The difference between scientific knowledge and other types of knowledge. intuitive knowledge

Intuitively, it seems clear how science differs from other forms of human cognitive activity. However, a clear explication of the specific features of science in the form of signs and definitions turns out to be a rather difficult task. This is evidenced by the variety of definitions of science, the ongoing discussions on the problem of demarcation between it and other forms of knowledge.

Scientific knowledge, like all forms of spiritual production, is ultimately necessary in order to regulate human activity. Different types of cognition fulfill this role in different ways, and the analysis of this difference is the first and necessary condition for identifying the features of scientific cognition.

An activity can be considered as a complexly organized network of various acts of object transformation, when the products of one activity pass into another and become its components. For example, iron ore as a product of mining production becomes an object that is transformed into the activities of a steelmaker, machine tools produced at a plant from steel mined by a steelmaker become means of activity in another production. Even the subjects of activity - people who transform objects in accordance with the goals set, can to a certain extent be presented as the results of training and education, which ensures that the subject acquires the necessary patterns of actions, knowledge and skills of using certain means in the activity.

The structural characteristics of an elementary act of activity can be represented as the following scheme:

The right side of this scheme depicts the subject structure of activity - the interaction of funds with the subject of activity and its transformation into a product due to the implementation of certain operations. The left part represents the subject structure, which includes the subject of activity (with its goals, values, knowledge of operations and skills), which performs expedient actions and uses certain means of activity for this purpose. Means and actions can be attributed to both objective and subjective structures, since they can be considered in two ways. On the one hand, the means can be presented as artificial organs of human activity. On the other hand, they can be considered as natural objects that interact with other objects. In a similar way, operations can be presented in various ways both as human actions and as natural interactions of objects.

Activities are always governed by certain values and goals. Value answers the question: “what is the purpose of this or that activity”. The goal is to answer the question: “what should be obtained in the activity”. The goal is the ideal image of the product. It is embodied, objectified in the product, which is the result of the transformation of the subject of activity.

Since activity is universal, the function of its objects can be not only fragments of nature that are transformed in practice, but also people whose “properties” change when they are included in various social subsystems, as well as these subsystems themselves, interacting within society as an integral organism. Then, in the first case, we are dealing with the “objective side” of human change in nature, and in the second case, with the “objective side” of practice aimed at changing social objects. From this point of view, a person can act both as a subject and as an object of practical action.

At the early stages of the development of society, the subjective and objective aspects of practical activity are not dissected in cognition, but are taken as a single whole. Cognition reflects the ways of practical change of objects, including in the characteristics of the latter the goals, abilities and actions of a person. Such an idea of the objects of activity is transferred to the whole nature, which is viewed through the prism of the practice being carried out.

It is known, for example, that in the myths of ancient peoples, the forces of nature are always likened to human forces, and its processes - to human actions. Primitive thinking, in explaining the phenomena of the external world, invariably resorts to their comparison with human actions and motives. Only in the process of the long evolution of society does knowledge begin to exclude anthropomorphic factors from the characterization of objective relations. An important role in this process was played by the historical development of practice, and above all by the improvement of means and tools of labor.

As the tools became more complex, those operations that were previously directly performed by a person began to “reify”, acting as a consistent impact of one tool on another and only then on the object being transformed. Thus, the properties and states of objects that arise due to these operations ceased to seem caused by the direct efforts of man, but more and more acted as the result of the interaction of the natural objects themselves. So, if in the early stages of civilization the movement of goods required muscular effort, then with the invention of the lever and block, and then the simplest machines, it was possible to replace these efforts with mechanical ones. For example, using a block system, it was possible to balance a large load with a small one, and by adding a small weight to a small load, raise a large load to the desired height. Here, to lift a heavy body, no human effort is needed: one load independently moves the other.

This transfer of human functions to mechanisms leads to a new understanding of the forces of nature. Previously, forces were understood only by analogy with the physical efforts of a person, but now they are beginning to be considered as mechanical forces. The above example can serve as an analogue of the process of "objectification" of the objective relations of practice, which, apparently, began already in the era of the first urban civilizations of antiquity. During this period, knowledge begins to gradually separate the objective side of practice from subjective factors and consider this side as a special, independent reality. Such consideration of practice is one of the necessary conditions for the emergence of scientific research.

Science sets itself the ultimate goal of foreseeing the process of transforming objects of practical activity (an object in its initial state) into corresponding products (an object in its final state). This transformation is always determined by the essential connections, laws of change and development of objects, and the activity itself can be successful only when it is consistent with these laws. Therefore, the main task of science is to reveal the laws in accordance with which objects change and develop.

With regard to the processes of transformation of nature, this function is performed by the natural and technical sciences. The processes of change in social objects are studied by the social sciences. Since a variety of objects can be transformed in activity - objects of nature, a person (and the state of his consciousness), subsystems of society, sign objects that function as cultural phenomena, etc. - to the extent that all of them can become subjects of scientific research.

The orientation of science to the study of objects that can be included in activity (either actual or potentially as possible objects of its future transformation), and their study as obeying the objective laws of functioning and development, constitutes the first main feature of scientific knowledge.

This feature distinguishes it from other forms of human cognitive activity. So, for example, in the process of artistic assimilation of reality, objects included in human activity are not separated from subjective factors, but are taken in a kind of "gluing" with them. Any reflection of objects of the objective world in art at the same time expresses the value attitude of a person to an object. An artistic image is such a reflection of an object that contains the imprint of a human personality, its value orientations, which are fused into the characteristics of the reflected reality. To exclude this interpenetration means to destroy the artistic image. In science, however, the features of the life of a person who creates knowledge, its value judgments are not directly part of the generated knowledge (Newton's laws do not allow one to judge what Newton loved and hated, while, for example, Rembrandt's personality is depicted in Rembrandt's portraits, his worldview and his personal attitude to the depicted social phenomena; a portrait painted by a great artist always acts as a self-portrait).

Science is focused on the subject and objective study of reality. The above, of course, does not mean that the personal moments and value orientations of a scientist do not play a role in scientific creativity and do not affect its results.

The process of scientific knowledge is determined not only by the characteristics of the object under study, but also by numerous factors of a sociocultural nature.

Considering science in its historical development, it can be found that as the type of culture changes, the standards of presentation of scientific knowledge, the ways of seeing reality in science, the styles of thinking that are formed in the context of culture and are affected by its most diverse phenomena change. This impact can be represented as the inclusion of various socio-cultural factors in the process of generating proper scientific knowledge. However, the statement of the connections between the objective and the subjective in any cognitive process and the need for a comprehensive study of science in its interaction with other forms of human spiritual activity do not remove the question of the difference between science and these forms (ordinary knowledge, artistic thinking, etc.). The first and necessary characteristic of such a difference is the sign of objectivity and objectivity of scientific knowledge.

Science in human activity singles out only its objective structure and examines everything through the prism of this structure. Like King Midas from the famous ancient legend - whatever he touched, everything turned into gold, - so science, whatever it touches - everything for it is an object that lives, functions and develops according to objective laws.

Here the question immediately arises: well, what then to be with the subject of activity, with his goals, values, states of his consciousness? All this belongs to the components of the subjective structure of activity, but science is able to study these components, because for it there are no prohibitions on the study of any really existing phenomena. The answer to these questions is quite simple: yes, science can explore any phenomena of human life and consciousness, it can explore activity, the human psyche, and culture, but only from one point of view - as special objects that obey objective laws. Science also studies the subjective structure of activity, but as a special object. And where science cannot construct an object and present its "natural life" determined by its essential connections, then its claims end. Thus, science can study everything in the human world, but from a special angle and from a special point of view. This special perspective of objectivity expresses both the infinity and limitations of science, since a person as an independent, conscious being has free will, and he is not only an object, he is also a subject of activity. And in this his subjective being, not all states can be exhausted by scientific knowledge, even if we assume that such a comprehensive scientific knowledge about a person, his life activity can be obtained.

There is no anti-scientism in this statement about the limits of science. It is simply a statement of the indisputable fact that science cannot replace all forms of knowledge of the world, of all culture. And everything that escapes her field of vision is compensated by other forms of spiritual comprehension of the world - art, religion, morality, philosophy.

Studying objects that are transformed into activities, science is not limited to the knowledge of only those subject relations that can be mastered within the framework of the types of activities that have historically developed at a given stage in the development of society. The purpose of science is to foresee possible future changes in objects, including those that would correspond to future types and forms of practical change in the world.

