The contemporary practices of scientific research, as well as the…

The contemporary practices of scientific research, as well as the scientific efforts that the great books record, show beyond doubt that the method of controlled experiment under artificial conditions is not the only method used by men who regard themselves and are regarded as scientists….as the work of astronomers, biologists, and social scientists reveals, experiment in the strict sense is not always possible.

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

Other Robert Hutchins Quotes

In the course of history… new books have been written that have won their place in the list. Books once thought entitled to belong to it have been superseded; and this process of change will continue as long as men can think and write. It is the task of every generation to reassess the tradition in which it lives, to discard what it cannot use, and to bring into context with the distant and intermediate past the most recent contributions to the Great Conversation…. the West needs to recapture and reemphasize and bring to bear upon its present problems the wisdom that lies in the works of its greatest thinkers and in the discussion that they have carried on. - View Quote Details on In the course of history… new books have been written…
Great books are great teachers; they are showing us every day what ordinary people are capable of. These books come out of ignorant, inquiring humanity. They are usually the first announcements for success in learning. Most of them were written for, and addressed to, ordinary people. - View Quote Details on Great books are great teachers; they are showing us every…
In education… whenever a proposal is made that looks toward increased intellectual effort on the part of students, professors will always say that the students cannot so the work. My observation leads me to think that what this usually means is that the professors cannot or will not do the work… When, in spite of the opposition of the professors, the change is introduced, the students, in my experience, have always responded nobly. - View Quote Details on In education… whenever a proposal is made that looks toward…
Liberal education was aristocratic in the sense that it was the education of those who enjoyed leisure and political power. If it was the right education for those who had leisure and political power, then it is the right education for everybody today. - View Quote Details on Liberal education was aristocratic in the sense that it was…
The business of saying, in advance of a serious effort, that people are not capable of achieving a good education is too strongly reminiscent of the opposition of every extension of democracy. This opposition has always rested on the allegation that the people were incapable of exercising the power they demanded. Always the historic statement has been verified: you cannot expect the slave to show the virtues of the free man unless you first set him free. When the slave has been set free, he has, in the passage of time, become indistinguishable from those who have always been free. - View Quote Details on The business of saying, in advance of a serious effort,…
Only an unashamed dogmatist would dare to assert that the issue has finally been resolved now, in favor of the view that, outside logic or mathematics, the method of modern science is the only method to employ in seeking knowledge. The dogmatist who made this assertion would have to be more than ashamed. He would have to blind himself to the fact that his own assertion was not established by the experimental method, nor made as an indisputable conclusion of mathematical reasoning or of purely logical analysis. - View Quote Details on Only an unashamed dogmatist would dare to assert that the…
It is sometimes admitted that many propositions that are affirmed by intelligent people, such as that democracy is the best form of government or that world peace depends upon world government, cannot be tested by the method of experimental science. - View Quote Details on It is sometimes admitted that many propositions that are affirmed…
Because of experimental science we know a very large number of things about the natural world of which our predecessors were ignorant. In the great books we can observe the birth of science, applaud the development of the experimental technique, and celebrate the triumphs it has won. But we can also note the limitations of the method and mourn the errors that its misapplication has caused. We can distinguish the outlines of those great persistent problems that the method… may never solve and find the clues to their solutions offered by other methods and other disciplines. - View Quote Details on Because of experimental science we know a very large number…
The rise of experimental science has not made the Great Conversation irrelevant…. Science itself is part of the Great Conversation. - View Quote Details on The rise of experimental science has not made the Great…
There is a sense in which every great book is always over the head of the reader: he can never fully comprehend it. That is why these books are great teachers; they demand the attention of the reader and keep his intelligence on the stretch. - View Quote Details on There is a sense in which every great book is…