Logic and Science

Abstract

It was probably the discovery of non-Euclidean genetry that awakened the desire to abandon intuition as the basis of science and to confine consideration to the manipulation of symbols operating according to certain defined rules. Throughout the nineteenth century steady, though slow and inconspicuous, progress in this endeavour was made ; but a sharp acceleration occurred at the beginning of the twentieth century from two independent causes. First, the theory of relativity revealed the dangers lying unsuspected in such intuitions as that of a unique, universal time scale, for example ; secondly, the publication of Whitehead and Russell's “Prin-cipia Mathematica"showed a vision of a logical machinery by means of which scientific discoveries might be placed on an unassailable axiomatic basis and developed without fear of contradiction. Subsequent developments have not proceeded as smoothly as might have been expected, but nevertheless the prospect opened up has attracted some of the acutest minds of our generation, and the quest has grown from a harmless eccentricity into one of the most active and important movements in modern philosophy.

The Limits of Science

Outline of Logic and of the Methodology of the Exact Sciences. By the late Dr. Leon Chwistek. Translated from the Polish by Helen Charlotte Brodie and Dr. Arthur P. ColeMesh. (International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method.) Pp. lvii + 347. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1948.) 30s. net.