As an expression of these goals in science, not only research is formed that serves today's practice, but also layers of research, the results of which can only find application in the practice of the future. The movement of cognition in these layers is already determined not so much by the direct demands of today's practice as by cognitive interests through which the needs of society are manifested in predicting future methods and forms of practical development of the world. For example, the formulation of intrascientific problems and their solution within the framework of fundamental theoretical research in physics led to the discovery of the laws of the electromagnetic field and the prediction of electromagnetic waves, to the discovery of the laws of fission of atomic nuclei, the quantum laws of radiation of atoms during the transition of electrons from one energy level to another, etc. All these theoretical discoveries laid the foundation for future methods of mass practical development of nature in production. A few decades later, they became the basis for applied engineering research and development, the introduction of which into production, in turn, revolutionized equipment and technology - radio-electronic equipment, nuclear power plants, laser installations, etc. appeared.

The focus of science on the study of not only objects that are transformed in today's practice, but also those that can become the subject of mass practical development in the future, is the second distinguishing feature of scientific knowledge. This feature makes it possible to distinguish between scientific and everyday, spontaneous-empirical knowledge and to derive a number of specific definitions that characterize the nature of science.

Introduction

1. Science as a specific type of knowledge

2. Extra-scientific types of knowledge

3. Science as a social institution

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

1. Science as a specific type of knowledge

Science as a specific type of knowledge is explored by the logic and methodology of science. The main problem here is the identification and explication of those features that are necessary and sufficient to distinguish scientific knowledge from the results of other types of knowledge (various forms of extrascientific knowledge). The latter include everyday knowledge, art (including fiction), religion (including religious texts), philosophy (to a large extent), intuitive-mystical experience, existential experiences, etc. In general, if by “knowledge” we understand even only textual (discourse) information, then it is obvious that scientific texts (even in the modern era of “big science”) make up only a part (and, moreover, a smaller one) of the total volume of discourse that modern humanity uses in its adaptive survival. Despite the great efforts of philosophers of science (especially representatives of logical positivism and analytical philosophy) to clearly define and explicate the criteria of scientificity, this problem is still far from an unambiguous solution. Usually such criterial signs of scientific knowledge are called: objectivity, unambiguity, certainty, accuracy, consistency, logical evidence, testability, theoretical and empirical validity, instrumental usefulness (practical applicability). The observance of these properties should guarantee the objective truth of scientific knowledge, therefore, "scientific knowledge" is often identified with "objectively true knowledge".

Of course, if we talk about "scientific knowledge" as a certain theoretical constructor of the methodology of science, then one can hardly object to the criteria of scientificity listed above. But the question is precisely how this “scientific ideal” is adequate, realizable and universal in relation to the “everyday” scientific knowledge, the real history of science and its modern diverse being. Unfortunately, as an analysis of the vast literature of the positivist and postpositivist schools of philosophy, methodology, and the history of science in the second half of the 20th century and their critics shows, the answer to this question is generally negative. Actual science in its functioning does not at all obey (does not implement) uniform and “pure” methodological standards. Abstraction within the framework of the methodology of science, from the social and psychological context of its functioning does not bring us closer, but moves us away from an adequate vision of real science. The ideal of logical evidence (in the strictest, syntactic sense) is not realizable even in the simplest logical and mathematical theories. It is obvious that in relation to the mathematical, natural-science and social-humanitarian theories richer in content, the requirement of their logical evidence is all the more unrealizable to any significant extent. The same, with certain reservations, can be said about the possibility of any complete implementation of all other "ideal" criteria of scientific character, in particular, the absolute empirical testability or validity of scientific theories in the natural sciences, technical sciences, social sciences and the humanities. Everywhere there is a context that has not been clarified to the end, the organic element of which is always a specific scientific text; everywhere - reliance on fundamentally irremovable implicit collective and personal knowledge, always - making cognitive decisions in conditions of incomplete certainty, scientific communications with the hope of adequate understanding, expert opinions and scientific consensus. However, if the scientific ideal of knowledge is unattainable, should it be abandoned? No, because the purpose of any ideal is to indicate the desired direction of movement, moving along which we have a greater probability of achieving success than following in the opposite or random direction. Ideals make it possible to understand, evaluate and structure reality in accordance with the accepted system of goals, needs and interests. Obviously, they are a necessary and most important regulatory element in ensuring the adaptive existence of a person in any sphere of his activity.

Intuitively, it seems clear how science differs from other forms of human cognitive activity. However, a clear definition of the specific features of science in the form of signs and definitions turns out to be a rather difficult task. This is evidenced by the diversity of science, the ongoing debate on the problem of the connection between it and other forms of knowledge.

An activity can be considered as a complexly organized network of various acts of object transformation, when the products of one activity pass into another and become its components. For example, iron ore, as a product of mining, becomes an object that is transformed into the activity of a steelmaker; machine tools produced at the plant from the steel mined by the steelmaker become the means of activity in another production. Even the subjects of activity - people who carry out these transformations of objects in accordance with the goals set, can to a certain extent be presented as the results of the activities of training and education, which ensure the assimilation by the subject of the necessary patterns of actions, knowledge and skills of using certain means in the activity.

Means and actions can be attributed to both objective and subjective structures, since they can be considered in two ways. On the one hand, the means can be presented as artificial organs of human activity. On the other hand, they can be considered as natural objects that interact with other objects. Similarly, operations can be presented in different ways, both as human actions and as natural interactions of objects.

Activities are always governed by certain values and goals. Value answers the question: why do we need this or that activity? The goal is to answer the question: what should be obtained in the activity? The goal is the ideal image of the product. It is embodied, objectifying in the product, which is the result of the transformation of the subject of activity.

Since activity is universal, the functions of its objects can be not only fragments of nature that are transformed in practice, but also people whose “properties” change when they are included in various social subsystems, as well as these subsystems themselves, interacting within society as an integral organism. Then, in the first case, we are dealing with the “objective side” of human change in nature, and in the second case, with the “objective side” of practice aimed at changing social objects. A person, from the point of view, can act both as a subject and as an object of practical action.

At the early stage of the development of society, the subjective and objective aspects of practical activity are not dissected in cognition, but are taken as a single whole. Cognition reflects the ways of practical change of objects, including in the characteristics of the latter the goals, abilities and actions of a person. This idea of the objects of activity is transferred to the whole nature, which is viewed through the prism of the practice being carried out.

It is known, for example, that in the myths of ancient peoples, the forces of nature are always likened to human forces, and its processes are always likened to human actions. Primitive thinking, in explaining the phenomena of the external world, invariably resorts to their comparison with human actions and motives. Only in the process of the long evolution of society does knowledge begin to exclude anthropomorphic factors from the characterization of objective relations. An important role in this process was played by the historical development of practice, and, above all, the improvement of means and tools of labor.

As the tools became more complex, those operations that were previously directly performed by a person began to “reify”, acting as a consistent impact of one tool on another and only then on the object being transformed. Thus, the properties and states of objects that arise due to these operations ceased to seem caused by the direct efforts of man, but more and more acted as the result of the interaction of the natural objects themselves. So, if in the early stages of civilization the movement of goods required muscular effort, then with the invention of the lever and block, and then the simplest machines, it was possible to replace these efforts with mechanical ones. For example, using a system of blocks, it was possible to balance a large load with a small one, and by adding a small weight to a small load, raise a large load to the desired height. Here, to lift a heavy body, no human effort is needed: one load independently moves the other.

With regard to the processes of transformation of nature, this function is performed by the natural and technical sciences. The processes of change in social objects are studied by the social sciences. Since a variety of objects can be transformed in activity - objects of nature, a person (and the state of his consciousness), subsystems of society, iconic objects functioning as cultural phenomena, etc. - all of them can become subjects of scientific research.

The orientation of science towards the study of objects that can be included in activity (either actually or potentially as possible objects of its future transformation), and their study as obeying the objective laws of functioning and development, constitute the first main feature of scientific knowledge.

This feature distinguishes it from other forms of human cognitive activity. Thus, for example, in the process of artistic assimilation of reality, objects included in human activity are not separated from subjective factors, but are taken in a kind of "gluing" with them. Any reflection of objects of the objective world in art at the same time expresses the value attitude of a person to an object. An artistic image is such a reflection of an object that contains the imprint of a human personality, its value of orientation, which are fused into the characteristics of the reflected reality. To exclude this interpenetration means to destroy the artistic image. In science, the features of the life activity of a person who creates knowledge, its value judgments are not directly part of the generated knowledge (Newton's laws do not allow one to judge what and what Newton hated, while, for example, Rembrandt's portraits depict the personality of Rembrandt himself, his worldview and his personal attitude to the depicted social phenomena; a portrait painted by a great artist always acts as a self-portrait).

Science is focused on the subject and objective study of reality. The foregoing, of course, does not mean that the personal moments and value orientations of a scientist do not play a role in scientific creativity and do not affect its results.

The process of scientific knowledge is determined not only by the characteristics of the object under study, but also by numerous factors of a sociocultural nature.

