The emergence of science and the main stages of its development. The main stages of the development of science

Let's start with the fact that the history of science is characterized by uneven development in space and time: huge outbreaks of activity are replaced by long periods of calm, lasting until a new outbreak, often in a different region. But the location and timing of the rise in scientific activity has never been accidental: periods of flourishing science usually coincide with periods of increased economic activity and technological progress. Over time, the centers of scientific activity moved to other regions of the Earth and, rather, followed the movements of the centers of trade and industrial activity rather than directing it.

Modern science is preceded by pre-science in the form of individual elements of knowledge that arose in ancient societies (Sumerian culture, Egypt, China, India). The most ancient civilizations developed and accumulated large reserves of astronomical, mathematical, biological, and medical knowledge. But this knowledge did not go beyond the scope of pre-science; it was of a prescription nature, set forth mainly as instructions for practice - for maintaining calendars, measuring land, predicting river floods, taming and selecting animals. Such knowledge, as a rule, had a sacred character. Although it was combined with religious ideas, it was kept and passed down from generation to generation by priests; it did not acquire the status of objective knowledge about natural processes.

About two and a half thousand years ago, the center of scientific activity from the East moved to Greece, where, based on criticism of religious and mythological systems, a rational basis for science was developed. In contrast to the scattered observations and recipes of the East, the Greeks moved on to the construction of theories - logically connected and coordinated systems of knowledge, involving not just a statement and description of facts, but also their explanation and comprehension in the entire system of concepts of a given theory. The formation of strictly scientific forms of knowledge, isolated from both religion and philosophy, is usually associated with the name of Aristotle, who laid the initial foundations for the classification of various knowledge. Science began to function as an independent form of social consciousness in the Hellenistic era, when the integral culture of antiquity began to differentiate into separate forms of spiritual activity.

In ancient science, the idea of ​​inviolability, based on sensory observation and common sense. Let us recall Aristotle's physics, in which sensory observation and common sense - and only they - determine the nature of the methodology for explaining the world and the events taking place in it. His teaching divides the world into two regions, which are qualitatively different from each other in their physical properties: the region of the Earth (“sublunary world”) - the region of constant changes and transformations - and the region of the ether (“supralunar world”) - the region of everything eternal and perfect. From this follows the position about the impossibility of a general quantitative physics of the sky and the Earth, and ultimately, a position that elevates geocentric ideas to the rank of ideological dominant. It was precisely this philosophical approach that led to the fact that the physics of the “sublunar world” does not need mathematics - the science, as it was understood in antiquity, about ideal objects. But astronomy, which studies the perfect “supralunar world,” needs it. Aristotle's ideas about motion and force expressed only data from direct observation and were based not on mathematics, but on common sense. In the physics of the ancients, nothing was said about idealized objects, such as an absolutely solid body, a material point, an ideal gas, and it was not said precisely because this physics was alien to controlled experimentation. Everyday experience or direct observation served as the cornerstone of knowledge, which did not make it possible to raise questions related to the essence of the observed phenomena, and, consequently, to the establishment of the laws of nature. Aristotle would probably be extremely surprised at how a modern scientist studies nature - in a scientific laboratory fenced off from the world, under artificially created and controlled conditions, actively interfering with the natural course of natural processes.

The religious Middle Ages did not significantly change this state of affairs. Only in the late Middle Ages, since the Crusades, did the development of industry bring to life a mass of new mechanical, chemical and physical facts, which provided not only material for observation, but also means for experimentation. The development of production and the associated growth of technology in the Renaissance and Modern times contributed to the development and dissemination of experimental and mathematical research methods. Revolutionary discoveries in natural science made during the Renaissance were further developed in modern times, when science rapidly began to enter into life as a special social institution and a necessary condition for the functioning of the entire system of social production. This applies primarily to natural science in the modern sense, which was experiencing a period of its formation at that time.

What new did modern science bring to ideas about the world?

The idea of ​​the inviolability of philosophical and scientific values, based on common sense, was rejected by philosophical thought and natural science of the New Age. Physics becomes experimental science, sensory observation is connected with theoretical thinking, Methods of abstraction and the associated mathematization of knowledge enter the scientific scene. Experimental data are no longer described by common sense concepts, but are interpreted by a theory that correlates concepts that are far from sensory immediacy in content. Space, time and matter began to interest researchers from the quantitative side, and even if the idea of ​​the creation of nature was not denied, it was assumed that the Creator was a mathematician and created nature according to the laws of mathematics. Galileo argued that nature should be studied through experience and mathematics, not through the Bible or anything else. Experimental dialogue with nature involves active intervention rather than passive observation. The phenomenon under study must be previously dissected and isolated so that it can serve as an approximation to some ideal situation, perhaps physically unattainable, but consistent with the accepted conceptual scheme. Nature, as if in a court hearing, is cross-examined through experimentation in the name of a priori principles. Nature's answers are recorded with the greatest precision, but their correctness is assessed in terms of the idealization that guides the researcher in setting up the experiment. Everything else is considered not information, but secondary effects that can be neglected. It is not without reason that in the era of the emergence of modern science in European culture there was a widespread comparison of an experiment with torture of nature, through which the researcher must extract from nature its innermost secrets. The idea of ​​science as an enterprise that penetrates deeper and deeper into the mysteries of existence is reflected in the rationalistic attitude, according to which the activity of science is a process aimed at the final exposure of the mysteries of existence.

The founders of modern science perspicaciously saw in the dialogue between man and nature an important step towards a rational understanding of nature. But they claimed much more. Galileo and those who came after him shared the belief that science could reveal global truths about nature. In their opinion, not only is nature written in a mathematical language that can be deciphered through properly designed experiments, but the language of nature itself is unique. From here it is not far to the conclusion about the homogeneity of the world and, therefore, the accessibility of comprehending global truths through local experimentation. The complexity of nature was proclaimed to be apparent, and the diversity of nature to fit into universal truths embodied in the mathematical laws of motion. Nature is simple and does not luxury with superfluous causes of things, Newton taught. This was a science that knew success, confident that it was able to prove the powerlessness of nature before the insight of the human mind.

These and other similar ideas prepared a revolution in modern science, which culminated in the creation of Galileo-Newton mechanics - the first natural science theory. Theoretical natural science that arose in this historical era was called "classical science""and completed the long process of the formation of science in the proper sense of the word.

