THEORIES OF SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS 151 



of reality is not a conceptual structure, forever suspended 

 over things, and based solely on conventions and definitions 

 created for the purpose of thought economy; it offers us a 

 picture of reality, that is of an objective body of facts 

 already existing before all knowledge; a picture which is 

 continually becoming more and more adequate." * 



In the discussion which follows, no attempt will be made 

 to criticize the various theories presented. The positions 

 are examined merely for the purpose of illustrating some 

 of the main views as to the status of scientific concepts. 

 For the more detailed understanding of the theories the 

 reader is advised to turn to the authors themselves, whose 

 main works are listed at the end of the chapter. 



STRICT EMPIRICISM 



In the light of the discussion in the preceding chapter, 

 positivism may be easily explained. It maintains that the 

 complete task of science is description; hence, descriptive 

 science represents science in its maturity. Description rep- 

 resents not the beginning stage of science, but the final 

 stage; science never goes beyond description. The position 

 indicated in the table as "strict empiricism" represents the 

 most rigid adherence to the positivistic thesis, and it will be 

 examined first. 



The task of science, argues Pearson, "consists in the 

 careful and often laborious classification of facts, in the 

 comparison of their relationships and sequences, and finally 

 in the discovery by the aid of, the disciplined imagination 

 of a brief statement or formula, which in a few words resumes 

 a wide range of facts. Such a formula ... is termed a 

 scientific law. The object served by the discovery of such 

 laws is the economy of thought." 2 "The man who classifies 

 facts of any kind whatever, who sees their mutual relation 

 and describes their sequences, is applying the scientific 

 method and is a man of science. . . . When every fact, 

 every present or past phenomenon of the universe, every 



1 The Natural Sciences, p. 246. 2 Grammar of Science, pp. 77-78. 



