The Significance of Philosophical Anthropology in Determining the Methodology of Modern Scientific Research

Abstract

Purpose. This research involves revealing the methodological significance of the anthropological understanding of values for conducting modern scientific research. Theoretical basis. Philosophical anthropology acts as an epistemological basis for answers to ontological questions that are part of the structure of such problems in modern science as the construction of a scientific picture of the world, the ordering of data of natural attitude, and anthropocosmism. The ontological basis for the formation of the anthropological theory of values is the teaching of Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, Rudolf Lotze, and Martin Heidegger. Originality. The creation of a scientific picture of the world, the research of natural attitude, and an anthropological approach to cosmology carried out from the viewing angle of the philosophy of values show the close mutual conditioning of these scientific issues. A successful determination of one’s value positions by a scientist-researcher is impossible without his/her agreeing with his/her picture of the world with the prevailing ideas about the world in their society. Such ideas are studied by anthropocosmism, which researches not so much the world in itself, but a view of this world from the standpoint of the existing state of society and the main intentions of its development. Conclusions. The value attitude of scientists at a certain stage of the development of scientific knowledge forms their picture of the world, which has the form of self-explanatory scientific provisions. The facts of modern physics must always, one way or another, receive their legitimation through the world of the human natural attitude. Even the unobservable characteristics of the microcosm are explained by appealing to knowledge about the observable characteristics of the world. The anthropocentric nature of cosmology is determined by the fact that in modern philosophy, the values of a person explain not only the way of one’s cognition but also the way of one’s inclusion in the world.