Where and when did science originate? Knowledge and science. Knowledge has always existed, and science as a form of theoretical explanation of the world arose at a certain stage of historical development. Significant stages in the development of science

History is a science that studies the features of human activity in the past. It makes it possible to determine the causes of events that took place long before us and in our day. Associated with a large number of social disciplines.

History as a science has existed for at least 2500 years. Its founder is considered the Greek scientist and chronicler Herodotus. In ancient times, this science was valued and considered to be the "teacher of life." In ancient Greece, she was patronized by the goddess Clio herself, who was engaged in the glorification of people and gods.

History is not just a statement of what happened hundreds and thousands of years ago. It is not even only the study of processes and events that took place in the past. In fact, its purpose is more and deeper. It does not allow conscious people to forget the past, but all this knowledge is applicable in the present and future. This is a storehouse of ancient wisdom, as well as knowledge of sociology, military affairs, and much more. To forget the past means to forget one's culture, heritage. Also, mistakes that have ever been made should not be forgotten, so as not to repeat them in the present and future.

The word "history" is translated as "investigation". This is a very appropriate definition.

borrowed from Greek. History as a science investigates the causes of events that took place, as well as their consequences. But this definition still does not reflect the whole point. The second meaning of this term can be perceived as "a story about what happened in the past."

History as a science experienced a new upsurge in the Renaissance. In particular, the philosopher Krug finally determined her place in the system of teachings. A little later, it was corrected by the French thinker Naville. He divided all the sciences into three groups, one of which he called “History”; it was supposed to include botany, zoology, astronomy, as well as history itself as a science of the past and heritage of mankind. Over time, this classification has undergone some changes.

History as a science is concrete, it requires the presence of facts, dates attached to them, the chronology of events. However, it is closely related to a large number of other disciplines. Naturally, among the latter was psychology. In the last and the century before last, theories were developed about the development of countries and peoples, taking into account the "public consciousness" and other similar phenomena. The well-known Sigmund Freud also contributed to such doctrines. As a result of these studies, a new term appeared - psychohistory. The science expressed by this concept was to study the motivation of the actions of individuals in the past.

History is connected with politics. That is why it can be interpreted biasedly, embellishing and painting some events and carefully hushing up others. Unfortunately, in this case, all its value is leveled.

History as a science has four main functions: cognitive, ideological, educational and practical. The first gives the sum of information about events and epochs. The ideological function involves understanding the events of the past. The essence of the practical is in understanding some objective historical processes, "learning from the mistakes of others" and refraining from subjective decisions. The educational function involves the formation of patriotism, morality, as well as a sense of consciousness and duty to society.

Everything that surrounds us can be mentally divided into two large spheres: everything not created by man (natural) and everything created by him (artificial). As a rule, we call the first sphere nature, and the second - culture.

As you know, culture, in turn, is also divided into two large groups: material and spiritual. Spiritual culture exists in various types or forms, of which the main ones are science, religion, art and philosophy. These forms of spiritual culture are similar to each other in that with the help of them a person tries to answer the countless questions that he, being a rational being (homo sapiens), has not tired of asking himself since his appearance on earth; and the difference between them is that they examine different objects and use different methods.

So, the subject of science is, as a rule, the natural (natural, physical) world, mastering which, it strives for a high degree of accuracy of its knowledge, considers it necessary to prove everything, as well as experiment, penetrating deeper and deeper into the secrets of nature, and extract practical benefit, increasing the technical power of man.

The subject of religion, on the contrary, is the supernatural (otherworldly, divine) world, which, from its point of view, really exists and determines all earthly events. It is clear that in this world, unlike the natural world, nothing lends itself to experiment, which means that it is impossible to either prove or disprove its existence. What then is possible? Only unproven faith: arbitrarily, freely, by virtue of our only desire to believe in the reality of God, an immortal soul and eternal life. So, religion, unlike science, is directed not to the natural, but to the supernatural world, and is based not on proof, but on faith.

The subject of art is the inner, emotional world of a person. Unlike science, art does not seek to prove anything, and unlike religion, it does not call for unconditional belief in anything. It is based on the expression and transmission through artistic images of human feelings, moods, experiences.

