On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical
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William Whewell. On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical
PREFACE
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER II. Plato
CHAPTER III. Additional Remarks on Plato
CHAPTER IV. Aristotle
CHAPTER V. Additional Remarks on Aristotle
CHAPTER VI. The Later Greeks
CHAPTER VII. The Romans
CHAPTER VIII. Arabian Philosophers
CHAPTER IX. The Schoolmen of the Middle Ages
CHAPTER X. The Innovators of the Middle Ages
CHAPTER XI. The Innovators of the Middle Ages—continued
CHAPTER XII. The Revival of Platonism
CHAPTER XIII. The Theoretical Reformers of Science
CHAPTER XIV. The Practical Reformers of Science
CHAPTER XV. Francis Bacon
CHAPTER XVI. Additional Remarks on Francis Bacon
CHAPTER XVII. From Bacon to Newton
CHAPTER XVIII. Newton
CHAPTER XIX. Locke and his French Followers
CHAPTER XX. The Reaction against the Sensational School
CHAPTER XXI. Further Advance of the Sensational School. M. Auguste Comte
CHAPTER XXII. Mr. Mill's Logic264
CHAPTER XXIII. Political Economy as an Inductive Science
CHAPTER XXIV. Modern German Philosophy295
CHAPTER XXV. The Fundamental Antithesis as it exists in the Moral World
CHAPTER XXVI. Of the "Philosophy of the Infinite."
CHAPTER XXVII. Sir William Hamilton on Inertia and Weight
CHAPTER XXVIII. Influence of German Systems of Philosophy in Britain
CHAPTER XXIX. Necessary Truth is progressive. Objections considered
CHAPTER XXX. The Theological Bearing of the Philosophy of Discovery
CHAPTER XXXI. Man's Knowledge of God
CHAPTER XXXII. Analogies of Physical and Religious Philosophy
APPENDIX
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By the examination of the elements of human thought in which I have been engaged, and by a consideration of the history of the most clear and certain parts of our knowledge, I have been led to doctrines respecting the progress of that exact and systematic knowledge which we call Science; and these doctrines I have endeavoured to lay before the reader in the History of the Sciences and of Scientific Ideas. The questions on which I have thus ventured to pronounce have had a strong interest for man from the earliest period of his intellectual progress, and have been the subjects of lively discussion and bold speculation in every age. I conceive that in the doctrines to which these researches have conducted us, we have a far better hope that we possess a body of permanent truths than the earlier essays on the same subjects could furnish. For we have not taken our examples of knowledge at hazard, as earlier speculators did, and were almost compelled to do; but have drawn our materials from the vast store of unquestioned truths which modern science offers to us: and we have formed our judgment concerning the nature and progress of knowledge by considering what such science is, and how it has reached its present condition. But though we have thus pursued our speculations concerning knowledge with advantages which earlier writers did not possess, it is still both interesting and instructive for us to regard the opinions upon this subject which have been delivered by the philosophers of past times. It is especially interesting to see some of the truths which we have endeavoured to expound, gradually dawning in men's minds, and assuming the clear and permanent form in which we can now contemplate them. I shall therefore, in the ensuing chapters, pass in review many of the opinions of the writers of various ages concerning the mode by which man best acquires the truest knowledge; and I shall endeavour, as we proceed, to appreciate the real value of such judgments, and their place in the progress of sound philosophy.
In this estimate of the opinions of others, I shall be guided by those general doctrines which I have, as I trust, established in the histories already published. And without attempting here to give any summary of these doctrines, I may remark that there are two main principles by which speculations on such subjects in all ages are connected and related to each other; namely, the opposition of Ideas and Sensations, and the distinction of practical and speculative knowledge. The opposition of Ideas and Sensations is exhibited to us in the antithesis of Theory and Fact, which are necessarily considered as distinct and of opposite natures, and yet necessarily identical, and constituting Science by their identity. In like manner, although practical knowledge is in substance identical with speculative, (for all knowledge is speculation,) there is a distinction between the two in their history, and in the subjects by which they are exemplified, which distinction is quite essential in judging of the philosophical views of the ancients. The alternatives of identity and diversity, in these two antitheses,—the successive separation, opposition, and reunion of principles which thus arise,—have produced, (as they may easily be imagined capable of doing,) a long and varied series of systems concerning the nature of knowledge; among which we shall have to guide our course by the aid of the views already presented.
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The leading defect in Plato's view of the nature of real science is his not seeing fully the extent to which experience and observation are the basis of all our knowledge of the universe. He considers the luminaries which appear in the heavens to be not the true objects of astronomy, but only some imperfect adumbration of them;—mere diagrams which may assist us in the study of a higher truth, as beautiful diagrams might illustrate the truths of geometry, but would not prove them. This notion of an astronomy which is an astronomy of Theories and not of Facts, is not tenable, for Theories are Facts. Theories and Facts are equally real; true Theories are Facts, and Facts are familiar Theories. But when Plato says that astronomy is a series of problems suggested by visible things, he uses expressions quite conformable to the true philosophy of science; and the like is true of all other sciences.
8. Francis Bacon's criticism on Aristotle which I have quoted in the Appendix to the History31, is severe, and I think evidently the result of prejudice. He disparages Aristotle in comparison with the other philosophers of Greece. 'Their systems,' he says, 'had some savour of experience, and nature, and bodily things; while the Physics of Aristotle, in general, sound only of Logical Terms.
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