Wissenschaftslehre

“ Now at present the obligatory sciences are mathematics, natural philosophy, logic, and moral philosophy. If he had consulted me on this occasion, I should have endeavored to impress upon him the limits of our possible curriculum, and should have asked aim to arbitrate between the claims of literature and science, so as to make the very most of our time and means. He would then have had to balance Latin and Greek against chemistry, physiology, and jurisprudence; for it is quite certain that both these languages would have to be dropped absolutely, to admit his extended science course. ”

“ Science, which he considers as an object existing in itself, outside of his and other human minds, and therefore endowed with absolute validity in all its branches and in the articulations of these branches, is nothing but the science which he knows. And he knows it because he has constructed it in the form in which he knows it: fingit creditique. But this absence of consciousness from the constructing, and the consequent faith in the realistic value of science, determine the positions and the doctrines which produce the consequences I have deplored. ”

“ The science of knowledge, in so far as it is a science, and is to consist of more than its fundamental principle—which seems necessary, since it is to furnish the fundamental principles of all sciences—must have a systematic form. ”

“ According to the notions of scientific order and completeness in the present day, a full course of the primary sciences would comprise mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, physiology or biology, and mental philosophy. ”

“ By science here and elsewhere, when used without a qualifying epithet, I mean to include what is also known as philosophy. In science, thus understood, thought embraces the whole field of knowledge in a survey that has less in common with the metaphysics of the schoolmen than with the analytic method of the natural sciences. ”

“ Over and over again in the world's history men have been {94} interested in science, both in pure science and in applied science, in the culture sciences and in the practical sciences.
Apparently men forget that philosophy is science and ethics is science and metaphysics is scientific and logic is science and there is a science of language. Of course the protest that will be heard at once is that what we now mean by science is physical science. ”

“ This reform of logic, like all revolutions in science, should advance under the guidance of the scientific method. By the scientific method, I mean that method of obtaining and organizing knowledge which consists in defining, so far as is possible to expert human faculties, the boundaries between the possible and the probable, between the known and the unknown. ”

“ The Science of Knowledge having been established as the science of all sciences, Fichte, soon after its discovery and publication, deemed it advisable to illustrate by an example in what manner other sciences take their starting point from it, and apply the form which it prescribes for all sciences. ”

“ A science may undoubtedly be brought to a certain, not inconsiderable, stage of advancement, without the application of any other logic to it than what all persons, who are said to have a sound understanding, acquire empirically in the course of their studies. ”

“ Now that science has entered into her kingdom and the vastness of her domain is willingly recognized,—for in a vital sense all that may be known by human ken, supported by evidence, presented in orderly arrangement, related to other knowledge, and developed by further study may be called science,—the busy problem is the infusion of the scientific method into all our ways of thinking, its application to all the various kinds of beliefs that affect our ideals, our working conceptions, and our actions. ”

“ I shall thus have to trace some of the most remarkable branches of human knowledge, from their first germ to their growth into a vast and varied assemblage of undisputed truths; from the acute, but fruitless, essays of the early Greek Philosophy, to the comprehensive systems, and demonstrated generalizations, which compose such sciences as the Mechanics, Astronomy, and Chemistry, of modern times. ”

“ It cannot be too soon understood that science is one, and that whether we investigate language, philosophy, theology, history, or physics, we are dealing with the same problem, culminating in the knowledge of ourselves. ”

“ From this survey of the various branches of science, it is clear that their progress has been made in age after age by facts being more fully observed and more carefully reasoned on. Reasoning or logic is itself a science, but like other [337] sciences, it began as an art which man practised without stopping to ask himself why or how. ”

“ The more serious and methodical studies of literature demand, in some measure, a scientific habit of mind, in the largest sense of that expression; such a habit is necessary, for instance, in the study of history, in the scientific study of language and in the 'higher criticism.' Nor, again, does any one question that the studies of the natural sciences are instruments of intellectual culture of the highest order. The powers of observation and of reasoning are thereby disciplined in manifold ways; and the scientific habit of mind so formed is in itself an education. ”

“ It implies a clear account of what that is which entitles any portion of knowledge to the designation of scientific, what the methods are by which vague, and narrow or imperfect knowledge may become science, what the principles may be which mark off one science into a province distinct from another, and what the bond of connexion among all the sciences is, with the scale of their relative value and importance, and the place of each as a part of that organic whole into which the philosophic mind seeks to mould all its knowledge. ”

“ For complete science, however, we need the aid of every special science,—of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Physiology, Anatomy, Psychology, and all the other branches which can contribute to any side of our knowledge of nature. ”

“ What people call applied science is nothing but the application of pure science to particular classes of problems. It consists of deductions from those general principles, established by reasoning and observation, which constitute pure science. ”

“ Mathematics and physics and chemistry and biology and psychology, not to say also the social sciences, all depend upon the far-seeing mystical visions of the mind, if not of the eye, upon the subtle, logical constructions which their would-be scientific specialism, their desire to know all things narrowly, forces upon them. ”

“ The definitions which those works furnish of the sciences, for the most part either do not fit them—some being too wide, some too narrow—or do not go deep enough into them, but define a science by its accidents, not its essentials; by some one of its properties which may, indeed, serve the purpose of a distinguishing mark, but which is of too little importance to have ever of itself led mankind to give the science a name and rank as a separate object of study. ”

