The methodology of philosophy influences the sciences. Methodology

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Philosophyandmethodologyscience

1. The subject and tasks of the philosophy of science

The subject of the philosophy of science, which is a relatively new area of philosophy, is scientific knowledge proper, its real history, principles and methods of scientific activity, and the structure of knowledge.

The philosophy of science includes in its content a combination of various currents and schools - in particular, it is positivism in its various forms, neo-rationalism, critical rationalism, as well as phenomenology, Marxism, analytical philosophy, hermeneutic philosophy. Accordingly, there is a problem of philosophy and methodology of science, which is quite broad. This is the identification of the ideals, prerequisites and foundations of science, the clarification of concepts and principles, the specifics of various forms of cognitive activity and knowledge, the clarification of the difference between science and other forms of activity, the features of the mechanisms for the development and growth of scientific knowledge.

In the history of the development of the philosophy of science at different stages, one or another issue became the main one: the unity of scientific knowledge and the construction of a holistic picture of the world based on the principles of determinism and causality, dynamic and statistical patterns; the search for characteristic features of scientific research, in particular; correlations of induction and deduction, logic and intuition, discovery and substantiation, empirical and theoretical level of knowledge. A special place was occupied by the problem of the empirical substantiation of science, the possibility of reducing (reducing) all theoretical knowledge to finite empirical elements of experience. A new stage in the development of the problems of the philosophy of science was the study of the social determination of science, its consideration together with its history as part of culture, as a special cultural tradition, as a special social institution and type of human activity.

These problems were studied not only by foreign philosophers, for example: O. Comte, E. Mach, Wittgenstein, R. Carnap, W. Quine, K. Popper, T. Kuhn, P. Feyerabend, I. Lakatos and others, but also by many domestic researchers, in particular, N.V. Motroshilova, L.A. Mikeshina, V.S. Stepin, V.A. Lektorsky, P.P. Gaidenko, Yu.V. Sachkov and others.

Philosophy and methodology of science are part of the more general part of philosophical knowledge and develop on its basis. This more general philosophical area in the modern sense is defined as the philosophy of knowledge (L.A. Mikeshina), exploring the nature of knowledge, the relationship of knowledge to reality, the conditions for its reliability and truth, existence in the system of culture and communication (communication). The philosophy of knowledge incorporates various closely related sections, including traditional epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, the modern doctrine of knowledge, or epistemology, as well as the philosophy and methodology of science as the most important parts of the philosophy of knowledge as a whole. The problems of the philosophy of knowledge are, in principle, the question of the nature of knowledge, its forms and types, the relationship between rational and sensory knowledge, the relationship between rational (logical) and irrational moments in knowledge, the problem of the reliability of knowledge, the solution of the problem of truth in epistemology, this questions about the subject and object of cognition in the light of modern ideas about the impossibility of elimination (exclusion) from the process of cognition of the empirical subject, i.e. a holistic person in his life, because the latter is now increasingly recognized as the main condition for the philosophy of knowledge.

2. The subject and tasks of the methodology of science

Methodology is the core of the philosophy of science. It can be defined as a philosophical doctrine about a system of proven principles, norms and methods of scientific and cognitive activity, about the forms, structure and functions of scientific knowledge. Its purpose is to identify and comprehend the driving forces, prerequisites, foundations and patterns of growth and functioning of scientific knowledge and cognitive activity, to organize design and constructive activity, its analysis and criticism. The methodology of science, based on general philosophical principles and laws, historically arose and develops on the basis of epistemology and epistemology, logic, and in recent years also history, sociology of science, social psychology and cultural studies, is closely linked with philosophical teachings about language.

One can point to a number of reasons that gave rise to methodology as a necessary attribute of science: these are the complexity of the structure of scientific knowledge, ways of substantiating and verifying it; conjugation of the results of an object-gun experiment with the conclusions and consequences of a "thought experiment", a close interweaving of the description of the properties of material objects with artificially introduced abstractions, ideal models, iconic objects. These and many other features of modern knowledge require a mature methodological consciousness of the scientist and knowledge of science itself. Researchers have a constant need to analyze their activities, to correlate its techniques and methods with those used in other sciences.

The very understanding of methodology and its functions has undergone significant changes: the narrow formal-logical approach has been replaced by a meaningful enrichment of the problematic, including the socio-cultural, humanistic dimension of knowledge and cognitive activity. Methodological analysis, being a form of self-awareness of science, clarifies the ways of combining knowledge and activity, the structure, organization, methods of obtaining and substantiating knowledge. Revealing the conditions and prerequisites for cognitive activity, including philosophical and ideological ones, methodological analysis turns them into a means of conscious choice and scientific search.

There are different levels of methodology: concrete scientific methodology with its methods deals with techniques, prescriptions, standards, forms principles, methods of concrete scientific activity, describes and substantiates them. For example, methods of labeled atoms in biochemistry, conditioned reflexes in physiology, questioning in sociology, etc.

Another level is general scientific methodology as a doctrine of the principles, methods and forms of knowledge that function in many sciences, corresponding to their subject and object of study. These are, for example, methods of empirical research, such as observation, measurement, experiment; general logical methods - analysis, synthesis, induction, analogy, deduction, etc., as well as such general scientific methods as modeling, idealization, typology, comparative analysis, the hermeneutic method, etc. Having arisen as techniques and forms in the work of specific researchers, they are then applied other scientists in various fields of knowledge, i.e. receive scientific and cultural-historical approbation, which gives them the right or status to act as universal, or general scientific, methods. This brings general scientific methodology closer to the level of philosophical analysis of knowledge, and then philosophical ideas, positions, methods of speculation and reflection, which under certain conditions can be applied to the study of scientific and cognitive activity, act as regulatory principles, methods and forms of cognition. The unity of the general scientific and philosophical levels is the basis for the development of the methodology of scientific knowledge.

In its development, the methodology went through two main stages with the corresponding forms of its expression: at the first stage (the methodology of the New Age - the 17th-17th centuries, the founders: Descartes, Bacon, Locke, Leibniz), it was characterized by a constructive, prescriptive form with the search for a single absolute method, with the idea of methodologism, which carried the recognition of the priority of the recognized universal method over theory. This form of methodology lasted almost until the middle of the 20th century. It was replaced by a new form, which researchers define as "descriptive", i.e. descriptive methodology designed to analyze and describe scientific practice, identifying stable constellations of methodological norms that arise in certain cognitive situations (B.I. Pruzhinin).

The new type of methodology is characterized by the following features: rejection of universal methodological regulation, prescription and set of absolute key ideas; the idea of historical and cultural relativity of knowledge; the idea of epistemological breaks; the idea of the theoretical loading of experience, fact; the idea of methodological pluralism; the idea of externalism as opposed to internalism, which dominated the settings of the former, prescriptive methodology.

(Internalism from lat. internus - inside and externalism from lat. externus - external - these are opposition currents in the philosophy of science that developed in the 30s of the 20th century and explain the role and correlation of internal and external factors to science in different ways). Internalism focused on the elimination (i.e. exclusion) in the scientific process of socio-political and subjective factors and attached exceptional importance to the continuity of scientific ideas, the internal logic of the development of scientific concepts and theories, it created the illusion that science develops autonomously, regardless of the outside world, develops purely logically at the expense of its own internal resources.

Externalism, on the contrary, focuses primarily on the role of socio-cultural, economic, political factors and conditions for the development of science. Thus, both the externalist and internalist views one-sidedly exaggerate the role and significance of the really important factors in the development of science, instead of considering them in interaction and dialectical interconnection.

3. Interaction of science methodology with other disciplines

The methodology interacts closely with other disciplines that study science. Among them, one of the most important disciplines, which has achieved the greatest results in the accumulation of factual material and in its analysis, is the history of science. In recent decades, many generalizing studies have appeared in which attempts are made to look at the history of science from a broad worldview point of view - as a process of development in which evolutionary periods are replaced by revolutionary ones.

In this regard, attempts to reconstruct the history of science with the help of factual material collected by historians of science deserve attention. Here, first of all, it should be noted the book by T. Kuhn "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", which caused numerous discussions both abroad and in our country (Kun T. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. - M .: Progress, 1975). Another well-known researcher in this field, I. Lakatos, in a number of his works (History of Science and its Rational Reconstruction; Methodology of Scientific Research Programs.) deepened and significantly refined the problem of rational reconstruction of the history of science. Methodology, like the philosophy of science as a whole, undoubtedly, must be based on the research of historians of science. In turn, the history of science cannot do without worldview principles that illuminate from a broad philosophical point of view the general prospects for the development of science and spiritual culture as a whole. Therefore, one can agree with the opinion of I. Lakatos that the history of science without philosophy is blind, and philosophy without the history of science is empty.

The next discipline with which methodology closely interacts is the logic of science. Applying the principles and methods of modern formal logic, which is now called symbolic or mathematical logic, the methodology carefully studied the structure of scientific knowledge, methods of its formalization, methods of logical inference in different types of judgments, etc. It should be noted that the logic of science is limited only to the analysis of existing, available knowledge and does not touch upon the issue of the genesis, origin and acquisition of new knowledge. As the Finnish logician G.Kh. Wright, "formal logic has traditionally dealt with the conceptual constructions of a static world." (For the analysis of scientific knowledge, the logic of science initially used the means of traditional formal logic, and later - exclusively the methods of mathematical logic). Since knowledge is expressed with the help of language, then in the modern logic of science it is not knowledge as a whole that is directly considered, but only the form of its expression, i.e. the language of science.

Scientific languages are built on the basis of ordinary, natural language, but differ from it in much greater precision and rigor. Since natural language developed primarily for the purpose of communication, its improvement took place along the line of ease of communication between people. Therefore, it does not contain strict rules for constructing language expressions, many rules are not specially formulated, although they are implied, which may cause misunderstandings. To exclude such cases, the logic of science for the construction and analysis of scientific languages uses formal deductive methods of mathematics, in particular, the axiomatic method of constructing theories, which was used by Euclid to construct elementary geometry. Thus, the direct subject of the logic of science is the language of science - a certain set of rules for construction and deductive inference in formalized languages that have a generally valid character. And this is quite understandable, since the laws of logic do not depend on the specific content of thoughts that are expressed with the help of statements.

The sociology of science studies the general laws governing the development of science as a special social institution. It analyzes, first of all, such external factors influencing its emergence and development as the needs of material production, the state of technology and culture in society, and the general spiritual climate in it. The sociology of science also studies the forms of organization of scientific activity, methods and forms of scientific communication, etc.

All listed scientific disciplines interact with each other, mutually enrich each other. However, the basis of the methodology and its touchstone is scientific and cognitive reality, i.e. the reality of specific scientific research and their results expressed in texts, articles, monographs, etc.

4. The concept of methodological culture and its functions

The concept of methodological culture in its content includes at least two semantic points:

1. First of all, it is the methodological culture of a scientist as a necessary component of his professional competence, it is characterized by the following features: the level of development and the degree of mastery by the scientist of philosophical, general scientific and concrete scientific methodological ideas, principles, approaches, etc.; the adequacy of methodological studies and their results to the state and trends in the development of philosophy and science; compliance with the orientation and style of methodological reflection of the cultural and historical situation of society, the spirit of the era, the main directions of culture as a whole; the effectiveness of the application of methodological knowledge in specific scientific research.

2. The following meaning of the concept of methodological culture reveals it on a broader scale as a qualitative characteristic of any type of activity. Here, the methodology appears in the form of forms, principles, methods of self-organization of thinking (thought activity), and through this it acts as a means of rationalizing any type of activity, contributing to the implementation of the latter as an activity with reflection.

Rationality, taken with elemental and operational aspects, acts as a methodology, i.e. knowledge about “how” and “what” to comprehend the world, to clarify uncertain situations. Methodology, for its part, as noted, acts as a means of rationalizing thinking and any type of activity. Rationality in the modern sense implies expediency, systematicity, consistency, consistency of judgments, actions, behavior. Rationality is an indispensable tendency to order. Methodology increases the potential of rationality not only by providing technological equipment to any type of activity, but also, which is especially important, introduces a moment of reflexivity into the process of activity.

Reflection (reflexio - turning back) is the ability to speculate and analyze one's acts of thinking in conjunction with their foundations, premises.

Reflection happens:

Behavioral (analysis of everyday practice);

scientific (critical analysis of the foundations and postulates of specific scientific theories);

Philosophical (comprehension of the ultimate values of human existence, culture in general).

In reflection, there is a shift of attention from “objects” and problems to be solved to the process of solution itself, its foundations and means of solution. Reflection explores the nature of knowledge as it is possible, explicates the implicit premises and basic assumptions of reasoning, opinions, theories.

Depending on the direction, two types of reflection are distinguished:

· extravertive reflection, which manifests itself through the inversion of our "I" outside, but within the framework of thinking. Here attention is directed to the foundations of knowledge about the external world. Creation of one's own personal images of the world, a moment of doubt, the ability to see the world differently are signs of extravertive reflection;

· introvertive reflection is a more total, comprehensive reflection. Here, in addition to the analysis of knowledge about the world, introspection is connected, i.e. drawing the attention of the "I" to itself. One's own life, its foundations (who am I, where do I come from, why?) become the object of research. Doubts, criticism turn on themselves. The unshakable, self-confident "I" is split into due (ideals, norms, dreams) and empirical, worldly, real "I". This is the highest type of reflection, but also more dangerous from the point of view of internal balance, the stability of the self-consciousness of the individual.

Methodological culture is characterized by a combination of these types of reflection, which can significantly increase the efficiency of any type of activity, including scientific work. Methodological reflexivity contributes to a reasonable, realistic setting of goals and objectives of activities, finding the most adequate and optimal means of solving them and the most favorable way to apply the results obtained.

Literature

science methodology knowledge philosophy

1. Gaidenko P.P. The evolution of the concept of science (XVII-XVIII centuries). - M., 1997.

2. Mironov V.V. Images of science in modern culture and philosophy. - M., 1997.

3. Mikeshina L.A. Philosophy of Science. - M., 2005.

4. Ideals and norms of scientific research. - Minsk, 1981.

5. Kosareva L M. The birth of the science of modern times from the spirit of culture. - M., 1997.

6. Kapitsa P.L. Science and modern society. - M., 1998.

7. Science in culture. - M., 1998.

8. Stepin V.S., Gorokhov V.G., Rozov M.A. Philosophy of science and technology. - M., 1995.

9. Frolov I.T. Ethics of science. - M., 1986.

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Introduction

§ 1. What is meant by science

§ 2. Possibilities of science

§ 3. Philosophy as a science

§ 1. The role of scientific knowledge

§ 4. Methodology of scientific knowledge

Conclusion

Introduction

It seems to me that the goal of science is the formation of a holistic, complete idea of the object and subject of research. It is clear that such a task, for a number of objective reasons, always remains not completely feasible, but scientific knowledge strives to be as systematic and holistic as possible.

