Scientific knowledge, its levels, forms and methods. Structure of scientific knowledge

Main features scientific knowledge.

1. The main features of scientific knowledge.

Consistency. Scientific knowledge is not the sum of disparate information. Interrelation and unity exist not only within science, but also between sciences.

The possibility of logical proof, accuracy and unambiguity. This is achieved by using a special language that uses special concepts, symbols and rules for their use.

Rationality, science, is the brainchild of the human mind. And in scientific knowledge there can be nothing inaccessible to human understanding. nothing logical, inexplicable, unreasonable, relying only on faith.

reproducibility and verifiability. If conditions are created in which any result is obtained, then it is necessary to make sure that it is true. If it is confirmed in natural conditions, then accept this evidence, if not, refute it.

Objectivity, general validity and impersonality. Scientific knowledge must express objective truth. All likes, dislikes, prejudices and faith must be given up.

2. The structure of scientific knowledge.

Scientific knowledge goes through two stages: empirical and theoretical. At each of these stages, with the help of certain cognitive procedures, special forms of knowledge are obtained.

Scientific research begins with empirical research, which includes two methods: observation and experiment. On the basis of an explanation and a phenomenon, it is necessary to characterize the essence of some facts, events, and theoretical knowledge is engaged in this, which includes a hypothesis, a thought and real experiment, a speculative concept, and the creation of a theory.

Empirical Research Methods:

Method 1: Observation is the perception with the help of the senses, as well as with the help of instruments of the studied phenomena in conditions where the researcher does not interfere with the natural course of events.

Scientific observation differs from ordinary sensory cognition:

a) purposefulness;

b) organization.

Scientific observation is about solving a problem. Purposefulness is explained by the presence of certain ideas. Observations should collect data that should form the basis for subsequent developments.

Historically, the following forms of observation have developed:

Direct observation, that is, the object directly affects the sense organs of the human subject.

Indirect observation of the first type, when between the object and the subject we put a device that enhances the sensory perception of the subject (telescope, microscope).

Indirect observation of the second type, when between the object and the subject we put a device that transforms and changes the reflections of the object (compass) that are not perceived by the subject.

Thus, the results of observations depend on the senses of the observer, the means of observation, that is, the instruments and the objective properties of the observed phenomena. When analyzing the results of observation, it is necessary to take into account:

What in the results of observation depends on the object itself, and what on the sense organs;

What depends on the specifics of the objects used, and what depends on the object itself;

Take into account whether the state and behavior of the object is realized if there would be no observation.

Method 2: Experiment.

Distinguish:

1) direct (natural) experiment;

2) model experiment.

In contrast to observation in the course of a direct experiment, the subject acts on the object by means of the experimental setup.

In the course of the experiment, the object is usually isolated from external side insignificant connections and the experimental means are affected by the object, and then a relationship is established between the existing properties of the objects under study. In a model experiment, it is not the object that is investigated, but its model. An object can be considered a model if:

a) between the model and the original there is a correspondence, similarity, that is, an analogy.

b) the model is a substitute for the object under study (representation condition).

c) studying the model allows obtaining information about the original (extrapolation condition).

Conclusion: the objective conditions of the model experiment are the existence of general patterns of organization and functioning of various phenomena.

The immediate goal and result of scientific observation and experiment is the acquisition and accumulation of facts.

1. Scientific fact is the first reliable phase of scientific research.

2.Comparison of facts.

3. Dependencies of facts - empirical laws.

4. Explanation and acquisition of knowledge.

5. Speculation and idealization.

A theoretical study begins with the fact that some of the consistent, meaningful, speculative principles are selected as the initial principles of the new theory. This is where mindset plays an important role. On the basis of the chosen principles, some conjecture of a possible theoretical law is built. An assumption about the structure of a theoretical law and the derivation of a consequence from it forms a scientific hypothesis.

A hypothesis is such knowledge, the truth or falsity of which has not yet been proven. If the hypothesis is confirmed, that is, its verification takes place - reliability, then it turns into a theory. If the hypothesis is refuted, it is falsified, then it is discarded as a false assumption. In the process of substantiating and testing a hypothesis, logical and practical procedures are used:

1) if the consequences in the hypothesis contradict each other, then the initial assumption was most likely wrong.

2) experiment plays a decisive role. In a real experiment, the hypothesis is confirmed.

The last stage is the formation of the theory.

A theory is a system of logically interconnected assumptions that reflect the essential internal connections of a certain subject area. The logical structure of the theory is deductive, that is, from some initial true assumptions, all others are logically deduced.

The main features of the theory:

1) objectivity - the whole set of concepts and judgments of a particular theory should refer to one subject area.

2) the adequacy and completeness of the description - the proposal of the theory can describe all existing situations in the subject area of ​​the theory.

3) interpretability - all concepts of the theory must be interpreted - explained.

4) testability - it should be possible to establish the correspondence of the theory to the properties and relations of objects and its subject area.

Theory performs two main functions: explanation and prediction.

Prediction consists in deriving from the theory consequences that add to the possibility of facts and laws that exist or are not yet known, or of such events that may occur in the future.

3. The problem of scientific criteria

The problem of scientific criteria was formulated in the philosophy of neopositivism in the 20-30s of the 20th century. Up to this point, the answer to the question about the criteria of scientificity was limited to stating that scientific knowledge is knowledge that is logically worked out, clear, distinct and confirmed by experience. The content of these provisions led to the understanding of the non-triviality of the problem and the impossibility of finding unambiguous formal-logical criteria for delimiting scientific knowledge from non-scientific. The problem of obesity criteria is directly related to the problem of rationality. The search for scientific criteria simultaneously means the definition of criteria for scientific rationality.

In the 20s of the XX century. within the framework of neopositivism, a verification concept of scientific knowledge was proposed. Logical positivism reduces philosophy to a logical analysis of scientific statements. The task of philosophy is to develop principles for testing scientific statements for compliance with experience. Such a principle should be the principle of verifiability, i.e. experimental confirmation. Only those propositions have scientific meaning which can be reduced to sensory experience and are thus verifiable by experience. The confirmation procedure is called verification. Scientific statements are meaningful because they can be checked for compliance with experience, unverifiable statements are meaningless. Scientific provisions are the better substantiated, the more facts confirming these provisions. Based on such an analysis, it was supposed to clear science of all meaningless statements and build its model, ideal from the point of view of logic. Obviously, in such a model, science is reduced to an empirical level, to atomic statements, confirmed by experience. Atomic propositions can form molecular propositions that are not directly reducible to experience, but can be easily decomposed into constituent parts.

The verification concept of scientific knowledge was immediately criticized. The essence of the critical provisions boiled down to the following: science cannot develop only on the basis of experience, since it involves obtaining results that are not reducible to experience and cannot be directly derived from it. In science, there are statements about the facts of the past, formulations of general laws that are not atomic or molecular statements and cannot be verified by the criterion of verification. In addition, the principle of verifiability itself is not verifiable, i.e. it should be classified as meaningless, subject to elimination. Criticism, thus, revealed the internal inconsistency of the logical positivist attitudes, the provisions of which were overcome in various post-positivist concepts.

K. Popper, in his concept of critical rationalism, proposed a different principle of delimiting scientific knowledge from non-scientific knowledge - the principle of falsifiability. The theoretical position of critical rationalism developed in polemics with logical positivists. K. Popper believes that the scientific attitude is, above all, a critical attitude. The test of a hypothesis for scientific character should not consist in the search for supporting facts, but in attempts to refute it. Falsifiability is thus equated with empirical refutability. Consequences are derived from the general provisions of the theory, which can be directly correlated with experience. These implications are then tested. The refutation of one of the consequences of the theory falsifies the whole system. “Not the verifiability, but the falsifiability of the system should be considered the criterion of demarcation. ... From a scientific system ... I demand that it have such a logical form that makes it possible to single it out in a negative sense: for an empirical scientific system there must be the possibility of being refuted by experience, ”says K. Popper.

Thus, K. Popper proposes to analyze science at the theoretical level, i.e. as a whole system, and not separate atomic or molecular statements. Any theory, if it claims to be scientific, must be refutable in principle by experience. “Propositions or systems of propositions contain information about the empirical world only if they have the ability to collide with experience, or more precisely, if they can be systematically tested, i.e. subject to checks ..., the result of which may be their refutation,” writes K. Popper. If a theory is constructed in such a way that it is not refutable in principle, then it cannot be considered scientific. K. Popper considers Marxism and Freudianism to be theoretical concepts that claim to be scientific, but in fact they are not.

The criterion of falsification, in turn, has been criticized. It was argued that the principle of falsifiability is insufficient, since it is not applicable to those positions of science that cannot be compared with experience.

The very doctrine of critical rationalism, which claims to be scientific, cannot be refuted by experience, so it must be discarded as unscientific. In addition, real scientific practice contradicts the requirement of falsification, since no theory in science is discarded if one empirical fact that contradicts it is found. According to M. Poloni, “scientists often ignore data that is incompatible with the accepted system of scientific knowledge, in the hope that, in the end, these data will turn out to be erroneous or irrelevant ... Most stubborn facts will be pushed aside if there is no place for them in the already established scientific system. The refutation of a theory is the result not so much of its falsification as of its displacement by another theory that better explains the facts.