Philosophy, unlike science, religion and art, is not limited to any one sphere of reality and tries to cover both the natural and the supernatural and the inner, emotional world of a person. At the same time, as a means of mastering these worlds, it recognizes both evidence-based knowledge, and unproven faith, and aesthetic feeling, differing, as we see, from other forms of spiritual culture on a wider scale.

Let us return to the science to which these lectures are devoted. As already mentioned, science is one of the forms of spiritual culture, which is aimed at studying the natural world and is based on evidence. Such a definition will undoubtedly cause some confusion: if science is a form of spiritual culture aimed at mastering the natural, or natural, world, then it turns out that the humanities cannot be sciences, because nature is not the object of their study. Let's dwell on this issue in more detail.

Everyone knows that the sciences are divided into natural (or natural science) and humanitarian (also often called social and humanitarian). The subject of the natural sciences is nature, studied by astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and other disciplines; and the subject of the humanities is man and society, studied by psychology, sociology, cultural studies, history, etc.

Let us pay attention to the fact that the natural sciences, in contrast to the humanities, are often called exact. Indeed, the humanities lack the degree of precision and rigor that characterizes the natural sciences. Even on an intuitive level, science means, first of all, natural science. When the word “science” sounds, first of all, thoughts about physics, chemistry and biology come to mind, and not about sociology, cultural studies and history. In the same way, when the word "scientist" is heard, the image of a physicist, chemist or biologist first rises before the mind's eye, and not a sociologist, cultural scientist or historian.

In addition, the achievements of the natural sciences are far superior to those of the humanities. Throughout its history, natural science and technology based on it have achieved truly fantastic results: from primitive tools to space flights and the creation of artificial intelligence. The successes of the humanities, to put it mildly, are much more modest. Questions related to the comprehension of man and society, by and large, remain unanswered to this day. We know a thousand times more about nature than we do about ourselves. If man knew as much about himself as he knows about nature, people would probably already achieve universal happiness and prosperity. However, things are quite different. A long time ago, a person fully realized that one cannot kill, steal, lie, etc., that one must live according to the law of mutual assistance, and not mutual eating. Nevertheless, the entire history of mankind, starting with the Egyptian pharaohs and ending with the current presidents, is a history of disasters and crimes, which suggests that for some reason a person cannot live as he sees fit and right, cannot make himself and society as they should be according to its ideas. All this is evidence in favor of the fact that man has made almost no progress in the knowledge of himself, society and history. That is why the concepts of "science", "scientific knowledge", "scientific achievements", etc., as a rule, mean everything related to natural science. Therefore, speaking further about science and scientific knowledge, we will have in mind the natural sciences.

The differences between the natural sciences and the humanities outlined above are, of course, due to the fact that both are aimed at different, incomparable objects and use completely different methods. Man, society, history, culture are immeasurably more difficult objects to study than the inanimate and living nature that surrounds us. Natural science makes extensive and universal use of experimental methods and constantly relies on them. In the field of humanitarian research, however, experimentation is the exception rather than the rule. Because of all this, the humanities cannot be built in the image and likeness of the natural sciences, just as one cannot accuse them of insufficient accuracy, rigor, and low, in comparison with natural science, effectiveness. After all, figuratively speaking, this is tantamount to a reproach addressed to a stream that it is not a waterfall ... Nevertheless, natural science is usually considered science in the full sense of the word.

There are several points of view on the time of the emergence of science. According to one of them, it appeared in the Stone Age, about 2 million years ago, as the first experience in the manufacture of tools. Indeed, to create even primitive tools, some knowledge about various natural objects is required, which is practically used, accumulated, improved and transmitted from generation to generation.

According to another point of view, science appeared only in the era of the New Age, in the 16th-17th centuries, when experimental methods began to be widely used, and natural science began to speak in the language of mathematics; when the works of G. Galileo, I. Kepler, I. Newton, H. Huygens and other scientists saw the light. In addition, the emergence of the first public scientific organizations - the Royal Society of London and the Paris Academy of Sciences - also belongs to this era.

