PREFACE 



Recent years have witnessed the publication of a large 

 number of monographs, magazine articles, and books, whose 

 subject matter has seemed to defy classification. Though 

 they have been written, for the greater part, by scientists, 

 they are not properly scientific. They begin with science, 

 they talk about science, and they end with science, yet they 

 do not conform at all to the tradition of scientific writings. 

 Were it not for the fact that they differ in important ways 

 from the usual books on logic they might be placed in this 

 class. Yet they are not logical in the usual sense. Their 

 repeated reference to philosophical issues tempts one to 

 classify them with this group, yet the writings approach 

 these problems in a new spirit and with a new method, 

 which seem quite foreign to the traditional philosophy. 



Confronted by such a state of affairs, one has two alterna- 

 tives. On the one hand, he may examine this extensive litera- 

 ture carefully, decide upon the existent discipline with which 

 it has the closest kinship, and force it into this compartment. 

 The essential disadvantage of such a procedure is that it 

 does violence to the traditional terminology. On the other 

 hand, he may simply collect all of the literature together and 

 define a new discipline ad hoc. This method has a corre- 

 sponding disadvantage, for it defines the field by the crude 

 extensional method rather than by classifying its problems; 

 one can say of the new discipline only that it involves prob- 

 lems like those discussed in such-and-such monographs, 

 articles, and books. 



In spite of this important difficulty the latter method 

 seems to offer the greatest prospect of success. It prescribes 

 neither limits to the fieM nor structure within its domain. 

 It forces the problems into no predetermined form, yet it 

 does not leave the field amorphous for it allows the prob- 

 lems themselves to take form according to their own char- 



vii 



