Paradigma, výzkumný program a přístupy ve vědeckém zkoumání

he book deals with selected crucial issues in the methodology of science – scientific paradigms and approaches. The first chapter examines the problem of scientific paradigms; the problem of incommensurability of paradigms and explanatory paradigms are also addressed. The second chapter deals with the problem of Lakatos’s methodology of scientific research programmes. Lakatos develops his methodology using the example of natural sciences. However, the author of the book shows that it can be applied to other sciences as well. The third chapter defines the concept of “selection of a scientific approach”. Adopting a dichotomous approach, the individual scientific approaches are defined and characterised as follows: traditional and non-traditional paradigmatic approaches, non-normative and normative approaches, inductive and deductive approaches, a priori and relativistic approaches, evolutionist and creationist approaches. In the fourth chapter, a new scientific approach is proposed as a baseline for examining trajectories of social and historical phenomena. The author calls it the “historical-evolutionist approach”. Within its framework, he develops the method of retrograde analysis. The application of the approach is illustrated by the example of the historical development of public administration in the Czech lands.