The most common point of view on the time of the emergence of science is the one according to which it originated approximately in the 5th century. BC. in Ancient Greece, when thinking began to become more and more critical, i.e. sought to rely more on the principles and laws of logic, and not on mythological traditions and traditions. Most often you can find the statement that the cradle of science is Ancient Greece, and its ancestors are the Greeks. However, we are well aware that long before the Greeks, their eastern neighbors (Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians and others) accumulated a lot of factual knowledge and technical solutions. How could the Egyptians build their famous pyramids if they did not know how to weigh, measure, calculate, calculate, etc., i.e. if you weren't familiar with science? And yet, the Greeks are considered its founders, because they were the first to pay attention not only to the world around them, but also to the very process of its cognition, to thinking. It is no coincidence that the science of the forms and laws of correct thinking - the logic of Aristotle - appeared precisely in ancient Greece. The Greeks put things in order in the chaos of the knowledge, decisions, recipes accumulated by their eastern neighbors, gave them a systematic, orderly and coherent manner. In other words, they began to engage in science not only practically, but also, to a greater extent, theoretically. What does it mean?

The Egyptians, for example, were not alien to science, but were engaged in it practically, i.e. measured, weighed, calculated, and the like. when it was necessary to build or build something (dams, canals, pyramids, etc.). The Greeks, unlike them, could measure, weigh and calculate for the sake of measuring, weighing and calculating, i.e. without any practical need. This is what it means to engage in science theoretically. Moreover, the practical and theoretical levels are too far apart. Let's use an analogy to illustrate this idea.

Each of us practically began to use our native language at about 2-3 years of our lives, and theoretically we began to master it only from school age, doing this for about 10 years, and still, for the most part, we never mastered it to the end ... We we practically know our native language both at 3 years old and at 30 years old, but how different is its use at both ages. At the age of 3, we speak our native language, not having the slightest idea not only about declensions and conjugations, but also about words and letters, and even about the fact that this language is Russian, and that we speak it. At an older age, we still practically use our native language, but not only thanks to an intuitive acquaintance with it, but also, to a greater extent, on the basis of its theoretical mastery, which allows us to use it much more effectively.

Returning to the question of the birthplace of science and the time of its emergence, we note that the transition from its intuitive-practical state to the theoretical one, which was carried out by the ancient Greeks, was a real intellectual revolution and therefore can be considered the starting point of its development. Let us also pay attention to the fact that the first example of a scientific theory - the geometry of Euclid - appeared, like the logic of Aristotle, in Ancient Greece. Euclidean geometry, which is 2.5 thousand years old, still does not become obsolete precisely because it is an impeccable theoretical construction: from a small number of simple initial statements (axioms and postulates) accepted without proof due to their obviousness, the whole variety of geometric knowledge is derived . If everyone recognizes the original foundations, then the consequences logically arising from them (ie, the theory as a whole) are also perceived as universally valid and obligatory. They already represent a world of genuine knowledge, and not just opinions - disparate, subjective and controversial. This world has the same inevitability and indisputability as the daily sunrise. Of course, now we know that it is possible to dispute the obvious foundations of Euclid's geometry, but within the limits of the truth of its foundations-axioms, it is still invincible.

So, according to the most common statement, science appeared long before our era in Ancient Greece. During this period and the subsequent era of the Middle Ages, it developed extremely slowly. The rapid growth of science began approximately 400-300 years ago, during the Renaissance and, especially, the New Age. All the main scientific achievements that modern man has to deal with occur in recent centuries. However, the successes of science in the period of the New Age are still very modest compared to the heights to which it rose in the 20th century. We have already said that if it were possible by some miracle to move a medieval European to the present era, he would not believe his eyes and ears, he would consider everything that he sees an obsession, or a dream. The achievements of science and technology based on it (which is a direct practical consequence of scientific developments) at the turn of the century are truly fantastic and boggle the imagination. We are accustomed not to be surprised by them precisely because we come into contact with them too closely and often. In order to appreciate the latter, one must mentally go back only 400-500 years ago, when there were not only computers and spacecraft, but even primitive steam engines and electric lighting ...