Further development of this topic went along the line of criticism of the attitude towards the search for an unambiguous formal-logical criterion for delimiting the scientific from the non-scientific. It was proposed to consider science not only at the empirical and theoretical levels, but also at the metatheoretical one, at which the substantive norms and standards of scientific character are set.

T. Kuhn introduced a new concept of "paradigm" into philosophy to denote the metatheoretical level of science. Paradigm - recognized by all scientific achievements that define models for setting scientific problems and ways to solve them, are the source of methods, problem situations, standards for solving problems. It is at the level of the paradigm that the basic norms for delimiting scientific knowledge from non-scientific knowledge are formed. As a result of the change of paradigms, there is also a change in the standards of scientificity. Theories formulated within the framework of different paradigms cannot be compared, since they are based on different standards of scientificity and rationality.

I. Lakatos connects the problem of delimiting scientific theories from non-scientific theories with the problem of a satisfactory methodology. Each methodological concept has its own theory of scientific rationality. In the history of science, I. Lakatos proposes to single out the following types of rational methodology and their corresponding types of scientific character:

inductivism;

conventionalism;

falsificationism;

methodology of research programs (I. Lakatos's own theory).

According to I. Lakatos, it is his theory that most fully describes the real process of the development of science, therefore it is preferable, therefore, the standards of scientific character set within the framework of the methodology of research programs are more adequate. For logical positivists and K. Popper, the scientific nature of knowledge is determined by experience and logic. In I. Lakatos, scientificity, in addition to experience and logic, implies a number of meaningful attitudes that are included in the core of the research program and are preserved with the help of the rules of negative and positive heuristics. Thus, in the concept of I. Lakatos, the concept of scientificity ceases to be associated only with strict, formal-logical standards . The problem of delimiting scientific knowledge from non-scientific takes on a new character: to solve it, it is necessary to refer to substantive criteria that are not a priori (pre-experimental) and change along with the development of knowledge.

Lecture 17

The structure of scientific knowledge includes the main elements of scientific knowledge, the levels of knowledge and the foundations of science. Various forms of organization of scientific information act as elements of scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge is realized in a special research activity, which includes a variety of methods for studying an object, which, in turn, are divided into two levels of knowledge - empirical and theoretical. And, finally, the foundations of science, which act as its theoretical basis, are currently considered the most important moment in the structure of scientific knowledge.

Scientific knowledge is difficult organized system, which combines various forms of organization of scientific information: scientific concepts and scientific facts, laws, goals, principles, concepts, problems, hypotheses, scientific programs, etc. The central link of scientific knowledge is theory.

Depending on the depth of penetration into the essence of the phenomena and processes under study, two levels of scientific knowledge are distinguished - empirical and theoretical. Empirical knowledge in science begins with the analysis of data obtained through scientific observation and experiment, as a result of which ideas about empirical objects arise. Empirical objects are not just any sensually perceived objects of reality, but some models of sensual objects that act as substitutes for the first (for example, an airplane model is not an airplane itself), but are also perceived by the senses, which provides visibility, which is important point scientific knowledge. After processing the empirically obtained information, it acquires the status of a scientific fact. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish between the understanding of a fact in the context of everyday knowledge as a kind of event of the surrounding world (fact - from the Latin factum - done, accomplished) from a scientific fact. The simplest empirical laws are established by means of an inductive generalization of the obtained facts, which describe the observable properties of objects. An example is the Boyle-Mariotte law, which establishes an inversely proportional relationship between the volume and pressure of a gas. Therefore, such laws are called laws about observable objects.

Theoretical level research concentrates in itself, first of all, the process of rational cognition, which begins with individual concepts and judgments and ends with the construction of a theory and theoretically substantiated assumptions (hypotheses). It is associated with the widespread use of abstractions and idealizations, the formulation of laws of a higher degree of generality than empirical laws. Unlike the latter, theoretical laws are the laws of unobservable objects.

There is a close relationship and interdependence between theoretical and empirical knowledge, which are as follows: theoretical knowledge relies heavily on empirical material, so the level of theory development largely depends on the level of development of the empirical basis of science; on the other hand, the very development of empirical research is largely determined by the goals and objectives that were set by theoretical knowledge.

Before turning to the consideration of methodology, let us briefly characterize the third element in the structure of scientific knowledge - its foundations. The foundations of scientific knowledge are: 1) ideals, norms and principles of research, 2) the scientific picture of the world, 3) philosophical ideas and principles. They constitute the theoretical basis of science on which its laws, theories and hypotheses are based.

The ideals and norms of research are requirements for scientific rationality recognized in science, expressed in the validity and evidence of scientific statements, as well as methods of description and scientific explanation, construction and organization of knowledge. Historically, these norms and ideals have changed, which was associated with qualitative changes in science (scientific revolutions). Thus, the most important norm of the rationality of scientific knowledge is its systematic and organized nature. This is expressed in the fact that each new result in science is based on its previous achievements, each new position in science is derived based on previously proven statements and provisions. A number of principles act as ideals and norms of scientific knowledge, for example: the principle of simplicity, the principle of accuracy, the principle of identifying the minimum number of assumptions when building a theory, the principle of continuity in the development and organization of scientific knowledge into a single system.

The logical norms of scientific thinking have come a long way of development. In the XVIII century. G.V. Leibniz formulated the principle of sufficient reason in logic, which became the fourth law of logic after the three laws of correct thinking, derived by Aristotle - the law of identity (preserving the meaning of a term or thesis throughout the argument), the principle of consistency in reasoning, and the law of the excluded middle, stating that about one and the same object in the same relation (sense) can exist either an affirmative or a negative judgment, while one of them is true and the other is false, and the third is not given). All the ideals and norms of science are embodied in the methods of scientific research that dominate in one or another historical epoch.

The scientific picture of the world is an integral system of ideas about the general properties and patterns of nature and society, resulting from the generalization and synthesis of the basic principles and achievements of science in a given historical era. The picture of the world plays the role of systematization of scientific ideas and principles in cognition, which allows it to perform heuristic and prognostic functions, to more successfully solve interdisciplinary problems. The scientific picture of the world is closely connected with the worldview guidelines of culture, largely depends on the style of thinking of the era and, in turn, has a significant impact on them, while it acts as guidelines for the research activities of scientists, thus fulfilling the role of a fundamental research program.

The significance of the philosophical foundations of science is great. As you know, philosophy was the cradle of science in the early stages of its formation. It was within the framework of philosophical reflection that the origins of scientific rationality were laid. Philosophy set general worldview guidelines for science and, responding to the needs of the development of science itself, comprehended its methodological and epistemological problems. In the depths of philosophical knowledge, a tradition of dialectical knowledge of the world was formed, embodied in the works of Hegel, Marx and Engels in the science of the dialectical method of studying nature, society and thinking itself. In the history of the development of society, one can observe the mutual influence of the philosophical and scientific pictures of the world: a change in the foundations and content of the scientific picture of the world has repeatedly influenced the development of philosophy.

Methods of scientific knowledge

In the broad sense of the word, a method means an ordered and organized way of activity aimed at achieving a specific practical or theoretical goal. The sphere of scientific knowledge, in which the possibilities and limits of the application of various research methods are studied and which is the general theory of the scientific method, is called the methodology of science. It is customary to classify all methods: according to the degree of generality - they distinguish universal methods of dialectics and logic, general scientific and particular scientific; according to the level of scientific knowledge - empirical and theoretical, according to the accuracy of predictions - deterministic and stochastic (probabilistic), according to functions in science - methods of systematization of knowledge, its explanation and prediction of new facts, finally, according to the field of their application - physical, biological, socio-economic and humanitarian, ending with special methods created to study a certain area of ​​natural and social phenomena. In addition, there are methods common to a whole group of sciences. In the twentieth century Methods of systemic and structural-functional research have become widespread.

General scientific methods of empirical research

The starting point of any empirical knowledge is observation. Observation is a purposeful study of objects, based mainly on the data of the sense organs (sensations, perceptions, ideas). Observation as a method of scientific research is not just a passive contemplation of the objects and processes being studied, it is active in nature and involves a special preliminary organization of its objects, which ensures control over their "behavior". Observation can be direct and mediated by various instruments and technical devices (microscope, telescope, camera, etc.).

An experiment is an active and purposeful intervention in the course of the process under study, a corresponding change in the object or its reproduction under specially created and controlled conditions. A scientific experiment is one type of practice. During the experiment, they try to isolate the object under study from side influences that obscure its essence, and present it in a “pure form”. Thus, the experiment is carried out as an interaction of objects proceeding according to natural laws, and at the same time as an artificial action organized by a person. Science owes its achievements to experiment precisely because with its help it was possible to organically connect thought and experience, theory and practice. The value of the experiment lies in the fact that, using this method, the experimenter, as it were, asks questions to nature itself and receives answers, and does not simply observe the natural course of the process. Any scientific experiment is always guided by some idea, concept, hypothesis. Without an idea in your head, I. P. Pavlov said, you will not see the fact. It is customary to say that the data of an experiment are always "theoretically loaded" in one way or another, starting from its formulation and up to the interpretation of its results. Measurements and descriptions play an essential role in the course of experimental research, but they are not special empirical methods, but constitute a necessary addition to any serious scientific observation and experiment.

