V.llyin.

Viktor lIyin and Anatoli Kalinkin

are among the leading scientists of
Moscow University specialising in
Problems of the philosophy of
science . Their original works- monographs, pamphlets , and articlesare well -known in the USSR .
Viktor lIyin , Candidate of Philosophy , Associate Professor of
Moscow University , has studied
the theory of knowledge and the
history of science at the Department
of Philosophy of that University .
He is a major researcher in the field
of epistemology .
Anatoli Kalinkin , Candidate of Phi
losophy , Associate Professor of
Moscow University . has studied 10'
gic and the methodological problems
of the humanities . He has obtained
10m. highly important results in
this field .

aure

ClenCe
An Episte molog ical Anal ysis

Progress publishers

Moscow

Tran~lated from t he R u~ia n hy S('rJ,lci S .rrmal/':in

Designe d by V ladimir Alhk,mm'

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CONTENTS

nPllPO:J, ... IiU' klt

Prdace

C/"'plt'r I. T H E CONCEPT OF SCIE:"CE

1.1. Criteria of ScienrifKily.

1.2 . Science as Knowledge. A TYJlOlogy of Know Icdj!:t'

As

....

M(

CIIapft'r 1. TH E G EN ES IS OF SC IE l'o CE
.
2.1. The Problem of the Begmning'" of S"::len..::e
2.2. S(icnce 111 t he Ancienl Orient

2 ..1 Scien(e in Cla~ica l Anl iquil)'

2.4 Scienn;' in Ihe Middle Ag~

2.$. The Fo unlaillheild of C I ~Kal St'ience
2.0. The Natu re of \hlllcrn S(ience

OK

Chapter
.1 1.
3.2.
3 ..1
.1.4.

English t ransla tion of Ihe revised Ru~ial1 tex t

C P rog re,~ P ubl i~h~r~ I Q88 )
HI'puhlics

Mathe matics
Nailiral Sc ie lKl'
TedHlilol KI H)wlcdge
Humall Kn owledge

01 4 (01)- -88

18 88

ISBN 50 10005034

2:n

.f . FORM S OF SCIENT IF IC KN OWLEDGE

J 0.1

141

4. J. T h ... Con"::l'pt ond P ath~ \\f Sc ien tifiC Progr ......,

4.2. Tlu:orie' of ScielltiflC Progre"',

Co n (lu~ i on

Bibliography

Na me inde"

Suttje,", mde"

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Ch apm 4. T HF DIALFC'T ICS O F DEVE LO PING KN OW LE DGE,

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PRHA(T

What i'l the nature of 'Ici cn ce <11 a \,:ategorial-l08ical relation to the world a'i di'ltincl from Ihe other prodUC1l ttl
~piritual-theor e t il.: al a ..... im ilatio n of reality? What is scienct'
conditio ned by'! Wh ere lies th e boundary between sc ie",,:e and
th e ~ph e r e of evt!ryday experience. a rti'ltic think ing, murality.
religi on. a nd other area~ of tht! \OI.:ial superstructu re?
Through out h i')to ry. epi.-.te mologists have allempted 10 a nswer these question':>-to c reate an acceptable model of tlw
scien tiflcit y of kn owledge. T hese allempt<;. howc\er. han',
we believe. failed due to th e inadequacy of the philo.. ophicalmethodological foundati ons of the concept s of seie",,:e de\'doped in pre- and non-Marxian epistemo logy. wh ich rai~d to
an absolute either the empirical and inductive. o r (he rat ional
and deductive. or else the subconscious and intuitive aspects
and components of knowledge. These models of science Were
therefore narrow and non-historical; they ignored the- social
status of cognitive activity and negated practice as the fina l
instrument of ascertaining the scientific it)' of knowl~ge. The':>\:!
difficulties were only overcome in dialectical malerialism,
which provided a truly scientific foundation of epI~=
~
well as a world view basis adequale 10 Ihe ...;,.,
problem.
Be ing a ma nifold phenoilbenon. scie ..ce II studied in the
fra mework of approaches besed on logic and methodoiosy. socia l psycho lo,y, economic statistics. information theory, cybernetics. etc. T he present work. taking the epistemological ap
proach. is focu sed on the gnoseological problems of science as
know ledge. Acc ordingly. other questions which . though associat ed wit h this problem range conceptually. thematically. etc .
merit special consideration. are excluded from the universe of
discourse.
There are various kinds of epistemological units or ta, ~ns: theory. rami ly of theories. paradigm. research programme.
mtellectual tradition. types of knowledge. finally. knowledge

._

.1" a w/1 o le. The prin c ipal IIIltt of Llllaly"i" i!1,:n ' pll' d Ill'rl' i\
..,l' ll'rHi ne knowledge and ih fOfm ... , kind, and I"pl'\.
T ht' \it' w of 'i("ience [I'.. knowktll;l' i .. lI11p(';nalll 1101 nlll\'

ill that il e."palllh. Ih~ boundaril'" 1,)( the tradition.1I ]ngka(.

methodologIcal analysl'" to (,1I("0I11P3".. , along with the fairl\'
we\l-~tlldied ",heory", Ihe rl.'l.ui\Lly lill!t' \ludiL'd kiTlth (;1'

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knowledge and knowledge a.. a whole, hll! al.,o in [hut il

opel~'" up fresh per\re~liH'\ for C()tl"'lnl~ling a general epi\ll.'llJ ologlc~l th~ory o~

a\ a .~.P-~('-(1,,( tyPt' of rationali!\',

a ... peoal kmd of IIltelleclllal prodw.: tioll.
-.
SClent' e

T he 'ilruclUre of Ihe work is delerrnined by the mode

of re\~an.~h adopl~d i,n H. Fi rst. ge n eral p robl e'Ill '), sLlc h a s
the .crlten a. o.f sCle nl 1fl ci ty an d sc ie nc e as kn o wl edge. a re
, w.oled. Th~s IS fo l~o wed by a disc lL s,ion of h~\s ge neral b ut
epl'i te~no logll' all y hIghly important problem s of scien c e: the
g.enesis of science. the defmiteness of the form s of scien.
IIf~c knowledge . and the di a lectics of th e de velopment o f
\C~ence. The chOICe of Ihese pro blems fo r analysis was determ~ned by (h.e ract tl~at not all o f the a spec ts o f th is pro bl e m.
~lICS have, III o u r View, bee n su fflci e n tly studied in scientific
lllerature .
T he book consists of four cha pters. Charters I. 2 an d 4 ,
as well as the P reface. and Afterword, were written jo in tly
b~ t~~ two au.t hors: S.ecllons I and 2 of Charter 3 were wri tle n
bX \ door lIym, Secllons 3 and -t of that c hapter, bv An alOli
Kalmkll1 .

TIl E CO -.;CE PT OF SC IE " CE

Ph ilo,oph ers h ave always faced the ta sk o f stud y ing the

di alect ic) o f ,denti nc knowledge and its epi stem olog ical roun.
da tio ns. T he f OeLlS here is largely on bringi n g Oul the epis.
le lll ologic al nat u re o f sc ie ntific knowledge a\ opposed to
n o n ~sc i e ntifl C fo rm s of kn owl edge. We shall begin our dis.
cllssion o f thi s topic with the prob lem or c r iter ia fo r delerminin g th at nature.
I I. CRITERIA OF

SCIE ~TIFI C ITY

Th e aC l ua l m u lt idi m ensionality and plurality of Ihe strala

of int e ll ec t ual p roduction give rise 10 the problem of specin cat io n of it s const it ue n ts. Accordin l! l\' , theories of my- tho
logica l, artistic. re lig ious, a n d p ractical e\eryday e:\periem:e
come int o be ing. T hey are concerned with d efining the spe
c inc fe a t ures of both the hu man activity and il'> producl\
in eac h conc re te c ase. Th e th e ory of scie n ce figu res prominently in Ih is se r ies of th eo ries. Its task is refie:\ io n on the
bas is fo r dra wing a demarc at ion li ne between sci enc e and n on
sc ienc e . (G e nerall y speak ing. the sphere of non-s!"' iem'e is wide
and heterogeneo us. including as il does nonsc-ienlific forms of
cogniti ve ac tivity within the framework of pracbca'-rvrryday,
artistic , etc. _ e:\periences: prescience. or prolo-knowledge -the basi s of future science: pseudosdence-Ihe fant8 , ies an d
prejudice, masquerading as .. cience (e.g. , phrenology); para~
sc ien ce , o r kn owledge wh ose e piste mological status d oes no t
satisfy th e con d itions of science, su ch as pa rapsyc ho logy; a nd
a nt i-sc ien ce d elibe rate d i<:.tortions of the scient ifi c view of Ihe
world . as fou nd . e.g., in the bourgeois .. oc ial utop ias in
soc io logy, )
What a re the ep istem o log ica l stat utes o f scie nce? Wh at
distingui shes th e scie nt ifIC appro ac h fro m Dlh er ty pes of attitude to the wor ld? These and .. imil a r questions can only
be so lv ed th rough iden tifying cert ai n o bjec tive indicators or

--

aiteria of scienlificity. The problem of e\tahli .. hing such

in9icalOTs is. in fact. the problem ~)r lhe cnteria of ')cien.
tiheit),.

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If we accept the Iradilil)nal interpretation of criterion

as a rule for making choices and reali\ing preferences the
following definition of criteria of '>cientifl(ily can be suggested. Criteria of scienliflCilY are rules for evaluating the
products of cognition as according. or not according. with
the standards of science: they pennil an ordering of the
product!:> of cognition in terms of their c1ose!le~ to (or
remoteness from) science; they are fundamental theoretical .....
methodological principles, norms, values, ideals, or standards
conditioning the definiteness of the foun<;la ti ons in accordance
with which tentative knowledge (a corpus of ideas-hy potheses,
concepts, theories, assumptions, or facts) and tentative ac tiv ity
(a corpus of acts-thinki ng, theorbing, conceptua lisation, or
experimenting) are assessed as knowledge and included in the
category of science,
Criteria of scientificit}' thus provide a normative and axiological orienlation for research, direct research activity, reject
non-productive orientations, establish model methods for the
generation 'Of knowledge, and point the directions of desirable evolution of various branches and disciplines. selecting the units of knowledge on the basis of preference filters
(lvailable in cognition.
Criteria of scientificlly are !Torms; their defin it eness, just
as the definiteness of any other norms, is specified by the
dispositions, sanctions and conditions. of action.
Dispositions are sets of direc tions, instructions, reco mmendations. imperatives, interdictions. elC., which characterise a mode of cognition. As concentrations of demands imposed
on knowledge and activity. dispositions fall into two mu tua ll y
complementary segments. One of these includes an ensemb le
of r ules of the "what to do" type: "seek for suffic ie nt reasons",
"minimise argument", "exclude formal contradictions". etc.
These may be referred to as positive heuristics. It increases the
chances of obtaining epistemologically desirable products of
research. The othe r set comprises rules of the "wha t not to
do" type: "do not introduce ad hoc hypotheses", "do not follow
authorities blindly", etc. That is negative heuristics. It employs a system of interdictions in order to bar from science
ideas and mental moves known to lead into blind alleys.
Sanctions assure the effectiveness of disposi tions. The poin t
I~ that criteria of scientificity embody the mo~t promising
8

express-ing thl" obJt:C'tlve law~ and Ihe Jogic of its historic.1 che....

,Ind fnlltful pruKlplcJ and 1ll0th."S of action In science.

By "pecifying the umC'ept'i of acceptabilily, dcsirability. MId

preferability (If somt: kimh nf n)gniti\'e aSSimilation of reality.
anti thow of untenability, unacceptability. and dC'fccti\'~nf'S
of other.. , criteria of s<:icntiflcity mould the axiologil'al and
normative ..clf~l.:()n"(:It)u .. nes.'i of science, Criteria of scicntifh.'
ity thus perform protective functi(ln~, guarding SClence against
exotic (in a negative scnw) idea .. and creatiH~ iniliatlvt':s.
In science, for m .. tance. it is impermissible to violate Ihe laws
of conservation. Although that does not at all mean that thne
law'S canllot be modified or revised. an)' re.~arch laVing claim!
to a scientifiC stalu .. must, for the time being al least: satisfy the
demands of these laws.
As an integral object rather than an agglomeration of qualitatively different phenomena, science is suppoTled by an ensem
ble of invariant principles. The cOlllelll and meaning of the ..e
princip les are naturally relative. but the requirement itself
of the existence of such principles is absolule. The rules or
i~struClions of the dispositions rank precisely as such pnn~
clples.
What happens if dispositions are ignored or deformed'! In
this case. sanctions come into effect.
The question of Ignoring dispositions appears to us to
be tr ivial. That which contravenes the demands of ...... ience
and is posited out of ignorance (things like fabrications
~nd prejudices) is unscientific in its Hry essence. The que ... lion of deformation of dispositions appears to us to be nontri.v ial. ~ t the beginning, that which contravenes e~isling
sCience IS also declared to be unS(ientific; vel it rna\' be
essentia lly scientific (cf. scientific revolutions restrul"luring
the .syste -:n s of ava ilab le criteria of scientificity), P Ulling off
a diSC USSion of the dyna mi cs of criteria of scientific it)' 10 a
later stage, le t us her~ stress t~e role of sanctions. Playing
a s? m e w ~~t co nserva l1 ve funCllon, sanctions protect science
aga mst tTlvlally extravagant ideas, they set an optimal operational mode of resea rch. guarantee a minimum of risk in the search
fo r the best 'po~ible results. and ensure the continuity and
balance of sC ientific experience,
The condit.ions. of the functioning of norms set down the
f:a tures of s.lIl1at lons Ihat are. po~ible i~ science. they .!Ipeclfy the re~lI l reOl~nts of Ihe cTllena of scientifIc it)' in relation
to t h ~ vanous k11lds of knowledge and activit" and lend
mean mg t o t he tesllng
.
of the correspondence J.
between the

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multiform cornple:\c\ <'Ind \'\1mrllIH~flh llf ':'("ie,IKe '~Tld an eXlt'tl.,;\t' nel\Hlrk of 'pe..:ial and general crltena ~ll 'l'rent,fluty.
Criteria of ~cie!1tifKiIY are varied ami mullllayt'red: They
are ~ubJi\ided illlo three \eh. The fir,,! of the':'\! (whICh we
shall designale ".,el A") c(,lInpri"~" un.in-f\al criteria of scicntiftei!}' whkh draw the dCl1larcal1on.lul'.-' bClw~t'tl \Clcnce and
non-science. The\' \el down the 1111111\, a.. 11 wen~. of the
ba.,i~. on whidl ttu~' concepl of unitary ,>,:;ence i., constituted
regardle~ of its dilTeferuialion in term" of subjeCl malter,
method. and professional forms. Such norms flgure I,lere as
formal consistency, cause-and-etTL'ct cohesion, experimental
verifiability. rationality. reproducibility. intersubjectivity. elC,
The requiremet1l~ comprised in <,eT A are nece!SSary ones .. For
instalKe, rationally (or logically. practically) unsubslantlated
elements have no place in <;cience-olherwise we are faced
wilh a move beyond its boundaries. The criteria of scienlificity
of M~t A comprise tho<;e illviolablt. ')chemala, archetypes, and
principles of the imelieci which. in their po')ilivenes~. con
dition the identity and integrality of o.;cience a'5 a stable
i!lternallv organi\ed phenomenon. They make science a unifIed
and svnchronically active .. ystem embracing autonomous yet
strul.."lurally similar. epi ..temologil.:ally isomorphic kinds of
knowledge.
The <>econd set, which we .. hall designate "~et BOO. is a
group of hi\torically tran\ienl normatin'" which determine
the process of modelling, simulation. explication, interpreta
tion, and meaning formation: they make the course of events and
the order in nature imelligible and \pecif\" rational ~amples
of connections in terms of which the l'our~e of events can be
meaningfully discu.-.sed. Here belong SUdl Ilormatives as the
requirements imposed 011 ontological "chemala, existence hy
potheses, epistemological a" .. umptions, picture .. of the world.
and so on, which are oriented toward research programmes. ideals of knowledge, elc., accepted in various cultures. Unlike
those of ..et A, the criteria of ..ciel1tiflcity of Sl!t B merely
specify the cuhural-stylist1c dimensions of thl! thinking of
scienti\t .. , being of fundamental \igniflcallce for characterising
knowtl!dge in it\ conuete historicat projection.
The third \et, to be de\ignated "set C", i\ a group of sub
ject-matter critl!ria of \cientiflcity imposed on professional~
Iy differentiated (in terms of subject matter and method)
branches'---Ihe variou\ \y,tem, of knowledge and activity. Requirements 'petiflc for logico-mathematical. !lalUral. and technil'al ~cienle\. a~ well a\ for the "t'parate genera and modifica-

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ti(ln, nf kllowlt:dgt:. l'Olll' rl'le thenries., hypotheses. cognni\"i;"

Jl'" and their l'omplt:xl"', are idlntifled here. As oppo~d 10
tht: flr't two \el'l, '-I:'t B c rih:ria are fairly n<lorrnw, being
il1'truIIIl!nl'l of charal"leri .. ing tht: COll c rete kind .. of knowledgl!
and activity <If]~ rell el"ling p<lrticular rather than typicat
parameh'r') of ~CleI1CI! .
The gcnera of c ritl'ria of \I,." ielltificity \pecifll:d ht:re pl!r~
mit thl! modelling nf \(icTltiflcity a\ a multi-layered entity
having a certain nucJew. (criteria of "l"ientifll"ity of \el A)
as well as a historicat he! B) and .. ubje(."t-matter. thematic
(set C) dil1lt:" .. ions. However mobill' and polymorphou,>, '>lience
thus proves to bl! I!xhau\tl'd, in a sensl!: there i" nothing in
the world of ..cil!lIce thai woutd not be cowred by the ~y\.
tem of criteria of ~(ientif1Cil\".
Is scielltiflCity expre\,ed by all Ihe c riteria taken together?
In a certain respect. yes: but that respec t is extremely ab\lract
and highly ideali ..ed. Science appear'> here as too perfect a
knowtedge--fulty adequate, and devoid of any defecl\, gaps,
ineon .. istencies, elC. The actuat .. ilUalion is quite different.
Since sciencc indudes. along with perfe("t element~, element\
of the imperfect. without which ..cience is simpty nonexistent.
the ideatising interpretation of \I.."ientiftcity. though quite useful
in some respect~ (il1trodul'ing 3\ it doe'::> the world of what
mu\1 be, a world that ha\ a regutati\e and goal \etting meaning
for Ihe <;denti"t)' mw.1 be revised in the \en\e of bringing
il doser to alld ill a'!reement wilh Ihe world of whal i<;. The
rev;\ion comes from the reali\alion of the differentialion
within the body or the ontology (If ~cience. The laller i\ made
up of frontlinc \ciencl'. the hard core of ~cience, and the
history of sciencc.
. A minimal conditiOIl of incorporating some result in front
Ime science i, the obtaining of it by ,>cientitle means. The
result may be true or fahe. ~ufflciently or insufflciently sub
sTantiaTed (this will bel'ome dear PO\( !eswIII). but it mUSt
fall with in th e framework establi\hed by the rules and stan
dards of obtaining results in \cience a~ a '5phere of the
social superstructure. The hard core of ..cience j<; Ihe "('gmenl
formed entirdy by true elcmenh ab.;;orbed frolll Ihe lotal bodv
of science. Thi., i\, a<; it were. the \edimental ba\e. the e\i:'
dential ha~i~ of \cience . a reliable laver of kn(lwledge cr}'SlalIi\ed in the cour\e of ih progre\.... The history of scienl-e is a (ragment formed by Ihe hod~' (If klwwledge thnj<;t beyond a .... tual
Snelll'l! and morall, outdated. On the methoJologil"al approalh.
however. it would' hI! meaningte'\ to oppo..e Ihi, fragment III

II

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\,,:icl1l.:l.' a ... sUl.:h. Scienn" is dyn,:ulIic. pn)n...... ual. and hi,torkal.

\Vhal "'I."ientis! ... do now will in [ulLIn..' ttl'cOllll' child\ pia\': Ihe
character. ~:Olltenl and meaning of '\,:;l'I1\'l' change. bUI rc\ults
obtained alone lime ilc.:orumg 10 thl' fuk' .. of Sciclh:e do 1101
It'l\t' the fc;>ature of scientifKilY. Be,idcs, if i... impOnJl11 to
'ct' the inlransienl value of thi ... fund. It ;", III fact. an eternal
present' of ideas: something reali'l'd in tilt.' pa\t can he

reanimated il the future. Of this nature is. say. the idea of atomism. which has invariably provided \ustcna;lr.:c for knowledge.
The distinction between these segllleills of science is fruitful
in Iwo respecls. Firstly. it stresses once again the limited
meaning of the idealising iTllerpretntion of scientiflcity. Not
all knowledge that forms science is perfect -if we have in mind
the realisability of such strong criteria as truth. sufficient
substantiation. etc Frontline science contains unidentifled unsubstantiated and false demt!'nts; apart from that which will
become pan of fUlure science, it comprises that which will
remain outside scienct!'. The history of science contains identifled, unsubstamiated and false dements--the ballast that failed
to make the transition from frontline science to the hard core.
Secondly, it lends a graphic quality to the a,,-senion of the
ontologically multi-layered structure of science, which, together
with the realisation of the functions or purpose of each part
integ~ated in science as a whole makes it necessary to
descnbe or represent them (and through them, the manifold
reality of science) in sovereign con'Structs-in specific values
and normatlVes. The latter neces'Sitales a differentiated picture
of >eienlincity.
In frontline science, such regulative figures a'S nontriviality, informativeness, heuristic quality, elc., are focal. At the
same time the requirements of exactness, rigorollsness substan.
'
lIatedne.ss, etc. are weakened and made less radical. The reason
is that the purpose of frontline science is to vary the alternatives, to go through all Ihe possibilities, to extend semantic
horizons, and to produce the new. If the requirements of
exactness, rigorousness, substantiation, etc., were to be imposed
on all Ihe components of science from the OUlsel, science
would be a collection of Irivia. To some extent, informativeness and rigorous substantiation rule each other out: in
frollliine science, the falsity of an informative contradiction
15 preferable to the truth of a truism. Science must contain
rigorously substantiated element~. but not only such elements;
otherwise science will lose its heuristir.: quality. For this
reason, badly
. sub~tantialed elem~n1S (insuffu:ienllv
. confIrmed.

thoroughly n:futtd. "l-ra!.},"' lilt-a" ~II..'.) mu!o>t be i:ldmiued 1'0

\Cicru:e, hut tilt'se filUM nut t'xhau;<,l science.
Frontlillt' ,seil'nfl' i" the 111051 hypothetical. problematic pnd
unreliable ~t'gmt'J1t uf science; it incim.lt!':S a corpu'i of proh ..
able and not very probabk knowledge whkh 1$ not, however,
rejected. It b not reJect~d for many rea'>on!J. such a'l (1) 11$
inconsistency is not prnved; the abwnct" of such proofs i.'J in
itself an argulllt!'1l1 in favour of accepting thh hYP(Hhetkai
knowledge; (2) there are hopes for its future !iub':otantiatinn:
(3) critical verification of hardly probable (hypothetical)
knowledge catalyses Ihe production of new knowledge: elimina
tion of errors and deviations from the bod ... of science would
deprive it of ability for progress; (4) p~oliferation of hy ..
pathetical knowledge reduces the probabilit) of leaving essential possibilities unutilised; the need for selecling theoretical
alternatives increases the flexibility, dynamism. critical spirit.
and conclusiveness of science.
Thus the importance of this segment of science IS not
connected with the plurality of truths. as Feyerabend believes,
but with the fact Ihat the path which fUlure approximation of
the truth will take is unknown. :\lany elements of frontline
sci~nce wi~l be rejected. but their incorporation in the tota~IIY .of sCIence is justified because. first. they are obtained by
scle!1"nc means, and second. the mode of establishing their
falsuy hell?s to find the direction of new inquiries and to build
new theones.
The hard core of scIence is
by such values and
norms as 1 I
concl usiveness,
10 general~
new knowledge. It is therefore woven of the vicissitudes uf
the search for the truth of presentimenls. wanderings. ~par~
ate breakthroughs towards clarity. elc. Its knowledge IS
th~refor~ minimally reliable, The task of the hard core of
sClenc~ IS to be a defulI.tenes.s. factor, a source of premises and
of baSIC knowled~e which onent.<; and corrects cognitive acts. j
It therefore COilS ISIS of .pro~)fs and substantiations. embodying
the most stable and obJ~ctlve part of science. Extraordinary
grolll~ds. are neede,d fO,r liS modificalion or critique.
ThiS I~terpretallon IS 111 nne agreement with Klein's idea
o~ the ~xlstellc~ of two periods in tite de\elopment of knowle ge. .Il~ p~nod, that of irrepressible growth of ,.reali\-'C~
pro~tlctlvlly, IS identifiable with fwnlline scien ..:e The other
. Ii.
' .
.
bpenod.
'd that
f of sifting a n d pun"catlon
01 the achleH~mt"nt
.. ..:an
e I entlled with the hard core of s..:ience.
.

"

\:

Of C(lllr~e. Ollr interpretJlion of Ill!.' hard I.:Me. ju .. , a...

ilKidentally. the interpretalion of fmTlllinl' .. eil'IlCl" .. hould
1101 be laken lilerally. It s truth i\ e\ ineed in till" tlndl"IlCY.
In ;:u.:tual fact Ihe body of the ideally dellwn .. lrable ,. . IlOt
\'ery great in the hard core--it only indlllle~ a few propositions of logic and finite arilhmetic. whidl are al\o probIematised Iconsider. e.g. .. the law of e'\'luded middle (tt'rtiwII
lion dutur) and others).
The history of science i':i a fragment of "\'il"llce flr\, and
histon' second. It would be erroneous to view hbtorko-\cienliftc a~ti\"ity as archival or archat>ological activity only. lim ited
to the search for and processing. systemati.,a tion. etc . of
facts relating to the past of sc ien ct>. Histnric o-s\' ientiflc activity
is in the first place a scholarly activity; it forms part of re.,earch.
The history of science stimulates research (olTering such mod el
programmes of research as elementarism. evolutionism , etc.);
it contains a comprehensive panorama of the dynamics of
knowledge. facilitating the perception of intrascientiflc perspectives and possibilities (whence. how. where to. why. and what
for); accumulating information about the way., of achieving
knowledge. about the forms and modes of analY':iing objects.
it performs educational funl:tions.
All these aspects of the history of science promote an
adequate cogniti\-e reconstruction of the objec t under study.
which makes it an integral pan of science.
Different parts of science are apparently dominated by
different values and norms.
The hard core of scienl:e. along with the hi\lory of science.
work., as an instrument of eliminating all kinds of extravagancies. Acts of selection are based on the criterion of
a.greement. which reads: that unit of knowledge (a hypotheSl\, a theory) is beIfer which is in beller agreement with the
("riteria of sets Band C -the basic knowledge of the hard
core and of the history of science. But Ihat i~ by far not all.
The proposition concerning the relative immutability of set B
criteria and the need to bring fresh knowledge introduced
into science in agreement with these crite ria has a great
heuristic potential. In some case .... Ihe te':iting of candidates
for a place in science for agreement with .,et B criteria, compo<;ed of fundamental law .... leads to di.,coverie ....
Thus when energy leakage in j',-de\'ay was di.,covered. Bohr
propO'led to sacrifice the law of ("onservation and tran . . formalion of energy' (in the-case 01 the nlll:roworh.15. TIli~s idea
failed. however. precisely because of the funJamental nature

of thi., law. Moreover. relying on Ihi~ law as an element of

fundamental knowledge, Pauli wa." able 10 overcome this diffi~
culty by ~ugge.,ting the neutrino hypothesi.s which. a~ we
kno~, wa ... laler confirmed. Thi') example, however. i, an ex
ceptlon rather than the rule.
The strategy of the hard core of science largely restric.:ts
the ability of knowledge for progre~. Indeed, the better
knowledge is correlated with set B criteria. the less informed
al~d ~euri~tic it IS; the progress in knowledge i~ Incompatible
with It s hIgh probability in respect to B. The growth of the
content of k!'owledge. associated with decreased probability of
agreement With set B criteria. is fully ensured in frontline .scien
ce, where other values and norms are adopted.
Frontline science being an instrument of self-expansion
an~ ~e lf -deve l opme~t of knowledge. daring. a tendency towards
reylSloa wetl-establlshed truth s, and conflicts with set B criteria are inherent ..in it. A different logic of evaluating the
producls of cognition therdore obtains here. "informative
force" and "non-triviality of knowledge" rather than the
measure of confirmation are taken into account here. Inasmuch
as informativeness is in inverse proportion to maximal probability of knowledge in relation to set B crileria, its internal
merits are evaluated in terms of daring and degree of novelty.
Preference is given to that knowledge whose dependence
on additional knowledge is greater than that of other fragments
of knowledge, and which. afler additional knowledge has been
proved. is marked by a greater degree of probabilit.,.
. . Tht.ts the problem of scientificity is not solved by- an idealISing Interpretation of knowledge. What is needed is a differentiated approach based on the correlation belween scienri
ficity and the specific values dominating the various branches 01
science. This approach also covers the problem of the dynamics
of norms arising from the actual progress of cognition.
Criteria of scientificity are not a priori norms whose highhest virtue, in the words of Karl Marx. lies in their suprahistorical character-they are generalisations of cognition
and results of ils interpretation and perception at defmite stages.
When the orientation of cognition towards the existing criteria
of scientiflcity cea~es 10 be justined. the need arises for
altering them.
The problem of a rational boundary between substantiated
and unsubsHlntiated changes of (or deviations from) existing
criteria of scientiflci ty is not simplt'". It seems to ha\-'e no
universal so lution. AI the same lime it is not the kind of
IS

,.

that can have no s()lulion al all. With a view to

question
.
I
01
I
r0 II oWlIlg.
0
oul
such
a
solullon.
el
us
COll'iIl
er
111."
WOfll.Ulg
,"
-, d .
In science. rational aellnty IS one. thai IS organise 111
al"cordance with the norillS of scientlftc reason. Bul there
is a limit to the rationality of the norms~ a,~d .of, reason .constituted by these norms ..l~asllluch as II1Is h!1l~t IS pracllcally
revealed by actual cognition ilsdf.. the question of Ih.e ra
,

tionality of norms. and of science. IS also so.l~ed pracll.~.:ally;

II is practice. the practice. of actual (ogI11 110n, that pronounces the verdict on the ratiOnal nature of norms. knowledge
and activity in science.
.
Tactically. norms are a preventive safety belt protec~mg
science against extravagances. They are b.y no means canon~sed
in this function. The point is that "adoptmg them as an onentation and a programme of activity always involv~s a,:, el~
ment of methodological risk" (36, 376). The risk lies In
their origins: they are generalisations of past and presen t,
not of future science.
We are thus faced with an interesting situat ion here. On
the one hand. science needs norms (criteria of scien tifIcityl. for it does not work by trial and error. On t.he other
hand, it cannot work out from the outset methodological rules
that would be adequate to its final results. It has to use rules
justified by the past history of science, but their extrapolation to the future is not always justified. Norms programme
the activity of the scientist, who is by no means free in his
choices.
But the situation is different in frontline science, whose
purpose (that of generating the new) determines its ability
of functioning as an instrument of transformi ng norms-nothing new can be produced without deviation from norm.
The ability of frontline science to disrupt the cohesion
of the available pool of norms lies in the two-dimensional nalure of research activity. We refer to the facl that any intrascientific contribution is inseparable from a methodological one; a metascientifI c reflex ion on the results of innovations necessarily takes place. In the course of that reflexion.
the innovations are either incorporated in the pool of available norms or else they are not. In the first case, we deal
Here and throughout thIS hook Ihe flnl fIgure in parentheses
lndicates the number of a referenco:- at Ihe ba.;k of the votume. lilt' o;e~ond.
:he page: where a referen\:e i~ to a multivolume puhli\:alion. Ihe se.;ond
~g,j(e It'Jdicales the \olume, lhe third, the pagC',

I.

.
, - 'I.n Ih
<e 'ond ' with.
Jtienlik
with everyday sdcnllflC
activity.
. e , I.:
.
revolution. The following pO~lbllll1es come to .hghl h~re
.
(I) There i~ a tendcnq to link innOvatlOn5. with .~.
dllional I.:riteria of \I.:i~ntifldty: d . energy I~akage I," 6.~e~~~
and the Pauli hypothesIs (a PO\ltlve example), or the. adaptitl ,
of relativi\ti(.' ideas to the idea of the ether by LaJos Jan~~
(a negative example),
. . , '.
(2) There i\ a lendenl.: I~ r~Jel.:t mnovatum-condltlon.e~
changes o f criteria of sl.:lenl1fu::ilY: c~. e.g. the ~1ff1CUIt~cs
involved in the evolution of the nonclassical theones In phYSICS
(the role of the observer, statistica l laws, etc:). .
..
(3) There is a tendency to preserve crltena of .sc lenu.
li ci ly by discrediting innovations (cf. the way g.eneILl:~ W8i
torpedoed by invoking the proposition that "sueOl.:e IS an
enemy of chan ce").
..'
,
(4) Innovat ions may be accepted and crltena of sClent.14
ficity transformed; d. the rejection of the view of dynamIC
laws as universal when quantum mechanics and genetks were
accepted) .
When is the breakup of criteria of scieOliticity completed? When is it no longer expedient to follow the available
criteria of sc ientiticit y?
Thomas Kuhn actually expressed the view that a clear
answer to these questions is impossible. "Though the historian."
he wrOle, "can always find men " .. who were unreasonable to
resist for as long as they did, he will not find a point at which
resistance becomes illogical or unscientific. At most he may wish
10 say that the man who continues to resist after his whole
profession has been converted has ipso facIo ceased to be a
scientist" (158. 159).
We believe that it is possible to answer these questions.
The conflict between frontline science and the hard core
with the well-established criteria of scientificity associated
with it is over when the innovations as components of frontline science are transformed into hard core, becoming part
of the theoretica l foundation of science. At this moment, the
breakup of norms is comple ted, A new stable normative domain
emerges. and a reilllerpretation of the content of science III
term s of the new values (or criteria of scientificity) begins.
As of thaI moment, it is. as a matter of fact. both unreason.
able and illogical to oppose the new. He who is incapable
of o~ercoming this barrier places himself. de facIO and cit' jllrt'.
OutSide science.
The transference of innovations from frontline science
2,01

no

17

10 Ihe hard core. and the nH,diflCation of crileria of ... dentineity a~ociated wilh thi<;. i... often linked wilh the r~J'llace
ment of one generation of ... cientisl'" b~ anolher. II is 'Said
that opponents are not converted they dIe out. Young pcople,
more receptive to the new, al.-cepl changes more .readlly. We
reject this approach in view of ils non-eplste~nologlcal cha~ac_
ter- although there are ...ome ground.s for II. ~n the epIstemological approach, the real mech~1lIsm of Ihls transference
lie ... in substantiation and proof. It IS true, though. Ihat these
are also more readily accepted by carriers of less conservative
consciOllsness, that is, by young people.

The question of what scientiflCilY is cannot be answered
in any unambiguous and dennite way. Firstly, scienlificity
is not defined ex cathedra by a few hocus-pocus phrases-its
conclusive and reliable deflOition is practice. an all round and
deep-going generalisation of the dala of production and cognition. Secondly, it does not have the status of a supra historical
postulate: it is no permanent label. constant characteristic,
or immutable state.
Scientificity is processual and dialectical.
The real dynamism and multidimensionality of scientificity. and the abundance of its essential ramifications make its
explication difficult.
Exaggeration of the historicity and mutability of the substantive and normative content of science leads to "catastrophism", 10 insistence on the incommensurability of the
structures and standards of knowledge. This latter feature
is characteristic of the descriptivism of the adherents of
the historical trend in postposilivism, with its mosaic doctrine
of science. Scientificity is here viewed as a factor tied to particular cognitive situations and not amenable 10 a logical normative description.
An attempt to avoid the shortcomings of descriptivism.
"implemented as a radical rejection of the "historisation" and
"ecologisation" of scientific norms, leads to another extreme-to
the apriorism of the "critical rationalists". Scientificity is
predestined to the real process of cognition "from above",
being closed on itself rather than on knowledge. Critical
rationalists drive the spirit of realism from epistemology.
We refer in particular to their logico-empirical models of
Kientificily, which do nOI, in principle, express the proper-

"

lics of science either at the ... tage of di'k:overy or al Ihe stage

of justiflCation.
Descripllvism vs. apriori ... m. Can this dilemma be resolnd?
Some belicve it cannol. On the'Se ground'5 the theory of science,
allegedly incapable of providing effective <,ehemata of ... ("ien ~
liflcily, i., di.,credited.
The descriptivi.,m vs. apriorism antinomy can be overcomt.'
if the dialectical principles of historicity, concrelene~ and
differentiated consideration are applied to the analysi'S of
science and the latter is perceived as a highly ramified,
rational and comp[c, structure with numerous branches having
autonomous complexes of values and normatives. On the basis
of rhe [aller, science can be selectively unified without relativising scientinc norms or making them unrealistic and suprahistorical.
The unification of science as a whole is the purpose of
set A criteria of scientificity. The unification of historical
massifs of science is the purpose of set B criteria. And the
unification of subject-matter and thematic divisions of science
is the purpose of set C criteria. These are horiwntal unifications. as it were. In the firsl case. they consolidate science
as opposed to non-science. In the second, they delimitate
the phases and stages in the evolution of science: and in the
third, they isolate the subject-matter and thematic units of

science.
Vertical unifications are based on the fact that sciC'nce
is an apparatus for the generation and standardisation of
the truth. The lower threshold of scientific it\" is in this l.-ase
specified by the mode of \'erification (obtaining, formulating,
defending) of assertions regulated by the canons of logical.
empirical and nonempirical substantiation satisfying the appropriate criteria of scientificity_
At the same time. the entire fullness of the truth is not
given at the separate stages of cognilion: fictions also form
part of science, although Ihat is neilher deliberate nor known
beforehand. The instrument of identification and elimination
of fIctions is practice, which establishes the truth of scientifically verifiable results of cognition: practice therefore specifIes the upper threshold of scientificity.
Practical verifIcation directs the internal rearrangement
of the content of science according to the principle of concentration of the truth in the hard core and thrusting the
fictions into the history of science.
The axiological scale - the norms. regulators. and stereo-

ganisation inter preted as structural orderill.

Thus the conditions. of the truth .of s~ientiflc knowledge
established on the basIs of the prlllciple of sufflcielll reaSOn
are discursive and rationally verifIable. Thai IS the reason why
Plato. in defIning the epistemological difference belweell knowl_
edge and opinion. declared the conditions of the former 10 be
rational, and of the la.lter, senSUOU\. Inasmuch as "opinion",
111 terms of the KalHlan typorogy of forms of recognition
of the truth, is a form of conscious recognition of the truth
from the position of insuffIcient grounds, the subjective relation 10 the truth in the framework of opinion will be, as
it were. sensuous (resulting from a kind of expectation, guessing. presentiments, etc,) rather than rational-discursive (resulting from proof).
The description of va r ious modifIcations of cogn ition constituting different forms of recogn iti on of the truth would
be incomplete without a reference to "doubt" and "belief"
which. on the analogy of "opinion", are included in the domain
of the sensuous.
Doubt is perceived as a state of subjective uncertainty
about the truth of a proposition, which is largely determined
by the feeling of lack of agreement between this proposition
and the subje~t's entire past experiences, a feeling that prevents the subject from seeing it as true, Doubt therefore
si.snifIes the ab.sence in the subject of a unitary consistent
vIew of a certalll object. a simullaneous existence in the subject of contradictory opinions which, in the absence of sufficient grounds, does not permit him 10 form an unambiguous
judgment of this objec!.
Like doubt, belie~ is also a form of sensuous recognition
?f the truth-the difference between them being that belief
~s an awareness of harmony rather than disagreement between a
Judgment and our past experiences, an awareness which, as
opposed to doubt, expresses an element of conviction and
Indubitability of the truth of something for the subjecl.
. To co~plete our analysis of this theme, let us characte~ sur~lIse. In I~is case, we have a form of the subject's
unlllt~ntional tixatlon of the truth "in itself" rather than a
conscIOus rec?gnition of something as true. Of this nature is,
say, the atomIsm of antiquity. which, unlike modern atomism,
was not comprehensively substantiated.
The typology of knowledge according with the third sense
of ~he term "kn~wledge" is established on various grounds, of
which the followmg appear to us to be the most fundamental.
22

The c:of{flilivt' IJa~ilj, 011 thl'> cnu~non,

k owledge i'i clasn

sifled into dl~ursive and intUltlv~-lmageful. {~molionatJ.

Knowledge in the broad sen'iC" functions a'i ~n II1stru~~I. or
verifying the truth, as a complex of demomtratlo~s condltlonmg
the self-obviou'ine'iS of the truth for the subject. However.
taking into account the fact I~at the truth o~ different types
of knowledge is verifIed in dlfTer~nt ways, It IS reasonable
10 single out different types of obvlous~ess.
Apart from the inluitivi,:>t interpretallon,:>, obviousness may
be perceived as:
. .
.
.
(a) somelhing psychologically ObViOUS-obvIOUS 111 the 111dividua l-personal sense (personality backgro~nd, etc.). some
thing that signilies the subject's confider'c~ m the .truth of a
fact on the basis of his personal experience: Ihl.s type of
obviousness can be illustrated by the variation in the forl-e
of inducti ve proof containing a recurrent feature-for the
non-specialist, the specialist, and the highly qualilied specialist;
(b) something logically obvious; that is the obviousness
of proof, or apodixis; this type of obviousness is always
mediated, being the result of demonstration. substantiation,
proof, etc., as illustrated by any mathematical theorem:
(c) something iJTImediately obvious-a form of the fixation of the state of affairs on the surface, so to speak, on the
basis of the very essence of the situation: for example.
the proposition "white is not black" is self-obvious due to irs
"se lf-expressiveness".
It fo llows from this that discursive knowledge is obvious
in a log ica l sense, while intuitive-imageful (emotional) knowledge is obvious psyc hologically. Being logically explicit, discu rsive know ledge is, ideally, apodict ic .
As opposed to disc ursive kn ow ledge, emotional knowledge
is " inst in ctive" a nd pe rsona lised, It is dir ectly crystallised in
commun ic at ion, in wh ic h th e subjeCT forms a concepTion of
the essence of eve nts f rom an ensemble of barely perceptible
nuances. Th us a person mostly "knows" when he or she is trusted
(or not trusTed), believed (or not believed), etc. Following
from an all round evaluation of a situation actually experienced
~Y. the subject, tbis knowledge is not discursive; at any rate
It IS not as a rule rationalised or generalised to cover similar situation~. For example. there could hardly be a singlevalued solution to any attempt to generalise or rationalise the
knowl~dg~ (?f the predestination of man, community of human
fates, mSlglllficance of individual actions, etc_) that sponta-

neously emerged in the Pierre Bezoukh ov - Davou situati on in

War and Peace, in whic h a n " uncompromising conqueror" lets
an arsonist and re bel esc ape with his life.
In this and similar cases we are dea lin g with knowl edge/
understanding based on image-symbolic fo rms whic h cannot be
clearly expressed in clear disc ursive log ical terms. In this
sense, the minimal condit ion of the poss ibilit y of sc ie nt ifl c
activ ity. intended to produce sc ientific disc ursive knowl edge
as its output , is the possibil it y of conduc ting research in a
nalu ra l language which is, appare ntly, the lowest threshold of
sc ientifi.c rational ity.
Scientifi.c experience is the sphere of existence of disc ursive know ledge, while e moti onal knowledge exists in nonscientific (everyday, moral, artistic, etc.) experien ce.
Th e social basis. On this criterion, knowledge is classified into personalised knowledge, problem knowledge, and subject-matter knowlMae. reflecting the dynamics of sign trans'arim of bowled.,. in a socium. All of man's ac tivity involves
IIipL A wid: preld conception of man associates his differ~ia specif!t:a ,:ith the ability for acting as a sign-symbolic
berng operatmg With symbols and signs. Complex sign activity, as
close study has shown, developed because the mechanisms of
biological coding and translat ion of information were too
limited and inadequate for the self-preservation and progress
of H omo sapiens . In the course of his evolution, man objectively comes up agamst the facl of natural limitedness and lack
of un!versality of the means of biological information ' it
!ra,!splr~s t.h~t SOCiality, i.e., the special structure that arkes
10 mtenndlVldual .coml!lunication and interaction, is by its
very ~atu re non-bIOlogical and is nOI translated biologically.
That IS w.hy othe r, n.oo.-biological means are required for the
reprodu~tlOn of SOC iality. In this way, culture arose as a
mechamsm. of non-bi? logical sign translation, as a social
code e,:,sunng the fIxation, storage and transmission of human
values 10 the bro~d sense, which makes them produ c ts of subsequent consumpUon.
What is the dynamics of the realisation of the social code?
At ea~ly Sfa~~ a . pers~nal ised type of translation of knowl.
e~g~ e xISts (lIlu!atlon ~Ites for neophytes in primitive so~le[les, myths as I.nst.ruc tlve narratives describing the deeds of
nc~tors, er~.) ; It .IS extremely imperfect, as the whole of
the informatIOn g.amed at great cost may be lost through
th e frequently aCCid ental loss of its carriers. To this type of
tra nslat ion of knowledge corresponds personalised knowledge
24

(in the .,en.,e of techn e, or ind ivid ual abiliry) which is an

ind ivid ua l'S un iq ue prope rty.
.
La ter, Ihi~ type of tra nsla ti on of kn owledge IS re pllcld
by th e profes.o; iona l one- tra nsmi$Sion of knowle~ge to membe~s
of a unifi ed assoc iation of men formed on the ba<;ls of commun~
ty of th e ind iv id uals' s<x:ia l ro l ~; here, .rhe place of the mdl
vidu al is ta ken by a collective gua rd ian, accumulator and
translat or of group kn owledge/a rt, whic~ is somew hat mor e ~r
fec t owing to th e ex pansion of th e soc la~ fiel~ of ~he carners
of kn owledge -a kind of insu ra nce against Irretnevable los:,
of knowledge in case of loss of its individual carriers. To
this type of trans latio n of knowledge correspon~ . prHI.
knowledge rigidl y linked with the concrere cogmtlye tub
arising as man e ncounte rs a certain typo.logical class of. problem situations. Of this type a re, fo r mstance, certalll archai c types of a ncient Oriental knowledge constituting a set
of presc r ipti ons fo r subjects solving concrete tasks o r pr.oblems. Probl e m knowl edge, just as imperfect as personalISed
knowledge, was doomed, as it was inadequ~te to the . ~rowing
needs of the c ultu ral progress of mankind euher cognmvely or
practically (in view of the devaluation and t r ivialisation of the
available problem fund) .
In its turn, this type of translation of kno wledge is ousted by the universal conceptual code, the most perfect of
the three; here the s ubject joins social activ ity as a citRa.
without tribal, profess ional or any other similar limir.riolll
To this type of translation of knowledge ideally corresponds
subject-matter knowledge- the product of cognitive assimilation of a certain fragment of reality by the SUbjecL Unlike
problem knowledge, associated with the
......
ai, pre-scientific stBle in the deyelopmenl ol ....
ject-matter knowledge. pelSOOifyiaa ~ .ill _ . . .
instructions for the cosnisina subject; in fKt, it do: , not
describe subjective activity at aU. Summing up the cognitive
reflection of a cenain domain, it describes something objectively existing.
The process of science formation - the trans ition from
personalised kn owledge and problem knowledge to s ubjec tmaner kn owledge- appears (0 involve the following elements.
(1) Systematisation of particular solutions and mftht::irls
for dealing with problems, their fixation in some inIIpaI
form permits, due to association with correspondin. typical
conditions, an abstraction from the unique situation giving
rise to these problems.
25

h " k"

anti modn 0/ ",,"-

(2) FaclOring out the particular conditions does nOI

merely signify the study of problems in general form - it assu mes, as it were, an unconditional description of the enlire
domain generating the corresponding types of problems, which
is. in fact, the starting point of science.
To take an exam~le.. ~nowledge about forests, originally
accumulated by the mdlvldual peasants who exploited them
functioned as personalised knowledge (situational knowledge)
and was handed down from father to son. The requiremenls of
iRcIustry (capital construction, shipbuilding, etc.) eventually
led to the need for a systematic description and knowledge of
forests: what areas were dominated by what kinds of trees, and
why; what methods and sites of logging were the most profita--. and SO OR. This led to generalisation of spontaneous-empifi_
til.
in thil fleld. N a r~Iw.t, aradually evolving scientific

rather than fragmentary

daturalleographical phenomenon
N. A. Mikhailov). The main
into dendrology was the
domain of
owle<l
the fixation of the
iDIuf ...... about the character of the reality under study in
.,aeral form. the presentation of forest as an idealised objl_! ~ a topic of special consideration; consequently, the
mall!' poud was the transference of knowledge from a utilitarian
appliecl aphl!le to the theoretical one. That is, in general
~udine. the diallctical procc. of the development of persona~ Mowle. ( .. oNrmocentrism) into universal knowledge
(with the focus on subject-matter). of non sdence into science.
. Th~ . subi~t-mattn hesls. On this criterion. knowledge
IS classified mto natural. social. humane. and technical.'
l~ terms of reflection oj the ~ss~nce, knowledge is divided mto phen omenalist and essentialist. Phenomenalist knowle,dIe emb~aces qualitative theories mostly performing descripbYe functiOns (many branches of biology, geography, geology,
etc.). In contrad~inction to this, essentialist knowledge is exp'a natory, resonmg mostly to quantitative methods of analysis
In th.e study of various domains. Naturally, phenomenalist
theOries are no substitutes for essentialist ones just as the
descr~ptive fun ction of theory cannot supplant th; explanatory
fun ctIon.
Th e developme nt of ~ientiflc cognition leads, sooner or
t to the tra nsformation of phenomenalist theories into
e.entialist ones- through perception of the essence. flxadon
of the causes of the phenomena under study. etc.

In re/a/ion 10 lhe fo:m."i, Ol.~~n i~~: empirical .... _ _

gorisa/ion, knowledge ~s . Cdas;,~ the empirical vs theoredall
retical. The typology I
from the standpoint of the theo,),
dichotomy orders kno~ e .ge
. unt th eir funct iona l role m
of thought forms, lakIng IntO acc~ . thi'i opens up addition ..
the struct.u.r~ of inlellectua~ ~ctlV:~~ quali tat ive nat ure and
al possiblhlles for determining
I d
.
f
f available know e ge.
I
the speCIfic eatures 0 d.
t the empirical level is large y
Knowledg~ correspon. In~ 0
factual data, experimental
connected wIth gen~r.ah~lIon ~f I
te. Knowledle of abe
dependences, regulaTllles, mductlve aws. e .
..-.....theoretical level is more abstract~ emeraID'm-.np
immanent development of theoretical p~~I~ nd th~orelical
An essential difference between em~tnca a
knowledge lies in the employment of dIfferent ~hought forms.
Knowledge connected with the empi.rical level IS fo rmed as a
result of sensuous fixation, or rec ording. Kn owledge con nec l~d
with the theoretical level is formed as.a re~ult. of semantic
interpretation, conceptualisa~ion, and ratlonal ~~tl on.
_
The dialectical interrelation between emplflca l and th~ o
retical knowledge sooner or later results in the transformation
of the former into the latter. through the necessary subPan
tiation of the former. Thus the Kepler laws, formulaled ~y
the author as inductive generalisations, were deduced. In
the course of the development of classical mechanics. ~ ibID
retical knowledge from the more fundamental Newton. . . . . .
of gravitation.
.
.
In terms of junctional purpart. knowiedp: caalllifled
into descriptive and explanatory,3 f"edaumntal ad
The term "fundamental 1Cieac:e"
reflecting the most
of reality (11; 37).
such SCud; .. an diIe.-d.
or "bac" (at;.laIc 1730 33)
real elemen. of db.
knowlldge. we shall use the terms
synonyms, as is fairly frequently done
search.
Contrasted with fundamental or pure science are applied
sciences connected more or less directly with pnc ........
directed towards the solution of economic and ...........
1'.... 5, towards increasing our power over nature. &o.e reeear.
chers (10), pointing out the conventional nature of the deonition of applied sciences, believe that fundamental knowled..

26

27

-a

.r

a:

('an become applied if it is u\ed in or applil'tI to the 'y\tl'lll

of another domain of fundamental knnwk~lgl'. Till' rundamental ~
applied relationship is thus linknl with the dircclil1n of the
mO\:ement of k.nowledge in Ihe inlt~T3dlllg scil'nn'\. Thc\e COI1clusions Mern, in particular, from the nature of knowledge and
methods in a number of applied natural SCiences, such as
applied physical optics, applied infrared spectroscopy. etc.
In these applied sciences. knowledge and methods are oriented
both towards their use in other s(iences, in laboratory work,
and towards their employment in the sphere of material prodllc~
tion. The situation is in fact the same in some branches of
applied mathematics, whose methods and content also warrant
the same conclusions.
In our view, science and knowledge become applied in
character only in the solution of practical tasks. Application
of group theory to pure crystallography does not make the
former an applied science, and neither does the application of
the apparatus of differential and integral calculus to theorelical mechanics make the lalter applied mathematics. For this
reason, of prime significance for establishing the specificity
of applied studies is analysis of practice.
Without rejecting the imporlance for cognition of other
forms of practice, we must stress the special significance
for the study of applied sciences of such forms as industry
and experiment. The links of applied sciences with industry,
with the tasks of material production, have been well studied
and are, one might say, fairly obvious. The effects of the
requirements of production and of scientiflc experiments on the
emergence of applied mathematics or, at least, on the applied
aspects of malhematical knowledge have been studied much less.
The emergence and development of applied knowledge of man
has been almost entirely left without methodological interprela.
tion in the context of the solution of production tasks. This
applies to knowledge of man both in its scien tific form (with the
exception of psychology) and in the artistic one.
The dynamics of the fundamental and applied aspects of
scientific knowledge is not exhausted by Ihe movement in one
direction, so to speak-by the generation of applied sciences in the process of solution of production, industrial tasks.
The history of science provides numerous examples of transformation of applied sciences inlo fundamental ones. These
transformations point, in particular, to the inadequacy of the
differentiation between fundamental and applied knowledge on
the basi~ of motives and goals. In itself, knowledge does nol
28

contain goah and, \1111 les,"i, motives which might be dislinctivt"

feature~ here. The goal'i and the motives belong to the human
subjec.:t, lying outside the cognitive Mructures of knowledge.
A more elTective criterion or basts for the division of
sciences into fundamental ("pure") and applied is the depth
and generality of law.'), models and practical schemata in cog ~
nil ion, or, putting it differently, the degree of concre~en~
of the Jaws, models, and practical schemata. The conlll1ully
of the development of scientiflc knowledge conditions, al
each given moment, the existence of the tendency towards interpenetration of fundamental and applied studies. For Ihis
reason , it is rather difficult to draw a boundary belwelll
.
fundamental and applied knowledge at each concrele Slale In
the development of sc ien ce. Therefore factors that may be. called
extrascientiflc often act as the ultimate argument 111 the
division of science into fundamental and applied. Thus applied
sciences received the status of separate branches in the curriculum of the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris founded in 11.95
(II, 56}-the first occasion on which f~ndamental.and applied
sciences were taught as different subjects. In thlS case, the
division was based on considerations of teaching methods,
along with arguments bearing on the content of these disciplin~.
.
'
The concepts of fundamental and applied knowledge are !mportant characteristics reflecting the devel?pment. o.f scientific knowledge and essential forms of dlffere~ttallon ~nd
integration in science. Applied studies are not Just apP.hcations of one science in the sphere of another. SyntheSIS of
sciences has occurred on many occasions, but it has not always
resulted in the emergence of applied sciences. Ne:-v k~owl~d.e
resulting from synthesis or integration of two s~lentlfi.c dp,s(:~
plines is not enough for applied research. Applied science .IS
characterised not only by the emergence of new. knowledge III
the process of application of a fundamenlal SCience but ~Iso
by the solution of industrial tasks, the tasks of productIOn.
The nature of applied mathematics is largely ~ebatable because
the content of its non-mathematical goals IS not always. the
interests of material prOduction. Mathematical ta~ks ansmg
outside mathematics and solved in applied mathematics (9, 29)
do not always come from industry. Mathematical instrumenlS
can be used in the design of planes and rockets. but
they can also be employed in the modelling of Ihe Peloponnesian War of the rise and fall of world empires. .or ?f the,
.
analysis of ,the style of ancient RUSSian
aut h ors. ThiS kmd a

,.

heterogene!ty of the tasks .. whidl we lit\ tHlI, it.... a fult'. fHld

Itl the applK'allons of l'henllslry or ph\'ll\, \'gllllh.' allily ,IITl'~'h
Ihe status of applied mathematil'al 'Iudll~'.
In terms of the quality of tllt' '"forl/hl/i"" ('Orlhl;I/I' 11
knowledae as classified into rn,hable ami f1.'liable, anal\'lical

ad synthetic. "Probability" and "reliability" an~ modal ~har.

acteristics of knowledge e'pre ...,'iillg Ihe

ils \uhstan.
Ilaliol1. Knowledge is consiliered w llc rdi'lhte if Ihen~ are
lkgfl'C l'(

grounds to assert Ihal ils Irllth ha, been e ... tablislwd, Knowledge
is considered to be probabk if there art' th.) Itnn grounds for
confldenct' in its truth and it needs further logical or practi.
cal substantiation. The dialectics of lhe de\'e!opment of knowledge is subject to the law of transformation of prubable knowledge into reliable knowledge through revealing the foundations for its truth.
The terms "analytical"' and "synthetic" describe knowledge
from the standpoint of Ihe non-triviality of establishing ils
truth. Analytical knowledge is a set of analvtkal assertions
. . . . ~ is immediately obvious and depends only on
!he meanm~ o~ the terms contained in them, requiring no
funher ..e~phcatl0!l' Thus the propOSition "any daughter had a
!'l0ther 15 analytical. Synthetic knowledge is a set of synthetIC statements-statements whose truth cannOI be e<;:tablished
directly. requiring as a rule a non-trivial f<lclUal procedure,
Thus the statement "any body is in 8 state of rest or rectilinea.r and uniform movement if the resultant of the forces apphed to t.h~ .body equals zero" is synthetic.
, The .dlvlslon of knowledge into analytical and synthetic
IS rel,atlve and has no meaning outside the framework of a
certam fixed semantic system.
In . le~ms of cognitive genesis, knowledge is classified into
a prao~1 knowledg,e and a posteriori knowledge, To avoid
any misunderstandlllgs, let us stress that there is no a priori
~no~ledge ~s s,uch. all knowledge is a posteriori, While reJecl1n~ t~e ~ustlfiability of using the terms "a priori" nnd "a
.
. . .1.. In some a bsolute sense, we are convinced
that
,Postenor
It IS ..Jusl1fi~d to use them in a relative sense with a view to
Ihe functlOnal~operative" role and purpose of definite types
~f kno,,:",ledge III the cognitive proc(,ss, On this approa!.:h.
a nnon knowledi!e"
is k
i d ge as premise
. or baSIS
. ensur!lli
.
. _L: _
f'
nowe
the a~tual . unfoldl~g of the co nitive acts in-;'hich --derivative
and, Ill. tillS sellS.e, ~ poslerion know edge is OOtain~d, -'::::,:.:;.
I h,US the a pno,n vs a posterlorT dicllotomyn(1nlhe sense of
premise vs denvatlve knowledge) is justified by referring 10 Ihe
_u

.10

I.:ompk, I.:OIllIW'llitlf) of scienllflc consciOU5l16S consislin, of

(a) tilt" I;.t\w {If 'trllctllr~ f{lrrll~d 111 the pa5t (the .~

,Iud (If klwwlt-d!ld alld ell) the layer uf SlruClures a('r~

formed III IlIl' preSC'1I1 (l"runtlilll" SCIC'IKC'): The t"pl:uC'mlllogKal
role or ingrl'dienl (a) j", ~reclally Mgllltu,'ani ff(lm the ..taml .
puint of the fllnl'linnlll~ and devei(lplIIl'nlllf knllwledge 011111
ting Iht' detail",. till' ba .. k fUIlI:lillll'" Ilf thl,. U1grl..'dlent are as fol lows,
.
(I) Inasllluch as any knowledge IS bUilt nn certalll pr('ml~
as its foundation (as first .. hown In general form by F~I('dn~h
Adolph Trendelcnburg in his evaluation of HeleJ'~ pro"ecl for
a "premisele~"," i<.'gi(.'). premis(' knowledle compiL:;'? Ibe ....
ditiolls for the fUllclioning and progress of the cOl"ttlve . . . . .
In cognition, il is impo'>sible to begin entirely ab .O\'o-('ognit ion cannot be started from the start but only contillued from
available premises.
_ .
(2) A most important funl:lion of preml ..e kno~It"~ge IS
meaningful determination of cognition. This determmalH'1l 1'1
usually referred 10 as determination by the cultural bad,ground,
by the style of thinking. etl::, As V. S, Sh\'yrym c,orrectl), Pl)lIlled out. certain limiting imr1icit cognill\'e prenll"e-, are n~l'es
sary in sl'ience-premises "that are the nel.:e-...ary framework
for the scicntilk-theoretit'al consideration of the world" (11.1 .
SI ) .
In the broadest sense, these rremi~e, are standard prl)~
grammes of research coinciding with the ty~es of 'o\:;entifK .ra~
tionality which are accepted as ne,,:es.sary III the appropriate
cultural-historical contexts,
Yet another fUl1ction of premise knowledge ensure,> the dllllinllity of cognitive activity, In this flilKtion. premise know,ledle
is a kind of criterion of the intelligibility and acceptabih1Y of
newly obtained knowledge. That is probab~y the r~ason why
scientific knowledge that does 110t accord with premise knowl~
edge is called "tral.Y",
,
In terms of ('pi.~/t'''wloJ:icClI S""II.\, knowledge 1\ u'>llally clas~
sified into everyday and scientifiC. The idea of thi'> da~,.'~ifKation
dates from a remOle pa\t. Already in antiquity. the dichotomy
was sugge<;:led of scientifIC (theon:tical-rational. logically or
dered) vs Socralean (atheoretical. logically llll'>)'stematised)
knowledge. or, as it later came to be called. the knowledel ",
the life world,
The epistemological status of these types of kno.~ is .d~
termined by the essenl'e of the social inslilU1ions in which 11 lS
produced. Scientific knowledge produced in science as - II

,*

dali~ed branch of s<xia! pnldul'Iioli ~i.lli\l1l'\ ddlllltl' \tandanl)

regulating the parameter~ 01' lin.' fillill "output produl't". I-:v

eryday knowledge prodlh.:ed ill tltl' f!ullH.'WMk "I' \,llUlIIUll'llU\
activity in the everyday "Iif~ world" 1'\, Ililturally, l'pl':>tcnHlh)gi .
cally unstandardised. The diIT~reIKc\ hetwecn ')l:Icntlflc '1Ilt!
everyday knowledge i':> Iherl"fore formulatl'll 111 lenm of the
character of the objecls they dl',\aibe, the mode of reflection,
Iype of categorisation, etc." in n word. in Il'rlllS of the specificity of the cognitive activity itsdf and of lis producl\ III the two
distinct cases. where that specifICity is dcterlllJlled by the orientation towards the criterion of s.:ienliflcity.
The sphere of eVl"ryday cognition is highly nlllltlfMm, covering as it does common !-;ense. beliefs. knowledge of signs, generalisations of everyday experie nce recorded in traditions, legends. edifications, and the like, intuitive convictions, presenlimenls, ell'. Everyday knowledge is extremely stable. Being a
generalisation of recurrenl mass phenomena and processes, il
constitutes the basis of the individual's practical attitude 10 life
and the world in general (I he choice of values. goals. etc.).
Enabling the individual 10 organise in this way his everyday activity. everyday knowled~l" is of fundamental s ignificance for
man 85 a natural-social being. II is appropriate 10 stress Ihis
in view of the raising of scienlific knowledge to an absolute.
characteristic of scientismthe view of science as a universal
instrument of solving human problems. as "the measure of
things", of what is that II is, and of what is nOlthat il is not (182.
173). While rejecting. Ihe anthropological critique of scient ism
by Husser!, Heidegger. Jaspers and others, we would like to
slress that Ihe reducli0n of human experience. so diverse in ils
manifestations, to scientifiC experience is obviously untenable.
!.ince it has never covered and expressed, and will never cover
and express, all thai is human in man.
The epistemological relations of everyday and scientifiC
knowledge have a dynamism of their own. On the one hand
everyday knowledge works as a ~el of premises or assumptions
in relation to sL'ienliflc knowledge. On Ihe other hand. encroach~ng on the domain of everyday life. !-;cientific cognilion modIfies everyday knowledge. reshaping it on a s..:1entiflc basis.
A specifiC fealure of everyday knowledge is its correspondence 10 Ihe pre-reflective ~tage in the development of the intellect, free from the control and analysis of its own resources
(the procedure!. for obtaining, organising. and transform in!!
knowledge). Endeavouring to deduce the truth from sensuOliS
reality. everyday knowledge belongs, according 10 Hl"gel, to Ihe

jln' -ratIIUlal, prl"- thcurelil'lll spher~. The mt"t.:hani5m lh.l .. r~ns~

latcs eVl'ryday knuwledge into s(\cntiflc one l'i subslantl.IIOft.
EverYlli.lY knowledge rl"l"Ilrd1 the truth, (If cnurse. but it dl~ so
111 <III lIlI .. y~lenl<ltil' illHl.spel'iulised manner, leaving il .. rnur1tl~
ations Jlrlexplicated.
A':> Alcx .JI1der Luria has shown. "from the !.()(ial-psychnlngh':
al ')tnndpoi rlt, Ihe uperatioll') of logir.:al deduction frllm premi\e') have no universal ')igniflc<mce at all" f5], 5~). Inltli.llty.
when cogmlive procc\sc~ unfold on the spontaneou:\ly empirica l plane of directly observable action rather than on th(' ver
bal-Iogical plane. individual, personality-rdalell complexes of
convictions derived from everyday experiences by incomplete
induction prevail over intersubjective universally valid comp
lexes of logical proof (for Ihe laller are not yet formetJ a'isuch).
At this stage. there is no tru'>t yet in logical premi'\e~ a~ all in
gredient of a compulsory "sy,>tem of verbal-logical relations....
and the operations of logical deduction from premi~~s dn not
yet have the same significance for obtaill1ng n~w know1eJgt'
which they acquire ... when theoretical forms of activity develllp
and become widespread" (ibid., 56).
Later. as "proto-logical", pre-scientific. praltical ever)'day
thinking functioning on the principle of non-reflecti\'e perception of connections in concrete situation\ is overcome, and
rational-theoretical relations to reality develop. available knowledge is ordered and logicalty systematised.

