INFRASTRUCTURAL FRAMEWORKS OF SCIENTIFIC QUESTION GENERATION Constantin GRECU Vasile Goldi Western University of Arad Faculty of Humanities, Politics

and Administrative Sciences Department of Social and Human Sciences

ABSTRACT. The thesis of this essay is that scientific questions are not simply willingly created by scientists but rather imposed on them by the background knowledge, which comprises not only facts, laws and theories but also several infrastructural frameworks such as: general conception about the world, philosophical presuppositions, scientific world view, style of scientific thinking, ideal of scientific knowledge, ordinary and scientific common sense. These are internalized socio-cultural frameworks, and so they constitute together a sociocultural background which penetrates the content and form of scientific knowledge as a whole. They also play a determining role in scientific question generation.

What does question generation in science mean? The generation of questions and problems is a less studied process, and one also much more difficult to analyze, than the process of finding out answers and solutions. If we agree that science is nowadays the most important and efficient modality of cognition, it is to be expected that the results obtained from research on the process of scientific question and problem generation should shed light on the whole human process of knowledge, all the modalities of human interrogation. Far from making a fetish of science, I see it as a human creation and attach a great philosophical significance to its study because this is an important way of understanding the human being as such. For, according to G. Radnitzky (and many other scientists and philosophers), Since science (natural science and human science) plays an ever increasing role in our lives, an improvement of science

is essential for an improvement of mans conception of himself in his world (1972, p. 132). Until recently, research has concentrated especially on the final products of scientific knowledge looked upon as concepts and statements logically correlated within scientific theories, analyzed as static entities in the so-called context of justification. By contrast, another direction in the study of science considers that scientific cognition consists mainly in problem solving and question answering. This line of thought, whose starting point may be fo und in Aristotles works and later in Collingwoods view, has led to the so -called problematological conception about science according to which the main goal of science is to find solutions and answers and that any sentence should be viewed not simply as a sentence but as an answer to a question. For an answer to exist, there must first be a question, and if an answer as product may be appreciated as valuable, then so must it be with questions. Consequently, the process of question generation is at least as important as that of answering, not to mention its priority. So that, as J.T. Dillon notes, finding (discovering, formulating, posing) a problem represents a distinct and creative act, equal to or more valuable than finding a solution (1982a, p. 98). The act of finding, of posing a question is the deepest expression of scientific originality and creativity, which means, in my opinion and according to my principal thesis, that such an act is more important than that of answering and not that it is a purely subjective act. From the history of science perspective, A. Einstein and L. Infeld remarked that The formulation of a problem is often more important than its solution and that it marks real advance of science (1938; apud Dillon, 1982a, p. 98). The same position was held, among others, by K.R. Popper, who said that the most lasting contribution a theory can bring in the development of scientific knowledge is the new problems it raises (1970, p. 112), and M. Bunge, according to whom all investigation consists in finding, starting, and wrestling with problems. It is not
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just that research begins with problems: research consists in dealing with problems all the way along (1967, p. 165). Before going on, let us dwell a little on the nature of questions and on the relationships of questions with the cognate concepts. From the very outset we must remark its ambiguity and many-sided character, that makes it an object of multidisciplinary research. J.T. Dillon, for example, has pointed fifteen perspectives from which questions may be studied, starting from the philosophical one and ending with the practical one involved in parent-child relations (Dillon, 1982b). But for the time being, we must distinguish between the conceptual or logical aspect and the linguistic aspect here. In agreement with many authors, I contend that questions properly speaking are of a conceptual, deep nature and can be expressed by many kinds of sentences, as a rule, by interrogative sentences. Or, one may say that the other kinds of sentences expressing questions can be transformed into interrogative ones. If openly asked, a question may be expressed in different ways, the interrogative one among others, in one and the same language or in different languages, so that there is much reason in Harrahs suggestion to view a question as a set of interrogatives than as a single interrogative (Harrah, 1982, p. 29). But scientific questions, unlike the educational or conversational ones, are not always openly expressed and, in fact, as we will see, rarely are so. They are not addressed by the scientist to other people but rather to himself, so that they do not necessarily appear as interrogative sentences. M. Meyer rightly notes that Interrogative sentences are used by a questioner to elicit an answer, or if the latter is not verbal, the solution. The scientist, if he is to advance global knowledge, he must find the answer by himself. Nobody else already has it and, therefore, questions do not need to be formulate d (Meyer, 1980, p. 53). A somewhat more complicated relation arises between question and problem. As far as my concern with scientific knowledge goes, one may say that the two overlap in the sense that I will be only
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interested in those questions which express cognitive difficulties, i.e. problems, and that all knowledge problems, as questions, if openly formulated, may appear as sets of interrogative sentences. In other words, I will have in view the common territory of questions and problems in scientific knowledge. Otherwise, there may exist questions that are not problems (rhetorical, educational, conversational etc. questions), and problems that are not questions (i.e. interrogative sentences), at least prima facie. As J.T. Dillon observes, scientists and scholars pose problems not only as questions to answer, but also as hypotheses to test, theses to sustain, purposes to fulfill and topics to address (1986a, p. 144; also 1984, p. 331). Referring to the same common territory of questions and problems, M. Meyer says that since scientific questions need not be formulated, they are treated as problems or puzzles (1980, p. 53). The same author claims that question and problem lie on a deeper level than interrogative sentences, and that In general, questions and problems can be identified. If you prefer a psychological definition, you can say that a question is an obstacle, a difficulty, an exigency of choice, and therefore an appeal for a decision (Meyer, 1982, p. 84). Now, what should we mean by question generation in science? There are different answers to this question. So, for example, after analyzing a rich literature on problem finding and solving in general, J.T. Dillon distinguishes three levels of activity which clarify what can be meant by problem finding: recognize problem, discover problem and invent problem (Dillon, 1982a, p. 104). It is worth noting that he deals with problem finding, which, especially in science, suggests a process of discovery. From various researches one may conclude that in science question generation is to be understood as something that happens to scientists, as a process in which questions arise rather than are raised or put voluntarily by scientists. It is a process in which scientists wrestle with questions and problems which face them: they consciously look for answers and solutions, but not for questions and problems which impose themselves on scientists and are in need of
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solutions. Rather than invent or generate knowingly such questions and problems, scientists must choose among them, must select the important or solvable ones, must appreciate them from a number of viewpoints and try to bring them to an end. From the history of science one may see that the scientists ingenuity is consciously working only to grasp, to express, to select and to answer the questions, not so much to bring them out. And often they are mentioned only by their name, as metaquestions, at a metalevel, in terms such as x-question or x-problem (the question of the emergence of life on Earth, the problem of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, etc.) (see Cackowski, 1982, pp. 225-226). Even when some famous scientists came to formulate certain questions, as was the case with Boyle, Kepler, Newton, Darwin, Hilbert, etc., further research has shown that many of them were not the real ones and were not followed by future researchers or were susbstantially modified. So, for example, J. Agassi states that Robert Boyle has told his fellow members of the Royal Society of London which questions to pursue in their empirical studies, among them the following: What increment of the product of pressure and volume of a given gas is due to what increment of its temperature? So many times Boyle asked people to study this question, so many times he expressed his disappointment over the neglect which this question suffered (Agassi, 1975, p. 245). Some such questions are fully neglected, others are rediscovered after decades or centuries in other scientific contexts. Similar things can be said about Newtons queries in his Optics or about Hilberts geometrical queries. The most diverse studies reveal the implicit and unintentional character of question generation in the history of science. Since the scientists themselves do not as a rule state clearly their pursued questions (perhaps most of them are not aware of their questions) and since in the final products of their research work (treaties, handbooks, articles, etc.) they formulate only the researches results, there appears the need to discover or reconstruct those questions by means of a
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special inference from answers to questions. This is not an easy matter since to a given answer there may correspond many questions, just as to a given question there may correspond many answers, depending on the context. J.T. Dillon remarks, for example, that Case study proceeds as a rule by examining the sources to see what the scientist did and discovered, and then by supposing and reconstructing the question that the scientist must have asked in discovering it (1986a, p. 145). By way of counterexamples, he refers to Kleiner who resorted to Darwins Notebooks in order to discover the question Darwin asked and formulated during his studies, to Knorr-Cetina who observed that scientists discovered by chance a phenomenon that later on was registered as an experimental result, i.e., as an answer to a question they had posed only afterwards, and to Knorr-Cetina and Mulkays research from which the conclusion follows that the scientists were seen to encounter the solution by chance, and then to formulate the problem (Dillon, 1987, p. 13, preprint). This gives rise to an epistemological and logical problem, which could be treated by an interrogative model of scientific rationality, namely, whether it is possible to find a solution before formulating a problem, or, in more general terms, how can we come to know the questions that scientists ask? (Dillon, 1987, p. 14). Other case studies suggest that the problem is to discover the scientists questions and problems (because they did not formulate them explicitly); this gives rise to conceptual inference from the result qua answer to question or questions, which amounts to the reconstruction of those questions. About such an inference, J.T. Dillon said: Understanding what answers are is a good way to understand what questions are; a theoretical knowledge of answers is the best practical guide to formulating and asking questions and then seeing what the answer is and whether it is an answer at all (Dillon, 1986b, p. 116). In a similar way, S. Gale proposed as a task of his interrogative theory of scientific inquiry the study of mutual inferences between questions and answers, partly in order to reconstruct the respective questions. For example,
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data are often collected for reasons which have little to do with the ways in which they are later employed. In the use of these data, however, it is important that we are able to distinguish among the classes of questions which might have given rise to them (Gale, 1978, p. 338). And finally Gale suggests that any interrogative theory of scientific inquiry must involve an inference process in which questions (or, rather, classes of questions) were inferred from answers (i.e., models of data) (ibid., p. 339). The history of science offers us examples of questions answered before being consciously posed, as an unexpected result of the attempts to answer other, consciously pursued questions. B.S. Griaznov (1982) distinguishes two types of questions: problems, whose solutions are whole theories, and tasks, whose solutions are only parts of theories. The first are unknowingly solved, without being posed, but only retrospectively reconstructed. For example, Copernicus started from the task of determining the day of Easter. This task, assigned by the Catholic Church, became an astronomical task, meaning the establishing of the vernal equinox. It could be solved within the Ptolemaic system with the only difference that, within that system, a 10 days difference had accumulated by the 16 6h century. It was proved that equinoxial points are not fixed and that they are the result of the rotation of the Earths axis, its period being of 26,000 years, never mentioned in the observations made during the relatively short time between Ptolemaic and Copernican theories. In order to find out the causes of this mistake in the Ptolemaic theory, Copernicus felt obliged to find a fixed reference systems. Neither the elliptic nor the celestial equator, whose two intersections are the two equinoxes, were suitable for it because of their instability. Therefore, driven more by logico-theoretical motifs, Copernicus chose as a stable reference system the system of fixed stars, considering the Earth to rotate around its axis. This did not solve his task because the movement of the vernal equinox might have been explained also by the movement of the celestial equator. Therefore, Copernicus
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introduced the second movement, i.e. the Earths movement around the sun, in addition to that around its axis. The resulting system was a new theory, incompatible with Ptolemys one, and it seemed to be a solution to a problem that Copernicus never explicitly formulated or pursued to solve, regarding the structure of the Universe. This problem was retrospectively rebuilt, starting from the resulting solutions obtained. Similar considerations may arise studying Plancks theory, which appeared as a solution to the problem of energys continuity or discontinuity, although Planck aimed to solve only the task of finding out a formula for the radiation law, by which it shall coincide for the short waves with Wiens formula and for the long waves with Rayleighs one. In what follows, I shall try to demonstrate that this is due mainly to what will be called infrastructural frameworks of scientific thinking. Background knowledge and infrastructural frameworks Looked upon from a phenomenological point of view (i.e. described on a surface level), questions and problems are of the most various kinds and arise in the most different situations. Roughly speaking, there are two very important sources of questions and problems in science: practical needs and curiosity. The first source is an external or extrinsic one because, as M. Bunge notes, scientific problems are not primarily problems of doing but problems of knowing (1967, p. 167). Such problems may become scientific if they could be internalized. As B.S. Griaznov said, In order that the external factor influence change in scientific knowledge, at least the following conditions should be met: the external problem (suppose a social one) must be either transformed into an internal problem, or be put in certain correspondence with the internal problems (1982b, p. 97). The second source is mans curiosity or need to explain and understand himself and his surroundings. The role of curiosity, noticed as early as in Aristotles philosophy, is also defended by M.
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Bunge, according to whom creative work can be done only with enthusiasm, and this is apt to be absent if the line of research is not freely chosen out of curiosity (1967, p. 167). In the same line of thought, S. Gale writes that the primum mobile in the scientific enterprise is curiosity and that in any nontrivial sense it [the curiosity] may be regarded as being capable of being expressed as a question and, more specifically (in a linguistic construction), as an interrogative sentence or set o sentences (1978, p. 320). Curiosity may be an expression of ignorance, of doubt, of wonder and of desire to know. As C. Noica says, man does not ask a question only because of ignorance and desire for information but also because of knowing ignorance, the need for denial, or because of the need for completing, specifying, reformulating a meaning; just as, if it is not involved in a dialog, mans question may be the expression of doubt, or supposition and of directed search (1987, p. 144). As to the relation of doubt with question, V. Komarov stresses that There is no knowledge without questions, and no question without doubt The doubt of good sort contributes to the development of science (1978, p. 157). This immediately suggests that questions do not arise in a total gnosiological void. Generally speaking, questions arise only in mans cognitive relation to reality, this last term denoting whatever enters the field of subjects cognitive activity, including himself as a spiritual entity (as in the case of introspection). The reality as such, lato sensu, is not problematic in itself, it is neuter from this point of view. Man, as the epistemic subject and agent of action, is the one who questions reality in order to satisfy his material and spiritual needs. He is able to do this because he is a structured knowing entity. He approaches reality by means of his previous knowledge context consisting of information, interests, expectations, beliefs, desires, etc. As is well known and proved by epistemological and historical studies, no knowing process starts from an absolute beginning, from a zero point. So that questioning expresses not only the deficiency of existing knowledge and the need to eliminate it by getting new information but
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also the presence of a previous knowledge context, the capacity to convey some information contained in the questions presuppositions. Such a previous knowledge context is customarily called background knowledge or referential, and means the explicit or implicit set of the prior knowledge by the lack of which no systematic activity could take place (Tonoiu, 1978, p. 41). In science, it is constituted both by facts, laws, hypotheses and theories, as intrinsic elements forming a kind of surface structure, and by a set of seeming external, social elements, which become internal, implicit in the former ones, forming a kind of deep structure, to use some widespread Chomskian phrases. Anyway, it is something composed out of very heterogenous elements, highly unsystematized and logically inconsistent, so that J. Agassi, while criticizing Bunges conception, is right to say that Background knowledge is a mixed bag of working hypotheses and rules of thumb, of scientific theories, of varieties of levels and metaphysical doctrines, religion, superstition, and what not (1968-69, p. 458). It is even much more complex but this does not nullify its role at all. What is very important is the fact that every question arises precisely against such a background knowledge. As M. Bunge said, In general, every problem is posed against a certain background constituted by the antecedent knowledge and, in particular, by the specific presuppositions of the problem (1967, p. 171). But a minute analysis reveals that it contains a set of the subjects commitments of all kinds, some of them appearing as the assumptions of questions. So D. Harrah points out that anyone who asks a question is commited to asserting something, to project something and to receive a direct or partial answer (1982, pp. 34-35), and J.T. Dillon divides the assumptions of a question into presuppositions (sentences that are entitled by the question) and presumptions (the beliefs communicated by the person when asking a question in certain conditions) (1986b, pp. 103-105). What Dillon calls presumptions are otherwise known as pragmatic presuppositions of questions.
