Epistemology & Philosophy of Science

The article investigates the thematic content of the term “interdisciplinarity” in philosophy of science. The author presents the term “interdisciplinarity” as deeply rooted in discussions within theory of science and argues that it is in need of an adequate philosophical reflection. The object of philosophy of science is presented in terms of the nature and the development of methodological synthesis, introduction of new research objects within the interdisciplinary field of science that embraces the ontologies of particular disciplines. The author argues that philosophy of science makes a transition from the typology of interdisciplinary interactions to the “topology” of the interdisciplinary space, i.e. to the determination of complex non-linear connections among the changes that occur in the structure and in the content of particular disciplines. The theme of interdisciplinarity binds together methodology of science with sociology and psychology of scientific research. The author concludes that whereas a monodisciplinary knowledge about an object can be presented as a two-dimensional projection of this object, a multidisciplinary research every such projection is connected to other projections and the object is thus reconstructed in its multi-dimensional image via concrete methodological procedures (mutual translation of notions, methodological synthesis, elimination of incommensurability of meanings and others).

In this paper, we distinguish two ways in which someone can be said to believe a proposition. In the light of this distinction, we question the widely held equivalence between considering a proposition true and believing that proposition. In some cases, someone can consider a proposition true and not properly believe it. This leads to a distinction between the conventional meaning of the sentence by which a subject expresses a belief and the content of this belief. We also question some principles of belief ascription, suggest a solution to a famous puzzle about belief and defend the unity of the semantic and causalaspects of beliefs.

The article is devoted to eclecticism and syncretism, to their meaning and functions in the history of philosophical knowledge: from an interpretation of philosophical knowledge in terms of “natural” eclectic combination of elements from different teachings (Alexandria, I-III centruries) to the reconstruction of the systems of German thinkers (XVIII-XIX centuries) and the overcoming of systematicity that followed, as well as, to the emergence of a new eclecticism in postmodernist philosophy. A need of an understanding from different perspectives and a contemporary reconsideration of the history and the nature of syncretism and eclecticism in philosophy is supported by the modern interpretation of such “classical eclectics’ as Cicero and Diogenes Laertius. The author considers the views of A.F.Losev and G.G.Majorov, who showed that evaluations of the two aforementioned thinkers follow the traditional criteria of the past centuries: whether such-and-such philosopher had or had not constructed a philosophical system of his own (the former being a sign of eclecticism).The author continues with a consideration of the evaluations given by Diderot in the Encyclopedia, in which an eclectic is viewed as a philosopher who rejects the tradition and authority. Also she discusses the views of such Hegelians as K.Marx, M.Stirner, L.Feuerbach who united the criticism of German philosophy with antropologism and some French socialist ideas. Their philosophical ideas are viewed as eclectic in the positive sense of the term which takes into account all the meanings in the dialogue of different ideas, approaches and conceptions.The author also considers G.G.Shpet’s discussion of a critical and positive views on eclecticism in the Russian philosophy (A.I.Herzen, P.L.Lavrov). The article ends with a consideration of syncretism and eclecticism as basic methods in postmodernist philosophy on the material of words of such thinkers as J.-F.Liotard, and W.Welsch as well as G.Bataille and J.Baudrillard.

The article presents an attempt at analysis of the notion of understanding and its relation to the notion of meaning. Understanding is treated as interpretation, i.e. attribution of meanings to linguistic expressions. It is shown that restricting the notion of meaning to reference excessively narrows down the field of understanding a language. It is argued that understanding is intrinsically connected with grasping of sense. The author attempts to reveal the complex structure of the sense of linguistic expressions as consisting of five different levels. It is argued that full mutual understanding among people is impossible.

On the example of the recent reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences the article discusses the methods of reform practiced in Russia and their intellectual coverage. The authors argue that the methods used in Russia have nothing to do with contemporary approaches discussed in the science of politics and management. In particular, these methods go against with the conception of management developed by the authors which treats management as activities aimed at activities (approach pioneered by G.Schedrovitskiy). It is also argued that the choice of the object of reform (Academy of Sciences as a system of production of scientific knowledge) does not solve the problem of technological and economical development. The authors claim that solving these problems demands a change in the state policies towards science as well as in the system of using the results of scientific research in economic activities. The latter demands a development in social sciences and the humanities.