The data obtained as a result of observation and experiment are generalized, acquiring the form of an empirical law. The logical method in this process is induction - a logical conclusion from the singular to the particular and from the particular to the general. The inductive method is used in solving problems related to systematization, classification, scientific generalization. However, the conclusions of induction are not reliably true, but only plausible or probabilistic. Empirical laws express a certain regularity in the functioning or behavior of empirical objects. In this way, causality laws (deterministic) can be established, which are stable and necessary, or stochastic laws, which are probabilistic-statistical empirical laws, but the regularity described by them is not necessary, but probabilistic, and therefore associated with randomness, character. An example of a stochastic law in a market economy is the law of supply and demand.

Explanation is a mental operation carried out in order to identify causal dependence, patterns of functioning of a given object in order to reveal its essence. Explanation is a very complex search activity, which is not complete without conjectures, assumptions, hypotheses that arise in the process of interpreting experimental data.

General scientific methods of theoretical research

Abstraction is a process of mental abstraction from a number of properties and relations of the phenomenon under study with the simultaneous selection of properties of interest to the researcher, primarily essential, general ones. A special kind of abstraction is the process of idealization, which represents the limiting transition from real-life properties of objects to ideal properties. This is how ideal objects are created that act as models of properties. These include the very popular models of "absolutely black body", "ideal gas", "absolute vacuum", etc.

Abstractions and idealizations arise at the analytical stage of research, when a single, integral process is divided and its individual aspects, properties and elements begin to be studied. As a result, separate concepts and categories are created, with the help of which judgments, hypotheses and laws are formulated. Thus, if at the beginning of the study of the subject it is an undivided concrete whole, then as a result of abstraction there is a transition from the sensually concrete to the abstract (the procedure of analysis and abstraction). Then, at the final stage of the study, there is a synthesis of concepts and judgments about the subject under study, and it appears in an ideal form, as mentally concrete knowledge about this subject. This procedure is called the method of ascent from the abstract to the mentally concrete. At this stage of theoretical knowledge, we get an idea not only about the elements and properties of the object under study, but also about the nature and order of its connections, its structure. Thus, a theory is formed as the main form of scientific knowledge.

The general scientific methods of theoretical research include: formalization, axiomatic and hypothetical-deductive methods, systemic and structural-functional approaches. Formalization is a reflection of meaningful knowledge in a sign-symbolic form - a formalized language created on the principle of one-to-one correspondence in order to exclude the possibility of ambiguous understanding. The axiomatic method is a method of constructing a scientific theory, which is based on certain initial positions - postulates (axioms), from which all other statements of this theory are logically derived by proof. The most striking example is the geometry of Euclid, in which Descartes saw the ideal of scientific theory.

When putting forward hypotheses, the hypothetical-deductive method is used. It should be noted that the real process of research in science most often begins not with the accumulation of facts, as supporters of empiricism believe, but with the formulation and advancement of the problem. It is the problem that indicates that in the development of science there are some difficulties associated with new facts that cannot be explained within the framework of existing theories. The problem situation is analyzed, and a hypothesis or a number of hypotheses is put forward as a trial solution. At the stage of putting forward hypotheses, it becomes necessary to evaluate them in terms of criteria: relevance (i.e., relevance in terms of relation to the facts on which they are based), empirical testability, compatibility with existing scientific knowledge, explanatory and predictive power. This allows us to conclude in favor of a more promising hypothesis. Then, logical consequences are deductively deduced from the hypothesis that allow empirical verification, i.e., the verification procedure. Deduction is a conclusion that makes the transition from general to particular, more specific knowledge. The next step is the very procedure for verifying the derived consequence empirically - verification (the concept introduced by K. Popper). The advancement of hypotheses performs the most important heuristic function of science. In addition, in accordance with the principle of falsifiability, a scientific theory should be tested for strength in the process of putting forward risky assumptions, which, according to K. Popper, gives impetus to further development scientific knowledge, not allowing it to ossify within the once established scientific concepts and canons. Thus, when putting forward scientific hypotheses, searching for laws, constructing and testing theories, scientists are guided by certain methods, techniques and norms, which in their totality constitute the heuristic method of research.

Theoretical methods also include modeling, the method of analogy and thought experiment. Theory as a systematized form of knowledge, when applied to the study of a certain area of ​​reality, in turn acts as a research method.

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Topic: Methods and forms of scientific knowledge

1. The structure of scientific knowledge, its methods and forms

3. Science and technology

1. The structure of scientific knowledge, its methods and forms

Scientific knowledge is the process of producing new knowledge. In modern society, it is associated with the most developed form of rational activity, which is distinguished by its consistency and consistency. Each science has its own object and subject of research, its own methods and its own system of knowledge. The object is understood to be the sphere of reality with which the given science deals, and the subject of research is that special side of the object that is studied in this particular science.

Human thinking is a complex cognitive process that includes the use of many interrelated groups - methods and forms of cognition.

Their difference acts as a difference between the way of movement towards solving cognitive problems and the way of organizing the results of such movement. Thus, the methods, as it were, form the path of research, its direction, and the forms of cognition, fixing what is known at various stages of this path, make it possible to judge the effectiveness of the direction taken.

A method (from the Greek methods - a way to something) is a way to achieve a certain goal, a set of techniques or operations for practical or theoretical mastering of reality.

Aspects of the method of scientific knowledge: subject-content, operational, axiological.

The subject content of the method lies in the fact that it reflects knowledge about the subject of research; the method is based on knowledge, in particular, on the theory that mediates the relation of the method and the object. The substantive richness of the method indicates that it has an objective basis. The method is meaningful, objective.

The operational aspect indicates the dependence of the method not so much on the object as on the subject. Here, the level scientific training specialist, his ability to translate ideas about objective laws into cognitive techniques, his experience in applying certain techniques in cognition, the ability to improve them. The method in this respect is subjective.

The axiological aspect of the method is expressed in the degree of its reliability, economy, efficiency. When a scientist sometimes faces the question of choosing one of two or more similar methods, considerations related to greater clarity, general intelligibility or effectiveness of the method may play a decisive role in the choice.

Methods of scientific knowledge can be divided into three groups: special, general scientific and general (universal).

Special methods are applicable only within individual sciences. The objective basis of such methods are the corresponding special-scientific laws and theories. These methods include, for example, various methods of qualitative analysis in chemistry, the method spectral analysis in physics and chemistry, the Monte Carlo method, the method of statistical modeling in the study of complex systems, etc.

General scientific methods characterize the course of knowledge in all sciences.

Their objective basis is the general methodological laws of cognition, which also include epistemological principles. These include: methods of experiment and observation, modeling, formalization, comparison, measurement, analogy, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, ascent from the abstract to the concrete, logical and historical. Some of them (for example, observation, experiment, modeling, mathematization, formalization, measurement) are used primarily in natural science. Others are used in all scientific knowledge.

General (universal) methods characterize human thinking as a whole and are applicable in all spheres of human cognitive activity (taking into account their specificity). Their objective basis is the general philosophical patterns of understanding the world around us, man himself, his thinking and the process of cognition and transformation of the world by man. These methods include philosophical methods and principles of thinking, including the principle of dialectical inconsistency, the principle of historicism, etc.

Let us consider in more detail the most important methods of scientific knowledge.

Comparison and comparative-historical method.

Ancient thinkers argued: comparison is the mother of knowledge. The people aptly expressed this in the proverb: “If you don’t know grief, you won’t know joy either.” Everything is relative. For example, in order to find out the weight of a body, it is necessary to compare it with the weight of another body taken as a standard, i.e. for a sample measure. This is done by weighing.

Comparison is the establishment of differences and similarities between objects.

Being a necessary method of cognition, comparison only plays an important role in the practical activity of a person and in scientific research, when things that are really homogeneous or close in essence are compared. It makes no sense to compare pounds with arshins.

In science, comparison acts as a comparative or comparative-historical method. Initially, it arose in philology, literary criticism, then it began to be successfully applied in jurisprudence, sociology, history, biology, psychology, history of religion, ethnography and other fields of knowledge. Entire branches of knowledge have arisen that use this method: comparative anatomy, comparative physiology, comparative psychology, and so on. So, in comparative psychology, the study of the psyche is carried out on the basis of comparing the psyche of an adult with the development of the psyche in a child, as well as animals. In the course of scientific comparison, not arbitrarily chosen properties and connections are compared, but essential ones.

The comparative-historical method makes it possible to reveal the genetic relationship of certain animals, languages, peoples, religious beliefs, artistic methods, patterns of development of social formations, etc.

The process of cognition is carried out in such a way that we first observe the general picture of the subject being studied, and the particulars remain in the shadows. To know the internal structure and essence, we must dismember it.

Analysis is the mental decomposition of an object into its constituent parts or sides.

It is only one of the moments of the process of cognition. It is impossible to know the essence of an object only by decomposing it into the elements of which it consists.

In each field of knowledge there is, as it were, its own limit of division of the object, beyond which we pass into a different world of properties and patterns. When, by means of analysis, particulars have been sufficiently studied, the next stage of knowledge begins - synthesis.

