The main stages of the formation of science briefly. The main stages in the development of science

Science, like religion and art, is born in the depths of mythological consciousness and is separated from it in the further process of cultural development. Primitive cultures do without science, and only in a sufficiently developed culture does it become an independent sphere. cultural activities. At the same time, science itself undergoes significant changes in the course of its historical evolution, and ideas about it (the image of science) also change. Many disciplines that were considered sciences in the past no longer belong to them from a modern point of view (for example, alchemy). At the same time, modern science assimilates the elements of true knowledge contained in various teachings of the past.

There are four main periods in the history of science.

1) From the 1st millennium BC until the 16th century. This period can be called the period pre-science. During it, along with ordinary practical knowledge passed down from generation to generation over the centuries, the first philosophical ideas about nature (natural philosophy), which were in the nature of very general and abstract speculative theories. The rudiments of scientific knowledge were formed within natural philosophy as its elements. With the accumulation of information, techniques and methods used to solve mathematical, astronomical, medical and other problems, corresponding sections are formed in philosophy, which are then gradually separated into separate sciences: mathematics, astronomy, medicine, etc.

However, the scientific disciplines that emerged during the period under review continued to be interpreted as parts of philosophical knowledge. Science developed mainly within the framework of philosophy and in very weak connection with life practice and handicraft art with it. This is a kind of "embryonic" period in the development of science, preceding its birth as a special form of culture.

2) XVI-XVII centuries- era scientific revolution. It begins with the studies of Copernicus and Galileo and culminates in the fundamental physical and mathematical works of Newton and Leibniz.

During this period, the foundations of modern natural science were laid. Separate, disparate facts obtained by artisans, medical practitioners, and alchemists begin to be systematically analyzed and generalized. New norms for the construction of scientific knowledge are being formed: experimental testing of theories, mathematical formulation of the laws of nature, a critical attitude towards religious and natural-philosophical dogmas that do not have experimental justification. Science is acquiring its own methodology and is increasingly beginning to address issues related to practical activities. As a result, science takes shape as a special, independent field of activity. Professional scientists appear, the system of university education develops, in which their training takes place. There is a scientific community with its specific forms and rules of activity, communication, information exchange.

3) XVIII-XIX centuries. The science of this period is called classical. During this period, many separate scientific disciplines are formed, in which a huge amount of factual material is accumulated and systematized. Fundamental theories are being created in mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, psychology and other sciences. The technical sciences arise and begin to play an ever more prominent role in material production. The social role of science is growing, its development is considered by the thinkers of that time as an important condition for social progress.

4) Since the 20th century- a new era in the development of science. Science of the 20th century called postclassical, because on the threshold of this century it has experienced a revolution, as a result of which it has become significantly different from the classical science of the previous period. Revolutionary discoveries at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. shake the foundations of a number of sciences. In mathematics, set theory and the logical foundations of mathematical thinking are subjected to critical analysis. In physics, the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics are created. Biology develops genetics. New fundamental theories are emerging in medicine, psychology and other human sciences. The whole face of scientific knowledge, the methodology of science, the content and forms of scientific activity, its norms and ideals are undergoing major changes.

Second half of the 20th century leads science to new revolutionary transformation, which in the literature are often characterized as a scientific and technological revolution. Achievements of science on a previously unheard of scale are being introduced into practice; science causes especially great shifts in energy (nuclear power plants), in transport (automotive industry, aviation), in electronics (television, telephony, computers). The distance between scientific discoveries and their practical application has been reduced to a minimum. In the past, it took 50-100 years to find ways to put the achievements of science into practice. Now it is often done in 2-3 years or even faster. Both the state and private firms go to great expense to support promising areas for the development of science. As a result, science is growing rapidly and is turning into one of the most important branches of social labor.

• 1. Ancient world. The conditions for the development of scientific thought first developed in ancient Greece - the first theoretical systems arose already in the 6th century BC. BC e. Such thinkers Thales and Democritus, explained reality through natural principles as opposed to mythology. Aristotle(Ancient Greek scientist) was the first to describe the laws of nature, society and thinking, highlighting the objectivity of knowledge, logicality, and persuasiveness. At the moment of cognition, a system of abstract concepts was introduced, the foundations of a demonstrative way of presenting the material were laid; Separate branches of knowledge began to separate: geometry ( Euclid), Mechanics ( Archimedes), astronomy ( Ptolemy).
• 2. Middle Ages. A number of areas of knowledge were enriched in the Middle Ages by scientists from the Arab East and Central Asia.

Ibn Sina, or Avicenna, (980-1037) created a huge work on medicine, devoted to the diagnosis and treatment of ailments with drugs - "Canon". His other work, Healing, covers a wide range of topics from philosophy to mathematics and physics.

Ibn Rushd(1126-1198) - Arab philosopher and physician, representative of Eastern Aristotelianism. He wrote the treatise "Refutation of Refutation"; encyclopedic medical work. The author of the doctrine of dual truth differentiated religion into "rational", accessible to the educated, and "figurative-allegorical", accessible to everyone.

Abu Reyhan al-Biruni(973-1050) was engaged in astronomy, created many instruments for observing the Sun, Moon and stars, geography, mathematics, optics, medicine, medicines, precious stones and astrology. He created a huge work on mineralogy - "The Book of Inexhaustible Knowledge of Precious Stones".

Al Razi(c. 845-935) - the greatest alchemist, one of the largest figures in medicine of the 9th-10th centuries, the author of the famous work "Detailed Description", covering the practical medicine of that time, taking into account the experience of doctors in Greece, India and China.

In China, approx. 1000 gunpowder was used for fireworks and signaling. OK. 1045 Li Chen invented collapsible type. Also in China, steering was created, a seismograph, a steering wheel, a compass, paper and much more were invented.

Due to the dominance of religion in Western Europe a special philosophical science was born - scholasticism, and also developed alchemy and astrology. Alchemy contributed to the creation of a basis for science in the modern sense of the word, since it relied on the experimental study of natural substances and compounds and paved the way for the development of chemistry. Astrology was associated with the observation of celestial bodies and contributed to the development of an experimental base for future astronomy.

Among the most important inventions that were carried out in Europe of the Middle Ages, the invention by a monk in 999 of the first mechanical clock should be noted. In 1280, the first pair of glasses was made in Italy; it is assumed that this was done by the physicist Salvino degli Armati (1245-1317).

The role of invention is especially great Johannes Gutenberg(between 1397 and 1400-1468) printing press. Gutenberg's ingenious invention consisted in the fact that he began to make convex metal movable letters, cut out in reverse, type lines from them and use a press to impress them on paper. In 1450, in Mainz, Gutenberg printed a 42-line Bible - the first full-length printed edition in Europe, recognized as a masterpiece of early printing (1282 pages).

Numerous discoveries, projects, experimental studies belong to Leonardo da Vinci(1452-1519). He was a scientist, engineer, architect, artist; worked in the field of mathematics, natural sciences, mechanics, studied the properties of light and the movement of water, defended the decisive importance of experience in the knowledge of nature. His anatomical atlases surpassed in accuracy all those made before him. He invented a flying machine with bird wings, submarines, a huge bow, a flywheel, a helicopter, a tank and powerful cannons. They left about 7 thousand sheets of manuscripts and notebooks. However, his works remained a "thing in itself", as they were unknown to contemporaries and were lost for several centuries.

3. The first scientific revolution.

The most important stage in the development of science was the New Age - 16-17 centuries. The needs of emerging capitalism played a decisive role. During this period, the dominance of religious thinking was undermined, and experiment (experiment) was established as the leading research method, which, along with observation, radically expanded the scope of cognizable reality. At this time, theoretical reasoning began to be combined with the practical development of nature, which dramatically increased the cognitive capabilities of science. This profound transformation of science, which took place in the 16th-17th centuries, is considered the first scientific revolution. It gave the world such names as N. Copernicus, G. Galileo, J. Bruno, I. Kepler, W. Harvey, R. Descartes, H. Huygens, I. Newton, and others. connected with the revolution in natural science. The development of productive forces required the creation of new machines, the introduction of chemical processes, the laws of mechanics, and precise instruments for astronomical observations.

The scientific revolution went through several stages, and its formation took a century and a half. Its start has been made Nicholas Copernicus(1473-1543) and his followers: Bruno, Galileo, Kepler. In 1543, the Polish scholar Copernicus published a book "On the Formations of the Heavenly Spheres", in which he approved the idea that the Earth, like other planets of the solar system, revolves around the sun, which is the central body of the solar system. Copernicus established that the Earth is not an exclusive celestial body. This dealt a blow to anthropocentrism, a doctrine that sees in man the central and highest goal of the universe, and religious legends, according to which the Earth occupies a central position in the universe. The geocentric system of Ptolemy, accepted for many centuries, was rejected. But the work of Copernicus from 1616 to 1828 was banned by the Catholic Church.

