The author writes about the integration of scientific knowledge, the convergence of research methods in different fields of knowledge, emphasizing that “theoretical levels of individual sciences converge in a general theoretical, philosophical explanation of open principles and laws, in the formation of worldview and methodological aspects scientific knowledge in general. Is integration only characteristic of modern science? Formulate your point of view and give two arguments in support of it.
Read the text and complete tasks 21-24.
<...>Science is a historically established form human activity, aimed at the knowledge and transformation of objective reality, such spiritual production, which results in purposefully selected and systematized facts, logically verified hypotheses, generalizing theories, fundamental and particular laws, as well as research methods.
Science is both a system of knowledge, and their spiritual production, and practical activity based on them.
For any scientific knowledge, the presence of what is being studied and how it is being studied is essential. The answer to the question of what is being researched reveals the nature of the subject of science, and the answer to the question of how research is carried out reveals the method of research.
The qualitative diversity of reality and social practice has determined the multifaceted nature of human thinking, different areas of scientific knowledge. modern science- an extremely ramified set of individual scientific branches. The subject of science is not only the world outside of man, various forms and types of movement of beings, but also their reflection in consciousness, i.e. the man himself. According to their subject matter, sciences are divided into natural-technical, studying the laws of nature and methods of its development and transformation, and social, studying various social phenomena and the laws of their development, as well as man himself as a social being (humanitarian cycle). Among the social sciences, a special place is occupied by a complex of philosophical disciplines that study the most general laws of development of nature, society, and thinking.
The subject of science influences its methods, i.e. techniques, methods of object research. Yes, in natural sciences ah one of the main methods of research is experiment, and in the social sciences - statistics. At the same time, the boundaries between sciences are rather conditional. For modern stage The development of scientific knowledge is characterized not only by the emergence of disciplines related to the subject (for example, biophysics), but also by the mutual enrichment of scientific methodologies. General scientific logical methods are induction, deduction, analysis, synthesis, as well as systematic and probabilistic approaches, and much more. Each science has a different empirical level, i.e. accumulated factual material - the results of observations and experiments, and the theoretical level, i.e. generalization of empirical material, expressed in the relevant theories, laws and principles; evidence-based scientific assumptions, hypotheses that need further verification by experience. The theoretical levels of individual sciences merge in a general theoretical, philosophical explanation of open principles and laws, in the formation of the worldview and methodological aspects of scientific knowledge in general.<...>
(Spirkin A.G.)
Explanation.
The correct answer must contain the following elements:
1) An answer is given and a point of view is formulated, for example:
Modern science is characterized not only by integration;
In addition to integration, we can also talk about the disintegration of scientific knowledge, the allocation of more specific scientific disciplines;
2) Arguments are given, for example:
In the social sciences, more and more narrow areas of study are distinguished, for example, the science that studies the nature of power - cratology;
In the natural sciences, with the discovery of new elements, particles, the development of nanotechnologies, new areas of knowledge also arise;
With the advent of new techniques and methods of cognition in mankind, new scientific disciplines arise both in the study of the microworld and in the study of the megaworld, the Universe, etc.
Other correct wordings of the answer may be given.
Cognition there is a process of knowledge formation. Already ancient Greek philosophers discovered contradictions in this process.
According to the ancient Greeks, these contradictions are connected with the dual origin of knowledge. One source of knowledge is feelings and sensations. Another source is the mind. Hence, they concluded that knowledge cannot be one with the knowledge of which it is: there is an object of knowledge, there is a subject of knowledge, and there is knowledge of the subject about the object, which is obtained with the help of feelings or reason.
Therefore, among the sensationalists, two directions appeared.
One - materialistic(those who believed that the source of sensations is the external material world (Locke).
Other subjective-idealistic(those who considered their own sensations, not related to matter, to be the source of knowledge (Berkeley).
Thus, in philosophy, an idea was formed about the process of cognition as the formation by the subject of knowledge about an object, which can be realized with the help of feelings and reason.
Stages (phases) of scientific knowledge.
Stage 1 - knowledge of the properties and the object as a combination of these properties. It is made up of experience, observations (including instrumental ones), contemplation of an object through interaction with it. Contemplation is carried out through the interaction of the subject with it, through the display (change) by the properties of the object of the properties of the subject, and in fact, through the mutual change in their proportional properties (the relativity of the object and the subject). Through direct interaction or through the mediation of tool-objects, indirect interaction
In this approach, at this stage, the relativity of contemplation, observation, experience, the relativity of display and change is clarified. As a result of this, only some properties of the object that are commensurate with the property of the subject are clarified, and in the course of interaction (comparison), the relative comparative values of these properties are clarified. An object is looming knowledge - a relative whole, a finite set of relative properties determined with the help of methods of cognition (in comparison with the properties of the subject of cognition).