Synthesis is a mental union into a single whole of elements dissected by analysis.

Analysis mainly captures the specific that distinguishes the parts from each other, while synthesis reveals the essential general that links the parts into a single whole.

A person mentally decomposes an object into its component parts in order to first discover these parts themselves, find out what the whole consists of, and then consider it as consisting of these parts, already examined separately. Analysis and synthesis are in unity; in every movement our thinking is as analytical as it is synthetic. Analysis, which provides for the implementation of synthesis, has the allocation of the essential as its central core.

Analysis and synthesis originate in practical activities. Constantly dividing various objects into their component parts in his practical activity, a person gradually learned to separate objects mentally as well. Practical activities developed not only from the dismemberment of objects, but also from the reunification of parts into a single whole. On this basis, a mental synthesis arose.

Analysis and synthesis are the main methods of thinking that have their own objective basis both in practice and in the logic of things: the processes of connection and separation, creation and destruction form the basis of all processes in the world.

Abstraction, idealization, generalization and limitation.

Abstraction is the mental selection of an object in abstraction from its connections with other objects, some property of an object in abstraction from its other properties, any relation of objects in abstraction from the objects themselves.

The question of what in objective reality is distinguished by the abstracting work of thinking and from what thinking is distracted, in each specific case, is solved in direct dependence, first of all, on the nature of the object under study and the tasks that are put before the study. For example, I. Kepler did not care about the color of Mars and the temperature of the Sun to establish the laws of planetary circulation.

Abstraction is the movement of thought into the depths of the subject, the selection of its essential moments. For example, in order for this particular property of an object to be considered as chemical, a distraction, an abstraction, is necessary. Indeed, the chemical properties of a substance do not include changes in its shape; therefore, the chemist studies copper, abstracting from the specific forms of its existence.

As a result of the process of abstraction, various concepts about objects appear: “plant”, “animal”, “human”, etc., thoughts about the individual properties of objects and the relationships between them, considered as special “abstract objects”: “whiteness”, "volume", "length", "heat capacity", etc.

Immediate impressions of things are transformed into abstract representations and concepts in complex ways, involving coarsening and ignoring some aspects of reality. This is the one-sidedness of abstractions. But in the living fabric of logical thinking, they make it possible to reproduce a much deeper and more accurate picture of the world than can be done with the help of integral perceptions.

An important example of scientific knowledge of the world is idealization as a specific kind of abstraction. Idealization is the mental formation of abstract objects as a result of abstraction from the fundamental impossibility of implementing them in practice. Abstract objects do not exist and are not realizable in reality, but there are prototypes for them in the real world. Idealization is the process of forming concepts, the real prototypes of which can only be indicated with varying degrees of approximation. Examples of concepts that are the result of idealization can be: "point" (an object that has neither length, nor height, nor width); "straight line", "circle", "point electric charge", "absolutely black body", etc.

The goal of all knowledge is generalization. Generalization is the process of mental transition from the singular to the general, from the less general to the more general. In the process of generalization, a transition is made from single concepts to general ones, from less general concepts to more general ones, from individual judgments to general ones, from judgments of less generality to judgments of greater generality, from a less general theory to a more general theory, in relation to which a less general theory is its special case. It is impossible to cope with the abundance of impressions that flood over us every hour, every minute, every second, if they were not continuously combined, generalized and fixed by means of language. Scientific generalization is not just the selection and synthesis of similar features, but the penetration into the essence of a thing: the perception of the single in the diverse, the general in the singular, the regular in the random.

Examples of generalization are as follows: a mental transition from the concept of "triangle" to the concept of "polygon", from the concept of "mechanical form of motion of matter" to the concept of "form of motion of matter", etc.

The mental transition from the more general to the less general is a process of limitation. There is no theory without generalization. The theory is created in order to apply it in practice to solve specific problems.

For example, to measure objects, create technical structures, it is always necessary to move from the more general to the less general and individual, i.e. there is always a process of limitation.

abstract and concrete.

The concrete as a directly given, sensuously perceived whole is the starting point of cognition. Thought isolates certain properties and connections, for example, the shape, the number of objects. In this abstraction, visual perception and representation "evaporates" to the degree of abstraction, poor in content, since it one-sidedly, incompletely reflects the object.

From individual abstractions, thought constantly returns to the restoration of concreteness, but on a new, higher basis. The concrete now appears before man's thought not as immediately given to the authorities feelings, but as knowledge of the essential properties and connections of the object, the natural tendencies of its development, its inherent internal contradictions. This is the concreteness of concepts, categories, theories, reflecting the unity in the diverse, the general in the singular. Thus, thought moves from an abstract, content-poor concept to a concrete, richer concept.

Analogy.

In the nature of the very understanding of facts lies an analogy that connects the threads of the unknown with the known. The new can be comprehended, understood only through the images and concepts of the old, known.

An analogy is a plausible probable conclusion about the similarity of two objects in some feature based on their established similarity in other features.

Despite the fact that analogies allow only probable conclusions, they play a huge role in cognition, as they lead to the formation of hypotheses, i.e. scientific conjectures and assumptions that, in the course of additional research and evidence, can turn into scientific theories. An analogy with what is already known helps to understand what is unknown. The analogy with what is relatively simple helps to understand what is more complex. For example, by analogy with the artificial selection of the best breeds of domestic animals, Charles Darwin discovered the law natural selection in the animal and plant world. The most developed area, where analogy is often used as a method, is the so-called similarity theory, which is widely used in modeling.

Modeling.

One of the characteristic features of modern scientific knowledge is the increasing role of the modeling method.

Modeling is a practical or theoretical operation of an object, in which the object being studied is replaced by some natural or artificial analogue, through the study of which we penetrate into the subject of knowledge.

Modeling is based on similarity, analogy, commonality of properties of various objects, on the relative independence of the norm. For example, the interaction of electrostatic charges (Coulomb's law) and the interaction of gravitational masses (Newton's law of universal gravitation) are described by expressions that are identical in their mathematical structure, differing only in the proportionality coefficient (the Coulomb interaction constant and the gravitational constant). These are formally common, identical features and correlations of two or more objects with their differences in other respects and features are reflected in the concept of similarity, or analogy, of phenomena of reality.

Model - an imitation of one or a number of properties of an object with the help of some other objects and phenomena. Therefore, any object that reproduces the required features of the original can be a model. If the model and the original are of the same physical nature, then we are dealing with physical modeling. When a phenomenon is described by the same system of equations as the object being modeled, then such modeling is called mathematical. If some aspects of the modeled object are presented in the form of a formal system using signs, which is then studied in order to transfer the information obtained to the modeled object itself, then we are dealing with logical-sign modeling.

Modeling is always and inevitably associated with some simplification of the object being modeled. At the same time, it plays a huge heuristic role, being a prerequisite for a new theory.

Formalization.

Such a method as formalization is essential in cognitive activity.

Formalization is a generalization of forms of processes of different content, abstraction of these forms from their content. Any formalization is inevitably associated with some coarsening of the real object.

Formalization is associated not only with mathematics, mathematical logic and cybernetics, it permeates all forms of practical and theoretical activity person, differing only in levels. Historically, it arose along with the emergence of labor, thinking and language.

Certain tricks labor activity, skills, methods of carrying out labor operations were singled out, generalized, fixed and transferred from the elders to the young in abstraction from specific actions, objects and means of labor. The extreme pole of formalization is mathematics and mathematical logic, which studies the form of reasoning, abstracting from the content.

The process of formalization of reasoning is that, 1) there is a distraction from the qualitative characteristics of objects; 2) is revealed logical form judgments in which statements about these subjects are fixed; 3) reasoning itself is transferred from the plane of consideration of the connection of objects of reasoning in thought to the plane of actions with judgments based on formal relations between them. The use of special symbols makes it possible to eliminate the ambiguity of ordinary language words. In formalized reasoning, each symbol is strictly unambiguous. Formalization methods are absolutely necessary in the development of such scientific and technical problems and areas as computer translation, the problems of information theory, the creation of various kinds of automatic devices for controlling production processes, etc.

Historical and logical.

It is necessary to distinguish between objective logic, the history of the development of an object, and methods of cognition of this object - logical and historical.

Objective-logical - this is a general line, a pattern of development of an object, for example, the development of society from one social formation to another.

Objectively-historical is a concrete manifestation of this regularity in all the infinite variety of its special and individual manifestations. In relation to society, for example, real story all countries and peoples with all their unique individual destinies.

Two methods of cognition follow from these two sides of the objective process - historical and logical.

Any phenomenon can be correctly known only in its origin, development and death, i.e. in his historical development. To know an object means to reflect the history of its origin and development. It is impossible to understand the result without understanding the path of development that led to this result. History often jumps and zigzags, and if you follow it everywhere, you would not only have to take into account a lot of material of lesser importance, but also often interrupt the train of thought. Therefore, a logical method of research is needed.

The logical is a generalized reflection of the historical, reflects reality in its natural development, explains the need for this development. The logical as a whole coincides with the historical: it is historical, purified from accidents and taken in its essential laws.

