Science, like religion and art, is born in the depths of mythological consciousness and is separated from it in the further process of cultural development. Primitive cultures do without science, and only in a sufficiently developed culture does science become an independent sphere of cultural activity. At the same time, science itself undergoes significant changes in the course of its historical evolution, and ideas about it (the image of science) also change. Many disciplines that were considered sciences in the past no longer belong to them from a modern point of view (for example, alchemy). At the same time, modern science assimilates the elements of true knowledge contained in various teachings of the past.

There are four main periods in the history of science.

1) From the 1st millennium BC until the 16th century. This period can be called the period pre-science. During it, along with ordinary practical knowledge passed down from generation to generation over the centuries, the first philosophical ideas about nature (natural philosophy) began to emerge, which were in the nature of very general and abstract speculative theories. The rudiments of scientific knowledge were formed within natural philosophy as its elements. With the accumulation of information, techniques and methods used to solve mathematical, astronomical, medical and other problems, corresponding sections are formed in philosophy, which are then gradually separated into separate sciences: mathematics, astronomy, medicine, etc.

However, the scientific disciplines that emerged during the period under review continued to be interpreted as parts of philosophical knowledge. Science developed mainly within the framework of philosophy and in very weak connection with life practice and handicraft art with it. This is a kind of "embryonic" period in the development of science, preceding its birth as a special form of culture.

2) XVI-XVII centuries- era scientific revolution. It begins with the studies of Copernicus and Galileo and culminates in the fundamental physical and mathematical works of Newton and Leibniz.

During this period, the foundations of modern natural science were laid. Separate, disparate facts obtained by artisans, medical practitioners, and alchemists begin to be systematically analyzed and generalized. New norms for the construction of scientific knowledge are being formed: experimental testing of theories, mathematical formulation of the laws of nature, a critical attitude towards religious and natural-philosophical dogmas that do not have experimental justification. Science is acquiring its own methodology and is increasingly beginning to address issues related to practical activities. As a result, science takes shape as a special, independent field of activity. Professional scientists appear, the system of university education develops, in which their training takes place. There is a scientific community with its specific forms and rules of activity, communication, information exchange.

3) XVIII-XIX centuries. The science of this period is called classical. During this period, many separate scientific disciplines are formed, in which a huge amount of factual material is accumulated and systematized. Fundamental theories are being created in mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, psychology and other sciences. The technical sciences arise and begin to play an ever more prominent role in material production. The social role of science is growing, its development is considered by the thinkers of that time as an important condition for social progress.

4) Since the 20th century- a new era in the development of science. Science of the 20th century called postclassical, because on the threshold of this century it has experienced a revolution, as a result of which it has become significantly different from the classical science of the previous period. Revolutionary discoveries at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. shake the foundations of a number of sciences. In mathematics, set theory and the logical foundations of mathematical thinking are subjected to critical analysis. In physics, the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics are created. Biology develops genetics. New fundamental theories are emerging in medicine, psychology and other human sciences. The whole face of scientific knowledge, the methodology of science, the content and forms of scientific activity, its norms and ideals are undergoing major changes.

Second half of the 20th century leads science to new revolutionary transformations, which are often characterized in the literature as a scientific and technological revolution. Achievements of science on a previously unheard of scale are being introduced into practice; science causes especially great shifts in energy (nuclear power plants), in transport (automotive industry, aviation), in electronics (television, telephony, computers). The distance between scientific discoveries and their practical application has been reduced to a minimum. In the past, it took 50-100 years to find ways to put the achievements of science into practice. Now it is often done in 2-3 years or even faster. Both the state and private firms go to great expense to support promising areas for the development of science. As a result, science is growing rapidly and is turning into one of the most important branches of social labor.

The main stages in the development of science

There are many views and opinions on the problem of the emergence and development of science. Let's take a look at some opinions:

1. Science has existed since the time when man began to realize himself as a thinking being, that is, science has always existed, at all times.

2. Science arose in ancient Greece (Hellas) in the 6th-5th centuries. BC e., since it was then and there for the first time that knowledge was combined with justification (Thales, Pythagoras, Xenophanes).

3. Science arose in the Western European world in the late Middle Ages (12th-14th centuries) along with a special interest in experimental knowledge and mathematics (Roger Bacon).

4. Science arises in the 16th-17th centuries, i.e. in modern times, begins with the works of Kepler, Huygens, but especially with the works of Descartes, Galileo and Newton, the creators of the first theoretical model of physics in the language of mathematics.

5. Science begins in the first third of the 19th century, when research activities were combined with the higher education system.

It can be considered so. The first rudiments, the genesis of science began in ancient times in Greece, India and China, and science as a branch of culture with its own specific methods of cognition. First substantiated by Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes, it arose in modern times (mid-17th-ser.18th centuries), in the era of the first scientific revolution.

1 scientific revolution - classical (17-18 centuries). Name related:

Kepler (established 3 laws of planetary motion around the Sun (without explaining the reasons for the motion of the planets), clarified the distance between the Earth and the Sun),

Galileo (studied the problem of motion, discovered the principle of inertia, the law of free fall of bodies),

Newton (formulated the concepts and laws of classical mechanics, mathematically formulated the law of universal gravitation, theoretically substantiated Kepler's laws on the motion of planets around the Sun)

Newton's mechanical picture of the world: any events are predetermined by the laws of classical mechanics. The world, all bodies are built from solid, homogeneous, unchanging and indivisible corpuscles - atoms. However, facts were accumulating that did not agree with the mechanistic picture of the world, and by the middle of the 19th century. it has lost the status of general scientific.

According to the 1st scientific revolution, the objectivity and objectivity of scientific knowledge is achieved by eliminating the subject of knowledge (human) and its procedures from cognitive activity. The place of a person in this scientific paradigm is the place of an observer, a tester. The fundamental feature of the generated classical natural science and the corresponding scientific rationality is the absolute predictability of events and phenomena of the future and the restoration of pictures of the past.

2 scientific revolution covered the period from the end of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century. Noted for landmark discoveries:

in physics (discoveries of the atom and its divisibility, electron, radioactivity, X-rays, energy quanta, relativistic and quantum mechanics, Einstein's explanation of the nature of gravity),

in cosmology (the concept of a non-stationary (expanding) Friedman-Hubble Universe): Einstein, considering the radius of curvature of world space, argued that the Universe must be spatially finite and have the shape of a four-dimensional cylinder. In 1922-1924, Friedman criticized Einstein's conclusions. He showed groundlessness of his initial postulate - about the stationarity, invariability in time of the Universe. He spoke about a possible change in the radius of curvature of space and built 3 models of the Universe. The first two models: since the radius of curvature increases, then the Universe expands from a point or from a finite volume. If the radius curvature changes periodically - the pulsating Universe).

