“Classification of natural sciences. What sciences are called natural

1. Natural sciences - concept and subject of study 3

2. History of the birth of natural science 3

3. Patterns and features of the development of natural science 6

4. Classification natural sciences 7

5. Basic methods of natural science 9

Literature

Arutsev A.A., Ermolaev B.V., et al. Concepts of modern natural science. - M., 1999.

Matyukhin S.I., Frolenkov K.Yu. Concepts of modern natural science. - Orlov, 1999.

1. Natural sciences - the concept and subject of study

Natural science is the natural sciences or the totality of sciences about nature. On the present stage development of all sciences are divided into public or humanitarian, and natural.

The subject of study of social sciences is human society and the laws of its development, as well as phenomena, one way or another connected with human activity.

The subject of study of the natural sciences is the Nature surrounding us, that is, various types of matter, the forms and laws of their movement, their connections. The system of natural sciences, taken in their mutual connection as a whole, forms the basis of one of the main areas scientific knowledge about the World - natural sciences.

The immediate or immediate goal of natural science is knowledge of objective Truth , entity search phenomena of nature, the formulation of the basic laws of Nature, which makes it possible to foresee or create new phenomena. The ultimate goal of natural science is practical use of learned laws , forces and substances of Nature (production-applied side of knowledge).

Natural science, therefore, is the natural scientific foundation of the philosophical understanding of Nature and Man as part of this Nature, theoretical basis industry and Agriculture, technology and medicine.

1. 2. History of the birth of natural science

At the origins modern science are the ancient Greeks. More ancient knowledge has come down to us only in the form of fragments. They are unsystematic, naive and alien to us in spirit. The Greeks were the first to invent proof. Neither in Egypt, nor in Mesopotamia, nor in China such a concept existed. Maybe because all these civilizations were based on tyranny and unconditional submission to authorities. In such circumstances, even the very idea of ​​reasonable evidence seems seditious.

In Athens for the first time ever world history a republic emerged. Despite the fact that it flourished in the labor of slaves, in Ancient Greece conditions were created under which a free exchange of opinions became possible, and this led to an unprecedented flourishing of the sciences.

In the Middle Ages, the need for a rational knowledge of nature completely died out along with attempts to comprehend the destiny of man within the framework of various religious denominations. For almost ten centuries, religion has given exhaustive answers to all questions of life that were not subject to criticism or even discussion.

The writings of Euclid, the author of the geometry that is now studied in all schools, were translated into Latin and became known in Europe only in the 12th century. However, at that time they were perceived simply as a set of witty rules that had to be memorized - they were so alien to the spirit of medieval Europe, accustomed to believe, and not to seek the roots of Truth. But the volume of knowledge grew rapidly, and they could no longer be reconciled with the direction of thought of medieval minds.

The end of the Middle Ages is usually associated with the discovery of America in 1492. Some indicate an even more precise date: December 13, 1250, the day King Frederick II of Hohenstaufen died in the castle of Florentino near Lucera. Of course, such dates should not be taken seriously, but several such dates taken together create an undoubted feeling of the authenticity of the turning point that occurred in the minds of people at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries. In history, this period is called the Renaissance. Obeying the internal laws of development and for no apparent reason, Europe in just two centuries revived the rudiments of ancient knowledge, which had been forgotten for more than ten centuries and later called scientific.

During the Renaissance, people's minds turned from the desire to realize their place in the world to attempts to understand its rational structure without reference to miracles and divine revelation. At first, the coup was aristocratic in nature, but the invention of printing spread it to all strata of society. The essence of the turning point is the liberation from the pressure of authorities and the transition from the medieval faith to the knowledge of modern times.

The Church opposed the new trends in every possible way, she strictly judged philosophers who recognized that there are things true from the point of view of philosophy, but false from the point of view of faith. But the collapsed dam of faith could no longer be repaired, and the liberated spirit began to look for new ways for its development.

Already in the 13th century, the English philosopher Roger Bacon wrote: “There is a natural and imperfect experience that is not aware of its power and is not aware of its methods: it is used by artisans, not scientists ... Above all speculative knowledge and arts is the ability to produce experiments, and this science is the queen of sciences...

Philosophers must know that their science is powerless unless they apply powerful mathematics to it... It is impossible to distinguish sophism from proof without verifying the conclusion by experience and application.”

In 1440, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) wrote the book On Scientific Ignorance, in which he insisted that all knowledge about nature must be written down in numbers, and all experiments on it should be carried out with scales in hand.