Considering science in its historical development, it can be found that as the type of culture changes, the standards for presenting scientific knowledge, the ways of seeing reality in science, the styles of thinking that are formed in the context of culture and are affected by its most diverse phenomena change. This impact can be represented as the inclusion of various socio-cultural factors in the process of generating proper scientific knowledge. However, the statement of the connections between the objective and the subjective in any cognitive process and the need for a comprehensive study of science in its interaction with other forms of human spiritual activity do not remove the question of the difference between science and these forms (ordinary knowledge, artistic thinking, etc.). The first and necessary characteristic of such a difference is the sign of objectivity and objectivity of scientific knowledge.

Science in human activity singles out only its objective structure and examines everything through the prism of this structure. Like King Midas from the famous ancient legend - whatever he touched, everything turned into gold, - so science, whatever it touches, is everything for it an object that lives, functions and develops according to objective laws.

Here the question immediately arises: well, what then to be with the subject of activity, with his goals, values, states of his consciousness? All this belongs to the components of the subjective structure of activity, but science is capable of investigating these components too, because there are no prohibitions for it to study any really existing phenomena. The answer to these questions is quite simple: yes, science can explore any phenomena of human life and consciousness, it can explore activity, the human psyche, and culture, but only from one point of view - as special objects that obey objective laws. Science also studies the subjective structure of activity, but as a special object. And where science cannot construct an object and present its "natural life" determined by its essential connections, then its claims end. Thus, science can study everything in the human world, but from a special perspective and from a special point of view. This special perspective of objectivity expresses both the infinity and limitations of science, since a person as an independent, conscious being has free will, and he is not only an object, he is also a subject of activity. And in this his subjective being, not all states can be exhausted by scientific knowledge, even if we assume that such a comprehensive scientific knowledge about a person, his life activity can be obtained.

The purpose of science is to foresee possible future changes in objects, including those that would correspond to future types and forms of practical change in the world.

Great scientists, creators of new, original directions and discoveries, have always paid attention to this ability of theories to potentially contain entire constellations of future new technologies and unexpected practical applications.

K.A. Timiryazev wrote about this: “Despite the absence of a narrowly utilitarian direction in modern science, it was in its free development, independent of the pointers of worldly sages and moralists, that it became, more than ever, a source of practical, everyday applications. That astonishing development of technology, by which superficial observers are blinded, who are ready to recognize it as the most outstanding feature of the 19th century, is only the result of the development of science, which is not visible to everyone, unprecedented in history, free from any utilitarian oppression. Striking proof of this is the development of chemistry: it was both alchemy and iatrochemistry, in the service of both mining and pharmacy, and only in the 19th century, the "century of science", becoming simply chemistry, i.e. pure science, it was the source of innumerable applications in medicine, and in technology, and in mining, it shed light both on physics and even astronomy, which are higher in the scientific hierarchy, and on younger branches of knowledge, such as physiology, say, developed only during this century.

Similar thoughts were expressed by one of the founders of quantum mechanics, the French physicist Louis de Broglie. “Great discoveries,” he wrote, “even those made by researchers who did not have any practical application in mind and were engaged exclusively in theoretical problem solving, then quickly found application in the technical field. Of course, Planck, when he first wrote the formula that now bears his name, did not think at all about lighting technology. But he had no doubt that the enormous efforts of thought expended by him would allow us to understand and foresee a large number of phenomena that would quickly and in ever-increasing numbers be used by lighting technology. Something similar happened to me. I was extremely surprised when I saw that the concepts developed by me very quickly find specific applications in the technique of electron diffraction and electron microscopy.

The focus of science on the study of not only objects that are transformed in today's practice, but also those objects that can become the subject of mass practical development in the future, is the second distinguishing feature of scientific knowledge. This feature makes it possible to distinguish between scientific and everyday, spontaneous-empirical knowledge and to derive a number of specific definitions that characterize the nature of science. It allows us to understand why theoretical research is a defining characteristic of developed science.

2. Extra-scientific types of knowledge

Cognition is not limited to the sphere of science, knowledge in one form or another exists outside of science. The advent of scientific knowledge did not abolish or make other forms of knowledge useless. Each form of social consciousness: science, philosophy, mythology, politics, religion, etc., corresponds to specific forms of knowledge. There are also forms of knowledge that have a conceptual, symbolic or artistic-figurative basis. Unlike all the diverse forms of knowledge, scientific knowledge is the process of obtaining objective, true knowledge aimed at reflecting the patterns of reality. Scientific knowledge has a threefold task and is associated with the description, explanation and prediction of the processes and phenomena of reality.

When one distinguishes between scientific, based on rationality, and extra-scientific knowledge, it is important to understand that the latter is not someone's invention or fiction. It is produced in certain intellectual communities, in accordance with other (other than rationalistic) norms, standards, has its own sources and conceptual means. Obviously, many forms of extra-scientific knowledge are older than knowledge recognized as scientific, for example, astrology is older than astronomy, alchemy is older than chemistry. In the history of culture, diverse forms of knowledge that differ from the classical scientific model and standard are assigned to the department of extra-scientific knowledge. There are the following forms of extra-scientific knowledge:

Parascientific as incompatible with existing epistemological standards. A wide class of parascientific knowledge includes teachings or reflections on phenomena, the explanations of which are not convincing from the point of view of scientific criteria;

Pseudo-scientific as consciously exploiting conjectures and prejudices. Pseudo-scientific knowledge often presents science as the work of outsiders. Sometimes it is associated with the pathological activity of the author's psyche, who is commonly called a "maniac", "crazy". As symptoms of pseudoscience, illiterate pathos, fundamental intolerance of refuting arguments, as well as pretentiousness are distinguished. Pseudo-scientific knowledge is very sensitive to the topic of the day, sensation. Its peculiarity is that it cannot be united by a paradigm, cannot be systematic, universal. Pseudo-scientific knowledge coexists with scientific knowledge in patches and inclusions. It is believed that the pseudo-scientific reveals itself and develops through the quasi-scientific;

Quasi-scientific knowledge is looking for supporters and adherents, relying on the methods of violence and coercion. As a rule, it flourishes in conditions of strictly hierarchical science, where criticism of those in power is impossible, where the ideological regime is brutally manifested. In the history of our country, the period of the “triumph of quasi-science” is well known: Lysenkoism, fixism as a quasi-science in Soviet geology of the 1950s, defamation of cybernetics, etc.;

Anti-scientific knowledge as utopian and deliberately distorting ideas about reality. The prefix "anti" draws attention to the fact that the subject and methods of research are opposite to science. It's like an "opposite sign" approach. It is associated with the age-old need to find a common, easily accessible "cure for all diseases." Particular interest and craving for anti-science arises during periods of social instability. But although this phenomenon is dangerous enough, there can be no fundamental deliverance from anti-science;

Pseudo-scientific knowledge is an intellectual activity that speculates on a set of popular theories, for example, stories about ancient astronauts, Bigfoot, Loch Ness monster.

Even at the early stages of human history, there was ordinary practical knowledge that provided elementary information about nature and the surrounding reality. Its basis was the experience of everyday life, which, however, has a fragmented, non-systematic character, which is a simple collection of information. People, as a rule, have a large volume of everyday knowledge, which is produced daily and is the initial layer of any inquiry. Sometimes the axioms of sanity contradict scientific principles, impede the development of science, get used to the human consciousness so firmly that they become prejudices and barriers to progress. Sometimes, on the contrary, science, by a long and difficult path of proofs and refutations, comes to the formulation of those propositions that have long established themselves in the environment of ordinary knowledge.

Ordinary knowledge includes common sense, and signs, and edifications, and recipes, and personal experience, and traditions. Although it captures the truth, it does so not systematically and unprovenly. Its peculiarity is that it is used by a person almost unconsciously and does not require preliminary systems of evidence in its application. Sometimes the knowledge of everyday experience even skips the stage of articulation, but simply and silently directs the actions of the subject.

Another feature of it is its fundamentally unwritten character. Those proverbs and sayings that the folklore of each ethnic community has only fix this fact, but in no way prescribe the theory of everyday knowledge. Let us note that a scientist, using a highly specialized arsenal of scientific concepts and theories for a given specific sphere of reality, is also always introduced into the sphere of non-specialized everyday experience, which has a universal character. For a scientist, while remaining a scientist, does not cease to be just a man.

Ordinary knowledge is sometimes defined by referring to common sense concepts or non-specialized everyday experiences that provide a preliminary tentative perception and understanding of the world.

The historically first forms of human knowledge include game cognition, which is built on the basis of conditionally accepted rules and goals. It provides an opportunity to rise above everyday life, not to care about practical benefits and to behave in accordance with freely accepted game norms. In game cognition, it is possible to hide the truth, deceive a partner. It has a teaching and developmental character, reveals the qualities and capabilities of a person, allows you to expand the psychological boundaries of communication.

