Introduction to Philosophy of Science

This lecture audio course is a kind of introductory overview of the philosophy of science—a compressed introduction to it.

Science is considered in three aspects, in three forms: as a social institution, as a specific kind of activity, and as a certain system of knowledge. An historical overview of the development of science is provided, along with features of how science developed in the pre-classical, classical, and post-classical periods. The most significant individuals who contributed greatly to the formation of the philosophy of science are used for consideration—Schlick, Popper, Feyerabend, Kuhn, Lakatos, Toulmin, Polanyi. Important concepts such as rationality, the scientific method, paradigm, cumulativism and anticumulativism, externalism and internalism, the subject of science, scientism and anti-scientism are analyzed. The important role and the necessity of creating an adequate language of science are emphasized. The material presented here, it is hoped, may be useful for those who study philosophy, gnoseology, epistemology—as well as for those engaged in self-education and who want to broaden and deepen their knowledge of all the problems and questions addressed here.