To Be Sure, The Vast

It Has Generally Been Assumed That Of Two Opposing Systems Of Philosophy, E.g., Realism And Idealism, One Only Can Be True And One Must Be False; And So Philosophers Have Been Hopelessly Divided On The Question, Which Is The True One.

The Picture Which The Philosopher Draws Of The World Is Surely Not One In Which Every Stroke Is Necessitated By Pure Logic.

By No Amount Of Reasoning Can We Altogether Eliminate All Contingency From Our World. Moreover, Pure Speculation Alone Will Not Enable Us To Get A Determinate Picture Of The Existing World. We Must Eliminate Some Of The Conflicting Possibilities, And This Can Be Brought About Only By Experiment And Observation.

The Method Of Exposition Which Philosophers Have Adopted Leads Many To Suppose That They Are Simply Inquiries, That They Have No Interest In The Conclusions At Which They Arrive, And That Their Primary Concern Is To Follow Their Premises To Their Logical Conclusions.

To Be Sure, The Vast Majority Of People Who Are Untrained Can Accept The Results Of Science Only On Authority.