The doctrine of Copernicus was developed by an Italian thinker Giordano Bruno(1548-1600), author of innovative works for his time "About infinity, the Universe and the worlds", "About the reason, the beginning and the one". He believed that the Universe is infinite and measureless, that it represents an innumerable number of stars, each of which is similar to the Sun and around which their planets revolve. Bruno's opinion is now fully confirmed by science. And then, for these bold views, Bruno was accused of heresy and burned by the Inquisition.

Galileo Galilei(1564-1642) belong to the largest achievements in the field of physics and the development of the most fundamental problem - movement. His achievements in astronomy are enormous: the justification and approval of the heliocentric system, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter out of 13 currently known; the discovery of the phases of Venus, an extraordinary type of the planet Saturn, created, as is now known, by rings representing a collection of solid bodies; a huge number of stars invisible to the naked eye. All the scientific achievements of Galileo are largely due to the fact that the scientist recognized observations and experience as the starting point for the knowledge of nature. Galileo was the first to observe the sky through a telescope (a telescope with a 32x magnification was built by the scientist himself). The main works of Galileo - "Star Herald", "Dialogues about the two systems of the world".

One of the creators of modern astronomy was Johannes Kepler(1571-1630), who discovered the laws of planetary motion (Kepler's laws). He compiled the so-called Rudolf planetary tables, developed the foundations of the theory of eclipses, and invented a telescope with biconvex lenses. He expressed his theories in the works "New Astronomy" and "A Brief Review of Copernican Astronomy".

An English physician is considered the founder of modern physiology and embryology. William Harvey (1578-1657). "Anatomical study of the movement of the heart and blood in animals", which describes the large and small circle of blood circulation - his main work. His teachings refuted the views that existed before this, set forth by the ancient Roman physician Galen(c. 130-c. 200). Harvey was the first to suggest that "everything living comes from an egg." However, the question remained open how the blood coming from the heart through the veins returns to it through the arteries. His assumptions about the existence of tiny connecting vessels were proved in 1661. M. Malpigi, an Italian researcher who discovered the capillaries that connect veins and arteries under a microscope.

Among the merits of the French scientist (mathematician, physics, philosopher, philologist) Rene Descartes(1596-1650) - the introduction of the coordinate axis, which contributed to the unification of algebra and geometry. He introduced the concept variable, which formed the basis of the differential and integral calculus of Newton and Leibniz. The philosophical positions of Descartes are dualistic, he recognized the soul and the body, of which the soul is a "thinking" substance, and the body is an "extended" substance. He believed that God exists, that God created matter, movement and rest. Major writings of Descartes "Geometry", "Discourse on Method", "Principles of Philosophy".

Christian Huygens(1629-1695), Dutch scientist, invented the pendulum clock, established the laws of pendulum motion, laid the foundations for the theory of impact, the wave theory of light, explained birefringence. They discovered the rings of Saturn and its moon Titan. Huygens prepared one of the first works on the theory of probability.

Englishman Isaac Newton(1643-1727) - one of the greatest scientists in the history of mankind. He wrote a huge number of scientific papers in various fields of science ( "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", "Optics" and etc.). The most important stages in the development of optics, astronomy, and mathematics are associated with his name. Newton created the foundations of mechanics, discovered the law gravity and developed on its basis the theory of motion of celestial bodies. This scientific discovery glorified Newton forever. He also owns such discoveries in the field of mechanics as the concepts of force, energy, the formulation of the three laws of mechanics; in the field of optics - the discovery of refraction, dispersion, interference, diffraction of light; in the field of mathematics - algebra, geometry, interpolation, differential and integral calculus.

In the 18th century revolutionary discoveries were made in astronomy by I. Kant and P. Laplace, as well as in chemistry - its beginning is associated with the name of A.L. Lavoisier. Immanuel Kant(1724-1804), a German philosopher, the founder of German classical philosophy, developed a cosmogonic hypothesis of the origin of the solar system from the original nebula (treatise "Universal natural history and theories of the sky). Pierre Laplace(1749-1827) - French astronomer, mathematician, physicist, author of a classic work on probability theory and celestial mechanics (considered the dynamics of the solar system as a whole and its stability), author of works "Treatise on Celestial Mechanics" and "Analytical Probability Theory". Like Kant, he proposed a cosmogonic hypothesis, which was named after him (Laplace's hypothesis). French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier(1743-1794) is considered one of the founders of modern chemistry. He used quantitative methods in his research. He found out the role of oxygen in the processes of combustion, burning of metals and respiration. One of the founders of thermochemistry. Author of the classic course "Elementary Chemistry Textbook", as well as essays "Methods for naming chemical elements". His life was cut short during the French Revolution - he was guillotined by decision of the Convention.

• 4. Industrial revolution.
• The 18th century entered the history of mankind as the century of the beginning industrial revolution. England became the birthplace of the industrial revolution, where, already in the 30s and 40s of this century, the transition from manufactories with manual labor to factories and plants using machines began. The introduction of machines into production covered such leading branches of British industry as cotton, energy, metallurgy, and transport. It ended in the first part of the 19th century. Among the most important inventions of the era of the industrial revolution: "flying shuttle" J. Keya, spinning wheel "Jenny" J. Hargreaves, water machine T. Haysa, mules S. Crompton, fabric bleaching method C. Bertholle, a method of dyeing fabrics with a pattern T. Bella, the puddling method G. Korta, locomotive J. Stephenson and many others.

In the 19th century the industrial revolution swept all the leading countries of the world (USA, France, Germany, Japan, etc.). Among the inventors of these countries (except Japan) were: E. Whitney(cotton gin) R. Fulton(steamboat) J. Jacquard(loom for patterned fabrics), F. Girard(flax spinning machine), N. Leblanc(method of production of soda from sea ​​water), McCormick(reaper), E.V. Siemens(Dynamo machine), F. Koenig(steam press for printing).

And this is far from all that the industrial revolution gave mankind. The replacement of manual labor with machine labor led to the formation of an industrial civilization, which relied on the successful development of applied, exact and natural sciences and stimulated new major shifts in scientific knowledge.

In the 19th century Revolutionary upheavals were taking place in science in all branches of natural science.

By the beginning of the 19th century. the experience accumulated by science, the material in certain areas no longer fit within the framework of a mechanistic explanation of nature and society. It took new round scientific knowledge and a deeper and broader synthesis that combines the results of individual sciences. During this historical period, science was glorified Yu.R. Mayer (1814-1878), J. Joule (1818-1889), G. Helmholtz(1821-1894), who discovered the laws of conservation and transformation of energy, which provided a single basis for all sections of physics and chemistry.

Of great importance in the knowledge of the world was the creation T. Schwannom(1810-1882) and M. Shleydan(1804-1881) of the cellular theory, which showed the uniform structure of all living organisms. C. Darwin(1809-1882), who created the evolutionary doctrine in biology, introduced the idea of ​​development into natural science. Thanks to the periodic system of elements discovered by the brilliant Russian scientist DI. Mendeleev(1834-1907), the intrinsic connection between all known types of substances was proved. The flourishing of classical natural science contributed to the creation of a unified system of sciences.

5. The second scientific and technological revolution.

By the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. there were major changes in the foundations of scientific thinking, the mechanistic worldview has exhausted itself, which led the classical science of modern times to a crisis. This was also facilitated by the discovery of the electron and radioactivity. As a result of the resolution of the crisis, a new scientific revolution took place, which began in physics and covered all the main branches of science. It is associated primarily with the names Max Planck(1858-1947) and Albert Einstein(1879-1955). The discovery of the electron, radium, the transformation of chemical elements, the creation of the theory of relativity and quantum theory marked a breakthrough in the field of the microworld and high speeds. The advances in physics have had an impact on chemistry. Quantum theory, by explaining the nature of chemical bonds, has opened wide possibilities for the chemical transformation of matter before science and production; penetration into the mechanism of heredity began, genetics was developed, and the chromosome theory was formed.

Achievements of scientific thought in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. served as the basis for the technological revolution that took place during this period, it was called second scientific and technological revolution(NTR).

