НАУЧНЫЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ XVIII В.: ПРИОРИТЕТЫ И ПРАКТИЧЕСКАЯ ЗНАЧИМОСТЬ

Abstract

General works usually present the 18th century as the time of modern sciences development; the period when the turn from the mediaeval scholastics to the modern experimental sciences has already happened. This stereotype formed in the middle of the 20th century (especially German and Soviet). Basing on a number of publications of that period and modern researches the author of this article shows how much had the ideas of sciences values in the 18th century with traditions, which are so often regarded to be outmoded by that time: the understanding of God’s purpose, collecting wonders of the world and the proofs of His wisdom, monarch’s labour to realize His intentions. The 18th century was very far from the technocratic designations formed in the 20th century and factitiously transformed to some earlier periods of times. The encyclopedic epoch is characterized by the appearance of institutes, secularization and rationalization of mentality, rethinking the hierarchy of different science and the methods of applying mathematical and logical instruments, the attitudes to “liberal” and “mechanical” art. Academic recommendations on solving some practical tasks cold include not only rational advices but also penance and eager invocation. The processes of modern science formation were complicated, gradual and multivalued. New trends included gradual and partial rethinking of sciences’ “use”, “mechanical arts” relative advantage in status, appearance of new ways of mathematics and logical reasoning application; refocusing knowledge to secular, material and anthropocentric values; rationalization of sciences as the turn to resource-studies and improving the efficiency of usage with the means of state management; institutionalization (appearance of academies, new universities and expert societies).