Reason Requires Experimentation
Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose. To this single idea must the revolution be ascribed, by which, after groping in the dark for so many centuries, natural science was at length conducted into the path of certain progress.
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason ; The Critique of Practical Reason and Other Ethical Treatises ; The Critique of Judgement (1952)
Notes
The observer must be actively engaged with nature, interrogating it, rather than playing the passive pupil.
References
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Keywords
passive pupil, Experimentation The observer, certain progress, single idea, natural science, Reason, nature, witnesses, judge, centuries, length, path