In chemistry (an explanation of Mendeleev's periodicity law by quantum chemistry),

In biology (Mendel's discovery of the laws of genetics), etc.

The fundamental feature of the new non-classical rationality is the probabilistic paradigm, uncontrolled, and therefore not absolute predictability of the future (the so-called indeterminism). The place of man in science is changing - now his place is an accomplice in phenomena, his fundamental involvement in scientific procedures.

The beginning of the emergence of the paradigm of non-classical science.

The last decades of the 20th and early 21st centuries can be characterized as the course of the third scientific revolution. Faraday, Maxwell, Planck, Bohr, Einstein and many other great names are associated with era 3 of the scientific revolution. Discoveries in the field of evolutionary chemistry, laser physics, which gave rise to synergetics, thermodynamics of non-stationary irreversible processes, which gave rise to the theory of dissipative structures, theories of autopoiesis ((U. Maturana, F. Varela). According to this theory, complex systems (biological, social, etc.) are characterized by two The first property is homeostaticity, which is ensured by the mechanism of circular organization.The essence of this mechanism is as follows: the elements of the system exist for the production of a function, and this function - directly or indirectly - is necessary for the production of elements that exist for the production of a function, etc. The second property is cognition: in the process of interaction with the environment, the system, as it were, "knows" it (there is a corresponding transformation of the internal organization of the system) and establishes such boundaries of the area of ​​relations with it that are acceptable for this system, i.e., which do not to its destruction or loss of autonomy. during the ontogeny of the system, the area of ​​its relations with the environment can expand. Since the accumulated experience of interactions with the external environment is fixed in the organization of the system, this greatly facilitates overcoming a similar situation when it encounters it again.), which all together lead us to the latest post-non-classical natural science and post-non-classical rationality. The most important features of post-nonclassical rationality are:

Complete unpredictability

closed future,

Satisfaction of the principles of irreversibility of time and motion.

There is another classification of stages in the development of science (for example, W. Weaver and others). formulated by W. Weaver. According to him, science first experienced the stage of studying organized simplicity (this was Newtonian mechanics), then the stage of understanding unorganized complexity (this is statistical mechanics and physics of Maxwell, Gibbs), and today it is busy with the problem of studying organized complexity (first of all, this is the problem of life). Such a classification of the stages of science carries a deep conceptual and historical understanding of the problems of science in explaining the phenomena and processes of the natural and humanitarian worlds.

Natural science knowledge of phenomena and objects of nature structurally consists of empirical and theoretical levels of research. Without a doubt, wonder and curiosity are the beginning of scientific inquiry (first said by Aristotle). An indifferent, indifferent person cannot become a scientist, cannot see, fix this or that empirical fact, which will become a scientific fact. A fact becomes scientific from an empirical fact if it is subjected to systematic research. On this path, the path of searching for a method or method of research, the first and simplest are either passive observation, or a more radical and active experiment. A distinctive feature of a true scientific experiment from quackery should be its reproducibility by everyone and always (for example, most of the so-called paranormal phenomena - clairvoyance, telepathy, telekinesis, etc. - do not possess this quality). Experiments can be real, model or mental. In the last two cases, a high level of abstract thinking is necessary, since reality is replaced by idealized images, concepts, ideas that do not really exist.

The Italian genius Galileo in his time (in the XV
II century) achieved outstanding scientific results, since he began to think in ideal (abstract) images (idealizations). Among them were such abstractions as an absolutely smooth elastic ball, a smooth, elastic table surface, replaced in thoughts by an ideal plane, uniform rectilinear motion, the absence of friction forces, etc.

At the theoretical level, it is necessary to come up with some new concepts that have not previously taken place in this science, to put forward a hypothesis. In a hypothesis, one or more important features of a phenomenon are taken into account, and on the basis of them alone, an idea of ​​the phenomenon is built, without attention to its other aspects. An empirical generalization does not go beyond the collected facts, but a hypothesis does.

Further, in scientific research, it is necessary to return to the experiment in order not so much to verify, but to refute the stated hypothesis and, perhaps, replace it with another one. At this stage of knowledge, the principle of falsifiability of scientific provisions operates. "likely". A hypothesis that has been tested acquires the status of a law (sometimes regularities, rules) of nature. Several laws from the same field of phenomena form a theory that exists as long as it remains consistent with the facts, despite the increasing volume of new experiments. So, science is observations, experiments, hypotheses, theories and arguments in favor of each of its stages of development.

Science as such is a branch of culture, a rational way of knowing the world, and an organizational and methodological institution. Science, which has been formed by now as a type of Western European culture, is a special rational way of knowing nature and social formations, based on empirical verification or mathematical proof. The main function of science is the development and theoretical systematization of objective knowledge about reality, its result is the sum of knowledge, and the immediate goal of science is the description, explanation and prediction of the processes and phenomena of reality. Natural science is a branch of science based on reproducible empirical testing of hypotheses, its main purpose is the creation of theories or empirical generalizations that describe natural phenomena.

The methods used in science, in natural science, in particular, are divided into empirical and theoretical. Empirical methods - observation, description, measurement, observation. Theoretical methods - formalization, axiomatization and hypothetical-deductive. Another division of methods is into general or generally valid, into general scientific and particular or concrete scientific. For example, general methods: analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, abstraction, analogy, classification, systematization, etc. General scientific methods: dynamic, statistical, etc. At least three different approaches are distinguished in the philosophy of science - Popper , Kuhn and Lakatos. The central place for Popper is the principle of falsification, for Kuhn - the concept of normal science, crises and scientific revolutions, for Lakatos - the concept of a rigid core of science and the replacement of research programs. The stages in the development of science can be characterized either as classical (determinism), non-classical (indeterminism) and post-non-classical (bifurcation or evolutionary-synergetic), or as stages of cognition of organized simplicity (mechanics), unorganized complexity (statistical physics) and organized complexity (life).

Genesis of the main conceptual concepts of modern natural science by ancient and medieval civilizations. The role and significance of myths in the development of science and natural science. Ancient Middle Eastern Civilizations. Antique Hellas (Ancient Greece). Ancient Rome.