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Now, the mechanism by which background knowledge contributes to question arising may be described as a cognitive conflict between it and emerging surprising phenomena. M. Sintonen, commenting upon Laudans conception about scientific problems, says that Changes in background knowledge make new phenomena seem surprising or irregular or otherwise in need of explanation and that since the background knowledge and expectations of laymen and scientists vary from person to person and from time to time, different questions seem pressing or illegitimate, and to different degrees, for different persons and at different times (1984, p. 41). The background knowledge contains as a first part what I have called the surface structure (facts, laws, hypotheses, etc.) which can be named, by and large, scientific theories or theoretical schemes. They give birth to some expectations as to the behavior of phenomena. Many questions and problems arise as against such manifest, explicit part of background and most of them are grasped, formulated and consciously pursued by scientists. Many logicians and philosophers of science refer precisely to the role of this part of background knowledge when speaking about scientific question generation, and have in view certain contradictions or inconsistencies between theories (or expectations generated by them) and facts, logical contradictions within theories or between different theories, unexpected or undesired results of observations, measurements, experiments, etc. Because of the theoretical background, the questions and problems arise as objective phenomena, as relative but logical anomalies. In Humphreys words, what shall count as an anomaly is a function of the background of belief and knowledge against which the anomaly is set. Anomalies are what they are in virtue of the conceptual setting in which they occur (1968, p. 81). According to K.R. Popper, the problems arise especially when our expectations have been deceived or when our theories lead to difficulties, to contradictions, and these can happen either within a theory, or between two different theories, or as a consequence of a
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clash between our theories and our observations (1970, p. 111). Almost in the same way, the famous American logician I. Copi notes that a problem is a fact or group of facts for which we have no acceptable explanation, which seems unusual, or which fails to fit in with our expectations or preconceptions, and that the felt problem arose from an apparent conflict between the data of experience and accepted scientific theories (1972, p. 445). In his theory of scientific progress, L. Laudan, after distinguishing between empirical and conceptual problems, states that empirical problems are anything about the world which strikes us as odd, or otherwise in need of explanation (1977, p. 15); internal conceptual problems are matters of consistency, ambiguity, and circularity among a theorys concepts, and external conceptual problems arise from conflict with other theories or doctrines. Finally, I quote P. Alexander, who contends that what creates problems is that one set of accepted descriptions appears to conflict with a set of descriptions which seems to fit a newly observed phenomenon or that this second set of observations, while no conflicting with any we accept, appears to have no home among, no connection with those we already accept (1963, p. 99). But science cannot be reduced to the explicit part of background knowledge. Just the contrary, the greatest part of it is constituted by hidden, implicit elements, which can be reconstituted from what G. Holton has called second hand sources, such as correspondence, interviews, notebooks, etc. (Holton, 1978). Or, as H. Bondi has noted, The scientific articles say almost nothing to the readers about how some outcome has been obtained. Often the solutions, presented by the author, represent only the fifth part of what he comes to think Concerning the question of why the author has dealt with exactly this problem, the most daring authors venture to do only a perceptible allusion (1978, p. 7). As science is a social enterprise and an important component of human culture, it is no wonder that it is strongly influenced by the other components of the socio-cultural background, which, although at
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first sight seems external, in the course of time become internal, implicit, hidden constituents of science and scientific knowledge. They are, as C. Noica would say, an external medium which becomes an internal one (1981, p. 339). Since science, as a part of human culture, has no absolutely autonomous existence, V.F. Weisskopf is entitled to formulate a Gdel theorem for science: It must be pointed out that science itself has its roots and origins outside its own rational realm of thinking. In essence, there seems to exist a Gdel theorem of science, which holds that science is possible only within a larger framework of nonscientific issues and concerns. The mathematician Gdel proved that a system of axioms can never be based on itself: in order to prove its consistency, statements from outside the system must be used. In a similar manner, the activity of science is necessarily embodied in a much wider realm of human experience (1984, pp. 194-195). Scientific knowledge is to a great extent socioculturally loaded or has a strong socio-cultural dependence, besides the empirical and the theoretical ones. This wider realm of human experience becomes a part of science itself, placed on a deep level forming what I call infrastructural frameworks. These are some preconditions of knowledge, but not only so, because they underlie and penetrate the very content and form of scientific knowledge and can be here uncovered by special inferences and interpretations. More adequately they may be called presuppositions of scientific knowledge which, as M.S. Kozlova remarked, are formed outside the special scientific procedures, in the larger context of culture. These universal spiritual presuppositions, which are formed step by step, constitute boundary bases of science and are made explicit, conceptually formulated and systematized by the philosophers efforts (1982, p. 86). We have in mind frames such as general conception about the world, philosophical presuppositions, scientific world view, style of scientific thinking, ideal of scientific knowledge, ordinary and scientific common sense.
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As I have pointed out elsewhere, the components of this set of ideas, beliefs, pre-conceptions, attitudes, appraisals and so on, precede, trigger, accompany and lend content to the knowledge process, are of a relatively a priori character, to the extent to which they precede (in chronological or logical order) a process of cognition, but are also a posteriori in character, since they can be identified in its finite products. Meanwhile, they are also analytical as they can be identified through a special type of analysis in the content and form of knowledge already gained, and synthetical as their account leads to something novel with respect to the knowledge under consideration (see Grecu, 1983, p. 172). They play an important role both in the development of science in general and in the raising, selection and solving of scientific problems and questions. As E. Sperantia once said, they appear as postulates of thought that are neither provable, nor refutable by experience but must be admitted in order to avoid nonsense and the absurd in human knowledge (see Sperantia, 1943, p. 3). In a similar manner, P.P. Gaidenko remarks that reasearches in the spheres of history, philosophy and science of science revealed the presence in any scientific theory of such assertions and assumptions that within the framework of this particular theory are not proved but are accepted as certain axiomatic premises. These premises, however, play such an important role in theory that their removal or revision also leads to a revision or abolition of the given theory (1981, pp. 87 88). In what follows, I will present these in turn, under the general phrase infrastructural frameworks. General conception about the world This framework, also called the general world view, is the largest one, and comprise, in one way or another, all the others. The scientist assimilates it during his becoming a general epistemic subject and a specialized researcher, which is a result of his living together with other people, within specific social communities, with determined
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preoccupations, interests and desires, related to a determining natural and social background. Although it is generally very difficult to define this expression of its polysemantic character, we do have an idea as to what it is about, and may observe that the two words composing it have special meanings in contexts such as the present one. Here the world is to be understood not so much as denoting the Universe in its spatio-temporal infinity and its absolute independence of man but rather as denoting those parts of it which are object of mans search and action. And the conception or view has the meaning of general knowledge, beliefs, principles, ideals and values related to a world viewed as such, concerning as well the relationship between humans and the world. In one of its most complete definitions, The general world-view is the system of views about the objective world and mans place within it, about the relationship of man to his environing reality and to himself, as well as the basic vital place of men determining these views, their beliefs, ideals, principles of knowledge and reality, value orientations (Encyclopedic Philosophical Dictionary, Moskow, 1983, p. 375; apud Smirnova, 1984, p. 5). As one can see, this comprehensive framework contains epistemological, social and logical components, connected more or less coherently among themselves. But the very essence of the general conception about the world is the problem of the world in relation to mans fundamental demands, ideals and desires: here man should be considered in its most general meaning, that is as individual, representative of a collectivity and standing for society in general. Being a highly complex formation of the human mind, the general world view cannot be reduced to one or another of its components, including philosophy. It is the highest and most complex level of human self-consciousness, as individual and collectivity, the expression of the human being within his natural and social surroundings, the reflection of what exists from the point of view of what must be according to mans ideals and fundamental needs, and vice versa, the reflection of what must be from the point of view of the
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extant reality. And since science arises and develops in a sociocultural frame, it incorporates in its content and form more and more such general world view components. It is not only a body of knowledge about the external world, as it explicitly appears for physical sciences, but also a sort of self-knowledge of man himself, an expression of his personality traits, of his moral, aesthetic and axiological aspects, as this occurs in its implicit, hidden levels. Taking into account such general world view elements and their important role in scientific knowledge in general, C.A. Hooker remarks with good reason: The recognition that lying at the foundation of science there are conceptions of the nature of the world are not themselves open to immediate empirical verification or refutation, but which may only be gradually modified or abandoned after literally millennia of exploration of the adequacy of the theories formulated within their terms, seems to me to be one of the most important things to recognize about the nature of the scientific endeavor (1974, p. 144). Roughly speaking, the world is composed of the natural environment and the social environment, so that, as a consequence, the general world view consists of the conception about the nature and the conception about society. The former comprises knowledge, representations, beliefs and convictions referring to all natural phenomena in their relationship to man, to mans position as related to nature, and leads to the necessity of answering questions such as: What is life? How did it appear on Earth? What other forms of life are there in the Universe? What is the anthropogenetic process? What is the psyche? What about reason and conscience? How did they come into being? To what extent is man free in his actions against the forces of nature? etc. The study of these questions, according to V.F. Chernovolenko, supposes the existence of certain representations about the structure of the Universe and the genesis and development of various cosmic systems, about our planets place in outer space, i.e. cosmological and cosmogonical representations about the fundamental forms and laws of abiotic
