Question number 45
Value category in philosophy of science:
values in cognition as a form of manifestation of the sociocultural conditioning of knowledge
The term " value"extremely ambiguous,today, but in most cases, value is understood as significance for individuals and society.
As a rule, the subject of a value attitude is a person, a social group, society as a whole, but with the advent of systemic-structural methodology, the concept of value began to be applied to systems that do not include a person, as a parameter of a goal-setting system.carrying out the assessment and selection procedures.
When applied to the cognitive process, the concept of "value" also turned out to be ambiguous, multidimensional, fixing different axiological content.
- This is, firstly, emotionally coloredattitude containing interests, preferences, attitudes etc., formed in a scientist under the influence moral, aesthetic, religious — sociocultural factors in general.
- Secondly, it is value orientations within cognition itself including ideologically painted, on the basis of which the forms and methods of description and explanation, evidence, organization of knowledge are evaluated and selected, for example scientific criteria, ideals and norms of research .
- Thirdly, values in knowledge Is objectively true subjectknowledge (fact, law, hypothesis, theory) and effective operational knowledge (scientific methods, regulatory principles), which, thanks to the truth, correctness, information content, acquire significance and value for society.
Throughout the 20th century, there was a discussion in the philosophy of science about the role of values in science: are they a necessary "driving force" for the development of science or a condition for the successful activity of scientists is their release from all possible value orientations? Is it possible to completely exclude value preferences from judgments about facts and to know the object as such, in and of itself? The answers to these questions and the introduction of terminology and methods of reasoning about this problem are presented by Kant, who distinguished the world of existence and the world of what should be, among the neo-Kantians, in the works of M. Weber, who studied the difference between scientific and value.
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By Cant, theoretical (scientific) mind is aimed at knowing the "world of existence", practical mind(moral consciousness) addressed to the "world of what is due" - norms, rules, values. In this world, the moral law, absolute freedom and justice, the human striving for good prevail. So, a scientist as a bearer of theoretical reason must have a moral way of thinking, possess critical self-esteem, a high sense of duty and humanistic convictions. The doctrine of values, or axiology as applied to scientific knowledge, was fundamentally developed by the German philosopher G. Rickert... The philosopher proceeds from the fact that values are an "independent kingdom", respectively, the world does not consist of subjects and objects, but of reality as the initial integrity of human life and values. Recognition of an independent world of values is a metaphorically expressed desire to affirm the objective (non-subject) nature of values, a way of expressing its independence from the everyday evaluating activity of the subject, which depends, in particular, on upbringing, taste, habits, availability of information and other factors. The special role of historical science is revealed, which studies the process of crystallization of values in the benefits of culture, and only by examining historical material, philosophy will be able to approach the world of values. One of the main procedures for philosophical comprehension of values is to extract them from culture, but this is possible only with their simultaneous interpretation and interpretation. Renowned German historian, sociologist and economist M. Weber investigated the problem of values also directly at the level of scientific knowledge, distinguishing between natural and social sciences and the humanities and their ways of solving the problem of “freedom of science from values”. There are various possibilities for the value correlation of an object, while the relation to a value-related object does not have to be positive. If in qualitySome objects of interpretation will be, for example, "Capital" by K. Marx, "Faust" by I. Goethe, Sistine Chapel by Raphael, "Confession" by J.J. Rousseau, then the general formal element of such an interpretation - the meaning will be to reveal to us the possible points of view and direction of the assessments. If the interpretation follows the norms of thinking accepted in any doctrine, then this forces one to accept a certain assessment as the only "scientifically" permissible in a similar interpretation, as, for example, in Marx's Capital. Value analysis, considering objects, classifies them as a value independent of purely historical, causal meaning, which is beyond the historical. |
Today, values are understood not only as "the world of what is due", moral and aesthetic ideals, but also any phenomena of consciousness and even objects from the "world of existence" that have one or another ideological and normative significance for the subject and society as a whole. A significant expansion and deepening of axiological problems in general also occurred due to the recognition that various cognitive and methodological forms - truth, method, theory, fact, principles of objectivity, validity, evidence, etc. - themselves received not only cognitive, but also value status. Thus, it became necessary to distinguish two groups of values functioning in scientific knowledge
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- first - sociocultural, ideological values due to the social and cultural-historical nature of science and scientific communities, the researchers themselves;
- second - cognitive-methodological values that perform regulatory functions that determine the choice of theories and methods, methods of proposing, substantiating and testing hypotheses, assessing the grounds for interpretations, the empirical and informative significance of data.
D In recent decades, science has been primarily considered only asthe static structure of knowledge that has become, i.e. the activity and socio-historical aspects were eliminated.Today the situation is significantly different. Studies of science as a unity of knowledge and activities for the development of this knowledge brought the problem to the forefront regulators of cognitive activity, i.e. its value-normative prerequisites and driving forces, as well as the mechanisms of their change and replacement of one by another.
The desire to identify the structure of developing scientific knowledge and consider it systematically led to the realization of the need to connect new "units" of methodological analysis - a system of various conceptual prerequisites ( sociocultural, ideological) vform and form philosophical and general scientific methodological principles of building a scientific picture of the world, style of scientific thinking, ideals and norms of cognitive activity, common sense etc.
So XX century has proved that science cannot bestrictly objective, independent of the subject of knowledge, free of value aspects, because as a social institution it is included in the system of economic, socio-political, spiritual relations that exist in a specific historical type of society. Science, walking hand in hand with humanistic morality, turns into a great blessing for all living, while science, indifferent to the consequences of its own deeds, unambiguously turns into destruction and evil(for example, the creation of weapons of mass destruction, the use of genetically modified substances, the growing pollution of air, water, soil, depletion of natural resources, etc.).
One of the fruitful ways of meaningful concretization values and value orientations in science - this is their interretreat as a historically changing system of norms and ideals of knowledge ... Values of this kind lie at the basis of scientific research, and it is possible to trace a fairly definite relationship between cognitive attitudes proper and social ideals and norms; to establish the dependence of cognitive ideals and norms both on the specifics of objects studied at one time or another by science, and on the characteristics of the culture of each historical epoch.
In this case, scientific knowledge is already understood as an active-active reflection of the objective world, determined in its development not only by the characteristics of the object, but also by historically established prerequisites and means; as a process oriented by worldview structures and values that lie in the foundation of a historically defined culture.
This understanding makes it possible to identify deeper levels of value conditioning of cognitive processes, to substantiate their organic "splicing".
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EPISTEMOLOGY (Greek episteme - knowledge, logos - teaching) - philosophical - methodological a discipline in which knowledge as such, its structure, structure, functioning and development. Traditionally identified with the theory of knowledge. |
The epistemological problem is to understand how the value-loaded activity of the subject can perform constructive functions in cognition. To solve this problem, the most fruitful becomes the search and identification of adequate means and mechanisms, which are developed within the very scientific knowledge and can serve to eliminate the deformations coming from the subject, distortions under the influence of personal and group tendentiousness, prejudices, prejudices, etc. Nevertheless the activity itself
value-oriented subject of knowledge, based on the objecteffective laws, becomes in the field of scientific knowledge a decisive determinant factor and the main condition for obtaining objectively true knowledge in specificsocio-historical conditions.
The "presence of man" in traditional forms and methods of scientific cognition is becoming more and more recognized; discovered axiological, value aspects in the formation and functioning of scientific methods. |
To understand the dialectics of cognitive and value, first of all, the existing in society and science must be realized. methods and ways of forming the very subject of scientific activity - his socialization
... One of the fundamental characteristics of the subject of scientific activity is its sociality, which has an objective basis in the general nature of scientific work, which is due to the aggregate work of scientists who have preceded and contemporary to the subject. Sociality is not a factor external to a person, it is from the inside determines his consciousness penetrating and "naturalizing" in the process of the formation of the personality as a whole.
General form of socialization
Socialization is carried out through language and speech; through knowledge systems that are theoretically conscious and formalized as a result of social practice; through the value system, and finally through the organization of individual practice society forms both the content and the form of the individual consciousness of each person.
Rational and regulatory form of socialization
subject of scientific activity
Along with the general laws, the socialization of the subject of scientific activity includes a number of special ones. The most important mechanism of socialization of the subject of scientific activity is his assimilation of generally recognized and standardized norms and rules of this activity., in which the historical experience of society in scientific and cognitive activity and communication in the field of this activity is generalized and crystallized. The scientist is prescribed certain ways of achieving goals, the proper form and nature of relations in the professional group are prescribed, and his activities and behavior are evaluated in accordance with the models and standards adopted in the scientific team. Thus, subjectively irrationalistic, indefinitely arbitrary moments in his professional behavior, primarily directly in the research process, are largely removed.
Socio-historical form of socialization
subject of scientific activity
It is obvious that rational forms of such regulation of the activity of the subject of scientific activity are necessary and, in addition, presuppose their coordination with other methods of ordering activity that are not limited to direct, direct regulation and regulation as such. This refers to the system of both cognitive and worldview, ethical and aesthetic values that perform orienting functions in the researcher's search activity, as well as the way of seeing (paradigm) - one of the most important socio-psychological characteristics of the subject of scientific activity from the point of view of his belonging to the scientific community ... The scientist's way of seeing is not limited to purely psychological characteristics of perception. It is also conditioned by social moments, primarily professional, cultural and historical ones.
Science is in the same space of culture and society with all other types of activity that pursue their own interests, are subject to the influence of power, ideologies, political choices, require recognition of responsibility - hence the impossibility of neutrality and aloofness for science itself. But at the same time, one kind of neutrality must be preserved - the neutrality of science as knowledge, which requires objectivity and a certain autonomy.
IDEALS AND STANDARDS OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE - a set of intrascientific values, methodological and other requirements, attitudes that organize, direct and evaluate both the course of scientific research itself and its results - scientific knowledge at each specific historical stage in the development of science. The main functions of the ideals and norms of scientific knowledge are organizational and regulatory. They are designed to orient scientific research towards more effective ways, methods and forms of achieving scientific results. Three levels are distinguished among the ideals and norms of science: 1) cognitive ideals and norms proper; 2) social requirements (standards) that determine the role of science in public life; 3) specifically objective ideals and norms, where the settings of the first and second levels are concretized in relation to a specific science (in mathematics there is no ideal of experimental verification of the theory, but for experimental sciences it is obligatory); for biology, the ideas of evolution are expressed by the method of historicism, but in physics this method is not used. Cognitive ideals and norms of science have a complex organization in which the following forms are distinguished: a) nomes and ideals of explanation and description; b) norms and ideals of evidence and validity of knowledge; c) norms and ideals of the organization and construction of knowledge. They are described by the following categories: scientific truth, scientific proof, scientific efficiency, criteria for the scientific character of knowledge, scientific theory, scientific explanation, scientific understanding, etc. The second level of ideals and norms of scientific research is represented by historically changeable attitudes that characterize the style of thinking that dominates a certain stage of its historical development. The first and second levels of ideals and norms of science form the axiological foundation of the historical type of science (ancient Eastern, ancient, medieval, modern European, classical, non-classical, post-nonclassical.) During the transition to a new historical stage in the development of science, its ideals and norms radically change.
INDIVIDUAL THINKING STYLES- these are the usual for a scientist ways of forming judgments and deriving new knowledge. The following styles are distinguished: 1) dogmatic - characterized by an uncritical attitude to once accepted positions and unwillingness to see changes in the object in a new way; 2) metaphysical - characterized by the desire to consider any object outside its development and relationship with other phenomena, i.e. torn out of a variety of relationships; 3) eclectic - characterized by a purely external combination of individual provisions, and not by their logical coherence; 4) sophistic - characterized by the desire to highlight a certain main idea that is not, and substantiate it with the help of arbitrarily chosen arguments; 5) skeptical - characterized by a distrustful attitude towards any statement and opinion of other scientists; 6) systemic - characterized by the desire to consider objects as complex, developing formations in their connections with other objects. In reality, in its pure form, it is rarely found in one scientist, most often a combination of several styles is used with the dominance of one of them. Each of the thinking styles has its own merits and demerits, so it can contribute to the success or failure of scientific analysis.
SCIENTIFIC TRUTH - empirical and theoretical statements of science, the content of which is similar to the real subject, which is approved by the scientific community in the following forms: a) for empirical statements - in the form of correspondence to the results of constant, correctly processed observation and experiment data; b) for theoretical statements - in the form of assumptions of the presence of identity in the original axioms and their logical consequences derived from them on the basis of the rules of logic.
CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES - a way of ordering a variety of sciences based on the realization of social need to find the relationship and systemic integrity of sciences. In the history of science, there have been several attempts to classify sciences. The first attempt was made by Aristotle, dividing the sciences into three groups: theoretical, practical and poetic. In the Middle Ages, Arab thinkers paid attention to this problem: al-Kindi singled out three stages of scientific knowledge (the first - logic and mathematics, the second - natural sciences, the third - metaphysics, defining philosophy as "knowledge about everything"); al-Farabi classified the sciences into four sections (the first is the science of language, the second is logic, the third is mathematics, the science of stars, physical geography, etc., the fourth is natural sciences and metaphysics); Avicenna subdivided all knowledge into theoretical and practical. In the Middle Ages in Europe, a system of sciences ("free arts") was formed - grammar, dialectics and rhetoric - the "trivium" of sciences, and arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music - a "quadrium" of sciences, over which towered the "supreme science" - theology. In modern times, F. Bacon showed interest in the classification of sciences, taking as a basis several criteria: 1) the object of study - nature, man, God; 2) human cognitive abilities - memory, reason, imagination and faith. The presence of memory provides the emergence of history, reason - philosophy, imagination - poetry, faith - theology. Representatives of the French Enlightenment, within the framework of their "Encyclopedia", singled out mathematics, physics, chemistry, physiology. Saint-Simon proposed a classification of sciences by analogy with the class structure of society: slave-holding-feudal society - theology, capitalism - positivism. Hegel proposed a fundamental classification of sciences, dividing "real philosophy" into "philosophy of nature" and "philosophy of spirit", while "philosophy of nature", in turn, divided into mechanics, physics and organic physics, and "philosophy of spirit" - into subjective spirit (anthropology, phenomenology, psychology), objective spirit (law, morality, morality) and absolute spirit (art, religion, philosophy). In the XIX century. O. Comte divided all sciences into theoretical and applied, and theoretical sciences, in turn, divided into abstract and concrete. Abstract sciences were presented in the form of a number of sciences, built according to the degree of abstractness and complexity, and the movement went from the abstract to the concrete and from the simple to the complex: mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, physiology, sociology. At the same time, there was no philosophy as a science. The modern approach adopted in Russian philosophy is based on the idea of F. Engels to classify sciences according to the forms of motion of matter (mechanical, physical, chemical, biological, social) and is based on the following principles: a) each form of motion of matter has its own material carrier; b) each higher form of motion of matter is a synthesis of the lower ones; c) higher forms of motion of matter cannot be reduced to lower ones. On the same principles, Russian philosophers B.M. Kedrov and A.A. Butakov. According to B.M. Kedrov, science is a false and ramified organism, which can be schematically represented in two sections - vertical and horizontal. The vertical slice is represented by the sciences expressing the steps of more and more complete and deep knowledge of one and the same subject (natural science, techno-knowledge, human knowledge). Within the framework of the vertical dimension, fundamental and applied sciences are distinguished, exact and inaccurate. The horizontal one is described by the gradual complication of the object of science. But on the whole, the complex structure of sciences is based on the forms of motion of matter. The comprehension of the need to distinguish between the natural and social sciences comes in the 19th century. V. Dilthey proposed to divide all sciences into two large groups: the sciences of nature and the sciences of the spirit. The same goal was pursued by W. Windelband and G. Rickert, proposing a classification of sciences based on research methods, while sciences are divided into nomothetic (focused on the discovery of laws) and idiographic (describing events). Currently, the most recognized classification of sciences is considered, built on the basis of the subject of research: the sciences of nature (natural science), the sciences of society (social and humanitarian knowledge), the sciences of artificially created objects (technical sciences), the sciences of human health (medical sciences) , science about the quantitative relations of the objective world (mathematics). At the same time, each of the areas of science can be concretized according to individual disciplines, where classification according to the forms of motion of matter is appropriate. In addition, in modern science, the criterion of distance from practice is used for classification, and all sciences are divided into fundamental (the goal of comprehending the truth) and applied (the goal is practical application).
CONCEPT- a certain way of scientific understanding, interpretation of an object, phenomenon, process, the main point of view on an object or phenomenon, a guiding idea for their systematic coverage.
CREATIVITY- creativity, ingenuity, productive originality of human intelligence and thinking, the subjective side of creativity. It is due to the fact that the human brain is a dynamically complex, open, unstable synergistic system. The disequilibrium of the cerebral system becomes the source of its new higher ordering, the appearance of attractive modes of a more complex structure and, along with them, a new spatio-temporal organization. Creative thinking is characterized by the simultaneous grasping of opposites: information extracted from the environment and its imposition on neural and psychological structures and forms of diversity; structural and activity aspects of human behavior and communication with the environment; figurative-logical, symbolic-symbolic organization of intelligence and technical systems, structures and functions. Creativity is a way of personal self-realization, which serves as the basis for resolving the main objective contradiction (between goals and means) in the search for a new creative solution, including a technical solution.
CRITERIA FOR THE SCIENTIFICITY OF KNOWLEDGE- the main characteristics of scientific knowledge: 1) objectivity – assumes that the cognition of a phenomenon is carried out independently of the cognizing subject, i.e. there is a distraction from the interests of the cognizing individual and from everything above the natural; 2) evidence and validity - which can be empirical facts and logical reasoning; 3) expressiveness in concepts – assumes that scientific knowledge should be expressed in a system of concepts developed by a given science (uses a specialized scientific language), allowing it to be included in a certain scientific theory 4) rationality - in scientific knowledge, not just something is communicated, but the necessary grounds are given on which this statement can be considered true (the principle of sufficient reason applies here); 5) essential characteristic - with references that are communicated in a particular system of knowledge should relate to the essence of objects; 6) consistency - s knowledge should be organized in a special way in the form of a theory or a detailed theoretical construction in a special language of concepts and categories of a given area of knowledge; 7) verifiability means that knowledge must find its confirmation in practical activity and be reproducible in it; 8) the ability to develop - is considered as the potential of knowledge to generate new knowledge.
THE PERSONALITY OF THE SCIENTIST- a scientist-researcher, carrying out the acquisition of new knowledge. Research is carried out in certain social conditions that affect the purpose of the research and the choice of methods for achieving results, interpretation and scope of practical application. But a scientist is not only determined by social conditions, but is a unique person, which affects the process of scientific research and its results. Therefore, scientific thought is an individual and social phenomenon and is inseparable from a person-scientist.
METAORETICAL LEVEL OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE - it is the highest level of scientific knowledge, which is a set of principles, norms, ideals that form the basis of scientific theories and science as a whole, which ensure the unity and certainty of scientific activity, and affect the nature of the emerging theoretical knowledge. For the first time, the metatheoretical level of scientific knowledge became a subject of study in the concepts of post-positivism. It is customary to refer to the metatheoretical level of scientific knowledge as the scientific picture of the world, the style of scientific thinking, the interpretation of scientific rationality, a paradigm, and a research program. Due to its systemic nature, scientific knowledge of the metatheoretical level belongs to fundamental scientific theories.
SCIENTIFIC PICTURE OF THE WORLD - it is an integral system of ideas about the general properties and laws of reality, existing at certain stages in the development of science on the basis of generalization of fundamental scientific concepts. Depending on the grounds on which the division is based, there are: 1) the general scientific picture of the world - ideas about the whole of reality; 2) a natural-scientific picture of the world - ideas about natural nature (physical, chemical, biological, etc., and one of the pictures of the world at a particular stage of historical development becomes the leading one). The main characteristic of the scientific picture of the world is its consistency, since it provides a synthesis of knowledge. It is paradigmatic in nature, because sets a system of attitudes and principles of knowledge of the world and influences the formation of socio-cultural, ethical, methodological and logical norms of scientific analysis, directing and orienting scientific research. The scientific picture of the world is a scientifically grounded, concrete historical view of the world, which determines the style and method of scientific thinking. The scientific picture of the world is created in two main ways: 1) generalization of ontological schemes of various particular areas of scientific knowledge; 2) reduction of the ontological scheme of one of the sciences to others (biology - to physics, chemistry). Scientific knowledge is a change in the pictures of the world. The following pictures of the world are distinguished: 1) classical, based on the discoveries of Galileo and Newton and continuing until the end of the 19th century, its essence boils down to: a) the world is considered as a set of a huge number of indivisible and unchanging particles (atoms); b) all events are predetermined by the laws of mechanics; c) movement is considered as the movement of bodies in space, i.e. space and time are only arenas of moving bodies; d) nature is a machine, parts of which are subject to rigid determination; e) all natural science knowledge is based on various kinds of mechanical processes; 2) non-classical - formed under the influence of the theory of thermodynamics, relativistic and quantum theory, the concept of a nonstationary universe, which led to a revolution in natural science at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. - considers nature as a complex dynamic system, asserts a new understanding of the subject of cognition, is not outside the observed world, but inside it, forms a new scheme of nonlinear determination based on the theory of probability; 3) a post-nonclassical picture of the world - based on the achievements of synergetics, objects are considered as open nonlinear systems, where the role of the case when local causes can cause global consequences is great, uncertainty becomes of particular importance as an attributive characteristic of the world, chaos becomes not a source of deconstruction, but an attitude towards formation stability, the theory of directed disorder arises.
SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE - it is a special type of cognitive activity aimed at developing new, systematized, objective knowledge, the process of transition of the logic of being (essence, laws) into the logic of thinking, during which new knowledge is acquired. Cognitive activity is a process of active reflection by a social subject of reality, and not its mechanical, mirror copying. Scientific knowledge relies on the principles of scientific rationality, is carried out by professionally trained people (see the scientific community), relies on rules, norms, methods strictly defined for a specific area (see methods of scientific knowledge, paradigm, research program). The results of scientific research, in contrast to everyday cognition, are universal; they reveal the essence of the studied subject, the laws of its functioning and development. In contrast to esoteric knowledge, scientific knowledge has a generally valid character and is devoid of dogmatism (see levels of scientific knowledge, forms of scientific knowledge). Scientific knowledge is carried out according to the laws of objective reality. The universal (dialectical) laws of the development of being and scientific knowledge (thinking) are two series of laws, identical in essence and different in their expression. Man, as a subject of scientific knowledge, applies these laws consciously, while in nature they are realized unconsciously.
SCIENTIFIC CONSCIOUSNESS- This is an aspect or part of consciousness, the content of which is scientific activity, regulated by values, norms and methods of obtaining it. In the structure of scientific knowledge, there are: 1) the sensory stage (data of scientific observation and experiment) and the rational (reason, which conceptually organizes information, and the mind, constructing and creating thought process); 2) two philosophical and methodological categories - "empirical" and "theoretical" as the main forms of the cognitive process; 3) its levels, which differ in the methods of cognitive activity and in the forms of acquired knowledge.
OBJECT OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE(from Latin - I throw forward, oppose; Late Latin - subject) – a fragment of being that has turned out to be included in scientific research, that which opposes the subject. The object of cognition must be viewed, on the one hand, as a "pure" reality, but, on the other hand, as reality included in the relationship with the subject. From the point of view of epistemology in cognitive activity, the subject does not exist without the object. Ontologically, they exist independently of each other.
FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE- certain standards for organizing scientific activities. Science is a system of true, logically consistent and practice-based knowledge. All scientific knowledge must meet certain standards, i.e. have clearly verified foundations, in the capacity of which it is customary to distinguish: 1) philosophical foundations; 2) the scientific picture of the world; 3) ideals and norms of scientific knowledge, characteristic of a given era and the specifics of the area under study.
FEATURES OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE- this is a specific difference between scientific knowledge and other types of knowledge, which is manifested in the fact that it: 1) reflects the essential properties and objective laws of the studied reality; as a result, it has explanatory and predictive functions; has a conceptual, systematized nature, has a developed conceptual apparatus; 2) is accurate, reasonable, proven; 3) is formed in the course of the professional activity of scientists, carried out using specific methods.
POSITIVE KNOWLEDGE(from Lat. positive) - a term of positivism to characterize knowledge as such, in contrast to illusions, fantasies, values, emotions, etc. The standard of positive knowledge is scientific knowledge, built on the principles of scientific rationality, and the main criteria of positivity are the concreteness (unambiguity) of formulations and empirical testability. The introduction of this term determined the problem of demarcation, central to positivism (delimitation of science and religion, philosophy, ideology). The question of the degree of positivity of theoretical knowledge dealing with ideal objects became the source of the evolution of positivism in the 19th-20th centuries. The identification in the structure of science of elements that fundamentally do not fit into the framework of positivity led to the emergence of post-positivism (see empirio-criticism, neopositivism, logical positivism, verification).
