Synopses & Reviews
J. S. MILLS PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD The Hafner Library of Classics Number Twelve OSKAR PIEST Editor in Chief EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD CURT J. DUCASSE Professor of Philosophy, Brown University CLARENCE H. FAUST Dean of the Humanities and Sciences Stanford University ROBERT M. MACIVER Professor of Political Science, Columbia University ROSCOE POUND University Professor, Emeritus Formerly Dean of the Law School of Harvard University HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University John Stuart Mills Philosophy of Scientific Method Edited with an Introduction by ERNEST NAGEL Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University 1950 HAFNER PUBLISHING COMPANY NEW YORK CONTENTS PAGE EDITORS INTRODUCTION xv NOTE ON THE TEXT xlix SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 1 A SYSTEM OF LOGIC PREFACE 3 INTRODUCTION 1. Is logic the art and science of reasoning 2 . . . 7 2. Logic is concerned with inferences, not with intuitive truths 4, abridged 8 3. Relation of logic to the other sciences 5 . . . 11 BOOK I OF NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS CHAPTER I. OF THE NECESSITY OF COMMENCING WITH AN ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE 1. Theory of names, why a necessary part of logic . 13 2. First step in the analysis of propositions . . 15 II. OF NAMES 1. Names are names of things, not of our ideas . 16 2. Words which are not names, but parts of names . 17 3. General and singular names 20 4. Concrete and abstract 22 5. Connotative and non-connotative abridged . 24 III. OF THE THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES 1. Necessity of an enumeration of namable things. The categories of Aristotle abridged . . 35 2. Feelings, or states of consciousness 3 . . 35 3. Feelings must be distinguished from their physical antecedents. Perceptions, what 4 . . 374. Volitions and actions, what 5 . . . . 40 5. Substance and attribute 6 40 VI CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE 6. Body 7 42 7. Mind 8 48 8. Qualities 9 49 9. Relations 10 52 10. Resemblance 11 55 11. Quantity 12 58 12. All attributes of bodies are grounded on states of consciousness 13 59 13. So also all attributes of mind 14 ... 60 14. Recapitulation 15 61 IV. OF THE IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS CH. V 1. Doctrine that a proposition is the expression of a relation between two ideas 64 2. that it consists in referring something to, or excluding something from, a class 3, abridged 67 3. What it really is 4 71 4. It asserts or denies a sequence, a co-existence, a simple existence, a causation 5, abridged . 73 5. or a resemblance 6, abridged .... 76 6. Propositions of which the terms are abstract 7 . 78 V. OF PROPOSITIONS MERELY VERBAL CH. VI 1. All essential propositions are identical propositions 2 82 2. Individuals have no essences 3 . . . . 86 3. Real propositions, how distinguished from verbal 4 87 4. Two modes of representing the import of a real proposition 5 88 VI. OF THE NATURE OF CLASSIFICATION AND THE FIVE PREDICABLES CH. VII 1. Classification, how connected with naming . . 90 2. Kinds have a real existence in nature 4, abridged 91 VII. OF DEFINITION CH. VIII 1. A definition, what abridged 96 2. Every name can be defined whose meaning is sus ceptible of analysis 97 3. How distinguished from descriptions 4, abridged 100 CONTENTS Vll CHAPTER PAGE 4. What are called definitions of things are defini tions of names with an implied assumption of the existence of things corresponding to them 5, abridged 102 5. Definitions, though of names only, must be grounded on knowledge of the corresponding things7, abridged 106 BOOK II OF REASONING I. OF INFERENCE, OR REASONING, IN GENERAL 1. Retrospect of the preceding book abridged . . 109 2. Inferences improperly so called abridged . .110 II. OF RATIOCINATION, OR SYLLOGISM 1. Analysis of the syllogism abridged . . . Ill 2. The dictum de omni not the foundation of reason ing, but a mere identical proposition . .112 3. What is the really fundamental axiom of ratiocina tion 116 4. The other form of the axiom 118 III. OF THE FUNCTIONS AND LOGICAL VALUE OF THE SYLLOGISM 1. Is the syllogism a petitio prindpiif . . ...
Synopsis
Like many other major works in philosophy, the contributions of John Stuart Mill to logic, scientific method, and the theory of knowledge are the clarified and matured expressions of an intellectual tradition that did not begin with him. Mill was not a thinker gifted with great originality, and while he modified and expanded the ideas he acquired from his predecessors, he did not radically transform them. He was the heir and champion of a philosophy that has its source in Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, and that was developed further by Hartley, Bentham, and his own father, James Mill. And though he was sensitive to winds of doctrine for which his teachers showed little sympathy, his writings on logic and related subjects were primarily an articulate and systematic formulation of the principals involved in the philosophy of British sensationalist empiricism and utilitarianism. However, Mill was not a secluded academic thinker, intellectually aloof from the political, economic, and religious issues that agitated his age. On the contrary, most of his published work was the fruit of discussions and controversies centering around burning practical problems, and even his more technical theoretical analyses were controlled by the aim of removing the obstacles which false philosophies placed in the path of social progress. His intense and abiding preoccupation with public questions explains many of the specific turns of his philosophical writings and is the source of much of their strength as well as of their limitations.
Synopsis
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.