Abstract: Specific character of subject-object relations in humanities is analysed. The article gives the critique of naturalist approaches, which demand to determine social events on the basis of external observational features. It is proved that it is impossible to fix social events without taking into account agents’ motives and without references to the meaning which events has to them. Meaning is the most important concept in humanities, so it is impossible to describe social reality ignoring the world of meanings. Social reality is not independent from our ways of understanding and interpreting meanings. Moreover, our representations of social reality are the most important part of this reality. From the other side, man as a subject of humanities is formed by society and culture which he tries to study. He cannot regard them from outside as an usual external object. We cannot exactly calculate in what degree our thought is determined by socio-cultural factors in order to deactivate those determinations on the way to objective knowledge. Socio-humanitarian knowledge has transcendental status. Discussing how socio-class interests or language effect our knowledge we concern fundamental conditions of cognitive experience as such. Because of that natural sciences’ (technological) model of knowledge cannot be applied in humanities. Here we do not investigate some outer object for the sake of manipulation. We make our self-understanding deeper. Double mutual penetration of subject and object in humanities constitutes its fundamental difference from natural sciences.

Abstract: This article presents a philosophical analysis of the idea and attempts of rational structuring of the language of science and philosophy. This idea was especially popular in philosophy of the Modern Age. The correlation of this idea with the existing features of New European Philosophy is revealed. It is demonstrated that instrumental approach towards language was not accidental: it stemmed from the idea on the sovereignty of mind, which in the XX century was revived in the logical positivism. It was also implemented in practice of modern science since the beginning of scientific revolution of the XVII century. The authors compare the reasoning of the representatives of classical New European Philosophy and representatives of logical positivism with the practice of modern science. Paradoxes of the concept of ideal language are determined. On the one hand, its formation should become a preliminary means for smoothing the path to cognition; while on the other – it is necessary to cognize the world before building it. Moreover, the introduction of ideal language is possible only on the grounds of the natural. Thus, the flaws of the natural should be eliminated with help of the natural. The dependence of rationally structured language from the natural is retained in the language of modern science. Any of its formalizations and terminologizations is partial. The system of meanings of the traditional language remains the basis and background for interpretation of any scientific theories. Natural languages ensure our affiliation to a certain socio-cultural community with the inherent to it ways of interpreting meanings, within the framework of which the value of scientific cognition becomes evident.  

Abstract: Scientific knowledge traditionally qualifies for objectivity, regardless of what manifested as the object of cognition – nature or society. Are there crucial differences in this regard between the natural and humanitarian sciences? Is anything changing, when a human and the society he lives in become the object of cognition? The subject of this research is the peculiarities of articulation of the problem of objectivity applicable for the sciences on human and society, as well as differences in interpretation of this problem in classical and nonclassical philosophy. The research is conducted on the basis of analysis and interpretation of texts and ideas of the representatives of classical philosophy along with the philosophers and sociologists of the past two centuries. The author claims that the law of the sociology of knowledge, which proves the fundamental dependence of social knowledge from social interests, should be applied not only for debunking the ideological illusions of the others, but also for analyzing the own ideas. The principles of objective scientific analysis in sociology require that the researcher’s personal ideological position would not affect his works; in order to achieve this, he must be aware of the level of its influence upon cognitive activity. However, it is merely impossible to fully apprehend the historical, social and cultural determination of our understanding. Therefore, the objectivity of natural scientific type in socio-humanitarian sciences may not be feasible. Most often, objectivity is being reached through constant attention to the potential ideological substantiation of personal ideas.