Mental "Blindness" (The roots of insusceptibility to mew ideas)
The total resistance to cardinal novelties in science and life is an obvious fact. But what are the roots of this phenomenon? By tracing the logic of evolution of the explanations offered for it since the end of XIX century, the author brings to light their inner pivot and demonstrates all them fitting into a simple matrix which more and more exhausts its heuristic potential. To solve the problem it needs to go beyond individual mind, but not reducing the substance to external (social or cultural) influences. The established knowledge of any epoch, being learnt by people as applied to the tasks they perform, ensures some uniformity of intellectual tune, usually named mentality. Just within the scope of mentality, the immediate roots of insusceptibility to the new are to be sought.