Talking about knowledge necessarily involves the notorious Nietzsche’s question: “Wer spricht?” Does philosophical approach to knowledge differ essentially from the common sense one? It was already Plato who demonstrated that an unproblematic appeal to reality gives no foundation for knowledge definition, while the concept of reality is a natural implication of our knowledge. There is no ontology separate from epistemology, and knowledge cannot be deduced from a more general concept of reality. Thus human cognition is not a reflection of reality outside the man and mankind. It represents the content of collective activity and communication since their organization and functioning require the ideal, i.e. possible, tentative, approximate models and perspectives. This network of signs – scientific formulas, moral norms, images of art, magical symbols – is imposed upon the world and at the same time originates from our practical contact with the latter. Knowledge, consciousness, activity and communication represent internally interconnected elements of an open social system and can hardly be analyzed in a strong separation from each other. Hence epistemology is only in abstraction to be detached from philosophical anthropology, social philosophy and requires interdisciplinary interaction with the entire scope of the social sciences and humanities. SE seems to be a kind of synthesis of many different ideas and case-studies in philosophy and beyond. It also shows the poverty of metaphysical or naïve realism and inconsistency of the newest “technoscientific” obsessions. Clever realism always includes at least some SE statements. And in turn the genuine ontology for SE can be dubbed a “communicative realism”.

The paper raises the question: what kind of object do we refer to using proper names and personal pronouns? The author starts with a general review and the comparison of theories of personal identity. These theories are systematized according the type of object they identify as a person. It is demonstrated that there appear insurmountable difficulties as one tries to identify the self with a mind or an organism. It is suggested that instead of considering an entity that we call «I» as being a mental or a material thing we should rather consider it as a modification of a thing. Such an approach may be seen as a middle ground between mentalist and materialist interpretations of personal identity.Abandonment of the idea of a person as some physical or ‘mental’ thing doesn’t mean we have to completely eliminate persons from ontology and see them only as narrative construct as some philosophers like D. Dennet do. Rather it is an attempt to explain the nature of being a person outside of the boundaries of austere nominalism. If we agree to include in our ontology something besides concrete particles, then it is possible to choose different metaphysical category for our personhood. As soon as we stop considering an entity we call ‘I’ as a particular thing, and rather as something else, we would have to rethink the identity conditions for persons. The notion of a person could fall into wide range of categories, it could be a relation, a property or, as we argue, a special sort of modification of an organism. A wrinkle on the carpet is not some distinct thing existing above the carpet, but a modification of carpet. And a person is not is not some distinct thing over and above its body or organism, but a modification of a special sort. Our organism may have huge amount of modifications apart of being a person, though the latter one is a most important for us, because we are such modification. An organism may survive without some of its modifications, e.g. without scars or haircuts, and with external medical help an organism may survive without being person. In the article I show how the problem of personal identity disappears in various real situations and thought experiments if we begin to understand persons as a modifications of organisms.

