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editorial editorial

1. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Irina A. Gerasimova Orcid-ID
Ирина Алексеевна Герасимова
Неопределенность в познании и в социальных практиках
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The article discusses the theoretical status of the category of uncertainty. Instead of the classical definitions of uncertainty as an ontological or epistemological concept, a composite theoretical construct is proposed. In classical science, the objectivist representation of the subject of research was preferred. With the nonclassical type of rationality, there rises problem of including subjective elements in a theoretical description. Attention to subject-subject-object methodologies is increasing due to the complication of communicative interactions in science and society in the digital era. One of the consequences of active innovative projective activity on a planetary scale and increasing risks is the perception in the public mind of uncertainty as a challenge. The author considers it appropriate to study the uncertainty-certainty as a paired category. The category of uncertainty was considered in philosophy, science, and management. The status of uncertainty as infinity and formlessness was recognized by Greek natural philosophers. Classical science developed the methodology of knowing the “infinite limit” through the construction of theoretical schemes (forms) and types of empirical testing. The paradox served as a means of destroying dogmatic schemes. In the context of increasingly complex communications in science, the importance of cognitive problems in the study of collective thinking and the personal beginning of creativity is increasing. Modern economic positivism is distinguished by its rejection of objective uncertainty, and the installation of the ability to efficiently manage exclusively accurate calculations is brought to extremes.

panel discussion panel discussion

2. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Svetlana V. Shibarshina
Светлана Викторовна Шибаршина
Социальные сети для ученых
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This article considers the digital transformations of scientific communication focusing on social networks for researchers. The author argues that such communities possess certain prospects for turning into a kind of new sociality. She highlights and critically evaluates the major features of interactions on such platforms, including: a network nature; communication “here-and-now”; mobility of ideas, methods, approaches, and solutions; open access to information and its evaluation; blurring the boundaries of previously stable social ties and relations, and overcoming cultural barriers. She argues that social networks for researchers, potentially enabling Merton’s communalism as an ethical norm and partly externalizing dispersed knowledge, can become a new sociality for those researchers who possess fewer opportunities for career fulfillment in offline mode.
3. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Ilya T. Kasavin Orcid-ID
Илья Теодорович Касавин
Иллюзия дарения
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The epitome of modern scientific infrastructure and distributed knowledge systems is scientific social networks (NSS). Their number, as well as the number of their users, is constantly growing and reaches millions. They are in demand, and, therefore, perform significant social functions. It is still unclear what their own nature is, what their functions are and how they perform and, finally, what are the consequences of their integration with the social institute of science. Along with the obvious advantages, the NSS creates clear cultural dissonances and challenges that change the usual ways of communication. There is already enough evidence that the NSS not only bring about positive change, but also face rejection. Science policy, the scientist's moral code, the scientific citation and evaluation systems are all affected by the activities of the NSS and become an important subject matter of science and technology studies (STS). This text is a response to the article “Social Networks for Researchers on the Internet: A New Sociality?” by S.V. Shibarshina.
4. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Evgeny V. Maslanov
Евгений Валерьевич Масланов
Нужны ли социальные сети для ученых ученым?
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The article analyzes the functioning of social networks for scientists on the Internet. The Internet has emerged as a social network for scientists. Then its development led to the formation of various network segments not related to scientific knowledge. It was based on the normative ideal of science. In the process of development, the Internet began to unite not only scientists. The normative ideal began to penetrate into network segments that were not directly associated to the activities of scientists. The development of the network has led to the formation of special social networks for scientists. However, as shown in the paper, such networks are not able to serve the basis either for the solidarity of scientists, or the formation of a new sociality of scientists, since the development of science has led to the formation of studies that cannot be represented in such networks. Scientists are better use general, not specialized, Internet social networks. In such communicative spaces, they can better deal with the tasks related to the communications with other social actors.
5. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Svetlana V. Shibarshina
Светлана Викторовна Шибаршина
Почему социальные сети для ученых все-таки важны
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The paper is a short reply to the comments given on the paper ‘Social Networks for Researchers on the Internet: A New Sociality?’. The author emphasizes some essential differences of such communities from the traditional forms of scientific communication. Agreeing with the argument about the danger that social networks potentially carry, she associates it with the general features of the Internet space. In conclusion, it is accentuated that, despite their shortcomings, social networks offer a kind of new sociality based on the idea of visibility.

