bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Vagueness
Authors: Black Max
Published: November 2002

It is a paradox, whose importance familiarity fails to diminish, that the most highly developed and useful scientific theories are ostensibly expressed in terms of objects never encountered in experience. The line traced by a draughtsman, no matter how accurate, is seen beneath the microscope as a kind of corrugated trench, far removed from the ideal line of pure geometry. And the “point-planet” of astronomy, the “perfect gas” of thermodynamics, or the “pure species” of genetics are equally remote from exact realization. Indeed the unintelligibility at the atomic or sub-atomic level of the notion of a rigidly demarcated boundary shows that such objects not merely are not but could not be encountered. While the mathematician constructs a theory in terms of “perfect” objects, the experimental scientist observes objects of which the properties demanded by theory are and can, in the very nature of measurement, be only approximately true. As Duhem remarks, mathematical deduction is not useful to the physicist if interpreted rigorously. It is necessary to know that its validity is unaltered when the premise and conclusion are only “approximately true.” But the indeterminacy thus introduced, it is necessary to add in criticism, will invalidate the deduction unless the permissible limits of variation are specified. To do so, however, replaces the original mathematical deduction by a more complicated mathematical theory in respect of whose interpretation the same problem arises, and whose exact nature is in any case unknown.
A Critique of Operationalism in Physics
Authors: Lindsay R. B.
Published: November 2002

It is the aim of this paper to examine certain aspects of a point of view which has attracted much attention in physical methodology. This is the standpoint known as operationalism. We wish to discuss its significance in the construction and interpretation of physical theories.

The essential meaning of operationalism in physics is that physical concepts should be defined in terms of actual physical operations. On this view there is no meaning to a concept unless it represents an operation which can be performed in the laboratory. Thus the term “pressure of a gas” signifies nothing until an operation is described which constitutes the measurement of pressure. When one thinks of pressure one must think. of some actual apparatus, such as, for example, some glass and rubber tubing and some mercury and certain operations performed using these until finally one gets a pointer reading which one calls the pressure of the gas. The same stand is taken with respect to length, time, velocity, acceleration, temperature, etc.
Symbolic Logic and “Embedding Language”
Authors: Sisson Edward O.
Published: November 2002

Mr. A. F. Bentley in his Linguistic Analysis of Mathematics has attacked the problem of the “embedding language” of mathematics; “This essay” we read in the Foreword, “deals with the language of mathematics, including not only the mathematical symbols, but also those immediately surrounding forms of expressions and assertions through which the symbols are developed, communicated and interpreted. The writer seeks to establish a firm construction for this embedding language.” Inevitably, in the first instance this embedding language must be, as he puts it, “every-day language”; but this is sadly inadequate: “The every-day language reeks with philosophies—the absolutisms of pointing. It shatters at every touch of advancing knowledge. At its heart is paradox… Mathematicians know this. Yet they feel ever the compulsion to interpret their mathematics in terms of every-day language. So proceeding, their harvest is super-paradox.” Yet the writer recognizes after all that “every-day language is the basal medium of communication between men,” even when we seek to “extend standards of symbolic consistency into the regions of the embedding language.”
The Method of Postulates
Authors: Huntington Edward V.
Published: November 2002

The subject to which I invite your attention this evening is a very recent development in mathematics which happens to be of great importance to philosophy.

The question may perhaps be raised why a terrifying topic like mathematics as introduced into an Institute of Philosophy. There are two answers to this question. In the first place my talk this evening will not be a “mathematical lecture” in any ordinary sense of the term, and no mathematical knowledge whatsoever will be presupposed. In the second place, even if it were to be a mathematical lecture, such an audience as is here assembled tonight would find nothing terrifying in the prospect.
The Concept of Probability
Authors: Bures Charles E.
Published: November 2002

It is the purpose of this paper to review the present status of discussion concerning the concept of probability. The exposition will consist of six sections: (1) A brief statement of the most important traditional views of the concept of probability: subjective and objective; (a) A brief criticism of two traditionally important conceptions: a priori probability and the Principle of Indifference; (3) A criticism of an outstanding example of the subjective theory of probability, the theory of F. P. Ramsey; (4) A criticism of the most widely known of the objective logical theories of probability, the theory of J. M. Keynes; (5) Some remarks concerning the results of the recent work of Reichenbach and von Mises with particular reference to clarification of the concept of probability; (6) A summary of the case for the frequency interpretation of probability, revealing its basic importance in the light of present evidence.
On Probability and Induction
Authors: Reichenbach Hans
Published: November 2002

