this assessment of the situation is correct, it follows that it is

impossible for one person to know what is going on in another person's

mind. One can conjecture that a person is experiencing a certain sensation,

but one cannot, in a strict sense of the term, know it to be the case.

If this analysis is correct, one can conclude that each human being is

inevitably and even in principle cut off from having knowledge of the mind

of another. Most people, conditioned by the great advances of modern

technology, believe that in principle there is nothing in the world of fact

about which science cannot obtain knowledge. But the "other-minds problem"

suggests the contrary--namely, that there is a whole domain of private

human experience that is resistant to any sort of external inquiry. Thus,

one is faced with a profound puzzle, one of whose implications is that

there can never be a science of the human mind.

Implications.

These two problems resemble each other in certain ways and differ in

others, but both have important implications for epistemology.

First, as the divergent perceptions about the stick indicate, things cannot

just be, as they appear to be. People believe that the stick, which looks

bent when it is in the water, is really straight, and they also believe

that the stick, which looks straight when it is out of the water, is really

straight. But, if the belief that the stick in water is really straight is

correct, then it follows that the perception human beings have when they

see the stick in water cannot be correct. That particular perception is

misleading with respect to the real shape of the stick. Hence, one has to

conclude that things are not always, as they appear to be.

It is possible to derive a similar conclusion with respect to the mind

of another. A person can exhibit all the signs of being in pain, but he may

not be. He may be pretending. On the basis of what can be observed, it

cannot be known with certitude that he is or that he is not in pain. The

way he appears to be may be misleading with respect to the way he actually

is. Once again vision can be misleading.

Both problems thus force one to distinguish between the way things

appear and the way they really are. This is the famous philosophical

distinction between appearance and reality. But, once that distinction is

drawn, profound difficulties arise about how to distinguish reality from

mere appearance. As will be shown, innumerable theories have been presented

by philosophers attempting to answer this question since time immemorial.

Second, there is the question of what is meant by "knowledge." People claim

to know that the stick is really straight even when it is half-submerged in

water. But, as indicated earlier, if this claim is correct, then knowledge

cannot simply be identical with perception. For whatever theory about the

nature of knowledge one develops, the theory cannot have as a consequence

that knowing something to be the case can sometimes be mistaken or

misleading.

Third, even if knowledge is not simply to be identified with perception,

there nevertheless must be some important relationship between knowledge

and perception. After all, how could one know that the stick is really

straight unless under some conditions it looked straight? And sometimes a

person who is in pain exhibits that pain by his behaviour; thus there are

conditions that genuinely involve the behaviour of pain. But what are those

conditions? It seems evident that the knowledge that a stick is straight or

that one is in great pain must come from what is seen in certain

circumstances: perception must somehow be a fundamental element in the

knowledge human beings have. It is evident that one needs a theory to

explain what the relationship is--and a theory of this sort, as the history

of the subject all too well indicates, is extraordinarily difficult to

develop.

The two problems also differ in certain respects. The problem of man's

knowledge of the external world raises a unique difficulty that some of the

best philosophical minds of the 20th century (among them, Bertrand Russell,

H.H. Price, C.D. Broad, and G.E. Moore) spent their careers trying to

solve. The perplexity arises with respect to the status of the entity one

sees when one sees a bent stick in water. In such a case, there exists an

entity--a bent stick in water--that one perceives and that appears to be

exactly where the genuinely straight stick is. But clearly it cannot be;

for the entity that exists exactly where the straight stick is is the stick

itself, an entity that is not bent. Thus, the question arises as to what

kind of a thing this bent-stick-in-water is and where it exists.

The responses to these questions have been innumerable, and nearly all of

them raise further difficulties. Some theorists have denied that what one

sees in such a case is an existent entity at all but have found it

difficult to explain why one seems to see such an entity. Still others have

suggested that the image seen in such a case is in one's mind and not

really in space. But then what is it for something to be in one's mind,

where in the mind is it, and why, if it is in the mind, does it appear to

be "out there," in space where the stick is? And above all, how does one

decide these questions? The various questions posed above only suggest the

vast network of difficulties, and in order to straighten out its tangles it

becomes indispensable to develop theories.

Methodology.

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In accordance with a proposal made above, epistemology, or the logic of

scientific discovery, -should be identified with the theory of scientific

method. The theory of method, in so far as it goes beyond the purely

logical analysis of the relations between scientific statements, is

concerned with the choice of methods—with decisions about the way in which

scientific statements are to be dealt with. These decisions will of course

depend in their turn upon the aim, which we choose from among a number of

possible aims.

Methodology or a scientific method is a collective term denoting the

various processes by the aid of which the sciences are built up. In a wide

sense, any mode of investigation by which scientific or other impartial and

systematic knowledge is acquired is called a scientific method.

What are the rules of scientific method, and why do we need them? Can

there be a theory of such rules, a methodology? The way in which one

answers these questions will largely depend upon one’s attitude to science.

The way in which one answers these questions will largely depend upon one's

attitude to science. Those who, like the positivists, see empirical science

as a system of statements, which satisfy certain logical criteria, such as

meaningfulness or verifiability, will give one-answer. A very different

answer will be given by those who tend to see the distinguishing

characteristic of empirical statements in their susceptibility to

revision—in the fact that they can be criticised,-and superseded by better

ones; and who regard it as their task to analyse the characteristic ability

of science to advance, and the characteristic manner in which a choice is

made, in crucial cases, between conflicting systems of theories.

