Method

“ 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 higher branches of method cannot be taught at first. But you may begin by teaching orderliness of mind. Collecting, classifying, contrasting and weighing facts, are some of the processes by which method is taught. When these four things, accuracy, attention, logic, and method are attained, the intellect is fairly furnished with its instruments. ”

“ And where a solution appears possible, the new logic provides a method which enables us to obtain results that do not merely embody personal idiosyncrasies, but must command the assent of all who are competent to form an opinion. ”

“ Method is their effectual organization into continuous dispositions of inquiry, development and testing. It occurs after these acts and because of their consequences. Reason, the rational attitude, is the resulting disposition, not a ready-made antecedent which can be invoked at will and set into movement. ”

“ Principles of Evidence and Theories of Method are not to be constructed a priori. The laws of our rational faculty, like those of every other natural agency, are only learned by seeing the agent at work. ”

“ Further, since method is reflective knowledge, the foundation which must direct our thoughts can be nothing else than the knowledge of that which constitutes the reality of truth, and the knowledge of the understanding, its properties, and powers. ”

“ These lessons are of the highest value with regard to all employments of the human mind; for the mode in which words in common use acquire their meaning, approaches far more nearly to the Method of 177 Type than to the method of definition. The terms which belong to our practical concerns, or to our spontaneous and unscientific speculations, are rarely capable of exact definition. ”

“ Such matters as knowledge of the past, of current technique, of materials, of the ways in which one's own best results are assured, supply the material for what may be called general method. There exists a cumulative body of fairly stable methods for reaching results, a body authorized by past experience and by intellectual analysis, which an individual ignores at his peril. ”

“ A fact as opposed to phenomenon is something accomplished. A phenomenon is something shown.
(16) A method-whole is any subdivision of the matter for instruction which leads to a generalization.
(17) Method is an orderly procedure according to a recognized system of rules and principles.
As the term is commonly used it includes not only the arrangement of the subject matter for instruction but the mode of presenting the same to the mind.
(18) Induction is the process of proceeding from the less general to the more general. ”

“ The forms under which the critical method is applied—such as the distinctions between a priori and a posteriori elements in cognition, between matter and form, between phenomena and noumena, between sense, understanding, and reason—ought not to disguise from us the true nature of the question which underlies all of them. ”

“ But there remain a large number of the recognised problems of philosophy in regard to which the method advocated gives all those advantages of division into distinct questions, of tentative, partial, and progressive advance, and of appeal to principles with which, independently of temperament, all competent students must agree. ”

“ In conclusion let me say for to-day in passing that the recommendation of the correct method for studying logic is not only an introduction, but, as I have already said, the subject matter of science itself. ”

“ The method of viewing things which proceeds in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason is the rational method, and it alone is valid and of use in practical life and in science. The method which looks away from the content of this principle is the method of genius, which is only valid and of use in art. ”

“ The method, therefore, to be adopted by us is, to examine carefully the principles which she employs with the young, through the several stages of her process, and then, by adopting exercises which embody these principles, to proceed in a course similar to that which she has pointed out. ”

“ The work of the finite sciences lies to a great extent in the application of these categories, and the phrase 'scientific treatment' generally means no more than the method which has for its aim comparison of the objects under examination. ”

“ It is the Method, or Discipline, that brings with it the power of pronouncing with final truth upon the nature and relation of things—what each is, how it differs from others, what common quality all have, to what Kind each belongs and in what rank each stands in its Kind and whether its Being is Real-Being, and how many Beings there are, and how many non-Beings to be distinguished from Beings. ”

“ The first cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method; in that they begin not their Ratiocination from Definitions; that is, from settled significations of their words: as if they could cast account, without knowing the value of the numerall words, One, Two, and Three. ”

“ There is no special virtue in one method more than another except as sometimes one happens to be more useful for a given case, as we shall see. In selecting your method, then, select on the basis of practical workability for the effect that you desire to create, adhering to one or using several as seems most effective. ”

“ Before completing the circle of inquiry by a return with fuller knowledge to the point from which we started, it is necessary to discuss a seventh way of dealing with the problem, which professes to be alone the truly scientific method. ”

“ The proper method of philosophizing seems to be, to discover and establish the general laws of action, affecting the subject under consideration, from certain select, well-defined, and well-attested phænomena, and then to explain and predict the other phænomena by these laws. ”

“ In no proper sense is a method of action an irregular method unless it was imposed upon the actor by some antecedent necessity, which compelled him to apply a method which was made uniform in one case to another case in which the same kind of uniformity would not be indispensable. ”

