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Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan
International Educational Corporation
Kazakh Head Academy of Architecture and Civil Engineering
on the topic: History of Eastern pre-science
Almaty 2016
Features of ancient Eastern pre-science
Science as such is preceded by pre-science (pre-classical stage), where the elements (prerequisites) of science are born. This refers to the beginnings of knowledge in the Ancient East, Greece and Rome.
The formation of pre-science in the Ancient East. The formation of the phenomenon of science was preceded by a long, many-thousand-year stage of accumulation of the simplest, pre-scientific forms of knowledge. Emergence ancient civilizations East (Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China), expressed in the emergence of states, cities, writing, etc., contributed to the accumulation of significant reserves of medical, astronomical, mathematical, agricultural, hydraulic, and construction knowledge. The needs of navigation (sea navigation) stimulated the development of astronomical observations, the needs of treating people and animals - ancient medicine and veterinary medicine, the needs of trade, navigation, restoration of land after river floods - the development of mathematical knowledge, etc.
Science appears in countries Ancient East(during the Axial Age): in Egypt, Babylon, India, China. Here empirical knowledge about nature and society is accumulated and comprehended, the rudiments of astronomy, mathematics, ethics, and logic arise.
The production of ideas, ideas, consciousness was initially directly woven into material activity and into the material communication of people, into the language of real life.
Initial knowledge was practical in nature, serving as methodological guidelines for specific types of human activity. In the countries of the Ancient East (Babylonia, Egypt, India, China) it was accumulated significant amount this kind of knowledge that formed an important prerequisite for future science.
The features of ancient Eastern pre-science were:
1. direct interweaving and subordination to practical needs (the art of measurement and counting - mathematics, compiling calendars and serving religious cults - astronomy, technical improvements in tools of production and construction - mechanics, etc.);
2. prescription (instrumentality) of “scientific” knowledge;
3. inductive nature;
4. fragmentation of knowledge;
5. the empirical nature of its origin and justification;
6. casteism and closedness of the scientific community, the authority of the subject - the bearer of knowledge
There is an opinion that pre-scientific knowledge has no relation to science, since it operates with abstract concepts.
Development Agriculture stimulated the development of agricultural machinery (mills, for example). Irrigation work required knowledge of practical hydraulics. Climatic conditions required the development of an accurate calendar. Construction required knowledge in the fields of geometry, mechanics, and materials science. The development of trade, navigation and military affairs contributed to the development of weapons, ship building techniques, astronomy, etc.
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The countries of the ancient East were the birthplace of modern human culture. Several thousand years BC. e. in Mesopotamia, India, China, Egypt, large slave states arose in river valleys and on the sea coast. On the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia, the Nile in Egypt, the Indus and Ganges in India, and the Yellow River in China, dams were erected, canals were dug, and reservoirs were built. Communal and state ownership of land arose early here, which determined the special nature of production, which Marx called Asian. The despot king and the priestly aristocracy controlled vast amounts of land and masses of people. They erected palaces, temples, colossal monuments like the Egyptian pyramids, which absorbed a huge amount of human labor. The needs of governing the country and trade led to the development of writing (hieroglyphs, cuneiform), which arose from the drawings and patterns of the primitive era, which was simplified by the ancient Phoenicians into an alphabetic script that became the basis of modern European alphabets. The ancient Sumerians (Mesopotamia) developed writing already at the beginning of the 4th millennium BC. e. It was in the nature of miniature pictures (pictography), which over time, due to the need for quick records, were simplified into cuneiform. The writing material was clay tablets on which signs were extruded. With the development of Babylonian trade, this writing spread throughout Western Asia, and, as already mentioned, the Phoenicians, who needed a simple and convenient form of recording for their trade relations, were in the 13th century. BC e. converted to alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet was greatly influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphic writing; the Phoenician alphabet consisted of 22 alphabetic characters. From it the ancient Greek alphabet later arose. Writing served primarily governmental and religious purposes, and was also used in trade transactions. At the same time, it contributed to the preservation of the rudiments of scientific knowledge and the emergence of schools (Egypt, China).