“ The term science rather indicates that end of intellectual endeavour which centres in the possession of knowledge; the term discipline rather points to that other end of intellectual endeavour which centres in the evolution and exercise of reason and reflection. Every intellectual pursuit has thus two sides, a theoretical and a practical. Viewed on its theoretical side, it consists of a body of knowledge, and may properly be called a science ”

“ The knowledge of the more intricate and hidden truths of science are to be developed by degrees. We can only arrive at them by the assistance of other more obvious truths, which they are connected with, and which lead us to them by a certain chain of facts, observations, and just deductions in a train of strict reasoning. ”

“ As there is a science of stars, called astronomy; a science of quantities, called mathematics; a science of qualities, called chemistry; so there is a science of sciences,- I call it Dialectic,- which is the Intellect discriminating the false and the true. It rests on the observation of identity and diversity; for to judge is to unite to an object the notion which belongs to it. The sciences, even the best,- mathematics and astronomy,- are like sportsmen, who seize whatever prey offers, even without being able to make any use of it. ”

“ The way to science then lies through common knowledge; we must extend that knowledge by careful observation and experiment, and learn how to state the results of our investigations accurately, in general rules or laws of nature; finally, we must learn how to reason accurately from these rules, and thus arrive at rational explanations of natural phenomena, which may suffice for our guidance in life. ”

“ Our Science has been built on the labours of scientific men in past ages. New generalisations imagined by one thinker, new crucial experiments devised by another, new instruments of observation invented by another,—these have been the steps by which Science has grown and established its authority and enlarged its dominion. ”

“ Yet Biology and Psychology now rightly claim to be sciences, each with its own special methods and tests distinct from those of Mathematics and Mechanics. Indeed, the wisest and most fruitful philosophy is now coming to see that 'Reality generally eludes our thought, when thought is reduced to mathematical formulas'. [38] Concrete thought, contrariwise, finds full room also for History, Philosophy, Religion, for each as furnishing rich subject-matters for Knowledge or Science, of a special but true kind. ”

“ Now if in dealing with what are here termed the historical sciences, we were to take the subjects of such sciences, as for example the arts or language, implements or words, and were to regard them as entities to be studied apart from their relation to mind, and were to endeavour to deduce from them the laws by which they are related to each other, it is evident that we should be dealing with a matter which could not be correlated with the physical sciences ”

“ In all these respects, science differs from other educational discipline, and prepares the scholar for common life. What have we to do in every-day life? Most of the business which demands our attention is matter of fact, which needs, in the first place, to be accurately observed or apprehended; in the second, to be interpreted by inductive and deductive reasonings, which are altogether similar in their nature to those employed in science. ”

“ Part 1 Every systematic science, the humblest and the noblest alike, seems to admit of two distinct kinds of proficiency; one of which may be properly called scientific knowledge of the subject, while the other is a kind of educational acquaintance with it. ”

“ I understand the word science in its old acceptation; a deep rational research into the first principles of things and the origin of our knowledge. At no epoch of history, I dare to say, has this research been carried on by more passionate lovers, by more powerful intelligences, by more magnanimous hearts, than the Mendicant monks of the thirteenth century. ”

“ If we could place this general work of thinking on a scientific basis, if we could find a theory of general thought, if we were able to discover the means by which reason arrives at understanding, if we could develop a method by which truth is produced scientifically, then we should acquire for science in general and for our individual faculty of judgment the same certainty of success which we already possess in special fields of science. ”

“ For the conclusions stated in the present work, respecting knowledge and discovery, are drawn from a connected and systematic survey of the whole range of Physical Science and its History; whereas, hitherto, philosophers have contented themselves with adducing detached examples of scientific doctrines, drawn from one or two departments of science. ”

“ Even if it had been so originally, and the Latin word scientia had been merely the equivalent of the Saxon word knowledge, it would have to be admitted that the relations have changed by one of those conventions which are silent and convenient. We hold that the systemic enunciation of mere knowledge is doctrine; that science is a kind of knowledge, but that not all knowledge is science. ”

“ It has already been stated that Knowledge requires us to possess both Facts and Ideas;—that every step in our knowledge consists in applying the Ideas and Conceptions furnished by our minds to the Facts which observation and experiment offer to us. When our Conceptions are clear and distinct, when our Facts are certain and sufficiently numerous, and when the Conceptions, being suited to the nature of the 28 Facts, are applied to them so as to produce an exact and universal accordance, we attain knowledge of a precise and comprehensive kind, which we may term Science. ”

“ The scientific intellect, both in the individual and in the race, must learn in the move elementary studies that art of investigation and those canons of proof which are to be put in practice in the more elevated. ”

“ Let us seek our foundation in the broadest possible contact with phenomena. I hold that the working test when brought to bear in its fullest, most intimate and severest forms is the supreme criterion of that which should stand to us for truth. Our interpretative effort should, therefore, be to organize a complete set of working hypotheses for all phenomena, physical, vital and mental, so far as appropriate to our sphere of research. These should be at once the basis of our philosophy and of our science. ”

“ Further, it ought to be pointed out, as specially applicable to our present subject, that the best attainable knowledge on anything is due to a combination of general principles obtained from the sciences, with well-conducted observations and experiments made in actual practice. ”

“ An exposition and discussion of the Fundamental Ideas of each Science may, with great propriety, be termed the Philosophy of such Science. These ideas contain in themselves the elements of those truths which the science discovers and enunciates; and in the progress of the sciences, both in the world at large and in the mind of each individual student, the most important steps consist in apprehending these ideas clearly, and in bringing them into accordance with the observed facts. ”