In the works which constitute his distinguished contribution to philosophy, Emile Meyerson has advanced and defended the opinion that scientific explanation consists in transforming empirically discovered natural laws into statements of identity in time. This contention, which it is the purpose of the present paper to examine, is of great interest both on its own account and by reason of its intimate connection with Meyerson's central thesis that all thought consists essentially in similar processes of identification. Indeed so intimate is this connection that our present inquiry although it deals explicitly only with the nature of scientific explanation nevertheless constitutes by implication an examination of the more general thesis also, for if scientific explanation is not a process of identification then obviously not all thought is identificatory.

It is the thesis of this paper that the term scientific law can and should mean in the social sciences exactly what it means in any of the other sciences. There seems to be considerable agreement among scientists as well as others that a scientific law is a generalized and verifiable statement, within measurable degrees of accuracy, of how certain events occur under stated conditions. If I were to attempt a more specific statement I would say that a law is (1) a group of verbal or mathematical symbols (2) designating an unlimited number of defined events in terms of a limited number of reactions (3) so that the performance of specified operations always yields predictable results within measurable limits.

There is a considerable divergence of opinion about the meaning of mathematics, and it is only with hesitation that I, as a theoretical physicist concerned mainly with geophysics, venture to discuss a matter that professional logicians differ about. Nevertheless I am concerned with the problems of the acquirement of knowledge by scientific methods, and the solutions of these problems involve pure mathematics, the validity of which one is usually willing to take for granted. But the logical schools are not so willing, and aim at demonstration. Logic must be true in all possible worlds, and all empirical propositions must be rigorously excluded. A scientist, on the other hand, is interested mainly in empirical propositions, and mathematics (with logic) is primarily a tool for investigating their relations. The proof of mathematics would therefore have interest for science, provided that the proof is sufficiently general to cover scientific requirements. If it is not, and the subject matter of the proof is restricted so that it fails to cover the scientific use of mathematics, then in its scientific application it is merely an analogy, and we are no better off than we should be if we simply took the validity of mathematics as it stands as a postulate.

Forty-three years ago Max Weber observed that “the belief in the value of scientific truth is not derived from nature but is a product of definite cultures.” We may now add: and this belief is readily transmuted into doubt or disbelief. The persistent development of science occurs only in societies of a certain order, subject to a peculiar complex of tacit presuppositions and institutional constraints. What is for us a normal phenomenon which demands no explanation and secures many ‘self-evident’ cultural values, has been in other times and still is in many places abnormal and infrequent. The continuity of science requires the active participation of interested and capable persons in scientific pursuits. This support of science is assured only by appropriate cultural conditions. It is, then, important to examine those controls which motivate scientific careers, which select and give prestige to certain scientific disciplines and reject or blur others. It will become evident that changes in institutional structure may curtail, modify or possibly prevent the pursuit of science.

Ludwig Wittgenstein and certain of his friends and followers have offered an interesting answer to the question of the relation “one fact (such as a sentence) [must] have to another in order to be capable of being a symbol for that other”. The answer in brief, as Russell puts it, is that, “in order that a certain sentence should assert a certain fact there must … be something in common between the structure of the sentence and the structure of the fact”. Wittgenstein himself in the Tractatus usually denominates this common element as logical structure. The sentence is said to picture its fact; it reflects, mirrors, shows or exhibits by means of its own structure the structure of the fact it is about. Critics and interpreters generally agree with Russell's broad characterization of the theory but disagree greatly as to the exact nature of this postulated common structure. Consequently, the evaluation of the theory which this paper proposes to make must include an examination of its several alternative interpretations.

The eleventh chapter of Genesis significantly begins to the following effect: “And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.” In that one language there was power. That power induced the inhabitants of earth to start the Tower of Babel with the idea of storming the citadel of Heaven. Whereupon, we learn, God confounded their language that they might not understand one another's speech. That confusion of tongues destroyed their power.

Few words appear more frequently in the literature of contemporary social science than “culture.” Not only does it occur frequently, but with such a multitude of meanings that a single definition of the term becomes almost impossible. Even a cursory examination of social scientific writing discloses that its signification varies with the contexts in which it appears and with most individuals who use it. As long as words are single exhibits of the versatility and variety of language, no fault can be found with a plurality of meanings which may come to adhere to them. But when words are designed for and used in discussions of a supposedly technical character in any of the social science disciplines, the time for literary and philological speculation has past. Words intended for such use must conform to certain standards of conceptual validity, must be used consistently in analogous contexts, and must never be torn from the universe of discourse of which they are a part.