Charier 1
THE GENESIS OF SCtENCF

The emergence of SC1ence b an old problem with rich his~

torical traditions. It has been and still is one of the pivotal
problems of methodological, epistemological and historiographical studies. In fact, not a single fundamental study of these problems can ignore this issue-implidtly or explicitly, all of them
deal with it. It will therefore be appropriate to consider this
problem here in general form, without going into detail.
2.1. THE PROBLE~t OF THE BEGINNINGS OF SCIENCE

It is widely accepted that to know a thing means to understand

"why il is". But do we know and do we understand how, why

and whence science emerged?
To overcome the numerous diffICulties in the way of the solution of these questions let us separate the external beginnings
of science from Ihe internal ones, that is to say, "the beginning
of something new in relation to the previous level" from "the
beginning of something that is going to change. something that
will be" (71, 37). It would appear that the external beginning
is the boundary at which pre~scientiflc consciousness crystallises
into science. whll.the internal beginning is precisely the point
of departure of the history of science as distinct from its prescientific history. In the light of this it is appropriate to clarify
this point: to solve the problem of the external beginning of
science is to find out the dynamics of its development from prescientific cognitive forms; while to solve the problem of the internal beginning of science is 10 indicate a certain point in historical space from which it would be justiflcd to date the beginning of the development of science itself. Taken togcther, these
two solutions will constitute the solution of the generai problelll
of the beginning of science.
The most remote cognitive premises of science are associal
ed with the intellectual leap between the 8th and the 6th cell.14

writ's n . ('. whcn tht." transition from myth 10 10las ... com
plctcd Jnd cognitive sirudurcs look shape in the Middle .net
Far Fa,\I. a~ well as 11\ cla~ical Greece, with which we till oper
all', The dcci\ivC' I'I)f1dilio"s of this leap, i.e . the' (a~lor, Ihal
overcame Ihl" mythological allitude 10 the world und thus oh,le~ ~
lively facilitated the formation of the rudimentS of structures
Ihal led to the sub-sequenl efnoresccnce of seiene!'!, were as fol~
low !i.
(I) The rcjcl'lion Of the "werewolf logic" of the myth. whirh
interfered with the formation of u(;'h fundamental prin""iples
of scientiflc ideology as universality, invariance, etc. II is. weU
known fact that the relation 10 reality of ~oples at rhe NU
stages of intellectual development is based on direct lensual
perception, which excluded the po<;sibility of forming a piClur~
of a nomologically self-suffIcient, internally cohesi\/~, self-iden ..
tical reality. For example, members of Ihe Aranta tribe ty ..
pologise the world in terms of the "I see" \/s "1 do not see" opposition which obviously makes it non-self-identil.:al. In this type
of consciousness, the non-self-identity is det~rminl"d by a kind
of duplication of the worlds, which Follows from man's ability
to perceive an object as existing in the "in\/isibl~" world. apart
from the visible one.
In a similar way, mythological consciousness identiflt.'s an
object with the image in which that obje't is given to man, traniforming the object to suit the various way" of ils pen.:eption
and making it go through metamorphoses alien to it. Every ..
thing therefore merges with everything else 10 f("lfm a singh~
whole, everything is transformed into e\ierything dsl" in the
mind of the carrier of mythological consciousne!.!. (in the mind
of a child, at the early stages of philogenesis). No boundary is
here drawn between the real and the unreal, between th~ objrctive and the subjective. betwren the true and the imaginaryit all appears 10 the mind as disjoint, accidental and, one might
say, only possible and real but in no way neces..-;ary. II follows
that the rejection of the "werewolf logic" of the mylh was a
greal revolution in thought which a-.scrted Ihe piclure of "nOIlbifurcating", "invariant", etc., reality that is !lot subject to arbitrary transformations depending on the properties of the human psyche.
(2) The replacement of the spiritual-personal relation to
reality by the objectlve~substantial one. The drstruction 01 themythological identity of man and reality led to the lOili.'atilln
of an "object ideology". The essential point hrrr is thai In the
framework of that ideology reality emerged as an object struc
.l~

th~ approach ~ .unacceptable, as il imJlli~s a mudl'rlli\ing of

scl~nce and a ralSUlJ to an absolule of some of ils al.'lual fl'iUures
at all of scienn~ us stich.
which mQ be not
with a vicious I.'irde: 10 perceive where
_ must know what it is: hut 10 find oul Whal
archaising or lIlodt'rnising il is impos.
we rely on a firm previously given (.'oneert of the
of science.
diffIculty be oven.:ome'l One mode of solving it is
through establishing a correlalive and 1.'011linually corrected
connection between a cerlain limiling and highly flexible epis.
lemological conceplion of science and ils possible historical be.
ginning. The posiling of such a connection, as shown by the
ltudy of similar problems, is Ihe only way of solving Ihis kind
of difficulty. The whole point is therefore 10 link Ihe question
of the historkal beginning of science with thai of its essence.
In its tum, the question of Ihe essence of science must not be
dilc:II5ud wilhout some reference to its historical beginning.
The solution of this problem thus requires (a) Ihe working out
of an epistemological standard of science, i.e., the selling apan
of science as an epistemologically uniform and integral structure linked with a definite type of ralionality, a mode of spiril ual produclion specified by a minimal set of universal features;
(b) an analysis of cognitive forms realised in history intended
to ascertain their correspondence 10 Ihe previously elaborated
standard of science; (c) idenlifIcalion of (a) and (b).
Having posited the general principle of overcoming the difft~ulty .of epistemological circularity, we can proceed with our
diSCUSSion of the problem in hand.
There .is no consensus among specialists as to how, when and
where sCIence emerged. We shall not evaluate or even list all
the vi.ews on this issue that have been expressed. We shall merely reject from the outset the view of Herbert Spenser, who
regarded the mind of an adult savage 10 be the most convenient
point of depanure for science. This position is based on the
jdE~tifacation of science with any knowledge concerning reality; UlaSl!luch as the savage had some knowledge of reality, he
was beheved to be involved with science.
~i~king the beginning of science with rudiments of cognilive
aCllvlly. af fhe early stages of anthropogenesis, and idenlifying
r~e subject of science with the primitive savage is not, in our
VieW, a very profound approach; at the very leasl, it is inconsistent. Ir would be much more consistent to associate the starting
point of science with the "research behaviour" of Anthropoids
38

and Ihu\ l'Oline'. Ih~ b~ginning of science widl Iba ipceI'ICI of

ap~s ralhcr than savag~, But the absurdity 01 tbill . . . . . .
soning i!) obviour,.
The basi<: defect of Spenser's position lies. we believe,
rejeclion of the genetic approach and unjustifiably placina
science outside culture and human history. To lIIow the unlenability of Spenser\ approach to the solution of the problem
of Ihe beginning of science, let us stress the distinclion " twO aspect" of the concept of knowledge. On one plane knOw ....
edge is a mode of existence of consciousness. Since consciousness is intentional, it is impossible without knowledv, for il
functions on the principle of realisation of the knowl. . . . . .
c1uded in it. In this sense the existence of knowledge is .., no
means a prerogative of science but an attribute of any conscious activity, including, of course, non-scientific activity as
well, Without knowledge, it is impossible for instance, to practise handicrafts, hunting, agriculture, or any other "standard"
human activity unfolding as a cenain technology for the implementalion or achievement of some purpose. Naturally, the
primitive savage possessed some knowledge gained through
generalisation of social experiences-but this has little or no
bearing on science as such.
This aspect of the concept of knowledge should be distinguished from thai plane on which knowledge is identical
with scientific knowledge, on which it can be equated with

scIence.
Was the primitive savage in any way involved with scie.nce'!
A rigorous approach to this question requires, as w~ pomted
out above, a method for Ihe identitication of "primitive knowledge" with the epistemological standard of science. What is
that standard? As a basis for such a standard, let us take a e+od'01 suggested by I. Ro.hansky (84), which we shall reproduce
here in brief outline. In Rozhansky's view, which we share, the
model having a minimum of extremely general (even "weak")
characteristics specifying science should be as follows.
(I) Any science is knowledge. Much more importantly, however, this knowledge is a result of an activity aimed at ~btain
ing it. The determining feature of science is thus the eXIStence
of a special type of activity undertaken with the goal of produc~
ing new knowledge. From the sociological viewpoint. th.
ity can only be ensured by Ihe availability of Ie;,,....
ply of time thai becomes available when a Jl'oe. fill
freed from material production; this su~ 01 .... II ....t on
development of nonmaterial production.
39

That means thai science in the proper sense of the

could not have appeared before the division of labour int~Ord
teUectual and manual. Goal-direl.'ted, rather than !.pontane~n
and sporadic, aetiv.ity aimed at oblail~ing knowledge require~~
apan from a detlOlte category of mdlVlduals - the subjec ts of
knowledge (producers, starers. transmitters) -a material basis
(instruments and devices), its own methods (lhe means of ob.
taining knowledge, control of and instru~tion in ~!lowledge).
and a means of recordmg the results obtamed (wrillng). A so.
ciety pO&'iessing none of these attributes has no science either.
(2.). The practice of scien~~ must be mostly mot~vated by
cognll1\:e problems as such arlsmg oul of a natural, d isinterest_
ed need to- know, and not by applied utilitarian problems built
into the context of direct practica l activity. so to speak. "Knowl_
edge for the sake of knowledge" consolidates science as a spe.
cial lype of production opposed to other types of materiat as
well as spiritual production (art, religion, etc.) .
(3) To be scientific, cognition must be rational, i.e., it must
completely exclude mythological, magical and similar notions
based on belief in the supernatural.
(4) An agglomeration of disjoint knowledge obtained and
functioning as an ensemble of empirical algorithms for the solution of experimental tasks does not yet form science. Scientific knowledge can only be separated out on the basis of proof
through justifiable necessary derivation from a theoreticalfundamental consideration of the subject in "pure form".
~uch is the most ~eneral epistemological model covering the
tYPical aspects of sCience. In the light of this model, it is superfluous to demonstrate the untenability of Spenser's view of the
origin of science. That sporadic primitive knowledge which
Ih.e ~vage m~n art~ined at great COSI through inductive generalr~atlOn of hIS aCllvity (through trial and error) is not scie ntific in any respect whatever.
Now, how does what we call science take shape, after all?
Where
. and when does it happen? As we shall see later , this
question cannot. be answere.d within the framewo rk of ep istemology alone-It also reqUIres the study of the entire system
of the material and non-malerial culture of mankind func tioning as an integral whole. As a further step in our inquiry we
~hall therefore analyse the familiar types of human cultures
lIl.order to esta~lish th~ir actual potential for being the "gener~
atlve structures of sCience.

40

2.2. S( IIN(T tN HIF; ANCIENT

ORtENT

As the "Iudy of anljent '>I:lence is not a goal In itself in the

pre.sent dj ..cour~e (we are only concerned with the root\ and
the dynamics of tht: strw.:lure called sdence), our analYSIS is
only intended to elUCIdate the real potential of allci.ent Oriental
culture for generaling \c.:icm:e by clarifying the SOCial and epistemological features of that culture'S functioning. Our immediate question therefore is: was anc.:ienl Oriental culture capable
of generating science? Naturally. our discu'iSion will only be
effec tive if we rely on the standard of science fixed above.
Comparison of know ledge current in the ancient Orient
with that standard shows the following.
( I ) It should be recognised that the Oriental civilisation mo')t
advanced at the time (before the 6th century B. C.) III agriculture, the c rafts, the war arts. and commerce (Egypt. \<1e.. opotamia, India, and China) had worked out a certain body of
knowledge.
Floods and the need for quantitative evaluation of the area!)
covered by water stimulated the development of geometry: intensive trade, the practice of handicrafts, and construction
work motivated the developmen! of computation operations
and counting: navigation and cullic practices promoted the
science of the stars, etc. Oriental civilisation thus had at its disposal a body of knowledge which accumulated. was stored and
transmitted from generation to generation. helping 10 optimally organise human activity. It was pointed out abo.e, however,
that the existence of a body of knowledge does not in itself constitute science . Science is determined by the goal-directed activity of producing new knowledge. Was there any such aCliv.
ity in the ancient East? This question has to be answered III the
negative.
In the most precise sense. knowledge was here produced by
popu lar inductive generalisation of direct practical experiences, c irculating in the socium on the principle of hereditary
professionalism through (a) transmission of knowledge within a family in the process of assimilation of older members' skills
by children: (b) trall smi~i(ln of knowledge. described as COining from a divine patron of a glHn occupation in the framework of a professional union of people (guild. caste) in the
process of its e)l.pal1!iion. Thus knowledge change..'"d in Ihe an
cient East spontaneollsly: no eritical-reflecti\oe acti\'ity of evaluating the gene..'"sis of knowledge..'" e)l.isted- knowledge was recognised 011 a passive basis. without proof, Ihrough forcible
41

about the properties of geometric figures. That was why Orien_

tal scholars and scribes were compelled to liSe- I.umber.'iome ta_
bles (of coefficients. etc.) for guidance in the SOlution of COn_
crete t .... s of an unanalysed typical t:1i.1.">s.
if we accept thai each of the fe-atures of the- epistemo_
........" of science is necessary. and their totality is
for the specification of sCience as 8n element of the
social superstructure and a special type of rationality, it may
be 8::erted that science thus perceived was nonexistent in the
ancient Orient. Although we know very lillie of ancient Orien_
tal culture. the basic incompatibility of the properties of science existing here with the features of the standard of science
is beyond doubt. In other words. ancient Oriental culture and
andent Oriental consciousness did nOI yet work oul modes of
cognition based on discursive reasoning rather than on prescriptions, dogmas and prophecies. on democratic discussion of
problems, on debate from the positions of rational grounds rather than from the positions of strength of social and theological
prejudices and authorities. and on substantiation rather than
revelation as guarantee of truth.
In the ancient Orient, the limited body of knowledge and
experience did not exceed the "confines of the traditionally
supplemented and only very slowly and linJe widened collection
of recipes"; the hand and the head were not yet fully separated
here from each other (59, 47, 554).
Taking all this into account. our final evaluation is as follows: the historical type of cognitive activity and knowledge
which evolved in the ancient Orient corresponded to the prescientific stage in the development of the intellecl; it was not
yet scientific.
2.3. SCIENCE tN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

The view is widely current III scientifIC literature (a view

that we share) that the true cradle of science was classical
Greece, whose culture 81 the time of its efflorescence (6th-4th
centuries B. C.) gave rise to science.
Let us consider the distinctive features of Ihis period, stressing
from the very Outset that we do not restrict the study
of classical culture to an analysis of the unfOlding of the first
research programmes that can be described as scientific. We
consider it important 10 fix those social and epistemological
structures WhiCh, arising in antiquity, determined the formation
of sc ience as such here.

Let u<; hegin Willi tilt' ~()C"io-pnljlical causes for the ~nprecr-
dented lIp~lIrge ill Greek culture in the 6th-4th <,en,ur.lft I. C.
The <;trllgp:le hltween the ucm()~ and the ',anded a.rtstocr~~y
ended in the rcfnrm'i of Sulon (Athell<;, 5.)4 B. ( . ). whh;h
wh.,li.IntiiJlly limited the real pnwc.r uf tht.' .trl'h)ni:IC~ . I he: S l~
niflf.:ancc of Solon\ reform .. lay 111 Ihe dc.. trlll"tHHl. ,uIll <.tholl
tion of all c<;tate., and in the declaration of Ihe prinCiples of pll~
litieal and legal equality of free citizen ..,. a~ n:c~lr(Jeu 10 the
constitution of Cli\thcnes promulgated in Athens 111 509 B. C.,
after the overthrt)w of tyranny.
.
These event., had the following effect on the ~!.I superstruclUre, and in particular on problems of cOlfllt".. " .
the individual endowed with civil freedoms was not depenonalised here, as he was in the tyrannical IIlS.litutions o~ powe~ depriving everyone of their rights. as, e.g . m th.e ancient Orl~nt.
The democratic form of the sot:ial structure III Greel.:e ~h.. ch.
on the one hand, assumed the participation of each free l"1~ILen
in political life (in popular assemblies. public debate~ 'iotlllg),
and on the other, encouraged in a practical. m.anner the free
play of the citizen's talents and potential. ehmm~ted the pr~~
rogatives of birth and. moreover. wac; not condut:l~e to ~umll
ity in the face of rulers and bureaucrats, espen.ally as the
Jailer were elected and held their offices in su<.ce...oiIOI1 . That IS
why the core of axiological consciousnes.s among Greeks w~~
the concept of the individual's personal dignify rather than hiS
birth or social position.
.
..
Second, the establishment of generally valid cl~'1I law determined the extremely difficult transition from t.he I~t~rprelatlon
of the order of social life in terms of The-OliO;; (.ul\:me statute
sent, as it were, from above owing to a predestmed order or
things) to its interpretation in terms of Nomos (a statute th~1
has the status of a legal idea duly debated a~d a?opl.ed): ThiS
move signified a kind of secularisation of s<?clal life, Its liberation from the power of religious and myslKal I~otlons.
Third. the attitude to social law as a democratic norm who.. e
civil excellence was proved in popular debate and accepted
by the majority, and nm as a blind force dictated from abo.ve,
was based on the practice of rhetoric -the art of persliaslO.n
and argument. Indeed. a .. the strength of argument and Critique became the instrument of making laws. the power 01
words grew, and the skill of handling words became a
"form of political and intellel'tual activity.... a '!Ie~
,:on,:
scious choice of a political line, and a mode or a~hJeY~n8 ~USIIC\
(41. 20). The Greeks even introduced a special deity III thel

'?'

,.<

Pantheon-- Peth o, th e embod i men t. of the ar~ of pers~asion.

Fourth . the c iti zens' lega l equality and thelT subor~lnalion

to unitary laws. as well as re!o.p~c~ fO,r the arl of pers~aslOn, had
as their consequence a relallVlsatiOIl of human Judgemenl.
Since everything in the sphere of th,l!' 1Ille llecl h?~ ~o be substan_
tiated. and any substantiati on. subjected. '? CritiCism, could be
~tanliated in another and more soph lsllcaled manner, each
suu,:,
.
Th
. h
Greek had a right to his own o pinion.
at. rig I v.:as only infringed upon whe n pri vate opinions ca me In. c~nfllcl with effective laws. In oth er words, the universal pr mclp le of critique
and search for a better substantiati on was only invalid in situa .
lions covered by precise laws which, once adopted, cou ld no
longer be crit ic ised.
We can thus state that basica ll y th e Greeks saw the trut h
as the product of rat ional proof based on substa ntiat ion a nd
understanding and not as a produ ct of dogm a tic faith relying
on authority. Greeks we re not, of course, one hund red per cent
rationalists (are there any such? ) ; th e re were factors tha t restric ted th e G reeks' ratio: be lief in destin y, in c hance (t iche) ,
which could not be controll ed. innue nced, or with stood, and
so on. It should be point ed out, howeve r, th a t th ese concessions
to the supernatu ra l we re mostly made in th e G reeks' everyday
civ il life. but not in cogniti on. As fa r as cognit ion was concerned,
the Greeks drew a hard and fast line be tw een th e ra tional
and th e irrational , decisively e xcl udin g the latte r from considerat ion. Th us, excluding th e myth ological concepts of the
structure of the universe suggested by Hesiod , Pherecydes of
Le ~ os, Epime nides and othe rs fr om the context of physics,
Anstolle focused on th e a nalysis of the pre- Soc ratics' "phys iological" views of the unive rse.
We see that a most impo rt ant result of th e democr atisation
of the soc io-politica l sphere in classica l Greece was the deve lop~ ent of the appa ra tus of rat iona l logical demonstration,
~~Ich lat~ r. outgre w the bou nd aries of di rect realisat ion of po1~lIcal activity, beco ming a uni versa l a lgorithm for the production of knowledge as a wh ole and as an instrument for translating
knowledge . from the individual to socie ty. Aga inst this background, sc ience as demonstrabl e knowledge based on certain
grou nd~ co~ld already grow; this is readily proved by th e a va il ~b~e ~lsto~lca!, da ta. For insta nce, the na tural -phil osoph ica l
p rSIO/oglca l conSTr Ucts of th e pre-Soc rat ics a re qualitatively d ~trerent from the concep tu a lly re la ted a ncie nt Ori enta l and
earlier Gree,k mythologica l construc ti ons precisely in be ing
based on log ical proof. Th us th e inva riably popular proposi ti on
46

concerning the unity and at the same time the non-idC'n t~ry o(
a ll things appears in the "physiologies" of the pre-Socraf lcs 85
an element of rational deduction rather than an element of a
poeticised worldview characteristic of the anc ient Oriental and
Orphil.: myths.
. .
If we take rational substantiation as the minimal necessary
premise of science, i.e., cognition in the for~ of proof through
appeal to actually verifiable (not mystical) rea.')oll'i and
grounds. this principle underlies (even if we discount the ' ~phys-
iological" natural science of the pre-Socratics, the ethiCS 01
Socrates, the astronomy of Eudoxus a nd Ca lippus ) the plani .
metry of H ipparchus of Chios, Hippoc rates' medicine. Herodotus' history. Euclid's geometry. e tc. All these unq uestionably fa ll
within the domain of sc ience.
To fi X more exactly the premises for the eme rgence of science
we must discuss the employment of slave labour as a feature
of Greek life. At the level of social consciousness. the univer.
sal employ ment of slave labour and the fact that free c;tirens
were relieved from participation in the sphere of material production we re the reasons why the Greek had such profound
conte mpt for anything that had to do with instrumental-p ractical activity, which was naturally complemented by a contemplati ve ideology, an abstract, speculative and artistic attitud " to
rea lity. The Greeks drew a line between The mind's free play
with an intellectual object and the productive labour activity
with a materia l object. The former was regarded as worthy of
a fr ee cit iz.en and termed science, the Jailer was suitable to a
sla ve a nd was called handicraft. Even such a highly artistic activi ty as scu lpture had the status of a handicraft in ancient
G reece, being con nected with "matter". The outstanding Greek
sc ul ptors- Ph idias, Polykleitos. Praxiteles and others-were
the refore regarded, in fact, as just so many craftsme n. Art and
handic raft we re id entified. both being covered by one word
and conce pl - techne.
Int erestingly, in sc ience itself the Greeks separated true
sc ie nce from its applica tions, and interest in the latter was not
approved of. T hus the Greeks opposed phys ics as the science
studying natllre to mechanics- an applied branch, the art of
building technical apparatus, of designing and building ma c hines. It is clea r in this context why P lalo reproac hed Eudo lCu5
a nd Arc hytas for thei r stud ies in mec ha nics; Aristorle ~Iso
disapproved of e nth usiasm for mec hanics. In mathem a tiCs,
th e art of ca rrying out concrete calculations fell in the
domain of the lowl y techne. wh ile a rithme tic was rega rded

as a respectable ~heory of abstral't properties of numbers

[n ~hat connection do we speak '.1f conlemplati\!ene~, in ou~
an~lys,ls of the premises for the emergence of science? The
pomt IS that a necessary condition for the development of sci_
ence is the use of idealisations. which cannot appear within a material..practical attitude to reality, Generalisation of the princi_
ples of i~stru~ental labour a(.'rivity ~nvo~:ing vari,ous Objects
merely gIves nse to abstral:lton -a fairly standard' epistemo_
logical operation of identifying actually existing features. an
operation that the higher animals can also perform. Abstrac_
tion. however. is obviously incapable of producing idealisa_
tion-the idelllificatioll of features Ihal do nol exist in reality
and canllot therefore manifest themselves in instrumental_prac_
~ic,al impacr on re~lity. Therefore',for idea,lisations to emerge,
If IS necessary to give up the matenal-praelteal attitude to realiry and [0 accept the positions of contemplation; this end was
achieved in ancien( Greece.
The id~alisatio~s which figure in ancient Greek texts, and
the associated purely theoretical questions, the special apparat~ of intersubjective substantiation employed for the organisa_
t~on of systems of knowledge. etc., were not, obviously, induc tive generalisations of production activities. Whether we consider the propositions of Hipparchus' pJanimetry or the postulates of Euclid's geometry, the aporias of the Eleatics or the
problems of arche which were of such interest to all pre-Socratks. the Pythagorean question of incommensurability or
the search of Diogenes for the essence of man-none of this
has any traceable links with material production. Generalisation
of the practice of land surveying does not yield the concepts
of the Euclidian straight line, plane, point, etc. Generalisation
of the practice of a metal worker or potter will not result in
Heraclitus' concept of fire as the first element of the universe,
and so on. While giving rise to abstraction, practice blocks the
emergence of idealisations as its logical continuation, No practical worker as such will concern himself with problems of the
essence of the world, cognition, truth, man, the beautiful, etc,
All these are basically "non-practical" questions, remote both
from the sphere of mass production and from the sphere of the
producers' consciousness.
Now, how did it become possible to formulate and discuss
these questions? What were the reasons that made idealisations
the core of the cognitive and cuhural processes that gave birth
to science? To some extent, these questions were answered in
the above, where we stressed that the formation of ideal objects

conslitutlllg the nect"SSary foundation of science .M bMed on

contcmplarion, on orientation towards abstract-theoretics! ~
sideralion of objects in their pure form. whi~h prevailed in
Greece, To this should be added that idealisation as a form or
thinking was practically non-existent in the traditional societies
of the ancient Orient. This factor must not be exaggt."rated, or
course; abstraction was naturally inherent in the thinking or
members of the ancient Oriental culture, and so was logkal argumentation, otherwise there would be no point in speaking
of ratiocination at all in that period. It is quite obvious at the
same time that both abstraction and logical argumentation w
extremely undeveloped in the Orient and thus inapaIIIa III
forming
a basis for the development of theoretical copiricw, or

sCience.
It would not be appropriate to discuss in this study the extremely complex question of the degree of scientificity or. let
us say, the Greeks' naturalscientific doctrines compared to
their ancient Oriental analogues on the meaningful plane. An
evaluation of this knowledge in terms of form will be more definite and fruitful. Certain propositions are more or Ie&. obvious. It seems clear, for instance, that the ancient Greeks' cognitive potential for producing science was much more preferable than the corresponding potential of ancient Oriental culture. What we mean here is this. Although both in the ancient
Orient and in classical Greece there was knowledge which could
hardly be described as scientific in terms of meaning, only in
Greece, and not in the traditional Oriental societies, did
such forms of cognitive activity arise as systematic proof,
rational substantiation. logical deduction, and idealisalionforms out of which science later developed.
The reasons for thai lay in the specific features or the socio-political order in Greek society. We refer here to the institution of slave-owning democracy. which was ravourable both
to the development of an apparatus of intersubjective systematic rational-logical proof and to the elaboration of various
devices for the designing of. and operation with, ideal objects.
On the basis of the above. the formation of science in ancient
Greece may be reconstructed as follows, Mathematics in Greece
did not differ at the beginning from ancient mathematics in the
East. Arithmetic and geometry functioned as an ensemble of
technical procedures in land surveying, falling in the domain of
techne. Both in Greece and in the ancient Orient. these procedures were neither textually formulated in any detail nor rationally and logically substantiated. To become science, they had
4-014711

48

,.

10

be bOlh adequalely formulall'tI and su~slanliah.'(I. When did

Ihal lake place?

HiSlorians of science have t'>"pre<"ed ~'arious hYPolhe<,es on
Ihis score. It is assumed. for in~lance. Ihal il wa~ done by Thale~
in the 6th century B. C. According 10 a differenl view. Ihis was
done somewhat laIN by DellH'lailus. There are olher opinions.
The actual facl\. however, are nol ~o illlpOrla11l for liS. It is important 1(,1 slress Ihat all Ihis happened in Greece and no~. say,
in Egypl, where knowledge was Iral1~lated from ~t'nerallon 10
generation verbally, and geometers were practIcal workers
rather than theoretical scientis" (,he Greek word for Ihem was
(tl':Ul\III'(t.1T(tI, "Ihose who lie a rope"). We c~n lI~lI:5 slate thai
Thales and possibly Democritus pla.yed a r?le 111 gIVing mathematics the textual form of a theon,,'lu:al-loglcal system. We can
not. of cour..e. pa.ss over in silence 'he PYlhagoreans, who de
veloped. on a textual basis. purely abslract mathemallc~l con
cepts; or the Eleatic<" who were Ihe fIrst II? dra~ the Im.e be
tween the sensuous and the inlel1igiblea dl~tlllctlOn preVIOusly
unknown in mathematics, All Ihi.<. con~liluted the foundation
of Ihe formal ion of mathematics as a Iheorelical-rational science ralher than an empirical-.<.ensuous art.
The next elemenl that is of Ihe grealest importance for reo
constructing the process of Ihe emergence of mathemalics is
the working out of the theory of proof. Here, we should stress
the role of Zello, who contributed to the formation of Ihe theory of proof by developing the apparatus of proof by the rule of
contraries; and also of Ari.<.totle, who carried out a global synthe.<.is of all the known procedures of logical proof and gene
raJi'>ed them as a regulative canon of re.<.earch towards which
all scientific, including mathematical, knowledge was oriented.
In this way the originally non-scientifIc empirical mathematical knowledge of ancient Greeks, in no way different from
ancient Oriental knowledge, was transformed into sciencethrough rationalisation. theoretical elaboration, logical systematisation and deductivisation.
Let us describe physics- the natural science of ancient
Greece. The Greeks were familiar with numerous experimental data that later became the ,>ubjecl-matter of natural science.
Thus Ihe Greeks discovered the "attractive" property of rubbed
amber and of loadstones, refraction in liquid media, elc. And
yet experimental natural <'(ience never came inlO being in anGreece, Why was that s01 The reasons lay in the specific
of the superslructure and social relation .. prevailing in
Taking the argumenl propounded above as our point

I.""

of departure, we may say that Ihe experimental type of cognition was alien to the Greek.~ hecause of (I) the complete dominion of the contemplative attitude at the time, (2) an aversion to separate "insignifICant" concrete action,> which were regarded as unworthy of the attention of the intellectuals -Ihe
free cilizens of demoaatk polises and un.<.uitable for the cognil ion of the world a.<. a whole undivided into parts.
It is no accident Ihat the Greek word "physics" is often used
in qlloles in modern studies in the hi.<.lory of science, for the
Greeks' physics is something quite different from the modern
discipline of that name. To the Greeks, physics was a "science
of nature as a whole, but not in the sense of our natural seience" (83,9), The Greek word II I'm; means "creation", so that
the science of physics was a science of nature which included
cognition through speculation on the origin and essence of the
nalural world as a whole and not through experimental testing. It was an essenlially conlemplative science very similar to
later natural philosophy relying on the method of speculation.
The following two queslions have 10 be answered: whal are
the premises for the emergence in antiquity of an ensemble of
natural-scientific concepts, and what are the causes that determined their concrele epistemological characler?
The premises for the emergence in antiquity of this ensemble of natural-scientific concepls include, first, the view. which
asserted itself in the struggle against anthropomorphism (in
the works of Xenophanes of Colophon and others), of nature
as a naturally emerging structure (we hardly dare say "naturalhiSlorical structure") whose foundation is to be found in itself
rather than in Themis or Nomos. The signilicance of eliminating anthropomorphism from cognition lies in the delimilation
of the domain of the objectively necessary from the subjectively arbitrary. This provided organisational and epistemological grounds for tfle inlroductiOI1 of certain norms in cognition,
for its oriental ion towards quite delinite values, and in any case
for preventing the merging in one whole of mirage and reliable fact, phantasm and result of rigorous resear..ch.
The second premise was the implanting of the idea of "onIOlogical nonrelativily" of being, which followed '''from the cri
tique of the naive empirical worldview stressing continual
change, of which a philosophical-theoretical version was worked
OUI by Heraclitus.
The focus of Heraclitus' universe is the law of mutual transition, of continual self.rc.')lOralion, conniC!, and renovation of
the substances of which the source and principles of motion he

-'1

reduced 10 Ihe mobile nalUre of fire, the first element of all

Ihat i!>.
The ideas of Heraclitus were !>harply criticised by Parme~
nides; his treatise on Natllre asserted that becoming was not
and could not be the first principle of things. Parmenides
<;tressed that the ideology of becoming, with its emphasis on the
fluctuation of things, undermined the possibility of knowledge
reflecting stable relations.
The views of Parmenides were shared by Plato, who drew a
hne between the world of knowledge correlated with Ihe do~
main of invariant ideas, and the world of opinion correlated
with sense perceptioll recording the "na tural stream" of that
which is.
The results of this long~drawnout controversy, in which
practically all philosophers of antiquity took part, were summed
up by Aristotle. His ideas were a further step in the devel
opment of this problematics: the object of science must be sta
ble and leneral~propenies that are absent in the sensually
perceived objects: there was thus a need for a special subject
~parate from the sensually perceived objects (117).
The idea of an intelligible object that is not subject to con
tinual change was epistemologically significant. as it laid the
foundation for naturalscientific knowledge.
The third premi<>e was the view of the world as a coherent
whole comprising all that is and amenable to suprasensuous
contemplation. This circumstance was of considerable epistemological significance for Ihe prospects of the formalion of sci
ence. In the first place, it helped 10 establish the fundamental
scientific principle of causality; science is. in fact. based on set~
ling down causal relalions. Besides, in conditioning Ihe abSlrac! syslematic character of the potential conceptualisations
of the world, This view stimulated such an inalienable attribute
of science as its Iheoretical charac ter, Le., logically substan
tialed reasoning relying on the conceplual-categorial apparatus.
These are. in the briefest oulline, the premises for Ihe emergence in antiquity of an ensemble of llaluralscientiflC nOlions
which were merely a prOlotype of future natural science. not
yet science as such. The following are the causes of this state
of affairs.
(I) An e.s<;ential premi<;e for the emergence of natural sci
ence in anliquily was. as we have pointed out, the struggle against
anthropomorphism. which ended in the formulation of the
programme of searching for arche. or the monbti..: basic of na
ture. Of course, Ihat programme facilitated the as,sertion of the
52

concept of natural law. On the !)ther hand. however, it also

stood in the way of this concept becau!>e of the lack of aclual
concreteness in that programme and the assumed equality or
the numerous candidates for the role of the flJ"sl element or archi!.
Here Ihe principle of insufficient reason came into play; it prevented the unificalion of the wellknown "fundament a'" ele
ments and the elaboration of the concept of a unitary generative principle (which might become law).
(2) Natural science did nol exist in antiquity because it was
impossible to apply the apparatus of mathematics in the frame
work of physics; according to Aristotle. physics and mathematics were different sc iences pertaining to different objeclS
and having no points of contact. Aristotle defined malhemalics
as the science of immobile being. and physics. as the science
of mobile being. The former was fully rigorous. the laller. by
definition, could lay no claim to rigorousness and therein lay
their incompatibility (ibid). Unrelated to mathematics and
thus devoid of quantitative methods of research, physics in fact
functioned in antiquity as a contradictory fusion of two types
of knowledge. One of these-theoretical nalUral science or nat
ural philosophy was Ihe science of the necessary. universal
and essential in being which relied on the melhod of abstract
speculation. The other type of knowledge-a naive empirical
system of qualitative knowledge of being~was not even science.
in the precise meaning of the term, for a science of accidental being given in sense perception could not exist. according to
the epistemological views of antiquity. The impossibility of introducing precise quantitative formulations in the context of
either of these types of knowledge nalUrally deprived them of
definileness and rigorousness. without which natural science
could not take shape, as science.
(3) Some empirical slUdies were, of course. carried out in
antiquity: d. the eslablishment of the size of the Earth by Eratosthenes; the measurement of the visible sun's disk by Archimedes; the calculation of Ihe distance between the Earth and
the moon by Hipparchus. Posidon;us, Ptolemy. etc. However.
antiquily did not know experiment as "artiflcial perception of
natural phenomena in which secondary and insignificant effects
are eliminated and which has for its purpose the confirmation
or rejection of certain theoretical hypotheses" (84. 15).
The reason for that lay in the absence of social sanclioning of free citizens' instrumental-material aClivity. Only im
practical knowledge unconnected wilh labour was seen as
seemly and socially signifIcant. Moreover. true knowledge. that

is, unh:ersal and apodic!!c knowledge, in no way depended on

or came in contact with facts either epistemologically or socialh-, It IS clear from the above that natural science as a factualiy (or experimentally) substantiated body of theories could
not then take shape.
The Greeks' natural science was abstract and explanatory,
it did not include an activity-oriented and creative component.
There was no room here for experiment as a mode of affecting
the object by artificial means with the aim of clarifying the content of the accepted abstract models of objects.
However, the formation of natural science as science reQuires more than the skill of ideal modelling of reality-it also
calls for a technique of identifying the idealisations with the
object domain. This could only be achieved under different social conditions and on the basis of socio-political, worldview,
axiological, and other guidelines of cognitive activity substantiaUy differing from those of ancient Greece.
In analysina the specific features of ancient science, we must
thus att ns that human thinking has developed from the outset
"in many and divergent ways-among which one is the scientific" (196, 544). The reasons for that, as we have attempted
to show. lay in the specificity of the peoples' entire socio-political and material-practical mode of the life, which, imposing an
imprint on the character of their nonmaterial production, determined the possibility or impossibility of its functioning as the
"generative structure" of science. Only that confluence of sociocultural circumstances which occurred in ancient Greece was
able to produce the necessary conditions for the emergence of
science. It was here that such factors, necessary for the process
of science formation, developed and took shape as intersubjectivity. universal validity, supraindividual character, substantionality, ideal modelling of reality, and so on. As they progressed
and became consolidated, these factors ultimately conditioned
that specific type of ideology and relation to reality which is called science.
2.4. SCIENCE IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The character of mediaeval science can only be understood

if the entire system of mediaeval theological worldview is outlined, with its constitutive elements of universalism, symbolism,
hierarchism, and teieologism. Let us consider these features.
Uni\.'ersalism. A specific feature of mediaeval thinking was
gravitation towards universal knowledge, the desire to "grasp
Ihe world as a whole, to comprehend it as a kind of accom
54

plished unity of all" (8,2). The rea~on for that lay in the fact
that the normative model of mediaeval knowledge was the cia.
sical epistemological model, described above9 of true-univer
sal and apodictil.: --knowledge, a model that was amply substantiated by the new liocio-cultural and world view materials.
The actual basis of that model was the idea of the unity of man
and cosmos, a unity rooted in their genetil.: community, or community in the act of creation; it followed from this that only he
could know something who grasped the es.<;ence of divine creation; inasmuch as creation was universal, anyone having knowledge of it knew everything; conversely, he who had no such
knowledge had no knowledge at all. Naturally, there wu no
place in this paradigm for partial, relative, incomplete or nonexhaustive knowledge; knowledge could only be universalotherwise it was no knowledge at all.
Symbolism. Symbolism as an element of the mediaeval worldview was fully universal, covering both the ontological and the
epistemological sphere. The sources of "ontological symbolism" become clear if one takes into account the radical nature
of the propositions of creationism. Once created, any thingfrom a mote of dust to nalUre as a whole-lost the status of
ontological substantiatedness. lts existence, determined on a
certain supreme plane, was not independent and was therefore
necessarily symbolic, merely reproducing, embodying, or personifying the underlying fundamental essence of which it was
an imperfect prototype and replica.
The ontological formula "The stamp of the Most High is imposed on all" produced as its epistemological equivalent the
formula "Everything is filled wilh supreme meaning", which
in its turn determined the conceptualisation of realiry on the
basis of a revived mythological and highly symbolic causeand-meaning typology. The roots of the "epistemological symbolism" of the Midd le Ages go back to the familiar precept of
the New Testament: "In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God" (189. I, 1). The
word here is an instrument of creation, an ontological element-but not only that. Passed on 10 man, it also figured as
a universal way of comprehending creation. a means of joining
in and reconstructing divine creative acts.
As concepts were directly identified with their objective analogues, and linguistic structures were universally hypostatised,
the question of chimeras and flctions did not even arise; everything expressible in language, thinking, concepts and words
was inherent in reality. The realistic isomorphism of concepts
55

and real objects conditioned

'

.
cal and the epistemological w~~~tfl ld enlUY of the. Onlologi_
possibi~ity of knowledge.'
~
gllred as a condition of the
0

f '

..:: kaiewl o! the genet!cally fundamental character of the COn.

cn Fe ~tio:" to reality,. mastermg and possession of the can.
.r
r l ) .~lfted possessIOn of definitive knowledge about reahty, . denvatlve
from the concept . Acco,d,ngl y, th e process of
.
f'
~ogm.tlon 0 an .obJect ~onsisted in the study of the concept desIgnattng the abJec,';. this d~t~rmined the purely bookish, textual nature of cogmtlve actlvlly. And, since most available text
~ere sacred a,nd, moreover, san~l.ified by divine authority. Ih!
~deal and, the mstrum~nt of cogmllon was exegetics-Ihe art of
interpreting Holy Scnptures, that ultimate source of all possi.
ble knowledge.
Hiert!rchl~~m .. ':AII 'v~sible things' have the capacity for re.
produ~mg .lnvlslble things', for being their symbols. But this
cap~cilY vanes from one visible thing to another. Each thing is
a mIrror, but some mirrors are smoother than others. This fact
alone makes one think ~f .the ~orld as a hierarchy of symbols"
(8,34) ..Symbols were dIvIded Into "higher" and ;'Iower"; membershIp tn these two classes was determined by the closeness to
or re~oteness fr?m God on the basis of the opposition of the
cele:.tlal (tntranslent, noble) 10 the mundane (mortal, bestial).
Thus water .was "nobler" than earth, air "nobler" than water, etc.
Tele%glsm. Another anribute of the mediaeval worldview
was teleologism, ~hich c~n~isted in the interpretation of the
phenomena of reahty as eXlsttng according to God's will in order
to perform certain predestined roles. Thus water and earth
ser~e plants, w~ich, for. that very reason, are nobler and occupy
a higher rung tn Ihe hIerarchy of values. Plants, in their turn,
are food for animals.
80th logically and naturally teleologism culminated in anthro~ocentrism. The laner formed the basis for geocentrisrn.
Mediaeval man was a highly ambivalent being. On the one hand,
he was the summit of creation, the embodiment of the divine
made in th~,image of.his creator, and on the other, an object
of .the DevIl s temptation, a vessel of sin. Man was always an
object of struggle, the scene of conflict between the alternative
world forces-God and the Devil. Man's real destiny was therefore the paramount question. This laller circumstance reinforced releologism, of course. If we consider that God assumed
h~man likeness and came down among men to suffer for humankl~d. a~d to show man his destiny, the world without man is certainly inconceivable-it would be meaningless. It was just as

fundamental that the universal drama was played out on earth.

where mon dwell. 11 was precisely the eorth thai was the stage
on which the greal drama wa .. enacted in which the main protagonists were God, the Devil and man..
.
Evalualing these ba<;ic element<; of the mediaeval worldvlew,
we can draw certain epistemologically relevant conclusions.
Firstly, man's entire activilY in Ihe Middl~ Ages w~s cha nnelled by religious notions. Nothi~g had the r:lg~t to e~l~t unles.s
sanctified by the Church. Anything contra~lctm~ rel1~lon was
interdicled by special decrees. This sort of OrientatIOn reinforced
the element of contemplativeness, giving cognition a frankly
mystical theological tone, which, far from encouraging adva.nce
in cognition, determined its regress or, at. best, stagnatIOn.
Thus the Middle Ages rejected the progressIVe theory of the
gene~is of nature suggested by the atomists of antiquity for the
sole reason that the process itself of this genesis was seen as accidental (Democritus' U:1Qouolloiu) rather than as fatal and
according with divine Providence. Another striking example
was medicine. where all previously accumulated knowledge
went by the board, and where mystical instruments like working wonders, prayer, relics. etc., took the place of proper med
ical ones (thus dissection. without which surgery was impossible, was anathematised as the greatest sin).
Secondly, the mediaeval picture of the world. could not co~
tain the concept of objective law, without which natural SCIence could not evolve.
The mediaeval mind saw God as the cause of the intercon
necledness and integrality of the elements of the world. The
world was integral only insofar as there was a God that had
created it. In itself, the world was devoid of cohesion: i( God
were to be e liminated. it would collapse, for all objects would
lose their natural places in the hierarchy of things assigned by
God. All objects being defined in relation to God rather than
in relation to other natural objects, there was no place for the
idea of abjectness, the idea of objective universal interconnectedness and integrality, without which neither the concept of law
nor, speaking more broadly, natural science could arise.
Thirdly, in view of the theological and textual nature of cognitive activity, intellectual effort was concentrated on the analysis of concepts and not of things, which were removed from
consideration. Deduction was the universal method (or establishing the subordination of concepts to one anolher. to par.allei a definite hierarchical series of actual things. Thai which
was logically deduced from another was already thought of as

real!y.su~ordinaled 10 thai, olhe:. as nex .. in a series of ohjeU!i of

dlmlms~mg "~Iue. and Ihls series W8\, III ih lurn, n.'garded as

or

onlo!oglca,1. Smce manipulation of l'OIKepts look the place

m.anlpulallon of real objects. there was no Ileed for COlllact
"!'lth the latter. Henc~ the baSically a priori and e\fraexperien.
tlal ~y~e of. speculative scholasfic science doomed 10 fruilless
theonsmg dIVorced from reality.
However. the view of the Middle Ages as mankind's intellec_
tual cemetery would be a superficial one. Although mediaeval
c~lture did nol know science in Ihe modern acceptation, SpeCific branches of knowledge (we hardly dare fa call them scien,ces) developed in if which paved Ihe way for Ihe evolution of
sCIence.
We refer here 10 aSlrology, alchemy, ialrochemislr
,
Y,
'
I '
na ura I magic, etc. I IS remarkable, as far as our theme is concern~d, thai being a contradictory mixture af apriarism, speculahon, and Ihe masl vulgar empiricism, these fields af know 1_
~dge little by little destroyed, in the process of Iheir function_
l!'& and thro~gh their experiences, the ideology of conlempJa_
lion, ~n~ achieved the transition to experimeJ1laJ science. The
functlO!"mg ~f Ihese disciplines, rightly considered (90) as an interme.dlate hnk between handicraft and natural philosophy,
contained the embryo of future experimental science.
. As.we h.ave pointed oUI, a necessary premise of science is the
Identification of objective regularly recurring situalions in
terms of experimental verification. In antiquity, this move was
~IO:C~ed by the conte!"plarive att~r~de, which explains the impos_
Sibility of rhe evo/utlon of emplflcally substantiated science in
thar epoch. The same anilude was an obstacle in the Middle
Ages ~s well, only he~e, as distinct from antiquity, it had a purely religIOUS, t~eologlcal basis_ An interesting point here is
Ihal Ih~ experiences of natural magic conlradicled or, at any
rate, did not accord with religious-mystical contemplarion as
a son of ideological dominant. Indeed, religion is, in a general
~nse, an anempt to influence God's free will in a defmile fashIon (throug~ cullic ritual) with rhe aim of achieving cerrain
results (basically, religion is an appeal 10 certain "concealed
param.eters", an .appeal reinforcing rhe delermination of the
behaViour of ~ehevers). Setting ils hopes on God and being
founded on faith, religion could not, nalurally, provide any
g~~rante~ of the effectiveness of these attempts to influence
dlvme Will.
Like.religion, natural magic was also an attempt to influence
God with the aim of oblaining certain de~irable results, bUI
11 set liS hopes on empirical methods rather Ihan on His free

.. l . f. rrom dirt'cling aclivllY tO~ijnl: .ec;:

W.I'i <lr
'II W'I, ill' rt'ilgllli
WI .
. .
I . Iliatl'd I<lWs, II .,ural lII<lgh: IlnL'"S
..
Ii~hill" l"mjllrll"aJly ~u )~I"I.
. .. , ,1,fTl"fed from rehglUli
lall .
C
I k I I orll.'lllulion, I
.
!oarily .. ~su111I'd tll'" IIll II
.. h wa .. only t"n~ured by t'xperr ..
"111 ,',~., t'l1"l'divC" dwr;II,:Il'r,
. ... """,\.'"nl . The .lalt~r
..
b will!..
t ' 1 I.ognlllv..
mental vl'rifll.:i.l111l11 III <I ~ r<ll.
d Kjl<lratt:d It from re"glOlI.
<111 .. of .uursc. A.,- V Rahl
b rought magic dn'ocr HlliCIl'lhC, I) ' l'x"""l"r<lteu,
I.
This a~pcl:l
nHl~t no
l
cc.....
I
pr
.....
.
. .. ,hl' ml'ul<1eva
. . ,..,..nption a .. u II~re
novich PfC~l"l'I=" .pul II,
.
. '>t'l of 11l~lrultions ... hUI.iJ H)rrn
cial for111 01 activIty ... I~ nol Ju .. t [<I. , .1."" is anlicipaled III ..cr~
"
'
h' h 'c,ual per onmtnl
..
of acl1 vl ty 11\ w 11." ..
h'
rd. magic acl1vlty can,
"(80 flS) In ot cr wo .
. .I
bal jncanlatlon~
,
.
I' I
a' in (ael accnmpamcu
,. d a' non-cu lie. t w ,
nol yet b e regarue,
.
b
rous prayers (ver"
by mystic spiritual ritual ... ~anclifle? y ~ume. I:' .raft AI thl'
bal cul.t) , e.!c., being a fully e~<;;a;~c :;dedorag..lae'>n~~r~ly c~ltic; in
same tllne II could no I~nger I .. gil highly promising Mrucany case, it included eplstemo ogl.ca y
. , I . 1 e- a
IUfes capable of transfo.flnalion InlO. expenment:a!c::~ l. "alossibility thai was prevIOusly nonexistent: Th~t
. . . Y Id
~hemy, which retain:-d unlilth~ en~, dose tIes ..... lth magu.: COli
volve so smoothlv Into chemistry (168. 16),.
' ...
e Our analysis p~rmils the follo ..... ing co.ncluslo~. \t~dlae.. a~
culture was a high I\" specific phenomenon m the. hl~tor) .of Eu
ropean cuhure and" of world Ihough!. That ~peclliclty ~lghl b~
described in one word. a~ contradicloriness. I.e .. as a":1bl .. akncc:
and internal helerogeneily. On the ~)1lt' han.d, the- \1lJdle Ages
continued Ihe tradilions of antiquity. as III.ustrated .by .s~ch
cognitive phenomena as contemplati ..e attitude. one~r.a'JOn
lowards inquiry into Ihe general regardless ?~ the p.artl~ula.r,
inclination towards ab!:.lract spel-ulalive Iheonstng. reJect!oll 111
principle of experimental cognition. recognising the- pnm.a..:y
of the universal over the unique. of the stable over the evolvtng,
of the supra individual over the individual. and ~. I.1n. On theother hand, the Middle Ages broke with the tradItIOns of .d<1ssical cu llure, preparing the transilion II.) Ihe comp.le!ely differen t cu lt ure of the Renaissance. We find proof of thiS In the COIlsiderab le progress in alchemy, astrology_ ialrochemiMry. natural magic, and other areas ()f knowledge having a purely experimelllal status. These elemenls integrated in a !:.ingle whole,
conditioned the cOlltradicIOf} charaCier of mediae .. al cuhllre,
which was perhaps of decisive imponalKe for Ihe destiny of
science. The point is thai, ..... hile relaining and reviving the skill
of working with ideal bed con<.,lrllCl"> developed in clas!:.icai nalural philosophy, man's searl'hing thoughl oriented itself precisely in Ihal period towards achieving practical effect'o. And
<

Ihat was the de~isi\'e condition for Ih' .'

theories of nature. \Ve

empha_~i~l' tltt' w~~r~~?tlll~~'n o~, ~Cit'TlIirlc

>

ural
.,' . was not dl'sllllt'd
.
, ~":Il'nce as suem:e
10cOIl",IITon
I k' 'I for,nat.
Middle Ages - for a variet," If .
a c slape III the
(I) Th

..

. \.

reasons.

e Idea of self~sllmclellcy of nat lire gO\lern'd

sin~

by ob
~as something. created, it was controlled bv the 'Mak e !18Iu.re
n; dc~a~ge hthLS I?aradigm. important ideoiogical .shi~t~ S:111.

,JeCtlVe laws. was nonexistent in mediaeval culture-

~~J h~?~~~~H:~~;~~r.:~~e O!il;;e:,~,:?s'~,~' ~~i,~:c~.~c~~:'~~

(2) Another reason was the

I .

textual characfer of cognitive aCI1~rlle.mplallve., theological and

was so self-sufficient and dee I
Iy III lIe MIddle Ages, which
as a powerful wo"'d";
f p y rooted In culture that it acted
.
. ew actor checki 1 h
penmenlal science even in the d I g t. e progress of ex(3) "Experimental" activit i ays. of Galileo. .
character. with the verbal / n sc~ence. was s.eml-mystical in
Iy-the adherents of n8tura~ ~:e~t 19~rll1g ~alrly prominent_
force of verbal incantations Th glc believed In the mysterious
magicians were nOI et ex ~. e co~crete methods of natural
sense; they were r!th
p f1men~s 10 t~e generally accepted
spirits. otherworldly fo;;esm~gl~ ntuals IOtended to summon
Strictly speaking the meC:r n sup.ematural powers.
things but with th'e fo
la~val sCIentist did not operate with
forms and proto-eleme:I~~sA t t ey concealed-with th~~r ideal
folded therefore as ritual
~ s o~ expenmenlal cognitIon unwith the next world' inde:~tlons. IIllended to establish contact
bolism. the world of'mediae' oWing to the omni-present symthe scholar functioned as a vtal m;.n wa~ two-dimensional. and
(4) The basis of the media wo- ~menslonal subject.
ilative ontology-Arislotl e~al pIcture of the ~orld was quale
sotropic space which asser 5 t eo~.y of n?,n-~nlform and animents and privileged slat ted ~h~. natural ~Ialectic of the eleof motion in space. The :5. 0
Ifre~ent P01~~5 and directions
qualitative. We refe h
plslemologl.c~1 posit Ions were jusl as
of naive realism r . e~e to the tradItional mediaeval doctrine
h
and the objectiv~ ~c~c thun~riticallY identified the subjective
in re), and uhimate"y . e frmUla ~,<;se in1 Intellectus--esse
Inter ered with a

uequate cognitIOn.
Th e qualitative character of .. '
essence (e~entia) and
.
SCIence, the separation between
.
.
eXIstence (existe t ' )
b
hng, et.;:., made it impossible to evo I
. n /Q 0 Jecl modelthe teleological concept of anth
ve the c.oncept o,f law. s.ince
tie's doctrine of four causes) b~oPkomdorphlc cau5allly (Anstooc e the development of the

ide,l 01" reality dmnillate~1 hy nalural. uh~I.llve. and 'l~ct"iSiJry

conl1 ee til Ill ...
Wl' call thu ... tate thai mc=diae ... al science was merely a 5Ia~t'I
in the developmcnt toward'S true science. "-e thererore bel.eve
it to bc cntirdy wn,ng to place, as Duhern and Crombie du. the
starting point of "icnce (we refer to empirically sub1~n1tat
ed science) in the mediaeval cpoch. or tn exaggerate the Impllr~
lance of the work of natural magician,. especially those or Ihe
Paris (Jean Buridan. Nicole Oroffie. and others) and (hford
(Roger Bacon, Robert Gro.....ete-.te. etc.) schools (135; 131),
Although !;ome of the empirical rt!sults achie\'ed by members
of these schools anticipated subsequent attainments of dassil"al
science. these scholars cannot be seen as the foundt:rs of the
creati ... e method of science. At:, Lynn Thorndike ~orref.,lly
stressed, the science of Roger Bacon and others attached particular significance to working magic and did not go beyond
the framework of fldeist activity (187). The view of the Paris
and Oxford schools as fountainheads of experimental ~ien.:c
is an example of a non-historical approach to the analY!'!is of
the phenomenon of science. an unjustified trimming of fa..:tual
data to suit an a priori research schema. True expt'rimental
science actually emerged in the ~todern Times.. and the point
of departure here was the work of Galilea.
2.5. THE FOljNT"tNHEAD OF CLASSICAL SCtf'cr

The following processes accompanied the formation of natural science as science in Modern Times: the collarse of the archaic cosmosophy of antiquity and the \fiddle Ago under the
onslaught of maturing natural;:;t ideology; the ~~")mbinalion of
the abstrac t theoretical (speculative natural-philosophica/) trad ition with the technical traditions of the handierafes: the axio ..
logical reorientation of intt'lIt'ctual activity product'd by tht'
asse rtio n of the hYPolhct1cO-deduclive method of cognition.
The collap.H' oftht! cowlowphv of antiqllit} and tire Middf~
Ages. Even a simple list of the causes of the intellectual revolution which brought down the classical and mediaeval view
of Ihe world and resulted in tht' formation of natural science
as science would require a whole study. which would co\er the
production progress. the socio-political disintegration of feudal
society; the Reformation, which eroded the sulid struCwre of
church ideology; Puritanism. which played a \.ettain role .in th~
evolution of rationalism; the consolidation I.)f the inslilUtton 01
absolute monarchy; the strcngthening of hdiocentrt"m.
0'

which refuted the. theological conn'ptuali~ation of reality in

terms of the celesl1al vs. mundane oppo~ition that retarded the
developr:nent ~f cognition; the revi\'al of the da ...~il:al traditions
of ~ork!ng .wlt.h natural-philosophical idealisatiotls; Protes131l1
ethics with ItS Idea of personal initiative, and nlany other fac_
tors. We shall therefore focus only on Ihe principal items. The
following notions and approaches were, in our view, the basis
of the natural-scientific ideology which set the goal of obtaining
knowledge about impersonal, blind, reproductive, self-deter_
mining everyday automatisms which emerge between mutually
interacting objects.
Naturalism. Two circumstances helped to consolidate the
id~a of self-suffic:ient nature controlled by objective laws, devOid o~ any admixture of ~nthropomorphism and teleological
symbohsm, and conceptuahsed on the basis of the cause-and_
effect typology, rather than the cause-and-meaning one.
T~~ first circumstance was the development of such nontraditional theological doctrines as those of pantheism and
deism. The dissolution of God in nature, which was at that time
undou~te.dly a form of atheism, made it difficult to worship the
pantheIStiC god, on the one hand, and on the other, resulted in
a sort of emancipation of nature, which was now equal in status
to God and even prevailed over Him, given the concentration
of cognitive interest on natural-scientific problems. Deism made
a further .ste~ forward, ~ctually asserting the possibility of
natural objective laws. as It drew a line between creation as a
supranatural act and the natural principles of existence of thai
which was created. The study of the former (the world's causes) was the demesne of metaphysics, while the investigation
of the ~al~er (the autonomously existing world as a consequence)
fell wlthm the realm of physics, with no points of contact
between the two (the motto was: Physics, beware of metaphysics!) .
T~e second circumstance was the development of medicine,
physIOlogy, anatomy, etc., which reinforced the idea of man's
"anim~lism", his unity w!th organic and inorganic nature (man
as a thl~g among ~ ~ult~tude of things), and destroyed anthro~ocentnc teleologIc IllUSIOns concerning man's privileged status
m the world.
Combinaloriness. This is taken to mean a world view approach to pr~bJems of th~ structure of reality which is opposed
to Ih~ preVIOusly dommant symbolic-hierarchic approach.
On thiS approach. any element of the world is a set of forms
of varying degree of essentiality and universality rather than
62

a qualitative whnll' inll:'grally l'oJiliected wilh uther similar intt'gralities in an all -emhracing and all-permeating latality.l This
was the ba\i'l for the vil:'w of the unity of the world as community of its fnrm1a view that undermined the qualit.ilive
pen:t!ption of the world as an infmite multiformity. The entire
diversity of reality wa .. now dt.~ribed in term' of mel.:hanical
combinatorics of ..everal fundamental forms re!tponsible for
certain qualities. An:ordingly, to know reality meant to know
the rules of I.:ombining the form ... The latter also determin~d
such specifIC features of the nl:'w ideology as instrumentalllY
and mechanicity, which played an important rote in the forma~
lion of natural science as such.
Quantitalil'iwJ. Combinatorines..'i formed the basis for the
development of quantitativism--a universal method for quantitative comparison and evaluation of forms constituting any
object: to know meant to measure. A considerable impetus to
these advances in the methods for quantitative description of
forms was given by the development of the apparatus of analytical geometry by Descartes and his followers, which substantiated the idea of the unity of geometrical forms and figures
united by formal transformations.
It was also essential that qualities which had pre,,iously appeared incommensurable (thus Aristotle was unable to cr~"ite
the theory of value, although he came close todoing sol now
proved commensurable, so that a picture ,?f a unitary, hOl:00geneous, and quantitative cosmos emerged III place of the hlerarchised, heterogeneous, and qualitative one.
Ca/lse-and-e/Jeci automatism. An essential ~ontribution to
the moulding of the image of the natural cause-and-effect cohesion of phenomena was made by Hobbes, who eliminated
the last twO of the four types of causes introduced b~ Arist<:
tle.-material, efficient, formal. and final. This world view pOSItion, which was actively supported in scientific thinking (GaUleo, Boyle, Newton, Huygens, and others) removed the. shades
of symbolism and teleology from the picture of reahty a!,d
opened the way to its description in terms of obj.ective ,:,ecesslty
and regularity. We should also point out the mcreaslllg consolidation in that epoch of the monotheistic character of belief, which was absent ;n antiquity and which did much ~ore
Ihan the classical ideas of obligation and order to assert the ldu
of uniformly and regularly determined reality.
.
Analyticity. "Among the Greeks," wrote Engels. "Just because
they were not yet advanced enough to dissect. analyse na!urenature is still viewed as a whole, in general. The umversal

.'

this vicious circle and the radical change in The situation hO

Of"
.
Wlch
Idt
h
e 0 a synl ~SIS 0 empirical and theorellcal activity and thus
10 ~he formation of SCience, to t~e s?cial-praclical processes
WhiCh formed the core of the social \lfe of thai lime.
As Zilsel correctly points Oul, science emerged when the
"barrier between the two componerllS of the scientifIc method
broke down, and the methods of the superior craftsman" (i.e.
empirical activity) "were adopted by academically trained
scholars" (i.e., those trained in theoretical activity) (196,555).
That happened during the Renaissance as a fesult of the rapid
progress of industry stimuiatl"d by the development of capital_
ism. As Engels wrote, "If, after the dark night of the Middle
Ages was over, the sciences suddenly arose anew with undreamt.
of force. developing at a miraculous rate. once again we Owe
this miracle to production ... following the crusades. industry
developed enormously and brought to light a quantity of new
mechanical (weaving, c1ockmaking, milling), chemical (dye
in" metallurgy, aleoho!), and physical (spectacles) facts, and
this nol only gave enormous material for observation. but also
itself provided quite other means for experimenting than pre
viously existed, and allowed the construction of new instru
ments; it can be said that really systematic experimental science
now became possible for the first time" (59a, 185). Thus the
synthesis of empirical and theoretical activity, of abstract knowl
edge and concrete ability realised during the Renaissance sig.
nified the emergence of science in the proper sense.
Of course, it would be vulgar sociologising to interpret the
maturing of scientific knowledge of nature as an immediate and
direct consequence of the development of capitalism. In our
view, this process (undoubtedly sociocultural in nature) was
determined by society in a more mediated and complex manner.
Here is our idea of an adequate picture of the sociocultural
component in the genesis of the science of nature.
Natural science could only evolve as science under the condi
tions of capitalist commodity production, which gave an impetus
to the axiological reorientation of cognition towards obtaining
practically useful knowledge. However, this orientation was by
itself insufficient for the formation of theoretical natural science,
since, as we have already pointed out, orientation towards achic:v.
ing a pplied results must be combined with the use of cognitive skills
of working with idealised objects, with ideal modelling of real~ty.
To explain the social premises for preserving and developmg
these skills, it is not enough to refer to the capitalist mode
of prod uc tio n.
66

The key to the cau\Cs for the preservation and further de.
velop'."en~ of the activit~. characteristic of antiquity. of con~tructlOg Id~al ~bJ~cts, without whi(' h s('ience h. impossible, lies
111 Ihe spe.Clal signifIcance of med iaeva l cult ure, which played
an exceptIOnal role in this re!tpecl. Ina~ m uc h as the formation
of nalural science neces.<>ilated a synth e.. is of ab!ttra<;t theore ti.
cal and experimental practical a(' tivity, and this synthesis, as we
have established, could 1I0t have taken place under the .. lave.
owning. system of antiquity, it was necess:ary, at the initial stage .
to retam the principles of working with idealisations while
changing the sy~lem of production relations that stooo in the
way of this synthesis. Something like that had been realised in
the early Middle Ages, of which the economic basis was no long.
er the slaveowning system but feudali sm while Ihe intellectual basis was abstract theoretical act ivity' involving ideal con.
structs (the th eol ogica l specu lative system of the world) . The
extremely specific conditions of mediaeval ('uiture explain both
the funher advances in th e " th eoretical" study of nature and
the absence of social bans on its "e xpe riment al" study (in al.
cherny, natural magic, etc .). In an y case, the palh from ideal
modelling of reality to experiment was broken precisely in that
period.
We can see just how difficult and far from simple that path
was by considering that it took fourteen centuries for mankind
to combine the abstracttheoretical (specularive-naluraJ philosophical) tradition and thaI of the crafts.
Thus an essential extrascientilic premise for the formation of truly scientific natural knowledge was. along with the
development of capitalist relations. the faci of assimilation within the framework of feudalism of the cultural traditions of
antiquity. Taking this into account, Ihe formation of natural
science as true science, in terms of the socio-cultural determination of the synthesis of empirical and theoretical activity, can
be reconstructed in the briefest outline as follows.
(I) The specific circumstances of the Middle Ages permilled
the translation of the ratiocinative achievements of antiquity
(lhe experiences of ideal modelling of reality) into the culture
of the Renaissan ce, and the specific circumstances of the Re
naissance permitted a substantive transformation of these
achievements (this process, as we have pointed out, began
already in the Middle Ages-there were fountainheads of
experimental natural science in the monasteries) - an advan ce
from the orientation towards the search for epistemological
means of verifying the results of natural scientific research to
.7

th~

formation of "techrlOSt'nic" natural '~'it'Ill'~, The tran .. itional

forms of th~ e\'olutionary chain leading fnHll speculative nalural
philosophy to empirically substanliatt'd nalural \cierH_ ... are such
two-dimensional. empirical-the(lretical phennlllC'na a .. astrology,
alchemy. natural magic. ell.: . as well as the Ihenries of con tern.
porary cultural figures such as Giordano Bruno, Roger Bacon,
and others. which combined liter,llly incompatible, in those
limes. empirical (experimental) and theoretical (theological_
speculative) views and orieJ1ta~ions..
.
(2) Later. consistent relegatron to the rntellectual pertphery
of lideistic. theologkal and metaphysical complexes (in the
framework of deism) and the increasing tendency towards
greater practical effectiveness of scientifI c activity (due to the
progress of capilalist relations) gradually brought about a new
and previously unknown intellectual phenomenon-theoretical
nalUral science relying on experiment.

