Experience and observation are the greatest sources of wisdom, access to which is open to every person.
W. Channing

2.1. Structure of scientific knowledge

Scientific knowledge is objectively true knowledge about nature, society and man, obtained as a result of scientific research activities and, as a rule, tested (proven) by practice. Natural scientific knowledge structurally consists of empirical and theoretical directions of scientific research (Fig. 2.1). The starting point of any of these areas of scientific research is to obtain a scientific, empirical fact.
The main thing in the empirical direction of research in some areas of natural science is observation. Observation is a long-term, purposeful and systematic perception of objects and phenomena of the objective world. The next structure of the empirical direction of knowledge is a scientific experiment. An experiment is a scientifically conducted experiment, with the help of which an object is either reproduced artificially or placed under precisely taken into account conditions. A distinctive feature of a scientific experiment is that every researcher can reproduce it at any time. Finding analogies in differences is a necessary stage of scientific research. The experiment can be carried out on
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models, i.e. on bodies whose dimensions and mass are proportionally changed compared to real bodies. The results of model experiments can be considered proportional to the results of the interaction of real bodies. It is possible to conduct a thought experiment, that is, imagine bodies that do not exist in reality at all, and conduct an experiment on them in the mind. In modern science, it is also necessary to conduct idealized experiments, that is, thought experiments using idealizations. Empirical generalizations can be made from empirical studies.
At the theoretical level of knowledge, in addition to empirical facts, concepts are required that are created anew or taken from other branches of science. A concept is a thought that reflects objects and phenomena in their general and essential features, properties in an abbreviated, concentrated manner (for example, matter, movement, mass, speed, energy, plant, animal, human, etc.).
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An important way of the theoretical level of research is to put forward hypotheses. A hypothesis is a special kind of scientific assumption about directly observable or generally unknown forms of connection between phenomena or the causes that produce these phenomena. A hypothesis as an assumption is put forward to explain facts that do not fit into existing laws and theories. It expresses, first of all, the process of the formation of knowledge, while in theory, the achieved stage in the development of science is recorded to a greater extent. When putting forward any hypothesis, not only its compliance with empirical data is taken into account, but also some methodological principles, called the criteria of simplicity, beauty, economy of thinking, etc. After putting forward a certain hypothesis, the research again returns to the empirical level to test it. The goal is to test the consequences of this hypothesis, about which nothing was known before it was put forward. If a hypothesis passes empirical testing, then it acquires the status of a law of nature; if not, it is considered rejected.
The law of nature is the best expression of the harmony of the world. Law is an internal causal, stable connection between phenomena and properties of various objects, reflecting the relationships between objects. If changes in some objects or phenomena (cause) cause a very definite change in others (effect), then this means the manifestation of the law. For example, D.I. Mendeleev’s periodic law establishes a connection between the charge of the atomic nucleus and the chemical properties of a given chemical element. A set of several laws related to one area of ​​cognition is called a scientific theory.
The principle of falsifiability of scientific propositions, i.e. their property of being refutable in practice, remains indisputable in science. An experiment that is aimed at refuting this hypothesis is called a decisive experiment. Natural science studies the world with the aim of creating laws of its functioning as products of human de-
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activities reflecting periodically recurring facts of reality.
So, science is built from observations, experiments, hypotheses, theories and argumentation. Science in its content is a set of empirical generalizations and theories confirmed by observation and experiment. Moreover, the creative process of creating theories and arguing in support of them plays no less a role in science than observation and experiment.

2.2. Basic methods of scientific research

Science begins as soon as they begin to measure. Exact science. D. I. Mendeleev

Empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge differ according to the subject, means and results of the study. Knowledge is a practice-tested result of knowledge of reality, a true reflection of reality in human thinking. The difference between the empirical and theoretical levels of research does not coincide with the difference between sensory and rational knowledge, although the empirical level is predominantly sensory, and the theoretical level is rational.
The structure of scientific research that we have described is, in a broad sense, a way of scientific knowledge or the scientific method as such. A method is a set of actions designed to help achieve the desired result. The method not only equalizes the abilities of people, but also makes their activities uniform, which is a prerequisite for obtaining uniform results by all researchers. Empirical and theoretical methods are distinguished (Table 2.1). Empirical methods include:
Observation is a long-term, purposeful and systematic perception of objects and phenomena of the objective world. Two types of observation can be distinguished: direct and with
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using instruments. When making observations using appropriate devices in the microworld, it is necessary to take into account the properties of the device itself, its working part, and the nature of interaction with the microobject.
Description is the result of observation and experiment, consisting of recording data using certain notation systems accepted in science. Description as a method of scientific research is carried out both through ordinary language and by special means that make up the language of science (symbols, signs, matrices, graphs, etc.). The most important requirements for a scientific description are accuracy, logical rigor and simplicity.
Measurement is a cognitive operation that provides a numerical expression of measured quantities. It is carried out at the empirical level of scientific research and includes quantitative standards and standards (weight, length, coordinates, speed, etc.). The measurement is carried out by the subject both directly and indirectly. In this regard, it is divided into two types: direct and indirect. Direct measurement is a direct comparison of the measured object or phenomenon, property with the corresponding standard; indirect determination of the value of a measured property based on taking into account a certain dependence on others
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quantities Indirect measurement helps to determine quantities in conditions where direct measurement is difficult or impossible. For example, measuring certain properties of many cosmic objects, galactic microprocesses, etc.
Comparison is a comparison of objects in order to identify signs of similarity or signs of difference between these objects. A well-known aphorism says: “Everything is known by comparison.” In order for the comparison to be objective, it must meet the following requirements:

1. it is necessary to compare comparable phenomena and objects (for example, there is no point in comparing a person with a triangle or an animal with a meteorite, etc.);
2. comparison should be made based on the most important and significant characteristics, since comparison based on unimportant characteristics can lead to misconceptions.

