Iv российский философский конгресс

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References (all papers are in Russian)


Arnold, V. Mathematical Ignorance is Worse than Inquisition // Izvestia, January 16, 1999.

Bazhanov, V.A. Let Us Step Off the Roadside. // Poisk, 2001, N 30-31.

Dynkin, A. Resources and Personalities of Russia's Science // Nezavisimaya gazeta. 2001, January, 16.

Graham, L. What Have We Learned About Science and Technology from the Russian Experience? Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. Chapter 3 "How Robust is Science Under Stress?"

Letokhov, V.S. The Reform of Science Late for Quarter of Century // Nezavisimaya gazeta. 2004, October, 13.

Milov, L., Sedov, V. The Last Chance for Russia's Humanities // Nezavisimaya gazeta. 2003, April, 9.

Rakitov, A.I. Papers on the State of Science and Science Development in Russian Federation // Poisk, 2001, N 23-27.

Sosnov, A. Command Style Hurts Scientists // Poisk, 2004, N 41.

Vaganov, A. Regions Waits R&D // Nezavisimaya gazeta. HG-Science, 1998, May, N 5.


Владимир Колпаков (Россия). Наука в переходных обществах. Комментарий к докладу В. Бажанова


Вместе с уходом с исторической сцены социалистического общества, образец которого пытались построить в России, уходят в историческое прошлое и многие из его институтов, в частности, институт науки в том виде, в котором он сложился к концу пятидесятых годов. Эффективность и жизненная необходимость научных разработок стала особенно очевидна руководству страны во время второй мировой войны, а последовавшее сразу же после ее окончания противостояние двух мировых систем создало все предпосылки для дальнейшего развития фундаментальных и прикладных исследований. Государству нужны были военные технологии, поскольку опыт войны, а также послевоенное поведение бывших союзников показали, что это единственный способ обеспечить продвижение передовых идей коммунизма далеко за сложившиеся границы. Осознав этот факт, государство стало единственным тотальным заказчиком у научного ведомства. Ученые в послевоенную эру быстро были возведены в ранг номенклатурных работников. Однако коллапс тоталитарного государства в 1990 годы естественным путем устранил заказчика оборонных технологий, наука вдруг осталась невостребованной, началась перестройка, и общество устремилось в пока неведомое ему новое капиталистическое будущее. В переходный период, а он все еще продолжается, судьба науки и огромной массы людей, вовлеченных в обеспечение функционирования этого монстра социализма, оказалась теперь в их собственных руках. Отныне отеческая опека науки со стороны государства прекратилась. Наука и все кто был с ней связан, были попросту оставлены государством выживать в новых для нее условиях социального хаоса и туманных целей становящегося общества. В первой части своего доклада профессор В.Бажанов убедительно показал, как складывались отношения государства к своему научному сообществу в течение последних десяти лет, далее цитирую: «Science and education get State money due to residual principle». Но и при таком, остаточном подходе государства к науке научные учреждения недополучают даже тех 4-х ежегодно планируемых бюджетом процентов. В лучшем случае они получают половину от положенных им по закону средств.

Социальный статус академических ученых и профессуры также изменился в постсоветское время. Он поблек, потерял ауру исключительности, наконец, стал просто социально низким. Из-за отсутствия притока молодых исследователей наука стала катастрофически стареть. Профессор В. Бажанов констатирует, что «Russian scientific community becomes older, scientists leaves for business, drastic fall of prestige of academic and educational employment makes this problem the cornerstone one for the future of Russia as developed country entered the “golden billion” of mankind».

Выход из нарисованной мрачными красками картины современного состояния науки и научного сообщества, видится в направлении финансирования государством Research and Development (R&D) программ в соответствии с принципом «социального номинализма». Докладчик об этом говорит так: «Winning strategy therefore must stem from the principles of social nominalism. The main character, personage here is concrete scientist and research group». Принцип социального номинализма должен возобладать над принципом социального «social realism», при определении конкретных субъектов финансирования , «under the conditions of constant tiny investment in R&D». Только реализация принципа социального номинализма в конкретной практике финансирования R&D позволит предотвратить полное вымирание оставшегося научного сообщества и хоть как-то может способствовать продолжению научного прогресса. Такова, на мой взгляд, основная идея предложенного доклада.