A special kind of knowledge, which is the property of an individual, is personal knowledge. It is made dependent on the abilities of a particular subject and on the characteristics of his intellectual cognitive activity. Collective knowledge is generally significant or over personal and presupposes the existence of a system of concepts, methods, techniques and rules for building knowledge that is necessary and common to all. Personal knowledge, in which a person shows his individuality and creative abilities, is recognized as a necessary and really existing component of knowledge. It emphasizes the obvious fact that science is made by people and that art or cognitive activity cannot be learned from a textbook, it is achieved only in communication with a master.

A special form of non-scientific and non-rational knowledge is the so-called folk science, which has now become the work of separate groups or individual subjects: healers, healers, psychics, and earlier shamans, priests, elders of the clan. At its inception, folk science revealed itself as a phenomenon of collective consciousness and acted as ethnoscience. In the era of the dominance of classical science, it lost the status of intersubjectivity and firmly settled on the periphery, far from the center of official experimental and theoretical research. As a rule, folk science exists and is transmitted in an unwritten form from mentor to student. Sometimes it is possible to single out its condensate in the form of covenants, signs, instructions, rituals, etc. Despite the fact that people see her great insight in folk science, she is often accused of unfounded claims to possess the truth.

It is noteworthy that the phenomenon of folk science is a subject of special study for ethnologists, who call it "ethnoscience", preserving forms of social memory in ethnic rites and rituals. Very often, the deformation of the spatio-temporal conditions for the existence of an ethnos leads to the disappearance of folk sciences, which are usually not restored. They are rigidly connected with the prescription and routine, unwritten knowledge of healers, healers, soothsayers, etc., transmitted from generation to generation. A fundamental modification of the worldview blocks the entire prescription-routine complex of information that fills folk science. From its developed form at the disposal of subsequent generations, in this case, only some relic traces of it can remain. M. Polanyi is right when he notes that an art that is not practiced during the life of one generation remains irretrievably lost. There are hundreds of examples of this; such losses are usually irreplaceable.

In the picture of the world offered by folk science, the circulation of the powerful elements of being is of great importance. Nature acts as a "house of man", man, in turn, as an organic part of him, through which the lines of force of the world cycle constantly pass. It is believed that folk sciences are addressed, on the one hand, to the most elementary and, on the other hand, to the most vital spheres of human activity, such as: health, agriculture, cattle breeding, construction.

Since the diverse set of non-rational knowledge does not lend itself to a strict and exhaustive classification, one can come across the following three types of cognitive technologies: paranormal knowledge, pseudoscience and deviant science. Moreover, a certain evolution is recorded from paranormal knowledge to the category of more respectable pseudoscience and from it to deviant knowledge. This indirectly testifies to the development of extrascientific knowledge.

A broad class of paranormal knowledge includes teachings about secret natural and psychic forces and relationships behind ordinary phenomena. Mysticism and spiritualism are considered the brightest representatives of paranormal knowledge. To describe ways of obtaining information that goes beyond the scope of science, in addition to the term "paranormality", the term "non-sensory perception" is used - VSP or "parasensitivity", "psy-phenomena". It involves the ability to receive information or influence without resorting to direct physical means. Science cannot yet explain the mechanisms involved in this case, nor can it ignore such phenomena. Distinguish extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis. ESP is divided into telepathy and clairvoyance. Telepathy involves the exchange of information between two or more individuals in paranormal ways. Clairvoyance means the ability to receive information on some inanimate object (cloth, wallet, photograph, etc.). Psychokinesis is the ability to influence external systems that are outside the scope of our motor activity, to move objects in a non-physical way.

It is noteworthy that at present, research on paranormal effects is being put on the conveyor of science, which, after a series of various experiments, comes to the following conclusions:

With the help of ESP, meaningful information can be obtained;

The distance separating the subject and the perceived object does not affect the accuracy of perception;

The use of electromagnetic screens does not reduce the quality and accuracy of the information received, and the previously existing hypothesis about ESP electromagnetic channels can be called into question. We can assume the presence of some other, for example, psychophysical channel, the nature of which is not clear.

At the same time, the sphere of paranormal knowledge has features that contradict a purely scientific approach:

First, the results of psychic research and experimentation are generally not reproducible;

Secondly, they cannot be predicted and predicted. The modern philosopher of science K. Popper highly valued pseudoscience, noting that science can make mistakes, and pseudoscience "can accidentally stumble upon the truth." He has another significant conclusion: if some theory turns out to be unscientific, this does not mean that it is not important.

Pseudo-scientific knowledge is characterized by sensational themes, recognition of secrets and mysteries, "skillful processing of facts." To all these a priori conditions is added the property of investigation through interpretation. Material is involved that contains statements, hints or confirmations of the expressed views and can be interpreted in their favor. In form, pseudoscience is, first of all, a story or a story about certain events. This typical way of presenting the material is called “explaining through the script”. Another hallmark is infallibility. It is pointless to hope for a correction of pseudo-scientific views; for critical arguments do not affect the essence of the interpretation of the story told.

The term "deviant" means cognitive activity that deviates from accepted and established standards. Moreover, the comparison takes place not with a focus on the standard and sample, but in comparison with the norms shared by the majority of members of the scientific community. A distinctive feature of deviant knowledge is that, as a rule, people who have scientific training are engaged in it, but for one reason or another, they choose methods and objects of research that are very divergent from generally accepted ideas. Representatives of deviant knowledge usually work alone or in small groups. The results of their activities, as well as the direction itself, have a rather short period of existence.

Sometimes the term abnormal knowledge is encountered, which does not mean anything other than that the method of obtaining knowledge or knowledge itself does not correspond to the norms that are considered generally accepted in science at this historical stage. Abnormal knowledge can be divided into three types.

The first type arises as a result of the discrepancy between the common sense regulators and the norms established by science. This type is quite common and introduced into the real life of people. It does not repel with its anomaly, but attracts attention to itself in a situation where the acting individual, having a professional education and special scientific knowledge, fixes the problem of a discrepancy between the norms of the ordinary world relation and the scientific one (for example, in education, in situations of communication with an infant.).

The second type arises when the norms of one paradigm are compared with the norms of another.

The third type is found when combining norms and ideals from fundamentally different forms of human activity.

For a long time, extra-scientific knowledge has not been considered only as a delusion. And since there are diverse forms of it, therefore, they meet some kind of initially existing need in them. We can say that the conclusion, which is shared by modern-minded scientists who understand the limitations of rationalism, boils down to the following. It is impossible to prohibit the development of non-scientific forms of knowledge, just as it is impossible to cultivate purely and exclusively pseudoscience, it is also inappropriate to deny credit to the interesting ideas that have matured in their depths, no matter how doubtful they may initially seem. Even if unexpected analogies, mysteries and stories turn out to be just a “foreign fund” of ideas, both the intellectual elite and the large army of scientists are in dire need of it.

Quite often there is a statement that traditional science, having relied on rationalism, has led humanity into a dead end, the way out of which can be suggested by extrascientific knowledge. Extra-scientific disciplines include those whose practice is based on non-rational or irrational grounds - on mystical rites and rituals, mythological and religious ideas. Of interest is the position of modern philosophers of science and, in particular, K. Feyerabend, who is sure that elements of the non-rational have the right to exist within science itself.

The development of such a position can be associated with the names of T. Rozzak and J. Holton. The latter came to the conclusion that at the end of the last century a movement arose and began to spread in Europe, proclaiming the bankruptcy of science. It included four of the most odious currents of the overthrowers of scientific reason:

Currents in modern philosophy, asserting that the status of science is not higher than any functional myth;

A small but culturally influential group of alienated marginal intellectuals, such as A. Koestler;

The mood of the scientific community, connected by the desire to find a correspondence between the thinking of the "New Age" and Eastern mysticism, to find a way out of the intellectual anarchism of our days to "crystal-clear power";

The radical wing of the scientific direction, prone to statements that belittle the importance of scientific knowledge, such as "today's physics is just a primitive model of the true physical."

The opinion that it is scientific knowledge that has a greater information capacity is also disputed by supporters of this point of view. Science can “know less” compared to the variety of extra-scientific knowledge, since everything that science offers must withstand a rigorous test for reliability, facts, hypotheses and explanations. Knowledge that fails this test is discarded, and even potentially true information may be outside of science.

Sometimes extra-scientific knowledge refers to itself as "His Majesty", another way of true knowledge. And since interest in the diversity of its forms in recent years has increased everywhere and significantly, and the prestige of the profession of engineer and scientist has significantly decreased, the tension associated with the tendency to blur science has increased. Religious knowledge, which is based on faith and rushes beyond the rational into the sphere of comprehension of the supernatural, claims a special attitude. Religious knowledge, being one of the earliest forms of knowledge, includes mechanisms for regulating and regulating the life of society. Its attributes are a temple, an icon, texts of the Holy Scriptures, prayers, various religious symbols. Faith is not only the basic concept of religion, but also the most important component of the inner spiritual world of a person, a mental act and an element of cognitive activity.