However, the adoption of new views was slow. Arabic numerals, for example, came into general use already in the 10th century, but even in the 16th century, calculations were carried out everywhere not on paper, but with the help of special tokens, even less perfect than clerical accounts.

It is customary to begin the real history of natural science with Galileo and Newton. According to the same tradition, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) is considered the founder of experimental physics, and Isaac Newton (1643-1727) the founder of theoretical physics. Of course, in their time (see historical reference) there was no such division of the single science of physics into two parts, there was not even physics itself - it was called natural philosophy. But such a division has a deep meaning: it helps to understand the features of the scientific method and, in essence, is equivalent to the division of science into experience and mathematics, which was formulated by Roger Bacon.

In the history of science until the 19th century, natural and humanitarian areas were not distinguished, and scientists until that time gave preference to natural science, that is, the study of those that exist objectively. In the 19th century, the division of sciences began at universities: the humanities, which are responsible for the study of cultural, social, spiritual, moral and other types of human activity, stand out in a separate area. And everything else falls under the concept of natural science, the name of which comes from the Latin "essence".

The history of the natural sciences began about three thousand years ago, but there were no separate disciplines then - philosophers were engaged in all areas of knowledge. Only at the time of the development of navigation did the division of sciences begin: astronomy also appeared, these areas were necessary during travel. With the development of technology, and stood out in independent sections.

The principle of philosophical naturalism is applied to the study of the natural sciences: this means that the laws of nature must be investigated without mixing them with the laws of man and excluding the action of the human will. Natural science has two main goals: the first is to explore and systematize data about the world, and the second is to use the knowledge gained for practical purposes to conquer nature.

Types of natural sciences

There are basic ones that have existed as independent areas for a long time. This is physics, chemistry, geography, astronomy, geology. But often the areas of their research intersect, forming at the junctions of new sciences - biochemistry, geophysics, geochemistry, astrophysics and others.

Physics is one of the most important natural sciences modern development began with Newton's classical theory of gravity. Faraday, Maxwell and Ohm continued the development of this science, and by the XX in the field of physics, when it became known that Newtonian mechanics is limited and imperfect.

Chemistry began to develop on the basis of alchemy, its modern history begins in 1661 with Boyle's The Skeptical Chemist. Biology appeared only in the 19th century, when the distinction between living and non-living matter was finally established. Geography was formed during the search for new lands and the development of navigation, and geology stood out as a separate area thanks to Leonardo da Vinci.

System of natural science knowledge

natural science is one of the components of the system of modern scientific knowledge, which also includes complexes of technical and human sciences. Natural science is an evolving system of ordered information about the laws of motion of matter.

The objects of study of individual natural sciences, the totality of which as early as the beginning of the 20th century. bore the name of natural history, from the time of their inception to the present day they have been and remain: matter, life, man, Earth, the Universe. Accordingly, modern natural science groups the main natural sciences as follows:

• physics, chemistry, physical chemistry;
• biology, botany, zoology;
• anatomy, physiology, genetics (the doctrine of heredity);
• geology, mineralogy, paleontology, meteorology, physical geography;
• astronomy, cosmology, astrophysics, astrochemistry.

Of course, only the main natural ones are listed here, in fact modern natural science is a complex and branched complex, including hundreds of scientific disciplines. Physics alone unites a whole family of sciences (mechanics, thermodynamics, optics, electrodynamics, etc.). As the volume of scientific knowledge grew, certain sections of sciences acquired the status of scientific disciplines with their own conceptual apparatus, specific research methods, which often makes them difficult to access for specialists involved in other sections of the same, say, physics.

Such differentiation in the natural sciences (as, indeed, in science in general) is a natural and inevitable consequence of ever narrower specialization.

At the same time, counter processes also occur naturally in the development of science, in particular, natural science disciplines are formed and formed, as they often say, “at the junctions” of sciences: chemical physics, biochemistry, biophysics, biogeochemistry and many others. As a result, the boundaries that were once defined between individual scientific disciplines and their sections become very conditional, mobile and, one might say, transparent.

These processes, leading, on the one hand, to a further increase in the number of scientific disciplines, but, on the other hand, to their convergence and interpenetration, are one of the evidence of the integration of the natural sciences, which reflects the general trend in modern science.