Нельзя не выразить полную солидарность с озабоченностью докладчика the fate of science in the transitional society. Поставленный диагноз я разделяю, но при этом не могу согласиться с предписанным лекарством и методом лечения болезни. Я считаю предложенный подход весьма пассивным, он молчаливо допускает существование прежнего отношения между государством и наукой. По-сути, позиция докладчика есть молчаливое признание активной роли государства как заказчика и пассивной роли научного сообщества как исполнителя. Отношение такого рода было действительно характерно для тоталитарного типа порядка, оно эффективно обеспечивало воспроизводство и рост интеллектуального потенциала всего общества. Но ведь сейчас просто того государства больше нет. После коллапса административно-командного государства к настоящему времени сложился новый тип порядка между государством нынешним и социальными группами в нем - апатический. Следовать стратегии «выживания» науки при таком типе порядка - значит вести научное сообщество к его полному поражению и вымиранию в ближайшие 10-15 лет. Следовательно, позиция научного сообщества должна стать активной по отношению к власти.

Обосновывая тезис о катастрофическом состоянии экологии природы и культуры, я пытаюсь показать, что эту катастрофу можно преодолеть только путем мобилизации усилий всего общества. В этой экстремальной ситуации роль научного сообщества принципиально меняется. Ученые принимают участие в разработке грандиозного научного проекта «спасения», который далее путем всеобщего обсуждения и всеобщего голосования становится общегосударственным делом. Участие научного сообщества в реализации такого грандиозного проекта одновременно и престижно и благородно по своим целям.

Вместе с тем представленный доклад можно, на мой взгляд, критиковать за то, что принципы социального номинализма и холизма в финансировании научных исследований неявно рассматриваются только в двух контекстах или измерениях: социальном и политическом, да и то несколько абстрактно. Другие измерения/контексты науки в обществе как глобального, так и локального характера не выделяются и не анализируются.


Владимир Колпаков. Комментарий к докладу проф. Бажанова

Vladimir Kolpakov. Comments to Prof. Bazhanov’s “Science In Transitional Societies”


Having socialism which they tried to build in Russia fallen into oblivion, many social institutions such as science as it was known in late 1950s are now disappearing. The efficiency and urgent need of Research and Development (R&D) programmes became especially evident to the country's authorities during WWII, and the following rivalry between the two main superstates has created all the prerequisites for further fundamental and applied research development. The state needed military technologies as the war experience and post-war behaviour of former allies showed that this was the only way to export communist ideas far out of the present-day borders. Having realized this fact, the state became the only customer of the science department. During the post-war era scientists were quickly promoted to nomenclature members. But totalitarian state collapse in 1990s had naturally eliminated the only customer for defence technologies, there was no more demand for science, the perestroika started and the society rushed into new and yet unknown capitalist future. During the transitional period that is still typical of Russia the people of science and science itself were in charge of their destinies. The state paternal tutelage has been cut off. Science and scientists were just left by the government to survive in new conditions of social chaos and hazy goals of the society in its formation. In the first part of V. Bazhanov’s report he brought out clearly the dynamic of relationships between the state and science during the last decade: “Science and education get State money due to residual principle”. But even taking into account such residual principle, Russian science doesn’t receive even these 4% of the budget having about half of this sum at best.

The social status of academic scientists and professors was also subject to enormous changes in the post-Soviet period. It has faded, lost its uniqueness and finally become socially low. The lack of young researchers resulted in drastic scientists ageing. Professor V. Bazhanov states that «Russian scientific community becomes older, scientists leave for business, drastic fall of prestige of academic and educational employment makes this problem the cornerstone one for the future of Russia as developed country entered the “golden billion” of mankind».

State financing of R&D programmes according to “social nominalism” principle can be the way out for science and scientific society being in a grim situation now. The speaker describes this in following way: “Winning strategy therefore must stem from the principles of social nominalism. The main character, personage here is concrete scientist and research group”. When defining the financing addressees “under the conditions of constant tiny investment in R&D” the principle of “social nominalism” should dominate the principle of “social realism”. The only way to prevent the full extinction of the rest of Russian scientific community and at least partially to support the scientific progress is the implementation of social nominalism principle by financing R&D. In my opinion this is the main idea of the report.

