Verification- a logical and methodological procedure for establishing the truth of a scientific hypothesis (as well as a particular, specifically scientific statement) based on their correspondence to empirical data (direct or immediate verification), or theoretical provisions corresponding to empirical data. (indirect verification).

This term has become widespread in connection with the neo-positivist program of the empirical foundation of science. From the point of view of neopositivism, the empirical basis of science forms absolutely reliable protocol assumptions, expressions of the “pure”, sensitive experience of the subject. Only those assumptions of science are true and comprehended, which can be verified, that is, reduced to a protocol of assumption. The task of the logical analysis of science is, on the one hand, to connect scientific statements with the protocol of assumptions and provide science with a solid empirical basis, and on the other hand, to cleanse the language of science from unverifiable, that is, meaningless assumptions.

fallibilism- the concept of Karl Popper, about the fundamental fallacy (untruth) of any theoretical knowledge in science, any scientific hypotheses and theories. (Lebedev, dictionary).

falsification- this is a procedure (primarily methodological) that establishes the falsity of a theory or hypothesis as a result of empirical verification. K. Popper, offers the concept of falsification as a criterion for the truth of a scientific statement. In the logical and methodological concept of K. Popper there is such a mechanism in the form of the principle of falsification. K. Popper believes that only those provisions that are refuted by empirical data can be scientific. The refutation of theories by the facts of science is recognized in the "logic of scientific discovery" as a criterion for the scientific nature of these theories. Popper's reasoning is based on a different logical sense: he believes that scientific statements that construct about the presence of material objects do not belong to the class of those confirmed by experience, but, on the contrary, refuted by experience, because the logic of the world order and our thinking tells us that scientific theories, refuted by facts, really carry contains information about objectively existing world. That is, a methodological mechanism that allows scientific knowledge to get closer to the truth, that is, to check the falsification of theories by refuting them with facts. Falsification is the foundation in the methodological concept of Karl Popper.

Karl Raimund Popper (1902-1994) is considered one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century. He was also a major social and political philosopher who declared himself to be a "critical rationalist", a staunch opponent of all forms of skepticism, conventionalism and relativism in science and in general in human affairs, a staunch defender of the "Open Society", and an implacable critic of totalitarianism in all its forms. One of the many outstanding features of Popper's philosophy is the extent of his intellectual influence. Due to the fact that in the works of Popper one can find epistemological, social and proper scientific elements– the fundamental unity of his philosophical vision and method is largely scattered. This paper traces the threads that bind Popper's philosophy together, and also reveals the degree of relevance of the concept of Karl Popper for modern scientific thought and practice. The principle of verification in positivism.
The goal of science, according to neopositivism, is to form a base of empirical data in the form of scientific facts, which must be represented in a language that does not allow ambiguity and inexpressiveness. As such a language, logical empiricism proposed a logical-mathematical conceptual apparatus, which is distinguished by the accuracy and clarity of the description of the phenomena under study. It was assumed that logical terms should express the cognitive meanings of observations and experiments in sentences recognized by empirical science as sentences of the "language of science".
With the introduction of the "context of discovery" by logical positivism, an attempt was made to switch to the analysis of empirical statements from the point of view of their expressibility with the help of logical concepts, thereby excluding questions related to the discovery of new knowledge from logic and methodology.

At the same time, empirical epistemology was endowed with the status of the basis of scientific knowledge, i.e. logical positivists were sure that the empirical basis of scientific knowledge is formed solely on the basis of the language of observation.

