Publication Details

Abstract

In his study, the author deals with the problem of scientific practice from the gnoseological point of view. He understands it to be a primary, sensorial contact of the subject with the object, with the aim to gain intuitive cognition about reality, subjected to further, theoretical elaboration. Subsequently theory is verified by practice. However, in the history of sciences, particularly of natural science, contact of the subject with the object has different standards, according to whether and to what measure it makes use of devices. In the view of the author, devices are to be considered as something like an extension of the senses the task of which is to attenuate the different physiological deficiencies of the senses themselves. Depending on the quantity and quality of the devices senses penetrate more or less widely and deeply into reality, and reflect it more or less accurately. In this connexion the ideal aim is to achieve reality to be perceived by the subject to full extent quantitatively and with a full accuracy qualitatively, i. e., to achieve a perfect reflection of reality. However, neither devices do remove the specificity of sensorial perception since they themselves are specific; they reproduce the events cognized in their own way, without, however, participating in them. Hence, perception never equals to what has been perceived, or in other words, experience does not equal to the object investigated but is always more or less its distortion. Hence, experience is a synthesis of the subjective and objective. Making devices more perfect their participation in the reproduction of the object gets reduced, and thus also the specificity of senses is subjected to reduction, i. e., the reflection of the object in the subject becomes increasingly perfect.