I can’t but express my full solidarity with the speaker’s concern of the fate of science in the transitional society. I agree with the diagnosis made but at the same time I can’t agree with the medicine and the cure method prescribed. I consider this method to be greatly passive that implicitly tolerates the former relationships between the state and science. In fact the speaker’s point of view is a tacit admission of the active state’s role as a client and the passive role of scientific society as a developer. Such kind of relationship was indeed typical for totalitarian societies, it effectively provided for reproduction and increase of intellectual potential of the whole society. But this country doesn’t exist any more. After the collapse of administrative-command system a new, apathetic type of state and social groups’ relationships appeared by present moment. Following the strategy of science “survival” given such kind of relationships means leading the scientific community to its full defeat and extinction within the next 10-15 years. Hence scientific community position should become active towards the state. Let me explain what I imply here.


1. The collapse of totalitarian state has led to the social order of a new type, and now we witness an apathetic order when authorities treat the nation as a whole and different social groups in particular as a silent mass that is subject to the state’s sounding³⁹.

The report contains a high-minded objective to optimize the society resources so that to save science. Interestingly, in the beginning of the XX century the Vienna Circle intellectuals had a diametrically opposite objective – at that times science was considered as a part of social reforms. According to the Vienna Circle members it should had provided the “scientific understanding of the world” that was the theoretical grounds for the social world rearrangement programme. “The Manifest” composed by O. Neurath, R. Carnap, H. Hahn and others said: “We witness the spirit of the scientific world-conception penetrating in growing measure the forms of personal and public life, in education, upbringing, architecture and the shaping of economic and social life according to rational principles. The scientific world-conception serves life, and life receives it”.⁴⁰ At those times science was considered to be friendly to the society, and society reformers expected a real conceptual help from it. What changes can we observe here? Now science itself is seeking ways to survive after the society has become subject to social transformations. But the spirit and the fundamental idea of the Vienna Circle members, that acting is possible only on the grounds of scientific reflecting of the world processes, is still topical. Following the programme essence, let us draw our attention to the conceptual explanations of what is happening in our post-perestroika reality. The analysis of the state and society relationships evolution allows to assert that the democratic order hadn’t substituted with the demolished totalitarian one.⁴¹ The social structure has been broken, the society has split up, and in quite stable contemporary disorder several types of order were extracted (V.G. Fedotova): anarchical, apathetic and formally rational.

Anarchical order has dominated at the first stage of the social structure and social reality construction mechanisms breakdown. The elimination of the state as an active player and a transition of the society towards self-help outside the social network were typical for that period. The human identification within the framework of anarchical society is usually made according to the principle of adaptation. In this way the patterns and archetypes of collective behaviour that are embedded in traditions of society give way to primitive survival and enrichment models. The way of life simplifies a great deal, and the primitive and the bestial replace senses and needs that were formed by the previous culture and tradition.

An apathetic order, which is the next one in our analysis, has been formed during the last several years when authorities finally provided stability and security for the country’s citizens. But along with this change, the state has transformed its attitude towards its citizens as a mass. Such model can be found in Western countries where mass culture societies already have some own history.⁴² The peculiarity of situation in Russia is that the mass society is formed not in the sphere of industrial production and consumption, but mainly via the mass media influence. The state probes the mass. Probing implies a certain idea injection into the society after what mass reaction is being analyzed. The idea is subsequently transformed into a law in case there is no evident opposition to it. This can be referred to a number of reforms carried out. The Academy of Sciences is being treated the same way right now.

Thus, the totalitarian type of order when the state individually defined the amount of financing and its distribution has sunk into oblivion. The priority of science and in particular the most expensive fundamental research was clearly acknowledged and it becomes obvious now was generously financed. The nominalism principle was also fully implemented during this science-oriented time: whole research institutes and design offices were organized pursuing needs of individual scientists. But this time is gone! Nowadays there is an apathetic type of order when the state is not interested is science. The society doesn’t understand why some people devote themselves to science. The young in general consider it to be very dull, poorly-paid and not prestigious occupation! In such a situation an agreement with apathetic order means an acknowledgement of the full defeat of scientific community and thus a consent to all negative tendencies with respect to science clearly becoming apparent today.

