Methodology of Scientific and Project Activities. Учебное пособие для обучающихся в магистратуре

and processes. The difference, therefore, is not in the object composition, but in the nature of the representation of the objects under study. At the empirical level, there is interaction with objects, contact of the cognizing subject with the surrounding reality. There is only a primary systematization of knowledge. Theoretical knowledge is aimed at identifying the essential relationships of any object, the laws that the existence and functioning of this object is subjected to. There is no practical interaction with the object of reality. At the theoretical level, there is a rational processing of empirical knowledge, their ordering with the help of categories, concepts, laws, principles, abstractions. A theoretical object is formed at the theoretical level.

The third criterion is based on the research methods used. At each level of scientific knowledge, specific methods are used. They allow you to achieve goals and solve problems that are set at this level. The empirical level is also characterized by empirical methodology. It includes a number of methods. Among them is a description aimed at an objective reflection of the studied objects, phenomena, and processes. First of all, this reflection must not have subjective layers. Empirical methods also include observation, measurement, experiment, and a number of other methods. At the theoretical level, other techniques and methods of science are used. They are closely related to thinking. The most important techniques are idealization, abstraction, deduction, etc. Methods of theoretical knowledge include the hypothetical-deductive method, axiomatic method, idealization, thought experiment, comparative analysis and others.

The above three criteria – by the subject of research, by means of knowledge used, and by research methods used-allow us to distinguish between the empirical and theoretical levels of science. However, this distinction does not mean that these levels are separated from each other. On the contrary, within the framework of real scientific research, the levels of scientific knowledge are closely interrelated and interact. Their separation is a scientific abstraction carried out in philosophy to study the essence and specifics of science itself. This is confirmed, for example, by the fact that the empirical fact is theoretically «loaded». The scientific description of the stone «malachite», which will make a mineralogist, is based on their theoretical knowledge about it. It will be strikingly different from the «description» of the same object that any amateur can make. The situation with the experiment is even more complicated: a scientist needs a huge stock of theoretical knowledge. It is necessary to understand the General laws of the discipline for example, physics, which allows you to connect measuring devices in an electrical circuit, to having your own hypothesis.

Scientific fact. Any scientific research begins with collection, systematization and generalization of facts.

Fact (Latin: factum – done, accomplished) refers to empirical

knowledge.

In scientific knowledge, the totality of facts forms the empirical basis for hypotheses and theories. The task of scientific theory is to describe facts, explain them, and predict previously unknown facts. In turn, facts play an important role in verifying, confirming, and refuting theories: compliance with facts is one of the essential requirements for a scientific theory.

Thus, a scientific fact, having a theoretical context retains its autonomy in relation to the theory, since its content does not depend on theory. Due to this relative independence, facts can contradict theory and stimulate the development of scientific knowledge.

To solve a scientific problem, a hypothesis is put forward. It is a form of theoretical knowledge containing an assumption formulated on the basis of a number of facts, the true meaning of which is uncertain and needs proof.

A hypothesis (gr. Hypothesis – basis, assumption) is a scientific

assumption that is the subject to verification, as a result of which its

truth or falsity is established.

There is a hypothesis as a method of developing scientific knowledge, which includes the promotion and subsequent experimental verification of assumptions, and the hypothesis as a structural element of scientific theory.

falsifiability provides a relatively discontinuous nature of the development of scientific knowledge. The verifiability of any hypothesis allows to establish and verify it with respect to its empirical content. The greatest heuristic value is the confirmation of such facts and experimental laws, the existence of which could not have been assumed before the tested hypothesis was put forward.

The most complex and developed form of scientific knowledge, which gives a holistic representation of the natural and essential connections of a certain area of reality, is theory.

Theory (gr. Theórίa – observation, research) is a form of organized

In modern methodology of science, the following main components of the

Scientific laws represent the core of scientific theory. It is a form of organization of scientific knowledge that represents universal statements about the properties and relationships of a particular subject area. Scientific laws reflect the internal, stable, recurring, essential, necessary, objective connection of phenomena.