Science As a Cultural Phenomenon and a Sociocultural Project

Abstract

Two ways of considering science—as a cultural phenomenon and as a sociocultural project—are analyzed through the prism of the sociophilosophical program of science development that was proposed by A.A. Bogdanov, a thinker and public figure. The premises of Bogdanov’s approach to the analysis of the stage of science development in his lifetime are revealed, making it possible to highlight the character of the ideological and sociocultural situation at the turn of the 20th century. At that time, the positivistic mindset and the recognition of science as a decisive element of cultural and historical integrity, formed by the European intellectual tradition, including to a significant extent the Russian one, coincided with the rise of the ideology of social reconstruction. It is shown that Bogdanov developed an original interpretation of Marxism with the involvement of the ideas of so-called second positivism, which included problems of the development of science and technology in the context of the historical development of human society. On the one hand, this made it possible to go beyond the internalist consideration of science (the view from the inside) and, on the other, to pose the question about science as a phenomenon not simply forming spontaneously but also accessible for conscious organizing activity, i.e., for control. In Bogdanov’s project, this control included not only scientific policy but also a broader one, which can be defined as sociocultural projecting, putting the scientist’s ideas on a par with various programs of substantiating science as a cultural value and social institution, characteristic of the formation and development of the modern European scientific tradition.