Hence the general methodological setting, which presupposes the reduction of theoretical judgments to statements of observation. In 1929, the Vienna Circle announced its formulation of the empiricist criterion of meaning, which was the first in a series of such formulations. The Vienna Circle stated: the meaning of a sentence is the method of its verification. The principle of verification provided for the recognition of scientific significance only for that knowledge, the content of which can be substantiated by protocol sentences. Therefore, the facts of science in the doctrines of positivism are absolutized, have primacy over other elements of scientific knowledge, because, in their opinion, they determine the meaningful meaning and truth of theoretical proposals.
In other words, according to the concept of logical positivism, "there is pure experience, free from deforming influences from the cognitive activity of the subject and a language adequate to this experience; sentences expressed by this language are directly verified by experience and do not depend on theory, since the dictionary used to form them , does not depend on the theoretical vocabulary".
Limited Verification Criterion
The verification criterion for theoretical statements soon declared itself to be limited, causing numerous criticisms in its address. The narrowness of the verification method first of all affected philosophy, for it turned out that philosophical propositions are unverifiable, since they are devoid of empirical significance. This side of the lack of the doctrine of logical positivism is pointed out by H. Putnam.
The average person cannot "verify" special relativity. Indeed, nowadays the average person does not even learn special relativity or the (comparatively elementary) mathematics necessary to understand it, although the basics of this theory are taught in some universities within the elementary physics course. The average person relies on the scientist for a competent (and socially accepted) evaluation of theories of this type. The scientist, however, given the instability of scientific theories, apparently will not attribute even such a recognized scientific theory as the special theory of relativity to "truth" tout court.
However, the decision scientific community is that special relativity is "successful" - in fact, like quantum electrodynamics, an unprecedentedly successful theory that makes "successful predictions" and is supported by a "wide set of experiments". And in fact, other people who make up society rely on these decisions. The difference between this case and those cases of institutionalized norms of verification that we touched upon above lies (apart from the non-binding adjective "true") in the special mission of the experts involved in these latter cases, and the institutionalized veneration of these experts.
But this difference is nothing more than an example of the division of intellectual labor (not to mention the relationship of intellectual authority) in society. The decision that special relativity and quantum electrodynamics are "the most successful of the physical theories we have" is a decision made by those authorities that are defined by society and whose authority is enshrined in practice and ritual and thus institutionalized.
The first to point out the weakness of the positivist doctrine of the logical analysis of scientific knowledge was K. Popper. He noticed, in particular, that science mainly deals with idealized objects, which, from the point of view of the positivist understanding scientific knowledge, cannot be verified using protocol sentences, and therefore are declared meaningless. In addition, many laws of science expressed in the form of sentences of the type are unverifiable. Minimum speed, necessary to overcome the Earth's gravity and enter the near-Earth space, is equal to 8 km/sec, since their verification requires a lot of particular protocol proposals. Under the influence of criticism, logical positivism weakened its position by introducing a provision in its doctrine of private empirical verifiability. From this it logically followed that only empirical terms and sentences expressed with the help of these terms have certainty, other concepts and sentences that are directly related to the laws of science were recognized as meaningful (confirmed) due to their ability to withstand partial verification.
Thus, the efforts of positivism to apply the logical apparatus to the analysis of knowledge expressed in the form of declarative sentences did not lead to scientifically significant results; they faced problems that could not be solved within the framework of the reductionist approach to cognition and knowledge adopted by him.
In particular, it is not clear why not all statements of science become basic, but only some? What is the criterion for their selection? What are their heuristic possibilities and epistemological perspectives? What is the mechanism of the architectonics of scientific knowledge?
K. Popper's falsification criterion
K. Popper proposed another criterion for the truth of a scientific statement - falsification.
Science, according to Popper, - dynamic system which involves the continuous change and growth of knowledge. This provision determined a different role of the philosophy of science in scientific knowledge: from now on, the task of philosophy was not to substantiate knowledge, as it was in neopositivism, but to explain its change on the basis of a critical method. So, in the "logic of scientific discovery" Popper writes: "the central problem of the theory of knowledge has always been and remains the problem of the growth of knowledge," and "... the best way to study the growth of knowledge is to study the growth of scientific knowledge." As the main methodological tool for this purpose, Popper introduces the principle of falsification, the meaning of which is reduced to the verification of theoretical statements by empirical experience. Why is falsifiability better than verifiability, and what is the logic of Popper's reasoning?
Having declared the task of methodology to study the mechanisms of the growth of scientific knowledge, Popper is based on the understood and perceived reality that constitutes the sphere of scientific knowledge. According to his deep conviction, science cannot deal with the true, because scientific research activity is reduced to putting forward hypotheses about the world, assumptions and conjectures about it, building probabilistic theories and laws; this is the general way of knowing the world and adapting our ideas about it. Therefore, to put it mildly, it would be frivolous to accept some of these ideas as true, and to refuse some, i.e. there is no universal mechanism that could identify from the variety of existing knowledge which of them are true and which are false.
Therefore, the task of philosophy is to find a way that would allow us to approach the truth. In Popper's logical and methodological concept there is such a mechanism in the form of the principle of falsification. K. Popper believes that only those provisions that are refuted by empirical data can be scientific. The refutation of theories by the facts of science, therefore, is recognized in the "logic of scientific discovery" as the criterion of the scientific nature of these theories.
At first glance, this provision is perceived as nonsense: if it turned out that all our speculative constructions that we build regarding the world are refuted by our own empirical experience, then, based on them common sense, they should be recognized as false and thrown out as untenable. However, Popper's reasoning is based on a different logical sense.
Anything can be proven. It was in this that the art of the sophists manifested itself, for example. Popper believes that scientific statements stating the existence of material objects do not belong to the class of those confirmed by experience, but, on the contrary, to those refuted by experience, because the logic of the world order and our thinking tells us that scientific theories refuted by facts really carry information about objectively existing world.
The same methodological mechanism, which allows scientific knowledge to approach the truth, i.e. the principle of falsification of theories, by refuting them with facts, is accepted by Popper as a criterion for the demarcation of descriptive (empirical) sciences (from theoretical and from philosophy itself, thereby rejecting the neo-positivist criteria of demarcation (induction and verifiability).
The ideological content of the theories of falsification and demarcation has a value that brings us to the worldview dimension. Popper's concept of "logic of discovery" is based on the idea, which has taken the form of conviction, about the absence of any truth in science and any criterion for its detection; the meaning of scientific activity is reduced not to the search for truth, but to the identification and detection of errors and misconceptions. This, in essence, worldview idea determined the corresponding structure:
a) ideas about the world, accepted in science as knowledge about it, are not truths, because there is no such mechanism that could establish their truth, but there is a way to detect their fallacy;
b) in science, only that knowledge meets the criteria of scientific character that can withstand the procedure of falsification;
c) in research activity "there is no more rational procedure than the method of trial and error - assumptions and refutations".
This structure is a structure that is meaningful and accepted at the worldview level by Popper himself and implemented by him in science. However, therefore, the influence of worldview beliefs on the model of the development of science created by the thinker.
At first glance, the procedure for refuting theories and searching for new theories that differ in permissive abilities seems to be positive, involving the development of scientific knowledge. However, in Popper's understanding of science, its development is not assumed for the reason that in the world itself there is no development as such, but only change. The processes that take place at the inorganic and biological levels of nature's existence are just changes based on trial and error. Accordingly, theories in science, as conjectures about the world, do not imply their development. The change from one theory to another is a non-cumulative process in science. Theories that replace each other do not have a successive connection with each other; on the contrary, a new theory is new because it distances itself as much as possible from the old theory. Therefore, theories are not subject to evolution and development does not take place in them; they just replace each other without keeping any evolutionary "thread" between them. In that case, where does Popper see the growth of scientific knowledge and progress in theories?
He sees the meaning and value of the new theory that replaced the old one in its problem-solving ability. If a given theory solves problems other than those that it was intended to solve, then, of course, such a theory is recognized as progressive. "... The most significant contribution to the growth of scientific knowledge," writes Popper, "that a theory can make, consists of new problems generated by it ...". From this position it can be seen that the progress of science is conceived as a movement towards solving problems that are more complex and deeper in content, and the growth of knowledge in this context is understood as a gradual change from one problem to another or a sequence of theories replacing each other, causing a “problem shift”.
Popper believes that the growth of knowledge is an essential act of the rational process. scientific research. “It is the mode of growth that makes science rational and empirical,” the philosopher argues, “that is, the way scientists distinguish between existing theories and choose the best one or (if there is no satisfactory theory) put forward reasons for rejecting all existing theories , formulating the conditions that a satisfactory theory must fulfill.
By a satisfactory theory, the thinker means a new theory capable of fulfilling several conditions: first, to explain two kinds of facts: on the one hand, those facts that the previous theories successfully coped with and, on the other hand, those facts that these theories could not explain; secondly, to find a satisfactory interpretation of the experimental data, according to which the existing theories were falsified; thirdly, to integrate into one integrity problems - hypotheses that are unrelated to each other; fourthly, the new theory must contain verifiable consequences; fifth, the theory itself must also be capable of withstanding a rigorous test procedure. Popper believes that such a theory is not only fruitful in solving problems, but even has a heuristic possibility to a certain extent, which can serve as evidence of the success of cognitive activity.
Based on the criticism of traditional synthetic and analytical thinking, Popper proposes a new criterion for cognition, which he calls the "criterion of falsifiability". A theory is scientific and rational only when it can be falsifiable.
There is a clear asymmetry between verification (confirmation) and falsification. Billions of confirmations are not capable of perpetuating a theory. One rebuttal and the theory is undermined. Example: "Pieces of wood do not sink in water" - "This piece of ebony does not float on water." Karl Popper used to repeat Oscar Wilde's famous quote: "Experience is the name we give to our own mistakes." Everything must be tested by falsification.
Thus, a provocative approach to reality was asserted, that is, the author of the theory open society in general, I would approve of the actions of Russian peasants from the famous joke about Japanese woodworking equipment. “A Japanese car was brought to a Siberian sawmill. The peasants scratched their heads and put a huge pine tree into it. , fidgeted and gave out the boards. "M-yes," the peasants already said with respect. And suddenly they see: some poor fellow is carrying a rail. They enthusiastically thrust the rail into the mechanism. The mechanism sighed, sneezed and broke. "M-yes," - the workers said with satisfaction and took up their axes-saws. Popper would have noticed that there cannot be such a machine that turns EVERYTHING into boards. There can only be such a machine that turns SOMETHING into boards.
Popper's logical model suggests a new concept of development. It is necessary to abandon the search for an ideal, finally correct solution, and look for an optimal, satisfactory solution.
"The new theory not only finds out what the predecessor succeeded, but also his searches and failures ... Falsification, criticism, justified protest, dissent lead to the enrichment of problems." Without introducing hypotheses with a twist, we ask ourselves why the previous theory collapsed. The answer should be a new version, the best theory. “However,” Popper emphasized, “there are no guarantees of progress.
Conclusion.
In the history of science, two principles have been proposed to draw a line between scientific theories and what is not science.
The first principle is the principle of verification: any concept or judgment has scientific sense if it can be reduced to an empirically verifiable form, or it cannot itself have such a form, then empirical confirmation must have its consequences, the principle of verification alone is limited, and cannot be used in some areas of modern science.
The American philosopher K. Popper proposed another principle - the principle of falsification, which is based on the fact that direct confirmation of a theory is often difficult due to the inability to take into account all special cases of its action, and to refute a theory, just one case that does not coincide with it is enough, so if a theory is formulated so that the situation in which it will be refuted can exist, then such a theory is scientific. The theory is irrefutable, in principle, can not be scientific.

