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The Philosophy of Physical Science

Abstract

THE following process is recurrent in physical science. A certain amount of special knowledge, empirically accumulated and assorted, is tentatively cast into a comprehensive theoretical aspect. The theory, after having been gradually corrected by further experiments and after having created several new appropriate definitions, tends to acquire an unforeseen general validity. But, strangely enough, at the same time, when it has become an inalienable requisite for the orientation of all future experimental and theoretical research, the knowledge which its propositions are supposed to convey turns out to be more and more tautological.

The Philosophy of Physical Science

(Tarner Lectures, 1938.) By Sir Arthur Eddington. Pp. ix + 230. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1939.) 8s. 6d. net.

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SCHRÖDINGER, E. The Philosophy of Physical Science. Nature 145, 402–403 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145402a0

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