The assertion of the hypothet;co-deducI;\'e methodology of

cognition. The hypolhetico-deductive method, the core of mod
em natural science-is based on logical deduction of statements from accepted hypotheses and on their subsequent empirical verification. The laller is seen as a procedure ensuring
the establishment of the truth of theoretical assertions through
their correlation with directly observed facls.
From this description of the hypothelico-deductive method
underlying hypothetico-deductive theory on~ may proceed to a
description of the laller. A hypotheticodeductive theory is a
deductively formulated set of propositions. one that consists of
syntax and interpretation. Unlike logico-mathematical (formal) systems, natural-scientific hypothetico-deduclive theories
are always interpreted, which means obligatory translatability
(';projeClibility") of their syntax on lo a given fragment of reality (ontology) in relation to which the descriptive. explanatory
and predictive functions of the theory are satisfIed.
The hypothetico-deductive taClics of research was fust introduced into science by Galileo. We refer here, first of all. to
his theory of vacuum mechanics based on the principles of rational induction and mental experiment. To realise the essence
of Galileo's innovations, we must expound, if only very briefly,
Aristotle's science of nature, the critique of which stimulated
Galileo's new programme for the construction of natural
SCience,
Aristotle's physics includes a general theory of b~ing which
is, in modern term<;, a concretisation of traditional ontology. Physical problems proper, in the modern acc~plation, do

"

not flgur~ prominently in Ari,wtle's .. ystem, as analysis of

the ('011 tent of hi>; few work, on these probleml .. howt. AriSlorlc's
Plrys;(.\ cl)lnpri~es a general theory of nature, of the first ele
lIlent .. and fuur cau<,es. De Cuefo deals with circular and
straight-lille, "natural" and "forced" motion ... In the view of
many historians, M('drwr;cul Prohlem_\ waos wrillcn by Ari .. \()tIe's cpigones and not by Ari~totle him~elf; these- apocryphal writings moslly diM:u~" technical problem-s who-.e !>Olution relies
on the uniform method of the lever.
The core of physical problematics in Aristotle is the Iheory
of motion, which he originally a~..ociated with the concept
of en telechy, or philosophical theory of actualisation. However,
inasmuch as this interpretation of motion proved to be inadequate in th e solution of particular physical problems. Aristotle
was compelled to concretise it. With this aim in view he
introduced more special concepts of types of motion (mo\'eme nt, change, growth, decrease). and later suggested an even
more specific concept of change in the position of the body in
the course of time (the concept of local motion>. ..... hich he subsequently divided into natural and forced. To perceive the meaning of this distinction, we must characterise Aristotle's concept of space.
Space, according to Aristotle. is place. Ihe boundary between the comprising and the comprised. The body within a
comprising body is in a place. In al.cordance with the theory of
the elements, the earth is in water. water in air. air in ether.
and ether, in nothing, Thus. Aristotle's space, conditioned by
the qualitative boundary between the object and Ihe surrounding
medium, is non-uniform aod anisotropic. Hence the natural or
forced character of Illotion is determined by the qualitative nalUre of its carrier. Thus fire moves up naturally. by its nature, and its motion down is forced. it is against nature; for
the earth, the position above is contrary to nature, and so on.
Since the motion of bodies is predetermined from the outset by
the qualitative nature of their substratum, hea\y, bodies always
move towards the centre. and light ones, towards the periphery.
Analysis of Aristotle's theory of non-uniform and anisotropic space alTords a deeper insight into the essence of his
mechanics. "In Aristotle's dvnamics." writes Dierck-Ekkehard
Liebscher, "no relativity ex'ists between frames of reference.
for the theorem of the consen-ation of impulses does not obtain,
Forces are proportional not to changes of impulses but to the
impulses themseh-es. The state of equilibrium of a force-free
object is rest, which specifies a definite frame of reference,

In ob!'ierving this state of equilibrium Wl' ~:an dl'l'ide, for any

reference system, what velocity it ha!'i in rdatioll to the ab!'i(l ~
lute state of rest" <162, 29).
What is the epistemological source of this pOsition or
t.tiIlede in physics? It is his crude uncritical empirici-im and
npe.ntai'ft ic:aliSm. In considering how bodies move in actual
fact. Aristotle <a) failed to make an abstraction frolll the
effects of friction, and (b) had to postulate the dependence
of the velocities of motion on the qualitative properties of
bodies and the characteristics of the medium.
It is this primitive physicalist approach that Galileo vigor_
ously opposed. relying on the ideas of earlier critics of
Aristotle. Already in his first work on the problem of motion
(c. 1590), he criticised Aristotle's dynamics. In particular,
Galileo refuted the Peripatetic doctrine of natural and forcible
movements, He showed that where. the medium in which motion
ace illlOt: air but water. some heavy bodies (such as
liIht. as they move upward. It followed that Ihe
bodies up or down depended on their specific
weight in relation to the medium and nOI on "predestination".
In the same work Galileo showed the groundlessness of the
Peripatetics' proposition that the velocities of the motion of
bodies in less dense media are greater than in denser mediathus a thin balloon filled with air will move slower in air than in
water, etc.
The positive part of Galileo's physical theory is expound~
ed in his fundamental work Discorsi e dimostrazioni matemariche. Here, Galileo turned to the analysis of the isochronic
character of the swinging of the pendulum. He concluded that
pendulums differing in weight but identical in length perform
oscillations of identical duration. But the movement of the
pendulum is in fact the fall of a body along a curve of the
circle. It follows that the force of gravity accelerates differ~
ent falling bodies to an identical extent. Thus, if we neglect
the resistance of the medium, all bodies in free faJ! must have
.... MIlle velocity.
Simultaneously, Galileo conducted experiments in rolling
bodies along an inclined plane, and here too he found confirmation of his idea of uniform acceleration of different bodies
by the force of gravity. However, these experiments were not
quite conclusive, since the action of the law of gravity was
modified here by the action of external forces. To eliminate
this defect. it was necessary to state clearly the nature. of
these modifications. The Janer required a radical reformulallon

of the foundalll)l1\ of the prevailing Peripatetic dynamics Idlptcd to the analy~is of empirically recorded movements. Nc.'f .....
cour~e of action did Galileo choose'}
He worked out a special type of re~arch tactics which
pre~ribed the study of ideal or theoretical motion described by
the apparatus of mathematics, rather than of empirkal motion.
In accordance with thi~. Galileo's new dynamics fell into two
parts, tentatively speaking, The fIrst was intended to derive
the laws of motion in pure form by logical deduction. The second, organically connected with the fin~1. had to achieve an
experimental verifIcation of the abstract laws of motion obtained in the first part.
In developing his new dynamics. Gameo c,idcll.' 1IIe
Peripatetic proposition "there is no action without a cause",
which was only intended to cover the state of rest, in some
such form: no body can move from the state of rest to the stale
of motion without application of some additional force. The
Peripatetics believed that the cessation of motion was connected
with the action of empirical conditions (friction. resistance
of the medium) in case of cessation of the action of the motive
force. Galileo introduced an essential correction in this interpretation: no body changes its velocity either in magnitude or
direction without the action of some additional force. In other
words, having once received an impulse. a body continues to
move, when the action of the force has stopped, at a constant
velocity regardless of the resistance of the medium and friction
effects. This proposition revolutionised not only the field of sci~
ence, signifying as it did the actual beginning of physics (the law
of inertia), but also the domain of epistemology. as it destroyed
Aristotle's naive physicalist views.
The point of departure of Galileo's physics is abstract
and hypothetical. Aristotle described aetuaOy observed phenomena, while Galileo. logically possible ones. Aristotle considered the real space of events, and Galileo, relatively ideal
space in which immediate research in the processes of nature
was supplanted by analysis of mathematical limiting laws which
could only be verified under exceptional circumstances. Characterising .Galileo's epistemological method, students of his
work point to mental experiment as a cognitive element
which made an essential contribution to the arsenal of scientific
activity. What is the essence of mental experiment. according to
Galileo? The book of nature, Galileo believes, is written in
the ideal language of mathematics. In reading it, one should
resort 10 abstraction from the conditions of the empirical given71

70

ne~

of the proces.~~. under study, revl.'aling thl.' fundamental

rallonal laws underlymg sensuous appearalll:e.
It appears natural in this connection that Galiko revived
the epistemological tradition .. of Plato, who worked out an
ideal-Iocical interpretation of the nature of knowledge. Ari~to_
de had consciously broken away from Plato, rejecting his intl.'r_
pretation of the nature of knowledge, while Galileo substantiat_
ed the principle of intelieclUal ratillllalisation of Ihe empir_
ically given, the need to go to the essence beyond existence,
and thus restored PlalOnism.
The view of the nature of cognitive activity in the spirit
of Plalo, as consisting of the study of limiting cases realised
only under ideal conditions, is the new elemenl introduced by
Galileo, who Ihus added the method of mental experiment to the
instruments of science.
The history of the evolution of the method of mental experiment, which so stimulated the formation of scientific
nalUral theory, was in our view as follows.
(I) Results of real experiments (the side effects of the
conditions of empirical realisability) naturally failed to confirm expectations-the share of negative results was too great.
This caused attacks on Galileo's new theory of fall not only
by his old opponents-the reactionary Peripatetics (d. the
criticism that came from the professors of Pisa) -bu t also by
such progressive cultural figures of those times as, say, Descanes, who reproached Galileo for faulty experiments. Galileo
found a way out of that dramatic si tuation in rationalising the
experiMentally obtained results. This enabled bim to explain
the negative results in terms of faults in the conditions of
experimentation. or defects of the empirical level.
(2) Epistemological reflex ion on the device, originally
employed ad hoc, of rational ising the negative evidence in
the experimental verification of theory, along with the conviction produced by that reflexion, that the interconnection between the theoretical and the empirical levels in scientific research
is far from unequivocal, and also mediated in character, prompted Galileo the idea of a new method, the method of rational induction, which satisfied the conditions of artificial, abstract
logical space, the space of ideal scientifIC reality, not of
natural space. In this way the theory of vacuum mechanics crystallised: "If we were to eliminate completely the side effects of
the empirical level, then-- (mental experiment).
.
(3) The development of the theory of vacuum mechamcs
logically culminated in Ihe formation of the hypothetico-ded uc o

"

72

livc mcthodology, ~inn' T1ulhing but experiment could 'Verify Ihe

ideal law, of motion dl(hu:eJ in val.:uum mechanics. To be' quitlt
anurate. we mll\t ~ay that Galileo did nol carry out his plan
of empirical \ub~tantiati()fl of the ideal law1 of vacuum me.. h.m
in by comraring the ideal laws with the real ()nt:''i (comprising
a ~pecial !.y!.lem of amendmenl'; to account for empirical efft:'l'I
friction, etc.). Thh plan wa'S actually n:alised a I:entury later.
when the magnifIcent building of ciu'iSical mc(hanics ... .,
completed.
In summing up the data on such highly important development as the as~rtion of the hypothetico-deductive methodology
of cognition, we mu')t .,tress the role of Galileo. It was Gameo
who, by rejecting Ari.,totlt:'s proposition that no motion can
be continued ad infmitulll (which was e~entially equivalent to
the discovery of the law of inertia. of which the prec~e formulation was, however, given only by Newton), laid the foundation
of the science of nature. It was Galileo who undermined the
naive qualitativist phenomenali">m of the Peripatetic!>, reviv'ed
the Platonist interpretation of the nature of knowledge, and
worked out the research tactics of mental experiment in ideal
reality, substantia ting the possibility of employing in physk-s
of the quantitative apparatus of mathematics, which signifted its
transposition onto a strict scientific basis. II wa~ Galileo
who stressed the need fOf consistent experimental verification
of ideal logical laws and formulations and crealed a uni\'er~al
methodological framework for natural-scientiftc cognilion.
That is why it is the figure of Galileo. the man who es
tablished the laws so clear and ob\'ious now. created Ihe very
framework of thinking which made subsequent disco\eries in
science possible. refOfmed the intellect and pro\ided it with
a series of new concepts. and worked out a specific conceplion
of nature and science (156)-it is this figure that marks the
birth of truly scientiflc knowledge of nature.
The assertion of the principle~ of classical thinking introduced a whole series of new elements in intellectual life
that have to be pointed oul. Intellect was secularised and detheologised, and sc ience was freed from the \'ise of the church.
from the authority of canonical texIs: analysis of the Holy
Scripture gradually became the occupation of the monasteries,
not the universities: academies became more and more the seat
of science.
Scientific thinking was emancipated from fideist and organismic categories. rejecting the topographic hierarchy of tOP
and bOil om. which was central to the system of Catholic

Arislolelism. 5pali1.HelllJloral nOlion .. wen.' de .. analiwd a .. th~

ideas of uniformity and iSl)lrorY of .. pan' and time took ~halle
and asserled themselves. Anthropol:Clltri .. m wa\ elimmult'd frolll
science. and the pidure of .1 ullitMY r:o .. 11l0" wu ...1I.:cepted.
Scientific quest was made more dl'lll(H.:ratil and effu.. ient.
Science save up mediaeval ltogTllati~t11: Ihl' eri~Il'lIlological d~.
trines of those limes. from B;:IlOIl .. Nm'lIl11 Orglll/l1111 to De...
cartes' Rilles for tile Dirt'cfioll of tilt' Mimi and Di\collne 01/
Method, were highly critical ami alltischola'Stic in their orienta_
tion. 51. Augustine's proposition "Believe. in order 10 unders
tand" was rejected. The n~~l.'rtion of the progressist paradigm of
scientific cognition discarded the scholastic authoritarianism
of the ratio scripta. of a sacred. absolute and immutable " truth
of the text"'. and did away with the mediaeval conception of the
finality of the cognitive process.
Thinking came to rely on the foundation of causalism. on
the paradigm of law.regulated and objectively existing nature
permeated as a whole by natural causality and unitary laws.
Science gave up the interpretation of concepts as independent
elements acting as real universals. realising the need for ex
perimental verification, of empirical control over discursively
unfolded schemata and constructs.
The employment of measuring devices and operationalisation
introduced the concepls of number and magnitude in knowledge
and laid the beginning of exact science with its use of quanti
talive methods of analysis, calculation, processing. and evalua
tion of empirical data. which are amenable 10 mathemalical
modelling and subject to quantification. It was al that time that
the hypotheticodeductive architectonics of natural scientific
knowledge (the physics of principles) asserted itself, which made
it possible to formulate quantitatively detailed and experimen
tally verifiable propositions.
The semantic structures thai were necessary for the establishment of the mechanistic worldview as the dominant one be~
came crystallised: supernatural individualising explanations
in terms of concealed qualities responsible for the particular
properties and behaviour of the phenomena under study were
supplanted by natural explanations in terms of mailer and mO~
tion permitting an interpretation of the essence of phenomena on
the basis of the general principle of mechanic interaction of a
substance with another substance; corpuscular notions, i.t' ..
the view that all reality consisted of minute particles of mat
ter, consolidated their positions: mathematically expressible a."d
l1ve
presentable concepts of "sie" (extent) and "travel" (rela
74

11111111 11) Inok rnot a'i Iht" ba..lc

1

~n5e formhlJ cale,or~ of Ih ink

lug.
2.10.1111. NAf"! WI. Of MOtJtR:" S("II N(!

L".

Mildern science
epi.nemnlog1\:ally. u mul1idimC'tl'tonal
phenmnenon with numerous a"pc.."tli. Thl.!' .:t1gl1lll"C coml,'ext"S
fonning il are extremely polymorphOUS an~ ~hllig to :lItfe~enl
levl.'l\. Mooern ')cien("e i, a hnoad a~OClal10n of mafh~.~811C~~:
natural ... cienlifK, human and technt~al branc~~. (If dl~IP
nary" and interdi~iplinary lIudles.hlghly ,pe~lahsed and
plex .. ubdivi'Siom functioning <d dISCrete units ~
empirical, formal, meaningful, fundamenlal, applied. and
kinds of knowledge.
. .
At the .. arne time there are grounds for a~umlllg B certalll
"single axi\'". an essential unit)' of modern sdenn:. c(lnnecled
with the ,>pecificily of r(\Carch strategy, 1he style ll( the
formulation and ~tudy of problems. the mode of Ihe pnw.1ul"l.l(l.n
and functioning of knowledge. the nature of prospecting aclWlty. elc. -in short. with e\erylhing thai 1,.-oO!olitutcs the Spe~l~
flcity of Ihe total potential of scien-.:e lixed 111 1erms of ~tS
temological analys;...
Methodological works that ha ..e appeareti in the last twentyfive years often stress the inner afflnit)" of different types
of knowledge integrat!!d in modern sden-.:e. e\"t!n lh{l~e that be~
long to the rigorou\ natural science'S and non-rigl,n,u ......ocial
and human sdences.
To find out the nature of that l-ommunity. and to identify
the ground .. that unite factually d;\Cr'Se phenomena in the
single whole that we call modern ,cIl'nce. il is not enough to
carry out a fUllctional analysi, of its "ynchronnu~ly active
structures. We must al .. () eillploy the instrument of l."omparativl'
analysis permitting a typological juxtap()"ition Qf modern .. cicnce and the cpi,temologil.'al structure genetically preceding II.
This compari'Son sh()w" the following.
In 'peaking of the need to correlate modern "idence with
the 'truc lure of the same order which hi"ilorically precede, it.
and ill which it ... direct ..ources lie. we refer to classical
sl'ience. It, critique and reinterpretation of the cllgnitivt'
nOfln') and ideal-. .. pecifle.... properlv speaking. Iho...e inner ba ... i-.:
relat;om which fully determine the- l'pi ... temological feature-s and
cOllstitul1.' the l'onditions of integrality of modern "icnce.
Cla".. ical scienl-e j.; here taken to mean quile a deflOite re\earch and cognili\!!' culture which was realised a ... a predaml-

nant tenden~y betw~en the 17th and early 20th century, at the
end of which penod the quantum-reiativisl epoch began.
In the framework of a typological comparison which inter_
pre~s t~e transiti~n from das,sical to modern science as crys_
talhsahon of a different research culture corresponding to a
new spiritual formation rather than as a mcre shift in problems
and subject matter, in the experimental and lechnical equipment
fundamental stylistic features of classical science must b~
pointed out which distinguish it from modern science, which
make it a separate cognitive epoch and a stage in the develop_
ment of the scientific intellect.
Classical science functioned as an entirely integral struc_
ture; .the foundaliOl.ls of .this i~tegrality were determined by
a senes of substanllve onentatlons. Of these, lei us especial_
ly single out two.
(I) Orientation towards a final-objective system of knowledge embodying truth in its final and accomplished form. Based
on classical mechanics, which was regarded as a universal method of cognition of the world's phenomena and at the same time
as a standard for any science, Ihis orientation was supported by a
whole series of particular tendencies.
(a) The tendency towards single-valued interpretation of
even Is; exclusion from cognitive results of chance and probability seen as indication of incompleteness of knowledge or
subjectivism.
(b) The tendency towards eliminating from the context of
science the characteristics of the researcher, which were alleged to interfere with adequate identification of the truth, rejection of the need for laking into account the specific 'features (modes, means, and conditions) of the subject's cognitive
assimilation of the object.
(c) The attempts at establishing the substantionality and
the primitive elements of the world.
(d) Th~ tendency to regard ~now l edge fo rming the actual
b~y of sCIence as absolutely reliable and non-prob lematisable.
:rhlS featu:e was, of co.urse. fIxed in philosophical-methodologacal ~~nscl0':l5ness, which founded science on the proposition
that . there 15 only ~ne truth about each thing, and whoever
finds II, knows about II as !"uch as anyone can know" (132, 15).
..(e) _The tendency to I~terpret the nature of cognitive actIVIty m. terms ~f the .nalve re~listic correspondence concept
posfulatmg a mirror-like and Immediately obvious harmony
betwe~n knowledge and reality. that is to say, uncritically
acceptmg the dogma that everything cognised as belonging
7.

, .
I f '1' allrihute of that thins
ttl a thing 1'I.ln al'fllla al all. whole immediately given (rom
(2) The view II Il<lturt> as a
,
. nd dcVt)IIJ of <levelthe very bl.'ginnJIIg, always equal Itl It'l:elf.S::
l"ternal iJlltllirnme
opment, going round amJ rnun.d alf~ngllhl<'l WOl'i l'(ln('rl'! 'ted 111
- -I' (~()b ~ 19) TllI"O onen a II
Ited clrc C~ " , . ,
-f' f
('I as.'iI("<J I sckm:e. tl'l
i
such rc!ocarch <,Iralagefm, "pec It: (lr
. I anlj.evl 1 Iulit'T1'
empha .. i<; on !otalionary .. laICS. elemt'nfan"lll. ant
IsmThe effort .. of cia .... ical ..cienti.,ts were. lIlo<,lly alllled air
-elcmenlS
the identification and deflllltlOn
0 f Ih eSHnr1c
.
" -" ,1
complex structures, while the complex fUI1(.'lIonal-gen~tI( links
and relations existing within Ihe<;e structures as. dynamiC ~holes
were obviously and consciously ignored. Th~ mterrretalto~ ..of
the phenomena of reality was there~ore enllr~ly ~etaphYMl~l,
i.e., devoid of the perception of their contradlc1<:,nness, mula~
bility, transformability, historicity, etc. Suffice, It 10 ment.lIln
in this connection the following principles, tYPical of cla<;.. lCal
science and fully reflecting and expressing .its. ideological
aspirations as the principles of constancy4: the pnnclple of ma~
constancy (Newton), the criterion of the constancy of. ~hc
composition of a chemical compound (Proust). the proposillon
concerning the qualitative and quantitative immutability of the
organic species after their divine creation (Linnaeus), etc
What has changed since the classical epoch. what mark.,
the entry of science in the non~classical phase of its development? A great deal has changed, but we are only intere- ted
in the epistemological aspect of all these changes.
The transition from classical to non-classical (modern)
science, and the changes it produced in the objective conlcnl
of knowledge, in its foundations (the modes of the analysis
of objects. in obtaining, developing, and siructuring of the
ingredients of science), in the type of the- self-con<;ciousn~ss
of sc ience itself, have been called a revolution". In brief,
~he essence of this revolution may be described as follow ... :
II was produced by one single factor- t he entry in the body of
knowledge of Ihe subject of cognition, of his activity,
a
necessary and inalienable component. Ii would be hard te exaggerate the fundamental imporlance of this circumstance
The paradigm of classical science, with its orielllatiu~
towards the .co~nitive assimilation of the object in itself,
so. to speak, III liS essential naturalistic immediale glvt>nness
raised to an ab 1
h

re
.
so ute t..e concept of natural pfl."k.:e~s "peciflt.'d
m~~~Ie-~ ?f t~le condIlIO.~S of ifS stu~y. 'This e~tailed the fa.
eltmlllatlon from sCIence of subJecllve activity and neg-

a. .

leet for the role of the ..-archer's instruments making an im_

pact on tiM
at CClIIlition. Unburdened by renl")"inn 011 the
functions in a cognitive situation, the
science cultivated the dogma that it
lPKify any cognitive parameters without any
to detail them in all aspects.
revolution in science which destroyed the illusions
concemin. absolute knowability of processes studied and the
. . . .bUity of their cognitive detailing in all aspects signified, as
tau been pointed out above, the replacement of the contempla_
tive style of thinking by the activity-oriented one. LeI us
consider some of the implications of this proposition.
(a) The incorporation of subjective activity in the conlext
tI. lCience led to a change in the perception of the object of
knowledge. The latter is now perceived not as reality "in pure
form", as given in living contemplation, but as a kind of cross
section specified in terms of accepted theoretical and opera
tional instruments and modes of its assimilation by the subject,
It is meaningless to speak of the characteristics of objects
without referring to the instruments used to determine these
characteristics, and modern science therefore has accepted the
relativity of the properties of objects, which depend on the
type of their interaction with these instruments in cognitive

situations.
(b) The awareness of the dependence of the object on re
search and transformation stimulated the transition of science
from "the study of things regarded as immutable and capable of
forming certain connections to the study of conditions under
which a thing does not just behave in a certain manner but can
be or not be something, can exist or not exist as a given dell
nileness only under these conditions" (88, 73), For this reason,
modern scientific theory begins with the specification of the
procedural basis, with identifying the modes and conditions of
the study of the object, which forms the semantic and operational outline of the theory, safeguarding the objectiveness and
harmoniousness of the description of the facts it describes,
(c) The dependence of the picture of the object on the
relation to the instruments of cognition, and the consequent
need to organise knowledge with proper regard for the real operalional procedures, determine the special role of the m,eas~r
ing devices (or experimental apparatus) in modern sc~enufic
coanilion, Without such devices, it is sometimes irnposs~ble t,o
identify the object of science (or theory), as il is only Ide~tI
lied in the interaction between the object and the deVice,

(d) The inlcral,tion between object ,and d,evice. which jUlliflc~ only the analyo;is of (oncrele manlfesta,lIons of th,e ~
and properties of the object at different t.. mes ~nd an dIfferently reali!-ied 'iitualions. cannot but result an a kmd of, spread~
entirely obje(live, in the fmal results of research, ~hLs, form s
the basis of complementarity, in the ~road sense; , mdlcatmg the
various manifestations of the properties of ~n object dependmg
011 the type of its interaction wi~~ the deVIce under dlffere~t.
often mutually exclusive condlllon~" such compl,eme~tarl.ty
shows that different types of Ihe deSCription ?f t~e object. us different conceptual images, are all equally Justifiable. Proper;ly
speaking, this explains the fact that m~er~ research ~Ylty
has moved from the single infinite "obJect m general with an
unambiguous and immutable" "nucleus", an object, "r,eHected
in the only possible true manner", to a "world remmdmg one.
ralher, of a kaleidoscope of a great many projections" (ibid,),
to a world described in a system of finite pictures related to,
and dependent on, the instruments of cognitive assimilatio n,
none of which can claim to represent an allround and comprehensive type of description,
,
(e) The rejection of the contemplative spirit and naIve
realism of classical science reflected, in particular. in the
new practice of specifying the object of knowledge with due consideration for the mode of its cognitive assimilation, in the
understanding of the dynamics of the links between (he empir.
ical and the theoretical, etc" has changed the status of fact
as verification instance, What we mean here is this, The in
creased dynamic element in science-greater mathematisation,
the merging of fundamental and applied research, expansion of
the quest from the domain of the real to that of the ~ble. the
study of extremely abstract types of reality absolutely untncnrn
to classical science-potential ones in quantum mechanics and
virtual ones in high-energy physics-and so on, has resulted in
a sort of mutual penetrability of fact and theory. This mutual
penetrability sometimes, as, e,g" in the case of resonances,
assumes such unexpected and Quaint forms that the boundary
between the empirical and the theoretical is difficult to draw,
and the familiar line between fact and theory disappears, In
this connection, the conception of verification experiment has
~hanged, Firstly, it is no longer able to act as a . . . . . .
Judge of theory, and is now realised. as 8n episcemolQlical P"'eed,ure. as part of a package together with other mod_ of verification of knowledge-Ihe intratheoretical ones., IUC'h as the
principle of correspondence, the establishment of the inner and

78

7.

"hin" in a\"ailahle kn,)wledgl' Il' \,)rhid il. Thi ... in ...... prl'la .
e
. I
I I
I .
litlll is restricted by Iht" ,nailnbk "wd. \l~ ,,'HlW l" ~e (w lid,
l'an be extended a ... (Uflht'r law" pnlhihlllll.!!. Ihe l'\,I\ll'lll.:l' of
III

something are di ....:o\crctt) .1Ild a",'n\ IH*'I~lLal l~XI\h.'lh:.l only,

The second \'t~rsillil i\ guidt'd b~ lilt' allt'rllllI l)1 e\pl'fnlll'lHal
vcr i.fiabilil\', dis('lwerabili,y. I;'h:.: it il\.\l'rI\ ;1r.:lllal (-'\,\11.'11":1.'.
It is easy io see that the weak ,cr,ioll t'lIIhll~ll'''' thl' lH:n .. ~ary

while Ihe \~r.llng. \Cf\lon, till" \uffll'll'ol

one<;; therefore many theOretil-al enlllles Itk.e quark,>, plal~l:k.eons,
etc .. satisfying Ihe weak but 1101 the. ~trollg ...:OI1(\lllon. of
t',j<;tence are not regarded 3'i aChHll1y c"slIl1g: 11.1\ appropnal.e
in this l'onnection t0 \tre~~ the rok (If tht' pnnclple of expen
m~ntal \"eriflabilitv which i\ set'n in modern science as a
fundamental one;' it is not intuitive obvioLlsl.less, but experi
mental adaptedne'i..\ that makes modern sC lenllfic concepts
meaningful.
, .
, .
In modern science, the ideas of the prlllcipies of aCllvny at
the empirical level of research have also changed i.n conse
quence of the replacement of the monofactor expenment by
the multifaclOr one.
The basic concept in the theory of monofactor experimem
in classical science was that of stabilised morphology of the
object whose nalUre of functioning was considered in isolation
both from the constituents and their surrounding complexes,
Practical den:'lopment of experimental activity increasingly
re\ealed, however. the uncritical character of this classical
theory, which assumed that it wa<, possible to analyse separate
pans of objects or prOcesses existing independently, It became
necessary to discard thl: inadequate classical conception of the
monofactor experirnenl, and it was replaced by the nonclassical conception of multifactor experiment which accords with
the new practice of experimentation in science.
T he essential feature here is that underlying this theory
is the inte rp retal ion of object!-i <l!-i complex dynam ic structures
constituting selC.c hanging system!-i,
This conception is thll'" ba ...ed on a dilTerent view of the
aIIleLr~ ont~logy co~prisin g th e fo ll o win g ex tremely important onen~at\Om, th~t mtrod uc~ new eleml;! llt s in the perception
of t h~ obJt'('t's pO......lble cogni t ion.
. (a) Rejection of the i... olation of the object from surrounding
Jnnuences (all~gedly Inlended to ensure the purity of analysis).
(b) _Rel'ognltlon of the dependence of the deliniteness of
Ih
'
. e 0b
Je~'t spropertJes 011 the dynamic and complex nature of
Jl50: funt:tJonmg III the cognll1ve situation.
conditio;,s of

e,i"tcIKt',

(d A \y"h.'III\. illll~r<llev<lhl<ltion of the nl1ject'5 bthaviour.

thl' lauer hl'1I11' !.e:ln Wi furlliltioned I1nth by the lugk of internal
change: and the forlll .. of interacti,," with other objl'ct...
(tl) Thl' dynallli'i,lIiun of the idl;!ao; uf Ihe ~nce uf thl."
objl:l't Ih~ trall\itiull frlllll thl.' Mud y of eyuilibriuJll Mru('tural
()rgani~ati()l1$ to <lnalysi ... of nOIlequilibri u m. nnn . Matinnary
~trucllJrl.'\ behaving <I ... opt=n sy!.lt=m ... Thi'i conditions the
rewarchcr 10 ... tudy the objel't 8'i Ihe fOt'uS of complex reedbuck
links resulting from the action of various ugents anti COunter ..
agents. Thu,> in chemi'>try the a~..crtion of the dynamiC appru.H.: h
revealed Ihe !-ipccial role of catalyst ... : cataly ... i", once a mt:lhoJ
of c hemi'>try. became the ,>ubject mailer of analysis ll'a talyS(
c hem ist ry); a ... a re!-iult, ,>uch noncla<..sical concept~ emerged
here a ... chemical time, chemical evolution. etc,
(e) Anti-elementari... m. huerdisciplinary Mudie<. of dynamically functioning Open nonequilibrium systl:!ms re ... ultt'd in the
rejection of the orit;!n(ation IOwards ide ntifying 'dementary
con!-iti tuents" (e... pecially in biological . soc io logic al . .:con o mic
space, agrobiological and other systems, and in design, prognostic. and other types of tasks), in modern !odence the
concept of elementarilY is relativised and no IDnger regarded
as absolute, a<.. in cla"sical ..cience,
The concepts of the criteria of exactne<;... and rigorou ... nes....
that are the guidelines of the cogniti\'e qUf'.'it ha\e also changed
in modern sl'ience. These criteria are now taken to mean a st'f
of rules for incorporating in the body of scient:e of logically
substantiated and quanlitatively detailed propo... ition .... L~t u~
stress that these rules are inseparable from science as a rational
and de monstrative type of theoretical assimilation of reality and
are im ma nen tly in here nt in it. In this case, it is a que ... tion of a
bl:!tt er log ica l o r experimen tal 'iubSlantialion of scientific knowledge, of in creasi ng th e Sia ndard of exactness and rigorotlsn~s~.
In the cla!-isica l pe riod o f the functioning of science, howe\'er.
the de~ i re for exac tness and rigorousness, always inherent
in th e m inds of sc ie nt ists, was uncritically hyperholised. Only
know ledge that was substan t iated in all aspects wa'i believed
to be sl'ie n tiflc (the Laplacean ideal in methodology). Accord
ingly. the presence of probability was seen as a sign of im.ufflc ient substantiation, of problematic character of the unit ...
of knowledge; knowledge thai was not absolutely dear was nOi
believed to be true kn ow ledge and was therefor~ aUloma fically
excluded from sc ience.
In the course o f t ime, howe\'er, Ihe situar i\ln t'han,ed
signiflCal1 tl y_i n the followi ng aspect'i.

of modern

scien~e.

whkh art'
than individuals and fequire the
undoubtedly become Ie ...," obvious.
eh: .. and in Ihis sense less
S1andpoinl of l'Iasskal sdent'e.
point. The main point is that, as Ihe
of the develOJlmeni of science have

The proofs

obtained
wide

w.

notion of "absolute" exaclnt's.'i and rigorousness

evaluation of cognitive results is. generally speaking,
To prove this, let us pose slIch a question: 10
what'
can the exactness and rigorousness of knowledge
be increased? It appears thaT this process is nOI unlimited.
the instrument of achieving exactness and rigorousness
.

the general methodological limitations of

. obtain. Where the instrument is experimen-

on, certain specific general and particular limitations apply.

The particular limitations include the resolution of the apparatus
employed, in view of which a certain fixed level of exactness
and rigorousness of research cannot be exceeded. General
limitations comprise the quantum restrictions as stipulated by
the content of the principles of complementarity and indetermmacy.
Tbe necessity of taking inlo account these limitations determi,!,e5 ,such ,a feature of modern science as constructivity,
which I~ realised as a paradigm of the non-classical conception
of the Ideals of exactness and rigorousness.
~".oth,er element that is wonh mentioning here is the cybernetlclSatlon and automation of the calculation basis of science,
The point is !hat, in calculations done by computers. which have
become an mahenable element of modern scientific activity.
"I~e basic numerical data are always specified to a certain
finite magnitude", which introduces an "ineliminable error of
solution. which can be significant, whatever the accuracy of
~e calculation" (17" 92). All this also destroys the classical
ideal of exact and ngorous knowledge of which the detailing
to be quantitatively unlimited: all Ihis conditions
"inexactness" and "non-rigorousness" of
,
KUnce.
Yet aawther element that eroded the classical ideal of exacl
and rigorous knowledge is connected with th~ identification
and sl~dy of the so-called incorrect problems. i.e . problems
for which even the concepi of approximate solution is actually
meaninll~ss, as t~~~ solutions can widely vary with the slightcst
changes 10 the mltlal data. The psychological effect of the

..

Jiscovery of incorrect tasks was so peat

marti, who contributed a great deal 10
recogni~e them as justifiable and a('ceptable
Hadamard ban).
Afler Andrei Tikhonov wlldtlJ nul a general method. the
method of regularisation, for the solution of im:orn:ct problems
which arose in geophysics. geology. sei"mology. medicine,
economy, astrophysics. radiolocation. etc .. the impression
that the concept of "approximate solution" was restored to it ..
original status in science. Further study has shown that the:
explication of the problem of regularisation.
it CCDiral
to the solution of the whole issue of incorrec&
on the explication of the general problem of
representability. which is as yel unsolved and the
which is linked with future achievements in the study of sel
theory axioms,
It is clear at the same lime that the concept of approximate
solution is relative. for it became clear that "a problem may
be regularisable in some types of mathematical spal.:e:-. and
unregularisable in others" (17,93).
Thus. modern science is guided by the it' eIL. . . . . .tiI
the criteria of exactness and riaorousoe:-.
inc~ . .
distance betwccn modern science ..cI the 2FI pretation of the
nature of these criteria in classic:alsciFPCeo
Modern knowledle is permeated by the spiril "'the assertion of this spirit is one of the most
of the scientific revolution. In brief. the new elemenlS
by historicity, which deepened the difference between nonclassical and classical science. are as follows .
(I) There has occurred a change in the relation of scic-nc.
to the knowledae that makes up ilS body. The'
i"Of'"
lution has demonstrated the relative status of both knowledge
and of the foundations of knowledSe; it put an end to the elas-sical myth of the immulability of the principles of scie~ce, and
freed its self_consciousness from the dogma of the conttnuou~ly
progressive nature of scientinc deve~oP,ment as .cu~u~atl'Je
detailing of a few fundamental "a prlon self-ob\'lous Ideas.
AU this raised to the rank of the paradigm of modern SCienCe,
determined its healthy self-criticism and the idea of the need
for continual revision of its principles and
as algorithms for obtaining results.
(2) The logical foundations of scieRe
senera. have also ,reatly ehanled. '!be
lies in the faci Iha. science "UI
.......

_jell
n

~ hl..~~

:uited

to retl~('1 "h~ .~pe(ifl\:ity

{lr Ihl'

i.II..:II\'il~'~(\ril'nkd

arrroill..h to the- analysIs oj the phl'IWllh'IlJ llj I"l"ll,,\

rllat
<
.. "
,\ lh(' underlymg fa\.'tor in thl' pnlgrl ..... llf IHHl-d'-' .... il'i.11 llIulll.
\al~ed logi~s; the limitalioll\. lll1 ilnd rejedioll of SUdl d~l,,\il:ill
lo&ical devIces . and norms a.. thl' II1ductioli theorclll, the rule

. . ,

01

exclud~

middle.

eh:.; ill.HI

Ihe

il1tr(ld~IClil)1I

of Ihe conccpt

or. the' finite and conslrUf.::lIH' n.:lIure ot both the l1bj('ct\ of

'(I('nee and the operation" on Ihl ...(' objt.'cl ....
In condusion let us ddllle Ihl' lenul'neil''' which. in our
view. will largely determine the dirt.'ction\ of the I.':,\pected
progress of science. We art.' 110t concerned here, of cou rse , with
compiling projects for the future development of science but
W;I~l stating the a~lUal vectors in .the dynamics of knowledge
which are galherlng momentum m the present and will be
fully manifested in the future, being reflected in one way or
another in the structure of future science.
Let us. be~in with. Ihe t~ndency towar.ds interdisciplinary
study ~hICh, 111 our \"lew, Will be the leadlTlg tendency in the
formation
of the domain of future science. As used here the

term "lTllerdisciplinary" refers to the obliteration of boundary

~lI1e') and panitions between the traditionally professionally
Isolated natural, social and technical scienl.'es, as well as to
~he in~rease~ centripetal proces\es within st.-ienee resuiting
111 the IIltenslflcalion of the relations of unity, interconnected
ne""" and mutual penetration and interaction between different
sc.:ienlific subdivisions termed scieillific disciplines,
. The tendency towards illlerdisciplinary research. which gave
rise to Ihe development in modern science of general syslems
theory. ergonomics, syslems engineering, design. the theory of
allt~~ala, ec?logy. elc . is delermined by the impossibility of
posHlve solution of the problems which science faces (owing
10 Ihe complexity and multiaspectual character of these prob
le~s) in the f.ramework of the separa te systems of knowledge
without resorllllg 10 the t.:onceptua l, opt!ralional. etc .. resources
of other cognitive fields, without creating a cooperative research
organisation .. The practice of interdisciplinary cooperation
~ r~arch Will naturally produce new forms, norms. standards
and Ideal~ ?f activity in sciem:e; it is easy to predict Ihat a
cha~acten$tlc feature of Ihis future \cienlif,,: al,ivity will be
fhe Impact of these norms and ideals 011 Ihe scientist, whO will
have to take a syste.ms posilion within interdisciplinary research
ral~er than lose himself in a single narrow professional rok
which would take such a sc.:ienli ... t beyond the interdisciplinary
r~earch. In Ihi\ ronnertion thl' role will certainly incre'as e

I,t gl'tH.ri.lli'llll~ rl"nl'xioll iJ'i 21n lIlstrumenl of specifying fhe

Ullltv of till' suhJl'd-rnattl"r and llIe'"thods of Ihe new, systems
"'Pl': of !'o1.."ll"lltific i.H. tlvlty.
.
. Changeo, III the "phere or exrerunent Will he la~gely deler~
milled by Ihe dl'vclopl1lclit of the mode-s of n'iCrco"lIn~ of th(lse
actual difflcultle., which Will arl ... e in experllnent ... IOvOh"lI1g
cOlTlplex. dynamically fundioning sy~tcm'i of integ.ral nbjls.
A fundallll'ntal diff1(lllty hl're i... Ihe ab."eIKc I~f II1\arl<lnl .I:o~ldl
lions in Ihe reprodul'1I01l of the expC'flment, 111 l:~lrYln~ It. fhl'
interdisciplinary and \ystems nature of l'xperlml'nllllg the,
involvement in the experimental ~ituatiun or a large nUIll~e~
factors, and th~ c hallg~ in th~ situation it ... df due 10 the slatlSl1cal
character of the interac.:lion betwl't!n ag~nt and COllnteragt!nt
brings the scienli'>t face to fact! nol only with ohjt!cti\"(' ~pread
of the initial and allendant conditions, which are mostly.
becallse of their multifactor character, \ery hard to contr(ll
bllt also with considerable ,>pread of the fmal re'>uits (If the
experiments in a given series. The latter. circ.:umstallcc def(l~m'>
the criterion of reproducibility. aCl:ordmg to whll.:h Identll:al
resuits Illust be obtained under idenlical I.."ircumsrances.
To overcome this difftculty. it is nece...sary to crea'~. first of
all. a new mathemalical apparatus ~uited 10 the de .. aiprion
of nonslationarv proces\es. whil.."h will nalUrally stimulale
advances in the theon' of nonlinear equations, in statistkal
methods of research.- in Ihe mel hod... or calculation and
prognostication of dispersion, in the melhod~ of taking into
aCl:ount Ihe kinetil.'s of proce ..\es inseparable from thC' pro(eo,se..
themselves, C'tc.
Along with this. the role will increa ...e of. ma~h~matkal and
simulation experiments in situatilllls in whiCh II I'" Important
to exclude possible morphological change,> in the l,bj('ct: .. uch
experimentation is a constructi\"(', it.leali ... et.l. conet'ptual study
or modelling, design, etc., of the beha\iour of an object long
before the potential re'al experimentation. The fa(1 that mathe
matical and 'iimulation e"\perimenb are 1I0t connected with
any COIH.:retl.'" I... ouditions of experimenting, whirh account'i for
their great mobility and eITecti\("nes:-., will re\tdt in their
wide employment in ~ciel1ce ami in l.."ol1sequent narnw. ing down
or complete di~appearallce of the ... phere of application of
full-scale experimenb. This will e"pl.'"cially apply to "'(lI.:h fldds
as ecology, eI.."OIH'Ill), genelic.:s, demography, geolog)". 8:",rophysics, geography, high-energy phy ... io.. I.alal)"!>! I.."heml ... try,
<space re"earch. etl.:,
The future of full .... L'all' experiOlenl i... , we' hdil'\l', l'\'IlI1l'I.'It'"d

o.

""

and other sciences, practice. and prodlll.:tion (progral .

control theory, reliability theory. etc.)
nmlng,
The concept of mathematkal theory a~ a form of thinki
can .be made more speci.fic by introducil~g Ihe concept :,
relational. system S compmmg sel ~I of arbllrary objecls COn_
nected With e.ach other by deflllite relations R I R _., ... R
(62. QI). or. In more compact symbolic nOlalion,
n
S _ ()t, R I , R . ... Rn )
Apan from mathematical theories proper Ihat constitute
the. body of mathematics, it also includes the apparatus of
~oglC L-the framework or skeleton of mathematics that lends
It the stalUs of a deductive science.
In view of this. the strucillre of mathematics can be adequately expressed by the formula <~S; L ).
Mathematics has the following specific epistemological
features.
The absence of direct (rigid) correlatioll with any fixed
fragment of reality, which makes mathematics more abstract
than other branches of knowledge.
In set-theoretical terms. so popular these days, mathemalics
studies for?",ai relations between certain clas,'ies of sets regardless of their factual, "material" llalUre.
A~aly.sing ontologically unspecified systems. mathematics
studies abstract structures.
We fi~d a detailed development of this approach in Nicolas
Bou~bakJ. They explain that, to define a structure, cenain
relations betw~en the elements of a set are specified, and then
the p~stulate IS acc.epted that. these relations satisfy certain
condlllons; the conditions are listed and defined as the axioms
of the structure in question (121). Then logical corollaries
are deduc.ed from the axioms of the structure which form a
~athemalicaltheory unconnected directly with reality (as there
IS no ,place here for notions about the nature of the elements
descnbed) .
Gene!icallr a modern .mathematical theory is constructed
as ~ UnJflC~UOn o.f the .axloms of a basic theory (a system of
logiC or ant.hmetlC) With a certain \reciat axiomatic system.
Thus the aXioms of a number of structures of Euclidian geom~try are obtained ~y adding "the Kolmogorov axiom to the
aXJo"?s of the predicate calculus containing the relation of
equalllr an~ the axioms of set Iheory" (31,62).
T~ Idenflfy. the. referents .of the abstract properties and
relations studied In malemaUcal Iheories, these theories are

given an IIltl'rrrctallon. A "'1.'1 of Hlterrretations or mode's

form\ the IIIcanlllg 01 a mathematICal theon'. If the c1.8$S of
l1lodeh i... empty, the theory i'i meaningless or contradu:lory.
AxiollltllivlI. The fact thai Euclidian geometry, built on Ihe
ba<,i~ of the gClletk-comtructive mel hod, embodied, during a
very 10llg reriod of lime, the e\selKe of ".lathematils, made a
considerable imraci 011 the methodological a<,pect'i of the
cognitive process ill thi\ ~cicllle. In fact. the view rrevailed
that the Euclidian method wa~ tht' only possible method of
constructing a mathematical theory. Thu .... Leibniti.. who extended the ideal of geometry to embrace the whole of ma,he~
matic ... , bciicved Ihat i, ... srcciflcity did not lie in logical proof
but in immediate pen:ertibility, which he believed 10 be
theoretical and 1101 sensuou\ in nature.
Leibniti.'s idea of inner contemrlation. which registered,
according to the prevailing view, the specifIcity of cognitive
activity in mathematics, wa\ adopted and further develo[lCd by
Immanuel Kant. In hi'S handling of the question of the pU'isibility of theoretical mathematics. which he associated with the
problem of the possibility of synthetic a priori prorosirion<;.
Kant started out from the typology of demonstrative \.". di ... curloive proofs. He di\tinguished between mathematical prl.)(,r.
which in his view aprealcd to immediate perception. and
which he called demonstrati\e. and philosophical proof. conducted on a concertual-verbal basi<;, which he termed
discursive. It is easy to see that the prototype of demon<;trative proof, which Kant raised to the rank of a univer'ial. and
which he substantiated by means of an extremely cumbersome
transcendental aesthetics purroning to explain the intuitive
obviousness of mathematics, was the entirely real geneticconstructive method of exrOlrnding geometrical knowledge
realised by Euclid. Using a historically concrete actual form
of scientific knowledge, Kant raised it to an absolute. making
it a suprahi.,torical a rriori form and a condition of the existence
of malhematil-s in general.
Thus. Ihe view that the speciflCin- of mathematical cognl lion
lay in combining "demonstr . uive; Siruc tures of inner COI1te"."'rlation emailed l~e po\iting of direct percertibility a\ a
ullJversal m~t.hodologlcal regulator. Not only proofs but lhe
very prOroslIlOllS of mathematlt.'\. axioms first and foremosl.
were eva!uatt'd in term\ of Ihi ... regulator. This exrlains. among
other .lh1l1g'), t!H~ familiar and extremely inadequate inter~relatl~n .of aXIOIl\\ as limiting heuristically powerful propo.,itlOI1\ dilotlllgui.-..hed for their ,elf-obviousne....,. It took a great

is medi'tecl by practice

die Iocic proHow...er, careful

0(

many IIIIIlhOlllUil:a1
(RQ'1Jnical) lUI>-

el\lQlocicai iIib.1"O.

~ axkMII 0(

intmiQ

*"

he believed that
from IIJe MIl _.
DOl

dian ideal of mathematic" (Ol1l", de-finnl'~ frl)11l Un] I .'I" (,H.'

1 II OIhcr
from Bonle)
cnllrl'l\,
" I merged.
. an
.
' new \i\'w of Iht.' '" .I I life uf
mallemalh.:3
I
actl\,u)". ba\ed on Ih~' a'il~malil' ideal, l'merged.
The pr.ogramme .
for the
01 Tllillhl'lll.11Il ... 1 Illcory
. constructIon
.
ba\l\.
whkh
1'l'lIcral "or 'n'n
.
on a r Ig arous aXlomat.l
'
, is'the
.

m od ern. mat,hematlcs, was worked out, 11\ the fll'ld of geOlllclr

~Y David Hilbert. who refused to ascribe any cOllcrete PhY!)iC~i
Images to lh~ fundamental con~epls of ~eomelry. Hilbert
~nt:oduced a:~i.loms that had no IIlIerprel3110n whatl'ver. He
mSlst~. f?r mstance, thai if the geometrical terms "point"
"straight hne", "plane" were to be replaced by slich terms of
everyda.y l~nguage as "table", "chair", "beer Illug", geometrical
th~or~ m lts~lf would be neither beller nor worse (144); the
c~,~enon of Its truth would be logical consistency and deducibllltY,fr?m t.he. axioms. Thus we see that Hilber! fumly insisted
on dlStlngUlshmg clearly between theory and interpretation

of theory.
A forma.lised theory, according to Hilbert, permitted a
number of lIl.terpreta.tions, as its pro~ositions w.ere ~ot directly
correla!ed with reality. Before an mterpretatlon IS provided
(a ~patlal one as in Euclid, or an arithmetical one as in Felix
~Iem, In the case of geometry), an abstract deductive system
IS therefor~ no mor~ a g~ometry than any other theory.
The deSire to aXJOmatlse and to formalise the system of
know~edge stems from the fact that (a) it is impossible to use
effec~lv~ly the apparatus of logic in a non-formalised system;
.(b) It IS not always clear if such a system is complete if it
IS not
co mp I.ete. .

.
~t .IS not clear whether it contains premises
~hlch can give flse to contradictions, under definite circum stances .
. Exactness and rigorousness. The following are the underIYIn: causes of ~x~ctness and rigorousness.
The apodlctlc ~atu.re of proof, resulting from the axiomatIC-deductive o.rgan!satlon of mathematical knowledge.
fb) The algOrithmic nature of proof, interpreted as the
eXistence of fixed m~es of solving mathematical problems in
the form of syste":lallca lly deduced unambiguous instructions.
.(c~ The deductive ~ature of mathematics embodied in the
~rmclples of constructing discourse in it, ba~ed on the transition fn:>m one meaningful <informational) structure to another
accordmg to cJear:cut .an~ rigid rules of logic. The deductiveness of ~athemalics signifies the exi<.;tem:e of a logical path
from aXioms to. theory, and that path is logical inference,--a
concentrate, as II were, of the eswnce of mathematics. In view

(.!

'"

d' wn between sci(nc c and matbe~

tl
of tlw., parallel .. \:an be ra . .
is mathem~IIC5. ug ,
,
'dlsl:ounc, dl~ourse
maillS (~l'llIll'C IOj ,
'il';cn n .' IS matl.lI.'maILCIJ). "
I accurdanct! with the rules
(d) Unamblgu. ou <, (definition
... floorJna'1Ihe"r',-malhcJnalL~al
.
matte
~.~,
for the cOllstru(lI0n (J aXIO
d. d
rceivcd s1ruCturc corn~
theories have a dcarly prt...,cntc an fPeymbol'S (an alphabd),
es 0 ~
.
'
.
...Iy
dcfJlled
cialOS
f lhe
pn ... lIl g ng()rou
,
f rormula~ (fmitc ~equences o
rules for the l:on ... trUl:II,On 0
10 ical copula') and opcralOrs.
element ... of the alphabet),
g
.
ro osition~ out of
auxiliary ~ymb()I'>,. rules for cons~u~tll~~
~he calculus of
formulas and 10gKai copu
han el~ments along with their
propositions. An ensemble 0 t e.~
'. arked b exact
interpretation, form ... a mathematical the~~Y. m . idenliiv of it ...
ness and rigorou'iness due 10 the unam IguouS
.
ingredients.
. .
(e) Rejection of appeals to empincal expen.e.ncc as a means
of controlling discourse . .'-1athematical prop~lII~n ... are n~~~~-I
sary. but their nece~ity does not stem from. d1fl:d emrllr:~a
experience. The latter assumed. a>;. we ha,c. pomted out. out. I,Le
proportions in the methodological conc~plio!,S of math.~matK~
during the Modern Times. ... An emplflcal Judgement. wrott!'
Kant "never exhibits strict and absolute. but only a~umed and
com~arative universality <by induction): therefore. the mo!-.t.
we can say is.-so far as we have hitherto o~sened. there .I'S
no exception to Ihis or thai rule" (151. 2L "Smce ~xpenentlal
knowledge cannot be uni\-'ersal and nece~,ary. unl\d!-.al and
necessary knowledge cannot be experiential."-this.do.g ma was
the reason why mathematics was regarded 3.';, an a pnon s~l~n~e.
Does a priori science e:xist al all? Diale~ti.:al materialists
unequivocally answer this question in the negative. Fil'Sl~Y,
as we have stres!-.ed alread ..... the propositions of mathematics
are empirical in origin amI' are ultimalely verified by practke:
in this sense, they cannot be a priori. i.e . generally independent
of man. Secondly, the a~sertion that a given proposition is
universal and apodktic is in itself problematic. being a hypoth
esis that is later either confirmed or rejected. Highly instructive in this respect is lack of consensus among mathematicians
as regards such propositions as the axiom of (hoice, the
tertium non datur. the abstraction of actual infinity. etc.
None of this can refute the proposition. however. thai
mathematic~ does not appeal to experience as a means 01 wri
flcation of discourse; the means used here are the le:slS of consistency, completenes..'S. independence. and deducibility from
the axiom!-.. These non-empirical criteria for the evaluation of

at".

ror

mathematical knowledge, so abslral..'l in charal..'h.'f, make it

possible to avoid the familiar errors of !Ill' l'l1lpiril'al nilcria
and means (experiment, observation. Slalisli(al pro(l'\sing of
data, etc.) of evaluation of knowledge, which incrC'ilScS the

eaactnes and strictness of mathem3Iil:s.

(0 Maximal limitations of the intuitive basi~. Inlllitive

unexplicated elements-which are. as a full'. the cause of potential theoretical defects-are most rigorollsly excluded from
theories that impose the strictest limitations 011 the qualities
of systems that are possible in the abstract. (i.e., contain the
most definite claims). The latter featufe IS a consequence
of the traditional mathematical processes ofaxiomaliS31ion
and the use of special symbols (numbering the p~sitions and
other means of eliminating the polysemy and non-rigorousness
of everyday language) as well as of natural (unspecified)
means of information translation,
At the same time the exactness and strictness of mathematical
knowledge m,ust not be regarded as absolut,e attributes, As, in
any other system of knowledge, mathematics has areas wllh
problematic and strictly unsubstantiated elements, like mental
experiments with abstract objects, risky hypotheses, surmises,
daring assumptions, etc., which may, given the right circumstances, evolve into strict mathematical theories.
If we were to list at least some of the basic causes for the
non-universality of mathematical exactness and strictness,
the result would be as follows.
(a) In his lectures on the development of mathemat ics,
Klein expressed the view that twO relatively isolate,d stages
in the evolution of mathematical knowledge could be dIsce rned,
Stage one: the search for new methods and heurist ic i nstr,umen~s
of solving internal mathematica l problems (the work of 1I1vesl1gat ion and research), at which there is practically no .ro?m
for substantiating the innovations. Stage two: the substanl1all On
of innovations (organisational activity),
,
The source of the exactness and strictness of mathe~al~cal
theories being the ,mode of the!r formal axiomatic organ lsal1.oni
which is only reah.s~d a~ rel~t~vely late stages of mat.hem aoc:
d
activity, mathematICians activity at the early stages IS mark
by imprecision and lack of strictness (in the sense of the absence
of formal axiomatic foundations).
d
Another factor determining the absence of ~x~ctr~e~ dan _
strictness at the initial stages of mathematical actiV ity IS 111. uCI
" "IS most I"
tion Induction which
y mcomp I
ete"III I nathemauca,
. '.1
VI
"
,
1
d
("
""
1
Y
non
trt
as well as any other, know e ge 111 pr1l1Clp e, an
-

induction 1\ incomplete), acts as, it f;ignifICant :",urce of prob.

lematicity. JU\t one example to IIluslrat~ .thl~ Id.ea.
.
Pierre Fermat formulated the propOSItion that numbers In
h f n (2 l "
I) arc alwayo; prime number'!;, havlOS proved
'he rorl
1 2 3 4 But thi\ general propmition. formuhllcd
t IS or 11
, " ' .
b 1
h' t
by Fermat on an inductive basl.~, was refuted y l~eon ar~
Euler, who showed that for n -: 5, the number (2 ... 1) IS
not a prime number,
.
To e li mi nate the inaccuracies resultlOg from t~~ employment
of the inductive methods of cognition, propo~illons .0btal1l~d
by in duction are reformulated on the axiomatic dedudlv~ basiS.
(b) Not a ll the propositions or formulas of mathematics are
so lvab le. T he existence of unsolvable problems follows, ~ a
general case, from GOdel's incompleteness .'h,eorem,. ~hlch
reads: For any consistent formal system S contalOlng a mlOlm~m
of arithmetic there exists a formally unsolvable prOpOSlll0n
or formula A such that neither A nor --A are deduc ible in
S. T he existence of unsolvable problems is also establi~hed
by GOde l's theorem concerning relatively unsolvable problems,
the coroll ary, which follows from it. of the existence of absolutely unsolvable problems, and the Skolem principle concern ing the impossibility of a system of axioms which embraces
everyt hing tha t it desir es to embrace.
In 1935, Al onzo Church cited an example of an unsolvable
mass prob lem, and later , jointly with George Rosser, established
th e unsolvab ilit y of e lementary mathematics, In 1947, Andrei
Markov a nd E mil e Post proved the unsolvability of the problem
of ide ntity fo r se migro ups; in 1952. Pavel Novikov proved the
unso lva bility of th e problem of the identity of groups; later
h ~ showed th e unsolvabil ity of the prob lem of isomorphism
(111 gro up theo ry ) . In 1958. Markov proved the unsolvabiliry
of th e proble m of the ho meom o rphism of polyhedrons. In 1970,
Yuri Ma tiyasev ic h proved the unsolvability of Hilbert's tenth
proble m. Th ese exa mples sh ow that unsolvability can be of
two ty,pes: the unso~vabi l ily of propositions (a consequence of
~~el s t~ eory of 1I1completeness) and algorithmic unsolvabill ty ( H" be~t's tenth problem). Attempts to clarify the concept o~ a lgont~m (Church's theory of I.-conversion, Kleene's
recu rSIVe, functIOns, Post's finite combinatorial processes elc.)
resu l~ed 111 the general conclusion that an algorithm
the
SOlullon of ~he problem of solvability is impossible.
(c) Despue Us explicit forma l axiomatic orpnilation. the
structu re o~ ma th emat ica l kn owledge includes 8 set of ideu
th at a re, e piste mologically speak ing. intuitive, implicit. and not

fiw

7-01470

.,

amenable to rigid dedul:li\'t.' logical fixation and \Ub"lantiati

. " I1.'1 us mere I y ote a pa ..sage fro'
on
" t h"IS proposition.
To e:\.p Iam

AlollLO Church: ..... any fOllndation of ... malhemJ.l ks '" is in m

certain. ,fashion ,circular. That is. there alwa,Ys remain pre~
supposItions whIch must be a(c~pled on faith or intuition
without being themselves founded" (127, 184). II follows
that. since the detinition of formal mathematics requires
intuitive mathematics, mathematics as a whole is not exact in

any absolute sense.

The most fundamental reasons for appealing to intuitive

notions in mathematics are as follows.

(1) Its

incomplete formalisability

(d.

Godel's limiting

theorems) .
(2) The axiomatic character of organisation; axioms are

accepted without proof, largely on an intuitive and psycho

logical basis. Characteristic in this respect is the evaluation
of the axiom of choice by different mathematicians. Some of
them (as e.g. David Hilbert) call it the premise of any mathematical discourse. Others, like Henri Borel, see it as a source
of defects in mathematics. On the one hand, the axiom of
choice is widely used in analysis, algebra and topology, in
proofs of fully obvious theorems. On the other hand, it is a
source of non-constructive proofs; besides, it is employed in
proving propositions that are far from obvious (the Banach Tarski paradox).
There are also difficulties in the substantiation of the axiom
of substitution, and some others.
3) The use of non-rigorous concepts in the absence of any
possibility of clarifying them. One of the causes for the an tinomies of set theory is, according to some specialists, the use
of Cantor's extremely vague definition of the set concept.
Cantor defined a set as any multitude thought of as a unilY
We shall not try to find faults with this formula or criticis.e
the possibility and fruitfulness of interpreting a set as a "multitude thought of as a unity". It is hard. though, to get rid of the
question: How is a multitude to be united, properly speaking.
in a single whole? There is no precise answer 10 this Question.
At present, sets are specified either by listing their elements or
by pointing to a well-formed predicate which constitutes a set
on the basis of associating corresponding objects. It is clear,
however, that a set is something different from a list of objectS
corresponding to a predicate. The nature of this difference
has proved elusive so far.
There are also considerable difficulties in the use of the

'8

entirely unexplicated concept of infinity, which is central to

mathematics. It underlies the algorithmic mean-value theorems.
the Taylor theorems, existence theorems, and so on. There is
no proof, however, that its systematic and practically uncontrolled use does not stimulate paradoxes (in set theory).
The concept of infinity illustrates Gottlob Frege's idea that
there are signs in science (in language in general) which have
no precise meaning although they express a certain sense. Such
signs (as, e.g., "a threeheaded man") are neither true nor
false, They are epistemologically empty, so to speak, as we know
practically nothing of their referents.
Frege insisted on the elimination of such signs from science,
as in his view all well-formed signs had to denolate something.
In this respect, such concepts as infinity or the set of all
sets are signs with unclear meanings. That may be the reason
why it is not Quite clear whether they should be excluded
(as they are in intuitionism and the theory of types) or not,
and if they should, what must be our attitude to them'?
(d) Mathematics widely uses the apparatus of non-predicalive definitions which include self-referential concepts and are
based on the relation of self-application. Thus all the paradoxes
of set theory are due, according to Abraham Fraenkel and
Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, to the fact that "in all of them the crucial
entity is defined, or characterised, with the help of a totality
to which it belongs itself' (139,54). Although it is clear that
non-predicative definitions are not always destructive, it has
proved impossible to find out in which panicular cases they
are destructive. The available suggestions for the choice of a
criterion "to separate the lambs from the goats'" such as
Heinrich Behmann's suggestion for using in discourse only
those terms whose ultimate eliminability can be proved, are not
widely accepted in science ..
As for the theory of types, in which non-predicative classes
are excluded, it simply proves impossible to present an essential pari of higher mathematics in its framework. It is thus
practically nol feasible to avoid non-predicative definitions,
although the admission of non-predicative classes entails
uncertainty about consistency.
Taking all this into account, one can accept John von
Neumann's insistence on the relativity of the categories 01
exactness and rigour: "It is hardly possible to believe in .the
existence of an absolute. immutable concept of mathematical
rigour, dissociated from all human experience" (174,6) .
Th~ adoption of consistency as th~ cenlrai criterion of

.'icientificil),. A mathematical ~~xiomatid \y~I~'m i ... r\.'~ardl'd <1\

.
'f for any proposItion A. propO."IIllIl\ A and - A
consIstent . 1. ltaneously provable III
' "thl" \\,,11.:11\,
".
S'
Ilane-ou\
,lIn\l
are not S1WlU
' . . , .'
'
of propositions A and -A 11\ a u:rtalll \ysh~m
its meaninglessness.
. .
of the
of COnsistenc)' as a l'cnlral l:rlICnOT1
.
I'
scientiflcity of mathematical knowledg.e canl.l.l~1 1I;IIore II liS ql~es.
tion: What should the attitude be 10 ~nconslslenl m~11em~llcal
theories? The apparently "alUral view. \hat 3n 1I~:onslslent
theory is unacceptable is nol. however, ell lCf unum .,guous or
'h - .
We refer here above all 10 Ihe evaluation of set
ex ausllye.
. I I
.
. f
theory. the most fundamental of malh~m~tlca t leor~es; 11 o.rn~s
the foundation of mathematics, yet It IS not conSISle~t (',t IS
not ftee from paradoxes), How are w,e to handle a,Sltuatlon,
then. in which mathematicians recoglllse the excepllonal role
of the criterion of consistency yet show tolerance towar,ds the
inconsistencies of set theory which forms the foundatIOn of
mathematics?
'
.
There is no generally accepted clear answer to this question,
In our view. a way out of this situation ca~ be found ~~ the
following two approaches: (a) one ~ay reje,c! the, traditIOnal
methodological values in malhematlcs (which will be tan
tamount to a rejection of the consistency criterion as the central
criterion of mathematical knowledge). leaving aside the pr?b.
lem of substantiation of mathematics on a non_paradOXical
basis: (b) one may retain the traditional methodological values
in mathematics <which is tantamount to accepting the consistency criterion as central to mathematical knowledg~).
simultaneously building a suitable non-paradoxical foundation
for it. Let us consider the prospects for these two approach~.
Should we link up the concept of scientificity of mathematics
with rigour and consistency? It is a fact that in all. other
sciences we are content with much weaker demands. sO It may
n
be worthwhile to modify the traditional conception of scie tiDeity criteria in mathematics. This is not just an abstract
,a.ibility-this approach is now gaining ground in mathematical science. There is a tendency to introduce new meth~O
cs
logical values. or criteria of scientificity. into mathemalt
such as practical ulility, heuristic effectiveness. cognitive usc
fulness. etc. In their analysis of the crisis in set tht?f)'
B. Pyatnitsyn and V. Porus point out. for instance: "We beheve
th.t the paradoxes discovered in set theory have not beC~T11~
the 'destroyers' of this theory (and of the whole of math~matl%e
because, firstly, it cannot be squeezed completely 1010
tOO

logical dilllCII\iulI ofaxinlogkal characteristics (tllat . . . . .

CClIl\lstl'IH:y I" nOl hcrc. in fact. an absolute value ); ....
\cl'lmdly, <lIHI rrnhably mort' imrortamly. a protective
i.., playt'd herl' by Ihe dnud it..elf of valu~s with which ~t
theory i.., \hrouded in the ..,pace uf evaluations or, in other word.,;.
in tht' cOII..,dousne\.., of practical mathematiciall't" (79, 77).
On the whole, Ihis arproach. a .. illustrated in the pa\.\age
cited here. seems to be an /.ul hoc orientation. It i.. a fact that
settheoretical raradoxes violating tht: demand of comistt:nq
have brought no satisfaction to anyone. The actual use of set
theory in mathematics is not a result of a reappraisal of the
traditional values in this science. neither is it a result of lite
action of the cloud of additional values that is said to shroud
set theory. The causes of this si tuation are simply these: (a) the
paradoxes of set theory are not elements of its central or useful
part. as von Neumann puts it; (b) a better system that would
be equivalent to set theory does not exist; (c) at pre<>ent.
there is no acceptable programme for an all round substantiation of mathematics.
Underestimation of the paradoxes in set theory. reflected.
e.g . in their description as sophisticated artificial constructs.
does not appear to be convincing. FraenkeJ's and Bar-Hillel's
evaluation of the situation is rather emotional: besides. it doe::;
not follow from their line of investigation: d. their statement:
"many a scientist wishes that his field were in as 'critical' a Slate
as mathematics. and few are the mathematicians who are
really depressed by the existing uncertainties in the founda-

,.,J.

tions" (139. 270).

One can easily find statemenlS
tone. Suffice it to recall Hilbert's view: "._
we find ourselves as reprdll ~ ...
unbearable. Consider: in math...ac..
and truth, conceptual structures ad con~ _
learns, teaches .nd IIS~S them. lead to .brniities. And where
are cenainty .nd truth to be found when even mathematical
thinking fails us?" (144. 274).
Thus the appeal to certain secondary methodological values
in mathematics. which does not cancel the need for its substan
tiation in accordance with the requirement of consistency, is
in our view a sophisticated ruse intended as a means of temporarily relieving the acuteness of the situation engendered by the
paradoxes in set theory. Inasmuch as an inconsistent theory
bring,; no satisfaction. and no reappraisal of values can dispel
the dissatisfaction with an inconsistent theory, we see more

,,,,.11'

to t

promise in a different approach -one based on the de'>ire 10

find a foundation for mathematics in accordance with the
requirement of consistency.
For lack of space, we cannot go into a detailed methodo
lockal evaluation of the familiar trends in the foundation of
mathematics. We concur with Moslowski's view Ihal the philo.
sophical goals of the three schools i~ t~~ f?undations of
mathematics (logicism, formalism, and 1I1tulllolllsm) have not
been attained, and that we are now as far from a complete
understanding of mathematics as were the founders of these
schools (173); and also with Kleene's statement that the
paradoxes "leave us the problem of refounding sel theory on a
drastically altered basis, the details of which are not fully
implicit in the suggestions' (153, 40).
The problem of the foundations of mathematics is a problem
in the search for reliability, rigour, and exactness, that is,
in the final analysis, a search for all that is associated with
scientificity. The problem of foundations cannot be solved without clarifying the following problems connected with it (and,
most likely, it has not been solved because they have not been
clarified): (a) the causes of the paradoxes; (b) the status of
mathematical objects (the solution of the nominalism-realism-conceptualism trilemma); (c) the problem of existence;
(d) the nature of mathematical statements; (e) the subjectmatter of mathematics.
Progress in the elaboration and foundations of set theory
can only be achieved through deepening general notions of
mathematical reality. Indeed, since paradoxes are questions
that cannot be answered as long as there is no general picture
and no clear understanding of connections in a given domain,
elimination of paradoxes from set theory requires that such a
level of understanding should be achieved, which in this case
can only be done through a deeper perception of the essence
of mathematical reality and the nature of mathematical activity
as a whole. At present we do not know enough about this
nature, about those of its elements that lead to paradoxes, eiC.
That is why, however carefully we evaluate the available
programmes in the foundations of mathematics, we do not
know how ~hese elements are to be eliminated by rebuiling set
theory. It IS there(ore true that "no unique and universallY
accepted way of reconstructing mathematics exists or is in view,
and in this sense the foundational crisis is still in force" (139,
270) .
The features of mathematiCs cursorily outlined in the above
101

n.. ncd gCllcr<l1 r<lthcr Ihan particular properties inht'rent 'n

.,y.,tem .. of mathcm<ltil:al knowledge as such.
1.2. SATL"RAI. S( I(:NC'E

In Its most direct u<;age, the expre~ion 'natural 4.:ience"

denotes a broad cognitive domain oriented toward'> Ihe study of
.
-i
.
immcdiate given ness.
science b heterogeneou~ and multidimensional. It embraces a great number uf
disciplines, planes and '>truclures united by their orientation
towards theoretical assimilation of a general !:.ubstantive basis
termed materia nuturuta.
Natural-scientific cognition of malter is focused on "operations of its all round analysis, description and explanation
of forms and mechanisms, structu ral decomposition. e..tabli ... hment of elements, qualitative and quantitative values, limit ..,
measures, optimal and critical conditions of exislem.:e, interaction with the environment, and so on" (50. 28).
From the typological standpoint. natural science consi!:.ts
of empirical-phenomenalist (descriptive) and theoretico-e~en
tialist (explanatory) theories.
Empirico-phenomenalist
natural-scientiflc theories are
ensembles of qualitative phenomenological systems of knowledge; predominant among them are (a) empirical descriptions
recording in language terms data obtained at the empirical
level of the study of the object through measurement. observation, analysis and choice of facts, visual registration. primary
c1assiftcation and systematisation, various types of experimentation, etc. (cf. the description of the phenomenon CJf inheriCin.
of contrasting features in hybridisation before Georg Mendel
formulated the appropriate laws), and (b) empirical laws.
dependences, regularities obtained as inductive generalisations
of experimenta l data (the Mendel laws before the chromosome
theory of heredity asserted itself in science). The mechanism
of the transformation of descriptive. cumulative knowledge
(i.e., of practically all natural-scientific knowledge at the
initial stage of its development) into explanatory and s~'st~at!c V
knowledge is metrisation and the correspo'1ding logico-..emantlC / \
suhstan t lat ion.
Explanatory theories are an ensemble of logically organised
systel1l~ of knowledge; predominant here are (a) theoretical
explanations conceptually reconstructing the dala obtained at
the theoretical level of the study of the object through inter10.'

pretatlOn . itil-ali ..ali()n, IIlt'nlal (l'lHll'l' ptLlill) l'Xlwrl/lH'lIl\

ab,trad moddling .... t~. (d. th ... f'oh'lllld law \ IlhtilllH:d al th~
repre ..entative \e\'C'l ih COlI\t'qUl'lll"t'" of tht' d,nmHl.. mnt' Ihl'ory
of hert'dity); the bulk \\1' thl' ~'llInp0rHnt .. (prupo,itmm) tlf
theoretico-essentiali,t n'lhLr;\I -,,~i t'IItiflC knowledge ... deduced 'v
from fundamental proJlo~ltiOil " IH"wlal..... ,a nd aXlOlm; 1\
(b) exact quantitatively dt'taikd n: .. ull .. (Ihl' d,.,tnb ution .. of
the contrasting fealUn', ill the flr,I and Ihe slIb.,equl'nt genera
tions of hybrid .. thaI were quantitati\, ... ly dt>tailcd by Mendel
and therefore a.,slIIned tht' statu .. of nUlHeric al laws).
Among explanatory theories, hYPOlht'tico-deduc tive and
axiomatic theorit-s can be justiftably distinguished.
Hypothetico-deductive natural theories are based on Ihe
application of the hYPolhetico-dedllctive method which occupies
an intermediate position between the properly empirical and
axiomatico-deductive methods of research. being founded on
,logical derivation ~Ls_on.s.equences from hypotheses and their
subsequent factual veriflcation. Classical mechanics was constructed in accordance with that method. Thus Newton first)
introduces the fundamental concepts of that science and then
its laws and propositions subject to verification. A special
case of the hypothetico-deduClive method is the method of the
principles of theory construction. A theory figures here as an
ensemble of experimentally verified propositions logically
derived as consequences from basic principles. The method
of principles underlies thermodynamics, the special theory of
relativity, the general theory of relativity, etc.
Theories su bjected to ..strict logical
and
elaboration are called axiomatic~- Tne
(owards
axiomatisa lion and formali sation of natural-scientific knowledge is quile understandable in view of the fundamental
di~~rence bel ween a fo rmalised meaningful theory and the
ongmal meaningful theory-the fact that the propositions
of a form~l t~eory are independent from in terpretat ion. Since
t~e orgal1ls~lIon of natural -sc ientific knowledge on the prin
CIP~es of aXIOm ali sat ion and formalisation assumes the spedficatl~ of groups of axioms precisely Slating the logical, mathe
!fIatlcal, and, properly scientific foundations of a theory. which
IS only pOSSIble 111 an advanced theoretical science. it is clear
why man natural-scientific theories remain unaxiomatised and
~nformallsed. In biol~gy, ror instance. we only come acrOSS
lSol~ted attempts at aXlomatisation, such as Woodger's axiomatic
verSion of, Mendel's genetics using the language of Principia
Mathemaf/ca (195) . A gratifying exception in this respect is
104

phy'uloJl IOll)wlrdgt', whilh al1am.:d the IC'od vI advan~ed

IIH:on:ti\iltloll c;,arlicr Ihan the ulher $C lenn:1. Cooscanflne
('arillheudory, John vun Neumann, Arthur Wightman and
"Iher, IIl1derl"()~, at different timt:S and with varyi ng ,un.'eM,
furmal-.:uJUmall.; lu\)o,1<:lnliallOn of it .. iwlated fthuugh ex tcII,Ive) fragment'S, Rel evant 10 the u,iomathatiun of ph)~IC$
8, Ihe oil,i'S flf natural scien{;e ~ H il~rt'$ si)lth problem.
II i, JU\liflable 10 i'>Olate in Ihe framework of nalural st;u:ncc
a large area of knc,wledge Ihal i'i not explicitly connected to
the Iype, of nalUral''iCientiflc theories ,pecifled above. or th"
nalUre are, for in,tance, many branches of geology, tC1:tonics.
palaeontology, biology, ..oil ~ience, geography. climatology,
cosmology, etc., occupying, a .. it were, an intermediate po\itinn
between descriptive and explanatory thenrie'i. a'i they ulOe the
me thod of hi, torical recon\truction ba:;.ed (10 combined appli~a~
tion of empirical and theoretical studie.....
Apart from logical and philosophical premi....~. the \tructure
of a nat ural -scientific theory includes its own foundati(.n .....
i.e., the basic principles and postulate'S of the theory which
determine all its proplhitions. The actual body of the $Cit:nct!
consists of facts. laws. and propositions conce rning facts
and laws. which form a superslfucture built on the theory's
own foundation s.
:(
A fact is not necessarily an empirical !>tatement containing
observation data. Epistemologically. a fact may be a S1atement
pertaining either to empirical or to theoretkal knowledge. if
its truth has been established with cenainty. A fact is, above
all, an element of knowledge that play~ a definite role and has
a cerlain function in the system of knowledge. It would be hard
to exaggerate the cognitiH' role of facts in denning the domain
of a theory. in substantiating its propositions., in establishin,
the empirical meanings of theoretical models, etc. In all these \
cases, as Engels points out. "one must proceed from the given
facts" (5Qa, 47).