UNDERSTANDING- a side, or step, of knowledge of an object, along with its description or explanation. Understanding is the initial concept and subject of research in hermeneutics. Understanding is not identical to cognition, explanation, although they are related. It is associated with comprehension, that is, the identification of what has any meaning for a person. Understanding as a real movement in meanings, the practical mastery of these meanings accompanies any constructive cognitive activity. It can act in two ways: as an introduction to the meanings of human activity and as meaning formation. The essence of understanding is interpreted in different ways - from a specific way of knowing, characteristic of the humanities (Baden school, neo-Kantianism), to a specific way of human existence in general (Heidegger). Understanding is associated with immersion in the "world of meanings" of another person, comprehension and interpretation of his thoughts and experiences. It is inseparable from self-understanding and occurs in the element of language. Understanding as a cognitive procedure involves: 1) revealing the implicit, hidden content of a phenomenon or text; 2) the inclusion of knowledge or a question in the general context of known connections and relationships; 3) correlation of knowledge with elements of value-semantic and motivational-volitional spheres of consciousness. The understanding procedure should not be qualified as a purely irrational act. It also cannot be confused with "insight", "insight", intuition.
PRAGMATISM(from the Greek. action, deed) - the direction of American philosophy that developed at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, the key issue of which is the substantiation of the truth of judgments and theories. The founders are Charles Pierce (1839-1914) and W. James (1842-1910). Rejecting the classical interpretation of truth as a correspondence to reality, representatives of pragmatics emphasize its instrumental nature: what is useful is true, from which beneficial consequences follow. The practical usefulness of a theory is not understood as the confirmation of its practice (as in Marxism), but what satisfies the subjective interests of the individual, which allowed some authors to classify pragmatism as subjective idealism.
SCIENTIFIC PRACTICE - this is the area of material activity in science, which includes: 1) experimentation as the art of creating conditions for the flow of material processes in which the object of research and its properties are repeatedly reproduced, measured and controlled (material and cognitive activity is based on a certain system of knowledge, substantiated in past experience) ; 2) engineering, technical and technological activities, which are the most important foundations and sources for the development of scientific knowledge, as well as criteria for its truth.
SUBJECT OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE- if by the object of cognition they mean real fragments of being subjected to scientific research, then by the subject of cognition they mean specific aspects of this area of reality, to which cognition is directed directly. So, a person, being the object of research in many sciences (biology, medicine, psychology, sociology, philosophy, etc.), can be considered from different angles, and in each science from its own point of view, therefore, in these areas of science, individual research tasks can be distinguished, constituting their subject of research (for philosophy, a person as an object of research is cognized through elucidating his essence, place in the world and his relationship with the world, and social determination of personality and other problems can act as an object of cognition).
SENSATIONALISM- a trend in epistemology, affirming the priority of the sensory side of cognition. Formed as the opposite of rationalism in the philosophy of modern times. He considers sensation to be the only source of knowledge ("there is nothing in the mind that would not have been in sensations before"). Materialistic sensationalism argues the priority of sensations by the fact that only they connect consciousness with objects of objective reality (Locke, French materialists of the 17th century, Feuerbach, dialectical materialism). Idealistic sensationalism considers sensations to be the only reality given to man (Berkeley, Hume, empirio-criticism).
PROPERTY- a category that expresses a side of an object that determines its difference or commonality (similarity) with other objects. (length, elasticity, color, etc.). Any property is relative (does not exist outside the relationship to the properties of other things) and objective. Each thing has an infinite number of properties, the unity of which is its quality. Distinguish between: internal and external, essential and insignificant, necessary and accidental, main and secondary properties.
SYSTEM(from the Greek. made up of parts, connected) is a general scientific concept denoting a special vision of things as a set of elements united by regular stable connections (structure) and characterized by the expediency of functioning as subsystems. A system is a set of elements that are in relationships and connections with each other, forming a certain integrity, unity based on any integrative (system-forming) properties that ensure its integrity - a condition for relatively separate functioning and, in some cases, development of the system. In the ontological sense, the concept of a system expresses the orderliness and integrity of being; in the epistemological sense, it expresses the integrity, completeness, and derivability of knowledge. Representation of any object as a system is carried out according to the following basic principles: 1) integrity (irreducibility to the sum of the properties of its elements); 2) structure (description of the network of connections and relationships between its elements); 3) interdependence on the environment; 4) hierarchy; 5) construction of many different models, each of which describes only a certain aspect of the system. The following types of systems are distinguished: a) material (inorganic nature and living systems) and abstract (scientific systems, concepts, theories, hypotheses); b) static (do not change over time) and dynamic (change over time); c) by the nature of the interaction between the system and the external environment, they are divided into closed or closed ones.
SPECIFICITY OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE- is determined by its subject, purpose, object, methods of obtaining knowledge and its result.
STYLES OF SCIENTIFIC THINKING- this is a historically established stable system of generally accepted methodological standards and philosophical principles, which, expressing the generally accepted stereotypes of intellectual activity of a particular era, underlie scientific research in a particular era of historical development, therefore, the following specific historical forms are distinguished: 1) in classical science ( XVII-XIX centuries) in the study of an object, everything that belongs to the subject is eliminated, therefore the objective style of thinking prevails here; 2) in non-classical science (first half of the 20th century) the objectivism of classical science is rejected, and the interpretation of an object begins to be considered in connection with the means of its subjective cognition; 3) in post-non-classical science (second half of the 20th century), the knowledge gained about an object necessarily includes everything that is associated with the subjective prerequisites of knowledge (features of the means and operations of activity and the value orientations of the subject of cognition).
STATISTICAL LAWS- the form of scientific laws, in which the connection between the initial and subsequent states of the object (process) under study is fixed with a certain degree of probability. Initially, the concept of statistical laws was formed in the study of mass phenomena, where numerous factors and random connections operate, which cannot be fully taken into account. For example, in the physics of gases, only a probable understanding of the trajectories of molecules through the concept of a statistical distribution is possible. Classical science, which studied mainly autonomous objects with a limited number of connections, focused on the formulation of the laws of science in the form of dynamic laws that unambiguously link action and result, cause and effect, initial and subsequent states (for example, Newtonian mechanics). Therefore, initially the probabilistic methods of research and the statistical laws derived on their basis were regarded as flawed, forced time approximations. The style of thinking within the framework of classical science was characterized by the idea that the use of a dynamic law gives an exact result, and the use of statistical laws is an approximate one.
STRUCTURE(from Latin structure, location, order) - the structure and internal form of organization of the system, which determines the relationship of the elements of the system, the nature of their changes, the manifestation of certain properties by them, the set of stable connections of the object, ensuring its integrity and identity to itself, the preservation of the basic properties with various external and internal changes, an invariant aspect of the system. The category of structure is a development of the concept "form" (form is the structure of content). The structure expresses what remains stable, relatively unchanged under various transformations of the system. The structure ensures the integrity and stability of the system, the performance of certain functions by its elements. Moreover, the structure is inconceivable outside the system, and the system always has a structure.
STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE - unity of stable relationships between elements of scientific knowledge. The structure of scientific knowledge can be considered in the following aspects: 1) as a type of cognitive activity for obtaining new scientific knowledge, it consists of: the subject of scientific knowledge, the object of scientific knowledge, means of knowledge and the specifics of the language; with this approach, two levels of scientific research can be distinguished: - empirical and theoretical; 2) as a system of knowledge, where two approaches are distinguished: a) science as an integral system of knowledge, includes a number of special sciences, which are subdivided into many scientific disciplines; with this approach, the problem of classification of sciences arises; b) assumes the presence of the following components: factual material, the result of its initial generalization, problems and hypotheses based on these facts; laws, principles and theories; pictures of the world; ideals and norms of scientific knowledge; philosophical foundations of science; style of thinking.
SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE: HISTORICAL INTERPRETATIONS - these are the main approaches to solving the problem of the relationship between the subject and the object of knowledge in the history of human thought. In ancient philosophy, this problem does not receive a distinct formation and comprehension. Among the representatives of the Milesian school, Heraclitus, the Eleatics, the problem of the relationship of the subject to the object appears in the form of the problem of the relationship of being to non-being, “true” knowledge and “opinion”. Empedocles and Anaxagoras consider this problem as a question of the relationship between the knower and the knowable, how an object turns into knowledge about it. It was generally accepted for ancient thinkers to believe that knowledge is one with what it is knowledge. The debate was about the mechanism of the process by which an object turns into knowledge. Ancient materialism proposes to consider this process in the form of the doctrine of the "outflow of images": particles are separated from things, "outflows", which penetrate into the senses and exert pressure on them; at the same time, some outflows are separated from the perceiving organ, which come into contact with those coming from the outside; the resulting image is knowledge about the object, which is felt, experienced by the knowing subject. Consequently, the image is the result of a purely external, mechanical combination of outflows, images coming from the subject and from the object, and is thought of as some thing that can even move away from the knowing subject and exist outside of it. For Plato, the mechanism of cognition is memories, and disputes, dialogues are just a way to make the mind directly see the idea in its own soul, or remember it. The soul is filled with ideas that it once saw in the heavenly world, therefore, there is no need for education for knowledge, knowledge in a person is initially laid down due to the qualities of his soul (moreover, each person has his own capabilities, which makes some philosophers-wise, others warriors, and the third - by farmers, workers). Aristotle, like other ancient thinkers, does not have a similar modern interpretation of the subject. For him, the subject exists in two senses: 1) as matter, i.e. unformed substance, or 2) as an individual being, i.e. something formalized, objective, i.e. objective. In the same spirit, the Stoics use the concept of "subject", for whom the subject is a qualityless being and the ultimate universal subject of all reasoning. Otherwise, the subject is not an epistemological, but an ontological and formal-logical category. The medieval concept of the subject and the object of cognition is based on the opposition of the subject to the object, and the subject is understood as something completely real, while the object is as something mental, existing not so much in things as in the mind of a person. Boethius was the first to contrast the subject of a sentence with its predicate, and in this sense this term is still used in formal logic today. The new European concept of the subject and object of cognition is based on the views of representatives of German classical philosophy. For the first time in the history of philosophy, Kant showed that an object is not a thing that is alien to the subject, outwardly opposed to it. The object, according to Kant, exists and is cognized as such only in the forms of the subject's activity. Only after Kant the terminological tradition was fixed to call the cognitive being by the term "subject", and the object of cognition by the term "object". But Kant's world of objects is fundamentally fenced off from the real world, which he calls "thing-in-itself." The cognized object appears as a product of the subject and in this. In fact, there is no object without a subject: Kant's subject is not a natural individual, but a kind of activity, internal and spiritual, which is found in functioning, expressed in the design of sensations through categorical synthesis. The world of objects, according to Kant, arises through the external interaction of sensations caused by the influence on the subject of "things in themselves" with a priori cognitive forms of contemplation and reason of the subject himself. Thus, Kant not only defined the subject as a cognizing being, but also showed him to be an actively acting being that determines the nature of the cognitive relationship with the object. The line of interpreting the subject as an active, acting being was continued after Kant in the philosophy of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. For Hegel, the true subject of cognition and activity is the Absolute Spirit, for whom cognition is a supra-individual process of unfolding its essence. Therefore, Hegel affirms the identity of thinking and being, subject and object. For Hegel, nature exists independently not only of the individual person, but also of humanity. Consciousness arises from nature at the highest stage of its development, and only in man is the Absolute Spirit embodied in consciousness. At the earlier stages of its formation and development, the spirit existed in an unconscious form. The idea of the identity of the subject and the object, along with emphasizing the inner unity of the knower and the knowable, serves in Hegel's system to assert the position of the spiritual nature of reality: not only the subject, but also the object he knows is spiritual, since the Absolute Spirit knows itself. Thus, in Hegel and other representatives of German classical philosophy, in contrast to materialism and idealism of the 17th-18th centuries, the subject is not a biological individual, but self-consciousness. Marxist concept of the subject and object of cognition – based on the development of Hegel's idea of the unity of the practical and the cognitive, where the subject of cognition is not just a biological being and not self-consciousness, but an active, practical being. It is by virtue of an active character that a person becomes a subject of cognition, and an object becomes a cognitive object. In the Russian philosophy of science, a dialectical view of the cognitive process is preserved as a movement from living contemplation to abstract in thinking, and from it to practice. In this process, the subject is connected with the object by dialectical relations. Representations of modern Western philosophy about the subject and object of knowledge – proceeds from the critical rationalism of K. Popper, who made an attempt to create an epistemology without a cognizing subject, therefore knowledge is interpreted in an objective sense as "knowledge without someone who knows: it is knowledge without a cognizing subject." The ahistorical understanding of the subject, as well as of all scientific knowledge, also remains widespread.
