The role of subjectivity in scientific knowledge

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Today there is a lot of talk about the role of subjectivity in politics, emphasizing the qualitative novelty of the approaches proposed in this case. What is the role of subjectivity in science? Is it limited to a simple influence on the form of "discovered" laws, or is its influence deeper and extends, for example, to the essence of the phenomena under study?

Before discussing this issue, let us clarify the meaning of the concepts of subjectivity and scientificness. Let's start by pointing out the need to distinguish subjectivity from subjectivity. Both concepts characterize the opposition "subject" - "object", but reflect qualitatively different aspects of it. In the context of the issue under discussion, subjectivity is understood as a subject's attitude to something devoid of objectivity. The concept of subjectivity, on the other hand, presupposes behavior that is consistent with the nature of the object, moreover, such that results in an active, creative activity to transform it. The constructive, including the creative nature of such activity fundamentally distinguishes the effect of the subject on the object from the effect that the object is capable of producing in the process of its interaction with something.

Characterizing the concept of scientific character, let us point out its fundamental feature, which underlies the so-called scientific approach to the process of knowing the nature of things. If we have in mind the natural sciences, that is, the field of cognitive activity, the key component of which is experience, then the formation of a special type of reality, in particular, physical reality, characterized by the properties of stability, repeatability and reproducibility, should be recognized as such a sign.

Indeed, the fixation of precisely these properties in the events and phenomena of the reality around us is, as is known, the central task of all experience. This task is generated by the awareness of the fact of a tragic collision in the form of the need to protect the constant of our individual existence, on the one hand, and the variability, fluidity, instability of the external world, on the other. The world in which we are immersed, opposing all constancy, seeks to drag us into its changing stream and force us to merge with it, in order to eventually destroy us. We are looking for a way to resist this destructive impact, and for this purpose we begin to ourselves try to influence the world around us. Thus, we enter into interaction with him, but not arbitrary, not disorderly, but directed by the named goal. , which eventually gives rise to the desired remedy.

This means is the ordering of everything that falls into the sphere of our senses and their material continuation - instruments and devices. In the course of this ordering, we build a kind of "house" for ourselves, fencing off with its walls from the destructive influence from the outside. These "walls" are built of those stable "things for us" into which "things for themselves" turn in the process of a special type of organizing activity - cognitive activity. Conditioned by our subjectivity and manifested in the form of experience, it forms a boundary that divides the world we are aware of into reality lying on this side of experience ("things for us") and reality lying on the other side of experience ("things for ourselves").

To the reality that lies on this side of experience, we refer to what we see, hear and touch through the senses or discover with the help of special devices, if these perceived and observed phenomena can be contained, clothed in a stable form and, if necessary, reproduced. We recognize any phenomenon of this kind when we meet again with him or meet with his double. The repetition of the observed phenomenon is interpreted by us as a manifestation of temporal stability, that is, the self-identity of the corresponding event or object, the sameness of the totality of phenomena - as a phenomenon of their spatial identity.

Both phenomena - the repetition and non-unity of phenomena - make it possible to predict these phenomena and usage them as the aforementioned "building material", which turns them into objects of experience. Objects of experience exist for us in two forms - actual and potential. The former we call facts of experience. The latter are referred to as unknown phenomena. Together, they form what we call "the reality that lies on this side of experience."

What, then, should be attributed to the "reality that lies on the other side of experience"? At first glance, everything that can be characterized by the properties of variability, uniqueness, irreproducibility and, as a consequence, unpredictability, that is, properties opposite to those that were called above. However, the listed "negative" properties and the phenomena that possess them also refer to experimental facts, and, therefore, should lie on this side of the discussed border. This becomes clear if we take into account the existence of another experimental fact - the relativity of the "positive" and, therefore, "negative" properties of any phenomena of reality. Any reproducibility exists only up to a certain set of inessential attributes, the set of which is set by the nature of the practical use of the corresponding fragment of reality. The same objects or events manifest themselves as stable and predictable phenomena in relation to one purpose of use, and are devoid of these properties in relation to another. That is, the key here is context of use of the phenomenon, which can change, and with it the status of the observed phenomenon will change. But the very fact of its observability will remain unchanged. Consequently, if a regular ("predictable") event becomes random ("unpredictable"), then it nevertheless remains a phenomenon in the form of predictable "unpredictability".

So, since any manifestations of repetition and non-unity are relative, in so far as all events that manifest themselves in experience as unpredictable and random, also refer to the reality lying on this side of experience. The main thing is that they are found in experience, that is, they are observable. And since the division of all observed events into predictable and random is relative, insofar as any properties of everything that falls into the sphere of experience are also relative.

In this case, is there an opportunity to introduce into the drawn "picture of the world" the idea of the existence of absolute properties? Yes, there is, and not just a possibility, but a fundamental necessity. It is dictated by that classical (two-valued) logic, according to the laws of which any consistent system of inferences functions, including this text. By virtue of these laws, the relative cannot be conceived without the existence of the absolute, just as the observed cannot be conceived without the existence of the unobservable. Each of these concepts "works" only in conjunction with its antagonist. As long as this is so, then in our "picture of the world", along with the "reality lying on this side of experience", it is necessary to include its antipode, that is, "reality lying on the other side of experience."

What should be understood by the latter? Obviously, something absolute and therefore absolutely opposite to the first. The characteristic of such an "absolute" reality should contain only negative signs and can be given in the form of a chain of the following oppositions: on this side - relative observability, on the other side - absolute unobservability, on this side - relative repeatability and reproducibility, on the other side - absolute originality and uniqueness, on this side - relative predictability, on the other - absolute unpredictability, on this side - relative usability, on the other side - absolute unuse, etc.

