Home – Home – Jornals – Philosophy of Sciences 2017 number 3

The article systematizes interrelations of the components that make up the notion of «interdisciplinarity». We explicate the polysemy of the term «interdisciplinarity» and propose a formalized typology of interdisciplinarity.

Philosophy and science are two opposite manifestations of rationality which compete with one another. Philosophy is the art of producing issues and science is the art of solving problems. Analyzing the confrontation between these rationality streams, the author proposes to interpolate the «methodological concern of philosophy» into the scientific search language that will allow to constitute methodology as a logical theory.

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.

Kolmogorov’s contemporaries Borel, Frechet and Levy believed that Kolmogorov’s request for the proximity of event probability and its frequency characteristics is redundant in the context of applications of mathematics, since it is deduced by means of Bernoulli’s theorem, being its conclusion. The article shows that French mathematicians’ conclusion is restricted by the subjective interpretation of probability theory. Kolmogorov’ recommendations refer to the frequency interpretation in which his «dependent» request is not the conclusion of the theorem, but the precondition of applying Bernoulli’s theorem. A generalized result is that methods used in the subjective interpretation and conclusions based on these methods are of no value in the frequency interpretation and vice versa.

There are two philosophical prerequisites for creating a theory of everything, namely the possibility to describe the world with the help of (a) a single theoretical object and (b) a generalized mathematical structure. At present, the most popular theories of everything (superstring theory and loop quantum theory of gravity) exploit the first approach. The article considers an exceptionally simple theory of everything which is based on the second approach. The main point of the article is that a single mathematical structure is sufficient to describe only one level of physical reality. The article also considers main problems arising from such an assumption, namely the anthropologism of mathematics, the incompleteness of mathematics and the problem of deterministic description.

The paper is aimed at demonstrating the justification of logical correlation between main critical arguments. Basing on the analysis, we revealed that there was a mixture of two understandings of experiment results, those are ascertaining of results and their interpretation within the ontology of the theory in question. We show that incommensurability as a relativistic argument appears because of such mixing. We found out that there was a logical circle in sceptic argumentation related to scientific knowledge. Particularly, theory-ladenness of observations as a relativistic argument loses its meaning because various theories differ in basic notions and may explain empirical data in parallel without contradictions.

The paper considers whether the remote viewing research program meets two parascience criteria: (1) the deviation of its methods and cognitive activity standards from scientific ones and (2) the rejection of the simplicity principle. In particular, we consider definitions of remote viewing, as well as various aspects concerning the remote viewing research program, such as a brief historical information, methodological prescriptions, statistical methods, empirical data, cases of experiments, and exerts’ opinions. We found that the program did not meet the first parascience criterion. Basing on reliable empirical data proving the existence of remote viewing, we also conclude that psychologists who hypothesize non-physical interactions should not be attributed with the second parascience sign as well.

The paper analyzes the intervention of neuroscience into various areas of human practice and cognition which results in the formation of the so-called «brain culture». The author draws attention to a number of phenomena showing an active disciplinary expansion which may be observed in recent decades. Three main directions of critical reflection of the problem are marked out. Firstly, the paper shows theoretical and methodological disadvantages of neuroscience itself and raises the question of criteria allowing distinguishing between a «good neuroscience» and a «pseudo neuroscience» or a «junk neuroscience». Then, it considers how neuroscience achievements are presented in mass media and how fMRI brain scans influence the perception of information by average persons. The problem of the social demand for neuroscience and mechanisms forming such a public demand for knowledge of the brain is also touched upon. The penetration of the neuroscience terminology and its interpretation methods into modern social and humanities knowledge is considered; the nature of these reductionist tendencies is conceptualized.

The paper deals with the problems of digitalization of psychiatry and psychology, digitalization here implies expression in numbers. The question is whether we may express understanding and general cognition could be in numbers. The author argues that understanding demands an analogous (not digital) mechanism. But in psychiatry, understanding is essentially necessary to provide the right diagnosis. So, in psychiatry, digitalization will lead to a wrong diagnostic. As to psychology, the total digitalization (questionnaires, statistic conclusions) is also impossible, but psychology resists such a trend, while psychiatry is helpless against it.

Analyzing the ideas of systematic organization of scientific knowledge whick thinkers and scientists advanced in the Modern times, the author comes to the conclusion that these ideas contributed to the development of systems knowledge in studying of complex objects and served as prerequisites for the formation of the system approach in the form of a theoretical concept named «the general system theory».