The article raises the problem of disciplinary differentiation of modern sciences and the question of whether their taxonomic and structural diversity corresponds to the actual differentiation of levels and kinds of nature that exist objectively in their autonomy? Or do the disciplines themselves constitute their own domains in the continuous and integral body of nature? In search of a solution to this dilemma, it is proposed to consider science as a communicative system, where each statement (publication) is defined in subject, (...) social and temporal dimensions. These communicative dimensions are proposed to be considered as principles of differentiation of scientific disciplines with the function of “breaker of natural continuity”. Accordingly, I distinguish (1) fundamental sciences oriented subject-wise; (2) disciplines oriented to external (social) requests from communicative systems adjacent to science, as well as disciplines crystallizing in response to epochal challenges of the time. It is substantiated that this kind of cognitive isolation of scientific domains is accompanied by an opposite – integrative – tendency. The latter is associated, firstly, with the socio-structural and socio-normative requirements of the scientific and educational functions of science, enshrined in the social structures of faculties and departments. Secondly, it is derived from the continuous, holistic and hierarchically organized external world of nature, which does not allow for sharp breaks and interruptions. (shrink)

Real notion is distinct from nominal one and connected with objective borderlines and essential properties of objects. Do scientists know the real natural kinds or produce schemas and concepts in theories from constructive activity of imagination and, therefore, group objects by pragmatic means of language, rather than in accordance to world structure? Does the differentiation of sciences follow the orders of things or is it influenced by the social and communicative nature of science? Can we mix a sort of constructivism (...) and realism in epistemology? The classification of sciences made by A.Yu. Antonovski is discussed in the following article, and it is explained what are natural and other kinds from the viewpoint of referential potential theory by P. Kitcher, P.K. Stanford and others. (shrink)

The article explores the genesis and nature of number from the perspective of psychologism, an epistemological trend. It formulates a series of questions aimed at reexamining our understanding of number: What is the mode of existence of number? In what forms or formations does number exist, and what reality serves as its natural “carrier”? Is it justified, following realism, to regard number as an entity independent of human beings? What reasoning challenges the human-independent status of number – a stance embraced (...) by many successful mathematicians – given that this status overlooks key questions about the nature of number? To what extent can it be argued that the phenomenon of number is shaped, among other factors, by the mental and bodily organization of humans, as well as by the cultural characteristics of society? The article draws on recent research in cultural and social neuroscience, which supports the relevance of psychologism as a framework for addressing many questions in the philosophy of mathematics. It also engages with Ian Hacking’s idea of “making up reality” to further illuminate the discussion. Ultimately, the nature and origin of number are defined as abstract mental constructions arising from human cognitive activity. These constructions emerge and are effectively utilized through the interaction and representational procedures of diverse elements and traits within a given cognitive system. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to analyze Hilary Putnam’s philosophy of mind. The early and late periods of the philosopher's work are analyzed to identify the key ideas of Putnam’s philosophy of mind in each. The early period is characterized by the development of a functionalist approach to the interpretation of mental states. According to functionalism, mental states must be explained in terms of their functions. The turning point that defined the division into early and late periods of Putnam’s (...) philosophy of mind was the philosopher’s concept of semantic externalism, according to which the content of mental states is determined by external factors. The externalist conclusions ran counter to the individualist ideas of functionalism, which is why the philosopher became one of the main critics of the movement he was at the origin of. However, it cannot be said that the rupture was final. The late period is characterized by a shift away from treating mental states as independent of the external world. Another feature of the late period is the philosopher’s focus on the problem of perception, which develops an approach called “transactionalism”. A distinctive feature of transactionalism is the attempt to reconcile phenomenalism and the idea of qualia with naive realism. It concludes with an attempt to reflect on the paradigmatic significance of the evolution of Putnam’s ideas. It is concluded that the methodological lesson to be drawn from the analysis of Putnam’s evolution, his critical analysis and self-criticism will reveal the contradictions of contemporary philosophical discussions. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to analyze Hilary Putnam’s philosophy of mind. The early and late periods of the philosopher's work are analyzed to identify the key ideas of Putnam’s philosophy of mind in each. The early period is characterized by the development of a functionalist approach to the interpretation of mental states. According to functionalism, mental states must be explained in terms of their functions. The turning point that defined the division into early and late periods of Putnam’s (...) philosophy of mind was the philosopher’s concept of semantic externalism, according to which the content of mental states is determined by external factors. The externalist conclusions ran counter to the individualist ideas of functionalism, which is why the philosopher became one of the main critics of the movement he was at the origin of. However, it cannot be said that the rupture was final. The late period is characterized by a shift away from treating mental states as independent of the external world. Another feature of the late period is the philosopher’s focus on the problem of perception, which develops an approach called “transactionalism”. A distinctive feature of transactionalism is the attempt to reconcile phenomenalism and the idea of qualia with naive realism. It concludes with an attempt to reflect on the paradigmatic significance of the evolution of Putnam’s ideas. It is concluded that the methodological lesson to be drawn from the analysis of Putnam’s evolution, his critical analysis and self-criticism will reveal the contradictions of contemporary philosophical discussions. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the description of the differences in the conceptualization of space observed in informants, large language models and computer vision models capable of generating a text describing what they “saw”. We use the concept of a cognitive agent and substantiate the distinction between “natural vs artificial cognitive agent”: the first is understood as a person, the second is an AI model capable of making decisions and performing tasks adequately in a given situation. The aim of the (...) study is to compare the ways of understanding the location of an object in space in natural cognitive agents and artificial cognitive agents of two types: large language models and models created for Image to Text task. The main methods are the method of linguistic experiment and the method of semantic description based on the theory of topological semantics by L. Talmi. As an incentive material, six paintings from the collection of the State Hermitage Museum were used, divided into three groups: portraits, monofigure paintings on mythological or religious themes, and multifigure compositions. The participants of the experiments were: 63 informants (Mean age = 19.1, 48 females, 15 males), 5 LLMs, 6 Image to Text models based on computer vision technology and capable of generating descriptions of recognized images in English. Using the typology of configurational topological schemes and “figure – background” type schemes, we compared the ways of understanding space that the models rely on. As a result, we have formulated a number of conclusions, the most important of which is that natural cognitive agents differ from artificial cognitive agents in its ability to integrate the process of conceptualization of an object in space into other cognitive processes: entity recognition and categorization, attention mechanisms, awareness of cause-and-effect relationships. Artificial cognitive agents are only learning such integrativity and mutual coordination, for example, when generative models conceptualize those objects in which they are not sure, since these are products of hallucination, as objects with fuzzy boundaries, and Image to Text models combine into a single heterogeneous human object and the most striking original detail of its environment, because they “believe” that this is the most important thing for description tasks. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the consideration of the communicative classification of science proposed by Alexander Antonovski. Its key feature is an attempt to avoid referring to the concept of natural kinds as a basis for constructing the classification. It is shown that despite the desire to get rid of this idea, it is present in it. At the same time, the presentation of natural kinds of individual disciplines as thematizations of the research field, around which it is formed, allows (...) us to avoid referring to this concept. This allows us to consider research areas as large scientific domains, which in the process of communication between scientists are gradually concretized and transformed into separate scientific disciplines. In this case, the development of scientific knowledge becomes a process of formation and expansion of communication both between scientists and between scientists and society. In our opinion, such clarification allows us to make the concept of classification of sciences based on communication processes more transparent. (shrink)