Principlesverificationand falsification

How to separate genuine science from fakes for it? To this end, the methodologists of science have formulated several important principles. The first of these is verification principle, asserting that if a concept or judgment is reducible to direct experience, then it makes sense. If this fails, the statement is considered to be either a tautology or meaningless. But since the concepts of a developed scientific theory, as a rule, are difficult to reduce to experimental data, indirect verification is used for them. She argues that if it is impossible to experimentally confirm some concept or proposition of a theory, one can confine oneself to experimental confirmation of the conclusions from them. So, although the concept of "quark" was introduced in physics back in the 30s of the XX century, it was not possible to detect such a particle experimentally. But the quark theory predicted a number of phenomena that made it possible to carry out an experimental verification. In the course of it, the expected results were obtained. This indirectly confirmed the existence of quarks.

But the principle of verification only in the first approximation separates scientific knowledge from non-scientific. Works more accurately falsification principle, formulated by the largest philosopher and methodologist of science of the XX century. K. Popper. According to this principle only fundamentally refutable (falsifiable) knowledge can claim the status of scientific knowledge. It has long been known that no amount of experimental evidence is sufficient to prove a theory. So, we can observe as many examples as we like, every minute confirming the law gravity. But only one example (for example, a stone that fell not on the ground, but flew away from the ground) is enough to recognize this law as false. Therefore, the scientist should direct all his efforts not to search for another experimental proof of the hypothesis or theory formulated by him, but to an attempt to refute his statement. It is attempts to falsify, refute a theory that are most effective in confirming its scientific character and truth.

Only true science is not afraid to make mistakes, does not hesitate to recognize its previous conclusions as false. This is the strength of science, its difference from pseudoscience, which is devoid of this most important property. Therefore, if some concept, for all its scientism, claims that it cannot be refuted, and denies the very possibility of a different interpretation of any facts, then this indicates that we are faced not with science, but with pseudoscience.

1.3. Structure and functions of science

Modern science covers a huge area of ​​diverse knowledge, consisting of almost 15,000 disciplines, which are, to varying degrees, distant from each other. In the XX century. scientific information doubles in 10–15 years. If in 1900 there were about 10 thousand scientific journals, at the present time - several hundred thousand. More than 90% of all the most important achievements of science and technology fall on the 20th century. The number of scientists in the world by the end of the second millennium reached 5 million people (one in a thousand people living on Earth). Therefore, science today has a very complex structure and organization, which can be considered in several aspects.

Natural science and humanitarian culture

The most important aspect of science is meaningful. Based on it, the structure of science is described from the point of view of subject unity. Giving the definition of science, we emphasized that it is a set of objective knowledge about being, which is traditionally understood as nature, society and man. Therefore, in accordance with these three elements of objective being, three areas of knowledge about them are clearly distinguished in science: knowledge about nature - natural science; knowledge about various types and forms of social life - social science; knowledge about a person as a thinking being and about the manifestations of his essence is humanitarian knowledge. Naturally, these three spheres are not and should not be considered as three parts of a single whole, which are only side by side, adjacent to each other. The boundary between these spheres is relative, but they are connected by very complex relationships. For a long time there was a tradition of opposing the natural sciences to the social sciences and the humanities. This dichotomy formed the basis for the division of natural science and humanitarian culture.

Of course, such a division is very arbitrary, since the structure of culture is much more complicated than the division into science and non-science, and there are as many ways of knowing the world, types of knowledge about it as there are spheres of culture. Therefore, when people talk about two cultures, they mean that both cultures are based on scientific knowledge.

Undoubtedly, there are some objective grounds for such a division. They are connected with those methods of cognition of the world, which are used by natural scientists and the humanities.

Starting from the New Age (the time of the emergence of classical science and modern natural science), the most important property of science was the objectivity of scientific knowledge as opposed to the subjectivity of the humanities. It was assumed that the identity of the researcher should not affect the results of the study, since, studying nature, the naturalist dealt only with material phenomena caused by natural causes and objective laws. Humanitarian knowledge is impossible without taking into account the subjective motives of people whose actions are subject to study. Since other people's thoughts and deeds are not given to the researcher directly, he must reconstruct them from texts, objects of art, everyday life, etc. Such knowledge of the world is fundamentally impossible without taking into account the personality of the researcher, since different people are likely to perceive the same objects in different ways. Therefore, natural science relies on the explanation and search for the causes of any events, and humanitarian knowledge - on understanding and interpreting the meaning of the phenomena and events of individual spiritual life and human activity.

