Specifics of popular science (scientific and educational) literature
Scientific educational (popular) literature is works about science and its creators, not intended for specialists in this field of knowledge. It includes works about the foundations and individual problems of fundamental and applied sciences, biographies of scientists, descriptions of travel, etc., written in various genres. The problems of science and technology are considered in them from a historical perspective, in their interrelation and development.
The first popular work about science in Europe was written in poetic form. About the nature of things » Lucretia Cara And " Letter on the benefits of glass » M. Lomonosov. From the conversations arose « History of the candle » M. Faraday And " Plant life » K. Timiryazeva. Known popular works, written in the form of a nature calendar, sketches, essays, “intellectual adventures.”
Popularization scientific knowledge works of science fiction also contribute.
Scientific fiction- this is a special kind of literature that tells about science, about scientific research, the “drama of ideas” in science and the fate of its real creators. The NHL is born at the intersection of fiction, documentary-journalistic and popular science literature Developing into an independent species, NHL maintains a close relationship with all three types of literature. Unlike NPL, whose attention is focused on cognitive and educational tasks, NHL turns primarily to the human side of science, to the spiritual appearance of its creators, to the psychology of scientific creativity, to the philosophical origins and consequences of scientific discoveries. The NHL can be classified as fictional biographies of scientists and historical figures, works about nature, in which scientific information presented in a figurative form. NHL has not only intellectual and cognitive value, but also aesthetic value; is designed to combine “general interest” with scientific reliability in revealing problems, imagery of the narrative with the documentary accuracy of life material. NHL originated in the 20th century, but some genres of didactic literature can be considered its early examples: “ Works and days » Hesiod, a series of biographies and autobiographies of 19th century scientists. The scientific and artistic works of B. Zhitkov, V. Bianki, K. Paustovsky, and M. Prishvin became widespread in Russia.
NPL and NHL are similar primarily in that these works are based on accurate scientific fact, i.e. information. NPL presents it in a form accessible to the reader, trying to arouse his interest in the facts being reported. NHL is distinguished by greater expression of the author’s personality and greater artistry, i.e., imagery.
Science describes phenomena and processes surrounding reality. It gives a person the opportunity to:
Observe and analyze processes and phenomena,
To find out at a qualitative level the mechanism of their occurrence,
Enter quantitative characteristics;
Predict the course of the process and its results
Art, which includes fiction, reflects the world in images - verbal, visual.
Both of these methods of reflection real world mutually complement and enrich each other. This is due to the fact that a person by nature has relatively independent functioning of two channels for transmitting and processing information - verbal and emotional-figurative. This is due to the properties of our brain.
Science and art reflect social consciousness in different ways. The language of science is concepts, formulas. The language of art is images. Artistic images evoke persistent, vivid, emotionally charged ideas in people’s minds, which, complementing the content of concepts, form a personal attitude to reality and to the material being studied. Formulas, relationships, dependencies can be beautiful, but you need to be able to feel it, then studying, instead of being a harsh necessity, can become a difficult but enjoyable task. In works of art there are often pictures of physical phenomena in nature, descriptions of various technical processes, structures, materials, and information about scientists. IN science fiction many scientific assumptions and hypotheses are reflected. A special vision of the world, mastery of words and the ability to generalize allows writers to achieve surprisingly accurate, easily imaginable descriptions in their works.
Descriptions of scientific knowledge occur as in classical literature, and in modern. Such descriptions are especially in demand in the genre of fiction, since in its essence it is based on the presentation of various scientific hypotheses, presented in the language of fiction.
Fantasy as a technique, as a means of expression, belongs entirely to the form of a work of art, or more precisely, to its plot. But it is possible to understand the arrangement and relationships of social characters in their individual manifestation only based on the situation of the work, which is a category of content.
Science fiction, when viewed in this regard, has the same subject matter as art - “an ideologically conscious characteristic social life people and, in one way or another, the characteristic nature of life in connection with it”, focusing primarily on the second part of this definition. Therefore, one cannot agree with the conclusions of T. A. Chernysheva, who believes that “the specificity ... (of science fiction - V. Ch.) is not that it comes to literature new hero- scientist, and not that the content of science fiction works is the social, “human” consequences of scientific discoveries,” but that in “science... fiction a new theme gradually emerged: man and the natural environment, and art Now I’m interested in the physical properties of this environment, and it is perceived not only in an aesthetic aspect.”
It is quite possible that the artist as an individual may be interested in certain aspects of physical phenomena environment or nature in general. Examples of such interest, when a writer, poet is not limited to purely artistic field There is a lot of activity in the historical and literary process. In this regard, it is enough to recall the names of Goethe, Voltaire, Diderot, etc.
However, the question is not so much in justifying or condemning such an interest, but rather in the nature of this interest: either the “physical properties of the environment” are of interest to the writer, primarily in their essential moments, as a manifestation of certain objective laws of nature, or they are realized through the prism features human life, thereby receiving a certain understanding and emotional and ideological assessment. In the first case, even if the artist tries to create a work of art based on a system of knowledge that has been consolidated in his theoretical thinking, it will inevitably be illustrative in nature, without achieving the degree of artistic generality and expressiveness that is inherent in works of art.
If, due to the ideological worldview of the writer, the “physical properties of the environment” acquire one or another emotional and ideological orientation, it can become the subject of art in general and science fiction in particular. The difficulty of differentiating modern fiction in its content significance lies in the fact that it can act as a reflection of the prospects for the development of science and technology or “ physical properties environment”, carrying out in a figurative form the popularization of certain problems or achievements of science and technology, and the “figurative form” in such a case does not go beyond illustrativeness. And at the same time, “science” fiction, which was born and fully formed in turn of the 19th century- 20th century, is “interested” in the problems and themes of scientific achievements that bear the imprint of the social character of people’s lives and society in their national-historical conditioning. In this case, we can conditionally distinguish two “branches” in science fiction, in its content: science fiction, which understands and reflects the problems of the natural sciences in their social and ideological orientation, and science fiction, which is “interested” in the problems of the social sciences.