Such methods, as it was mentioned above, are of two principal types—

technical and logical. A technical or technological method is a method of

manipulating the phenomena under investigation, measuring them with

precision, and determining the conditions under which they occur, so as to

be able to observe them in a favourable and fruitful manner. A logical

method is a method of reasoning about the phenomena investigated, a

method of drawing inferences from the conditions under which they occur, so

as to interpret them as accurately as possible. The term "scientific

method" in the first instance probably suggests to most minds the technical

methods of manipulation and measurement. These technical methods are very

numerous and they are different in the different sciences. Few men ever

master the technical methods of more than one science or one group of

closely connected sciences. An account of the most important technical

methods is usually given in connection with the several sciences. It would

be impossible, even if it were desirable, to give a useful survey of all,

or even of the most important, technical methods of science. It is

different with the logical methods of science. These methods of reasoning

from the available evidence are not really numerous, and are essentially

the same in all the sciences. It is both possible and desirable to survey

them in outline. Moreover, these logical methods of science are in a very

real sense the soul of the technical methods.

In pure science the technical methods are not regarded as an end in

themselves, but merely as a means to the discovery of the nature of the

phenomena under investigation. This is done by drawing conclusions from the

observations and experiments, which the technical methods render possible.

Sometimes the technical methods make it possible for the expert

investigator to observe and measure certain phenomena, which otherwise

could either not be observed and measured at all, or not so accurately.

Sometimes they enable him so to determine the conditions of their

occurrence that he can draw reliable conclusions about them, instead of

having to be content with unverified conjectures. The highly speculative,

mainly conjectural character of early science was no doubt due entirely to

the lack of suitable technical methods and scientific instruments. In a

sense; therefore, it may be said that the technical methods of science are

auxiliary to the logical methods, or methods of reasoning. And it is these

methods that are to be considered in the present article. The technical

methods of science, as ought to be clear from the preceding remarks, are of

first rate importance, 'and we have not the remotest desire to underrate

them; but it would be futile to attempt to survey them here.

Some Mental Activities Common to All Methods.

There are certain mental activities, which are so absolutely

indispensable to science that they are practically always employed in

scientific investigations, however much these may vary in other respects.

In a wide sense these mental activities might consequently be called

methods of science, and they are frequently so called. But this practice is

objectionable, because it leads to cross division and confusion. What is

common to all methods should not itself be called a method, for it only

encourages the effacing of important differences; and when there are many

such factors common to all the methods, or most of them, confusion is

inevitable. When the mental activities involved are more or less common to

the methods, these must be differentiated by reference to other, variable

factors—such as the different types of data from which the inferences are

drawn, and the different types of order sought or discovered in the

different kinds, of phenomena investigated— the two sets of differences

being, of course, intimately connected. The mental activities referred to

are the following: Observation (including experiment), analysis and

synthesis, imagination, supposition and idealisation, inference (inductive

and deductive), and comparison (including analogy). A few words must be

said about each of these; but no significance should be attached to the

order in which they are dealt with.

Observation and Experiment.

Observation is the act of apprehending things and events, their

attributes and their concrete relationships. From the point of view of

scientific interest two types of observation may be distinguished, namely:

(1) The bare observation of phenomena under conditions which are beyond the

control of the investigator, and (2) experiment, that is, the observation

of phenomena under conditions controlled by the investigator. What

distinguishes experiment from bare observation is control over what is

observed, not the use of scientific apparatus, nor the amount of trouble

taken. The mere use of telescopes or microscopes, etc., even the selection

of specially suitable times and places of observation, does not constitute

an experiment, if there is no control over the phenomenon observed. On the

other hand, where there is such control, there is experiment, even if next

to no apparatus be used, and the amount of trouble involved be negligible.

The making of experiments usually demands the employment of technical

methods, but the main interest centres in the observations made possible

thereby. The great advantage of experiment over bare observation is that it

renders possible a more reliable analysis of complex phenomena, and more

reliable inferences about their connections, by the variation of

circumstances, which it effects. Its importance is so great that people

commonly speak of "experimental method." The objection to this is that

experiment may be, and is, used in connection with various methods, which

are differentiated on other, and more legitimate, grounds. To speak of a

method of observation is even less permissible, seeing that no method can

be employed without it.

Analysis and Synthesis.

The phenomena of nature are very complex and, to all appearances, very

confused. The discovery of any kind of order in them is only rendered

possible by processes of analysis and synthesis. These are as essential to

all scientific investigation as is observation itself. The process of

analysis is helped by the comparison of two or more objects or events that

are similar in some respects and different in others. But while comparison

is a necessary instrument of analysis, analysis, in its turn, renders

possible more exact comparison. After analysing some complex whole into its

parts or aspects, we may tentatively connect one of these with another in

order to discover a law of connection, or we may, in imagination, combine

again some of them and so form an idea of what may be common to many

objects or events, or to whole classes of them. Some combinations so

obtained may not correspond to anything that has ever been observed. In

this way analysis and synthesis, even though they are merely mental in the

first instance, prepare the way for experiment, for discovery and

invention.

Imagination, Supposition and Idealisation.

Such order as may be inherent in the phenomena of nature is not obvious

on the face of them. It has to be sought out by an active interrogation of

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