Science and art. Science and art are forms of social consciousness and specific ways of reflecting the universe. However, there are significant differences between them. If science. Material on the topic: Report "What is the difference between science and art, science and philosophy"

Throughout human history, people have sought to understand the world around them. The main means for this were and are science and art; however, there is a big difference between them. What is the difference between science and art? This question is raised in his text by V.V. Konetsky.

Discussing this problem, the author cites many differences between scientific and creative activities. Firstly, one specific scientific fact can be discovered only once, while there can be a great many works of art on the same topic; however, “artists are not capable of repeating each other.” Secondly, scientific truth exists regardless of the scientist who discovered it; artistic truth is always inextricably linked with the creator.

Finally, the artist “is unable to formulate the question in logical terms”; the scientist strives “to pose the question so that the task or problem can be solved as quickly and completely as possible and at minimal cost.”

The author's position becomes clear after a careful reading of the text. V.V. Konetsky is convinced that science is objective, and art is subjective: it reflects the individual, author’s vision of the world. The basis of scientific thinking is problem solving, that is, asking and answering questions. For a brilliant artistic masterpiece, a question is enough.

It is difficult to disagree with the author's opinion. Science reflects the objective laws of nature, art reflects man's attitude to the world around him. Scientists, through analysis and reasoning, provide specific answers to a large number of questions; artists only ask a question, allowing a person to reason and come to his own conclusions.

Many Russian and Soviet works are dedicated to people of science and art. In particular, in Daniil Granin’s novel “I’m Going into the Storm” two views on the purpose of scientific activity are presented: the view of Tulin on the one hand and Krylov’s on the other. While Tulin is ready to compromise for the sake of success, recognition, fame, Krylov is convinced that the truth is more valuable, and only a scientific result is enough for a scientist.

An example of a person who strives to understand the world through the prism of creativity is the Master from M. I. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita.” In his novel about Pontius Pilate, the work of his whole life, the Master not only describes the events that happened to the procurator of Judea; he seeks to understand what lay behind his actions, thereby reflecting his subjective vision of the story of Pontius Pilate and asking his reader deep philosophical questions.

Thus, science and art are fundamentally different from each other. At the same time, they serve a common goal: knowledge of the world and the search for truth in it.