Science of the 20th century characterized not only by unprecedented results, but also by the fact that now it has become a powerful social force, and in many respects determines the face of the modern world. Today's science covers a huge area of knowledge - about 15 thousand disciplines, which are, to varying degrees, distant from each other. In the XX century. scientific information doubles in 10-15 years. If in 1900 there were about 10 thousand scientific journals, then at the present time there are several hundred thousand. More than 90% of all the most important achievements of the scientific and technological level are accounted for in the 20th century. 90% of all scientists who have ever lived on earth are our contemporaries. The number of scientists by profession in the world by the end of the 20th century reached over 5 million people.

Today it can be argued that science has radically changed the life of mankind and its surrounding nature, however, the question of whether for better or worse is hotly debated. Some unreservedly welcome the successes of science and technology, while others consider scientific and technological progress the source of many misfortunes that have befallen man in the last hundred years. The future will show the correctness of one or the other. We will only note that the achievements of science and technology are a "double-edged sword". On the one hand, they strengthen modern man many times over in comparison with people of past centuries, but, on the other hand, they also weaken him many times over. Modern man, deprived of his usual technical benefits, to put it mildly, is much inferior in strength and capabilities (both physical and spiritual) to his distant and recent predecessors from the previous century, the era of the New Age, the Middle Ages or the Ancient World.

Questions for self-examination

What are the main forms of spiritual culture? How are they similar and how do they differ from each other?

What is science? What objection can be raised by its definition as a form of spiritual culture aimed at studying the natural or natural world?

What are the differences between the natural sciences and the humanities? Why is science usually referred to as natural science in the first place? Why do the humanities lack the degree of precision and rigor that characterizes the natural sciences?

What are the main points of view on the time of the emergence of science? Which one is the most common?

Why are the ancient Greeks usually considered the founders of science, despite the fact that their eastern neighbors (Egyptians, Babylonians and others) had accumulated a lot of scientific knowledge, solutions, recipes, etc. long before them? How does the intuitive-practical state of science differ from the theoretical one? What was the first example of a scientific theory in history?

How did science develop in the era of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages? When did its rapid growth begin? What characterizes the science of the 20th century? In your opinion, has scientific and technological progress changed the life of mankind and its surrounding nature for the better or for the worse?

popular philosophy. Tutorial Gusev Dmitry Alekseevich

1. When and where did science appear?

Science is one of the forms of spiritual culture, which is aimed at studying the natural world and is based on evidence. Such a definition will undoubtedly cause some confusion: if science is a form of spiritual culture aimed at mastering the natural or natural world, then it turns out that the humanities cannot be sciences, because nature is not the object of their study. Let's dwell on this issue in more detail.

Let us pay attention to the fact that the natural sciences, in contrast to the humanities, are often called exact. Indeed, the humanities lack the degree of precision and rigor that characterizes the natural sciences. Even on an intuitive level, science refers primarily to natural science. When the word “science” sounds, thoughts about physics, chemistry and biology first of all come to mind, and not about sociology, cultural studies and history. In the same way, when the word "scientist" is heard, the image of a physicist, chemist or biologist first rises before the mind's eye, and not a sociologist, cultural scientist or historian.

In addition, the achievements of the natural sciences are far superior to those of the humanities. Throughout its history, natural science and technology based on it have achieved truly fantastic results: from primitive tools to space flights and the creation of artificial intelligence. The successes of the humanities, to put it mildly, are much more modest. Questions related to the comprehension of man and society, by and large, remain unanswered to this day. We know a thousand times more about nature than we do about ourselves. If man knew as much about himself as he knows about nature, people would probably already achieve universal happiness and prosperity. However, things are quite different. A long time ago, a person fully realized that one cannot kill, steal, lie, etc., that one must live according to the law of mutual assistance, and not mutual eating. Nevertheless, the entire history of mankind, starting with the Egyptian pharaohs and ending with the current presidents, is a history of disasters and crimes, which suggests that for some reason a person cannot live as he sees fit and right, cannot make himself and society as they should be according to his ideas. All this is evidence in favor of the fact that a person has made almost no progress in the knowledge of himself, society and history ... That is why the concepts of science, scientific knowledge, scientific achievements, etc., as a rule, mean everything related to natural science. Therefore, speaking further about science and scientific knowledge, we will have in mind the natural sciences.