An experiment is a scientifically conducted experience with the help of which an object is either reproduced artificially or placed in precisely taken into account conditions, which makes it possible to study their influence on the object in its pure form. In contrast to observation, an experiment is characterized by the researcher’s intervention in the position of the objects being studied due to active influence on the subject of research. It is widely used in physics, chemistry, biology, physiology and other natural sciences. Experiments are becoming increasingly important in social research. However, here its significance is limited, firstly, by moral, humanistic considerations, secondly, by the fact that most social phenomena cannot be reproduced in laboratory conditions, and thirdly, by the fact that many social phenomena cannot be repeated many times and isolated from others social phenomena. So, empirical study is the starting point for the formation of scientific laws; at this stage, the object undergoes primary comprehension, its external features and some regularities (empirical laws) are revealed.
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Modeling is the study of an object by creating and studying its model (copy), replacing the original, from certain aspects that interest the researcher. Depending on the method of reproduction, i.e., on the means by which the model is built, all models can be divided into two types: “active” or material models; "imaginary" or ideal models. Material models include models of a bridge, dam, building, airplane, ship, etc. They can be built from the same material as the object being studied, or based on a purely functional analogy. Ideal models are divided into mental structures (models of an atom, galaxy), theoretical schemes that reproduce in an ideal form the properties and connections of the object under study, and symbolic ones (mathematical formulas, chemical signs and symbols, etc.). Particular attention is paid to cybernetic models that replace control systems that have not yet been sufficiently studied and help to study the laws of operation of a given system (for example, modeling individual functions of the human psyche).
Scientific methods at the theoretical level of research include:
Formalization is the display of the results of thinking in precise concepts or statements, that is, the construction of abstract mathematical models that reveal the essence of the processes of reality being studied. Formalization plays an important role in the analysis, clarification and explication of scientific concepts. It is inextricably linked with the construction of artificial or formalized scientific laws.
Axiomatization is the construction of theories based on axioms-statements, the proof of the truth of which is not required. The truth of all statements of the axiomatic theory is justified as a result of strict adherence to the deductive technique of inference (proof) and finding (or constructing) an interpretation of the formalization of axiomatic systems. During the construction of axiomatics, they proceed from the fact that the accepted axioms are truths.
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Analysis is the actual or mental division of an integral object into its component parts (sides, features, properties, relationships or connections) with the aim of its comprehensive study. Analysis, decomposing objects into parts and studying each of them, must necessarily consider them not by themselves, but as parts of a single whole.
Synthesis is the actual or mental reunification of a whole from parts, elements, sides and connections identified through analysis. With the help of synthesis, we restore the object as a specific whole in all the diversity of its manifestations. In the natural sciences, analysis and synthesis are used not only theoretically, but also practically. In socio-economic and humanitarian research, the subject of research is subjected only to mental dismemberment and reunification. Analysis and synthesis as methods of scientific research act in organic unity.
Induction is a method of research and a method of reasoning in which a general conclusion about the properties of objects and phenomena is built on the basis of individual facts or particular premises. For example, the transition from the analysis of facts and phenomena to the synthesis of acquired knowledge is carried out by the method of induction. Using the inductive method, you can obtain knowledge that is not reliable, but probable, with varying degrees of accuracy.
Deduction is the transition from general reasoning or judgment to specific ones. Derivation of new provisions using laws and rules of logic. The deductive method is of paramount importance in theoretical sciences as a tool for their logical ordering and construction, especially when true positions from which logically necessary consequences can be obtained are known.
Generalization is a logical process of transition from individual to general, from less general to more general knowledge, while establishing the general properties and characteristics of the objects under study. Obtaining generalized knowledge means a deeper reflection of reality, penetration into its essence.
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Analogy is a method of cognition, which is an inference during which, based on the similarity of objects in some properties and connections, a conclusion is drawn about their similarity in other properties and connections. Inference by analogy plays a significant role in the development of scientific knowledge. Many important discoveries in the field of natural science were made by transferring general patterns inherent in one area of ​​phenomena to phenomena in another area. Thus, X. Huygens, based on the analogy between the properties of light and sound, came to the conclusion about the wave nature of light; J.C. Maxwell extended this conclusion to the characteristics of the electromagnetic field. The identification of a certain similarity between the reflective processes of a living organism and some physical processes contributed to the creation of corresponding cybernetic devices.
Mathematization is the penetration of the apparatus of mathematical logic into natural and other sciences. Mathematization of modern scientific knowledge characterizes its theoretical level. With the help of mathematics, the basic patterns of development of natural science theories are formulated. Mathematical methods are widely used in socio-economic sciences. The creation (under the direct influence of practice) of such fields as linear programming, game theory, information theory and the emergence of electronic mathematical machines opens up completely new perspectives.
Abstraction is a method of cognition in which mental distraction occurs and discards those objects, properties and relationships that make it difficult to consider the object of study in the “pure” form necessary at this stage of study. Through the abstracting work of thinking, all concepts and categories of natural and socio-economic sciences arose: matter, motion, mass, energy, space, time, plant, animal, biological species, goods, money, value, etc.
In addition to the empirical and theoretical methods we have considered, there are general scientific research methods, which include the following.
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Classification is the division of all subjects being studied into separate groups in accordance with some characteristic that is important for the researcher.
The hypothetico-deductive method is one of the methods of reasoning based on the derivation (deduction) of conclusions from hypotheses and other premises, the true meaning of which is uncertain. This method has penetrated so deeply into the methodology of modern natural science that its theories are often considered identical to the hypothetico-deductive system. The hypothetico-deductive model describes the formal structure of theories quite well, but it does not take into account a number of other features and functions, and also ignores the genesis of hypotheses and laws that are premises. The result of hypothetico-deductive reasoning is only probable in nature, since its premises are hypotheses, and deduction transfers the probability of their truth to the conclusion.
The logical method is a method of reproducing a complex developmental object in thinking in the form of a specific theory. In the logical study of an object, we are distracted from all accidents, unimportant facts, zigzags, from which the most important, essential thing is isolated, which determines the general course and direction of development.
The historical method is when all the details and facts of a cognizable object are reproduced in all the concrete diversity of historical development. The historical method involves the study of a specific development process, and the logical method involves the study of the general patterns of movement of the object of knowledge.
Statistical methods that make it possible to determine average values ​​characterizing the entire set of subjects being studied have acquired great importance in modern science.
So, at the theoretical level, an explanation of the object is carried out, its internal connections and essential processes (theoretical laws) are revealed. If empirical knowledge is the starting point for the formation of scientific laws, then the theory allows us to explain empirical material. Both of these
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levels of cognition are closely related. Common to them are the forms in which sensory images (sensations, perceptions, ideas) and rational thinking (concepts, judgments and inferences) are realized.

2.3. Dynamics of science development. Principle of correspondence

Science is the best way to make the human spirit heroic.
D. Bruno

The development of science is determined by external and internal factors (Fig. 2.2). The first includes the influence of the state, economic, cultural, national parameters, and the value systems of scientists. The latter are determined by the internal logic and dynamics of the development of science.

The internal dynamics of the development of science has its own characteristics at each level of research. The empirical level has a generalizing character, since even a negative result of an observation or experiment contributes
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contribution to the accumulation of knowledge. The theoretical level is characterized by a more spasmodic nature, since each new theory represents a qualitative transformation of the knowledge system. The new theory that replaced the old one does not deny it completely (although in the history of science there have been cases when it was necessary to abandon the false concepts of caloric, ether, electric fluid, etc.), but more often it limits the scope of its applicability, which allows us to say about continuity in the development of theoretical knowledge.
The question of changing scientific concepts is one of the most pressing in the methodology of modern science. In the first half of the 20th century. Theory was recognized as the main structural unit of research, and the question of changing it was raised depending on its empirical confirmation or refutation. The main methodological problem was considered to be the problem of reducing the theoretical level of research to the empirical, which ultimately turned out to be impossible. In the early 60s of the 20th century, the American scientist T. Kuhn put forward a concept according to which a theory remains accepted by the scientific community as long as the basic paradigm (attitude, image) of scientific research in a given field is not questioned. A paradigm (from the Greek paradigma - example, sample) is a fundamental theory that explains a wide range of phenomena related to the corresponding field of research. A paradigm is a set of theoretical and methodological premises that define a specific scientific research, which is embodied in scientific practice at this stage. It is the basis for choosing problems, as well as a model, a model for solving research problems. The paradigm allows us to solve difficulties that arise in scientific research, to record changes in the structure of knowledge that occur as a result of the scientific revolution and associated with the accumulation of new empirical data.
From this point of view, the dynamics of the development of science occurs as follows (Fig. 2.3): the old paradigm goes through a normal stage of development, then scientific facts that cannot be explained by this paradigm accumulate in it, a revolution occurs
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in science, a new paradigm arises that explains all the scientific facts that have arisen. The paradigmatic concept of the development of scientific knowledge was then concretized using the concept of a “research program” as a structural unit of a higher order than a separate theory. As part of the research program, questions about the truth of scientific theories are discussed.