SUBJECT OF SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY (from Lat. sabjectum - underlying) - in the philosophy of science is currently interpreted in several senses: 1) as a separate scientist, whose name is associated with the discovery; 2) as a special community of people - scientists, specially engaged in the production of knowledge; 3) as the whole of humanity, consisting of separate nations, when each nation, producing the norms, ideas and values recorded in its culture, acts as a special subject of cognitive activity. Subjects of scientific activity have special training, during which they use their stock of knowledge, mastering the means and methods of obtaining it, makes them their property on the basis of their worldview, value orientations, ethical principles and target attitudes specific to this area of scientific knowledge in the research of a certain era. The true subject of cognition is never only epistemological. This is a living person with her passions, interests, character, temperament, talent, will, etc. But in fact, by the subject of cognition, they still mean a kind of impersonal logical clot of intellectual activity. The subject and his cognitive activity can be adequately understood only in their specific historical context. Scientific knowledge presupposes not only the conscious attitude of the subject to the object, but also to himself, to his activity, i.e. comprehension of techniques, norms, methods of research work, traditions. Cognition subjects are distinguished at each stage of the development of science: classical, non-classical, post-non-classical: 1) at the stage of classical science, the subject of cognition is an "epistemological Robinson" (this is a subject "in general", outside socio-cultural and subjective characteristics; by itself ”, as if in“ pure form ”without any extraneous additions, absolutely objectively); 2) the subject of non-classical science no longer claims to absolute knowledge, since the knowledge obtained is: a) relative, which is often understood as subjective, b) instrumental, which means that this knowledge is intended for solving certain problems, c) the subject of cognition is not contemplating the world an epistemological machine, but an actively cognizing being, and not only exploring certain aspects of the object, but also forming the object of cognition itself, d) the subject of cognition is not so much an individual person as large research teams; 3) the characteristics of the subject of post-non-classical science are similar to the subject of cognition of non-classical science, but there are also new differences: in connection with the globalization of scientific activity, the subject of cognition goes beyond national boundaries and an international "scientific ethos" is formed (R. K. Merton), who is able to solve modern problems.
CREATION- the activities of people aimed at creating a new one that has never been before; the ability of a person to create a new reality in the process of labor from a known material available in reality that meets diverse social needs; the ages of the degree of human freedom, humanization of social relations. Scientific creativity is the creation of new theories, new scientific disciplines, the discovery of new phenomena, the introduction of new concepts and terms. Creativity is an activity in the sphere of ignorance, therefore a purposeful search for the unknown is impossible. The decisive role in creativity is assigned to subconscious and irrational factors (and, above all, intuition).
SCIENTIFIC CREATIVITY Is the process of producing cognitive innovations in science in the form of laws, theories, methods, models, principles, technologies, etc. Personal forms of creative activity are: a) inspiration (the highest rise in the emotional and intellectual capabilities of a person); b) intuition (instant insight, which combines sensual and rational, conscious and unconscious, where preliminary creative search, accumulation and comprehension of factual material, problem statement, hypothesis and determination of a set of research methods are implicitly manifested); c) dream and fantasy; d) imagination; e) guess. The creative process in science consists of the following stages: 1) choosing the subject of research, 2) formulating the goals and objectives of the analysis in the form of a set goal, 3) collecting information, 4) determining the method and methods of research, 5) finding ways to solve a scientific problem by incrementing new scientific ideas or the creation of new ideal models, 6) formalizing the obtained data into a logically coherent system, 7) the ability to make risky decisions, combined with a willingness to defend them in the face of members of the scientific community. A pioneering scientist must have the courage to break conventional stereotypes and prove the validity of new ones. Without a struggle (a qualitative leap), the transition to a new one is impossible. A. Poincaré wrote: "Not everyone is capable of creativity", because cannot defend the results of its creation. To develop creative activity, A. Osborne proposes the concept of "brainstorming" or "brainstorming", which is based on the method of emancipation, which is achieved by observing the following principles: a) express any thought without fear that it will be recognized as unsuccessful; b) the more wild the idea seems, the more actively it will be accepted; c) the number of proposed ideas should be as large as possible; d) the ideas expressed are not anyone's property and each scientist has the right to combine, modify, improve the ideas expressed by others. The ability to be creative can be developed and improved in the process of long and persistent self-education. Creative activity presupposes independence, flexibility, perseverance, self-confidence, a thirst for knowledge, a desire for invention and experimentation, a willingness to take risks.
THEORETICAL METHODS OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE - 1) Formalization - the display of meaningful knowledge in a sign-symbolic form (formalized language), when reasoning about objects is transferred to the plane of operating with signs or formulas; 2) axiomatic method - a method of constructing a scientific theory, when it is based on some initial provisions - axioms (postulates), from which all other statements of this theory are derived; 3) hypothetical-deductive method - the creation of a system of deductively related hypotheses, based on the derivation (deduction) of conclusions from hypotheses, the true meaning of which is not substantiated (the conclusion obtained on the basis of this method will inevitably have only a probabilistic nature); 4) ascent from the abstract to the concrete - a method of theoretical research and presentation, consisting in the movement of scientific thought from the original abstraction ("beginning" - one-sided, incomplete knowledge) through successive stages of deepening and expanding knowledge to the result - a holistic reproduction of the studied subject in theory. As its prerequisite, this method includes an ascent from the sensually concrete to the abstract, to the isolation of individual aspects of the object in thinking and their “fixation” in the corresponding abstract definitions. The movement of cognition from the sensually concrete to the abstract is a movement from the individual to the general, here such logical devices as analysis and induction prevail. The ascent from the abstract to the mentally-concrete is a process of movement from separate general abstractions to their unity, concrete-universal; here the methods of synthesis and deduction prevail.
THEORETICAL (IDEALIZED) OBJECT Is an object that is endowed not only with real features, but also features that are not in reality (material point, black hole), this is the result of mental design, when a researcher abstracts from insignificant connections and features of an object and builds an ideal object that acts as a carrier only essential connections. The task of theoretical research is to cognize essences in their pure form, which allows this to be done by introducing abstract, idealized objects into the theory.
THEORETICAL LEVEL OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE- development of mental models of the studied process, designed to generalize and explain the available facts and empirical laws. At this level, the researcher operates with idealized objects, the properties and relationships of which generalize the essential properties and relationships of objects of reality. His specific methods are idealization, formalization, axiomatization, thought experiment, hypothetical-deductive. The knowledge that arises at this level (hypothesis, theory, law) not only explains the available empirical material, but also contributes to its growth, performing predictive and methodological functions.
THEORETICAL SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH Is an action aimed at developing the conceptual apparatus of science and associated with improving the knowledge of objective reality and its laws. It is represented by ideal objects in the form of abstractions or theoretical constructs. There is no direct practical interaction with objects that are studied only indirectly, in a thought experiment. Theoretical research uses the following methods: idealization (the method of constructing an idealized object), a thought experiment (which replaces a real experiment with real objects), axiomatic and hypothetical-deductive methods of constructing a theory, etc. Together with empirical research, these two types of research are organically interconnected and represent an integral structure of scientific knowledge: empirical - contributes to the development of theoretical knowledge, supplying new experimental data for its generalization, and theoretical research opens up new perspectives for empirical research based on the explanation of facts and experimental data.
THEORETICAL KNOWLEDGE - the highest (in comparison with the empirical) stage (level) of the cognition process, in which the rational component predominates, although the sensory component is not eliminated here, but becomes subordinate. On the basis of empirical data, theoretical knowledge reveals the essence, the laws of the phenomena under study, comprehends objective truth in its concreteness. At this level, essential properties and relationships are singled out in their pure form. At the stage of theoretical knowledge, methods and techniques are used such as abstraction, idealization, synthesis, deduction, ascent from the abstract to the concrete, etc. A characteristic feature of theoretical knowledge is reflexivity, a critical study of the process of cognition itself, its forms, techniques, methods, conceptual apparatus. The main forms of theoretical knowledge are the problem, hypothesis, theory, law, principle. The empirical and theoretical levels of cognition are interconnected, the border between them is conditional and mobile.
THEORY- the most developed form of scientific knowledge, which gives a holistic display of natural and essential relationships in a certain area of reality, which is a system of knowledge that reflects essential, natural, necessary, internal connections of a particular area of reality. Theory as a system of generalized and reliable knowledge about any part of reality, which describes, explains and predicts the development of this part. Being different from practice, as a product of spiritual activity, theory is inextricably linked with practice, since the latter sets tasks for science and requires their solution. In the structure of the theory, the following are distinguished: a) initial foundations - fundamental concepts, principles, laws, axioms, philosophical attitudes; b) a set of laws and statements derived from the foundations of this theory; c) the logic and methodology used to build it. There are the following types of theories: 1) mental (model of reality, built in the form of concepts and discourses); 2) a logical model of empirical experience; 3) the product of the scientific activity of the researcher. The basic building blocks of any scientific theory: the original object
FACT(from Lat. done, accomplished) - one of the most important concepts of epistemology. Most often it is used in three meanings: 1) fragments of reality related either to objective reality or to subjective reality; 2) knowledge about any event, phenomenon, the reliability of which has been proven. 3) A proposal that fixes the knowledge obtained in the course of observations and experiments. In the second and third meaning, it acts as a scientific fact - the basis and foundation of science. Facts are never "blind": they are always theoretically loaded in one way or another. Accordingly, there can be no "pure language of observations." The contradiction between theories and facts is the basis for the development of scientific knowledge.
LEVELS OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE - types of scientific knowledge, qualitatively different in subject matter, method and functions, united into a single system, among which are: empirical, theoretical and metatheoretical. Their unity ensures relative independence, stability and the ability to develop any scientific discipline.
PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE- these are philosophical ideas and principles that are contained in a given scientific discipline and determine the most general directions of its cognitive activity. They are heterogeneous and historical, perform heuristic and methodological functions and are a tool for the increment of new knowledge. Two subsystems of philosophical foundations can be distinguished: 1) ontological, which is a system of categories that serve as a matrix of understanding in the process of cognition (structure, object, subject, space, time, process, property, relations, etc.); 2) epistemological, which characterizes the cognitive process and its results (method, explanation, proof, theory, understanding, fact). Both subsystems develop historically, and the very development of philosophical foundations is a prerequisite for the introduction of science into new subject areas. The philosophical foundations of science allow for variations in philosophical ideas and categorical meanings used in scientific research. Their formation requires not only philosophical, but also special scientific training, which makes it possible to adapt the ideas developed in philosophical analysis to the needs of a specific science, and subsequently, on this basis, rise to a new level of philosophical generalization. Research carried out at the intersection of philosophy and concrete science reflects the methodological significance of philosophy, which is confirmed by the historical development of science, when researchers in their activities combined specific scientific and philosophical ideas (Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Einstein, etc.).
VALUE - an object (intellectual or material) that has a positive meaning for a person or society. Distinguish between social and individual values. Social values include ethical, aesthetic, political, worldview. The orientation towards these values is the social orientation of the scientist. They orient the scientist to the selection of information based on the public interest. This choice is made by a scientist in any field of knowledge. The main stimulus for scientific research is not so much the values of science itself as extrascientific values that are significant for a person and society - social, anthropological, environmental, etc. The question of the moral responsibility of a scientist is connected with the value orientations of research. Individual-personal values play a huge influence on scientific research, i.e. the value prerequisites of a particular scientist, which largely determines his strategy as a scientist. The problem of the value prerequisites of scientific knowledge and the influence of the subject on the process of cognition was deeply studied by phenomenology. Its founder, E. Husserl, introduces the concept of "horizons of consciousness" (the content of consciousness against the background of which cognition is carried out) and "life world" (what constitutes a person's life experience, which is verified by his everyday situations).
EMPIRICAL OBJECT- This is a real, natural or social object that has a certain set of features that are recorded in the process of scientific observation or experiment.
EMPIRICAL LEVEL OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE- the initial stage of scientific knowledge, its basis, providing a connection between knowledge and reality. The empirical level of scientific knowledge lies in the establishment of facts, their primary grouping, the derivation of the so-called "empirical law". At the empirical level, the researcher deals with real objects, the properties of which are not controlled by consciousness. The task of the empirical level is to identify and describe them. Specific methods of the empirical level are observation and experiment, which include measurement (comparison with a standard). Positivism absolutized the empirical level of scientific knowledge, opposing it to the theoretical one. The dialectic of scientific knowledge consists, in particular, in the fact that the theory, as it were, "penetrates" at the empirical level, defining its cognitive attitudes, being embodied in devices, specific methods, language of description, etc.