However, modern “science” fiction is not limited to the genre of utopia. Data from social and natural sciences, in addition to their objective cognitive value, increasingly influence the social relationships of people, expressed both in changes and revisions of moral and ethical standards, and in the need to foresee the results of scientific discoveries for the benefit or detriment of all humanity. The industrial and technological revolution, which began in the 20th century, poses a number of social, ethical, philosophical, and not just technical problems to humanity. The changes taking place in this “changing” world and caused by the development of science are what science fiction “deals with,” which since the time of Wells has been called social science fiction. The essence of this type of “science” fiction was best expressed by the Strugatsky brothers. “Literature,” they write, “should try to explore typical societies, that is, practically consider the whole variety of connections between people, groups and the second nature created by them. Modern world so complex, there are so many connections and they are so intricate that literature can solve this problem by means of certain sociological generalizations, the construction of sociological models, necessarily simplified, but preserving the most characteristic trends and patterns. Of course, the most important tendencies of these models continue to be typical people, but acting in circumstances typified not along the lines of specificities, but along the lines of trends." An example of such fiction can be the works of the Strugatskys themselves ("It's Hard to Be a God" etc.), "Return from stars" by Stanislaw Lem, etc.
A number of outdated opinions regarding science fiction, which boiled down mainly to the fact that its content should be a scientific hypothesis, its goal should be a scientific forecast, and its purpose should be the popularization and propaganda of scientific knowledge, have now been refuted not so much by the efforts of critics and literary scholars, but by literary practice itself . Most writers on science fiction now agree that it is a special branch of fiction with a specific area of creative interests and unique techniques for depicting reality. And yet, most of the works devoted to science fiction are characterized by insufficient development of the positive part of the program, in particular, such a fundamental issue as the role and significance of the “principle of science,” the solution of which could clarify a number of controversial issues related to the nature of science fiction and her artistic capabilities. For a researcher of modern science fiction, it is extremely necessary to find out the nature of its connection with science, as well as the meaning and purpose of such a commonwealth.
The first and, perhaps, the most serious consequence of the “scientificization” of science fiction was its modernity. The emergence of science fiction in the second half of the 19th century. was to a certain extent predetermined by the enormous acceleration (compared to previous centuries) of scientific and technological progress, the dissemination of scientific knowledge in society, and the formation of a scientific, materialistic vision of the world. The scientific was accepted as a plausible justification for the fantastic then, notes the writer G. Gurevich, “when technology gained strength and miracles began to be done behind the fences of factories: steam chariots without horses, ships without sails, sailing against the wind.”
However, science fiction in fiction is not just an ordinary sign of the times. The scientific principle adopted by science fiction prepared and armed it for the development of the most complex modern problems.
Most writers on science fiction agree with the idea that the criterion of scientificity is necessary for science fiction. “...The problem of the compass, the problem of the criterion cannot be removed,” notes A.F. Britikov, for whom the criterion of science in fiction is equivalent to the criterion of a person. Sun. Revich obviously reduces the scientific criterion to the wish of a science fiction writer to know his chosen field well and not to make elementary errors against science: “It’s funny when a person who claims to be a soothsayer makes elementary scientific mistakes.” True, the critic immediately makes a reservation that scientific awareness for a science fiction writer is not the main and not the only necessary quality, and even an elementary scientific miscalculation made by him may not affect the artistic merits of the work. To this we must also add that not every science fiction writer, as we know, claims to be a soothsayer. The question of scientific criteria in V. Mikhailov’s article “Science Fiction” is complicated. The author of the article either claims that the single “scientific” word mentioned by a science fiction writer makes his work science fiction (such as the word “rocket”) and agrees with the scientific nature of Wells’s time machine, then criticizes modern science fiction writers who use the idea in their works photon rocket and flight at sub-light speeds, since “calculations have been published” indicating the technical impracticability of both. Z. I. Fainburg pushes the boundaries of science fiction as widely as possible, arguing that “in situations and solutions of science fiction, assumptions are made, as a rule, on the basis of what is at least ideally possible, that is, at least not fundamentally inconsistent with the materiality of the world.”
In modern science fiction there are many gradations, degrees of scientificity. Some modern science fiction writers go much further than Wells along the path of transforming scientific justification into a kind of artistic technique, increasing credibility, or simply a sign of the times. Becoming more and more formal, scientific justification becomes more and more conditional.
Non-fiction a special kind of literature telling about science, about scientific research, the “drama of ideas” in science and the fate of its real creators; is born at the intersection of fiction, documentary-journalistic and popular science literature. Developing into an independent species, N.-kh. l. retains close kinship with all three types of literature; understanding its essence and aesthetics remains a subject of debate. In contrast to popular science literature itself (See Popular science literature) ,
whose attention is focused on cognitive and educational tasks, N.-kh. l. refers primarily to the human side of science, to the spiritual appearance of its creators, to the psychology of scientific creativity, to the philosophical origins and consequences of scientific discoveries. It has not only intellectual and cognitive value, but also aesthetic value; is designed to combine “general interest” with scientific reliability in revealing problems, imagery of the narrative with the documentary accuracy of life material. N.-kh. l. originated in the 20th century; but some genres of didactic literature can be considered its early examples (See Didactic literature)
(for example, “Works and Days” by Hesiod, “On the Nature of Things” by Lucretius Cara, “Metamorphoses of Plants” by Goethe), as well as autobiographies and biographies of a number of scientists of the 19th century. Soviet N.-kh. l. began to take shape at the turn of the 20-30s; At the same time, M. Gorky spoke about the need for “... imaginative scientific and artistic thinking” (Collected works, vol. 27, 1953, p. 107). The works of M. Ilyin, B. S. Zhitkov, “Forest Newspaper” by V. V. Bianki, “Kara-Bugaz” by K. G. Paustovsky, essays by B. N. Agapov, M. M. Prishvin, M. S. Shaginyan. A special rise began at the turn of the 50-60s. (the works of D. S. Danin, O. N. Pisarzhevsky, V. N. Orlov, B. N. Aganov, Yu. G. Weber, A. I. Sharov, etc.), since 1960 annual collections of N.- X. l. “Paths to the Unknown” (Moscow). In the majority foreign literature term adequate to the concept of “N.-kh. l.”, no, and the literature corresponding to it is usually not isolated from the publicly available literature about science. However, many works undoubtedly belong to N.-kh. l.: “Microbe Hunters” by P. de Kreif, “Brighter than a Thousand Suns” by R. Jung, “A. Flemming" A. Maurois et al. Lit.: Andreev K., On equal rights, “The Year Thirty-Seven,” 1954, No. 3; Danin D., Thirst for Clarity, M., 1960; Formulas and images. Dispute about scientific topic in fiction, M., 1961; Ivich A., Poetry of Science, M., 1967. V. A. Revich.
Big Soviet encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1969-1978 .
See what “Scientific and artistic literature” is in other dictionaries:
A branch of literature that tells in figurative form about real life scientists, their creative destinies and spiritual appearance, about the drama of scientific ideas. Combines features of fiction, documentary and popular science prose... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
Non-fiction- artist lit., the factual basis of which is people and problems of science... Publishing dictionary-reference book
Literature devoted to the description of the “human” in science: the psychology of the creator, the clash of representatives of various schools, the spiritual appearance of scientists, their work, the prerequisites and consequences of discoveries. In scientific fiction, scientific and... Literary encyclopedia
A branch of literature that figuratively tells about the real life of scientists, their creative destinies and spiritual appearance, about the “drama” of scientific ideas. Combines features of fiction, documentary and popular science prose (“The Inevitability strange world"D... encyclopedic Dictionary
SCIENTIFIC FICTION LITERATURE- SCIENTIFIC FICTION LITERATURE, a special kind of literature, addressed primarily to the human aspect of science, to the spiritual appearance of its creators, to the psychology of scientific creativity, to the “drama of ideas” in science, to philosophical origins and consequences... ... Literary encyclopedic dictionary
SCIENTIFIC AND FICTION LITERATURE- a branch of literature that combines the main features of fiction, documentary and popular science prose, telling about the origin and development of science, the discoveries of scientists, inventions, ideas, etc... Professional education. Dictionary
Popular science literature- literature devoted to the presentation of scientific ideas in a form accessible to understanding wide range non-specialist readers. For the younger generation N. p.l. a source of knowledge of the diversity of the world, familiarization with the joy of the first independent scientific... Pedagogical terminological dictionary
The data in this article is presented as of the beginning of the 20th century. You can help by updating the information in the article... Wikipedia
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Fiction in the Thai language, created and created in Thailand. Traditionally created under the influence of Indian literature. The most famous monument of Thai literature is the Ramakien, the Thai version of the Indian epic Ramayana.... ... Wikipedia
Books
- Gathering of minds. Scientific and journalistic essays, Evgeny Panov. Modern prose is not only fiction. This is also journalism. It is gaining more and more attention, and our contemporaries are reading it more and more willingly. The secret is simple: journalism... eBook
The views on science of three great Russian writers are analyzed - A.P. Chekhova, F.M. Dostoevsky and L.N. Tolstoy. Studying science in this context produces unexpected and interesting results. Key words: science, art, fiction.
Key word: science, art, fiction literature
The problem of the relationship between science and art has a long history and is solved from different or directly opposite positions. The popular idea was that scientific, discursive thinking was crowding out intuitive thinking and transforming emotional sphere. The phrase “The Death of Art” has become fashionable. The threat to art was directly linked to science and technology. A machine, unlike a person, has perfection and enormous productivity. She challenges artists. Therefore, art faces a choice: either it submits to the principles of machine technology and becomes widespread, or it finds itself in isolation. The apostles of this idea were the French mathematician and esthetician Mol and the Canadian mass communications specialist McLuhan. Mohl argued that art is losing its privileged position, becoming a variety practical activities, adapted by scientific and technological progress. The artist turns into a programmer or communicator. And only if he masters the strict and universal language of the machine can he retain the role of pioneer. His role is changing: he no longer creates new works, but ideas about new forms of influence on the sensory sphere of man. These ideas are realized by technology, which play no less a role in art than in the creation of the lunar rover. In essence, this was only the first preventive war against the idea of sacredness artistic creativity and the very value of the author. Nowadays the Internet has taken these ideas to the extreme and, as is usually the case, to caricature.
But there is also a directly opposite concept of the relationship between science and aesthetic values. For example, the French esthetician Dufresne believed that art in its traditional sense was really dying. But this does not mean that art in general is dying or should die under the aggressive pressure of science. If art wants to survive, it must stand in opposition to the social and technical environment with their ossified structures hostile to man. Breaking with traditional practice, art does not ignore reality at all, but, on the contrary, penetrates into its deeper layers, where object and subject are no longer distinguishable. In a sense, this is a version of the German philosopher Schelling. Art, therefore, saves man. But the price of such salvation is a complete break between art and science.
Of all the arts, the most tense relationship has developed between science and fiction. This is explained, first of all, by the fact that both science and literature use the same way of expressing their content - the discursive method. And although in science there is a huge layer of symbolic specific language, the main one remains the spoken language. One of famous representatives Analytical philosophy Peter Strawson believed that science needs natural language to be understood. Another analyst, Henry N. Goodman, believes that versions of the world consist of scientific theories, pictorial representations, literary opuses, and the like, as long as they conform to a standard and proven categories. Language is a living reality; it does not recognize boundaries and flows from one subject field to another. That's why writers follow science so closely and jealously. How do they feel about her? To answer this question, it is necessary to examine all the literature separately, because there is no one answer. It is different for different writers.
The above primarily applies to Russian literature. It's clear. A poet in Russia is more than a poet. And literature has always served us more features than it should be for art. If, according to Kant, the only function of art is aesthetic, then in Russia literature taught, educated, was part of politics and religion, and preached moral maxims. It is clear that she followed the science with jealous interest - was it taking over part of her plot? Moreover, every year and century more and more objects fell into the sphere of interests of science, and its subject matter steadily expanded.
Part 1. A.P. Chekhov.
“I passionately love astronomers, poets, metaphysicians, privatdozents, chemists and other priests of science, to whom you consider yourself through your clever facts and branches of science, i.e. products and fruits... I am terribly devoted to science. This nineteenth-century sail has no value for me; science has obscured it from my eyes with its further wings. Every discovery torments me like a nail in the back....” Everyone knows these lines from Chekhov's story “Letter to a Learned Neighbor.” “This cannot happen, because this can never happen,” etc. And even people who know Chekhov’s work well think that Chekhov’s attitude towards science ends with such jokes. Meanwhile, this is the deepest delusion. None of the Russian writers took science as seriously and with such respect as Chekhov. What worried him first? First of all, Chekhov thought a lot about the problem of the connection between science and truth.
The hero of the story “On the Way” says: “You don’t know what science is. All sciences, how many of them there are in the world, have the same passport, without which they consider themselves unthinkable - the desire for truth. Each of them has as its goal not benefit, not convenience in life, but truth. Amazing! When you begin to study any science, the first thing that strikes you is its beginning. I'll tell you that there is nothing more exciting and grandiose, nothing is more stunning and exciting human spirit, like the beginning of some science. From the very first five or six lectures you are inspired by the brightest hopes, you already seem to be the master of the truth. And I devoted myself to science selflessly, passionately, like a beloved woman. I was their slave, and besides them I did not want to know any other sun. Day and night, without straightening my back, I crammed, splurged on books, cried when, before my eyes, people exploited science for their own ends.” But the trouble is that this value - truth - is gradually beginning to erode.
And Chekhov continues bitterly: “But I didn’t get carried away for long. The thing is that every science has a beginning, but no end at all, just like a periodic fraction. Zoology has discovered 35,000 species of insects, chemistry has 60 simple bodies. If, over time, ten zeros are added to the right of these figures, zoology and chemistry will be just as far from their end as they are now, and all modern scientific work consists of incrementing numbers. I realized this trick when I opened the 35001st species and did not feel satisfied” [ibid.]. In the story “The Mummers,” a young professor gives an introductory lecture. He assures that there is no greater happiness than serving science. “Science is everything! - he says. “She is life.” And they believe him. But they would have called him a mummer if they had heard what he said to his wife after the lecture. He told her: “Now, mother, I am a professor. A professor has ten times more practice than an ordinary doctor. Now I’m counting on 25 thousand a year.”
This is simply amazing. In 60 s extra years before the German philosopher Karl Jaspers, Chekhov tells us that truth disappears from the value horizon of science and the motives for doing science begin to become vulgar and philistine. Of course, he speaks in a specific way, as only Chekhov could say.
The next problem that worries Chekhov is the problem of value-laden science. In the story “And the Beautiful Must Have Limits,” the college registrar writes: “I also cannot remain silent about science. Science has many useful and wonderful qualities, but remember how much evil it brings if a person who indulges in it crosses the boundaries established by morality, the laws of nature, and so on? .
Chekhov was tormented by the attitude of ordinary people towards science and its social status. “People who have completed a course in special institutions sit idle or occupy positions that have nothing to do with their specialty, and thus higher technical education is still unproductive in our country,” writes Chekhov in the story “The Wall.”
In “The Jumper,” the writer unambiguously speaks of his sympathy for the exact sciences and the hero, the physician Dymov, and his wife, the jumper Olenka, only after the death of her husband understands that she lived with an extraordinary man, a great man, although he did not understand operas and other arts. “I missed it! I missed it!” she cries.
In the story “The Thinker,” prison warden Yashkin talks to the superintendent of the district school:
“In my opinion, there are a lot of unnecessary sciences.” “That is, how is it, sir,” asks Pifov quietly. “What sciences do you find superfluous?” - “All sorts of things... The more sciences a person knows, the more he dreams of himself... There is more pride... I would outweigh all these sciences. Well, well, I’m really offended.”
Another truly visionary moment. In the story “The Duel,” the zoologist von Koren says to the deacon: “The humanities you are talking about will only satisfy human thought when in their movement they meet the exact sciences and go side by side with them. Whether they will meet under a microscope or in the monologues of a new Hamlet, or in a new religion, I don’t know, but I think that the earth will be covered with an icy crust before this happens.”
But even if you are not disappointed in science, if truth, science and teaching constitute the whole meaning of your life, then is this enough for happiness? And here I want to remind you of one of Chekhov’s most poignant stories, “A Boring Story.” The story is really boring, almost nothing happens in it. But it’s about us, and I can’t ignore it in developing this plot. The hero is an outstanding, world-famous scientist - physician, professor, privy councilor and holder of almost all domestic and foreign orders. He is seriously and terminally ill, suffers from insomnia, suffers and knows that he has only a few months left to live, no more. But he cannot and does not want to give up what he loves - science and teaching. His story about how he lectures is real Toolkit for all teachers. His day starts early and at a quarter to ten he has to start giving a lecture.
On the way to the university, he thinks about the lecture and then reaches the university. “But here are the gloomy university gates that have not been repaired for a long time, a bored janitor in a sheepskin coat, a broom, a pile of snow... On fresh boy For someone who comes from the provinces and imagines that the temple of science is indeed a temple, such gates cannot make a healthy impression. In general, the dilapidation of university buildings, the gloominess of the corridors, the soot of the walls, the lack of light, the dull appearance of the steps, hangers and benches in the history of Russian pessimism occupy one of the first places along with the predisposing reasons... A student, whose mood is mostly created by the situation, at every step, where he learns, he must see in front of him only the tall, strong, graceful... God protect him from skinny trees, broken windows, gray walls and doors covered with torn oilcloth.”
His thoughts about his assistant, the dissector, who prepares drugs for him, are curious. He fanatically believes in the infallibility of science and mainly of everything that the Germans write. “He is confident in himself, in his preparations, knows the purpose of life and is completely unfamiliar with the doubts and disappointments that turn talent gray. Slavish worship of authority and lack of need to think independently.” But then the lecture begins. “I know what I will read about, but I don’t know how I will read, where I will start and where I will end. To read well, that is, not boringly and with benefit for listeners, you need, in addition to talent, to also have dexterity and experience, you need to have the clearest idea of \u200b\u200byour strengths, about those to whom you are reading, and about what constitutes the subject of your speech. In addition, you need to be a man on your own, watch vigilantly and not lose sight for a second.... In front of me are one and a half hundred faces, not similar to one another... My goal is to defeat this many-headed hydra. If every minute while I read, I have a clear idea of the degree of her attention and the power of understanding, then she is in my power... Next, I try to make my speech literary, the definitions short and precise, the phrase as simple and beautiful as possible. Every minute I must check myself and remember that I have only an hour and forty minutes at my disposal. In a word, there is a lot of work. At the same time you have to pretend to be a scientist, a teacher, and a speaker, and it’s bad if the speaker defeats the teacher and scientist in you, or vice versa.
You read for a quarter of an hour, half an hour, and then you notice that students begin to glance at the ceiling, one will reach for a scarf, another will sit more comfortably, the third will smile at his thoughts... This means that attention is tired. Action needs to be taken. Taking advantage of the first opportunity, I say some pun. All one and a half hundred faces are smiling broadly, their eyes are sparkling cheerfully, and the roar of the sea is briefly heard. I laugh too. My attention is refreshed and I can continue. No sport, no entertainment or games gave me such pleasure as lecturing. Only during lectures could I give myself over to passion and understand that inspiration is not an invention of poets, but actually exists.”
But then the professor gets sick and, it would seem, he needs to give up everything and take care of his health and treatment. “My conscience and my mind tell me that the best thing I could do now is to give the boys a farewell lecture, to tell them the last word, bless them and give up my place to a person who is younger and stronger than me. But let God judge me, I don’t have the courage to act according to my conscience... Just like 20-30 years ago, now, before my death, I am only interested in science. As I breathe my last breath, I will still believe that science is the most important, most beautiful and necessary thing in a person’s life, that it was and will be the highest manifestation of love, and that only through it alone will man conquer nature and himself.
This belief may be naive and unfair in its basis, but it is not my fault that I believe this way and not otherwise; I cannot overcome this faith in myself” [ibid.]. But if this is so, if science is the most beautiful thing in a person’s life, then why do you want to cry while reading this story? Probably because the hero is still unhappy. Unhappy because he is terminally ill, unhappy in his family, unhappy in his sinless love for his pupil Katya. And the last phrase “Farewell, my treasure,” as well as the phrase “Where are you, Missyus?” from another story by Chekhov - the best thing in world literature, which makes the heart clench.
Chekhov’s thoughts, both as a doctor and as a writer, on the problem of “genius and madness,” which is still relevant today, are extremely interesting. One of the best stories Chekhov's "The Black Monk". The hero Kovrin is a scientist, a very talented philosopher. He is sick with manic-depressive psychosis, which Chekhov, as a doctor, describes with scrupulous accuracy. Kovrin comes for the summer to visit his friends, with whom he practically grew up, and marries the owner’s daughter, Tanya. But soon a manic phase sets in, hallucinations begin, and a frightened Tanya and her father begin to fight for his treatment. This causes Kovrin nothing but irritation. “Why, why did you treat me? Bromide drugs, idleness, warm baths, surveillance, cowardly fear for every sip, for every step - all this will eventually drive me to idiocy. I was going crazy, I had delusions of grandeur, but I was cheerful, cheerful and even happy, I was interesting and original.
Now I have become more reasonable and respectable, but I am like everyone else: I am mediocre, I am bored with life... Oh, how cruelly you treated me. I saw hallucinations, but who cares? I ask: who did this bother?” “How happy Buddha and Mohammed or Shakespeare are that kind relatives and doctors did not treat them for ecstasy and inspiration. If Mohammed had taken potassium bromide for his nerves, worked only two hours a day and drank milk, then after that wonderful person there would be as little left as there was after his dog. Doctors and good relatives will ultimately make humanity stupid, mediocrity will be considered a genius and civilization will perish” [ibid.]. In Tanya’s last letter to Kovrin, she writes: “My soul is burning with unbearable pain... Damn you. I took you for extraordinary person“For a genius, I fell in love with you, but you turned out to be crazy.” This tragic discrepancy between the inner self-perception of a brilliant person and the perception of those around him, whom he actually makes unhappy, is a depressing circumstance that science has not yet coped with.
Part 2. F. M. Dostoevsky
We see a completely different image of science in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky. Probably the most important components of this image are in “Demons” and “The Brothers Karamazov”. In "The Possessed" Dostoevsky speaks not about science in general, but more about social theories. “Demons” seems to record the moments when a social utopia with whimsical fantasies and romance acquires the status of a “textbook of life” and then becomes a dogma, the theoretical foundation of a nightmarish turmoil. Such a theoretical system is being developed by one of the heroes of “Demons” Shigalev, who is confident that there is only one path to earthly paradise - through unlimited despotism and mass terror. Everything has the same denominator, complete equality, complete impersonality.
He transfers Dostoevsky’s undisguised disgust for such theories that came from Europe to the entire European enlightenment. Science is the main thing driving force European enlightenment. “But in science there is only that,” says Elder Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov, “that is subject to feelings. The spiritual world, the higher half of the human being, is completely rejected, expelled with a certain triumph, even with hatred. Following science, they want to get along without Christ.” Dostoevsky believes that Russia should receive from Europe only the external, applied side of knowledge. “But we have nothing to draw spiritual enlightenment from Western European sources, given the complete presence of Russian sources... Our people have been enlightened for a long time. Everything that they desire in Europe—all this has long been in Russia in the form of the truth of Christ, which is entirely preserved in Orthodoxy.” This did not stop Dostoevsky from sometimes talking about the extraordinary universal love for Europe.
But, as D.S. Merezhkovsky aptly notes, this extraordinary love is more like extraordinary human hatred. “If you knew,” Dostoevsky writes in a letter to a friend from Dresden, “what a bloody disgust, to the point of hatred, Europe aroused in me during these four years. Lord, what prejudices we have about Europe! They may be scientists, but they are terrible fools... The local people are literate, but incredibly uneducated, stupid, stupid, with the most base interests” [ibid.]. How can Europe respond to such “love”? Nothing. Except hatred. “In Europe, everyone holds a stone in their bosom against us. Europe hates us, despises us. There, in Europe, they decided to put an end to Russia long ago. We cannot hide from their gnashing, and someday they will rush at us and eat us.”
As for science, it is, of course, the fruit of the intelligentsia. “But having shown this fruit to the people, we must wait for what the whole nation will say, having accepted the science from us.”
But is it still needed for something, science, since it exists? And just then N.F. turns up. Fedorov with his project for the universal salvation of ancestors.
The doctrine of universal cause arose in the fall of 1851. For almost twenty-five years Fedorov did not put it down on paper. And all these years I dreamed that Dostoevsky would appreciate the project. The wonderful work of Anastasia Gacheva is dedicated to their difficult relationship.
A. Gacheva emphasizes that in many topics the writer and the philosopher, without even knowing it, go in parallel. Their spiritual vectors move in the same direction, so that the holistic image of the world and man that Fedorov builds acquires volume and depth against the background of Dostoevsky’s ideas, and many of Dostoevsky’s intuitions and understandings respond and find their development in the works of the philosopher of universal affairs. Dostoevsky's thought moves towards the scientific and practical side of the project. “THEN LET'S NOT BE AFRAID OF SCIENCE. WE WILL EVEN SHOW NEW WAYS IN IT” – in capital letters denotes Dostoevsky's idea of a renewed, Christian science. It appears in the outlines of Zosima’s teachings, echoing other statements that outline the theme of transfiguration: “Your flesh will change. (Light of Tabor). Life is heaven, we have the keys.”
However, in the final text of the novel there is only the image of a positivist-oriented science that does not care about any higher causes and, accordingly, leads the world away from Christ (Mitya Karamazov’s monologue about “tails” - nerve endings: only thanks to them does a person contemplate and think, and not because , that he “is some kind of image and likeness.” In the late 1890s - early 1900s, Fedorov began to sound on a new level the themes that at one time united him with Dostoevsky back in the 1870s. The secular civilization of the New Age, which deified the vanity of vanities, serving the god of consumption and comfort, points to the symptoms of an anthropological crisis that were clearly visible by the end of the 19th century - it was this crisis that Dostoevsky represented in his underground heroes, pointing to the impasse of godless anthropocentrism, the absolutization of man as he is.
Curious in this regard is the attempt of modern researchers of Dostoevsky’s work to present the writer’s attitude to new, in particular, nuclear science. I. Volgin, L. Saraskina, G. Pomerants, Yu Karyakin think about this.
As G. Pomerantz noted, Dostoevsky in the novel “Crime and Punishment” created a parable about the deep negative consequences of “naked” rationalism. “The point is not in a separate false idea, not in Raskolnikov’s mistake, but in the limitations of any ideology. “It’s also good that you just killed the old woman,” said Porfiry Petrovich. “And if you had come up with another theory, then, perhaps, you would have made the thing a hundred million times uglier.” Porfiry Petrovich turned out to be right. Experience last centuries showed how dangerous it is to trust logic without trusting it with your heart and spiritual experience. A mind that has become a practical force is dangerous. The scientific mind with its discoveries and inventions is dangerous. The political mind with its reforms is dangerous. We need systems of protection from the destructive forces of the mind, like at nuclear power plants—from atomic explosion” .
Yu. Karyakin writes: “There are great discoveries in science...But there are also great discoveries of absolutely suicidal and (or) self-saving...spiritual-nuclear human energy in art - incomparably more “fundamental” than all...scientific discoveries. Why...Einstein, Mahler, Bekhterev...almost exactly the same way treated Dostoevsky? Yes, because in a person, in his soul, everything, absolutely all lines, waves, influences of all the laws of the world converge and intersect... all other cosmic, physical, chemical and other forces. It took billions of years for all these forces to concentrate at just this one point...”
I. Volgin notes: “Of course... it is possible... to resist world evil exclusively with the help of aircraft carriers, nuclear bombs, tanks, special services. But if we want to understand what is happening to us, if we want to treat not the patient, but the disease, we cannot do without the participation of those who have taken upon themselves the mission of “finding the person in a person.”
In a word, we, who are in a state of deepest global crises and in connection with the nuclear threat, are obliged, in the opinion of many philosophers and scientists, to go through dangerous revelations about man and society, through the most complete knowledge of them. This means that it is impossible to ignore Dostoevsky and the study of his work.
Part 3. L. N. Tolstoy
In January 1894, the 9th All-Russian Congress of Naturalists and Doctors took place, at which they discussed actual problems molecular biology. L.N. Tolstoy was also present at the congress, who spoke about the congress like this: “Scientists have discovered cells, and there are some little things in them, but they don’t know why.”
These “things” haunt him. In “The Kreutzer Sonata” the hero says “science has found some leukocytes that run around in the blood and all sorts of unnecessary nonsense,” but she could not understand the main thing. Tolstoy considered all doctors to be charlatans. I.I. Mechnikov, laureate Nobel Prize, called him a fool. N.F. Fedorov, who had never raised his voice against anyone in his life, could not stand it. He showed Tolstoy the treasures of the Rumyantsev Library with trepidation. Tolstoy said: “How many people write nonsense. All this should be burned." And then Fedorov shouted: “I’ve seen a lot of fools in my life, but this is the first time like you.”
It is infinitely difficult to talk about the attitude of L.N. Tolstoy to science. What is this? Disease? Obscurantism reaching the point of obscurantism? And it would be possible not to talk about it, to keep silent, just as fans and researchers of I. Newton’s work were silent for many years about his pranks with alchemy. But Tolstoy is not just brilliant writer, probably the first in a series of Russian and world literature. For Russia, he is also a prophet, an almost uncanonized saint, a seer, a teacher. Walkers come to him, thousands of people write to him, they believe in him like God, and ask for advice. Here is one of the letters - a letter from the Simbirsk peasant F.A. Abramov, which the writer received at the end of June 1909.
