SOCIO-CULTURAL PERCEPTION OF KNOWLEDGE MICHAEL POLANI: DILEMMA OF «TWO CULTURES»

Abstract

At one time, Imre Lakatos introduced the concept of a research program as the main unit of measurement of the development of scientific knowledge, which is essentially a change in research programs. This concept, like the concept of paradigm, is ambiguous. By the research program, I. Lakatos, for example, understood a specific theory. The author noted about “Cartesian” and “Newtonian” metaphysics as two alternative programs for the construction of mechanics, and also wrote about science in general as a global research program. However, in this ambiguity and uncertainty of the original term, at the same time, the problem of identifying the hierarchy of research programs of science was hidden. True, this required a much more differentiated analysis of the structures of scientific knowledge than that which was presented in the Western philosophy of science. A research program is understood as a collection and sequence of theories connected by a continuously developing basis, a society of basic ideas and principles. I. Lakatos examines the structure of the research program, stressing that it includes a hard core, fundamental assumptions, rules of “positive” heuristics (prescribing which paths to outline the course of research) and rules of “negative” heuristics (emphasizing which paths should be avoided). These assumptions are conditionally indisputable, and the hard core consists of a set of specifically scientific and ontological assumptions found in all theories of the scientific program.