ABSTRACT

The task of philosophy may be said to be the study of the nature of man, and scientists, artists, theologians, politicians all approach the problem from their own viewpoints. In scientific research, whether for one individual or for one discipline or for the whole of science, feasibility and priorities should also be the governing principles. Philosophies of knowledge often tend to use mathematics and physics as a model of thought. Knowledge in these domains, in contrast with the cultural sciences, is more absolute and more objective in the sense that the temporal and social condition of its emergence had little effect on its content. Gross facts include the success of physics, biology, mathematics, and the use of mathematics in physics, communication by language. On a more restricted level, we may mention the presence of abstract thinking in the child, the Mendelian discovery of genetics, the coherence of axiomatic set theory.