Problems of the relationship between man and nature are becoming a steadily increasing portion of the questions facing modern civilization. Moreover, their character is changing significantly. Only two or three decades ago, the most acute problems were an unending list of "shortages" of one type or another, while the environment in which men lived was regarded primarily as a set of resources without which things could not be produced. Today it is the threat of excessive human influences on nature that (...) has taken center stage. The biosphere is beginning to be perceived on the level of its capacity to assimilate what has been produced, and the growing question is how best to combine the scientific-technological creations of man with the objective processes occurring in nature. (shrink)

In the circumstances of the revolution in science and technology, the problem of separating out general tendencies in the cognition of objective reality is acquiring increasing philosophical significance, and is becoming the subject of many interesting studies. In these researches, the "eternal" question of the distinctive features of philosophical knowledge has taken on a new character.