The paper deals with some of the contemporary theories of science which see the latter as an organized cognitive activity. On the background of the controversy concerning the nature of rationality and relativism the author underlines the contribution of the sociology of scientific knowledge, showing its role in reconceptualization of the dichotomy between internalism and externalism. His argumentation is in favor of the institutionalist conception of science as a subsystem of society. The problem of the reliability of knowledge is explained (...) in the context of the globalized science: for science to be cognitively successful it is necessary to optimize the institutional mechanisms producing consensus and working as the controlling and corrective mechanisms. (shrink)

The question of "how our visual experience is related to the objects seen?" was not raised by the young Wittgenstein. It seems that at the time of writing the "Tractatus" he thought that seeing as a physically and physiologically determined act was not in need of any semantical explanation. In this essay I seek to present how Wittgenstein located the concept of "aspect-seeing" among the empirical concepts and what solution he offered for the problem of visual semantics. (edited).