As distinct from the sphere of everyday knowledge, the

establishment of a natural-scit-ntific fa ct is connected with
seriation. that is, with statistical a\'eraging of a series of
experiments. Natural-scientific facts are therefo re alway ..
average statistical summaries, the frequencies of ()(;currence
of a definite feature or characteristic of an objecl.
A natural-scientific fact-an epistemologically complex
conceptualised structure-is set against the naked empirical
fact, which is a real phenomt-non under concrete conditions.
A naked empirical fact is an objective evtnt rorded by the
10,10

sense organs and considered as uninlcrpretcd and not Iran\_

formed subje<:tive\y. An illustration of a naked empirical fact
would be the perception of the dellecliol1 of the needle of a

dial noted down in the language of an observ'lIion record:

..... At the moment of time to the needle of the ammeter mOved
10 points to the right of z.cro". Any auempis 10 give an inter_ )
pretation of this phenomenon. however, will necessitate its
inclusion in the
. a
' - this fact. Strict
.
distOrtions
of reality on the basis of a biased theory, such as facls that
are alleged to confirm inheriting acquired trailS, elc.
V A law is a central proposition of a
.
/ \ . necessary. recuTring, or universal
worla. A law is an expressloil
form

'or

V(x) (P (x) -

Q (x

which is not an abbreviated nOlalion for an infinite conjunction

of propositions (this would be in keeping with the inductivist
interpretation of the generality quantifier) as it does not state )(
something about separate elements of the class but about a
necessary and universal property of these elements. Close
formal-logical investigation of the nature of universal implicative propositions has brought to light paradoxes known as the
paradoxes of material implication. The nature of these paradoxes follows from the formal-logical orientation of the analysis
of the laws of science, which are interpreted in terms of their
logical form regardless of the content they express.
From the logical standpoint a law is a conditional relation
in implicative notation. The latter. however, is also the form
of expression of factually true general propositions of the type
"all ravens are black", which do not have the status of laws.
The problem arises of isolating the subset of laws in the set of
all universal implicative propositions (the so-called Lewis
pro~lem.>. 1}1e gist o~ the Lewis problem lies in the question: can
an Implicative relation identical with the meaningful relation
between propositions connected by implication be constructed in
the system of propositional logic? Lewis himself came to the
well-founded conviction (161) that such a relation cannot be
constructed in. the system of classical logic.
.Hence the mterest of non-classical logics intended to solve "
!hlS pro~lem-systems with strict implication (Lewis), strong )
Implication (Ackermann), with the Nelson implication causal
impli~ation (A ..W. Burks). etc. But none of these 'systems
con tam a solutIOn of the problem. Although it was shown
I

106

later that the criterion differentiating laws (nomolo,ical propo<;ition<;) from accidental universal propositionstn implic: ive
furm i\ the deducibility from the former of conditional coun.er..
factual propO')ition'l demon\trating the exio;tenn:' of true
necec,sary relatiun'>, the difficulties ~hould be pointed out of
establi<;hing nomology by reformulating univer.. al impli('ativt
propMition'i as counterfactual ones. The diffu.:ulty lies in the
fact that there is no formal
'
procedure for substantiating
etabli..hed factually.
j the material relationo;
the nomological character of the connection between
consequent and antecedent. That is precisely where the
difficulty lies, for carrying out this type of analysis is nol a
trivial task at all.
Propositions concerning facts and laws form the semantic
corpus of a theory. A natural-scientific theory i5 a set of propositions ordered by the relation of deducibility of varying
degrees of rigorousness specified for it. or. in more formal
notation.
T (C, A, L) = PI
Pn ~'
where T is a natural-scientific theory; C, basic or derived
constructs; A, a set of axioms: L, derivation rules; P, the propositions of the theory. P includes propositions about individual
facts, empirical dependences and theoretical laws.
Propositions about individual faclS are formulated in terms
of the language of direct observation (i.e., they do not include
quantifiers) at the empirical level of research. Propositions
about empirical dependences are wri"en down in the l!lnguage
of emplrlc-al construclS" and ulc1ude terms that 00 nol pertain
to direct observation but correspond to the empirical level of
research (that is to say. they do not assume explanation).
Propositions about theoretical laws are expressed in the
language of theoretical constructs, include terms of the two
above-mentioned types of sentences, contain propositions with
quantifiers, and correspond to the theoretical level of research
(l 05). These three types of propositions are connected by
reduction rules specifying the modes of transition from the
language of observation (propositions about the readings of a
measuring device) to the language of empirical and theoretical
constructs (e.g., statements about objects acting on the
measuring devices, etc.).
The formula for a natural-scientific theory is as follows:
n = (Fet. Lw, Cnst. Int. Abstr mdl. Frml. L)
107

Fet is a nOll-e mpty sel l\f ract~ CMn:",p(1rHJiTl~ to reality.

LI\' IS a ~et of laws: III e,ac! natural-\ClcntlfH: theories
eSI~blishi n g and pred ic ting Ihe prlll'lC'rlics of OtW;I."I,s 011 the
basIs of some InitIal data (cf. the ochavlOur of mechanical

fixed domams. which delermi ne the qual it ati ve t ra ilS of both

the :"epa rate elements and of the ir entire in te rnal s tr uc ture.
The dependence between the concept ua l bas is ( B) of the

theory and its empirical J)a\i<;.. (8,) can be expressed. fo r ra.te

of visual pcn:eptHin. hy Ihl". fQfJT'!~l'!_ B ... Br (62. 110) , whe-rethe mechanism of links between the bases (exprl!S:'ied by ... )
and B. (neither of which figure in mathemalics) epislemologica lh specify the es..,ence of natural science.
IJ,., for med by Lw, ('mt. Int. Ahstr mdl, Frml. L. acl~ a:'l a
catcgoria l, ~emantic and organisational schema. the framework
of theory. with wh ich a ilihe numerou~ particulars are linked up.
Th e c rea tion , elaboration and construction of B, are marked
by freed om (t he considerations of convenience. s~mplicity, and
tempe ra me nt a ff ec ting the choice of Frmf. In t. Abstr mdO b ut
not by a rbitra rin ess. T h is is explained by the o r ien tation of B,
towards refl ec ting the objective connections of reality, from
wh ic h it fo ll ows that there exists a certain fundamental limit
of the subject's freedom in Ihe framework of B,
namely.
the objeclive logic of the funclioning and development of the
real object. This logic, permitting freedom. excludes arbitrariness. The object domain does not, of course, imp~e any fixed
definit ions o n B" but at the same time it rules out arbitrary
const ruct ions. T h us, it was precisely the pressure of the objeci
logic th at led to the e limination of elher from physics. That is
probabl y th e reason why the desire to relain ether al any cost
in th e Br o~ ph ysica l th eories ( 148) appears so artificial and
unconstrucllVe.
Be is correlated with B~ as a wh ole. as a system ic mutually
coordinated struc tu re ; many compo ne nts of Be fadlitalin g
mediated mode lling o f re ality are of intermed iate. subord in ate
charac ter, and are not by themselves projected onlO empir ic al
facts; they have no analogues in realil)'. Of this nature is, e.g.,
Ihe tV- fun ction in quantum mechanics. of which o nly Ihe
square of the modulus has an empirical mean ing.
B , formed by fact s. acts as an external source of the conlen t
r
of theories, as well as an instrument of Iheir su bslan tiat ion .
On the dynamic pl ane. th e th eory is rea lised as successive
acc umul ati on and syslemal isation of data (obsena tioTl,
estab lishment of e mpirica l depende nces). their theoretisation.
derivat io n of e mpirica lly discoverable consequences from the
systems th us obl ai ned . fi n al just ification of theories. and Iheir
impl eme ntat ion in practice. The connec lion betwee n B. and
Br is n ot imm ed ia te. Th at mea ns Ih at. st rict ly speak ing, the
cont ent of B does not correspond to th e re lations of the real
f
world but of a n idea lised one. a world of secondary conceptual

10'

10'

systems predicted on the basis of Ihe I;.llowlcdge of fon:es and

of initial condit ions). this set is not empty: in inc:\aci flelds
of natural sc ience concerned with accumulation of facls and
operating as a ru le with qualitati,e correlations, this set b
em pl y.
enst is a set of constants; in the case of many theories this
set IS e mpty.
Inr is a set of natural, empirica l and semantic intcrprela lions
ensur ing th e ident ification of AbSlr mdl and Frm{ o f na tural_
sc ient ific theories with the real prototypes.
Abslr mdf is a set of abstract models. sema ntic assu mptions,
and auxiliary constructs accepted in a theory.
Frml is a set of formalisms acting as instruments of thinking,
language. and quanlitati\isation of propositions of na tural
science. which permit it to operate with quantitatively detailed
connections of rea lity, i.e., to formula te dependences of the
Iype x = ky.
. L is a sel of logical assumptions and derivation ru les accepted
10 a theory.
Substantive specification of these sets requires the int roduclion of the concept of Sr(-a non-empty set whose e lements
~re called sorts of on tologically individua lised o bjec ts. T hus ,
Lf each of the sets listed here is corre lated with variable sorts )
:uSrr, the theories will be object-specifled.
Considering Ihat nalural science is a set of s ubsta ntive
t~eo.ries (Ts) described by !2. and taki ng int o acco un t the
sLgl1Lnca.nc~ of the apparatus of logic ( L) ( th e inst ru ment of
sub~ta.nlla.(LOn) and mathema tics ( M )
instrument of
raC IOlmal10n in natural sc ience), its str uct ure ca n be ex pressed
by th e formula <\. Ts: M; L> .
. T he ep istemological specifici ty of natu ra l SC ie nce consists
10 Ihe fol lowin g.

(Ine

.Th ere exists a direct ri lid) correlation het ween fl afllral

~~ I en~e and a definit.e ragmen( 0 rea It)'; - tTiis feat u re disIIng~~hes na tu ral SCience from math ema tics a nd makes it
expltcll!Y onlologically ~pec ifl ed. Bei ng a reduced reprod uc tion
of realtty. Ih~ory st.udles mater ial relat ions be tween objec ts
In

re~lity.

)C

which .represents the analysed objects of primary or

objective .re~llty. Although objective and licientillc realities
do not comelde
opposite asserrion leads to naive realis~

I. ), they are linked by

lies is fraughl with the

of Platonism), and these ties are due to

special role
Bt , First. all components of B<. have an
empirical genealogy. which may sometimes be difficult to
reconstruct but is always real. Second, B.. specifies the vector
of the progress of B toward!) a better balance between B'
and HI" Third, B is "the alpha and the omega of all our knowt
ledge of reality" (136, 271). B( "is made up of concepts, "\
fundamental laws which are supposed to be valid for those
concepts and conclusions to be reached by logical deduction.
It is these conclusions which must correspond with our separate
experiences; in any theoretical treatise their logical deduction
occupies almost the whole book" (ibid.). Fourth, being relaBt' f~nctions as an informative and
tively independent from
critical instance,
final identification
of theory
or-conceptual
mooels.
Any theory is a theoretisatiol1 of facts; theories are modified
and discarded, while facts remain and are preserved. The
stability of facts in theories succeeding one another is the
ontological basis of their commensurability and of establishing
the degree of progressiveness of the theoretical shifts.
"_" is composed
reducI
contion rules, and
structs and the
piclUre (through models, through interpretation) which is projected onto Bt' bearing in mind that Bf

'v

me(hated reality specified in terms 0 experiment, measurement,

and nUman experience.
- ---~---- ~-.
rules are intended for the verification of
content of theoretical terms, ensuring, through a
definitions, the transition from models,
and formalisms to facts, permitting compariso~
of the consequences derived from Be with interpreted expenmental results and thereby an experimental substantiation~onfirmali~n or rejecti<:,n-of a theory. Correspondence alg o rilhDII rea!LSe the meanmgful, communicative, and explanatory
proce ~s m natural science, determining the theoretical load
or "opaqueness" of Bt' and mutual connections between models
n_

110

and interprt:lillitUl,," on the onC' hand, and facts on the olher.

Thus Maxwell'., ciedrodynamics interprets electromacne1lc
prot:c ...... es a... time variation of e1ectrk or magnetic int~nsity
and den ... ity of l.:urrclI! at a point, wherea .. the cognate electrodynamic theory of Ampere and Weber interprets the same
proce\.';es as time variation 'If the <;tales of elher- -the conducting
medium of electromagneti!." pht:nomena.
A detailed 'Study of the cognitive role of ".,.." compels a
consideration of the met:hani<.m of links between Be and B~
in a more general form, which requires further clarification
of the epistemological specificity of natural science.
There i.~ no direct logical bridge between Bt' and B, . which
is tantamount to the impossibility of direct deduction of B...
from B, or of reduction of B ' to B, . Rejecting the pos<;ibility
ofAirect deductive-reductive relations between B,. and 8,. we
stress the creative essence of
which emerges in the proce.....
of
has nothing in common
at dired logical
derivation of the basic concepts and laws of natural science
from elementary experience is doomed to failure. AI the sametime the autonomy of Be and Bt' is not absolute. as they are
connected by mediated deductive-reductive links.
The proposition that Be follows from B, implies empirical
origin of B,. rather than its deductive derivation.
Empirical genealogy of B,. must not be interpreted in Ihe
spirit of primitive inductivism. as shown by the dynamics of the
Be of a naturalscientific theory at the stage of advanced
theoretisation. The unfolding of the B,. of a theory through
generative logico-mathematical procedures. operations of
expand ing synthesis, and meaningful operations with objects
never results from direct inductive generalisation of B.. but,
being empirical in origin. is directed towards B <!.
The building and formation of the body of Be through generative logico-mathematical procedures and meaningful opera
tions with objects consists in obtaining within a given theory
of results by means of deduction. as logical consequences
of manipulation of theoretical objects. First. a definite system
or object of operation is specified, to which logical, mathematical and semantic operations are applied: as these operations
are performed in a defmite sequence on definite components
of the objet:t of operation, systems of operations are formed,
III

leading to certain resulls. Further unfolding of Bc; assumes the

formation of ever new generative procedures and operations
each of which goes further away from the basis of Band'
.
r

relymg on prevIOus results, produces new ones. In this way

a closed-in tree-like theoretical structure lakes shape.

'
However. deductive self-branching of Bc; is not unlimited.
Owing to the pressure of B, the need arises, sooner or later

j(

for expanding the substantive foundation -the basic principles

of B(. for feeding in fresh ideas on the procedures and opera_
tions generating il.
The obligatory nature of the generative logico-mathematical
(
procedures and meaningful operations on idealised objects

within Be for the formation of its body discredits the proposition

that 8 is derivable
from B, through inductive generalisation:
.
there 15 no logical path from facts to theory. The fact that
expanding synthesis operations are obligatory for potential
modifications of B determines its links with B t
The propeny of reducibility in Be and Bt does not imply
direct reducibility of Br to Br but only the justifiability of 8,
in terms of 8". If B,_ is not connected in any way with Bt and
cannot, even potentially, be projected onto it, it is devoid of
empirical foundation (cannot be experimentally substantiated).
In a situation like this, doubts creep in about the seriousness.
acceptability and reliability or
which is episiemolOgically
relegated to the class of arbitrary constructs and natural
philosophical speculations.

Be is not reducible to Br , because its infrastructure-the

theoretical principles and idealisations-are ideal and not
derived from experience. These are, as Einstein pointed out,
"free inventions of the human intellect, which cannot be
justified either by the nature of that intellect or in any other"
fashion a priori" (137,272). At the same time the autonomous
status of the logical structure of B, does not dissociate it from
Bt : "The empirical contents and their mutual relations must
find .th.e.ir representation in the conclusions of the theory. In the
possibility of such a representation lie the sole value and
justiflcation of the whole system" (ibid.). In other words,
the impossibility of projecting B_ onto B means that B has no
"
,
natural-scientific meaning. The freedom of the scienlist's
activity in the framework of B, is not absolute: " .. .It is not in
any way similar to the liberty of a writer of fiction. Rather,

II is similar to tha.t of a man ~ngaged in solving a well-designed

word puale. He lIIay, it is true, propo~ any word ao: the solu
tion: but there is only one word which really solves the puule
in all ils parts" (137, 294).
.
_
Rejection of direct reducibility of B, to Bt" makes It possible
to avoid the dogmatism of naive realism. Recognising that Be
is medialedly reducible 10 Bt we can regard B t as a criterion
of the truth of B., thus avoiding the relativism of conventionalism.
Thus the links between Be and 8, are multidimensional
and dialectical. Underestimation of or neglect for this faC(
en tails various methodological hypertrophies. A correct interpretation of the problem is only possible on the a<>sumption th~t
any B, howeH'r abstract 11 may be, is empirical in genesIs
substantiation. If theories
and h~s an

S:'

112

of expenence, they would never contradict

An indication of the absence of one-to-one dependence
of B on 8" is the phenomenon of "equivalent formulations'.
Thus quantum mechanics can be formulated in terms of matrices
(Heisenberg) and waves (Schrooinger), but the principal
concepts and correlations of these formulations remain invariant with respect to the formal apparatus employed. The
content of classi(al mechanics can be expressed 10 the formulations of Newton. Lagrange, Jacobi-Hamilton, etc.
Numerous aXiomatic formulations of various theories
indicate that their content can be equally well expressed in
different ways. Generally speaking. true laws of natural scien..::e
permit, as Richard Feynman points out. a great number of
different formula.tions (138,55), which refules all uncritical
postulates concerning the existence of a one-to-one connection
between B,. and B~.
Mathematics is used as an instrument (the logic of thinking)
amI the language of cognitive activity. The fact of striking
effectiveness of mathematics in natural science has always
intrigued scientists and methodologists. However, lack of
clarity in this field gave rise to a sort of confusioll. The
effectiveness of mathematics in natural science was often
described a~ incomprehensible (193) or unknowable (121),
We do not share these assessments and moods: pessimism has
never been construC(ive. The deep causes of the effectiveness

113

of mathematics in natural science appear to us quit e kn ()wable

and intelligible. Omitting the delails of various opini ons, One
may summarise these causes as follows.
(a) Unconfined by the limits of an object domain , mathe_
matics possesses great heuristic and research possibilities.
The conditions under which a mathematic ian works afe Com_
parable to those of a science-hetion writer. Indeed, what afe
the causes of the striking realism and exceptio nal perspicacity
of many predictions of science fiction? This ability for clairvoyance is explained by freed om of activity; there arc no
difficulties of practical realisation of ideas, the crealive
modelling of more or less verisimilar situations is restricted
by one factor only-the requirement of internal consistency,
inner harmony, and coheren ce of the process and the result
of construction. The same is observed in mathematics. Analysing
an object in its pure form as a kind of logical possibility,
a mathematician anticipates its potential substantive meaningful
study in the corresponding theories. Thus, the Lobachevsky
geometry emerged as the result of studying the possibility of
constructing a geometry on the basiS of the axioms of Euclidian
geometry in which the parallel axiom was modified. The new
geometry constructed by Lobachevsky was an "imaginary"
abstract mathematical structure. However, it was later used
in the special theory of relativity (the space of velocities of
relativistic mechanics is a Lobachevsky space). in cosmology
(in Fridman's open models, the spatial cross-section in the
frames of reference accompanying matter is described by
the Lobachevsky geometry), and so on.
What are the causes of this? What is the explanation of the
close link between mathematical structures and experimental
phenomena, as illustrated here?
The strength of mathematics is in the abstract universal \;
study of its object - a study that can only be formal. In considering the logical possibi lity of something, a mathematician
analyses the object in a maximally general form. The result
of the analysis is substantively undetailed structures satisfying
the criterion of consistency. Being consistent, mathematical
structures prove to be an inexhaustible source of naturalscientific interpretations; they can be specified in various ways
in terms of objective ontology depending on the needs of
research.
Wherein lies the magic strength of mathematical structures,
properly speaking? In the fact that they contain the truth (~
comes to light post /estum) before objective knowledge 15

1\

rdledl'd ill Ih . . . rormally ex p r~..ed trUlh. Thus mathrmatics

liJy~ ill a lort! uf Iruth". a" it we rt~. for th c:y are perceived Irulh .. nnl)' ..ollie time later (after a !uitable mterprefation is
rUIIIHI). N;jtur;II..scIt~ntirl c cugnition con"i~t.s of two planes:
till' gCIlc-ral plane: (quantitati ... e-formal. or malhc malil;a\),
and the particular plane (quatitative-~ubstanti"'t:, nr natu ra l.
srit."lltific). T hey are 1I0t synchronised III time. and that
exp lains the gap between the moment of generation of mathema tical .. tr\Jc t un:~, which can be uwd a~ the ba .. h of a naturalsClc ntifH.: th eory, and the mome nt of completi on of the la tte r.
at whk h interpreta tIOns of ma th emat ical structures are found.
Th ere b not hing mY'ilical or unint elligible about thi", of course,
a') ~ h o wn by the examp le of the Lobac he vsky geometry,
Let us now con~ider the second queslion, fo rmulated above,
about the causes of links between mathematical struc tures a nd
l1 atural-scientifu.: phenomena. On this plane, the effecl i... eness
of mathematics in natural science is explained by the fact that
th e proposition') of both mathematics and of natural \Cicnce
ca n be qu antitatively detailed. they can be ~ociated III one way
o r anoth er with the category of nu mber or magnitude: therefo re, if mathemat ical str uctures are interpreted as quantitative
co rrelations betw een magnitudes., wilh which ce rta in real properties a re assoc iated. they acquire referenlS and become
applic able to reality. The mechanism of translation of ~at~e
mat ic al stru ctu res inlo the language of natural-SCientific
experimental phenomena is. as we know. correspondence rules,
which indude ope ration definil ium.. Let uS Siress Ihal ~~ere are
twO pla nes again in the study of number - m.athemaucal and
natural -scientifIc. Math ematics takes a formal VIew of numbereither ill terms of the Zermelo axioms or in terms of the von
Ne umann axiom s. Natural 5cien~e takes a substantive view of
number - in terms of operational definition<;. These planes,
however, can b~ superimposed in the n~l~ral-scien tific interpretation of nllmbers as measures. magnitudes, measu re~enl s.
etc, It is therefore easy to see that Ihe secret of extraordmary
efT~diveness of mathematic!<. in natura l science lies in the
identifica tion of fo rmalism!<. an d magnitudes. in the units of
measurement. Figuratively speaking. these a re all nails fa~ten - .
ing logether mathematical str uctures and natural-scientific
ph eno mena . In th e case of th e Lobac h ev~ky geometry, these
nail <; were Ihe quantitat ively detailed propositions of th~ t.heory
of negali ... e c urv ature space metries which. ha\ing originated
on the abMract mathematical. substance-free plane. was lal~r
applied in the !:.pec ial and gene tal Iheorie-.; of rdativity and III
I I.'i

114

other theories as it was transposed onto the ontologicall

Y
specified natural-sciemiftc plane.
(b) Mat~ematical. study of an object is inseparable from
!he translation of a.glve~ problem from the intuitive-meaningful
ano ~he. formal~aXloma~lc language, which makes non-rigorous
quah~a!lve n?tlons strict and exact, Ihereby expanding the
~eurlsttc. hOrizons of research. The view Ihat mathematics is
hke a millstone. grinding only that which is poured in, is not
lOG profound. Mathematics is a creative science, and its creative
nature is manifested in natural science in the use of ideas
and constructs elaborated in mathematics-including the
following.
(1) Fomiomlal constructs, which literally act as archetypes of
future substantive meaningful natural-scientific constructs and
theories. Thus, spinor concepts were first developed by Cartan as
pu.rely mathematical ones. Later, however, Dirac found them
. . . . "fIeId-magniwdes of a new sort, whose simplest equations
tIIIIIMe one to a large extent to deduce the properties of the eleclion" (136,274). An abstract mathematical schema became a
~oncrele natural-scientific notion. Examples of this type are
mnumerable. Early in this century, James Jeans recommended
to exclude group theory from the curriculum of Princeton
~nive~ity ?n the assumption that it would never be applied
111 physIcs; 111 1961. Gell-Mann predicted, on the basis of this
th~ory, ~he existence of the then unknown particle omegamIllUS. discovered in 1964 by William Fowler and Nicolas Samias. ":he theory of complex variable functions worked out by
Augustll1 Cauchy and Georg Riemann was introduced in the
th.e0ry of electric circuits. Functional analysis developed by
Hllbe,:",. and matrix theory formulated by Cauchy and Charles
Hermite, .are successfully used in quantum mechanics. The
mathematical theory of canonic systems of differential equations
dev.e'?ped by Gibbs was an important factor in the advances in
statlstlc~1 mechanics. In all these and numerous similar problems
calculations, far from replacing ideas, stimulate them-in conot the Dirichlet formula. Let us consider this point

. . . - . dnail.
"adt~lics pr~uces onlologically unspecified structures;

nafur.al ~ reahses only those of these structures that have

meanm.g m rts own rlamework; a revision of the natural_scientific
"meanmglessness" of some mathematical structures entails, as
",'e Ih e penetration
.
of new ideas in natural science. For
example, when Di.rac. set hi~lf the goal of formulating the
equation (or a spmmng particle which would satisfy the re-

quirclllt'nt of rciativist invariclllce, he took an equation ...ilh

double solution as hi~ poinl of departure:
E :00 E " = mel
(1)
and

..

E <": -- E

..;;:I

(2)

From the physical standpoint, (2) is meaningless, ao.; meaningless as many mathematically meaningful rOOls of nth-degree
equations. However, Dirac did not reject the po5,.<;ibility (we
repeat, the physically meaningless possibility) of a negative
solution; the search for an interpretation of this solution led 10
the idea of existence of the positron, which was predicled in
1931 and discovered in 1932.
(2) Ideas of harmoniously elegant relations conformin, with
the principles of symmdry. Historically realised programmes
of malhematisation of natural science are connected with these
ideas. Among them are the ideas of number (Pythagoras), regular polyhedrons (Plato), perfect geometrical figures (Eudoxu"i,
Ptolemy), etc., expressing the idea of quantitative proportionaiity-ideas that made a noticeable impact on natural-scientific
research. H we accept that an inalienable concomitant of mathematisation is the awareness of the applicability of mathematics to natural scientific phenomena, a ..:-ommon feature of all
programmes of mathematisation of natural science will be
recognition of the fact that nature is the realisation of the most
elementary mathematically thinkable elements. and that it is
possible to find, by using purely mathematical constructs, the
concepts and the regular connections between them which provide a key to an understanding of the phenomena of nature.
For instance, it followed from Faraday's experimental works
that rot H = O. Maxwell added the missing term ~~
without any experimental substantiation whatever. What was
that step prompted by? It is hard to establish now the actual facts
of the maller, but Max Born's explanation appears convincing.
In his view. that step was prompted by Maxwell's desire for
achieving the mathematical ideal of perfection, harmony. and
beauty (119) that was not attained in electrodynamism as elaborated by Faraday. It was this striving for a mathematical ideal
that compelled Maxwell to make an arbitrary addition to the
equation.
(3) Formal viewpoints. which restrict, in a sufficient degree,
the infinite variety of possibilities.
A world without limitations on diversity would be entirely
chaotic (William Ross Ashby). In science. the instrument for
117

116

m.c1

in tfOO ucin g o rd.er in tl ~e w ~) rld ,.. th e llry. ('h enr i!..... pre\elll d
~ough, sche mall.c.andldeal .<.L.d .p Klure l )f th e. w(lrld . \ecin g it
m lerms of a flllllt:' set (If basIc prllll:lple ... . In thei r tu rn . the bas'
principles. the image~ and 11.' t' <,yslclll .ui c l"(lnnec lion<, belwe:~
them can. as a rO,le. 'be. arnHd al by tht.' prilK ipie \If look.ing

for the mathematl~.:ally SlIllpkst l'{)IKepls ilml thl' links he tween

them" (136.275). The eITectivent's.'.; of mallu.:' malic s lit:'... in th ....
case in the small number of heuristic ~dlelllaia acting a ~ models
of diverse phenomena. On the ('Int' hand, lilt!' number of mathe-

matically possible ei.:menlary types of correlations between

natural phenomena, and of dementary equations thaI are possible between them is limit ed: that b the ba<;is for the application
of mathematics as an instrument of inten~ive ~Iudy of the world,
On the other hand. the freedom of malhematic~ from any links
with a concrete ontologkai domain rermit~ the daboration of
substantively universal formalisms uniformly describing the
properties of objects of diverse nature; that is the basis for u~ing
mathematics as an instrument of _ex.tensive cognition of the
world.
(c) The language of mathematics. an ex.tremely cconvenient
instrument, optimises natural-scientiflC activity. Each theory is X
correlated with a mathematical language of its own . In classical
mechanics. that mathematical language is the la nguage of numbers and vectors; in relativistic mec ha nics, the la nguage of
four-dimensional vectors and te nsor<;; in quantu m mec hanics.
the language of operat ors, etc.
. The changes in the math e matical language used, e.g., in physIC~, are a good ind ication of the stages in th e growth of that
SCience. ~he programme of classica l mec han ic~. accepted in
pre-h,:, ent leth ce~ t ury physics,. was based on the assumption of
r~ducmg. all phySICS to mecham cs. Bu t th e a pparatus of ordinary
differential eq uati ons used in the latte r could not describe
ther":,a! , electric. and olher types of phenom ena. For this reason
Fo~ner sug~ested the more flex.ible apparatlls of partial derivative equa.tlons. E~perience showed. however, that apparatus
":'~ not universal either, as neither the special theory of relatiVity nor quantum mel:hanics could be formulated in terms of
!be diflerenti~l-analytical approach. At present. the mathematIcal f?undatlons of physics includes different components.
After It .was proved that it wa!-> impossible to reduce the content
of phYSICS to the cont~nt of mechanics (and correspondingly,
tc! reduc~ the mat~emallcal apparatus used in physics to ordinary
dlfJer~ntlal e,quatlons), that foundation absorbed, in addition to
the differential-analytical. the set-theoretical approach (in the

'"

spedal theory of relativity). as well as the differentiaJaeomet rical (in the general theory of relativity) and fhe funclionaJ
analytical (in quantum mechanics) approaches. Their prom. ..,
synthesis underlies the programme for the construction of the:
physics of the future.
The freedom of choosing mathematical apparatus for corresponding theories is limited by the pressure of empirical facts.
by the need to take into account the existence of the objective
logic of the given domain; in the final analysis, it is this objective
logic rather than the mathematical apparatus that determ ines
the positive content of the theory.
Natural science is an association of experimental sciences
connected with concrete fragments of reality; the choice of
certain type of mathematical apparatus must be preceded by a
careful analysis of its adequacy in the sense of agreement with
the content of experience reflecting the appropriate fragment
of reality. For the natural sc ientist, of the greatest importance
is the identifiability of the mathematical apparatus with certain
magnitudes- only in this case can it perform the . descriptiv~ ,
generalising. codifying, normative. and other funcllons, only III
this case can it assert something about objective reality.
A consistent mathematical apparatus may be unacceptable
as an instrument of describing reality in one theory, yet it may
prove quite acceptable in another. T~e general foun~ation for
this faci is the assumption that consistent mathematical structures can be given substantive interpretati~n. As for the sources
of fundamental applicability of mathem~lI.cal app~ratus to the
description of reality, they lie in the. ~mp~ncal ongl~ of ":,athematical structures. This last proposItion is substantiated III the
dialectical-materialist theory of reflection. which permits the
development of the most adequate epistemological theory of
science without defects or blind alley~- .
.
(d) Specifying the principles of obJecllv~ fixation of r~ults
in the form of the requirement that equations (formulat~ons.
laws) must be invariant in respect to groups of transf~rm.atlons.
mathematics acts as a kind of guarantor of the oblectlV~ness
of natural-scientific knowledge. This will have to b~ explamed.
The point is that the equati~ns of abstrac~ mathematls~d nat.ural
science do not directly descnbe the behaViour of maten~1 obje<:lS.
Being formulated with respect to idealised or ~onstructlve Re~l
ity, they describe the behaviour. of abst~act obJects-:-mad1e~
al points (in classical mechamcs). pomt evenlS (Ill the spec~al
theory of relativity>. elc.-which have the statUS of ~odels ViSa-vis their objective analogues. Quite clearly. the reqUirement of
119

invariance of equations describing the behaviour of idealisations

relative to groups of transformations cannot guarantce objec
tiveness in the sense of coincideOl.:e of nalUral-s.:ientif,c knowledge with reality. Their truth can only be guaranteed by practice
by empirical verification. by experiment. And yet we can
must regard the requirement of invariancc of the equations of a
natural-scientific theory relative to groups of transformations
as a guarantor of their objectiveness.
Tbe principle of invariance of mathematical formulations
of a natural-scientific theory relative to groups of transformations is, in the most precise sense, a characleristic of research
activity. Imposing quite concrete demands on the latter, it constitutes general rules for operating with abstcract objects and specifies algorithms of objective fixation of results. "Objectiveness" in
this case means anti-subjectiveness and universality of the mathematical formulations of theory, which art: of course an indICation of their regular, necessary, and therefore objective status.
The requirement of the invariance of the equations of a theory
relative to groups of transformations is implemented in the
fonowing imperatives; in the framework of any theory, results
must be independent from the specific features of their description in different frames of reference (rom the numerical
magniTudes of parameters; the form of propositions must be
independ~nt from the uniiS of measuremet:t; and equations must
be valid for all kinds of substitutions.
We see Ihat the r~inLiple of in variance of equations in respect
to groups of transformations accepted as the mathematical
basis of a natural-scientifIc theory specilles the principles of
ordering human experience, constituting objectiveness of the
episte~ol~gical rather than ontological plane. More conci elely,
th~ obJ ...~t1ven~ of the results of research activity in natural
~lence IS realised through the principles of relativity which
IIltroduce, as a general rule, the independence of laws of nature
f~om the m~e~ o! t.hei.r ~escription-from experimenlal conditions, t~e SCientlSt ~ lIldlVlduality, specifIC features of experimental deVICes, etc.; I.e. these prinCiples ass~rt the independence
of the magnitudes measured from the results of measurements.
~ ~ode ~f re~lisation of the principles of relativity is the
prmclple of IIl~anance. of the laws of a theory relative to g:-oups
of. transformations which are, as a minimum, "a mode of verifylOg th~ formal. cor.~ectness of formulating laws in Ihe forlll
?f ~ert.aln equations (48, 199). In classical mechanics, an
mdlcatlon of the correctness of laws or formulations is invariance relative to the Galileo transformations; in the special theory
9

and

of relativity, relative to the Lorentz transfor~at.ions; in the len~

era I theory of relativity, relative to the per~tsSJble (ransf... lIialionS of the Gaussian "~tems of coordlOates. an~ SO on.
Th~re are aho general grou~ of transformations valid for. all
natural-scientific theories. For instance, th~ laws of cI~lca~
and relativistic mechanics are invariant relative to the pOincare
groups or the Lorentz groups of tra.nsform~tion~. The laws of
d~ical and quantum electrodynamiCs ~re I~VaTlant 10 r~p~ct
to the Lorent:t transformations, the cahbratl~n tran ..formatlOn
of electromagnetic potenlials, and the coordlll.ate shift. Equations invariant relative to deftnite transformatIOn groups have
their own mathematical apparatus, geometry and reference
frames. Thus "Maxwell's equations are the simplest Lorent~
invariant fleld equations which can be postulated for an antlsymmetric tensor derived from a vector field' (136. 63.).
A general description of links between the formu~atJons of
a theory satisfying th~ demand of invariance and JefiOlte groups
of mathematical transformations is achieved in the Klein programme, which interprets groups of transformat~ons thro.ugh
movements of space \0 itself. Thus "Euclidian ~otlOns. m.otl~ns
in the Lobachevsky space, affine transformations, projective
transformations, elliptical motions, and conformal transformations form groups and define. accordingly, Euclidian geometry.
the Lobachevsky geometry, affine, projective ... , ellipticaL.,
and conformal geometry.
"The group of Euclidian motions is included in the group of
afllne and conformal transfonnations.... The group of affine transformations, in its turn, is a subgroup of the group of projective
transformations. while the groups of Lobachevsky space mocions
and elliptical motions are subgroups of the groups of projective
and conformal transformations; these links between groups of
transformations explain the possibility of interpreting the geometry of one space in another space" (85. 26).
Similarly, in natural science "a group of transformations in
respect to which the mathematical properties of the object
remain immutable or invariant, establishes a measure of community ... of knowledge-the more comprehensive the group of
transformations, the more general are the properties of
the object which it reHects" (62. 142). The evolution of natural science shows a tendency towards a uni'iersalisation of
transformation groups: a subsequent theory makes use of a more
comprehensive group of transformations than the previous
theory; the transformation group used in the previous theory
becomes a subgroup of the subsequent theory. The objectiveness
III

120

of this tendency engenders two propO'.lIions. Firstly lh'

of natural science is inseparab le from the progre\.s ~f e Phfogrc\\
"
h" I h
"f
.
mal ernal
IC~. w Ie 1 as to .saliS y the need of each new Iheor Y f or themost compTe h enslVl~' group of trans({)TmUlions ill re
"
speu 10
" h" I
~ h Ie . Its aws would be invariant. Sec.ondly. Ihe relation of
mduslon between. groups of transformations of mutually 1Iller~

c h an~ea ble t h ~ones,.as wel~ as Ihe facl.'hallhe laws of different

the.ones. despite thelT specific and unique types of invariance
satisfy 8 numb~r of general requirements of invariance relaliv;
to transformation groups, are of fundamental signifIcance fo
substantiating the principle of continuity in the advance o~
natural science - they are special forms of mutual connections
between theories (55. 198).
Apart from the formal function. that of being a mode of
verification of the "expressive" correctness of the formulations
of a natural scientific theory, the requirement of invanance of
~aws relative to groups of transformations also performs meanmgful an~ heuristic functions in natural science. orienting
natural scIence towards the search for new laws of motion
satisfying. so to speak. preplan ned requirements of invariance
relative to definite groups of transformations. Let us choose as
our illustration the Heisenberg nonlinear theory of elementary
particles, in which "the form of the fundamental equation (law)
was defined ... precisely on the basis of the requirement that it
be invar iant not onl y relative to spatial and Lorentz rotations
but also with respect to the specific transformations of PauliJ ursey and Salam-Toushek, which are cha racteristic precisely
of the modern theory of elementary particles" (48, 199).
T o sum up. The requirement of invarian ce of the formulation of a natural-scientific theory relative to groups of transformations ensures the reproducibility, uniformity, identity, and
repetition of the results, their independence from reference
systems; it guarantees the objectiveness of natural-scientifIc
knowledge, and performs the heuristic function of goal-setting.
Having discussed the reasons for the possibility and desira~il
ity of employing mathematics in natural science. let us pOI.nt
out some factors that impede or slow down the process of Its
mathematisation.
(a) Mathematisation (including quantification, metrisatiO n,
logification) is only possible in the presence of a feedba~k, of
a creative dialogue between mathematics and natural scIence.
Such a dialogue, however. is not always feasible. Indeed, the
formulations and propositions of mathematics are meaningless
on the natural-scientific plane- factually, experimentallY

rnt"aningless. Thl!' formulatHlns of mathematics. are endo,:,",cd

with a natural-\I.:ientiflc meaning through mterprelaUon,
through nrwrali(lnill ddmition1, In S(lme ca<>e'5, this.operation ~f
il'i(:rihing llutural-!>dentifH' mt.'aning to mathematical p~OpOS.I.
lion\ \uI.:Cl"l'(ls: d., e.g., the affllle connecllvity coeffICIent III
gravitation theory. In other .ca... ~s this goal proves imp~ibie
10 achieve; thus a natural <;I.:1t:ntl..,t cannot <>ee the meanmg or
Archimedes' aXIOm, irrational and transcendental .nu~be rs.
incommensurabilities, etc. In these cases, mathemallsatlOn or
natural sdenct.' j..; apparently imp(N)ible.
.
.
(b) Mathematisation is only possible where natural-sclenllf"lc
demand and mat he matical supply are in baial1(,:e. Natural SCientists are known to have said ironically that a mathematician can
do something. but of course not that which one wants him to
do at the given moment. The situation described by the most
offensive part of this dictum (the part beginning with "but")
is not offensive at all-it has deep roolS in the functiOning of
mathemati cs and natural science.
Three cases can be distinguished in the uses of mathematical
apparatus in natural science.
(1) The apparatus of mathematics is actually used in natural
sctence.
(2) The apparatus of mathematics can potentially be used
in natural science. There are two possibilities here. (a) There
exists a material possibility of potential application of mathematical apparatus in natural science. This case describes the
familiar facts of the temporal gap between the twO phases of
natural-sc ientifIc activity-constructing a formalism and interpreting it. (b) There exists a formal possibility of potential
application of mathematical apparatus in natural science. This
case describes the fact of the existence of mathematical Slrue ..
tures which are not actually used in natural science in view of
their incompatibility with the demands of "substantive logic", but
which. being self-consistent, can yet be introduced in naturalscientifIC theories.
(3) No mathematical apparatus of the kind required by
natural sc ience is available. The possibility of this case is determined. on the one hand. by the saturation of natural sc ience
with available mathematical structures which no longer satisfy
its demands, and on the other, by the actual absence of the
necessary mathematical apparatus which could satisfy the needs
of natural science. Why does a gap between the production
and consumption of mathematical structures by natural science
appear? The answer is simple. Mathematics is not an appendage
IlJ

122

of
natural
.

~l:i~n l'C ,1-, IS

'-

an autonomou s s(iCIlL'l' whidl doe<

III
. I
. h natural -\Cll'llllfll.:
"
n~ll
. general
h produce
. . r esu
Is wtl
meaning' Ih
1\ nOI t e.objective
or . mat h ('maIICs.
'
,' in
at
.
GCllcralulli
of Tt'sulh
mathematics IS not sU~Je(,.1 It) l'xlernal dl'lllalllh, induomg the
~emands of natural sclenl.:e. hut to the intlt.'T logic of change!.
III the problem domain. Mathemati c ... ('all only satisfy Ihe nc '0-

of JUdU.ral science in the solution of those questions which ~a~

!'e reahsed as mathemalical .qu:sti~ns. The ~xislence of this gap

IS thus ~ co.nseq~el~ce. of objectIve IIlI ~rrelalion of two indepen_

den~ SCientific dlsclpitnes. Natural SClt' II(C only applies mathe.
matlcs when it can project mathematical structures 01110 its Own
probl,em domain. translating the formulations of mathematics
mto Its own language, and vice versa.
At present, ~he demand for elaborating a new mathematical
apparatus has,lIlcreased in connection with the need to describe
~nd an~lyse dlSl'rete processe~. ~uch a need exists, for example,
10 phys,c~, where the cOll tradlctlon has to be eliminated between
the contmully of the process of distribution of heat and its
molec,ula~.~ineti~ ~ature: between the continuity of field and its
quanllsablillY: sllndar problems exist in gas dynamics and
other areas. \1at~en:'atics, however, has not yet elaborated any
~ethods for achlevmg these goals. Thus, the demand exists'
ItS po~ential satisfaction, connected with obtaining effective re~
sU,lts 1tl the course of the immanent progress of mathematics.
Will be the content of future mathematisation of natural science.
(c) Mathematisation is only possible when natural scientists
and mathematicians know what they want from each other.
The mathematisatio.n, of ~cien~e is an instrument of its prog
ress, as II makes cognitive Sltuallons explicit facilitates the stu
dy of the object, provides perfect methods f~r orderly arrangement of results,. promotes the growth of knowledge, and ensures the effectiveness of experimental research. There are
some exceptions fro~ this generally valid proposit ion.
W,e, shall ",01 ~onslde r here descriptive sciences founded on
emplflcal pnnclples; an appeal for their mathematisation
would be meaningless. Let us consider theoretical sciences in
which there as a demand for formalisation axiomatisation de~uctivisation. introduction of methods of I~athematical m~el.
hng, mathemati~al planning of experiments, mathematical hypotheses, etc.~m short, a demand for mathematisation. What
are the ~remi~es for effeclive implementation of such a programme In thiS case?
We kn~w that much of ~heoretical knowledge has not be~1I
mathemaused. How can thiS be explained? The reason lies, III
124

. Illl' ah~l"nl'C' of prc<:i ..c knowl~dge of what must ~

III J and in what way. Thus there have heen numerous
IIIIf ... 'lW,
'I .
rnallll:ma
' ' &: Iht: rnathcmalhatlon
.of'
.
bl y.
cal .. for
bIOlogy. I',lIqtlCSliona
apr .
u()(xl ground'S for these apreals; let U~ ask (lur elVl."S"
there arc, why
e
. ' ., U'h
does hiology need mathcmatls<.ItlOn.
'" y ....-U<"I\ ' I
however.
ioln
mathemati ..ed ill the ra\t'! Apart from rc rerenl't:!> 10
b
g,y, I Ir . diliun'i the lime that wa'S needed (1. ac'1u:'ie- the'-l.
111''Ilonr.:a'"
' "
. I a,ur,'y etc" It is aruued that hlology
wa ... not malhe
retlca
"the ab~nce
e of mathematical
apparatus dr.alisedmher.:au<,c,of
m
'f .
.. wering it .. sub')lantive .. pe~1 ICilY
Let us try to filld out what demands or blOlog~ must be sa~isfled by mathematics and why tht'y cannOI be satlstled by aval ..
lab Ie mathematics.
Let us turn to the original sources. Arguments conctrntng
historicity, "progress ism" , integrality as attributes of ~he biological substratum that are not amenable to mathemaucal Ireatment have always been plentiful. A great many bioiogi!-ots and
philosophers, beginning with Goethe. have expres:\~d th~m ...d\'t!s
on the subject. Leaving aside the view') (If avow~d irration ..
alisls like Henri Bergson, Wilhelm Dilthey and others, let us
evaluate the views of their antipodes. Thus Vladimir Vernad5ky
writes: "Goethe, a naturalist, a precise observer and exp~rimenl
er who rejected number and causal e,\planation of natural
phenomena ,.. is undoubtedly right in one particular n:speet:
~ausal, numerical links do not cover everything that is observed
m exact natural science", for "the analytkal device of dividing
phe~omena always leads to an incomplete ("onception. for in
reality 'nature' is an organised whole" (16, 272).
In our view, Ihe~e and similar views based on too strong and
too vague assum~mons cannot serve as a platform for clid,
que .of .mathem~tlcs and a negation of the possibility at mailICmatlsat lon of b iology . Let us demonstrate this point.
Th~ pro~lem of expressing in malhemalical language the fo ..
cal ~\Olog lcal concepts of development, evolution, progress.
elC ., ,IS a r~al pro?lem. Development is a unidirectional, asymmelnc, anls~troplc prtxess, whereas the laws of mathematics
are ~ymmel,n::. about the sign of equality. Does this fact entail
~hoe ImposslbilllY of the mathematisation of biologv? No, it
. es, ~ol. The pro~lem of reflecting development (motion)
In ngld concepts .IS ~ general epistemological problem. It
e~erges not only In biology but also in any science everyw .ere wht."re language, thinking, ralio are used. That is a
~~IV~rsal problem of human cognition-the problem of interplmg the \'onlIlHIOllS, of dividing the indivisible, of schematis12$

ing the unschematisable, of identifying the- ullidlnlih;:lhl~.

This is a fundamental but not an unslllvabk prohle-Ill. Proof
of this is found in dialectical materialist ep.lslen~(\.logy. whil'h
interprets the process of identifying the ~lIl1dt~I1\1flable as the
b";s of the reflective process: being adapllve 111 character, Ihls
twocess facilitates rather than impedes the adt~qllal'Y of l'ogni
live activity.
. . .
.
. . . . . of the dialectical matenalist II1terpretatl~lll of Ihe
thb process is fraught with the danger of the blind :ll~ey~
lW epistem ologieal irrationalism propounded b~ lleo-Kanll~IlS
(of the Baden school), by the followers of the philosophy of life,
existentialism. and other thinkers who.se general position is
summed up in Jaspers' proposition that identifying cognition
leads to error if it is directed at a developing whole (149). In
the light of cognitive achievements, the untenability of this POM
sition is obvious. It would be impossible to reject the principle
of identifying the unidentifiable; that would mean a rejection
of science itself, and that is. in the final analysis, precisely what
the Irrationalists advocate. But what is in this case the meaning
of the critique of mathematics which applies. in the most expli M
cit form. this principle? How can and must mathematics be modified in order to reflect development, elc.? Inasmuch as the question of the mathematisation of biology is considered in connection with this problem. it is obviously a serious one.
Careful evaluation of this problem reveals its methodolo M
gical status, so that its solution must also be methooologi<.:al.
We know from methodology thai mathematics is a very strong
apparatus of identiflcation, its foundation resting on the relation of identity central to mathematics. The reliance on this
relation mak~ mathematics tautological, to an extent as Frcge,
Poincare, Meyersohn and others pointed out. The~ stressed,
however, that the tautological nature of mathematics is overM
come because in the course of identification the nonidelltity of
that which is identified is clearly realised.
Thus recourse to regulators of epistemological rank makes
las
imposing the view of the result of idl!n M
as requiring further concretisation
th.
rather 1h~ as final and frozen. The solullO n
at
~.e boundaries of the dialectical approach to the
process of CognitlOl1, to the evaluation of its results. In this case,
die
of th.e i~adequacy of mathematics no longer arises.
mathematlsatton of natural science is often impeded by
~
of a clear reflective position as to what particular
e ements of natural science must be translated into the language
4

_'-I

t 26

.ell.

ved
t
Iation can be
of !l1athe11lalic~ and hoW t 1\ rans...
. (onnection wi*
. lar the serious rrobl ems arising In
la
In parllell ,'" .' r h:ology call 13rgely be eliminated by c Ihe ~nathemaI!Sallo.n. ~ ,I. r the" arguments. by tran->posing Ihe
rifylllg.lhe semantic . ~~IS 0 Ived from a vague. general plane
discussion o.r the topa:s InVO
Let us draw a parallel. On the
onto a ddlilite and.co~crele one. '. not free from illl.: <,n~I'iIt."n
o~e hand. mal~em~t~~,3J S:~el~~~;t;~ of studying contradlCllIHlS
CICS. 0." the ot er
'.
'cs The conclusion thus ... uggt,.~t'i
:~~e~r t~~t ~~~ree~~ean~~'e~I:~~clt~tr~dUcing Ihe dialectical c1emt.:nt
in set theory (14, 166).
..
be' _
The question arises, however: How IS thl~ ele~en.t t~
In
troduced? What must be done LO achi~ve thiS obJective. There
are no suggestions for this-for t~e Simple ~eason that. 111 our
view no such suggestions can be given on thiS approach. Meth~
ods f'or eliminating antinomies in set theory ~~ould be s?ught for
in mathematics itself- either on the traditional ba\l~ of the
familiar programmes for the foundati?l1s of mathe.malH.: or .~n
the non-traditional basis of constructlOg paraconslst~nt 10gK ....
In any case, appeals.to dialectic~ are i."appropnate ht:.r~.
Dialectics does not prOVide concrete instructions for the solulI~n
of intrascientific problems; it acts as a heurisllc-methodologlc~
al , normative , worldview-basis for special scientific .research.
.
To go back to biology: the mathematisation of thiS SCience
is hindered by vague talk about the allegedly irrational. mathematically inexpressible nature of its reality. The fact thai
biology deals with a special kind of reality is obvious. Thus the
behaviour of non-equilibrium, non -stationary, self-organising
open systems-the kind of systems to which biological objeclS
belong-differs from the behaviour of mechanical . . - .
However, the problem does not lie in the fact thaI biol.al
systems are characterised by integrality, development, cle. The:
problem lies in the existence of extremely vaaue ideas of integrality, development, etc., in general and in the absence of
special concepdons of integrality. developmenl. etc . of a concrete (biological) level. In this connection. wide prospects are
open.ed ~p, we believe. by synergetics, which provides a properly ~clenl1fic model of d~velopment. The heuristics of the synergellc approach comprises such natural-scientific concepts as
m~, energy, stru~ture., etc . which permit the modelling of certam asp~cts of bIOlogical development in terms of increased
compleXity of structure, growing levels of organisation and
other feat~res resulting from mass-energy exchange proc'esses.
The queSllon of mathematical servicing becomes much clear.
h

127

I..'r here. The tasks of malhemalil..'s an' in thi" ca,I.' 'pl'l.:ifll'J a

Ihe elaboration of an arpar~1Us fl.lr l'xrrl.~ill~ dn'~loflrnl'llI ;I~

a disaete process of successive rl'placl'llIl'nl 0,' q~laILlali\ll' \tatl'\

resulting from leaps from one lev!.'1 (If llrgiJllisallnn 10 Jnolhl'r
lIhIheaLatks possesses suc~ an appar,IIII.\ 11i1~nl'I ~, Ihl' theory
'!'CI!8Ibophes. ~~t~~matl~aIIOI1 Ihll\ pnWl'\ Il'aSlhll". Bl'ilrlng
1n mind the posslbllllles 01 lhe sy.\lems apprnal' h and (,f the
mathematical apparatlls conceptu[lIly connected with il . Ihe
same can be said of the concept of integrality.
Thus mathemalisati('J1 is only pos.\ible when natural scienl_
iSIs and mathematicians know prel..isely what they want of One
another.
In many instances mathematics knows exactly what it can
and wants to give to natural science. Frequently, however,
there is no such knowledge - Illostly because mathematics is
reactive to the substantive needs of theories mathematised.
Must a mathematician be also a specialist in natural science,
to achieve its mathematisation? As often as not, there is no such
need. For example, at all levels of the organisation of maner,
regardless of the morphological or structural specificity of the
objects, their kinetics is universal; that is why it can be model ~
led without much hindrance; the mathematician requires no
special knowledge here. In other cases. however. a math e mat
ician engaged in mathematising a nalUral sdentiflC theory does
need special training. It is pointed out for instance, that one
of the causes of lack of progress in the mathematisation of
chemistry is the fact that only five per cent of mafhematicians
are conversant with the problems in this field. It tollows that,
for the m?~elling of natural-scientific reality to be successful,
mathemat~clans m~st study this reality on the meaningful level.
To achieve their effective mathematisation. the substantive
features of natural-scientific theories are taken account of in
the framework of the so-called substantive axioms. Por insta nce,

devoid of concreteness, to the mathe

does not permit the choice between dis
of thinking. This choice, however.
approach. For example, the
II preferable in the mathematisaquires the
. . . . the !"athematisation of genetics relive axioms, which~' AU thiS must find support in substanttantively neutral mathe:!t~ a kind of m~iators between sub
ai-scientific theories. The I~S and substantively oriented nalur
. I systems rna Y
be effectively interpreted umqueness
by th h of b'10 Ioglca
e t eory of categories, capable
t18

of ()pcr<.II1I1~ wllh Ihe local time of the ~y"lcm~ Involved. of funcwrY)/lIpi.lfl \OI1<; of Iolrul:lures, et(,; . provided individ uality. muwhdllY. elL. Me !>pt:clflcd b.y suitable substantive axioms. There
is a 'potclllli.ll. hc~e f(~r bUilding bridg~ between biology tind
phYSIC." beanng III .n1lJJd t~al. progress I~ the lalter, a~c:ording
10 John Whcelcr, will cormst In the tran.,111011 fr()m rdal;vity w
mutability (192. 242) .
.
It may thm very wdl be that new axioms rather than a new
mathematit:s tire necdcd for the mathematisation of many a ...
yet non-mathematised theories.

The adoption of empirical grounding as the central crit.rion of scientijicity, which covers fundamentaJ ot.ervaWIitJ
and experimental jUC:itiflability.
The requirement of fundamental observabiJiry was implicitly introduced by Ein stein in his critical evaluation of the nature of such basic physical concepts and principles as absolute
rest, remote action. etc., which were show n to be pure fictions.
We owe explicit introduction of this principle to Werner Heisenberg, who formulated the rule of exclusion from quantum
mec hanics of the classical conceplS of orbit. trajectory. etc.,
which have no empirical analogues there. In the course of time
this requirement assumed the status of the methodological principle that concepts which refer (0 distinctions beyond possible
exper ience have no physical meaning and ought to be eliminated (120).
The question now is. what is the real content of this principle?
If we were to verify theories on the basis or this principle.
"we would have to reject all molecular. atomic and electronic
theories, ... the theory of relativity, the Quantum theory; .....
fact, almost the entire new physics would be gone, as til _ .
great part of the old physics" (165. 168).
Does the principle of observablhty lD1~le'!lenl an unlena~le
e mpir icist idea l? Let us stress thaI the prmcJple. of ~bservabll
ity is polysemantic. It can. ~e ~iven .the followl~g mterpretations: (I) Direct observablhty, Imply~ng t~e f1~dmg of o'p~ra
tional criteria and procedures for th~.ldentJficatlOn (defi~I."o~)
of t he empirical meaning of .proposltlOns. (2) ObservablillY 111
principle, the content of wh.lc:h. can be red~c.e~ to the sea~ch
for the laws of exclusion re)ect1l1g the POSSibility of observ~
an Object (e.g . of any conlradictory object). A defect 01 ....
demand is, perhaps. the fact that .we .do ~ot ~noW' aU die ,.~
of exclusion that can restrict SClen!I~C mqulrY .(3~ Expenmental verifiability. reduc~ble 10 emptrlcaJ substantiation of hypothetico-deductive theones.
'I {) 1470

IlQ

The narrow empiricist: pllY"h:ali\'.llil'al of 'l.'il'lItllkity ral"\.'\

,he- fir!>! interpretation 01 obsen,ablllly 10 an i.Ib\olull.'~ On the

.,.,.<

that principle require,

of
.
. 1I1a\'lInal \Ub\lanllilllon
,
the IIlgredienls of a natural-\\..'lelll1fll.." 11\t~ory .hy eXpl'flllll'ntal
data. Any other interpretation - as, co.g., the lueral 1I1Il'rprcla.
lion. "'he elimination of all Ilon-ohst.'rvabh." from theory" ~.
pO~11

."ide

leads to nonsense (I t 9. 18).

Clarification of the nature of Ihe prinl..'iple of observability
as a methodological imperative must be guided by two basic
assumptions: (I) "the decision as to whether a given p~lysical
magnilUde is in principle observable ... ,can never be ~rnved at
a priori but always from Ihe standpoint of a definite theory
only" (178, 201); (2) as opposed to the operationalist viewpoint, there is no universal criterion. the same for all theories,
that might determine whether a proposition has, or has not, an
empirical meaning.
Not aU ingredients of a theory must answer the demand of
observability. Besides, what is observable in one theory may be
unobservable in another. In quantum mechanics, for instance,
there are such unobservable entities as wave function, Hilbertian phase spaces, etc., which have no explicit operational
meaning. In its most precise sense, the principle of observabil ity "refers to concepts which had operalional meaning (even
if it were only an indirect meaning) in an old conceptual system
but lose it in the new one" (5, 101). Of this nature are many
classical concepts which were given a more precise formulation
in the course of time. Thus in experimenting with atomic phenomena, quantum physicists continue 10 use classical concepts,
but their application is limited by the ullcertainty relation.
The demand of experimental justifiability, which means potential experimental verifiability (or falsifiabi lity) of systems of
natural-scientific knowledge, acts as an empirical criterion of
!heir scientificity. Criteria of scientificily other than the empirIcal are also used in natural sciences, in particular logical and
which are not, however the primary ones.
".
whose objective is adequate ren~ction of
.
.
criter.i. of scientificity are Iohe
scionee
ww"'bw:h dlr~tly yenfy the perfection of natu.. I
from
thIS pomt of view. The fact that the
empIric.
. 'fI'
r
bst
sclenu city are of fundamental significance
.or~ li:~t:~mgeennalural science points 10 the exislence of
the B of a the:
t~eh ~efiniteness of the correlation between
t:
ry, Wit lis correspond'
8
d h
,
of scienliflcity.ln regard of Ih
I~g r' an t e concep
ese correlatIons, a theory is believed
IlO

10 be un,){'icntlfu: or epistemologically undesirable II (.) ia

is ~nnflrrned by the entire universe of the factually siy.. fell
omniscience syndrom~); that is only altainahle if the rheocy In
question cOlllaim. ab\olute truth (which i'i impossible. for ob.
vious rea\ons). or if II is potentially irrefutable fin this case
we have an arbilrary fantastic nalural-phil<)<>ophical COn\1Tuct):
(b) it has no links with empirical facts and cannot in principle
be confirmed; in this case we have an artificial a~umption (e.g .
the LOrenll. - FiLGGerald assumption); (c) it explams but dot"S
not predict, being a descriplion a lergo. a semantically trrvial
construct (as e.g. Driesch's concept of entelechy): ((1) ir predicts bUI does not explain existing laws (we then deal wirh
surmise or conjecture); (e) it both explains and predicts. but
Ihe predictions are not borne out by the reality.
The proposition thai, if a theory (T) has ob"ervable conse.
quences (0), the verification of T is reducible to the <;;earch for
0, requires some explanation. The point is that substantiation
of the Iruth of T is not a narrow empirical procedure for finding 0 only. Confirmation of T taking into account the rule" of
derivation in classical logic does nO( yet permit to derive the
truth of T from the truth of (T--O) O. At the same time confirmation of T by the actually discovered 0 is an element of
the substantiation of its truth. As for the refutati on of T, which
follows deductively. according to the rule of modus tollens. from
the truth of the conjunction (T--O) -0. it is also insufficient
for final conclusion about its falsiry. although it is an element
in the substantiation of ils falsity. The assumption that the modus
tollens is radical is too strong, as it does not take into account
many essential realities of science imposing limitations on automatic use of this logical rule in scientific practice.
To clarify our idea. let us stress the fact that the interconnection bel ween B. and BI.' is far from single-valued, and that
the laller term is o'nl y ultimately (he decisive and flnal instance
in the subslanliation and verification of the former one. The
realisation that there are discrepancies between B,. and B< does
not result in immediate discarding of B,: it assumes cI~e study
of the composition of 8. to elucidate the following questions:
(I) How does B . describe, explain and predict phenomena in
8? (2) What resources in B,. are used to achie'r'f' this? (3)
H'~w does B,. agree with the existing system of k.nowledge.
with the picture of Ihe world, and (he general culturar
background?
What types of contra~iclions are ~rmissible in natur.a~
scientiflc theories. and whIch of them uitlmarely lead to a crt'."
1.\1

ill Ihest" Iheorie~'! Only logit:al l'olliradidioll~ art.' impermiv'Iible.