The modern theoretical physicist is a strange creature. Perhaps in every age the theoretical physicist has seemed so to his contemporaries who took the trouble to observe and think about him. There seems, for example, something almost too magical in the uncanny way in which he pulls a brand new atomic particle out of a theory, a way that reminds us of a rabbit being produced out of a hat. This is usually done in an off-hand manner with a considerable amount of patter of a highly abstract symbolic character but with a few words inserted in the right places for the benefit of the experimental physicist and a final prediction that if the experimenter does thus and so in the laboratory he will find a certain result. No wonder the observer marvels when the answer comes out right. But as he thinks further he is inclined to wonder whether it is necessary or desirable for the details of the process which led to the result to be so unintelligible. For unintelligible they seem to be to a great many people who are directly concerned with their understanding, to the people who for years have been laboring under the belief that they are engaged in the task of finding out how Nature works. What is this curious process whose whole task, according to one distinguished exponent of it, is merely to predict experimental results, and what is its future likely to be? These are the questions we are setting for ourselves in the present discussion. It is unlikely that the answers given here will satisfy everybody, but it is reasonably certain that nobody who aspires to an interest in science can fail to attach some meaning to them whether or not he agrees.

The widespread publicity and the consequent furor created by Dr. J. B. Rhine's experiments on telepathy and clairvoyance, have been interpreted in some quarters as a call for a thorough-going revision of the entire field of psychological thought. This revision, it is held, must be in the direction of philosophic idealism, and away from previously accepted materialistic doctrines. The present paper points out the non-verifiable nature of the entities postulated by the believers in “supernormal” phenomena. Furthermore, the interpretations of contemporary science held by such individuals are not in themselves on a scientific plane. Specific errors in reasoning made by workers in the field of psychical research, are presented. In short, “psychical research … cannot turn the universe into a non-material, non-objective one, on either the basis of misinterpretations of current physical thought or on the basis of its own work.”

The article by Mr. David L. Miller, called ‘Purpose, Design and Physical Relativity', in the July 1936 issue of Philosophy of Science, consists mainly of a commentary on the development of Whitehead's thought from the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge to Process and Reality. Now most criticisms of Whitehead so far published have been from realists of the anti-metaphysical Cambridge school, complaining that his later works retract the teaching of his earlier works on the philosophy of natural science; and this complaint is raised quite unjustly, because a careful reading of the earlier works will show that there is nothing in them that precludes the logical possibility of a metaphysics of nature such as Whitehead expounded later. We should be grateful for any comment on Whitehead which does not repeat this hoary error. But unfortunately two opposed misinterpretations do not together make a correct interpretation. The opposite distortion of Whitehead is effected by those readers who, having found that the earlier books showed genius but were, alas, too much under the influence of ill-advised realist dogma, proceed to construe the succession of later books as the gradual self-correction of the great man towards a mature judgment which is in full accord with the reader's own. Of this distortion, I am afraid, Mr. Miller has given us an example.

It has been said that a language will delineate and limit the logical concepts of the individual who speaks it. Conversely, a language is an organ for the expression of thought, of concepts and principles of classification. True enough, the thought of the individual must run along its grooves; but these grooves, themselves, are a heritage from individuals who laid them down in an unconscious effort to express their attitude toward the world. Grammar contains in crystallized form the accumulated and accumulating experience, the Weltanschauung of a people.

Encyclopaedism” is the systematically pursued activity within the Unity of Science Movement, devoted to the collecting of scientific statements of the logic of science (synonymous with “Philosophy of Science” for Carnap and other representatives of modern Logical Empiricism) logic, mathematics, physics, biology and other sciences, including all the “cross connections” between the given disciplines. (See: Otto Neurath, Unified Science as Encyclopedic Integration; in: International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. I, No. I.)

It is impossible for us to understand the character of Newton or the state of the physical sciences in the seventeenth century, without referring at length to the life and work of Robert Hooke.’ So writes the author of a recent biography of Newton. Well might we ask with him ‘What manner of man was he whose personal opposition delayed the publication of Newton's Optics for thirty years and almost prevented the completion of the Principia; whose bitter tongue confirmed Newton's tendency to secrecy and isolation, destroyed his early enthusiasm for the Royal Society, and disgusted him with science?’ It is not surprising that a man, capable of all this, should play a conspicuous rôle in the history of natural philosophy. Indeed a study of Hooke's career throws much light on the origins of modern science and, in particular, it helps to determine the much disputed status of mathematics in the development of physical theory.