Effective preparation for the Unified State Exam (all subjects) -

sensual and rational, concrete and abstract, value-emotional and cognitive-theoretical. Indeed, artistic perception is an alternative to the rational-theoretical way of relating to reality. Artistic perception operates with concrete sensory images and is based on a holistic experience of the world.
Nevertheless, a certain closeness and kinship between science and art has long been noticed. What features of art are important for bringing it closer to scientific activity?
Even in Antiquity, it was discovered that art contains a certain rational principle (Aristotle). In a way, art is also a kind of mental work: art, like science, is involved in a kind of cognitive relationship. The experience developed by art allows me to learn something about the world, and from a completely different angle than what is offered by science. Art allows us to comprehend and experience the beauty, integrity of the world around us, its individual characteristics, and to express our own emotional states and their shades.
Art, like science, is also capable of inventing new means of expression, discovering new phenomena and patterns. Thus, musical experience includes the study of sound structures (melodic and harmonic) and the possibilities of rhythm. It, like scientific experience, is constantly expanding and updating; an example is the discovery of irreversible rhythms by the famous French composer of the 20th century. Olivier Messiaen described in his Treatise on Rhythm (1948).
Artistic thinking uses a number of means common to scientific activity - analogy, abstraction, idealization, experimentation, modeling, etc. These means are used in a refraction specific to art. A work of art is a special aesthetic and intellectual construction. It has a peculiar logic, internal semantic coherence, adequacy of form and content, and is based on the laws of expressive language.
Another significant reason for the rapprochement of science and art is the multifunctionality of scientific and artistic activities. A number of functions are common to them. These are, for example, such as: ordering (science and art create and directly express ideas about the order of the universe, society, human life); educational (by addressing value-laden subjects; in science, this role relates primarily to humanitarian research); innovative (creation of new socio-cultural models).
The influence of science on art
Art has traditionally used scientific knowledge. For example, from the history of art it is known that mathematical and optical concepts influenced the state of architecture and painting.
With the growth of scientific achievements and the increasing role of science in socio-cultural life, the impact of science on art is intensifying. A characteristic feature of modern art is its great involvement in the general process of scientific and technological modernization. Indeed, the cognitive component of art today cannot do without the use of scientific achievements and ideas. The influence of science on art is reflected primarily in the general “scientific teaching” of art. This process is sometimes embodied in conscious methodological aesthetic programs. It is enough to recall such a movement of the 19th century as naturalism (E. Zola, A. Daudet, etc.), theorists of which argued that (according to G. Flaubert) art should be scientific and impartial.
In a certain sense, modern art, like science, is essentially non-classical. It revises the classical canons of beauty and harmony, seeks new expressive means and new content, and actively experiments. Scientific ideas and ideas penetrate into artists' studios. For example, the influence of new scientific concepts is clearly noticeable in the work of P. Cezanne, and later in the avant-garde art of the 20th century; abstractionism, cubism and other movements offer us, in essence, a rejection of anthropocentrism, an image of structures of existence that are distant from everyday consciousness.
The influence of art on science
If the influence of science on art is caused primarily by the presence of a cognitive component in art, then the opposite influence - art on science - is due to the presence of an aesthetic component in scientific activity. It is art, as the type of activity that has priority in satisfying human artistic needs, that is the main means of developing a sense of beauty, the ability to evaluate the aesthetic qualities of objects and phenomena.
A number of characteristics and criteria used by scientists to evaluate scientific ideas, hypotheses and theories are essentially aesthetic. For example, these are qualities such as simplicity of the concept, its logical harmony and coherence; subtle symmetry and harmony of mathematical formulas; the beauty of the ontological architecture of the world, expressed in precise laws; wit and elegance of proof; brevity of presentation; the grace of the convergence of previously independent scientific directions

into a unified theory. Of course, these qualities do not arise as a result of the purposeful efforts of a scientist (like the aspirations of an artist or composer who directly strives for the aesthetic perfection of a work). But it is worthy of surprise that these qualities appear as a result of the very cognitive aspirations of science.
For a scientist, aesthetic criteria act as an additional, but very powerful means of verifying the truth of his intellectual constructions. It should be noted that aesthetic criteria are not abstract, but very meaningful for science. They are based, as a rule, on the deep conviction of the human mind in the beauty of the universe. A striking example of such conviction is provided by the teaching and creativity of G.V. Leibniz; It is known that Leibniz regarded the principle of perfection he formulated as the deepest metaphysical position. There are very numerous statements by scientists about the original beauty of the universe and the role of aesthetic feeling in scientific work. Let us point out, as an example, the views of the great physicist Paul Dirac. He believed that the mathematically expressed laws of nature have a special beauty. This provides the theoretical physicist with a heuristically fruitful method. If a scientist sees that a theory is ugly and contains ugly parts, then it is in them that the error is hidden; such a technique of “finding mathematical elegance is ... the most essential for theorists.” Analyzing the work and results of E. Schrödinger, P. Dirac emphasizes that the key to success is to “have a really correct intuition” and “to work trying to get equations of remarkable beauty."
Art is an important factor for a scientist, stimulating creative activity, inducing in him a state of emotional uplift and inspiration, liberating fantasy and imagination. Art enlightens and enriches his mind. Biographical observations show that many prominent scientists were not at all alien to art. A. Einstein played the violin, M. Planck was a talented pianist, L. Euler studied music theory and issues of color-musical associations, and I. Prigogine connected his life with music in early childhood (he learned notes before he learned to read).
Another source of the relationship between science and art lies in their common rootedness in an integral cultural and historical era. The expressive possibilities of art are very great. Art reflects certain fundamental features of the worldview of the era - and these are precisely the ones

which only it can express. Thus, music born in the 20th century cannot be identical to Baroque music, because the 20th century itself. sounds different compared to past eras. Art reproduces the subtlest intuitions, acutely responding to deep cultural processes. What is still invisible at the rational-discursive level is often already captured by artistic instinct. Art is the most sensitive organ of human consciousness.

