Znanost — iskustvo, spekulacija, paradigma
Science - Experience, Speculation, Paradigm

Summary/Abstract: The beginning of every science is experience collected and systematized for the purpose of future practical employment In the course of collecting and systematizing experience people discover the inner logic of the phenomena explored, and they follow this logic independently from the practical usability of the results. In this "metafunctional" research, for a time there are no safe footholds, so that thinking passes into speculation and the results of the imagination and other mental processes cannot be submitted to reliable control. Only when a science passes over the "paradigmatic threshold" does it regain a firm soil upon which to stand. At the same time practical technological consequences can on principle be directly deduced from established laws. These three phases: experience, speculation, and paradigm, are intermixed. The most unrestrained speculations try to justify themselves by their supposed practical usability. Imagination and intuitive mental processes have an important role even in the most disciplined paradigmatic explorations. Every technological application of science requires us to rely on technological experience earlier collected and systematized. What are the implications of this analysis for the nature and application of the social sciences?

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