"I maintain that in every special natural doctrine only so much science proper is to be met with as mathematics; for... science proper, especially of nature, requires a pure portion, lying at the foundation of the empirical, and based upon Ă priori knowledge of natural things. ...the conception should be constructed. But the cognition of the reason through construction of conceptions is mathematical. A pure philosophy of nature in general, namely, one that only investigates what constitutes a nature in general, may thus be possible without mathematics; but a pure doctrine of nature respecting determinate natural things (corporeal doctrine and mental doctrine), is only possible by means of mathematics; and as in every natural doctrine only so much science proper is to be met with therein as there is cognition Ă priori, a doctrine of nature can only contain so much science proper as there is in it of applied mathematics."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Immanuel Kant, Preface, The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786) Tr. Ernest Belfort Bax (1883).
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mathematics
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Mathematics
250 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Mathematics →
Related Quotes
"[Mathematics is] the science that draws necessary conclusions."
"Over time you will get the wrong answer more times than you get the right answer. That’s not a problem! You’ve learnt…"
"Rather like the way the Hubble Space Telescope has made a significant contribution to astronomy in enabling astronome…"
"Any author who uses mathematics should always express in ordinary language the meaning of the assumptions he admits, …"
"Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-cleared highway, but a journey into a strange wilderness, where the ex…"
"In doing mathematics, I express something personal. It is a source of joy to know that, despite this personal aspect,…"
"It was mathematics, the non-empirical science par excellence, wherein the mind appears to play only with itself, that…"
"Now comes the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen entangled state. Now I see faces, people saying, "Oh..?" Don't worry! When you …"
"If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the…"
"When I have needed solace and I have had to depend on my own resources, the mathematics has been there. I am grateful."