Moderniojo mokslinio pasaulėvaizdžio formavimasis Lietuvoje: fizikos ir matematikos filosofinės problemos 1920-1940 m

• knygos tekstas

ENAt the end of the 19th and in the first half of the 20th centuries Lithuania became a kind of a social laboratory. Here, under rather unfavourable conditions, the national state and culture underwent a process of „synthesizing“. The book discusses the dynamism and the specific character of the scientific worldview as a cultural fragment of the period. When drawing the curve of the dynamism of the physical world view in Lithuania, particular attention should be paid to its turning points. For people familiar with Lithuanian history these points are evident. They include such periods as the seventies of the 19th c., 1918—1920, the twenties of the 20th c. and 1940—1941. These points mark sudden turns in Lithuanian culture, including the changes of the scientific worldview, determined both by the outer circumstances and the inner factors. The development of the scientific worldview requires certain conditions (the existence of cultural and educational centres, ways of communicating ideas and the like). However, Lithuania of the second half of the 19th century suffered an extinction of these conditions. Vilnius University was closed down after the rebellion of 1831. The insurrection of 1863 incured the ban of Lithuanian letters, so Lithuanian books could only be smuggled into the country from abroad. Regardless of these unfavourable conditions the process of formation of the national culture didn’t come to a standstill. The new professionals with a peasant background held themselves responsible for the build-up of national self-consciousness and popular education. Therefore the seventies of the 19th century in Lithuania witnessed a spread of educational popularizations containing but minimal knowledge in physics, mathematics, chemistry, in dispensable for educational purposes. Of prime importance were the practical tasks of worldview building often followed by the striving to impart free thinking attitudes to the masses.Scientific ideas and philosophical interpretations of science were often measured by this pragmatic aspiration. Therefore the spread of compilations, methodologically eclectic interpretations of physics, chemistry (linking O. Comte’s and H. Spenser’s positivism with L. Buchner’s materialism) was quite understandable. As a counterattitude to this tendency, the theistic trend of scientific popularization arose. Its educational utilitarianism made it very close to its opponent and its theistic purposefulness of world view and the striving to apply classical ideas for apologetics comprised its difference from the former. The conditions and the need for a more definite theoretic world picture were still not there. The regaining of Lithuania’s independence in 1918—1920 marked noted changes in the conditions for cultural functioning: foundation of the university and other higher schools, a vigorous build-up of the educational system, publications and journals on natural sciences and philosophy, the coinage of the Lithuanian scientific and philosophical terminology, training of specialists. All this facilitated the formation of the scientific worldview. However, in the first two decades of the 20th century in Lithuania a rather eclectic world picture prevailed, joining in an eclectic way the ideas of modern and classical sciences, theories and principles (V. Čepinskis, the young A. Žvironas). In this period a fuller formation of the modern scientific worldview was encumbered by the absence of young intellectuals. It was propagated by a few of professors of the older generation (V. Čepinskis, I. Končius, B. Kodatis). [...].