Knowledge and Reality: Models, Methodologies and Heuristics

The Department is markedly interdisciplinary in its orientation; its synergy is aimed at developing philosophical, sociological, and science studies models for the description of knowledge and reality, for explicating theconnections between these, for philosophical-methodological analyses, for tracing heuristics, scientific strategies, etc. The results of these studies have a purely theoretical but also an applied value related to the needs of scientific and social development. The study of knowledge and reality is closely linked to the elaboration of appropriate methodologies and heuristics, which, due to their significance, are themselves objects of study. Themodels of knowledge and reality, the methodologies and heuristics, are a topic for philosophers, science studies experts, sociologists of science and knowledge, and – in a future perspective – for specialists in other disciplines as well.

Projects

Three years scientific project “The Interplay of ontology and epistemology in 21^st century philosophy of mathematics” (2014-2016). It is a co-operative project with colleagues from the University of Liege, Belgium according to the bilateral co-operation between Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and WBI (Belgium). The project leader of the Bulgarian team is Prof. DSc. Vesselin Petrov and the other Bulgarian participants are Assoc. Prof. Dr. Engelsina Tasseva, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Marina Bakalova, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rosen Lutskanov. The project is a continuation of several previous co-operative projects with the Belgian colleagues.

Three years co-operative project “Rationality in Science and Metaphysics” (2015-2017) with colleagues of the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences according to the bilateral co-operation between Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and Slovak Academy of Sciences. The leader of the Bulgarian team is Prof. DSc Vesselin Petrov, and the other Bulgarian participants are Assoc. Prof. Dr. Engelsina Tasseva, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Marina Bakalova, Assist. Prof. Dr. Daniela Ivanova, Assist. Prof. Dr. Petia Todorova, and Assist. Prof. Dr. Ivaylo Kutov. The project is a continuation of a previous co-operative project with the same Slovak colleagues.
Project “Models, methodologies and heuristics in contemporary philosophical discourse – 2^nd part” (2016-2019) with team leader Prof. DSc. Vesselin Petrov, and participants Assoc. Prof. Dr. Engelsina Tasseva, Assoc. Prof. Dr. George Angelov, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Marina Bakalova, Assist. Prof. Dr. Daniela Ivanova, Assist. Prof. Dr. Petia Todorova, and Assist. Prof. Dr. Ivaylo Kutov. There are two other team members: Prof. DSc. Dimiter Tsatsov (University of Veliko Tarnovo) and Assoc. Prof. Dr. George Belogashev (University of Veliko Tarnovo).
Prof. DSc Vesselin Petrov is the team leader of the international Bulgarian-Australian scientific network between Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia University “St. Kl. Ohridski”, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia and University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia in the field of applied process ontology. These country members have a co-operative three years project “Applying Process-Relational Ontologies to Re-integrate Active Subjects within Contemporary Scientific Models” with team leader Prof. DSc Vesselin Petrov and participants Prof. DSc Aneta Karageorgieva (Sofia University), Assoc. Prof. Mark Dibben (University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia), Dr. Cristina Neesham (Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia).