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2KNOWLEDGE IN THE SYSTEM OF CULTURE
Abstract
The article looks at correlation of knowledge in different levels, from casual to natural scientific with a general cultural level in society, in the process of decision-making. It shows how scientific and humanitarian knowledge can be liaised. The given formula and scheme substantiate the way of developing an integral worldview.
Keywords
humanitarian and natural science knowledge, factual knowledge, adequate decision,
cultural level, world-human integrity
AUTHOR
Anna Bystrova
PhD in Philosophy, Professor at the chair of Philosophy Siberian Transport University Novosibirsk nananovna38@mail. ru
In one of his works, M. Heidegger noted that at times of disasters there comes the hour for philosophy. The time of philosophy for Heidegger, who was sensitive to semantics, was particularly connected to the notion that this word had meant indigenously: love for wisdom, universal knowledge. It is also worth remembering that the Plato's myth about cave assumed that, ascending from the cave, a wayfarer ascended to knowledge. Just in the same way Dante's travel through the circles of hell and further ascending to the higher spheres was the way to cognition, without which no age can comprehend its culture that actually represents the state of human being. This state must be cognized and is continuously being cognized by itself.
The scientific and technological development levels in the contemporary world is such as any action can cause irreversible consequences for nature, social conditions, human mind and mentality, methods and forms of human co-ex'stence. This is characteristic for both of natural scientific and humanitarian knowledge. In the middle of the 20th century, this idea was categorically stated by Charles Percy Snow as a concept of co-existing of "the two cultures", each unable to be perceived and comprehended by the other. Having dealt with writers and artists, as well as with representatives of the scientific knowledge, the author concluded that they were so alien to each other that no mutual understanding would ever be possible between them. However, I. Prigozhin referred the difference between "the two cultures" to peculiarities of classical stage of science, when physics comprehended the world mainly through dimensional, measurable, sensory perceivable, fixed aspects of thing. Their temporal parameters were comprehended as an abstraction, formally present in the worldview. As for humanitarian knowledge, it had always operated with the notions of the past, present and future, whereas the parameters of space remained prerogative of the worldview, based upon mathematical symbols. In other words, natural scientific and humanitarian knowledge moved towards creating, assimilation and explanation of general worldview in different ways. Thus, the worldview turned out to be specific in every case: in the natural scientific knowledge it tended to be static, predictable, limited by boundaries; in humanitarian knowledge it was dynamic, unpredictable, and boundless. Natural science could not exist without fulfilling a principle of breaking down the world into pieces in the name of more thorough examination of its parts for the following building up of a whole one. An attempt of breaking down humanitarian knowledge into components was also undertaken, which was paradoxcal in terms of neglecting its very meaning. However, the
principal object of every cognition is a human being, who "...in his wholeness is described neither by humanitarian nor natural scientific science, for he is reducible to none of its hypostasis - a body or a spirit. So, similar to the fact that he is not reducible to body or spirit, his reflection of himself as a wholeness is an illusion in the world, where there is only its fragmented description by means of different subjects, not reducible to one another" [1, p.42]. Understanding of humanitarian knowledge as live contemplation, free from logical, so-called "exact" mathematical basis, causes understanding of that as approximate knowledge. It is ignored that no fact can be considered as separate phenomenon. Every fact is surrounded by multiple connections, causality relations, complicated development from probable to factual, from random to logical. The system of humanitarian knowledge accepts "free assumptions" related to the specific character of a subject, which has no ultimate and unique distinctness, and cannot undergo formalization that would exclude any variations. This conceptual variability is closely connected to world outlook aspects of cognition, which is considerably less expressed in scientific knowledge. Although in the 20th century some attempts of measuring the amount of information that art contained were undertaken (A. Moles), no considerable results for understanding its specificity were found. Humanitarian knowledge was still viewed by scientific community as area of "scientific optionality", deprived of desired "exactness", possessing only temporal but no spatial characteristics. Even though the notion of "chronotope", "legal space" of an art work, its economic, social and cultural space (M. Bachtin) was accepted by scientific community and is currently used in theoretical investigations, basic special characteristics of humanitarian science still place it at a special position in the system of scientific process. Meanwhile since the middle of the 20th century a noticeably more holistic trend in universal scientific knowledge development has been growing. This trend first came out in integration of natural science branches and in appearance of a scientific cross disciplinary "problem area". Further on, a "human factor" came about more distinctly in science-intensive technological industrial branches development. Tragic experience of technogenic disasters has shown that no exactness of "exact" knowledge is a safety guarantee for the human society, as the real world has become a world, dependent on the human, the world of the human culture. Science development has demonstrated that so-called "exact" sciences hardly dispose of the declared exactness in cases of hypercomplex systems, which possess a number of elements going to infinity. Besides, for instance, setting a mathematical task presupposes a broad range of assumptions. Reasoning can be built on the basis of "let us suppose that." or "if it is so, then." Thus, the scientific search is once again included into an area of growing entropy, and the worldview complication itself begins to require different methodology and argumentation principles.
