Part II. The PHILOSOPHICAL and METHODOLOGICAL ANALYSIS of the SCIENCE

Science as the major form of cognition in the modern world. Concept of science. Science as activity, social institute and system of knowledge. Forms of reflective understanding of scientific knowledge: cognition theory, methodology and logic of a science. Problem area of philosophy of science. Scientific and non-scientific knowledge. Specificity of scientific knowledge. A role of science in the life of modern society and in forming of personality.

Science in its historical development. Problem of the beginning of a science. Science and types of civilizational development. Proto-science in the structure of traditional civilizations. An antique ideal of a science. The process of first scientific programs taking shape in ancient culture. Origin of empirical sciences. Registration of the disciplinary-organized science in the culture of Renaissance and Modern time. Concept of scientific rationality. Classical, non-classical and post-nonclassical types of scientific rationality. The basic social, cultural and methodological preconditions of modern science forming. Science functions in industrial and postindustrial society.

Para-science phenomenon, conditions of origin and formation. Esotherism and deviant science.

Structure and dynamics of scientific knowledge. Empirical and theoretical levels of scientific knowledge, their unity and distinction. Structure of the empirical research. Concept of the empirical basis of scientific discipline. The fact as the form of scientific knowledge. Specificity of empirical generalizations and laws.

Concept of the scientific theory. Abstract objects of the theory and their system organization. «Ideal objects» in the structure of the scientific theory. Functions of the scientific theory. A problem and a hypothesis as forms of scientific search and knowledge growth.

The meta-theoretical bases of a science. A scientific picture of the world as the characteristic of subject-ontological structures of scientific research. Ideals and norms of a science. Style of scientific thinking concept. The philosophical bases of science and a problem of integration of scientific knowledge into the culture of an epoch.

Dialectics of a developing science. Cumulative and anti-cumulative theories of scientific progress. Problems of rational reconstruction of scientific knowledge dynamics and the system nature of scientific progress. Science development as unity of processes scientific knowledge differentiation and integration.

Extensive and intensive stages in the development of scientific discipline. The nature of scientific revolution. Types of scientific revolutions. Modern strategy of scientific knowledge development.

Methodological toolkit of modern science. Concept of method and methodology. Multilevel concept of methodological knowledge. Specificity of the philosophical and methodological analysis of science. The status and functions of general scientific methodology of knowledge. Partial scientific methodology. Method and techniques of scientific research.

Essence of the system approach as general scientific methodological program. Forming of nonlinear methodology of knowledge.

Scientific research in methodological understanding. Object and subject of research. The aim and objectives in the structure of scientific research. Alternatives (hypothesis) of achievement of aims and their estimation. Means and methods of research. Structure, mechanisms of grounding and criteria of a scientific method. Methods of empirical research: observation, description, measurement, experiment. Methods of theoretical research: idealization, formalization, mental experiment, a hypothetic-deductive method, a method of a mathematical hypothesis.

Grounding of the research results. Grounding types (the proof, acknowledgement, interpretation, an explanation, etc.). Methods of scientific knowledge systematization (classification, type research, etc.).

Science language. Definitions and their role in forming of scientific terminology. Objective language and a meta language.

Information technologies in modern scientific cognition. Pluralism of methodological strategies and methodological innovations.

The dialectical logic as methodology of scientific cognition. Methodological sense of basic laws of dialectics. The contradiction – a source of development of scientific knowledge. Categories of the general and especial, whole and parts, essence and the phenomenon, abstract and concrete, necessities and accidents, historical and logic; their methodological meaning.

Science as social institute. Evolution of organizational forms of science. Science as a system of fundamental and applied researches. Phenomenon of the social need and strategy of science and research, experimental workings out (SREWO). The academic, branch and high school science: the purposes, problems and development prospects. Science and education. Schools in a science. Problem of continuity and alternation of generations in scientific community. Science in the culture of Belarus.

Scientists in the organizations. Concept of scientific community. Stratification structure of scientific community and a problem of "scientific democracy”. Scientific hierarchy and an elite phenomenon in a science. Social mobility and change of the status of the scientist in a modern society.

Communication and its specificity in a modern science. Forms of scientific communications. A competition in a science. Conflicts in a science and a way of their settling. Problem of a dialogue in scientific community. Polemic and discussion as forms of communication in science. The argument, its structure, kinds and a role in scientific discussion. Culture of conducting scientific discussion.

Science and social technologies in a modern society. A science and the power. A science and a politics. A science and ideology. A problem of social regulation of research activity. Praxeological function of science and basic types of social technologies: economic, political, administrative, and educational.

Science in the system of social values. Science as value in modern culture. Tool and world outlook value of a science. Scientism and anti-scientism in an estimation of the presence and future of the science.

Social values and norms of scientific ethos. Ambivalence of scientific consciousness. Problems of motivation and recognition in science.

Possibilities and borders of the science. Creative freedom and social responsibility of the scientist. Ethics of a science and its role in forming of modern type of scientific rationality. The social control over science.

Prospects of development and new valuable reference points of a modern science.