Post-non-classical synthesis of knowledge and social science

• Main Author: Anatoliy Pypych
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine. Institute of Higher Education 2020-07-01
• Series: Філософія освіти
• Subjects: specificity of social knowledge; humanities; theoretical knowledge synthesis; scientific picture of the world; paradigm; multiparadigmalmality; special and general theory of sociality
• Online Access: https://philosopheducation.com/index.php/philed/article/view/600
• ISSN: 2309-1606; 2616-7662

The author proceeds from the traditional consideration of the specifics of the social from the views of the Neo-Kantians and Dilthey on the distinction between "humanities" and "science". First of all, this difference is overcome by the synthesis of knowledge of human and nature, sociobiology being an example of that. Within non-classical and post-non-classical varieties of scientific knowledge, the tendency for theoretical synthesis is being increased. Cybernetics and synergetics are mentioned as oriented towards a new type of rationality and being essentially synthetic already in their origins. he author argues that the social knowledge, performative in its nature, obtains particular importance in the holistic world-picture. Its theoretical synthesis is difficult to achieve due to the large number of different concepts of the social, which has been designated as its multiparadigmality. According to the author, the approach to systematization proposed by sources does not contribute to solving the problem. Especially when taking into account within the world-picture the impact on the synthesis process caused not only by the knowledge of human and nature, but by technical knowledge as well. It is suggested to return to the origins of the very concept of paradigm by T. Kuhn, it's not only historical (paradigms change over time) but logical aspect as well (they are internally related). An example provided is A. Einstein's theory of relativity, where this connection of the two paradigms (both Galileo-Newton’s and Einstein's principles of relativity) constitutes a unity through the interconnection of general and special relativity. On this ground the author proposes to take the mentioned structure as a model for constructing a synthetic theory of the social, in which a special and general theory of the social would constitute a certain integrity. The first part (the special theory) would have a direct relation to human, and the second part would deal with human relations in the light of the knowledge of nature and technology (general theory of the social).