The Myth of Science as a Source of Progress

2021 ◽  
pp. 76-82
Author(s):  
Ilya T. Kasavina ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
World View ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
The World ◽  
Progressive Potential ◽  
Scientific Research Program

In the philosophy of science and technology, scientific progress has been usually considered in a logical-methodological way, namely, from the point of view of the capacity to solve problems, the theoretical and empirical success of a certain theory or scientific research program. These are the concepts of K. Popper, I. Lakatos, and L. Laudan. They are opposed by historical and sociological ap­proaches to the development of science by T. Kuhn, S. Toulmin, and P. Feyer­abend. The article proposes a variant of the second approach – socio-epistemo­logical and, in particular, value interpretation of scientific progress shifting the focus of the discourse on scientific progress to the world-view and ideological circumstances of the development of science not only as knowledge, but as a form of culture and social institution. There is a polemic with the thesis by A.L. Nikiforov about the dominant pragmatic need for science and the primacy of its applied results, as ifthe modern achievement of which science has al­legedly fulfilled as well as the purpose prescribed to it by F. Bacon, and even ex­hausted its progressive potential. Criticism of the position by A.L. Nikiforov is based on an alternative view on science, which follows from a different interpre­tation of the New Times scientific revolution and the purpose of science in gen­eral. Scientific progress is seen in the creation by science of a new image of the world, new ways of communication, new moral guidelines, the design of new ways of social order. Such a science does not fit into the narrow, logical-method­ological criteria of scientific rationality. However, it is precisely this culture-forming, socio-cultural function of science that allows us to talk about science as an enterprise that contributes to social progress and, if progressive, it is precisely because of this circumstance.

Can We Hope for Progress in Understanding Progress?

2021 ◽  
pp. 63-69
Author(s):  
Olga E. Stoliarova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Harmonious Society ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Organic Systems ◽  
The World ◽  
Fundamental Unity ◽  
World Development

The article discusses the question raised by A.L. Nikiforov about the meaning and significance of scientific progress. It is shown that scientific progress, in ac­cordance with the original meaning embedded in this concept, should be consid­ered in the context of the universal development of the human reason, which covers not only the cognitive assimilation of the natural world, but also the con­struction of a harmonious society, and the improvement of man as such. Based on this, it is problematic to talk about autonomous scientific progress that does not affect the spiritual sphere. It is shown that changes in the understanding of progress refer not only to scientific or social progress, but to the whole com­plex of beliefs associated with the idea of the world development. The author traces the historical transformation of the three key concepts underlying the dis­course of progress, which the researcher of the metaphysics of progress Alain de Benoist identifies as the most stable. First, the idea of linear progress, based on the mechanistic ontology and reductionism, is replaced by the concept of so­cial evolution, based on the interaction of organic systems and subsystems. Sec­ondly, the idea of the fundamental unity of humanity and a single science gives way to an irreducible multiplicity of cultures and metaphysics. Third, the idea of a controlled transformation of the world is replaced by the concept of uncer­tainty. The author traces the transformation of the idea of progress into the idea of the complication of the world. A characteristic feature of the discourse of complication is that it speaks of a distributed agent of the world process, thereby relieving man of exclusive responsibility for the course of history. The author defends the point of view that changes in the understanding of progress are an expression of increasing conceptual and ontological complexity.

scholarly journals Principle of Complementarity in the Research of the Links between Language, World View and Picture of the World

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 66-82
Author(s):  
Ludmila B. Sandakova
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Problem Area ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Complementarity Principle ◽  
The World ◽  
Epistemological Model ◽  
Description Languages ◽  
Model Subject ◽  
Principle Of Complementarity

The article deals with the problem of the epistemological status of the complementarity principle in socio-humanitarian studies. It clarifies the content of the principle of complementarity and the possibility of its application from the point of view of its methodological significance for studying the interdependence of language, world view and the picture of the world. It is shown that the authentic application of the principle is possible within the framework of a constructionist epistemological model, subject to a number of methodological requirements for the organization of the research process. To correlate the complementary description languages in the designated problem area, the interdisciplinary conceptual apparatus of cultural studies seems productive.