Outstanding inventors of the second scientific and technological revolution: E.V. Siemens(Dynamo machine); T. Edison(modern generator); C. Parsons(steam turbine); G. Daimler and C. Benz(internal combustion engine); R. Diesel(ICE with high efficiency); A.N. Lodygin(incandescent lamp); P.N. Yablochkov("electric candle"); T. Edison and D. Yuz(microphone); A.B. Stranger(automatic telephone exchange); A.S. Popov(radio); G. Marconi(transmission of electrical impulses without wire); J. A. Fleming(diode); G. Bessemer, P. Martin, S. Thomas(new methods of steel smelting); G. Daimler and K. Benz (cars); J. Dunlop(rubber tires); DI. Mendeleev, K.E. Tsiolkovsky, NOT. Zhukovsky(issues of aeronautics); A.F. Mozhaisky, K. Ader(aircraft construction with a steam engine); J. Hyatt(celluloid); and many others.

The core of the second scientific and technological revolution was energy- the invention of electricity and the internal combustion engine, which predetermined the transition from steam and hard coal to electricity and liquid fuels. A revolution in the energy sector, the invention of a method for transmitting electricity over long distances led to the birth of new types of transport - a car, an airplane, an electric locomotive, a diesel locomotive, a tram.

The car and the plane not only revolutionized transport, but also gave impetus to the transformation of all related industries - mechanical engineering, metallurgy, chemistry. New methods of smelting steel were invented, the production of various types of high-quality steels was developed, and the production of non-ferrous metals advanced.

The second scientific and technological revolution marked the rapid development of new means of communication - telephone, telegraph, radio, which played a huge role in the dissemination of information throughout the world.

Mass production of catalysts, medicines, dyes, mineral fertilizers was the result of progress in the chemical industry.

A technological revolution has taken place in agriculture, where chemical fertilizers, tractors, and other agricultural machines are widely used. As a result, crop yields, livestock productivity, and labor productivity increased significantly, thanks to which this sector of the economy freed up a significant mass of workers needed for the industry. The leading countries of the world have switched to an industrial type of employment.

Achievements in science and technology became the basis of the military-technical revolution. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. military aircraft and tanks appeared, powerful naval vessels and automatic artillery weapons were created, new explosives and poison gases were invented, and radio communications began to be widely used. It is known that during this period the leading countries of the world intensified the arms race, preparing the material and technical base for the First and then the Second World Wars.

6. The third scientific and technological revolution.

At the stage of completion of the Second World War, the third scientific and technical ( scientific and technological) revolution. It is associated with fundamental changes in the field of productive forces in connection with the development of nuclear energy, astronautics, computer technology, biotechnology, and the production of new structural materials.

It should be noted that there is no generally accepted periodization of this scientific and technological revolution. There are two stages in the development of the third scientific and technological revolution: 1. from the mid-40s to the mid-60s; 2. from the mid-60s to the present. The boundary between these stages is considered to be the creation and introduction of fourth-generation computers into the economy of the leading countries.

inventions first stage included television, computers, transistors, radar, missiles, the atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb, synthetic fibers, artificial Earth satellites, jet aircraft, electric power plants based on a nuclear reactor, machine tools with numerical control (CNC), lasers, integrated circuits, communication satellites, express trains. Let's characterize some of the inventions.

In 1942 an Italian scientist E. Fermi(1901-1967) built a nuclear reactor in which controlled nuclear reaction. The first atomic bomb was created under the leadership of an American physicist R. Oppenheimer(1904-1967). The first atomic bomb in 1945 was dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

A system for detecting bodies using radio waves - a radar created by a Scottish physicist RU. Watt(1892-1973). The radar installation he built in 1935 was able to detect an aircraft at a distance of 64 km. This system played a big role in protecting England from German air raids during the Second World War.

First rocket launch long range"V-2", created W. von Braun(1912-1977), was held in 1942. The speed of the V-2 was several times higher than the speed of sound. The flight range was 320 km, and now some missiles reach a flight range of 9600 km.

Laser- optical quantum generator. In translation, "laser" means "amplification of light as a result of stimulated emission." At first, lasers were used in industry for drilling, welding and engraving. Currently, they are used even in surgical operations. The theory of the laser was developed in 1958 by the American physicists Ch. A. Shelau. The first laser was created in 1960. T. Mayman.

Based on the one developed in 1918 by French scientists led by P. Langevin(1872-1946) sound location sonar systems (sends sound waves, and any object encountered on the way reflects them) in the 50s of the 20th century. Scottish doctor Ian Donald created a method for studying the internal organs of a person and even the fetus in the womb. This process has been called ultrasound diagnostics(ultrasound).

One of the first computers- ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) developed J. Mauchly(1907-1980) and J. Eckart for the US Army. Compared to a modern computer, it was very bulky - it occupied an entire hall and performed much fewer operations. Computer technology has been gradually improved. Computers have been shrinking, and their capabilities have been increasing. In 1964 American company IBM released the first text computer. In 1978, the American company Quicks created a computer that uses magnetic disks to record text. In the 1980s, personal computers with special programs began to replace typewriters.

On the second stage Scientific and technological revolution were invented microprocessors, fiber-optic transmission of information, industrial robots, biotechnology, extra-large and volumetric integrated circuits, heavy-duty ceramics, fifth-generation computers, genetic engineering, thermonuclear fusion. The core of this stage of scientific and technological revolution was the synthesis of three basic scientific and technical areas: microelectronics, biotechnology, and informatics. They reflect the fundamental achievements of quantum physics, molecular biology, cybernetics and information theory.

At the end of the 20th century the age of iron, which was the main structural material for almost three millennia, is coming to an end. Thanks to the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution of the 20th century. humanity can already give priority to materials with desired properties - composites, ceramics, plastics and synthetic resins, products made from metal powders.

At the end of the 20th century intensively formed post-industrial civilization. A real revolution is taking place in the technology of communication and transport. Fiber-optic communications, space communications, facsimile, and cellular communications have found wide application.

One of the greatest discoveries of the 20th century scientists recognize the creation DNA models. Biology, especially molecular biology, by the middle of the 20th century. advanced to one of the first places in natural science. American scientists F. Creek and D. Watson using materials R. Franklin and M. Wilkins, investigated DNA using X-rays and in 1953 created a model of the DNA molecule. Its shape is a double interlacing helix. The model showed how the division of DNA molecules and the formation of new copies of it. In 1962 Crick, Watson and Wilkins were awarded Nobel Prize in medecine.

In the modern world, science is becoming increasingly important and developing at an ever faster pace. The role of fundamental, theoretical science is especially growing, and this process is characteristic of all areas of knowledge.

7. Modern stage.

The achievements of the modern stage in the field of medicine and genetics include a number of new discoveries. There are reports that scientists in the laboratory managed not only to grow a human bladder, but also successfully transplant it into the human body.

Adenoviruses have been found that can cause obesity, which indicates the possibility of infection with such an ailment. One of the genes associated with the regulation of aggression and anxiety has been identified.

Scientists at the University of California, Irvine, found that men and women use different areas of the brain to achieve the same Q-values ​​- men's intelligence is based on the gray matter of the brain, and the intelligence of women is white.

American scientists have grown a network of blood vessels from cell culture. They planted human cells of the venous epithelium on a three-dimensional culture of mouse mesenchymal cells and implanted such a construct in mice. For modern medicine, the results obtained are invaluable.

In the development of various diagnostic tests, studies of saliva samples will help, since human saliva has been found to contain a large amount of proteins. And the process of collecting saliva is much simpler, cheaper and safer than drawing blood traditionally used for most laboratory tests.

In the field of genetics, genetic mapping of the dog was carried out for the first time. It showed that the genomes of a human and his four-legged friend coincide by 75%.

In the summer of 2003, Italian embryologists succeeded in obtaining the first horse clone.

2003 marked the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the DNA structure. Scientists have announced the complete decoding of 98% of the nucleotide sequence of human chromosomes.

For five years now, a gene has been known that slows down aging. Scientists have found that removing the 81K2 gene from the body leads to a fantastic increase in life - as much as six times. These results have so far been confirmed in yeast and human liver cells. Removing this gene, in addition to extending life, can turn the subject into a "superman". Long-lived cells lacking the 81K2 gene showed a completely unusual ability to resist stress. Despite the fact that scientists exposed the modified cells to oxidants and hot air, the cells stubbornly clung to life, although ordinary cells would have died long ago.

A pen-sized device designed to remove harmful viruses from the blood has been made. According to the assurances of its creators, it can catch smallpox, Ebola, Marburg and other viruses from human blood. dangerous diseases. Principle of operation: the device is installed on the arm and "connected" to the human vein. The heart itself pumps blood through it (filtering viruses is based on the fact that the sizes of blood plasma cells and viruses differ many times over). In 12 minutes, the heart makes a complete cycle of pumping all the blood. Within a few hours of wearing the device, all blood is completely cleared of viruses.