Stage 2 - the application of methods of cognition of the object and general scientific principles previously known. By analyzing the totality of certain properties and their values, the correct methods are selected and applied. knowledge object changes from changing its properties. This is the stage of applying previously known methodologies. knowledge (means of mathematics, physics, logic, some models, analysis, everyday experience, etc.).
The purpose of the 2nd stage, the purpose of applying the methods of cognition, is to clarify the causal dependence of the change in the object (relative whole) on the change in its properties. The logical structure of this stage is called theory . In the way knowledge , the actual modeling (representation) of the object is performed and cause-and-effect relationships are clarified (clarified), the variability of the whole from a change in its individual properties is clarified. This manifests itself the relativity of cognition of an object to its methodknowledge.
This is the stage knowledge relative truth, the relative essence of the object, due to the relativity and finiteness of the properties of the subject, the finiteness and relativity of the properties of ways knowledge . For this reason and the essence (truth), depending on the method of cognition, is relative.
Stage 3 - the formulation of the concept. Based on the analysis of the assimilation (processing) of the results of the previous stages, formulation of a scientific concept object knowledge - as a finite relative set of properties defined in appropriate ways knowledge , and object dependency knowledge , as a relative whole, from changes in these properties. With this approach, the concept should characterize the relative nature and relative magnitude of the cognized object, be structurally defined. This concept becomes the basis for further knowledge . Thus, the concept formulated according to a single methodology becomes a scientific "brick" in the further knowledge of the universe.
Thus, in the processknowledge an expanding pyramid of concepts of the knowable part of nature is built, in which each concept is relatively primitive, relative to subsequent derivative concepts. The concept becomes a finite set of relative properties and the causal dependence of the object-concept on these properties, determined using a specific method of cognition. All stages of cognition are carried out on the basis of scientifically based principles of correct cognition and basic for this, previously known concepts.
http://knowledge.allbest.ru/philosophy/2c0a65625b2bc78b4d53b88521306c27_0.html
Nizhnikov S.A. Course of lectures: History of Philosophy / S.A. Nizhnikov. - M.: Exam, 2007. - 384 p.
Philosophy. Textbook for universities / Under the general. ed. V.V.Mironova. - M.: Norma, 2005. - 928 p.
Irrational cognition
Irrationalism in a broad sense, it is customary to call those philosophical teachings that limit or deny the decisive role of the mind in cognition, highlighting other types of human abilities - instinct, intuition, direct contemplation, insight, imagination, feelings, etc. Irrational- this is a philosophical concept that expresses what is not subject to reason, not amenable to rational comprehension, incommensurable with the capabilities of the mind.
Within the framework of classical rationalism, the idea of a special ability of intellectual activity, called intellectual intuition, is emerging. Thanks to intellectual intuition, thinking, bypassing experience, directly comprehends the essence of things. TO characteristic features intellectual intuition can include the following:
intuitive knowledge as direct, according to the rationalism of the 17th century, should differ from rational knowledge based on logical definitions, syllogisms and proofs, that is, the specificity of intuitive knowledge is independent of inference and proof;
intuition is one of the types of intellectual knowledge, but, what is important to note, is its highest form.
The doctrine of the decisive role in human cognition of such an irrational ability as intuition was developed in intuitionism, which was most developed in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Intuitionists argued that neither experience nor reason is sufficient for knowledge. To comprehend life, which was recognized as the only reality, a special form of cognition is needed, which is put forward as intuition. But this is no longer the intellectual intuition that underlay the knowledge of rationalists, for example, Descartes, but intuition, the activity of which is opposite to the activity of the mind. For example, A. Bergson believed that intuition and intellect are two opposite directions in the work of consciousness. According to intuitionism, the mind with its logic is able to describe the dead nature in physics, but it is completely helpless in the knowledge of living human reality, comprehended only with the help of intuition. Intuition here it is considered as a form of direct knowledge that comprehends reality, bypassing the testimony of the senses and the mind. Intuition is a form of direct getting used to reality. Since life is the only given for us, and it is experienced by us, first of all, and not cognized, we, according to Bergson, are able to perceive it directly. The path of this direct comprehension is intuition. Unlike rational, intellectual comprehension, intuition, according to Bergson, is a simple act and gives us not relative and one-sided knowledge, but absolute. Intuition is a kind of intellectual activity, with the help of which you can go inside an object in order to merge with it and comprehend what is unique and inexpressible in it. In modern philosophy, it is generally accepted that in the real process of thinking, intuition is closely related to logical processes, although it is recognized that its mechanisms differ significantly from the principles and procedures of logic and are characterized by peculiar ways of processing and evaluating information, which are still very poorly studied. Intuition not an autonomous way of cognition, it is associated with rational elements, but at the same time, individual links of the chain remain at the level of the unconscious.
