Humanistic ”turns” in the methodological perspective

Abstract

The paper deals with ”turns” that shape the face of today’s humanities, and captures their specificity in perspective and provides methodological evaluation of them. The ”turns” were referred to their immediate research context, i.e. the new philosophy of science: Popper, Lakatos, Lauden, Feyerabend, and Kuhn. All convergences and irregularities in the orientation of ”turns” in relation to the assumptions made there were shown. It turned out that they implement these assumptions to a limited extent. The approaches to ”turns” proposed by other researchers were also broadly discussed. Moreover, their attitudes to the tradition of the humanities and breaches from this tradition were demonstrated. However, a key feature of ”turns” is their departure from the modern logic of science, rationality of scientific cognition, and the principles of the general methodology of science. The most important examples of the ontological reductionism and of the violation of the ontological status of man were also discussed. These abuses are illustrated based on four selected ”turns”: performative, ”towards things”, biological and digital in the transhumanist version.