 The conception that, instead of this, contemporary society is at or near a turning point is very prominent in the views of a school of social scientists who, though they are still comparatively few, are getting more and more of a hearing. |
| The importance of certain problems concerning the facts will be inherent in the structure of the system. |
| It is that of increasing knowledge of empirical fact, intimately combined with changing interpretations of this body of fact - hence changing general statements about it - and, not least, a changing a structure of the theoretical system. |
| Special emphasis should be laid on this intimate interrelation of general statements about empirical fact with the logical elements and structure of theoretical systems. |
| If observed facts of undoubted accuracy will not fit any of the alternatives it leaves open, the system itself is in need of reconstruction. |
| In so far as such a theory is empirically correct it will also tell us what empirical facts it should be possible to observe in a given set of circumstances. |
| But the scientific importance of a change in knowledge of fact consists precisely in j its having consequences for a system of theory. |