EMPIRICAL SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH- This is an action directly aimed at the object and based on the results of observation and experiment. Together with theoretical research, these two types of research are organically interrelated and represent an integral structure of scientific knowledge: empirical - contributes to the development of theoretical knowledge, supplying new experimental data for its generalization, and theoretical research opens up new perspectives for empirical research based on the explanation of facts and experimental data. Empirical research is focused on the study of external properties and relationships of objects. It describes the existence and functioning of an object in the form of classification and groupings of experimental data based on their generalization and highlighting similar features. Empirical research is based on the direct practical interaction of the scientist with the object under study. The knowledge gained is here recorded in the form of an empirical scientific fact.
EMPIRICAL (EXPERIMENTAL) SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE- fact-fixing knowledge about the studied scientific object. This is the initial stage of scientific knowledge, where living contemplation (sensory cognition) prevails, and the rational moment and its forms have a subordinate meaning. Collection of facts, their primary generalization, description of observed and experimental data, their systematization, classification and other "fact-fixing" activities are its characteristic features, and the most common methodological techniques are comparison, measurement, analysis and induction.
EPISTEMOLOGY(from the Greek episteme - knowledge) - the theory of scientific knowledge, exploring its essence, specifics, structure of the method, levels, relationship with other (non-scientific) forms of knowledge. The Greek concept of "episteme" meant "knowledge" i.e. "Proven statement" as opposed to the notion of "doxa" (an opinion is a statement that could be true, but could also be false). The purpose of scientific knowledge is the production of just epistemic, that is, proven information, logically consistent knowledge (or universal truths), in contrast to ordinary, practically utilitarian or other types of knowledge. Accordingly, the main problem of epistemology is the question of the possibility of obtaining necessary, true and universal knowledge. It is central to rationalistic philosophical trends.
THIS IS A SCIENCE - a set of moral imperatives, moral norms adopted in a given scientific community and determining the behavior of a scientist. R. Merton argues that scientific norms are built around four fundamental values: universalism, universality, disinterestedness (disinterest) and organized skepticism. Universalism is considered as a principle according to which natural phenomena studied by science proceed the same everywhere and the truth of scientific statements is assessed regardless of who and when they were obtained (only the reliability confirmed by accepted scientific procedures is important. Universality (collectivism) is the principle that scientific knowledge should be a common property and presupposes the publicity of scientific results.Unselfishness (disinterest) is considered as the norm of the researcher's activity: the search for truth, free from personal gain, fame and monetary reward (they can only be a consequence of scientific achievements, but not a goal. Organized skepticism means critical attitude to oneself and to one's colleagues, because there are no unshakable authorities, and criticism is viewed as an element of scientific research Ethics of science studies the moral foundations of scientific activity: correct definition of authorship, inadmissibility of plagiarism, focus on novelty, unacceptable falsification of an experiment and a scientific discovery, correct references and citation, the impossibility of insulting an opponent in the course of scientific polemics, awareness of personal professional responsibility for the construction of a scientific theory and for the negative consequences of the introduction of scientific achievements into production. And Einstein said that not only the fruits of a scientist's creativity and his intellectual achievements are important for science, but also his moral qualities: objectivity, incorruptibility, exactingness, devotion, perseverance, etc. A science devoid of moral imperatives can bring humanity to the brink of disaster. A special science has been formed - bioethics, the problems of which require urgent solutions. Carcinogens, stress loads, pollution of the environment destroy the gene pool and destroy the health of mankind. It is necessary to develop criteria that allow experimentation not only on animals, but also on humans. Various methods of artificial human reproduction, replacement of affected organs, impact on aging processes lead to borderline situations when the achievements of scientific and technological revolution are not predictable in their consequences. Experiments in the field of genetic engineering, cloning technology, manipulation of the human psyche, the effect on the human brain are tantamount to the effects of drugs and tranquilizers. In the 70s. XX century for the first time a moratorium on hazardous research was declared. In 1997, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted the "Convention on Biomedicine and Human Rights", which prohibited interference with the human genome. Ethical regulation of science is considered today as a vital necessity and the most important prerequisite for the future development of science.
1.1. Social cognition in the system of scientific knowledge and its specificity. The process of acquiring, accumulating, comprehending and developing knowledge about man and society, which continuously takes place in human history, is built as a multifaceted and multidirectional activity in a number of spheres of life. Among the various types of cognition, a specific place is occupied by scientific cognition, focused on obtaining reliable and objective knowledge, the formulation and critical consideration of problems related to the life and development of society in space and time, and the problems of human development.
Scientific knowledge, considering the natural and social worlds, seeks to rationally and theoretically comprehend them, to reveal the universal, universal laws of their existence and development, and to organize the knowledge gained into a system. However, natural science and social scientific knowledge are considered as two special regions of science, having a common unifying fundamental context of rationality, but differing in their specifics. Social cognition- a special type of scientific and cognitive activity aimed at the development of objective, substantiated and systematized knowledge about social reality, phenomena and processes occurring in it, as well as about life and human development in society. The general guideline of social cognition is the desire to comprehend the Truth about a person and about society. The interpretations of truth are varied; it is understood and how scientific system, which includes objectivity and subjectivity, absoluteness and relativity, universality and concreteness, and how adequate correspondence of knowledge to reality(classical understanding), and how intrinsic property of knowledge according to the theoretical context, and how vague concept, from which it is better to refuse, since it complicates knowledge. However, this variety of interpretations does not cancel the researcher's general striving for truth.
Social cognition is brought to life not only by the needs of practical activity, but also by the desire of a person to comprehend the content and meanings of his spiritual and cultural being. As these needs and aspirations grow, the need for an increase in the volume of scientific knowledge about social and human reality also grows.
Both society and man, “human reality” (EB Rashkovsky) are the most complex objects of cognition. In the object of social cognition, two interrelated aspects can be conditionally defined: 1) development of society as a system proceeding in accordance with its inherent laws, and 2) human development in the unity of his social, psychological and personal qualities. Therefore, along with the desire for scientific objectivity and reliability, social cognition takes into account the subjective world of a person in its complexity and depth, in its manifestations in social life.
Specific objects of social cognition are the results of human activity and interaction between people in the process of this activity, therefore, the researcher is required not only to describe and interpret material practice, relationships and structures, but also ideal, spiritual relationships in all their complexity, inconsistency and semantic richness. Determining the object of social cognition in its integrity, one can rely on the differentiation of three conventional layers proposed by EB Rashkovsky - socio-engineering, civilization, spirituality, which form the living tissue of human reality - individual, collective and universal - and are closely related to each other. 1) The world of sociotechnics is "an external, empirical horizon of human activity, material and institutional praxis"; it is a socio-economic dimension. 2) The world of civilization “is associated primarily with those norms, values, images and concepts that explicitly and implicitly form the basis of the processes of learning and self-learning of people, their continuously lasting socialization, internal and external transmission of the cultural and historical memory of human communities, their adaptation to changing conditions of existence ". 3) The world of spirituality “is associated with partly ineffable, latent, in many respects even non-verbal human relationships. It is difficult to broadcast, it is difficult to be covered by rational training programs. He acts in intersubjective connections ... "This is the world of" personal knowledge "(M. Polanyi), culture and human freedom.
The study of such a complex object is historically differentiated according to several branches of social knowledge, which are conventionally typologized in two versions. The first divides them into two subsystems - social / social sciences, the object of which is social reality, and the humanities, the object of which is personal reality. The second option seems to be more meaningful. Social sciences are grouped into three groups:
1) Socio-philosophical knowledge- the backbone of all social knowledge, exploring the manifestation of the universal in society, in society. In essence, this knowledge is normative, comprehending both what is and what is due (including the ideal and utopia). Socio-philosophical knowledge develops general ideas about society, a person, their relationship, interaction and mutual influence.
2) Social and practical knowledge unites sciences that explore the world of social practice, uniting disciplines, the object of which is the world of socio-engineering (economic sciences) and disciplines that have the object of the world of civilization (sociological, political and historical sciences).
3) Humanitarian knowledge, exploring the world of human subjectivity, "the world of spirituality" - this area includes such sciences as cultural studies, religious studies, psychology, pedagogy, as well as the corresponding branches of sociological and historical knowledge.
Based on the specifics of society as an object of cognition, let us define the features of social cognition as follows.
1. The object of social cognition - society, spheres of social life, culture, man - is qualitatively one with the subject who studies it, since both have a human essence. Therefore, unlike the natural sciences, in the social sciences, an impartial attitude of the researcher to the object is impossible. This means that social cognition is influenced by extra-scientific factors, but on the other hand, it acts as self-knowledge of society and a person.
2. In social cognition, it is practically impossible to consider a specific studied object outside of its connections and relations with the surrounding social reality.
3. The methods of the social sciences differ from the methods of the natural sciences in less rigidity and rigor, more flexibility, and the possibilities of experimentation and observation are significantly narrowed.
4. The identification of patterns and the definition of concepts in the social sciences is not subject to clear rules, as in the natural, and is rather conditional than unambiguous.
5. The process of social cognition is influenced by the subjective world of the researcher, his value attitudes and ideological beliefs, respectively, a subjective dimension is invariably present in social cognition.
6. In social cognition, consideration of events, phenomena, processes and phenomena in development plays a huge role, therefore historicity is its essential characteristic.
Taking into account these specific features, three aspects are determined in social cognition: ontological, epistemological and axiological.
Ontological aspect expressed in the interpretation (explanation) of social and human existence, its content, trends, dimensions, patterns and meanings. The interpenetration of personal and social life in its dynamic dimension is the basis for the deployment of various points of view and interpretations of the life of society, social, cultural and human phenomena.
Epistemological aspect correlated both with the ontological aspect and with the above-mentioned features of social cognition and is concluded in the problem of the possibility of formulating one's own social laws, categories, and, therefore, claiming the truth and status of science. Questions about the method, possibilities, boundaries of social cognition, the role of the subject in social cognition, the relationship between logical and intuitive cognition, and other similar issues constitute the problematic field of the epistemological aspect.
Axiological aspect social cognition implies the presence in the process of cognition of the values that guide the researcher, as well as the values of the society in the context of which his activity takes place, as well as the values that exist in the object of cognition itself.
Social cognition, like any developed form of knowledge, is characterized not only by the study of its object in its entirety, but also by the comprehension of the very process of obtaining and interpreting knowledge. And if in the positivist paradigm the cognition of the social world and the cognition of the research process were quite unambiguously differentiated, then in modern science, to the comprehension of facts (factology) and the thought process itself, an analysis of what EB Rashkovsky called “the inner experience of a researcher in his most complex spiritual, social and psychological background ”. In other words, it is possible to understand how the discovery, accumulation, increase and development of knowledge about social reality occurs if we analyze not only scientific activity, but also take into account the characteristics of the subject of cognition - his personal social and cultural experience, plus the influence of this experience on his scientific -research activity.
This leads to the formulation of the question of how social cognition is carried out in its integrity and in specific social sciences, that is, the question of methodology.
1.2. Methodology as a theory of scientific activity. Cognitive activity in science is rationally organized by a system of various methods and techniques. The use of methods based on an understanding of their capabilities and boundaries makes it possible to make scientific activity rational and effective. Rene Descartes noted that it is the method, and not a random decision or an accidental “find”, that play a decisive role in science. Finding a method and substantiating its effectiveness is one of the leading problems of the methodology of science.
The term "methodology" is ambiguous. Most often it is defined as a set of cognitive means and techniques used in research, or techniques and methods used by a certain science. However, this definition somewhat simplifies the concept of methodology. E. V. Ushakov offers two meanings of the term “methodology”: “In a broad sense, a methodology is a set of basic attitudes that determine a certain type of activity. In a narrow sense ... methodology is a special discipline, a special direction of research. " Both interpretations are important for us.
Methodology is genetically related to philosophy, since the latter has traditionally dealt with its problems. First of all, this refers to epistemology, which analyzes the universal characteristics of human cognitive activity. However, if epistemology considers general aspects knowledge, the methodology focuses on special- on the embodiment of the general characteristics of cognition in specific situations of scientific activity and specific areas of cognition, in certain socio-cultural conditions. The differentiation of modern cognition, the complication of the conceptual apparatus, the strengthening of theorization of scientific thinking, the improvement of cognitive means and methods led to the emergence of methodology as a project and as a special discipline within the framework of each science.
Methodology as a special discipline analyzes cognitive aspects of scientific activity, and in science as such (general methodology of science), and in each specific science (methodology of private sciences - natural and social). Initially, the methodology was thought of as a project - a special science about the method, which will offer researchers “correct” methods of cognition and norms of activity, and within the framework of these methods and norms, their activity will be as productive as possible. That's why subject such a normative methodology was the identification and development of rules and regulations governing the formation and development of scientific knowledge.
