Features of scientific knowledge. Cognition

1. Science as a special kind of knowledge has a number of characteristics. The main feature of scientific knowledge - rationality . In science new information is formulated and expressed in the form of consistent principles and laws. Ideas about rationality, of course, change, however, criterion of logical consistency, component the core of ideas about rationality, always remains the same.

2. Another feature of scientific knowledge is objectivity . Science strives comprehend reality as fully and accurately as possible , if possible excluding subjectivist moments . The requirement for objectivity of knowledge in the case humanities and social sciences has its own specifics , since the subject of the sciences of the spirit is cultural and human reality, the comprehension of which is inevitably associated with subjective aspects. But subjectivity and subjectivism are different properties, therefore the requirement of objectivity, being transformed in a certain way, nevertheless remains in the sciences of the spirit.

3. Scientific knowledge is not limited to stating facts; scientific knowledge has explanatory character . Scientific knowledge, in contrast to ordinary, artistic, religious or mythological knowledge, is knowledge evidentiary . Science strives to substantiate its provisions. This, however, does not negate the fact that in scientific knowledge there are hypotheses, unproven theorems, paradoxes, etc.

4. Science behind the singular and random strives to discover the general and necessary. The purpose of science is discovery of patterns and general principles . However, it should again be noted that in the case of humanitarian and social knowledge the very idea of ​​cognizable patterns changes. The sciences of the spirit, as well as the sciences of nature, are studied general and typical , but so general and typical that manifests itself through the individual and unique, through a person and his activities .

5. The special task of science is prediction of unknown phenomena and facts or determination of development trends of already known ones . Predictive power or heuristic scientific theories are one of the most important criteria by which new knowledge in science is assessed. A feature of scientific knowledge is also its systematic organization . All science data are organized into theories and concepts, which in turn are consistent with each other.

At 49. Empirical and theoretical levels of scientific knowledge. Methods of scientific research.

In the structure of scientific knowledge, they distinguish primarily two levels of knowledge - empirical and theoretical. Them match two interconnected, but at the same time specific types of cognitive activity: empirical and theoretical research.

Before talking about these levels, note that in this case we're talking about about scientific knowledge, not about cognitive process generally. The categories “sensual” and “rational”, on the one hand, and “empirical” and “theoretical” - on the other, are quite close in content . But at the same time, they should not be identified with each other.

Firstly, empirical knowledge can never be reduced only to pure sensibility. Even the primary layer of empirical knowledge - observational data - is always recorded in a specific language: moreover, it is a language that uses not only everyday concepts , but also specific scientific terms . These observations cannot be reduced only to forms of sensuality - sensations, perceptions, ideas. Already here a complex interweaving of the sensual and rational arises.

Forms of rational knowledge (concepts, judgments, conclusions) dominate in the process of theoretical development of reality. But when constructing a theory, visual model representations, which are forms of sensory knowledge, are also used. Even complex and highly mathematical theories include ideas such as an ideal pendulum, an absolutely rigid body, an ideal exchange of goods, when goods are exchanged for goods strictly in accordance with the law of value, etc. All these idealized objects are visual model images (generalized feelings) , with which thought experiments are carried out. The result of the experiments is the clarification of those essential connections and relationships, which are then recorded in concepts.

Thus, the theory always contains sensory-visual components.

1. The problem of distinguishing science from other forms of cognitive activity is the problem of demarcation, i.e. this is a search for criteria for distinguishing between scientific knowledge itself and non-(extra) scientific constructions. What are the main features of scientific knowledge? Such criteria include the following:- The main task of scientific knowledge- natural, social (public), laws of cognition itself, thinking, etc. Hence the orientation of research mainly on the general, essential properties of an object, its necessary characteristics and their expression in a system of abstraction, in the form of idealized objects. If this is not the case, then there is no science, because the very concept of scientificity presupposes the discovery of laws, a deepening into the essence of the phenomena being studied. This is the main feature of science, its main feature.

2. Based on knowledge of the laws of functioning and development of the objects under study science predicts the future with the purpose of further practical development of reality. The focus of science on studying not only objects that are transformed in today's practice, but those that may become the subject of practical development in the future, is an important distinctive feature of scientific knowledge.

Prominent creators of science drew attention to the fact that deep fundamental theories should potentially contain “entire constellations of future new technologies and unexpected practical applications.” In other words, science is obliged to provide ultra-long-range forecasting of practice, going beyond the existing stereotypes of production and everyday experience. Science should be aimed not only at studying objects that are transformed in today's practice, but also those objects that may become the subject of mass practical development in the future.

3. The immediate goal and highest value of scientific knowledge- objective truth, comprehended primarily by rational means and methods, but, of course, not without the participation of living contemplation and non-rational means. From here characteristic scientific knowledge - objectivity, elimination of subjectivist aspects not inherent in the subject of research to realize the “purity” of its consideration. At the same time, it must be borne in mind that the activity of the subject is the most important condition and prerequisite for scientific knowledge. The latter is impossible without a constructive-critical and self-critical attitude of the subject to reality and to himself, excluding inertia, dogmatism, apologetics, and subjectivism.

4.An essential feature of cognition is its systematicity, those. a body of knowledge put in order on the basis of certain theoretical principles, which combine individual knowledge into an integral organic system. A collection of disparate knowledge (and even more so their mechanical aggregate, a “summative whole”), not united into a system, does not yet form a science. Knowledge turns into scientific knowledge when the purposeful collection of facts, their description and generalization are brought to the level of their inclusion in a system of concepts, in the composition of a theory.

Science is not only an integral, but also a developing system, as such are specific scientific disciplines, as well as other elements of the structure of science - problems, hypotheses, theories, scientific paradigms, etc.

Today, the idea that science is not only an organic developing system, but also an open, self-organizing system is becoming more and more firmly established. Modern (post-non-classical) science is increasingly assimilating the ideas and methods of synergetics, which is becoming the fundamental basis of science in the 21st century. Science, as an integral, developing and self-organizing system, is integral part wider whole, being the most important organic element of universal human culture.

5. Science is characterized by constant methodological reflection. This means that in it the study of objects, the identification of their specificity, properties and connections is always accompanied - to one degree or another - by an awareness of the methods and techniques by which these objects are studied. It should be borne in mind that although science is essentially rational, there is always an irrational component in it, including in its methodology (which is especially characteristic of the humanities). This is understandable: after all, a scientist is a person with all his advantages and disadvantages, passions and interests, etc. That is why it is impossible to express his activity only with the help of purely rational principles and techniques; he, like any person, does not fit completely within their framework.

6. Scientific knowledge is characterized by strict evidence, validity of the results obtained, and reliability of the conclusions. Knowledge for science is demonstrative knowledge. In other words, knowledge (if it claims to be scientific) must be confirmed by facts and arguments. At the same time, science contains many hypotheses, conjectures, assumptions, probabilistic judgments, misconceptions, etc. That is why the most important thing here is the logical and methodological training of researchers, their philosophical culture, the constant improvement of their thinking, and the ability to correctly apply its laws and principles.

Specific means of substantiating the truth of knowledge in science are experimental control over the acquired knowledge and the deducibility of some knowledge from others, the truth of which has already been proven.

7. Scientific knowledge is a complex, contradictory process of production and reproduction of new knowledge, forming an integral and developing system of concepts, theories, hypotheses, laws and other ideal forms, enshrined in language - natural or (more typically) artificial: mathematical symbolism, chemical formulas, etc. The development of a specialized (and above all artificial) scientific language is the most important condition for successful work in science.

Scientific knowledge does not simply record its elements in language, but continuously reproduces them on its own basis, forms them in accordance with its norms and principles. The process of continuous self-renewal by science of its conceptual and methodological arsenal is an important indicator (criterion) of scientific character.

8. Knowledge that claims to be scientific must allow for the fundamental possibility of empirical verification. The process of establishing the truth of scientific statements through observations and experiments is called verification, and the process of establishing their falsity is called falsification. Statements and concepts that cannot in principle be subjected to these procedures are generally not considered scientific.

In other words, knowledge can be considered scientific when it: a) allows for constant verification “for truth”; b) when its results can be repeated and reproduced empirically at any time, by any researcher, in different countries.

An important condition for this is the focus of scientific activity on criticizing one’s own results.

Considering falsifiability to be a more important criterion for scientificity than verification, Popper noted: “I recognize a certain system as scientific only if it is possible to test it experimentally.” checks."

9. In the process of scientific knowledge, such specific material resources, as instruments, instruments, other so-called “scientific equipment”, often very complex and expensive (synchrophasotrons, radio telescopes, rocket and space technology, etc.).

In addition, science, to a greater extent than other forms of knowledge, is characterized by the use of such objects to study its objects and itself. ideal (spiritual) means and methods such as modern logic, mathematical methods, dialectics, systemic, cybernetic, synergetic and other techniques and methods. The widespread use of experimental means and systematic work with idealized objects are characteristic features of developed science.

A necessary condition for scientific research is the development and widespread use of a special (artificial, formalized) language suitable for a strict, accurate description of its objects, unusual from the point of view of common sense. The language of science is constantly evolving as it penetrates into ever new areas of the objective world.

10. The subject of scientific activity has specific characteristics- individual researcher, scientific community, “collective subject”. Engaging in science requires special training of the cognizing subject, during which he masters the existing stock of knowledge, means and methods of obtaining it, a system of value orientations and goals specific to scientific knowledge, and its ethical principles. This preparation should stimulate scientific research aimed at studying more and more new objects, regardless of the current practical effect of the acquired knowledge.

These are the main criteria of science in the proper sense, which allow, to a certain extent, demarcation (draw boundaries) between science and non-science. These boundaries, like all others, are relative, conditional and mobile, for even in this sphere “nature does not arrange its creatures in ranks” (Hegel). These criteria, thus, perform a “protective function”, protecting science from unsuitable, untenable, “delusional” ideas.

Since knowledge is limitless, inexhaustible, and is in development, the system of scientific criteria is a concrete historical, open system. And this means that there is not and cannot exist a once and for all complete, complete “list” of these criteria.

In modern philosophy of science, other criteria of scientific character are also called, in addition to the above. This, in particular, is the criterion of logical consistency, the principles of simplicity, beauty, heuristics, coherence and some others. At the same time, it is noted that the philosophy of science rejects the presence of definitive criteria for scientificity.

4. How do philosophy and science relate?

An analysis of the relationship between philosophy and special sciences shows that no sphere of the human spirit, including philosophy, can absorb the entire body of special scientific knowledge about the universe. A philosopher cannot and should not replace the work of a physician, biologist, mathematician, physicist, etc.

Philosophy cannot be the science of all sciences, that is, stand above private disciplines, just as it cannot be one of the private sciences among others. The long-term dispute between philosophy and science about what society needs more - philosophy or science, what their actual relationship is, has given rise to many positions and interpretations of this problem. What is the relationship between science and philosophy?

Special sciences serve the individual specific needs of society: technology, economics, education, legislation, etc. They study their specific slice of reality, their fragment of existence, and are limited to certain parts of the world. Philosophy is interested in the world as a whole; it strives for a holistic comprehension of the universe.

She thinks about the all-encompassing unity of all things, looking for an answer to the question: “What is existence, since it is.” In this sense, the definition of philosophy as a science “about first principles and primary causes” is correct.

Special sciences are addressed to phenomena that exist objectively, i.e. outside of man, independent of either man or humanity. Science formulates its conclusions in theories, laws and formulas, putting aside the personal, emotional attitude of the scientist to the phenomena being studied and the social consequences to which this or that discovery can lead. The figure of the scientist, the structure of his thoughts and temperament, the nature of his confessions and life preferences also does not arouse much interest. Law of gravitation, quadratic equations, the Mendeleev system, the laws of thermodynamics are objective. Their action is real and does not depend on the opinions, moods and personality of the scientist.

The world in the eyes of a philosopher is not just a static layer of reality, but a living dynamic whole. This is a variety of interactions in which cause and effect, cyclicality and spontaneity, orderliness and destruction, the forces of good and evil, harmony and chaos are intertwined. The philosophizing mind must determine its relationship to the world. That is why the main question of philosophy is formulated as a question about the relationship of thinking to being(man to the world). Taking into account scientific data and relying on them, she goes further, considering the question of the essential meaning and significance of processes and phenomena in the context of human existence.

Representatives of science usually do not ask the question of how their discipline arose, what is its own specificity and difference from others. If these issues are raised, the scientist enters the realm of history and philosophy of science. Philosophy has always sought to clarify the initial premises of all knowledge, including philosophical knowledge itself. It is aimed at identifying such reliable foundations that could serve as a starting point and criterion for understanding and evaluating everything else (the difference between truth and opinion, empiricism from theory, freedom from arbitrariness, violence from power). Limit and boundary questions, with which a separate cognitive area either begins or ends, are a favorite topic of philosophical reflection.

Science occupies a priority place as a field of activity aimed at developing and systematizing strict and objective knowledge about reality. Science is a form of social consciousness aimed at substantive comprehension of the world, identifying patterns and obtaining new knowledge. The purpose of science has always been associated with the description, explanation and prediction of processes and phenomena of reality on the basis of the laws it discovers.

Philosophy is based on the theoretical-reflexive and spiritual-practical relationship of the subject to the object. It has an active impact on social life through the formation of new ideals, norms and cultural values. Its main, historically established sections include: ontology, epistemology, logic, dialectics, ethics, aesthetics, as well as anthropology, social philosophy, history of philosophy, philosophy of religion, methodology, philosophy of science, philosophy of technology, etc. The main trends in the development of philosophy are associated with understanding the place of man in the world, the meaning of his existence, the destinies of modern civilization.

Scientific knowledge and its features.

Stages of the cognition process. Forms of sensory and rational knowledge.

The concept of method and methodology. Classification of methods of scientific knowledge.

The universal (dialectical) method of cognition, the principles of the dialectical method and their application in scientific knowledge.

General scientific methods of empirical knowledge.

General scientific methods of theoretical knowledge.

General scientific methods used at the empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge.

Modern science is developing at a very fast pace; currently, the volume of scientific knowledge doubles every 10-15 years. About 90% of all scientists who have ever lived on Earth are our contemporaries. In just 300 years, namely the age of modern science, humanity has made such a huge leap that our ancestors could not even dream of (about 90% of all scientific and technical achievements have been made in our time). The entire world around us shows how much progress humanity has made. It was science that was the main reason for such a rapidly progressing scientific and technological revolution, the transition to a post-industrial society, the widespread introduction of information technology, the emergence of a “new economy” for which the laws of classical economic theory do not apply, the beginning of the transfer of human knowledge into electronic form, so convenient for storage, systematization, search and processing, and many others.

All this convincingly proves that the main form of human knowledge - science today is becoming more and more significant and essential part of reality.

However, science would not be so productive if it did not have such a developed system of methods, principles and imperatives of knowledge. It is the correctly chosen method, along with the scientist’s talent, that helps him to understand the deep connection of phenomena, reveal their essence, discover laws and regularities. The number of methods that science is developing to understand reality is constantly increasing. Their exact number is perhaps difficult to determine. After all, there are about 15,000 sciences in the world and each of them has its own specific methods and subject of research.

At the same time, all these methods are in a dialectical connection with general scientific methods, which they, as a rule, contain in various combinations and with the universal, dialectical method. This circumstance is one of the reasons that determine the importance of any scientist having philosophical knowledge. After all, it is philosophy as a science “about the most general laws of existence and development of the world” that studies trends and ways of development of scientific knowledge, its structure and research methods, considering them through the prism of its categories, laws and principles. In addition to everything, philosophy endows the scientist with that universal method, without which it is impossible to do in any field of scientific knowledge.

Cognition is a specific type of human activity aimed at understanding the world around us and oneself in this world. “Knowledge is, determined primarily by socio-historical practice, the process of acquiring and developing knowledge, its constant deepening, expansion, and improvement.”

A person comprehends the world around him, masters it in various ways, among which two main ones can be distinguished. First (genetically original) - logistical - production of means of living, labor, practice. Second - spiritual (ideal), within which the cognitive relationship of subject and object is only one of many others. In turn, the process of cognition and the knowledge obtained in it in the course of the historical development of practice and cognition itself is increasingly differentiated and embodied in its various forms.

Each form of social consciousness: science, philosophy, mythology, politics, religion, etc. correspond to specific forms of cognition. Usually the following are distinguished: ordinary, playful, mythological, artistic and figurative, philosophical, religious, personal, scientific. The latter, although related, are not identical to one another; each of them has its own specifics.

We will not dwell on the consideration of each of the forms of knowledge. The subject of our research is scientific knowledge. In this regard, it is advisable to consider the features of only the latter.

The main features of scientific knowledge are:

1. The main task of scientific knowledge is the discovery of objective laws of reality - natural, social (public), laws of cognition itself, thinking, etc. Hence the orientation of research mainly on the general, essential properties of an object, its necessary characteristics and their expression in a system of abstractions. “The essence of scientific knowledge lies in the reliable generalization of facts, in the fact that behind the random it finds the necessary, natural, behind the individual - the general and on this basis carries out the prediction of various phenomena and events.” Scientific knowledge strives to reveal the necessary, objective connections that are recorded as objective laws. If this is not the case, then there is no science, because the very concept of scientificity presupposes the discovery of laws, a deepening into the essence of the phenomena being studied.

2. The immediate goal and highest value of scientific knowledge is objective truth, comprehended primarily by rational means and methods, but, of course, not without the participation of living contemplation. Hence, a characteristic feature of scientific knowledge is objectivity, the elimination, if possible, of subjectivist aspects in many cases in order to realize the “purity” of consideration of one’s subject. Einstein also wrote: “What we call science has its exclusive task of firmly establishing what exists.” Its task is to give a true reflection of processes, an objective picture of what exists. At the same time, it must be borne in mind that the activity of the subject is the most important condition and prerequisite for scientific knowledge. The latter is impossible without a constructive-critical attitude to reality, excluding inertia, dogmatism, and apologetics.

3. Science, to a greater extent than other forms of knowledge, is focused on being embodied in practice, being a “guide to action” for changing the surrounding reality and managing real processes. The vital meaning of scientific research can be expressed by the formula: “To know in order to foresee, to foresee in order to practically act” - not only in the present, but also in the future. All progress in scientific knowledge is associated with an increase in the power and range of scientific foresight. It is foresight that makes it possible to control and manage processes. Scientific knowledge opens up the possibility of not only predicting the future, but also consciously shaping it.

“The orientation of science towards the study of objects that can be included in activity (either actually or potentially, as possible objects of its future development), and their study as subject to objective laws of functioning and development is one of the most important features of scientific knowledge. This feature distinguishes it from other forms of human cognitive activity.” An essential feature of modern science is that it has become such a force that predetermines practice. From the daughter of production, science turns into its mother. Many modern production processes

4. Scientific knowledge in epistemological terms is a complex contradictory process of reproduction of knowledge that forms an integral developing system of concepts, theories, hypotheses, laws and other ideal forms, enshrined in language - natural or - more characteristically - artificial (mathematical symbols, chemical formulas, etc.) .P.). Scientific knowledge does not simply record its elements, but continuously reproduces them on its own basis, forms them in accordance with its norms and principles. In the development of scientific knowledge, revolutionary periods alternate, the so-called scientific revolutions, which lead to a change in theories and principles, and evolutionary, quiet periods, during which knowledge deepens and becomes more detailed. The process of continuous self-renewal by science of its conceptual arsenal is an important indicator of scientific character.

5. In the process of scientific knowledge, such specific material means as instruments, instruments, and other so-called “scientific equipment” are used, often very complex and expensive (synchrophasotrons, radio telescopes, rocket and space technology, etc.). In addition, science, to a greater extent than other forms of knowledge, is characterized by the use of ideal (spiritual) means and methods such as modern logic, mathematical methods, dialectics, systemic, hypothetico-deductive and other general scientific techniques to study its objects and itself. and methods (see below for details).

6. Scientific knowledge is characterized by strict evidence, validity of the results obtained, and reliability of the conclusions. At the same time, there are many hypotheses, conjectures, assumptions, probabilistic judgments, etc. That is why the logical and methodological training of researchers, their philosophical culture, constant improvement of their thinking, and the ability to correctly apply its laws and principles are of utmost importance.

