scientific picture of the world
Philosophical foundations of science
Chapter 9. DYNAMICS OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
Interaction of the scientific picture of the world and experience
The scientific picture of the world as a regulator of empirical search in developed science
Formation of private theoretical schemes and laws
Proposing hypotheses and their premises
Procedures for constructive justification of theoretical schemes
The logic of discovery and the logic of justification of a hypothesis
The logic of constructing developed theories in classical physics
Features of the formation of a scientific hypothesis
Paradigmatic examples of problem solving
Features of the construction of developed, mathematized theories in modern science
Application of the mathematical hypothesis method
Peculiarities of interpretation of mathematical apparatus
Chapter 10. SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGE OF TYPES OF SCIENTIFIC RATIONALITY
The phenomenon of scientific revolutions
What is the Scientific Revolution?
Scientific revolution as a choice of new research strategies
Global scientific revolutions: from classical to post-non-classical science
Historical types of scientific rationality
Section IV. PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY
Chapter 11. SUBJECT OF PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY
What is philosophy of technology?
The problem of the relationship between science and technology.
Specifics of natural and technical sciences
Fundamental and applied research in technical sciences
Chapter 12. PHYSICAL THEORY AND TECHNICAL THEORY. GENESIS OF CLASSICAL ENGINEERING SCIENCES
Structure of technical theory
Functioning of technical theory
Formation and development of technical theory
Chapter 13. THE CURRENT STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT OF ENGINEERING AND DESIGN AND THE NEED FOR SOCIAL ASSESSMENT OF TECHNOLOGY
Classical engineering activity
Systems engineering activities
Sociotechnical design
The problem of assessing the social, environmental and other consequences of technology