Faith, in contrast to knowledge, is the conscious recognition of something as true on the basis of the predominance of subjective significance. Religious knowledge based on faith reveals itself in the direct acceptance of certain provisions, norms, and truths that does not require proof. As a psychological act, faith manifests itself in a state of conviction, associated with a feeling of approval or disapproval. As an internal spiritual state, it requires a person to comply with those principles and moral prescriptions in which he believes, for example, in justice, in moral purity, in world order, in goodness.

The concept of faith can completely coincide with the concept of religion and act as a religious faith, opposite to rational knowledge. Therefore, the ratio of knowledge (reason) and faith cannot be decided in favor of one or the other component. Just as knowledge cannot replace faith, so faith cannot replace knowledge. It is impossible to solve the problems of physics, chemistry, economics by faith. However, faith as a pre-intellectual act, the pre-conscious connection of the subject with the world, preceded the emergence of knowledge. It was connected not with concepts, logic and reason, but with a sensuously imaginative fantastic perception of the world. Religious knowledge presupposes not proof, but revelation, and is based on the authority of dogmas. Revelation is interpreted as a gift and as a result of intense self-deepening and comprehension of the truth.

3. Science as a social institution

The functioning of the scientific community, the effective regulation of relations between its members, as well as between science, society and the state, is carried out with the help of a specific system of internal values inherent in this social structure of the scientific and technical policy of society and the state, as well as the corresponding system of legislative norms (patent law, economic law, civil law, etc.) The set of internal values of the scientific community, which have the status of moral norms, is called "scientific ethos". One of the explications of the norms of scientific ethos was proposed in the 1930s by R. Merton, the founder of the sociological study of science. He believed that science, as a special social structure, relies in its functioning on four value imperatives: universalism, collectivism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism. Later B. Barber added two more imperatives: rationalism and emotional neutrality.

The imperative of universalism affirms the impersonal, objective nature of scientific knowledge. The reliability of new scientific knowledge is determined only by its correspondence to observations and previously certified scientific knowledge. Universalism determines the international and democratic nature of science. The imperative of collectivism says that the fruits of scientific knowledge belong to the entire scientific community and society as a whole. They are always the result of collective scientific co-creation, since any scientist always relies on some ideas (knowledge) of his predecessors and contemporaries. The right of private ownership of knowledge in science should not exist, although scientists who make the most significant personal contribution have the right to demand from colleagues and society fair material and moral encouragement, adequate professional recognition. Such recognition is the most important stimulus for scientific activity. The imperative of disinterestedness means that the main goal of the activities of scientists should be the service of Truth. The latter should never be in science a means to achieve various benefits, but only a socially significant goal. The imperative of organized skepticism presupposes not only a ban on the dogmatic assertion of Truth in science, but, on the contrary, makes it a professional obligation for a scientist to criticize the views of his colleagues, if there is the slightest reason for this. Accordingly, it is necessary to regard criticism as a necessary condition for the development of science. A true scientist is a skeptic by nature and vocation. Skepticism and doubt are just as necessary, important and subtle tools of a scientist's activity as a scalpel and a needle in the hands of a surgeon. The value of rationalism asserts that science strives not just for objective truth, but for a proven, logically organized discourse, the supreme arbiter of the truth of which is the scientific mind. The imperative of emotional neutrality forbids people of science to use emotions, personal sympathies, antipathies, etc., in solving scientific problems. resources of the sensual sphere of consciousness.

It must be emphasized right away that the presented approach to scientific ethos is purely theoretical, and not empirical, because here science is described as a certain theoretical object, constructed from the point of view of its proper (“ideal”) existence, and not from the position of being. Merton himself understood this very well, as well as the fact that it is impossible to distinguish science as a social structure from other social phenomena (politics, economics, religion) in a different way (outside the value dimension). Already the closest students and followers of Merton, having conducted a wide sociological study of the behavior of members of the scientific community, were convinced that it existed ambivalently, that in their daily professional activities scientists are constantly in a state of choice between polar behavioral imperatives. So, the scientist must:

Communicate your results to the scientific community as soon as possible, but not obliged to rush publications, beingware of their "immaturity" or unscrupulous use;

Be receptive to new ideas, but not succumb to intellectual "fashion";

Strive to acquire such knowledge that will be highly appreciated by colleagues, but at the same time work without paying attention to the assessments of others;

Defend new ideas, but do not support rash conclusions;

Make every effort to know the work related to his field, but at the same time remember that erudition sometimes inhibits creativity;

Be extremely careful in wording and details, but not be a pedant, for this is at the expense of content;

Always remember that knowledge is international, but do not forget that any scientific discovery does honor to the national science whose representative it is made;

To educate a new generation of scientists, but not to give too much time and attention to teaching; learn from a great master and imitate him, but not be like him.

It is clear that the choice in favor of one or another imperative is always situational, contextual and determined by a significant number of cognitive, social and even psychological factors that are “integrated” by specific individuals.

One of the most important discoveries in the study of science as a social institution was the realization that science is not some kind of monolithic, unified system, but rather a granular competitive environment, consisting of many small and medium-sized scientific communities, whose interests are often not only do not coincide, but often contradict each other. Modern science is a complex network of collectives, organizations and institutions interacting with each other - from laboratories and departments to state institutions and academies, from "invisible" colleges to large organizations with all the attributes of a legal entity, from scientific incubators to scientific investment corporations, from disciplined communities to national scientific communities and international associations. All of them are connected by a myriad of communication links both among themselves and with other powerful subsystems of society and the state (economy, education, politics, culture). That is why effective management and self-management of modern science is impossible today without constant sociological, economic, legal and organizational monitoring of its diverse subsystems and cells. Modern science is a powerful self-organizing system, the two main controlling parameters of which are economic (material and financial) nourishment and freedom of scientific research. Maintaining these parameters at the proper level is one of the primary concerns of modern developed countries. An effective scientific and technological policy is the main guarantor of ensuring the adaptive, sustainable, competitive existence and development of science in every major state and human society as a whole. This conclusion is an inevitable consequence of the philosophical analysis of the universal dimensions of the concept of "science".

Thus, science can be defined as a special, professionally organized cognitive activity aimed at obtaining new knowledge with the following properties: objective objectivity (empirical or theoretical), general validity, validity (empirical or theoretical), certainty, accuracy, testability (empirical or logical), reproducibility of the subject of knowledge (potentially infinite), objective truth, utility (practical or theoretical). In various fields of science, these general criteria for the scientific nature of knowledge receive a certain concretization due to the specific subjects of these areas, as well as the nature of the scientific problems being solved.

Conclusion

Science, having numerous definitions, appears in three main hypostases. It is understood either as a form of activity, or as a system or set of disciplinary knowledge, or as a social institution. Understanding science as a sociocultural phenomenon indicates its dependence on the diverse forces, currents and influences operating in society, that science determines its priorities in the social context, tends to compromise and largely determines social life itself. Thus, a twofold kind of dependence and interdependence of science and society is fixed: as a sociocultural phenomenon, science arose in response to a certain need of mankind in the production and receipt of true, adequate knowledge about the world, and exists, in turn, having a very noticeable impact on the development of all spheres of public life. life. Science is regarded as a sociocultural phenomenon because, when it comes to the study of its origins, the boundaries of what we today call science are extended to the boundaries of culture. And on the other hand, science claims to be the only stable and "genuine" foundation of culture as a whole, in its primary - activity and technological understanding.

List of used literature

Erakhtin A.V. Concepts of modern natural science: Method. Materials for self-study. Works. – Ivanovo, 2006

· Kokhanovsky V.B., Leshkevich T.G., Matyash T.P., Fakhti T.B. Fundamentals of Philosophy of Science: Textbook for Postgraduate Students. – Rostov/D: Phoenix, 2004, 608 p.

· Science: Possibilities and Limits (Ed. E.A. Mamchur). – M.: Nauka, 2003, 293 p.

· Philosophy of science / ed. S.A. Lebedeva: Textbook for universities. 3rd ed., revised. and additional – M.: Academic project, 2006, 736 p.

Stepin V.S. theoretical knowledge. M.: "Progress-Tradition", 2000, 744 p.

· Poincaré A. About science: Per. from fr. / Ed. L.S. Pontryagin. - 2nd ed. Ster. – M.: Science. Ch. ed. Phys.-Math. lit., 1990, 736 p.

A delusional mind? Variety of extra-scientific knowledge / Ed. ed. and comp. I.T. Kasavin. – M.: Politizdat, 1990, 464 p.

