公共英语五级考试阅读文章精选3
>>公共英语五级考试阅读:公共英语五级考试阅读文章精选3
Why the inductive and mathematical sciences, after their first rapid development at the culmination of Greek civilization, advanced so slowly for two thousand years-and why in the following two hundred years a knowledge of natural and mathematical science has accumulated, which so vastly exceeds all that was previously known that these sciences may be justly regarded as the products of our own times-are questions which have interested the modern philosopher not less than the objects with which these sciences are more immediately conversant. Was it the employment of a new method of research, or in the exercise of greater virtue in the use of the old methods, that this singular modern phenomenon had its origin? Was the long period one of arrested development, and is the modern era one of normal growth? Or should we ascribe the characteristics of both periods to so-called historical accidents-to the influence of conjunctions in circumstances of which no explanation is possible, save in the omnipotence and wisdom of a guiding Providence?
The explanation which has become commonplace, that the ancients employed deduction chiefly in their scientific inquiries, while the moderns employ induction, proves to be too narrow, and fails upon close examination to point with sufficient distinctness the contrast that is evident between ancient and modern scientific doctrines and inquiries. For all knowledge is founded on observation, and proceeds from this by analysis, by synthesis and analysis, by induction and deduction, and if possible by verification, or by new appeals to observation under the guidance of deduction-by steps which are indeed correlative parts of one method; and the ancient sciences afford examples of every one of these methods, or parts of one method, which have been generalized from the examples of science.
A failure to employ or to employ adequately any one of these partial methods, an imperfection in the arts and resources of observation and experiment, carelessness in observation, neglect of relevant facts, by appeal to experiment and observation-these are the faults which cause all failures to ascertain truth, whether among the ancients or the moderns; but this statement does not explain why the modern is possessed of a greater virtue, and by what means he attained his superiority. Much less does it explain the sudden growth of science in recent times.
The attempt to discover the explanation of this phenomenon in the antithesis of “facts” and “theories” or “facts” and “ideas”-in the neglect among the ancients of the former, and their too exclusive attention to the latter-proves also to be too narrow, as well as open to the charge of vagueness. For in the first place, the antithesis is not complete. Facts and theories are not coordinate species. Theories, if true, are facts-a particular class of facts indeed, generally complex, and if a logical connection subsists between their constituents, have all the positive attributes of theories.
Nevertheless, this distinction, however inadequate it may be to explain the source of true method in science, is well founded, and connotes an important character in true method. A fact is a proposition of simple. A theory, on the other hand, if true has all the characteristics of a fact, except that its verification is possible only by indirect, remote, and difficult means. To convert theories into facts is to add simple verification, and the theory thus acquires the full characteristics of a fact.
译文:
为什么归纳和数学科学在经历了希腊文明高潮的第一次高速发展之后,如此缓慢地进展了两千年-为什么在接下来的二百年里,自然科学和数学科学的知识已经积累了,这远远超过了所有的科学以前就知道,这些科学可能被公认为是我们自己时代的产物-是对现代哲学家感兴趣的问题,不亚于这些科学更直接熟悉的对象。是采用了一种新的研究方法,还是在使用旧方法时运用更多的美德,这种独特的现代现象有其起源吗?是长期的发展停滞,是现代正常发展的时期吗?还是应该把这两个时期的特点归因于所谓的历史事件-在不可能解释的情况下对连词的影响,除了指导性的上帝的无所不能和智慧之外,
常见的解释是,古人主要是在科学探究中采用演绎法,而现代人则采用归纳法,证明过于狭窄,经过细致的考察,足以区分古代与现代科学之间明显的对比教义和询问。因为所有的知识都是建立在观察基础之上的,并且通过分析,综合和分析,归纳和推导,如果可能的话,通过验证,或者通过在确实是相关部分的扣减步骤一种方法古代科学提供了这些方法中的每一种的例子,或者是从科学实例中推广出来的一种方法的一部分。
未能充分运用或部分使用这些部分方法,观察和实验的艺术和资源不完善,观察的粗心大意,忽视相关事实,呼吁实验和观察,这些都是导致所有人无法确定真相,无论是古人还是现代人;但是这种说法并不能解释为什么现代人拥有更大的美德,他以什么方式获得了自己的优越性。更不用说解释近来科学的突然增长了。
在“事实”和“理论”或“事实”和“观念”的对立中,试图发现这种现象的解释-在前人的疏忽之中,而对他们过于专注的-也证明了太狭隘了,以至于模糊不清。首先,对立面并不完整。事实和理论不是协调物种。理论如果属实的话,那就是事实-事实上是一类特殊的事实,通常是复杂的,如果一个逻辑联系存在于其构成要素之间,则具有理论的所有积极属性。
尽管如此,这种区分却不足以说明科学中真正方法的根源,是有根据的,是真实方法中的一个重要特征。事实是一个简单的命题。另一方面,如果一个理论具有一个事实的所有特征,除了它的验证只能通过间接的,遥远的和困难的手段来实现的话。将理论转化为事实就是增加简单的验证,从而使理论获得事实的全部特征。
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