The methodology of classical science was very clearly expressed by the French mathematician and astronomer P. Laplace. He believed that nature itself is subject to rigid, absolutely unambiguous causal relationships, and if we do not always observe this unambiguity, it is only due to the limitations of our capabilities. “A mind which knew for any given moment all the forces that animate nature, and the relative position of all its constituent parts, if in addition it were sufficiently vast to subject these data to analysis, would embrace in one formula the movements of the greatest bodies The universe is on a par with the movements of the smallest atoms: there would be nothing left that would be unreliable for him, and the future, as well as the past, would appear before his gaze.” From Laplace's point of view, the ideal example of a scientific theory is celestial mechanics, in which, based on the laws of mechanics and the law of universal gravitation, it was possible to explain “all celestial phenomena in their smallest details.” It not only led to the understanding of a huge number of phenomena, but also provided a model for the “true method of investigating the laws of nature.”

The classical scientific picture of the world is based on the idea of ​​the qualitative homogeneity of natural phenomena. The entire variety of processes is limited by macromechanical movement, all natural connections and relationships are exhausted by a closed system of eternal and unchanging laws of classical mechanics. In contrast to ancient and especially medieval ideas, nature is viewed from the point of view of the natural order, in which only mechanical objects take place.

All the major physicists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries believed that all the great and generally all conceivable discoveries in physics had already been accomplished, that the established laws and principles were unshakable, only their new applications were possible, and that, therefore, the further development of physical science would consist only in clarification of minor details. Theoretical physics seemed to many to be basically a completed science, having exhausted its subject. It is significant that one of the leading physicists of that time, V. Thomson, giving a speech on the occasion of the beginning of the new century, said that physics had turned into a developed, complete system of knowledge, and further development would consist only of some improvements and raising the level of physical theories. True, he noticed that the beauty and clarity of dynamic theories is dimmed due to two small “clouds” in a clear sky: one is the absence of the ethereal wind, the other is the so-called “ultraviolet catastrophe.” Despite the fact that in the second half of the 19th century. mechanistic ideas about the world were significantly shaken by new revolutionary ideas in the field of electromagnetism (M. Faraday, J. Maxwell), as well as a cascade of scientific discoveries inexplicable on the basis of the laws of classical science; the mechanistic picture of the world remained dominant until the end of the 19th century.

And so, against the background of this centuries-old confidence of many scientists in the absolute indestructibility of the laws, principles and theories established by them and their predecessors, a revolution began that crushed these only seemingly eternal ideas. Human knowledge has penetrated into unusual layers of existence and there encountered unusual types of matter and forms of its movement. The conviction in the universality of the laws of classical mechanics disappeared, because the previous ideas about space and time, the indivisibility of the atom, the constancy of mass, the immutability of chemical elements, unambiguous causality, etc., were destroyed. At the same time, the classical stage in the development of natural science ended, and a new stage began non-classical natural sciences, characterized by quantum relativistic ideas about physical reality. From the two “clouds” mentioned by Thomson in the clear sky of physical science were born those two theories that determined the essence of non-classical physics - the theory of relativity and quantum physics. And they formed the basis of the modern scientific picture of the world.

How does non-classical science differ from classical science?

In classical science, any theoretical construction was not only considered, but also consciously created as a generalization of experimental data, as an auxiliary means of describing and interpreting the results of observation and experiment, results obtained independently of the theoretical construction. New views replace the old ones only because they are based on a larger number of facts, on the refined value of previously roughly measured quantities, on the results of experience with previously unknown phenomena or with previously undetected parameters of previously studied processes. Scientific knowledge, based on the fact that the entire dynamics of knowledge consists in a continuous increase in the total sum of empirical generalizations, does not know and cannot know a growth model other than the one that is uniquely related to cumulativeness. According to this view, the development of science seems to be a consistent growth of what has once been known, just as a straight wall is built up brick by brick. Essentially, this approach recognizes only the growth of science, but rejects its true development: the scientific picture of the world does not change, but only expands.

The task of classical natural science was seen in finding the unchanging laws of nature, and its outstanding representatives believed that they had already found these laws. These were considered the principles of classical mechanics, which is reflected in Lagrange’s very expressive aphorism: “Newton is the happiest of mortals, for the truth can be discovered only once, and Newton discovered this truth.” The development of physics after Newton was interpreted as a kind of reduction of what was known and what will be known to the provisions of classical mechanics. In such a teaching, the microworld, macroworld and megaworld should obey the same laws, representing only enlarged or reduced copies of each other. With this approach, it is difficult to accept, for example, the idea of ​​atoms, the sizes and properties of which cannot in any way be understood within classical constructions. It is not surprising that the opponent of the atomic theory, W. Ostwald, considered the atomic hypothesis to be like a horse, which must be looked for inside a steam locomotive in order to explain its movement. The atom is in the form of a classical object and is actually very similar to such a horse. Understanding what kind of “horse” is hidden inside a steam locomotive is the task of non-classical science - first to create a model, and then to put a fundamentally new meaning into it.

In non-classical science, a different attitude has developed: theory becomes the leading element of the cognitive process, possessing heuristic value and predictive power, and facts receive their interpretation only in the context of a certain theory. From this follows the historical variability of the forms of knowledge of the world: for non-classical science it is essential not only to find a theory that describes a certain range of phenomena, but it is extremely important to find ways of transition from this theory to a deeper and more general one. It was in this way that the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, and quantum electrodynamics arose and became established; it was in this way that the modern theory of elementary particles and astrophysics developed. “The best destiny of a physical theory is to point the way to the creation of a new, more general theory, within the framework of which it remains a limiting case.”

The peculiarity of non-classical physics is revealed, perhaps, most clearly in the approach to solving the question of the relationship between subject and object. Unlike classical science, which believes that the characteristics of the subject do not affect the results of cognition in any way, non-classical science in its methodological settings recognizes the presence of the subject in the process of cognition as inevitable and irremovable, and therefore the results of cognition cannot but contain an “admixture of subjectivity.” Everyone knows the statement of an outstanding scientist of the twentieth century. N. Bora that “in the drama of life we ​​are both actors and spectators.” According to another outstanding physicist W. Heisenberg, quantum theory established the point of view according to which man describes and explains nature not in his, so to speak, “bare self,” but exclusively refracted through the prism of human subjectivity. Highly appreciating K. Weizsäcker's formula: “Nature was before man, but man was before natural science,” he reveals its meaning: “The first half of the statement justifies classical physics with its ideals of complete objectivity. The second half explains why we cannot free ourselves from the paradoxes of quantum theory and from the need to apply classical concepts."

