Natural Sciences: Definitions and Attempt at Classification

Abstract

The article discusses the formal classification of natural sciences, which is based on several propositions: (a) natural sciences can be separated onto independent and dependent sciences based on the gnosiologic criterion and irreducibility criteria (principal and technical); (b) there are four independent sciences which form a hierarchy: physics ↠chemistry ↠terrestrial biology ↠human psychology; (c) every independent science except for physics has already developed or will develop in the future a set of final paradigms formulated in the terms of the science one step above it in the hierarchy; (d) some paradigms in physics will never become final; (e) each independent natural science has dependent sciences with paradigms already expressed in the terms of the respective independent sciences.  Existing paradigms of independent natural sciences are listed and discussed with respect to the degree of their approach to the final state.