Already among agricultural and pastoral peoples the first astronomical ideas were formed. In ancient Babylon, Egypt, India and China, systematic astronomical observations were carried out. These observations were carried out on special platforms located on the roofs of temple towers, and were carried out with such precision that they made it possible to establish the phenomenon of the anticipation of the equinoxes (Babylon). Babylonian priests knew five planets, determined their orbits, and distributed the stars into constellations. They established the apparent annual path of the Sun (ecliptic) and divided it into twelve parts (zodiac constellations). They found a way to pre-calculate eclipses and established a calendar. Time according to the Babylonian calendar was divided into days, moon month and a year of 364 days. The day was divided into three watches of the day and three watches of the night, starting at sunset. At the same time, there was also a division of the day into 12 hours containing 360 minutes. This division is based on the following method of measuring time. At the moment when the upper edge of the sun appeared above the horizon, a hole in the vessel was opened, the water in which was maintained at a certain level, and the water from this vessel was poured into a special small vessel. When the lower edge of the sun appeared, the small vessel was set aside and replaced by a large one, into which water was collected until sunset. The “step” of the sun was determined by the ratio of the weight of water in a large vessel to its weight in a small vessel. From here arose the degree measure of angles, which originated from Babylonia, along with the sexagesimal notation system. It is very significant that the Babylonians made an attempt to establish a system of measures, and the unit of time was apparently related to the unit of weight, which was equal to the weight of water in a cube, the side of which was one-tenth the length of a double cubit. The cubit represented a length of about 49.5-49.8 cm. The unit of weight was called mina and was about a kilogram; 60 minutes was the Babylonian talent.
Egyptian priests conducted systematic observations of the sky. Star maps are preserved on the ceilings of Egyptian tombs and temples. Time at night was determined using astronomical observations, during the day - using sun and water clocks. The Egyptian year was divided into 12 months, 30 days each, to which five holidays were added at the end of the year.
Together with astronomy, mathematics also developed, especially geometry, which has important to determine the area of land plots.
Astronomy reached a high level in ancient India. From Hindu astronomical treatises dating back to the 6th century. BC e., it is clear that the Hindus knew about the rotation of the Earth around its axis and that the moon shines by reflected sunlight. Astronomical observations have been carried out in China since ancient times. In the Chinese chronicle Cheu Pei, dating back to the 11th century. BC e., the determination of the length of the shadow of a pole during summer and winter solstice, which made it possible to compare the change in the height of the sun above the horizon (gnomon).
In 611 BC. e. a comet was recorded in the Ursa Major region. At the same time, five planets were known and the length of the year was 365 1/4 days. In the 4th century. BC e. Chinese astronomer Shi Shen compiled a star catalog containing 800 stars. In chronicles dating back to the 3rd century. BC e., a compass is mentioned. A copper compass plate dating back to the 1st century has been preserved. BC e., with a pointer made of a natural magnet, processed in the form of a spoon (Fig. 1a).
Thus, in the countries of the ancient East, natural science knowledge, primarily astronomy and mathematics, received a fairly high development. However, this knowledge was monopolized by the priests, and general idea about the world remained unscientific. The first attempts at a natural explanation of the world already relate to the highly developed slave system ancient Greece. Greek slave-owning democracy represented the highest type of slave-owning state, and it was in Greece that the science, literature and art of antiquity reached their greatest flowering.
3.1. Pre-science of the Ancient East. Scientific knowledge of Antiquity.
1. It is necessary to recognize that the eastern civilization (Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China), which was the most developed at that time (before the 6th century BC) in agrarian, craft, military, and trade terms, developed certain knowledge.
River floods and the need for quantitative estimates of flooded land areas stimulated the development of geometry, active trade, craft, and construction activities determined the development of calculation and counting techniques; maritime affairs, worship contributed to the formation of “star science,” etc. Thus, the eastern civilization had knowledge that was accumulated, stored, and passed on from generation to generation, which allowed them to optimally organize their activities. However, as noted, the fact of having some knowledge does not in itself constitute science. Science is defined by purposeful activity to develop and produce new knowledge. Did this kind of activity take place in the Ancient East?
Knowledge in the most precise sense was developed here through popular inductive generalizations of direct practical experience and circulated in society according to the principle of hereditary professionalism: a) transfer of knowledge within the family during the child’s assimilation of the activity skills of elders; b) the transfer of knowledge that is qualified as coming from God, the patron saint of a given profession, within the framework of a professional association of people (guild, caste), in the course of their self-expansion. The processes of change in knowledge occurred spontaneously in the Ancient East; there was no critical-reflective activity to assess the genesis of knowledge - the acceptance of knowledge was carried out on an unproven passive basis through the “forcible” inclusion of a person in social activities on a professional basis; there was no intention for falsification, critical updating of existing knowledge; knowledge functioned as a set ready-made recipes activity, which resulted from its narrowly utilitarian, practical-technological nature.
2. A feature of ancient Eastern science is the lack of fundamentality. Science, as indicated, does not represent the activity of developing recipe-technological schemes and recommendations, but a self-sufficient activity of analysis and development of theoretical issues - “knowledge for the sake of knowledge.” Ancient Eastern science is focused on solving applied problems. Even astronomy, seemingly not a practical activity, in Babylon functioned as an applied art, serving either cultic (times of sacrifices are tied to the periodicity of celestial phenomena - phases of the Moon, etc.) or astrological (identification of favorable and unfavorable conditions for dispatch of current policy, etc.) activities. While, say, in Ancient Greece, astronomy was understood not as a calculation technique, but as a theoretical science about the structure of the Universe as a whole.
3. Ancient Eastern science in the full sense of the word was not rational. The reasons for this were largely determined by the nature of the socio-political structure of the ancient Eastern countries. In China, for example, the strict stratification of society, the lack of democracy, the equality of all before a single civil law, etc. led to a “natural hierarchy” of people, where the governors of heaven (rulers), perfect men (“noble” - tribal aristocracy, state bureaucracy), tribal community members (common people). In the countries of the Middle East, the forms of statehood were either outright despotism or hierocracy, which meant the absence of democratic institutions.
Anti-democracy in public life could not but affect intellectual life, which was also anti-democratic. The palm of primacy, the right to a decisive vote, preference was given not to rational argumentation and intersubjective evidence (however, as such they could not have developed against such a social background), but to public authority, according to which it was not the free citizen who defended the truth from the standpoint of existence who was right grounds, but a hereditary aristocrat, a person in power. The absence of prerequisites for a generally valid justification, evidence of knowledge (the reason for this was the “professional-nominal” rules for connecting a person to social activities, the antidemocratic social structure), on the one hand, and the mechanisms of accumulation and transmission of knowledge accepted in ancient Eastern society, on the other, ultimately led to his fetishization. The subjects of knowledge, or people who, due to their social status, represented “learning,” were priests released from material production and who had sufficient educational qualifications for intellectual pursuits. Knowledge, although having an empirical-practical genesis, remaining rationally unfounded, being in the bosom of esoteric priestly science, sanctified by the divine name, turned into an object of worship, a sacrament. Thus, the absence of democracy and the resulting priestly monopoly on science determined its irrational, dogmatic character in the Ancient East, essentially turning science into a kind of semi-mystical, sacred activity, a sacred rite.
4. Solving problems “in relation to the case”, performing calculations that were of a particular non-theoretical nature, deprived ancient Eastern science of systematicity. The successes of ancient Eastern thought, as indicated, were significant. The ancient mathematicians of Egypt and Babylon knew how to solve problems on “equations of the first and second degree, on the equality and similarity of triangles, on arithmetic and geometric progression, on determining the areas of triangles and quadrilaterals, the volume of parallelepipeds,”1 they also knew the formulas for the volume of a cylinder, cone, pyramids, truncated pyramids, etc. The Babylonians used multiplication tables, reciprocals, squares, cubes, solutions to equations like x cubed + x squared = N, etc.
However, there is no evidence in the ancient Babylonian texts to justify the use of this or that technique, the need to calculate the required values in exactly this way and not otherwise.
The attention of ancient Eastern scientists was concentrated on a particular practical problem, from which there was no bridge to a theoretical consideration of the subject in general view. Since the search, aimed at finding practical recipes, “how to act in a situation of this kind,” did not involve the identification of universal evidence, the basis for the corresponding decisions was a professional secret, bringing science closer to a magical act. For example, the origin of the rule about “the square of sixteen-ninths, which, according to one eighteenth dynasty papyrus, represents the ratio of circumference to diameter” is not clear.
In addition, the lack of a demonstrative consideration of the subject in a general form made it impossible to derive the necessary information about it, for example, about the properties of the same geometric figures. This is probably why eastern scientists and scribes are forced to rely on cumbersome tables (coefficients, etc.), which made it easier to resolve one or another specific task for an unanalyzed typical case.
Consequently, if we proceed from the fact that each of the features of the epistemological standard of science is necessary, and their totality is sufficient to specify science as an element of the superstructure, a special type of rationality, it can be argued that science in this understanding did not develop in the Ancient East. Because, although we know extremely little about ancient Eastern culture, there is no doubt about the fundamental incompatibility of the properties of the science discovered here with the standard ones. In other words, the ancient Eastern culture, the ancient Eastern consciousness has not yet developed such methods of cognition that rely on discursive reasoning, and not on recipes, dogmas or prophecies, presuppose democracy in the discussion of issues, carry out discussions from the position of the strength of rational foundations, and not from the position of the strength of social and theological prejudices, recognize justification, not revelation, as the guarantor of truth.