The contradictions inherent in the corporate status of a university scientist are being studied. In higher education institutions, employees who are intensively engaged in scientific work make up about a fifth of the teaching staff. The situational study conducted by the author showed that, expressing its attitude towards scientists in its environment, the scientific and educational community is more focused on conditional corporate principles than on encouraging scientific achievements, despite the fact that the latter are important indicators for evaluating the (...) effectiveness of the university. It was found that this trend manifests itself more clearly in humanitarian and pedagogical universities (in comparison with classical and technical universities). At the same time, the visible differences between the capitals and the regions are not recorded. The line between the ethos of science and the corporate culture of the scientific and educational community is revealed. Under these conditions, the ambivalence inherent in the ethos of science (R. Merton) acquires new characteristics. Two main contradictions are highlighted. Firstly, despite the fact that science and education form an external integrity within the same corporate culture, they often find themselves opposed to each other within the community. Secondly, within the corporate scientific and educational culture, a scientist, being at the same time a teacher, is subject to an internal professional and role conflict between belonging to a group (the majority of whose members are not engaged in science) and scientific self-realization. (shrink)

This response article to A.Yu. Antonovsky and T.D. Sokolova’s work, “Types of Nature and Communicative Dimensions of Disciplinary Differentiation”, challenges the foundational assumption of their article that it is possible to analyze science as a “whole” entity, which can then be divided into separate disciplines based on communicative criteria. The response argues that science cannot be neatly “cut into parts” and instead proposes an alternative concept that prioritizes the autonomy of individual disciplines before attempting to delineate boundaries between science and (...) non-science. While the communicative methodology introduced in the original article is acknowledged as useful for analyzing individual disciplines, it is deemed less effective for defining boundaries between them. The response outlines several key approaches: understanding the object of research through the fundamental principles of a discipline and hypothesizing about the specific role of the subject matter in shaping the scope of the discipline. It is argued that the boundaries of a discipline are primarily determined by the underlying attitudes, theories, and methodologies that define its research object and establish criteria for truth within that field. These elements are accessible primarily to researchers within the discipline itself. In this context, the response emphasizes the importance of granting scientists themselves a central role in defining the boundaries of their discipline. By exercising their right to self-determination, researchers can actively shape and delineate the contours of their field. (shrink)

