Philosophical Foundations of Science: Their Structure and Functions

DOI

10.2991/cesses-18.2018.188How to use a DOI?

Keywords

science; levels of scientific knowledge; meta-theoretical knowledge; philosophical foundations of science

Abstract

The article analyses the following problems: 1) whether philosophical foundations of science are included in the structure of scientific knowledge; 2) what types there exist; 3) what their functions in scientific cognition are. The author proves the position that philosophical foundations of science are one of the elements meta-theoretical level of scientific knowledge also including general scientific knowledge (scientific picture of the world and methodological ideals of science) and paradigm scientific theories. Unlike general scientific knowledge philosophical foundations of science are borrowed by science from different branches of philosophy: ontology, gnoseology, social philosophy, axiology, anthropology, praxeology. Thanks to pluralism of philosophical concepts and qualitative distinction of scientific knowledge fields there are no and there have never been any common for the entire science its philosophical foundations. This is true not only in relation to diachrony of science development but also to its synchronistic state in any historical period. The main functions of philosophical foundations of science are: 1) deductive reasoning of axioms, principles and laws of fundamental scientific theories as additional to their empirical, inductive reasoning; 2) philosophical interpretation of scientific knowledge content as necessary evaluation condition of its attitudinal significance; 3) relationship between science and philosophy as crucial culture fields; 4) creative resource of philosophical mindset and knowledge connected to science and scientific cognition; 5) scientific knowledge transmission into culture and its content learning by society.

Copyright

© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Sergey Lebedev
PY  - 2018/11
DA  - 2018/11
TI  - Philosophical Foundations of Science: Their Structure and Functions
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Ecological Studies (CESSES 2018)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 850
EP  - 855
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/cesses-18.2018.188
DO  - 10.2991/cesses-18.2018.188
ID  - Lebedev2018/11
ER  -