In 2004, it was reported that a technology had been developed for manufacturing atomic clocks that fit into a volume of several cubic millimeters.

Per recent decades the achievements of physics was a new theory that connects the mass of neutrinos with the accelerating expansion of the universe.

The US Brookhaven National Laboratory near New York recently launched a new accelerator, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. It allows you to accelerate and push not only protons, as in conventional accelerators, but also the nuclei of atoms of many elements of the Periodic Table, up to gold. In the experiments, a substance was recreated that previously existed only once in the history of the Universe - at the moment of its occurrence. When gold atoms collide at ultrahigh speeds, the structure of the nucleus disappears, and all quarks and gluons previously "packed" into nucleons mix and form a new superdense phase of nuclear matter - quark-gluon plasma. The temperature at the collision point reaches 4 billion degrees, the highest temperature in the existing universe. Many scientists have expressed their observations. For example, during the lifetime of this plasma (10-23 s), scientists were able to see how elementary particles are again formed from plasma, and also to study the properties of a new type of matter. It turned out that the plasma, most likely, is similar in its properties to a liquid than to a gas. The project was implemented by an international team of scientists: 45 institutes from 11 countries, including Russia.

However, a number of scientists raised the question of the safety of such experiments. In their opinion, by simulating the conditions under which the Universe arose, it is possible to play out until the conditions of the "big bang" are repeated, under which the reactor will become the center of the emergence of a new universe. If this happens, then, of course, not only the reactor, the Earth, the solar system and our galaxy will disappear, but, most likely, the entire existing Universe. For all the fantastic nature of this threat, the assumption is not without meaning: according to the now recognized cosmological theory, the entire existing Universe arose from a single particle that was in some specific singular state (infinitely high density and temperature).

Sadly, the social responsibility of scientists has always been below the market requirements of the time. The issue of responsibility of scientists is back on the agenda.

science production thought scientist

The first forms of knowledge production were known to have a syncretic character. They represented an undifferentiated joint activity of feelings and thinking, imagination and first generalizations. Such an initial practice of thinking was called mythological thinking, in which a person did not isolate his "I" and did not oppose it to the objective (which does not depend on him). Rather, everything else was understood precisely through the “I”, according to their spiritual matrix.

All subsequent development of human thinking is a process of gradual differentiation of experience, its division into subjective and objective, their isolation and more and more precise division and definition. A major role in this was played by the emergence of the first rudiments of positive knowledge related to the maintenance of people's daily practice: astronomical, mathematical, geographical, biological and medical knowledge.

In the history of the formation and development of science, two stages can be distinguished: pre-science and science proper. They differ from each other in different methods of building knowledge and predicting performance.

Thinking, which can be called an emerging science, served mainly practical situations. It generated images or ideal objects that replaced real objects, learned to operate with them in the imagination in order to foresee future development. It can be said that the first knowledge was in the form of recipes or schemes of activity: what, in what sequence, under what conditions, something must be done in order to achieve certain goals. For example, ancient Egyptian tables are known, which explained how the operations of adding and subtracting integers were carried out at that time. Each of the real objects was replaced by the ideal object unit, which was fixed by a vertical line I (there were signs for tens, hundreds, thousands). The addition, for example, to five units of three units was carried out as follows: the sign III (the number "three") was depicted, then five more vertical lines IIIII (the number "five") were written under it, then all these lines were transferred to one line located under the first two. The result was eight dashes denoting the corresponding number. These procedures reproduced the procedures for the formation of collections of objects in real life.

The same connection with practice can be found in the first knowledge related to geometry, which appeared in connection with the needs of measuring land plots among the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians. These were the needs of maintaining land surveying, when the boundaries were sometimes covered with river silt, and calculating their areas. These needs have given rise new class tasks, the solution of which required operating with drawings. In this process, the following main geometric figures, as a triangle, rectangle, trapezoid, circle, through combinations of which it was possible to depict areas of land plots of complex configuration. In ancient Egyptian mathematics, nameless geniuses found ways to calculate the basic geometric shapes, which began to be used both for measuring and for building the great pyramids. Operations with geometric figures in the drawings related to the construction and transformation of these figures were carried out using two main tools - a compass and a ruler. This method is still fundamental in geometry. It is significant that this method itself acts as a scheme of real practical operations. The measurement of land plots, as well as the sides and planes of structures created in construction, was carried out using a tightly stretched measuring rope with knots denoting a unit of length (ruler), and a measuring rope, one end of which was attached with a peg, and the peg at the other end drew arcs ( compass). Transferred to actions with drawings, these operations appeared as the construction of geometric shapes using a ruler and a compass.

So, in the pre-scientific way of constructing knowledge, the main thing is the derivation of primary generalizations (abstraction) directly from practice, and then such generalizations were fixed as signs and as meanings already within the existing systems of language.

A new way of building knowledge, which meant the emergence of science in our modern understanding, is formed when human knowledge reaches a certain completeness and stability. Then there appears a method of constructing new ideal objects not from practice, but from those already existing in knowledge — by combining them and imaginatively placing them in different conceivable and inconceivable contexts. Then this new knowledge is correlated with reality and thus its reliability is determined.

As far as we know, the first form of knowledge that actually became theoretical science was math. So, in it, in parallel with similar operations in philosophy, numbers began to be considered not only as a reflection of real quantitative relations, but also as relatively independent objects, the properties of which can be studied on their own, without regard to practical needs. This gives rise to the actual mathematical research, which, from the natural series of numbers obtained earlier from practice, begins to build new ideal objects. So, applying the operation of subtraction from smaller numbers to large ones, negative numbers are obtained. This newly discovered new class of numbers is subject to all those operations that were previously obtained in the analysis of positive ones, which creates new knowledge that characterizes previously unknown aspects of reality. By applying the root extraction operation to negative numbers, mathematics receives a new class of abstractions - imaginary numbers, to which all operations that have served natural numbers are again applied.

Of course, this method of construction is typical not only for mathematics, but is also approved in the natural sciences and is known there as a method of putting forward hypothetical models with subsequent practical testing. Thanks to the new method of building knowledge, science gets the opportunity to study not only those subject relations that can be found in the already established stereotypes of practices, but also anticipate those changes that, in principle, a developing civilization can master. This is how science proper begins, because along with empirical rules and dependencies, a special type of knowledge is formed - theory. The theory itself, as is well known, makes it possible to obtain empirical dependencies as a consequence of theoretical postulates.

Scientific knowledge, unlike pre-scientific knowledge, is built not only in the categories of existing practice, but can also be correlated with a qualitatively different, future one, and therefore the categories of the possible and necessary are already applied here. They are no longer formulated only as prescriptions for existing practice, but claim to express the essential structures, the causes of reality "in itself". Such claims to discover knowledge about objective reality as a whole give rise to the need for a special practice that goes beyond the limits of everyday experience. This is how the scientific experiment comes about.

The scientific method of research appeared as a result of a long previous civilizational development, the formation of certain mindsets. The cultures of the traditional societies of the East did not create such conditions. Undoubtedly, they gave the world a lot of specific knowledge and recipes for solving specific problems. problem situations, however, all remained within the framework of simple, reflective knowledge. It was dominated by canonized styles of thinking and traditions, focused on the reproduction of existing forms and methods of activity.

The transition to science in our sense of the word is associated with two turning points in the development of culture and civilization: the formation of classical philosophy, which contributed to the emergence of the first form of theoretical research - mathematics, radical ideological shifts in the Renaissance and the transition to the New Age, which gave rise to the formation of a scientific experiment in its combination with the mathematical method.

The first phase of the formation of the scientific method of generating knowledge is associated with the phenomenon of ancient Greek civilization. His unusualness is often called a mutation, which emphasizes the unexpectedness of his appearance and unprecedentedness. There are many explanations for the causes of the ancient Greek miracle. The most interesting of them are the following.

- Greek civilization could only have arisen as a fruitful synthesis of the great Oriental cultures. Greece itself lay at the "crossroads" of information flows (Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, Mesopotamia, Western Asia, the "barbarian" world). Hegel also points to the spiritual influence of the East in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, speaking of the historical background of ancient Greek thought - Eastern substantiality - the concept of the organic unity of the spiritual and natural as the basis of the universe.