The article deals with methodological issues of teaching a semester introductory course in philosophy of language to the students with philosophy major in Russia. The author discusses the challenges that an instructor of philosophy of language faces in general and with Russian students in particular.The general problem for such a course is the broadness of the topic. A more than a hundred year old tradition that influenced almost all parts of contemporary philosophy has to be shrinked into limits of one semester – an impossible objective if one aims to cover or even mention all these topics. The only reasonable stance that is usually taken by instructors is to give their audience a perspective on what can be considered a nucleus of philosophy of language. The question is what exactly is to be treaded as such a nucleus. The most popular choice is to give a brief history of the discipline covering the fundamental texts and issues of the classic of analytic philosophy. This however, according to the author, has its shortcomings. The course becomes historical and deprives the students of an attempt to think and discuss issues in philosophy of language themselves. So, it is argued that a course in philosophy of language must have a focus on a particular problematic within the discipline.The specificity of Russian philosophy students also has its facets that are discussed in the article in their relation to its main issue. Many philosophy students are equipped with sporadic historical philosophical knowledge, they often have general acquaintance with the content of philosophical teachings of different times and epochs but they very often lack competence in logic and theory of argumentation, they are not focused on one particular problem in their research and are often disposed to speculations in their reasoning. The author argues that it is the responsibility of the instructor to deal with such specifics of her audience and, therefore, she needs to present the content of the course taking these specifics into account. The author discusses handouts (not at all popular among instructors in Russia) as one way to overcome the difficulties in dealing with the audience. The advantages of handouts in the courses in philosophy are discussed.An example of a houndout is provided. It deals with some fundamental issues within formal philosophy of language: metatheoretical restrictions on semantic theories. Among others such notions as truth-conditional semantics, model theory, compositionality, function analysis, extensionality and contextuality are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: (1) to clarify Ludwig Wittgenstein’s thesis that colours possess logical structures, focusing on his ‘puzzle proposition’ that“there can be a bluish green but not a reddish green”, (2) to compare model-theoretical and gametheoretical approaches to the colour exclusion problem. What is gained, then, is a new gametheoretical framework for the logic of ‘forbidden’ (e.g., reddish green and bluish yellow) colours. My larger aim is to discuss phenomenological principles of the demarcation of the bounds of logic as formal ontology of abstract objects.

The article dwells on some methodological transformations in psychology and psychotherapy in their relation to the ideas of existential philosophy. The certain features of phenomenological method in existential psychology are characterized. The experience of authenticity and inauthenticity of human existence, inevitable tensions of its formation (content of psychotherapeutic process) are described in order to demonstrate a way of conceptualizing in terms of existential philosophy. Specific forms of dealing with personality in existential psychotherapy using particular existentials or their sets shows that psychological practice requires philosophical conceptualization for grasping the fundamental constituents of the human mind like as experience, meaning, value, and life. The case of alliance of existential psychotherapy with philosophy presents an equal alternative to the naturalistic psychological trends.

The article presents the results of the studies based on the application of the concept of the structure and dynamics of scientific knowledge developed by V. S. Stepin to the analysis of the history of the 17th-century medicine. The scientific revolution in the 17th-century medicine was of a globally-disciplinary nature and involved changes in all of the bases of the medical science of the galenism period. Its mechanism was a "paradigm inoculation" of new methodological principles of scientific knowledge originated from astronomy. The crucial role in the transmission of these statements into medicine was alloted to Galileo`s disciples and followers - S. Santorio and W. Harvey. The works by Descartes provided the revision of philosophical foundations of medical science and the emergence of a new picture of reality in the XVIIth-century medicine. The adoption of Cartesian ideas of kinetic mechanics and their wide-spread occurrence in medicine were connected with the development and implementation of iatrophysical teachings (G. Borelli, L. Bellini) and the teachings of the corpuscular iatrochemistry (F. Sylvius and others).

The mechanisms of cooperation between fundamental knowledge and technoscience (that is called a contemporary form of science and technology interaction) are covered in the paper. It is highlighted that the essential peculiarity of technoscience is that its’ objects are not substantive reality in Cartesian dualistic worldview, but so called “human dimension” objects socially and practically constructed. NBIC technologies can serve as an example of the contemporary technoscience. The paper attempts to reveal and analyze the philosophical basis of technoscience: ontological, gnoseological and axiological.

Multifaceted and rich theoretical heritage of N.G. Debolsky (1842-1918) - Russian philosopher, psychologist, educator - not yet sufficiently known, poorly understood and has not been adequately assessed. This article presents one of the recent attempts to fill this gap. It examines the evolution of Debolsky´s views in 1870 years on the methodological and philosophical problems of psychology. In this context, considers its evaluation activities of such psychologists and educators as: K.D. Kavelin, K.D. Ushinsky, W. Wundt and G. Spencer. Particular attention is paid to Debolsky´s discussion such methodological issues of psychology as questions about its scientific, its relationship with the philosophy (metaphysics) and natural science, its method, the object, structure, objectives and practical application. In addition, special emphasis Debolsky´s understanding the soul and its description of its main features. The article concludes his contribution to the psychology, the development its methodology and its history.