Such a methodology-project went back to the traditional theory of knowledge, which, according to M. Mamardashvili, is “legislative”, since it considers knowledge from the position of a due, and not an actual process. Functional rationalism, characteristic of industrial societies and requiring clear interpretation schemes, played an important role in the existence of this project methodology. Attempts to implement this project often turned into dogmatization of explanatory schemes and, on the whole, were unsuccessful. From it in scientific use, the designation of methodology as a theoretical toolkit (set of methods) of science remained. Despite the fact that norms and rules are included in the apparatus of conscious control and regulation of activities for the formation and development of scientific knowledge, the researcher usually determines them himself - especially in the social sciences.
The normative methodology was thus oriented towards imposing ideas on "right" and "wrong" methods on scientists, but its supporters did not take into account that the scientist could freely choose the rules, norms and methods for himself. Therefore, in the second half of the twentieth century, the normative methodology was replaced by a descriptive (descriptive) methodology. Its main object scientific achievements and real research activities of scientists, and subject- methodological problems arising in the process of research.
Scientific knowledge is inseparable from the development of methodology, since any scientific discovery, achievement, theory has not only specific subject, but also methodological content. A significant scientific result is associated with a critical revision of the previously existing methodological approaches and principles of explaining the studied subject, premises and concepts. The emergence of new scientific theories and conclusions turns into not only an increase in new knowledge, but also the emergence of new theoretical tools - methods, methods, models and techniques of research, explanation and understanding. Therefore, each discovery or scientific achievement has a methodological meaning and becomes a subject methodological analysis- research of the content of the scientist's activity. Therefore, methodology acts as a form of self-knowledge of science, as it analyzes activities that generate knowledge about objective reality.
So, methodology is a theory of scientific activity that analyzes the structure, methods and means of its implementation, as well as the prerequisites and principles of its organization. The methodology is dialectically connected with the logic of scientific knowledge, therefore it analyzes approaches, diverse methods (their content, structure, capabilities and boundaries), methods and operations of scientific research, forms of organization of scientific knowledge, principles of construction and forms of scientific knowledge. If you define the main question that the methodology seeks to answer - how to study this object and what methods will allow you to better study it.
The range of problems and issues studied by the methodology is quite wide; to the already mentioned objects of analysis, description and analysis of scientific research, analysis of the language of science, identification of the scope of applicability of procedures and methods in research, analysis of research principles, approaches, concepts, etc. are added. The functions performed by modern methodology of science are divided into two groups: 1 ) in the philosophical aspect, the methodology seeks to reveal the general meaning of scientific activity and its significance in socio-cultural practice, its significance for a person; 2) in the scientific aspect, the methodology solves the problems of improving and rationalizing scientific knowledge.
The methodology is structured in different ways, dividing it into levels. In one version, the interrelation of theory, concept and research practice is emphasized, therefore the methodology combines three levels of knowledge.
I. Philosophical and epistemological(philosophical) level combines logic, the theory of knowledge (epistemology) and the general methodology of scientific research.
II. Theoretical level is a theoretical approach to the study of phenomena within the framework of a given science, which is based on the data of a specific scientific analysis.
III. Empirical level combines methods and techniques for collecting and organizing research information (usually called research methodology). However, without the first two levels of knowledge, this information does not yet become scientific knowledge.
In another variant of structuring, the methodology refers to the philosophical-theoretical level and a complex of theoretical methods (methods of data analysis) of a particular science is derived from it, which are designed to generalize and structure empirical data. In this case, the methodology does not include the methodology for collecting empirical information.
One way or another, one should distinguish between the concepts of "methodology" and "technique". Methodology as a theoretical understanding of the material - both in a specific science and in the practice of researching a specific topic - acts as a stable basis for any specific research in a given science. Methodology- a set of methods, techniques and technical means used by the researcher to collect, systematize and describe empirical information. Methodology, as opposed to methodology, changes depending on the specific object of research, goals, objectives and nature of the research.
Summing up, let us define the methodology of science as the dialectical unity of philosophy, theory and practice, i.e., the concept (philosophical level), methods of cognition (theoretical level) and research techniques (methods), as well as the theory of scientific knowledge of the surrounding world.
1.3. Social cognition methodology... Social cognition is integral in nature and “must grasp the opposite principles in the activities of people - objective and subjective, necessary and accidental, independent of a person, something substantial, and depending on his consciousness, will, choice, natural and determined by a set of specific circumstances, general and separate, etc. ", - write V. Zh. Kelle and M. Ya. Kovalzon. And further: "Without the initial philosophical and epistemological foundations, research is impossible, without concrete facts reflecting the opposite principles in human activity, it is impossible to cognize social reality."
Cognition of social reality on rational grounds is the integral goal of social cognition, which, as mentioned above, is differentiated across a number of private social sciences that have their own private methodologies. However, talk about social cognition methodology as such, it is possible if we take into account that private social sciences appeared due to the fact that social philosophy, describing the social world in its own language and developing, opened up various fields of knowledge that require rational and scientific comprehension. Therefore, we define the methodology of social cognition as theory of knowledge of social and human reality, society in its historical development and current state, knowledge of its spheres and dimensions. As her subject it is possible to designate the processes and results of research activities in the social sciences.
Accordingly, the subject field of the methodology includes a complex of problems and questions about the subject, boundaries and specifics of social cognition, the relationship of social cognition with other areas of knowledge, the problem of social fact, the problem of logic and the conceptual apparatus of social cognition, the problem of cognitive methods as a research tool, the problem of interpreting social processes, the ratio of explanation and understanding, the role of the subject in the cognition of sociocultural reality, etc.
The methodology of social cognition, carrying out methodological analysis, absorbs and perceives the ideas and achievements of all social sciences, but it is also constantly focused on the ideas and concepts of social philosophy. In building the methodology of social cognition, a serious role is played by the worldview of the researcher, as well as the level of cultural and social development of society.
Target methodology of social cognition - the creation of theoretical foundations that allow the researcher to identify the content of processes occurring in society, to reveal the meaning of various events, phenomena, processes and phenomena. To achieve this goal, the methodology of social cognition identifies and develops the principles, means and methods of obtaining, systematizing and interpreting knowledge about society, aspects of its life, about the history of society.
The development of scientific knowledge in the most general terms proceeds in two directions - from empiricism to theory and from theory to empiricism. This means that the movement of research thought, including in the social sciences, can develop either inductively - from a huge variety of social facts to intermediate and generalizing conclusions, or deductively - from a general theory built to explain the phenomena, phenomena and processes of concrete reality. This distinction is rather arbitrary, but this movement can be found in each specific social science. So, from empiricism comes knowledge in applied sociology, in factual historical research and other sciences. This is well reflected in the substantiations of the method of special sciences. For the philosophical sciences, a deductive approach is characteristic - from a theoretical concept to an explanation and understanding of reality. This is what social philosophy, philosophy of history, philosophy of culture do.
On the one hand, the methodology of social cognition develops theoretical foundations for the study and interpretation of specific factual material, specific phenomena, processes, phenomena of social life, on the other hand, it theoretically generalizes the experience of specific research (finds out how new scientific results and conclusions were obtained). Thus, the methodology of social cognition seeks to answer the question of how sociocultural reality is studied and what other ways of studying are possible.
According to these two aspects of the methodology of social cognition, one can define it tasks(or functions) that it performs: 1) development of theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of social reality; 2) establishing the grounds (principles) for the selection, organization and comprehension of specific material; 3) the establishment of principles for determining the most essential, secondary and insignificant in the research; 4) development of the categorical apparatus of the social sciences; 5) determination of the possibilities and boundaries of the methods' action; 6) determination of research methods, etc.
In the methodology of social cognition, it is possible to conditionally define three levels: at the philosophical and epistemological level - socio-philosophical concepts (including the provisions of the philosophy of history); at the theoretical level - special theories (middle-level theories (R. Merton)), acting as the applied logic of research, and at the empirical level - methods of collecting and processing specific factual information.
Thanks to the methodology, the socio-humanitarian sciences interact with each other, and because of this, it is a border area in each science. The methodology provides the exchange of concepts between various spheres of social scientific knowledge, the development and refinement of principles and methods, the enrichment of the methodological tools of various sciences. Above, it was said about the close connection of methodology with philosophy - namely, with epistemology, which develops the theory, principles and methods of cognition, as well as the logical foundations of science. Methodology interacts just as closely with historical science, since an abstract society is only a mental construction; in reality, society exists in the form of specific societies developing in time and space. History has accumulated extensive experience and tools for studying social reality in development, based on specific material. Sociology is important for the purposes of methodology, because thanks to the categories and theory of this science, theoretical models for the analysis of social reality are developed. Close links exist between the methodology of social cognition and other socio-humanitarian sciences - culturology, political science, psychology, religious studies, linguistics, jurisprudence, etc.
So, the methodology of social cognition deals with the problems associated with the choice of theoretical foundations and tools (methods and principles) of scientific analysis and with the organization of research work.
1.4. Basic methodological concepts. The material of science is organized and systematized through the use of concepts. In logic, a concept is defined as the minimum logical form of knowledge representation, a form of thinking that includes a set of features necessary and sufficient to indicate an object (class of objects) (O. V. Suvorov). In science, concepts form the initial basis for the interpretation of material and methods of its interpretation, therefore, the development of the categorical apparatus is an indicator of the maturity of any science.
Mastering the methodology of social cognition requires mastering basic categories that allow for methodological analysis, as well as choosing or developing a methodology for one's own research.
The first basic concept is methodological approach ... This is a general theoretical basis for the study, which is a certain angle of view for an item or problem. The methodological approach can be based on a certain theoretical concept, or a hypothesis (a system of hypotheses), or a concept. The methodological approach can be defined as principled interpretation social reality, its phenomena, events and processes occurring in it, from a certain angle.
Other methodological concepts can be conditionally divided into four groups.
1) Methods... This category denotes, firstly, actually method of science as a system of techniques and regulatory principles guiding scientific knowledge and ensuring the acquisition of scientific knowledge. Second, special receptions scientific research existing at different levels of methodology (general logical, scientific theoretical and scientific empirical methods).
2) Principles- initial foundations that allow organizing the studied subject into a theoretical system, selecting facts, phenomena, processes for study that are significant from the point of view of this science and the chosen methodological approach. Principle - a guiding rule chosen by a scientist in the study of a given subject.
3) Categories- concepts that define the most general and meaningful connections of the real world. In the methodology, these include the main terms used in the description and interpretation of the object and subject of research. The formation of scientific concepts is a complex process associated with the use of a number of logical and methodological procedures (abstraction, idealization, inductive generalization, mental construction, hypothesis, etc.). Each developed category conceptually (i.e., in theoretical unity) describes a certain part of the social world. However, in the social sciences, scientists retain the freedom to form and interpret concepts, and besides content concepts are wide enough. Therefore, the formation of scientific concepts is largely a creative process in which rational-logical, hypothetical and intuitive actions are combined.
4) The laws Is the most important component of scientific knowledge, which is presented in a concentrated form. "A law is a scientific statement that is universal in nature and describes in a concentrated form the most important aspects of the studied subject area."
Approach, method, principles, categories and laws constitute methodological apparatus of science, or her methodological toolkit... Present in each specific study, the toolkit indicates the general scientific training of the researcher, the level of his methodological thinking. A special role in science is played by the ability of a scientist to build and describe his own specific research methodology. Equally important is the ability to comprehensively present the problem under study, to accurately, conclusively and logically state the course and results of the study.
1.5. The influence of modernity on the development of the social sciences. The subject of scientific knowledge does not work in the "ivory tower" (G. Flaubert); on the contrary, it acts in a concrete, historically and socially defined society, which exerts various indirect and direct influences on it. The era in which the subject of cognition works, events and processes contemporary to him in various spheres of social life cannot but influence both his general outlook position and his scientific and cognitive practice. In addition, the life of society is permeated with meanings - people give meaning to everything that happens in it, and, therefore, social reality itself carries interpretive character. A complex of various interpretations affects the researcher, who is faced with the need to clearly define his ideological and methodological positions. This is especially true for scientists working in the field of social sciences.
On the one hand, the methodology of scientific research of social reality is influenced by various scientific paradigms that replace each other in the history of science. Under paradigms Thomas Kuhn means "universally recognized scientific achievements that, over time, provide the scientific community with a model for posing and solving problems." But on the other hand, paradigms, including in the social sciences, exist in a specific socio-cultural context (in the epochs of world history) that affects them. Social sciences are especially susceptible to this influence, and it is possible to understand their problems and methodological approaches by referring to the main features of historical eras.