F. A. Abramov turned to L. N. Tolstoy with a request to provide clarification on the following questions: “1) How do you look at science? 2) What is science? 3) Visible shortcomings of our science. 4) What has science given us? 5) What should be required from science? 6) What transformation of science is needed? 7) How should scientists treat the dark mass and physical labor? 8) How to teach children younger age? 9) What is needed for youth?” . And Tolstoy answers. This is a very lengthy letter, so I will only pay attention to the main points. First of all, Tolstoy gives a definition of science. Science, he writes, as it has always been understood and is still understood by most people, is knowledge of the most necessary and important objects of knowledge for human life.
Such knowledge, as it cannot be otherwise, has always been, is and now only one thing: knowledge of what every person needs to do in order to live as best as possible in this world. short term life, which is determined for him by God, fate, the laws of nature - whatever you want. In order to know this, how the best way to live your life in this world, you must first of all know what is definitely good always and everywhere and for all people and what is definitely bad always and everywhere and for all people, i.e. know what should and should not be done. In this, and only in this, has always been and continues to be true, real science. This question is common to all humanity, and we find the answer to it in Krishna and Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Christ, Mohammed. All science comes down to loving God and neighbor, as Christ said. Loving God, i.e. to love above all else the perfection of goodness, and to love one's neighbor, i.e. love every person as you love yourself.
So true, real science, needed by all people, is short, simple, and understandable, says Tolstoy. What so-called scientists consider to be science is, by definition, no longer science. People who are now engaged in science and are considered scientists study everything in the world. They need everything equally. “With equal diligence and importance, they investigate the question of how much the Sun weighs and whether it will converge with such or such a star, and what kind of boogers live where and how they are bred, and what can happen from them, and how the Earth became the Earth, and how grasses began to grow on it, and what animals, and birds, and fish there are on Earth, and what were there before, and which king fought with whom and was married to whom, and who wrote which poems and songs and fairy tales when, and what laws are needed, and why are prisons and gallows needed, and how and with what to replace them, and what composition are what stones and what metals, and how and what kind of vapors exist and how do they cool, and why only the Christian church religion is true, and how to make electric motors and airplanes, and submarines, etc., etc., etc.
And all these are sciences with the strangest pretentious names, and to all this... there is no and cannot be an end to research, because there is a beginning and an end to a matter, but there can be no end to trifles.” And these trifles are occupied by people who do not feed themselves, but who are fed by others and who, out of boredom, have nothing better to do than engage in any kind of fun.” Further, Tolstoy divides the sciences into three departments according to their goals. The first department is the natural sciences: biology in all its divisions, then astronomy, mathematics and theoretical, i.e. non-applied physics, chemistry and others with all their subdivisions. The second section will consist of applied sciences: applied physics, chemistry, mechanics, technology, agronomy, medicine and others, with the goal of mastering the forces of nature to facilitate human labor. The third department consists of all those numerous sciences, the purpose of which is to justify and establish the existing social order. These are all the so-called theological, philosophical, historical, legal, and political sciences.
The sciences of the first department: astronomy, mathematics, especially “biology and the theory of the origin of organisms, so beloved and praised by so-called educated people,” and many other sciences that have as their goal only curiosity, cannot be recognized as sciences in the exact sense of this, because they do not answer The basic requirement of science is to tell people what they should and should not do in order to have a good life. Having dealt with the first section, Tolstoy takes on the second. Here it turns out that applied sciences, instead of making life easier for people, only increase the power of the rich over enslaved workers and intensify the horrors and atrocities of wars.
There remains a third category of knowledge called science - knowledge aimed at justifying the existing structure of life. This knowledge not only does not meet the main condition of what constitutes the essence of science, serving the good of people, but also pursues the opposite, quite definite goal - to keep the majority of people in the slavery of the minority, using for this purpose all kinds of sophisms, false interpretations, deceptions, frauds... I think that it is unnecessary to say that all this knowledge, which has the goal of evil and not the good of humanity, cannot be called science, Tolstoy emphasizes. It is clear that for these numerous trivial activities the so-called. scientists need helpers. They are recruited from the people.
And here the following happens to young people going into science. Firstly, they are distracted from necessary and useful work, and secondly, filling their heads with unnecessary knowledge, they lose respect for the most important moral teaching about life. “If the people of the people learn the true science, the rulers will have no helpers. And those in power know this and therefore, without ceasing, with all possible means, baits, bribes, they lure people from among the people to study false science and scare them away from the real, true science with all kinds of prohibitions and violence,” Tolstoy emphasizes. Don’t give in to deception, Lev Nikolaevich urges. “And this means that parents should not send, as they do now, their children to institutions upper classes to corrupt them, schools, and adult boys and girls, taking time away from honest work necessary for life, do not strive and do not enter educational institutions set up for their corruption.
Just stop people from among the people from enrolling in government schools, and not only will the false science, which is not needed by anyone except one class of people, be destroyed by itself, but the science of how to do the best for him, which is always necessary and inherent in human nature, will automatically be established by itself. before one’s conscience, before God, to live a certain period of life for each. This letter... And in his novels, Tolstoy colors his attitude towards science and education through artistic means.
It is known that Konstantin. Levin is Tolstoy's alter ego. Through this hero he expressed the most pressing questions for him - life, death, honor, family, love, etc.
Levin's brother Sergei Koznyshev, a scientist, discusses a fashionable topic with a famous professor: is there a boundary between mental and physiological processes in human activity and where is it? Levin gets bored. He came across the articles in magazines that were discussed and read them, being interested in them as the development of the fundamentals of natural science familiar to him as a natural scientist at the university, but he never brought these scientific conclusions about the origin of man as an animal, about reflexes, about biology and sociology closer to those questions about the meaning of life and death for oneself, which in Lately came to his mind more and more often.
Moreover, he did not consider it necessary to convey this knowledge to the people. In a dispute with his brother, Levin decisively declares that a literate man is much worse. I don’t need schools either, but they are even harmful, he assures... And when they try to prove to Levin that education is a benefit for the people, he says that he does not recognize this as a good thing.
We find such a colorful, diverse, contradictory image of science in the works of our great writers. But with all the diversity of points of view and their controversy, one thing is indisputable - they all thought primarily about the moral security of science and its responsibility to man. And this is now - main plot in philosophy of science.