— Nevertheless, however, many researchers tend to give preference, rather, to socio-political reasons — the decentralization of Ancient Greece, the polis system political organization. This prevented the development of despotic centralized forms of government (derived in the East from large-scale irrigation agriculture) and led to the emergence of the first democratic forms. public life. The latter gave rise to a free individuality, and not as a precedent, but as a fairly wide stratum of free citizens of the polis. The organization of their lives was based on equality and the regulation of life through adversarial proceedings. Competition between policies led to the fact that each of them sought to have the best art in their city, best speakers, philosophers, etc. This gave rise to an unprecedented pluralization of creative activity. We can observe something similar after more than two millennia in decentralized, petty-princely Germany in the second half. XVIII - first half. 19th century

This is how the first individualistic civilization appeared (Greece after Socrates), which gave the world the standards of the individualistic organization of social life and at the same time paid a very large historical price for it - the passionary overvoltage self-destructed Ancient Greece and removed the Greek ethnos from the scene for a long time. global history. The Greek phenomenon can also be interpreted as a prime example of the phenomenon of retrospective reappraisal of the beginning. The real beginning is great because it contains in potentiality all further developed forms, who then, with surprise, admiration and with a clear overestimation, find themselves in this beginning.

The social life of ancient Greece was filled with dynamism and was distinguished a high degree competition, which the civilizations of the East did not know with their stagnant-patriarchal cycle of life. The norms of life and the ideas corresponding to them were developed through the struggle of opinions in the national assembly, competitions in sports arenas and in the courts. On this basis, ideas were formed about the variability of the world and human life, the possibilities of their optimization. Such social practice gave rise to various concepts of the universe and social structure, which were developed by ancient philosophy. Theoretical prerequisites for the formation of science arose, which consisted in the fact that thinking became able to reason about the invisible aspects of the world, about connections and relationships that are not given in everyday life.

This is a specific characteristic of ancient philosophy. In the traditional societies of the East, this theorizing role of philosophy was limited. Of course, metaphysical systems also arose here, but they performed mainly protective, religious and ideological functions. Only in ancient philosophy, for the first time, were new forms of knowledge organization most fully realized as a search for a single foundation (initial principles and causes) and the derivation of consequences from it. The very evidence and validity of the judgment, which became the main condition for the acceptability of knowledge, could only be established in the social practice of equal citizens who solve their problems through competition in politics or the courts. This, in contrast to references to authority, is the main condition for the acceptability of knowledge in the Ancient East.

The combination of new forms of organization of knowledge or theoretical reasoning obtained by philosophers with the mathematical knowledge accumulated at the stage of pre-science gave rise to the first scientific form of knowledge in the history of people - mathematics. The main milestones of this path can be summarized as follows.

Already early Greek philosophy in the person of Thales and Anaximander began to systematize the mathematical knowledge obtained in ancient civilizations and apply the procedure of proof to them. But nevertheless, the worldview of the Pythagoreans, which was based on extrapolation to the interpretation of the universe of practical mathematical knowledge, influenced the development of mathematics in a decisive way. The beginning of everything is a number, and numerical relations are the fundamental proportions of the universe. Such an ontologization of the practice of calculus played a special positive role in the emergence of the theoretical level of mathematics: numbers began to be studied not as models of specific practical situations, but on their own, regardless of practical application. Knowledge of the properties and relations of numbers began to be perceived as knowledge of the principles and harmony of the cosmos.

Another theoretical innovation of the Pythagoreans is an attempt to connect the theoretical study of the properties of geometric figures with the properties of numbers, or to establish a connection between geometry and arithmetic. The Pythagoreans were not limited only to the use of numbers to characterize geometric figures, but, on the contrary, tried to apply geometric images to the study of the totality of numbers. The number 10, the perfect number that completes the tens of the natural series, correlated with the triangle, the main figure to which, when proving theorems, other geometric figures (figure numbers) sought to reduce.

After the Pythagoreans, mathematics was developed by all the major philosophers of antiquity. Thus, Plato and Aristotle gave the ideas of the Pythagoreans a more rigorous rational form. They believed that the world is built on mathematical principles and that the universe is based on a mathematical plan: “The Demiurge constantly geometrizes,” Plato argued. From this understanding it followed that the language of mathematics is most appropriate for describing the world.

The development of theoretical knowledge in antiquity was completed with the creation of the first model of scientific theory - Euclidean geometry, which meant the separation from philosophy of a special, independent science of mathematics. Later in antiquity, numerous applications were obtained mathematical knowledge to the description of natural objects: in astronomy (calculation of the sizes and features of the motion of the planets and the Sun, the heliocentric concept of Aristarchus of Samos and the geocentric concept of Hipparchus and Ptolemy) and mechanics (the development of statics and hydrostatics by Archimedes, the first theoretical models and laws of mechanics of Heron, Pappus).

At the same time, the main thing that ancient science could not do was to discover and use the experimental method. Most researchers of the history of science believe that the reason for this was the peculiar ideas of ancient scientists about the relationship between theory and practice (technics, technology). Abstract, speculative knowledge was highly valued, and practical-utilitarian, engineering knowledge and activity were considered, as well as physical labor, as a “low and ignoble deed”, the lot of the unfree and slaves.

The historical development of science has been uneven. Stages of rapid and even rapid progress were followed by periods of stagnation and sometimes decline. In ancient times, physical and mathematical sciences acquired special development in the territory of Ancient Greece and ancient rome, and in the Middle Ages their center moved to the East, primarily to India and China. In the New Era, the initiative in the development of the physical and mathematical sciences was again seized by Europe.

Throughout the history of science, two trends have interacted that complemented each other - the deepening of specialization and the strengthening of the desire for integration. Simultaneously with the differentiation of science, its division into often very specialized disciplines, its gradual integration takes place, which is based on a combination of scientific methods, ideas and concepts, as well as on the need to consider outwardly heterogeneous phenomena from a unified point of view. The most important consequences of the integration of science include the simplification of information processing and retrieval, its release from an excess of methods, models and concepts. The main way of integration is the formation of "interdisciplinary sciences", which link traditional specialties and, thanks to this, make it possible for the emergence of a universal science, designed to create a kind of framework that would unite the individual sciences into a single whole. The more integrated science is, the more it meets the criterion of simplicity and economy.

With the division of science into separate disciplines, there are fewer connections between them, and the exchange of information becomes more complicated. Analyzing similar objects, resorting to the same methods, branches are often interpreted in different languages, which makes interdisciplinary research difficult. If the English naturalist Charles Robert Darwin could equally successfully carry out research in the field of zoology, botany, anthropology and geology, then at the end of the 19th century. it was no longer possible, especially for people less gifted. If in his time, specialists who studied wildlife were called biologists, then over time, not only botany, zoology, protistology (a section of zoology that studies the life of protozoa) and mycology (a section of botany that studies fungi) separated in biology, but they, too, in turn, were divided into separate specialties. Each of these disciplines is replete with factual material, the mastery of which fills the life of a scientist, and only especially gifted scientists are able to work simultaneously or alternately in two or more branches. An almost inevitable result of narrow specialization is professional narrowness, which manifests itself in a narrowing of the worldview, a decrease in the ability to understand what is supposed outside the scientist's specialization. Narrow specialization, of course, has specific advantages, but does not contribute to the overall progress of science.

Integration trends in science are actively manifested in the post-industrial (information) era, which is largely associated with the development of computer and communication technology and the emergence of a global information network - the Internet. The desire to formulate new tasks of a higher level of generalization, even universal ones, which often unite distant areas of knowledge, is more tangible. The process of creating common concepts, concepts, scientific language. A characteristic feature of modern science is the growing interest in the search for fundamental structural generalization of heterogeneous systems and general mechanisms of various phenomena that contribute to the integration of science, its logical harmony and unity, which provides a deeper understanding of the unity of the world. Modern scientific views are characterized by the idea of ​​the existence of common models of various phenomena, isomorphism (sameness) of structures of various levels of organization. The realization is affirmed that the presence of general principles and models in various branches of knowledge makes it possible to transfer them from one branch to another, which contributes to the overall progress of science. At the same time, it is believed that the integration of science is not a reduction (return) of sciences to physics (reductionism), but an isomorphism of systems with different nature their elements, structures of different levels of organization. The presence of isomorphisms of the most advanced systems plays a certain heuristic role, since they not only characterize the conceptual framework of modern science, but also facilitate the choice of specific areas of research, avoid duplication theoretical research and etc.

Radical qualitative shifts in the development of science are defined as scientific revolutions. This is how the emergence in the 17th century is assessed. natural sciences. It showed that science had acquired historical power, and that scientific knowledge had outstripped that of technology in its significance. Since then, scientific ideas about the world around us began to compete with everyday ideas. Being a natural stage in the development of science, the scientific revolution of the XVII century. fundamentally changed the idea of ​​the structure of the Universe and the place of man in it. It caused a turning point in human thinking, prompted scientific creativity, directed the gaze and opinion of scientists into previously inaccessible areas.

