HOLISM METHODOLOGY IN NATURAL SCIENCE

The article analyzes the qualitative and holistic methodology in regard to natural science. The author refers to the history and specific scientific facts in the field of natural sciences, revealing the ways of formation of taxonomic generalizations. The natural-scientific views of thinkers of Modern (New) time and Enlightenment are considered, the ideas of which contributed to the formation of ideas about "type" and "kind" as forms of generalization of scientific knowledge. The special significance of Goethe's ideas is noted, in his works it was suggested that cognition in its ultimate forms of penetration into the natural world has a typological nature, and the concept "type" should be perceived as a generalized representation of the natural world. In the history of scientific thought was recorded opposition views on the concept of "type" and "kind", interpreted the concept of "type" as a speculative formation, in contrast with the concept "kind", which has a significant empirical burden. The formation of the idea of natural integrity in geology we find in works by C. Layell, who pointed to the importance of identifying stable, discrete states of the natural world. The methodological meaning of the term "type" is evaluated, which allowed to formulate the provision that without a deep study of the statics of living organisms it is impossible to study evolution, and the recognition of the evolutionary development of the natural world is not able to cross out the presence of qualitative discrete states in it.