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integrative concepts Meta-scienceOther Names: Science of science Description: Research on research, including in a broader frame of reference attention to the self-reflection of science (Wissenschaft). Meta-science may focus on: the products of research (symbolic systems such as theories, formalisms, concepts, etc.) studying their logical, semantic, information-theoretical and epistemological aspects; the production-and-product system, viewed as a praxiological-symbolic system (e.g. how does scientific knowledge grow); the producers-and-users from a science-in-society perspective, including the sociological, psychological, historiographical, cultural, and political aspects of science; the aggregate science-society-man, viewed as a total system which sets and changes its aims; the meaning of science for man, evaluating its impact from a futurological point of view; or science viewed by a practising, praxiologically oriented scientist.One major school of meta-science, logical empiricism, tends to be primarily concerned with articulating an ideal of science with key themes (such as unified science, empirical significance, confirmation, explanation) clarifying various features of this ideal. Another school, hermeneutic-dialectic, embeds its research in a philosophical anthropology of knowledge. |