Crisis in modern epistemology (Possible ways out) Chapter 3

Division of sciences into natural sciences and human sciences.

 Another process was the program of revision of science and scientific knowledge, carried out by G. Rickert and W. Dilthey. The separation of the sciences of the spirit, for the first time in a hundred years after O. Comte, placed natural science within the rigid boundaries of permissible knowledge.

Classical epistemology is characterized by such features as a sceptical attitude towards the existence of the world and the possibility of knowing it - hypercriticism; recognition of the invariable norms of knowledge that lie at its foundation; subject-centrism, which is understood as the recognition of the absolute reliability of knowledge about the state of consciousness and the unreliability of the rest of the knowledge; finally, the recognition of only scientific knowledge as full value is science-centrism.

Non-classical epistemology rethinks and largely denies these principles, significantly expanding the very understanding of knowledge, the forms of its presentation and methods of study. The expansion is due to the identification of the fundamental significance of knowledge, its types and functions in many new areas of activity that were not developed or were not taken into account during the period of the dominance of classical science and epistemology. These are E.E., cognitive psychology, various types of cognitive sciences, including computer modelling and hypertext creation programs. For classical epistemology, scientific knowledge is knowledge understood primarily in the positivist spirit as natural science knowledge.

For a long time, humanitarian cognition was either “adjusted” to the ideals and norms of natural science or belonged to the sphere of “unscientific” cognition. The neglect of the problems of the humanities gave rise, in particular, to a radical postmodern epistemological project.

Many "obvious", well-established ideas about the nature, specifics and structure of humanitarian cognition, on the one hand, and cognition in general, on the other hand, should be subjected to significant (if not to say radical) revision. Again, unexpectedly relevant are the search for answers to questions about the subject, methodological standards, ideals and norms of humanitarian knowledge. Last but not least, such a revision was stimulated by the "linguistic turn" in the philosophy of the 20th century, the modern philosophical obsession with language.

The revision of the classical scheme of epistemological relations based on the opposition of subject and object provides for a new understanding of their relationship and interdependence. Revolutionary discoveries in various fields of the humanities of the second half of the 20th century led philosophical thought to the need to solve fundamentally new epistemological problems. They are associated with the analysis of linguistic and cultural prejudices and attitudes of the subject, the study of the mechanisms of their influence not only on the process and result of cognition but also on the specifics of the vision of its very objectivity.

·  The main statements of the supporters of the point of view about the existence of fundamental differences between the sciences of nature and the sciences of man.

·  Natural sciences try to discover common dependencies, human sciences investigate unique individual phenomena. This idea was formulated by G. Rickert at the beginning of the twentieth century, however, it continues to be popular to this day, especially among historians.

·  Natural sciences offer explanations of facts, human sciences can only provide an interpretation of human actions and their products, including texts and social institutions. The use of hermeneutical methods is a specific feature of the second type of sciences.

·  Natural sciences can predict future events. Therefore, they are used to create all sorts of technical devices with which you can control the natural environment and utilize natural resources. Human sciences do not predict. Their only job is to provide understanding.

·  Explanations formulated in natural science are not only and not necessarily empirical generalizations. The best ones come from theory. However, in the human sciences, it is rather difficult to make generalizations. It is even more difficult to construct theories in them, since sciences of this type study individual events localized in a certain area of space and occurring at a certain time.

Natural science can give an objective idea of the investigated area of reality. The natural sciences can control the objectivity of their results by experiment. Experiments that are practised in the human sciences (for example, in psychology) are not real, since, in the process of their implementation, communicative relations arise between the experimenter and the subjects under study. As a result, the obtained facts are largely generated by the intervention of the researcher and bear the imprint of the system of values adopted by the latter, his social interests, political views and the place he occupies in the system of power relations.

·  In addition, the subjects under study can accept the conclusions of the researcher regarding them, and this circumstance will change these subjects, i.e. will change the studied human and social reality. Therefore, it is impossible to talk about objective knowledge in the human sciences, since in this case the reality being investigated is generated by the very process of research.

The problem of prediction. Prediction is an open system. It seems that if there is an explanation for a fact, then future facts can be predicted. This view is consistent with the popular model of explanation as summarizing facts under general law. It is assumed that the formulation of predictions of future events is a hallmark of the natural sciences. In reality, however, predicting natural phenomena is not an easy task.

In some cases, it is simply not possible. It is easy to make predictions (with the help of knowledge of laws) if we are dealing with closed systems and with a limited number of factors influencing the ongoing processes. But such situations exist only in laboratory conditions and in some natural processes, such as, for example, in the motion of the planets of the solar system. Classical mechanics studied processes of this very type.

But when dealing with open, complexly organized systems at the point of their bifurcation, accurate prediction becomes impossible. In this case, you can only develop several scenarios of a possible future, not knowing which of them will be implemented.

The experimental natural science of modern times could arise only under conditions of a certain understanding of nature and man's attitude to it. This understanding is associated with the emergence of a special type of civilization, which can be called technological. Nature is interpreted as a simple resource of human activity, as a plastic material that allows unlimited human intervention. An experiment is a way of such intervention in natural processes in order to better understand their internal mechanisms. A person can, in principle, accurately predict natural processes, and therefore control and regulate them. But with this understanding of scientific thinking, the study of human meaningful actions looked like something alien to the very spirit of science. As a result, the opinion about the existence of a fundamental difference between the study of nature and the study of man and human relations has gained popularity.