In a review of my book “Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre”, Dr. Ernest Nagel has recently criticized some of my ideas on probability and induction. His review includes a good exposition of my ideas, and I have to thank him for his serious attempts to do justice to my results. He attacks, however, some very essential points of my theory. I may be allowed, therefore, to answer him as frankly and thoroughly as he attacks me.
Some Theses in the Philosophy of Logic
Authors: Nagel Ernest
Published: November 2002

The following comments represent what seem to me promising lines of approach to some of the broader issues in the philosophy of logic. They are offered, it is perhaps unnecessary to say, with the intent of stimulating rather than foreclosing discussion. And if the conclusions advanced are formulated loosely and with only a crude indication of the arguments which support them, I hope that thereby they will provoke all the more the free flow of discourse which it is the object of this Conference to promote.
Indeterminisms
Authors: Dotterer Ray H.
Published: November 2002

Recent advances in quantum physics have led to a renewal of interest in the problem of human freedom and in the wider problem of indeterminism. It is important to recognize, however, that if every denial of determinism is to be called indeterminism, the latter term covers a wide range of logically distinguishable positions. We should perhaps speak in the plural number of indeterminisms rather than of indeterminism. For determinism may be defined, simply, as the doctrine that every event has a cause; or we may add that the effect is always uniquely determined; or that when the effect is complex it can always be exhaustively analyzed into components each of which is the effect of a component of the cause; or that every cause directly or indirectly includes the entire universe. And in the case of each of these, or of still other interpretations of determinism, the denial would be a form of indeterminism.
Emile Meyerson on Scientific Explanation
Authors: Hillman Owen N.
Published: November 2002

In the works which constitute his distinguished contribution to philosophy, Emile Meyerson has advanced and defended the opinion that scientific explanation consists in transforming empirically discovered natural laws into statements of identity in time. This contention, which it is the purpose of the present paper to examine, is of great interest both on its own account and by reason of its intimate connection with Meyerson's central thesis that all thought consists essentially in similar processes of identification. Indeed so intimate is this connection that our present inquiry although it deals explicitly only with the nature of scientific explanation nevertheless constitutes by implication an examination of the more general thesis also, for if scientific explanation is not a process of identification then obviously not all thought is identificatory.
Conceptual Implications of an Indian Language
Authors: Lee D. Demetracopoulou
Published: November 2002

It has been said that a language will delineate and limit the logical concepts of the individual who speaks it. Conversely, a language is an organ for the expression of thought, of concepts and principles of classification. True enough, the thought of the individual must run along its grooves; but these grooves, themselves, are a heritage from individuals who laid them down in an unconscious effort to express their attitude toward the world. Grammar contains in crystallized form the accumulated and accumulating experience, the Weltanschauung of a people.
Operational Analysis
Authors: Bridgman P. W.
Published: November 2002

In the October 1937 number of Philosophy of Science Lindsay has made certain criticisms of the adequacy of the “operational method” of analyzing and giving meaning to the concepts of physics, documenting his criticisms chiefly from my own writings. In these criticisms he has made statements as to the method which I would by no means accept. This is not characteristic of his paper only, for I have seldom indeed seen a printed discussion of the method which I would accept as being an adequate or sometimes even fair representation of what I understand by it. It will perhaps pay therefore if I attempt to state what I conceive it to be all about, particularly since I have never attempted such a comprehensive statement and since my own ideas on the subject have been developing since I first wrote in the Logic of Modern Physics. For one reason I have hesitated to do this, for fear of seeming to subscribe to the not uncommon idea that we are dealing with some elaborate and profound new theory of the nature of knowledge or of meaning. I believe that I myself have never talked of “operationalism” or “operationism”, but I have a distaste for these grandiloquent words which imply something more philosophic and esoteric than the simple thing that I see. What we are here concerned with is an observation and description of methods which at least some physicists had already, perhaps unconsciously, adopted and found successful—the practise of the methods already existed. What I have attempted is to analyze these successful methods, not to set up a philosophical system and a theory of the properties that any method must have if it hopes to be successful. Since I was concerned with a technique already extant, my principal method of getting others to see what the technique involved has been to exhibit examples of the technique in action, rather than to attempt any exhaustive characterization of the technique itself.
Physicists and Fairies
Authors: Bentley Arthur F.
Published: November 2002

When the layman reads a book or two of popularized physics and then moves solemnly forth, as occasionally happens, to expound some comprehensive doctrine purporting to be built directly out of the materials he has picked up, the type of comment which the physicist will make is plain enough in advance. But why does it so rarely occur to the physicist that others may think of his epistemologizing much what he is sure to think of their quantizing?
Induction and the External World
Authors: Williams Donald C.
Published: November 2002

