50 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 



selection, the remaining elements will be placed on the shelf 

 to be subjected to later examination. They are not taken 

 out of the given but set aside in view of the abundance of 

 phenomena which are more clearly given and more directly 

 susceptible to the methods of science. 



Recent literature in the philosophy of science seems to 

 have adopted the term event as the most adequate name for 

 the basic entity of science. The advantage of this term is 

 its high abstraction. Almost anything that one may men- 

 tion is an event — durations, spaces, relations, and numbers, 

 things as well as processes, happenings in the physical realm 

 as well as in "minds." The realm of the known may there- 

 fore be described as a complex of events. The events bear 

 to one another relationships of various kinds — spatial, tem- 

 poral, causal, similarity and difference, equality and in- 

 equality of magnitude. These relationships determine 

 associations and dissociations of events, containing and 

 contained events, dependent and independent events, ele- 

 mental events, collections, organic wholes, and Gestalts. 

 Thus in speaking of the realm of the known as a complex 

 of events one does not deny that it may also be an event, 

 i.e., events may unite together to form a system having 

 certain unitary properties. 



THE KNOWLEDGE 



In the most general sense, knowledge may be defined as 

 the awareness of the realm of events. That which is to be 

 known by science becomes known when it enters into the 

 proper relationship to the scientist. This relationship is the 

 activity of becoming aware. Thus knowledge may be de- 

 fined as that which terminates the activity of awareness 

 when this is directed by the scientist upon the realm of 

 events. 



But to stop the analysis at this point would be to create 

 an impression of pseudo-simplicity. Knowledge is actually 

 a highly complex affair, exhibiting different aspects, mani- 

 festing itself under varying degrees of adequacy, and main- 