Taking this into account, our final value judgment is as follows: the historical type of cognitive activity (and knowledge) that developed in the Ancient East corresponds to the pre-scientific stage of development of intelligence and is not yet scientific.
Antiquity. The process of formalization of science in Greece can be reconstructed as follows. Regarding the emergence of mathematics, it should be said that at first it was no different from ancient Eastern mathematics. Arithmetic and geometry functioned as a set of technical techniques in land surveying practice, falling under techne. These techniques “were so simple that they could be transmitted orally”1. In other words, in Greece, as in the Ancient East, they did not have: 1) detailed textual design, 2) strict rational and logical justification. To become a science, they had to have both. When did it happen?
Historians of science have different assumptions on this matter. There is an assumption that he did this in the 6th century. BC e. Thales. Another point of view boils down to the assertion that Democritus and others did this a little later. However, the actual factual side of the matter is not so important for us. It is important for us to emphasize that this happened in Greece, and not, say, in Egypt, where there was a verbal transmission of knowledge from generation to generation, and geometers acted as practitioners, not theorists (in Greek they were called arpedonaptes, i.e. tying a rope). Consequently, in the matter of formalizing mathematics in texts in the form of a theoretical-logical system, it is necessary to emphasize the role of Thales and, possibly, Democritus. Speaking about this, of course, we cannot ignore the Pythagoreans, who developed mathematical concepts on a textual basis as purely abstract, as well as the Eleatics, who for the first time introduced into mathematics the previously not accepted demarcation of the sensible from the intelligible. Parmenides “established as a necessary condition of his existence conceivability. Zeno denied that points, and therefore lines and surfaces, are things that exist in reality, but these things are highly conceivable. So, from now on, a final distinction has been made between the geometric and physical points of view.”1 All this formed the foundation for the development of mathematics as a theoretical-rational science, and not an empirical-sensual art.
The next point, extremely important for reconstructing the emergence of mathematics, is the development of the theory of proof. Here we should emphasize the role of Zeno, who contributed to the formalization of the theory of evidence, in particular, through the development of the apparatus of proof “by contradiction,” as well as Aristotle, who carried out a global synthesis of well-known methods of logical proof and generalized them into a regulatory canon of research, to which all scientific, including mathematical cognition.
Thus, the initially unscientific, no different from the ancient Eastern, empirical mathematical knowledge of the ancient Greeks, being rationalized, subjected to theoretical processing, logical systematization, deductivization, turned into science.
Let us characterize the ancient Greek natural science - physics. The Greeks knew numerous experimental data, which formed the subject of study in subsequent natural sciences. The Greeks discovered the “attractive” features of rubbed amber, magnetic stones, the phenomenon of refraction in liquid media, etc. However, experimental natural science did not arise in Greece. Why? Due to the features of the superstructure and social relations that dominated in antiquity. Starting from the above, we can say: the experienced, experimental type of knowledge was alien to the Greeks due to: 1) the undivided dominance of contemplation; 2) idiosyncrasy towards individual “insignificant” concrete actions, considered unworthy of intellectuals - free citizens of democratic cities and unsuitable for understanding the world’s whole, which is indivisible into parts.
It is not by chance that the Greek word “physics” is put in quotation marks in modern studies on the history of science, because the physics of the Greeks is something completely different from the modern natural science discipline. For the Greeks, physics is “the science of nature as a whole, but not in the sense of our natural science.” Physics was a science of nature that included knowledge not through “testing,” but through a speculative understanding of the origin and essence of the natural world as a whole. In essence it was a contemplative science, very similar to later natural philosophy, which used the method of speculation.
The efforts of ancient physicists were aimed at searching for the fundamental principle (substance) of existence - arche - and its elements, elements - stoichenon.
For such, Thales took water, Anaximenes - air, Anaximander - apeiron, Pythagoras - number, Parmenides - the “form” of being, Heraclitus - fire, Anaxagoras - homeomerism, Democritus - atoms, Empedocles - roots, etc. Physicists, therefore, there were all the pre-Socratics, as well as Plato, who developed the theory of ideas, and Aristotle, who approved the doctrine of hylomorphism. In all these, from a modern point of view, naive, unspecialized theories of the genesis and structure of nature, the latter appears as a holistic, syncretic, indivisible object, given in living contemplation. Therefore, it is not surprising that the only suitable form of theoretical development of this kind of object could be speculative speculation.
We have to answer two questions: what are the prerequisites for the emergence of a complex of natural scientific concepts in antiquity and what are the reasons that determined their particular epistemological character?