Art is one of the most important spheres of culture, and unlike other spheres of activity (occupation, profession, position, etc.) it is universally significant, without it it is impossible to imagine people’s lives. The beginnings of artistic activity are noted in primitive society, long before the advent of science and philosophy. And despite the antiquity of art, its irreplaceable role in human life, the long history of aesthetics, the problem of the essence and specificity of art still remains largely unresolved. What is the secret of art and why is it difficult to give a strictly scientific definition of it? The point is, first of all, that art does not lend itself to logical formalization; attempts to identify its abstract essence always ended in either approximation or failure.

First, obviously, it is necessary to determine what meaning is implied in the word “art” itself. We can distinguish three different meanings of this word, closely related to each other, but differing in scope and content.

In its broadest sense, the concept of “art” (and this is, apparently, its most ancient application) means any skill, a skillfully, technically performed activity, the result of which is artificial in comparison with the natural. It is this meaning that follows from the ancient Greek word “techne” - art, skill.

The second, narrower meaning of the word “art” is creativity according to the laws of beauty. Such creativity refers to a wide range of activities: the creation of useful things, machines, this should also include the design and organization of public and personal life, the culture of everyday behavior, communication between people, etc. Nowadays, creativity functions successfully according to the laws of beauty in various areas of design .

A special type of social activity is actually artistic creativity, the products of which are special spiritual aesthetic values ​​- this is the third and narrowest meaning of the word “art”. This will be the subject of further consideration.

Not a single form of art - painting, music, literature, cinema, etc. - can exist without material embodiment. Painting is unthinkable without paints and other materials, music without the sounds of instruments and voices. But it is clear that painting is not reducible to paints, literature to paper and letters, and sculpture is not simply shaped bronze or marble. In artistic creativity, material is only a means of expression. spiritual content of works.

But where does this content come from? When it comes to art, its creative nature always comes to the fore, since the artist does not mirror reality, but composes, “invents” the content of the work from his spiritual world. It is no coincidence that there is an opinion that artistic creativity is the artist’s self-expression.

However, the most important question in understanding creativity is whether how self-expression is meaningfully based. Not a single artist can “invent” anything if his spiritual world does not somehow contain experience, knowledge, and understanding of the surrounding reality. To think otherwise is to recognize brush-and-paint experiments by monkeys or computer-produced “virtual realities” as works of art.

The most daring imagination is based on the acquired spiritual wealth of the artist, who, using his imagination, can create incredible combinations, but... phenomena of real life! Remember the works of S. Dali, P. Picasso. It was based on an understanding of this specific feature of the imagination that Leonardo da Vinci gave advice to an artist drawing “... a fictional animal - let it be, say, a snake - then take for its head the head of a shepherd or a pointer dog, add cat’s eyes to it, the ears of an eagle owl, the nose of a greyhound, the eyebrows of a lion, the temples of an old rooster and the neck of a water turtle.”

In principle, both in theoretical and artistic knowledge, reflection and self-expression of the author are dialectically connected. With some degree of convention, the following comparison can be made: in science - from reality to hypothesis and through experiment or speculation (logical reasoning, conjecture) to the truth; in art - from reality to design and through fiction and subject-conditional imagery to artistic truth. In epistemological terms, a certain closeness between science and art can be seen.

But what distinguishes artistic knowledge from theoretical knowledge, why can science never replace art? Let us dwell on some points of view regarding the specifics of art.

