System-Pluralistic Concept of the Scientific Method

Abstract

The article analyzes the work of the famous Russian expert on the methodology of scientific knowledge S. A. Lebedev, who published in recent years a number of fundamental works on this issue (Lebedev, 2015a, 2015b, 2017e, 2018). The subject of the study of the last monograph, which was a generalization of previous works of the author, was the history and theory of the scientific method (Lebedev, 2018). We will dwell on it in particular. In the first part, the main concepts of the scientific method in the history of the philosophy of science from antiquity to our time are analyzed. The second part deals with the theoretical problems of the modern methodology of science. The author develops the system concept of the scientific method as an interconnected set of various cognitive tools used in real scientific cognition. In contrast to the two, the alternative and widespread paradigms of interpreting the nature of the scientific method: the universalistic (monistic) and pluralistic (additive) the author develops a system-pluralistic theory of the scientific method.