An even higher structural unit is the natural scientific picture of the world, which combines the most significant natural scientific ideas of a given era.
The general dynamics and patterns that characterize the overall process of historical development of natural science are subject to an important methodological principle called the principle of correspondence. The principle of correspondence in its most general form states that theories, the validity of which has been experimentally established for a particular field of natural science, with the advent of new, more general theories are not eliminated as something false, but retain their significance for the previous field of phenomena as a limiting form and partial
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case of new theories. This principle is one of the most important achievements of natural science of the 20th century. Thanks to him, the history of natural science appears before us not as a chaotic succession of various more or less successful theoretical views, not as a series of their catastrophic collapses, but as a natural and consistent process of development of knowledge, moving towards ever broader generalizations, as a cognitive process, each stage of which has objective value and delivers a particle of absolute truth, the possession of which becomes more and more complete. From this point of view, the process of cognition is understood as a process of movement towards absolute truth through an infinite sequence of relative truths. Moreover, the process of movement towards absolute truth does not occur smoothly, not through a simple accumulation of facts, but dialectically - through revolutionary leaps, in which each time the contradiction between the accumulated facts and the currently dominant paradigm is overcome. The principle of correspondence shows how exactly in natural science absolute truth is composed of an infinite sequence of relative truths.
The principle of correspondence states, firstly, that every natural scientific theory is a relative truth containing an element of absolute truth. Secondly, he argues that the change of natural science theories is not a sequence of destruction of different theories, but a logical process of development of natural science, the movement of the mind through a sequence of relative truths to the absolute. Third, the correspondence principle states that both new and old theories form a single whole.
Thus, according to the principle of correspondence, the development of natural science is presented as a process of consistent generalization, when the new denies the old, but not just denies, but with the retention of all that positive that was accumulated in the old.
CONCLUSIONS
1. Natural scientific knowledge structurally consists of empirical and theoretical directions of scientific research.
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dovaniya. The structure of the empirical direction of research is as follows: empirical fact, observations, scientific experiment, empirical generalizations. The structure of the theoretical method is as follows: scientific fact, concepts, hypothesis, law of nature, scientific theory.

1. The scientific method is a vivid embodiment of the unity of all forms of knowledge about the world. The fact that knowledge in the natural, technical, social and human sciences as a whole is carried out according to some general rules, principles and methods of activity testifies, on the one hand, to the interconnection and unity of these sciences, and on the other, to their common, single source knowledge, which is served by the objective real world around us: nature and society.
2. A theory remains accepted by the scientific community as long as the basic paradigm (attitude, image) of scientific research is not questioned. The dynamics of the development of science occurs as follows: the old paradigm - the normal stage of development of science - a revolution in science - a new paradigm.
3. The principle of correspondence states that the development of natural science occurs when the new does not simply deny the old, but denies it while retaining everything positive that was accumulated in the old.

Questions to test knowledge

1. What is the structure of natural scientific knowledge?
2. What difference is there between empirical and theoretical lines of research?
3. What is the scientific method and what is it based on?
4. What is the unity of the scientific method?
5. Give a description of general scientific and specific scientific research methods.
6. What are the main methodological concepts for the development of modern natural science?
7. What ethical problems are relevant for modern natural science?
8. What is called a paradigm in science?
9. What conditions are necessary to conduct scientific experiments?

10. How does the language of science differ from ordinary human language?
language?

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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, distinguished by its systematicity 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 as the sphere of reality with which a 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 moving 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 knowledge, recording what is learned at various stages of this path, make it possible to judge the effectiveness of the adopted direction.

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

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

The substantive 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 theory, which mediates the relationship between method and object. The substantive content of the method indicates that it has an objective basis. The method is meaningful and objective.

The operational aspect indicates the dependence of the method not so much on the object, but on the subject. Here, he is significantly influenced by the level of scientific training of the specialist, his ability to translate ideas about objective laws into cognitive techniques, his experience in using certain techniques in cognition, and the ability to improve them. The method in this regard is subjective.

The axiological aspect of the method is expressed in the degree of its reliability, economy, and efficiency. When a scientist is sometimes faced with the question of choosing one of two or more methods that are similar in nature, 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 the framework of certain 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 of 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 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 laws 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.” Everything is learned by comparison. For example, 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 human practical activity and in scientific research when things that are truly homogeneous or similar in essence are compared. There is no point in comparing pounds with arshins.

In science, comparison acts as a comparative or comparative-historical method. Originally arose in philology and literary criticism, it then began to be successfully applied in law, sociology, history, biology, psychology, history of religion, ethnography and other fields of knowledge. Entire branches of knowledge have emerged that use this method: comparative anatomy, comparative physiology, comparative psychology, etc. Thus, 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 of 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 allows us to identify 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 in the process of cognition. It is impossible to know the essence of an object only by breaking it down into the elements of which it consists.

Each area of ​​knowledge has, as it were, its own limit of division of an object, beyond which we move into another world of properties and patterns. When the particulars have been sufficiently studied through analysis, the next stage of cognition begins - synthesis.

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

Analysis mainly captures that specific thing that distinguishes the parts from each other, while synthesis reveals that essentially common thing that connects 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, which have already been examined separately. Analysis and synthesis are in unity; in every movement our thinking is as analytical as it is synthetic. Analysis, which involves the implementation of synthesis, has as its central core the selection of the essential.

Analysis and synthesis originate in practical activities. Constantly dividing various objects into their component parts in his practical activities, man gradually learned to separate objects mentally. Practical activity consisted not only of dismembering objects, but also of reuniting parts into a single whole. On this basis a mental synthesis arose.

Analysis and synthesis are the main methods of thinking, which have their 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 isolation of an object in abstraction from its connections with other objects, some property of an object in abstraction from its other properties, some relationship of objects in abstraction from the objects themselves.

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

Abstraction is the movement of thought into the depths of a subject, highlighting its essential points. For example, in order for a given specific property of an object to be considered as chemical, a distraction, an abstraction, is necessary. In fact, 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 abstraction process, various concepts about objects appear: “plant”, “animal”, “person”, etc., thoughts about the individual properties of objects and the relationships between them, considered as special “abstract objects”: “whiteness”, “volume”, “length”, “heat capacity”, etc.

Direct impressions of things are transformed into abstract ideas and concepts in complex ways that involve coarsening and ignoring some aspects of reality. This is the one-sidedness of abstractions. But in the living tissue 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 holistic perceptions.

An important example of scientific knowledge of the world is idealization as a specific type of abstraction. Idealization is the mental formation of abstract objects as a result of abstraction from the fundamental impossibility of realizing them practically. 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 may be: “point” (an object that has neither length, nor height, nor width); “straight line”, “circle”, “point electric charge”, “absolute black body”, etc.

The task of all knowledge is generalization. Generalization is the process of mental transition from the individual to the general, from the less general to the more general. In the process of generalization, a transition occurs from individual concepts to general ones, from less general concepts to more general ones, from individual judgments to general ones, from judgments of lesser generality to judgments of greater generality, from a less general theory to a more general theory, in relation to which the less general theory is its special case. It is impossible to cope with the abundance of impressions that flood into us hourly, every minute, every second, if they were not continuously united, generalized and recorded by means of language. Scientific generalization is not just the selection and synthesis of similar features, but penetration into the essence of a thing: the discernment of the unified in the diverse, the general in the individual, the natural in the random.

Examples of generalization are the following: 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. Without generalization there is no theory. Theory is created in order to apply it in practice to solve specific problems.

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

Abstract and concrete.

The concrete as a directly given, sensorily perceived whole is the starting point of knowledge. Thought identifies certain properties and connections, for example, shape, number of objects. In this distraction, visual perception and representation “evaporates” to the level of abstraction, poor in content, since it one-sidedly and 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 human thought not as directly given to the senses, but as knowledge of the essential properties and connections of an object, the natural tendencies of its development, and its inherent internal contradictions. This is the concreteness of concepts, categories, theories, reflecting unity in diversity, the general in the individual. Thus, thought moves from an abstract, content-poor concept to a concrete, content-rich concept.

Analogy.

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

Analogy is a plausible probable conclusion about the similarity of two objects in some characteristic based on their established similarity in other characteristics.