The development of modern social sciences is inseparable from the development of society in the last three to four centuries. We can talk about modernity using various terms to describe it, such as globalization, information society, post-industrial society, post-modernization, etc. “Bourgeois society”, others who study the socio-cultural and spiritual aspects of the development of modern societies prefer the term “modernization”. These categories and approaches complement each other, making it possible to describe all facets of dynamically developing societies.
If we describe modernity with the term "postmodern", then first it is necessary to find out the main features of the "modern" society, or "modern project" (J. Habermas). The term " modernization»In social philosophy denote the whole complex of transformations in the economic, social, political, cultural, ideological and spiritual spheres of society, associated with the transition from traditional (agrarian) societies to non-traditional (modernized, industrial). Briefly, the main characteristics of the changes can be indicated as follows.
1. The predominance of the system of industrial-urbanistic relations that developed in the West and spread globally to all countries of the non-Western area.
2. The market economy lies at the basis of the social structure of society, in which class differentiation prevails according to the criterion of attitude to property.
3. The legal system is built on the basis of contractual, rational and egalitarian legal consciousness.
4. The social status of a person is determined by "the unconditional inner dignity of all members of society, determined by formal legislation" (EB Rashkovsky) and the possibilities of social mobility.
5. Rational scientific thinking becomes predominant and determines the development of secular scientific knowledge.
6. Orientation towards the constant development of the external world and the constant transformation of a person.
7. The main political model is democratic institutions (from parliament to local government).
8. Spreading of individualism, proceeding from freedom and formal equality of rights of every person.
9. In the spiritual and cultural sphere, modernization is characterized by the spread of Eurogenic values.
Together with the positive aspects of the industrialization and urbanization of the world - the development of science and education, the emergence of new technologies, the development of communication means, the spread of a modern way of life, etc., the implementation of a modern project brings to life colonialism, acute forms of socio-political confrontation, poverty, and totalitarian and authoritarian regimes of the twentieth century. For all their ambiguity, the results of the implementation of a modern project on a global scale are 1) an unprecedented universalization of productive forces; 2) the emergence of globalized information and cultural systems and systems of mass leisure based on electronic technologies; 3) an unprecedented change in the ethno-demographic structure of advanced industrial-urban societies due to mass migrations; 4) "It is thanks to the modern project that the world has developed ... a hungry minimum of technological, theoretical and legal prerequisites for intercultural communication."
The general paradigm of scientific knowledge of the modernization period was based on the desire for formalized and deterministic scientific knowledge, constant updating and correction of the categories used (for example, K. Popper put forward the principle of testing ideas for “error”), operating with conventional forms and languages of the scientific description of the world. Therefore, the predominant explanation in the social sciences turned out to be a deterministic explanation - an attempt to search for the causes of phenomena and processes in certain spheres of social life (economy, law, culture, etc.). Few pointed out the irreducibility of the explanation to a uniform basis. A consequence of this determinism in science has been the transformation of a number of scientific models, theories and categories into dogmatized ideological constructions aimed at mobilizing the masses (for example, the concepts of "progress", "socialism", "revolution"). This gave V. A. Lektorsky a reason to speak of "utopias" oriented towards the liberation of man, but which turned out to be his worst enslavement, or simply did not lead to the desired results (liberal utopia, communist utopia).
But over time, in the second half of the twentieth century, the "modern project", as well as the era of modernization began to exhaust themselves, as the world began to rapidly become more complex. First, the economy is reoriented from industrial production to the service sector (J. Fourastier calls this process the development of a “civilization of services”), and science-intensive industries begin to dominate in industry. Second, in a market economy, along with industry, the service sector and agriculture, an information sector appears, in which knowledge plays a leading role as capital and a resource, including a powerful one. The former class stratification is beginning to be replaced by a professional one, conditioned by the presence or absence of knowledge and, accordingly, by professionalism or incompetence. Thanks to this, modernity can be described with the term "information society", in which the importance of knowledge (primarily theoretical), higher education, individualism and the ability to quickly adapt to the transforming reality is growing. Thirdly, modern capitalism has become the basis of globalization - the transformation of all spheres of society under the influence of the trend towards interdependence and openness on a global scale. In the context of the information economy, globalization forms the common needs and interests of the population of all countries and thus shows a tendency for the economic and value-normative unification of the world. The opposite tendency of the modern world is the so-called fragmentation, or the strengthening of the aspiration of peoples of different countries for originality and preservation of their unique cultural appearance.
The cultural state of modern society is most often described with the concept of "postmodernity" in order to show the combination of contradictory principles in it: the heritage of modernization and the desire for traditionalism and the restoration of totalitarianism, the opposition of image and imaginative thinking (virtual world) to the word and categorical thinking (book), individual and collective self-determination, universal communication and xenophobia.
To designate the modern type of philosophizing, which unites different directions in the context of postmodern culture, the term "postmodernism" is adopted. The philosophy of postmodernism in its value and social dimension has a contradictory effect on the modern development of the social sciences: on the one hand, it indicates new specific ways of learning and new scientific topics, on the other hand, it has destructive tendencies, consisting in the desire to emphasize the discontinuous / discrete nature (or, in the language of postmodernists, "graininess") of the world, culture, sociality and man. Where does this contradictory impact of postmodern philosophy on social cognition come from?
Postmodernists contested ontological and epistemological aspects as insignificant, and along with them - the former, "modernist" philosophy of science, focused on building knowledge on the basis of observable facts and going back to the philosophy of the European Enlightenment. Postmodernists take the position of agnosticism, believing that the essence of the phenomena and processes under study, of a person and society as such, are unknowable; and on the positions of relativism, arguing that there are no universal foundations and values in the social world, and extremely exaggerating the importance of the local in the development of societies. In terms of content, such a rejection of philosophy is nothing more than a kind of modern restoration of the positivist rejection of theorizing as metaphysics (abstraction), which, nevertheless, with renewed vigor raises the question of the importance of the philosophical and epistemological level of the methodology of the social sciences.
Postmodern philosophy is an ideologized philosophy, and because of this it is quickly perceived by those who interpret social phenomena and processes, including scientists. Ideologization is primarily manifested in anti-Westernism and, accordingly, harsh criticism of European culture for bourgeoisism, rationalism, individualism, formalism, legalism, idealism, the primacy of the word over the image, etc. Postmodernists appeal to the real or sometimes even imaginary infringement of the dignity of the really disadvantaged or seemingly disadvantaged regions, classes, peoples, social, cultural and other minorities, and these ideological moments affect the interpretation of historical and contemporary events, phenomena and processes. This ideologization raises questions about the possibility for scientists to distance themselves from ideological pseudo-rational explanations that replace adequate middle-level theories. At the same time, social sciences already offer a response to the ideological challenge of postmodernism in the form of a tendency to strengthen rationality in a broad sense, but taking into account the specifics of social and humanitarian knowledge.
The idea of the “death of man” declared by the postmodernists has turned into a kind of sociocentrism in philosophy: group social structures with their own values and aspirations are shown as primary; at the same time, these values and aspirations cannot even be correlated with each other due to their uniqueness. This moment in the philosophy of postmodernism actualizes the question of the human dimension of social reality and the new substantiation of personalism in social philosophy. In this regard, the interest of many social sciences in understanding a person (as well as culture, tradition, mentality) using hermeneutic rather than empirical and quantitative methods.
The postmodernists' emphasis on the discreteness of the world and the denial of the universal (universal) foundations of the existence of a person, society, and culture found its highest expression in the concept of “cultural polymorphism”. It declares the absolute dissimilarity of cultures (primarily in the sphere of values and norms) and the impossibility of any kind of mutual understanding - interethnic, interreligious, intercultural, intercivilizational. However, according to EB Rashkovsky, “having recognized the idea of polymorphism as unconditional, we will not get away from moral surrender to a cannibal or a terrorist”. The question raised by postmodernism for the social sciences is the question of the possibility of combining the emphasis on universality and universality, characteristic of the former philosophy of science in the period of modernization, with an understanding of the national and civilizational specifics of the societies under study and the processes taking place in them.
In addition to the described influence of postmodernism, we note other aspects of the influence of modernity on the social sciences. First of all, these are questions about sense socio-humanitarian knowledge. E. V. Ushakov formulates them as follows: “In which direction should the humanities develop? What are the meaningful landmarks of a person and society? What are those fundamental values and significant guidelines that should guide the cognitive interest and practical orientation of the humanities? "
Modernity sharply outlined the tendency towards differentiation and integration of social knowledge and social sciences. Historically, social and humanitarian scientific knowledge had a common origin in philosophy, which dealt with the understanding of the existence of man and society and discovered many dimensions of this being. From the integral vision of man and society, declared by philosophy, and the fields of knowledge discovered by it, various sciences have gradually grown, differentiated by the subject of study (different aspects of society, different aspects of human life). Within the framework of each of the differentiated sciences, the number of approaches that claim to have a common vision of the subject of interpretation is constantly increasing (E. V. Ushakov calls this the trend of "growing eclecticism"). Along with this, a powerful trend of interdisciplinarity arises - a research strategy and a situation of fruitful combination and interpenetration of social and humanitarian sciences, and there are many measurements in the spheres of sociology, history, economics, psychology, cultural studies, ethnology, etc. Many scientists associate the future of social and humanitarian sciences, since the interaction of approaches, theories, concepts, models, their positive competition, as well as mutual positive criticism, advance scientific knowledge.
An example of differentiation and integration, a clearly expressed tendency towards interdisciplinarity, which has been disputed in a number of discussions, is the development of the historical and sociological sciences. Sociology took shape in the 19th century. as an independent science, which arose, on the one hand, thanks to the development of social philosophy, and on the other, due to the accumulation of large-scale factual material and the development of the historical method by historical science. Claiming to the largest scale of coverage of the object of knowledge (society) and the discovery of the laws of its functioning and dynamics (mainly in the positivist and Marxist version), sociology finally isolated itself from history by the 1920s, despite the fact that its founders advocated the convergence of sociology and stories. So, E. Durkheim in 1898 spoke about their mutual tendency towards rapprochement and the possibility of uniting into a common discipline, combining elements of both. At the same time, history developed by some schools as an idiographic science (studying the unique), while others as a science sociologized in terms of describing and explaining historical events, phenomena and processes (positivist historians, Marxists, the French school of Annals).
The discussion about the relationship between sociology and history unfolded in 1950-1970; as a result, two points of view on their ratio took shape. The essence first point of view- substantiation of the displacement of historical science into the field of research into the problems of the origin and development of phenomena and events and the comprehensive nature of sociology, which should replace history and deal with issues of modernity or phenomena and relations of the immediate past. The method of sociology uses "all forms of attracting people to identify the data necessary for scientific knowledge, namely, polls, interviews, all types of observation of social processes and their carriers" (T. Schieder), and therefore its methods undoubtedly surpass the methods of history, which is subjective the creativity of the historian due to the irreproducible nature of the historical process. Second point of view is concluded in the statement that history and sociology are methodologically close and need each other, therefore, a synthesis of their approaches and techniques and the construction of a common methodology are necessary. In the current situation, the tendency towards interdisciplinary interaction of history and sociology remains, which, however, continue to remain independent sciences. In history, sociological terminology and concepts are actively used, and sociology is unthinkable without taking into account the historical conditions and dynamics of the development of the studied social phenomena and processes.
An undoubted impact on the social sciences is also exerted by the actualization of the East-West problem in social, cultural and political life on a global scale. Differences between societies and peoples in spatial and temporal dimensions are expressed in the real diversity of social life. In the most general terms, this diversity runs along the conditional line "East - West", which arose in history from the era of Ancient Greece (2nd half of the 1st millennium BC). This dichotomy in economic the area is associated with the absence (East) or the presence (West) of the market, private property and free economic activity of the individual; v social and cultural areas - with a predominance, respectively, of collective or individual forms of life, in the area political- with a dominant or strictly limited legal framework, the role of the state in the life of a person, group, society. The East initially included the civilizations of Asia and Africa, and the West - Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. During the formation and development of a market / modernized society in Europe and America, economic, social, political, legal, scientific and cultural institutions and achievements spread during the era of colonialism in the countries of the East and, more broadly, in the countries of the non-Western area (Latin America). The arrival of the West in traditional Eastern societies sharply raised the problem of their modernization, which acquired the greatest significance for the fate of the whole world in the postcolonial period of development of non-Western countries.