Thus, having emerged in modern times, science goes through classical, non-classical and post-non-classical stages in its development, at each of which corresponding ideals, norms and research methods are developed, and a unique conceptual apparatus arises. But the emergence of a new type of rationality and a new image of science should not be understood simplistically in the sense that each new stage leads to the complete disappearance of the ideas and methodological settings of the previous stage. On the contrary, there is continuity between them. Non-classical science did not destroy classical rationality at all, but only limited the scope of its action. When solving a number of problems, non-classical ideas about the world and knowledge turn out to be redundant, and the researcher can focus on classical examples (for example, when solving a number of problems in celestial mechanics, it is not at all necessary to involve the holes of a quantum relativistic description).

It is assumed that the development of science is deterministic, in contrast to the unpredictable course of events inherent in art history. Looking back at the bizarre and sometimes mysterious history of natural science, one cannot help but doubt the correctness of such statements. There are truly astonishing examples of facts that have been overlooked simply because the cultural climate was not prepared to accommodate them in a self-consistent scheme. For example, the heliocentric idea, adequate to reality (from the views of the late Pythagoreans to its stronger version in the teachings of Aristarchus of Samos, who lived in 111 century BC) did not find the proper response and was rejected by ancient science, and the geocentric cosmology of Aristotle, having received mathematical formulation in the works of C. Ptolemy, set the standard for scientific constructions and had a tremendous influence on the scientific picture of the world of late antiquity and the Middle Ages until the 16th century. What are the reasons for what happened? Maybe they should be sought in the authority of Aristotle? Or is it the greater scientific development of geocentric views compared to heliocentric ones?

The better development of the geocentric system of the world, as well as the authority of its authors, certainly played an important role in the establishment of geocentric views. However, it is easy to notice that, having limited ourselves to such an explanation, we leave the question unresolved: why did the geocentric system turn out to be better developed and for what reasons did the research efforts of the most outstanding thinkers turn out to be aimed at developing an inadequate reality system?

The answer, apparently, should be sought in the fact that any scientific theory (as well as scientific knowledge itself, taken in all its diversity) is not a self-sufficient and self-sufficient result of the activity of an abstract epistemological subject. The interweaving of theory into the socio-historical practice of society and through it into the general culture of the era is the most important moment of its viability and development. Although science is a relatively self-developing system of knowledge, nevertheless, the trend in the development of scientific knowledge is ultimately determined by the social practice of subjects of cognitive activity and the general dynamics of their socio-cultural traditions. Since in world science there are no absolutely random theories and completely isolated from the entire human culture, the emergence or, more precisely, the promotion of this or that scientific idea and its perception by the scientific community are far from the same thing. For the acceptance of a new theory, the degree of preparedness of the historical era to perceive it is much more important than considerations related to the talent of its author or the degree of its development. To believe, following F. Dyson, that if Aristarchus of Samos had greater authority than Aristotle, then heliocentric astronomy and physics would have saved humanity from the “1800-year darkness of ignorance” means completely ignoring the real historical context. E. Schrödinger is right when, to the indignation of many philosophers of science, he wrote: “There is a tendency to forget that all natural sciences are connected with universal human culture and that scientific discoveries, even those that seem at the moment to be the most advanced and accessible to the understanding of a select few, are still meaningless outside of their cultural context. That theoretical science that does not recognize that its constructs ultimately serve for reliable assimilation by the educated stratum of society and transformation into an organic part of the general picture of the world; theoretical science, I repeat, whose representatives instill ideas in each other in a language that, at best, is understandable only to a small group of close fellow travelers - such a science will certainly break away from the rest of human culture; in the future, it is doomed to impotence and paralysis, no matter how long it continues and no matter how stubbornly this style is maintained for the elite.”

The philosophy of science has shown that as a criterion for the scientific nature of knowledge, a whole complex of characteristics should be considered: evidence, intersubjectivity, impersonality, incompleteness, systematicity, criticality, immorality, rationality.

1. Science is evidence-based in the sense that its provisions are not simply declared, not simply accepted on faith, but are deduced and proven in an appropriate systematized and logically ordered form. Science lays claim to the theoretical validity of both the content and methods of achieving knowledge; it cannot be created by order or decree. Real observations, logical analysis, generalizations, conclusions, establishing a cause-and-effect relationship based on rational procedures - these are the evidentiary means of scientific knowledge.

2. Science is intersubjective in the sense that the knowledge it obtains is generally valid, universally binding, in contrast, for example, to opinion, which is characterized by non-general significance and individuality. The sign of intersubjectivity of scientific knowledge is concretized thanks to the sign of its reproducibility, which indicates the property of invariance of knowledge obtained in the course of cognition by every subject.

3. Science is impersonal in the sense that neither the individual characteristics of the scientist, nor his nationality or place of residence are in any way represented in the final results of scientific knowledge. A scientist is distracted from any manifestations that characterize a person’s attitude to the world; he looks at the world as an object of research and nothing more. Scientific knowledge is of greater value the less it expresses the individuality of the researcher.

4. Science is incomplete in the sense that scientific knowledge cannot achieve absolute truth, after which there will be nothing left to explore. Absolute truth, as complete and complete knowledge about the world as a whole, acts as the limit of the aspirations of the mind, which will never be achieved. The dialectical regularity of cognitive movement through an object is that the object in the process of cognition is included in ever new connections and, because of this, appears in all new qualities, all new content is, as it were, drawn out of the object, it seems to turn each time to its other side, in It reveals all new properties. The task of cognition is to comprehend the real content of the object of cognition, and this means the need to reflect the entire variety of properties, connections, and mediations of a given object, which are essentially infinite. Because of this, the process of scientific knowledge is endless.

5. Science is systematic in the sense that it has a definite structure rather than being an incoherent collection of parts. A collection of disparate knowledge that is not united into a coherent system does not yet form a science. Scientific knowledge is based on certain starting points and patterns that make it possible to combine relevant knowledge into a single system. Knowledge turns into scientific knowledge when the purposeful collection of facts, their description and explanation is brought to the level of their inclusion in the system of concepts, in the composition of the theory.

6. Science is critical in the sense that its foundation is free-thinking and therefore it is always ready to question and reconsider even its most fundamental results.

7. Science is value neutral in the sense that scientific truths are neutral in moral and ethical terms, and moral assessments can relate either to the activity of obtaining knowledge or to the activity of applying it. “The principles of science can only be expressed in the indicative mood; experimental data are also expressed in the same mood. The researcher can juggle with these principles as much as he likes, combine them, pile them on top of each other; everything he gets from them will be in the indicative mood. He will never receive a proposal that says: do this or don’t do that, i.e. proposals that would be consistent with or contrary to morality.”