Another irrational element in cognition, close to intuition, is insight. insight(from the English insight - insight, understanding) is interpreted as an act of direct achievement of the truth, "insight", as a sudden understanding, "grasping" of the relationship and structure of the problem situation. In a scientific way, the insight was discovered by the representative of Gestalt psychology W. Koehler in 1917 in the study of problem solving by great apes. Later, in Gestalt psychology, the concept of insight is used to describe the type of human thinking in which the solution to a problem arises not as a result of the perception of individual parts, but through mental comprehension of the whole. Thus, in the process of solving a complex problem, the situation is restructured, a new vision of the problem is found, the conditions of the problem begin to be seen and understood differently. Finding a new understanding occurs suddenly for consciousness and is accompanied by a characteristic emotional experience, which is called the aha-experience. The insight mechanism, unlike rational cognition, is based not on general logical techniques and methods, such as analysis, synthesis, abstraction, induction, etc., but on instant comprehension of a problem solution.
The process of cognition, as well as the process of creativity, is impossible without the participation of the imagination. Imagination represents a specific form of the subject's spiritual activity in cognition and creativity, associated with the reproduction of past experience (reproductive imagination) and the constructive and creative creation of a new visual or visual-conceptual image, situation, possible future (productive imagination). Imagination depends not only on immediate impressions, but also on the content of memory. Imagination cannot be rigidly opposed to thinking, reason, since imagination in many cases obeys the logic of thinking. But at the same time, imagination does not belong to a rational way of comprehending reality, since it can acquire relative independence and proceed according to its own “logic”, going beyond the usual norms of thinking. Imagination acts bypassing the standards of the logic of thinking, goes beyond the immediate given. Imagination helps to cognize the world by creating hypotheses, model representations, ideas of experiments. Irrational elements in the process of cognition are not limited to the above. The irrational elements of cognition should also include the emotional sphere that affects the process of cognition, magical practices, meditation practices in Eastern religions and esotericism, etc.
Conclusion
So, cognition is not only a unity of rational and sensual moments, but includes various irrational elements associated with the role of the unconscious in the human psyche and suggesting their connection with the rational component of cognitive activity is not clearly identified.
http://oitzi.ru/Materials.aspx?doc_id=38&id=742
modern science
Glancing at world history, we discover three stages of cognition: first, it is rationalization in general, which in one form or another is a universal property, appears with a person as such; ... secondly, the formation of a logically and methodically conscious science - Greek science and, in parallel, the beginnings of scientific knowledge in China and India; thirdly, the emergence of modern science, growing from the end of the Middle Ages, decisively asserting itself from the 17th century. and unfolding in all its breadth since the 19th century. This science makes European culture - in any case, since the 17th century. -
different from the culture of all other countries ...
Science has three necessary features: cognitive methods, reliability and general validity...
modern science universal in your spirit. There is no area that could fence itself off from it for a long time. Everything that happens in the world is subject to observation, consideration, research - natural phenomena, actions or statements of people, their creations and destinies. Religion, all authorities also become the object of research. And not only reality, but all mental possibilities become the object of study...
Modern science, turned to the individual, seeks to reveal its own comprehensive connections... The idea of the interconnectedness of all sciences gives rise to dissatisfaction with a single knowledge. Modern science is not only universal, but strives for such a unity of sciences that is never achievable.
Each science is defined by method and subject. Each is a perspective of seeing the world, none comprehends the world as such, each covers a segment of reality, but not reality - perhaps one side of reality, but not reality as a whole, however, each of them enters the world, boundless, but all - still one in the kaleidoscope of connections ...
Questions and tasks: 1) What stages of cognition does the author single out? 2) What does the philosopher mean by such a feature of modern science as universality? 3) How is the problem of integration and differentiation of scientific knowledge interpreted in the text? 4) How does the author explain the impossibility of a complete unification of the sciences?
social cognition
Imagine a scientist bending over a microscope, in front of the control panel of a microparticle accelerator or the terminal of a modern telescope. The study of the living, micro- and macroworld includes scrupulous observation, verified calculations and experiments, and the construction of mathematical or computer models. When studying society, scientists also observe, compare, calculate, and sometimes experiment (for example, selecting a space crew or a polar expedition based on the principle of psychological compatibility). Does this mean that the same methods are used for the study of society as for the study of nature? Scholars have answered this question in different ways.
SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE OF NATURE AND SOCIETY
The idea that all sciences should use the methods of mathematical natural science originated in the 18th century. under the influence of the successes of natural science, which struck the imagination of contemporaries, and especially the technical applications of mechanics. The development of technology contributed to an unprecedented rise in social productive forces and transformed people's daily lives. The enormous cultural prestige of the natural sciences predetermined the role of mechanics as a model according to which both the natural and social sciences were to be built. The founder of sociology, the French scientist O. Comte, believed that the science of society should study the connections of observed social phenomena using natural scientific methods, so he called sociology “social physics”. His follower - E. Durkheim believed social facts all social phenomena that affect a person and encourage him to behave in a certain way. To social facts, he attributed the norms of law and morality, the usual ways of doing things, social movements, and even fashion. Main principle scientific method in sociology E. Durkheim considered relation to social facts as to things. This meant revealing the connection and dependence between them, just as one studies the causal relationship of natural phenomena.
widespread naturalistic ideas about society V late XIX- early XX century. contributed to the objective social processes of the formation of industrial capitalism - decomposition social structures traditional society and the formation of a mass society. It is in a mass society, devoid of the complex nature of feudalism social hierarchy, and it becomes possible to widely use mathematical methods for the study of social phenomena.
But not all scientists shared such naturalistic views. Thus, the German philosopher W. Dilthey believed that the "sciences of the spirit" are fundamentally different from the "sciences of nature" in that the former deal with man - the only creature in the universe capable of not only knowing, but also experiencing. This is a special activity of human consciousness, arising from the connection of the phenomena of his inner life. Realizing his own involvement in the world of society and culture, the scientist empathizes, i.e. understands other people, compatriots and contemporaries, texts and meanings of other eras and other cultures. W. Dilthey was convinced that fundamental difference natural and social sciences consists in the method: the "sciences of the spirit" are understanding while the natural sciences explanatory.
Another German philosopher, a follower of I. Kant - G. Rickert also believed that the sciences of culture differ significantly from the sciences of nature. Their main difference, in his opinion, is the approach of the researcher to the study of his object. By studying nature, the scientist seeks to discover general, i.e., what is similar in the phenomenon under study to other phenomena of the same type. In the sciences of culture, the interest of the scientist is directed mainly to individual, i.e., what is specific to a given phenomenon. It is the unique individuality of the object, G. Rickert is convinced, that gives it meaning cultural object, Unlike objects of nature. And although some Social sciencies Although economics, for example, can also use methods of generalization, research in the field of culture is more like the work of a historian who is interested in the individual and unique in the events of the past. At the same time, working with the material of culture, the scientist always correlates it with generally significant values: moral, political, economic, artistic, religious. Attribution to universal values, according to the scientist, allows the sciences of culture to be just as objective, like the natural sciences.
What are the difficulties of objective scientific knowledge of society?
In classical natural science under objectivity scientific research understood the study of nature independently of man, i.e., nature "in itself." Therefore, a scientist who studies the interaction of elementary particles or the behavior of animals seeks to exclude himself from the research situation. But he is nevertheless included in it, albeit in a special way: he “constrained nature with the art of the observer” and formulated a question addressed to nature, to which he wants to receive an answer. But the social scientist cannot exclude himself from the process of social development, and the results of his research affect both his own life and the future of his children. Social cognition affects interests people - stable social orientations that guide people in Everyday life and business relationships. Modern scientists talk about the possibility of different interpretations of phenomena public life - pluralism of opinions. They are generated not only by personal predilections, preferences or differences life experience, but also mismatched social interests, expressing the different position of people in the system of social relations. This explains the diversity of views and assessments that distinguishes the results of social cognition from a universally valid judgment in natural science. M. Weber gives such an example of the impact of corporate interests on social cognition. Compiling crime statistics, the police, protecting the “honor of the uniform”, tend to present any unsolved murder as a suicide, while the church, guided by the idea of suicide as the gravest sin, tends to interpret dubious cases as crimes. 17th century English philosopher T. Hobbes even believed that if geometry affected the interests of people, then it would be disputed or hushed up. The impact of social interests on social cognition is most clearly manifested in ideologies - theoretical expression of social interests in election declarations, programs of political parties and broad social movements. Comparing the ideological attitudes of various political parties or pre-election associations, one should first of all find out what social forces they represent.
If we comprehend nature with the help of the concepts of cause and effect, then human action - by studying the motives, goals and intentions of man. And if a cause in nature always entails a consequence, then the motives and intentions of one person, interacting in a complex way with the motives and intentions of other people, as well as the traditions, morality and laws of society, cannot always be embodied in actions. Conscious refraining from an action that is prescribed social norms and socially significant motives of behavior, such as refusal to sell goods at a set price, failure to appear in court, evasion of responsibility, as well as a missed opportunity and criminal inaction, no less objective social facts than social actions.