COlllradiclions belwet'll lhe facts of a (heory uri' pl'rmi\''iiblc,
bur these are smoothly eliminated It\ sumt' ":[I'i('\ while in others
they lead to a critical silualion which elllaih a sl'il"lllifll': revo.
lution. In what sense and why are fal.'lual ('onlradiclions in

Iheory permis...<;ible'!
A theory is an integral system of mutually cOllnecled pro
positions which, taken in their unity. are correlated with reality,
describing and explaining il. These theoretical propositions
taken in their totality are Ihe instruments of carrying oul and
explaining experiments. of identifying and fOfming scieminc
faels. and of conceplualising the empirical basis assimilated by
the theory. When contradictions between the facts of a theory
are revealed, it is impossible to say which particular theoretical \
proposition leads to this contradiction; we must analyse the
interrelation between theory and the empirical facts as a whole.
The set of theoretical assumptions is in such cases often extended to include further assumptions and modifications facilitating the elimination of the contradictions of the facts of the
theory. This latter move is justified by the DUhem-Quine
principle; from the integrality and systematic cohesion of theoretical scientific reality, Quine concluded that "any statement )
can be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough
adjustments elsewhere in the system" (179, 43).
Do we know which component of theory leads 10 contradiction between theory and empirical facts? The greater the number of auxiliary assumptions m the theory, the more difficult il
is 10 answer Ihis Question. If the structure of a proposition to
be . . erified is presented in the form
(Hi l i n ),
where H is a hypothesis; and J, a set of assumptions, the formula
(H.J ... J,,)--+OJ -O-(--Hv - i 1v ... V-in)
shows that both H and any of the J's can lead to a contradiction
~1I!,.n theory and experiment, and it is impossible to say
'tIIIiIII _ the J's hu thas effect.
f ~ admitted possibility of contradictions between the facts
oat eory ~ests on the following. (I) Facts cannot correspond
to .theory with absolute precision; theory operates with idealisat~s. con~eptual.and logieo-mathematical structures where~. (~~g;;eoer~~l~~ t~~~~y is non-id~al and non-malhematicfact contradicting it y whic~rves the. fI~ht to conceptualise the
,
may ellmmate the contradictions.
1.12

"J

f\

0) AllnwaJll"C II1I1\t be made for erf{)rs in computation. mg

\urelllcJlt and l"iikulation at the empirical level.
The fm.t pr(Jpo"titi()n i<; self -obvious. The !,;",ntent of the Sf'cond
propmoitinn may be explained by the following example. One
and the !>ame faci the absence of deviation to the we-sl of a
body falling from !tume height-- -j.. difTert>ntly conceptualised
within the geocentric and heliocentric framt>works. Thus ad
herent ~ of geocentri<:.m regard this fact as proving the 1mmob1lity of the Earth, since it~ assumed motion would produce. in
their view, acceleration~ unconnected with tht! inlt'ra~tion of
bodies. which would determine the deviation efTec!. To refule
Ptolemys argument, Copernicus introduced the concepl of
"natural motion" which does not interfere with the narural order of processes on the Eanh: interpreting the absence of deviation to the west of bodies falling from a height from thisMandpoint, he stated that this fact does not contradict heliocentrism.
Analysis of the third proposition is probably of the greatest
interest in the discussion of the permissible limits of error in experiments intended to prove or disprove a theory. In some ca..es.
the discrepancy between theoretical conclusions and experimental data is regarded as an entirely ordinary and negligible
event, whereas in others it is seen as an extraordinarily important event demonstrating the untenability of the theory in Queslion.
Already in the 17th century. Ne ..... ton suggested that the Eanh
is a spheroid. but he failed to prove his hypothesis. It was only
done in the 18th century by Alexis Clairaut. who constructed
the theory of the Earths non-uniformity. When empirical calculations were made. it was found that they did not accord
with theoretical conclusions. This is what Clairaut wrOle of Ihis
fact: "As the measurements ... were executed with great exactness and considerable attention. it appears at first sight Ihat the ..e
measurements must be preferred to those of my theory; however. if one pays attention to the errors ine .... itable in the actual
measurements. and 10 the limits of these errors. one will see that.
without blaming these measurements. one can bring them closer to my theory. and find a common result (129, 299). Thus
Clairaut assumed that he could ignore the discrepancies that
came to light. attributing them to the errors (insignificant. in
his view) made during measurements.
And here is an example of apparently acceptable limits of
such errors being exceeded. which caused a revision of the theory in question. Christopher Hansteen calculated the magnitude
of the magnelic fIeld assuming the existt'nce of Iwo infinitely
I.U

.. rnall rnaglle" differing in po\,lioll and ... tfl'tlgth. Gall'" COil].

pared fhe d~la deduced fr~lm .Ihal Illl't~ry willi C'."penmenlal one ... ;

Ihe comparison ,howed slglllfll.:ant d'\l'fl' r':lIl(lC' hetwC'en Iheo.

ry and observation. great enough fur Gall" 10 di\card Han.,.
lecn\ hypothesis.
Thus we see that in some cast' .. it j, bclil'vcd pov.iblc 10 reo
lain a theory by a kind of remis.,ion of the fact that cmplrical
data contradict it: in olher ... , Ihb fael i... regarded as suffICient
for falsifying the theory.
What is behind all this'! Why is a discrepancy between fact

and theory seen as an error at the empirical level in one case,

and in another. as an indication of the imperfection of theory?
Essentially. it all comes 10 Ihis problem: what b the measure,
degree and interval of permissible experimental error, and
when is it impermissible to exceed it?
It is important to stress that there is no general solution of
this problem. It can only be eliminated through contextual analysis of actual situations. The point is that the interval of permissible error cannot be determined a priori. The context in
which a certain error is regarded as negligible must always be
specified.
For example, the hypothesis is worked out in the framework
of a project for a unified field theory that there is a certain interaction uniting the electromagnetic and weak interactions.
One of the consequences of the hypothesis asserts that, if the
electro-weak unified interaction is real, there must be a difference in the force of interaclion between protons and electrons
~ith diff.erent spin orientations. This hYPOlhesis was confirmed
111 experiments at the Stanford accelerator; indeed, deviation in
eleclr.ons with counter-clockwise polarisation is 1/ lui greater
than 111 electrons with clockwise polarisation. That means that
electro-.weak .interaction actually exists.
.
Leavmg aside problems connected with the evaluation of the
polynomial tendency of the experiment, lei LIS ask this question:
what. does confirmation based on a 1/ III,nnn effeci mean? In
~~ cla::jcal mechanics, such an effect would have been
valID. be ...... .seen as an error only. It follows that an interil;ec'6ed of the sensitivity of theory to the smallness
f
o a concrete effect In this
.
.
permitted the inter' t '
~asc, It was thiS senSitivity which
1f
pr~.atlon 0 the effect as confirlnation while
d
d
un er I erent condlllons this efT t
Id h
'
_ error. Each natural-scientifi ec WOu
ave been regarded
val of smallneS5. What ha
c Ih~or.y Ih~s .has its own inlerThe theory is then ~ubjec~Pdens If Its limits. are exceeded?
e to an all round mterdiscipJinary

----.-

1.34

l').il11lInall()Jl IIldall1corelintl (analysts of inn~r consistency),

1Il1I'rthcor{-tical (e~tahli ... hn1ent I)f coherent perfedion). philo~(Jphll.:al (the \Iudy of epl .. tclllolugJl'al a')Sumpliolls). and e .....
pirical (invl~llgalton of tht:' degree of conflrmiition uf the pre
did ion .. ) . Only afkr ~ul'h an all round cxaminat on i$ the vC'rdid prolloullI.:cd.
It i\ therefore tnt.:orrcl'1 10 Mate that a theory IS reJected only
bccau\e there are empirici11 dCJui contri1dicting II. The correct
po.. ilion i.. a., follnwo;; the exl.. tence of empIrical daHi cuntraoil..:ting a theory i.. merely a .. ignal for an aJlround rationCJI examination of the theory, whi<:h may result In retaining II without
any change .. , in it .. partial revi\ion, or rejeltion. One of these
cases wa .. illustrated by the Clairaut epis~je, another, by the
Gauss eX<lInpJe.
Partial revi::;ion of a theory, of which the nucleu_,) is retained,
is illustrated by Johannes Kepler's reform in the framework of
the clas... ical model of heliocentrism. Originally a confirmed
adherent of the Copernican theory of Circular motion of the
planets, Kepler once "noticed that one planee .. (\l3rs. - V.I.)
wa.s eight minutes of arc off. and he decided this was too big for
Tycho Brahe to have made an error. and that this was not Ihe
right answer" (138. 16), The awareness Ihal Tycho Brahe -an
astronomer who obtained the most exact results. a\ a rulecould not have made such a considerable mistake compelled
Kepler to modify the elements of ..::ircular trajectorie.. used 111
the theory. introducing elliptical orbits..... hich eliminated at
once the di'icrepancy between theory and faL"t~.
To complete our analysis of the problem of di ....:repancy
between B,. and B, . let us stress that radical \erificalion or falsification of theory by experience is impossible. This ~tems from
the nature of actiVity al the empirical level, whi..:h tends. in the
framework of the procedures of conlirmarion and refuration,
toward'i polynomial ism. A general evaluation of the nature of
this activity yields Ihe following conclusions.
Experiment can confirm different theories complementing
one another (cf. the simultaneous experimental confirmation
of the corpuscular and wave theories of light).
Experiment cannot form a basis for preferences as far as
Ihe truth of one theory as against another, competing theory
is concerned (cf. the competition between the ether theory
with the Lorenll.- Fitz.Gerald modifications to compensare for
its defecb, and the special theory of relathit)').
Experiment can confirm a false theory, which folh.)","s from
Ihe specific properties of logical derivation: according to the

(
)

les of implication, falsity cannot follow from truth but truth

~~/I follow from falsity. Thus Newton> false theory of sound
agreed with reality as far as _.he .magl1llUde ~~ ~ollnd vclO('ily
was concerned. and that made It dIfficult to cntlclse Ihal theory,
Results of experimental activity afe rationalised and conceptualised, which makes an experinlt'1Itlim crucis impoSSible.
Theory cannot be reduced to observation propositions; empir_
ically verifiable propositions derived from th eory do not embody

the whole of its content; they are not absolute ly strict and re li.
able. There are no pure observation records, no immutable and
hard empirical basis of knowledge which classical empiricists
dreamed of and believed possible.
Experiment is not guaranteed against error, the more so that
verification of many theories, such as the general theory of re~
lativity, requires extremely precise measuring techniques.
There is a difficulty, called the confirmation paradox, which
complicates the task of optimising the procedure of confirmation. The conlirmation paradox arises if we assume that (a) the
propositions (hypotheses. laws) of a theory are confirmed by
the entire universe of data that do not contradict them; (b) the
data may confirm any logically equivalent propositions (hypo~
theses, laws). The paradox consists in that the facts confirming
a certain proposition include, among others. facts which the
proposition in question does nol mention explicitly. The para~
dox arises in view of the following considerations. If H is a hypothesis of the type

v (x)

(P(x)-Q(x

(I)

then, since (I) is logically equiva lent to

v (x)

(-Q(x) _ _ P(x
(2),
H is confirmed both by (I) and by (2). Thus the universal pro~

