Our aim is to point out the role of scientific research in contemporary technological developments. Interactions between science and technology in the context of application-driven research projects of the 20th century are discussed. We define science and technology as two separate domains, and provide elementary models for their interaction by the means of applied and engineering sciences. These elementary models constitute linear and cascade models of science-technology interaction. We apply these elementary models for the purpose of further methodological analysis of (...) Soviet nuclear warfare project. The special role of organization and management in research and development activities is being emphasized. The new science-technology interaction model is devised in the course of nuclear project. This new interaction model is referred as non-linear or spiral. The model is seen as more collaborative and risk aware than linear and cascade interaction models present in twentieth century. The conclusion is the new model was of great impact to modern social forms in which research is carried out in the present. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the conceptual changes that occurred in the structure of physical knowledge during the second half of the 19th century, are reflected by the concept of the “primary ideal object” and its implicit definition within appropriate systems of statements, called a “nucleus of a branch of physics”. Within an NBP focus shifts away from discovering “laws of nature” to observations of a physical object and its states, while the distinct notion of “measurable” replaces the vague (...) notion “observable”. On the basis of this notion, the roles of physical models and measurements within physics, different kinds of work, experiments, and laws are discussed. Next follows a discussion of different levels of change in science, after which this distinction is compared to Kuhn’s model. Finally, I present a new combination of “realism” and “constructivism”, which differs from both the “constructive empiricism” of van Fraassen and from different “empirical realisms”. (shrink)

Legal thinking in the hermeneutic paradigm.

In an article “Countering a Counter-intuitive Probability” [4], Lynn E. Rose discusses a question in conditional probability, claiming that the following problem posed by Copi [1] is usually incorrectly solved:Remove all cards except aces and kings from a deck, so that only eight cards remain, of which four are aces and four are kings. From this abbreviated deck, deal two cards to a friend. If he looks at his cards and announces that his hand contains an ace, what is the (...) probability that both his cards are aces? If he announces instead that one of his cards is the ace of spades, what is the probability then that both his cards are aces? (shrink)

In recent years attention to the philosophical and literary production of P. A. Florenskii has become commonplace. The thinker's intellectual legacy is very great. In September 1919, Florenskii wrote a prospectus for a collection of his own writings, which would have amounted to nineteen volumes. The collection was not published, for a number of reasons; nonetheless, many of the philosopher's works did come out during his lifetime. Florenskii's writing, published in small editions and scattered among various journals, are still quite (...) inaccessible to readers. (shrink)