The article focuses on the forms and conditions, which characterize incorporation of the philosophical ideas into science. The author describes the role of metaphor in transporting of concepts from one sphere of knowledge into another, and examines the ways of the inversion of concepts and ideas. The mostly important conditions of “borrowing” of “alien” concepts’ are revealed. First it is argued, , that they can be introduced only on their own intra-scientific ground. Second, they are redesigned in such a way that new ideal objects may enter the system of constructs, while the concepts may comply with an established conceptual system of science in a consistent way. Third, they have to operate – namely, they have to explain and predict facts of a certain experimental area. The article also examines the criteria according to which the adoption of new ideas into science could be estimated as relatively completed. This process is analyzed on the example of the transformation of ancient Greek atomism from the natural-philosophical concept into scientific one. The main stages of these changes, as well as the historical ties between philosophical and scientific atomism, are considered.
Keywords: inversion of ideas, metaphor, natural-philosophical atomism, scientific atomism, philosophical foundations of science, internal foundations of science, discontinuity and continuity.