The passive agreement with the apathetic order as the only type of relations between the state and the scientific community is advantageous for the authorities only as it keeps the status quo between the power institutions and the nation as liegemen. The needs of certain social groups are not merely ignored today but the citizens are being exploited as a human resource just like any other natural resource that is left to the state from socialist times also by right of succession. Given the present growth rate, established resources will be sufficient for nearest 10-15 years. At the end of almost same time period human capital left after totalitarian period will be lost. Certainly, given these circumstances the scientific community can be transformed into a silent mass. But the social transformation project leading to nation salvation and renascence could be worked out only with direct help of intellectual resources.


2. A scientifically grounded programme of environment protection and rescue of the culture ecology could become a socially important mobilizing idea of survival for the nearest future.

A Russian historian A.I. Utkin had recently drawn attention to the fact that originality of the national character is in our capability to work only discretely. It is typical for us to act with an impulse and then to rest and idle. Gradual and slow everyday growth of effort and thus systematic accumulation of results is not typical for the national code.⁴³ The country had always found enough energy to stand up from her knees only when it was united by a clear and significant idea. He is absolutely confident that that even now “we have to find what excites the public imagination and public perception… Without mobilization, that implies a clear and truthful evaluation of the tragedy we had, nobody would understand us, even ourselves. This is the only step our nation can make. We are not those Western brick-like people”.⁴⁴

But to activate this impulse energy one needs an immense and at the same time transparent project (recently a first man space flight was such a project). At the crucial moments of history, the national idea that was exalting the country thus helping it to play a significant role in the world community has always been formed under material threats. Such threats can have historically different forms. There are many works on the subject, but no substantial ideological and political answer was found.

Apart from material threats, there are certain types of non-material ones such as power institutes and media systems destruction, public opinion manipulation etc. Usually non-material threats are not coded within the system of law, hence it is difficult to detect and understand them as real challenges. For instance, the culture disappearance in its classical meaning and its substitution by the mass culture is not perceived as a threat by lots of people. However, a specialized culture production requires ready-to-act elite and special institutional forms such as universities, academic and various artistic organizations and associations. This elite is not only creative but more importantly has its special standards of a scientific and cultural value. The institutional environment destruction of elite bringing science and culture community members down to the level of a capitalist employee or a small business runner can lead to substitution of cultural production by mass culture consumption. Within the mass culture, internal standards of scientific community are replaced with external efficiency and profitability standards. A scientist in mass culture is to create some gadgets and novelties which will subsequently be sold on the market. Writers should write novels as bases for further film making, and poets should write lyrics for future smash hits. Such changeover of traditional and creative culture institutions to mass culture can end up in loss of unique and distinctive code of Russia. That is why the culture ecology rescue should be among the issues of vital importance.

Thus, if we consider the state of modern society to be catastrophic for the environment and culture, we need an “impulse” that will start resource mobilization for forthcoming disaster prevention. I believe that a comprehensive scientifically grounded state programme of environment and culture ecology rescue can guarantee such a mobilizing “impulse”. According to the programme, the relationships between society and scientific community are revised. An objective of further scientific development submits to a certain global programme that has a socially significant status. Science becomes available to social control, and the status of scientists is changing since they start to work for common goal of disaster prevention. Funding of science that aims at national welfare should be adequate to the expected result of becoming a leading country again.

Instead of critical reflection of the report I have tried to prove an idea of catastrophic condition of culture ecology and environment that can be improved by efforts of the entire nation only. The role of scientific society in these circumstances is subject to radical changes. Scientists take part in elaboration of a comprehensive scientific rescue programme draft that afterwards after procedures of wide discussion and suffrage voting becomes a matter of common concern. Participation of scientific society in such great project realization is considered as prestigious and noble.

Yet, this report can be criticized for its rather abstract examination of social nominalism and holism principles of scientific research funding in only two contexts or dimensions – political and economic. Other dimensions/contexts of science in a local or global society are not singled out or analyzed at all.