Scientific social knowledge deals with human actions and their consequences, that is, with events in culture and social life. This world is humanized, it is conscious and comprehended. concept meaning expresses specifically human relation to the subject. M. Weber believed that the sociological study of society is aimed at understanding the meanings of individual human actions, which ultimately form the entire social life. But how is it possible scientific study subjective measurements of social actions: meanings, motives, intentions? Indeed, unlike the objects of the natural sciences, they are intangible and express a human attitude to objects of any kind, and not objects in themselves.
As we can see, the difficulties in the way of objective scientific knowledge of society are great. What should a scientist be guided by in order to achieve a sufficient level of accuracy and objectivity of social knowledge?
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE
In order to overcome these difficulties, when studying the phenomena of social life, the scientist is guided by scientific methods. The scientist who studies society resorts to general scientific, i.e., the methods of acquiring knowledge and the norms of scientific research that are characteristic of both natural and social sciences. These include reliance on facts, rigor and unambiguity. theoretical concepts, evidence-based reasoning and their logical consistency, the objectivity of scientific conclusions, i.e., the independence of scientific truth from personal desires, opinions and social prejudices.
But the knowledge of society has its own characteristics. In contrast to the natural scientist, who seeks to exclude his own uncontrolled influence on the subject of research and sees this as a condition for achieving the objectivity of scientific knowledge, the social scientist studies an object to which he himself belongs: he is both a researcher of social life and its participant. Moreover, the condition for successful knowledge of other people, cultures and historical eras is the ability to empathize, sympathy, the ability to see and feel the way other people see and feel. This takes on special significance in the situation of "participant observation", in which the scientist himself tends to act in the same way as those he observes. But at the same time, he must be extremely attentive to those premises of his thinking that are drawn from his own life, from the traditions of his education, upbringing and scientific school: inattention to them can distort the picture of the life of other people and cultures. Therefore, M. Weber urged the scientist to "keep a distance in relation to the object", warning that an uncritical attitude to one's sociocultural experience when studying someone else's is just as reprehensible as selfishness in everyday life.
A social scientist strives for a complete description of the features of the object under study. This means that any social phenomenon must be considered in its historical development and in interconnection with other social phenomena, i.e. in historical And cultural context. In order to understand, for example, the social nature of the Jacobin terror, it is necessary to consider it not as an isolated event, but in the context of the Great french revolution as one of the stages of its development. But even the Great French Revolution itself must be approached specifically-historically,
consider its systemic connections with other events European history and at the same time not to lose sight of how representatives of various strata of the then society understood and experienced this event.
The science of history helps us to understand the connection of times, without which the events of the past would fall apart into a series of separate episodes. It is based on historical documents - evidence that allows us to get an idea of the life of our ancestors. However, the fact of science is not an event in life. Nor is it a scrupulous description of what is happening. scientific fact always involves identifying significant in the social phenomenon under study. It includes an assessment by scientists of his role in what is happening, interpretation social fact. Creating a holistic scientific theory, the scientist determines which of the facts known to him are significant for understanding social patterns. His theoretical attitude, on the one hand, itself determines the direction of the search for new facts, the existence of which is predicted by his concept, and on the other hand, the discovery of other facts that are not consistent with this concept, makes it clarify, and sometimes even reject it as incorrect.
IDEAL TYPE IS A TOOL OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE
In scientific social cognition, as well as in the sciences of nature, they use scientific concepts. When studying social actions, scientists resort to the use of concepts of a special kind - ideal types.
The ideal type allows you to capture the most important, consistently recurring features of the subject of a certain social action. Thus, describing the ideal type of a capitalist entrepreneur, M. Weber paints a portrait of a young man of an ascetic lifestyle, of the Protestant faith, who travels from village to city day after day, organizing the delivery of raw materials to processing sites, and finished goods to the market. Of course, the ideal type is devoid of the concreteness of the artistic image. We do not know the name of the young man, where he lives, what kind of goods he produces. But it is this generalization of characteristics that is important for scientific social cognition: losing to the artistic understanding of the world in concreteness, the ideal type allows you to go beyond the existing situation and describe the typical, i.e., steadily repeating, characteristics of the subject of a certain social action, wherever and under what circumstances it did not occur. The ideal-typifying methodology allowed M. Weber to theoretically express the laws of the process of the formation of capitalism in Western Europe regardless of the diversity of specific conditions in different countries.
The use of ideal types helps the scientist to gain knowledge about the stable and systematically reproducible relationships of large groups of people, classes, and states. With the help of ideal types, a scientist can also look into the future, but only to the extent that the features of modernity, presented as typical, will retain their significance in the future.