New Outlines of Structural Sociology, 1945–70

2019 ◽  
pp. 63-85
Author(s):  
J.P.S. Uberoi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
World View ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Indian Point

This chapter presents a discussion of international intellectual trends in the social sciences, theoretical and empirical studies in India, the question of independence of mind or home rule in intellectual institutions. Following the swarajist project outlined earlier of viewing Europe and its systems of knowledge and practices from an independent Indian point of view, this chapter is in effect a research outline for a new structural sociology in India. We are introduced to structuralism as it exists in the world, its scope and definition and as a methodology for the social sciences. This is followed by the approach to structuralism as scientific theory, method and as philosophical world view. Finally discusses are the principles of structural analysis, structuralism in language, literature and culture, in social structure, with regard to society and the individual, religion, philosophy, politics, sociology and social-anthropology.

scholarly journals Complementary currency systems as a source of endogenous development of localities

2012 ◽  
Vol 50 (No. 10) ◽  
pp. 477-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Zagata
Keyword(s):  
Local Development ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Economic Behavior ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Endogenous Development ◽  
Local Society ◽  
The World ◽  
Complementary Currency

The paper tackles the issue of regional and social development. From a sociological point of view, it focuses on the phenomenon of complementary currency systems. The analysis shows that money, as a social institution, has got certain features, which have an impact on economic behavior of people. Establishing a currency on the local level, which would circulate as a complement of the national currency, brings certain social benefits to local society. Nowadays, there are many complementary currency systems all over the world, including Europe. The paper attempts to answer the question, how they can contribute to the local development.

Puritan Radicalism and the Enlightenment

1960 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 424-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
George L. Mosse
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
World View ◽  
Difficult Problem ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Religious Truth ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The World ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between Christianity and the Enlightenment presents a subtle and difficult problem. No historian has as yet fully answered the important question of how the world view of the eighteenth century is related to that of traditional Christianity. It is certain, however, that the deism of that century rejected traditional Christianity as superstitious and denied Christianity a monopoly upon religious truth. The many formal parallels which can be drawn between Enlightenment and Christianity cannot obscure this fact. From the point of view of historical Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic, the faith of the Enlightenment was blasphemy. It did away with a personal God, it admitted no supernatural above the natural, it denied the relevance of Christ's redemptive task in this world. This essay attempts to discover whether traditional Christian thought itself did not make a contribution to the Enlightenment.

scholarly journals The Influence of Classification on World View and Epistemology

10.28945/3279 ◽  
2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gholamreza Fadaie
Keyword(s):  
Classification Scheme ◽  
World View ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Key Points ◽  
The World ◽  
Static Approach ◽  
Traditional Approaches ◽  
Knowledge Classification

Worldview as a kind of man's look towards the world of reality has a severe influence on his classification of knowledge. In other words one may see in classification of knowledge the unity as well as plurality. This article deals with the fact that how classification takes place in man's epistemological process. Perception and epistemology are mentioned as the key points here. Philosophers are usually classifiers and their point of views forms the way they classify things and concepts. Relationship and how one looks at it in shaping the classification scheme is critical. The classifications which have been introduced up to now have had several models. They represent the kind of looking at, or point of view of their founders to the world. Aristotle, as a philosopher as well as an encyclopedist, is one of the great founders of knowledge classification. Afterwards the Islamic scholars followed him while some few rejected his model and made some new ones. If we divide all classifications according to their roots we may define them as human based classification, theology based classification, knowledge based classification, materialistic based classification such as Britannica's classification, and fact based classification. Tow broad approaches have been defined in this article: static and dynamic. The static approach refers to the traditional approaches and the dynamic one refers to the eight way of looking toward objects in order to realize them. The structure of classification has had its influence on epistemology, too. If the first cut on knowledge tree is fully defined, the branches would usually be consistent with it.

Science and Politics

1951 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 641-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Kelsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Science And Politics ◽  
Essential Function

It is a commonplace to assert that science should be independent of politics. By this one usually means that the search for truth, which is the essential function of science, should not be influenced by political interests, which are the interests concerned with the establishment and maintenance of a definite social order or a particular social institution. Politics as the art of government, that is to say, the practice of regulating the social behavior of men, is a function of will and, as such, an activity which necessarily presupposes the conscious or unconscious assumption of values, the realization of which is the purpose of the activity. Science is a function of cognition; its aim is not to govern but to explain. To describe the world is its object. Its independence of politics means in the last analysis, that the scientist must not presuppose any value; consequently he has to restrict himself to an explanation and a description of his object without judging it as good or bad, i.e., as being in conformity with, or contrary to, a presupposed value. This implies that the statements by which a scientist describes and explains the object of his inquiry must not be influenced by values in which he himself believes.

scholarly journals THE LINGUISTIC PICTURE OF THE WORLD BY V.G. KOROLENKO (BASED ON THE WRITER’S STORIES)

