European Journal of Philosophical Research

62-76

Authors: Sergey A. Lebedev

In contrast to the classical philosophy of science the contemporary philosophy of science understands its object, subject and structure more widely. It does not bring philosophical perspectives of science only to the analysis of the process of scientific cognition, its structure and methods. It considers science more broadly, namely as a socio-cognitive activity which is innovative and practical. The object of classical philosophy of science was an ideal science, a science that it should be from the standpoint of philosophy. The object of the modern philosophy of science is a real science and its history.The subject of classical philosophy of science was the process of scientific inquiry, focused on obtaining true knowledge. Therefore, the central problem was the problem of the scientific method, is able to guarantee to provide such knowledge. The subject of the modern philosophy of science is science as a socio-cognitive and innovative system aimed at the application of scientific knowledge in practice. The structure of the classical philosophy of science was subordinated to the disclosure of the structure of scientific knowledge, its various levels and methods of getting each of them the true knowledge.The structure of the contemporary philosophy of science is subordinated to the description of all of the main measurements of the actual functioning of science (ontological, epistemological, socio-cultural, axiological, anthropological, innovative) in their unit. Empirical materials regarding the actual functioning of science and its history is considered in modern philosophy not as the sum of examples to prove this or that philosophical epistemology, but also as a basis and criterion of reasonable choice of the most general theoretical models of science.

91-105

Authors: G.W. Oesterdiekhoff

Historians of philosophy often raised the question whether or not there has been a general trend or a general direction identifiable in the history of philosophy. D´Holbach, Hegel, Comte, Brunschvicq, Cassirer, and Piaget belong to the list of those scholars who tried to describe the history of philosophy as a history of stages of mind. They all described the history of philosophy as a sequence of stages going from more concrete, simple, and childish patterns to more elaborated, systematic, abstract, and mature patterns. Piaget himself made many comparisons between ancient philosophy on the one side and childish stages on the other side, while he identified higher psychological stages only in the sciences and philosophy after 1650. His idea with this regard, supported by T. Kuhn and A. Koyré, has found a couple of followers who likewise contributed to the psychogenetic theory of the philosophy´s history. The new structure-genetic theory programme, however, emphasizes that not only the philosophical theories but also the psychological structures of the philosophers themselves went through the stages developmental psychology has found out. This article here distinguishes six stages identifiable within the history of philosophy: Mythos, archaic philosophy, Ionian philosophy, classical Greek philosophy, early modern philosophy, and modern philosophy, all of them describable in terms of developmental psychology.