The article is devoted to the problem of the link between the essential and the accidental in the process of scientific discoveries. The author criticises Karl Popper concept who states that each scientific discovery is entirely "accidental". The author" viewpoint is based on the methodology of dialectical materialism as a whole, the concept of dialectical determinism, current works on the theory of truth and the criterion of truth. The article treats randomness as the form of being and the

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... omenon of necessity. The randomness is presented in the act of discovery by a variety of phenomena such as the particular time, the author of the discovery and the specific aspect of the scientific problem determining this discovery. The necessity here has to do with a specific measure reflecting the limits of change for the phenomenal side of scientific discovery, and this is true for other objective and subjective processes. The author argues that revealing the link between the essential and the accidental in scientific discovery is a critical foundation for solving all epistemological problems, the problem of the criterion of the truth in the first place.