Only the simultaneous presence of all these signs in a known result of cognition fully determines its scientific nature. The absence of at least one of these signs makes it impossible to qualify this result as scientific. For example, “universal delusion” can be intersubjective, religion can also be systematic, truth can also include pre-science, everyday knowledge, and opinions.

The first forms of knowledge production were, as is known, syncretic in nature. They represented an undifferentiated joint activity of feelings and thinking, imagination and the first generalizations. This initial practice of thinking was called mythological thinking, in which a person did not isolate his “I” and did not contrast it with the objective (independent of him). Or rather, everything else was understood precisely through the “I”, according to its soul matrix.

All subsequent development of human thinking is a process of gradual differentiation of experience, its division into subjective and objective, their isolation and increasingly precise division and definition. A major role in this was played by the emergence of the first rudiments of positive knowledge related to serving the daily practice of people: astronomical, mathematical, geographical, biological and medical knowledge.

In the history of the formation and development of science, two stages can be distinguished: pre-science and science itself. They differ from each other by different methods of constructing knowledge and predicting performance results.

Thinking, which can be called an emerging science, served primarily practical situations. It generated images or ideal objects that replaced real objects, and learned to operate with them in the imagination in order to anticipate future development. We can say that the first knowledge took the form of recipes or activity patterns: what, in what sequence, under what conditions something should be done in order to achieve known goals. For example, there are ancient Egyptian tables that explained how the operations of addition and subtraction of integers were carried out at that time. Each of the real objects was replaced by the ideal object one, which was recorded by the vertical line I (tens, hundreds, thousands had their own signs). Adding, say, three units to five units was carried out as follows: the sign III (the number “three”) was depicted, then another five vertical lines IIIIII (the number “five”) were written under it, then all these lines were transferred to one line located under the first two. The result was eight lines indicating the corresponding number. These procedures reproduced the procedures for forming collections of objects in real life.

The same connection with practice can be found in the first knowledge related to geometry, which appeared in connection with the needs of measuring land plots among the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians. These were the needs of maintaining land surveying, when the boundaries were from time to time covered with river silt, and calculating their areas. These needs gave rise to a new class of problems, the solution of which required operating with drawings. In this process, such basic geometric figures as a triangle, rectangle, trapezoid, and circle were identified, through combinations of which it was possible to depict the areas of land plots of complex configuration. In ancient Egyptian mathematics, anonymous geniuses found ways to calculate basic geometric figures, which were used both for measurement and for the construction of the great pyramids. Operations with geometric figures in drawings, related to the construction and transformation of these figures, were carried out using two main tools - a compass and a ruler. This method is still fundamental in geometry. It is significant that this method itself acts as a diagram of real practical operations. Measurement of land plots, as well as sides and planes of structures created in construction, was carried out using a tightly stretched measuring rope with knots indicating a unit of length (ruler), and a measuring rope, one end of which was attached with a peg, and the peg at the other end drew arcs ( compass). Transferred to actions with drawings, these operations appeared as the construction of geometric figures using a ruler and compass.

So, in the pre-scientific method of constructing knowledge, the main thing is the derivation of primary generalizations (abstraction) directly from practice, and then such generalizations were fixed as signs and as meanings within existing language systems.

A new way of constructing knowledge, which signified the emergence of science in our modern understanding, is formed when human knowledge reaches a certain completeness and stability. Then a method appears for constructing new ideal objects not from practice, but from those already existing in knowledge - by combining them and imaginatively placing them in different conceivable and inconceivable contexts. This new knowledge is then correlated with reality and thereby its reliability is determined.

As far as we know, the first form of knowledge that became a theoretical science itself was mathematics. Thus, in it, in parallel with similar operations in philosophy, numbers began to be considered not only as a reflection of real quantitative relations, but also as relatively independent objects, the properties of which can be studied on their own, without connection with practical needs. This gives rise to the actual mathematical research, which begins to build new ideal objects from the natural series of numbers previously obtained from practice. Thus, using the operation of subtracting larger numbers from smaller numbers, negative numbers are obtained. This newly discovered new class of numbers is subject to all those operations that were previously obtained in the analysis of positive ones, which creates new knowledge that characterizes previously unknown aspects of reality. By applying the operation of extracting the root to negative numbers, mathematics receives a new class of abstractions - imaginary numbers, to which all operations that serve natural numbers are again applied.

Of course, this method of construction is characteristic not only of mathematics, but is also established in the natural sciences and is known there as a method of putting forward hypothetical models with subsequent practical testing. Thanks to the new method of constructing knowledge, science has the opportunity to study not only those subject connections that can be found in already established stereotypes of practices, but also to anticipate those changes that, in principle, a developing civilization can master. This is how science itself begins, because along with empirical rules and dependencies, a special type of knowledge is formed - theory. The theory itself, as is known, allows one to obtain empirical dependencies as a consequence of theoretical postulates.

Scientific knowledge, unlike pre-scientific knowledge, is constructed not only in the categories of existing practice, but can also be correlated with a qualitatively different, future one, and therefore the categories of the possible and necessary are already applied here. They are no longer formulated only as prescriptions for existing practice, but claim to express the essential structures, the causes of reality “in itself.” Such claims to discover knowledge about objective reality as a whole give rise to the need for a special practice that goes beyond the boundaries of everyday experience. This is how a scientific experiment subsequently arises.

The scientific method of research appeared as a result of a long previous civilizational development, the formation of certain attitudes of thinking. The cultures of traditional societies of the East did not create such conditions. Undoubtedly, they gave the world a lot of specific knowledge and recipes for solving specific problem situations, but everything remained within the framework of simple, reflective knowledge. Canonized styles of thinking and traditions, oriented toward the reproduction of existing forms and methods of activity, dominated here.

The transition to science in our sense of the word is associated with two turning points in the development of culture and civilization: the formation of classical philosophy, which contributed to the emergence of the first form of theoretical research - mathematics, radical ideological shifts in the Renaissance and the transition to the New Age, which gave rise to the formation of scientific experiment in its combination with the mathematical method.

The first phase of the formation of the scientific method of generating knowledge is associated with the phenomenon of ancient Greek civilization. Its unusualness is often called a mutation, which emphasizes the unexpectedness and unprecedented nature of its appearance. There are many explanations for the reasons for the ancient Greek miracle. The most interesting of them are the following.

- Greek civilization could only arise as a fruitful synthesis of the great eastern cultures. Greece itself lay at the “crossroads” of information flows (Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, Mesopotamia, Western Asia, the “barbarian” world). Hegel also points to the spiritual influence of the East in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, speaking about the historical premise of ancient Greek thought - Eastern substantiality - the concept of the organic unity of the spiritual and natural as the basis of the universe.

