Cunoașterea științifică – Metodologii

Socrates practiced dialectic to obtain knowledge, through the method of oral dialogue, what he called the art of "birth of souls". In Plato, dialectic was a type of knowledge with an ontological and metaphysical role, which is reached by confronting several positions in order to overcome opinion (doxa), a movement from the world of appearances (or the "sensible") to intellectual knowledge (or " the intelligible") to the first principles. For a description, statement, or assertion to be knowledge, it must be a belief, be true, and be justified. A statement of faith is an expression of belief in someone or something. Belief must be true to be knowledge. The definition of knowledge as justified true belief was widely accepted until 1960, when the American philosopher Edmund Gettier provoked major widespread discussion. Scientific knowledge is based on the collection of observable and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning and experimentation. Despite criticisms of Karl Popper's theory of falsifiability for the demarcation between science and non-science, mainly pseudoscience, this criterion is still very useful, and perfectly valid after its refinement by Popper and his followers. Imre Lakatos' Methodology of Scientific Research Programs is a radical revision of Popper's criterion of demarcation between science and non-science, leading to a new theory of scientific knowledge. In the paper I present my proposal to extend Lakatos' methodology with two new terms, bifurcated programs and unifying programs, with their specific characteristics.