CHAPTER VIII 



THEORIES OF SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS 



There has been lurking in the background of the discus- 

 sion thus far an important problem, whose consideration 

 can no longer be postponed. It lies at the very foundation 

 of the logic of science, and determines not merely one's 

 general theory of science, but also, at times, one's concep- 

 tion of the actual techniques of procedure within science 

 itself. This basic problem must be examined without further 

 delay. 



All who choose to express their ideas on the question of 

 the logical structure of science recognize that the task of 

 science, at least in a very general sense, is the construction 

 of a system of symbols which is presumed to be representa- 

 tive of such portion of the realm of events as lies within 

 the subject matter of the particular science concerned. It 

 is not the purpose here to discuss the possible ambiguities 

 in the notion of "representation." The term may be used 

 at this point to include such extreme views as, on the one 

 hand, that of Bergson, who insists that what one gets through 

 science is always a system of static and discrete forms which 

 is quite inadequate to reveal a world which is enduring and 

 continuous, and, on the other, that of the pragmatists, 

 who argue that scientific symbols are merely instruments 

 of practical adjustment whose value is to be measured rather 

 in terms of their effectiveness than in terms of any sort of 

 correspondence with events. 



But within this general agreement there are the widest 

 sorts of differences of opinion as to the way in which sci- 

 entific symbols are to be defined, and the roles which they 

 play in the systems of symbols of which they are parts. 

 Do scientific symbols describe or do they explain? Are 

 they defined by physical operations, by logical construc- 



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