2021 ◽  
pp. 64-69
Author(s):  
H. KOZUB
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
World View ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The Russian Language

The research deals with the concept of «world view». The subject matter of this paper is the Russian language picture of the world presented in the V. G. Korolenko’s stories, or more specifically, the study investigates basic peculiarities of the language picture of the world in two stories by V. G. Korolenko, the «Makar’s Dream» and «Without a Language». The article studies the linguistic worldview of the V. G. Korolenko in the context of the evident changing the realities, which are described in his stories. The author shows how the writer’s worldview changed influenced by the political, historic and cultural events of those days.He shows the Siberian land with its vast expanses, fierce winter, its own unique traditions and laws in the short story «Makar’s Dream». We can clearly see and feel this picture of the world thought the language prism, particularly in its bilingualism, in the lifestyle description, customs, characters of the heroes, etc.Another story «Without a Language» offers us an invaluable opportunity to compare Russian and American language picture of the world. The first one was shown by V. G. Korolenko as the homeland with its well-established, traditional way of life and old religion. And at the same time, the author has depicted America with its specific features, which differs from the Russian language picture of the world. According to his point of view, an American language picture of the world has a range of characteristic that differentiates it from the Russian. It has freedom, civilization, faith, and morals. V. G. Korolenko has skillfully used dialogues, descriptions, analyzes of the main characters, the Ukrainian-Russian bilingualism, foreign language inclusions in Russian speech, etc. In addition to this, some typical structures for both languages were found out which show national identity.It has been appealed to special linguistic methods and techniques, including the comparative historical method for comparing the facts of the modern language and the language of V. G. Korolenko, as well as the comparative method for comparing the Russian, Ukrainian, Yakut and English languages.The paper concludes that language is an integral part of the culture of the people, its basic tool of communication and socialization. It must be noted, that the culture is verbalized in the language. Each language is a unique code, which contains culturally marked information.This study proves the idea of the unbreakable link between language and culture. This is, in our opinion, the main value of the given research.

scholarly journals Ideology and its role in the strategy of modern liberal arts education

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
L.V. Ahmerova
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Education Development ◽  
Quality Of Higher Education ◽  
First Case ◽  
The World ◽  
Russian Education

In this article, the author attempts to consider the role of ideology as the main guide to improving the quality of higher education. According to the author, ideology represents the unity of two ways of seeing the world: abstract-logical and value-regulatory. In the first case, the emphasis is on the objective substance of the world; secondly, on the subjective attitude to it from the point of view of certain meanings, values, culture. No social institution, especially the Institute of Education, is complete without idealizations and ideas. An example of this is the national idea, as an expression of the very specifics of culture. It is based on meanings defined by traditions, customs, values and norms and is the basis for the construction of social existence. This article sees the main purpose of ideology as a sociocultural basis for the strategy of russian education development.

scholarly journals Taste for democracy: A critique of the mechanical paradigm in education

2019 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dion Rüsselbæk Hansen ◽  
Anne M Phelan
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Weak Form ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Strong Form ◽  
Aesthetic Experiences ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Democratic Practices ◽  
Mechanical Logic ◽  
Evidenced Based

In this article we argue for the need to rethink the crisis of democracy both within and beyond education (Toft and Rüsselbæk Hansen, 2017). This crisis can be explained variously, depending on how it is understood and on what basis. From our point of view, and with inspiration from thinkers as Nietzsche, Arendt, Agamben and Rancière, we argue that the crisis of democracy in today’s schools is related in part to the weak form of authority ascribed to certain individual and collective aesthetic experiences. The scientific experience has been assigned a strong form of ‘evidenced based authority’. As a result of a powerful belief that not all forms of experiences, for instance the aesthetical ones, which are not based on a mechanical logic, are worth paying attention to and are of value, scientific experience has gained hegemonic status. Illustrated by several examples, which stem from both Danish and Canadian educational contexts, we show how aesthetic experiences have the potential to revitalize democratic practices and undermine tyrannical regimes of technocracy in education. We recommend that the concept of Bildung (self-cultivation), which is orientated towards vertical (Apollonian) as well as horizontal (Dionysian) transcending processes, must be given renewed attention. Opportunities for students to play with and suspend the social order, even temporarily, are important if students are to experience themselves, others and the world in new ways. By engaging students’ aesthetic sensibilities in multiple ways, playful schools both produce and provoke the dominant social order thereby fostering students’ taste for democracy.

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