Home – Home – Jornals – Philosophy of Sciences 2017 number 2

The article analyzes the category of being in the philosophical and natural-scientific aspects. We bring to light the heuristic function of the category in physical-biological and cognitive sciences. Taking into account modern scientists’ opinions, we offer and prove the hypothesis concerning information programs of the evolution of the matter, live systems and mental-cognitive structures. Also, the article presents the generalization of characteristics of being as a unified information reality of the universe and culture.

The paper considers the question of the degree to which Goodstein's theorem may be considered to be an analogue of a true, but not provable Gödelian sentence. It is shown that such an interpretation leads to Isaacson's thesis, according to which the demonstration of the truth of real mathematical analogues of the Gödelian sentence in the formal language of arithmetic uses conceptual resources that go beyond the resources required to understand the basic arithmetic of finite natural numbers. The plausibility of the thesis is disputed from the point of view of the incomprehensibility of the arithmetic content of the Gödelian sentence.

The paper studies Hume’s influence on the application and development of the probability theory in the context of the induction problem. It shows Hume’s direct influence on Price who published Bayes’s texts, as well as his indirect influence on Bayes and Laplace. The author describes the factors which contributed to the understanding of Hume’s criticism of the probability theory by mathematicians and to the solution of the induction problem for equally probable events. Hume’s influence on the probability theory is considered as a model which determines the role and place of philosophical ideas in scientific research.

The article reveals and systematizes philosophical foundations of the unification of physical theories, the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics are taken as the examples. In the ontological aspect, the unification is based on the idea that there exists a fundamental level which determines the diversity of the world phenomena and to which all the other levels may be reduced, as well as on the idea of the interrelation between physical phenomena. In addition, the unification is based on the possibility to build a consistent physical picture of the reality. In the epistemological aspect, the unification is based on the existence of intertheoretical relations between physical theories (those are generalization, reduction, synthesis, and limit passage), as well as on the unity of the cognizer’s self-consciousness.

The article considers the source of discordance between basic concepts and principles which puts obstacles to creating “the Theory of Everything”. This discordance roots in classical scientific ideas many of which are excessively empirical on the one hand and excessively absolutized on the other hand. The path to the general theory lies in the coordination of basic scientific concepts through their operational redefining on the basis of unified universal principles.

The aim is to justify the thesis according to which the complementarity principle could act as unifying physical theories only in connection with other physical principles of cognition.

The paper considers understandings of simultaneity which the author treats as the main ones. It shows the difference between classical ideas of simultaneity and concepts of simultaneity in the relativity theory. The phenomenological dispute about the relationship of simultaneity and sequence is emphasized. On the basis of the conceptions of sensory perception of outward things, the conclusion is made that the perception of the sequence of events is primary whereas simultaneity is just an epistemic construct which is convenient both for the development of scientific knowledge and for subjective reflection of reality.

Reflecting upon processes of recognition and identification in mind, J. Perry came to the conclusion that everything we know or believe refers to a certain subjective perspective from which this knowledge or belief may be applied in practice. If we impute content to propositional attitudes sentences taking into account this perspective, we can easily solve such old philosophical problems as the problem of violation of the substitutability principle and that of informative identities. Perry offers his own concept of content which is enough flexible to cope with the task.

The article considers ancient ideas about water circulation in nature. The sources which we use include works of early Greek thinkers, particularly Diogenes of Apollonia, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Posidonius and Seneca. The special attention is given to the analogy between natural phenomena and processes occurring in living organisms which was developed by ancient philosophers of nature, as well as to peculiarities of the theory of elements mutual transformation which they shared. We show ways of reasoning practiced by the considered authors, particularly the method of analogy.

The paper considers how there appears a new and specially managed tight lacing of technics (technology), science and industry, which is called “techno-science”. In this phenomenon, we firstly mark out and analyze the structure of the scientific and technical core of techno-science (TSC) including its own management scheme. To analyze the TSC core, we consider the American nuclear project. Secondly, we show an additional management scheme related to practical realization which greatly differs in the nuclear project case where the state plays the key role and in the case of projects realized by companies like Intel in Silicon Valley in the 1970s where a businessman and his or her relations with an ambient “ecosystem” are the most important elements. These two types we call “techno-science 1” and “techno-science 2” respectively. We study some realizations of techno-science 1 in the USSR and modern Russia and its relations with “big science”.