- Still, however, many researchers tend to give preference, rather, to socio-political reasons - the decentralization of Ancient Greece, the polis system of political organization. This prevented the development of despotic centralized forms of government (derived in the East from large-scale irrigation agriculture) and led to the emergence of the first democratic forms of public life. The latter gave rise to free individuality - and not as a precedent, but as a fairly broad layer of free citizens of the polis. The organization of their lives was based on equality and the regulation of life through adversarial proceedings. Competition between the cities led to the fact that each of them sought to have the best art, the best speakers, philosophers, etc. in their city. This gave rise to an unprecedented pluralization of creative activity. We can observe something similar more than two thousand years later in the decentralized, petty-princely Germany of the second sex. XVIII - first half. XIX centuries

This is how the first individualistic civilization appeared (Greece after Socrates), which gave the world standards for the individualistic organization of social life and at the same time paid a very large historical price for it - a passionate overstrain self-destructed Ancient Greece and removed the Greek ethnos from the stage of global history for a long time. The Greek phenomenon can also be interpreted as a clear example of the phenomenon of retrospective revaluation of the beginning. The actual beginning is great because it contains in potential all further developed forms, which then reveal themselves in this beginning with surprise, admiration and obvious revaluation.

The social life of Ancient Greece was filled with dynamism and was distinguished by a high degree of competition, which the civilizations of the East with their stagnant patriarchal cycle of life did not know. Standards of life and the ideas corresponding to them were developed through the struggle of opinions in the national assembly, competitions in sports arenas and in the courts. On this basis, ideas were formed about the variability of the world and human life, and the possibilities of their optimization. Such social practice gave rise to various concepts of the universe and social structure, which were developed by ancient philosophy. Theoretical prerequisites for the development of science arose, which consisted in the fact that thinking became capable of reasoning about the invisible aspects of the world, about connections and relationships that are not given in everyday life.

This is a specific characteristic of ancient philosophy. In the traditional societies of the East, such a theorizing role of philosophy was limited. Of course, metaphysical systems arose here too, but they performed mainly protective, religious and ideological functions. Only in ancient philosophy were new forms of organizing knowledge most fully realized for the first time as the search for a single foundation (principles and causes) and the derivation of consequences from it. The very evidence and validity of judgment, which became the main condition for the acceptability of knowledge, could only be established in the social practice of equal citizens solving their problems through competition in politics or the courts. This, in contrast to references to authority, is the main condition for the acceptability of knowledge in the Ancient East.

The combination of new forms of organization of knowledge or theoretical reasoning obtained by philosophers with the mathematical knowledge accumulated at the stage of pre-science gave rise to the first scientific form of knowledge in the history of people - mathematics. The main milestones of this path can be presented as follows.

Already early Greek philosophy, represented by Thales and Anaximander, began to systematize the mathematical knowledge acquired in ancient civilizations and apply the proof procedure to it. But nevertheless, the development of mathematics was decisively influenced by the worldview of the Pythagoreans, which was based on extrapolation of practical mathematical knowledge to the interpretation of the universe. The beginning of everything is number, and numerical relations are the fundamental proportions of the universe. This ontologization of the practice of calculus played a particularly positive role in the emergence of the theoretical level of mathematics: numbers began to be studied not as models of concrete practical situations, but by themselves, regardless of practical application. Knowledge of the properties and relationships of numbers began to be perceived as knowledge of the principles and harmony of the cosmos.

Another theoretical innovation of the Pythagoreans was their attempts to combine the theoretical study of the properties of geometric figures with the properties of numbers or to establish a connection between geometry and arithmetic. The Pythagoreans did not limit themselves only to the use of numbers to characterize geometric figures, but, on the contrary, tried to apply geometric images to the study of the totality of numbers. The number 10, a perfect number that completes the tens of the natural series, was correlated with a triangle, the basic figure to which, when proving theorems, they sought to reduce other geometric figures (figured numbers).

After the Pythagoreans, mathematics was developed by all the major philosophers of antiquity. Thus, Plato and Aristotle gave the ideas of the Pythagoreans a more rigorous rational form. They believed that the world was built on mathematical principles and that the basis of the universe was a mathematical plan: “The Demiurge constantly geometrizes,” said Plato. From this understanding it followed that the language of mathematics is most appropriate for describing the world.

The development of theoretical knowledge in antiquity was completed by the creation of the first example of a scientific theory - Euclidean geometry, which meant the separation from philosophy of a special, independent science of mathematics. Subsequently, in antiquity, numerous applications of mathematical knowledge were obtained to the description of natural objects: in astronomy (calculation of the sizes and features of the movement of planets and the Sun, the heliocentric concept of Aristarchus of Samos and the geocentric concept of Hipparchus and Ptolemy) and mechanics (Archimedes’ development of the principles of statics and hydrostatics, the first theoretical models and laws of mechanics of Heron, Pappus).

At the same time, the main thing that ancient science could not do was to discover and use the experimental method. Most researchers of the history of science believe that the reason for this was the peculiar ideas of ancient scientists about the relationship between theory and practice (technique, technology). Abstract, speculative knowledge was highly valued, and practical-utilitarian, engineering knowledge and activity were considered, as well as physical labor, as a “low and ignoble matter,” the lot of the unfree and slaves.

There are five points of view regarding the emergence of science:

Science has always existed, starting from the birth of human society, since scientific curiosity is organically inherent in man;

Science arose in Ancient Greece, since it was here that knowledge first received its theoretical justification (generally accepted);

hScience arose in Western Europe in the 12th-14th centuries, as interest in experimental knowledge and mathematics emerged;

Science begins in the 16th-17th centuries, and thanks to the work of G. Galileo, I. Kepler, X. Huygens and I. Newton, the first theoretical model of physics in the language of mathematics is created;

Science begins in the first third of the 19th century, when research activities were combined with higher education.

The emergence of science. Science in Prehistoric Society and the Ancient World.

In prehistoric society and ancient civilization, knowledge existed in a recipe form, i.e. knowledge was inseparable from skill and unstructured. This knowledge was pre-theoretical, unsystematic, and lacked abstractions. We include myth, magic, and early forms of religion as auxiliary means of pre-theoretical knowledge. Myth (narration) is a person’s rational attitude to the world. Magic is the actions themselves. Magic thinks through interconnected processes of physical, mental, symbolic and other nature.

