精密科学

精密科学（英语：Exact science），或称量化科学或精确科学^[1]，是指“承认其结果绝对精确”的科学，特别是数学科学（英语：Mathematical sciences）^[2]。精密科学的例子有数学、光学、天文学^[3]、及物理。像笛卡尔、莱布尼茨、康德等哲学家以及逻辑实证主义者都以此为理性以及客观知识的典范^[4]。这些科学已在许多文化中实践，从古代^[5][6]到现代^[7][8]。精密科学都和数学有关，其特点是有精准量化表示、准确预测，以及测试假说的严谨方法，尤其是利用可重复性的实验，其中有可量化的预测及测量^[9]。

这种将量化精密科学和其他科学分开的作法是源自于亚里士多德，他将数学和自然哲学分开^[10]，并且认为精密科学“本质上比较是数学的分支。”^[11]。托马斯·阿奎那也使用了这样的划分方式，他认为天文学用数学推理解释了地球的椭球体形状（英语：Figure of the Earth）^[12]，而物理学是用四因说中的质料因来解释^[13]。在17世纪科学革命之前，许多人接受此一概念，不过也有例外^[14]。Edward Grant（英语：Edward Grant）曾提出有一个基础的变化会导致新科学的产生，就是有理论可以统一精密科学以及约翰内斯·开普勒、艾萨克·牛顿等人的物理学，可以将自然现象的物理原因进行量化的量测^[15]。

也有学者将语言学和比较语言学放在精密科学中，其中最著名的学者是本杰明·李·沃夫^[16]。

相关条目

• 硬科学（英语：Hard science）
• 基础科学
• 画界问题

参考资料

1. Grant, Edward, A History of Natural Philosophy: From the Ancient World to the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 43, 2007, ISBN 9781139461092
2. Exact, adj.¹, Oxford English Dictionary, Online version 2nd, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2016
3. Drake, Stillman; Swerdlow, N.M.; Levere, T.H. Essays on Galileo and the History and Philosophy of Science: Volume 1. University of Toronto Press. 1999. ISBN 978-0-8020-7585-7. doi:10.3138/j.ctvcj2wt5.
4. Friedman, Michael, Philosophy and the Exact Sciences: Logical Positivism as a Case Study, Earman, John (编), Inference, Explanation, and Other Frustrations: Essays in the Philosophy of Science, Pittsburgh series in philosophy and history of science 14, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press: 84, 1992, ISBN 9780520075771
5. Neugebauer, Otto, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, The Science Library 2nd, reprint, New York: Harper & Bros., 1962
6. Sarkar, Benoy Kumar, Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development, London / New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1918, ISBN 9780598626806
7. Harman, Peter M.; Shapiro, Alan E., The Investigation of Difficult Things: Essays on Newton and the History of the Exact Sciences in Honour of D. T. Whiteside, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, ISBN 9780521892667
8. Pyenson, Lewis, Cultural Imperialism and Exact Sciences Revisited, Isis, 1993, 84 (1): 103–108, Bibcode:1993Isis...84..103P, JSTOR 235556, S2CID 144588820, doi:10.1086/356376, [M]any of the exact sciences… between Claudius Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe were in a common register, whether studied in the diverse parts of the Islamic world, in India, in Christian Europe, in China, or apparently in Mesoamerica.
9. Shapin, Steven. The Scientific Revolution 2nd. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. 2018: 46–47. ISBN 9780226398341.
10. Principe, Lawrence. The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 2011: 27. ISBN 9780199567416.
11. Grant, Edward, A History of Natural Philosophy: From the Ancient World to the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 42–43, 2007, ISBN 9781139461092
12. Cormack, Lesley. Flat Earth or round sphere: misconceptions of the shape of the Earth and the fifteenth-century transformation of the world.. Ecumene. 1994, 1 (4): 365 [2024-08-27]. JSTOR 44251730. doi:10.1177/147447409400100404. （原始内容存档于2024-08-22） –通过JSTOR.
13. Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I, Q. 1, Art. 1, Reply 2, [3 September 2016], （原始内容存档于2013-01-13）, For the astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion: that the earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer by means of mathematics (i.e. abstracting from matter), but the physicist by means of matter itself.
14. Grant, Edward, A History of Natural Philosophy: From the Ancient World to the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 303–305, 2007, ISBN 9781139461092
15. Grant, Edward, A History of Natural Philosophy: From the Ancient World to the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 303, 312–313, 2007, ISBN 9781139461092
16. Benjamin Whorf, Linguistics as an exact science. In Language, thought and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Edited by J.B. CarrollM.I.T. Press, 1956, 20–232.