In modern methodology, various levels of scientific criteria are distinguished, including, in addition to those mentioned, such as the internal systematicity of knowledge, its formal consistency, experimental verifiability, reproducibility, openness to criticism, freedom from bias, rigor, etc. In other forms of knowledge considered criteria may exist (to varying degrees), but there they are not decisive.

The process of cognition includes the receipt of information through the senses (sensory cognition), the processing of this information by thinking (rational cognition) and the material development of cognizable fragments of reality (social practice). There is a close connection between cognition and practice, during which the materialization (objectification) of people’s creative aspirations occurs, the transformation of their subjective plans, ideas, goals into objectively existing objects and processes.

Sensory and rational cognition are closely related and are the two main aspects of the cognitive process. Wherein specified parties knowledge does not exist in isolation either from practice or from each other. The activity of the senses is always controlled by the mind; the mind functions on the basis of the initial information supplied to it by the senses. Since sensory cognition precedes rational cognition, we can, in a certain sense, talk about them as steps, stages in the process of cognition. Each of these two stages of cognition has its own specifics and exists in its own forms.

Sensory cognition is realized in the form of direct receipt of information using the senses, which directly connect us with the outside world. Let us note that such cognition can also be carried out using special technical means (devices) that expand the capabilities of the human senses. The main forms of sensory cognition are: sensation, perception and representation.

Sensations arise in the human brain as a result of the influence of environmental factors on his senses. Each sense organ is a complex nervous mechanism consisting of perceptive receptors, transmitting nerve conductors and a corresponding part of the brain that controls peripheral receptors. For example, the organ of vision is not only the eye, but also the nerves leading from it to the brain and the corresponding section in the central nervous system.

Sensations are mental processes that occur in the brain when the nerve centers that control the receptors are excited. “Sensations are a reflection of individual properties, qualities of objects of the objective world, directly affecting the senses, an elementary, further psychologically indecomposable cognitive phenomenon.” Sensations are specialized. Visual sensations give us information about the shape of objects, their color, and the brightness of light rays. Auditory sensations inform a person about various sound vibrations in the environment. The sense of touch allows us to sense temperature environment, the impact of various material factors on the body, their pressure on it, etc. Finally, smell and taste provide information about chemical impurities in the environment and the composition of food taken.

“The first premise of the theory of knowledge,” wrote V.I. Lenin, “is undoubtedly that the only source of our knowledge is sensations.” Sensation can be considered as the simplest and initial element of sensory cognition and human consciousness in general.

Biological and psycho-physiological disciplines, studying sensation as a unique reaction of the human body, establish various dependencies: for example, the dependence of the reaction, that is, sensation, on the intensity of stimulation of a particular sense organ. In particular, it has been established that from the point of view of “information ability”, vision and touch come first in a person, and then hearing, taste, and smell.

The capabilities of human senses are limited. They are capable of displaying the world in certain (and rather limited) ranges of physical and chemical influences. Thus, the organ of vision can display a relatively small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with wavelengths from 400 to 740 millimicrons. Beyond the boundaries of this interval there are ultraviolet and x-rays in one direction, and in the other - infrared radiation and radio waves. Our eyes do not perceive either one or the other. Human hearing allows us to sense sound waves from several tens of hertz to about 20 kilohertz. Fluctuations more high frequency(ultrasonic) or lower frequencies (infrasonic) our ear is not capable of feeling. The same can be said about other senses.

From the facts indicating the limitations of human senses, doubt was born about his ability to understand the world around him. Doubts about a person’s ability to understand the world through his senses turn out in an unexpected way, because these doubts themselves turn out to be evidence in favor of the powerful capabilities of human cognition, including the capabilities of the senses, enhanced, if necessary, by appropriate technical means (microscope, binoculars, telescope, night vision device). visions, etc.).

But most importantly, a person can perceive objects and phenomena that are inaccessible to his senses, thanks to the ability to practically interact with the world around him. A person is able to comprehend and understand the objective connection that exists between phenomena accessible to the senses and phenomena inaccessible to them (between electromagnetic waves and audible sound in a radio receiver, between the movements of electrons and the visible traces that they leave in a cloud chamber, etc. .d.). Understanding this objective connection is the basis of the transition (carried out in our consciousness) from the sensed to the intangible.

In scientific knowledge, when detecting changes that occur for no apparent reason in sensory-perceptible phenomena, the researcher guesses the existence of imperceptible phenomena. However, in order to prove their existence, reveal the laws of their action and use these laws, it is necessary that his (the researcher’s) activity turns out to be one of the links and the cause of the chain connecting the observable and the unobservable. Managing this link at your own discretion and calling based on knowledge of the laws unobservable phenomena n observed effects, the researcher thereby proves the truth of knowledge of these laws. For example, the transformation of sounds into electromagnetic waves occurring in a radio transmitter, and then their reverse transformation into sound vibrations in a radio receiver, proves not only the fact of the existence of a region of electromagnetic vibrations imperceptible to our senses, but also the truth of the doctrine of electromagnetism created by Faraday, Maxwell, Hertz.

Therefore, the senses a person has are quite sufficient to understand the world. “A person has just as many feelings,” wrote L. Feuerbach, “as exactly necessary to perceive the world in its integrity, in its totality.” A person’s lack of any additional sense organ capable of reacting to some environmental factors is fully compensated by his intellectual and practical capabilities. Thus, a person does not have a special sense organ that makes it possible to sense radiation. However, a person turned out to be able to compensate for the absence of such an organ with a special device (dosimeter), warning about radiation danger in visual or audio form. This suggests that the level of knowledge of the surrounding world is determined not simply by the set, “assortment” of sense organs and their biological perfection, but also by the degree of development of social practice.

At the same time, however, we should not forget that sensations have always been and will always be the only source of human knowledge about the world around us. The senses are the only “gates” through which information about the world around us can penetrate into our consciousness. A lack of sensations from the outside world can even lead to mental illness.

The first form of sensory cognition (sensations) is characterized by an analysis of the environment: the senses seem to select quite specific ones from a countless number of environmental factors. But sensory cognition includes not only analysis, but also synthesis, which is carried out in the subsequent form of sensory cognition - in perception.

Perception is a holistic sensory image of an object, formed by the brain from sensations directly received from this object. Perception is based on combinations of different types of sensations. But this is not just their mechanical sum. The sensations that are obtained from various sense organs merge into a single whole in perception, forming a sensory image of an object. So, if we hold an apple in our hand, then visually we receive information about its shape and color, through touch we learn about its weight and temperature, our sense of smell conveys its smell; and if we taste it, we will know whether it is sour or sweet. The purposefulness of cognition is already manifested in perception. We can concentrate our attention on some aspect of an object and it will be “prominent” in perception.

A person’s perceptions developed in the process of his social and labor activities. The latter leads to the creation of more and more new things, thereby increasing the number of perceived objects and improving the perceptions themselves. Therefore, human perceptions are more developed and perfect than the perceptions of animals. As F. Engels noted, an eagle sees much further than a person, but the human eye notices much more in things than the eye of an eagle.

Based on sensations and perceptions in the human brain, representation. If sensations and perceptions exist only through direct contact of a person with an object (without this there is neither sensation nor perception), then the idea arises without the direct impact of the object on the senses. Some time after an object has affected us, we can recall its image in our memory (for example, remembering an apple that we held in our hand some time ago and then ate). Moreover, the image of the object recreated by our imagination differs from the image that existed in perception. Firstly, it is poorer, paler, in comparison with the multicolored image that we had when directly perceiving the object. And secondly, this image will necessarily be more general, because in the imagination, with yet greater strength than in perception, the purposefulness of cognition is manifested. In an image recalled from memory, the main thing that interests us will be in the foreground.

At the same time, imagination and fantasy are essential in scientific knowledge. Here performances can acquire a truly creative character. Based on the elements that actually exist, the researcher imagines something new, something that does not currently exist, but which will be either as a result of the development of some natural processes, or as a result of the progress of practice. All kinds of technical innovations, for example, initially exist only in the ideas of their creators (scientists, designers). And only after their implementation in the form of some technical devices, structures, they become objects of people’s sensory perception.

Representation is a big step forward compared to perception, for it contains such a new feature as generalization. The latter already occurs in ideas about specific, individual objects. But to an even greater extent this is manifested in general ideas (i.e., for example, in the idea not only of this particular birch tree growing in front of our house, but also of birch in general). In general ideas, moments of generalization become much more significant than in any idea about a specific, individual object.

Representation still belongs to the first (sensory) stage of cognition, for it has a sensory-visual character. At the same time, it is also a kind of “bridge” leading from sensory to rational knowledge.

In conclusion, we note that the role of the sensory reflection of reality in ensuring all human knowledge is very significant:

The sense organs are the only channel that directly connects a person with the external objective world;

Without sense organs, a person is incapable of either cognition or thinking;

The loss of some sense organs complicates and complicates cognition, but does not block its capabilities (this is explained by the mutual compensation of some sense organs by others, the mobilization of reserves in the existing sense organs, the individual’s ability to concentrate his attention, his will, etc.);

The rational is based on the analysis of the material that the senses give us;

Regulation of objective activity is carried out primarily with the help of information received by the senses;

The sense organs provide that minimum of primary information that turns out to be necessary to comprehensively cognize objects in order to develop scientific knowledge.

Rational knowledge (from lat. ratio - reason) is human thinking, which is a means of penetration into the inner essence of things, a means of knowing the laws that determine their existence. The fact is that the essence of things, their natural connections are inaccessible to sensory knowledge. They are comprehended only with the help of human mental activity.

It is “thinking that organizes the data of sensory perception, but is by no means reduced to this, but gives birth to something new - something that is not given in sensibility. This transition is a leap, a break in gradualism. It has its objective basis in the “split” of an object into internal and external, essence and its manifestation, into separate and general. The external aspects of things and phenomena are reflected primarily with the help of living contemplation, and the essence, the commonality in them is comprehended with the help of thinking. In this process of transition, what is called understanding. To understand means to identify what is essential in a subject. We can also understand what we are not able to perceive... Thinking correlates the readings of the senses with all the already existing knowledge of the individual, moreover, with all the total experience and knowledge of humanity to the extent that they have become the property of a given subject.”

The forms of rational cognition (human thinking) are: concept, judgment and inference. These are the broadest and most general forms of thinking that underlie the entire incalculable wealth of knowledge that humanity has accumulated.

The original form of rational knowledge is concept. “Concepts are products of the socio-historical process of cognition embodied in words, which highlight and record common essential properties; relationships between objects and phenomena, and thanks to this, they simultaneously summarize the most important properties about methods of action with given groups of objects and phenomena.” The concept in its logical content reproduces the dialectical pattern of cognition, the dialectical connection between the individual, the particular and the universal. Concepts can record essential and non-essential features of objects, necessary and accidental, qualitative and quantitative, etc. The emergence of concepts is the most important pattern in the formation and development of human thinking. The objective possibility of the emergence and existence of concepts in our thinking lies in the objective nature of the world around us, that is, the presence in it of many individual objects that have qualitative certainty. Concept formation is a complex dialectical process, including: comparison(mental comparison of one object with another, identifying signs of similarity and difference between them), generalization(mental association of homogeneous objects based on certain common characteristics), abstraction(singling out some features in the subject, the most significant, and abstracting from others, secondary, insignificant). All these logical techniques are closely interconnected in a single process of concept formation.

Concepts express not only objects, but also their properties and relationships between them. Concepts such as hard and soft, big and small, cold and hot, etc. express certain properties of bodies. Concepts such as motion and rest, speed and force, etc. express the interaction of objects and humans with other bodies and processes of nature.

The emergence of new concepts occurs especially intensively in the field of science in connection with the rapid deepening and development of scientific knowledge. The discovery of new aspects, properties, connections, and relationships in objects immediately entails the emergence of new scientific concepts. Each science has its own concepts that form a more or less coherent system called its conceptual apparatus. The conceptual apparatus of physics, for example, includes such concepts as “energy,” “mass,” “charge,” etc. The conceptual apparatus of chemistry includes the concepts “element,” “reaction,” “valency,” etc.

According to the degree of generality, concepts can be different - less general, more general, extremely general. The concepts themselves are subject to generalization. In scientific knowledge, specific scientific, general scientific and universal concepts function (philosophical categories such as quality, quantity, matter, being, etc.).

In modern science, they play an increasingly important role general scientific concepts, which arise at points of contact (so to speak “at the junction”) of various sciences. Often this arises when solving some complex or global problems. The interaction of sciences in solving this kind of scientific problems is significantly accelerated precisely through the use of general scientific concepts. A major role in the formation of such concepts is played by the interaction of natural, technical and social sciences, characteristic of our time, which form the main spheres of scientific knowledge.

A more complex form of thinking compared to the concept is judgment. It includes a concept, but is not reduced to it, but represents a qualitatively special form of thinking that performs its own special functions in thinking. This is explained by the fact that “the universal, the particular and the individual are not directly dissected in the concept and are given as a whole. Their division and correlation is given in the judgment.”

The objective basis of judgment is the connections and relationships between objects. The need for judgments (as well as concepts) is rooted in the practical activities of people. Interacting with nature in the process of work, a person strives not only to distinguish certain objects from others, but also to comprehend their relationships in order to successfully influence them.

Connections and relationships between objects of thought are of the most diverse nature. They can be between two separate objects, between an object and a group of objects, between groups of objects, etc. The variety of such real connections and relationships is reflected in the variety of judgments.

“Judgment is that form of thinking through which the presence or absence of any connections and relationships between objects is revealed (i.e., the presence or absence of something in something is indicated).” Being a relatively complete thought that reflects things, phenomena of the objective world with their properties and relationships, a judgment has a certain structure. In this structure, the concept of the subject of thought is called the subject and is denoted by the Latin letter S ( Subjectum - underlying). The concept of the properties and relationships of the subject of thought is called a predicate and is denoted by the Latin letter P (Predicatum- said). The subject and predicate together are called terms of judgment. Moreover, the role of terms in judgment is far from the same. The subject contains already known knowledge, and the predicate carries new knowledge about it. For example, science has established that iron has electrical conductivity. The presence of this connection between iron And Its separate property makes it possible to judge: “iron (S) is electrically conductive (P).”

The subject-predicate form of a judgment is associated with its main cognitive function - to reflect real reality in its rich variety of properties and relationships. This reflection can be carried out in the form of individual, particular and general judgments.

A singular judgment is a judgment in which something is affirmed or denied about a separate subject. Judgments of this kind in Russian are expressed by the words “this”, proper names, etc.

Particular judgments are those judgments in which something is affirmed or denied about some part of some group (class) of objects. In Russian, such judgments begin with words such as “some”, “part”, “not all”, etc.

General judgments are those in which something is affirmed or denied about the entire group (the entire class) of objects. Moreover, what is affirmed or denied in a general judgment concerns each object of the class under consideration. In Russian, this is expressed by the words “all”, “everyone”, “everyone”, “any” (in affirmative judgments) or “none”, “nobody”, “no one”, etc. (in negative judgments).

General judgments express the general properties of objects, general connections and relationships between them, including objective patterns. It is in the form of general judgments that essentially all scientific positions are formed. The special significance of general judgments in scientific knowledge is determined by the fact that they serve as a mental form in which only the objective laws of the surrounding world, discovered by science, can be expressed. However, this does not mean that only general judgments have cognitive value in science. The laws of science arise as a result of the generalization of many individual and particular phenomena, which are expressed in the form of individual and particular judgments. Even single judgments about individual objects or phenomena (some facts that arose in an experiment, historical events, etc.) can have important cognitive significance.

Being a form of existence and expression of a concept, a separate judgment, however, cannot fully express its content. Only a system of judgments and inferences can serve as such a form. In conclusion, the ability of thinking to indirectly rationally reflect reality is most clearly manifested. The transition to new knowledge is carried out here not by referring to a given sensory experience to the object of knowledge, but on the basis of already existing knowledge.

Inference contains judgments, and therefore concepts), but is not reduced to them, but also presupposes their certain connection. To understand the origin and essence of inference, it is necessary to compare two types of knowledge that a person has and uses in the process of his life. This is direct and indirect knowledge.

Direct knowledge is that which is obtained by a person using the senses: sight, hearing, smell, etc. Such sensory information constitutes a significant part of all human knowledge.

However, not everything in the world can be judged directly. In science they are of great importance mediated knowledge. This is knowledge that is obtained not directly, not directly, but by derivation from other knowledge. Logical form their acquisition serves as inference. Inference is understood as a form of thinking through which new knowledge is derived from known knowledge.

Like judgments, inference has its own structure. In the structure of any conclusion, there are: premises (initial judgments), a conclusion (or conclusion) and a certain connection between them. Parcels - this is the initial (and at the same time already known) knowledge that serves as the basis for inference. Conclusion - this is a derivative, moreover new knowledge obtained from premises and serving as their consequence. Finally, connection between the premises and the conclusion there is a necessary relation between them that makes possible the transition from one to the other. In other words, this is a relation of logical consequence. Any conclusion is a logical consequence of one piece of knowledge from another. Depending on the nature of this consequence, the following two fundamental types of inferences are distinguished: inductive and deductive.

Inference is widely used in everyday and scientific knowledge. In science they are used as a way to understand the past, which can no longer be directly observed. It is on the basis of inferences that knowledge is formed about the emergence of the Solar system and the formation of the Earth, about the origin of life on our planet, about the emergence and stages of development of society, etc. But inferences in science are used not only to understand the past. They are also important for understanding the future, which cannot yet be observed. And this requires knowledge about the past, about development trends that are currently in effect and paving the way to the future.

Together with concepts and judgments, inferences overcome the limitations of sensory knowledge. They turn out to be indispensable where the senses are powerless in comprehending the causes and conditions of the emergence of any object or phenomenon, in understanding its essence, forms of existence, patterns of its development, etc.

Concept method (from the Greek word “methodos” - the path to something) means a set of techniques and operations for the practical and theoretical development of reality.

The method equips a person with a system of principles, requirements, rules, guided by which he can achieve the intended goal. Mastery of a method means for a person knowledge of how, in what sequence to perform certain actions to solve certain problems, and the ability to apply this knowledge in practice.

“Thus, the method (in one form or another) comes down to a set of certain rules, techniques, methods, norms of cognition and action. It is a system of instructions, principles, requirements that guide the subject in solving a specific problem, achieving a certain result in a given field of activity. It disciplines the search for truth, allows (if correct) to save energy and time, and move towards the goal in the shortest way. The main function of the method is the regulation of cognitive and other forms of activity.”

The doctrine of method began to develop in modern science. Its representatives considered the correct method to be a guide in the movement towards reliable, true knowledge. Thus, a prominent philosopher of the 17th century. F. Bacon compared the method of cognition to a lantern illuminating the way for a traveler walking in the dark. And another famous scientist and philosopher of the same period, R. Descartes, outlined his understanding of the method as follows: “By method,” he wrote, “I mean precise and simple rules, strict adherence to which... without unnecessary waste of mental strength, but gradually and continuously increasing knowledge, the mind achieves true knowledge of everything that is available to it.”

There is a whole field of knowledge that specifically deals with the study of methods and which is usually called methodology. Methodology literally means “the study of methods” (for this term comes from two Greek words: “methodos” - method and “logos” - doctrine). By studying the patterns of human cognitive activity, the methodology develops on this basis methods for its implementation. The most important task of the methodology is to study the origin, essence, effectiveness and other characteristics of methods of cognition.

Methods of scientific knowledge are usually divided according to the degree of their generality, that is, according to the breadth of applicability in the process of scientific research.

There are two known universal methods in the history of knowledge: dialetic and metaphysical. These are general philosophical methods. From the middle of the 19th century, the metaphysical method began to be more and more displaced from natural science by the dialectical method.

The second group of methods of cognition consists of general scientific methods, which are used in a wide variety of fields of science, that is, they have a very wide, interdisciplinary range of application.

The classification of general scientific methods is closely related to the concept of levels of scientific knowledge.

There are two levels of scientific knowledge: empirical and theoretical..“This difference is based on the dissimilarity, firstly, of the methods (methods) of the cognitive activity itself, and secondly, of the nature of the scientific results achieved.” Some general scientific methods are used only at the empirical level (observation, experiment, measurement), others - only at the theoretical level (idealization, formalization), and some (for example, modeling) - at both the empirical and theoretical levels.