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Scientific and non-scientific types of knowledge

Introduction

Science as a specific type of knowledge

Extra-scientific types of knowledge

Science as a social institution

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

1. Science as a specific type of knowledge

An activity can be considered as a complexly organized network of various acts of object transformation, when the products of one activity pass into another and become its components. For example, iron ore, as a product of mining, becomes an object that is transformed into the activity of a steelmaker; machine tools produced at the plant from the steel mined by the steelmaker become the means of activity in another production. Even the subjects of activity - people who carry out these transformations of objects in accordance with the goals set, can to a certain extent be presented as the results of the activities of training and education, which ensure the assimilation by the subject of the necessary patterns of actions, knowledge and skills of using certain means in the activity.

As the tools became more complex, those operations that were previously directly performed by a person began to “reify”, acting as a consistent impact of one tool on another and only then on the object being transformed. Thus, the properties and states of objects that arise due to these operations ceased to seem caused by the direct efforts of man, but more and more acted as the result of the interaction of the natural objects themselves. So, if in the early stages of civilization the movement of goods required muscular effort, then with the invention of the lever and block, and then the simplest machines, it was possible to replace these efforts with mechanical ones. For example, using a system of blocks, it was possible to balance a large load with a small one, and by adding a small weight to a small load, raise a large load to the desired height. Here, to lift a heavy body, no human effort is needed: one load independently moves the other.

With regard to the processes of transformation of nature, this function is performed by the natural and technical sciences. The processes of change in social objects are studied by the social sciences. Since a variety of objects can be transformed in activity - objects of nature, a person (and the state of his consciousness), subsystems of society, iconic objects functioning as cultural phenomena, etc. - all of them can become subjects of scientific research.

The process of scientific knowledge is determined not only by the characteristics of the object under study, but also by numerous factors of a sociocultural nature.

Science in human activity singles out only its objective structure and examines everything through the prism of this structure. Like King Midas from the famous ancient legend - whatever he touched, everything turned into gold, - so science, whatever it touches, is everything for it an object that lives, functions and develops according to objective laws.

Here the question immediately arises: well, what then to be with the subject of activity, with his goals, values, states of his consciousness? All this belongs to the components of the subjective structure of activity, but science is capable of investigating these components too, because there are no prohibitions for it to study any really existing phenomena. The answer to these questions is quite simple: yes, science can explore any phenomena of human life and consciousness, it can explore activity, the human psyche, and culture, but only from one point of view - as special objects that obey objective laws. Science also studies the subjective structure of activity, but as a special object. And where science cannot construct an object and present its "natural life" determined by its essential connections, then its claims end. Thus, science can study everything in the human world, but from a special perspective and from a special point of view. This special perspective of objectivity expresses both the infinity and limitations of science, since a person as an independent, conscious being has free will, and he is not only an object, he is also a subject of activity. And in this his subjective being, not all states can be exhausted by scientific knowledge, even if we assume that such a comprehensive scientific knowledge about a person, his life activity can be obtained.

The purpose of science is to foresee possible future changes in objects, including those that would correspond to future types and forms of practical change in the world.

2. Extra-scientific types of knowledge

Pseudo-scientific knowledge is an intellectual activity that speculates on a set of popular theories, for example, stories about ancient astronauts, Bigfoot, Loch Ness monster.

Ordinary knowledge is sometimes defined by referring to common sense concepts or non-specialized everyday experiences that provide a preliminary tentative perception and understanding of the world.

It is noteworthy that at present, research on paranormal effects is being put on the conveyor of science, which, after a series of various experiments, comes to the following conclusions:

With the help of ESP, meaningful information can be obtained;

The distance separating the subject and the perceived object does not affect the accuracy of perception;

At the same time, the sphere of paranormal knowledge has features that contradict a purely scientific approach:

First, the results of psychic research and experimentation are generally not reproducible;

Sometimes there is the term abnormal knowledge, which does not mean anything

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The pedestrian, without hurrying, went to the crossing, stopped on the side of the sidewalk, looked to the left, to the right, let the oncoming bus pass, was about to cross the street, but the excitement that suddenly gripped him did not allow him to take a step. This saved the pedestrian from inevitable death - a passenger car rushed past him at great speed. The pedestrian was numb with horror, realizing that he could get under the wheels, but gradually began to come to his senses. “What stopped me? the pedestrian asked himself, “After all, I was absolutely sure that there were no cars behind the bus…”.

What do you think? After all, for sure, each of you at least once in your life has encountered a similar phenomenon, when an inner feeling prompted you to refrain from the intended action. Many of you have long noticed that sometimes when making important decisions for yourself in difficult situations, you are not able to explain to yourself or others why you did it that way.

You can't call such a psychological phenomenon otherwise than an intuitive premonition. Nature endowed man with the greatest ability to foresee events, to perform actions that sometimes contradict all logic, but in the end turn out to be the only true ones.

Intuition, as scientific studies show, is inherent in every person. The subconscious, speaking to us in the language of intuition, knows the answers to many questions that concern a person. It is nothing more than an internal mechanism that helps us when we make a decision. It is what some of us call an inner feeling, an instinct, a voice that guides us in one direction or another. By trusting your intuition and being guided by your instincts, unwanted problems can be avoided.

Unconscious manifestations of higher nervous (mental) activity have long excited the minds of scientists: philosophers, naturalists, doctors. Even the ancient Greeks recognized that rational thinking is incomplete and needs the support of intuition. Even the great A. Einstein recognized that scientific truth is first discovered through intuition, and only then is it verified by logic.

Today, the problem of hidden human capabilities has become one of the most urgent. Intuition occupies a special place in it as one of the factors of the integral organization of conscious and unconscious mental activity of a person. Of great value in this area are the works of domestic scientists V. M. Mosidze, E. A. Kostandov, V. L. Deglin, N. N. Bragina, T. A. Dobrokhotova and others. Their studies of the functional asymmetry of the brain made it possible to penetrate deeper into the psychological meaning and physiological mechanisms of unconscious phenomena. Directly related to the problem of the unconscious mind are also studies of the regularities and mechanisms of probable forecasting conducted by I. M. Feigenberg and O. K. Tikhomirov.

Agree that every time you are going to take this or that action, you think not only about achieving the goal, but also about the probability (possibility) of achieving it. At the same time, of course, you do not conduct mathematical calculations: in most cases, subconscious intuition gives an estimate of such a probability. As a rule, it manifests itself in the form of a feeling of success (if the probability is high) or anxiety, despondency, fear (if the probability is low). In the process of solving a creative task, an unconscious assessment of the probability of success can be experienced by a person and physiologically. So, an intuitive premonition of the right course of action can be accompanied by a feeling of increasing warmth in the body, and vice versa, an erroneous one - by a feeling of cold.

Even I. P. Pavlov noted a special class of subsensory conditioned reflexes, the origin of which is a mystery to humans. Modern experimental studies conducted by G. V. Gershuni, A. I. Roytbak and others confirmed the hypothesis of the great scientist about the mechanism of closure of unconscious conditioned reflexes. Under certain conditions, they can maintain a neural connection between traces of previously received impressions with involuntary excitation of nerve cells that were not subject to such external stimulation.

The subconscious operates with what is already in the brain in finished form, but for the time being is inaccessible to consciousness. The pianist's brain, for example, stores automated movement skills, and there is no need for the conscious mind to control every step of the action. The pianist intuitively presses the keys, as required by the piece, no longer thinking about the notes.

What keeps the memory can be supplemented by new conjectures and assumptions. An experienced doctor is sometimes able to make a correct diagnosis just by looking at the patient. At the same time, he is not able to explain which particular signs of the disease - the complexion, the gait of the patient or the characteristic manner of speech - played a decisive role in making an intuitive diagnosis. All these signs of the disease were already stored in the doctor's memory, accumulated in the course of many years of communication with patients. All he had to do was arrange them accordingly.

According to the famous psychologist L. Day, the intuitive impression is never unambiguous. Intuition is often symbolic and fragmented. Only on rare occasions does she speak in complete sentences. More often, intuition is meaningless, trivial, accompanied by a certain stream of certain impressions, images, sensations, especially when the situation concerns the future - as a result, we often drive it away from ourselves.

We are never guided in our behavior by emotions alone, or by logic alone, or by intuition alone. Our intuition is so deeply woven into other mental processes that it cannot seem to us the logical conclusion of the decision we have made. We cannot use it independently of our thoughts, feelings and knowledge. Just as logic can be obscured by feelings, so intuition can be veiled by knowledge and logic.

To recognize the clues of intuition means to realize inner thoughts, feelings, moods and memories, to know the hidden essence and deep mechanisms of the world around us, to understand that nothing in it is random, just as there are no random coincidences. Of course, it's not easy. Relying on intuition means acting without regard to logic, common sense and sensory experience.

Many people achieve success in life, business, relying on their intuition. Men have more developed natural instincts than intuitive premonition. They often feel, so to speak, inwardly. Most women, on the contrary, intuitively acutely feel the state of people close to them, especially when it comes to their child. The intuition of a young mother is finely tuned to receive any information about the child.