If the state of society and culture, the traditional subject of humanitarian knowledge, cannot be understood without referring to the history of this state, then for the natural sciences long time the prehistory of the studied material systems seemed to have no scientific significance.

The natural scientist, knowing the regular, recurring phenomena of nature, strives to obtain pure knowledge about these objects and processes. The humanist, studying the world, cannot but evaluate it in accordance with a certain scale of ethical, aesthetic and other values. By themselves, the phenomena of nature are neither good nor evil, and have no value. Yes, fission chain reaction atomic nuclei- a natural phenomenon that lies beyond moral assessments. BUT atomic bomb, made on the basis of the study of this process, is a creation of human hands and can be evaluated from a variety of points of view, including in the ethical aspect.

We have listed only some of the most obvious differences between the two cultures. But now, at the beginning of the new century and the new millennium, it has become obvious that these differences are beginning to smooth out, the processes of humanization of natural science and scientization of the humanitarian and artistic sphere are underway. Obviously, we can talk about the beginning of the integration of natural science and humanitarian cultures. It is based on those general methodological principles that are inherent in both natural science and humanitarian knowledge, allow us to talk about a single science associated with the creative capabilities of man. Both that and other knowledge should be logically substantiated, consistent, have the possibility of experimental (empirical) verification. Numerous facts speak of the convergence of these two types of knowledge. So, recently, the most interesting and actively studied objects and phenomena in natural science have become unique objects that exist in the singular (an example is the biosphere, which is studied by many sections of biology, geology, geography, etc.).

The uniqueness of an object inevitably requires a historical, evolutionary approach to its study: the more complex the object under study, the more important it is to know the history of its formation and development. It is no coincidence that synergetics and non-equilibrium thermodynamics, the sciences that study the self-development and self-organization of complex systems, have acquired such importance today, which introduced into modern science principle of universal evolutionism.

Increasingly, scientists themselves are saying that scientific discovery, the formulation of a rigorous scientific theory is impossible without understanding based on a figurative, metaphorical vision of the situation, as well as without intuition, which is the result of interaction in the human consciousness and subconsciousness of abstract concepts and sensual images.

The ideal of classical natural science, which forced one to strive for complete objectivity of research, its independence from the observer, also turned out to be unattainable. Not by chance modern science formulated the so-called anthropic principle, according to which the presence of man not only changes the entire course of the experiment, but the very existence of our universe depends on man(the world is what it is only because there is a person in it). Therefore, the voices crying out for the moral responsibility of the scientist to society are getting louder and louder.

Along with this, humanitarian knowledge is increasingly using the methods and results of the natural sciences (for example, psychology, anthropology are impossible without the data of the biological sciences), the mathematization of humanitarian knowledge is becoming more and more active (for a long time, mathematics was associated only with natural science).

In addition, natural science and humanitarian knowledge are united by a commonality of methodological principles. Both those and other sciences are equally subject to the general criteria of scientific character - systemic, rational, theoretical, the presence of a proven methodology for cognition of the new. And, of course, at the heart of all types of knowledge lies a single principle - creativity.

The structure of science

Considering the question of the structure of science, it is not enough to single out only the natural, social and human sciences. Each of them is a complex set of many independent sciences interacting with each other.

So, natural science, the subject of which is nature as a whole, includes physics, chemistry, biology, earth sciences, astronomy, cosmology, etc., social science includes economic sciences, law, sociology, political science, etc. The subject of social science is social phenomena and systems, structures, states, processes. It gives knowledge about individual varieties and the totality public relations and relationships. Society as a whole is studied by sociology; labor activity people, property relations, production, exchange and distribution - economic sciences; state-legal structures and relations in social systems - the sciences of the state and political sciences; man, numerous manifestations of his essence - humanities for which a person is a measure of all things (among them one should name psychology, logic, cultural studies, linguistics, art history, pedagogy, etc.).

A special place in the structure of science is occupied by mathematics, which, contrary to a widespread misconception, is not part of natural science. It is an interdisciplinary science that is used by both natural and social sciences and the humanities. Very often, mathematics is called the universal language of science, the cement that holds its building together. The special place of mathematics is determined by the subject of its study. This is the science of quantitative relations reality (all other sciences have as their subject some qualitative side of reality), it has a more abstract character than all other sciences, it does not care what to count - atoms, living cells, people, etc.

Along with the indicated main scientific directions, the knowledge of science about itself should be included in a separate group of knowledge. The emergence of this branch of knowledge - science of science - dates back to the 20s of the 20th century and means that science in its development has risen to the level of understanding its role and significance in people's lives. Today, science of science is an independent, rapidly developing scientific discipline.

A clear line between the natural, social and human sciences cannot be drawn. There are a number of disciplines that are complex, occupying an intermediate position. So, at the junction of natural and social sciences is economic geography, at the junction of natural and technical - bionics. social ecology arose at the intersection of natural, social and technical sciences.

According to the orientation towards practical application, all sciences can be divided into fundamental and applied.

Fundamental sciences - physics, chemistry, astronomy, cosmology, etc. - study the objective laws of the world around us for the sake of pure interest in truth, without any practical application of the knowledge gained.

Applied sciences are engaged in the application of the results of fundamental research to solve both cognitive and socio-practical problems. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that although all technical sciences are applied, not all applied sciences are technical. Therefore, theoretical applied sciences (for example, metal physics, semiconductor physics, genetic engineering, etc.) and practical applied sciences (metal science, semiconductor technology, etc.) are singled out.

It is traditionally believed that applied sciences are focused on directly improving people's lives, while fundamental sciences are aimed at obtaining new knowledge about the world around them. However, in practice it is often difficult to distinguish applied research from fundamental. Therefore, the following criterion for the separation of fundamental and applied research has been established in modern science of science. Applied sciences are engaged in solving problems that are posed to scientists from outside. Decision internal problems science itself is engaged in fundamental sciences. This division has nothing to do with the assessment of the importance of the tasks to be solved. Scientists very often solve the most important applied problems or face unimportant fundamental questions.

The next aspect in which to consider the structure of science is structural. With regard to science, this aspect means the division of scientific knowledge into groups depending on their subject, nature, degree of explanation of reality and practical significance.

In this case, we highlight:

factual knowledge - a set of systematized facts of objective reality;

theoretical, or fundamental knowledge - theories explaining the processes taking place in objective reality;

technical and applied knowledge, or technology - knowledge about the practical application of factual or fundamental knowledge, as a result of which a certain technical effect is achieved;

practical-applied, or praxeological knowledge - information about the economic effect that can be obtained by applying the above types of knowledge.