The most important features of the scientific revolution include:

1. Bright creative character. Previously acquired knowledge was not destroyed, but was interpreted in the context of a new understanding.

2. Change according to new ideas, a new interpretation of previously acquired knowledge. During the scientific revolution, the new is created on the basis of the already existing. Unexpectedly, it turns out that elements of the new have long been ripening in the available information. Therefore, the scientific revolution is not an instant revolution, since the new does not immediately receive recognition in science.

3. The appearance within 1-3 generations of a large number of talented people. They raise a whole layer of knowledge to an unprecedented height and long time have no equal.

4. Rapid development of physical and mathematical sciences.

As a special social institution, science begins in the 17th century. with the emergence of the first scientific societies and academies, its history spans three scientific revolutions.

The first scientific revolution (XVII-XVIII centuries). During this period, the formation of classical natural science took place. Its main criteria and characteristics are the objectivity of knowledge, the reliability of its origin, the exclusion from it of elements that do not concern the cognitive subject and its procedures. cognitive activity. The main requirement for science was to achieve pure objectivity of knowledge. Science quickly gained prestige and authority, claiming, together with philosophy, the only adequate embodiment of reason. The growing authority of science contributed to the emergence of the first form of scientism (knowledge, science), whose supporters absolutized the role and significance of science. In his bosom, the so-called scenic (ideological) utopianism was formed - a theory according to which social relations can be fully known and transparent, and politics is based solely on scientific laws that coincide with the laws of nature. The French philosopher and writer Denis Diderot inclined to such views, who considered society and man through the prism of natural science and the laws of nature. Accordingly, he identified a person with all other natural objects, machines, the role of the conscious principle in it was narrowed, or even ignored. Because the main science period was mechanics, the general scientific picture of the world of classical natural science had a pronounced mechanistic character.

at the end of the 18th century. the first scientific revolution developed into an industrial one, the result of which was the development of a capitalist industrial society and industrial civilization. Since then, the development of science has been largely driven by the needs of the economy and production.

In the 19th century science has undergone significant changes, its differentiation led to the formation of many independent scientific disciplines with the corresponding areas of competence. In this process, mechanics lost its monopoly on the interpretation of the general scientific picture of the world, and the positions of biology, chemistry, and geology strengthened. The style of scientific thinking has changed significantly, in which the idea of ​​development has become important. The object of knowledge, including nature, has since been considered not as a complete and stable thing, but as a process. In general, science continued to develop within the framework of the classical form, and further claiming the absoluteness of an exhaustive vision of the picture of the world. Its public authority and prestige steadily grew.

The second scientific revolution (late 19th - early 20th centuries). It entailed the emergence of a new, non-classical science, which owns the discovery of the electron, radio, the transformation of chemical elements, the creation of the theory of relativity and quantum theory, penetration into the microcosm and the knowledge of high speeds. Radical changes have taken place in all spheres of scientific knowledge. New scientific directions have declared themselves, in particular cybernetics and systems theory.

Non-classical science no longer put forward claims to the complete or absolute objectivity of knowledge, to the absence of a subjective aspect in it. The role of the subjective factor has sharply increased in it. More and more, she took into account the influence of methods, methods and means of cognition. It was also indisputable for her that knowledge is conditioned not only by the nature of the cognitive object, but also by many other factors, her knowledge was steadily getting rid of empiricism, losing its research origin, becoming purely theoretical. Of particular importance in cognition began to acquire theories and models built by the cognitive subject with the help of mathematical, statistical, combinatorial and other approaches.

In the field of knowledge and in the coordinates of each of the sciences, the process of differentiation is intensifying, which resulted in an increase in the number of scientific disciplines and schools. As a result, a trend towards pluralism emerged. The existence within the framework of science of different schools and directions, different views on one problem has become acceptable. At the highest levels of cognition, the pluralism of general pictures of the world, claiming to be true, also manifested itself. The principle of relativism - the relativity of human knowledge, according to which each theory is recognized as true only in a specific system of data or coordinates, has become relevant. In scientific terms, the concept of "truth" is increasingly giving way to the concept of "validity", which means validity, acceptability. A similar fate befell such concepts of classical science as "connections", "determinism", which gave way to the concepts of "possibility" and "indeterminism".

The third scientific revolution (mid-twentieth century - present). Since it was a continuation of the second scientific revolution, it is also called scientific and technological or scientific and technological. Its main result was the emergence of post-non-classical science. Just as the first scientific revolution developed into an industrial revolution, which gave rise to an industrial civilization, the third scientific revolution turned into a technological one, which forms a post-industrial civilization, a post-industrial, informational, postmodern society corresponds to it. The basis of this society is the latest high and subtle technologies based on new sources and types of energy, new materials and controls. technological processes. An exceptional role is played by computers, the means of mass communication and informatics, the development and distribution of which have acquired gigantic proportions.

During the third scientific revolution, the quality of the direct and main productive force, the main factor of production and social life, appears in science. Her connection with production became direct and inextricable, in cooperation with which she took a leading role, continuing to discover, reviving the latest and high technologies, new energy sources, materials.

Science has undergone profound changes. First of all, the elements of the process of cognition have become more complicated - the subject that cognizes, the means and the object of cognition, their ratio has changed. The subject of the cognitive process is rarely one scientist who independently studies some object. Most often it is formed by a collective, a group, the number of which remains uncertain. The subject of cognition ceases to be outside its object, opposed to it, but is included in the process of cognition, becomes one of the elements of the coordinate system of this process. To study the object of knowledge often does not require direct contact and interaction with it. His research is often carried out at a great distance. Often the object of knowledge is devoid of any outlines, being a part or a fragment of a conditionally distinguished phenomenon. Constantly growing, acquiring decisive importance, the role of means and methods of cognition.

Classical, non-classical and post-non-classical stages in the development of science. Externalism and internalism as principles of the genesis of science. The problem of periodization of the history of science.

As a peculiar form of knowledge, namely, as a specific type of spiritual production and a social institution, science arose in Europe, in modern times, in the 16th-17th centuries. in the era of the formation of the capitalist mode of production and differentiation (separation) of previously unified knowledge into philosophy and science. It, first in the form of natural science, begins to develop relatively independently. However, science is constantly connected with practice, receives impulses from it for its development and, in turn, influences the course of practical activity, is objectified, materialized in it.

Speaking about the emergence of science (this problem is especially thoroughly considered in the works of P.P. Gaidenko, JI.M. Kesareva, JI.A. Mikeshina, V.S. Stepin and others), the following should be emphasized.

In antiquity and the Middle Ages, mainly philosophical knowledge of the world took place. Here the concepts of "philosophy", "knowledge", "science" actually coincided: it was essentially a "triune whole", not yet divided into its parts. Strictly speaking, within the framework of philosophy, information and knowledge were combined about the “first causes and universal principles”, about individual natural phenomena, about the life of people and the history of mankind, about the very process of cognition, a certain set of logical (Aristotle) ​​and mathematical (Euclid) knowledge was formulated, etc. All this knowledge existed within a single whole (traditionally called philosophy) in the form of its individual aspects, sides. In other words, the elements, prerequisites, "sprouts" of the future science were formed in the depths of another spiritual system, but they had not yet emerged from them as an autonomous, independent whole.

Indicating the importance of ancient Greek philosophy in the emergence of science, A. Whitehead, in particular, notes that Plato's dialogues contain "the first clear formulations of logic as a special science." However, according to Whitehead, Plato made very little use of this method "from the point of view of natural science."

Aristotle created an integral system of formal logic, the "first philosophy" and the dialectical method. Whitehead draws attention to the fact that, firstly, the Greek philosopher widely uses in his works the general concept of classification (especially important for the knowledge of nature) and gives a masterful analysis of the complexities associated with the relationship of various classes of objects. Secondly, “his theoretical teaching he (Aristotle ) applied also to the vast material collected by direct observation in zoology, physics, sociology. We can find in him the beginnings of almost all our concrete sciences, both natural and those associated with the activity of the human spirit. He laid the foundations for that desire for an accurate analysis of each specific situation, which ultimately led to the formation of modern European science" ( Whitehead A. Selected Works in Philosophy. M., 1990. S. 544).

