On the Object of Scientific Methodology: With Regard to the Book Struktury metodologiczne w nauce. Słowa klucze filozofii nauki [Methodological Structures in Science: Key Words of the Philosophy of Science] by Zygmunt Hajduk

Abstract

The new category of methodological structures introduced by Zygmunt Hajduk (2016) has not been applied in methodological investigations and does not have a firm position. Hence, two questions arise: what function should it fulfill in scientific methodology (philosophy of science), and is it suitable as a general methodological notion? My main question is: can Hajduk’s methodological structures serve as the most general category determining the research object of scientific methodology? My answer is in the negative. The argument proceeds as follows: first, some important contexts for the discussion are evoked. These include the basic notions of science (types of things signified by “science”), the conception of scientific methodology by the Lvov-Warsaw School (Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Tadeusz Kotarbiński) and its continuation in the form of the methodological tradition of KUL (Stanisław Kamiński), different types of scientific methodology, contemporary Anglo-Saxon conceptions of the philosophy of science, and the concept of methodological analysis. With these contexts in mind, I sketch a reasonably comprehensive map of the methodological categories that determine the research object of scientific methodology. Next, the map is critically compared to the category of methodological structures, which are understood as the most general methodological notion determining the object of scientific methodology. In my opinion Hajduk’s category is too narrow to be the most general methodological notion denoting the object of scientific methodology. Additionally, Hajduk’s catalog of methodological structures studied by the methodology of science is analyzed and found wanting.