Roman Maciej Kalina^1*

¹ Editor-in-Chief Archives of Budo: Journal of Innovative Agonology

*Corresponding author:  Roman M. Kalina, ul. Daszyńskiego 20, 33-350 Piwniczna-Zdrój, Poland; e-mail: kom.kalina @op.pl

Authors:

Roman Maciej Kalina:  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2064-2724

Abstract

Background and Study Aim: The differences between science and art are on the face of it obvious and concern goals, methods and means. However, certain common personal qualities necessary in both areas of creative activity to qualify them as outstanding achievements (be it intuition, invention, inspiration, courage) are difficult to attribute to any of the aforementioned methodological categories. All the more so, associating science with the art of war seems a breakneck methodological undertaking. The aim of this article is to argue against such a belief.
Material and Methods: Basic terminological arrangements of the author's lecture on ‘The methodology of complementary research’. Since the notion of ‘mission’ is at work in the contemporary space of human communication and is associated with science, it should suffice for the critical mind  the most general ordering remark that there are no equal (equivalence) relations between the notions of ‘mission’ and ‘purpose’. The more capacious term ‘mission’ is convenient when referring, for example, to the ‘social mission of science’, the ‘educational mission of science’, the ‘civilizational mission of science’,  or when we replace the word ‘science’ with ‘art’, religion’, ‘technology’, etc.  ‘Mission’ is not a methodological category in the strict sense.  
Results: According to teleology (the science of goals), a goal (or synonymous) is a thing or state of affairs to which man aspires.  If we take a teleological point of view, the reason for the origin of science can still only be formulated as a hypothesis – such as this one: the innate curiosity of man. However, it is only seemingly not difficult to answer the question of the importance of science in the existing social reality. In the above sentence the key word is ‘importance’ (the closest synonyms would be: clout, consequence, heft, import, prominence, relevancy, value, weight; but not: account, bearing, earmarking, implication, meaning, significance, signification, signifying, sense, substance, use).
In the now classic 'Methodics Teleology' (published in Polish, 1910) Władysław Biegański proposes to replace the polysemous name 'purpose' with the term – and here I enter arbitrarily – 'importance', when he associates research with the entire phenomenon (concerning either a living organism, a machine, or social relations, etc.). Furthermore, he stresses that in causal relationship studies, either the relationship of the part to the part or the whole to the whole is considered. Meanwhile, in the study of a purposive (teleological) relationship, the relationship of the part to the whole is considered.
Since the product of science is knowledge of various phenomena, the cognitive goal of any theoretical or empirical research (customarily formulated in scientific publications after the phrases ‘the study aim’, ‘the purpose of paper’ or synonyms) is always knowledge of some fragment of reality. Meanwhile, in the thousands of scientific publications published every day, these phrases are followed by information about the means of achieving the authors' unarticulated cognitive goals: ‘the study aim is investigation…’, ‘the purpose of this paper was measurements…’, etc.  The ability to verify this is immediately available to anyone, and the simplest and most reliable way is to use any of the literature databases and keywords on any of the issues subject to scientific exploration to date. The conclusion leads directly to the analogy of modern science with Sun Tzu's (Sun Wu) ‘The Art of War’ dating to the sixth century B.C.E. – everyone must be misled and manipulated, proprietary soldiers and officers, even the closest collaborators, proprietary secret agents, and only the commander-in-chief can be privy to the real situation and know the true objectives. 
Conclusions: Since the commonly stated goal of researchers with formal scientific competence is measures of cause and effect, the relatively comprehensive knowledge of the phenomena under study and the possibilities of implementation is the secret of the commissioner of the research. Thus, it is these persons (individuals and interest groups) who are most interested in tolerating in the space of science the demonstrated absurdities in the formulation of the purpose of scientific research (publication). For these persons, science is only a method in achieving their own expansive goals.
Keywords: medicine’s logic, methodology of complementary research, teleology, Władysław Biegasiński 

AMA:
Kalina RM. The simplest proof of reducing science to a method associated with Sun-Tzu's ‘The Art of War’. Arch Budo J Inn Agon. 2025;21.
APA:
Kalina, R. M. (2025). The simplest proof of reducing science to a method associated with Sun-Tzu's ‘The Art of War’. Arch Budo J Inn Agon, 21.
Chicago:
Kalina, Roman Maciej. 2025. "The Simplest Proof of Reducing Science to a Method Associated with Sun-Tzu's ‘The Art of War’." Arch Budo J Inn Agon 21.
Harvard:
Kalina, R. M. (2025). The simplest proof of reducing science to a method associated with Sun-Tzu's ‘The Art of War’. Arch Budo J Inn Agon, 21.
MLA:
Kalina, Roman Maciej. "The Simplest Proof of Reducing Science to a Method Associated with Sun-Tzu's ‘The Art of War’." Arch Budo J Inn Agon, vol. 21, 2025.
Vancouver:
Kalina RM. The simplest proof of reducing science to a method associated with Sun-Tzu's ‘The Art of War’. Arch Budo J Inn Agon. 2025;21.