The problem of this paper may be stated simply. It is that, in dealing with the nature of reality, it is not only possible, but more fruitful and more accurate, to deal with the category of order or design, meaning by this, the structure or relationship of the parts of a whole, without associating this idea with that of purpose or teleology, than it is to conjoin these concepts. It is the purpose of the paper to show why this separation is advisable, and to indicate the background of the problem which tends to make difficult the separation of these two concepts.

What can we say of space and time when we consider them as attributes of nature and as attributes of nature in the context of experience? The following is an examination of this question in the light of those portions of the writings of Locke and Kant which were concerned with it. Since men have no difficulty in speaking about and utilizing the familiar spatial and temporal relations of things, we begin with these and shall avoid definition and debate except insofar as it is pertinent to the present inquiry. Nor shall we consider it necessary to examine space and time in any other context as, for example, that of modern physics. The familiar world is the necessary condition for the conception of any intellectual development of it, and to begin with the intellectual development is to render it unintelligible. This is evidenced in several ways. When we begin with physics and mathematics, we cannot account for the world within which we live and consequently end in scepticism about it, whereas this is not the case when we begin with the actual world itself. Furthermore, the manifestly perceptible is indispensible to scientific enquiry for we must employ instruments and objects directly accessible to experience. Without these there would be neither experiment, observation nor inference. Communication would be impossible without it as well as discussion about subject matters such as logic and esthetics. It is for these reasons, therefore, that we begin with the familiar spatial and temporal relations of things.

In Physical Theory Mr. Lenzen writes, “Thus the concept of thing is the concept of a class of aspects which are in the past, present, or future for several minds.” Again, in Mind and the World-Order, Mr. Lewis defines “thing” as “… a complex of properties or qualities, recognizable by some uniformity of appearance.” Without questioning the metaphysics implied in these two definitions of “thing” I shall accept them as quite compatible and as useful in defining the rôle of experience in the construction of scientific objects. If in “Pragmatism and Metaphysics” Mr. Morris has not established proof of the existence of objects independent of any and all experience of them, he certainly has shown conclusively that the possibility of experiencing objects is independent of any and all observers.

The logical pattern underlying twentieth century science is strikingly uniform from physics through biology and psychology to social science. Our purpose will be to analyze and illustrate this pattern, to trace its development, especially from the Middle Ages to the present time, and to suggest some possible consequences for the future.

In this paper I wish to offer a suggestion in support of the thesis that if a given set of facts is explained by two rival explanations A and B, where A consists of a single hypothesis H1, and B consists of at least two independent hypotheses H2 and H3, then, other things being equal, A is more probable than B. That this view is true is seldom questioned, though I have never seen any reason given for it, which would justify the methodological value so many philosophers attribute to it. It is not my purpose to discuss simplicity of explanation in general, but simply to point out that the Multiplicative Axiom of the calculus of probabilities justifies the above thesis. I shall call this thesis the Principle of Parsimony.

In this study we shall analyze the postulate set into its various elements. In order to carry out our analysis, it is advisable to have before us a typical set.

We take the set of five postulates for Boolean Algebras given by H. M. Sheffer in Trans. Am. Math Soc. 14, p. 482 ff.

Previous claims that psychology is propaedeutic to the other sciences have been met with enthusiastic indifference. Contributing to this indifference has been the fact that psychology, a young and unproved discipline which habitually borrowed the methods of the older sciences, has too frequently revised its notion as to its own nature and subject-matter. More important, however, has been the faith of the physical sciences in the absolute character of their own basic concepts: in the reality of Absolute Space and Absolute Time and in the universality of deterministic principles, for, as long as physics presumed to deal with entities which are what they are regardless of the nature of man, nothing other than these entities appeared to demand prior consideration. The problem of the nature of the observer in the physical experiment became important to physics only as a consequence of the recent ‘subjective’ revolution. It is this revolution which has revitalized the problem of the propaedeutic science and has accentuated the distinction which we must make between the behavioral phenomenon of individuals creating formal arrays of words or symbols which are without operational meaning and the discriminatory responses, or operations, by which the empirical meaning of such arrays is determined.

Ten years ago the civilized world was shocked out of an unwarranted confidence in the victory of science over superstition by the news that Tennessee had outlawed the teaching of man's evolutionary origin. Within the next three years both Mississippi and Arkansas joined Tennessee in defense of Biblical truth against the scepticism of science. The furor raised by the dramatic clashes between William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow at the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, has now become a faded memory. The struggle between Fundamentalists and Modernists has died down, though the embers still smoulder; and few ever think of the issues then raised, now that war and fascism threaten civilization.

In this section we shall publish brief communications commenting on published papers or bringing up special points of interest which can be discussed by correspondence.