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nature (physical, chemical, geographical representations), about the laws of the structure, functionality and development of organic bodies and the general interaction of the biosphere with inorganic nature (biological representations), about the mechanism of psychic activity and human thinking (the physiology of superior nervous activity, psychology, cybernetics, etc.) (1970, pp. 59-60). The latter, referring to society and mans position in society, consists of political, juridical, moral, artistic and religious elements and leads to questions such as: What does human society represent? How is it structured and what are the ways it works? What is the sense of order in social life events? Is the historical process necessary or accidental? These problems as well as many others of the kind, though not strictly scientific at first sight, may become scientific in the course of the time to the point that various scientific branches differentiate between their own object and their particular methods of research. Further on, the problems concerning the general conception about the world as well as the philosophical ones are considered as presuppositions of scientific problems to the extent that solving scientific problems supposes the previous solving of other problems, concerning a general conception about the world. Now, the world view may be systematized and presented in special works (handbooks, treatises, studies), but ordinarily it is not. It works spontaneously, unknowingly from the point of view of the researcher, who occasionally nay become aware of it, not as a researcher proper, but as a philosopher of his science or as a metaresearcher of his domain of interest. Anyway, such a self-consciousness relating to the general world view is a post factum process, a result of reflection on his own past activity, that can give birth to a prospective or predictive attitude from the scientists part. That is why T. Oizerman speaks about an orientational function of the world view: The orientational function of a world view presupposes certain definite notions (scientific or unscientific) concerning mans whereabouts in the
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natural and social scheme of things. These notions help us to discover possible paths of motions, to choose a definite direction corresponding to our particular interests and needs. The orientational function of a world view is made possible by its integrating function, that is to say, the kind of generalization of knowledge which enables us to single out relatively remote goals, to substantiate certain socio-political, moral, scientific, ideals, criteria, etc. (1973, pp. 222-223). The important, directive, role of the world view in scientific knowledge was remarked by many famous scientists. One of them, Max Planck, for example, once said that The research scientists world view will always determine the direction of his work (1949, p. 283; apud Oizerman, 1973). As a consequence of the fact that the general world view has as its core the man-world relationship, it will always maintain an anthropomorphic trait, even though such a trait tends to diminish through the history of scientific knowledge. Anyway, in ancient times, it was very pronounced. For example, as Oizerman points out, Thales observed that a magnet attracts metal and he asked himself why this happens, and in order to answer he resorted to the well-known and perfectly comprehensible conception of the soul. Heraclitus did the same when he maintained that a drunken man could not stand straight because his soul, a bright fire and hence extremely dry by nature, had become damp. Lucretius asked why sea water is salty and replied that the sea sweats, and sweat is salty. But if it is true, as some erotetic logician claims, that the answer to a question affirms one of its presuppositions or that it implies such a presupposition, the inescapable conclusion is that the raising of such questions is suggested or even generated by the general world view involving the conviction that a magnet is a soul, the soul is a bright fire, the sea sweats, etc. and, therefore, that an anthropomorphic world view underlies the generation of these questions. This anthropomorphic character, very strong for the mythological world view, lasted a long time and, as I have pointed out already, some elements of it are
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generally present, as far as science itself is an outcome of human activity and lives in a social background. But if this common element is left aside, there is a deep contrast between ancient and medieval thought, on the other hand, and modern thought, on the other hand, with respect to their conception of mans relationship to his environment. For example, ancient and especially medieval thought claimed that man is the center of the Universe, and the whole world of nature is teleologically subordinate to him and his eternal destiny; consequently, the world was held to be immediately present and fully intelligible to mans mind, which led to the tendency to describe and explain the phenomena in terms of so-called secondary qualities. What appeared different for human senses was considered to be different substances or qualities, each as real as the other. So, a typical question for medieval physics was: Why is the water hot to one hand and cold to the other, as heat and cold are distinct substances? It is just the converse with modern physics, based on a different conception of man and his relationship to the world. Now man is dislodged from his central place, the world is viewed as full of atoms and bodies moving within an infinite and homogenous space, man himself being a chance and temporary product of a blind and purposeless nature, an irrelevant spectator of her doings. The phenomena are described and explained in terms of so-called primary qualities, of material and efficient causality, of relations statable in mathematical form. And the only legitimate questions considered are those which can be formulated in such terms. A return, but in a special and practical manner, has happened in contemporary science, when, because of Plancks discovery in the first place, man, as knowing subject, is reintegrated into nature, becoming, as Bohr once said, an actor and a spectator in the life drama at the same time (1969, p. 84). The general world view contains and influences all the other infrastructural frameworks of scientific knowledge, and at the same time mediates the influence of the socio-cultural medium upon science as a whole. For example, it was the main factor that determined the
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increase of the role of philosophy, especially the centrality of epistemology, in modern times. And this is, as Burtt noted, a most natural corollary of something still more pervasive and significant, a conception of man himself, and especially of his relation to the world around him (1967, p. 2). Philosophical conception of the world and knowledge This second infrastructural framework, implicitly contained in the previous one, appears as a set of various presuppositions of several kinds. These are ideas which are neither conclusions derived from inductive generalizations of scientific data, nor premises of deductive reasoning by means of which certain scientific information can be obtained, but exist both at the beginning and at the end of scientific knowledge, belonging both to the external cultural medium and to the contents of this knowledge. Some authors, such as V.S. Cherniak (1976, p. 148), call them philosophical substructure of thought. But according to my opinion, they are not exactly, or not merely so, since they may be found in the very content of scientific knowledge, of course, on some deep levels. The philosophical presuppositios of scientific knowledge and question generation must not be identified with another kind of philosophical influence upon science. Generally speaking, in each historical epoch there are two kinds of philosophical ideas, not completely isolated from each other. There are, on the one hand, the professionally elaborated philosophical conceptions as results of the systematization by philosophers of the most general views concerning the theoretical understanding of the world. Lato sensu, they may be named philosophical presuppositions of science as the latter is born and develops in a socio-cultural background containing such conceptions which influence it and even, some of them, are internalized by science itself. But influence can lead to the very presuppositions just when it suggests or inspires scientists to certain ways of research, ideas and questions. The history of science shows
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that many times scientists claimed that they share, and are influenced by, certain philosophical theories (e.g. Einstein vis--vis Mach, Heisenberg vis--vis Plato, etc.), but their true philosophical options and presuppositions, derived from the study of their scientific ideas, are of a distinct nature. So that philosophical presuppositions, stricto sensu, are rather and most often unprofessional philosophical views, spontaneously or unknowingly embodied by scientists in their process and outcomes of scientific research, as a result of the internalization of existing philosophical ideas, of their life and scientific experience, of their daily contact with the world, of their language and laws of thoughts, etc. They thus appear as philosophical ideas contained, unasserted, in other ideas or, according to Armours expression (1971, p. 216), they are packed in the latter, and can be made explicit by a special operation of presupposing or unpacking. Due to their essentially spontaneous character, philosophical presuppositions of science rarely become conscious, and scientists rarely are aware of them. Their existence and role are revealed by philosophers of science, or by scientists themselves qua philosophers of science. Thus, for example, the well known physicist L. Brillionne writes that Scientists always work on the bases of some philosophical presuppositions and, though many of them may be aware of this, these presuppositions really determine their general position in research (1966, p. 11). And M. Flonta remarks that presuppositions as research framework, i.e. options with a specific philosophical character, have a determinative influence upon the research peoples scientific mind. The problem is that they are rarely aware of their existence and role. The nature of these presuppositions makes them difficult to identify and isolate. Research, debates and scientific reasoning are decisively structured by presuppositions, deeply rooted in the way of thinking and the working habit that researches assimilate during the process of their professional instruction (1985, pp. 365 366).