The empirical level of scientific knowledge is characterized by direct research into actually existing, sensory objects. The special role of empirics in science lies in the fact that only at this level of research we deal with the direct interaction of a person with the natural or social objects being studied. Living contemplation (sensory cognition) predominates here; the rational element and its forms (judgments, concepts, etc.) are present here, but have a subordinate meaning. Therefore, the object under study is reflected primarily from its external connections and manifestations, accessible to living contemplation and expressing internal relationships. At this level, the process of accumulating information about the objects and phenomena under study is carried out by conducting observations, performing various measurements, and delivering experiments. Here, the primary systematization of the obtained factual data is also carried out in the form of tables, diagrams, graphs, etc. In addition, already at the second level of scientific knowledge - as a consequence of the generalization of scientific facts - it is possible to formulate some empirical patterns.

The theoretical level of scientific knowledge is characterized by the predominance of the rational element - concepts, theories, laws and other forms and “mental operations”. The absence of direct practical interaction with objects determines the peculiarity that the object is this level Scientific knowledge can only be studied indirectly, in a thought experiment, but not in a real one. However, living contemplation is not eliminated here, but becomes a subordinate (but very important) aspect of the cognitive process.

At this level, the most profound essential aspects, connections, patterns inherent in the objects and phenomena being studied are revealed by processing the data of empirical knowledge. This processing is carried out using systems of “higher order” abstractions - such as concepts, inferences, laws, categories, principles, etc. However, “at the theoretical level we will not find a fixation or abbreviated summary of empirical data; theoretical thinking cannot be reduced to the summation of empirically given material. It turns out that theory does not grow out of empirics, but as if next to it, or rather, above it and in connection with it.”

The theoretical level is a higher level in scientific knowledge. “The theoretical level of knowledge is aimed at the formation of theoretical laws that meet the requirements of universality and necessity, i.e. operate everywhere and always.” The results of theoretical knowledge become hypotheses, theories, laws.

While distinguishing these two different levels in scientific research, one should not, however, separate them from each other and oppose them. After all, the empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge are interconnected. The empirical level acts as the basis, the foundation of the theoretical. Hypotheses and theories are formed in the process of theoretical understanding of scientific facts and statistical data obtained at the empirical level. In addition, theoretical thinking inevitably relies on sensory-visual images (including diagrams, graphs, etc.), which the empirical level of research deals with.

In turn, the empirical level of scientific knowledge cannot exist without achievements at the theoretical level. Empirical research is usually based on a certain theoretical construct, which determines the direction of this research, determines and justifies the methods used.

According to K. Popper, the belief that we can begin scientific research with “pure observations” without having “something resembling a theory” is absurd. Therefore, some conceptual perspective is absolutely necessary. Naive attempts to do without it can, in his opinion, only lead to self-deception and the uncritical use of some unconscious point of view.

The empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge are interconnected, the boundary between them is conditional and fluid. Empirical research, revealing new data through observations and experiments, stimulates theoretical knowledge (which generalizes and explains them), and poses new, more complex tasks. On the other hand, theoretical knowledge, developing and concretizing its own new content on the basis of empirics, opens up new, broader horizons for empirical knowledge, orients and directs it in the search for new facts, contributes to the improvement of its methods and means, etc.

The third group of methods of scientific knowledge includes methods used only within the framework of research into a specific science or a specific phenomenon. Such methods are called private scientific Each special science (biology, chemistry, geology, etc.) has its own specific research methods.

At the same time, private scientific methods, as a rule, contain certain general scientific methods of cognition in various combinations. Particular scientific methods may include observations, measurements, inductive or deductive inferences, etc. The nature of their combination and use depends on the research conditions and the nature of the objects being studied. Thus, specific scientific methods are not divorced from general scientific ones. They are closely related to them and include the specific application of general scientific cognitive techniques for studying a specific area of ​​the objective world. At the same time, particular scientific methods are also connected with the universal, dialectical method, which seems to be refracted through them.

Another group of methods of scientific knowledge consists of the so-called disciplinary methods, which are systems of techniques used in a particular discipline that is part of some branch of science or that arose at the intersection of sciences. Each fundamental science is a complex of disciplines that have their own specific subject and their own unique research methods.

The last, fifth group includes interdisciplinary research methods being a set of a number of synthetic, integrative methods (arising as a result of a combination of elements of various levels of methodology), aimed mainly at the interfaces of scientific disciplines.

Thus, in scientific knowledge there is a complex, dynamic, holistic, subordinated system of diverse methods. different levels, spheres of action, focus, etc., which are always implemented taking into account specific conditions.

It remains to add to what has been said that any method in itself does not predetermine success in understanding certain aspects of material reality. It is also important to be able to correctly apply the scientific method in the process of cognition. If we use a figurative comparison by Academician P. L. Kapitsa, the scientific method “is, as it were, a Stradivarius violin, the most perfect of violins, but to play it, you need to be a musician and know music. Without this, it will be as out of tune as an ordinary violin.”

Dialectics (Greek dialektika - having a conversation, arguing) is the doctrine of the most general laws of development of nature, society and knowledge, in which various phenomena are considered in the diversity of their connections, the interaction of opposing forces, tendencies, in the process of change and development. In its internal structure, dialectics as a method consists of a number of principles, the purpose of which is to lead knowledge to the unfolding of development contradictions. The essence of dialectics is precisely the presence of contradictions in development, and the movement towards these contradictions. Let us briefly consider the basic dialectical principles.

The principle of comprehensive consideration of the objects being studied. An integrated approach to cognition.

One of the important requirements of the dialectical method is to study the object of knowledge from all sides, to strive to identify and study as many of its properties, connections, and relationships as possible (out of an infinite set). Modern research in many fields of science increasingly requires taking into account an increasing number of factual data, parameters, connections, etc. This task is becoming increasingly difficult to solve without involving the information power of the latest computer technology.

The world around us is a single whole, a certain system, where each object, as a unity of diversity, is inextricably linked with other objects and they all constantly interact with each other. From the position of the universal connection and interdependence of all phenomena follows one of the basic principles of materialist dialectics - comprehensiveness of consideration. A correct understanding of any thing is possible only if the entire totality of its internal and external aspects, connections, relationships, etc. is examined. In order to truly understand the subject deep and comprehensively, it is necessary to embrace and study all its sides, all connections and “mediation” in their system, with the identification of the main, decisive side.

The principle of comprehensiveness in modern scientific research is implemented in the form of an integrated approach to the objects of knowledge. The latter makes it possible to take into account the multiplicity of properties, aspects, relationships, etc. of the objects and phenomena being studied. This approach underlies complex, interdisciplinary research, which allows us to “bring together” multilateral research and combine the results obtained by different methods. It was this approach that led to the idea of ​​​​creating scientific teams consisting of specialists in various fields and implementing the requirement of complexity when solving certain problems.

“Modern complex scientific and technical disciplines and research are the reality of modern science. However, they do not fit into traditional organizational forms and methodological standards. It is in the sphere of these studies and disciplines that practical “internal” interaction of social, natural and technical sciences is now taking place... Such research (which, for example, includes research in the field of artificial intelligence) requires special organizational support and the search for new organizational forms of science. However, Unfortunately, their development is hampered precisely because of their unconventionality and the lack in the mass (and sometimes professional) consciousness of a clear idea of ​​their place in the system of modern science and technology.”

Nowadays, complexity (as one of the important aspects of dialectical methodology) is an integral element of modern global thinking. Based on it, the search for solutions to global problems of our time requires a scientifically based (and politically balanced) comprehensive approach.

The principle of consideration in interrelation. Systemic cognition.

The problem of taking into account the connections of the thing under study with other things occupies an important place in the dialectical method of cognition, distinguishing it from the metaphysical one. The metaphysical thinking of many natural scientists, who ignored in their research the real relationships that exist between objects of the material world, at one time gave rise to many difficulties in scientific knowledge. The revolution that began in the 19th century helped overcome these difficulties. transition from metaphysics to dialectics, “...considering things not in their isolation, but in their mutual connection.”

The progress of scientific knowledge already in the 19th century, and even more so in the 20th century, showed that any scientist - no matter what field of knowledge he works in - will inevitably fail in research if he considers the object under study without connection with other objects, phenomena, or if will ignore the nature of the relationships of its elements. In the latter case, it will be impossible to understand and study the material object in its integrity, as a system.

A system is always a certain integrity representing yourself a set of elements whose functional properties and possible states are determined not only by the composition, structure, etc. of its constituent elements, but also by the nature of their mutual connections.

To study an object as a system, a special, systematic approach to its knowledge is required. The latter must take into account the qualitative uniqueness of the system in relation to its elements (i.e., that it - as an integrity - has properties that its constituent elements do not have).

It should be borne in mind that “... although the properties of the system as a whole cannot be reduced to the properties of the elements, they can be explained in their origin, in their internal mechanism, in the ways of their functioning based on taking into account the properties of the elements of the system and the nature their interconnections and interdependence. This is the methodological essence of the systems approach. Otherwise, if there were no connection between the properties of the elements and the nature of their relationship, on the one hand, and the properties of the whole, on the other hand, there would be no scientific meaning in considering the system precisely as a system, that is, as a collection of elements with certain properties. Then the system would have to be considered simply as a thing that has properties regardless of the properties of the elements and the structure of the system.”

“The principle of systematicity requires the distinction between the external and internal sides of material systems, essence and its manifestations, the discovery of the many different aspects of an object, their unity, the disclosure of form and content, elements and structure, the accidental and the necessary, etc. This principle directs thinking to the transition from phenomena to their essence, to knowledge of the integrity of the system, as well as the necessary connections of the object in question with the processes surrounding it. The principle of systematicity requires the subject to place at the center of cognition the idea of ​​integrity, which is designed to guide cognition from the beginning to the end of the study, no matter how it breaks up into separate, possibly, at first glance, unrelated to each other, cycles or moments; along the entire path of cognition, the idea of ​​integrity will change and be enriched, but it must always be a systemic, holistic idea of ​​the object.”

The principle of systematicity is aimed at comprehensive knowledge of the subject as it exists at one time or another; it is aimed at reproducing its essence, integrative basis, as well as the diversity of its aspects, manifestations of the essence in its interaction with other material systems. Here it is assumed that a given object is delimited from its past, from its previous states; This is done for a more targeted knowledge of its current state. Distraction from history in this case is a legitimate method of cognition.

The spread of the systems approach in science was associated with the complication of objects of research and with the transition from metaphysical-mechanistic methodology to dialectical one. Symptoms of the exhaustion of the cognitive potential of metaphysical-mechanistic methodology, which focused on reducing the complex to individual connections and elements, appeared back in the 19th century, and at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. the crisis of such a methodology was revealed quite clearly when common human reason increasingly began to come into contact with objects interacting with other material systems, with consequences that could no longer (without making an obvious mistake) be separated from the causes that gave rise to them.

The principle of determinism.

Determinism - (from lat. determinino - define) is a philosophical doctrine about the objective, natural relationship and interdependence of the phenomena of the material and spiritual world. The basis of this doctrine is the existence of causality, that is, such a connection of phenomena in which one phenomenon (cause), under certain conditions, necessarily gives rise to another phenomenon (effect). Even in the works of Galileo, Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, the position was substantiated that when studying nature one must look for effective causes and that “true knowledge is knowledge through causes” (F. Bacon).

Already at the level of phenomena, determinism makes it possible to distinguish necessary connections from random ones, essential from non-essential ones, to establish certain repetitions, correlative dependencies, etc., i.e., to carry out the advancement of thinking to the essence, to causal connections within the essence. Functional objective dependencies, for example, are connections between two or more consequences of the same cause, and knowledge of regularities at the phenomenological level must be supplemented by knowledge of genetic, productive causal connections. The cognitive process, going from consequences to causes, from the accidental to the necessary and essential, has the goal of revealing the law. The law determines phenomena, and therefore knowledge of the law explains phenomena and changes, movements of the object itself.

Modern determinism presupposes the presence of various objectively existing forms of interconnection between phenomena. But all these forms ultimately develop on the basis of universally effective causality, outside of which not a single phenomenon of reality exists.

The principle of learning in development. Historical and logical approach to knowledge.

The principle of studying objects in their development is one of the most important principles of the dialectical method of cognition. This is one of the fundamental differences. dialectical method from metaphysical. We will not receive true knowledge if we study a thing in a dead, frozen state, if we ignore such an important aspect of its existence as development. Only by studying the past of the object we are interested in, the history of its origin and formation, can we understand its current state, as well as predict its future.

The principle of studying an object in development can be realized in cognition by two approaches: historical and logical (or, more precisely, logical-historical).

At historical approach, the history of an object is reproduced exactly, in all its versatility, taking into account all the details and events, including all kinds of random deviations, “zigzags” in development. This approach is used in a detailed, thorough study human history, when observing, for example, the development of some plants, living organisms (with corresponding descriptions of these observations in all details), etc.

At logical The approach also reproduces the history of the object, but at the same time it is subjected to certain logical transformations: it is processed by theoretical thinking with the highlighting of the general, essential and at the same time freed from everything random, unimportant, superficial, interfering with the identification of the pattern of development of the object being studied.

This approach in natural science of the 19th century. was successfully (albeit spontaneously) implemented by Charles Darwin. For the first time he has a logical process of cognition organic world proceeded from the historical process of development of this world, which made it possible to scientifically resolve the issue of the emergence and evolution of plant and animal species.

The choice of one or another - historical or logical - approach in knowledge is determined by the nature of the object being studied, the goals of the study and other circumstances. At the same time, in the real process of cognition, both of these approaches are closely interrelated. The historical approach cannot do without some kind of logical understanding of the facts of the history of the development of the object being studied. Logical analysis of the development of an object does not contradict its true history, comes from it.

This relationship between the historical and logical approaches to knowledge was especially emphasized by F. Engels. “...The logical method,” he wrote, “...in essence is nothing more than the same historical method, only freed from historical form and from interfering accidents. Where history begins, the train of thought must begin with the same thing, and its further movement will be nothing more than a reflection of the historical process in an abstract and theoretically consistent form; a corrected reflection, but corrected in accordance with the laws given by the actual historical process itself...”

The logical-historical approach, based on the power of theoretical thinking, allows the researcher to achieve a logically reconstructed, generalized reflection of the historical development of the object being studied. And this leads to important scientific results.

In addition to the above principles, the dialectical method includes other principles - objectivity, specificity“split of the one” (principle of contradiction) etc. These principles are formulated on the basis of relevant laws and categories, which in their totality reflect the unity and integrity of the objective world in its continuous development.

Scientific observation and description.

Observation is a sensory (mainly visual) reflection of objects and phenomena of the external world. “Observation is a purposeful study of objects, relying mainly on such human sensory abilities as sensation, perception, representation; in the course of observation, we gain knowledge about the external aspects, properties and characteristics of the object under consideration.” This is the initial method of empirical cognition, which allows us to obtain some primary information about the objects of the surrounding reality.

Scientific observation (as opposed to ordinary, everyday observations) is characterized by a number of features:

Purposefulness (observation should be carried out to solve the stated research problem, and the observer’s attention should be fixed only on phenomena related to this task);

Systematic (observation must be carried out strictly according to a plan drawn up based on the research objective);

Activity (the researcher must actively search, highlight the moments he needs in the observed phenomenon, drawing on his knowledge and experience, using various technical means of observation).

Scientific observations are always accompanied description object of knowledge. Empirical description is the recording by means of natural or artificial language of information about objects given in observation. With the help of description, sensory information is translated into the language of concepts, signs, diagrams, drawings, graphs and numbers, thereby taking a form convenient for further rational processing. The latter is necessary to record those properties and aspects of the object being studied that constitute the subject of research. Descriptions of observational results form the empirical basis of science, based on which researchers create empirical generalizations, compare the objects under study according to certain parameters, classify them according to some properties, characteristics, and find out the sequence of stages of their formation and development.

Almost every science goes through this initial, “descriptive” stage of development. At the same time, as emphasized in one of the works concerning this issue, “the main requirements that apply to a scientific description are aimed at ensuring that it is as complete, accurate and objective as possible. The description must give a reliable and adequate picture of the object itself and accurately reflect the phenomena being studied. It is important that the concepts used for description always have a clear and unambiguous meaning. With the development of science and changes in its foundations, the means of description are transformed, often creating new system concepts."

During observation, there is no activity aimed at transforming or changing the objects of knowledge. This is due to a number of circumstances: the inaccessibility of these objects for practical influence (for example, observation of distant space objects), the undesirability, based on the purposes of the study, of interference in the observed process (phenological, psychological and other observations), the lack of technical, energy, financial and other capabilities setting up experimental studies of objects of knowledge.

According to the method of conducting observations, they can be direct or indirect.

At from direct observations certain properties, aspects of an object are reflected and perceived by human senses. Observations of this kind have yielded a lot of useful information in the history of science. It is known, for example, that observations of the positions of planets and stars in the sky, carried out over more than twenty years by Tycho Brahe with an accuracy unsurpassed by the naked eye, were the empirical basis for Kepler’s discovery of his famous laws.

Although direct observation continues to play an important role in modern science, most often scientific observation occurs indirect, i.e., it is carried out using certain technical means. The emergence and development of such means largely determined the enormous expansion of the capabilities of the observation method that has occurred over the past four centuries.

If, for example, before the beginning of the 17th century. As astronomers observed celestial bodies with the naked eye, Galileo's invention of the optical telescope in 1608 raised astronomical observations to a new, much higher level. And the creation today of X-ray telescopes and their launch into outer space on board an orbital station (X-ray telescopes can only operate outside the Earth’s atmosphere) has made it possible to observe such objects of the Universe (pulsars, quasars) that would be impossible to study in any other way.

Development modern natural science associated with the increasing role of the so-called indirect observations. Thus, objects and phenomena studied by nuclear physics cannot be directly observed either with the help of human senses or with the help of the most advanced instruments. For example, when studying the properties of charged particles using a cloud chamber, these particles are perceived by the researcher indirectly - by such visible manifestations as the formation tracks, consisting of many droplets of liquid.

Moreover, any scientific observations, although they rely primarily on the work of the senses, at the same time require participation and theoretical thinking. The researcher, relying on his knowledge and experience, must realize sensory perceptions and express them (describe) either in terms of ordinary language, or - more strictly and abbreviated - in certain scientific terms, in some graphs, tables, drawings, etc. For example, emphasizing the role of theory in the process of indirect observations, A. Einstein, in a conversation with W. Heisenberg, remarked: “Whether a given phenomenon can be observed or not depends on your theory. It is the theory that must establish what can be observed and what cannot.”

Observations can often play an important heuristic role in scientific knowledge. In the process of observations, completely new phenomena can be discovered, allowing one or another scientific hypothesis to be substantiated.

From all of the above, it follows that observation is a very important method of empirical knowledge, ensuring the collection of extensive information about the world around us. As the history of science shows, when used correctly, this method turns out to be very fruitful.

Experiment.

Experiment is a more complex method of empirical knowledge compared to observation. It involves the active, purposeful and strictly controlled influence of the researcher on the object being studied in order to identify and study certain aspects, properties, and connections. In this case, the experimenter can transform the object under study, create artificial conditions for its study, and interfere with the natural course of processes.

“In the general structure of scientific research, experiment occupies a special place. On the one hand, it is the experiment that is the connecting link between the theoretical and empirical stages and levels of scientific research. By design, an experiment is always mediated by prior theoretical knowledge: it is conceived on the basis of relevant theoretical knowledge and its goal is often to confirm or refute a scientific theory or hypothesis. The experimental results themselves require a certain theoretical interpretation. At the same time, the experimental method, by the nature of the cognitive means used, belongs to the empirical stage of cognition. The result of experimental research is, first of all, the achievement of factual knowledge and the establishment of empirical laws.”

Experimentally oriented scientists argue that a cleverly thought out and “cunningly”, skillfully staged experiment is superior to theory: theory can be completely refuted, but reliably obtained experience cannot!

The experiment includes other methods of empirical research (observation, measurement). At the same time, it has a number of important, unique features.