The above-described differences between the natural sciences and the humanities are due, of course, to the fact that both are aimed at different, incomparable objects and use completely different methods. Man, society, history, culture are immeasurably more difficult objects to study than the inanimate and living nature that surrounds us. Natural science makes extensive and universal use of experimental methods and constantly relies on them. In the field of humanitarian research, however, experimentation is the exception rather than the rule. Because of all this, the humanities cannot be built in the image and likeness of the natural sciences, just as one cannot accuse them of insufficient accuracy, rigor, and low, in comparison with natural science, effectiveness. After all, figuratively speaking, this is tantamount to a reproach addressed to a stream that it is not a waterfall ... Nevertheless, natural science is usually considered science in the full sense of the word.

According to another point of view, science appeared only in the era of modern times, in the 16th and 17th centuries, when experimental methods began to be widely used, and natural science began to speak in the language of mathematics; when the works of G. Galileo, I. Kepler, I. Newton, H. Huygens and other scientists saw the light. In addition, the emergence of the first public scientific organizations - the Royal Society of London and the Paris Academy of Sciences - also belongs to this era.

The most common point of view on the time of the emergence of science is the one according to which it originated approximately in the 5th century. BC e. in Ancient Greece, when thinking began to become more and more critical, i.e., it sought to rely more on the principles and laws of logic, and not on mythological traditions and traditions. Most often you can find the statement that the cradle of science is Ancient Greece, and its ancestors are the Greeks. However, we are well aware that long before the Greeks, their eastern neighbors (Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians and others) accumulated a lot of factual knowledge and technical solutions. Would the Egyptians have been able to build their famous pyramids if they did not know how to weigh, measure, calculate, calculate, etc., that is, if they were not familiar with science? And yet, the Greeks are considered its founders, because they were the first to pay attention not only to the world around them, but also to the very process of its cognition, to thinking. It is no coincidence that the science of the forms and laws of correct thinking - the logic of Aristotle - appeared precisely in Ancient Greece. The Greeks put things in order in the chaos of the knowledge, decisions, recipes accumulated by their eastern neighbors, gave them a systematic, orderly and coherent manner. In other words, they began to engage in science not only practically, but also, to a greater extent, theoretically. What does it mean?

The Egyptians, for example, were not alien to science, but practiced it practically, that is, they measured, weighed, calculated, etc. when it was necessary to build or build something (dams, canals, pyramids, etc. .). The Greeks, unlike them, could measure, weigh and calculate for the sake of measuring, weighing and calculating, that is, without any practical need. This is what it means to engage in science theoretically. Moreover, the practical and theoretical levels are too far apart. Let's use an analogy to illustrate this idea.

Each of us practically began to use our native language at about 2-3 years of our lives, and theoretically we began to master it only from school age, doing this for about 10 years, and, anyway, for the most part, we never fully mastered it ... We practically know our native language both at 3 years and at 30 years old, but how different is its use at both ages. At the age of 3, we speak our native language, not having the slightest idea not only about declensions and conjugations, but also about words and letters, and even that this language is Russian, and that we speak it. At an older age, we still practically use our native language, but not only thanks to an intuitive acquaintance with it, but also, to a greater extent, on the basis of its theoretical mastery, which allows us to use it much more effectively.

Returning to the question of the birthplace of science and the time of its emergence, we note that the transition from its intuitive-practical state to the theoretical one, which was carried out by the ancient Greeks, was a real intellectual revolution and therefore can be considered the starting point of its development. We also pay attention to the fact that the first example of a scientific theory - the geometry of Euclid - appeared, like the logic of Aristotle, in Ancient Greece. Euclidean geometry, which is 2.5 thousand years old, still does not become obsolete precisely because it is an impeccable theoretical construction: from a small number of simple initial statements (axioms and postulates) accepted without proof due to their obviousness, the whole variety of geometric knowledge is derived . If everyone recognizes the initial foundations, then the consequences logically arising from them (that is, the theory as a whole) are also perceived as generally valid and obligatory. They already represent a world of genuine knowledge, and not just opinions - disparate, subjective and controversial. This world has the same inevitability and indisputability as the daily sunrise. Of course, now we know that it is possible to dispute the obvious foundations of Euclid's geometry, but within the limits of the truth of its foundations-axioms, it is still invincible.