It is here, perhaps, that it is appropriate to turn to such a scientific discipline, which, of course, has a special place as mathematics, which is a research tool and a universal language not only of the natural sciences, but also of many others - those in which quantitative patterns can be seen.

Depending on the methods underlying research, we can talk about the natural sciences:

• descriptive (exploring factual data and relationships between them);
• accurate (building mathematical models to express established facts and connections, i.e. patterns);
• applied (using the systematics and models of descriptive and exact natural sciences for the development and transformation of nature).

Nevertheless, a common generic feature of all sciences that study nature and technology is the conscious activity of professional scientists aimed at describing, explaining and predicting the behavior of the objects under study and the nature of the phenomena being studied. The humanities are distinguished by the fact that the explanation and prediction of phenomena (events) is based, as a rule, not on an explanation, but on an understanding of reality.

This is the fundamental difference between sciences that have objects of study that allow for systematic observation, multiple experimental verification and reproducible experiments, and sciences that study essentially unique, non-repeating situations that, as a rule, do not allow an exact repetition of an experiment, conducting more than once of some kind. or experiment.

Modern culture seeks to overcome the differentiation of cognition into many independent areas and disciplines, primarily the split between the natural and human sciences, which clearly emerged at the end of the 19th century. After all, the world is one in all its infinite diversity, therefore, relatively independent areas unified system human knowledge organically interconnected; difference here is transient, unity is absolute.

Nowadays, the integration of natural science knowledge has clearly been outlined, which manifests itself in many forms and becomes the most pronounced trend in its development. Increasingly, this trend is also manifested in the interaction of the natural sciences with the humanities. Evidence of this is the advancement of the principles of systemicity, self-organization and global evolutionism to the forefront of modern science, opening up the possibility of combining a wide variety of scientific knowledge into an integral and consistent system, united by common laws of evolution of objects of different nature.

There is every reason to believe that we are witnessing an ever-increasing convergence and mutual integration of the natural and human sciences. This is confirmed by the widespread use in humanitarian research, not only technical means And information technologies used in the natural and technical sciences, but also general scientific methods research developed in the process of development of natural science.

The subject of this course is the concepts related to the forms of existence and movement of living and inanimate matter, while the laws that determine the course of social phenomena are the subject of the humanities. However, it should be borne in mind that, no matter how different the natural and human sciences are, they have a generic unity, which is the logic of science. It is the submission to this logic that makes science a sphere of human activity aimed at revealing and theoretically systematizing objective knowledge about reality.

The natural-scientific picture of the world is created and modified by scientists of different nationalities, among whom are convinced atheists and believers of various faiths and denominations. However, in their professional activities, they all proceed from the fact that the world is material, that is, it exists objectively, regardless of the people who study it. Note, however, that the process of cognition itself can influence the studied objects of the material world and how a person imagines them, depending on the level of development of research tools. In addition, every scientist proceeds from the fact that the world is fundamentally cognizable.

Process scientific knowledge is a search for truth. but absolute truth in science is incomprehensible, and with each step along the path of knowledge it moves further and deeper. Thus, at each stage of cognition, scientists establish a relative truth, realizing that at the next stage knowledge will be achieved more accurate, more adequate to reality. And this is another evidence that the process of cognition is objective and inexhaustible.

natural science

In the broadest and most correct sense, under the name E. should understand the science of the structure of the universe and the laws that govern it. The aspiration and goal of E. lies in the mechanical explanation of the structure of the cosmos in all its details, within the limits of the cognizable, by the methods and methods characteristic of the exact sciences, that is, through observation, experience and mathematical calculation. Thus, everything transcendental is not included in the area of ​​E., because his philosophy revolves within a mechanical, therefore, strictly defined and delimited circle. From this point of view, all branches of E. represent 2 main departments or 2 main groups, namely:

I. General natural science explores such properties of bodies that are assigned to them all indifferently, and therefore can be called common. This includes mechanics, physics and chemistry, which are sufficiently characterized in further relevant articles. Calculation (mathematics) and experience are the main techniques in these branches of knowledge.

