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new trends new trends

41. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 3
Петр Сергеевич Куслий
Petr S. Kusliy
The Fateful Copula
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The paper criticizes the semantic component in the conception of A.V. Smirnov presented in the monograph “The Logic of Sense as a Philosophy of Mind: An Invitation to Reflection” (Moscow, 2021) as a recent variant of an argument for linguistic relativity. The author presents arguments showing that the proposed conception is based on a false thesis about the absence of the copula in Arabic. Further conclusions made by A.V. Smirnov as well as the structure of his arguments are also critically assessed.
42. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 3
Андрей Вадимович Смирнов
Andrey V. Smirnov
Consciousness and Language: Reply to Petr S. Kusliy
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The article responds to the critical review by P. Kusliy [Kusliy, 2023] of my latest book [Smirnov, 2021]. In order to show the false and unscientific nature of my position, P. Kusliy puts forward three basic theses: I proceed from the Sapir – Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity; I assert that the Arabic literary language (ALA) lacks a copula; ALA has no native speakers in the modern world, which means that ALA is not relevant for discussing the relationship between language and thought. Those three theses of P. Kusliy are fake assersions having zero correspondence in my theoretical texts and language situation in the Arab-speaking world, therefore his statements cannot be considered as justified at least to some extent and serving to eliminate the shortcomings of my theoretical position. I argue that a single metalanguage is impossible for European languages and ALA: their analysis and description should be done in two different (meta)languages having diverse logical basis and content and therefore directly untranslatable into each other. The inadequacy of P. Kusliy’s interpretation of my position is caused by his non-reflective acceptance of the collective cognitive unconscious of the European big culture as having no alternative and, consequently, as universal.

editorial editorial

43. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Vladimir P. Filatov
Владимир Петрович Филатов
От объяснения к пониманию
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Understanding has usually been seen as a method of hermeneutics. Until recently, philosophers of science paid little attention to the topic of scientific understanding because they came to the conclusion that understanding can be nothing more than a psychological by-product of scientific activity. However, many scientists believed that understanding was an important aim of science. The article states that understanding is a universal cognitive phenomenon applicable to the knowledge of not only cultural and historical phenomena, but also natural objects and processes. Understanding does not oppose explanation; some types of the latter produce scientific understanding. In the course of criticism of the standard model of scientific explanation, the first concepts of “scientific understanding” arose – unifying and causal-mechanistic. A pragmatic approach to scientific understanding is also considered, linking it to the cognitive skills of a scientist or a group of scientists.

