Vladimir Kuznetsov

By specific theories, we mean scientific theories that focus on particular types of material reality or phenomena, such as elementary particles, plasma, superconducting materials, quantum tunnelling, chemical reactions, gene regulation, tectonic plate movement, and the Universe. After examining various visions of the theory division into components proposed by some of the prominent scientists (Isaak Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, Pierre Maurice Marie Duhem, Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, Albert Einstein, Norman Robert Campbel, Percy Williams Bridgman, and Gerardus (Gerard) ’t Hooft) and philosophers of science (Carl/Karl Raimund Popper, Thomas Samuel Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Paul Karl Feyerabend, Mario Augusto Bunge, Ronald Nelson Giere, Joseph Donald Sneed, Wolfgang Balzer, and Carlos Ulises Moulines), one finds that these visions fail to consider all essential components and omit many important details, even of the chosen components. Incomplete and undifferentiated visions, on the one hand, overlook many critical features of a theory, including its development and connections with other theories. On the other hand, such visions often generate pseudo-problems, such as the incomparability of classical and quantum theories. As theories underpin the modern sciences, such perspectives lead to oversimplified and overly general understandings of science and its progress. The article briefly emphasizes the significance and utility of the polysystemic vision of specific theories and their development within history, philosophy, sociology, and pedagogy of science. The first part of the article presents the types of components and physicists’ views of theories. The second part addresses the views of philosophers and our conclusions. We emphasize that in the first part, we described a bridge between Newton’s unfading template of scientific theory and the newest trends in the interpretation of modern physical theories. It is a clear example of the Western scientific tradition of both continuity and change, so that the final product looks different, but its structure remains stable, familiar, and convenient for professionals. That is why it is quite possible for a modern-day scientist to read Newton and find statements useful for his practical activity, not to talk about specific pearls created by the genius.

Any scientific theory in the natural sciences is an artificial, complex, and abstract construct, consisting of many components (ingredients, constituents, structural elements). It is developed by scientists to gain and comprehend experimentally verified new knowledge about its domain of study. It is helpful to distinguish between two meanings of the term “theory”. The application domains of specific theories include particular kinds of realities. Examples include Newton’s celestial mechanics and various classical, quantum, and quantum-relativistic theories of gases, fluids, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles (theory of atomic spectra, Bohr’s atomic theory, Planck’s quantum theory of black-body radiation, quantum theory of the hydrogen atom, quantum relativistic theory of black holes, etc.). The names of specific theories usually include the names of the types of realities they study. Abstract theories serve as general frameworks for a group of specific theories of the same kind (in particular, macroscopic, microscopic, or megascopic kinds). Examples of abstract theories are classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, and the theories of relativity, which act as common frameworks for concrete theories from classical, quantum, and quantum-relativistic physics, respectively. The article compares concepts of complex structure and development of specific theories with notions of structure and development of automobiles. Such a comparison is more useful and heuristic than analyzing theories in terms of paradigms or interdisciplinary matrices, which, in any case, are not part of scientific theories. The work employed methods of terminological and content analysis of the original text of Newton’s Principia and the comparative method. The aim is to consider Newtonian celestial mechanics as the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) of all particular specific theories. The role of Euclidean geometry as a potential LUCA for abstract theories will be explored in another article. An analysis of Newton’s Principia showed that celestial mechanics encompasses a wider range of components than physicists and philosophers of science typically consider part of a theory. Main results. Taking this theory as a prototype for all specific theories, the article demonstrates the existence of sixteen types of components within it. Components of the same type form a specific subsystem of the theory as a polysystem. In any specific scientific theory, all these subsystems together constitute an interconnected whole that is necessary but not sufficient for generating new knowledge. Conclusions. The article is of a historical-scientific and theoretical-cognitive nature, and the results obtained can be applied in research on the history and philosophy of science, as well as in the teaching of natural science disciplines.