Any natural science research is carried out using a certain methodology and using a set of specific methods. Methodology is usually understood as a system of principles and methods for organizing and constructing theoretical and practical activities, as well as the doctrine of this system. The methodology is distinguished by an increased attention to specific methods for achieving true and practically effective knowledge, as well as a focus on internal mechanisms, the logic of movement and the organization of knowledge.

In the methodology of science, research usually begins with the problematization of the material of interest to the methodologist.

Science, unlike everyday knowledge, is oriented towards the search for essence and truth, that is, what lies on the surface of phenomena and processes, what is not given to the senses and is even hidden from them. The ability to work with ideal models was discovered in ancient Greece. The world of an ideal construction is a theoretical world, one can work with it only in thought and with the help of thought. Ancient philosophers discovered the ability of thinking to work with ideal objects. Thus rationality was discovered. What is ancient rationality? This is the ability of thinking to be carried away freely into the infinite metaphysical space. Thus, science joined the idea of ancient rationality, the essence of which was the ability to translate an ideal object into a human-made thing. Combining with ancient rationalism, science created an experiment that combined theory with practice.

The relevance of the topic of the essay lies in the fact that science is increasingly included in the structure of productive forces, becoming a direct productive force, and production - the technological application of science. With the current level of technological development, the improvement of the qualifications of workers is possible only if they obtain the necessary level of scientific knowledge. At the same time, we are talking here not only about natural science and technical knowledge, which goes without saying, but also about broader scientific knowledge. After all, the influence of the humanities on the general spiritual, moral, intellectual and creative potential is no less significant for social production. And if we consider the formation of a person as a subject of labor as broadly as possible, then in addition to all types of science, it will be necessary to talk about the influence on him of the entire spiritual culture of his time, embodied in various artistic, aesthetic, ethical, philosophical values of his being.

The purpose of the abstract of the work is the study of the philosophy and methodology of science.

Chapter 1. Philosophical definition of science

§ 1. What is meant by science

What is science? This is a form of spiritual activity of people, which is aimed at the production of knowledge about nature, society and knowledge itself and has the immediate goal of comprehending the truth and discovering objective laws based on a generalization of real facts and their relationship. Science, reflecting the world in its development and materiality, forms a single system of knowledge about this world.

At one time, as is known, a clear concept of science was proposed by logical positivists. The concept they proposed included: a value orientation to samples of natural science and mathematics, ideas about the formal logical structure of scientific knowledge (theory), the principles of verifiability and falsifiability of scientific theory, the reduction of the functions of philosophy only to the logical language of science, a complete rejection of metaphysics. However, the work of philosophers and historians of science led to the conclusion that this concept does not explain the real processes and mechanisms of the development and functioning of science.

A very authoritative and previously widespread point of view, according to which science can and should develop only at the expense of purely “internal” resources, has now been replaced by a fairly clear understanding of the significance of philosophical ideas for science, namely, the level of scientific prerequisites and foundations.

Some elements of this level are reflected in various concepts: “style of thinking”, “paradigm”, “research program”, etc. The main aspects of the level of prerequisites and foundations are clearly outlined: ontological (containing general ideas about the reality under study) and epistemological (consisting of set of methodological requirements for scientific knowledge).

Thus, the level of scientific prerequisites and foundations includes the following main components:

a system of ontological representations (a picture of the world, a picture of the studied aspect of reality);

a system of methodological ideas (ideals and norms of scientific character);

philosophical ideas and principles through which scientific pictures of the world are substantiated and the ideals of scientific character are interpreted.

In the "horizontal" perspective, science appears as complexes of knowledge correlated with theory. In turn, the theories are interconnected in many ways, and some of them have a substantive and methodological unity. However, a scientific discipline is not just a collection of knowledge that has such a unity. The formation of scientific disciplines is largely determined by the tasks of transferring knowledge to subsequent generations. For these purposes, knowledge and research methods are institutionalized - textbooks are written, departments, faculties and institutes are opened. The method of organizing the "front line" of science is different: as a rule, not disciplinary, but problematic. The solution of certain scientific problems may require knowledge of various kinds.

It should be noted that science as a form of cognition studies itself with the help of a number of disciplines, including the history and logic of science, the psychology of scientific creativity, the sociology of knowledge and science, and science of science.

We list the main features of scientific knowledge:

The main task of scientific knowledge is the direct discovery of the objective laws of reality. If this is not the case, then there is not and cannot be science itself, since the very concept of scientificity presupposes the discovery of laws, the deepening and essence of the phenomena being studied.

The immediate goal and main value of scientific knowledge is objective truth, which is comprehended by a number of rational means and methods, not without the participation of living contemplation. Therefore, a characteristic feature of scientific knowledge is its objectivity.

Science is focused on being put into practice.

Scientific knowledge in epistemological terms is a contradictory and very complex process of reproducing knowledge, which together form a coherent system of concepts, theories, hypotheses and laws, enshrined in natural and artificial (chemical formulas) languages.

In the course of scientific knowledge, such means as instruments, various instruments, telescopes, rocket and space technology, etc. are used.

Scientific knowledge is characterized by strict evidence and validity of the results obtained, as well as, no less important, the reliability of the conclusions.

§ 2. Possibilities of science

According to classical ideas, a scientific discipline should be represented by one theory. The disciplinary image of science developed mainly as a monotheoretical model. However, judging not by the hypothetical future, but by the current state, the structure of a scientific discipline, as a rule, appears as a set of theories, among which fundamental and derivative, non-fundamental theories can be distinguished.

The methods of classifying the scientific disciplines themselves varied. So, F. Bacon in his classification proceeded from the properties of the subject, "the abilities of the intellect"; the main of which he considered memory, imagination and reason. Accordingly, he singled out three main types of knowledge: history, poetry and philosophy. A. Saint-Simon, followed by O. Comte, based the classification on the principle of transition from simpler and more general phenomena to more complex and particular ones. The result was a series of sciences: mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, physiology, sociology.

The development of classification systems continues today. However, the importance of any classifications should not be exaggerated. It is always necessary to keep in mind the living, developing nature of science, the processes of differentiation and integration that are constantly taking place in it.

The largest blocks, types of scientific knowledge, each of which has its own subject, methodological and functional unity, are: logical and mathematical sciences; natural Sciences; social sciences and humanities; practice-technical sciences.

Meanwhile, the objects of reality function as integral formations, and science develops by abstracting some of the properties of these objects, taken as the most important. The basis of the structure of scientific knowledge (which is especially characteristic of the most developed branches of natural science) is the analysis of the subject of study, i.e., the selection of abstract elementary objects and the subsequent synthesis of these abstract elements of a single whole in the form of a theoretical system.

The philosophical current of existentialism, fashionable in the West, rather categorically declares the inapplicability of scientific methods to the knowledge of the human person. It eludes scientific objectivity. A person, always placed in a situation of choice, changes many times on the way to "himself". Renouncing traditional science, the forerunner of existentialism, S. Kierkegaard, offers a very interesting doctrine of the three stages of the upward movement towards true existence (true existence).

In science, the so-called “Matthew effect” operates, in which already recognized scientists receive new incentives (prizes, awards, citations) much easier than their yet unrecognized colleagues.

§ 3. Philosophy as a science

Philosophy knows three forms of dialectics:

Antique, in its judgments relied on life experience, its representatives - Heraclitus, Plato, Zeno.

German idealistic dialectics, developed by Kant, and especially versatile and profound by Hegel.

Materialistic dialectics proceeds from the fact that if in the objective world there is a constant development, the emergence and destruction of everything, then the forms of thinking must be very flexible and mobile.

Dialectics is represented by laws, the most important of which is the law of the unity and struggle of opposites, which gives the basic concept of what contradiction itself is.

The law of mutual transition of quantitative and qualitative changes reveals the mechanism of development, which consists in the gradual accumulation of quantitative changes, which at a certain moment leads to significant qualitative transformations, which in turn has an inverse effect on the nature and pace of quantitative changes.

The law of negation of negation lies in the fact that development occurs in a spiral, when what has already been passed is repeated, as it were.

The opposite of dialectics is the metaphysical method, which currently has three main meanings:

Philosophy as a science of the universal, when both the object and the subject of knowledge are simultaneously covered;

Philosophical way of knowing and acting. How does philosophy influence the development of science and its results?

Philosophy influences the process of scientific knowledge at all its stages. The greatest influence, however, is observed in the construction of theories, especially fundamental ones.

In the depths of philosophy, certain ideas are developed, the scientific significance of which is confirmed after a significant period of time. From a huge number of speculative constructions, the scientist must choose those that are consistent with his own philosophical ideas.

The influence of philosophical principles on scientific research is carried out not directly, but in a very complex way - through the methods, forms and concepts of other methodological levels.

Philosophical methods can be taken into account and applied in science, often not explicitly, but either spontaneously or consciously.

The principles of philosophy really exist in science in the form of some universal norms, which together form a certain methodological program of the highest level.

Philosophy develops such very specific universal models of the existing reality, through which the scientist looks at the subject of his research, while choosing such universal cognitive means as categories and concepts.

Philosophical and methodological principles are auxiliary, derived from practice.

In the XX century. general scientific methods and approaches in research have become widespread, these include information, structure, model, element, system, etc. It is on their basis that certain methods and principles of cognition can be formulated, which further provide a connection and close interaction of philosophical methodology with special scientific knowledge and its numerous methods.

As for private scientific approaches, they are used quite widely in one or another branch of science, they include the methods of mechanics, biology, as well as a number of humanities.

Chapter 2. Methodological aspects of the existence of science

§ 1. The role of scientific knowledge

Even ancient philosophers divided all statements into knowledge and opinion. Knowledge, or science, according to Aristotle, can be of two kinds - either demonstrative or intuitive.

Nature is one, and the sciences are divided into separate disciplines. In nature, everything is connected with everything, each science occupies its own shelf. “There are separate sciences, and not science in general as a science about the real, but each of them enters a world that is boundless, but still one in a kaleidoscope of connections.”

§ 2. Differentiation of sciences by branches of knowledge

The specificity of modern science lies in the fact that it is increasingly turning to solving problems of a complex, interdisciplinary nature.

Meanwhile, a fundamental feature of the structure of scientific activity, arising from its predominantly analytical nature, is the division of science into separate disciplines. This, of course, has its positive aspects, since it makes it possible to study individual fragments of reality, but at the same time, the connections between individual fragments are overlooked, and in nature, as you know, "everything is connected with everything." And each act of man changing the natural environment is not limited to any one of its areas, but, as a rule, has great long-term consequences. The disunity of the sciences is especially hampering now, in the era of the fast-flowing differentiation of scientific knowledge, the need for complex integrative research has come to light. Over-specialization cannot interfere with the evolution of science in the same way that over-specialization of animals leads to the creation of dead ends in biological evolution.

It should be noted that science (and natural science) includes empirical and theoretical levels. Within one of them, experimental material is collected, and within the framework of the other, hypotheses, laws and theories are formed, as well as methods and methodology of natural science knowledge. It is obvious, however, that this division is conditional, because these levels of the cognitive process are complementary and interdependent.

§ 3. The specificity of the knowledge of social phenomena

It makes sense to dwell on the specifics of the cognition of social phenomena.

The subject of knowledge is the world of man, and not the thing as such.

Social cognition is inextricably and constantly connected with subjective and subjective values, which in their totality indicate the humanly significant and cultural significance of certain phenomena of our reality.

A specific feature of social cognition is its primary focus on phenomena that are evaluated in terms of their quality, not quantity. Here, paramount importance is given to the analysis of the individual, the individual on the basis of the general and natural.

In social cognition, one cannot use a microscope, no chemical reagents, or the most sophisticated equipment; all this must be fully replaced by the power of abstraction. At this stage, the role of thinking increases many times over.

Philosophy as a science and a proven method is of great importance for the study of the above circumstances.

Science, being an integral dynamic system of knowledge, cannot develop successfully if it is not enriched with new empirical data.

Empiricism - its product is illusory-utopian constructions, which include, for example, the building of communism in the USSR by 1980, etc.

A problem is a form of knowledge that contains something that is not yet known by man, but that needs to be known. Problems, according to a number of philosophers, arise either as a result of a contradiction in a separate theory, or when two polar theories come into contact, or as a result of a collision of a theory with direct observations.

A hypothesis is a form of knowledge that contains an assumption formulated on the basis of some facts that need to be proven.

Testing the truth of a hypothesis is the practice when a hypothesis that has been carried out and proven passes to the category of reliable truths and becomes a scientific theory.

Theory is the most common form of scientific knowledge, which gives a holistic display of regular and essentially significant connections in a certain area of reality, for example, Darwin's evolutionary theory, Einstein's theory of relativity, etc.

Any theory consists of elements, which include:

initial foundations - fundamental concepts and principles;

idealized object - an abstract model of the main connections and properties of the studied subjects;

the logic of the theory, which aims to clarify the structure and change of knowledge;

a set of laws and statements derived from the basic principles of some theory in accordance with certain principles.

We list the main functions of the theory that form theoretical knowledge:

a synthetic function that combines individual reliable knowledge into a single system;

explanatory function, its essence - the identification of causal and other dependencies, as well as the diversity of relationships of this phenomenon;

methodological, which is built on the basis of theory, on which various methods and methods of research activity are formed;

predictive function - prediction about the future state of phenomena;

practical, when the ultimate destination of any theory becomes one thing - to be put into practice.

It should be noted that without the transformation of an idea into a personal conviction and faith, the successful practical implementation of any theoretical ideas is impossible.