By logical, they often mean the method of cognition of a certain state of an object over a certain period of time, abstracted from its development. It depends on the nature of the object and the objectives of the study. For example, in order to discover the laws of planetary motion, I. Kepler did not need to study their history.

Induction and deduction.

As research methods, induction and deduction stand out.

Induction is the process of deriving a general position from a number of particular (less general) statements, from single facts.

There are usually two main types of induction: complete and incomplete. Complete induction - the conclusion of some general judgment about all objects of a certain set (class) based on the consideration of each element of this set.

In practice, forms of induction are most often used, which involve a conclusion about all objects of a class based on the knowledge of only a part of the objects of this class. Such inferences are called inferences of incomplete induction. They are the closer to reality, the deeper, essential connections are revealed. Incomplete induction, based on experimental research and including theoretical thinking, is capable of giving a reliable conclusion. It is called scientific induction. Great discoveries, leaps in scientific thought are ultimately created by induction - a risky but important creative method.

Deduction - the process of reasoning, going from the general to the particular, less general. In the special sense of the word, the term "deduction" denotes the process of logical inference according to the rules of logic. Unlike induction, deductive reasoning gives reliable knowledge, provided that such a meaning was contained in the premises. In scientific research, inductive and deductive methods of thinking are organically linked. Induction leads human thought to hypotheses about the causes and general patterns of phenomena; deduction allows us to derive empirically verifiable consequences from general hypotheses and in this way to substantiate or refute them experimentally.

An experiment is a scientifically set experiment, a purposeful study of a phenomenon caused by us under precisely taken into account conditions, when it is possible to monitor the course of a change in a phenomenon, actively influence it using a whole range of various instruments and means, and recreate these phenomena every time the same conditions are present. and when it is needed.

The following elements can be distinguished in the structure of the experiment: a) any experiment is based on a certain theoretical concept that sets the experimental research program, as well as the conditions for studying the object, the principle of creating various devices for experimentation, methods of fixing, comparing, representative classification of the obtained material; b) an integral element of the experiment is the object of study, which can be various objective phenomena; v) obligatory element experiments are technical means and various kinds of devices with which experiments are carried out.

Depending on the sphere in which the object of knowledge is located, experiments are divided into natural science, social, etc. Natural science and social experiments are carried out in logically similar forms. The beginning of the experiment in both cases is the preparation of the state of the object necessary for the study. Next comes the experimental stage. This is followed by registration, description of the data, compilation of tables, graphs, processing of the results of the experiment.

The division of methods into general, general scientific and special methods as a whole reflects the structure of scientific knowledge that has developed to date, in which, along with philosophical and particular scientific knowledge, an extensive layer of theoretical knowledge stands out as close as possible in terms of generality to philosophy. In this sense, this classification of methods to a certain extent corresponds to the tasks associated with the consideration of the dialectics of philosophical and general scientific knowledge.

The listed general scientific methods can be simultaneously used at different levels of knowledge - at the empirical and theoretical levels.

The decisive criterion for distinguishing between empirical and theoretical methods is the attitude towards experience. If the methods focus on the use of material research tools (for example, instruments), on the implementation of influences on the object under study (for example, physical dismemberment), on the artificial reproduction of the object or its parts from other material (for example, when direct physical impact is somehow impossible), then such methods can be called empirical. This is, first of all, observation, experiment, subject, physical modeling. With the help of these methods, the cognizing subject masters a certain amount of facts that reflect certain aspects of the object being studied. The unity of these facts, established on the basis of empirical methods, does not yet express the depth of the essence of the object. This essence is comprehended at the theoretical level, on the basis of theoretical methods.

The division of methods into philosophical and special, into empirical and theoretical, of course, does not exhaust the problem of classification. It seems possible to divide methods into logical and non-logical ones. This is advisable, if only because it allows one to relatively independently consider the class of logical methods used (consciously or unconsciously) in solving any cognitive problem.

All logical methods can be divided into dialectical and formal-logical. The first, formulated on the basis of the principles, laws and categories of dialectics, guide the researcher to the method of revealing the content side of the goal. In other words, the application of dialectical methods in a certain way directs thought to the disclosure of what is connected with the content of knowledge. The second (formal-logical methods), on the contrary, orient the researcher not to identify the nature, content of knowledge. They are, as it were, "responsible" for the means by which the movement towards the content of knowledge is clothed in pure formal-logical operations (abstraction, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, etc.).

The formation of a scientific theory is carried out as follows.

The phenomenon under study appears as a concrete, as a unity of the manifold. Obviously, there is no proper clarity in understanding the concrete at the first stages. The path to it begins with analysis, mental or real dismemberment of the whole into parts. Analysis allows the researcher to focus on a part, property, relation, element of the whole. It is successful if it allows a synthesis to be carried out, to restore the whole.

The analysis is supplemented by classification, the features of the studied phenomena are distributed by classes. Classification is the way to concepts. Classification is impossible without making comparisons, finding analogies, similar, similar in phenomena. The researcher's efforts in this direction create the conditions for induction, inference from the particular to some general statement. It is a necessary link on the path to achieving the common. But the researcher is not satisfied with the achievement of the general. Knowing the general, the researcher seeks to explain the particular. If this fails, then failure indicates that the induction operation is not genuine. It turns out that induction is verified by deduction. Successful deduction makes it relatively easy to fix experimental dependencies, to see the general in particular.

Generalization is associated with highlighting the general, but most often it is not obvious and acts as a kind of scientific secret, the main secrets of which are revealed as a result of idealization, i.e. detection of abstraction intervals.

Each new success in the enrichment of the theoretical level of research is accompanied by the ordering of the material and the identification of subordinate relationships. The connection of scientific concepts forms laws. The main laws are often called principles. Theory is not just a system of scientific concepts and laws, but a system of their subordination and coordination.

So, the main points of the formation of a scientific theory are analysis, induction, generalization, idealization, the establishment of subordination and coordination links. The listed operations can find their development in formalization and mathematization.

Movement towards a cognitive goal can lead to various results, which are expressed in specific knowledge. Such forms are, for example, a problem and an idea, a hypothesis and a theory.

Types of forms of knowledge.

The methods of scientific knowledge are connected not only with each other, but also with the forms of knowledge.

A problem is a question that needs to be studied and resolved. Solving problems requires enormous mental effort, associated with a radical restructuring of existing knowledge about the object. The initial form of such permission is an idea.

An idea is a form of thought in which general view captures the essentials. The information embedded in the idea is so significant for a positive solution to a certain range of problems that it contains, as it were, a tension that encourages concretization and deployment.

The solution of the problem, as well as the concretization of the idea, can be completed by putting forward a hypothesis or building a theory.

A hypothesis is a probable assumption about the cause of any phenomena, the reliability of which, in the current state of production and science, cannot be verified and proven, but which explains these phenomena, which are observable without it. Even a science like mathematics cannot do without hypotheses.

A hypothesis tested and proven in practice moves from the category of probable assumptions to the category of reliable truths, becomes a scientific theory.

Scientific theory is understood, first of all, as a set of concepts and judgments regarding a certain subject area, united into a single, true, reliable system of knowledge using certain logical principles.

Scientific theories can be classified on various grounds: according to the degree of generality (private, general), according to the nature of the relationship to other theories (equivalent, isomorphic, homomorphic), according to the nature of the connection with experience and the type of logical structures (deductive and non-deductive), according to the nature of the use of language (qualitative, quantitative). But in whatever form the theory appears today, it is the most significant form of knowledge.

The problem and the idea, the hypothesis and the theory are the essence of the forms in which the effectiveness of the methods used in the process of cognition is crystallized. However, their significance is not only in this. They also act as forms of knowledge movement and the basis for the formulation of new methods. Defining each other, acting as complementary means, they (i.e., methods and forms of cognition) in their unity provide a solution to cognitive problems, allow a person to successfully master the world around him.

2. Growth of scientific knowledge. Scientific revolutions and changes in the types of rationality

Most often, the formation of theoretical research is stormy and unpredictable. In addition, one important circumstance should be borne in mind: usually the formation of new theoretical knowledge takes place against the background of an already known theory, i.e. there is an increase in theoretical knowledge. Based on this, philosophers often prefer to talk not about the formation of scientific theory, but about the growth of scientific knowledge.

The development of knowledge is a complex dialectical process that has certain qualitative various stages. Thus, this process can be viewed as a movement from myth to logos, from logos to “pre-science”, from “pre-science” to science, from classical science to non-classical and further to post-non-classical, etc., from ignorance to knowledge, from shallow, incomplete to deeper and more perfect knowledge, etc.

In modern Western philosophy, the problem of the growth and development of knowledge is central to the philosophy of science, which is presented especially brightly in such currents as evolutionary (genetic) epistemology and post-positivism.

Especially actively the problem of growth (development, change of knowledge) was developed, starting from the 60s. XX century, supporters of postpositivism K. Popper, T. Kuhn, I. Lakatos, P. Feyerabend, St. Tulmin and others. The well-known book by K. A. Popper is called just that: "Logic and the growth of scientific knowledge." The need for the growth of scientific knowledge becomes apparent when the use of theory does not give the desired effect.