Mr. E. J. Nelson, in “The Inductive Argument for an External World,” treats of fundamental topics with erudition and urbanity, but his essay remains inconclusive, I believe, with respect to its purpose of discrediting the argument. He agrees with Mr. Savery, Mr. Pratt, and me, as against the positivists, that the question of the existence of an external world is meaningful (249) and indeed of paramount importance for both metaphysics and logic. But he argues against us that it cannot be inductively established by its supposed power of “saving the appearances.” He is not sure that any induction is valid; but even if other inductions are valid, he thinks this one can not be (240, 245, 247), for the following reasons. (1) By the multiplicative axiom of probability-theory, evidence for a hypothesis can only multiply its antecedent probability, and can increase the probability only when the latter is finite, while the hypothesis of an external world has and can have no finite antecedent probability (241, 245). (2) By the same axiom, even granted an antecedent probability for the hypothesis itself, no experience can act as evidence to increase the probability of a hypothesis except in so far as the hypothesis implies, makes probable, or “explains” the evidence, and this the hypothesis of an external world cannot do (244, 245, 247).
The Concept of Law in the Social Sciences
Authors: Lundberg George A.
Published: November 2002

It is the thesis of this paper that the term scientific law can and should mean in the social sciences exactly what it means in any of the other sciences. There seems to be considerable agreement among scientists as well as others that a scientific law is a generalized and verifiable statement, within measurable degrees of accuracy, of how certain events occur under stated conditions. If I were to attempt a more specific statement I would say that a law is (1) a group of verbal or mathematical symbols (2) designating an unlimited number of defined events in terms of a limited number of reactions (3) so that the performance of specified operations always yields predictable results within measurable limits.
The Meanings of Culture
Authors: Bierstedt Robert
Published: November 2002

Few words appear more frequently in the literature of contemporary social science than “culture.” Not only does it occur frequently, but with such a multitude of meanings that a single definition of the term becomes almost impossible. Even a cursory examination of social scientific writing discloses that its signification varies with the contexts in which it appears and with most individuals who use it. As long as words are single exhibits of the versatility and variety of language, no fault can be found with a plurality of meanings which may come to adhere to them. But when words are designed for and used in discussions of a supposedly technical character in any of the social science disciplines, the time for literary and philological speculation has past. Words intended for such use must conform to certain standards of conceptual validity, must be used consistently in analogous contexts, and must never be torn from the universe of discourse of which they are a part.
Mr. Miller's Interpretation of Whitehead
Authors: Lowe Victor
Published: November 2002

The article by Mr. David L. Miller, called ‘Purpose, Design and Physical Relativity', in the July 1936 issue of Philosophy of Science, consists mainly of a commentary on the development of Whitehead's thought from the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge to Process and Reality. Now most criticisms of Whitehead so far published have been from realists of the anti-metaphysical Cambridge school, complaining that his later works retract the teaching of his earlier works on the philosophy of natural science; and this complaint is raised quite unjustly, because a careful reading of the earlier works will show that there is nothing in them that precludes the logical possibility of a metaphysics of nature such as Whitehead expounded later. We should be grateful for any comment on Whitehead which does not repeat this hoary error. But unfortunately two opposed misinterpretations do not together make a correct interpretation. The opposite distortion of Whitehead is effected by those readers who, having found that the earlier books showed genius but were, alas, too much under the influence of ill-advised realist dogma, proceed to construe the succession of later books as the gradual self-correction of the great man towards a mature judgment which is in full accord with the reader's own. Of this distortion, I am afraid, Mr. Miller has given us an example.
A Revolution in Metaphysics and in Science
Authors: Boodin John Elof
Published: November 2002

To recognize the reality of the space-time structure of nature would, I think, revolutionize metaphysics. It means that we must conceive reality as history and history as having direction. It is not enough to take time seriously, we must take the order of time seriously. When we view the apparent confusion of nearby events, we may indeed be tempted to say with Heraclitus: “Time is a child playing drafts. The kingly power is a child's.” But if we take a long view we may discern order. The early Greek pioneers started philosophy on the right track. Anaximander, the real founder of Western philosophy and science, had the brilliant intuition of an order of time as regulating the cosmic process. In the one direct quotation from Anaximander we are told: “And into that from which things take their rise they pass away once more, as is meet; for they make reparation and satisfaction for their injustice according to the ordering of time.” It is because of the “ordering of time” that the universe is a self-maintaining whole. The development of the conception of the ordering of time was left to the great metaphysical genius of Heraclitus, who conceived a thought running through all things and steering through all things. There is a controlling direction of change which regulates the rhythm of exchange in nature and keeps the universe from running down. It was this emphasis upon the Word, the logos, the controlling order of change, which Heraclitus felt to be his important contribution. Change, continuous flux, is real, but there is a guiding order in change.
Symbolism in Science and Philosophy
Authors: Urban Wilbur M.
Published: November 2002