§ 5. Methodology of scientific knowledge

Method - from the ancient Greek metodos, which means the way to something. The problem of the method was constantly at the center of philosophical thought, which studied the system of prescriptions, principles and requirements that orient the subject to achieve a certain result in a particular field of activity. It is the method that disciplines the search for truth and allows you to move towards the goal in the shortest way. The main function of the method is to regulate cognitive and other forms of human activity. Any method is developed only from a certain theory, which serves as a prerequisite for it. The strength of any method lies in its depth and the fundamental nature of the theory, which then turns into a method. Further, the method is expanded into a specific system in order to be used to further deepen knowledge. The method is not fully given before the beginning of any research; it must be formed anew each time in accordance with the qualitative originality of a particular subject. In addition, the method exists and develops only in an extremely complex dialectic of the subjective and the objective, with the latter playing the leading role. In this understanding, any method is objective, factual and meaningful. But at the same time, it is also subjective, since it is a continuation and completion of the objectivity from which it is formed.

In modern science, there are the following methods:

Analytical (physics, mathematics, etc.);
Ontological, i.e. the doctrine of being as such;
Philosophical, among which the most ancient are dialectical and metaphysical.

Dialectics is the doctrine of the most general laws of the development of nature, society and knowledge.

A few words should be said about disciplinary methods, which are a system of techniques used in some discipline that is part of a particular branch of science.

As for the scientific methods of theoretical research, among them are:

Formalization, which is a display of meaningful meaning in a formalized language, which is created to express thoughts accurately and concisely to eliminate the possibility of ambiguous understanding. Formalization is of great importance in clarifying scientific concepts.

The axiomatic method is a way of constructing a certain scientific theory, which is based on some initial positions - axioms, according to which the rest of the statements of this theory are derived in a simple logical way, by proof.

The hypothetical-deductive method is a method of theoretical research, the essence of which is to create a system of deductively interconnected hypotheses, from which statements about the empirical facts that have taken place are subsequently derived.

A variation of this method is the method of mathematical hypothesis.

In scientific research, general logical methods and research techniques are also very actively used, among which the most prominent are:

Analysis, which is a real or mental division of an object into its constituent parts, while synthesis, on the contrary, is the union of its constituent parts into a single one.

Abstraction is a process of abstraction from some properties of the phenomenon under study with the simultaneous selection of properties that are of interest to the researcher.

Idealization is closely related to abstraction and thought experiment and is a mental procedure that is associated with the formation of idealized objects, such as a point or a completely black body, etc.

Induction is the movement of thought from experience, that is, from the individual - to the general - to conclusions.

Deduction is the process of cognition from the general to the individual.

Analogy is the establishment of similarities in some properties and relationships between non-identical objects. By means of the similarity revealed during the study, a conclusion is made by analogy.

Modeling is a method of studying certain objects through the reproduction of their characteristics on another object - a model that is an analogue of some fragment of reality - the original model. An important form of simulation is computer simulation.

A systematic approach is a set of a number of methodological principles, the basis of which is the consideration of objects as systems.

Modern science is characterized by a number of methodological innovations, which include the following:

Changing the nature of the object of study with the strengthening of the role of integrated programs in their study.

Rapprochement of natural and social sciences, i.e. methodological pluralism.

The widespread introduction in all private sciences and scientific disciplines of the ideas and methods of synergetics - the theory of self-organization, which focuses on the search for the laws of evolution of various natural phenomena.

The emergence of such concepts in science as probability, information, and constant interaction with such categories as chance, possibility, causality.

The introduction of time into all scientific disciplines, the coverage of macro- and microworlds in a single whole.

The connection of the objective world and the world of man, which allows you to establish a connection between the Universe and the evolution of life and man on Earth. This principle allows us to consider the Universe as the most complex system, the most important element of which is a person.

Increasing the level of abstractness and complexity of formal-abstract methods of cognition.

The Russian philosopher Vasily Vasilyevich Rozanov wrote in his book "On Understanding", created immediately after graduating from the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University, that the essence of science is the desire for understanding, for pure knowledge. "A boy who looks at a flame and thinks about what it is, a young man who thinks about the moral questions of life - stand within the limits of science, even if they have not resolved their doubts. But a scientist who has successfully passed his master's degree and is preparing his doctoral dissertation stands outside its limits, because it is not the thirst for knowledge that guides it. This desire for understanding makes science the sister of Wisdom, because a person understands something not only thanks to rational arguments and evidence, but also with the help of intuition, insight, artistic feeling, faith.

Of course, modern science has changed dramatically since the days of Aristotle and Galileo. The attitude towards it has changed both on the part of the state, society, and on the part of the scientists themselves. Science, as it were, has ceased to be the lot of only scientists. The well-being and cultural growth of people, the progress of human civilization largely depend on its successful development. In our time, science has become one of the most important sources of state revenue, since it is most directly involved in production, in the creation of new technical means and technologies, which in turn change the environment, the daily life of people.

Knowledge gradually expanded. Currently, it covers hundreds of scientific areas. And although a person has learned a lot about the world around him and about himself, there are still no answers to most important questions.

The most difficult thing was the knowledge of man himself. It turned out that the structure of a person, his physiology is difficult to study, although something here can still be understood. But it is especially difficult to study the inner world of man. After all, each individual is, as they say, his own unique, inimitable world. Different people in the same situation, at the same time, perceive the environment in different ways, evaluate the expediency of certain actions in the prevailing conditions differently, relate differently to the motives of other people's behavior.

It should be noted that in the study of special phenomena, both reduction to the natural, that is, attempts to explain social processes solely by the laws of natural science, and the opposition of the natural and the social are unacceptable.

Conclusion

So, science is an important form of knowledge. This statement is almost generally accepted in our time, when the success of technical progress and social development is largely determined by the state of science.

Criticism of the ideal of "rigorous" science extended to the very methodology and history of science. The cardinal questions of the existence of science are being questioned, so that today it is possible to identify two opposing points of view on the further development of science: pessimistic and optimistic.

If in the past in the field of production subjective sensations played a decisive role, with the help of which everything was determined by eye, ear, smell, etc., then with the advent of new technical devices, it became possible to determine objectively the exact parameters of an object, including its length, severity , warmth, etc. On this basis, mechanics developed, which was used to design machines and mechanisms. The laws and principles of mechanics, with the help of which a wide range of objects under study were interpreted at that time, formed the basis of a new scientific paradigm - mechanism.

The development of science during the industrial revolution led to an increase in the number of innovations, the rejection of routine and archaic forms of human activity. Enriched with experiment and combined with the practice of capitalist production, science became the basis for the professionalism and competence of individuals. And, if in the past scientific competence had a rather limited scope, then in the 19th century, according to T. Parsons, it was put at the forefront

It is said that scientific knowledge differs from other types of knowledge primarily in its high accuracy. Although this is true, this feature is not decisive. Not only in technology, but also in the system of public administration, mathematical calculations, statistical data, detailed and precisely developed plans and programs are used today. Accuracy as a certain way of relating to reality penetrates into everyday life.

If we believe the intuition of V.A. experiment, scientific heuristics, etc.). This will show scientific wisdom. Naturally, this will require a new, more advanced scientific toolkit. But the main thing will be in another. In how closely and organically it will be possible to bring together science (theoretical knowledge), extra-scientific knowledge (ordinary knowledge, practical knowledge, myths, legends) and politics (the pragmatic use of knowledge in the interests of power and the market).

It is often said that scientific knowledge operates with abstract concepts, while, for example, artistic knowledge figuratively, visually, concerns a concrete living person. On the one hand, a scientist often has to turn to visual images, analogies and metaphors to build complex scientific abstractions, on the other hand, artists in their work often rely on quite accurate, logically impeccable concepts, reasoning and methods.

It is my understanding that precise expressed concepts of knowledge underlie the work of many great writers. This means that conceptual and figurative knowledge do not exclude each other. They are found both in scientific and artistic creativity, although in different "dosages". They are inherent, of course, and ordinary knowledge, or so-called common sense.

philosophy science knowledge

List of used literature

Volkov A. N. Human measurement of progress. - M., 1990.
Gorelov A.A. Concepts of modern natural science. Tutorial. - M.: Center, 2008.
Kezin A.V. Management: methodological culture: Proc. allowance. - M.: Gardariki, 2007.
Los V. A. History and philosophy of science. Course Basics: Study Guide. - M.: Publishing and Trade Corporation "Dashkov and Co", 2004. - 404 p.
Lugvin S.B. Social transformations and state bureaucracy. // Questions of Philosophy. 2006, No. 2. P.103-108.
Parsons T. The system of modern societies. - M., 1998.
Popper K. Open society and its enemies. -T. II.- M., 1992.
Russell B. Human knowledge. Its scope and boundaries. - M., 1957.
Rozanov V.V. About understanding. The experience of studying the nature, boundaries and internal structure of science as an integral knowledge. - M., 1996.
Rozin V.M. Types and discourses of scientific thinking. - M.: Editorial URSS, 2008. - 248 p.
Sadovnichiy V.A. Knowledge and wisdom in a globalizing world. // Questions of Philosophy. 2006, No. 2. P.3-10.
Smirnova N.N. Abstract of lectures on philosophy. - St. Petersburg, 2007.
Feyerabend P. Selected works on the methodology of science. - M., 1986.
Philosophy in questions and answers: Textbook for universities / Ed. prof. HER. Nesmeyanov. - M.: Gardariki, 2008.
Jaspers K. The meaning and purpose of history. - M., 1994.

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The problem of correlation between the rational and the irrational in cognition. Every science has its an object and subject research. There is a difference in these concepts: the object can be common for a number of sciences, the subject is specific. What is the object and subject of philosophy? How are they related? What is the place of philosophy in the system of sciences? And is philosophical knowledge reducible to scientific if philosophy finds it difficult to concretize its subject and claims to be universal? All these questions require detailed consideration.

As is known, the subject of special sciences are individual specific needs of society - in technology, economics, art, etc. - and each of them has its own object of being. Scientific thinking, by thought G. W. F. Hegel(1770–1831), immersed in the final material and limited by the rational comprehension of the final. Philosophy is interested world at large, she aims for holistic comprehension of the universe. It is looking for the beginning and the root cause, while the private sciences are turned to phenomena that exist objectively, outside of man, independently of him. They formulate theories, laws and formulas, taking into account the personal, emotional attitude to the phenomena under study and the social consequences that this or that discovery may lead to.

A man who thinks, as he wrote Immanuel Kant(1724-1804), is able to formulate unity in the realm of experience. Kant singled out two levels this thought process: reason which creates unity through experience, and intelligence which creates the unity of the rules of reason according to principles. In other words, the mind organizes not sensory material, not experience, but reason itself. Thus reason seeks to reduce the diversity of the knowledge of the understanding to the smallest number of principles, or to achieve their highest unity. Reason can only lead to unity the reasons, i.e. natural regularity. But the highest task of science is to penetrate into the very depths of nature, to the root causes, primary sources, first principles!

The main principle of unity is unity of purpose. Philosophy is the science of knowing goal, for the sake of which everything develops and moves, and hence good(moral criteria). Thus, philosophy is primarily outlook. From this property of philosophy follows the problem associated with the ratio of the rational and the irrational in cognition, i.e. with the relationship between philosophy and science.

The science rational, it is the rationale; theoretically conscious, universal knowledge of the subject in its epistemological aspect. But science is also an object, a phenomenon, an action, the existence of which is based on a law: shaping, rule, order, expediency. However, there is also a phenomenon irrational, i.e. powerful, unknown impulse; some desire that has no reason yet; unconscious power. The highest step in the series of objectification of the will is man: a being endowed with rational knowledge. Each unknowing the individual is conscious of himself by his will to live. All other individuals exist in his mind as something dependent on his existence, which serves as the source of man's boundless egoism. Social organization, being only a system of balanced partial wills, does not destroy egoism: the overcoming of the egoistic impulse is carried out in the sphere of art and morality.

Arthur Schopenhauer(1788–1860) defined the irrational as will to live. According to Schopenhauer, the basis of morality is a sense of compassion, irrational. A person can experience both suffering and happiness, rooted in the very will to live.

The irrational is unknowable. Mysticism is an attempt to penetrate where neither knowledge, nor contemplation, nor the concept can penetrate. But the mystic can communicate nothing but his own sensations. He needs to take his word for it, he cannot convince anyone: this is knowledge in principle not reported. Philosophy, on the other hand, must proceed from objective knowledge common to all, from the fact of self-consciousness. She, according to Schopenhauer, is between rationalism and irrationalism and should be communicated knowledge, i.e. rational. Philosophy uses concepts, categories to express general knowledge. Its main task is to build a unified picture of the world in which everything is interdependent. However irrational objectively! Blind faith in the cult of scientific and technical reason (positivism), in the logical and deductive means of comprehending the truth in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. led to an underestimation of the irrational beginning. And this played a fatal role in the history of mankind: the bias towards the rational did not give the human race either happiness or peace.

It is generally accepted that the problem of the correlation between the rational and the irrational was born in the era of modern times and is associated with the name Rene Descartes(1596–1650). Descartes' main thesis boils down to the following: "I think, therefore I am." Hence the underestimation of the role of the irrational, and the exaggeration of the role of the reasonable. A kind of stereotype was also born: if it's irrational, then it's negative. But everything is not so simple. Reason often finds itself on the border of morality: you can take a piece of bread from a person in order to get enough of yourself and not die of hunger. The act is reasonable, but immoral.

What is the specificity of philosophical knowledge? In reflection! Under reflection refers to thinking and consciousness, turned on themselves, on the awareness of their own forms and premises. Philosophical reflection differs from the reflection of science. The latter is self-contained, often proceeding from the position of scientificity as the only guideline for human existence (this was especially characteristic of the 17th - 18th centuries).

Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein(1889-1951) spoke about the insufficiency of a purely cognitive exploration of the world. The field of knowledge about the world is facts and their logical transformations. But there are aspects of the world that do not lend themselves to a cognitive type of statement. Here the world is comprehended holistically, a feeling of common participation in the world and life arises, the problems of God, happiness, the meaning of life, etc. become significant. Wittgenstein considered the goal of philosophical studies to be the achievement of clarity, which had for him the meaning of an ethical principle as a requirement of honesty and sincerity in thoughts and statements, an honest awareness of one's place and purpose in the world. According to Wittgenstein, all knowledge must be reduced to a set of elementary propositions, as in mathematics. It is based on this principle doctrine of logical atomism, which is a projection of the structure of knowledge prescribed by the logical-structural model onto the structure of the world. In this way, philosophical reflection presupposes doubt, creative thought.