panel discussion panel discussion

44. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Tatiana D. Sokolova
Татьяна Дмитриевна Соколова
Концептуализация научного прогресса
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Overcoming disciplinary separation, organizing and conducting successful inter- and transdisciplinary research is a growing trend in contemporary scientific practices, which is viewed as a necessary condition for the progress of scientific knowledge, and therefore requires philosophical reflection. If it is the growing scientific specialization that has been considered as a constant identification of the progress of science since the 19th century, it is a disciplinary separation that has become an obstacle for the study of complex objects since the end of the XX century. As an epistemological platform for overcoming disciplinary separation, one can consider historical epistemology in its French version. The classical approach within historical epistemology, proposed by Gaston Bachelard, considers progress as an integral property of scientific knowledge, arising from the very essence of science. Scientific progress is due to the historicity of which, which means a rejection of the interpretation of scientific truths as timeless, absolute and universal. In this article, I discuss (1) disciplinary separation as a philosophical problem; (2) approaches to the conceptualization of scientific progress; and (3) French historical epistemology as a possible philosophical setting for resolving disciplinary separation.
45. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Ilya T. Kasavin
Илья Теодорович Касавин
Метафизика прогресса и дисциплинарная структура науки
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This text represents comments to the article by T.D. Sokolova “Conceptualization of scientific progress. A Case of Historical Epistemology”. Her article combines the concepts of differentiation and integration of scientific knowledge, on the one hand, and the concept of the progress of science interpreted by the historical epistemology of G. Bachelard, on the other, which ultimately is designed to solve the “paradox of interdisciplinarity” and the problem of disciplinary separation of scientific knowledge. The problem posed is highly significant for understanding modern science. At the same time, its formulation can be elaborated and even reformulated, and its premises clarified, since they themselves are the subject of extensive discussions. To do this, it is necessary to revise the widely known definitions of interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in such a way as to detect the value-worldview content relevant to science as a socio-cultural system that includes the idea of progress.
46. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Ivan B. Mikirtumov
Иван Борисович Микиртумов
Прогресс науки и интерфейсы мира
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In this article, I want to show that the concept “rationality”, which is important for the French school of epistemology of science, has a dual content and is not very successful. This is the main point of my polemic with Tatyana Sokolova. On the one hand, there seems to be general rationality in it, understood as a preference (in the broad sense) for benefits over costs. Benefits include true knowledge. On the other hand, there is a historical socio-cultural context in which scientific knowledge arises and in which the parameters of practice are determined, which serves as the final instance for testing knowledge. At the same time, there are many such contexts in society, which I call human interfaces. The world, for its part, offers many of its interfaces as collections of interaction tools. When some interface of a person and some interface of the world assimilate each other, knowledge arises, that is confirmed by practice. It can be considered rational. But with a change in the sociocultural context, the human interface also changes, so that a search for new assimilation takes place. It is carried out by science. I agree with Tatyana Sokolova’s characterization of the progress of science, but I suggest at least differentiating the levels of rationality. One operates in the historical sociocultural locus, the other ensures the change of such loci and the adaptation of knowledge to them. I consider the progress of science to be an evaluative characteristic; no objectively recorded phenomenon corresponds to it. The disciplinary distinction of science is derived from the concepts of “object” and “method”, which have a performative content.
47. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Andrey I. Mikhailov
Andrey I. Mikhailov
Прогресс науки
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A study of the relationship of trends towards specialization and universalization of scientific knowledge is most fruitful when sociological and epistemological methods are compared. Sociological methods describe the growth of scientific knowledge quantitatively as an increase in volume, whereas epistemological methods do it qualitatively in terms of an increase in the level of generalization. The sociological explanation of the specialization of researchers is based on the limited resources of the study time, the epistemological explanation of the differentiation of disciplines is in the ontological differences of the objects of research. On the contrary, epistemological universalization – the formulation of generalizing theories is conditioned by the social need to ensure the connectivity of the network of technical practices. The history of the development of natural sciences shows a tendency towards absorption of the less developed paradigms by more developed ones. In other words, scientific knowledge increases cumulatively both in quantitative and qualitative terms.
48. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Vladimir N. Porus
Владимир Натанович Порус
О многомерности научной рациональности и научного прогресса
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In the polemic with T.D. Sokolova’s article the issue is discussed addressing the question whether there is anything new that we can get from the methodology of interdisciplinarity and trans-disciplinarity for determination of scientific rationality and scientific progress. The solution of this question is connected with the intensions of a historical and social-cultural epistemologies. These intentions consist in a complex or “multidimensional” approach to the creation of conceptual designs that define the application of these concepts. None of the "measurements” (methodological, psychological, social, etc.) provides them with a universal definition, but a “stereometric” image “restored” from them is capable to approximate to real use of these concepts of an epistemology and philosophy of science. It is necessary to remember that progress in science in one dimension can be regression in another just as the scientific rationality in a sociological dimension can be in no correspondence with the interpretation of rationality given to it by a certain methodological conception. Philosophy of science must avoid a dogmatic universalization of the criteria of rationality as well as the extremes of of relativism in this question.
49. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Evgenii G. Tsurkan
Евгений Геннадьевич Цуркан
Научный прогресс, рациональность и междисциплинарность
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The critical remark within the framework of the panel discussion problematizes three provisions of the article proposed for discussion. The first is the dual nature of the concept of “scientific progress”, which is both descriptive and normative. The remark criticizes the descriptive understanding of scientific progress and argues for the adequacy of the description of this concept exclusively in a normative way. The second provision concerns the possibility of accepting “rationality” as a universal criterion for scientific progress. The doubt about the applicability of this criterion to the assessment of the achievements of scientific knowledge in general is asserted and substantiated, at the same time, the application of this criterion to particular sciences seems possible. The third provision is the uniqueness of the historical situation in which science found itself at the end of the XX century, when disciplinary separation becomes an obstacle to the study of complex objects. The uniqueness of this historical situation is disputed, as an alternative view it is argued that the attitude to the phenomenon of specialization of science from the moment of its appearance was ambivalent. Separately, the need to consider the extensive historical experience of creating various epistemological platforms to overcome disciplinary separation is stipulated. A proposal is made to further study and clarification of the possible advantages of French historical epistemology as a platform for the formation of new interdisciplinary areas of research over competing platforms (ANT, STS, strong programme of SSK).
50. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Tatiana D. Sokolova
Татьяна Дмитриевна Соколова
Ответ оппонентам
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epistemology & cognition epistemology & cognition

51. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Alexander Yu. Antonovski
Александр Юрьевич Антоновский
Зачем науке лузеры?
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The article raises the problem of functionality and rational explanation of large arrays of communicative and unclaimed scientific knowledge. To solve the problem and explain this phenomenon, the resources of the system-communicative theory of scientific communication and social-evolutionist approaches are involved. The ability of the system-communicative theory itself to explain this phenomenon is considered as a possibility of its verification. In conclusion, a working hypothesis is proposed linking the existence of a class of unclaimed research and researchers with the function of meta-observation: through their online network reactions on appropriate electronic platforms (downloads, citations, readings, reviews, recommendations, etc.), the distribution of scientific reputations of science leaders and selection of the best scientific knowledge is ensured. This function, according to the author, compensates for the lack of an external audience or public capable of understanding and adequately evaluating scientific achievements in the scientific communication system. It is concluded that the past “collegial and deliberative” assessment of scientific achievements, the appropriate distribution of reputations and support for research projects is incompatible with the dynamic conditions of the “publication market”.
52. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Raisa E. Barash, Petr S. Kusliy
Раиса Эдуардовна Бараш
Что такое экспериментальные исследования в философии языка и эпистемологии?
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Philosophy is an abstract theoretical discipline. However, a new trend that develops experimental methods in philosophical research has recently been gaining popularity extending to the fields of philosophical research that have not seen experimental methods earlier. This article addresses the question of whether it is possible to investigate philosophical questions with empirical methods. Two areas of research are considered – philosophy of language and semantics and epistemology. In these subfields of philosophy, the application of experimental methods has recently lead to a noticeable progress. Empirical methods are justified in those disciplines in which arguments in favor of a particular theory are based on the study of our intuitions. Experiments only serve to obtain more objective representations of our intuitions, and philosophical argumentation is built further based on these intuitions. The authors argue that the use of experimental methods in semantics is compatible with anti-psychologism about meaning. The latter point is particularly controversial because linguistic intuitions or intuitions about the meaning have often been viewed as something that speakers have clear cognitive access to. However, when experimental research (even when it is a collection of controlled judgments) shows results that are different from what the field has been previously assuming, a revision is called for. The authors review several cases of such refutations calling for further revisions and argue that such experimental work helps arguments in philosophy of language and epistemology gain more sound ground with respect to the empirical data that they build on. In philosophy of language and theoretical linguistics, the cases explored in this article relate to the differences between languages with and without articles and to the predictions about the availability of certain interpretations of such expressions or lack thereof. It is further shown how a similar method of identifying the existent or non-existent interpretations was used in the studies of the meaning of “most”. In epistemology, the article discusses the results of some recent experimental work relating to the knowledge ascriptions. The speakers’ intuitions about the famous Barn-examples have recently been shown to diverge from what philosophers have claimed, building their far-reaching arguments on the data that was arguably incorrect.

language & mind language & mind

53. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Roman L. Kochnev
Роман Леонидович Кочнев
Типы тождества и координаты личности
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Modern analytical metaphysics contains many theories and approaches regarding the problem of personal identity. This diversity inevitably leads to the emergence of various classifications, the authors of which are trying to develop a compact way of typologizing existing views. Most of the classifications involve a significant simplification of the theories and approaches under consideration, and some of them are not taken into account at all. As such global classifications, one can single out an approach based on the identity criterion used in the theory (psychological, biological, narrative views). However, numerous local classifications allow one to point out potential differences in theories, even if formally they use a common criterion of identity. Other possible classifications are the division into endurantism and perdurantism, as well as simple (non-reductionist) and complex (reductionist) theories of identity. Special attention is paid to M. Shechtman‘s approach, which offers a local classification of narrative theories. Its main classification is the presentation of the views of researchers in the form of a possible spectrum. The place of a particular philosopher on this spectrum characterizes his views in relation to other supporters of the narrative approach. The purpose of this article is, based on the classification of narrative theories proposed by Shechtman, to propose a classification option for all theories and approaches to the problem of personal identity, which would be sensitive to conceptual details and differences that are important to them.
54. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Artem S. Yashin
Артем Сергеевич Яшин
Структура осведомленности агента в репрезентационной теории действия Кента Баха
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This paper analyzes Kent Bach’s representational theory of action, one of the causal theories of action. Bach’s theory sets requirements not only for the cause of an action, but also for how it unfolds in time and transitions into another action. These requirements suggest a sequential emergence of two components of the agent’s action awareness: the representation of the prepared movement and the perception of its sensory consequences. Bach introduces the concepts of “effective representation” (ER) and “receptive representation” (RR) to denote these components of awareness. According to representational theory, action has a cyclic three-step causal structure, where ER is the cause of a movement, the movement is the cause of RR, and RR is the cause of ER of subsequent movement. In constructing his theory, Bach tries to take into account the problem of deviant causal chains and to introduce the so-called minimal actions into the purview of the philosophy of action. Relying on the behavioral data on blindfolded deafferentated patients, in this paper I argue that RRs are not a necessary element of action. I also analyze Bach’s distinction between ER and RR and compare it with J. Searle’s approach, placing Bach’s theory within the context of studies of the structure of intentional states. I show that Bach’s theory occupies a unique position among views on the structure of action awareness. At the same time, I conclude that the frameworks of Bach and Searle are insufficient for describing the metaphysical difference between the two kinds of intentional states, and I also point out the difficulties facing the notion of ER. Based on this reasoning and the data on deafferentated patients, I propose a modification of the causal structure of action proposed by Bach, making a remark about the inadequate definition of ER. In the proposed modification, RR and the agent’s prior intention serve as alternative components of action awareness.