Basic ideas of abstract theoretical thinking in ancient Greek philosophy. In the ancient culture of ancient Greece, theoretical, systematic and abstract thinking appears. It is based on the idea of ​​special knowledge (general knowledge, first knowledge). Among the ancient Greeks, arche-first (beginning) appears; physics-nature (that from which a thing comes). Things have one beginning, but their nature is different. These were two concentrates of theoretical thinking. There also arose: the law of identity, the law of exclusion of the third, the law of non-contradiction, the law of sufficient reason. This is a systematic approach. The first theories were created in philosophy for the needs of philosophy. Theory begins to connect with scientific knowledge in the 2nd century BC. Versions of the origin of the theory: unique economics, Greek religion.

Stages of science development:

Stage 1 - ancient Greece - the emergence of science in society with the proclamation of geometry as the science of measuring the earth. The object of study is the megaworld (including the universe in all its diversity).

A) they worked not with real objects, not with an empirical object, but with mathematical models - abstractions.

B) An axiom was derived from all concepts and, based on them, new concepts were derived using logical justification.

Ideals and norms of science: knowledge is the value of knowledge. The method of cognition is observation.

Scientific picture of the world: has an integrative character, based on the relationship between the micro- and macrocosmos.

Philosophy foundations of science: F. – science of sciences. The style of thinking is intuitively dialectical. Anthropocosmism - man is an organic part of the world cosmic process. Ch. is the measure of all things.

Stage 2 – Medieval European science – science turned into the handmaiden of theology. The confrontation between nominalists (singular things) and realists (universal things). The object of study is the macrocosm (Earth and near space).

Ideals and norms of science: Knowledge is power. An inductively empirical approach. Mechanism. Contrasting object and subject.

Scientific picture of the world: Newtonian classic. Mechanics; heliocentrism; divine origin the world and its objects; The world is a complex mechanism.

Philosophy foundations of science: Mechanistic determinism. Thinking style – mechanically metaphysical (denial of internal contradiction)

scientific knowledge is oriented towards theologism

focused on specific servicing of the interests of a limited number

Scientific schools arise, the priority of empirical knowledge in the study of surrounding reality is proclaimed (the division of sciences is underway).

Stage 3: New European classical science (15-16 centuries). The object of research is the microworld. A collection of elementary particles. The relationship between the empirical and rational levels of knowledge.

Ideals and norms of science: the principle of dependence of the object on the subject. Combination of theoretical and practical directions.

Scientific picture of the world: the formation of private scientific pictures of the world (chemical, physical...)

Philosophy foundations of science: dialectics - the style of natural scientific thinking.

Culture is gradually freeing itself from the domination of the church.

first attempts to remove scholasticism and dogmatism

intensive economic development

avalanche-like interest in scientific knowledge.

Features of the period:

scientific thought begins to focus on obtaining objectively true knowledge with an emphasis on practical usefulness

an attempt to analyze and synthesize the rational grains of pre-science

experimental knowledge begins to dominate

science is being formed as a social institution (universities, scientific books)

technical and social sciences begin to stand out Auguste Comte

Stage 4: 20th century – non-classical science is gaining strength. The object of research is the micro-, macro- and mega-world. The relationship between empirical, rational and intuitive knowledge.

Ideals and norms of science: axiologization of science. Increasing the degree of “fundamentalization” of applied sciences.

Scientific picture of the world: formation of a general scientific picture of the world. The predominance of the idea of ​​global evolutionism (development is an attribute inherent in all forms of objective reality). The transition from anthropocentrism to biospherecentrism (man, biosphere, space - in interconnection and unity).

Philosophy foundations of science: synergetic style of thinking (integrativity, nonlinearity, bifurcation)

Stage 5: post-non-classical science – the modern stage of the development of scientific knowledge.

4. Forms of existence of science: science as a cognitive activity, as a social institution, as a special form of culture.

Within the framework of the philosophy of science, it is customary to distinguish several forms of the existence of science:

as a cognitive activity,

as a special type of worldview,

as a specific type of cognition,

as a social institution.

Science as a cognitive activity

Scientific activity is a cognitive activity aimed at obtaining new knowledge. The fundamental difference between scientific activity and other types of activity is that it is aimed at obtaining new knowledge. Scientific activity has a strictly defined structure: subject of research, object and subject of research, means and methods of research, research results.

The research subject is the one doing the research. The subject of research is usually understood as not only an individual scientist, but also scientific teams, the scientific community (T. Kuhn).

The object of research is that part of reality that is studied by the scientific community. The subject of knowledge is the properties and patterns that are studied in the object of knowledge. Therefore, the object of cognition is wider in scope and content than the subject of cognition. It is impossible to immediately cognize an object in its integrity and certainty, and therefore it is divided (mentally, of course) into parts that are examined..

Means and methods of cognition are “instruments”, “instruments” of scientific activity. . For modern scientific activity, traditional research methods, such as observation and measurement, are complemented by modeling methods that make it possible to significantly expand the horizons of knowledge by including a time component.

The result of scientific activity is scientific facts, empirical generalizations, scientific hypotheses and theories. This, figuratively speaking, is the product of scientific activity.

Scientific facts are objective processes identified and appropriately expressed (based on specialized language).

There are three possible main models of scientific activity - empiricism, theoreticism, problematism, which highlight certain aspects of it.

Empiricism: scientific activity begins with obtaining empirical data about the subject of research, and then follows their logical and mathematical processing, which leads to inductive generalizations.

Theoretism, being the direct opposite of empiricism, considers the starting point of scientific activity to be a certain general idea born in the depths of scientific thinking.

Problematism. The starting point of this type of activity is a scientific problem - a significant empirical or theoretical question, the answer to which requires obtaining new, usually non-obvious empirical or theoretical information.

So, science, along with philosophy, religion, morality and art, belongs to the “roots” of culture. This is especially true for the scientific worldview.

Science as a special type of worldview

Worldview is a complex system of ideas, teachings, beliefs, aesthetic and spiritual-moral assessments. Science occupies a worthy place in the formation of worldview.

What are the features of the scientific worldview? If it was included in natural philosophy, then the difference in the scientific worldview was understood only in the degree of speculativeness and universality. If science was contrasted with other worldview forms, then the scientific worldview was interpreted as an expression of the maturity of the human spirit and consciousness.

Let us pay attention to two aspects of the scientific worldview. Firstly, from the variety of human relationships to the world, science chooses an epistemological, subject-object relationship. Secondly, the epistemological attitude itself must be subject to the basic principles of scientific research.

Modern scientists are gaining support for the point of view according to which science should not be fenced off with a blank wall from other forms of searching for truth.