Is metaphysics possible? From the beginning of our present sophisticated era we have continually been compelled to ask this question. For myself I confess to a growing impatience with this and like questions. I hold with Kant that metaphysics is a Naturanlage, that should all science pass away and should we revert to barbarism, there would still be metaphysics. I am also disposed to think that should mankind develop in the opposite direction, should we become the supermen or the angels which the perfectionists of all times have envisaged, metaphysics would not only remain, but metaphysical insight would be the very life of that perfection. As Dante said, “metaphysics is the bread of angels.”
Nature Common Sense and Science
Authors: Vivas Eliseo
Published: November 2002

This paper attempts to explore some of the implications of the distinction between having or enjoying and knowing, between “experiencing” and science, for these implications have not always been adequately realized by those for whom the distinction is fundamental.
The Verifiability of Facts and Values
Authors: Lepley Ray
Published: November 2002

The pervasive contrast in modern life between the certainties of science and technology, on the one hand, and the uncertainties of human goals and policies, on the other, is the objective source of a fundamental conflict in theory. It is now widely held that facts are rather definitely verifiable, but that values are unverifiable; though other students assume that values are also verifiable in some significant sense and degree.
Science and the Social Order
Authors: Merton Robert K.
Published: November 2002

Forty-three years ago Max Weber observed that “the belief in the value of scientific truth is not derived from nature but is a product of definite cultures.” We may now add: and this belief is readily transmuted into doubt or disbelief. The persistent development of science occurs only in societies of a certain order, subject to a peculiar complex of tacit presuppositions and institutional constraints. What is for us a normal phenomenon which demands no explanation and secures many ‘self-evident’ cultural values, has been in other times and still is in many places abnormal and infrequent. The continuity of science requires the active participation of interested and capable persons in scientific pursuits. This support of science is assured only by appropriate cultural conditions. It is, then, important to examine those controls which motivate scientific careers, which select and give prestige to certain scientific disciplines and reject or blur others. It will become evident that changes in institutional structure may curtail, modify or possibly prevent the pursuit of science.
Science at the Tower of Babel
Authors: Harding T. Swann
Published: November 2002

The eleventh chapter of Genesis significantly begins to the following effect: “And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.” In that one language there was power. That power induced the inhabitants of earth to start the Tower of Babel with the idea of storming the citadel of Heaven. Whereupon, we learn, God confounded their language that they might not understand one another's speech. That confusion of tongues destroyed their power.
Science is Sciencing
Authors: White Leslie A.
Published: November 2002

Science is not merely a collection of facts and formulas. It is preëminently a way of dealing with experience. The word may be appropriately used as a verb: one sciences, i.e., deals with experience according to certain assumptions and with certain techniques. Science is one of two basic ways of dealing with experience. The other is art. And this word, too, may appropriately be used as a verb; one may art as well as science. The purpose of science and art is one: to render experience intelligible, i.e., to assist man to adjust himself to his environment in order that he may live. But although working toward the same goal, science and art approach it from opposite directions. Science deals with particulars in terms of universals: Uncle Tom disappears in the mass of Negro slaves. Art deals with universals in terms of particulars: the whole gamut of Negro slavery confronts us in the person of Uncle Tom. Art and science thus grasp a common experience, or reality, by opposite but inseparable poles.
Arranging the Sciences
Authors: Malisoff William Marias
Published: November 2002

Since my discussion of an experimental arrangement of the sciences for certain practical objectives, some comment has appeared which makes it necessary to re-emphasize certain points by a further example. There seems to be something like a desire to paralyze the hand that makes arrangements for fear that undue profound metaphysical significance may be seen in a “mere” arrangement. It is the perennial fear of the a priori, the fear of a principle being invoked because of its “self-evidence”, and then turning traitor on the actual evidence. I invoke no such principle either overtly or covertly.
Preface to a Theory of Nature
Authors: Lapan Arthur
Published: November 2002