We begin to study the pre-scientific period in the development of natural science, the time frame of which extends from antiquity (7th century BC) to the 15th century. new era. During this historical period, the natural science of the Mediterranean states (Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Hellas, etc.), China, India and the Arab East (the most ancient civilizations) existed in the form of the so-called natural philosophy (derived from Latin nature - nature), or philosophy of nature, the essence of which consisted in a speculative (theoretical) interpretation of a single, integral nature. Particular attention should be paid to the concept of the integrity of nature, because in modern times (17-19 centuries) and in modern times, in the modern era, (20-21 centuries), the integrity of the science of nature was actually lost and on the new basis began to revive only at the end of the 20th century.

The English historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) singled out 13 independent civilizations in human history, the Russian sociologist and philosopher Nikolai Danilevsky (1822-1885) - 11 civilizations, the German historian and philosopher Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) - 8 civilizations in total:

v Babylonian,

v Egyptian,

v Mayan people,

v antique,

v indian,

v Chinese,

v Arabic,

v western.

We will single out here only the natural science of those civilizations that played the most prominent role in the emergence, formation and development of natural philosophy and modern natural science.

Essence and structure of natural science

The emergence of science and the main stages of its development.

In ordinary language, the word "science" is used in several senses and means:

The system of special knowledge; - type of specialized activity - a public institution (a set of specialized institutions in which people either do science or prepare for these classes).

Science in all three senses did not always exist, and the experimental and mathematical natural science familiar to us did not appear everywhere. Differences in the forms of science that existed in local cultures gave rise to the problem of defining the concept of science in the specialized literature.

Today there are many such definitions. One of them is given in the textbook "Concepts of Modern Natural Science" ed. professors V. N. Lavrinenko and V. P. Ratnikov: "Science is a specialized system of ideal, sign-semantic and natural-subject activity of people, aimed at achieving the most reliable true knowledge of reality" . In the New Philosophical Encyclopedia, science is defined more simply: "Science is a special kind of cognitive activity aimed at developing objective, systematically organized and justified knowledge about the world"

Science as a special type of activity differs from other types of activity in five main characteristics: 1) systematization of knowledge; 2) evidence; 3) using special methods (research procedures); 4) cooperation of efforts of professional scientists; 5) institutionalization (from Latin institutum - "establishment", "institution") - in the sense of creating a special system of relations and institutions. Human cognitive activity did not acquire these qualities immediately, which means that science also did not appear in finished form. In the development of knowledge, culminating in the emergence of science, there are three stages:

The first stage, according to I. T. Kasavin, begins about 1 million years ago, when human ancestors left the tropical corridor and began to settle on the Earth. Changing living conditions forced them to adapt to them, creating cultural inventions. Pre-hominids (pre-humanoids) begin to use fire, produce tools and develop language as a means of communication. Knowledge at this stage was obtained as a by-product of practical activity. So, in the manufacture of, for example, a stone ax, in addition to the main result - obtaining an ax - there was also a side result in the form of knowledge about the types of stone, its properties, processing methods, etc. At this stage, knowledge was not perceived as something special and was not considered as a value.

The second stage of the evolution of cognitive activity begins with the emergence of Ancient civilizations 5-6 thousand years ago: Egyptian (IV millennium BC), Sumerian, Chinese and Indian (all in the III millennium BC), Babylonian ( II millennium BC). At the second stage, knowledge begins to be recognized as a value. It is collected, recorded and transmitted from generation to generation, but knowledge is not yet considered a special kind of activity, it is still included in practical activity, very often in cult practice. Priests almost universally acted as the monopolists of such knowledge.

At the third stage, knowledge appears in the form of a specialized activity for obtaining knowledge, that is, in the form of science. The initial form of science - ancient science - bears little resemblance to science in the modern sense of the word. In Western Europe, ancient science appears among the Greeks at the end of the 7th century. BC e. together with philosophy, does not differ from it for a long time and develops along with it. So, the merchant Thales (about 640-562 BC), who was also involved in politics, astronomy, meteorology and inventions in the field of hydroengineering, is called the first mathematician and philosopher of Greece. Ancient science cannot be considered completely "science", because of the five specific features of science that we have named, it had only three (conclusiveness, systematicity and research procedures), and even then in its infancy, the rest were still absent.

The Greeks were an extremely inquisitive people. From wherever fate threw them, they brought texts containing pre-scientific information. Their comparison revealed inconsistencies and raised the question: what is true? For example, the calculations of mathematical quantities (such as the number p) by the priests of Egypt and Babylon led to significantly different results. This was a completely natural consequence, since Eastern pre-science did not contain a system of knowledge, formulations of fundamental laws and principles. It was a conglomeration of disparate provisions and solutions to special problems, without any rational justification for the chosen method of solution. For example, in Egyptian papyri and cuneiform tables from Sumer, containing computational problems, they were presented in the form of prescriptions and only sometimes accompanied by a check, which can be considered a kind of justification. The Greeks put forward new criteria for organizing and obtaining knowledge - consistency, evidence, the use of reliable cognitive methods - which turned out to be extremely productive. Computational questions became secondary in Greek science.

Initially, in Ancient Greece there was no division into various "sciences": diverse knowledge existed in a single complex and was called "wisdom", then approximately in the 6th - 5th centuries. BC e. it became known as "philosophy". Later, various sciences began to separate from philosophy. They did not separate at the same time; the process of specialization of knowledge and the acquisition of the status of independent disciplines by the sciences stretched over many centuries. Medicine and mathematics were the first to take shape as independent sciences.

The founder of European medicine is considered the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates (460-370 BC), who systematized the knowledge accumulated not only by ancient Greek, but also by Egyptian physicians, and created a medical theory. Theoretical mathematics is formalized by Euclid (330-277 BC) in the essay "Beginnings", which is still used today in the school geometry course. Then in the 1st half of the 3rd c. BC e. geography was systematized by the ancient scientist Eratosthenes (about 276-194 BC). A major role in the evolution of science was played by the development of logic by Aristotle (384-322 BC), proclaimed as an instrument of scientific knowledge in any field. Aristotle gave the first definition of science and scientific method, distinguished all sciences according to their subjects.

The close connection of ancient science with philosophy determined one of its features - speculation, underestimation of the practical usefulness of scientific knowledge. Theoretical knowledge was considered valuable in itself, and not for the benefits that can be derived from it. For this reason, philosophy was considered the most valuable, about which Aristotle said this: "Other sciences may be more necessary, but none is better."