Firstly, an experiment allows you to study an object in a “purified” form, that is, eliminate all kinds of side factors and layers that complicate the research process.

Secondly, during the experiment the object can be placed in some artificial, in particular, extreme conditions, i.e., studied at ultra-low temperatures, at extremely high pressures or, conversely, in a vacuum, at enormous electromagnetic field strengths, etc. In such artificially created conditions, it is possible to discover surprising, sometimes unexpected properties of objects and thereby more deeply comprehend their essence .

Thirdly, when studying a process, an experimenter can intervene in it and actively influence its course. As Academician I.P. Pavlov noted, “experience, as it were, takes phenomena into its own hands and puts into play one thing or another, and thus, in artificial, simplified combinations, determines the true connection between phenomena. In other words, observation collects what nature offers it, while experience takes from nature what it wants.”

Fourth, an important advantage of many experiments is their reproducibility. This means that the experimental conditions, and accordingly the observations and measurements carried out during this process, can be repeated as many times as necessary to obtain reliable results.

Preparing and conducting an experiment requires compliance with a number of conditions. So, a scientific experiment:

Never posed at random, it presupposes the presence of a clearly formulated research goal;

It is not done “blindly”; it is always based on some initial theoretical principles. Without an idea in your head, said I.P. Pavlov, you won’t see a fact at all;

It is not carried out unplanned, chaotically, the researcher first outlines the ways of its implementation;

Requires a certain level of development of technical means of cognition necessary for its implementation;

Must be carried out by people with sufficiently high qualifications.

Only the combination of all these conditions determines success in experimental research.

Depending on the nature of the problems solved during the experiments, the latter are usually divided into research and testing.

Research experiments make it possible to discover new, unknown properties in an object. The result of such an experiment may be conclusions that do not follow from existing knowledge about the object of study. An example is the experiments carried out in the laboratory of E. Rutherford, which led to the discovery of the atomic nucleus, and thereby to the birth of nuclear physics.

Verification experiments serve to test and confirm certain theoretical constructs. Thus, the existence of a number of elementary particles (positron, neutrino, etc.) was first predicted theoretically, and only later were they discovered experimentally.

Based on the methodology and the results obtained, experiments can be divided into qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative experiments are exploratory in nature and do not lead to any quantitative relationships. They only allow us to identify the effect of certain factors on the phenomenon being studied. Quantitative experiments are aimed at establishing precise quantitative relationships in the phenomenon under study. In the actual practice of experimental research, both of these types of experiments are implemented, as a rule, in the form of successive stages of the development of cognition.

As is known, the connection between electrical and magnetic phenomena was first discovered by the Danish physicist Oersted as a result of a purely qualitative experiment (having placed a magnetic compass needle next to a conductor through which an electric current was passed, he discovered that the needle deviated from its original position). After Oersted published his discovery, quantitative experiments by the French scientists Biot and Savart followed, as well as experiments by Ampere, on the basis of which the corresponding mathematical formula was derived.

All these qualitative and quantitative empirical studies laid the foundations for the doctrine of electromagnetism.

Depending on the field of scientific knowledge in which the experimental research method is used, natural science, applied (in technical sciences, agricultural science, etc.) and socio-economic experiments are distinguished.

Measurement and comparison.

Most scientific experiments and observations involve making a variety of measurements. Measurement - This is a process that consists in determining the quantitative values ​​of certain properties, aspects of the object or phenomenon under study with the help of special technical devices.

The enormous importance of measurements for science was noted by many prominent scientists. For example, D.I. Mendeleev emphasized that “science begins as soon as they begin to measure.” And the famous English physicist W. Thomson (Kelvin) pointed out that “every thing is known only to the extent that it can be measured.”

The measurement operation is based on comparison objects by any similar properties or aspects. To make such a comparison, it is necessary to have certain units of measurement, the presence of which makes it possible to express the properties being studied in terms of their quantitative characteristics. In turn, this allows the widespread use of mathematical tools in science and creates the prerequisites for the mathematical expression of empirical dependencies. Comparison is not only used in connection with measurement. In science, comparison acts as a comparative or comparative-historical method. Initially 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.

An important aspect of the measurement process is the methodology for carrying it out. It is a set of techniques that use certain principles and means of measurement. In this case, measurement principles mean some phenomena that form the basis of measurements (for example, temperature measurement using the thermoelectric effect).

There are several types of measurements. Based on the nature of the dependence of the measured value on time, measurements are divided into static and dynamic. At static measurements the quantity we measure remains constant over time (measuring the size of bodies, constant pressure, etc.). TO dynamic These include measurements during which the measured value changes over time (measurement of vibration, pulsating pressure, etc.).

Based on the method of obtaining results, measurements are distinguished between direct and indirect. IN direct measurements the desired value of the measured quantity is obtained by directly comparing it with the standard or is issued by the measuring device. At indirect measurement the desired value is determined on the basis of a known mathematical relationship between this value and other values ​​obtained by direct measurements (for example, finding the electrical resistivity of a conductor by its resistance, length and cross-sectional area). Indirect measurements are widely used in cases where the desired quantity is impossible or too difficult to measure directly, or when direct measurement gives a less accurate result.

With the progress of science, measuring technology also advances. Along with improving existing measuring instruments, working on the basis of traditional established principles (replacing the materials from which parts of the device are made, introducing individual changes into its design, etc.), there is a transition to fundamentally new designs of measuring devices, determined by new theoretical premises. In the latter case, instruments are created in which new scientific ones are implemented. achievements. For example, the development of quantum physics has significantly increased the ability to make measurements with a high degree of accuracy. Using the Mössbauer effect makes it possible to create a device with a resolution of about 10 -13% of the measured value.

Well-developed measuring instrumentation, a variety of methods and high characteristics of measuring instruments contribute to progress in scientific research. In turn, solving scientific problems, as noted above, often opens up new ways to improve the measurements themselves.

Abstraction. Ascent from the abstract to the concrete.

The process of cognition always begins with the consideration of specific, sensory objects and phenomena, their external signs, properties, and connections. Only as a result of studying the sensory-concrete does a person come to some generalized ideas, concepts, to certain theoretical positions, i.e., scientific abstractions. Obtaining these abstractions is associated with the complex abstracting activity of thinking.

In the process of abstraction, there is a departure (ascent) from sensually perceived concrete objects (with all their properties, sides, etc.) to abstract ideas about them reproduced in thinking. At the same time, sensory-concrete perception, as it were, “...evaporates to the level of abstract definition.” Abstraction, Thus, it consists in mental abstraction from some - less significant - properties, aspects, signs of the object being studied with the simultaneous selection and formation of one or more significant aspects, properties, characteristics of this object. The result obtained during the abstraction process is called abstraction(or use the term “abstract” - as opposed to concrete).

In scientific knowledge, for example, abstractions of identification and isolating abstractions are widely used. Abstraction of identification is a concept that is obtained as a result of identifying a certain set of objects (at the same time abstracting from a number of individual properties, characteristics of these objects) and combining them into special group. An example is the grouping of the entire variety of plants and animals living on our planet into special species, genera, orders, etc. Isolating abstraction is obtained by isolating certain properties and relationships that are inextricably linked with objects of the material world into independent entities (“stability”, “solubility”, “electrical conductivity”, etc.).

The transition from the sensory-concrete to the abstract is always associated with a certain simplification of reality. At the same time, ascending from the sensory-concrete to the abstract, theoretical, the researcher gets the opportunity to better understand the object being studied and reveal its essence. In this case, the researcher first finds the main connection (relationship) of the object being studied, and then, step by step, tracing how it changes under different conditions, discovers new connections, establishes their interactions, and in this way reflects in its entirety the essence of the object being studied.

The process of transition from sensory-empirical, visual ideas about the phenomena being studied to the formation of certain abstract, theoretical structures that reflect the essence of these phenomena lies at the basis of the development of any science.

Since the concrete (i.e., real objects, processes of the material world) is a collection of many properties, aspects, internal and external connections and relationships, it is impossible to know it in all its diversity, remaining at the stage of sensory cognition and limiting ourselves to it. Therefore, there is a need for a theoretical understanding of the concrete, that is, an ascent from the sensory-concrete to the abstract.

But the formation of scientific abstractions and general theoretical positions is not the ultimate goal of knowledge, but is only a means of deeper, more versatile knowledge of the concrete. Therefore, further movement (ascent) of knowledge from the achieved abstract back to the concrete is necessary. The knowledge about the concrete obtained at this stage of research will be qualitatively different compared to that which was available at the stage of sensory cognition. In other words, the concrete at the beginning of the process of cognition (sensory-concrete, which is its starting point) and the concrete, comprehended at the end of the cognitive process (it is called logical-concrete, emphasizing the role of abstract thinking in its comprehension) are fundamentally different from each other.

The logical-concrete is the concrete, theoretically reproduced in the researcher’s thinking, in all the richness of its content.

It contains not only something sensually perceived, but also something hidden, inaccessible to sensory perception, something essential, natural, comprehended only with the help of theoretical thinking, with the help of certain abstractions.

The method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete is used in the construction of various scientific theories and can be used in both social and natural sciences. For example, in the theory of gases, having identified the basic laws of an ideal gas - Clapeyron's equations, Avogadro's law, etc., the researcher goes to the specific interactions and properties of real gases, characterizing their essential aspects and properties. As we delve deeper into the concrete, new abstractions are introduced, which act as a deeper reflection of the essence of the object. Thus, in the process of developing the theory of gases, it was found that the ideal gas laws characterize the behavior of real gases only at low pressures. This was due to the fact that the ideal gas abstraction neglects the forces of attraction between molecules. Taking these forces into account led to the formulation of Van der Waals' law. Compared to Clapeyron's law, this law expressed the essence of the behavior of gases more specifically and deeply.

Idealization. Thought experiment.

The mental activity of a researcher in the process of scientific knowledge includes a special type of abstraction, which is called idealization. Idealization represents the mental introduction of certain changes to the object being studied in accordance with the goals of the research.

As a result of such changes, for example, some properties, aspects, or features of objects may be excluded from consideration. Thus, the widespread idealization in mechanics, called a material point, implies a body devoid of any dimensions. Such an abstract object, the dimensions of which are neglected, is convenient when describing the movement of a wide variety of material objects from atoms and molecules to the planets of the solar system.

Changes in an object, achieved in the process of idealization, can also be made by endowing it with some special properties that are not feasible in reality. An example is the abstraction introduced into physics through idealization, known as black body(such a body is endowed with the property, non-existent in nature, of absorbing absolutely all radiant energy falling on it, without reflecting anything and without letting anything pass through it).

The advisability of using idealization is determined by the following circumstances:

Firstly, “idealization is appropriate when the real objects to be studied are sufficiently complex for the available means of theoretical, in particular mathematical, analysis, and in relation to the idealized case it is possible, by applying these means, to build and develop a theory that is effective in certain conditions and purposes.” , to describe the properties and behavior of these real objects. The latter, in essence, certifies the fruitfulness of idealization and distinguishes it from fruitless fantasy.”

Secondly, it is advisable to use idealization in cases where it is necessary to exclude certain properties and connections of the object under study, without which it cannot exist, but which obscure the essence of the processes occurring in it. A complex object is presented as if in a “purified” form, which makes it easier to study.

Thirdly, the use of idealization is advisable when the properties, aspects, and connections of the object being studied that are excluded from consideration do not affect its essence within the framework of this study. Wherein right choice the admissibility of such idealization plays a very important role.

It should be noted that the nature of idealization can be very different if there are different theoretical approaches to the study of a phenomenon. As an example, we can point to three different concepts of “ideal gas”, formed under the influence of different theoretical and physical concepts: Maxwell-Boltzmann, Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac. However, all three idealization options obtained in this case turned out to be fruitful in the study of gas states of various natures: the Maxwell-Boltzmann ideal gas became the basis for studies of ordinary rarefied molecular gases located at fairly high temperatures; The Bose-Einstein ideal gas was used to study photonic gas, and the Fermi-Dirac ideal gas helped solve a number of electron gas problems.

Being a type of abstraction, idealization allows for an element of sensory clarity (the usual process of abstraction leads to the formation of mental abstractions that do not have any clarity). This feature of idealization is very important for the implementation of such a specific method of theoretical knowledge, which is thought experiment (his also called mental, subjective, imaginary, idealized).

A thought experiment involves operating with an idealized object (replacing a real object in abstraction), which consists in the mental selection of certain positions and situations that make it possible to detect some important features of the object under study. This reveals a certain similarity between a mental (idealized) experiment and a real one. Moreover, every real experiment, before being carried out in practice, is first “played out” by the researcher mentally in the process of thinking and planning. In this case, the thought experiment acts as a preliminary ideal plan for a real experiment.

At the same time, the thought experiment also plays independent role in science. At the same time, while maintaining similarities with the real experiment, it is at the same time significantly different from it.

In scientific knowledge, there may be cases when, when studying certain phenomena and situations, conducting real experiments turns out to be completely impossible. This gap in knowledge can only be filled by a thought experiment.

The scientific activity of Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Carnot, Einstein and other scientists who laid the foundations of modern natural science testifies to the significant role of thought experiments in the formation of theoretical ideas. The history of the development of physics is rich in facts about the use of thought experiments. An example is Galileo's thought experiments, which led to the discovery of the law of inertia. “...The law of inertia,” wrote A. Einstein and L. Infeld, “cannot be deduced directly from experiment; it can be deduced speculatively - by thinking associated with observation. This experiment can never be performed in reality, although it leads to a deep understanding of actual experiments.”

A thought experiment can have great heuristic value in helping to interpret new knowledge obtained purely mathematically. This is confirmed by many examples from the history of science.

The idealization method, which turns out to be very fruitful in many cases, at the same time has certain limitations. In addition, any idealization is limited to a specific area of ​​phenomena and serves to solve only certain problems. This can be clearly seen from the example of the above-mentioned “absolutely black body” idealization.

The main positive significance of idealization as a method of scientific knowledge is that the theoretical constructions obtained on its basis then make it possible to effectively study real objects and phenomena. Simplifications achieved through idealization facilitate the creation of a theory that reveals the laws of the studied area of ​​​​phenomena of the material world. If the theory as a whole correctly describes real phenomena, then the idealizations underlying it are also legitimate.

Formalization.

Under formalization understands a special approach in scientific knowledge, which consists in the use of special symbols, which allows one to escape from the study of real objects, from the content of the theoretical provisions describing them, and to operate instead with a certain set of symbols (signs).

This technique consists in constructing abstract mathematical models that reveal the essence of the processes of reality being studied. When formalizing, reasoning about objects is transferred to the plane of operating with signs (formulas). Relationships of signs replace statements about the properties and relationships of objects. In this way, a generalized sign model of a certain subject area is created, which makes it possible to detect the structure of various phenomena and processes while abstracting from the qualitative characteristics of the latter. The derivation of some formulas from others according to the strict rules of logic and mathematics represents a formal study of the main characteristics of the structure of various, sometimes very distant in nature, phenomena.

A striking example of formalization is the mathematical descriptions of various objects and phenomena widely used in science, based on relevant substantive theories. At the same time, the mathematical symbolism used not only helps to consolidate existing knowledge about the objects and phenomena being studied, but also acts as a kind of tool in the process of further knowledge of them.

To build any formal system it is necessary: ​​a) specifying an alphabet, i.e., a certain set of characters; b) setting the rules by which “words” and “formulas” can be obtained from the initial characters of this alphabet; c) setting rules by which one can move from some words and formulas of a given system to other words and formulas (the so-called rules of inference).

As a result, a formal sign system is created in the form of a certain artificial language. An important advantage of this system is the possibility of carrying out within its framework the study of any object in a purely formal way (operating with signs) without directly addressing this object.

Another advantage of formalization is to ensure the brevity and clarity of recording scientific information, which opens up great opportunities for operating with it.

Of course, formalized artificial languages ​​do not have the flexibility and richness of natural language. But they lack the polysemy of terms (polysemy) characteristic of natural languages. They are characterized by a precisely constructed syntax (establishing the rules of connection between signs regardless of their content) and unambiguous semantics (the semantic rules of a formalized language quite unambiguously determine the correlation of a sign system with a specific subject area). Thus, a formalized language has the property of being monosemic.

The ability to present certain theoretical positions of science in the form of a formalized sign system is of great importance for knowledge. But it should be borne in mind that the formalization of a particular theory is possible only if its substantive side is taken into account. “A bare mathematical equation does not yet represent a physical theory; in order to obtain a physical theory, it is necessary to give specific empirical content to mathematical symbols.”

The expanding use of formalization as a method of theoretical knowledge is associated not only with the development of mathematics. In chemistry, for example, the corresponding chemical symbolism, together with the rules for operating it, was one of the options for a formalized artificial language. The method of formalization occupied an increasingly important place in logic as it developed. Leibniz's works laid the foundation for the creation of the method of logical calculus. The latter led to the formation in the middle of the 19th century. mathematical logic, which in the second half of our century played an important role in the development of cybernetics, in the emergence of electronic computers, in solving problems of production automation, etc.

The language of modern science differs significantly from natural human language. It contains many special terms and expressions; it widely uses means of formalization, among which the central place belongs to mathematical formalization. Based on the needs of science, various artificial languages ​​are created to solve certain problems. The entire set of artificial formalized languages ​​created and being created is included in the language of science, forming a powerful means of scientific knowledge.

Axiomatic method.

In the axiomatic construction of theoretical knowledge, a set of initial positions is first specified that do not require proof (at least within the framework of a given knowledge system). These provisions are called axioms, or postulates. Then, according to certain rules, a system of inferential proposals is built from them. The set of initial axioms and propositions derived on their basis forms an axiomatically constructed theory.

Axioms are statements whose truth is not required to be proven. The number of axioms varies widely: from two or three to several dozen. Logical inference allows you to transfer the truth of axioms to the consequences derived from them. At the same time, the requirements of consistency, independence and completeness are imposed on the axioms and conclusions from them. Following certain, clearly fixed rules of inference allows you to streamline the reasoning process when deploying an axiomatic system, making this reasoning more rigorous and correct.

To define an axiomatic system, some language is required. In this regard, symbols (icons) are widely used rather than cumbersome verbal expressions. Replacing spoken language with logical and mathematical symbols, as stated above, is called formalization . If formalization takes place, then the axiomatic system is formal, and the provisions of the system acquire the character formulas The resulting formulas are called theorems, and the arguments used are evidence theorem. This is the almost universally known structure of the axiomatic method.

Hypothesis method.

In methodology, the term “hypothesis” is used in two senses: as a form of existence of knowledge, characterized by problematic, unreliable, need for proof, and as a method of forming and justifying explanatory proposals, leading to the establishment of laws, principles, theories. Hypothesis in the first sense of the word is included in the method of hypothesis, but can also be used independently of it.

The best way to understand the hypothesis method is to become familiar with its structure. The first stage of the hypothesis method is familiarization with the empirical material that is subject to theoretical explanation. Initially, they try to explain this material with the help of laws and theories already existing in science. If there are none, the scientist proceeds to the second stage - putting forward a guess or assumption about the causes and patterns of these phenomena. At the same time, he tries to use various research techniques: inductive guidance, analogy, modeling, etc. It is quite acceptable that at this stage several explanatory assumptions are put forward that are incompatible with each other.

The third stage is the stage of assessing the seriousness of the assumption and selecting the most probable one from the set of guesses. The hypothesis is checked primarily for logical consistency, especially if it has a complex form and unfolds into a system of assumptions. Next, the hypothesis is tested for compatibility with the fundamental intertheoretical principles of this science.

At the fourth stage, the put forward assumption is unfolded and empirically verifiable consequences are deductively derived from it. At this stage, it is possible to partially rework the hypothesis and introduce clarifying details into it using thought experiments.

At the fifth stage, an experimental verification of the consequences derived from the hypothesis is carried out. The hypothesis either receives empirical confirmation or is refuted as a result of experimental testing. However, empirical confirmation of the consequences of a hypothesis does not guarantee its truth, and the refutation of one of the consequences does not clearly indicate its falsity as a whole. All attempts to build an effective logic for confirming and refuting theoretical explanatory hypotheses have not yet been crowned with success. The status of an explanatory law, principle or theory is given to the best one based on the results of testing of the proposed hypotheses. Such a hypothesis is usually required to have maximum explanatory and predictive power.