Technology and praxeology differ significantly from each other. It is not enough to create new technologies, albeit with a very high efficiency, they still have to be in demand by society. Therefore, thousands of inventions are recorded every year, but before the stage of their industrial development only a few reach. Society stimulates the development of inefficient technologies and refuses new, more productive ones, for a variety of reasons. Thus, it is well known that the 19th century is called the age of "steam and iron", which reflects the dominance of the steam engine in all industries. But it is also known that the efficiency of a steam engine is very low, that is, the technological solution is not very successful. However, the praxeological effect of this invention was very high.

AT logical aspect scientific knowledge is a mental activity, the highest form of logical knowledge, a product of human creativity. Its starting point is sensory knowledge, beginning with sensation and perception and ending with representation. The next step is rational knowledge, which develops from a concept to judgment and conclusion. The two levels of knowledge correspond to the level of empirical and theoretical knowledge.

And finally social aspect scientific knowledge presents it as social phenomenon, the collective process of research and application of the results of this research. In this aspect, scientific institutions, collectives, educational institutions, organizations of scientists, etc. are of interest, without which scientific activity is impossible. Thus, modern science cannot do without research institutes and laboratories equipped with necessary equipment, and scientific work needs constant information support, which requires an extensive network of scientific libraries and well-functioning publishing activities. For scientists, personal communication with each other is very important, which is carried out at conferences and symposiums of various levels. A special area of ​​science is the training of new scientific personnel, which provides for an extensive system of university and postgraduate (postgraduate, doctoral) training. This job requires a large number of people who will take care of the funding. scientific projects, their material preparation and provision. All this together makes science a very complex social institution.

Functions of Science

In close connection with the structure of scientific knowledge are the functions of science:

descriptive - revealing the essential properties and relations of reality from the whole variety of objects and phenomena of the surrounding world. This is how the formulation of the laws of nature begins, which is the most important task of science;

systematizing - assignment of the described by classes and sections. This forms one of the criteria of science - its consistency;

explanatory - a systematic presentation of the essence of the object under study, the reasons for its emergence and development;

industrial and practical - the possibility of applying the acquired knowledge in production, for the regulation of social life, in social management. This function appeared only in modern times, when science was closely connected with production and applied research began to occupy an increasingly important place in science;

predictive– prediction of new discoveries within existing theories, as well as recommendations for the future. This function is based on the knowledge of natural patterns, which allows a person to feel confident in the world, and also fixes attention on still unknown fragments of reality, thus substantiating the program for further research;

ideological- the introduction of the acquired knowledge into the existing picture of the world. This is the most important function of science, which makes it possible to form a scientific picture of the world - an integral system of ideas about general properties and laws that exist in nature.

1.4. The subject and structure of natural science

The concept of "natural science" appeared in modern times in Western Europe and began to denote the totality of the sciences of nature. This notion is rooted in Ancient Greece, at the time of Aristotle, who was the first to systematize the then knowledge of nature in his Physics. But these ideas were quite amorphous, and therefore today natural science is understood as the so-called exact natural science - knowledge that corresponds not only to the first four, but also to the last, fifth criterion of scientific character. The most important characteristic of exact natural science is the experimental method, which makes it possible to empirically test hypotheses and theories, as well as to formalize the knowledge gained in mathematical formulas.

The subject of natural science

There are two widely held ideas about the subject of natural science. The first asserts that natural science is the science of Nature as a single entity. The second is the totality of the sciences about Nature, considered as a whole. At first glance, these definitions are different from each other. One speaks of a single science of Nature, the second - of the totality of individual sciences. But in fact, the differences are not so great, since the totality of the sciences about Nature means not just the sum of disparate sciences, but a single complex of closely interconnected and complementary natural sciences.

Being an independent science, natural science has its own subject of study, different from the subject of special (private) natural sciences. The specificity of natural science is that it studies the same natural phenomena from the positions of several sciences at once, revealing the most general patterns and trends. This is the only way to present Nature as an integral system, to reveal the foundations on which the whole variety of objects and phenomena of the surrounding world is built. The result of such research is the formulation of the basic laws that connect the micro-, macro- and mega-worlds, the Earth and the Cosmos, physical and chemical phenomena with life and mind in the Universe.

Structure of natural science

At school, separate natural sciences are usually studied: physics, chemistry, biology, geography, astronomy. This is the first step in the cognition of Nature, without which it is impossible to proceed to the realization of it as a single integrity, to the search for deeper connections between physical, chemical and biological phenomena. This is the purpose of our course. With its help, we must more deeply and accurately know the individual physical, chemical and biological phenomena that occupy an important place in the natural-scientific picture of the world; and also to reveal those hidden connections that create the organic unity of these phenomena, which is impossible within the framework of special natural sciences.

As already noted, structurally, science is a complex branched system of knowledge. In this structure, natural science is no less complex system, all parts of which are in relation hierarchical subordination. This means that the system of natural sciences can be represented as a kind of ladder, each step of which is the foundation for the science that follows it, which in turn is based on the data of the previous science.

The basis, the foundation of all natural sciences, is undoubtedly physics, the subject of which are bodies, their movements, transformations and forms of manifestation at various levels. Today it is impossible to engage in any natural science without knowing physics. Within physics, we single out a large number of subsections that differ in their specific subject and research methods. The most important among them is Mechanics - the doctrine of the balance and movement of bodies (or their parts) in space and time. Mechanical motion is the simplest and at the same time the most common form of motion of matter. Mechanics became historically the first physical science, for a long time it served as a model for all natural sciences. The branches of mechanics are statics, which studies the conditions for the equilibrium of bodies; kinematics, dealing with the movement of bodies from a geometric point of view; dynamics, considering the motion of bodies under the action of applied forces. Mechanics also includes hydrostatics, pneumatic and hydrodynamics. Mechanics is the physics of the macrocosm. In modern times, the physics of the microcosm was born. It is based on statistical mechanics, or molecular-kinetic theory, which studies the movement of liquid and gas molecules. Later came atomic physics and elementary particle physics. Sections of physics are thermodynamics, which studies thermal processes; physics of oscillations (waves), closely related to optics, electrics, acoustics. Physics is not limited to these sections; new physical disciplines constantly appear in it.

The next step is chemistry, studying chemical elements, their properties, transformations and compounds. The fact that it is based on physics is proved very easily. To do this, it is enough to recall school lessons in chemistry, which talked about the structure of chemical elements, their electron shells. This is an example of the use of physical knowledge in chemistry. In chemistry, inorganic and organic chemistry, chemistry of materials and other sections are distinguished.