The inherent value of science was so obvious to the ancient Greeks that, according to contemporaries, the mathematician Euclid asked him: "Who needs this geometry?" instead of answering, he handed the unfortunate obol with a mournful face, saying that there was nothing to help the poor fellow.

In late antiquity (II - V centuries) and the Middle Ages (III - XV centuries), Western science, together with philosophy, turned out to be "the servant of theology." This significantly narrowed the range of scientific problems that could be considered and were considered by scientists-theologians. With the advent in the I century. Christianity and the subsequent defeat in the fight against it by ancient science<>theoreticians-theologians faced the task of substantiating the Christian doctrine and transferring the skills of substantiating it. The then "science" - scholasticism (in Latin, "school philosophy") took up the solution of these problems.

The Scholastics were not interested in the study of nature and mathematics, but they were very interested in the logic that they used in disputes about God.

In the period of the late Middle Ages, called the Renaissance (XIV - XVI centuries), practitioners - artists, architects ("titans of the Renaissance" like Leonardo da Vinci) - again awakened interest in nature and the idea of ​​the need for an experimental study of nature. Natural science then develops within the framework of natural philosophy - literally, the philosophy of nature, which includes not only rationally substantiated knowledge, but also pseudo-knowledge of the occult sciences, such as magic, alchemy, astrology, palmistry, etc. This peculiar combination of rational knowledge and pseudo-knowledge was due to the fact that religion still occupied an important place in the ideas about the world, all Renaissance thinkers considered nature to be the work of divine hands and full of supernatural powers. Such a worldview is called magical-alchemical, not scientific.

Science in the modern sense of the word appears in modern times (XVII - XVIII centuries) and immediately begins to develop very dynamically. First in the 17th century the foundations of modern natural science are being laid: experimental and mathematical methods of the sciences of nature are being developed (through the efforts of F. Bacon, R. Descartes, J. Locke) and classical mechanics, which underlies classical physics (through the efforts of G. Galileo, I. Newton, R. Descartes, H. Huygens), based on classical mathematics (in particular, on the geometry of Euclid). During this period, scientific knowledge becomes in the full sense of the word evidence-based, systematized, based on special research procedures. At the same time, finally, a scientific community appears, consisting of professional scientists, which begins to discuss scientific problems, special institutions appear (Academies of Sciences), which contribute to the acceleration of the exchange of scientific ideas. Therefore, since the 17th century talk about the emergence of science as a social institution.

The development of Western European science proceeded not only through the accumulation of knowledge about the world and about itself. From time to time there were changes in the entire system of available knowledge - scientific revolutions, when science changed greatly. Therefore, in the history of Western European science, 3 periods and related types of rationality are distinguished: 1) the period of classical science (XVII - early XX century); 2) the period of non-classical science (the first half of the twentieth century); 3) the period of post-non-classical science (2nd half of the 20th century). In each of the periods, the field of objects under study expands (from simple mechanical to complex, self-regulating and self-developing objects) and the foundations of scientific activity, the approaches of scientists to the study of the world - as they say, "types of rationality" change. (see Appendix No. 1)

Classical science emerges as a result of the scientific revolution of the 17th century. It is still connected by an umbilical cord to philosophy, because mathematics and physics continue to be considered branches of philosophy, and philosophy is a science. The philosophical picture of the world is built by natural scientists as a scientific mechanistic picture of the world. Such a scientific-philosophical doctrine of the world is called "metaphysical". It is obtained on the basis of the classical type of rationality, which is formed in classical science. It is characterized by determinism (the idea of ​​a causal relationship and interdependence of phenomena and processes of reality), an understanding of the whole as a mechanical sum of parts, when the properties of the whole are determined by the properties of the parts, and each part is studied by one science, and faith in the existence of objective and absolute truth, which is considered a reflection, a copy of the natural world. The founders of classical science (G. Galileo, I. Kepler, I. Newton, R. Descartes, F. Bacon, etc.) recognized the existence of God the creator. They believed that he creates the world in accordance with the ideas of his mind, which are embodied in objects and phenomena. The task of the scientist is to discover the divine plan and express it in the form of scientific truths. Their idea of ​​the world and cognition became the reason for the appearance of the expression "scientific discovery" and understanding of the essence of truth: as soon as a scientist discovers something that exists besides him and underlies all things, scientific truth is objective and reflects reality. However, as knowledge of nature increased, classical natural science increasingly came into conflict with the idea of ​​the immutable laws of nature and the absoluteness of truth.

Then at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. a new revolution is taking place in science, as a result of which the existing metaphysical ideas about the structure, properties, regularities of matter were destroyed (views of atoms as unchanging, indivisible particles, mechanical mass, space and time, movement and its forms, etc.) and a new type of science appeared - non-classical sciences. The non-classical type of rationality is characterized by taking into account the fact that the object of cognition, and, consequently, knowledge about it, depends on the subject, on the means and procedures used by him.

The rapid development of science in the 20th century again changes the face of science, so they say that science in the second half of the 20th century becomes different, post-non-classical. Post-non-classical science and the post-non-classical type of rationality are characterized by: the emergence of interdisciplinary and systematic research, evolutionism, the use of statistical (probabilistic) methods, humanitarization and ecologization of knowledge. These features of modern science should be said in more detail.

The emergence of interdisciplinary and systems research are closely related. In classical science, the world was presented as consisting of parts, its functioning was determined by the laws of its constituent parts, and each part was studied by a certain science. In the 20th century, scientists have an understanding that the world cannot be considered as "consisting of parts", but must be considered as consisting of various wholes that have a certain structure - that is, from systems of various levels. Everything is interconnected in it, a part cannot be singled out, because the part does not live outside the whole. There are problems that cannot be solved within the framework of the old disciplines, but only at the intersection of several disciplines. Awareness of new tasks required new research methods, a new conceptual apparatus. The attraction of knowledge from different sciences to solve such problems has led to the emergence of interdisciplinary research, the compilation of comprehensive research programs, which was not the case in classical science, and the introduction of a systematic approach.

An example of a new synthetic science is ecology: it is built on the basis of knowledge drawn from many fundamental disciplines - physics, chemistry, biology, geology, geography, as well as hydrography, sociology, etc. It considers the environment as a single system that includes a number of subsystems, such as as living substance, biogenic substance, bioinert substance and inert substance. All of them are interconnected and cannot be explored outside the whole. Each of these subsystems has its own subsystems that exist in interconnections with others, for example, in the biosphere - communities of plants, animals, man as part of the biosphere, etc.

