Abstract
LONDON. Aristotelian Society, July 4.-Prof. G. Dawes Hicks, vice-president, in the chair.-Dr. F. C. S. Schiller: Arguing in a circle. A scientific system is essentially partial. Being constructed by selections and exclusions and relative to a purpose, it contains no warrant for the postulation of any all-embracing system. Objections to a system cannot be met by arguing within it. To meet a challenge it must obtain outside support. If it is to give satisfaction it must not close itself, but remain open to correction. The sciences are such systems, and so escape the charge of circularity. An all-embracing system is not a valid ideal, because inability to select would reduce it to chaos, while if logically complete it could be rejected as a whole. Also it is self-contradictory, for either it can be enlarged to satisfy objections, and then it is not all-embracing, or it cannot be enlarged, and then it argues in a circle. If it presupposes relativity to purpose, it cannot reach absoluteness. The attempt to base inference on implication within an ideal system is no improvement on formal logic, but merely a half-way house to a complete surrender of the notion of "formal validity."
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Societies and Academies. Nature 107, 670–672 (1921). https://doi.org/10.1038/107670b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/107670b0