On Method: Ways of Creating Methodological Capacities

This article involves a sort of conceptual “groping” toward an understanding of the key central questions of method, of its nature, of the conditions under which it manifests itself, and of the forms it assumes. The aim of the study is to define the connection between method as outwardly expressed and presented in scientific form, and the subjective capacities of individuals as they seek to bring their actions into accordance with the content of general methodological positions. The analysis thus proceeds, as if point by point, through various manifestations of the question of method: in philosophy, in science, in practice and in education, but always concentrating on matters that pertain to demonstrating the origins of methodological thought. The article explores the category of contradiction, that objectively takes the form of the movement of counterposed determinations, and that in subjective thought appears as the dialectical capacity for its sublation in the course of objective-transformative activity. It is shown that empiricism as
a methodological principle reproduces rational logic in all areas of reality, and turns into a subjective urge to retain its defined character in the area of so-called “methods”. The methods that are foreign to dialectics, however, do not express the essence of activity that is cognising and productive. Within this framework, unfortunately, the entire system of education remains outside the historically developed culture of thought.