The problem of the methodology of philosophical knowledge. Method - it is a form of practical and theoretical exploration of reality, based on the laws of motion of the object under study. Methodology - doctrine, or science, about the method (methods) and principles of cognition - consists of two parts: a) teachings about the initial foundations, principles of knowledge(this part is directly related to philosophy, worldview) and b) teachings about techniques and methods of research(here, private methods of cognition are considered, a general research methodology is developed). But there is the problem of the gap between philosophical and scientific methodology. So, for example, positivism believed that science is a philosophy in itself, and not only in the field of studying objective reality, but also in the field of self-awareness of its conditions and prerequisites. In other words, classical positivism of the 19th century replaced philosophy with concrete scientific knowledge about the world. Logical positivism replaces the philosophical method with concrete scientific methods, philosophical reflection on science - concrete scientific reflection. What does positivism deny? Firstly, objective reality as a subject of philosophical analysis, and secondly, scientific knowledge as a subject of philosophical research. Thus, we are talking about the complete elimination of the subject matter of philosophy in general.

Science as an object of philosophical research studied by many branches of knowledge, but this does not negate the need for its philosophical consideration. Science is analyzed by philosophy, as it were, from two perspectives - methodological and worldview. Methodological analysis of science touches on such problems as the dialectics of the relationship between the object and subject of science; internal logic, continuity, patterns of development of science; correlation of empirical and theoretical levels, categories and laws, forms and methods of cognition (private, general, universal); scientific picture of the world, style of thinking; objectivity of knowledge (theory, scientific truth). Worldview analysis of science focuses on the problems associated with the factors of socio-cultural determination of science - material production, equipment, technology, scientific and technological progress; economic relations; socio-political, philosophical, moral-aesthetic, ideological factors.

Untenable are attempts to turn philosophy into a "special" science, a "science of sciences" that rises above all other knowledge. The basis of such views is the human desire for holistic knowledge. In the absence of developed scientific knowledge, this tendency is satisfied by the fabrication of missing connections and the speculative-speculative construction of a picture of the world. So, even G. W. F. Hegel wrote that any science is only applied logic. But to raise above the positive sciences also a special science of the universal connection of things is a useless thing. This would turn it into weights on the legs of science, would prevent science from moving forward.

Philosophy has its own basic question - on the relation of consciousness to being, which determines her approach to the world and underlies the methods and logic of cognition she develops. Philosophy should not oppose itself to scientific knowledge. It implements ideological attitudes along with all other sciences (natural and social).

Science as a subject of philosophical reflection. Science is a basic concept that does not have an exhaustive formal definition. So, on the one hand, science is understood as the development and systematization of objective knowledge. On the other hand, science is an institutionalized (social institution) reasonable principle (common sense). At the same time, science is a community within which a complete (without individual differences) and voluntary agreement based on beliefs of different people on a certain issue is possible. quasi-science- this is the form that science takes in a hierarchically organized scientific community; a certain scientific theory that denies a similar world science. Such a contradiction is a characteristic diagnostic sign of the analysis of science. Quasi-science includes both scientific theories and the relationship between scientists, i.e. it is a tool that allows any group of scientists to hold or seize power in the scientific community. Finally, there is pseudoscience- a certain doctrine, which is in a state of mutual denial with a world science of a similar name (for example, Michurin biology, which opposed world science from 1948 to 1964). A quasi-science is a social, collective phenomenon that exists in the scientific community. Pseudoscience is an individual phenomenon, a mistake of an individual, caused by a low level of his education, intellect, mental illness. From a historical point of view, the concept of "science" has two meanings: firstly, this is what is understood by science in the modern methodology of science; and secondly, this is what was called science in different periods of human history.

Perceptions of science have changed over time. Initially, this word meant knowledge in general or simply knowledge about something. For a long time, the concept of "science" was applied to a method of knowledge characterized by discursive thinking (rational, conceptual, logical, as opposed to sensual, contemplative). But astrology and alchemy are also characterized by discursive thinking, and therefore were considered sciences for many centuries. In the Middle Ages, theology was the "queen" of sciences, and in the era of Descartes and Leibniz, metaphysics was considered the "foundation" of science and the first of the sciences.

How to research science? If we take for science what scientists of different eras gave out for it, then we lose the subject history of science. So, Pierre Ramus in the sixteenth century. defined the subject of physics as the study first of all of the sky, then of meteorites, minerals, plants, animals and man. And even in the eighteenth century. physics remained still a unified science in which there was no clear division between the inorganic and organic areas. What criterion for delimiting epochs can be singled out in the history of science? Such a criterion can be type of rationality. We can consider the type of rationality by describing the various reflections of Aristotle, Plato, Bacon, Descartes, and so on. But most of these reflections are ideologemes (that is, false ideas about real science). So, if we follow this path, then our work will be reduced to a description of this kind of ideologemes. It is better to focus on the following aspect: how certain features of science, scientific activity and its results (truths) were rationally reflected within the framework of philosophical and metaphysical concepts. Then the type of rationality will mean a certain form and degree of correspondence of the philosophical and epistemological ideologeme to the real historical situation in science. For example, one can compare the ideal of constructing geometry, which Plato and Aristotle had in mind, with the realized practice of geometers - the “Principles” of Euclid. We can critically analyze those rational aspects that are embedded in the concepts of the past, and these concepts can be correlated not only with science, but also with culture as a whole, with the problems of the beginning (genesis) of a particular science, the prerequisites for its formation (myth, religion, magic, philosophy, etc.). Thus, if one investigates the genesis of arithmetic or geometry, one cannot do without studying the pre-rational forms of these sciences – the practice of measuring land plots, counting on fingers, etc. The problem is that comprehend the historical types of rationality in science, and this is often expressed in terms of a scientific or intellectual revolution. In this case, we are talking about a change in global assumptions and paradigms (T. Kuhn), “reform of the intellect” (A. Koire), a complete change in the “intellectual wardrobe” (S. Tulmin). How do these processes manifest themselves? As a rule, in the sudden victory of one of the competing theories, its rapid and unexpected acceptance by the scientific community and public opinion.

How does non-rational knowledge become rational? There are several points of view or approaches to this. Representatives of the first (O. Comte, G. Spencer, E. Taylor, J. Thompson and others) believed that philosophy and science arose from myth. According to the second approach (which was followed, in particular, by A.F. Losev), already at the first stage of development, science had nothing to do with mythology. A third option is also possible: the myth served as a bifurcation point for the two historically first types of rationality - the formal logic of the Eleatics and the dialectical logic of Heraclitus.

Thus, the focus of our attention is the problem of rationality. What caused such an interest in her? The fact is that the question of rationality is not only theoretical, but also vital and practical. Industrial civilization is a rational civilization, science plays a key role in it, stimulating the development of new technologies. The relevance of the problem of rationality is caused by the growing concern about the fate of modern civilization as a whole, not to mention the further prospects for the development of science and technology. Thus, the basis of interest in the problem of rationality is the crises generated by technotronic civilization.

Philosophy explores the historical forms of scientific knowledge, stating their fragmentation, while human knowledge needs unity. But on what basis is it possible? It is believed that the way of thinking for Europe is hermeneutics. It is she who should act as a "universal science" (scientia universalis) and take the place that once belonged to metaphysics. hermeneutics(from the Greek. hermeneuo - to interpret, interpret, interpret) - it is an art and a theory of interpretation. It aims to reveal the meaning of the text, based on its objective (the meaning of the words) and subjective (the intentions of the authors) grounds. Interest in the hermeneutic arises where there is misunderstanding, disagreement, misunderstanding. In the era of Hellenism, hermeneutics were called interpreters of messages, the meaning of which was closed to the uninitiated, whether it be Homer's poems or the sayings of oracles. In the Middle Ages, hermeneutics was revived due to the need to interpret the meaning of the word of God. The origins of its emergence as a special discipline - the doctrine of the methods of interpretation - can be traced back to the middle of the 17th century, when “profane” hermeneutics appeared, which explores texts of various kinds. The merit of substantiating hermeneutics as a science belongs to Friedrich Schleiermacher(1768-1834), who defined it as the doctrine of "the interconnection of the rules of understanding", and it does not matter what kind of text we are talking about - "sacred", "classical" or simply "authoritative". Schleermacher offered empathy for the subject of knowledge, taking into account the text and the psychology of the author. In his opinion, this allows a better understanding of the author, the conscious and unconscious side of his work. Thus, the understanding of the text is made dependent on the knowledge of the author, i.e. the philosopher, in essence, reduces the philosophy of science to grammatology and psychology, emasculating proper philosophy. Born a year before Schleiermacher's death Wilhelm Dilthey(1833–1911) continued research in this area. His credo: we explain nature, but we understand spiritual life. Dilthey understood life as the interaction of personalities: the fullness of life is manifested in the experiences and empathy of personalities given to them from the very beginning.

Age of the century Hans Georg Gadamer(1900–2002) in his book “Truth and Method” (M.: Progress, 1988) developed the concept of hermeneutics not only as a method of the humanities, but also as a kind of anthology, collecting “under the roof” of hermeneutics all significant landmarks: practice, life , art, word, dialogue, declaring hermeneutical experience the fundamental principle of all philosophy. Art, according to the philosopher, is an organon: having abandoned it, philosophy pays with its internal devastation. The essence of hermeneutics is revealed in the study of science in the system culture, although it is problematic to derive it directly from culture.

Philosophy and science correlate as scientific and dialectical types of rationality. If the dialectic the art of reasoning- is used as a method of conceptualizing the principles of development, then the scientific type of rationality is based on the recognition of: a) the law of conservation; b) the principle of correspondence, which affirms continuity in knowledge; c) the principle of cyclicality, the rhythm of development processes; d) the principle of relativity and symmetry, identity, etc. As a type of rationality, dialectics is not reduced to the scientific type of rationality, it is not replaced by it. Dialectics as the science of the laws of development has heuristic resources that allow it to formulate the idea of the sources and mechanisms of development, to model the principles of the movement of reality on the basis of its own laws and categories. Of course, the laws of dialectics can reveal their lack of content in physics, as the creator of classical electrodynamics and the theory of the electromagnetic field noted. James Maxwell(1831–1879). But the heuristic resources of dialectics are incommensurably higher than physics! Being the science of the laws of development, dialectics aims to create such heuristic resources that allow at the theoretical level to work out the idea, source and mechanism of development, to model the principles of movement of the "current", "becoming" reality with its diversity and non-formalizability. All laws and categories of dialectics are subject to this.

Particular sciences are turned to phenomena that exist objectively, i.e. outside of man, independently of man or of humanity. Science forms theories and formulas, taking into account the personal, emotional attitude of the scientist to the phenomena being studied and the social consequences that this or that discovery can lead to. The figure of a scientist, the structure of his thoughts and temperament, the nature of confessions and life preferences in the context of scientific research are of no particular importance. The law of gravity, quadratic equations, the Mendeleev system, the laws of thermodynamics are objective. Their action is real, it does not depend on the desires, moods and personality of the scientist. The philosopher's world of ideas is not just a static layer of reality, but a living dynamic whole, a variety of interactions in which cyclicity and spontaneity, orderliness and destruction, forces of good and evil, harmony and chaos are intertwined. The philosophizing mind must determine its attitude to the world. Therefore, the main question of philosophy is formulated as the question of the relation of thinking to being, of man to the world. Thus dialectics is a kind of heuristic, a way to achieve new results.

Branches of science proceed from certain ideas that are accepted as something given that does not require justification. None of the narrow specialists in the process of direct research activity asks the question of how his discipline arose, what is its specificity and difference from other disciplines. If these problems are touched upon, the natural scientist enters the realm of the history and philosophy of science.

Features of philosophical knowledge. Philosophy is based on the theoretical-reflexive and spiritual-practical relation of the subject to the object. It has an active impact on social life through new ideals, norms and cultural values. Its main, historically established sections are anthology, epistemology, logic, ethics, aesthetics, anthropology, social philosophy, history of philosophy, philosophy of religion, methodology, philosophy of science, etc. The main trends in the development of philosophy are associated with understanding such problems as the world and place in man, the fate of modern civilization, the unity and diversity of cultures, the nature of human knowledge, being and language.

The specificity of the conceptual apparatus in the philosophy of science lies in the fact that philosophy seeks to find the ultimate foundations and regulators of any conscious attitude to reality. Therefore, philosophical knowledge does not take the form of a rationally ordered scheme, but a detailed discussion, a detailed formulation of all the difficulties of analysis, critical comparison and evaluation of possible ways to solve the problem. Hence the well-known maxim: philosophy is important not only the result achieved, but also the path leading to this result.

"Physics, be afraid of metaphysics!" - This statement is attributed to Isaac Newton. This is his original protest against the ambiguity of the definition of concepts in philosophy. Science implements a rather strict form of organization of the utterance. But philosophy is always faced with the alignment sets options for justifications and rebuttals, guided by the saying: "Question everything."

For science, traditionally, cumulative forward movement, i.e. movement based on the accumulation of already obtained results (the scientist will not rediscover the multiplication table or the laws of classical mechanics!). It can be compared to a piggy bank in which, like coins, grains of true knowledge accumulate. Philosophy, on the other hand, cannot be content with borrowing results already obtained. It is impossible, for example, to be satisfied with the answer to the question about the meaning of life, proposed by a medieval thinker: each era solves this question in its own way.

The specificity of philosophy is manifested in the fact that it applies its own special method of reflection: a method of turning on oneself, a shuttle movement, involving a return to the original premises and enrichment with new content. Philosophy is characterized by a rethinking of the main problems throughout the history of mankind, and this is evidence of its reflexivity. Philosophy, as it were, distances itself from everyday life, moving into the world of intellectual, conceivable entities. As wrote Bertrand Russell(1872–1970), philosophy is something intermediate between theology and science; it is a "no man's land" between science and theology, but open to criticism from both sides. Insoluble questions from the point of view of theology and science turn out to be the subject of philosophy. The language of philosophy is something between the language of everyday life, equipped with categories, and the language of poetry.

Philosophy is not science! However, she claims presence in every science- with its own concepts, objectivity, the idea of causality, the laws of development, a set of concepts about patterns, etc. Its scientific nature is relegated to the background. That's not what it's about! It determines the value values, the social consequences of cause-and-effect relationships, determines the place of a person in the world.

Philosophy is a kind of intellectual activity that requires constant communication with the great minds of the past and present, has a national certainty, is enriched by world philosophical experience, and therefore, like any science, it is international, has a universal unity.