Despite the fact that analogies allow us to draw only probable conclusions, they play a huge role in cognition, as they lead to the formation of hypotheses, i.e. scientific guesses and assumptions, which with additional research and evidence can turn into scientific theories. An analogy with what is already known helps to understand what is unknown. An 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 of 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 subject 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, common properties of various objects, and 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 coefficient of proportionality (the Coulomb interaction constant and the gravitational constant). These formally common, identical features and relationships of two or more objects, while they differ in other respects and characteristics, are reflected in the concept of similarity, or analogy, of the phenomena of reality.

Model is an imitation of one or a number of properties of an object with the help of some other objects and phenomena. Therefore, a model can be any object that reproduces the required features of the original. 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 obtained information to the modeled object itself, then we are dealing with logical-sign modeling.

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

Formalization.

A method such as formalization is of significant importance 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 human activity, differing only in levels. Historically, it arose along with the emergence of labor, thinking and language.

Certain methods of labor activity, skills, and methods of carrying out labor operations were identified, generalized, recorded, and passed on from older to younger 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 formalizing reasoning is that, 1) there is a distraction from the qualitative characteristics of objects; 2) the logical form of judgments in which statements regarding these objects are recorded is revealed; 3) the reasoning itself is transferred from the plane of considering the connection of the objects of reasoning in thought to the plane of actions with judgments on the basis of formal relations between them. The use of special symbols allows you to eliminate the ambiguity of words in ordinary language. 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, 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 is a general line, a pattern of development of an object, for example, the development of society from one social formation to another.

The objective-historical is a specific manifestation of a given pattern in all the infinite variety of its special and individual manifestations. In relation, for example, to society, this is the real history of all countries and peoples with all their unique individual destinies.

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

Any phenomenon can be correctly known only in its emergence, development and death, i.e. in its 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 moves in leaps and zigzags, and if you followed it everywhere, you would not only have to take into account a lot of material of lesser importance, but also often interrupt your train of thought. Therefore, a logical method of research is necessary.

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

By logical they often mean a method of knowing a certain state of an object over a certain period of time in abstraction from its development. This depends on the nature of the object and the objectives of the study. For example, 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 are distinguished.

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

There are usually two main types of induction: complete and incomplete. Complete induction is the conclusion of any general judgment about all objects of a certain set (class) based on 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 knowledge of only part of the objects of a given class. Such conclusions are called conclusions of incomplete induction. They are the closer to reality, the deeper, more significant connections that are revealed. Incomplete induction, based on experimental research and involving theoretical thinking, is capable of producing a reliable conclusion. It is called scientific induction. Great discoveries and leaps of scientific thought are ultimately created by induction - a risky but important creative method.

Deduction is a reasoning process that goes 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 inferences provide reliable knowledge provided that such meaning was contained in the premises. In scientific research, inductive and deductive thinking techniques are organically connected. Induction leads human thought to hypotheses about the causes and general patterns of phenomena; deduction allows one to derive empirically verifiable consequences from general hypotheses and in this way experimentally substantiate or refute them.

An experiment is a scientifically conducted experiment, a purposeful study of a phenomenon caused by us under precisely taken into account conditions, when it is possible to monitor the progress of changes in the phenomenon, actively influence it using a whole complex of various instruments and means, and recreate these phenomena every time the same conditions are present and when there is a need for it.

In the structure of the experiment, the following elements can be distinguished: a) any experiment is based on a certain theoretical concept that sets the program of experimental research, as well as the conditions for studying the object, the principle of creating various devices for experimentation, methods of recording, comparison, and representative classification of the obtained material; b) an integral element of the experiment is the object of research, which can be various objective phenomena; c) a mandatory element of experiments are technical means and various types of devices with the help of 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 experiment stage. This is followed by registration, description of data, compilation of tables, graphs, and processing of experiment results.

The division of methods into general, general scientific and special methods generally reflects the structure of scientific knowledge that has developed to date, in which, along with philosophical and particular scientific knowledge, there is a vast layer of theoretical knowledge that is as close as possible to philosophy in terms of its degree of generality. In this sense, this classification of methods to a certain extent meets the tasks associated with considering the dialectics of philosophical and general scientific knowledge.

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

The decisive criterion for distinguishing methods into empirical and theoretical is the attitude to experience. If the methods focus on the use of material means of research (for example, instruments), on the implementation of influences on the object under study (for example, physical dismemberment), on the artificial reproduction of an object or its parts from another material (for example, when direct physical influence is for some reason impossible), then such methods can be called empirical. This is, first of all, observation, experiment, subject-matter, physical modeling. With the help of these methods, the cognizing subject masters a certain amount of facts that reflect individual 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. This is advisable, if only because it allows us 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, orient the researcher towards a way to identify the substantive side of the goal. In other words, the use of dialectical methods in a certain way directs thought to reveal what is associated with the content of knowledge. The second (formal-logical methods), on the contrary, do not focus the researcher on identifying the nature and 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 being studied appears as concrete, as a unity of the diverse. It is obvious that there is no proper clarity in understanding the specific at the first stages. The path to it begins with analysis, mental or real dissection of the whole into parts. Analysis allows the researcher to focus on a part, property, relationship, or element of the whole. It is successful if it allows for synthesis and restoration of the whole.

The analysis is complemented by classification; the features of the phenomena being studied are distributed into classes. Classification is the path to concepts. Classification is impossible without making comparisons, finding analogies, similarities, similarities in phenomena. The researcher’s efforts in this direction create conditions for induction, inference from the particular to some general statement. She is a necessary link on the path to achieving the common. But the researcher is not satisfied with achieving the general. Knowing the general, the researcher seeks to explain the particular. If this fails, then the 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 record experimental dependencies and see the general in the particular.

Generalization is associated with the identification of 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. detecting intervals of abstractions.

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

So, the main moments in the formation of a scientific theory are analysis, induction, generalization, idealization, and the establishment of subordination and coordination connections. 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, problem and idea, hypothesis and theory.

Types of forms of knowledge.

Methods of scientific knowledge are connected not only with each other, but also with forms of knowledge.

A problem is a question that needs to be studied and resolved. Solving problems requires enormous mental effort and is 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 thinking in which the most essential is captured in the most general form. The information contained in the idea is so significant for a positive solution to a certain range of problems that it seems to contain tension that encourages specification and development.

Solving a problem, like concretizing an idea, can result in the formulation of a hypothesis or the construction of 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, observed 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 and becomes a scientific theory.

A 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: by the degree of generality (particular, general), by the nature of the relationship to other theories (equivalent, isomorphic, homomorphic), by the nature of the connection with experience and the type of logical structures (deductive and non-deductive), by the nature of the use of language (qualitative, quantitative). But no matter what form theory appears today, it is the most significant form of knowledge.

The problem and idea, hypothesis and 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 this. They also act as forms of knowledge movement and the basis for the formulation of new methods. Determining each other, acting as complementary means, they (i.e., methods and forms of cognition) in their unity provide the solution to cognitive problems and allow a person to successfully master the world around him.

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

Most often, the development of theoretical research is rapid and unpredictable. In addition, one most important circumstance should be kept 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 qualitatively different stages. Thus, this process can be considered 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 growth and development of knowledge is central to the philosophy of science, represented especially clearly in such movements as evolutionary (genetic) epistemology and postpositivism.

The problem of growth (development, changes in knowledge) has been developed especially actively since the 60s. XX century, supporters of postpositivism K. Popper, T. Kuhn, I. Lakatos, P. Feyerabend, St. Toulmin and others. The famous book by K. A. Popper is called: “Logic and the growth of scientific knowledge.” The need for growth in scientific knowledge becomes obvious when the use of theory does not give the desired effect.