Indeed, the prerequisites for science were created in ancient Eastern civilizations - Egypt, Babylon, India, China, Ancient Greece in the form of empirical knowledge about nature and society, in the form of individual elements, the "rudiments" of astronomy, ethics, logic, mathematics, etc. That is why Euclid's geometry - this is not a science as a whole, but only one of the branches of mathematics, which (mathematics) is also only one of the sciences, but not a science as such.

The reason for this situation, of course, is rooted not in the fact that before the New Age there were no such great scientists as Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, etc., but in those real socio-historical, socio-cultural factors that have not yet created objective conditions for the formation of science as a special system of knowledge, a kind of spiritual phenomenon and social institution - in this "holistic trinity".

Thus, in the ancient and medieval periods, there were only elements, prerequisites, “pieces” of science, but not science itself in the proper sense of the word (as the indicated “holistic trinity”), which arises only in modern times, in the process of spinning off science from traditional philosophy. . As V. I. Vernadsky wrote in this regard, the basis of the new science of our time is “essentially the creation of the 17th-20th centuries, although individual attempts (meaning the mathematical and natural science knowledge of antiquity .) and its rather successful constructions go back centuries ... The modern scientific apparatus was almost entirely created in the last three centuries, but fragments from the scientific apparatuses of the past have got into it ”(See. Vernadsky V.I. About science. T. 1. Scientific knowledge. Scientific creativity. Scientific thought. Dubna, 1997, p. 419).

At the end of the XVI - beginning of the XVII century. a bourgeois revolution takes place in the Netherlands, which played an important role in the development of new, namely capitalist, relations (which replaced feudal ones) in a number of European countries. From the middle of the XVII century. the bourgeois revolution is unfolding in England, the most industrially developed European country. If in a feudal society the scientific knowledge that was formed in the form of "rudiments" was "a humble servant of the church" (were "dissolved" in the "ether" of religious consciousness) and they were not allowed to go beyond the limits set by faith, then the emerging new class (bourgeoisie) needs there was a "full-blooded" science, i.e., such a system of scientific knowledge, which, first of all, for the development of industry, would investigate the properties of physical bodies and the forms of manifestation of the forces of nature.

Bourgeois revolutions gave a powerful impetus to the unprecedented development of industry and trade, construction, mining and military affairs, navigation, etc. The development of bourgeois society gives rise to great changes not only in the economy, politics and social relations, it also greatly changes the consciousness of people. The most important factor in all these changes is science, and above all, experimental and mathematical natural science, which just in the 17th century. is going through a period of development. Gradually, astronomy, mechanics, physics, chemistry and other particular sciences are formed into independent branches of knowledge. In this regard, it should be said that the concepts of "science" and "natural science" in this period (and even later) were practically identified, since the formation of social science (social sciences, humanities) in its pace was somewhat slower.

Thus, for the emergence of science in the 16th-17th centuries, in addition to socio-economic (the establishment of capitalism and the urgent need for the growth of its productive forces), social (a turning point in spiritual culture, undermining the dominance of religion and the scholastic-speculative way of thinking) conditions, it is necessary there was a certain level of development of knowledge itself, a “reserve” of the necessary and sufficient number of facts that would be subject to description, systematization and theoretical generalization. That is why mechanics, astronomy, and mathematics were the first to appear, where more such facts were accumulated. It is they who form the "original whole" of a single science as such, "science in general" in contrast to philosophy. From now on, the main task of knowledge was not “entangling the enemy with argumentation” (as with the scholastics), but studying, on the basis of real facts, nature itself, objective reality.

Thus, in contrast to traditional (especially scholastic) philosophy, the emerging science of modern times raised questions in a radically new way about the specifics of scientific knowledge and the originality of its formation, about the tasks of cognitive activity and its methods, about the place and role of science in the life of society, about the need for domination man over nature on the basis of knowledge of its laws.

In public life, a new worldview began to take shape, new image of the world and a style of thinking that essentially destroyed the previous picture of the universe created for many centuries and led to the formation of a “material-naturalistic” concept of the cosmos with its focus on mechanism and quantitative methods. Describing the role of the latter in the development of scientific knowledge, Galileo wrote: “I will never demand from external bodies anything other than size, figures, momentum, that if we eliminated ears, tongues, noses, then only figures would remain, number and movement Galileo G. Selected works: In 2 vols. T. 1. M., 1964. S. 507.). In this regard, Galileo's dictum is known that "the book of the Universe is written in the language of mathematics."

Galileo was the first to introduce into knowledge what became a characteristic feature of precisely scientific knowledge - a thought experiment based on a strict quantitative-mathematical description. Galileo “hammered” into the consciousness of his time (entangled in scholastic dogmas) the idea that science without mental construction, without idealization, without abstractions, without “generalizing resolutions” based on facts is anything but science.

W. Heisenberg singled out two characteristic features of Galileo's new method:

a) the desire to set each time new precise experiments that create idealized phenomena;

b) comparison of the latter with mathematical structures accepted as laws of nature.

P. Feyerabend drew attention to the innovative nature of Galileo's methodological searches, who emphasizes that in his (Galileo's) activity, ordinary empirical experience was replaced by experience containing conceptual elements.

Considering the emerging in the XVI-XVII centuries. new style thinking, V. V. Ilyin and A. T. Kalinkin (See: Priroda nauki. M., 1985, p. 56.) indicate its following characteristic features: » an object devoid of an anthropomorphic-symbolic element, given in direct activity and subject to practical development; rejection of the principle of concreteness (naive qualitative bodily-physical thinking of antiquity and the Middle Ages); the formation of the principle of strict quantitative assessment (in the social field - the process of the formation of mercantilism, usury, statistics, etc., in the scientific field - with the success of inventions, the creation of measuring equipment, rigidly deterministic causal typology of the phenomena of reality, the elimination of teleological, organismic and animistic categories, the introduction of causalism, the instrumentalist interpretation of nature and its attributes - space, time, movement, causality, etc., which are mechanically combined along with the ontologically fundamental forms that make up any thing, the image of a geometrized homogeneous unitary reality, controlled by unique quantitative laws, recognition in the dynamics of a universal method for describing the behavior of surrounding phenomena (not real models, but formal geometric patterns and equations).

At this time, there was a sharp increase in interest not only in particular scientific knowledge, but also in general theoretical, methodological, and philosophical problems. The growth of interest in these problems was closely connected not only with the successes of private (primarily natural) sciences, but also with their shortcomings and limitations. Various branches of science were still poorly developed. Therefore, it was necessary to reason about many aspects of nature and society without a sufficient amount of the necessary factual material and its generalization, to build various assumptions, often speculative. And this was impossible to achieve without the help of philosophy.

In modern times, the process of demarcation between philosophy and particular sciences is developing at an accelerated pace. The process of differentiation of previously undivided knowledge goes in three main directions:

1. Separation of science from philosophy.

2. Separation within the framework of science as a whole of individual private sciences - mechanics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, etc.

3. Isolation in a holistic philosophical knowledge of such philosophical disciplines as ontology, philosophy of nature, philosophy of history, epistemology, logic, etc.

The turning point in this process was the 18th and the first half of the 19th century, when, on the one hand, all the main branches of modern scientific knowledge emerged from philosophy, and, on the other hand, the isolation of individual areas within philosophy itself was brought to separation from each other. , which was inherent in particular for the views of Kant.

So, the intensive development of productive forces characteristic of the New Age in the conditions of the emerging capitalist formation, which caused the rapid flowering of science (especially natural science), required fundamental changes in methodology, the creation of fundamentally new methods of scientific research - both philosophical and private scientific. The progress of experimental knowledge, experimental science required the replacement of the scholastic method of thinking with a new method of cognition, addressed to real world. The principles of materialism and elements of dialectics were revived and developed. But the materialism of the time was generally mechanistic and metaphysical. Most major representatives philosophy and science of the XVI-XVII centuries. were D. Bruno, N. Copernicus, G. Galileo, I. Newton, F. Bacon, R. Descartes, D. Locke, G. Leibniz and others, who, as a rule, were both outstanding philosophers and major natural scientists, and mathematicians, combining these "hypostases" in one person.

In understanding the genesis, the emergence of science in the history and philosophy of science, two opposite approaches have developed. From point of view externalism, the emergence of science is due entirely to circumstances external to it - social, economic, etc. Therefore, the main task of studying science, according to supporters of this approach, is the reconstruction of sociocultural conditions and guidelines for scientific and cognitive activity ("social orders", "socioeconomic conditions" , "cultural-historical contexts", etc.). They act as the main factor that directly determines the emergence and development of science, its structure, features, and direction of its evolution.