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Not being explicitly formulated in scientific texts, with an academic character such as text-books, scientific treatises or articles, they may be partially found in second hand sources which belong to certain scientists and seem private rather than public knowledge at first sight, as G. Holton also remarks when speaking about the themes of scientific thinking (see Holton, 1978). They also act within the process of creation, usually helping towards the generation of scientific ideas rather than to their testing or validation. The philosophical presuppositions are mainly of ontological, epistemological, axiological, logical and methodological nature. The principal ontological and, in general, philosophical presuppositions is that of existence. To a great extent, it is a consequence of the use of language, because terms have references whose existence is assumed some way or another from the beginning, and statements presuppose the existence of something by reference to which they have truth-value. So that, as E.A. Burtt has pointed out, there is no escape from metaphysics, that is, from the final implication of any propositions or set of propositions. The only way to avoid becoming a metaphysician is to say nothing (1967, p. 224). Further on, cognition presupposes at least the existence of the subject and the object of knowledge. The existence of the knowing subject cannot be doubted unless we want to be absurd and self-denying, and the existence of the object is presupposed by the use itself of concepts and statements. These ontological or metaphysical presuppositions are very important for scientific question generation, because, as M. Bunge notes connecting the ontological and the epistemological presuppositions, No question is ever posed without presupposing something. To raise any question at all presupposes our own existence and to ask about the ways of things presupposes at least the possibility of their existence and of the possibility of our knowing them to some extent (1967, p. 178). This is a reason why existence is often c alled the presupposition of presuppositions. Several other ontological
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presuppositions refer to motion, space, time, quality, quantity, causality, etc. As to the last two, M.S. Kozlova remarks that n fact, scientific knowledge in any forms are oriented by representations of lawfulness and causality. Spontaneously formed in certain stages of culture, these universal spiritual forms work in science. And this real functioning of them inside science makes them different from the philosophical conception professionally elaborated and stated in treatises about causality and laws (1982, p. 87). The main epistemological presupposition consists in admitting the world cognoscibility or the epistemic determinism. Any cognition process presupposes the conviction that the object under study can be known, albeit partially or imperfectly. Without this assumption the entire cognitive undertaking would be meaningless. Likewise, the scientist is assumed to have prior knowledge of what to know means, of how he may obtain true knowledge and to discard the false, which presupposes a prior understanding of what truth and falsity mean. As for axiological presuppositions, right from the beginning one must admit that the scientist can appraise and assign values. Even before he proceeds to the proper study of the object, he performs a selection of the latter, he considers it to be interesting and apt for study in several respects, refers it to certain material and spiritual requirements in order to assess the manner and the extent to which the study of this object might contribute to satisfaction of these needs. Similarly, the scientist is assumed to be able to assign to the knowledge gained such values as objectivity, certainty, truth, simplicity, etc. Among the logical presuppositions, one must admit the existence of thought, analysis and synthesis, generalization and determination, definition, induction and deduction, the laws of identity, noncontradiction, etc., widely used in science and assumed beforehand, even in a spontaneous, implicit manner. Obviously, real scientific knowledge as well as common knowledge involve, beside the
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elements of thought that are the object of classical logic, still a host of others, most of which form the object of some new types of logic, called nonstandard logics. Finally, the methodological presuppositions refer essentially to the structure, function and methods of scientific knowledge, to the relationships between formal and factual, between empirical, theoretical and metatheoretical, between experience and theory, to the nature and the functions of the problem, fact, hypothesis, law and theory, to the role of description, explanation and prediction, to the operations of confirmation, falsification, corroboration, verification, etc. About all of these and many others the scientist has a prior opinion, however weak or unaccounted it may be. Philosophical presuppositions, which can be formulated both as statements and questions, play an important role in raising scientific questions and problems. In the greatest part of the history of science, this was an implicit role. Nowadays, when science studies phenomena and domains of reality inaccessible to direct approach, and appeals more and more to the scientists imagination and abstracting power, as a consequence of the discovery of new phenomena that cannot be integrating into the traditional representations, it is obvious that before raising and solving special scientific problems, it is necessary to formulate and solve philosophical problems. An example of such could be the situation of quantum mechanics in the 30s and 40s years of the past century , when scientific research proper drew physicists attention upon the concept of reality, upon the criteria of physical reality, determinism and causality, space, time, movement, etc. Only the correct raising and solving of these philosophical problems pushed ahead the physical problems properly. But philosophical presuppositions, both assertive and interrogative, act, at the same time, as selector in relation to scientific problems. First of all, during each epoch in the development of science, out of all real or possible scientific problems, only problems noticeable in relation to the existing philosophical problems
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and theories were selected as interesting and worth studying (see Grecu, 1982, p. 165). This could explain to a large extent the fact that some scientific problems are sometimes left aside for a while, afterwards discovered again, while others, after being dealt with by the scientists of an epoch, are afterwards completely forgotten. J. Agassi suggests that question is best and most worthy of pursuing which is most likely to alter our viewpoint, our metaphysics, our whole view of the universe (1975, p. 244). The same author considers that during every historical period, researchers deal with a lot of problems; so that the question arises of the criteria for deciding which of them should be declared fundamental or, at least, most important. There are different such criteria, but one must be the most important. Those problems have chosen which had been related to the metaphysical problems of that time. The scientific events considered noticeable were those which could shad light upon the metaphysical problems in question ( ibid., p. 208). In his turn, T.S. Kuhn, taking into consideration the heuristic value of philosophical problems in relation to scientific ones, underlines that real research rarely begins before a scientific community is sure to hold clear answers to such questions like: What are the main entities which govern the Universe? How do they interact with every part and with our senses? What kind of questions can legitimately rise in relation to such entities and what are the modalities to search for an answer? (1976, p. 48). One can thus recognize, under such queries, certain philosophical, ontological, gnosiological and methodological presuppositions. Concerning scientific research in physics, into socio-cultural background, I. Prigogine and I. Stengers note that The history of physics also reveals series of problems, lucidly and deliberately generated by certain philosophical preoccupations. It also establishes the fertility of such approach The history of science, as any social history, is a complex process which joins together events generated by
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local interactions and projects formed by the general conceptions concerning the aim of science and the ambition of cognition (1984, p. 408). The two authors pleaded for the recognition of the open character of science and also for productive communications between philosophical and scientific questions which shouldnt be denied by partition or destroyed by a defying ratio. Finally, let us remind ourselves, as B.V. Markov does when he underlines the role of philosophical ideas in the scientific enterprise, that when analyzing the problem of motion, Aristotle does not limit himself to the study of mechanical translation but examines the qualitative transformation, the transition from possibility to reality, and other kinds of change. In this case he constantly puts questions about principles and causes (1984, pp. 127-128). Scientific world view This is a third infrastructural framework, more reduced regarding generality than the philosophical one and therefore closer to the scientific theories. Roughly speaking, it represents a highly developed systematization of scientific knowledge, which mediates the influence of the socio-cultural medium, of the general world view and of philosophy upon science proper. Therefore, some authors consider that it belongs manifestly to scientific theories rather than to a level underlying such theories or to the preconditions of scientific knowledge. It must be noted that although a manner to systematize scientific knowledge, the scientific world view is not simply the result of special, methodical, purposive preoccupations of scientists or philosophers, but the rather spontaneous product of the historical development of scientific knowledge and philosophical thinking. It has a stronger durability and stability than scientific theories, which makes possible that on one and the same scientific world view many simultaneous or successive scientific theories may be based. It is made by the synthesis and generalization of data from all sciences under the
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influence of the dominant philosophical ideas and that of the leading science at that very moment of sciences development. At the same time, as we will see in the sequel, the scientific world view is not necessarily something that comes after or at the end of certain scientific theories, as a synthesis-outcomes of the latter, because, in some historical epochs, it precedes some scientific theories and, even more, makes them possible and for some time generations and solves the corresponding questions. Different from the theoretical or conceptual scheme which consists of constructs resulting from a maximal abstractization and idealization as well as their correlations within scientific hypotheses and laws, the scientific world view represents a model of the world, an ontology of it, because of its concepts and statements which are meant to describe entities and relations of the very reality within which the research domain of science deals and because of the philosophical tint of its components. Thus, for example, the theoretical scheme of Newtonian mechanics contains theoretical constructs such as material points, force, inertial referential frame, while its scientific world view contains objects such as atoms, actions of some bodies upon others, absolute space and time. There are various scientific world views, differing among themselves both by the degree of generality and by domains of applicability. Roughly, there are first the scientific world view of nature and the scientific world view of society. The former can be mechanical, physical, chemical, biological, etc. Still more exactly, one may speak of electrodynamic, relativist and quantum scientific views as species of the physical one. The latter, in its turn, can be economical, psychological, anthropological, and so on. Moreover, we can speak of a general scientific world view, as a special synthesis, which, as V.S. Stepin points out, involves not only the representations about the structural features of nature, rendered evident in a certain stage of sciences development, but also the
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representations concerning society and men, mans place in the Universe, the peculiarities of his knowing activity (1984, p. 439). Because of its greater generality and stability, as well as of its philosophical load, one and the same scientific world view can underlie several scientific theories or theoretical schemes. So, for example, on the basis of the mechanical world view, Newtons and Eulers mechanics, thermodynamics and Ampres and Webers electrodynamics have been constituted. In a similar way, on the basis of the electrodynamical world picture, Maxwells electrodynamics theory and Hertz mechanics were formed and developed. But as I noted earlier, the scientific world view is not only a synthesis of certain existing theories, but also it can appear before their apparition, as a synthesis of the existing knowledge about the world, it can influence the birth of certain scientific theories and it can even accomplish their special functions (description, explanation, prediction). For example, as A.M. Mostepanenko notes, in physics at the beginning the fundamental elements of the physical world picture have been formed on the basis of the empirical data and philosophical ideas, and only afterwards the possibility of physical theory construction occurred (1977, p. 25). Often the role of the scientific world view was played by the philosophy of nature, as a speculative attempt to describe and explain natural phenomena. Later on, for example, many scientists, among whom was Galileo, the greatest one, established the bases of the mechanical world picture and only afterwards did Newton create the classical mechanics as a physical scientific theory. In the same way, a host of scientists with Faraday established the bases of the electrodynamical world picture and then Maxwell created the physical theory of electrodynamics; in the works of scientists such as Planck, Einstein, Bohr, de Broglie, etc. were outlined the frames of the contemporary quantum field world view and only next did Heisenberg, Schrdinger and Dirac create the theory of quantum mechanics, and Feynman, Schwinger and Dayson create the quantum electrodynamics.