position "All men are mortal" is confirmed by the proposition

"x is a mortal man" and the proposition "y is an immortal non~
man".
Karl H~"."pel called the paradox of confirm ability of univer~
sal prOSX-ltlon~ by any facts unconnected with them a pseudo~
~ -&\lm, that. since universal propositions of the type
t.r eulude all objects having the property P but de~
v . I the.propu ty Q (143), the set of objects regarded as po~
~~~~na~~~~fI;r~mO!h~niversal I?rop~itions must be restricted.
PdQ
I'
~t of objects Irrelevant for links between
ft a~
re:'u ts 10 the Imp?SSibility, properly speaking of "conrmmg uOIversal propositions b Y t

mentioned in the propositio Ih s ate1ments about objects not

ns emse ves" (112, 77).

::!;

136

Tile t: 1)i1hrnliltlnll paradox, an .. t!S in connection wich the 10-gll'i~t apprnadl to the prch.. edure:" of c(mtirmarion. ~t is .-II,.
illtl'rpreted a'i " an argument whi<.:h can, if only parllally. fill tile
gap hetween the IIniver'> ality n~ th~ verified hyputhesis and rhe
limitation .. of thl' fal"l 'i conflrmmg It. However, a purely JogJ~al
expansion of the sct of f<1ct'i involved in (he:" prOl.:l"dure of con
[Jrl1lat ion cOil t rad it:t'i Ih e aU ual 51: ientiflc process" (ibid.). Thert"
is a real po...... ibilily of overcoming the blind alleys of the logicist
approach to the study of confirmation; It li~s in the prat:tical
approach worked out in dialectical materialism. to tht: aniJly .. is )
of this procedure. However, the practical approach - ." funda
mental method of solving the problem-proves to be too general to be an effective instrument of confirmation of concrete in.
dividual hypotheses as they occur; however. this does not cancel the task of optimising the procedure of confirmation of uni~
versal propositions in terms of a limited ensemble of empirical
data.
Experiment is not an instrument of meaningful evaluation
of the heuristic potential of theories; this follows from the fundamental experimental verifiability of both the original and
bold theories stimulating progress in science and the ineffectual ad hoc constructs slowing down scientific development.
There exists a general epistemological problem of justifying
induclion. of substanlialing the necessary character of inductive
conclusions having a non-demonstrable. factual status. The familiar programmes for substantiating induction-deductive
(John Stuart Mill. John Keynes), pragmatist (Charles Pierce.
Hans Reichenbach), inductive analytical (Rudolf Carnap,
Kaarlo Hintikka) . conventionalist (Henri Poincare. Edouard
Le Roy), and linguistic (Alfred Ayer)-are none of them fully
adequate. Rationalists. and critical rationalists in particular,
therefore felt justified in describing experience as an inade~
quatl! inst rum ent of attaining the truth. and knowledge obtained with the help of this instrument as unobligatory. unreliable,
"doxophic" and thus unscientific; true science was limited to
demonstrative logico~malhematical knowledge.
The rationalistic critique of experience and induction as
"untenable" instrumenTs of cognition is iTself untenable. First,
it relies on an inadequate conception of absolute metaphysical
truths, which cannot (unless of course we postulate their su
pernatural origin) be arrived at either through experien<"e or
by applying any other cognitive instruments available to man.
Second. it permits the unacceptable antidialectical interpretation of deductive knowledge as absolutely certain. As we have
1]7

J lUI ab(l\ e, fh e Ad1. 11..:,,' hel;'! or deduL'liuli a \ il Ill ('thod

pOinte (
'
b "
(,( ~t'neralin n of k~l owJed gt' ,.., " non - o VI(lll\; aXI~)Il1 ~ and Other
'\lpaque" p r opOSltl on <;, r ules and law::; ~..:n,'pl (.'d ~lIhoUI proof .

fhe a xiom ... of c hoice. the theoreTll') 01 pure t'xl\1e ll ce, the rule
of exduded middle. elc.
E:-.perimenlal. induclive knowledge i.., relati\'t!" hut it s rela.
li\'il\' is not 13111amounl to il ~ non-objectivene<; .... Relativit y is
a n iildication of the hislOricai condilioning. a charal'(crislic of
the limib of approximation of Ihe truth by knowledge. The ra tionalist ru.sertion of the epistemological unlenabilil y of induc_
tion. of experimental knowledge. is therefore ba::;icall y wrong.
Strictly speaking. indu clion is just as reliable a method as any
other. and knowledge obtained by induction is just as effective
as knowledge obtained by any other method used in
"cience. This view is substantiated in the programme of practical and mediated justification of induction developed in dialec(ical materialism. There are cerlain problems here as well.
Practice only guarantees the necessity of inductive conclusions
as a tendency. which determine.s the probabilistic status of concrete inductive conclusions. distinguishing them from clearly
apodictic. demonstratively obtained conclusions.
In .. iew of this, the polynomial tendency inherent in experience does not permit any single-valued substantiation of Ihe
truth of theories in terms of their empirically confirmable consequence!:.. The same can be said about the proce~ure o~ ~ubs
tanliation of the falsity of theories in terms of their emplrtcally
rejected consequences.
.
,
.
A':o. we have pointed out above. the IllusIOn of the eXistence
of an ex"erinuntum crucis providing ;;absolute" c ounterexamples of. theory is al present dispelled. Any practising
scient. . with his obsessive faith in the correctness of the theory
he....-ks on. interprets suc h counter-examples either as fluctuation or as stimuli for a partial revision of the theory intended
to improve it. Generally speaking, falsification cannot be an
instrument of unequivocal and radical rejec ti on of theories for
the foUowinc reasons.
I!, .,iew 01 the systemic nature of knowledge. refutation of
derived h)'pOthE! :5 is merely evidence of the falsity of cerlain
elements ~ ~ theory. and not of its falsity as a whole.
ContradtCtlOils between facts and theories can be eliminated by compensatory ad. hoc modifications.
Theo~i!S can ful~y ~etain their fundamental laws even if the
untenablhty of theIr mterpret~tive and explanatory apparatus
becomes apparent-by bemg mcluded in new and more ade1.18

lbe:

quale th eories. For l'Il1lflrmation let US refer 10 ve:scanel'

r light wh ic h cat egorically ill~l1ted on the In".nlanru
~~3~acler ~f thl" propagatlull uf h~hl. When Olaus Roemer cal..
culated Ihat the veloc it y uf light propagatIOn 15 fInite. Ihe general il1lpre ... ~i o n wa ~ thaI D""S(: a rtlos' theory collapsed at a stroke.
However, the downfall (If thl 'i Iheory did not affect the Jaws of
light refraction Ihey rcmalOed IOtact a\ part of elementary
opt ,a .
. .
.
od
A theory is rejeded when II 1\ e!:.tabllshed that (a) n? m . ification of the theory bring... harmony mto Its relatlon\hl,P
with empirical facts; (b) modifications of the theor~ ar~ artificial in character, entailing unjustifiable complexity, 10 t.he
theory; (c) there is a new theory successfully competlOg With

theoldooe.

The procedure of fal sification is thus not a!:. radical as cnllcal

rationalists would have it.
Experience does not unequiv oc ally guarantee the truth of a
theory - for the following reasons.
Identical B are compatible with different B . Extremely
' .
characteristic in this sense is the situation in cosmology, With
its proliferation of theories alternative ~o Fridma~'s theory of
an expanding universe. although there IS no pressmg need for
these alternative theories, as Fridman's theory adeq uat ely describes empirical data, makes exper.iment.ally c o nfirm ~ ~redi c:
tions, etc. The reason for the prohferatl on of theones III thiS
particular case is not clear. but the ~ature ?f the many-valued
correlation between B~ and Be' mamfested m the one-la-many
principle of their relations~ip. is obvious- it li,es in the hypothetico-deductive schema Itself or the unfoldmg of naturalscientific knowledge at the theoretical stage ?f its ~xiste.nce. We
can take it as proved that modern natural sCience IS bu~1t on an
alternat;ve-complementary {pluralistic> basis. illustratIOns can
be dra~n from biology (tychogenesis vs nomogenesis), geology (fixism vs mobilism), or the g~nera.ltheorY?f r~lativity, (the
metrical theory vs the theory of direct Illterpartlcle mteractlOn).
In many cases experimental \'eriftcation of natural-scientific knowledge is difficult or impossible, as in palaeontology.
petrology, soil !:.cience, climatology. s~is mology , astronomy,
cosmology, etc. For fu~damelltal or speCial r~3sons. many propositions of natural 'Science cannot be expenmenta.lly substa~
tiated. For example, Ihe hypothesis that the gene IS a protem
molecule, had no experimental foundation at one time and was
only confirmed theoretically, being in agreement with the gen-

l.lQ

)(

eral cultural ~ackground. T he Avogad:o h YPo lh esis, accept _

ed in science. IS ~xpenmenlally n o n -ver~rl ah l c ; II, was accept ed
(or reasons of " mner agree ln t.'1l1 th at IS estab lished belwee

,,"arious experime nlal data" ( 108. 58), such as th e laws o~

gases or the Da lton t.h ~ory. ~II ~ h ese fa~ l o r~ n~ a k e it neces_
sary to use no n-em p Irical c rllena of sCle nll flclty in natural
science. (f it is a Question of an "absolu te ly new" th eory. it m Ust
sat isfy the dema nd of cohe rence, th at is. of compatib ilit y with

a ~r~ctically ~erified system ~f acc um ulated humar:- kn owledge.

If It IS a question of mutu a ll y mte rc ha ngeable th eon es. w ith partia lly intersecting classes of refe rents, th e ne w theor y must satisfy Ihe requirement of corresponden ce.
And yet. as the following argum ent s hows onl y e xperience
can be the criterion of the truth o f a natural-sc ientific theory.
The categorial apparatus of a natural -sc ientific theory " is
not created for the system; the system together with ... the apparatus is constructed for the description of a certain domain ...
The choice of a conceptual system is not arbitrary in the sen se
that theories must give essentially one and the same answer
about identical things (the question requiring different conceptual apparatuses in different theories) " (69, 176) . Max
Planck was quite right therefore when he called facts "the Archimedean point from which even the most weighty theories
can be shifted" (178, 67) . Facts do nor form a theory; to be
more precise, they are insufficient for this purpose; but theories
are constructed for the facts in relation to which they perform
their cognitive function s. Facts are more fundamental than
theories. "In every science," wrote Engels, "incorrect notions
are, in the last resort ... incorrect notions of correc t facts. The
latter remain even when the fo rmer are sho wn to be false. Alth ough we have discarded the old contact theory, the established
facts remain, of which this theory was s upposed to be the explanation" (59a, 160) .
Experiential (sensuous, experimental) cognition forms a nec ~rr compon~nt of any research act of natural-scientific
""i aawity. There IS no way of linking up the formu lations of sci~
aida the r~ity whi~h it ~eftects other than the path of ex~ ac~ye mampulatlOn of the object with the aid of
t
id
.u:mrument-from visual observation to strucura ~omPOSlt1on of the object.

S ce~~ra~le;
" ce .
scien

nO!t

~~

~bstantiation

this we .reg.ard ,empirical

the
e oniy, cntenon of the scientlfiClty of natural

t40

,LI. TlT II NtC,o\ L KNOWLEDGE

Th e suhjec:l-mallt'r 0/ technical k.nowledge. One of the mOIl

impo rta nt clla,raclcri~lics of kn?w ledge is reference to the domains and objects with whKh liS conc re te forms are corr~lat~
ed. Th e problem of subject. mailer is a topic al one for all kmos
a nd fo rm s of cogni tion.
,
This proble m has a <opec la] significance fo r .techOlcal k~oww
ledge . Th ere a re seve ral rea,sons fo r the emph.asls o~ the subjec t ..
matter of sc ient ific-tec hni cal kn owl edge 10 eplstem.ol ogl c~ 1
studies: compa rati ve ly rece nt emergen ce of th e tec hni cal SCI en ces intense developm ent of tec hni cal kno wledge at a time of
the s~ientific and techn ological revoluti on, and the unending
process of the formati o n of new .tec hnical scien ces. These ,and
other fa ctors (such as th e successive replacement of the objects
of research in the techn ic al sc iences) continually rev iv e the
question of the s ubjec t-matter of scientific-technica l knowl edge
in the methodology of sc ientific cogniti on, as well as the question of its correlation with the subjects of other fo rms of scie n tific cognition.
.
Traditionally, the question of the subject- maner of sc ientific cognition is included in epistemology. in the methodology
of science. That does: not mean that specialists in some
other branch of science cannot effec tively d iscuss the problem
of the subject-matter of their field. On the contrary. majo r
scientists specialising in concrete fields of k nowledge nece.ssarily
feel the need for epistemologica l, meth odological refle cti on on
the subject-matter, methods and tasks of the fiel d in which th ey
work. As a ru le, this happens at times of revolutionary transformation of this field or at any rate at a time of a qualitative
leap in its deve lopment.
Methodological reflection on the subject-maHer of scientifk
know ledge takes place against the broader background of methodo logica l contemplation of the nature of sCienti,fic k.nowledge,
its tasks, meth ods, etc. Concern for methodology IS qUite natural
for moder n cognition, not only scientific but also, say, artistic .
Moreover, methodo logical studies in scientific knowledge increasingly become a necessary condition of producing ne w ideas
in science itself (20,59; 64. 147) . This observation is valid not
only for natural science. mathematics, etc., but also for human
know ledge in its scientific and "ex:trasc ientific" (inonauchnaya)
forms, which we shall discuss later in the section on the human
sciences.
At present, methodologi cal analysis of the s ubject-m atte r
14 t

i~ dO.~l' l y linhd w ith mc th odolog,c 1

f , t"l.hni .... al knowledge
..
J.. I'
-.
a
rc.'.';ea r .... h in non-~las.s1C.al (lTl(er 'SClf! ma ry) \l'1ent ,fK - tcl"hn ica l

ing and design. Correct lIl e th ~olo~lc? 1 ,mte rpre tat ion of the
problems of n on- cl as..\lC~ 1 Ie-c hnl,ca l (liSl' ,p rlnl'" and non-classical
engineering (as .well as liS cl as.,)ll"a l fo rm) IS 3 n ece~\ary condi.
lion of tle\-'e loplIlg a correc t concept ion of tec hn ICa l knowi.
edge-- ils organ isation , func tionin g . .a nd s ubjec t-ma u e:, Only an
adequa te method ology of both claSSical and non-claSSical forms
of scientifIc-techn ica l knowledge a nd en gln cer ing o pens up th e
perspectives for the developme nt of a corn'C I vie w of techn ics
as the subject-mailer of tec hn ica l kn owledge.
Insufficient attention to th e meth odology of e ngin eerin g and
design and lack of studies in the spec ifl c il y of engin eering even
in its classical forms make specialists in epistemological qu estions
of technical sciences include engineering in the domain of
technical knowledge. In this case, transformation of natural
materials into technical instruments, construction of tec hnical
objects. etc., are believed to be the principle task and the most
important function of technical kn owledge (or sciences) .
This conception of technical scien ces and technical know ledge in general has been critic ised in the literature. Indeed,
science. the technical sciences included. is an activity, but it is
a special kind of activity - it is the production of knowledge
taking place in the sphere of the ideal. The activity of Implementing knowledge in reality, of transforming reality, takes
place on the basis of kn owledge but in a diffe re nt sphere- in
the sphere of engineering, of tec hn ological prac tice. Howeve r,
this is only one aspect of the question. Tech nical sc ie nces of
the class ical Type must not, indeed , comprise e ngineerin g activities. But non-classical scientifi c lechn ica l d isc iplines (ergonomics, industr ial design, syste ms engineering. elc.) embrace
not only designing bUI also the introduction of tec hnOlogical
systems in practice.
In view of lIle close links existing at the present stage between engineering and the scientific and technical disciplines,
the problem of their methodological analysis presents two
aspects of one and the same issue. The fact that engineering
and design have been little studied in the Soviet literature is
mostly due, in our view. 10 analysis of engineering in terms of
the lechnical. sciences. The le~hnic al sc ien ces emerge as a re.m ~f mergl~g o~ natural scIen ce and of tec hnical practice,
that lS, of e.ngm~ermg pr~ctice at the initial stage of its developIDmL Engmeerlllg pracl1ce as the activity of applying sc ien-

lift\.' kllowledg ... to protlul'I iol1. tn t...chnology. has not been iden
liflet! a .. a .. pt'l'ia l obJel'l nr .. tudi ... d III the ph~losophy ~ u~...
nology. h lgineer ing adivi ly, the in t ro~ ut: tlon of JC lenuftc
knowlcdge intu produt: linl1 , til ... Objt'cilflcatlon of knowledge ha ~
bel'11 con.. idered in Ihe contexl of the functiOning of tedllllca l
w1c III'I'''. At prc ..cnt. there i.. an urgent need for a m... thod~l l ng~
il'al analy.. is of engineeri ng activi ty a .. <,"d. of Ih gen....slS a.nd
.. peciftd lY, il\ d ilTerent:t''' from other fo~m~ .of practIce. lhe
,growing in tcre .. t for thi .. problem in Sov iet Ilteralure ha.. ahn
borne fn llt in the dari fH:ation of th e .. ubJect- mat1er and gt'n:->~
i\ of the tcchn il'al "Cien cd. We !.hall return 10 thi~ qut!'Stlnn
below.
Th e qu est ion of the s ubj ... ct -matte r of t,ec h.nical knowled~e
is always linked in tht' mt'th odology of ~cle nll fl c cognitIon : III
epistemology. wi th Ihe study of the relatlon be t,ween le t:. hnl ~ al
kn owledge and lechnics. In anal ys ing this relatIOn. th e I~ e a IS
oft en expressed . in one form or an oth e r, that tec hmcs I.S the
subject-matter of techn ical knowledge. Such a standpOin t IS
natura l, b ut me th odologica lly it is merely the fi rst step towards
cla rify ing the su bjec t-mailer of tec hnical kn owledge. Cons Ist ent deve lopme nt of this slarting point invol ves complex and
large ly unsolved problems.
It is probabl y a lack of clarit y about the proopecb a n ,~ the
paths of the solution of th~se p ~ o b le m s, t ~at engenders allempts
to give a different theore llca l interpretation of the problem. of
the subjec t-matter of techn ical knowledge. Of the gre.a tesl 111terest in this respec t is th e approach based on a na l;.:s!'!' of ao.:tivity-of man's prac tical ac tiv ity i ~ vol.\ing o bjec t ~. T .h e laller
is con side red Oil two planes-subjectIVe and objective. The
subjective e le ment is constituted by the subject and hls. aCli~ns
with objects. The objective aspect is represented by obJt'c(S 111el uded in the ac ts of ac tivit y and interacting with each ot~er .
This ac ti vity-orie nted approac h to the slUdy of technical
knowledge is conn ec led wilh the use of suc h debatable p:olysemantic con cepts as pr ac t~ c e and activity, object and s U.~Je c t,:
mailer of cognition . The paIrs of lerms connec t.ed he re by . a nd
are oftc n llsed as synonyms. Despile a cert a m co mm uni ty of
these cat egories, th ey al so have r~al diffe~en ces in mea n ing a nd
the cl asses of obj ec ts Ih ey compnse. In differe nt contexts. these
differe nces may lead to a lac k of agreemenT. .
.
In parti c ular, the emphasis in Ihis a pproac h I.S on practical
aClivilY involving objects, whi ch naturall y c 01l1~nses. a narrowe r elass of phenomena and processes than ~ CU\1t y In ~e ll e ral .
nOI to mention practice. From this standp01l11. th e objel- I (o r

142

tB

{l

fIelds which are, 111 t heIr t urrI, dm;d y.nmncc led wuh e n g in ee r ~

subject-mafler) of lel."h n ical knllwleti ge is Ih e 'Jbje' l'

rufes of this activity. BUI th is deflll ilio ll of fhe sub)" ",e lVe strut,'.
) f
h" I
,..
... ( -ma ll cr (
() bJeel 0 lec ll1ea know
l edgl~ IIl c\'I la h ly l' nl a" l .
Oc
.
.
I <.; anot her
I e Ifeel Ih al t h e objec t of tech nical kn ow l ' Ig . I
lIe
10

sense is man 's Objec tive prac tice int e rn rel 'd (~. e III ~ H~ broad
b " r"
d b"
.
' " Co:
sa lIllIl y of th
~~ Jee Ive an 0 Jectl~'e asre~ t~. Thus it b no longer fh e ob" e
Ive struc tures of practica l aC II\'lI y or even of
.
Jeel_
h
h
.
practi ce as a who!
f al are t e s~bJ~cl -m a rt er of tec hnical kn ow ledge bu t
e
whole of pract ice In th e u ni ty of Ih e subjec tive a nd ob' ~he
aspects.
JeCllVe
Neither this way of reasoni ng nor th e concl usion are a .
de~ta l : Their prem ises are cont a ined in th e int e rpre ta tion Of~~I;

oble~t1ve and the s.ubjec ti ve c onstituents of acti vity, in th e con-

ceptIOn .of the subject-matter and obJ'ect of knowle dge I h"

co 1C t
h b' "
. ntis
I ep lon, t. e
Jectlve c onSlituent of a c tivity is c harac terised
by the tota~lty ?f objects whi~h are connec ted by definite
mutua~ relations 10 the separate IIlstances of activity. In vi ew of
~he objeCt.re~ated and goal-directed character of human a ctivIty, the relatlo~s of objects in the objeclive struc ture are o bv lousl~ determmed by a certain goal. The subjecl's goal -direct~d actlo~s p~rfo~med .. upon objec ts in the process of a c tivity
ecome ex!mgUlshe~ III the objects, plac ing them in definite
m~tua.1 relations, makmg them goal-direc ted and s ubjective. The
obJect!ve structure of activity is thus transformed into a unit y
of subject ~n~ o~ject. Continued existence of the Objective stru ct~r\Of aC~lVlty 10 a pure, subjec t less form is impossible in view
o .1 ~ object-rel~ted .and goal-directed character of activity.
hls. IS o.nly . posslb!e. If the subjec t does not deal with objects
I~ h iS obj~ctlve actlv uy. Only th e n will th e s ubjec t with his ac tlO~S, thei r r~s~hs,. e t~., be o n one s ide, as it we re, while the
object of activity In us natu ra l s ubjec tl ess intact ness o n the
o th e r ,
'

:r

The stud y of th e Objective stru ct ures of ac tivi ty o n this apPI roach shows that the ir stru c tures are de te rm ined by 'he goal
n. other words , teo
h
b"Jectlve
" struc tures of activity ace goal-"
d lreeted or p t '
. d' If
..... of '. ~ tlllg l~ I erently, they are goal-directed strucbeing th act~~lty. ThiS proposition, in conjunction with their
intereSli~ su Ject-m.aucr of technical knowledge, warrants some
th
g. concluslon.s. Below we shall substantiate th
'
_ at tec hmcs may be mterpreted as artificial '
~ view
uu.rumcnts of activity. In principle goal d-"e., goal-direc ted
.. -aivity and goal-directed instru '
- flreCl~~ Structures
VlOuIly identical.
ments 0 a ctivity are obOn die basis of the above
.._.,
we may conclude that tec hnics can

'"

be in terpreted a\ th e subjec t- matt e r of technical knowle. in

the ubove ~ mentio n ed "en\e in th t" \:onte xt of the analysed con ..
ception u\ well. In ot he r wo rds. tec h nics comtitutes the real
phenomenon on whic h tec h nical know ledge closes.
An importu nt e lemen t nf an adequate and consi')tent in terpre tat ion of the \ubjec t-mutter of technical knowledge (uparl
from th e meth odologica l wor k mentioned above). enginee rin g
ac ti vi ty an d non-classica l scie nli llc -tech nical d isciplines io; a
clear understa ndin g of the subject-matt e r an d Object of scientific cognitio n in ge ne ra l and th e ir conc re tisat ion in re lation
to tec hn ica l kn o wledge. T ec hn ics as the subject-matter of technic al kn o wl edge (t ech nica l sc ien ces ) is, of course, a unily of
th e s ubjec tive and th e objective (lIS, 6). In this respect, howe ve r, it does not d iffe r fro m the su bject-matter of scientific
kn o wledge in gene ral.
This genera l conception of the subject-ma il e r of sc ient ific
cogniti on must be concretised in the same way as, say, ph ysicists
elaborate the concept of physical reality. To distinguish the
subjec t-matte r of tec hnical knowl edge fro m othe r for ms of
sc ie nt ifi c cogn ition, in part ic ular from exac t natura l science.
we must conc re tise a nd detail the nature of the subjec tive a nd
th e o bjec ti ve in the s ubjec t-matter of technic a l knowledge, and
to cl ari fy their mutual connections and mechanisms of their
re lat ion to technical knowledge, otherw ise a conflict arises with
the prin c iples of the theory of refl ection_
As we know, Marx desc r ibed mac h ines, locomotives. railways e tc, as "organs 0/ th e human mind which are created by Ihe
h uman hand. th e objec tified po wer of knowledge" (67, 29, 92 ),
Knowledge objec tified in machines apparently cannot reflect
the mac hines befo re it is objectified in them_ The problem
arises of studying technology, its complex structure, and
the c orrelation of that structure with technical knowledgewhic h, in one way o r another, closes on technics.
The problem 0/ defining the concept 0/ technics. Th e
word " technics" covers a wide conceptual field in the system
of science and art, and generally in the d o main of c ultu re .
One of the causes for that was. apparently, the o rig in a l syn c ret ic use of th e term tech ni} in ant ique c ultu re. cove r ing
si mu lta neo usly art. sc ien ce, a nd th e c rafts. T he fi e ld of refe rence of lee/lll e was so wide in an tiqu ity that it may be
translated. in the context of classical culture as " goal-directed
a cti vity" or " meaningfu l ac tiv ity " (52, 355).
The differenti ati o n of the sc ie nc es and the arts and generally
of different areas of materia l and nonmaterial a ctiv ity in
10_111410

145

the proce~ of h isto r ic al tll' vel o flllleni entailed the "pread i

of rhe term " technics" through Illany "'pher!.' ... of h u rn~g

"

\.: ulllJ~l". l IS 1ll~1I.1

"

ll1ea~ll11g:l; at

In

pre'l'nt art,' the I:on ~:t'pi o(

lec hl11 cs as a(II\'II), (Skill, an. ell" ) and Ilc hnil ... in the nar.

rower sense - as a designation of "'pecifl(aUy ()rgani ...ed materi al

objeclS or systems (machines. instrumenh, etc.). Let liS COn.
\'enlionally call technics in the flfst l' a St' 'technic..

aClivity",

and in Ihe second. "technics - object",

The starting point of the materiaiisl inlerprel31ion of tec hnics
is the view of technics as a system of material objects. It is
obviously impossible to explain the emergence and development
of technics or understand ils role in social life without close
sludy of machines, instruments and olher implemenls of labour.
Analysis of Marx's theory of labour and of the elemenls
of labour, in conjunction with the preliminary inlerpretalion
of technics as a system of implements and machines. warrants the conclusion that technics comprises all means of
labour. The subsequent evolution of this viewpoint resulted
in the idea. shared in fact by most Soviet scholars. thai
"technics should be seen as the totality of anificially constructed
means of human activity" (94, 10).
This level in the development of the Marxist concept of
technics. despite its relatively accomplished character. and
comprehensive coverage of the phenomena involved. entails
certain serious problems Ihat have not been fully and clearl y
solved. Above all. the definitions formulated within Ihi s fr amework produce a feeling of theoretical discomfort. They
can be simplihed. minimised, so 10 speak , and logicall y clarified. For example, Ihe work menti oned above interpret s technics
as th e totality of artificially constru c ted means of human
ac tivity. In this definition , the con cept "artificial" stands next
to 'm.an-made" , both of them obvious ly intended to distinguiSh
technics from the natural means of labour. "Aniflcial" is
obviously synonymous with "man-made" (183, 6). and a correct definition should take this synonymity into account.
of activity. which
is one of the fundamental
"
Interpretatton of technics considered here.
'"
problems. The difficulties and differences
Opinion HI
thod I .
"
me
ooglcal and psychological studies of
Ihe sour"e f d"8<fLtlVlltY a~e of fundamental nature; they are
... 0
I IICU ties 10 those areas where Ih
s
a
'
. Lab'
at category
" u-d
IS
-..-.. a n IOSlrument of analYSIs
.
the highest form of human activit; ~h
our IS the basIC ~n.d
ty might be stressed and wh
, ' f atever aspects of act IVIate\er eatures of activity might

146

be pushed into the foreground. Since labour I' . ,~~ ... die
su bstan ce of tec hnics. attempts to interpret Ihe ph en .......
of tec hnics (in partic ular, to give a def1l1ition of it). in
terms of other concepts, ~u c h as the co nc rpt of labour function.
appear to be well-founded and pro m i~ ing. The co nceP.t of labour
fun c tion is effectively used by Sov Iet researc hers tn the desc ription of the labour proc ess. This atte mpt is all the m~re
well-founded as works on the history and theo ry of tec hOlcs
often con c retise goal -direc ted activity in terms of la bou r
fun ctions (61,27; 94, 9).
Five functions are usually distinguished in the labour process in the literature on the philosophical-methodoJoaicl'
problems of technics: the tec hnological function proper, the
transport fun c tion, the energy fun ~ tion. the controlling and
the logical fun c ti on (61; 102, e tc.).2
.
.
The id e ntification of the pr incipal fun c tions tn the complex
process of human labour has a considerable heurist~c potential. In partic ular, it permits a better understandmg of
the purpose of tec hnology and a sufficiently consistent ~Ias
sification of it. The concretisation. in terms of these functions.
of goal-directed activity in labour clarifies the ~ence of
the nodal elements in the development of techOlcs, of the
man-machine system. Thus the present-day sc ientific and
technological revolution (of which . the n uc.leus. is a uto.mation and cybernetisation of production), which IS essentially
the process of handing over to machines certain logical functions pertaining to human mental labour, frees man from ~r
forming various functions in the management of productIOn.
Just as the 18th-cenlUry industrial revolution freed the human
hand, passing some technological functions ~ver to mac~incs. so
does the modern scientific and technological revolution free
man's mind by handing over certain logical and management
functions to cybernetical machines and devices. to automata.
The development of technics. being a process o~ gradually
freeing man from direct performance of labour funcllons, res~lts
in the fact that direct COnlacts between man and the object
of labour are replaced by contacts mediated by technology,
..
by artiflcial means of lab.o~r.
In view of the eXlstmg tradition of methodological
analysis of labo~r and tech~ics in .terms of the c.oncepl 01
labour function II would be mteresttng to apply IhlS concept
to the description of simple elements of labour. In ~th~r
words, we can a!templ a " consideration of human labour m 1IS
abstract form as a funCllon.
147

The c O/h.ep! of 'ilh,IHI,r , (\Ir ,pr\ldll,l-lill!l ) f Ulll:linr l Il l "y hI'

arrr\'cd ill fhrough gCIlt.:f<l li"aflOlI ot Ihl' pflr ll'II"d
.
I'
"
~C
or
'>n. ) funcllOIl", The a l\lral'lwll Ihlt\ Oh ' ;lI lIt'<I will rl'''", 1 1

r,,,. ,

011/" ...Ih I. fI l l'.

betl er I\lIow
'
n . IuncI
" '1011 ... Ilui a 1\(1 Of/II..'!". hl..'Jnn~ i l1g. hi cot her
IVe
(',,'>t'IKe 0

possIble da ... \,fI(JIIOIl\,

10

1 If .1
genera a oru ....

l1alUr~

- Il \
IilbtlUr I-lIlIt" IO

Ihe C(llKn..'le

11\

T he ,1I1\l rat"l ton III

our

11 01

labuur f Ull ', '

l

VlI..'W , il bClIl'r Undl'r ... lilnd ing of

inn

the

,I abour, ~' \lh.' h ( M ilrll.), il darifKtl l mn of ih rel;J.

Iionship w lIl~ aC(tvlly J n d, .111 0\1. 1 ll1pOrlalllly~ wi lh tec hn ology.
Math em a~ lcally. a fum.' llon 1\ an o pl'ra liOll, a proCC\\ Or
of

Iransfor mallon. Ihe applica tion

or

wh ic h 10 one domai n of

objec ts <t he do main of a fU II (' tinn) prod uce, an oth er do mai n of

objects (the range of \,,'u es ) ( 128. 15. 16 ). Ra ben Stoll
also uses the expre.s,"i ion y is " the de me nt illl o whi c h f cQrrie\
x" (186, 37, 38).
The mathematical concept of function is entirely a bstract
but it also records, exactly and profoundly. the esse nce
t.mcdon~ relations i~ any spher~ of nature or human ac tivity.
'lOceedlng from thiS concept of function and from Ma rx's
familiar scheme of labour, labour itself may be said to be a
func tion of whic h the domain is the objects of labour and Ih e
range of values, the products of labour. Labour as a fun c tion
lIpplied to the object of labo ur (the argument) yields (h e
product of labour (the value). In other wo rds, labour proper
proves to be the ac tiv ity of transfo rm ing objec ts of labou r
ml o products of labo ur.
The materia l, objective imple mentation of this fu nc ti on
its . realisat ion and ca rrier a re the instruments of l a bou ~
whic h man places between the object a nd the prod uc ti on of
labour. T he instrumen ts of labour as a ma teria lised f unc tion
yie ld products of labou r (or its values ) whe n a pplied to th e
objec t of labour (t he argu me nt ). We know thai la bo ur as such
begins with th e prod uc tion of th e imple me nts or instrum ents
of la~our. In olher ~ords., la bour e me rges as th e objec tifica.
'~ of
function s III a definite form - in the form of
of labour. Labour as a fun ction is
ents of .Ia~our. Thus concrete artifIc ial
fA
r are objectified labour fun ctions while
t 1nIIhImen~ or labour in general , take~ as a
wh~'e, repr .~~t th~ objeCtified function of labo ur in general.
mce . an, clal InStruments of labour are at least art
the laller can be
as
that technics comprises
~o~nF a step. further, we may say
.ln t ICta matenal systems realising

of

= ..

:j=?~s I~ro~uf~~~~i~~~nic~),
" 8

dehne~

or pl'rfonllin ~ man's lahnur funct ion", The narrowin. . . . .

Iltl' n)f1n: pl of Icchnic'S In in\lrumen tos ()f la bour only.
l" Xp.lIt \ iOIi In t'moran: alllllean .. of purposive ac tivity in
<Ire hOlh dehiltaoll"; in view of thi,. the following
of tel'illli(:s may be flf some intere\l: C<.I) lechni c~ covcrs ani fKial material sy\lem '5 rectlhing man's goal<;; (b ) tel' hnics em .
bral'l"'" Mltfl l' ial malerial !y~ tern .. performing man's funclilln1
in thl" wholl" of hi " al tivll y.
Allal y\i ~ of Ihl" l()(H:Cptton .. of tel'hnics and the def1l1 ilion'\
Ilf technic.. ba "icd on the\ e concept~ "ihow'i th ai re~eaT!.:her~
identifying tet:hntc"i with in.,trument$ of labour or instrumen q
of ac tivity in general prot:eed, as a rule, (rom appereild,
obviN I" and intuitivel y dear c harac te ristics of labour, pro.
d UClioll , prar.:ri ce, and purpos ive activity. Th is obv iousness
a nd da rit y are. in fa ct, ill usory. The study of the re lat ion
be twee n th e cat egory of la bou r and other concepts 'ihows that
th is category is not r igorously def1l1ed in the literatu re, it
is ma rked by great polysemy and is u'\ed in different meanings.
All1 biguou"i a nd non rigorous interpretation of these c3tegorie ...
oft e n resul ts in contradictions and at times 111 nea rly paradoxical sit uat ions a nd eva lu at ions in studies in technics.
Th e concept ion of technics as instr uments of activit y
conta ins a numbe r of moot points and elementary inconsistencies
most of whic h are connec ted wi th the concept of goa l.directed
acti vity. On the one hand. technics is defined as instruments
of pu r posive ac tivity. which implies thaI its definition as
in strum e nt of labour is inadequate. On the other hand (as was
poi nted out above ). goal d irected aClivity is concret ised in
te rms of labour or produc tion fu nctions. Ne ither is it clear.
in view of Marx's ide nt ifi cation of purposive activity and JabOll r as s uc h. why tec hnics- the anificial instrumenu of pur.
posive activit y-cann ot be regarded al the same rime as
in struments of labou r. Furtherm ore. the concept of labour functi on is effec tively used in studies in th e history a nd th eory
of tec hnics. In tertns of these func ti ons. tech nics is inter.
pre ted as objec tified labou r f unct ions. which is equivalent,
in our vie w, 10 its definiti on as inst ruments of labour.
An un a mbiguous de flll iti on of technics cannot a t present
be give n, as the re a re too ma ny deba table po ints in the elabora ti on of the concept of goald irec ted acti vity. in the specifi cal io n of scie nce a nd of ot he r fo rms of act iviry as forms
of labour. Th ere is no consensus regarding rhe nature of
tec hni cs. Does it comprise a ll th e instruments of labour or
all th e artifIcia l mea ns of purpO.-"l ve activity in gene ra l? Th e

'"

rnporl.:1111 poinl. howe\:er. is (his: i, tec hnic, as a n e nsembl,

l~f im lrumentS ' whelher of purpOSive a c tivi ly ill ge neral o~

of labour aellv lty In pa rllc ul ar- Ih e subj ec l-mall e r of tec hn ic _
al knowledge, or is il nOI'? In o ur vi e w. Ihis qu eslio n lll USI be
answe red in Ihe a ffi r malive, and further meth odo logic al, phil_
~oph ic a l - ep i s temol o g ic al studies in the s ubjec t- ma iler of
lech nical knowledge muSI be directed to wards Ihe st udy of th e
interconnec tions be tween tec hnic s and technic al kn owledge.
The above analys is of the c on cept of lec hni cs, despite a
certain vagueness of ih defmilion, warrants important con .
elusions bearing on epislemologi c al investigation of technical
kn owledge . In particular, lec hnics must obviou sly be illl e rpret_
ed as an instrument of activity rather than as an object or an
ensemble of objects. It does not mail e r much wh ic h type of
activity is meant~labour activity or a c tivit y in general.
Technics as an instrument is included in the process of ac ti vity, and technical knowledge is objeclified, transformed into
tlthnic:s precisely in the process of purposive activity. The
system of purposive activity naturally makes a decisive impact on the processes involving technics as its element ,
including the process of materialisation of knowledge. Purposive activity is the substance in which technical knowledge
it engendered.
This conception of technics as an instrument of activilY
creates the nece~..ary premises for reconstructing the genesis
and for understandIng Ihe development of tec hnic al kn owledge.
Of special importance in the rec onstru c ti o n of Ih e format ion of
ttchnical knowledge is the stud y of Ihe mome nl of its origin.
Correc t understanding of this moment is eX lreme ly important for
the cla rific at ion of Ih e s ubje ct-matler of techni ca l kn owledge
a.nd of th.e correlatio n between lec hn ic al kn owledge and objec tIVe rea[ny. As for the a nalys is of Ihe mec hanis ms of the
blrt~
tec hni cal knowledge. it is linked with the study of
the 101IIai structures of technics.
Th~ initial structures of technics and of technical know/Por aU these reasons. and in view of the obvious
of technics (as an ensemble of Ihe instruments
it is
.....ldld of instruments of purposive activity in general),
f h n:c~ry to consider the origin and the inilial stages
o t e eveopment of .technics and technical knowledge in the
contexl of the formauon of purposive
- .
'.
lIIOre necessar\: as Marx d .
I b
activity. ThIS IS all the
.
J
Cline!) a our 8!) suc h' I
f
poslve activity. On this 8 roach
. Ill. erms 0 purcou rse. the s~cif1city of pp
. ' of spec ial II1terest is, of
purposive behaviour of animals. in

?!

150

r arlicular of Primat es. of Iheir lI1<;trumenta! actions. etc

The mechanisms o f th e emerge nce of lechnll.:a! know.....
a nd i1<.; mate ri a li<;a lion in lec hnil..s. e!)pec ially at the initial
slages, have not been <'Iudied adequa te ly. Ex.te ndi ng a'\i they do.
th ough , across ma n's h i<,tory an d pre-history. they are a me nab le
10 descripti on. Parallel with Ih e transformation of the a pe's
bra in in to th e human brain , kn ow ledge was objectified o r ma te ri a lised in in strum e nts of labo ur, in tech nology. Ana lys i'5
of th e mate r ial isat ion of kn owl edge in th e ini ti a l, the very
fir st tec hnic al str uc lures is impo rlant for understand ing not
onl y the histo ry of lec hn ology and technical knowledge bUI abo
for Ih e theory of th ese questions.
At present , the mechanisms of the formation and realisati o n of goals are stud ied in cybe rnetics, philosophy .psycho~
ogy, and in a number of othe r sc iences. From the phllo.sophlc al and psyc h ologica l viewpoints. a goal is a re ahsed Image,
an ant icipa ti o n of future results. It has been not ed in re c ~nl
psyc h ologica l literature that the prob lem of .goal -set.llI1.g
and goal- fo rm a lio n has not bee n adequatel y studied. Th iS IS
also tru e of the pro blem of purp(l'- I\e animal behaviou r. Th is
beha vio ur muSI not be anthropoml1rphised. of course. but ne it her is il possible to deny certain elements of inrell ige nt a~ti\'it~.
of Ihe formation of notions and con cept ual reflectIOn In
animals.
Con sidering the forms of psych ic a l refl ec tion tha t may
appear as goals and levels at whic h th e pr oeesse~ of goalsening and goal-formation may unfo ld (74: 75: 95). Ihe question may be asked: why cannot animals. c apable of the formation of general ideas. of inilial forms of conceptual reflection and even pre-verbal thinking. have such specific id~as
or at least perceptual images as goals? If we recogl1ls~
"embryonic" form s of labour in animals (Marx)' we should also
recognise embryonic forms of goals among them. for labour as
such is goa l-directed activity.
Scientists studying animals' purposi\'e beha\'iour. more
and more lend 10 think Ihal they ha\'e c ertain " inner correlales" (146) or notions about goals (155) . Th ese conclusio ns,
based o n the analysis of vaSI empiric al materials a nd fi ne
experiments. confirm the propo~itio n c onc~rn ing the conscious.
planned c harac ter of the a chons of al1lmals. exp.r~sse-d by
Engels in his The Part P/a.yed by LabOl!r in the Transltl!" from
Ape 10 Mall. The assumptl~n of .'he ~xlsl~nce ~f a I.-~rtalll II1I~er
correlale of the goal -selllllg Situation In al1lmal~ purpos l.\C
behaviour, along with the slriking examples of buddl1lg actl\'15 1

primitive mOil pr()ce~~l'd a11l1 ..lltercd IIw'lt' a~pt"tl\

o r~ ~ tnlla of nalural objecb Ihal 3n.' dcscrihed ill h.'flll.., of
form or Siructure. One may ..ay. in a "l'n ...!.'. thaI the objeu of
man's labour aCli\ilY wa .. Ihc e:>..ternal aSpcl'! of nalura] abjeels. Ihat which was intelligible and 3n'c... sible to the ~enses
equipped with as yet undeveloped thinking. The tools of labour
activity-the instruments of man's actiol1 upon objecls_
corresponded to the goals of the initial phases of this aCliv_
ltV.
- Primitive man's instrumenls of labour. his technics,
were directed towards changing the form of natural objects,
in the !irs! place through division of the whole into pans,
through combining wholes or parts. mixing particles of su bstances. etc. (89, 181). This shows that the technological
function was. logically and genetically. the fIrst function
of labour.
The question of the first inSlTuments of labour is highly
important and C iiorc:ntiai in the context of studies in the initial
fOims of technical knowledge. of the initial structures of technics We refer here precisely to the rtrst instruments. i.e.,
a definite type of labour implements. Finding and describing
the very first, the only instrument of labour is a scientifI cally insoluble task. The answer to the question about the
flrst type of labour implements is al the same time the solution of the problem of the most ancient form of primitive man,
as the first crealOrs of artificial labour instruments were
the first men. ~here . are different views of the complex
problems of the inception of labour activity and of man; of
t~ese, the most well-founded theory is, in our opinion. the
~Iew that labour. that is, systematic production of the first
Implements of labour. !irst came into being in the Oldovan
culture of the Homo habilis, the most ancient member of the
human race (67, 6, 29; 104, 99, etc.):! Labour implements
appeared among the Homo habilis simultaneously in various
(orms-choppers, toothed an.d other types of implements. Of
these. choppers were the mam type.
The view. that primitive labour implements are objectified
knowledge IS shared by most, if not all
"
d this problem (126' 130' 155'
' sCientists stu ymg
- .
: .',
etc.), Moreover. V. Gordon Childe
mSlSts that the prlmilive labour im lem
. ,
concept, not just knowledge (125) S P
en( m~tenahsed a
~sked. in this connection. What plac~ /veral questions may, be
ised IT\ primitive labour i I
oes knowledge malenal mp ements occuny - h
of relations between purposive
-.
I'
In t e SlTucture
y
What pan of these IWO sim I actllvlt and labour implements?
pee ements does this knowledge
illl! hi,

net"d~

154

rene,t" Finally. in what form .. docs sUl"h k!l0wl.ed,c cxbt'!

In analy.. illg the typical It~('hnolog"al. snuallon of .Ihe
primitive man working in !.lOne-we notICe the foJJowtr~"
Working in .. tone. man apparently a.:cumulated knowledge of liS
propcrtic.. weight, \it:!.', out lin!.', et,,_, but II w.itS not knowledge of the\e propcrtit'~ that turned .,tone IntO ,a. labour
implemcnt. In lending '>tone a definite form, pnmlll"~ man
foresaw thc ,>ituation of UStng II. I.e., he bore 111. mmd 1!'5
function. He made '> tone (onform to a goal-the object of hiS
need, These objects or goal~ were the animals h~ hunted. or
the roots he gathered. The .,hapmg of '>tone ~o SUit a purp~e
was also based on past experience-obser\-allon of the a~lIon
of stones under natural conditions. experience in using shghtIy altered nalural implements. and so on.
,
Conformity. adequacy. hi ness for a goal of .purposlve
activity aimed at an object of some need was a most, Important
element of producing a labour implement. In thiS proc,e<,<;.,
the goal existed in primitive man's consciousness ~ a gUideline for technology. In creating a concrete labour I,:"pl~me~t,
man unfolded, as it were, the process of its apphcallon In
his consciousness. he foresaw the situation of action. of
contact between the implement and the object of his need.
i.e., his goal. The principal formal,iH ~lement o~ the first
stone implements was knowledge of snuallons of their employment, knowledge of the mechani~al an~ physical prop,eOle... of
the goal, knowledge of the ways In which the mechamcal properties of stone given suitable form a~t on the object. elL
Primitive labour implements thus embodied knowledge of purposive activity involving th~se im~leme~ts.
From the epistemological \ilewpolnl, of considerable
interest is the question of the methods and f~rms of techni.
ca l knowledge at the initial stages of liS eXistence. Among
the cognitive abilities necessary for the makmg of the ?rst
labour implemenls one must first of all po~nl to memor~': without which analogy. transference of expenence and ablhty f~r
imitation are all impo~ible (155,39): Among met~ods, rudl'
melHary forms of observation. analYSIS and synthesiS must be
mentioned in the hrst place,
Comparing the data of ethnography. archaeology. psychology, the history of technology., i.t is possible 10 trace . ~he
mechanisms of the work of cogllltl\e structures. the applt~a
lion of the methods of technological knowledge 111 pnmtllve
labour implements. How do these methods and struc~ures ",":'ork.
say. in making a trap - one of the first automallC dence:;'?
155

) u,r a'> all rhe;> olher

~ I:ll i onary lIl('chanical hUllling. inll)I (Illt'nl:;;
'
. -.
('ruph.lyed b y pnnllll\'f' man. (rap'" usc:d thl' weight and n .b
. r bl.....- les. pnmlll\e
.. .
d 'ld nOI of ":OUf'c!' kno II ex.
il ~
If.\" 0
man
f
.
.
W
It' oun
d allOns 0 f P h ySICS and me(hanlCs bUI he ('01,1,1 '"0 a
I
f'
.
. ...
I1I1Uas _

o bleels
0 his need- become accessible 10 (hi,....
""ed IIlrough
"
f a II lng. mto a natural hole. through being struck down b
a falhn~ Iree or slone. etc. Thlls Illan fIrst observed I Y
mec.halllsms ~f combination of goals and instruments for thte~~
achievement In nature. Moved by his needs, he began to
fir~t of a,II,. Ih~ cognit.i~e arsena~ inl~eriled from animal ~~~~
ceslors - If!1I1~IJ~n. abJlIIY for sItuatIOns transference. That
was why, IIllJl3fmg natural situations, man al first drove ani~nals 1I~1O. natural holes, bogs, etc. At the nexi Mage, continu_
mg 10 !nlltate nature and at the same time realising a situation
transference, man c~an~ed ~atural forms, digging holes, felling
trees, etc., constructing In thiS ~ay situations for the attainment
of ~03ls. For example~ observmg animals who died through
g.eumg caught ~m~ng hanas. primitive man constructed snares
on the same pnnclple (163. 76-Q2L
The process of c~:mst:u~tin~ the fust self-acting devices developed from mechal1lcal. Imllatlon to creative changes of the natural factors o~ th~ ~asl~ of.the analogy principle. We find evid.
ence of creallve Imitation 111 constructing the fIrst lab
.
I
ments not onl .
h d
I
. . .
our Imp eautomatic devi~els~ s~Ceh a~v: ~~::n~~t a~;lI1!rtlve si~g!e-action
with various types of fences direcl,'ng Ihe 0111 combll1lng.them
p' ..
movement of an I I
nmilive technical structures embody k i d
rna s.
types: knowledge of the functional an
now e. ge of two
teristics of the implements of lab
k d morphological characor purpose of a labour implemen~~~d now ledge of the function
materral of which it is made The
. ~~owledge of the natural
implement what it is is the k;lOwle~lall1 :. Ing that. makes a labour
ge
for which it is created. Appare tl ~ liS function. the purpose
Ihe. p.rimiti\le technical structure~ ir a '~~~Ied.ge materialised. in
aChvtly. of the functions of labour' I ectlon of goal-setting
mor~h.ological, material characterist!;~po~menls. ~nowledge of
.. wl1Uoncd by the knowledge of f
. labour Implements is
. Goal-dir~cted activity as an obyn~t,on.
IOdePC'~den~ of technical knowled Jecllve process is an object
,("~ge In. p.r~milive technical Slru ge and reOected by this knowWHit. p.nmlltve technical structurc:~ur~~. KnOwledge correlated
cons1S~m.g of at lea\! Iwo rarts
as a Complex structure.
~:~~n:I~~dl m labour impleme~'lslt i~e:I~l"ts purposive activity
. n a so Ihe propenie<. -me'Ch . er Word!), their fUllcanlcal , Ph YSlcal,
.
chemical,

SIrUC:'U'"

etc. of the material. Thll'~ primillve technical

re
llecl (and we mean preci ..ely reneclion. not correlaUOft," -

indeflllilt.'" nature) goal -\ellll1g activity and nature as obJectift

proce..s e... Knowledge of. goat-setting i\ here the. main thing.
an instrument of purpO\lve change of nalural obJe,t ...
Thl' strllC/llre of /he slIhject - malter of technical knowledge.

Analysis of the objectification of goal-directed activity at its

early stages. the study of the isolation of labour activity proper
from purposive activity in general, and the evolution of technic 'i
is of great importance for epistemological inquiry into technIcal
knowledge. Having rei fled purposive activity (Ihe process of
goal-setting) in objects, having thus made the means of achieving goals artificial. man later turned, in studying purposive
actions (labour functions), to already created objeci structures.
The impression is therefore crealed that only Ihese objeci
structures are the object of technical knowledge, Ihe more so that
they are sensuously perceived and largely objective.
At the early stages of purposive activity the goal is the object
of need. It forms and determines the means for its anainmenl.
The subject (man), Ihe vehicle of the goal. objectifies it and
forms the object as a means of achieving Ihe goal. and performs
this with the aid of the knowledge of the goal. its interrelations
with the means of achieving it. Man makes the object. as a
means, conformable to the goal. i.e .. purposive. The activity
10 form the object in accordance with the goal. purposive activity, "wanes" in the means intended to achieve the goal.
Satisfying the immediate physical need and the transition.
according to Marx. to free production brings about a situation
in which the need is satisfied through many objecls. As far
as goal-setting is concerned, this is expressed in the fact that
goal as reflection of a given concrete object shaping labour
implements gives way to task and later to function. Implements
of labour are separated from goals as the concrete objecls of
need. In olher words. the goal shaping instruments of labour.
the technological structure. assumes in the development of
technology a different status. becoming a lask or a function .
Gradually. tedlllics begins to improve with regard to tasks
and functions. regardless of Ihe concrete goals and needs
connected wilh the achievement of a given objecl. In hi~ erea
tive technological work. man now turns to purposive material
structures. Bul the connection belween technical strUltur~ and
goal is nol lost. It is present in the explicit or imrli..:-it realisation
of the function determining the material purposi\'e strllClUre in
the solution of technological tasks. This tendency in the devel157

opmcnt of technics including. in particular, the transforma, '

'
began 111
' Stone Age lec hnolo10 "
'-If Goal m(o l as k an d f unction,

'he objecl or !he

in "non~c1assical" forms of engineering and technical know~

led~e. Construction. of complex engineering projects has brought
10 hght the purposive nature of the functions of technological
structures. That is one of the principal elements in the method~
enaineering design, ergonomics, systems design
.,.aems engineering, etc. 4
'
Research in rhe methodological problems of "non-classical"
f?r~s o~ engineering activity and of scientitic~technical dis~
clp~mes IS at present in its initial stage, The forms of organiIabOn of ".no~-~lassical" technical knowledge, the interrelations
bel ween ~1SC1~lmes, ~n? the relationship between the knowledge
and engmee,rmg actt~lty are not yet fully realised, In particular, th~re 15 .no clarity so .far about the relations between systems eng.meenng, ergonomics, and systems design , or between
ergonomics and human engineering, etc,
A?d yet. ?1et~odological analysis of creative elaboration
and introduction Into practice of complex systems at the present
stage, and generally the study of the processes of creating tech~Ology throughout hist~ry shows that goals determine the del el?p~ent of technological structures. Philosophical-episterno_
oglc~ and Psycho~ogical studies of task, problem and design in
creative technological thin~ing al~o. point to goal as the core of
-technological aC'lVIty (70; 78), Russell Ackoff,
....
il)ecial~ In the methodology of problem-solvc:annec:ts solution of proble
.
.
goals 016. 19). Technical knowled ms with .achlevement of
structures is a reftee.ion of m '
ge .embodled in technical
.
an s purposive
"
activity as an objecfive process, Thai explains
engineering-technical knowie~;o~gk other things, the fact that
Of the greatest interest fo e a es the form of instructions.
of the nature of man's goal se r. Our research is the question
- flmg acti't
f
'
VI y. 0 purposive trans-

.
of \ Ol..' lt:l y .1110 nature. Are I ey
'.
fo r mati o n
I I.
'I'dge" We believe that m.a
~ ulJj cc t - ll1 a Il C r ?f Icc hnic <J "no\\ c. ' " rOCeSS (51. 38.
oal -\dlin g a..:l lvll y as a form of Iht: objective p 0 'ectiveness
g188) is Ihe o hj eu of ICdllllt: <J1 knowledge. The bJ
.

- " " .1
'nocn e e from c onSClOUS. tur '
of goal -sclon g 3..: II Vll y. I.e ., Its,' lIlucpt:
" 'e
t' ,
I uepcnuen
s is a c on sequ e nce 0 f tlC
l.: of. goals
. 'on na
I
~~s natural laws. G oal -selling ac tivity i'i . objective In contcn ~
in it s depe nd e nc e 0 11 I he need .... and In Jt\ rt"Sult ~. . '. .
h
Man 's goal -setting al.: livit y is not. of coune. objedl\e.1n t. e
same sen se as nature . There are twO form~ of .the objeCtl~e
process. Man' s goal -setting activity apparently Ineludes
jeclive factor s as well. A goal may exist i~ different forms 0 t h ~
psyche, of consciousness, and goal -setting. ':lay take place. a
different psychical level s. Besides, the activity of goal:seHl.ng
and achievement of goals includes a purely psych~loglcal 111gredient (74. 157-167). This las t poi~t is of grea~ Importance
for understanding the mechanisms of Implementatio n of kn o.wledge about goals in technol ogical structy.res. fo~ u.nderst a ndlng
purposive activit~ as the o~ject of cognJtlo~. It IS I,n. t~e sphere
of the psychological constlluent of purposive aCll~)() (of the
result of this activity) that technic al knowledge 1$ formedat the initial stage, at any rate.
. ' .
The subject-matter of technical knowledge IS matefl~hs~d
purposive activity, i.e.,. ~echnics !11 the above se,:se - artlfiC131
material systems realismg man s labour funcl1o~ s (go~~s).
As we have pointed out, the term "artificial" in thiS defillltion
is synonymous with "man-made".
The problem of the artificial is the key problem. as far as
technics is concerned. The fundamental nature of IhlS problem
explains certain difficulties in its solution-in the analysis. for
instance, of the first stone labour implements and of their difference from stones "processed" by nature . The idea about close
links between goals and the artificial seems to be one of the most
reasonable and well-founded ideas concerning the general
approach to this problem (183,6-7). These close links permit.
in fact, the transition from the definition of tec hni cs as a m e an s
of purposive activity to its defll1i.tion as arti~ c ial means c:'f. a c tiv ity, artificial systems .. etc, Previousl y conSidered definitions of
technics despite all differences between them, have a common
objective content, they pertain to one and the same class of phenomena.
It has been pointed out above that, in the framework of the
activity-oriented approach to technical knowledge, technics
can be interpreted as the subject-matter of technical know-

'58

159

and has conlin~ed to advance up to the presenl. A cla~ic~

e:\ample of the Improvement of a laskor function ~ orienl d

technical structure was the invention of the

(44, 23-24),

stea111 - engi~e

The, programmat.i c-purp?sive approach to the construction

of major .technologl~al proJ~cts and generally ,to material and
?onmatenal production, which has ~harply gamed in strength
In recent ~<:ars, created the premiSes for the establishment
of t?e decl~lVe :ole of goal in man's practical activity. including engmeerlng and technology. The formative character
of goal in relation to technical structures is strikingly manifested

..., ar

;U

'"

ledge. To the ~rguments add~l ced in the ab?vc. w~ , can add

tu:re fh e follow mg. The art ific ial call be de~cnb~d, a!s 111 (II I )
m terms. of st~ucture ~nd function. But the .a rt iflcia l ca n al s~
be described, In our View, fro m the sland po lIll of goa l-d irect_
edness. The a rti fic ial is th en a synonym of th e goal-directed
Taking in lo account th e pu r posive na ture of fun cti on, which
in its !U rn determines the structure, the morph o logical charac_
teristics of the technol og ic al o bject, we can concl ude Inat th e
functional-morphol ogica l desc ripti on of the arti fIci al and its
purposive interpretatio n are two equ iva lent !syste ms of concepls
characterising one and the sam e subject-maue r - tec hni cs. This
situation is analogous to th e relati o nship between ergo nomics
and human engineering, which have an identical subject-matter
but different organisations of knowledge. Therefore, th e vi ew of
the artificial as the subject- maner of technical knowledge (or
sciences) (35, 220) can be interpreted as a reference to technics
in the above sense (the subject-matter of technical knowledge ) .
CcwmerinS the ambivalence of technics and the assessment
of this ambivalence in connection with the epistemological analysis of the subject- maner of technical knowledge discussed
above. we believe that the definition of the subject-mauer of
technical knowledge as the totality of a rtific ial ma terial systems
10 be the most adequate view . The questi on of wh eth er th ese
SYSICU.. are implements of labour or of purpos ive ac ti vity in
general here recedes into the background, it bec omes insignificant. The view of technics as the subject-matter of technical
knowledge is in complete agreement with the most general c riterion, evolved in epistemology. in the methodology of sc ientiflc
cognition, of science (or knowledge) as a unity of the subjective
and the objective, technics being materialised purposive activity,
an embodiment of technical knowledge.
The two-layer structure of the subject-matter of techni cal
knowledge in this interpretation is obvious. The two-layer
st~ucture of t~e subject-maner of technical knowledge determmes the two-layer character of knowledge in non -classical
technical sci~nc.es such as ergonomics, systems engineering,
etc. ~oncretlsat1on of the .structure of the subject-maner of
tec~~lcal ~~owledge. t~e Identification in it of goal-setting
aCIlVlty facilitates effect~ve .research not only into the complex
pr.obl~ms of t~e or~a~IS~lion of knowledge in non-classical
sc lentlfic -tec h~lCal dlsc lplm~s, the genesis of the primitive structures of technics and ~echl1ical knowledge, etc. We believe that
on the general P~llosophical , epistemological plane, the
approach to the subject-maHer of technical knowledge devel160

lI

oped hl'n:, c reu tl'S Ihe prl'tII i'St'3 ror an ex planat ion, more cooc~ete
Ihan other exi~ l ing cxp lanutioll o;, of Ih e content of ledllaial'
know ledge in il'i pre - ~dl'nt i fll':. claSSical and no n.c1ao;sicaJ forms.
and of th e rela lion uf Ihi<; COn1e111 to objective real it y. On this
approach, certa in 1'\\\:111 ia I a\pe(" t \ C<111 be Ir<lled of the re nc(tion
in tec h nica l knowledge of its objec t and \ubjecl-matter.
Th e view of the \ubjct: t- m<l ll er of technical knowledge a\
a rti fici al ma leri al sy\lem\, a~ objec tiflcd goal-"etting activity,
enabl es li S 10 ta ke a more adva ntageo us approac h, su pportt:d by
aClual enginee rin g and techn ica l practice, to the analY !> ls of till
conce pti ons of Ih e subject- mailer of tec hnical knowledge in contemporary fore ign lileratu re, especially Brilish and American.
In eva luating th e meth odological, epistemolog ica l interpretations
of technological knowledge (and of lech nology) by Mar io
Bunge. James Feib leman , Henryk Skolimowski. I. C. Jan- ie,
Stanl ey Ca rpente r, and others, we must point ou t the act ual
aspecls of tec hnological knowledge and the rational elements in
its in terpretat ion wh ich were raised to an absolute and exaggerated in th ei r th eor ies.
Anal ys is of the works of these aUlhor'S, collected, e.g., in the
well -known book (172) . shows that they sha re a number of
common theses. The firsl of these is. of course. Ihe correlati on
of technological knowledge and lechn ology, just as techn ic al
knowledge is correlated with techn ics. "Tec~nology " is a p<:,lysemantic word, so that in some cases the relatIOn of technological
knowledge and technology assumes the Quality of identity. tech nology being regarded as a type of know ledge. It is ob ...: ~ ous , however that the two senses of the term " Iechn ology m u!st be
diffe'rentiated this is clearly realised by those scienlists who
closely study ;he problem. Thus Carl Mitcham believes that. the
term "t ec hnology" ha!s fOllr sen!se!s: (I) technology as object:
(2) tec hnol ogy as process ; (3) technology as knowledge, and
(4) technology as voliti on (171 . .106). Tech~ology as knowledge (technological knowli:'dg~) I ~ conne~ted III the first pla ce
with technology as proce.s..<;, whIch IS especiall y st ressed by Ca r penter (124, 162) .'
..
.
.
The common feature of variOUs IIlt erpretatlons of technolog)
as process, ra nging fr om F e ibl e ll1 ~ n 's skill to ~ arv i es. know-h<:,w.
to Bunge's lechnol ogicalth eor ies, l!s techn olog ical action 10 which
tec hnological kn owledge IS rel ated . The dearest. b~st thoU~I-OUI
and logic all y accolllpli <:; hed th eory of t echnolo~lcal. acllon has
been suggested. in our view. by Eugen. Olsioewskl. HIS system of
proposition s o n Ihis problem may be said 10 have ded.u ced al.l the
conclusions frolll the principles desc ribing technolog ical aC ll ons.
11 _0 1410

161

Oh.l!tw~"is complex IYPl)hlg)' of hyman aCli~llls (175) COn.

sis/ell!h' iderIlines pra(lil..' .II. t"('Olllllllll... 'H1d. wuhlll Ihl' lalll."r,

'('I..'hnoiogical aelioll"'. which have lhl" following characteristics.
As practical actions. they ,change- rc'll~IY by ,means of all kinds

of innovations. As pra(.'l1cal eCOll011111..' 31..'IIOnS, technological

actions are consciously realised and goal-oriented. Among other
economic actions. technological actions proper are marked by
Ihe fact that all or most of the means of achieving goals are
man-made or inorganic in nature. Thus if mall sets himself a
goal and achieves it with the aid of some tools he made himself
(these goals and tools being inorganic in nature), Ihis action may
be described as technological. Technological actions are differ.
ent, e.g .. from medical actions. for, although the tools are usual
ly man-made, the goals are connected with natural objects and
processes, i.e . with organisms and biological processes in man
and animals. The world of technology. i.e., all technological
actions and their results, is, according to Olsz.ewski, the subjectmatter of technological sciences. of technological knowledge.
The conceptions of technological knowledge discussed here
have a number of defects pointed out both in the Soviet and
Western literature on epistemological problems of technological
knowledge. such as the absence of any analysis of the structure
of technological knowledge. of practically any studies in the
genesis and development of technOlogical knowledge, neglect
for or, to be more precise. relegation into the background of
substantive. objective aspects of technology, etc. But the views
of these autho.rs contain o~e ~Iement which is extremely important for definmg the speCificity of the subject-mailer of technological kn~wledge. name,ly the view that technological actions
are that which technological knowledge is directed towards,
starts o~t from, and closes ,upon. In the conceptions analysed
here, ~hls aspect of, the subject-matter or technological knowledge IS hypertrophied at t~le ,expe~se of the substantive aspects
of te~hno.log~. In ,substantlatmg thiS proposition, one aspect of
the situation I~ raised to an abs.olute, and thai, of course, is an
err~r. The ratlO~al kernel ~ere IS the link between technological
actlCOO and man s goal-settl~g activity, which explicitly figures
m arpenter and Olsl.ewskt.
This conception of the sub'
logical knowledge permits a n!~t-~alter and ?bject of technotems in the analysis of th . b .vl ew of certam complex probforms of scientific technic:1 ~u JeCl-matter of "non-~Iassi~al"
ergonomics, systems design
~owledge.--systems engmeenng,
logical disciplines. For exa' ani other ~rstems-oriented technomp e, what IS the objeclive content

10,

of tilL' notion of integral system in the construction of complex

engineering objed ..? Similar que~tions can be raised in th.~
text or ergonomics or systems de.:sign. The pussil11e answer ..
thi~ qut.'\lion i .. do..dy linked to the siudy of the synthesis of
knowledge Hl nOI1cla~ical technical '".:icnces. whi{'h we shall
discus') below. Right now we are intcre~ted in anoth~r quesfa1f1
what conditions the integral quality of the noti(\fl of a complt'x
object Ihat is being designed and does not yet CXl\' in nhje.:-live
reality. In technological practice, this task IS solved in eadl par
ticular case with the aid of simulation (22, 6667). From the
epistemological standpoint, the objective phenomenon ensuring
the integrality of the design image is the goal as a Hnt in 80"
selling activity which is a form of the objective process. One of
the aspects of the formative character of goals in rdation to
technological structures. is, as was pointed out above, tht" fact
that goals determine the integrality of the conception of a com
plex engineering object at the stage of design.
The status and structure of technical knowledge. Definmg
the subject-maner and the objective sources of technical knowledge is only one, if highly important. element in its epistemological characterisation. To give a more comprehensive methodological description of its o;cientific and prescientific forms, we
must turn to the contenr, structure and functioning of technical
knowledge. Technical knowledge is knowledge materialised or
objectified in technics, knowledge about the man-techni/:s (or
man-machine) system: this became obvious with the emergence of non-classical scientific technical disciplines. Epi.stemological ~tudies in classical technical sciences implicitly reflected
this fact in correlating technical knowledge with technics defined
as a goal-directed structure.
Two aspects or groups of problems can be identified in epistemological (methodological) studies of technical knowledge;
solution of these two groups of problems yields two groups of its
epistemological features or characteristics-one pertaining to
the status of technical knowledge and the other, to its structure.
In the flrst case. tedlllical knowledge is regarded as a system,
an integrative property that cannot be reduced to its own elements-theories, hypotheses, various schemata or separate disciplines. Questions of the status of technical knowledge are ('on.
cerned with its pla('e III the structure of scieniflc knowled.e
in general, the sllIdy of the correlation between tC\:hnical knowledge and natural knowledge, mathematics. the humanities, etc,
Here also belong the problems of the subject-matter and emergence' of technical knowledge. the study of the methods. ideals.
163

norms of orga.nis~llon 3,!d. generally ,pe~killg. ;:lIIaIY'iis of Ihe

e." ernaJ (UIICliolllllg, as 11 were, of lechllleal knowledge in III
structure of scientific knowledge in general.
e
Problems of the structure of technil..'al knowledge pertain
to the study of the proper elemenls of lechllieal knowledge form~
ing its system. On this plane. technical knowledge ;s considered
from within, as it were, without any correlations being eSlab_
lished between irs elements and other forms of knowledge
scientific and prescientiCle. A Iypical case of the analysis of Ih~
structure of technological knowledge is inquiry inlo the forma_
lion and structure of theory in the technical sciences, which
implies studies into the nature of ideal objects, technological
hypOlheses and facts-generally speaking, of problems in the
empirical and theoretical levels of technical cognition.
The status of technical knowledge involves problems that
cannot be consistently considered outside their links with other
forms of knowled&~ outside the context of the principal kinds
of ICiadiflc cognition and culture in general. At the same time
d.ere are questions which can be called problems in the structure
of technical knowledge and which can in principle be studied
in the framework of technical knowledge. This division is fairly
relative in character and is closely linked with the depth of research into the status and structure of technical knowledge. Of
course, consistent analysis of the specificity of technical knowledge, comparison of this knowledge, e.g., with physico-mathematical natural science, necessarily leads to studies in the elements of technical knowledge, and vice versa. In particular,
rueareh into the structure of technical theory implies, at definite
stages, appeal to the results of analysis of the structure of physical and mathematical knowledge. its theories, etc. We can therefore say that identification of these two groups of problems is,
to a considerable extent, the choice of Ihe plane on which technical knowledge is considered, which does not change, of course,
the nature of technical knowledge.
This classification of problems reflects the main direction of
die dons of methodologists studying technical science. Most
. . . . -.\d. for~ign publications deal with the problem of the
status of tech~lcal knowledge, and, above all, with its subject~atter an~ object. Th.e st:ucture of technical knowledge is studied less closely. Takmg mto aCCOunt the inalienable links between the status and structure of technical k i d
assume that the problem of t h
. now e ge, we ca.n
I kid h
e epistemological status of tech 111Ca nowhe ge bOIS nOI b~en solved because of insufficient allen1Ion to repro em of Its structure.

relation to applied knnwlt:dgt!'. The ab-ience of complefe

clarity on this i\',>ue or, at It!'a ... t, of gt!'nerally acct!'pted concepts
is determined not only by the complexity o~ the i~tcrrelatio.ns
between technical and applied studit!s. The difficulties abo arise
here du~ to a certain relativity and vaguenes\ of the division of
scie nces into fundamt!'ntal or pure and applied. In other words.
clarification of the interrelations of applied and technological
knowledge requires a cJ~ar understanding of the entire triad:
fundamental sciences a pplied sciences-technical sciencea.
This schema i~ fairly widely current among Soviet and foreign
authors. The main thing here is the content we ascribe to this
triad , the way we understand the sepa rate elements of the chain,
and the links between the components of this structure. In
attempting to solve these questions. some Soviet scient ists support
the following view. The "fundamental sciences-applied sciences-technical sciences" sequence is a concretisation of scientific knowledge. Concretisation in this context is taken to mean
not only the transition from higher-level abstractions to lowerlevel abstractions but also the exclusion of higher-level abstract
objects in the application of theory 10 practice (t07, 51).
It is this scheme that is. in fact, analysed by Feibleman (172,
33-41) . Distinguishing between pure and applied aspects in
science on the criterion of goals. Feibleman describes technology, as we have previously remarked, as skill. Technology is. in
his view a further approximation of practical tasks by applied
science, being. so to speak, a scientifically substantiaTed improvement of the instruments of activity. In evaluating Feibleman's
position on this issue, we mus~ say that he .rail~ to nOlice ~he
production of new kn~wledg~ 111 the. approxlm~tJon of pr~cllce
by science. App lied sCience IS for him pure scIence apP.hed. to
practical problems. Simi larly, techr;tology is a fUriher ap~hcal1on
of the same pure science-for dIfferent purposes. Felbleman
ignores the fact that the point of view, motives and goals do not
change the nature or content of t~e object under study-including scientific knowle.dge. That IS why both technology ~nd
applied science. conSidered on the content plane. are nothmg
but pure scienc!!.
..
Mario Bunge views the relationship between fundamenlaland
applied science from similar positions .. using mOliv~s as the
feature distinguishing fundamental studies from apphed ones.
Bunge's conception of. technologic~1 knowle~ge is one Of. the
most widespread and Widely recoglllsed theones abroad. prlma-

164

t05

Tef/lll;CU/ und upplied .+;dc'ncC'.\, An essential element 01 die

epi~t~nH)logical anaIY~I$ of th~ status of technical know.....
i~ il~

ril,\ ;11 ,'he. El1glish-spt"a k i,~g cOlllllric-\. Itsanalysi ... is Ih~refore

ll(. <;recl~J mterest ,and slg ~llf1cal1ce . ACI..'ordll1g 10 Bunge, applied
\c1('llce IS pure .sclence directed lOwar.ds the solution of praloti.
cal (asks. He v.lews tec~nology as acllOIiS and studies orieTlled
lowards changing reailly-natural or social. Differences be.
tween tasks naturally prodllc~ difTt:r~1I1 ,ecll1~ologies. Bunge's
works (see, ~.g. (122 pro\'lde a fairly delalled classification
of l~chnol.ogles. In Bunge's view, ,technology is essentially an
apphed SCience, although Bunge hllllself speaks of certain nuances distinguishing them, without going 11110 the details of
these differences.
Bunge does not analyse the structure of technological knowledge or, more precisely, the struclUre of technological theory;
he therefore does not see the new quality distinguishing technological knowledge from pure science. He identifles technology
with applied science, i.e . pure science applied to practical tasks.
1 jIce ........... Bunce docs not notice that application of pure
...... does not only provide solutions for practical problems
but also yields new knowledge different from pure science. He
only registers the fact itself of the application of pure science and
its result, losing sight of the birth of new knowledge in the pro-

cess.
The examples cited by Bunge to illustrate his viewpoint can be
used to show the erroneousness of his position. He writes, for
instance. that ';a theory of flight is essentially an application of
fluid dynamics" (172, 63). An analysis of the mechanism of
this application of fluid dynamics and of the result of such applicarion-flight theory (169) shows that this application results in
new knowledge that is absent in fluid dynamics.
We get similar resu!t~ in studying ~un~e's another example,
that ?f psychology (IbId.). In .consldermg the possibility of
applYing psychology .to th~ solution of production tasks. Bunge
actually Ignores engmeermg psychology which is born in the
J!'OCes5 of this application and has a content of its own. II is very
cliIfIcult to expla.lIl. fro.m Bunge's pOsitions. the differences be.clePOtOllCal sciences emerging on the basis of electroas radio engineering and electrical engineering.
apparatus merely permits the statement that
h
1 e two subs tantlve technolog
I th

..

Ica
eones
are
applications
of
e Iectr od ynamlcs.
Applied and technological'.
..'
on the basis of the e .
sCiences .are sometimes Identified
lines-whereas BunX~t:;r~e and an~l~sls o~ tec~nological discippure and applied r!.earch~es at thiS Identification via a study of
t66

The mutui.ll links bt"tween applied and technical . . . . . are

not ullamblguou'i. The '-'tudy of their relations is a
lem thai hi.l\ a number of debatable solutions.
il.lcnlifu:ation of tel.:hnological and applied s,iences. whether
il starts out from an analysis of applied studies or technological studies, is ba\ed either on vague criteria for differentiating between fundamental and applied knowledge or on an
amorphous, undifferentiated view of practical tasks, or ehe on an
inadequate perception of the mechanism of application of pure
science to applied tasks. to These causes mostly act simultaneously.
The situation is also made even more complicated by Ihe rapid
development of technological knowledge and the emeralllNO'
of new discipline, including those of funJamentaJ narure.
Methodological studies of scientific technical knowledge pay
little attention to the specificity of the tasks solved by technical
sciences. although that is one of their differences from applied
science. Technical sciences do not si mply o;:olve practical or. say .
industrial tasks - they concentrate on technics. on technological
problems. This is especially stressed in (10). although the view
that technical sciences ha\-"e to do. above all ...... ith technics.
is fairly widespread, as pointed out in the pre,ious section of the
present chapter.
Among scientists concerned with problems of the history and
methodology of technical sciences. the general tendency is to
reject their identification with applied sciences. In his analysis
of the problems of the history of technology and ils modern state.
Melvin Kran:lberg writes: We have also done away with the old
maxim that technology is simply applied science .. " (122. XIX)'
Symptomatic is also the fact that. whereas the article on science
in the Great S(Wiel Encyclopedia (1974) identified technicaA
and applied sciences. there is no such identification in (3).
The study of interactions between fundamental, applied and
technical sciences is necessary not only from th~ methodological standpoint. This question is also of great significance for the
constantly emerging new sciences. such as rock physics. A recent
article on the methodologil~al aspects of that science points out
thaI 'rock physics is a ,'ery young science. and its further development largely depends on the image of science which scientists active in that field take for a model of constructing scientific
knowledge" (QI. .133),
A dear realisation in methodology of the speciflcity 01 fundamental, applied and technical studies, and subsequent application of the specified characteristics of scientific knowledge to
a cOlH.-rele ')cienlifu: discipline provides additional. and some

,.7

ti mes rhe only possi ble mean s and ways of solving 'heore! kal and
praclil.'sl tasks o f rh e develop.menl o~ Ih~ given discipline.
In rhe case of rock phYSICS, liS claSSlflcallon as a scientific.

technical discipline rather than as an applied branch of solid.

pia Ie physics permits a clarification and ddmilioll of its .sphere
of application and a definition of its subject- mailer. II is now
methodologically juslified to distinguish theoretical or funda.
menial ~esearc~ in it~ n~1 ,only applied. Me~hodological clarity
concernmg the interdiSCiplinary nature of this branch of science
opens up further heuristic possibilities in the solution of real
problems in rock physics such as synthesis of knowledge, speci.
fi cation of rhe complex insrruments of cognition, etc. Problems
of this type are often solved on the analogy of cognate problems
from other interdisciplinary technological sciences. Furthermore,
correct understanding of the actual scientific practice, reflected
in the correct classification of the given discipline as fundamen_
tal, appti~ or technological, creates the premises for the necessary ratructuring of professional consciousness and the system
af personnel training, the system of education. As a result of all
this, the name of the science is changed to "theoretical geotechnology".
The inception and development 0/ technical sciences. The
"fundamental sciences-applied sciences- tec hnical sciences"
schema may and must be discussed as a sequence of stages in the
concretisation of scientific knowledge. On this plane, however,
it needs greater substantiation. The existing few interpretations
of the concretisation of knowledge are open to criticism. The
concretisation of abstractions in the movement of theory towards
practice, far from cancelling abstract objects of a higher level
at the stage of applied and technical sciences, fills them with
new content. In the process, the essential characteristics of the
fundamental models are not lost but are seen in terms of particular instances.
The analysis of applications of theoretical mechanics and
of the development of the technical sciences connected with
mecha?ics, w.hic~ .we find in A. Mandryka's books (57; 58),
~a m ~etatl, citing exampl~ from various periods and theonea, the dlfftcult process of re-mterpretation and concretisation
of t~~ fundamental concepts of theoretical mechanics in the
speci . c law~ of these ~echnical sciences. The example of the
technical SCiences of thIS type is lyp,'ca' f Ih
,.
'd
h
Th
.
0
ere atlons ana yse
'Ie codmplex rel~tlonship between the electrodynamics of
Mere.
axwe an that of IOVentor
d
..
suited in the emerge
f I s. an te~hl11c.lans. ultimately rence 0 e ectncal engineering, In which all the
168

n d Kal n)f1 crc ll" al'lion 'S of the- de-f.:t 'i1.:al engineer are ..... on
~f~xwdl \ has ic equCJlinn'i. Similar lC"ndencies are .
."'_
Ihe forrn alioll I)f olher snt:lln~'s ba'ied on elecirodynamlcs-rllllo
engineering, lalcr radinlncatioll, etc
.
_
,.
Researc h in Ihl" aclual development of sCIe-ntlfic cognllion
suggcSb lhat the study of the "fundamental sciences applied
.sc ien ccs techni cal ')(. ien ces" triad l'i of fundamental ~lglllfJ.
can ce for Ihe analysis o f su ch an important problem of the "talUs
of technical knowledge as the in..:eption and later devt:! opment
of lechni cal sciences. Moreover, this schema may be said to be
of prime interest for the methodology of science, reftect!ng as .It
does the essential elements of the development of technical SCIences.
Before reaching the scientific stage, technical knowledge- went
through a number of form s in its development. In the above,
we described in sufficient detail the inception of technical knowledge. its initial forms and methods. Accepling on the whole Ihe
schema for the formation and development of technical kn owledge suggested in (35), we must clarify certain details and
concretise a number of p~opositions-a natural move in the elaboration of any schema. '
Relying on the evidence of archaeology, anthropology, ethnography, etc., a study of the prescientilic stage in the de velo pment of technological knowledge permits something more Ihan
just placing it in the period bel ween the. prim itive c~mm.unal
structure and the Modern Times and partially structunng It, so
to speak-it also permits approximate. dating o~ the emergence
of techological knowledge. The solution of thiS problem may
appear to be trivial: we can gel a.da.'ing, albeit approxi.mate,. of
technical knowledge merely by pOlOtlOg 10 Ihe firsl tools 10 which
technical knowledge was malerialised. It appears. however,
that the act of such pointing assumes Ihe solution of eXlremely
complicated problems of anthropogenesis, the Slructure of human labour, the artilicial and the natural, elc.
The view was accepted in (he previous section thai the first
type of labour implemenls were choppers. Despite differen ces
in the tirst tools, repetition of Ihe form s and s imi laril ies in working in stone poinl to Ihe goal-directed ness of th e handling of
these IDols. The constancy of the form s of tools handed down
from generalion to generatio n indicates conscious purposive
actions involving the lirst labollr implements. Thus choppers and
other tools of the Oldovan cuhure are a materialisalion of goaldirected action: in other words. Oldovan 10015 are Ihe firsl constant, systematic form of obje":lilied lechnological knowledge.
tM

III .arla'ysin~ Ihe (O(lll'. ~) f pre\l' il'ntifll' ledmkal knowlcd t'

lme ... hould pOml oullhe fall that dlstllllIlshmg 111 II the "ra g.
I
-,
,
., f
_
.
cllI:al
,lIIu r It' I t"~ ,ITlO ?K3 ~),rll1'" 01 ledlllll.:JI knowll.'dge i... somewhat
problematll. It's 110 au. Ide-Ill thai Carpenter 111 his. . I(}, () r the
W"('\
olle
tcrms
for bl'"
f orm ... 0 ffee
" 1Il0 ogleal
. knowleJgl'
,ll
l
e
( ,,
Iype!. 0 r lee ,lIIo!ogH."al knowkdge Ihl~ term "skill"
- k'
, 'd"
,
b
. Illa Ing
no p,racllc~
IS1I1lCI.101l
etween them (124). Technological
knowledge IS born with the fmsl SlOTh,' 1001s, and it would b '
correcll0 vIew II as dt'\'ei.opment and increase in the complexity

"t "

, ,

e",_

of the kJ10wl~.dge.of pracllc~1 method~. Technol?~ical knowledge

of Ihe. ~~escle~tl.lic stage IS, essentially. emplrlca,l knowledge
?f pradlcal activity. It take!> ages to accumulate tlils mixture f
Igllora~ce and prac.tical skills by trial and error. Being part ~f
fo~k ~,sdom, technical knowledge is at this stage a system of
thmkmg based o!, common.sen~e. This last point was noted by
Alexander Koyre. but he ralSed \I to an absolute. so that technology, according to K~yre, is a. system of thinking based on
common. sense~ absorblDg certain elements of scientific knowledge and linked with intellectual history but independent of
sCience.
. The evoluti~n of the sci.e.ntific form of technical knowledge
is connected with the tranSition to machine pro ductio n. The deyel~ment of. material produ~tion and techni cs required engine~rmg solutlons. of prodw.:t~on lasks based on science, it req~lred mathematical calculations in designing technological devJr.:es. Technology could no longer develop on Ihe basis of mere
,om man sense. keenness of wit, empirical experience. That was
why ~he birth and ~ormation of technical sciences, of which
t~chlllc~ was the subject-matter, "was determined by two opposlt.ely ~Irected proce~ses: on the one hand. by the use of natural
sCI~ntJfic I~ws. theones, and separate data il\ the study of technologlca~ objects. an~ the processes laking place jn them, and also
by aC!Jve appllcallon of the methods of scientifu: cognition and
on the .other hand. by generalisation of separate observa'tions
and .facts. of technology and production (102 58)
DlSSectlon of the resultant of these opPosit~1 d:
d
ceIIeS and the study of the n
.
y .Irecte profact that technical sciences ature of thelf synthesIs reveals the
technological and engineerin~ere ca.lled to life by the needs of
entific knowledge in Ihe
~raClice. The role of natural-scigenesis of tech . I .
of course, be ignored eithe Th
. nlca sCiences cannot.
so to speak. an external Sti~ I t' practICe of e~lgineering was.
sciences. But that doc,;: not u us of the formation of technical
grown out of prescientiflc ~ean that tech~ical sciences have
orm\ of technical knowledge by
17U

them "c! VlS. The hirth (If technit'aJ sciences was more the raull
of implantation of natural-sc ientific and mathematical k.....tr
edge in tcdlllolng k al m:tivity . It is therefore wrong both to
the role of nutural -",il"ntiflc knllwledge in the emergence of the
technic al s,ien cl"" and tn inlerprel the Ja1ler 8$ mere deri ... ativ~
of fundamental natural-scientifIC theories. It ha') already been
pointed out that the proces.. of applkation of nalural S4;:lcnce to
the technological problem\ of pmduction give') rise to new know
ledge irreducible to the knowledge of ba'ilc theory and the
common sense of tc'hnology.
The hypothesis of derivation of technical sciences from natu~
ral science, which i., regarded as independent from technical
knowledge, appears especially doubtful in the ..:ontcxl of the
study of the birth of experimental science of tht: :"1odern Times.
At the initial stages of its de ...elopment. experimental natural
science of the Modern Times sianed OUI from the ontology
which emerged as a result of the objectification of prc"cientific
forms of technical knowledge. i.e., of contemporary tec hn ic...
The engineering tasks which stimulated the emergence of technical sciences also emerged on the basis of this technkal ontolog).
But technics was also the domain which served as the "'expericntial basis for the emergence ... of the theoreticallhinking of new
physics" (4.214).
In studying the emergence of scientifiC knowledge in the Modern Times. historians and methodologi<;(s of scienc e note the
inAuence of technic!>, of its spreading and impro\ement. on the
social conditions and the mode of thinking. Technics (objectified
technical knowledgC>, as a new ontology, made an impal:t 0\1 the
worldview, laying the foundation of new culture. The social
processes determined by the development of technics. and technics itself, naturally made an impact. 100. on the thinking of
major scientists. such as Galileo. who stood at Ihe beginning
of new science. Their theoretical thinking was ine\itably affected
by the influenl:e of Ihe technical ont?logy. and by the ~ngineer
ing, experimental tasks that II gave flse to. Moreover. III analysing Ihe stale of affairs in terms of derivation of some sc iences
from others. we see that we deal with the following , prohably
somewhat simplified. situation, as far as physics is con cerned :
"One might in fact say that new physics was born from an
experimental branch of applied medlanics" libid .. 2IS) .In othC'r
words. physical-.mathel.nallcal natural scielll'e emerged ~s a
branch of tl~hJl1cal sCience th ..l1 was born at that same time.
The inception of technical "clences falls approximately in the
period bctwt'cn the IlIlddle of the 151h century and the 1810,,:

i,II.'

'"

8 ,:haral"ferisl iI..' fea lure of (his period is Ihl' USl' of , . '. '.
"
hi "
f
"
- lIl.:lIlllI _
kfltlw/t'dgc l o r I e so ullon 0 prOdUl..'llOn IIldUSfrial fa -k'
l

pracfil..'al problems in general. During Ih~ fJn;f 'tag 'i sr' nOI
" d (lIe
I secon d h a If 0 r the 151h Ihrougl1lhe l'arly
- '.1811"
e 0 "11~"
reno
" ) lee h"
llenlu.
rtes
nlea I k
nowledge'
did nol WI allain a fheor"I"1 "al
I
"
II f
.....
"- l: evel
Since we - ormed theones In natural sCIence dId n,)1 yel
"'
JUSf

Th"IS st~ge was m~rked b

'
eXist
y the formation
of applied studies
.

fhe beslS of experimental methods. The lime belween Ihe e r~n

18tb. rad the lale 19th cenlury was decisive for the rormaal y
11
h "sCiences
"
. physics, chemistry, and
IOn
ec t~Ica
connected with
mech~nlcs. The emergence of fll.ndamenl~1 natural-scientific
theones and .well-de\'elope~ ~echnlcal pracllce created the necessary. premises for the ralsmg of technical knowledge to th
theorellcal level.
e
The aforementioned
stages in the emergence of
(fundamental sciences-applied
..
within different
not differ much.

.
!lClences emerged
Ihe 19th century, while the rISe 01 applied sci~nces falls.on the beginning of the 19th century (10, 81-82). It
IS also obvIOus that electrical engineering as a technical science
'*De into bei~g somewhat la!er than the 1870s- the period
when. Maxwell s famous equations of the electromagnetic field
~cam~ m0'7 or ~ess widely known. A similar situation existed
In r~lo en~meenng. Importa~tly. this schema obtained in the
hn
tec .,..'. scle!,!ces connected With physics, chemistry and mecha ~ beml, In fact, the schema of the inception of the
t~hnical sciences of the classical type. ll One can therefore agree
With ~uch ~ers as G. Ruzavln, .who insists that "initially.
technical ~enca emerge for the SOlution of purely applied tasks
- die . . . of t~e resul~ of such !undamental sciences as mehydraulics, phYSICS, Chemls!.ry, etc. Later, the process
more~omplex (107,53). Jndeed the de" techmcal
I 'disciplines becomes muc'h more
m. non-c asslcal disciplines.
and the forms of the evolution of new
" "fi cantly already in the
-0....
19toh chang
. e slgm
.... I -mld-20Ih cenl " ) r
opment of technical knowledg A
.
unes 0 the develof the emergence of techn~' It t~1S stage, the traditional
the basic natural science ~ca t~lences through derivation
paillied out, derivation should ~n ~nued to exist. As we have
.
Interpreted as synthesis of
practice and natural-scientific theory.
172

III Ihi" way dl"ctril-al and radio engineerins

declrodynalllil"'~. AI Ihe ~ame time a new fOilli of
of IL'chllil-al "Cil'lll"l'"S l'ame into being-throup
an alrl'ady exi .. ting Il"t"hnical science, which in this C'Te It
a flindaml"IlI<l1 ..cicnn. In this way radiolocation was. ror in
slance. dl'rived from radio engineering. In this case, too, the
interesls of Icdlllical practice, uf engineering~ form an essential
aspect of Ihe mechanism of derivation of a new scientifH:-lechni..
cal discipline fmm an already existing technological science.
It should be noted that technical sciences in this period are
already a well-formed field of scientific knowledp with ... ....
subject-maller, its theoretical principles. and speci6c .........-r
jecls. Original mathematical and conceptual apparatuses hae
already been worked out in a number of disciplines. The system
of technical science!S assumes stable forms of relations with natural sciences. In this context. the separation of some technical
sciences from others, as a new element in the mechanism of the
emergence of the scientilic-technical disciplines (when they are
considered in a new aspect), is differentiation of technical knowledge in the precise sense. The latter is most characteristic of the
"classical" stage in the development of technical knowledse
Another aspect distinguishing the classical slage from the previous stages of development of technical knowledge i~ the a.cc~l
eration of the rate of mathematisstion of techntcal diSCIplines, a qualitative leap in this process.
.
Differentiation of technical sciences at the ci3S.')lcal stage.
as e.g. the separation of the theory of m.achines: the .the~ry of
electric drive. etc" from theoretical electncal engmeermg. mtroduced new elements in the interpretation of the fundamental vs
applied problem in its con~ections with. technical know ......
Different iation and integration made pOSSible and nece try the
identilication of general laws in the sphere of technological
knowledge. The question thus arose of fundamental technical
laws.
.
. II
The problem of fundamental and applied sl'iences IS e!Specla y
acute in the methodology of technical sciences in view of their
genesis, in view o.f the fact that in Iheir evolution Ih~y go throu~h
the stage of applied knowledge. A. Bogolyubo, rejects the eXIstence of fundamental laws in the field of lechnical knowled&e.
In his view. technical sciences may become applied or evea .....
damental, but fundamental technical sciences do nOl exist. ~s.
cending to abstract knowledge t.hal does not close lIPO!' technlc!S.
technical sciences lose the quality and status of technical knowledge. becoming a different type of knowledge-applied or fun17.\

damt'llfal (10 ) . Som,lt aUlhors speak of "applil'd Il'l'hnil'al \rie"

ru:e\", ,ra m fer nng. 111 our \'leW, Iht.' UlI1l' t.'plS and It'rlll\ of I\il ~
fural sc ie nce 10 a sphere where \llL'h I.:Onnt.'ctIOll\ have no place
The d ivi sion of sciences inlo fundamental. parllL-ular. and c t)n~
crete tedlllical ones appears tht!'rdort!' to hl' Iht.' mosl correCI
schema (I II, 1.1.'),
The formation in the classical period of a quali13tively !lew
system of knowledge different. e.g .. from natural science, slimll~
"Ud attempts to define the speciflcity of lechnical ... ("ienees.
"kience may be regarded as well-formed if it effeclively performs its principal functions-those of explanation and prediction. At the empirical level these fUllctions - or at least predic.
tion-are impossible. It follows that the question of well-formed
acience is a question of the formation of
in it. Thus the
of.
the

became the object of serious epistemoAt that time, the material of methw~, as a rule, the classical technological sciences. The emphasIs was on the specificity of technological
compared to natural science, on establishing its
.
~ructth ure, ~tc. However. differentiation of technical
ICII!DCes 1ft e c lasslcal n.riod
.
dO . r
......., an d th e mushroommg
of new
ISClp mes at present. require greater concreteness

of 1I1l'llwdnlngil'al studies in the l'Ieid fA

At prc\cnl, the mm l adequate unit ~
\ is of \(,: icntifK- lcl.: hn ic al knowledle II. a
d;\l' jplinc (91, ,1 (7 ), This aprroach permltSn,!, .
of imponanl \ol:ial. organisational. commu~lcalive and othe.r
a'>pect'> uf the dcvelor,ment of sci~nliflc-t~chnlcal knowledle - If
also creatc'> the preml\es for solvmg the Important methodo~OI
ical tasks of \lUdying Iheoretical schemas ~f separate SClef!liflc -Il'l' hnical di\Ciplin~, which is especially Imponant for their
acceleraled development at a time of the scientific and technological revolution.
The need for the altainment of a new level of
methodological sl udies of technical sciences. and i~
".
focllsing of attention on separate scientifIc-Iechlllcal diSCiplines
(the technical sciences) is determined by the emerg~nce ~f
interdisciplinary technological sciences. Complex technical SCt
ences (technical sciences of the nonclassical type). such as ergonomics. systems engineering, systems design. t?eo reti cal g~ o
technology, and others-appeared as a result of mcreased complexity of the objects of engineering, activity ~~ .to be more.precisI.', as a result of increased complexity of deslgmng such objedL
Tentatively. the middle of the 20th century can be accepted as
the beginning of the n~n-classi~al sta~e in the den'l orm~ nt
of technical sciences. It IS sometImes said that. to charac tense
this stage, one must have a vision of the f~t~re ~f t.t'c hnical ~i
ences However some essential features dlstmgUlshmg technical
knowiedge of ,'he classical type fro~ non-classical tech~ical
knowledge can be identified already m these days. They differ
in (a) the structure of th~ories; ~b) .the over~1I structure and
organisation of non-classIcal sclenllfic-techmcal tn~
which is interdisciplinary in character and has a two.layer
structure' (e) the mechanisms of emergence and formation.
The c~ntent of points (a) and (b) is discussed below. As for
the institutionalisation of non-classical scientific-technical disciplines, its specificity consists in th~t, considered in the ~ost
general terms, they develop accordmg to the sc hema "scientific movemenl-scientific discipline" (I DO, ~O- B) ,
Methodological analysis of 1l00H: lassical technical disciplines
is rather difficult, as they are al a stage of theoretical evolution
now and the ideal of the organisation of their kno...... ...
nof yet been fixed. The methodological situation in ... eMr is
similar to that which existed at the beginning of the lOth century,
when the theoretical level of the classical technolosical sciences
was not yet clear. But even the study of well established aspects

174

17S

.laace. In techregarded as well-formed if it

performs its principal funcl ion - the constructive one,
the functio'n of generation of ideal engineering o bjec ts, The most
elective instrument of achieving this is the ma themati cal appa. . . . deductive mathematical reproduction. It is precisel y in this
sengethat we can say that the technical sciences took shape in the
1920s-194Os, when mathematised theories were constructed
in a number of classical technological disciplines which thus
auained the second stage of mathematisation, at least
the 20th century, the mathematisation of technical
knowlqe proceeded with difficulty; it only became stabilised in
the 1920&-19405, when the classical scientific-technical disciplines
--.ed their present-day form. The first sporadic attempts
the speciflcity of technical sciences in the methodocognition early in this century were ineffectual.
dae low theoretical level of technological discip-

,,,,'e

of smJ1t" non-classical sciences shows that non -c!<lssil.:al

'r
- I d , I
. .
. .. ntL LClechno 1oglca . lSClP mes are a qualitat ive leap in the deve l
op.
rnen t of techl1lcal knowledge .
The problem
tec hnical sc ie n'es
.
. of synthesis of complex
.
.. ISone
fh
t e most Imtb0rtahn'h pro~ l ems III th e deve lop men t, al Ihe
prese~t stage. 0. ot t e s.C1enc es the mselves a nd th e ir meth o.
do log lcal analysIs. Sy n theti c processes in sc ien t ific kn ow l d
i~cl ud ing tec h nic a l kn owledge, are c losel y linked with int~ ge~
live o~es. Infteg.rat i?n of scientific cognit ion no w a ttracts SP::i~1
attention 0 SClenllsts concerned with the methodol ogy of sc i.
ence, as reflected, e .g., in th e mate rials of th e Third All U .
C f
..
- mOn
o n eren ce ~n th~ Phtlo~ophl c al P roblems o f Natural Science,
where analysIs of IIltegr~t1ve processes figured quite prominentl y
(26). The need has arISen III the methodology of sc ie nce for
~trictly ~istinguishing ~tween .the .phenomena and c oncepts of
mtegrauon and Syn~eslS of scientific knowledge. Without this,
moden:- natur~1 science, in particular
a study of the d~.mlCS
at ......... ~ m ..... anon of sciences In nonclassical scienti
........nk. disciplines, is practically impossible,
Integ~ative processes in sc ie nce, even if we consider their episte"'!ologlcal ~pect only, constitu te a very complex str ucture.
ThIS c~mplextty. the objective d iversity of integ ration, is refte?ted m t~e great n u mbe r of typo log ies of integrative processes
bu~lt Of! different .fo undat ions. The essence of int egra ti on is
umflcatlon of prevIOusly autonomous parts in a wh o le, in a system. In che sphere of knowledge, these parts are integral fragmen~ of kn~wledge or scientific disciplines. It should be noted
t~at 1Otegrat.lOn does not necessarily result in an integral formatI O ~ . In pa~t1 c ~lar, ~ scientific movement as a form of the process
?f mt egratJ,on I.n science does not always culminate in the foundI~g of a SCientific ~iscip~ine. A ~ell-~nown example of a scien~Ific movem en t .which ~Id not gIve nse to a sc ientiflc discip line
LS pro~rammed mstructton. A better kn own case of scientiflc integrauo". (better known, perhaps, bec ause of its s uccess) is the
c~mebc movement
the subsequent emergen ce of cyber_ _ aeIiCL AI. ~n~ we wllnes:' the extremely powerful systems

..as. _ which tn~rates dIfferent means and styles of think11110 ~erC:iit conceptIOns, va lu es, etc.
A SClentlflc movement deve lo s in
.
If a synthesis is achieved of
p . to a complex sCience onl y
of knowledge methods and pr~vlo.usly autonomous fragments
,
SCIentIfic disc ipi"
S
h . .
funher stage in the deve lo
f .
m,es. y nt eSls IS
a sc ientific mo veme11l , Chara!; ~e~i~~~ ~ mtegratlv: proc esses in
mo us and different fo rms of k ' 1 dY th~ mergmg of autononOwe ge m a uniform whole.

D!

an?

176

As th e fina l ph8\C of a st:ie nt iflc mo vemenl, it is ".

fo rm at ion of a new, inde pe ndent branch of
(26. 312 ) .
Sy nth e til.: prol.:cs-\es, considered in the epistemological aspect.
are a fur th er deve lop ment a nd the res ult o f integrative processes
and , co nsequent ly, reta in thei r most important trai ts. Th is i~
also true of th e co nditi o ns of synthesis of kn owledge in scie nlitk
disc iplin es. In this conn ec tio n, th e most ad equ a te app roach he re
see ms to be th e view th at synth es is of kno wledge in in terdisciplinary sc iences is d eterm ined in a dual manner - by the object
of cogniti on and by activ ity-re lated facto rs (ibid . 170).
Among other comple x (non-classical) technical science..
the pro blem of synthesis of knowledge is anal ysed, e.g., in the
methodology o f ergonomic studies. Analysis of the practicall y
gene rally accepted or, at any rate, the most auth or itati ve viewpoint in this field shows that the solution o f the q uesti on is. in
brief, as follows. This soluti on is based on recognisi ng the
two-layer character of ergonomic knowledge, which consists
of substantive knowledge and knowledge perta in ing to research .
The solution itself is formulated as follo ws: " Object knowledge
brought in from other disciplin es creates. through knowledge
gained from research (always connected, in one way o r an o ther.
with a certain practical task) , a new o rganic wh ole " (100. 74;
101 31).ln other words, the addition that makes a n agglome ration' of knowledge in psychology, physiology, labou r hygiene.
etc., ergonomic knowledge proper, cons~sts in the mode of organisation of the knowledge of ergonomics.
In this general formulation of the soluti o n to the problem
of synthesis of ergonomic knowledge, es pecially ~otew?rth.y is
the link between researcher'S knowledge and practical SCientific
technologica l tasks. It is the, task that. sp~cifie~ t~e. sch~ma
of synt hesising autonomous, dlfferen~ sCientific diSCiplInes m~o
the new, systems qua lity of er~ono':l1lc k~owledge. The task IS,
figurative ly speaking, the crUCible 10 whic h autonomous fragments of knowledge melt to form ergonom ic kno wledge prope r.
In view of our insufficient knowledge not only of the mecha nisms
of technological creativity but also of creativity in general, it is
at present difficult to describe the process of tra nsformation of
integrated disciplines into the . knowledge Of. ergonomics o r to
characterise the stages of thiS transformatt o n. However, the
nalUre of the task itself C3':' be indicated, and imponant methodological and epistemologIcal c onclusions may be drawn. We
have pointed out above the purposive nature of technological,
practical taskS and problems. The goal is the core of practical
LlOL 470

177

Bnd It'chn%gical tasks. T he goal ma y be .said 10 be th e o rgani~.

jug princip le in ergo n ~lllIc kn ow led ge. JlIst as 11,1 system:,: en.

gineering, sys tems des ign, and oth e r 1l11 I1 -class lI.:al tec hnical
scie nces.
Th e structure of techllical kllo wledKe. T echn ica l kn owledge
is a sys tem of its pre -sc ie ntific and sc ie ntifIc form s, an ensemble
of classical and non -classical sc iences. Conside red from the
ep istemological an gle, the sc ientifIc-tec hnologi cal disciplines are
in their turn integral stru c tures comprising theories, hypotheses
and laws, facts and ideas, technological tasks, etc. They can be
eithe r at the theoreti cal stage of development or at the empirical
one, or else in between - in the process of theoretical formation,
As a type of human knowledge. technical knowledge is a schematisation of technical practice and of technics in the above
sense. At the initial stages of development, in its initial structures,
technical knowledge is not a schematisation (which is theoretical in nature) but rather an interiorisation-assimilation and
trmWpOSition of external laws onto the internal, ideal plane of

ConSCIOusness.

Being a dynamic, developing structure. technical knowledge

produces. at a definite stage, technica l sc ien ces. The development of technical sciences results in th e fo rm a tion of spec ific
integral structures within technical kn owledge itself. The problem arises of characterising or describing this integral whole.
What methodological approaches and epistemological characteristics are adequate in this case? Can this structure be, say,
a "scientific region"?
Some authors believe that that is so, positing the theory of
mechanisms and machines as the leading discipline of the region
of tec hnical sciences (114,63). Since machines do not exhaust
the whole of technics (in the sense of artificial systems), the
general theory of machines cannot, in our view, be the key to the
anatomy of knowledge in the sciences of the technical region.
This approach ignores knowledge objec tified in the artificial
systems of modern technologies, such as the chemical or microbiolog~cal .systems, ~sing ~icroorganisms-various yeasts and
~.LlEn.-tn obtammg oli, copper, uranium , etc. Chemical
t~hnol~y, to take an example. does without machines and even
wlthoul I",:plemen~s of any kind. Bearing in mind the complex
forms of I~tegratlon of sc ientilic knowledge that have been
broug,ht to h~ht and analysed (92) , we can perhaps best describe
techlllcal SC iences as a co mplicative system.
As we ha~e already mentioned, the most adequate unit of the
I sCiences
'
. a SCI.
methodological study of the system of Ie c h nlca
IS
178

enti flc- tec hn ical disc ipline. Emphasis on this uni.' ill
odologica l a nalysis of tec hnical knowl~dge ~rmus an .
desc ripti on of va rious aspec ts of techlllcal sciences, openm, up.
in parti cul a r, good prospec ts for the study of the structure of
sc ientilic- tec h nical knowledge.
. . ,
Methodological analysis of a scientifIc-tec hnical diSCipline
necessarily assum es the study of the formation of th e theoret ..
ical schemata of that con crete discipline. In other words, one
of the fIrst questions that ar ises in this case is the question of the
formation of theory in a concrete technical science. In technical
knowledge . just as in scientific cognition in generat. a thwiy
the prin cipal structural unit (15, 110) . At present, the c~nb~
problem of epistemological, methodological research of scle!""lic-technical knowledge is therefore the problem of techOlcal
theory- its formation, structure, functioning, etc. Analysis of the
meaningful and formal aspects of a technological theory reveals
deeper strata of technological knowledge than , say, t~e study of
technological rules, which is the principal task of the episte mology
of technological knowledge according to Bunge (172. 68) .
Emphasis on technical theory as the central problem of the
methodology of scientific and technical knowledge does nor
contradict the view, which we share, that the most adequat e
unit of methodological analysis of technical knowledge is a scientific-technical discipline. At present, there is a need fo r meth odological studies in concrete scientific-technical disciplines, e~
pecially non-classical o~es. The f~us here must be on analysIS
of problems of theory m these sciences.
.
It is pointed out in the literature on the method~logy of SCientific cognition that, on the standard. meth~olo~lcal approach.
a theory is the basic st~uc,tur~1 umt of SCientifIc knowh~4ge.
Although this approach IS Justifiable on the gener~1 met.hodo~
logical plane, it should be noted that as far tech~lc~1 sciences
are concerned, even this standard m~el , of sclentlfIclty has
not been properly analysed so far. ~o".sldenng the role ~f tech nical sciences in this age of the sclenttfic and ~echn ologlcal r~
volution methodological research of theoretical sche mata 111
the sc ie~tifIc-technical disciplines is necessa ry from the practical
standpoint as well.
...
'
A promising approa~h to thiS Iss ~e IS co nnec te~ wl~h the ust
of experiences in meanll1~ful analysIS of natural-sclentt~c. abo.ve
all physical, theories which have been accumulated In . Soviet
methodological studies. On the analogy of physical Ihe,ones, the
following components c~n be singled oul in technological theories: theoretical (ontological) schemata, and conceptual and ma 179

Ihematical appar ~tu st"~ . These elcmc l.lh na turnlly di ller in COn.
tent ill techn ologi cal and natural-sc1t~ ntt fl L" thtor ies.
_ T hi s approach to the study of tedllt il..'al ~heor i es is developed
~n a n~mber of ~orks (22: . 1.11 ), SU IllIllUl ~ up th e principal
~deas ~ t these stud ies and O I~lI11 Ul g SO lll t' deta ils a nd term inolog_
Ical diffe ren ces that 8.re. Ir releva nt in th e prese llt contex t,
we can say that three prm clpal stra ta a re si ngled ou t ill tec hn ical
theories: functional, "asse mbly-l in e", and st ru ctural. It shou ld
further be noted th a t, alth ough a non-dassicaltechni ca l th eory is
built differently from a cl assical one. th e principal componentsonlO log ical (t heore tica l) sc hemat a, conce ptua l apparatus and
mat hematical apparatus-figur e in both cases. Unlik e a natural_
scient ific theory, a technical theory does 110t contain new logical
connections. The principal distinctive feature of a technological
is the constructive function; such a theory does not just
and pndict; primarily, it ideally generales engineering
~ical

Kieneel of the classical type, the

a technical theory creates the conditions for distinguishing between the engineering and the scientific form of
acti vity in th e scientific-technical disc iplin es. The constructive
functi on of technical knowledge and of the sc iences does not
consist in their creating technical objec ts but in th e producti on of
knowledge ideall y generating engineerin g objects. Technical
th eory c reates schemata whic h are later implemented in machines, mec hanisms etc. through engineering activity.
As a matter of fact, the structure and fun ctioning of th eories
of the classical and non-classical types in the technical sciences
can serve as models of the structure of the entire technical knowledge. The structure ~f scientific-tec hnic~1 knowledge is a system
or complex of classIcal and non-claSSical technical theories.
Technological, c~nstructive-techno l .ogical knowledge, and
~owled~e of practical ~ethods constnute in this case the empi!"U1 bull of these.the~)fIes (22 , 45) : The other con cepts existing
In
iphere o.f !"'lenllftc-te.chnologl caJ knowledge cluster round
a"wrmg a meanmg. only in the context and in terms
01 technological theories.
and mechanisms of th
.
d
fun
ctionin-00 of
techn! c al th eones
. have a clearesolconstruction
.

t"
.an11
111 non-classical sciences Th
'
.
u Ion, especla y
of th e "configuration" p~
~t .IS espec lall~ true of the study
riel..
ocess In non-claSS ical technical theoLet us consider some aspec t f l
where most problems ha y b soc aSSlcal techni cal theory,
e een solved and the mechanisms of
180

funl'1 ionin g a rc more or less dear. In the

In g of a tCl.: hn ic al th eory engineering
are
ccd. Th e soluti on obta ined is then transformed at the
gin ee rin g ac ti vity, whe re th e parameters that are aecondary in
term s of th e ideal model (size, weight, and the modes of joining
parts) a re take n into account. It is al this stage , as a rule, that
industrial designers join in the work on the objec t. This sphere
of "seco nd -order features" has been and often still is th e field of
artistic designing. In collaboration with the industrial designe r,
or without him, the product---- th e technical object- changes it"
form, its aesthetic properties.
This aspect is important from the standpoint 01 ......,.
of technical knowledge and its relation to technics. because
changes of the object's form and aesthetic properties produce
alterations in the enginee ring object through objectincation
of knowledge. In other words, there is a need for clarifying the
specificity of knowledge thus objectified in technics and th e place
of this knowledge in the structure of techn ic al knowledge in
general. The artistic qualities of technics and the origin of th ese
artistic qualities are the "subject-matter of special research inlo
extremely complex problems that have so far been merely
touched upon" (98, 24). The form-bu ilding situation is much th e
same; we are faced here with "numerous problems that are not
yet analysed, far from clear, and some not ev en identiti.ed, in
fact" (109, I) . We could cite a great many stateme nts and
striking remarks showing quite clearly that in working on the
form of an engineering object, the industrial designer is guided
by semi-intuitive considerations and empirical laws. The
methodology of industrial design is at present at the very
first stage of development; at best, we can speak here of an
ensemble of practical methods used by designers.
This does not of course call in question cases of successful
cooperation between engineers and designers, still less. the awareness of the need for such cooperation. Technical theories must
ideally generate engineering objects with due attention to aesthetic and ergonomic requirements. In other words, it is necessary to construct theories in industri al design a nd ergonomics
and to synthesise these theories with other tech nological theories
in a general theory of technics. One of the first steps in this direction must apparently be reflec tion of aesthetic qualities of engineering object in structural ontological schemata of IeChnical theory.
In addition to what has been said here of the structure of
tec hnical knowledge. we can therefore describe it as a system
t8t

" ,.II_l'."tablished classical and non.classical lel'illlkal theories

(l "C
d e II'mg t h
i atlt)nshlp
'
, bt!twe~n
p/u.'!!
lllltologil..'al
schemata
rno
e
re
'

man and technics. These schemata. empirical in nature, belong

10 the sphere of industrial design and ergonomics. Although they
reneet properties of an engineering object which are secondary
in the eyes of Ihe engineer, they still belong to Ihe sphere of tech_
nical knowledge. AI present. these properties are more and more
laken into account in designing and constructing technical ob.
~ the share of ergonomic and aesthetic knowledge in the
DYerali body of technological knowledge is growing.
Analysis of the specificity of technical sciences raises the

problem of the criteria of their scientificity. Just as in mathema.

tics and natural
ral criterion of
Sc:ientiOc..feclulic:al

the question naturally arises of the centin the tochnicoll sciences.

crI .... ctassical type are obof intersubjectivity and
by the origin of c1assi-

fI om natural science,
of their theories,
is the I... graphically

two features,
expressed feature of the
nical disciplines of the
type. nis is largely due to the fact that theory in
iI, rule, at the initial stage of development.
of which the basis is in variance of knowledge,
results, methods, etc., is very weak in init is somewhat stronger in systems design.
~~ ~ low
of the intersubjectivity of industrial, "piece
~"design
largely determined by its nature, its closeness
to art father than science. Generally speaking, the grouping
of industrial design together with non-classical scientific-technical disciplines is due to convention more than anything else,
and to its kinship with systems design.
As for systems design. the intersubjectivity of its methOds,
is fairl~ ~igh. In recent years, however, the
of the prmclples and methods of artistic thinking
seems to have brought about
.
.
in systems design. That
In .the level
scientiflcity in this sphere
.
rather Its restructuring and the strengthening
of links
the human sciences.
The i~b~rivity o~ other non-classical scientific-technical
*jk~ higher; eV.I~ence of this is found, in particular,
h I systemat,c,ly of these disciplines The complex
... l)'IIems c .racter of objects designed in these d'ays determines
182

tl1~ fad thai systematidty of

knowledp
illlporranl methodological regulator 01

Ihese di sciplines orienled towards a univ....

schema. The latter is represented in the concrete
theories by some version of the general systems theory. by the
instruments and methods of the systems approach.
As has been pointed oul above, science may be seen as weUformed if it effectively performs its principal funclion. Por
technical scicnces- clas.'iical and non-classical-that principal
function is the constructive one, which is concretely
in the existence of practical knowledge of
theory of this science. The constructive function
theory constitutes its principal difference from nail
theory, whose main tasks are explanation and prediction.
The criterion of truth-one of the principal criteria of
scientificity-is of the greatest interest in the case ~f knowledge
of practical methods. Fundamental results concernmg the truth
of ontological schemata of technical theories are accurate,
to use a technical phrase, up to a sign in the study of the
abstract objects of scientific-natural theories. The problem 01 the
truth of the knowledge of practical methods fof'IDI ....
core of the question of the truth of techn~logical knowledge.
To what extent is knowledge of practical methods true,
and what does it reflect? The criterion of truth in Ihe scientific-Iechnological disciplines is engineering activity, which acts as
experiment in relalion to technical kn~wled~e. Does thai ~un
that only those ideally r~produced en~lneenng
vanous
projects of systems deSign, erg?nomlcs, syst~ms.
etc., are true which were realised! t~e ~eahsa~lOn
..
their engineering, design ins. etc . fIntshl~g In reality? A paIide
answer to this question is fraught with the danFf of. the
pragmatist interpretation of trt~th. The ah?vementloned Ideal
objects can be described as verslo!'s of relative truths: But w~at
do these ideal essences reftect? It IS har~ to an~,,:er thIS q.uestlon
without distinsuishing between purposIve. activity and I~S substantivised forms in the structure of technlc.s. Those verslO~s of
practical recommendations on methods WhlC~ are not r~~hsed ,
at least at present. reftect goals and goal-directed acttvtly as
an objective proce n
The answer to the question of the truth of the kIl.........
of practical method~ in technical th~ories and of tbIir~..
tive funclion permits the formulation of the ~traI criterion
of scientiflcity in relation to technoloaical knowle~e. Thai
criterion is constructiveness. Attempts have been made In metho-

'''1

t83

In ..:n ncTe tc te rms, this epistemological

in the ab~L'nl.:e o f a dear conception of the
o r the o r ga ni'oat io n of h u man knowledge. Existinl
e piste mo logica l. methodo logical s(udies of human tno......
conce ntra te. in fac t. on what human knowledge must nol be.
Num ero us cases, mostl y interconnected. are ci ted in explana.
ti on of th e ex isting situatio n . One of the most important
of the se is inadequ a te devel opment of (he theo re tIC al level in
th e human disl.: iplin es and the weakness of me(h odolog i..:a l
refle ctio n in th e s phere of human knowledge in seneral. Thl.~
last point was tou ched on by Heinrich Rickert; .. ...., beginning of this century he complained that scholan
in the " cultural sc ien ces" (Kuirurwissenschaf ten) "show
of the inclination towards methodological research which so
ri chly rewarded the founders of modern natural science; or
else when one finds deeper st ud ies of the essence of their own
activity ... they are isolated and Iimiled to spec ial field s"

dologica l ana. lyses of tf'I.' llIlic 1al know ledge 10 d<lrify the ~ pe
' r
(11
city of tel..' hnlc al knowledge IlfOUg h Ihe stud y of th eir construc_
tive -pr actic a l na ture (.see, e.g . (lOb ; 114 .
One of the bas il.." el e me nb of our v iew of Ihl" constru ctiv _

ness of technical sc ie nces is th e interpretati on of the

correl~_

tion between engineerin g al.."tivit y a nd sc ientifi c kn o wledge in

the sense outlined above . Conslnll'ti veness as the central crite.

rion ,of the scientift~ il Y of classical and non-.c1ass ical disc iplines
C~Slsts . above all 1~1 l".oncepHlal reprO~U C IIOI1 of engineering
objects In the functlonll1g of technologic al theories. As far as
fhe deve lo pme nt of clas.o;; ical and non-classical technica l theories
is concerned , constructiveness is necessarily connected wi th
effectiveness. which is perceived as optimisation and reduction
to a minimum of th e reproduction of idea l engineering objects
that are not realised in technica l prac tice.
3.4, HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

-rite principal component parts of hum an kn ow ledge are

the human sc ien ces and artistic knowledge. The fact th at artistic kn o wledge is part of human kn o wledge precludes the
~efinition o.f human knowledge as a complex fo rm o f integrahon of scIence. although the human d isci plin es do show
a tendency towards integration and even synthes is. Out of
cons iderations of style and method. let us use the apt te r m
" human-scientific kno,,:"ledge" introduced in (19, 140), in the
sense of the human SCIences.
The unity of artistic and human-scientific knowledge is
manifested, above all. in the fact that these forms of human
knowledge study one and the same domain - man. Ma n, the
world of man, th~. specifically hu~an e lement - these a re, as
a rule, t~e ~efimtlOns of the subject-matter of art istic and
human-scientific kno~ledge: We are putti ng them on record
here as ,they. are qUlle sat l~fac tory as the first step towards
the clanftcauon of the subject-matter of human k
i d e
. t 01 . I
now e g .
."';t!'nl oB,ca stalus of human knowledge. H man
"
one of the least stud 'ed
. epistemology.
.
U
I pro bl ems m
..
wrong to say that the re
f
.
that in his practical and
..
ason or that IS the fact
.
h
cognlllve activity
phe nomenon of man himse lf N
man Ignores t e
and fundamental difference; c everth~less, there are obvious
methods of research and f on cernmg the subject-matter.
" lon 0 f human
k nowe
1 d ge ; as a result ther orm s of orga IlISat
in this sphere of epist~moloeg .arel no ge~erally accepted resulls
Ica analYSIS.
18'

(180, 12).

The deep processes taking place in the core of m odern

scien ce create real scientific premises for optimism. for progress
in the study of human knowledge. The complex character of
the problems solved at the time of the ~ie.nt ific and (echnolog.ic~1
revolution increasingly involves lingUIstics. psychology. artlSllc
knowledge and other areas of human kno wledge in its a p plied
aspects in the solution of tasks in industrial prod uctio n . ~hesc
tasks stimulate the development of complex (non-dasslcaJ)
technical sciences in which mathematical. natural-scienlific ,
social and human knowledge is synthesised . As a result. the ac ute
problem inevitably arises of the sp.ec.ificity of human knowledse
both in the scientific and the artistic form.
In con nection with the question analysed here, it should
be noted tha t. in general. an important aspect of the dynamics
of know ledge, of its restructuring, is the strengthening . of
reflection in te r ms of human knowledge . the strengthenmg
of the influence of human thinking on natural sc ien ce, among
ot her things. As G. Gachev aptly put it. " a poss ible contribu lion of human sciences to the de vel opment of n atural o nes"
is now on the agenda (63, 109), Th e e ff ec tiv e ness of th is
contribu tion will be much greate r than the o ne we witness now
if the processes of interaction between human and other f_ _
of knowledge are subjected to a deeper methodal.'" epw:emological analysis. Well-known facts concerning the substanti a l
influence of aeslhelic. elhical and. generally speaking. human
elemenls on the creative work of outstanding scientists
185

should be(;ome fh e objec i of int ense melh odo logic al siudies

\\"lIal we have. in m ind .is prcdseJy melh odologica l, e pi s l e~
moJogicaJ analysIs of the mflu ence of h Ullla n kn o wl edge on
natural science and mathema tics. With o lll calli ng in q uestion
the ~eplh and va lue .of the a v~ i la b le expe r ience... o f studying
fh e lmpac l of aest hetic a nd elh lea ] (ac la rs on scien ti fic cogni.
tion. we must note Ih al t h i~ problem is studied, as a rule in

psychological, aeslhelic. or p h ilosophical-c ullu ro log ica l ler'ms.

Realising the d iffi c ult y of disting uishing be l ween the processes
of cognition and c reat iv ity, we must stress the need fo r studyin g
the intercon nectio ns betwee n Ihe natu ra l-scie nt ifi c, malh e ma li.
cal and h um an knowl edge in its logica l-epistemolog ical, meth odo log ical aspects. To paint a life-size episte mo logica l po nrait
of science, methodological studies must place greater emph asis
on the epistemological structures, forms and meth ods, the
sc ientific and artistic pictures of the world, scientific theo ry
and artiStic Image. mOdelling In natural science and human
~~1e11~ analysis of abstract objects. the function of explanatiOI'! 1ft science and art, etc. What we need is not only psychologIcal and other analyses of creativity but a lso epistem olog ical
inquiry into the fo rms of knowledge, above al l human knowledge, an a lysis of conceptual bo rrowings from human knowledge
by natural and technological sciences.
The changed situati on in the meth odology of sc ie nces sho uld
a lso be seen as o ne of the fac to rs fav ou rabl e to e ffective a nalysis
of h uma n kn~wledg~. It became obvious in recent years that
a model of sCIence In general co uld nOt be built on the basis
of mathematics and nat u ral sc ience only. Thus the human
sc iences have ac~uir~d the right to exist as objects of the
methodology of SCientific knowledge, and it is ge ne rally acknowledged tha.t the hammer .of sc ient ific ity extracted from phys icalmathematical natural sc ience no longe r threa tens to crush th
The causes of the c~anges in ~he status and func ti onse~i
h~ma!l knowledge, of ItS reappraIsa l in th e meth odolo
of
SClennfic kno~ledge, are rooted in th e social structure i~y the
neu" of SOCial development. Met hodolog;cal
bl
-..77i II'
.
d '
..
pro ems are
old
ndlC:e~~s ~n~g cntlcal per.iods of collapse of
sc ience anains new levels ~f ~:::~ally dunn g pe riods in ~h ich
a nd mathematics the links bet w opmen.t.. In natural sC ie nce
een Cflli cal situati ons and
social catacl ys ms are less n I"
realised by SC ientists work? Iceable, th ey a re prac tically nol
of the concrete sciences g . Ing on meth odological questions
not mean that these carr fl~g through a crisis. But that d oes
e atlons are non-ex istent.

;on!:;ts I:

186

Regardless of any proble ms of internalism and ~

let us note that in modern sc ience c ritical Slates of ..,.,
are re Hec ted not only in t,he moral aPl?raisal of the tauHI
of scientifiC stud ies b ut a lso In th e theoretical construclS pro~r
of natu ra l science a nd mat he ma tics. Owing to. the s ubstantl v.e
orie nta tion o f cognitio n in ph ysic al-math em atical natura l SC Ience, the mechan isms of th is influe nce o fte n dlsap~a r fr om the
fi eld of vision of th e sc ie ntists themselves, fro m th e ir me thodo
logical d eliberatio ns o ve r the problems of their sc ience. T he
theme of c risis may be said to penetrate the surface of natura l
science and math ematics in a mediated manner, throush psycho-logical motives of creativity, thro ugh the scientist's phile ,~icaI
and wo rldview princ iples.
.
It is fr om this angle that the lin ks, say, between the Ideas
of Dostoyevsky and Einstein, of Kierkegaar~ and Bohr are
studied, With certain reservations of the tentallve nature of thIS
surmise concerning links between the ideas of outstanding
thinkers in human and natural-sc ientific fie lds, it is noted tha t
" these links consists in the fun damenta lly no n-observable
mec hanis m of psychological reso nance rather than in the
borrowing of concepts (italics mine. -A.K. )' (47, . 600) .'"
Crisis states of the human individ ua l, of personaluy, determined by the crisis of social relarions are th e m otifs of the
work of both Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard. It was precisely
the ideas of disharmony in the relations berween the individual
and the social whole in the work of Kierkegaard and Dostoyevsky that found a "psychological resonance" in the physical
theories of Einstein and Bohr and, moreover, became part of
their inner logic (ibid., 589) . Thus crisis states of society are
reflected in natural-scientific theories in a mediated manner.
through philosophical meditation on the i!'dividu.al.
.
In human know ledge, in the human sciences In partIcular,
the links with social crises are obvious and, moreover, just
as obvious is the dependence of crisis states of human kn owledge in its principal forms o n social causes. The reason fo r
this lies in the specificity of human kno wledge, its substantive
orientation towards man. The endless c hain of the c rises of
capitalist society, which began with its entry, in the last third
of the 19th century, in the epoc h of imperialism, dete rmined
the kaleidoscopic succession of sch ools, trends and systems in
bourgeois art and in the methodology of human sciences.
The famous Spanish soc iologist and art critic Jose Ortega
y Gasset was one of the first to have reacted to the new s i l~atio.n
in the human sph ere. "Th e system of values," he wrote In hIS
187

Thl' M od ern Theme.

ils activi ty wa -., regua
I ted ,I
"by which
.vca r~ a~o h as I?st tiS convlIlcing c haracter ilS
' '
lIrty
and II~ Imperall~e vis.our. The ma n of the' W~s~t:;actlve fO~('e
a prol.:css of rad ical
io n becau ~e IIe no Ia nge
u ndergOing
diSOrientat

r k
no ws
by w h a .s. a rs he IS to g Uide his life" ( 177 79)
~r cogmtl?
" n: (he cris is sta te of soc iety i~ fl f st O~ all the fo rms
III the artistic fo rm . in the images of a r t N
0
a ll reOec led
gene ric, the mOSI charac te r i!)li c fea ture-s (~f t~~' wh a t a re the
answer to this is cont ai ned in the titl e o f O~~en:w a rt ? Th,e
other we ll-kn o wn wo rk. written in 1925-~ TJ D '~ y ~aSS~l s
of Art. where he wrote this. a mo ng o th e r 'thint ~.u~~lalll:.at,on
S
we look. we see the same thing: night fro II h . Wherever
(1 76. 30) .
m 1e uman pe rson"
. One aspec t in particular can be sin led
of the cultural.
soc iety and human disciplines It is a
fofegula1rl y revived idea of

mt~rconnections

p.nd0pu~ar Iin~nd
_ec

spiri~ual ~~:silsn ~~\~O~Ple.x

eu ture through

u gems

th~~c::~~~~~t: o~h~i~~:~mIY
..

human sciences W. find dff reorgalllsl."g and restructuring

I erellt verSions of th"d

.
Edmund ':Iusserl (147). Bronislaw Malinowski
I~ I ea In
structu ra lism. Victor Frankl's logotherapy e t (l~~~ , In Fren c h
to the c r isis phen o mena in culture appe~rs c.
IS app ro ac h
than. say. the Stoic al position of Ma x We ber w~ore acceptable
we accept
the " epoc h of crisis" a s our 'fa te 0aproposed
..
nd h istorthat
I
necessity . ~hls sort of method o logi cal ac tivit Y
IC~
~ever
provide a spiritual and material founda ,'. ho w
ever, Will
f
life.
Io n o r human
In Marxist epistemology. methodological reft
.
knowledge unfolds in a basically dff
e ctl o n on human
f
...
I eren! context - the co t t
o SOCIalist humamsm . Despite the external . .1 ..
n ex
(the restructuring of human knowled ge . simi antles of form
development , a more profound stud y o f mall
III .the
process of. its
In this
etc.)' the concern for the method I .
connec tIOn,
..
oogl ca l questio
f h
k
I
now edge In MarXist epistemology lS d
.
ns 0
uman
bringing up the new man, and not b eterr~lIned .by the tasks of
~et. elements of the crisis situati o; i~oclal cnses.
8KMlJ'. f~r instance in the USSR in some spheres of the
quite ..nousl, stimulate an .
the early 1980s may
factor",. the cultural sphere ~nterest to man (the " human
k nowledge and its method I ~n general and thus to human
Episte mo logical explicat~oogl';l problems.
oriented towards a certai n ~ human knowledge is always
of $(.:.Ien ee . Th e broad (weak)
n epislemo
. logIca I Ideal or standard
formulal~d in A. Rakitov 's wor~e~~l on of Ihe c oncept of science
1, 128-130) . appears to hold

'"

prom i~c for the lI1.clhodot.()gi~a l a r1aly"i~ ~f the spc.;ciflcity of

human kno wlcdgl:

III 11':0 \l" lentlfl l"

i<.; a \C l 1)( features

and artistic

forms,lI

The CH.

of Ihis ve r <.; ion

li pecifying a certain model at
science wh ic h is nOI rigidl y o r iented towards the mathemarical
and ph ysical standards o f sc ienl iflCity and at the same time i'i
differe nt fr o m e veryday kn o wledge.
Orie ntati o n loward'S a cerlain epistemological ideal of science.

of course, opens up so me pro')pecis with regard to the investiga

lion of human , and particularly human-scientifIc. kn o wl edge.
A fuller clarifl c 31io n o f the statu s of human knowledge in all
contexts c an , however, only be obtained by studying knowledle
as a whole. The interpretation of cognition as such forms the
basis for working out the spec ifi city of human-scientifIc and
artistic cognition.
The Marxist theory of knowledge contains a number of
definition s of knowledge which lay claim to general validity
and exec ulability for all spheres of cognitive ac ti vi ty. One
authoritative publication states, " Knowledge is the subjec tive
image of the objective world" (45. 125). What is most consp icuous about this interpretation of cognition is its conneclion
with Lenin's well-known proposition, "Sensation is a subjective
image of the objective world" (51 . 14, 119).
Can this proposition of Lenin's. correct as it is fo r sensa tion
as an elementary form of psychi c reflection and kn owledge.
be given the statuS of a general definition of kno wled ge? Quite
apart from the familiar difficulties with the explic ation of the
" world", starting with neo_Kantianism and Dilthey. the question
arises: what is to be done in the final analysis with th e
subjective world, the subjectiv~ ima~e-c onsc ious~ess? Can they
(the question is purely rhetoncal sinc e they obViously can and
must) be the object of cognition? But what in this case constitutes the basic formulation of cognition? Is knowledge the
subjective image of the .subject~ve world? It is ':Iuite evident
that this approach embodies maOifest and non-mamfest generalisations of the natural and technic al sciences o f the classical
mou ld and that it cannot serve as a basis fo r the explic at ion o f
human cognition.
In dealing with the theory of cognitio n. we are faced with a
situation where it is in princ iple impossible to give an exhaustive
definition of knowledge on ce and fo r all. The point is nOI that
any definition is always lil!'ited. T o l?rovide a on~e_and_for_all
definition of knowledge whIc h lays claim to exhaustiveness mea ns
in essence to limit the process of cognition to the level existing
today, of which the proposed definition will be a kind of co py .

,,,

Lenin pointed ou l, " a full 'defmilion ' of an obJ"ec,

'
. (51 32 94) IUU
st
include 'he wh o Ieo 0 f human expenence
...
Th"
.
t '
,
.
IS
IS all I h e more correct wh en applied 10 all object like cogll", "
' .
I IOn
How can expenence be mlrodll ced into a full def. "," "
" " ? Th
b "
m IOn
o f CO~fllllon . . e 0 ~IOUS wa.y IS to correlale cognilion and
expenence. SovIet studies c Olllam bOlh interesting methodel "
""
f h"
ogl_
ca I. s~ bstantlatlon~ 0 .' IS appr<!ad! and c ~nvincing examples
of Jls Implementation. Its conerellsatlon applied to material fro

the realm of physics and the technical sciences (22, III ~

. Works by the auth~rs referred to present cognition, here
m the conlext of ph'ySI~S and the technical disciplines, in the

for m ~f the .sc hematlsallon of the object aspect of experience.

Experience IS treated as an "intricate web of different acts of
transfor~ing objects, where the products of one activity become
the startmg components for another" (66, 138).
By developing this approach, cognition as a whole in its
scientific and, indeed, ~xtra-6Cientific forms and aspec;s, may
be b lEtt c' .. a schemat"'tion of experience, Since knowledge
iI entirely dtyendent on experience, the development of the
1atter determines the development of the conception of knowledge .. By Ji~king experien.c~ and cognition and by introduc ing
experience mto the defimtlOn of knowledge in th is way the
limjtations on concepts of knowledge are constantly rem~ved
~ the notion of knowledge is developed. The key to an explicalion of human knowledge an.d the prospects for defining its
st~tus are to?e f?und by observmg and clarifying its connection
with the subjectIve aspects of experience.
Cogni.tion as the sc~ematisation of experience is a process
of creatJn~ abstra~t obJec.ts. In ~h~ case of scientific cognition,
these are Ideal objects; WIth artistIc cognition, they are artistic
imag~ and their elements, whilst i.n the case of commonplace
cogOltlon and myths, they are theIr abstractions etc 11
The subject~matter of human knowledge. In' kee~ing with
the broad versIOn o.f the con~ept of science accepted here, the
fust
of. eplste?1ologlcal explication of human knowlthat of Its sub~ect-malter. At the present stage of the
anaJys.1S of human knowledge, the question
f h IS largely a question of the possibility
and artistic kno:led~;at~ k~~wledge. FOT the human sciences
k.nowledge, objects must exi~t lsI as spe~lflC forms of human
of man's practical activity and that are In vO!ved. in the sphere
of knowledge.
are not studIed m other forms
In other words, th
e extensive sphere of man and the world
190

of mall mU l,l have a ... pec ts that are studied by human

alone. If that i') not the ca.\ e, the obvious fact of.
human l'ognilion will be perceived as a scholasuc
.
or game ralher than 30; schcmatisation of practice. ThIS last
choice, that of game, is unacceptable even for artisti( knowledge, to say nothing of the human s4.:ien ces.
,
The view that the subject-matter of human knowledge IS
man in the e ntire diversity of his practical activity must therefore be conc retised. Above all , that is necessary for specifying the s ubject-matter of the human and the social sciences,
for in this interpretation the boundaries between rhem ue
vague, whi c h gives rise to various versions of . idenrillc.~
of the human and the social disciplines or to the ,"corporallon
of the social sciences in the human ones. Epistemological
explication of the subject-matter of the human sciences also
c reates the premises for differentiation between knowledge in
these sciences and artistic knowledge.
The identification of the social and the human sc iences
is mostly expressed in the fact that. although differe~ c es .between human and social sciences are postulated or Imph~d,
concrete lists of the human disciplines are drawn up whIch
also comprise the social sciences, at least the most ad.vanced
of them. For instance, such works as (24, 6: 191. 11) Include
among the human sciences history, sociology, psr:c h o l o~y . a n thropology, archaeology, economics, the phllolo.g lcal SCiences,
politics, ethnography, the ensemble of the ~ 1enc~s .of .a.rt,
parts of philosophy, etc. Th.e obvious. typological s1mllarlt1es
of these viewpoints and the J~st as obvlO~s absence of mutu~l
influences between them indicate the WIde curre~cy ?f thIS
h 10 the problems of the human and the SOCial sciences.
roac
appAll sciences are human m
. t h e sense th at t h ey. ..c lose ..on"
" e1Igendered in the process
of man's practicald actiVity,
man, bemg

I,s hauing value only 11lsofar

as they are use,I sooner
h "
telrresu
.
" I
"man's practice. In thiS sense, the natura, SOCIa,
or Iater, m
.
II"
f
"
I
and
the
human
SC1ences
proper
are
a
SCiences
0
h
teCl11ca,
.
d
"""
I
man. It is this deepest essence of s~1ence., etermmmg .ltS g~ner~
of development, that Will bnng about a sltuallon m
d
. .m time
. .Inco rporate "mt o I ,se If the
ten " ellcy
h
..
a,ural
science
Will
W h IC
n
.
'Il .
science of man, just . as the sC ience. of man WI . mc~:po(5r!!.e
.
',self nalUral SCIence: the re WIll be one science
7Uoo
I But a unlft e d sCience
"
i y.an
d"
3mto
304).
Wh
ose on
um ... e rsaI subv.ctr
, tier is man is a thing of the future. ThiS future should. not be
~~~Ught closer to ~he p.resent by ignoring .(mostly unco~sclously)
the actual situation 10 present-day SCience. AnalySIS of the
'01

e:xislHlg fo rms of sc ientific k now ledge rc\"Ca l ~,

place. difference
sc ie nces.