Like most other subjects under discussion today, the theory of nature is largely controlled by considerations of knowledge. Treatment of it is, consequently, incidental to the treatment of these other problems, and is undertaken, in the main, because they compel it. A brief catalogue of characteristic statements about nature will illustrate this. “Nature,” says one writer, “is that which we observe in perception through the senses”; and another writes, “It is not experience which is experienced, but nature—stones, plants, animals, diseases, health, temperature, electricity, and so on.” Nothing is more apparent in these sentences than the fact that it is not nature that the writers are so much concerned with, as with what it is that appears through the senses. The theory of nature, that is, is not so much guided by an analysis of the word's context and usage, as it is by the question: what is the proper object of knowledge? Consequently it is the latter question that is answered and not the question: what is nature? The reason for this is evident in the purpose of these statements and in their history; their purpose: the desire to do away with the separation between experience and nature, and to transform nature into a field familiar and accessible; and their history: the very framework against which they are directed, for they are embedded in the set-up from which they are trying to disentangle themselves. Perhaps something ought to be said to substantiate the thesis that the sentences cited are controlled by the problem of knowledge, especially since their intent seems to be to escape that problem. In any case, their history should serve to clarify them, and render a different approach to the theory of nature more significant.
A Re-examination of Some Arguments for Realism
Authors: Taube Mortimer
Published: November 2002

For the purposes of this paper, realism is defined as the belief that in visual perception there is a direct perception of material bodies existing in space external to the perceiver's body. Most contemporary positivists and analytical philosophers are realists in this sense. Included in this classification would be all those who argue from the character of seen relations of bodies to the uniformity view of causation; those who oppose public (extended or in space) to private experience; those who believe that one can point to facts; those who believe in the real existence of objects like extended solid tables and chairs; and those who distinguish in terms of verifiability between judgments of color and judgments of value.
Science and the Philosophy of Science
Authors: Benjamin A. C.
Published: November 2002

There are some indications that the philosophy of science is reaching the age of discretion. Now, as I understand it, the age of discretion is characterized by self-examination. Youth is a period of blundering enthusiasm. But maturity demands the sobering influence of principles, perspectives and techniques. The adult must put away childish things. This does not demand the elimination of spontaneity and imagination, but it does require their chastening according to the principles of propriety. It seems time to ask ourselves whether the philosophy of science ought to be allowed henceforth just to grow, like Topsy, or whether a serious attempt ought not to be made to determine its nature and task.
The Nature of Mathematics
Authors: Jeffreys Harold
Published: November 2002

There is a considerable divergence of opinion about the meaning of mathematics, and it is only with hesitation that I, as a theoretical physicist concerned mainly with geophysics, venture to discuss a matter that professional logicians differ about. Nevertheless I am concerned with the problems of the acquirement of knowledge by scientific methods, and the solutions of these problems involve pure mathematics, the validity of which one is usually willing to take for granted. But the logical schools are not so willing, and aim at demonstration. Logic must be true in all possible worlds, and all empirical propositions must be rigorously excluded. A scientist, on the other hand, is interested mainly in empirical propositions, and mathematics (with logic) is primarily a tool for investigating their relations. The proof of mathematics would therefore have interest for science, provided that the proof is sufficiently general to cover scientific requirements. If it is not, and the subject matter of the proof is restricted so that it fails to cover the scientific use of mathematics, then in its scientific application it is merely an analogy, and we are no better off than we should be if we simply took the validity of mathematics as it stands as a postulate.
The Future of Theoretical Physics
Authors: Lindsay R. B.
Published: November 2002

The modern theoretical physicist is a strange creature. Perhaps in every age the theoretical physicist has seemed so to his contemporaries who took the trouble to observe and think about him. There seems, for example, something almost too magical in the uncanny way in which he pulls a brand new atomic particle out of a theory, a way that reminds us of a rabbit being produced out of a hat. This is usually done in an off-hand manner with a considerable amount of patter of a highly abstract symbolic character but with a few words inserted in the right places for the benefit of the experimental physicist and a final prediction that if the experimenter does thus and so in the laboratory he will find a certain result. No wonder the observer marvels when the answer comes out right. But as he thinks further he is inclined to wonder whether it is necessary or desirable for the details of the process which led to the result to be so unintelligible. For unintelligible they seem to be to a great many people who are directly concerned with their understanding, to the people who for years have been laboring under the belief that they are engaged in the task of finding out how Nature works. What is this curious process whose whole task, according to one distinguished exponent of it, is merely to predict experimental results, and what is its future likely to be? These are the questions we are setting for ourselves in the present discussion. It is unlikely that the answers given here will satisfy everybody, but it is reasonably certain that nobody who aspires to an interest in science can fail to attach some meaning to them whether or not he agrees.
Telepathy, Psychical Research, and Modern Psychology
Authors: Rogosin H.
Published: November 2002

The widespread publicity and the consequent furor created by Dr. J. B. Rhine's experiments on telepathy and clairvoyance, have been interpreted in some quarters as a call for a thorough-going revision of the entire field of psychological thought. This revision, it is held, must be in the direction of philosophic idealism, and away from previously accepted materialistic doctrines. The present paper points out the non-verifiable nature of the entities postulated by the believers in “supernormal” phenomena. Furthermore, the interpretations of contemporary science held by such individuals are not in themselves on a scientific plane. Specific errors in reasoning made by workers in the field of psychical research, are presented. In short, “psychical research … cannot turn the universe into a non-material, non-objective one, on either the basis of misinterpretations of current physical thought or on the basis of its own work.”
Encyclopaedism as a Pedagogical Aim: A Danish Approach
Authors: Neurath Otto
Published: November 2002