In turn, chemistry underlies biology - the science of the living, which studies the cell and everything derived from it. Biological knowledge is based on knowledge about matter, chemical elements. Among the biological sciences, one should single out botany (studies the world of plants), zoology (the subject is the world of animals). Anatomy, physiology and embryology study the structure, functions and development of the body. Cytology studies the living cell, histology studies the properties of tissues. Paleontology studies the fossil remains of life, genetics - the problems of heredity and variability.

Earth sciences are next element structures of natural science. This group includes geology, geography, ecology, etc. All of them consider the structure and development of our planet, which is a complex combination of physical, chemical and biological phenomena and processes.

Completes this grandiose pyramid of knowledge about Nature cosmology, studying the universe as a whole. Part of this knowledge is astronomy and cosmogony, which study the structure and origin of planets, stars, galaxies, etc. At this level there is a new return to physics. This allows us to talk about the cyclical, closed nature of natural science, which obviously reflects one of the the most important properties Nature herself.

The structure of natural science is not limited to the above-named sciences. The fact is that in science there are complex processes of differentiation and integration of scientific knowledge. The differentiation of science is the allocation within any science of narrower, particular areas of research, turning them into independent sciences. So, inside physics stood out physics solid body, plasma physics.

The integration of science is the emergence of new sciences at the junctions of old ones, the process of combining scientific knowledge. An example of the integration of sciences are: physical chemistry, chemical physics, biophysics, biochemistry, geochemistry, biogeochemistry, astrobiology, etc.

So, natural science appears to us not only as a set of sciences about Nature, but first of all as a single system of knowledge, the elements of which (private natural sciences) are so closely interconnected and interdependent that they are derived from each other, represent a cyclically closed system, a truly organic unity. And this is a reflection of the unity that exists in the real world.

Issues for discussion

Is it possible in modern world do without science? What would this world be like?

Can art give anything to science? What do you know about the role of art in the lives of great scientists?

Dissertation abstract

2000. 166 p. Conceptscontemporarynatural science Conceptscontemporarynatural science/ Ed...

1. Concepts of modern natural science (28)

   Dissertation abstract

   2000. 166 p. Conceptscontemporarynatural science/ Ed. V.N. Lavrinenko and V.P. Ratnikov. M.: UNITI, 2000. Conceptscontemporarynatural science/ Ed...

Verification - (lat. Verificatio - proof, confirmation) is a concept used in the logic and methodology of science to refer to the process of establishing the truth of scientific statements as a result of their empirical verification. Distinguish between direct verification - as a direct verification of statements that form observation data, and indirect verification - as the establishment of logical relationships between indirectly verified and directly verified statements. Scientific provisions containing developed theoretical concepts are indirectly verifiable statements. It is also necessary to distinguish between verification as an actual process of checking real statements and verifiability, i.e. the possibility of verification, its conditions. It is the analysis of the conditions and schemes of verifiability that acts as the subject of logical and methodological research.

The term verification is widely used in connection with the concept of analysis of the language of science in logical positivism, which formulated the so-called principle of verification, or verifiability. According to this principle, any scientifically meaningful statement about the world must be reduced to a set of so-called protocol assumptions that fix the given "number of experience". Thus, the epistemological basis of the principle of verification was the phenomenalist, narrowly empirical doctrine, according to which knowledge cannot go beyond the limits of sensory experience. The basis for such reducibility for the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle was the idea put forward by L. Wittgenstein in the “logo-philosophical treatise” of the possibility of representing each meaningful statement about the world as a function of the truth of elementary statements, which was essentially an absolutization of the formalism of the calculus of statements of mathematical logic.

The obvious epistemological and methodological inconsistency of the principle of Verifiability, which reduces knowledge about the world to “pure experience” and deprives scientific meaningfulness of statements that are not directly verified by experience, forced its supporters to accept a weakened version of this principle, which consists in replacing the concept of strict and exhaustive verification with the concept of partial and indirect verification or validation.

In modern logical-methodological literature, primitive "verificationism" is sharply critical. Verification is considered as a moment of a complex, contradictory process of development of scientific knowledge, as a result of a multifaceted relationship between competing theories and the data of their experimental tests.

Falsification - (fake), a scientific procedure that establishes the falsity of a hypothesis or theory as a result of experimental or theoretical verification. The concept of falsification must be distinguished from the principle of falsification, which was proposed by Popper as a criterion for demarcating science from "metaphysics" (as an alternative to the principle of verifiability put forward by logical empiricism).

Isolated empirical hypotheses can be directly falsified and rejected on the basis of relevant experimental data or because of incompatibility with fundamental scientific theories. However, the systems of hypotheses, united in scientific theories, can only in rare cases be subjected to final falsification. The system-hierarchical nature of the organization of modern scientific knowledge complicates and makes it difficult to verify developed and abstract theories. Verification of such theoretical systems involves the introduction of additional models and hypotheses, as well as the development of theoretical models of experimental facilities, etc. Problems that arise in the verification process, caused by the discrepancy between theoretical predictions and the results of experiments, can in principle be resolved by appropriate adjustments of some fragments of the theoretical system being tested. For a falsifiable theory, an alternative theory is most often needed: only it (and not the results of the experiments themselves) is able to falsify the theory being tested. Thus, only in the case when there is a theory that really provides a further step in the knowledge of the world, the rejection of the previous scientific theory is methodologically justified.

As scientific propositions, hypotheses must satisfy the principle testability condition, which means that they have the properties of falsifiability (refutation) and verifiability (confirmation). However, the presence of such properties is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the hypothesis to be scientific. Therefore, these properties cannot be considered as a criterion for demarcation between scientific and "metaphysical" statements. The properties of falsifiability sufficiently rigorously fixes the presumptive nature of the scientific hypothesis. Since the latter are statements of limited generality, they can either allow or directly or indirectly prohibit some state of affairs in physical world. By limiting the universality of previous knowledge, and also by revealing the conditions under which it is possible to preserve the partial universality of one or another statement about laws, the property of falsifiability ensures a relatively discontinuous nature of the development of scientific knowledge.

Verification and falsification.The problem of criticism of put forward hypotheses and theories requires special attention. If criticism aimed at refuting them is based on empirical data, then, one might say, it is directly related to the topic of their empirical justification.

Falsification, or empirical refutation, manifests itself through the procedure of establishing falsity or logical verification.

Interest in the problem of falsification was attracted by K. Popper, who contrasted falsification with verification, empirical refutation with empirical confirmation.