Every person who has completed a certain stage of study enters a professional activity area where he or she will have to make certain decisions. The decisions may range from highly specialized to personal. In every case, a decision causes a number of consequences from insignificant changes in subjective existence area to changes that influence a broad social environment. There is practically a linear dependence of a decision result on the initial factual knowledge. The decision adequacy grows with the abundance of factors that organize a worldview, considerably free from any kind of interpolations and extrapolations (possessing a necessary measure of objectivity) and providing a desired wideness of thinking. The world as a totality of phenomena, where a subject has to act is an n-dimensional multitude of factors whose number goes to infinity. Every component of the multitude is connected to a number of other components with various links. Every cognizing subject forms, as we stated above, his or her own subjective knowledge in the n-dimensional world space, simultaneously being subjected by a number of ready structures (family, school, university, scientific knowledge
The more abundant the interaction of the subject with every one multitude, the wider the mental outlook, consequently the broader is the thinking system of every single subject. For decision making process it is necessary to outline a certain sub-multitude of phenomena, covered by a sub-multitude of links which, according to the subject's
reasoning, have some influence on the decision being made. In this case, a quotient of compliance (reliability) of the subject's notion of chosen phenomena, their interconnections and objective value becomes important. Let us review a formula for possibility of making an adequate decision, which was mentioned in our article on innovation thinking.
a
Ô =
Z k
i=1
A
x
y
Z s,
i=1 Y
A is a number of phenomena (factors), objectively necessary for an adequate decision. Y is a number of links, which are necessary to be taken into account for decisionmaking. a and y, respectively, are phenomena (facts) and links, known to the subject; ki si are phenomena and links compliance (reliability) quotients, taken into consideration by the subject for decision making. So we can see that the less the numerator the more inadequate the decision can turn out to be. Consequently, the worldview may turn out to be equally inadequate, with all fallowing effects for both the subject and a certain area of his activity. What is even more considerable is that if the subject had not considered any phenomena due to lack of knowledge or care, the corresponding quotients would equal to zero. Consequently, the rendered decisions may turn out to be disastrous. (Here we should note that the formula is not meant for numerical calculations but serves as a maximally simplified analog illustration for the said above).
So, the ability of making such decisions that come about as an effect of basic conditions of the world existence is based upon an abundant factual experience. It is hardly possible to denote, relying merely on narrow pragmatism, what place in the cumulative worldview that a decision is based on, are occupied by adequate knowledge on astronomy or anatomy, primitive culture and literature, mathematics or history, etc. Acquaintance with culture becomes all the more irrelevant in the knowledge system, although the holistic worldview is presented just there. One thing is obvious and it is that absence of any of those types of knowledge can well bring to a decision, which is potentially dangerous for the humans and the society. It is important to realize that ANY decision making can cause a chain of not so random processes, which we are currently observing. We can say that at present the knowledge level, necessary for decision-making, is also an n-dimensional multitude. Therefore, it may be a logic consumption that any superpower can be ruined without a single gunshot, just by destroying its educational system. This idea multiply increases the responsibility of the education system for permanent reinforcement of the initial factual level of graduates' knowledge, those who will later have to make decisions, which are not supported by knowledge about the objective world or base upon a low level of reliability of information about it, when opinion replaces knowledge.
In the given above formula, other important components like moral, artistic outlook and preferences, various forms of world-view, which are important for decision-making, have not been considered. However, we need to note that interaction between the cognition process and the mentioned world areas demonstrates dependence of cognition area and worldview area, as it is hardly possible to work out a scientifically proximate worldview, without expanding the area of relations between men with the world. We present a following diagram, based on the idea of prof. N. Chupahin (2), which
demonstrates that development from cognition of a single phenomenon to practical activity goes in spiral movement:
^orld-vte^
The given diagram shows that there is a world-perception behind a phenomenon, which is supported by exact sensory relations with the world. Then it moves on to the logic area that develops a world-conception. Seeking a system of effecting the environment and its holistic cognition (methodology) shapes a worldview, and practical activity leads to world assimilation. The spiral is unlimited as the world is changing and the human cognition is boundless. On the other hand, if practice limits people's relations with the world to narrow area of forces application, the worldview may turn out to have a certain degree of defectiveness. The worldview would narrow down to such a minimum that would allow neither sense forming as innovative activity, nor comprehension of existing senses. Within a short period, it is possible to establish only particular phenomena, so the destructive process of "reverse development" will be completed. Consequently, the spiral can be directed both along constructive and distractive ways.
As the modern world cannot free men from narrowly specialized activities, the only way out of such contradictions is initial knowledge base extension, connected to both factual aspect of reality and understanding of as more links and relations as possible. There cannot be any "redundant" knowledge in this process! Similarly, lowering requirements to world comprehension is out of the question.
The contents of the knowledge itself tends to be defined not only by an object or a subject, but also by a complicated character of their interactions and, consequently, their cultural level. On the other hand, culture as a state of a human being turned out to be the knowledge level that is based on the whole structure of a universal world-human integrity. The knowledge culture currently assumes ability to permanently give up the past worldview for building a new one, and give up a past knowledge for obtaining some new knowledge. Consequently, at present, as in Socrates times, the most important knowledge area is "knowing about not-knowing" , which presumes ability to see boundaries of cognized knowledge, therefore, trends and prospects for reality transformation, and work out a relevant strategy. In this regard, it is philosophy that must play a substantial part in comprehending and correlating all kinds and forms of cognition, including those in professional areas.
REFERENCES
1. Savchuk, V.V. (1991) "Deanthropologization of humanitarian knowledge", Humanitarian knowledge: essence and functions, Interuniversity Digest, SPb.
2. Chupahin, N.P. (2008) "Sense formation in the structural system of scientific knowledge", Systems and models: boundaries of interpretation. Russian Scientific Conference Digest, Moscow - Tomsk, 5-7 Nov 2008, Tomsk State Pedagogical University Publishing, Pp. 350-368.