Encyclopaedism” is the systematically pursued activity within the Unity of Science Movement, devoted to the collecting of scientific statements of the logic of science (synonymous with “Philosophy of Science” for Carnap and other representatives of modern Logical Empiricism) logic, mathematics, physics, biology and other sciences, including all the “cross connections” between the given disciplines. (See: Otto Neurath, Unified Science as Encyclopedic Integration; in: International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. I, No. I.)
Robert Hooke
Authors: Whitrow G. J.
Published: November 2002

It is impossible for us to understand the character of Newton or the state of the physical sciences in the seventeenth century, without referring at length to the life and work of Robert Hooke.’ So writes the author of a recent biography of Newton. Well might we ask with him ‘What manner of man was he whose personal opposition delayed the publication of Newton's Optics for thirty years and almost prevented the completion of the Principia; whose bitter tongue confirmed Newton's tendency to secrecy and isolation, destroyed his early enthusiasm for the Royal Society, and disgusted him with science?’ It is not surprising that a man, capable of all this, should play a conspicuous rôle in the history of natural philosophy. Indeed a study of Hooke's career throws much light on the origins of modern science and, in particular, it helps to determine the much disputed status of mathematics in the development of physical theory.
The Theory of Emergence
Authors: Ablowitz Reuben
Published: November 2002

The problem of the reality and nature of novelty in the universe has long engaged the attention of philosophers. “There is nothing new under the sun” is one ancient weighty utterance. On the other hand, “you cannot step twice into the same river”, said Heraclitus, for in the interval between your first and second steps, the river has changed and you have changed. One recent attempt to analyze this problem and other affiliated problems, is the theory of emergence.
Emergence without Mystery
Authors: Malisoff William Marias
Published: November 2002

The meaning of emergence has been interpreted in a multitude of ways. What is it that emerges in turn from all this ado about emergence?

It is regrettable that the only distinctive overtone that seems to come forth is a lurking sense of mystery or mystification about unexpected or unforseen or “new” forms of organizations. This sense of mystery is conveyed most strongly by those who credit the alleged newness to some sort of subtle influence determined to make new things out of the old. Likewise it is also strongly suggested by those who pretend merely to stumble upon it as an “empirical” find,—but, oh, what a fantastic find!
The Structure of Wholes
Authors: Angyal Andras
Published: November 2002

In attempting to clarify the problem of personality integration the writer gained the impression that the difficulty of such a task does does not lie alone in the paucity of usable factual data but it is due, even to a greater extent, to the inadequacy of our logical tools. Such a handicap is felt not only in the study of personality, but in the study of wholes in general. Here the attempt will be made to develop some concepts which may be useful for the understanding of the structure of wholes.
Probability, Many-Valued Logics, and Physics
Authors: Margenau Henry
Published: November 2002

The present paper is concerned chiefly with the problem of scientific prediction. It aims at a factual analysis of the processes leading to prediction, and ventures an appraisal, in the light of this analysis, of some modern and unconventional theories of probability and truth. But although prediction is here chosen as the central issue of discussion, I do not wish to imply that, in its usual sense, it is the only or even the dominant issue of scientific research.
Patterns of Culture in History
Authors: Ratner Sidney
Published: November 2002

If the history of civilization is to be an instrument for the advancement of civilization, historians must break new paths toward a wider and deeper understanding of human affairs. Despite the achievements of those who have explored the influence of technics, the power of nationalism, the rôle of mass-psychology, the economic factors in political and social life, our analyses of history are from a scientific standpoint still all too primitive. As John Dewey has said, “It is possible to study a multitude of histories, and yet permit history, the record of the transitions and transformations of human activities, to escape us. Taking history in separate doses of this country and that, we take it as a succession of isolated finalities, each one in due season giving way to another, as supernumeraries succeed one another in a march across the stage. We thus miss the fact of history and also its lesson; the diversity of institutional forms and customs which the same human nature may produce and employ.“
Virtue and the Scientist
Authors: Malisoff William Marias
Published: November 2002

