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Science and the Philosophy of Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

A. C. Benjamin
A. C. Benjamin*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , October 1938 , pp. 421 - 433
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1938

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References

Notes

1 Experience and Prediction (University of Chicago, 1938), p. 275, p. 280.

2 Ibid., p. 87.

3 See, as an example, the inductive proof of realism. Donald Williams, in Monist vol. 44.

4 “Testability and Meaning,” Philosophy of Science, vols. III and IV.

5 Grammar of Science (Macmillan, 1911), p. 95.

6 Ibid., pp. 277.

7 B. Bavink, The Natural Sciences (Century, 1932), p. 29.

8 Ibid., pp. 28-9.

9 Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, (New York, 1922), prop. 4.462; Carnap, The Unity of Science (London, 1934), pp. 33-4.

10 See my article “Outlines of an Empirical Logic,” Philosophy of Science, vol. 3. Recent discussions with D. C. Williams, E. J. Nelson and J. H. Woodger have convinced me that logical realism is a view which has an increasing number of adherents.

11 C. I. Lewis, Mind and the World Order (New York, 1929), Chap. VII.

12 Aristotelian Society Proceedings, 1935-6.