“ There have been a series of methods succeeding one another which can scarcely be called more than quack methods of learning languages, claiming to be the natural method, the maternal method, the only rational method, etc. ”

“ By normal method we mean that which calls into use the varied faculties and powers of the entire being, body, mind, and heart. By right method we mean that which does not crush out a part of one's being, while another part is being developed. ”

“ As the true method of Knowledge is Experiment, the true faculty of knowing must be the faculty which experiences. ”

“ These characters of philosophic interpretation, the inclusion of the object of knowledge in the individual experience and the turning of the conflicts in that experience into the occasion for the creation of new objects transcending these contradictions, are the characters in the conscious method, of modern science, which most profoundly distinguish it from the method of ancient science. ”

“ For these systems or masses of experience are the substance of Logic and Methodology, which are their skeletons abstracted from them. They are the basis of all effective comparison and criticism; agreement or disagreement with them is the test of truth or error. ”

“ "The existence of any method, standard, custom, or practice is no reason for its continuance when a better is offered." ”

“ The general aim or spirit of the Wissenschaftslehre having been determined, it becomes necessary to consider more particularly the nature of the problems presenting themselves for solution, and the method by which they are to be treated. ”

“ Probably the chief cause of devotion to rigidity of method is, however, that it seems to promise speedy, accurately measurable, correct results. The zeal for "answers" is the explanation of much of the zeal for rigid and mechanical methods. ”

“ Educational psychology has revealed the qualitative significance of many of the single elements in the very complex procedure that we have called a ‘method of teaching,’ and this new type of research aims to determine the quantitative significance of each of these several elements of method as factors in the production of abilities. ”

“ To the foregoing examples from physical science, let us add another from mental. The following is one of the simple laws of mind: Ideas of a pleasurable or painful character form associations more easily and strongly than other ideas, that is, they become associated after fewer repetitions, and the association is more durable. This is an experimental law, grounded on the Method of Difference. ”

“ We have, in fact, a very good opportunity of comparing the two systems, as it is a curious fact that in certain things it is almost the universal custom to adopt one method, and in certain others, the other. ”

“ Method is essential, and enables a larger amount of work to be got through with satisfaction. “Method,” said the Reverend Richard Cecil, “is like packing things in a box; a good packer will get in half as much again as a bad one.” ”

“ As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought ever to precede the Method of Composition. ”

“ With method and logic one can accomplish anything! ”

“ Usually it will be found that a number of these extraordinarily abstract questions underlie any one of the big obvious problems. When everything has been done that can be done by method, a stage is reached where only direct philosophic vision can carry matters further. ”

“ Instead of having only one way which is generally accepted as a standard, there are in daily use, say, fifty or a hundred different ways of doing each element of the work. And a little thought will make it clear that this must inevitably be the case, since our methods have been handed down from man to man by word of mouth, or have, in most cases, been almost unconsciously learned through personal observation. ”

“ This method—scientific, accurate and complete, in conception and execution—has enabled me to foretell accurately the condition of [36] men, manners and matter on this earth fifty, a hundred or a thousand years from now. ”

“ Enough that when we use the term Art of any action, it is because we are thinking of properties in the action from which we infer, whether justly or not, that the agent voluntarily and designedly puts forth skill for known ends and by regular and uniform methods. ”

“ Secondly, methods are more fit to win consent or belief, but less fit to point to action; for they carry a kind of demonstration in orb or circle, one part illuminating another, and therefore satisfy. ”

“ No particular results then, so far, but only an attitude of orientation, is what the pragmatic method means. THE ATTITUDE OF LOOKING AWAY FROM FIRST THINGS, PRINCIPLES, 'CATEGORIES,' SUPPOSED NECESSITIES; AND OF LOOKING TOWARDS LAST THINGS, FRUITS, CONSEQUENCES, FACTS.
So much for the pragmatic method! ”

“ A fifth method, and one which might be particularly profitable, I shall merely indicate, because there are at present few and feeble extant examples of its working, however ready the modern consciousness may be to adopt them. ”

“ Except that we substitute acceptance for belief, our methods will be the conventional methods; the means by which every belief has been formulated and supported: or our methods will be the methods of theologians and savages and scientists and children. Because, if all phenomena are continuous, there can be no positively different methods. ”

“ But as we cannot enter into this exposition without introducing a new element of complexity into this long and intricate discussion, I shall postpone it to a subsequent chapter, and shall at once proceed to the statement of two other methods, which will complete the enumeration of the means which mankind possess for exploring the laws of nature by specific observation and experience. ”

“ The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind. ”