In classical science, systems were also singled out and studied (for example, the solar system), but in a different way. The specificity of the modern systems approach is the emphasis on systems of a different kind than in classical science. If earlier the main attention in scientific research was paid to stability, and it was about closed systems (in which conservation laws operate), today scientists are primarily interested in open systems characterized by instability, variability, development, self-organization (they are studied by synergetics).

The increase in the role of the evolutionary approach in modern science is connected with the spread of the idea of ​​the evolutionary development of living nature that arose in the 19th century in the 20th century to inanimate nature. If in the 19th century the ideas of evolutionism were characteristic of biology and geology, then in the 20th century evolutionary concepts began to take shape in astronomy, astrophysics, chemistry, physics and other sciences. In the modern scientific picture of the world, the Universe is considered as a single evolving system, starting from the moment of its formation (Big Bang) and ending with sociocultural development.

More and more statistical methods are being used. Statistical methods are methods for describing and studying mass phenomena and processes that can be expressed numerically. They do not give the same truth, but give different percentages of probability. The humanitarization and ecologization of post-non-classical science imply the promotion of new goals for all scientific research: if earlier the goal of science was scientific truth, now serving the goals of improving human life, establishing harmony between nature and society are coming to the fore. The humanitarization of knowledge is demonstrated, in particular, by the adoption in cosmology (the doctrine of the cosmos) of the anthropic principle (from the Greek "anthropos" - "man"), the essence of which is that the properties of our Universe are determined by the presence of a person in it, an observer. If earlier it was believed that a person cannot influence the laws of nature, the anthropic principle recognizes the dependence of the Universe and its laws on a person.

Biosphere. Stages of evolution of the biosphere

If we consider the levels of oxygen in the atmosphere as the boundaries of the stages of development of the biosphere, then from this point of view, the biosphere has gone through three stages: 1. Recovery; 2. Slightly oxidizing; 3. Oxidative...

The first form of existence of natural science in the history of mankind was the so-called natural philosophy (from Latin natura - nature), or the philosophy of nature. The latter was characterized by a purely speculative interpretation of the natural world...

Human Genetic Research Methods

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Basic concepts of modern natural science

Chemistry is the science that studies substances and their transformations. Transformations of substances occur as a result of chemical reactions. People received the first information about chemical transformations by doing various crafts, when they dyed fabrics...

The main stages of individual human development

The development of the human body. Individual human development (ontogenesis) begins from the moment of fertilization, when the female (ovum) and male (sperm) germ cells merge ...

The main stages of growth and development of the body

Age anthropology studies the patterns of formation and development of anatomical structures and physiological functions throughout ontogenesis - from the fertilization of the egg until the end of life ...

Fundamentals of genetics

Until the end of the 19th century...

Classical science emerges as a result of the scientific revolution of the 17th century. It is still connected by an umbilical cord with philosophy, because mathematics and physics continue to be considered branches of philosophy, and philosophy is a science ...

Comparative analysis of classical and non-classical strategies of natural science thinking

At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. a new revolution is taking place in science, as a result of which the existing metaphysical ideas about the structure, properties, patterns of matter (views of atoms as immutable, indivisible particles ...

Systems theory

science theory formation regularity The search for approaches to revealing the complexity of the phenomena under study began in the distant past and is associated with other fundamental methodological concepts: the concept of elementarism and the concept of ...

What is natural science and its difference from other cycles of science

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Stages of development of natural science and society

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The first forms of knowledge production were known to have a syncretic character. They represented an undifferentiated joint activity of feelings and thinking, imagination and first generalizations. Such an initial practice of thinking was called mythological thinking, in which a person did not isolate his "I" and did not oppose it to the objective (which does not depend on him). Rather, everything else was understood precisely through the “I”, according to their spiritual matrix.

All subsequent development of human thinking is a process of gradual differentiation of experience, its division into subjective and objective, their isolation and more and more precise division and definition. A major role in this was played by the emergence of the first rudiments of positive knowledge related to the maintenance of people's daily practice: astronomical, mathematical, geographical, biological and medical knowledge.

In the history of the formation and development of science, two stages can be distinguished: pre-science and science proper. They differ from each other in different methods of building knowledge and predicting performance.

Thinking, which can be called an emerging science, served mainly practical situations. It generated images or ideal objects that replaced real objects, learned to operate with them in the imagination in order to foresee future development. It can be said that the first knowledge was in the form of recipes or schemes of activity: what, in what sequence, under what conditions, something must be done in order to achieve certain goals. For example, ancient Egyptian tables are known, which explained how the operations of adding and subtracting integers were carried out at that time. Each of the real objects was replaced by the ideal object unit, which was fixed by a vertical line I (there were signs for tens, hundreds, thousands). The addition, for example, to five units of three units was carried out as follows: the sign III (the number "three") was depicted, then five more vertical lines IIIII (the number "five") were written under it, then all these lines were transferred to one line located under the first two. The result was eight dashes denoting the corresponding number. These procedures reproduced the procedures for the formation of collections of objects in real life.

The same connection with practice can be found in the first knowledge related to geometry, which appeared in connection with the needs of measuring land plots among the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians. These were the needs of maintaining land surveying, when the boundaries were sometimes covered with river silt, and calculating their areas. These needs gave rise to a new class of problems, the solution of which required operating with drawings. In this process, such basic geometric shapes as a triangle, a rectangle, a trapezoid, a circle were identified, through combinations of which it was possible to depict the areas of land plots of complex configuration. In ancient Egyptian mathematics, nameless geniuses found ways to calculate the basic geometric shapes, which began to be used both for measuring and for building the great pyramids. Operations with geometric figures in the drawings related to the construction and transformation of these figures were carried out using two main tools - a compass and a ruler. This method is still fundamental in geometry. It is significant that this method itself acts as a scheme of real practical operations. The measurement of land plots, as well as the sides and planes of structures created in construction, was carried out using a tightly stretched measuring rope with knots denoting a unit of length (ruler), and a measuring rope, one end of which was attached with a peg, and the peg at the other end drew arcs ( compass). Transferred to actions with drawings, these operations appeared as the construction of geometric shapes using a ruler and a compass.

So, in the pre-scientific way of constructing knowledge, the main thing is the derivation of primary generalizations (abstraction) directly from practice, and then such generalizations were fixed as signs and as meanings already within the existing systems of language.