Real science should not be afraid of refutation: rational criticism and constant correction with facts is the essence of scientific knowledge. Based on these ideas, Popper proposed a very dynamic concept of scientific knowledge as a continuous stream of assumptions (hypotheses) and their refutation. He likened the development of science to the Darwinian scheme of biological evolution. Constantly put forward new hypotheses and theories must undergo strict selection in the process of rational criticism and attempts at refutation, which corresponds to the mechanism of natural selection in the biological world. Only the "strongest theories" should survive, but they cannot be regarded as absolute truths either. All human knowledge is conjectural in nature, any fragment of it can be doubted, and any provisions should be open to criticism.

New theoretical knowledge for the time being fits into the framework of the existing theory. But there comes a stage when such an inscription is impossible, there is a scientific revolution; The old theory has been replaced by a new one. Part former supporters the old theory is able to assimilate the new theory. Those who cannot do this remain with their former theoretical guidelines, but it becomes increasingly difficult for them to find students and new supporters.

T. Kuhn, P. Feyerabend and other representatives of the historical trend in the philosophy of science insist on the thesis of the incommensurability of theories, according to which successive theories are not rationally comparable. Apparently, this opinion is too radical. The practice of scientific research shows that a rational comparison of new and old theories is always carried out, and by no means unsuccessfully.

The long stages of normal science in Kuhn's concept are interrupted by brief, however, dramatic periods of unrest and revolution in science - periods of paradigm shift.

A period begins, a crisis in science, heated discussions, discussions of fundamental problems. The scientific community often stratifies during this period, innovators are opposed by conservatives who are trying to save the old paradigm. During this period, many scientists cease to be "dogmatists", they are sensitive to new, even immature ideas. They are ready to believe and follow those who, in their opinion, put forward hypotheses and theories that can gradually develop into a new paradigm. Finally, such theories are indeed found, most scientists again consolidate around them and begin to enthusiastically engage in "normal science", especially since the new paradigm immediately opens up a huge field of new unsolved problems.

Thus, the final picture of the development of science, according to Kuhn, takes the following form: long periods of progressive development and accumulation of knowledge within the framework of one paradigm are replaced by short periods of crisis, breaking the old and searching for a new paradigm. The transition from one paradigm to another Kuhn compares with the conversion of people to a new religious faith, firstly, because this transition cannot be explained logically and, secondly, because scientists who have adopted a new paradigm perceive the world significantly differently than before - even they see old, familiar phenomena as if with new eyes.

Kuhn believes that the transition of one paradigm and another through the scientific revolution (for example, at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century) is a common developmental model characteristic of a mature science. In the course of the scientific revolution, there is such a process as a change in the "conceptual grid" through which scientists viewed the world. A change (moreover, a cardinal one) of this "grid" makes it necessary to change the methodological rules-prescriptions.

During the scientific revolution, all sets of methodological rules are abolished, except for one - the one that follows from the new paradigm and is determined by it. However, this abolition should not be a "bare negation", but a "sublation", with the preservation of the positive. To characterize this process, Kuhn himself uses the term "prescriptive reconstruction".

Scientific revolutions mark a change in the types of scientific rationality. A number of authors (V.S. Stepin, V.V. Ilyin), depending on the relationship between the object and the subject of cognition, distinguish three main types of scientific rationality and, accordingly, three major stages in the evolution of science:

1) classical (XVII-XIX centuries);

2) non-classical (first half of the 20th century);

3) post-non-classical (modern) science.

Ensuring the growth of theoretical knowledge is not easy. The complexity of research tasks forces the scientist to achieve a deep understanding of his actions, to reflect. Reflection can be carried out alone, and, of course, it is impossible without the researcher conducting independent work. At the same time, reflection is very often very successfully carried out in the conditions of an exchange of opinions between the participants in the discussion, in the conditions of dialogue. Modern science has become a matter of collective creativity; accordingly, reflection often acquires a group character.

3. Science and technology

Being the most important element of society and having penetrated literally into all its spheres, science (especially since the 17th century) was most closely connected with technology. This is especially true for modern science and technology.

The Greek "techne" is translated into Russian as art, "skill", "skill". The concept of technology is already found in Plato and Aristotle in connection with the analysis of artificial tools. Technology, unlike nature, is not a natural formation, it is created. A human-made object is often referred to as an artifact. The Latin "artifactum" literally means "artificially made". Technology is a collection of artifacts.

Along with the phenomenon of technology, the phenomenon of technology requires explanation. It is not enough to define technique merely as a collection of artifacts. The latter are used regularly, systematically, as a result of a sequence of operations. Technology is a set of operations for the purposeful use of technology. It is clear that the effective use of technology requires its inclusion in technological chains. Technology acts as the development of technology, its achievement of the stage of systemicity.

Initially, at the stage manual labor, the technique was mainly instrumental; technical tools continued, expanding the capabilities of the natural organs of man, increasing his physical strength. At the stage of mechanization, technology becomes an independent force, labor is mechanized. Technique, as it were, is separated from the person, who, however, is forced to be near it. Now not only the machine is a continuation of man, but the man himself becomes an appendage of the machine, he complements its capabilities. At the third stage of technology development, as a result of the complex development of automation and the transformation of technology into technology, a person acts as its (technology) organizer, creator and controller. It is no longer the physical capabilities of a person that come to the fore, but the power of his intellect, realized through technology. There is a union of science and technology, the result of which is scientific and technological progress, often called the scientific and technological revolution. This refers to a decisive restructuring of the entire technical and technological basis of society. Moreover, the time gap between next friend after another, technical and technological restructuring is becoming less and less. Moreover, there is a parallel development of various aspects of scientific and technological progress. If the “steam revolution” was separated from the “electricity revolution” by hundreds of years, then modern microelectronics, robotics, computer science, energy, instrumentation, biotechnology complement each other in their development, there is no time gap between them at all.

Let us single out the main philosophical problems of technology.

Let us begin by considering the question of the distinction between the natural and the artificial. Technical objects, artifacts, as a rule, have a physical and chemical nature. The development of biotechnology has shown that artifacts can also be of a biological nature, for example, when colonies of microorganisms are specially grown for their subsequent use in agriculture. Considered as physical, chemical, biological phenomena, technical objects do not differ in principle from natural phenomena. However, there is a big "but" here. It is well known that technical objects are the result of the objectification of human activity. In other words, artifacts are symbols of the specifics of human activity. Therefore, they must be evaluated not only from a natural, but also from a social point of view.

Along with the question of distinguishing between natural and artificial in the philosophy of technology, the problem of the relationship between technology and science is often discussed, while, as a rule, science is put in the first place, and technology in the second place. Characteristic in this regard is the cliché "scientific and technical". Technology is often understood as applied science, primarily as applied natural science. V last years the influence of technology on science is increasingly emphasized. The independent significance of technology is increasingly beginning to be appreciated. Philosophy is well aware of such a pattern: as it develops, “something” from a subordinate position passes into a more independent stage of its functioning and is constituted as a special institution. This happened with technology, which has long ceased to be just something applied. The technical, engineering approach has not canceled or replaced scientific approaches. Technicians, engineers use science as a means in their action orientation. To act is the slogan of the artificial-technological approach. In contrast to the scientific approach, he does not hunt for knowledge, but strives for the production of apparatus and the implementation of technologies. A nation that has not mastered the artificial-technological approach, suffering from excessive scientific contemplation, looks in the current conditions by no means modern, but rather archaic.

Unfortunately, in university conditions it is always easier to implement a natural-science approach than an artificial-technical one. Future engineers carefully study the natural sciences and technical disciplines, and the latter are often built in the image of the former. As for the actual artificial-technological approach, its implementation requires a developed material and technical base, which is absent in many Russian universities. A university graduate, a young engineer, brought up mainly on the traditions of the natural-scientific approach, will not properly master the artificial-technological approach. The inefficient cultivation of the engineering and technical approach is one of the main circumstances preventing Russia from standing on a par with the developed industrial countries. The labor efficiency of a Russian engineer is several times lower than the labor efficiency of his colleague from the USA, Japan, Germany.

Another problem of the philosophy of technology is the evaluation of technology and the development of certain norms in this regard. Technique valuation was introduced in the late 1960s. and is now widely practiced in the developed industrial powers. Initially, the big news was the assessment of the social, ethical and other humanitarian consequences of the development of technology that seem secondary and tertiary in relation to technical solutions. A growing number of technology evaluators now point to the need to overcome the paradigm of fragmentation and reductionism in technology. In the first paradigm, the phenomenon of technology is not considered systematically, one of its fragments is singled out. In the second paradigm, technique is reduced, reduced to its natural foundations.

There are many approaches to assessing the phenomenon of technology, let's consider some of them. According to the naturalistic approach, man, unlike animals, lacks specialized organs, so he is forced to compensate for his shortcomings by creating artifacts. According to the volitional interpretation of technology, a person realizes his will to power through the creation of artifacts and technological chains. This takes place both at the individual and especially at the national, class and state levels. Technique is used by the dominant forces in society, and therefore it is not politically and ideologically neutral. The natural science approach considers technology as an applied science. Rigid logical-mathematical ideals of the natural-science approach are softened in the rational approach. Here technology is seen as a consciously regulated human activity. Rationality is understood as the highest type of organization of technical activity, and if it is supplemented with humanistic components, it is identified with expediency and regularity. This means that socio-cultural adjustments are being made to the scientific understanding of rationality. Their development leads to the ethical aspects of technical activity.

