Physical Science and Philosophy: Prof. W. H. McCrea, Queen's University, Belfast

Abstract

DR. H. DINGLE'S objection to “modern Aristo-telianism” seems to be itself what he would call Aristotelian rather than Galilean. For a truly Galilean point of view would be to observe whether Eddington, or Milne, or anyone else, can in fact deduce properties of the physical world from a knowledge of “the system of thought by which the human mind interprets to itself the content of its sensory experience”. Should it turn out that such a deduction is possible, the fact would be a new and exceedingly important experimental result, throwing fresh light upon the relation of the “physical world” to the human mind, and worthy of the attention of all true Galileans. On the other hand, to say that, “Nature nothing careth whether her abstruse reasons and methods of operating be, or be not, exposed to the Capacity of Men,” is to assert something about Nature which is meaningless in regard to the experimental observation of Nature; by definition, man can experiment or theorize only about that which is exposed to the capacity of men perhaps a trivial remark.