Major prophets of to-day . Foucaults pendulum, the trade winds, etc.,while the hypothesis of a revolving earth brings allthese together as the effects of a single cause. M. Le Roy, a Catholic pragmatist and a discipleof Bergsons, goes much further than Poincare inregard to the human element in science, holdingthat science is merely a rule of action and can teachus nothing of truth, for its laws are only artificialconventions. This view Poincare considered tobe dangerously near to absolute nominalism andskepticism, and in his controversy with Le Roy 1he showed that the scientist does not create
Major prophets of to-day . Foucaults pendulum, the trade winds, etc.,while the hypothesis of a revolving earth brings allthese together as the effects of a single cause. M. Le Roy, a Catholic pragmatist and a discipleof Bergsons, goes much further than Poincare inregard to the human element in science, holdingthat science is merely a rule of action and can teachus nothing of truth, for its laws are only artificialconventions. This view Poincare considered tobe dangerously near to absolute nominalism andskepticism, and in his controversy with Le Roy 1he showed that the scientist does not create factsas Le Roy said, but merely the language in whichhe enunciates them. Of the contingence uponwhich Le Roy and Boutroux insist, Poincare wouldadmit only that scientific laws can never be morethan approximate and probable. Even in astron-omy, where the single and simple law of gravitationis involved, neither absolute certainty nor absoluteaccuracy can be attained. Therefore we cannot1 Part III of The Value of Science.[4]. -VlZ $£?=^ ^ Wu/
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectmaeterlinckmaurice18