Some people are more gifted with intuitive abilities, while others have the talent of a logician, artist or writer. For many, the successful use of their intuition could be a matter of chance - heads or tails. Very often, in extreme situations, intuition can manifest itself as a defense mechanism. According to psychologist V. Finogeev, any person has a certain system of self-preservation, the purpose of which is to receive and process information that poses a threat to his life. If this system works well, then a person unconsciously always makes the right decisions, does not end up in those places where danger awaits him. He just walks past these places, guided by his instincts. If the system does not work well, the person often has a bad premonition that something is about to happen. But specifically what should happen, when and where - he does not know, because due to the inefficiency of the self-preservation system, the incoming information is not processed by the brain at a subconscious level. It is pushed into consciousness in an unprocessed form and is perceived by a person as nothing more than an intuitive premonition of something bad. Such a situation is an indicator of a violation of the self-preservation system, which structurally consists of conscious and subconscious branches.

The conscious self-preservation system collects information that comes through sensory channels (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch), and it is inseparable from the mind. In the example above, when crossing the street, a person looks first to the left, then to the right, skips the bus - this is the conscious branch of the self-preservation system. What is the subconscious branch doing at this time? She makes sure that there is no fast-moving car behind the bus that a person cannot see yet.

The subconscious system works with signals that do not come through the sensory channels, because they are below the threshold of their sensitivity (these are ultra-weak light, infrared and ultraviolet radiation, low- and high-frequency electromagnetic oscillations, gravitational interactions, etc.). All these signals, however, are perceived by the brain at a sub-threshold level, come to the disposal of the subconscious security system, giving information about objects that are at a distance from you. The subconscious system, capturing these super-weak signals, analyzes the current situation and issues its conclusion.

All our life situations are connected in one way or another with the future, which is partially predetermined due to the interconnection of ongoing events. Intuition as a means of survival is especially good at predicting it. For most of us, this process occurs unconsciously and with considerable interference from the logical mind and emotions. Being aware of intuitive information, you can avoid many unpleasant moments, bypass the epicenter of dangerous events, etc. Although intuition seems intangible, it can be used to obtain sufficiently accurate and useful information. To combine intuition with feelings and judgments means to immeasurably increase the value of decisions made. Everyone can learn to control their intuition.

As a rule, intuitive impressions appear in the form of encrypted images and symbols. At the first stage, it is necessary to learn how to recognize them, and then integrate the information received in order to understand it sufficiently. Thus, one can learn to decipher (read) any intuitive impression. The following practical tips and tricks will help you with this. But first, determine the level of your intuition with a psychological test. Intuitively answer the question in what order the woman bought the products listed below at the grocery store. What product did she buy first? Try not to peek at the correct answer below. So:

1. Red apple.

2. Green pepper.

3. White cabbage.

4. Caucasian barbecue.

5. Big watermelon.

6. Beef stew.

7. Peanut.

9. Winter cherry.

Analyze your associative feelings and intuitive clues that have arisen in the process of reading the task. Determine which of them clearly pointed to the first product, and which - to the second, and so on. Even a well-chosen product that occupies the third position indicates your good intuition. (Answer to the test: the products were bought in the following order: beef stew, peanut, winter cherry ...).

The ability to understand the information that you would like to receive intuitively, of course, requires training. From childhood, we were taught to trust only logic, everything that is visible, tangible, scientifically substantiated. Therefore, the intuitive faculty fades away in each of us as we grow up. As adults, we learn to evaluate data as real, relevant, or objective, and get rid of what is not real by society's standards. Therefore, all intuition training should begin with identifying which sensations a person accepts and which he ignores. At this stage, it is important to realize how your logical mind censors intuitive impressions.

Performing any psychological action, we unconsciously engage many complex mental functions. Whether we're reading a book or talking on the phone, our memory instantly compares every word we hear or see with dozens of words stored in our long-term memory. In the same place, along with these words, the corresponding images and associations are stored, which are requested by our memory and supplied to consciousness.

Intuition functions in much the same way. It continuously feeds data into our consciousness, although we are not normally aware of it. So the key to developing intuition is in our hands. It is only important to learn to recognize it: how and what to pay attention to.

The environment constantly influences a person. Of course, high technologies, without which it is impossible to imagine modern life, make their own adjustments to our sensory world. We have learned not to perceive much of the information we receive emotionally and sensually. We rely more on our mind. We have lost contact with our sensations as well as our intuition. Therefore, it is very important to look into your sensory world again, to get acquainted with your feelings - this will allow you to collect and highlight the necessary intuitive information in the future. The following exercises will help you learn this.

Take a look at the book you are holding in your hands right now. When you read a book, what impressions do you get through touch? Perhaps you are aware of the lightness of the book sheet in your hands, the rustling of the pages, or perhaps both at the same time. What impressions do you get through sight, smell, hearing when you read this book? What do your inner sensations, thoughts and feelings, moods and memories say? You are immersed in them even at the moment when you consciously perceive only a small part of them. Your goal is to sharply, astutely perceive everything that you feel, so that you can then consciously manage your sensations.

Do not forget to tell yourself about your thoughts, feelings and memories that accidentally came to your mind. Don't try to ignore feelings that don't make sense: they can be valuable to you. Finally, if you are tired, relax and focus on any of your sensations. Let one sensation lead you to another sensation or thought, and so on.

Thanks to training, you will begin to be more aware of what is happening to you, more often you will begin to pay attention to what you perceive. Everything that you feel, remember, feel, dream about or intuitively anticipate - all this can matter to you. Everything. Every sign, every action, every fact, every thing - everything that we pay attention to can be traced in the past, noted in the present and have a meaning in the future.

Now look away from the text you are reading for a moment, raise your eyes, look around the room. Notice the first thing that catches your eye. For example, you saw a vase with a rose on the table. What are your impressions about this? Positive or negative? Did your sensations (smell, taste, emotions, visual images, etc.) change towards a positive assessment? Remember which experiences were positive and which were negative. It is possible that it is the sensations that will become your guide to action in the future. Let your visual images and associations tell you what you want to know. Perhaps the flower you see in a vase will be a sign of deep friendship and affection for you. And, perhaps, and vice versa, a sign of failure and imminent separation. Let things be meaningful, and they will surely become meaningful to you.

Train your associative sensations in this regard, even if the associations themselves at first will seem to you invented and implausible. You have to consider your individual impressions and then decide what they mean together. Make whatever sense you can from your answers. Notice how each impression makes sense to you, what they have in common. What unifying themes emerge? Do not try to critically reflect on your answers. Let your impressions bring other meaningful or thought-provoking associations. Learn from all the pieces to collect the answer to your question. Intuitive insight often gives you the same answer in different ways. It, like different dreams, can carry different information about the same phenomenon. However, only after some time the intuitive meaning can become obvious to you.

In essence, our intuition is like a computer - it answers the question put to it. If you want the right answer, you need to make sure you ask the right question. Each question should be simple, unambiguous and specific. For example, the question: “Will it snow tomorrow?” is not correct, because if it is winter outside, and it can snow anywhere tomorrow. “Will it snow in Minsk tomorrow?” – in this case, the question is correctly posed. Let your questions be such that they can be answered in the near future, at most in a year. The feedback that results from correct answers will give you confidence in the correct development of your intuition.

Intuitively, it seems clear how science differs from other forms of human cognitive activity. However, a clear explication of the specific features of science in the form of features and definitions

turns out to be quite a difficult task. This is evidenced by the variety of definitions of science, the ongoing discussions on the problem of demarcation between it and other forms of knowledge.
Scientific knowledge, like all forms of spiritual production, is ultimately necessary in order to regulate human activity. Different types of cognition fulfill this role in different ways, and the analysis of this difference is a necessary condition for identifying the features of scientific cognition.
To reveal these features, let us turn once again to the scheme of the structural characteristics of an elementary act of activity.
The right side of this scheme depicts the subject (object) structure of activity - the interaction of means with the subject of activity and its transformation into a product due to the implementation of certain operations. The ninth part represents the subject structure, which includes the subject of activity (with its goals, values, knowledge of operations and skills), performing expedient actions and using certain means of activity for this. Means and actions can be attributed to both the objective and the subject structure, since they can be considered in two ways. On the one hand, the means can be presented as artificial organs of human activity. On the other hand, they can be considered as natural objects that interact with other objects. Similarly, operations can be presented in different ways: both as human actions and as natural interactions of objects.
Since activity is universal, the functions of its objects can be not only fragments of nature that are transformed in practice, but also people whose “properties” change when they are included in various social subsystems, as well as these subsystems themselves, interacting within society as an integral organism. Then, in the first case, we are dealing with the “objective side” of human change in nature, and in the second case, with the “objective side” of practice aimed at changing social objects. From this point of view, a person can act both as a subject and as an object of practical action.
At the early stages of the development of society, the subjective and objective aspects of practical activity are not dissected in cognition, but are taken as a single whole. Cognition reflects the ways of practical change of objects, including in the characteristics of the latter the goals, abilities and actions of a person. Such an idea of the objects of activity is transferred to the whole nature, which is viewed through the prism of the practice being carried out.
It is known, for example, that in the myths of ancient peoples, the forces of nature are always likened to human forces, and its processes are likened to human beings.
eternal action. Primitive thinking, in explaining the phenomena of the external world, invariably resorts to their comparison with human actions and motives. Only in the process of a long evolution of society does knowledge begin to exclude anthropomorphic factors from the characteristics of objective relations. An important role in this process was played by the historical development of practice, and above all by the improvement of means and tools of labor.
As the tools became more complex, those operations that were previously directly performed by a person began to “reify”, acting as a consistent impact of one tool on another and only then on the object being transformed. Thus, the properties and states of objects that arise due to these operations ceased to seem caused by the direct efforts of man, but more and more acted as the result of the interaction of the natural objects themselves. So, if in the early stages of civilization the movement of goods required muscular effort, then with the invention of the lever and block, and then the simplest machines, it was possible to replace these efforts with mechanical ones. For example, using the block system