Familiarity with the general structure of the hypothesis method allows us to define it as a complex integrated method of cognition, which includes all its diversity and forms and is aimed at establishing laws, principles and theories.

Sometimes the hypothesis method is also called the hypothetico-deductive method, meaning the fact that the formulation of a hypothesis is always accompanied by the deductive derivation of empirically verifiable consequences from it. But deductive reasoning is not the only logical technique used within the hypothesis method. When establishing the degree of empirical confirmation of a hypothesis, elements of inductive logic are used. Induction is also used at the guessing stage. Inference by analogy plays an important role when putting forward a hypothesis. As already noted, at the stage of developing a theoretical hypothesis, a thought experiment can also be used.

An explanatory hypothesis as an assumption about a law is not the only type of hypothesis in science. There are also “existential” hypotheses - assumptions about the existence of elementary particles, units of heredity, chemical elements, new biological species, etc. unknown to science. The methods for putting forward and justifying such hypotheses differ from explanatory hypotheses. Along with the main theoretical hypotheses, there may also be auxiliary ones that make it possible to bring the main hypothesis into better agreement with experience. As a rule, such auxiliary hypotheses are later eliminated. There are also so-called working hypotheses that make it possible to better organize the collection of empirical material, but do not claim to explain it.

The most important type of hypothesis method is mathematical hypothesis method, which is typical for sciences with a high degree of mathematization. The hypothesis method described above is the substantive hypothesis method. Within its framework, meaningful assumptions about the laws are first formulated, and then they receive the corresponding mathematical expression. In the method of mathematical hypothesis, thinking takes a different path. First, to explain quantitative dependencies, a suitable equation is selected from related fields of science, which often involves its modification, and then an attempt is made to give this equation a meaningful interpretation.

The scope of application of the mathematical hypothesis method is very limited. It is applicable primarily in those disciplines where a rich arsenal of mathematical tools in theoretical research has been accumulated. Such disciplines primarily include modern physics. The method of mathematical hypothesis was used in the discovery of the basic laws of quantum mechanics.

Analysis and synthesis.

Under analysis understand the division of an object (mentally or actually) into its component parts for the purpose of studying them separately. Such parts can be some material elements of the object or its properties, characteristics, relationships, etc.

Analysis is a necessary stage in understanding an object. Since ancient times, analysis has been used, for example, to decompose certain substances into their components. Note that the method of analysis at one time played an important role in the collapse of the phlogiston theory.

Undoubtedly, analysis occupies an important place in the study of objects of the material world. But it constitutes only the first stage of the process of cognition.

To comprehend an object as a whole, one cannot limit oneself to studying only its component parts. In the process of cognition, it is necessary to reveal objectively existing connections between them, to consider them together, in unity. To carry out this second stage in the process of cognition - to move from the study of individual components of an object to the study of it as a single connected whole - is possible only if the method of analysis is complemented by another method -

synthesis.

In the process of synthesis, the components (sides, properties, characteristics, etc.) of the object under study, dissected as a result of analysis, are brought together. On this basis, further study of the object takes place, but as a single whole. At the same time, synthesis does not mean a simple mechanical connection of disconnected elements into a single system. It reveals the place and role of each element in the system of the whole, establishes their interrelation and interdependence, i.e., it allows us to understand the true dialectical unity of the object being studied.

Analysis mainly captures what is specific that distinguishes parts from each other. Synthesis reveals that essential commonality that connects the parts into a single whole. Analysis, which involves the implementation of synthesis, has as its central core the selection of the essential. Then the whole does not look the same as when the mind “first met” it, but much deeper, more meaningful.

Analysis and synthesis are also successfully used in the sphere of human mental activity, that is, in theoretical knowledge. But here, as at the empirical level of knowledge, analysis and synthesis are not two operations separated from each other. In essence, they are like two sides of a single analytical-synthetic method of cognition.

These two interrelated research methods receive their own specification in each branch of science. From a general technique, they can turn into a special method: for example, there are specific methods of mathematical, chemical and social analysis. The analytical method has also been developed in some philosophical schools and directions. The same can be said about synthesis.

Induction and deduction. Induction (from lat. inductio -

Induction is widely used in scientific knowledge. By discovering similar signs and properties in many objects of a certain class, the researcher concludes that these signs and properties are inherent in all objects of a given class. Along with other methods of cognition, the inductive method played an important role in the discovery of some laws of nature (universal gravity, atmospheric pressure, thermal expansion of bodies, etc.).

Induction used in scientific knowledge (scientific induction) can be implemented in the form of the following methods:

1. Method of single similarity (in all cases of observation of a phenomenon, only one common factor is found, all others are different; therefore, this single similar factor is the cause of this phenomenon).

2. Single difference method (if the circumstances of the occurrence of a phenomenon and the circumstances under which it does not occur are similar in almost all respects and differ only in one factor, present only in the first case, then we can conclude that this factor is the cause of this phenomena).

3. United method of similarity and difference (is a combination of the above two methods).

4. Method of accompanying changes (if certain changes in one phenomenon each time entail certain changes in another phenomenon, then the conclusion follows that causation these phenomena).

5. Residual method (if a complex phenomenon is caused by a multifactorial cause, and some of these factors are known as the cause of some part of this phenomenon, then the conclusion follows: the cause of another part of the phenomenon is the remaining factors included in the general cause of this phenomenon).

The founder of the classical inductive method of cognition is F. Bacon. But he interpreted induction extremely broadly, considering it the most important method for discovering new truths in science, the main means of scientific knowledge of nature.

In fact, the above methods of scientific induction serve mainly to find empirical relationships between the experimentally observed properties of objects and phenomena.

Deduction (from lat. deductio - inference) is the obtaining of particular conclusions based on knowledge of some general provisions. In other words, this is the movement of our thinking from the general to the particular, the individual.

But the especially great cognitive significance of deduction is manifested in the case when the general premise is not just an inductive generalization, but some kind of hypothetical assumption, for example, a new scientific idea. In this case, deduction is the starting point for the emergence of a new theoretical system. The theoretical knowledge created in this way predetermines the further course of empirical research and guides the construction of new inductive generalizations.

Obtaining new knowledge through deduction exists in all natural sciences, but the deductive method is especially important in mathematics. Operating with mathematical abstractions and basing their reasoning on very general principles, mathematicians are forced most often to use deduction. And mathematics is, perhaps, the only truly deductive science.

In modern science, the prominent mathematician and philosopher R. Descartes was a promoter of the deductive method of cognition.

But, despite attempts in the history of science and philosophy to separate induction from deduction and contrast them in the real process of scientific knowledge, these two methods are not used as isolated, isolated from each other. Each of them is used at the appropriate stage of the cognitive process.

Moreover, in the process of using the inductive method, deduction is often present “in a hidden form.” “By generalizing facts in accordance with some ideas, we thereby indirectly derive the generalizations we receive from these ideas, and we are not always aware of this. It seems that our thought moves directly from facts to generalizations, that is, that there is pure induction here. In fact, in accordance with some ideas, in other words, implicitly guided by them in the process of generalizing facts, our thought indirectly goes from ideas to these generalizations, and, therefore, deduction also takes place here... We can say that in In all cases when we generalize in accordance with any philosophical principles, our conclusions are not only induction, but also hidden deduction.”

Emphasizing the necessary connection between induction and deduction, F. Engels strongly advised scientists: “Induction and deduction are related to each other in the same necessary way as synthesis and analysis. Instead of unilaterally extolling one of them to the skies at the expense of the other, we must try to apply each in its place, and this can only be achieved if we do not lose sight of their connection with each other, their mutual complement to each other.”

Analogy and modeling.

Under analogy refers to the similarity, similarity of some properties, characteristics or relationships of generally different objects. Establishing similarities (or differences) between objects is carried out as a result of their comparison. Thus, comparison is the basis of the analogy method.

If a logical conclusion is made about the presence of any property, sign, relationship in the object under study based on establishing its similarity with other objects, then this conclusion is called an inference by analogy.

The degree of probability of obtaining a correct conclusion by analogy will be the higher: 1) the more common properties of the objects being compared are known; 2) the more significant the common properties discovered in them and 3) the more deeply the mutual natural connection of these similar properties is known. It must be borne in mind that if an object in respect of which an inference is made by analogy with another object has some property that is incompatible with the property the existence of which should be concluded, then the general similarity of these objects loses all meaning .

The analogy method is used in a variety of fields of science: in mathematics, physics, chemistry, cybernetics, in the humanities, etc. The famous energy scientist V. A. Venikov spoke well about the cognitive value of the analogy method: “Sometimes they say: “Analogy is not proof”... But if you look at it, you can easily understand that scientists do not strive to prove anything only in this way. Is it not enough that a correctly seen similarity gives a powerful impetus to creativity?.. An analogy is capable of leaping thought into new, unexplored orbits, and, of course, it is correct that an analogy, if handled with due care, is the simplest and most a clear path from old to new.”

There are different types of inferences by analogy. But what they have in common is that in all cases one object is directly examined, and a conclusion is drawn about another object. Therefore, inference by analogy in the most general sense can be defined as the transfer of information from one object to another. In this case, the first object, which is actually subject to research, is called model, and another object to which the information obtained as a result of studying the first object (model) is transferred is called original(sometimes - a prototype, sample, etc.). Thus, the model always acts as an analogy, that is, the model and the object (original) displayed with its help are in a certain similarity (similarity).

“...Modeling is understood as the study of a modeled object (original), based on the one-to-one correspondence of a certain part of the properties of the original and the object (model) that replaces it in the study and includes the construction of a model, the study of it and the transfer of the obtained information to the modeled object - the original” .

The use of modeling is dictated by the need to reveal aspects of objects that either cannot be comprehended through direct study, or are unprofitable to study them in this way for purely economic reasons. A person, for example, cannot directly observe the process of natural formation of diamonds, the origin and development of life on Earth, a number of phenomena of the micro- and mega-world. Therefore, we have to resort to artificial reproduction of such phenomena in a form convenient for observation and study. In some cases, it is much more profitable and economical to build and study its model instead of directly experimenting with an object.

Depending on the nature of the models used in scientific research, several types of modeling are distinguished.

1. Mental (ideal) modeling. This type of modeling includes various mental representations in the form of certain imaginary models. It should be noted that mental (ideal) models can often be realized materially in the form of sensory-perceptible physical models.

2. Physical modeling. It is characterized by physical similarity between the model and the original and aims to reproduce in the model the processes characteristic of the original. Based on the results of studying certain physical properties of the model, they judge the phenomena that occur (or can occur) in the so-called “natural conditions”.

Currently, physical modeling is widely used for the development and experimental study of various structures, machines, for a better understanding of some natural phenomena, for studying effective and safe methods of mining, etc.

3. Symbolic (sign) modeling.

It is associated with a conventionally symbolic representation of some properties, relationships of the original object. Symbolic (sign) models include various topological and graph representations (in the form of graphs, nomograms, diagrams, etc.) of the objects under study or, for example, models presented in the form of chemical symbols and reflecting the state or ratio of elements during chemical reactions. A special and very important type of symbolic (sign) modeling is math modeling.

The symbolic language of mathematics allows one to express the properties, aspects, relationships of objects and phenomena of a very different nature. The relationships between various quantities that describe the functioning of such an object or phenomenon can be represented by the corresponding equations (differential, integral, integro-differential, algebraic) and their systems.

4. Numerical modeling on a computer. This type of modeling is based on a previously created mathematical model of the object or phenomenon being studied and is used in cases of large volumes of calculations required to study this model. Numerical modeling is especially important where the physical picture of the phenomenon being studied is not entirely clear and the internal mechanism of interaction is not known. By calculations on a computer

various options

facts are being accumulated, which makes it possible, ultimately, to select the most realistic and probable situations. The active use of numerical modeling methods can dramatically reduce the time required for scientific and design development.

The modeling method is constantly evolving: some types of models are being replaced by others as science progresses. At the same time, one thing remains unchanged: the importance, relevance, and sometimes irreplaceability of modeling as a method of scientific knowledge.

1. Alekseev P.V., Panin A.V. “Philosophy” M.: Prospekt, 2000

2. Leshkevich T.G. “Philosophy of Science: Traditions and Innovations” M.: PRIOR, 2001

3. Spirkin A.G. “Fundamentals of Philosophy” M.: Politizdat, 1988

4. “Philosophy” under. ed. Kokhanovsky V.P. Rostov-n/D.: Phoenix, 2000

5. Golubintsev V.O., Dantsev A.A., Lyubchenko V.S. “Philosophy for technical universities.” Rostov n/d.: Phoenix, 2001

6. Agofonov V.P., Kazakov D.F., Rachinsky D.D. “Philosophy” M.: MSHA, 2000

9. Kanke V.A. “Main philosophical directions and concepts of science. Results of the twentieth century.” - M.: Logos, 2000.

Science is the most important form of human knowledge. It has an increasingly visible and significant influence on the life of not only society, but also the individual. Science today acts as the main force in the economic and social development of the world. That is why the philosophical vision of the world organically includes certain ideas about what science is, how it works, how it develops, what it can give, and what is inaccessible to it.

Speaking about modern science in its interaction with various spheres of life of society and the individual, we can distinguish three groups of social functions it performs. These are, firstly, cultural and ideological functions, secondly, the functions of science as a direct productive force, and thirdly, its functions as a social force, associated with the fact that scientific knowledge and methods are now increasingly used in solving a variety of problems. problems arising in the life of society.

The order in which these groups of functions are listed essentially reflects the historical process of the formation and expansion of the social functions of science, that is, the emergence and strengthening of ever new channels of its interaction with society. Thus, during the period of the formation of science as a special social institution(this is the period of the crisis of feudalism, the emergence of bourgeois social relations and the formation of capitalism, i.e. the Renaissance and Modern times), its influence was found primarily in the sphere of worldview, where throughout this time there was a sharp and persistent struggle between theology and science.

The fact is that in the previous era of the Middle Ages, theology gradually gained the position of the supreme authority, called upon to discuss and solve fundamental ideological problems, such as the question of the structure of the universe and the place of man in it, the meaning and highest values ​​of life, etc. To the sphere problems of a more specific and “earthly” order were attributed to the nascent science.

The great significance of the Copernican revolution, which began four and a half centuries ago, is that science for the first time challenged theology’s right to monopolize the formation of a worldview. This was precisely the first act in the process of penetration of scientific knowledge and scientific thinking into the structure of human activity and society; It was here that the first real signs of science emerging into ideological issues, into the world of human values ​​and aspirations were revealed.

A lot of time had to pass, including such dramatic episodes as the burning of G. Bruno, the renunciation of G. Galileo, ideological conflicts in connection with the doctrine of Charles Darwin on the origin of species, before science could become the highest authority in matters of paramount ideological significance, relating to the structure of matter and the structure of the Universe, the emergence and essence of life, the origin

man, etc. It took even more time for the answers to these and other questions proposed by science to become elements of general education. Without it scientific ideas could not turn into one of the most important cultural values. Simultaneously with this process of the emergence and strengthening of the cultural and ideological functions of science, the pursuit of science itself gradually became in the eyes of society an independent and completely worthy sphere of human activity. Science was being formed as a social institution in the structure of society.

As for the functions of science as a direct productive force, today these functions, perhaps, seem to us not only the most obvious, but also the most primary, primordial. And this is understandable, given the unprecedented scale and pace of modern scientific and technological progress, the results of which are noticeably manifested in all sectors of life and in all spheres of human activity.

During the period of the formation of science as a social institution, the material prerequisites for the implementation of such a synthesis matured, the necessary intellectual climate for this was created, and an appropriate system of thinking was developed. Of course, scientific knowledge was not isolated from rapidly developing technology even then. Some problems that arose during the development of technology became the subject of scientific research and even gave rise to new scientific disciplines. This was the case, for example, with hydraulics and thermodynamics. However, science initially contributed little to practical activities - industry, agriculture, medicine. And the point was not only in the insufficient level of development of science, but, above all, in the fact that practical activity, as a rule, was not able, and did not feel the need, to rely on the achievements of science or even simply to systematically take them into account.

Over time, however, it became obvious that the purely empirical basis of practical activity was too narrow and limited to ensure the continuous development of the productive forces and the progress of technology. Both industrialists and scientists began to see in science a powerful catalyst for the process of continuous improvement of the means of production. Awareness of this dramatically changed the attitude towards science and was an essential prerequisite for its

a decisive turn towards practice, material production. And here, as in the cultural and ideological sphere, science was not limited to a subordinate role for long and quite quickly revealed its potential as a revolutionary force, radically changing the appearance and nature of production.

The growing role of science in public life has given rise to its special status in modern culture and new aspects of its interaction with various layers of public consciousness. In this regard, the problem of the characteristics of scientific knowledge and its relationship with other forms of cognitive activity (art, everyday consciousness, etc.) is acutely raised. This problem, being philosophical in nature, at the same time has great practical significance. Understanding the specifics of science is a necessary prerequisite for the introduction of scientific methods in the management of cultural processes. It is also necessary for constructing a theory of management of science itself in conditions of accelerated scientific and technological progress, since elucidation of the laws of scientific knowledge requires an analysis of its social conditionality and its interaction with various phenomena of spiritual and material culture.

1. Specific features of scientific knowledge

Scientific knowledge, like all forms of spiritual production, is ultimately necessary to guide and regulate practice. But the transformation of the world can bring success only when it is consistent with the objective laws of change and development of its objects. Therefore, the main task of science is to identify these laws. In relation to the processes of transformation of nature, this function is performed by the natural and technical sciences. The processes of change in social objects are studied by social sciences. Since a variety of objects can be transformed in activity - objects of nature, man (and his states of consciousness), subsystems of society, iconic objects functioning as cultural phenomena, etc. - all of them can become subjects of scientific research.

The orientation of science towards the study of objects that can be included in activity (either actually or potentially, as possible objects of its future development), and their study as subject to objective laws of functioning and development constitute one of the most important features of scientific knowledge. This feature distinguishes it from other forms of human cognitive activity. Thus, in the process of artistic exploration of reality, objects included in human activity are not separated from subjective factors, but are taken in a kind of “glue” with them. Any reflection of objects of the objective world in art simultaneously expresses a person’s value attitude towards the object. An artistic image is a reflection of an object that contains the imprint of a human personality, its value orientations, as if “fused” into the characteristics of the reflected reality. To exclude this interpenetration means to destroy the artistic image. In science, the peculiarities of the life activity of the individual creating knowledge, her value judgments are not directly included in the composition of the generated knowledge (Newton’s laws do not allow us to judge what Newton loved and hated, whereas, for example, in portraits by Rembrandt the personality of Rembrandt himself is captured, his worldview and his personal attitude to the phenomena depicted. A portrait painted by a great artist also, to some extent, acts as a self-portrait). Science is focused on the substantive and objective study of reality. From this, of course, it does not follow that the personal aspects and value orientations of a scientist do not play a role in scientific creativity and do not influence its results.

Scientific knowledge reflects the objects of nature not in the form of contemplation, but in the form of practice. The process of this reflection is determined not only by the characteristics of the object being studied, but also by numerous factors of a sociocultural nature.

Considering science in its historical development, one can find that as the type of culture changes, the standards for presenting scientific knowledge, ways of seeing reality in science, and styles of thinking that are formed in the context of culture and are influenced by its most diverse phenomena change. This impact can be presented as the inclusion of various sociocultural factors in the process of generating scientific knowledge itself. However, the statement of connections between the objective and the subjective in any cognitive process and the need for a comprehensive study

science in its interaction with other forms of human spiritual activity does not remove the question of the differences between science and these forms (ordinary knowledge, artistic thinking, etc.). The first and necessary among them is the objectivity and subjectivity of scientific knowledge.

But, studying objects transformed in activity, science is not limited to the knowledge of only those subject connections that can be mastered within the framework of the existing forms and stereotypes of activity that have historically developed at a given stage of social development. Science also strives to create a foundation of knowledge for future forms of practical change in the world.