Internalism On the contrary, he considers factors related to the internal nature of scientific knowledge to be the main driving force in the development of science: the logic of solving its problems, the relationship between traditions and innovations, etc. Therefore, when studying science, supporters of internalism direct the main attention to the description of cognitive processes proper. Sociocultural factors are given secondary importance: depending on the situation, they can only slow down or accelerate the internal course of scientific knowledge. However, this "move" is the unity of its internal and external factors, which at different stages of this process change places and roles.

The conditionality of the processes of the emergence and development of science by the needs of socio-historical practice is the main source, the main driving force of these processes. Not only the development of science corresponds to the level of development of practice, but also the division of scientific knowledge, the differentiation of sciences also reflects certain stages in the development of practice, the division of labor, the internal dismemberment of human activity as a whole. Practice and knowledge are two interrelated sides of a single historical process, but decisive role this is where practice comes into play. If a classification of sciences - this is their division “vertically”, then periodization- this is their deployment "horizontally", i.e. along the time axis in the form of certain successive historical periods (steps, phases, stages).

When investigating the history of any material or spiritual phenomenon (including science), it should be borne in mind that this is a complex dialectical progressive process of the “appearance of differences”, which includes a number of qualitatively unique stages, phases, etc. Therefore, the task of cognition is is to achieve an understanding of the actual historical process in its various phases, to establish the specifics of these phases, their similarities and differences, their boundaries and the connection between them. Each of these stages, phases should be considered as a kind of integrity, as a qualitatively defined system that has its own specific structure, its own "constituents", its own elements, connections, etc. Although the boundaries between the stages of the history of the subject are not "abstractly strict", but they are flexible and mobile, their correct implementation in accordance with the objective nature of the objects themselves is the most important condition for successful research. Moreover, one should strive to study all stages of the development of an object, all phases of its history (basic and non-basic, essential and non-essential, etc.) in order to then single out among them the main, necessary, “nodal” ones.

Exists two main types of periodization: 1) formal, when one or another separate “feature” (or a group of them) is placed as the basis for dividing the history of an object into the corresponding stages; 2) dialectical, when the main contradiction of the subject under study becomes the basis (criterion) of this division, which must be distinguished from all other contradictions of the latter. Formal periodization is widely used, especially at the initial stages of the study of the history of an object, i.e., at the empirical level, at the level of a “phenomenon,” and therefore, of course, it cannot be underestimated, much less completely rejected. At the same time, the significance of this type of periodization cannot be exaggerated, its possibilities cannot be absoluteized. The transition in scientific research to the theoretical level, to the stage of cognition of the "essence" of the subject, the disclosure of its contradictions and their development means that the periodization of the history of the subject should already be carried out from a higher - dialectical point of view. At this level, the subject must be depicted as a "process-performing contradiction." The main forms, the stages in the development of this contradiction (primarily the main one) will be the main stages in the development of the subject, the necessary phases of its history.

Thus, the development, the history of the subject, its transitions from one stage to another, is, ultimately, nothing more than the deployment of the main, fundamental contradiction between its poles (opposites). Each main stage, the main, necessary stage, is one of the intermediate links in this deployment, and the evolution of the main contradiction is a process of increasing not only the number of intermediate, intermediate links, but also their qualitative differences, expressing the specifics of each main stage in the history of the subject.

Applying what has been said about periodization to the history of science, we should first of all emphasize the following. Science is a concrete, historical phenomenon, passing through a number of qualitatively peculiar stages in its development. The question of the periodization of the history of science and its criteria is still debatable and is actively discussed in domestic and foreign literature.

One of the approaches, which is gaining more and more recognition in our country, was developed by V. S. Stepin (Stepin V.S. theoretical knowledge. M., 2000. S. 54) based on the history of natural science, primarily physics, and is as follows. In the history of the formation and development of science, two stages can be distinguished, which correspond to two different methods of building knowledge and two forms of predicting the results of activities. The first stage characterizes the emerging science (pre-science). The second is science in the proper sense of the word.

Thus, science as such (that is, science in the proper sense of the word) is preceded by pre-science (the pre-classical stage), where the elements (prerequisites) of science are born. Here we mean the beginnings of knowledge in the Ancient East, in Greece and Rome, as well as in the Middle Ages, up to the XV-XVII centuries. It is this period that is most often considered the beginning, the starting point of natural science (and science in general) as systematic research real Reality.

B.C. Stepin believes that science in the proper sense begins from the moment when, along with empirical rules and dependencies (which pre-science knew), a special type of knowledge is formed in it - a theory that makes it possible to obtain empirical dependencies as a consequence of theoretical postulates. In other words, when cognition “begins to build the foundation of a new system of 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.

Science as a holistic phenomenon arises in modern times as a result of a branch off from philosophy and goes through three main stages in its development: classical, non-classical, post-non-classical (modern). At each of these stages, the corresponding ideals, norms and methods of scientific research are developed, a certain style of thinking is formed, a kind of conceptual apparatus etc. The criterion (basis) of this periodization is the ratio (contradiction) of the object and subject of knowledge.

classical Spider (XVII-XIX centuries), exploring their objects, sought to eliminate as much as possible everything related to the subject, means, methods and operations of his activity in their description and theoretical explanation. This removal was seen as necessary condition obtaining objectively true knowledge about the world. Here the objective style of thinking dominates, the desire to know the subject in itself, regardless of the conditions of its study by the subject.

Non-classical science (the first half of the 20th century), the starting point of which is associated with the development of relativistic and quantum theory, rejects the objectivism of classical science, rejects the representation of reality as something independent of the means of its cognition, a subjective factor. It comprehends the connections between the knowledge of the object and the nature of the means and operations of the subject's activity. The explication of these connections is considered as the conditions for an objectively true description and explanation of the world.

Essential feature post-non-classical science(the second half of the 20th - the beginning of the 21st century) is the constant involvement of subjective activity in the "body of knowledge". It takes into account the correlation of the nature of the acquired knowledge about the object not only with the peculiarity of the means and operations of the activity of the cognizing subject, but also with its value-target structures. Each of these stages has its own paradigm (a set of theoretical, methodological and other guidelines), its own picture of the world, its own fundamental ideas.

The classical stage has mechanics as its paradigm, its picture of the world is built on the principle of rigid (Laplacian) determinism, and the image of the universe as a clock mechanism corresponds to it. The paradigm of relativity, discreteness, quantization, probability, complementarity is connected with non-classical science. The post-nonclassical stage corresponds to the paradigm of formation and self-organization. The main features of the new (post-non-classical) image of science are expressed by synergetics, which studies the general principles of self-organization processes occurring in systems of very different nature (physical, biological, technical, social, etc.). Orientation to the “synergetic movement” is an orientation to historical time, systemicity (integrity) and development as the most important characteristics of being.

At the same time, the replacement of the classical image of science with a non-classical one, and the latter with a post-non-classical one, cannot be understood in a simplified way in the sense that each new stage leads to the complete disappearance of the ideas and methodological guidelines of the previous stage. On the contrary, there is continuity between them. There is a “law of subordination”: each of the previous stages enters the next in a transformed, modernized form. Non-classical science did not at all destroy classical science, but only limited its scope. For example, when solving a number of problems in celestial mechanics, it was not necessary to involve the principles of quantum mechanics, but it was enough to confine ourselves to the classical standards of research.

It should be borne in mind that the periodization of the history of science can be carried out on other grounds. So, from the point of view of the correlation of such methods of cognition as analysis and synthesis (again, based on the material of the natural sciences), two major stages can be distinguished:

I. Analytical, which includes, according to the previous periodization, classical and non-classical natural science. Moreover, in the latter there is a constant and steady increase in the "synthetic trend". Features of this stage: continuous differentiation of sciences; a clear predominance of empirical knowledge over theoretical; focusing attention primarily on the subjects themselves, and not on their changes, transformations, transformations; consideration of nature, predominantly unchanged, without development, without the interconnection of its phenomena.

II. Synthetic, an integrative stage that practically coincides with post-non-classical natural science. It is clear that it is impossible to draw strict boundaries between these stages: firstly, the global trend is the strengthening of the synthetic paradigm, and secondly, there is always an interaction of both trends with the predominance of one of them.

characteristic feature the integrative stage is the emergence (which began already, at least from the second half of the previous stage) of interdisciplinary problems and the corresponding "butt" scientific disciplines, such as physics, chemistry, biophysics, biochemistry, psychophysics, geochemistry, etc. Therefore, in modern natural science there is no longer not a single science "in refined pure form”and the process of building a holistic science of nature and a unified science of reality as a whole is underway.

Science is not something immutable, but is a holistic developing shaping that has its own past, present and future.