If you want to understand, if you want to come to a picture of what science is, what knowledge is, it could be a good start to try to become clear about the general content of the concept.
Many activities are today characterized as "Science!", while other activities are just as definitely characterized as "Pseudoscience!", maybe without the one making the judgement always having made it clear to himself what he really means with the words he is using. Especially when you try to come closer to an understanding of what "an anthroposophically fertilized art of healing" could mean, but also "anthroposophical natural science" in general, it becomes important to become clear about the different aspects of the concept and the problems with which it is connected.
THE GENERAL CONCEPT OF SCIENCE
Every scientific activity is characterized by two partial activities
One is some form of observation/perception. It can take place directly, through the senses, somewhat more indirectly via some form of an, in one or another respect sense improving instrument like a microscope, a telescope or stethoscope, or even more indirectly via some detecting instrument like a Geiger counter, an electrocardiograph or an X-ray apparatus (Harré 1976).
The other part is some form of thought activity It "surrounds" and penetrates the observation/perception; A more or less conscious thought activity takes place as an introduction to the observation. It directs the attention in a special direction, "chooses" observations, steps somewhat back during the direct moment of perception/observation, to dominate once more after the direct moment of perception/observation.
The thought activity distinguishes between different parts of that which is observed/perceived, gives them names or makes a more specific conceptual analysis of them, it may also quantify them and then relates them to each other, logically or mathematically.
So far, most people who have given the problem a thought would probably agree.
A "CULTIVATED"; CUT CONCEPT OF SCIENCE
But if you want to relate the concept to the rich flora of activities that are today termed "science" and get any help to see what they have in common, you have to specify the concept a step further.
If you look at what is today termed science, you find that only certain types of perception and certain types of conceptual formulations are permitted to use in connection with activities that in a more strict sense are characterized as scientific.
As far as perceptions are concerned, a number of different types of instrumental perceptions dominate. Different forms of more direct sense perceptions have a more ambiguous status. If you continue to perceptions of different forms of inner, psychic states; states of the soul, you have come to a type of perception with a very dubious status, to put it mildly, as something on what to base scientific knowledge. When you come to perceptions of a more spiritual nature, you have passed outside the border surrounding those types of perceptions that are discussed.
On the conceptual side, spatially oriented concepts of a mechanical character dominate. They should preferably relate to something that is quantifiable and it is very satisfying if the quantified perceptions (especially when one of the not exact sciences is concerned) have been chosen in a random way, exist in a great number and have to be put through a computer program to make it possible to describe the results with the help of a mathematical model, or to make it possible to point to more definite connections (significant correlations) between factors that you otherwise don't quite understand how the are related to each other.
How has this situation come about?
THE "PARADIGM" CONCEPT
In 1962, the historian and philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn, put forward the concept of "paradigm", to make it possible to understand how scientists work and why, at different times in history, they have chosen a specific way to describe a phenomenon that would otherwise be difficult to understand, why they have chosen observations of certain aspects of the phenomenon and certain types of models to describe it, when other observations and models might have been just as good.
The concept is a summarizing term for those factors that direct and put a limit to how you are permitted to work within a group of researchers and what is understood as "science" and "not-science" within that group.
Within the theory of science in Sweden you today find a distinction being made between at least six such factors. They are: a definite picture of the world, a specific concept of what science is, a special ideal of science, a number of aesthetic ideals, a certain ethic and also a certain "self perspective"; an opinion of the role of the researcher in research (Törnebohm 1974, Wallén 1974, Lindström 1974).
As will be more clear later, a definite concept of matter also plays a very definite role as a paradigmatic factor.
At first glance the concept of paradigm may seem somewhat bewildering (Mastermann in 1970 pointed to 21 senses in which Kuhn used the term), but it becomes clearer if you look at it as a way to describe how every question, problem and hypothesis that you formulate during the daily experimental research, independently of if you are conscious of it or not, is connected with a more or less explicit position in relation to basic philosophical problems. With the paradigm concept the basic philosophical problems have become visible again in science, but now related to empirical scientific research.
It makes it possible to characterize different groups of paradigms in a broader perspective, from the point of view of how they are related to the questions that have been discussed by philosophers for a number of centuries, the basic questions concerning the nature of reality (ontology), the nature of knowledge (epistemology) and the questions of the nature of values ("practical philosophy").
It also makes it possible to start to try to understand and characterize the relation between the more natural-scientifically oriented medicine of today and the more spiritual-scientifically oriented art of healing that exists today as anthroposophical medicine.
2006-08-30 22:30:04
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answer #1
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answered by Krishna 3
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Science is the application of logic in an attempt to understand life. Measurements!
2006-08-31 05:30:21
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answer #2
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answered by mick241602 3
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Science is:
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a. The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.
b. Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena.
c.Such activities applied to an object of inquiry or study.
2. Methodological activity, discipline, or study: I've got packing a suitcase down to a science.
3. An activity that appears to require study and method: the science of purchasing.
4. Knowledge, especially that gained through experience.
5. Science Christian Science.
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ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English, knowledge, learning, from Old French, from Latin scientia, from scins , scient- present participle of scre, to know; see skei- in Indo-European roots
2006-08-31 05:36:14
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answer #3
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answered by Basshead35 2
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Science includes, Maths, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and such other subjects which are said to be scientific as they include tedious work and proves of different kinds. It also includes tonnes of experiments and equations.
2006-09-01 14:57:21
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answer #4
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answered by jeanpace89 1
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Science is the human desperation for finding the truth.
2006-08-31 05:32:48
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answer #5
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answered by Nestor 4
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science is an art of analysing the secrets present in the nature, some people did not like to call it an art so they gave it a new name
2006-08-31 06:21:49
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answer #6
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answered by ammu 2
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Dear Kayla,
Science is a field of study by which people attempt to understand the physical world that surrounds them.
Hope this definition helps you !
All the very best,
Karma doll
2006-08-31 05:46:59
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answer #7
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answered by karma doll 2
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science is a systematized body of knowledge based on facts which can be obtained from experimentation, observation and experience.
2006-08-31 07:32:54
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answer #8
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answered by Angel 2
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Is what makes the world go round!
2006-08-31 05:54:14
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answer #9
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answered by Stealthy Ninja 2
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knowledge reduced to a system,the facts pertaining to ant department of mind,or matter in their dueconnections,skill resulting from trainning.
2006-08-31 05:31:04
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answer #10
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answered by whitecloud 5
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Log on to
http://hem.passagen.se/thebee/SCIENCE/Science.htm
2006-08-31 06:02:58
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answer #11
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answered by ErC 4
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