The article examines the pragmatical felicity conditions for utterances with implied meanings. Historically, in the discussion of the utterance felicity, two key approaches were formulated in the works of Wittgenstein and Austin. The first is based on the analysis of speech behavior (behaviorist), today it has developed into the theory of commitment. The second approach, refined by Paul Grice, interprets felicity through the speaker‘s intentions. The main goal of the article is to bring the advantages of Gricean analysis over the (...) behaviorist one to this category. To do this, the author focuses on the pragmatics of implied meaning within which it is possible to clearly show how the rules of success are based on the speaker’s intention. The approach being defended investigates three key types of implicit meaning: presuppositions, conventional and speech implicatures. Based on examples analysis, it is shown how the unique semantic properties of these meaning types effect on felicity of utterance. At the end of the article, a critical analysis is given, demonstrating the shortcomings and limitations of the commitment theory as an alternative to the author’s position. (shrink)

In this remark to the article by A.Yu. Antonovsky, doubts are expressed about the thesis about the separation of cognitive and normative expectations. It seems controversial to assert that the forms of presentation of scientific results depend on these types of expectations. Using the example of encyclopedic publications that became widespread in different periods of the history of philosophy and science, the epistemological attitudes of rejection of authority, openness and replenishment of knowledge are analyzed. According to the author, the basis (...) of the unity of normative and cognitive expectations in science is the authoritative component of knowledge. Science is a monopoly on authoritative reliable knowledge, distinguishing classes and categories of objects. The author emphasizes that the difference between the forms of presentation of scientific results (for example, a scientific article / encyclopedic article) lies in the goals pursued by the authors, making a choice in favor of one or another format. Keywords: normative expectations, cognitive expectations, encyclopedia, classification, open nature of knowledge, reliable knowledge, authority. (shrink)

In this paper, the author offers a phenomenological argument that we are libertarian agents: we can choose between alternative possibilities and are the sources of our actions. The author demonstrates that it is necessary to accept the evidence of experience unless there are sufficient reasons against it because otherwise, it leads to global skepticism. Further, the author considers potential objections to the argument and concludes that at this point, there is not enough evidence to reject the experience that we are (...) libertarian agents. The arguments for and against global determinism balance each other out. The scientific evidence favoring local determinism is insufficient due to flawed research design. In addition, the author demonstrates that the other arguments are against a certain type of free will theories, not against us being libertarian agents. The author concludes that the experience of libertarian agency is crucial at the current moment, but this does not mean that this will always be the case. Beyond this, it remains possible to deny that we have a phenomenological experience of libertarian agency. In addition, the author formulates a theory of free will that is based on the concept of libertarian agency and demonstrates how theories of this type deal with Frankfurt cases. (shrink)

The problem of the value of knowledge is one of the most discussed in epistemology in recent times. Why should we strive to acquire knowledge, and not just true beliefs or relevant information about the subject of our cognitive interest? It is not hard to show that knowledge has certain instrumental value; but defenders of the idea in question usually mean that knowledge is valuable regardless of its practical consequences. It is not easy to justify this position, though. Some believe (...) that knowledge is a better guide to truth than just true beliefs, or even that knowledge guarantees truth. Others try to identify intrinsic properties of knowledge which can give knowledge additional value due to having their own relevant value. Yet others deny that knowledge has special value that distinguishes it cognitively from true belief, at least universally. Many agree that it can be shown that the possession of knowledge of one kind or another is more valuable than just believing the proposition which is true. But it is much more difficult to show that knowledge is universally more valuable due to some of its own properties, rather than circumstances. But those, who talk about special value of knowledge, normally mean some intrinsic and universal value to be reflected in definition. The article examines several popular explanations of the special epistemic value of knowledge and identifies their shortcomings. The author believes that it is easier for some types of knowledge than for some others to show how knowledge is more valuable than just true belief. The most primitive as well as the most abstract types of knowledge are most often functionally indistinguishable from the corresponding true beliefs. Meanwhile, many types of knowledge have modal functional differences from the corresponding true beliefs, and it is possible to show why they may have additional epistemic value. However, in its universal form, this idea is most likely impossible to defend. (shrink)

The article examines the contemporary contradictions surrounding objectivity in the philosophy of science. On the one hand, historians and philosophers of science regard objectivity as a criterion of scientificity, a marker of scientific value, and a scientific virtue. On the other hand, they highlight its contested status, irreducible complexity, and question its continued relevance. The article proposes a framework for engaging with the concept of objectivity, one that reveals the historical problems it addresses, traces its transformations over time, and demonstrates (...) how the diversity of its meaningsas well as doubts about its significanceremain relevant today. This approach bridges the philosophy of science and historical epistemology while also illustrating the growing community of stakeholders invested in preserving objectivity. In this analysis, objectivity is explored in three key dimensions. First, it is examined in its origins as a concept that addresses the problem of connecting the elements of cognition, emphasizing its mediating function. Second, objectivity is interpreted as a regulative ideal, the pursuit of which seeks to overcome the subjectivity of the knower. Third, it is analyzed in its historicity, understood as its capacity to renew itself in response to evolving challenges. The article identifies the weakness of the concept, which leads to skepticism about objectivity, as its tendency to devolve into objectivism. Conversely, its strength lies in its potential to engage the modern scientific community and researchers of science, particularly through interpretations that do not seek to eliminate subjectivity but rather to expand its boundaries. (shrink)