vista vista

55. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Vladimir L. Schulz, Tatiana M. Lyubimova
Владимир Леопольдович Шульц
Постструктурализм
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The article draws a conceptual distinction the (French) structuralism of the 50’s–60’s and the post-structuralism of the 70’s, which are discussed as overlapping in their intellectual paths; their mutual dynamics is defined as a reaction of the intelligence to the pressure of depersonalized unified schemes within the logic of structuralism against free improvisation and loose interpretation instead of total explanations in the post-structuralism interpretation. The article establishes a conceptual identity of the paradoxical nature between post-structuralism (and deconstructionism, which is homogeneous and identical thereto in a number of aspects), on the one hand, and constructionism with its specific process of language dismantling – social/ideological languages, social group dialects, on the other hand, which naturally leads the authors to the analysis of the paradoxicality principles, defined by post-structuralism (five principles of paradoxicality of Gilles Deleuze – paradox of regress, paradox of sterile reiteration, paradox of neutrality, paradox of absurd, paradox of Levi-Strauss); poststructuralists’ paralogisms are examined through paradoxical denotation; the late Roland Barthes’ phenomenon of paradoxicality, becoming a plot-forming principle of narration, is analyzed. Poststructuralism is conceptualized in the article as the first decisive step of post-modernism; the affinity of post-structuralist and postmodernist commitment to parody, game and irony is stated; the theory of language games in post-modern interpretation is explored; one of those games – a game of carnival – is explored within the diachronic retrospective; the affinity of parody and carnival tradition of post-structuralism and post-modernism to the romantic irony of the XIXth century and its inconsistency with the popular culture of laugh is established. The genesis of poststructuralism and post-modernism is connected with the ideological restart of the Western society before the “very end” of the Resistance ideas and the disappointment of the left European intellectuals in the “great legends” and illusions of Marxism. The blurred concepts of relativism are connected with the mutual disproportion of different layers of historical experience.

case studies – science studies case studies – science studies

56. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Alexander A. Pechenkin
Александр Александрович Печенкин
Научная дискуссия в контексте идеологии
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Mandelstam’s criticism of the Rayleigh theory of the blue color of the sky (1907) and his polemic with M. Planck (1907–1908) did not become notable events in the history of physics. However, the method of their coverage in the Soviet and in the post-Soviet physics literature is remarkable. Most of Soviet physicists and historians of physics supported Mandelstam's point of view in his criticism of both Raleigh and Planck. The situation changed only at the beginning of the 21st century: in the Russian literature the publications appeared emphasizing that in the Raleigh–Mandelstam and Planck–Mandelstam controversies Mandelstam was not right, Raleigh and Planck were closer to the truth. Which presumptions of this trend can be noted? This was patriotism of the scientific school peculiar to Mandelstam’s graduate students and the former graduate students, the patriotism connected with solidarity which helped Mandelstam’s community to survive in the Soviet totalitarian regime and in the totalitarian organization of science. This was also progressionism which was popular among academics and among men in the street. The phenomenon of common knowledge, mutual knowledge among the members of a scientific community should be taken under consideration. Common knowledge is connected with the non-thematized anonymous inclusion of the ideological terminology into scientific discourse.