epistemology and cognition epistemology and cognition

6. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Angelina V. Baeva
Ангелина Викторовна Баева
Историзация научного наблюдения в современных исследованиях науки
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This article is devoted to historization of scientific practices as one of the central points in problem field of modern science studies. The subject of our article is scientific observation as one of the epistemic practices. Historization of scientific observation in modern scientific studies is possible, because of material practices and social relations begin to problematize in the scientific field. Science is no longer characterized only by a propositional order of representations. It is an assemblage of connections and relations between different agents and network of things, people and practices. This network is complexly arranged and branched, but in the same time it is coordinated in a certain optics and it is producing the visual closure to constructed object. This new optics, that makes visible the material and routine practices, puts in a new way the task to understand, how to work with heterogeneous and historically changeable field of practices and different “ways to do science”. There is a rethinking of the self-evident epistemic categories and particularly scientific observation. As an epistemic genre and scientific practice observation begins to take shape relatively late – only in the XVII century, when there is a complication and multiplication of practices of production of the visual images, that are making concrete from abstract and visible from invisible. To historicize scientific observation is to show how it has become a self-evident epistemic category and an integral scientific function. Scientific observation can be historicized as a set of practices that emerged and spread throughout a particular historical period, on the one hand, as practices of production, coordination, presentation and description of observational data. And on the other hand, it can be historicized as practices of production of “scientific self” as instances of observation. This article attempts to show that observation as a practice and as historically varied object of science is characterized, on the one hand, by the production of “that is visible” and, on the other hand, by “scientific self”.
7. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Yulia V. Shaposhnikova, Lada V. Shipovalova
Юлия Владимировна Шапошникова
Воображение в действии
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The intention of this article is to study the role of imagination in science. We are going to examine the communicative role that imagination plays in interdisciplinary scientific interaction. We are referring to that specific kind of interaction in which science is the object of research that is to a complicated situation in the contemporary science studies. We posit that the interaction between different disciplines engaged in the study of science is far from being concordant. This is especially true of the history and philosophy of science. Currently, the situation is such that, on the one hand, the philosophical reference to the historical research of science has proved being constructive in nature. On the other hand, historians remain mostly indifferent to the philosophy of science, seeking no methodological guidance from philosophers. Revealing the reasons for such an asymmetry of interests, and, as a consequence, the failure of the constructive interaction of history and philosophy of science, we analyze one hypothesis which directly refers to the work of imagination in the Kantian sense. Next, we determine that Kant's appeal to imagination opens the way for another interpretation of both the work of imagination and, as a result, the interaction of history and philosophy of science. We demonstrate why the analysis of the role of image, associated primarily with art, becomes relevant in modern research of science. Additionally, we turn to imagination, not just as a transcendental condition of knowledge but as an effective tool to organize specific research practices of interdisciplinary interaction. Therefore, an important component of our research is an appeal to a “successful” example of the synthesis of historical and philosophical research of science, which is the contemporary historical epistemology, in which one can see imagination in action.