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In order to suggest the role of the scientific world view in the generation of scientific questions, we will give some examples. The first example is the ancient or Aristotelian organicist world view, drawn up under the influence of the existent socio-cultural medium, the biological researches of Aristotle and the usual antrhropological vision. It presents a finite, closed, ordered universe (Cosmos), making clear distinctions between up and down, between the perfect circular movements of the celestial vault and the linear vertical movements of the terrestrial bodies, awakening the distinction between natural and imposed movements, admitting the four elements earth, water, air, fire as being constituents of the earthly bodies, with their four types of causality (material, formal, efficient, and final), with the entelehia, the full space and horror of void, etc. Therefore, within research and explanation of phenomena corresponding to this image of the world, only questions about quality of phenomena, teleological explanations, about bodies nature could be formulated. The Aristotelian Simplicio in Galileos Dialogues says that within natural demonstrations one should not aim for mathematical accuracy, that being impossible because the nature of physical being is quantitative and indefinite, opposed to the precision of mathematical concepts. As A. Koyr said, Therefore, as further settled up by the Aristotelian, philosophy, as a science of reality, must not look after details, neither does it need the appeal to mathematical determination in formulating its theories about movement. All it should do is to reveal its main categories (natural, violent, rectilinear, circular) and to describe qualitative and abstract features (1981, p. 181). Another famous example is the mechanical world view formulated during the 17th and 18th centuries under the decisive influence of Galileo-Newtonian mechanics, which held the position as a leader of science. It was based on the idea of an infinite and opened universe, homogenous and isotropic, abandoning the sensitive qualities of objects considered without reality, the absolutization of quantitative and measurable aspects, the Cosmos unstructuration and natures
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geometricalisation, joining theoretico-mathematical research with the experimental one. As Galileo says, the great book of nature is written in a mathematical language, whose elements are different simple geometrical entities. In accord with this image, completed further by the idea of the atom as the last component element, science should not aim save at the determination and measurement of things quantitative aspects, in order to express them by general and constant mathematical proportions valued as laws. Therefore, according to this image only questions referring to quantity and measurable aspects can be legitimately and logically formulated. This image imposed a lot of convictions and interdictions about the phenomena for understanding and explanation. So, as T.S. Kuhn observes, later after 1630 and especially after the appearance of Descartes extremely influential scientific works, the great majority of physicists accepted a large amount of ontological and methodological options, according to which the Universe is composed of microscopic corpuscles and that all natural phenomena might be explained by the corpuscles form, shape, movement and interaction. This series of options, From the metaphysical point of view indicates to scientist the entity types contained or not by the Universe: there exists only configurated matter in movement (substance). From the methodological point of view it shows how laws and fundamental explanation should appear: laws must specify the corpuscle movement and interaction, and the explanations have to reduce any given natural phenomenon to the corpuscular action subjected to these laws. More important: the corpuscular conception told scientists which problems might be most of their research problems (1976, pp. 84-85). The mechanicist image eliminates as senseless questions in terms of formal and final causes, making room for only the material and efficient causes. At the same time, why questions referring to things nature were abandoned, being substituted by how questions referring to the development and correlation types of phenomena and processes,
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which can be mathematically expressed. According to I. Prigogine and I. Stengers, Galileo discovered that nature should not be interrogated about the cause of its movement state if it is uniform, neither about the cause of its repose state: movement and repose always maintain themselves (by themselves) if no disturbance occurs. Instead, it has to explain every passing from repose to movement or from movement to repose, including every speed change. Nevertheless, nature should not be interrogated about the acceleration cause but how it succeeds in doing this transformation in order to describe it and settle the mathematical law (1984, p. 88). Style of scientific knowledge If for a long period the notion of style was used only regarding artistic products, it was subsequently applied to analyze other human creations including science, thus becoming an important category of the philosophy of culture. Style is hard to define (though there are a lot of definitions) because there exist not only artistic, scientific, philosophical styles, but also ancient, medieval, Renaissance, classical, romantic, modern, etc. styles, not to mention individual, collective, national styles, as well as styles of different schools and trends. Regarding science especially, Otto Benesch, a scholar of Renaissance culture, noted that the history of science, as well as other cultural achievements of mankind, has its own phases and stylistic periods and that it depends not on chance alone which problems of mathematics and natural science arise in a given period (1973, p. 170). Although the idea of style is not new, in science it was explicitly introduced and defined by W. Pauli and M. Born, for analyzing scientific works and thinking, in order to establish the stability of some principles of science during a period with experimental and novel facts stockage. M. Born says, for instance, that the theory of physics has its own style and it determines a certain stability of its principles. They are, so to speak, relatively a priori, referring to the
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respective period of time. The one aware of his epochs style may make some prudent predictions. There might be rejected at least those ideas not proper to his own epochs style (1969, p. 147). Certainly, the notion of style of scientific thinking was subjected to special study during the latest period, being provided with a multitude of other definitions. Thus, starting from Born and Paulis idea but enriching it, authors related style to a larger assembly of principles, standards and research methods, characterized by great stability during a period of time. Thus, as L.A. Mikeshina says, Style of scientific thinking is a stable system itself in an historical development of generally accepted methodological standards and philosophical principles which lead the scientists during a certain epoch. It expresses and settles itself in the scientific language, principally in its categorical apparatus. As stable methodological standards, it reveals the requirements of description, explanation and prediction, equally in the process of scientific creation as in the final results of knowledge (1977, p. 63). G.G. Granger developed a point of view which brings style of scientific thinking near not only to science as an organized system of knowledge concepts, laws, theories , but also as an activity of acquiring that knowledge. He defines style in terms of content, form and process (i.e. work or practice). Work is a certain manner of putting in relation a form and a content, awakening them (1968, p. 5), and style is a modality of integrating the individual within a concrete process which is work, and which is necessarily present in all forms of practice (ibid., p. 8). Oppositions such as form-content, individualwork allow one to characterize style, on the one hand, as a certain way of introducing the concepts into a theory, of linking and unifying them, and, on the other hand, as a certain way of determining the intuitive contribution to the determination of these concepts. However, the above definitions are hiding significantly important aspects of style. I consider as more adequate to the purpose of this paper those definitions according to which style characterizes human
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creation related to their individual, collective or social subject. In this case, style represents an ensemble of common and stable features, which gives them unity in relation to the respective subject, by virtue of which a creation belongs to an entirety. Thus in one of the definition of style given by L. Blaga, he mentioned: Style reveals itself to us partly as a unity of dominant shapes, emphases, and attitudes, within a complex, various, and rich variety of forms and contents (1969, p. 12). And another Romanian specialist in the theory of style, T. Vianu, defines artistic style as the unity of artistic structure within a group of works related to their agent, which may be either the individual artist, the nation, the epoch or the cultural circle. Unity and originality are the two more particular ideas which merge in the concept of style (1975, p. 11). Thus we are told not only about stylistic unity but also about stylistic correspondence, which confer unity of culture upon a nation or epoch. L. Blaga situates these correspondences and what he calls stylistic matrix in a hidden, profound level belonging to the collective subconsciousness; therefore the cultural stylistic unity of an epoch is not the result of some mutual influences of different domains of culture or cultural personalities, but the result of some factors acting from the depth of culture. A similar point of view was formulated more recently by P.P. Gaidenko, who notes the existence of some analogies between style of scientific thinking, on the one hand, and the style of art, economic and political institutions, etc. of an epoch, on the other hand, though such analogies are not purely external. It is undoubtedly most useful to establish such analogies. Nevertheless, in order that these analogies do not remain only of an outward semblance, it is necessary to further advance, to reveal the internal form (if we are to use an analogy from the sphere of linguistics) whose external manifestation we observe in diverse spheres of culture science, art, religion, etc. (1981, p. 86). Style is also a frame which binds the interior of science with the socio-cultural exterior, by which the latter influences the former and