The prerequisites for the emergence of the complex of natural science concepts described above in antiquity include the following. Firstly, the idea of nature, which was established during the fight against anthropomorphism (Xenophanes and others), as a certain naturally occurring (we do not dare to say “natural-historical”) formation, having a basis in itself, and not in the themis or nomos (i.e. i.e. in divine or human law). The significance of eliminating the elements of anthropomorphism from knowledge lies in the delimitation of the area of objectively necessary and subjectively arbitrary. This, both epistemologically and organizationally, made it possible to appropriately normalize knowledge, orient it towards very specific values and, in any case, not allow the possibility of a situation where a mirage and a reliable fact, a fantasy and the result of a strictly research were fused together.
Secondly, the rooting of the idea of “ontological non-relativity” of being, which was a consequence of criticism of the naively empirical worldview of constant change. The philosophical and theoretical version of this worldview was developed by Heraclitus, who adopted the concept of becoming as the central concept of his system.
The opposition “knowledge - opinion”, which constitutes the essence of the Eleatic antithetics, projected onto the ontological complex of issues, leads to the substantiation of the duality of being, which is composed of an unchanging, non-becoming basis, representing the subject of knowledge, and a mobile empirical appearance, acting as the subject of sensory perception and / opinion (according to Parmenides, there is being, but there is no non-being, as with Heraclitus; there is actually no transition of being into non-being, for what is is and can be known). Therefore, the foundation of Parmenides’ ontology, unlike Heraclitus, is the law of identity, and not the law of struggle and mutual transitions, which he accepted for purely epistemological reasons.
Parmenides’ views were shared by Plato, who distinguished between the world of knowledge, correlated with the realm of invariant ideas, and the world of opinion, correlated with sensibility, which captures the “natural flow” of existence.
The results of a lengthy debate, in which almost all representatives of ancient philosophy took part, were summarized by Aristotle, who, developing the theory of science, summed up: the object of science must be stable and of a general nature, while sensory objects do not have these properties; Thus, the demand for a special object, separate from sensory things, is put forward.
The idea of an intelligible object, not subject to momentary changes, was essential from an epistemological point of view, laying the foundations for the possibility of natural scientific knowledge.
Thirdly, the formation of a view of the world as an interconnected whole, penetrating everything that exists and accessible to supersensible contemplation. For the prospects for the formation of science, this circumstance had significant epistemological significance. First of all, it contributed to the establishment of such a fundamental principle for science as causation, on the fixation of which science is, in fact, based. In addition, by stipulating the abstract and systematic nature of potential conceptualizations of the world, it stimulated the emergence of such an integral attribute of science as theoreticality, or even theoreticality, that is, logically based thinking using a conceptual-categorical arsenal.
These, in the most concise form, are the prerequisites for the emergence in the era of antiquity of a complex of natural scientific concepts, which acted only as a prototype of the future natural science, but in themselves were not yet it. Listing the reasons for this, we point out the following.
1. An essential prerequisite for the emergence of natural science in Antiquity, as indicated, was the struggle against anthropomorphism, which culminated in the formulation of the arche program, i.e., the search for a natural monistic basis of nature. This program, of course, contributed to the establishment of the concept of natural law. However, it hindered him due to its factual vagueness and taking into account the equality of numerous contenders - the elements for the role arche. Here the principle of insufficient foundation was at work, which did not allow the unification of the known “fundamental” elements, not allowing us to develop the concept of a single principle of generation (from the perspective of law). Thus, although in comparison with the systems of theogony, in this respect rather disorderly and only outlining a tendency towards monism, the “physiological” doctrines of the Presocratics are monistic, monism from its, so to speak, factual side was not global. In other words, although the Greeks were monists within individual physical theories, they could not organize a picture of ontologically uniform (monistically) emerging and changing reality. At the level of culture as a whole, the Greeks were not physical monists, which, as indicated, prevented the formulation of concepts of universal natural laws, without which natural science as a science could not arise.
2. The absence of scientific natural science in the era of Antiquity was due to the impossibility of using the apparatus of mathematics within the framework of physics, since, according to Aristotle, physics and mathematics are different sciences related to different subjects, between which there is no common point contact. Aristotle defined mathematics as the science of the motionless, and physics as the science of moving being. The first was quite strict, but the second, by definition, could not claim to be strict - this explained their incompatibility. As Aristotle wrote, “mathematical accuracy should not be required for all objects, but only for intangible ones. That is why this method is not suitable for one who talks about nature, for all nature, one might say, is material.”1 Not being merged with mathematics, devoid of quantitative research methods, physics functioned in antiquity as a contradictory alloy of actually two types of knowledge. One of them - theoretical natural science, natural philosophy - was the science of the necessary, universal, essential in being, using the method of abstract speculation. The other - a naively empirical system of qualitative knowledge about being - in the strict sense of the word was not even a science, since from the point of view of the epistemological principles of antiquity, a science about the random, given in the perception of being could not exist. Naturally, the impossibility of introducing precise quantitative formulations into the context of both deprived them of certainty and rigor, without which natural science as a science could not take shape.
