8/12/2019 O Mito da Cincia Exata

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8/12/2019 O Mito da Cincia Exata

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only if the premises are granted. For example, we cannot achieve absolute exactitudeof measurement, but we can make our measurement as exact as possible undercertain conditions. There is no absolute, universal concept of perfection, only a specificone resulting from the fulfillment of specific conditions. Likewise, there is only a specificconcept of exactitude, and only this concept and nothing more is expressed inmathematical and causal exactitude.

Kant believed that there was a science only in so far as there was mathematics. Thesame error can be encountered among many mathematicians and physicists whobelieve that they alone possess exactness. However, they possess it only within theirfield. There is exactness also in the movements of animals and in the emotions andpassions of man. Homeric hexameter or a Pindaric ode has as much exactness as anycausal relation or mathematical formula. But this rhythmic, metrical exactness is ofanother, higher order. That it cannot be calculated is no reason to call it less exact thanthe results of this or that quantitative measurement.

Friedrich Georg Junger

The Failure of Technology