Modern science continues to express the mental structure formed in modern times. It is based on the subject-object relationship of a person to the world. In fact, from the very beginning, two forms of scientific worldview were presented in the scientific worldview (V.I. Vernadsky) - physical, addressed to mechanical and physical properties, and naturalistic (biospheric), considering complex systems, the organization of which is a function of living matter as an aggregate living organisms. The new scientific worldview emerging recently is taking a step towards combining the physical and biosphere worldviews.

So, science can be understood as a certain type of worldview, which is in the process of its formation and development.

Science as a specific type of knowledge

Science as a specific type of knowledge is studied by the logic and methodology of science. In modern science, it is customary to distinguish at least three classes of sciences - natural, technical and social-humanitarian.

The main features of scientific knowledge that characterize science as an integral specific phenomenon of human culture include: objectivity and objectivity, consistency, logical evidence, theoretical and empirical validity.

Subjectivity and objectivity. Objectivity is the property of an object to posit itself as the essential connections and laws being studied. The main task of science is to identify the laws and connections according to which objects change and develop. Objectivity, like objectivity, distinguishes science from other forms of human spiritual life. The main thing in science is to construct an object that would obey objective connections and laws.

Systematicity. Ordinary knowledge, just like science, strives to comprehend the real objective world, but unlike scientific knowledge, it develops spontaneously in the process of human life. Scientific knowledge is always systematized in everything.

Logical evidence. Theoretical and empirical validity. It makes sense to consider these specific features of scientific knowledge together, since logical evidence can be presented as one of the types of theoretical validity of scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge necessarily includes theoretical and empirical validity, logic and other forms of proof of the reliability of scientific truth.

Modern logic is not a homogeneous whole; on the contrary, it can be divided into relatively independent sections or types of logics that arose and were developed in different historical periods with different goals.

Proof is the most common procedure for the theoretical validity of scientific research. The proof can be divided into three elements:

thesis is a judgment that needs justification;

arguments, or grounds, are reliable judgments from which the thesis is logically deduced and justified;

demonstration - reasoning, including one or more conclusions.

Empirical validity includes procedures for the confirmability and repeatability of an established relationship or law. The means of confirming a scientific thesis include a scientific fact, an identified empirical pattern, and an experiment.

The criterion of logical evidence of a scientific theory is not always and not fully realizable. In such cases, additional logical and methodological principles are introduced into the arsenal of scientific tools, such as the principle of complementarity, the principle of uncertainty, non-classical logic, etc.

Scientific criteria may not be feasible. Then scientific knowledge is complemented by hermeneutic procedures. Its essence is this: you must first understand the whole so that the parts and elements can then become clear.

So, science as an objective and objective knowledge of reality is based on controlled (confirmed and repeatable) facts, rationally formulated and systematized ideas and provisions; asserts the need for proof. Scientific criteria determine the specificity of science and reveal the direction of human thinking towards objective and universal knowledge.

All elements of the scientific complex are in mutual relationships and are combined into certain subsystems and systems.

Science as a social institution

The social institute of science began to take shape in Western Europe in the 16th-17th centuries.

Science, included in solving the problems of innovation facing society, acts as a special social institution that functions on the basis of a specific system of internal values ​​inherent in the scientific community, the “scientific ethos.”

Science as a social structure relies in its functioning on six value imperatives.

The imperative of universalism affirms the impersonal, objective nature of scientific knowledge. All other forms of human cognitive activity have to take into account the universally binding nature of scientific truths.

The imperative of collectivism says that the fruits of scientific knowledge belong to the entire scientific community and society as a whole. They are always the result of collective scientific co-creation, since any scientist relies on some ideas (knowledge) of his predecessors and contemporaries.

The imperative of selflessness means that the main goal of scientists should be the service of truth. In science, truth should not be a means to achieve personal gain, but only a socially significant goal.

The imperative of organized skepticism does not simply prohibit the dogmatic assertion of truth in science, but, on the contrary, makes it a professional duty for a scientist to criticize the views of his colleagues, if there is even the slightest reason for doing so. The imperative of rationalism states that science strives for proven, logically organized discourse, the highest arbiter of truth of which is rationality.

The imperative of emotional neutrality prohibits people of science from using the resources of the emotional and psychological sphere - emotions, personal likes or dislikes - when solving scientific problems.

The most important problem in the organization of science is the reproduction of personnel. Science itself should prepare such people for scientific work.

Thus, science is closely related to a specific stage of the institutionalization process. In this process, it takes on specific forms: on the one hand, science as a social institution is determined by its integration into the structures of society (economic, socio-political, spiritual), on the other hand, it develops knowledge, norms and standards, and helps ensure the sustainability of society.

The history of the development of science suggests that the earliest evidence of science can be found in prehistoric times, such as the discovery of fire, and the development of writing. Early similarity records contain numbers and information about the solar system.

However the history of scientific development has become more important over time for human life.

Significant stages in the development of science

Robert Grosseteste

1200s:

Robert Grosseteste (1175 – 1253), founder of the Oxford school of philosophy and natural science, theorist and practitioner of experimental natural science, developed the basis for the correct methods of modern scientific experiments. His work included the principle that a request should be based on measurable evidence verified by testing. Introduced the concept of light as a bodily substance in its primary form and energy.

Leonardo da Vinci

1400s:

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) Italian artist, scientist, writer, musician. I began my studies in search of knowledge about the human body. His inventions in the form of drawings of a parachute, a flying machine, a crossbow, a rapid-fire weapon, a robot, something like a tank. The artist, scientist and mathematician also collected information about searchlight optics and fluid dynamics issues.

1500s:

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 -1543) advanced the understanding of the solar system with the discovery of heliocentrism. He proposed a realistic model in which the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun, which is the center of the solar system. The scientist’s main ideas were outlined in the work “On the Rotations of the Celestial Spheres,” which spread freely throughout Europe and the whole world.

Johannes Kepler

1600s:

Johannes Kepler (1571 -1630) German mathematician and astronomer. He based the laws of planetary motion on observations. He laid the foundations for the empirical study of planetary motion and the mathematical laws of this motion.

Galileo Galilei perfected a new invention, the telescope, and used it to study the sun and planets. The 1600s also saw advances in the study of physics as Isaac Newton developed his laws of motion.

1700s:

Benjamin Franklin (1706 -1790) discovered that lightning is an electric current. He also contributed to the study of oceanography and meteorology. The understanding of chemistry also developed during this century, as Antoine Lavoisier, called the father of modern chemistry, developed the law of conservation of mass.

1800s:

Milestones included Alessandro Volta's discoveries regarding electrochemical series, which led to the invention of the battery.