So, according to the most common statement, science appeared long before our era in Ancient Greece. During this period and the subsequent era of the Middle Ages, it developed extremely slowly. The rapid growth of science began approximately 400-300 years ago, during the Renaissance, and especially the New Age. All the main scientific achievements that modern man has to deal with occur in the last few centuries. However, the successes of science in the modern period are still very modest compared to the heights to which it rose in the 20th century. We have already said that if it were possible by some miracle to move a medieval European to the present era, he would not believe his eyes and ears, he would consider everything that he sees an obsession, or a dream. The achievements of science and technology based on it (which is a direct practical consequence of scientific developments) at the turn of the century are truly fantastic and boggle the imagination. We are accustomed not to be surprised by them precisely because we come into contact with them too closely and often. In order to appreciate the latter, one must mentally travel back only 400–500 years ago, when there were not only computers and spacecraft, but even primitive steam engines and electric lighting…

Science of the 20th century characterized not only by unprecedented results, but also by the fact that it has now become a powerful social force and largely determines the face of the modern world. Today's science covers a huge area of knowledge - about 15 thousand disciplines, which are to varying degrees distant from each other. In the 20th century scientific information doubles in 10–15 years. If in 1900 there were about 10 thousand scientific journals, then at present there are several hundred thousand. More than 90% of all the most important achievements of the scientific and technological level are in the 20th century. 90% of all scientists who have ever lived on earth are our contemporaries. The number of scientists by profession in the world by the end of the 20th century. reached over 5 million people.

Today it can be argued that science has radically changed the life of mankind and the nature around it. However, the question of whether for better or for worse is hotly debated. Some unreservedly welcome the successes of science and technology, while others consider scientific and technological progress the source of many misfortunes that have befallen man in the last hundred years. The future will show the correctness of one or the other. We will only note that the achievements of science and technology are a "double-edged sword". On the one hand, they repeatedly strengthen modern man compared to people of past centuries, but on the other hand, they also weaken him many times over: modern man, deprived of his usual technical benefits, to put it mildly, is much inferior in strength and capabilities (both physical and spiritual). ) to their distant and recent predecessors from the previous century, the era of the Modern Age, the Middle Ages or the Ancient World.

This text is an introductory piece. From the book Crisis of the Modern World author Guénon Rene

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THE FOUNDER OF HISTORICAL SCIENCE

Herodotus is considered to be the first real historian of antiquity, and therefore of all times. He was originally from Halicarnassus - one of the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor, now this place is located in Turkey. Herodotus was born around 484 BC. e., lived until 425 BC. e. Speaking in his youth on the side of the opponents of the Helicarnassian tyrant Ligdamida, Herodotus had to flee from his native city. After that, he spent about ten years traveling around different countries, visited the island of Samos, Phoenicia, Libya, Egypt, Judea, Syria, Babylon, Assyria, Ecbatana. He visited many Greek states and Macedonia.

For a long time the scientist lived in Athens, this city-state of Hellas became his second home. Here he met and made friends with many of the most educated people of Ancient Greece, such as Pericles, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Aspasia. In Athens, obviously under the influence of new friends, Herodotus wrote his outstanding work "History".

Translated from the Greek "historian" - a story about the past, about what has been learned. Herodotus devoted his work to describing the Greco-Persian wars of 493-449. BC e.

