Alexandre Koyré and the new historiography of science

Abstract

The author’s task is to draw attention once again to the philosophical and historical research method invented by A. Koyré, who, according to many, revolutionized historiography. The aim is to show the dependence of major scientific discoveries on fundamental transformations in philosophy. From this perspective, the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century is considered: Galileo’s discovery of the inertial movement was determined by a change in ideas about the Universe. The closed, hierarchically ordered world of Aristotle, characteristic of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, was replaced by a picture of an infinite Universe. In it, the same laws apply to celestial bodies and the Earth, and the circular motion of bodies is replaced by the motion along an infinite straight line, i. e., inertial. In this connection, Galileo’s Dialogues are carefully and thoroughly examined, in which he appears not only as a brilliant scientist, but also as a Socratically minded philosopher. The discoveries of Galileo and Newton are correctly evaluated as the creation of new foundations of scientific theory as compared with those previous, and the reasons for the appearance of such new foundations are explained. The novelty of the article also lies in the fact that the success of Koyré’s analysis is presented in the context of a dispute — a dialogue of the greatest scientific minds — of Aristotle and Plato, Descartes and Newton. Highly appreciating the achievements of A. Koyré, the author dwells on some of the shortcomings of his method: underestimation of social transformations and lack of attention to the reverse effect of science on philosophy. It also explains the limitations of the logical-deductive movement of thought in science, which determined philosophers, in particular, Kant, to come to the idea of the need to create meaningful logic, although an unknowable thing-in-itself appeared as the content.