METHODOLOGY- a type of rational-reflexive consciousness, aimed at studying, improving and constructing methods (see. Method ) in various spheres of spiritual and practical activity. There are methodological ideas and concepts of varying degrees of development and constructiveness, different levels and breadth of coverage (methodology at the level of philosophical reflection, general scientific methodology and methodology of science at the interdisciplinary level, methodology of particular sciences). Currently, methodological concepts are being developed related to certain types of activities (educational methodology, engineering methodology, design methodology, etc.). The formation of the very idea of the doctrine of the method as a kind of “correct path” of cognition and life-sense orientation is associated with the emergence of philosophy, which acts as a rational-theoretical form of worldview and thereby subjecting the initial prerequisites of a person’s relationship to the world to reflexive analysis and control. In ancient philosophy, the idea of the method in the above sense is contained in a fairly developed form in the teachings of Socrates, as it was presented in the so-called. Socratic dialogues of Plato. Socrates in these dialogues offers a certain methodology for the search for truth, aimed at identifying contradictions in the position of the interlocutor, representing the common, everyday opinion, and opening up opportunities for a productive solution to the problem. "Socratic" maieutics was the first historical form of the methodology of a later period. The ideas and practice of philosophical methodology also developed in the works of other major representatives of ancient philosophy, primarily Plato and Aristotle.

The development of universal-theoretical methods is a necessary condition for the formation and development of science as a form of rational-theoretical consciousness, in contrast to the "receptive-technological" nature of pre-science, which is directly inscribed in the practical activities of people. The difference between ancient Greek geometry, which was expressed in Euclid's Elements, which for a long time became the paradigm for structuring systems of scientific and theoretical knowledge, from the "land surveying" of the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia was precisely in the careful development of methods for deploying theoretical systems that laid the foundations for the methodology of deductive Sciences. In Antiquity, methods of scientific and empirical research also arise and develop - descriptions and classifications, primarily associated with the name of Aristotle. The emergence and existence of both philosophy and science as forms of rational-theoretical consciousness is impossible without the presence of a “methodological component”, methodological ideas and concepts that ensure the identification, formulation and regulation of rational thinking methods in these types of spiritual activity. At the same time, the development of methods of rational thinking in philosophy and science from the very beginning had a pronounced projective-constructive character. Methodology not only reveals the already established methods and methods of activity, but actively forms the appropriate norms and methods, thereby producing the very structure of rational-cognitive activity in philosophy and science.

In the New Age, the doctrine of the method turns out to be the prerequisite and ideological core of all the classical philosophical doctrines of this period (F. Bacon, Descartes, Leibniz), which is due to the fundamental principles of the philosophy of the New Age for reflexive control over the content of knowledge, articulation and transparency of this content for the cognizing subject. The method in the understanding of the classical rationalistic (in the broad sense of this term, embracing the epistemology of empiricism) philosophical methodology also acts as a means of this transparency for the self-consciousness of the subject. The critical-reflexive function of this methodology is to find solid foundations of knowledge, the truth of which would be guaranteed by their self-reliance for the cognizing subject, reduction to which and subsequent derivation from which would allow the self-consciousness of the cognizing subject to completely control the entire body of genuine knowledge. This classical rationalistic understanding of methodology had a great impact on all subsequent philosophical and methodological thought and subsequently turned out to be reproduced in the methodology of the neopositivists. Both empiric-inductivist and rationalist-deductivist methodology are different forms of realization of the same classical philosophical and methodological ideal. The development of these variants of the philosophical methodology of the New Age undoubtedly relied on the real practice of scientific thinking of that time: the methodology of empiricism - on empirical research, the methodology of rationalism - on mathematics. Developed in line with this methodology, the empiric-inductivist and rationalist-deductivist concepts of the analysis of scientific knowledge were some models conditioned by well-known philosophical and epistemological ideals, and the real practice of intensively developing science (thought experiment, hypothesis method, etc.) did not fit into the narrow framework of these models. This difference between the classical philosophical and geoseological concepts and the real practice of scientific thinking subsequently gave rise to the attitude towards the development of the methodology of science as an independent discipline that goes beyond philosophy and relies primarily on the realities of scientific knowledge.

The doctrine of method occupied a central place in Kant's philosophy. so-called. Kant's transcendental method was intended to reveal the initial (a priori) prerequisites for all forms of activity of human consciousness. Carrying out a critical-reflexive analysis of scientific knowledge in mathematics and exact natural science within the framework of this program, Kant gives a certain model of the methodology of science, capable of revealing important aspects of scientific cognitive activity in a specific form of Kant's apriorism. At the same time, Kant's teaching on the methods of science was included in the broader context of his philosophical methodology, aimed at substantiating his transcendentalism. In the subsequent development of German classical idealism (Fichte, Hegel), Kant's attitude to the relationship between philosophical and scientific methodology, to their mutual stimulation, is replaced by a one-sided orientation towards the primacy of a methodology of a speculative-philosophical type, which is dialectics. The positive aspects of the development of the dialectical methodology of cognition as the driving force of its development are discredited in the Hegelian system by the unlawful ontologization of the method and methodology, which follows from the objective-idealistic principle of the identity of thinking and being, from the speculative nature of its construction of dialectical methodology, from the separation from the real practice of scientific thinking. Therefore, the sound moments of the dialectical tradition of the methodology of cognition, being associated with speculative Hegelianism, were not perceived in the subsequent intensive development of the methodology of scientific thinking.

The general trend of further development was to expand the scope of methodology, in the emergence of its diverse forms that go beyond the bounds of only philosophical methodology. In the 2nd half of the 19th century. and at the beginning of the 20th century. intensively develop methodological research focused on the real problem of science (P. Duhem, E. Cassirer, E. Mach, A. Poincaré, W. Wavell, etc.). The development of a specific methodology for the social, historical and humanitarian sciences, the sciences of culture begins (W. Windelband, P. Rickert, B. Dilthey, M. Weber). An important role in the development of the methodological culture of science was played by research on the foundations of mathematics, which to a large extent stimulated the directions of the methodology of science, focused on the application of methods of mathematical (symbolic) logic. Development of methods for precise logical analysis, use of logical formalization, etc. had a great positive impact on the level of methodology of science in general. However, the absolutization of these approaches in the methodology of logical positivism, an attempt to build a comprehensive normative methodology based on the so-called. logical analysis of the language of science proved untenable. Their main defect was the separation from the real practice of science, in particular from its history. so-called. post-positivist methodology of science returns to the recognition of the need for an unbiased study of the realities of science, its history. In line with postpositivism, concepts arise that have had a very effective impact on the modern methodology of science (methodology of research programs by I. Lakatos, the concept of "paradigms" by T. Kuhn). At the same time, the failure of the program to develop a universal normative methodology of science based on the so-called. the standard concept of science, formulated by logical positivists, stimulated a radical rejection of the very idea of methodology (the subtitle of P. Feyerabend's work is characteristic - "Against the method"). The same "anti-methodological" ideology is actively developing at the present time in line with postmodernism. Overcoming the temptations of methodological normativism, the self-consciousness of science, at the same time, must not renounce any methodological regulation. Such a refusal would undermine the very foundation of science as a form of rational consciousness.

V.S. Shvyrev

TRANSITION FROM THE METHODOLOGY OF SCIENCE TO THE METHODOLOGY OF ACTIVITY. The understanding of methodology as a science of methods of thinking, once very fruitful, is now fading into the background.

Several factors can be identified that determined in the 20th century. the allocation of methodology as a special section of philosophy: the weight of methodological work has increased, in philosophy itself there is a need for independent methodological activity in various sciences and disciplines; crisis and the development of philosophy itself. Since the 1950s methodological approaches and directions are being formed in a number of disciplines - philosophy, science of science, a systematic approach, praxeology, sociology, linguistics, literary criticism, etc.

Significant influence on development in the 20th century. professional methodology had a technological outlook. Being at first only a necessary moment of intellectual activity in philosophy and other disciplines, methodology becomes an independent reality, since during this period the socio-cultural conditions for the reproduction of technology are formed. Disciplines are created in which technology is recognized and comprehended (philosophy of technology, praxeology, methodology itself), specialists practicing in a new field of intellectual practice (technologists, systems engineers, methodologists) are being formed, special technological theories and programs are being created. Under the influence of these socio-cultural conditions, professional methodology is being formed as one of the areas of modern technology - the technology of mental work (activity).

Today, two main orientations can be distinguished in methodology: critical-analytical and design-constructive. Realizing the first orientation, the methodologist acts as a researcher of thinking (activity) in a particular discipline. At the same time, he must carry out reflection of a special kind - critical and research. By implementing a project-constructive orientation, the methodologist helps the specialist to rebuild and develop his subject. An important result of the methodologist's critical activity is the "deobjectification" of concepts and other disciplinary ideas. Within the framework of the design-constructive orientation, the reverse procedure is carried out - “objectification”, i.e. construction of new concepts and ideal objects.

Since the methodologist is focused on building a new subject (discipline), he argues the need to build new concepts, identifies the means and methods necessary for this, develops a plan and strategy of action, and sometimes creates the first fragments of a new subject. In order to move from the existing state of activity to its new state, the methodologist is forced to reflect and "overcome" the objective point of view and ways of thinking. It shows what they are based on, where their boundaries are, what cognitive attitude has determined them.

Both reflection and other forms of methodological work are built today with the conscious use of scientific and design ideas and methods. This means that methodological work realizes itself, on the one hand, as a special kind of research, on the other hand, as a kind of intellectual design. It was the development of scientific and project orientations in methodology that led to the formation of the so-called "general methodology" in contrast to the "private methodology". General methodology develops the basic principles and means of methodological work (approaches, concepts, schemes). At the same time, both the experience of private methodologies and knowledge about thinking and activity are used. The task of private methodology is the methodological support of specific activities in certain sciences, disciplines, and various practices. In the field of general methodology, the methodologist studies and constitutes the "laws" of thinking and activity as such, while he considers thinking and activity as special quasi-natural processes. The hypertrophy of the project orientation of the methodology often leads to the declaration of its role as the supreme "normative discipline", designed to organize and guide all other sciences and disciplines. The reaction of practitioners in this case is unequivocal - even if they need methodological knowledge, they reject the claims of normative methodology. But if the project orientation of methodology is considered as one of the values of methodological work along with others, then in this case it is just as comprehended as, for example, scientific or axiological orientations.

The independent development of the methodology continued until about the beginning of the 1980s. Starting from this period, a crisis of methodological thought is indicated, due, in part, to its isolation from philosophy. The transformation of some directions (for example, the school headed by G.P. Shchedrovitsky) into a pure technology of thinking (based on the theories of activity and mental activity and later organizational games) is a fairly natural phenomenon. This happens, firstly, as a result of the independent development of the methodology, and secondly, its naturalization, i.e. understanding as a normative metatheory. The task of methodology in these directions began to be seen in the regulation of any thinking, in the general methodological expansion into the most diverse fields of activity. Representatives of this normative trend argued that methodology schemes are universal and do not depend on the content and nature of certain subjects. Such a position naturally led to a decrease in interest in methodology and to a completely justified accusation of formalism.

One of the necessary conditions for overcoming the crisis of methodology is the restoration of its links with philosophy. Analysis shows that the goals of methodology and philosophy are still different. The philosopher, to one degree or another, solves the cardinal existential problems of his time. It must be modern, listening to its time and reality. Of course, among the existential problems and dilemmas discussed in philosophy, there are timeless, eternal ones, for example. problems of existence, death, freedom, correlation of true and ordinary reality. Philosophical work becomes necessary when the habitual patterns of thinking and human action cease to work, and reality falls apart. The modern intellectual situation has the following characteristics: a lot of knowledge that describes the world in different ways, a lot of opposite statements about existence, the absence of criteria for evaluating and choosing such knowledge and statements as true. It is in such dramatic situations that the philosopher re-collects the world, restores the lost meaning of being, outlines the solution to the main existential problems of his time. The goal of professional methodology is different - to create conditions for the development of any activity: scientific, engineering, artistic, etc.

Thus, in terms of value and semantics, philosophy and professional methodology differ significantly. Philosophy is always focused on solving modern and eternal existential problems and dilemmas, and professional methodology is focused on the development of activity, understood to a large extent in a technological key. The values and meanings behind such a technological approach, as a rule, are more focused on the same technology and the reproduction of sociality than on a person with his private (which does not negate their existentiality) life problems.

Understanding the current situation in methodology, its relationship with modern philosophy, allows us to say that the independent development of methodology is exhausting itself, that it must ask questions, why is it needed, what are its values, what is it intended to serve, does it fulfill its purpose in culture.

Modern methodology and philosophy face the following problems: 1) overcoming the naturalism of philosophical and methodological thinking, which involves methodological reflection and work aimed at deobjectification of the ontological ideas that we use; 2) the problem of reality, presented as a set of different realities (personal, scientific, artistic, religious, esoteric, etc.) and at the same time as a single reality of being; 3) a new attitude to symbolic systems and realities (art, personal experiences and dreams, thinking, creativity, design, etc.), understood as a very significant independent reality; 4) anthropological and psychological horizons.

The solution of these problems makes it possible to overcome the gap between methodology and philosophy, to understand their complementarity. If the culture and technology of thinking is associated with methodology, then philosophy creates ontological, value and semantic supports and guidelines for the methodology. Currently, these disciplines develop without each other and are guided by divergent and inconsistent values. The path of their unification assumes that the methodology will acquire ethical guidelines, and philosophy will acquire a rational-reflexive consciousness that meets the level of modern thinking.

V.M.Rozin

FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE METHODOLOGY. Initially, methodology is conceived as a doctrine of the methods of thinking and is included as an integral part of logic. In the logic of Port-Royal, the doctrine of the methods of analysis and synthesis was understood as the final part of the logical doctrine. In a similar way, the doctrine of the methods of thinking was understood by Leibniz, H. Wolf, and even by D.S. Mill. True, for Wolff and the Wolffian school, the doctrine of methods is part of practical logic. Starting with Kant, the doctrine of methods is isolated from the composition of logic, although in the "Logic" Kant interprets the doctrine of methods as part of logic, which should "interpret the form of science in general, or the method of combining the diversity of knowledge into science" ( Kant I. Treatises and letters. M., 1990, p. 435). Methodology should lead to distinctness, solidity, and to the systematic ordering of knowledge into a whole of scientific knowledge. Among the methods analyzed by Kant are methods of logical improvement of knowledge (definition, exposition, description, logical division of concepts, analytical and synthetic methods). Although Kant's methodology is still part of logic, however, its purpose and structure is significantly expanded, since it simultaneously turns out to be a part of the science of science. In the Critique of Pure Reason, he reveals the task of transcendental methodology as the definition of the formal conditions for a complete system of pure reason and divides it into discipline, canon, architectonics and history of pure reason. In essence, transcendental methodology deals with the ways of constructing a systemic form of scientific and theoretical knowledge. The methodology is thus identical, if not to the methods of presentation, then to the methods of constructing systems of theoretical knowledge.

