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PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES
The problem of the place of philosophy in the structure of scientific
knowledge revisited Andreeva O. (Russian Federation) Еще раз о месте философии в структуре научного знания Андреева О. С. (Российская Федерация)
Андреева Ольга Сергеевна /Andreeva Olga - ассистент, кафедра социологии и политологии, социологический факультет, Самарский национальный исследовательский университет им. академика С. П. Королева, г. Самара
Abstract: the article analyses the problem of the place of philosophy in the structure of scientific knowledge and resumes that philosophy is not a science in the strict sense, but it has a particular status in the structure of scientific knowledge because it performs important methodological functions for science.
Аннотация: в статье рассматривается проблема места философии в структуре научного знания, делается вывод о том, что, не являясь наукой в строгом смысле слова, философия имеет особый статус в системе научного знания, выполняя по отношению к науке важные методологические функции.
Keywords: philosophy as a science, classifications of sciences, criteria of science, functions of philosophy.
Ключевые слова: философия как наука, классификации наук, критерии научности, функции философии.
We revisit the issue quite arguable and discussed many times: theory of science as well as a common sense continue debating the problem about the role and place of philosophy in the structure of scientific knowledge. Despite of the fact that philosophy historically became the first form of theoretical comprehension of reality and considered «the queen of sciences» for a long time, this problem becomes a subject for discussion again and again and there are evident reasons for it which will be considered below.
However, to approach the problem of the place of philosophy in the structure of scientific knowledge we should recall what constitution has the scientific knowledge system, i. e. what classifications and types of sciences do we know?
The very general classification of science distinguishes real and formal sciences. The real sciences deal with and research the particular objects of reality (matter, organisms, society etc.), when the formal sciences are the ones about structure, e.g. mathematics or logic [3, p. 12].
The real sciences also differ in their subject and methods. This difference was comprehended at the end of 19th century for the first time, when on the one hand the ideals of positive science became to assert themselves, on the other hand the evident fact, that by no means all of the sciences satisfy the requirements of positivism, was understood.
Wilhelm Dilthey was among the first who admitted that human sciences could not accept a challenge of positivism. He did put forward the thesis that natural sciences and human sciences («Geisteswissenschaft» in German, what literally means «science of the mind» or «spiritual knowledge») are based on widely different methods. The method of the human sciences in his opinion is understanding and comprehension («the Verstehen method») in contrast with the natural sciences, which observe and explain nature [2].
Human sciences in general split up into two parts: humanities and social sciences. The division between them depends on a criterion defined by Wilhelm Windelband, when he separated all the sciences into two groups of idiographic and nomothetic sciences by the method they are based on. So humanities (which are based on idiographic, i. e. descriptive method) study uniqueness and
individuality, when social sciences use nomothetic method and are focused on regularities in society existence and functioning [6].
Well, what can we conclude about the place of philosophy in the structure of scientific knowledge? Above mentioned classification of sciences primarily is based on a criterion of the subject of science. But we know that subject of philosophy is universe as a whole, so that this classification turns irrelevant for it.
Should we consider philosophy as a science? There is a very common opinion that it is not a science, but a kind of worldview, because it does not satisfy the most definitions and criteria of science.
The most important criterion of science is verification of knowledge, which supposes that the knowledge is based on empirical data. But philosophy is highly theoretical kind of knowledge, its main method is not generalization of empirical data but transcendence, when experience is used as exemplification only.
The second criterion of science, connected with the previous one, was defined by Karl Raimund Popper. It is falsifiability, i. e. the ability to be disproved on the base of experience [4]. But we know that practically it is impossible for philosophy and theoretically various philosophical conceptions do not challenge, but amplify and complement one another.
The third important criterion is objectivity principle. It supposes that the subjective position of a researcher must be excluded from the knowledge he produces. But we had to acknowledge that not only philosophy, where every system of philosophy represents the author worldview, but the most of human sciences do not satisfy this requirement.
The next criterion also inaccessible for the most human sciences and philosophy is predictive capability and applicability of knowledge.
And the most general criterion of science is its systematic character [5, p. 138]. But even this requirement philosophy relatively fulfills, because it does not constitute systematic body of knowledge in itself, but is a corpus of distinct conceptions developed by various authors, that causes the absence of consistent system of philosophical categories.
Of course philosophy definitely produces new knowledge as other sciences, but this knowledge is speculative and highly theoretical, it can be neither verified or falsified nor applied practically, this knowledge is subjective by its nature and represents by itself the collection of separate conceptions. Thus in a strict sense philosophy does not stand up to any criticism to be considered as a science.
But at the same time philosophy stays among university courses, it is a subject on that books are written and theses are defended. Academic community evidently let philosophers in its commonwealth but hardly because of respect to the oldest of sciences.
We should probably conclude a special status and role of philosophy in relation to the scientific knowledge. In our opinion philosophy performs two very important functions for science. The first one is methodological function, when observing new unexplored spheres of reality it puts forward hypotheses concerning the way how it could be explored and tries to develop conceptual framework and categorical system for it. Philosophy creates concepts - especial models of possible interpretations of reality [2]. As soos as the model begins to work, this area of reality becomes a subject of a particular science. As we remember originally philosophy was the knowledge about the world as a whole - it discussed such subjects as matter, life, psyche, society etc., but with the growth and development of knowledge this problems were gradually going beyond the frame of philosophy and became the subjects of physics, biology, psychology, sociology and so on. Thus, with the development of sciences philosophy was progressively losing its original subject and transferring it to the particular sciences. All these processes led to that now philosophy feels itself waste and empty and due to that many authors state its crisis.
The second important function of philosophy in relation to the science is an integrative function. It tries to generalize the achievements of the particular sciences and is aimed at scientific worldview formation of a human to help him to comprehend his place in the universe. That is why philosophy often called a kind of worldview. Thus, philosophy operates at the initial and terminative stages of science knowledge formation, hypothesizing and integrating its results.
References
1. Deleuze G., Guattari F. Qu'est-ce que la philosophie? P.: Minuit, 1991. 208 p.
2. Dilthey W. Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften. Versuch einer Grundlegung für das Studium der Gesellschaft und der Geschichte. Bd. 1. Leipzig: Verlag von Duncker & Humblot, 1883. 543 s.
3. Hofmeister H. Philosophisch denken. Stuttgart: UTB., 1997. 462 s.
4. Popper K. R. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. L-NY: Routledge, 2002. 608 p.
5. Whitehead A. N. Science and Philosophy // Whitehead A. N. Science and the Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. P. 128-149.
6. Windelband W. Die Geschichte der neueren Philosophie in ihrem Zusammenhange mit der allgemeinen Cultur und den besonderen Wissenschaften. Leipzig: Druck und Verlag von Breitkopf und Härtel. Bd. 1, 1878. 578 s.