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the external background becomes an internal background. In this respect, it represents a sui generis synthesis of the logical with the social and the psychological, a phenomenon subject to historical transformation. There has even been observed a close relationship between the life style of the scientist and his scientific style of thinking. Exemplary in this regard is the relation underlined by G. Holton in the presentation of R. Clarks work about Einstein, between the life style of the great scientist, characterized by manner and simplicity of dress, and simplicity as the characteristic note of his scientific thinking style. In his own personal life wrote Holton about Einstein , the legendary simplicity of the man was an integral part of this reaching for the barest minimum on which the world rests. Even people who knew nothing else about Einstein knew that he preferred the simplest possible clothing and that he hated nothing more than artificial restraints of all kinds (1978, p. 281). The life-style simplicity had its correspondent in his thinking and scientific activity level, in his efforts to make simplifications and to find symmetries and aesthetical correlations, to find connections between previously separated concepts, such as substance and energy, space and time, mechanics and electrodynamics, gravitation and electromagnetical fields. Generally speaking, simplicity as a feature of life style and thinking was embodied in the idea of unifying the different forces of nature, in order to elaborate a unitary theory of these forces, even a formula from which all can be deduced. Here also another feature of thinking style is present, i.e. the ambivalence shown in his endeavor to combine opposed themes and tendencies, such as continuum (expressed by the concept of field) and discontinuum (the quantification of the electromagnetical field), positivism (and the operationalism used in defining some concepts) and rational realism (present in the formulation of the two postulates of restrained relativity). To be able to see and use such polar oppositions lies close to the very meaning of genius. The seemingly ambivalent style of thinking, acting, and living is therefore not merely a good copy, b ut
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needs to be considered as one aspect of his unusual ability to deal with the ambiguities inherent in the chief unresolved problems of science. The key to his genius may well lie in the mutual correspondence between his style in thought and act on one side and the chief unresolved puzzles of contemporary science on the other (Holton, 1978, p. 280). For its great importance in analyzing science, style of scientific thinking has become a major category of epistemology and methodology. It is valued as one of the factors which lead to the foundations of schools of science. It makes it possible for individual scientists, as well as for scientific communities and schools with different thinking style to raise different scientific problems, to make different selections from the multitude of existing problems, to assess and solve them differently. Even if many scientists study the same phenomena or aspects of the world, because of their different styles of thinking they might arrive at different problems and solutions. As J.R. Ravetz underlined, the investigation of a scientific problem is creative work, in which personal choices and judgments are involved at every stage, the scientist coming to the problem with a set of interests, skills, and preferences, which introduce differences in raising and solving scientific problems. For the scientist, as well as for the artist, the personal style will be realized through choices within the range of possibilities defined by the whole body of methods for his problem. There is no conflict between a highly individual style in the investigations of problems, and the production of results which meet the socially imposed criteria of adequacy for the field (Ravetz, 1973, pp. 104-105). Ideal of scientific knowledge Studies on history, sociology, psychology and philosophy of science make obviously clear that the science of a certain epoch cannot be understood, with all its aims, methods, descriptions, explanations and foundation patterns, if the scientific ideals which
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governed the research of that same epoch are not taken into account. Ideals, as implicit, hidden phenomena, belonging both to the sociocultural medium and to the deep structures and presuppositions of scientific knowledge, an external medium that became an internal one for science, are of the utmost importance not only for science as a whole, but also for the processes of question and problem raising and solving. By the ideal of scientific knowledge one may understand, roughly speaking, the ideal model, considered perfect, to which this knowledge must tend, the ensemble of standards of scientific excellence. According to this, the ideal evidently has a strong normative character, although built up by the absolutization and the idealization of the peculiarities of scientific knowledge of that science which plays the leading role in the given epoch, as well as according to the philosophical world view and scientific knowledge. As a result of a certain epoch, ideals are not consciously formulated and obeyed by scientists, but they work and are accepted as something taken for granted by scientists. As B.G. Kuznetzov says, To every epoch and every remarkable orientation of philosophical thinking corresponds a certain ideal of knowledge. It is expressed by the ideal model of scientific knowledge, within a system of scientific representations about world, coordinated between them, and coordinated with observation and experiment within a system which fully fits the initial principles of the given orientation of the philosophical thinking (1974, pp. 241-242). The ideal may refer to the functions of scientific knowledge (description, explanation, prediction), to the sciences organizational type (the categorical-deductive model, the hypothetical-deductive model), to the pattern of scientific knowledge foundation (logicomathematical demonstrability, experimental verification). According to V.S. Stepin, The ideals and patterns of scientific knowledge include: 1) standards and types of explanation and description; 2) standards of demonstrability and knowledge foundation; 3) the ideal
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of knowledge organization, particularly, standards for construction and display of representations of knowledge (1979, p. 208). The ideal differs from one kind of science to another (from the formal, logico-mathematical sciences to the empirical sciences; from the natural sciences to the social and behavioral sciences; from the theoretical- foundational sciences to the practical, applied ones), as well as from one historical period to another, itself changing as a result of scientific revolutions, the profound qualitative leap in the history of science. It is true that in the history of science one may observe the tendency to mould the ideal of a science or type of science according to the ideal corresponding to another type of science. A case in point is physics, strongly mathematized, especially its mechanical part, which played for a long period of time, and to some extent even nowadays it plays the role of model for the other types of sciences, especially the biological and social ones. On the other hand, influenced by sciences internal factors, as the science which took the leading role, the ideals of scientific knowledge partially mould the scientific experience of the researchers, scientific traditions, scientific authority and fashion; and partially influenced by external socio-cultural factors, like the philosophical conception about world and knowledge, the scientific world view, cognitive interests, social values and ideals, art, morality, etc., scientific ideals provide a link between continuity and discontinuity in the history of science, between unity and diversity of scientific disciplines, and even determine, to a certain extent, the orientation of scientific research. In a certain sense, we may say, as B.G. Kuznetzov does, that the concept of ideal of science is related to the concept of potential infinity, perceived by intuition as an actual infinity, which has as a consequence the fact that such an ideal acts upon the development of science itself. The movement of science toward its ideal is irreversible and continuous, which amounts to saying that the concept of ideal is a sort of infinite invariant of sciences transformation (see Kuznetzov, 1983, pp. 3-4).
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Conceived of as a part of scientific world view and of style of scientific thinking, the ideal of scientific knowledge can be illustrated by examples from the history of science. Thus, for instance, classical science had as an absolute ideal the discovery of the simplest and profound level of reality governed by universal and a-temporal laws, a description in terms of which reveals the entities and relations of this fundamental level, the achievement of a straight distinction between the subject and the object of knowledge, the elimination of any manifestations or influence of the subject upon the behavior of the object, the attaining of absolute objectivity and truth, the formulation of definite, univocal predictions, based on the absolutization of the dynamical (determinist) character of the Newtonian mechanical laws, the framing of all phenomena under the auspice of total necessities, where the hazard is to be considered as an expression of the subjects ignorance and must be excluded. This ideal changed and was replaced with another as science passed on to do research on statistical phenomena and laws, making only probabilistical predictions, finding out that truth is never total and absolute, taking into account the subjects presence and influence on obtained knowledge, as a result of his impossibility to absolutely discern between the objects and subjects contribution to knowledge because of the penetration in the microcosmic world, taking into consideration the uncontrollable influence of the measuring apparata on the researched objects behavior, etc. Though the ideal of determinism continues to direct scientific research, it is essentially modified and adjusted to the novel conditions of scientific knowledge. On the other hand, besides this duality dynamical-statistical referring to determinism, there appeared another one, that between the ideal of reductionism, peculiar to classical science, and the ideal of integralism or holism, pertaining to contemporary scientific thinking. It is connected with the necessity of interdisciplinary, pluridisciplinary and transdisciplinary researches, among other things.