In the practice of science lies the key to virtue. The proposition I have enunciated is not an obvious one. Its contradictory could conceivably be true. One might, for example, look upon the practice of science as a diabolical way of blinding one to the charms of virtue. One might look upon the practice of science as a deliberate plot to efface virtue, destroy it. Worse, one might look upon the practice of science as entirely apart from the issues of good and bad, of right and wrong, or of virtue and viciousness. The practice of science may be conceived as blind, itself vicious, or irresponsibly indifferent.
The Evolution of Theories of Space-Time and Mechanics
Authors: McCrea W. H.
Published: November 2002

In this paper I attempt to trace certain aspects of the evolution of theories of space-time and mechanics as revealed by a brief comparative study of Newtonian theory, Robb's theory, general relativity, and Milne's kinematical relativity. The first object is to emphasise how each theory leaves us in a position in which the succeeding one appears as a perfectly natural next step in the development of ideas. The second object is to show how, in spite of superficial differences in character, the theories all necessarily possess the same general structure constituted by the presence of hypotheses, from which certain general mathematical relations are deduced, which in their turn are used to predict relations between observable quantities.
Vagueness and Logic
Authors: Hempel Carl G.
Published: November 2002

As is rather generally admitted today, the terms of our language in scientific as well as in everyday use, are not completely precise, but exhibit a more or less high degree of vagueness. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the consequences of this circumstance for a series of questions which belong to the field of logic. First of all, the meaning and the logical status of the concept of vagueness will be analyzed; then we will try to find out whether logical terms are free from vagueness, and whether vagueness has an influence upon the validity of the customary principles of logic; finally, the possibilities of diminishing the vagueness of scientific concepts by suitable logical devices will be briefly dealt with.
Border-Line Cases, Vagueness, and Ambiguity
Authors: Copilowish Irving M.
Published: November 2002

This paper is concerned with two closely related problems: the first is the general question of border-line cases; the second is a suggested identification of the notions of ambiguity and vagueness. In the first part of the paper I propose to discuss border-line cases in the following way: I shall say what is meant by “border-line cases,” discuss their genesis, enumerate and evaluate the different methods of resolving such cases, and make a brief comment or two the bearing, if any, that such cases have on logical theory. In the second part it will be suggested that the notion of vagueness can be reduced to the status of a special but important case of ambiguity; I hold that such a reduction would effect both an economy and a clarification.
Concerning the Laws of Contradiction and Excluded Middle
Authors: McGill V. J.
Published: November 2002

Tradition usually assigns greater importance to the so-called laws of thought than to other logical principles. Since these laws could apparently not be deduced from the other principles without circularity and all deductions appeared to make use of them, their priority was considered well established. Generally, it was held that the laws of thought have no proof and need none, that as universal constitutive or transcendental principles they are self-evident.
Probability and the Theory of Knowledge
Authors: Nagel Ernest
Published: November 2002

Professor Reichenbach's writings have repeatedly called attention to the important rôle which probability statements play in all inquiry, and he has made amply clear that no philosophy of science can be regarded as adequate which does not square its accounts with the problems of probable inference. Recently he has brought together in convenient form many reflections on the methodology of science familiar to readers of his earlier works, and at the same time he has set himself the task of solving many well-known problems of epistemology in terms of his theory of probability. His latest book is therefore of great interest, both because of the light it throws on Professor Reichenbach's own views and because it reveals the power and limitations of one approach to the problems of science. In particular, while it does not add to the details of his theory of probability worked out elsewhere, the applications Professor Reichenbach now makes of it supply fresh clues for judging its import and adequacy. The object of the present essay, therefore, is to expound a number of his views on probability and epistemology, with a view to examining his conclusions and their relevance to the problems he aims to resolve. The discussion will try to determine whether several features of his present views do not follow from assumptions which he has not sufficiently considered; whether his logical constructions do not create new puzzles; and whether a different starting-point should not be taken if the clarification of scientific concepts and procedures, to which Professor Reichenbach's devotion is as unexcelled as it is well known, is to be successfully conducted.
What Is an Atom?
Authors: Malisoff William Marias
Published: November 2002

For a number of years I have been demonstrating at my seminars that the atom is no longer atomic, that mechanics is no longer mechanistic, and that similar paradoxes of advancing science can be formulated throughout its extent. The point has been reached, however, that a call for a revision of terms or some such reform should be issued. At one time, indeed, I gave a list of terms to be dropped altogether. They refused to be dropped. I ask now: Will they permit themselves to be modified or to be reallocated?
A Materialistic Interpretation of Life
Authors: Seifriz William
Published: November 2002

The attribute of living is due either to a specific state of matter or to a distinctive kind of energy. All possible interpretations of these two concepts are materialistic with one exception. There is said to be a kind of energy apart from this world. Such an assumption is vitalistic.
Is Nature Rational?
Authors: Winn Ralph B.
Published: November 2002

