Encyclopedia as ‘Model’

Abstract

The tendency to want to constitute a system with an absolute value is a danger that also threatens Logical Empiricism. From the fact that in some particular discipline one can give a theory the form of a system of statements, it does not follow that there is any reason to consider the totality of statements with which one can deal, as being in any way a beginning of a definite and complete system. I propose that one no longer use the term ‘the system of science’ or any other similar terms, and that one equally avoid all expressions that sound as if they supported the ‘absolutism of the system’.1 We should never say that certain formulas are ‘unshakeable’, ‘definitely free from contradiction’, ‘absolutely true’, nor that they ‘approximate’ such a state more and more, as if this were something determined or determinable. The object of the following pages is to show that we can always start from our ordinary speech, that is, from ordinary statements of an intermediate generality, and refer our scientific work to this point of departure. All the efforts that have been made in order to reach greater certainty lead to well-known difficulties that always appear when one wants to use expressions like ’the real world’, ‘the immediately given’, as the basis of discussion.