The ideal type as a tool of social analysis is not a description of the behavior of a particular person. He is a character in the scientific picture of the social process, which reproduces real life in its essential features.
COMMON AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE
So far, we have only talked about scientific social knowledge. But the concept of social knowledge is much broader. It covers the entire array of accumulated knowledge about a person and society, fixed both in oral tradition and in books, scientific publications, works of art and historical monuments, which play the role of documents for scientists.
Social knowledge can be not only scientific, but also everyday, that is, acquired in everyday life. Scientific knowledge is always conscious, systematized and meets the rules of the scientific method. Ordinary knowledge, as a rule, is not systematized and not even realized - it can exist in the form of habit or custom. And if scientific knowledge is carried out by a special category of professionally trained people united in the scientific community, then the subject of everyday knowledge is society as a whole. One of the features of scientific social knowledge in comparison with natural science is that the object of scientific social knowledge, as a rule, has already been mastered in one way or another by ordinary thinking. And if the scientific picture of nature does not mean anything for physical fields and particles, then the scientific picture of society reflects a reality that has already been interpreted by people in everyday life. And this social world, already comprehended at the level of ordinary knowledge, the scientist must, in turn, comprehend in accordance with the rules of the scientific method. However, this does not mean that ordinary knowledge is erroneous, and scientific knowledge is true. Modern scholars believe that both types of social knowledge are equally important in social life. Science must take into account the ordinary, including erroneous, ideas of people, study the public opinion of all strata of society.
Modern society introduces into everyday life not only complex technical devices, but also complex forms of social relationships that require awareness in the economic, political, legal and other fields. Therefore, a modern person in everyday life cannot do without referring to the elements of scientific knowledge. IN modern society ordinary knowledge includes elements of scientific knowledge. Of course, the person who picks up the phone does not necessarily know what kind of technical devices make it possible to reproduce the sound of his voice hundreds of kilometers away, but the idea that the telephone set transmits sound vibrations, somehow converting them into electrical ones, he still It has. A similar awareness of modern man shows in relation to scientific social knowledge. Anyone who opened a bank account is not necessarily familiar with the laws of circulation of paper money. But he has an idea about money as a way of regulating his social relations with the employer, about inflation, bank interest. A huge influence on ordinary social cognition is exerted by the means mass media. Modern man learns about what is happening in the world from newspapers, radio and television. Powerfully invading our lives, the media convey to the viewer, reader, listener a judgment about what is happening, that is, a more or less agreed opinion of the journalistic community. But it may not coincide with the opinion of scientists. After all, a journalist seeks to inform about an event, often emphasizing the role of random, but spectacular details that can make an impression. The scientist, on the contrary, is interested in the essence of the phenomenon under study in a form purified from accidents. In addition, the coverage of current events is also connected with the degree of dependence of the mass media on the authorities and financial corporations, that is, on the level of freedom of speech achieved in society. Therefore, each person must have a significant stock of social knowledge, be able to compare and analyze information gleaned from different sources in order to be able to assess what is happening in society.
SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITARIAN KNOWLEDGE
Social knowledge includes not only the social sciences and everyday ideas, but also a huge area of humanitarian knowledge. The social sciences include all types of scientific knowledge of society that follow the rules of the scientific method. This, as you know, is sociology, economics, political science, jurisprudence, ethnography, and others. The social sciences produce knowledge about relatively stable and systematically reproduced connections and relations between peoples, classes, and professional groups. The social sciences study their subject with the help of ideal types, which allow fixing stable and repetitive in human actions, in society and culture.
Humanitarian knowledge is addressed to the spiritual world of man. Keepers of humanitarian knowledge are diaries, reviews, biographies famous people, public performance, policy statements, art criticism, epistolary heritage. They are studied by psychology, linguistics, art history, and literary criticism. The boundary between the social sciences and the humanities is not a rigid one. The social sciences, keeping in touch with the life world of man, also include elements of humanitarian knowledge. When the historian investigates historical patterns and ideal-typical characteristics, he acts as a social scientist. Turning to the motives of the characters and studying the diaries, letters and texts of speeches, he acts as a humanities scholar. But humanitarian knowledge also borrows elements of the social. Scholars talk about the rules for compiling biographies and describing individual cases, which are increasingly used in modern social sciences. Grade works of art, in turn, is also not an expression of the subjective opinion of the critic, but is based on an analysis of the composition of the work, artistic images, means of artistic expression, etc.
