Abstract
Will these resources be considered quite varied or somewhat limited? That will no doubt depend largely on the observer’s point of view and individual predispositions. But is it possible, in general, to arrive at an idea, even if only a completely general and approximate one, of the possible relation between the power of these means of resolution and the extent of the problem or problems to be resolved? We hope that the reader will understand that we venture onto this terrain only with great hesitation and will consider the following remarks as mere suggestions.
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Notes
Lucretius, De rerum nat. II, 478–507. H.A.J. Munro (De rerum natura, 3rd ed., Cambridge: Deighton Bell and Co., 1873, 1:373 [4th ed., 1886, 2:80]), while noting that Lucretius nowhere makes clear how he conceives the dimensions of the atoms, nevertheless thinks he would have had no difficulty accepting the modern opinion that if a drop of water were enlarged to the volume of the terrestrial globe, the size of the molecules would vary between that of billiard balls and that of bird shot. We believe, on the contrary, that the English commentator, who is almost always able to fathom his author’s ideas, was in this case led astray by a false analogy with modern science and that passages such as the one we cite here prove that Lucretius imagined his particles to be much larger than Perrin’s.
See José R. Carracido, ‘Les Fondements de la biochimie,’ Scientia 21 (1917) 132–133.
H. Ley, Die Beziehungen zwischen Farbe und Konstitution bei organischen Verbindungen (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1911), passim.
Victor Henri, Etudes de photochimie (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1919), passim, esp. p. 151.
Maxwell, ‘Atom,’ Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed. (London, 1909), 3:47.
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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Meyerson, É. (1991). The Possibilities of Scientific Explanation. In: Explanation in the Sciences. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 128. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3414-9_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3414-9_9
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