Abstract
My intention was not to exalt philosophy at the expense of science, but to plead for co-operation between the two. I cannot agree with Dr. Mitchell that the recent great advances in mathematics and physics have come about solely through the ordinary methods of science. Equally important has been the critical investigation of the fundamental concepts, for example, of time and space, which has gone on side by side with the discovery of new facts. Such criticism of concepts is generally regarded as a main function of philosophy, and if it be carried out—as it should be—by the scientific worker himself, it remains none the less philosophy. In the sphere of biology we urgently need, it seems to me, this same combination of observation, experiment, and the critical study of fundamental conceptions.
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Science and Philosophy. Nature 120, 656 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1038/120656b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/120656b0
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