Real science should not be afraid of refutations: 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 refutations. He likened the development of science to Darwin's scheme of biological evolution. Constantly put forward new hypotheses and theories must undergo strict selection in the process of rational criticism and attempts to refute them, which corresponds to the mechanism of natural selection in the biological world. Only the “strongest theories” should survive, but even these cannot be regarded as absolute truths. All human knowledge is conjectural, any fragment of it can be doubted, and any provisions must be open to criticism.

New theoretical knowledge for the time being fits into the framework of the existing theory. But a stage comes when such inscription is impossible; a scientific revolution is evident; The old theory was replaced by a new one. Some former supporters of the old theory are able to assimilate the new theory. Those who cannot do this remain with their previous 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 direction of philosophy of science insist on the thesis of 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.

Long stages of normal science in Kuhn's concept are interrupted by brief, however, full of drama periods of turmoil and revolution in science - periods of paradigm shifts.

A period of crisis in science, heated discussions, and discussions of fundamental problems begins. The scientific community is often stratified during this period; innovators are opposed by conservatives 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 actually found, the majority of 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 on 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 one and searching for a new paradigm. Kuhn compares the transition from one paradigm to another with the conversion of people to a new religious faith, firstly, because this transition cannot be explained logically and, secondly, because scientists who have accepted the 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 a scientific revolution (for example, at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century) is a common development model characteristic of mature science. During the scientific revolution, a process occurs such as a change in the “conceptual grid” through which scientists viewed the world. A change (and a cardinal one) of this “grid” necessitates a change in the methodological rules and regulations.

During the period of 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 denial”, but a “sublation”, while preserving the positive. To characterize this process, Kuhn himself uses the term “reconstruction of prescriptions.”

Scientific revolutions mark a change in types of scientific rationality. A number of authors (V.S. Stepin, V.V. Ilyin), depending on the relationship between the object and subject of knowledge, identify 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 and 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 often very successfully carried out in conditions of exchange of opinions between the participants in the discussion, in conditions of dialogue. Modern science has become a matter of creativity among teams, and accordingly, reflection often takes on a group character.

3. Science and technology

Being the most important element of society and having penetrated literally into all its spheres, science (especially starting from 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 found already 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 called 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 technology simply 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 systematic stage.

Initially, at the stage of manual labor, technology had a mainly instrumental meaning; technical tools continued, expanding the capabilities of human natural organs, increasing his physical power. At the stage of mechanization, technology becomes an independent force, labor is mechanized. The technology seems to be separated from the person, who, however, is forced to be near it. Now not only the machine is a continuation of man, but man himself becomes an appendage of the machine, he complements its capabilities. At the third stage of technology development, as a result of the comprehensive 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 unification of science and technology, the consequence 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 successive technical and technological changes is becoming smaller and smaller. 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, instrument making, biotechnology complement each other in their development, and there is no time gap between them at all.

Let us highlight the main philosophical problems of technology.

Let's start by considering the issue of distinguishing between natural and artificial. Technical objects and artifacts, as a rule, are of a physical and chemical nature. The development of biotechnology has shown that artifacts can also have a biological nature, for example, with the special cultivation of colonies of microorganisms for their subsequent use in agriculture. Technical objects considered as physical, chemical, and biological phenomena are, in principle, no different 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 need to be assessed not only from a natural, but also from a social point of view.

Along with the question of distinguishing between the natural and the artificial, the philosophy of technology often discusses the problem of the relationship between technology and science, and, as a rule, science is put in first place, and technology in second. The cliche “scientific and technical” is typical in this regard. Technology is often understood as applied science, primarily as applied natural science. In recent years, the influence of technology on science has been increasingly emphasized. The independent significance of technology is increasingly being appreciated. Philosophy is well aware of this pattern: as it develops, “something” moves from a subordinate position to 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 supplanted scientific approaches. Technicians and engineers use science as a means in their orientation to action. Act is the slogan of the artificial-technological approach. Unlike the scientific approach, it does not hunt for knowledge, but strives to produce apparatus and implement technologies. A nation that has not mastered the artificial-technological approach, suffering from excessive scientific contemplation, looks in the current conditions not at all modern, but rather archaic.

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

Another problem of the philosophy of technology is the assessment of technology and the development of certain norms in this regard. Technology assessment was introduced in the late 60s of the 20th century. and is now widely practiced in developed industrial countries. Initially, the big news was the assessment of the social, ethical and other humanitarian consequences of technological development that seemed secondary and tertiary in relation to technical solutions. Nowadays, an increasing number of technology assessment experts point to the need to overcome the paradigms of fragmentation and reductionism in relation to technology. In the first paradigm, the phenomenon of technology is not considered systematically; one of its fragments is singled out. In the second paradigm, technology is reduced, reduced to its natural foundations.

There are many approaches to assessing the phenomenon of technology; let’s look at 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. Technology is used by the dominant forces in society, and therefore it is not neutral in political and ideological terms. The natural science approach views technology as an applied science. The rigid logical-mathematical ideals of the natural science approach are softened in the rational approach. Here technology is considered as a consciously regulated human activity. Rationality is understood as the highest type of organization of technical activity and, if supplemented with humanistic components, it is identified with expediency and planning. This means that sociocultural adjustments are being made to the scientific understanding of rationality. Their development leads to the ethical aspects of technical activity.

Questions to reinforce 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 considered universal (universal)?

5. Characterize 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 hypothesis, theory.

9. Outline the process of development of a scientific theory.

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

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

12. What is the origin of technology?

13. What do you see as the problem of the relationship between science and technology?

knowledge science technology revolution

List of basic 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: 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: foundations of philosophical hermeneutics. - M.: Progress, 1988.

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

8. Kuhn T. 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. Technology and society. - Stavropol: Publishing House of SevKavSTU, 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. Filatova. - 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. The relationship between knowledge and information. Methods and forms of scientific knowledge. Philosophy of science in the 20th century. Genesis, stages of development and main problems of science.

Scientific knowledge differs from all other types of knowledge by the use of specially developed methods. Method is a method of activity, a set of techniques used by a researcher to obtain a certain result. When we talk about scientific methods, we primarily mean 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. a developing knowledge system that includes two main levels - empirical etc theoretical.

On empirical level living contemplation (sensory cognition) predominates; the rational element and its forms (judgments, concepts, etc.) are present here, but have a subordinate meaning. Empirical, experimental research is aimed directly (without intermediate links) at its object. Therefore, the object under study is reflected primarily from its external connections and manifestations, accessible to living contemplation and expressing internal relationships. Collection of facts, their primary generalization, description of observed and experimental data, their systematization, classification and other fact-recording 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 in theoretical research 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 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 in the form of ideal objects with a limited set of characteristics. A real object has an infinite number of characteristics (a magnetic needle near a wire with current. Both have an infinite number of characteristics: 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 an experience, the following signs matter: to be at a certain distance from the arrow, to be straight, to conduct electric current, everything else does not 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, absolutely black body, ideal gas). No theory can be constructed 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 that has no dimensions, but concentrates all the mass in itself body). There are no such bodies in nature - they are the result of mental construction. This 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 to understand the essence in its pure form.

The two levels of scientific knowledge also differ in research methods. However, before proceeding with 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 research methods.

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

Secondly, there are special techniques that are characteristic only of 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 techniques and methods of cognition, used both at the empirical and theoretical levels.

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

Analysis- this is the division of an integral object into its component parts (sides, characteristics, properties or relationships) with the aim of their comprehensive study.

Synthesis– this is a combination of previously identified parts (sides, characteristics, properties or relationships) of an object into a single whole.

