精密科學

精密科學（英語：Exact science），或稱量化科學或精確科學^[1]，是指「承認其結果絕對精確」的科學，特別是數學科學（英語：Mathematical sciences）^[2]。精密科學的例子有數學、光學、天文學^[3]、及物理。像笛卡爾、萊布尼茨、康德等哲學家以及邏輯實證主義者都以此為理性以及客觀知識的典範^[4]。這些科學已在許多文化中實踐，從古代^[5][6]到現代^[7][8]。精密科學都和數學有關，其特點是有精準量化表示、準確預測，以及測試假說的嚴謹方法，尤其是利用可重覆性的實驗，其中有可量化的預測及測量^[9]。

這種將量化精密科學和其他科學分開的作法是源自於亞里斯多德，他將數學和自然哲學分開^[10]，並且認為精密科學「本質上比較是數學的分支。」^[11]。托馬斯·阿奎那也使用了這樣的劃分方式，他認為天文學用數學推理解釋了地球的橢球體形狀（英語：Figure of the Earth）^[12]，而物理學是用四因說中的質料因來解釋^[13]。在17世紀科學革命之前，許多人接受此一概念，不過也有例外^[14]。Edward Grant（英語：Edward Grant）曾提出有一個基礎的變化會導致新科學的產生，就是有理論可以統一精密科學以及約翰內斯·克卜勒、艾薩克·牛頓等人的物理學，可以將自然現象的物理原因進行量化的量測^[15]。

也有學者將語言學和比較語言學放在精密科學中，其中最著名的學者是班傑明·李·沃夫^[16]。

相關條目

• 硬科學（英語：Hard science）
• 基礎科學
• 畫界問題

參考資料

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 (編), 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. （原始內容存檔於2024-08-22） –透過JSTOR.
13. Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I, Q. 1, Art. 1, Reply 2, [3 September 2016], （原始內容存檔於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.