From chemistry-request@ccl.net Fri Jan 9 05:26:54 2004 Received: from sun-blade.cnrs-orleans.fr (sun-blade.cnrs-orleans.fr [163.9.1.4]) by server.ccl.net (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id i09AQMX9001235 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 2004 05:26:23 -0500 Received: from chinon (chinon.cnrs-orleans.fr [163.9.6.107]) by sun-blade.cnrs-orleans.fr (8.12.10/jtpda-5.4) with ESMTP id i09AKxbC026985 ; Fri, 9 Jan 2004 11:20:59 +0100 (MET) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" From: Konrad Hinsen To: "Jens Spanget-Larsen" , chemistry^at^ccl.net Subject: Re: CCL:Auguste Comte on Mathematical Methods in Chemistry Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 11:24:41 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.4.3 References: <3FFD5D9B.19309.B96194@localhost> In-Reply-To: <3FFD5D9B.19309.B96194@localhost> MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <200401091124.41428.hinsen^at^cnrs-orleans.fr> X-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.5 required=7.0 tests=EMAIL_ATTRIBUTION,IN_REP_TO,QUOTED_EMAIL_TEXT,REFERENCES, REPLY_WITH_QUOTES,USER_AGENT_KMAIL version=2.55 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.55 (1.174.2.19-2003-05-19-exp) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by server.ccl.net id i09AQsX9001257 On Thursday 08 January 2004 13:39, Jens Spanget-Larsen wrote: > I got it several years ago from an Internet page, without any > details. Does anybody know this text? A. Comte must be the > philosopher Auguste Comte, and the year 1830 may indicate his > work "Cours de philosophie positive" which was published in > this and the following years. But what can he have meant? Any > comments? I have seen that quote with the explicit attribution to the "Cours de philosophie positive" by Auguste Comte, but I never verified it. A large part of that book deals with the philosophy of science, so it would fit in there. I suppose he refers to the potential contradiction between the empirical approach of science (including chemistry) and the deductive approach of mathematics, but that's just a guess. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Konrad Hinsen | E-Mail: hinsen^at^cnrs-orleans.fr Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire (CNRS) | Tel.: +33-2.38.25.56.24 Rue Charles Sadron | Fax: +33-2.38.63.15.17 45071 Orleans Cedex 2 | Deutsch/Esperanto/English/ France | Nederlands/Francais -------------------------------------------------------------------------------