Analysis and synthesis are the most elementary and simple techniques 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 This is a method of research and a method of reasoning in which a general conclusion is built on the basis of particular premises.

Deduction is a method of reasoning through which a particular conclusion 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 and analyzing them, we establish common and recurring features of a number of phenomena included in a certain class. On this basis, an inductive inference is built, the premises of which are judgments about individual objects and phenomena indicating their repeating feature, and a judgment about a class that includes these objects and phenomena.

The conclusion is a judgment in which the attribute is attributed to the entire class.

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

Analogy- this is a method of cognition in which, on the basis of the similarity of objects in some characteristics, they conclude about their similarity in other characteristics. Thus, when studying the nature of light, phenomena such as diffraction and interference were established. These same properties were previously discovered in sound and resulted from its wave nature. Based on this similarity, X. Huygens concluded that light also has a wave nature. In a similar way, Louis de Broglie, having assumed a certain similarity between particles of matter and the field, came to the conclusion about the wave nature of particles of matter.

As noted above, general logical actions are used 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 theoretical research – idealization(method of constructing an ideal object); thought experiment with idealized objects, which replaces a real experiment with real objects; special methods of theory building(ascent from the abstract to the concrete, axiomatic, hypothetico-deductive methods); methods of logical and historical research etc.

Elements and methods of empirical knowledge . The most important element of experimental knowledge is fact (from lat. jactum- done, accomplished). The main meanings of the concept fact are the following: first, 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 records empirical knowledge obtained through observation and experiment. Any scientific research begins with the collection, systematization and generalization of facts, but empirical experience - especially in modern science - is never blind: it is planned, constructed by theory, and facts are always theoretically loaded in one way or another. Therefore, the starting point, the beginning of science is, strictly speaking, not the bare facts 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. Characterized by focus, 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 make it possible to actively manage the course of this process, i.e.

interfere with it, modify it in accordance with research tasks, and also reproduce this phenomenon when reproducing given 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, which is an analogue of one or another fragment of reality (material or mental) - the original model. There must be a certain similarity (similarity) between the model and the object of interest to the researcher - 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 a predominance rational moment– concepts, theories, laws and other forms of thinking and “mental 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 their universal internal connections and patterns, comprehended through rational processing of empirical knowledge data. This processing is carried out using systems of “higher order” abstractions - such as concepts, judgments, inferences, problems, hypotheses, theories.

Concept- a form of thinking that reflects general natural 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 thinking by which new knowledge is derived from previously established knowledge (usually 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 that which has not yet been known by man, but that needs to be known. In other words, this is knowledge about ignorance, a question that arose 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 requires proof. Hypothetical knowledge is probable, not reliable, and requires verification and justification.

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

The most important methods for constructing a scientific theory are axiomatic, hypothetico-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 certain initial provisions - axioms (postulates), from which all other statements of this theory are deduced 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. Consequently, a proof in the axiomatic method is a certain sequence of formulas, each of which is either an axiom or is obtained from previous formulas according to some rule of inference.

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

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

Formalization method represents a display of content knowledge in a sign-symbolic form (formalized language). The latter is created to accurately express thoughts in order to eliminate the possibility of ambiguous understanding. When formalizing, reasoning about objects is transferred to the plane of operating with signs (formulas), which is associated with the construction of artificial languages ​​(the 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 thereby the computerization of not only scientific and technical, but also other forms of knowledge.

The structure of science consists of the following blocks:

empirical;

theoretical;

philosophical and worldview;

practical.

Empirical knowledge includes information obtained through both ordinary knowledge and experience (through observation and experiment). Theoretical knowledge is a level of development of science that allows, on the basis of knowledge of fundamental laws, to bring disparate facts, phenomena, processes and initial conclusions into a certain system.

The practical block of science includes tools, devices, technologies created and used by man to obtain new knowledge.

The methodology of science is a philosophical doctrine about ways of transforming reality, applying the principles of the scientific worldview to the process of scientific knowledge, creativity and practice.

Means and methods of scientific knowledge

The main methods of empirical research are observation and experiment.

Observation is a purposeful and organized perception of objects and phenomena of the surrounding world. It is based on sensory knowledge of the world, its forms and means.

An experiment is a method of empirical research that provides the opportunity for active practical influence on the phenomena and processes being studied.

During the experiment, not only new methods of cognition are born, well-known hypotheses and theories are confirmed or refuted, but also new technologies emerge - the rudiments and prototypes of future technology and production.

A hypothesis is a scientific assumption put forward to explain a phenomenon and requires experimental verification and theoretical justification.

As a rule, to build a hypothesis, an inductive method is used, through which one moves from knowledge about individual facts of the particular and specific to more general knowledge. In the practice of scientific research, the method of deduction is also widely used, which consists in deriving consequences from premises in accordance with the laws of logic.

The use of deduction techniques in proving scientific assumptions gave rise to the hypothetico-deductive method, which has become widespread primarily in the natural sciences.

A hypothesis is just a stage of scientific knowledge. Its most important goal is the discovery and formulation of laws.

The law expresses the tendency of change and development movement inherent in the nature of real world phenomena. Every law is an integral element of a scientific theory.

A theory is a form of reliable scientific knowledge about a certain class of objects, which is a system of interrelated statements and evidence and contains methods for explaining and predicting phenomena in a given subject area.

This is a logical generalization of experience and social practice, reflecting the objective laws of development of nature and society.

The process of cognition is characterized by irreducible inconsistency, an important point of which is the unity of the logical and historical, which was first emphasized by Hegel.

The historical method of cognition first appears in a form that does not isolate itself from the history of the object being studied and, as it were, reproduces it in thinking. At each stage of the development of science, historical methods undergo qualitative changes in accordance with the improvement of logical methods. Gradually, historical methods become an integral part of logical methods.

Basic concepts of philosophy of science.

There are two ways to distinguish the concepts of philosophy of science (f/n). Based on the assumption that f/n will coincide with general philosophical trends in the study of science. Then the main concepts of f/n are positivism, neopositivism, postpositivism. Positivism - the most widespread movement of Western philosophy of the 2nd half of the 19th-20th centuries, which asserts that the source of genuine, positive (positive) knowledge can only be individual, specific (empirical) and their synthetic associations, and fi, as a special science, cannot claim to the very study of reality. Positivism studies ways and means of achieving positive knowledge, refusing to consider abstract, speculative problems that cannot be substantiated experimentally. Disadvantages: This concept cannot answer the question of how consciousness arises. Positivism denies almost all previous development of philosophy and insists on the identity of philosophy and science, and this is not productive, since philosophy is an independent field of knowledge, based on the entire array of culture, including science. Philosophy of Auguste Comte, the founder of positivism, introduced this concept in the 30s. XIX century. According to Comte: in science, the first place should be the description of phenomena. Neoposit concepts f/n. The teachings about ph/n by the outstanding thinkers of the 20th century L. Wittgenstein and K. Popper belong to the 3rd stage of phil positivism, which is called “linguistic positivism”, or “neopositivism”. The main ideas of the thinker in the field of f/n are as follows: science needs to purify its language. L. Wittgenstein put forward the principle of “verification”, according to which any statement in science is verifiable, i.e. subject to experimental verification of truth. K. Popper, in the course of studying the essence of science, its laws and methods, came to ideas that were incompatible with the principle of verification. In my works. he puts forward the idea that it is impossible to reduce the content of science and its laws only to statements based on experience, i.e. to observation, experiment, etc. Science cannot be reduced to verifiable statements. Scientific knowledge, the thinker believed, appears in the form of a set of guesses about the laws of the world, its structure, etc. At the same time, it is very difficult to establish the truth of guesses, and false guesses.