Therefore, science carries out not only research that serves today’s practice, but also research whose results can only be used in the future. The movement of knowledge as a whole is determined not only by the immediate demands of practice, but also by cognitive interests, through which the needs of society in predicting future methods and forms of practical development of the world are manifested. For example, the formulation of intrascientific problems and their solution within the framework of fundamental theoretical research in physics led to the discovery of the laws of the electromagnetic field and the prediction of electromagnetic waves, to the discovery of the laws of fission of atomic nuclei, quantum laws of radiation of atoms during the transition of electrons from one energy level to another, etc. All these theoretical discoveries laid the foundation for future applied engineering research and development. The introduction of the latter into production, in turn, revolutionized equipment and technology - radio-electronic equipment, nuclear power plants, laser systems, etc. appeared.

The focus of science on studying not only objects that are transformed in today's practice, but also those that may become the subject of mass practical development in the future, is the second distinctive feature of scientific knowledge. This feature allows us to distinguish between scientific and everyday spontaneous-empirical knowledge and derive a number of specific definitions that characterize the nature of scientific research.

First of all, science deals with a special set of objects of reality that are not reducible to objects of everyday experience. The peculiarities of scientific objects make those means that are used in everyday cognition insufficient for their mastery. Although science uses natural language, it cannot describe and study its objects only on its basis. Firstly, ordinary language is adapted to describe and foresee objects woven into the existing practice of man (science goes beyond its scope); secondly, the concepts of ordinary language are vague and ambiguous, their exact meaning is most often discovered only in the context of linguistic communication, controlled by everyday experience. Science cannot rely on such control, since it primarily deals with objects that have not been mastered in everyday practical activity. To describe the phenomena being studied, she strives to record her concepts and definitions as clearly as possible.

The development by science of a special language suitable for its description of objects that are unusual from the point of view of common sense is a necessary condition for scientific research. The language of science is constantly evolving as it penetrates into ever new areas of the objective world. Moreover, it has the opposite effect on everyday, natural language. For example, the words “electricity” and “cloning” were once specific scientific terms, and then became firmly established in everyday language.

Along with an artificial, specialized language, scientific research requires a special system of special tools, which, by directly influencing the object being studied, make it possible to identify its possible states under conditions controlled by the subject. Hence the need for special scientific equipment (measuring instruments, instrument installations), which allow science to experimentally study new types of objects.

Scientific equipment and the language of science are, first of all, a product of already acquired knowledge. But just as in practice the products of labor are transformed into means of labor, so in scientific research its products - scientific knowledge expressed in language or objectified in instruments - become a means of further research, obtaining new knowledge.

The characteristics of the objects of scientific research can also explain the main features of scientific knowledge as a product of scientific activity. Their reliability could no longer be justified only by their use in production and everyday life.

nom experience. Science forms specific ways of substantiating the truth of knowledge: experimental control over the acquired knowledge and the deducibility of some knowledge from others, the truth of which has already been proven. Derivability procedures ensure not only the transfer of truth from one piece of knowledge to another, but also make them interconnected and organized into a system. The consistency and validity of scientific knowledge is another significant feature that distinguishes it from the products of ordinary cognitive activity of people.

In the history of science, two stages of its development can be distinguished: nascent science (pre-science) and science in the proper sense of the word. At the stage of pre-science, cognition primarily reflects those things and ways of changing them that a person repeatedly encounters in production and everyday experience. These things, properties and relationships were recorded in the form of ideal objects, with which thinking operated as specific objects that replaced objects of the real world. By connecting the original ideal objects with the corresponding operations of their transformation, early science built in this way models of those changes in objects that could be carried out in practice. An example of such models is knowledge of the operations of addition and subtraction of integers. This knowledge represents an ideal scheme for practical transformations carried out on subject collections.

However, as knowledge and practice develop, along with what has been noted, a new way of constructing knowledge is formed. It consists in constructing schemes of subject relations by transferring already created ideal objects from other areas of knowledge and combining them into a new system without direct reference to practice. In this way, hypothetical schemes of objective connections of reality are created, which are then directly or indirectly substantiated by practice.

Initially, this method of research was established in mathematics. Thus, having discovered the class of negative numbers, mathematics extends to them all those operations that were accepted for positive numbers, and in this way creates new knowledge that characterizes previously unexplored structures of the objective world. Subsequently, a new expansion of the class of numbers occurs: the application of root extraction operations to negative numbers forms a new abstraction - an “imaginary number”. And all those operations that were applied to natural numbers again apply to this class of ideal objects.

The described method of constructing knowledge is established not only in mathematics. Following it, it extends to the sphere of natural sciences. In natural science, it is known as a method of putting forward hypothetical models of reality (hypotheses) with their subsequent substantiation by experience. Thanks to the method of hypotheses, scientific knowledge seems to free itself from the rigid connection with existing practice and begins to predict ways of changing objects that, in principle, could be mastered in the future. From this moment the stage of pre-science ends and science in the proper sense of the word begins. In it, along with empirical dependencies and facts (which pre-science also knew), a special type of knowledge is formed - theory.

Another significant difference between scientific research and everyday knowledge is the differences in methods of cognitive activity. The objects to which ordinary cognition is directed are formed in everyday practice. The techniques by which each such object is isolated and fixed as an object of cognition are, as a rule, not recognized by the subject as a specific method of cognition. The situation is different in scientific research. Here, the very detection of an object that is subject to further study is sometimes a labor-intensive task.

For example, to detect short-lived particles - resonances, modern physics conducts experiments on the scattering of particle beams and then applies complex calculations. Ordinary particles leave traces - tracks - in photographic emulsions or in a cloud chamber, but resonances do not leave such tracks. They live for a very short time (10 to the power of -22-10 to the power of -24 s) and during this period of time they travel a distance less than the size of an atom. Because of this, resonance cannot cause ionization of photoemulsion molecules (or gas in a cloud chamber) and leave an observable trace. However, when the resonance decays, the resulting particles are capable of leaving traces of the indicated type. In the photograph they look like a set of dash rays emanating from one center. Based on the nature of these rays, using mathematical calculations, the physicist determines the presence of resonance. Thus, in order to deal with the same type of resonances, the researcher needs to know

conditions under which the corresponding object appears. He must clearly define the method by which a particle can be detected in an experiment. Outside of the method, he will not at all distinguish the object being studied from the numerous connections and relationships of natural objects.

To fix an object, a scientist must know the methods of such fixation. Therefore, in science, the study of objects, the identification of their properties and connections is accompanied by an awareness of the methods by which objects are studied. Objects are always given to a person in a system of certain techniques and methods of his activity. But these techniques in science are no longer obvious, they are not techniques repeated many times in everyday practice. And the further science moves away from the usual things of everyday experience, delving into the study of “unusual” objects, the clearer and more distinctly is the need to understand the methods by which science isolates and studies these objects. Along with knowledge about objects, science generates knowledge about methods of scientific activity. The need to develop and systematize knowledge of the second type leads, at the highest stages of the development of science, to the formation of methodology as a special branch of scientific research, recognized as guiding scientific research.

Finally, doing science requires special training of the cognitive subject, during which he masters the historically established means of scientific research and learns the techniques and methods of operating with these means. The inclusion of a subject in scientific activity presupposes, along with the mastery of special means and methods, also the assimilation of a certain system of value orientations and goals specific to science. As one of the main goals of scientific activity, a scientist is guided by the search for truth, perceiving the latter as the highest value of science. This attitude is embodied in a number of ideals and standards of scientific knowledge, expressing its specificity: in certain standards for the organization of knowledge (for example, the requirements for the logical consistency of a theory and its experimental confirmation), in the search for an explanation of phenomena based on laws and principles reflecting the essential connections of the objects under study, etc. An equally important role in scientific research is played by the focus on the constant growth of knowledge and the acquisition of new knowledge. This attitude is also expressed in the system of regulatory requirements for scientific creativity (for example, prohibitions on plagiarism, the admissibility of critical revision of the grounds scientific research as conditions for the development of ever new types of objects, etc.).

The presence of norms and goals of cognitive activity specific to science, as well as specific means and methods that ensure the comprehension of ever new objects, requires the targeted formation of scientific specialists. This need leads to the emergence of a “university component of science” - special organizations and institutions providing training for scientific personnel.

Thus, when characterizing the nature of scientific knowledge, we can identify a system of distinctive features of science, among which the main ones are: a) subjectivity and objectivity of scientific knowledge; b) science going beyond the framework of everyday experience and its study of objects relatively independently of today’s possibilities for their practical development (scientific knowledge always refers to a wide class of practical situations of the present and future, which is never predetermined). All other necessary features that distinguish science from other forms of cognitive activity are derived from the indicated main characteristics and are conditioned by them.

2. Structure and dynamics of scientific knowledge

Modern science is disciplinary organized. It consists of various areas of knowledge that interact with each other and at the same time have relative independence. In each branch of science (subsystem of developing scientific knowledge) - physics, chemistry, biology, etc., in turn, one can find a variety of different forms of knowledge: empirical facts, laws, hypotheses, theories of various types and degrees of generality, etc. .

In the structure of scientific knowledge, there are primarily two levels of knowledge - empirical and theoretical. They correspond to two interrelated, but at the same time specific types of cognitive activity: empirical and theoretical research.

Before talking about these levels, we note that in this case we are talking about scientific knowledge, and not about the cognitive process as a whole. In relation to the latter, i.e. to the process of cognition as a whole, meaning not only scientific, but also everyday knowledge, artistic and imaginative exploration of the world, etc., they most often talk about the sensory and rational stages of cognition. The categories “sensual” and “rational”, on the one hand, and “empirical” and “theoretical”, on the other, are quite close in content. But at the same time, they should not be identified with each other. How do the categories “empirical” and “theoretical” differ from the categories “sensual” and “rational”?

Firstly, empirical knowledge can never be reduced only to pure sensibility. Even the primary layer of empirical knowledge - observational data - is always recorded in a certain language: moreover, this is a language that uses not only everyday concepts, but also specific scientific terms.

But empirical knowledge cannot be reduced to observational data. It also involves the formation of a special type of knowledge on the basis of observational data - a scientific fact. A scientific fact arises as a result of very complex rational processing of observational data: their comprehension, understanding, interpretation. In this sense, any facts of science represent the interaction of the sensory and the rational.

But perhaps we can say about theoretical knowledge that it represents pure rationality? No, and here we are faced with the intertwining of the sensual and the rational. Forms of rational knowledge (concepts, judgments, conclusions) dominate in the process of theoretical development of reality. But when constructing a theory, visual model representations are also used, which are forms of sensory knowledge, because representations, like perception, are forms of living contemplation. Even complex and highly mathematical theories include ideas such as an ideal pendulum, an absolutely rigid body, an ideal exchange of goods, when goods are exchanged for goods strictly in accordance with the law of value, etc. All these idealized objects are visual model images (generalized feelings ), with which thought experiments are carried out. The result of these experiments is the clarification of those essential connections and relationships, which are then recorded in concepts. Thus, the theory always contains sensory-visual components. We can only say that the sensual dominates at the lower levels of empirical knowledge, and the rational dominates at the theoretical level.

The distinction between the empirical and theoretical levels should be made taking into account the specifics of cognitive activity at each of these levels. The main criteria by which these levels are distinguished are the following: 1) the nature of the subject of research; 2) the type of research tools used and 3) the features of the method.

Are there differences between the subject of theoretical and empirical research? Yes, they do exist. Empirical and theoretical research can cognize the same objective reality, but its vision, its representation in knowledge will be given differently. Empirical research is fundamentally focused on studying phenomena and the relationships between them. At the level of empirical knowledge, essential connections are not yet identified in pure form, but they seem to be highlighted in phenomena, appearing through their concrete shell.

At the level of theoretical knowledge, essential connections are isolated in their pure form. The essence of an object is the interaction of a number of laws to which this object is subject. The task of the theory is precisely to recreate all these relationships between laws and thus reveal the essence of the object.

It is necessary to distinguish between an empirical dependence and a theoretical law. Empirical dependence is the result of an inductive generalization of experience and represents probabilistic true knowledge. A theoretical law is always reliable knowledge. Obtaining such knowledge requires special research procedures.

For example, the Boyle-Mariotte law is known, which describes the correlation between pressure and gas volume:

where P is gas pressure; V is its volume.

Initially, it was discovered by R. Boyle as an inductive generalization of experimental data, when the experiment discovered a relationship between the volume of gas compressed under pressure and the magnitude of this pressure.

In its original formulation, this dependence did not have the status of a theoretical law, although it was expressed by a mathematical formula. If Boyle had moved on to experiments with high pressures, he would have discovered that this dependence was broken. Physicists say that the law PV = const is applicable only in the case of very rarefied gases, when the system approaches the ideal gas model and intermolecular interactions can be neglected. And at high pressures, interactions between molecules (van der Waals forces) become significant, and then Boyle’s law is violated. The relationship Boyle discovered was a truth-probabilistic knowledge, a generalization of the same type as the statement “All swans are white,” which was true until black swans were discovered. The theoretical law PV = const was obtained later, when a model of an ideal gas was constructed, the particles of which were likened to elastically colliding billiard balls.

So, having distinguished empirical and theoretical knowledge as two special types of research activity, we can say that their subject matter is different, that is, theory and empirical research deal with different sections of the same reality. Empirical research examines phenomena and their correlations; in these correlations, in the relations between phenomena, it can grasp the manifestation of the law. But in its pure form it is given only as a result of theoretical research.

It should be emphasized that an increase in the number of experiments in itself does not make the empirical dependence a reliable fact, because induction always deals with unfinished, incomplete experience. No matter how many experiments we carry out and generalize them, simple inductive generalization of experiments does not lead to theoretical knowledge. Theory is not built by inductive generalization of experience. This circumstance in all its depth was realized in science when it reached fairly high levels of theorization. A. Einstein considered this conclusion to be one of the most important epistemological lessons in the development of physics in the 20th century.

Let us now move from distinguishing the empirical and theoretical levels by subject matter to distinguishing them by means. Empirical research is based on direct practical interaction between the researcher and the object being studied. It involves making observations and experimental activities. Therefore, the means of empirical research most often include instruments, instrumental installations and other means of real observation and experiment.

In theoretical research, there is no direct practical interaction with objects. At this level, an object can only be studied indirectly, in a thought experiment, but not in a real one.

The special role of empirics in science lies in the fact that only at this level of research does a person directly interact with the natural or social objects being studied. And in this interaction, the object manifests its nature, objectively, its inherent characteristics. We can construct many models and theories in our minds, but we can only check whether these schemes coincide with reality in real practice. And we deal with such practice precisely within the framework of empirical research.

In addition to the tools that are directly related to the organization of experiments and observations, conceptual tools are also used in empirical research. They are used as a special language, often called the empirical language of science. It has a complex organization in which the actual empirical terms and the terms of the theoretical language interact.

The meaning of empirical terms is special abstractions - they could be called empirical objects. They must be distinguished from objects of reality. Empirical objects are abstractions that actually highlight a certain set of properties and relationships of things. Real objects are represented in empirical knowledge in the image of ideal objects that have a strictly fixed and limited set of characteristics. A real object has an infinite number of characteristics. Any such object is inexhaustible in its properties, connections and relationships.

Let us take, for example, the description of the experiments of Biot and Savart, in which the magnetic effect of electric current was discovered. This action was recorded by the behavior of a magnetic needle located near a straight wire with current. Both the current-carrying wire and the magnetic needle had an infinite number of characteristics. They had a certain length, thickness, weight, configuration, color, and were located at a certain distance

from each other, from the walls of the room in which the experiment was carried out, from the Sun, from the center of the Galaxy, etc. From this infinite set of properties and relationships in the empirical term “wire with current”, as it is used in describing this experiment, were identified only the following signs: 1) to be at a certain distance from the magnetic needle; 2) be straightforward; 3) conduct an electric current of a certain strength. All other properties are not important here, and are abstracted from them in the empirical description. In the same way, based on a limited set of characteristics, the ideal empirical object that forms the meaning of the term “magnetic needle” is constructed. Every feature of an empirical object can be found in a real object, but not vice versa.

As for theoretical knowledge, other research tools are used in it. As already mentioned, there are no means of material, practical interaction with the object being studied. But the language of theoretical research also differs from the language of empirical descriptions. The main means of theoretical research are the so-called theoretical ideal objects. They are also called idealized objects, abstract objects, or theoretical constructs. These are special abstractions that contain the meaning of theoretical terms. No theory can be constructed without the use of such objects. What are they?

Their examples include a material point, an absolutely rigid body, an ideal commodity that is exchanged for another commodity strictly in accordance with the law of value (here abstraction occurs from fluctuations in market prices), an idealized population in biology, in relation to which the Hardy-Weinberg law is formulated ( an infinite population where all individuals interbreed equally likely).

Idealized theoretical objects, in contrast to empirical ones, are endowed not only with those features that we can detect in the real interaction of real objects, but also with features that no real object has. For example, a material point is defined as a body that has no size, but concentrates in itself the entire mass of the body. There are no such bodies in nature. They are the result of our mental construction, when we abstract from insignificant (in one respect or another) connections and

characteristics of an object and build an ideal object, which acts as a carrier of only essential connections. In reality, the essence cannot be separated from the phenomenon; one is revealed through the other. The task of theoretical research is to understand the essence in its pure form. The introduction of abstract, idealized objects into the theory allows us to solve this problem.

According to their characteristics, the empirical and theoretical types of knowledge differ in the methods of research activity. As already mentioned, the main methods of empirical research are real experiment and real observation. An important role is also played by methods of empirical description, focused on the objective characteristics of the phenomena being studied, as cleared as possible from subjective layers.

As for theoretical research, special methods are used here: idealization (method of constructing an idealized object); a thought experiment with idealized objects, which seems to replace a real experiment with real objects; methods of theory construction (ascent from the abstract to the concrete, axiomatic and hypothetico-deductive methods); methods of logical and historical research, etc.

So, the empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge differ in the subject, means and methods of research. However, isolating and considering each of them independently is an abstraction. In reality, these two layers of knowledge always interact. Isolating the categories “empirical” and “theoretical” as means of methodological analysis makes it possible to find out how scientific knowledge is structured and how it develops.

The empirical and theoretical levels have a complex organization. They can distinguish special sublevels, each of which is characterized by specific cognitive procedures and special types of knowledge obtained.

At the empirical level, we can distinguish at least two sublevels: first, observations, and second, empirical facts.

Observation data contains primary information that we obtain directly in the process of observing an object. This information is given in a special form - in the form of sensory data of the subject of observation, which is then recorded in the form of observation protocols. Observation protocols express the information received by the observer in linguistic form.

Observation protocols always contain indications of who is carrying out the observation, and if the observation is made during an experiment using any instruments, then the main characteristics of the device must be given.

This is not accidental, since observation data, along with objective information about phenomena, contains a certain layer of subjective information, depending on the state of the observer and the readings of his senses. Objective information can be distorted by random external influences, errors produced by instruments, etc. An observer may make a mistake when taking readings from the instrument. Instruments can produce both random and systematic errors. Therefore, these observations are not yet reliable knowledge, and the theory should not be based on them. The basis of the theory is not observational data, but empirical facts. Unlike observational data, facts are always reliable, objective information; This is a description of phenomena and connections between them, where subjective layers are removed. Therefore, the transition from observational data to empirical fact is a rather complex procedure. It often happens that facts are repeatedly double-checked, and the researcher, who previously believed that he was dealing with an empirical fact, becomes convinced that the knowledge he received does not yet correspond to reality itself, and therefore is not a fact.

The transition from observational data to empirical fact involves the following cognitive operations. Firstly, rational processing of observation data and the search for stable, invariant content in them. To form a fact, it is necessary to compare many observations with each other, highlight what is repeated in them and eliminate random disturbances and errors associated with observer errors. If observation is carried out in such a way that a measurement is made, then the observation data is recorded in the form of numbers. Then, to obtain an empirical fact, a certain statistical processing of the data is required, making it possible to identify the invariant content of measurements in them.

The search for an invariant as a way of establishing a fact is characteristic not only of natural science, but also of socio-historical knowledge. For example, a historian establishing the chronology of past events always strives to identify and compare a multitude of independent historical evidence, which for him serves as observational data.

Secondly, to establish a fact, it is necessary to interpret the invariant content revealed in observations. In the process of such interpretation, previously acquired theoretical knowledge is widely used.

