PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 33 



familiar, and work back to the logically primitive but prac- 

 tically unfamiliar." x The clarification of the basic concepts 

 and assumptions is the revelation of that part of science 

 which is logically primitive. 



PROBLEMS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 



On the basis of these three facts about science one may 

 formulate a tentative classification of the problems of the 

 philosophy of science. The philosophy of science has as 

 its task the consideration of three main types of problem: 

 (1) The ascertainment of the limits of the special sciences, 

 of their integrations one with another, and of their implica- 

 tions so far as these contribute to a theory either of the uni- 

 verse as a whole or of some pervasive aspect of it; (2) the 

 critical examination of the method of science, of the nature 

 of scientific symbols, and of the logical structure of symbolic 

 systems; (3) the clarification of the basic concepts and 

 postulates of the sciences, and the revelation of the empirical 

 grounds (or absence of grounds) upon which they are pre- 

 sumed to rest. 



The first aspect of the philosophy of science may be called 

 speculative, synthetic, or synoptic philosophy. It differs from 

 traditional cosmology only in its insistence upon the fact 

 that philosophy in this sense is dependent upon the special 

 sciences, and therefore not free to pursue the uncontrolled 

 speculation which has been its characteristic method in the 

 past. According to Broad, "its object is to take over the 

 results of the various sciences, to add to them the results 

 of the religious and ethical experiences of mankind, and 

 then to reflect upon the whole." 2 He then goes on to point 

 out that it necessarily presupposes the more critical ex- 

 amination of the sciences; that it can, at best, consist only 

 of more or less happy guesses; and that it is almost certain 

 to be influenced by one's hopes and fears, likes and dislikes. 

 All of these condemnations are probably justified; but they 



1 C. D. Broad, Scientific Thought (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1923), p. 26. 



2 Ibid., p. 20. 