33. The essence and phenomenal manifestations of human consciousness. Consciousness is the highest function of the brain, peculiar only to humans and associated with speech, which consists in the reasonable regulation and self-control of human behavior, in the purposeful and generalized reflection of reality, in the preliminary mental construction of actions and the anticipation of their results. Consciousness instantly connects with each other what a person heard, saw, and what he felt, thought, experienced.

Core of consciousness:

Feelings;

Perceptions;

Performances;

Concepts;

Thinking.

The components of the structure of consciousness are feelings and emotions.

Consciousness acts as a result of knowledge, and the way of its existence is knowledge. Knowledge is the result of knowledge of reality, proven by practice, its correct reflection in human thinking.

Consciousness is a moral and psychological characteristic of a person’s actions, which is based on assessment and awareness of oneself, one’s capabilities, intentions and goals.

Self-awareness is a person’s awareness of his actions, thoughts, feelings, interests, motives of behavior, and his position in society.

According to Kant, self-consciousness is consistent with awareness of the external world: “the consciousness of my own existence is at the same time a direct awareness of the existence of other things located outside of me.”

A person becomes aware of himself:

Through the material and spiritual culture he created;

Feelings of your own body, movements, actions;

Communication and interaction with other people. The formation of self-awareness consists of:

In direct communication between people;

In their evaluative relationships;

In formulating the requirements of society for an individual;

In understanding the very rules of relationships. A person realizes himself not only through other people, but also through the spiritual and material culture created by him.

Knowing oneself, a person never remains the same as he was before. Self-awareness appeared in response to the call of social conditions of life, which from the very beginning required from each person the ability to evaluate his words, actions and thoughts from the position of certain social norms. Life, with its strict lessons, has taught a person to exercise self-regulation and self-control. By regulating his actions and providing for their results, a self-aware person takes full responsibility for them.

Self-awareness is closely connected with the phenomenon of reflection, as if expanding its semantic field.

Reflection is a person’s reflection on himself, when he peers into the hidden depths of his inner spiritual life.

During reflection, a person realizes:

What is happening in his soul;

What is happening in his inner spiritual world. Reflection belongs to the nature of man, his social fullness through the mechanisms of communication: reflection cannot arise in the depths of an isolated personality, outside of communication, outside of familiarization with the treasures of civilization and culture of mankind.

Levels of reflection can be very diverse - from ordinary self-awareness to deep reflection on the meaning of one’s life, its moral content. When comprehending one’s own spiritual processes, a person often critically evaluates the negative aspects of his spiritual world.

The problem of consciousness in medicine.

Natural sciences, including medicine, study states of predominantly individual consciousness and their material substrate (mechanisms).

In clinical medicine, the term “consciousness” is used, as a rule, in a narrower sense - to denote the normal state of human higher nervous activity (adequate perception and understanding of the environment, the ability for active thinking, verbal contacts, and appropriate voluntary behavioral acts). It is in this meaning that the word “consciousness” appears in formulations such as “impaired consciousness”, “clear consciousness”, “unconscious patient”. In contrast to objective reality, S. is subjective reality, i.e. the reality of the inner world of the individual - sensory images, thoughts, will. From the position of vulgar materialism, S. is considered as a type of material processes (the brain secretes thoughts like the liver secretes bile). Such an interpretation of S. leads, however, to simplified concepts that reduce S. to chemical or neurophysiological processes in the brain, to reflexes, and behavioral acts. No matter how free the movement of thought may seem, it always represents the function of the human brain. And this serves as the most important argument in favor of materialism.

Scientific knowledge is the process of producing new knowledge. In modern society, it is associated with the most developed form of rational activity, distinguished by its systematicity 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 as the sphere of reality with which a 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 moving 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 knowledge, recording what is learned at various stages of this path, make it possible to judge the effectiveness of the adopted direction.

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

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

The substantive 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 theory, which mediates the relationship between method and object. The substantive content of the method indicates that it has an objective basis. The method is meaningful and objective.

The operational aspect indicates the dependence of the method not so much on the object, but on the subject. Here, he is significantly influenced by the level of scientific training of the specialist, his ability to translate ideas about objective laws into cognitive techniques, his experience in using certain techniques in cognition, and the ability to improve them. The method in this regard is subjective.

The axiological aspect of the method is expressed in the degree of its reliability, economy, and efficiency. When a scientist is sometimes faced with the question of choosing one of two or more methods that are similar in nature, 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 the framework of certain 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 of 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 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 laws 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.” Everything is learned by comparison. For example, 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 human practical activity and in scientific research when things that are truly homogeneous or similar in essence are compared. There is no point in comparing pounds with arshins.

In science, comparison acts as a comparative or comparative-historical method. Originally arose in philology and literary criticism, it then began to be successfully applied in law, sociology, history, biology, psychology, history of religion, ethnography and other fields of knowledge. Entire branches of knowledge have emerged that use this method: comparative anatomy, comparative physiology, comparative psychology, etc. Thus, 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 of 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 allows us to identify 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 in the process of cognition. It is impossible to know the essence of an object only by breaking it down into the elements of which it consists.

Each area of ​​knowledge has, as it were, its own limit of division of an object, beyond which we move into another world of properties and patterns. When the particulars have been sufficiently studied through analysis, the next stage of cognition begins - synthesis.

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

Analysis mainly captures that specific thing that distinguishes the parts from each other, while synthesis reveals that essentially common thing that connects 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, which have already been examined separately. Analysis and synthesis are in unity; in every movement our thinking is as analytical as it is synthetic. Analysis, which involves the implementation of synthesis, has as its central core the selection of the essential.

Analysis and synthesis originate in practical activities. Constantly dividing various objects into their component parts in his practical activities, man gradually learned to separate objects mentally. Practical activity consisted not only of dismembering objects, but also of reuniting parts into a single whole. On this basis a mental synthesis arose.

Analysis and synthesis are the main methods of thinking, which have their 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 isolation of an object in abstraction from its connections with other objects, some property of an object in abstraction from its other properties, some relationship of objects in abstraction from the objects themselves.

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

Abstraction is the movement of thought into the depths of a subject, highlighting its essential points. For example, in order for a given specific property of an object to be considered as chemical, a distraction, an abstraction, is necessary. In fact, 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 abstraction process, various concepts about objects appear: “plant”, “animal”, “person”, etc., thoughts about the individual properties of objects and the relationships between them, considered as special “abstract objects”: “whiteness”, “volume”, “length”, “heat capacity”, etc.

Direct impressions of things are transformed into abstract ideas and concepts in complex ways that involve coarsening and ignoring some aspects of reality. This is the one-sidedness of abstractions. But in the living tissue 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 holistic perceptions.

An important example of scientific knowledge of the world is idealization as a specific type of abstraction. Idealization is the mental formation of abstract objects as a result of abstraction from the fundamental impossibility of realizing them practically. 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 may be: “point” (an object that has neither length, nor height, nor width); “straight line”, “circle”, “point electric charge”, “absolute black body”, etc.

The task of all knowledge is generalization. Generalization is the process of mental transition from the individual to the general, from the less general to the more general. In the process of generalization, a transition occurs from individual concepts to general ones, from less general concepts to more general ones, from individual judgments to general ones, from judgments of lesser generality to judgments of greater generality, from a less general theory to a more general theory, in relation to which the less general theory is its special case. It is impossible to cope with the abundance of impressions that flood into us hourly, every minute, every second, if they were not continuously united, generalized and recorded by means of language. Scientific generalization is not just the selection and synthesis of similar features, but penetration into the essence of a thing: the discernment of the unified in the diverse, the general in the individual, the natural in the random.

Examples of generalization are the following: 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. Without generalization there is no theory. Theory is created in order to apply it in practice to solve specific problems.

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

Abstract and concrete.