The mighty Persian Empire, created by the kings Cyrus II, Cambyses II, Darius I, established its dominion in Asia Minor, conquered Babylon and Egypt, the Greek islands of Chios and Samos. Trade, the main condition for the prosperity of the Greek cities in Asia Minor, Hellas itself as a state - everything turned out to be under the cruel, oppressive control of the rulers of the Persian Empire. The uprising raised in the Ionian - Asia Minor cities of Hellas against Persian rule and supported by Athens was suppressed. After that, the Persian state began to lay claim to the very heart of Ancient Greece - policies on the Balkan Peninsula. In 490 BC. e. The Persians crossed the Aegean Sea, captured the city of Eretria and landed in Attica. From that moment on, with some interruptions, stubborn and bloody wars continued until 449 BC. e. The Greeks won. Rallying under the threat of enslavement, the Greek city-states defended their freedom and independence.

The main theme of the work of Herodotus is the campaign in Greece of the Persian king Xerxes in 480-479. BC e., during which took place: the tragic battle at Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans and King Leonidas held back the entire Persian army for four days; the naval battle in the Salamis Strait, where the victory was brought to the Greek fleet by the brave commander Themistocles; and the decisive battle at Plataea, in which the Greeks were victorious. But how different is the work of Herodotus from the annalistic praises by the Assyrians and Egyptians of the military exploits of their rulers. Yes, of course, the Greek author pays tribute to the stamina and courage of King Leonidas, the military talent and foresight of Themistocles, extols the courage of the Greek warriors. But, in addition, he tries to explain the reasons for the Persian invasion of the territory of the Greek states and to understand the origins of the defeats and victories of the Persians and Greeks. Herodotus sees the basis of the superiority of the Greek resistance over the more numerous Persian army in the state structure of the Greek world. According to Herodotus, the Greeks are "free and subject only to the law" - this is their main strength.

Along the way, reflecting the course of historical events, Herodotus gives a holistic and multifaceted picture of the entire world of the Mediterranean, a description of the life of the peoples of Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, Macedonia. In this, the observant and inquisitive author turned out to be extremely useful in his own long wanderings.

Later, the scientists of Alexandria divided the work of Herodotus into nine books, each of which was named after one of the Greek muses, patrons of the arts, including Clio, the muse of history. The work of Herodotus was highly valued by ancient authors, served as an example for historians of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and other countries of the Hellenic world to follow, and was an example for posterity.

The outstanding Roman statesman and excellent orator Cicero called Herodotus "the father of history." And this is true, because in his work for the first time the history of human society is shown as a process unfolding in time and space, changing the fate of peoples. For the first time, he made attempts to analyze the causes leading to a particular historical outcome.

It is believed that science arose as the overcoming of mythology. In the minds of primitive people for tens of millennia, knowledge about the real properties of things and processes obtained in practice was intertwined with fantastic ideas that make up the content of mythology.

In the process of complication and division of initially undifferentiated labor, the necessity and possibility of a transition from cognition included in material labor to cognitive activity aimed at collecting information, verifying it, accumulating and preserving it, as well as transferring knowledge from generation to generation, appeared. Such activity and at the same time its result (knowledge) began to be called science (from the Latin scientia- knowledge, science). It happened in the III-II millennium BC. Priests were the first to engage in professional science.

Stage I - "becoming a logically and methodically conscious science"

Initially, the sciences were purely experimental, empirical and practical, both in terms of the content of knowledge and the way it was obtained and substantiated. This is mainly Greek science and, in parallel, the beginnings of scientific knowledge of the world in China and India. Individual sciences (especially astronomy and mathematics) have reached high levels of development, for example:

The Babylonians - owned methods of approximate extraction of the square root, solving quadratic equations, invented the sexagesimal “positional” number system, from which the modern counting of minutes comes.

The Egyptians - introduced the solar calendar, determined the length of the year - 365.25 days (the year was divided into 12 months of 30 days, 5 days were added to each year, but leap years were not introduced), set the value of the number π, the exact formula for calculating the areas of a triangle , trapezoid, circle, developed a chemical craft that was considered sacred, and was surrounded by mystery.

In China, gunpowder and dyeing were invented.

Metallurgy and pottery were known in Persia.

Thus, the first stage in the formation of science should be considered pre-theoretical, pre-philosophical.