This whole chain of negative characteristics follows from the main thing - the absolute inexperience reality beyond experience. Interpreting this out-of-experience as being unable to fit into the framework of any kind of experience, we come to the idea of the super-complexity of any out-of-experience event, which is contrasted with the observability of properties and the limited information about them, inherent in objects and events of reality lying on this side of experience. In mathematical language, such visibility, comprehension by experience is described by the property of limited information.

So, experience does not divide the world into two types of reality. Physical reality is a subdomain of one of them, namely the reality lying on this side of experience, and is formed by a special type of repeated and reproducible phenomena, combined into a group of so-called physical phenomena.

Physical phenomena are discovered and formed in the course of the so-called physical experience, carried out with the help of special physical devices and instruments. At the same time, the specificity of experience does not negate the fundamental features and properties of the reality containing them and, first of all, the properties conditionality of use … This property is key for all phenomena of physical reality, and it is this property, as it is easy to see, that determines the specific content of experience and the physical phenomenon behind it.

Indeed, a natural phenomenon can be attributed to the category of physical phenomena (i.e., not just natural phenomena, but objects described by theory) only insofar as it is reproducible. But the reproducibility property of any phenomenon, as already emphasized above, is always relative - one can speak about it only up to the inessential signs of this phenomenon. The selection of these features, on the one hand, forms the specific content of the experience, and, on the other, is feasible only in the context of one or another use of the phenomenon under consideration. It is in relation to the planned use of a physical phenomenon that its features can be divided into “essential”, reproducibly recorded in the experiment, and “insignificant”, carried out beyond the resolution of its instrumental means. In the course of such a division, the essence of the observed physical phenomenon is revealed, which, thereby, a) is mediated by the resolving power of the experimental tools and b) is relative to the purpose and means of using the phenomenon.

The concepts of physical reality, physical phenomenon and the essence of a physical phenomenon formulated here are based on the non-formalized evidence of our consciousness, but at the same time form a formally consistent construction, from which the fundamental conclusion follows with logical immutability: everything that lies beyond the fundamental capabilities of real experience has no physical meaning.

It is not difficult to see that the concepts of physical reality and the essence of physical phenomena, arising from the above, contradict the ideal of scientific character, which is accepted in modern science. Namely, they contradict the object interpretation of physical reality, within the framework of which everything that falls into the sphere of scientific experience is thought of exclusively in the form of an “object”. In other words, it breaks away from the concrete certainty of the acts of measurement and, thereby, is interpreted as something absolutely independent of the cognitive activity of the subject of experience.

For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that ignoring the opposition "objectivity" - "objectivity", which is valid within the framework of the theory of macroscopic phenomena, was criticized with the advent of quantum mechanics. The phenomena of the microworld did not fit into the Procrustean bed of the object approach and required going beyond its framework. However, the necessary revision of the methodological foundations of physics did not happen. Consistent movement in this direction required a radical revision of ideas about the nature of human cognitive activity, for which the scientific community was not ready.

Above, we have already touched upon the fundamental conclusion that has to be made with a consistent revision of the modern ideal of scientificity: the essence of physical phenomena is inseparable from the cognitive activity of the subject of experience. An analysis of the content of this activity forces us to admit that along with the opposition "objectivity" - "objectivity" the opposition "subjectivity" - "subjectivity" plays an equally important role. In other words, the process of scientific cognition of nature includes the phenomenon of subjectivity as the most important factor, and in the quality that was partially explained above, and which, therefore, implies a certain "co-creation" with a certain ordering (negentropic) principle of nature.

The discussion of the issue raised here could not be considered positive without proper confirmation of its relevance. The absence of such confirmation devalues any reasoning and reasoning that is logically irreproachable, but abstract. Moreover, this is true in relation to statements affecting the worldview (including epistemological, as in the case under consideration) constructions of scientific consciousness. For them, the leading role is played by purely practical, and not abstractly theoretical criteria and arguments.

In particular, we have already noted the role played by microphysical problems in criticizing the objectivist approach to physical reality. In practical terms, it was about the need to take into account the phenomenon of uncontrolled energy impact of the recording device on the object of experience. Since the middle of the last century, in connection with the introduction of digital computing means into scientific practice, on the one hand, and the development of information technologies, on the other, one more problem has come to be realized: the need to take into account the phenomenon of uncontrolled information the impact of the device on the observed (within the framework of appropriate use) experimental object. This problem, also known as the problem of rejecting the idealization of the infinitely large resolving power of the instrumental means of experience, put on the agenda the need to comprehend, along with the opposition "objectivity" - "objectivity", the opposition "subjectivity" - "subjectivity". Taking into account the latter, the quantum-mechanical concept of the categorical nature of the elements of physical reality was modified to the statement: the elements of physical reality are not thought of in isolation from measuring procedures, means of observation and purpose of use these elements. This meant that the physical phenomenon, along with the physical itself, was endowed with information content, which, in turn, had not only a quantitative but also a value aspect, set by the purpose of using information.

The presence of a value content in real experience turns it into a product of the unity of two principles: objective and subjective. At the same time, the theoretical description of such an experience requires a radical restructuring of the conceptual and calculation apparatus of the existing physical theory. In the monograph “Petrov VV Fundamentals of interval mechanics. Part I. - Nizhny Novgorod, 2017 (the monograph is posted on the site, a variant of such a restructuring is proposed. The monograph discusses in detail the methodological and historical prerequisites of this restructuring and provides a rationale for the theory developed in it.

V. V. Petrov