1. The founder of aesthetics, Baumgarten, believed that the object of logical knowledge is true, and the object of aesthetic knowledge is beauty; the highest beauty is realized in nature and therefore imitation of natural beauty is the highest task of art. This point of view, which is consistent with the Aristotelian understanding of art, has been generally accepted for a long time.

However, it cannot be considered completely satisfactory for a number of reasons. Firstly, beauty here is reduced only to the sensually perceived, and secondly, not only the beauty of nature is reflected in art, and indeed it is not nature as such that is the object of art.

2. N. G. Chernyshevsky more clearly noted the specificity of art in comparison with science: science gives “impartial” knowledge, while art makes a “sentence” on life. Indeed, the scientist’s worries and experiences during the research process are eliminated in its results. But the conclusions of science in their social significance are by no means “impartial” - for example, ecology and sociology also contain certain “sentences” of reality.

3. The so-called “axiological” point of view, which is now widespread, is adjacent to the judgments of N. G. Chernyshevsky: “Without denying the cognitive function of art, we see the specificity of artistic cognition in the operation of values. This is its main difference from science, which deals with truths” (Berkhin N.V. Specificity of art. - M., 1984. - P. 24-25). However, the value attitude cannot be excluded from scientific activity; truth itself is a value. Another thing is - what values ​​​​and the value of what is science or art concerned with?

4. L. N. Tolstoy in his voluminous article “What is art?” analyzes more than three dozen different approaches to defining the specifics of art and does not find a single one that satisfies him. The writer himself puts forward his judgment: “The sign that distinguishes real art... is one undoubted one - the contagiousness of art” (L.N. Tolstoy on literature. - M., 1955. - P. 458). This refers to the emotional impact that art certainly has. However, sports competitions and various kinds of games that are far from artistic creativity also have “contagiousness” and the ability to emotionally excite.

5. The most widespread, traditional and, one might say, generally accepted point of view is that the specificity of art, in contrast to science, is that it reflects reality in the form of artistic images, and science - in the form of abstract concepts:“The difference between a scientific concept and an artistic image makes it possible to identify a specific feature of art...” (Aesthetic consciousness and the process of its formation. - M., 1981. - P. 7). “Only an artistic image as a special way of reflecting life in art will help us determine the specifics of the latter...” (Kiyaschenko N.I., Leizerov N.L. Theory of reflection and problems of aesthetics. - M., 1983. - P. 6; see also: Besklubenko S., D. The nature of art. - M., 1982. - P. 98; Gulyga A. V. Principles of aesthetics. - M., 1987. - P. 215, etc.). This point of view is carried out in all textbooks and manuals on aesthetics (see: Marxist-Leninist aesthetics. - M., 1983. P. 159; Aesthetics. - Kyiv, 1991. P. 83). Correctly noting one of the indicative, so to speak, “technical” differences between art and science, supporters of this, as well as other points of view, consequence the specifics of art are passed off as its reason.

The question naturally arises: why does art reflect life in the form or method of artistic images, and science in abstract concepts? To answer this question correctly, we must remember the immutable truth: the form, the method of reflection is determined primarily by What reflected. The difference, for example, between chemistry and botany is not that the first describes the world through formulas, and the second in a different form, but that in one case chemical phenomena and processes are known, and in the other, the plant world. Sociology and economic theory use approximately the same methods of research and description, but they are different sciences, since each has its own object of study.

In order to reveal the real basis of the specificity of art, it is necessary to reveal for it specific object reflection, which ultimately determines social necessity, the irreplaceability of art, and all the features of the method and form of reflection of life. Art is not only a specific reflection of reality, but, and this is very important, a reflection specific in fact. Obviously, this can be shown most clearly by comparing the objects reflected in science and art.

