Specifics of the Western Researchers' Views Relating to the Problem of the Scientific Status of Geology in the 20th and 21 st Centuries

The aim of this article is to identify the peculiarities of the development of the Western philosophical and methodological traditions in solving the problem of the scientific status of geological knowledge related to the limitations of experimental validation of geological hypotheses and, as a consequence, the significant impact of the subject of geological knowledge on the results of studies of the Earth. The article deals with the works of the most famous Western researchers in the field of philosophical studies of geology, such as R.W. van Bemmelen, J. Dodik, N. Orion, R. Frodeman. The article is based on the methods of historical-philosophical and comparative analysis. The article shows how foreign authors understand geology as a historical science of the Earth when solving the problem of the scientific status of geological knowledge. Subsequently, this will force Western researchers to turn to the methodological achievements of the philosophy of history due to the similarity of methodological problems and humanitarian history and geology as the history of the Earth. In the works of the researchers under consideration there are two aspects of the problem of the scientific status of geology and geological knowledge. The first aspect is that in the twentieth century the achievements of chemistry and physics, giving more accurate results than traditional geological methods, began to be actively implemented in geological research. On this basis, a number of researchers have become inclined to believe that the study of geological processes can be limited only by physical and chemical studies of the Earth. According to foreign authors, the latest achievements of physics, namely, methods in the twentieth century for determining the absolute age of rocks, allowed placing the priority of physical methods over geological ones in the study of the Earth. However, despite the priority of some methods of physics over the methods of geology in determining the age of the Earth, a significant part of works on the philosophy and methodology of geology in English-language literature are reduced to the argument about the irreducibility of geology to physics and chemistry. As a result, Western scientists build their philosophical and methodological concepts of geology proving the scientificity and self-sufficiency of geological methods of cognition. The second reason for the problem of the scientific status of geology is that regardless of physics, geology itself has special features that do not allow to fully characterize it as a natural science. According to a number of American and Western European authors, such features are: the limitations of experimental testing and the lack of methodological unity in geological knowledge (historical and experimental methods). In this regard, there is a significant influence of the subject on the results of the study, which calls into question the objectivity of the results of geological studies. Through the understanding of subjectivity, foreign researchers also pay attention to the need to study the subject of geological research, and, on this basis, to draw conclusions about the scientific nature of geological knowledge. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the consideration of geology as a historical science of the Earth (which reflects only one aspect of geological knowledge) has allowed the Western tradition of philosophical research to develop an effective approach to the consideration of geology from the standpoint of hermeneutics and narratology.

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