Popper refused to consider the validity or empirical validity of the propositions of science as its distinguishing feature. Anything can be confirmed by experience. In particular, astrology is supported by much empirical evidence. But the confirmation of the theory does not yet speak of its scientific character. The test of a hypothesis should not consist in finding evidence to support it, but in persistent attempts to refute it.

Popper's contrast between falsification and verification about the connection, that the hypotheses put forward in science should be as bold as possible. But this means that they must be obviously implausible, and therefore attempts to verify them are obviously doomed to failure.

The principle of falsification and falsificationism.The starting point of Popper's position is the apparent asymmetry between verification and falsification.

According to modern logic, two interrelated operations - confirmation and refutation - are essentially unequal. One contradictory fact is enough to definitively refute a general statement, and at the same time, an arbitrarily large number of confirming examples is not able to confirm such a statement once and for all, to turn it into truth.

For example, even looking at a billion trees does not make the general statement "All trees lose their leaves in winter" true. Seeing trees that have lost their leaves in winter, no matter how many, only increases the likelihood, or plausibility, of this statement. But just one example of a tree that retained foliage in the middle of winter refutes this statement.

The asymmetry of confirmation and refutation relies on a popular reasoning scheme that can be called the principle of falsification.

The principle of falsification is a law of classical logic, formed in late XIX- early XX century. he was completely untouched by the criticism of logic, which began in the 1920s and became especially active in the 1950s. 20th century This law is accepted in all known non-classical logical systems that claim to be a more adequate description of the relation of logical consequence.

Criticism of falsificationism.Popper's falsificationism is subjected to very harsh and well-reasoned criticism. In essence, little was left of this concept in its orthodox form even during the life of the author, who continued to actively defend it.

We will not repeat the critical remarks here, but let us pay attention to one point: the criticism of falsificationism, for all its effectiveness, was not brought, so to speak, to its "logical end". It has always limited itself to purely epistemological considerations (related primarily to the history of science and real scientific theories) and has stopped short of Popper's rationale for falsificationism. It did not risk questioning the asymmetry of confirmation and refutation and its underlying principle of falsification.

Logical falsification and refutation.A critique of falsificationism cannot be entirely consistent unless it is linked to a critique of the traditional notion of refutation and the underlying logical principle of falsification. If, in the interpretation of this concept, logic and epistemology find themselves in conflict, as they are now, it inevitably bifurcates. From a logical point of view, the general proposition is considered refuted as soon as at least one (important or third-rate) erroneous consequence is discovered. From an epistemological point of view, the refutation procedure is no less complex than the confirmation procedure, and takes into account the importance of erroneous consequences, their number, their relationship to the "core" of the theory, the state of competing theories, and many other factors. The existence of two concepts of refutation explains the conclusions of the type: the theory is refuted (in the logical sense), but it is preserved because it is not refuted (in the epistemological sense).

Let us call a logical falsification the idea that the inconsistency of any consequence of a certain proposition automatically means the falsity of this proposition. It is this idea that is expressed by the principle of falsification. Logical falsification is a deductive operation. Confirmation is based, as is commonly believed, on certain inductive procedures.

We will use the concept of refutation in its usual sense, which is relatively well-established in epistemology.

Although the concept of refutation is neither meaningful nor spatially accurate, there is a fairly definite core of its content, which clearly does not coincide with the content of the concept of logical falsification.

"Mere 'falsification' (in Popper's sense) does not entail discarding the corresponding claim," writes Lakatos. - Simple "falsifications" (that is, anomalies) should be recorded, but it is not at all necessary to respond to them" 3 .

The concept of falsification presupposes, according to Popper, the existence of (negative) decisive experiments. Lakatos, ironically calling these experiments "great", remarks that "crucial experiment" is only an honorary title, which, of course, can be bestowed on a certain anomaly, but only long after one program has been superseded by another.

Falsification also does not take into account the fact that a theory that has encountered difficulties can be transformed by auxiliary hypotheses and devices, such as replacing real definitions with nominal ones. “... No accepted basic statement in itself gives the scientist the right to reject the theory. Such a conflict may give rise to a problem (more or less important), but under no circumstances can it lead to a “victory”.

It can be said that the applicability of the principle of falsification to different parts research program is different. It also depends on the stage of development of such a program: so far the last one; successfully withstands the onslaught of anomalies, the scientist can generally ignore them and be guided not by anomalies, but by the positive heuristics of his program.

The failure of falsification.Think Popper, the justification of scientific theories cannot be achieved through observation and experiment. Theories always remain unfounded assumptions. Science needs facts and observations not to substantiate, but only to test and refute theories, to falsify them. The method of science is not the observation and statement of facts for their subsequent inductive generalization, but the method of trial and error. “There is no more rational procedure,” writes Popper, “than the method of trial and error—propositions and refutations: the bold advancement of theories; attempts in the best way to show the fallacy of these theories and their temporary recognition if criticism is unsuccessful. ”The trial and error method is universal: it is used not only in scientific, but in all knowledge, it is used by both the amoeba and Einstein.

Popper's sharp contrast between verification and falsification, the inductive method and the trial and error method is not, however, justified. Criticism of scientific theory, which has not reached its goal, failed attempt falsification is a weakened version of indirect empirical verification.

Falsification as a procedure includes two stages:

establishing the truth of the conditional relationship "if A, then B", where B is an empirically verifiable consequence;

establishing the truth "wrong B", i.e. falsification of B. Failure to falsify means failure to establish the falsity of B. The result of this failure is a probabilistic judgment “It is possible that A is true, i.e. AT". Thus, the failure of falsification is an inductive reasoning that has a scheme:

"if it is true that if A, then B, and not-B is false, then A" ("if it is true that if A, then B, and B, then A")

This scheme coincides with the indirect verification scheme. The failure of falsification is, however, a weakened verification: in the case the usual indirect verification assumes that premise B is a true statement; in case of failed falsification, this premise is only a plausible statement 2 . Thus, the decisive but unsuccessful critique, which Popper highly appreciates and which he opposes as an independent method of verification, is in fact only a weakened version of verification.

Positive justification is the usual indirect empirical verification, which is a kind of absolute justification. Its result is: "Statement A, the consequence of which was confirmed, is justified." Critical justification is justification by criticism; his result: "Proposition A is more acceptable than its counterposition B, since A has withstood more severe criticism than B." Critical justification is comparative justification: just because statement A is more resistant to criticism and therefore more justified than statement B does not mean that A is true or even plausible.

Thus, Popper weakens the inductivist program in two ways:

instead of the concept of absolute justification introduces the concept of comparative justification;

instead of the concept of verification (empirical justification) introduces a weaker concept of falsification.

Principles of verification and falsification

Verification- (from Latin verificatio - proof, confirmation) - a concept used in the logic and methodology of scientific knowledge to refer to the process of establishing the truth of scientific statements through their empirical verification.

Verification consists in correlating a statement with the real state of affairs by means of observation, measurement, or experiment.

Distinguish between direct and indirect verification. With direct V., the statement itself, which speaks of the facts of reality or experimental data, is subjected to empirical verification.

However, not every statement can be directly correlated with the facts, because most of scientific statements refer to ideal, or abstract, objects. Such statements are verified indirectly. From this statement we deduce a consequence relating to such objects that can be observed or measured. This corollary is verified directly.

The B. of the corollary is considered as an indirect verification of the statement from which the given corollary was obtained. For example, suppose we need to verify the statement "The temperature in the room is 20°C". It cannot be verified directly, because in reality there are no objects to which the terms "temperature" and "20°C" correspond. From this statement, we can deduce a consequence that says that if a thermometer is brought into the room, then the mercury column will stop at the “20” mark.

We bring a thermometer and by direct observation we verify the statement “The mercury column is at the “20” mark”. This serves as an indirect V. of the original statement. Verifiability, i.e., empirical testability, of scientific statements and theories is considered one of the important features of being scientific. Statements and theories that cannot be verified in principle are generally not considered scientific.

FALSIFICATION(from Latin falsus - false and facio - I do) - a methodological procedure that allows you to establish the falsity of a hypothesis or theory in accordance with the modus tollens rule of classical logic. The concept of "falsification" should be distinguished from the principle of falsifiability, which was proposed by Popper as a criterion for demarcating science from metaphysics, as an alternative to the principle of verifiability adopted in neopositivism. Isolated empirical hypotheses, as a rule, can be subjected to direct F. and rejected on the basis of relevant experimental data, and also because of their incompatibility with fundamental scientific theories. At the same time, abstract hypotheses and their systems, which form scientific theories, are directly unfalsifiable. The fact is that the empirical verification of theoretical systems of knowledge always involves the introduction of additional models and hypotheses, as well as the development of theoretical models of experimental facilities, etc. The discrepancies between theoretical predictions and experimental results that arise in the process of verification can, in principle, be resolved by making appropriate adjustments to individual fragments of the theoretical system being tested.

Therefore, for the final F. theory, it is necessary alternative theory: only it, and not the results of the experiments themselves, is able to falsify the theory being tested. Thus, only in the case when there is a new theory that really ensures progress in knowledge is the rejection of the previous scientific theory justified methodologically.

The scientist tries to ensure that scientific concepts satisfy the principle of testability (the principle verification ) or at least the principle of refutation (the principle falsifications ).

Principle verification states that only verifiable statements are scientifically meaningful.

Scientists scrutinize each other's discoveries as well as their own discoveries. In this they differ from people who are alien to science.

To distinguish between what is being tested and what is in principle impossible to verify, helps "circle K a rnapa" (it is usually considered in a philosophy course in connection with the topic "Neopositivism"). The statement is not verified (scientifically meaningless): "Natasha loves Petya." The statement is verified (scientifically meaningful): "Natasha says she loves Petya" or " Natasha says that she is a princess frog.

Principle falsification does not recognize such a statement as scientific, which is confirmed any other statements (sometimes even mutually exclusive), and cannot even be basically refuted. There are people for whom any the statement is yet another proof that they were right. If you tell something like that, he will answer: "What did I say!" You tell him something directly opposite, and he again: "You see, I was right!"

Having formulated the falsification principle, Popper supplemented the verification principle as follows:

a) scientifically meaningful such concept, which satisfies experimental facts and for which there are imaginary facts that, if they are discovered, can refute it. This concept is true.

b) Scientifically meaningful such concept, which refuted facts and for which there are imaginary facts capable of confirming it when they are discovered. Such a concept is false.

If conditions are formulated at least indirect check, then the asserted thesis becomes more reliable knowledge.

If it is impossible (or very difficult) to find evidence, try to make sure that at least there are no rebuttals (a kind of "presumption of innocence").

Let's say we can't test some assertion. Then we will try to make sure that the statements opposite to it are not confirmed. In a similar peculiar way, "on the contrary," one frivolous person checked her feelings: "Honey! I meet other men to make sure that I truly love only you ..."

A stricter analogy with what we are talking about exists in logic. This so-called apagogic evidence(from the Greek apagōgos - diverting). The conclusion about the truth of a certain statement is made indirectly, namely, the statement that contradicts it is refuted.

Developing the principle of falsification, Popper sought to implement a more effective demarcation between scientific and non-scientific knowledge.

According to Academician Migdal, professionals, unlike amateurs, are constantly striving to refute themselves...

The same idea was expressed by Louis Pasteur: a true researcher is one who tries to "destroy" his own discovery, stubbornly testing it for strength.

So in science great importance the reliability of the facts, their representativeness, as well as the logical validity of the hypotheses and theories created on their basis are attached.

At the same time, scientific ideas include elements faith . But this is a special faith that does not lead to a transcendent, other world. It is exemplified by "taken on faith" axioms, basic principles.

I.S. Shklovsky, in his scientific bestseller book The Universe, Life, Mind, introduced a fruitful principle called the "presumption of naturalness." According to him, every open phenomenon is assumed to be automatically natural, unless the contrary is absolutely reliably proven.

Closely interrelated within science are the orientations towards believe, trust and recheck.

More often than not, scientists only believe what they can verify. Not everything can be verified by yourself. Someone double-checks, and someone trusts the one who double-checked. Reputable professional experts are most trusted.

Often "what a priori* for personality, a posteriori for the genus” (on this thesis, see Topic 16 on CSE, as well as the question on “Evolutionary Epistemology”).

How would you react to my words that I invented the “standard of invisibility”, but I can’t show it to anyone - because it is invisible.

This statement can be either true or false in a particular case. After all, not every Natasha loves every Petya. Some Natasha, perhaps, loves some Petya, but the other Petya either does not know, or is indifferent to him. Yes, and different people understand love in different ways. For some, “to love means to run into the depths of the courtyard and until the rook night, forgetting about everything, chop wood, playfully with your strength” (Vl. Mayakovsky). And for someone it is a voluntary death (“The Case of Cornet Elagin” by I.A. Bunin).

You can check the truth of the statements "Natasha received a diploma" or "Peter lost the keys." But love is a deeply internal, subjective, intimate feeling. And no "lie detector" will help to "test" love from the side of its unique inherent value for a person.