Questions to consolidate the material

1. Give the concept of the method of scientific knowledge.

2. What is the classification of methods of scientific knowledge?

3. Name the general scientific methods of cognition.

4. What methods are universal (universal)?

5. Describe such methods of scientific knowledge as comparison, analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction.

6. What levels of scientific knowledge do you know?

7. List the types of forms of knowledge.

8. Give the concept of a hypothesis, theory.

9. Outline the process of becoming a scientific theory.

10. What is the meaning of the growth of scientific knowledge.

11. Give the concept of scientific revolution, scientific paradigm.

12. What is the origin of technology?

13. What is the problem of the relationship between science and technology?

knowledge science technology revolution

List of main literature

1. Alekseev P.V., Panin A.V. Philosophy. - M.: PBOYuL, 2002.

2. Kokhanovsky V.P. Philosophy: Textbook. - Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 2003.

3. Radugin A.A. Philosophy: a course of lectures. - M.: Center, 2002.

4. Spirkin A.G. Philosophy: Textbook.- M.: Gardariki, 2003.

5. Philosophy: Textbook. - M.: RDL Publishing House, 2002.

6. Gadamer H.G. Truth and Method: Fundamentals of Philosophical Hermeneutics. - M.: Progress, 1988.

7. Kanke V.A. Ethics. Technics. Symbol. Obninsk, 1996.

8. Kuhn T. The structure of scientific revolutions. 2nd ed. - Progress, 1974.

9. Kokhanovsky V.P. Philosophy and methodology of science. - Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 1999.

10. Przhilenskaya I.B. Technique and society. - Stavropol: Publishing house of SevKavGTU, 1999.

11. Stepin V.S., Gorokhov V.G., Rozov M.A. Philosophy of science and technology. M.: Contact-Alpha, 1995.

12. Sartre J.-P. Problems of the method.- M.: Progress, 1994.

13. Philosophy: Textbook / Edited by V.D. Gubina, T.Yu. Sidorina, V.P. Filatov. - M.: Russian Word, 1997.

14. Spengler O. Man and technology / / Culturology. XX century. Anthology. - M.: Lawyer, 1999.

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Philosophy, its subject, functions and place in modern culture. Cognition as a subject of philosophical analysis. Correlation between knowledge and information. Methods and forms of scientific knowledge. Philosophy of science in the XX century. Genesis, stages of development and main problems of science.

Scientific knowledge and knowledge is an integral developing system with a rather complex structure.

According to the subject and method of cognition, one can single out the sciences of nature (natural science), society (social science, social sciences), the spirit (humanities), cognition and thinking (logic, psychology, etc.). A separate group is made up of technical sciences. Mathematics has a special place. In turn, each group of sciences can be further subdivided. Yes, in the composition natural sciences includes mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology and other sciences, each of which is divided into disciplines - physical chemistry, biophysics, etc. A number of disciplines occupy an intermediate position (for example, economic statistics).

The problematic nature of the orientation of post-non-classical science brought to life interdisciplinary research conducted by means of several scientific disciplines. For example, conservation research is at the crossroads of technical, biological, medical, geosciences, economics, and so on.

In direct relation to practice, they distinguish fundamental and applied Sciences. The task of the fundamental sciences is the knowledge of the laws governing the behavior and interaction of the basic structures of nature, society, and thinking. These laws are studied without regard to their possible use. The goal of applied sciences is to apply the results of fundamental sciences to solve social and practical problems.

In modern epistemology, there are three levels of scientific knowledge: empirical, theoretical and metatheoretical.

Grounds for highlighting the empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge.

1. In terms of epistemological orientation, these levels differ in that at the empirical level, knowledge is focused on the study of phenomena and superficial connections between them, without delving into the essence of processes. At the theoretical level of knowledge, the causes and essential connections between phenomena are revealed.

2. The main cognitive task of the empirical level of knowledge - description phenomena, and the theoretical level - explanation phenomena being studied.

3. The differences between the levels of cognition are most clearly manifested in the nature of the results obtained. The main form of knowledge of the empirical level is scientific fact and body of empirical generalizations. At the theoretical level, the knowledge gained is fixed in the form of laws, principles and scientific theories in which the essence of the studied phenomena is revealed.

4. Correspondingly, the methods used to obtain these types of knowledge also differ. The main methods of the empirical level are observation, experiment, inductive generalization. At the theoretical level, such techniques and methods as analysis and synthesis, idealization, induction and deduction, analogy, hypothesis, etc. are widely used.

Despite the differences, there is no rigid boundary between the empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge. Empirical studies often go to the essence of the processes under study, while theoretical studies seek to confirm the correctness of their results with the help of empirical data. Experiment, being the main method of empirical knowledge, is always theoretically loaded, and any abstract theory must have an empirical interpretation.

The complex scientific and cognitive process is not limited to the empirical and theoretical levels. It is advisable to single out a special metatheoretical level, or foundations of science, which represent ideals and norms of scientific research, a picture of the reality under study and philosophical foundations. The ideals and norms of scientific research (INNI) are a set of certain conceptual, value, methodological attitudes inherent in science at each specific historical stage of its development. Their main function is the organization and regulation of scientific research, orientation towards more effective ways and means to achieve true results. INNI can be divided into:

a) common to any scientific research; they separate science from other forms of knowledge (ordinary knowledge, magic, astrology, theology);

b) characteristic of a particular stage in the development of science. With the transition of science to a new stage of its development (for example, from classical to non-classical science), INNIs change dramatically;

c) ideals and norms of a special subject area (for example, biology cannot do without the idea of ​​development, while physics does not explicitly resort to such settings and postulates the immutability of the laws of nature).

The picture of the reality under study (CIR) is the representation of the fundamental objects from which all other objects studied by the corresponding science are supposed to be built. The components of the IRC include space-time representations and general patterns of interaction between objects (for example, causality). These representations can be described in the system ontological postulates. For example, “the world consists of indivisible atoms, their interaction is carried out as an instantaneous transfer of forces in a straight line; atoms and the bodies formed from them move in absolute space and with the passage of absolute time. Such an ontological system of the world, of reality, took shape in the 17th-18th centuries. and was called the mechanistic picture of the world. The transition from the mechanistic to the electrodynamic (the last quarter of the 19th century), and then to the quantum mechanical picture of the reality under study was accompanied by a change in the system of ontological postulates. Breaking KIR is scientific revolution.

The inclusion of scientific knowledge in culture presupposes its philosophical justification. It is carried out through the philosophical ideas and principles that substantiate INNI and CIR. For example, M. Faraday substantiated the material status of electric and magnetic fields with references to the fundamental unity of matter and force. Fundamental science deals with extraordinary objects that have not been mastered by either production or ordinary consciousness, therefore it is necessary to connect these objects with the dominant worldview and culture. This problem is solved with the help of the philosophical foundations of science (FON). Philosophical foundations do not coincide with the entire array of philosophical knowledge, which is much broader and is a reflection not only of science, but of the entire culture. Only a part of philosophical knowledge can act as a background. The adoption and development of many scientific ideas was preceded by their philosophical development. For example, the ideas of atomism, self-regulating systems of Leibniz, self-developing systems of Hegel have found their application in modern science, although they were put forward much earlier in the field of philosophical knowledge.

Scientific knowledge differs from all other types of knowledge in the use of specially developed methods. Method - this is a way of activity, a set of techniques used by the researcher to obtain a certain result. When it comes to scientific methods, they mean, first of all, those techniques and methods that help to obtain true knowledge. Only through the use of scientifically based methods can human activity be effective.

Levels of scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge is a process, i.e. developing system of knowledge, which includes two main levels - empirical and t theoretical.

On the empirical level living contemplation (sensory cognition) predominates, the rational moment and its forms (judgments, concepts, etc.) are present here, but have a subordinate meaning. Empirical, experimental research is directed directly (without intermediate links) to its object. Therefore, the object under study is reflected mainly from the side of its external connections and manifestations, accessible to living contemplation and expressing internal relations. The collection of facts, their primary generalization, description of observed and experimental data, their systematization, classification and other fact-fixing activities are characteristic features of empirical knowledge. Since it involves the implementation of observations and experiments, the means of empirical research include instruments, instrument installations, etc.

Unlike empirical knowledge, theoretical study there is no direct interaction with objects. At this level, the object is studied indirectly, in a thought experiment, but not in a real one.

In addition to the means associated with the organization of experiments, conceptual means are used in empirical research - this is a special language, which is called the empirical language of science. It has a complex organization in which empirical terms and terms of theoretical language interact. The meaning of empirical terms is abstractions or empirical objects.

Real objects in empirical knowledge are presented as ideal objects with a limited set of features. A real object, on the other hand, has an infinite number of features (a magnetic needle near a wire with current. Both have an infinite number of features: length, thickness, weight, color, distance from each other, from the walls of the room, from the sun, from the center of the galaxy. From the entire set of properties and relations in the empirical term "wire with current" when describing the experience, signs matter: to be at a certain distance from the arrow, to be straight, to conduct electricity, everything else doesn't matter. We abstract from them in the empirical description).