language and mind language and mind

8. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Ekaterina V. Vostrikova, Petr S. Kusliy
Екатерина Васильевна Вострикова
Преодоление критических аргументов Карнапа против метафизики с помощью логического анализа естественного языка
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The authors explore Carnap’s (1931) famous critique of Heidegger’s metaphysics and argue that, from the perspective of contemporary formal semantics of natural language, Carnap’s criticism is not convincing. Moreover, they provide direct empirical objections to Carnap’s criticism. In particular, using empirical evidence from languages like Russian that have negative concord, they show that Heidegger cannot be accused of assigning illegitimate logical forms to his sentences about Nothing because terms like “Nothing” can be used non-quantificationally and the fact that it is not clear how their reference is established cannot be the reason why the corresponding sentences are ungrammatical (as Carnap seemed to suggest). The authors also critically discuss the view that natural language is insensitive to meaninglessness or contradiction. With reference to the work of J. Gajewsky, they show that this view is not true either. As a result of this investigation, they arrive at a position that an appeal to ungrammaticality like the one proposed by Carnap does not provide legitimate evidence against metaphysics. This conclusion relates to some recent criticism of the so-called non-analytical philosophers that can be traced back to Carnap’s paper.
9. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Diana E. Gasparyan
Диана Эдиковна Гаспарян
Трудности Я-перспективы в проектах интеграции феноменологии и натурализма
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The article explores the private nature of subjectivity in programs of integration the phenomenology with naturalism. It is considered if their tools are relevant for the phenomenological, rather than naturalistic way of subjectivity’s explaining. Justification of the key ideas is provided with the help of such concepts as “body image”, “body scheme”, (Sh. Gallagher), “ontological significance” (L. Baker), “experience”, “cognitive niches” (F. Varela), “transparent body” (T. Fuchs). Based on the traditional phenomenology of E. Husserl, it is shown that a set of approaches that integrate phenomenology and naturalism within the framework of “first-person philosophy” can be characterized as a phenomenology without a phenomenological subject. It is shown that the phenomenological nature of the self-perspective in integrative programs is more likely to be understood as the qualification and privacy of subjectivity, while the transcendental aspect of the unobservable and biased consciousness is practically not taken into account. The article concludes that the logic of some projects of integration of phenomenology and naturalism overlook this transcendental peculiarity of consciousness, its fundamentally unobserved character. The classical phenomenological approach emphasizes on the extra-natural, biased, and non-empirical nature of consciousness. The role and significance of the phenomenological approach is not limited to the idea of “what-is-likeness” and privacy of subjective states. Phenomenology, which preserves the idea of the subject, means a radical break with the ontology of things and, in general, with the ontology of something objective at all.

vista vista

10. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Alexander Yu. Antonovski
Александр Юрьевич Антоновский
Философия в полицентричном мире
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In the first part of the article, the author substantiates the importance of philosophical communication as a kind of dependent variable that does not have an independent meaning without pointing to something else through which the philosophy itself (often negatively and non-reflectively) defines. We are talking about global centers of “systemic” communication (politics, science, religion, etc.), imposing their observations on other communities. It is argued that the priority of philosophical communication is justified by the ability to carry out “universal observations”, which is deprived of all other communication systems.In the second part of the article, the methodological question is first solved about the possibility of explaining a number of phenomena (communications, observations), for which no indication of external factors justifying their existence is required. It is proved that the description and explanation of such phenomena is possible on the way of formulating “significant tautologies” (Peter Railton). Using this method, the author carries out a meaningful deployment of the significant tautology “philosophy is only philosophy” and substantiates that philosophy is communication, capable of defining itself in a universal way: through something else and through itself. The author concludes that philosophy can be considered as a communicative system (i.e.,observer), whose mission is to generate a unique product: a universal self-description of modern society, where philosophy combines three fundamental observational abilities: scientific, protest and artistic activity.
11. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Tom Rockmore
Том Рокмор
Немецкий идеализм, эпистемический конструктивизм и метафилософия
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This paper concerns the nature and a significance of metaphilosophy with special attention to German idealism. Metaphilosophy, or the philosophy of philosophy, is understood differently from different perspectives, for instance, if philosophy concerns the consciousness of the object, as the self-consciousness of the knowing process. If we assume that the Western philosophical tradition consists in a long series of efforts to demonstrate claims to know, then metaphilosophy is not present in the ancient Greek tradition. It only arises in the modern tradition through the turn from a theory of knowledge that depends on consciousness, more precisely consciousness of the independent object, to a theory of knowledge that depends on self-consciousness, more precisely consciousness of the independent object as well as consciousness of consciousness of the independent object.
12. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Talia Ya. Khabrieva
Талия Ярулловна Хабриева
Интервью памяти академика В.С. Степина
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case-studies – science studies case-studies – science studies

13. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Vitaly S. Pronskikh
Виталий Станиславович Пронских
Oнтология коллективного экспериментатора
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In this article, the collective experimenter, arising in scientific projects from those modeled on the Alvarez group to megascience, is studied in the framework of the model of trading zones, as well as Actor-Network Theory. The collective experimenter is defined as a network of actors whose forms are trading zones, including the core – the empirical collective subject of cognition – and the peripheral part. The multitude of actors of the collective experimenter includes the core, as well as the community of intentions and the external actors that are part of the periphery of the collective experimenter. Attention is focused on the differences between the author of epistemic claims, the subject of cognition and scientific collaboration. A classification of collective experimentalists is proposed that includes four types of ontologies. The classification is applied to JINR scientific projects, and within its framework projects of the Alvarez type, big science, proto-megascience and megascience are distinguished. Ways of developing projects to the megascience-level through the formation of cores-communicative communities in the structure of the collective experimenter are proposed. Premised on the results obtained, recommendations are formulated for the development of the JINR experiments program.
14. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Andrey V. Rezaev, Natalia D. Tregubova
Андрей Владимирович Резаев
Искусственный интеллект и искусственная социальность
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The paper aims to formulate theoretical and methodological foundations as well as basic research questions for studying intervention of artificial intelligence in everyday life of medical and life sciences in the 21 century. It is an invitation for professional philosophical, theoretical and methodological discussion about the necessity and reality of artificial intelligence in contemporary medical/life sciences and medicine. The authors commence with a proposition of their definitions of ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI) and ‘artificial sociality’ (AS). The next section of the paper deals with a review of basic trends in medical/life sciences and medicine. In what follows the authors debate two problems related to incorporation of AI in reality of current medicine. The first is the potential revision of the principles developed in western medicine; the second is the alteration of the contents and forms of medical education. The authors theorize the dynamic interplay between structural expansion and cultural contraction of medicine and life sciences in current practices of higher education and explore how this introduces an essential tension between the necessity and reality for medical professionals to work with AI. The paper shows that attending to institutional dynamics serves as a critical and timely extension of disciplinary/cross/anti-disciplinary critiques of science and medicine, not only since the current inclusion agenda of the AI in medicine may do little to address the real concerns of a medical profession in the XXI century but also because it may inadvertently undermine the institutional recognition and epistemic acceptance of new anti-disciplinary vista for studying AI per se. In conclusion the authors underline basic outcomes of the discussion and propose further routes for inquiry and research.

interdisciplinary studies interdisciplinary studies

15. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Harry Collins, Robert Evans
Гарри Коллинз
Популизм и наука
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The risk of populism is ever-present in democratic societies. Here we argue that science provides one way in which this risk can be reduced. This is not because science provides a superior truth but because it (a) preserves and celebrates values that are essential for democracy and (b) contributes to the network of the checks and balances that constrain executive power. To make this argument, we draw on Wittgenstein’s idea of a form of life to characterize any social group as being composed of two opposing elements: an organic aspect that defines what the group has in common and an enumerative aspect that describes the differing ways in which the organic core can be displayed. Whilst the organic faces of science and democracy are clearly different there are significant overlaps that include values such as disinterestedness, universalism and honesty. This overlap in values is the first way in which science can prevent populism: by providing moral leadership. The second, its role in a network of checks and balances, also depends on these values. Science does not contribute to the checks and balances because it provides epistemically superior knowledge; it contributes because it provides morally superior knowledge that, alongside institutions such a free press, independent judiciary and additional tiers of government, support the democratic ecosystem. Failures of democracy occur when this ecosystem is damaged – too much science leads to technocracy, but too little creates the conditions for populism. To prevent this, we argue that citizens must (re)learn the value of democratic values. These include endorsing an independent judiciary and other state institutions, even when these hinder policies of which they might approve and, of particular concern in this context, recognizing that independent experts, of which scientists are the exemplar, are part of this network of checks and balances.

