Issues Of Historicity In The Changes Of Views Of Science

Since the birth of modern science, a large number of philosophers and scientistshave made attempts to give descriptions and explanations of the nature of science andmethodological principles based on the views of mechanical nature, such as Bacon,Descartes, Galileo, and others, but they regarded the historicity of views of science as a"secondary effect", consequently, neglected and eliminated of scientific research. Thenon-historical description of the philosophy of science has reached its peak in the schoolof logical positivism; they believed that science is the understanding and reflection ofthe reality of knowledge, which has its role of internal leading logic operation in sciencedevelopment, and ultimately to achieve a rational knowledge of real world. In theschool of logical positivism, where the historicity of science has not only been ignoredbut been eradicated, as if there has not existed before. This non-historicity view ofscience is a retrospective description focused on "result" and "winner" instead of"process" and "loser". Under the guidance of the view of science, the product ofscientific knowledge is often used as the only explanation of the standards in historicalreconstruction. This standard view of anti-historicity began to collapse in the ideologicalachievements of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn. They began to pay attention to thedynamic process of scientific knowledge, concerned about the actual scientific facts,turned to examine the actual activities of science. Due to the changes in the perspectiveof philosophy of science, the long-neglected social historicity has been reintegrated intothe research of science, and the vision of philosophers. The social constructivism ofviews of science promoted the sociological dimension enhanced the primary factor fordescribing science, thus demonstrated rich social characteristics of science.The understanding of contemporary views of science has caused many problems,such as confrontation of scientific realism and anti-realism; dichotomy of subject andobject; elimination of scientific rationality, etc. The truly understanding of historicity ofscience is the basic path to solve these problems. In the practice turn of sociology of scientific knowledge, the activities of science were deemed to shape by theheterogeneity the process of practice-based, because of the characteristics of openness,dynamic and context, it would be feasible and necessary to discuss each factor ofpractice, to carry out multi-dimensional study in the research of science. Science itselfrooted in a whole social and cultural background, with mutual penetration of philosophy,sociology, politics, economics and so on. Compared with the narrow sense of historicityof social constructivism, practical science does not exclude the shaping role of naturalfactors, combined with natural factors and social factors, ideological factors andmaterial conditions, which all play jointly in the process of construction of practice ofscience. The historicity of science is rooted in practice, and also reverted to the practice.The non-human substances gain the historicity in the process of aggregation ofheterogeneous elements.The historicity of views of science originated from endogeneity of scientificculture, called"inner time" which is neither the orientation of the logic of science, northe domination of social historicity, but the mutual shaping of continuous circle withhuman power and material force. The truth and progressive problem of standardphilosophy of science is only a dimension to understand science. The real understandingof historicity of science guided us in multi-perspective, multi-dimensional survey inscience, in the relationship between science and other cultures.