The language of theoretical research differs from the language of empirical description.

It is based on theoretical terms, the meaning of which is theoretical ideal objects or special abstractions (example: material point, black body, ideal gas). No theory is built without the use of such objects. Such objects, unlike empirical ones, are endowed not only with those features that we can detect in the real interaction of objects of experience, but also with features that no real object has (example: a material point is a body devoid of dimensions, but it concentrates the entire mass bodies). There are no such bodies in nature - this is the result of mental design. It is an ideal object, a carrier of only essential connections. In reality, the essence is inseparable from the phenomenon. The task of theoretical research is the knowledge of essence in its purest form.

The two levels of scientific knowledge also differ in research methods. However, before proceeding to their comparative analysis, it is necessary to consider a number of more general methodological provisions. Methodological analysis of the process of scientific knowledge as a whole allows us to distinguish two types of techniques and methods of research.

Firstly, general logical techniques and methods inherent in human knowledge as a whole, on the basis of which both scientific and everyday knowledge is built. These include analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, abstraction and generalization, etc.

Secondly, there are special techniques that are characteristic only for scientific knowledge - scientific research methods. The latter, in turn, can be divided into two main groups: methods for constructing empirical knowledge and methods for constructing theoretical knowledge. Let us first dwell on general logical methods and methods of cognition, applied both at the empirical and theoretical levels.

General logical methods of cognition. In order to really know an object, one must embrace, study all its aspects, all connections and “mediations”. Therefore, the subsequent study of the subject is associated with the concretization of the general idea of ​​it. This goal is achieved through operations such as analysis and synthesis.

Analysis- this is the division of a holistic subject into its constituent parts (sides, features, properties or relationships) with the aim of their comprehensive study.

Synthesis- this is a combination of previously distinguished parts (sides, features, properties or relationships) of an object into a single whole.

Analysis and synthesis are the most elementary and simple methods of cognition that lie at the very foundation of human thinking. At the same time, they are also the most universal techniques, characteristic of all its levels and forms.

by induction such a method of research and reasoning is called, in which the general conclusion is built on the basis of particular premises.

Deduction is a method of reasoning by means of which a conclusion of a particular nature necessarily follows from general premises.

The basis of induction is experience, experiment and observation, during which individual facts are collected. Then, by studying these facts, analyzing them, we establish the common and recurring features of a number of phenomena included in a certain class. On this basis, an inductive reasoning is built, the premises of which are judgments about single objects and phenomena with an indication of their recurring feature, and a judgment about a class that includes these objects and phenomena.

As a conclusion, a judgment is obtained in which the attribute is attributed to the entire class.

Deduction differs from induction by the opposite course of the movement of thought. In deduction, as can be seen from the definition, based on general knowledge, a private conclusion is made. One of the premises of deduction is necessarily a general judgment. If it is obtained as a result of inductive reasoning, then deduction complements induction, expanding the scope of our knowledge.

Analogy- this is such a method of cognition, in which, on the basis of the similarity of objects in some features, they conclude that they are similar in other features. Thus, when studying the nature of light, such phenomena as diffraction and interference were established. The same properties were previously discovered in sound and followed from its wave nature. Based on this similarity, X. Huygens concluded that light, too, has a wave nature. Similarly, Louis de Broglie, after assuming a certain similarity between the particles of matter and the field, came to the conclusion about the wave nature of the particles of matter.

As noted above, general logical actions are applied both at the empirical and theoretical levels of cognition, but they are refracted through a system of techniques and methods specific to each level.

At the empirical level, the main methods used are real experiment and real observation; in a theoretical study idealization(method of constructing an ideal object); thought experiment with idealized objects, which replaces the real experiment with real objects; special methods for constructing a theory(ascent from the abstract to the concrete, axiomatic, hypothetical-deductive methods); methods of logical and historical research and etc.

Elements and methods of empirical knowledge . The most important element of experiential knowledge is fact (from lat. jactum done, accomplished). The main meanings of the concept of fact are as follows: the first is a certain fragment of reality (“facts of reality” and “facts of consciousness”); the second is a scientific fact: a) reliable knowledge about any phenomenon; b) a certain judgment that fixes empirical knowledge obtained in the course of observation and experiment. Any scientific research begins with the collection, systematization and generalization of facts, but empirical experience is never, especially in modern science, blind: it is planned, constructed by theory, and facts are always theoretically loaded in some way. Therefore, the starting point, the beginning of science, is, strictly speaking, not bare facts in themselves (even in their totality), but theoretical schemes, “conceptual frameworks of reality”.

As noted above, the main methods of empirical knowledge are observation and experiment.

scientific observation- this is a research situation of purposeful perception of processes and phenomena, objects of the surrounding world, as well as internal mental phenomena. Observation is an organized, planned process that involves the initiative and activity of the researcher. It is characterized by purposefulness, initiative, conceptual and instrumental organization. Observation has the following structure: object of observation, subject of research, conditions and circumstances of observation (time, place, theoretical context, technological means).

Experiment- this is a research situation of studying a phenomenon in specially created, controlled conditions that allow you to actively control the course of this process, i.e.

intervene in it, modify it in accordance with research tasks, and also reproduce this phenomenon when reproducing these conditions.

Along with observation and experiment, an important place in empirical knowledge is occupied by modeling method. It is a method of studying certain objects by reproducing their characteristics on another object - a model that is an analogue of one or another fragment of reality (material or mental) - the original model. Between the model and the object of interest to the researcher, there must be a known similarity (similarity) - in physical characteristics, structure, functions, etc.

Features of the theoretical level of knowledge. Theoretical level of scientific knowledge, in contrast to the empirical one, is characterized by the predominance of rational moment- concepts, theories, laws and other forms of thinking and "thinking operations". Living contemplation, sensory cognition is not eliminated here, but becomes a subordinate (but very important) aspect of the cognitive process. Theoretical knowledge reflects phenomena and processes from the point of view of their universal internal connections and regularities, comprehended by rational processing of empirical knowledge data. This processing is carried out with the help of systems of "higher order" abstractions - such as concepts, judgments, conclusions, problems, hypotheses, theories.

concept- a form of thinking that reflects general regular connections, essential features of the phenomena of a certain set, which are fixed in their definitions (definitions).

Judgment- a form of thinking that reflects the properties, connections and relationships of individual things, phenomena, processes of reality.

inference A form of thought by which new knowledge is deduced from previously established knowledge (usually from one or more propositions called premises) (also usually in the form of a proposition called a consequence or conclusion).

Problem- a form of theoretical knowledge, the content of which is what is not yet known by man, but what needs to be known. In other words, this is knowledge about ignorance, a question that has arisen in the course of cognition and requires an answer.

Hypothesis- a form of theoretical knowledge containing an assumption formulated on the basis of a number of facts, the true meaning of which is uncertain and needs to be proven. Hypothetical knowledge is probable, not reliable, and requires verification, justification.

Theory- this is the most developed form of scientific knowledge, which gives a holistic display of the regular connections of a certain area of ​​reality. At the beginning of the century, A. Einstein formulated the main criteria for scientific theory: consistency with experimental data, verifiability on the available experimental material, “logical simplicity” of premises (basic concepts and relationships between them), the content of the most definite statements in it, beauty, elegance, harmony, diversity objects that it links into a system of certain abstractions, a wide scope and an indication of the way to create a new, more general theory.

The most important methods for constructing a scientific theory are the axiomatic, hypothetical-deductive, the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete, and the method of formalization.

Axiomatic Method- a method of constructing a scientific theory, in which it is based on some initial provisions - axioms (postulates), from which all other statements of this theory are derived in a purely logical way, through proof. To derive theorems from axioms (and in general some formulas from others), special rules of inference are formulated. Therefore, the proof in the axiomatic method is a certain sequence of formulas, each of which is either an axiom or is obtained from the previous formulas according to some rule of inference.

Hypothetical-deductive method- a method of scientific knowledge, the essence of which is to create a system of deductively interconnected hypotheses, from which, ultimately, statements about empirical facts are derived. Thus, this method is based on the derivation (deduction) of conclusions from hypotheses and other premises, the truth value of which is unknown. And this means that the conclusion obtained on the basis of this method will inevitably have a probabilistic character.

Climbing from the abstract to the concrete- a method of theoretical research and presentation, consisting in the movement of scientific thought from the original abstraction ("beginning" - one-sided, incomplete knowledge) through successive stages of deepening and expanding knowledge to the result - a holistic reproduction in the theory of the subject under study.

formalization method is a display of meaningful knowledge in a sign-symbolic form (formalized language). The latter is created for the exact expression of thoughts in order to exclude the possibility of ambiguous understanding. When formalizing, reasoning about objects is transferred to the plane of operation with signs (formulas), which is associated with the construction artificial languages(language of mathematics, logic, chemistry, etc.). It is the use of special symbols that makes it possible to eliminate the ambiguity of words in ordinary, natural language. In formalized reasoning, each symbol is strictly unambiguous. Formalization serves as the basis for the processes of algorithmization and programming of computing devices, and thus the computerization of not only scientific and technical, but also other forms of knowledge.