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The Scientific Representation of Reality: Its Difficulties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Extract

Material reality, constantly variable and constantly in movement, dialectic in its nature, is reflected in the sciences which at specific stages of their development possess an univocal form: the results of knowledge are expressed in a language which uses terminology and symbolism, its ideas and its statements have a precise and definite sense.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1967 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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Footnotes

*

The author based this article on his, Problems of General Methodology of the Sciences and of Dialectical Logic (to be published soon).

References

1 It is known that similar problems in connection with difficulties of identification of the object with itself have already been formulated, for the first time, in the history of West-Europe philosophy by Heraclitus of Ephesus.

2 Lenin, Vol. 38, page 255.

3 Here, we will examine the so-called traditional method of representing reality. We will not touch upon "not-classical" methods of this representation, in terms of cybernetical processes for modeling complicated dynamical systems.

4 Talking of this, Euclid, in his Principles, had clearly formulated in the form of axioms of such situations, the situations without an obvious "attribute"; in order to accept them it would have been necessary to agree upon them from the beginning.

5 The example has been taken from Einstein's and L. Infeld's work: The Evolution of Physics. Literary technical and theoretical Editions - 1956 - pages 42 & 43.

6 For details concerning the process of idealization, see Abstraction Problems and Formation of Concepts by Gorsky, 1961. Ch. VIII.

7 Joukovsky, Theoretical Mechanics (State Technical Editions. 1952, p. 12).

8 S.A. Iakovskaya, Avant-garde Ideas by N.I. Lobatchevsky: Materials to combat Idealism in Mathematics, URSS, 1960, pages 5-6.

9 S.A. Iakovskaya, Zeno of Elea, in Philosophical Encyclopedia, tome 2, 1962, page 173.