What is this ‘essays on culture’? What is this ‘culture’, and why do we need it when we already have science with its marvels (and black failures, which are not usually noticed)?

These questions are answered in this little book, which, as is my custom, has no beginning, no end, no conclusions or findings, but only a general circle of ideas that unites the individual essays into a whole.

There is one more thing I would like to say before giving the book to the reader. Science is constantly (and invariably sharply critical) talked about in these pages. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say: about the force that calls itself ‘science’ these days and demands recognition of that title from others? In any case, I refer to it as it demands to be called.

I should point out that all the criticism expressed does not refer to ‘science’ or ‘sciences’ in general, but to that worldview which recognises the existence of matter alone in the world, denies any role for philosophy in the education of the thinking mind… in short, whose postulates have long been expressed by Alexander Lyubishchev as follows (in abbreviation):

‘1) the development of science is a gradual accumulation of definitively established truths not subject to revision;

4) scientific explanations differ from non-scientific ones in that they correspond to a ‘real’, ‘positive’, ‘monistic’ or ‘materialistic’ worldview;

5) the historical role of philosophy in science has been played and cannot be restored;

6) the postulate of scientific optimism compels the pursuit of truth regardless of the consequences to which that pursuit will lead;

7) the only permissible method is inductive, proceeding from facts, free from all philosophical bias…’

In other words, ‘science’ in the essays that follow is always a dogmatic science of a materialistic kind, devoid of a philosophical basis. I would not trouble the reader with unnecessary explanations if I did not know that an attempt on the authority of this dominant force of our days is perceived by some as painful and surprising…

2012

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