between

the subjeu- maller

the flf st
of concrete
In

What is the subject-matter of the human sc iences? "The

huma n sciences," wrote Mikhail Bakhti n, "are scie nces of man
and the s pecifi city of man " (7.285), It is not ma n in the entire
diH fs ity of his manifesta ti ons. but the h uma n in ma n th at is
the main feature of the subjec t-m a tt e r no t o nl y of the h u ma n

sciences but a lso of artistic kn ow ledge. T o solve th e proble m of

the hu ma n in man. and th us to spec ify th e su bjec t- matter of
hu man knowledge. wou ld mean to answe r, 10 a great extent
the principal Quest ions whi ch phil osoph y a nd sc ience hav~
faced si nce the moment of their emergence. We are nOI setting
ourselves the task of investigating the spec ific ity of ma n in its
enti rety- we shall merely comment on some essent ial aspects
o f this specificity. some tendencies and stab le links in its fun ctioning and development imponant for analysing the subjectmatter of the human sciences and anislic cognition.
The specificity of the human must apparent ly be sought fo r
in the content of the social qualities and charac teristic s of man .
Certai n a natomical traits c an be identifi e d th a t are ch arac te ristic o f ma n a lo n e, but that is hard ly s ufficie nt g ro un d fo r
regarding them as the specific ally human in man . Ne ithe r c an
these features. inherent in all members of H om o sapiens, be
desc ribed as the subjec t-matter of human knowledg e, fo r they
are not st udied either by the human or by the social sc ie nc es.
It sho uld further be noted that these biologi cal charac te ristics
of man follow from his social qualities.
How c an the specificall y human be identified in suc h a
co mplex system as man ? In our view, it would be promising to
use in this c ase the heuristic aspects contained in the methodology of materialist dialec ti cs. In particu lar, bearing in mind
the coincidenc e of the historica l and the logi cal, one might
trace the evolution of the correlat ions between the human e lement and human knowledge and thus attain theoretic al -c onceptual plane of the problem. Engels wro te this on the c oin c idenc e
01 the historical and the logi~ al : "~he point where this history
~ mUll also be the startmg pOint of the train of thought"
(69, 2~5). If the pro~le!ll has no t c rystallised in the lo gi ca lt h eoretlc ~1 aspect, and 11 IS not clear where the train of thought
must begm , one sho uld turn to the hislor
r th e question
.
Y
0
,
h
h sta bl e . rec urrent connec tions ar th
were
te
I
f h
l ogi~al cons~de:ati on of th e problem .
e e ana o gu e 0 I e
Sm ce antiqUit y, that is, si nce the time of the emergenc e of
192

and phi l o~ophy in ih dassieal form. know. . . . . . . . .

has been aCl'Iunulated nnt o nl y in philosophy, .heolo*", '. . . .
but a lso in the liberal art ... (urlt'" liheruJI!.~ ) and in the stlMllil
hllmuni/utis. 11 is with the urll's liberules and .'iludia humanilatis
thai the formation of the ~peCi fi c all y human . of humanity.
and later the ir cogll1t ion. began.
Unlike the auxi lia ry arts (ur les Iu/Rares) . the li be ra l arl$
d id no t require physica l effort. T his o ld claS!>inca ti o n of th e
a n s, very o ld. very popula r. a nd ve ry tenacious, was an
ex press io n of the aristocratic socia l syste m of antiquity with its
d isgusl for ph ysica l la bo ur, th e lot of sla ves. In the culture of
classica l Greece. the link betwee n th e liberal arts includin,
e le me nts o f hu ma n kn owledge with the spec ifically human is
pu rely exte rnal: the liberal a rts we re the sphere of ac tivity o f
the fr ee ma n, th a t is to say, o f ma n as s uc h, in the context o f
cl assica l c ult u re . fo r th e sla ve was no t human .
In la te an tiquity, most ly in C icero, the liberal a n s we re lin ked
with hum a nity (lwmanilas). wh ich was ta ke n to mean high
spiritua l c ult ure, a highe r type of ed ucati o n ~ccessible on ly
to th e aristoc r a ti c uppe r stratum of Ro man soc iety. ThaI type
of e d ucatio n and c ult ure was att a ined thro ugh the study of
the fr ee arts. Aul us Gellius' commen ts clearly point to the
close links between the libera l arts and man : " Th e pursuit
o f that kind o f kn o wledge , and th e trai ning g iven by it. have
bee n g ranted to man a lone o f a ll the a nim a ls, a nd for that reason
it is te rmed humanitas , o r 'human ity'" (140, 456-457).
The transfo rmatio ns wh ich had occ urre d in the libera l a rts
by late antiquity are o f fu ndamental c ha racte r a ~ d h ighly impo nanl for the birth of human knoon:ledge. Hu mamta:" as knowledg e grew Oul of the (free) man .s st udy of the liberal. ar:tJ.
This stud y yielded knowledge ~ s Its .result . In .Iate antiquity
this knowledge came to be identIfied wllh man, wnh the h.uma"
element. Know ledge resulting fr o ~ the s~udy of the libera l
Iris bec ame kn owledge of humanity. not Just a res ult of the
free man's study of th e libera l arts. It. becam e knowledge o f
the human , fo r its subjec t was man , that IS., free man, no t a slav.e.
The carrier of the kn owl edge o f the liberal arts became Its

<,\.: ICIKI.:

objec
t.
.
Among
late Si o ics a nd ear Iy Ch
nstlans.
a dff
I e re nt c ooepti o n of Jlllmallita ... evolved. one th at was close to Greek
~ hilanthropy" and ha d a bea r ing o~ an,Y man regardles,s o f
P ,.rr or edu cati on ra lh e r th an ee rtam elitist strata of soc iety.
Ortg
. .lcs a nd up to the begmnmg
"
Binning wilh ea rly pat Tlst
.ofh
t e
R~~l aissance, Christian theology developed the concepti on (If
lJ _ nl~711

I Q.\

"~II!ItlIl!las as a quality inherent in a," m~n, as a particle of Ihe

dnlllt' 111 Ihe soul of man. The prnlClpal1l1SlTUmCni of 8I1a;n'

in the sense of a partide of Ihe divine became f~~~

and the study of sacred tt':x!s.
The liberal arts receded into the background in the study of
humanity: moreover, as an element of education. they were
redu~ed. 10 the role of a~ a.uxiliary instrument in the exegesis
of Blbhcal texts. a prellmmary to the .!iwdy of philosophy.
slm. human knowledge represented in the liberal arts was nOl
arrested in its development. Martianus Capella (the fms! hair of
Ihe 51h century) "continued :he work of classifying the sciences
and established the so-called system of the seven liberal arts
C-.eptem aries liberates), later improved by Boethius and
Cassiodorus" (21, 56).
Developing the ideas of Martianus Capella, Boethiu s divided
the seven liberal arts into the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy and music) and the trivium (grammar, rhetoric or
lher.tuft. dialectics or logic). Boethius was the true founder
of ttle Larin mediaeval quadrivium,12 but he also did a great
deal for the development of the trivium , especially for logic.
Concentrating his efforts on the disciplines of the quadrivium
and uniting the remaining liberal arts in the trivium, Boethius
sowed the seeds whose fruit proved to be more valuable than
the results he obtained in the field of the quadrivium. Whether
he realised it or not, the trivium concentrated and organised
as a set of special disciplines that human knowledge which was
destined to play an outstanding role in the Renaissan ce.
The epoch of the Renaissance was characterised by the
emergence of the new personality. A new conception of man
and humanity was forged in the ethics and philosophy of the
humanists in the struggle against the mediaeval interpretation.
The thinkers of the Renaissance stressed in man his individual
self-consciousness, emotional, moral, and personal aspects.
The new conception of man and humanity (in the se nse of
humonitas) entailed a broadening of the liberal arts. These
ana, especially the trivium, were transformed into stlldia
... 51.9""41is, and the scope of the laller was gradually extended.
Vanous rralme~ts of knowledge substantively correlated with
feat.ures recogntsed by the humanists to be human-dignity,
feelmgs, etc.-were th~ material out of which an essentially
new corp~s of the stlld,Q humanitutis was formed. In the first
!llace, ethics. poetry, .etc., were included here. Thus renovated
In content, the studla hllmanitati.\ became an instrument of
educatmg the new man , a spiritually f ree per~ona I'Ity.

IlIIm(lllilaS

"4

In the epOI.:h of the Renai ...sanct!. the range of die veita

of 1II/IIII.II/itcI\ (humanity) wa'i de.fmed. an~ at. the same ....

the integral stnKlure of the studlU. humun/.tutls took shapeall ensemble of knowledge sub.. tanllvely on en ted IOw.ards ~u
mUllita.\. It must be said, though, that from the very inception
of the s/II(liu IllImaflitati.\ the trend became .a~par~nt. tow.ar~
differentiation within IIIIItIUflita.\, toward5 dlstmgulshmg III It
various interconnected yet heterogeneous phen~mena.
.
The development in the 17th and 18th centunes of phY~I~o.
mathematical natural science made a decisive, and stili pers~st
lng, impact on the cognition of the pheno~enon of hum~nlIY
Characteristic of the formation of claS)l~al natural ~lence
was liberation from all the anthropomorphiC eleme~ts, .,~clud
, g elimination from the sllbjecl~matler of the mdlvldualIn
.
f
personality elements which obscu.r~d. the pure lIT~age. 0 nature.
Important conditions of the pos~lbJllty of the sclenllfic rev~lu
tion in the 17th century were the destruction of th~ c1~sslcal
and mediaeval concept of the cosmos and geometrlSallo.n of
space, i.e., the replacement of the concrete space of pre-Ga\ll~an
physics by the isotropic and ho,:"ogeneo.us .sp~ce ~f Euclidian
geometry, in which the terrestrial ~as mdlstmgulShable fro~
the celestial, etc. In the scientific p":ture ~f the wor.ld ~~d m
the world view oriented towards classical SCience, !he mdlvldual
along with his se lf_consciousness was not onl~ dnven fr~m the
centre of the world where he had placed himself dUrl".g the
Renaissance but literally could not fi~d a place for ~Ims.elf
in the world as it was seen at the lime from the sClenlific
standpoint.
.
f
The views of the flrst humalllst Francesco. Pel.rarch or 0
Blaise Pascal can illustr~te th~ transfor,:"allo~ III the self,
ness of the indiVidual III conneCllon With the formaconscIous
. I d
"
of the
tion of classical science. The vertlca
estn.~c Ion .
mediaeval COSIllOS placed the man of the RenaISSance m the
centre of the world. Man, who actually took the plac.e of God,
became the principal object of study for the humamsts of ~he
,
"What is the use- I beseech you-of knowmg
Renaissance.
d
h
alUre of quadrupeds, fowls, fishes, and serpents an not
~neO~ing or even neglecting man's nature, the pur~?se for
which we are born, and whence and whereto we travel. asked
Pelrareh (190, 58-59).
.
f
The geoilletrisation of space and the new concepnon 0
.
losely connected with it led to the final collapse of
IIlIle c s as man's nati"e house where he dwells without fear.
the cosmo
.
.
t
The place and destination of man III the world were rellltcrprc
PH

ed in the scientific worldview oriented towards mallIe

.

. 1
mallcal
natura I sCIence In tIe 17th and 18th centuries. The hI
.
. d f h .
1 1
flnanlSt
~tlltU e 0 t e tImes was C ear y expressed by Pascal es
.
In Thoughts on Religion.
' peclally
Humanity, forced out of the fIeld of scientifiC cognil"
(of ~lassic~1 slcience~ in .'he I7t.h. l~th, a~d.early 19th centllr:~
was intenSive y studIed In art, I.e., III artlSIlC cognition The '
of that ~riod also underw~nt signiflcant changes. By 750, t~~
CO~c~pl!on .of art as cr.eatlon of beauty rather than creative
actIvity subject to defilllte rules finally asserted itself. Charles
Batt~ux set apar~ the so-called fllle arts: painting, sculpture,
archlleclUre, musIC, poefr~ and danc.ing. Previously, at the end
of the 17th century, logiC and arithmetic were transferr d
from the arts to the sciences.
e
In the l.1t~-l ~th .centuries the tendency gradually increased
towards dlStmgUlshmg two aspects of humanilas: on the one
hand. the anthropological. generic features of man, and on the
other. the emotl'!nal-moral qualities of man concretised in
lei diS of pe~nahty and individuality (13. 145-155) .
By the ~11ld-19th cent~ry, an independent and stable sphere
of humanity became fairly clearly defined; it covered. in the
fIrst pl~~~: such phenomena as pers.onality, individuality, the
hur:nan I . In philosophy and the SOCIal and biological sciences,
whlc~ had more or less taken shape by that time, the elements
of thiS sphere (as, e.g., the individual) were interpreted in terms
of man's generic characteristics.
. O~viously, the specificity of this domain is not fully exhausted
~n thlS wa;:. The study of the same held by artistic consciousness
IS clearly madequate. Th~ ne~d .a~ises for a scientific study of
the problems of personality, mdlvlduality the human "I" et
In. the mid-19th century, this was mos; acutely realised b~
Klerkegaard an? Peuerbach. w~o almost simultaneously anacked
Hegel embodymg at that lime the philosophical-scientific
approach .to problems of personality and individuality However
nel~her Klerkegaard nor Feue~bach succeeded in sUbstantiatin '
an lfttqral theory of the specifically human of hu
.
~
azslinS in this way the found t"
f
'.
maOlty, an
cfttliLh of adequately handlin a I~n 0 a philosophical science
beings.
g t e problems of real human

The unitary field which took fi I

19th century and was concre!" dn.a shape by the middle of the
ity, the human individuality "l~~.l III Such conce~ts as personalscientific cognition with'
was connected III the sphere of
philosophy, the social sc an ensemble of sciences including
lences, and humanities--all those dis-

cipline.':> in w.hic.:h knowledge is substantively dir~" ao.ardI

mall. HumanitIes was a very amorphous structure, In .h~
only philo~ophy and a number of social sdences were included
but also art.
An excursus in the history of human knowledge and the
development of knowledge of man in general reveal, that in
antiquity, in the Middle Ages, and in the Modern Times, the
specifically human elements and humanity were understood in
quite different ways. Depending on the concrete interpretation
of Ihis phenomenon, accents are placed on different disciplines,
and the contenl of human knowledge varies. Now, what dis-ciplines or fragments of disciplines included in the ensemble
of the social sciences, philosophical sciences, and humanities.
can be integrated, along with artistic knowledge. in human
knowledge?
The solution of this question is made difficult by the
fact that personality and individuality are social phenomena;
they are social characteristics of man. Moreover. society is
a specifically human structure. Man himself is nothing but an
"ensemble of the social relations" (59b, 5. 4). In reality. which is
independent of knowledge, personality, etc., as the "specifically
human" element, forms an indissoluble, interpenetrating unity
with socium, with culture. For this reason, in particular, the
sociologist "taking the definite social relations of people as the
object of his inquiry, by that very fact also studies the real
individuals from whose actions these relations are formed"
(51, 1,406).
In consequence of this. each of the social and philosophical
sciences includes knowledge whose content is the ensemble
of prob lems connected with the human individuality and persona lity. The indissoluble unity and interpenetration of the
"specifically human" and the social condition the unity of human
and social knowledge. Human and social sciences are reminiscent at present of the two-faced Janus: we are dealing with
either human or social knowledge in these disciplines depending
on the aspect of man and his social characteristics considered .
The human sciences (human-scientific knowledge) are at
present in their formative phase. The process of formation
includes the selling apart in some well-established disciplines
(linguistics, hislOry, psychology, sociology, etc.) of such branches
or disciplines as the psychology of personality, the psychology of emotions. the psychology of individual differences (differential psychology). the sociology of personality, Iinguost)
listies. lext linguistics, ethnoculturology. etc. The present state of
\07

196

Ihe human .sciences o r ~ 10 be ~ o re prelise. of Ih.e kn owledgl.'

conlamed m Ih ese SCiences, IS a proces.') of dlfTere nliatio
from social cognition - a proces.') that is. so to speak, inlern ~
in cha racte r: the human sciences are de rived from the SOd:1
ones. The p.rocess is in 8 sense th e reve rSe of what took
place early m the 20th century, when lh e soc ial disc ipl ines
separated from human knowledge (humanities) .
Human and social know~edge. for~ a ~nil.y. The duality of
.... content of knowledge m lhls umty, ItS mdefiniteness and
mutual tran sitions are registe red in epistemologic al studies in
the concepts "soc ial-human kn owledge" or the "soc ial-human
sciences" (~ O ; 72; a~d others) , .The tendency of the develop_
ment o! th IS. figuratively speak mg. "centaur" consists in that
IUch scIences as psychology, linguistics, history, sociology, and
others more and more turn 10 man. This is manifested in the
emeraence of .'Cb
from the above, as
..
development
pbmomenatho MUd_ of
. .
characle. islies of ftl'loui texts-philosophicaJ,
artlStlC, etc. These processes apparen.dy express the conc retisaticm of
in social dilciplines.
of differences between hum a n and social
something that we have already
all lCiences are human in the sense that
they
[WiLli ill and applied to human practice. More
bllmen than or:he~ are such sciences as linguistics, psychology,
OrcuburolOlY ICterlCes that study phenomena inherent in man
alone: lanpace, consciousness. culture, And yet the expression
" h~~an knowledge" should be retained as a designation of
.!"~uc. knowl~ge, too, ~ well as those emergent scientific
dllClplmes w,hlch are denved from psychology, the social sciences and phtl~p~~, an~ whose content is the study of problems
!be human mdlv~du~hty and persona lity.
for Imghn, ou~ h~man knowledge as an indenot ConSLSt 10 the fact that there is a
.distinguish.ing between social science and
at
Enghsh-speaking countries or in the
ert the
. studies of scientifIc cognition often

5
dlll'erence between the human and the
sc.enc J. .The concept of humanities has not yet become
..;arked by a c~mplete absence of a consensus
with th~e hu.mt n ~Iences and in the views of their
SOCia SCiences and artistic knowledge.
'98

Freque nt a....,t: rtion') of a fundamen~

and socia l sC ie nces ar~ not substanuated by
lUal argume nt s.
The area or the human is extremely extensie
its expansions and c.: ontractions determine the
soc ial and human disciplines. Ref~rrinl to the
lim its or the human , Engels wrote of "a difference in the dqree
or ... humanity" (59c, 118) .
In the extensive sphere of the human. the domain of th~
specifically human is ~ingled out - a domain that is nOC rully
covered by the theones and melhods
the
psychology and philosophy, Mikh~il
the idea that personality and thmg are the
(7, 363,367) . The subject-maner of all sciences lies
these two limits. The formation of the human sciences, that
is to say, their separation from philosophy, psychology and
the social sciences. expresses, among other things. a desire for
the study of the individual as one of the limits of cognit ion.
The specifically human, which is concretely expressed in
personality and human individuality. is one of the two points
attracting knowledge thai is scanered by the centrifupl fOl1lll
of integration in philosophy, psychology, and the social !JC~. . .
The second point or limit of the development of these SC iences
is the "thing" - impersonal, subjecdess phenomena.
In the study of the human, the accent in philosophy. psyc hology and the social sc iences. with the ~xception of brancl~.
integrated under human knowl~ge. IS on generally v~id.
objectined. superindividual and Imperson~1 aspects of ~eahty.
The human sciences, human knowledge 10 general, stnve towards cognit ion of the individual and personal in aU .......
fullness a nd concreteness. They draw their know ...... ., ....,
from the established disciplines. in the first plICe from those
listed above, inlegreting them in an independent area of human
knowledge. Thus all ~ienc~ a re human 10 t~e extent that
they comprise under their sub,tect-maner the speclncally human.
above all (he human individuality and personality in all their
fullness including their separale. unique man ifestat ions.
Taki~g into account the duality (in the above sense ) of
knowled,e. and primarily the number of ~urely human sciences
that have not yet become separated from It, the share of . . .
knowled,e proper. we shan bring together li...u~ ....,a.ology and culturolOl)' under the heading of the bWMlllCiences.
Human knowledge proper is still ! rnri,U), inlerconnected
with other fr8lmcnts of knowledge in theee sciences. Human
,99

disciplines as such have nOI yel separated from them to the

exfenl thai their applied aspects or, problems of the theoretical

and practical level in them could be discussed outside their
connections with the base sciences. the more so thai in these

base sciences themselves-linguistics, psychology, cult urology

etc.-problems of the theoretical level and applied aspects ar~
highly debatable.
The domain which acts as a kind of irllegrator of human
knowledge is a multilevel system. Its complex hierarchical
character is conditioned, in the FIrst place, by the complex
and polystruclUral nature of the basic components-fhe human
individuality, "''', and the personality. For inslance, in psychology alone four principal substructures of the personality can
be specified: (a) orientation; (b) experience; (c) psychical
processes; d) biopsychical properties <68. 196). 14
The human individuality is also a complex polystructural
entity characteris~d by integraJity, separateness, uniqueness.
cOnICioUSllz , and creative potential (82: 87). Despite the
.\FFrilCe of rigorous theories., abundance of methodologically
weak or purely descriptive conceptions, the human "I" has
also been shown to con!.ist of autonomous substructures: self.
identity, the ego. and the image of "'" (42, 31 ). IS
The human individuality, being an active principle connect.
ing aU the social relations, reproduces these relations, manifest.
ing itself in this way-among other things, in texis. The textnOl only as a written record of speech but, in a broader sense,
as a coherent sign complex, as a meaningful, sense.carrying
system-is the next level of the subjectmaner of human know.
ledge~ ~erivative .trom personalily and human individuality.
In thiS interpretatIOn, texts are also the subject-matter of the
human sciences (7,281; 181, 13).
The s.tru~t.ured~ess and stabilit;: of the integral systems of
human individuality and personality, and of their manifestations .in texts are nothing but forms of repetitiveness in the
domain of human ~now.ledge. They are also ontological founda~lonS of IntersubJectlvlty and reproducibility of Ihe results
... hu,:"an knowledge. The system-structural organisation of the
d~ of huma~ knowledge,. characterised by stability and
reretlhon~ deter~lnes ~he POSSibility, given the truth of knowledge,. Of. Its .cognltlon m the human sciences, as the criteria of
scltnt'lic~ty m the 'iense of Chapter I will b
. fi d
d
l
I
esatlSe.
Th '" IQ ague qua Ily and truth Qj hu
i dge Th e
.1\ .
man k
'nowe

=~~~J1re;:u~: ~~~ain 0.t

human knowledge determin;s the

IS pnnClpal types ~ the hUman sciences
200

and arti~tic cognition. A major charatteristic of ~um~ ~MW~

ledge i ~ dialoguc which, like the semie of expre~lons, IS lUll,
arably linked with understanding as a functIOn of human
research.
Dialogue has becn a familiar feature in European SCIence
and philosorhy since the day~ of SOl.:fates and Plalo. at the
least. Dialogue in the sense ~recific for human knowledge
flrsl emerges in well-developed form in the humanist thinking
of the Italian Renai $sa nce which grappled with the problem of
creative synthesis of different cultu ral heritages~lhose of antiquity, Christianity, its own, and so on. L. Batkin characterises
humanist dialogue as "COnniCI of different minds, truths. dissimi lar cultural traditions constituting a unitary mind, a unitary
truth and a common culture" (6. 137). The humanist dialogue
inherently interprets synthesis as retaining the truths of two
arguing sides of the unitary truth. In other words. for the
humanists of the Italian Renaissance, the unitary truth emerging
as a result of synthesis in a dialogue is a plurality of truths. In
the humanist dialogue, as Batkin pointed out, "there is no
development-there is invariance of truths' <ibid. 168). There
is thus no development in it towards the absolute or. to be more
precise. the only trufh; instead. there is recognition of the right
to one's own interpretalion of the objective truth, emphasis on
relative truth.
This view of sy nthesi~ in dialogue was determined by the
nature of humanist culture with its profound realisation of
individuality --the individuality, firST and foremost. of cultures
and the human personality, and recognition of their rights to
a view of their own and ultimately of their right to exist.
Differentiation of knowledge of art and of science in the
Modern Times-a process that also involved knowledge in
the human sciences--determines the need to consider dialogue
in human knowledge with reference to its two basic forms.
the human sciences and artistic cognition. Despite certain
common elements, dialogue in the human sciences and in artistic
cognition obviously manifests certain differences in the tendencies of development. The common feature of dialogue in
both cases is its indissoluble link with understanding as a function
of inquiry and with the problem of truth. The tendencie~
towards differentiation in dialogue are also connected with the
relation to truth.
In arti!>[ic cognition and in some human sciences. dialogue
as a form is a consequence of recognition of equal rights to
the truth for both side~ interacting in the dialogue. Dialogue
lOt

resulis from the meeung of two subjects (con'iciousnesses)

one of which, the object of cognition for the other, canna;
remain a mute thing. In M. Bakhtin's terminology, " voice"
is necessary to the consciousness which appears in dialogical
cognition as the object, in order to impart to the cognising
subject, through dialogue. the mean.ing that is indissociably
linked with the uniqueness of conSCIOusness as an object of
cognition. Without the "v.oice", the in~~vid~al!ty and l,miqu~ness
of the subject as the object of cogllltlOn IS lIlaccCSSlble either
to scientific cognition with its general concepts, schemata. etc .
or to understanding with its orientation towards meaning.
Dialogue as the only form of cognising the unique. the one
and only subject. implies listening to the subject's "voice".
A monologue rejects the equal rights of consciousnesses in
relation to the truth (7,309). Dialogue assumes not only equal
rights to the truth but also. in fact, recognition as truth of
everything announced by the "voice" of individuality. In its
exauer.ted form. this view is expressed in the concepts of
trUth as communication in Karl Jaspers or truth as inter~ubjectivity in Gabriel Marcel. leading to the pluralism of truths.
The slightest exaggeration of the rights of the sides 10 truth
leads to dialogue becoming. in Kierkegaard 's words. a sum of
"truths for me". In other words (Kierkegaard's again), "the
individual is in the right even when he stands in this relation to
untruth" (152. 190).
Dialogue in this interpretation is based on two elements:
(a) conception of the subject--the object of cognition-as
a unique individuality; (b) impossibility of adequate reflection
of this individuality in terms of scientific (actually. naturalscientific) knowledge. Dialogue in this sense occurs. within
limits. say, in culturo!ogy, where the uniqueness of culturesthe one that is cognised and the one that provides the context
for the cognition of the former-is the basis of dialogue in
culturological knowledge.
Human sciences like linguistics or elhics characteristically
tend to interpret dialogue in a sense that is closer to natural
Kienec and mathematics. As we see iI, it is this sort of dialogue
~at, ~ore and more assens .itself in the developing human
dlSClphnes. Ther~ndamenta! dlll,ere,nce between dialogue in this
sense and Its ~rst lO~erp~etatlon lies 10 the nature of the synthesis
of the two, vle~p01Ots IOteracting in the dialogue. In the fust
cUC'~ t,he dialogical relations left the truths of the two sides in
pol~mlcs mtact, where~ the second version of dialogue implies
their changes. corrections, and even elimination (in case of
21)2

falsity) in the synthetic movement to an objective. PlluaIJy

valid truth .
.
d
Dialogue and pol yphony of human knowledge In the sec~ft
sense of the term more and more tend towards transform~llon
into two_hypothesi s and multi -hypothesis di~cussion,s res~ctlVely
(55.56-57). Discu<;..sion is here interpreted In, a I?glco-eplstemological sense rather than as a form of communicatIOn or excha,nge
of opinions in the communicative sense. On .the 1.oglcoepistemological plane, discussion is a form of creallve SClentl~c
cognition, of movement of know1e~ge to truth ~hrou~h contllct
and mutual enrichment of theones. concept ions, Ideas and
viewpoints.
,
Considering these processes of divergence in the dialogues
of human knowledge. we should perhaps think in terms not on ly
of dialogue but also of discussion and. better still. p~obably
of the multiformity of human knowledge. The latter IS more
adequate than dialogue in the case of the human sciences.
Analysis of the problems of dialogue in human knowled,ge
shows that "the human sciences. the sciences of man and society. require the development of criteria of t~uth and obje~liye
ness that are not identical with or reducible 10 the crllena
of natural-scientific knowledge" (2, 233). The weak versions
of the general validity of truth, as illustrated by the conc~p
tion of truth as communication in Jaspers. stem from the view
of personality as the subject-matter of h~m~n kn~wledge.
Generation of truth in the act of communlcatmg eXistences.
and plurality of truths do not simply res~1t from the uniquenes.s
of personality-they follow from the u~lqueness of an absol~te
ly passive. static, structure less perso~a\J~y that does not mantfest
."
.
itself in anything but the communlcal1ve act.
True cognition of a unique culture or hu~an mdlvlduah~y
can be generally valid if we do not postulate 10 advanc,e, their
absolutely static and structurele,'iS character. The stability of
the structures of the manifestation of personality or huma~
individuality, and their own systemic character, are the baSIS
of the general validity of the truths of human knowledge.
Applied aspects ()/ hilmar! k.nowledge. The fundament a! and
applied levels or aspects can be singled out i~ bot~ .types of
human knowledge -in the human sciences and 10 arllstlc knowledge. The study of the fundamental and applied character~ics
of human knowledge reveals the same problems and solut1:>ns
as figure in the other forms of knowledge-mathemallcs.
natural science. etc,
h was mentioned in the section on technil'al knowledge that
2f)'

knowledge acquires applied ft"alure~ only.wht!1l it is applied 10

Ih e solution of production tasks. Acconlingly, such a science
as psycholinguistics is nOI an applied st.' i,c nce. although its
results are applied in practice-as. C.g., In the practice of
teaching.
The emergence and development (ag~insl the background

of the solution of production tasks) of applied human knowledge

has been less studied in the methodology of science than the
applied aspects of. say, natural scie~ce ,or malhem~li.cs, This
applies to human knowledge both sCientific and artistiC.
Meantime. premises for the study of the fundamental and
applied aspects of human knowledge have already evolved in
the shape of a well-developed apparatus of the methodology of
scientific knowledge and certain data accumulated in human
knowledge. With reference to the human sciences, mention
must be made first of all of such advanced scientifIc disciplines

...... ~cholOlY.
poi-ud out above that these sciences are human
beea. . of the significant share in them of human
knowledge proper that has not yet become separated out,
and because of their relatedness 10 objects that are specifically
human at the present stage in the development of culture.
C"''7idering the tendencies of development of these disciplines,
tIIptICially the evolution of their applied aspects at a time of
the sc:ienlifsc and technological revolution, these may be said to
have remained human sciences for the present, although that
fact is now questioned-for various reasons (33; 40). The knowledge of the human sciences proper in their applied aspects
that have not yet become separate from the body of the base
disciplines, is practically indistinguishable from the rest of
knowledge in these disciplines. We therefore use the "classical"
human sciences like linguistics and psychology to characterise
the specificity of applied studies in human knowledge.
linguistics as one of the two primary aspects of
(alona with fundamental studies) ( 18S), uses linguistic
fe:.- the lOlution of various practical tasks (32; 18S) .
........ iftcity of these tasks shows them to be
and questions: establishing mutua l undermen-mac~ine system~ speech control of production.
. automatic processmg and classification of
ecli, tnfo.m:'auon, of technological documents, etc, At the same
ci<"l<eh,n_~lulStIC kno,wl~dge can be applied, e.g., in historical
estabhshmg the areas of settlement of different
I
peop es and other problems wh
I'
"
.
, '
ere mgulstlcs lS not used In Its

204

applled aspct:ts, In thi .. and similar questions it

ju.slifled 10 .. peak of inlerdis(iplinary rather
st ud ies,
- Applied aspct:ls of p ..ychology were in fact touched u~
above in the .section on tet:hnical knowledge, where we dIS
cussed the methodological problems of ergonomics. The- industrial character of the tasks being tackled in applied p':iychological studies becomes obvious in comparison with the applied
aspects of other human s~iences, The,involveme,nt of psy~hology
in the solution of pressmg production tasks In reveahna: &he
hidden potential for increased labour productivity, in deIiIn_
and construction of technology, improving the systeiill . ,
management of the national economy. etc., is so great that it
led to the emergence of applied psychological disciplineslabour psychology. the psychology of manag~ment (organ~sa.
tional psychology), etc. ~oreover, some ~pphed psychol?glcal
disciplines not only acqUired the status of IOdepe~den,t sCiences
but also developed into a basically new form ?f sCl,enllfic knowledge, That applies, first of all, to human eng~neeTl~g,or, ergonomics as a nonc1assical scientific-technological diSCiplIne.
A considerable body of data has accumulated in the applied
aspects of artistic cognition and art. The pr~ctice of d~cora
tive arts and industrial design will have to be Interpreted m the
light of epistemology. The controversy ~bo~t pure art and art
for art's sake in aesthetics and art studies In the broad sense
has raged for quite a long time. The ~reat creative potential
of epistemology and methodology ?f sCience may a~d mus! ~e
used to study the nature of apphe~ art, and appiJed ~TtlSt1C
knowledge. In this way, the pure art situation can be elUCidated.
so to speak. by the rule of contraries. Summin~ up.the p~e
of applied art and design in all its forms ~nd directions, ~ppl~ed
artist ic know ledge (applied art) may be said to be the appl~callon
of a rtistic know ledge for utilitarian purposes in everyday hfe and
the industria l sphere.
Human-scienlific km'h'/edge, The problem ?f, the h~man
sciences is not solved once and for all by gl~mg ~ I,ISI of
disciplines or fragments of ,knowledge. Essenlially II ,IS the
problem of adequately studymg the sphere of the speCifically
human. The latter is hi~hly mobile. which ,conditions the in
stability of the boundanes of ~he human scl~nces and ... . knowledge in general. Any sCience may be Involved, tllroug.h
its fragment or method, in the study of this dom~in. and thiS
is reason enollgh for desl'Tibing it as a human sctcn~e-. ,
It does not follow. however, that any son of arbltranness
105

i1i permi~jble. st.i11 less necessary, in the methodological analysis

of the human sclence.s. On the contr~ry. It.ow more than ever, the
human 1icience1i are In need of clartty. rtgorousness, and pre(j.
sion of the methodological instrumcllt1i of their study.
In particular, the need has become apparent in the develop_
ment of epistemological studies of knowledge in tlte human
sciences for a final overcoming of interpretations of the human
sciences which take shape outside the methodological analysis
of scientific knowledge. We refer here to a widely current
approach to the human sciences-the practice of "clarifying"
the status of the human sciences in the curricula of the human
knowledge departments of higher educational establishments or
in various guidelines for the establishment of academic councils
at colleges. institutes. universities. Academy institutes, etc.
These decisions on the division of the human or any other
disciplines are made necessary by various organisational ele
menla in scienc~ but far from determining or even replacing
&It epbteulolo&icat or methodological analysis of scientific
disciplines. they must rely on such an analysis.
An imponant element of epistemological explication of the
human sciences is concretisation of the key concepts to which
the specificity of knowledge in the human sciences is oft en
reduced. For instance. there is the widely current view, going
back at least to the neo- Kantians of the Baden school. that
the human sciences are concerned. generally speaking, with
values only. Naturally. a clear understanding of the specificity
of the human sciences largely depends in this case on a clear
interpretation of the concept of value. But, as O. Drobnitsky
correctly noted. "the more universal, as an instrument of
explication. the value concept becomes, the less we can explain
the phenomenon of value itself. Intended to be the master key
that opens all problems, it becomes a problem itself.--a myste
rious x. Whenever a philosopher despairs of flllding an intelligent answer, he invokes the category of value. The problem
is therefore not solved but merely labelled, 'These are values',
.. if that were enough to clear the issue. In the philosopher'S
~ a value is a sort o~ limit to understanding" (29. 146-147).
,It _Ienerally ~ecoglll.sed that in the 20th century the human
SCIences ar~ movmg from the empirical or descriptive level to
the theore~lcal one. More specifically. the human disciplines
may be saId to be at the beginning of this tran~ition.
. ~ f.or the p.rope.rl~ human sciences that separate from such
dlSClphn~ as hngulStlcs, psychology, cuhurology. the ensemble
of the SCiences of art (all those disciplines that may be called
20,

.mer-'a,

the "classical" human sciences), even the level of

accepted views or conceptions ha.. not been achieved he....
This applies, fIrst of all. to the psychology of personaliry. the
psychology of emotions, tex.t linguc;tics. linguostylistics, etc.
The inadequate theoretical level of the human sciences
determines the ineffectiveness of their methodological studies.
as manifested, among other things, in the absence of analyses
of the theoretical schemata of the sepa rate human sciences.
In the natural and technical sciences. analysis of the formation of such sc hemata is carried out on the basis of a clear
understanding of the organisation, methods and functions of
this form of cognition. It is precisely at this stage that methodological reflection in the human sciences is at present. The
epistemological st udy of knowledge in the human sciences is
focused on problems of the theoretical and empirical level.
the specificity of the methods and basic functions of the human
sciences. criteria of scientificity. etc. Of cou rse, reflecting on the
methodologica l aspects of the concrete human disciplines
(proceeding. explicitly, from methodological results) . scientists
attempt to attain the theoretical level. As a rule, however.
numerous ideas and concepts of this sort find no general
recognition. Evidence of this is found in the situation in individual psychology. psycholinguistics. linguostylistics. etc.
From the methodological point of view. the present-day
situation in the human sciences is reminiscent of the situation
in physics in the first quarter of the 20th century. Problems
of physical knowledge of that time are generally known. well
studied and thoroughly described. We would like. however, to
point out a certain aspect that is a recurrent feature in the
development of scientific knowledge al the present stage; a
discussion of this feature must nOI be seen as an altempt to
reduce human knowledge to physico-mathematical natural

sCIence.
This aspect is well represented in Werner Heisenberg's
book (142), in particular in the author's dialogues with Niels
Bohr. The gisl of Bohr's argument substantiating the new
conception of atOI~l slructu~e, as Hei.senbe~g remembers it. w~s
as follows. In claSSical physICS and SC ien ce m general. to explam
a new phenomenon meant to reduce it, through a\'ailable
concepts and instruments. 10 familiar phenomena and laws.
This method and structure of thoughl were complelely unacceptable in th~ description of fhe structure of the atom
in nuclear physl(S, ror one would have to resort to the
concepts of classical physics. which are in this case inade21n

quafe and cann.ot c~)\'e.r all thai ~cur.s here.

To explam his Ihmklllg. Bohr resorted to an Image thai can
symbolise the whole of non~clas~ica[ science, creal.ive thinking in
general. In analysing the $lluallon that emerged In Ihe stUdy of
atom structure, Bohr said this to Heisenberg: "We are thus. 10
some extent, in the position of the sea-voyager who finds himself
brought to a distant land where not only Ihe living conditions are
quite different from those of hi~ native land b~1 also the lallguage
of the people living there is qUlIe strange to hun. He has to reach
an understanding. but he has no means of doing so. In a situation
like this, a theory cannOI 'exp lain ' anything al all in the sense
generally accepted in science. Here it is necessary to indicate certain connections and carefully move forward" (142,62). Progress
in science is always connected with breakthroughs into new
spheres, and it is not enough to perceive the content of new ideas_
as Heisenberg points out, "the structure of thinking must also
change, if one wants to understand the new" (ibid., pp. 100.

102),

The human sciences are at present in a situation like that-before a breakthrough into new territory. One of the first
problems that arise in this connection is the problem of methods
adequate to the solution of urgent theoretical and practical
tasks. Method as an analogue of the fragment of reality toward
which a concrete human science is directed and in the space of
which it moves can develop into a theory thus taking the science
to the theoretical level of cognition of its subject-ma"er.
The problems of the specifIcity of methods, which are now
SO urgent in the methodology of the human sciences, were
already clearly realised a hundred years ago. Wilhelm Dilthey
was one of the philosophers of the end of the 19th century who
felt an acute need for a new methodology of the human sciences
different from the natural-scientific methodology. In his methodological analysis of the hUman sciences ("sciences of the
mind") Dilthey expressed the rational idea of "rebuilding the
S1ruclure of thOUght" (Heisenberg) in the process of studying
new objects different from the objects of natural scienceWW"".4""ity. personality, etc.
Tbia ~e~ was explicitly Slated by Dilthey in his statements
o~ dn::nptive ~chology. In Niels Bohr's terms, Dihhey, having
dISCovered cenam real connections in the sphere of the psychical, began to move carefully toward definite knowledgeknowledge that cO~,ld not be obtained by Contemporary "explanatory psy.chOI?gy . That was why Dilthey, not unlike Bohr,
.
chose as hIS bndgehead for a breakthrough.
II1to new terf/tory.

a critique of "exrlanatnry p-;y!.:hology" or,. more precisely. iii

critique of explanation in !.:ontemrorary !.cll~ce. .
.
In a book by John Stuart Mill published 111 DJilhey.~ time.
we fmd the following definition of explanation oriented loward
natural s!.:ience: "Sil1l.:e explaining. in the S(:ientiflc ~n'ie~ m~all."
resolving an uniformity which b 110t a law of causatIon mto I~t:'
laws of c<lll',ation from which it resulfs .... if there do not eXI .. t
any known laws which fulfIl this requirement: ",:,e may. feign
or imagine some whi!.:h would fulfil il; and thIS IS making an
hypothesis" (170, 322).
. .
We need not evaluate here Dilthey's altitude to '"explaining
psychology" or his Own theory of "understanding" psychology:
we shall only point out that his rejection of mechalllcalJy transferring the procedure of "explaining"!!> from. natur~1 science
into the sphere of psychology and the human sCiences m general
determined his search for new methods adequate to the subjectmatter of human knowledge. In the process of that search,
Dilthey formulated the following proposition: "The sciences of
the mind must start from the most general concepts of the
general theory of method and attain. thr~ugh testing them
against their particular objects, more definlle pro~edures and
principles within their domain. as the natural scIences have
just done" (133, 143).
'
..
Gradually, Dilthey developed understanding as the prmclpal
method of the "sciences of the mind". Although the sphere of
application of that method is practically u~limited, .u.nderstand.
ing in its highest forms is connected with cognttlon of the
human individuality.
Dilthey failed to solve the key problems of the "scien.ces of
the mind", yet in developing the meth?~ of understanding h.e
plolted the "third rath" toward the cOgl1lllon of the h.um~n real!ty, one that was different bOlh fr~1Il n~1Ural-sclen"flc and
artistic knowledge. The content of Dllihey s m~lh~ of .understanding was the Ill.ouldir~g ?f a SlrUC!lI~e of thm.klng dlffere~t
from naturaJ-scienllflc thlllkmg an~ a.lIl:nng ~t ul1lversally va~ld
scientific cognition of It~e hu.man. mdl\"lduahty and perso~~hty
and of their manifestations 111 different spheres of cogmuon.
The familiar effectiveness of applying Ihe procedures and
methods of hermeneutics in the fIeld of human knowledge and
their extension of lale 10 the natural sciences sho~s.lhat concer"
of understanding regardmg " as a characlen.Sllc fealure of
cognition r~ne~t a num.b.er of actual processes III the de\elopment of ~clentlflC cOgllltlOn.
.
But can il be said Ihat Dilthey, BellI or anyone else succeeded

208
1"UI47!l

!IN

working out or describing even the general features of

3
method of understanding? When speaking of understanding
we deliberately use the terms "characteristic" and "function':
and avoid asserting that understanding constitutes a method
This is based on the conviction that understanding as a generai
scientific method or a method of human investigation has not
yet taken shape or, at least, is not characterised in basic parame_
ters.
Understanding as a complex issue of epistemology, linguis_
ti~s, psychology.. etc., is .indissolut;>ly linked with such fiercely
dIScussed and lUlIe-studied questions as sense and dialogue.
If will gain the status of a method only if the theory of understand_
ing is developed in all its aspects. What we have at the present
time are isolated interesting observations by M. Dummet on the
link between understanding and sense, and by D. Follesdal on
the hypothetical-deductive nature of the hermeneutic method.
In fundamental works and profound insights by Dilthey, Hei.
Betti. Gadamer, Ricoeur and others, no attention was
.:orded to: investig~ting the structure of sense, the comprehensIon of whIch constitutes understanding. Without an analysis
of the component pans of sense, the elaboration of a theory,
and thus the description of understanding as a method, are
imPGnible; just as it is impossible to study the depths of matter
using only, for example. the notion of the molecule.
Artistic knowledge. The second basic variety of the human
knowled~~ is art.isti~ cognition. The subject-matter of this type
~ C?iinttlon .comcld~ with tha~~of_olher human disciP!ines
(mdlVldual psychology, the psychology of emotions. social
p~ychol?gy, ~IC.). but the method and instruments of coping
With thiS subject-matter are different.
At the beginning of the present section the subject-matter
of human knowledge was defined as man, the world of man,
the ~u~an, etc. T~is view was described as the fIrst step toward
cla~lf.Y1l1S the subject-matter of human knowledge, including
~IC Ir.nowled.ae. A more detailed study of the human element
1r:or~.,conc!'Ct~ definition o~ the subject-matter of
-a .... I!: n _ defined as mterpersonal individual
ideal. The ~ ~=c cTition in a:t is me~iat:d by the aesthetic
of art (38
deter .eal ~ the l.nt.ersubJecltve subject-matter
knowledg; such as ~Ienes t e most Imporlant aspects of artistic

party SPlrtt and also 'h

d
.
Interconnection of elements'
h' " .
e content an
As a form of cognition
,.'n. t ke artistiC Image as a system.
day consciousness (com ,ar ISIIC nowledge difT ers. f rom everymOn sense) and scientifiC knowledge.
III

!I!!:!..

80;

lIo

It i... ,.10 "Olher ... cicl1lifll: (orm of knowledge", This expr:-mon

was apdy u,sed ~Y S.ergc. A",..

rinl.,c" to char<lcl.cn<,ey,.mbolog.y .0, 828~:. In uSl,ng It, we have
no intention of Identlfymg arll':>lJl" cognillon WI.I~ symbology
CillOfWlldlllUYU jort!1U :lIulli.vu)

but merely sin.' ...... the element o( I~~k. .!!f OPP({\"!lumbt'fween

artistic and scientifll,: knowledge, e.,peclally artistic k~owledg.e
and knowledge in the human sciences. Knowledge In an IS
"other-scientific" rather than "anti<,cientiflc".
. .
In the organi",lIional principles, depth and modes of a""."lmllation of the essence of reality. artistic cognition also differs from
common sense. The principal structural unit of artistic knowledse
is an artistic image. In the standard model of science. a scientifIC theory is a pllenomenon that is of the same order as t~e
artistic image. Studies in artistic cognition. especially tho\~ I,n
aesthetics and literary criticism. often correlate the artIstIC
image with concept ill the sphere of scientific cognition as the
principal "cell" of scientiflcity. This approach apparently does
not take into account the level of development of the methodology of science at which the principal unit of scientific knowledge is a theory.
.
.
Although artistic knowledge IS m.ostly oriented t?ward e\'eryday consciousness. it represents an mcompa~ably.hlg.her level of
cognition with well-developed methods of ldea~lsat.lOn.' m~el
ling, experiment, etc. On the .an~logy of .th~ sclent.l~cIlY crl.teria, we can speak here of criteria ~f a.rtlsllC con.ltlon. v.:hlch
must not be confused with the crllena of artlSIlC qualllYa problem discussed in a~sthetics. art critic.ism. elc .. Th~re
are three such criteria, which run parallel wnh the sCientific
ones and the
.
led with the anistiC_!male. Th(..a.rcistic i~age IS a sort of th~o!:.Lil~.!rt.i~ti~. k.,?-owledge. ~I is characterised by ut ,S
Inatlcness, an~ ~ntersu6Je("f1 .1I~. .
.
The specifIcity of these characteristics ~f th~ art.lsll~ l!llage IS
such that the idea of artistic.knowled~e bemg scientific IS mSI~n~
Iy rejected. Proof of this I.S found I~ t~e truth of the artlst~c
image, i.e., adequate renectl?1l of rea.lIlY. m tern:-s o~ a~ aesthe.tlc
ideal. The three above-mentlO~ed crllen.a Of. sC.lentlflctty speCify
the epistemological ideal of SCience, which In Its turn serves as
the standard of cognition in general. That is why art. being cognition (albeit artistic cognition), possesses these characterislics.
II is generally accepted in philosophical-epistemolosical studies that methodologi~al refleclion is a n~ce~ary cO.nditio.n ?f
the development ~f sCience. ?f Ihe generallon of new Ideas III ~1.
This proposition IS also valid for human knowledge-both III
its sl'ientiftc and arliS11C forms.
211

\/

;<.

The purpose." of metht'ldologil'al anal)"i>; in au)' 'Ilhert' of

"Ilowledge_ is _~reakin~ out 01" tht' IIUIOI1l;ui'lll of (ll'rl.:l"fltiun
and solution 01 l'ogllluve la,!.,s. In tilt' Illt'!lh'ldnlogy of 't'ien.
lifte ('ognition thaI is 3chil'Vl'd thrtH.gh Ihl" fl'ulisllli(1n of Ihe
basic methods. procedures. goals. oriC'lIlulinrr'., of SCiC'III't', etc,
In anistil: cognition the inSlrtl111ellls arc diITl'fl"1I1 or cn,'n
directly opposite. but lhe purpOSe is thl' ,arne -the deepening
of k.nowledge.

( harl-r'
Till'. [)IAtl.("TI(\ 01 I)IVI,-LOPI .... C, "' .... O""LHXj[

II is appropriate to menrion ill this COllllt!'l'lioll Ihe So-ca lled

eifect or device of "estrangement" (Ofslrcmelliye) (25, 3'k~5l.

The methodological position of Victor Shklovsky and Bertolt

Brecht demands thai. in orde r 10 gain a deeper understanding
of some phenomenon in Ihe domain of arlislic knowledge, Ihal
phenomenon must be seen as eXlraordinary or slrange. In
Ihese two cases, the automatism of perception and solUlion of
cognitive tasks and resullant deeper knowledge is anained in
different ways. At the first stage of estrangement the object of
cOliiition does not correspond to the customary, well-eslablished
norms and evaluations and is in this sense oUlside consciousness.
H owever, the melhodological instruments in Ihe two cases
differ precisely al the initial stages, for Ihe ultimate goal of
the estrangemenl effeci is making Ihe incomprehensible clear,
introducing the subjel.:l-maner of artistic study into conscious_
ness or, to be more precise. inlroducing it in Ihe system of
consciousness. The work of Bertoli Brec hl and olher outstanding artisls provides evidence Ihat artislic knowledge also
shows a tendency toward transforming methodology into a mode
of actual artistic practice.

NtlJ1-Murxi .. t phil()~(lphl;r'S are incapable of ~dcyu'Hely rcfleding Ihe: diakl.:lin of Ihc dcvelupmelil of scl~nllfl,: knowledge. They l.:al1nOI explain Ihe phen(~mcn(ln, of science S sleady
'ogress IOward objcl.:li\t!, knowledge increasingly ~onform.mg, 10
and confIrmed by sacio-hislorical practice. ThIS
abilil)' to provide acceptable explanallOns of Ihe prog~('S$ 0
science was one of Ihe main cau.<;es of Ihe CrlSlS of \\ CSlern
"philosophy of Sl.:ience", ,
f h
The present chapter Will be .de\'OIed 10 an anal~'SlS () I IS
complex and topical probiemallc-

~;alilv

InC

4,J. THE CO~CEPT A~D P-HHS

OF SCIESTIFIC PROGRESS

The progress of scie nce is its inherent mo\ement from a

less complele and precise truth. !o a more campiele an~ pre~
.
. a process that is conditioned and controlled b) man
Clse
one,
.
Th e prog re s.:s,
- of ,...
~ 'Ie IKed
kin d's
10lal soda-historical pra,,'uce,
is the urposi\'e, goal-directed moven,lent of cognllion to.war
Pd q ale fundamental and ullI\ersal conceplual lorms
m ore
a e togeliler
u ,
'''' d a d vance f rom la ...-k of kno.. l~
all
linked
by the unille
d
10 knowledge b,' intelll!'Clual de\elopml!'llr.
,
e ~ehe rinci ples ~f progressive deHo'lopment of S(lenct" can
P , . lied b\' the pulsatmg knowledge model. ,~he
Ihlls, b e repn.:sci.
"
f arm<; c"mpn<;lng
II
f the d\llamics 0 fcognlll\e
,.
_
~n."re wea t ~ 0 ex re~l!'d hy a modification of the two-plan.e
sC ience ca n c f ~oured direction of movement and change IS
strll ~ lure who!,e a\ ' lor" of productiveness and criticism, The
speCIfied
by 1',>< (~e~'le~ or expansi\cness slimulates expan~ion
V c(or of prOt uc IV..
'
, , ,
,
'(
..
. - of knowledge. The crlllClsm \ector slImu a e~
of Ihe bOdtsb of accumulated knowledge. ousting aUI uns~c~
careful an~ ~'d unjustifIed elements, and leading 10 l.'ompre$lon
ceSSfult~.'S~ an tinder the influcnce of thc'>C ,ectal'S of researc~
of
~I~OW ekno"
ge" II!' d g:c.. is. now .expanded, now compres...ed. As a
acll\,lly.
appears.
re~u
.,
'( . a "'l"dimcnl

US u<,t' in

Ll"

(hi,;

COl1l1l'l'Iioll

thl'

l'OllCt'PI

,r

I .

<J ,wlable len!l for an adequ.lIe illll'rprl'lillion );. I_~lrd l'nrt'

non.
l
I w. pht'nollle-_

Theoretical _courses
are
regularl\'
rl'-wnlll'1l
.'
.
. _
'.
<.
alter p.

digmat"' d".K

gres.s

Isco\t'nes or SCll'ntlfh:

rl'VOltlli~)lls

.,

ilra

proas a theorelical course of some s~ienc: ~~Il~~~~~' Ulltlt.rstandable.

pit-Ie .knowledge
area. TII'S re-wrlllllg
IC ~ " 1(' of
1II0S1 l'OIn_
.
. in the ghen
.
permits a ft"-mterprelatlOtl of the 10lalil\ r. _. (OUfses
knowledge from the siandpoill i of'
. 0 au;ulllulated
of 111
. f
IIIlltWallve know led
e mosl 1II armed frollt-lint' knowl'd.
ge,
III

Ihe sphere of knowledge Th

I"

t .

, l": t'TllllTlLng

~'orrer.:li~ns, clarincations. re-inlerpretatio~s g:;, so

Ih,at certain

111 Ihe history of the concepts of

.' ~ .. are Hllroduced
Thus an . _ "
a certaIn sCIence.
identifled ;it~cI:n~~'r/;~t~l~e ail~tensive sense. can be actually
cour~e If
I
) c{;epted fundamental theoretical
.
we ana yse Ihe content of all th
.
eorellcal courses
in a certain s c i e n c e '
shall discover that so~e~Wrl'etien th~oughoul its hislory. we
e ments III these course
'
.
.
Invanant. These elements-the immutabl
- s r~maLn
content constituting the "ideal'
f e. u.nproblemallsable
sen~ed by Ihe concepl of hard ~~~s: 0, the ~c,lence"-is. repreloglCalh' uhimate basis for e' I '. hlch aus as Ihe eplstemoin the ~cietlce.
\a uatlng Ihe degree of progress
, In this case, the development f
'
It were, ideally. is realised as the 0 a sCience. ~eprese nted, as
of Ihe truth in Ihe "ideal
p'roce~ of cnilcal absorplion
real science actually
course, whlle the development of
represented as a kind
r
I.

,.
0 mu tllevel
c Iou d shrOUding the "ideal'
of adequacy (problem I" sCIence and n.on-uni~orm in terms
a process of necessar a lC and hypolhetlcal), IS realised as
"idea'''.
y and often difficult evolution toward the
. The most fundamellial r
.
IS mankind's ag re ate P ~mJs,e of ,the development of science
quite clear if w~ I;ke sOCIO-hlsloncal p,ractice. This will be
practice is a slimulaloraccfount ~f, IwO Circumstances. Firstly,
from the conditions of thO CO~nltlve progress, which follows
_....... I
e SOCial funclioni
f'
~~.ye y orpnised inslitut'
.
ng 0 sCIence as a
nC1'toducrion on a large sc l~n s;r~mg Ihe needs of society and
men! ofsu~antialion of seie: e. ~~ondly. practice is an instrulIy of verification, confirmaf ce , w Ich, fol!ows from the possibilbelw~en tr.uth and falseho~~n or rejection (of distinguiShing
Of
8:ct!\'lIy which is nOI self_sufflcien . the products of theoretical
Ilated ~x principio inferno.
1111 Ihe sense of being subslanTak1l1g InlO consideration
the fundamental mediating fune214

tinn nf pradK\' ill rc1atlilll til tht.' dl'vclopment (If S(;ertce, ~e

11111.,t nol at till' ~i1ll1e tmll;' ~l'e it a'i ttll' only premise of ,hal
pron.'ss. Ikin g a _rdatively autunnllH1U'i !>ph~rc of the so('ial
~lIpl'r ..lrUl'llIrl', 'il'ltlIn.' IHI'.; an mliependentlog1c of deH~I()rmeTl'
and i\ subjt'd III dill1ell\iml'1l1f {;hange inherent in science alone.
From Ihis \wlldplHllt, whatevl'r fal"lors or !>,imuli may make
an illlpad nil \{;ien{;e, it Wilt nOI be reaplive 10 them as long
as thcy arc not probll'mali\ed <.Ind ('on{;cptually a'5.\imilated.
Life po..,c., pruhlem ... SolVing or eliminating these problems
is Ille !ask of s('iem:c. The mosl that Ihe eXlra-scienliflc ~phen..
; ( can do is en..,uring the conditions of productive development
, " of science, creating the basis for its inner progre~. The Janer
is confir med, in particular, by the existence of real and signiflcanl problems which pre~enl-day science cannot eliminale.
Thus practice has long posed Ihe need for solving the energy.
oncological, ecological and other problems for which. however,
there is no solution in science in \'iew of the lack of neces....ary
condilions in it.
Taking this inlo acc.ount. let us discuss the internal premises
and mechanisms of the development of knowledge.
The cognitive premises proper which ensure the progress of
knowledge are polymorphism, inverseness, and incompleteness.
Let us cha racterise all Ihree.
P ofymarphiml. The concept of polymorphism indicates that
Ihe semantic resources of any scientilic concept incorporated
in a defl11ile syslem of knowledge are neyer fully exhausted,
and Ihat there is always a possibility for an expansion of the
conceptual sphere, determined by Ihe existence of reserves, of a
"free path" of the concepl in question. a possibility thai engenders a new semantic pOlential and consequently leads 10 Ihr
assertion of new systems of knowledge, The growlh of knowledge is always connected with and accompanied by the discovery of new horizons of Ihe basic concepls, the revelation of
their fresh semantic strata. the fonnalion of unprecedented
combinations, and the discovery of mlilUal transilions and
connections which were only present in potential form al the
initial ~tage or. at any rale. could not be brought to light.
It means thai the properlie:; of the scientific language ilself
pennil overcoming Ihe feature of thinking which can be tentatively called ossifICation, which is connecled. in particular.
wilh Ihe rigid formal logical organisation of the conceptual
apparalus. II w(lliid. of course, be nai\'( to assume that scienlific
concepts can be lInorganised from the formal logical poinl of
view: they must be slIfflcienlly clarified-which is. properly

-> 1.>-

.. peaking. an dernelliary (.'onditiOI1 ('I" corrl'l.:l dl'1lI011Slral;

,

principle~, Object.!'.> is their polyfum:till".ality,..mutual reversi~

.. "
.,.
on
ogH.:a errors like ignorafio ('/ellt'lI;'

(llle.' Ihal ru t'~ OUI trl\la

quadrupllllg

r .

or
terms. etc. And yet
' b

o. ~CtelllllC 3nguage mUM

the properly of polymOrp',; ,

~rll

e \~er~ a~ a nlO~1 n,'I11(ll (' prerni~e

01 th~ ,growth of kno~ledge. \lgnrfYlllg 3\ II dol'S a natural

pOSSIbility ~f overcommg Ihe formal requin.'menls of 11011_
ambigUity ~1T1 the sense,of ossifKalion rat1~l'r than clarification).
The followmg explanation seems approprrate in this connectionthe higher the formal or.gal~is3Iion of Ihe language o f theory:
the greater. lis n~n-amblgUl.IY. and the less its capability for
expanSion. lor belllg non-trlnally self-expanded and thus involved in a description of an additional sphere of phenomena
COlllrariwbl;', Ihe grealer ils expansiveness, the tower its levei
of Tormal organisation.
Thus the dialectical contradiction, inherent in science, be.
tween non-ambiguity and polymorphism is a premise of the
growth of knowledge. Indeed, "fuzzy and vague words with their
rough edg.es, I~ck ~f clarity in the boundary lines dividing can.
c~J;'ts. their. dlv~rsny and ~'ariety-all, this creates the possi.
blhty for vlolatmg the stnctly deductive forms of thinking"
(65,133), In other words, scientific thinking naturally "must be
logical en<::)Ugh, i.e" it must be based on deductive logic", but to
be heuristiC, "it must be built in such a way as to permit violations in the strict logic of a system of postulates or in the rules
of deduction" (ibid.) -violation!:. that later permit unfOlding
nondemonstrative modes of drawing conclusions (forms of
thinking) .. FO.r greater clarity, let us stress that in any logica lly
corrt~!.:I :hlnkll1g the rules of deduction cannot be "violated", / \
otherw.i"e science would become a collection of paralogisms.
Referrmg here to "violations" in "the strict logic of a system of
postulates or 111 the rules of deduction", we have in mind, just
as the authors of the quote, merely a premise for progress in
knowledge consiSting in the fundamenlal ability of scientific
conc~p.ts 10 .change their content, which permits overcoming
the ngld logically nonambiguous structure of available know 1edce, deter!"i~ing progressive conceptual shifts in il.
Tbu pom,llRg to the capability of scientific concepls for
~ 1beU' content,the property of polymorphism characterlSeSb~ developme.nt or knowledge in terms of its conceptual
mo I Ify. ~rogress~ve. functioning of knowledge, realised as
conhnua.' l.:h~ng~ In Us content, is only possible through po.
Iym~phlsm, which Introduce~ additional informal"
' the
.vaIlable conceptual fund.
_
__
lon, III
Im'f'r.\(nf'ss, The inversene
r .
..., 0 SCientific objects (ideas,

bility, sub.,titutabdlly; In Olher word." their ability to .ad as the

"proper" entitie .. of qualitatively dillerent and even epl~temolog.
ically incommcn'>u.rable ,>y.,te.ms of knowledge (cogn~lIve connexts). Incorporallon of an Inverse object In a denOite s~teT!'
of knowledge is a premise. of i.t~ in~er .progress: .Inverseness IS
based on the reinterpretation m scle.ntlflC. cognition of the semantic and operati onal status of obJec.ls m the f.ramework of
a certain closed cognitive conte~l, a r~mterpre~allon thai I~ads
to the establishm ent of new associative IInk~ movmg Ihe.,~ ?~Jecls
into unfamiliar conditions, which determmes Ihe posslb]ltty of
progressive shifts in the problematic and conceptual fields of
knowledge,
Let us cite a concrete example from the history of science
to explain our thought.
..'
Aristotle formulated the teleological pnnclple (which was
later elaborated by the Peripatetics and Thomists) tha~, through
the Providence of Ihe Creator, ev~rything in nat~re 15 reahsed
wilh a minimal expenditure of aCllon. In 1744: Pierre Maupertuis. in a memoir sent 10 the Academy .of Pans,. borr0:-ved that
principle from metaphysics 10 explam certam. optical a.nd
mechanical phenomena. Some lime lat~r he gener.altsed that pr~n
ciple to embrace all movement,' invok.mg a ce~a~n general prm
ciple of "least action in nature' assertmg the mmlmal quantlly of
action. From this Maupertuis derived the laws of the lever and
the impact of resilient b o d i e s . .
.
Mau ertuis applied this principle to ~nlte .changes of ~elocl.
L P Leonhard Euler generalised II to Include continuous
ties, ater
,'ke Mauperluis he also connected it with the
movements; un ]
' h ,..
f
'n a body
law of living forces: the sum of all t e lvmg orces I
. h ,
I of all possible sums.
.
IS I e eas
d d Euler's principle 10 Include
Later Joseph. La~range e~len e
m of oinls, and applied
the material po~nt Inr alhneaSrybs'tlerna,rYh~y~I~: end PKarl Jacobi called
.
Ih dynanllcS 0
.
,
.
It to . e .
ion Ihe mother of analytical mechamcs.
the prmc.lple ofdl.ea,S! t~CI of change in knowledge illustrated by
What IS the la ec ICS
this case?
there exists an idea that has no direct
.At .the first .stageAI the second stage this idea is implanted
~clentlfic me~~ll~!'ledge, acquiring real inlrascienlific con~enl
m concre~e
f 0 tical and mechanical phenom~~a, den~a.
n
(explanal1o 0
p
d the law of impact of reSIlient bodies,
.
r the lever law, an
. ,
d
110n .o
Maupertuis), That content is fa.'r y poor, ~n
ca~ned oul by ~d b the original interpretation depending
it ]S greatly tinge
Y
217

on the specificity of the donor fl~ld.