Characteristic in this regard is the history of the discovery of such an unusual astronomical object as a pulsar. In the summer of 1967, a graduate student of the famous English radio astronomer E. Huish, Miss Bell, accidentally discovered a radio source in the sky that emitted short radio pulses. Multiple systematic observations made it possible to establish that these pulses were repeated strictly periodically, every 1.33 s. The initial interpretation of this invariant of observations was is associated with the hypothesis about the artificial origin of this signal, which is sent by a supercivilization. As a result, the observations were classified and were not reported to anyone for almost six months.

Then another hypothesis was put forward - about natural origin source, supported by new observational data (new sources of radiation of this type were discovered). This hypothesis suggested that the radiation came from a small, rapidly rotating body. The application of the laws of mechanics made it possible to calculate the size of this body - it turned out that it was much smaller than the Earth. In addition, it was found that the source of the pulsation is located exactly in the place where a supernova explosion occurred more than a thousand years ago. Ultimately, the fact was established that there are special celestial bodies - pulsars, which are the residual result of a supernova explosion.

We see that establishing an empirical fact requires the application of a number of theoretical principles (in this case, this is information from the field of mechanics, electrodynamics, astrophysics, etc.). But then a very complex problem arises, which is now being discussed in the methodological literature: it turns out that to establish a fact, theories are needed, and they, as we know, must be verified by facts.

Methodological specialists formulate this problem as a problem of theoretical loading of facts, that is, as a problem of interaction between theory and fact. Of course, in establishing the above empirical fact, many previously obtained theoretical laws and provisions were used. In order for the existence of pulsars to be established as a scientific fact, it was necessary to apply Kepler's laws, the laws of thermodynamics, the laws of light propagation - reliable theoretical knowledge previously substantiated by other facts. If these laws turn out to be incorrect, then it will be necessary to reconsider the facts that are based on these laws.

In turn, after the discovery of pulsars, they remembered that the existence of these objects was theoretically predicted by the Soviet physicist L. D. Landau. So the fact of their discovery became another confirmation of his theory, although his theory was not directly used in establishing this fact.

So, theoretical knowledge, which is verified independently of it, participates in the formation of a fact, and facts provide an incentive for the formation of new theoretical knowledge, which, in turn, if they are reliable, can again participate in the formation latest facts, and so on.

Let us now move on to the organization of the theoretical level of knowledge. Here, too, two sublevels can be distinguished.

The first is private theoretical models and laws. They act as theories relating to a fairly limited area of ​​phenomena. Examples of such particular theoretical laws are the law of oscillation of a pendulum in physics or the law of motion of bodies on an inclined plane, which were found before Newtonian mechanics was built.

In this layer of theoretical knowledge, in turn, such interrelated formations are found as a theoretical model that explains phenomena, and a law that is formulated in relation to the model. The model includes idealized objects and connections between them. For example, if the oscillations of real pendulums are studied, then in order to clarify the laws of their motion, the idea of ​​an ideal pendulum is introduced as a material point hanging on a non-deformable thread. Then another object is introduced - a reference system. This is also an idealization, namely an ideal representation

creation of a real physical laboratory, equipped with a clock and a ruler. Finally, to identify the law of oscillations, another ideal object is introduced - the force that sets the pendulum in motion. Force is an abstraction from the interaction of bodies in which the state of their motion changes. A system of the listed idealized objects (ideal pendulum, reference frame, force) forms a model that represents, at a theoretical level, the essential characteristics of the real process of oscillation of any pendulums.

Thus, the law directly characterizes the relations of ideal objects of a theoretical model, and indirectly it is applied to the description of empirical reality.

The second sublevel of theoretical knowledge is developed theory. In it, all particular theoretical models and laws are generalized in such a way that they act as consequences of the fundamental principles and laws of the theory. In other words, a certain generalizing theoretical model is constructed that covers all particular cases, and in relation to it a certain set of laws is formulated, which act as generalizing ones in relation to all particular theoretical laws.

This, for example, is Newtonian mechanics. In the formulation that L. Euler gave it, it introduced a fundamental model of mechanical motion through such idealizations as a material point that moves in the space-time of the reference system under the influence of a certain generalized force. The nature of this force is not further specified - it could be a quasi-elastic force, or an impact force, or an attractive force. It's about strength in general. With respect to such a model, Newton’s three laws are formulated, which act in this case as a generalization of many particular laws that reflect the essential connections of individual specific types of mechanical motion (oscillation, rotation, body movement on an inclined plane, free fall, etc.). Based on such generalized laws, one can then deductively predict new particular laws.

The two types of organization of scientific knowledge considered - particular theories and generalizing developed theories - interact both with each other and with the empirical level of knowledge.

So, scientific knowledge in any field of science is a huge mass of different types of knowledge interacting with each other. Theory takes part in the formation of facts; in turn, facts require the construction of new theoretical models, which are first constructed as hypotheses, and then substantiated and turned into theories. It also happens that a developed theory is immediately constructed, which provides an explanation for known but previously unexplained facts, or forces a new interpretation of known facts. In general, there are varied and complex procedures for the interaction of different layers of scientific knowledge.

The important thing is that all this diversity of knowledge is united into integrity. This integrity is ensured not only by those relationships between the theoretical and empirical levels of knowledge, which have already been mentioned. The fact is that the structure of scientific knowledge is not limited to these levels - it also includes what is commonly called the foundations of scientific knowledge. Thanks to these foundations, not only the integrity of the knowledge of a scientific discipline is achieved. They also determine the strategy of scientific research and largely ensure the inclusion of its results in the culture of the corresponding historical era. It is in the process of formation, restructuring and functioning of foundations that the sociocultural dimension of scientific knowledge is most clearly visible.

The foundations of each specific science, in turn, have a rather complex structure. We can distinguish at least three main components of the block of foundations of science: ideals and norms of knowledge, a scientific picture of the world and philosophical foundations.

Like any activity, scientific knowledge is regulated by certain ideals and norms that express the value and purpose of science, answering the questions: why are certain cognitive actions needed, what type of product (knowledge) should be obtained as a result of their implementation and in what way gain this knowledge.

This block includes ideals and norms, firstly, evidence and justification of knowledge, secondly, explanations and descriptions, thirdly, the construction and organization of knowledge. These are the basic forms in which the ideals and norms of scientific research are realized and function. As for their content, several interconnected levels can be found here. The first level is represented by normative

structures common to all scientific knowledge. This is an invariant that distinguishes science from other forms of knowledge. At each stage of historical development, this level is concretized through historically transitory attitudes characteristic of the science of the corresponding era. The system of such attitudes (ideas about the norms of explanation, description, evidence, organization of knowledge, etc.) expresses the style of thinking of a given era and forms the second level in the content of the ideals and norms of research. For example, the ideals and norms of description adopted in the science of the Middle Ages are radically different from those that characterized the science of the New Age. The standards for explanation and substantiation of knowledge adopted in the era of classical natural science differ from modern ones.

Finally, in the content of the ideals and norms of scientific research, a third level can be distinguished. In it, the second-level settings are specified in relation to the specifics of the subject area of ​​each science (physics, biology, chemistry, etc.).

The ideals and normative structures of science express a certain generalized scheme of the method, therefore the specificity of the objects under study certainly affects the nature of the ideals and norms of scientific knowledge, and each new type of systemic organization of objects involved in the orbit of research activity, as a rule, requires a transformation of the ideals and norms of a scientific discipline . But it is not only the specifics of the object that determine the functioning and development of the ideals and normative structures of science. Their system expresses a certain image of cognitive activity, an idea of ​​the mandatory procedures that ensure the comprehension of the truth. This image always has sociocultural conditionality. It is formed in science, experiencing the influence of ideological structures that lie at the foundation of the culture of a particular historical era.

The second block of the foundations of science is the scientific picture of the world. It is formed as a result of the synthesis of knowledge obtained in various sciences, and contains general ideas about the world, developed at the corresponding stages of the historical development of science. In this sense, it is called a general scientific picture of the world, which includes ideas about both nature and the life of society. The aspect of the general scientific picture of the world, which corresponds to ideas about the structure and development of nature, is usually called the natural scientific picture of the world.

The synthesis of knowledge obtained in various sciences is a very complex procedure. It involves establishing connections between science subjects. The vision of the subject of the sciences, the idea of ​​its main system-structural characteristics is expressed in the structure of each of the sciences in the form of a holistic picture of the reality under study. This component of knowledge is often called a special (local) scientific picture of the world. Here the term “world” is used in a special sense. It does not denote the world as a whole, but that fragment or aspect of the material world that is studied in a given science by its methods. In this meaning they speak, for example, of the physical or biological world. In relation to the general scientific picture of the world, such pictures of reality can be considered as its relatively independent fragments or aspects.

The picture of reality provides a systematization of knowledge within the framework of the relevant science. Associated with it are various types of theories of a scientific discipline (fundamental and applied), as well as experimental facts on which the principles of the picture of reality are based and with which the principles of the picture of reality must be consistent. At the same time, the scientific picture of the world also functions as a research program that guides the formulation of problems of empirical and theoretical search and selects means of solving them.

The third block of the foundations of science is formed by philosophical ideas and principles. They substantiate both the ideals and norms of science and meaningful representations of the scientific picture of the world, and also ensure the inclusion of scientific knowledge in culture.

Any new idea in order to become either a postulate of the picture of the world, or a principle expressing a new ideal and standard of scientific knowledge, must go through the procedure of philosophical justification. For example, when M. Faraday discovered electric and magnetic lines of force in experiments and tried, on this basis, to introduce ideas about electric and magnetic fields into the scientific picture of the world, he immediately faced the need to substantiate these ideas. The assumption that forces propagate in space with a finite speed from point to point led to the idea of ​​forces as existing in isolation from their material sources (charges and sources of magnetism). But this was contrary to the principle

pu: forces are always associated with matter. To eliminate the contradiction, Faraday considers force fields as a special material environment. The philosophical principle of the inextricable connection between matter and force acted here as the basis for introducing into the picture of the world the postulate about the existence of electric and magnetic fields, which have the same status of materiality as matter.

The philosophical foundations of science, along with the function of substantiating already acquired knowledge, also perform a heuristic function. She actively participates in the construction of new theories, directing the restructuring of the normative structures of science and pictures of reality. The philosophical ideas and principles used in this process can also be used to substantiate the results obtained (new pictures of reality and new ideas about the method). But the coincidence of philosophical heuristics and philosophical justification is not necessary. It may happen that in the process of forming new ideas, the researcher uses some philosophical ideas and principles, and then the ideas he developed receive a different philosophical interpretation, and only on this basis do they gain recognition and be included in the culture.

3. Philosophy and development of science

We have seen that the philosophical foundations of science are heterogeneous. And yet, despite all the heterogeneity of philosophical foundations, some relatively stable structures stand out in them.

For example, in the history of natural science (from the 17th century to the present day), at least three very general types of such structures can be distinguished, corresponding to the stages: classical natural science (its completion - the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century), the formation of non-classical natural science (the end of the 19th century) - first half of the 20th century), non-classical natural science of the modern type.

At the first stage, the main attitude that permeated the various philosophical principles used in substantiating scientific knowledge about nature was the idea of ​​the absolute sovereignty of the knowing mind, which, as if contemplating the world from the outside, reveals their true essence in natural phenomena. This attitude was concretized in a special interpretation of the ideals and norms of science. It was considered, for example,

that objectivity and objectivity of knowledge is achieved only when everything that relates to the subject, the means and procedures of his cognitive activity is excluded from the description and explanation. These procedures were accepted as once and for all data, ahistorical. The ideal of knowledge was the construction of a final, absolutely true picture of nature; the main attention was paid to the search for obvious, visual and “derived from experience” ontological principles.

At the second stage, a crisis of these attitudes is revealed and a transition to a new type of philosophical foundations is made. This transition is characterized by a rejection of straightforward ontology and an understanding of the relative truth of the picture of nature developed at one or another stage of the development of natural science. The truth of various specific theoretical descriptions of the same reality is allowed, since each of them contains a moment of objectively true knowledge. The relationship between the ontological postulates of science and the characteristics of the method through which the object is mastered is comprehended. In this regard, types of explanation and description are accepted that explicitly contain references to the means and operations of cognitive activity.

At the third stage, the formation of which covers the era of the modern scientific and technological revolution, apparently new structures of the philosophical foundations of natural science are taking shape. They are characterized by an understanding of the historical variability of not only ontology, but also the very ideals and norms of scientific knowledge, a vision of science in the context of the social conditions of its existence and its social consequences, a justification for the admissibility and even the need to include axiological (value) factors in explaining and describing a number of complex system objects (examples of this are the theoretical description of ecological processes, global modeling, discussion of genetic engineering problems, etc.).

The transition from one structure of philosophical foundations to another means a revision of the previously established image of science. This transition is always a global scientific revolution.

The philosophical foundations of science should not be identified with the general body of philosophical knowledge. From the large field of philosophical problems and options for their solutions that arise in the culture of each historical era, science uses

only some ideas and principles act as supporting structures. Philosophy is not only a reflection on science. It is a reflection on the foundations of all culture. Its task includes analysis from a certain angle not only of science, but also of other aspects of human existence - analysis of the meaning of human life, justification of a desirable way of life, etc. By discussing and solving these problems, philosophy also develops categorical structures that can be used in science.

Thus, philosophy as a whole has a certain redundancy of content in relation to the demands of science of each historical era. When philosophy solves worldview problems, it develops not only those most general ideas and principles that are a prerequisite for the development of objects at a given stage of the development of science, but also categorical schemes are formed, the significance of which for science is revealed only at the next stages of the evolution of knowledge. In this sense, we can talk about certain predictive functions of philosophy in relation to natural science. Thus, the ideas of atomism, originally put forward in ancient philosophy, only in the 17th-18th centuries. have become a natural scientific fact. The categorical apparatus developed in Leibniz's philosophy was redundant for the mechanistic natural science of the 17th century. and can be retrospectively assessed as an anticipation of some of the most general features of self-regulating systems. The categorical apparatus developed by Hegel reflected many of the most general essential characteristics of complex self-developing systems. The theoretical study of objects belonging to this type of system in natural science began only in the middle of the 19th century. (if from the outside they were described by emerging geology, paleontology and embryology, then, perhaps, the first theoretical study aimed at identifying the patterns of a historically developing object can be considered the doctrine of Charles Darwin on the origin of species).

The source of the prognostic functions of philosophy is rooted in the main features of philosophical knowledge, aimed at constant reflection on the ideological foundations of culture. Here we can distinguish two main aspects that essentially characterize philosophical knowledge. First

of them is associated with the generalization of extremely broad material of the historical development of culture, which includes not only science, but also all phenomena of creativity. Philosophy often encounters fragments and aspects of reality that exceed the level of systemic complexity of objects mastered by science. For example, human-dimensional objects, the functioning of which presupposes inclusion in them human factor, became subjects of natural science research only in the era of the modern scientific and technological revolution, with the development of system design, the use of computers, the analysis of global environmental processes, etc. Philosophical analysis traditionally encounters systems that include the “human factor” as a component, for example, when understanding various phenomena of spiritual culture. It is not surprising that the categorical apparatus, which ensures the development of such systems, was developed in philosophy in general terms long before its application in natural science.

The second aspect of philosophical creativity, associated with the generalization of content that potentially goes beyond the scope of philosophical ideas and categorical structures necessary for the science of a certain historical era, is determined by the internal theoretical tasks of philosophy itself. By identifying the basic ideological meanings characteristic of the culture of the corresponding era, philosophy then operates with them as with special ideal objects, studies their internal relationships, connects them into an integral system, where any change in one element directly or indirectly affects the others. As a result of such intratheoretical operations, new categorical meanings may arise, even those for which it is difficult to find direct analogues in the practice of the corresponding era. By developing these meanings, philosophy prepares unique categorical matrices for future ideological structures, future ways of understanding, comprehending and experiencing the world.

Working on two interconnected poles - the rational understanding of the existing ideological structures of culture and the design of possible new ways for a person to understand the world around him (new ideological orientations) - philosophy performs its main function in the dynamics of sociocultural development. She not only explains

and theoretically substantiates certain existing ways of world perception and worldview that have already developed in culture, but also prepares original “projects”, extremely generalized theoretical schemes of potentially possible ideological structures, and therefore possible foundations of the culture of the future. In this process, those categorical schemes that are redundant for the science of a given historical era arise, which in the future can provide an understanding of new, more complex types of objects compared to those already studied.

The transition from one type of philosophical foundations of science to another is always determined not only by the internal needs of science, but also by the sociocultural environment in which philosophy and science develop and interact. The dual function of the philosophical foundations of science - to be a heuristic for scientific research and a means of adapting scientific knowledge to the worldviews prevailing in culture - makes them directly dependent on the more general situation of the functioning of philosophy in the culture of a particular historical era.

However, what is important for science is not only the existence of the necessary range of ideas and principles in the sphere of philosophical knowledge of the corresponding era, but also the possibility of turning them into its own philosophical foundations by selectively borrowing relevant categorical schemes, ideas and principles. This complex interaction between the historical development of philosophy and the philosophical foundations of science must also be taken into account when analyzing modern processes of restructuring these foundations.

Began during the revolution in natural science of the 19th - early 20th centuries. the transition from classical to non-classical science expanded the range of ideas that could become an integral part of the philosophical basis of natural science. Along with the ontological aspects of its categories, epistemological aspects began to play a key role, making it possible to solve the problems of the relative truth of scientific pictures of the world and continuity in the change of scientific theories. In the modern era, when the scientific and technological revolution radically changes the face of science, its philosophical foundations include those aspects of philosophy that consider scientific knowledge as a socially determined activity. Of course, heuristic and

predictive potentials do not exhaust the problems of practical application of philosophical ideas in science. This application presupposes a special type of research, in which the categorical structures developed by philosophy are adapted to the problems of science. This process is associated with the concretization of categories, with their transformation into ideas and principles of the scientific picture of the world and into methodological principles expressing the ideals and norms of a particular science. This type of research is the essence of the philosophical and methodological analysis of science. It is here that a unique selection is made from the categorical structures obtained in the development and solution of ideological problems, those ideas, principles and categories that turn into the philosophical foundations of the corresponding specific science (the foundations of physics, biology, etc.). As a result, when solving fundamental scientific problems, the content of philosophical categories very often acquires new shades, which are then revealed by philosophical reflection and serve as the basis for a new enrichment of the categorical apparatus of philosophy. The perversion of these principles is fraught with great costs for both science and philosophy.

4. Logic, methodology and methods of scientific knowledge

Conscious, purposeful activity in the formation and development of knowledge is regulated by norms and rules, guided by certain methods and techniques. The identification and development of such norms, rules, methods and techniques, which are nothing more than an apparatus of conscious control, regulation of activities for the formation and development of scientific knowledge, constitute the subject of logic and methodology of scientific knowledge. At the same time, the term “logic” is traditionally associated with the identification and formulation of the rules for deducing some knowledge from others, the rules for defining concepts, which, since antiquity, has been the subject of formal logic. Currently, the development of logical norms of reasoning, proof and definition as rules for working with sentences and terms in the language of science is carried out on the basis of the apparatus of modern mathematical logic. The subject of the methodology of science and its methodological analysis is understood more broadly, covering a variety of methods, techniques and

operations of scientific research, its norms and ideals, as well as forms of organization of scientific knowledge. Modern methodology of science intensively uses material from the history of science and is closely connected with the entire complex of sciences that study man, society and culture.

In the system of logical and methodological means with the help of which the analysis of scientific knowledge is carried out, various levels can be distinguished.

The theoretical basis of all forms of methodological research of scientific knowledge as a whole is the philosophical and epistemological level of analysis of science. Its specificity lies in the fact that scientific knowledge is considered here as an element of a broader system - cognitive activity in its relation to the objective world, in its involvement in the practical-transformative activity of man. The theory of knowledge is not just a general science of knowledge, it is a philosophical doctrine about the nature of knowledge.