By specific theories, we mean scientific theories that focus on particular types of material reality or phenomena, such as elementary particles, plasma, superconducting materials, quantum tunnelling, chemical reactions, gene regulation, tectonic plate movement, and the Universe. After examining various visions of the theory division into components proposed by some of the prominent scientists (Isaak Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, Pierre Maurice Marie Duhem, Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, Albert Einstein, Norman Robert Campbel, Percy Williams Bridgman, and Gerardus (Gerard) ’t Hooft) and philosophers of science (Carl/Karl Raimund Popper, Thomas Samuel Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Paul Karl Feyerabend, Mario Augusto Bunge, Ronald Nelson Giere, Joseph Donald Sneed, Wolfgang Balzer, and Carlos Ulises Moulines), one finds that these visions fail to consider all essential components and omit many important details, even of the chosen components. Incomplete and undifferentiated visions, on the one hand, overlook many critical features of a theory, including its development and connections with other theories. On the other hand, such visions often generate pseudo-problems, such as the incomparability of classical and quantum theories. As theories underpin the modern sciences, such perspectives lead to oversimplified and overly general understandings of science and its progress. The article briefly emphasizes the significance and utility of the polysystemic vision of specific theories and their development within history, philosophy, sociology, and pedagogy of science. The first part of the article presents the types of components and physicists’ views of theories. The second part addresses the views of philosophers and our conclusions. We emphasize that in the first part, we described a bridge between Newton’s unfading template of scientific theory and the newest trends in the interpretation of modern physical theories. It is a clear example of the Western scientific tradition of both continuity and change, so that the final product looks different, but its structure remains stable, familiar, and convenient for professionals. That is why it is quite possible for a modern-day scientist to read Newton and find statements useful for his practical activity, not to talk about specific pearls created by the genius.

Interview by Arina Oriekhova and Maksym Sahan with Volodymyr Kuznetsov, dedicated to the state of the Ukrainian philosophy of science in the 1960s–1980s. As all interviews from the research program of the Student Society of Oral History “Philosophy in Ukraine in the 1960s–1980s” suggest, this paper from an open-access journal is biographical in nature. However, it includes several sections of general interest. These are 1) the explanation of its title; 2) the evaluation of the current philosophy of science from the perspective of the philosophy of scientific theories; and 3) the explanation of some reasons why Western philosophers are unfamiliar with Ukrainian philosophy of science.

As a social activity, the sciences are only possible through communication among scientists themselves and between scientists and society. The article analyses natural, biological, social and ideological prerequisites of scientific communication (SC) as an ensemble of interrelated acts of scientific information exchange. A taxonomy of professional networks as a medium for SC is proposed. The need for a permanent struggle for the preservation and development of the values of both a free society and science is emphasized.

One of the vividly discussed topics in the contemporary philosophy of science (especially physics) is the opposition between realism and Anti-Realism. The supporters of the first way of thinking trust in the objective existence of realities studied by science. They consider theories as approximate descriptions of these realities (Psillos 1999, xvii), whereas their opponents do not. However, both sides base their argumentation on simplified notions of scientific theories. In this paper, we present a more general approach, which can be coined as “Theoretical Physics Realism” (TPR). It is based on the detailed reconstruction of the polysystemic nature of physical theories. The consequences of this reconstruction for understanding the genuine relationship between theories and experiments in studying the realities are indicated. The paper distinguishes between abstract (general) and domain-dependent theories and appeals to specific physical theories together with their application domains rather than to general speculations.

We analyzed remarkable stories linked to the famous Anatoly Vlasov equations in plasma physics. Their creation, modification, and application are interesting from a scientific viewpoint. We also show the relations between those equations dealing with electromagnetism and analogous Jeans equations describing, in particular, gravitational instability in astrophysics. The second half of the essay is devoted to the controversies and political struggle in Soviet (before 1991) and Russian (after 1991) physical communities related to Vlasov’s personality, career, and posthumous recognition. The never-ending destructive influence of Russian totalitarianism on science is demonstrated.

The English Synopsis is after the text of the book. The book presents an original and generalizing substantive vision of the philosophy of science through the prism of a detailed analysis of the polysystem structure of scientific theories. Theories are considered, firstly, as complex specialized forms of developed scientific thinking about the realities studied by natural science, secondly, as constantly improving tools for producing new knowledge in interaction with experimental research, and thirdly, as carriers of ordered and verified knowledge. Emphasis is placed on their nominal and ontic subsystems. The book develops personal and joint research of the authors (theoretical physicist and philosopher), the experience of teaching philosophy of physics at NaUKMA, philosophy of science at the Higher School of Philosophy at the H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and theoretical physics at the National Technical University "Ihor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute". The research is based on a significant source base covering works of modern Western researchers in natural science and philosophy of science. For students, teachers, and scientists who are interested in the problems of modern philosophy of science and have a certain amount of scientific knowledge. It will also be useful for high school students who are eager to become scientists.

Physical theories are complex and necessary tools for gaining new knowledge about their areas of application. A distinction is made between abstract and practical theories. The last are constantly being improved in the cognitive activity of professional physicists and studied by future physicists. A variant of the philosophy of physics based on a modified structural-nominative reconstruction of practical theories is proposed. Readers should decide whether this option is useful for their understanding of the philosophy of physics, as well as other philosophies of particular sciences.