This approach is unacceptable for Hegel. In the composition of logic as a science, he includes consideration not only of the scientific method, but also of the very concept of science ( Hegel. Science of Logic, vol. 1. M., 1970, p. 95). The doctrine of method turns out to be for him not just an analysis of the methods of presentation, “the movement of this method (dialectic. - Auth.) is the movement of the very essence of the matter” (ibid., p. 108), and the method is “awareness of the form of its internal self-movement (logic. - Auth.) content” (ibid., p. 107). Thus, logic coincides with dialectics and with the study of the categorical structure of scientific knowledge, and the method itself, understood meaningfully, turns out to be a form of self-movement of scientific and theoretical knowledge in its universal categorical form. The method must be conceived, according to Hegel, not as an external form, but as “the soul of all objectivity” (ibid., vol. 3, p. 290), as “a self-knowing concept that has itself as its object” as both subjective and objective, as expanding to the system and revealing in the ascent from abstract to concrete definitions to a total-holistic system (ibid., p. 306). Thus, Hegel's doctrine of method turns out to be a part of metaphysics, coinciding with logic and with the science of science.

In the subsequent development of the methodology, it is possible to identify different lines in the interpretation of its goals and subject matter. B. Bolzano, unfolding the logic of science in his "Scientific Teaching", includes heuristics in it - the study of ways and methods of achieving true knowledge. For Herbart, methodology is the first part of metaphysics (Allegemeine Metaphysik. V., 1828, § 182). For Sigwart, methodology is the study of ways to improve our thinking, the purpose of which is to determine the limits of applicability and the significance of research methods (Logik, Bd. 2. B., 1924, S. 3). J. Friz considers methodology as a part of applied logic dealing with logical technique (System der Logik, 1837, S. 12). In the 2nd floor. 19th century specialists in the field of natural sciences acutely felt the lack of study and generalization of the methods of various sciences. The intensively developing special methodology was not limited to the methods of induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis. Historical, comparative, typological methods began to be widely used in natural science, and quantitative and experimental methods began to be widely used in psychology and social sciences. The general methodology, however, left these special methods out of its field of vision. W. Wundt, trying to answer the demands of his time, saw the purpose of methodology in the study of the methods of individual sciences and devoted a special volume of his "Logic" to the analysis of the methods of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, philology, history, economics, jurisprudence (Logik, Bd 2. Methodenslehre Stuttg., 1880). The Neo-Kantians of the Marburg School focused on the methods of mathematics and natural science ( Natorp P. Die logischen Grundlagen der exakten Wissenschaften. Lpz., 1923), while the neo-Kantians of the Baden school - the ideographic methodology of the historical sciences ( Windelband W. Preludes. SPb., 1904). For Windelband, methodology is the application of logic to the cognitive goals of individual sciences, therefore methodology is a technical discipline that uses logical forms and norms in the methods of various sciences. Neo-Kantians are generally characterized by pan-methodology, i.e. the transformation of methodology into a universal philosophical doctrine that determines both the form and content, and the subject of scientific knowledge and, in general, the originality of certain scientific disciplines. In the same period, a clear distinction between presentation methods and research methods begins (either in connection with the distinction between the logic of objectivity and the logic of thinking in M. Honecker, or in connection with the distinction between the logic of descriptive and normative sciences in E. Husserl's Logical Investigations).

In the 1st quarter of the 20th century. the process of separating methodology from logic and turning it into a research area of philosophy unfolds. At the same time, in the special sciences, there is a need for methodological reflection, and the scientists themselves take on the functions of methodologists. In the preface to the book "Method in the Sciences" (Russian translation, St. Petersburg, 1911), it is noted that "the philosophy of sciences, and in particular methodology ... has acquired such importance that the programs of our various educational institutions had to give it special a place that became larger and larger with each new reform. In various sciences, methodological disputes are unfolding between representatives of various areas. This applies both to representatives of the natural sciences (in physics - A. Poincaré, N.A. Umov, E. Mach; in biology - C. Bernard, K. Frisch), and to representatives of socio-humanitarian knowledge (in history - R. Yu. Vipper, A.S.Lappo-Danilevsky, N.I.Kareev; in law - B.A.Kistyakovsky, P.I.Novgorodtsev; in economics - G.Schmoller, L.Mises, A.I.Chuprov). Alternative methodological programs are being formed, for example. the program of "descriptive physics" (G. Hertz, Clifford), as opposed to the methods of explanation in the physical sciences, in mathematics, various directions in the justification of mathematics begin to form - logicism, intuitionism. In the same period, criticism of the concepts of causality and deterministic explanation in scientific knowledge unfolded, interest in statistical, probabilistic methods, metamathematical and metalogical problems increased. The goal of philosophy is seen in the critical analysis of experience (empirio-monism, empirio-criticism), and then the language of science.

The methodology of science in Russia has also come a long way of development. Already in the second half of the 19th century. in domestic philosophy, the study of deductive and inductive methods (F.A. Zelenogorsky, P.E. Leikefeld), methods of empirical sciences (N.S. Strakhov), social sciences (G.N. Vyrubov), understanding of the comparative historical and typological methods (I.I. Yagodinsky, V.S. Shilkarsky). A logical study of the methods of mathematics and logic itself is being developed (P.S. Poretsky, S.N. Povarnin). Along with attempts to single out a specific dialectical methodology coinciding with the construction of a system of categories (Η.Γ.Debolsky), various options for a neopositivist analysis of the methods of empirical sciences are being built (empirio-criticism of V. A. Bazarov, empirio-symbolism of P. S. Yushkevich, empirio-monism of A. A. Bogdanov) . Studies are being carried out on the specifics of the methodology of social sciences in general (S.L. Frank, N.N. Alekseev) and historical ones in particular (A.S. Lappo-Danilevsky, N.I. Kareev, R.Yu. Vipper, A.I. Vvedensky). In the methodology of mathematics, research is being carried out on the connection between proof and intuition in geometry (V.F. Kagan, A.S. Bogomolov), the history of the formation and development of the axiomatic-deductive method (D.D. Mordukhay-Boltovskoy). Studies of the specifics of the methodology of the humanities are being carried out (G.G. Shpet, M.M. Bakhtin, A.F. Losev). Various methodological programs in psychology are being formed - from the orientation towards experimental methods to the methods of introspection, from the methods of psychoanalysis to the methods of objective reflexology (G.I. Chelpanov, V.M. Bekhterev). By the end of the 1920s. methodology is being formed in Russia as a specific area of philosophical analysis of scientific thinking. VN Ivanovsky wrote one of the first books on methodology - "Methodological Introduction to Science and Philosophy" (Minsk, 1923); GA Gruzintsev conducted in his work "Essays on the Theory of Science" (Dnepropetrovsk, 1927) a distinction between methods of substantiation and research methods. In the same years, the methodology of special sciences was intensively developed, often from alternative positions (in biology - N.I. Vavilov, A.A. Lyubishchev, A. G. Gurvich; in physics, primarily the theory of relativity, - K.A. .A. Fridman, A.F. Ioffe and others). In the same period, a very broad program of system-organizational understanding of methodology was put forward - the tectology of A.A. Bogdanov. The problems of applying mathematical methods in various sciences are discussed - from biogeochemistry (V.I. Vernadsky) to biology (A.A. Lyubishchev).

Dogmatic Marxism, while defending the position of the coincidence of dialectics, logic, and the theory of knowledge, by no means assumed the development of either one or the other, or the third. All logical-methodological work (from the 1930s to the mid-1950s) was carried out within the framework of a special methodology and was carried out more by scientists themselves than by philosophers. Turn to methodology and intensive logical-methodological work since the mid-1950s. were not only a way to avoid ideological dogmas, but also a form of response to the methodological challenges of the natural and social sciences, to those urgent problems that needed philosophical and methodological understanding. And here the greatest successes in Russian philosophy were achieved. Already in 1952, the Moscow Methodological Circle began to work, which served as the source of a number of new programs in the methodology of science. At first, a logical and methodological analysis of the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete is carried out (A.A. Zinoviev, E.V. Ilyenkov), a program of “content logic” and methodology of mental activity is formed (G.P. Shchedrovitsky, N.G. Alekseev) , which has turned into a program of organizational and activity games. Since the mid 1950s. Both general and special methodology are intensively developing, and in completely different directions: from the methodology of history (in Moscow - M.Ya. Gefter, V.S. Bibler, A.Ya. Gurevich, in Tomsk - A.I. Danilov) to the methodology physics (the program for studying the methodological principles of physics - B.M. Kedrov, N.Φ. Ovchinnikov, I.S. Alekseev), from the analysis of the construction of a physical theory (M.E. Omelyanovsky, E.M. , E.A. Mamchur) to the methods of biological sciences (I.T. Frolov, R.S. Karpinskaya, S.V. Meyen), from the methodology of historical and scientific research (B.S. Gryaznov, N.I. Rodny) to the methods of semiotics and hermeneutics (V.S. Ivanov, Yu.M. Lotman). A program for the logic of scientific research is being developed (P.V. Kopnin, M.V. Popovich, B.S. Krymsky). Methodologically significant are the developments of modern logic (A.A. Zinoviev, V.A. Smirnov, B.N. Pyatnitsyn). Research is being carried out on the methodology of system research (I.V. Blauberg, E.G. Yudin, V.N. Sadovsky), within the framework of which the methodology for designing organizational management systems and artificial intelligence is being formed (S.P. Nikanorov, D.A. Pospelov ). The methodology outgrows the framework of the methodology of science and more and more turns into a methodology for the activity and design of ergonomic man-machine systems, intelligent systems, and organizational management systems.

Methodological work both inside and outside of philosophy is expanding significantly. If in the pre-war period, in connection with the development of quantum mechanics, the methodological principles of physics - observability, complementarity, correspondence, uncertainty, symmetry (N. Bohr, A. Einstein, W. Heisenberg, E. Schrödinger, E. Wigner), then in the post-war For years, the methodological principles of other sciences - biology, psychology, sociology - have been discussed. Along with the deployment of the methods of modern logic (primarily the logical syntax and semantics of formalized languages), which are widely used as a methodology of scientific knowledge, a number of new directions are being formed that search for a new methodology in different ways - the “logic of research” by K. Popper, non-Aristotelian logic in neo-rationalism of G. Bashlard, a turn from logical semantics to pragmatic methodology in the works of representatives of the Lviv-Warsaw school (T. Kotarbinsky, K. Aidukevich), which, focusing on praxeology, analyzes the maxims related to the method and actions in accordance with them. In the post-war period, the final separation of methodology from the logic and philosophy of science takes place. This process is due to the deployment of the methodology of special sciences, which analyzes and generalizes the methods of scientific knowledge, methods of both empirical (natural and social) and non-empirical sciences, and at the same time, a turn to methodology in connection with a much wider class of problems in the design of technical and intellectual systems. , reflexive analysis and understanding of the goals and norms of human activity in diverse areas of public life - from technical invention to social engineering.

A.P. Ogurtsov

Literature:

1. Kuhn T. The structure of scientific revolutions. M., 1975;

2. Lakatos I. Evidence and refutation. M., 1987;

3. He is. Falsification and methodology of research programs. M., 1985;

4. Mamchur E.A.,Ovchinnikov I.F.., Ogurtsov A.P. Domestic philosophy of science: preliminary results. M., 1997;

5. Feyerabend P. Fav. works on the methodology of science. M., 1986;

6. Methodological concepts and schools in the USSR (1951–1991). Novosibirsk, Vol. 1.1992;

7. Stepin V.S., Gorokhov V.G.,Rozov M.A. Philosophy of science and technology. M., 1995;

8. Structure and development of science. From Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. M., 1978.

Philosophy and methodology of science

Science has always been closely connected with philosophy. Outstanding scientists of all times have made a huge contribution to its development. Pythagoras, Aristotle, N. Copernicus, R. Descartes, G. Galileo, I. Newton, G. W. Leibniz, A. Smith, W. Humboldt, C. Darwin, D. I. Mendeleev, K. Marx, D. Gilbert, L.E-Ya.Brauer, A.Poincaré, C.Gedel, A.Einstein, N.Bohr, V.I.Vernadsky, N.Wiener, I.Prigozhin, A.J.Toynbee, J.M. Keynes, P. Sorokin, F. de Saussure, L. S. Vygotsky, Z. Freud, M. M. Bakhtin not only had outstanding achievements that determined the main directions of the development of science, but also significantly influenced the style of thinking of their time, his outlook.

Philosophical comprehension of the achievements of science began to acquire especially great cultural significance from the 17th century, when science began to turn into an increasingly significant social phenomenon. But until the second half of the XIX century. their discussion was not systematic enough. It was at that time that the philosophical and methodological problems of science turned into an independent field of research.

The dominance of empiricism in natural science in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. led to the emergence of illusory hopes that the functions of theoretical generalization in science can be assumed by philosophers.

However, their implementation, especially in the grandiose natural-philosophical constructions of F.V.I. Sheinin and G.V.F. Hegel, caused scientists not only explicit skepticism, but even hostility.

“It is hardly surprising,” K. Gauss wrote to G. Schumacher, “that you do not trust the confusion in the concepts and definitions of professional philosophers. If you look at least at modern philosophers, your hair will stand on end from their definitions.

G. Helmholtz noted that in the first half of the XIX century. "Unpleasant relations have developed between philosophy and the natural sciences under the influence of the Schelling-Hegelian philosophy of identity." He believed that this kind of philosophy is absolutely useless for natural scientists, since it is meaningless.

“It is believed,” wrote the famous historian of philosophy K. Fischer, “that at that time a coven of witches was taking place in natural science and Schelling was a wandering light, followed by many; now this dream of Walpurgis night has dissipated and left nothing but the ordinary consequences of a feast.

