Quasi-Scientifi c Constructs as Converted Forms of Rational Knowledge

To understand the reasons for the current widespread distribution of para- and pseudo-scientific knowledge, it is necessary to identify a broader sociocultural context of cognitive activity, to analyze the related issues at a universal, essential level. This essential level of understanding rational knowledge is associated with the need to reconstruct its conceptual and methodological foundations.
The level of identifying the universally necessary features of knowledge and ways of its transformation into different forms of pseudo-knowledge implies the theoretic-philosophical reflection of the subject, using rigorous conceptual and methodological tools.
Such conceptual and methodological tools include the application of the heuristic potential and methodology for the analysis of the category “converted form”. In the modern philosophical literature, this category was deeply reinterpreted by Merab Mamardashvili.
Using the methodology for analyzing converted forms made it possible to directly solve one of the complex problems of studying the forms of fake science – identifying the essential features of its forms such as pseudo- and quasi-science and developing on this basis sufficient criteria for their differentiation. These forms practically have not been distinguished in research literature before.
The comparative analysis of these forms of false knowledge, in turn, makes it possible to further develop the relevant problem of classifying pseudo-scientific types of knowledge, identifying the foundations and criteria for this classification.