II. private natural science investigates the forms, structure and movement peculiar exclusively to those diverse and innumerable bodies that we call natural, with the aim of explaining the phenomena they represent with the help of the laws and conclusions of the general E. Calculation can also be applied here, but comparatively only in rare cases, although the achievement of a possible accuracy, and here it consists in the desire to reduce everything to calculation and to the solution of problems in a synthetic way. The latter has already been achieved by one of the branches of private E., namely astronomy in its department called celestial mechanics, while physical astronomy can be developed mainly with the help of observation and experience (spectral analysis), as is characteristic of all branches of private E. Thus, the following sciences belong here: astronomy (see), mineralogy in the broad sense of this expression, i.e. with the inclusion of geology (see), botany and zoology. The three finally named sciences are still named in most cases natural history, this outdated expression should be eliminated or applied only to their purely descriptive part, which, in turn, received more rational names, depending on what is actually described: minerals, plants or animals. Each of the branches of private mathematics is subdivided into several departments that have acquired independent significance because of their vastness, and most importantly, because the subjects studied have to be considered from different points of view, which, moreover, require unique techniques and methods. Each of the branches of private E. has a side morphological And dynamic. The task of morphology is the knowledge of the forms and structure of all natural bodies, the task of dynamics is the knowledge of those movements that, by their activity, caused the formation of these bodies and support their existence. Morphology, through precise descriptions and classifications, obtains conclusions that are considered laws, or rather morphological rules. These rules may be more or less general, i.e., for example, apply to plants and animals, or only to one of the kingdoms of nature. General rules with respect to all three kingdoms, no, and therefore botany and zoology constitute one common branch of E., called biology. Mineralogy, therefore, constitutes a more isolated doctrine. Morphological laws or rules become more and more specific as one goes deeper into the study of the structure and form of bodies. Thus, the presence of a bone skeleton is a law that applies only to vertebrates, the presence of seeds is a rule only for seed plants, etc. The dynamics of private E. consists of geology in an inorganic environment and from physiology- in biology. In these branches experience is mainly applied, and partly even calculation. Thus, private natural sciences can be represented in the following classification:

The degree of development, as well as the properties of the objects of study of the listed sciences themselves, were the reason that, as already mentioned, the methods used by them are very different. As a result, each of them breaks up into many separate specialties, often representing significant integrity and independence. So, in physics - optics, acoustics, etc. are studied independently, although the movements that make up the essence of these phenomena are performed according to homogeneous laws. Among the particular sciences, the oldest of them, namely, celestial mechanics, which until recently constituted almost all of astronomy, has been reduced almost exclusively to mathematics, while the physical part of this science calls for chemical (spectral) analysis to its aid. The rest of the private sciences are growing with such rapidity and have reached such an extraordinary expansion that their division into specialties is intensifying almost every decade. Yes, in

sciences studying the properties of nature and natural formations. The use of terms natural, technical, fundamental, etc. to the areas of human activity is rather conditional, since each of them has a fundamental component (studying problems on the border of our knowledge and ignorance), an applied component (studying the problems of applying acquired knowledge in practice), a natural science component (studying problems that arise or exist independently from our will). These terms are, so to speak, diatropic, i.e. describe only the core - the most feature or part of an object.

Great Definition

Incomplete definition ↓

NATURAL SCIENCES

acquired the rights of citizenship since the 18th century. the name for the totality of all sciences dealing with the study of nature. The first researchers of nature (natural philosophers) included, each in his own way, all of nature in the circle of his mental activity. The progressive development of the natural sciences and their deepening into research has led to the dismemberment, which has not yet ended, of the unified science of nature into its separate branches - depending on the subject of research or according to the principle of division of labor. The natural sciences owe their authority, on the one hand, to scientific accuracy and consistency, and, on the other hand, to their practical significance as a means of conquering nature. The main areas of the natural sciences - matter, life, man, the Earth, the Universe - allow us to group them as follows: 1) physics, chemistry, physical chemistry; 2) biology, botany, zoology; 3) anatomy, physiology, the doctrine of origin and development, the doctrine of heredity; 4) geology, mineralogy, paleontology, meteorology, geography (physical); 5) astronomy together with astrophysics and astrochemistry. Mathematics, according to a number of natural philosophers, does not belong to the natural sciences, but is a decisive tool for their thinking. In addition, among the natural sciences, depending on the method, there is the following difference: the descriptive sciences are content with the study of factual data and their relationships, which they generalize into rules and laws; exact natural sciences clothe facts and relationships in mathematical form; however, this distinction is made inconsistently. The pure science of nature is limited scientific research, applied science (medicine, agriculture and forestry, and technology in general) uses it to master and transform nature. Next to the sciences of nature are the sciences of the spirit, and philosophy unites both of them into a single science, they act as particular sciences; cf. Physical picture of the world.