At the same time, science gradually began to overcome the shortage of theoretical ideas. Literally in all its areas, and, above all, in mathematics and natural science, fruitful scientific theories began to appear, significantly expanding the horizons of science, there was a significant enrichment of the means of scientific knowledge, its conceptual apparatus.

Thus, for example, the foundations of mathematical analysis and probability theory were formed in mathematics, fundamental results were obtained in algebra, and non-Euclidean geometries were created.

In biology, the theory of the cellular structure of living matter was developed, the theory of the evolution of species was constructed, the concept of the origin of man from apes was developed, and the widespread use of physicochemical methods for studying the processes of life began.

The advances in the physical sciences were especially great. In the second half of the XIX century. here, along with mechanics, which previously monopolized theoretical physics, electrodynamics, thermodynamics, molecular-kinetic theory of gases, and then statistical physics appeared.

The arsenal of actively used concepts includes the concepts of field, ether, atom, entropy.

Scientists began to apply the methods of phenomenological description, mathematical analogy, and modeling in the cognition of physical phenomena.

Along with the methods of mathematical analysis and differential equations, the methods of probability theory and mathematical statistics began to enjoy increasing success. Various theoretical constructions were constantly discussed on the pages of magazines, and no one was surprised either by their abundance or by the short life span of many of them.

It is not surprising that scientists themselves, and especially physicists, in an effort to understand what is happening in their science, are increasingly turning to philosophy. Interest in it, extinguished as a result of the collapse of the claims of natural philosophy, in the second half of the 19th century. reborn with renewed vigor.

The attention of scientists again began to attract the problems of philosophy and methodology of science.
- What is the content of the concepts of number, function, space, time, law, causality, mass, force, energy, life, species, etc.?
- How are analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, theory and experience combined in scientific knowledge?
- What determines the descriptive, explanatory and predictive functions of the theory?
- What is the role of empirical and theoretical hypotheses?
- How do scientific discoveries occur, and what is the role of intuition in obtaining new knowledge?
- How should the concept of theory be interpreted?
- What provides science with the opportunity to know the truth and what is it in scientific knowledge?

These and similar questions are actively discussed by scientists in public reports and disputes, articles and special monographs. All of them were born of the progress of science, and its needs demanded their speedy resolution.

However, it was not easy to answer them.

1. THE POSITION OF THE MECHANISTS

The overwhelming majority of scientists in the second half of the 19th century, following the tradition that had developed in the history of science, tried to interpret all these problems on the basis that science is capable of reflecting the deep properties of being.

This understanding of the essence of science, rooted in a deep history, was significantly supported by the huge successes in the development of physics based on mechanics.

It was here that the idea of scientists was strengthened that any phenomena of reality are processes that take place in space and time, that they are causally determined and obey a small number of laws, on the basis of which one can give them an arbitrarily accurate description.

In this case, celestial mechanics served as a model for scientific comprehension of reality.

This style of thinking inspired not only physicists at that time, but also biologists, psychologists, economists, and historians.

The famous French chess player F.A.Filidor is the first uncrowned world chess champion and, by the way, a famous composer of the 18th century. - became famous in chess for introducing the concept of strategy in a chess game and evaluating a chess position from this point of view. At the same time, he proceeded from the fact that a chess player could always win against any opponent if he knew the laws of the game of chess.

Representatives of this kind of views in the second half of the XIX century. called mechanists. These included not only those scientists who, like G. Helmholtz and G. Hertz, sought to explain all natural phenomena on the basis of the laws of mechanics, but also such as, for example, J. Maxwell, L. Boltzmann, H. Lorentz, Ch .Darwin, who by no means shared these extreme views.

So, for example, L. Boltzmann wrote: “If we understand a mechanical explanation of nature as one that is based on the laws of modern mechanics, then it should be recognized as completely unreliable that the atomistics of the future will become a mechanical explanation of nature.”

The outstanding Russian scientist K.A. Timiryazev, in a public lecture given in 1887 at the Polytechnic Museum, revealing the great importance of Charles Darwin’s activity for the whole of natural science, stated: “Thus, Darwinism for the first time gave a mechanical explanation of perfection, expediency, meaning under mechanical explanation, ordinary causal as opposed to teleological.

French scientist A. Rey at the beginning of the 20th century. wrote that if the new ideas of H. Lorentz, J. Larmor and P. Langevin were confirmed, and if it turned out in such a way that the laws of mechanics depend on the laws of electrodynamics, then this would not at all mean a rejection of the “mechanism”. “A purely mechanistic tradition,” wrote A. Rey, “would continue to be preserved, the mechanism would follow the normal path of its development.”

The most important feature of the mechanical interpretation of physics, according to A. Ray, is that “the view of physics, its method, its theories and their relation to experience remains absolutely identical with the views of the mechanism, with the theory of physics since the era revival."

Thus, at the end of the XIX century. mechanists were called not only those who tried to reduce all the phenomena of reality to mechanical processes, but also all those who, continuing the traditions of the classics of mechanics, considered science as a reflection of the essential properties of the objective world, who saw the task of scientific knowledge in explaining any phenomenon on based on the assumption of its existence in space and time and as a result of the interaction of certain causes.

However, when trying to philosophically comprehend the achievements of science from these positions, scientists encountered enormous difficulties. The powerful explosion of theoretical ideas and the rapid expansion of the means and methods of scientific knowledge could not be accommodated in a consistent picture of the world and an integral consistent theory of knowledge.

2. VIEWS OF THE POSITIVISTS

Under these conditions, positivism gained popularity, which began to claim to be the only true philosophy and methodology of science.

His goals were clearly defined.

As E. Mach wrote, it is necessary, first of all, to remove from natural science the “old, outdated” philosophy, which “most natural scientists still adhere to at the present time.”

It was against this realistic tradition, which interprets scientific knowledge as a reflection of the properties of the objective world, that the positivists led by E. Mach spoke out. One has only to correctly understand the essence of science, they said, and all the metaphysical problems that haunt the most prominent representatives of the natural sciences in their constant striving to comprehend the structure of the universe will be resolved, since their far-fetchedness and meaninglessness will be discovered.

O. Comte, the founder of positivism, believed that philosophy as metaphysics could have a positive impact on the development of ideas about the world only during the childhood of science.

The basis of all scientific activity, according to O. Kont, is experience. However, he believed, no empirical research can begin without certain theoretical premises, the development of which itself requires the help of experience. How was this chicken and egg problem solved? After all, theoretical ideas could not exist, there was no code for science yet.

Salvation, O.Kont believed, came from philosophy. It temporarily took over the functions of scientific theory and thereby contributed to the birth of science.

Various kinds of metaphysical systems, no matter how fantastic they may be, have rendered an important service to mankind.

“Thus,” O. Comte wrote, “under the pressure, on the one hand, of the need to make observations to form true theories, and on the other hand, the no less imperative need to create some theories for oneself in order to be able to engage in consistent observation, the human mind had to find itself from the moment of its birth in a vicious circle, from which it would never have got out, if, fortunately, a natural exit had not been opened to it thanks to the spontaneous development of theological concepts that united its efforts and gave food to its activity. . All these unrealizable hopes, - O. Comte continued his thought, - all these exaggerated ideas about the significance of man in the Universe, which are generated by theological philosophy and which fall at the first touch of positive philosophy, are at first that necessary stimulus, without which it would be completely impossible to understand the original determination of the human mind to undertake difficult investigations.

However, according to O. Comte, the theological view of the world, the highest stage of development of which was classical philosophy, should be completely replaced by purely scientific positive theories built on direct observation and experience. Science, having stood on its own feet, no longer needs philosophical crutches. She herself is able to solve any reasonably posed problems.

All philosophical torments of scientists can be easily eliminated, said the supporters of positivist philosophy and methodology of science. It is only necessary to realize that they are the result of a misinterpretation of the essence of science.

Indeed, aren't these problems generated by the fact that science has invariably been interpreted by scientists as a description of some objective reality behind the observed phenomena? This, according to E. Mach, K. Pearson, P. Duhem and their followers, is one of the most common and harmful delusions of the past. The scientist deals with empirical and given reality, and only within its limits does he have sovereignty.

P. Duhem revealed one important problem in the interpretation of scientific theory.
- If a theory, as P. Duhem believed, is related only to empirical material, then the scientist gets the opportunity to evaluate its correctness by comparing the consequences of the theory with these data.
- But if the theory is called upon not only to describe, but also to explain the essence of phenomena, then how can he then judge its truth?
In this case, in his opinion, the scientist would inevitably have to turn to general ideas about the world itself, the development of which only philosophy dared to develop.

“Considering physical theory as a hypothetical explanation of material reality,” wrote P. Duhem, “we make it dependent on metaphysics.”

However, to make science dependent on philosophy, P. Duhem believed, means to involve it in fruitless disputes about the nature of reality, which, without any hope of progress, have been carried on by philosophers since time immemorial.

Working at the level of phenomena, the scientist, according to Duhem, in principle cannot go beyond their limit. Therefore, he does not have the means to approve or, on the contrary, refute any judgments about the objective world itself.

And although the close connection of science with metaphysics is manifested with all evidence in the works of outstanding scientists of the past, it contradicts truly scientific knowledge.

“That many of the brilliant minds to which we owe modern physics built their theories in the hope of giving an explanation to natural phenomena,” writes P. Duhem, “there cannot be the slightest doubt about this. But nothing follows from this against our opinion about physical theories, which we have outlined above. Fantastic hopes can give impetus to amazing discoveries, but it does not follow from this that these discoveries give flesh and blood to the chimeras that gave impetus to their birth. The bold explorations that gave a powerful impetus to the development of geography owe their origin to adventurers who were looking for a country rich in gold. This, however, is still far from enough to put Eldorado on our geographical maps.

The phenomenological interpretation of a scientific theory as descriptive, as a scheme classifying empirical data, eliminates the explanatory part from it, and thereby frees the theory from Metaphysics, leaving scientists to solve all scientific problems with the means available to him, specially developed in his field of science. The ideal of scientific theory from this point of view is thermodynamics, in which there are no concepts, the content of which goes beyond the limits of the observable, beyond the limits of experience.

It does not follow from this, as E. Mach notes, that such concepts as atom, mass, force, etc., must be excluded from the arsenal of modern physics.

It is only not necessary to fall into the epistemological delusion, attributing reality to them, one should not consider those intellectual aids that we use to put the world on the stage of our thinking as the basis of the real world.

At a certain stage in the development of science, they may well be useful as tools for an economical, rational "symbolization of the experimental world."

Let the atom remain "a means that helps to depict phenomena, and serve as what mathematical functions serve."

But gradually, as science develops, natural science, Mach believes, will find a way to free itself from this method of ordering empirical knowledge. And all these pseudo-objects and characteristics of the so-called objective reality will remain only in the dust of libraries.

However, theoretical constructions in science are by no means arbitrary.

Yes, according to P. Duhem, who saw in physical theories an example of scientific thinking, “theoretical physics does not comprehend the reality of things, but is limited only to describing phenomena accessible to perception with the help of signs or symbols”, she “is not able to consider behind the phenomena available to our perception, the actual properties of bodies.

At the same time, scientific theories and in the process of development of science give us more and more perfect and natural classifications of observed phenomena. We have a sense of correspondence between theory and reality, which, from the point of view of P. Duhem, cannot be substantiated by the means of science itself, but is the property of common sense.

“At the basis of all our teachings,” he writes, “most clearly formulated, strictly logically deduced, we will always find this disorderly confluence of tendencies, aspirations and intuitions. There is no such deep analysis that could separate them in order to decompose them into simpler elements. There is no such language that is subtle and flexible enough to define and formulate them. And yet the truths that common human reason reveals to us are so clear, so certain that we can neither recognize them nor doubt them.

The one who would declare that scientific theories are a mirage and an illusion, wrote P. Duhem, “you could not silence from the principle of contradiction; you could only say that he is devoid of common sense a.

So, according to positivism, true knowledge is facts and empirical laws. Scientific theories only provide a systematization of facts and their empirical patterns, which tend to become more and more perfect. Science is not without premises. It is firmly based on common sense. A scientist striving to achieve success in science does not need any philosophy. Knowledge of the results of scientific research, professional knowledge of special methods, a good sense of common sense and a little luck - that's all he needs.

These ideas, although not supported by the majority of scientists, undoubtedly contributed to the development of ideas about science. There were heated discussions around the works of the positivists, which revealed significant differences in the interpretation of the problems of methodology and science.

In the XX century. The positivism of O. Comte, E. Mach, P. Duhem was sharply criticized for the phenomenalistic interpretation of science, which, contrary to the statements of all authors, was not at all free from metaphysical arguments.

In addition, the development of science itself has led to the obvious defeat of phenomenalism.

Scientists have managed to penetrate into the world of the atom and elementary particles.

Their reality was now impossible to deny. Bold generalizations that go far beyond the observable have become habitual in science.

Theoretical ideas preceded and directed experiment and observation.

Radically changed ideas about space, time, patterns, causality, levels of reality became the basis of a new scientific picture of the world, which scientists began to guide in their activities.

3. "COPERNICANS TURN" IN PHILOSOPHY

However, positivism gained new strength in the context of the rapid development of science in the 20th century and again drew attention to the problems of philosophical understanding of science. According to the neopositivists, their predecessors in the criticism of philosophy and the identification of the nature of science, although they outlined the right direction, they themselves could not follow it energetically and consistently enough.

This was no coincidence, neopositivists note. After all, until very recently, there were no necessary funds to solve these problems.

The situation has changed radically as a result of an unprecedented development of logic.

One of his most important stimuli was the desire to find a solid foundation for the intensively developing mathematics. The studies of Boole, Schroeder, Peano, Frege, Hilbert, Russell, Whitehead and their followers turned the old logic, which differed only slightly from Aristotle's, into a modern one with a highly developed formal apparatus, with boundless possibilities for effective applications.

The logical analysis of the language, undertaken by B. Russell, and then by his student L. Wittgenstein, opened up new horizons in the consideration of Traditional problems of philosophy and methodology and science.

On this basis, a new variety of positivism was born - logical positivism, within which the philosophy and methodology of science became the subject of special study.

