One of the most visible features of contemporary political science, seen also in other social sciences are theoretical problems. They are nothing in this group of scietific disciplines. But new is ...their form. In second half of 20th century clasical scientific orientations as functionalism, structuralism, institutionalism, behaviouralism or system theory became the subject of critique of many social scientists. But in last decade of that century appeared renewed interest in those orientations of social thought. This article contains an analysis of Talcott Parsons view on social theory. The American sociologist during almost fifty years of scientific activity tried to build that, what he called general social theory. His concept of theory is very specific. Parsons understood it as a collection of logically interdependent generalized concepts of empirical sense. That means that theory is a conceptual outline. The bases of theory are analitycally understood facts, which have sense only in the frames of reference including: goals, means, resources, conditions, social norms, time and situation. Theory is for him a hierarchical category. It includes scientific results of different levels of generality. On the most general level he situated general theory. On next we have motivation theory. On third are comparative analyses of social structure. Fourth consists of particular theories. On the last level of theoretical systematization are relations between theory an research procedures.
In Poland political science has recently been classified as a part of the branch of social sciences. The aim of this paper is not to question the reasons behind such a categorization as the relation ...of political science (along with such disciplines al legal sciences and sociology) to social sciences is something obvious. However, I claim that it is worthwhile to reassess the arguments that provide for including political science also in the humanities. In addition to the tradition, the solutions adopted by other countries, and the Polish legal experiences, one should take into account an important research conducted by those political scientists who deal with history of political thought and contemporary political philosophy.
Artykuł komentuje słynny referat Borisa Hessena „Społeczne i ekonomiczne korzenie Principiów Newtona” przedstawiony podczas II Międzynarodowego Kongresu Historii Nauki i Techniki w Londynie w 1931 r. ...Komentarz ten czyniony jest w świetle rozważań z metodologii historiografii nauki, w tym autorskich idei hermeneutyki badawczej i hermeneutyki badawczej historiografii nauki, biografii Borisa Hessena, historii historiografii nauki, historii nauki oraz historii naukoznawstwa. Artykuł syntetycznie przedstawia hermeneutykę badawczą Hessena i wskazuje jej zasadnicze wady. Opisuje recepcję referatu Hessena na Zachodzie: zarówno szerzej znaną pozytywną recepcję (bernaliści i ich następcy, m.in. zwolennicy marksistowskich badań nauki i społecznej historii nauki), jak i o wiele mniej znaną negatywną recepcję (członkowie (Brytyjskiego) Towarzystwa na rzecz Wolności w Nauce, członkowie Harvardzkiej grupy J.B. Conanta Kształcenia Ogólnego z Zakresu Nauk Empirycznych).Przedstawia także zmienne losy recepcji myśli Hessena w ZSSR i Rosji w latach 1930–2020.Wskazuje również różne historiograficzne mity związane z „Borisem Hessenem”, w tym mit jakoby polskie naukoznawstwo powstało później lub w tym samym czasie co rosyjskie naukovedenie. Ułomność hermeneutyki badawczej Hessena, z jednej strony, i recepcja jego poglądów na Zachodzie oraz w ZSSR i w Rosji od lat 30. XX wieku do lat 20. XXI wieku, w tym mity historiograficzne związane z Hessenem, z drugiej strony, pokazują jak paradoksalna może być historia historiografii nauki i dowodzą konieczności pielęgnowania zdolności krytycznego myślenia wśród badaczy interpretujących naukę (historyków nauki, filozofów nauki, socjologów wiedzy naukowej itp.).The article comments on the famous paper by Boris Hessen “The Social and Economic Roots of Newton’s Principia” presented at the Second International Congress on the History of Science and Technology in London in 1931.The comments are made in the light of considerations on the methodology of the historiography of science, including the author’s ideas of research hermeneutics and the research hermeneutics of the historiography of science, the biography of Boris Hessen, the history of scientific historiography, the history of science and the history of science-of-science.The article synthetically presents Hessen’s research hermeneutics and points to its fundamental disadvantages. It describes the reception of Hessen’s paper in the West: both the more widely known positive reception (of Bernalists and their successors, including supporters of Marxist studies of science and the social history of science), and the much less known negative reception (members of the (British) Society for Freedom in Science, members of the Harvard group of J. B. Conant of General Education in Science).The article also presents the changing fate of the reception of Hessen’s thoughts in the USSR and Russia in the years 1930–2020.Additionally, it indicates various historiographic myths related to “Boris Hessen”, including the myth that the Polish science-of-science (Polish: naukoznawstwo) emerged later or at the same time as Russian science-of-science (Russian: науковедение, naukovedenie).The defectiveness of Hessen’s research hermeneutics on the one hand, and on the other hand the reception of his views in the West and in the USSR and Russia from the 1930s to the 2020s, including the various historiographic myths related to Hessen, show how paradoxical the history of the historiography of science can be, and demonstrate the need to cultivate the skills of critical thinking among researchers interpreting science (i.e. historians of science, philosophers of science, sociologists of scientific knowledge, etc.).
Both our understanding of the term “science”, and that which it is employed to refer to, have undergone significant changes over the centuries. The 20th century, in particular, has seen important ...transformations within science and, in consequence, heated debate. One important transformation, rarely noticed by philosophers of science, has been the emergence of large-scale research projects of the sort often referred to as “big science”. Such projects require science to be organized, and function, in quite new ways. Their influence upon science, construed as an activity and an institution, has been very great indeed - as has been their impact on our understanding of what it is that such activities ultimately produce (theories, hypotheses). The aim of this article is to identify and spell out the philosophical aspects of this scenario as it pertains to science. I begin with an outline of the historical development of big science. Then, with reference to other scholars, I try to establish a definition of it. I briefly point to some developments in 20th century philosophy of science, and argue for the need to construct a distinctive philosophy of big science itself. The latter, I claim, should construe the philosophy of science in terms broad enough to be adequate for the analysis of a number of issues emerging in the context of the most developed branches of the natural sciences. I review a selection of these issues in the last part of my article.
Naszkicowano szósty etap rozwijania czasopisma Studia Historiae Scientiarum (wcześniejsza nazwa Prace Komisji Historii Nauki PAU). Podano informacje o uzyskanym przez czasopismo wyróżnieniu w ramach ...ministerialnego programu „Wsparcie dla czasopism naukowych 2019–2020” (w kwietniu 2019 r.), ewaluacji czasopisma w „ICI Master Journal List 2017” (opublikowanej u końca 2018 r.) i „Wykazie czasopism MNiSW 2019” (opublikowanym 31 lipca 2019 r.), indeksacji czasopisma w bazie Scopus (od września 2019 r.), wdrożeniu usługi Similarity Check (Crossref), pracach nad aktualizacją strony internetowej czasopisma w OJS (3.1.2.1) oraz liczbie zagranicznych autorów i recenzentów bieżącego tomu czasopisma.
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