A new way of building knowledge, which meant the emergence of science in our modern understanding, is formed when human knowledge reaches a certain completeness and stability. Then there appears a method of constructing new ideal objects not from practice, but from those already existing in knowledge — by combining them and imaginatively placing them in different conceivable and inconceivable contexts. Then this new knowledge is correlated with reality and thus its reliability is determined.

As far as we know, the first form of knowledge that became a proper theoretical science was mathematics. So, in it, in parallel with similar operations in philosophy, numbers began to be considered not only as a reflection of real quantitative relations, but also as relatively independent objects, the properties of which can be studied on their own, without regard to practical needs. This gives rise to the actual mathematical research, which, from the natural series of numbers obtained earlier from practice, begins to build new ideal objects. So, applying the operation of subtraction from smaller numbers to large ones, negative numbers are obtained. This newly discovered new class of numbers is subject to all those operations that were previously obtained in the analysis of positive ones, which creates new knowledge that characterizes previously unknown aspects of reality. By applying the operation of extracting the root to negative numbers, mathematics receives a new class of abstractions - imaginary numbers, to which all operations that have served natural numbers are again applied.

Of course, this method of construction is typical not only for mathematics, but is also approved in the natural sciences and is known there as a method of putting forward hypothetical models with subsequent practical testing. Thanks to the new method of building knowledge, science gets the opportunity to study not only those subject relations that can be found in the already established stereotypes of practices, but also anticipate those changes that, in principle, a developing civilization can master. This is how science proper begins, because along with empirical rules and dependencies, a special type of knowledge is formed - theory. The theory itself, as is well known, makes it possible to obtain empirical dependencies as a consequence of theoretical postulates.

Scientific knowledge, unlike pre-scientific knowledge, is built not only in the categories of existing practice, but can also be correlated with a qualitatively different, future one, and therefore the categories of the possible and necessary are already applied here. They are no longer formulated only as prescriptions for existing practice, but claim to express the essential structures, the causes of reality "in itself". Such claims to discover knowledge about objective reality as a whole give rise to the need for a special practice that goes beyond the limits of everyday experience. This is how the scientific experiment comes about.

The scientific method of research appeared as a result of a long previous civilizational development, the formation of certain mindsets. The cultures of the traditional societies of the East did not create such conditions. Undoubtedly, they gave the world a lot of specific knowledge and recipes for solving specific problem situations, but they all remained within the framework of simple, reflective knowledge. It was dominated by canonized styles of thinking and traditions, focused on the reproduction of existing forms and methods of activity.

The transition to science in our sense of the word is associated with two turning points in the development of culture and civilization: the formation of classical philosophy, which contributed to the emergence of the first form of theoretical research - mathematics, radical ideological shifts in the Renaissance and the transition to the New Age, which gave rise to the formation of a scientific experiment in its combination with the mathematical method.

The first phase of the formation of the scientific method of generating knowledge is associated with the phenomenon of ancient Greek civilization. His unusualness is often called a mutation, which emphasizes the unexpectedness of his appearance and unprecedentedness. There are many explanations for the causes of the ancient Greek miracle. The most interesting of them are the following.

- Greek civilization could only have arisen as a fruitful synthesis of the great Oriental cultures. Greece itself lay at the "crossroads" of information flows (Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, Mesopotamia, Western Asia, the "barbarian" world). Hegel also points to the spiritual influence of the East in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, speaking of the historical background of ancient Greek thought - Eastern substantiality - the concept of the organic unity of the spiritual and natural as the basis of the universe.

- Still, however, many researchers tend to give preference, rather, to socio-political reasons - the decentralization of ancient Greece, the polis system of political organization. This prevented the development of despotic centralized forms of government (derived in the East from large-scale irrigation agriculture) and led to the emergence of the first democratic forms of social life. The latter gave rise to a free individuality, and not as a precedent, but as a fairly wide stratum of free citizens of the polis. The organization of their lives was based on equality and the regulation of life through adversarial proceedings. Competition between cities led to the fact that each of them sought to have in their city the best art, the best speakers, philosophers, etc. This gave rise to an unprecedented pluralization of creative activity. We can observe something similar after more than two millennia in decentralized, petty-princely Germany in the second half. XVIII - first half. 19th century

This is how the first individualistic civilization appeared (Greece after Socrates), which gave the world the norms for the individualistic organization of social life and at the same time paid a very large historical price for it - the passionary overvoltage self-destructed Ancient Greece and removed the Greek ethnos from the stage of global history for a long time. The Greek phenomenon can also be interpreted as a prime example of the phenomenon of retrospective reappraisal of the beginning. The real beginning is great because it contains in potentiality all further developed forms, which then, with surprise, admiration and with obvious overestimation, reveal themselves in this beginning.

The social life of Ancient Greece was filled with dynamism and was distinguished by a high degree of competition, which the civilizations of the East did not know with their stagnant-patriarchal cycle of life. The norms of life and the ideas corresponding to them were developed through the struggle of opinions in the national assembly, competitions in sports arenas and in the courts. On this basis, ideas were formed about the variability of the world and human life, the possibilities of their optimization. Such social practice gave rise to various concepts of the universe and social structure, which were developed by ancient philosophy. Theoretical prerequisites for the formation of science arose, which consisted in the fact that thinking became able to reason about the invisible aspects of the world, about connections and relationships that are not given in everyday life.

This is a specific characteristic of ancient philosophy. In the traditional societies of the East, this theorizing role of philosophy was limited. Of course, metaphysical systems also arose here, but they performed mainly protective, religious and ideological functions. Only in ancient philosophy, for the first time, were new forms of knowledge organization most fully realized as a search for a single foundation (initial principles and causes) and the derivation of consequences from it. The very evidence and validity of the judgment, which became the main condition for the acceptability of knowledge, could only be established in the social practice of equal citizens who solve their problems through competition in politics or the courts. This, in contrast to references to authority, is the main condition for the acceptability of knowledge in the Ancient East.

The combination of new forms of organization of knowledge or theoretical reasoning obtained by philosophers with the mathematical knowledge accumulated at the stage of pre-science gave rise to the first scientific form of knowledge in the history of people - mathematics. The main milestones of this path can be summarized as follows.

