A person cognizes the world in various forms - in the form of everyday knowledge, religious, artistic, as well as scientific. The first three forms are considered extra-scientific, and although scientific knowledge has grown from everyday, everyday, it differs significantly from all extra-scientific forms. Scientific knowledge has its own structure, in which two levels are distinguished: empirical and theoretical. Throughout the XVII-XVIII centuries, science was mainly at the empirical stage, and they began to talk about theoretical only in the XIX century. Methods of theoretical cognition, which were understood as means of a comprehensive study of reality in its essential laws and relationships, began to gradually build on empirical ones. But even in spite of this, empirical and theoretical studies were in close interaction, thereby assuming an integral structure of scientific knowledge. In this regard, even general scientific methods of theoretical knowledge appeared, which were equally characteristic of the empirical method of cognition. At the same time, some methods of empirical cognition were also used by the theoretical stage.
The main scientific methods of the theoretical level of knowledge
Abstraction is a method that comes down to distracting from any properties of an object during cognition with the aim of more in-depth study of one of its sides. Abstraction in the final result should develop abstract concepts that characterize objects from different angles.
An analogy is a mental conclusion about the similarity of objects, which is expressed in a certain relationship, based on their similarity in slightly different respects.
Modeling is a method based on the principle of similarity. Its essence is that it is not the object itself that is being examined, but its analogue (deputy, model), after which the data obtained are transferred according to certain rules to the object itself.
Idealization is the mental construction (construction) of theories about objects, concepts that really do not exist in reality and cannot be embodied in it, but those for which in reality there is an analogue or a close prototype.
Analysis is a method of dividing one whole into parts in order to know each part separately.
Synthesis is the reverse of analysis, which consists in combining individual elements into one system for the purpose of further cognition.
Induction is a method in which the final conclusion is drawn from knowledge obtained to a lesser degree of generality. Simply put, induction is a movement from the particular to the general.
Deduction is the opposite method of induction, which has a theoretical orientation.
Formalization is a method of displaying meaningful knowledge in the form of signs and symbols. The basis of formalization is the distinction between artificial and natural languages.
All these methods of theoretical knowledge to one degree or another may be inherent in empirical knowledge. The historical and logical methods of theoretical knowledge are also no exception. The historical method is a reproduction in detail of the history of an object. Especially it finds wide application in historical sciences, where the concreteness of events is of great importance. The logical method also reproduces history, but only in the main, main and essential, without paying attention to those events and facts that are caused by random circumstances.
These are far from all methods of theoretical knowledge. Generally speaking, in scientific knowledge all methods can appear simultaneously, being in close interaction with each other. The specific use of individual methods is determined by the level of scientific knowledge, as well as by the features of the object, process.