Empirical scientific knowledge existed for a long time as a phenomenon subordinate to the religious and mythological worldview. Ancient Greece (VI century BC) is considered to be the birthplace of scientific and theoretical knowledge. Since that time, the distinctive function of science has become theoretical knowledge, the desire to explain phenomena through their essence, and not the arbitrariness of fantastic creatures of mythology and religion, endowed with divine supernatural power. However, Greek science had little to do with practical problems. Ancient Greece did not need this, since all the hard work was done by slaves. Orientation towards the practical use of scientific results was considered not only superfluous, but even indecent, and such science was recognized as base.

The first form of theoretical knowledge is called natural philosophy. Probably because philosophy and theoretical knowledge as a whole originated primarily as knowledge about nature. It seemed to natural philosophers that the whole variety of phenomena is directly and immediately connected by one and the same principle. The founder of ancient natural philosophy is considered Thales, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Aristotle, etc.

Stage II - "the emergence of modern science" - begins at the end of the Middle Ages, asserting itself from the 17th century, and widely deployed in the 19th century.

In the XVI-XVII centuries. natural-philosophical and in many respects scholastic knowledge of nature turned into modern natural science.

The Polish astronomer N. Copernicus abandoned the traditional geocentric model of the world. He insisted on a heliocentric model with the Sun as the center of the universe. The Italian philosopher J. Bruno, developing the ideas of N. Copernicus, proved that the Universe has no center, it is infinite and consists of an infinite number of star systems. The German astronomer I. Kepler discovered the laws of motion of the planets in the solar system.

At the end of the XVII century. there was a revolution in mathematics. The English scientist I. Newton and, independently of him, the German mathematician and philosopher G. Leibniz developed the principles of integral and differential calculus. These studies became the basis of mathematical analysis and the mathematical basis of all modern natural science.

From the middle of the XVIII century. natural science began to be more and more imbued with the ideas of the evolutionary development of natural phenomena. A significant role in this was played by the works of I. Kant, P. Laplace, Buffon, K. Liney, Lamarck. An outstanding role in the development of natural science was played by the evolutionary teachings of Ch. Darwin.

For the development of theoretical thinking in biology, the cell theory of T. Schwann and M. Schleiden is of paramount importance. Fundamental discoveries in the physiology of higher nervous activity were made by I. Sechenov. Thanks to his research, the brain became the subject of experimental research, and mental phenomena began to receive materialistic explanations. Sechenov's teaching on the mechanisms of brain activity was developed by I. Pavlov's work on conditioned reflexes.

In 1861, the Russian chemist A. Butlerov formulated the main provisions of the theory of the chemical structure of molecules, and in 1869 D. Mendeleev discovered the Periodic Law of Chemical Elements.

At the beginning of the 20th century. in physics and natural science as a whole, the second major revolution took place, which led to the recognition of the quantum mechanical picture of the world. This was facilitated by the discoveries of electromagnetic waves (H. Hertz), x-rays (W. Roentgen), radioactivity (A. Becquerel), radium (M. Skladowska-Curie and P. Curie), the development of the theory of relativity by Albert Einstein.

Stage III - "scientific and technological revolution" In the middle of the 20th century, when man created the atomic bomb and it became clear that science could destroy the planet, the so-called scientific and technological revolution (STR) took place, which determined a new, third stage in the development of scientific knowledge.

In the preparation of scientific and technical progress, which was a natural consequence of the scientific and technological progress of recent centuries, the disclosure of the complex structure of the atom, the discovery of the phenomenon of radioactivity, the creation of the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics was of great importance. Very important was the discovery of the laws of inheritance and other achievements of genetics, cybernetics and other fundamental sciences, the widespread use of electricity, the fission of the nuclear nucleus, the development of mass media and communications, the creation of jet technology, the mechanization and automation of production, and much more.

Computers are recognized as the symbol of scientific and technological revolution - a fundamentally new type of technology to which a person transfers logical functions.

The achievements of NTR are impressive. It brought man into space, gave a new source of energy, fundamentally new substances and technical means, new means of mass communication and information. It should also be noted the widespread use of artificial (chemical) materials with predetermined properties, the development of biotechnology, electronic instrumentation, and the green revolution in agriculture.