Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy

Volume 17, 2008

Ontology

Проблема материального начала мира в философии и науке

The author of the paper ascertains that in the treatment of material beginning of the world two opposed methods of approach had grown up: qualitative and quantitative ones. The first can be traced back to Miletus school. The other goes to Pythagorean philosophy. The qualitative treatment (Aristotelian one in the main) predominated from the fourth century B.C. to early XVII A.D. But from the second part of the XVII age and right up to our days the quantitative approach plays prevalent role not in philosophy only, but also in exact natural sciences. The author supposes that these two approaches don’t exclude, but compensate each other, and no one of them should dominate. Both methods can resolve own epistemological tasks. Unfortunately, from I.Newton, quantitative approach has prevailed in natural sciences. Ignoring qualitative method, scientists (especially of nowodays) try to resolve the epistemological problems of cognition natural phenomena with its help. As a result arbitrary formal mathematical theories come into existence. Such conceptions create only semblance of resolution the problem. Among them the author reckons for example the Large Burst theory, based on the model of enlarging universe and also the theory of planetary model of atom. In the paper author refers to his own scholarly works, where he proposes by the way alternative conception evolution of universe.