Abstract

This first volume of a projected two volume work deals with "science in general," which is understood to include theology and philosophy. The first two chapters analyze the concept of a science and issue in a descriptive definition which is then developed in subsequent chapters; among the topics of this development are abstraction as an intellectual operation, the necessity of scientific statements, induction and deduction, hypothesis and theory. The book presents neither an investigation of particular sciences nor epistemological arguments in the modern mode, but rather a finished doctrine, not original in conception, but competent in development, frankly building upon an assumed realist-hylomorphist base a scheme of deliberate abstractness and rigid formality.--L. K. B.