archive archive

16. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Olga E. Stoliarova
Ольга Евгеньевна Столярова
≪Коперниканская революция≫ Канта как объект философской ретроспекции
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The article deals with Kant's Copernican Revolution as an object of philosophical retrospection. It is suggested that Kant's Copernican Revolution can be understood in terms of the conditions of its possibility within the framework of a regressive transcendental argument. The regressive transcendental argument is equated with the universal philosophical method, which is circular in nature: starting with the facts of experience, it concludes about the necessary conditions for the possibility of a given experience and compares these conditions of possibility with what is given in experience. It is shown that in the framework of such an approach, falsification of the initial premises of the Kantian project becomes inevitable. It is shown that the character of this falsification is essentially dialectical. By falsifying the transcendental project of the “Copernican revolution” as a whole, we question the “once and for all” boundary drawn by Kant between the epistemological premises (“idealism”) and ontological foundations (“realism”).

new trends new trends

17. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Valentin A. Bazhanov
Валентин Александрович Бажанов
Культурно-историческая теория в диалектической оптике
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This is review of the book: M. Dafermos. Rethinking Cultural-Historical Theory. A Dialectical Perspective to Vygotsky. (Springer: Singapore, 2018. IX, 309 P. ISBN 978‒981‒13‒0190‒2. Doi: 10.1007/978‒981‒13‒0191‒9). The book is devoted to the making of the cultural-historical approach in psychology in the works of Vygotsky. The author claim that Vygotsky, relying on the ideas of Spinoza, Hegel, Feuerbach and Marx, developed this approach by mastering the dialectical method in his Hegel-Marxist version. The atmosphere of the storm and the onslaught in the social and cultural life of the 1920s – early 1930s contributed to the formation of Vygotsky as a thinker with broad interests and deep philosophical background, who experienced several crises in his intellectual development. These crises forced him to qualitatively revise his ideas and, thus, substantially deepen and improve them. The author shows that Vygotsky’s literary origins allow his life compare with a drama, which accompanied by drama and the proliferation of ideas. This, in particular, expressed in his criticism of Gestalt psychology, theory of J. Piaget, ultimately a divergence of views with a number of his students who created Kharkov psychological school. Vygotsky left a great scientific legacy, which includes an analysis from the standpoint of the cultural-historical approach of the nature of consciousness, the relationship between thinking and language, the evolution of personality, a multitude of other psychological problems and art.
18. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Olga S. Gretchina
Ольга Сергеевна Гретчина
Историческая изменчивость самости в научном ландшафте
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The article is a review of ≪Objectivity≫ by L. Daston and P. Gallison. The authors reject the timeless understanding of objectivity and demonstrate on a series of examples of specific practices of creating, using and reading scientific images in Atlases from the XVIII century that objectivity has its moment of birth – XIX century and its own history. The authors assume the definition of objectivity as a desire to get rid of subjectivity in the creation of a scientific image. Objectivity functions as one of the epistemological virtues, along with truth and certainty. Daston and Gallison describe several regimes of scientific practices and show their relation to the formation of scientific “selves” and connection with changing conceptions of subjectivity.
19. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Nadezhda A. Kasavina
Надежда Александровна Касавина
Цифровизация как предмет междисциплинарных исследований
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The article provides an overview of the publications of the journal “The Digital Scholar: Philosopher's Lab” on one of its core areas – the problem of the digitalization in society and culture and its reflection in the social sciences and humanities. The authors emphasize a distinct change in the human culture and social space manifested in restructuring of thinking, perception, communication, language, living space, and socialization. These changes are perceived as cultural challenges arising under the influence of information and communication technologies. The journal addresses a wide range of issues: an ambivalence of mass-media; a change of communicative rationality; mediarationality; the “architecture” of Internet communication, the phenomenon of visualization, digital text, information protection, gamification, the humanitarian expertise and ethical issues of the future of man and society. The authors express solidarity in that new information technologies deserve a critical assessment of the socio-humanitarian consequences of their development and require an interdisciplinary thinking in terms of new philosophical and humanitarian alternatives.

in memoriam in memoriam

20. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 56 > Issue: 4
Памяти Рома Харрe (18.12.1927‒18.10.2019)
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