Reason and Nature: An Essay on the Meaning of Scientific Method PDF
Preview Reason and Nature: An Essay on the Meaning of Scientific Method
Routledge Revivals REASON AND NATURE REASON AND NATURE MORRIS R. COHEN First published in 1931 by Harcourt, Brace and Company This edition first published in 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1931 by Taylor & Francis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact. A Library of Congress record exists under ISBN: 31008779 ISBN 13: 978-1-138-31057-5 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-1-138-31058-2 (pbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-429-45934-4 (ebk) REASON AND NATURE AN ESSAY ON THE MEANING OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD by MORRIS R. COHEN HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1931» BY MORRIS R. COHEN Second printing, April, 1931 All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this hook or portions thereof in any form. Typography by Robert S. Josephy punted in thb united states of ameiica BY QUINN * BODE* COltPANy, INC,, BAHWAY, N. J. TO MR. JUSTICE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES The Courageous Thinker and Loyal Friend Preface T he distinctive intellectual traits of Western civilization, or of what is sometimes called the modern mind, have been largely moulded by the appeal to nature against conventional taboos and by the appeal to reason against arbitrary authority. That nature and reason, like warmth and light, may be intimately joined was made evi dent in the Hellenic ideal of science as a free inquiry into nature and of ethics as concerned with a rational plan for attaining the natural goods of life. Unfortunately for the career of liberal civilization, how ever, various circumstances have brought about a mutual hostility be tween these two appeals to what are popularly called the heart and the mind. The appeal to nature is frequently a form of sentimental irra tionalism, and the appeal to reason is often a call to suppress nature in the interest of conventional supernaturalism. To understand fully the grounds, causes, and effects of this conflict would involve a thorough survey of contemporary civilization and carry us far into the complexity of the human mind. One of the elements, however, in such a survey is a right understanding of the general bearing or meaning of scientific method, i.e., of the principles of procedure according to which scientific results are obtained and according to which these results are being con stantly revised. In developed natural science, reason and nature are happily united. Such a study of the principles of science I began some twenty years ago. Untoward circumstances have prevented the continuous toil neces sary for such a task. Different parts of this work have been written at widely different times and in somewhat different keys. But the favour able reception accorded to those portions of it which have been published from time to time, and the insistence of friends whose judgment com pels respect, induce me somewhat reluctantly to publish the present essay rather than wait any longer for the completion of a more satisfactory systematic treatise. I am induced to do this not only by a sense of the vn
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