458 AMBROSE J. MCNICriOLL 



description of the mental operations as well as the physical 

 ones by which the values of that quantity may be determined. 

 The meaning of propositions is to be sought, not by reference to 

 some shadow-world of ideas, but to a series of operations which 

 can be carried out empirically. All metaphysical thinking, of 

 the traditional type, is, of course, ruled out of court by this 

 standard as meaningless. 



Scientists themselves, not infrequently, seem to adopt a 

 similar outlook, at least in practice. The changes which, in our 

 century, have revolutionized the scientific outlook, have gradu- 

 ally led scientists to seek, instead of the clear evidence which 

 Descartes dreamt of, only the more simple among many pos- 

 sible hypotheses (the Axiom of Choice) , and to regard nature, 

 not as ruled by objective necessity, or as fully knowable in 

 itself (Principle of Indeterminacy) , but as attainable only 

 under certain of its contingent aspects. Thought is no longer 

 regarded as subjectively necessary, so that absolute certainty 

 should not be sought (Law of Probability) ; human thought is 

 admitted to be very imperfect, more probable than certain, 

 more obscure than clear and distinct, at least concerning astro- 

 nomic and intra-atomic entities. Such relativism, however, is 

 not that of the Skeptics, but rather expresses a docile attitude 

 of scrupulous attention to facts. Science to-day stresses objec- 

 tivity, precision, rigid adherence to scientific method, and indif- 

 ference to the " human equation," since it is regarded as a 

 purely cerebral activity, which engages only the rational part 

 of man.^ 



The actual school of Analyds, particularly at Oxford, may be 

 said to continue the tradition of Empiricism, though in a new 

 key, due to the influence of symbolic logic and of recent de- 

 velopments in mathematics and science, in semiotics, and the 

 example and teaching of Wittgenstein. The tendency is to 

 affirm the conventional nature of knowledge, to see it as a 

 system for co-ordinating and interpreting facts rather than for 

 explaining reality. Philosophy is considered to deal with lan- 



^Cf. L.-M. Regis, O. p., Epistemology (New York: Macmillan, 1959), pp. 61-73. 



