Metascience
All academic disciplines that deal with science itself can be described as meta-science . Thus the metascience corresponds as a discipline of science research ; however, the term meta-science is used more to characterize individual subjects, occasionally to designate one discipline as superordinate to another (“meta” is a Greek prefix for over ).
Some of the possible topics of meta-scientific engagement are:
- The basics of scientific knowledge ( logic , epistemology , etc.) in the philosophy of science
- The conditions of scientific work and knowledge ( sociology of science , history of science , etc.)
- The impact of science on society ( e.g. technology assessment )
- The psychological-aesthetic effect of scientific knowledge ( scientific aesthetics )
- The ethical consequences of scientific research ( scientific ethics )
- The quantifiable processes of scientific publication and communication ( scientometry )
Philosophy as a meta-science
Occasionally, philosophy as a whole is credited with being a metascience. Although there are clear overlaps (for example in the philosophy of science and epistemology ), this allocation is controversial in other parts of philosophy. This applies in particular to natural philosophy . The classic questions of natural philosophy include cosmology, the origin of the universe and life, and the question of the nature of human consciousness . Natural philosophy is therefore not a meta-science in the sense of a "science of knowledge". However, like the meta-sciences, it is based on reflecting and interpreting what science produces. In this sense, it can again be viewed as a meta-science.
The same applies analogously to the philosophy of culture . Just as natural philosophy tries to fathom the essential characteristics of nature, cultural-philosophical ideas about the nature of culture can be derived from findings from the social sciences and the humanities. The philosophy of nature and culture are sometimes closely linked, if one thinks of the philosophical questions raised by brain research or anthropology . Philosophy of nature and culture ask further questions wherever empirical science reaches its limits. And if you think about how strongly the cognitive and neurosciences shape the modern philosophy of knowledge, it becomes clear that they certainly include some meta-scientific questions.
See also
literature
- Metaphilosophy as Metaphysics. On the hermeneutics of the determination of philosophy . Journal for General Philosophy of Science. Vol. 5, 2/1974
- Eckert, Andrea: The imagination of the sensualists. Enlightenment in the field of tension between literature and philosophy . Diss. 2005, p. 60. Text as pdf
- Paál, Gabor : What is beautiful? Aesthetics and Knowledge . 2003, pp. 207-213
- Sowitzki, Ralf: Theories of Truth as a Framework for Assessment of Competing Methodologies: On the relevance of the idea of truth for specialist and meta-sciences , 1985