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The Forgotten Problem: Aims in Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

John Somerville
John Somerville*
Affiliation:
College of the City of New York, New York, N. Y.
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Abstract

At the present time there is a tremendous discussion of the scientific method. But there is almost no discussion of the scientific aim. This is a paradoxical state of affairs. Is it possible to discuss method intelligently unless the question of aim is first given thorough and serious consideration? Is not a method, by virtue of the very fact that it is a method, something which is subordinate to an aim and determined by that aim ? Is not a method something which is to be understood, evaluated, attacked and defended only in relation to the particular aim which it serves? Surely to deal with method in any other way is to mishandle the situation. Yet at the present day we witness this tremendous volume of discussion of method, with almost no discussion of aim.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , April 1935 , pp. 246 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1935

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References

1 Novum Organum, Book 2, Aphorism 124.

2 Ibid.