John Dalton also contributed the atomic theory, which states that all matter is made up of atoms that form molecules.

The basis of modern research was put forward by Gregor Mendel and revealed his laws of inheritance.

At the end of the century, Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovered X-rays, and George Ohm's law served as the basis for understanding how to use electrical charges.

1900s:

The discoveries of Albert Einstein, best known for his theory of relativity, dominated the early 20th century. Einstein's theory of relativity is actually two separate theories. His special theory of relativity, which he outlined in his 1905 paper "Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", concluded that time should vary depending on the speed of a moving object relative to the observer's frame of reference. His second theory of general relativity, which he published as The Basis of General Relativity, put forward the idea that matter causes the space around it to bend.

The history of the development of science in the field of medicine was forever changed by Alexander Fleming with molds as historically the first antibiotic.

Medicine, as a science, also owes its name to the polio vaccine discovered in 1952 by the American virologist Jonas Salk.

The following year, James D. Watson and Francis Crick discovered , which is a double helix formed with a base pair attached to a sugar-phosphate backbone.

2000s:

In the 21st century, the first project was completed, leading to a greater understanding of DNA. This has advanced the study of genetics, its role in human biology, and its use as a predictor of diseases and other disorders.

Thus, the history of the development of science has always been aimed at the rational explanation, prediction and control of empirical phenomena by great thinkers, scientists and inventors.

Science is a historical phenomenon, passing through a number of qualitatively unique stages in its development:

-classical (XVII–XIX centuries)– science ceases to be a private, “amateur” activity, and becomes a profession. There is a process of desacralization of cognitive activity, an experimental natural science is emerging, in which an objective style of thinking dominates, the desire to know the subject in itself, regardless of the conditions of its study. Fundamental and special theories are created.

- non-classical (first half of the 20th century)), which is associated with the emergence of “Big Science”, the main theories of the modern interpretation of the world are created (the theory of relativity, new cosmology, nuclear physics, quantum mechanics, genetics, etc.). The idea of ​​the reality being studied as independent of the means of its knowledge is rejected. Non-classical science comprehends the connections between the knowledge of an object and the nature of the means and operations of the activity. Disclosure of the essence of these connections is considered as conditions for an objectively true description and explanation of the world. There is a frontal introduction of scientific ideas into technical innovation, production and everyday life.

- post-non-classical (second half of the 20th century), when science becomes the subject of comprehensive tutelage of the state, an element of its system. It implements large-scale projects such as the nuclear or space program, environmental monitoring, etc. In epistemological terms, this period is associated with the formation of ideas of post-non-classical science, which takes into account the correlation of the nature of the acquired knowledge about an object not only with the peculiarities of the means and operations of the subject’s activity, but also with value-goal structures.

MAIN VERSIONS OF THE ORIGIN OF SCIENCE.

There are five points of view regarding the emergence of science:

· Science has always existed, starting from the birth of human society, since scientific curiosity is organically inherent in man;

· Science arose in Ancient Greece, since it was here that knowledge first received its theoretical justification (generally accepted);

· hScience arose in Western Europe in the 12th-14th centuries, as interest in experimental knowledge and mathematics emerged;

· Science begins in the 16th-17th centuries, and thanks to the work of G. Galileo, I. Kepler, X. Huygens and I. Newton, the first theoretical model of physics in the language of mathematics is created;

· Science begins in the first third of the 19th century, when research activities were combined with higher education.

CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES.

A complex but very important problem is the classification of sciences. . An extensive system of numerous and diverse studies, distinguished by object, subject, method, degree of fundamentality, scope of application, etc., practically excludes a unified classification of all sciences on one basis. In the most general form, sciences are divided into natural, technical, public (social) and humanitarian.

TO natural sciences include:

§ about space, its structure, development (astronomy, cosmology, cosmogony, astrophysics, cosmochemistry, etc.);

§ Earth (geology, geophysics, geochemistry, etc.);

§ physical, chemical, biological systems and processes, forms of motion of matter (physics, etc.);

§ man as a biological species, his origin and evolution (anatomy, etc.).

Technical sciences are meaningfully based on the natural sciences. They study various forms and directions of development of technology (heat engineering, radio engineering, electrical engineering, etc.).

Public (social) sciences also have a number of directions and study society (economics, sociology, political science, jurisprudence, etc.).

Humanities sciences - sciences about the spiritual world of man, about the relationship to the surrounding world, society, and one’s own kind (pedagogy, psychology, heuristics, conflictology, etc.).

There are connecting links between the blocks of sciences; the same sciences can be partially included in different groups (ergonomics, medicine, ecology, engineering psychology, etc.), the line between the social and human sciences (history, ethics, aesthetics, etc.) is especially fluid.

A special place in the system of sciences is occupied by philosophy, mathematics, cybernetics, computer science etc., which, due to their general nature, are used in any research.

In the course of historical development, science gradually turns from a solitary activity (Archimedes) into a special, relatively independent form of social consciousness and sphere of human activity. It acts as a product of the long development of human culture, civilization, a special social organism with its own types of communication, division and cooperation of certain types of scientific activity.

The role of science in the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution is constantly growing. Among its main functions are the following:

§ ideological(science explains the world);

§ epistemological(science contributes to understanding the world);

§ transformative(science acts as a factor in social development: it underlies the processes of modern production, the creation of advanced technologies, significantly increasing the productive forces of society).

CLASSIFICATION OF LEGAL SCIENCES.

Classification of legal sciences is a method of grouping (division) according to some criterion, called the basis of classification (division). Legal sciences can be classified on various grounds, but in the theory of state and law, the classification of legal sciences has gained recognition only on such a basis as subject matter.

Therefore, legal sciences in the literature are classified as follows:

a) general theoretical (general theory of state and law, general theory of the legal system of society);

b) historical (history of the state and law of Russia, general history of the state and law, etc.);

c) sectoral (civil, family, criminal law, etc.);

d) applied (judicial statistics, criminology, etc.);

e) legal sciences that study foreign law (state law of foreign countries, etc.);

f) international legal sciences (private, public, maritime, space law, etc.).

23. TERMINAL SCIENCES: CONCEPT AND TYPES.

The “butt” sciences express the most general, essential properties and relationships inherent in the totality of forms of movement. Due to the fact that there are no sharp boundaries between individual sciences and scientific disciplines, especially recently, in modern science interdisciplinary and complex research has developed significantly, uniting representatives of scientific disciplines that are very distant from each other and using methods from different sciences. All this makes the problem of classifying sciences very difficult.

Examples: Biochemistry and Biophysics