Home – Home – Jornals – Philosophy of Sciences 2022 number 4

The article considers the idea of the formation of a new paradigm in science proposed by a number of authors. According to this idea, the new scientific paradigm, which is the fourth in succession, consists in the fact that scientific research is increasingly based on the analysis of big data. It results in the change of the basic process: the production of scientific knowledge is replaced by the analysis of big data. The article examines the arguments of the authors of the idea of the fourth scientific paradigm and attempts to identify the rationale for such an assumption. It is shown that a new paradigm really starts to form in science, but its core is not so much the analysis of big data (which, of course, takes place, but this is one of the criteria related to the instrumental and technological aspect of the issue), but the change in the very reality of the world. The latter consists in the transition to the paradigm of the world of worlds, the paradigm of the hybrid (social-digital) world, which also implies the formation of a new ontology. It is argued that the new paradigm requires the development of new philosophical and methodological foundations, the lack of which is felt by the authors of this idea. The question of the emerging trend of rethinking the active role of a research scientist and the need to develop a new human-artificial intelligence interface is considered. In a situation of heavy growth of big data, not so much the human scientist himself begins to play an active role in collecting, processing and analyzing data, but his digital assistant; thus, clearly expressed functional outsourcing takes place. It is shown that the key criterion for the transition to a new paradigm is not the growth of data by itself, but overcoming the border of the human dimension of the world.