3. Undoubtedly, in Antiquity, separate empirical studies were carried out, examples of which could be determining the size of the Earth (Eratosthenes), measuring the visible disk of the Sun (Archimedes), calculating the distance from the Earth to the Moon (Hipparchus, Posidonius, Ptolemy), etc. However, Antiquity did not know the experiment as “artificial perception” natural phenomena, in which side and insignificant effects are eliminated and which aims to confirm or refute this or that theoretical assumption.”
This was explained by the lack of social sanctions on the material activities of free citizens. Respectable, social meaningful knowledge there could only be one that was “impractical”, removed from work activity. Genuine knowledge, being universal, apodictic, did not depend on any side, did not come into contact with the fact, either epistemologically or socially. Based on the above, it is obvious that scientific natural science as a factually (experimentally) substantiated set of theories could not be formed.
The natural science of the Greeks was abstract and explanatory, devoid of an active, creative component. There was no place here for experiment as a way of influencing an object by artificial means in order to clarify the content of accepted abstract models of objects.
To formulate natural science as a science, the skills of ideal modeling of reality alone are not enough. In addition, it is necessary to develop a technique for identifying idealization with the subject area. This means that “from the opposition of idealized constructions to sensory concreteness it was necessary to move on to their synthesis.”
And this could only happen in a different sociality, on the basis of socio-political, ideological, axiological and other guidelines for mental activity that were different from those existing in Ancient Greece.
At the same time, there is no doubt about the fact that science was formed precisely in the bosom of ancient culture. In other words, the ancient Eastern branch of science turned out to be unpromising during the development of civilization. Is this conclusion final? For us - yes. However, this does not mean that other opinions are impossible.
The ancient stage of syncretic coexistence of philosophy and science nevertheless outlines the prerequisites for their differentiation. The objective logic of collecting, systematizing, conceptualizing factual material, reflection on the eternal problems of existence (life, death, human nature, his purpose in the world, the individual in the face of the secrets of the Universe, the potential of cognitive thought, etc.) stimulate the isolation of disciplinary, genre, and linguistic systems philosophy and science.
In science, mathematics, natural science, and history are autonomous.
In philosophy, ontology, ethics, aesthetics, and logic are strengthened.
Starting, perhaps, with Aristotle, philosophical language moves away from everyday colloquial and scientific speech, is enriched with a wide range of technical terms, and becomes a professional dialect, a codified vocabulary. Then there are borrowings from Hellenistic culture, and Latin influence is felt. The expressive base of philosophy that developed in Antiquity will form the basis of various philosophical schools in the future.
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Questions
For the minimum candidate exam for the course “History and Philosophy of Science”
Compiled by O.V. Korkunova, Yu.N. Tundykov
| Page | ||
| 1. | Knowledge and cognition (pre-science) in archaic cultures and early civilizations……. | |
| 2. | Pre-science and philosophy of knowledge in the ancient world (pre-classical period)………... | |
| 3. | Pre-science and philosophy of knowledge in the ancient world (classical period)…………... | |
| 4. | Pre-science in the period of Hellenism and Rome……………………………………………………… | |
| 5. | Pre-science and philosophy of knowledge in the Middle Ages……………………………………………………….. | |
| 6. | The Renaissance as the eve of the formation of classical science………………………. | |
| 7. | Worldview concepts of pantheism and deism and their significance for the formation of a scientific picture of the world (in the philosophy of N. Cusansky, B. Spinoza, D. Bruno and other thinkers and other French educators of the 18th century)…………………………….. . | |
| 8. | Philosophy of knowledge of F. Bacon and its significance for the transformation of pre-science into science, the formation of a scientific picture of the world………………………………………………………….. | |
| 9. | The philosophy of knowledge of R. Descartes and its significance for the transformation of pre-science into science..... | |
| 10. | The formation of classical science (17th century)…………………………………………………………………… | |
| 11. | Development of natural science in the 17th-19th centuries………………………………………………………. | |
| 12. | Natural philosophy as a predecessor and antipode scientific knowledge about nature. Predestination of natural philosophy (19th century)………………………………………………………………. | |
| 13. | Achievements of social and humanitarian knowledge in the 17th-19th centuries…………………………… | |
| 14. | Philosophy of knowledge and Kant and its significance for the development of science in the 18th-19th centuries……………….. | |