Already early Greek philosophy in the person of Thales and Anaximander began to systematize the mathematical knowledge obtained in ancient civilizations and apply the procedure of proof to them. But nevertheless, the worldview of the Pythagoreans, which was based on extrapolation to the interpretation of the universe of practical mathematical knowledge, influenced the development of mathematics in a decisive way. The beginning of everything is a number, and numerical relations are the fundamental proportions of the universe. Such an ontologization of the practice of calculus played a special positive role in the emergence of the theoretical level of mathematics: numbers began to be studied not as models of specific practical situations, but on their own, regardless of practical application. Knowledge of the properties and relations of numbers began to be perceived as knowledge of the principles and harmony of the cosmos.

Another theoretical innovation of the Pythagoreans is an attempt to connect the theoretical study of the properties of geometric figures with the properties of numbers, or to establish a connection between geometry and arithmetic. The Pythagoreans were not limited only to the use of numbers to characterize geometric figures, but, on the contrary, tried to apply geometric images to the study of the totality of numbers. The number 10, the perfect number that completes the tens of the natural series, correlated with the triangle, the main figure to which, when proving theorems, other geometric figures (figure numbers) sought to reduce.

After the Pythagoreans, mathematics was developed by all the major philosophers of antiquity. Thus, Plato and Aristotle gave the ideas of the Pythagoreans a more rigorous rational form. They believed that the world is built on mathematical principles and that the universe is based on a mathematical plan: “The Demiurge constantly geometrizes,” Plato argued. From this understanding it followed that the language of mathematics is most appropriate for describing the world.

The development of theoretical knowledge in antiquity was completed with the creation of the first model of scientific theory - Euclidean geometry, which meant the separation from philosophy of a special, independent science of mathematics. Later in antiquity, numerous applications of mathematical knowledge were obtained to describe natural objects: in astronomy (calculation of the sizes and features of the motion of the planets and the Sun, the heliocentric concept of Aristarchus of Samos and the geocentric concept of Hipparchus and Ptolemy) and mechanics (the development of the principles of statics and hydrostatics by Archimedes, the first theoretical models and laws of mechanics of Heron, Papp).

At the same time, the main thing that ancient science could not do was to discover and use the experimental method. Most researchers of the history of science believe that the reason for this was the peculiar ideas of ancient scientists about the relationship between theory and practice (technics, technology). Abstract, speculative knowledge was highly valued, and practical-utilitarian, engineering knowledge and activity were considered, as well as physical labor, as a “low and ignoble deed”, the lot of the unfree and slaves.

The main stages in the development of science

There are many views and opinions on the problem of the emergence and development of science. Let's take a look at some opinions:

1. Science has existed since the time when man began to realize himself as a thinking being, that is, science has always existed, at all times.

2. Science arose in ancient Greece (Hellas) in the 6th-5th centuries. BC e., since it was then and there for the first time that knowledge was combined with justification (Thales, Pythagoras, Xenophanes).

3. Science arose in the Western European world in the late Middle Ages (12th-14th centuries) along with a special interest in experimental knowledge and mathematics (Roger Bacon).

4. Science arises in the 16th-17th centuries, i.e. in modern times, begins with the works of Kepler, Huygens, but especially with the works of Descartes, Galileo and Newton, the creators of the first theoretical model of physics in the language of mathematics.

5. Science begins in the first third of the 19th century, when research activities were combined with the system of higher education.

It can be considered so. The first rudiments, the genesis of science began in ancient times in Greece, India and China, and science as a branch of culture with its own specific methods of cognition. First substantiated by Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes, it arose in modern times (mid-17th-mid-18th centuries), in the era of the first scientific revolution.

1 scientific revolution - classical (17-18 centuries). Name related:

Kepler (established 3 laws of planetary motion around the Sun (without explaining the reasons for the motion of the planets), clarified the distance between the Earth and the Sun),

Galileo (studied the problem of motion, discovered the principle of inertia, the law of free fall of bodies),

Newton (formulated the concepts and laws of classical mechanics, mathematically formulated the law of universal gravitation, theoretically substantiated Kepler's laws on the motion of planets around the Sun)

Newton's mechanical picture of the world: any events are predetermined by the laws of classical mechanics. The world, all bodies are built from solid, homogeneous, unchanging and indivisible corpuscles - atoms. However, facts were accumulating that did not agree with the mechanistic picture of the world, and by the middle of the 19th century. she lost the status of general scientific.

According to the 1st scientific revolution, the objectivity and objectivity of scientific knowledge is achieved by eliminating the subject of knowledge (human) and ᴇᴦο procedures from cognitive activity. The place of a person in this scientific paradigm is the place of an observer, a tester. The fundamental feature of the generated classical natural science and the corresponding scientific rationality is the absolute predictability of events and phenomena of the future and the restoration of pictures of the past.

2 scientific revolution covered the period from the end of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century. Noted for landmark discoveries:

in physics (discoveries of the atom and ᴇᴦο divisibility, electron, radioactivity, X-rays, energy quanta, relativistic and quantum mechanics, Einstein's explanation of the nature of gravity),

in cosmology (the concept of the non-stationary (expanding) Universe of Friedman-Hubble): Einstein, considering the radius of curvature of world space, argued that the Universe must be spatially finite and have the shape of a four-dimensional cylinder. In 1922-1924, Friedman criticized Einstein's conclusions. He showed groundlessness of ᴇᴦο of the initial postulate - about stationarity, invariability in time of the Universe. He spoke about a possible change in the radius of curvature of space and built 3 models of the Universe. The first two models: because the radius of curvature increases, then the Universe expands from a point or from a finite volume. If the radius curvature changes periodically - the pulsating Universe).

In chemistry (an explanation of Mendeleev's periodicity law by quantum chemistry),

In biology (Mendel's discovery of the laws of genetics), etc.

The fundamental feature of the new non-classical rationality is the probabilistic paradigm, uncontrolled, and therefore not absolute predictability of the future (the so-called indeterminism). The place of man in science is changing - now it is the place of an accomplice in phenomena, ᴇᴦο the fundamental involvement in scientific procedures.

The beginning of the emergence of the paradigm of non-classical science.

