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An Inquiring Mind

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Gregory Dexter Walcott
Gregory Dexter Walcott*
Affiliation:
Long Island University
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Extract

I yield to no one in my admiration for and appreciation of what the scientists have accomplished in the last few centuries as well as back in the days of the Greeks. Nonetheless there are certain questions that perennially recur. One might readily say that scientists have not yet reached the proper answers, but judging from what they have already accomplished satisfactory answers will be forthcoming in the revolving years. That is too facile a reply. On some things we want real answers now. To put off fairly adequate explanations until some future limbo is wholly unsatisfactory.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , October 1956, pp. 315 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1956

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References

1 Cf. the author's The Rationality of the World, Long Island University Press, 1952, pp. 5–6.

2 Ibid., p. 27, Footnote 12.

3 The reader should understand that “thing” here and in several later places should be modified by the term “concrete”. It was omitted to avoid a useless repetition.

4 Hoyle, Fred, Frontiers of Astronomy, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1955, p. 204.

5 Einstein, Albert, The Meaning of Relativity, 5th ed., Princeton Press, 1956, p. 46. Cf, Coleman, James A., Relativity for the Layman, The William-Frederick Press, New York. 1954, p. 59. Einstein uses this formula only once in this entire book. As he gives it, it reads “Eo = mc2” and means “that the energy … of a body at rest is equal to its mass.” Coleman says that “E is the equivalent energy, m the mass of the object, and c the velocity of light.” It is Coleman's interpretation that I have used in the text. Coleman proceeds to say, “if the mass of a pound of coal is inserted in the equation, the reader easily can verify for himself that the equivalent energy is about 30,000,000,000,000,000 foot pounds!”

6 Cf. p. 316.

7 Cf. Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia, Introduction to Astronomy, Prentice-Hall, Inc., New York, 1954, p. 211. This author gives “the modern value (299, 796 km/sec)” with km equal to .621 miles. This yields, when figured, 186,173.316 miles.

8 Huxley, T. H., Science and Culture, D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1888, p. 77.

9 Tyler, J. M., Growth and Education, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1907, p. 62.

10 Shapley, Rapport, and Wright, A Treasury of Science, 2nd ed., Harper & Brothers, New York, p. 127.

11 Shapley, Rapport, and Wright, Ibid., p. 180.

12 Shapley, Rapport, and Wright, Ibid., p. 395.

13 Woodbridge, F. J. E., The Realm of Mind, Columbia University Press, 1928, pp. 2–3.

14 Rand, Benjamin, Modern Classical Philosophers, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1908, pp. 536–537. Schelling's exact statement is, “Either the objective is made first, and the question arises how a subjective agreeing with it is superinduced… Or the subjective is made first, and the problem is, how an objective is superinduced agreeing with it.”

15 Jeans, Sir James, Physics and Philosophy, Macmillan, New York, 1943, pp. 200, 216.

16 Höffding, Harold, Outlines of Psychology, Macmillan, New York, 1891. Reprint, 1901, p. 177. Höffding's own words are, “This principle (identity) is therefore the highest law of thought, the postulate on which all science depends.”

17 Jeans, Sir James, Ibid., p. 204.

18 Cf. Sigwart, C., Logic, 2nd ed., tr. Helen Dendy, Macmillan, New York, 1895, Vol. II, pp. 552–553. I am sure that this idea, which I have used for many years, popped into my mind while reading this work by Sigwart, but I have been unable to find precisely the same in either volume. The reference given is a close approximation. It may be common knowledge.