Addressed to the spiritual world of a person, his experiences, fears and hopes, humanitarian knowledge requires understanding. To understand the text means to give it meaning. But it may not be exactly what its creator had in mind. We cannot have reliable knowledge of his thoughts and feelings, and we judge them only with varying degrees of probability. But we always interpret text, that is, we attribute to it the meaning that we think the author had in mind. And in order to get closer to the origins of the author's intention, it is useful to know who and under what circumstances wrote the work, what is the circle of contacts of its author, what tasks he set for himself. A person endows the text with meaning in accordance with the personal stock of social knowledge. Therefore, great works of art resonate in different ways in the hearts of millions of people and retain their significance for many generations.
Lacking the rigor and universality of natural science knowledge, humanitarian knowledge performs important functions in culture. Addressed to the spiritual world of a person, humanitarian knowledge awakens in him the desire for the sublime and beautiful, ennobles his aspirations, and encourages moral and worldview quests. In the most developed form, such searches are embodied in philosophy, but every person is also a bit of a philosopher to the extent that he asks questions of being and cognition, moral perfection and a reasonable structure of society. Entering the world of humanitarian knowledge, a person expands the horizons of knowledge, learns to comprehend someone else's - and his own - inner world with a degree of depth that is unattainable in the most intimate personal communication. In humanitarian culture, a person acquires the gift of social imagination, comprehends the art of empathy, the ability to understand another, giving the very possibility of living together in society.
Basic concepts: scientific social knowledge, everyday knowledge, methods of social cognition, social fact, meaning, values, interpretation, understanding.
Terms: cultural context, concrete historical approach, ideal type.
| Test yourself |
1) What is the peculiarity of social knowledge in comparison with natural science? What is the difference between the objectivity of natural science, social and humanitarian knowledge? 2) Is it possible to identify a fact of social science with an event, with what happened in life? 3) What is the problem of interpreting a text, an act, historical document? What is right understanding? Is it possible to achieve the only correct understanding? 4) What is the difference between an ideal type and an artistic image? Can the ideal type be considered a scientific description of a particular person? 5) Do you agree with the statement that ordinary knowledge is wrong and scientific knowledge is true? Why study public opinion?
1. The modern philosopher P. Berger, referring to the dependence of the press on the alignment of social forces, wrote: "Whoever has a longer stick, he has more chances to impose his ideas on society." Do you agree with this view?
2. There is an opinion that history has no subjunctive mood. Is it worth discussing what might have been if this had not happened? Are missed chances and missed opportunities social facts? Explain your answer.
3. Social knowledge is usually divided into social sciences and humanitarian knowledge. Which of these parts can be attributed to the thesis of Protagoras "Man is the measure of all things"?
4. There is a parable about two workers. When asked what they were doing, one answered: “I am carrying stones,” and the other: “I am building a temple.” Is it possible to say that one of the statements is true and the other is false? Justify your answer.
5. The German philosopher W. Dilthey believed that to understand - "means to experience personally." Do you agree with this? Can a person understand what he himself has not experienced? And is the personal experience always understandable?
6. The chronicler Pimen from the tragedy of A. S. Pushkin “Boris Godunov” teaches Grigory Otrepyev: “Describe, without further ado, everything that you will be a witness in life.” Is it possible in principle to describe historical events, free from interpretations? Concretize your conclusion using knowledge from the history course.
7. Imagine that you, like Miklouho-Maclay, went to study the life of native tribes. What will you pay attention to first of all:
- what catches the eye the most;
- on what distinguishes the life of the natives from ours;
- sustainable and repetitive forms of practice?
| Work with the source |
Check out an excerpt from A. Schutz's book.
Similar information.
Each of us, even being very far from professional scientific activity, constantly uses the fruits of science, embodied in the mass of modern things. But science enters our lives not only through the “door” of mass production, technical innovations, and domestic comfort.
Scientific representations about the structure of the world, about the place and role of man in it (the scientific picture of the world) to one degree or another penetrate into the consciousness of people; principles and approaches to understanding reality developed by science become guidelines in our daily life.
Approximately from the 17th century, with the development of industrial society, the authority of science, the methodology (principles, approaches) of scientific thinking was increasingly strengthened. At the same time, alternative pictures of the world, including religious ones, and other ways of knowing (mystical insight, etc.) were gradually pushed to the periphery. public consciousness.
However, in recent decades, in a number of countries with a traditionally stable trust in science, the situation has begun to change. Many researchers note the increasing influence of extra-scientific knowledge. In this regard, they even talk about the existing two types of people. The first type is science oriented. Its representatives are characterized by activity, internal independence, openness to new ideas and experience, readiness to flexibly adapt to changes in work and life, practicality. They are open to discussion, skeptical of authorities.
