ABSTRACT

First published in 1931, this volume represents the culmination of twenty years’ of the study on the principles of science. Noticing a widespread craving for philosophical light at a time of scant such offerings, Morris R. Cohen aimed to demonstrate here the fundamental and ancient connection between nature and science - between hearts and minds – in an attempt to salve the developing mutual hostility between the two in the 1920s. The volume bears particular relation to George Santayana’s Life of Reason and Bertrand Russell’s Principles of Mathematics and explores areas including the character of the insurgence against reason and reason in the contexts of the natural and social sciences.

part Book I|168 pages

Reason and the Nature of Things

chapter Chapter One|20 pages

The Insurgence Against Reason 1

chapter Chapter Two|53 pages

The Rivals and Substitutes for Reason 1

chapter Chapter Three|72 pages

Reason and Scientific Method

chapter Chapter Four|22 pages

The Metaphysics of Reason and Scientific Method

part Book II|162 pages

Reason in Natural Science

chapter Chapter One|32 pages

The Natural of Mathematics 1

chapter Chapter Two|34 pages

Mechanism and causality in Physics 1

chapter Chapter Three|53 pages

Law and Purpose in Biology

chapter Chapter Four|38 pages

Psychology as a Natural Science

part Book III|127 pages

Reason in Social Science

chapter Chapter One|36 pages

The Social and the Natural Sciences 1

chapter Chapter Two|19 pages

History Versus Value 1

chapter Chapter Three|14 pages

Communal Ghosts in Political Theory 1

chapter Chapter Four|26 pages

Natural Rights and Positive Law 1

chapter Chapter Five|23 pages

The Possibility of Ethical Science