| 15. | Hegel’s system and method and their significance for the development of science in the 19th century…………………….. | |
| 16. | The formation of non-classical science (second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries)……………….. | |
| 17. | Non-classical and post-non-classical science in the 20th century……………………………………... | |
| 18. | The formation of Russian science and Russian philosophy……………………………………………………… | |
| 19. | Russian science at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century………………………………………………………. | |
| 20. | Features of professional work in science. Social responsibility of a scientist and engineer…………………………………………………………………………………... | |
| 21. | Professional ethics scientist………………………………………………………. | |
| 22. | Science as a cognitive activity……………………………………………………………... | |
| 23. | Science as a social institution……………………………………………………………………………… | |
| 24. | Science as a special sphere of culture………………………………………………………. | |
| 25. | The contribution of positivism to the development of the philosophy of science……………………………………. | |
| 26. | The problem of experience and truth in the philosophy of science of the early 20th century (Mach, Avinarius, Poincaré)……………………………………………………………………………………………. . | |
| 27. | The contribution of neopositivism to the development of logic and methodology of science………………………... | |
| 28. | The concept of the philosophy of science by T. Kuhn……………………………………………………… | |
| 29. | The concept of the philosophy of science by K. Popper…………………………………………………………………… | |
| 30. | Development of the philosophy of science by postpositivism (I. Lokatos, P. Feyerabent, M. Polanyi)………………………………………………………………………………………………………… . | |
| 31. | Features of scientific knowledge. Science and other forms of understanding the world (philosophy, art, religion)………………………………………………………………………………………………. | |
| 32. | The role of science in education and formation modern man…………………… | |
| 33. | Structure of empirical and theoretical knowledge……………………………………... | |
| 34. | Experiment and observation………………………………………………………………………………… | |
| 35. | Hypothesis and theory……………………………………………………………………………………… | |
| 36. | Ideals and norms of science. Motivation for scientific activity……………………………... | |
| 37. | Methods of scientific knowledge………………………………………………………………………………… | |
| 38. | The problem of classification of sciences……………………………………………………….. | |
| 39. | Basic patterns of development of science……………………………………………………………….. | |
| 40. | Historical types of rationality (classical, non-classical, post-classical)………………………………………………………………………………………………… | |
| 41. | Self-developing synergetic systems and the strategy of scientific research………… | |
| 42. | Global evolutionism and the modern scientific picture of the world……………………… | |
| 43. | Scientism and anti-scientism……………………………………………………………………………….. | |
| 44. | The problem of the meaning and essence of technology……………………………………………………. | |
| 45. | The role of technology in the development of classical mathematized and experimental natural sciences………………………………………………………. | |
| 46. | The problem of humanization and greening of modern technology………………………….. | |
| 47. | Scientific picture as prerequisite knowledge………………………………………………………. | |
| 48. | Epistemological, logical and semantic foundations of science. Languages of science……… | |
| 49. | Scientific traditions and scientific revolutions…………………………………………………………………… | |
| 50. | Philosophical problems of social sciences and humanities…………………………………………………… | |
| 51. | Science and pseudoscience……………………………………………………………………………………………… |
Knowledge and cognition (pre-science) in archaic cultures and early civilizations.
Human knowledge arose by man himself. Animals rely on instinct. But man adds thinking and speech to this. All the origins of science are in the origins of human perception of the world. Knowledge about the world is inseparable from observations about the world.
Types of knowledge:
Type 1: unfocused;
Type 2: goal-oriented (curiosity, curiosity);
Type 3: in the process of material production of practice (we transform the world).
Shapes of some tools, decorations, etc. appeared at the dawn of mankind, and have not changed significantly to this day. The process of understanding the world is inseparable from man.
The process of learning about the world:
Neanderthals– stone tools;
Mesolithic (10-15 thousand years ago)– domestication of animals, cultivation of plants;
Neolithic (7-10 thousand BP)– ceramics, weaving, the first division of labor (agriculture was separated from hunting and gathering);
Increased specialization contributed to division of labor, the appearance of the first metal products, copper products. Separation of trade from agriculture - need for account - mathematics.
The first civilizations appeared that suggested:
Developed labor;
Availability of cities;
Private property;
Social development.
Ancient Mesopotamia. This is the first civilization that was located on the territory of Iran. Babylon existed for 15 centuries (a new way of recording speech information, graphic writing (IDEOGRAPHY), before that there were drawings, after 2000 years they invented the alphabet, Babylonian priests distinguished stars from planets, established the ecliptic, 12 constellations, moon calendar, sundial, could be removed Square root their numbers).
