It is argued that the legacy of the Vienna Circle played a very important role in the intellectual quest of modern philosophy. No matter how the concept of logical positivism is buried by “continental philosophy”, or ideologically motivated philosophers, or even the latest initiatives of the contemporary philosophy of science, the scientific worldview remains invariant. The traditions of the work of logical positivists remain relevant both for the development of modern philosophy of science and as guidelines indicating the way to (...) get rid of the idle talk (“meaninglessness”) of political slogans and manifestos. (shrink)

The citation index of Thomas Kuhn’s work may strike any imagination. “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” is undoubtedly a twentieth-century record-breaker in the field of philosophy of science in terms of such a scientometric parameter. But such fame has been bitter in many ways and placed a heavy burden on the author. For several decades he has been the target of the harshest and most severe criticism. Often the concept of “normal science” and the “scientific revolution” as a “Gestalt switch” (...) was declared ridiculous and absurd. The paper analyses three lines of criticism of Kuhn’s concept: the first came from practicing scientists, the second from specialists in the philosophy of science, and the third from the field of social epistemology. Reproaches about the political bias of Kuhn’s concept were taken to extremes, since his views were widely popular. In our opinion, Kuhn should be called a victim of spontaneous hypercriticism. This circumstance did not allow him to improve the original model of scientific revolutions. In this respect, replacing the concept of “paradigm” with the concept of “disciplinary matrix” was a step backwards, not forwards. However, it is impossible to deny that in the field of the historiography of science, he acted as a real reformer. With the courage of Don Quixote, he defended the rights of historical reconstruction, the preservation of the historical past of science, which should not be completely assimilated within the framework of the modern system of knowledge. His motto was – “penetrate the minds of other people who lived in the past.” He boldly argued that in the process of historical development, science changes not only ideas about the object of knowledge, but also the reference of its ideas and concepts. Such a formulation of the question has not yet been fully reflected in modern epistemological concepts. (shrink)

Author argues that the social relay theory by Mikhail Rozov is the result of the deep analysis of the number of empirical facts and of the facts from the history of science. “Relay” is the core notion of this theory that was used by Quine for the clarification of the connection between the word and denotatum in the “Word and Object”. The author enumerates the other philosophers who have explained this connection the same way. It’s claimed that the theory of (...) social relay is close to Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory in the problem definition. (shrink)

The article discusses the methodology for studying reflective systems, which are very specific objects of study. However, such objects include almost all phenomena of the socio-humanitarian sciences, including scientific knowledge. It is noted that in the era of the “sixties” original concepts of reflexive analysis arose in Russian philosophy, among which the three most striking ones, associated with the names of V.A. Lefebvre (1936-2020), G.P. Shchedrovitsky (1929-1994), M.A. Rozova (1930-2011). The main attention is paid to the methodology that was built (...) within the framework of the theory of social relay races by M.A. Rosova. It is shown how systems with reflection function and why they are able to rebuild, changing the order of sociality. (shrink)

This article, for which the focus is an intellectual autobiography, examines the development of worldview of a young person who graduated from the Moscow University Faculty of Philosophy in 1970. I...

Author argues that the social relay theory by Mikhail Rozov is the result of the deep analysis of the number of empirical facts and of the facts from the history of science. “Relay” is the core notion of this theory that was used by Quine for the clarification of the connection between the word and denotatum in the “Word and Object”. The author enumerates the other philosophers who have explained this connection the same way. It’s claimed that the theory of (...) social relay is close to Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory in the problem definition. (shrink)