Most words are like small vessels with constantly changing contents. Life does not wait for adjustments in language, but seeks to give an immediate solution to its most imperative needs and interests. It builds up and sometimes destroys. It is a panorama in flux.
Physics, A Vicious Abstraction
Authors: Fries Horace S.
Published: November 2002

The argument of this paper is intended merely as a reassertion of John Dewey's naturalistic thesis that value and existence cannot be separated; and that the traditional concept of science which separates them (and which originated before the advent of science) is vicious. But the writer is not at all sure that he has not perverted the ideas of Dewey beyond recognition. If so, he hopes he has perverted them away from truth, but he fears otherwise. For there is not much hope of “reforming” science; at least, not of cutting and stretching it to fit the Procrustian bed herein prescribed. But if science really does not need reform, the writer is more than willing to submit to the sword of Theseus along with all other marauders and disturbers of the peace.
Our Knowledge of Other Minds
Authors: Hardie C. D.
Published: November 2002

It is with some trepidation that I am raising again this old problem, for it may well be said that nothing new could possibly be written on it. On the other hand it can scarcely be maintained that what has been written has left the problem in a satisfactory state. Moreover, it seems to me that some work which has been done recently on the nature of theoretical physics can be used to dispose of most of the difficulties, and it is partly in the hope of drawing attention to that work and its bearings on psychology that I am writing this paper.
Science: Natural and Social
Authors: Cook Thomas I.
Published: November 2002

The problem of what constitutes science is of considerable significance for the student of society: his work, both in its methods and its results, so far as it claims to be scientific, is regarded sceptically. Possibly in consequence he has tended recently to support a broad definition of science which identifies it with knowledge. Yet, leaving aside the difficult problems of what knowledge is, or what it is knowledge of, most of us would argue that, while knowledge may either be derived from science or lead to science, the two are not equivalent.
Research Procedure and Laws of Culture
Authors: Lesser Alexander
Published: November 2002

When discussions of scientific method shift from natural sciences to social sciences, we tend to feel that we are turning from strict sciences to subject matters which may have achieved some measure of intellectual competence but which lack the rigor, objectivity and principles of organization found in mature science. This sense of a difference between the natural sciences and the social sciences is connected with questions of the meaning and rôle of laws. To the extent to which social and historical events have not been reduced to laws or perhaps cannot be, the disciplines which study such events are considered immature or imperfect sciences. To the extent to which social sciences do not offer predictions, they are felt to have little application to the solution of actual and immediate problems. When a bridge has to be built over a chasm, the laws of the natural sciences can be brought to bear. But when a treaty is to be drawn, where, it is asked, are the social and historical laws which can be applied to the situation?
Natural Languages as Cultural Indices
Authors: Werkmeister W. H.
Published: November 2002

A short time ago, D. D. Lee wrote in Philosophy of Science: “Grammar contains in crystallized form the accumulated and accumulating experience, the Weltanschauung of a people.“ He thus called our attention once more to a theme which was much discussed during the 19th century but which has been in disrepute for some time in philosophical circles. It is a theme, however, which is not without merit. More than seven years of intensive study of primitive languages have convinced me that the work started by Wilhelm von Humboldt deserves serious consideration even at present, and from the ethnological as well as from the philosophical point of view.
What Is a Gene?
Authors: Malisoff William Marias
Published: November 2002

My last communication dealt with the question of what is an atom. The answer was a proposal to define the atom as the terminus of a special sort of analysis, the atomistic-structural. This form of analysis was presented as a special way of treating a “material” system or situation. A formula was suggested which expressed matter or the material as the product of structure and atomicity, or M = SA. No limitation was placed on the factoring of M into other products, but this particular product was designated as the structural-atomistic analysis. The factors, S and A, constitute a conjugate pair, so chosen that each member of the pair is meaningless without the other. Atomicity, thus, is not a matter of size or of some sort of ultimateness, but corresponds to some level of being in empirical situations which also reveals structure.
What Is Scientific Knowledge?
Authors: Ramsperger A. G.
Published: November 2002

No philosopher is needed to say where reality may be found. The fool no less than the wise man is in direct touch with real existence at every moment of his waking or dreaming life. To find reality might be a problem for timeless gods beyond the flux of nature—if timeless gods can be said to have problems—but natural creatures encounter reality at every turn. Nor need we look to the philosopher for knowledge. A division of labor having been made between philosopher and scientist, it is to the scientist that we turn for most of our knowledge. Nevertheless, tasks for the philosopher remain and one of these is to make clear what knowledge is, for, to have knowledge is one thing; to know what knowledge is, is another. Science, we may safely assume, constitutes our best claim to knowledge but not all who know their science can say why it is knowledge.