The economic, social and political problems of the development and integration of non-Western countries into the modern world have an increasing influence on the events, phenomena and processes taking place in it, and it is hardly possible to study them in detail without knowing and taking into account their context - the "East-West" dichotomy and the corresponding interactions of traditional and modernized, eastern and western in the life of most peoples. It is important to take into account the heterogeneity and specificity of what is called by the general terms "East" or "Non-West" - the differences between the Chinese civilization from the Indian, the Arab world from the Turkic area, etc. On the one hand, oriental knowledge in general (both classical and exploring the modern East) is required to understand and explain global social processes and the development of specific societies, on the other hand, the problem of interaction arises between specialists engaged in the study of sociality and culture of the West, and their orientalist colleagues, who, fulfilling the general task of understanding the modern world, work in within the problem fields separated from each other and broadcast the knowledge gained only in narrow circles of specialists and like-minded people.
The listed aspects of the influence of modernity on the social sciences constitute the general sociocultural context of their development and have an ambiguous impact on the methodology and research topics.
Questions to prepare for the workshop
1. Subject, ideological and methodological specificity of natural, humanitarian, social, technical sciences.
2. The influence of modernity on social cognition. Globalization. Information society. East-West problem.
3. Methodology as a theory of social cognition.
4. The problem of interdisciplinarity and research directions in modern social sciences. Differentiation and integration of social knowledge.
Abstract topics
1. Methodological specificity of social sciences.
2. Methodology as a theory of scientific knowledge of society.
3. Methodological apparatus of modern humanitarian knowledge.
4. The problem of social law in modern science.
5. The problem of interdisciplinarity in the social sciences.
6. The ratio of sociological and historical approaches in the study of social reality.
7. Oriental topics in modern socio-humanitarian knowledge.
8. Eurocentrism as a methodological problem.
KNOWLEDGE - creative activity of the subject, focused on obtaining reliable knowledge about the world. P. is an essential characteristic of the existence of culture and, depending on its functional purpose, the nature of knowledge and the corresponding means and methods, it can be carried out in the following forms: everyday, mythological, religious, artistic, philosophical and scientific.
Cognition begins with sensory (sensation, perception, representation), then logical (concept, judgment, inference). Judgments have a general form and are independent of language. Inference leads to the acquisition of new knowledge. In induction, verification is required, since induction is not complete. Deduction requires verification of the original postulate.
Scientific knowledge is formed on the basis of the ordinary.
Features of scientific knowledge:
1. The main task of scientific cognition is to discover the objective laws of reality - natural, social (social) laws of cognition itself, thinking, etc. This is the main feature of science, its main feature.
2. On the basis of knowledge of the laws of functioning and development of the objects under study, science foresees the future with the aim of further practical assimilation of reality.
3. The immediate goal and the highest value of scientific knowledge - Objective truth, comprehended mainly by rational means and methods, but not without the participation of living contemplation and non-rational means.
4. An essential sign of cognition is its consistency. Without a system, this is not science.
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 the awareness of the methods and techniques by which these objects are investigated.
6. Scientific knowledge is characterized by rigorous evidence, validity of the results obtained, and reliability of conclusions. Knowledge for science is evidence-based knowledge. Knowledge must be supported by facts.
7. Scientific cognition 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 - fixed in the language. The process of continuous self-renewal by science of its conceptual and methodological arsenal is an important indicator (criterion ) scientific character.
8. Knowledge that claims to be scientific must admit the fundamental possibility of empirical verification. The process of establishing the truth of scientific statements through observation and experimentation is called verification, and the process of establishing their falsity is falsification. An important condition for this is the focus of scientific activity on criticism of its own results.
9. In the process of scientific cognition, such specific material means as devices, instruments, and other so-called “scientific equipment” are used, which are often very complex and expensive (synchrophasotrons, radio telescopes, rocket and space technology, etc.).
10. The subject of scientific activity - an individual researcher, scientific community, “collective subject” - has specific characteristics. Engaging in science requires a special preparation of the cognizing subject, during which he masters the existing stock of knowledge, the means and methods of obtaining it, the system of value orientations and target attitudes specific to scientific knowledge, ethical principles.
These criteria fulfill a protective function, protect science from delirium. Scientific knowledge is a concrete historical system of criteria. It is constantly changing and the given set is not constant. There is also a criterion for logical consistency, the principles of simplicity, beauty, heuristic, coherence.
Everyday knowledge has existed since the very birth of mankind, providing basic information about nature and the surrounding reality. The basis was the experience of everyday life, which, however, is non-systematic. It is the initial layer of all knowledge. Everyday knowledge: common sense, and omens, and edification, and recipes, and personal experience, and traditions.
Its peculiarity is that it is used by a person almost unconsciously and in its application does not require preliminary systems of evidence.
Another feature of it is its fundamentally unwritten character. A scientist, while remaining a scientist, does not cease to be just a person.
A special form of extrascientific knowledge is the so-called folk science, which has now become the business of individual groups or individual subjects: healers, healers, psychics, and earlier shamans, priests, elders of the clan. Folk science exists and is broadcast in unwritten form from mentor to student. One can single out the condensation of folk science in the form of behests, omens, instructions, rituals, etc.
In the picture of the world offered by folk science, the circulation of the powerful elements of life is of great importance. Nature acts as a "house of man", and man, in turn, as an organic part of it, through which the lines of force of the world circulation constantly pass. It is believed that folk sciences are addressed, on the one hand, to the most elementary, and on the other, to the most vital spheres of human activity, such as: health, agriculture, cattle breeding, construction.
Artistic activity is not entirely reducible to cognition. Artistically mastering reality in its various forms (painting, music, theater, etc.), satisfying the aesthetic needs of people, art simultaneously cognizes the world, and man creates it - including according to the laws of beauty. The structure of any work of art always includes, in one form or another, certain knowledge about nature, about different people and their characters, about certain countries and peoples, about culture, customs, morals, life, about their feelings, thoughts, etc. ...
A specific form of mastering reality in art is the artistic image, thinking in images, “feeling thought”. Science is mastering the world, primarily in the system of abstractions.
The specificity of religious knowledge is not only the ability to transcend. to go beyond the limits of sensually tangible reality and the recognition of another ("supernatural") world - in other words, God or gods.
The peculiarities of religious knowledge are determined by the fact that it is conditioned by the direct emotional form of people's attitude to the earthly forces dominating them (natural and social). As a fantastic reflection of the latter, religious ideas contain certain knowledge about reality, although often perverse. For example, the Bible and the Koran are quite a wise and deep treasury of religious and other knowledge accumulated by people for centuries and millennia. However, religion (like mythology) did not produce knowledge in a systematic, let alone theoretical form. It has never performed and does not perform the function of producing objective knowledge that is universal, holistic, self-valuable and demonstrative in nature. If religious knowledge is characterized by the combination of an emotional attitude to the world with belief in the supernatural, then the essence of scientific knowledge is rationality, which contains both emotions and faith as subordinate moments.
The most important concept of religion and religious knowledge is faith. In this regard, we note that in the concept of "faith" two aspects should be distinguished: a) religious faith; 6) faith as confidence (trust, conviction), i.e. what has not yet been verified, has not been proven at the moment, in various forms of scientific knowledge and, above all, in hypotheses. This belief is and will always remain the main motive of all scientific creativity.
Features of philosophical knowledge are that special sciences study their fragment of being (comprehension of certain issues), and philosophy seeks to study the world as a whole, looking for the causes of everything (holistic comprehension).
Private sciences are addressed to phenomena that exist objectively, outside of a person, and philosophy is formulated as a question about the relationship of a person to the world.
A private specialist does not think about how his discipline arose, and the philosophy of science is aimed at identifying reliable foundations that could serve as a starting point.
Science is aimed at describing and explaining the processes of reality, and philosophy is aimed at understanding such problems as the world and man, fate, culture, the nature of knowledge, etc.
As the relationship between science and society is strengthening, the social and moral problems of the development of science are aggravated, the requirements for scientists both as specialists and as citizens of their country, and in the end - as representatives of all mankind, increase. Now, not only the influence of science on society is sharply increasing, but also the dependence on politics and ideology of the entire course of development of science, the choice of research topics, the very approach to defining goals and means of achieving them, to assessing the nature of the use of scientific and technological advances, to identifying environmental, genetic and other consequences of certain practical ones proposed by science - technological, medical, psychological, etc. - solutions.
For the most reasonable choice of his position, a scientist must be well oriented not only in vocational-specific, but also in socio-political, philosophical (ideological and methodological), humanistic, moral and ethical issues of the development of science.
Any activity, including scientific knowledge and artistic creation, is characterized by a contradiction between the subjectively biased striving for the goal and the objective content of the results of activity. At the same time, not only individual and personal, but also group bias is manifested, expressing the interests, positions of a wide variety of social groups, associations of people - social-class, party-political, national, ideological-theoretical and others. In principle, supporters of any philosophical, scientific and artistic idea (method, style, direction, school, etc.) can be considered as representatives of a certain ideological party. Group bias, the interest of the group subject of action in certain results of their activities can both contribute to and hinder the achievement of truth, can lead the researcher, the creator with irresistible force to a multifaceted, holistic reflection of reality, and can also limit his horizons with the same force.
A truly democratic society presupposes not only pluralism of opinions, freedom to put forward points of view, but also a socially responsible attitude to word and deed. In particular, this means an increased need for scientific justification of the chosen position. It is important to avoid absolute pluralism, to see its subordination to monism. Everyone has not only the right to their position, but also the obligation to limit their choice to the requirements of scientific truth (or the truth of life reflected in art).
In the interpretation of the social role of science, such opposing approaches as scientism and anti-scientism, technicism and technophobia collide. Scientism is expressed in an exaggerated assessment of natural science, the so-called exact knowledge, and an underestimation of the social sciences, the humanities, and other areas of culture. Close to this is technicism, which recognizes technology as the driving force of the historical process, without considering the role of prevailing social relations. Technicism is characterized by technocratic approaches to solving socio-economic problems, in fact, without taking into account their consequences for everyday life, leisure, and cultural traditions of people. Anti-scientism sees in science a force that is alien and hostile to the true essence of man, makes science responsible for social antagonisms, tears apart truths and values. Technophobia is manifested in pessimistic views on the role of technology and the prospects of scientific and technological progress, in calls for the rejection of the widespread use of the achievements of science and technology in people's lives.
Literature for chapter 7
Vernadsky V.I. Biography. Selected Works. Memoirs of Contemporaries. Judgments of descendants. - M., 1993 .-- S. 520-555.
Volkov G.N. Three faces of culture. - M., 1986.
Mendeleev D.I. Cherished thoughts. - M., 1995.
Science and its place in culture. - Novosibirsk, 1990.
Scientific and technical progress. Dictionary. - M., 1987.
Sachkov Yu.V. Natural science in the system of culture // Philosophy, natural science, social development. - M., 1989.
Snow Ch. Two cultures. - M., 1973.
Filatov V.P. Scientific knowledge and the human world. - M., 1989.
Philosophy and Methodology of Science / Ed. IN AND. Kuptsov. - M., 1997.
CHAPTER 8 MODERN SCIENCE AND MYSTICISM
The general concept of mysticism. Socio-worldview origins
and aspects of mysticism. Epistemological, cognitive roots
mystics. Modern scientific picture of the world
and mystical outlook.
General concept of mysticism
The powerful development of science in the 20th century, oddly enough at first glance, is combined with the widespread dissemination of mysticism, irrationalism, occult, esoteric (secret) knowledge. The 15-volume Encyclopedia of Religion, published in the West in 1987, defines mystical experience as a “type of intense religious experience” in which the subject feels himself merging with the “cosmic totality”. Mystical consciousness, be it thoughts or feelings, always includes belief in the direct connection of a person with the supernatural, belief in a miracle. The most ancient historical manifestation of mysticism is seen in primitive shamanic-orgiastic cults. And in modern culture, for a number of reasons, shamanism is being reanimated. Ethnographer D. Schroeder gives the following definition: "Shamanism is an ecstatic connection between people and the other world, established by society and expressed in a certain form, serving the interests of the whole society." The shaman himself is a person who has experienced a personality crisis, has undergone a course of special mental training, as a result of which he reaches an "unusual state of consciousness" and develops a special "way of perceiving reality." The shaman performs the functions of a priest, medicine man and sorcerer; during meditation, he creates for the participants the illusion of traveling to a “different world”. “The state of ecstasy must allow the shaman to focus his attention on those signals from the senses that usually pass by consciousness. This explanation makes clear the seemingly strange ability of shamans to find people and animals lost somewhere far from their homes. "
Any monotonously repetitive sounds can cause shutdown of the higher centers of the brain and give rise to hallucinations. Visions (from spots of light and geometric shapes to scenes with animals and people) can create the illusion that this is all happening. Similar hallucinations arise from drug use. Researchers of these phenomena admit that "travel to other worlds" achieved in different ways actually means penetration into the depths of consciousness filled with primitive instincts, childhood memories of the human race and elements of the collective unconscious.