The concrete as a directly given, sensorily perceived whole is the starting point of knowledge. Thought identifies certain properties and connections, for example, shape, number of objects. In this distraction, visual perception and representation “evaporates” to the level of abstraction, poor in content, since it one-sidedly and 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 human thought not as directly given to the senses, but as knowledge of the essential properties and connections of an object, the natural tendencies of its development, and its inherent internal contradictions. This is the concreteness of concepts, categories, theories, reflecting unity in diversity, the general in the individual. Thus, thought moves from an abstract, content-poor concept to a concrete, content-rich concept.

Analogy.

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

Analogy is a plausible probable conclusion about the similarity of two objects in some characteristic based on their established similarity in other characteristics.

Despite the fact that analogies allow us to draw only probable conclusions, they play a huge role in cognition, as they lead to the formation of hypotheses, i.e. scientific guesses and assumptions, which with additional research and evidence can turn into scientific theories. An analogy with what is already known helps to understand what is unknown. An 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 of 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 subject 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, common properties of various objects, and 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 coefficient of proportionality (the Coulomb interaction constant and the gravitational constant). These formally common, identical features and relationships of two or more objects, while they differ in other respects and characteristics, are reflected in the concept of similarity, or analogy, of the phenomena of reality.

Model is an imitation of one or a number of properties of an object with the help of some other objects and phenomena. Therefore, a model can be any object that reproduces the required features of the original. 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 obtained information to the modeled object itself, then we are dealing with logical-sign modeling.

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

Formalization.

A method such as formalization is of significant importance 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 human activity, differing only in levels. Historically, it arose along with the emergence of labor, thinking and language.

Certain methods of labor activity, skills, and methods of carrying out labor operations were identified, generalized, recorded, and passed on from older to younger 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 formalizing reasoning is that, 1) there is a distraction from the qualitative characteristics of objects; 2) the logical form of judgments in which statements regarding these objects are recorded is revealed; 3) the reasoning itself is transferred from the plane of considering the connection of the objects of reasoning in thought to the plane of actions with judgments on the basis of formal relations between them. The use of special symbols allows you to eliminate the ambiguity of words in ordinary language. 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, 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 is a general line, a pattern of development of an object, for example, the development of society from one social formation to another.

The objective-historical is a specific manifestation of a given pattern in all the infinite variety of its special and individual manifestations. In relation, for example, to society, this is the real history of all countries and peoples with all their unique individual destinies.

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

Any phenomenon can be correctly known only in its emergence, development and death, i.e. in its 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 moves in leaps and zigzags, and if you followed it everywhere, you would not only have to take into account a lot of material of lesser importance, but also often interrupt your train of thought. Therefore, a logical method of research is necessary.

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

By logical they often mean a method of knowing a certain state of an object over a certain period of time in abstraction from its development. This depends on the nature of the object and the objectives of the study. For example, 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 are distinguished.

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

There are usually two main types of induction: complete and incomplete. Complete induction is the conclusion of any general judgment about all objects of a certain set (class) based on 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 knowledge of only part of the objects of a given class. Such conclusions are called conclusions of incomplete induction. They are the closer to reality, the deeper, more significant connections that are revealed. Incomplete induction, based on experimental research and involving theoretical thinking, is capable of producing a reliable conclusion. It is called scientific induction. Great discoveries and leaps of scientific thought are ultimately created by induction - a risky but important creative method.

Deduction is a reasoning process that goes 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 inferences provide reliable knowledge provided that such meaning was contained in the premises. In scientific research, inductive and deductive thinking techniques are organically connected. Induction leads human thought to hypotheses about the causes and general patterns of phenomena; deduction allows one to derive empirically verifiable consequences from general hypotheses and in this way experimentally substantiate or refute them.

An experiment is a scientifically conducted experiment, a purposeful study of a phenomenon caused by us under precisely taken into account conditions, when it is possible to monitor the progress of changes in the phenomenon, actively influence it using a whole complex of various instruments and means, and recreate these phenomena every time the same conditions are present and when there is a need for it.

In the structure of the experiment, the following elements can be distinguished: a) any experiment is based on a certain theoretical concept that sets the program of experimental research, as well as the conditions for studying the object, the principle of creating various devices for experimentation, methods of recording, comparison, and representative classification of the obtained material; b) an integral element of the experiment is the object of research, which can be various objective phenomena; c) a mandatory element of experiments are technical means and various types of devices with the help of 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 experiment stage. This is followed by registration, description of data, compilation of tables, graphs, and processing of experiment results.

The division of methods into general, general scientific and special methods generally reflects the structure of scientific knowledge that has developed to date, in which, along with philosophical and particular scientific knowledge, there is a vast layer of theoretical knowledge that is as close as possible to philosophy in terms of its degree of generality. In this sense, this classification of methods to a certain extent meets the tasks associated with considering the dialectics of philosophical and general scientific knowledge.

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

The decisive criterion for distinguishing methods into empirical and theoretical is the attitude to experience. If the methods focus on the use of material means of research (for example, instruments), on the implementation of influences on the object under study (for example, physical dismemberment), on the artificial reproduction of an object or its parts from another material (for example, when direct physical influence is for some reason impossible), then such methods can be called empirical. This is, first of all, observation, experiment, subject-matter, physical modeling. With the help of these methods, the cognizing subject masters a certain amount of facts that reflect individual 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. This is advisable, if only because it allows us 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, orient the researcher towards a way to identify the substantive side of the goal. In other words, the use of dialectical methods in a certain way directs thought to reveal what is associated with the content of knowledge. The second (formal-logical methods), on the contrary, do not focus the researcher on identifying the nature and 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 being studied appears as concrete, as a unity of the diverse. It is obvious that there is no proper clarity in understanding the specific at the first stages. The path to it begins with analysis, mental or real dissection of the whole into parts. Analysis allows the researcher to focus on a part, property, relationship, or element of the whole. It is successful if it allows for synthesis and restoration of the whole.

The analysis is complemented by classification; the features of the phenomena being studied are distributed into classes. Classification is the path to concepts. Classification is impossible without making comparisons, finding analogies, similarities, similarities in phenomena. The researcher’s efforts in this direction create conditions for induction, inference from the particular to some general statement. She is a necessary link on the path to achieving the common. But the researcher is not satisfied with achieving the general. Knowing the general, the researcher seeks to explain the particular. If this fails, then the 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 record experimental dependencies and see the general in the particular.

Generalization is associated with the identification of 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. detecting intervals of abstractions.

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

So, the main moments in the formation of a scientific theory are analysis, induction, generalization, idealization, and the establishment of subordination and coordination connections. 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, problem and idea, hypothesis and theory.

Types of forms of knowledge.

Methods of scientific knowledge are connected not only with each other, but also with forms of knowledge.

A problem is a question that needs to be studied and resolved. Solving problems requires enormous mental effort and is 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 thinking in which the most essential is captured in the most general form. The information contained in the idea is so significant for a positive solution to a certain range of problems that it seems to contain tension that encourages specification and development.

Solving a problem, like concretizing an idea, can result in the formulation of a hypothesis or the construction of 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, observed 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 and becomes a scientific theory.

A 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: by the degree of generality (particular, general), by the nature of the relationship to other theories (equivalent, isomorphic, homomorphic), by the nature of the connection with experience and the type of logical structures (deductive and non-deductive), by the nature of the use of language (qualitative, quantitative). But no matter what form theory appears today, it is the most significant form of knowledge.

The problem and idea, hypothesis and 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 this. They also act as forms of knowledge movement and the basis for the formulation of new methods. Determining each other, acting as complementary means, they (i.e., methods and forms of cognition) in their unity provide the solution to cognitive problems and allow a person to successfully master the world around him.