Thinking of another type of personality, oriented towards non-scientific pictures of the world, is characterized by an attitude towards practical use, an interest in the mysterious and wonderful. These people are generally not looking for evidence of their results and are not interested in verifying them. Priority is given to the sensory-concrete rather than the abstract-theoretical form of knowledge. They believe that anyone can make a discovery, not just a professional researcher. For such people, the main support is faith, opinions, authority. (Which type would you classify yourself as?)
But why is the influence of alternative scientific views and attitudes increasing? Explanations here are different. Some believe that in the XX century. science has shown its impotence in solving a number of important problems for mankind, moreover, it has become a source of many new difficulties, leading Western civilization to decline. There is also such a point of view: humanity, like a pendulum, is constantly moving from the phase of preference for rational thinking and science to the phase of the decline of rationalism and the strengthening of the craving for faith and revelation. Thus, the first flowering of enlightenment falls on the era of classical Greece: it was then that the transition from mythological to rational thinking was made. Towards the end of the reign of Pericles, the pendulum swung in reverse side: all kinds of cults, magical healing, astrological forecasts took center stage. Proponents of this point of view believe that modern humanity has entered the final phase of the flowering of rationalism, which began with the Age of Enlightenment.
But perhaps those who believe that civilization has already accumulated a certain fatigue from the burden of choice and responsibility and that astrological predestination is preferable to scientific criticism and constant doubt are right. (What do you think?)
Basic concepts: scientific theory, empirical law, hypothesis, scientific experiment, modeling, scientific revolution.
Terms: differentiation, integration.
1. This is how the German philosopher K. Popper proved the unscientific nature of astrology: the prophecies of astrologers are uncertain, they are difficult to verify, many prophecies did not come true, astrologers use an unsatisfactory way of explaining their failures (prediction of an individual future - difficult task; mutual arrangement stars and planets are constantly changing, etc.).
What criteria for distinguishing between scientific and non-scientific knowledge can be identified using this example? Name other criteria.
2. Expand your understanding of Pushkin's lines "Science reduces the experiences of a fleeting life for us."
3. L. Pasteur argued: "Science should be the most exalted embodiment of the fatherland, for of all peoples, the first will always be the one that is ahead of others in the field of thought and mental activity."
Is this conclusion supported by the course of history?
4. Find errors in the following text.
Strict empirical knowledge accumulated only through observation. Close to observation and experiment. But he no longer gives strict knowledge, because here a person interferes with the nature of the object being studied: he places him in an environment unusual for him, tests him in extreme conditions. Thus, the knowledge obtained during the experiment can only partly be considered true, objective.
| Work with the source |
Read an excerpt from the work of the German philosopher K. Jaspers "The origins of history and its purpose."
modern science
Glancing at world history, we discover three stages of cognition: first, rationalization in general, which in one form or another is a universal property, appears with man as such; ... secondly, the formation of a logically and methodically conscious science - Greek science and, in parallel, the beginnings of scientific knowledge in China and India; thirdly, the emergence of modern science, growing from the end of the Middle Ages, decisively asserting itself from the 17th century. and unfolding in all its breadth since the 19th century. This science makes European culture - in any case, since the 17th century. -
different from the culture of all other countries ...
Science has three necessary features: cognitive methods, reliability and general validity...
modern science universal in your spirit. There is no area that could fence itself off from it for a long time. Everything that happens in the world is subject to observation, consideration, research - natural phenomena, actions or statements of people, their creations and destinies. Religion, all authorities also become the object of research. And not only reality, but all mental possibilities become the object of study...
Modern science, turned to the individual, seeks to reveal its own comprehensive connections... The idea of the interconnectedness of all sciences gives rise to dissatisfaction with a single knowledge. Modern science is not only universal, but strives for such a unity of sciences that is never achievable.
Each science is defined by method and subject. Each is a perspective of seeing the world, none comprehends the world as such, each covers a segment of reality, but not reality - perhaps one side of reality, but not reality as a whole, however, each of them enters the world, boundless, but all - still one in the kaleidoscope of connections ...
Questions and tasks: 1) What stages of cognition does the author single out? 2) What does the philosopher mean by such a feature of modern science as universality? 3) How is the problem of integration and differentiation of scientific knowledge interpreted in the text? 4) How does the author explain the impossibility of a complete unification of the sciences?
social cognition
Imagine a scientist bending over a microscope, in front of the control panel of a microparticle accelerator or the terminal of a modern telescope. The study of the living, micro- and macroworld includes scrupulous observation, verified calculations and experiments, and the construction of mathematical or computer models. When studying society, scientists also observe, compare, calculate, and sometimes experiment (for example, selecting a space crew or a polar expedition based on the principle of psychological compatibility). Does this mean that the same methods are used for the study of society as for the study of nature? Scholars have answered this question in different ways.
