Home – Home – Jornals – Philosophy of Sciences 2016 number 2

In the article, the author systematizes and analyzes the major trends in the research of ancient origin of protoscience. Considering the domestic and foreign sources, the author formulates the five main hypotheses of appearance of rational methods and theories of scientific knowledge in Ancient Greece VI-IV centuries. BC. According to detailed analysis of hypotheses, the author identifies two basic assumptions about the relationship of the research subject and considerable political activity of the population in the history of ancient Greece of that period. Going into details of political and legal principles of polises, the author projects the results of a study to health sphere recognizing the parallelism between political discourse and philosophical arguments in ancient society.

The article focuses attention on the fact that the modern science is based not only on empirical data but also to a large extent on ideal conceptions. Necessity to reject the Cartesian way of thinking comes into existence. This lends a particular urgency to the consideration of modern scientific ideas, in particular the superpower of Davies, in connection with the metaphysical doctrine of Leibniz.

The problem of the introduction of non-logical constants into semantic theory is discussed. The controversy between Hilbert and Frege about the nature of implicit definitions axioms is viewed as a motive for the introduction of model-theoretic interpretation of variables. Indexicals are proposed as interpretation of non-logical constants in mathematical discourse.

We look at argumentation against realizability of Hilbert's program based on Gödel's second incompleteness theorem. It is proved that such argumentation is incorrect from the outset, since it necessarily leads to absurd conclusions. This implies that the second theorem can not be thought of as a decisive argument against feasibility of Hilbert’s finitistic program.

Kolmogorov’s contemporaries, famous mathematicians Frechet, Borel, Levy supposed that formalization of Kolmogorov’s informal condition about the nearness of a probability event to the frequency characteristics is the same as for the conclusion of Bernoulli’s theorem. So, Kolmogorov’s condition is redundant because it is deduced by means of the theorem. I demonstrate that the informal condition has two different formal descriptions. In the frequency interpretation, the natural formalization consists in the geometrical nearness of the frequencies. In this case, Kolmogorov’s condition isn’t deduced from the theorem, conversely the feasibility of the condition is the precondition of using the theorem. The article shows the inadequacy of the idea of Frechet, Borel and Levy that when using the subjective probability in Bernoulli’s theorem, its conclusion will be objective. I demonstrate that the idea doesn’t agree with persistence property of the mathematical statements.

The article considers internal and external mechanisms of transformation epistemological standards accepted in science. We show that internal mechanisms determine the line of research, and external ones influence on the research organization. Significant external causes transformation of science at the present stage are machinery, computerization and mathematical methods, which determine the composition and structure of the team, and adopted the epistemological assumptions.

Since the end of the XX century considerable high-quality changes take place in science. A number of revolutionary discoveries in the field of physics, biology, information sciences and psychology is made, which become an integral part of reality, significantly transforming natural and social habitat of people. The problem is that introduction of fantastic scientific results in our life happens without deep judgment of an essence and consequences of these changes. The bioethics with interdisciplinary methodology is capable to reveal the scientific potential and possible danger of new convergent technologies, to offer an effective mechanism of the balanced socio-humanitarian expertise of innovations.

The article outlines a historical overview of the basic concepts of life in different periods, the discussion of these concepts, the proposed attempt of the author's definition of this concept.

The paper deals with the problem of cross-disciplinary cooperation between philosophy and cognitive psychology. The experimental cognitive approach is demonstrated via examples of cognitive investigations of mental disorders (autism). It is shown that this approach aims to find correlations between symptoms of a mental disorder, but not to systemiting them into a pattern with some primary disorder as a base. Cognitive approach is also criticized from the point of inaccuracy of the terms used, and of lack of conclusions' persuasion. Thus, the tasks of philosophical approach are: a) heuristic formulation of a hypothesis for further investigations; b) understanding (in Jaspers' terms) of the data received, arranging them into a reasonable system; c) formulating of the question of a primary deficiency; d) making the terms more precise and a criticizing «from outside» the cognitive approach in the cases of the sampling used, the accuracy of conclusions, etc., e) using the data for the development of general philosophical conceptualizations of human reasoning. The models of mentality with the central management and those without it are also analyzed in the paper, using the data about autistic disorder. The author concludes that the efficient cross-disciplinary cooperation between philosophy and cognitive psychology is possible and productive.

In the first article of a series of studies dedicated to ancient meteorology (Filosofiya nauki, 68 [2016], pp. 101-120) I discussed the method and content of Pseudo-Theophrastus’ On weather signs and translated a short treatise On the location and names of the winds, traditionally included in the Corpus Aristotelicum. In this article, based on Aristotle’s Meteorology, the Meteorology of Theophrastus in Syriac and Arabic Translation and Seneca's Naturales Questiones, I approach various theories, designed in Antiquity for explanation of the origin and development of winds and hurricanes.