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The ideal of scientific knowledge plays an important role in raising and answering scientific questions. Even more, by its very nature, it expresses, as B.G. Kuznetzov observes, the unity of themes and of the problems, the unity of affirmative and interrogative components of scientific knowledge. It is a fully determined system of scientific facts and generalizations directing scientists thinking and starting from what these scientists know about the world. At the same time, an interrogative component is involved in the concept of ideal, because, after all, the word ideal itself denotes something that determines the orientation but that cannot be achieved during a finite period (Kuznetzov, 1983, p. 17). Consequently, following the classical ideal, only questions about the undoubted, univocal behavior of the object as such were permitted and legitimized in science, totally leaving the subjects aside; corresponding to the new ideal, those questions lose their meaning, and only those questions become legitimate and acceptable which take into account the fact that man is simultaneously knowing subject and agent of influence upon the studied phenomena. Statistics, probability thinking, relations of undetermination and the complementarity principle impose and admit types of questions in physiscs other than occur in classical physics. Similar considerations might also appear with regard to other categories of science (the biological and socialbehavioral ones, for instance), to other historical stages of scientific thinking (e.g. the proper ideal of Aristotelian science or that of the Middle Age or the Renaissance, etc.). As L. Blaga remarked, from the philosophical (ontological and gnosiological) premises of Aristotles physics, the ideal of defining the generic realities results. Such an ideal, also peculiar to medieval physics, could be reached by means of some pattern-concepts, such as heavy body and light body. Therefore, The fundamental tendency of Aristotles physics is not to reach statements of mathematical laws but to establish pattern-concepts, generically determined concepts (Blaga, 1983, p. 581). This ideal permits only questions concerning the essence of things, their
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qualities, quantities, goals, etc. Of course. These questions must not be identified with those arising about Aristotles conception and explanation of phenomena in his own terms, and which can be put and answered in an external, different frame of thought. Ordinary and scientific common sense The last infrastructural framework we deal with in this paper is common sense. Although some authors draw firm boundaries between science and common sense, underestimating and mocking common sense knowledge from the position of actual scientific knowledge, deeper research reveals that common sense has a very important role both in the rise and development of scientific knowledge generally speaking, and in the formulation of scientific questions, especially. Because, as F. Gonseth often underlined, the scientist was first of all a human being, an epistemic subject generally formed within a usual human collectivity, owner of a natural language with all its cognitive and axiological load, the beneficiary of the collectivitys daily experience as well as that of his own. Also the scientist is endowed not only with experience in his scientific domain but also with the knowledge ensembles, commitments and prejudices of common sense. His scientific superstructure is built on his own structure or, more exactly, on his common sense infrastructure, which infiltrates the scientific one in uncontrollable and hidden ways. Without wiping out the differences, sometimes radical, between science and common sense, the fact that the former represents a new quality or even a shock related to the latter, we must take into consideration their historical and substantial continuity. One of the authors who studied the relationship between them, J.B. Conant, noted that Experimental science can be thought of as an activity which increases the adequacy of the concepts and conceptual schemes which are related to certain types of perception and which lead to certain types of activities; it is one extension of common sense. For common sense in turn may be thought of as a series of concepts and conceptual
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schemes which have proved highly satisfactory for the practical uses of mankind (1969, pp. 32-33). There is, as A.T. Gevorkian remarks, an ordinary common sense and a scientific one. The first consists of the set of views, behavior and thinking norms based on everyday life practice. The second consists of the set of views and thinking norms based on scientific practice and specialization within a certain research domain. As obviously there could not exist a researcher specialized in all domains, it is clear that every researcher has a scientific common sense in his speciality, and an ordinary common sense in the other specialities. So that every scientist has both types of common sense, subject themselves, together with the border between them, to a pronounced historical variability. Until the appearance of modern science, the ordinary common sense was dominant and all scientific ideas and disciplines were born on its bases. It is characterized by a strong anthropological vision of the world, generated by the fact that man was considered the center of the Universe. This peculiarity persisted to some extent even after the birth of modern science, in the main because the instruments of measuring and experimenting, as well as the setting up of the various scientific disciplines within physics were based on mans five senses, his hands and feet. In this sense A.T. Gevorkian wrote science will always remain anthropomorphical, because it is a human science, although, undoubtedly, the increasing of our knowledge makes it diminish (1979, p. 124). Scientific common sense generates the so-called psychological fence. It consists essentially of the scientists attachment to his own scientific creations and to the former creation he grew up with and which he considers undoubted truth definitively settled. In this respect the scientist shows a high degree of conservatorism and dogmatism. So he would never approve and find valuable and sensible those questions whose presuppositions deny or doubt classical scientific theses adopted as definitive truths. In this respect, the case of M. Planck is well known. When he was young, at the time when he
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passed his examination for a doctors degree, he was very angry with his old professors for their incapacity to understand the novel ideas in physics. Later on he inaugurated the quantum revolution in physics but, being himself too much attached to the classical ideas of Faraday and Maxwell, he did not agree with applying the quantum idea to light, as Einstein did when explaining the photoelectrical phenomenon. The same happened to Einstein, another genius of science and pathfinder in 20th century physics, when the statistical interpretation in quantum physics and the relations of underdetermination acquired an important place in the same science. He became the main opponent of the probabilistical interpretation of quantum phenomena, taking this as a denial of the classical ideal of order, causality, simplicity and determination. Science cannot develop without gradually abandoning what became usual and common sense, and this abandoning implies doubt, which in its turn, generates questions. By way of a funny story, V. Komarov offers us an example of how scientific common sense helps raise questions. A great physicist learned about a young fellow researcher who was seeking to find a universal solvent. In accord with perfect scientific common sense, he asked him: Well, but where do you think to store it? Normally, a universal solvent must dissolve every vessel, the underlying presupposition of this common sense conviction being the idea that every vessel cannot be made but out of a solid substance. But science developed in such a way that it was discovered that such a solvent could be kept in an electromagnetical field, which makes that the question should not occur (see Komarov, 1978). If simple everyday questions are prototypes of scientific questions, as N. Rescher (1982) contends, and if we may go even further to say that they are a sort of source for scientific questions, then the following other funny story, told by Ph. Frank (1962), may be suggestive enough. The distinguished physicist and philosopher of science, making an instructive connection between scientific world
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view and common sense, tells us that years ago in Vienna, when the advent of the first streetcar was a great event, an engineer explained the streetcar to an Archduke, who, after listening attentively until the engineer had finished his explanation, said that there was only one thing he did not understood: Where was the horse? In the organismic tradition and common sense, he could not understand that anything but an organism could produce force. Then we may imagine a young boy from 20th century New York City, who had never seen a horse, going to the country for the first time and seeing a horse pulling a load. In the Mechanistic tradition and according to common sense, he would be tempted to ask: Where is the motor? In my mind, the common sense, the situation is not too much different in science from this point of view. Conclusion These are some of the infrastructural frameworks because of which scientific question raising is essentially an imposed, unintended process, and answering them is in the main a process of improving existent scientific theories rather than one of replacing them. As T.S. Kuhn has pointed out, For a scientist the solving of a puzzle conceptually or instrumentally difficult is his main aim (1981, p. 331), and even wrestling with anomalies is first intended to save the existing theory and merely the failure in such an attempt leads to a revolutionary change, a result unexpected and even unknowingly produced. In the same way, W. Heisenberg remarks that in physics Within no state of development did any physicist think to overturn the existing physics (1977, p. 290) and that a revolution in science is made not by trying a radical change but physicists try to change as little as possible (ibid., p. 293). Therefore revolutions are not planned, premeditated events. They take place independently of the scientists intentions, as a result of answering deep questions, generated by infrastructural frameworks and that can be
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retrospectively reconstructed by taking into account these frameworks and how they worked in a given historical epoch. Such frameworks, whose study has became an important task of the methodology of science, are disposed in a continuum from the more general to the more particular ones, or conversely, if you prefer. And this is apt to give a more concrete and comprehensive meaning to scientific revolutions. One can speak of a revolution in science not so much when a theory change takesplace, but especially when changes take place in the scientific world view, the styles and ideals of scientific knowledge and, at a deeper level, changes in the philosophical presuppositions and the general world view. And such changes entail corresponding changes in the character of scientific questions, some of them becoming meaningless, new questions arising and some of the past questions becoming alive and having new meanings and roles. For example, Heisenberg remarked that in physics from the beginning of the 20th century there appears the concept of observing situation, not present in Newtonian physics, and therefore often other questions arise without being done consciously (1977, p. 284). Far from being a plea for irrationalism or a return to Kantian apriorism in the philosophy of science, my paper is rather a plea for a more complex understanding of the scientific knowledge phenomenon. It is an attempt to demonstrate that besides the explicit and enlightening function of reason in its deliberative, logicizable forms, an important part is played by previous knowledge, interests, values and attitudes of scientists as members of human and scientific communities. For, as G.A. Burtt said, all of us tend easily to be caught in the point of view of our age and to accept unquestioningly its main presuppositions (1967, p. 3). And scientists are no exception in this regard.

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