Epistemology acts as a theoretical basis for various special scientific forms of methodological analysis, those levels where the study of scientific knowledge is carried out by non-philosophical means. It shows that only by understanding cognition as the formation and development of an ideal plan for human practical transformative activity, can one analyze the fundamental properties of the cognitive process, the essence of knowledge in general and its various forms, including scientific knowledge. At the same time, at present, not only scientific knowledge itself, but also its philosophical and epistemological problems cannot be analyzed without drawing on material from more specialized sections of the methodology of science. For example, a philosophical analysis of the problem of truth in science involves consideration of the means and methods of empirical substantiation of scientific knowledge, specific features and forms of activity of the subject of scientific knowledge, the role and status of theoretical idealized constructions, etc.

Any form of research into scientific knowledge (even if it is focused directly on the internal problems of a special science) potentially contains the germs of philosophical problems. It implicitly relies on premises that, when realized and turned into the subject of analysis, ultimately presuppose certain philosophical positions.

One of the main tasks of methodological analysis is to identify and study methods of cognitive activity carried out in science, to determine the possibilities and limits of applicability of each of them. In their cognitive activity, including scientific activity, people consciously or unconsciously use a wide variety of methods. It is clear that the conscious application of methods, based on an understanding of their capabilities and limits, gives human activity greater rationality and efficiency.

Methodological analysis of the process of scientific knowledge allows us to distinguish two types of research techniques and methods. Firstly, the 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. Let us call them conventionally general logical methods. 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.

With the help of general logical methods, knowledge gradually, step by step, reveals the internal essential features of an object, the connections of its elements and their interaction with each other. In order to carry out these steps, it is necessary to dissect the entire object (mentally or practically) into its component parts, and then study them, highlighting properties and characteristics, tracing connections and relationships, and also identifying their role in the system of the whole. After this cognitive task has been solved, the parts can again be combined into a single object and a concrete general idea can be formed, that is, a representation that is based on deep knowledge of the internal nature of the object. This goal is achieved through operations such as analysis and synthesis.

Analysis is the division of an integral object into its component parts (sides, characteristics, properties or relationships) with the aim of comprehensively studying them.

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

The objective prerequisite for these cognitive operations is the structure of material objects, the ability of their elements to regroup, unite and separate.

Analysis and synthesis are the most elementary and simple techniques knowledge that lies 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.

Another general logical technique of cognition is abstraction. Abstraction is a special method of thinking, which consists in abstracting from a number of properties and relationships of the phenomenon under study while simultaneously highlighting the properties and relationships that interest us. The result of the abstracting activity of thinking is the formation of various kinds of abstractions, which are both individual concepts and categories, and their systems.

Objects of objective reality have infinite sets of different properties, connections and relationships. Some of these properties are similar to each other and determine each other, while others are different and relatively independent. For example, the property of the five fingers of a human hand to correspond one-to-one to five trees, five stones, five sheep turns out to be independent of the size of objects, their color, whether they belong to living or inorganic bodies, etc. In the process of knowledge and practice, this relative independence of individual properties and highlight those of them, the connection between which is important for understanding the subject and revealing its essence.

The process of such isolation presupposes that these properties and relationships must be designated by special substitute signs, thanks to which they are fixed in consciousness as abstractions. For example, the specified property of five fingers corresponds one-to-one to five other objects and is fixed by a special symbolic expression - the word “five” or a number, which will express the abstraction of the corresponding number.

When we abstract a certain property or relationship of a number of objects, we thereby create the basis for their unification into a single class. In relation to the individual characteristics of each of the objects included in a given class, the characteristic that unites them acts as a common one. Generalization is a method of thinking that results in the establishment of general properties and characteristics of objects.

The operation of generalization is carried out as a transition from a particular or less general concept and judgment to a more general concept or judgment. For example, concepts such as “maple”, “linden”, “birch”, etc. are primary generalizations from which one can move to the more general concept of “deciduous tree”. By expanding the class of objects and highlighting the general properties of this class, one can constantly achieve the construction of ever broader concepts, in particular, in this case one can come to such concepts as “tree”, “plant”, “living organism”.

In the process of research, it is often necessary to draw conclusions about the unknown based on existing knowledge. Moving from the known to the unknown, we can either use knowledge about individual facts, going back to the discovery of general principles, or, conversely, relying on general principles, draw conclusions about particular phenomena. Such a transition is carried out using logical operations such as induction and deduction.

Induction 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. For example, by studying the properties of water, alcohols, and liquid oils, it is established that they all have the property of elasticity. Knowing that water, alcohols, and liquid oils belong to the class of liquids, they conclude that liquids are elastic.

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. For example, if we know that all metals are electrically conductive, and if it is established that copper belongs to the group of metals, then from these two premises the conclusion necessarily follows that copper is electrically conductive.

But the especially great cognitive significance of deduction is manifested in the case when the general premise is not just an inductive generalization, but some kind of hypothetical assumption, for example, a new scientific idea. In this case, deduction is the starting point for the emergence of a new theoretical system. The theoretical knowledge created in this way predetermines the further course of empirical research and guides the construction of new inductive generalizations.

When studying the properties and signs of the phenomena of the reality around us, we cannot cognize them immediately, in their entirety, in their entirety, but we approach their study gradually, revealing step by step more and more new properties. Having studied some of the properties of an object, we may find that they coincide with the properties of another, already well-studied object. Having established such similarity and found that the number of matching features is quite large, we can make the assumption that other properties of these objects coincide. A line of reasoning of this kind forms the basis of the analogy.

Analogy is a method of cognition in which, on the basis of the similarity of objects in some characteristics, they conclude that they are similar 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, L. 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.

Inferences by analogy, understood extremely broadly, as the transfer of information about one object to another, constitute the epistemological basis of modeling.

Modeling is the study of an object (original) by creating and studying its copy (model), replacing the original from certain aspects that are of interest to cognition.

The model always corresponds to the object - the original - in those properties that are subject to study, but at the same time differs from it in a number of other characteristics, which makes the model convenient for studying the object of interest to us.

The use of modeling is dictated by the need to reveal aspects of objects that either cannot be comprehended through direct study, or are unprofitable to study them in this way for purely economic reasons. A person, for example, cannot directly observe the process of natural formation of diamonds, the origin and development of life on Earth, a number of phenomena of the micro- and mega-world. Therefore, we have to resort to artificial reproduction of such phenomena in a form convenient for observation and study. In some cases, it is much more profitable and economical to build and study its model instead of directly experimenting with an object.

Models used in everyday and scientific knowledge can be divided into two large classes: material and ideal. The former are natural objects that obey natural laws in their functioning. The latter are ideal formations, recorded in the appropriate symbolic form and functioning according to the laws of logic, reflecting the world.

On modern stage scientific and technological progress widespread computer modeling has gained ground in science and in various fields of practice. A computer running a special program is capable of simulating a wide variety of real processes (for example, fluctuations in market prices, population growth, takeoff and entry into orbit of an artificial Earth satellite, a chemical reaction, etc.). The study of each such process is carried out using an appropriate computer model.

Among the methods of scientific research, as already noted, there are differences between the methods inherent in the empirical and theoretical levels of research. General logical methods are used at both levels, but they are refracted through a system of techniques and methods specific to each level.

One of the most important methods of empirical knowledge is observation. Observation refers to the purposeful perception of phenomena of objective reality, during which we gain knowledge about the external aspects, properties and relationships of the objects being studied.

The process of scientific observation is not a passive contemplation of the world, but a special type of activity that includes as elements the observer himself, the object of observation and the means of observation. The latter include devices and material media through which information is transmitted from an object to an observer (for example, light).

The most important feature of observation is its targeted nature. This focus is due to the presence of preliminary ideas, hypotheses that pose tasks for observation. Scientific observation, in contrast to ordinary contemplation, is always fertilized by one or another scientific idea, mediated by existing knowledge, which shows what to observe and how to observe.

Observation as a method of empirical research is always associated with a description that consolidates and conveys the results of observation using certain symbolic means. Empirical description is the recording by means of natural or artificial language of information about objects given in observation.

With the help of description, sensory information is translated into the language of concepts, signs, diagrams, drawings, graphs and numbers, thereby taking a form convenient for further rational processing (systematization, classification and generalization).

Description is divided into two main types - qualitative and quantitative.

Quantitative description is carried out using the language of mathematics and involves various measurement procedures. In the narrow sense of the word, it can be considered as recording measurement data. In a broad sense, it also includes finding empirical relationships between measurement results. Only with the introduction of the measurement method does natural science turn into an exact science. The measurement operation is based on comparing objects based on some similar properties or aspects. To do this

comparison, it is necessary to have certain units of measurement, the presence of which makes it possible to express the properties being studied in terms of their quantitative characteristics. In turn, this allows the widespread use of mathematical tools in science and creates the prerequisites for the mathematical expression of empirical dependencies. Comparison is not only used in connection with measurement. In a number of branches of science (for example, biology, linguistics) comparative methods are widely used.

Observation and comparison can be carried out both relatively independently and in close connection with experiment. Unlike ordinary observation, in an experiment the researcher actively intervenes in the course of the process being studied in order to obtain certain knowledge about it. The phenomenon under study is observed here under specially created and controlled conditions, which makes it possible to restore the course of the phenomenon each time the conditions are repeated.

The active intervention of the researcher in the course of a natural process, the artificial creation of interaction conditions by him does not at all mean that the experimenter himself, at his own discretion, creates the properties of objects and attributes them to nature. Neither radioactivity, nor light pressure, nor conditioned reflexes are properties invented or invented by researchers, but they are identified in experimental situations created by man himself. His creative ability is manifested only in the creation of new combinations of natural objects, as a result of which the hidden but objective properties of nature itself are revealed.

The interaction of objects in an experimental study can be simultaneously considered in two ways: both as human activity and as the interaction of nature itself. The researcher asks questions to nature, and nature itself gives the answers.

The cognitive role of experiment is great not only in the sense that it provides answers to previously posed questions, but also in the fact that in the course of it new problems arise, the solution of which requires new experiments and the creation of new experimental installations.

One of the essential methods of theoretical research is the technique of formalization, which is increasingly used in science (in connection with its mathematization). This technique consists in constructing abstract mathematical models that reveal the essence of the processes of reality being studied. When formalizing, reasoning about objects is transferred to the plane of operating with signs (formulas). Relations of signs replace statements about properties in relations of objects. In this way, a generalized sign model of a certain subject area is created, which makes it possible to detect the structure of various phenomena and processes while abstracting from the qualitative characteristics of the latter. The derivation of some formulas from others according to the strict rules of logic and mathematics is a formal study of the main characteristics of the structure of various, sometimes very distant in nature, phenomena. Formalization is especially widely used in mathematics, logic and modern linguistics.

A specific method for constructing a developed theory is the axiomatic method. It was first used in mathematics in the construction of Euclid's geometry, and then, in the course of the historical development of knowledge, it began to be used in the empirical sciences. However, here the axiomatic method appears in a special form of the hypothetico-deductive method of theory construction. Let's consider what the essence of each of these methods is.

In the axiomatic construction of theoretical knowledge, a set of initial positions is first specified that do not require proof (at least within the framework of a given knowledge system). These provisions are called axioms or postulates. Then, according to certain rules, a system of inferential proposals is built from them. The set of initial axioms and propositions derived on their basis forms an axiomatically constructed theory.

Axioms are statements whose truth is not required to be proven. Logical inference allows you to transfer the truth of axioms to the consequences derived from them. Following certain, clearly fixed rules of inference allows you to streamline the reasoning process when deploying an axiomatic system, making this reasoning more rigorous and correct.

The axiomatic method developed as science developed. Euclid's "Principles" were the first stage of its application, which was called meaningful axiomatics. The axioms were introduced here on the basis of existing experience and choice.

were expressed as intuitively obvious propositions. The rules of inference in this system were also considered to be intuitively obvious and were not specifically recorded. All this imposed certain restrictions on the meaningful axiomatics.

These limitations of the substantive-axiomatic approach were overcome by the subsequent development of the axiomatic method, when a transition was made from substantive to formal and then to formalized axiomatics.

When formally constructing an axiomatic system, there is no longer a requirement to select only intuitively obvious axioms, for which the domain of objects they characterize is predetermined. Axioms are introduced formally, as a description of a certain system of relations: the terms appearing in the axioms are initially defined only through their relationship to each other. Thus, axioms in a formal system are considered as unique definitions of initial concepts (terms). These concepts initially do not have any other, independent definition.

Further development of the axiomatic method led to the third stage - the construction of formalized axiomatic systems.

The formal consideration of axioms is supplemented at this stage by the use of mathematical logic as a means of ensuring the strict derivation of consequences from them. As a result, the axiomatic system begins to be built as a special formalized language (calculus). Initial signs - terms are introduced, then the rules for combining them into formulas are indicated, a list of initial formulas accepted without proof is given, and, finally, rules for deriving derivatives from basic formulas. This creates an abstract symbolic model, which is then interpreted on a wide variety of object systems.

The construction of formalized axiomatic systems led to great success primarily in mathematics and even gave rise to the idea of ​​​​the possibility of its development by purely formal means. However, the limitations of such ideas soon became apparent. In particular, K. Gödel in 1931 proved theorems on the fundamental incompleteness of sufficiently developed formal systems. Gödel showed that it is impossible to construct such a formal system, the set of deducible (provable) formulas of which would cover many

the existence of all content-true statements of the theory for the formalization of which this formal system is built. Another important consequence of Gödel's theorems is that it is impossible to solve the question of the consistency of such systems by their own means. Gödel's theorems, as well as a number of other studies on the substantiation of mathematics, showed that the axiomatic method has limits of its applicability. It is impossible, for example, to imagine all of mathematics as a single axiomatically constructed system, although this does not exclude, of course, the successful axiomatization of its individual sections.

Unlike mathematics and logic, in empirical sciences a theory must not only be consistent, but also empirically substantiated. This is where the peculiarities of constructing theoretical knowledge in empirical sciences arise. A specific technique for such construction is the hypothetico-deductive method, the essence of which is to create a system of deductively interconnected hypotheses, from which statements about empirical facts are ultimately derived.

This method in exact natural science was used already in the 17th century, but it became the object of methodological analysis relatively recently, when the specifics of theoretical knowledge in comparison with empirical research began to become clear.

Developed theoretical knowledge is not built “from below” through inductive generalizations of scientific facts, but unfolds, as it were, “from above” in relation to empirical data. The method of constructing such knowledge is that a hypothetical construction is first created, which is deductively deployed, forming a whole system of hypotheses, and then this system is subjected to experimental testing, during which it is clarified and specified. This is the essence of the hypothetico-deductive development of the theory.

The deductive system of hypotheses has a hierarchical structure. First of all, it contains a hypothesis (or hypotheses) of the upper tier and hypotheses of the lower tiers, which are consequences of the first hypotheses.

A theory created by the hypothetico-deductive method can be replenished with hypotheses step by step, but up to certain limits, until difficulties arise in its further development. During such periods, it becomes necessary to reconstruct the very core of the theoretical structure, to put forward a new hypothetico-deductive system that could explain the facts under study without introducing additional hypotheses and, in addition, predict new facts. Most often, during such periods, not one, but several competing hypothetico-deductive systems are put forward. For example, during the period of restructuring of electrodynamics by X. A. Lorentz, the systems of Lorentz himself, Einstein, and the hypothesis of J. A. Poincaré, which was close to A. Einstein’s system, competed with each other. During the period of construction of quantum mechanics, the wave mechanics of L. de Broglie - E. Schrödinger and the matrix wave mechanics of W. Heisenberg competed.

Each hypothetico-deductive system implements a special research program, the essence of which is expressed by the upper-tier hypothesis. Therefore, the competition of hypothetico-deductive systems acts as a struggle between various research programs. For example, Lorentz's postulates formulated a program for constructing a theory of electromagnetic processes based on ideas about the interaction of electrons and electromagnetic fields in absolute space-time. The core of the hypothetico-deductive system proposed by Einstein to describe the same processes contained a program associated with relativistic ideas about space-time.

In the struggle between competing research programs, the winner is the one that best incorporates experimental data and makes predictions that are unexpected from the point of view of other programs.

The task of theoretical knowledge is to provide a holistic image of the phenomenon under study. Any phenomenon of reality can be represented as a concrete interweaving of a variety of connections. Theoretical research highlights these connections and reflects them using certain scientific abstractions. But a simple set of such abstractions does not yet give an idea of ​​the nature of the phenomenon, the processes of its functioning and development. In order to obtain such an idea, it is necessary to mentally reproduce the object in all the completeness and complexity of its connections and relationships.

This research technique is called the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete. Using it, the researcher first finds the main connection (relationship) of the object being studied, and then, step by step, tracing how it changes under different conditions, discovers new connections, establishes their interactions, and in this way reflects in its entirety the essence of the object being studied.

The method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete is used in the construction of various scientific theories. A classic example of the application of this method is “Capital” by K. Marx. But this method can be used not only in social, but also in natural sciences. For example, in the theory of gases, having identified the basic laws of an ideal gas - Clapeyron's equations, Avogadro's law, etc., the researcher goes to the specific interactions and properties of real gases, characterizing their essential aspects and properties. As we delve deeper into the concrete, new abstractions are introduced, which provide a deeper reflection of the essence of the object. Thus, in the process of developing the theory of gases, it was found that the ideal gas laws characterize the behavior of real gases only at low pressures. This was due to the fact that the abstraction of an ideal gas neglects the extensional forces of molecules. Taking these forces into account led to the formulation of Van der Waals' law.

All the described methods of cognition in real scientific research always work in interaction. Their specific system organization is determined by the characteristics of the object being studied, as well as the specifics of a particular stage of the study. In the process of development of science, the system of its methods also develops, new techniques and methods of research activity are formed. The task of scientific methodology is not only to identify and record already established techniques and methods of research activity, but also to clarify trends in their development.

From the very moment of his birth, man strives to understand the world. He does this in a variety of ways. One of the surest ways to make what is happening in the world understandable and open is scientific knowledge. Let's talk about how it differs, for example, from non-scientific knowledge.

The very first feature that scientific knowledge has is its objectivity. A person committed to scientific views understands that everything in the world develops regardless of whether we like it or not. Private opinions and authorities cannot do anything about it. And this is wonderful, because it is impossible to imagine a different situation. The world would simply end up in chaos and would hardly be able to exist.

Another difference between scientific knowledge is the direction of its results into the future. Scientific discoveries do not always bear immediate fruit. Many of them are subject to doubt and persecution from individuals who do not want to recognize the objectivity of phenomena. A huge amount of time passes before a true scientific discovery is recognized as having taken place. There is no need to look far for examples. It is enough to recall the fate of the discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo Galilei regarding the bodies of the solar Galaxy.

Scientific and non-scientific knowledge have always been in confrontation and this has determined another one. It necessarily goes through such stages as observation, classification, description, experiment and explanation of the natural phenomena being studied. Other species do not have these stages at all, or they are present in them separately.

Scientific knowledge has two levels: scientific knowledge consists in the study of facts and laws established by generalizing and systematizing the results obtained through observations and experiments. Empirically, for example, Charles’s law on the dependence of gas pressure and its temperature, Gay-Lussac’s law on the dependence of the volume of a gas and its temperature, Ohm’s law on the dependence of current on its voltage and resistance have been identified.

And theoretical scientific knowledge examines natural phenomena more abstractly, because it deals with objects that are impossible to observe and study under normal conditions. In this way they discovered: the law of universal gravitation, the transformation of one thing into another and its conservation. This is how electronic development develops and this is based on the construction, in close connection with each other, of principles, concepts, theoretical schemes and logical consequences arising from the initial statements.

Scientific knowledge and scientific knowledge are obtained through observations and experiments. An experiment differs from an observation in that the scientist has the opportunity to isolate the object being studied from external influence, surrounding it with special, artificially created conditions. An experiment can also exist in mental form. This happens when it is impossible to study an object due to the high cost and complexity of the required equipment. Scientific modeling is used here, and the creative imagination of the scientist is used to put forward hypotheses.

Scientific and non-scientific knowledge always walk side by side. And although they are most often in opposition, it must be said that the first is impossible without the second. It is impossible to imagine modern science without the inquisitive mind of the people, who invented myths, studied phenomena in the course of life practice, and left our generation with an invaluable treasure trove of folk wisdom, which contains common sense that helps us guide ourselves in life. Objects of art also play a large role in understanding the world. As diverse as life is, so diverse are its laws.