The metaphysics of nature
Excerpt:
As to the nature and scope of Philosophy, two opinions are current. Some regard it as no more than the organisation of the Sciences: that further content is unattainable has been shown, they say, by the experience of repeated failure and by reflection upon the nature of the case.
According to others, there are prescientific beliefs that still have a necessary place in human life; and, even if no definite predictions can be made outside the circle of the sciences, still the grounds of the sciences themselves must be examined, and their claims to be a comprehensive and sufficient explanation of the course of the world and of human experience must be vindicated.
These opposing doctrines may conveniently be called the Positive and the Critical. To me, it seems that, when reasonably stated, they are not opposed, but that both are necessary and complementary one to another. Positive Philosophy, the attempt to unite the Sciences in one system, to expound on their mutual relations and the harmony of their laws, is such a manifest demand of reason, that almost at the beginning of European speculation it was felt by Plato {Bep. B. VII.); at the beginning of modem thought, by Bacon; since Comte, the idea has become popular, and the first problem of the Positive Philosophy, the Classification of the Sciences, is now a common exercise.
The great body of the Positive Philosophy (not merely Comtian) is constituted by those sciences which give an account of the genesis and history of the world, — Astronomy, Geology, Biology, Psychology, Sociology: the Analytic Sciences, treating of the modes of energy or activity which the genetic Sciences imply, are, — Mechanics, Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, Economics, etc.: the Formal Sciences, Logic and Mathematics, investigate the conditions of proving the relations and laws of phenomena in general, so far as proof is possible from accepted premises.
Critical Philosophy, which takes its name from Kant, and which I shall usually call Metaphysics, is the study of the validity and adequacy of knowledge and belief. Positive Philosophy, with its premises, is, therefore, part of the object of Metaphysics; but only a part: for Metaphysics has two branches, the Metaphysics of Nature and Science, and the Metaphysics of Ideas. morals and religion.
Contents:
Introduction.--book I. Canonic.--book II. Cosmology.--book III. Psychology.--book IV. The categories
the book details :
Download The metaphysics of nature - 8.5 MB