interdisciplinary studies interdisciplinary studies

57. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Oleg I. Ananyin
Олег Игоревич Ананьин
Плоды Просвещения
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Economics as a science emerged during the Enlightenment, but the impact of the specific general scientific environment of that era on the transformation of pre-scientific economic knowledge into scientific knowledge has not been adequately covered in the historiography of economic thought. The formation of economic science took place in the period of the scientific revolution of the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. These were two interrelated but different processes. First of all, the transformation of economic knowledge followed fundamental changes in the economy itself – the formation of a market-type economy. At the same time, the emergence of a new discipline in the structure of scientific knowledge could not help but be guided by established standards of scholarship. However, at the time of the scientific revolution, science was in a state of turbulence: the old medieval norms of scholarship were losing their legitimacy, and the new ideals of scholarship had not yet attained the status of an accepted standard. The scientific programs associated with the names of Bacon, Descartes, Leibniz and Newton, as well as the new socio-philosophical doctrines, played different roles in different countries and at different stages of the scientific revolution. The article analyzes the peculiarities of the intellectual environment, in which scientific economic knowledge was shaped, and shows that it was much more diverse than the standard versions of the history of economic thought and earlier attempts (M. Foucault, F. Mirowski) to identify the influence of scientific ideals on its first schools of science suggest. Thus, the prerequisites for the formation of an alternative picture of the emergence of economic science as a result of the rivalry between its various concepts are created.

archive archive

58. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Vitaly V. Ogleznev
Виталий Васильевич Оглезнев
Историко-философская реконструкция обсуждения верифицируемости на заседании Аристотелевского общества
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The article presents a detailed consideration of the arguments from the symposium “Verifiability”, which was held on July 14, 1945 in London, proposed by Scottish philosopher and theologian Donald MacKinnon, Austrian logician and mathematician Friedrich Waismann and English logician and philosopher of science William Kneale. MacKinnon’s approach to verifiability was based on the metaphysics of fact, while Waismann and Kneale’s approach was based on the semantic specificity of empirical concepts (“open texture” and context of use) and on the truth-values of empirical propositions. The symposium in question is interesting primarily because it is the last meaningful discussion on the concept of verifiability in the form in which it was understood by the Vienna Circle. Despite the fact that, in the coming years, this concept received a completely different interpretation, which stands away from the original source, the 1945 symposium could be rightfully treated as a canonical discussion on verifiability in the sense that nothing like this has ever happened in the philosophy after.

new trends new trends

59. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 2
Elena E. Chebotareva
Елена Эдуардовна Чеботарева
Проекты Digital Humanities как этап развития гуманитарной науки
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The author considers the Digital Humanities as a tendency towards a constructive synthesis of computer technology and humanitarian science in the context of their claim to make a paradigm shift in the humanities. As part of this review, the author raises a question about the role of interactive multimedia tools in the humanities, and tried to evaluate the novelty and content that scientific and educational projects receive with their help. The author develops and justifies the principle of systematization of Digital Humanities projects, based on the priority of distinguishing projects by the nature of the relationship between their humanitarian and computer (technological) components. Considering both the actual digital projects and the academic publications devoted to them in the context of their systematization, the author observes that many projects are largely experimental in nature due to the use of ever new multimedia tools, so it is premature to talk about a meaningful transformation of humanitarian science. Focusing on the issue of a successful synthesis of digital technologies and the humanities, the author notes that new technological tools (multimedia, AI or neural networks, etc) allow raising new questions, updating additional objects of research and creating new methods. However, new tools do not always set the completeness of the new content, only supplementing it, and the acquired interactivity does not always directly work for scientific character. In this case, we face with the reverse situation, when the claims of technologically determined disciplines to be scientific are intertwined with the claims of disciplinary science to manufacturability. As a result, the author concludes that the direction of Digital Humanities is significantly influenced by technoscience with its dissolution of the boundaries between fundamental and applied research and the desire for new technologies that transform the processes under study, which makes McLuhan’s concept especially relevant.

editorial editorial

60. Epistemology & Philosophy of Science: Volume > 60 > Issue: 1
Liana A. Tukhvatulina
Liana A. Tukhvatulina
Science as an Object of Faith and Distrust: The Phenomenon of Denialism
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The author analyzes the phenomenon of denialism (denial of scientific consensus out of the normative boundaries of scientific discussion). The intellectual origins (including connection with P. Feyerabend’s post-positivism), sociocultural characteristics and political aspects of this phenomenon are discussed. The author defends the thesis that denialism is associated with scientism – non-reflexive trust in science, which is used for unscrupulous manipulations for the purpose of political influence. As an example, she considers the South African expert case related to HIV denial in the early 2000s. The author believes that denialism needs a comprehensive analysis that takes into account the interdependence of its intellectual and socio-political foundations.