The last decades of the 20th and early 21st centuries can be characterized as the course of the third scientific revolution. Faraday, Maxwell, Planck, Bohr, Einstein and many other great names are associated with the era of the 3rd scientific revolution. Discoveries in the field of evolutionary chemistry, laser physics, which gave rise to synergetics, thermodynamics of non-stationary irreversible processes, which gave rise to the theory of dissipative structures, theories of autopoiesis ((U. Maturana, F. Varela). According to this theory, complex systems (biological, social, etc.) are characterized by two main properties.The first property is homeostaticity, which is ensured by the mechanism of circular organization.The essence of this mechanism is as follows: the elements of the system exist to produce a function, and this function - directly or indirectly - is necessary for the production of elements that exist to produce the function, etc. The second property is cognition: in the process of interacting with the environment, the system seems to ʼʼknowʼʼ it (there is a corresponding transformation of the internal organization of the system) and sets such boundaries of the area of ​​relations with it that are acceptable for this system, i.e., which do not to its destruction or loss of autonomy. during the ontogeny of the system, the area of ​​its relations with the environment can expand. Since the accumulated experience of interactions with the external environment is fixed in the organization of the system, this greatly facilitates overcoming a similar situation when confronted with it again.), which all together lead us to the latest post-non-classical natural science and post-non-classical rationality. The most important features of post-nonclassical rationality are:

Complete unpredictability

closed future,

Satisfaction of the principles of irreversibility of time and motion.

There is another classification of stages in the development of science (for example, W. Weaver and others). formulated by W. Weaver.
Hosted on ref.rf
According to him, science initially went through the stage of studying organized simplicity (this was Newtonian mechanics), then the stage of cognition of unorganized complexity (this is statistical mechanics and physics of Maxwell, Gibbs), and today it is occupied with the problem of studying organized complexity (first of all, this is the problem life). Such a classification of the stages of science carries a deep conceptual and historical understanding of the problems of science in explaining the phenomena and processes of the natural and humanitarian worlds.

Natural science knowledge of phenomena and objects of nature structurally consists of empirical and theoretical levels of research. Without a doubt, wonder and curiosity are the beginning of scientific inquiry (first said by Aristotle). An indifferent, indifferent person cannot become a scientist, cannot see, fix this or that empirical fact, which will become a scientific fact.
Concept and types, 2018.
A fact will become scientific from an empirical one if it is subjected to systematic research. On this path, the path of searching for a method or method of research, the first and simplest are either passive observation, or a more radical and active one - experiment. The distinguishing feature of a true scientific experiment from quackery should be ᴇᴦο reproducibility by everyone and always (for example, most of the so-called paranormal phenomena - clairvoyance, telepathy, telekinesis, etc. - do not possess this quality). Experiments can be real, model or mental. In the last two cases, a high level of abstract thinking is necessary, since reality is replaced by idealized images, concepts, ideas that do not really exist.

The Italian genius Galileo in his time (in the XV
II century) achieved outstanding scientific results, since he began to think in ideal (abstract) images (idealizations). Among them were such abstractions as an absolutely smooth elastic ball, a smooth, elastic table surface, replaced in thoughts by an ideal plane, uniform rectilinear motion, the absence of friction forces, etc.

At the theoretical level, it is necessary to come up with some new concepts that have not previously taken place in this science, to put forward a hypothesis. In a hypothesis, one or more important features of a phenomenon are taken into account, and on the basis of them alone, an idea of ​​the phenomenon is built, without attention to other ᴇᴦο sides. An empirical generalization does not go beyond the collected facts, but a hypothesis does.

Further, in scientific research, it is necessary to return to the experiment in order not so much to verify as to refute the hypothesis expressed and, perhaps, to replace it with another one. At this stage of knowledge, the principle of falsifiability of scientific provisions operates. ʼʼprobableʼʼʼʼ. A hypothesis that has been tested acquires the status of a law (sometimes regularities, rules) of nature. Several laws from the same field of phenomena form a theory that exists as long as it remains consistent with the facts, despite the increasing volume of new experiments. So, science is observations, experiments, hypotheses, theories and arguments in favor of each of its stages of development.

Science as such is a branch of culture, a rational way of knowing the world, and an organizational and methodological institution. Science, which has been formed by now as a type of Western European culture, is a special rational way of knowing nature and social formations, based on empirical verification or mathematical proof. The main function of science is the development and theoretical systematization of objective knowledge about reality, its result is the sum of knowledge, and the immediate goal of science is the description, explanation and prediction of the processes and phenomena of reality. Natural science is a branch of science based on reproducible empirical testing of hypotheses, and its main purpose is to create theories or empirical generalizations that describe natural phenomena.

The methods used in science, in natural science, in particular, are divided into empirical and theoretical. Empirical methods - observation, description, measurement, observation. Theoretical methods - formalization, axiomatization and hypothetical-deductive. Another division of methods is into general or generally valid, into general scientific and particular or concrete scientific. For example, general methods: analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, abstraction, analogy, classification, systematization, etc. General scientific methods: dynamic, statistical, etc. In the philosophy of science, at least three different approaches are distinguished - Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos. The central place for Popper is the principle of falsification, for Kuhn - the concept of normal science, crises and scientific revolutions, for Lakatos - the concept of a rigid core of science and the replacement of research programs. The stages of the development of science can be characterized either as classical (determinism), non-classical (indeterminism) and post-non-classical (bifurcation or evolutionary-synergetic), or as stages of cognition of organized simplicity (mechanics), unorganized complexity (statistical physics) and organized complexity (life).

Genesis of the main conceptual concepts of modern natural science by ancient and medieval civilizations. The role and significance of myths in the development of science and natural science. Ancient Middle Eastern Civilizations. Antique Hellas (Ancient Greece). Ancient Rome.

We begin to study the pre-scientific period in the development of natural science, the time frame of which extends from antiquity (7th century BC) to the 15th century. new era. In this historical period, the natural science of the Mediterranean states (Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Hellas, etc.), China, India and the Arab East (the most ancient civilizations) existed in the form of the so-called natural philosophy (derived from Latin nature - nature), or the philosophy of nature, the essence of which consisted in a speculative (theoretical) interpretation of a single, integral nature. Particular attention should be paid to the concept of the integrity of nature, because in modern times (17-19 centuries) and in modern times, in the modern era, (20-21 centuries), the integrity of the science of nature was actually lost and on The new base began to revive only at the end of the 20th century.

The English historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) singled out 13 independent civilizations in human history, the Russian sociologist and philosopher Nikolai Danilevsky (1822-1885) - 11 civilizations, the German historian and philosopher Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) - all 8 civilizations:

v Babylonian,

v Egyptian,

v Mayan people,

v antique,

v indian,

v Chinese,

v Arabic,

v western.

We will single out here only the natural science of those civilizations that played the most prominent role in the emergence, formation and development of natural philosophy and modern natural science.

The main stages in the development of science - the concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Main stages in the development of science" 2017-2018.