10 most popular and interesting scientific books from a variety of fields human knowledge, of course, will not make you a scientist immediately after reading them. But they will help you better understand how man, our entire world, and the rest of the universe work.
"Big, small and the human mind." Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, Abner Shimoni, Nancy Cartwright.
The book is based on the Tenner Lectures given in 1995 by the famous English astrophysicist Roger Penrose, and the controversy they caused with equally famous English scientists Abner Shimoni, Nancy Cartwright and Stephen Hawking. The range of problems discussed includes the paradoxes of quantum mechanics, issues of astrophysics, theory of knowledge, and artistic perception.
"Large atlas of anatomy." Johannes W. Roen, Chihiro Yokochi, Elke Lütjen - Drecoll.
This publication is a global bestseller. The reader is offered: unique photographs of anatomical sections that accurately convey the color and structural features of the structure of organs; educational charts that complement and explain the stunning color photographs of anatomical sections; didactic material, covering the functional aspects of the structure of organs and systems; the principle of studying sections “from external to internal” when preparing in the laboratory and in clinical work; introduction dedicated to description modern methods visualization of structural features of organs and body systems. For the convenience of the professional reader, the names of organs and systems are given in Russian and Latin.
"A Brief History of Almost Everything." Bill Bryson.
This book is one of the main popular science bestsellers of our days, a classic of popular science. It fit Big Bang and subatomic particles, primeval oceans and ancient continents, under its cover giant lizards roam and primitive hunters track down their prey... But this book is not only about the distant past: it tells in an accessible and fascinating way about the cutting edge of science, about the incredible discoveries that made by scientists about global threats and the future of our civilization.
“Hyperspace. A scientific odyssey through Parallel Worlds, holes in time and the tenth dimension." Michio Kaku.
Instinct tells us that our world is three-dimensional. Based on this idea, scientific hypotheses have been built for centuries. According to the eminent physicist Michio Kaku, this is the same prejudice as the belief of the ancient Egyptians that the Earth was flat. The book is devoted to the theory of hyperspace. The idea of multidimensionality of space caused skepticism and was ridiculed, but is now recognized by many authoritative scientists. The significance of this theory is that it is able to combine all known physical phenomena into a simple construct and lead scientists to the so-called theory of everything. However, there is almost no serious and accessible literature for non-specialists. This gap is filled by Michio Kaku, explaining from a scientific point of view both the origin of the Earth and the existence parallel universes, and time travel, and many other seemingly fantastic phenomena.
"Microcosm. E. coli and the new science of life." Karl Zimmer.
E. coli, or Escherichia coli, is a microorganism that we encounter almost every day, but which is also one of the most important tools of biological science. Many major events in the history of biology are associated with it, from the discovery of DNA to the latest achievements of genetic engineering. E. coli is the most studied living thing on Earth. Interestingly, E. coli is a social microbe. The author draws surprising and alarming parallels between the life of E. coli and ours own life. It shows how this microorganism changes almost before the eyes of researchers, revealing before their amazed eyes the billions of years of evolution encoded in its genome.
"Earth. Illustrated Atlas. Michael Allaby.
A comprehensive picture of all processes occurring on the Earth, inside and around it. The publication contains: detailed maps of continents and oceans. Impressive colorful photographs. Complex concepts presented popularly. Wide view environmental problems. A fascinating story of life on Earth. Explanatory diagrams and drawings. Reconstructions geological processes. Terminological dictionary and alphabetical index. The atlas will become an indispensable reference tool and reference book for readers of all ages.
"History of the Earth. From stardust to a living planet. The first 4,500,000,000 years." Robert Hazen.
Book famous popularizer Science, Professor Robert Hazen, introduces us to a fundamentally new approach to the study of the Earth, in which the history of the origin and development of life on our planet and the history of the formation of minerals are intertwined. An excellent storyteller, Hazen captivates the reader from the first lines with a dynamic narrative about the joint and interdependent development of living and inanimate nature. Together with the author, the reader takes a breathless journey through billions of years: the emergence of the Universe, the appearance of the first chemical elements, stars, the solar system and, finally, the formation and detailed history of the Earth. The movement of entire continents across thousands of kilometers, the rise and fall of huge mountain ranges, the destruction of thousands of species of earthly life and the complete change of landscapes under the influence of meteorites and volcanic eruptions - reality turns out to be much more interesting than any myth.
“Human evolution. In 2 books." Alexander Markov.
A new book Alexandra Markova is a fascinating story about the origins and structure of man, based on the latest research in anthropology, genetics and evolutionary psychology. The two-volume book “Human Evolution” answers many questions that have long interested Homo sapiens. What does it mean to be human? When and why did we become human? In what ways are we superior to our neighbors on the planet, and in what ways are we inferior to them? And how can we better use our main difference and advantage - a huge, complex brain? One way is to read this book thoughtfully. Alexander Markov - Doctor of Biological Sciences, presenter Researcher Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His book on the evolution of living beings, The Birth of Complexity (2010), became an event in popular science literature and received widespread recognition from readers.
"The Selfish Gene" Richard Dawkins.
We are created by our genes. We animals exist to preserve them and serve only as machines to ensure their survival. The world of the selfish gene is a world of brutal competition, ruthless exploitation and deception. But what about the acts of altruism observed in nature: bees committing suicide when they sting an enemy to protect the hive, or birds risking their lives to warn a flock of the approach of a hawk? Does this contradict the fundamental law of the selfishness of the gene? In no case! Dawkins shows that the selfish gene is also a cunning gene. And he cherishes the hope that the view Homo sapiens- the only one on the entire globe - capable of rebelling against the intentions of a selfish gene.
The translation has been verified according to the 2006 anniversary English edition.
“Pseudoscience and paranormal phenomena. A critical look." Jonathan Smith.
Confidently using data from psychology, physics, logical analysis, history, Jonathan Smith leads the reader through the mysterious territories of the unknown, preventing him from getting lost among complex scientific concepts and helping to distinguish incredible truth and plausible deception.