Adherents of this doctrine assign a special role in the genesis of logical positivism to Wittgenstein. After all, it was he who most clearly substantiated the assertion that the formulation of the problems of traditional philosophy "is based on a misunderstanding of the logic of our language", which, according to M. Schlick, marked a turn in all philosophy.

How is this position justified?

It turns out to be a direct consequence of certain views on the nature of various linguistic expressions. According to logical positivism, all well-formed propositions can be either analytical, or synthetic.
- The first of them, presenting various tautologies and saying nothing about the world, refer to statements of logic and mathematics.
- The second, bearing a certain empirical content, are the subject of experimental sciences.

Both of these proposals can be either true, or false.
- For the first of them, this question is solved purely analytically.
- For the second - through empirical verification.
- There can be no other meaningful proposals.

Philosophers, neopositivists say, claim special knowledge about the world. But where can they get it from? Everything that a person knows about reality, he receives on the basis of certain contacts with the world, which in science become the subject of a special systematic study.

The philosopher does not and cannot have any special ways of comprehending reality.

Well, for example, what can a philosopher say about the behavior of micro-objects? On what basis will he base his judgments? Everything that can be said here reasonable, gives us physics.

Thus, philosophy as a special science has no right to exist.

But in this case, it turns out that there is simply no room left for philosophy, which claims to have a special knowledge of reality. Her statements about the world are pseudo-statements, she talks about imaginary objects and non-existent properties, her conclusions cannot have any meaning, she is empty and meaningless.

“All philosophy in the old sense is e,” R. Carnap wrote on this occasion, “whether it is associated above with Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Kant, Schelling or Hegel, whether it builds a new “metaphysics of being” or “humanistic philosophy,” it finds itself in front of the inexorable verdict of the new logic, not only as content-wise false, but also as logically fragile, and therefore meaningless.

Neopositivists are fascinated by their brilliant find. Finally, it was possible to give an accurate assessment of traditional philosophy. The intuition of its former opponents has been replaced by a strictly substantiated conclusion.

Philosophy as metaphysics is not even false, it is meaningless.

“The difference between our thesis and the thesis of the early anti-metaphysicians has now become clearer,” R. Carnap wrote. - Metaphysics is not a simple "imagination" or "fairy tale". The sentences of the tale do not contradict logic, but only experience; they make sense, even if they are false.”

Metaphysical philosophy is not only anti-empirical, but also anti-logical.

The empiricist, as noted by M. Schlick, will not prove the falsity of the statements of the metaphysician. He will tell him: you don't say anything at all. He will not argue with him, but will say: I do not understand you.

“Upon closer examination,” R. Carnap wrote, “the same content is recognizable in repeatedly changing clothes as in myth: we find that metaphysics also arose from the need to express a sense of life, the state in which a person lives, an emotional-volitional relationship to the world, to the neighbor, to the tasks that he solves, to the fate that he is experiencing.

R. Carnap believed that this expression of the feeling of life is essentially the only reason due to which the creations of metaphysical philosophers previously attracted the attention of many thinking people, and even now they excite many of our contemporaries. The statements of the philosophers of the past, in his opinion, cannot be taken literally.

The metaphysician in reality "says nothing, but only expresses something like an artist," therefore he has no right to claim the universal validity of his philosophy.

As Carnap wrote, “the metaphysician gives arguments for his proposals, he demands that they agree with the content of his constructions, he argues with metaphysicians of other directions, looking for refutation of their proposals in his articles.” But he has no right to do so.

A metaphysician is like a poet.

And what is the point of the poet trying to "refute the sentences from the poem of another lyricist"? After all, "he knows that he is in the realm of art, and not in the realm of theory."

Apparently, neopositivists believe that the philosophers of the past did not deal with knowledge. Each of them had a temper, because he tried to express his sense of life, and was mistaken when he imposed it on others. The theoretical form of philosophy was, in their opinion, an exorbitant ballast that restrained the spiritual impulses of philosophers, preventing them from achieving perfect forms of self-expression. Up to our time, neo-positivists unanimously consider, there was no understanding in philosophy of the real nature of philosophizing, the necessary means of this special kind of spiritual activity were not properly used.

Therefore, but the opinion of Carnap, even if we take into account what the metaphysicians expressed. without realizing it, their sense of life, they did it in a far from the best way, like musicians without musical abilities.

Only now, as a result of the application of modern logic to the analysis of philosophical constructions, has it been possible to understand their actual status. Philosophers did not accidentally express their antipathies to the new tray. They apparently had a presentiment that she did not bode well for them. And they were not wrong. Now the essence of their activity, previously shrouded in a veil of some mystery, is revealed.

Philosophy, as it turns out, has never had its own subject matter.

Its history is the history of the pursuit of mirages, of absurd attempts to solve pseudo-problems by completely unsuitable means.

“Metaphysics is collapsing,” declares M. Schlick, “not because the solution of its problems would be a bold undertaking that is not up to the human mind (as Kant approximately believed), but because these problems do not exist at all. With the discovery of a false statement of the question, the history of metaphysical disputes immediately became clear.

Thus, the only acceptable solution to metaphysical problems can, according to neopositivists, consist only in their elimination. Having understood this obvious truth, people will stop wasting time discussing them and will focus their efforts on solving real problems of knowledge and development of the world around them.

M. Schlick described the future of philosophy as follows: “Of course, there are still many rearguard battles to come...; philosophical writers will debate the old imaginary questions for a long time, but in the end they will no longer be listened to, and they will be like actors who continue to play for a long time before they notice that the audience has gradually slipped away.

4. PHILOSOPHY AS AN ANALYTICAL ACTIVITY

So, philosophy is fundamentally impossible as a special science. Any aspirations to build a system of proper philosophical statements about reality or the process of its cognition, in whatever form they are realized, are doomed to failure.

Is this the end of the history of philosophy?

No, this is not the end, say the neo-positivists. Rather, it is appropriate to speak of its beginning. After all, it is only now that the real possibility of creating a genuine scientific philosophy has appeared. We are witnessing a real revolution in philosophy, which, as is inherent in any radical transformation, not only breaks the old foundations, but also establishes new ones.

Yes, philosophy is impossible as a science. But it does not follow from this that it is impossible and unnecessary.

But what, then, is it?

“Well, though not a science,” Schlick wrote, “but, however, something so significant and great that it can also henceforth, as before, be revered as the queen of sciences; is it worth writing that the queen of science should be science. We now recognize in it - and this positively marked the great upheaval of modernity - instead of a system of knowledge, a system of actions: it is the very activity due to which the meaning of statements is established or revealed.

A new look at the essence of philosophy was put forward by B. Russell, and then developed by L. Wittgenstein. In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, published in 1921, Wittgenstein expressed all the main provisions of the future doctrine of logical positivism.
"All philosophy is a 'criticism of language'."
- "The goal of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts."
- "Philosophy is not a theory, but an activity."
- "Philosophical work consists essentially of explanations."
- "The results of philosophy are not a number of 'philosophical propositions', but a clarification of propositions."
- "Philosophy should clarify and strictly delimit thoughts, which without this are, as it were, dark and vague."

The most important feature of the interpretation of the nature of philosophy by logical positivists is their emphasis on its scientific nature.

Philosophy must necessarily be scientific. But how is this possible if it cannot be a science?

It turns out that there is nothing contradictory in this requirement. The scientific nature of philosophy is determined by the fact that it has the assertions of science as the object of its analytical activity, and besides, this activity itself is carried out by completely scientific means - the methods of modern mathematical logic.

R. Carnap sees in this the two most important features of the new philosophy, which distinguish it from the traditional one.

“The first distinguishing feature,” he writes, “is that this philosophizing is carried out in close connection with empirical science, even in general only in it, so that philosophy as a special field of knowledge along with or above empirical science is no longer recognized. The second distinguishing feature indicates what the philosophical work in empirical science consists of: in the clarification of its propositions through logical analysis; in particular, in the decomposition of sentences into parts (concepts), the gradual reduction of concepts to basic concepts and the gradual reduction of sentences to basic sentences. From this statement of the problem follows the significance of logic for philosophical work; it is no longer only a philosophical discipline along with others, but we can state directly: LOGIC IS A METHOD OF PHILOSOPHING.

The logical analysis of the proposals of science has two functions: negative and positive.
- The first is aimed at eliminating meaningless concepts and proposals from scientific use, eliminating pseudo-problems, and preventing various modifications of metaphysical thinking and its products from penetrating into science.
- The second, positive function is to clarify the logical structure of the theories of empirical science and mathematics, through their axiomatization to reveal the real empirical content of the concepts and methods used in science, to clarify real scientific statements.

The need for these functions arises due to the fact that scientific activity is a natural process, characterized both by the manifestation of various kinds of spontaneity within science itself, and by the influence of various external factors on it.

The scientist makes extensive use of everyday language, which includes a significant component of uncertainty.

His activity always has a certain psychological coloring.

Due to various socio-historical reasons, it turns out to be burdened with the belongings of the concepts and problems of traditional philosophy.

Science is constantly under the influence of religious and political interests external to its essence.

The task of the philosopher is to reveal what is inherent in science as such in accordance with its nature. But it can be achieved, the logical positivists believe, only along the path of the logical reconstruction of science.

The need for a logical analysis of science has become, in the opinion of the logical positivists, especially clear at the present time. Its isolation was a direct result of the natural differentiation of the work of a scientist, generated by the rapid development of science.

“Before our generation,” H. Renchenbach wrote, “there was no such thing as a new class of philosophers trained in the technique of sciences, including mathematics, and who concentrated on philosophical analysis. These people saw that a new distribution of work was needed, that scientific research did not leave enough time for a person to do the work of logical analysis, and, conversely, logical analysis required a concentration that did not leave time for pair work - a concentration that, due to its desire for clarification more than a discovery may even interfere with scientific productivity. Professional philosophers of science are the product of its development.

This is how the most prominent representatives of logical positivism substantiate their new philosophy. In this case, logic plays a completely exceptional role. As Reichenbach said, philosophical anguish "can only be appeased by a lesson in logic." Those who have a dislike for it, let them not strive to achieve success in philosophy. Their lot is different. Let these people try to apply their abilities "in less abstract applications of the power of the human mind."

5. OPPOSITION TO POSITIVISM

However, these ideas of positivism do not find recognition among modern scientists. Outstanding representatives of science of the XX century. just as resolutely as their predecessors, I affirm that the goal of their theoretical activity is to comprehend the laws of the universe.

The positivists, on the other hand, make a lot of effort to convince their opponents that Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Maxwell, Boltzmann, Darwin, Mendeleev and other creators of science allegedly naively believed in the possibility of knowing objective reality simply because there is still no correct and reasoned understanding of the essence of scientific knowledge. It was.

But how to explain the powerful solidarity of modern scientists with the scientists of the past?

“Of course, everyone agrees,” A. Einstein wrote, “that science must establish a connection between experimental facts so that, on the basis of existing experience, we can predict the further development of events.” According to the positivists, he notes, "the only goal of science is to solve this problem as completely as possible." However, I am not sure that such a primitive ideal could have ignited such a strong research passion, which was the cause of truly great achievements. “Without faith that it is possible to embrace reality with our theoretical constructions, without faith in the inner harmony of our world,” says A. Einstein, “there could be no science. This belief is and will always remain the main motive of all scientific creativity.

Science of the 20th century with particular clarity reveals its strong ties with philosophy, which were hardly realized before.

“In our time,” A. Einstein wrote, “a physicist is forced to deal with philosophical problems to a much greater extent than physicists of previous generations had to do. Physicists are forced to do this by the difficulties of their own science.

Scientists of the past used to speak of their empirical data as an absolutely reliable foundation of science, which is formed as a result of direct perception of reality. The use of various instruments and devices was considered only as a simple enhancement of the human senses. However, in modern science, and especially in physics, it has become clear that empirical knowledge always, in principle, includes theoretical concepts.

“What you see in a strong microscope, contemplate through a telescope, spectroscope, or perceive through one or another amplifying device - all this requires interpretation,” wrote M. Born.

In itself, the reading of the instrument cannot be considered a scientific fact. It becomes such only when it correlates with the object under study, which necessarily implies an appeal to theories that describe the operation of the instruments used and various experimental devices.

On the other hand, it became clear that theories are also very uncomplicatedly related to the objects they are called upon to describe.

Scientific theory is such an epistemological formation that bears not only the features of the object of knowledge, but also the specific characteristics of knowledge and the process of cognition. Therefore, they inevitably contain both ontological and epistemological components.

If the goal of scientific knowledge is to penetrate into the essence of phenomena and describe objective reality, and the overwhelming majority of scientists are convinced of this, then one of the most important tasks facing the researcher is to construct an interpretation of scientific theory in which it would receive an appropriate ontological and epistemological interpretation. Only after this work does a scientific theory turn into knowledge, while without such an interpretation it is only a technical apparatus with which one can formally manipulate empirical data.

However, the identification of the ontological and epistemological content of the theory cannot be carried out without certain ideas about the general characteristics of being and the process of its cognition. Therefore, the scientist cannot achieve his goal by ignoring philosophy.

This circumstance is fully recognized by the eminent scientists of our time.

So, for example, A. Einstein wrote that "science without the theory of knowledge (as far as it is generally conceivable) becomes primitive and confused." And M. Born believed that "physics, free from metaphysical hypotheses, is impossible."

As science develops and its tasks become more complex, the need for a special study of its philosophical foundations becomes more and more apparent.

“In the smallest systems, as well as in the largest ones,” wrote M. Born, “in atoms, as in stars, we encounter phenomena that do not resemble familiar phenomena in any way and which can only be described using abstract concepts. Here, no tricks can avoid the question of the existence of an objective world that does not depend on the observer, a world “beyond” phenomena.

Therefore, according to M. Born, modern physics cannot do without turning to philosophy, which carries out "the study of the general features of the structure of the world and our methods of penetrating into this structure."

And here is what one of the most prominent specialists in the philosophy of science, K. Popper, says about this: “Analytical philosophers believe that either there are no genuine philosophical problems at all, or that philosophical problems, if any, are just problems linguistic usage or meaning of words. I, however, believe that there is at least one real philosophical problem in which any thinking person is interested. This is the problem of cosmology - the problem of knowing the world, including ourselves (and our knowledge) as part of this world. All science, in my opinion, is cosmology, and for me the significance of philosophy, no less than science, lies solely in the contribution that it makes to its development. In any case, for me, both philosophy and science would lose all attractiveness if they stopped doing this.

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