Thus Mauperluis substantiated the physical application of th',
prin~iple by the fact Ihal it left the wMld constantly needing Ih':
ommpotence of the Creator, and was a necessary consequen'
of the wisest. ~pplicalion of tha~ omnip{)tl'II,Cl'., At the Ihi~~
siage, the empmcal field of the actlOI1 of the prlllciple is changed
(Euler'S innovations). while its general theoretical interpreta.
tion is retained and remains fairly immutable (d. Jacobi reproaching Euler. d'Alembert and other scientists for a metaphys_
ical ~val~ati:m o~ t~l~1 prin.cipleL At t~e fou~lh stage. ,Ihe filling
of thIS principle. tnltlatly allen to the given SCience, by liS 'native'
content is compieted. We know that at the end of his treatise
De isoperimetricis Euler showed that m S \Ids (where m is mass'
v. velocity; 05, path; and s. integra\) has a minimum; this last
is regarded by Lagrange as the properly physical content of the
principle of least action. which he regards as a simple general
conclusion from the laws of mechanics rather than as a metaphysical principle. That is precisely the way in which the idea
from a donor held is implanted in the body of the accepter
knowledge.
Inasmuch as the nearest inverse objects are language units
or terms, the development of science is based on continual incorporation of terms and concepts from contiguous language
spheres, The latter is made possible by paronymy, or the use
of words of everyday language (any non-proper language of a
cenain system of knowledge is an everyday language in relation
to its own language) with striclly fixed meanings which become
intrascienlific, Characteristic in this respect is. for instance, the
history of the appearance in physics of the term "quark",
More precisely. inverse concepts (ideas or objects) are introduced in the following manner,
First. this process may rely on and stem from con tiguous systems of knowledge, Thus the concept of tension was introduced
into construction theory by Louis Navier. who borrowed it from
electricity; Georg Cantor introduced the physical concept of
power in mathematical set theory, etc,
~ the in~roduc.tion of inverse concepts may be based on
.~I)' "'Iea?"c basIS, and its genesis may be "irrational",
Consider the h1Slo~ of t,h~ introduction of the term "quark", The
concept Of. potenttal ongtnally did not have a concrete physical
meanm,g either, and was seen as a "working hypothesis" brought
to phYSICS from every~ay I~nguage, Only after the establishment
~f a clear-cut cat~go,nal gn,d combining work, energy, conservatIOn laws, etc" did It receive a physical interpretation,

'"

' I ill"l'r"~ (UlKepl'i lIlay he introduced in the form of

TIlin,
. f I
'
.' I "traditiunal" ubjt,{t~ or nmn=pb who!'ol' meanmg u anu
usn
_ , . .1,c,"!U\
i\. reinterpreted. Atnmbm rna\'- be taken as our
funt:g, H,I
...
example hen.',
_
.
.
.
, From the po.,itio,,\ nf II1VerWIIl'~. prngress In ~1I:n~l' .~'i thus
d as a pr(ln:~... of a(ceplal1l.:c or borrowmg of workrno d e II c
.
..
.
'
d
'
.
bc,raclions"; of clanfll.:all0n of their meanmg~ an ..,en~e ...
\ng 3.
. "b'
d'
,
f fillal elimination of the "mt:taphonc
a~l~ an Impar ~ng
o ',' e a ,-d illtra'lcientiflC (onten! to abstractions, Bemg. like
p~""
.
.
. . .
olymorphislll. a premi"c of the progre,ss of sCience. Illver>;eneS!>
~nsures the conditions fo~ reslrw.:tur.mg the conc~t.>tual fund
of knowledge, Pol ymorphism, determines the m<:>b,lny of systems of knowledge. whereas IIlverseness concrellSt"S the mode
of the aClUalisation of that rrop~rt~, Any ele!l1ent ?f knowledge-scien IiflC ob ject, co~cepl. pnnc ~ple. etc, -IS m.oblle" am~ng
other reasons. because il IS a d,lale~tlcally contrad1Ctor~ fUSIOn
of reality and possibilily, Reality ~s ,aclUal representation and
expression of the object in the e}(ISll,ng systems of k~owledge.
Possibility is the sel of potential notIOns and .expressl?"s CO~
nected with the future involvement of the object (owmg 10 II!>
inherent inverseness) in the systems, o.f.knowledge Iha~ are. ne~t
in turn. From this position. the POSSlb.lhty ?f progress lI1.sc,len\,;~
consists in the unlimitedness and dl\'ersll~' of the ob~el,;.~s 0
science in the absence of monopoly of their "pre.reren~lal use
in Ihe framework of some conceptual construction gl\en beforehand,

I k f
m leteness is
In completeness. Incompleten.ess. o~ ac 0 h cO P I logi'~al
a 01 semantic factor which. If we Ignore t e f orma \,;
P Y
'he following--as far as problems of developmeru
usage, mealls
of knowledge are concerned.
bse -e
Meaningfully interpreted. incomple!eness ~eans the a a~~a
of exhaustive information ab~ut .realllY st~dle~ ~~e spo:s.:ibility
I d
which is an objective premlse-.o
.
of know e g,e, . . . '
were not so, sCience would ha\e
of 'progress In SClen~e, :rotl~~~r rogress, To clarify this. let us
neither room nO.r dl,ree
",onPess of available Iheories deter, obJ'ecl1ve IIlcomp.. ..
..' [
state Ih a
. . ,' 'e stimulating the subJecme deSire or
min:s progre~s I~' slUf~~~n~~. which is expressed in Ihe tend~n
achlevlIlg .thelr cc01;sfemolOgically desirable exhausti~'e, dl!'scflpc.y to. attain ;~~m~llate more powerful theories pro\"ldll1~ m~re
lion. I.e .. , to
]"t . , In a more formal interpretanon. 111informallon ab?ut.rea I~.
.
f absolute closedness. or the
comrl~~eness .Slg,llIf:Sse~o~~~I~~\" considerations or assumptions
POSSIbility 10 .II~'O,~ d' the prop(",sitions of systems of knowlthat are not 1f\1,; hlue III

et.l~t>

their substantiation. The ideal of m3:\imally complete

(do\ed) ~ienlitl(" theory is unall.ainahle, which follow~ from
general philo.l;ophical, methodological and logico-matht>matical
arguments. Formal incompleteness of theories is a premise of
their progress, making il possible to add further assumptions
or propositions other than the accepted principles, postulates,
axioms, etc., and to obtain in this way new theories.
The concrete processes in the development of knowledge
determined by incompleteness are universalisatioll, Integration
and unification.
l.-'nil'ersalisation. In discussing Ihe progress of mathematics,
Jean Dieudonne stresses that true progress is mostly determined
by a deeper understanding of the phenomena under study,
which is usually due to their incorporation in a broader framework. Research ex.periences have shown this to be true not
only of mathematics but also of science in general. It is therefore important to make these two points: progress in science consists in deepening understanding, and deeper understanding is
achie'ied through incorporation of previous knowledge "in a
broader framework".
First of all. what does "deeper understanding" mean? L. I.
Mandelshtam speaks in this connection of two phases in understanding. At the first phase. "you have studied a certain problem and seem to know everything you may need. bUI you
cannot yet answer independently a new question pertaining to
the field in queslion. In the second phase, a general picture and
a dear understanding of all the connections emerge" (56, 10).
Progress in science should be connected precisely with this degree of understanding. The essential point here is Ihat the second
phase of understanding comes only with knowledge that is
deeper and more adequate than knowledge at the first stage,
Wh~ch ultimately solves the questions arising in the given domain.
For example. progress in the development of classical mechanics linked with the ultraviolet catastrophe consisted in the
deepenin& of the general picture of the nature of atomic phe~ of physical reality in general. That deepening involved
iL.ilion of a whole series of classical and semi-classical
propoli.lic;ms: the ~rinciple of continuity of physical action and
energy (introductIOn of the Quantum postulate); Bohr's alomlC modc_' and the concept of electron orbits (introduction of
t~e staho~ary $tate concept); the dynamic variable concept
(~n!roductlon of new m~themati~al objects satisfying the condition of non-commutatIVe muh'plication); dynamic causality
In

220

. f fon of the objc(tiveness of statistical law.s).: the id~a

(substan la I . > 's of all the phy\ica' charactenstlcs. of an
of . con1l7~tt:~~~~:~~o~ of the prin(iples of comp'ementaflt~ and
object ( .
. I concept of \tate spe(ifled by a pOlnt 111 the
indetcrlll~~:c~}, ~ l:ystem (representation of state. by a vec~or
phase s~
.
. ' , I Hilbertian space). All thIS taken as a
in inlintte-dlmel~SJ(~~:r ence of quantum mechanics and conwho~e led to the e dcrs~anding of physical reality, of the nature
comllant de~per ~I'-rhis apparently determined not only the soof .maller as .s~c ..:.. the theory of the absolutely black body
ress in h sical science on the
lutlOn of the enSlS III
but also stimulated g~ner~: prOf the esse~c~ of the object under

~t~~~
O[t~ec~~:~
~nf/q,eh~~~17~~:~~~f
~~~e~~~i~~~
a~!itO:~et~er~~i:~~:~
of discreteness
e pr
0

and matter. etc.~.

ro osition that deeper knowledg.e is
Lei us explalll ~he p p.
f previous knowledge III a
achieved through IIlcorporatlOn 0
broader cont~xt.
. h d elopment of knowledge has long
The followmg law III t . e ev
as a more or less accidenbeen established: thai whIch appe~r~ allevel in a previous Iheotal fixation of an objeci at the empl.r1lc derivable consequence at
ears as a necessan Y
Th
ry ( T , ) , r~app
.
be uent cognate theory (T;l).
us
the theorellcallevel III a su s .~x lained the negative result of
Lorentz's ether at rest theory
P the basis of the hypothesthe Michelson-Morley eXferllnen\~~t of bodies in the direction
is of the reduction of the I~earb:~oming an a (ergo description
of movement. the theory t lU~ hand. in the special theory ~f
of empirical facts. n the.u~: ~r the Michelson-Morley ex.~n
relativity the negal1 ve res d or extrapolated at the theorellcal
ment is. so to speak, pl anl~e temporal picture. The same shou~d
level thanks to a ne.w'fspa:~~~omenon, which is mere~y sta!ed III
be said of the red shl t
but adequately explallled 111. the
the special theory of re ~t~vlIY Thus on a meaningful plalll a
general theory of ~~!a~:gv~riles nothing other than a greate~
"broader frame wor
fT" depth which is a result 0
0
". I
.
.'
d
lopment
degree of d eve
. h -rmils theoretical prediction an
claritlcatiol~ of T" f wh~C t ~~at was empirically stated in T
derivation ITl T:: 0 a ac
ad' I it In formal terms. a
'ailabilitv of a neW
t was not fully underst.o . \I
~~roader framework" Slglll!les. Ihe .~' derived- as a limiting
f om which the prc"'ous one I
theory r
.
"
n letecase.
d .. toward owrcommg IIKO! P
Integration. The te~l en!.:).
h"h alongwithdlfferenness IS. a 1'0
s manifested III IntegratiOn, w II.:

r .'

--'"

liatl~m. is a powerful ,instrument of the developmcllt and for.

Inasmuch a .. olle theury diller., fn)f~ anntha, as Eim!!!in put

, no\tly in tltl" d1Oi"'e (If 110; fnundal10ll ~tones. that I'). the IrreIt. 1
.
-b'
ducible ba'ik concept," nut (If whl~1t thl' structure IS Ul t, progrc~" ill sciellce nmsl\h III chl.IH\lng mcreasmgly more, fundamental .. toiles capable of c<lfrymg mcrea'ill1g loads des.~lte. their
diminishing number'>. lienee Planck's radICal ca.1I for .uOlfymg
the parlicolourcd varil't~ of phy~ICal phenom.~na 10 a unitary sy'ilem and even pos'ilbly 1Il a .. mgle formula (17~. 6).
Thus inC{)lllpletcnes~ i.. a premi'ie of progress m knowled.ge
which char31:tcrises both its meaningful aspect. con~eCled with
the need for a transition from less ~unda~ental (m terms of
breadth and depth) knowledge to mcreasmgly more .fundamental knowledge, and its formal aspect connecte.d with the
need for the restructuring and reorganisation of a ... al~able theories with a view to maximal realisation of the requirement of
closedness.
.
.
The process of production of new knowledg.e IS determm,ed
by three factors: no~-Io~ical ,form.s of rea.solllng (produclI"'~
capacity of the Imagmatlon. IT1tull1~n) which act as the gen
erative structures of knowledge; logICal fo~ms of reas.o~mg e~
bodied in symbolic articulations (l'ategones. _propOSItions. syllogisms. abstraction. theoretisation. etc.), whl~h ~ct ~ the ordering structures of knowledge; and th,e soclO-~lstoncal pr~
cess of assimilation. taken 10 mean the mtrod~cn~n of kno~ ledge in society's practice. i.e .. Its transformation IOta matenal
and non-material culture.
, '
I S15
-'
One must not underestimate the Slgnl~cance of the ana
of the way in which our ~easoning. (which mostl~ occurs ~
low the threshold of conSCIOusness) IS subsequently mould.ed I.n
cate orial structures and "conscious forms". and that. which I~
d by individual scientists becomes generally v,ahd know.1
pro uce. anal sis is quitt:' capable of ~iS":O\'erm~ .certam
edge, Jh lS _ o/associ<lti'l'e thinking (conSIder heUflSIICS. for
I
genera, ') u ehs'.Cil cannot be deliniti\'ely studied by the means of
examp e w

~lallon

of sclen~e. ~C1ence~ emerge 8:' a result of their l"ogni.

lI\'e self-determmallon: a c?mplex. of proble~l1~ (lilt" subject.
maller~ em~r~e~. through dlfTerenll~lIoll al,ld Illlegrmion. fro rn

a certal,n P~IIT:lltI\'e. knowledge ~f which a historically "limiting"

expression IS martlculate .archalc prolok,nowledge; this complex
of problems requires special methodological study, and that gives
rise to derivative science. Characteristic in this respect are
the so-called synthetic sciences which emerge where there is a
need for the description of a ceria in object in terms of many
rather than one system of knowledge. Of this nature is, say, a
scientifically substantiated description of the biosphere which
cannot be presented in the language of anyone science, for the
essence of the biosphere is such that its scientific description is
only attainable through simultaneous application of the concepts of many sciences. In this way integration processes bring
about synthetic unification of previously unconnected branches
or areas of science. which leads to a deepening of the conceptions of the nature of the phenomena under study. Thus Maxwell's electrodynamics. unifying a series of empirical laws accumulated in the autonomous and isolated theories of electricity. magnetism and optics, deepened and optimised physical
knowledge. With the emergence of Maxwell's electrodynamics.
electrostatic and electrodynamic phenomena, the phenomenon
of electromagnetic induction. the laws of Coulomb, Ohm, and
Ampere, many optical phenomena. etc., were given a profound
theoretical interpretation from a unified position, which is a
certain indication of scientific progress. Synthetic tendencies in
science manifested themselves in the emergence of the special
theory of relativity (a synthesis of mechanics and electrodynamics) and quantum mechanics (a synthesis of corpuscular
and wave mechanics): a unified field theory is worked out
through synthesis of the general theory of relativity and quan tum mechanics.
. Uni/inllion. One of the stimuli for the development of science
II t~e tendency which is expressed. for instance, in Leibnitz'S
::-~ r~ulrement ~rting the epistemological desirability
theare ..ca~ ~xpress&on of a maximal number of essences
thro,u~ 8 minimal number of independent assumptions The
evo utlon
. thiS
. reqUire' .
I . off knowledg
. e may bed
sal to comply wuh
ment. t 1S rom t~IS angle that one ought to consider the numerous restructurmgs and re
'.
ing th
b d
.
. or~anlsatlons of theories (inc1udfoseh ase on aXlOmatlsatlon and formalisation) indica,.
Ive 0 I e ~arch fo t h '
'
r e optimal mode of their construction.

,
,

'logic.
are twO paths of the development .of knowl.edge--:-Ihe
The.re
(extensive) and the revolutionary (mtensl\e~.
evOIU~\~I::~ary development. which does not assume any ra~lEv
.
of 'he theoretical fund of knowledge. conSists
.
h ,.
al renovallon
~
. d'
the sphere of application of available t eones
III exlen mg
..,
h
d by the fair new phenomena of reailty. ThiS IS ac I~ve
..
'.,
cov~
rocedures: denvallon of consequences (the, ~outme.
IO":Il~~ Por scientists ill the logko_method.ologleal dl~Clpl!nes~.
aell V y.
of a general theon' to the solutll)J1 of speelahsl tasks
adaptallon
.
21.\

222

by adding I.'orresponding assumptions (point I1lCchanll.:\ vs -'

linuous medium mechanics): merging of <l malhcmatit~1 \on.

malism with a concrete theory. teading 10 the formation of n~~
nollons a~ld sysle.m~ of concepts (cr.. c.g., Ihe apparatus of
malhem~tl~al statlst,lcS and probability theory_ thcrmodynam_
Ks-,--statlstlCal phYSI~S): de~elopment of theory through intro.
dUClng new suggestIOns (Improvements on hcliocentrism b

Keple~): a search ,For models and semantic (empiric-a:) inler~

pr~latlo~ of theories. (Ih,e work o~ Eugenio Beltrami, Klein,

P,omcare and ,other SCientists on the IIlterprelalion of non-Eucli_

dian geometries).
In t~e most general but precise sense, Ihe specific Features of
evolutiOnary development of scientific knowledge are described
by I,he mechanism of homogeneous and heterogeneous re2
ductlon. H0.m0geneous reduction, in which the theory subjected to reduction and the theory to which the former theory is
reduce~ are ~~th expressed in the same language, is a version
of a fairly tnvlal expansion of the fund of knowledge. In this
case, one of the theories (the expanded one) is the basis from
which the cognate theory follows as a consequence. The general
sch~me of. progress is in this case as follows: TIH-T'l (where
T, IS a basIc theory and T 2, a derived one; H is a set of additional hy.potheses expanding T I), Examples here are classical mechaniCS and the more special classical theory of gravity deriFed
therefrom.
. ~eterog~neous reduction covers the relations between qualItat1\:ely dIfferent th.eories Formulated in different languages,
Inasmuch as the denved theory T~ comprises in this case a set
of conceptual. units which are simply absent in the arsenal of
T . the,operat.lon of trivial syntactic inclusion of T~ in TI proves
to be. lm~oSSlble. Consequently, the general scheme of progress.l~ thiS case is as follows: T I RS ... T! (where R is a set of
~~~sltlonal proposi.tions, and S, a set of semantic assumptions),
IS case c.an be Illustrated by the synthesis of electrostatics
and theor~lIcal mechanics and the development of a generalised
modathematleal theory of potential. On the one hand there existf0'Ideas and modes of studying
'
hie" purely physleaI
range
elech i~Y, ~represented. say. by the work of Coulomb. On the other
t:e"o;e:ic~~emwe~e ~ul"ely mathematical analytical methods of
and others p~~ anlcs de~~loped by Euler, Lagrange, Laplace,
Coulomb I~w i s:son com I~ed these two areas in handling the
mathematical t~s~~tr~~a~~al.~er,:,s and using it to solve "the
... onductors and 'sYSIe e f Istn utlOn of charge over different
ms 0 conductors" (28, 296).
224

From the logi(al "tandpoint, a fundamental characteristic of

evolutionary dl'veiopmcl1t ii) the eXI~tence of deductive links
between a bask <llId <I derived theories, The latter mu~t be understood, in the flr..,t place. in the sense that construuing a de"
rived theory (T d always has for a necessary condition the
truth of the ba\i( thenry (T,). for if the resulls of T- are true,
the results of T, cannot be falo;e.
Where the deductive links between TI and T~ are violated.
the development of science may be said to be revolutionary.
Revolutionary development of science, assuming a signili(ant
renovation and modifIcation of liS conceptual arsenal. consish
in the deepening of previous notions of the essence of studied
phenomena. A r~v?lution in science is .al~ays a f<.>rm of r~olu
tion of a contradiction between the heunstlc potenl1al of available
knowledge and the factual material which must be interpreted
in its framework. What are the conditions of revolutions in
science?
Two causes may be pointed out as the most general ones.
The first cause is the non-predicativeness of knowledge. which
consists in any evolutionary development being accompanied
ty the restructuring of logical. intrascientilic and philosoph~cal
foundations of knowledge. which ultimately exhaust the Immanent potential of self-development, causing the need f~r
qualitative, revolutionary transfo~m~tions. The seco~d. cause IS
the impossibility of intinite assimilation of new empln.ca~ fa.cls
by the available theory. Any theory assum~ the assimilation
of a definite body of empirical data. At.a definite stage, however.
saturation sets in, and from that POlOt on a theory can no
longer explain, describe, or predict empirical data.
recover
the disappearing balance between theory and empIrical. data,
additional hypotheses and assumptions are introduced," the
theoretical apparatus which I,ead 10 agr~~menl between theory
and facts. However. assimilation of empl:lcal coun,te~-exa~ples
unhmlled; 11 enth roug h ad hoc modifications in . theory hIS not
h
.
.
t'l a loss of predictive potenl1al by t e teary In question.
:~fCh becomes an u tl'fgo description. Besides. the permanentIy increasing complexity o~ the apparatus .of the theory le.ads
employment 10 current pracnc~1
ta f ac t ual impossibility of liS
. 'Imperf
'
Wh en th I 5 15
k which demonstrates ,
Its 1I1ner
eellon.
war 'f' sted in an all-round reflection on available knowledge.
man! e
.
.
. d 'th th<
the task is posed of its cardmal Im~rov~ment. associate WI
revolutionary mode of pr~gre~ m SCience.
_
The premises of revolutlons.'ll. science. are (a) ~elf-ex.haust. the absence of the heunsllc capacity of avaIlable knowle d ness.
-

!?

1.~j)II7j)

ed~e-

'0 e-xpla.in, d.escribe and predil' thmss; (b) innl'.asingly

artln(lal moolncatwns of the apparalUs of the theory. IIltcnd.
ed to adapt it to the solution of intratheoretknl tm.ks; (c) COn~
tradiclions. antinomies and other defects which discredit the
traditional algorithms of the formulation and solution of prob_
lems.
These causes are not, however. sufflCient for a revolution.
A new idea must emerge, one that will indicate the direction
of restruclUring available knowledge. One must therefore be
aware that a new theory, however rudimentary, must have
evolved before we can discern antinomies in the facts contradict~
ing an existing theory and thereby discrediting the tactics and
strategy of research which it asserts.
A logical evaluation of revolutionary development of science
should indicate a rupture in the deductive link between previous
and subsequent knowledge. That means that a new theory can~
not be derived as a logical consequence of an old one. The relations between a new theory and an old one are described in
this case in terms of the correspondence principle rather than
of the principle of deducibility.
The correspondence principle as a universal methodological
principle solves the following problem. Any new theory (r.,).
however non~traditional. emerges as a result of resolving contradictions in an old theory (TI). and in view of this inevitably
uses certain elements of its problem categorial fund. It follows
that the distancing of T2 and T. is not absolute, as there is a lways a possibility for their cognitive comparison. It is the principle of correspondence that realises the requirement of continuity between new and old theories. As formulated by I. V.
Kuznetsov, it reads: "Theories whose correctness was expe rimentally established for a certain group of phenomena are not
rejected with the emergence of new theories but retain their
sisnificance for the former domain as a limiting form and a
,,-.ecial case of the new theories. The conclusions of new theoriel in the domain in which an old classical theory obta ined. be.
of classical theory" (49. 8).
account. it is nfee ary to give a cr itica l evalof incommensurability widely current in
.I
of science. The proposition that theories
are
.lnc~m~RlUr.ble is an artincial one. On this approach. the Iltuat~on 15 presented in such a way as if mutually
replaceable theOries were worked out somewhere outside scie.nce. If we ~ould ~rt, for instance. that relativistic and clasSIC mechanICS are absolutely incommensurable, the special

".

IheMy of rl'lalivilY has 110 rig~11 dl all to be regarded a .. a subsequent physical thcmy emerging 111. Ihe c~mrse of resolution of
the crisi':t CllVeiOP1l1g d<l\!.lcal ph)"tlcs. It IS nn1 dear. then, ~()W
. nd when il l'mergcd and what cau':tes brought It II1tO bC1I1g.
a The in'li':ttclH:e 011 the incnmmeno;;urahililY of mutually mttrchangeable theories <11,,0 aPJll'ar~ to be gros.'.. ly exaggerated.
Thus there arc obvious nmnectlon\ betweC'n the {'(mceptual
apparatllses of relativist and c1a~ical mechan,\Cs, despl,te I~e~r
non-identity. For examrle. a.lthough Newt.on s and ~mstem s
masses have different semantic and operatlo~al meanings, the
interpretation of mass as a measure of mertla ~olds for both
cases. as Einstein's mass docs not become an. object. absolutely
different from Newton's mass, etc. The ~oclnne ~f mcommensurability of theories. which actually reJec,:> the mterconnectedness of previolls and subsequent stages l.n .the development
of knowledge, is opposed in diale~tical r:nalen.ahsm by the Mar~
ist theory of development of SCience m which development IS
interpreted as coherent continuous. movement. from the old to
the new. accompanied by a deepenmg of pr~vto.usly elaborated
conceptions and their reproduction al a quahtatlvely new level.
.U, THEORIES OF SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS

Science is not static- it is dynam.ic, proce:--sual. changeable.

That is an empirical fact; it is so .obvIOUS Ih~t II can.~ot be. problematised, it cannot even be Induded. I~ pnnl:lpl~. I~. the
sphere of the problematic. The whole quesllon, howe\cr, IS one
of suggesting a conceptualisation or constructmg a methodologic~1 or historiographic model that would be .an adequate reft~.
tion a theoretical interpretation and expression of th~t f.act. ~~
rna ' be said to be a sphere of the highly problematiC, tn w \C.
co:sid erable difficulties as well as objects of true problemal1sat ions emerge.
. .
f
Ih
cry beDifnculties and problem~llsatlons appc~r rom e v
f..
h n an attempt IS made to deSIgnate or clearly or
w
glTlnlllg'h e blem For example it is a well-known fact that
mulate t e p r o .
...
'anal.
"
bourgeois
philosophy
either
mterprct:\
or
,
"not one tren d
.. (27 255)
'ientinc cognition as a process of development
,.,
yset ~c d the pro(css of the development of scienc~ or ~nowl
d n ~~ a' permanent growth of its content potenllal- lnstrU
e get;~ (ategor;al factological-- which reflects and exPfr""'d'
men
' ,
f d ental goal that 0 a cthe orientation of SCience at a un am
. '1
of Ih~
quate reflection of Ihe essence of things. of BSSlffil atlon
truth.

.On the other hand. in the traditional Western philoso h

thiS problem h,as n~t been f?r~ulat~d even, in this sense. ~o~
the core of thiS. philosophy
IS mvartable rejection of the fa ct
h
..
a progress to t e cognItive sphere constitutes dynamO
tht
movement fro~ the relative to the absolute, from the hypothetic~~
and problematic to the unconditional and certain. and thus
from the !",earer essenc~s to the essences of higher orders. For
con~rmat..on we can cite Popper's probabilism. Kuhn's conventlonahs~, Fe~erabend's an~rc~ism, ~oulmin's ecologism,
none of which bnng out the objectIve baSIS of the direction of
progress. ~nd the causes of consistent purposive movement reallsed by science from a less complete and precise knowledge to
a more complete and precise one.
A. profoundly scientific understanding of the problems of developing knowledge is liven in the framework of the dialectical
(.GIll[ =;A ef
progre +, which took shape
as a
OV. .UhAma of cumulativist and anticumulativist
lbo-b." oI.lhe dynamics of knowledge in the Western philosophy

01. 1C1eDCC.
. C~ivism. In cumulativism, the development of science
perceived as a linear quantitative self-expansion of aggregate
knowledge through monotonous addition of new truths, How
do. these new truth~ emerge? In answer 10 this question, let us
poutt. out th~t t~e tnstrument of implementation of cumulativISIII IS contmulSm9 postulation of uninterrupted continuous
movement from past through present to future states of science
when the transition from one state to another is conditioned
~Y ~ natural permanent addition to original knowledge of nextm-h~e elements of the same genetic and epistemic provenance.
~olvmg the pr?~lem of the sou.rce of the new from these positions. cumulatIvlSts hold the view that "the new is the transfOIlIk.MI. ol~", d.iscovering a certain historical precursor of any
oew ICtentlflc Idea-which enables them to regard the develat ICtence
.
.
as a lammar
process free from crises and

IS

was the epistemological moout in the classical

prq-nted scientific pron_I I~I':'s in ~xisting knowlCOI7SCu...e. up to the lOt ib POSItiOns In methodologPiene Duhem w
h centu'1'. was actively supit. and who' ho used I'!ew historical materials to
tiflc proare&!J from a nu ~all~ banIShed the notion of seienm r 0 methodological concepts.
228

At present. after the experiences of the scientific revolutions

of the 20th century, cumulativism as a mental altitude has been
done away with. No one takes a serious view of the cumulativisl model of scicntiflC progress. which presents the latter as a
quanlitati~e accu.mulation of absolutely true units of knowledge
and sees ItS motive (orce as Ihe orientation toward achieving
an increasing level of systematisation and growing precision of
measurement.
A critical evaluation of cumulativism as a methodological
doctrine reveals the following shoncomings inherent it it.
(a) Cumulativists are incapable of introducing the relation
of progressive change in the sense of a non-trivial conceptual
shift in the present in relation to the past. or in the future
in relation to the present.
(b) Contrary to the tenets of cumulativism. the realities of
science indicate that the degree of influence of past knowled,e
is inversely proportional (0 the originality and creative abilities
of scientists.
(c) Characteristic of cumulativisUI is an unacceptable rejeclion of the specificity of previous stlges in the deveiopoent (or
history) of science compared to subsequent ones. which gives
rise to an uncritical modernisation of the past and brings cumulativism, as a methodology. to discredited present ism and
actual ism.
AnticumuJativism. Unlike cumulativists. anticumulativists
believe the motive force of progress in science to be scientific
revolutions-radical shifts and irreversible. leaplike transitions
from certain phases in the history of science to other, qualitatively different, p~ases. Antic~mula~ivism is re.ali~ in d .....
tinuism, which rejects the unIversahty of contmuny IllClIiIIIIIs
on the discontinuous uexplosionlike" character of the development of knowledge. Anticumulativism describes fairly adequately such "epistemolosical lea~" :-which are hard ~o explain
from the positions of cumulatIv.lsm--:as the Co~mlcan re.volution the transition from PenpatetIc mechamcs to classical
mech~nics. replacement of the phlogiston theory of combustion
by the oxygen theory. elc. At the same time exaggeration of
the role of scientific revolutions and underestimation of the
m
importance of evolutionary stages leads anticumulativis . .
to blind alley of vulgar catastrophism. logically culm~
the factually disproved theory of permanent revoludo&
All this is avoided in the dialectical materialist IId!O~ of
scientifiC progress based on the principles of refteclion. hlStoricism. practical determinedness of cognition. the unity of evolu229

tionary and revolutionary t:hange.\. I.:ontinuity of development

and of the theory of the dialet:tit:s of relative and ahsoillh: truth
and contradictory nature of the l"tlgnitive proce~~.
In the most general outline. the dialectit:al matt'rialbt Inter_
pretation of the essence of progres~ive development of science
i!; as follows.
In reality. no theory funt:tions in science eternally; this follows
from the relativity of cognition, and from the fact that the heur_
ISli(.' potential of any theory intended for the conceptualisation
of a rigidly fixed domain cannot be extrapolated, on adequate
grounds, to other domains requiring conceptualisation. That is
why the deep (mediated) cause of the need for transforma_
tion of a theory is its objective non-universality and self-exhaustedness, manifested sooner or later: in other words, its incompatibility with the growing demands of science and material
production. The nearer (or immediate) cause of the need for
progressive changes in science is the discovery of logical and
factual contradictions in theories; these changes, implemented
both through evolution and through revolution, provide the
modes of sublaling these contradictions, conditioning the transition to better forms of the organisation of knowledge. The materialist dialectical evaluation of these forms is founded on the
assumption that each of the historically realised forms of the
organisation of knowledge "is a slage in ascending to a concrete
reproduction of objective reality in theoretical concepts" (27,
259), The need for theory transformation is determined in this
sense by transition to a more perfect and adequate (concrete)
knowledge. The dialectical materialist theory of change in
knowledge, which interprets its essence in terms of step-by-step
approximation of reality through accumulation of certain content
in the course of dialectical transition from old theories to new
ones, has none of the defects of the theories of scientific progress worked out in the Western philosophy of science and appears to be the only adequate theory of the development of
knowledge.
detailed interpretation of the progres~ of science will
,,,'caiBa schema of step-by-step formation of new
. A.. amw. tbelK)' emergcs as a resuil of elimination of contrad,lctlons In ~n. old one throuah the development of non-tradilt~nal he':'T1shcs.- H~w does it come into being? In answering
tIais question, SClenttsts usually appeal to intuition as the principaI.~erator of the new, There are sufficient grounds for this
posluon. Indeed, a scientist's activity is to a considerable extent.

rrograml1lcd hy variOus Imtrll,tioO'S. impe.ra[~ves, regulatiOl1\, rccolllmcndatiml'i, s(:hcmata of model prulc1ples tlf analysi~, rt.'.,earch prtljcd'S, heuri.,tic instructions, norms, standards,
etc.
'
The whole of thi' ar.,enal determines and ~penfles the generally valid. "normal", standard conceptual and ,meth~.()I()gi(al
rhythm of scientifIC activity. QUIte clearly, .thls activity produces, so to say, the pre-planned new. Nothlllg fundamentally
new can be created and produced here. Hence the correc~ncss
of the appeal to the intuitive, subconsciou" non-dio;cur\lve, Irrational strata as tools for the production of the fundamentally
new.
The problem of the emergence of new Knowledge has largely
remained unexplicated, since researchers mostly confmed themselves to references to intuition in their discussions of the source
of new ideas in science, and the task of logical reconstruction
of inlllitive acts was not solved (probably because it was selfcontradictory) .
To make some headway in the solution of the problem, let
us consider this question: What is intuition as a source of the
new?
In answering this question, the following facts have 10 be
taken into account.
.
.
Intuit ive activity is always based on a shortage of mformatlon
needed for discursive-logical processing of knowledge.
.
Being responsible for the gen~rat.i~n of the ~ew: the p:>ychlcal mutagenesis determining IIltUlt.'ve ac~s IS Iml?lemented
through re-combining the traces of lmp:resslons re..::elv~d . from
without: it is not controlled "by a. conscIOUS ~ffort of Will. only
the results .,. of activity are submitted to the Judgement of consciousness" (90, 26)..
.
.
_.
I'
The inlllition underlymg a dlscov~ry IS not an aC\"ld.e~ta, suatural or non-intelligible mutatIOn of thought. FIT:;t.ly. supern
.
ss itse lf "carries out the primary selectiOn of
perconsclousne
. '
I
t ecombinations and subnllts to consclousn.ess on Y
elmerg~~1 t ~re marked by a certain probability of Ih~lr cor~e
t lose na eta aclual reality" (ibid.). In other words. Ideas with
spon d e c
. I
k'"
.. but not
an intuitive genealogy a~e. strict y spea lI~g. craz~'.
"mad". Set:ondly, the aCllvlty of superconsclOusness IS from the
"channelled by the quality of the dommanl need and
.,
1
ou
.
i d ge .. (ibid .. 28) .
h s olume of preVIOusly
al'cumu Iate d k
nowe
~t ~o~IOWS Ihat t.he time .must be ripe for the discovery. and new
ideas must be III the air.
.
I
The general melhodological ideas on the non_acl"Identa na-

lure of disco\-'eries-owing to the programmed charael

. I mutagenesIs,
. th

psychlca
e eXistence
0 r goal-direl.:ling derof
.
nalH.s in the form of the need for eliminating "hot Spots" d~lml
minalion of sUI?erconscio~ness by the avail~ble fund of 'kno!~~
edge and practical .expenence-:-are conereltsed in various mo_
dels,.One of them mterprets dlscov~ry as a porism. i.e., an Un_
predictable, unplanned result that IS not a direct object of re.
search ~nd thus ~ot expected bY,the res~archer. ~ fesuil obtained
as an mtermedlate corollary 10 solVing a sCientific task. Of
this nature is, e.g., the discovery of imaginary numbers which
as Felix ~Iein points out. recurred ~gain and again in variou~
computations regardless of and sometimes wholly against the will
of the mathematician carrying out these calculations' only
gradually, as their usefulness became more and more apparent
did imaginary numbers become more and more widespread

054,61).
The idea of porism is a heuristic one. It sweeps aside the
unacceptable view that a discovery is an illogical and irrational act, a consequence of discursively incomprehensible, inexplicable inspiration. Indeed, "the usual mode of reasoning is something like this: if a scientific discovery were a logical consequence of available knowledge, it would be predictable and
thus could not be unexpected. But as a scientific discovery is
unpredictable and unexpected, it is illogical" (23, It 4). Porism
rejects this type of argument; "unpredictability" and "unexpec tedness" as a result of non-formalisability of creative activity
can no longer "be arguments in favour of illogicality or irrationality"; "arguments against the 'logicality' of scientific discoveries also collapse" (ibid.),
Another model specifies the details of the mechanism of recombining the new out of the details of available knowledge,
of the entire actual experiences. As the first step in the solution
of the problem, two things must be opposed to each other: science and its immediate creator, the seientist. It must be borne in
aind lbat the scientist does not always act in a way prescribed
the acientiftc community). Inasmuch as seienand controlled by rigid model proconstrain the activity of the seienthEI? model programmes is, even on the
1
lid
.
3
Pure Y
. e, a preau.e for the emergence of the new.
P rom Ihe mean .....w .
f
.... POlOt 0 View, an explanation of the phe~ of the em~rgenc.e of the new comes with the realisa~: the fact that In reahty, the scientist works in several rathan one research programme (in view of his educational,
2.12

professional. elC., po.lyf~nctjonaliIY). w~O')e inler..euions a~e

Ihe point~ of cryslall1<;allon of the new. rhus LUUh Pa')teur s
refutation of the theory of ...elf-generation, which made a noticeable impact on the progres') of biological science. was only
made possible by his training in physics, which helped him to
Slerilise more carefully the solutions he used, etc.
In terms of this model, the sou rce of the new in science thus
lies in the scientist using, in a certain research field, programmes
and principles of analysis which have not yet. asserted
themselves in it as sta ndard ones; more concretely. thIS source
is believed 10 lie in the hybridis3tion of research programmes

(86).

These models seem to throw some light on the dynamiCs of

the formation of new knowledge from the very first stages in
Ihis process (though it would be premature to say that the
problem has been fully solved); in itself, this inspires hope; at
least the problem is not relegated entirely to the field of psyChol~gy through bootless references to the intuitive and the
subconscious.
After the formation of a new theory, which emerges as a resu lt of the resolution of contradictions in an old on.e, the impo~t
ant and difficult process of its objectification begms. The eplStemological content of this proce~ l.ies ill: asc~ibing. an ontolo~
icaJ interpretation to the theory, Its ldenlificatlO~ ~Ith ~ certam
fragment of reality and correlation with the eXlstlOg picture of
the world. The process of the objectification of the theory can
now take either of the following two routes.
A. The result of the objectificalion of a new the.ory corresponding to its interpretation (which, pr.operl~ speakto~, figu~es
as the object of theoretical knowledge) IS not incompatible with
the existing interpretation of the pheno~e~a of. th~ class provided by the old theory. We observe thiS situation m the ~ase
of objectification of theories in the framework of the evolutlOnr path of the development of knowled~e, e.g., as a result of
a r~liferation or modification of dommant research . prop
h h do not result in a crisis of "normal" science.
grammes w IC
h
es
B. The result of the obJectlficoa~lOn ~f a new t. eory prav
. ompatible with the traditional interpretation o! events
b
to e mc
T ' .
.
. b ved to cases
'd d by the old theory. IllS situation IS 0 ser
p~ov~o:ctification of theories in the framework of the rev~u
~ 0 J path of development of knowledge, e.g., as a result 0. a
y
tlo":ar e ection of dominant research programmes in co.nnectlon
rB:d lcal r ~. on "normal" science. The following situatIOns may
With a cnSIS I
arise here.
0

2.B

'

(1) ~n allempt.is mad.e al ('~)mbllllng.logl\,:ally, thl' new and

the old I1lICrpretatlon. It IS reails('d as a tendency loward ob""
'111 Ihe framework of an Jet
1\f
ylllg IIH~ conlent 0 f
a newl
11C,\ry
old
world piclur.e. Tycho Brahl"s a')lfonomical system can be cited
here as an Illustration; clearly realising the inlrascienliflc ad.
vanlages of heliocentrism as compared 10 geocenlrislll he

nevertheless did not dare, for worldview consideralion~, to

accept the former fully and fmally, and revived the eclectic
model of Heradides Ponliclis.
(2) An attempt is made to present the new interpretation as
a temporary phenomenon on the whole unacceptable to science
which must step down and give way 10 good old concepts, and
the sooner the betler. Of this nature is, e.g., the tendency to present quantum mechanics as an incomplete phenomenological
theory requiring a reformulation in a dynamic determinist language.
(3) An attempt is made to show the inconsistency and untenability of a new interpretation with a view to excluding it
from the domain of science. This can be illustrated by the wellknown attempts to show the paradoxical nature of the conceptions about the discreteness of energy states of atomic objects
from the positions of classical physics.
(4) The following case, probably the most interesting, is an
inevitable culmination of the previous ones. After the final acceptance of the new and downfall of the old interpretation, an
attempt is made at elucidating their mutual relations on the basis of the principle of correspondence. The ordering of existing
interpretations on this principle, ultimately signifying (a) the
establishment of the unity of knowledge about objects and (b)
the deepening of theoretical nOlions aboul the phenomena of
reality studied in knowledge, constitutes an objective basis for
the qualitative progress of science expressed by the formula
"toward what we want to know" and not, as Kuhn believes,
"from v.:hat we know". The former, as it is easy to see, enables
us to. relect ~he destructive conviction that "sciences (theories)
are s~mply different" - a view that denies the possibility of proc.benga i!, l.he sphere of knowledge, and to adopt the
~e ~Ylctlo~ that "scienc.:es (theories) can be more
pe
.fi which permits an adequate basis for the theory of
SClentl c progress.

_e

:he fOI:;:ti~g can be presented as a general acceptable

:IC ema m . elhn g the growth of a theory. The emergence of
new emplflca data. or the demand for
.
. I
optimisation of kno 1 d
k'
semantic and loglca
we ge rna e II necessary to modify exist2]4

ing kll()wlcd~e. From the gt'~ellc viewpoint. these modifications

.ome in\() bemg either a'i p()n~m'i or a~ consequences of the real~sation of the produl"live and creative intuitive potential of. cognition 011 the ba ..is of recombination of elements of available
experiem:e<; (m particular, through hybrid~tion of accepted
research programme:'))
The innovations re!iulting from modifIcations of knowledge
take shape al1l1 are organi<;ed ~ Iheorit:s from which experimentally verifiable consequences are logICally deduced: If they
agree with experimentally verifIable state of affairs, theories
are confirmed and introduced into practice. Further progres..-.
of theories is determined by the activity of their logical, operational. experimental, semantic, etc., perfection in accordance
with the familiar criteria of internal perfection and external
justification.
.
In the long run, as the theoretIcal and factual bases of. know~
edge coincide only partially, this natural cycle of SCience IS
reproduced again and again.
.
.'
In relation to the basic unit of SCience, a sclenllfic theory,
which is not a direct and primit ...e coagulation of observations
or empirical data, this schema can be presented in the following formula:
E - I - T - T -E'
(I)
where E is empirical prov'ocatfve facts; I. intuition; T p' theoretical principles; T , empirically verifiable conseque.nces from the
e
theory, EI, the field of possible empirical co~firmal1ons of (h.e?r)".
With due consideration for the expansl?n of t.he emptrlcal
basis of theory, the dynamics of new cycles IS described, accordingly, by the form~la _ 1- T". __ T ..., __ EE}

(~)

which demonslfates' the spiral-like development of science 111

accordance with its dialectical nature (1 ~O).
1

I
.
d E in (2) differ from E and E, respectIVe y
E I~ (l). an
land extensionally. E and E; are anomalies
both 1I1tenslO~~lly f an old theory which cannot assimilate
from the pOSlllons 0" e fa"'ors" of ~ new theory, which is as
h
d "pro voca IV
..

f
t em, an.
whereas El and E1 are logically den~ed rom
yet nOIl-exlst~nl, gram med consequences. 1 and Elmclude a
the theory as. pro theories of potential verificators, and are
class of predlcta b1 e
broader ,han E and j.
.
therefore
. of the development of a theory, Its heurTh safety margm
...
h theor . .s
. . e . . , and non_triviality are not umhmlled; as t ~
. J
Isue quall t) I
e is exhausted (as indicated by the mevllable
lUal C larg
I' ft 'ation) it
conce P .
f 'nner perfection and extenla lusl1 l:

deformation 0 I

gives way to its successor. This explains the rotation of the

cycles of science.
The diachronic cross-section of the problem provides a for _
mula of progress somewhat different from thl;' above - the One
obtained for the typological cross-section. Inasmuch as the COn_
ceptual (B ) and empirical (B,') bases are not in a one-IO-one
relation (;hich signifies the non-deducihility of B . from Band
t
non-reducibility o~ Bc to B~), "~e genealogy of flew knowfedge
can be presented In Ihe following formula:

Tp, ~T"J
CON(LUSIO~

E - J - T ,,~ -TC2 - E' '

Tp -T,

"
" pictures C: TP) -alteri.e., ( - I) entails a set of theoretical
native research programmes. theoretisations and descriptions.
Interestingly, (~ TP) does not entail a set of empirical pictures
(~ EP). This lasl assumption would correspond to the methodological doctrine of pantheorism. wh ich exaggerates the fact of
theoretical saturation of E and Br . In actual fact the autonomous ingredients of (~ TP) differ conceptually, being obtained
th~ough stratification and proliferation of Be and having a
unitary B fixed and presented In terms of a standard (for a
local operation)
operational basis B0 (measuring and comput
' .
IIlg deVices. vanous apparatuses).
Bo and Br are relatively stable and independent from Be and
can thus be instrumental in the testing and critical substantiation of the laller; Ihis results in discarding elements of B yielding ~ TP and in asserting some preferred variant whfch becomes generally accepted. This last point must be stressed for
two reasons. First, we would like 10 show the untenability of
both the "critically rationalist" and "historica'" trends in postpositivism: the former sees B only as a mechanical 1001 for selecting irrationally generalelelements of B while the latter interprets Br merely as an appendage of B cdevoid of any indec:osnitive role, Second, our inteCntion is to assert the
materialist view that Band B, despite their indeI
rom each other are not "structures of the same order;
lS more fU~damental both in le~ms of g.enealogy of Bc' which
~e consldera?l~ and not ea!Hly "peclflable but necessarily
eX~rJe.nlall~-emplrlcal. and in lerms of substantiation of B,_,
whIch IS ultImately always experimental.

Variolls aspects of the phenomenon of sci~nce ~a\'e been

studied in tile works of Soviel and foreign '.larxlsl phJ!~oJ?hers.
However, the need has arisen for constructing a general dlale~
tical materialbl theory of science covering the problems of liS
origin, functioning and developmen~..
.
The present work attempts a.co~s,deral,on of certa.1Il g~ner
al questions of the nature of '>Clenllfic knowledge. of liS hlst?rically and actually given forms. kinds and IY~~, The slarll.ng
point of this attempt. undertaken ~rom the pOS~flOns of the dl.a~
lee tical materialist methodology. IS the assertion of the UOlI)
of scientific knowledge.
.
,.
Despite all its diver~ity, .scie~ce is ullIfie~ by certain Ulll~
versal requirements whIch 11 satisfies. The"e Includ~ su.ch nor
,
mallve
regu lalors as Ihe cause-and-effect I.,.pologlsallon
.
f
I I and
.
conceptualisation of phenomen~. conformance to. orma - o!;~
cal canons of reasoning. expenmental adapledne~ .~f kno
edge, theoretico-melhodologic,al monism, repr~uclbllllY of the
results of cognition. their rallonal substanllallon. elC". " ,
These requirements form the concept of the world of ~~en~e
,
able aradigm which embraces and permea.l~s S(lenlt'
:~
~ld constitutes it a::; a special Iype of splrHual pro-

: !;lOle

duclion. f h'
eels of course Ihe polymorphous quality
None 0 t IS can.
,
b'
Iter
.
'IS diversity in term::; of history, su Ject-ma
,
of sClence-;1 This circlIImtance determines the. nee~ for divermethods,
.
. rt'g U I.,or"' and prescriptions Imposed . on
'f'
theet normallve
I
Sl
ylllg Iypes ( 1
f .knowledge.
and the conSlrllction of sreclaconcrete
"
',sed p',elures of sClenl.lflcIlY.
,
f
h
in the construction 0 SUi,:
TI 1e Pres!.'111 work
. 'IS an cs.."ay
pIcture::;.
genera I and speCial
'

I
I

NOTES
To Chupl17 I

In Ihl' m!;'re COmpad symb(llic' 1I0tali(ln, all Ihi, ""L!'>t' clInvey... J In Ihe
f(lllo"'ing rl\rmula~: if III Ihe harJ cor ... l\f ~cienre \\1' ha"n'-- P fT,hlh)

I,

chen in fWIlI-hne "ience

S a.hllt) .. - logP IT,ll h) anJ
C fT,h,'b) .. 1- P (T.hih),

T<J Ch<)pla 1

Cr.

Aristolle'5 vee .. Ihal science enl ... rgl'd ..... h ... re m<;'11 haJ lei~ure_
Thesr ,-otJId be 'primary concrelion!;, or corpu:;cles" (BIlyk), 'aloms"
(G~ndi), elc.
Which is lanlamount 10 Ihe view vf phy'iical action IS a fundion of mall'rial bodies. nOf 01 space: it<;(:\f,
The referen(e here is 10 a characteristic feature of c1a~icJI "ient;sl~ and
nOf tl? Ihe concrele principles of (:onser~'ation, which cont;lwe 10 pla\' a greal
role In non ..dassical science as .... tlr.
'

To Chllpla 3

in Ihe Iheralure, Ihal Homo hllhil,\ wa~ a dead~ canc;el the human nalure and quality of Homo
~I ~flrmed. Ihe human characteriMi," I-f IImm)
Inhrst ory '
'
IIIh
t e $lime wily 31 all Ihe Iribe\
anJ
peoples Ih..
fo, ,(l()tJ remam
- -In h1\lory a~ members of
1M human rke.
Of the numerous WI"k.s On Ihe
b
authors rna, .., m
.
d
lu Jeel conlnbutl(ln~ by Ihe fllllow1ll!t
enllone
m IhlS con
I
J R
J.C JOl1t'$ (ISO)' E,V, Krid
nec Ion:
.
Dlxun (U4).
1(57). O. Mei\lt:r (1117), I,e. Wilson auJ

I
I

~~: ~d

I
I

I
>

2]8

W.lwn 11'14), W 1 SI'l,leIOO flUI, I'U. lIill 0151. A. Hall lUI),

111 1IIt'1l iI\ arll..!" 111 rhc u.lh:(tlon .. f'~IUI).
II IS IIppn'pridl., lind n .... d ... 'y to live.' t:l.ptanalions II caoneciol, wilh the
gl~~11 4'HlI;lllOli frum C' Mudllm and his and R.. M~key's remarks 011
rag" 7 or lhe mlruclul'll<HI 'n (112). By If,hlliel' kno.tltdlt' (seidler) we
m,'an knowledge at'oolll h.. ~-hnlcs 111 Ihe ahove meillioned sen~. The mean.
ing' and fllrr('lahHri\ vf Iht' term. "'.ethnoIQgy" and "'e,-hnological knowl.
edge" an: dillen-til. although somC'llIlln th", inlene(1 and e\'cn coinCIde
wilh the meaning, elf the term, "'t"'hnks" lind "kchnkal kI10.. 1('<lg('',
Thi\ u~agt: lund explan.ali"1l1 of the sait.! t:on~epts alleMS It) the ne,nsit)' 01
working 0111 llf une and Ihe saUie nm(cplllal apparatu~ amI v()('lIbulary in
the epi\lem(llllgi~JI \IlH.licS nf Ihe kllnwlcJg,: tmboJicJ in Ihe lerms "Ie<.h.
nics" anJ "Ied111ol11gy"
One c<;,nJ~ co agree wllh Lddl\la~ TonJI Ihal "il is not quite clear what ~,
10 be under~looo by 'applkaril>n'" (1,1111, 12),
Other perioJi\Jliom of lel'hnilingical kn\lwltJl!it (a1, e,g., in lOll: 124) are
abo possible. SOIlll' inlerr<olillg iJca~ lin the IlJHlre anJ dnl:'lopml'nl
rCc'hnological knowleJge were expre~I:'J by Koyre (18, 129131'l).
, Thh ",hema of Ihe inl'eprion of Il:'chnkal M:iencl:'S Jon nOI claim 10 be all
exhausrive desaiplion of all the a~]'IIS of the form arIOn (If Ie(:hnicaJ
sdences or of Ihe enlire mechani\m or their emergence, A~ we set' il. it
states one e!o."lenlial a\I"<'(I of Ihe emergcn,"e of Ihe Ihnotogical sciences,
Orher ",hemala <'f Ihi\ proce~ are possible and ne(e-.sary, esJlC'Clally for
Ihe non-cJilS-sieal scu~nulie-IechnoIOlieal disciplines 112, 1421.
This eXl'erpt from Ihe
bt:sI philosophical.
biographical sludie~ in i
I
I
Ihe traditional,
psychological philrnol'phico-aesrhelic aPf'roach 10 Ihe relali(lflsliip bel""'een
nalllral-scieruif'l' and human Ihinking. Human knowledge and nalural SClefKe
8re cOI~sidered in lerms of Healivily: mOlivn of "eali\ily, ae~lheli,- and
elhical evalualion~ or Ihe r"ul!\ of crt'alive work, t'lc .. are studied. but
Ihe conceplual le\'t'ls, the basic SlrUc'lures and mt'thods of Ih ....... lC'\els
in Ihe two forms of cognilion are nOI compart'd, Morelwt'r. in l(uUlet
sov's book, illleraclion bt!lween human anJ nalural-...:ienlitic knowledge
excludes Ihe borrowing of I"'l$ilion~ (see p, (01) and, apparenlly, of
Ihe conceplual strUl'!llre\ of these form~ of cognition in general.
This broaJ ver.;on of Ihe concepl of scienn' can ~ regardetl as a concrelisalion of Ihe general mooel of cienlifkily which wa~ suggo."SlN in Rozhansky's book e84, 5-11) and wa~ u~ed in Ihe pre\ious chapler in Ihe
sludy of Ihe origin of "ien,'e in general 11\ ~parat;l>n f'm Ihe prescit"nliflC, mylhological. t"I<.:" form~ of 5piritllal prOOuctil1n.
11 Realising Iht' fal'! Ihal the ,ernanlics of Ihe lerrn "xhemalisalion::"is highly
laden in Ihe hiSlory nf philosophy and p\),'hology, we ne~erlhelt''''i relam
,h ... term, meaning by il solely Ihe crealilln of abslracl objeds,
Even Ihe lerm "quaJri\'iullI" goe~ bad; 10 Boelhius, It Sh"Uld be \IT ............ J
Iha, Ihe arts of Ihe quadrh'ium were inlerpr ... ,eJ in a way Ihal appears
unusual 10 Ihe motlt'rn minJ. Thu\ musIC anJ astronomy were included
among Ihe llIalh"'llIalinll ,,'it'I,,;e\, whereas geomelr~ wa~ more like geography ;n the IlHllIt'rn 'en,e of the term.
..."
,
Oul of COmiJl'rall01l\ of "yle, we ,hall nOl u\e the calegory of I In lOft.
crel;~ing Ihe "'I"<'(ifl,'ally human", a\ "I" form, Ihe "rnlimale nudrur"
anJ regulatory principle of per.o"alily (42, ,iiI.
I In P'>y~hl'logy, ju\1 a, in olher human lhwiplines, there is n,l unilary
theory of ptr.,\nalily, For olher interprl'lal1oO$ of Ihe S!rucillre of ~r
~onalily \t1;' Cl4: 7.l: 70; 771.

or

whert' Pis. probability; T, theory; It, hYp<llhe~is; S anJ C, inJicl's of the

dea:rTC of rua and n<,velly respttli\-elv.
See Chapler ,l.
.
W... have disc.:usst'd this in considerin!,: the Iypology of phenomenal;,t_
esscntial~1 IYfIl"'i of knowledgt'.

The. same iJe~ wa.\expres:scd many years laler by David Hilberl III con~ecIIO~ wlrh hI:\' critique Of. the EUcliJian melhod of con~lrucl;ng gCOIllt'lry,
Oesplte Iht' hIgh pedagogIcal and heurl\Iic value of Ihe ,elletic methoJ"
he wrOle "Ih
"
'
'_. e a_XlOmallt' me.'h?d " preferable in Ihe fmal presentation
~nd defllllllve 10~lCal Subslanllallon of our knowledgc" 11M, 242).
n our VIt'W, a "xlh labo,or function should be added 10 Ihe~e, namely Ihe
one, whICh IS dIfferent from the 0lher1 and exi~t\ from Ih ... very
01 human labour. II con~i'>I'i, g... nerally lpeaking, in lending
to a product of hllrnur. and i\ al pr~cnl JIl\! a, importanl

~u

2.N

I
IS For details of "r' Jud il\ 'InJ,'Hlre ~ ... e (4]; 77).
" 'Iia,or So\iet '><:ienlj,,, ha-c' aho p<>intfil \)111 the Ill',",j for dUIIl[ling th
principles of e'l.planati,'" til the \olulwn {\( the fllmlal1l1."11131 Phil'''l'l'hi~
cal-human~1 pH1bll"m
Ihal of l'\lrrdatiorl "f brain and con.... inu\l1"'
(30. 821

To Chapler <#
, CompleteneJ;1; is [hI' abilil) of a IhC'(lry 10 \\'Oh". pfoblem\ an\ltlg within

the boundaries of its applicability.

A.... are of the dra\\'back~ of these t erm~. we nt'H'rlhdess uw them in view
of the research and lexical traditions in s..:iel,.:e. Later, al> we ~hall ,ee from
the> context, the term "redll(tion wilt be u~ed 8\ a proper name rather
l

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Cullllrl" Jnd F~OIH"111\ "r the Pal\-,'hlhi'-- TI
\
the \Iatenal

:1:'

'1,'...:" .... , 1'>1. \ '

1,' . "urn',

01

IfIlf/lUllir.

\,10. P \. '\'1Il0Ih1\, "TII<, l 11,','n"I<'I1\ 111 Ih., "",Ill"" Th S .

.
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tht' Super,;,'n" h'II"', Prt"I(/", l'IS.I. f\o . .I .
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l"
IIbC('II'1':IOU'I and
<;y.~I ... m\ .\I<IIlIn' \1.'fh'l(/%gm.lI ProM.,,,,,
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(Ii

NAME INDEX

Ackermann, W. 106
Ackolf, R. L.- 158
Ampere, A. M.--222
Archimedes- 53
Archylas- 47
Aristotle- 46.47.50, 52, 53, 60, 63.
64, 68-73. 238
Ashby. W. R. 117
Augustine Saint- 74
Averintsev, 5.5.- 21 1
Avogadro. A.- 140
Ayer, A. 137
Bacon, F.- 74
Bacon, R.- 61, 68
Bakhtin. M.M. -192,199,202
Banach. S.-- 85, 98
Bar_Hillel, Y. ,- 99, 101
Balkin, L.M.-201
Batteux, Ch.- 196
Behmann. H. - 99
Beltrami, E.-224
Bergson, H.- 125
Betti, E.-209, 210
Boethius A.M.S. 194, 239
Bogolyubov, A.N. 172,173
Bohr, N.H.D.- 14, 187, 207, 208
Bolzano, B.- ,92-94
Boole. G.-93
Borel, F.E.E.-98
Born, M.-1I7
Bourbaki, N.-90
Boyle. R. -63, 238
Brahe, T.-135, 233
Bruno, G -68
Bunse, M.- 161, 165, 166
Buridan, J.-,61
Burks. A,W.-106

Calippus-47
Cantor, G. -81, 93. 98, 218

Capella, M, 194
Caralheodory, C.- .105
Carnap, R.-137
Carpenter, S.R.- 161, 162. 170
Carlan. E.- 116
Cassiodorus-194
Cauchy, A.L.-93
Childe. V.G.-154
Church, A.-97, 98
Ciro, M.T.-193
Ciairaul. A.C.-1J3, 135
Clillbmea- 45
CopcmKus, N.-64
Coulomb. 0.A.--222. 224
Crombie, A,C.-61

d'Alemben, J. 218
Oallon, J .C.- ., 140
Dedekind, J.W.R __ 93
Democritus-50
Odeanes. R.-81. U9
Dieudonne, J.-220
Dilthey. W.-I 2S, 189, 208-210
Dioaenes-48
Dirac, P._A._1I6
Dirichlet, p.G.L.-1 16
Dixon, J.R. --238
Dokuchayev, V.V.--26
Do.Sloyevsky. F.M.-187
Oriesch. H.-131
Drobnitsky, O.G.- 20b
Duhem. P. - 6I, 132, 228
Dummet, M. -210

Einstein. A.-112. 129. 117. 121

Enlels. F.-b]. 66. 105. lSI. 191. 199
Epimenides-46
Eudid--47. 81. 91, Q.4, Ill. 195
Eudoxus ,47. 117
Euler, L, -97. 217, 218, 224
249

t'abri. K.E. In
Faraday. M. 117
Feihh-rnan. J.K. I!"II. 1!"I5. 1M
Fermal. P. Q7
Peuerbarh, L.A. I Q!"I
Fe),erabcnd, P.K. 1.\, 22S
Feyman, R. ILl
FitzGerald. G.P, 1.\5"
P(\II~ad.

Jan1hl, CG. 11.1, 217, 21H

Jilnlh.... ~, I, 17
Jar ... ,t', I.C
I!"II
Jllsp~.'r~, 10.:. Jl, 202, 20.l
Jt'iln'. J . tl!"l
J\ll1\''', J.t'h_ l_W

D. 210

Io.:ulinkin, A,T. (I
I\alli. I, In. 21, 1)1, 1)2
Io.:~pler, J.- 27, 1.l.'i, 224
KeYIlt'\, J.M,
137
Kierkt'.aanl, S.A. 187,
v,
Kleen{"
en, 102
Keill, F. 1.1. 121,224. 232
"\llnlllgm~)\', A,N.
QO
K()yr~ , A. 170, 23q
Kral1l.bcr~. M.
167
Krick. E. V. 2.W
Kuhn. Th.S. 17,228, 2]4
Kuznelsov. B.G. 239

P,'wler, W.O. lib

Fraenkel, A. QQ, 101
Frank.l, V
188
Frege, G.- qq, 12b

S.c.-

Galileo, G. 61, b3, !"I8, 70-7.', 121,

171
Gache\', G. 185
Gadamer, H.-G. 210
Ga~ndi,

P ... DS

Gaus." K.F.- - 134

Cellius, A. IQ]
Gc-Il-Mann. M. lib
Gib~ J.
lib
GOdel. K. S4, q7. q8
Goelhe, J.W. 125
Gras,<;mann. H.G. .q.l
GrODe-IeSle, R. -61
GUl'5C'y, F. 122
Hadamard, J.S. 85
Hall, A. -239
Hamillon , W.R, IU
Han~lttn. Ch. 13]
Hegel. C.W.F. 196
Heideller, M. - ]2, 210
Hei\t'l1i>erg, W .... on II.J, 122 , 207,
20g
UempeJ, K. Db
Heradides Ponlicus_ 2]4
Heradilu\ 51, 52
Hnmile. Ch. 116
Herodocus, -4()
.

4b'

91, 101, 105, 238

1.-137
of ('biOi -47. 48.
li'ppt .... r.'n. 41
Hobb? , Th .. 63
H'HUI. f, 32. 188

Hu)"ena. CII.
1I),ln V.V.6

63

S]

,.<

M(>rlll" ....

2(,

Wl

N.""c-r, I_Mil
218
Nd<;<lI1, L - I"~,
NeUlI1lHUI, J . "'Oll tltl, 101. lO.OS"
Newl\lll, I. 17, fill, 6], 77, I
LB.

n.

1]("

227

Ntwikov, p.s.

l/7

202

MaCkey, R. -2.W

188
Mandctshlam, L.I. 220
Mundryka. A.P. 168
M.r~'eI, G.
202
Markov, A.A, 97
Marx. K. 15, 145. 146, 148, 151,
I 53
Maliya~vich, Yu.-97
Maupcrtuis, P.L .M. 217. 218
Maxwell. J,C. III. 117, 121, 168,
169. 172, 222
Mei.'Jlc-r, D. HQ
Mendel. G. 10.1, 104
Meyc-I"Whll, E. 116
Michehon. A. 221
Mik.hailov, N.A. 26
Mucham. C
161 ,2.19

HO

(;.I ',

MU\IUW,ki, A.

Lagrange, J.L. In 217, 218. 224

Laplace, P.S. de- 183.224
Leibnill.. C.W. von -1 1,91
Lenin, V.I. - ISq, IQO
Lt' Roy, E. 137
Lt'wis, C.I. _ 106
Llebscher. D.-E. -69
Linnaeus. C. 77
Lipp~ Th. 11
Lobache ...sky. N.I.. 114, liS, 121
LOrerHl., H.A.- 121, US
Luria, A.R.- .13

Malin(lw~ki, B.K.

III

Mllrky, I W

Ohm, C.S, 222

Ol"uw,ki, ,.:. 161. 162
Ore.~me.

Ortega y

N.

6I

Ca~I,

J .. 187. 188

Par men ide, 52

P3S\:al. B. IQ5, 11)6
Pasteur, 1.. 2]2
Pauli, W. IS, 17, III
Peano, G. -93
Pt'lrarch. F. t95
Pht're-cydes of Leros- -46
Pit'f\"e, Ch. 1]7
Planck. M_ \40 . 223
Plato 47. 52. 72. 11 7, 201
Poincar~. H. 121, 1.17, 224
Poisson, S.D. 224
Polykll'ilo:.- 47
Popper, K.R . 228
Porus. V_No 1()O
Posidonius S.l
Posi. E.-97
Pfnxilel~s
47
Proust, J.L. --77
Ptolemy 5.1. 117
Pyalni,~yn, B. N.- 100
Pylhagora~
117

Quine, W.V.O.

Rlem.nn, G. IlfI
Roemer, 0_ ntl
RtlDCr, G.B. tl7
Rl>lha"~ky, U>. Jl/
RiUSC'IJ, 8. 112
Ruz. lVin, G_'- 172

Salam, A, 122
Samios, N.P. 116
S.-hriXIinger. F. 11.1
Sh ... yryo .... V.S. .11
Single,on. W.T.- 2.IQ
Skolimlnv,ki, U, - IhI
Soaal"' lin. 20t
Solon -45
Spencer. H. .18, .~~
Spinou. B. 60
SlolI, R.R.- t4~
Tarski, A.- . 84
Taylor. B. --9Q
Thales-- 50
Thorndikc-. L. 61
Tikhono,', A.N. It~
TondJ. L. -HQ
Toulmin, S. 228
Toushek. B. J!2
Trendelenburg, F.A.
Vernacbky, V.I. 115
Vollaire. F. -60

M_ 18S
Wc-ic-TStra.<;s, K. -QJ
Wheeler. J.A.- 11Q
Wightman, A. 105
Wilson. I.C. -l.lQ
W il~on. M, E. HQ
Woodgt'r, J,R 104
Wc-~r.

1.12
Xenophane' SI

Rsbinovirh, V.L 5Q
Rakiltw, A_I. ISN
Rt'irhell~a~'h, II. 1.17
Rickert. 11 .- IS5
Ricoeur, P. 210

Zt'no of Elea SO
Zermelo. E - 115
Zilo;el, E. (l(l

251

31

SUBJECT INDEX

Abslract obj~cts- 190

Anticumulativism _ 229-36
Apriorism-18-20

An
-artistic cognition- 210-11
-liberal and auxiliary artS-19)
B~li~f-2I,

22

Crit~ria

of sci~ntilicify_7_20
Cumulativism_ 228-29

Descriptivism-18_20
Ocv~lopm~nt of knowl~dge
-evolutIonary (ext~nsive) -223-25
-revolunonary(int~v~)_22J

27

225'

Dialogue
-and discussioo-203
-in European science and philosophy-201
-in human sciences-202
-link with understanding- 201, 2 10
-as a major characteristic of human
knowledge_201
-and monologue-202
-and polyphony-203
-quality and truth of -200-202
Doubt-22
84, 94-103

Pact-lOS, 106
~- of ~ientific knowledge _. 89
en lCaences-205
--vb II a'''''-19
e

natural scIence 103

-t~hl1ical sciences- 165.84
Goal
as the n)rc of engineering and
technologLcal activity_158
defmition--151
--as th,e organising principle in non_
classIcal technical sciences-178

Human knowledge
applied aspects-203
-dialogue quality and trUlh of_
200203
-epistemological status of- 184
-hIStory of-192-97
-princi!"al component pans of-184
200-210
'
-subje<:t-mafter of-190
Human sciences- 191 -92, 197, 205
-human and social sciences- 191
198
'
-subject-mailer of - 192
Knowltdie
-ana lytical-30
anti-science-7
-a posteriori-30_3 1
- a priori -3O.31
-applied-2729
-artistic-2 10
background-30.31
-derivative-3031
-desc ript ive_ 27 -28
-discursive-23-14
--empirical-26-27
-- everyday-31.33
-explanatory_27.28
-fundlmentat_27_29
-human--184, 200-01
-~um.,n-5Cien\ific_184, 20S
- LntULuve-imageful
kmotional)2324
- mathematical_ 89-103

nun .... ,en~e - 7

paraklC:nce 7
penonaliwd ~2~
phtn"menali\! 2(,
premi~
,10-.1 1
pre-~ience -1, 24-2("
3.1,
probable .1(1
pseudOlJotlence -1
reliable - JO
5(;ientific- -31-3]
'lCientil\c-thlllcal- 141
-synthetiC- -30
theoretical -26-27

helerOBeneous- 224
hOUlogrneous- 224
RI&urou,nns. 83,14. 'J4-I01

149

Labour
-and animals' instrumental actions153-55
_ initial (orms- ISS
- labour functions--14950
_ primitive instruments-156
Law (in natural sciencel-IOS-107

M..
an "ensemble of the social relations"-197
-and "1"-200, 239
-and the human-192
-human individuality-200
-and humlnity- 193-94, 199
_subjec t_matter of human knowledge-184, 190-92
Mathematisation-122-29, 174
-IS

Natural science-I 0340

Norms-8, 16, 18, 19
-of conditions of aClion - -8-9
-of dispositions-8
-of sanctions--8
Obviousness-2J
Opinion- -2 1, 22
Physics, ancient -50S4
Progress o( science-213-27
_ incompleteness-2 19
_ inverseness-2 16
_polymor!"h ism 215

Schematiution 178. 190,2.19

Science
in the ancient Onent 41-41
In antlqully
54
d-.icaI61-75
-integration and ,ynlhesis In
176-77
-in the Middle Agts-5461
modern-75-88
-ontolOlY of s.-11-16
,problem of the beginning 01
Surmise-22

Te<:hnical knowledge
_methods and forms-US
-Slatus-163
_Slructure_163. 178
_subject.maner_14I, 157-.(,3
Technical sciences
-and applied sciences-16S-67
-classical and non_classical_17S,
177, 180, 182
_inception Ind development- -161-

"

Technics
_initial structurtS--UO
-problem of defaning the concept
of t._14S_50
_1$ the subject-miller of tec.:hnical
knowltdSc-159-60
Text-2oo
TheoT)'
_altiomatic-89-90
_dtducth'e_89, 93
_hypolhelico--deducli\e- -68-74
_tec.:hnical_ 179-80
Truth
-and dialogue-200.02
- in human sciences-20J
- recognition of t.-20-22

Value-2Ob

253

I..

34-40

Understanding-209

Rationahty - 16, 22. 31

Reduction

!..

I
I
j

I
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