Any reflection, theoretical or artistic, in principle begins with an appeal to specific manifestations of reality, to real facts. But immediate existence, living facts are for science only the initial condition for comprehension essence as a specific object of theoretical knowledge. The merciless blade of scientific penetration into reality cuts through immediate existence, separating the random, individual, external appearance. Meanwhile, no less interesting for people is the reflection and reproduction of all the richness, all the vitality of the immediate existence of the real world. As N. G. Chernyshevsky noted, “... in life there are always these details that are not necessary for the essence of the matter, but necessary for its actual development; they should be in poetry too” (Chernyshevsky N.G. Selected works - P. 438).

The very task of science to isolate and crystallize the essence presupposes a certain “emasculation” of the picture of the world. Thanks to the invasion of scientific thought, the wealth of infinitely diverse nature is diminishing, its springs are fading and the iridescent colors are dimming. Living passions and actions of specific people, the fullness of attractive and wonderful, comic and tragic phenomena turn into abstract universalities. The goal of science to reflect reality in its universal connections leads to the fact that it does not stop at discovering the essence of one fact, but goes deeper into the sphere of essential relations expressed in laws

The laws discovered by science are even “further away” from immediate existence in the sense of abstraction from living, moving reality. "The kingdom of laws is calm content of the phenomenon; the phenomenon is the same content, but presented in a restless shift and as a reflection into something else” (Hegel G. Science of Logic. In 3 vols. T. 2.-M, 1970-1972-P. 140).

This is the destiny of science: its laws cannot contain a direct relationship between the past, present and future, for the laws reflect the “calm”, since quality, essence, law can be understood as moments of relative peace, isolated from the mass of moving phenomena and accidents of reality. Even when development is theoretically studied, its laws must be isolated, “torn off” from the living concrete dynamics of life and recorded in abstract categories.

Art is capable of reproducing the specific dynamics of life, the connection of times, and this ability is due to its specific object.

Art and science are universally significant categories, without which it is impossible to imagine our lives. Both contribute to a person’s better knowledge of the world and himself. But the patterns of existence in each case can be distinguished differently.

Definition

Art– embodiment of the phenomena of reality in an artistic image. When creating a work, the creator tries to express how he sees the world around him, as well as talk about his impressions and experiences. What comes out as a result is close to other people and important to them. Types of art are, for example, sculpture, painting, choreography.

The science is engaged in obtaining and systematizing knowledge about the world around us. People of science are scientists and researchers who work in different areas of life. Their activities can have both theoretical and practical orientation.

Comparison

The criterion is that art is addressed to the sensory side of human perception. It provides the author with the opportunity to express his moods, demonstrate his individuality and creativity. The artist is guided by inspiration. What is important to him is the excitement of the soul, pleasure, anticipation, and not strict boundaries and norms.

A product of art is a unique work of figurative nature. In terms of craftsmanship, it is at the highest level. The artistic power of this work is such that it makes people who perceive it experience strong emotions and rethink their lives. The difference between art and science is that it appeals to the heart.

Science is characterized by rigor and objectivity. It forms knowledge about reality, which takes the form of axioms, formulas, and descriptions of phenomena. Scientific knowledge is always reliable, since everything studied goes through critical analysis and is confirmed by facts and experiments. Science relies on logic, leaving feelings and emotions behind.

The very purposes of existence of both are different. If for art it is important to express the aesthetic ideal and direct people’s mentality towards good, then science is driven by the idea of ​​identifying existing patterns. Art reflects both the typical and the individual. Generalization dominates in science.

Art is historically specific and changeable. Its values ​​and ideals are dependent on the spirit of the current era. Art shows life in its dynamics. Science is static. Its conclusions and laws do not change, no matter what happens around. And even when any development is studied, the identified patterns are recorded in constant abstract categories.

What is the difference between art and science? The fact is that masterpieces of art are not created from textbooks. They represent a kind of mystery and are capable of delivering aesthetic pleasure to the audience. Moreover, everyone’s understanding of such works is different. Scientific knowledge, in turn, is not for pleasure. They are the same for everyone and are always understood unambiguously.