"I want now to glance for a moment at the development of the theoretical method, and while doing so especially to observe the relation of pure theory to the totality of the data of experience. Here is the eternal antithesis of the two inseparable constituents of human knowledge, Experience and Reason, within the sphere of physics. We honour ancient Greece as the cradle of western science. She for the first time created the intellectual miracle of a logical system, the assertions of which followed one from another with such rigor that not one of the demonstrated propositions admitted of the slightest doubt—Euclid's geometry. This marvellous accomplishment of reason gave to the human spirit the confidence it needed for its future achievements. ...But yet the time was not ripe for a science that could comprehend reality, was not ripe until a second elementary truth had been realized, which only became the common property of philosophers after Kepler and Galileo. Pure logical thinking can give us no knowledge whatsoever of the world of experience; all knowledge about reality begins with experience and terminates in it."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Albert Einstein, "On the Method of Theoretical Physics" (Apr., 1934) in Philosophy of Science, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 163-169.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Scientific_revolution
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Scientific revolution
73 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Scientific revolution →
Related Quotes
"In... "The Portuguese Discoveries and the Rise of Modern Science", Prof. Hooykaas supported the thesis "That the Port…"
"The modern origins of empirical scientific knowledge lie in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This time period…"
"Perhaps there is no literature in Europe that mirrors so clearly as the Portuguese, the painful conflict in the minds…"
"Concerning ourselves we speak not; but as touching the matter which we have in hand, this we ask;—that men deem it no…"
"[L]ong ago have those doctrines been exploded of the Force of the First Mover and the Solidity of the Heaven,—the sta…"
"Though Lavoisier generally gets credit for the authorship of this principle [ conservation of mass ], others had conc…"
"In Newton's time only two kinds of force were available for quantitative investigation. One was the force of gravity;…"
"During medieval times, men accepted Ptolemy's view that the earth was the natural center of the universe. ...[A]dapti…"
"The credit of first using the telescope for astronomical purposes is almost invariably attributed to Galilei, though …"
"Galileo had the experience of beholding the heavens as they actually are for perhaps the first time, and wherever he …"