Rice. 3.1

It was possible to balance a large load with a small one, and by adding a small weight to a small load, it was possible to raise a large load to the desired height. Here, to lift a heavy body, no human effort is needed: one load independently moves the other.
This transfer of human functions to mechanisms leads to a new understanding of the forces of nature. Previously, forces were understood only by analogy with the physical efforts of a person, but now they are beginning to be considered as mechanical forces. The above example can serve as an analogue of the process of "objectification" of the objective relations of practice, which, apparently, began already in the era of the first urban civilizations of antiquity. During this period, knowledge begins to gradually separate the objective side of practice from subjective factors and consider this side as a special, independent reality. Such consideration of practice is one of the necessary conditions for the emergence of scientific research.
Science sets as its ultimate goal to foresee the process of transformation of objects of practical activity (object in the initial state) into the corresponding products (object in the final state). This transformation is always determined by the essential connections, laws of change and development of objects, and the activity itself can be successful only when it is consistent with these laws. Therefore, the main task of science is to reveal the laws in accordance with which objects change and develop.
With regard to the processes of transformation of nature, this function is performed by the natural and technical sciences. The processes of change in social objects are studied by the social sciences. Since a variety of objects can be transformed in activity - objects of nature, a person (and the state of his consciousness), subsystems of society, iconic objects that function as cultural phenomena, etc., all of them can become subjects of scientific research.
The orientation of science towards the study of objects that can be included in activity (either actually or potentially as possible objects of future transformation), and their study as obeying the objective laws of functioning and development, constitute the first main feature of scientific knowledge.
This feature distinguishes it from other forms of human cognitive activity. Thus, for example, in the process of artistic assimilation of reality, objects included in human activity are not separated from subjective factors, but are taken in a kind of "gluing" with them. Any reflection of the objects of the objective world in art simultaneously expresses the value attitude of a person to the object. An artistic image is a reflection of an object,] 5 1
containing the imprint of the human personality, its value orientations, which are fused into the characteristics of the reflected reality. To exclude this interpenetration means to destroy the artistic image. In science, the features of the life of a person who creates knowledge, its value judgments are not directly part of the generated knowledge (Newton's laws do not allow one to judge what Newton loved and hated, while, for example, Rembrandt's personality is depicted in Rembrandt's portraits, his worldview and his personal attitude to the depicted social phenomena; someone's portrait, written by a great artist, always acts as a kind of his "self-portrait").
Science is focused on the subject and objective study of reality. The foregoing, of course, does not mean that the personal moments and value orientations of a scientist do not play a role in scientific creativity and do not affect its results.
The process of scientific knowledge is determined not only by the characteristics of the object under study, but also by numerous factors of a sociocultural nature.
Considering science in its historical development, it can be found that as the type of culture changes, the standards for presenting scientific knowledge, the ways of seeing reality in science, the styles of thinking that are formed in the context of culture and are influenced by its most diverse phenomena change. This impact can be represented as the inclusion of various socio-cultural factors in the process of generating proper scientific knowledge. However, the statement of the connections between the objective and the subjective in any cognitive process and the need for a comprehensive study of science in its interaction with other forms of human spiritual activity do not remove the question of the difference between science and these forms (ordinary knowledge, artistic thinking, etc.). The first and necessary characteristic of such a difference is the sign of objectivity and objectivity of scientific knowledge.
Science in human activity singles out only its objective structure and examines everything through the prism of this structure. Like King Midas from the famous ancient legend - whatever he touched, everything turned into gold - so science, whatever it touches, everything for it is an object that lives, functions and develops according to objective laws.
Here the question immediately arises: well, what then to be with the subject of activity, with his goals, values, states of his consciousness? All this belongs to the components of the subject structure of activity, but science is capable of investigating these components as well, because for it there are no prohibitions on the study of any really existing
existing phenomena. The answer to this question is quite simple: yes, science can explore any phenomena of human life and consciousness, it can explore activity, the human psyche, and culture, but only from one point of view - as special objects that obey objective laws. Science also studies the subjective structure of activity, but as a special object.
And where science cannot construct an object and present its "natural life" determined by its essential connections, then its claims end. Thus, science can study everything in the human world, but from a special perspective and from a special point of view. This special perspective of objectivity expresses both the infinity and the limitations of science, since a person as an independent, conscious being has free will and is not only an object, he is also a subject of activity. And in this his subjective being, not all states can be exhausted by scientific knowledge, even if we assume that such a comprehensive scientific knowledge about a person, his life activity can be obtained.
There is no anti-scientism in this statement about the limits of science. It is simply a statement of the indisputable fact that science cannot replace all forms of knowledge of the world, of all culture. And everything that escapes her field of vision is compensated by other forms of spiritual comprehension of the world - art, religion, morality, philosophy.
Studying objects that are transformed into activities, science is not limited to the knowledge of only those subject relations that can be mastered within the framework of the types of activities that have historically developed at a given stage in the development of society. The purpose of science is to foresee possible future changes in objects, including those that would correspond to future types and forms of practical change in the world.
As an expression of these goals in science, not only research is formed that serves today's practice, but also layers of research, the results of which can only find application in the practice of the future. The movement of cognition in these layers is already determined not so much by the direct demands of today's practice as by cognitive interests through which the needs of society are manifested in predicting future methods and forms of practical development of the world. For example, the formulation of intrascientific problems and their solution within the framework of fundamental theoretical research in physics led to the discovery of the laws of the electromagnetic field and the prediction of electromagnetic waves, to the discovery of the laws of fission of atomic nuclei, the quantum laws of atomic radiation during the transition of electrons from one energy level to another, etc. All these theoretical discoveries laid the foundation for future methods \ 5 3
mass practical development of nature in production activities. A few decades later, they became the basis for applied engineering research and development, the introduction of which into production, in turn, revolutionized equipment and technology - radio-electronic equipment, nuclear power plants, laser installations, etc. appeared.
Great scientists, creators of new, original directions and discoveries, have always paid attention to this ability of theories to potentially contain many future new technologies and unexpected practical applications.
K.A. Timiryazev wrote about this. “Despite the absence of a narrowly utilitarian direction in modern science, it was in its free development, independent of the dictates of everyday sages and moralists, that it became, more than ever, a source of practical, everyday applications. That astonishing development of technology, by which superficial observers are blinded, who are ready to recognize it as the most outstanding feature of the 19th century, is only the result of the development of science, which is not visible to everyone, unprecedented in history, free from any utilitarian oppression. Striking proof of this is the development of chemistry: it was both alchemy, iatrochemistry, in the service of both mining and pharmacy, and only in the 19th century, the "century of science", becoming simply chemistry, i.e. pure science, was it a source of innumerable applications in medicine, technology, and mining, shed light both on physics and even astronomy, which are higher in the scientific hierarchy, and on younger branches of knowledge, such as physiology, one might say, that has developed only during this century" 1
Similar thoughts were expressed by one of the founders of quantum mechanics, the French physicist Louis de Broglie. “Great discoveries,” he wrote, “even those made by researchers who did not have any practical application in mind and were engaged exclusively in theoretical problem solving, then quickly found application in the technical field. Of course, Planck, when he first wrote the formula that now bears his name, did not think at all about lighting technology. But he has no doubt that the enormous efforts of thought expended by him will allow us to understand and foresee a large number of phenomena that will quickly and in ever-increasing numbers be used by lighting technology. Something similar happened to me. I was extremely surprised when I saw that the concepts developed by me very quickly find specific applications in the technique of electron diffraction and electron microscopy.

The difference between scientific knowledge and other types of knowledge. intuitive knowledge

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Scientific and non-scientific types of knowledge