Ancient Egyptian(sunny day, 12 hours, 5 days extra);
Ancient Indian(The earth is spherical and rotates, pyramids, Stonehenge);
Ancient Kiai(anatomical knowledge).
Determine 5 possible dates for the emergence of science: 1) science has always existed, because it comes down to subject- practical activities, which is impossible without knowledge; 2) science appeared in antiquity, in the period from the 6th to the 4th centuries. BC e. (Thales - 6th century, Aristotle - 4th century), when the theoretical nature of knowledge, separation from practical activity and operating with ideal objects are formalized; 3) there is an opinion that the rudiments experimental method appeared in the 12-13th centuries. at Oxford University, where Roger Bacon worked (alchemy): 4) 16-17 centuries. – the formation of classical natural science and experimental and mathematical methods; 5) when scientific activity was transformed into a profession (from the mid-19th century, it began to be paid for the first time scientific activity in Germany, University of Berlin, rector Wilhelm Humboldt).
One of the approaches that is gaining increasing recognition in our country was developed by V.S. Stepin on the basis of the history of natural sciences - primarily physics - and consists of the following. “In the history of the formation and development of science, two stages can be distinguished, which correspond to two different methods of constructing knowledge and two forms of predicting the results of activities. The first stage characterizes the emerging science (pre-science), the second – science in the proper sense of the word.” V. S. Stepin believes that the stage of pre-science ends then and “science in the proper sense” begins from the moment when in the latter “along with empirical rules and dependencies (which pre-science also knew), a special type of knowledge is formed - a theory that allows one to obtain empirical dependencies as a consequence of theoretical postulates.” In other words, when knowledge “begins to build the foundation new system knowledge, as it were, “from above” in relation to real practice and only after that, through mediation, it checks the constructions created from ideal objects, comparing them with the objective relations of practice.” Something similar can be found in Heidegger (about the peculiarities of the emergence of science and philosophy in Europe).
Myth → Logos (Protoscience)→ Prescience → Science
Pre-science: It was most powerfully formed in ancient Eastern culture (Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China), because to the 10th century BC. there was a powerful civilization there. This stage is characterized by linking knowledge to practical activities. This knowledge is aimed at application to practice.
Despite the fact that great successes were achieved in astronomy, geometry, and arithmetic, this knowledge was not scientific due to the following features:
It is not fundamental, not theoretical, but exclusively applied;
There were restrictions in the dissemination of knowledge - caste, guild and family;
There was no critical attitude towards knowledge;
It was not completely rational, since its bearers were priests or people in authority, whose authority determined the truth of knowledge;
The prescription nature of knowledge, i.e. lack of validity.
That. Pre-science is a long-term phenomenon and is associated with the accumulation of empirical material. Knowledge had an applied nature and changed little during transmission from generation to generation.
The whole trick is in the functions. A great example is astronomy. Egyptian astronomy was at an exceptionally immature level throughout its history. Apparently, there was no other astronomy other than observing the stars to compile a calendar in Egypt. Not a single record of astronomical observations was found in Egyptian texts. Astronomy was used almost exclusively for the service of time and the regulation of a strict schedule of ritual rites. Egyptian astronomical terminology left traces in astrology. Assyro-Babylonian astronomy conducted systematic observations from the era of Nabonassar (747 BC). For the period “prehistoric” 1800 - 400. BC. in Babylon, they divided the sky into 12 signs of the Zodiac, 300 each, as a standard scale for describing the movement of the Sun and planets, and developed a fixed lunisolar calendar. After the Assyrian period, a turn towards a mathematical description of astronomical events becomes noticeable. However, the most productive period was quite late, 300–0. This period provided us with texts based on consistent mathematical theory movements of the moon and planets. The main goal Mesopotamian astronomy was a correct prediction of the apparent position of the celestial bodies: the Moon, the Sun and the planets. The fairly developed astronomy of Babylon is usually explained by such an important application as state astrology (the astrology of antiquity was not of a personal nature). Her task was to predict the favorable location of the stars for making important government decisions. Thus, despite its non-materialistic application (politics, religion), astronomy in the Ancient East, like mathematics, was of a purely utilitarian, as well as dogmatic, unsubstantiated nature. In Babylon, not a single observer thought: “Does the apparent movement of the luminaries correspond to their actual movement and location?” However, among the astronomers who worked already in Hellenistic times, Seleucus the Chaldean was famous, who, in particular, defended the heliocentric model of the world of Aristarchus of Samos.